A Stranger's House

by Clare Chase

  Cold fingers of fear gripped me.

  I grabbed my phone and looked up the Philip Radley School, but I knew the answer already. It was on Huntingdon Road, the location of the private co-ed place Paul said he’d been to. I’d got the impression that Imelda was a family friend of Paul’s – they were clearly in regular contact – but of course there was more to it than that. She’d been his art teacher at school.

  And now even my first conversation with Fi came back to me. I’d been probing to find out if Paul had been coming on to Emily. ‘Oh, no,’ she’d said. ‘It’s nothing like that. I mean, he’s old enough to be her dad or something, isn’t he?’

  How right she’d been.

  And Saskia had used the relationship to taunt Paul openly. What had she said to Emily? Called her something like bitter and pathetic. And then she’d said, in Paul’s hearing, ‘You take after your bloody father, that’s your trouble.’

  How Paul must have hated her for it. And now Saskia was dead. And Damien Newbold had played with Emily’s feelings, just as Saskia had played with his when he was a teenager, and Damien was dead. And Luke …

  Where was Paul now? I got up from the table, scraping the chair back so suddenly that it fell over.

  But before I could get to the door, Paul opened it and came in. He registered my look in one second and blinked for a moment before he said, ‘You know.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It was a statement, not a question.

  He walked into the room, closing the door behind him. ‘How did you …?’ He let the sentence hang.

  In a state of shock I picked up my phone, which still showed the Philip Radley School homepage and moved towards him. He peered for a moment at the screen, touching the casing momentarily, but I held onto it.

  ‘I see.’

  And then he reached inside his jacket and drew out a kitchen knife. ‘You’d better put your phone down on the table, Ruby.’ He moved towards me.

  Only that morning I would have sworn that Paul wouldn’t do anything to hurt anyone knowingly, but there was a new light in his eyes now. I let the blade get within eight inches, but then backed off and did as he’d said.

  ‘Now move back further.’ He reached down to pocket my phone. ‘It wasn’t meant to be like this.’

  I stared deliberately at the knife, trying to find my voice. ‘It looks as though it was.’ The words came out high-pitched and unsteady. I felt as though I could hardly breathe; it was like something heavy was compressing my chest.

  ‘Luke,’ Paul said. ‘The knife was for him. He was the appointment I wasn’t looking forward to this afternoon.’ He looked at me, his eyes sad for a moment. ‘My last day,’ he said. ‘I can’t carry on now. Sooner or later someone’s going to unravel the mystery, just as you have. After I’m dead the police will know I was their missing killer, but so long as Emily never finds out I was her father she can still live a normal life. Without Saskia and Damien around to mess her up.’

  ‘So that’s why you killed Saskia?’

  He nodded. ‘Mainly because Emily’s far better off without her. And if she’d lived, there was always a danger she’d finally tell Emily about me. I couldn’t risk that, after what I’ve done.’

  ‘And you killed Damien too.’ I took a seat at the table. My legs felt wobbly and I didn’t want to show him I was in danger of losing control.

  He nodded. ‘It was easy to find him. I knew from Emily where he worked. When she said she was sure he was still going in, I went and hung around outside, so that I could follow him at the end of the day. Then it was just a matter of going back one evening to progress matters.’

  I tried desperately to steady my breathing. ‘And he let you in without question?’

  Paul nodded. ‘I told him I was there because I was supporting Emily, and that I’d found out where he was staying purely because Emily and a friend had followed him home from work.’

  Through my haze of fear I put all my energy into trying to focus. I needed to keep him talking. If he was telling me how it had been, he couldn’t be making his next move. ‘I’m surprised he wanted to speak to you.’

  Paul snorted. ‘People like Damien Newbold enjoy being the centre of attention. He wanted to ask me more about how Emily had been since he’d left. Hearing about her falling to pieces gave him pleasure. My visit was an ego boost as far as he was concerned.’

  It was horrible, looking into his crazed eyes, yet hearing words that rang true.

  ‘You understand, don’t you?’ he said. ‘There’s no need to say it, I know that you do.’

  I felt sick. Heat washed over me. I mustn’t stay silent; I needed to buy time to think of a way out of this. ‘You had the attack all planned?’ I said, eventually.

  ‘Yes. I’d taken the hammer with me. And a few days before I’d sent an anonymous email to a couple of technology bloggers claiming Newbold had come up with some valuable new innovation. I thought if I stole his laptop whilst I was there, it might look as though that had been the motive for his murder. In the end it was probably overkill.’

  The thought of Paul working out the details in advance, putting everything in place, was almost more chilling than anything else.

  ‘I was a bit worried about whether I’d have the nerve when the time came,’ he went on, ‘but in the end it was easy.’ His eyes were far away, remembering. ‘When I explained about Emily’s predicament, and how he should face up to her calmly, and tell her she was too young for him, he laughed. He was genuinely amused. It was just as he was reaching down to fetch a bottle from a low cupboard, and suddenly I was hitting and hitting and hitting him. Really letting him have it. It wasn’t hard at all.’ His eyes focused on mine again. ‘In the end, it was just hard to stop.’

  My head was starting to pound; my surroundings seemed to dim, and pinpricks of light disrupted my vision. Shit. Not a good time to pass out. I pushed my hands down on the table and breathed deeply, trying to regain control. ‘What about Maggie?’

  He sighed. ‘I never meant to kill her, though after the letter she wrote to Emily I half felt she deserved it.’ He leant back against the kitchen door, holding the knife in front of him. ‘She’d seen me, you see.’

  Of course. ‘She was nearby on the night of the murder.’

  He nodded. ‘I think she must have seen me coming out of Newbold’s cottage.’

  ‘Think?’

  ‘She didn’t confront me, or tell the police, obviously, but I thought there was a look of recognition in her eyes when she turned up at River House that time, making trouble. Of course I didn’t make anything of it then; I’d no idea she’d been in Little Boxham on the night I killed Damien.’

  As he talked, I darted my eyes round the room. I knew the place; it was my own home, for God’s sake. Surely there was something here I could use to gain control. But the more I wracked my brains, the more my panic deepened. There was nothing. Nothing that would protect me from a mad man with a knife.

  Paul was still talking about Maggie. I remembered her asking who he was, but that didn’t prove anything.

  ‘Then my bedder in college told me a dark-haired woman had been asking questions about me,’ he went on. ‘And as soon as I knew Maggie Cook had been outside Newbold’s cottage I guessed the truth. I still don’t know why she didn’t tell the police about me straightaway …’ His voice drifted off for a moment. ‘But she was sure to name me once she’d been placed at the scene of the crime. It would be the obvious way of proving her own innocence.’

  ‘So you went looking for her?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘I tried. I knew she must be based locally, but I wasn’t having any luck. Then my search was interrupted by a call from the university counselling service to say Emily hadn’t turned up for her appointment. They wondered if I knew where she was. I didn’t, of course, but I decided to bike over to Oswald House just in case.’

  ‘And you saw Maggie?’ The role chance had played filled me with horror.

  He nodded. ‘I came ro
und via the Common, past your place, and I was just about to cross over Midsummer Passage to park my bike when I heard a noise that didn’t sound right. It must have been Maggie Cook, forcing your back gate.’

  I could picture it all, with chilling clarity.

  ‘I stood my bike against your railings instead, and crept round to investigate. By the time I realised who it was, she was quite engrossed, working out how to the force the French windows into the basement.’

  ‘You had the hammer with you?’

  He nodded. ‘I’d been out looking for her when I got the call about Emily. I still wonder why she didn’t report me.’

  But to me, with a mind unclouded by guilt, it didn’t seem so odd. The evidence that Maggie had seen Paul at all was only circumstantial, and there was nothing to say she’d actually witnessed him entering or exiting Damien’s house. But Paul had begun to panic, and the emotion had eaten into him like a disease.

  And now panic was taking hold of me again, too. Something told me he hadn’t much story left to tell. Time was running out. A cold sweat overtook me as my eyes were drawn again to his knife. I found I couldn’t tear them away.

  ‘What about Luke?’ I said. But though I still wanted to keep him talking, I realised I was inviting him to finish his story.

  ‘I was going to take him with me. I’d decided to end it today, and I thought I might as well wipe one more pervert off the face of the earth whilst I was at it.’ He ran his tongue over dry lips. ‘It made the act seem more meaningful; strengthened my resolve.’ He moved towards me a couple of steps. ‘You were never going to be harmed, Ruby. I know you’ll believe me.’

  ‘What were you going to do?’

  ‘I’d made up my mind to talk my way into your house, simply so that I could arrange to get back in later, once you were safely over with your friend. And that part of the plan worked. I pocketed your back-door key after I’d used your cloakroom.’

  ‘And then you were going to come back to wait for Luke?’

  He nodded. ‘I was going to call you and tell you that my afternoon appointment was overrunning, and please could you make your own way home. I was sure Steph would take you; you wouldn’t want to wait around until Luke got back from work.’

  ‘And whilst we were driving back to Cambridge …’

  ‘I’d stay here and finish everything off. I planned it for you, Ruby,’ he said. ‘And for the girl Luke slept with, and for every girl like her that he might have molested in the future.’

  ‘Luke didn’t molest Daisy.’

  ‘She went into it willingly, her eyes wide open?’

  ‘Far more, I’m certain, than Emily did.’

  ‘But what does anyone know when they’re seventeen?’ His eyes, I’m sure, saw nothing of what was in the room. They had that faraway look that told me his mind was in the past, looking back on his own schoolboy self. After a long pause he said, ‘It’s up to the adults to take responsibility for their actions. Luke deserves to die.’

  ‘You’re very bitter.’

  He suddenly flared up. ‘It’s behaviour like Luke’s that’s made me bitter. Have you any idea how hard it is to watch your child grow up controlled by a woman like Saskia, with no way of getting close to her? No hope of ever having any involvement, and then having to stand back and watch whilst another selfish over-sexed adult runs amok with her emotions?’

  ‘Weren’t you ever tempted to tell Emily who you really were?’

  ‘It was my love for her that stopped me. Saskia was at pains to point out what would happen if the truth got out. Emily’s “dad” is a very rich man. That house where she’s living now belongs to his mother. Saskia said he’d disinherit Emily if he ever found out. And though he’s hardly ever there, Emily’s told me herself that she loves him. Whereas she’s terrified of her mother. I’d have been ruining the one good relationship she has.’ There were tears in his eyes now. ‘But it hurt,’ he said. ‘Still hurts, that another man has that adoring, daughter’s love.’

  I could hardly bear to ask my next question, but I had to know. ‘What are you going to do now?’

  He looked at me through wet lashes. ‘I’m sorry, Ruby, but now I’ll have to take you with me, not Luke.’

  I felt my mouth turn dry.

  ‘The most important thing is that my secret is kept, and now it’s only you who could give me away.’ He bit his lip. ‘As it is, the police will assume I was in love with Emily. They’ll think I was yet another older man who couldn’t keep his hands to himself, and that I killed Newbold out of jealousy.’ He shuddered. ‘But that’s the way it’ll have to be. Better that, than letting Emily grow up knowing her father was a murderer, four times over.’

  I realised he was already counting me as one of the number.

  ‘Do you want to get yourself a glass of water?’ Paul said, looking at my face.

  I felt like laughing insanely at this. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said at last.

  ‘Emily will believe the police,’ Paul said, returning to his original theme as though he’d never left it, ‘because she’s developed this awful crush on me. She’ll just feel she was right all along, and I was interested in her. So interested that I killed for her, and then died for love of her.’ He paused and I saw his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. ‘She’ll be right in one way.’

  He was completely sure of his ground. My mouth was as dry as ashes, but I had to speak. There had to be some way of shaking his conviction. ‘But what about killing me? That won’t fit.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what they’ll make of that, but I think it’s unlikely they’ll decide it means I’m Emily’s father.’

  God, nothing was going to work, the look in his eye told me that. The light I could see there was born of zeal. He had decided what needed to be done in a noble cause; end of story. Quite literally. I sought desperately for another tack. ‘But if she believes you loved her,’ I said, ‘how will she cope, thinking she was the object of such an obsession?’

  ‘She’ll get over it. And in the meantime she’ll know she was special.’

  ‘Special? Paul, for God’s sake, the way you’re seeing this situation is totally skewed.’ I knew I was talking to save my life. ‘Don’t you see that if you do this you’re treating her just like Damien Newbold did?’

  Paul’s eyes shot up to meet mine, a flash of anger flaring in them like the sudden lick of a snake’s tongue, shooting out towards its prey.

  ‘You’re affecting her whole life by your actions and assuming she’ll just throw it off, and that having someone kill for you is actually quite flattering? Is that really what you think?’

  But it was no use, he had already become calm again, resolved. ‘I’m making the best of a bad job,’ he said. ‘Whatever she thinks, I believe she will recover, but not if she finds out I’m her father. That’s not something she’d ever be able to run away from, is it? With that information she’d always know I was a part of her, running through her being.’ He shook his head. ‘That would never do.’

  And then he walked over to our cooker, still facing towards me. ‘I brought the knife, instead of my hammer, so it would be easier to end it all, after I’d killed Luke. But I don’t want to do that to you. There’s a better way for both of us.’ He was side on to the stove now, and he began to turn the gas taps on, one by one. Then he picked up the packet of matches that lay, as of old, on the shelf above the toaster.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Paul stood there, leaning against the cooker. The smell of gas had already reached me where I sat at the table. I began to raise myself out of my chair.

  He immediately took a step forward, knife at the ready. ‘Don’t try anything, Ruby. This is too important to me. I know I said I didn’t want to stab you, but I won’t hesitate if you interfere.’

  So I stayed where I was. At least I was standing now, but the heavy table still blocked the way between us. Panic rose up inside me. I tried to focus, but the hissing sound of the gas taps filled the air.r />
  I watched the matchbox in his hand. It couldn’t be long now before he’d be ready to make the explosion. How would it work? If I was lucky, he’d put the knife down to strike the match, but even then, I’d have no hope of reaching him before he made that crucial first spark. Shit. If I’d said yes to the water I might have been able to throw it over the matches … Too late now.

  My only plan, my only hope, was to move, very, very gradually, round the side of the table, so that I could try to lunge at him as he switched his focus from me to the matches. Tears pricked my eyes as I shifted a few millimetres at a time. It was never going to work. This was actually it.

  Then suddenly there was a series of knocks at the front door.

  For just a moment Paul jerked his head and I managed to move forward a foot or so, but then his eyes were fixed on me again. ‘Just ignore it,’ he said. ‘And don’t move any closer. I know it’s hard to wait, but we’re almost there now.’

  A second later I could hear Steph’s voice, echoing through the letterbox, muffled by the closed kitchen door. ‘Ruby? Are you in there?’ Then there was a pause. ‘Ruby! What the hell are you doing? Turn that gas off, for God’s sake.’

  It was just enough to distract Paul, and for a crucial second he looked instinctively towards the kitchen door. I’d already made ground, and now I kicked upwards, aiming to cause him maximum damage in the area that would hurt the most. My right DM smashed close to his crotch but not close enough. He dropped both the matches and the knife, which went skidding off towards the window. I didn’t have a hope of getting both; he’d recover too quickly. I’d have to take my chances with the knife. Whilst Paul struggled to regain his feet I took the matchbox and plunged it into a half-full bowl of washing-up water Luke had abandoned.

  But Paul, still cursing and obviously in pain, had thrown himself towards the knife and now held it fast again. He was standing between me and the door. The smell of gas was overwhelming, making me gag.