Her Last Breath: The new crime thriller from the international bestseller (Sullivan and Mullins)

by Alison Belsham

  ‘I want to talk to you about the murders of Natasha Brady, Sally Ann Granger and Lou Riley,’ said Francis. ‘Do you know the women I’m talking about?’

  Stapleton took a deep breath and sat up, ramrod straight, on the chair.

  ‘I killed them. I saved them.’

  A shiver of excitement ran down the back of Rory’s neck. A confession. He glanced across at Francis. Nothing betrayed how that statement must have made him feel. His hands were steady, one rolling a pencil between finger and thumb, the other flat on the table in front of him. The eye contact between him and Stapleton was like an electric charge in the air between them.

  ‘Saved them from what?’ Sullivan’s voice was calm, even conversational.

  ‘Vulnerasti cor meum, soror mea.’

  ‘“You have wounded my heart, my sister.” It’s from the Buxtehude, isn’t it?’ said Francis.

  Stapleton nodded.

  ‘You killed your sister, Aimée, as well?’

  Stapleton was aghast. ‘No. Never that.’ His face crumpled. ‘I failed my sister. I could have saved her but I didn’t act. I was indecisive and she couldn’t wait any longer.’

  A tear rolled down his cheek and he brushed it away impatiently.

  ‘What could you have saved her from?’ said Rory.

  ‘Our father.’

  For a second he thought Stapleton was starting to pray, but then he realised.

  ‘What was he doing to her?’

  ‘He defiled her.’ Stapleton’s voice rose and took on a tone of bitterness. ‘I heard them. I heard what he did to her. But I closed my ears to it. I didn’t know what to do when she asked for help. Not helping her while she was still alive is something I’ve regretted every single day since her death. I only realised what I had to do after she had died.’

  ‘You killed your father?’ said Francis.

  ‘It was easy.’

  They waited for a few seconds, but Stapleton leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes.

  Rory couldn’t make sense of it.

  ‘You know your father’s bones were recently discovered?’ said Francis.

  ‘I know. I saw them. He rose from the waters to remind me of what I needed to do.’

  ‘And that was?’

  Stapleton looked at them both as if they were idiots. ‘To save the girls, of course. To make up for failing Aimée. That was my mission.’

  ‘And you saved them by killing them?’ Rory’s eyebrows were in danger of colliding with his hairline.

  ‘How did you know which girls needed saving?’ said Francis.

  A look of sly cunning passed over Stapleton’s face. His eyes narrowed.

  ‘They were troubled girls. They were prey. I saved them from the beasts that were killing them slowly. The fathers and protectors who were anything but.’

  ‘They all went to the same college. They were all seeing the same counsellor. Do you know Marcia Cornwallis, Jered?’

  ‘I do. I’m her supervisor. You know every counsellor has to be supervised, don’t you?’ His supercilious smile made Rory’s skin crawl. ‘Marcia told me all about the girls she was helping. We discussed their problems and worked out how she could best help them. Of course, I didn’t tell her I had a better way of helping them.’ Stapleton leaned forward to put his elbows on the table, interweaving his hands as if to pray. ‘By saving them, I’ve been atoning for my own sin. Soon, I think, my sister will be able to forgive me for what I did.’

  ‘Where did you learn to tattoo?’ interrupted Francis.

  ‘A long time ago I went to art college. I did a project on tattooing. It’s a skill you never forget, like riding a bicycle.’

  ‘And the stigmata. Why?’

  ‘Like Christ, and like my sister, these girls had suffered . . .’

  Rory had heard enough cod-religious babble.

  ‘Your sister’s dead, and now three other girls have also died. Not to mention one of our officers. You can’t claim you were helping him, can you?’

  ‘God rest his soul.’

  Rory’s fist slammed down on the table. ‘You pious bastard. You’ll pay for this. You’ll spend the rest of your life in prison.’

  Francis flicked off the recorder.

  ‘And were you intending to save my sister too?’

  What was the boss talking about?

  Stapleton shook his head. ‘Your sister is pure. She doesn’t need saving.’

  ‘She needs saving from you.’ There was venom in Francis’s voice. Rory glanced at him and saw he was swaying slightly on his chair. He shouldn’t be here.

  ‘I think we need a break.’

  Francis led the way out of the room, Rory following close behind.

  Stapleton shouted in their wake.

  ‘I saw blood in the sink when my sister sliced her own flesh. I heard her screaming the night my mother died. I did nothing. I deserve to be punished . . .’

  67

  Sunday, 3 September 2017

  Francis

  Francis’s vision blurred and he was acutely aware of every heartbeat in his chest. Each breath he took felt laboured. He leaned on the wall of the corridor outside the interview room and bent forward with his hands on his knees.

  ‘Boss, you all right?’

  He licked his top lip. It tasted of salt, and sweat dripped off the end of his nose.

  ‘Just give me a minute, Rory.’

  It took a supreme effort but he straightened up.

  ‘You don’t look well.’

  Bradshaw appeared from the next-door room, where he’d been watching the interview through the two-way mirror.

  ‘He’s making a full confession. Now isn’t the time to bloody stop.’ He looked Francis up and down. ‘What’s wrong with you.’

  ‘Nothing, sir. We’ll get back in there.’

  Rory looked as if he was about to say something, so Francis glared at him. Bradshaw couldn’t be trusted with any sensitive information and he wondered how he could continue the interview without the chief listening in.

  ‘Rory,’ said Bradshaw, ‘find out what’s going on with the search for Burton.’

  Rory nodded and drifted further down the corridor, pulling out his mobile.

  Francis took deep breaths. The walls and the ceiling were closing in and there was a pulse throbbing in the corner of his eye.

  A uniformed sergeant came up to Bradshaw and spoke a few hurried words. The chief followed him, leaving Francis on his own. His mouth was dry. His heart was pounding like a slow drumbeat. He needed to sit down, so he staggered back into the interview room, grabbing for the nearest chair.

  Jered Stapleton opened his eyes.

  ‘Oh, Francis, you don’t look good.’ He leaned forward over the desk and put a hand out to feel Francis’s forehead. ‘Oh dear, oh dear. Methinks I’ll soon be helping your sister arrange another funeral.’

  ‘Stay away from her.’

  Francis felt like he was drowning.

  ‘I’m sure she’ll visit me in prison. That’s what good Christian girls do, isn’t it?’

  Francis grabbed the edge of the table and heaved himself up. He took a swing at Stapleton, but he missed the verger’s face by miles. He slumped forward. Somewhere far away, he heard a man laughing.

  ‘I hear the voice of my vengeful sister. She whispers in my ear at night. She tells me to take a life to save a life. I was too late to save her, but I took my father’s life anyway. She comes back to me in the dead of night and talks to me. A thousand times I’ve told her to leave me alone, but she only stops her clamour when I save a girl for her. She’s talking to me now, Francis Sullivan.’

  Francis slid down onto the chair, but he couldn’t hold himself steady and he carried on sliding down to the floor. Black mist was creeping in at the periphery of his vision. Far above him
a face loomed, then receded.

  ‘She’s telling me to kill again . . .’ His voice changed, taking on a sickening tone as if he was speaking to a child. ‘Is that right, Aimée? Is that what you want me to do? You know I’d do anything for you, my darling.’

  Francis concentrated on breathing. The floor was cold under his cheek, but then the world turned upside down and his face was pressing upwards against the floor, which was now above him.

  ‘Oh, Aimée, you’re right. I shall.’

  Francis struggled to turn his head. Stapleton seemed to be stripping off his shirt.

  What?

  He heard him walk across the room. He shut the door firmly.

  Francis twisted, suddenly suspicious of the verger’s intentions. Stapleton was twisting and knotting his shirt.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Goodbye, Francis.’

  He closed his eyes. Someone kicked over a chair. Someone banged on a door. A man grunted. A moment’s silence. Then people were shouting.

  Rory was somewhere above him.

  ‘Boss, boss!’

  Francis opened his eyes. He could see the floor, back in its rightful position. He could see one of Rory’s shoes.

  It moved back.

  ‘Get a medic!’

  Francis sank back into darkness, the drum beating more slowly in his chest.

  ‘He’s dead. No pulse.’

  That wasn’t right. He couldn’t be dead. He was thinking and he was breathing. He opened his eyes.

  ‘I’m not dead. Rory? I’m here . . .’

  ‘Boss, stay where you are.’

  Francis struggled up into a sitting position. Beyond the table leg, a figure lay slumped on the floor. What was going on? He pulled himself up using one of the chairs and then leaned on the table, looking down at the prone figure.

  It was Jered Stapleton.

  His shirt was knotted around his neck.

  ‘Short-drop hanging,’ said Rory. ‘From the back of the chair.’

  ‘Couldn’t he still be alive?’ How long had he been out for?

  ‘No pulse,’ said Rory. ‘Even if he was he’d have probably sustained brain damage.’

  Francis stared at the verger’s back, blinked, then stared again. It wasn’t the huge tattoo that had caught his attention – though it was indeed worthy of it. A black and grey back piece depicting Christ on the cross, surrounded by a phalanx of angels and weeping women, stretched from the top of his shoulders to disappear into the top of his trousers. But what stood out more were the scars that criss-crossed and obscured the finer details of the picture.

  ‘What the hell are those?’ said Rory, looking at them too.

  ‘Self-flagellation scars,’ said Francis. ‘Looks like Jered Stapleton had been punishing himself for years.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  The door opened and a medic burst into the room. He rushed over to Stapleton’s body and squatted down.

  ‘You’re too late, mate,’ said Rory.

  ‘I hope not,’ said another voice from the door.

  Tanika Parry strode into the room and took Francis by the arm.

  ‘You foolish, foolish man,’ she said. ‘We need to get you right back to the hospital to start treatment now. What were you thinking, discharging yourself like that?’

  Francis tried to recall what he’d been thinking but he couldn’t. In fact, he couldn’t make sense of anything. He just needed to lie down.

  His legs gave way under him, only this time, Rory and Tanika Parry were there to ease him down to the floor.

  68

  Thursday, 7 September 2017

  Francis

  They should have discharged him two days ago. He was fine. He felt absolutely better and now he was bored. Francis couldn’t stay in bed and he couldn’t concentrate on any of the pile of rubbishy thrillers Rory had brought in for him to read. Robin had had the sense to bring him in a copy of A Ship of the Line, his favourite of the Hornblower series, but he knew it too well to try to read it while his mind was wandering. Instead, he got out of bed and paced the room and then the corridor beyond, itching to get back to work and go through the fallout of what had happened.

  Of course, Rory had been in every afternoon to discuss things with him, but it wasn’t quite the same as being in control. His sergeant always timed his visits for when he knew the tea trolley would be coming around, and he always made sure to turn up with a packet of Hobnobs.

  ‘How’s Angie?’ said Francis, watching with undisguised disapproval as Rory dunked a biscuit in his tea.

  Angie had been flushed down the main sewage channel and into one of the vast overflow tanks that the council had built underneath the beach. She’d been pulled out half drowned and rushed straight to hospital.

  ‘She’s getting better, gradually. They pumped her stomach and put her on maximum doses of antibiotics. Apparently, she’ll need check-ups for parasitic infections for months to come.’

  Francis nodded. He’d been given antibiotics as well, having got thoroughly soaked in filthy water while he’d chased through the sewers.

  ‘But it’s not the physical effects she’s going to have trouble getting over,’ continued Rory. ‘She’s blaming herself for Tony’s death.’

  ‘That was hardly her fault – I’m more to blame for that than she is.’

  ‘I’d pretty much lay blame with Stapleton,’ said Rory. ‘You took the best decisions you could to save Liv’s life. Which you achieved.’

  Thankfully, Liv had also survived Jered Stapleton’s attack.

  Tanika Parry had explained. ‘Taxine poisoning is dose related,’ she said. ‘Both you and Liv were lucky enough that he didn’t have the chance to give you a full tattoo. The amount of taxine in that scratch on your cheek was enough to make you pretty ill, but you weren’t going to die from it.’

  Francis had studied the wound on his cheek in the mirror. The gouge was healing but the scar would be black. He now had two tattoos, but this one he would have lasered off. Until then, he’d have to get used to having a black streak down his left cheek. The shape of it reminded him of the little marching bird in Bosham Church.

  ‘Rory?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Bradshaw.’ The more Francis had thought about it, the more he’d become convinced that Bradshaw was the source of the leak to Tom Fitz.

  Rory let out a low whistle. ‘Impossible problem,’ he said.

  He was probably right. ‘We’ll see.’

  Rory cocked an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. They ate Hobnobs in silence.

  ‘There was one thing he said though . . .’ said Rory.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We need to pull together as a team, instead of competing against one another.’

  There were so many ways Francis could have responded to this, but instead he just nodded. His sergeant was reaching out with an olive branch, so he wasn’t going to kill the moment.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  ‘Come in.’

  ‘I’ll be going,’ said Rory. ‘See you back at the office.’

  The door to Francis’s room opened and Robin came in. Rory left.

  ‘Brought you grapes,’ she said.

  ‘I hate grapes,’ said Francis. ‘You know that.’

  ‘Fine.’ She dropped the brown paper bag she was carrying into the bin.

  ‘Sorry. That was rude of me.’

  ‘It’s reassuring. Means you’re on the mend.’

  She sat down on the chair Rory had just vacated.

  ‘How are you?’ she said.

  He shook his head. ‘No. How are you? I’m so sorry, Robin. I realise you were growing fond of Jered. If I’d had any idea . . .’ It was the thing that made him most angry about Jered Stapleton, the fact that he’d toyed with Robin’s affe
ctions while all the time he was on a killing spree.

  Robin was still looking pale and washed out, as she had done since their mother’s death, but there was a determined jut to her chin.

  ‘No one knew. He seemed completely normal on the surface, didn’t he?’

  ‘They always do. “Such a nice boy.” It gets said about virtually every serial killer.’

  ‘I’ll get over him. It wasn’t like it was a “proper” relationship.’ She made quote marks with her fingers in the air. ‘We’d only been out a couple of times.’

  But he hated the thought of Robin being so alone. So lonely.

  ‘You know that idea you once had, about moving into Dad’s house with me?’

  Robin shook her head.

  ‘No, Fran. That was just a stupid thought I had when I was feeling vulnerable. I wouldn’t want to cramp your style.’

  Francis laughed. ‘What style? With who?’

  ‘When do you go back to work?’

  ‘I’m being discharged this afternoon. The doctor’s suggested I should take the rest of the week off, but there’s a lot to do at work.’

  ‘Which Rory couldn’t possibly manage on his own?’

  Francis shrugged. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Good. But you work too hard, all the time. Just take a short break, recharge.’

  ‘It’s lovely that you care.’ Then, putting the sarcasm aside, he said, ‘Let’s do something at the weekend, right? Go for a drive, a pub lunch?’

  Robin smiled.

  Before leaving the hospital a couple of hours later, Francis went down to the ward where Angie was slowly recovering from her ordeal. She was sitting up in bed, staring unseeing at the television screen on the wall opposite. The sound was muted and it was a football match, a sport that Francis knew she took no interest in. On one side of her forehead there was a livid graze, and one of her arms was in a sling. The other arm, bruised and scratched, lay limp across the bed covers.

  Francis knew she’d taken quite a beating as she was swept through the system to the overflow tank. She’d also swallowed a dangerous amount of raw sewage and, though they’d pumped her stomach, she’d been desperately ill for several days because of it.