by Emmy Ellis
Tracy couldn’t get over it, how he’d kept personal archives like that. “Blimey, sir.”
“This is the seventies.” He waved the book then sat in his seat again. “If it happened, it’ll be in here, on the vice page.” He flicked through, found the section, then ran his finger down the page. He did this several times on different pages, then lifted his head to beam at her. “There we go. Irene Nicholls, attacked by a supposedly unknown woman.”
“Why supposedly?”
“Because I recall it distinctly now. She had a shifty look in her eye when I asked her if she knew who had given her a beating. If I remember rightly, she didn’t want it followed up.”
“Hmm. So maybe this attacker is the one we’re after now. I have to say, I’m impressed by your memory.”
He snapped the book shut. “It helps having these to browse through.”
“So you said she didn’t want the attack followed up. Does that mean it wouldn’t have been in the main log and that’s why we didn’t get a hit on that incident when the team looked into her past?”
“It would have been logged as something I had attended—it happened in the red-light district, as it was known back then—but as she didn’t want her name involved, I probably didn’t put it in.”
“God. A can of worms or what…”
“Indeed. Now, are you going to finish that coffee then get yourself home? After the day you’ve had, you’re going to need all the rest you can get.”
Tracy drank the remainder in silence, thinking about the case and what a pickle it was. How the hell did you go about finding an unknown assailant from forty-odd years ago?
She pushed out of her seat, put the cup on the filing cabinet, then smiled at Winter. “Wish me luck, sir, because it looks like I’m going to bloody need it.”
“Sleep on it and come in tomorrow raring to go.”
“I don’t know about raring, sir, but I’ll give it my best.”
Chapter Twelve
Tracy joined Damon in the incident room. “Anything else come up while I was gone?” She half hoped there would be so they could catch this sick bastard sooner rather than later, but at the same time, she’d had enough and needed her home comforts. Nothing like your arse stuck to your sofa, drink in hand, and the TV on to make all life’s ills disappear for a while, was there?
“Nope.” Damon smiled. “Want me to cook tonight?”
She shook her head, not wanting to wait as long as it took for him cook from scratch. While his meals were lovely, and she was grateful for them, sometimes a bit of junk food was needed to soothe the soul. “I don’t know about you, but I fancy one of those fresh pizzas from Morrisons. They only take twenty minutes in the oven, don’t they? You up for that?”
“It’ll do. Quick and easy. I fancy a beer as well. Let’s go the whole hog, eh? Eat and drink unhealthy shit.”
Tracy wasn’t going to argue with that.
They left the building, and on the way to the supermarket, the hairs on the back of Tracy’s neck stood on end. She glanced in the rearview and clocked the amount of cars behind her. Three. One red, one blue, one grey. Ford, BMW, and she couldn’t make out the last one—too far away.
The driver behind, in the Ford, a bloke in a black jacket, his blond hair cropped short, was basically up her arse, so she tapped the brake pedal a few times in quick succession to warn him to back off.
Twat.
The BMW was farther back, and she could just make out a redheaded woman. The third, no chance of seeing who was inside.
She made it to Morrisons, as did the following vehicles, and she waited in the car after turning the engine off to see who got out of the others. There was the man, running towards the doorway, trying not to get wet from the sudden onslaught of rain that smacked the tarmac so hard it bounced back up again. The BMW woman popped open a brolly then got out—sensible. The grey car Tracy couldn’t see.
Shrugging, Tracy decided to park the car closer to the entrance. The rain stopped as abruptly as it had started, and she moved to get out.
“Coming in?” she asked.
“Nah, I’ll stay in here, if you don’t mind.”
She went into the shop, leaving Damon to browse on his phone. She went to the fresh food section and stared at the pizzas on offer. Selecting a meat feast, she then zipped down the alcohol aisle to pick up a bottle of red and a four-pack of Corona. Her ears buzzed inside, as though bugs ferreted about in them, and, uneasy, she turned her head to check her surroundings.
People shopped as usual, taking no notice of her whatsoever. A toddler stared her way and poked his tongue out. Tracy returned the gesture, and the child wailed.
Quickly, Tracy went to the till and waited in the queue, thinking of Colin Spinks, a victim in a previous case, and how he’d stood in an Asda queue holding a bag of Pampers for his baby daughter, not knowing he wouldn’t make it home.
She shivered.
Life was so damn unpredictable, wasn’t it?
With two people in front of her, she had time to contemplate how people lived such different lives. Some were so lucky not to experience any form of abuse whatsoever, while others, like herself, had it in spades. Did the universe pick certain people to throw shit at or what? Spinks had also been abused—mentally and sometimes physically by his mother, although he hadn’t been her biological son. The woman’s diary had been filled with what she’d done to him over the years, and it had churned Tracy’s stomach, yet oddly, she’d also felt a sliver of pity for her. She’d endured so much, so it wasn’t any wonder she’d gone a bit skew-whiff in the head.
The conveyor belt had some space on it now one of the customers had gone, so Tracy grabbed a grocery divider and popped her things down. She stared around the shop to stop herself from thinking too much. The Past wasn’t the best place to revisit, and that reminded her to look up a reputable therapist when she got home. It really was time to face a few things. It would be hard, but she’d have to plough through it. Keeping it all locked up inside was asking for trouble. It festered, poisoned her every time a snippet of a memory managed to escape.
She couldn’t allow it to go on. It wasn’t healthy for her or Damon.
Then it was her turn to be served.
“Need a bag, love?” The cashier whipped Tracy’s goods over the barcode reader. The blips indicated she ought to get her card out and pay instead of just standing there, spaced out like Chrissy Ordsall had been.
She hoped the woman had managed to get back to sleep.
“Please,” Tracy managed.
“Looks like a nice night in,” the cashier said, nodding knowingly at Tracy’s purchases and baring her teeth in a disturbing grin—one of those weird characters from horror movies. “Need help with your packing?”
Tracy said please again. She appreciated the blonde woman bagging her things had probably been taught to converse while working, but Tracy wasn’t the best person to try that with. Much as she wished she could natter and reveal an insight into her life to a stranger, she couldn’t. So she smiled tightly, hovered her card over the machine for a contactless payment, then grabbed her bag and the receipt.
“Have a nice night,” the cashier said, her smile somewhat forced this time.
Tracy would bet the woman said something entirely different in her head: Have the shittiest night ever, you moody bitch.
Tracy owned that title already and had the crown that went with it.
She wore it often.
As she walked past the cigarette counter, her neck hairs bristled again. She frowned and cast her gaze about, taking in forty or so things at once, as she’d been trained to do. Absolutely nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Until she caught sight of a woman with long purple hair and black-framed glasses.
Tracy’s heartbeat accelerated, and she shot over to the magazine rack that stood in front of the fresh sandwiches and chilled drinks. The woman scooted away, eyes wide, towards the greeting cards.
Tracy, not mincing wor
ds, said, “Who the fuck are you?” and slapped her hand on the creepy fucker’s shoulder. “You were behind my car at the police station, too. Turn around. Now.”
She did, and Tracy could have died and gone to Hell. It wasn’t who she’d suspected it was.
It wasn’t Lisa.
“Oh, Jesus, I am so sorry,” Tracy said, removing her hand. “I’m a police officer, and I thought you were someone else.”
The woman’s eyes watered, and her face flushed bright red. “It’s…it’s okay.”
That stammer would haunt Tracy for a while yet.
Shit.
She shook her head as if to show the poor love she really was apologetic, then left the shop, her cheeks hot, nerves pinging. It was no good. She was going to have to stop this malarkey, thinking Lisa was hanging about at every turn. If she spoke to her again, she’d just have to reinforce what she’d told her before.
Fuck off and don’t come back—or else.
It was the ‘or else’ bit that prevented Tracy from hauling Lisa in, proving her sister had killed so she could put her away for a long time. It didn’t matter that she’d probably get away with all the murders she’d committed—the ones to do with their insane father, anyway, because Tracy had planted seeds that it had been him who had carried them all out—but there had been a witness to Lisa’s latest one. She’d gutted someone in the recent big case, and she could go down for that, no problem. Lisa had left her scarf at the crime scene—the stupid, thick cow—and there would be DNA on it that would see her locked behind bars, as well as her link to Tracy.
But Tracy wasn’t ready for the inevitable crap Lisa’s arrest would bring. Lisa had threatened to open her mouth about everything, and if she finally did, Damon would then know Tracy had been lying to him for God knew how long.
No, the ‘or else’ wasn’t an option. Not if it meant losing him.
She got in the car, wiping all those terrible thoughts from her mind, and leant across to rest her head on Damon’s shoulder.
“Bloody love you,” she said.
“Blimey. What brought that on?” He put his phone in the centre console.
“Just felt like saying it.” She smiled and started the engine, berating herself for fibbing yet again. Would that ever stop?
She doubted it.
When she pulled out of the car park entrance, she glanced in the rearview mirror. The grey vehicle was right up behind her, and the driver was a woman.
Purple hair. Black glasses. Not the same one as in Morrisons, but a woman Tracy knew only too well.
Fuck. I knew she was around.
Tracy shot out onto the road between two cars, got honked at, put her foot down, and checked the mirror again.
Lisa had been prevented from exiting because of traffic snailing it past her front bumper.
Good. It meant that particular worry could be ignored for a while longer.
“Bloody hell, hold your horses,” Damon said. “What’s the rush?”
“Really hungry,” Tracy said, taking a corner at speed.
“Better to get there in one piece, though, eh?”
She lifted her foot a bit and glanced across at him. He frowned at her. She faced the road and continued on.
“I got a meat feast.” Was that really all she could think of to say? Yes, because saying anything else regarding her exit from the car park could lead to a conversation that might put her in scalding water.
“Lovely. Looking forward to it. Glad to see you’ve slowed down,” he said.
“What do you make of today?” It was a safer topic. Tepid water. She could handle that.
“It’s all a bit of a mess at the moment. Here’s hoping we’ll discover more tomorrow. It feels a bit wrong not to still be working. I mean, there’s a killer out there.”
“But most likely a one-off, going by what we’ve found out so far. Someone was after Irene Roberts and no one else. We can’t do a damn thing while running on fumes, you know that.”
“Hmm.” He sniffed. “Still feels wrong, though.”
“That’s not like you. What’s up?”
“I don’t know. Granted, I’m usually all for getting rest and looking at it the next day with fresh eyes, and I’m a fan of not taking work home with us, even though that’s difficult sometimes, but this case… I don’t know. I think it’s bothering me because she was old. Like a kid case would get to me more, know what I mean?”
She did. All murders were horrific to deal with, but there was something about the more vulnerable in society that gave their deaths a sadder feel. It shouldn’t be that way, but it was.
“We’ll find out soon enough.” Taking his comment about not bringing work home with them into consideration, she said, “What do you fancy watching on telly tonight?”
“No idea. We’ll pick something later.”
They arrived, and once inside, Tracy bunged the pizza in the oven and uncorked the red wine. Slouched upstairs to take off her work clothes and grab a quick shower. She dried herself in the bedroom, and her phone went off with a message tone.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
She sat on the bed, accessed the text, and read:
THAT’S THE SECOND TIME I’VE TRIED TO TALK TO YOU LATELY.
Her stomach bottomed out, and she held a hand to her fast-beating heart. With shaking hands, she tapped out a reply, sick with fear.
WHO IS THIS?
Stupid question. She’d given Lisa her number a while ago. Why hadn’t she changed it since? She waited, breath held.
YOU KNOW WHO IT IS.
Tracy whacked out an immediate response.
I’M WARNING YOU, FUCK OFF. I MEAN IT. DON’T CONTACT ME EVER AGAIN. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I GOT TO TELL YOU THAT?
She closed her eyes and counted to twenty. The text tone went off again, the ding-dong-ding abrading her stretched nerves.
I HAVE SOMETHING TO TELL YOU. I WANT TO REPORT A CRIME.
Tracy laughed at that, albeit quietly. Lisa was something else. Just where did she get off doing shit like this? She plugged in her answer.
THEN CONTACT SOMEONE ELSE. I CAN’T HELP YOU. AND WHEN YOU REPORT IT, DO NOT, AND I BLOODY MEAN THIS, DO NOT TELL THEM YOU ARE MY SISTER OR THAT I KNOW YOU.
She blew out a juddering breath, and a terrible thought entered her mind. If she could kill Lisa and get away with it, she would.
Would I, though?
You did it with John…
Another message came, wrenching her out of that particular idea, and Tracy steeled herself to see her sister whining, cajoling to get her own way.
OKAY. SEE YOU AROUND…
Tracy blinked. That was it? No pressure, no manipulation?
“Fuck, she must be in a good mood.”
“What was that?” Damon asked, walking in to sit beside her.
She’d been so caught up with Lisa, she hadn’t even heard him come up the stairs. Cursing herself, she placed her phone on the bed, screen side to the quilt. The last thing she needed was Damon seeing any message previews if Lisa texted again. He’d see it was an unknown number and question it.
“Oh, I just told myself to get into a good mood,” she said. “Can’t be pleasant for you, can it, me always being grumpy.” And even these types of little lies counted as wrong, something she shouldn’t have to do.
And what did it say about her, spewing them out as easily as she did?
Plus, you want to kill your sister.
Piss off.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Damon shoulder-bumped her. “I happen to like grumpy ladies.” He smiled. “Apart from the likes of Mrs Jones. She’s another species, she is.”
“Tell me if I ever get like her, won’t you?”
Damon rose and walked to the door. “Yep. I draw the line at you behaving like that, although I can kind of predict you’ll head that way in your old age. I can just see you in an apron like hers and all. All flowery. Very fetching…”
She grabbed a pillow and threw it at him, but it misse
d and thudded into the doorframe. “You’d better hope I don’t turn the cold tap on in the sink when you’re in that shower, Hanks.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” he called from the bathroom.
“Try me.”
“No, you’re all right. I prefer my showers hot.”
She smiled, and it faltered when she read through her conversation with Lisa.
Tracy was living on a knife edge. It wasn’t that much different to her childhood, really. Events were out of control because of a family member once again.
Would her nightmare ever end?
She deleted all the messages then got dressed, thinking of how she wished she’d looked at Lisa’s licence plate so she could run a check on it to see if she’d stolen yet another car. She hadn’t even registered what make the vehicle was.
She couldn’t think about that now. It was time to switch into one of her other selves, one who didn’t have the weight of the world on her shoulders.
There wasn’t anything for it except carry on.
But she was used to that.
Chapter Thirteen
He waits in the dark down the street, the taxi warm, a slight breeze sneaking through the open driver’s-side window. They’re there at the top of the T-junction, those women, but Dirty Girl isn’t. He’s tempted to get out and ask some of the others whether the woman he wants will be out tonight at some point, or if she’s just with someone else for the moment, but it isn’t wise to bring attention to himself in that way. Being out of his car like that…
No.
While he observes, he thinks about the task to come, where he has to kill Dirty Girl and skin her, tan her, then make her into a whole new person. A good person. A better one. A woman who can’t cause trouble in a marriage and wreck a child’s life by her actions because said child’s mother lost her fucking mind and expected him to be who he wasn’t.
“Here, Wear these.” Mother hands him some clothing.
“Why, Mummy?”
“Because I said so.”
“But why?”
“Because maybe your father will take more notice of you dressed like that. It’s time to change yourself. Be someone he might like. Then he might stick around instead of doing what he does.”
