by Michael Kerr
Amy had survived being gut shot, but the soft-nosed bullet had necessitated a hysterectomy. She had not returned to duty. The physical damage healed, but she had been left with a fear that she knew would stop her from functioning at an acceptable level. Taking a medical retirement pension and turning her back on the force had been the most difficult decision she had ever had to make. It wasn’t something she could readily come to terms with, even now. The experience had taken her spiralling into a state of near mental breakdown, accompanied by clinical depression. A psychiatrist – who she had seen at least once a week for over a year following the incident – helped her contend with the inner turmoil, understand the phases a victim went through, and get past it. Now, two years since the shooting, she was in a relationship with Mark, had a company, Sentinel Security Services, up and running, and was even taking flying lessons. Life was better than it had ever been, with certain fundamental reservations.
Dressed in sweater, jeans, trainers and quilted parka, Amy headed for the bedroom door, pausing to study the framed photo of Mark’s late wife that he did not hide when she came to stay at his flat, which was on most weekends. He didn’t pretend that Gemma was not still important, and she could live with that.
“I’ve got bread for the swans,” Mark said. “Let’s go.”
Amy grinned. “Are you sure we can handle the excitement?”
Mark threw her a grave look. “Swans can be mean sons of bitches. They can break a man’s legs with just one swipe of a wing.”
“That’s bullshit. Have you ever met anyone who got his leg broken by a swan’s wing?”
“Can’t say that I have. But I’ve never met anyone who was bitten in the ass by a snake. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Why? Would you rather go skydiving or bungee jumping?”
“Hell, no. It’s just that I’m a little scared of becoming a middle-aged fuddy-duddy, who starts to think that a trip to the Victoria and Albert or playing Scrabble is a big deal.”
“Neither of us are youngsters,” Mark said. “We’re almost middle-aged, ready or not.”
“It’s a state of mind,” Amy said, absently running her fingers through the hair at her temples, which sported flashes of silver amongst the mainly mahogany crop. “I choose to be eighteen till I die. How about you?”
Mark grinned. “I’ll buy that dream. C’mon, let’s go give those swans hell.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Caroline Sellars enjoyed a successful career as a BBC Radio 4 drama producer. The position afforded her with a high measure of artistic fulfilment within her chosen area of expertise, plus a much-appreciated anonymity when outside ‘Aunties’ portals. For almost five years she had been steadily gaining a reputation as being one of the most able producers in the business.
Life was a measured and pleasurable juggling act to Caroline. The significant other in her life, Simon Payne, a financial advisor, was as independent as herself, and the arrangement they had suited both of them. On an average of three evenings a week they would go for a meal together, take in a play or concert, and stay at one or the other’s apartments. The commitment was shallow, and neither of them found any necessity to contemplate the relationship being more than an episode of indeterminable shelf life. As long as they enjoyed each other’s company, and the sex was mutually satisfying, then they were happy to keep the status quo.
Caroline lived in a seventh-floor riverside apartment on Victoria Embankment with a superb view across the river to the Royal Festival Hall and the National Theatre; both of which were venues she patronised regularly.
All seemed orderly and predictable, until the first Saturday of September arrived and turned out to be the day that began a sinister and threatening period of her life, affecting all aspects of it. Her problem-free mind was now a place where dark, menacing shadows licked at her psyche, undermined her concentration and invaded her dreams.
The A4 size brown manila envelope was in her mailbox, along with bills, junk mail and an invitation to attend the first night of a play at the newly opened Teatro Theatre in Hampstead, which was being directed by an old friend, Nigel Alexander.
After locking the box, Caroline had taken the lift up to her apartment and made herself a cup of camomile tea, which seemed to calm her after a long day in the studio, where her biggest challenge was always the fragile egos of actors, who in the main were just lucky not to be ‘resting’. Although most – especially the men – believed that they were always on the brink of being offered the part that would elevate them into the orbit of national awareness.
The envelope was bulky. Her name had been written on the front in red ink. There were no postage stamps or an address, so it had obviously been hand delivered. Inside was a folded copy of that day’s Mail, with a yellow Post-it stuck to the front page. The message on it read: ‘Keep this, you bitch. It will make sense in due course’. The newspaper’s headline read: YOUNG NURSE BRUTALLY SLAIN IN REGENT’S PARK. Caroline thumbed through the pages, her fingers trembling. She felt threatened, but was unable to think of what meaning lay behind the cryptic, anonymous note, or the newspaper.
Over the following weeks she received two further notes in her mailbox, both simply stating: ‘I’m watching you’.
Head in a metaphorical bucket of sand, Caroline had tried to ignore the unfathomable and senseless communications. But they took their toll. Was she being stalked? If so, by whom? She had no enemies that she knew of. It had been over eighteen months since she had knowingly upset anyone. She had told an actor, after he had unsuccessfully auditioned for a role, and subsequently approached her in a mean mood, that he was, in her personal estimation, in the wrong line of work, and that at best his performance had been wooden and second rate. He had gone on to find minor fame in a popular TV Soap, which had surprised her, but also surely negated any lasting grudge that he may have harboured. Simon had urged her to go to the police, but she had dismissed his advice. What would she tell them? That she had been sent a newspaper, followed by two notes informing her that she was being watched? Although nervous and perplexed, she tried to put the matter to the back of her mind, but failed.
With a now daily feeling of trepidation, Caroline opened her mailbox on the evening of October the seventh. She felt a cold, steel ball materializing in the pit of her stomach as she picked up a large envelope bearing her name in the now familiar bold red script.
Sitting in the lounge, she took a sip of neat Scotch, gasping as it burned a path of fire down her gullet. She tore the envelope open, pulled out the folded newspaper, and was not surprised to see a Post-it adhered to the front page. The message on it read: ‘When I did this, I imagined that it was you, Carrie’, and below the writing a happy face had been drawn with lines radiating out from the grinning circle like the rays of the sun. She dropped the tabloid onto the top of the beech wood coffee table and fisted her hands against her mouth as she read the headline: SECOND HORRIFIC MURDER IN REGENT’S PARK.
Her mind immediately retrieved the front-page story from the first newspaper and made all the right connections. She now thought she knew why it had been sent to her. Someone had killed two young women, and was implying that they had died as scapegoats in her place. She gulped down the rest of the malt whisky, almost choking; coughing, and retching as the spirit seared her throat.
Why was she being terrorised? Who would kill innocent strangers and infer that she was at risk?
Numb with a creeping fear that she could hardly contain, Caroline read of the previous day’s atrocity. A young woman had been attacked, mutilated and murdered, not far from the spot where the first body had been found. The details were sketchy, but made it quite clear that the police were considering this to be a carbon copy of the September killing.
Redheads, Caroline thought. Both of them had been redheads. They had also both been in their twenties, as she was. The first to die had been a young nurse. She had been stabbed with a wooden stake or sharpened branch, before being butchered. The press had made a big deal out of a
modern-day Jack the Ripper prowling the night. Some of the details that were reported should have been withheld, but there were still coppers only too happy to take payment from journalists and part with sensitive information.
Panic bubbled up to overcome her. Standing up too quickly, she cracked her knees hard against the edge of the table, sending the now empty glass, newspaper and envelope onto the carpet. She hobbled to the apartment door, ignoring the pain in her rush to double-check that it was locked, and that the security chain was in place. Satisfied, she turned off the lights and went to the window, convinced that a dark figure would be standing below in the shadows, looking up. I’m watching you; the Post-its had warned. She gripped the translucent wand, gave it half a turn to tilt the blind’s slats open a fraction, and peeked out and down. There was nothing to make her feel more nervous than she already was. People strolled along the embankment, but she could not see anyone who she considered to be lurking with unknown intent among the steady flow of traffic that fronted the reflection of lights on the otherwise dark stretch of river. She closed the blind, picked her mobile up off the coffee table and phoned Simon. Told him in a jumbled rush about the current newspaper and note, and asked if he would come around. She was terrified; too scared to be alone.
“Have you called the police?” Simon said when she finally ran out of words and gave him chance to speak.
“No, not yet. I don’t know what to do,” she said.
“I’m on my way. We’ll talk it through when I get there. But you’ll have to report this. You know that, don’t you?”
Caroline just grunted, ended the call and went back over to the picture window to pull the heavy drapes together before turning the light back on. The maroon, velvet curtains were striped with dust, due to hardly ever being drawn. Closing them as a secondary barrier, she felt as though she was cutting herself off from the outside world, and acknowledged that that was precisely what she was doing.
Although expecting Simon, her heart skipped when the intercom buzzed and broke the silence. After hearing his voice, she punched the button that released the lock on the main entrance door, to wait unmoving with her hand on the chain slide until he knocked and said, “It’s me, Caroline. Open up.”
She collapsed in his arms, and Simon held her, shocked at the visible change that had demolished the usual confidant and in-control personality he was used to. She was now like a frightened bird, trembling against him, staining the front of his jacket with tears.
After a while, Caroline wiped at her red-rimmed eyes and felt more together, feeding off Simon’s strength of character and closeness, that pushed away the worst of her fear.
Sitting in the kitchen, she nursed another Scotch, watching in stony silence as Simon studied both of the newspapers, the envelopes, and the notes that she had received.
“Jesus Christ, Cally. Ring the police, or I will. Some maniac is on your case, killing those other women to scare you,” Simon said, shaking his head after reading the macabre details.
“He’s succeeded,” she mumbled. “I’m petrified.”
“Who would do this? Who do you know that would fixate on you in such a sick way?”
“I don’t, Simon. I can’t think of anyone who would wish me harm, or is capable of doing things like that,” she said, nodding towards the newspapers.
“I’ll stay here tonight,” Simon said, getting up and walking around to the back of her chair, to massage her shoulders and neck in an effort to loosen the tension that was knotting her muscles into a hard, unyielding mass. “Better still, let’s go to my place. You should stay there until this is resolved.”
“I’ll pack,” she said, not putting up any argument; reluctant to linger another minute in what she no longer thought of as a safe sanctuary, but more a fortress under siege.
A malevolent chuckle erupted from the mouth of the figure hunched over the steering wheel of the dark green Toyota that followed the BMW to the flat in Russell Square, just a spit from the British Museum.
The whore and her stud could run, but they couldn’t hide. Caroline Sellars would know a fear beyond any that her wildest dreams could begin to conjure up, before finally, slowly, she was afforded her just desserts. There was no hurry. You don’t rush a gourmet meal in a top restaurant. It needs to be savoured; consumed at leisure with a glass or two of fine wine. The plan was to dismantle the bitch’s life around her, and drive her to the point of total psychological meltdown. Only then would she be taken.
Inside Simon’s flat, the couple talked for hours, but Caroline could not think of any plausible explanation to shed any light on the sinister events.
“Make the call, love,” Simon said for the umpteenth time. “The implications of this are too dangerous to ignore. This isn’t something that will go away. You can’t just stick your head in the fucking sand.”
“Tomorrow,” she said. “I can’t do it now. I’ve had too much Scotch, and I need to sleep on it.”
They showered together before going to bed and making out. Caroline had suddenly needed release, to drain her of the tension that had locked her body up drum-tight. Sex was a temporary distraction from all consternation.
The following morning, at Simon’s insistence, and feeling a degree calmer in daylight, Caroline phoned the police. She explained what had happened, and was put through to the incident room of the team dealing with the Park Murders investigation.
Barney knew that this was the break they had needed. It would appear that the woman was in some way a key to the killings. He remained outwardly calm as his nerves jumped with expectancy; somehow keeping his voice composed as he talked to a person who might just have answers that could result in an early arrest.
“Give me your address,” Barney said, initially wanting to interview the woman in surroundings that she would feel comfortable in, and which might prove more conducive to his obtaining maximum information.
Armed with the address, he hung up. “Come on, Mike,” he said. “We’ve got a lead.”
“What have we got?” Mike said, following his boss out into the corridor.
“A woman who’s been sent newspapers with headlines of the killings. It appears she’s being stalked and threatened. Our boy is playing mind games with her.”
Caroline could not help the two police officers, beyond giving them everything that she had found in her mailbox, which Mike bagged and labelled after first donning a pair of cellophane gloves.
“Why didn’t you contact us after you received the first newspaper?” Barney said.
“Because I had no way of knowing that it was related to the lead story on the front page,” Caroline said with a defensive edge to her voice. “The note just stated that it would make sense in time. Now, with the other newspaper and the note, it does. Although I have no idea why it’s happening.”
Barney nodded. “Please try to think of anyone who might bear you a grudge, or have any reason to wish you harm.”
“I have thought, Inspector. I’ve racked my brain until it aches, and gone through both my work and personal relationships. I cannot imagine that a single person I know could be capable of these...these atrocities. I just don’t know why anyone would want to hurt me. I don’t understand any of it.”
“We’ll keep you under twenty-four-hour protection,” Barney said. “It goes without saying that you may be at risk. Although if these notes that state he’s watching you are on the level, then we may just pick him up. I would appreciate a full list of all your friends, acquaintances, work colleagues and, er, past...anyone who has been significant in your life.”
“What do you think, boss?” Mike said, driving away from Simon Payne’s flat, heading back to the Yard.
“I think we’ve got a real chance, is what I think. The killer has some sick motive. Caroline Sellars is a redhead in her twenties, physically similar to the two victims. Could be he’s some old flame she dumped. Maybe he has a problem handling rejection. Or it might be someone at the Beeb who thinks she got promotion at his
expense, which he believes he deserved. Whoever it is, knows her. It’s personal. When we home in on him...case closed.”
“Sounds simple,” Mike said, his brow corrugating in a frown.
Barney twiddled with his wedding band. “I know. So why do I have bad vibes, and the feeling that it won’t be?”
CHAPTER FIVE
Mark parked the Jeep Cherokee on the country road next to the eastern shore of Bewl Water. It was just a few minutes drive from the flat, which was situated on the edge of Bedgebury Forest, well back from the A268, out of sight and sound of traffic.
Holding hands, Mark and Amy followed a footpath around the large lake, stopping when they reached a small jetty, to sit on bleached planks with their feet dangling above the placid water, as they relished the tranquil surroundings.
“I think a small cottage over there would be a terrific weekend retreat,” Amy said, pointing to a finger peninsula that poked out towards them from the far bank.
“I vant to be alone, eh?” Mark said, sounding more like Bela Lugosi than Greta Garbo.
“She never said that,” Amy stated, smiling broadly at his bad impression.
“Who didn’t say what?”
“Garbo didn’t say ‘I vant to be alone’. And if she had, it wouldn’t have sounded like Dracula with a Yank accent,” she said, gripping his arm and making as if to push him in the lake.
“You wouldn’t dare,” he said, knowing that she would, but counting on her wanting a pub lunch, and having the sense to realise that if he was soaked to the skin, then the outing would be curtailed.
“Next time,” she said, turning her attention to unwrapping the part loaf of stale bread. “I wouldn’t want to scare the wildfowl.”