Trust Me

by T. M. Logan

  ‘The other two were lowlifes, scum. But it was a shame about Zoe.’

  ‘A shame you didn’t finish her off, you mean.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have been necessary if Sienna had kept her mouth shut in the first place – it was her fault, really. I knew I had to close it off, nip it in the bud.’

  ‘So the whole thing was a cover-up?’

  ‘You don’t understand.’ His voice rises as if he’s struggling to stay in control. ‘If it had got out, I would have lost everything. Career, pension, reputation, freedom. Scumbags I’ve put in prison making new appeals, my convictions quashed, a lot of nasty bastards back on the streets.’ He opens his left hand like a flower. ‘Everything gone, just like that. All those years of service, and for what? Because I was trying to do the best job I could? It was unfortunate, but necessary – Sienna didn’t really give me any choice.’

  ‘All this, because you’re an addict?’

  ‘Because I’ve given my life to this job!’ he shouts. ‘I’m a good cop who’s done a few bad things, that’s all. But for the right reasons.’

  The studio lights are hot on my skin but I feel frozen, chilled to the bone. ‘You killed them and made it look like some serial predator attacking vulnerable women, only you knew how to avoid leaving DNA evidence behind. You’ve got decades of experience with evidence. And once you’d dealt with them, you had to find out whether Zoe was a threat as well.’

  ‘I had to find out what she knew.’

  ‘So you got close to her. Just like you got close to me.’

  ‘I didn’t plan to get involved with her, certainly didn’t plan to sleep with her. But one thing led to another, you know how it goes. Apparently some women can’t resist my charms.’ He gives me a crooked smile. ‘Isn’t that right, Ellen?’

  ‘You were the man Zoe was seeing, but she found out what you’d done, didn’t she?’

  ‘One mistake, that’s all it was.’

  ‘How did she find out?’

  ‘I was planning to track down Sienna’s dealer, get some pills off him when things had calmed down. So I kept her phone. Stupid.’ He shakes his head ruefully. ‘One night Zoe’s at my flat, we’ve both had a few drinks. She’s looking for a charger and she finds Sienna’s phone instead, recognises her stupid bloody butterfly-pattern phone case. She puts two and two together, we have a row and she storms out.’

  ‘So you had to silence her too. Except when you attacked her, you didn’t finish the job, did you?’

  Gilbourne shrugs. ‘Best laid plans, and all that,’ he says, his voice back under control. ‘It only takes one piece of bad luck to trip you up. Zoe’s never going to wake up from her coma, but if they ever made a DNA match from Mia it would put me right in the hot seat as number one prime suspect, and then everything I’ve ever achieved would start getting pulled to pieces.’

  I remember what Angela had told me yesterday about the search for Zoe’s boyfriend, the nameless man who had somehow evaded detection and faded into the background after she was attacked and left for dead.

  They investigated, they pulled her private life apart, but they never came up with a name.

  Of course they didn’t.

  ‘You investigated your own crimes,’ I say. ‘Tried to set up Dominic Church as your fall guy, paint him as some angry ex-husband out for revenge. When that didn’t work, you moved onto Leon Markovitz, a disgraced journalist who’d been pushed over the edge, before dropping just enough hints about DS Holt to put him into the frame too. How were you going to tamper with Mia’s DNA results? Which one of them were you going to frame?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter now, does it?’ He shrugs. ‘Now I’ve got you. The baby disappears and we have a brand new narrative, a story to fit everything into. Or at least muddy the picture enough to make sure no one can ever put the pieces together.’

  ‘They won’t believe you.’

  ‘I think they probably will. Decorated veteran of the Met versus a deranged divorcee cat lady desperate for a baby at any cost? Get real, Ellen: you’re the perfect patsy. I suspect you’ve been good enough to bring along the murder weapon used on Mr and Mrs Clifton as well, haven’t you? Where is it?’

  My stomach drops. The shotgun. I picked it up next to Gerald’s body and assumed it was from his own gun cabinet, that he had been defending himself. Wrong again. I glance at my surroundings, at the lights, the stage, the set. A TV studio, an apt place for the fiction I have unwittingly helped him create.

  ‘It’s in the car.’

  ‘You took her Mercedes, didn’t you? Because of the car seat.’ He smiles when I nod an affirmative. ‘Good. So we’ve got the murder weapon covered in your fingerprints, which will be found in the car you stole from the Clifton house after killing them and taking the baby. Where on earth had they hidden her, anyway?’

  ‘In a chest of drawers,’ I say in a monotone. ‘You shot them both and set me up to take the fall for it. You knew I’d drive out there, find it all.’

  ‘Rather neat for a Plan B, isn’t it? Plan A had Kathryn doing all the legwork. I got her just nervous enough so she’d take the baby out of that house, but by then she was so confused she didn’t know who to trust. Dominic Church was so paranoid he convinced her that someone was tracking her phone – he was right, actually – and that she was about to get caught. Then she had the crazy idea to hand the baby to a stranger and that was when you got involved.’

  ‘You killed her too, didn’t you?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’re a manipulative psychopath.’

  He smiles. ‘That’s not what you said in your hotel room last night.’

  I feel a hot bloom of anger in my chest as I think of the hours we spent together, of the secrets I’ve shared with him, of taking this man into my bed.

  ‘Where’s Noah?’ I say again, fighting to keep my voice steady.

  ‘He’s safe and sound.’

  I study him, the confident smile, the unkempt hair, the scattering of stubble across his jaw. The tiniest twitch at the corner of his eye.

  ‘He’s not here, is he?’ I say. ‘You’re bluffing. The picture’s a fake.’

  He raises an eyebrow, gives me a little nod of respect.

  ‘Very good, Ellen.’ He takes a plastic cable tie from his pocket. ‘My own little deepfake image, but amazingly realistic, wasn’t it? Thought it might come in handy if you needed persuading at any point during these proceedings. All warfare is based on deception, right? Didn’t they teach you that one in the navy?’

  ‘This isn’t warfare, it’s murder.’

  ‘What’s the difference? Now put the baby down and take three steps back, like I asked you to already.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘It’s time for you two to exit stage left, in a puff of smoke.’ He raises the gun again. ‘I’m not going to ask you again.’

  I bring my arm up instinctively across the blanket as if I can protect the baby from a bullet.

  He brandishes the cable tie in his left hand.

  ‘Time for you to disappear. Both of you. Now put Mia down on the stage and hold your hands out to me, wrists together.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘You can have me, but not her.’

  He cocks the pistol’s hammer back, raising it so the blued steel muzzle is level with my eyes. ‘I’m taking both of you, Ellen, that’s just how this is going to work.’

  I raise myself up to my full height, blood pounding in my ears, rolling onto the balls of my feet.

  ‘OK then,’ I say. ‘You want her? You can have her.’

  I gather the baby in the blanket and throw her at him.

  68

  He stumbles backwards, flailing a hand at Mia’s thick white blanket, his eyes widening in alarm at the baby rolling out of its folds, the cutest blonde baby in a white sleepsuit with perfect little fingers, silent and smiling as she falls out of the blanket and her head hits the stage with a smack of plastic. The doll only fools hi
m for a second but I’m already fumbling for the shotgun hanging on its strap beneath my raincoat, my right hand grabbing for the smooth walnut stock, left hand raising the barrel, heart smashing against my ribcage.

  Too slow too slow.

  I flinch at the explosion of a gunshot close to my head, the crack of a bullet passing an inch from my left ear, and then I have the shotgun up and levelled at his chest and he’s staring at me in alarm, each of us with our guns trained on the other.

  ‘Put it down!’ he shouts. ‘Put it down or I’ll shoot!’

  ‘You pull that trigger again and I’ll do the same. We both lose.’

  ‘What have you done with the baby? Where is she?’

  ‘Somewhere safe.’ My palms are damp with sweat. ‘I wasn’t going to risk another life by bringing Mia in here.’

  ‘What the hell is wrong with you? Have you got a death wish?’

  The lights are behind him, dazzling me, making me squint.

  ‘Deception, Stuart. Just like you said.’

  He lets out a heavy breath, shaking his head. ‘Christ, you’re impossible.’

  ‘That’s what my husband used to say.’

  He laughs, a short maniacal hoot, and just for a second I see a glimpse of the madness behind his eyes. The blank space. The evil.

  ‘Why don’t you lay the gun down nice and slowly, Ellen. So we can talk about this like rational adults.’

  I keep the shotgun tight into my shoulder, levelled at his chest.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well then, it looks like we’ve got ourselves a stand-off.’ His smile fades, the pistol in his hand steady again. ‘So you’d figured out it was me before you walked in here, had you?’

  ‘Almost, but I had to be sure. I had to know.’

  ‘And now you do,’ his voice is thick with sarcasm. ‘Does it make any difference to anything? No.’

  ‘Ever since I met you, Stuart, it’s been nagging at me. I couldn’t work out how a twenty-four-year-old woman had managed to outwit a veteran police inspector with all the resources at his disposal, how she’d managed to evade you, make a run for it taking Mia with her when the baby was so crucial to the investigation. Today, as I was driving back from The Grange I thought you’d been using Mia as bait, to draw out the Ghost, wait for him to make his move so you could catch him. It was almost like you let her go, because you needed Mia out in the open. You needed her out of that house, away from her protectors. Kathryn knew something was going on and you let her run, tracking her phone and not realising Holt was tracking her too with a device hidden in a toy he’d given to Mia. Then I realised: you used Kathryn the same way you used me. To get to Mia, get her out in the open where you could make her disappear. You needed a scapegoat, a middle man, and you knew I’d go to the house this morning if I thought Mia was in danger – that’s why you phoned to tell me. You knew I wouldn’t stay put in the hotel.’

  He studies me with renewed interest, maybe even grudging admiration. ‘When poachers take a herd of elephants, they shoot the young first because they know the adults will gather around the bodies, making themselves an easier target. You played your part very well, Ellen. When you told me your Libya story last night, I knew you’d be perfect for it.’

  ‘You bastard.’

  He shrugs. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘I couldn’t understand the break-ins at my house either. Whoever came into my house on Wednesday night thought I wasn’t going to be there – that’s why they bolted when I came downstairs. I couldn’t work out why they thought the house would be empty. Then I remembered I’d said in the police station that I’d be going to stay with a friend. Only you, and Holt and my solicitor were in that interview room. That’s why you broke into my house on that first night – you thought I wasn’t going to be there. But I changed my mind. So you had to come back the following day.’

  ‘Go on. Why?’

  ‘To gather up anything of Mia’s that I’d kept, that might have her DNA on it. That’s why you took all the baby stuff, in case any of it was hers. Even that first time you questioned me, you were very keen to be sure I’d surrendered everything belonging to Mia.’

  ‘The break-in could have been Holt.’

  ‘No. When you came to my hotel last night, it was to find out what Angela Clifton had told me, how much she suspected. But you also thought you’d do one last check through my stuff. Mia’s muslin cloth I’d been keeping in my handbag, it had her saliva on it. I couldn’t find it this morning, because you took it.’

  ‘This is why we’re here, is it? Because of a stupid cloth?’

  ‘We’re here because you’ve killed four people, Stuart, and tried to kill two others. Because you started with one murder and you couldn’t stop. You’ve tried to conceal what you’ve become, when the truth is you’ve become everything you’ve always hated.’

  ‘It’s all so simple for you, isn’t it?’

  ‘At The Grange when you told me Holt was still there, it was you, wasn’t it?’

  He shrugs again, as if the answer is obvious. ‘So, is a rescue party on its way?’

  ‘I don’t need rescuing, Stuart.’

  ‘So it’s just me and you for the time being?’ he says, inching forward. ‘Together again.’

  ‘Just the two of us.’

  ‘You think you’re going to shoot me, do you?’

  ‘If I have to.’

  He shakes his head. Emphatic. ‘You’re not going to pull that trigger, Ellen. You’re a good person, you don’t have it in you.’

  A memory of Dominic Church’s words comes back to me. Two types of people in the world: those who will pull the trigger, and those who won’t. Way off in the distance I hear the faintest rise and fall of a siren. Help’s coming, DS Holt’s coming, but he won’t be here soon enough. There is only one way for Gilbourne to be safe now, to be able to tell his story, spin his own lies without challenge: if I’m dead before Holt arrives.

  And there is only one way for Mia to be out of his reach and safe, truly safe: for Gilbourne to be gone.

  ‘It’s a funny thing, Stuart, but people keep telling me that.’

  ‘And what did you say the last—’

  I jerk the trigger.

  There is a punch of savage recoil in my shoulder and in the same moment a horse-kick of pain in my chest, a brutal smashing blow and a flash of brightness in the air between us as both guns go off at once. And then I’m flat on my back and there is pain everywhere, waves of agony crashing over me like surf on a beach, every nerve ending alight with pain.

  I lie there for a few seconds, all the air pounded from my lungs, crying out as I raise my head. Gilbourne lies motionless a few feet away, his overshoe-clad feet pointing at the ceiling. My raincoat is splashed with red. The doll lies discarded on the floor between us, its unblinking blue eyes fixed on me with a lifeless stare. I think of Mia sleeping in her car seat outside, a note tucked under her foot, scribbled on a scrap of paper in the moments before I ran into the studio with the doll in my arms.

  Please protect Mia. I think Gilbourne is her father. I’m sorry – E

  She is the one good thing in all of this, and she will be safe now.

  Not hunted anymore. Not hidden away. Free.

  I let my head fall back to the stage, looking up at the blinding brilliance of hundreds of lights arranged in rows above me. I take a breath, wincing against a fresh wave of pain. The coppery taste of blood in my mouth.

  The lights above me are dimming now. Receding.

  Fading into darkness.

  THREE MONTHS LATER

  69

  The day is dry and bright and icy-cold, trees bare under a cloudless December sky, the high street busy with shoppers making the most of the good weather in the last few days before Christmas. Mia sits in her pushchair, chewing enthusiastically on a bright yellow teething ring with bunny ears. She’s dressed in a white padded romper suit, with a blanket across her lap and a knitted bobble hat pulled down over her ears, wrapped up and
cosy, her cheeks ruby red.

  I smile as I see her, making my way over to a table by the window of the café.

  ‘She’s getting big,’ I say to Dominic.

  ‘Sitting upright,’ he says. ‘She’ll be crawling soon.’

  Mia is in her pushchair, with Dominic at her side. On her other side is Barbara, her great aunt, who’s been helping to take care of Mia while Angela follows the long road of rehabilitation from her injuries. A sprightly sixty-something with an uncanny resemblance to her older sister, Barbara holds out her hand and I shake it.

  ‘Nice to meet you at last, Ms Devlin.’

  Dominic pushes a cup towards me as I sit down. ‘It’s good to see you again, Ellen. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Much better, thank you.’ I unzip my jacket, the warmth of the café a welcome contrast to the crisp winter cold outside. ‘Feel like I’m pretty much back to normal. The physio has been good and the doctors seem to think I’m doing OK.’

  It’s true, but luck was on my side too: Gilbourne’s bullet missed an artery by half an inch – clipping my lung instead. A fraction higher and I would have bled out long before help could arrive. Instead, the wound had left blood leaking into my lung as I lost consciousness, DS Holt arriving minutes later with other officers and paramedics. Gilbourne was already dead, the shotgun lethal at point-blank range as I knew it would be.

  A storm of publicity about the rogue policeman-turned-killer has still not abated, the official inquiry only recently announced. Leon Markovitz finally got the big scoop he’d been chasing, the huge story to prove the doubters wrong, a worldwide exclusive that I agreed to help him with.

  I give Mia a wave. ‘So nice to see this little one again.’

  She continues to chew on her teething ring, giving me a gummy smile.

  I take a sip of my drink, the hot chocolate warming me, and Dominic tells me more about Mia and all the things she’s been learning to do in these past few months. He’s not a blood relative but he’s keen to spend as much time as he can with her, to be part of her life. He’s made peace with Angela and started to put his life back together again, the cloud of suspicion that had hung over him for a year finally lifted – his supposed criminal record, I know now, was just another part of Gilbourne’s tapestry of lies. Dominic, Angela and Barbara will all be together for Mia’s first Christmas and I can tell it means a great deal to him as he starts to rebuild and look to the future.