Only Darkness

by Danuta Reah

  Debbie insisted on buying the drinks, and toyed with her beer while her mind drifted. She should have known. Her mother had warned her, Louise had warned her, Rob had bloody warned her, but she hadn’t listened. Tim was saying something. She pulled herself back to the present. ‘I said, “Penny for them,”’ he said.

  ‘Oh. Sorry. It’s nothing. I was miles away.’ She checked her watch. Nine-twenty. When she got back, she’d take one of those sleeping pills. She hadn’t needed them before. Not until Tuesday happened. Rob had proven far more efficacious than any sleeping pills. She was angry with herself. She’d cured herself once, and she’d gone and walked right back into it again, like a heroin smoker subjecting herself to cold turkey and then going out and mainlining. Idiot, idiot, idiot.

  Tim touched her hand and she jumped. ‘I’m having trouble keeping your attention,’ he said. His voice sounded a bit sulky. He didn’t like to be ignored, she remembered. She tried to concentrate. He was doing her a favour, after all.

  With an effort, Debbie said, ‘So how’s the journalism business these days? Are you doing any more newspaper work?’

  He smiled, looking rather pleased with himself, and said, ‘I think I might have something pretty good going down soon. With a bit of luck, I’ll be saying goodbye to dear old City before it says goodbye to me.’

  ‘Do you think they’re planning to do that?’ At the moment, Debbie really didn’t care.

  ‘Oh, yes, they’ve got their list. I think the first redundancy notices will be going out any day now. Mind you, I don’t think I’m on it.’ Debbie presumed Tim was right. He had enough contacts in the personnel department. I expect I am though. She looked at her watch again. Almost half past.

  She drained her glass. ‘We’d better think about moving.’ She waited impatiently while Tim finished his drink. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘I’ll miss it.’

  They were leaving the pub with a comfortable five minutes to spare when Tim said, ‘Sorry, Debbie, I’m going to have to nip in here for a pee. You go on over. I’ll just be a couple of minutes,’ and he’d gone before she could say anything. Great. Well, she wasn’t waiting. She walked out of the pub and across the road towards the station. It was still raining, even more heavily now. The cold penetrated her damp clothes. A car shot past as she reached the other side of the road, soaking her with dirty water as it raced through a puddle.

  Berryman was there by twenty-five to. The team had been called in, and they ran through the implications of what they’d got. ‘Right,’ Berryman said. ‘Lynne’s tried to contact the Sykes woman. There’s no reply. That doesn’t mean anything, but we’ve got to find out where she is. I’ve sent a car to her house, and someone’s gone up to the college to find out when she left. A car’s gone to the station to look out for her there. Anything else?’

  Lynne remembered, with a feeling of relief. ‘Neave.’

  ‘His phone’s engaged. I’ve got someone trying. And someone’s gone to his flat. He’s been keeping an eye on her, so there’s a good chance she’s with him. If she is, she’s safe. But we don’t know that – we can’t assume it.’ He looked up at the waiting team. ‘Our first priority is to find Deborah Sykes. What we do have to assume is that she’s in danger now from the Strangler.’ His eyes moved to the board, to the photographs, the eyeless faces and mutilated bodies of four women he’d failed so far. Not another. Please.

  Neave tried Debbie’s number again. Still no reply. He checked his watch. Maybe they had gone back to Louise’s. Debbie probably felt like some company tonight. It was gone half past. They should be back by now. He tried Louise’s number. She answered on the third ring.

  ‘Oh, hi, Rob. No, Debbie isn’t here, I didn’t give her a lift in the end.’ Louise explained the changes in the arrangement. ‘I don’t think you need to worry. Tim’s reliable in his own way, and Debbie knows better than to take risks.’

  He thought about it for a moment. ‘She should be back by now. Would she have gone anywhere with him? Or anywhere else?’

  Louise was pretty sure. ‘I can’t see her going anywhere with Tim Godber. And she doesn’t usually go out after her night class. Have you two –’

  He interrupted her. ‘Have you got his number? Can you phone and check?’

  Louise picked up the urgency in his voice. ‘Do you want to phone?’

  ‘No, I’m going to give City a ring. The caretakers will still be there. I’m going to find out if anyone saw them leave.’

  The phone call only made him more uneasy. No one knew when, or even if, Debbie had left. Tim Godber’s car was still in the car park, with a note on the windscreen saying it had broken down. Louise phoned back. ‘There’s no reply from Tim’s,’ she said.

  Neave checked his watch. ‘She might be on the train. It gets in at about nine-fifty. I’m going down to meet it.’

  The station was dark, the ticket office closed, and the screen announcing arrivals and departures was out of action. Debbie’s anger carried her past the ticket office, down the ramp and on to the platform. Then she stopped. The platform was dark and empty, the waiting room a locked black box. The rain drummed on the canopy above her head. A feeling of uneasiness began to grow. The opposite platform was empty too. The Doncaster train must have gone. There wasn’t another train from that platform for nearly an hour – no one would come now. She looked at her watch. Come on, Tim! She couldn’t go back up to the station entrance and wait for him. She might miss the train. It was late already. The flickering zigzag of the screen caught her eye. She let her gaze travel upwards beyond the screen to the girders and canopy above. She had noticed it before she became aware of it. The platform was dark. The light. Where was the light? Suddenly, she felt cold, felt her legs turn weak and cold. Slowly, knowing what she was going to see, slowly, because she didn’t want to see it, she looked towards the ramp.

  Nothing. She drew a breath, shaky with relief. Then a hand reached from behind her and clamped over her mouth.

  17

  Tim gave it five minutes – just enough time to establish that Debbie was on her own – then he headed towards the door of the pub. ‘Hey, Tim,’ a voice hailed him. It was one of the reporters from the Moreham Standard. He gave the man a friendly wave and mouthed, Got to go. The man came on over to him and gripped his arm. ‘Just to tell you,’ he said, ‘there’s some work coming up that’s right up your street. You’ll need to talk to Steve, though. Have you got his number?’

  Tim shook his head. ‘Look, I’m on something really important now. I’ve got to run, but I’ll get on to that tomorrow. Thanks.’

  ‘Don’t leave it,’ the man said. He looked a bit offended at Tim’s lack of interest.

  ‘I won’t,’ Tim promised. ‘I’ll be in touch first thing, OK?’ Hiding his impatience, Tim smiled his thanks and moved towards the door again. He was almost there, when a sudden influx of people jammed into the pub. As he tried to push through, he was held back. ‘Let them through, mate,’ a voice said, as a man carrying a bulky piece of equipment backed through the door. Frustrated, he watched as they manoeuvred what looked like some kind of sound system into the pub.

  ‘I’ve got a train to catch,’ he said to the man who was holding his arm. He checked his watch. Ten minutes.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ the man said, cheerfully. ‘We’re in now. Let this guy through, Dave. He’s got a train to catch.’ Tim pushed through the door. The road was a stream of fast-moving traffic. More busy than he ever remembered seeing it. He looked back up the road. He could run up to the crossing, wait for the lights, or would that take longer than waiting for a gap. He looked at his watch again. Fifteen minutes. Christ! The traffic slowed a bit and he launched himself off the kerb and wove in and out of the cars, ignoring the shouts and the sound of horns. ‘Get out the fucking road,’ a voice bellowed at him as a car almost ran him down. He was across. He ran into the station. Which platform? He never used the station. The screen was down. He looked round. Platform One for all stations to Sheffield. He raced round the
corner, and there in front of him was a long ramp on to platform one. The dark of the platform waited for him at the bottom of the ramp, and Tim came to a sudden halt.

  Down there, down in the darkness, who was waiting for him? All at once, it was real, really happening, not part of the story he was writing in his mind. His rational brain said that there was nothing to worry about, Debbie would be waiting, or her train would have gone, but something else, some other instinct, was making the hairs rise on his scalp, his senses come alert. He reached into his pocket for the phone, made sure it was set as he pressed himself against the wall and moved cautiously on to the ramp. He had the canister in his other hand, his finger on the button, not worried now, at this moment, if anyone saw it or not. He edged his way down as more of the platform came into view. His heart was thumping and his stomach clenched with tension. Slowly, slowly, he moved on to the platform, letting his breath out in a sudden release. Empty. No sign of Debbie. He looked across the line, breathing hard. No one there. He felt himself relax. The train had probably gone with a well-pissed-off Debbie on board.

  He looked round. The platform was dark. He began to feel uneasy. Anything could be hiding in the shadows. He kept the canister in his hand as he walked up to one end of the platform and peered into the concrete space under the ramp. Nothing. He stood up and wondered what to do next. Assume Debbie had got the train? How could he make sure? He’d be lucky if she was home in half an hour. He could start phoning then. Call the police? Oh, yes, make a total fool of himself, lose his story. Find out if the train had gone? He could phone the enquiry line. They might tell him. He stood there indecisively, hearing, but not really hearing, the sound of sirens.

  The giants were after her. She ran, but her legs were slow and heavy. She was in a tunnel, and voices followed her, echoing and strange. Debbie’s giants were evil and dangerous, and one was coming through the night to get her. But it was only a bad dream, she would wake up soon. She could feel her head on the pillow, though it felt cold and hard, and her throat hurt so that she couldn’t swallow. There was a smell of decay. She tried to turn her head away from it. There was a choking, rasping sound that she realized was her own breathing, and then she was conscious again.

  She was in blackness. She was lying on something hard and gritty. It was cold and wet. There was a trickling sound, hollow and echoing, and the air around her had a sour smell, a smell of drains and sewers. Her face was pressed against the cold, gritty surface. She found it difficult to breathe. She moved her head, and it jerked as the support under it vanished and the roaring sound became louder. There was empty space beneath her. She tried to move her arms, but her hands were held fast behind her. Tears of panic filled her eyes, and for a moment her nose clogged up and she couldn’t breathe. There was something across her mouth and she was choking. She blew out through her nose, and it cleared. For a moment she lay there breathing, not daring to move in case she choked again. Then her mind began to work.

  She pulled her head back from the edge, and cautiously rolled on to her back. Her hands felt crushed. She swallowed and the pain in her throat made her moan. There was a small, lighter patch in the pitch blackness, above her, within reach if her hands were free. Water dripped through it on to her face. The trickling sound was water running, close to her head, but there was also the roaring sound of running water away in the distance. She could remember the cold terror she felt when the hand had pressed over her face. She could remember something pulling tight round her throat and the lights exploding in her eyes. She didn’t know why she was still alive. Then the terror kicked in again. She was still alive because it wasn’t the end, it was just the beginning. A fit of shaking seized her and she seemed to hang in darkness with no up, no down, no end.

  Berryman listened to the radio for a moment, his face tightening. ‘We’ve got a problem,’ he said to the waiting group. ‘West and McCarthy went to the station. Deborah Sykes vanished after leaving the pub – the Old Bridge. The man who was supposed to be keeping an eye on her – he says she left the pub to go to the station. West found him on the platform but he can’t get much more out of him than that. He says he saw her last about twenty minutes ago.’ He looked at Lynne and shook his head at her unspoken question. It hadn’t been Neave with Debbie.

  ‘Could she be on the train? Did she catch the train?’ Lynne, looking for a way out.

  Berryman shook his head. ‘They’ve checked. That train was cancelled. There hasn’t been a train through Moreham station in that direction for about forty minutes. I’ve got someone checking the train that went through the other way, but I don’t think she’ll be on that. Come on, we’re going out there, and we’re going to look. We’ll assume the worst. If we’re lucky, she’ll turn up tomorrow after a night at the boyfriend’s. If we’re unlucky …’ He didn’t finish. ‘So, if it is our man, we know whereabouts he got her. We go and look and we find everybody we can who was anywhere around. We check that station from end to end. We check the area, we track down every car. And we don’t assume she’s dead. He might have got her, but he doesn’t kill them at once. We could be in time.’

  Lynne thought about the other women, about being alive with the Strangler, about living with your eyes scraped out of your head, about living with the memories, and wondered if they’d be doing Deborah any favours if they didn’t find her very, very soon.

  The night makes black, angular shapes. The line stretches ahead like a silver ladder, shining coldly in the darkness. He moves in the shadows. He can feel that bubble of glee inside him that escapes from his mouth in a thin giggle. It makes his breathing uneven, and he tells himself he must be in control, not relax, not yet. He feels the stickiness of his hands inside the gloves, and it reminds him. He breathes hard and giggles again, rubs his fingers together to simulate the feel of soft flesh, pressing, squeezing … The feel of hair between his fingers, that first touch, soft, gentle, to make her look at him, make her eyes shine wetly in the darkness, shiny tracks on her face.

  He feels hot, hard at his core. This one has cost him, this one must make it worth every difficult moment, every worry, every second of frustration. She will learn she made some bad mistakes. He fingers the instrument in his pocket, feeling its steel rigidity, the sharpness of its edge. He can remember the power of the moment. Next to it, the whispered touch of the silk scarf. The bubble of glee rises up again and a high giggle escapes. He is nearly there. He can feel himself start to breathe more heavily. He stops for a moment and looks at the sky, rubbing himself in anticipation. Soon. Here.

  There was a scraping sound above her head. She was suddenly alert, frozen in the darkness. A whisper. Deborah Sykes. Her eyes strained. She couldn’t see the lighter patch now. Again, the whisper. Deborah Sykes and a high-pitched giggle, quickly suppressed. Footsteps, muffled but close, grating like boots on gravel. A whisper again, babbling, excited, hard to follow … see no evil … little shit … cunt, get your … big boy like you, then that giggle again, like a child’s, gleeful and cruel. Debbie felt her heart thudding, tried to pull enough air in through her nostrils, felt her chest tightening, stifled, suffocating. She had to free her mouth. She had to breathe. She struggled against the tape for a moment, then forced herself to be calm, pushed the air out of her chest and breathed in slowly and deeply. Then out. In. Out.

  The sounds, the scraping sound, the whispers, the giggling, they had come from above her. She pulled herself into a sitting position, and looked up. She could see the lighter patch again now, just above her head. Then it was obscured, and the whispering and the grating sound began again as something moved in the darkness above her.

  She was still wearing her mac. It was sodden, confining, but she was still wearing it. She heard Fiona’s voice in her mind. Anyone tries anything with me, they get one of those in them. The knife! Was it still in the pocket? Her wrists were crossed and firmly bound, but she could move her arms, and her hands, though stiff and cramped, could move a bit. She gripped the fabric of her coat, and began pulli
ng the pocket towards her hands. Which pocket? She worked her fingers into the first one. Nothing, just some paper. Perhaps he’d found it, taken it? She began working the fabric the other way, until she could get her hands into the second pocket. Her breath was coming faster and she couldn’t stop the panicky moaning noises as she breathed. She could feel it! Feel the flat, rectangular shape of the knife.

  Scraping above her, and heavy breathing like someone making an effort. She forced herself not to rush. If she dropped the knife now … Water – rain, she realized – was falling on her head. She could see a lighter strip widening above her, as though someone were sliding a lid off a box. The sound of water still echoed around her. She didn’t know where the drop was, but the distant roaring made it sound like a long way down. It was hard to manoeuvre so that the blade was against the binding on her wrists, and she cut herself, feeling the handle become warm and sticky. She couldn’t breathe. Then her wrists were loosening, she could work her hands free, pulled her right hand free and, wincing with the pain in her shoulder, brought it round to the front of her body, then the left hand, clutching the knife all the time. Then the gap above her was obscured as something bulky filled it and she heard the giggling again.

  Neave beat his fists against the steering wheel in frustration. He’d arrived at the station to find, after minutes of waiting for someone on the enquiry desk to check, that Debbie’s train had been cancelled. He’d tried Berryman’s number. The line was transferred. DCI Berryman was busy, couldn’t come to the phone. He tried Lynne’s number. Her phone was switched off.