by John Marrs
‘It seems like she lied about a lot.’
‘She was in an impossible situation.’
‘You don’t have to make excuses for her. When did you know the baby was yours?’
‘We didn’t know whose it was. She left it too late to take the morning after pill so she got drunk and seduced you when you were in Bruges.’
Nick rolled his eyes, stunned by the lengths Sally had gone to in her desperation not to get caught out.
‘What does Sumaira have to say about you fathering a child by her best friend? Your wife has an opinion on most things.’
‘She’s devastated. She hasn’t kicked me out but she doesn’t want to see the baby.’
‘What about you? What kind of future do you want with him?’
As Deepak paused and looked away, Nick held firm, desperately trying to disguise how concerned he was about the answer to come. He knew that many men would’ve discarded a child that wasn’t biologically a part of them but Nick had sacrificed too much already to give up on Dylan. The delicate little boy who slept so peacefully in his arms had lost his mother within minutes of his birth and Nick would not allow him to lose the man who had hoped to be his father. He felt an overwhelming amount of love for a son that wasn’t his.
‘I don’t think the boy and I have any future together,’ Deepak eventually replied.
‘You don’t think, or you know for sure?’
‘I know for sure. I’ve lost the love of my life and I’m struggling to keep everything together. I can’t cope with a baby my wife has already rejected.’
‘Do you feel anything for him at all?’
‘No, and I’m ashamed to say that. Ever since he was born, I have willed myself to feel something, but I don’t and each time I think about him, I think it’s his fault Sally’s dead, which is a horrible, horrible thing to admit. He reminds me too much of what I’ve lost and it kills me.’
‘So you’re not going to fight me to keep him?’
‘No. If you want him to stay with you, I’ll sign whatever papers you need me to sign to make it official.’
Deepak rose to his feet and walked towards the front door. ‘Nick,’ he said, without turning around, ‘I am sorry for everything and I hope you believe me. And thank you for being there for Dylan.’
When the door closed, Nick held his son tight and planted a long, gentle kiss on his forehead.
CHAPTER 100
ELLIE
Ellie felt like she was suffocating, like someone was kneeling on her chest, restricting each breath and refusing to allow the air to escape.
Each of her body’s ten pulse points vibrated like the woofers in a stereo speaker. Only there was no noise in her office, just the echo of Matthew’s confession.
“Pull yourself together Ellie,” she told herself. “He’s lying to you.”
‘What does it feel like, knowing you’ve been duped?’ Matthew asked softly, like a therapist to his patient. He arranged his fingers in a steeple-like formation in front of his mouth to add to the fake sincerity of his question. ‘How does the puppet master feel having her strings pulled by someone else?’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Ellie replied, ‘because nobody pulls my strings. Everything you’ve said is a lie.’
‘How can you be so sure of that?’
‘I’ll ask my IT department to prove it.’ Ellie reached for her phone but there was no signal. She grabbed the telephone on the table that separated them but could hear no dial tone. She glared at Matthew.
‘What have you done?’
‘A signal blocker and two phone jammers.’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘Believe it or not, absolutely nothing. Not a single penny, not an apology, not an explanation. I’ll get enough gratification over the next few days when this becomes public and people across the world begin doubting whether the person on the other side of their bed really is the one they’re supposed to spend the rest of their lives with.’
Something inside Ellie suddenly snapped. She rose to her feet with such ferocity, it took Matthew by surprise.
‘I’ll deny it and who’s going to believe you?’ she snarled, and pointed her finger at him. ‘Some little crackpot bedroom computer hacker versus me and my organisation? We’ll eat you alive. My press department is built for damage limitation and we’ll spin this so you come across as a desperate, two-bit systems analyst who wasn’t qualified enough to get a job here. We will find everything there is to know about you to discredit what you have to say. I’ll ruin your dead mother’s reputation if I have to by dragging her and her paedophile boyfriend’s names through the mud, alongside any friend or acquaintance you have who’ll also be caught up in the onslaught. Then I’ll tie you up in court with so much litigation and private, malicious prosecutions that you’ll be penniless for the rest of your life. By the time you have left this building, we’ll have found whatever wormhole you claim to have discovered and seal it up. There will be no proof you ever broke into our system.’
‘I’m your fiancé,’ Matthew replied confidently, ‘that’ll give me a lot more credence. Especially when I tell everyone that the woman who’s amassed a personal fortune out of predetermined love is willing to hide the fact there are two million people out there who have been Matched with people they have no DNA connection with. There’ll be an investigation at the very least. There is no way out of this for you, Ellie.’
‘They won’t believe you.’
‘Ah well I hate to disappoint you but I think they might. I have everything I’ve done saved on back-up hard drives and memory sticks and hidden on files all waiting to be sent to WikiLeaks who’ll expose the story to the international media. They love a whistleblower especially when it’s about corporate misconduct, don’t they?’
‘I am not going to lose everything I have built because of you,’ Ellie spat.
Matthew smirked as he rose to his feet, straightened his tie and winked at Ellie. ‘Let’s see about that, shall we Ells? For the rest of your life, people will be queuing the length of the River Thames to sue you for your flawed results and the failed relationships they’ve been in because of you. Then when everything you have cherished has been taken away from you, you’ll know how my mother and countless others have felt.’
It was the clear, crisp, venomous way in which Matthew delivered his final statement that convinced Ellie everything he’d told her was true. In an instant she saw all she’d accomplished being yanked away from her; she’d survived a decade of abuse and criticism and sacrificed so much but now it was all for nothing and all thanks to the man standing before her who’d tricked his way into her life.
It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
As he made his way towards the door, his head turned to look at Ellie one last time, only he wasn’t able to deliver his parting shot as planned. He couldn’t dodge the lead crystal decanter in Ellie’s hand as it collided with his temple and knocked him from his feet and down on to his knees. His eyes rolled as he glared at her in disbelief and clutched the side of his head. He watched, helpless and disorientated as she swung it again in a white hot rage, hitting him square in the same spot.
This time his skull cracked open and the decanter shattered, spraying fragments of bone, glass and whisky across the floor.
Ellie was motionless as she watched Matthew’s blood seep into the rug and his body convulse, before his eyes opened wide and her Match was gone.
CHAPTER 101
AMANDA
‘We don’t think it’s first time she’s taken a child that wasn’t hers. Neither Richard nor Emma’s DNA results match each other’s or Jenny’s. They are all unrelated.’
‘Could she have adopted them?’
‘We’ve checked European and American databases and so far we can’t confirm that. Now we’re looking into cold cases of children reported missing around the time Richard and Emma were born.’
‘Jesus.’
Amanda shook her head in disbelief and
her heart sank at the thought of what might have happened had she not identified the Lake District holiday cottage in Richard’s photographs. She clutched her son a little closer to her chest, wondering how the biological parents of Richard and Emma must have felt being unaware of the whereabouts of their babies.
‘What’s going to happen to Emma?’ she asked Lorraine, her police Family Liaison Officer who sat opposite her. It was the first time they’d been face to face since Amanda’s baby had been rescued from Jenny a week earlier.
‘She’s been charged with kidnapping a minor but as she has no previous convictions, she’s been released on bail pending further inquiries. But don’t worry, she has an injunction preventing her from going anywhere near you or your home. And then after the inquest is opened and adjourned, Jenny’s funeral will be held a week on Tuesday at the county crematorium.’
Amanda found it difficult to erase the image of the moment she saw her child for the first time. He was wrapped in a towel, held loosely by Jenny who had slipped unconscious from the volume of blood coming from the diagonal cuts to her wrists. By her side lay a pair of nail scissors that she’d hacked at her forearms with, and in doing so, she’d also covered her grandson in blood.
Everything else in that juncture slipped into slow motion as Lorraine held Amanda back, her flailing arms reaching to grab her child. He was scooped up instead by a paramedic, whisked to the safety of the landing and placed upon the floor, his towel removed and his tiny body checked for any signs of injury. Only when it was confirmed there were no injuries was Amanda permitted to hold him for the first time.
She fell to her knees when he was placed into her arms. She smelled his head and didn’t care that her first whiff of him contained the aroma of Jenny’s blood. She ran her fingers across his soft chest and chubby arms then held him close to her body so that he could feel her heartbeat against his skin.
She didn’t notice the paramedics rush to Jenny’s aid or watch as they wrapped her wounds with bandages and then carried her into the back of an ambulance with an oxygen mask covering her mouth. Every voice that spoke to Amanda was muffled because all she could hear was the delicate sound of her baby breathing.
‘There’s something else I need to tell you,’ continued Lorraine, ‘something that we found in Jenny’s attic.’
‘This can’t get any worse, can it?’
‘I’m afraid it can. Right at the back, hidden away from everything else was a suitcase containing two foetal skeletons. More tests are being done to narrow down how long they might have been up there for, but it appears they’re probably more than twenty years old. It looks like they might have been stillborn.’
Amanda’s motherly instinct and experience of miscarriage meant she couldn’t help but feel sympathy towards Jenny for the torment she must have suffered all those years ago. It didn’t exonerate her subsequent behaviour, but it went some way to explaining it.
Amanda embraced Lorraine and thanked her for all she had done. She picked up her son and made her way to see Richard. She spent a moment composing herself, then slowly opened the door to find Richard lying in the bed where she’d first greeted him six weeks earlier.
‘Hi Richard,’ she began gently and took a chair by his side. ‘I’ve brought somebody to see you again. This is your son, Thomas. I named him after my late dad, I hope you don’t mind. I know you’ve met him before when your mum brought him but this is the first time it’s been all three of us together.’
Amanda gazed at father and son in turn, and admitted to herself that Jenny was right when she’d observed there was a palpable resemblance between the two. They shared the same colouring and positioning of dimples in their cheeks.
The strong smell of disinfectant in the room made Amanda’s nose tingle and she sneezed twice. She rose and placed Thomas on the bed inside the safety railing next to Richard’s forearm, which lay poker straight by his side. She fumbled around in her pocket for a tissue to blow her nose but couldn’t find one, so she pulled at a boxed tissue on a table by a chair.
But when she turned around to pick up her son, something was different. Richard’s arm was no longer by his side. Instead, his palm was face up and his baby son’s hand was pressed firmly inside it.
Amanda took a sharp intake of breath and then a step backwards, disbelieving what she was witnessing as Richard’s fingers slowly and purposefully entwined his son’s.
CHAPTER 102
AMY
Amy couldn’t bring herself to look at the blank, motionless face of the man she’d loved and whose life she’d ended.
Slumped in the chair she had tied him to, his head tilted backwards and tears were still visible in the corners of his bloodshot eyes. She desperately wanted to bring back to life the Christopher she had adored, but even if she could raise the dead, he’d bring with him the compulsions that she loathed.
For the sake of every other woman and herself, it had to be this way and it had to be Amy who’d set his tortured soul free. “Hold it together,” she told herself and clenched her fists into tight balls so as not to give in to sorrow. Her body still shivering, she clambered back to her feet and sifted through Christopher’s backpack, using his equipment to clean up any trace of her presence in the home of the terrified woman she’d left tied up in the bedroom, oblivious as to what had just happened under her roof.
Amy harked back to just a few days earlier when, after discovering the love of her life was a likely serial killer, she’d put on a brave face in front of him while silently beginning the grieving process for what she was about to lose. And just as Christopher had planned to kill his final victim, after much soul-searching and internal deliberation, Amy had planned to kill him.
Amy followed his car one night as he drove to a quiet residential street in Islington and she watched from a safe distance as he patrolled the road on foot, making mental notes of the position of street lights, access to the rear of a ground-floor flat and a probable escape route. She placed her hands over her mouth to stop her sobs from being overheard outside her vehicle.
If she’d followed his timeline of kills correctly, his next strike would be within the next forty-eight hours. And when he cancelled their planned evening together blaming a rushed editorial deadline, she knew exactly where he was going and arrived there before him.
Once inside the property, she watched in horror as he revealed his true nature, a ruthless, efficient psychopath gearing up for the kill. She waited, buried in the shadows inside the girl’s home as he made his way into position and placed his bag by his feet, removed the cheese wire and then a billiard ball which he dropped to gain Number Thirty’s attention. Standing behind Christopher with the taser gun in her hand, she could smell the adrenaline flowing through him in anticipation, and it made her nauseous.
Now with the crime scene cleaned up, Amy searched Christopher’s pockets. All they contained were two phones - his regular mobile and a burner he’d used to check Number Thirty’s location. Neither contained any clue as to their owner’s identity but she took them anyway.
Amy stood in front of Christopher and took a deep breath, then with all her strength dragged him and his chair, inch by inch, through the kitchen, towards the rear door that Christopher had broken through, and out into a courtyard. Then she went back inside and took a duvet from the spare room and covered Christopher in it from head to toe. She dialled 999 from the girl’s landline and left the phone on the kitchen worktop.
She removed two, one-litre bottles of white spirit she’d brought with her in her own kill kit and poured them over his shrouded frame until the duvet absorbed the liquid. Then she stepped away, lit a match and threw it at him. She turned her back and walked away as Christopher caught light - she had no desire to witness the flesh melt from the bones of the man she had loved.
As Amy left a painted stencil mark outside Number Thirty’s home, she knew it could be months before Christopher’s body was positively identified. She drove back to his home and let herself in
with the key he’d had cut for her and planned to clean the place from top to bottom over the following week to remove as much of her DNA as possible. Then she would leave his car with the keys in the ignition in a South London crime hot-spot, certain it wouldn’t remain there for long.
There were very few ways Christopher and Amy could be linked once the police discovered who he was. He’d always paid cash so there’d be no credit card trail of where they might have eaten or visited together. His computers were heavily password controlled but she would destroy them with a hammer anyway then dump them just in case. And as they hadn’t met each other’s friends, families or colleagues, there’d be nothing tying them together as a couple – with the exception of their Match Your DNA link. However, no proof would ever be found that they’d taken it a step further than a few introductory text conversations.
In the months to come, Amy’s colleagues would never discover why the last person to die in the baffling, unexplained case was male, why the killer had chosen him or decided to strangle him then set fire to his body. It would be an added twist to the story and she was sure that if Christopher were watching her from somewhere in hell, he’d approve of her self-preservation skills.
Christopher had reached his target, only he’d been the thirtieth kill. He’d also kept the anonymity he so desired and the only thing his story lacked was the nickname he’d been affronted not to have been given. Suddenly, it came to Amy.
“When I go to work tomorrow, I’m going to suggest they call you The Saint Christopher killer,” she said to herself, imagining him watching her and picturing his smile. “Thirty kills and a name… I guess you got your wish in the end, didn’t you?”
CHAPTER 103
NICK
The town was more grand and picturesque than Nick had given it credit for based on his Google Streetmap search.
