Now You See Me

by Sharon Bolton

  Joesbury’s empty glass made contact with the table.

  ‘Sometimes, Rich would just turn up wherever we were sleeping with some of his mates,’ I said. ‘He didn’t even charge them. They just took turns until they’d had enough. That’s why I want to work with the sex-crimes unit. Because of what happened to me.’

  Joesbury got up and poured himself another drink.

  ‘I think it would have gone on like that,’ I said, ‘until one day I took the wrong stuff or just too much of it and didn’t wake up any more.’

  ‘So what happened?’ he asked me, sitting down again.

  ‘I met a girl,’ I said.

  Joesbury sat a little more upright in his chair.

  ‘I’d been on the streets for a few months when she just turned up one day,’ I said. ‘She was about my age, maybe a year or so younger, and completely naive about street life. But she was different somehow. She was focused.’

  Joesbury put his drink down. ‘Focused how?’

  ‘She didn’t take drugs,’ I said. ‘She had nothing to do with Rich and his friends. She wasn’t – I don’t know how to put it, really – she wasn’t hopeless.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Joesbury.

  ‘She was looking for someone,’ I said. ‘Another girl. She had a photograph. She spent her days just making her way around London, around all the places where homeless people gather, showing the photograph, asking around.’

  ‘Did she tell you who it was?’

  I shook my head. ‘Never,’ I said. ‘She really didn’t talk much about herself. I knew she’d grown up in care, like me, and that she had nowhere else to go, like me.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘I called her Tic.’

  He frowned at me. ‘Tic?’ he said.

  ‘People on the street don’t use their real names,’ I said. ‘Most of them are hiding from something or someone. They use nicknames, made-up names, several names. She told me to call her Tic and I did.’

  ‘Do you think she was Victoria Llewellyn?’ asked Joesbury.

  I nodded. ‘I think she must have been,’ I said. ‘But you have to believe me, she looked nothing like that photograph we have. Her hair was much longer, for one thing, and she was fair, not blonde exactly, but close. She wore practical, sensible clothes and no make-up. Ever. And she had, I don’t know, a sort of poise about her. There was no way she was some screwed-up Welsh teenager.’

  ‘Welsh accent?’

  ‘Possibly.’ He raised his eyebrows, gave me an incredulous look. ‘Look, I was a total sleepwalker, I couldn’t have told you about my own accent most of the time. I remember a lovely, soft voice. That’s all.’

  ‘OK, OK, calm down. What happened to her?’

  ‘I think – I have problems remembering time frames, I was out of my head so much of the time – but I think she found the girl she was looking for and it wasn’t good.’

  He leaned forward. ‘She was dead?’ he said. ‘Well, that would fit. We know Cathy died round about—’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I remember getting back one night and Tic was like all the fire had gone out of her, but it didn’t seem like grief somehow. After that, she stopped going out, she just hung around all day, brooding. When I tried to cheer her up, to say there were other places we could look, she just said there was no point, that some people just didn’t want to be found.’

  ‘Maybe she got tired of looking.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But I think if that had been the case, the change would have been more gradual. This happened instantly. I think she found her – Cathy – and it wasn’t a happy family reunion.’

  Joesbury sighed. ‘You know, it would really help if you could put a timescale on this,’ he said.

  ‘Ten years ago. End of the summer,’ I said. ‘August, maybe September. I remember because we knew the place we were living in wouldn’t be suitable when the weather got colder, we knew we’d have to find somewhere else.’

  ‘The houseboat accident when Cathy died was 27 August,’ said Joesbury. ‘What happened to her, this Tic girl?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But I do know that she saved me.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘She started talking about leaving,’ I said. ‘Saying that there was no point staying on the streets any longer. I’d got so dependent on her by that stage. I just couldn’t face the thought of being on my own again.’

  ‘So?’

  I ran a hand over my face. A decade later, this was still a memory I struggled with. ‘So I took too much stuff one night,’ I said. ‘Maybe it was just corrupted shit, I don’t know. When I came round the next morning, I was in hospital.’

  ‘She took you there?’ asked Joesbury.

  I nodded. ‘She managed to get me to the main street. It was the middle of the night and there was no transport. She couldn’t find a phone either. So she stole a car and drove me to hospital. I’d have died if she hadn’t.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘When I was well enough, she took me to a private clinic and gave them enough money for me to stay there for a month. I’d no idea she had money, but suddenly she produced thousands.’

  ‘Her grandfather’s house,’ said Joesbury.

  I nodded. ‘She told me this was my one chance to sort my life out and I shouldn’t blow it. Then she went.’

  ‘Did you ever see her again?’

  I shook my head. ‘Never. But I stayed at the clinic. It was hell, but I got through it. Social Services arranged for me to go to a hostel as long as I stayed clean. After a few months I got a job.Then my own place. I got accepted in the RAF reserves and found I quite liked the discipline, the camaraderie. A couple of years later, I started thinking about applying to the Met. I know she’s a monster, but she saved me.’

  ‘OK,’ said Joesbury, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. ‘I can buy that you came across the Llewellyn girl when you were an out-and-out and that the two of you hung out together for a while. I can even just about accept that you didn’t recognize the photograph. But what I’m struggling with is why she’s fixating on you after all this time. Why involve you in her little revenge games? You had nothing to do with what went on in Cardiff.’

  ‘No, but she knew what was happening to me in London,’ I said. ‘About all the punters I was expected to service, about Rich and the gang rapes. It made her furious. She kept begging me to put an end to it, to get myself out. I was a victim, just like she’d been.’

  Joesbury leaned back in his chair, a frown line running down the middle of his brow.

  ‘I only knew her for a few months, but she was the closest I’d ever come to someone I really cared about,’ I said. ‘We lived together, if you can call a few square feet of concrete floor surrounded by cardboard any sort of home. I think this thing that she’s doing now, this revenge business, killing the boys’ mothers – in some weird way, I think she’s doing it for me too.’

  Seconds ticked by. I took deep breaths, hoping my heartbeat would slow down.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before,’ I said. ‘But even now, I still can’t be sure that it’s her. And I had so much to lose.’

  Joesbury gave a deep sigh, then stood up. He turned his back on me and pulled open the window. The room hadn’t been warm, but the air coming in felt like it was straight from the Arctic. I tucked my knees up inside his huge sweatshirt and watched him walk to the balcony rail and lean over. When the Ripper photographs started to blow around the room I got up too and stepped to the open window. He was looking across the bay, directly out to sea.

  ‘That’s it,’ I said to the back of his head. ‘Everything. And I’m dead on my feet. Can we pick this up again in the morning?’

  He nodded without turning round. I waited another second, then went back into the room. As I walked past the bed, I caught sight of the photograph of the butchered Mary Kelly. The one Ripper killing still to be replicated.

  The lift was about fiftee
n metres away along the corridor. I’d raised my hand to press the call button when the last piece of the jigsaw fell into place.

  Oh Christ.

  83

  I WAS BACK AT JOESBURY’S DOOR, RAPPING LOUDLY, HARDLY caring who I woke up. ‘Let me in,’ I hissed, the second I heard him turning the lock. I pushed on the door, making him step back into the room.

  ‘What the—’ he managed.

  ‘We have to get back to London,’ I said. ‘Right now. Get Dana on the phone. We’ve been absolute idiots.’

  ‘Lacey, calm down. What the hell’s got into you?’

  I pushed past him to get to the bed. The photograph of the horribly carved-up body of Mary Kelly was on the pillow. I reached out and picked it up.

  ‘I should have seen it,’ I said. ‘I knew she’d have a way, some way of getting to number five. She’s got her already, I bet you anything, we have to—’

  Two warm hands were on my bare shoulders.

  ‘Right, deep breath. Stop talking.’

  ‘Sir, there isn’t—’

  ‘Shut up. Now.’ One hand was across my mouth. He was right. I had to get a grip. But Jesus, why hadn’t I seen it, why?

  Carefully, reminding me of someone about to let a wild animal out of a cage, he peeled his fingers away from my mouth.

  ‘Slowly,’ he told me.

  ‘She knew we’d work it out after she killed Charlotte and Karen,’ I said. ‘Victims three and four. She knew we’d put a guard on number five.’

  ‘And we have,’ said Joesbury, speaking slowly. ‘Three hours ago, Jacqui Groves was fine and dandy. Are you saying she—’

  ‘Jacqui Groves wasn’t the one. Llewellyn never had any intention of going after her.’

  Joesbury shook his head. ‘She’s the last of the mothers,’ he said.

  ‘The Ripper’s first four victims were women in their forties,’ I said. ‘Just like the mothers. Then he changed. He went for a younger woman. He upped his game.’

  ‘I still don’t see—’

  ‘How many people are there in the Groves family?’

  Joesbury shrugged. ‘I don’t know, the mother, father, the son – what’s he called, Toby – and the – oh shit.’

  He’d got it. At last. He was stepping away from me, looking for his phone.

  ‘Toby Groves has a sister,’ I said, just in case there was any doubt, although judging by the look on Joesbury’s face, I didn’t think there was. ‘A twin sister,’ I went on, as he picked up his phone and started to dial Dana Tulloch’s number. ‘She’s twenty-six. And I think Llewellyn has her already.’

  84

  Sunday 7 September

  DARKNESS ISN’T STILL, JOANNA GROVES HAS LEARNED, IT moves. It shimmers, gathers itself, wafts closer and forms strange, drifting shapes. Sometimes, darkness becomes so heavy it presses down on her scalp, on the back of her eyes, her throat. Joanna had never really thought about darkness before she was brought to this place. Now, she finds it difficult to think about anything else.

  Except, maybe, the cold. It’s difficult not to think about cold when the pain of it is ever present, even when she sleeps. She has no sense of time, has no real idea how long she’s been here, but she knows there came a point when she stopped shivering and when moving her limbs became a struggle. Her world has become darkness and cold.

  And soft, scrabbly noises. Scrapings and scratchings and tiny, mewling cries. Movement all around her. She wouldn’t have believed this cold, black, empty place could sustain life, but it does. And they’re getting bolder, the scratchy things. Creeping closer all the time. Maybe they’ve already worked out that she can’t move.

  She tries to swallow and can’t. Even breathing isn’t easy any more. The first time she was left alone, she screamed until she could taste blood. And then duct tape was wrapped round the lower part of her face. When it was taken off, great handfuls of her hair had been ripped away with it. She hadn’t screamed again.

  She has a sudden sense that the darkness has changed. It isn’t random any more. The darkness has taken on a purpose and that purpose is drawing closer.

  ‘You’re there, aren’t you?’ she whispers in the direction from which she might have heard something heavier than a scratch. ‘You’ve come back. I know you have.’

  Another sound. Definitely a footstep this time.

  ‘I know why you’re doing this,’ says Joanna, and every word hurts. ‘I know about what you say my brother did to you and your sister.’

  The movement has stopped.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Joanna quickly. ‘I didn’t mean that. I’m just scared. What he did to you, I mean. What my brother and his friends did to you.’

  Another footstep, getting closer, and Joanna has a sense that she has to speak quickly. ‘What they did was terrible, I know that,’ she says. ‘They should never have been allowed to get away with it.’

  A sound of fabric rustling. Someone is crouching just in front of her.

  ‘But it was nothing to do with me,’ says Joanna. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

  Something cold brushes against her face. A sloshing sound. She can smell plastic. She tilts back her head and lets the water flow into her throat. It helps a bit. She pushes the bottle away with her mouth when she’s had enough. Her captor is very close. If Joanna’s hands weren’t strapped behind her back, she could reach out and touch the girl’s face.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ asks Joanna.

  For a second there is no reply, but she knows the other girl is still there. She can hear her breathing. Then, ‘Why didn’t I just kill the boys?’ a soft voice says. ‘Is that what you want to ask me?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Joanna, and feels guilty just for saying the words. Toby is her twin. She loves him more than she does her parents. Yet Toby is the reason she’s here.

  ‘How tall is your brother?’ the voice says. ‘Six one, six two? And he weighs about two hundred pounds? You’ve seen how big I am. There’s only one way I could kill a man of that size and that’s a bullet through the head from a distance.’

  She stops and Joanna waits. Then she feels her captor moving closer.

  ‘Well,’ the girl whispers in her ear, ‘where’s the fun in that?’

  85

  WE LEFT THE HOTEL THE NEXT MORNING. I’D WANTED to leave immediately; Joesbury had insisted we stay the rest of the night. There was nothing in London that Dana and her team couldn’t do without us, he’d argued, and another night of no sleep would render both of us useless. As we approached the Severn Bridge his phone rang and he gestured for me to take it.

  ‘Lacey, it’s Dana.’

  ‘We’re just over two hours away,’ I said. ‘Depending on traffic. Is there any news?’

  ‘None of it good,’ she said. ‘Joanna Groves hasn’t been seen by her flatmate for two days. She assumed she’d gone away for the weekend, but she can’t be found anywhere.’

  I turned to Joesbury and shook my head. He swore under his breath.

  ‘Lacey, I know what you told Mark last night,’ said Tulloch. ‘Now, listen to me, I don’t want you to worry about anything except helping us catch her. When this is all over, whatever happens, I’ll support you, I promise. So will Mark.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I managed.

  ‘Now you are our best chance,’ said Tulloch. ‘You know this woman. You’ll have a better idea than anyone what she’ll do next. It’s all up to you now. I’ll see you when you get back.’

  She hung up and I replaced the phone in its holder. Tulloch was right, it was all up to me now. But she was wrong about seeing me. I wasn’t going back.

  We reached London just before eleven. At Earls Court we dropped south towards the river. As we approached Vauxhall Bridge, my heartbeat started to race. Now or never.

  ‘Sir,’ I said, as we reached the summit, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to be sick. I think there are public loos at the Tube station. Can you stop?’

  He glanced over, saw me sitting upright, one arm around my wa
ist, the other hand at my mouth. He indicated and pulled over just before we left the bridge. I muttered thanks, grabbed my bag and jumped out of the car. Using my Oyster card to get past the ticket barrier, I turned the corner and was out of sight.

  There are no public lavatories at Vauxhall Tube station. I jogged to the platform, praying there’d be a train going south before Joesbury realized I wasn’t coming back. The overhead indicator told me the next train was due in one minute.

  Every second seemed to stretch, but at last I heard the rumble of the train’s engines and felt the rush of wind that always precedes them into stations. I travelled one stop to Stockwell and ran the few hundred metres to my flat. Fewer than ten minutes had passed since I’d left the car.

  As I opened the door, I told myself that before I counted to a hundred I’d be out again. I raced round, grabbing my bag from the top of the wardrobe, gathering what else I’d need. Behind the door, there was the usual Saturday-morning delivery of mail-order flyers and official-looking envelopes. And a long, thin box, wrapped in brown paper. I didn’t have time to open it, but I tore the paper apart all the same.

  Seeing what was inside cost me a few seconds. Then I left my flat for what would surely be the last time, grabbed my bike from its lock-up and set off.

  86

  AN HOUR LATER I SWITCHED MY MOBILE BACK ON AND called Joesbury. He answered on the first ring.

  ‘You had better have a fucking good explanation—’

  ‘Shut up and listen,’ I said. ‘Or I hang up.’

  No response.

  ‘I’m going to save you some time,’ I said. ‘I’m just outside Waterloo Station. In twenty seconds I’m going to switch the phone off, take a train and disappear. There is absolutely no point in your trying to trace me.’

  A second’s silence, then, ‘Go on,’ he said.