The One

by John Marrs

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Ellie replied, ‘because nobody pulls my strings. Everything you’ve said is bullshit.’

  ‘How can you be so sure of that?’

  ‘My IT department will prove it.’ She reached for her phone but there was no signal. She grabbed the telephone on the table but could hear no dial tone. She glared at Matthew. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘A signal blocker and two phone jammers. Like a modern-day Faraday cage.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘Believe it or not, absolutely nothing. Not a single penny, not an apology, not an explanation. I’ll get enough gratification over the next few days when this becomes public and the world will begin to doubt whether the person on the other side of their bed really is the one who’s supposed to be there.’

  Something inside Ellie suddenly snapped. Her self-preservation instinct, built from so many years as a woman in a male-dominated corporate world, kicked in with glaring a speed. She rose to her feet with such force, it took Matthew by surprise.

  ‘I’ll deny your claims. Who’s going to believe you?’ she snarled. ‘My press department is built for damage limitation and we’ll spin this so you come across as a desperate, two-bit systems analyst who wasn’t qualified enough to get a job here. Then we will find everything there is to know about you to discredit what you have to say. I’ll savage what’s left of your dead mother’s reputation by dragging her and her paedophile boyfriend’s name through the mud, alongside any friend or acquaintance you may have. The Sunday League football team you play for? None of them will have jobs by the end of the week, I guarantee you. Then I’ll tie you up in court with so much litigation and private prosecutions that you won’t be able to afford a bed to sleep in. By the time you have left this building, we’ll have found whatever wormhole you claim to have discovered and seal it up so there will be no proof you ever broke into our system.’

  ‘I’m your fiancé,’ Matthew said confidently. ‘That’ll give me a lot more credibility. Especially when I tell everyone that the woman who’s amassed a personal fortune out of predetermined love is willing to hide the fact there are 2 million people out there who have been Matched incorrectly. There’ll be an investigation at the very least. There is no way out of this for you, Ells.’

  ‘They won’t believe you.’

  ‘Ah, well, I hate to disappoint you, but I think they might. I have everything I’ve done saved on back-up hard drives and memory sticks hidden across the city, all waiting to be sent to WikiLeaks who’ll expose the story. They love a whistle-blower, especially when it’s about corporate misconduct.’

  ‘I am not going to lose everything I have built because of you,’ Ellie spat.

  Matthew smirked as he rose to his feet, straightened his tie and winked at Ellie. ‘Let’s see about that, shall we, Ells? For the rest of your life, people will be queuing the length of the Thames to sue you for your flawed results and their failed relationships. Then, when everything you have cherished has been taken away from you, you’ll know how my mother and countless others felt because of what you did. You, my love, are fucked.’

  It was the clear, crisp way in which Matthew delivered his final statement that convinced Ellie everything he’d told her was true. In an instant, she saw all she’d accomplished being yanked from under her feet. She’d survived a decade of abuse and criticism, and sacrificed her family, friendships and lovers, all for nothing because of a man who’d duped his way into her life.

  It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  As Matthew made his way towards the door, he turned his head to look at Ellie one last time. But he couldn’t have anticipated what Ellie was about to do.

  Without thinking, she picked up the lead crystal decanter from the table and hurled it at him. The weight of it collided with his temple and knocked him to his knees.

  Ellie’s shadow loomed over Matthew where he cowered helplessly on the floor. For the briefest of moments she saw the Tim of old in his eyes, the man who had brought out a side to her that had lain dormant for so long. But allowing her warm, loving side to shine through her thick skin had made her vulnerable. All that she had forfeited for her discovery would not be for nothing, she vowed. She would not allow the feeble creature before her to take anything away.

  Matthew’s eyes rolled as he struggled to focus, then he glared at her in disbelief, clutching the side of his head. He watched, helpless and disorientated, as she coolly and calmly picked up the decanter and swung it for a second time with great force, hitting him squarely in the same part of his head.

  She could almost feel his skull split as the decanter shattered, spraying fragments of bone, glass and whisky across the floor.

  Ellie stood motionless as she watched Matthew’s body convulse and his blood seep into the rug. His eyes opened wide and her mis-Match was suddenly erased.

  Chapter 91

  MANDY

  Mandy stood rigidly at the foot of the drive of the home where she’d lived with Pat for five months.

  ‘The door’s unlocked, you can go in,’ urged Lorraine, her police liaison officer. ‘Just take your time.’

  Mandy hesitated and glanced over her shoulder to check her sister Paula was still in the police car they’d both arrived in. Paula had offered to go inside with her for support, but Mandy was too embarrassed to show her the home of the family she had chosen above her own.

  Lorraine went inside first, and Mandy followed apprehensively. Together they paused in the hallway and Mandy’s eyes shot to the bottom of the staircase where she’d fallen some five weeks earlier.

  She looked at the open doors leading to the rooms off the hallway and took a deep breath, covering her stomach with her arms. Where a baby bump had once protruded, there was now just loose skin, and Mandy felt her caesarean stitches tug sharply each time she made a sudden movement. Yet she cherished the horizontal scar above her bikini line – it was the only physical proof she had that she and her baby boy had ever been together. He’d been removed from her unconscious body and then stolen by her twisted in-laws before she’d had the opportunity to even catch sight of him. Every morning after showering, she wiped the steam from the full-length bathroom mirror and traced the red, raised scar tissue with her finger, imagining what her son might look like.

  It had been a very difficult few weeks. She regularly pumped her breasts to keep them lactating in preparation for the time she would be reunited with her boy. She cursed the breast pump for not being her child clamping upon her nipple. She hated that they were losing this precious bonding time, and she prayed that the police would find a lead to his whereabouts.

  Pat’s house hadn’t been aired in the best part of a month and it was beginning to smell stale. Mandy gave the lounge, kitchen and dining room a cursory glance before following Lorraine up the staircase. She liked Lorraine; her softly spoken approach was at odds with her masculine appearance, and under different circumstances she’d have tried to match-make her with Kirstin.

  Once Mandy had alerted the hospital staff to her missing child, they had contacted the police. A warrant had been issued to search Pat’s home, where they’d found that everything but her clothes and gifts she’d purchased for the baby had been left. Chloe’s house was in a similar state, and their bank accounts had been emptied. Along with the baby, they had vanished into thin air.

  Mandy’s worried family insisted she return to stay with them. The tragedy had rebuilt their bridges without need of a word of apology from either side, and they supported her as she anxiously awaited police updates. Together they prayed that Pat or Chloe might develop a conscience and return the baby, but in the month following their disappearance there had been no contact whatsoever. There had been some potential sightings following her appeal in the national newspapers and a televised press conference, but they’d turned out to be false leads.

  Mandy had run the full gamut of emotions: from anger towards the hospital for allowing her son to be placed into the hand
s of those who had no business touching her child, to frustration at the police for failing to develop any fresh leads, to herself for her post-op body not allowing her to become more physically proactive in the search. Her still-tender wound and limited mobility gave her too much time to dwell on the guilt she felt for failing to do the one thing a parent must do – protect their child. No matter how many times her family, Lorraine or doctors tried to convince her she was blameless, Mandy refused to believe them. It was her fault because she’d tried to chase the impossible – the love of a man who could never love her in return – and she’d lost her baby because of it.

  ‘I want to go to back to her house and look around,’ Mandy had informed Lorraine after much internal deliberation. She wasn’t sure why, but it was something she felt compelled to do. Lorraine wasn’t convinced of the benefits of this to Mandy’s healing, but she had persisted, threatening to go alone if necessary.

  Mandy stood in the doorway of Pat’s bedroom. It wasn’t very different to how it’d always been, with the exception of the empty drawers and clothes rails inside her open wardrobe. She made her way into Richard’s room where she’d spent much of her time. Like Pat’s, it had been ransacked by the police who had been hunting for clues. For a moment, it saddened her that her sanctuary had been soiled as part of a criminal investigation.

  Stay strong, Mandy told herself, and balled her fists.

  Her eyes made their way across the collage of photographs spread across Richard’s wall. Each snapshot of his life had once made her wish they’d found each other earlier. But from what his ex-girlfriend had revealed shortly before Mandy’s accident, Richard wasn’t the man of her dreams. He wasn’t the monogamous type and he had little desire to settle down and have a family of his own. He was a human being, and he was flawed, not a fantasy, and she could see that now.

  As her eyes skimmed across the photographs, Mandy went back to one in particular. Richard and Chloe were still children, probably aged around ten, and were on oversized bikes outside a cottage surrounded by rolling green hills and woodland.

  Suddenly Mandy felt like someone had woken her with a slap across the face.

  ‘I know where my baby is!’ she said out loud, and stared Lorraine in the eye. ‘I know where to find him.’

  Chapter 92

  CHRISTOPHER

  Christopher suddenly awoke to the sensation of cold liquid being poured over his head.

  He opened his eyes, but everything had a misty haze and he couldn’t make out where he was. The left side of his body ached where the taser gun’s darts had made contact and his whole body stung like he’d fallen onto a bed of nettles. He wasn’t sure if it was the force of his head colliding with the floor that had rendered him unconscious or the 50,000 volts that’d travelled through his body.

  As he came to, he was engulfed by a wave of nausea and retched several times before spewing bile down the front of his jumper. He turned his head and spat a foul-tasting mouthful to his side. Blurry images flashed from a television attached to the wall with what sounded like newsreaders recapping the day’s headlines. His eyes finally focused and rested on the familiar figure standing before him, and he recalled what had happened moments before he blacked out. Amy had put a stop to the death of Number Thirty and a halt to his project.

  Amy had been here. Which meant that she knew everything.

  He looked down towards his wrists and saw two tightly bound ropes securing them to the chair’s arms. He was still in Number Thirty’s kitchen. A pair of handcuffs tightly pinched his ankles.

  It was then that he noticed that Amy was still there. He stared at her trainers wrapped in blue plastic bags, moments away from him, then lifted his gaze to her dark jeans and black sweatshirt, then to her face, the balaclava pulled back to her hairline. It looked like a sweatband and in any other situation he would have thought she was preparing to go out for a run. He couldn’t read her expression, but it wasn’t difficult to assume it was not favourable. His pulse quickened.

  ‘Where’s Number Thirty?’ he asked.

  ‘Is that what you do? Give them numbers? They have names, you know. They are people.’

  ‘They were people,’ Christopher corrected and gave a long, sigh-strewn pause. ‘Where is she?’

  A look he recognised as shame briefly passed across Amy’s face. ‘She’s in the bedroom. When she answered the door, I pushed my way in, overpowered her and tied her up. Then I locked her in her room and turned her stereo up so she wouldn’t hear us.’

  The corners of Christopher’s mouth rose slightly before suppressing what would’ve under ordinary circumstances formulated a smile.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, I’m not proud of scaring that poor girl to death. This is something that will stay with her for the rest of her life and, thanks to you, I’m to blame for it.’

  ‘But you did it all the same. We could’ve made a good team.’

  ‘It’s better to put her through this than do nothing and have you kill her.’

  Christopher shrugged.

  ‘If I thought you were capable of feeling anything I’d say that it’s disappointment you are trying to hide.’

  ‘I can feel. I feel things for you.’

  Amy let out a forced laugh. ‘No you don’t! You played the part – I’ll give you credit for that, and you played it well – but I was always just a pawn in your sick little game.’

  ‘Is that what you really think?’

  ‘What am I supposed to think? My boyfriend is a fucking serial killer! How could you, Chris? How could you?’

  ‘You are so much more than a pawn.’

  ‘If that were true, then why didn’t you make an excuse to leave as soon I told you I was a police officer? Why didn’t you just let me go about my life if you cared that much? I was just an extra challenge for you, to see if you could get away with doing this while dating someone in the police.’ She was fighting to hold back tears.

  ‘That might have been the case at first, but then things changed.’

  ‘How was this ever going to end? Or wasn’t it? Were you just going to keep killing?’

  ‘The girl in the other room, she was the last. Or at least she was supposed to be.’

  Amy laughed. ‘How coincidental.’

  ‘No, really, thirty, that was my target.’

  She paused. ‘Why?’

  ‘To begin with it was a challenge I set myself. But, as much as I enjoyed it at first, it ended up becoming laborious.’

  Amy shook her head and raised her eyes to the ceiling, as if she were silently asking God if she’d heard him correctly. ‘Killing women … murdering innocent people … that was laborious to you? Working in a factory production line, washing cars for a living, sweeping the streets, those are laborious jobs, not taking twenty-nine people’s lives, Chris!’

  ‘When did you put everything together?’ he asked, genuinely curious.

  ‘Six days ago. You were out, killing your twenty-eighth victim, if my timeline is correct. I was at yours, flicking through the psychology and serial killer books on your shelves, trying to get my head around what makes a monster tick. And among them I found your photo album.’

  Christopher nodded slowly, satisfied that at last he could share his work with her.

  ‘It didn’t make sense, at first,’ Amy continued. ‘Why would my Christopher have those pictures, and how did he get them? I went back to the station briefing room and compared them to the photos that’d been left on the bodies, and they were almost identical – almost identical. Because each photo had been taken from an ever so slightly different angle, meaning the ones in your album weren’t reproductions or copies. Whoever took those pictures must’ve been at each of the crime scenes. But it was the waitress’s nose ring you kept that removed the last shred of doubt.’

  Christopher made no attempt to defend himself. She began pacing around the open-plan kitchen and diner, shaking her head.

  ‘Can you even begin to imagine what went through my head w
hen I knew what you were?’ Her question was rhetorical, he could tell. Christopher was quite pleased that he could finally recognise the subtleties. ‘I searched your house from top to bottom and I found dozens of smart phones in a bag in your broken freezer. And I turned enough of them on to see the only app installed on them was that dating one, UFlirt, and that every victim had sent you their number. Of course, your computers were password encrypted so I didn’t get anywhere with those.’ She added the last sentence almost as an afterthought.

  ‘No, you wouldn’t have,’ Christopher replied conceitedly.

  ‘Look at yourself, Chris,’ Amy replied sharply. ‘You’re in no position to be smug. And you’re not as clever as you think. You left a piece of your DNA at a murder scene.’

  He shook his head. ‘That’s not possible. I was always careful, I’m sure of that.’

  ‘Number Twenty-Seven.’

  ‘Dominika Bosko.’

  Amy arched her eyebrows. ‘So you do know their names?’

  ‘Only hers.’

  ‘Why, because you killed her baby too?’

  Christopher glared at Amy, and for the first time during their confrontation, she recognised regret in his eye.

  ‘There was one tiny piece of DNA the forensics team found on the child,’ she continued. ‘At some point when you went back to the scene of the crime, you stood over her and cried. They found teardrops on his head and chest. I got your DNA results from the swab you sent to Match Your DNA, and I paid a private lab for some fast-track work to compare the tears on the baby to your results. They were 99.97 per cent identical. I have to know, what was it about them that upset you?’

  ‘You did,’ he whispered, picturing the child’s lifeless body.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I imagined somebody doing that to you, and me standing over your body having lost you. For the first time in my life, I had no control over my emotions and they got the better of me.’