The One

by John Marrs

  Chapter 55

  ELLIE

  Ellie slammed the cubicle door behind her and breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was her company’s Christmas party, and each time she’d attempted to make her way towards the restrooms, she’d been yanked in all manner of directions by staff wanting to bend her ear.

  Until Tim had arrived in Ellie’s life, she hadn’t been so much aloof as she had been wary of people and she very rarely attended events like this. She found it awkward to relax in public – speeches or lectures were a different matter as she attended those with a purpose – but mingling and small talk made her feel self-conscious. However, with Tim’s encouragement, she had come on in leaps and bounds, confronting her shortcomings, and despite her employees competing for her attention, she was actually enjoying herself.

  She recalled how at Christmas the year before she had been consumed by work and little else. Business had been booming but she had no one to share the spoils with. And, as 25 December approached, she hadn’t given a second thought to the fact she’d inadvertently taken her joyless life out on her employees, signing off on a very impersonal sit-down dinner in the ballroom of a generic hotel. She might have footed the bill but she had also sucked the fun out of Christmas. ‘I was the Grinch,’ she’d since told herself, and had vowed to make this year different.

  This year, she’d given the company’s social committee a blank cheque and permission to hire London’s historic Old Billingsgate, a former-fishmarket-hall-turned-events-venue by the river Thames. Christmas-themed props, including giant toy polar bears, snow-clad trees, ice sculptures and sleighs, were hired to give it a winter wonderland feel and her employees enjoyed a luxurious five-course meal. Afterwards, roulette wheels, card tables, slot machines and a swing band would keep them entertained into the early hours.

  Every so often, Ellie glanced across the room to make sure Tim was enjoying himself. But each time she saw him he was chatting to someone new. She liked that he was a sociable sort and that she could leave him to his own devices without worrying.

  As an early Christmas present, Ellie had sent him to Savile Row to be measured for his first tailor-made suit. After its fast-track completion and delivery, he’d refused to take it off since. She hadn’t minded as he looked sexy in it and she’d have gladly paid for a whole wardrobe of them if it made him happy. But based on past lessons learned, Ellie knew how easy it was for someone with money to smother someone without it.

  Her bathroom break over, she flushed the toilet and made her way to the sink to wash her hands.

  ‘Hi Ellie, what an amazing night!’ said Kat, her head of personnel, one of her longest standing employees. Her half-moon eyes were a telltale sign that she was drunk.

  ‘It seems to be going well, yes.’ Ellie smiled.

  ‘I think there might be a few sore heads being dragged around the corridors tomorrow. Especially mine.’

  ‘Well, that’s what tonight’s for.’

  ‘Your new guy seems to be going down well with people.’

  ‘I feel a bit bad actually. I’ve left him to fend for himself most of the night.’

  ‘Well, I think he can hold his own. At least, that’s what I remember about him.’

  ‘Sorry, do you know him?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Kat said, surprised by the question. ‘But I must admit, I don’t recall him making it to the second round of interviews.’

  ‘I don’t think I follow you.’

  ‘I interviewed him for a job about a year or two ago – Matthew, isn’t it? – it was for something in computer programming, you know, about the time Miriam went on maternity leave. He was very nice and relatively experienced, but there were better candidates so I didn’t recommend he went any further. That’s how you met, right? At a second interview?’

  ‘I think you must be mixing him up with someone else.’

  ‘Oh, well, maybe I’m wrong. Nice man all the same. Anyway, I hope you two have a lovely Christmas together.’

  ‘And you,’ Ellie replied, and felt a slight sense of unease.

  Chapter 56

  MANDY

  ‘Not long now, my little kidney bean,’ Mandy told her baby bump, as she rubbed moisturiser into her expanding breasts and belly. ‘Everyone’s really looking forward to meeting you and, in a few weeks, you’ll be here causing me sleepless nights for the rest of my life. But I don’t care. You can throw anything at me and I’ll always be there for you.’

  She glanced into the bedroom mirror to check on her stretch marks, and was grateful to see they hadn’t extended any further.

  Mandy was now staying full time with Pat, and living off her redundancy money. With all the big changes in her life, she was grateful to Pat for helping her. She had registered Mandy with her own doctor, enrolled her in antenatal classes at her local health centre, assisted her with her birth plan and even volunteered to be her birthing partner. She’d also kept the cabinets stocked with everything she needed: vitamins, minerals and folic acids. At times, Mandy would’ve preferred for Pat to take a step or two back, but with nobody else but Chloe on her side, she was reliant on her for support.

  It had been five months since she’d had the altercation with Paula and Karen, and she didn’t wish to speak to them. She’d ignored all the texts and phone calls, even those from her mother and Kirstin. She was still angry and disappointed that they hadn’t tried to understand her point of view and recognise her need to have this child. But along with her rage there was an underlying sadness that they weren’t there to experience her pregnancy with her, like she had been with them.

  ‘You’re doing the right thing,’ Pat had assured her. ‘With your history of miscarriages, you need to stay away from anything or anyone that causes you stress.’

  Mandy agreed, but it didn’t stop her from feeling sad.

  Pat and Chloe’s almost constant presence helped to offset Mandy’s loneliness, and they’d been by her side through everything: her hormonal tears, her mood swings and her morning sickness. They were her family now, she realised; a hermetically sealed unit joined together by a man who no longer physically existed.

  Now permanently living in Richard’s bedroom, her clothes hung next to his in his wardrobe and her perfumes sat beside his aftershaves. She slept only on one side of the bed, leaving room for where Richard would have been, and she cuddled his favourite jumper through the night, bringing it close to her face in the hope that somehow the baby might catch his scent.

  Pat and Chloe had assembled a wooden cot one afternoon, and this now stood at the far end of Richard’s room. Next to it was a stack of blue-and-white coloured baby clothes that Pat had bought, convinced that Mandy was carrying a boy.

  Mandy screwed the top back onto the bottle of moisturiser and slipped her shirt on. She realised they had never discussed how long Mandy would live with them after the baby arrived, but she already knew she didn’t want to leave. She felt safe in that room, as if Richard’s spirit was there with them, keeping them comfortable and protecting them from the people outside. They had all been concerned that the media might find out about the story, and based on the way Mandy’s family reacted, she knew the world would view her as a freak.

  She lay on her side trying to find a comfortable position, and looked up as she often did at the collage of photographs Richard had pinned to the wall. Each night she’d pore through them, as well as others in albums, to learn more about him. There were photos from when they’d visited Disneyland and also at the family’s cottage in the Lake District. In one photo, Richard and Chloe perched on bikes below a tiled house sign reading Mount Pleasant. It looked like such a calming place, and she wondered, had he had the chance, if Richard would have taken her to the family cottage; if he would have shared that special place with her. Mandy had seen so many pictures, with such regularity, that she felt like she knew his facial expressions and mannerisms as well as she knew her own.

  Three other photos featured a teenage Richard in a hospital bed, surrou
nded by his friends. She assumed they must have been taken during his chemotherapy.

  Her attention was drawn to two images of a young woman whose face seemed familiar. Mandy tried to remember why she recognised her and then it dawned on her – she was the girl who’d sent Richard nude pictures of herself, the ones she’d seen on his old phone. Mandy grabbed the phone back to check and sure enough, the girl was there in all her nakedness.

  She was about Richard’s age, so about a decade younger than Mandy, and it showed. Her breasts were perky, her stomach washboard flat and she pouted her lips in a way that only a young woman can get away with. Mandy felt an instant dislike for the unnamed girl, particularly at a time when she felt so dowdy and profoundly pregnant. But she’d rather have her swollen, lumpy and stretch-marked body than be a collagen-plumped stick insect, she thought bitterly.

  However, it didn’t stop Mandy from wondering how close the girl and Richard had been; clearly they were intimate enough to send each other naked selfies and for her to be on his wall, but had there been anything more between them or was it just sex-text fun? Was she the girl he’d used over half a pack of condoms with? Mandy felt an overriding, irrational need to know who this girl was.

  She turned on her iPad and headed to Richard’s Facebook page. It didn’t take long to find her – Michelle Nicholls. She discovered she lived in a village around ten miles from Pat’s house. Michelle hadn’t set her profile to private so Mandy was able to scroll through all her posts. The more she read, the more begrudging she became. She managed to establish that Richard and Michelle had been in a relationship for about ten months, possibly only ending shortly before his death. Mandy wondered if it had been around the same time he had sent his swab to Match Your DNA.

  But while Michelle had kept many of their photographs on her Facebook page, Richard had deleted most of her from his. It was a small triumph for Mandy but she did wonder why Chloe or Pat hadn’t mentioned her.

  As the next few days passed, Mandy couldn’t stop returning to Michelle’s profile and skimming through her most recent posts. She and Richard appeared well suited to each other; in her pictures she was always smiling on nights out at bars, with friends in restaurants or on holiday. Mandy wondered what Richard saw in her, apart from the obvious. Was she intelligent? Did she make him laugh? Could she hold herself in a conversation? Or was it just that she was good in bed? Why wasn’t this gorgeous girl enough for him? She was clearly besotted with him. Why did he feel the need to get his DNA tested to find his real Match?

  At first, Mandy put her curiosity down to her hormones, but she gradually accepted that there was more to it than that. Pat and Chloe had told her so much about Richard but there was a side to him that only a girlfriend would know. Mandy wanted to know what kind of man Richard was as a partner and how it felt to be loved by him.

  She needed to meet Michelle, so she opened Facebook Messenger and began to type.

  Chapter 57

  CHRISTOPHER

  ‘Where’ve you been? I’ve been trying to get hold of you all morning.’ Amy sounded frustrated when Christopher finally answered her call. He glanced at his phone and saw he’d missed eleven calls from her that day. He slipped the plastic mask from his face so he wouldn’t sound muffled; his skin felt clammy and was greasy to the touch.

  ‘Sorry, I fell asleep at my desk,’ he replied. He had fallen asleep, but it was actually on the sofa belonging to Number Fifteen. Dazed, he wiped the sleep from his eyes and looked around her sunlit room and then at his watch. It read 10.47am. His heart sank.

  He’d never been this careless at a murder scene before, but juggling the two aspects of his life – Amy and his thirty killings plan – had left him physically exhausted. He was reliant on a diet of protein bars, energy drinks and coffee to keep him awake and functioning, but they left him feeling restless and with frequent stomach cramps.

  Christopher’s double life was taking a mental toll too. He had so much to hide from Amy, yet there was so much about his work that he longed to share with her. It left him divided; there’d even been moments when he’d contemplated disclosing his plans in an attempt to convince himself that, if she truly loved him, she would understand. But when it came to it, he couldn’t trust that he had read her correctly, that she would forgive him. And she was hastily becoming too integral a part of his life to risk dispensing with.

  ‘They’ve found a thirteenth body,’ Amy whispered down the phone. ‘The papers don’t know and I’m not supposed to tell anyone but you will never guess who it is.’

  The waitress who served us at the restaurant last week, he wanted to say. That pretty girl with the nose ring. I was going to kill her anyway, but I like to think I killed her for us as something to share. Now you have blood on your hands too.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said, and rose to his feet to stretch his spine and stiff neck.

  ‘It was the waitress from the restaurant we went to last week, do you remember?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Pretty girl with dark hair and a nose ring.’

  ‘Ahh yes, I do now. Shit, what happened to her?’

  ‘Same as all the others. She was strangled and laid out in her kitchen. He tore the ring out too, the sick bastard.’

  Christopher made his way into the kitchen and glared at Number Fifteen lying in the same position he’d left her on the floor. Seven hours after her death her face had sunken, her skin was grey and, for a reason he couldn’t explain, she had already begun to attract flies. He checked his pocket to make sure he had taken the two photographs of her and, to his relief, he had. A picture of how she looked right now would ruin his album’s aesthetic.

  ‘Poor girl,’ Christopher said, and flicked through his backpack to make sure he had packed everything he’d brought. He removed a lint roller and began to manoeuvre it across every inch of the sofa where he’d slept.

  ‘I recognised her as soon as I saw the photograph, which at least sped up the identification process.’

  ‘And are you OK?’

  ‘I think so; it just brought the investigation a little closer to home.’

  You have no idea just how close to home you are already.

  Chapter 58

  JADE

  ‘Not bad, eh?’ Dan asked, standing back and admiring his work. ‘Not how I imagined my kid’s wedding reception to be, but then nothing’s how I imagined it to be anymore.’

  He looked to Jade as if he was hoping she could say something that would make everything OK. The best she could offer was putting an arm around his shoulders in a silent show of solidarity.

  She had spent much of the previous day assisting Susan, Dan and their farmhands in erecting a white tarpaulin over a grassy stretch of the garden. They’d plugged speakers into a sound system to play music, unfolded wooden chairs and tables, and on these they laid linen table covers and placed pink and white posies in jam jars, arranging them in clumps. The next morning – a little over a month since she had arrived so unexpectedly at their farm – Jade was to become Mrs Kevin Williamson.

  The venue Kevin had chosen for the ceremony was the old breezeblock church in the town nearest to the farm. It was unlike any other house of worship Jade had ever visited, and without the wooden crucifix planted in the ground by the road with the signpost reading ‘Baptist Church’, most passers-by would assume it to be a dilapidated storage building. Inside the altar was made from an old porch door on bricks, the seating consisted of faded-white patio chairs and the single window had been decorated with coloured tissue paper so as to resemble stained glass. But as derelict and shoddy as it appeared, there was a certain quirky charm to it. Nothing about her life in the last few weeks had been ordinary, so why should the venue of her wedding be any different?

  The ceremony was held in front of an intimate congregation, consisting of just Kevin’s immediate family, his last remaining grandparent, two cousins and some of their farmhand staff. Quite selfishly, she hadn’t even informed her parents, b
ut it had happened so fast and they wouldn’t have flown over anyway.

  The ceremony was as brief as the time it took Jade to choose a dress from the slim pickings her suitcase held. As the elderly and affable reverend began reading passages from the well-thumbed pages of a Bible, Jade made sure to maintain eye contact with her husband-to-be, even when she could feel Mark’s eyes gazing at her. She knew that if she so much as glanced at him, she’d have put the whole charade in jeopardy. As Kevin’s best man, he stood behind him in case his arms grew too weak to lean on his crutches. However, Kevin was a stubborn soul and refused to remain seated. He couldn’t stop grinning at Jade.

  Her parents had texted her frequently during her trip, demanding to know what the hell she thought she was doing. If they could see her now, she thought, standing at the altar in a make-shift church about to marry a terminally ill man when she was actually in love with his brother, they’d have tried to talk some sense into her. She wouldn’t have listened, but she did feel a tinge of regret that they weren’t there.

  Although it was merely part of the ceremony, when the reverend asked if there was any reason why the couple shouldn’t marry, a tiny part of Jade hoped that Mark might take it as a prompt to profess his undying love for her. But that only happened in romcoms and she knew she wasn’t going to get her happy ever after.

  Once they’d been declared man and wife, Jade braced herself before she kissed her husband, under Mark’s watchful eye.

  Jade had come to Australia by following her heart. But in marrying Kevin, she had followed her head – or, more specifically, her conscience. She had put someone else’s needs above her own and, for a moment, she allowed herself to feel proud of that selfless act.

  However, it didn’t stop a little voice in the back of her mind from telling her she’d made a mistake. She’d married the wrong brother. But there was little she could do about it now.