In the Still of the Night

by Charlotte Lamb

  Sean hadn’t shown up that morning; if Harriet needed any rewrites she could always call him, and so far it hadn’t been necessary.

  ‘I wonder if Sean’s with the police this morning?’ Harriet thought aloud. ‘They keep interviewing members of the cast. They even had a couple of secretaries there. I was stunned to hear that Melanie Brown had had an affair with Mike – did you know about that?’

  ‘No, but I’m not surprised. She’s pretty, and silly enough to fall for him. Mike liked his women stupid.’

  ‘Annie! Don’t be so nasty about him, poor man. You really didn’t like him, did you?’

  ‘No, and I’m not pretending I did. Hypocrisy is stupid. I’m sorry he died like that, of course I am – but I did not like him much.’ Annie looked at her watch. ‘I’ve only got another scene to do. Can I leave when I’ve done that? I want to visit my mother. The most convenient time is when I’m on my way home, the earlier the better.’

  ‘Sure,’ agreed Harriet.

  When she had finished her filming for the day, Annie went to change back into her own clothes and take off the heavier make-up she used on camera. Normally she hardly wore any make-up at all. She preferred the natural look.

  While she was brushing her hair, Sean put his head round the door. She stiffened.

  ‘What do you want now?’

  ‘I need to talk to your boyfriend, Annie. The police have been looking for him at his lodgings but he hasn’t been there all day. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘You’re not the police,’ Annie said. ‘Or are you? I thought you’d left the force.’

  ‘Where is he, Annie?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Leave me alone, will you?’ She pushed past him and Sean tried to hold her arm.

  ‘I’ll take you home.’

  She glared at him. ‘No, you won’t. Stay away from me, and my home!’

  Sean couldn’t leave the studio just then; he had been summoned to rewrite a scene which wasn’t working. He hurried back to the office, worked for half an hour, handed the scene to Harriet and got a nod of approval, then he was free to go.

  He reached Annie’s house, parked and walked up the path to the front door, then put his thumb on the bell and kept it there. Let her ignore that!

  The murderer sat in Annie’s house, listening to the imperious summons of the bell.

  Through the slits in the blinds covering the sitting-room window, Sean was clearly visible. Once it became obvious that he wasn’t giving up or going away, the murderer walked slowly towards the front door, working out how to kill him.

  Sean was going to be difficult. He had been a cop. He was big and powerful. And he would be on his guard now. But he had to die and now was as good a time as any.

  12

  Annie rang for a taxi before she left the hospital. ‘I’m afraid all our cabs are out. There’ll be a ten-minute delay,’ said the receptionist booking the call.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ Annie said in resignation. It would be too much hassle to ring round the other firms. Hanging up, she got herself a cup of coffee from the machine in the hospital reception area, pretending to be unaware of the stares she was getting, and sat down near the door where she could watch for the cab.

  There was a large television set into the wall above the rows of chairs where patients sat waiting for appointments.

  Annie sipped her coffee, staring at the TV to avoid catching the eye of anyone around her. She ignored the whispers.

  ‘Annie Lang … there, over there … No, it isn’t. Is it? Smaller than you expect … pale, isn’t she? What’s she doing here? She looks so … ordinary … don’t think much of her clothes …’

  The news began. The first few items were international news; a war zone zoomed into shot, a face talked at them, there was a sound of gunfire, refugees limped along a wide road lined with burnt-out cars and tanks.

  What a world we live in! thought Annie grimly. Why do we kill each other with such enthusiasm?

  She finished her coffee, scrunched up the paper cup and hurled it into a nearby bin, looked out of the glass doors, watching for her taxi, but there was no sign of it yet.

  At that instant she heard the newsreader say, ‘A body was discovered today in an isolated house in Epping Forest …’

  Annie instinctively looked round, wondering if she knew the place, and then her heart almost stopped as she saw a shot of Johnny’s house, blackened and ruined, the arch of the Gothic windows empty of glass.

  ‘Fire broke out somewhere upstairs during the night,’ the newsreader said. ‘The fire service believe it may have started in electrical wiring. The house was unoccupied at the time, although it looked as if tramps had been camping out downstairs.’

  Had a tramp broken in and somehow accidentally set fire to the house? Oh, poor Johnny – he wouldn’t be able to sell his home now. It was a shell. Of course, there would be the insurance – if he had any!

  Then she remembered the drawing-room the way they had left it yesterday; candles burnt down, in candlesticks and on saucers, the fire almost out in the fire place, cushions and a rug on the floor where they had made love.

  Was that what had made the police think a tramp had been there? How easy it was to make something beautiful sound ugly!

  Oh, but then whose body … Johnny? Oh, God, it wasn’t Johnny they had found dead in the house?

  Then the newsreader said, ‘It was while the fire brigade were clearing debris that they found a skeleton under the floorboards in a cupboard under the stairs.’

  Annie was trying so hard to hear what he was saying that she almost screamed at a nurse who came to call one of the waiting patients, her voice booming over the sound of the television, drowning the next couple of sentences.

  Annie ran towards the set and stood as close as she could, straining to hear. It was an old house; there might not be a crime involved, the skeleton could have been left there by a medical student, by a doctor. There could be a dozen explanations.

  She just heard the newsreader’s next sentence. ‘The body has been identified as that of Roger Keats, a teacher from a London drama school, who disappeared eight years ago.’

  Annie’s taxi deposited her home half an hour later. She paid the driver and was walking towards her house when she noticed Sean’s black Porsche parked just up the road.

  She had been trying to ring him from the hospital, but he hadn’t been at work or at home. Annie hadn’t been able to get Harriet, either. She desperately needed to talk to someone. Her heart lifted as she recognised Sean’s car and she hurried over there, but when she bent to look inside the car was empty. Straightening, she looked up and down the street, but there was no sign of him.

  Her heart sank again. There was a man sitting in a small blue van parked across the street, but he was black, wearing workmen’s blue denims, and wasn’t looking at her, but gazing fixedly at a house opposite hers which had a For Sale sign up in the garden.

  Frowning, Annie walked back towards her home. Dusk was falling and there was a scent of spring on the air. It had been much warmer today; there were a few early daffodils out in a terracotta urn in her garden, their fragrance lingered now that the sun was going down, but Annie was cold to the marrow of her bones.

  Where was Sean? For days he had been following her around, and now when she really needed him he wasn’t here.

  She was still in shock, still trying to decide what to do. After all, the police knew about her connection with Roger – they would come looking for her if they wanted to talk to her, and obviously they would, sooner or later. Should she ring them? She wanted to know if it really was Roger – yet at the same time she was afraid of the answer.

  If it was Roger, how had he died? Had it been an accident? Had he committed suicide?

  Don’t be stupid! How could he bury himself under floorboards? she thought.

  Who would have wanted to kill Roger?

  Marty, for one, she thought, opening the front door, and then she paused involuntarily to look back over
her shoulder, as if expecting Sean to rush her, as he had last time she came home, but there was still no sign of him.

  But why on earth would Marty bury him in Johnny’s house? She had never been there, she knew nothing about the place.

  You know it wasn’t Marty! a voice in her head said grimly, and she shivered. Yes, she knew it wasn’t Marty who had killed Roger.

  Across the street the black man in the parked blue van was watching her. Their eyes met and then he looked away. She frowned. There was something odd … intent … about the way he watched her.

  Oh, stop imagining things! she told herself. He only looked at you. Every stranger you see isn’t a killer.

  All the same, she began to close the front door hurriedly. Until she heard a movement in her kitchen.

  She froze, listening.

  There it was again, the sound of a footstep.

  There was somebody in the house. Her heart began to beat painfully under her ribs, her breathing dragged.

  Then it dawned on her that it must be Sean – why else was his car parked outside, empty? Yet how would he have got in here?

  Oh, well, that would be easy enough for him. He had been in and out of the house for days; nothing simpler than to make a copy of her key when she wasn’t looking, that would be no problem for him, and how many times had he watched her punching in the code of her alarm? Damn him, he had a hell of a nerve.

  Rage flared inside her. How dared he break into her home? She’d a good mind to call the police and charge him with burglary.

  But at the same time she felt a dew of relief break out on her forehead. Thank God he was here, anyway; she could tell him what was bothering her, the crazy thoughts she had been having ever since she heard the TV news.

  There was a faint rattle from the kitchen – he was putting on a kettle! she worked out. Making himself tea, no doubt. Good God, anyone would think he lived here! He seemed to think he could walk in and out of her life as if he owned her.

  But her anger was only skin-deep; she was far too pleased to find him waiting for her to really care how he had got in! But she would make him jump! Careful not to make a sound, she closed the front door and tiptoed towards the kitchen, then paused as she passed the open sitting-room door; she could see a pair of legs in black jeans.

  She knew at once that they were Sean’s legs, unmistakably Sean’s, and her heart constricted as though squeezed by a giant hand.

  He was lying on the floor, not moving. She took a shaky step nearer and saw his hand flung out, palm upward in a gesture of helpless weakness. In the kitchen, someone was whistling.

  The hair stood up on the back of Annie’s neck. Who was in the kitchen? And what had happened to Sean?

  She knew the answer to that, but she didn’t want to face it yet. It would hurt too much. The whole universe seemed to have slowed to a crawl; she was barely breathing, let alone thinking.

  She could have turned and run back to the front door and out into the road, but she hesitated, watching Sean’s hand, the long, strong fingers strangely still.

  Was he dead? She couldn’t get out without knowing. She bit down on a cry of agony. Oh, God, don’t let Sean be dead!

  On tiptoes, she ran into the room, trying to make as little noise as possible, and knelt down beside his body, looking at his face in a spasm of dread. Sean was very pale, his eyes closed. He was unconscious, but breathing, she saw, with a rise of the heart. Putting her fingertips on the side of his neck, she felt the deep pulsing of his blood. Thank God; he was alive.

  On the floor beside Sean lay a small bronze statuette of a horse she had once been given by a famous theatre director. Tracy kept it highly polished.

  Now the base was smeared with blood.

  She felt sick. Dark blood matted Sean’s hair on the back of his head. She touched it tentatively, trying to part the hair so that she could see the site of the wound; the blood was no longer seeping out, it had stiffened in the thick strands of hair, but the red came off on her fingertips, making her shudder.

  There was a movement across the other side of the room; Annie looked up in terror, her blue eyes dilated, glazed, enormous.

  Johnny stood in the doorway to the kitchen, staring at her.

  Her entire stomach seemed to sink down through her. Oh, no, she thought, tears beginning to burn behind her eyes. Not Johnny. Oh, God, no, not him.

  Yet hadn’t she known, the minute she heard that Roger Keats was dead, had been dead for eight years? If Roger was dead, who had been sending her Valentines all that time? It had to be the man who killed Roger – and that meant he must have killed Derek, too.

  ‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ he said, sounding so normal that she got confused again, because how could he sound like that if he was a killer? ‘I just made myself some tea – I’m amazingly thirsty,’ he said, smiling. ‘Do you want some?’

  She couldn’t pretend everything was normal. She couldn’t. ‘Johnny … what happened?’ she whispered. ‘Sean’s hurt, what happened?’

  He gave Sean’s prone body an indifferent glance. ‘He asked for it. He was making a nuisance of himself, asking too many questions, following you about. But don’t worry, darling, he won’t make any more trouble for either of us.’

  Her breathing hurt. She had never before felt such grief, even when they made her kill her baby, Johnny’s baby.

  ‘Oh, Johnny,’ she said brokenly. ‘Johnny, darling.’

  ‘It’s OK, Annie,’ he comforted her. ‘I’ll deal with it. I’ll take him away when it’s dark. He had his keys on him, I can take him home and leave him there. I know where he lives – I’d already reconnoitred the place. I knew I’d have to kill him sooner or later. He’s the only tenant in that block so far, isn’t he? And the builders working on it knock off around five. It might be days before anyone found him.’

  A sob broke out of her and she put a hand up to her mouth to stifle the sound.

  Johnny stared at her fingers, his face changing. ‘You’ve got blood on your hand,’ he said with a frown of distaste.

  Annie looked at her hand and shivered. Sean’s blood. What was that phrase people used? His blood is on your head. Sean’s blood was on her hand. Was it all her fault, all of this? Wouldn’t anyone have died if it hadn’t been for her? Guilt welled up through her very skin.

  In that matter-of-fact voice Johnny told her, ‘You’d better go and wash. Blood is always a problem, it’s so hard to clear up, but he wouldn’t drink his whisky, I suppose he guessed I’d put something in it. I had to hit him.’

  She was fighting not to go mad, break down, cry her heart out. ‘Why, Johnny, why?’ she managed to ask and he stared at her as if it was her who was mad.

  ‘I just told you, he was a threat to you, to us. He was too nosy. Once a copper, always a copper. I found out all about them when I was six years old and they talked to me for hours, trying to get me to tell them what really happened to my father. They guessed we were lying to them and because I was just a little kid they thought they’d get it out of me if they leaned on me long enough.’ His mouth curled in contempt, his eyes that deep, dark, angry blue. ‘They tried everything – they gave me sweets and comics and patted me on the head, they made veiled threats about my mother, said I’d be taken away from her if I didn’t tell them everything, they tried to trip me up, tried to trick me into saying something, but they were stupid. They didn’t guess the truth at all. They thought my mother did it.’ He smiled at her in blazing triumph. ‘You see? They’re stupid, all policemen are stupid.’ His eyes slid to Sean. ‘He was stupid, too, walking in here – he thought he was a match for me, he thought he was bigger and stronger, and cleverer, too.’ His mouth twisted in triumph. ‘He was wrong.’

  The room swam in front of her eyes; Annie staggered to an armchair and sat down.

  Johnny was mad. He had to be. Completely out of his mind. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Had she been so blinded by love?

  Johnny quickly came over, knelt down beside her, looking up i
nto her face with anxious eyes.

  ‘You look as if you’re going to faint – are you OK, darling? It’s shock. I’ll get you that tea, tea’s good for shock. Shall I put some brandy in it?’

  She shook her head dumbly.

  ‘Just tea? Well, I’ll put in some extra sugar, then.’ He gave Sean another look, hesitated. ‘If the sight of him is upsetting you, I’d better just finish dealing with him, first.’

  ‘No!’ she burst out, and Johnny’s face altered, hardened.

  ‘Why not? What’s he to you?’

  She saw jealousy in his eyes and quickly said, ‘It isn’t that, it’s just that I … Not here, Johnny, don’t do … anything … to him in front of me, please.’

  His face cleared and he gave her a radiant smile. ‘Don’t worry, darling, I wasn’t going to kill him here. That would make it hard to move him later. You have to take rigor mortis into account. I’ll just gag him and tie his hands and feet for now.’

  Out of his pocket he pulled a length of twine, knelt down and tied Sean’s feet together, then his hands, the twine pulled so tight that she could see it would be cutting into Sean’s flesh. Trussed up like a chicken for the pot, Sean stirred, his mouth parting in a low moan of pain, and Annie saw his lids flicker.

  Johnny gagged him a second later with a white silk scarf Annie recognised as one of hers. He must have got it from a drawer in her bedroom. He had been exploring her house. Or had he explored it long ago? That was when it occurred to her how very wrong she had been all along. If Roger Keats had been dead for years, long enough for his body to reduce to a skeleton, which probably meant he had died eight years ago, then it hadn’t been him who broke into her house and left that rose and the Valentine.

  She whispered, ‘Was it you who sent me those Valentines, Johnny?’

  He looked round at her, those beautiful dark blue eyes brilliant, smiling. ‘Of course. I couldn’t believe it when you told me you thought that bastard Keats had sent them. I was sending you my love, Annie. I thought you would know that. It was a shock when I realised you’d never known.’