‘He was,’ Jill agreed, ‘but we didn’t know that until we’d arrested him.’
‘You never knew it. Until he killed himself, you thought he was me. I had to kill again, just to show you.’
‘We were stupid,’ she agreed. ‘You were the clever one.’
‘Don’t humour me, bitch.’
“I wasn’t. Sorry.’
He suddenly picked up a heavy glass paperweight from her desk and hurled it at the television screen. Glass went everywhere and the noise seemed as if it would never end.
When all was silent, he was listening.
‘What was that?’ he demanded.
“I didn’t hear anything.’
“I did.’
‘These stone walls are two feet thick in places,’ she reminded him. ‘It’s impossible to hear anything. I didn’t hear your van pull up.’
“I didn’t come in my van. I walked.’ He was distracted, listening for sounds. All was silent, except for the thud of Jill’s heartbeat.
He took a dark red, silk scarf from his pocket and wound it around his wrist a few times. He was still listening.
The phone in the sitting room rang out. Jill wondered if she could hurl herself at it, knock it off the hook and yell for help. No. He might be distracted, but he still had a knife and a scarf in his hands. And he was strong. Ridiculously strong.
Again, her recorded voice on the machine shocked her with its light-hearted frivolity.
‘Hi, Jill, it’s Max. We’ve caught Valentine so I reckon I’ll soon be Chief Constable Trentham. You were right; he struck in Preston. We caught him in the act - just as he was removing his trademark hearts from the dead girl’s skin ‘
‘What the -?’ Bob Murphy was furious. His breathing was fast and hard.
‘And he’s confessed to everything,’ Max continued.
‘Thought you’d like to hear the good news. All we have to do now is wait for the cranks to come out of the woodwork. I guess all of Kelton Bridge will claim they’re Valentine - Andy Collins, Tony Hutchinson, Robert Murphy. They’ll all reckon they’re Valentine, but we know the truth. I expect I’ll be stuck in Preston all night so I’ll catch you tomorrow.’
The machine clicked off.
‘Stupid fucking bastards!’ Bob Murphy screamed.
He looked at Jill, as if he expected her to do something about this terrible error.
Hi, Jill, it’s Max. Max never said that. He always said, Hi, it’s me. All that nonsense about Chief Constable Trentham? Max hadn’t been talking to her at all. He’d been talking to Valentine.
‘What the fuck’s going on?’ Screaming with rage, Bob Murphy strode towards the answer machine. He was yanking it from the wall when a single shot rang out.
Jill watched, a sudden numbness claiming her, as Bob Murphy collapsed to the floor.
Blood was seeping into her carpet as he clutched his injured leg. An officer was standing over him, his gun pointing at Murphy’s head.
She looked at Max, but he wasn’t looking her way. He was giving Murphy a vicious kick in the ribs as Fletch and two uniformed officers handcuffed him.
‘If you had any fucking idea,’ Max roared, ‘of the hassle involved every time an officer uses his gun - but you would, wouldn’t you? You’re well read on police procedure.
But remember this, there’s so much fucking hassle involved, that it would be no worse if we blew your fucking brains out.’ He kicked him again. ‘If I thought anyone would so much as mention diminished responsibility, I would blow your fucking brains out!’
Max was breathing heavily; fury in every inhalation.
Murphy was writhing in pain.
Two more uniformed officers came inside and one of them untied Jill.
She was shaking. Every part of her body was shaking, and her teeth had started to chatter.
Max hadn’t glanced at her; that piercing stare of his still hadn’t left Bob Murphy. The gun - and she knew Max was itching to take it from the other officer and pull the trigger - was still aimed at Murphy’s head.
‘Are you all right?’
Jill focused on the officer. She didn’t recognize him.
‘Yes. Yes, I’m fine.’
She had never been less fine. The numbness was quickly wearing off and reaction was setting in. She was suffering from shock.
But she would be all right. Soon.
The wail of a siren announced the arrival of an ambulance.
When Murphy was lifted on to the stretcher, he smiled at Max. It was a smile that chilled Jill.
‘A ten-year-old boy has to watch his beloved mother burn to death?’ he gurgled. ‘That would do terrible damage to a boy’s mind … send him mad, I shouldn’t wonder.
A young boy so damaged, so lacking in love, that he turns his victims into objects of beauty - that’s a damaged mind …’As they carried him away, he was laughing.
Jill knew she would hear the sound of that laughter for the rest of her days. She guessed Max would, too.
Chapter Fifty-Three
An almost full moon lit the path to Jill’s cottage. Max stopped the car, switched off the engine and sat for a moment to watch the shadows dancing around as the moon slid behind small clouds before emerging again.
Three weeks had passed since Murphy had been taken in - Max still wished he’d blown the fucker’s brains out and he hadn’t seen Jill since.
He knew she’d spent a week in Liverpool with her parents before returning to her cottage. Max, guessing she needed time, had left her alone. Perhaps he’d needed time, too.
He’d asked Kate to keep an eye on her. She and the boys had been regular visitors to the cottage over the last fortnight.
‘She’s fine, Max,’ Kate had insisted. ‘Busy. But fine.’
Jill, he knew, was an expert at keeping her feelings well hidden. He wanted to see for himself.
He got out of the car, flicked the button to lock it, and walked up to her front door. He knocked loudly, realized belatedly that he’d probably frightened her half to death, and quickly called out, ‘Jill, it’s me!’
He was expecting to hear the locks being unfastened and the chain being released. What he hadn’t been expecting was for her to call out, ‘It’s open!’
‘For fuck’s sake!’ He barged through the door and she was standing two feet from him. ‘Is it really so difficult to lock a bloody door?’
‘No. Sorry, Max.’ She laughed, and Max had to admit it sounded carefree and relaxed. Perhaps, after all, she was doing OK.
“I don’t suppose you’re expecting a takeaway?’ he asked hopefully.
‘Nope. Are you hungry?’
‘Only when I thought of a takeaway’ He spotted a bottle and a glass of red wine on the coffee table. ‘I’ll have a glass of wine though, if you’re offering.’
She fetched a glass from the kitchen and filled it from the bottle. ‘So is this a professional or a social call?’
‘Purely social.’ He took off his jacket, threw it over the back of a chair, and sat on the sofa. ‘Thanks.’ He took the glass from her and tasted the wine. ‘That’s not bad at all.’
She sat beside him, looking very relaxed.
Two suitcases sat in the corner of the room, he noticed.
‘Are you going somewhere?’
‘Spain,’ she replied. ‘Just for a week. It was a spur of the moment thing. I booked it on the internet yesterday’
‘Very nice. You can buy me a beach bar while you’re there. So how have you been?’
‘I’m good, Max. You?’
He wouldn’t say he was good, although he was improving by the minute.
‘Not bad. No nightmares?’ he asked.
She looked at him then. Straight at him. ‘A couple,’ she admitted, ‘but they’ve been different. In these, you’ve been coming towards me, I’ve turned to run and come face to face with Bob Murphy swinging from a rope.’
‘There’s an easy answer to that.’ He ran his finger round the rim of his glass.
&nb
sp; ‘Oh?’
‘Stop running from me.’
‘Perhaps you’re right.’ She laughed again. ‘But no, I’m good. Although I’m still pissed off at myself for being so stupid.’ She shook her head. ‘He was everything my damn profile said he was - including sexually dysfunctional, no doubt. Creep! He lived alone, right on the very edge of Kelton Bridge, he’s as strong as a bloody ox, and the worst thing is that Ella had told me about the fire that killed his mother. Why the bloody hell didn’t I take note? God, no wonder he thinks we’re all idiots. He’s right. Cheeky bastard - coming to my cottage to work for me, putting envelopes through my letterbox, leaving bloody roses and candles on my kitchen table …’
‘Hindsight is a wonderful gift, kiddo.’ Max sprawled back on her sofa. He was relieved to hear her able to talk about it.
‘Sometimes,’ she said slowly, “I wonder what would have happened if you hadn’t driven out to Preston, if you hadn’t seen the name of that construction company, if you hadn’t put two and two together.’
They both knew the answer to that one: she would have been in the morgue.
‘When he threw that paperweight at the television -‘ She shuddered. ‘He was really losing it then, Max.’
“I know. That’s why I had to get him away from you leave that message on the machine and hope it both
angered him enough and distracted him enough for us to manage a shot at him.’
Jill fetched the bottle and refilled her glass. She was about to fill his.
‘I’m driving,’ he told her, ‘so unless I can persuade some lovely young lady to give me the use of her sofa for the night …’
‘Just don’t wake me when you go. My plane doesn’t leave until the afternoon and I’ve promised myself a lie-in.’
Smiling, she refilled his glass.
Something had changed, and Max didn’t know what. He liked it, liked it a lot, but he felt as if he was on stage with the wrong script.
‘Don’t suppose you fancy a quick shag, do you?’ he murmured.
She gave a burst of laughter, as she always had. It was a sound from long ago, a sound that brought a lump to his throat.
‘Don’t push your luck, Trentham. You might have saved my life, but if you were a half-decent detective, my life wouldn’t have needed saving in the first place.’
‘Given the help of a psychologist - one without a penchant for inviting maniacs into her home for late night coffee and chat - I might make a half-decent detective one day.’
‘Ha!’ She punched him in the ribs before giving another sigh of contentment.
‘So how are the boys?’ she asked. ‘And the dogs? Is Holly settling in? Oh, and did I tell you I’m coming back to work next month?’
‘No. Really?’
‘Yup. I’m getting this book of mine finished, then I’m back on the job.’
‘That’s great.’
‘Yeah. So how are the boys?’
As he drank his wine, he told her about Harry and Ben.
He talked of Fly and Holly.
‘Holly’s doing great,’ he said. “I think, thanks to her, that Fly is finally learning what fetch means.’
Jill hadn’t heard. She was fast asleep.
Max wasn’t sleepy. He was busy thinking how good life was. His sons were happy and healthy, he had a job he enjoyed for the most part, Valentine was gone from their lives, and the woman he loved was sleeping nearby. Life couldn’t be better.
Well, it would have been better if the wine bottle hadn’t been empty but, hey, a man couldn’t have everything.
The End.
Kennedy 01 - Into the Shadows Page 28
