Dead End (27 page)

‘I told you, he had a thing about me. I would've helped him if I could. He was a sweet boy. But what could I do?’

‘Susie, this is important. Did Vernon tell you who was frightening him? Did he say anything about the man he saw in the queue? Was that the man he thought followed him home?’

Susie thought for a moment, chewing her thumb. ‘I don't know.’

‘Are you sure there's nothing else Vernon told you?’

‘Yes.’

‘This is very important now, Susie.’

‘Everything's bloody important to you,’ Susie grumbled.

‘Just one more question. Did you tell anyone about your conversations with Vernon? About what was worrying him?’ Susie shook her head at once. ‘Are you sure, Susie? You didn't tell anyone?’

‘Only Jill at work. It's not as if it was a big secret. We even had a laugh about it,’ she added wretchedly, ‘about Vernon and his stupid ideas. Honestly, we just thought he was being daft. I mean, who'd want to stalk him?’

‘Someone did.’

48

ARGUMENT

I
an sometimes felt he was in the wrong job. Far from objecting to viewing bodies at a crime scene, he found that aspect of the job intriguing and wildly exciting because there was always the possibility he might spot a vital clue that would lead to an arrest. Preoccupied with scanning the ground for clues about what had happened, the presence of death almost passed him by, although that was the reason he was there.

Visits to the morgue, on the other hand, made him physically nauseous. After so many cases, he didn't think he would ever become immune to the horror of witnessing an autopsy against a brightly lit backdrop, everything focused on cadavers and body parts, as gloved hands deliberately lacerated human flesh while his senses reeled from the stench of antiseptic and death. More experienced officers had reassured him that he would grow accustomed to it, and the horror of his first visit would fade to a dim recollection. Ian never admitted to reliving that horror every time he entered the morgue. As he left, he struggled to shake off the image of Vernon Mitchell's empty eye sockets which had seemed to be staring straight at him, a physical symbol of the sightless dead. With sickening certainty, Ian knew he would have nightmares about it but he couldn't tell anyone. He knew what Bev's response would be.

He felt a huge sense of relief as he drove away from the station to spend a quiet evening with his girl. Hopefully he could forget all about Vernon Mitchell for a few hours.

‘Come on,’ Bev burst out, as soon as he stepped into the hall.

‘What?’

‘I don't want to be late. It's embarrassing. Everyone's going to be there.’

Ian groaned as he remembered their plans to meet up with friends that evening. He stared at her in dismay, registering her neatly brushed short cropped blonde hair, and carefully made up face. ‘Just give me a moment to get changed –’

‘Ian, there's no time. I've been waiting for half an hour. Where have you been?’

‘I'll only be a second.’ He ran past her up the stairs, barely trusting himself not to break out in a rage. While she'd been at home seeing to her hair, painting her nails and deciding which blouse to wear, he'd been investigating the murder of a boy whose eyes had been cut out. Not for the first time he wondered what the hell he was doing, with Bev, with his job, with his life. By the time he'd showered and changed he had come to the conclusion that it was a very good thing they were going out. It would help to take his mind off Vernon Mitchell. He hurried downstairs, kissed Bev lightly on the lips, and followed her out of the house. She was still grumbling about being late, but he could tell she didn't really mind.

‘We're always late.’

‘Can I help it if your boyfriend has such an important job?’ he teased her and she turned away, smiling. It occurred to Ian that she was proud of what he did and an unexpected burst of happiness swept through him. Suddenly he no longer cared about the sightless boy, he felt so full of life and joy.

The row on their way home came from nowhere. By the time they reached the bedroom, Bev was refusing to speak to him but he knew an outburst wasn't far off. He saw her lower lip trembling. With cold determination he suppressed any impulse to be sympathetic. He was damned if he was going to allow her to manipulate him with her tears this time and besides, it wasn't his fault.

‘Why don't you run off back to your precious inspector?’

‘This has nothing to do with Geraldine.’

‘Oh, it's Geraldine now, is it?’

‘So you're throwing a tantrum because my boss has a name?’ He knew she'd seize on the word but he was reckless in his misery.

‘Tantrum? I'm not a bloody child!’

‘Stop behaving like one then.’

She turned to him, her face contorted in rage. ‘Me? You've got the gall to stand there and accuse me of being childish?’

‘It was your word.’ His calmness provoked her, as he knew it would.

‘Take a look at yourself! You're nothing but a spoilt brat. Everything always has to go your way, doesn't it? It's always about you and what you want. I ask you one little favour, to be home on time, and do you do it?’ Ian shrugged and made for the door. ‘Don't you walk out on me!’ she shrieked, beside herself with fury.

It struck Ian that he could do just that, walk out and never come back to her mood swings and her unreasonable demands. He spun round to face her. ‘You think I wouldn't do just that?’

‘Do what?’

‘Walk out!’

‘Don't be ridiculous.’ Ian slammed the door on his way out. ‘And don't slam the door,’ she yelled after him.

As he went downstairs, Ian ignored the sound of her crying. She was putting it on for his benefit. Why else would her tears be audible through the closed door? ‘Not interested,’ he said aloud. ‘Cry all you want. At least you've got eyes left to cry with.’ In a sudden rage he shouted out loud. ‘It's over, you sad bitch. I'm leaving and I won't be back!’

He drove aimlessly for a while, then parked the car and walked, fast. It began to rain but he kept walking as though to put some distance between himself and Bev, and the blinded boy lying in a drawer in the morgue.

It was late when Ian returned home. If she was asleep, he vowed he'd leave her for good but Bev was waiting up for him. He barely had time to take in her eyes, swollen with tears, her face blotchy from crying, before she launched herself at him, shuddering in his arms in a paroxysm of sobbing. ‘I'm sorry,’ she mumbled and hiccuped, over and over again. ‘I'm sorry for everything.’

‘You don't know the half of it,’ he thought as he held her close and kissed her hair, breathing in the comfort of her familiar scent. ‘I'll never leave you, you know that,’ he whispered.

‘And I'll never leave you,’ she replied.

Ian shivered as he gently kissed her inflamed eyelids.

49

SECRETS

T
here was a time when they had kept secrets together: the wooden chest hidden away in the garden shed, the hole in the trunk of the old willow tree at the bottom of the garden… Now he had a new secret. It was her secret too, even though she was no longer there to share it. People made a fuss about death but what difference would it make if he added three more bodies to the legions of the dead?

Everything was approaching its logical conclusion: his own death. Life held no hope of happiness, only the bleak satisfaction of knowing he had settled the score. After the girl had been punished, it had been the turn of the teacher. Only the doctor remained, the doctor who should be using his skill to save life, not waste it. Then it would all be over; the avenger could find peace.

He'd made sure the deaths couldn't be traced back to him and if his identity was ever discovered it wouldn't matter because he would already be dead. Nevertheless he wouldn't cut corners. Most killers gave themselves away with foolish oversights, avoidable lapses in concentration, but he was too clever for that. He'd always been superior to everyone around him when it came to intelligence, and that was what counted because you could work out how to achieve anything if you were smart enough. Tracking down his quarry had taken time but he had been patient. First the girl, then the teacher. Now only the doctor was left. But not for long.

After sitting motionless for a moment in his white cellar, lost in memories, he sprang over to the tall white cupboard,

unlocked it, pulled open a drawer and selected a photograph. The eyes of the dead stared back at him, heedless. She looked so young it made his eyes water.

‘It won't be long now,’ he whispered. ‘They'll all be punished for what they did. All of them.’ She would have been pleased. The young had a strong sense of justice. With a sigh he replaced the photograph gently in the drawer of the white cupboard.

White for a bride. White for a shroud.

50

DISSATISFACTION

‘S
o if Susie told her colleague, Jill, who seems to be a bit of a gossip, we can assume the staff all knew about Vernon's suspicions,’ Geraldine told Peterson when they met for a quick lunch in the police station canteen on Sunday.

‘Either Susie or Jill were bound to have told them. You know how rumours spread at work.’

‘Vernon saw Abigail Kirby in the queue at WH Smith's on Saturday the twenty-fourth of October. Anyone could have spoken to any of the staff between then and the fifth November when he was killed, and found out Vernon had seen her talking to someone just before she was killed. If her killer knew that, and thought Vernon could identify him –’

‘And found out Vernon had talked to us –’

‘That's nearly two weeks for the staff to have chattered among themselves and we don't know who else they might have talked to.’ Geraldine took a gulp of coffee. ‘Let's assume for a moment the killer was the man Vernon saw in the queue. He could have talked to staff in the shop and found out he'd been seen talking to his victim shortly before he killed her.’

Peterson nodded. ‘It's such a pity we can't get a better image from the CCTV. It's useless really.’

‘Useless,’ Geraldine agreed. ‘A tall figure in a dark jacket. And of course the security guard didn't see anything.’

The sergeant nodded and shovelled a mouthful of beans into his mouth. ‘And there's still the other possibility,’ he added after washing his beans down with a swig of tea. He glanced around before meeting Geraldine's gaze and lowering his voice. ‘Hasn't it occurred to you that one of our colleagues could be the killer?’

‘You don't really believe that?’

‘No, of course I don't. But you always say we have to keep an open mind, and consider every possibility, and all I'm saying is it's possible.’

They returned to the incident room and Geraldine made her way to her desk to sort through her paperwork before leaving for the afternoon. In some ways she wasn't sorry to be going out. Everyone was irritable. The investigation had been going on for two weeks, but it felt more like two months; not only were they no closer to making an arrest, with their main suspect cleared, but now a witness had been killed. The case couldn't be going much worse and all they had to go on was a shadowy figure on a CCTV film who might have nothing to do with Abigail Kirby's murder at all. He could have been a stranger standing next to her in a queue, cross at being jostled. In any case, their only eye witness was now dead. It seemed hopeless.

Geraldine had arranged to take her niece out that afternoon but being involved in a case wasn't a good time. She phoned her sister and tried to convince her it might be best to postpone the visit.

‘It'll probably be fine,’ she capitulated under pressure from her sister, ‘but if I get called, I'll have to go.’

‘Surely a few hours won't make any difference to anything.’

‘It could do. It really is important to view a crime scene promptly before it can be contaminated, and witnesses have to be interviewed as soon as possible, while they can still remember something of what they've seen. I know it sounds very melodramatic, but time really is of the essence.’

‘It's not exactly a matter of life and death,’ Celia argued. ‘I mean, with your work the victim's are already dead before you start, aren't they?’

‘But it can make the difference between making an arrest and putting a murderer safely behind bars, or letting him slip away, free to walk the streets.’

‘Yes, yes, I know. Spare me the lecture. If it wasn't for you we'd all be at risk of being murdered in our beds. Honestly, Geraldine, I don't know how you can do it, looking at all those dead people all the time. I mean, it's one thing watching murder stories on the telly when it's all made up, but what you do – well, I don't know how you can do it. But I don't want to argue. The point is, Chloe's expecting to see you. You can't let her down again.’

Celia's efforts to forge a relationship between Geraldine and her niece had intensified since the death of their mother. Geraldine realised she was being leaned on to fill that gap but couldn't really blame her sister. It was fair enough for Celia to look after her daughter's interests and it was important for Chloe to build strong bonds with adults other than her parents, but Geraldine could have done without that additional pressure on her time right now.

‘Good,’ Celia beamed when she opened the door. ‘We've got you all to ourselves for an afternoon.’

Geraldine nodded warily. ‘Celia, I can't switch my phone off –’

‘What do you mean? You agreed –’

‘Look, it's very unlikely I'll be called. They'll only contact me if there's another death, in which case I'll have to go. I'll need to be able to contact you, in the unlikely event that something happens, so if you go out, can you make sure you take your mobile?’

‘I've got a hair appointment –’ Celia protested.

‘Fine. Where and what time? If there's an emergency I can drop Chloe off at the hairdresser's.’

‘Oh for goodness sake, do you have to make a drama out of everything?’

Chloe caught sight of Geraldine standing on the doorstep and her face lit up. She ran up past her mother and flung her arms around her aunt. ‘Aunty Geraldine. I knew you'd come. Mummy said you'd cancel, but I knew you'd be here.’