Just because he was paranoid it didn’t mean that they weren’t out to get him, after all. And they did have good reason. At least ten good reasons.
The fake plates he rewrapped in the plastic bags and placed beneath the bricks, just in case he might need them again. Then he removed the tax disc from the holder on the windscreen and replaced it with one that was identical apart from the fact that the licence number matched his own, not the fake one. That one was registered to Chris Ashwell – a fake identity that he had created for himself some years before, and still periodically updated.
His father called down the stairs immediately the front door closed.
‘Carl? At last! I need to talk to you.’
He quickly checked himself over. Nothing that would give away what he’d been doing.
He took the stairs two at a time. His father was sitting up in bed, yesterday’s newspaper beside him on the bed.
‘Dad, are you okay?’
His father looked at him quizzically. ‘I was dozing. Before that I was reading the paper. There’s nothing happening in the world. It’s all old news.’
‘Can I get you anything? A cup of tea?’
Nicholas thought for a moment. ‘I’d like to come downstairs later, if that’s all right. I feel like watching TV for a while.’
‘Okay, I’ll help you. Can I have a bath first?’
‘Of course.’
‘And I’ll prepare dinner while you’re watching TV.’
A hesitant expression crossed Nicholas’s face. ‘Is your mother still coming to dinner? That is tonight, isn’t it?’
‘It is, and she is. In fact, I’ll give her a quick ring while the kettle’s boiling to check what time she’s planning on coming over.’
Downstairs, Carl picked up the handset and pressed the memory button for his mother’s number.
‘Eleanor Whittley, hello?’
‘Mum, it’s Carl. I wanted to check what time you were coming round.’
A pause. ‘Coming round?’
Carl began to get a cold feeling around his stomach. She was going to cancel. Again. ‘Coming round for dinner. You said you were going to. Dad’s been looking forward to it.’
‘Sorry, I meant to let you know. I had a call earlier from the police.’
Carl took a deep breath. ‘You’ve got a job?’
‘With Essex Constabulary. They want me to consult on a murder case. You may have heard about it on the news: a girl, a newsreader of some kind. There are details about the case that mean they need an expert in abnormal psychology.’
Carl felt light-headed. Finally, after all this time, it had happened. His mother would be examining one of the murders that he had committed! He felt as if he had been wrapped in cotton wool, as if he were detached from the world and everything around him was slowly tilting to one side.
‘Carl?’
He snapped back. ‘Sorry. I was just … just thinking how good it is that you’ve got something to interest you.’
‘It’s not just interest; it’s a great deal of money. Money we need.’
‘Yeah, sorry. When are you seeing them?’
‘I will be meeting the investigating officer at the crime scene this afternoon. After that I’m going to have to spend several hours going over my notes and my first impressions, transforming them into a potential psychological profile of the killer. It’s going to take some time, and I can’t afford any distractions. I’m sure you understand how important this is to me.’
‘Of course I do.’ He paused. ‘You could pop round later. For supper.’
‘I need to make my notes as soon as possible after seeing the crime scene, otherwise I might lose those precious vital first impressions. I’ll ring tomorrow. We’ll reschedule.’
‘Okay.’ He paused, wanting to find out more but uncertain how to proceed without raising her suspicions. Then it struck him. ‘Hey – why don’t I drive over and pick you up this afternoon, then drive you down to Chigwell? It’s a longish drive, and it’ll give you a chance to catch up on the details of the case and think it through, rather than tire yourself out driving. You know how you hate wasting time behind the wheel.’
He wanted to go on, reinforcing the point, but he held himself back. His mother hated to feel as if she was being pushed into anything.
Her voice was cautious. ‘Are you sure you can spare the time?’
‘Of course. I haven’t seen you for weeks, and I was expecting to see you tonight anyway.’
‘What about your father?’
Your father. Not Nicholas. Not my husband. ‘I’ll make sure he’s got food and water. He’ll be fine watching TV.’
A pause. ‘Well, it would give me a chance to review the facts. And I wasn’t looking forward to driving.’
‘Okay, it’s a date,’ he said, not giving her a chance to talk herself out of it. ‘Pick you up about three o’clock?’
‘Okay. Thank you, Carl.’
With a bath run, his father’s tea and the news about his mother delivered and a mug of coffee perched on the edge of the tub, he stripped off and stepped into the steaming water. Warmth spread like a slow death through his body, and he sank deeper in the water until just his face and his knees were exposed to the cold air.
The skin on his arms was still red and prickly, and the heat of the bath was uncomfortable against it. There were patches of redness across his chest as well, and he could feel it on his back. What the hell was happening? He really needed to see a doctor.
He tried to put the skin rash from his mind. The bath might ease it, and if not he had some E45 cream that he usually used on the skin around his father’s colostomy stoma – the opening that had been created when his resectioned large intestine had been attached to his stomach wall. The opening through which all of his food now emerged into a plastic bag which Carl had to empty out and clean every day.
No. Don’t think about that. Think instead about Catherine Charnaud, and what you did to her, because you’re going to be able to relive it all through your mother’s investigation, even if she isn’t aware of it.
Relaxing in the placental caress of the bath, Carl let himself drift back, recreating from his memories the architecture of that long and bloody evening …
The night air was crisply cold, and a light frost was blanching the grass borders outside the walled fronts of the houses. Carl let his left foot relax on the clutch pedal as his car drifted along the road. The engine choked a couple of times, then stalled and died. He let the car drift under its own momentum, turning the wheel until the vehicle ran to a halt against the kerb. He twisted the key a couple of times in the ignition but left the clutch in first gear. The engine failed to catch.
He got out of the car and looked around, letting an expression of mild worry tighten his face, scrunching his eyes and mouth up. It was just past midnight. The sky was wisped with cloud and decorated with stars. There were no other cars on the road, and no lights on in the houses behind their high walls.
Carl’s breath clouded in front of his face. He leaned back into the car and released the bonnet catch, then walked around to the front and pulled the bonnet up, propping it in place with a hinged rod inside. The massive block of the engine steamed slightly in the cold, and clicked like a metal insect as it cooled. Warmth radiated off it. He stood back, hands on hips, staring at the engine as if he had no idea what it was.
He stood there for a few minutes, leaning forward every now and then as though he was fiddling with something inside, although he didn’t actually touch anything – acting for an audience that almost certainly didn’t exist. Eventually he stepped back and reached into his pocket for a small silvery object that looked for all the world like a mobile phone. He tapped the ‘on’ button, taking care not to over-dramatise the gesture, then tapped it again and shook his head. It wasn’t a mobile phone at all, but nobody watching – in the unlikely event that anyone was watching – would know that.
He heard a car engine in the distance. It got loude
r. He knew the sound – it was Catherine Charnaud’s Vauxhall Tigra, and it was right on time.
Every weekday night Catherine finished the Ten O’Clock News broadcast, and then got changed, had her make-up removed and left the offices of the cable TV channel where she worked. She went to a nearby bar with a handful of colleagues – a small core of regulars and a wider corona of hangers on, and had a few cocktails. A smaller group then went on to a nightclub for an hour or so while Catherine left at half past eleven. She was invariably alone. The drive from the nightclub to her home in Chigwell took thirty minutes at that time in the morning. Carl had been watching her every night for two weeks. Some nights her footballer boyfriend was home, but on Tuesday nights he trained late and then went for a Chinese with his teammates and then on to a nightclub. She would be alone until about five a.m.
As the Vauxhall Tigra got closer, Carl stepped back from the car. He didn’t try and flag the Tigra down, didn’t even try and make eye contact with the driver. He just tried to keep the worried look on his face. People in Catherine Charnaud’s position were wary of approaches and entreaties. The newsreader had to think this was her idea.
The Tigra’s revs dropped, then rose again as the car swept past Carl and turned towards the gates of the house. If Carl heard the gate mechanism whirr into life then he knew that the two weeks of surveillance had been wasted, but the car just sat there, motor still running, as the newsreader debated what to do. Carl raised his mobile again and pressed the ‘on’ button, then shook his head.
He heard the Tigra’s door open. The engine was still running.
‘Are you okay?’ Catherine Charnaud’s voice was familiar from the television but, despite two weeks of surveillance, not something that Carl had heard for real before. It was lighter and slightly more breathless than on television.
Carl turned, making sure that his expression was a mixture of embarrassment and eagerness, trying to make himself as small and unthreatening as possible. He’d deliberately dressed in clothes that made him look more like a teenager, emphasising his slight stature. ‘My engine just … died,’ he said. ‘It can’t be the petrol – I filled it up yesterday. I don’t know much about cars. I’ve only been driving a few months.’
Catherine was wrapped up in a bulky suede jacket. Her face was blotchier than it appeared on TV, when it was covered in make-up. ‘You probably need to call a mechanic,’ she said, maintaining her distance. Her face was fixed, professional.
Carl winced. ‘Battery’s flat on my mobile,’ he said, holding the object in his hand up as if Catherine could spot a discharged battery from ten feet away. ‘I meant to charge it up this morning, but I had to help my dad get up and time just got away from me. He’s an invalid.’ He paused, letting a worried expression cross his face. ‘He’ll be worried sick about me.’
Catherine was obviously dubious. She probably had too much experience of paparazzi and gutter journalists trying to fool their way into the house she shared with her footballing boyfriend, but Carl was counting on his own youth and innocence and her natural, instinctive helpfulness not having been completely obliterated by the protective armour of celebrity.
‘You’re out very late,’ Catherine said: more of a holding gambit than anything else while she evaluated Carl.
‘I’m a nurse,’ Carl said, the explanation pre-prepared as one of the more reassuring ones he could use. ‘I was on the late shift.’
‘This is a cul de sac, you know? Did you get lost?’
Carl grimaced, and looked around. ‘When the engine cut out, I managed to get it to coast around the corner,’ he said. ‘I felt too vulnerable out on the main road at this time of night. I thought I could wait here until the mechanic arrived.’ He waved the thing in his hand. ‘And then this failed. It’s just not my evening.’
Catherine’s expression softened noticeably. She was going to fall for it. ‘Do you want to use my mobile?’ she said.
‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly …’ Carl said, then, ‘… well, if you don’t mind.’ He took the proffered phone and made a big play of consulting a card in his wallet before tapping out a number. In fact, the number he was using was that of a firm of mechanics that he had memorised earlier that day, one he knew closed at five o’clock.
‘McGilivray Recovery is now closed,’ a tinny voice said.
‘Hello?’ He pressed the mobile closer to his ear so that Catherine couldn’t hear.
‘Our hours of business are eight a.m. until six p.m. Please phone back between those times.’
‘My name is Dominic Hawely. My car has died. Could someone come and take a look at it?’
‘Your custom is important to us,’ the voice said reassuringly.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know my membership number,’ Carl continued, ignoring what the recorded message was saying. ‘My dad usually handles that kind of thing.’ He paused while the dial tone cut in, listening, then gave the fake licence number of his car and a fake address fifteen miles away in East London. ‘Can’t you get someone out faster than that? No, I understand. I’m in Holy Cross Road, Chingford. I don’t know the postcode. Okay, thank you.’ He cut the call and handed the mobile back to Catherine. ‘All of their vans are out at the moment,’ he said apologetically. ‘Apparently they can’t even guarantee they’ll be here within an hour. I suppose I’ll just have to wait in the car. They’ll phone when they’re nearby.’
Catherine’s face was a picture of indecision. ‘Why not come in and have a coffee?’ she said eventually and slowly. ‘I’d hate to think of you out here by yourself. I mean, the area’s safe and everything, but it’s late, and you never know.’
Carl smiled hesitantly. ‘Thanks for the offer,’ he said, ‘but you probably want to get to bed. I’ll be fine.’ He glanced around with just the right degree of uncertainty. ‘Really, I will.’
‘I wouldn’t hear of it,’ Catherine said. ‘Come on in. I work late myself, so I can afford to sleep in. Look, I’ll drive the car in and you follow. It’s only a short walk to the house. I’ll meet you by the front door.’
She smiled at Carl, and Carl smiled back. Catherine headed for her car, pressing a small remote control as she did so. The gates to the house swung open. Catherine climbed into her car, engine still idling, and put it in gear, then glanced over to see whether Carl was following. Carl waved encouragingly, and Catherine drove through the gates. Carl followed. The difficult part of the job was done. All he had to do now was kill the girl.
The house was close to the gate, separated only by a few yards of pebbled driveway. It was large, square, new, and probably had five or six bedrooms. Security lights illuminated the red-brick construction. Carl immediately noticed the security cameras. He would have to find out where their signals were recorded to and delete them, or trash the system.
Catherine parked in front of the house, and climbed out of the car. Carl joined her as the gates were closing, cutting them off from the commonplace world outside. People like Catherine and her footballer boyfriend wanted all the advantages of living in a city without the disadvantages of neighbours. The problem was, as Catherine was about to find out, that isolation in the heart of civilisation had its downside.
Based on his previous surveillance, Carl knew he had at least four hours before the boyfriend came home. That should be enough time, but it was worth checking. ‘What about your husband?’ he said hesitantly. ‘We won’t be disturbing him, will we?’
‘It’s my boyfriend, and he called me earlier,’ Catherine said as she slid a key into the door. ‘He won’t be back until sunrise. We keep strange hours around here.’ She opened the massive front door. An electronic whistle started up, slicing through the cold night air, and she typed a set of numbers into a keypad just inside the lobby. The whistle cut out. ‘Security,’ Catherine muttered. ‘Bane of my life.’
‘But so necessary,’ Carl murmured. He still had the object that resembled a mobile phone, even down to the bright LCD screen, in his hand. He pressed a button on the side and t
wo prongs sprang out from just above the screen. Jabbing the prongs into Catherine’s exposed neck he pressed the large red ‘call’ button.
Eight hundred thousand volts shot from the stun gun batteries into Catherine Charnaud’s nervous system. She jerked as every muscle in her body contracted, then dropped gracelessly to the floor. Carl pushed her further inside the lobby with his foot, then shut the door behind him. It closed with a definitive thunk.
The hall was carpeted in a deep-pile wool in a pastel blue. The stairs were bare wood, probably oak. Carl needed somewhere he could immobilise the girl and get to work on her. The bedroom would probably be best – he could tie the girl’s hands to the headboard, assuming there was a headboard, and the placing of the body would have a neat kind of erotic symbolism about it that would send the police off in entirely the wrong direction.
Carl gazed down at the vaguely twitching body. Perhaps he should have waited until Catherine was upstairs, but coming up with an excuse to get both of them up there without it looking like he was trying to seduce the girl might have been tricky. Perhaps the seduction line might have worked, but there was no guarantee. Not with only four hours until the boyfriend came home, unless Catherine liked living dangerously or the boyfriend like threesomes.
He bent down and, taking one of Catherine’s arms, turned her over then pulled her to a sitting position. Crouching, Carl pulled the girl’s arm over his shoulder and then straightened up, bringing her with him in the standard ‘fireman’s lift’. She was light – verging on the anorexic – and Carl could carry her up the stairs with relative ease.
The main bedroom was easy to find. It was obviously Catherine’s house, judging by the way the room was decorated. Carl couldn’t imagine a footballer choosing it of his own accord. Fortunately, the bed did have a headboard. He bent over and allowed Catherine to slump onto the duvet. The girl’s eyelids were flickering and she was still twitching. The marks where Carl had jabbed the prongs into Catherine’s neck were blistered slightly, and red, but there was no blood. A few more minutes and she would be able to move properly. Carl had to work fast.
Tooth and Claw Page 10