DYING EMBERS an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists

by MARGARET MURPHY

  So, the two of them had made awkward conversation while Nick seemed to relish the apparent cooling of their normally warm relationship. On Saturday night she had telephoned the Samaritans office to ask someone to check the log. They had told her that a youth had been trying to contact her all week; she would have gone there and then and waited for his call, if the supervisor would allow it, but she was told that the boy had already telephoned. Perhaps because of Geri’s involvement, Frank had become someone who impinged on her life; he couldn’t be put in a box when her voluntary stint had finished. In the normal run of things, there was a small part of her mind that read each new scenario as an interesting puzzle. Although she cared about the callers, and she wanted to help them resolve their difficulties, there was that sliver of cool detachment that occasionally worried her, but which, in the main, served her well as a Samaritan.

  She slept badly that night and had counted the hours until her shift started on Sunday. Call after call had been logged, all from the same person, described as male, young, distressed. He had given his name on Thursday — just ‘Frank’ — as if he wanted her to know that it really was important, that he had to speak to Lauren.

  She sat in her booth feeling exhilarated that he would call and that she would be there to speak to him, but at ten o’clock when the overnight shift had arrived, she had been forced to go home. She picked up her needlework, then tried reading a book, only to throw it down minutes later. She had returned to the Samaritans office at just after midnight and was relieved to see that he hadn’t yet phoned the switchboard.

  Within the sound-damped confines of her cubicle, she felt at once cocooned from the world and immersed in the harrowing stories of the callers. In the quiet minutes, between the calls, she kept hearing Frank’s voice, muffled with tears: I think he killed Ryan. He keeps looking at me, like he knows.

  If he did get in touch, she would have to be careful not to reveal that she knew more about the situation — about him — than she should in her role of Samaritan. But he didn’t phone, and by four a.m. Lauren had all but given up.

  When she picked up the receiver as the phone rang for perhaps the twentieth time that night, there was none of the anticipation she had felt with her earlier calls.

  ‘I want to speak to Lauren.’ He sounded despondent, as if he expected to be told that Lauren wasn’t available.

  ‘I’m Lauren,’ she said.

  She heard him breathing at the other end of the line, but he didn’t speak. Meredith was in the consultation room, dealing with a woman who had turned up with two children, terrified to go home because her husband had threatened her with a knife.

  The silence stretched for perhaps half a minute, until Lauren, unable to wait any longer, asked, ‘Can I help?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  He said no more; he didn’t seem in a hurry to talk, but he didn’t seem about to hang up, either.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’ she asked.

  ‘How do I know you’re Lauren?’ The voice was quieter, more controlled than when she had last heard it.

  ‘You don’t. Not for sure. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m here, and I’m listening. You’re Frank, right?’ she said.

  ‘You see? Names are important, aren’t they?’ He was mocking her.

  ‘You don’t have to say your name, I only meant that it’s easier talking to someone with a name,’ she said.

  ‘The name doesn’t make the person.’

  ‘No, of course not. But I’ve been getting calls, and I want to be clear who the calls have come from. You are Frank, aren’t you?’

  ‘Might be. And you might be Lauren.’

  Lauren spoke to hundreds of people during the course of a week, answering the telephone at work, talking to library users. She couldn’t say she remembered his voice, but she was sure that it was Frank, nevertheless. Certain that she was speaking to the phantom caller, Lauren stood and waved to the other Samaritan on duty, then handed her a hastily scribbled note to take to Meredith. She decided not to address Frank’s implied question, but to pose one of her own.

  ‘Why did you run away?’

  ‘If you are Lauren, you’d know why.’

  ‘You said you were frightened,’ Lauren said.

  ‘You don’t know how much! I phoned you I don’t know how many times. But you weren’t there.’ He seemed bitter, angry with her.

  ‘I shouldn’t be here now. I’m breaking all the rules talking to you, Frank. I should hand you over to somebody else.’

  ‘No!’ He seemed to catch himself, then he repeated, ‘No . . . please, don’t do that.’

  ‘You said the others are scared of him as well. Couldn’t you get them to help? I mean if you all stuck together—’

  ‘Fat chance!’ he interrupted.

  ‘You say he watches you. Is it someone you see every day?’

  ‘Yeah, every day.’

  ‘Have you thought about what you should do?’ Lauren asked.

  ‘You mean going to the police?’

  ‘It’s one possibility.’

  ‘No,’ he said, this time quite calm, in control. ‘I won’t do that.’

  ‘Your friends are worried. Your parents are frantic.’ Lauren took a breath. She glanced towards the office door, willing Meredith to come in. The door remained firmly closed, and she gave a mental shrug. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Meet me.’

  The question was so sudden, so unexpected, that Lauren was momentarily taken aback. ‘You could come here,’ she suggested. ‘We have a private consultation room where we could talk.’

  ‘No. I . . . I’m too scared. He might find out.’ For a short while, she heard only his ragged breathing. Then: ‘Meet me,’ he said again.

  ‘I can’t do that,’ Lauren replied. ‘I’m sorry . . . But you’ve nothing to be afraid of. Who would know you’re here?’

  ‘He knows,’ the boy said. ‘He knows everything.’

  ‘If you’re still in the city, wouldn’t it be better to be under the protection of the police? I mean, isn’t it risky—’

  ‘Risky?’ he interrupted. ‘You make it sound like a dodgy bet.’

  ‘I’m not trivializing it, Frank. I know you’ve good reason to be scared.’ He grunted an acknowledgement and she went on, ‘So wouldn’t it be better to come in, make a statement—’

  ‘Look!’ he yelled. ‘It’s not going to happen, right?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I know you’re under pressure.’

  He wasn’t listening. ‘I thought I could trust you!’ he shouted. ‘I thought you weren’t supposed to push people into doing stuff they didn’t want—’ He broke off, and Lauren listened in silence as he fought to calm himself. ‘I knew this was a mistake,’ he said, at last. ‘I don’t know why I bothered.’

  ‘You’ve called every day now for nearly a week,’ Lauren said. ‘You asked for me. There must have been a reason.’

  ‘There’s no one I can trust.’

  ‘You can trust me,’ she said without hesitation.

  ‘I hope so.’ It was said softly, without inflection, neither plea nor threat. Lauren shivered.

  ‘Frank,’ she said. ‘I won’t be here if you call again. Like I told you, I shouldn’t be here today.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘If you call again, you’ll have to talk to someone else. That’s the way it works.’

  ‘I don’t need to talk to anyone else.’

  ‘But if you do—’

  ‘I won’t.’

  The silence lengthened, then, just as Lauren roused herself to say something, she heard a click and the line went dead.

  * * *

  Lauren was the last to leave the office at seven fifteen on Monday morning. Meredith should have to kick her out earlier, immediately after Frank’s telephone call, but Lauren guessed she was glad of the extra help. February was a miserable month for most people: the winter stretched interminably, and by now it was clear that the promise of a new
beginning — the excitement of a new start — was nothing more than an illusion, left over with the Christmas tinsel. The millennial New Year had failed to deliver in spectacular style for some of the callers, and the failure seemed more depressing, more devastating simply because this one was so rare.

  Meredith had requested a debriefing on the telephone call and Lauren had given a full and honest account, including her stipulation that she would not be available to take any more calls.

  ‘It’s for the best, Lauren,’ Meredith assured her.

  ‘I know,’ Lauren said, still wondering how Frank would survive alone on the streets, still anxious to know who he was so afraid of. ‘But I don’t think he’ll call again.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Was it the way he said it didn’t matter that she wouldn’t be there? ‘It was as if . . .’ she began, trying to make sense of her instincts, ‘. . . as if he’d got what he wanted — the reassurance he needed, I suppose.’

  She couldn’t help thinking, as she walked to her car, that she had done little to help Frank. There were times when she felt that she had given out more on a call than she had discovered about the caller, and when she analysed the conversation, she felt that this was one of those times.

  She never walked home from the Samaritans office — a precaution only, but she saw no point in taking unnecessary risks: the people who phoned the Samaritans were often desperate, sometimes disturbed, and the office was in a prominent position in the high street — easy to find, and it would be easy to pinpoint a particular Samaritan.

  Lauren shivered and turned up the collar of her coat. A cutting wind was swirling the dust and sending chip wrappers cavorting along the street. She would be glad to get home and a have few hours in bed, but she suspected that sleep would elude her, even now.

  22

  He watched. Three people had gone into the office just before seven a.m. Change of shift.

  The first of the night shift left at 7.05. A man. That simplified things. The second he discounted also: Lauren sounded young, although it could be difficult to judge age over the phone, but she was certainly younger than this fifty-something sexless old maid. Another woman came out a few minutes later. This must be her. She wasn’t bad looking, either. Long legs, nice bone structure. She hesitated a moment, then set off down the hill. He would have to follow on foot: he had left his car in a side street at the top of the hill, and it looked like she was heading in the opposite direction, towards the car park in Minshull Street, he guessed.

  He vaulted over the barrier and ran across the road. Traffic was light, and the dawn still came late, offering him cover. The darkness, the woman’s figure disappearing around the corner, the thrill of needing to hurry but also keep his distance was an aphrodisiac. He hadn’t had a hard-on like this since . . . Well, since Frank — and that was, what? He shied away from working it out, unwilling to admit to himself that he was losing track of time. He kept well back and walked softly.

  He felt a pull of something he could not quite identify at the thought of Frank — shame, perhaps — not at what he had done, but at the compulsion that made him do it. More than anything, he feared discovery. He told himself that he had no choice. Frank knew what he’d done; he had protected himself. It was that simple.

  With Ryan, it had been different. there was a genuine attraction, and if he had been willing, compliant — without the added persuasion of the drugs, that is — none of the rest need ever have happened. It didn’t occur to him to blame himself. Ryan had struggled and cried, which made him angry, and then he had begged, which made him horny. He didn’t pretend to understand these feelings, but he couldn’t deny them either: they were urgent, demanding, throbbing in his groin and pounding in his head until it was all he could feel, all he could hear, and he had to — had to — find release.

  The boys at the railway station were one form of release, but he didn’t like the knowing looks they gave him, the cheap way they flirted — anyway, they were chancy, now he was getting better known. All they had to do was drop his name in the right place, and everything he had built up over the past year would fall. He’d had a close call the other night, and he didn’t intend putting himself in that kind of danger again.

  Lauren was thirty or forty metres ahead of him; her shoes rang out on the cold pavement, and the sound carried to him in bursts as the wind backed and turned in his direction. There were only two cars on the car park, and she stopped at a battered, pale blue Fiesta. He couldn’t read the licence plate, and he didn’t want to alert her by hurrying after her, but the car park exit would take her into Alderney Road, a one-way street. He cut through a back alley onto Alderney, turning now towards the car park. A moment later, the blue Fiesta turned out and he had plenty of time to note the licence number and get another look at her face as she passed him. He would get her address from the index number without too much trouble.

  He walked to his own car and got it started. He knew all the backstreets and rat runs around the city centre and used his knowledge to get onto the dual carriageway without having to backtrack a mile to the nearest roundabout, in order to head back in the right direction. As he waited at the lights, he saw the Fiesta drive past, farting blue smoke from its exhaust. Apparently, Lauren had taken the long route.

  A sensation of pins and needles in his scalp left him feeling light-headed. It was as if every nerve was firing at once. He slowed his breath and forced himself to wait. The traffic was building steadily now, and there were cars queuing to his left and right. He was positioned for the outside lane, and a right turn at the fountains roundabout, but as the lights changed to amber, he screeched through, cutting into the inside lane to follow Lauren; two cars separated him from the Fiesta, which was just enough to camouflage him, but when a yellow Fiat tried to ease into the gap in front of him at the roundabout, he speeded up, giving the driver a look of such savage fury that she braked and dropped back. The shock on her face made him laugh out loud.

  The blue Fiesta accelerated onto the roundabout and he fumed as she disappeared from sight. It didn’t matter, when it came right down to it — he had her index number and could get her address and call round at his leisure, but the adrenaline was screaming through his veins and he couldn’t stop now. He gunned the engine, bullying the car ahead into squeezing onto the roundabout and forcing the cars already on it to slow down. He pulled out, giving the irate motorists a maniacal grin, in case they were considering complaining.

  Lauren had passed the first and second exits. The fourth would take her back into the city, which seemed unlikely, so he took the third and accelerated into the outer lane. He almost missed her — even drew level with her — as she began slowing for a left turn, but he managed to slot in behind her, staying closer this time, but hanging back on the quieter stretches of road.

  She rarely checked her mirror, but when she did, he had to resist a reflex to duck down behind the steering wheel; she evidently hadn’t seen him, but nevertheless, he felt a bond between them. Around him, the city was building to its frantic morning pace, but it was as if he and Lauren were sealed in a bubble. There was excitement, hunger, that growling sexual urge which confused and thrilled him, but also a kind of reverence for her, a respect, which he imagined the predator feels for its prey.

  She turned into a side street, and unease began to stir in the pit of his stomach. She took a left, up Gresford Avenue. This was too weird! He drew up behind a Nissan as Lauren’s Fiesta slowed near the top of the hill and kept the motor running, just in case she carried on. She parked and let herself into the house.

  Geri Simpson’s house. Oh, fuck! Lauren lived with Geri Simpson. The fact stupefied him. Her car was parked outside. Still with his artwork adorning it. He felt a stab of icy fear. He waited five minutes, then walked from his car to the gate. A couple of schoolgirls gave him the eye as they passed him, hitching their bags higher on their shoulders and sticking out their tits. Under normal circumstances, he wou
ld flash them one of his looks, maybe drop them a wink, just out of habit — he was always on the lookout for new talent — but today he didn’t want to draw attention, so he walked past the house without a backward glance. Over the brow of the hill, he slowed, carrying on a little distance until he calculated it was safe to turn back.

  The front gate was open, and he slid through. The curtains were drawn at both bays, and after checking no one was about, he crept down the side of the house to the rear. There was a sudden clatter and he whirled, ready to run. A big tortoiseshell cat had knocked a plant pot off a low wooden bench under the kitchen window. It yowled and ran, flinging itself at the wall between Lauren’s and the house next door, and disappearing from sight.

  ‘Bloody cats!’

  He heard it distinctly, coming from the open kitchen window. Keeping near the corner of the window frame, and moving slowly, ready to dart out of sight in a moment, he peeped over the edge, into the kitchen.

  Lauren stood side on to him. He could see her in profile, standing at the table, pouring cereal into a bowl. It gave him a towering sense of power that he possessed this knowledge, but she knew nothing about him — not even that he was watching her at this moment.

  She pulled out a chair and sat with her back to him. On impulse he stretched to his full height and leaned against the ledge, reaching forward to kiss the window. His eyes were open, and he watched her as his lips made contact with the freezing glass.

  He would go to the front of the house and watch for a while. See if Simpson went out. When he was sure she was alone, he would knock at the front door and take it from there.

  ‘I thought you were on a late today.’ This was Geri. ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’

  ‘Haven’t been to bed.’ Lauren’s voice. ‘I went back to the Samaritans last night.’

  ‘I thought you’d already done your overnight stint.’

  ‘. . . ’flu bug doing the rounds,’ he heard Lauren say. ‘I couldn’t leave them in the lurch.’

  He crouched below the window ledge, with his back to the wall, listening, forcing himself to be still and assess the risk that Lauren would tell her about his phone call. Simpson might make connections. Bloody Geri Simpson again!