Strange Blood

by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

  Megan’s hand tightened on the bronze statuette. What should she do? If she stormed in there and lunged at him he would stab Ceri. She had to distract him; confuse him. Keep him talking until … what?

  The decision was taken away from her as he wheeled round, as if sensing her presence. Their eyes locked. For a second no one moved. His name, a voice inside her head whispered. Say his name.

  ‘Nick?’

  The blue eyes flickered with surprise, then narrowed as he recognised her. ‘So you’ve come for your sister?’ He sounded younger than thirty-seven. There was a hint of a Wolverhampton accent. He cocked his head on one side. ‘Well, she’s not here.’

  Megan stared at the figure on the floor. ‘Ceri?’ The woman’s head turned with a muffled grunt. Megan could see that it was her sister’s profile. There was white cloth poking out between her lips. Suddenly it dawned on her. To him she was not Ceri. She had become the woman he hated; the one he wanted to kill. That was why he was making her sister put on the red shoes. To become that woman she had to be wearing the red shoes.

  ‘What’s her name, Nick?’ Megan took a step towards the bedroom door.

  ‘Nicky.’ He brought the knife up against Ceri’s throat. ‘She looks like Dorothy, but her name’s Nicky.’

  ‘Nicky.’ Megan nodded slowly, frantically trying to work out what was going on inside his head.

  ‘You don’t know what I’m talking about do you?’ He grabbed Ceri by the hair as she tried to edge away from the knife. ‘People like you – psychologists!’ He grunted. ‘Everyone’s always needling me; trying to find out what I’m about!’

  ‘I know you like red shoes, Nick.’ Megan took another step towards him. As she did so she caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. It was Dave Todd. He was on the half-landing below her.

  ‘Don’t come any closer!’ Stern’s voice rang out. Megan froze. He had raised the knife above her sister’s chest. ‘And drop that!’ He jerked his head at the statuette. Megan let it go and it landed with a thud on the pale blue carpet. ‘Now get up,’ he screamed at Ceri, kicking at her feet in their red shoes. ‘Get on the bed!’

  Megan knew she had to get further into the bedroom; do something that would lead Stern’s eye away from the door so that Dave Todd could get at him without being seen. ‘Nick, please,’ she cried out, ‘I want to help you!’

  ‘I told you to stay where you are!’ His eyes were fixed on her as he pushed Ceri onto the bed.

  ‘Let me wear the red shoes,’ she pleaded, stretching out her hand ‘I’m Nicky, not her!’ He stared at her, transfixed, as she moved slowly round the bed. ‘Tell her to take the shoes off, Nick,’ she said softly. ‘I want them. They’re for me.’

  ‘Take them off!’ He pressed the flat of the knife against Ceri’s neck and she kicked off the shoes. Megan bent to pick them up, moving to the opposite side of the bed as she put them on. Lifting her right leg onto the bed she extended her foot, pointing her toe like a ballet dancer. ‘Look at me, Nick,’ she whispered. ‘Doesn’t my foot look beautiful in this shoe?’ She looked at him. His eyes were full of horrified fascination, like a child watching snakes in a zoo. ‘Does it make me look like Dorothy?’ Megan taunted him, willing him to move towards her. ‘Will you tell me who she is?’

  With a howl of rage he lunged at her, but Todd was on him, knocking the knife from his hand as he rugby-tackled him to the floor.

  *

  The house was swarming with police officers. The place had been surrounded when Dave Todd broke the rules to go in, unarmed. Megan was glad she hadn’t known that. She wasn’t sure she’d have been quite so bold if she’d realised Dave didn’t have a gun.

  She could see him now through the open bedroom window. He and two other officers were bundling Stern into a waiting squad car. As she watched she caught sight of Neil. From the look on his face, he had just arrived. What a thing to come home to, she thought grimly.

  Ceri was sobbing uncontrollably and wouldn’t move from the bed. Neither Megan nor the woman police officer sitting next to her had been able to calm her. Megan stroked her sister’s hair. What Ceri had been through in the past few days was enough to turn anyone into a basket case.

  ‘I’ll go and get her some tea or brandy or something,’ Megan said when Dave came back into the room. He followed her downstairs.

  ‘What about you?’ he said, shutting the kitchen door behind him. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Her fingers trembled as she flicked the switch on the kettle and she felt his hand on her shoulder. She wheeled round and he took his hand away. ‘You were very brave up there.’ She could see her eyes reflected in his glasses. For a moment neither of them spoke.

  ‘No, you were the hero.’ She broke away, reaching for mugs on the shelf above the microwave. The kitchen door opened and a man in white overalls appeared.

  ‘Could you come and talk to the SOCOs, Dave?’

  ‘I’ll catch you later, okay?’ Todd’s expression made her crumple inside. It reminded her of the way Patrick had looked at her when he was a student and she was his supervisor.

  As Todd went through the door Megan caught sight of Neil. He was standing in the hallway, his mouth open and a dazed expression in his eyes. He looked completely out of his depth. She left the tea and ran to help. But before she could get to him he turned towards the stairs. Ceri was stumbling down them, clinging to the banister rail for support. Before she reached the last step she fell into his arms.

  There was nothing Megan could do but leave them to it. The trauma that Ceri had been through had obviously turned her feelings about Neil on their head. It was something they were going to have to talk through themselves and her presence was not going to help matters.

  She blinked as she walked through the front door into the bright sunshine. The police had sealed off the road and beyond the striped tape groups of curious neighbours had gathered. She spotted a TV camera mounted on a tripod. Delva was standing close by. She looked as if she was interviewing somebody, but her height prevented Megan from seeing who it was. Moving down the path, Megan drew closer to the camera. It was Steve Foy. She could hear his voice.

  ‘I’m very pleased it’s ended without further casualties,’ he was saying. ‘And it certainly shows the value of good police work.’

  As Megan stepped behind the camera she caught Delva’s eye. Delva raised her eyebrow half an inch. Megan shook her head, a wry smile on her face.

  *

  The next morning Delva called at Megan’s house, minus the cameraman.

  ‘I just came to see how you are,’ she laughed. ‘I would like to do a background piece in a few months’ time, though, when the case comes to court. And don’t worry, I’ll make sure you get the credit you deserve for catching the bastard.’ She leaned forward in her seat as Megan poured coffee. ‘Why did he do it? I heard a copper muttering something about red shoes…’

  Megan nodded slowly. ‘It’s a really bizarre story.’ And it was a story she was safe to tell. She knew Delva was legally bound not to report a word of it until Stern had entered his plea of guilty to all three murders.

  She told Delva what Stern had told the police last night at Tipton Street station. About the mother who had wanted a girl so desperately she had made him wear dresses as a child and told people his name was Nicky. About the Christmas when she had dressed him up to look like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and told him he was going to be famous, just like Judy Garland. And about the beating he received when his father discovered the two of them, all rigged out, watching the film.

  ‘That was where the obsession with red shoes came from,’ Megan explained. ‘All through adulthood he’d tried to cultivate a macho image. But at university he got into drugs and ended up a heroin addict. He turned to burglary to fund his habit and ended up in prison. That made him worse.’ She paused to take a sip of coffee. ‘He was afraid of ‘turning gay’, as he put it. In prison he developed a desperate urge to crush the female persona
his mother had foisted on him as a child.’ She shook her head. ‘From what I can gather the people he was mixing with in jail encouraged him in this fantasy of attacking women. He conned everyone in the system into believing he was a model prisoner, but when he got out on day-release this rage he’d been building up just boiled over.’

  ‘Was that why the women were stabbed so many times?’ Delva’s cup was perched halfway between the table and her mouth. She had been hanging on Megan’s every word.

  ‘I think so,’ Megan replied. ‘There’s a term for that kind of frenzied attack. They call it overkill.’

  ‘So by stabbing the women in red shoes he was trying to kill the little girl his mother had tried to turn him into?’

  Megan nodded.

  ‘But all this black magic stuff,’ Delva frowned. ‘Where the hell did that come from?’

  ‘He carved a pentagram on his victim’s heads.’

  Delva’s jaw dropped. ‘My God! I knew there was something really horrible going on that no one would talk about, but…’ she broke off, her hand across her mouth.

  ‘I know.’ Megan shrugged. ‘It completely threw the police. I thought it might have been done deliberately to make it look like some kind of black magic ritual. But as it turned out, we were both wrong.’

  ‘What was it, then?’

  ‘His signature,’ Megan said simply. ‘His surname is the German word for ‘star’. That was why his mother was convinced he was going to be famous. And in a twisted kind of way I suppose he’s fulfilled her prediction.’

  *

  As Delva said goodbye Megan glanced at her watch. Patrick would be arriving soon to pick up his boots and CDs. She must make herself scarce. Or should she? The doubts that had been festering in her mind since she’d ordered him out of the house came flooding back.

  She could never give him a baby and he would have wanted one eventually, so wasn’t this the next best thing? Yes, it would be torture, seeing him with it, but perhaps she could bring herself to accept it in time. Maybe she would even grow fond of it when it came for holidays, as it surely would.

  She stood there, staring at the front door, wondering what on earth she should do. However she tried to rationalise it, there was one fact she couldn’t ignore. Patrick had lied to her. He had lied about what happened in Holland last Christmas. And because of that lie he had started his relationship with her under false pretences. Maybe something like that could be forgiven when there were other reasons to keep a relationship together; when there were children, like for Ceri and Neil. But there wasn’t anything like that …

  Megan slumped back onto the stairs, her head in her hands. Glancing up, she noticed the pile of post still lying on the mat. She picked it up. On the top was a yellow envelope. She tore it open. It was a card with a print of Monet’s Waterlilies and the words ‘Thinking of You’ on the front. Inside was written: ‘Hope you’ve recovered from yesterday’s drama. Be nice to talk to you about something other than serial killers. All the best, Dave.’

  She smiled. Reaching for the coat rack she pulled down her jacket. It was time she was on her way.

  Also by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

  Frozen

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.

  An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

  STRANGE BLOOD. Copyright © 2005 by Lindsay Jayne Ashford. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.thomasdunnebooks.com

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ashford, Lindsay Jayne.

  Strange blood : a crime novel / Lindsay Jayne Ashford.—1st U.S. ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-312-35580-7

  ISBN-10: 0-312-35580-7

  1. Forensic psychiatrists—Fiction. 2. Serial murderers—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6101.S545 S77 2007

  823’.92—dc22

  2007033910

  First published in Wales by Honno

  First U.S. Edition: December 2007

  eISBN 9781466838765

  First eBook edition: January 2013