by Zoe Sharp
“Thank you,” I said, grateful for his understanding, “but I think I'll be OK. I'll talk to you tomorrow.”
As he rang off he told me to get some sleep. His tone suggestive enough to almost make me offer him a place in my bed to help me try.
***
Maybe, if I'd gone to bed then, I would have managed more sleep than I did. I sat for a long time on the most solid part of my leaking sofa – I really must finish clearing up the stuffing – cradling another cup of coffee and trying to blank the vision of Joy's desperate struggle to cling to life.
Would I have been able to fight any harder? Would I have held out any longer than she had? I looked down again and saw my bloodstained hands.
With a grimace I set down my cup and went to scrub the traces away. Soap struggled to shift the blood now it was dry. I ended up using washing up liquid, with some gritty brown sugar thrown in as an improvised scouring agent. By the time I'd finished my skin was pink and raw, but at least it was clean.
I had just walked back into the lounge again when the phone rang. I picked it up with a smile on my face, thinking that at this hour it could only be Marc, with some just-remembered remark.
“That was a close one, wasn't it, Charlie? Next time, it could be you.”
I lurched. It wasn't Marc. Instead, I heard a quiet sexless voice with a faint mechanical twang to it that took me a moment to place. Then I realised it was the way you sounded when you were using a voice-changer device, like mine. Correction – like the one I used to have, but hadn't been able to find since the flat had been turned over . . .
“Charlie? I know you can hear me,” the voice went on nastily. Oh shit. I jerked away from the receiver as though it had burned me. “I know you're listening. Not so brave now, are you? Your friend wasn't brave. She hardly even struggled. No sport there, Charlie. Not like you.”
“Try me!” I threw at him. Oh Christ, where had that burst of bravado come from? The fear rippled down me, making my spine twitch. I wanted to run away screaming with my hands over my ears, but I was caught, dazzled, like a rabbit in the headlights of the car that was just about to run it over.
The voice gave a delicate laugh. “Maybe next time, Charlie,” it said. “Maybe I will.”
“There won't be a next time,” I said, amazed at how level my own voice sounded.
“Oh there'll definitely be a next time,” repeated the metallic voice. “You won't know where, and you won't know when, but it'll happen. You can count on it.”
I didn't have the capacity to breathe enough to answer that one, but I didn't have to. There was a click and the monotone whirr of an empty line. I let the receiver drop back onto its cradle slowly, stunned.
My legs suddenly opted out of supporting me. I wasn't close enough to the sofa to make it, and I ended up on the floor. My vision started to tunnel out, the blood thundering in my ears. I didn't know if I was going to pass out, or throw up, or both.
I sat there for some time, eyes staring without seeing. He's coming after me! I couldn't get it out of my head. I wanted to panic, or run, but common sense told me that wasn't the answer. If I didn't stand and fight this, I was never going to be able to stop running.
I shook myself out of my stupor long enough to dial 1471. The frosty-voiced automated lady at BT told me I had been called today and gave me the precise time, then added unsurprisingly that the caller had withheld their number.
“Thanks,” I told her. “That's a great help,” but she didn't respond to the jibe.
***
I didn't move far that night. I dozed fitfully, shivering, wrapped up in what was left of my quilt and still wearing the clothes I'd changed into when I got home. The thought of facing a would-be murderer naked was too much to bear. It was a long cold night, and I'm not just talking about time and temperature.
I kept the light on, and stayed away from the windows. The phone rang another couple of times in the early hours, but I'd put the answering machine back on by then. Both times the caller rang off without waiting for the beep as instructed, and the numbers were withheld.
I could only guess it was my friendly neighbourhood psycho again. It seemed only too likely.
By seven I gave up any idea of sleep and got up, pacing round the flat restlessly, unable to settle to anything. Eventually I gave in and admitted defeat. I picked up the phone, dialling Lancaster police station quickly, before I'd chance to chicken out.
When they answered I asked to be put through to whoever was dealing with Joy's death.
A detective inspector came onto the line and I explained to him who I was. “I don't wish to sound alarmist,” I said carefully, “but I think whoever killed Joy might have decided that it's my turn next.”
Eighteen
By the time the doorbell rang just after nine-thirty, I had managed to keep myself occupied by clearing up more of the rubbish. There was now a row of eight or so plastic bags near the door and I was just tackling the stuffing from the sofa.
I straightened up slowly, my vision narrowing sharply as I did so. Jesus, I was going to have to eat something soon. I hadn't been able to face food when I got in last night, and I'd missed breakfast.
Over-cautious, I checked through the Judas glass to see who my visitor was. A man was holding up an open wallet towards the outside of the glass. Even through the fish-eye lens I could recognise the police insignia. I unlocked the door and opened it warily.
“Miss Fox, is it?” he asked politely and I agreed that I was indeed she.
The man was smartly dressed, a good dark blue suit, well cut, with a startlingly white shirt and a conservative tie. At first I'd thought him in his late thirties, but looking closer I realised he was probably ten years older at least, wearing well. His eyes were an indistinct green colour, and they looked straight at me without blinking.
“I'm Detective Superintendent MacMillan,” he said, his voice was well-spoken, with a purposeful clip to the words. “I thought it was time we had a little chat.”
He handed me the wallet. I've always thought warrant cards look more like a bus pass, encased in clear plastic with an unflattering photo on the front. I studied it for a while before handing it back and stepping to one side.
“Come in,” I said, adding wryly. “Excuse the mess, won't you, but I've had visitors.”
The Superintendent favoured me with a moment of brief stillness, hovering between amusement and censure, then he walked into the flat and looked around him with detached professionalism. He didn't make the expected comments about how shocking the abrupt viciousness of Joy's departure from this life had been, or shake his head in disbelief at the whole sorry business.
There was a weariness about him that told me clearly he'd seen far too much to be shocked by anything any more, and I could guess there was very little he wouldn't believe when it came to the lower reaches of human nature.
“Do you mind if I carry on sorting this out while we talk?” I said, gesturing to the half-filled bags. “Only it's taken me ages to work up the energy to make a start and I don't want to stop now.”
He gave me a shrug of assent. “Would it be pointless to ask what happened here?”
“I should have thought it was pretty obvious,” I said. “I was burgled.”
“But you didn't report it,” he pointed out with a hint of reproof, and it was a statement, not a question.
“I was here at the time,” I said, opting for a half-truth. “The men who did this made it absolutely clear what they'd do to me if I involved the police.” I bent to shovel more debris into the bag. “Things can be replaced.”
The Superintendent didn't reply immediately, just favoured me with a long cool stare. He moved round the perimeter of the lounge with measured precision, ducking his nose into all the rooms with deceptive speed. He paused momentarily in front of the punchbag, still suspended from its hook in the corner.
He never seemed to be in a hurry, but by the time I'd thought to object to his inspection, it was too late, he'd alr
eady done it. I left him to it and carried on scraping more of the sofa stuffing into another bag.
By the time I'd finished he was back in the lounge, staring with a touch of wistfulness out of the window at the quay and the river below.
I straightened up and regarded him bleakly. The Superintendent reminded me of some of the best martial arts experts I'd come across. There was a deadly kind of calm about him. He was the sort who could walk into a pub where there was a full scale brawl going on and practically quieten the room with a half-dozen carefully chosen words.
He had an authority that doesn't just come with rank. And he was perceptive. I got the impression that very little escaped those muddy green eyes. He rattled me, and I was trying hard not to let it show.
I tied the top of the bag with string and chucked it onto the growing pile. He watched me in silence until my patience gave out. He'd probably intended that it should. “So, what's the script?”
“You tell me, Miss Fox,” he said, turning away from the window with reluctance. “You told my inspector that you'd had a threatening phone call last night. What did this man say? I assume it was a man, by the way?”
“I think so,” I told him. “It was difficult to tell, but the speech rhythms were more male.”
He frowned. “Difficult to tell – how?”
“I think he was using a voice changer. They're popular with women who live alone. It makes you sound more masculine, but there's a slight artificial note when you're using it.”
“You sound very well informed.”
I shrugged. “I teach self-defence to women,” I said, adding with remarkable composure, “and I used to have one myself.”
Used to, being the operative way of putting it. I'd spent a couple of fruitless hours searching the flat before he got there, but I'd singularly failed to turn up my voice changer box. I had to admit it – it was gone.
That was a nasty coincidence I didn't really want to believe in, but I didn't have much of a choice. For the moment, however, I pushed it to the back of my mind and tried to make like it wasn't there.
I repeated what my mystery caller had said to me as closely as I could remember. It wasn't difficult. The words were acid-etched into my brain.
When I finished the Superintendent looked pensive. He came and perched on my sofa, rubbing his chin absently. I noticed he was old-fashioned enough to be wearing neat gold cuff-links.
“You do realise, of course,” he said, “that we have reason to believe the incident last night is linked to the serious assault on another young woman a few weeks ago, and a more recent rape and murder?”
My heart over-revved so hard it bumped painfully in my chest. My mouth was suddenly dry. “It's the same man who killed Susie Hollins?” I said faintly. “But she was raped, and so was the other girl. Does that mean – Joy – did he—?”
MacMillan's face was shuttered, giving absolutely nothing away. It wasn't difficult to imagine him sitting quietly behind a table in a darkened interview room somewhere, watching some villain sweat as he twisted on the hook of a confession. People would talk just to fill the silence in him.
I opened my mouth to ask, “If it's the same bloke, how does Terry fit in?”, but then I remembered I wasn't supposed to know about that. There hadn't been much in the press about his death yet. Not enough for me to have a viable reason to believe they were linked, at any rate.
I glanced up and found MacMillan studying me, as though he'd been eavesdropping on my thoughts. Instead of my question about Terry, I swallowed and said, “So, what happens now?”
“Well, we could put a tap your phone and trace all your calls, intercept your mail, and put a watch on the place – if you really want us to go to those lengths, of course,” he said, his voice casual, even as he was studying me with a sudden intensity. “If someone really is threatening you, we can probably get them by one of those means.”
“What d'you mean, if?” I could feel my voice rising, and made an effort to control it. “You mean you don't believe me?”
He cocked his head on one side. “Well, let's look at the facts for a moment shall we, Miss Fox? We've got a rapist and murderer on the loose. A very dangerous man, but at the same time one who's shown himself to be both clever, and careful. So far, he's been selecting his victims apparently at random, probably because he knows how difficult that makes it for us to catch him.”
MacMillan started to pace again, measured steps, light on his feet. “But now,” he continued in an almost silky tone, “now, miraculously, he's made the seemingly ludicrous mistake of telegraphing his next move to us by ringing you up and nicely telling you that you're to be his next target.”
I felt the knife twist in my side. I'd been faced with this kind of suspicion before, and it had damned near finished me.
“Why would I lie?”
“Well now, Miss Fox,” he said quietly, “it wouldn't be the first time you've cried this particular brand of wolf, would it?”
I wanted to speak, but my tongue seemed to have stuck itself to the roof of my mouth.
“I have to ask,” he went on remorselessly, “why you think that claiming people have threatened to kill you would work any better in civilian life than it did four years ago when you were facing being thrown out of the armed forces? What do you hope to gain this time, Miss Fox?” There was something about the stress he put on my surname that alerted me to the dangers of this soft-spoken man. Much more than the actual words.
I met his eyes, and realised with a cold clutch of dread that he knew. He knew everything.
“I suppose I shouldn't really call you Miss Fox at all, should I?” MacMillan said, with the slow inevitability of a steam traction engine. “Seeing as it was only when you moved to Lancaster that you changed your name, wasn't it? To Fox from Foxcroft. Now, why was that, exactly?”
There was no point in prevarication, or lying. “You've obviously done your digging,” I said instead, feeling my face curling up like a salted slug. “Why don't you tell me?”
My words were empty bravado. I didn't need the Superintendent to remind me what had happened.
My case at the court martial had rested mainly on the testimony of another soldier, Kirk Salter. A man I barely knew, but one who'd saved my life.
Kirk had scraped onto the course mainly because of his physical prowess. His head might have been little more than a life support system for a beret, but he could carry a GPMG and two hundred rounds of belted ammunition over an assault course without breaking sweat. And his heart was firmly in the right place.
If he hadn't stumbled on my attackers before they'd put their cover-up plan into action, I'd have ended up as another tragic crime statistic. If my body had ever been found.
Donalson, Hackett, Morton, and Clay.
They'd been fully intending to snap my neck like a winged pheasant and bury me in shallow grave somewhere in the nearest woods. Kirk had stopped them going through with it, and I'd always be grateful to him for that.
Then he'd been pressured – bullied, cajoled – into denying, under oath, that such a plot had ever existed. I reckoned that just about cancelled out the debt.
“Was changing your name your idea, or your parents'?” MacMillan asked now. “It caused quite a scandal at the time, didn't it? First the court martial, then when you tried to pursue the matter in the civil courts.” He looked at me briefly and I thought I saw the pity in his face before he lowered his gaze to concentrate on adjusting his cuff-link. “The tabloids had a high old time of it with you, didn't they, Charlie?”
I swallowed. Oh yes, they had indeed.
There hadn't been anything in the papers to start with, of course. The army don't tend to wash their dirty linen in public if they can help it. Once I'd made the foolish mistake of bringing a civil action, though, then they really let rip.
To begin with, the headlines had just been sensational. Girl soldier gang-raped by fellow squaddies. As if the ordeal itself hadn't been enough to live through, I'd then had to fa
ce the vindictive clutches of the media. At first they'd overflowed with fake sympathy. My story should be told, they said. Make it a lesson that others could learn from. Stop it happening to some other poor girl.
Then, God knows how, some particular ferreting had brought out my relationship with Sean. Oh, he wasn't married, or anything like that. That would have been too straightforward. Instead, he was one of my training instructors, and that was a complete no-no as far as the top brass were concerned. Relieved to have so easy a get-out presented to them on a plate, the full might of the army had swung against me. I never stood a chance.
As for the press, in the space of a print-run I was transformed from an innocent victim into an immoral slut. If I was prepared to screw one soldier, why not a whole bunch of them? Maybe, they reasoned, the men's claims that I'd been a willing participant weren't so far-fetched?