by Neil White
He had to find someone. Blackley was too far. He headed back into Turners Fold on one of the back roads, so that he wouldn’t pass her. She hadn’t got a look at his face, he was sure of that, but he couldn’t give her a second chance.
He was soon in the town centre, looking for a woman, any woman. This was different to Jane and Deborah. This was about the instant need, not revenge, and the rush of adrenaline blocked out the noises outside.
He saw a young woman coming out of a shop, a carton of milk in her hand, looking down, her car keys with her. He slowed down. He liked her. She wore a tight T-shirt and he could see her titties bounce as she went back to her car. She shouldn’t have worn that. Bad choice. But then he saw him, the boyfriend, waiting. She skipped as she got closer.
He drove on. He knew there’d be more. He thought about going where he said he would never go again, where the women roam in packs, their skirts short, handbags slung across their bodies, ready to laugh at him, fucks for money. Weak man. But it was a bad idea. They were in Blackley, a few miles away, and he needed release sooner than that. And anyway, the women who sold themselves looked out for each other, and they always fought him off whenever his hands went around their throat, just for a tease.
He carried on driving in a loop around the small town centre and then onto some suburban curves. And then he saw her.
The noises got louder.
She was young, in her twenties, walking on her own, head down, her arms folded across her chest, wrapped up in her thoughts, a cigarette jammed between her fingers. Perhaps on her way home from an argument, so it was possible that she wouldn’t really hear him.
He drove past her and pulled into a side street. He got out of the van and waited, leaning against the driver’s door. He would have to be quick, there were houses nearby, tall Victorian buildings that had been converted into flats and bedsits. Practice meant he could do it quickly. The snap of the cuffs, the hands around the throat.
The noises in his head receded. They always did when it was time, as if they didn’t want to put him off. He had to be perfect. The timing of the grab, the threat. All he could hear was the stillness of the night, and like always, it seemed like sound had been magnified, so that her footsteps were loud slaps on the tarmac. He could hear her clothes rubbing together as she walked, the suck of her lips on the cigarette. Traffic sounds were distant. It had to be now.
She was there, crossing his side street, her head still down, the grey-blue cigarette smoke curling behind her. Why had she chosen that route? Choices again. She had made that choice, put herself in danger.
He set off walking, falling into step behind her. He was wearing soft soles, so that he could get close before she heard him. He tried to keep to the left, to keep out of the shadow of the street lights.
And then he was within grabbing distance.
He reached behind, for the cuffs that were attached to his belt. He took a deep breath through his nose. It made her turn around. She looked startled and was about to scream, when his arm snapped forward, his hand went around her throat, squeezing hard, his free hand snapping the cuff around one wrist, his legs moving quickly, pushing her towards an alleyway he could see ahead.
Chapter Thirty
Jack had finished the article for Dolby and was drinking another beer when Laura burst into the house. She was limping, panting hard, her cheeks streaked with tears. When he looked round, she went to her knees, her face in her hands.
Jack ran to the door and looked along the road, tried to see what had frightened her. There was nothing there. ‘What’s wrong?’ he said, kneeling down, his arms going round her. Her back was sodden with sweat and she was sucking in huge lungfuls of air.
‘Someone in a van just tried to run me over,’ she said.
‘Shit! Are you okay?’ He pulled away and looked for injuries.
She shook her head, and then gave a small sob. ‘No, I’m not. I’ve hurt my leg.’
He saw a rip in her running gear and a graze on her leg.
‘You shouldn’t run on these country roads at night,’ he said. ‘They’re dangerous.’
‘Don’t make it my fault!’ she shouted, a hand wiping tears from her cheeks. ‘He was doing it on purpose.’
‘What do you mean, on purpose? Are you sure? I mean, how do you know?’
‘I just know, because I saw how it happened.’
‘But why you?’
Laura got to her feet, grimacing in pain. ‘I don’t know. I’m a police officer. I’ve made enemies.’
‘But why now?’
She was leaning forward, her hands on her knees, still out of breath. ‘That’s what worries me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come on, Jack, think about it. Someone gets in touch with you who might be a killer, and then this,’ and she gestured to the blood on her knee.
‘He threatened this,’ Jack said quietly. ‘If you tell the police, I’ll know. That’s what he said.’
Laura straightened and looked over at Jack’s computer. He saw the look in her eyes and knew what it meant: that this was Jack’s fault.
She pointed upstairs. ‘We need to get Bobby away from here. This person must know where we live, and so Bobby cannot be in the house if he comes back.’
Jack nodded. He understood. He went to put his arms round her again, but she brushed him away.
‘I’ve got to go in,’ Laura said, but as she moved, her knee gave way, making her take all her weight on one leg. She looked at Jack, angry now. ‘Bobby needs to go somewhere tonight.’
Jack agreed and watched as Laura hobbled upstairs.
He didn’t do anything at first, except look towards the window and wonder what danger his article had brought to them as he listened to the sound of drawers opening, of her showering quickly, and then the sound of chatter as she spoke to Bobby, cajoling him, making out like it was an adventure, not wanting to frighten him.
Jack went to the window again and looked out. There was nothing but darkness. Was someone else looking in?
He turned around at the shuffle of feet. Laura was in a suit, Bobby in pyjamas and a dressing gown. Laura was holding a small suitcase.
‘He’s staying at Martha’s tonight,’ Laura said, and Jack nodded his approval. She was an old family friend. Laura ruffled Bobby’s hair, making him smile. ‘And your daddy is going to collect you from school. Isn’t that exciting?’
Bobby’s smile faltered, and Jack could tell that Bobby sensed that something was wrong. His father didn’t often travel all the way north to collect him. The handover normally took place at a motorway service station on the M6.
Jack went to Bobby and wrapped him up in his arms. ‘Have fun with Martha,’ he said. ‘Remember she’s an old lady. Don’t be a rascal.’
Bobby giggled at that, and as Jack straightened himself Laura grabbed Bobby’s hand.
‘I’ll be back later,’ she said, and then she was gone. The peace of the night was broken by her car engine, the dark fields briefly illuminated, and he watched as her car disappeared out of sight. Then it was quiet again.
He stepped back inside and closed the door, checking the locks. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter Thirty-One
Jack looked out of the window. He was standing a few feet away from the glass, hoping to sink into the shadows.
It was nearly eleven now and Laura had been gone for a couple of hours. All the lights were off in the house. He wanted to see out without anyone else seeing in. He didn’t know what to expect, but if whoever was in the van was going to come calling, he was going to be the one with the surprise.
What if they had got it wrong though? Perhaps it was just a bad driver, or someone who wanted to scare Laura for kicks.
The answer came sooner than he expected.
The only source of brightness in the room was Jack’s laptop. It displayed a screensaver of family pictures. He went to it and idly tapped a key. When the screen returned to normal he saw that he had a new
email from the same sender as before. The message title was just one word: Why?
Jack clicked on the message.
Why the fuck didn’t you speak to Emma? If you want to know the full story, that’s where you need to go. Find her. Go there. I know you can. Or is it because you’re too busy with the police? I told you not to go to them, and now Laura has had a little accident, but it could have been so much worse.
It’s not part of the story, just a random frustration, but someone else took the brunt.
Jack sat down to read it again.
There were no doubts now, or else how would the sender know that Laura had almost been run over by a van, and that he had been to the police? Was he watching?
He looked at the screen again, and the words seemed to swim in front of him. He had to calm down though. Just because it had been the person who sent the emails, it didn’t mean that he was a killer. Carson might be right, that it was just a leak, someone in the force spilling secrets, and that he was just trying to frighten Laura, to let Jack realise that he knew the messages had been passed on to the police. After all, if he had wanted to run her over, he could have done.
Jack typed quickly. Have you been watching? And what do you mean that it could have been worse for Laura? Who are you?
His eyes didn’t leave the screen as he waited for a response, his head filled with thoughts of Laura alone on a country lane, an anonymous van stalking her.
When the message came through, its title was: Just a hint, Jack. A little present.
There was an attachment. A photograph.
It seemed to take an age to load, the image slowly unfurling itself along the screen, every pause revealing another tantalising glimpse. Except that when it had finished loading, Jack felt his heart pound. Laura needed to see this.
He called Laura. She answered on the second ring.
‘Tell me about Jane,’ Jack said. ‘Was she naked when she was found?’
‘You know she was,’ she said. ‘We released that information, and you’ve seen the photographs.’
‘But I know the police sometimes mislead the press, if it helps the investigation,’ he said. ‘Is that how she really was, or had someone removed the clothes for some forensic analysis?’
‘Jack, I’m not in the mood,’ she said, exasperated now.
‘I’ve had a new email,’ he said. ‘From the same person as last night. Except this time he’s sent a photograph.’
‘What!’
‘I’m no expert on forensics or decomposition,’ Jack continued, ‘but Jane looks pretty fresh in the picture.’
‘Tell me,’ she snapped.
Jack looked at the picture again, so he could describe it.
‘Pale skin, her blonde hair against the ground, but her face looks flushed. There are pinpricks of blood across her cheeks and a thin red trickle from her nose. And I can see the debris in her mouth.’ He peered closer. ‘Her cheeks look full, pushed out, with leaves and dirt sticking out, as if she had choked on it.’
‘You mentioned clothes,’ Laura said urgently.
Jack looked at the picture again.
‘I can see her torso,’ he said, ‘but her shirt is pulled open, her bra pushed up, so that her breasts are visible.’
‘We need that picture,’ Laura said.
‘So she was naked when you found her,’ Jack said.
‘Jack, the picture!’
He typed in Laura’s police email address and forwarded it to her. After a few seconds, he heard a ping down the phone as the email landed in Laura’s inbox, and then she gasped as she opened it.
‘He was the person in the van,’ she said, her voice quieter now. ‘He knows where we live. Bobby isn’t coming home until we catch this bastard.’
‘You’ll catch him,’ Jack said.
‘I hope so,’ she said, and he could hear the tension in her voice.
He was about to hang up when she said, ‘I love you, Jack. Protect yourself. Don’t let anyone near the house.’
‘I will,’ he said. ‘And I love you too.’
He clicked off the phone, and as he put it back into his pocket, he became aware of the silence again.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The morning arrived as a stream of sunlight through the open curtains.
Jack squinted as he opened his eyes. He had slept downstairs, curled up under a blanket on the sofa so that he would hear the noise of anyone trying to break in. There was someone in front of him. Dark hair, dimples, a smile, holding a cup of coffee towards him.
He sat up and rubbed his face back to life. He took the coffee. ‘Thank you.’
‘You make a poor guard dog,’ Laura said. ‘I came in last night and you didn’t budge.’
Jack grunted. It still felt too early. He checked his watch. Nine o’clock.
‘How’s Bobby,’ he said, the coffee bringing him to life.
‘I’ve just been to Martha’s so that I could take him to school, and he’s fine, but we need to be careful. We don’t want him to be scared when he’s here.’
Jack nodded.
‘And I brought you a paper,’ she said, and handed him the Blackley Telegraph.
He looked at the headline, large and bold, next to a photograph of Jane Roberts. Cop Flops Secrets.
He threw it onto the coffee table. ‘Things have changed now,’ he said.
‘I know, but thank you for the photograph,’ Laura said. ‘He might have revealed too much of himself now, because we can focus on the emails. We can chase the IP addresses, see where he accessed the email account, and the photograph has been sent to the technical people. Digital photographs have hidden attributes. Time and date. Make and model of camera. If he registered the camera, it might even have his name.’
Jack smiled. At least some good might come out of the messages.
‘I’m going in now,’ Laura said, and she bent down to kiss him.
Her lips felt soft on his, and for a moment he wished that she didn’t have to go, so that they could do what they used to do before she went back onto the murder team: just relax, spend lazy days together when she was between shifts, with Bobby at school. It wasn’t like that anymore.
Then he remembered the photograph of Jane Roberts, and the ones he had seen pinned up in the Incident Room, and Laura’s near miss with the van.
‘Go catch the bastard,’ he said, and he watched as Laura left the house.
Once the sound of her car had faded into the distance, he picked up the copy of the newspaper and looked at the front page again. As he read the story, he saw Dolby had stuck to his part of the deal – that it would go in unaltered. Harry English will have made some alterations with the version in the London Star, and it will be tucked away inside somewhere, but anything might help.
Jack’s knees creaked as he got to his feet and he hobbled over to his laptop. He jabbed at the power button, frustrated, not in the mood to look through the online newspapers, but he wanted to know how far the article had spread onto the internet.
It seemed like a long wait, but eventually the whirring of the computer stopped and he skimmed through the usual sites. There was nothing new so far.
He clicked on the email software, and he saw that there was a new message. He took a deep breath as he leaned forward to read.
You’ve done some good work, Jack Garrett, but you know now that you’ve got it wrong. So wrong. And remember: I know your name. You don’t know mine. Knowledge is power. Remember Emma.
Jack slumped onto a chair and glanced towards the window. There were green hills and nothing else. And he knew that at night there was nothing but unrelenting darkness, easy shelter for anyone who wanted to approach.
Rupert Barker looked along the hallway when he heard his newspapers flop onto the mat.
He had taken The Times ever since university. It had changed over the years, with more celebrity and sports news, and the large sheets had shrunk to tabloid size, but he still enjoyed reading it with his morning coffee. Since his retirement
though, he had added one of the red tops, just for fun, a bit of light relief. He would skim the headlines and smile, and then he would relax in his chair with The Times, and watch the morning slide away.
Retirement was hard. Thirty years as a child psychologist, speaking to the frightened and vulnerable all over Lancashire. But then it eventually caught up with him, the relentless plough through childhood problems, and so he gave it up, to spend his days reading or dozing in front of his fire.
He went into the kitchen and flicked on the coffee machine, almost tripping over his cat, a scruffy black-and-white thing with a gnarled right ear. The water started to gurgle through the ground beans and he took a deep breath and smiled. The smell of fresh coffee always signalled a good morning. The problem and the pleasure of retirement was this: so much time to fill, but so much enjoyment in trying to fill it.
He groaned as he picked up the papers from the mat and then shuffled back to his living room, a jumble of books and old memories, so dusty that it made the noses of visitors twitch. But it was his sanctuary, where he knew he would see out his life, reading and remembering in a high-backed chair in front of the fire. It had been a few weeks since he’d had to light it, the summer just starting now, but he still pointed his chair towards it. He glanced over to the garden, and saw that the cherry blossom from his neighbour’s tree was tumbling across the lawn and the flowerbeds were starting to explode with colour. The only sounds were the chirp of garden birds eating from a nut feeder hanging from one of his trees and the creak of the weather vane on the church tower behind his house.
He reached down for his glasses and lifted them onto his nose, and then started to flick through the red top.
He chuckled at the first few stories, footballers’ tales, massage parlours and mistresses, the press getting all vexed at overpaid young men enjoying themselves too much. He was flicking quickly, the pages making him smile, just as he’d hoped. Then he saw a headline, Cop Flops Secrets.
He started to read it, a story of an anonymous police officer sending emails to the press about a murder on the other side of the county. He shook his head. Someone was going to lose their job, and for what? Some work-place grievance?
