Deep Fear

by Deep Fear (retail) (epub)

  Amy relaxed again and smiled.

  ‘I know, that was funny. The Teacher. Typical though. It just shows how prejudiced you lot really are. Maybe I should have just gone on letting you think that.’

  ‘Oh, but you wouldn’t have done that, Amy. You wanted the attention for yourself didn’t you?’ Kelly pushed.

  Amy frowned again.

  ‘So, why the sex stuff? Do you get a kick out of it? Are you batting for the other side?’ Kelly pressed on. Her anger had turned to recklessness, but if she got a rise out of Amy, it would be worth it.

  ‘I didn’t do that, I don’t want to talk about that,’ Amy said. Her voice had changed and she’d stopped concentrating on the road. Kelly began to realise her mistake, but it was too late.

  ‘They did that to themselves. They liked it, they told me,’ Amy continued. She swerved dangerously and someone registered their rage with their horn. The noise startled Amy and she straightened up. Kelly’s heart pounded in her chest. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Her recklessness turned to repulsion, then curiosity. She wondered if they’d found her phone yet, and worked out why she’d gone AWOL. There was no way of knowing. She needed to continue stalling Amy.

  ‘What else did they tell you? Apart from they liked it?’ Kelly asked. Her throat constricted over the words and she felt bile rise in her throat. She felt as though she were disgracing the dead, speaking of them like this, but she forced the thoughts aside.

  Chatty Amy was back. And her driving calmed.

  ‘Oh, we talked a lot. They were sorry,’ Amy said.

  ‘Sorry for what?’ asked Kelly. She was trying not to punch the woman in the face. She wanted to do a lot more, but then she’d never find Nikki.

  Nikki.

  ‘Don’t you know anything, Kelly? Why am I surrounded by idiots?’ Amy blasted. Another side to the nurse emerged and, so far, Kelly had counted four or five different versions of Amy. Right now, in the car, going over eighty miles per hour, she realised that she needed calm Amy back. Her moods were so volatile that Kelly couldn’t be sure what was coming next.

  ‘Well, I do think I’ve worked it out, but I was just checking. By the way, I like the poetry,’ Kelly said. Her teeth clenched and she looked away. Come on, she thought, someone look at the fucking car. Ordinarily, several perverted lorry drivers would have ogled her by now, but today they weren’t interested.

  ‘I’m a poet,’ Amy gushed, the anger gone once more.

  ‘Really?’ Kelly feigned interest. ‘What’s it about? No don’t tell me, heaven and hell?’

  ‘Nope. Try again.’

  Kelly was playing guessing games with a killer who liked to torture, but she couldn’t dwell on the implications of that right now. Amy was like a child. Or, at least, this Amy was like a child: loving the attention and the game.

  ‘The Lake District?’ Kelly guessed again.

  ‘Nope.’ They neared Penrith.

  ‘Women who deserve to be punished. A wild stab in the dark there.’ Kelly tried to laugh but nothing came out of her throat.

  ‘Bingo! You’re good. We get along great, don’t we?’ Amy beamed.

  Emotion, Kelly observed. That was the last thing she expected.

  The rest of the drive went along in a similar vein. Kelly learned that Amy had never done anything bad in her entire life. She’d gotten revenge, she’d taken what was hers, she’d taught people lessons, and she’d done people favours. But she’d never made a mistake, and she’d never done anything wrong. Kelly listened. The child was back until, without notice, killer Amy capriciously reappeared.

  ‘I used to think the Bible was poetic, but I changed my mind. They’re all liars and cowards.’ Amy’s voice turned callous and hostile.

  Kelly preferred Amy the child, who was predictable and benign. Maybe Amy had never grown up, maybe that’s what psychopathy was: a childlike, immature state that one was stuck in before learning to become an adult. It was another theory. She wondered what Margaret Steiner would say when she found out that they’d all been wrong. The whole time.

  ‘Did you like working in Yorkshire?’

  Amy didn’t answer.

  Kelly wondered where they were. She recognised the estate, but they were certainly nowhere near the house that Rob and Emma should have finished searching by now. She wondered if they’d found the room where Amy played out her fantasies in her diseased brain.

  But then Amy pressed a button and a garage door began to open.

  Oh shit. She had two houses.

  Kelly was torn. One part of her felt terror because no-one knew where she was. The other part of her felt hope that she might see her sister alive. She imagined having to tell her mother that her daughter was dead, but she pushed the thought away.

  They reversed in, and Amy continued to chat away merrily. Kelly expected to be asked if she’d like a cup of tea. The garage door closed and the light outside faded, along with Kelly’s hopes of being found. Amy must have a plan, and it was her job to work out what it was so that she could stop it.

  The engine was turned off, and Amy jumped out of the car. Kelly looked around the garage for something with which to knock out her captor. She did some quick figuring in her head and decided against it; she still didn’t know where Nikki was.

  ‘Let’s have some tea,’ said Amy, and Kelly followed her into the house, as the garage door shut behind them.

  Chapter 61

  The mood at Eden House was grim.

  Cane spoke to Super Ormond on the phone in Kelly’s office. The team waited for instructions from him. Their most senior officer was DS Kate Umshaw and she stood in front of the white board, staring at it.

  ‘There’s another address we’ve missed.’

  The ball game had just flipped onto its head. Time was against them as they scoured notes, logs and entries for a second address. A sense of unease spread across the room and Kelly’s absence was palpable. Amy Richmond had no registered second address, and she and Kelly had vanished. The ANPR showed the hired Mazda at two points between Coniston and Penrith: they were here, somewhere.

  Downstairs, an impatient, scruffy looking guy was causing a fuss and asking questions about Kelly Porter, and the desk staff were having trouble getting rid of him. Rob accompanied DS Umshaw down to check it out. He was refusing to leave and he was also claiming that he’d seen Amy Richmond: the nurse wanted by the police.

  ‘Can I help?’ Umshaw asked. The man was being held back by two uniforms.

  ‘Where’s Kelly?’

  ‘Who are you? Look, sir, we really haven’t got time for this. I’m going to have to have you escorted off the premises,’ she said. If the guy had information, he better tell them now.

  ‘I’m her boyfriend,’ the man said.

  The detectives froze. DI Porter never spoke of her personal life, not that she was obliged to divulge it. But the guy might be lying. Kelly had been on TV and any number of weirdos could now come out of the woodwork claiming to know her.

  ‘My name is Johnny Frietze, Patterdale Mountain Rescue. I was the one who found Aileen Bickerstaff’s body. Is it true that The Teacher is a woman? A nurse at the hospital?’

  Neither detective answered; he could be a journo.

  ‘I can’t divulge that information,’ Umshaw said finally, weighing him up. ‘Check with the file,’ she instructed Rob.

  ‘Look,’ Johnny said, handing the detective his mobile phone. ‘I went up Hart Crag yesterday. I needed to clear my head, and Aileen…’ he trailed off. ‘I know that Kelly was asking for anyone to give information – anything at all – about seeing anything unusual. I thought I’d go up there, you never know when something unusual will pop up.’

  ‘If you wait here, I’ll get someone to take a statement from you,’ Kate Umshaw said calmly, and handed his phone back.

  ‘Wait!’ Johnny was desperate.

  ‘Look, she was up there in the exact same spot Aileen was left, and I mean the exact spot. I should know. After she left, I f
ound a pen. Here, look for yourself.’

  Kate Umshaw looked at the pen and turned it over in her hands. It was quite beautiful, and it was engraved. It read: ‘Ode to the West Wind’.

  More fucking poetry. They’d all become experts and she knew enough to know that it was another poem by Shelley. She looked over her shoulder at Rob, who nodded: Johnny Frietze checked out. She showed him the pen. Emma Hide had quoted it in her studies of The Prelude. It was about autumn killing everything before a long winter.

  ‘Please tell me that she hasn’t got Kelly, like the news is saying?’ Johnny asked.

  ‘Can you show us some ID?’

  Johnny fumbled in his pockets and pulled out his wallet. He found his driver’s licence and showed it to the detectives. DS Umshaw looked at him gravely.

  ‘We didn’t say that. What you heard on the TV is conjecture. We’re looking for the nurse, and one of our officers is suspected to have become…’

  ‘Right. Bullshit. I’ve called her phone a hundred times.’

  Kate hesitated.

  ‘You’re Kate, Right? I can tell. She rates you. I can help.’

  Johnny’s rage was all in his eyes; his demeanour smacked of passion and something else besides. It was a focus that Kate Umshaw saw in her boss’s face several times a day and it softened her towards the scruffy man.

  ‘What are you doing about it?’

  ‘Everything we can.’

  Johnny’s shoulders sank.

  ‘Has there been a mistake?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘How…? Kelly wouldn’t…she couldn’t…’ Johnny trailed off.

  ‘We have reason to believe that Amy Richmond has DI Porter’s sister.’

  Now it made sense. He thought quickly. He’d been trained for being held as a hostage, and the prospect was terrifying. He knew that Kelly was mentally strong enough to cope with what was thrown at her, but he couldn’t allow himself to imagine the physical damage that was possible to inflict on a human body. He’d seen it plenty. Images of young women with their breasts sliced off in Rwanda entered his head, uninvited.

  ‘I need to help,’ Johnny finally said. He swallowed hard.

  ‘I can’t possibly let you do that,’ DS Umshaw said.

  ‘Why not? I’ve known the investigation from the beginning. I’ve seen what she can do. And I have a secret weapon,’ Johnny said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’m not one of you.’

  It wasn’t unprecedented. Civilians helped police with their enquiries all the time. But Johnny was no ordinary civilian, as it turned out. He was ex-military.

  He was asked to wait, and the two detectives walked away. The next twenty minutes dragged by intolerably for Johnny, who was impatient by nature. In the army, you didn’t wait for the enemy to come knocking: you went out to find them. He paced up and down and made the staff nervous. Finally, a woman in plain clothes approached him and asked him to follow her. They went upstairs and Johnny looked around. There were dozens of officers all busy on phones, or discussing things intensely, or tapping away at computers.

  ‘Detective Umshaw has asked me to get you to go through these,’ she said. ‘It’s a pile of names and addresses.’ Johnny looked at her blankly.

  ‘We have as many officers as we have available working on this case, Mr Frietze, and this is part of what we do. You could help us by trawling through this lot for the name, Amy Richmond. There’s about four hundred pages,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t do that, what the hell is the point? We should be out there looking!’ Johnny said angrily.

  ‘Where exactly?’ she asked. Johnny was stumped. ‘Surely you know where she lives, she works at the hospital for Christ sake!’

  ‘You’re absolutely right, but we’ve already searched it, and no-one’s home,’ said the female officer. The horrible realisation began to sink in: Amy Richmond had taken Kelly somewhere else. They could be anywhere. The press and police were crawling all over Cumbria and beyond. They couldn’t be out in the open; they’d have been spotted by now. In Johnny’s mind, that would be Kelly’s best chance: luring Amy into the open.

  ‘We need to know where to look,’ said the officer. ‘You can help us, as another pair of hands, or you can do nothing.’

  Johnny took the pile of papers.

  ‘This is what our DI does, Mr Frietze. This is what will find her. And it will save time. Of course we all want to go out there on the streets and look in every flat and garage, but only this will pin point an address. This is what she would want. That’s why she went with Richmond, because she knows we’ll find her, but only by being sure. I appreciate your frustration. Let me know if you spot anything, I’ll be next door. By the way, my name is Emma.’ She held out her hand and Johnny took it. She left the pile of papers.

  Johnny looked at the heaps of paper. It was a print out of all rental property in Penrith, collated from Estate Agents, and up to date. There were thousands of names of owners and tenants. Johnny wanted to hit something. He could never work for anybody crunching data. He wanted to hold a gun, plan an attack and carry it out, not sit at a desk, trawling through bits of information that may never add up. He bit his tongue, sat down heavily, spread the sheets in front of him, and began scanning.

  Chapter 62

  The garage door locked behind her and Kelly hoped they’d been spotted by a nosy neighbour. The street had been quiet. Again, she wondered if anyone had missed her yet. She looked at her watch and it was gone eleven p.m. Surely Cane or Umshaw would have worked it out by now. Kate knew she was going to the ladies. She had absolute faith in her DS. She hoped Cane listened to her and had it all over the news. She had no idea if Ormond would risk the element of surprise, though, just for her. She had to believe that he would. That’s all she had. She thought about the missed calls she’d had from Johnny all day, and wished she’d answered them. She wanted to hear his voice. He had such a singular way with words that made her bombproof to the worst psycho loons.

  Kelly had been desperate to put the radio on in the car, but Amy said she preferred to listen to her own thoughts. It freaked Kelly out, but she had to admit that Amy’s head was probably full of voices. The fact that she’d been brought to a residence they didn’t know about worried her. It was a brazen move, and Amy’s confidence was astounding: so much so that it was reckless, and that was a good thing for Kelly. It meant that her plan might be just as rash, and thus faulty.

  ‘Why have we come here, Amy? The police will be crawling everywhere looking for you. You could have left the country by now. Why are you still here?’ Kelly stalled for as long as possible, because the minute it was realised what had happened, they’d be looking for them. It could take days.

  Or they might be too late.

  They had enough evidence on Amy to put her away for life, and it was a serious question. Most genuinely committed criminals would be on the run by now. But in the short space of time she’d spent with Amy, Kelly had worked out that her brain worked differently to most of the criminals she knew. Ordinary criminals were simply risk-takers of varying degrees, whereas Amy was completely miswired. Amy had already accepted her fate: she knew it was almost over. She knew that the kidnap of a police officer was the pinnacle of whatever she’d planned; there was nowhere left to go after that. Amy had been working up to this point all her life and Kelly could see the satisfaction on her face. She had to stall her and, so far, the only thing that had derailed Amy’s focus had been to talk about the seedier and more unsavoury elements of her ghastly trail of destruction. Kelly could never get her head round why most killers could snub out life with impunity but found it difficult to talk about. In her mind it made them weak and, if they were weak, they were vulnerable.

  Kelly wondered what would be Amy’s next move; apparently, right now, it was to make tea. It made Kelly nauseous when she thought of the last time she’d been served tea by the nurse. Her skin crawled as she remembered Nurse Richmond touching her. She thought of Brandy C
arter’s tongue, Moira Tate’s fingers, Aileen’s wounds, and Nicola’s botched surgery. Those hands now made her tea. Again.

  ‘I wanted you to see my house,’ Amy said.

  The answer threw Kelly, but, as she was learning, little of what Amy said, made actual sense.

  ‘But this isn’t your address, Amy.’

  ‘And that’s our little secret. We’re completely safe here, and we won’t be disturbed.’

  Kelly swallowed involuntarily, but her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Undisturbed doing what?

  ‘What do you think of Timothy Cole?’

  ‘That arrogant bastard!’ Milk spilled on the sparse kitchen counter and Kelly took in her breath, waiting for what might come next. She was doing a good job of distracting the nurse. She took in her surroundings. The house was in darkness without natural light. They were shut away behind blinds or electric light. Only the fridge had cast out a slight illumination. Kelly’s eyes were adjusting and she looked around. Amy had her back to her and Kelly considered grabbing a knife and disabling her.

  ‘You worked with him in Yorkshire, too. What did he do to piss you off? Did you choose his patients on purpose? You almost got away with framing an innocent man.’ Kelly pushed. They still didn’t know where Tim Cole was; part of her thought Amy was about to tell her.

  ‘He thought he knew everything. He doesn’t.’

  ‘Do you know where he is, Amy? Did you hurt his family?’

  ‘Tempting. Not worth the effort.’ Amy smiled. ‘I’m playing with you! I have no idea where they are. Did you lose them, Kelly? Tut tut. Shoddy. I’m sure they’ll be in one of his many lake houses that you don’t know about. I’m glad he was scared enough to run.’

  Kelly noticed Amy tense again. It came from nowhere, and Kelly tensed and backed away. Amy rounded on her, holding the teapot. The lid clattered to the tiled floor and smashed. She held Kelly’s gaze. It was a scrutiny of distaste, but, within seconds, Amy’s eyes had changed again, and she looked dismayed by the mess, and a comely nurse once more. Kelly felt exhausted.