by Jack Jordan
Marcus spotted the white tent ahead of them. Camera flashes escaped from within and cast the shadows of the moving bodies against the tarpaulin walls. They seemed to be crouching over the body like a pack of wolves hunched over their prey.
Lisa walked into the tent as though she was strolling into the office. She didn’t need to look down at the body – she would have seen it before Marcus arrived – but to him it was fresh.
Josie was lying face down in the mud. Her blonde hair was stained crimson, and her arms were stretched out before her as though she had died trying to crawl to safety, her nails dug deep into the dirt. Blood had stained the skin on her hands and wrists and dripped down her elbows as she had tried to stop it from gushing out of her neck.
‘Anything?’ Lisa asked Dr Ling, who was watching over her colleague as he took photos of the body.
‘Same MO as with Amber and Cassie. Throat slashed and left to drain out.’
‘I meant any evidence.’
‘There are some fingerprints and loose hairs, but they could be hers or Naomi’s.’
‘Any sign she fought back?’
‘There might be some skin tissue under her nails.’
‘Her hair,’ Marcus said. ‘She’s the third victim. All of them had blonde hair.’
‘He obviously has a type,’ Lisa replied.
‘Dr Ling,’ someone called from outside the tent, the words echoing through the woodland.
‘One moment, please.’
Dr Ling stepped out of the tent. Lisa followed her quickly. If they had found something, Lisa wouldn’t be told when she could take a look.
Ling weaved through the undergrowth towards a man dressed in white waving his hand. Branches clawed at Marcus’s trouser legs. Lisa was right behind the pathologist, almost stepping on her heels.
‘What is it?’
‘A watch.’
Dr Ling stopped and looked down as Lisa pushed in and stood beside her. Marcus peered over their heads to where the man was holding back a branch, revealing a silver watch resting in the dirt. The strap was metal too, made of small silver rectangles, like a row of steel teeth.
‘Is that blood splattered on the face?’ Lisa asked.
‘Looks like it,’ Dr Ling replied. ‘We’ll know more once it’s tested.’
‘There’ll be hairs trapped in the strap too.’
‘Here’s hoping,’ Ling replied. ‘Take photos and bag it, Sam.’
‘Do you think it belongs to the killer?’ Marcus asked as Lisa headed back towards the path.
‘It looks too clean to have been out here for long. And the blood speaks for itself.’ She looked behind him towards Dr Ling. ‘When will we know?’
‘I’ll have them test it first and get back to you.’
‘When will you be ready for the autopsy?’
‘I’ll do it today. No point making her wait in the fridge until Monday.’
‘Call me when it’s done and I’ll head over.’
‘Me too,’ Marcus said.
‘Only if you’ve got the story from Naomi. You’d best get going. Call me once she’s awake.’
A scream ripped through the trees. The white tent began to squirm as bodies writhed inside, clawing at the walls to get out.
‘Dr Ling!’ a voice cried from the tent. ‘Dr Ling, come quickly!’
Ling ran towards the tent, following the urgency in her colleague’s voice, Lisa and Marcus following her, dodging tree roots and branches.
Something was happening inside the tent. A struggle of bodies, moving the tent from side to side. Limbs pressed against the walls like feet kicking out from a womb.
The pathologist burst inside and gasped. Marcus squeezed in beside her and looked down.
Josie had been turned onto her back and was staring lifelessly at the ceiling of the tent. The cut in her throat was packed with mud, which also filled her nose and mouth and hid within the grooves of her teeth.
Marcus couldn’t tell what he was supposed to be looking at – she was just as dead at the front as she was at the back – until suddenly he noticed and the blood drained from his head.
Josie Callaghan blinked.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The nurse came to check Naomi’s stats every hour, and every time she looked surprised to find Marcus still sitting there. He wasn’t going to leave, not until Naomi woke up.
Angry scratches covered the right side of her face. The fingers of her left hand were straightened in small splints. He wouldn’t know how much had been broken inside until she opened her eyes. He sighed into his hands.
The heart monitor began to race. Naomi was feeling the bed sheets with her hands with quickening breaths and wide eyes.
‘Naomi, you’re okay.’
She flinched and stared in his direction.
‘It’s Marcus. Detective Sergeant Marcus Campbell.’
She sank back towards the bed, but continued to twist the sheets with her free hand.
‘You’re in hospital, but you’re doing fine.’
He watched the memory of the night flood her eyes.
‘Can you tell me what happened?’
‘I …’ Her voice was timid, barely a whisper. ‘I’m going to die, aren’t I?’
We could have done so much more to protect you.
‘You are not going to die, Naomi. I will make sure that doesn’t happen.’
‘You can’t be there all the time. It seems he’s always watching.’
‘What happened?’ He leaned in, waiting to hear every faint word that slipped from her lips. She quivered in the bed, tears snaking silently from her eyes, which glazed over as she returned to the woods. Marcus began to wonder if she was still disorientated. ‘You can trust me, Naomi. What happened to you?’
Her face tightened and her voice deepened as she said her name.
‘Josie.’
A memory flashed in his eyes. Josie lying on her back, the mud packed in her throat moving with her breaths.
‘She came to my door and put a cricket bat against my head.’ Naomi stroked her temple as though she could still feel the wood pressing against her skull. ‘She said I had to go with her.’
‘Go where?’
‘She led me into the woods,’ she said, clenching the sheet in a fist. ‘She was talking about my relationship with my husband.’ Her face creased and she shook her head. ‘Ex-husband.’
She licked her cracked lips. Sighed.
‘She told me it was a warning. If I didn’t stop seeing Dane, it would be worse next time. She planned to leave me there alone in the woods. And then … blood. Hot blood rained down on me.’ She wiped her palms along the sheets as if removing the blood from her hands. ‘Someone had hurt her. She couldn’t speak. I managed to run away and hide behind a tree. Someone was chasing me, spotted me when I couldn’t hold my breath any longer.’
She was speaking faster as the intensity of the memory grew.
‘I just remember running. Running as fast as I could with my hands out in front of me. I fell down by a ditch and hid there.’
She stared into the distance. She was back there in the woods, hiding in the dark.
‘I stayed there for hours,’ she whispered, the words cracking with her tears. ‘My skin was wet. I felt insects crawling under my clothes. It was so cold.’
She’s broken. The killer has finally broken her.
‘I don’t remember much after that.’
‘You were confused,’ Marcus said gently. ‘A dog walker found you, and you thought—’
‘Max …’
‘It wasn’t Max, Naomi.’
‘He bit me.’
‘She. A German shepherd called Penelope.’
‘I must have scared her.’
‘You weren’t yourself. You were close to hypothermic. You were out in the woods all night.’
‘How long have I been here?’
‘Since around eight this morning.’
‘What time is it now?’
‘Gone three.’
His
phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He ignored it.
‘I have to ask you a question, and it might sound unkind.’
She nodded, wiping the tears from her cheeks with scratched hands.
‘Why does the killer let you live?’
She was silent for a while.
‘I don’t know. But I’m starting to wish he didn’t.’
‘We’ll find him, Naomi. I promise you that.’
‘You’ve made promises before, Detective. But that’s all you’ve done. I’ve been left in the dark this whole time, and all I can do is hope to survive.’
Marcus went to speak.
‘Find him, Marcus. I don’t know how much more I can take.’
‘I will,’ he said.
She rested her head back against the pillow, and they sat listening to the beep of the heart monitor. Rain tapped against the window pane behind Marcus’s head.
‘Why did you ask me about Hayley Miller?’ she asked. ‘After the attack on the beach. You asked if I knew her.’
His investigation into Hayley Miller’s disappearance had to be kept a secret or Lisa would bury it so deep he would never find it again. But he needed to speak his thoughts aloud. He needed someone to be on his side.
‘I’m looking into the possibility of a connection between the recent murders and Hayley’s disappearance.’
‘She was my sister’s friend, not mine. I barely knew her.’
‘But so many people in your life did. Your sister was her best friend. Josie was her sister. Dane …’
‘Dane?’ Her eyes twitched minutely, left and right.
She doesn’t know.
‘It may not be connected. I just want to make sure.’
‘What about Dane?’ she asked, and sat up. ‘How did he know Hayley?’
Marcus sighed silently. It was as though she didn’t know who to trust. She had no idea how few of them there were.
‘He was questioned when she disappeared. They had dated, and she was supposed to meet him the night she vanished.’
‘Dane? My Dane?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I would have known …’
‘Only if he told you.’
‘But my sister, my mum, surely they would have said something …’
‘It wasn’t common knowledge that he was questioned. The police tried to conceal as much as possible. The town was already talking, making up its own mind about what happened.’
‘But someone would have told me they’d dated.’
‘Hayley dated a lot of people. She was known for her promiscuity. They might not even have known.’
A tear slipped down her cheek. She wiped it away with an aggressive hand.
‘And you think her disappearance could be connected to what’s happening to me?’
‘I don’t know, Naomi. I’m looking into every possibility here. It’s a hunch, but I believe there’s more to it than that.’
A rumble of thunder rolled across the sky behind the window pane.
‘Get some rest,’ he said. ‘Call me if you need anything, or if you have any questions. Is there anyone you want us to contact for you?’
She hesitated before answering, as though she was thinking of the people in her life, and who she had left to trust. It took her a while.
‘My mum.’
She gave him the number and he typed it into his phone.
‘I’ll speak to the nurse and ask her to give your mum a call.’
She turned over and lay with her back to him. As Marcus walked around the bed to leave, he took one last look. Her eyes were open, staring out at the room as a tear spilled over the bridge of her nose.
He had promised to protect her and he had let her down at every turn. He vowed that he would never make promises again.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Even with the painkillers, Naomi still felt the tenderness all over her body. The muscles in her legs were weak from running through the woods. Her fingers were hot and throbbed in time with her heart. She leaned on her mother’s arm as they walked through the front door.
‘We should get you cleaned up,’ Rachel said.
‘I just want to rest.’
‘Bath first, then you can rest.’
Her mother took her hand and led her to the banister. ‘I’ll be right behind you.’
Naomi took a deep breath and put her foot on the first step.
‘That’s it,’ Rachel said, and pressed her hands into Naomi’s back to keep her upright.
When they reached the bathroom, Naomi sat on the toilet seat and let her mother undress her as though she were a child again. With Rachel and Grace choosing her clothes and food, and so many other aspects of her life controlled by others, she had often felt like she had never grown up at all; that she was still the little girl huddled in the corner of the bus shelter.
Rachel turned on the taps and placed a folded towel at the foot of the bath. Naomi listened to her swishing her hands through the water. The pain dulled the embarrassment of exposing her naked body.
‘Here we are.’
She put her hands in her mother’s and rose from the seat, placing one foot in the water and then the other.
‘Easy now,’ Rachel said.
The water lapped past her navel and swam over her breasts. Rachel rested her hand at the nape of Naomi’s neck and lowered her head to the rim of the bath. The hot water stung the scratches littering her body.
‘You relax, I’m going to change your bedding.’
She sank lower in the bath until the water was up against her chin.
‘I’ll be back soon,’ Rachel said.
Naomi lay in the bath and inhaled the steam, listening to her mother open and close the door to the linen closet; the creak of the floorboards under her weight as she circled the bed. She submerged herself under the water.
Bubbles popped as they made their way to the surface, rising from her body and tickling her skin. Beneath the water, she was away from the fear, the danger. It had been weeks since she had felt so safe. She stayed there listening to her heartbeat thud against the base of the bath, even when her lungs began to spasm. Small bubbles crept from her nostrils. She closed her eyes.
Hands burst through the surface and snatched at her arms. Water splashed over the edge of the bath as Naomi was hauled upright, gasping for air.
‘What were you doing?’ Rachel yelled.
‘I was resting.’
‘You nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought you’d drowned.’
Naomi wiped the water from her eyes and coughed up the rest of the water.
Her mother sighed and rested back on her heels, her knees clicking.
‘Sit up. Let me wash your hair.’
Naomi sat up straight and let her mother pour hot water over her hair and delicately massage it with shampoo. Foam ran down her back and stung the small cuts on her skin.
‘This reminds me of the first time I gave you a bath,’ Rachel said through a smile. ‘You were so frightened in broke my heart.’
She could have known about Dane and Hayley and didn’t tell me.
‘Bt luckily you learnt quickly,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I couldn’t let you start nursery with matted hair.’
Naomi tensed her muscles against her mother’s touch.
‘It took a long time to earn your trust. I suppose you don’t remember much of that time. They were the hardest yet most rewarding years of my life.’
Naomi listened to the sound of the water trickling down her back. The loofah slid up and down her body, scraping against her wounds.
She sat there as the water drained away, too nervous to stand without slipping, then took her mother’s hands to step out onto the bath mat. Rachel rubbed her down with the towel as Naomi stood there naked and numb.
Rachel led her into the bedroom. The clean sheets were so soft, she could have slept instantly. She sank down onto the bed.
‘Tablets,’ Rachel said, and passed her three pills and a glass of water. ‘Two for sl
eep, one for pain.’
Naomi nodded and gulped them down, then laid her head on the pillow. She closed her eyes as her mother stroked her hair, listening to Rachel’s regular breaths curling in and out of her nostrils. She breathed in the scent of her mother’s perfume and sank against the mattress.
‘Why won’t you talk to me? Tell me what you’re thinking?’ her mother whispered, her hand caressing her hair as Naomi slipped into the depths of sleep. ‘Why won’t you let me in?’
I can’t trust you, Naomi thought to herself. I can’t trust anyone.
Naomi woke from the nightmare with a jolt. She had been back in the woods, only this time Josie had used the bat she had threatened her with. It came down again and again as the killer watched from behind the trees, telling Josie where to hit her and how hard, until the last swipe knocked her awake. She had heard her bones crack, felt blood running into her eyes. It had seemed so real that she patted the duvet, checking for the woodland floor beneath her palms.
Her skin was numb from the painkillers, but she could still feel the pain squirming in her fingers, waiting to rise.
Someone was sitting at the end of the bed, pinning her down with their weight.
‘You should have called me,’ Grace said.
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Mum needed to get some rest. She’s too old to be doing all this. What if you’d fallen down the stairs and taken her with you? You might be able to get back up again, but it isn’t that easy for her.’
‘I knew you’d be working, I didn’t want to—’
‘None of this is exactly ideal, but if it means keeping Mum safe, I’ll do what I need to do.’
‘You have the kids to worry about.’
‘Craig’s the stay-at-home parent. I can come if you need me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Grace sighed. Naomi felt the heat of her breath.
‘What happened to you out there?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
They fell quiet again. Clicking sounds came from her sister’s mouth as words started to form before they were pushed back down.
‘What’s going on with you?’ she asked finally.
‘I don’t know. Someone wants to hurt me.’
‘Why?’