THE MURDERER'S SON a gripping crime thriller full of twists

by Joy Ellis

  Marie didn’t want to hear any more, but she did need to buy time. Somehow she had to keep him engaged. ‘Did you ever visit Austin after he was incarcerated?’ Her voice was still hoarse and her throat felt blocked and sore.

  Guy nodded. ‘Many times. I had a bond with you, but I had a stronger one with Austin.’ He gave her an almost apologetic smile. ‘He hated you, you know.’

  Not as much as I hated him, thought Marie grimly.

  ‘Because you denied him.’

  ‘Didn’t I just,’ she said huskily, then gave a yelp of pain as a muscle spasm gripped her calf.

  Guy massaged her leg until the pain subsided. ‘Better?’

  She nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  Suddenly it all seemed completely surreal and she wanted to roar with laughter. But Marie knew she had to keep her head. As they had been talking, she had noticed that amidst the used equipment on the tray on the dressing table, there remained a single large syringe, still full.

  Guy continued. ‘I talked to Austin at great length about what I had seen in him. After that he began to confide in me.’ He tilted his head. ‘It was Austin who suggested I study Françoise Thayer. He told me that she had what he called “the true affinity.” That she was like him.’

  Marie nodded, although her frustration was mounting. Why couldn’t this professional see that Austin had been playing with him? He had been filling Guy’s head with apparently deep insights into death, but all the time he’d just been doing what serial killers always did, feeding his own sick ego.

  ‘I had no idea how much he affected you, Guy,’ she said. ‘I’m truly sorry.’

  ‘I would like to say that it wasn’t your fault, but actually I suppose it was.’ He looked at her oddly. ‘I was almost disappointed when he didn’t kill me. That one look was so powerful that it sealed my fate for ever. And I had to see it again.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’ How true, she thought.

  ‘You and I, we used to talk about what happened in that room, and I always wanted to ask if maybe, just maybe, you’d seen it too.’

  ‘I’m a police officer, Guy. I saw a bad situation flaring up. I acted instinctively in order to protect you. I never saw what you saw.’

  Guy stood up. Then to her surprise he plumped up the pillow next to her head, and lay down beside her. He slipped his hand through hers and let out a contented little noise. ‘Please don’t think that I didn’t appreciate what you did, because there were times, days when I was busy and work was full on, when I almost forgot about Terence Marcus Austin. I was almost free of what had happened. I still functioned, and oddly enough, I functioned very well.’

  He moved closer. Marie tried not to jerk away.

  ‘But you know what obsession is like, don’t you? One tiny reminder, one sniff of the bottle or hit of the drug, and you’re back with it. The thing was, I never saw that look again. No matter how many murderers I saw, they simply didn’t have it.’

  So you went looking for it.

  Marie suddenly realised. Not only did he want to see it in others, Guy wanted to feel it in himself, to be it. He’d lived alongside death and the dealers of death all his working life, but he’d been an outsider. He could never truly empathise, only guess, and that wasn’t good enough for him. And after witnessing Terence Marcus Austin’s mind at work, Guy wanted to really understand. To live it.

  ‘And did you ever find what you were looking for?’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  So that, she quickly realised, was the root cause of his overwhelming sadness. He had killed for nothing. There was nothing there. It would have been like successfully breaking into the Bank of England’s vaults, and finding them empty.

  ‘The first one, that nurse, Julia Hope, was an accident.’

  His voice was flat and unemotional again, but the confession was like a death knell for Marie. He was hardly going to let her go now.

  ‘I’d been seeing her privately for over a month. She was showing signs of serious psychotic illness and I wanted her to be admitted for evaluation. I knew it would be upsetting for her, but I was sure she’d be able to handle the truth.’ He sighed. ‘But she didn’t. I tried to calm her down, but she went completely berserk and came at me. I pushed her away and she fell and hit her head.’

  ‘But she didn’t die then, did she?’

  He smiled and squeezed her hand affectionately. ‘See, you always did understand me, Marie. No, you’re quite right, she didn’t die then. But when I saw all the blood, I realised that I’d been given a chance to feel what Austin felt, and I wondered if just maybe . . .’

  She felt him shiver.

  ‘When she was finally dead I realised that I’d gone about it all wrong. Terence Austin had been as serene as a boat becalmed when he attacked me. I had been close to frenzy.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘And after I got rid of her in that abandoned pub, I knew that I had no option but to try again. The bridge had been crossed. I had nothing to lose and I needed to find that missing rapture.’

  ‘So you made it appear as if we had a serial killer on our patch.’ Asking him that question, Marie felt almost paranoid herself, because Guy was a serial killer. He just didn’t see himself as one.

  ‘Exactly! And strangely, just then I had a plethora of flaky women needing my very private expertise, my ever-open door, my sensitive listening manner, and of course, my inexhaustible supply of under-the-counter antidepressants.’

  ‘How wonderful to have such a wide choice of suitable victims,’ muttered Marie. ‘And as you’d studied murderers for most of your life, Françoise Thayer in particular, you dressed up the crime scenes. You staged them just for us. Am I right?’

  Guy suddenly raised himself, leaning on one elbow. He turned to her, his face only inches from hers. His expression was now alight with enthusiasm. ‘Can you imagine my surprise when Ruth Crooke asked me to help out as a consultant?’ He laughed. ‘It was too ridiculous! She wanted my expert opinion on my own murders. And when she told me that there was a deluded young man roaming around insisting that he was the birth son of Françoise Thayer and he believed that he was the killer! Well . . .’ He shook his head. ‘It was like a macabre Whitehall farce.’ He became suddenly serious. ‘But of course, by that time I’d found that you were the detective sergeant on the case. That’s when it all went wrong, Marie. And now I don’t know what to do.’ He looked at her thoughtfully and ran the back of his hand along her cheek. ‘With you.’

  * * *

  Jackman, Max and Charlie stood silently in the shadows and waited.

  Back in the super’s office, when Ruth Crooke had asked if he knew where Marie was, he had heard again Guy Preston’s voice on the phone. The man was making very sure that Jackman believed Marie had left. Suddenly everything the psychologist had said sounded false. The bracelet, the chance of an accident on her bike, all intended to mislead him.

  Preston had a fixation with Marie. He’d had it for years. Jackman bit on his bottom lip. Had Preston finally taken that fascination a step further? Or had he done something even worse?

  * * *

  They were gathered in the communal gardens outside the apartment block in Hanson Gardens. A uniformed team were with them, and two vans carrying the armed unit were quietly discharging their occupants in a service road at the back of the flats.

  Their concern for Marie’s safety made each one of them want to kick the door down, rush in and free her, but experience told them that the situation called for the utmost caution. For one thing, they didn’t know what they would find. One wrong move and this would be Marie’s last case, if it wasn’t already. They were all painfully aware that they might find a body in that apartment, not a prisoner.

  ‘Do we know the exact location of Preston’s flat?’ asked Max softly.

  Charlie leaned forward and unfolded a printout, a floorplan of the building. ‘It’s the garden flat. Last door along the corridor. And it has one exit, a French window that opens out to the rear.’

 
; ‘Uniform has that covered.’ Jackman’s mouth was dry. Everything seemed to be taking an age. And they didn’t have much time. Every second counted.

  ‘Ready when you are, Inspector.’ The uniformed team leader touched his arm lightly. ‘The armed officers are all in place.’

  Jackman searched the shadows. The men in black were there, unseen, their rifles all directed at Preston’s apartment windows.

  Three men with thick body armour, helmets and cradled guns moved up alongside him.

  Jackman swallowed, and then he stepped forward.

  ‘Okay, with me.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Guy Preston was now sitting at the bottom of the bed. He looked tired and haggard. ‘I’m guessing it won’t be too long before your inspector arrives on his white charger.’

  ‘I don’t think so. He has no idea you are involved.’ Marie tried to sound convincing. ‘He values your opinion. He’s read your papers, your theses, and he admires your work. He will no more believe that you are implicated than I did.’

  ‘Until you saw the knife in my dishwasher.’

  Of course! She wanted to laugh out loud. Sure she’d seen it, but it hadn’t even registered. It should have. A man who did no cooking would not need a very professional chef’s filleting knife. She tried to sound calm when she said, ‘Do you know, Guy? It never crossed my mind.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Marie. You were edgy, couldn’t wait to get away. And it all happened after you put those mugs in the dishwasher.’

  ‘Wrong, Guy. I just wanted to be back out hunting for Daniel and Skye. I’m not good at kicking my heels when there’s work to be done.’

  Guy rubbed at his eyes. ‘Well, I’m sure you’d have made the connection before the night was over. I knew I wouldn’t fool you for long. So I guess it’s time.’

  Marie looked across at the tray where the syringe lay. ‘Is that for me? Or you?’

  He drew in a long breath. ‘It won’t hurt, and it will be very quick. This is my last chance, I know it. And this time I know it will work. When I kill you, I’ll finally find what Terence Austin knew. After all these years of groping in the dark, I’ll truly understand.’ His stare intensified. ‘We are very close, and I’m sure that is important. I’ve always cared about you, Marie. All the time I was up north, I never forgot you. Even when I married Sara,’ he shrugged, ‘and I did that for her intellect and her fine academic brain. But we never had the deep attachment that I’ve always felt for you.’

  ‘How did she die?’ Marie wondered if she should have asked that question.

  ‘As I said, I married her for her brain.’ He gave a bitter bark of a laugh. ‘And she developed early onset dementia. Karma, eh?’

  ‘And did you kill her too?’

  ‘I considered it. As much for her sake as for mine, but she beat me to it. She walked out in front of a tractor pulling a trailer-load of sugar beet.’

  ‘That’s horrible.’

  ‘Worse for the tractor driver. Poor man. I counselled him for months after the incident.’

  Marie felt like Alice in Wonderland, chatting amicably to the Mad Hatter — a triple murderer who cared deeply about people.

  ‘But time is passing. I need to make a final decision and get on with it. I don’t want my choices made for me by the remarkably intelligent DI Rowan Jackman.’ Guy stood up and went to the bedside table. He returned to the bed carrying the tray, and sat back down. ‘You do believe that I never planned this, Marie?’

  ‘I know you didn’t, but it doesn’t have to be this way.’

  Guy laughed softly. ‘I think it does.’

  Time was running out, and Marie knew that she had not done enough to save herself.

  Jackman! Where are you?

  Marie said, ‘Can I ask a question?’

  Eyes on the syringe, he nodded.

  ‘Do you love me?’

  Guy nodded slowly.

  ‘Then let me live. Let me retain a memory of you as the good man, the friend, the doctor that tried to help so many people.’

  ‘You denied Terence Marcus Austin, and now you want to deny me?’

  Something snapped inside Marie. ‘Oh hell! Then kill me if you must, but I’m telling you right now, you will be disappointed yet again, because you will never feel what Terence Austin did. Never! Because no matter what you’ve done, you are not a natural-born killer, and Austin was. He was an animal, a slayer of children and adults alike. He was as cold as death itself. He had no heart, Guy, and you do, because you have the capacity to love. There will be no eureka moment, no mystical, magical connection, because it doesn’t exist! If I could, I’d tell you to run, get away before Jackman realises what’s happening,’ she said almost wistfully. ‘But I can’t. I can’t allow you to put more lives at risk. You asked for my help, and now I’m giving it to you. I’m sorry, Guy, but you either kill me, or you ring Jackman, and we wait together until he gets here.’

  He stood up stiffly, with the syringe in his hand, and moved towards her.

  For some reason Marie didn’t feel afraid. She felt calm acceptance drift over her like a fen mist. Maybe this was her time. At least she would be with Bill. She looked into Guy Preston’s eyes and saw the terrible suffering and the damage that his work with one evil killer had caused. Marie smiled at him, the kind of smile you only offer to a dear friend. ‘It’s alright, Guy. I trust you to make the right decision.’

  ‘I will, Marie. Because there is another way.’ He leant over and kissed her gently on the lips, then stepped back and plunged the needle deep into his thigh.

  ‘No!’ screamed Marie. ‘No! Not like this! Guy!’

  He looked at her serenely as he depressed the plunger fully. ‘You win, Marie. Jackman said that you were always right.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Jackman was in front of the team that swarmed into the Hanson Park apartment block. He was no hero, but tonight was different. Marie needed him. He would not fail her.

  As the heavy enforcer swung away from the shattered door, he leapt through, shouting her name. And just before the alarm shrieked around the building, he heard her calling his name.

  With Max and Charlie at his heels, he ran towards the sound of her voice.

  The scene in the master bedroom was like something from a fairy tale. The beautiful woman lay stretched out on the bed, with the dead lover on the floor beside her.

  But Jackman saw only one thing. Marie. And she was alive.

  ‘Fucking hell!’ said Max, breaking the spell.

  ‘Get the medics in here!’ yelled Jackman, as rushed to her side. ‘And get someone to deactivate that bloody alarm!’

  ‘He’s dead,’ whispered Marie hoarsely, staring at the still form of Guy Preston. She looked up at Jackman with watery eyes. ‘It was him all along. Can you believe that?’

  Jackman began to untie her. ‘I thought we were going to be too late.’ He looked at her, adrenalin still coursing through him. ‘He was going to kill you, wasn’t he? I should have worked it out sooner. I should have realised! I’m so sorry, Marie.’

  ‘Actually, guv, I’m getting a bit fed up with people apologising to me. For the past hour I’ve been having an eminent doctor telling me how sorry he was that he was going to have to murder me. And that’s after he apologised for pumping me full of some paralysing drug because he was too fond of me to bang me on the bloody head!’

  Jackman undid the last restraint and Marie struggled to sit up.

  ‘All in all, it’s been a piss-poor evening.’ Marie looked at him furiously and then burst into tears.

  Jackman sat down beside her and took her in his arms. ‘Hey, you’re safe now. But we need to get you to hospital. Do you know what drugs he gave you?’

  She shook her head, wiped her eyes, then pointed to the tray at the bottom of the bed. ‘I think the used syringes are on there, with the phials.’ She exhaled loudly, then turned to him, her mouth slightly open as a thought suddenly occurred to her. ‘Jackman! My bike! He rode off on it.
Where is it?’

  ‘Er, well, you know what you said about it being a piss-poor evening . . . ?’

  Max joined in. ‘It just got worse, Sarge. Your bike’s in the Blackland Sluice. No, I lie. Actually it’s lying on the bank in a pool of river sludge.’

  Marie glared down at Preston.

  Charlie grinned. ‘I don’t think it would be in very good taste if you kicked his body, Sarge.’ The grin widened. ‘But that’s just my opinion.’

  * * *

  In the ambulance, Marie sat on the edge of the stretcher. ‘I’m fine, guv. Cancel sending me to hospital. I just want to get away from here.’

  Jackman looked at the paramedics. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Her vital signs are remarkably good, Inspector.’ The green-clad paramedic looked mildly surprised. ‘But we’re not qualified to assess the side effects or late-presenting reactions of specific drugs. I’d definitely advise a full check-up at A&E.’

  ‘You heard the man.’

  ‘Preston promised that there would be no side effects, guv. Just some nausea and a few cramps. And you know what? I believe him.’ She gave him a pathetic look. ‘Please?’

  ‘You shouldn’t be on your own at home. Not after everything that you’ve been through.’

  Marie sensed that he was softening. ‘Look, I’m hardly going to be able to switch off after all this, am I? Take me back to the nick. If I start to feel bad, then I promise I’ll go straight to the hospital.’

  Jackman gave the medic a hopeless grimace. ‘I’ve tried arguing with her before, you know. I’ve never won yet.’

  ‘You could pull rank, Detective Inspector,’ said the man pointedly.

  ‘I could, but I don’t have a death wish.’

  ‘Well, we can’t make her go.’ The paramedic turned to Marie. ‘But I have to make sure you understand that this is against medical advice. And you need to sign a disclaimer.’

  ‘Don’t worry. If things go tits up, I won’t sue,’ said Marie dryly, standing up. ‘And thank you for checking me out.’