She had been manipulated and misused before, and she found that it clouded her every relationship. Every judgement she made of people was tainted with the idea that they may want to hurt her in some way. She was distrustful, but that didn’t mean that she was wrong.
She started walking away and could feel the professor’s eyes on her. No, there was something very wrong with Professor Coley.
Abbey hadn’t disclosed much about herself to her classmates. They knew she had a labrador, Sally, but that was about all she had mentioned. What they didn’t know was that she was married. She wore her ring on a chain around her neck, under her top. It wasn’t for the world to see, it was for her to have close to her heart. Her relationship was no one else’s business. She would have to speak to Parker about the professor. It was nice having someone she could trust on her side. Them against the world. She would talk to him now, not wait until later. He was at home. To the outside world Abbey was vulnerable, alone, quiet and timid. They didn’t know that she had someone in her corner, and not just anyone either. Someone brilliant, someone resourceful, someone ready to die for her. Ready to kill for her.
She unlocked the door to their home to be greeted by Sally, tail thumping against the ground in excitement.
‘You’re home early,’ Parker said, appearing in the hallway in his vest and boxers a few seconds after her arrival, a smile across his face. She would never tire of that smile, of his face. He had a paintbrush in his hand and splatters of green paint on his legs. He was painting the hall a dark mossy colour.
‘I bumped into my genetics professor again.’ She scrunched her mouth up, like a shrug without shrugging. Was she making a big deal of this? Too late now, she had said it out loud.
‘Again?’ He picked up on the word. ‘How many times is that?’ He put the towel on the console table and folded his arms.
‘Seven. I don’t think it’s right. There’s something quite strange about him; I can’t explain it.’
She had been nervous about telling Parker and had waited until she was sure that it was more than just a coincidence. Knowing who her husband was and what he had done in the past meant she had to think carefully before telling him her concerns. She was sure though, after careful consideration, that Professor Coley’s intentions were not innocent. She wasn’t about to let him ruin her happy ever after. They had been here in Bristol for a few months now; Parker had bought a small three-bedroom house with some of the money he had left from his inheritance. He had been left a large sum when his grandfather died. They had a second chance; she wanted everything to work out.
‘You think he’s following you?’
‘That’s silly, isn’t it? Why would he follow me?’ she said, even though that was exactly what she had thought, too.
‘I could look into it. You need to trust your instincts. Tell me now if you want me to check it out.’
Abbey knew that when it came down to it she could look after herself, but she relished the fact that she didn’t have to any more. She had also learned to listen to that part of her that told her something was wrong, and something about Coley was setting her alarm bells off. She had closed a big part of herself off when she left university the first time, after the attack. Parker had found that part of her, she had trusted him with it and he hadn’t betrayed that trust. She had never spoken about what had happened at the university, what she had been through. It didn’t seem to matter; he had been through enough horrors of his own and so she kept her secret. None of those things in the past mattered any more. From the moment they accepted their feelings for each other it was like the rest of the world came second, all that mattered was their little world and keeping each other safe. She knew that Parker didn’t have the same boundaries as other people, but that wasn’t his fault. He would never hurt anyone again, though, not unless they really deserved it.
‘You could look into it,’ Abbey said. ‘As long as all you do is look. He’s starting to creep me out.’
Parker walked up the stairs quickly, Abbey following. He pulled his trousers on and grabbed a jacket. She wet her thumb with her tongue and pressed hard on his cheek, wiping away the streak of mossy paint smeared across his cheekbone. He smiled again and leaned in to kiss her. Every time it had the same impact as the first, a sharp intake of breath before their lips met and a dizzying moment of adjustment afterwards. As though the universe had entirely narrowed its focus into that one moment of time, passing through the neck of an hourglass. For those few seconds when their lips touched, nothing else existed.
‘I’ll walk back to the university with you. Would I be able to sit at the back of your lecture without being noticed?’
‘Probably. It’s a big place and it’s usually at least ninety per cent full. He tends to focus on the first few rows.’
Parker grabbed a cap from a hook on the back of the door and put it on. He lifted her top slightly and placed his hand on her stomach. There was no bump there yet as she was barely three months pregnant, but she liked the feeling of his hand touching her, the sight of his scarred knuckles against her smooth white skin.
‘I’ll keep a low profile. Best to keep to not telling anyone about us just yet. I’ll walk with you a bit of the way then you can go on ahead.’
‘It’s probably nothing,’ she said, knowing it didn’t matter now. It was out of her hands. She had told him and he would look; something about Coley’s behaviour told her Parker would find something.
‘Then let me check. Where’s the harm in that?’
The harm was if it wasn’t nothing. If there was some nefarious agenda at play, Parker would find it and deal with it accordingly. Abbey knew he saw the world through a different lens to most people. She wondered if she had just handed Professor Coley a death sentence.
No. The only way that would happen was if he deserved it. Parker didn’t kill for the sake of it, that’s wasn’t who he was.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Present
Adrian and Imogen sat in the front of Imogen’s car; they had taken to having meetings in there, in case anyone else was listening inside the station. They couldn’t risk being overheard.
‘Where do we even start with this?’ Imogen said.
‘It’s going to be pretty hard while we are playing catch-up. We need to anticipate his moves and not turn up after the bodies,’ Adrian said.
‘These professors, they must be connected in some other way. What is it that they’re doing exactly? Why are they being targeted?’ Imogen said.
‘So, Abigail Lucas said she got the heebie-jeebies from her prof? Because he was being nice to her? Caitlin Watts’ relationship with Gillian Mitchell seemed to have a strong mentor vibe about it. Did Hugh Norris have someone like that? What do we know about Owen Sager, besides evidence of abuse and some past mental health issues? How about Helen Lassiter?’
‘You think Abigail and Caitlin were being groomed for something? Do you think it was something sexual?’
‘Why not? Both attractive young women, in their own way.’
Abbey had a vulnerability about her that had made Adrian want to look out for her on both the occasions they’d met. Some people got off on that. Over the last few years, they had seen a rise in home-grown amateur pornography – local girls being persuaded into a film or two to help pay for uni fees, rent, food, whatever else they might want. Caitlin had a similar pull, not just because she was stunning but because she seemed lost, hurt, a little abandoned. Knowing that her parents had left when she was young was no surprise to Adrian. He had noticed that she was trying for his attention, trying to be good enough, something that came with parental abandonment. Always searching for others’ approval, until cynicism takes over and you don’t care any more.
‘I’ll ask the sex crimes guys to run the girls’ faces through their system. Maybe they have something. They’ve just uncovered four porn cam houses in the St Thomas area.’
‘Charming,’ Adrian said; his neighbourhood wasn’t getting any better. ‘And P
arker?’
‘We’ve just got to hope we can stop him from hurting anyone else, which means figuring out what’s going on here. At least this is an avenue to explore.’
‘Right now, the best lead we have is Caitlin,’ Adrian said, although he hated saying her name after what she had accused him of. He had to keep reminding himself that she was a victim in all of this, too.
‘And Owen Sager. Someone killed him. That makes our body count three and two,’ Imogen said. ‘There’s something we’re forgetting here.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You were attacked the night of Caitlin’s attack. That can’t have been a coincidence, can it? Do you remember anything about the person who attacked you?’
‘Young. Male, around twenty years old. A little shorter than me, around five ten, I reckon.’
‘Did you see his face?’
Adrian closed his eyes and tried to remember anything about the man who had attacked him. Sometimes it was hard to know if your mind was playing tricks on you or not. If your mind wasn’t just putting things together because you were forcing it to. Trying to perform.
‘He was Caucasian and he had really dark eyebrows; I remember that because his eyes were quite blue. I think anyway. I wouldn’t swear to it. He was definitely white though and I got the feeling he was quite young.’
‘That doesn’t really narrow it down much around here. But, given the age, it does sound like it could be a university student.’
‘Another one. What do you think is going on?’
‘I’m guessing the murder of Hugh Norris is where we start. That was the reason Gillian Mitchell had Caitlin claim you raped her, maybe that’s why you were mugged that night. He has to be the centre of the investigation. Now that Parker is involved, and presumably he killed those three teachers, I’m inclined to assume they were up to something. From what we know of Parker, he has only ever killed people who have done horrible things. We need to find out what those horrible things are.’
‘How are the students connected to the professors? If we can establish that, then maybe we can find a pattern and find the final person Parker is planning on killing.’
‘I’d put money on it being a professor.’
‘We’ll get Gary to go through their computers with a microscope. Maybe they left some evidence.’
‘Let’s speak to Gary then.’
They both got out of the car and walked into the station. Adrian could feel eyes on him from his colleagues. Were they still convinced he was a rapist?
Denise smiled sheepishly from the front desk. He knew she had given a statement to DCC Trevor Sneddon and he knew she would have told them about the nature of their previous sexual relationship. He couldn’t be angry with her about it, but it did complicate their friendship. He wondered if she even thought that he did it. He couldn’t assume she didn’t. A part of him wanted to hate everyone who might have entertained the idea for even a second, but then he had to consider what he would have done in the same position.
Adrian noticed a silence descending as he walked down the corridor towards the room Gary worked in. Imogen was behind him and he could almost hear her annoyed discomfort with the situation; he was grateful at least that she had never wavered in her belief of him. Gary looked up as they approached.
‘Did you get anything from the professors’ personal computers?’ Imogen asked.
‘I was just about to come and find you. It all looks like it was on the up and up. Without trawling through each document and file individually, which will be done in time, there was nothing particularly innocuous on the hard drive. Mainly just lesson plans, assignments, first drafts of letters. Nothing especially exciting. They are old and well-used computers, though. Lots of info on there and lots of random stuff filed incorrectly, there’s a lot to go through.’
‘No mention of Caitlin or Owen?’
‘There was a paper written by Owen Sager for the first philosophy term. “Is there a moral obligation to obey the law?” I thought that was pretty odd. He was the only one in the class who picked that topic.’
‘And Caitlin?’ Imogen asked.
‘A standard nature versus nurture essay. Same as the rest of the class,’ Gary replied.
‘Any behaviour reports or anything like that?’ Imogen pressed.
‘Nothing,’ Gary said.
‘What about emails?’ Adrian asked.
‘Well, that’s the suspicious part. There are no emails between Norris, Lassiter and Mitchell. Not one. I know they worked in the same building, but it’s still strange, considering,’ Gary said. ‘And the thing is. I don’t think they didn’t email each other. I think the emails have been deleted. I think someone got into the system.’
‘Maybe they connected through a different email provider,’ Imogen said, quickly looking at Adrian, obviously thinking what he was thinking: Parker.
‘I checked. The college has a block on all outside email providers. The rule was brought in a few years ago to stop the sharing of illicit pics through the college.’
‘What kind of illicit pictures?’ Adrian asked.
‘Revenge porn mainly, colleges are rife with it,’ Gary said. ‘Boy and girl have sex or send each other nudies. They break up, then one of them turns into a raging dickhead.’
‘That’s depressing,’ Imogen said.
‘The college has free, unlimited Wi-Fi and everyone can access it; it’s a good service. But certain sites are blocked. It’s a shit-hot firewall and would take some skill to bypass. Not that it matters, people share shit on Snapchat and WhatsApp these days,’ Gary said. ‘The university can’t control what people do with their mobiles.’
‘So if the emails have been deleted, can they be recovered?’
‘Possibly, depends how it’s been done. Who do you think might have done it?’
‘A mutual friend,’ Imogen said.
‘How good is he with a computer?’ Gary said.
‘I don’t know, but he seems to be very adept at covering his tracks, so I would assume he is good. Not as good as you though, mate,’ Adrian said.
‘Flattery will get you everywhere.’ Gary grinned.
‘Is there any way to find out if any emails were sent? Through the metadata or something?’ Adrian asked.
Both Imogen and Gary turned and looked at him as though he had just sprouted flowers out of his nostrils.
‘Maybe,’ Gary said.
Imogen turned to Adrian. ‘Metadata, Adrian? Do you even know what that means?’
‘It means data about data, or something, I don’t know, this is not my area,’ Adrian said, shrugging.
‘No shit,’ Imogen said.
‘I’ll keep digging through, but for now that’s all I have,’ Gary said.
‘OK, we’re going to see if Sex Crimes have anything on Caitlin, maybe her face popped up somewhere. We need to find out how she is being manipulated, and why,’ Imogen said.
‘My money would be on Grandad,’ Gary said.
‘What do you mean? You think he’s controlling her?’ Imogen said.
Gary continued, ‘No. If you want to control someone it’s much easier if you blackmail or threaten someone they love. From what I understand, Caitlin Watts doesn’t have many people in her life that would fit into that category, so I bet whoever is doing it is using the grandad to control her. He’s a rev or something, isn’t he? So many ways to go with that. A gay scandal, an inappropriate relationship with a parishioner, or maybe the most terrifying of all – pictures of kids on his hard drive.’
‘That would explain a lot of her behaviour. She doesn’t seem to care about herself much and yet she won’t say anything about who attacked her,’ Adrian said.
‘And when DI Walsh and I pushed her for more information she freaked out and said she couldn’t say any more, which means there are definitely other people involved. Or at the very least she thinks there are,’ Imogen said.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Two months earlier
; Parker waited for Professor Robert Coley to leave the office before he broke in. The hallways were clear of students and other personnel. This wasn’t the first time Parker had broken into an office, or anywhere in fact. He pulled his kit out of his pocket and pushed the pins inside until he felt the mechanism click. He was in.
Parker had been following the professor for several weeks. He had seen Robert Coley looking Abbey up and down when she wasn’t looking. It wasn’t an attraction thing, it was a predator/prey thing. Parker knew the difference. He had seen that look before; the people who abused him had looked at him like an object, a pawn in their game. Parker had already been through Coley’s house with a fine-tooth comb and found nothing of any interest, and so now it was time to check out his office. There was definitely something off about the man; Parker knew when someone wasn’t ‘right’. Robert Coley lacked humanity when he thought no one was looking. Unlucky for him, Parker was looking. A hunch wasn’t enough for Parker though, he had to verify. He didn’t want to become one of the ‘Inhumans’, the killers who took lives without giving it so much as a second thought, the people who walked among them just like everyone else. He had met several of them in his lifetime and they had no remorse; he supposed they would be referred to as psychopaths. That’s not who he was. He wanted justice, nothing more.
Parker sat down at Coley’s desk, opened his laptop and turned it on. It was slow to boot up, an old clunky model. Coley’s office was full of books, floor to ceiling, piled high and doubled up on the bookcases. It smelled of dusty paper. Parker loved that smell. He couldn’t imagine a life where he wasn’t surrounded by books. Books had helped him come to terms with the psychological damage left by the men who had unravelled him and made him into what he was today. A killer.
When the computer fan had finished labouring and the screen stopped twitching, the computer finally asked for a password. Parker’s eyes went to the painting on the wall. There was a large ornate framed picture of a golden lion with eagle wings above the desk. People were usually not as imaginative as they thought they were. He typed in the word CHIMERA, an organism that contained two or more sets of DNA, like a lion with eagle wings. Parker rolled his eyes as the computer unlocked.
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