by JANICE FROST
Then an older man had pulled Marcus back by the hood of his parka, and thrust himself in danger’s way instead.
Angie had slashed at him, finally managing to thrust her knife into the man’s chest as Marcus lunged forward to drag him to safety. Maggie had had her chance then, while Angie was lashing out wildly, but her head was still befuddled with alcohol and she didn’t react. When she thought what to do, it was too late.
By then, Angie had grabbed her arm, stuck the knife against her ribs and pushed her away from the scene. She had whispered in Maggie’s ear to keep moving or she’d do her, like she’d done the others. Within moments, they had disappeared into the throng of fairgoers, two young women seemingly out enjoying the Christmas festivities. Except one of them was a vicious killer.
They were heading out of the fairground now, passing through the park gates and along a street lined with houses. The curtains were open, Christmas lights twinkled at the windows. Maggie caught a passing glimpse of an elderly couple sitting at their window, smiling at passers-by, a tall Christmas tree winking behind them in the corner of their living room.
“You could get on quicker without me. I’m only holding you up.”
“Shut up, bitch!” Angie’s voice was entirely different now. Her shifting, indefinable accent had become unmistakably North American.
“Who the hell are you?” Maggie asked.
She winced in pain as Angie pushed her roughly into a shop doorway to let a crowd of market-goers pass by. Maggie was afraid to move or call out. Finally, when the road ahead was clear, Angie prodded her with the knife, drawing a squeal from Maggie as the blade scratched the surface of her skin. They stepped out of the doorway and turned the next corner, leading to the car park, where Angie had left her car. Maggie realised with dismay that the exit led away from the cathedral quarter. Away from the market with its lights and people, and the chance of Jimmy finding them before it was too late.
“Please, let me go,” Maggie pleaded. “You can get away now. There’s no need . . .”
Angie pushed her towards the car. Maggie knew that if she got in that car, she would never get out of it alive. Angie had killed two people already — three if Laurence Brand had been fatally wounded. She would not hesitate to kill again. And if she managed to get out of Stromford and safely away, she would have no more need of a hostage . . .
They had reached the car now. Angie pushed Maggie up against the door to the driver’s seat. Maggie felt the pressure on her ribs relax as the knife withdrew. She gasped. Was Angie going to let her go? Then she felt the cold steel blade press against her neck and tears pricked her eyes. “Please . . .” She looked into Angie’s pale, impassive eyes and saw no hint of feeling there. Maggie thought of her brother, her nephew, and all the people she cared about. She wondered if she would see any of them again.
* * *
Neal and Ava beat their way through the crowds. Angie and Maggie had only a few minutes’ head start. At the junction of two streets, they paused, unsure which way to go.
“The car park!” Neal said, panting. “Angie picked Maggie up in her car. They were going to park in the car park off Thornbush Avenue.”
Ava nodded. As Neal bent double for a second to recover his wind, Ava sprinted on ahead. By the time he caught her up, she was running across the car park towards a woman who was apparently propping another one against the side of a car.
“Police!” Ava yelled, nearly upon them.
“Wait!”
Ava froze. Neal knew that she would have thrown herself headlong at Angie without a thought, but it was not her call. Neal came to a halt beside Ava and looked into Maggie’s anguished eyes. They pleaded with him to help her. He had never let his ‘wee sister’ down and he wasn’t about to now.
“Let her go, Angie,” Neal said. “You can’t win here. If you harm her, we’ll be on you in an instant. You can’t drive and hold a knife to her throat.”
Neal bit back his words. Angie couldn’t drive, but she could hold a knife to Maggie’s throat and force her to drive. He waited, tormented, for her to say as much or to shove Maggie into the driver’s seat. But Angie seemed to be in no hurry. He reminded himself that she had done this before, murdered in cold blood. Her lack of response prompted him to speak again. If he could get her talking there might still be a chance to get a hold on the situation. Beside him, Ava was tensed, wound tight. He knew that every instinct in her was screaming ‘act,’ but he needed her to be still, to wait.
“You killed Gray,” he said, his tone flat. “You and Caitlin, or should I say, Katrin?”
That got a reaction — a tic, a flash of anger, but Maggie suffered for it. Slowly, deliberately, no hint of emotion in her cold eyes, Angie scratched her captive’s throat, drawing a bead of dark blood. Maggie’s eyes widened in pain and fear, but there was another emotion in them too now — concern for her brother’s safety.
“You think you know it all, don’t you, Inspector Neal? All about Caitlin and me. Well, you don’t know shit.”
“Your real name is Evangeline. You grew up in a small town in Colorado. You met Caitlin in high school. You were best friends. You did everything together, including killing your classmate. Then Caitlin’s parents betrayed you, didn’t they? Her parents were wealthy, they got her off completely, took her out of the country to start a new life in the UK. They took her away from you.”
It took every ounce of effort he could summon for Neal to keep his voice steady, reassuring. He was winging it now, inventing from the crumbs of information Ava had fed him as they raced from the school hall.
“But you didn’t get off as lightly as Caitlin, did you? Caitlin was the quiet, subservient one and you were the dominant one. That’s what they argued, wasn’t it? And you were the one they punished. What happened to you, Angie? Did you do time in prison or in a psychiatric facility? That must have really hurt.”
Beside him, Neal could almost hear Ava’s heart pumping adrenaline through her veins. He knew she must be straining every muscle to stop herself rushing forward and grappling the knife from Angie’s hand. No doubt she was convinced she could do it. It was all a matter of misdirection and timing, she would insist. Neal extended a hand, fingers splayed as a signal for her to wait. She had to trust him.
Neal kept talking. His voice was calm, the lilting, almost hypnotic rhythm of his Scots accent belied the tension in his body, the fear gripping his heart.
“I think they were wrong, weren’t they, Angie? Caitlin was just as much to blame, if not more. She was the one who convinced you that your classmate was possessed, not the other way around. She made you do it, didn’t she?” Angie’s mouth opened and closed, but she didn’t speak.
“Did she contact you, Angie, or did you come looking for her? You must have missed her. One minute you have this beautiful, intense relationship, this love — am I right? You loved Caitlin, didn’t you? Then she’s gone and you’re left utterly alone, as if she’d died. How does a person recover from something like that, Angie? How did you cope?”
No reaction, no relaxation in Angie’s grip on the knife, or her hold on Maggie. Neal feared that his attempt at engaging Angie was failing. He kept talking, aware only of the danger to his sister. He needed to chip away at the carapace surrounding Angie Dent’s heart.
“Did she forget about you, Angie?”
“No!” Angie cried suddenly, “Never! She would never have forgotten me. They wouldn’t let us get in touch. They said we shouldn’t see each other ever again. They didn’t even let us say goodbye.”
Angie was feeling something, at last, but whether it put his sister in more or less danger, Neal had no way of knowing.
Neal gave Angie a slow, encouraging nod.
“I came the minute they let me out of that place,” Angie said. “She said she missed me, that she needed me.”
“What did she need you for, Angie? Was it to help her kill Gray Mitchell?”
“Gray Mitchell was evil. Everyone thought he was so kind and
gentle, but Caitlin was the only one who saw him for what he really was. When she told me what he was really like, I could see it too. He wanted to kill her. Us. We had to stop him.”
“I don’t think you’re telling the truth, Angie. I think you wanted to share Caitlin’s belief, but you couldn’t. You felt alone, didn’t you, Angie? Like you felt when you were separated from Caitlin all those years ago. You thought you had her back when you arrived in Stromford, but you didn’t. Angie, listen to me. The reason you felt that way was because you’d changed. You were no longer the young girl who was so unconfident, so unsure that she willingly fell into her best friend’s fantasy world. I think you helped Caitlin lure Gray to his death but I think you did it because you were afraid of being alone again.”
Neal’s thoughts were racing. He needed to keep thinking fast. He was afraid that if he stopped talking, the spell would break and Maggie would die.
“Then I think you killed Caitlin because you knew she would never stop killing, never stop wanting you to help satisfy that need in her and you no longer believed her, did you? She told you Gray was evil but you could only see what everyone else saw — a good man.”
He was trying desperately to interact with Angie. He wanted Angie to believe he was on her side. Angie stood, poker-faced, still pressing the knife to his sister’s throat.
“Sir?” Ava said, quietly, urgently, needing a signal to act, but Neal wasn’t finished. He still felt he had time to win Angie’s trust and turn things around.
“You don’t want to kill again, Angie. Now that Caitlin’s dead, there’s no one to manipulate you. You can stop. There’s no need to hurt anyone else.”
Angie had been moving her gaze back and forth from his face to Ava’s. Now, suddenly, she looked him straight in the eye.
For the briefest moment, Neal felt a stirring of hope. He thought he had made a connection, hit at some truth Angie could relate to. By the time he realised his mistake, it was too late.
Angie laughed. “You really don’t get it, do you?” she said. “You were right about one thing, though. I did miss Caitlin. She was the only other person I’ve ever met who understood me, and killing her was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
Angie looked directly at Neal. “So much harder than this,” she said, and slashed the knife across Maggie’s throat.
Time stopped for Neal. He was aware of a protracted “Noooo!” rising from deep within him as he lunged forward, too late to catch his sister as she fell, blood pouring from the gaping wound in her neck. Then he was there on the ground beside Maggie, trying to stop the blood that seemed to be gushing everywhere — onto his hands, his coat, his trousers where her head lay cradled in his lap.
* * *
Ava stared at the scene before her, sickened and dismayed. For an agonising moment she hesitated, torn between helping Neal and his sister and going after Angie. One look at Neal told her that he was in no state to give direction and Angie was already sliding into the car. Ava took control of the situation, instantly pulling out her mobile and yelling for back-up. At the same time, she hurled herself at the car, managing to yank open the rear door just as Angie revved the engine and the car jerked to life.
“Get out, bitch!” Angie screamed at Ava. Abandoning her attempt to start the car, she twisted out of the driver’s seat and scrambled over the gearstick to launch herself into the back seat beside Ava. Ava raised her arms instinctively as Angie lunged at her with the knife. For a brief moment Ava was afraid. Then she shifted resolutely into survival mode.
Ava wrestled with her attacker, dodging the knife and struggling to gain the upper hand. She grasped Angie’s wrist and strained to keep the knife at arm’s length. Somehow, Angie managed to force Ava down until she was sprawling across the seat. Then, in a single, deft move, she straddled Ava, pinning her down. Ava still had a grip on Angie’s wrist and she tensed every muscle in her right arm to keep the knife at bay as she lashed out with her left.
Time slowed and Ava felt a mounting sense of horror as her tired muscles trembled under the strain and she saw the weapon in her attacker’s hand inch closer. She couldn’t hold Angie off for much longer. Ava mustered everything she had and with it came a sudden, electrifying burst of adrenaline.
Ava’s left arm shot out and she seized Angie by the wrist. Now grabbing onto Angie’s knife arm with both hands, Ava yanked Angie’s wrist to angle the weapon sideways and pulled Angie towards her. Using her opponent’s weight as leverage, she pulled herself upwards to smash her skull into Angie’s chin. Angie yelped and a trickle of blood dripped from her mouth but still she held onto the knife. Even so, the balance of power had shifted. Ava twisted Angie’s arm backwards and there was the sickening sound of bone breaking. This time, Angie screamed in agony and the knife dropped from her hand, narrowly missing Ava’s face.
Ava shoved Angie off her and slammed her hard into the door of the car, ready to fight unrestrainedly now, no weapon to hold her back.
Then, suddenly, the door of the car opened outwards and Angie tumbled out. Ava scrambled out after her and landed on top of Angie. She dragged her to her feet and handcuffed her roughly.
“Angie Dent. I am arresting you for the murder of Caitlin Forest . . .”
As she recited Angie’s rights, Ava looked over to where Neal was still tending to his sister. Maggie Neal was lying deathly still.
“Sir?” Ava said, but Neal did not seem to hear her. Oh no! Ava sank back against the car, all the triumph of overcoming Angie stolen away from her by the shock of seeing the impossible amount of blood on the garment Jim Neal was pressing to his sister’s throat.
Chapter 22
A concerned paramedic wrapped a blanket around Ava’s shoulders, urging her to accept a lift to the hospital in his EMS vehicle. His partner was trying to persuade Neal to do the same, but he was insisting on riding in the ambulance with Maggie.
Feeling slightly hysterical with cold and shock, Ava sank into the back seat of the car and watched as two police constables shoved Angie Dent none too gently into the back of their squad car. Now that her adrenaline-fuelled burst of strength had subsided, Ava was beginning to shake. She took a step towards Neal, then stopped. It wasn’t that she did not wish to speak to him, only that she had no words to offer that could take away his pain. She suspected he wouldn’t have heard her anyway. So, with regret, Ava allowed herself to be bundled into the EMT vehicle without a word of comfort or goodbye for her DI.
* * *
Neal was aware of Ava’s absence as soon as the emergency medical car pulled away. Her departure left him feeling adrift, even though he could not have faced speaking with her at that moment. He was too full of self-recrimination and guilt. The way he saw it, all the responsibility for his sister’s injury lay squarely at his feet. He would never forget it.
He had misjudged the situation, precipitated the unthinkable by letting emotion cloud his ability to think. On their mad dash from the school hall to the car park, Ava had fed him some facts about Caitlin’s past and he’d concocted a whole flawed theory based on this meagre information. He’d literally talked Angie into cutting Maggie’s throat as surely as if he’d wielded the knife himself.
“Come on, mate,” the paramedic said to him again. Neal turned and stumbled up the ramp of the ambulance. The sound of Maggie’s ragged breathing filled the space. He had done his best to save his sister’s life, now it was up to the experts. He sat quietly by while the paramedics did their job. It was only when they pulled out of the car park that he remembered that Archie would still be waiting in the school hall with the community police officers. Neal pulled out his mobile and made arrangements for his son to be brought to the hospital. How would he break the news to Archie if his beloved aunt did not survive?
* * *
Ava Merry sat at her desk, staring through the glass into Jim Neal’s empty office. It was three days since the events leading to Angie Dent’s assault on his sister. Maggie Neal was going to live. Her brothe
r’s prompt action in staunching the flow of blood, and an emergency tracheotomy performed by the paramedics had saved her life. Ava had spent much of those three days unravelling the circumstances, past and present, that had culminated in the near tragedy.
At the heart of the investigation had lain that ‘unknown unknown,’ the thing they didn’t know they didn’t know. How could they have known it? Who could have known that the key to finding the person who had lured Gray Mitchell to his death lay in the story of two young girls who had formed an intense and murderous bond a dozen years ago in another country?
Ava was still grappling with the concept of a folie à deux, a phenomenon now less romantically described by psychiatrists as ‘shared psychotic disorder,’ in which two people can become caught up in a common delusion. In the case of the two adolescent girls, Evangeline and Katrin, as they were then known, their shared delusion had taken the form of an irrational belief in the demonic possession of a fellow classmate, whom they also believed was trying to drive a wedge between their passionate, possibly sexual, friendship.
Together, they had hatched a plan to lure Melanie to the roof of a multi-storey car park where they had plied her with vodka, then attacked her with the empty bottle, before pushing her off the roof.
The girls’ lawyer had argued that Angie had been the dominant personality, pulling Caitlin into her dark fantasy world. Hired by Caitlin’s wealthy parents, the lawyer had succeeded in negotiating clemency for the girls on the grounds that they were victims of circumstance, and because of their age. If they had never been classmates and formed a friendship, they would never, individually, have been capable of committing murder.
As a condition of their lenient sentence, it was ordered that they should be separated. Caitlin had walked away from court free to leave the country with her family. Angie had been committed to a psychiatric facility where she had spent the next seven years of her life. After her release it had taken her a long time to work out where Caitlin was living, but when she did, she made immediate plans to seek her out.
