by Ashley Dyer
“Easy,” he says. “Another question: When you covered up what you believed to be evidence of Carver’s attempted suicide, were you thinking of your father?”
Ruth’s pulse thickens.
“You don’t need to answer,” he says. “That was the truth.”
“Does Carver know that you delayed calling for the ambulance while you—removed evidence from his flat?”
Ruth bites her tongue to prevent a sob escaping her.
He takes his fingers away, and she gasps.
“Do you want to live, Ruth?”
“Yes,” she says. A humiliating tear slides from the corner of her eye.
“Then I want to know everything that happened. Every shameful thing you did.”
“All right.”
“No holding back?”
“Yes.”
“You’re lying, of course,” he says. “I do believe it’s your default position.”
For the longest time, he is silent. It takes all of Ruth’s experience and practice from years of masking her feelings to stay calm, to hide her fear.
Suddenly, his hand moves to her face. She holds her breath, bracing for an assault. It doesn’t come. Instead, he removes the strap that holds her head still and loosens the bindings across her shoulders.
“I will extract the truth from you, even so,” he says. “It will be a long, hard process, but I’m beginning to think you might be worth it.”
Ruth starts to breathe again.
“Now, here’s what will happen next. In a moment, I will release your hands. On my order, you will sit up slowly and unfasten the straps binding your legs and ankles. You will place your hands behind your back so that I can bind them again, and then we will leave.”
Ruth stares straight ahead, all the while contracting and releasing the muscles of her arms, her torso, her legs, working muscle tone into them, readying herself for what is coming. If he gives her a chance, she has to act fast. Her head feels clear, but if it comes to a fight, she’s not sure she can take down a man. She hears the clink of a glass stopper in a bottle, the swish of liquid, a faint tinkle of metal on glass.
He shows her a syringe. “This contains an extract of aconite, suspended in alcohol and water; I used it on all of the women—in lower doses, of course. Your pathologist will have told you the symptoms of aconite poisoning?”
Ruth swallows, hears a dry click at the back of her throat. “Numbness, muscle weakness, low blood pressure, irregular heartbeat.”
“And death,” he says. “Don’t forget that.” He releases the strap on her left wrist. “You do the other,” he says.
He’s afraid to give her the advantage. Which means he’s more nervous of her than it seems. Ruth tenses, ready to act.
He jabs the point of the needle into her neck and Ruth gasps, feeling its cold sting. She waits for the numbing effects of the poison, thinking, I don’t want to die. Not here. Not like this.
“One false move, I will inject the entire syringe into your throat—you’ll be dead in thirty seconds. Do you believe me?”
“Yes. Yes, I believe you. Completely.”
The snow was falling fast, now. Fat, soft flakes building fast on the icy ground. Carver moved to the back of the house; someone had turned the patio lights on, and he saw that the frost on the lawn was crisscrossed with the Matrix team’s boot marks.
In the center of the lawn was a parterre, divided into sections by low-growing box hedging. Carver had never been a gardener, but in the past year he had become quite the expert in poisonous plants, and they were here aplenty. The snow picked out hellebores, producers of highly toxic cardiac glycosides, already in bud, bowed under the weight of snow; snowdrops, in pristine bunches, contained scillitoxin, its effect on heart muscle as deadly as digitalis. Even the hyacinths, just poking their waxy spears above ground, contained dangerous alkaloids.
The far end of the garden looked untidy and wild. A tangle of brambles and berry-laden bushes clustered along the boundary wall.
Pyracantha? he wondered. Is this where she got her stock of thorns? He couldn’t tell from this distance.
He shambled toward the stand of bushes. It was pyracantha, and sections had been cut. Next to the untidy hedge, a metal drum, like Gaines’s homemade charcoal burner. Pendinning, crafting her own tools.
He walked on, skirting the edge of the thicket, and his ankle was snared by a trailing bramble shoot. He stumbled, fell, putting his hands out to save himself and plunged through a tangle of stems, the thorns scratching his hands and face, snagging and tearing his coat sleeves. Beneath the growth, he hit something cold and hard. He turned his head away and felt past the tangle of stems, feeling gritty stone. A low wall, perhaps, obscured by the scrubby growth.
He eased back, resting on his heels. Some of the stems had caught fast in the wool of his coat and he unhooked them. All were cut to the same length, and in the light of his phone, he saw that they had been cut clean across. There were more, cut, and then woven together to form a dense mat. He forced the fingers of his free hand between the weave, ignoring the pain, and pulled. It lifted, exposing a steep flight of steps down to a metal door.
He zipped off a quick text to DC Ivey and tiptoed down.
Ruth feels the pressure ease.
“Tell me what I want to hear.”
“I won’t struggle,” she says. “I know that you have the power to decide what happens to me.”
“Did they teach you that in hostage training?” he says. “Acknowledge the power of the hostage taker?”
“I don’t think they can train you for situations like this,” Ruth says.
A short bark of laughter. “Now that is the truth. You know the problem with most psychologists?” he says. “They oversimplify the complex nature of relationships by encoding behavior. I never doubted that the women I chose were complex, rounded human beings. That is why they fascinated me. They chose anonymity, disguised their true selves; I revealed them—to themselves and to the world at large.”
“And what gave you the right?” Ruth says quietly.
“Nobody gives you the right,” he says. “You have to take it. Surely you, of all people, must understand that?”
Ruth looks away. Does he know what I did?
“I can see that you do,” the killer says. “It’s the reason you conceal your feelings. You use that unreadable mask of yours to put men ill at ease. It’s your defense and your weapon. It’s how you establish your right to control and authority.”
Ruth said nothing. It terrified her that he knew so much.
“All right, go ahead,” he says. “Undo the strap, sit up slowly.”
At the bottom of the steps, layers of mulch and leaf litter had accumulated. The door must open inward. A quick turn of the lever and a shove should do it—use the element of surprise. And if it’s locked? But Carver wouldn’t allow himself to dwell on that.
He gripped the handle with both hands, depressed the lever, and pushed.
It gave easily and Carver tumbled into a searingly bright space. In an instant, he saw concrete walls, lined with shelving, a surgical trolley, Ruth almost naked, sitting on it. Pendinning had her left arm across Ruth’s chest; in her right hand, a syringe, the needle thrust deep into Ruth’s neck. She had some kind of mask over her face and for a horrible moment he thought that it was a gas mask, that she had released a toxic gas into the room. But seeing him, Pendinning stripped off the mask.
“You’ve seen what this can do, injected into a vein,” she said.
“I know.” He stared into Ruth’s eyes and saw terror and confusion. He spoke to Pendinning. “Laura, there’s no need to hide anymore.”
“Not a step closer,” Pendinning said.
“Ruth, this is Laura Pendinning. I don’t think you met at the hospital—she’s a psychologist.”
“She?” Ruth said.
“Close the door,” Pendinning said.
Carver was about to comply when he saw orange light leap from Ruth like flame. Her
left hand shot across and grabbed Pendinning’s right thumb, bending it back in one swift, decisive movement. Carver heard it snap like a twig.
Pendinning howled.
Ruth pulled the syringe from her neck and threw it aside, then struggled to release the strap on her legs.
Pendinning lunged for her and Carver leaped forward, lost his balance, and clutched at the psychologist as he fell. They crashed into the shelving and he felt a sharp burst of pain in his back. He fell to his knees and saw the syringe, where it had rolled under the trolley. Pendinning scrabbled for it. He tried to get up, but his legs felt numb.
He yelled.
Ruth rolled off the table, stamped on Pendinning’s injured hand as she reached for the syringe.
Pendinning screamed. “Bitch! You fucking bitch!”
Ruth jammed her shoulder under Carver’s arm. “Move,” she yelled. But he couldn’t make his legs obey. “Greg, you have to move!”
She dragged him a little farther and they stumbled toward the door.
Shouts rang out across the garden. Carver heard the thud of heavy boots. Ivey appeared at the top of the steps as Ruth half supported, half dragged him out of the bunker.
Ruth yelled, “Help us!,” and Ivey threw himself down the steps, taking Carver’s other arm.
Carver glanced back and saw Pendinning lunge forward. She slammed the door.
At the top of the steps, Ruth and Ivey lowered Carver to the ground and he gasped, “I’m okay. Help Ruth.”
Ivey wrapped his coat around Ruth Lake’s shoulders as John Hughes and the scene log officer arrived.
“Poison,” Carver panted. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath—the pain in his back. “She’s got poison in there. Tell Parsons you’ll need gas-tight Hazmat suits. Body armor.”
The last thing he heard was Ruth, her teeth chattering, telling him to shut up and lie down, issuing an order to get the paramedics in.
Epilogue
Carver stirred and moaned, and Ruth jolted awake. She had slept in the family room at the hospital for three nights, waiting for this moment.
“Hey,” he croaked.
She held a beaker of water to his lips and he took a sip.
“Are you awake, now?” she said. “I mean properly?”
“I’m awake,” he said. “But I feel like I got punched in the kidneys.”
“Close,” she said. “Do you remember what happened?” The doctors had told her he might suffer retrograde amnesia again.
“Who’s asking?” he murmured. The dismay on her face must have shown because he said, “Joking. Sorry—I’m sorry, Ruth.”
“You should be.”
“Did they get her? Was anyone hurt?”
“Pendinning is dead. Used that syringe of poison on herself.”
“What about you? Are you—”
“I’m fine,” she said, though she couldn’t help tugging at the sleeve that covered the tattoos on her arm. “Better than you, anyway.”
“I’m just tired, that’s all.”
“Greg, you’ve had surgery. You tried to fight her, d’you remember?”
He nodded uncertainly.
“The bullet near your spine got dislodged—the surgeon had no choice but to remove it. They were able to go through the back instead of cracking your chest, so they hope you’ll recover quickly.”
He nodded. “The bullet?”
“It’s a match to the one they dug out of Adela Faraday.”
Another brief nod, and something in the reflective look on his face made her say, “You remember what happened that night?”
“Fragments,” he said. “I don’t think I was drunk when I got back from the hotel, but I was woozy—I’d passed out in the car for a bit.”
“The concussion,” Ruth said.
“Could be. I went in and tried to work on the files. Poured a drink, maybe two, then called you. After that, there’s a blank. Then . . . a man, forcing me to drink.”
“Lomax?” she said.
“Yeah. I was thinking, ‘Why are you doing this? I don’t even know you.’”
“Pendinning planned to use Lomax to get Adela out of the picture. Lomax had been stalking both you and Adela for weeks. He knew where you lived, where she was holed up. We tracked some of the text messages he sent to her. He was outside the hotel three times when you met her—including the night you were shot. In fact, he made a call to her minutes before security was called to your room.”
“Jesus . . .” Carver breathed.
“Did you fight with him there?”
“I . . . I don’t remember.”
“The CSU is checking for trace,” she said. “We’ll know soon enough. We already know that Lomax showed up at her apartment—got him on CCTV at her building—security was lax over the holiday. I don’t know what set him off that night: maybe he’d heard the row between you and Adela at the hotel, thought he stood a chance with her. But whatever his plans were, they went to shit when she pulled the gun. Owning a gun, shooting a target with one—it’s not the same as shooting another human being. Either she couldn’t pull the trigger or he got the weapon from her before she had the chance. Then he came after you.”
Carver’s eyes widened. “I opened the door to him.”
Ruth held her breath: he was remembering—really remembering.
“I thought it was you,” Carver said. “He shouldered past me, pulled the gun, held it on me to make me finish the scotch. After I’d drunk about two-thirds, I dropped the bottle; it rolled. He was distracted, and I took my chance, made a grab for the gun. We struggled, but I was no match for him.” His eyes clouded and he reached up with one hand, as if to fend off his attacker.
He blinked.
“I remember a flash. An impact. Like being punched, here.” He touched his chest.
“And after that?” Ruth dreaded to think that he was aware of her coming and going, removing evidence, apparently ignoring him while he lay dying. She was relieved to see a faint smile played at the corners of his mouth.
“The shadows terrified me. Then I saw you, and I thought, ‘Ruth’s here. It’ll be okay.’”
“How wrong could you be?” she said. “I was just about ready to nod off to sleep when you rang. I thought you were maudlin drunk—only agreed to come round so I could kick your arse. And when I got there, someone’d beaten me to it.”
“I deserved a good kicking.” He looked penitent.
“Hey, I was joking.” She laughed, but it had a wet sound, and she turned away, not wanting to cry in front of him.
He was silent for a bit. “You know, I really didn’t go to Adela’s apartment.”
“We know,” she said, turning back. “Lomax planted the evidence there—stole stuff from your place—one of your dad’s best whisky glasses with your fingerprints all over it; hairs, fibers, a few other things to implicate you. You messed up Lomax’s plans when you didn’t die.”
“Yeah, I can be a real killjoy. But you played your part, stealing the suicide weapon.”
She winced.
“Jesus, Ruth, I’m sorry.”
“You’ve got nothing to apologize for.” He didn’t look convinced. Empathy wasn’t going to lift him out of his gloom, so she went on the offensive: “Except maybe the files—Parsons gave me a lot of grief about finding those in my spare bedroom—added to which, you were wrong about them.”
“Meaning?”
“You were obsessed with them: ‘Get me the files. The answer’s in the files.’”
“It was.”
She scoffed. “We didn’t find the Thorn Killer because of what was in the files, Greg. It was Gaines making the link between Pendinning and her deadly botanical collection.”
“But I wouldn’t have found Gaines if it weren’t for the files,” he countered.
“You mean if it weren’t for my notes in the files.”
He wagged a finger at her. “I know what this is. You’re trying to distract from the fact that you were wrong about Gaines. ‘Glib, self-
aggrandizing, and shallow,’ you said. Admit it—you thought he was the Thorn Killer.”
“He was all of those things,” she said. “But I don’t remember saying anything about Gaines being the Thorn Killer. I do know my notes led you to Pendinning’s door, however.”
They sat looking at each other for a while, Ruth reading affection for her in his eyes and in his smile. After a minute or two, the silence became uncomfortable and Ruth said, “Are you looking at my aura? ’Cause if you are, pal, you’d better stop.”
He apologized and, feeling guilty, she said, “Come on, Greg, I wasn’t serious.”
He looked hurt. “Would you make fun if I’d ended up with—I dunno, a squint or something?”
Now she knew he was winding her up.
“Maybe not,” she said with a sly smile. “But this is a lot more freaky.”
“Well, you’d better get used to it,” he said with a twinkle. “Because I don’t think it’s going away.”
“You are looking at my aura,” she said, with mock outrage.
“Soppy pinks and lilac, just now,” he said.
She shuddered theatrically, and he smiled, but it faded and Ruth knew his thoughts had turned inward.
“What?” she said.
He shook his head. “I can’t believe I didn’t see Pendinning for what she was.”
“Of course you couldn’t read her,” Ruth said. “Pendinning was a psychopath—they don’t have human feelings.” He didn’t look much consoled and she added, “I spoke with the consultant neurologist—he’d never had Pendinning in mind to help you with your hallucinations—she was a research psychologist, didn’t even have clinical training. She only had a hospital ID because she was conducting research interviews with patients. Apparently, he was about to get her banned off the unit after a couple of families complained about dubious practices.”
“Like plying them with alcohol?” Carver said.
Ruth stared at him. “This was the cognitive interview you mentioned?”