Ray shook his head. ‘No. I don’t want that.’
‘Tough, it’s happening. ’
‘Listen, Catherine − ’
‘You’re ill, Ray. And once you’ve begun the chemotherapy you’re going to be sick and weak.’
‘Don’t forget bald.’ Ray flicked his long silver hair playfully.
‘Don’t you fucking joke about this! Don’t you dare!’ She snatched up the leaflets in her fist. ‘One in three, Ray! One in fucking three survive what you have for more than five years. I suggest if you want to be that one in three you start showing this thing some fucking respect!’
Ray nodded his head, a typically slow and slight gesture. ‘I’ll show it respect,’ he whispered, ‘but what I won’t do is show it fear. Which is why I want us to carry on as normal as we can. Which means you carrying on working.’
Just then her mobile rang. She eyed the caller ID: Mason. Calling about a complaint made against her by Dodd?
‘You gonna answer that?’ Ray asked. ‘Could be important.’
‘Not as important as this.’ She let it ring off.
Ray sighed, crossed his arms. ‘We start making concessions in our lives and our jobs then it’s already won. I might as well just lay down and die now.’
Jessop couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘You expect me to just ignore it?’
‘No. I know that’s impossible. But we can’t let it dictate our lives.’ Ray stood and walked around the table to her side. He snaked an arm round her shoulders and pulled her close. She could feel his heart beat: slow, rhythmic, reassuring. Incredible, even now, with mankind’s most deadly foe growing inside him Ray was as cool and collected as ever. Was that because he was in denial? This was a common response to such devastating news, and one that could have dire consequences to all involved if not addressed quickly. She wondered if that was the reason he’d left it so long to get a checkup. Ray, the consummate optimist. But at what cost?
‘Do me a favour,’ he whispered in her ear.
‘What?’
‘Call Mason back. See what he wants.’
‘Whatever it is, he can handle it.’
‘Would you have answered if I hadn’t told you about the cancer?’ Ray pushed her away gently and looked her in the eye. ‘I need you to answer your phone. Every time you break routine it’ll remind me of my condition. And before you claim that you think I’m in denial, let me assure you I’m not.’
Jessop flinched. She hated people reading her thoughts; even Ray. ‘It’s not uncommon.’
‘But I am. I, like you, am a realist. I’ve accepted I have cancer, and that I’m in for a world of hurt over the coming months. And yes, I realise this time next year I − ’
‘Don’t.’
‘− I might not be here. So while I am, I want to live as normal a life as possible. I have no regrets so far, and I don’t want to start now by watching the woman I love suffer for something which is no one’s fault and is out of our control.’
She understood what he was asking, of course she did. She also knew he wouldn’t ask this of her if he wasn’t certain she was capable of such willpower. ‘What about the girls?’
‘I don’t see why this can’t wait till after the wedding. That is, if you still want to marry me.’
‘Of course I do.’
‘It’s important to them, Cathy, you know that. Next week I’ll invite Vicky round and I’ll tell them together.’
‘No. We’ll tell them.’
Her mobile rang again. Mason’s name flashed on the screen. Both she and Ray stared at the phone in silence. They were both aware of the significance of her next move. She did not want to answer. To do so would be like admitting the job took priority over Ray’s health. But to not answer would be going against Ray’s wishes, thus inflicting even more pain upon him.
She looked to the man beside her. There was a quiet sadness in his eyes as he stared at the ringing phone. She knew he would never make her go against her judgment, and would accept her decision to forfeit her notice and be by his side from today onwards. He would neither grumble nor play the guilt card at her decision. But neither would she see that glint back in his eyes. She would be as guilty for robbing him of his life as the cancer was.
‘What is it?’ she answered.
‘Ready for some good news?
Chapter Forty-four
Brooke drove whilst Jessop sat quietly in the passenger seat consumed with guilt: guilt for lashing out at Ray, guilt for leaving him now after what she had just learned, and guilt for feeling as excited as she did at Mason’s news under the circumstances.
Ray had sensed her anguish when she’d hung up. He’d hugged her tight, and when their eyes had met again the sadness in his was gone, replaced by the roguish glint. And toying upon his lips, that mischievous smirk. For normality had resumed in the guise of disruption. This was his wish. He was not trying to be heroic for her sake. Normality was what he truly craved now, and according to him, would be the deciding factor in getting him through this.
Easy to say now. But life was going to be far from normal once he’d started the treatment.
‘I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life so far in three words: It goes on.’
Her throat tightened as she fought back a welling tear. Only then did she notice the car slowing down as they arrived at the address Mason had given her.
The detached city house was tidy looking and had a modest, well maintained front garden and a newly laid brick driveway. Mason met her at the front door and ushered them through to the kitchen where the Faulkner family were sat around a table. Looking as pale and tired as Jessop felt, Jane Faulkner offered coffee, which she gratefully accepted as she and Mason stepped into the back garden and watched the coroner wheel Nathan Randal’s body away.
‘Cause of death?’ she asked Mason.
‘No sign of external injury or violence. May have broking a rib and punctured a lung during the fall.’
Mason led her down the long garden to the wall of bamboo behind which hid the twins’ secret garden. Dodging a homemade swing which hung from the solid tree in the middle of the secluded garden, she clocked the tree-house where the body was found and a scattering of flies still hovered. Shivered at the thought of two seven-year-old kids finding the body.
She stepped into the bank of trees and tangled branches that hid the wooden fence whichsignalled the end of the garden. She reached up and grabbed the top of the fence. Hoisting herself up, she rested her weight on her forearms and surveyed the scenery beyond, casting her eyes down river. ‘Jesus,’ she sighed, thinking about the massive manhunt they’d orchestrated to catch Randal.
‘Yep,’ Mason said from behind her.
Across the river, not a kilometre away, three stories up, was Nathan Randal’s apartment. Working on Mason’s theory Nathan had injured himself during his daring escape, he must’ve sought refuge in the tree house to catch his breath and figure out what the hell he was going to do.
So why the hell hadn’t they seen the tree house?
Jessop pulled herself up and over the fence and dropped to the opposite side onto a footpath running alongside the river. From where she stood the tree-house was concealed by an almost impenetrable veil of branches and khaki foliage. If you didn’t know it was there, then you wouldn’t know it was there.
Yet Nathan had known. Maybe because he only lived across the river, and had walked past the garden in the winter months, when the Faulkner kids’ playhouse was as exposed as his hunter’s incompetence.
Jessop cursed to herself. She’d needed Nathan alive. With no forensic evidence, motive, or connection to the victims to link him to the murders only his confession would nail the bastard and tie up the loose ends. She hated loose ends as much as she hated not being able to find the last word in a word search puzzle.
She hauled herself back over the fence to find Brooke holding two cups of coffee and pacing a circle in the small area while Mason talked on his mobile.
‘Great,’ Jessop growled taking a sip of welcoming coffee.
‘We gonna tell them we got our man?’
‘Boss…’
She turned to Mason, who was also offering her something: his mobile.
‘It’s Curtis,’ he said.
She took the phone. ‘Yep?’
‘We got a problem,’ Curtis said. ‘I had a little chat with our friend Lennox Tyler at the club last night. Lying dog swears he’s out of the drugs business, but that’s by the by.’
‘So…’
‘So he did give me the name and address of someone who could’ve supplied our dead friend there. The name ArturKosiedowska mean anything to you? Kosh, to his friends.’
‘No.’
‘Bet his address’ll ring a bell. Pell Street?’
Her grip on the phone tightened. ‘Terence Randal’s address.’
‘Right. Turns out Kosh and old man Randal were good buds, which is how Kosh ended up supplying Nathan. He also told me about Terence getting mugged and taking a kicking a month ago on his way back from the shops. Terence didn’t report it because of his record. Figured we wouldn’t give a shit because of who he was, and that all that was taken was his wallet, smokes, and his father’s Swiss army knife.’
Jessop closed her eyes.
‘Sorry boss,’ Curtis said. ‘Anyway, after that Randal went into a big depression. Thought the whole world was against him. According to Kosh it was only a matter of time before he did something stupid.’
Lost in the swirling darkness behind her eyes, Jessop heard what sounded like her mobile phone ringing. But how could that be? She was talking on her phone.
No, she was talking on Mason’s phone.
Her phone was in her pocket, ringing, demanding her attention…
Demanding to know how she intended to catch the bastard who had stolen Terence Randal’s knife, and who had just killed again.
Chapter Forty-five
Yew Tree Close was a small, suburban cul-de-sac Jessop had never heard of. Now she had heard of it, and visited it, she would not forget it. Because now Yew Tree Close was home to yet another ghost.
How many more would she meet before this fucking week was over?
‘One in three, Ray. One in fucking three survive what you have for more than five years!’
Biting down on her gums against a sudden wave of nausea, she shook the words from her head and focused on the ghost in question, forty-seven-year-old web designer Paul Bromley. Dressed for work in dark denim jeans and a pastel blue sweater, he lay in a pool of blood on his patio. Next to him, oblivious to the carnage, two white and black rabbits scuffed and scratched in their hutch. Feeding the rabbits was the reason Paul’s partner of twelve years, Stewart Nichols’, had been out here when the killer had made his entrance via the driveway that ran alongside the three bedroom suburban semi.
‘At first I thought he was a delivery driver trying to deliver a parcel but had got no response from ringing the front door bell. I thought that was odd, because Paul was inside getting his stuff together for work and would’ve heard the doorbell. Then I noticed he wasn’t carrying a parcel or a letter. That’s when I thought about the news reports about that killer murdering that little girl and that poor boy, and that he was still on the loose. That’s when I knew we were in trouble.’
Such was the surreal sight of the bearded stranger wearing the sunglasses and baseball cap, Stewart Nichols had frozen. It was a reaction the fit, forty-two-year-old accountant with the thinning palette and gold stud earring would regret for the rest of his life.
Jessop noted the thickness of Paul’s chest beneath his sweater. He was in good shape with impressive muscle mass. Although not as bulky, Stewart Nichols was hardly a naïve seven-year-old girl or a trapped, terrified twenty-year-old woman. Rebecca Forrester had said her boyfriend’s killer was very strong. But was he strong enough to tackle two forty-something fitness freaks with the advantage of not being trapped within the confines of a small bedroom or the backseat of a car?
As with his previous kills, the killer would have scoped out his intended victims far in advance. Would’ve known they were fit and strong. Yet he had shown no fear about taking them both on, knowing a physical confrontation between the three of them would most certainly end in disaster for him. Even if he did manage to overpower his targets with his strength and the element of surprise, such spontaneous and uncontrolled contact would not fail to leave a whole bunch of trace evidence for CSI to pick apart, regardless of his obsession with leaving a clean scene.
She regarded the bloodied laptop bag Paul had dropped. Fortunately for the killer, Paul had been inside readying for work, leaving only Stewart, and thus halving the threat to him. She looked at the patio doors which led into the living room/dining room, where Paul had been gathering up his laptop from the desk in the furthest east corner.
Fortunate indeed.
‘That’s when Paul returned. Next thing I know, the man had him by the hair and a knife to his neck. Paul tried to speak, but…’
But the killer had made sure he didn’t, she thought, crouching down beside Paul Bromley. The gash across his muscular neck was deep enough to completely sever Paul’s Adams Apple.
‘I wanted to run to him. He was on the decking, holding his neck and trying to talk to me, but he couldn’t. He just…gurgled. And that’s when I noticed the man was gone. But then I felt the knife against my throat and felt the breath in my ear. He said I needed to watch because a man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.’
She’d asked what had happened next.
‘I watched Paul die, didn’t I?’
Jessop stood and retreated round the corner of the house onto the drive by which the killer had made his entrance and escape. To her right was a side door leading into Paul and Stewart’s kitchen. Further along was a small, mottled glass window belonging to the downstairs toilet. To her left a wire fence ran the length of the garden and drive stopping parallel to the front of the house. Brooke was still talking to the neighbours that side, who had heard Stewart’s horrific screams but had seen nothing. Unlike Cynthia Truman, who lived opposite and, due to her insomnia and impulse to clean the windows at such an early hour, had seen her neighbour and friend’s killer leave on foot.
The sixtyish, silver haired, heavy-set neighbour confirmed Stewart’s description of the bearded killer’s clothing being black baseball cap, sunglasses, nondescript zipped black jacket, blue jeans, and white running shoes. According to her statement Cynthia had also claimed not to have seen the man arrive, but had sworn he had left on foot. This she had found strange because there were not many people who came here on foot.
In this postcode SUV’s were favoured over nippy little run-arounds. There was a bus stop just around the corner, where a once an hour bus would take you into the city if you couldn’t find what you sought in the retail park a mile away. The bus service began at 8.15am. Stewart Nichols had made the 999 call at 8.09am. Davies was onto the transport department now, commandeering CCTV footage from the 8.15 bus. She didn’t believe their man had caught the bus, but the CCTV may have captured a glimpse of him at some stage of his escape.
Jessop walked up the drive to where Paul’s gleaming metallic blue Honda 4x4 and Stewart’s silver Toyota were parked.
Had their man parked a getaway vehicle somewhere in the quiet neighbourhood? She suspected so, because it was a long daylight hike out of this suburb otherwise.
And what about his exit from the scene? Why so blatant this time when before he’d seemingly just vanished? He must have known he would be seen at this time of day in such a tight neighbourhood. 8.00am was peak time for people leaving for work. His victim was a prime example of that.
She stepped onto the street where Mason had just finished talking to a neighbour. ‘So far, three more sightings of our man leaving,’ he said. ‘Consistent descriptions.’
Buoyed by the neighbourhood camaraderie, Jessop surveyed the many residents who had come out to help with their enquiries. Each and every person in this neighbourhood could have seen their man leave, and the killer would’ve known this.
No sign of him arriving,’ Mason said.
‘He would have snuck when it was dark.’
‘And no sign of an unfamiliar vehicle,’
‘He had transport,’ she mused aloud. ‘There’s not a damn traffic camera within a mile of this area. He would’ve known that.’ She cursed under her breath. ‘Set up a half-kilometre perimeter and scour the area for his clothes and beard. Cars are a damn sight easier to track than people. And he’s too careful to risk being seen incognito getting into his.’
Mason scribbled in his notebook.
‘What about the suffering quote?’ Jessop pushed.
Flipping back a page, Mason read: ‘A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears. Michel de Montaigne, a sixteenth century French Renaissance writer and believed to be the father of modern scepticism. Most noted today for his cynical remark “Que sais-je?”.’
‘Which means?’
“‘What do I know?” apparently.’
‘Great,’ she sighed, reflecting miserably on what little she knew about the bastard who she feared would elude them again. ‘Que sais-je, indeed.’
Chapter Forty-six
Back in her office Jessop fiddled with a biro wishing it was a cigarette. On the pad of paper before her she had scrawled: How does he appear without being seen? and underlined the question several times. She rubbed her eyes, sighed, and turned her attention to the folded local newspaper next to the pad.
Nathan Randal leered up at her from the front page, daring the city’s 340,000 frightened residents to spot him and call the hotline number printed beneath his blown-up passport photograph. Ironic that the one resident who was sure not to make that call, Nathan Randal, was the one who had done them the biggest favour of all and caught himself.
Hurt (The Hurt Series) Page 14