Extinction

by Carol Anne Davis

  But the worst thing about Adam was the way that he targeted anyone pure. He’d singled out a shy girl who was saving it for Jesus and had wooed her for weeks with honeyed words and little – doubtless stolen – gifts. He, Nicholas, had warned her that Adam had had a string of girls, that he only wanted them for sex, but she’d chosen not to believe him, had fallen helplessly in love.

  He’d had sex with her for a week or two before moving on to his next victim: he loved a challenge. Nicholas would never forget her tears, the way that she’d begged him to intervene. He’d even tried to talk to his brother but the youth had just said, ‘You fuck her if you like.’

  ‘But she loves you.’

  ‘That’s her problem.’

  ‘She says that you told her that you loved her.’

  ‘Has she got it on tape?’

  Once again his parents had become involved and had gone to see the girl’s mother and stepfather. Once again, they’d attempted to talk to Adam, to make him feel another person’s pain.

  And, years later, they’d all talked to Helen, begged her not to remain involved with the man, explained that his relationships were invariably destructive. But, rather than listen to them, she’d married him, and it had probably cost her her life. The police had been convinced that he’d pushed her to her death rather than let her leave him; they merely lacked proof.

  Could he have killed again since then, safe in the knowledge that he had already gotten away with murder? And, given his ongoing need for excitement, what would he do next?

  Why hadn’t Adam Neave responded to any of his phone messages? Dr Edward Frazer returned home from the latest conference on ADHD and checked his answering machine. Usually, fellow professionals got back to him within days but he’d been waiting to hear from this particular psychologist about Brandon Petrie for over a month.

  The conference had been fascinating, if controversial, with its suggestion that children inherited the brain disorder from their parents, inheriting duplicated or missing DNA from the same sections of the brain which were implicated in schizophrenia. Had Brandon’s biological parents passed on the chromosomal abnormality? His notes said that he had been adopted at birth.

  He’d only seen Brandon twice, but was convinced that the teen had a serious conduct disorder rather than simply an attention deficit. In short, the youth might well grow up to become antisocial, setting fires and torturing animals or hitting his girlfriends. He could become a burglar or a professional shoplifter, would use every opportunity to defy authority. Denied suitable medication, the boy would give in to serious impulses without caring about – or even fully understanding – the implications. If he was angry, he could lash out repeatedly. If he felt lust, he might rape. As an expert in the field, he wanted to talk to the psychologist about his patient’s propensity for violence but Neave was clearly ignoring him.

  He’d planned to screen the youth more thoroughly but had been thwarted by Brandon’s mother, who’d explained that they’d found him a new psychologist – Adam Neave – who thought that the teenager’s problems were easily solved, that he’d grow out of them. This was the case with many straightforward cases of ADHD, with up to a fifth of cases resolving themselves by the time that the child reached his or her late teens. It seemed miraculous to some of the parents but simply meant that their offspring’s brain had matured and the defects in the neurotransmitter metabolism had lessened or disappeared.

  Conduct disorder, however, was different, much more alarming and had long-term implications. He couldn’t diagnose it after just one session but wanted to see the boy again or at least talk candidly to his new therapist. He didn’t want to put his concerns down in writing as it was far too early to label the youth. And yet . . .

  Was Adam Neave so busy that he couldn’t make a five-minute phone call about a potentially dangerous patient? How could he justify this level of professional indifference?

  EIGHT

  ‘So, how have you been?’ Beth asked, trying to keep her voice matter-of-fact. Widows always cried more if you showed too much sympathy and she felt that it was more important that Olivia talk than sob. Doubtless she’d been weeping at home on a daily – possibly hourly – basis for the past few weeks, now she needed to shed words rather than tears.

  The girl swallowed visibly. ‘There are just so many memories . . .’

  ‘I know.’ It was only when her own husband died that she’d realized just how many associations they’d made together. Suddenly everything from a song played on a passing car radio to seeing his favourite foods in the supermarket became a source of pain. Seeing other couples together – especially those who were happily moving through old age together – had also underlined her sense of loss.

  ‘I’ve cleared away all his things.’

  ‘A lot of people find that helps.’

  ‘Well, it made it bearable,’ Olivia said and her lip trembled again.

  ‘Have you managed to join anything?’

  It worried her that Olivia was so isolated.

  ‘A book group on Tuesday mornings. Everyone else there is at least twice my age but I don’t care.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  The twenty-five-year-old shook her head. ‘I haven’t really had time. I had to go back to the hospital to get Zak’s things and go to the registrar’s office to register the death. A few days later I went back for copies of the death certificate and I’ve been mailing them to the bank, building society, DVLA . . .’

  Beth nodded, remembering. The paperwork could take months, especially when the deceased was self-employed so you had to take over or close down their business, with all the additional form-filling this involved.

  ‘And have you been eating properly?’

  She could tell that the girl had lost weight, which was an especially bad sign when she was in her fifth month of pregnancy.

  ‘I’ve had some milkshakes for the baby and I’m OK with trifle or fruit mousses but almost everything else comes back up.’

  ‘You should see your GP.’

  ‘I have and he’s given me these huge vitamin boosters,’ Olivia said. ‘He says that the baby gets the nutrients first, that it will be fine.’

  ‘But we want you to be healthy too!’

  ‘I know. It’s just so hard.’

  ‘I remember,’ Beth said softly. ‘I can only promise you that it does get easier.’

  She broke off as the door opened and Adam walked in. ‘Sorry I’m late – problems with the car.’

  ‘That’s fine. It’s just Olivia and I so far this morning.’

  She introduced the young widow to the counsellor.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Adam murmured, taking a seat at a table at the other end of the hall. Ten minutes later, an elderly man walked – well, hobbled – in and Adam beckoned him over and began to chat.

  ‘Is he your boyfriend?’ Olivia asked sadly.

  ‘Adam? No! In fact, he only recently joined us.’ She wondered if she should mention Matthew, decided that it wasn’t particularly appropriate.

  ‘And you’re all volunteers?’

  ‘We are. And unfortunately most of us have personal experience of widowhood.’

  ‘You seem so sorted,’ the younger woman said.

  ‘Well, I am now, as the pain has become manageable. But I was shaken to the core when my husband died three years ago. It just takes time.’

  Both clients stayed for the full two hours and were visibly reluctant to leave.

  ‘He’s just lost his wife,’ Adam said to Beth after the session ended and they prepared to lock up.

  ‘And Olivia just lost her husband.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Twenty-five, with no living relatives. She’s completely on her own.’

  ‘If she wants more extensive counselling . . .’

  Beth frowned. She knew that Adam had come to them with first-class references but wasn’t sure that it was ethical for him to suggest that clients to a free monthly drop-in centr
e should becoming paying patients at his home.

  ‘She’ll probably get help from the NHS in time, especially as she’s pregnant.’

  ‘She doesn’t look it.’

  ‘I know. She’s actually been losing weight.’

  ‘Are you going on to the hospital now? I’m going in that direction, so could give you a lift.’

  ‘No, I’ve got the rest of the day off.’

  ‘All right for some! I’ve got an obsessive-compulsive coming round later, though, on the upside, I won’t have to clean the door handles for a week.’

  ‘She cleans them for you?’

  ‘Wraps a tissue around each one before opening it and puts a paper towel on the couch before sitting down.’

  Beth laughed. ‘Maybe she’s normal and you just have a particularly dusty house!’

  ‘Used to, but nowadays I have a lodger with time on his hands so he keeps the place looking reasonable.’

  ‘Send him to me,’ Beth said with feeling. ‘Brian used to do all the cleaning, so now . . .’

  She tailed off, and they looked at each other sadly for a moment, widow to widower. If only the cancer had been caught before it reached grade four, Beth thought for the billionth time.

  ‘So, are you doing anything special this evening?’ Adam asked.

  Was he about to ask her out? Beth hesitated; she had to admit that he was a very attractive man and that she and Matthew hadn’t agreed to become exclusive. But the latter seemed so involved that it would be cruel to date someone else.

  ‘Going out with Matthew again. Just to the cinema.’

  ‘I’ve heard good things about that new thriller.’

  ‘Unfortunately it’s a romcom – his choice!’

  ‘A romantic man? You should hold on to him,’ Adam said as they walked into the May heat.

  ‘I intend to,’ Beth said, then felt the inevitable flicker of doubt. She feared that he was too quiet for her, and was sometimes left with the impression that he was a shallow thinker. But he tried very hard to please her and was always kind.

  That night, as they drove to the Odeon, he switched on the CD player and the car filled with a song about overwhelming love. Beth felt suddenly sad – the only person that she was in love with was her late husband. Despite her attempts to move on, he was always in her heart.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she asked, forcing her voice to remain neutral.

  ‘Eva Cassidy.’

  He sang along, casting sideways glances at her. It was nice to feel cherished, Beth acknowledged to herself, even if she couldn’t yet reciprocate.

  Matthew held her hand throughout the film and, when they got back to her house, they curled up on the settee and watched a half hour comedy on DVD.

  ‘I’m happiest when I’m in your arms,’ he murmured afterwards as they walked upstairs together, en route for bed.

  He seemed extra keen to please her tonight, Beth thought, as he kissed his way down her body then began to lick her labial lips – but would he really be able to stay down there long enough to make her orgasm? Her husband had always – as he jokingly put it – hand-started her, sometimes switching to oral when she was halfway there.

  As the minutes passed, the sensation built and built, but Beth couldn’t quite relax, aware that Matthew’s tongue must be increasingly exhausted. She was vaguely aware of a slight change of pace and realized that he was now using his lips to stimulate her instead. He always seemed like a man on a mission, that mission being to make her climax. Ironically, it put her under pressure and had the opposite effect.

  Still, she thought that she could get there in the next few minutes if he kept up the same gentle pace, so she was shocked when he suddenly put one finger inside her and another on the outside and started to jiggle them really quickly. Almost immediately, she felt all of the sensation fade. He’d done the same thing the last few times when she was moments away from coming, reverting, she presumed, to the harder touch which must have taken his wife over the edge.

  Feeling suddenly low, she sat up and put her hands on his hair. ‘Come and have a hug,’ she murmured gently.

  ‘You can’t quite get there?’

  ‘I need such a soft touch . . .’ Translation: don’t rub.

  She held and stroked him for a few minutes until she felt his hardness against her thigh, then guided him inside her. He knew that she couldn’t come from intercourse so wouldn’t hold back.

  Afterwards, as usual, he felt asleep within seconds. She’d have to teach him to be gentler with her clitoris, Beth admitted to herself. She wondered, briefly, if she should bring herself off, but the moment had passed. Though she was still too wired to sleep, she reminded herself that she was fortunate compared to all of the newly widowed who were, at this very moment, lying alone, shell-shocked and rootless, in empty beds.

  NINE

  Excellent – she’d been introduced to Adam as a weeping widow whom Beth had befriended by chance at the hospital. It was perfect. There was no reason for him to suspect that she was an undercover cop.

  Olivia let herself into the house that she shared with her husband, Marc – still very much alive – and removed the thin layer of padding from around her stomach. How on earth did women cope with a genuine pregnancy? She felt ungainly and overheated and kept bumping into things; it was like having premenstrual water retention, only worse.

  She’d wanted to have a baby for years, but had daydreamed more about the end product than about the actual gestation period. Now, for the first time, she realized that she’d find the last few months very difficult. She’d always been petite and enjoyed feeling light and lithe when she was walking, loved the admiring looks that she got from men.

  That said, she had to admit that the police psychologist who had briefed her had been absolutely right. He’d thought that Beth would stop to comfort a stranger and knew that, upon finding that she was widowed, the older woman would invite her along to the bereavement drop-in centre. It meant that Adam viewed her as one of Beth’s patients whom she’d met at a remote location, that he’d have no reason to suspect that anyone was checking up on him. Beth could also unwittingly bolster her story by mentioning that she’d been to Olivia’s house.

  It wasn’t, of course, her real house but one which had been taken over for the duration of the enquiry by the police department. She, Olivia, had to go there from the bereavement centre any time that she might be accompanied by Beth or followed by Adam Neave. Fortunately he’d still been at his workplace when she left today so she’d been able to take the train home to Dorchester. Because she didn’t live locally, he wouldn’t spot her by chance with her real husband – and sans bump – whilst they were doing the weekly shop.

  The bump had been the psychologist’s idea, of course.

  ‘This man will strike fast if he feels lust, and, in these circumstances, we can’t guarantee a surveillance cop’s safety, so we need a way to slow him down, to find out exactly how he operates. He’ll be attracted by your youth and vulnerability but we believe that he won’t want to rape a pregnant woman, so we’ll have several months to learn his strategies.’

  They’d made clear from the start that they believed he was an unpredictable man.

  ‘He married this really shy woman, a new-age therapist, who was fourteen years older than him – they wed within weeks of meeting. We know from his family that he quickly became cold and controlling and they got the impression that she was afraid of upsetting him, that she’d initially do anything to keep the peace.’

  ‘And his parents told you this openly?’ In Olivia’s experience, families closed ranks against the police and other outsiders. It was unusual for them to volunteer anything.

  ‘His brother came to us after Helen Neave’s death, said that he didn’t believe that it was a suicide. Apparently her religion forbade this and she took it seriously.’

  ‘Didn’t you say that she was into some kind of New Age . . .’

  ‘Yes, for her work. Off the record, we think that she wa
s a bit of a basket case. She offered this odd mix of past life examination and crystal healing. A very pretty woman, but damaged and susceptible.’

  Aren’t we all, Olivia had thought, but she hadn’t said so. You simply didn’t rise through the ranks if your superiors believed that you had mental health problems, yet everyone she knew within the force had baggage and issues and a level of neuroticism, plus lots of officers used alcohol to take their minds off the horrors that they had seen.

  ‘If she was so damaged, isn’t it possible that she killed herself?’

  ‘We doubt it as she became perimenopausal and it made her stronger. It happens with some women – they produce less oestrogen than before and become more male, more aggressive. She saw her GP and got herself a referral to an NHS psychiatrist, though she apparently didn’t tell Adam. But she confided in her brother-in-law Nicholas and his wife Jill.’

  ‘So she was moving away from Adam emotionally?’

  ‘Big time. Nicholas had the feeling that she was getting close to leaving the marriage as she’d started applying for full-time jobs.’

  ‘And if he was one of those men who need total control over a woman . . .’ Olivia had murmured, knowing that women were often murdered by their violent partners when they tried to leave.

  ‘Exactly. He might have decided that, if he could no longer have her, no one would.’

  ‘So how do you anticipate that he’ll act with me?’

  ‘We think that he’ll be chivalrous for the first few sessions until he believes that he’s gained your trust, then he’ll become more flirtatious and increasingly unprofessional. We don’t think that he’ll actually try to seduce you until after he believes that you’ve given birth.’

  ‘I know that you can’t guarantee that,’ Olivia said, determined to sound – and be – strong. This could be the operation which would make her career and, having attended self-defence classes for years, she believed that she could take care of herself. It was too risky to wire her, but there were going to be detectives watching from the house across the road. She only needed to appear in the window momentarily and they would storm the therapist’s place and, if necessary, taser him.