by Carol Wyer
Jeanette lowered her gaze. Ross squeezed her hand.
‘Don’t take it out on Jeanette,’ he said in a low, even voice. ‘She only means well.’
Robyn sighed. ‘I’m so sorry, Jeanette. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I was out of order. I can’t get it out of my head. I should never have insisted on joining him in Morocco. I was a distraction. I knew better but I went anyway.’
‘We’ve been through this before,’ said Ross. ‘It wasn’t your fault. Davies was a careful, cautious and professional man. His mind would have been on the job and the ambush was something he hadn’t suspected. You’re going to have to let go of that guilt. It’s eating you away – literally,’ he continued, nodding at her thin frame. ‘We’re your friends. We know how tough it’s been but it is time to move on and put this all behind you.’
‘Brigitte said pretty much the same and even asked if I was seeing anyone yet. Not in so many words but she was telling me the same thing. It’s time to move on. I just wish I were able to. I am sorry, Jeanette.’
‘I know. It’s fine,’ replied Jeanette. ‘But listen to your friends. We have your best interests at heart.’
The conversation was interrupted by Robyn’s mobile. She raised her eyebrows in apology as she took the call, moving towards the house while Jeanette and Ross chatted.
‘There’s been another murder, Boss,’ said Mitz Patel. ‘It’s Mary Matthews.’
‘Lucas’s wife. Where?’
‘Her house. I went around to break the news about her husband and found her.’
‘I’m on my way. Ask PC Marker to join us and to bring Anna with him.’
She returned to her friends.
‘So sorry, I have to cut and run. Another murder. It’s Mary Matthews. This is becoming crazy.’
Ross nodded gravely. ‘It’s turning into a right bloodbath. It’s times like this I’m glad I’m out of it all.’
‘Me too,’ said Jeanette, holding his hand. ‘Take care, Robyn, and don’t get too bogged down. The job can suck the life out of you if you don’t watch it.’
With that warning ringing in her ears, she headed off to Mulwood Avenue, wondering how many more people were going to be murdered before she uncovered the killer.
37
Then
It was only a matter of time before I caught him. I’ve been biding my time forever since I found out where he was working. It’s taken me over two years to track him down but it’s all been worth it.
From my vantage point I can see him. I watch his bare backside as he performs an indecent act upon a girl who is little more than twelve. She is one of his pupils. I watched them leave her house. She’s dressed in school uniform and carrying a flute case. I followed them here to the woods. This is not her first time with him. She came freely. She is infatuated with him. She would be. He’s her music tutor and makes her feel important and grown up while she is a naive young girl who believes the lies her teacher tells her.
I take several photographs of him, his mouth open as he climaxes and of the girl – dark hair in plaits, large hazel eyes – who has no idea that this man is a monster.
I fight back the loathing and urge to drag him out of his car and smash his head against the pavement. I have to play it clever. ‘Think of the endgame,’ says my father.
‘I always do,’ I reply.
Ten minutes later and he is on the move. He takes the girl to McDonald’s and then back to her house. She waves as she goes back inside to the safety of her family, who have no idea that she has not been to a music practice.
He heads off to his own home where he has a wife waiting for him. I am as sickened by him now as I was all those years ago. A leopard does not change his spots and Lucas Matthews is as depraved now as he was then.
I watch as he pulls up to his large house and the gates close behind him. He may think he is safe and secure but he is not. I send one of the photographs to his email address and a message:
I want fifteen thousand pounds or I shall ruin your life.
I offer him a temporary email address for his reply. I shall ditch it once I receive an answer. It is live for up to twenty-four hours. I’m sure he’ll reply before then.
Of course, I don’t really care about the money. I’m going to give it to my mother to help her buy a new place to live. Ever since Dirk passed away having snorted a fatal mixture of cocaine laced with rat poison, she’s been at a loose end and I worry she’ll go back on the game to make ends meet. At the moment, she’s working in a casino and can just about afford the rent on the house each month, but I can never tell with her. She sometimes wastes her earnings on going to a beauty salon or tanning shop, or on really expensive shoes. She’s been putting it about in an attempt to get another boyfriend, but after being with Dirk, not many men are keen to go out with her.
To be honest, she looks a bit ropy these days. She tries too hard. She’s bleached her hair white blonde and her tops are always too low, displaying her wares that aren’t as attractive as they once were. I was at her house last night when a taxi driver brought her home drunk. She tried to pay him with sex but he was a decent man and helped carry her to our door.
‘I’ve got a wife and a kid,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want my wife to throw herself at someone ’cos she was drunk.’
I felt a rush of gratitude and paid him out of the tea caddy that houses our food money.
If she gets enough money she’ll move away. She says she wants to go to the seaside – Devon or Cornwall. She’s had enough of city and town life. She wants to breathe in fresh air, buy a little dog and walk along the beach each morning. I hope she takes the money and rents there. I would visit her often if she moved by the sea. If this works out, I’ll ask Lucas for a larger amount of money. It’s the least he can do for her. I don’t need his money. What I really want is Lucas’s head on a plate and I shall get that in time.
38
Jackson ran his hand through his hair, turned and paced the room for the fifth time. Abigail was sniffling on the settee, her eyes red-rimmed, and her face gaunt.
‘We must contact the police,’ he said. ‘This should be reported.’
She raised her face to his. ‘No,’ she said, so quietly he almost didn’t hear it. ‘It’s my fault this has happened.’
He dropped down beside her. ‘How? How can you be blamed for our cat being murdered.’
‘We’re being targeted by someone.’
‘What?’
‘Some creep is trying to destroy our lives. It started a couple of weeks ago. A threatening note was posted through the letter box. It was made up from words cut out of a newspaper. It was about keeping secrets,’ she added, not wishing to tell him the exact wording. ‘This has all been about keeping secrets. Just before I found Toffee, I got a text saying, “This is what happens to people who keep secrets.”’
Jackson’s eyes grew large. ‘Secrets? This is mad. Someone who thinks you’re keeping secrets killed Toffee. Show me the text.’
Her hand trembled. ‘I can’t. The text has vanished.’
‘What do you mean “vanished”?’
‘It disappeared almost as soon as I read it.’
‘You deleted it?’
‘No. It just went.’
Jackson frowned. ‘That’s not possible. Did you press a button by mistake? You could easily have deleted it by mistake.’
‘It’s not the only text to disappear,’ she continued. ‘The text saying you were keeping secrets from me vanished too.’
Jackson rubbed his forehead as if it ached, his eyes were pained and eyebrows furrowed. ‘You have had texts from a stalker that have disappeared,’ he repeated slowly, assimilating the information.
Abigail began to get irked. Jackson was not buying into her version of events. She continued more, her voice more urgent. ‘And, I received a phone call from someone who said they were going to destroy me and everyone I care about.’
‘Abby, this is really serious.’
She igno
red him and continued, ‘Then things began to happen. My Facebook account was hacked. I’m sure it was hacked by the stalker. The bastard wrote dreadful comments to my friends and posted a picture of the photograph that’s in our bedroom. Only someone who got into our house could have had access to that picture.’
She let her words sink in.
‘Then, there were more telephone calls. The creep uses a voice-altering device so I don’t know who it is. It’s really unnerving.’
She took a breath but could not look Jackson in the face. She would have to tell him she knew about his affair and soon she would have to divulge her own secrets and she was fearful of his reaction. This could be the very end of their relationship. She began to become less coherent, eager to explain what had been happening, her words falling from her lips without thought.
‘And then what about the noises I heard over the baby monitor? Somebody was in the house. I’m sure of it now. I wasn’t at the time. I thought it might be my imagination but now I’m positive someone was in Izzy’s room. This lunatic is spying on us and knows everything we do. That’s why I had to have the locks changed. I know you didn’t believe me at the time. I didn’t make it clear enough.’
Jackson took a while to register what she was saying. ‘This could be dangerous. Look what the nutcase has done to our cat. This is the work of somebody malicious, cruel and depraved. He could do the same to us. Fetch the note he sent you. It’s evidence. We’ll phone the police and tell them what’s been happening and move out for a few days until they can find out who it is.’
‘It’s gone,’ she said. ‘The stalker broke in and took it.’
Jackson shook his head in disbelief. ‘How? We’ve got a burglar alarm. It hasn’t gone off and there’s only you and me know the code. Hang on; you changed the codes the other day just before you changed all the locks. You said it was because you’d read somewhere they should be changed every few years. Why didn’t you tell me then?’
‘I thought I could handle it myself. I figured once the locks were changed that would be the end of it. I’d get rid of the son-of-a-bitch. I was going to threaten them with the police.’
‘You should have said something at the time, Abby. Why didn’t you? We could have alerted the police. You shouldn’t have kept this to yourself.’
‘I was frightened and I thought it was a horrible joke. I wanted it to end but the person kept phoning me and telling me things.’
‘What things?’
‘Things about you. They told me you were keeping secrets, Jackson. Then they sent me proof that you were.’
Jackson pinched the bridge of his nose then let out a long sigh. In her heightened state of anxiety, she mistook it for disbelief.
‘Someone did break in. Some crazy has been spying on me. They watch what I’m doing.’ She looked at Jackson, his face unreadable. ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
He slumped down next to her on the settee and put a warm hand on her knee. She pushed it away, a rush of anger replacing the feeling of self-doubt and anxiety.
‘I believe you but what evidence have you got, Abby?’ he asked, quietly. ‘We have to have something to show the police. I can’t go to them and tell them my wife is terrified because someone has sent her messages we no longer have, and has had her Facebook account hacked. Facebook will deal with that anyway. I can’t tell the police you received a threatening note that was then stolen from a house with top-of-the-range security alarms fitted. They’d find it hard to believe any of it, including you thinking you see people in our baby’s nursery. You can understand that, can’t you? They’ll maybe even assume you are making it up. This person hasn’t attacked you or threatened to kill you or harm you. They’ve just messed with your head. And we can’t even be sure this madman killed Toffee. The text that disappeared might be unconnected to his death. I’m trying to look at this logically, Abby. I want to believe you but we can’t waste police time with this. The worst crime is that Toffee has been killed but I’m not even sure they’ll be able to help with that. We simply don’t have concrete proof that some psycho is menacing us.’
She hesitated a moment, now infuriated that Jackson was making her sound like a crazy woman. Toffee was dead. Someone was to blame and Jackson was treating her like an idiot. She crossed her arms. ‘I’ve got evidence. I have an email with attachments,’ she said, her voice rising as the upset finally bubbled up inside her. ‘This crackpot who keeps ringing, told me you were having an affair and I didn’t believe them but now I have proof.’ Her voice was no longer quiet. She allowed the pent-up frustration and anger flood her body. All pretence at normality was gone. She could no longer hold back the fury that spilled out of every pore in her body. ‘And don’t try and deny it. I know you are, you lying, cheating bastard.’
Jackson’s eyes widened. ‘We talked about this before. Whatever makes you think I’m having an affair?’ he replied vehemently.
She spat, ‘Someone knows you are. They’ve been spying on you too so you can drop the innocent pretence!’ Her eyes blazed as words like weapons were hurled at him. ‘They witnessed your sordid display, Jackson. They watched and waited for you to do it again and photographed you having sex and then they sent me the evidence. I could barely look at those photographs. They made me want to be sick. How could you? How could you have sex with one of my friends? It all fits because when you were supposedly flying to Spain instead of James, Zoe was also away at some made-up conference. I hate her for this. I hate you both.’ She suddenly raised both hands in a gesture of comprehension. ‘That’s it. That’s what the text message meant. “This is what happens to people who hide the truth.” This is about you. The text was referring to you keeping secrets. It’s all been about you and your damn affair. It’s your fault Toffee is dead.’
Jackson gave her a long look. ‘This is some huge mistake. Someone is messing with you. This is ludicrous. I would never do such a thing, angel,’ he pleaded. ‘I can’t believe you’d think I would. Show me these photographs. There must be some logical explanation.’
‘Don’t you call me “angel”, you cheat.’
She scrabbled frantically inside her handbag on the floor beside the settee, and lifted out her mobile. She stabbed at some buttons. Then stabbed again. A look of bewilderment fell across her face. ‘I can’t find the email. It’s vanished and so have all the downloaded photographs. They were there earlier.’
She moved across the room to the computer and powered it up, her fingers hovering over the keyboard, her hands beginning to shake. She typed her password and gained access to her emails, scrolling through them all and checking deleted boxes. ‘It’s not here,’ she said again. ‘It’s been deleted. How can that have happened? This bloody psycho’s gained access to my emails now and deleted them. There were photographs.’ Her voice trailed off. She hardly dared to glance in his direction.
Jackson stood to face her and scowled. ‘Listen to yourself, Abigail. This all sounds ridiculous. It’s like some bad plot on a television soap.’
‘Don’t be so ruddy patronising,’ she howled. ‘Shut up and listen to me instead of being so defensive.’
Jackson glared at her. ‘I’ll listen when you start making sense and when this email turns up you can show the photographs to me. That is, if they really exist. Or maybe they’re like the magical disappearing person in the house and the texts that have vanished and the threatening note that can’t be found.’
‘Of course they exist.’
‘Have you proof of any of this, Abigail? Have you anything at all? Because from where I’m standing, I can only see a highly strung woman who is making preposterous accusations that she can’t substantiate. I accept that you are upset because of what has happened to Toffee but the rest of this is little short of lunacy.’
‘Wait a minute. I am not backing down. I have got proof I’m not making all of this up. I won’t have you look at me like I’m barmy.’ As she scrolled through her phone call log, Abigail felt ill. The call log had bee
n erased. She now had no proof that she had ever received or made any calls to the unknown number. She threw the phone onto the floor in one angry gesture.
‘The call log has vanished too. And before you say anything, I am not making this up. Everything I’ve told you happened. I know some wacko came into our home, which is why I had the locks changed, and I have been getting calls from that person. All the time I thought it was my fault this was happening and it turns out it’s yours. I know about your sleazy affair with Zoe. Those photographs were of you both.’ She choked on her words.
Jackson rounded on her. ‘For the last time, I am not having, nor have ever had an affair with anyone and certainly not with Zoe. I thought you knew me better than that. Ring her. Ask her. Ask her or accuse her and see what her reaction is. This is descending into farce. I thought it was about Toffee and you being stalked. I thought it was about being menaced and getting threatening calls but you’ve turned it all around into some quarrel about me shagging women. What’s going on? Have you been making some of this stuff up to get more attention from me, or are you so insecure about our relationship that you have to throw all this nonsense about? For crying out loud, Abigail.’ He stopped, turned on his heel and marched towards the door.
‘Jackson, where are you going?’ she screamed.
‘To bury our cat and then I’m going out before I say something I’ll regret. When you’re less hysterical we’ll talk again. You’re not making sense. I don’t know what’s going on any more, Abby. Ever since we had Izzy you’ve pushed me away and now all this. I don’t know which malevolent person killed Toffee but I do know you’re not yourself. I’m beginning to wonder if you shouldn’t see a doctor. You’re stressed.’
