by Zoe Caldwell
‘So this is my humble abode!’ she says, beckoning me into her room with a slightly nervous laugh.
I take in her room. It’s big. Bay windows frame a desk. There are books everywhere. Bookcases overflowing, books stacked in piles on the desk, towering on her bedside table. She has a small wardrobe. A shaggy rug. An antique-effect mirror with a string of fairy lights draped around its frame. Pot plants. Loads of them. Tall ones. Spider plants. Cacti on the desk and dotted along the windowsill. There’s a sofa, a throw slung over it. A book open on the armrest, pages down. There are cushions on the bed, arranged prettily, as though in expectation of a visitor. A candle flickers on the bedside table and the room smells of wax and vanilla. It’s homely. Cute.
I notice how there are no pictures of family on the walls. Maybe the reason Vanessa never pries too much about my family is because she doesn’t want me to pry in return. Maybe her family isn’t exactly ideal either.
‘Oh, it’s nice!’ I insist, meaning it.
Vanessa shrugs. ‘It’s all right. I like it.’
‘I like it too,’ I tell her, peeling off my coat, draping it on the sofa.
Vanessa clocks the ratty old jumper I’m wearing. A cheap one from my disguise wardrobe. The kind of thing she’d normally wear, not me.
‘You’re looking casual today,’ she comments.
‘Oh, yeah.’ I shrug, not bothering to explain further.
Vanessa steps towards me, tracing her hand over the front of my jumper. I feel a tremor of excitement at her touch. Our eyes meet. I sweep my hands around her, over her back, draw her in. I trace my fingers through her soft hair as we kiss. We fall back onto the bed, amongst the cushions.
‘You smell like rubber!’ Vanessa notes, as I sweep her hair from her face.
Rubber. The rubber sheeting. All the tape.
‘Really?’ I laugh, wracking my brains for an excuse. ‘I was at the gym earlier, maybe that’s why.’
‘Maybe,’ Vanessa murmurs, smiling, as she kisses my neck and peels off my top.
She rubs my breasts through my bra. I kiss her hungrily, my hands tangling in her hair. I feel hot, aroused, I want her, but it’s more than just lust.
‘Let’s go away together,’ I blurt out, breathily, between kisses.
‘Suffolk?’ Vanessa sighs, kissing my chest, crouching over me, kissing my stomach.
‘No, further away. Somewhere hot.’
‘Sounds heavenly,’ she says, as she unbuttons my jeans.
I can’t tell if she’s on board or if she thinks I’m daydreaming.
I take hold of her wrist, pull her up to me, kiss her, gaze into her eyes.
She lies on top of me, her hair falling in curtains around us.
‘I mean it. I want to go away with you. I’ll pay for everything. Don’t worry about that. I just want to get away. I want to be with you.’
My voice cracks unexpectedly and I feel raw, almost embarrassed.
Abay was wrong. I do have a heart. I can feel it. I can feel it pounding. A sharpness inside. A need. It’s not all-consuming. It’s not the stuff of sonnets or ballads or Hollywood movies, but it’s something. A stirring.
Vanessa smiles, softly, tenderly. ‘Okay. Let’s do it. I want to be with you too.’
I smile, pulling her close.
18
I line up my weapons: my saw, my nail gun, my knives. They gleam silver, still, in the beam of my torch. I trace my fingers along the serrated blade of the saw, the spiked edge of the nails, the smooth surface of my knives, but the anticipation, the thrill I usually get ahead of a kill is muted. It’s there all right. I’m in my dark place, leaning into it. The mask is off and I feel free, excited, ready to even the score, and yet my mind keeps wandering in a way it doesn’t usually before a kill. Normally, I fixate on my slaughters. I’m unable to stop thinking about how my victim’s cries of pain will sound, the desperate utterances they’ll make in their final moments, whether they’ll beg for forgiveness. I picture the life draining from their eyes, but even though I can’t wait to kill Miles, my mind keeps wandering. I think of clear blue sea in a hot part of the world. I picture Vanessa in a bikini lying on a towel on white sand. I wonder whether she’ll read Aristotle on the beach, or whether she’ll opt for something lighter. I wonder what that would be. I imagine our arms draped around each other’s bodies in a beach hut, the sound of waves ebbing against the shore, lulling us to sleep at night. I wonder if she’ll still be wearing that sparkly green nail varnish. I picture the sea lapping against her toes, sunlight twinkling off the glitter.
We stayed up late last night, researching where to go, co-ordinating our diaries. We set a date. On Monday, I’ll book the time off work and pay for the flights. Soon, this fantasy will become reality. But for now, I need to kill. Even if I’m not as into it as usual, I have to do it. I can’t relax while Miles has free rein. I won’t be able to switch off while he’s preying on kids. I need to calm the rage, tame the monster inside. I need to feel like the person I’m meant to be, not the person I was. A victor, not a victim.
With Miles cut up and bagged up at the bottom of the Thames, I can have some reprieve. Kick back in the sun. Calm down. Be free.
My burner phone buzzes, its screen flashing in the dull room. It’s a text from Miles.
Miles: Not far now.
I check the time. It’s 5.45pm. Not long to go.
I type a reply.
Robbie: Cool!
I turn from my weapons, pick up my torch and cross the room. I open my bag and retrieve a syringe carefully packed in a case. I flip it open. It’s loaded with a sedative I bought on the dark web, which will knock him out instantly. I take it out of the case, holding it delicately, admiring the point of the needle in the grey light. I place it back in the case and flash the torch around the room, enjoying the view. The shining plastic, the glinting blades. The clinical slickness of it. A soothing, resting place for someone so destructive, so chaotic.
I slip out of the room and walk down the corridor towards the entrance of the warehouse, where I sit in a stairwell, lurking in the shadows. Dressed in black, I blend into the darkness. I place the syringe in its case on the stairs next to me and hold my phone in my hands. The vague antipathy I felt about killing Miles starts to turn into excitement. The countdown’s on. My heart beats. The rush is here. He’s coming.
I gave him the address of the estate. Soon he’ll be wandering in, confused, expecting a suburban house.
I wait a little while, gazing into the darkness, until my phone flashes with a new message.
Miles: Were ur place?!
Ha. Still trying to sound like a kid, even though in his eyes, the game is nearly up. As far as Miles is concerned, he’s about to meet a little boy, a boy who’ll be shocked and terrified when he realises he’s been lied to, manipulated. Does Miles plan to pretend to be the father of his alias, Tom? Does he plan to make up some lies to temporarily put Robbie at ease, before escalating things or will he get nasty straight away?
Robbie: I’m hanging out in this cool old place. Come have a look! The warehouse at the back with the red door.
Miles: Ok lol.
My heart thuds harder. He’s coming.
I place the phone down on the stairs and pick up my syringe. I press on the plunger until a bead of liquid emerges, dripping down the needle. I stand up, creep towards the door. I peer through a nearby window and in the darkness, I can make him out. He’s walking towards the warehouse. He’s wearing a baby pink shirt, like the shade of the dressing gown he’d wear when trying to get children to touch him. Classic.
I stand flush against the wall, heart pounding, ready to pounce the moment he enters.
I hear footsteps outside.
‘Robbie?’ he says, his voice higher-pitched than a grown man’s should be, clearly still pretending to be a kid.
He obviously wants to keep up the pretence, right up until the moment Robbie’s eyes land on him and there’s no mistaking that the person in front of him is
n’t another kid here to play, but a predator.
The door begins opening. I hold my breath, adrenaline surges through me.
I’m about to leap forward when I spot a dark sleeve, no pink shirt in sight. I freeze. What’s happening? The door opens further. The figure steps forward. I spot the barrel of a gun. A face in the darkness. Not Miles. The figure turns to me: Detective Wheelan, his eyes cold, challenging, victorious in the dim light.
‘Get down on your knees, Camilla,’ he barks, pointing his gun at me.
I drop the syringe, hands shaking, reality blurring.
I crumple to the ground as officers pour into the warehouse. Flooding in, infiltrating the darkness, flashing torches, filling the rooms like pests. They swarm into my kill room. My mind races. How did this happen? How did they know? An officer emerges from my kill room: Sergeant Porter.
‘You were right. Full of knives,’ he remarks, shaking his head in disbelief, as Detective Wheelan manoeuvres himself around me, keeping his gun close to my head.
‘Hands behind your back, don’t move,’ he hisses as he clasps cold metal against my wrists.
The cuffs chink, locking.
I stare at the dusty floor, zigzagging with the flashlights of police. Footprints in the dust.
‘Where is he?’ I gasp.
‘Who’s that, Camilla?’ Detective Wheelan’s voice is hard. Cold. Disgusted.
He stands over me, his gun still pointed at my head.
‘Miles. Miles,’ I utter.
‘He’s outside. He’s served his time. Miles is a free man and now he’s helped us catch you,’ Detective Wheelan says, sneering down at me. ‘I knew I’d get you eventually. I’ve been onto you for a while. I just needed bait,’ Wheelan tells me.
My heart lurches. I take in his smug expression. He set me up. He must have realised there was a vigilante, had some kind of killer profile, suspected me. Then he placed Miles in my path, watched my moves. Was I even messaging Miles on echatgroup.com? Probably not. It must have been Wheelan all along, or one of his staff. My stomach fizzes with unease. I’ve always thought I could outsmart the police, but they’ve been strides ahead of me this time. I walked into their trap.
‘I knew you were guilty. I know you murdered Julian Taylor. How many men have you killed, Camilla?’ Wheelan asks, disgust palpable in his voice.
He yanks me up, grabbing my handcuffs, tugging me off the ground. I look back to my kill room. I think of my mobile in my bag, turned off to avoid detection. I was going to turn it on later, once I’d disposed of Miles and was on my way back to London. I was going to turn it on and message Vanessa. Chat about our holiday, daydream. My phone is my portal to her. My gaze hangs on the room as Wheelan drags me out of the warehouse.
‘I’m going to find out all the sick, twisted things you’ve done,’ Wheelan spits at me as he hauls me onto the street. ‘All of it. Every last kill.’
As he drags me down the pavement towards a police van, I think of the key to my garage in my flat. Will they scour my bank statements, see payments to my garage company? Will they find my garage, unlock it, expose it all? Of course they will. Wheelan’s going to stop at nothing to destroy me. He’s already shown that. If Miles was nothing but a pawn, was the ad in the paper for his piano lessons fake? Were the pictures in Miles’s darkroom planted too? Was it a coincidence that he was in my local bar or was he there to lure me? But Briony mentioned him. My stomach flips. Was Briony in on it? Is that what Eva wanted to speak to me about last night?
‘Briony, did she…?’ I gasp.
‘Your friends know you’re a fuck-up. You thought you were fooling everyone, didn’t you?’ Wheelan laughs.
Briony knew. She suspected me, just like Abay did. She must have conspired with the police to reel me in. If only I’d listened to Eva when she said she needed to talk. I’d been meaning to call her back today, but I was too preoccupied with preparing for my kill and I turned my phone off so nobody could track me.
Sergeant Porter sneers by Wheelan’s side and opens the back door of a police van.
‘What about Howard Warner?’ I utter, remembering the thirty-three-year-old hunting enthusiast, even though I already know I’m done for.
Wheelan laughs. ‘My colleague thought he might have something to do with it, but his alibi was airtight. I know you killed Julian, and mark my words, I’ll make sure you go down for it,’ Wheelan promises with a victorious smirk as Sergeant Porter throws me into the back of the van like a dog.
I tumble in, gather myself, and turn to look into Wheelan’s dark eyes. I take in the hatred. The rage he feels for murderers. The anger he’s allowed to express. I’m his Miles. I want to explain to him that there are reasons I am the way I am. There are reasons I want to rid the world of abusers, in the same way he wants to rid the world of murderers, but it’s too late. It’s far too late.
Wheelan’s found an acceptable way to relieve his hatred. He’s found an honourable way to cope. I never did.
He slams the doors. Darkness. My portal to Vanessa has gone. My kill room, gone. Beaches, gone. Sunshine. Sea. Her toenails glinting in the sun. Never to be seen. The Woman of the Year Awards, laughable. It’s all gone. It’s over. Metal presses against my wrists. I squirm. I’m the old me again, bound up, trapped. Just like I was in that garage all those years ago, when another man locked me away. I picture my dad’s face as he shut the garage door, sneering, cold, cruel, so similar to Wheelan’s. I feel small, fragile, helpless, all over again. I look down at the dirty floor of the van. I was never going to escape, was I?
My path was always going to be troubled and now, it’s the end.
THE END
Acknowledgements
Firstly, I would like to thank, you, the reader, for picking up a copy of my book. I hope you have enjoyed reading Predator and getting to know Camilla!
I am so grateful to my publisher, Bloodhound Books, for publishing Predator. The experience of working with Bloodhound has been absolutely fantastic and I am so thankful to the brilliant team - in particular, Betsy Reaveley and Fred Freeman, Tara Lyons, Heather Fitt, and Ian Skewis for his incredible copyediting and also Abbie Rutherford for proofreading my book.
I'd also like to thank a few authors who supported me while I was writing Predator. It was quite challenging being in Camilla's headspace at times. I struggled with her dark world, both from a plotting point of view and in terms of morale. I truly appreciate the support I received from thriller author Eoghan Egan, who offered to give me feedback on the book and went above and beyond to help. Eoghan's insightful, kind and encouraging approach gave me the boost I needed at a point when I felt very stuck, and lifted my spirits. Authors like Eoghan make the book community a great place to be. I'd also like to thank another brilliant author, James Woolf, for his thoughts on multiple early drafts of Predator. James was one of the first people to read about Camilla and his enthusiasm and critique helped me strengthen my early drafts and gave me confidence in my idea.
Last but not least, I'd like to thank Stuart Gibbon from GIB Consultancy. I turned to Stuart many times during the writing of Predator, picking his brains as a former police detective, to find out whether my ideas for the book were realistic. Stuart answered all my niche questions with a great deal of care and consideration, enabling me to strengthen the novel and make Camilla's world darkly believable.
Once again, thank you so much to my readers and to Bloodhound Books. I look forward to sharing my next thriller with you soon.
A note from the publisher
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