The Murder Mile

by Lesley McEvoy

  ‘And Taylor-Caine?’ I asked, trying to distract him from my wrists as I tested the knots.

  He glanced down at the blade in his hand. ‘Ah, saving the best for last. She was so easy to play. I called her, posing as a journalist. Said I had information about you that she would find useful.’ He laughed. ‘She wanted to destroy you so badly, she didn’t even question it. She was almost too keen to meet with me.’

  ‘The day of Astley’s briefing? It was you she went to meet?’

  ‘At a secluded spot in woodland – not far from the farm. Of course she recognised me as soon as she saw me. But it was too late by then.’ His face was a mask. Devoid of all emotion.

  He was reliving the images he’d harvested and stored for his own pleasure, to run again whenever he wanted to remember the sick gratification her pain and terror had given him.

  ‘I moved her to George’s place. Crime scene B, nice and secluded. Held her there for a few days. She provided some entertainment, while I found out what she knew.’

  ‘Your “source” in the police?’

  He nodded. ‘That’s how I knew about the farm searches a few days before they actually happened. Would have been awkward if I hadn’t got that out of her. I had to get my car out of George’s barn, and get rid of anything that showed I’d stayed there. I killed her just before I came to your place.’

  I thought about how quickly he’d arrived at mine. It made sense – he hadn’t had that far to travel.

  ‘When your boyfriend turned up with the search team, I actually had her body in the boot of my car!’ He couldn’t disguise the triumph in his voice. One up on the police – on Callum in particular.

  His eyes met mine and he caressed my face gently as he spoke. ‘My gift of her to you. Did you like that?’

  I gave the impression I was struggling with the morality of it.

  ‘I was shocked at first.’ I looked into his eyes. Trying to forge a common bond that would make him hesitate to kill me. ‘But if I’m honest…’

  ‘You wanted her dead – didn’t you?’ I felt his hand tremble against my skin.

  I nodded slightly. Turning my face away as though ashamed. He took my chin in his fingers, turning my face back to his.

  ‘It’s okay to admit it,’ he said, softly. I forced myself to endure it when his lips lightly brushed mine.

  I chose my words carefully. ‘You said once that you knew it would be easy for me to cross that line.’ I looked deep into his eyes. ‘And you were right… but I didn’t have your courage.’

  I felt him tense and his lips froze over mine. As he looked down at me, his eyes narrowed. ‘Of all the things you could admit to, that’s the one I really don’t believe. I know you.’ His words echoed the sentiment of the robotic, digitised voice I’d first heard on the phone. ‘I’ve studied you for years. We both know that’s not true.’

  I felt my momentary advantage slipping out of reach.

  ‘It is true.’ I talked fast, my mind racing. I wished my hand was free. So I could touch him – create a physical anchor for my words. Anything to buy myself extra time. ‘But I didn’t have your strength to cross that line. To actually kill–’

  ‘No!’ He almost spat the word in my face. ‘You breathe a rarefied air. Standing on your moral high ground. You and Ferguson. Building careers out of examining specimens like me. Like insects in a test tube. You prod and poke at our psyche and decide whether we’re insane or not. Your judgements play God with people’s lives.’

  His jaw tightened and his breathing became erratic. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. ‘But you don’t have the guts to play God for real – to hold life and death in your hands.’

  Firelight glittered across the blade as it flashed passed my face. I screamed at the searing pain as he drove it deep into my right shoulder.

  I’m going to die… Alex! Oh God. My son is going to have to see my body. See what he’s done to me – like Mary Kelly. I’m never going to see Alex again…

  The images of Mary Kelly’s mutilated body exploded in my head. Pain shot through my jaw as his fingers tightened their grip on my chin, forcing me to look at him.

  ‘Severing the carotid artery is how you should die,’ he said, through clenched teeth. ‘How Mary died. But that’s over far too quickly!’

  The edge of the mattress lifted as he got off the bed. His eyes never left mine as he took off his shirt. His torso was slick with sweat. He threw the shirt into the corner of the room and picked the knife up from the table.

  ‘You don’t have to do this… My God, please – no!’

  ‘Yes,’ he snarled. ‘Right here… right now… I AM God!’

  He sat beside me, grabbing my hair in his fist. My eyes were transfixed onto the blade as he placed it against my groin. He applied the slightest pressure and a droplet of blood appeared on my skin.

  ‘The femoral artery.’ He pressed the tip of the blade a little further.

  I sucked my breath in through gritted teeth as pain shot through my groin. Spasms tightening the muscles in my stomach.

  ‘This takes longer for you to bleed out.’ He was a predator scenting the kill.

  I tugged at the cords, trying to turn away, but there was nowhere to go. Pain coiled through my shoulder and around the curve of my ribcage. Rivulets of sweat slid down my arms, causing the cords to bite deeper into my wrists.

  ‘Beg me.’ He said it so quietly, I hardly heard it. ‘Beg me for your life.’

  His face glowed in the surreal light cast by the fire, and when I looked into his eyes, they were black dots. Lacking all that was human.

  In that instant I felt a certainty that was deeper than my terror or my pain.

  A knowledge that whatever I said, whatever I did, I could never reach him now. His fractured psyche was being driven by a hunger that had dragged him into the depths of depravity, from which there was no way back.

  Begging for my life would fuel his sadistic need to inflict pain. Seeing fear in my eyes would feed the monster inside him. Like the thrashing of a wounded fish excites a feeding frenzy of sharks, pushing them to greater extremes of savagery.

  A calmness suddenly descended on me. ‘I’d tell you to go to hell,’ I said, quietly. ‘But you’re already there.’

  His face contorted. ‘You bitch!’ He pushed the blade into my thigh.

  I screamed as a bolt of unimaginable pain ripped through me, convulsing me against the ties. Arching my body like a bow off the mattress. I felt him push me back down onto the bed.

  ‘It’ll take a few minutes for you to bleed out, depending on how fast your heart is beating.’ His fingers gripped my face, making me look into his eyes. ‘I’ll feel your last breath on my lips. I’ll taste your tears on my tongue and just before you slip into unconsciousness, I’ll cut out your heart!’

  ‘Your father,’ I said, between ragged gasps for breath. ‘Your brother…did they ever know…?’

  He shook his head, watching the blood slowly staining the mattress in a darkly spreading pool. A droplet of saliva appeared at the corner of his mouth as his breathing became more shallow in his excitement.

  Shivers ran through me despite the heat from the fire.

  He reached out to gently stroke my cheek. ‘Not long now.’

  I willed myself to breathe slower, to keep my heart rate down. My body wasn’t responding to my mind anymore. The pain was receding. My limbs felt leaden – I couldn’t move them. Even my head was too heavy for my neck to lift anymore.

  His face was starting to blur.

  ‘Please…’ I managed, but my words slurred.

  ‘Shhhh.’ He lowered his head and I felt his lips brush mine. He put his hand on my chest and I could feel the thud of my heart against his palm.

  ‘That day we walked across the fields, I held your wrist. I felt your heart beat beneath my fingers and I fantasised about this moment. You sensed it.’

  His kiss was warm against my ice-cold lips. ‘Your heightened response to a predator. I tried to
make you think it was sexual attraction, but I knew I couldn’t fool your instincts for long. So I said I was leaving.’ He stroked my hair. ‘I knew I wouldn’t have to wait long before we could share tonight.’

  Darkness invaded my peripheral vision.

  I wasn’t cold anymore. It was difficult to keep my eyes open. His voice was echoing from so far away, I could barely hear him.

  Finally, he sat back. He raised the knife and held it over my heart. I braced myself for the final, deadly blow – and then everything seemed to happen at once.

  The door burst open. James half turned as a figure filled the doorway.

  I vaguely heard a shout and James stood up. He looked down at me, his hand raised high. The knife blade glinted in the firelight as he brought it down, just as thunder crashed into the room, deafening me.

  James seemed suspended in mid-air for just a second, before spinning around in slow motion, to slam against the wall. I felt his weight across my legs and then Callum’s face filled my vision.

  He was holding George’s shotgun as he looked down at me.

  He mouthed my name, but there was no sound. His eyes were filled with a visceral fear I’d never seen before. He reached out to me as the blackness finally closed in.

  14 November

  Fordley General Hospital

  ‘Lucky for us, he couldn’t resist it.’ Callum carefully put the glass of water into my left hand.

  My upper torso, right arm and shoulder were immobile, wrapped in mummifying bandages.

  ‘One last call to torment us with the fact that “Jack” was still out there. Determined to finish what he’d started, and tell us we couldn’t stop him.’

  ‘So he called you – just like the calls he made to me? With his voice digitised?’

  Callum nodded as he sat back on the chair beside my hospital bed.

  ‘But how did you know where we’d be?’

  ‘If he hadn’t made that call, I wouldn’t have.’

  I tried to shift to a more comfortable position and winced as the ache in my left thigh reminded me that moving had consequences.

  ‘You’re going to have to run through that night again,’ I said, running a hand wearily across my eyes.

  I was only just beginning to piece it all together and this was the first chance Callum had to come and see me. To talk to me properly when my brain wasn’t flying morphine kites.

  ‘You couldn’t have known then that it was James – or that I’d be his next victim.’

  ‘You’re right – I didn’t know for sure, but I had my suspicions.’ He took a sip of vending-machine coffee and grimaced.

  I made a clumsy attempt to put my glass on the bedside table and groaned when the stitches snagged.

  Callum took the glass from me with a disapproving look. ‘Are you deliberately trying to undo all my hard work? Take it easy for God’s sake.’

  I couldn’t help smiling at him – my lips were one of the few things that didn’t hurt if I moved them.

  ‘Your hard work? You didn’t put my stitches in!’

  ‘No – I just had to use the belt off my trousers to stop you bleeding to death.’ He plumped my pillows before taking his seat again, but I could tell he was trying hard to maintain the stern look.

  The Yorkshire Air Ambulance crew said that his improvised tourniquet had not only prevented me from bleeding out, but had probably saved my leg.

  ‘Remember when we searched the farms? I came to see you before we left. You were all standing in the yard when I made a point of telling you that I’d left a card at George’s place, with a direct number to the inquiry team.’

  I nodded.

  ‘As far as we were concerned at the time, only four people, apart from my team, knew about that card. You, Jen, Turner and George, as we thought then he was still alive. But it wasn’t the incident room number. It was one I’d had set up and it diverted directly to my mobile. The only way anyone could have access to that number was if they’d been inside George’s farmhouse.’

  I looked at him as the implications of what he’d just said began to percolate. He sat in silence while I processed it. When I finally spoke, I chose my words carefully.

  ‘So you were baiting a hook. But we were the only fish in the pond?’

  He nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving mine.

  ‘George could have just called it to ask about the search and that wouldn’t have added a damn thing to the investigation. But if Jack had used it to contact us, it would have narrowed things down.’

  ‘You had a CROP set up outside my home and a tracker put on my car,’ I said, quietly.

  He went very still and looked at me for what seemed an eternity. Then ran his hand through his hair.

  ‘You have to remember, Jo, Astley’s geographic profile pointed squarely to that location. I was the SIO. I couldn’t simply ignore that.’

  He paused, expecting me to say something. When I didn’t, his breath escaped in a low sigh. ‘I had to be seen to cover all the bases. No, I didn’t really believe you were involved. But it would either implicate or eliminate you as a suspect. Which it did.’ He lifted his eyes to look squarely into mine. ‘The night Taylor-Caine was murdered, the CROP gave you a cast-iron alibi.’ He was watching me steadily. ‘The card left at George’s place was never set as bait for you.’

  ‘Jen then?’ I couldn’t disguise the sarcasm.

  He shrugged again. ‘George, possibly, or Turner. Or someone unknown to us who had access to the farmhouse.’ He stretched his legs and looked down at his shoes. ‘It was a long shot. It could have led me precisely nowhere.’ He looked up and his eyes met mine again. ‘But it paid off – didn’t it?’

  ‘But once Paul Harrison was dead, why would you assume “Jack” would call? Everyone thought it was all over. Why wasn’t the number just disconnected?’

  ‘Despite what you thought’ – his eyes met mine – ‘what you might still think – I trusted you. After Harrison’s death, you were adamant he couldn’t be “Jack”. If you were so sure that his personality was totally incompatible with our killer, then I believed you. But we had to follow the evidence and we didn’t have a concrete lead to anyone other than Harrison.’

  ‘But Hoyle was disbanding the major incident team. Shutting down all the resources. He thought it was over.’

  He nodded slowly and I suddenly realised how exhausted he looked. His eyes had a weariness in them when he looked across at me.

  ‘He was winding things down. The extra officers we’d drafted in were sent back, but I still had my original team. So I kept some lines of enquiry open. We had loose ends to tie up. It was still an active enquiry, despite our prime suspect chilling in the mortuary. How I allocated the remaining resources was up to me. So I kept that phone line open. What Hoyle didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.’

  ‘And when Jack called that night, the call came in on that number? But surely that only told you he’d somehow got the number from George’s? It didn’t tell you where he was. He could have been calling from anywhere?’

  ‘I had Shah with the telephony team monitoring all the numbers Jack had used previously. We assumed he’d been destroying the burner phones. But some were never recovered, so there was a chance he might still be using one of those.’

  ‘And he did?’

  Callum nodded. ‘And the signal from his phone pinged off the Kingsberry mast, so I knew he was near the farm when he called. I couldn’t reach you on any of your numbers. So I drove up to your place and called out the cavalry en route. You weren’t there and your car had gone. But you’d left without locking up, so I knew you hadn’t gone far. Obviously my next stop was George’s.’

  We sat in silence for a moment, both thinking about the odds that had been beaten that night. But I still had pieces missing.

  ‘How did you know where he’d taken me?’

  ‘Harvey told me.’

  14 November

  Fordley General Hospital

  Callum sat forward in the chair. �
��When I got to George’s, there was just your car there with the driver’s door open and your mobile phone on the seat. In the headlights, I could see blood on the yard. I thought it was your blood.’ He paused and had to clear his throat before he could carry on. ‘The blood trail went away from the house, so I followed it down the track to the cottage.’

  ‘But I assumed James took me to the cottage in George’s Land Rover?’ I was being slow on the uptake.

  ‘He did, and as I got to the cottage, the Land Rover was parked outside. It wasn’t your blood trail I’d followed, Jo. It was Harvey’s.’

  I felt tears stinging my eyes as I thought of Harvey struggling to follow as I was driven to the cottage – still trying to protect me, despite being wounded.

  ‘Harvey had collapsed beside the Land Rover,’ Callum continued. ‘He’d obviously not got enough in him to go any further. George’s shotgun was in the passenger foot well – I picked it up before I entered the cottage.’

  ‘So when you burst through the door, did you expect to see George?’

  Callum’s head was down, looking at the floor. I knew his eyes held a pain he didn’t want me to see.

  ‘Didn’t know what I’d see.’ He looked up and his eyes were moist. ‘I knew what I dreaded, though. That I’d be too late–’

  The lump in my throat blocked my words.

  He shook his head and took a deep breath.

  ‘Despite all the circumstantial evidence that night, no, I didn’t expect it to be George. For one thing, I trusted your profile of Jack, and George was a million miles away from being like that. But I can say that I wasn’t surprised to see Turner.’

  I looked at him steadily, debating whether to ask my next question. But I needed to know.

  ‘Did you mean to kill him?’

  ‘I meant to stop him.’

  He looked at me in silence, then lowered his head as he spoke, looking down at the floor again.