When the screaming calmed to a grunting, I slowly opened my eyes.
Doctor Lister was staring down at me, his face taut with concern.
‘Are you all right? What the hell happened?’
Good question! I thought. What the hell did just happen?
3 August
evening
Westwood Park Hospital
I sipped the tea Lister gave me, wishing it was a brandy. He looked ashen as he sat back in his leather chair and lit another cigarette with slightly trembling fingers.
He blew a stream of blue smoke annoyingly in my direction. ‘If we’d thought Martha was a serious risk, I would have taken more precautions.’
I shook my head, feeling as though all my strings had been cut as the adrenalin ebbed out of my system.
‘Not your fault. There was no reason to think she would react like that.’
‘Still…’ He inhaled deeply. ‘We are liable for the safety of our visitors.’
Was he genuinely concerned for me, or for a possible claim against his public liability insurance? I’d had enough and wanted to get out of his depressing, chain-smoking presence. I stood abruptly and put my cup on his desk.
‘Don’t worry. If there had been contraindications to a hypnotic intervention, I should have seen them, but there was nothing.’ I began to shrug on my jacket.
‘We thought we’d seen a serious abreaction, but nothing like this.’ He stood up, looking rattled.
I made for the door, stopping with one hand on the handle.
‘Martha’s had abusive relationships with all the key male figures in her life. This could be her subconscious creating a strong male character to regain some control. Two elements of her personality, the weak and the dominant, struggling to be integrated. We need to do more work with her to get a firm diagnosis, but that could explain “Jack”.’
‘Could she be capable of murder if this alter personality broke through into her conscious state?’
The thought had crossed my mind. But I really didn’t think Martha, that gentle childlike persona, was capable of hurting anyone. Not even herself.
‘I’ll listen to the recording and transcribe the notes, then I’ll come back to you.’
‘I’ll have her assessed in the morning. If she’s still agitated, we can have her transferred to the secure unit. I’ll arrange another visit.’
Thankfully, I walked out into the cool night air. As I looked up into the clear night sky, a shiver ran through me as I realised it was a full moon.
When I started the car, my mobile went into meltdown.
There were four messages from Callum, escalating from irritated to downright pissed off.
I could feel annoyance coiling inside me. Why did relationships have to be so bloody difficult? Even as I dialled his number, I decided I was in no mood to soothe bruised egos or calm ruffled feathers. He answered on the third ring.
‘Cal, it’s me–’
‘Where the hell have you been?’ he exploded. ‘Did you want me sitting in your porch with a congealed chow mein until you decided to turn up?’
‘Oh for God’s sake, stop being so bloody precious,’ I bit back, not bothering to tone down how I felt. ‘You’re not the only one who gets called out in an emergency. And if I’m running late, just remember who screwed up my day this morning with an unplanned callout to a corpse!’
I heard him exhale loudly down the phone. ‘All right, I’m sorry. I was worried about you, okay? I called the farm and kept getting the machine. Same on the mobile. It’s not like you to drop off the planet. I was getting concerned.’ His tone gentled. ‘You okay?’
‘No. If you must know. I had a call from some guy insisting I saw his girlfriend at the psychiatric unit. I’m only just leaving there now.’
‘What’s so unusual about that?’
‘Well, for a start, he called my home number.’
‘That number’s not listed.’
‘Exactly. He said Jen gave it to him, but he’s lying. She’d never do that.’
My eyes hurt and I could feel a headache lurking. I was running on empty.
‘Look, Cal, it’s complicated. There’s lots I want to tell you. Even I can’t believe what just happened and I thought I’d seen it all. Can you still come to the farm?’
‘Sure. You still want chow mein?’
I smiled a tired smile. ‘Yes, but preferably not congealed.’
3 August
evening
The rain stopped and as I drove across the moorland road, I left the streetlights behind. Through the skeletal branches of ominous swaying trees, I caught occasional glimpses of the full moon and thought about Dr Lister’s resident werewolf. Something about this night made the thought of supernatural monsters almost plausible.
A shiver tickled across the back of my neck and I flicked the radio on to break up my creepy thoughts – Radio 4.
Alex always teased me that listening to talk radio meant I was getting old, but sometimes my mind was too full for music. I heard the news but didn’t really listen. If I’d been asked what it was about, I couldn’t have said. But it was a human voice. Reaching out in the dark, reminding me I lived in a real world, not one populated by werewolves and demons.
As I turned into the farm, I could see Callum’s car. The security light above my porch illuminated the yard and I could make out the head of silver hair in his car as he read a file resting on his knee.
As I slammed my car door, he looked up, the grin suddenly transforming his usually serious features into that boyish look that made me smile back.
He had the kind of looks that would suddenly strike me. Creeping up on my senses to take me by surprise when he grinned unexpectedly, or turned his face a certain way that would make me see him as if for the first time, with a fresh appreciation.
He opened his driver’s door and when I heard what he was listening to, I laughed.
‘What?’
‘Radio 4,’ I replied, enigmatically, shaking my head when he raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘Never mind, but you suddenly made me feel okay about getting older.’
He shook his head, hauling a carrier bag out of the car. ‘I’ll never understand how your mind works, but perhaps given what you do for a living, that’s no bad thing.’
I put my key in the lock. ‘Stand back.’
Harvey thundered out of the house before turning back to launch at us in a tangle of velvet fur and pent-up muscle.
Callum hoisted the carrier bag out of his way. ‘My God, he’s like an express train. Does he ever walk anywhere?’
‘Not often.’
We worked in domestic silence in the kitchen, pouring chilled wine, setting the table and dishing up the food. Harvey padded back into the kitchen and curled up on his bed by the Aga, resting his chin on his paws.
Callum raised his glass. ‘To you. Happy birthday for tomorrow.’
His gentle expression did something to my insides that I couldn’t quite describe. He could always make me smile, even when I was angry with him, which could be often. Jen said it was because we were alike. Unlike Pete.
My late husband was very different. Looking back, if his job hadn’t kept us apart most of the time, I questioned just how long we would have lasted.
Callum’s soft voice brought my attention back to him. ‘Where do you go?’
‘What?’
‘Sometimes when I’m with you, I see you go away somewhere in your head and I know you’re not with me, not really.’
‘Sorry.’ I took a sip of wine. ‘This looks good.’ I began to eat but I could feel him watching me. He reached across and put his hand on my wrist, holding it gently. His thumb absently rubbing mine.
‘I was thinking about Pete if you must know.’ I watched his face, ready to judge his expression. Frustrated? Jealous?
He smiled. ‘That’s nice.’
‘Nice?’ I wasn’t expecting that.
He shrugged, scooping up a forkful of noodles. ‘Nice that being here wi
th me makes you think of him. I could take it a lot of ways, but I’ll take it as a compliment.’ He raised his eyes to mine and they seemed even darker blue than usual. He took a sip of wine. ‘You never talk about him.’
I was tempted to become intensely focused on my plate but resisted the urge and looked back at him.
‘Pete had a job we couldn’t talk about. In fact, he had a whole other life we didn’t talk about.’ I sipped more wine, feeling myself relax as the tension of the day slipped away. ‘He was a husband and father when we were together and then he went away to play soldiers and I never knew what happened in the intervals.’
‘He was killed serving abroad? Special Forces I’d heard?’
I nodded slowly. ‘It’s been twenty-two years, almost to the day, since an Army captain knocked on my door to tell me the news. I’d dreaded it but almost expected it every day, once I understood what he did for a living.’
‘Must’ve been tough.’
‘That’s one word for it. I was twenty-four with a baby, coming to terms with being a widow. Fresh out of university and not knowing how I was going to keep a roof over our heads.’
In my mind I watched the movie run all over again, though now it didn’t hold the pain and bitterness it once had. Just a sadness and regret for the things I felt Alex had been deprived of with no man in his life, except his grandfather.
‘When they came to the door, they were holding Pete’s ID tags, the charred remains of his watch and his wedding ring. Those three things kind of summed up his life.’
‘So Alex never really knew his father?’
I shook my head. ‘Pete was captured by insurgents and tortured to death. They burned his body. There was nothing to send home. We don’t even have a grave to visit.’
‘Shit, Jo.’ He sounded as though he truly meant it. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay. Twenty-two years is a long time. When I moved here, I started again. No photographs, no haunting memories. Time to draw a line. Alex has all the belongings the Army sent us, including Pete’s commendation for bravery. I never really saw the point of being proud of the thing that took him away from us, but I’m happy for Alex to preserve the memory of his father the hero. I suppose this house is my lasting tribute to what we shared.’
‘The house?’
‘I could never afford this place on my salary, let alone the conversion. But I finally dipped into the financial award the Army paid out. It felt like an insult at the time. A sum of money to compensate for a life. But that and the life insurance Pete took out when Alex was born was enough to pay for all the work this place needed.’
He looked around my kitchen. ‘It is a fantastic place. You didn’t take his name when you married?’
‘What?’
‘Pete’s surname – different from yours and Alex’s. McCready’s your maiden name, isn’t it?’
He’d done his homework. But I didn’t mind. In fact, I felt quite flattered.
‘Because of the nature of Pete’s work, he said it was better if I didn’t. Safer for me and Alex. In any case, it was my professional name. The one on all my accreditations, so easier all round to just keep it.’
We ate in silence for a few minutes. Maybe it was the wine, but I was glad I’d told him. It felt as though the timing was finally right to share all those private things with someone. Or perhaps Callum was the only person I could have told.
He spoke first.
‘Want to tell me about your eventful evening, then?’
Over the remainder of the wine, I told him about John’s call and my session with Martha. But for some reason, I left out the bit about ‘Jack’. Maybe because I needed time to work through what I thought had happened in that room. Or maybe because he’d think I was as mad as Martha.
‘So John’s girlfriend was Martha Scott?’
I nodded. ‘Could you check for me? Into her story I mean?’
He pursed his lips, swilling the last dregs of wine slowly around the bottom of his glass. ‘I’ll see what I can do. But we’re full on with the towpath killings, so I can’t spend too long on it.’
I suddenly felt selfish. ‘Sorry, I should have thought.’
‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll get one of the indexers to run the names. Never know, we might get lucky.’
I began collecting up the dishes and Callum came to help. ‘Might not be that easy. John Smith? Too corny to be real.’
He grinned up at me as he crouched in front of the dishwasher. ‘I know it’s the name given by every couple having a dirty weekend, but there are some real John Smiths out there, you know?’
‘Well, I’m not convinced. There’s something about all of this that bothers me.’
‘Apart from the fact that John said his girlfriend wanted to murder him and that she stabbed people while possessed by the Devil? What on earth could possibly bother you about this story? Sounds like an average day at the office to me.’
By this time, we were both laughing. I flicked at him with the edge of the tea towel and he ducked out of the way, catching my arm and swinging me around in a playful hug. Suddenly the laughter stopped, our faces only an inch apart. I could feel his warm breath on my face the instant before he kissed me.
3 August
evening
I drank in the feel of him. It would be so easy to deepen this kiss. To lead him by the hand to my bed. But I’d done that before. Allowed a moment to turn into a night. I didn’t want to fast-forward what we’d started. I wanted to learn all the little domestic things about him that I didn’t know. Somehow that was important to me now.
I put a hand on his chest and eased away as gently as I could. He held me in his arms, reluctant to let go.
‘I don’t want to move too fast, Cal.’
He nodded, stroking my nose with his. ‘I know. I can go as slow as you like, just so long as we’re travelling in the same direction.’
I changed the subject before I lost all my resolve. ‘I could do with more wine. Did you bring another bottle?’
‘I put it in the fridge while you were towelling Harvey off. By the way, how come he didn’t rip me limb from limb for taking liberties with you just now?’
We both looked across to Harvey, snoring contentedly on his bed. ‘Perhaps,’ Cal observed, ‘he realises I’m a protector too.’
I was reminded of what happened the last time we’d opened a second bottle and decided I needed a diversion.
‘I wrote up the profile, by the way.’ If he noticed my blatant shifting of the moment, he was too polite to show it. ‘I’ll go to the office and print it off for you.’
He poured two glasses. ‘Hang on, I’ll come with you.’
I pushed open the door into the glass corridor. The carpeted floor took away any feeling of coldness from the huge windows, its deep pile muffling the sound of our footsteps.
I looked across to the woods, but all we could see in the darkness was our own reflection.
He looked the most relaxed I had seen him in weeks. The usual frown lines across his forehead were gone and his shirt was unbuttoned at the collar. His silver hair flopped across his forehead in a casual way he would never have allowed at work.
He perched on the edge of my desk as I searched the computer files. ‘Here we go.’ I hit the print key and the LaserJet hummed to life. ‘Hope this proves useful.’ I suddenly realised that I hadn’t asked him anything about the investigation. ‘Any more on the victim?’
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘We’ve got a name. Julie Lamont, a hairdresser from Fordley. She completed her college course three months ago and took a job at a salon in Shipley. She didn’t turn in for work yesterday or the day before. I’ve got officers interviewing the family, so we should have a better picture by morning. But we do know that Julie and Linda didn’t know each other outside of college – we checked. There’s no link between them, until they were both murdered and dumped by the canal.’
I chewed my pen in thought. ‘The canal’s your link,’ I sai
d, finally. ‘That’s his hunting ground. That’s where he served his apprenticeship. He feels able to take chances there.’ As I said it, I became more convinced. I took another sip of wine. ‘Concentrate your efforts around there and you won’t be far away from him.’
When I looked across, he was lifting a book from my bookcase, absently turning it over in his hand.
‘I tried to read it once,’ he said, lingering on the photograph of me on the back cover.
‘I’m flattered,’ I smiled.
‘You should be. I don’t read books, unless they’re technical manuals.’
‘This is a manual. For the human mind. Into the strategies people develop to navigate through life.’
‘You make it sound simple.’
‘In some ways it is. The human mind is a computer – it delivers what you programme into it. Trouble is, a lot of programming happens when you’re too young to remember.’
‘So it’s back to the childhood stuff then,’ he teased. ‘Lay down and tell me about your mother and all that?’
I leaned across the desk and shut down the computer. ‘You’d be surprised. As children, our parents are Gods to us. If they tell us we’re hopeless, or stupid, or clumsy, we don’t question it. Children believe it and act out the behaviours that go with it.’
As we left the office, he slipped his arm around my waist. ‘So that’s what you do with your patients? Go back to the original hang-up?’
I nodded, enjoying feeling the warmth of his body hugged so close to mine. ‘Parents aren’t always the villains. A bad divorce, a bereavement, they can all lead to people developing unhelpful strategies. They embed it in their personal history. It becomes “the story they tell about themselves”. If they see themselves as a victim, an abused child or an abuser, it defines who they are and makes sense of events they’ve gone through. Past traumas end up shaping a person’s present and dictating their future, and it’s usually not in a positive way if they cross my path.’
The Murder Mile Page 5
