The murder list, p.24
The Murder List, page 24
‘I’m not feeling it tonight, are you?’ Pete muttered, and I nodded in agreement, although I noted with some amusement that he still wolfed down a generous portion of his smelly cheese.
When the doorbell rang, just after midnight, my heart practically leapt into my throat, my body involuntarily curling into a ball on the sofa, pressing into the cushions as if I was trying to vanish inside the fabric. Pete hesitated for a moment, locking eyes with me, before he jumped to his feet and headed for the door.
‘Pete! No!’ I shouted after him, but he was already halfway down the stairs, calling:
‘I’m just going to see who it is. I won’t open it!’
Now he appears in the doorway looking a little sheepish, Megan a couple of steps behind him.
She looks dreadful, I think. She’s wearing black skinny jeans and a plain navy hoodie, and as she walks into the room she pulls the hood down, revealing unbrushed hair and red-rimmed eyes, puffy from crying.
‘Sorry, Mary, but …’
Pete gestures at his now ex-girlfriend, and I nod. I can’t be angry, not with her in this state.
‘Come in and sit down, Megan,’ I say gently. ‘Are you OK? Would you like a drink or something?’
She shakes her head, then looks at Pete.
‘I just wanted … I just wanted to speak to Pete. I’m really upset. I went for a long walk, and I just ended up here somehow …’
She walked? From Prestbury? It’s miles, I think.
Her words sound slightly slurred, and I realise that she’s been drinking, a faint smell of alcohol now obvious. She sniffs, and a tear runs down her cheek, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
‘I didn’t want us to split up, and I just wanted to see if …’
Her voice breaks, and she sinks slowly onto the opposite end of the sofa and begins to cry quietly.
Bloody hell, I think.
Pete is still standing, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, looking from me to Megan and back again as if he has no idea what to do next. He looks pale, almost as if he’s in shock. I’m about to tell him to say something, for goodness’ sake, when from somewhere a mobile phone starts to ring shrilly, making us both jump. Megan, still sobbing, face buried in her hands, doesn’t even look up, and I scan the room, seeing Pete’s phone on the side table, its screen flashing. He grabs it.
‘Hello? Oh, I’m so sorry, I should have thought … yes, it’s fine, it’s just Megan, my girlfriend … well, my ex now, we’ve just split up and … yes, I know, but she’s really upset, and I thought just for a few minutes … yes, yes, OK. I understand. Thanks. Speak later.’
He ends the call, and gestures at me to follow him out of the room, pulling the door gently closed behind us.
‘That was the police,’ he whispers. ‘Telling me off for letting her in. But I couldn’t leave her on the doorstep, could I? She’s clearly drunk and … well, you know. She looks so bloody sad. The cops aren’t happy; they said not to open the door to anyone else, even if we know them. Listen, I’ll have a chat with her. I’ll try to make her feel a bit better and let her sober up a bit, and then I’ll call her a cab – is that OK? Could you give us a few minutes?’
I sigh.
‘Sure,’ I whisper back. ‘Just let me grab my phone and I’ll go down and make a pot of strong coffee. She looks as if she might need it.’
‘You’re the best,’ Pete says quietly, and he takes my right hand in his and presses it to his mouth for a second, before releasing it again.
‘Oh shush,’ I say, but I can still feel the soft pressure of his lips on my skin, and I feel a little flutter of pleasure.
He smiles, and together we walk back into the lounge. As we do so, Megan turns to look at us, and to my surprise she’s no longer crying. Slowly, she stands up, her eyes narrowing, and I see a strange expression flash across her face.
‘Very cosy, you two,’ she says coldly.
‘What? Don’t be silly, Megan. We’re just worried about you,’ I say, trying to keep my tone light, but she takes a step towards me, then another, and as I look at her, puzzled, her face suddenly contorts with rage and then she’s reaching for me, fingers curling as she stretches out her arms, hands moving towards my neck.
‘You bitch!’ she spits, and I feel a lurch of fear.
What is she doing?
I feel her long nails graze my skin, and I step backwards.
‘Megan!’ I screech. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
I look desperately at Pete, but he’s standing there motionless, as if in a trance, eyes fixed on his ex-girlfriend, and a sudden, horrifying suspicion slams into my brain.
It couldn’t be. Could it?
Suddenly it’s as if everything’s happening in slow motion. Megan’s still coming towards me, her beautiful face twisted into an ugly snarl, but my mind is racing, thoughts whirling through my head.
Is it possible?
Think, Mary. Think. Could Megan be the Diary Killer? The way she’s acted towards me recently … where was she on the nights of the other murders? I have no idea what she did on New Year’s Eve, but …
I gasp, the thoughts still churning even as I take another step backwards, my fear spiking now, trying to get away from her. I remember the night of Jane Holland’s murder, when Pete took a late-night call from Megan and headed off to be with her. I think about how they were together again on the night of David Howells’s murder, and how Pete didn’t call me until much later than planned the following morning, telling me his work plans had changed at short notice. A little whimper escapes me.
Could he be in on it too?
I think about how he told me he’d come with me if I was moved to a safehouse. How he insisted on staying here with me tonight. How he was so vocal about having no cameras or listening devices in the house. Was all that so he could kill me? Suddenly, I think I’m going to be sick. The fear is paralysing.
No, please, no. Could they really be in it together? Is that why he kept saying he was going to finish with her, and then didn’t? Is it really over now at all? Or is this all part of a plan? Her turning up here acting all upset so I’d be OK about him letting her in? Oh shit, SHIT. Am I crazy? Am I imagining all this? But if I’m not, why isn’t Pete doing anything? Why isn’t he stopping her?
‘PETE! Help me!’
He still appears to be frozen to the spot, his face looking even paler than it did a few minutes ago, his eyes wide, but my scream seems to jolt him into action.
‘MEGAN!’
He jumps forwards and grabs her around the waist, pulling her backwards, away from me.
‘MEGAN! What the hell are you doing?’ he shouts.
For a few moments, she struggles violently, hands still clawing the air, trying to get closer to me. Then, quite suddenly, her body goes limp.
‘Sorry … I’m so sorry,’ she gasps. ‘I’ve had a few drinks. I just thought that you two … I didn’t mean to …’
And now she’s crying again, tears streaming down her cheeks, her slender shoulders heaving. She turns in Pete’s arms, and buries her face in his chest, and he looks at me helplessly.
‘What do I do?’ he mouths.
I’m shaking from head to toe, and I stare at him. I have no idea what to say, no idea what’s going on here.
Can I trust him?
But he just saved me, didn’t he? I think, frantically. He must be still on my side; he must be. And Megan … she’s just drunk, that’s all. Neither of them is the killer; they can’t be. I’m being ridiculous. I’ve got this all wrong …
I swallow hard.
Calm down. Act normal.
‘Deal. With. It,’ I mouth back, and I pick up my phone from the arm of the sofa and leave the room. But I’m still shaking as I stagger downstairs, and when I make it to the kitchen I lean on the counter for a long time, trying to stabilise my heart rate, breathing slowly and deeply.
Keep it together, I tell myself. Of course Pete and Megan aren’t involved in any of this. Don’t get paranoid, not now. Get a bloody grip, woman.
I inhale again, exhale slowly, and look at the clock on the microwave. It’s 12.25am and I feel exhausted, wobbly from the adrenaline that’s just surged through my body. I get myself a glass of water and sit down, but the thoughts are still racing through my mind.
Pete was definitely away on the nights of Jane and David’s murders. With Megan, or so he said. But what about New Year’s Eve? He was in Dublin on New Year’s Eve, visiting his mother, wasn’t he? He wasn’t in Oxford, murdering Lisa Turner. But how do I know he was in Dublin, really? Have I ever seen any photos, any evidence?
I can’t remember, and I can feel a tight little knot of fear forming again, low in my belly.
He’d visited Jane’s casino a few weeks before she died. And both he and Megan are runners …
‘No! No, stop it!’
I shout the words then stand up, take a few steps towards the door, and stop, breathing heavily.
This is ludicrous. All this stuff is just coincidence. Pete and Megan were dating; it stands to reason they’re going to spend lots of nights together. And what possible reason would either of them have for killing all of those people, or for wanting to kill me? Pete just stepped in to stop her attacking me, for goodness’ sake …
‘Stop it. Just stop. It’s not them; it’s not,’ I say out loud. ‘Pete’s my friend. More than a friend now, maybe. Stop this. Think properly.’
Suddenly, I’m a little calmer.
It’s just stress, messing with my head, I know it is. The pressure of all this, it’s bound to have an effect. I can’t let it do this to me. I won’t. Just make some coffee, come on …
Then from upstairs, I hear the lounge door open, and moments later, the click of Pete’s bedroom door as it opens and then closes again.
Why have they gone into his room?
I feel a fresh ripple of panic. For a few seconds, I stand stock still, listening, but all I can hear is a soft murmur, two voices in conversation, and I take another deep breath, willing the panic away.
It’s OK. Everything’s OK. They just want somewhere private to chat, I think. Stop bloody over-reacting. He’ll talk to her, we’ll get her a cab, and then it’ll be just us again. Everything’s fine. You’re going to have a heart attack if you carry on like this.
I listen for a few more seconds, then turn and walk back to the coffee machine.
Chapter 43
Thursday 1st April
DI Mike Stanley leans back in his chair with a soft groan, and glances at the clock on the mantelpiece. 1.45am. They’ve just watched a taxi pull up outside number 21 opposite, and the woman they now know to be Peter Chong’s ex-girlfriend clamber into it. Mary called Steph half an hour ago, explaining that the woman, Megan Walker, had been distraught after Chong ended their relationship and had come round in an inebriated state wanting to talk things through.
‘She was in a bad way – she lunged at me at one point, and for a moment I thought … Well, anyway, Pete stopped her, and it’s all fine. She’s just come downstairs, and I’ve given her some coffee and she seems calmer now,’ she said. She was making the call from the downstairs toilet, she said, leaving Megan to finish her drink in the kitchen.
‘Pete’s having a lie down, apparently. He looked really drained earlier. I think it’s taken the stuffing out of him a bit, her turning up like that. He’s in his room, and yes, I know we agreed to stay together in the lounge for the night but I’ll just leave him to rest for a few minutes and then I’ll go and wake him up, don’t worry. And I’ve ordered Megan a cab, so don’t panic when you see it stopping outside, OK?’
The taxi has left now, and the street is quiet once more, a light rain falling, spattering the windows. There’ve still been no reports of any unusual activity from anywhere nearby, and even though they’re less than two hours into the day, Mike’s starting to wonder yet again if all this is a waste of time. He knows it has to be done – of course it does. This killer has been true to his word with all the other dates and all the other victims. But to give Mary three months’ notice, and still turn up to try and kill her? He just can’t see it happening, and he can already feel boredom setting in.
‘Tell us a story, boss,’ he says suddenly.
Steph, sitting to his right, turns to look at him, and even in the darkness he can see the surprised expression on her face.
‘Pardon? How old are you, five?’ she says.
He laughs.
‘Not a bedtime story. Tell us about some of the big cases you worked on before you transferred to Gloucestershire. Go on, to pass the time. You had a couple of serial killers, didn’t you? Tell us about the one in Manchester. The Ashford Mall killer?’
‘Oooh yes, go on,’ says James, and Miriam, who’s been sitting at the back of the room, pulls her chair a little closer to the others.
‘Think you might have to now, Steph,’ says Jess, and Mike can hear the smile in her voice.
Steph sighs.
‘OK, but keep your eyes on the road, and one ear on your comms, all of you, OK? We can’t forget what we’re here to do, even if it does seem eerily quiet out there at the moment.’
She clears her throat.
‘It was the second serial killer case I’d been assigned to. Five victims. I’m sure you all know the basics – it was all over the news back then. Builders were working on a big, new out-of-town shopping centre, the Ashford Mall, and suddenly they’re digging up bodies. Three at first. Two of them were later identified as sex workers who’d gone missing a couple of years before; the third was a man, an older guy in his sixties or seventies. We still don’t know who he is to this day, which has always bugged me.’
She pauses, leaning forwards in her chair as there’s a sudden movement in the street below.
‘It’s just a fox,’ says Mike quietly, and Steph gives a soft laugh as the creature scurries across the road, pausing to snuffle at the patch of grass outside Mary’s next-door neighbour’s house before scampering away down the road.
‘Anyway, there was little in the way of forensic evidence – the building site had been flooded a number of times over the previous two winters, which hadn’t helped. But we did find that all the victims had a matching injury, and this wasn’t ever made public: they all had a broken finger on their left hand. The ring finger.’
‘Wow,’ whispers James. ‘Weird.’
‘That rang a bell for me,’ Steph continues.
Her voice and the rhythmic tick, tick, tick of the clock are the only sounds in the shadowy room, four pairs of eyes fixed on her silhouette in the window.
‘I remembered a rape case, a year or so before, in Leeds. The victim wasn’t killed, but she was beaten and the ring finger of her left hand was broken. She had other broken bones too – her nose, a couple of ribs – but I got hold of her statement, and she said her attacker had deliberately chosen that finger to break. She described how he gripped her hand between his knees and then carefully lifted her ring finger and snapped it.’
‘Oh my God. Poor woman,’ says Miriam.
‘Pretty horrific, yes,’ says Steph. ‘But her rapist had been caught, and was already in prison …’
‘Cole Carter,’ says James. ‘I remember. Evil-looking bastard.’
‘That’s him,’ says Steph. ‘So we talked to him. He denied murdering anyone, of course, even when we pointed out the finger thing. But then we spoke to his cellmate, who told us that Carter had told him stories about his big back garden in Manchester, where he’d buried a load of bodies. The guy didn’t believe him at first, but when he heard we were questioning him, he thought he should share. And it turned out that some years before, Carter had lived in a bedsit adjoining the waste ground that became the site for the Ashford Mall. That piece of ground was, apparently, what he referred to as his back garden.’
‘Bloody hell.’ James lets out a low whistle.
‘Indeed. So we carried on digging and found two more bodies. Two more missing sex workers. Same broken fingers. And this time one of them was much more recent – he must have killed her just before he was arrested for the rape. We were able to find DNA evidence, and matched it to Carter. When we confronted him, he broke down and told us everything. He couldn’t understand how he’d been caught – that was the weirdest thing. He didn’t seem to realise that blabbing to a cellmate and leaving a calling card like that on every victim and leaving DNA at the scene might be a bit of a giveaway. Quite stupid really. You expect serial killers to be a bit brighter, don’t you?’
There’s silence in the room for few moments, broken only by the sound of a car driving slowly past outside.
‘Shame we didn’t get one of the stupid ones, isn’t it?’ says Miriam. ‘We get one who’s already got three police forces baffled. Four, if you count us.’
‘Well, the game’s not over yet,’ says Mike. ‘There’s a long day ahead. Did you ever find out why he broke their fingers, by the way, boss?’
Steph shakes her head.
‘No. He would never say. Now, enough bedtime stories. Mike, can you give Mary and Pete a buzz, check everything’s OK over there now their visitor’s gone?’
‘Will do.’
Mike picks up the handset on the table next to him and dials Mary’s number. He listens as the phone rings and rings, and then clicks onto voicemail.
‘Hi, this is Mary Ellis. I’m busy right now, so please leave a message …’
Strange, he thinks. Frowning, he dials Pete’s number. This time, the phone rings for longer, but after thirty seconds or so the same thing happens.
‘Hello, Peter Chong isn’t available right now …’
‘Uh-oh,’ he says. He puts the handset down, scraping a hand across his cropped black hair.
‘Guys, I’m not getting an answer from either of their phones. They’re just ringing out and going to voicemail.’
‘What? Try again,’ says Steph.
He does, but the same thing happens, and as he puts the phone down he can feel his scalp beginning to prickle. He clears his throat.
‘Boss, they’re not answering. I don’t know how anything could have happened with so many eyes on the place, but I think something’s wrong.’
