“His fiancee, Louise Green, she’s devastated. Not only was her fiancee murdered, but he was killed in the arms of another woman. Pretty heavy stuff.”
Both men stared at me and I nodded sympathetically.
“Do you know Louise?”
I shook my head.
“So you knew neither Michael or Louise, hadn’t seen either of them until last night?
“No.”
“So that would mean there hadn’t been an altercation, or any harsh words exchanged between you and Mr Phillips?”
My blood ran cold. “That’s correct.”
Detective Dobson shifted in his seat and regarded me stonily. I prepared myself. “So, Mr Rivers, you didn’t know the victim, you’d never spoken with him or had any kind of trouble with him. Basically, this man was a complete stranger to you. Is that correct?”
He spoke in a way that reminded me of a stern headmaster. “Yes, that is correct.”
The detectives exchanged a glance before Dobson looked back to me. “So can you explain why you were so angry with Mr Phillips then?”
The question impacted me as a sudden slap in the face would. “I wasn’t angry. I mean, why would I be? I’d never seen the man before in my life.”
“You recall the bartender warning you not to cause any trouble?” Dobson asked, his eyes never leaving mine. “Because he remembers you. He told us you kept looking over at the victim, that you appeared angry and you were clenching your fists, gritting your teeth. Like this.” Dobson demonstrated.
So this was why they were on my doorstep. The hound-dog bartender had told them about me. Even though I was still distressed at their questions, I was no longer afraid. So a bartender told them I seemed agitated, that didn’t mean that I’d murdered the man.
“Yes, I remember the bartender warning me not to cause trouble,” I said smoothly. “But he’s wrong if he told you I had a problem with Michael. I don’t usually go to the pub on a weekday, but I felt a bit low so I went to the pub. I’d been upset about my girlfriend, that’s why I seemed agitated, because in fact I was.”
“Seems strange to me that you claim not to know him, then call him Michael.”
I gulped and detective Jackson spoke. “Rather rocky time you’re having with your girlfriend at the moment.”
His soft tone soothed me and I looked at him gratefully. “Yes it has. We broke up this morning.”
“So it’s safe to say you’re under a lot of stress at the moment.”
That question I didn’t like. Kind of made it look as though they were forming a motive.
Jackson watched me for a reaction to his statement, then Dobson spoke. “Yeah, must have been a little hard to see a happy couple celebrating in the pub that you’d gone in to blow off a little steam over your girlfriend.”
I looked at both detectives, deciding that silence was the best response, since they hadn’t actually asked me a question.
“So, what time roughly did you leave the white bull last night?” Jackson asked.
I shrugged. “It wasn’t late.”
“And did you head straight home?
I nodded.
“Are you sure?” Dobson asked.
“I’m positive.”
Dobson cleared his throat. “Do you know where the Sunnyside apartment block is?”
The name kind of rung a bell, but I couldn’t place the name.
“It sounds familiar.”
“Do you know anyone who lives at Sunnyside Apartments?”
Sunnyside Apartments. It hit me hard. It was the name of the apartment block the couple had been murdered in.
“No I don’t,” I said as my face flushed bright red.
“Are you sure?” Dobson asked me.
“I’m positive.”
“So there would be no reason for you to be there then?”
Bile rose in my throat and I swallowed furiously.
“I wouldn’t be there visiting with anyone, no. Though it did look kind of familiar when I saw it on the news.” I shrugged, as if I hadn’t really given the matter much thought.
“Is that because you have been there then?” Dobson was relentless.
“I don’t know, maybe at some point. It’s right near town centre, I could have used the car park or something.”
“Did you loan your van to anyone last night?” Jackson asked the question this time.
“No I didn’t.”
Detective Jackson sighed. “Look, Mr Rivers. We have the victim placed at the White Bull last night, at the same time you were there. We have the bartender who says it appeared you were extremely agitated, that Mr Phillips appeared to be the cause of this. So sure was he that he warned you against starting any trouble.
Then, we have not one, but three witnesses that say you left at the exact same time as Mr Phillips, that indeed it appeared as if you were following him. The bartender watched your van leave in the same direction as Mr Phillips’ car.
We know he then went to a cocktail bar in town where he met Diane before heading into a nearby bar. They then went back to her apartment.”
Even though I felt as if I vomit violently at any moment, I nodded my head as he spoke, trying to appear interested and befuddled. The bartender had watched me leave in my van after observing my behaviour at the bar. Three witnesses had told the police that I’d left at the same time as Michael.
This didn’t look good.
Little did I know, it was going to get worse.
“You say you left the bar and came straight home,” Dobson said, “and that you didn’t lend your van to anyone else last night. Sunnyside apartments is a high price area, as you probably know by its location. High rents, high earners, and lots of fancy expensive cars in the parking lot.
The tenants want some sort of protection for their cars.
If you say you left the pub last night and came straight home without lending your van to anyone, could you explain why your van is shown clearly on CCTV footage outside Sunnyside Apartments as arriving within seconds of the victims’ and parking for approximately 10 minutes before speeding away?”
Chapter Eleven
He hurried away before anyone could see him. The Library was fairly busy today, full of students with their books clutched to their chests as they chatted enthusiastically about this topic and that topic. Although it was nice to see youth actually studying and not hanging around street corners getting into mischief, he needed privacy for what he was doing; he did not want to be linked to this Library and have someone give a description of him.
Not that it would happen. He’d been doing his work for many years now, and never once, as far as he knew, had he even entered the police’s radar. He doubted they’d even linked all his killings’. He knew if they ever did, there would be panic of a serial killer on the loose.
He hurried to his car with his notes and print-outs in his book-bag. Sliding into the driver’s seat, he glanced in the mirror. The baseball cap he wore covered much of his face and the blond wig poked out here and there. Confident if any description of him was given, it wouldn’t lead back to him, he relaxed a little. It wasn’t so much the students that bothered him; they were more interested in where they were going at the weekend, what alcohol or drugs they were going to indulge in or who they were having sex with. No, it was the nosy Librarian that concerned him. As far as stereotypes go, this woman matched the Librarian look right down to the greying hair pulled back into a bun with her glasses resting on the edge of her nose as she closely watched everyone, finger poised and ready to shush should someone breath too loudly.
She had started to make him angry the way she’d been staring, then how she’d taken to wandering past his cubicle so she could look over his shoulder at the screen. She was terrible at watching, stalking, taking in details without being seen.
Which made him pull out the papers he’d printed off from his book-bag. Although grainy and probably full of lies since this was the report published in the paper, the information would just have
to do for now. His own computer was in for repairs and once it was out, he could hack into police files to find out the real story.
When he’d started this work, he knew the most important part of the job was not the lesson itself, but knowing the prey. You had to know why they did the things they did in order to understand them. Sometimes, he was able to save people and put them on the right path, others were not interested and preferred the path they walked on.
Glancing over the paper, he took in the picture of Danny, aged about ten. A dirty, unkempt and rather scrawny child, the story told of an attack on his prostitute mother. The picture of Danny had been taken from outside the home the night of the mother’s attack as Danny stood in front of his house. He noted the sadness in Danny, the slouched posture of the boy and the distant look in his eyes.
He’d encountered people like this before. They claimed a bad childhood to excuse the sins they committed everyday. They blamed their parents’ for what they’d become as an adult, even though they had the power to change the course of their own life. He knew people had terrible childhoods, and he felt sorrow for them, but there were many people who used their terrible start in life to map out a better life for themselves. Many people lived a lifetime away from their childhoods, and he saw no excuse for people who blamed their upbringing for their laziness, self-pity and self-destructive ways.
As his mother had always told him : no matter how bad you feel, no matter what is going wrong for you right now, always remember, there are people far worse off than you.
It was a saying he lived by, a saying he tried to make others live by.
He looked again at his picture of Danny and remembered the large man he had grown into. Questions, so many questions ran through his mind. Why had Danny been following Michael? He had looked, but found no link to Michael or Diane. Danny had never been in trouble with the police, he held a job at a local supermarket and paid his own bills in the flat he rented.
He seemed a rather average young man. So why had he been following Michael?
This was new on him, and he felt excitement bubbling from within. He was going to test Danny tonight, a test he had already planned out. He had the perfect woman in mind for the test, how it turned out would depend entirely on Danny.
But, before Danny’s test, he had a little job to do, just something to prove to Danny just how serious this situation was. He knew that people liked to think it was some sort of joke, it nearly always took harming someone close to them to prove how serious he really was.
And he had just the person in mind for Danny’s pre-lesson.
Smiling, he put the papers back into his book-bag and settled back into his seat, watching the library doors. The woman tonight would be a test, a test that, if Danny passed, would lead to a real test of Danny’s character. The test wasn’t so much for Danny, but for him. He needed to understand this young man who followed a complete stranger from a bar. There had to be a reason, right? Otherwise, why follow him?
Weary from asking himself the same question over and over again, he forced himself to concentrate on the doors, waiting for the girl to leave.
Just over an hour later, she did. He gritted his teeth as he saw her. A pretty young blond of around 17-years-old, she talked happily with a few other students before walking away, her books clutched to her chest. As he hoped, she stopped by the bus-stop, sat down on the bench and pulled out her mobile phone.
Her booth had been directly across from his, and soon after she and her friend sat down, they had started talking about an upcoming exam. The girl’s friend―a plain looking young woman who looked a little geekish―had expressed fear at the exam, claiming she desperately needed to pass or she’d be behind with her studies since this grade impacted on other grades. The blond had then told her she had all the answers, that someone called Rob had given her the answers over a week ago.
She planned to cheat.
When their conversation had started, it’d been the geekish girl who had irked him. Study then, he’d felt like shouting at her. If you study for exams as hard as you whine and moan about them, you won’t have anything to worry about. By the end of the conversation, geek girl had his respect. She had expressed horror, then disgust at the blond girl’s willingness to cheat.
“It’ll be easy,” the blond had whispered. “Rob gave me the list to memorise. It starts off A, D, B―”
“I don’t want to know,” geek girl had said. “I’m not cheating.”
“I thought you really need to pass this exam?”
“I do. But I’m not going to cheat. And I don’t think you should, either.”
“Beats studying for it.” The blond laughed shamelessly.
“I’m gonna go and grab a couple of books to help me study.” Geek girl stood.
“Sucker,” the blond told her.
“Cheater,” geek girl retorted and both giggled quietly.
Geek girl headed to the far corner of the library as the blond stayed seated. A vibrating sound momentarily threw him before he recognized it as a mobile phone set to vibrate only..
Where did this girl think it was okay to cheat? People say that when you cheat on tests, you’re only cheating yourself. But that wasn’t true. If the information given to the blond was correct, then she would ace the exam, along with other students who had studied hard for it. What if there was some sort of bonus for students who passed, what if there was a limited number of bonuses for passing students and this girl stole the place of a student who hadn’t cheated?
He knew some people would think he was looking far too deep into it, but it was true. This girl was young. She was pretty. She had a lot going for her if she engaged her brain. Yet, instead of applying herself, she chose to be lazy and cheat. This exam result would go into a file and be used for reference one day when she sought employment. What if that particular passing grade gave her the advantage over other candidates for the same job?
The one plus on her side; she was young enough to learn a lesson. He’d watched geek girl approvingly as she’d staggered back to the cubicle with four large books and joked with the blond about how late she would be staying up tonight to study for the exam on Monday.
So, the exam was Monday. It was Saturday now. If Danny passed his test tonight, then this girl’s lesson would be taught on Sunday.
For Danny, this girl wouldn’t be a test, she would be an assignment.
He stayed behind the bus, which was awkward but easy since the traffic was light. He watched her step off the bus and followed her to her house. If Danny failed his test tonight, he’d have to think of a new way to teach this girl a lesson.
He watched the blond enter her front door, her hair swaying with her bouncy happy stride.
If only she knew her life rested in the hands of a stranger.
Chapter Twelve
I drove to my aunt and uncle’s house, my head swimming and my stomach churning in fear.
I was in very serious trouble.
The detectives had left shortly after dropping the CCTV bomb on me, claiming to return if they had any further questions and encouraging me to contact them should I remember anything of importance.
I’d watched enough real crime shows to know what was happening.
They had me placed at the pub with the victim, and they had me leaving at the same time as him. They also had me on CCTV as arriving at the apartment block shortly after he did.
It would be pretty obvious at this point that I’d been following him.
Although that looks terribly suspicious, they can’t arrest me for it.
They would be digging into my background now, finding out what they can about me and trying to establish a link between Michael Phillips and myself. From there, they would look for a motive.
The clincher though, would be evidence.
Blood, hair, semen, DNA, footprints, fingerprints, anything solid to connect either me to the crime scene, or the victims to me.
I knew of course that they wouldn’t find any
thing of the sort, but I also knew that I would remain a suspect.
What if they arrest me for murder?
The thought alone almost broke me, and I blinked my eyes rapidly as I drove my van. The police would find no link between myself and the victims, but the further they dug into my past, the more sure they would become that I was guilty. They would learn all about my terrible childhood full of neglect and physical abuse and the traumatic incident that led to me living with my aunt and uncle.
Upon learning this information I pictured the detectives nodding knowingly, feeling sure that I was a nutcase and capable of murder.
I had a sudden moment of hope when I realised the CCTV may actually clear me. Wouldn’t it show that I hadn’t got out of the van and that I’d driven away?
But then I realised that didn’t mean I hadn’t been watching the victims to ensure their whereabouts before moving my van for an easier getaway after the crime.
If the CCTV was mounted above the entrance doors to the apartment block then it would show the hooded figure. I had a feeling that it wasn’t though.
It was a high-class area with locked doors and intercom systems to reach the tenants. You either needed a key to get in or to be buzzed in by a tenant. The CCTV was probably pointed at the car park.
I didn’t really think I could be arrested without any solid proof, but I wouldn’t have bet my life on it. A certain amount of circumstantial evidence was admitted as evidence enough for an arrest warrant.
The thought of being arrested and charged with murder almost caused me to fall apart completely.
In that moment every beating my mother had ever given me, every night I’d lain in bed awake because the pain in my too empty stomach denied me the ability to fall asleep and every insult and harsh word ever spoken to me by children or adults seemed like a walk in the park to what I was facing.
Tears stung my eyes at the thought of a life sentence in prison.
I know you’re probably thinking I was getting way ahead of myself, but you try being questioned by homicide detectives who’ve come to question you about a man you happened to be following who ended up getting murdered. Then add to that the hooded figure, who freaked me out enough to begin with, but then I’m contacted by him too, and he happens to be the murderer.
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