Fatal Liaison

by Vicki Tyley

  Greg’s chest tightened, in two minds about whether he really wanted to hear what was coming next. If it’d been good news, Neville wouldn’t have bothered with the preamble.

  “What I’m about to tell you doesn’t directly relate to your case, but…”

  Get on with it, Greg wanted to scream down the phone. Get it over with! Spit it out!

  “An arrest warrant has been issued for Lawson Green…”

  Greg couldn’t breathe.

  “…for the murder of Linda Nichols.”

  Was he hearing right? “Lawson-arrest-Linda-murder?”

  “Yes,” Neville said evidently understanding Greg’s question even if Greg himself didn’t understand it. “It seems our Mr Green has been, shall we say, frugal with the truth. According to Mr Green’s story, he and Ms Nichols were never involved in a sexual relationship. He even denied ever being inside her home. And on top of that he also claimed that he left the singles’ dinner function alone.” Neville’s voice dropped to a murmur. “Amazing how some people can be so naïve.”

  “Yes, it is. Go on.” Greg’s voice took on an unintended brusque edge.

  “Pardon? Sorry. Where was I? Oh, yes. Well his little fairytale has now been blown right out of the water. Forensics have seen to that. How he thought he wouldn’t be found out I don’t know…”

  The line went quiet. “Neville? Are you still there?”

  “Oh, yes,” continued Neville as if there’d been no break in the conversation, “and the police have now changed their original theory that Ms Nichols was raped before being strangled. The autopsy did show evidence of sexual activity, but little else to support the rape theory. The pathologist didn’t consider the bruising significant. Nothing more than that which might occur in an exuberant lovemaking session, he says. There was no semen – used a condom I would say – but a couple of pubic hairs were found in the bed that match our suspect’s DNA perfectly. That places him not only inside her home, but also in her bed. I would like to see how he tries to talk himself out of that one.”

  Greg moved the phone to his other ear.

  “He also lied about leaving the restaurant alone. A witness came forward to say he saw a couple getting into a taxi outside the restaurant about the time that Mr Green claimed he left alone. Nick Poulus – the witness – was outside having a smoke when he noticed another bloke standing outside with his hands in his pockets. Apparently, a minute or so later a petite, black-haired woman comes out of the restaurant and joins him. The descriptions the Poulus gave sounded very much like Green and Nichols. The police managed to track down the taxi driver and he corroborated everything the witness said. Done deal. He’ll certainly have a lot to answer for when the police catch up with him.”

  Greg’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean catch up with him? Surely he’s in custody already.”

  “Oh, didn’t I say? Green’s disappeared. Gone to ground, I would say. No one has seen hide nor hair of him since he left work last Friday afternoon. His actions certainly make him appear guilty even if he’s not.”

  “Are you saying there is some doubt?”

  “Innocent until proven guilty—”

  “Yes, yes, but are the police confident they have the right person?”

  “Obviously they still need to question him, but if an arrest warrant has been issued then I guess they think they have their man. But that’s not to say they have. Even though Green has been caught out lying, the evidence is still fairly circumstantial. They’ll need more than they have to convict him.”

  Greg swapped the phone back to his other ear, wanting to hear nothing more about the flimsiness of the evidence against Lawson. “What about Sam’s disappearance? What have you found out? Could Lawson be involved in that, too?” He could’ve continued rattling off questions, but what were questions without answers.

  “We’re doing everything we can and the minute I know anything I’ll let you know.”

  In other words nothing, thought Greg. “What if I was to tell you another woman has gone missing?”

  “Good Lord. Are you serious?”

  With a flawed sense of smugness, Greg passed on all Megan had told him about Brenda’s disappearance.

  “Has this friend of yours reported it?”

  Neville’s question stopped him in his tracks. “I assume so, though I can’t say for sure.”

  “Leave it with me,” boomed the once again in control investigator.

  Gladly, thought Greg as he hung up and laid his head on the desk blotter. But be quick about it.

  CHAPTER 19

  Deep cramping spasms gripped Brenda’s lower abdomen. Only semi-conscious, she tried to roll over on to her side. Powerless to move, it was as if the connection between her brain and her body had somehow been disrupted. Another spasm hit her. She cried out, her feeble voice sounding foreign to her own ears.

  If only she could open her eyes. She focused on her leaden legs, willing them to wake. Shooting pain engulfed her limbs as the blood suddenly returned to them. The scream was louder this time, echoing as it bounced from wall to wall. Gulping mouthfuls of stale air, she tried to breathe through the racking pain.

  The bitter taste and dry furry sensation in her mouth was the same she’d experienced coming out of the anesthetic after her appendix operation the previous year. Where was she? Was she in a hospital? What day was it? Her befuddled brain struggled to connect the dots.

  And like in hospital, she found herself being pulled back into unconsciousness. She didn’t fight it.

  Hours – or was it only minutes – later, she resurfaced. Remembering the pain the last time she tried to change position, she lay still, afraid to move a muscle. The beginnings of cramp nipped at her calf.

  An overpowering sickly smell, as if a whole can of floral air-freshener had been emptied, assailed her nostrils. That and the faint underlying odor of stale urine triggered thoughts of public toilets. It was then she realized she must’ve wet herself, the dampness against her skin confirming it.

  The thought of wallowing in her own waste was too much to bear. Heedless to the agony she was about to bring upon herself, she tried to shift, only then realizing she was tethered by her wrists. She howled, her agony compounded by fear.

  She had yet to open her eyes.

  The instant she opened them she wished she hadn’t. Now it was real. No longer could she pretend it was just some horrible nightmare.

  Lying on her back in the darkened but not pitch-black room, she managed to twist her head enough to glimpse the two sets of metal handcuffs securing her wrists above her head. Sheer panic made her tug against her restraints, the handcuffs’ hard edges cutting painfully into her wrists as they clanked against the bed’s tubular bedhead.

  Impervious to the torture she was inflicting on herself, Brenda continued to struggle. The agony of her raw and swollen wrists proved too much. Using the last vestiges of her strength and with her fingers clutching the bedhead rail, she somehow managed to pull her body up the bed a fraction, taking some of the tension from her arms.

  Hyperventilating and fighting for breath, she squeezed her eyes shut and started counting backwards from ten. Ten, nine – oh God – eight, seven – just a nightmare – six, five, four – not real – three, two – can’t be – one…

  Slowly opening her eyes, the terrible reality of her situation struck. It was no dream. Imprisoned in a room barely large enough for the single bed she was shackled to, she managed to still her racing thoughts enough to take stock of her surroundings.

  The urine-stained sheet gathered in bunches under her fully-clothed torso, a thin grey blanket partially covering her legs. A motley collection of other blankets lay in a heap on the floor as if they had been kicked off the bed.

  The only light came from a small, frosted glass window high on one wall, the room empty apart from the bed and a group of objects appearing as hazy silhouettes in the corner to the left of her feet. If she squinted, she could just make out the outlines of two what she
supposed were wooden chairs. In the middle of the seat of one of them was a cluster of smaller objects that no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t identify. On the floor next to the other chair was what looked to be a bucket.

  Closing her eyes, she strained to hear, alert for the slightest sound. Any noise that might provide a clue to where she might be. A distant rumbling that she felt more than heard brought to mind heavy machinery. But then she heard a far more frightening sound – footsteps and they were getting closer. They stopped outside the door. The clank of metal against metal followed.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the door opening. She couldn’t help it, she lost control over her bladder, the hot liquid saturating the crotch of her jeans and seeping into the already stained sheet. In a last ditch effort to avoid confronting her jailer she feigned sleep.

  Concentrating desperately on keeping her breathing slow and measured, she heard shuffling footsteps as her captor moved around the room, followed by the sound of running liquid as if it was being poured from one container to another. Then she felt the weight of blankets being laid over her body.

  The scrape of a chair on the floor near her head almost blew her act. Her breathing faltered. He was so close she could smell his masculine muskiness and feel the warmth of his breath as he leaned over her face.

  CHAPTER 20

  Megan stared at the cellophane-wrapped white roses lying across the corner of her desk. She had neither the energy nor the inclination to deal with Joe’s growing possessiveness.

  Her best friend’s disappearance was of far more concern. Brenda had been missing for almost a week and the police had yet to make any headway in tracing her whereabouts. Nor had Neville Crooke, the private investigator Greg had employed to search for his sister, made any progress. Every passing day added to Megan’s torment.

  Yet, Joe Renmark refused to take no for an answer, bombarding her daily with flowers, cards and SMS messages. He had even resorted to waiting outside the building for her when she left work the previous night. She’d managed to fob him off with some fast talking. Maybe at another time in another life, she’d have found his gestures charming, romantic even. However, his persistence was starting to wear on her. All she wanted was to be left alone. Couldn’t he see that?

  The time had come for her to tell him straight. She would have to be brutal. It was the only way. No more trying to let him down gently. For his sake as well as hers.

  Without reading the attached card, she picked up the bouquet of roses and plunged them head first into the waste paper bin under her desk. For a few moments, she didn’t move, simply gazing at the ends of the rose stems each with its individual water supply attached in tiny plastic capsules. Then with a deep sigh, she reached down and retrieved the now buckled flowers.

  She opened the small white square envelope taped to the wrapping and extracted the card. It read: “To my dearest Megan, hope you’re feeling better. See you soon. With all my love Joe x.” Megan sighed again, feeling a twinge of guilt for telling him she thought she was coming down with the flu. There was nothing in the card she could take offence to, so what was her problem? Perhaps the past couple of weeks’ events had left her oversensitive. Especially where men were concerned.

  Whatever, whether it was timing or something else entirely, Megan didn’t see her relationship with Joe going anywhere. It had to end. And the sooner the better. She reached for the phone.

  Listening to the dial tone, she changed her mind, replacing the phone in its cradle as she promised herself she’d call him tomorrow. She needed time to rehearse what she was going to say, the theory that brutality was called for, discarded. Joe hadn’t actually done anything wrong, the perfect gentleman all the way along.

  The words that immediately came to mind she’d heard more than once: “It’s not you, it’s me. I hope we can still be friends.” When she’d been the one on the receiving end, they always sounded so contrived, so insincere. But as clichéd as it was, this was exactly how she felt about Joe. I really don’t need this, she thought kneading her temples with her fingers. Not now.

  Once more, the flowers were relegated to the bin and shoved deep under her desk. Out of sight, out of mind.

  Picking up her pen, she tried yet again to focus on redrafting the newspaper advertisement for the position of office manager one of her clients needed to fill. But it was a wasted effort, her mind a blank. In frustration, she balled up the form and hurled it at the half-glass partition between her office and the corridor.

  Tears ran unchecked down her face, her chest heaving with silent sobs. Why are you doing this? she wanted to scream at an invisible God. It’s not fair.

  To Megan, Brenda was more than a friend. She was family, the sister Megan never had. What God in his right mind would allow Brenda to be taken from her? What’d she done that was so bad that she deserved to be punished in this way?

  Burying her face in a handful of scrunched up tissues, she swiveled her chair so her back was to the desk. The tears continued unabated until there was nothing left to cry. Turning back to her desk, she dropped the sodden clump of tissues in her lap, replenishing them with fresh ones from the near empty box.

  She glanced up, hoping that none of her work colleagues had been witness to her loss of control. With no sign of anyone nearby, she breathed a little easier, grateful for small mercies.

  After blowing her nose and mopping her face, she suddenly remembered she’d agreed to meet up with Greg Jenkins that evening. He’d been quite insistent he see her, not that she’d taken much convincing.

  The last time they’d met in person Greg had been searching for his sister. Now two women had disappeared, seemingly without trace. In less than a week, Megan’s life had been turned upside down. Each of them now had someone dear to them missing.

  Megan felt emotionally hollow. Physically she didn’t feel much better. Was she even up to facing anyone tonight? She was having enough trouble keeping her thoughts coherent. What was the likelihood she’d be able to speak in whole sentences?

  She heard voices in the corridor and snatched up the phone, pretending to be deep in conversation as she turned her back to the door. She didn’t want anyone to see her smeared makeup and swollen, red-rimmed eyes. But more than that, she couldn’t trust herself not to start blubbering again the instant someone spoke to her.

  Whoever it was, continued down the corridor without pausing. Breathing out, she hung up the phone.

  CHAPTER 21

  Greg crossed, uncrossed and recrossed his legs, then glanced at his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes. The bottle of Chardonnay he’d taken the liberty of ordering sat untouched in a steel ice bucket hooked to the end of the table. The two wine glasses stood empty and forlorn. He checked his watch again.

  Men and women in dark tailored suits, the city workers’ unofficial uniform, continued to spill through the bar’s front doors. The increasing volume and intensity of competing conversations and laughter around him as the workweek’s shackles were cast aside drowned out the background music. He could scarcely hear himself think. Perhaps it hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Having second thoughts, he pulled out his BlackBerry. Suggesting a change in venue would, if nothing else, provide him with a good excuse to check – without sounding as if he was hassling her – if Megan had forgotten their meeting or was just running late.

  He located Megan’s number and was about to press the call button when an austere looking woman in an ill-fitting black suit entered the bar. With a strained half-smile that did little to soften her features, the woman raised a hand in a tentative wave and headed his way.

  Greg did a double take. In the short space of a week, Megan had lost so much weight he almost didn’t recognize her. Not only had her body lost its comely roundness, her face had a gauntness and pallor about it that didn’t equate to the woman he knew. Her hair, which he had only ever seen soft and loose around her face, was drawn back into a severe knot.

  As she neared the
table, he noticed her eyebrow twitch as she took in the chilling wine and two wine glasses. In hindsight, he couldn’t believe how presumptive he’d been. Of course, he should’ve waited for her to arrive before ordering.

  By the time he had come to his senses and stood up, Megan had already taken off her jacket, draping it across her knees as she sunk into the upholstered armchair across the table from him.

  Still beating himself up for his lack of manners, he gestured to the wine, making a garbled apology as he did so. She nodded without speaking. Even if she’d spoken, he doubted he’d have heard her above the din of the Friday night revelers. Unless you call shouting at the top of your lungs conversation, then the atmosphere was certainly not conducive to conversation.

  Greg poured the wine, sliding one of the two glasses across the table to Megan. She mouthed the word “thanks” – or at least he guessed that’s what it was – and lifted the glass to her lips.

  Up close, she looked as exhausted as he felt. If her eyes receded any further, she’d be looking out through the back of her head. What a great pair they made. How he wished the circumstances could’ve been different. How he wished his most pressing problem, like that of many of those around him, involved the frittering away of a Friday night. How he wished.

  The first glass of wine went down quickly, a filler for the gaps in their disjointed conversation. Straining to interpret what the other was saying, they leaned in, their heads almost touching. The body-warmed scent of Megan’s hair and skin so close caught him off guard. At times Greg found himself nodding, only guessing at what she was saying, hoping it was the appropriate response.

  Midway through the second glass of wine, Greg managed with some ingenious miming to suggest to Megan that they move on to somewhere else. He hadn’t thought as far ahead as to where they might go, but staying in the bar was out of the question if they wanted to talk.