Keri pictured it cutting through the skin of her neck, dissecting sinews, muscle, tendons, slicing across the artery. It was so sharp there would probably be little pain as her blood pumped. Dead before she hit the floor. Is that what her children would be told?
56
Keri thought about running to the front door but knew she wouldn’t make it before feeling the knife in her back. Death didn’t scare her, but she wasn’t leaving her body there to be found by Abbie and Daniel. Leaving Abbie with a lifetime of guilt for not coming home when she knew something wasn’t quite right.
Keri’s eyes flicked to where the mobile phone charger sat on a shelf behind the sofa. Maybe with the element of surprise in her favour, she could grab it and race to the utility room. She discounted the idea when she saw the malicious gleam on the face of the pleasant, helpful agency temp. With a lethal blade in his hand, Luke didn’t seem quite so like Tom Cruise anymore. Even with adrenaline pumping through her veins, she couldn’t move fast enough to avoid being sliced into ribbons.
But she wasn’t giving up yet. Playing stupid might give her time, and time would give her opportunity. ‘Hi, were you trying to get hold of me? The storm seems to have knocked the phone out.’
‘And your mobile’s flat.’
Keri frowned. ‘How did you kn–’
‘Because I’m not thick!’ Luke rammed the point of the knife into the door of the cupboard under the breakfast counter. ‘I saw you run to your room with your mobile in your hand, if it had been working you’d have used it. I’d already sorted the landline so I knew you couldn’t use that. I’ve been sitting here waiting for hours. If the police were going to come, they’d have been here by now.’
Keri edged towards the sofa. If she could get a little closer…
‘Sit there.’ The knife was pointed to the stool on the opposite side of the breakfast bar. ‘It’s time we got to know each other a bit more.’
‘I don’t think we know each other at all,’ Keri said, moving to the indicated stool and perching on the side of the seat.
The laugh had a manic edge to it. ‘Oh, I know far more than you think. How you and that husband of yours were so desperate to make a success of your shitty little business that you were willing to do anything… including murder a boy.’
‘It wasn’t murder.’ Maybe it was the wrong time to be pedantic, but Nathan hadn’t murdered anyone. ‘Jim Cody’s death was an accident.’
‘An accident! He was exposed to high levels of crystalline silica while your damn husband breathed through his respirator. He didn’t see the lethal dust that covered Jim’s face, he just saw pound signs.’
‘You can’t know that: you weren’t there.’ As arguments went, it was pretty futile and she saw the face opposite tighten in anger.
‘No, I wasn’t, but Jim told my mother. She said he’d been so excited at working with such a well-known stonemason. Jim told her about being covered in white dust while he worked and how he’d spent a long time brushing it off before he caught the bus home. She said he was still brushing it from his hair that night.’
‘Your mother?’
‘She was sixteen and pregnant, but she didn’t know and by the time she did, Jim, my father, was already sick.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ What more could she say? Impossible to turn back the clock and protect the enthusiastic young man, to tell Nathan that the money was never that important, that they’d have made it without taking such hideous risks with such catastrophic results. To turn the clock back and save Nathan so they could have that future they’d planned.
‘She never wanted to talk about my father. I only knew that he’d died before I was born, then a year ago I got into a bit of trouble so she sat me down and told me everything.’ Confusion slipped across Luke’s face. ‘I think she thought if she told me, it would make me consider how lucky I was to have a future, that I wouldn’t waste it getting into stupid fights.’ He waved the knife. ‘She was right. I wasn’t going to waste it anymore. I discovered I had a mission. To get revenge for my father. It didn’t take me long to find out all about you and Metcalfe Conservation and that gangster Dexter Sylvester and his company.’
‘You murdered Sylvester and Nathan.’ This was the monster who had destroyed her life. ‘I assume you were also responsible for Roy. What did he ever do to you, he wasn’t even working for us when your father died?’
‘That was all his damn fault, the stupid little man.’ Luke waved the knife around. ‘I had it all so carefully planned. I needed the paperwork to prove what your company did to my father so I found out which employment agency you used.’ He smirked in satisfaction. ‘Roy gave me the answer to that question when I rang Metcalfe Conservation. I said I worked for a company in the building next door and wondered if he could recommend an agency.’
Keri could imagine Roy wanting to be helpful. She’d liked to have reached over and smacked the smug expression from Luke’s face.
‘It was simple after that. I had enough IT skills to apply for a job with the agency, then I waited for the opportunity to arise. I wasn’t in a hurry. It took two months before one day’s work at Metcalfe Conservation came up and I jumped at it.’
Keri’s head was buzzing. A thought managed to fight its way through the confusion. ‘Why didn’t you get what you wanted then? Why did you have to kill Roy?’
So quickly she didn’t have time to pull away, Luke reached across with the knife and nicked the skin on her cheek. ‘So beautiful but so fucking stupid.’ He sat back and wiped the bloody tip of the knife on the sleeve of his shirt before sliding the blade back and forth across the granite counter. Sharpening the already lethal edge. ‘It should have gone according to plan. Get the paperwork I needed. Get a close-up view of the couple who’d murdered my father through those fucking stupid glass walls.’ He laughed. ‘Seriously, whose poncy idea were they?’
Keri didn’t think he really wanted to start a conversation about interior design but keeping him talking seemed to be a good idea. ‘A company called Walthamstow Detail, they’re very modern, very styl–’
The knife was jabbed towards her, shutting her up. ‘I don’t give a toss about the damn designer, you stupid cow. Getting a look at the two of you was only part of what I’d hoped to achieve that day. The most important part was to get the damn paperwork, but I didn’t get it because the stupid suspicious man only gave me limited access to the files. In the note he left, he said to leave any queries for him to deal with the following day.’
Anger distorted Luke’s face. ‘I should have killed him then but I hoped Tracy would be able to g–’
‘Tracy Wirick?’ Keri shook her head, it was all falling together. ‘She was working for you. I thought maybe she was the person responsible for Roy’s death.’
Luke laughed at that. ‘Tracy? She wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ He waved the knife. ‘She’d do anything for me though. I thought she’d be able to work on Roy and get a look at the files, but he was cagey about what he showed her.’
He tapped the point of the knife on the granite, an almost melodic tink tink tink that was loud in the silence, then remained as background music when he spoke. ‘I thought Tracy would be able to wind him around her fingers and get what I wanted but she blew it by asking the wrong damn questions. She said he’d started watching her carefully and asking her pointed questions. I guessed he knew she was up to something, so I had to act.’
That was what Roy was going to tell her. Keri wished once again that she’d given him the time to do so. Not that it would have altered the course of events. Had he passed on his concerns about Tracy, she’d simply have given the woman her marching orders. It wouldn’t have saved any lives, not Roy’s, not Nathan’s.
The point of the knife was hitting the granite harder, the sound discordant, grating. ‘Roy was such a trusting fuck when I called in that morning. I told him I’d lost an earring the day I’d worked there and wondered if it had rolled under the desk. He laughed and told me to search away.
>
‘He was still laughing when I dropped the knife I was hiding up my sleeve into my hand and cut his throat.’
57
Anger bubbled. Keri wanted to grab the knife and wipe the grin from Luke’s face.
He must have seen her expression tighten. He pointed the knife at her. ‘I wouldn’t try anything if I were you.’
Keri slumped back on the stool, despair defeating her. The cut to her cheek stung and she felt blood trickle from it but she refused to lift a hand to wipe it away. Refused to acknowledge any action of the monster sitting opposite. With his malevolent grin and soulless eyes this was the real Luke. His disguise had been good.
‘My mother said my father was clever, I like to think I take after him. I’d made sure to tell the agency how much I’d enjoyed working for Metcalfe Conservation, then made sure I was free when you rang for someone to take over when Roy had–’ He jerked his thumb downward. ‘–departed for elsewhere. Of course, you gave me full access to all the files then.’ He sliced through the air. ‘Success! All so beautifully organised, if I do say so myself.’
He seemed to lose himself in self-congratulation. Keri looked across to where her charger sat. So close, so far away. That wasn’t going to be her answer. She needed to think of a plan B.
Luke tapped the knife on the granite again. He was looking at Keri as if trying to decide exactly where to stab her.
‘So, Roy had simply been in the way. The destruction of Metcalfe Conservation and DS Construction and the killing of Nathan and Sylvester was your plan for avenging your father’s death?’ Keri expected the answer to be yes, her question was simply meant to keep him talking in the hope that the longer he did, the more chance her brain would have to come up with options. She expected him to say yes, so she was thrown when he said no.
Luke laughed, a long belly laugh that stopped as quickly as it started. ‘That caught you out, didn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
A smile hovered on his lips as he stared at her. There was a smug satisfied glint in his cold eyes and if Keri had any doubt that he was going to kill her it was gone in that moment. Whatever his reason for what he was doing, she knew that pleasure played a big part. He enjoyed killing. The power trip. The blood thirst.
‘Actually,’ he said, with a swirl of the knife, ‘I’m not being quite honest. When my mother told me about my father, I was angry that the two companies had got away with their part in his death. But my original plan was simple. Get enough proof to destroy both. Roy was… what’s that wonderful expression they use?’ Luke’s eyes gleamed. ‘Ah yes, collateral damage.’
Anger shot through her, dispelling the desperate dismay that had been weighing her down. ‘But then you got the taste for killing, did you?’
His expression registered puzzlement. ‘A taste for it? No, you’re wrong. That wasn’t what changed my strategy. It was that damn poster. When I saw it, I knew my idea for revenge wasn’t good enough.’
Keri stared at him blankly for a second before it dawned on her what he was talking about. The photograph of her and Nathan that Abbie had blown up for their anniversary. Had that only been a couple of weeks before? Keri hadn’t been happy with the poster, too afraid that Barry might see it, that it might spoil her illicit affair. That stupid pointless affair.
Now it seemed there was another reason to be unhappy about it.
Luke pointed the knife at her. ‘That photograph of the two of you staring into one another’s eyes, your future stretching ahead of you, a future you stole from my father. Twenty-five years of wedded bliss, the poster said. Almost all the years you took from him. That’s when it hit me that the mere destruction of the two companies wasn’t enough.’
‘So, you decided to murder Nathan and Sylvester as well as Roy. Three deaths for one.’
‘Only three? Oh no, you’re wrong there.’ The knife was held up and tilted to catch the light from the overhead bulb. ‘It’s going to take a lot more than that to make up for what you denied my father. The business he could have built, the children he could have had. The sisters and brothers I should have had. It seems only fair that I should deprive you of what you deprived him.’
Keri saw the truth in his eyes, heard it in his self-justifying words. He didn’t care about a father he’d never known, didn’t need an excuse for what he did. The reality was, she, Nathan and Roy had been unlucky. Their lives had intersected with that of a psychopath. Steel slid up her spine. She couldn’t bring Nathan or Roy back. But she could stop this monster killing her children. Even if she had to die in the process.
She needed him to make one mistake. Just one and she’d make her move. ‘You keep telling yourself that you’re doing it for your father, keep lying about the real reason. That you’re a monster who doesn’t really care who he kills. Admit it. Go on, admit it, you know you want to,’ she taunted, letting her eyes slide over him, her lips curling in a sneer. ‘You enjoy killing. I bet you’ve fantasised about it for years. Your father’s history simply gave you the perfect excuse.’
‘It’s revenge,’ he snarled. ‘I’m going to wait until your brats get home, then I’m going to kill you all.’
Keri laughed then. It startled him, making him loosen his grip on the knife. It fell to the counter with a clatter. Too far away for Keri to reach, but she was getting to him. She had to keep needling him.
‘I don’t think you did it on your own. I think Tracy or someone else helped you.’ Keri folded her arms across her chest and frowned as she realised she had to be right. The morning Nathan was killed, Luke was in the reception when she left. She’d caught him out, maybe this was her opportunity. ‘Who is it, Luke? Who does the dirty work that you take credit for, who makes you feel like a man?’
‘I don’t need any–’
‘Liar!’ She leaned across the counter. A drop of blood from the cut on her cheek fell and landed in a shimmering circle on the grey granite. ‘You were in reception when I went to look for Nathan the morning he was murdered. Not even your colossal ego can put you in two places at the same time.’
A smile appeared. It was a nasty, foul tilt of his lips. He reached a free hand across the counter. She reared back making his smile grow wider. Then he ran his thumb through the drop of blood on the counter, brought it to his mouth and sucked it. It was a shockingly lascivious act. Suddenly Keri felt very afraid. There were, after all, worse things than death.
He withdrew his thumb slightly and circled it with his tongue.
Keri vowed she’d cut her own throat before she’d let him touch her. She was going to die anyway, she’d prefer to do so with the memory of Nathan’s body in her mind, not this monster.
‘You think you’re so clever.’ Luke wiped his thumb down the front of his shirt and sat back. ‘You and your stupid, pretentious glass office. What did the designer tell you? That it indicated how transparent the company was in its business dealings, was that it?’
Keri wasn’t going to admit that it was exactly what the designer had said. ‘It was to let plenty of light in actually.’
‘I bet you felt like a fucking goldfish in your office.’
‘Not particularly,’ she lied.
‘I bet you thought you saw everything that was going on. Bet you thought you had your finger on the fucking pulse of everything.’
If his language was anything to go by, he was losing control. It was what Keri wanted but she still had no idea what she was going to do.
‘Do you have any idea how pathetically stupid you are.’ He laughed. A shrill demonic sound that seemed to echo around the room. ‘You didn’t even notice I was missing that morning when I left to follow your moronic husband to the café.’
Keri was stunned. He was right. She did think she saw everything. How could she not have noticed Luke had left reception? ‘But you were there when I went to look for Nathan…’
Luke’s smile was smug, self-satisfied. ‘It was close. I had to be careful on my way back to avoid CCTV cameras so I only got back minutes bef
ore you came out of your office. Then I noticed blood on my shirtsleeve so I had to hurriedly pull on my jacket.’ He folded his arms, the knife resting along his upper arm, the point near his neck.
Keri stared at it. If she could reach across and push his elbow hard, drive that point into his carotid. Have him die in the same way as he’d killed Nathan.
‘One of the coffees he bought was for me, can you believe that?’
‘Nathan was a very thoughtful man. He’d never have gone for coffee without getting one for you.’
‘So generous. Coffee and buns for everyone. It meant his hands were full though and he struggled to open the door. He was surprised but pleased to see me and so grateful when I opened it for him.’ Luke lifted the knife and rested the blade against his neck. ‘He wasn’t so grateful when I slit his throat though.’
‘But you messed that up, didn’t you?’
She saw his eyes darken in anger. Maybe now she’d have a chance.
58
Keri braced herself. If Luke put the knife down or showed the slightest weakness she’d make a move. Adrenaline had diluted the fear a little, desperation to stop this monster harming Abbie or Daniel had done the rest. She’d become the clichéd mother hen defending her chicks.
Her shoulders slumped when she saw the anger on his face fade away and the smile reappear. ‘I must admit, I was taken aback when you rang to say Nathan had been injured, not killed.’ He shook his head. ‘Roy and Dexter Sylvester had been sitting down and I hadn’t made allowance for the height discrepancy. I was worried for a time, but when flashing blue lights and sirens didn’t arrive at the door of the office I guessed I’d done enough damage to stop him giving the game away. You can imagine my relief the next day when you rang to say Nathan had died.’ He wiped a hand across his brow. ‘Phew!’
Bitter hatred shot through Keri. That Nathan should have died at the hands of such an evil man made his death all the more monstrous.
The Couple in the Photograph Page 20