I found myself grinning. ‘I want to.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m certain.’
We both laughed. ‘God, this is ridiculous. I feel like a teenager,’ she said.
‘Me too.’ I glanced at my watch. Ten past one. I could be back in Manham by two, and evening surgery wasn’t until four. ‘I could come round now, if you like.’
‘OK.’ She sounded shy, but I could hear the smile in her voice. A two-note chime sounded in the background. ‘Hang on a sec, someone’s at the door.’
I heard her put the receiver down. I leaned on the edge of the workbench, an idiot grin still on my face as I waited for her to pick it up again. To hell with giving ourselves space. All I knew was that I wanted to be with her right now, more than anything I’d wanted in a long time. I could hear the radio playing in the background as I waited. It was longer than I’d expected before I heard the phone being picked up again.
‘Milkman?’ I joked.
There was no answer. I could hear someone breathing at the other end. Deep and slightly rushed, as though after some exertion.
‘Jenny?’ I said, uncertainly.
Nothing. The breathing continued for one, two beats. Then there was a soft click as the other person hung up.
I stared stupidly at the receiver, then fumblingly redialled. Answer. Please, answer. But the phone rang on and on.
As I broke the connection and started to call Mackenzie, I was already running to the car.
CHAPTER 20
IT WASN’T HARD TO guess what had happened. The house itself told the story. On the same rickety table where we’d had the barbecue was a half-eaten sandwich, already curling in the heat. Next to it a radio played indifferently. The door that led from the kitchen into the back garden stood wide open, bead curtain swaying from the passage of police officers. Inside, the coconut doormat had been kicked up against a kitchen cabinet, while the telephone receiver sat in the cradle where somebody had replaced it.
But of Jenny there was no sign.
The police hadn’t wanted to let me in when I’d arrived. They’d already cordoned off the house, and a gaggle of children and neighbours stared solemnly from the street as the uniforms came in and out. A young constable, eyes darting nervously over the paddock and fields, blocked my path as I approached the gate. He refused to listen, but then the state I was in didn’t exactly work in my favour. It was only when Mackenzie arrived, holding up his hands to calm me, that I was let in.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ he told me, unnecessarily, as we went into the house.
‘I’m not a bloody novice!’
‘Then stop acting like one.’
I was about to snap back at him before I caught myself. He was right. I breathed deeply, trying to control myself. Mackenzie was watching me, curiously.
‘How well do you know her?’
Mind your own business, I wanted to tell him. But of course I couldn’t. ‘We’ve just started seeing each other.’ I balled my fists as I saw two forensics officers dusting the telephone for fingerprints.
‘How seriously?’
I just looked at him. After a moment he gave a short nod. ‘I’m sorry.’
Don’t be sorry! Do something! But everything that anyone could do was already being done. A police helicopter clattered overhead, while uniformed figures were already trudging through the nearby paddock and fields.
‘Tell me again what happened,’ Mackenzie instructed. I did, unable to take in that this was happening. ‘You’re sure about the time when she said someone was at the door?’
‘Certain. I looked at my watch to see how soon I’d be able to get back.’
‘And you didn’t hear anything?’
‘No! Christ, it’s the middle of the afternoon. How could someone just knock on her door and drag her away? The village is crawling with bloody police! What the hell were they doing?’
‘Look, I know how you feel, but—’
‘No, you don’t! Somebody must have seen something!’
He sighed, then spoke with what I would later recognize as rare patience. ‘We’re talking to all the neighbours. But the garden’s not overlooked by any of the other houses. There’s a track leading across the paddock right up to the back here. He could have driven up in a van or car, then gone back the same way without anyone on the street seeing him.’
I looked out of the window. In the distance the mirrored lake lay still and innocent. Mackenzie must have guessed what I was thinking.
‘There’s no sign of a boat. The helicopter’s still looking, but…’
He didn’t have to explain. Less than ten minutes had passed between Jenny going to answer the door and the police arriving. But that was long enough for someone who knew this countryside to have disappeared, along with anyone else who was with him.
‘Why didn’t she shout for help?’ I asked, quieter now. But it was the quiet of desperation rather than calm. ‘She wouldn’t have gone without a struggle.’
Before Mackenzie could answer there was a commotion outside. A moment later Tina rushed into the house, her face white and stricken.
‘What’s happened? Where’s Jenny?’
I could only shake my head. She stared around, wildly.
‘It was him, wasn’t it? He’s got her.’ I tried to say something, but I couldn’t. Tina’s hands went to her mouth. ‘Oh, no. Oh God no, please.’
She started to cry. I hesitated, then reached out and touched her. She fell against me, sobbing.
‘Sir?’
One of the forensics team had approached Mackenzie. He had a plastic evidence bag. In it was what looked like a wadded piece of dirty cloth.
‘It was down by the hedge at the bottom corner,’ the officer said. ‘There’s a gap there, big enough for someone to squeeze through.’
Mackenzie opened the bag, gave a cautious sniff. Without a word he held it out to me. The smell from it was faint but unmistakable.
Chloroform.
I didn’t take part in the search. For one thing, I didn’t want to be cut off from any news. With the area around Manham littered with dead zones where mobile phones became so much junk, I didn’t want to risk being out of contact in some isolated stretch of marsh or wood. And I knew a search would be a waste of time. We weren’t going to find Jenny by trudging randomly through the countryside. Not until whoever had taken her wanted us to.
Tina had told us about finding the dead fox. Even now she didn’t realize its significance. She’d looked bewildered when Mackenzie had asked if she or Jenny had found any dead birds or animals lately. At first she’d said no, then mentioned the fox almost as an afterthought. I’d felt physically sick to think there had been a warning that had gone ignored.
‘Still think it was a good idea to keep quiet about the mutilations?’ I asked Mackenzie afterwards. His face reddened, but he said nothing. I knew I was being unfair, that the decision had probably been taken above him. But I wanted to hit out at something. Someone.
It was Tina who remembered Jenny’s insulin. A forensics officer was going through Jenny’s handbag, and seeing him Tina suddenly paled.
‘Oh God, that’s her pen!’
The policeman was holding Jenny’s insulin injecter. It looked like a fat pen, but contained measured doses of insulin to keep her metabolism stable.
Mackenzie was looking at me for explanation. ‘She’s diabetic,’ I told him, my voice cracking under this new blow. ‘She needs to inject herself with insulin every day.’
‘What if she can’t?’
‘Eventually she’ll go into a coma.’ I didn’t say what would happen after that, but by the look on Mackenzie’s face he understood well enough.
I’d seen enough. Mackenzie was clearly relieved when I left, promising to call me as soon as there was any news. As I drove home the thought that ran through my head time after time was that Jenny had come to Manham after surviving one assault, only to fall victim to an even worse one. She came here because it was
safer than a city. It seemed so fundamentally unfair, as if some natural order had been violated. I felt as though I’d been split in two, the past superimposed upon the present so that I was reliving the nightmare of losing Kara and Alice all over again. Except this was a wholly different sensation. Then I’d been stunned by desolation and loss. Now I didn’t know if Jenny was alive or not. Or, if she was, what she was going through. Try as I might, I couldn’t help but think about the cuts and mutilations I’d seen on the other two women, the rope fibres snagged on Lyn Metcalf’s shredded fingernails. They’d been tied up and subjected to God only knew what horrors before they’d died. And whatever they’d experienced would be happening now to Jenny.
I had never felt so scared in my life.
As soon as I walked into the house the walls seemed to press in on me. Torturing myself, I went up to the bedroom. I thought I could still detect Jenny’s scent in the air, an agonizing reminder of her absence. I looked at the bed where we’d been only two nights ago, and couldn’t stand being in the house any longer. I quickly went downstairs and back out again.
Without making a conscious decision, I drove to the surgery. The evening was full of birdsong and chlorophyll sunlight. Its beauty seemed cruel and mocking, an unneeded reminder of an indifferent universe. As I closed the front door behind me, Henry wheeled his chair out of his study. He still looked drawn and unwell. I could see from his face that he knew.
‘David…I’m so sorry.’
I just nodded. He looked close to tears.
‘This is my fault. The other night…’
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘When I heard…I don’t know what to say.’
‘There’s not much to say, is there?’
He rubbed the armrest of his chair. ‘What about the police? Surely they’ve got some sort of…of lead or something?’
‘Not really.’
‘God, what a mess.’ He passed his hand over his face, then drew himself up. ‘Let me get you a drink.’
‘No thanks.’
‘You’re having one, whether you want it or not.’ He attempted a smile. ‘Doctor’s orders.’
I gave in, simply because it was easier than arguing. We went into the lounge rather than his study. He poured us both a whisky, handed me a glass.
‘Go on. Straight down.’
‘I don’t—’
‘Just drink it.’
I did as I was told. The spirit burned down to my stomach. Wordlessly, Henry took my glass and refilled it.
‘Have you eaten?’
‘I’m not hungry.’
He seemed about to argue, thought better of it. ‘You’re welcome to stay here tonight. Your old room won’t take much making up.’
‘No. Thanks.’
For want of anything else to do I took another drink of whisky. ‘I can’t help feeling I brought this on somehow.’
‘Come on, David, don’t talk rubbish.’
‘I should have seen it coming.’ And perhaps I had, I thought, remembering Kara’s warning in my dream. Be careful. But I’d chosen to ignore it.
‘That’s nonsense,’ Henry snapped. ‘Some things you just can’t do anything about. You know that as well as I do.’
He was right, but knowing that didn’t help. I stayed for another hour or so, the two of us sitting in silence for the most part. I nursed the rest of the whisky, refusing his attempts to pour any more. I didn’t want to get drunk. Tempting as it was, I knew a fog of alcohol wouldn’t improve anything. When I began to feel claustrophobic again I left. Henry was so obviously distressed at his inability to help that I felt sorry for him. But thoughts of Jenny didn’t allow room for anything else for very long.
The police were going from door to door in yet another futile show of activity as I drove through the village. I felt an anger begin to burn as I watched them, methodically wasting yet more time. I carried on past my house, knowing I would find it no easier in there now than I had earlier. As I headed for the outskirts of the village I saw a group of men blocking the road. I slowed, recognizing most of their faces. Even Rupert Sutton was there, finally freed from his mother’s apron strings, it seemed.
Standing in front of them all was Carl Brenner.
They all stared at the car, making no attempt to move as I leaned out of the window.
‘What’s going on?’
Brenner spat on the floor. His face was still bruised from the beating Ben had given him. ‘Haven’t you heard? There’s been another one.’
I felt as if someone had physically punched me on the heart. If a fourth woman had been taken already it could only mean one thing: something had already happened to Jenny. Brenner went on, oblivious.
‘The teacher from the school. He got her this afternoon.’
He said something else, but I didn’t hear. Blood pounded in my head, deafening me as I realized he was delivering old news, not new.
‘Where’re you going?’ he demanded, unaware of the effect of his words.
I could have told him. I could have explained, or invented some reason. But as I looked at him, jumped up with his new-found self-importance, I felt my anger swim into focus.
‘None of your business.’
He looked taken aback. ‘You going on a visit?’
‘No.’
Brenner worked his shoulders uncertainly, like a boxer trying to summon his aggression. ‘Nobody’s getting in or out of here without telling us why.’
‘What are you going to do? Drag me out of the car?’
One of the other men spoke up. It was Dan Marsden, the farmhand I’d treated after he’d been injured by one of the killer’s traps. ‘Come on, Dr Hunter, don’t take it personal.’
‘Why not? It seems bloody personal to me.’
Brenner had recovered his habitual aggression. ‘What’s wrong, doctor? Got something to hide?’
He made the word sound like an insult. But before I could say anything Marsden took hold of his arm.
‘Leave him, Carl. He was a friend of hers.’
Was. I gripped the steering wheel as they stared at me with raw curiosity.
‘Get out of the way,’ I told them.
Brenner put his hand on the door. ‘Not until you—’
I stamped on the accelerator, flinging him off. The men standing in front of me leapt aside as the Land Rover surged forward. Startled faces flashed by, and then I was past them. Their angry shouts came after me, but I didn’t slow down. It wasn’t until they were out of sight that my anger faded to the point where I could think clearly again. What the hell had I been thinking? Some doctor I was. I could have injured someone. Or worse.
I drove aimlessly until I realized I was heading for the pub I’d visited with Jenny only a few days earlier. I braked hard, unable to bear even the thought of seeing it again now. When a car horn blared behind me I pulled into the verge, waiting until it was past before turning around and heading back.
I’d been trying to outrun what had happened, but I knew now I couldn’t. I felt exhausted as I drove back into Manham. There was no sign of Brenner or his friends. I resisted the temptation to either go to Jenny’s or phone Mackenzie. There was no point. I would hear soon enough if anything happened.
I let myself into my house, poured myself a whisky I didn’t want, and sat outside as the sun sank from the sky. My heart descended with it. Half a day had already passed since Jenny had been taken. I could tell myself that there was still hope, that whoever had her hadn’t killed his other two victims straight away. But there was no comfort there. No comfort at all.
Even if she wasn’t already dead—a possibility that gaped terrifyingly in front of me—we had no more than two days to find her. If her insulin deficiency hadn’t pushed her into a coma by then, the faceless animal would kill her as he had Sally Palmer and Lyn Metcalf.
And there was nothing I could do to stop it.
CHAPTER 21
AFTER A WHILE, THE darkness stopped being absolute. There were pinpricks of
light, so small that at first she thought it was her imagination. When she tried to focus on them they disappeared. It was only when she looked off to one side that they became visible—tiny specks like a horizontal plane of stars on the edge of her vision.
As her eyes adjusted, she found she was able to make them out more easily. Not just specks. Slits. Cracks of brightness. Before long she was able to discern that they weren’t all around her. The light was coming from a single direction. She started to think of that as Front.
With that to guide her, Jenny gradually began to impose form and shape on the darkness surrounding her.
Waking had come slowly. Her head hurt with a dull, senseless throbbing that made any movement agony. Her thoughts were scrambled, but a terrible sense of dread goaded her from sinking back into unconsciousness. She thought she was back in the car park, only this time the taxi driver had put her in the boot of the car. She felt hemmed in, unable to breathe. She wanted to shout for help, but her throat, like the rest of her body, wouldn’t seem to acknowledge her commands.
Slowly, her thoughts had grown more coherent. She became aware that wherever she was, it wasn’t the car park. That attack was in her past now. But the realization brought no relief. Where was she? The darkness confused and terrified her. As she struggled to sit up, something seemed to grab her leg. She tried to pull away, felt something snap taut, and then her fingers encountered the rough hemp of a rope around her ankle. With mounting disbelief, she followed it along its length until she came to a heavy iron ring set into the floor.
She’d been tied. And suddenly the rope, the darkness, the hard ground underneath her, all fell into awful alignment.
And she remembered.
It came back in fragments; a patchwork of memory that gradually merged together. She’d been talking to David on the phone. The doorbell had chimed. She’d gone to answer it, seen the figure of a man standing outside, obscured by the bead curtain in the doorway, and…and…
Oh, God, this couldn’t be happening. Except it was. She called out, shouting for David, for Tina. Anybody. No-one came. With an effort, she forced herself to stop. Deep breaths. Pull yourself together. Shakily, she began to take stock of her situation. Wherever she was, it was cool but not too cold. The air was foul, with a rank odour she couldn’t identify. But at least she was still dressed, her shorts and sun vest undisturbed. She told herself that was a good sign. The pain in her head had subsided to a muted throb, and now the strongest sensation was thirst. Her throat was swollen and dry, making it painful to swallow. She was hungry, too, and with that thought came a far more chilling one.
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