Perfect Stranger: A gripping psychological thriller with nail-biting suspense

by Jake Cross

  Chris remembered when Katie was in the Manor, his attic hideaway, and telling this same story to herself. But not practising it. Reliving. Maybe punishing herself given the way she had tried to painfully fold herself up in the chair. Like a form of exorcism. Chris had ignored this very succinct warning sign. Until it was far too late.

  Katie’s eyes flicked open and blinked rapidly, like those of someone jerked from sleep. There was more to the story, but she looked at him a little fearful, as if worried because she’d momentarily forgotten that she had a real enemy before her. He saw her relaxed fingers tighten again on the gun.

  ‘Of course, I was kept off school, kept locked away. Until the bruises faded and no one would believe my story.’

  ‘And your mother never knew? Is that why you had Ron killed? Once you knew he wasn’t your father, that bond was gone? There was nothing to stop you, no reason not to. I can understand that. You couldn’t forgive. But fathers can forgive their children a lot. Maybe we can get over this, Katie.’

  Katie took out her phone, pressed a couple of buttons and slid the device across the table.

  It smacked his knuckles and sat there. He didn’t want to touch it.

  But touch it he did. It was part of her plan, and antagonism was wasted time.

  She watched him carefully, clearly eager to see his reaction to what was on the phone.

  It was a video. As he pressed the play button, he thought about Katie’s cellar story. And the cellar entombing his wife.

  The video was of Eve Levine, to camera, just her. Still ragged, clearly ill, but more kosher than in the suicide video. And dressed as if for a day outdoors. An earlier moment. She was in the bed surrounded by dolls again, but this time they were whole, unbroken, sweet. No one had yet taken offence.

  The video started. Eve was pointing something at the camera. She squinted at the lens, nodded and put aside the thing in her hand. Small, black. A remote for the camera. She was aware that the machine had started filming. She spoke directly to it. She took a doll from the bed and cradled it in her hands.

  ‘I’ll come right out with it. Ron’s not your dad. He knows he’s not. We met when you were about one. He helped to take some of the load. Lord, I always said you were a handful, but before he came around it was so much worse. I didn’t tell him about you at first, when we met, but in the end I had to. He seemed fine with it. He came into the house and he accepted you. Not love, of course. Nobody’s ever loved you, have they? A freak like you, how could they? Not even a sweet man like Ron could really love you, and so what does that say about you? Pathetic, and horrible. A waste of space. A lunatic. What does it say about me that I could give birth to such an animal? Donkey killer!’

  At the end, she became so animated, so angry, that spit dribbled down her lips. Or maybe it was because of the cancer storm raging beneath her skin. She wiped her lips, composed herself, and continued.

  ‘Here is the evidence of your real father,’ she patted a scrapbook by her side. ‘He’s a man with insight, that one. Maybe he knew what kind of freak his daughter would be. He did what I wish I’d done years ago and abandoned you. He wanted nothing to do with you. Maybe there was something rotten inside him and he knew it would be in his daughter, too. Anyway, here’s the evidence. I’ll be gone by the time you get this video. I don’t want my final days to be ones with you around. If you want someone to lash out at, lash out at your real father. He provided the seed of your warped mind. Maybe he’s a raving weirdo like you and you can live in the loony bin together. He made me this way, by the way. He did it by leaving me alone with you. I hate you because you’re his. Goodbye, donkey killer.’

  Offscreen, a noise. A door burst open. Katie’s voice.

  ‘I heard it all. You think I didn’t suspect something as soon as you asked where the video camera was? So you want to leave? You want to be free?’

  Katie stepped in front of the camera, blocking most of its view. Only her back and upper legs showed. She snatched the doll from Eve’s hands and tore the head off in one quick motion. Then she turned to the camera, giving a brief look at her face, which was a bizarrely calm blue sky despite the black storm of her words. There was a crashing sound, and the picture flipped and went off.

  Chris’s senses reeled from this hammer blow. He willed himself to disbelieve it, but it was impossible.

  ‘It wasn’t Ron at all. Ron didn’t abuse you. It was your mother. But you blamed him. Was this because your mother was dying? You couldn’t bring yourself to blame her but you had to lash out at someone. Was that the real reason you had Ron murdered?’

  ‘Keep watching,’ was Katie’s reply.

  Within seconds another video was playing. This one he’d seen before. Chris found himself again watching Eve Levine’s suicide. Surrounded by broken dolls, all Katie’s work, he now knew. But this time something was different.

  This time there was audio.

  Forty-Nine

  Nineteen pills.

  Eve flicks a glance to her left, beyond the camera, something there having caught her attention. A pause. Something happening behind that camera. A noise. Loud. A door crashing open, maybe under a foot. Katie coming into the room, but not into shot. A grunt of annoyance clearly picked up by the camera.

  Last night, on the bridge, Katie had said: ‘This is where I asked her if there was anything I could do for her.’

  But what she actually said on camera was: ‘Do you need me to ram those pills down your throat with a knife?’

  A pause, and then Eve’s mouth moves. ‘No.’

  Twenty-one pills.

  Eve puts her face in her hands, and he can see her jaw moving. More words, spoken into her palms. Not a yawn, as he first suspected. Words, the last of which is uttered as she lifts her face to the camera.

  According to Katie: ‘She shouted at me and made me promise: will I promise she’ll be in Heaven with Ron?’

  But what Eve shouts on camera is: ‘Why did you have to kill Ron?’

  ‘Because I’m the monster you created, remember?’ Katie responds. ‘A beast from your belly. Now eat those pills.’

  And a mere few seconds after that, when twenty-four pills are gone, she appears to speak again.

  According to Katie: ‘I hope he accepts me.’

  But on the video, Katie says: ‘Hurry up and die. And don’t you worry, Ron won’t be rotting alone. The other will pay for what he did. But for me, not for you. He’ll pay for me.’

  Eve’s response is: ‘And his whole family.’

  And then, at thirty pills, again just a few seconds later, she jerks her eyes to a point past the camera, to Katie.

  According to Katie: ‘I told her I already missed having a father.’

  But the camera tells a different story: ‘Nearly there. Nearly time for you to leave. And look at me, look at me! Like that, yes. So look at your legacy. I am a beast from your belly. Alone, I survive and thrive, and I am unstoppable. I am a tornado of destruction that you unleashed, and I will destroy anything that hurts me or ever tried to in this life or a thousand before it.’

  And Eve’s response, her final captured utterance in this life: ‘Let’s hope you find your real father then.’

  When the video ended, Chris needed a second to recalibrate, to remember where he was. The overwhelming danger came back hard, like a meteor strike in his core. It created an instant hot flush. And a sense of disbelief.

  ‘You forced your mother to kill herself. Because she abused you.’

  ‘For as long as I can remember, the only thing I wanted was to watch her die. I wanted to be there. I needed that. I was a small, weak child but it didn’t stay that way, did it? I got bigger and stronger. She got older and weaker. I could have killed her. I could have crushed her skull probably. But I didn’t want that. I wanted to see the woman turn old and weak and fade, while I got big and strong and watched.’

  ‘I understand your resentment, but my family—’

  ‘Donkey killer, that was what she called me.
Not Katie. Oh, she could have been something, Eve. She could have been in those African countries, working in animal sanctuaries, preventing donkeys from being worked to death, but instead I was born. She could have saved those poor animals from having their skins turned into medicine for the rich Chinese middle classes, but I came along. She could have put a stop to donkey torment for fun in America. But I had the breath of life, selfish old me. So thousands of donkeys were tortured or worked to death, and it was all my fault. I killed them all. She even wanted to flee to the donkey sanctuary in Devon, to offer help in her final days, but I stopped that, too. Although that one was my choice, and something I never regretted. Not once.’

  ‘Katie, please, listen to—’

  ‘You know who’s getting the money from the sale of the Blue Swan? The donkeys. That’s who she left it to. That’s what she told me after Ron was gone. That place should have been mine. Didn’t know that, did you?’

  ‘I know you’ve been living there since your mother died. After you fled from Baldwin House, the homeless shelter. Not at some phantom flat. I saw you inside.’

  He expected surprise at what he knew, but she responded without missing a beat. ‘I have been living there, you’re right. Once I hit adulthood at sixteen, Eve threw me out. I claimed I had a flat, but it was a lie. I continued to visit Ron at the pub, always when it was busy so I didn’t have to endure the presence of her near me, but when I left to go home, I simply sneaked back inside after closing time and slept in the cellar. I did that for a long time. Even after Eve got ill and they stopped trading as a pub, I sneaked inside every night to sleep. But Ron started to spend time late at night clearing out furniture from the bar in preparation for selling the place, and he nearly caught me. After that, yes, I did settle into a homeless shelter.’

  ‘I feel for you, Katie, I really do, but—’

  ‘But after Ron got killed, I left Baldwin House and once again started sleeping at the Swan,’ Katie continued, as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘Eve was alone and too ill to come down to investigate noises. So I wasn’t there alone. It wasn’t me you saw through the window. It was Everton. That’s where he’s been holed up. He had to hide when you appeared. He told me it took great willpower not to kill you right there.’

  Chris’s throat closed up at the thought that he’d been standing just metres from Everton, a man who had planned his murder. And the thought of Eve sleeping in the room above the man who’d killed her lover. In Katie’s eyes was clear enjoyment at the shock she’d injected into his blood. ‘Katie, please, Julia is—’

  ‘You made me diverge,’ she cut in with a tut. ‘She worked out how much money she’d spent on me. Nappies, food, medicines, clothing. Over the years. All worked out, like some audit. Written down, added up. Thousands of pounds. I owed it all back. And I paid her. I paid her whatever I had. I worked the bar as a young teenager, and I worked a building site once I’d left school, and I fixed computers. And I paid her back. She wanted it all. I owed her money for nappies. You believe that?’

  ‘I do, Katie. Hell on earth. But Julia—’

  ‘But then she tried to run. Run and die in some silly donkey sanctuary. Die in comfort, where she wanted, and deny me the one thing I always wanted. No. It was going to be my way. Well, I got right on it after that. Don’t you understand that?’

  He did, but he didn’t care. Yet he knew he stood a better chance of getting to Julia, and freeing Rose, if he pushed Katie to the end of this purging.

  ‘So you murdered her. But Ron did nothing to you, yet you had him killed, too. Why?’

  Katie was on a track she wouldn’t be deflected from. ‘I did consider going to the funeral. I know they preserve the bodies, but there would have been some sort of decay, surely. That would have been nice to see. Real, physical fading away. But I couldn’t go. I couldn’t have her black soul thinking I cared. All that crap I spurted in the car on the way to the funeral, I felt none of that. I don’t want you thinking I cared, either. That was just a bunch of lines and quotes from soulful idiots that I found on the Internet. That funeral trip was an act, just like when I went to Ron’s funeral. Different reasons, though. I went to Ron’s funeral to pretend I cared. But Friday’s sham was just to get your speech. I wanted to hear what you thought about her. To see if you mentioned me. That, I did care about.’

  ‘You murdered Ron, Katie, and now you want to kill me and my family. To pay for what I did. But what did I do? What did Ron do?’

  Katie’s eyes had been hazy, ethereal as she flicked back time, but they quickly refocussed. ‘Nothing. Ron did nothing. Literally. He allowed that evil bitch’s lie to perpetuate. Pretending to be my father when he wasn’t, he perpetuated the stinking life I had. If I’d known about you, I could have come to you as a child. Instead I was sentenced to a hell existence with that bitch. Because of him. And because of you.’

  ‘You blame me because I didn’t stay with your mother? You think I somehow condemned you to a horrible life. That I made you end up feeling so alone?’

  ‘No. Very much no. Alone, I survive and thrive.’

  ‘Then what? You wormed your way into my house to get close enough to kill me, you sick bastard. Was that your plan?’

  ‘No, you should have died the same night as Ron.’

  That threw him.

  Katie stroked her chin, as if calculating how much to reveal. ‘The same night they killed Ron, Dominic Everton and his friend drove to your house. Dominic was still lusting after blood. He was still lusting after me. Funny what a guy will do for a pretty face. I sought out a wild animal to do my bidding, and he was tamed in no time. They were coming to kill you…’

  Chris could almost see the processes occurring in Katie’s rotting brain. She had killed Ron, for the lie, and she had forced her mother into suicide, for the abuse. Two parts of the triangle down. The final piece: Chris Redfern, the father who’d abandoned her, who’d caused it all by condemning Katie to a life of abuse, to a rotting mind, to pulverised dreams.

  Except…

  ‘But they messed it up. There you were, slippers and coffee, enjoying your comfortable sofa, sixty seconds from a grisly end… and they crashed the car into a fence just down the street. They had to abort. You don’t know how close you came.’

  The Swifts’ fence busted by a stolen car late at night. The same night that Ron Hugill had died. Killers with Chris’s blood in mind, but a freak accident had saved his life. But they could have tried again, and again, and again, the next night, or the next.

  Except…

  ‘Even as they were coming for you, I wondered if I had rushed into this. So that failure, it made me think. I didn’t know you, so maybe I was being rash. I even wondered if maybe, possibly, we could have a life together after all. As a family. So I decided to give you a chance. I spared you. I spared your family. I gave you a chance to prove that I might mean something to you.’

  ‘And you do. You do, but Julia—’

  ‘No, I didn’t, Chris. I didn’t mean anything to you at all. Did you really think I posted that note through your door as part of some silly idea to give you big news piecemeal? No, no, no. That was a test. If Eve had meant anything to you, you would have considered that daughter of hers, conceived right around the time you were together with her. And you would have searched for her. You would have found her on Facebook. I created a profile the very day I spared your life. I mentioned exactly where and when I was conceived. If I had mattered to you, you would have made the connection from the note and would have sent a message immediately. But you didn’t. Because I didn’t matter…’

  His voice started to fade as Chris retreated inside himself. But not for security, not like Simone Baker withdrawing behind the walls of a protective cocoon. Instead, he locked himself away like an artist who needed solitude to create, to think…

  ‘But even then, I gave you another chance. Maybe you hadn’t read the article correctly. Maybe your Facebook account was down. So, after I’d got the sham of Ron’s funeral ou
t of the way, I decided to introduce myself to you. I still held the idea that… maybe we could even become a family after all, a new family after all this time.’

  ‘And we still can.’ He leaned forward, staring at the lunatic across the oak table. ‘We can get over this. I know you’re just angry, not thinking straight. There’s a chance for us, because you are my daughter and blood is thicker than water. But Julia is your sister, Katie. Part of the family. Why would you want a family without her? Please tell me where she is.’

  The words almost burned on his tongue. The whole thing was like vomiting broken glass.

  Katie said, ‘Julia is too like me. Adult, same height, same knowledge of the adult world. She even likes bikes. She would be like another me. Two of us. Split affection. She’s a challenge, being another adult child. I can’t have that. No, no.’

  ‘Katie, fathers can forgive children almost anything. But not for Julia. Not if you hurt Julia. Do you understand? Where is she? She has to come back if you want to become part of this family. And be loved.’

  He felt he’d overdone it with the last line, but Katie sat back in contemplation. Or suspicion. ‘I planned to let Julia live a while, you know. Then she would have an accident. Maybe a year in or so. But then Julia told me about Benign Violation Theory.’

  Where was this going? ‘Katie, please, where is she? Let me take Rose out of the cellar and—’

  ‘Thirty-six days, those researchers said. For someone to overcome tragedy. To see the funny side of that tragedy. I thought the death of Julia might have a lasting effect, until I looked into that BVT a little more. Thirty-six days. Well, I got right on it after that. Little more than a month, and we could be a normal family with Julia gone. That can still happen. Can you suffer for thirty-six days?’

  Now he knew where this was going and it chilled him. But he remained outwardly calm. ‘You’re talking about a car crash or a house that falls down, Katie. Not murder. Not my daughter. I can’t forget that. Can’t forgive it. That wound can’t heal. If you want me to accept you, you can’t kill my daughter. You can’t hurt any of us. Do you understand? If you want me to accept you, I can. I will. But only if my family is released, unhurt. All of them. Your stepmother and your sister. Please understand that that’s the only way. Where’s Julia?’