by Tania Carver
‘And what did you do? What did you make him do?
‘We turned him into . . . anything we wanted, really.’
‘A weapon?’
The sneering smile made a small reappearance. ‘The British Army had already done that to him.’
‘You just refined the process, yeah?’
Turner shrugged.
‘So, this programming. How’d you do it?’
‘Told him . . . told him what he wanted to hear.’
‘And what was that?’
‘Rani. That was the translator he killed. The woman. We told him she was still alive. Still . . . still in love with him.’ Another laugh. ‘And he believed it. Stupid bastard.’
‘How did that work?’
‘She spoke to him.’
‘How?’
‘Through her BlackBerry. She texted him. We told him it was the spirit of Rani speaking to him. He had to imagine that the words that appeared on his phone he could hear in his head. And he could text back to talk to her.’
‘And he believed that?’
‘Yeah. Soft bastard.’
Mickey sat back, sighed. This wasn’t what he was expecting. This was too much. He didn’t know how to deal with it. He gave a quick glance to the screen, hoped Marina saw the signal.
‘Oh God,’ said Marina in Mickey’s ear. ‘He must be some kind of . . . let me think . . . borderline personality? Psychopath? Certainly with psychopathic tendencies. Something like that. I don’t know enough about him. Ask him how they made it convincing.’
‘How did you convince him it was actually Rani talking to him? Could have been anyone pretending to be her.’
‘He did it because there’s not much left of him and he wanted to believe. She’s all he had left.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And she told him what he wanted to hear. That she was coming back to him. He just had to find her.’
‘Find her? How?’
‘She would be in different bodies. He’d be told where she was, what she looked like. And that Rani’s spirit would be inside some woman. He had to watch her until we told him otherwise.’
‘And then?’
Turner shrugged. ‘We didn’t want them any more. Got rid of them.’
Mickey sat back, letting the information sink in. He couldn’t believe it. Didn’t see how someone would fall for it, no matter how mentally damaged they must be.
‘I don’t believe you,’ he said. ‘No one would fall for something as lame as that. No matter what condition they were in.’
Turner just laughed. ‘You haven’t seen the Creeper. You wouldn’t say that if you had.’
‘Messed up?’
‘Totally.’
And even more messed up by the time you two had finished with him, thought Mickey, but decided not to say it aloud.
‘So . . . help me here, Mark. I’m trying to understand. You’ve got this guy to . . . what? Kill for you?’
Turner shrugged.
‘What does he do? Talk me through it.’
‘We give him a target. He stalks them, we get him going, tell him things about them, what they feel for him. He gets obsessed, goes mental over them. Then we tell him the spirit’s gone, jumped to another body.’
‘And . . . what then? He kills them?’ A feeling of dread went through Mickey as he waited for the answer.
Turner shook his head. ‘We tell him they’re husks, the bodies. Just husks. No use any more. Then we get him to put them away somewhere.’
‘Where?’
‘Somewhere safe.’
‘And leave them there?’
He nodded.
‘Why?’
‘Because we might need them again. That’s the next stage. Programming someone who’s not a nutter like him. Someone normal. See what we can do with them.’
‘And because they might tell.’
Turner shrugged. Casual. ‘Yeah. That too.’
Mickey sat back, his head spinning from all the information. He shook his head, tried to clear it. ‘But why? Why, Mark? Why do all this?’
Turner leaned forward, eyes alive with a sick, dark light. ‘Because we can, that’s why . . .’
‘Keep focused, Mickey.’ Marina in his ear again. ‘Ask him about the victims. Who chose them, how they were chosen. He’s not telling us the whole story. And I don’t know why. Either he doesn’t know it all or he’s holding something back. Find out which it is.’
‘Who chose the girls, Mark?’
‘Fiona.’
‘All Mark’s ex-girlfriends,’ said Marina. ‘Interesting.’
‘So you didn’t mind that they were all your ex-girlfriends, Mark? That Fiona was targeting them?’
Turner flinched, a sharp, quick stab of pain showed in his face. Then nothing. In control again. He forced a shrug. ‘Why? I’m above all that now. Doesn’t matter, does it?’
‘No he’s not, Mickey, he flinched. They’re his old girlfriends and it still hurts, no matter what he says.’
Mickey looked at him, listened to Marina.
‘It’s his weak spot. We’ve got him,’ she said in his ear. ‘Go in for the kill. Finish him off.’
99
Phil stared at Fiona Welch, tried to ignore the pain in his cheek, just concentrate. Talk to her.
‘So . . .’
A wave of pain ran through him. He tamped it down, breathed deeply. Fiona Welch’s head was cocked to one side as if she was an animal, listening. Or an anthropologist, observing. Her face was serene, sweet.
Phil tried again. ‘Fiona,’ he said, ‘what’s this going to prove? You can’t get away with it.’
She shrugged, smiled sweetly. Didn’t answer.
‘The rest of the team are going to be looking for me. I told them where I was going. When they get here, they’ll get you too.’
Another shrug. ‘So?’
‘So you’ll be caught. Prison.’
‘So?’
Phil shook his head. She was beyond reasoning with. ‘What d’you hope to get out of this?’
‘My Ph.D.’
Phil wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly. ‘What?’
‘My Ph.D. It’s in Victimology and Coercion. It examines how a subservient personality can be totally controlled by a dominant one. It also examines the mindset of the victim, the methodology needed to create that particular mindset in the first instance.’ She smiled. ‘With examples.’
Phil couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘So, you mean . . . you did all this, the murders, the abductions, everything . . . just for your Ph.D.?’
She looked affronted. ‘Why not? I told you I had a point to prove. This was it.’
‘But . . .’ Phil didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. ‘You’re going to spend the rest of your life in prison for this.’
‘So?’
‘So? What’s the good of your Ph.D. if you’re going to be in prison?’
She shook her head slowly, grinned patronisingly, as if explaining a very obvious point to a very thick child. ‘The Ph.D. is still a Ph.D. In prison or anywhere.’ Her eyes glittered in the dark, like stabbing razor flashes. ‘And just think . . . I’d be famous.’
Phil couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Famous.’
‘Yes. Famous.’ She looked away, thinking, lost in her words, her mind. ‘No. I won’t just be famous, I’ll be notorious. No. That’s not right either. I’ll be . . . adored.’ She nodded. ‘Yes. That’s the right word. Adored. I’ll get letters. Visitors. They’ll write books about me. Serious, proper works, not just cheap lurid paperbacks. I’ll have my own acolytes. Disciples.’ She turned to Phil. ‘Do you know Charles Manson never killed anyone? He just made others do it for him. Yet he’s still locked up. And he’s just some stinking, addled old hippie. He’s nothing next to me . . .’
That’s when Phil realised she was completely insane. He had only suspected it before but now she had confirmed it. And in that moment another thought struck him.
I may not get out of here alive.
He saw Marina in his mind’s eye. Josephina next to her. Had he just got them back for him to be taken away from them? Permanently?
100
Suzanne was awake. And listening to every word.
She lay curled up on the walkway, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe. It was something she had perfected in the box. Her eyes were half open, darting back and forward between this policeman, Phil Brennan, and the mad woman who had captured him. She recognised her from the hospital. Fiona something. A psychologist. She was behind this? Why? They had hardly exchanged two words.
But it was the presence behind the mad woman that eyes kept being drawn to. The hulking, mute presence, silent except for his rasping breathing. He was mostly in shadow but not totally, and as he moved from foot to foot she recognised him.
He had the face of a nightmare.
She tried not to look up, for fear of attracting attention to herself - because she had seen what the madwoman’s attention had done to Phil Brennan’s face - but she couldn’t keep her eyes off the man in the shadows. The Creeper, the madwoman had called him. That made sense. Considering what he had done to her. In her own home.
Her own bedroom.
But she had been following the conversation. Or as best as she could. The madwoman had made the Creeper think that she - Suzanne - was the spirit of a dead woman? And that’s why he was stalking her? If someone else had said that to her, told her that it had happened to them, she would have said they were lying. That she had never heard anything more insane in her life. But it wasn’t someone else. It had happened to her. And she had never been through anything more terrifying in her life.
And she still wasn’t free of it. She was still here.
She gave another surreptitious glance round. Directly ahead were Phil Brennan and the madwoman. Behind them was the Creeper. No escape there. She slowly moved her head, pretended it was a random gesture. Looked the other way down the walkway.
Darkness.
She squinted. She was sure she could see a set of stairs among the shadows, leading down from the gantry to the floor. But not sure enough to make a run for it. Along the gantry hung chains, clanking in the breeze, or when anyone moved. Some with huge hooks on them, some with heavy counterweights. Could she grab one, swing down to the ground? Would that be the best way to get down? Would that be faster than someone coming down the stairs after her?
She checked herself. What was she thinking? Was that how desperate she was to escape? That she was willing to risk her life that much just to get away?
Yes. It was.
So how could she do it?
She hadn’t worked that out yet. She still didn’t have enough strength in her body to make a move. The walk up the stairs to the walkway had given her a chance to exercise her legs, get her circulation moving again. Probably helped more than they realised. But not yet. The time wasn’t right yet.
So she lay there. Faking unconsciousness. Or something near to it.
Biding her time until it was time to go.
Time to break free.
101
Mickey looked at Mark Turner sitting slumped down in his seat. Aiming to look like a slouching student at a boring lecture, Mickey knew better. It was a posture of defeat. Turner was on the way to being broken.
I’m going to have you, Mickey thought. Time to take you down.
‘So,’ Mickey said, leaning in once more, ‘Fiona chose all the girls. The victims.’
He nodded.
‘Why those in particular?’
‘Because they all looked like that dead woman, the one the Creeper was obsessed with. Rani.’
‘All dark-haired and brown-eyed?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And it was just coincidence that they were all your ex-girlfriends? ’
Turner, without moving in the chair or changing position, shrugged.
‘Is that a yes?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you were happy with that?’
‘Yeah.’ Eyes down, gaze averted. Something there he didn’t want Mickey to see.
‘Fiona Welch knew you’d had other girlfriends. I’ll bet she asked you about them. She probably saw you with them. That’s why she wanted you.’
Turner said nothing.
‘You went out with the popular girls at uni and at work. Must have made her jealous. Must have made her want you.’
Again, Turner didn’t speak.
‘And what if you still had a thing for one of them? Or all of them? She wouldn’t have liked that. Better get them out of the way. Remove the competition. So she did. One by one. And got you to help her.’
Turner remained silent.
‘Why did that not bother you, Mark?’ He waited. ‘Mark?’
‘Told you why.’ His posture more withdrawn, his voice more sullen.
Getting to an uncomfortable truth, thought Mickey. Making him face up to demons he’s been trying to ignore.
‘That you were superior to all that. That you were superior to human emotions.’
‘Yeah.’
‘All human emotions.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Like love.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Liar.’
Turner shot up like he’d just been slapped, shocked and wide-eyed at the sudden change in Mickey’s tone.
‘You fucking liar.’
Turner’s eyes widened. ‘You can’t . . .’
‘What? Talk to you like that? Why not? You’re a lair.’
‘No I’m not . . .’
‘Yes you are. You still had a key for Suzanne’s flat. Why? To pop back there one day? Just in case you started up again? Or could you just not let it go . . . because deep down inside, whatever Fiona Welch was feeding you, you knew it was bullshit, knew it was wrong. Knew that, no matter what she said or did for you, you’d never be as happy with her as you were with Suzanne. Is that it?’
Turner clamped his eyes tight closed. ‘Stop it . . .’
‘Stop it . . . why? Why should I? Let’s look at them. Julie Miller. She was the first.’
‘I wasn’t . . .’ His protestation was weak, his expression said that even he didn’t believe his own words.
‘Don’t try to deny it, Mark, we’ve seen the photos of you both together on Facebook. If you weren’t seeing each other then you were very close friends. Unnaturally close. Close enough to make someone else jealous.’
He didn’t reply.
‘Then there was Suzanne. But where does Adele fit into this? When were you seeing her?’
‘On and off . . .’
‘When you were seeing Suzanne?’
He nodded.
‘Two-timing and a murderer. And you didn’t know she was the Creeper’s sister? Didn’t Fiona tell you? Not like her to forget something as important as that, is it? In the New World Order of your relationship.’
Tears welled in Turner’s eyes.
‘Did you kill her, Mark? Adele?’
He paused, his head forward. Like a condemned man reluctantly reaching for the noose.
‘What happened?’
He sighed. Stared straight ahead, seeing something Mickey couldn’t. Didn’t want to. ‘I’d been talking to Adele . . .’
‘Talking?’
‘Well . . . a bit more than that . . .’
‘You had sex.’
Turner looked away, nodded.
‘So you’d kidnapped Adele Harrison—’
‘The Creeper did that.’
‘Right. The Creeper did that. But you helped. You went along with it.’
Turner said nothing. Mickey continued. ‘You had her captive and then . . . what? You had sex.’
Another shrug.
‘Why?’
‘Because I still . . . had feelings for her.’ He leaned forward, arms on the table, hands out expressively. ‘I saw her there, scared and, and . . . and I wanted her.’
‘So you had her.’
‘Yes.’
‘You raped her?’
‘No . . .’ He looked shocked at the thought.
‘But . . . what? This rekindled feelings for her? You felt something for her again, is that it?’
‘Yes . . .’ Sounding like it was painful to have the word dragged out of him.
‘And you . . .what? Promised to let her go?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell me, Mark. Tell me what happened. Your own words.’
Turner sighed. Mickey saw the conflicting emotions fighting for dominance on his face. In the end, resignation won out and Turner, sighing and shoulders heaving, started to talk.
102
The Creeper was confused. Confused and getting angry.
This wasn’t how he’d imagined it. Not at all.
When he heard Rani’s voice in his head once more, talking to him, telling him to come and meet her, he was almost too excited for words. Couldn’t wait to get there and see her, leave the husk on the boat, rig the charges just like she said. He’d watched it go boom, seen the flames streak up to the sky. Huge they were, the policemen running away tiny by comparison.
He had smiled watching that. Giggled.
He had done that. Made that happen. All that power, all his . . .
And then the anticipation, meeting Rani, face to face, at last . . .
And then the disappointment.
When he had agreed to meet her after the fire he had been excited, thrilled, shaking with anticipation. And what a let-down. She wasn’t Rani, wasn’t anything like Rani. She was that psychologist from the hospital, the one they had made him go and see.
So where was Rani? He had started to ask her that but she had just waved him and his questions aside. Literally, her arm waving at him dismissively, then walking away, getting him to follow her. Saying Rani had left her with a list of things for him to do. And despite the fact that she made him feel unsure, uneasy, he had followed her, had done the things she asked him to.