I've Been Watching You: a stunning crime thriller from The North East Police Series (28 page)

‘There is.’ His reply was short and to the point, and Ben looked up, seeing the desire flash in his eyes even though he tried hard to hide it. ‘I know,’ she replied simply.

‘TJ said the same. She’s home now, you know. Did I tell you? She’s staying at my place for a few nights and isn’t allowed back to work just yet, but she’s going to be OK.’

‘I like your sis. She’s very, erm, to the point.’ Ben was reflecting on the exchange at the hospital when she’d taken TJ’s injury photos.

‘What did she say?’ He felt a moment of panic.
What exactly did she say?

‘She warned me not to hurt you. I have no intention of doing that, by the way.’

Jacob groaned, ‘She’s such a mother hen, has been ever since our parents passed away.’

‘She loves you, is all, same as Aoife loves me. They both just want what’s best I guess.’

‘True enough. Another coffee?’

At her nod, Jacob grabbed his stick and made his way to the coffee machine.
She feels it, too.
He hadn’t wanted to seem like a teenager grinning from ear to ear at the knowledge that she liked him. Pouring the coffee, he composed himself and headed back over.

16
^th
June, 1920 hours – Tunstall, Sunderland City Centre

Stan’s anger had started burning the minute he’d been taken into the interview room. He knew the police had a job to do, but they’d almost made him feel like a suspect. Wanting to know the ins and outs of how he’d come to work at the centre, how many people had keys, where he’d been last night, whether he knew Clarice and so on.

He couldn’t be seen as a suspect. He’d settled in Sunderland, didn’t want to leave, but he would have to if this kept on.

And to top it off they’d had a woman interviewing him. A trumped up little school-girl playing cop: she couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old. He’d wanted to leap from his seat and slam her against the wall, show her that little girls should stick to the things they did best, like cleaning and cooking, though even that wasn’t done to a high standard most of the time.

Disdain burned in his gut.

He needed to keep on top of what was happening with the investigation, needed to know if it got to the point when he would have to leave.

For now though, they didn’t suspect. He was safe.

He reached to the shelf above his computer screens and took down the cardboard box. Unlike the other trinkets in the house, this one was pristine. There was no dust covering the top. He kept it clean.

The cops hadn’t even searched him. It had given him a thrill having Clarice’s hair in his pocket the whole time he’d been with the cops. And the fact he’d managed to see the delectable young girl again after ending her life just hours before only increased his pleasure. Frowning, he wrote her name on the back of the envelope,
13. Clarice Johnson.
Thinking for a second, he placed 8/10 beside her name. He’d started scoring after his first kill, his own little twist on the competition that was murder. Only one had ever scored ten out of ten.

He pushed the box to one side and hit the power button on the keyboard, smiling as his computer droned to life in seconds. This latest processor was great: it had cut his load time by more than half. It wanted to, for the price, but it pleased him that his computer was more responsive because of it. Hitting the search engines not used by the general public, those hidden where only certain people knew where to find them, he typed in what he knew about Bree. Seconds later the information he needed appeared before him. Scanning the document, he found what he was looking for. Bree Elizabeth Nicole O’Byrne changed her name by deed poll on 12
^th
March 2009 to Ben Cassidy. She’d remained in Durham for two years before moving to Sunderland to live with her only living relative, an aunt, Aoife O’Byrne. She had a daughter, Grace Cassidy, almost five years old, born six months after moving back in with her aunt.

Sitting back in his chair, Stan grinned widely, the scar at the side of his mouth stretching his bottom lip awkwardly, making his smile more of a grimace. Glancing back at the screen he accessed her National Insurance information and found her place of employment: North East Police.

It
had
been her.

Deep down he’d known it the moment he’d seen her hair. Blazing red like a field of flaming poppies.
Shit, the bitch could have told them anything by now. It’s definitely going to be time to move on. This is all her fault! How dare she survive. BITCH!

His anger spurred him into action, but wary of destroying more computer hardware this time, he leapt up and slammed his fist into the wall to his side. He didn’t feel the pain as he slammed it again and again into the wall, the plaster cracking and mingling with splat marks from his bloodied knuckles.

She would pay; this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. The police might have evidence now. Evidence they wouldn’t have had if
she
hadn’t told them. Evidence that would point to him. He didn’t know how much she remembered, didn’t care if the truth be known. All that mattered was that she had survived, had told her tale. After suspecting for a while, even having it confirmed, finding out where she was and that she was linked to this case caused the niggle in the back of his mind to grow.

Stan strode into the kitchen, turned the tap on and placed his left hand underneath, calming as he watched the cold water wash over the cuts, letting the flow take his anger with it. He needed to remain calm, figure out a plan. Hell he needed to figure out where he was going now. Another city, maybe London this time. It was big, anonymous. A person could stay lost there for a very long time.

But first he would get rid of her once and for all. Never again would she be able to tell a soul about him. And he’d take care of the daughter and aunt too. Before she died she would understand that this entire situation could have been avoided if she’d just died when she was meant to. Plainly, she hadn’t learned her lessons properly. He would make sure she did this time. All links to him would be extinguished, and when he finished there would be no-one left to stop him.

16
^th
June, 2240 hours – O’Byrne residence, Sunderland

Jacob was sitting in the car outside Ben’s house. He’d actually been there for almost twenty minutes, wanting to get home to TJ but not quite being able to pull away. He’d finally been allowed to take Ben home and he’d held on to her arm as she walked up the path to the front door, a small part of him afraid she might collapse without him to hold her up.

Her eyes had become haunted sitting in the station. He knew it was a relief to her that everyone knew, but there was still the stigma that
everyone knew.
All of a sudden her whole life was on show for all of her colleagues, her innermost fears coming to the surface as the day had progressed.

They’d been sitting in the office when Ali had entered and given them the brief lowdown on Clarice’s injuries, how they believed she had been raped multiple times before finally succumbing to death.

Jacob knew what had happened to Ben. She’d told him, but the pure evilness of it hadn’t sunk in. Until Ali had gone over everything with him, it had been a small part of Ben’s history. Now it was a visual, a 3D movie with a killer shrouded in a dark shadow. He could almost hear her screams and pleas in his mind. Even more than ever, he wanted to hurt the man that had tried to break Ben, wanted to make him pay for what he’d put her through. What kind of a man did that anyway? He’d seen abuse on women on his tours abroad, women stoned in the square when they had broken whatever law the men had set, women beaten and forced to walk ten steps behind their male counterparts. Those men had hidden behind religion, excusing their actions with quotes from the Quran. Misguided? Definitely. But taking a girl hostage, hurting her, forcing her to have sex multiple times, then killing her. These actions he didn’t understand.

They hadn’t even made it up the three steps to the house when Aoife had flung the door open, grabbed hold of Ben and held her so tightly that for a moment, he’d thought she might break.

Aoife had looked at him with gratitude, her eyes filling with tears. And before he realised what had happened, she’d pulled him into the hug also. The three had stood there in the doorway for what seemed like an eternity, holding on to each other like they were safety buoys in a swirling ocean. For the first time in a lot of years, Jacob had actually felt at peace, and un-judged by his actions and injuries. He’d wanted to stay there forever, wrapped in the embrace of a woman so accepting of him, seeing him as a man and not a broken piece of one, and the equally strong motherly embrace of her aunt.

It was only now, some twenty minutes later that he realised the feeling was one of safety. It has been six years since his last tour, six years of pain and recovery, six years where he had never quite felt like he fitted anywhere.

In a sudden flash while standing on Ben’s doorstep, he’d realised that it had been six years of focussing on himself. He’d never once in that time told TJ he appreciated everything she’d done. He’d sat and wallowed with an ‘oh woe is me’ attitude and struggled through each day.

Today had been like an eye opener. A young girl was dead, killed by the same man who had hurt Ben. He felt a little ashamed, if he was honest, here he was moaning about a gammy leg when she’d endured such horror and survived.

OK, the things he’d seen he wouldn’t have wished on anyone, but there were a lot of people worse off than him.

A new determined look in his eyes, or rather the old determined look of who he had been before Afghanistan flickered brightly. No more feeling sorry.
So I have scars. So do a lot of people. Deal with it.
Finally feeling more at peace, he started the engine and pulled away.

16
^th
June, 2320 hours – O’Byrne residence, Sunderland

Ben was sitting on the armchair with her legs pulled up under her bum, staring into space. Aoife had talked to her for a while after Jacob had dropped her off, telling her several times that everything was going to be OK. Eventually she’d realised Ben needed time with her thoughts, time to process having to expose herself to everyone she worked with, and time to realise that it wasn’t as a big a deal as she thought it was. She had
survived
and that’s what was important, Aoife had said, kissing her on the head and leaving her on the chair.

But Ben had her doubts.

Telling the people she worked with meant that the stares she’d had from the staff at Durham would return, those stares that said ‘I can’t believe she went through that, the poor thing’, the stares that screamed ‘Why’s she still at work after an ordeal like that’; the stares that yelled ‘I don’t understand you any more’. That was how she’d seen them, at least. She’d noticed that people stopped speaking when she walked in the room, heard hushed whispers that hung in the corridors like accusations, and saw the looks of utter pity on the faces of her colleagues.

None of them understood.

You didn’t give anyone chance to understand. You just turned tail and ran for the hills.
The niggling voice in the back of her head could have been right she supposed, her mouth turning downwards in a slight frown.
I don’t actually give people chance to understand, `cos I’ve never actually told them or talked about it.

It had been really tough today, telling her story over and over, trying not to let the emotion take over, but failing. People deal with horrific experiences in different ways, and after spending a couple of years living in paranoia, getting drunk and generally not
living
, Ben had pulled herself together when she’d found out she was pregnant. That after all the horror, that through both the physical and mental scars, her body could still carry the wonder of a new life had felt like a miracle. There was one moment she considered aborting the baby. It had been a turning point.

A lot of people didn’t get that option. After the rape, they lived forever with the fear and paranoia, the emotional trauma itself, the feelings of not being worthy, the thoughts that somehow they were to blame.

A surge of anger flew through Ben’s veins.
They’re not to blame, none of them. No-one asks for that to happen. I’m not to blame. He is!

She’d told other victims that often enough. The website she administrated gave her a forum to help where she could, but deep inside she knew she’d never believed it until just now. It was
his
choice to do what he did. She had no control over him. She didn’t even know him.
But I know you now, you bastard. And I will do whatever I can to catch you so you never do this to another woman again.

The haunted look finally left her eyes; tonight she would write it all down. Every little thing she remembered about that night, no matter how small. And tomorrow she would give it to Ali, and talk to Jacob. She knew that if he hadn’t showed up at the scene of the murder, she might never have opened up as she had. She at least owed him for the millions of coffees he’d bought throughout the day. Aoife was right, there was something about Jacob. She wanted to make sure he was OK.

Picking up her mobile, she sent him a quick text telling him she was thinking about him and saying thank you. Her mind now on a more even keel, she held her phone as she waited for his reply, but within seconds the device fell on to her lap as her head lolled and she fell straight into a deep sleep.

For the first time in eight years, she’d fallen asleep naturally, without any panic that she hadn’t checked the windows and doors. If she’d realised she might have checked out of habit, and if she had, she might have seen something.

Stan stood outside the window, his eyes virtually burning holes in the glass as he stared at her.
You’re going to pay for this. It’s going to take some planning, but soon, you won’t be telling anyone anything. You’ve fucked it all up. I have to move again and it’s all your fault. I’m going to make you wish you were never born.
He stood there for several minutes, staring through the glass as his breath settled on the window pane. Now he knew everything he needed to, it was time to start laying the ground work.