by Alison Bruce
She was feet from passing by, when she risked a glance, and instantly her sense of apprehension vanished.
‘Oh, hi,’ she beamed.
‘Victoria?’
She exhaled in relief. ‘Yes.’
‘Why are you walking around on your own?’
‘I’ve just had a row with a boyfriend, and I don’t want to go home, so I was walking to the Doubletree to spend the night there. To be honest, I was getting a bit spooked out here in the dark. I’m so glad it’s you.’ She knew she’d never been this friendly before, but suddenly hoped it sounded genuine. ‘And what are you doing here?’
‘I just needed to get out for some fresh air. Is he still hanging around your flat?’
Victoria lit another cigarette. ‘Waiting outside.’
‘I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.’
‘It’s a casual thing.’
‘Still not ready for anything more serious?’
‘Something like that.’
‘But it’s been several months since . . .’ The sentence died and they both gave it a moment’s silence to be laid to rest. ‘Do you want me to go back with you?’
Victoria puffed out a thin stream of smoke as she reflected on that. Then she sighed and tried to sound weary. ‘I can’t face him right now.’
She made a few half-hearted steps in the direction of the hotel. ‘He scares me,’ she moaned.
‘Scares you? How? He’s only sitting outside your flat. He can’t do anything from there.’
Victoria lowered her voice, like she was confiding a secret.
‘He’s really angry with me. He’s convinced I’m coming back tonight and he’s waiting for me.’
‘But you’re leaving him to rot there just to teach him a lesson?’
‘That was the idea,’ she said, ‘but I’ve gone off it now.’
‘Well, I think you should. I’ll help you.’
Victoria shrugged. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘You have your mobile, don’t you?’
Victoria reached in her bag, pulled out her phone and unlocked the keypad.
‘But he’ll know it’s my phone.’
‘Yes, but he won’t know the text is from me, and I know how to make him squirm. Remember it’s because of him that you’re stuck out here, cold and vulnerable.’
Victoria nodded. ‘OK.’
‘So it’s a good idea?’
Victoria shrugged, then nodded again. ‘Why not?’
‘Text this . . .’ The words were recited slowly to give her enough time to spell them properly. “‘You’ll be sorry in the morning and . . .”’
Victoria prodded the keypad with both thumbs. ‘And what?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Send?’
‘Yes.’
She pressed the send button and watched until the message icon had flown from the screen. ‘Do I send him the next bit later?’
‘Why not?’
‘And how’s that going to work?’
Her companion sighed and stared skywards, and Victoria looked up too. The moon was a cold yellow, and the small clouds were racing by fast enough to give the impression that the chimney tops themselves were moving. A few yards further down Trinity Street, a building stood on the corner of Trinity Lane, with carvings protruding from both sides of the roofline. They appeared to be ships’ figureheads, sticking out about two feet under the guttering, and gave the impression of tugging the main structure in two different directions at once.
‘Why will that message scare him?’ she persisted.
Her companion sighed, exhaling breath in a deep hiss of theatrical exasperation, then looking down again, gaze dropping in a straight line, like it had fallen from the roof. ‘When I first found out you were seeing our father I felt a bit uncomfortable, but I didn’t begrudge him some company. After all, we all know what it’s like to be lonely. You weren’t what I expected, at first, but you deserve our thanks for sticking with him right until the end. In fact, I thought it showed a kind and generous side to your nature.’
They began walking again, slowly this time, but within yards they’d stopped once more. Victoria shifted her weight from foot to foot, feeling the cold more accutely, and the conversation had slid into more difficult territory. It was uncomfortable to stand still, but neither was it the right time to walk away. ‘I wanted to be with him,’ she said.
‘I’m surprised he didn’t leave you something, a token of his thanks perhaps.’
‘I didn’t expect anything.’
‘Oh, come on. If he’d lived, you would have been enjoying his money, so why not once he’s dead?’ There was a pause. ‘Or did you assume one of us would look after you?’
And it was the following pause that made Victoria hesitate. In that three-second silence there was a shift, a mutation in the mood between them that told her finding the correct answer had just become imperative. But she couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say.
She felt a hand grab at her sleeve and, in bewilderment, she pulled her arm away, but not enough to break free. The fingers gripped too tightly.
She looked from left to right, hoping for even one pedestrian to come by. In one direction there were rows of chained-up, riderless bikes, and in the other, windowless walls and a solitary glowing lamp in the shape of a barber’s pole. But no people, now that she needed them.
Her eyes widened, she still wanted to be mistaken. ‘No, I didn’t, and I don’t know why you’re getting angry with me . . .’
‘I’m angry with myself because I didn’t see it sooner. You took something from my father.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘You took something from my father,’ the voice repeated.
‘It wasn’t about you.’ Victoria gasped as her back slammed against the damp stone wall, her body feeling weightless, swimming nowhere against the sudden pain.
The hands released her, and she staggered forwards, trying to regain her balance. She stumbled four or five steps, hoping she was free to go.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and shrugged it away, but it wasn’t there to spin her round, just to loop something around her neck. She was then hauled back in, like a toy mouse on the end of a string.
Her shoulders hunched and she threw herself from side to side, snapping her nails on the webbing belt savaging her skin. Her bag hit the footpath, spilling its contents in all directions. Her feet flailed, fighting for purchase. Her left foot landed on a spiralling lipstick and her ankle rolled, pitching her weight against the ligature.
And in response to her struggle, it merely tightened. She felt her mouth gaping and her tongue arching as it gagged her tonsils. No one came running to save her, and the last thing she did was piss herself.
The final thing she felt was it overtaking the semen already trickling down her cold bare thighs.
Victoria slumped to the ground and, after a couple of seconds, her leg kicked once, like a dreaming dog’s. But that was all.
There was no attempt to retrieve either her handbag or its contents, but the phone was slipped into a pocket.
Above her body, a square bay window protruded from the corner of the building. Under the windowsill a man’s head was carved, about ten feet above the ground. He was black with pollution, except for the dome of his bare head, where the untarnished cream stone looked like his skull.
Victoria’s features were distorted, but her face was still intact. It didn’t look right. So she was rolled on to her front. Fingers twisted into her hair and held tightly. Then her head was lifted and her face slammed against the ground. Again and again. Pummelled against the stone pavement until it grated tracks into her skin.
The killer walked away towards the river, still carrying Victoria’s phone. It was time for Bryn to receive another text.
THIRTY-FIVE
Bryn glared at the message. ‘What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’ He threw the phone on to the passenger seat. He knew one thing: there was no point waiting for her.
The drive was big enough to turn the Zodiac without reversing, but even so he backed up closer to her door before flooring the accelerator. The car seemed to crouch there before leaping forward, its fat tyres spitting flint chips at her windows.
He shot out through the gateway on to the deserted road beyond, leaving just the growl of the engine and quickly dispersed vapour trails billowing in the disturbed air. He felt satisfied that he would at least have annoyed someone.
Instead of heading directly home, he took the road out of town. Normally, he needed thinking time and the best way to achieve that was to drive. He rested his right hand on the top of the steering wheel, and his left on the gearstick.
His speed crept steadily up, passing forty in the thirty zone, then nudging fifty a few seconds after that. He was touching sixty as he swung around the last bend before reaching the motorway when he suddenly remembered the speed camera. He touched his brakes too hard, the back end of the vehicle wobbled and then straightened, just as a familiar flash exploded in front of his eyes.
‘Shit,’ he snapped. This was all he needed: everything was going from bad to worse. He just hoped there was no film in the camera, but looking at the way the day was already turning out, he doubted luck was with him, and it wasn’t like he could afford many more speeding convictions. ‘Shit,’ he repeated and now kept just under the speed limit as he coasted down the slip road leading on to the M11.
The traffic was thicker here, with overnight lorries heading to the South Coast docks and late-night businessmen heading for London. Even so, he kept carefully to the speed limit and let them thunder past. Above all else, he needed to calm down. Let it go.
He’d always known he wasn’t Victoria’s type, not in anything other than a casual way. But, hey, at first it had been fun. Now, though, she was playing a game, and he didn’t understand what it meant. Gary had asked if Lorna had been jealous, but he felt sure there was no way. Even if Victoria pretended there was. So what was her motive? His brain meandered around the issue.
And soon his speed was drifting downwards, and the same aggressive wide tyres that had churned up Victoria’s gravel were stroking the tarmac as they floated towards the edge of the lane.
Bryn started, jerking his eyes open as the car shuddered on the ridged white line separating him from the hard shoulder. He didn’t think he’d been dozing. Or perhaps he had. What time was it anyway? Twenty to two. Fucked for work tomorrow, that was certain. He could always sleep in the car, of course . . . But not now. Absolutely not now.
He opened the quarter-light, turning it backwards so that the cool air gushed into his face. He took several deep breaths and blinked rapidly to clear his vision, then he leant across and opened the glove box. Keeping hold of the wheel with his other hand, his fingers groped around, locating first an A to Z, then a pair of sunglasses, some mints and, finally, the packet of cigarettes. He tried to grip it with the tips of two fingers, but instead only managed to flip it to the back of the glove box, somewhere behind the ring-bound spine of the road atlas. He could do without this.
Bryn pulled over on to the hard shoulder, taking the car out of gear, but leaving the engine running, then he stretched across and retrieved the cigerette packet. He slid one out and pushed the dashboard lighter in and waited. But he rarely smoked in the car and wasn’t even sure the lighter worked. After a few seconds it clicked and popped back out, glowing; at least something was finally going right.
He lit up, then tossed the packet back, slamming the glove box shut. He knew he was tired and wished he’d never decided to drive. He would double back at the next junction, get home, think again in the morning.
He kept the window open but, just to be certain, he shuffled his backside back until he was sitting sharply to attention, put the car in first and signalled. One pair of headlights appeared in the rear-view mirror, and he waited for them to pass.
He used the hard shoulder to gain some speed, and was doing forty by the time the other vehicle, an articulated lorry, caught him. Bryn’s car wavered as it was buffeted in the slipstream.
He pulled out into the first lane, but the horn bellowed and he swerved back off the road again, just as a second lorry thundered by. How the fuck had he missed something that big?
He checked behind him once again, and this time made doubly sure that the road was empty. He levelled his speed at seventy-five; no one got speeding tickets for travelling less than ten per cent over the limit. Well, he didn’t think so anyway and, with thirty-plus miles until home, he didn’t want it to take a minute longer than it had to.
With twenty-eight miles to go, he turned up the heater. Just a little. No point in freezing, he reckoned.
Twenty-five miles to go, as tail lights suddenly appeared two car lengths in front of him. He swung out into the second lane, round the other car dawdling at sixty. Twenty-three miles to go. He was still in the middle lane and, by now, Victoria didn’t matter. Getting home was all that mattered. Sinking into bed. Drifting into sleep.
Twenty-two miles to go. The tyres sounded like a ticket machine as they bumped over the cat’s eyes between the middle lane and the slow lane. New ticket . . . new ticket . . . new ticket.
Then, like knuckles rubbing on a washboard, the tyres rumbled again on the raised white line between the slow lane and the hard shoulder. First the passenger side tyres, then the driver’s side. All at a perfectly uniform seventy-five miles per hour.
One hand lay in his lap. His eyes were closed and staying closed, not seeing the bridge support rising from the verge ahead. And his other hand rested on the wheel, doing nothing to stop the car’s gentle trickle away from the road.
The bridge dealt the car a glancing blow. Buckling the corner of the front bumper, twisting the front wing inwards. The headlamp shattered, the surrounding chrome bezel springing from its mounting and smacking the windscreen. The car bounced away, back towards the carriageway.
But only for a second. Bryn jerked awake. He heard the crash. And opened his eyes enough to see the road slewing under him. He felt the car careering right. He slammed on the brakes and yanked the wheel left.
The Zodiac left the motorway, front nearside first. It slid on a narrow strip of mud, then bounced through the furrows and deep grass further off road, coming to rest at an unnatural tilt.
Bryn yanked on the inside door handle and stumbled out on to the verge. His shaking hands gripped his mobile and he managed to dial 999. He walked around his car once, then decided he’d seen enough. He sat back inside it and knew he was going to cry. He also knew that it was entirely his own fault.
When his phone beeped and he saw Victoria’s name on the incoming message, he had absolutely no desire to read it. He’d been dragged into more trouble by her than he’d experienced in a lifetime. So he never saw the three little words which said ‘PS I’M DEAD’.
THIRTY-SIX
Mel sat in an armchair in the front room of her flat. Its upholstery was decidedly tired, but she’d been sitting in the same position for hours and the sagging cushions seemed to have wrapped themselves around her. She was warm and feeling cosy here; a comforting place in a worrying home.
Toby was out somewhere. Probably at Mickey Flynn’s, potting Aftershock faster than pool balls.
Her mobile silently vibrated on the arm of her chair: she checked the number rather than simply answering. It was Michael Kincaide. She pressed ‘end’, then switched it off.
It was now time to think, not time to talk.
Kincaide switched off his mobile. He pulled off his tie and plodded upstairs towards his bedroom. His wife was already in bed, either asleep or pretending she was.
‘Jan?’ he whispered. No reaction.
He brushed his teeth, undressed and slipped in beside her. ‘Jan?’ He nudged her between the shoulder blades.
‘What?’
‘Roll over.’
She sighed and turned to face him. ‘I’ve had a long day, Mike. I really don’t feel like anything.’
&nbs
p; ‘It’s been ages.’
‘Ages since the weekend? Don’t be pathetic,’ she grumbled and turned away again. ‘And next time try something more creative than “Roll over.”’
Marks couldn’t sleep. He was drinking coffee and staring across Parkers Piece at the unlit windows of Goodhew’s flat, just as DC Charles brought in an envelope.
‘Sorry to bother you, sir, but this has just been delivered and I thought you’d like it straight away.’
Marks stared at it before taking it from the detective. He already knew what it was, just not what it said. ‘I don’t suppose you know if Goodhew’s currently in the building?’
Charles gave a tut. ‘You’ve just missed him, sir. He was looking up some stuff on the computer till about ten minutes ago.’
‘And he’s definately gone?’
‘Yep. I saw him get into a taxi out the front.’
Once Charles had gone, Marks finally opened the envelope. He wouldn’t even bother with fingerprinting it. Firstly, he knew there’d be no point. Secondly, if by a fluke there was a point, then he didn’t want to find it. He’d given up debating the ethics of accepting these anonymous tip-offs; he preferred instead to treat them with due suspicion, but follow them up anyway.
The words were typed in the usual way, vertically centred on a sheet of A4.
What did Lorna Spence keep hidden in a Marmite jar and a vinegar bottle?
Why does she receive other people’s junk mail?
Ask Victoria Nugent why she visited Lorna’s flat tonight.
Had Marks gone looking for Goodhew half an hour earlier, he would have found him with one hand resting on the open pages of the telephone directory and the other on his mouse, directing the flow of data scrolling up on his PC screen.
Goodhew was watching for the name ‘Sellars’. There were a few already, but none with the initial H., and in the phone book there were too many, at least too many to phone up at this unsocial hour.
