Eventually, they had turned into a small cul de sac where they’d drawn up outside the end house.
‘Get out. We’re here.’
She didn’t move.
‘I said, get out. Or do I have to carry you inside?’
She glanced around. It was late. There was no one else around, and no lights on in any of the other houses. As though reading her mind, he lunged forward and tied his scarf round her mouth so she couldn’t cry out for help. Not that there was anyone around to hear her if she’d started screaming.
Having silenced her, he dragged her out of the car and hustled her through his front gate onto a narrow yard. She tried to resist, but he was holding onto her arm so tightly she couldn’t wriggle free. With an exasperated sigh, he picked her up off her feet. Carrying her under one arm, he hurried towards the house.
‘Here we are,’ he said cheerfully, as he opened the front door.
He seemed to expect her to be pleased they had arrived. She glared at him. With her mouth gagged, she couldn’t protest as he closed the front door on the world outside.
For weeks she had been mentally preparing to protect herself, in case she attracted the attentions of a maniac. She had rehearsed different scenarios over and over again in her imagination. Now the situation had arisen for real, she seemed to be paralysed. In any case, with her hands tied together, there wasn’t that much she could do. So much for all her self-defence moves.
‘Knee them in the balls,’ one of her fellow workers had said. ‘Works every time.’
As soon as she could, she was going to do just that. If she injured him, so much the better.
‘Let’s go upstairs and play a game,’ he said, with a bright smile.
She grunted as loudly as she could, waving her arms as far as her bonds would allow, to indicate that she wanted to be released.
‘I’ll let you go, if you promise to behave,’ he said.
She nodded her head.
‘Good girl.’
He was speaking to her as though she was very young. With a flash of hope, she began to understand what he was after. He wanted to fantasise that she was a child. Well, she could play along with that, no trouble. She was on familiar ground with men’s sexual fantasies. There was nothing dodgy about him after all. He was just a sad old paedo. If she could just calm down and work this job right, she might yet turn the situation to her advantage. The bloke had a house. He wasn’t badly dressed. There could be money in it for her, if she was a bit clever. He might become a regular punter, and she wouldn’t have to let on to anyone how much she was making. The more perverted his needs, the more he would pay. All she had to do was satisfy his needs. She might even be protecting some poor kid from being attacked.
‘Come on then,’ he said, ‘you’re room’s ready.’
Turning, he led her upstairs, babbling about the games they were going to play. Still bound and gagged, she followed him. After the stress of the journey to his house, this was turning into easy pickings. She had been a fool to give way to panic. He had taken away her phone and her bag because they were the trappings of an adult. As a pretend child, she ought to have no control over her life. It had all become clear to her now.
He took her into a room furnished only with a plain grey bed. There were bars on the window.
‘Here we are,’ he said.
Once again, she grunted and lifted her arms. With a nod, he released her hands and gently removed her gag.
‘That’s better, isn’t it?’ he smiled. ‘Now you can be comfortable.’
‘Thank you, kind gentleman.’
He looked surprised. ‘Call me daddy.’
‘Thank you, daddy.’
‘Wait here,’ he said again. ‘I’ve got something for you to wear.’
Perched on the bed, she pulled off her boots and undid her shirt in readiness. He still hadn’t returned, so she took off her shirt completely and removed her underwear. It was inappropriate for a child to be wearing a bra anyway. She had to be careful to pander to his fantasy correctly, if she wanted to exploit him successfully. Lying on the bed, she spread her legs and waited, with everything on show. But she kept her little skirt on. That was probably what had attracted his attention in the first place.
The door opened. The man entered the room. He was wearing a clown’s mask with a shiny red nose and fluffy orange hair, his expression concealed behind a huge painted grin.
‘Come here and fuck me, daddy,’ she said.
With a roar of rage, he ran forward. Grabbing the edge of the blanket, he threw it over her to cover her naked body. Raising his fist, he began raining blows down on her.
‘You filthy little bitch. What the hell are you doing? I’m your father!’
The last thing she saw before she passed out was the gleam of his massive red nose.
50
Geraldine passed an uneasy night. She slept in short bursts, waking frequently with a sinking feeling. First thing in the morning, she called the clinic and was relieved to learn that Helena was still there. So far so good. Leaving instructions with the clinic that she was to be contacted at once if there were any problems, she did her best to put her sister out of her mind and went into work. Her worries there weren’t as distressing as her anxieties about Helena. In any case, she knew what was going on at work. Short of calling the clinic every ten minutes, she was completely in the dark about what her sister was up to. As Adam was keen on saying, speculation didn’t help, so she threw herself into work, tidying up numerous loose ends in her paperwork, and signing off expenses claims from her team. Sorting out her documents, she tried to suppress unease.
‘I can’t see what your problem is,’ Adam scolded her.
His dark hair could have been painted on it was so sleek, and his pale blue shirt looked freshly ironed. There was no Mrs Eastwood lovingly taking care of his laundry. Geraldine wondered if he did his own ironing, or whether he paid someone else to do it for him. She occasionally glimpsed the insecurity behind his composure, but there was no sign of it now. He gave her his characteristic controlled smile.
‘I’m just not a hundred per cent convinced Chris did it.’
‘Well, when you have something more concrete to go on, come and talk to me again.’
It was a dismissal. What made it worse was that Geraldine knew he was right, in a way. She had nothing to back up her claims. Her view was based on a hunch. She had warned her sergeants so many times to act on evidence, not intuition. Now she was making exactly the same mistake herself. With a sigh, she returned to her desk.
‘What’s up?’ Neil asked, just as Adam had done. ‘You’ve got your wife killer, so why the long face? You look as though someone shoved a lemon in your mouth when you weren’t looking. What’s wrong?’
Annoyed with herself for allowing her feelings to show, Geraldine was reluctant to admit that she was feeling wretched about her sister. There had to be a chance that Helena would kick her habit. If that were to happen, there would be no need for anyone to know about her past. In the meantime, Geraldine had to be patient.
‘I’m just not convinced Chris is guilty,’ she said, turning to Neil and forcing a smile.
‘Really? I thought it was all over bar the shouting.’
‘Yes, it seems that way.’
‘Seems?’ Neil was quick to pick up on her expression.
Geraldine shrugged. ‘You know how it is,’ she muttered.
‘Last-minute doubts?’
‘Yes.’
As it happened, Geraldine had been harbouring reservations about Chris’s guilt all through the investigation, but she didn’t want to discuss her feelings with Neil. Adam had already dismissed her misgivings as groundless and Neil might do the same. At the very least he would expect her to justify her disquiet, when all she could say was that it was just a feeling. Tedious administrative tasks did little to
distract her. She decided to talk to Chris again. This time she didn’t set up a formal interview, but instead went to speak to him in his cell, alone. He sat awkwardly on his bunk, a fine sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead. Without his lawyer at his side, he looked very isolated. He looked up at her with a helpless expression.
‘I didn’t do it,’ he burst out, his voice trembling. ‘I didn’t. I couldn’t. You have to believe me. Why is this happening to me?’ His plea sounded almost childlike.
Geraldine spoke gently. ‘Chris, you’ve been protesting your innocence. So let’s just suppose for a minute, just between you and me, that you’re telling us the truth…’
‘I am telling the truth.’
‘In that case, you really need to give me the names of anyone you think might have wanted your wife dead. You have to stop pretending she had no enemies and there was no one who could have held a grudge against her.’
‘What are you talking about?’ He shook his head and raised his hands in a helpless gesture, staring wildly at her.
‘Tell me about any enemies your wife might have had. Who might have wanted to harm her?’
‘No one. Jamie didn’t have enemies.’
Geraldine paused for a second, wondering if he understood what she was talking about. ‘But someone wanted her dead.’
‘No. That’s just nonsense. No one would have wanted her dead.’
‘But someone killed her.’
‘It must have been a random attack, a random nutter…’
‘She was killed inside your house.’
‘Random people come to the door. It must have been a random crazy caller…’
‘Crazy I grant you,’ Geraldine interrupted him, ‘but not random. Chris, this was a carefully planned murder. Whoever killed your wife knew exactly what he was doing and how he was going to set about it. Your wheelie bin was used, and the murder weapon was deposited in your shed. Jamie’s murder was carefully planned and executed. This was no chance opportunistic killer. It was someone who knew your wife and deliberately came calling when you were out. Who could that have been?’
Chris shook his head. ‘No one would have wanted to kill my wife. She had no enemies. She didn’t know anyone. She hardly ever went out.’
‘Was there a reason for that? Could she have been hiding from someone, someone from her past with a grudge against her?’
As she was speaking, Geraldine realised her theory sounded ridiculous. All the same, it was possible. And if Chris really hadn’t killed his wife, Geraldine’s suggestion should be investigated. But first she had to convince Adam that they might have arrested the wrong suspect.
Geraldine looked closely at Chris as she enquired what his wife had been like. He seemed instantly on his guard, which surprised her. Perhaps Adam was right after all, and she should stop questioning Chris’s guilt.
‘What do you mean, what was she like?’ he asked, hedging.
‘What kind of person was she?’
‘Jamie was…’ His eyes filled with tears and he dropped his head in his hands. His voice came out muffled. ‘She was meek and good,’ he said.
51
That evening, Geraldine had arranged to meet her friend and former colleague, Ian. She had been pleasantly surprised to learn that he was in London. She had hoped he was there investigating the possibility of applying for a transfer to London but he explained he was attending a conference in place of a colleague who had a stomach bug. Geraldine mentioned an Indian restaurant where they could sit in a booth and chat, without being overheard.
‘If you like Indian food, that is?’
‘Sounds great. I’ll see you there.’
Geraldine couldn’t have been more excited if she had been going on a date. Ian was an old friend and she hadn’t seen him for a while. They both appreciated the opportunity to talk over their current cases with an outsider who was neither involved in the case nor incapable of appreciating what it was like to be working on it. They could share each other’s frustrations and triumphs with genuine sympathy.
‘I wish Bev could see what I’m doing the way you do,’ Ian had grumbled on more than one occasion, before his wife had left him.
After exchanging brief expressions of sympathy, he for the death of her mother, she for the breakdown of his marriage, they avoided discussing personal matters, keeping instead to the relatively safe topics of murder and detection.
‘Have you thought any more about leaving York?’ was the closest Geraldine approached to talking about his situation.
Not yet ready to talk about her twin, she was reluctant to pry into her friend’s private affairs, for fear he might reciprocate. At the same time, she felt uncomfortable keeping quiet about someone who had become so important to her. She and Ian had worked closely together, and she trusted him more than anyone else she knew. But she needed time to work out how she felt about Helena before sharing her problem with anyone else. She was surprised when Ian told her that he was thinking of staying in York, despite his unhappy experience there.
‘I thought you’d decided to move, and put your life there behind you?’
As she spoke, she did her best to hide her disappointment. She had been hoping Ian would request a transfer to London. They might have ended up working together again. Swallowing her dismay, she waited to hear what he had to say.
‘The thing is, I really like York itself, the town I mean. It’s a great place to live. But you’re right. I was considering requesting a transfer to somewhere more exciting…’
‘Like London?’
‘Well, yes, exactly. I need to keep busy right now.’ He raised his head, and Geraldine caught a sad expression in his eyes.
‘So what’s happened to change your mind?’
‘They’re setting up a new major crime unit where I’m based, in Fulford Road.’ He grinned, his fleeting misery gone. ‘Right now they’re busy recruiting more officers and we’re going to have more to do than ever! It couldn’t have come at a better time, as far as I’m concerned. Can you imagine how Bev would have reacted if I’d told her I was going to be working longer hours? And this way I’m going to have more than enough to take my mind off what happened.’
Ian was more cheerful than Geraldine had seen him in a long time. When she commented on his good mood, he looked thoughtful.
‘You know, I used to feel slightly sorry for you, and at the same time jealous of you, for being single. You had no one to please but yourself. And I have to say, much as I bitterly regret what happened, being single has a lot to recommend it. I can do what I want, whenever I want, and I’m not answerable to anyone. I didn’t appreciate quite how hemmed in I was at the time, but I see now that I was living in a state of permanent guilt, all the time I was married. I can’t tell you how liberated I feel now. I mean, I’d turn the clock back if I could, and still be married to Bev, in spite of what she did…’ He paused and shook his head. ‘The thing is, I can’t believe I’m on my own and unattached again. I don’t have to feel responsible for anyone but myself, and that makes me feel so free.’ He smiled.
Geraldine wondered if she would ever feel that kind of freedom again, as long as Helena was alive.
‘You were very young when you met,’ was all she said.
He nodded. ‘We were still at school. She’s been a part of my whole adult life. More than a part of it – she was at the very centre of it. I’ve been forced to re-evaluate my entire life. If it wasn’t for work, I don’t know how I would have coped.’
‘But you are OK, aren’t you?’
‘I’m fine, and I can’t wait to see how things pan out with the new unit. There’s nothing like work to keep your mind off your own problems.’
‘What are you working on right now?’
Geraldine listened patiently as Ian told her about the murder he was investigating, before she told him about Jamie and Louise. He
agreed the two murders must be connected, since both victims were in close relationships with Chris. The man who had met Louise at the station had been shorter than Chris, so he hadn’t picked her up. At the same time, the fact that the bearded man had held out a sign with Louise’s name on it suggested that her husband hadn’t met her at Euston station in disguise either. It all came back to the mysterious bearded man. Like Adam, Ian thought that the shoeprints found near Louise’s body could be irrelevant. Anyone could wear shoes that were too big, ‘or even too small, at a pinch,’ he added, smiling at his own pun. Geraldine couldn’t help smiling back. ‘But it does sound like there’s a killer out there who’s kept himself under the radar.’
Chatting about the bearded man with a friend who was not involved in the investigation should have clarified the various strands of the case in Geraldine’s mind. Instead she left the restaurant feeling, if anything, even more confused than before. Ian had not been wrong when he had said it was a complicated case. But at least Geraldine had been able to forget about Helena for a few hours. She hoped Ian had also been able to take a break from his personal problems.
52
On Thursday morning, Geraldine received a summons from the detective chief inspector. Their suspect wanted to speak to them. Adam looked up at her from behind his desk, speechless but exultant. ‘This is it,’ his grin seemed to announce, ‘the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for.’
He leapt to his feet, his excitement infectious. Falling into step beside him, Geraldine felt her spirits rise. Thrown off her stride by her problems with her sister, she had been unnecessarily sceptical of their success, but all they needed was a confession from Chris for the case to be satisfactorily tied up. And at last he seemed ready to capitulate. Even a clever lawyer wouldn’t be able to get him off, once he had given a formal confession.
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