by Julie Howlin
I’d had enough of deception and lies to last a lifetime in the few months I was with Jonathan. It was my duty, as a good employee, a good citizen, to draw someone’s attention to this, if, that is, I could trust my dreams, but I knew I couldn't. Not completely. I didn’t want to jeopardise everything because of another mistake.
There were no easy answers, but as the sun came up I knew what I had to do. Confront Robert. I hoped there would be a plausible and innocent explanation, and that I could stop worrying.
Timing would be everything. Rob was so tense and stressed that confronting him now would be likely to make him very angry. Jonathan had left me with a dread of making any man angry. Perhaps after we'd been to Paris, and we'd both had a relaxing break, it would be easier. Yes. As soon as we got back from Paris, I'd do it.
39 the ice skater
Dawn Byrne. sixteen, lauded as a hopeful for the figure skating team in the next Winter Olympics. Thanks to the Mitzi Doll Killer, not any more. I had a photograph of her in a green skating dress, chestnut hair scraped back into a pony tail, smiling into the camera. I used to be sceptical about Jonathan’s assertion that you can look at a photo of someone and know whether they are alive or dead. The picture is frozen on special paper with chemicals. It doesn’t change. Nothing happens to the ink or the paper just because the person in the picture died. I’d never been able to tell. Only now, looking at this girl, I did notice something about her eyes. A sort of emptiness, flatness.
I reached for the framed photo I have of Gran with Mum and Amber. With a shiver, I noticed the same flatness in Gran’s eyes, but with Mum and Amber, there was a sparkle, a depth, a connection. He was right. You can tell.
I also had a hair-band which belonged to Dawn. I sat in my meditation space, trying to connect with her and see if I could learn any more about her killer. Twelve murders, one attempted murder, and getting more frequent. He has to be stopped. ‘Dawn,’ I silently said. ‘If there is anything you can tell me about him...’
I had an impression of Dawn’s room. Posters of Torville and Dean, her own skating trophies. No surprises there. ‘What happened to you, Dawn?’ My mind went foggy. The feeling still frightened me, but I didn't fight it. I saw Dawn.
She's taking her skates off. Changing into her trainers and track suit. She looks at her watch. There’s a bus in five minutes. She shoves her skates into a holdall and walks out of the building. She waves to a friend who is getting into a car.
‘Want a lift, Dawn?’ the friend calls.
‘No, thanks, it’s out of your way. I’ll get the bus - it’ll be here in a minute.’
She sets off for the bus stop. The bus passes her. She starts to run and gets to the stop just as the driver is closing the door. She taps on it, but he ignores her and drives off. I hope he realises that if only he had stopped to let her on, she would still be alive today. Dawn, clearly a feisty little thing, puts two fingers up at the departing bus and looks at her watch. Twenty minutes to wait. She glances back and sees that her friend with the car has already gone. There’s nobody around. Not that she can see. She gets a mobile phone out and dials. Before she can speak to the person on the other end, someone grabs her from behind. She drops the phone. I’m choking. I can hardly breathe. I panic. The feeling is so strong and so real I think I’m dying myself.
With a gasp, I dropped the picture and the hair band and ran out into the hall. Flinging open the front door, I took several gulps of air. I was still alive. Dawn wasn’t so lucky.
I had nothing more on the killer, though. Dawn didn’t see him.
I phoned Jamie, anyway, and told him what I’d seen. He told me that the alarm was raised when Dawn’s mother picked up her call. She knew it was Dawn, and when Dawn didn’t speak, and instead she heard muffled screams, footsteps running away and then nothing, she knew something was very wrong. The police were at the ice rink in minutes, but it was too late for Dawn. Her body lay at the bus stop, decapitated ice skater Mitzi Doll by her side.
**
I went down with the flu and was off work for three days. The gallons of cold remedy I was taking gave me even more jumbled and confusing dreams.
I dreamed I was living in a castle. Amber was there, only she was my older sister, not the younger one, and Caroline was our mother. Dad was still my dad, but Mum was my aunt and Gran was a servant who helped me get dressed in the mornings. She took Amber and me out onto a balcony. We could see several knights in armour practising jousting and swordplay. Amber was cheering for one particular knight. I too had a favourite - I was cheering for him with all my strength.
Then I was at a jousting tournament with Amber and Alison. Alison and I were just as frosty with each other here as we were in real life. Two knights were competing, and Alison was the prize. She cheered wildly, but her favourite lost. She pouted a little and stamped her foot petulantly, but then the winner came over to us and removed his helmet. Alison took one look at him and seemed to forget about her previous beau as she linked arms with her new champion and walked away.
My heart went out to the loser, who had lost not only the fight but the heart of his lady love as well. I wanted to go and speak to him and say how sorry I was. Amber said I mustn’t without a chaperone, so I made her come with me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said to the loser, who was dabbing a wound on his arm with a cloth. He still wore a helmet so I couldn’t see his face.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I let him win. She’s not the prize I seek.’
‘What is the prize you seek?’ I asked.
‘Why, it is you, Milady,’ he said, bowing deeply. I blushed scarlet.
He started to remove his helmet but before I could see who he was I woke up.
I hoped to get the end of the story the following night, but instead I was dreaming about the Mitzi Doll killer. He was on the same train as before only this time Rob and I were sitting opposite him, talking to him. The killer bragged that he would never be caught because he was on this train and the police thought he was at the airport. I tried asking him his name and where he lived, but he just laughed and said he was not that stupid.
Then I dreamed I was visiting Rob in prison, but the man on the gate told me before I even went in that he did not want to see me.
Finally, I dreamed I was the Ugly Duckling and just as I was about to kill myself because I was so ugly, I turned into a swan and flew away. I was marvelling at how amazing everything looked from up in the sky when a beautiful male swan appeared, flying by my side. I knew he was my soul mate, and we soared above the earth together. Then a hunter appeared below us with a gun in the shape of a Mitzi Doll and was shooting at us. At me. I was hit, I was falling, tumbling, out of control, to my death. When I woke up from that one, I decided I’d been sleeping too much, and got up to veg out in front of daytime TV instead.
Vivid as these dreams were at the time, they faded from memory as soon as I started to feel better. I did record them in my dream journal, though, and there would come a time when I would look back at them and realise they were not so completely daft after all.
**
‘Are you feeling better?’ Jada asked when I returned to the office.
‘Much better, thanks,’ I replied.
I glanced through the open door to Robert's office. I couldn't see him, but I could see the money plant I was planning to take home that very day.
‘How are your friends Luke and Simon?’ Jada asked.
‘They're good,’ I replied.
‘I really liked them. They were such a laugh at your party.’
I looked at the outside door, and was not as surprised as might have been expected when it burst open, although I saw Jada jump up in shock.
‘I’m Inspector Christina Mortimer and this is Inspector John Parker, Fraud Squad,’ she announced, holding her ID out for us to see. ‘Is Robert Grant here?’
‘He’s in his office,’ I said.
He came out, looking ill.
‘Mr Grant.’ It was a statem
ent, not a question. Christina knew who he was. ‘We’re making enquiries on behalf of Alan Bainbridge, your CEO,’ she said. ‘We need access to all your accounting files and your staff files. We have a warrant.’ She waved a sheet of paper under his nose.
‘Yes,’ Rob said, numbly. ‘Of course. Come in.’
‘Would any of you like a coffee?’ I asked.
‘No, thank you,’ Christina said, sharply, and Inspector Parker shook his head.
Rob however, nodded weakly. ‘Coffee would be lovely.’
When I returned with the coffee, the detectives were poring over files. Parker had the accounts book. Christina was reading my file, not Sarah’s. I hoped Rob had not doctored it since I’d looked in it.
After about an hour, they left, without a word, taking the accounts book and several files with them. Rob seemed relieved. Perhaps he was expecting to be carted away in handcuffs.
He was extremely jumpy for the next few days. He refused to discuss anything with me and was so snappy that I began to wonder if I even wanted to go to Paris with him. Every time the office door opened, he jumped up to see who it was. He went out a lot, and would ring me on my mobile just before he returned, asking who was in the office. He spent more time than usual at my place, and was relatively relaxed when he was there; except when I tried to ask him what was going on, or why he was so jumpy. Then he would tersely say that nothing was going on and that none of it was my business.
I began to wonder if this was why he hadn’t wanted it known we were together - when the net began to close in, he could hide at my flat. The Fraud Squad wouldn’t know to look for him there. Was he using me?
I still had a tiny scar over my left eyebrow from the time Jonathan had first attacked me and I'd hit my head on the coffee table. Beneath it was a mental scar that made me terrified to risk making Rob angry. I prayed that his mood would improve once we got to Paris.
40 paris
I’d never been on Eurostar before, so arriving at the international terminal was very exciting. It felt just like an airport with security check-ins and staff dressed like air stewardesses. We found our seats on the sleek looking train, and I felt like a little kid going on her first train ride ever. I couldn’t resist bouncing up and down a little in my seat, and Rob looked at me like an indulgent father. He’d been quite nervy as we passed through security. Perhaps he thought that Interpol would be there waiting to arrest him for trying to leave the country.
Now we were on the train, he relaxed a little and was almost his old self again.
The train pulled out - I gave a little squeal - we’re off! I watched the streets and gardens of London go by.
When I got tired of that, I went to get coffees. I wanted to see what the second class carriages were like. As I reached them, I realised I’d seen them before. This was the very train that the Mitzi Doll Killer had been on in my dream! I looked at the people, sitting in their seats, some reading, some sleeping, others chatting to each other or looking out of the window. Was he here right now? Was I really going to overhear his conversation or even speak to him myself? His face was never clear in my dreams, so there was no way I'd recognise him if he was there. So I gave up and returned to my seat.
Later, when Rob fell asleep, I wondered whether it was significant that I’d dreamed about the killer on Eurostar rather than any other train. Did he live somewhere along its route? I must phone Jamie and tell him, but we were entering the Channel Tunnel - it would have to wait.
I resolved to phone him as soon as I had a signal again, but by the time we emerged from the tunnel, the horrendously early start had caught up with me. With nothing to see out of the window, my eyes drooped shut, and next thing I knew, Rob was shaking me awake. ‘We’re in Paris!’
We hauled our bags off the train and stepped onto the streets of Paris. It was hard to believe we had arrived there as easily as getting to Manchester. If it wasn’t for all the signs in French and people speaking French all around me, I might have thought we were in Manchester. Rob hailed a taxi to take us to our hotel, which was, like the train, very plush. As soon as we stepped out of the taxi, a porter in a burgundy uniform snatched up our bags and carried them inside. The room had a marble bathroom, complete with pure white fluffy bathrobes, slippers and a stool by the sink. Sitting down to clean my teeth felt like utter decadence to me.
Rob had been to Paris many times and knew his way around. He took me to the Eiffel Tower. We went up to the top to see the city spread out far below us. The wind was blowing the hair into my face and it was exhilarating. We laughed about that scene in Ab Fab where Edina tricks Saffy into exposing her boobs. Rob seemed relaxed and happy – I thought about confronting him about Sarah's file while he was in this good mood, but did I really want to ruin this moment? And although there were safety railings everywhere, was there a risk he'd find a way to pitch me over the side? In any case, we could barely hear each other over the wind up there.
In Montmartre, I was fascinated by the street artists. Rows and rows of paintings, riots of colour, countless different interpretations of the scenery in front of us. We had our portraits done - I think the guy captured Rob just right, but I wasn’t sure the woman beside him really looked that much like me.
We went on a dinner cruise along the Seine, ate lots of good food and drank lots of rather good wine. Rob was in excellent form, ordering confidently from the wine list in what sounded to me like perfect French as the boat glided past the famous sights on the banks of the river. It was perfect. Too perfect. I had thought the cruise might be the time for a heart-to-heart chat, but it was one of those operations where they squeeze in as many people as they can and we were sharing a table with a couple from Birmingham, so again, I didn't do it. I sampled frog’s legs (they taste rather like chicken) but drew the line at snails.
Rob was attentive in a way he had not been for several weeks - it was like being back at the beginning of our relationship and it was absolutely lovely. Knowing that when we got back I was going to have to tackle him about just what he'd been up to was a large black cloud on my horizon.
**
On the return journey, we sat opposite another couple and got talking to them. He wore a sweatshirt with ‘Lake Louise’ written on it.
‘Have you skied Lake Louise?’ Rob asked the man.
‘Yeah, we were there last year - have you?’
‘A couple of times.’
‘Do you ski much in Europe?’ the man in the sweatshirt asked.
‘Yes, I do. I alternate between Europe and North America,’ said Rob. I wondered if my relationship with Rob had any chance of lasting until he could take me to Lake Louise. I was beginning to doubt it. ‘Though what I hate about Europe is the four hour coach transfers. I love being able to hop in a hire car and drive myself.’
‘You should do what we do,’ the man said. ‘We get the train.’
‘I’ve never tried that. What’s it like?’
‘It’s brilliant. You catch the Eurostar on Friday afternoon. Get off in Paris and have dinner there - even though Gare du Nord is really just the French equivalent of King’s Cross and you’re essentially eating in a railway transport caff, it’s Paris and it’s French food and wine and a bit romantic.’ He glanced at his partner, who gave him a smile. ‘Then you catch the Snow Train overnight and arrive in your resort early Saturday morning - so you actually get to ski on Saturday which never happens when you’re faffing around on planes and coaches all day. When you go back, the train isn’t till the evening, so you get two extra days skiing.’
We spent most of the journey talking to this couple and it flew by.
**
Back in London, Rob drove me over to Megan’s to pick up Thumbelina, and then left me at home, saying he had ‘things to do’. I was not getting a chance to confront him tonight. My answering machine was blinking. Two messages. Mum, wanting to know if Rob was still coming for Sunday lunch next week. The second was from Sarah. A very tearful, frightened Sarah. ‘I really need to
talk to you, Tabitha. I’d rather not say what about on the phone, but please could you ring me when you get this?’ Oh, God. She wasn’t in prison, was she? No, she couldn’t be - she’d asked me to ring her home number.
I rang her right away. ‘What’s happened?’ I asked, but with a sinking feeling that I probably already knew.
‘I had the police here on Friday,’ she said. ‘Demanding to look at all my bank statements. I said what right did they have to do this - they were scaring my children. This woman, such a cold bitch, she was, said they had a warrant and she showed me it and said they had the right to search my house and go through my papers. They wouldn’t tell me why. They went through everything, took away all my bank statements and tax records. They left my house in a complete mess and my children screaming with terror. Didn’t have the decency to tidy up after themselves, left me to do it. They’re no better than burglars. I’ve no idea what I’m supposed to have done.’
‘You haven’t done anything, have you?’
‘No, Tabitha, I haven't. I’m a stickler with money - you know that.’
‘Sarah, if you haven’t done anything, then going through your papers will make that pretty clear to them. It sounds traumatic, though, poor you!’
‘I just dread them finding some tiny error; that I’ve broken some law I didn’t even know about. That they’ll frame me for something I haven’t done! What will happen to my children if I go to prison?’
‘It won’t come to that, Sarah,’ I said.
‘How can you know?’
‘I’m psychic, remember?’ I hoped I sounded convincing. I also knew that I couldn't put off dealing with Rob a moment longer.
41 confrontation
Next morning I marched right into Rob’s office and shut the door behind me. He looked up. When he saw my face, he asked, ‘What’s wrong?’