by Amy Cross
“Hello, Ophelia,” Daniel Gregory said with a smile. “I had a feeling I might run into you here.”
Chapter Fifteen
Fourteen years ago
Although the music had been playing in the distance for a few minutes now, there was still no sign of the ice cream truck.
“He's in the next street,” said a man as he walked past. Stopping, he looked at Becky for a moment. “Did you hear me? He's not coming down this street. He's in the next one.”
With a fifty-pence piece in her hand, she turned and looked at him. He wasn't too old, looked about the same age as her friend Mary's older sister Donna, and she knew Donna was twenty-one. He had an easy smile, too, like Mr. Cripps from school, which immediately made her like him a little bit.
“You want me to show you?” he asked.
“I'm not allowed to talk to strangers,” she told him.
“But you're allowed to go to the ice cream truck, aren't you?”
She paused, before nodding.
“So come on, then. You don't have to talk to me. Just follow me to the next street and you'll see the truck.” With that, he turned and started to walk away. The way he walked was a little weird, she realized; he swung his arms more than most people, and his legs seemed looser. After a moment he glanced back at her and smiled, but he kept on going, which meant she didn't have much time to decide.
Looking down at the coin in her hand, Becky tried to work out what she was allowed to do. She knew that talking to strangers was wrong, and there was no way she wanted to disobey her mother, but at the same time she had been given permission to go to the ice cream truck, and if it was in the next street, that wasn't too far to go. She'd been to the next street by herself once before, when she was looking for Donna, and nothing awful had happened. She watched as the man disappeared around the corner, and then she began to run after him, suddenly worried that the truck would leave before she could get to it.
“That's right,” he said as she ran past him. “Go on, hurry up! You can make it!”
Racing to the next street, she immediately saw the truck in the distance. A boy was buying an ice cream, but as Becky started running to catch up, the truck started moving again. By the time she reached the boy, the truck was already long gone and she felt her heart sink as she realized that, yet again, she'd been too late.
It's gone,” the boy told her with a smile, licking his ice cream as he went back into his house. “You should've got here sooner.”
With tears in her eyes, Becky listened to the truck's music as it headed away.
“It doesn't wait forever,” the boy added, taking another lick. “It goes when it thinks there's no-one else around. That's why you should've got here sooner. Remember that next time.” With that, he headed into his house, licking his ice cream again.
Turning to go back home, Becky saw that the man was walking toward her.
“Where's your ice cream?” he asked, stopping next to a red car and searching through his pockets. He muttered something under his breath as he flicked some lint away, and finally he fished a set of keys out. “Eh?” he continued, glancing at her. “You eaten it already, have you?”
“I was too late,” she replied.
“Seriously?” He looked genuinely shocked, as if it was the worst news he'd ever heard. “Well, that's awful. I swear, those trucks never stop for long enough, do they? You have to be so lucky to get out in time, I know I'm always bolting out the door as soon as I hear the music. I bet your mother spent too long finding some money in her purse, didn't she?”
Becky considered the matter for a moment, before nodding.
“Typical. Mum's are always like that, aren't they?” Unlocking his car door, he sat in the driver's seat and the whole car, which seemed old and a little beaten up, seemed to creak. “I know the route that truck takes,” he continued. “I'd offer to drive you to catch up n'all, but...” He paused, watching her carefully for a moment. “Well, you're a smart little girl, I can tell that. You know not to talk to strangers, don't you? I bet your mum's drilled that into your head, hasn't she?”
She nodded.
“And you've already talked to me, and I'm a stranger. To you, I mean. If you think about it, from my point of view in this situation, you're the stranger.”
She nodded again.
“But you're just a little girl, so I should think I'll be okay. How old are you, love?”
She paused, not sure whether she was allowed to answer. “Five,” she said eventually.
“Five, eh?” A different kind of smile crossed his face, more thoughtful than his earlier broad grin. “And what's your name?”
She sniffed. “Becky.”
“Nice one. Well, Becky, maybe you should chalk this one up to experience. Go home and tell your mother to be quicker next time, okay? Tell her the fate of the universe rests on you getting an ice cream. If you wanna know the trick I got my mum to use, way back when, I got her to put a fifty pence on the window-sill and it was only to be used for ice cream trucks. That way, as soon as you hear the music, you can run out. Ask her nicely if she'll do that, eh?”
“I will.”
“And good luck. These ice cream trucks are like wild animals. You have to study them and learn their behavior, and you have to work out how to stalk them until you strike. Don't worry, kid, you'll get the hang of it eventually. Once you get really good at it, you'll be catching five or six a day.”
She smiled, and then she laughed.
“Keep safe.”
Pulling the door shut, he started his car's engine. Or rather, he tried to start it, since the car seemed to cough and splutter, as if it wasn't really going to go anywhere.
Making her way slowly back along the street, Becky looked down at the coin in her hand. She could still hear the truck's music in the distance, but it was getting further away and she knew it wouldn't be back for weeks. The man had been right: her mother had taken ages to find a coin in her purse, and it had been those lost seconds that had cost her a chance to get to the truck. Turning a corner, she told herself it was dumb to be so upset about an ice cream, so she -
Stopping suddenly, she saw a red car parked up ahead, with one of its doors open.
She squinted slightly as she tried to work out whether it was the same red car that the man had been trying to start a couple of minutes ago. She paused, before starting to walk again, even though she was certain by now that the man was sitting in his car and waiting for her. As she got closer, she saw him holding his hand out, with a tub of ice cream. It was barely possible to believe what she was seeing.
“Where did you get that?” she asked, stopping next to his car.
“I caught up to the truck,” he replied with a smile. “This beaten up old jalopy can actually go pretty fast when it gets started. Go on, take it. It's yours.”
She shook her head.
“Why not?”
“Because you're a stranger.”
“Yeah, but...” Pausing, he shrugged before setting the ice cream down carefully on the pavement. “Well, it's yours if you want it, kid. I broke a bit of a sweat. I hope you realize, I had to break the speed limit to get it for you. I mean, I could have got myself into a whole lot of trouble. If a policeman had been in the area, he'd have stopped me for sure, and I don't think he'd have bought my explanation, not for a moment. I'd've been in quite a lot of trouble, wouldn't I? Me and the policemen already don't get on too well.”
Reaching down, she picked up the tub.
“Thank you,” she told him.
“You're welcome.”
Peeling the lid off the tub, she realized the little wooden spoon was missing. She sighed, realizing that she'd come so close but that, yet again, the gods seemed determined to keep her from having any ice cream. She'd have to go home before she could eat.
“What's up?” the guy asked.
“Nothing. I'll get a spoon at home.”
“You could just lick it. Like a dog.”
She smiled.
>
“What's up?” he asked. “You think I'm silly?”
“A bit.”
“I got me one too,” he replied, opening another tub. Holding it up to his face, he began to lick the ice cream out with his tongue, which seemed unusually, almost freakishly long. “See? Go on, you try.”
She paused, but the man seemed to be watching her very, very closely, and she felt a little uncomfortable.
“Oh, I think I've got a spare spoon here,” he replied, leaning across the the passenger seat and opening the glove compartment. “I can see you're embarrassed. Yeah, come here. I've got one for you.”
Glancing both ways along the empty street, Becky paused for a moment before stepping over to the car. She watched as the man fumbled in his glove compartment, and finally he turned to her, holding out a small wooden spoon in a plastic packet.
“Ta-da!” he said with a smile. “Your spoon, my lady.”
“Thank you,” she said again, taking the spoon and then turning to walk away.
“Oh, and hey -”
Suddenly he clamped a hand over her mouth and pulled her back into the car. She struggled, but he placed a wet cloth across her face and she felt her nose starting to sting. As she began to pass out, she heard the door being slammed shut and the sound of keys jangling. The man cursed a few times, struggling to get the engine going, and then the car began to move. She tried to get up, to push the cloth from over her face, but her arms felt heavy and tired, and her nose really stung by now. A moment later, she realized she was falling asleep, just as the man put the radio on and starting singing along loudly to the music.
Chapter Sixteen
Today
“No!” she screamed, as they dragged her to the bed and slammed her down.
One of them held her by the throat while the other set the handcuffs around her wrist. She didn't make it easy. She kicked and punched and bit, but they managed to get her secured before stepping back and watching as she tugged on the handcuffs. They turned to one another, relieved that they'd got the job done, as she screamed and tugged on the handcuffs.
***
“I once watched my father tie a dog to a stake,” Daniel Gregory said calmly a little while later, sitting in the corner of the room and staring at the curtainless window. “Then he walked into the barn and fetched an ax. As soon as the dog saw the ax, it began to panic, but it couldn't get free from the stake. It pulled and pulled, and it let out this, I don't know, like a scream. Like it was crying, maybe for its mother. Its mother had died a few minutes earlier, you see, so it could probably smell her blood. And see it, too, on my father's hands. It knew what was coming.” He paused for a moment, before turning to her. “Oh yes, it knew alright. Sorry. You just reminded me of the dog earlier. That same frantic panic.”
Sitting up on the bed, Ophelia stared back at him with wild, petrified eyes.
“You know,” he continued, “getting tied to a bed in a remote farmhouse is desperately unlucky, but getting tied to a bed in a remote farmhouse on two separate occasions is starting to seem a little like carelessness.”
He watched her for a moment.
“Has anyone ever told you, Ophelia, that you have remarkably powerful eyes? I could quite imagine death rays firing out of them.”
A flicker of emotion crossed her face, but she remained silent.
“How are you doing there?” he asked. “I'm glad you finally stopped calling for help, so that I could come in and talk to you. There's no-one else around, no-one to hear you, although I'm sure you remember that being the case from the last time you were here.” He waited again for a reply, and finally he began to smile. “You've no idea how easy it was to steer you here. I knew you'd come back as soon as you realized your little secret was out, and I found a way to track your phone so I knew when you'd start your journey. The hard part was figuring your little secret out in the first place, since you'd wrapped it up in several layers of obfuscation, but when I had that eureka moment, I knew I could use it. I just had to wait, and find the right time. And now here you are, right where I want you, and at more or less the most convenient time, too. Thank you.”
He paused.
“Nothing to say, Ophelia?”
Silence.
“You mustn't take it personally,” he added. “I have no problem with you whatsoever, it's just unfortunate that you've become mixed up with Laura Foster. If it wasn't for that fact, I never would have even noticed your existence.”
Hearing a creak on the floorboards outside the room, Ophelia looked over at the door. She expected Joe Lewis to walk in, but after a moment she realized he seemed to be waiting outside.
“Ignore him,” Gregory said. “Look at me.”
Another creak.
“Hey.” Gregory snapped his fingers, as it he was determined to command her attention. “He's nothing. He doesn't matter, not yet. It's me you should be worried about.”
She turned to him.
“Do you know what it's like,” he continued, “to murder a complete stranger and get away with it? I thought that was the whole point, that sensation of having power over someone else. I thought that if I could get away with the damn thing, I'd be fulfilled, that the knowledge of what I'd done would be a kind of fuel for my soul. But when that jury cleared me of Natasha Simonsen's murder, I felt instead... not relief, which is what you'd expect, but...” He paused, looking down at his hands as if he was struggling to find the right words. “It was the worst day of my life. I looked at the jury after the verdict had been read out, and I thought... How dare you? How dare you think that I'm too dumb, or too nice, to have pulled off this crime? How dare you underestimate me so grievously? I had to play the part of the injured, falsely-accused victim, of course, but deep down I was seething. I realized that I wanted their adulation.”
After staring at him for a moment, Ophelia turned and started trying to find a weakness in the handcuffs.
“And it was all because of that stupid bitch,” he continued. “Laura Foster. She knew it was me, her instinct was spot on, I think she had me pegged from the start, but she messed up the case and left me looking like an innocent man. She's a rather startling mixture of brilliance and ineptitude, isn't she? Of course, I knew right away that as soon as the dust had settled a little, I'd do it all again, and I knew I'd bring Laura Foster crashing down in the process. I have to punish her for her mistakes. The problem is, almost two years have passed and every day I've been thinking of more and more ways to pull this off, so matters have become a little complicated. And of course you turned up, which made it even more difficult. Still, I've got it all worked out now. I'm going to -”
“Kill me,” she said suddenly.
He paused. “I'm sorry?”
“You'd better kill me,” she told, her voice sounding icy and calm, “because if you don't, and if I find a way out of here, I'll kill you.”
He smiled. “You've crossed that line, have you? The line that separates those who've killed a fellow human being from those who haven't? There's no going back once you've done that. Once a killer, always a killer. Welcome to the club.”
“He deserved it,” she said firmly.
“Ah,” he replied, “of course, the late Mr. Renton. The previous man who saw fit to hold you against your will in this rundown little house. Quite a peculiar chap, from what I've gathered. Younger than your average psychopathic predator, and afflicted with some serious but for the most part undiagnosed developmental problems. It can't have been very comfortable, being held prisoner by such an unstable individual. Tell me, how long did that ordeal last? Were you here for the full fourteen years you were missing?”
She stared at him. “Eleven,” she said finally.
“Eleven years? So from the age of five to the age of sixteen, you were chained up in this place so he could...” He paused again. “What exactly did he do to you?”
“He never touched me until the end,” she replied. “Not like that. He said he wanted to wait until I was ready. He said our r
elationship had to be perfect, he said he was protecting me from all the dirty, foul men in the world. He said I was his little angel.”
“It sounds like he was a very disturbed man. Inventive too, I should imagine.”
“He was pathetic,” she continued. “The worst part was, he never stopped believing that eventually I'd start to like him, that he wouldn't need the chains because I'd want to be here with him and we could get married. Can you believe that?”
“Barely.”
“Once, when I was seven, he thought it was safe to let me play outside. I ran, but he caught me. He did the same thing when I was nine, and again I almost got away. And then, when I was sixteen, he finally thought I meant it and he unchained me again.”
“And you ran?”
“Not until I'd...” She paused, as a faint twitch flickered on one side of her face, as if those final frantic seconds were playing out in her mind again. “It needed to be done.”
“Of course it did. Was it quick?”
For a moment, her mind was filled with the memory of that moment. She heard herself screaming as Renton lunged at her, and she remembered the feeling of the knife in her hands.
“No,” she said finally, fixing Gregory with a determined stare. “Actually, it took quite a long time.”
“And is that the only time you've killed?”
She nodded.
“I've killed five times,” he replied with a sudden, broad grin. “Natasha Simonsen was the fifth, but the previous four girls weren't linked to me at all, not by the police. I mean, I know I'm good at this sort of thing, but come on, are the cops really that bad? To her credit, Laura Foster was the first one to actually get on my tail. She's very smart, much smarter than any of those other fools, but her ego really tripped her up. She's a complicated woman, I think, so right in some regards and so wrong in others.” Hearing a knock on the door, he turned just as Lewis entered. “And here comes the star reporter, getting the inside scoop on the crime of the century. How does it feel to have not one but two big stories dropped into your lap, Mr. Lewis?”
