by Mel Sherratt
It was similar to a set that Ryan had bought me for the anniversary of our first year together.
Dropping to the floor with my back against the wall, I wrapped my arms around my legs and sat, tears pouring down my face, as I began to shake violently.
He’d found me.
Would I ever have my freedom? The sense that I didn’t have to look over my shoulder forever more. A sense of not being someone’s property. A sense of not being there for someone to beat to death once they found out where I am.
I sat there for over half an hour, not daring to move. Then, as if a switch had been clicked, I ran around like a lunatic, packing a bag, tears pouring down my face. He had me where he wanted me, running away with fear, worried that he would get to me. If he could get that close with one of his friends, anyone could come back and harm me. Kill me even – finish off the job that he’d started.
How gullible was I to think that it would all be over?
I have no idea how he found me, but everyone can be traced, can’t they? It’s laughable when people say you can go into hiding and never be found. I can’t change my looks, can I? I can change the colour of my hair, the style even, but underneath it’s still me. I can change my name, but I’m sure he’d still find me.
I can’t go to ground. I have to work so I have to register. I have to use gas, electricity, a phone.
I can’t keep on running either.
But I do. Because I know what he’ll do when he finds me.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Tanya lay on her bed, curled up on her side. Tears spilled down her face as she realised how much trouble she was in – and just how much danger too. She hadn’t thought things through properly when she’d agreed to the plan with Vic. She was worried that she’d gone too far.
Last night, Vic had contacted her several times to get her to continue with everything. She reread the last text message that he’d sent.
If you don’t go through with our plan, I’ll be for it too.
Had she said too much about the underwear? She had hoped to tease Carla, but she would know now that she had something to do with it.
Even that nosy cow, Sergeant Berrisford, would go mad if she found out what she’d been doing – she would lose her support too. The police might always give her grief, but she knew they would be there if she needed them, if she had to move somewhere else quickly.
Maybe she should confide in someone. Maybe Lisa? But she might kick her out of the refuge. Would anyone believe her if she told them what she had been forced to be a part of?
Eden Berrisford thought she was a troublemaker, crying wolf because she kept on going back to Vic. But it wasn’t like that this time. She was doing this for both of them. The money would come in handy.
She just needed to bide her time and keep her mouth shut. Then she could leave this place behind, never to come again. These women were nothing like her. They were the weak ones. She was strong. She could stick up for herself if she wanted to.
But she had made a fool of herself. Crying wolf all the time meant that people didn’t trust her. What if Carla didn’t believe her when she told her she had nothing to do with it? She couldn’t believe she had been drawn into it, as she had begun to like Carla and tricking her wasn’t nice. She was always trying to help her, and the look on Carla’s face today when she had gone too far in the counselling session was ingrained on her mind. She was a nice person. Tanya was a horrid one.
Lonely and upset, she sent Vic a text message.
I can’t do this any more. I miss you, and I want to come home.
A message came back a few minutes later.
One more thing and it’s all over. Then you can come home. Promise.
Tanya shivered and sat down on the bed. Another day, and she would feel lonely, guilty and miserable. Another day she had no friends, no one to trust.
She didn’t want to do what Vic said, but she had no choice. And she hated herself for it.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Now that the case had been passed to Major Crimes, Eden and her team were working alongside a large team of officers. Sean had briefed them all and a press release had gone out at lunchtime – Daniels’ photo had been all over the television and local newspapers. A uniformed officer had been made available to help check known areas for homeless sleepers, as well as one being stationed outside the house in Sudbury Avenue. Daniels would be covered in blood. It would be hard for him to stay invisible after this attack.
The local journalists were out in force when Eden got to the entrance of the city hospital at 3 p.m. She pushed through them, giving no comment, and went to find ward 106. Melody Dixon had, thankfully, been found in time to make her twenty-fourth birthday next month. Eden couldn’t help but wince as she caught sight of her. She looked like she’d been in a car crash. Her face was now one mass of swelling, and there was a cut under her left eye. She could barely see through the other one. Her right arm was in a cast. But she was alive, though what her mental state might be was another matter.
Melody had been assigned a sexual assault officer, but Eden thought she’d see if she was fit to answer a few more questions.
‘Hi, Melody.’ Eden pulled the curtain around the bed. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Eden Berrisford. I’m here to ask you about this morning, if you don’t mind. I’m certainly not going to ask you how you’re feeling.’ She smiled to encourage a connection.
A tear slipped down Melody’s face, and she wiped at it with the back of her good hand.
Eden held up a carrier bag. ‘I was grabbing a bar of chocolate from the hospital shop so I picked up a couple of magazines for you.’ She put them on the bedside cabinet, noticing a large vase of flowers. ‘Have your family been to see you?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ Melody’s voice came out croaky as she fought to speak. ‘The flowers are from my dad.’
‘That’s nice. I expect you’ll need his support when you go home.’ Eden was never one to beat about the bush. ‘Are you able to go through what happened with me? You can take your time. The more you can tell me the better, as I very much intend to catch the bastard who did this to you.’
Eden pulled up a chair and sat nearer to her, taking out her notebook. Melody went through her attack again. Eden hated that she had to ask, had to inflict pain on her once more as she relived the memory, but she had to listen to it from her point of view.
‘Is it him?’ Melody asked afterwards, looking at her with so much fear in her eyes. ‘The man who’s been attacking all those women? Because I heeded the warnings. I didn’t go out alone. He attacked me in my own home.’
Eden gave her time to compose herself as she cried. As much as she wanted to know every detail, her information gathering needed to be as sensitive as possible. She reached for Melody’s hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze.
‘Do you have a partner to look after you?’
Melody shook her head. ‘There’s just me and the boys now. I got pregnant with Nathaniel when I was sixteen, and Reece is five. Their dad is still around, and he sees them regularly. We were just too young to stay together.’ She burst into tears. ‘I only moved into the house three months ago. My dad said I could stay with him forever but I wanted my own independence. I should have listened to him. I know he blames himself for letting me go. It wasn’t his fault. It was mine.’
‘It wasn’t anyone’s fault,’ Eden stressed. ‘This man is dangerous. The description that you gave matches one of the victim’s. You mentioned that he wasn’t wearing anything on his face. Can I show you a photo I have?’
Melody looked away for a moment and then nodded.
Eden wasn’t sure how the woman was going to react, but she needed to know. She held up the photocopied sheet of paper with Daniels’ photo on it.
‘Is this the man who attacked you?’
Melody gasped. A tear dripped down the side of her face. It took a moment before she nodded. ‘Do you know who he is?’
‘Yes, he’s wanted in connect
ion to other assaults too. Thank you, Melody. You’ve been so brave. It can’t be very nice looking at the image, but it could stop him doing this again if we can charge him with your assault. This is the first time he showed his face.’
‘I hope he rots in a cell,’ she said.
Eden could understand her anger. Right now, she thought the same. She hoped they could catch him soon. There were a lot of women who would sleep better in their beds if they could.
‘You need to catch him before he does it again. Before he kills someone next time. That’s what he was doing with me, wasn’t it? He thought he’d killed me. And if he thought that, it’s only a matter of time before he tries again.’
Melody was a smart kid. She had almost taken the words right out of Eden’s mouth.
‘When we get him, I’m going to come back and let you know,’ Eden told her. ‘If that’s okay with you?’
Melody nodded. ‘Please don’t take too long about it. I don’t want anyone else to go through what I did. The man is an animal.’
Eden left the room shortly afterwards. Along the corridor, she spotted the ladies’ loos and bolted into them. In a cubicle, she put down the toilet lid and sat for a moment in the quiet. Tears poured down her face.
They would get him.
She would get him.
An hour later, back at the station, the investigation was still going strong in the hunt for Daniels. Every available hand was answering calls after the recent press conference.
‘I’ve had a call from EveryDay Taxis, Sarge,’ Amy told her after putting the phone down. ‘They have a taxi missing.’
‘Missing?’ Eden cried. ‘How can a bloody car go missing?’
‘One of the drivers left the engine running in the yard to warm it up before he started his shift, and when he went outside, it was gone. It was called in this morning, but it wasn’t linked to our case. Doreen has just phoned to let me know and to say that someone mentioned seeing Daniels hanging around.’
‘Get a vehicle check on it.’
‘Already on it.’
‘Sarge.’ Jordan held up his hand after he put his phone down too. ‘That was a call from Manchester. Forensics on one of their victims who was bitten has come up with a match to the saliva found on Ramona Wilson.’
Eden punched the air as Jordan’s phone rang again. ‘Let’s hope he hasn’t taken that taxi out of the city.’
‘Or worse,’ said Amy. ‘He could have hidden himself in full view of us. If he’s got a number plate covering it, he could attack again.’
‘Where would he have got a number plate at such short notice?’
‘They do get cloned all the time.’
‘Unless you’re dodgy, you need a log book to have one made, and he isn’t going to have that, is he? And I don’t think he’s likely to have connections here that would do one that quick for him. No, he’s still here somewhere. He’ll be spotted soon.’
‘I hope he isn’t watching someone now.’
‘He doesn’t have the time.’
‘It would make sense in the case of Melody Dixon, as he knew she was out,’ said Amy.
Eden shook her head. ‘Not necessarily. He could have broken into the property and found it empty.’
‘But if he wants to attack a woman, he needs to be pretty certain there’s one living there. And certain that she’ll be coming back soon?’
‘I guess.’ Eden paused. ‘Or maybe he’s picking out the victims in terms of age or area.’
Jordan put the phone down. ‘That was the control room. A couple have returned from work to find someone has broken in, raided their fridge and taken a shower. Apparently, their bathroom is covered with diluted blood and a few handprints. The scene is being processed but time won’t be on our side.’
‘It looks like our man is cracking up.’ Eden ran a hand through her hair, a worried look on her face. ‘Which makes him all the more dangerous.’
Chapter Fifty-Six
Carla got out of her car and hurried down the path to her front door. She heard footsteps behind her as she put the key into the lock, and then a hand on her shoulder.
‘Carla.’
She turned to see Tanya. ‘You almost scared me half to death,’ she cried. ‘What are you doing here? And how did you find out my address?’
‘I’ve known for ages where you’ve been living.’ Tanya held a hand up for her to stop talking. ‘Listen to me. You’re in danger. Things have got out of hand, and I need to tell you what’s been going on.’
Carla looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’
Tanya pushed her into the house and slammed the door shut behind them.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Carla said.
‘I need to talk to you. You’re in so much trouble.’
As Tanya ran past her, Carla followed, hot on her heels. Tanya opened the door to her living room and let it bang against the wall so that she could see all of the room from where she stood. ‘You need to check the house is secure.’
‘For who? Is Vic here?’
‘Ryan! He knows where you are.’ Tanya ran her fingers through her hair and bunched her hands into fists, pulling hard. ‘He’s been staying at our house. He’s been watching me all the time. He’s been standing outside the window, looking to see if I was doing what he’d told me to do. If I stepped out of line, he would hit me. It wasn’t Vic I was afraid of in the end. It was Ryan.’
‘What?’ Carla went cold.
‘I’m sorry, but I had no choice. Vic came out of prison with this plan. Someone had given him money to scare a woman. Vic got it into his head while he was inside that he would help him. I had to pretend that he had beat me up so I could turn up at the refuge again.’
Carla didn’t like where this was heading. Her feet were glued to the floor, her eyes never leaving Tanya’s.
‘Was Vic getting in and attacking you part of the plan?’ she asked.
Tanya nodded, tears running down her face now. ‘I’m sorry – I was so scared. He threatened to kill me if I didn’t help him.’
‘But you know Eden was looking out for you after Vic—’
‘Not Vic – Ryan! He beat me up because I didn’t like what he was doing. And then Vic hit me because I wasn’t doing what I should. Vic left the underwear on your car and kept sending me texts saying that I had to scare you. He told me about how Ryan had locked you in the bathroom, and about the teddy bear with the collar, and said I had to tell you that those things happened to me too. I didn’t like what they were doing but two grand is a lot of cash. We couldn’t turn it down.’
‘Wait a minute.’ Carla held up a hand. ‘Ryan paid you £2,000 to pose as a victim at the refuge.’
‘Yes! To get at you!’
‘But I don’t live there.’
‘He thought you did until I went to stay there. Then he said, as he’d just got out of prison, he wanted to scare you at work as well as at home.’
‘The things happening here at this house, they were Ryan?’
‘No, they were Vic.’ Tanya shook her head. ‘Ryan paid him to scare you here so that you wouldn’t feel safe anywhere.’
‘Have you any idea what you’ve done!’ Carla yelled. ‘He’s a very dangerous man.’
‘I didn’t have any choice. If I didn’t do what they said, they’d both beat me up! I was stuck. And anyway, Ryan told me what happened to Chloe – what you did.’
Carla felt all the air being sucked out of her. At the mention of her daughter’s name, all the pain came flooding back.
‘It was him. He – he killed Chloe!’
‘What?’ Tanya’s shoulders fell even further. ‘He said that he left her in your care, and she fell, and he came home to an ambulance. He told us it was your fault, and he was coming after you to get even.’
‘Even?’ Carla gasped. ‘Ryan doesn’t get even. He wants to kill me. I had years of violence at his hands.’
‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Tanya. ‘You need to get away.’
Tanya stared at Carla. Another tear dropped from her eye and rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly.
A voice came from the hallway. ‘I think you know exactly how this ends.’
Every hair on Carla’s body stood to attention, her skin crawling as she turned to the doorway. Ryan was standing there, and he was blocking their only way out.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Eden wasn’t easily shocked but when she walked into the bathroom at Lydia and Michael Sheldon’s home, she drew in her breath. It resembled a horror film: dried blood on the sink and taps, a towel striped with red on the floor and diluted blood in the bottom of the shower tray.
‘The bastard took a shower?’ She gagged at the thought. She had seen Melody lying close to death on her bed and to think this could be her blood. . . It would be a while before it was confirmed but they all knew it would be hers.
‘There’s food missing too,’ said the forensic officer who was taking samples. ‘He’s some weirdo to do this.’
‘He’s going off the rails, isn’t he?’ Jordan said, glancing at Eden. ‘He doesn’t care about being found.’
‘I wonder what tipped him over the edge?’ Eden didn’t for a minute think it would be down to anything they had done, except perhaps getting closer to catching him. Serial killers and attackers were mostly methodical. This was way off target.
She went downstairs to speak to the owners.
‘So you came home to find it like this – at what time?’ she asked.
‘Five thirty. I got in from work first and noticed the kitchen door had been forced. Then when I went upstairs. . .’ Mrs Sheldon covered her mouth, tears glistening in her eyes. ‘My house doesn’t feel like my own anymore.’
Her husband came up beside her, pale and shocked. ‘It isn’t him, is it?’ he asked. ‘The man who attacked that girl in her house this morning?’
