HER HUSBAND’S KILLER an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists

by MARGARET MURPHY

  Accelerating through the rain, the drops of water seemed to elongate as they streaked past her window — warp speed — but not fast enough.

  Her mother broke the contact, disconcerted. She avoided Helen’s eye, as one avoids the eye of someone disliked, and Helen disentangled herself carefully, feeling a solid pain in her chest, as real as the fading bruise on her face.

  She returned home late on Sunday night, and to keep her mind from the thought that this would be the final separation from her parents, she mulled over the dream she’d had the previous day.

  In her dream, Helen saw herself wearing a coarsely woven dress, sitting at a table while other women took food from her plate, each making the ritualized statement, ‘At prisoner’s request.’ On waking, she had thought immediately of Margaret Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale.

  Am I blaming myself for Ed’s infidelities? she wondered. Then she remembered that Edward’s mother had said something about her “allowing” Edward to have affairs. Perhaps that had been the trigger.

  They had looked older, both of them. They had dressed carefully, as they always did, and were as well groomed. But the sleekness was marred; they were irretrievably diminished by the loss of their son.

  ‘Edward wasn’t a child,’ Helen had told them. ‘He didn’t ask for permission.’

  In the dream, the women asked her how she felt. She had replied ‘Hard. Full,’ and they had given her sideways looks, as if they knew she was pregnant.

  Helen had been told in the dream that once a month the members of the community were allowed to vent their true feelings on an effigy of the ‘lord’ who ruled them. The lord was Edward. He rode on a white horse up and down the pavilion. The women charged on foot at a straw-stuffed doll which was dressed like Edward. They stabbed it again and again and Edward smiled down on them, unharmed, shielded in some magic way. Then the weapon was placed in Helen’s hands and the pavilion fell silent. She looked at the long, thin steel pin, at its globular head, she knew she had the power to destroy him.

  She had walked slowly, quietly through the hushed crowd while the lord on his horse had looked on in amusement. She went to the straw effigy and stabbed it again and again, the long shaft of the pin piercing through the breast and stopping only at the post to which the doll had been tied.

  From each tiny puncture hole, a bead of bright red blood appeared.

  Helen shuddered, and roused herself from her morbid thoughts, but the dream would not be shaken; she found herself returning to it again and again, wondering if she could have killed Edward during one of her blackouts — she had them even now. From time to time it happened that she would become aware of her surroundings, coming to, it seemed, and the discovery would be unexpected. She could not remember having gone into a particular room or, more disturbingly, having travelled from home to work. At these times she always had a dizzying sense of danger, and the danger was within herself.

  Chapter 18

  Jeff Townley had been looking forward to taking a short walk to the smoking room, but he now pushed the cigarettes to one side. In the last week Dermot Molyneux had come up with some first-rate pictures of Helen Wilkinson. Aside from the haunting House of Death picture, he had managed somehow to catch Ainsley, the cuckolded husband, and his wife, Clara. Touching one, that: her carrying the baby, looking startled and vulnerable. The Wilkinson shot and the last one of Clara Ainsley had been syndicated to most of the tabloids, one of the quality papers and the BBC. Dermot had earned more than enough in one week to pay for a computer with hi-tech imaging software, a bed scanner, a modem to connect him to the office from home, a zoom lens, and a lightweight camera holdall. As Dermot enthused about his latest piece of information, Townley had serious doubts that he would be able to entice the photographer to stay past the end of his one-year contract.

  He eyed the packet of cigarettes longingly. Gone were the days when he could light up without fear of provoking a storm of protest. Smoking was now strictly limited to the smoking room, but what the hell good was that, when he needed a smoke to help him think here, now, in his office, talking to a photographer who was probably about to waste company time and money, but whom Jeff couldn’t afford to upset?

  ‘Wait a minute, hold on! Go back a few paces.’ He had lost concentration for a second. ‘You reckon this “contact” of yours says an arrest is imminent? Is that what he actually said, imminent?’

  ‘She,’ Molyneux corrected, his vanity unable to resist setting the facts straight. ‘And she said she thinks they’ll charge him.’

  ‘She?’ Townley repeated.

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘Molyneux,’ Townley said. ‘Dermot. Don’t, please, don’t try to work that one on me.’ He meant the coy smile; the roguish grin; the look from under his impossibly unruly hair which invariably won over the lasses.

  ‘Sorry, Boss,’ Molyneux said. ‘Look, I know the story’s straight. The police took this guy Ellis in and questioned him. They’ve tied some new evidence to him, so my contact says.’ He held up both hands to placate Townley. ‘I know what you’re thinking, and I can tell you she’s sure.’

  ‘Not just trying to impress the man?’ Townley asked, extending the vowel in an approximation to Molyneux’s Dublin burr.

  ‘Sure, she was trying to impress me,’ Dermot said quietly, ‘but don’t you think I’d check me sources?’

  Townley was affected by the pained restraint in Dermot Molyneux’s voice. He buckled under the strain and reached for the packet of cigarettes, opened it and slipped one from the pack. Only two left. He rolled the pristine cylinder between his index finger and thumb, resisting — just — the urge to lift the cigarette to his nose and sniff the Nicotiana tabacum like a connoisseur sampling the aroma of a good Havana cigar. Molyneux was watching him hungrily, and Jeff surmised it wasn’t the cigarette he was interested in.

  ‘What the hell,’ he sighed. If he refused, one of the nationals would encourage Molyneux to go for the story. ‘If you don’t turn anything up by tomorrow, the story is dead, is that clear?’ Townley pointed with the filter end of the cigarette.

  ‘And, Molyneux,’ he called, as the Irishman headed for the door. ‘Take a tip. You’re far more convincing when you drop the BS.’

  Molyneux grinned. ‘I couldn’t take a tip from you, boss.’ He nodded at the cigarette. ‘Those things are lethal without them.’

  That surprised a laugh from Townley himself. ‘That’s just what my wife keeps telling me.’

  * * *

  Helen was interviewed at two p.m. on Monday. A pro-vice chancellor, the Dean of Faculty and Alice Chambers were present. They asked their questions kindly and with due deference, and twenty minutes later confirmed that she would be offered a post as senior lecturer in the new School of Life Sciences. She received a call in her office at three p.m. It was Ruth.

  ‘You’ll be staying, then.’

  ‘Where else would I go?’

  ‘Where indeed? I have to say you don’t sound exactly thrilled. It is a promotion, Helen.’

  ‘I know. But I don’t feel much like celebrating, given the circumstances.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. Shall I come round this evening?’

  They agreed to meet at seven thirty. When, ten minutes later, Mick Tuttle phoned, Helen felt an unexpected flutter of nervousness. She was smiling to herself as she hung up but snatched the receiver back at the last moment. The line was dead. What to tell Ruth?

  * * *

  They met in a restaurant in Watergate Row. Helen had walked the mile and a half to the city centre, doubling back on herself a couple of times to be sure she was not followed. She passed the squat, sandstone cathedral building of the university’s namesake, St Werburgh, and approached the stone cross at the meeting of the old Roman roads.

  She mounted the steps onto the raised wooden walkway that led to the restaurant. Ahead, a series of archways seemed to overlap, layering the covered path with increa
sing darkness. She could have continued along the road way and come up the steps at the end of the Row instead, but she was shivering, despite wearing a thick woollen coat, and the Rows, enclosed on one side by shops and offices and on the other by the black and white wooden railings so characteristic of Chester, provided shelter from the bitter wind. There Helen felt safe, unobserved within the twilight of wood planking, overarched by a low, plaster ceiling. The black paintwork of the studded timber doors, icing-thick with centuries of repainting, were reassuring in an indefinable way; perhaps giving a sense of perspective, of proportion to her present difficulties.

  As she drew near to the restaurant, she glanced across Watergate Street to the copiously inscribed upper floors of God’s Providence House. ‘God’s providence is mine inheritance,’ she read, and it felt like a prayer for strength. Taking a breath, she stepped into the warmth of the bar.

  Helen had never seen Mick Tuttle so relaxed. He was warm, funny, and a remarkably good mimic, a skill he used to good effect in his description of his own interview with the panel.

  The restaurant was quiet and the tables well spaced. Its wooden floors, oak panelling and low beamed ceiling sufficiently worn and battered to lend an air of permanence and solidity which added to Helen’s feelings of security and safety; perhaps they had a similar effect on Mick.

  He paused, studying her for a moment, then said, smiling, ‘Go on then, ask.’

  Helen blinked. ‘Ask what?’

  ‘Whatever it is that’s making you look so bewildered.’

  ‘Is that how I look?’

  His smile broadened, then he concentrated on his meal for a few moments to allow her time to think. He had chosen vegetarian, deferring to her sensitivity with unshowy consideration, and Helen had been surprised that her appetite had been sustained throughout the first and well into the main course.

  ‘I suppose,’ Helen began cautiously, ‘I was thinking how different you are outside the university walls.’

  ‘Different?’

  She blushed. ‘It’s hard to explain.’

  He gave her a lop-sided grin. ‘Or just hard to say?’

  She raised her eyes to meet his and felt a thrill of something she scarcely recognized. Happiness?

  ‘Less inhibited?’ she said. ‘Maybe more yourself?’ She finished with a shrug; it was the best she could do.

  He considered for a few moments and seemed to like her interpretation.

  ‘At St Werburgh’s I’ve always got something to prove. You know what it’s like. In a way we’re both regarded as physically handicapped — you, because of your sex, me because of my callipers, whereas here,’ — he glanced around the restaurant — ‘nobody would really care if I was held together by elastic bands and lengths of string, as long as I can pay the bill.’

  Helen stared at him, appalled. ‘That’s horrible — I’m sorry we make you feel that way.’

  ‘You don’t, but enough do.’ He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. ‘Don’t let it worry you. I can outlast them. I’ve got incredible stamina when it comes to that sort of challenge. The good thing is, we’ll both be working for the newly Recreated School of Life Sciences — or R-SOLS, for short.’

  Helen laughed, nearly choking. ‘Arseholes?’

  ‘Present company excepted,’ he said, deadpan.

  * * *

  Dermot Molyneux moved swiftly and silently, shadowing Ellis as he made his way from his lodgings to the other side of the city. Dermot knew, before they had reached the halfway mark, exactly where they were heading. The evening was cold and blustery and ridges of velvety grey herringbone cloud formations had built up on the underbelly of the storm gathering from the east. It was a long walk and he was thankful for the lightweight material and broad shoulder straps of his new camera bag. He always felt a barely reconcilable sense of hilarity and excitement when following a mark: on the one hand it seemed ludicrous, boys playing at spies; on the other, it was risky and on occasions had even proved dangerous.

  The house was now bereft of reporters; interest in the story had waned when, after a whole week, the police had made little progress. The last of the nationals had left on Sunday afternoon, disgusted to find that they had wasted the weekend freezing delicate parts of their anatomy waiting for something to happen, when in fact the Wilkinson house was empty. If it hadn’t been for two of the more reckless (or more desperate) journalists bunking over the gate at the back of the house and peering in at Helen’s study, they might have stayed a little longer and witnessed the arrival of John Ellis. Dermot held back at the corner of the street and got a good shot with his new, lightweight 100-300 zoom, of Ellis in profile as he hesitated, looking both ways before slipping down the side entry leading to the back of the house. He switched lenses as he walked on, working by touch, while keeping a keen eye out for Ellis.

  There was little cover in the street, even though there were plenty of gardens, for in this area of the city, the houses were all occupied — by the families of the professional classes or housing the upper range of bed-and-breakfast accommodation — and as such were most kept in good order. Dermot reflected that he would be likely to attract unwanted attention creeping through gardens with a camera, and so he strode down the street purposefully. Drawing level with the house, he needed decide: walk on by or go in. There was really no contest: Townley had given him a day to find something worth putting on the front page and the closer he could get to the Wilkinsons’ house, the more likely it would be that a good composition would present itself.

  The house was semi-detached and each pair in the street was flanked by a side entry. He darted into the passage, glad that he had worn his air trainers, since the high walls on either side echoed and magnified every sound. At the back gate he listened for half a minute before trying the latch. It was locked.

  He adjusted his bag strap to wear the camera crosswise and swivelled it until the bulk of the weight rested somewhere between his shoulder blades, then he reached up — not too much of a stretch — to the top of the gate, bracing one foot against the brickwork, a couple of feet up. He swung his right leg over the top of the gate and then eased himself into a sitting position, checking for signs of activity before dropping down quietly into the back garden.

  It was well kept, unlike the front of the house. Tiny daffodils and pale-yellow primroses were massed with stubby-looking purple crocuses which struggled to keep their heads above the mat of grass at the base of the trees. The wooden framed greenhouse stood at the end of the lawn; painted dark green, it was filled with both mature plants in pots of various sizes and seedlings in trays. Beyond the greenhouse, through an archway of climbing roses in delicate new leaf, were carefully laid out oblongs of freshly tilled soil. There was a shed, too, at the far end of the garden, covered in ivy and some variety of climbing rose. The archway would provide good cover, but it was some twenty-five feet from the house—

  Ellis’s face appeared at the kitchen window and Dermot ducked behind the bins, hidden behind a screen of close-growing evergreen. Dermot braced himself, sweating, listening for the sound of the back door opening. Silence. Ellis had not seen him. He peered through the foliage; the door was intact, so Ellis must have let himself in with a key. Interesting.

  Dermot altered the f-stop on his camera and estimated the focus he would need: there wouldn’t be time for adjustment. The house and most of the garden were in shadow at this time of evening, which should cut the reflections.

  A scurry of footsteps in the passageway almost made his heart stop, then he realized they were going away from the house. ‘Stay calm, Dermot,’ he told himself. ‘Only the neighbour going out the back way.’ He counted to three, then rushed at the window and fired off three shots, ducking down below the window frame panting, almost laughing to himself. Three near perfect shots, and of what? Ellis delivering some sort of confectionery for Helen Wilkinson? ‘Jesus, Dermot,’ he told himself, ‘you’ll have to do better than that!’

  Dermot returned to his
hiding place in the little enclosure of evergreens, taking a few shots of the upper windows, but didn’t get anything he could use. At last the key turned in the lock and Ellis let himself out, apparently preoccupied and completely unaware of his presence. He dropped the key, and cursed, fumbling to retrieve it, and Dermot noted there were in fact three keys on the ring, together with a plain yellow fob. Front door, back gate and back door, keys, Dermot speculated. Ellis must be a trusted visitor, to have full access to the house.

  As Ellis selected the correct key and slotted it into the door lock, a motor bike blatted down the road, and Dermot used the sudden burst of noise to risk a shot of Ellis locking up after himself, already working on a suitable caption, wondering if he could persuade Townley to run with, ‘WIDOW’S SECRET TRYST WITH STUDENT?’

  * * *

  David Ainsley had been watching the house for an hour. He had sat, motionless, on cracked and mossy steps of an empty property, peering through a dense mesh of twiggy fuchsia and leafy hawthorn which had long since overgrown its function as a hedge. The hawthorn, though small and scrubby, was beginning to take on the form and height of a small tree. Still, the shrubs gave cover enough and he could observe, unobserved himself, using the patience and the observation skills he had learned from fifteen years of field and laboratory study. During his watch no lights had been turned on or off, no windows opened, and nobody had entered nor left the house opposite. When he was quite sure it was safe, he stood, giving the blood a moment to circulate through his cramped limbs, then, absently wiping the dust and detritus from the seat of his trousers, he crossed the street and let himself in. Half an hour should do it.

  * * *

  Dermot waited three or four minutes before venturing out. He tried the back door, but Ellis had been sure to secure it. A good interior shot of the House of Death would be quite a scoop, he decided. He scanned the windows of the upper storeys. One on the first floor was open a crack; if he could find a step ladder . . .