by Mosby, Steve
‘I’m surprised you didn’t handcuff him to the desk and rifle through his filing cabinet.’
‘Huh. If it was as easy as that, I would have done. Should have dragged him in for obstruction, at least. Court order’s being fast-tracked, though. We should have the number tomorrow morning.’
‘And then this man.’
‘Fingers crossed.’
There was another night to get out of the way first, though. Another night when he could be hurting a woman the same way he’d hurt the others. That image of Sally Vickers came to me again. We are going to get him for what he’s done to you. If we didn’t do it in time, the temptation to revisit Richard Oakley at Mayday was going to be strong.
When I was done recounting it all, we both fell quiet for a time. John still looked mildly amused, and I was reluctant to break the mood. Then I realised there was something I wanted to ask him.
‘When I arrested Drew MacKenzie, I saw someone else. A woman.’
‘A woman?’
‘She was in the pub. I only got a quick glimpse of her, but I’m sure I recognised her from somewhere. She had long brown hair, and these scars on her face.’ I made a motion across my own. ‘Maybe just one scar. I wondered if you knew who she might be?’
He frowned. ‘How old was she?’
‘Late forties, early fifties.’
‘It does ring a bell …’
And it obviously did, because he was frowning, an expression more reminiscent of the John I’d become used to over the past few months. A man struggling to recall something that should be where he’d left it, but that had been inexplicably moved.
Please, John.
I wasn’t sure why it was suddenly so important, but it was.
Please remember.
After a moment of thinking, he blinked and shook his head.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s gone.’
Twenty
You don’t need to come in tonight.
Jane sat in her small flat. As usual, she was alone, but for the first time in a while she also felt lonely.
The worst thing about the phone call from Richard was that he hadn’t even sounded annoyed. The phrase ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ had kept coming to mind during the brief conversation, and Jane had found herself wondering if Richard ever got angry about anything. Perhaps he was just treading carefully for legal reasons. Regardless, she could hardly imagine a more polite sacking.
The closest he’d come to addressing the issue was to remind her that confidentiality was key to Mayday, and that whatever the merits of the action she’d decided to take, it wouldn’t be appropriate for her to come in for her shift. You don’t need to come in tonight. He hadn’t added or ever again, but it had been implicit enough for both of them to hear it there anyway.
So that was it. She was no longer a volunteer.
With the evening now free, she ate a quick dinner on her knee in front of the television. The news continued to cover the attacks, but there was nothing she hadn’t seen before. Not yet, anyway. Assuming the police managed to gain access to the phone records at Mayday, there might be a development soon, and as upsetting as the reports were at present, there was some comfort in knowing that when this man was caught, she would have played a part in making it happen. However miserable she felt right now, it was a worthwhile sacrifice in the grand scheme of things …
You see? You couldn’t do it after all.
Her father’s voice, stronger than it had been in weeks. Jane put her plate to one side on the settee and looked across at the telephone. Her therapist’s number was on a small business card beside it, and she considered calling her now. Eileen had told her it would always be fine to do so, and anyway, it wasn’t as though the circumstances were normal.
You couldn’t do it …
She stared at the phone for a few seconds longer, then looked away. No, she wasn’t going to call. She was going to deal with this herself.
I couldn’t do it, no. But there were other things I could do.
She closed her eyes and, as she’d been taught, worked methodically through her feelings about the day. As she thought back on everything that had happened, the foremost sensation was a cringe of embarrassment, left over from how she’d felt at the police station, and then in the car. It was the same feeling that always prompted her to apologise – not for doing something wrong, but for doing anything at all. It had been there again during Richard’s call, as though she had been caught talking in class and was being told off by the teacher.
But that wasn’t fair.
Here are some of the things I could do.
For one, she had felt scared of going to the police. There had been the fear of making herself the centre of attention, and of not being taken seriously, but there had also been the risk of losing something that had become very important to her.
And I did it anyway.
It had turned out that she wasn’t being ridiculous – that the information she’d provided to the police might be crucial to their investigation. She had been correct that the man on the phone was the man they were looking for, and they now had a much better chance of catching him before he hurt someone else.
That’s because of me.
And no, she hadn’t been able to abide by the rules that Mayday set down, but she’d been good at the work while it lasted. The old Jane wouldn’t have dared to volunteer there in the first place, but I did it – and yes, Mayday was closed off to her now, but there would be other challenges. She’d always been petrified of running into life’s knots, but she was beginning to learn that she could often untie them when it came to it. Challenges were never half as frightening as they seemed.
And when I find a new one, I’ll face that too.
But most of all, this:
I did the right thing.
After washing up, Jane went through to her bedroom.
She didn’t turn on the main light, but flicked on the lamp on the desk and sat down there in the soft glow. If she wasn’t volunteering, she might as well get some extra translation work in. She opened up the laptop in front of her make-up mirror and loaded up a linked pair of documents: the French file she was translating, and the one she was gradually assembling in English. They sat side by side on the screen, different versions of the same story.
Fiction was her particular speciality, and the original file was a short crime novel. It was time-consuming work, but it paid reasonably well, and she enjoyed the process. Jane had always been a reader, and still harboured vague dreams of writing a book herself – dreams which, she told herself often, were on hold rather than dashed. While she suspected she had little flair for writing, she knew that was pretty much how she thought about everything. In the meantime, the translation work gave her a degree of creative outlet. The original text was set, of course, but she still had to use her imagination to pick the right words for the English version. She aimed not just to recreate the author’s sentence in her own language, but to convey the exact meaning as well. To get it precisely identical below the surface.
Eileen, her therapist, had seemed interested in the whole process, and especially by her choosing this profession in the first place. By then, Jane had been clued up enough to realise what the woman was getting at. In some ways, the work did reflect her personality, because it made her a conduit – a catalyst, even. She changed one thing into another, but she was invisible throughout, and she vanished at the end. While essential to the finished translation, she was never obviously present in it.
She worked for a couple of hours now, losing herself pleasantly, and then decided to have an early night. She saved the documents and closed down the laptop.
As she did so, she glanced sideways at the photograph she kept on the edge of the desk. Her and Peter: an image captured in different, better times. The two of them were embracing, and Peter was holding out the camera to take a self-portrait, with a lush green garden and fountains behind them. It had been good enough – even Jane agreed �
�� to print and frame.
But right now … the position of it was slightly off.
She was used to seeing it from this perspective, and she was certain. Only a little, perhaps, but it had definitely been moved. It was as though somebody had picked it up and looked at it, then put it back down at a slightly different angle.
A shiver ran up her back.
Without moving her body, she turned her gaze to the mirror at the back of the desk. It gave a view of the bedroom behind her.
Of the bed.
And of the wedge of black space underneath it.
She stared at the bed, the silence growing louder in her ears until it filled the room with a high-pitched ringing sound. In the mirror, it seemed like the dark space was moving closer to her.
But there couldn’t be someone under there.
Could there? The door had been locked when she got home. It was locked again now. She felt the pressure of the keys in her jeans pocket. But then … was that what the other women had thought too?
The dark space stared back at her. For a moment, Jane imagined she could hear soft breathing, but then she swallowed and the sound disappeared. Maybe it had just been her.
With her eyes still on the space below the bed, everything else seemed to be whiting out of view. She forced herself to blink. How quickly could she reach the door and get out? But that was the wrong question. If she was going to get out, she needed to move slowly. If someone really was there, he’d know she was panicking and come straight out after her. If she gave the impression that she didn’t know, she’d have more of a chance.
She sat there for a few more seconds, wondering what to do and how to make her body do it. She listened very carefully.
Just that ringing silence.
You can do this.
As calmly as she could, Jane pushed the chair back and stood up. No longer able to see the reflection of the room, she could feel her back tingling, but she made herself stand at the desk for a moment, faking a yawn and stretching. Feigning that she didn’t have a care in the world.
Then she walked steadily to the bedroom door.
Everything behind her remained silent.
At the doorway, she hesitated, then turned slowly around. The bed seemed somehow alive now. Humming with presence, like an animal down on all fours that might pounce at any second.
She slipped the keys out of her pocket, finding the one for the front door between her finger and thumb. Ready to walk quietly downstairs and let herself out …
Yeah, and then what?
It would be even more ridiculous than before to go to the police over this. After the second interview, Zoe Dolan hadn’t seemed to think there was any reason for Jane to be concerned – or she certainly hadn’t mentioned it if there was. And confidentiality went two ways, didn’t it? There was no way the man could find out who she was. It was probably just the events of the day. The crime novel she’d been working on. She couldn’t just leave.
No …
Instead, she moved across the hallway and into the kitchen, taking out the largest knife from the drawer. She had absolutely no intention of stabbing anyone – doubted she even could – but an intruder wouldn’t know that. Then she moved back to the bedroom doorway and got down on her knees. She leaned forward slowly, pressed the side of her face against the carpet. Looking under the bed.
There was nobody there.
Jane’s heart thudded suddenly, as though starting up again, and relief ran through her like water. She stood up quickly, feeling a little foolish. Nobody there. Of course. It was just her imagination playing tricks. Except for the photograph, obviously, but when she looked at it again now, she began to doubt herself.
Just her imagination.
Even so. She kept hold of the knife, and spent the next twenty minutes checking every nook and cranny of the small flat. The air still felt tingly, but she was totally alone. The downstairs door was locked, and the chain was on. Every single window was shut and bolted. There was nobody in here with her, and no way anybody could get in without making a hell of a lot of noise.
You’re safe.
Lying in bed later, Jane made sure that her phone and keys were within easy reach on the bedside table. It took her a long time to fall asleep.
Tomorrow, she told herself. She’d look into something. It was unnecessarily paranoid, perhaps, but regardless, she’d do it: find some way to make the house even more secure.
Because however safe you are, you’re never safe enough.
Twenty-One
Margaret takes a torch up into the loft.
The hatch is on the landing, and she can reach it if she stands on tiptoes. A sliding ladder pokes out over the dark lip above. It’s metal, but light as a feather, and even under her meagre weight the flimsy rungs creak and bend as she climbs. Her body trembles a little too.
She goes high enough for her head and shoulders to pass through, then reaches up and shines the torch around. The attic is a high, cavernous space, with webs plastered to the beams like thatches of old hair. It is surprisingly cold up here too, and she can hear a rush of air, as though she is somehow both inside and out at the same time.
She shines the torch into the corner, at the beams and the taut blue sheets stretched between them like sails.
The bumblebee nest is in there somewhere, she knows. But she can hear nothing for now but that rush of air.
Over the past days, she has found herself going out into the garden more and more. It is always when the neighbours aren’t there, so it is a half-victory at best, but still. She sits on the doorstep with a cup of tea and a book, and it feels as though her small patch of the world is a little more friendly than before.
Following the conversation with Karen, she senses a kind of unspoken truce. Even if that is just in her head, the neighbours no longer seem quite so threatening. Karen and Derek. She tries not to worry about the messy tangle of weeds in the garden. Kieran remains adamant that he won’t tackle it, but Margaret recognises that particular brand of masculine stubbornness – that constant, wearying competition – and knows there is no point to it. She will either persuade him to help or else hire someone who will. Anything for a quiet life. She will meet the neighbours in the middle.
Most of the time outside she spends watching the bumblebees. She admires their industry, the way they work at the buds, then loop upwards, laden down with satchels of pollen. She can never keep track of them for long individually, but by not focusing, she detects an underlying pattern to their movements. A tiny piece of organisation occurs within each bee, as though they are all small, separate parts in the same hugely intricate piece of clockwork. Occasionally, one buzzes close to her face before swirling away, and she thinks hello there, as though the creature has come to see her. And that is how she feels about the nest as a whole. In a strange way, she is almost humbled that they have chosen to come and stay with her. That an old lady’s house has purpose again.
As she watches them today, she loses herself slightly, transported back to idyllic memories of childhood: a bright, primary-coloured garden; the smell of the flowers and tousled grass; a rusty fence and the polished, evergreen gleam of holly. Just fragments, really, but they cohere in an odd way, and somehow make her feel young and hopeful without reminding her that she is not. There were always bees back then. It is as though the arrival of the creatures now is tying the beginning and end of her life in a bow.
‘You’ve got bees.’
Her eyes are closed, and the sound of his voice shocks her. She opens them to see him standing opposite, right up against the fence. Derek, she remembers. He is staring over at her, his forearms resting on the wood. Karen is standing a little way along the path, her sunglasses on, looking down at her feet.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Bees.’ He nods at the roof. ‘You’ve got a nest up there.’
‘Oh, yes. I know.’
Margaret stands up. She can’t retreat inside now – not in the middle of a conversation. And
anyway, what is there to be scared of? He isn’t threatening her, and with his body obscured by the fence, he doesn’t seem as intimidating as he usually does. Perhaps Karen has spoken to him and he is even trying to be friendly. To look out for her. She forces herself to walk a little way down the path towards the fence.
‘They’ve been there for a bit. They’re bumblebees.’
Up close, Derek seems much younger than his wife. His face is tanned and smooth, and his receding hair is cut short and neat. Those forearms are thick, and not so much muscled as meaty, as though he is a man who doesn’t need to work out, who is just naturally strong.
As Margaret reaches the fence, he still hasn’t replied to her, and it throws her a little. Yes, she has bumblebees, and they’ve been there for a week or so. Surely it is his turn to speak now? The silence makes her feel flustered and awkward. She looks at Karen, who is still staring down, and then back to Derek.
‘I quite like them,’ she says. ‘They’re very pretty when you see them up close. Nice to watch. And they’re not really bothering anyone, are they?’
His expression flickers slightly at that, but she doesn’t have time to read whatever was momentarily there.
‘You need to get rid of them.’
The words are so definite that everything sinks inside her, and for a moment she accepts the encounter on his terms. Why does she have to get rid of them? It’s not fair. All she really wants is to be left alone. Derek and Karen on that side of the fence, and her on this. That doesn’t seem too much to ask.
‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ she suggests. ‘They’re not causing any harm.’
‘They’re bees. Sooner or later you’re going to get stung.’
‘They don’t sting unless they’re threatened.’
‘They’ll sting when they swarm.’
That makes her feel a little brighter.
‘Oh, but they don’t swarm,’ she says. ‘They’re not like other bees. And there aren’t that many in there really. The nest doesn’t even last very long.’