The Stranger Within

by Tara Lyons

  ‘Many factors are linked to the reason for a patient developing dissociative identity disorder, such as severe emotional, physical or sexual abuse or accidents and natural disasters, loss of a parent or periods of isolation. A person’s identity becomes fragmented. The two or five or fifty distinct personalities become a coping mechanism, because that experience is too violent or traumatic or painful for the patient to face. During the course of treatment, I wanted to identify what that experience was for her, but so far, we haven’t.’ Emine extended her hand and offered Hamilton the book she’d been holding. ‘I wrote this book over a year ago. It focuses on this very subject … which I can tell you’re having some trouble with. I hope it will be a useful source for you.’

  He thought about refusing her offer, but the constant jerk of her hand towards him convinced him she wouldn’t take no for an answer. He accepted the book while remaining eye contact with Emine. He had heard her explanation — just as he had heard and read those key words and phrases during the trial — but he was unsure how the medical diagnosis could actually help him catch a killer.

  Again, as if she read his mind, Emine answered. ‘Like I said, there would have been a trigger, recently, to cause the shift in personalities. Uncover that, Inspector, and you’ll find the woman you’re looking for. Uncover the suppressed trauma and you’ll find Grace Murphy.’

  8

  Hamilton picked up speed, jogging from Manor Hall’s entrance to his Vauxhall parked on the main road outside the gates. Dixon kept pace while he called over to her — the early morning wind taking his breath away — about the visitor list for Grace Murphy.

  ‘I didn’t read it, guv,’ she shouted back as they reached the car. ‘The doc told me more about the last treatment session—’

  ‘You drive,’ he interrupted, throwing the keys towards her.

  From the passenger’s seat, Hamilton tossed the thick paperback onto the backseat and pulled his mobile from the inside pocket of his coat. Dixon started the engine but her hands hesitated over the steering wheel. She looked at Hamilton and, with a deep frown set on her forehead, shrugged.

  Hamilton held a finger up as the call connected; he knew Dixon was waiting for directions, but even he wasn’t sure if they were returning to the station or not.

  ‘Damn voicemail,’ he roared, and tapped the screen, selecting the second person on his favourites contact list. ‘Clarke, where are you?’

  ‘Same place you left me, where else? I’ve got a list of—’

  ‘And Fraser? Is she there yet?

  ‘No, guv. Rocky’s tried her a couple of times, but he’s had no answer.’

  ‘Me and Dixon are heading over there now.’ He turned to his waiting driver and reeled off Fraser’s address before continuing with Clarke. ‘I want you to get a squad car round there immediately.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  Hamilton looked out the window and glanced up at the London Eye in the distance through the raindrops pelting the glass.

  ‘Did Fraser tell you that she had visited Grace Murphy in that psychiatric unit about four months ago?’

  Dixon’s hair swung mid-air as she snapped her head in his direction, before concentrating on the road again.

  ‘No … no, she didn’t. You don’t think Fraser had anything to do with this…’

  Hamilton sighed. He didn’t want his thoughts to go there, to think that Fraser could have betrayed them, but the fact that his partner wondered the same thing, made him doubt everything he thought he knew about the sergeant. ‘I don’t know, Clarke, but it’s a bit too much of a coincidence — and you know how I feel about those. Look, get uniform over there now and tell them not to let Fraser out of their sight until I arrive. Also, make sure that Rocky is fully up to speed about this entire case. We don’t have time to dwindle on catch-ups.’

  ‘Will do, guv.’

  As he slipped the phone back into his pocket, Dixon said, ‘We’ve got about a twenty-minute drive, guv. Tell me everything I need to know.’

  He shuffled in his seat and mirrored Dixon’s line of sight directly ahead of them. The sound of passing traffic, beeping horns and torrential rain slipped away, replaced by the memory of that first body.

  ‘It was about this time last year we found the first body,’ Hamilton begun. ‘A naked woman in the River Thames, her clothes and ID left for us to find, with a single stab wound to the heart. At first, it was a single case, but it soon became clear, when another five victims were found murdered in the same way, we had a serial killer loose in the city.’

  ‘All women victims?’ Dixon asked.

  ‘Yes. So, our initial instincts pointed us to a male suspect, and we thought we had someone but … no, and after four months of murders, it went quiet. We launched social media appeals, TV appeals, newspapers articles … but nothing came from them. The chief forced my hand and moved us on to the next investigation. Luckily, due to the alert set in place, Fraser followed up the murder of a Maria Lee, the killer’s sixth victim. She had been Grace Murphy’s therapist and murdered because she had uncovered Grace’s erm dissociative … personality, erm, disorder.’

  ‘Doctor Inamdar said it’s easier to refer to dissociative identity disorder as DID.’

  Hamilton exhaled heavily. ‘Anyway, Fraser tracked down Grace Murphy — who, by this point, was referring to herself as Carly — and we arrested her moments before she boarded a plane to Alicante.’

  ‘Yes, the doctor mentioned the dominant alter Carly, and that it would have been this personality committing the murders. Grace would have been completely unaware … though, the doctor also said that during the treatment, Grace spoke of haunting nightmares she’d suffered during the period of the murders.’

  ‘I met Grace on many occasions, she was the assistant manager of a theatre in Central London, and we discovered, at some point in her life, she had known some of the victims,’ Hamilton said, sliding his hands under his thighs to stop him from clawing at the skin around his nails. ‘To me, Grace was a woman surrounded by grief and death and was struggling to deal with it, but she seemed … I don’t know, a genuinely nice person. Respectable. Honest. When we arrested her at Luton Airport, you could see the evil in her eyes, hear the menace in her voice. I had been completely fooled by her.’

  ‘Guv, she wasn’t trying to fool you. The disorder meant—’

  ‘She had no recollection of the crimes. Her alter ego, Carly, was the hard, cold-blooded killer. Yes, I’m well aware of the medical crap that comes with this disorder, but it’s not something I can come to terms with as easily as you seem to have done. You know, I woke up in an awful mood this morning, can I blame that side of me if I lash out and whack someone in the face today?’

  Dixon made a noise between a sigh and a laugh, and Hamilton was thankful for the light-hearted way she had taken his comment. A niggling feeling in the corner of his mind scratched away so hard that he felt the tension rise through his neck and pitch up camp in his temples; almost as if warning him not to make jokes about this case, or this criminal.

  ‘I know it’s more complicated than that,’ he backtracked. ‘I did try to keep up with the trial, find out more about this Grace — and Carly, I suppose — Murphy, but it became difficult, what with the usual workload, and I soon lost touch with it.’

  ‘Apart from the therapist, did you uncover why she had killed the other five women?’ Dixon asked as she indicated left onto Fraser’s road.

  ‘We knew that her grandfather passed away before the first murder, and her lawyers used that as the trigger for the disorder—’

  ‘Given what the doctor just explained to us, I’d think the triggering experience was more than that.’

  Hamilton shrugged. ‘It’s obvious that’s what got Grace Murphy transferred to Manor Hall Hospital. Anyway, she never confessed. Said she couldn’t confess to something she didn’t remember. Her mother explained how Grace had been heavily drinking since the grandfather’s passing, and any changes to her daughter’s ch
aracter or moods or … personality, even, she had attributed to the alcohol.’

  Dixon parked behind the squad vehicle and the pair exited the car. ‘Well, considering everything you’ve just told me, why in God’s name would Fraser visit the woman in hospital?’

  ‘That’ll be my first question,’ he replied, and marched towards the open front door of Fraser’s apartment.

  Hamilton was surprised to find a uniformed officer standing guard just inside the front door. He peered further down the corridor to find a second officer on the phone, and he took a slow step forward. The first officer threw an arm up, halting Hamilton to the spot, and explained to him that SOCO were currently being informed.

  ‘Informed of what?’ Hamilton retorted, and stepped away from the officer’s arm. ‘Where the hell is DS Kerry Fraser?’

  The young officer’s face flushed. ‘The house is empty, sir. DS Fraser isn’t here.’

  ‘So what the hell are you calling the scenes of crime team for?’

  ‘That would have been my call, sir,’ said the other officer, now off the phone and just feet away from Hamilton. ‘PC Shand, sir. After receiving no reply, I went around the building and found the back door unlocked and the glass smashed. The kitchen isn’t a pretty sight, and I rang the station to update them on the case. I knew you were on your way … and there’s a letter addressed to you.’

  Hamilton lunged forwards, wondering if Fraser had left an explanation of her actions, but stopped abruptly at the kitchen table.

  ‘Holy shit.’ Dixon gasped behind him. ‘Is that Fraser’s pet?’

  A grey tabby cat lay in the middle of the table, pinned to the wood with a kitchen knife impaled through its chest. Through its heart. The blow to Hamilton’s head felt like it had been delivered by a heavy-weight boxing champion. He knew it was no boxing champion, but rather his own common sense coming into play and mocking him for his immediate — and unjustified — assumptions of Fraser. He shook his head while reaching for the blood-stained paper bearing his name.

  ‘Sir, fingerprints—’

  ‘I know who wrote the damn thing,’ Hamilton replied to Shand’s objections, who continued to implore that he wait for the forensics team.

  With one hand, Hamilton held the single sheet of lined paper and unfolded it with his thumb. His eyes quickly roved over the short sentences, the scribbled writing as manic and rushed as the message itself.

  When Dixon called his name, Hamilton sharply inhaled a lungful of air, the tension spreading from his temples like a dark cloud eclipsing the sun. His hand stood firm, but he cleared his throat twice before he read the note aloud.

  ‘I have something of yours, Inspector. I’ll fuck with your life. Just like you and your team fucked with mine. I won’t be silenced and you will not win. I am not some stranger to be ignored.’

  9

  Fraser closed her eyes and continued to control her breathing; slowly in through the nose, hold for three seconds and then out through the mouth, while attempting to empty her mind of the nightmarish visions attacking it. She’d been in the confines of the coffin for more than an hour, at least, and the desire to scream and bang against the dark wood had begun to overwhelm her. A vice-like grip squashed her chest, daring her to panic, daring her to lose control.

  She rounded her shoulders and flexed her fingers and ankles. Every inch of her body on fire with pins and needles, demanding she move from the horizontal position keeping her hostage, arms invisibly strapped to her sides. Her knees craved to be bent, in a way she’d never felt before, and her mouth so desperately wanted to drink in lung-satisfying gulps of air. But this was all a test.

  After Fraser had received the text from her neighbour on Friday, she’d driven home and debated cancelling meeting Audrey. While it was nice to go out for a few drinks with her new friend and colleague, she had to admit the idea of snuggling up in front of the TV with a bottle of wine was a more welcoming one. Perhaps it had been fate she had left a window open; a Freudian slip, she thought. She placed her mobile phone in her coat pocket and locked the front door behind her.

  A gush of wind blew in from the kitchen and Fraser followed the cold air. Just as she’d stepped onto the grey Lino flooring, she spotted the open window above the sink and cursed herself. Although it was unlike her to be so careless, she had come to leaving the windows open a little longer than usual every day in the hope that Felix, her missing cat, would surprise her and return home. The sun had already set on a long shift and the night’s shadows danced across the garden. Deciding she needed to tune out and switch off, Fraser dumped her bag and coat in the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of red wine from the cupboard and headed up to the bathroom for a long soak in the tub to prepare her for a good night’s sleep.

  Thinking about that now, she cursed herself. Why hadn’t I taken my phone upstairs with me? Because you hadn't expected on being ambushed in your own kitchen, she argued with herself.

  Her sleep had been disturbed. A noise from the kitchen woke her. An even sharper gust of cold air brought goosebumps to her bare arms as she stepped into the kitchen and frowned at the shadowy object lying statue-still on the middle of the dining table.

  When she woke up, she was no longer at home. The shooting pain in her head merged with the discomfort in her shoulders, as her arms were pulled around the back of her body, and her wrists tied to the wooden chair she sat on. Despite the darkness, Fraser immediately knew her location and searched until she spotted the white face peering back at her from within the shadows.

  She had so desperately wanted to speak to Grace Murphy, but the rag in her mouth ended any hope of that. Thankfully, after forcing Fraser to climb into the coffin at knifepoint, Grace had removed all the bindings.

  ‘Now you’ll know what it feels like to be trapped,’ Grace said — her eyes as dark and bottomless as the night sky — and she scratched her palm with the tip of the knife. It was then that Fraser realised which personality was in control of the situation.

  ‘Carly, please, I can—’

  The knife had been jabbed into her cheek, and the small release of blood dribbled down her face and landed on her earlobe. Clearly her attempts to thaw Carly had no chance of saving her from what was about to happen.

  ‘Don’t waste the air in your lungs making idle promises of what you can do, Sergeant Fraser. You’ll only waste the small supply you’ll have in that box once the lid is closed.’ The brunette leaned in, so close she could feel Grace’s warm breath on her face. ‘Let’s find out how crazy you become when you only have yourself to talk to.’

  The sneer on the woman’s face forced Fraser’s body to shiver, and it was then that she noticed the cold mist of air escaping from both their lips. The theatre felt like an ice box. The lid of the coffin had crashed down and Fraser was left with the echoing sound of brass clicking against brass.

  Padlocks, she thought.

  Now, with her mind focusing back on the current moment, she wondered how long Grace would leave her here, and if, in fact, the woman was still in the building. The dark, dank smell of the theatre told her no one had been there for some time, so any screams for help would go unheard. Although unsure if the coffin was merely a stage prop, Fraser thought the wood had looked thick and hefty as she’d climbed in; therefore, she believed, any small kicks she could give to it wouldn’t inflict enough force to bust through the locks.

  She thought about her team and, with it now being Saturday, whether they would even notice she was missing? But most importantly, how the hell did Grace Murphy get out of hospital? If she escaped, surely Hamilton would have been notified by now. Fraser groaned at the realisation of her superior discovering her visit to the hospital. While it would be an uncomfortable conversation to have with him, explaining it would mean she had survived this awful nightmare, and that was something she could live with.

  Fraser thought of her mobile phone again, abandoned in the kitchen, and she hated herself. She hadn’t even waited to read Audrey’s reply about bailing on
their night out. If only she’d gone to the pub … if only she’d made a different decision …

  Silent tears trickled down her face and tickled her ears where they landed. As hard as she tried to stop them from coming, they wouldn’t, and despite no one there to witness her crumbling to pieces, she felt like a failure. But, even more than a failure, the fear tightening her chest — restricting the little air that remained — forced any hope of being found to be buried in the coffin with her.

  10

  Happy with the security of the coffin, I snatch up the vodka bottle and sink to the floor, tucking my knees into my chest for warmth … for comfort. I can’t let the coldness shake my resolve or the tiredness to push me out of control. Last year, I had to embrace the haziness that the alcohol offered because it helped keep Grace’s mouth shut — which is also what I need to happen now — but I can’t pretend that I don’t also need some semblance of a clear head to see my plan through to the end.

  Fuck me, my stomach feels like a pin-ball machine. I don’t know if it’s nerves or excitement.

  The search would have already started. My own bloody fault, really, what with setting off the fire alarm and alerting them to a problem sooner than I had anticipated. I should have had at least two hours before anyone even noticed that monster wasn’t doing his job. I should have just slit the other guy’s throat too. Stupid idea, smashing the alarm.

  Why didn’t you just wave right in their fucking faces and shout, ‘I’m trying to escape, why don't you chase me now?’

  It’s okay. The universe is on my side … They know why I’m doing all this. It’s not right that I should be trapped — in my body or in prison — when none of this is my fault. I had been given just the amount of time I needed to grab the woman I wanted … the woman I needed … to make this work. I’ve slain the main monster, but there’s others out there who need to pay.