Someone Out There

by Catherine Hunt

  She wrote down a number for him and said goodbye. He watched her leave with the same cynical expression he’d had all along.

  All of a sudden, she felt very sore indeed. Now there was no urgent action driving her on, her brain was registering the pain. Her back and hip had stiffened up, every move and every breath hurt.

  She pushed open the glass doors of the police station and walked out into a clear night. It was very cold but the earlier wind had dropped and a brilliant full moon hung over the sea. She’d had to park a few streets away, down near the front, and she shivered, hugging the tattered riding jacket to her.

  The town was getting busy now, evening revellers gathering in force, milling about noisily with a hint of lunar madness under the huge moon. Later they would head for West Street and the heart of clubland. On a typical Saturday night there would be three and a half thousand of them out for fun. Laura felt a flicker of sympathy for the sergeant.

  She was threading her way through the crowd, trying to shield her body and walking with her head down to make it easier to breathe, when two young guys barged into her. There was a stab of excruciating pain from her ribs and she looked up, annoyed. They were laughing, enjoying themselves, and with a shout of apology they moved on. She was so preoccupied with the pain that at first she didn’t register the face of the other man not far behind them who was staring at her. She walked on and then it hit her and she stopped in her tracks. She turned around and caught sight of him disappearing fast up the street.

  It was years since she had seen that face but she remembered at once who he was. Ben Morgan. She had acted for his wife in their divorce. She shivered again and this time it was not with the cold. He suffered from bipolar disorder, supposedly only in a mild way, but it turned out to be severe. He had been violent, unpredictable, out of control, and his wife had been terrified of him. He hadn’t been able to deal with the court process and his manner in court had bounced from suicidal gloom to adrenaline- charged exuberance. Towards the end of it, convinced he was about to lose all contact rights to his young daughter, he picked her up from school, took her to the flat he was renting, barricaded the door, and threatened to kill her and himself if anyone tried to take her away.

  There had been a short siege during which he had stood at a window brandishing a knife and shouting threats at the negotiators below. Eventually, at four in the morning, police had broken the door down. Ben Morgan had been wide awake and waiting for them and one of the officers had been stabbed and badly hurt. Later, Morgan’s defence lawyer claimed the stabbing was accidental, had happened when the officer threw himself on his client who was holding the knife. Morgan had been lucky to get away with a conviction for grievous bodily harm rather than attempted murder. Instead of going to jail, he’d been sectioned for hospital treatment. He had lost contact rights to his daughter.

  It was while he was in hospital that he wrote her the letters saying the world would be a better place if she were dead. He sent three of them before she contacted the hospital and they put a stop to it. The letters were rambling and repetitive but that didn’t make them any less threatening. She had never again heard anything from, or of, Ben Morgan. Until now. Now here he was in this Brighton street. Now, when she was sure that someone was out to get her, here he was, right up close.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Harry Pelham was about to leave and the nurse wasn’t intending to make any more efforts to stop him. She’d told him he couldn’t go until the consultant had declared him fit for discharge and the consultant wasn’t there. It was Saturday evening and he wouldn’t be in until Monday morning.

  He glared at her. He was red in the face, seriously pissed off. She decided not to remind him that it wasn’t only the doctor he was supposed to wait for, there was also the small matter of the police. She would alert the nurse in charge to the fact that he was discharging himself; that was the best she could do. The police would have to catch up with him later.

  ‘If anyone’s asking for me, you can tell them I’ve left the building. Better still, tell them I’ve left the country,’ Harry barked and headed for the exit.

  His mind was full of theories about Ben Morgan but none of them made much sense. He wondered if Morgan had been sent by his wife, or by Laura Maxwell, or by both, to worm his way into his confidence and get him to confess to the crimes he was accused of.

  Outside, the sharp, cold air helped to clear his head. He had a lot of unfinished business to take care of, but before he did anything else he intended to track down Morgan and get the truth from him. If necessary, he would beat it out of him.

  He decided against going home to pick up some things because it was just possible the police would be waiting for him. Unlikely, he thought, they’d move that fast, even if they had been told he’d walked out of the hospital – after all, it was Saturday night, and he wasn’t exactly top of the wanted list. But no point in taking the risk; he couldn’t afford the police getting in his way.

  Harry checked the cash in his wallet, took a bus into the town centre, and drew out the maximum he could from various bank machines. He would not use his cards again in case the police tracked them. For what he was planning, he would need to keep off the radar. He paid cash for a pay-as-you-go mobile, which he could buy without giving any personal details; that way it couldn’t be traced to him.

  He checked in to a big hotel on the sea front where he could stay anonymous and then logged on to one of the computers in the lobby. He googled Ben Morgan and up came some press articles detailing his case. Then he read Morgan’s own account, given in graphic detail on a website for divorced fathers.

  The story was a bit disjointed, as if parts of it had been removed, but it made clear that he blamed the lawyer, Laura Maxwell, for what had happened to him. She had driven him over the edge, hounding him to the point where he could not bear it anymore. Harry Pelham read it, and nodded his head, almost unconsciously. It struck a chord, a deep chord. Dear God, did he need to get that woman off his back!

  Morgan had been his own worst enemy. He’d been unable to cope, his medical history and his behaviour had combined to seal his fate, had made him easy meat for Laura Maxwell – she had chewed him up and spat him out. Well, she would not do the same to Harry Pelham. He would make sure of that. He would do whatever it took.

  He concentrated on finding the man. All he had was a name, maybe not even a real one. He tried to recall everything Morgan had said, sifting it for clues. It wasn’t easy because the narrative had been all over the place and there were gaps in his memory caused, he supposed, by the anger he’d felt at what he was hearing.

  He guessed Morgan didn’t live in Brighton or anywhere nearby; if he did, he wouldn’t need to carry around a map of the town. He might be staying with a friend – but who would have him – most likely he was at a hotel or a guest house. Harry found more than 150 of them listed on TripAdvisor; he needed a way to narrow them down.

  Judging by the state of the man, he decided to rule out the expensive places. Morgan’s clothes were shabby; he had a mangy beard and an uncared-for look. Harry remembered the bus ticket. Probably no car then. The chances were he’d come to Brighton by train and used buses to get around.

  He began searching for cheap accommodation within walking distance of the station. He found a booking site which listed the places on a map, and he could adjust the distance to pinpoint those that were within a mile of the station. It had separate lists for hotels and for guest houses. He began with the hotels nearest the station and worked his way outwards. He tried more than thirty before switching to the guest houses, just for a change. Needle in a haystack, he thought, and perhaps Morgan wasn’t in any of them. He looked at his watch, it was getting late; he would give it another half hour. He got a bottle of brandy from the bar and carried on.

  He was ringing a cheap guest house in the back streets when he got lucky. A bored-sounding woman eventually picked up the phone. He asked her his usual question and waited for the usual answer.<
br />
  ‘Hang on,’ she said, ‘I’ll put you through.’

  It took a moment to register – he was expecting the monotonous negative he’d got used to. He waited, the phone to his ear, and then he heard Ben Morgan’s voice, anxious, wary, slightly nasal, unmistakably his. Harry Pelham put down the phone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The doctor in accident and emergency stitched up the gash on Laura’s leg. He told her she had a cracked rib and serious bruising to the left side of her body and her back. He wanted to admit her to hospital for a few days’ observation, but she refused.

  He thought she was being stubborn and foolish but he also thought how busy the hospital was and decided not to push the point. Instead, he turned to Joe in the hope that he had better sense. He told him that if his wife developed a persistent headache or felt dizzy or found any blood in her urine, he should ring at once for an ambulance to bring her in. Then he prescribed painkillers, sedatives, and lots of rest and moved on to the next patient.

  Laura woke up late on Sunday morning. She hadn’t wanted to take the sedatives but Joe had insisted and she hadn’t felt like putting up much of a fight.

  Fear returned as soon as she awoke. Perhaps it had never been away, had been there while she slept, curling through her, seeping into her subconscious mind and growing roots. No longer was it giving out a subtle warning signal; it was waving a huge red flag in her face. Something was wrong, very wrong; she felt it in her bones.

  Joe was sitting in a chair beside the bed. She watched him through closed lashes. He was texting on his mobile, a smile on his face.

  ‘Hi’, she said, yawning and turning towards him. Bad idea. There was a jolt from her rib and she gasped in pain.

  ‘Laura, honey, are you OK?’ he asked, putting the mobile away in his pocket.

  ‘I think so, just have to be careful,’ she smiled and sat up gingerly in the bed. He kissed her, adjusted the pillows, smoothed out the duvet, asked if he could get her any breakfast.

  Laura shook her head, what she wanted more than anything else was to talk; she needed to go through what had happened and try to understand it. She had unloaded it all on Joe the night before but he hadn’t said much. He had seemed too anxious about her injuries, and getting her to the hospital, to pay much attention to what she was telling him.

  Now she began again but almost at once he put his finger to her lips, stroking her hair with his other hand.

  ‘Laura, you have to rest. Just put it out of your mind for today at least.’

  ‘Not much chance of that.’

  ‘I know it’s hard, but you need to relax, get some distance from what’s happened, try to get things in perspective.’

  ‘In perspective,’ she said, ‘what do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, it was just an accident. A horrible accident, but hey, at least you’re not too badly hurt.’

  ‘How can you say that? This was deliberate. Someone put up that wire to get me and didn’t care if they killed me. Maybe they wanted to kill me.’

  ‘Come on, anyone could have been riding there. Nobody could know it would be you. In fact, thinking about it, no one does ride there do they? It’s private land, so that makes it even more unlikely.’

  ‘That’s the whole point, Joe. I go there every week. Me, just me, and probably no one else. Someone must’ve been watching, following me. They laid a trap, don’t you see?’

  He said nothing and she pulled away from him.

  ‘I told you about this guy Ben Morgan,’ she went on, ‘he was crazy all those years ago and he’s probably still crazy. He nearly killed a policeman and he blamed me for losing his kid. And now he’s here, right next to me. Maybe he’s decided it’s time for revenge.’

  ‘OK, calm down. That is a bit weird but why didn’t he just attack you in the street instead of some half-arsed idea of knocking you off your horse? And why wait all this time then suddenly decide he’s coming after you? Doesn’t make any sense. You thought Harry Pelham might be out to get you, now it’s this Ben Morgan.’

  ‘I know someone is out to get me. There’s nothing might about it.’

  ‘There’s no evidence. Listen to yourself. You’re sounding totally irrational.’ There was a note of impatience in his voice.

  She stared at him and his eyes slid away.

  ‘Irrational. I could have died yesterday and I could have died in that car chase, and all you can say is I’m being irrational.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, I can see why you would be, but you’re taking a set of events and reading them the wrong way. Sometimes life throws a whole lot of crap at you. It doesn’t mean that anyone is out to get you.’

  ‘Oh I see. All this crap is one big coincidence is it? And Ben Morgan is in Brighton on his holidays.’

  ‘All I’m saying is to keep an open mind.’

  ‘Well thank you for your support,’ she said icily.

  ‘What does that mean? Of course you have my support.’

  ‘Well it doesn’t feel like it. In fact, it never feels like it anymore.’

  The words came out hot and angry and she knew they sounded childish and a little mad. But they wouldn’t stop. There was a whole steaming torrent of them forcing their way through her lips.

  He heard her out without saying another word. Then he left the room. She sank back on the pillows, exhausted.

  Thoughts came into her mind. Thoughts that had come in before and been rigorously expelled. This time they were crowding in and they wouldn’t be sent away.

  Joe. She felt there had been a change in him. Nothing she could put her finger on exactly. The best way she could describe it was as a withdrawing from her. She had told herself it was nothing to worry about; it was just what happened to all couples when the intensity of first love began to wear off. It hadn’t happened to her yet, but she could accept that it had happened to him.

  Lately, though, she had worried it might be more. Sometimes she would catch him looking at her as if she were a stranger. An irritating stranger. She would try to talk to him but everything she said, every subject she tried, would turn out wrong, as if the lovers’ wavelength they had both been using had been switched off.

  He turned to her less often in bed, and when he did, he was different. Less passion, as if, for him, the edge had gone. There had been a time, not so long ago, when he could not keep his hands off her but now she had begun, almost unconsciously, to count the times they had sex. Once a week, maybe twice if she was lucky. She tried to interest him, excite him, but the effort wasn’t a great success.

  Then there was the baby. He had been so keen, but these days when the subject came up she sensed hesitation, or thought she did. Their plan had been to wait a little longer, until she was made a partner at Morrison Kemp and her position was secure. That had turned out to be more complicated than expected. Morrison was tricky; he blew hot and cold. He enjoyed dangling the partnership in front of her, but she was not certain when, or even if, he would actually deliver.

  Their plan. She thought of it as ‘their plan’. But was it? Wasn’t it her plan designed to fit around her life? After all, they had enough money, they had the hotel business, they didn’t really need her partnership. She had suggested waiting, maybe she had waited too long.

  It was an odd thing about love, she thought. It made you feel like you knew everything about the other person, that no one could ever understand them better. Then later you discovered that perhaps you didn’t know them quite as well as you had imagined.

  Taking small, shallow breaths, Laura got out of bed on shaky legs and went into the shower. She examined her body. Most of her left side was turning purple. It was shocking; the violence of the colour against her white skin.

  She turned up the heat and the hot jet of water soothed her body but it didn’t soothe her mind. It fizzed with the terror of yesterday. Joe had said her fears were irrational, but her instinct told her that wasn’t right. It also told her time was short; there would be a next time and it would be s
oon. In the heat of the shower, an icy fear pierced her chest.

  Much later, though she had no idea how much, she heard Joe’s voice asking if she was all right. Yes, she said, she was fine; she would be out in a minute. She turned off the water, stepped out of the shower and began, painfully, to dry herself.

  When she checked her mobile there was no message from Barnes. No surprise there then. She was sure that even if the sergeant had got around to contacting him, the version of events he would have been given was not going to galvanize him into action on a Sunday. At best it would be on his list for Monday. Call Laura Greene/Maxwell (neurotic). It would be at the bottom of his list.

  But there were two messages from Jeff Ingham, and with a pang of guilt, she remembered. She should have rung back; could not believe she had forgotten. The first message had been left the previous evening while she was at the hospital. She had listened to it on her way home. The laborious process of putting a plaster cast on Valentine’s leg had been successfully completed. He had come round from the anaesthetic all right but he wasn’t happy. Jeff Ingham wanted to discuss what would happen next.

  He had left a second message early that morning. This time his tone was abrupt. Would she call him, please? Valentine had had a bad night. He was distressed and fretful. She guessed the vet had sat up with him for most of the time.

  She rang his number hoping he wouldn’t pick up because that might mean the crisis was over, that he had been able to leave Valentine quiet at the clinic and go home to bed. He answered at once and she braced herself.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get you,’ he said crossly. ‘You need to come down here. Things are not going well.’