Dead End

by Leigh Russell

  ‘Everything's white,’ she said, watching Paul as he unlocked the cupboard. He was smiling to himself. ‘Why is everything white?’ she asked.

  ‘Beautiful, isn't it?’ He had his back to her while he rummaged in the cupboard. She couldn't see what he was doing. Over his shoulder she saw narrow wooden drawers but she couldn't see their contents.

  ‘Why is everything white?’ she asked again. Her voice trembled slightly. The whole situation was uncomfortably odd, and she had no idea where it was leading.

  A sudden jolt of alarm struck her, a visceral sensation that something was very wrong about this sepulchral cellar, very wrong indeed. On an impulse she turned and darted up the stairs. There was no door handle, only an empty keyhole. She kicked the door. It didn't even quiver.

  ‘Come back down.’ Paul spoke quietly.

  Geraldine turned on the top step, her shoulders pressed against the unyielding door. ‘What did you want to show me?’

  ‘This.’ He gestured around the cellar, smiling.

  ‘It's lovely Paul, if you like secret basements,’ she answered, keeping her voice under control. ‘Now I've seen it, let's go back upstairs.’ He didn't answer. ‘Why is the door locked?’

  He laughed out loud. ‘Because I locked it.’

  Geraldine smiled back at him. ‘I'd like to go back upstairs, Paul. Open the door please.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I want to show you something. Come down here, Geraldine.’

  She hesitated but she had no choice. ‘I don't want to. It's cold down there.’ Paul ignored her and moved across the cellar out of her line of vision. She could only see the top of his head, bowed forward. ‘What are you doing, Paul?’ Slowly she descended the stairs.

  Paul was standing motionless on the other side of the room, the table between them like a barrier. He took a step towards her and as he moved something glinted in his right hand. He was holding a syringe.

  ‘What's in your hand?’

  ‘Don't worry, I don't want to punish you, Geraldine. This will be very quick. I promise you won't feel anything.’ Paul met her gaze with an apologetic smile. ‘This wasn't part of the plan, Geraldine, it really wasn't. I never wanted to punish you, believe me. If there was another way…’ He took a step towards her.

  Geraldine stared at him in horror, realising that the man she had been falling in love with was a fantasy; Paul Hilliard was insane. ‘No. Wait. I don't understand any of this.’

  ‘I can't let you stop me. Not now.’

  ‘And I won't. Let me go and – we can forget all about this.’ He must know she was lying, but she couldn't think what else to say.

  ‘The problem is your young sergeant has been calling, leaving you messages. I can't let you stop me now. You know too much.’

  Geraldine shook her head. ‘I don't know anything, Paul. No one's told me anything about you.’ She paused and took a deep breath. ‘I can help you, Paul. Don't you see? If the sergeant knows something – about you – you're going to need my help.’

  He raised the syringe. ‘I haven't got a choice. The sergeant's next. It's his own fault. He shouldn't have interfered. But you – I'm sorry Geraldine, I never wanted things to end like this.’ He raised his right arm and the liquid glistened in the syringe.

  ‘I want to help you. I want to understand. What's going on? Tell me. What's this about?’

  ‘Emma.’ He sounded impatient, as though it was obvious. ‘This is for Emma.’

  ‘Your daughter?’ He nodded. ‘She was a beautiful girl.’

  ‘You didn't know her.’

  ‘I saw her photograph. But I still don't understand. What has this,’ she looked around the cellar, ‘got to do with your daughter?’

  ‘Those responsible had to be punished,’ he replied. He sounded so matter-of-fact Geraldine struggled to believe he was really threatening her.

  ‘Responsible for what?’

  ‘For Emma's death. They let her down. All of them.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Her friend who never listened, her teacher who gave her terrible advice, and the doctor who killed her.’

  Geraldine gulped for air. She felt as though she was suffocating. ‘Teacher? Abigail Kirby was your daughter's teacher? She gave your daughter the wrong advice so you cut out her tongue.’ She felt sick. The room was spinning as though she was drunk. Paul raised his hand and a tiny spurt of clear liquid shot into the air catching the light. Geraldine struggled to make sense of it. ‘Who else did you kill, Paul? What girl? Why did you kill –’

  ‘That girl was supposed to be Emma's best friend, but she didn't listen when Emma needed help. What kind of a person betrays a friend like that? How could I leave her to carry on, living out her evil life, while Emma…’ He shook his head. ‘Only the doctor is left now, and he'll be next.’

  ‘What doctor? I don't understand. Why would you want to kill a doctor?’

  ‘The doctor who terminated my daughter's pregnancy, murdered her unborn child –’

  ‘Emma had an abortion?’

  ‘The doctor who killed my unborn grandchild. The doctor who drove my daughter, Emma…’ His voice broke.

  Geraldine thought she began to understand. ‘Are you saying your daughter had an abortion and that's why she killed herself?’

  He ignored her question. ‘The boy wasn't part of the plan but he saw too much so he had to go. And now I'm afraid you know too much, Geraldine.’ He moved round the table towards her.

  She edged away from him backwards, never taking her eyes off him. ‘What part of my anatomy are you going to remove?’

  Paul shook his head impatiently. ‘You think too much. That's your problem.’

  Geraldine raised her hand to her head, pressing her fingers against her skull in stunned comprehension. ‘What part of me, Paul?’

  ‘That's something you don't need to know, and you never will.’

  Geraldine glanced frantically around for a weapon of some kind, but apart from the table, the cupboard, and a sink, the room was bare. She couldn't remember if Paul had locked the cupboard when he had closed it and, in any case, if she managed to edge around the table and make a dash for it, he would be on her with the syringe before she could grab hold of anything she could use in self defense.

  ‘Paul –’ Geraldine thought she heard footsteps overhead, and felt a tremor of hope. She had to stall him for another few minutes. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Let's talk about this. I can help you. Don't jump to conclusions. What makes you think I don't support what you're doing? Your daughter's dead, Paul. What you're doing, you're looking for justice. That's what I believe in too. You can't let the people responsible for Emma's death get away with it. I understand that. Someone has to be punished, it's only right. But there's no reason to kill me. I'm not to blame for what happened to her. And I can help you. What do you think is going to happen to you now the police know what you've done?’

  Paul didn't appear to have heard anyone moving around upstairs. ‘Save your breath. I don't need your help.’

  ‘You'll go to prison, Paul, for a long time. But I can help you -’

  ‘I told you, I don't need your help.’ He smiled grimly. ‘I'm almost done. I have to finish what I set out to do. There's only one more – after you and your sergeant – and then it'll be my turn. Come on, we have to hurry. You understand, don't you? I have to finish this. I know it doesn't matter what you think, we'll both be dead soon, but I'd like you to understand.’

  Geraldine's mouth felt dry. Her legs were shaking as she tried to circle round the table away from him, aware that he might rush her at any moment.

  ‘I don't understand why you want me to die. This is nothing to do with me. Emma's death wasn't my fault. I didn't even know her. Let me help you, Paul. You need help –’

  Paul moved closer. He raised his arm and Geraldine screamed as she edged away from him. Upstairs all was silent. She wondered if she should make a dash for the cupboard where he kept grisly tools
of his work, knives, syringes, razor-sharp scalpels, but she knew she would never make it before he reached her. She considered trying to thrust the table at him with a sudden desperate lunge so it would fall on his feet, pinning him to the floor, but there was no way she would be able to shift it by herself.

  Suddenly they were startled by a loud thump. Geraldine dithered but Paul wasn't distracted for an instant. In one swift movement he raised his arm and stabbed. The syringe dropped from his hand and she stared, transfixed, as a drop of blood beaded where the needle had penetrated.

  66

  CELLAR

  Sergeant Bell and Constable Letwick were only round the corner when the call came through. The message was garbled but they heard the address quite clearly.

  ‘We're just round the corner,’ Bell answered. ‘We're on our way.’

  ‘Step on it,’ his companion urged. ‘We'll be first on the scene.’ A constable for nearly two years, Ollie Letwick was fed up with stepping in between brawling drunks, arresting kids who were high and taking statements from shopkeepers who called the station to report shoplifters. There wasn't much point. They were always impossible to identify, hooded, blurred images on CCTV. Ollie longed for some real excitement. ‘What exactly is going on?’ he asked as they sped along the road.

  Bell shook his head without taking his eyes off the road. ‘You heard as much as I did. They think DI Steel's in some sort of trouble.’

  ‘Women,’ Ollie grinned. The sergeant grunted and put his foot down mumbling about political correctness. ‘Just joking,’ Ollie said. ‘The DI is hardly the sort to need saving. Reckon she can take care of herself.’

  ‘Should be able to,’ Bell agreed as they screeched to a halt outside a large detached property. ‘This is it.’ He hesitated. ‘Do you think we should wait for back up?’ As he spoke, they heard the wail of a siren. Several police cars raced into view and the pavement was suddenly heaving with uniformed officers.

  ‘Come on!’ Ollie leapt out of the car and almost barged into DCI Gordon. He and Bob Bell joined the group of officers following her up the path.

  ‘We had a call from DS Peterson,’ the DCI explained to them hurriedly over her shoulder. ‘It seems Paul Hilliard could be the man we've been looking for.’

  There was a subdued clamour of questions.

  ‘He's the killer?’

  ‘Paul Hilliard? Isn't he the pathologist?’

  There was no response to their knocking. They walked around the property but all the doors were locked. At a nod from the DCI one of the constables smashed a small window beside the side door, reached in to undo the bolt and they were in.

  ‘Hello! Police! Is anyone here?’ There was no answer. A rapid search of the house revealed it was empty. Constable Letwick and Sergeant Bell were instructed to remain behind until the property was secure, and the posse of police officers withdrew. The house was empty and silent once more as they waited in the front hall for the householder to return home, and for a glazier to arrive to fix the window.

  ‘So much for seeing something exciting,’ Ollie grumbled.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I thought we might see some action here –’

  ‘Action?’

  ‘You know, something happening. A dramatic arrest, or something.’

  Bell laughed and was about to reply when they heard a noise, like a muffled yelp. Their eyes met in a puzzled frown. ‘Sounded like that came from inside the house,’ Bell said in a low voice.

  ‘It came from under the floor,’ Ollie agreed.

  They looked around. The hall was decorated in cream and pale blue. There was an empty wooden coat stand near the door, a tall bookcase along one wall and three doors leading to the kitchen, the living room and a downstairs cloakroom. They listened, but there was no more noise from under the floorboards.

  ‘There's no access to a basement from here,’ Bell said.

  ‘Unless –’ Ollie went up to the bookcase and shook it.

  ‘Watch it, you'll have all those books on the floor.’

  ‘That's odd. They're not real books,’ Ollie replied as he reached forward to take one off the shelf. ‘It's not a proper bookcase. Look, these books are painted on. Come here and give me a hand. I reckon there must be something behind it –’ Together they pushed the bookcase which slid sideways to reveal a door. Bell swore softly in surprise and reached for his phone. While he summoned back up, Ollie rapped sharply on the door but there was no response from the other side. The door had no handle, only a keyhole. Ollie pushed the door. It wouldn't budge. He tried again, yelling now for whoever was inside to come and open the door up. There was no answer so he stood back and charged at the door, shoulder first. It flew open with a crash.

  Ollie rushed through the door so fast he almost fell headlong down a narrow staircase. Pausing to regain his balance, he stepped forwards.

  His companion put his hand on Ollie's arm. ‘Do you think we should wait? They'll be here in a few minutes.’

  ‘If she's here, the DI could be in danger,’ Ollie whispered back. Bell nodded and Ollie made his way cautiously down the stairs. He had an impression of whiteness and then he heard a woman's voice crying out in alarm.

  Ollie leaped down the final few steps and his eyes widened in surprise. On the far side of a table draped in white the DI was crouching on the floor. She glared wildly at him and gestured at a man lying motionless on the floor beside her. Apart from the two figures, everything in the room was perfectly white.

  ‘Over here!’ she called out. ‘He's unconscious. He's injected himself.’ Her voice rose hysterically and she turned away. As Ollie stepped forward he heard feet pounding down the stairs and the room was suddenly crammed with officers. A paramedic hurried forward and knelt on the floor beside the DI.

  ‘This doesn't look good. What did he take?’

  The DI was upright now, leaning against the table. ‘I don't know, but he's a pathologist. He'd have access to all sorts of drugs – you might find something in the cupboard. That's where he took the syringe from.’ Her voice had recovered its strength and she spoke with authority.

  ‘I thought I recognised him,’ the paramedic said.

  The DI went over to a tall cupboard, opened the door and began rifling through the drawers. The first was full of surgical equipment: scalpels, gloves, syringes, all laid out in neat rows. The contents of the second drawer was the same. The third was stuffed with photographs of a girl.

  She picked up one of the photographs. ‘That's his daughter.’

  ‘I wonder if she knows he's got a whole drawer of photos of her down here,’ Ollie said gazing down at the body.

  ‘She's dead.’

  The paramedic looked up. ‘So will he be if we don't get him into hospital soon. Where the hell's that ambulance?’

  67

  MOVING ON

  Overwhelmed by memories of Paul, Geraldine barely slept that night. At last she drifted into an uneasy dream where Paul was pursuing her along a dark tunnel that led to a bright white room. She knew that if she didn't reach the end of the corridor she would die, so she kept on running…

  The next morning she woke up feeling so mentally drained it made her absurdly calm, as though she was still dreaming. After the shock of discovering Paul's true nature, she felt she would never care about anything again. If someone had rushed in and pointed a gun at her head she would simply have waited for the outcome, unmoved and incurious. After a shower and strong coffee she drove to work very carefully, numb and disorientated, not trusting her reactions. Driving to the station she tried to take a cold hard look at herself and it didn't make comfortable viewing. She had allowed herself to be distracted by her attraction to Paul, who had been playing her all along for his own purposes. Knowing she had been so gullible was even more painful than the loss of what had, after all, been no more than a romantic fantasy. She had not only been deluded about Paul but about herself too.

  One thing was certain: she would never trust herself to take anyt
hing anyone said at face value ever again.

  Her face burned with embarrassment as she walked into the station, wondering what her colleagues must think of her. Paul had stolen more than her romantic ideal, he had shattered her self-confidence. Geraldine had always prided herself on her sharp intuition about people. The intelligence to organise a deluge of information wasn't enough in her profession – after all, a computer could do a more effective job than her. It was her insight into hidden connections that had made her so successful in her career. Since the first day she'd joined the force at eighteen she had loved the job, but if she could misjudge Paul Hilliard so badly how could she ever trust her gut feelings about people again? She felt her self-assurance slipping away as she sat at her desk and began tidying up loose ends, checking her reports and emptying her drawers of sweet wrappers, pens, notebooks, receipts and other scraps of paper.

  Kathryn Gordon was surprisingly understanding when she summoned Geraldine to her office to question her again about Paul's attempted suicide. ‘Don't be too hard on yourself,’ she said as Geraldine turned to leave. ‘I know you were close –’

  ‘Paul Hilliard meant nothing to me,’ Geraldine replied stiffly.

  ‘There's something else, Geraldine. I have to congratulate you on your successful application for a transfer to the Met.’

  Geraldine spun round in surprise and returned Kathryn Gordon's smile. ‘Thank you, ma'am. Thank you very much.’

  ‘And now there's work to be done.’

  ‘Yes ma'am.’ Reluctantly, Geraldine collected her keys and set off.

  She hesitated before she rang the bell to deliver the worst kind of good news, and flinched when Matthew Kirby's expression darkened on seeing her. ‘Mr Kirby, I wanted to tell you in person – we've arrested the man who killed your wife.’

  He opened the door a fraction wider, his voice urgent. ‘Who is he? Why did he do it?’