by Michael Kerr
He swallowed hard: wanted to grasp her by an ankle and pull her back to the bottom of the stairs. Her short nightie was riding up, and the shadowy, tantalising sight of her buttocks and the crack between them immediately aroused him again. It took all the willpower he possessed to stay back and keep his hands off her. Maybe later.
Doug was still on the floor, lying on his side, groaning and attempting to twist his hands free; drawing blood as he chafed his wrists against the unyielding tie that was binding them together.
Ruth rushed into the bathroom and knelt next to Doug, horrified at the amount of blood on the laminated waterproof wood effect flooring.
The wound to Doug’s head had caused a mild concussion. He felt dizzy, and his vision was slightly blurred, but he gave Ruth a weak smile. “What happened?” he said. “And why can’t I move my arms?”
“Tell him,” John said.
“The man that they showed on the news has broken in,” Ruth said. “He’s on the run, and intends to stay here for a few days.”
“What man?” Doug said as he struggled to sit up.
“The rapist.”
Doug screwed his eyes shut, then opened them and looked beyond Ruth, up into the face of the man standing behind her, who stared back at him impassively. He recognised the features from the computer-generated image that had been shown on TV several times. He knew that they were in a perilous situation, but could do nothing to protect his wife.
“Please don’t hurt Ruth,” Doug said, and then passed out.
“Do you have a shotgun in the house?” John said to Ruth.
She shook her head.
“I’ll ask you again, and then I’ll search the place, and if I find one, I’ll punish Doug, not you.”
“Yes, Doug has one,” she admitted. “It’s locked in a gun safe in the utility room next to the kitchen.”
“Where’s the key?”
“In the kitchen, in the top drawer of the unit next to the sink, under the plastic tray that the cutlery is in.”
“Let’s go and get it.”
“But Doug needs help.”
“Once I have the shotgun loaded and pointed at you, I’ll free your hands and you can move him into a bedroom and clean him up. Happy with that?”
Ruth was far from happy, but nodded and got up and made her way back downstairs to the kitchen.
He found the key and opened the safe that was bolted to a wall inside a cupboard in the utility room. The weapon was held by spring brackets. It was an old Remington over-and-under 12 gauge, and there was a box of bright blue game cartridges on a shelf next to it.
Telling Ruth to sit on the floor, he put the scythe down on the top of a clothes drier and broke the gun, slid cartridges into both barrels and closed it up again.
All of a sudden there was a light at the end of the dark tunnel he had been travelling through. He was properly armed now, and was in total control of the situation. His first instinct was to shoot the couple, but he would need them to deal with any phone calls or visitors. This was new and dangerous territory. He knew that just one mistake and it would be over for him. He needed to think clearly, and for the time being the couple were of far greater value to him alive.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Beth was too quiet. Matt knew that she thought he had yet again drawn some psycho to them, in the way that the Pied Piper had enticed rats and then children. But he hadn’t, and needed her to know that they were in no danger.
It was eight p.m. and Beth had said that she wasn’t hungry when he had phoned an hour earlier to tell her that he was leaving for home, and asked if she fancied a takeaway meal.
They were now in the kitchen, once more facing each other across the table in the nook.
“Did you find out who was here last night?” Beth said. “And why was he on our property?”
Matt got up and went over to the coffeemaker to refill his mug. “Do you want some?” he said.
“No, I want to know what’s happening,” she demanded. “Are we safe?”
Sitting back down, Matt placed the steaming mug on a coaster. “The night visitor was a man by the name of Henry Norton” he said. “He works for Ricky Lister, a gangster who also employed a guy who is currently serving time for an armed robbery. I had to talk to Lister, because the gun used in the robbery is the one being used by the murderer who is killing housekeepers and their employers.”
“How does discussing the whereabouts of a gun end up with a hoodlum being sent out here to intimidate me?”
“Lister is easily upset,” Matt said. “He uses whatever means he deems necessary to dissuade unwelcome attention.”
“What did you say to wind him up?”
“Nothing nice. He’s an evil bastard. Problem is he has contacts, probably including high-ranking officers in the OCU, so he’s like Teflon, nothing sticks to him. Bribery, threats and violence keep people in line. Knowing what he is and proving it are two different things. But I did a call back today and straightened it out with him.”
“Define straightened out.”
“He’ll have obviously done a check on me so he knows my rep, and that I don’t always play by the rules. I led him to believe that any move on us would result in his family being hit by a third party.”
“And he believed that?”
Matt nodded. “I handed him a throwaway phone, and Phil pretended to be a hitman; talked to him and made it crystal clear that if you or I even caught a cold, that he would be blamed for it.”
“He could call your bluff.”
“I don’t think so. His types are all paranoid. They live by violence, and expect to at risk from rival factions and the police. Staying one step ahead when you’re a wannabe Kray or Richardson is no easy undertaking. It’s easy for someone like Lister to consider that everyone is as bad as him. And Phil sounded like the real deal. If I hadn’t known it was him, I would have believed every word he said.”
“Are you happy to have his family threatened?”
“They won’t know a thing about it, but Lister will ensure that they stay safe by not leaning on us.”
Beth was both dismayed and relieved at the same time. Matt was doing what he needed to, to keep trouble away from their door. At times like this she wished that he was anything but a cop. He steeped himself in the worst type of crimes that seriously unbalanced murderers committed; the kind of unstable and violent men and women that she treated five days a week at Northfield. The difference being, she was in a controlled environment with them, and they almost all became dependent on the drug and talk therapies, and were for the most part institutionalised; only having their warped memories of deeds done to feed off. Matt’s intentions were fine, but as any hunter of dangerous game, he sometimes found that with life or freedom at stake, a quarry would turn and attack, making a last desperate stand to ward off capture or worse.
“Did you see the man that came to the house?” Beth said.
“Yeah. Norton is just an errand boy and muscle for Lister. We had some interaction, and he got his arm broken quite badly. I doubt that he’ll be bothering anybody for at least three months, unless he adapts and uses his plaster cast as a weapon.”
“How are the cases going?” Beth said, moving the conversation to another subject, trusting that Matt had done enough to protect them from Lister.
“Slow,” Matt said. “We know the rapist killer’s identity, but he’s in the wind. His wife provided a recent photograph of him to use on the TV, and told us all his favourite haunts, but it figures that he’s found somewhere to hole up. I’ve got the feeling he won’t be running blind. After initially panicking when he saw the broadcast on TV, he had the sense to get away from the house. My guess is he’ll have dumped his car and be hiding out, but God knows where.”
“Away from people,” Beth said. “What would you do if you were in his position?”
Matt went to get more coffee as he thought it through. Poured one for Beth as well and sat down again. “I’d need to find a safe plac
e to stay at for several days, and would need to change my appearance. And I would also need food and water. Shelter would be a priority. I would find an isolated house or farm, and―”
“What, Matt?” Beth said as she saw his face go a little pale.
“I would have hostages. I’d break in and use their property as a place to regroup and hope that the heat died down. I could keep them as prisoners for a lengthy period if I felt out of harm’s way. And when I decided it was time to move on, I’d kill them.”
Beth agreed with his premise. She felt a sudden and almost unbearable fear, not for herself, but for strangers; a family, couple, or perhaps an elderly individual. The killer had always struck at night, and had murdered the women that he raped. He obviously gained pleasure from indulging in the ultimate crime that could be visited on another person. A man like that was consumed with dark needs that he could not deny, and that were not diminished by any conscience. He was a sociopath, lacking the capacity to have any sense of feeling for others. Whoever had been unlucky enough to have been selected by him was unequivocally in mortal danger.
“I need something stronger than coffee,” Beth said.
They were low on booze. All Matt could find was a half depleted bottle of low-priced blended scotch. He poured large measures, and they sipped it neat. It crossed Beth’s mind that they needed to do a large shop. Their work made it hard to find time to go to a supermarket together. And when they did, Matt was always impatient to get out. He took no pleasure in strolling up and down aisles pushing a trolley, and neither did Beth. It occurred to her that online shopping was the way to go. Strange how the mind could escape certain situations by drifting to other topics. She had the ability to compartmentalise subjects; maybe that was what most people did. Those that could not became obsessed, some to the point of going insane. She worked in an environment full of disturbed people, and recognised that they were driven by complex forces that they could not control or rid themselves of. They were slaves to the abnormal way in which their minds worked. The acts that they had committed were in the main carried out because they did not have the capacity to differentiate between fantasy and reality, or the ability to even comprehend right from wrong.
“Why the thousand-yard stare, Beth?” Matt asked. “What are you thinking?”
“About how some people are not in control of their actions. They become addicts to something and can’t give it up, even if they want to.”
“Do you think that John Gibson is addicted to rape and murder?”
“I don’t know what emotional triggers turned him from a man with a career, wife and daughter into what he has become. Some guys just seem to blow a gasket and go haywire. Whatever safety valves stop human beings from just doing whatever deeds they may fantasise over, break down. Something happens in their lives to change them. Loss, grief, anger and other emotions can tip the scales and send them in a direction that they wouldn’t have gone. Was Gibson happily married?”
“His wife, Anna, seemed genuinely distressed. She couldn’t believe that her husband was capable of what we told her he’d done. He loved their two-year old daughter. We took his computer and software, and it has a lot of porn sites on it that he started looking at a couple of years ago, especially of the sado-masochistic variety. And he’d bookmarked detailed maps of London, including the areas where he had attacked the women.”
“Get Marci to talk to his wife, one-on-one” Beth said. “What he’s doing has a connection to the time his daughter was born.”
“You mean his wife lost interest in sex, and he probably has a strong libido...sex drive?”
Beth nodded. “Yes. If he has high levels of testosterone, but doesn’t have an outlet for his hyper sexuality, then something has got to give. I believe that his wife lost any desire for sex with him after giving birth. He tried porn, but that will have just exacerbated the frustration. And repressing his needs obviously didn’t work.”
“He could have had affairs,” Matt said. “Why rape and kill?”
“Because on one level he still loves his wife and daughter. He didn’t want any emotional involvement, just sex.”
“Maybe you should talk to her,” Matt said. “You know what buttons to press. Marci is a cop, not a shrink.”
“What about the rules we agreed on?” Beth said, ignoring the ‘shrink’ tag that he was in the habit of using. “As I recall, we decided that I wouldn’t do any more consult work, and you would keep it impersonal with psychos?”
“This would be just an unofficial talk to a wanted man’s wife. And it wouldn’t count as consult work, because you wouldn’t be paid,” Matt said.
Beth wanted to be involved on the periphery of the case. She missed the buzz of being part of an ongoing investigation. “When do you want me to see her?”
“In the morning, if you can play hooky from the nuthatch for a couple of hours.”
They finished off the bottle of scotch and went to bed. Beth lay in the darkness and thought about how best to proceed discussing the intimate details of Anna Gibson’s sex life, without being told to piss off. Within five minutes, Matt was asleep. She could tell by his breathing. It amazed her that he could close a door in his mind to the cases he was investigating and sleep so soundly at night.
Anna opened the door a fraction after Matt had knocked three times and then pushed back the flap on the letterbox to identify who he was verbally. Anna recognised him, and gave Beth the once over.
“This is Dr. Beth Holder,” Matt said. “I’d appreciate you talking to her.”
“About what?” Anna asked.
“About John,” Beth said. “We need to understand his state of mind. He needs help, Anna.”
Beth could almost see the cogs turning in Anna’s mind. The woman was upset, confused and frightened. She needed to offload her thoughts and feelings, whether she knew it or not.
“Come in,” Anna said, stepping back into the shadow of the hallway to escape the shouts and whirring of cameras. The press were out in force; an unsolicited ragtag army of highly inquisitive newshounds looking for blood to fuel their masters’ appetites.
Anna led them into a spacious lounge. The curtains were drawn to at the bay window, and the light was on.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Anna said as she indicated that they should sit down on the settee.
“Coffee, if you have any,” Matt said.
“Tea would be fine,” Beth said.
“I’ll go and make it, Anna,” Matt said. “You two have a chat without me in the way.”
Matt went through to the kitchen to find what he needed to brew tea and coffee.
“This must be a nightmare for you,” Beth said to Anna, who was trembling and had the look of someone in dire need of sleep.
“I don’t understand it,” Anna said. “John has always been such a gentle man. Why would he do these terrible things?”
“I believe that he has experienced some kind of crisis,” Beth said. “Something over the last couple of years has altered his personality.”
Anna looked down at the carpet, unable to face Beth. “It’s my fault,” she said. “I’ve not been a…a good wife to him since Naomi was born.”
Beth waited.
Anna took a couple of deep breaths and raised her head to face Beth. “I began suffering with quite severe postnatal depression after Naomi came along. It was devastating. I felt suicidal for over twelve months, and even now I have bad days.
“I lost all interest in things, including sex. John was baffled. He didn’t understand PND. I don’t understand it myself. I love him and my daughter so much, but instead of being happy, I couldn’t find joy in anything. I read through a long list of symptoms for it and found that I was suffering from at least half of them. For a while I just couldn’t cope. My parents had to look after Naomi for most of the time. I feel more positive now, or did, before this. Naomi is staying with them for a few days, until this is…”
“You’re not to blame in any way for what John ma
y have done,” Beth said. “PND is very common; one out of ten women suffers from it, and like any illness it runs its course.”
“But if I’d been there for John, he wouldn’t have…” her voice trailed off again. She did not want to contemplate the terrible things that it appeared he was guilty of having committed.
“Do you have any idea where John would have gone?” Beth said.
Anna shook her head. “No, not really. He always liked going out into the countryside, though. He said that getting away from the city was the perfect way to offload the stress that built up after a week at work. He’s always been a bit of a loner. His idea of a perfect day was a picnic in a wood, or a walk along a cliff top.”
“Did he have favourite places, Anna?”
“Not particularly; just away from it all.”
Matt had been eavesdropping, and knew that Gibson’s wife couldn’t give them anything more than Beth had got from her. He pushed the lounge door open with his foot and carried three mugs in on a tray.
Fifteen minutes later Matt and Beth were back on the road. Beth had followed Matt to the house in Ilford in her Lexus, and was now behind him again as he looked for a suitable place to stop at, where they could discuss Beth’s take on what Anna had said to her.
Matt drove along Cranbrook Road, signalled and made a left into Valentines Park. After feeding the machine in the car park, they walked hand in hand through mature trees, to then follow a sign to the Gardner’s Cottage Café, which was set within the walled kitchen gardens of Valentines Mansion.
They sat at a table near a window, ordered coffee and talked.
“I’m almost convinced that Anna had no idea over her husband’s dark side,” Beth said. “She’s been through a debilitating period of post natal depression, and now has to somehow come to terms with the fact that her husband is a murderer.”
“Nothing she told you gave us any new leads,” Matt said. “He could be anywhere. If he dumped his car and has stolen another, he could be in bloody Wales or Scotland.”