Wrong Way Home

by Isabelle Grey

  She reached out and touched his arm. ‘You’ve been incredibly helpful, Ivo, thanks.’

  Feeling as if a weight had lifted from his shoulders, he looked around and realised that the next funeral of the day was already making its way past them into the chapel. He watched the coffin on its precarious progress atop the undertakers’ shoulders. Seize the day, he told himself. What else was there?

  39

  When Grace got back to the car, she found Deborah Shillingford hovering beside Blake and sucking on a cigarette.

  ‘I said we’d give Ms Shillingford a lift to the train station,’ he told Grace. ‘It’s on our way.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, pleased at his foresight. She was longing to ask Deborah the burning question: which of her brothers did she think was the most likely to be a killer? It was impossible, of course, yet some insight might still be gleaned during a short car journey.

  ‘I was hiding in the Ladies,’ Deborah offered. ‘Waiting ’til they’d all gone.’

  As Blake held open the rear passenger door she took a last drag then, her hand shaking, flicked the stub onto the grass verge. ‘Seeing him again was just too fucking much,’ she muttered as she clambered in.

  Grace sat in the front beside Blake and twisted round to face Deborah. ‘Do you mean Larry or your father?’ she asked.

  ‘My dad. I thought I’d got him out of my head and now he’s back, crawling all over the inside of my skull.’

  ‘I’m sorry for your brother’s death,’ said Grace. ‘And the way you’ve been thrust into the middle of this investigation. What happened just now can’t have been easy.’

  ‘No,’ Deborah said. ‘But he’s right. It is all my fault. It always is.’

  ‘What is?’ asked Grace.

  ‘Everything. If I hadn’t got pissed and tried to drive a car, you wouldn’t have my DNA and Reece would still be alive.’

  ‘You can’t let yourself think like that,’ said Grace.

  ‘True, though, isn’t it? Can I smoke in here?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Then can you put on the blues and twos or something, and get us there faster?’ Deborah aimed for a joke.

  Blake did his best to laugh. ‘We’re only about ten minutes away.’

  ‘Jesus, but I could do with a drink.’

  ‘You go to meetings, don’t you?’ he asked. ‘If you want to find out where and when the next one is around Colchester, we can drop you there instead.’

  ‘No, don’t worry. I’ll call my sponsor when I get in.’

  Grace recalled the pang of guilt she’d had outside Deborah’s house on their first visit, and remembered the excitement she’d felt then. How conveniently she’d quashed the concern she should have for a vulnerable woman. But she’d had a job to do, and she still did. She had to make the most of this chance to find out more about the Nixon siblings’ childhood.

  ‘What happened to your mother?’ she asked. ‘Is she still alive?’

  ‘No, she died,’ said Deborah. ‘Cancer.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Summer of ’82. She was only thirty-three. It was very quick. Or maybe it was just what they said to kids in those days. Anyway, I left home soon after.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘I met a bloke and got pregnant. Couldn’t wait to get away, if I’m honest. Never went back, or not if I could help it. But I can’t help wondering if things would’ve turned out different if I’d stuck around to keep an eye on them.’

  ‘Your brothers?’

  ‘Yeah. They were both still at school. I felt bad leaving them.’

  ‘Why was that?’ asked Grace.

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Was he violent?’

  ‘Not often. He didn’t have to be. A look was enough. He’d just, I don’t know, needle away at you all the time, until you couldn’t think straight.’

  ‘Was he equally hard on all three of you?’

  ‘I always felt he hated me most, either because I was the eldest or because I was the girl. Don’t think he likes women much.’

  ‘And your brothers?’

  ‘Reece learned to keep his head down, and then he got out, too. Larry stayed, but then he was always the blue-eyed boy.’

  ‘Were you close to your brothers?’

  ‘Not really. But I always liked Reece, which is why it’s so hard to get my head around what he did. Anyway, I don’t really get why you’re bothering, especially now he’s dead. And even if he wasn’t, he’d led a blameless life for twenty-five years. What purpose would it serve to lock him up now? Or is it that you get Brownie points for every case you solve?’

  ‘It’s not as simple as you think,’ said Grace. ‘Reece might not have been responsible for Heather Bowyer’s death.’

  ‘Then why did he kill himself?’

  Grace chose not to address that question head on. ‘The DNA evidence we have from the crime scene suggests that Heather’s killer could be either one of your brothers.’

  ‘Fuck me!’ Deborah gave a frightened laugh. ‘You’re not suggesting it was Larry? He always was a cunning little bastard.’

  As Blake steered into the approach road to the station, Grace caught his eye. But as they drew up, before Blake even killed the engine, Deborah was already tugging at the handle to get out. Realising that, desperate for nicotine, their passenger wasn’t going to sit and answer any more questions, Grace went to open the rear door from the outside. Deborah climbed out, already fumbling with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

  ‘Thanks for the lift,’ she said. ‘Appreciate it.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Grace. As Deborah lit up Grace once again noticed the angel brooch on her lapel. She couldn’t help finding the image trite and a little tacky, but its significance to Deborah struck her as desperately poignant.

  Deborah caught her looking at her and smiled, but with an odd twist to her lips. ‘Don’t waste your sympathy on me. Dad would laugh his guts out if he caught you feeling sorry for any of us.’

  ‘None of this is your fault,’ said Grace.

  Content to take her time now that she could smoke, Deborah shook her head. ‘So you still think Reece killed himself?’

  ‘We don’t know for sure,’ said Grace. ‘But if there’s anything you can tell us about your family or your childhood that would help us make sense of this case, we’d be very grateful.’

  Deborah looked at her oddly as she inhaled deeply and blew out a long stream of smoke. ‘I’ve got two daughters,’ she said. ‘They don’t want to know me. To hear their story, I’m the worst mother in the world. People can only do their best, right? I’m not going to speak against my family.’

  Grace decided the time had come for some straight talking. ‘Not even if one of your brothers took a woman he’d never met off the streets and then raped and killed her?’

  ‘You’re only here because I fucked up. I’m not digging myself in any deeper.’ Deborah took a last drag, ground out the half-smoked cigarette under her foot. ‘Besides, if you lot had done your job properly at the time, we wouldn’t be in this mess.’ Raising a hand behind her in farewell, she walked off into the station.

  40

  I am a stalker. I am your nightmare. I am Freddie Craig, and this is Stories from the Fire, brought to you with support from the Daily Courier, Britain’s favourite newspaper.

  I’m out searching for the perfect victim. Today I’ve stationed myself beside a wide store entrance halfway along the main pedestrianised shopping street in Southend. From here I can observe people going in or out, passing by, hanging about waiting for friends or stopping to check their phones. It’s easy to feel invisible, but I’m not so sure the hunt is going to be as simple as I expected.

  I’m discovering that there’s an art to watching people, and to watching women in particular. They’re more tolerant of being looked at because they’re used to it, but they’re also far more aware of me doing it. And I’m also learning that, while men either don’t really noti
ce or aren’t that bothered if I casually observe them, they catch on pretty quick if I target a woman they consider theirs.

  I need to stay under the radar. I don’t want anyone remembering me later and giving the police a description. That’s how I have to think. If I was seriously going to do this, I’d have given thought to my clothes. I saw once on a TV documentary that if I wear clothes from Gap or M&S, stuff that loads of people wear, it’d be harder for the police to track me down from any fibres I might leave at the scene. And I’d have to plan for what equipment I’d need. Heather Bowyer’s killer was masked and had a knife.

  I can see how the planning stage can become a big part of the event. Addictive, almost. Calculating, solving problems, anticipating how it’s going to be. Acting it out in my imagination over and over again so I get it right and don’t overlook anything, but also because I start to relish the rehearsing and refining until it becomes a ritual, not to be rushed, but to be savoured. And that’s when I realise that not any woman will do. She’ll have to be the right one.

  Quite early on I spot one who looks like she’d be easy to pick off. Just like the weak animal at the edge of the herd that the leopard singles out for attack. She’s fidgeting at the periphery of a group that obviously doesn’t really care whether she’s there or not – and wouldn’t notice if she vanished. She’s laughing along with them, but isn’t part of what’s going down. At one point she catches my eye, and then a little later glances slyly back, to see if I’m still looking. I am and she likes it. I’m sure I could coax her into peeling off and coming away with me.

  But I don’t want her.

  And that’s when I realise: it’s not about preying on the vulnerable and defenceless, or even about whether she’s pretty or blonde or got a nice rack. It’s about finding what I want. It’s all about me. I have to zero in on my own pure line of desire because that’s the only thing that’s going to drive me to see this thing through to the end.

  Now I’ve appreciated that, I’m amazed that I never understood it before. It’s not about her and what she’s like. It’s only about me and how I feel. I’ve carefully planned it this way because this is what I want. And recognising what I want and realising that I have a plan and can go and get it feels powerful, almost erotic.

  I always thought that, like almost everyone else, I’d have a moral safety switch, that there’d be places I wouldn’t go, not even secretly in my mind. Yet there’s something in that endless rehearsal, that ritualising of what I might do and how I would do it, that strokes and smoothes the brief objections of moral outrage out of the way. What remains is my growing desire to do this, to get it done.

  And that’s what defines my perfect victim. A woman onto whom I can project what I want. I can get my own back for being hurt and rejected. I can get back on top. A switch clicks on in my head and I understand that I can have what I want just for the taking.

  So when I see a woman who stands out from the crowd, walking alone down the street, I follow her. It feels instinctive, that sense that she’s the one. She walks with purpose. She has somewhere to go. Her confidence means she’s not going to notice me, and it’s her confidence that makes me want to take her down.

  She wears tight black jeans with high-heeled ankle boots and a short black leather jacket that accentuates her waist. Her straightened blonde hair swings as she walks. As she arrives within sight of the sea she takes a left and continues, sure-footed, towards Southchurch Park. It’s an intriguing destination for a woman like this. She doesn’t look like a prostitute, but then what would I know? I like watching her. And I’m in no rush. It doesn’t even matter if I take this further with her or not. I’m the one in control here. And I can always lock her image up inside my mind to take home and play with later.

  I’m beginning to see inside the mind of a stalker, to understand how Heather Bowyer’s killer started out on his journey, and why. It’s quite a ride.

  I’m Freddie Craig, and you’re listening to Stories from the Fire. Stick around for the rest of the trip because this is where we get closer to the dark heart of this true crime.

  41

  Grace and Blake sat at a window table in a seafront ice-cream parlour as they waited for Carolyn to join them. The morning’s rain and cloud had cleared away and Grace was glad of the blue-and-white striped awnings that shaded their eyes from the low sun glittering off the water on the far side of the road. As she stirred her coffee, she caught Blake eyeing up the extravagant sundae a young waitress had placed in front of a child sitting nearby. The little boy picked up a long spoon and, wide-eyed, dug down through the whipped cream while his grandparents looked on indulgently.

  ‘You can order one if you want,’ she teased Blake. ‘I won’t tell.’

  ‘Yeah, right!’

  Blake’s eyes met hers with their former easy warmth, and for a moment Grace felt as if everything was falling back into place. Perhaps now would be a good moment to explain to him about Ivo. But, just as she began to formulate the words, the waitress came over to their table. ‘I’ve spoken to the owner,’ she told them. ‘She says her grandfather would remember the fire.’ She handed them a slip of paper. ‘That’s his home number.’

  Grace took the paper. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Can I get you anything else?’

  Grace looked questioningly at Blake, who grinned but shook his head, thanking the waitress.

  The two of them had spent the afternoon traipsing around the town centre, working their way through a list that Duncan had produced of Southend businesses that, since the night of the fire, had remained in the ownership of the same people or their families. They had flashed their warrant cards and asked for memories, descriptions, photographs, anything that could help to build a picture of how events had unfolded. They’d also shown photographs of Reece and Larry and found that several of those they spoke to who had lived in Southend for years were immediately familiar with Owen Nixon’s boys. But, so far, they had gained no significant new details.

  They had already discovered from trawling through every available media image what clothes Larry had been wearing and where he’d left his taxi with its distinctive blue-and-yellow company logo, but they were still missing any eyewitnesses to the crucial half-hour before he dashed into the burning building. Duncan had told Grace that Wendy had a nifty computer program that could build a three-dimensional map of the area between Cliff Gardens and the old Marineland complex, onto which they could plot every piece of information that came in, as well as being able to place people where they said they’d been standing, what direction they were looking in and where photos had been taken. They could then ‘walk’ around the model and work out what else people might have noticed, but not actively remembered.

  Grace had been delighted to put Duncan back to work. He loved detail, and if anything was going to crack this case, it was going to be detail, detail, detail. But so far, although they’d come across several people who’d readily recalled that night, it was clear that the young podcaster had been right. The pandemonium of the fire had so engulfed the events of Heather’s murder that no one would have paid the slightest attention to her killer escaping the scene.

  Grace knew that the afternoon had, in truth, been a waste of a senior detective’s time – there was plenty she should be getting on with back in the office – but this case had got under her skin and the idea of Larry Nixon thumbing his nose at justice and slipping free a second time was more than she could bear. If she had to micro-manage to ensure that no vital clue was missed, then so be it.

  She had also given Duncan the job of tracking down the other rape complainants. Melanie Riggs had managed to recall just enough minor personal details about the two women she had dealt with for Grace to be confident they would be making an approach to the right people.

  Across the water the sun was going down. Outside passers-by were buttoning their coats and wrapping scarves more tightly around themselves. Inside, people were leaving and the queue at the counter for ice cre
am had thinned. Carolyn ought to be here soon. Grace had decided that, with her recent experience in the domestic violence unit, Carolyn would be the best officer to canvass the sex workers for any talk on the street about Larry Nixon. But the girls wouldn’t want a cop hanging around once it got dark and punters started cruising past on their way home from work. In a red-light district even the very best cop always stuck out a mile.

  Sooner or later Grace was going to have to share with Blake and the rest of the team what Ivo had told her that morning, that DI Jason Jupp had been corrupt and that Owen Nixon might have been involved. It would certainly help make sense of the frosty welcome they’d been offered at Southend nick. Even though Jupp was dead, it was still his manor and, as she knew all too well, either old loyalties died hard or there was the simple matter of upholding the honour of a tight-knit local nick.

  The door opened and Carolyn came in. She looked chilled to the bone and Grace beckoned to the waitress to order her a hot drink.

  ‘Sorry I kept you waiting, boss,’ said Carolyn as she sat down beside Blake. ‘The strangest thing, I could have sworn someone was following me.’

  ‘Not Larry Nixon?’ Blake asked sharply.

  ‘No. I caught sight of the guy. It was someone smaller and younger.’

  ‘I don’t like the idea that Larry may have fixated on you because of your shoe,’ said Blake. ‘You need to be careful.’

  ‘Could he have been a pimp who didn’t like you hanging around?’ asked Grace.

  Carolyn shook her head. ‘I’m pretty sure he was behind me earlier on, before I started talking to any of the women. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Probably just coincidence that he was walking the same way as me.’

  ‘You must report it if it happens again,’ said Blake.

  Carolyn smiled up at him. ‘I will.’

  ‘So how did you get on?’ asked Grace, trying to subdue the acid rising in her throat.

  ‘No one admitted knowing Larry,’ said Carolyn. ‘And the only one who described a client having anything like a shoe fetish said her client was Asian. Several of them, however, talked about Owen Nixon.’