‘What else did she say?’
‘She said a woman was attacked. Did you see anything?’
‘No.’
‘I told her to call the police – just to make sure. Are you sure you won’t have a drink?’
She waved the glass in front of my face.
‘No.’
‘You really have to learn to relax around me. I won’t bite … not unless you want me to.’
Her dressing gown drifted open. She stepped closer, pressing her body against mine. I tried to shove her away, but she clung on.
‘Nobody has to know,’ she whispered into my mouth. ‘I won’t tell.’
I held her hands above her head as we kissed. Her pelvic bone was grinding against me and I could hear the soft sandpaper sound of her pubic hair on the front of my jeans. Her tongue wormed into my mouth. I wanted to gag.
I swung the knife, metal on air, and heard the gurgling noise, as her flesh gave way to the blade. She staggered. I lay her down. ‘See what you made me do,’ I said as certainty faded from her eyes.
A bubble of snot popped in my nostrils and I moaned in self-pity as the knife rose and fell. When it was over, I knelt beside her body, rocking back and forth, shaking uncontrollably. The rest was theatre. The rest was show.
Everybody thinks they are important. Unique. Special. They imagine their life to be like a journey and talk about finding themselves and gaining closure, when there is nothing to find and the only closure – the one that matters – is the ultimate one. Death. Deliverance. The end.
I hear a sound outside. My heart quickens. There is a vehicle coming. I stand for a moment on the landing with an ear cocked. The car has stopped outside. Keys jangle. One of them slides into the barrel of the lock. Turns.
A door opens and closes. I feel the tiny tremor of footsteps in the hallway.
33
Charlie stands by the car and studies the farmhouse as though trying to decide if a building takes on the particular character or ambience of the events that occur inside. Does it become soaked in blood or tainted by tragedy? Having reached the front door, I begin unhooking the padlock.
‘Why won’t you let me come in?’ she asks.
‘You know the reason.’
‘I don’t have to look in that room.’
‘Just stay by the car.’
‘But I have to pee.’
I look at her sceptically.
‘I have a small bladder,’ she says defensively. ‘And I’m not squatting in the field.’
We walk around the house and I take her through the kitchen door.
‘There’s a toilet under the stairs,’ I say. ‘Down that hallway is off-limits.’
‘I know, I know,’ she replies.
I open my laptop on the kitchen table and boot up the hard drive, looking for Jeremy Egan’s statement to police and copies of his phone records.
The toilet flushes and Charlie reappears, shaking her wet hands. She walks around the table, glancing at the crime scene albums that are stacked on the bench.
‘You can’t look at those either,’ I say.
‘I know.’ She runs her fingers over the lid of a half-opened box. Inside there are hundreds of Polaroid photographs with distinctive white frames. ‘What are these?’
I glance at the label. ‘They came from Harper’s room. The police must have finished with them.’
‘Can I look?’
‘OK.’
She reaches into the box and grabs a handful of photographs. Most of them seem to be random shots of pouting girls and punkish boys, pulling faces at the camera or striking silly poses. Some are selfies of Harper, sitting on her boyfriend’s lap, kissing his cheek or putting her tongue in his ear.
After a while Charlie gets bored and wanders through the other rooms on the ground floor – studiously avoiding the sitting room. She calls to me from the stairs. ‘Did Harper do the paintings?’
‘I think so.’
‘They’re really good.’
‘Some of her sketchbooks are upstairs.’
‘Can I see them?’
‘You’re supposed to stay in the kitchen.’
‘Why? Is there something scary up there like, I don’t know, a bedroom?’
She’s teasing me. Maybe I’m being too cautious. There are no bloodstains or symbols painted on the walls of Harper’s room. I take Charlie upstairs and she moves slowly from room to room. I notice how she occasionally touches things, brushing her fingertips over the face as if trying to pick up some vibration or hidden energy.
‘Everything OK?’ I ask.
‘It’s a bit weird,’ she replies.
‘What is?’
‘Harper and I were the same age. She was going off to university. I’m going off to university. Makes you wonder if anyone should bother making plans when life can be so transient. You’re here one day, gone the next.’
‘I used to feel the same way,’ I tell her. ‘When I was your age we were still dealing with the Cold War and the possibility of nuclear attack. There was something called the “four-minute warning” – an alarm that was going to sound if the Soviets launched a missile.’
‘Why four minutes?’
‘That’s how long it was going to take for the warheads to reach us. We made all sorts of plans about what we’d do in the four minutes.’
‘Four minutes isn’t long.’
‘Yeah, well, I had a great imagination.’
Charlie laughs. ‘Did it change the way you behaved?’
‘I don’t know, maybe … I think I learned not to dwell on what might happen and save my energy for the real stuff.’
I retrieve a pile of sketchbooks from beneath Harper’s bed. They’re covered in a fine dusting of fingerprint powder and labelled with a police evidence sticker. Detectives must have looked through the sketches and decided they had no investigative value.
Charlie sits on a chair and begins leafing through the pages. I look over her shoulder. Most of the portraits are done in charcoal or pencil. I recognise Harper’s boyfriend and her father.
‘Why don’t you study art?’ I suggest.
‘I can’t draw,’ replies Charlie.
‘I thought you wanted to be a fashion designer.’
‘When I was twelve.’
‘You could be a lawyer.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘How about medicine?’
‘I don’t have the right A-levels.’
‘You could do a bridging course.’
‘Please don’t do this again,’ she says, flashing me her mother’s look. She goes back to the sketchbooks, opening a new one. ‘What day did it happen?’
‘Saturday June sixth.’
‘Harper must have been drawing. Look –’
Charlie holds up the page. The unfinished sketch is of a large Victorian house with steeply sloping roofs, asymmetrical chimneys, a vertical façade and a generous garden. Through the trees, I can just make out the coastline.
‘I don’t understand.’ I say, leaning closer to the sketch.
Charlie points to the bottom right-hand corner. Tucked away, written in tiny handwriting, I notice four digits: 6615.
‘It could be the date,’ says Charlie. ‘The sixth of June.’
She turns the page. ‘Here’s another one.’
The second drawing is also unfinished. It’s a portrait of an old man with a craggy face and wisps of hair clinging to his scalp. The crosshatching shows his deep wrinkles and weathered skin. The number in the right-hand corner is the same: 6615.
I turn back through the pages – confirming Charlie’s discovery, the numbers appear to be dates.
‘The missing hours,’ I whisper.
‘Huh?’
‘There is a gap in Harper’s timeline. The police couldn’t fill in her movements that Saturday afternoon. We knew she was sketching but didn’t know where.’
‘So this is important?’
‘Maybe. It’s a good pick-up. An excellent one.’
/> Charlie studies the sketch, looking pleased with herself.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the door sway and feel a change in the air pressure – as though someone has opened a door or window somewhere else in the house. Cool air kisses the back of my neck and I feel a tiny tremor beneath my feet. I go to the landing and look over the banister.
‘Ruiz?’
Silence.
Returning to Charlie, I scan the room. Two drawers on the dresser are slightly open. The contents are pushed forward, as though someone might have searched them.
‘Wait here,’ I tell her.
I move from room to room, looking for more evidence of an intruder. I cautiously descend the stairs, wincing as a floorboard creaks. I look along the hallway. The front door is closed. We came in through the kitchen. I glance into the dining room but don’t go inside. The mahogany table and matching chair are so dark they look like silhouettes. Small brass animals line the mantelpiece next to a porcelain horse and scented candles. I can see the room reflected in a mirror on the wall. There’s nobody hiding behind the door, but still I sense a flaw in the ambience, a lingering ripple where someone has passed through.
Moving along the hallway to the kitchen, I try to remember how I left the house yesterday. Has anything been moved? Disturbed?
Charlie shouts from upstairs. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Just stay there.’
I have reached the laundry. The door is open. I’m sure I locked it yesterday. Perhaps Ruiz has been back.
I take out my mobile and call him. He’s on the road.
‘Have you been to the farmhouse today?’
‘No.’
‘The laundry door is open. I think someone has been in the house.’
At that moment I hear the creak of floorboards.
‘It’s only me,’ says Charlie. ‘Can I come downstairs?’
‘Not yet.’
Ruiz hears the conversation. ‘You should get her outside. Don’t touch anything. I’m ten minutes away.’
Charlie is full of questions. I distract her by mentioning the kittens. Walking across the flagged yard, I glance over my shoulder at the farmhouse, half expecting to see a face peering from an upstairs window.
Inside the stable, we navigate between the empty drums and reels of fencing wire. The kittens have started to wander. Two are wrestling with each other, tumbling in the dusty straw. Charlie almost steps on one of them and admonishes herself, picking it up and holding it against her cheek.
Gathering the other kittens into the crevice of her lap, she scratches their ears and beneath their chins. ‘They’re adorable. Can we have one?’
‘You’re going off to university.’
‘What if Mummy says yes? Can we take one home and show her? Emma hasn’t had a kitten before. It can be her birthday present.’
Within two sentences Charlie has it all planned.
Ruiz pulls up and I meet him halfway across the yard.
‘You’re sure?’ he asks.
‘I’m sure I locked it. It was yesterday afternoon. You were here. We drove Elliot and his girlfriend into town.’
‘Did you check every room?’
‘No.’
‘OK, let’s do it now.’
Leaving Charlie with the kittens, I follow Ruiz into the house, still trying to recall how things looked yesterday, wondering if particular picture frames are angled the same way or whether the clothes were hanging in that order. Every shadow and corner has become a hiding place.
We’re standing on the first-floor landing. ‘You should call Ronnie Cray,’ says Ruiz. ‘She’ll want to know.’
‘Will they send a scene of crime team?’
‘Not unless something is missing.’
I remember Elliot Crowe’s visit to the farmhouse. He had wanted to come inside and got angry when I told him to leave. They say a junkie will steal from the dead and still cry at the funeral.
Outside the wind has picked up and a loose section of corrugated iron clangs against the joists of the chicken coop. I am crouched below a windowsill, squeezed between the diesel tank and the rear wall of the stables.
The psychologist has a daughter. She’s playing with the kittens, which are tumbling and squirming in her lap or clawing at the front of her long-sleeved cotton top. One of them climbs on to her shoulder.
‘Where are you going?’ she laughs, pulling the kitten back into her lap.
My knees hurt. I shift my weight. The diesel tank makes a hollow ringing sound as my heel hits the metal cradle. The girl’s head snaps up, staring at the window. I duck below the sill.
The girl is moving. I hear her put down the kittens and pick up a torch. She’s searching the horse stalls and storage areas, bouncing light off tools and dust-covered tack. Now she’s standing at the window. If she leans closer to the glass and looks down she will see my knees.
Almost without thought, my fingers have found the box-cutter in my pocket. Can I catch her before she screams?
Another sound. She’s at the side entrance, sliding the bolt. I scramble up and reach the door, hiding behind it as it opens. Through the narrow crack between the hinges, I see the fine downy hairs on her neck. Her hand is only inches from mine. I could reach out and touch her. I could run the blade across her throat.
The tin roof is clanging. She takes a step, looking right and left. I raise the blade. If she turns her head a little more …
‘Charlie, where are you?’
She looks over her shoulder. ‘Out here.’
‘The police are coming.’
‘Why?’
‘I think someone has been in the house.’
She turns back into the stables and closes the door, sliding the bolt into place.
‘We should wait outside,’ says the psychologist.
‘But I haven’t fed the mother yet.’
‘Hurry up, then.’
I edge along the wall until I reach the corner of the building and take cover in a little wilderness at the edge of the kitchen garden. Still hidden, I raise my head and take one last look at the farmhouse before taking off, running across the field, leaping thistles and cowpats.
Eighty yards seems longer. Reaching the copse of trees, I throw myself behind a fallen log and catch my breath as more vehicles begin arriving.
After crawling through a bramble hedge, I climb over the barbed wire fence and fall into the leaf litter. Lying on my back, I stare up at the branches and the clouds moving behind the leaves.
You nearly killed her.
– I would have killed her.
She did nothing wrong.
– She almost saw me.
One day you’ll make a mistake. What then?
– Closure.
34
Ronnie Cray squints into the brightness of the afternoon. ‘I’m not doubting you, Professor, but nothing seems to be missing and there’s no sign of a break-in.’
‘The laundry door was open.’
‘Maybe you didn’t close it properly.’
‘I locked it yesterday. We came in through the kitchen.’
She holds up her hands, accepting my word. Behind her Monk appears out of the trees, striding across the field. He looks normal-sized from a distance, but keeps growing as he gets nearer.
‘There are fresh footprints near the fence,’ he says, scraping cowshit off his shoes.
‘Did you check on Tommy Garrett?’ asks Cray.
‘His grandmother hasn’t seen him since breakfast.’
‘What about Elliot Crowe?’ I ask. ‘He was here yesterday.’
‘I’ll send someone to his last-known address, but that kid is slipperier than a Teflon-coated turd.’
The DCS rocks impatiently from foot to foot, keen to leave. She has more important things to do than investigate a possible break-in. I tell her about the sketches that Charlie discovered in Harper’s room. She doesn’t seem interested.
‘They fill in Harper’s timeline,’ I say.
Cray ignores me and walks towards her car. I chase after her, blocking her path.
‘Have I done something to upset you?’
‘What?’
‘I get the impression that I’m wasting your time.’
‘Right now – yes, you are.’
‘So I should go home.’
‘Suit yourself,’ she mutters. ‘I’ve had a gutful of psychologists.’
I step back, but Cray doesn’t pass. Her jaw flexes. ‘When did you last talk to Milo Coleman?’
‘After the funerals.’
‘Not since then?’
‘No.’
‘An hour ago he went on radio and linked Naomi Meredith’s murder to the farmhouse killings. He knew about the bleach and the symbol carved on her forehead.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘None of those things were made public. How did Coleman find out?’
‘You think I told him?’
‘Did you?’
‘No, and I’m offended that you think so little of me.’
‘You’re pissed off – join the fucking queue,’ she says bitterly. ‘The Chief Constable has gone nuclear. He expressly told us not to link the cases.’
I contemplate telling her about Bennie and Milo, but I have no evidence that she leaked details.
Cray is still talking. ‘Milo Coleman is all over the radio and TV, calling the killer a sad sadistic pervert fixated on adultery. How in fuck’s name did he find out?’
I don’t answer. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘My job,’ she replies. ‘Mr Coleman is in possession of information only the killer could have known, which makes him a suspect. That being the case, I’m going to crawl up his rectum and set up camp until I find out what he was doing on the night of the murders.’
When the detectives have gone, Ruiz joins me at the gate, offering me a boiled sweet from a tin that he keeps in his pocket.
‘The Fat Controller doesn’t look happy – did someone set fire to her nipple tassels?’
‘The Chief Constable has expressed every confidence in her.’
‘Oh, shit!’
‘Yeah.’
Ruiz almost looks sorry for her. He returns the tin to his pocket. ‘The big detective told me something interesting. They’ve found two other choking victims – one in Torquay and the other in Weymouth. The reports came from two A&E departments at local hospitals. Same deal – the attacker carved a letter into their foreheads.’
Close Your Eyes Page 23
