‘Knock, knock.’ Marcus stood in the doorway holding an embarrassingly big bouquet. ‘Is the reason Sheila might be working with the interns actually because you’re going to be whisked away on romantic trips more often?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘For you.’ He held the flowers out. ‘Just delivered.’
‘Who delivered them?’ I crossed the room.
‘I don’t know. A florist? Some kid, he just asked to be buzzed in and I intercepted him because I’m nosy.’ He handed the flowers to me. ‘Although I’m a journalist at my core, so it’s literally my job to be nosy.’
‘You don’t have to justify yourself to me.’ I was facing away from him. I set the flowers down on my desk and fished through them to find a card. The handwriting was bulbous, squat and unfamiliar; not his.
Marcus hovered until I’d opened the card. ‘I’m dying to know.’
‘No name, just a kiss.’
‘Well, that’s… creepy. Are you okay?’
I laughed off his concern. ‘If it were someone to worry about then it would be a bouquet of something much more sinister than flowers. It’s a super-fan or something. You know me with all my celebrity status.’ I kept my tone deadpan. ‘Go and answer an email or something. I’ll see you in the staff meeting later.’
‘Sometimes I wonder who’s the boss around here…’ his jovial tone trailed out of my office behind him. I waited until the pad of his footsteps was out of earshot. Then I opened the card again.
‘Soon.’ It read. ‘Sincerely, yours –’
55
Before I left the flat I filed everything away: stray letters; Post-it notes of ideas; rough theories I hadn’t been able to prove. I’d made copies and put them onto a fresh external hard drive for Tina; she’d have it in her hands before the day was out, thanks to a ridiculously expensive courier service. But at least I knew the information was where it needed to be. While I crawled through the city’s traffic, I tried to guess at whether enough time had passed for me to call Tina and beg for her thoughts – or her validation, I wasn’t sure which. I waited until I could put the handbrake on and then keyed her number into my phone. The ringer echoed through the Bluetooth system and I turned the volume down, for fear of becoming one of those people who has a private conversation aired. It went through to her voicemail after five rings, though, so I disconnected. I reached across to the passenger seat and freed my cigarettes from my coat pocket; I didn’t manage to spark up before the phone started to ring.
‘Tina.’
‘Sarah, honey, I’m sorry I missed you. I was reading.’
Fuck it, I reasoned, no point in being prissy. ‘My pages?’
‘Your chapter notes. This is nearly a full draft you’ve sent?’
The final chapter was missing – maybe two chapters at a push. But I’d given Tina a rough idea of what should go into them. ‘Nearly.’
‘Honey, isn’t this a step too far?’
‘You don’t think it’ll sell?’ I felt a swell of disappointment.
‘That’s not what I said.’ I heard the shuffle of paper in the background. If she’d printed things to read, then she must have been making notes already. From experience, I knew that could only be a good sign. ‘It’ll sell, and it’ll sell well. But I’m genuinely nervous about what you’re putting on the line for this.’
The version of likely events that I’d told Tina was nothing in comparison to what was actually on the line. I tried to make a non-committal noise. ‘I’m heading to Madison’s for a few days. There are some things of Mum’s there that I need. I think they’ll help with the last chapter. When I’m back maybe we can talk again?’
‘Are you taking your police escort?’
She sounded serious but I managed a laugh. ‘No, I gave him the night off.’
Brooks had had someone tailing me for nearly a week without anything happening. I’d already told her I was leaving the city, and I’d been well-behaved enough to tell her where I’d be, too. We agreed a healthy middle-ground might be for me to have a police car drive by Madison’s house every few hours as part of a regular patrol.
‘The occasional text wouldn’t go amiss,’ Tina replied.
‘Of course.’ I had a template ready; an ‘I’m fine’ message to go to Brooks, and now Tina, too. ‘Like I said, it shouldn’t be more than a few days.’
‘Keep in touch, honey. I hope you get what you need.’
I inched forward along the bypass. If he takes the bait I’ll be fine…
Madison died here. It was my first thought when I pushed open the front door. The hinges howled from nearly a full year of no use. There’d been talk of putting the house on the market soon after Madison died. But there was no need for it. I didn’t need the money – which was also my reason for not renting the place out – but I did need the emotional connection.
‘If you can afford it, keep it,’ Landon suggested one evening, after three bottles of wine and two packets of cigarettes had passed between us.
It had been a good idea, though, and the morning after I’d call the solicitor handling Madison’s affairs to let him know that was my plan. Stepping back into the place after so long caused a wave of something, though, nausea and panic and – soft feelings, too. I thought I felt the prickle of tears but it could have just as easily been the dust of the hallway floating up to greet me.
The bedrooms were still made up, as though neither of us had ever left. But I decided to sleep on the sofa in the front room. I wanted to be close to any noise pollution as it happened, and the sofa was the best spot for noticing things. The company of the television would have been welcome, but I avoided Netflix for the same reason that I avoided the comfort of a bed. Instead, I read. The only noise that first night was the sound of pages turning at regular intervals, broken up by the ping of the microwave and the scrape of cutlery on crockery as I ate dinner in silence. I thought of unpacking. But there were things I wanted to have to hand, just in case. So, I kept my overnight bag within reaching distance. On the first night there, I fell asleep with my hand buried between the open lips of the bag and woke up in the same position, too.
After a second night, and an inquiring text from Landon – ‘Any news / still alive?’ – I started to wonder whether I’d misplaced my bets. Madison’s house had been the X-marks-the-spot on the map he’d sent me. All roads lead to home, I’d thought when this final plan fell together, then, and I thought my being there might force his hand into being there, too. From the letters I’d assumed he’d been watching me all along, so would notice. But what if he wasn’t watching? He had a life away from this, I reminded myself; a wife away from this. I half-laughed into the empty room and cut through the quiet; it felt like being the other woman, I realised. It felt like being juggled with a real life and one that he liked the idea of. But what is there to like the idea of here? I wondered, staring into the darkness of late autumn. The room had never held the light well. With that memory, there came a flood of others: watching films with Madison; eating popcorn; crying over– I couldn’t remember what, but something that had felt desperately important at the time.
All the memories were tucked away at different points around the room, as though the space were shock absorbent for the kind times spent there.
I lay back and stretched my arm out to the overnight bag again. It had become my sleeping position. My head fell hard against the arm of the sofa and I clamped my eyes closed. The same memories became a film reel behind my lids, though, and I felt a tear escape.
‘How the fuck did you get here, Wainwright?’ I asked the room and, as though answering, I heard a crack echo through from the hallway. It could have come from any number of places: the kitchen; bathroom; dining room. I’d deliberately left all the doors open. But that meant that working out the direction of a noise was harder. It became easier, though, with the second noise, and the third – and the footsteps.
I sucked in hard and held my breath. In those seconds I heard every reprimand f
rom Mum – ‘Sarah, what on God’s green are you playing at?’ – and Madison – ‘Darling girl, you don’t need to be doing this.’ I thought of Landon, lying half-drunk at home no doubt, swiping right at regular intervals; of Jessie and Tyler, taking it in turns to explain where babies come from to the twins. Finally, I thought of Wren.
When a shadow appeared in the doorway, I shrank back into the fabric of the sofa like it might swallow me whole. I didn’t know whether these nerves were normal – whether there was a baseline level of nerves to feel when you were seconds away from facing off against a serial killer. I swallowed hard at the phrasing, even though they were words I’d paired together a hundred times over and then some. Serial killer, serial killer, serial killer. The letters chased each other around at such a speed, while the shadow hovered on the boundary of the room. Serial killer, serial killer, serial killer. The syllables started to knock together, and the cycles lasted so long I wondered whether I’d imagined the ghost in the room but…
‘Sarah.’
He snapped the light on. And he wasn’t a ghost anymore.
In all this time, I’d never been able to settle on an idea of what the man might look like. I felt as though he was nothing like I’d expected, but what had I been anticipating? It was unlikely that he’d be a hooded, axe-wielding, wide-eyed caricature; although something that glaring would have made these years easier. Instead of that obvious evil, though, he was something more subtle; a man who I would have walked by on the street on any given day, without giving him a second thought when I got home. He hovered in the doorway as though waiting for an invitation. His posture was slightly hunched over – from age, I wondered, because his hair was greying, too. The overhead lights were unforgiving in this room, though, Madison had always said that. An audible gulp rose from my throat at combining the two worlds: him and Madison in the same train of thought. He was wearing dark clothes – deep grey jeans, a black T-shirt, and dark brown jacket over the top – and although he wasn’t wearing glasses I thought I could see the indentations where nose pads had recently been. He looked like a nobody.
‘Sarah,’ he said again, and I realised I’d never thought what his voice might sound like either. He took a nervous step into the room, and I couldn’t make sense of his demeanour. He’d killed my mother; what did he have to be nervous about?
When he was a fraction closer, I swung myself upright on the sofa but perched on the edge of the seat. I nodded towards the other sofa, opposite my own, and he took the invitation. The couch moaned under the weight of him and he smiled.
‘I can’t believe we’re here,’ he said.
I reached into the overnight bag and wrapped my fingers around the warm metal. It had been snug in my hand for nearly an hour before this; the weapon felt like a natural extension of me now. I pulled it out and set it on the coffee table that separated us. ‘No, I can’t believe it either.’ My hand stayed in place, a finger flirting with the trigger but not quite making it there. He kept quiet for a few seconds and I watched as his eyebrows pulled together, like he was struggling to work it all out. ‘You didn’t think I’d bring protection to this?’
‘But, Sarah,’ he started, and I thought he sounded saddened. ‘A gun?’
‘I’m an inner-city crime reporter. You think I don’t know who to call for a gun?’
It had been easier than I’d expected. I’d tallied up a number of good sources over the years; I paid them well and I kept my mouth quiet about their names. It turned out I had a good reputation, and that made me a good person to sell a firearm to.
‘Did anyone teach you how to use it, Sarah?’ He leaned back into the sofa, as though he were making himself comfortable, and I felt an overwhelming urge to hurt him. Instead, I lifted the gun into good view and flicked the safety catch.
‘Why don’t we see…’
56
He was either too nervous to speak or he didn’t have anything to say. The latter seemed unlikely, though, so I assumed it was a lingering shock at seeing a gun that kept him quiet. I asked him whether he had a mobile on him and he only nodded. When I told him to throw it over to me, he did it without a fight. It landed heavy in the seat next to me; I powered it down without looking, to keep my eyes firmly on him, and then I put the dead handset on the table. It was next to my own, which was very much alive – with 999 already keyed in, in case things got out of hand. I heard Mum, then, ‘Sweetheart, aren’t things already out of hand?’ Whatever facial expression accompanied my thought made him look back at me in confusion.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked, almost whispering, and I laughed.
‘You killed my mother.’
‘And I’m sorry about that.’ He half-laughed, too. ‘This is ridiculous. Of course, I’m sorry, but I never would have killed her, Sarah, if I’d known about you. I just wouldn’t, it wouldn’t have been right–’
‘None of them were right.’
He winced. ‘I know that, of course.’
‘Stop saying “of course”.’
He held his hands up in a defensive gesture, then, and edged forwards in his seat. ‘You have things that you want to know now, don’t you? So why not ask – now we’ve got the chance, and this time? Now we can really talk, Sarah.’
I pulled the gun closer to me along the table. ‘This isn’t a social occasion.’
‘No, apparently it’s a hostage situation.’ He looked at the weapon.
‘If you play the victim prematurely, I’ll shoot you.’
‘And how will you explain that, Sarah, to Wren, for instance?’
‘Don’t.’ I looked from him to the gun and back again. ‘Don’t bring her into this. You’ve dragged enough people into this mess, this – Christ, this lifestyle of yours. You’ve made it sound like something you need, like doughnuts or vodka.’
‘It is something I need, Sarah,’ he said plainly. ‘I know you won’t understand that, most won’t, but it’s true.’
‘Cassie,’ I said, and I saw his eyes narrow at my use of the name. ‘Does Cassie understand it, or are you still lying to her?’ He tilted his head and looked at me hard, as though he were trying to work something out. ‘You used her name in a letter, once.’ It was one of many things I’d banked: first that he was married; second that he was lying to his wife. Mum had told me once that that was something all men did. This, though, I thought, this was something extra. ‘Let me guess, she just doesn’t understand you?’ I said, my tone mocking. ‘Show me a married man whose wife–’
‘Cassie is a special woman,’ he interrupted me.
‘Special enough to kill?’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘Or too special to kill? I’m never really sure how it works with you.’
He pinched at the fabric of his jeans around his knees and then stood. ‘I don’t have to stay here, Sarah.’
I picked the gun up. ‘Yeah, you do.’
‘You’ll kill me?’
‘I think you’ll find I’ll defend myself against you.’
He laughed; a real, smile-cracking laugh. ‘I thought better of you.’
‘Then I guess we’re both doomed to disappointment.’ I gestured with the handgun. ‘Sit.’ He followed the instruction, and I left a long enough silence for him to start shifting with awkwardness. ‘What’s your name?’ He opened his mouth but before an answer arrived I decided to clarify my question, ‘Not the name the media has given you. Your actual name. The one that Cassie calls out when you get home every night. Except, you know, not on the weekends when you’re away murdering innocent women.’
He swallowed hard. ‘Patrick. My name is Patrick. Cassie sometimes calls me Pat.’
‘Your job. You’re in the city?’
‘I’m an advertising scout. I’m part of a company that liaises with bigger companies for advertisement campaigns.’ He shook his head; the admissions looked physically painful to him, and I wondered how much more hurt I could find if I looked hard enough. ‘I’m part of the national team.’
‘Which is why it’s easy to leave
the city so often?’ He nodded. ‘Tell me about your mother.’ He snapped his head up and stared into me. ‘You know about mine.’
‘She wasn’t a very nice woman.’ He shifted awkwardly. ‘She– when I was younger, she often hurt me. Not sexually,’ he rushed to add. ‘But she did everything– I didn’t have a father. No, I did have one. But I didn’t have one who was around. My mother had to do everything on her own, which she– I don’t know, I suppose she found difficult. She took some of the frustration out on me. When I was being boyish, or, I don’t know, troublesome, as boys often are. She didn’t appreciate my antics.’
‘She beat you?’ I asked flatly and he winced. There was a knee-jerk reaction in me to apologise, until I remembered who I was speaking to. ‘Cassie can’t have children?’
He was visibly thrown by the question. He moved to answer two, three times before rubbing hard at his eyes and avoiding my stare. ‘Me. I’m the one who can’t have children. There was an accident, incident when I was younger. My mother pushed me.’ He looked up, then, and spoke to the ceiling; anywhere but directly at me. ‘She said she didn’t. She told everyone that I was clumsy, I fell, it wasn’t her. But she pushed me and– I don’t know, I must have landed at an awkward angle.’ He nearly laughed. ‘Severely awkward angle. Part of my pelvis was damaged, part of my left leg,’ he tapped the limb as he spoke, ‘and my right arm was broken. After that, I developed as I should have, but inwardly – there was something wrong on the inside.’
I laughed – and swallowed another apology for it. ‘The woman who was like a mother,’ I prompted him.
‘She took me in after the fall happened. I spent most of my time there anyway, when Mum allowed it.’ He took a long pause that I chose not to fill; I wasn’t going to let him off with a half-story. He pulled in a greedy mouthful of air before he started to talk again. ‘She was Mum’s best friend. She was her Madison, I suppose, Sarah.’
Sincerely, Yours Page 22