Talking to girls.
And then, within days of each other, two people walked into his life as if to taunt him, a reminder of a past he had forgotten. He recognised the faces as parents of the people who had destroyed his life. Names weren’t a strong point but he never forgot a face and these were features he recognised. But they had just looked through him, not knowing or caring what their children had done to him.
First a man, mumbling something about having been burgled and needing new keys, pretending he didn’t know who he was talking to. You didn’t usually need to take name and address details but people rarely questioned you when you asked. Every now and then he had got a few girls’ names and numbers in a similar way. And when the man returned, he got his keys – without knowing about the extra one that had been cut.
At the time, the man formerly known as Nigel Collins didn’t know how it could come in handy in the future but then there was a second gift.
Two days later a mother of one of his other tormentors also pretended she didn’t know who he was and came to him with the same story. She said she had been burgled but wanted to chat, without even acknowledging who he was. She had been only too happy to give over her address details and another key had been pocketed.
He had wondered if the other two would walk into his life, two more gifts but they hadn’t so far. Maybe fate or God was telling him he had to find the other two himself? Perhaps it was time to be Nigel Collins for one final short period of his life then he could get back on with things, find a career and a girlfriend and settle down?
One of the hardest parts of leaving one identity behind was choosing yourself a new name. It had to be something you felt comfortable answering to but also something you actually liked. After the tedium of “Nigel”, he wanted an option a bit more memorable; not weird but something not exactly regulation either. Although he had decided on his new moniker a few years ago, he had really begun to feel it sticking recently. He felt his senses moving quicker when people spoke his name. The acknowledgment they meant him was becoming instant and natural. He liked it.
The plan that started forming seven months ago was beginning to work too. The other two he wanted to target had not come directly to him, so he had to make sure they did. The first one was easy, the woman even lived in the same house as years ago, although he didn’t recognise the man with her. He resolved then it would have to be the woman he took; the man could be completely blameless but not her. He had begun to watch the location and realised it would be difficult to get the right pattern of when she was alone. The first two would be easy but this would be a lot harder. He felt sure the right opportunity would come if he waited long enough.
He had managed to think of a way to try to make sure she came to him in the first instance, giving him complete access to her. Everyone loved to save a bit of money and a good offer. In his head it would be successful and if fate kept favouring him, it would work.
The other woman, the whore, had been harder to find. Like someone who was homeless, they could almost live in plain sight with many people driving and walking past but pretending not to see what was in front of them.
He had used the Internet to check the final name on his list and saw the tormenter was in prison, where he belonged. But that shouldn’t let him off the hook. Finding anyone close to him had proven hard though. He didn’t even know if they lived in the same area now. He had been waiting for fate to guide him with little luck. He did not want to continue with a plan that only contained three of the four people he wanted.
And then he saw what he had been wanting to see for all these months – and she had been right in front of him the whole time. He had walked past her row of shops on many occasions as he went home. He usually kept his head down. He had even heard her voice, “Do you fancy...” as he hurried past. And then one night he glanced up and saw what he had been looking to find the entire time. A familiar face from years before, a face he remembered walking young Shaun to school. Befriending her was easy; money tended to do that. Afterwards she wanted to be friends, offering him cigarettes and complaining about the local kids.
Then everything just appeared to him, a way to get access to both his final places. The owner of his stall had taught him some very useful skills in the past eighteen months, wanting someone to run the business for him but still keep the profits for himself. He had learned those skills willingly and now he had used them. He repaired the lock he had damaged the night before and pocketed a third key then the final woman had come to him on the stall and the fourth and final key had been created.
Now he just had to wait and watch. He didn’t even know if he were capable doing what he planned. He would have to be focused and think of what had been done to him in the past. He would have to build up his strength first, develop his body, while keeping a close eye on the comings and goings of his targets. When the time came he would have to be careful not to leave a trace but he could plan and wait for the perfect time when there would be little chance of him being discovered.
And then, when all four were gone and he could live with himself again, he could finally say goodbye to Nigel Collins and start his life over. It would be his tormenters who had to live with the wreckage they had caused, not him.
Jessica didn’t recognise the old man standing on the stall but then she instantly knew why not. The person who had worked on there had got himself a new job. Emotions flooded through her and she kept repeating to herself over and over that she must be wrong. She had to be sure and approached the stall. She had been staring at it trying to take everything in and the holder must have been anxious as she reached the point where she was directly in front of him. ‘Are you all right?’ he said.
Jessica couldn’t even think straight. ‘Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Look I was just wondering about a man who worked here...’
The man half-smiled at her. ‘Heh, you’re not the first. Think a few of the girls around here have had their eye on m’boy over the past couple of years.’
‘
Your
boy?’
‘Oh not my son or anything but yeah he’s a good lad. He has a new job, so I’m sorry he won’t be around any longer.’ Jessica didn’t know what to say but the man clearly misunderstood the look on her face. ‘Oh don’t worry, it’s a good job. I’m pleased he’s sorted himself out. It just means I’ve had to come out of retirement until I can find someone else to take over.’
Jessica hadn’t been listening but said thanks anyway. Her mind was racing and she felt almost as if she were in a trance. It couldn’t be... She felt she had to hear someone else say it before it would be true. She had taken a few steps away from the stall but turned around again and walked back towards the man. ‘Could you just tell me what his name was?’
‘You didn’t even know? I didn’t think he was that shy. It was Randall. Randall Anderson. Maybe you’ll get lucky and come across him one day? I think he’s got a girlfriend so you might have to wait in line.’
The man laughed but Jessica didn’t. She moved quickly away from the stall, fumbling with her bag to pull her phone out. Once again, just as she needed to move quickly, her fingers were betraying her. She finally pulled it out of her bag but caught it on one of the handles and dropped it.
He heart froze as she saw it fall almost in slow-motion. There was a small crash as it hit the ground. She bent down and snatched it off the floor. The screen had a slight crack in it but still seemed sort-of responsive. Jessica pressed the button for her contacts list. The phone was being slow and the scroll was only half-working but she managed to get up a list of recent contacts then pressed the “call” button next to Caroline’s name.
‘Answer, answer, answer,’ Jessica said quietly but out loud while the phone rang. She heard a click and for a moment thought her friend was about to speak. Instead, it was her voicemail message. While she listened to her friend’s voice, Jessica remembered that morning’s text saying her friend had been called into work. As the other end of the line beeped, Jessica spoke frantically.
‘Caz, it’s Jess. Look, wherever you are, go to somewhere safe or somewhere public. If Randall is with you, can you make some excuse to get away and call me back? It’s urgent.’ She hung up and swore, much to the annoyance of a woman walking nearby with a young child. What did she do now? The obvious answer, of course, was to do what she always told everyone else to do; phone the police but Jessica was thinking of her friend. What if there had been a mistake? She would be risking throwing away their friendship and perhaps her own career.
Ultimately, she wasn’t worried about treading on toes considering the case had been taken from her. It was better to be wrong and get a telling off than be right and do nothing but if she ended up making allegations that turned out to be untrue, especially if it looked as if it were designed to coincide with Caroline moving out, their friendship would surely be irreparable. More practically too, if the police were looking for the killer and he got wind, he could go to ground and disappear. He had done it before and Jessica couldn’t risk that happening.
The detective decided she should head back to the flat to see if Caroline had returned from work. If not she would at least be able to pick up her car and drive to her friend’s office, then the two of them could go to the police station while people senior to her decided what to do. From the market, the journey would only take ten minutes to get home and that might even give her a chance to see where she had gone wrong. There was a taxi rank next to the market and Jessica jogged towards it, before opening the door on the first one.
She gave the driver her address then got back on her half-working phone. She tried Caroline again and again with no luck but there wasn’t much point in leaving further messages.
As the taxi drove, she tried to think of things that might not fit but instead could only come up with things that justified her fears even more. Caroline had never met Randall’s parents. He said they lived abroad but it was an easy thing to say to get out of having your girlfriend meet them. And what about Ryan? He claimed he had found her files on the coffee table after she had left them under her bag but maybe he did find them where he said because Randall had already gone through them first? It was a horrible thought. It could have been her carrying those files around that led to Claire Hogan and Mary Keegan being killed quicker before the police could find the connection.
The taxi driver was pretty decent and Jessica gave him a £10 note before dashing out of the car towards her flat. She put the key in her front door and let herself in it, thinking about how a key had been turned by Nigel Collins or Randall Anderson to let himself into the victims’ homes. She pushed the door open and went in. ‘Caroline?’
There was no answer. Jessica put her bag on the floor next to the front door and took her phone out. She put it in her pocket then went to pick up the car keys from her room. As she moved, she thought she could hear some sort of rustling sound coming from Caroline’s room. At first her heart leapt, with her instant thought being her friend was at home but then something far more sinister occurred to her.
Jessica crept along the carpeted hallway. She knew where the squeaky floorboards were and moved to avoid them. She went past her own bedroom door and carefully approached Caroline’s. It was mostly shut but there was a crack open and she could definitely hear something moving inside. Jessica held her breath and tried to peer through the gap where the hinges met the wall but could see nothing. She looked through the already open part but could only see one side of Caroline’s bed. She slowly pushed the door open to reveal more of the bed through the widening crack. She squeezed silently through the gap and looked behind the door.
Randall was standing there, his hands reaching into the built-in wardrobe but his face turned to look directly at her with a puzzled look on his face. ‘Jess? Sorry I didn’t hear you come in. Caroline got called into work but left me her key so I could start moving things for her. Didn’t she text you?’
Jessica felt frozen to the spot. What did she do? Randall was bigger and stronger than her. It wasn’t as if she could just go straight in and accuse him of being Nigel Collins and call the police. She already knew what he was capable of doing having seen all four bodies. Not only that but, if he did kill her here, the police would just assume that Collins had come to deal with the detective assigned to his case. Even if Randall’s DNA were found at the scene, that would be expected as he was Caroline’s boyfriend.
She would have to be careful but she also couldn’t risk leaving the flat or letting him leave and losing him for good. ‘Hi, yeah. She sent me a message this morning. I’ve just been out and about.’ She thought her voice had faltered slightly but, if it did, Randall said nothing.
‘Do you want to help me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t really know what I’m doing with all these clothes and things. I’ve got all these boxes but I have no idea how it should be sorted or anything.’ He indicated towards some cardboard boxes on the floor by his feet and was smiling.
Jessica tried to return the smile but it was excruciating. If she could just get away from him for a few minutes, she could call the station and get help. ‘Yeah, no worries. I just want to go get a drink. Do you want anything?’
‘Yeah, just some water would be fine.’
Jessica walked backwards out the room, her heart racing. She turned straight around and went into the kitchen. She put two glasses on the draining board then let the tap run while she took her phone out from her pocket. Even if he were nearby, perhaps he would hear the water and not her?
Her cracked phone screen was still not properly working. She pressed the screen to view her contacts but it wasn’t loading. She used one hand to fill both glasses while using the other to jab at the front of her phone ever harder. Eventually she had both glasses filled but left the water running anyway. Finally the phone started to respond. She needed to use both thumbs but got the list of names scrolling down. She could see her hand shaking and she felt sick but kept telling herself to focus. She got to the entry “Station” and pressed call. She put the phone to her ear and turned around to face the door.