by Alex Lake
And disappointment. There were things she wanted to do. Things she didn’t yet know she wanted to do, and now none of them would happen.
The motorhome slowed. They’d been moving at a constant speed for a while; probably on a motorway. Kate felt a series of turns. A left, a right, a couple of lefts. She tried to remember them, but she quickly lost track. After a while, the road became bumpier.
They were getting closer.
24
Beth lived in a small, Edwardian semi-detached house on the outskirts of Wolverhampton. Her property was well maintained, the garden neat and tidy. It looked like the windows were new, the double-glazing recent.
Other houses in the area were less well-kept, however. There was a general air of scruffiness, the occasional old car on blocks in a driveway, unfilled potholes in the road, hedges untrimmed and growing out of shape.
They parked in the street and walked down the short driveway. The flagstones were neat and recently weeded. There were rosebushes to the left and a waist-high fence separating Beth’s drive from the neighbour.
‘Nice place,’ Phil said. ‘I’m glad for her.’
‘Me too,’ May said. ‘I’m only sorry that we’re about to ruin it for her.’
They rang the doorbell. It was one of the old-fashioned ones that played an eight-note chime, descending for the first four and rising for the last. The door opened before it was finished.
The three of them didn’t speak for a few moments. Phil took in Beth’s new appearance; gone was the short, cropped hair he’d last seen her with. Now she had long, black hair – dyed, certainly – cut in an elegant, modern style. She looked strong; she was wearing a pair of jeans and a fitted T-shirt, and the muscles in her forearms were supple and well defined. When she extended a hand to shake, Phil noticed her biceps flex.
He shook her hand.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Good to see you, Phil.’
May ignored the hand. She stepped forward, her arms open. ‘Beth,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad to see you.’
Beth hugged her back, hard. ‘May,’ she said. ‘I’ve missed you. And Gemma, and Kate. All of you. But you know why I had to go. Don’t you?’
May pulled back. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I do. And I wouldn’t have it any different. And I’ve missed you too. A lot.’
‘Come in,’ Beth said. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
They followed her into the kitchen. She gestured for them to sit at the kitchen table.
‘Still milk, no sugar, May?’ she said. ‘And you’re milk, one sugar – right, Phil?’
They both nodded. Tea-drinking habits were like fingerprints; they didn’t change.
‘You look well,’ she said. ‘Both of you.’
‘So do you,’ May replied. ‘Fantastic, in fact. You’re in great shape.’
‘I do CrossFit,’ Beth said. ‘And MMA.’
‘MMA?’ May said.
‘Mixed Martial Arts. It’s good for self-defence. I’d had enough of being defenceless, so I decided to take it up.’
She was still Beth, Phil saw, but there was a hard edge to her, a carapace that she had built around herself to hide any vulnerability from the world. She was still angry, but that was no surprise.
‘Well, it looks like it’s a good workout,’ May said. ‘I’d try it if I wasn’t so lazy.’
Beth brought over three mugs of tea. Phil read the words printed on his: Walsall Triathlon. Finisher, 2014.
‘You do these things too?’ he said, gesturing at the mug. ‘I didn’t know you could swim.’
‘I learned. I was scared of the water, but I decided to deal with it.’
Phil glanced around the kitchen. There were no photos of other people. No signs of a boyfriend or a family. In fact, there was very little clutter at all. Too little; she’d tidied up. She didn’t want them to know anything about her life. Well, that was fine.
‘So,’ she said. ‘You’d better fill me in.’
Between them, Phil and May explained what had happened. There were gaps; they couldn’t explain how Mike had been in Turkey and killing the first victim of the Strangler at the same time, and they didn’t know the details of what had happened in Sheffield, but they had the broad outline, and that was enough.
As they talked, Beth’s expression changed. The hard edge in her eyes slowly dissolved into a blank, disbelieving look. When they had finished, she folded her arms.
‘So,’ she said. ‘He wanted to find out from Kate who – and where – I was and then kill her. And he invented a serial killer so that the police wouldn’t suspect him.’
‘Which he’d done before,’ May said. ‘In Sheffield. He must have wanted to murder his girlfriend and hit on the serial killer idea.’
‘When it worked, he decided to use it again,’ Phil said. ‘But when he took Kate from her house he left her phone with a photo of them together on it. And now his plan is useless.’
‘And he has her,’ May said quietly. ‘Right now, hidden away somewhere, he has her, and he’s wondering what to do.’
‘And he’s worse than you think,’ Beth said. ‘Much worse.’
‘I think he’s pretty bad,’ May said.
‘It’s not what he does,’ Beth said. ‘It’s how he does it. As far as he’s concerned, only he counts. Everything – and everyone – else is a tool. He doesn’t see people – you, me, Kate – as human. He has no concept of suffering; I don’t think he feels fear or pain or worry. He does whatever he wants.’
‘Sounds like a psychopath to me,’ Phil said.
‘That’s exactly what he is,’ Beth said. ‘As you can imagine, I’ve spent some time thinking about him over the years, and he is a psychopath. It’s an overused word, but it applies in his case. He’s indifferent to other people’s suffering, totally self-obsessed, he does whatever he wants, when he wants, and he never gives up. Add to that his sense of himself as someone special, better than everyone else, and his willingness to use people for his own ends, and you have a classic example of what they call the dark triad.’
‘The what?’ Phil said.
‘The dark triad. It’s a combination of personality traits – psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism – that often go together. There’s a lot of research about it. I spent some time looking into it; I had a therapist who thought it might help me understand what I’d been through, help me to see that it wasn’t my fault, that I was unlucky, and not at fault.’
‘You weren’t,’ May said. ‘Of course you weren’t.’
‘It didn’t feel like that at the time,’ Beth said. ‘People like him are brilliant at manipulating you. He knew exactly how to make me feel like I was letting him down, failing him, bringing the punishment on myself. I felt worthless, and when you feel like that it’s hard to find a way out.’ She stirred her tea. ‘Thank God I did.’
‘What about Kate?’ Phil said. ‘What will he do to her?’
‘I don’t know,’ Beth said. ‘I honestly don’t know. The question is, what we’re going to do. You mentioned that Gus was getting the police involved.’
‘Mike— Colin told us not to,’ Phil said. ‘But what could we do? We have no way of knowing where he is. They can at least trace the phone.’
‘And then what?’
‘Send some people in,’ Phil said. He felt sick at the thought; one glance at May told him that she felt the same.
‘He won’t like that,’ Beth said. ‘He won’t like it at all. When are they doing it?’
May looked at her phone. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Soon. It’s been a few hours. I’ll ask Gus.’
She tapped out a text message. A few seconds later, he replied.
‘Holy shit,’ she said. ‘It’s about to start.’
25
‘They’ll get her out,’ Beth said. ‘They’ll get her out and they’ll catch him and this will be over. For all of us.’
Phil nodded. ‘They will,’ he said. ‘I have to believe that they will.’
‘And if the
y don’t?’ May lifted her tea from the table, then put it down, untouched. ‘If they get there and he …’ she paused. ‘If he’s hurt Kate?’
‘Then they’ll still catch him,’ Beth said. ‘And it’ll be over.’
‘But Kate,’ May said. ‘What about Kate?’
‘I know,’ Beth said. ‘But I guess there is a bigger picture here. The police have to catch this guy. Put yourself in their shoes: he’s been killing women in at least two places. They have to act if they get a lead.’
‘I know.’ Phil stood up and paced the kitchen. ‘I know that’s right, Beth. But it’s hard to see the bigger picture when all I want is to see Kate safe. I know it’s selfish, but’ – he threw up his hands – ‘what am I supposed to think?’
‘There’s no such thing as selfish in this situation,’ Beth said. ‘And there’s nothing you’re supposed to think. No one should have to go through this, and however you get through it is OK.’
‘I just want that phone to ring’ – he pointed at May’s phone – ‘and Gus to say it’s over and she’s OK. I’d give anything. Anything.’
‘It will,’ Beth said. ‘Have faith.’
They fell silent. Phil ran through the possibilities in his mind, over and over. They located the phone signal. They surrounded some house – in his mind, it was a cottage by a lake, a cottage that looked like one he’d gone on holiday to with his parents years ago, somewhere in Derbyshire. It was funny how the mind did that, how it dredged up locations from the past when it needed a setting; in this case, a setting for men in black clothes carrying assault rifles to surround, kick the door in, throw flash grenades into the darkness.
He imagined a brief, intense period of shouting and gunfire, and then a pause.
And two of the men in black coming out holding Mike, his arms twisted up his back, his face smeared with dirt, blood on his jeans from a bullet wound.
And then: Kate, walking out, dazed, tears staining her face.
Or: a police officer walking out, grim-faced, shaking his head.
Those were the possibilities. And he had to prepare himself for the second of them.
May’s phone rang.
She snatched it up. She said one word:
‘Gus.’
Then she answered it.
The world slowed down. Phil studied her face, watching for any sign: happiness, joy, elation. Fear, sadness, grief.
May nodded. Then nodded again.
‘So that’s it?’ she said. ‘That’s all?’
‘What’s all?’ Phil said. ‘What’s he saying?’
May locked eyes with him. She was expressionless.
‘They found the place,’ she said. ‘But there was no one there.’
26
The flimsy motorhome door opened. It was ironic that the door to her cell was made of a material she could have kicked her way through, although she wouldn’t get the chance, given her current situation.
Mike appeared in the doorway. He was cupping a mug in his hands. It smelled like Bovril.
Jesus. He drank Bovril. She’d always liked Bovril. But now she’d never drink it again. She blinked. It was about all she could do. She’d given up trying to move a while back. There was no position that changed the agony anyway.
He took a slow, slurping sip.
‘Your friends didn’t listen,’ he said. ‘They told the police.’ He shook his head. ‘Idiots. I asked them to do one thing, but they couldn’t even do that. My face is plastered all over the news. If you see this man, please phone us. That kind of thing.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘This man is known to be dangerous and might be armed. Do not approach.’
He raised a finger in a teacherly gesture that said, But wait, there’s more.
‘Watch,’ he said. ‘You’ll like this.’
He stepped back from the doorway. She heard the noise of drawers opening, rubber stretching, the tap running. After a while he reappeared.
Or an old man did.
Balding, white hair on either temple, thick glasses, nostril-hair sprouting, a ruddy complexion on his cheeks.
‘Meet Steven Magwith,’ he said, in a broad West Country accent. ‘Known as Maggs to his friends. Got a passport, National Insurance card, bank account. Lives abroad most of the year, but drinks in a lovely little boozer in Bristol when he’s home.’
His voice changed back.
‘See?’ he said. ‘I can vanish’ – he clicked his fingers – ‘like that. Steven Magwith can move around at his leisure. I can drive my motorhome to all corners of this kingdom and not a soul will notice me. If I wish it to be so, Mike Sadler is, in an instant, no more.’ He pointed at her. ‘You too,’ he said. ‘In case you forgot.’
He sat on the cot. Kate followed him with her eyes.
‘Quite a few have sat in that chair,’ he said. ‘Your friend Beth for one. She’ll be in it again, someday. In fact, I might not use it again until it’s her turn. Then I can tell her that you were her immediate predecessor. There’s beauty in that, don’t you think? I’m an artist, in many ways. In fact, if I hadn’t taken this route, I probably could have been a great artist. Maybe written novels. Or been an actor. Yes – that’s it. I’d have been an actor. Maybe I still will, one day.’
He scratched his head and put on a quizzical expression.
‘Where’s my cider?’ he said, cider coming out as zoider. ‘I love a bit o’ scrumpy, me.’
He smiled at her. ‘Did you know,’ he said, still as Steven Magwith, ‘that the actor who played Darth Vader was from the West Country? He was called Dave Prowse, and he had an accent like mine? But then they dubbed James Earl Jones over him.’ He laughed. ‘Probably a good idea! Not quite right to hear Darth Vader saying, “The force is strong with this one, my luverrr.”’
She couldn’t believe that she was here, that she was tied to a chair in a motorhome with a man she’d been – until this morning – thinking she might be falling, a little bit at least, in love with.
A man she’d had sex with the night before. A man she’d trusted.
A man who was now wearing a bald wig and speaking in a broad Somerset accent.
He switched back to his real voice, if it was his real voice. There was no guarantee that Mike Sadler was any more real than Steven Magwith.
‘That chair,’ he said. ‘Is a very good way to punish people. Leaves no marks, you see. And from what I understand, it’s quite painful. Anyway, I have work to do. I need to have a chat to your friends.’
He took a phone from his pocket. It was a cheap flip-phone, prepaid. He tapped a number into it and lifted it to his ear.
After a pause, he spoke.
‘May,’ he said. ‘Hello. It’s me.’
27
May looked down at her phone. It buzzed on Beth’s kitchen table.
‘Gus again?’ Phil said.
‘No.’ She tilted her head to look more closely at the screen. ‘I don’t recognize the number.’
‘Answer it.’
She put it to her ear.
‘Hello?’ she said.
Her mouth fell open. She braced her hand against the table.
She looked at Phil. ‘It’s him. And he wants to speak to you.’
Phil took the phone. He put it on speaker. ‘Hello?’ he said.
‘Phil!’ Mike’s tone was bright and cheery, as though he was greeting an old friend who he hadn’t seen in a while. ‘How are you?’
‘Not that great,’ Phil said. ‘But I imagine asking after my wellbeing is not why you called.’
‘You imagine correctly. Although there’s no need to be rude. I was simply being polite.’
Phil ignored him. ‘Where’s Kate?’
‘With me.’ His tone darkened. ‘I see you ignored me and went to the police. I’m all over the news. Did those plods trace my phone and come looking for me? Is that what happened?’
‘Yes,’ Phil said. ‘You weren’t there.’
‘Of course I wasn’t. I knew you’d tell them, even though I asked you not to,
which is why I’ve moved on.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘Somewhere. Near or far. Home or away. You’ll never know.’
‘Is Kate OK?’
‘I wouldn’t say OK,’ he replied. ‘She looks a little fatigued. Drained, almost. But then constant agony can do that to a person. She’s tough, though. Hasn’t complained once. Not that she can, of course. She can’t make any noises, if I’m honest.’
‘What have you done to her?’ Phil said. His fist clenched and unclenched on his leg, bunching up his jeans. ‘Is she alive?’
‘Yes, of course. You think I’m some kind of monster who goes around killing people indiscriminately?’ He laughed, a shy, bashful, aw-shucks chuckle, as though deflecting praise. ‘I suppose you do. I suppose I am a little itty-bit of a monster, in my own special way.’
‘Please,’ Phil said. ‘Let her go. Leave her somewhere and I’ll come and get her. You don’t need to kill her.’
‘Well, you see, that’s not entirely true,’ he said. ‘Here’s what I wanted to happen. I found out where Beth – or Andrea, as I should call her – was, then I killed Kate. Made it look like the Strangler. Then, a year or two from now, a serial killer would start preying on people like Andrea. Eventually, he’d get to her, and I’d get my revenge.’
On the other side of the table, Beth covered her mouth with her hand. She slowly closed her eyes.
‘But now,’ he went on, ‘now Beth’s going to disappear again. And she did a good job of that last time, so I’m going to have to start all over again. Which, frankly, pisses me off. But it also means I have no use for Kate.’
The doorbell rang. Four descending chimes, four ascending.
May’s eyes widened. Beth sprang to her feet. She put the phone on mute.
‘Is he here?’ she said. ‘Is that him?’
A voice came from the phone. ‘Hello? Anybody there? Was that the doorbell?’ He started to sing. ‘There’s somebody at the door, there’s somebody at the door.’
Phil unmuted the phone. ‘Is that you?’ he said. ‘Are you outside?’