Closer Than You Think

by Darren O’Sullivan

  ‘If you need anything, just say, OK?’

  ‘I will.’

  Penny hung up, and I sighed with relief, before tidying the room to look as undisturbed as possible. The third version of me pushed itself to the front. It made me leave the room and get ready for bed. I checked my phone again: still nothing from Paul and trying to call it went straight to voicemail. I didn’t bother leaving a message. Climbing into his bed, I knew as soon as he came home, I would talk to him about what I’d found and wait for him to explain. Then I would tell him, if he wanted to know things, he just had to ask. I didn’t like that he was keeping his knowledge about me a secret.

  But then, I suppose we all have our secrets.

  Chapter 52

  5th October 2018

  Ely, Cambridgeshire

  I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to, needed to, fought to. But despite my body being entirely depleted, to the point I could barely turn over in bed, my mind was still running hard and fast. Because of how overwhelming the past few days had been, I hadn’t really had time to think about the fact that Owen’s killer, my would-be killer, had never been caught and brought to justice. He had been free for the past ten years, and I couldn’t help but wonder what he had been doing for all that time. Had he been living a normal life? Had he met someone he loved, did he have a family? Had he and I met? Had he made a point of saying hello? I wracked my brain. Could he have been the man who smiled at me once in the doctor’s surgery when I was waiting to see Dr Porter? Was he the man who offered his umbrella in the rain? Had he delivered a parcel to my door? Could he have been the man who paid for my shopping only a few months ago?

  I started to ask the bigger questions: what had brought him back? Why was he killing again? Would he come for me and finished what he started? The last question, although only whispered, meant that when Paul did eventually get home, I jumped at the sound of the door opening. I knew I shouldn’t have pretended to be asleep, but I also knew that if I told him I found his folder, there might be an argument, and I didn’t have the energy, and as he came into the bedroom and sighed, I thought that at that moment, he didn’t either.

  ‘Are you awake?’ he whispered quietly, and I murmured, suggesting I was, but only because he had just stirred me.

  ‘I’m so sorry it’s so late. I didn’t take my phone charger and my battery died, and my bloody car broke down.’

  Again, I mumbled, and he rubbed my arm. ‘Anyway, go back to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning,’ he said, sounding tired and low.

  I listened as he left the room, going to the bathroom to brush his teeth and get ready for bed. When he climbed in beside me, I didn’t respond. He kissed me on the shoulder and rolled onto his side, his back to me, and within a few minutes he was sound asleep, gently snoring.

  I was still unsettled about finding the folder but pushed my feelings to one side and thought of what Penny had told me about not wanting to cause harm. Closing my eyes, I focused on my breathing, matching mine to Paul’s steady rate. After a few minutes I felt my diaphragm release, and I knew that my exhausted body would soon concede. Just as I felt my mind drift towards oblivion, I was snapped from the peace by a light bouncing off the ceiling, and rolling onto my side, I grabbed its source: my phone. On the screen was a news update:

  HOUSE FIRE IN DAVENTRY, A SINGLE FEMALE OCCUPANT FEARED DEAD.

  He had struck again, quickly. His tenth kill. The third since this nightmare began in August. But that wasn’t the most terrifying thing. What scared me more was the place. It wasn’t the first time I’d read the word Daventry this evening.

  Slowly I got out of bed, so as not to disturb Paul, and quickly made my way to the guest room. I grabbed the folder where he kept his receipts and work logs, and taking them downstairs I went into the kitchen and closed the door behind me. Turning on the under-counter lights, I opened the box beside the cooker.

  I found the receipt I put in earlier and reread it. Daventry. I looked at the date and noticed that it was from two days ago. It had to be a coincidence, didn’t it? I looked at other receipts for the past month and saw most of them were from services close to home. But some from other places, most of which I hadn’t heard of and couldn’t pronounce: their names looked Welsh.

  Opening my phone, I Googled Kath Brinck and remembered she lived in a placed called Bethesda. Looking at the date of her death, 28th August, I searched for a receipt close to it. There was one on the same date from a service station near Betws-y-Coed. I put the town name into Google Maps and my heart skipped a beat when I found it was only fifteen miles from where she lived. Then I Googled Lauren Hegarty, the ninth, remembered that her address was in Ruabon. I found a receipt for a Tesco meal deal from Wrexham, on 26th September. She was killed five days later, and Wrexham was only seven miles away.

  Paul had been in the same places, at similar times to when those women died. And tonight, he had been near Daventry. And now a woman was dead.

  At first, I didn’t let myself believe it, but I remembered how when I’d had a power cut weeks before, I hadn’t heard him move through my house to find me. Most people, myself included, would stumble, hit things, but he didn’t – he moved stealthily, like he was used to the dark. And I hadn’t even considered how he’d got in. I hadn’t given him a key, and yet he’d managed to enter without making a noise? Then I remembered the way he held me, so tight I thought I would pass out. He was strong, strong enough to drag someone by their hair. And the recent murders – Bethesda, Ruabon, Daventry. Each one getting closer to home, closer to me.

  I didn’t want to believe it. but the evidence was there. He had been within a few miles of each of the murders. Because of his work, he knew how to isolate power. To damage a generator. And the folder he kept, a record of his work. It was Paul; it was Paul all along. He was the Black-Out Killer. Ten years ago, it was him who came into my house, it was him who killed Owen. He had found me through the dating website. He had found me and worked his way into my life. To finish what he started.

  I needed to get out, and fast. Grabbing the receipts, I dropped several on the floor, my hands shaking so much I knew I had to fight the sensation of wanting to be sick or pass out. I scooped them up and made my way for the front door, not caring about how quiet I was. As soon as the door was open I would scream with all of my might, alerting the police officer across the road.

  But, as I opened the kitchen door to run, Paul was at the bottom of the stairs, staring at me with a look in his eyes I had never seen before.

  Chapter 53

  5th October 2018

  Ely, Cambridgeshire

  ‘Claire?’ He stepped towards me, and as I spoke I was expecting my voice to sound desperate, weak. Instead, I was shocked to hear my tone was steady and low.

  ‘Stay away from me.’

  ‘Claire? I’ve just seen the news. He has done it again. He is getting closer. We need to get you somewhere safe.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere. Not with you.’

  ‘Claire, we have to. We have to get you somewhere where no one can find you.’ He took another step, and he looked confused. But then he looked down at the receipts in my hand and I watched as his expression changed into something else. When he spoke, it was more measured, a forced air of calm about him. ‘What have you got in your hands?’

  ‘You know fucking well what I have.’

  ‘Claire, I need you to calm down.’

  ‘You were there in North Wales. In Wrexham. You were there in Daventry.’

  ‘Claire…’

  ‘You were there in the same places as where those women died.’

  ‘You need to let me explain. It’s not what you think, it’s all just a…’

  Pressing down on my right foot hurt like hell, but I bit my lip and did so anyway, so I could spring forward, hoping, if I moved fast enough, it would catch him off-guard and I could push past him and make the front door. If I could get it open, I could shout, and the police officer parked outside would hear me, and they would com
e and save me. I moved as fast as I could, but Paul moved just as quickly and as I skimmed past him, I felt his hands in my hair, pulling me back. I fell, expecting him to drag me backwards like he had done all those years ago, but instead he wrapped an arm around my waist, his fingers digging into my scar on my stomach, and as he hauled off my feet, I cried out. With one arm encircling my torso he slapped the palm of the other across my mouth, trapping the sound of my pain.

  His hand smelt of petrol.

  He pulled me back into the kitchen his back slamming into the fridge, and my right foot ended up under his. He pressed his weight on my foot for a moment, but the pain was so much I was sure my scar tissue had split open. The sudden pain snapped a memory back from that night. The moments after he cut off my toes. I remembered hitting him with the bolt cutters. I remembered staggering towards the window. I looked at my foot, blood pumping out with each pulse from my heart, and knew I would bleed to death if I didn’t act. He didn’t set me on fire as I was told, but I had done it to myself. I had caused that much pain to my own body because doing so stemmed the bleeding and cauterised the wound. My scarred right leg wasn’t that of a victim, but of a survivor, and knowing what lengths I went to in order to escape him then gave me fresh resolve. Even then, I was the third version. Perhaps I always had been?

  I struggled to free myself but every time I did, his grip tightened and his fingers dug into my stomach, hurting so much I thought I would be sick. I tried to kick, to hit out at him, but I was helpless, useless. But I wasn’t frightened. My terror had been replaced with something else that moved like terror, sounded like terror, but I wasn’t afraid. A decade of living in fear, living in the shadows and now my worst nightmare had come true, and I was less scared of this than I was a thunderstorm, or the dark.

  I relaxed my body; I stopped fighting, and I felt his grip loosen. He thought I had given up, or was perhaps so terrified that I had passed out, and that was exactly what I wanted. With his hand still over my mouth I felt his other arm release my waist just enough for me to act. Dropping my weight, I twisted and pushed. Flinging myself away from him across the kitchen floor, struggling to my feet I grabbed a chair from around his dining table and as he came for me again, I swung it with all of my might. The sound of the wood hitting his skull was something I would never forget and as Paul fell to the ground, I fell too from the sheer effort of trying to knock him out.

  I scrambled up as he moaned and rolled onto his back, blood from the wound on the right side of his head pooling underneath him. I had expected him to stay down, but he was already getting to his feet. Bolting for the kitchen door I opened it, sending it crashing into the work surface, and I hobbled as fast as I could with my right foot, which was searing with white hot pain. Grabbing the front door handle I turned to open it, and he was on me again, spinning me to face him. Blood soaked his face, framing his eyes, making the whites of them seem like they were glowing, monstrous, like the devil. I screamed for help and he covered my mouth again, pressing hard, pushing my skull into the door frame. I drove my right knee into his groin, buckling him in half.

  As he hit the floor I opened the door and ran out into the night. Someone must have heard my scream because as I made the edge of the drive, the police officer was out of his car and running towards me. As I fell into his arms, I managed just seven words.

  ‘It’s him, he’s the Black-Out Killer.’

  Epilogue

  29th December 2018

  St Ives, Cambridgeshire

  Opening my front door, I flicked on the hallway light and paused for a moment, listening to my house. It was quiet, as I knew it would be. I felt myself hesitate. Beside me Geoff placed his hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Do you want me to come in?’

  ‘No, I’m all right,’ I replied smiling.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ he said smiling back. ‘Your mum and I are really proud of you, love.’

  ‘Thanks, Geoff. A lot of that is down to you, you know?’

  ‘Because I walk you home?’

  ‘Because you showed me the three versions of myself. Since then, it’s always on my mind, and it’s forced me to work harder to be the third one.’

  ‘The second wasn’t your best,’ he conceded.

  ‘And the first belongs to a girl who doesn’t exist anymore,’ I said, finishing his sentence.

  He smiled again. ‘I’m glad I could do something for you.’

  ‘More than something, Geoff, you are the reason I fought Paul. You’re the reason I got out. Paul… I still can’t believe it.’

  ‘Nor can I but it’s done now,’ he said as he hugged me. ‘’Night, kid.’

  ‘’Night, Geoff.’

  ‘Try to get some sleep, you’ve got an early shift tomorrow.’

  ‘I will, thanks for a lovely evening.’

  ‘Even though I burnt dinner?’

  ‘It was lovely all the same. As long as you haven’t poisoned my mum and me.’

  I kissed him on the cheek and he turned and walked away, his hands in his pockets, back towards his house. Closing the front door, I held my breath for a moment longer than I should have before dumping my bag on the floor and headed for the kitchen.

  Looking at the cooker clock, I saw it was just before 10 p.m. And knowing I would need to be up at five to get ready and be at work for six, I told myself I’d have a quick cup of tea and then turn in. My job was hardly taxing – I cleaned at the local children’s centre in Huntingdon, not working with young ones directly like I’d wanted to, like I used to when I was young, but that didn’t matter. It was a job, my job, my first here in England, only my second ever, and I loved it. I cherished it.

  Paul was in prison. He was first charged, and then prosecuted, for the murders of Kath Brinck, Lauren Hegarty and Esme Ormandy. After he was arrested, and the press got involved, things from Paul’s past started to come out, including his ex-wife speaking of how he’d hit her. Her story of ‘how I survived a serial killer’ hit all the tabloids. Apparently, as a young man he drank and then ruled with an iron fist. Just like the men he’d targeted in Ireland and the wives of the men he’d targeted recently.

  I was so angry at myself for not seeing it. The critical evidence to charge him was found in the boot of his car. He had foolishly left the bolt cutters, the blood of all three victims found on them. The physical evidence and the file of details around the murders, and the proof he was near each town around the time of the murders, meant the trial was short, and a jury unanimously elected to give him three life sentences. He wasn’t charged for Ireland, for the seven, including Owen who died there. But they knew, the whole world knew it was him. Knowing he would never leave jail was enough for me – it had to be. I wished he would confess and help me, and the other families, find the closure we all lacked, but of course he protested his innocence. Regardless, it was over, really over. And knowing I had survived not one, but two attempts on my life changed something within me. I was a survivor. And, for the first time, I was OK with that. I could move on. I could be alone. I hadn’t conquered all of my fears. I still had to leave a lamp on at night. I still carried keys on me, but now I kept them in my pocket.

  With my tea in my hand, I made sure the front door was locked, and went up to my bedroom, brushed my teeth, readied my work clothes for the morning and before I climbed into bed I looked out of my window. The moon was full and bright, so bright I could make out the light wintry clouds. In them, I could see shapes of various things. A dragon, a castle, a train. Smiling, I climbed into bed. Flicking on the TV, News at 10 was just starting and still they were talking about Paul. I had no interest anymore. The third version of me was done with it. Changing the channel, the screen went black momentarily before some home makeover show lit it again. I loved these programmes; they made me think of my own plans for my house, to start building a life I knew I deserved. But I couldn’t lose myself in dreams anymore, and so went to change the channel. Again, the screen went black and then a children’s cartoon was on. I wonder
ed who on earth would be watching it this late. I changed the channel again. And the screen went dark, along with the rest of my room. For a moment I thought I was imagining it, but there was no light from anywhere. I looked to my bedside clock, and it was also off.

  The power had gone out.

  The icy hand I had kept quiet and contained for the past three months sprung to life, clawing me as if my insides were the wall of a well and it was desperately trying not to drown.

  It’s just a power cut, just a tripped switch, I told myself, hearing the tremor in my inner voice. Get up, Claire, sort it out.

  Obeying my own instruction, I swung my legs out of my bed and when I tried to stand they felt numb. I took three measured breaths, calming myself, reminding myself Paul was in jail, and power cuts happened all the time. Finding my phone, I lit the torch and made my way to the stairs, holding onto the bannister as tight as I could to stop me from falling as I descended.

  I checked my front door, and it was still locked, still untouched. I breathed a sigh of relief, and as I turned the torch beam towards the kitchen, something caught my eye on the ground, a foot away from the entrance. An envelope. Stooping down I picked it up and looked at it. There was no address on the front, no stamp. Just my name, and I knew the handwriting. It wasn’t Mum’s or Geoff’s, so it must be Penny’s – perhaps she’d dropped me a note, something sweet, something kind. Once I had the power back on it would be something I could read to help with my anxiety.

  Holding it in my hand I made my way to the cupboard under the stairs and examined the fuse box. I tried to flick the power on, to see if there were any tripped switches, but it wasn’t working. There was nothing coming into my house. Feeling panic rise, I hobbled through to my lounge and looked outside. The houses around were also dark, the streetlights off.

  It’s just a power cut, Claire. Take a deep breath…

  I sat on the sofa and forced myself to calm down, before I hyperventilated and passed out. If I could just focus on my breathing, the power would eventually come back, and I would be another step closer to living as a fully independent adult: if I could do this now, I could do it for the rest of my life. I told myself I wasn’t in any danger. Power cuts were just a thing.