The scarring around her hands felt cold and numb. Where once Rob had stroked her skin, not even a pin could be felt. But he would be proud of what she’d accomplished this afternoon. She’d described the horror scene where she’d ripped into Janice’s flesh, careful to leave out the fact that she had been the one sat astride her colleague. Instead she had reported it as watching someone else on the body and being powerless to stop their attack. Although it wasn’t quite true, she didn’t want to bring unwanted police attention on her actions.
Deep down she refused to accept that she had had anything to do with Janice’s murder. It just wasn’t within her to harm another living soul. But that didn’t mean she didn’t see who did kill Janice, and may have gone close to the body, and that was how her clothes had become smeared with blood. It still didn’t explain her loss of memory, but was it possible the real attacker had knocked her out, causing the black hole? It was another question to ask Dr Patel at their appointment this afternoon. He had been sceptical when she’d first told him about the drowning nightmare, but she was sure he wouldn’t be able to rationalise the subsequent nightmares.
She was just smartening her hair when someone knocked the door. Moving across she opened it, surprised to see Detective Jake Knight at the door. Surely he didn’t have more questions about Carlos; she’d never met the guy.
He looked equally surprised to be at the same address.
‘I’m here to take a witness statement,’ he stated. ‘I believe you may have been witness to a murder last night.’
The other detective had told her that he would send one of his team to take her statement but she hadn’t anticipated it would be the same day. ‘I don’t really remember anything,’ she began. ‘I have a black spot from last night.’
She stepped back to allow Jake to enter, and he made a beeline for the same armchair he’d been in yesterday.
She frowned at the stack of plates by the sink, and hoped he hadn’t noticed the unpleasant smell in the stuffy room.
‘How did you know the victim?’ he began.
‘We used to work together,’ Megan confirmed, keen to keep the interview process short, and petrified that she would somehow let slip what she’d woken up to. If he looked in the washing machine, would he find traces of the blood?
‘What time did the two of you return to her house?’
‘As I said to the other detective, I really can’t be sure. It was after eleven, but I have no recollection.’
‘Had you taken something?’
She scowled at him, offended by the line of questioning. ‘I don’t do drugs.’
‘Where had you spent the night?’
‘In a pub restaurant. There was a big group of us, and I’m sure the venue had plenty of CCTV if you don’t believe me.’
‘Had you had anything to drink?’
She sighed loudly. ‘Yes. We were sharing giant cocktails. I didn’t think I’d had that much, but I don’t really drink so probably I didn’t need a lot.’
‘What’s the very last thing you remember?’
‘Janice left the taxi and headed to her front door.’
‘Did you see her go in?’
‘I think so.’
‘You don’t sound sure. Did she enter the house?’
His approach was firmer than it had been yesterday, and her paranoia was growing that he knew more than he was letting on.
‘I’m sure she put her key in the door, and I’m pretty sure the door opened but then the taxi drove away.’
‘Which taxi company did you use?’
‘Airport Cabs, or something like that. Sorry, Janice was the one who booked it.’
‘And did you make a note of the driver’s name?’
Megan shrugged.
‘Can you tell me what he looked like? Was he tall, short, sticky, thin, black, white, Asian?’
Megan tried to remember, but couldn’t picture the driver’s face at all, as if it had been totally expunged from her memory. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Do you remember seeing anybody hanging around outside the property?’
‘I really wish I could tell you what you want to hear, but I simply cannot remember.’
He suddenly closed his notepad and stood. ‘Very well, I’ll write up the conversation and bring it back for you to sign. Of course, if you do remember anything else, I’d appreciate it if you gave us a call. Murder is a serious crime, and we’re really keen to capture whomever is responsible.’
‘Did you manage to solve your other case? Was Dr Patel able to help you find out who Carlos was?’
He looked surprised by her question. ‘Yes, we think we know why he drove into the lake now.’
Megan froze, her eyes widening and the blood draining from her face. ‘What did you just say?’
He looked at her quizzically. ‘Are you alright, you look like you’ve just seen a ghost or something.’
‘How did Carlos kill himself? What did you say about a lake?’
He grunted. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not at liberty to share that kind of inform -’
‘Did he drive into a lake?’
The detective stared back at her in shock. ‘How did you know that?’
But Megan wasn’t listening, instead rifling through her handbag, until she located the yellow exercise book and pulled it out. Handing it to him, she said, ‘Were there trees near this lake? Like, did he drive through trees before the car went in?’
He didn’t immediately take the book. ‘How did you...we never released that detail.’
She shook the book in agitation until he took it.
‘Flip to the first page,’ she advised. ‘My dream on Tuesday night was of me in a car with a faceless man as he drove at speed through a forest before driving into a lake. In the dream I was there right beside him. I could feel the ice cold water on my skin, and tasted the mildew as I swallowed it down.’
He continued to watch her, before allowing his eyes to fall on the page in the book.
I’m in a car – it isn’t mine – and there is a song playing on the stereo, but I can’t remember what it was ... There is a man driving, but he never looks at me ... We’re travelling at great speed ... There are trees all around us, like some kind of forest ... Then we crash through a gate and crash into a lake ... The driver lowers the windows and the car fills with water ... I know I’m about to drown ... And then I woke up.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘I wrote it straight after I woke up. Turn the next page. That was the dream I had the day Rita jumped from the tower block.’
I’m in a lift ... it’s a nice lift, not like those I’ve been in, in council blocks ... this one has a tall mirror, and I see myself ... I am alone, and the lift slowly climbs floors ... it reaches the top floor – floor fifteen – and the doors open ... I roll forward, but I am not in control of my actions ... it is windy and wet ... I climb out of my wheelchair and on to the ledge ... I am on the roof of a giant tower and everything below me is tiny; like ants ... I see Rob appear ... he wants me to leap out and take his hands ... I jump, but he disappears and then I’m falling ... I wake as I’m about to hit the ground.
‘Who’s Rob?’
‘He was my partner. He...died in the fire that left me with these,’ she said, raising her hands.
Jake flipped to the next page, the ink looking fresher here.
I’m at home, but not this one, my old home; the one that’s just a ruin now; the one where I lost Rob ... There is a red stain where the light switch should be ... It’s so dark, and I can barely see in front of me ... there is something cool and sticky on the floor, and I’m wondering what I’m stood in when I realise it’s blood ... I’m terrified as Rob and his sister are due around at any minute and they won’t approve of the mess ... I scrub the floor but no matter how hard I try the blood won’t disappear ... and as I move backwards I bump into somebody sat astride a body ... he is stabbing the body over and over, laughing manically ... and then I see the victim’s face and it i
s Janice.
‘You wrote this one too? You dreamt your friend was butchered and did nothing about it?’
‘I tried! That’s why I was with her last night. I thought if I stayed with her she would be safe, but I didn’t know someone would be waiting when she got home.’
‘Who was the man in the dream? Did you recognise him? Can you describe him?’
Megan shook her head woefully. ‘I only saw him from behind, and didn’t see his face. It was the same with the first nightmare: every time I tried to see the driver’s face he looked away from me.’
He took a step backwards. ‘Do you think you’re a clairvoyant or something? Why are you doing this? Hoping to cash in on other people’s pain?’
Megan snatched the book back from him. ‘Absolutely not! You think I want to see this shit when I’m asleep? It horrifies me. I hate the sight of blood and the last thing I’d ever want to do is see people hurt.’
‘You expect me to believe that you really witnessed these deaths in your dreams?’
Megan tried to keep calm. ‘I know it sounds crazy, but everything you’ve read there is what I saw. I don’t know how or why, but I’ve witnessed three deaths in the space of a week, and it’s terrifying me. And what’s worse is I think whoever killed Janice is coming for me next.’
‘Why? Did you see something you shouldn’t have?’
‘No, I mean, I don’t think so...I don’t know what I saw. But I had another dream when I got home and in it someone was chasing after me. Here, read for yourself.’
But he seemed reluctant to get any more involved. ‘If you’re concerned that someone may be out to do you harm, I can escort you to the police station where you can make a formal complaint about harassment. But if you don’t know who might want to do you harm, I’m not sure there’s a lot we’ll be able to do.’
He patted his shirt down, calmer now. ‘Would you like me to drive you to the police station? Maybe we can speak to my boss and see whether there’s anything we can do to move you into temporary accommodation until we catch whoever’s behind all this. How does that sound?’
What was the point, Megan thought. She had done her utmost to protect Janice and she had failed. What if going to the police station was what would lead to her own demise?
She shook her head. ‘I have an appointment with my psychiatrist this afternoon.’
The detective headed for the door, pausing briefly to turn back. ‘I’m sure your dreams are purely coincidental, Miss Hopkirk. Talk to your doctor about it, and I’m sure he’ll agree with me. He seems like a reasonable guy.’
But she wasn’t listening, staring wide-eyed at him, the same look of horror on her face. And as he closed the front door, Megan immediately fastened the security chain, her heart racing. The figure in the nightmare; the outline of the man who had chased her into that freshly-dug grave had just left her flat.
FIFTY-THREE
Jake was tempted to invite Megan Hopkirk to the station for further questioning, her inside knowledge of Carlos Xavier’s demise was impossible, unless everything she’d told him about that bereavement support group being her first meeting. He’d felt jumpy since meeting her yesterday; like something wasn’t quite right, and he’d been wrong to ignore that inner voice of warning. Some referred to it as a policeman’s third eye or sixth sense; others called it gut instinct. Jake preferred to think of it as a voice of reason. If something doesn’t look or feel right, inherently it isn’t.
Although Megan sounded like she believed what she was saying, he couldn’t bring himself to grant any merit to such a crazy notion. He knew detectives who’d had their fingers burned before by so-called spiritualist mediums. And he wasn’t about to make the same mistake.
She had to be playing an angle; hoping to use these sudden deaths as a means for launching some kind of career as a spiritualist medium or something. Carlos’s death at the lake hadn’t been reported in the news; Inspector Carlton had insisted on that, and although a local journalist had turned up at the scene she had been shoed away with the excuse that a training exercise was being carried out. Thankfully the journalist hadn’t appeared until late on the second day when they were packing up the apparatus. Had he been there when the body was being wheeled away, he might not have been so easy to brush off.
There was only one man Jake could think of who could shed more light on Megan’s motives and that is why he was now parking outside the office of Better Health in Bursledon, although this time he didn’t bother to hunt for a parking space, pulling up outside the large mass of bushes and leaving a note in the window explaining he was on official police business. If a traffic warden dared give him a ticket, Jake would be ready for the battle.
‘You can’t go in there,’ the heavily pregnant woman behind the reception desk was trying to explain.
‘I need to speak to Dr Patel as a matter of urgency,’ Jake was retorting. ‘It’s life and death.’
The woman was taking long breaths, a hand pressed behind her lower back, looking ready to drop.
‘Are you in labour?’ Jake asked, recognising the signs.
‘Early labour,’ she winced. ‘One way or another this bugger is going to be here in the next thirty-six hours.’
Attention diverted, Jake lifted the hatch in the counter, and moved across to support her, trying to manoeuver her onto the lacklustre swivel chair.
‘No, it’s better if I stand,’ she assured him.
‘Do you want me to call anyone for you? Midwife? Partner? An ambulance?’
She seemed amused at the look of sheer panic on his face. ‘My midwife is well aware of my condition, but until the contractions become more frequent you have nothing to worry about.’
Gabby had been born by caesarean section. Not that there had been any complications with the pregnancy, but Isabella had been unwilling to even attempt a natural birth, paying to go private in order to fulfil her wish. Jake hadn’t admitted what a relief it was when a curtain was put up to shield the birthing end of the procedure. All he’d had to do was hold Isabella’s hand and tell her everything would be okay. In his time in the force, Jake had witnessed plenty of grisly crime scenes without even a flicker of nausea. But a new person being born into the world – the responsibility of life and death in his hands – was the stuff of nightmares. The last thing he wanted was to be involved in this woman’s delivery.
‘Can I get you a cup of water, or a tea?’ he continued, the room feeling overly warm all of a sudden, despite the desk fan blowing cool air at them both.
She patted his hand. ‘Please stop fussing. I’m absolutely fine. But please go back behind the counter. I’ll send Dr Patel a message to advise you’re here, but I can’t guarantee he’ll interrupt his session to see you.’
Jake thanked her, heading for the soft chairs, and perching on one, occasionally glancing up to check her contractions hadn’t increased.
Megan’s account of what had happened to Carlos was as close to what the medical examiner had theorised as it could be. And from how Tosh had described the knife attack at the house overnight, it seemed her description of that was also spot on. He couldn’t say for certain how the suicide victim had plummeted, but going up in a lift and then jumping was as cut and dried as he would expect a witness account to be. She was either one astute liar, or, she was more involved in the deaths than she’d made out. Was it possible Megan had been with Rita Enfield immediately before she’d jumped? She’d had opportunity as she was in the vicinity. And what about Carlos: was it possible she was in the car when it hit the lake, but managed to escape? He doubted it, but how else was it possible to explain her account?
And as for the knife attack, he hadn’t seen the scene, but was it possible she could have carried out the attack from the wheelchair? Surely she would have left a bloody trail of tyre prints.
But the biggest question was why. Why kill her former colleague? Why encourage Rita to jump and why convince Carlos to drive into the lake? What connected the three of them to Megan
? The more he thought about it, the more he found himself going around in circles, like a dog chasing its tail. Nothing seemed to fit. Carlos and Rita both attended a bereavement support group, but according to Dr Patel, they’d never met. And as far as Jake knew, Janice had never attended any such group. Janice was linked to Megan, but Megan wasn’t linked to Rita or Carlos; at least that’s what she’d had him believe.
The office door finally opened, and Dr Patel said goodbye to the weedy looking man dressed in a plaid suit and wearing horn-rimmed spectacles. He eventually looked up at Jake, before ushering him in to the office.
‘Twice in two days, detective, people will talk,’ Patel joked, the smile vanishing when he saw the determined look in Jake’s eyes. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I want you to tell me everything you know about Megan Hopkirk.’
Patel opened his mouth to speak, before closing it again, and stepping across to his desk. ‘As I explained yesterday, confidentiality is central to the preservation of trust between doctors and their patients. If I was to disclose anything about my relationship with Megan, I could be held accountable by the General Medical Association.’
Jake had been anticipating such an obstruction. ‘But you can breach that ethic if required by law.’
‘Are you threatening to arrest me and initiate a court summons?’
Jake cocked his head. ‘I have genuine concern about Megan Hopkirk. She is a potential witness to at least one crime, and I need to assess the threat level against her. But I also want to understand whether she is a threat to herself. Please, Dr Patel, I’m not here for idle gossip. Three people have died in the last week and Megan is somehow connected to each scene. I need to know whether she is the next victim, or the perpetrator.’
Patel considered him for a moment. ‘I’ll tell you what, ask me your questions and if I feel able to answer them without compromising Megan’s treatment, then I will answer. And if I think an answer will put her health in danger I will not answer, but will attempt to explain why not. How does that sound?’
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