Nathan stared in disbelief as he tried to comprehend the words. It couldn’t be true… not Ruby. She was the one good thing in his life. The only person that could pull him out of this murky world. Now she was up to her armpits in it, just like the rest of them. Questions rose in his mind amidst the confusion. Why hadn’t she told him of her suspicions? But the answer was clear. Because she knew he would stop her. ‘Where is Lucy?’
‘You’ve already met her. She’s been right under our noses all along. Just a street urchin, although she looks like she’s been around the block a few times.’
‘You’re not saying… ’
‘Yeah, it’s that bird you took on at the club. Cathy, her name is. I found her sleeping rough under a bridge, told her that her mum was looking for her. She was embarrassed, wanted to straighten herself out, so I sent her to the club to ask for work. I thought it would be better for you to break the news that you’re her dad and all.’
‘Jesus,’ Nathan said, running both his hands through his hair. And there she was, offering to take off her clothes for him. His stomach churned at the thought.
‘Shame,’ Lenny said, taking a final drag on his cigarette before stubbing it on Nathan’s oak flooring with the heel of his shoe. ‘I was going to invite her round, but she’s already gone out on a job.’
‘What job? I told her to stay behind the bar.’
‘Are you sure?’ Lenny sneered. ‘Because as far as I know she’s gone to work on her back. She must have inherited that side of things from her mother.’ He glanced at the expensive watch decorating his wrist. ‘Speaking of filth, you’d better get around there before the old bill turn up. Ruby’s been keeping tabs.’
‘Where is she?’ Nathan said, between gritted teeth.
‘Fat Barry’s place.’
Tweedy was already standing by the door, car keys in hand.
His muscles tensed, Nathan shouldered his brother aside. Hot fury had descended, leaving little room for rational thought. He had to get away. He could not be held responsible when anger like this took hold. His body shook with the need to expel it, but he had barely stepped forward when Lenny spoke in a low, gloating tone.
‘Turns out Fat Barry’s more than happy to break her in.’
Fist connected with bone as Nathan swivelled around, punching his brother hard in the mouth. He followed it up with a winding blow to the stomach, taking Lenny to his knees. He had raised his bloodied fist, ready to pummel Lenny’s head, when a pair of strong arms wrestled him from the floor.
‘Boss, c’mon, we’ve no time to waste.’
It was Tweedy. And he was right.
Gasping and choking, Lenny spit blood. ‘My toof. You’ve broken mah fucking toof,’ he lisped, clawing back the breath his brother had expelled.
But Nathan was already halfway out the door. If what Lenny said was true, he had to get to his daughter. He had let her down once. It would not happen a second time.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Ruby pushed down on the stiff doorbell, the noise producing a delicate chime out of place with the surroundings. Lenny had surprised her by texting the address, although he was the least trustworthy source of them all. Her heart skipped a beat as she contemplated meeting her daughter. Just how was she going to handle this? Flash her warrant card and blag her way inside? And what if her daughter was there? Could she arrest her own flesh and blood? It would end all ties with Nathan if he found out. Ruby took a deep breath as footsteps approached the door. The thought of losing her one constant in life made her scared. But a child’s life was at risk, and she had no choice but to try.
Yet it was not ‘Fat’ Barry Sedgewick opening the door, but Nathan. And his face was like thunder. Grabbing her by the elbow he pulled her inside. The long narrow corridor offered little room for movement and she found herself with her back against the woodchip paper. Nathan stared with an intensity that frightened her, and her heart picked up a notch as she tried to break free.
His breath fell warm and heavy against her skin as his hands pressed against the wall either side of her face. Why is he here? Ruby thought, listening out for signs of Lucy, but the only sound was of the traffic outside. If her daughter was here, she was being very quiet about it. ‘What’s going on?’ she said, keen to get moving. She was not here to play games.
‘I could ask you the same question,’ Nathan growled, every sinew in his body tensed. Ruby had seen him like this once before, and in times like these he was best left alone. But she had come here for a purpose, and she needed to know.
‘I’m here to speak to Barry Sedgewick. What’s your excuse?’ She could tell by his demeanour it was not a social visit, and she was not in the mood for an argument. Lenny had sent her the address. Had he been setting her up all along? Ducking under Nathan’s arm, she checked the downstairs rooms before making her way up the stairs.
‘If you’re looking for Lucy, she’s not here. Neither is Fat Barry. He wasn’t too keen to speak to you, funnily enough,’ Nathan said, standing on the landing as she returned from checking the empty bedrooms.
Ruby’s eyes fell to his grazed right fist and the blood splatters on his white shirt. ‘What’s your problem, Nathan?’
‘I’ll tell you what my problem is,’ he said, jabbing her on the chest. ‘You’re my fucking problem. How could you do it, Ruby? How could you set up our daughter? Did you really think I was going to allow you to arrest her?’
‘Ow,’ Ruby frowned, rubbing her breastbone. ‘What are you talking about? You’re not making any sense.’
‘What’s the view like from that high horse of yours? Lecturing me on what’s right, then trading information so you could nick our daughter for murder. And here was me thinking you were beyond reproach.’
Ruby’s face fell as she realised what it looked like. She had been played. And Lenny was pulling their strings. ‘I can explain… ’
‘You knew how much I wanted to see her. Yet you chose to keep it quiet because you wanted to take her from me all over again.’
‘What the hell? We both agreed, remember?’ Except Ruby knew that was not strictly true. Her mother’s recent ramblings had brought Nathan’s reluctance to light. ‘Anyway, it’s a bit late to start laying blame, don’t you think? If your family had any sort of normality, we wouldn’t have had to give her up in the first place.’ Ruby knew from the expression on Nathan’s face that her words were hitting home.
‘I had no choice,’ Nathan said, his voice choked by the anger backed up in his throat. ‘Your mum railroaded me into it when I was at my lowest point. And what about you? You have the cheek to tell me my family is inferior to yours? At least my mum knows what day of the week it is.’
Ruby drew back her hand, slapping Nathan hard on the cheek. Nathan had grown up learning that pain does not come from the fist alone and was adept at pushing her buttons.
He carried on as if nothing more than a fly had landed on his skin. ‘I should never have listened. If I did, then Cathy wouldn’t be the state she’s in now.’
‘Cathy? Who’s Cathy? And what do you mean “the state she’s in”?’ Ruby said, touching the stairwell to ground herself. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. No doubt it was work wondering where she was.
‘Her adoptive parents changed her name. And it’s a bit late to start acting the concerned parent. First you abandon her, then you try to nick her. And you have the cheek to lecture me about blood money. You disgust me. You’re nothing but a joke.’
‘How dare you talk to me like that,’ Ruby said, her voice rising. ‘You know nothing of this investigation. There’s a child’s life on the line here. If you just took the time to hear me out… ’
‘Well, I’m too busy looking out for our own flesh and blood. Go and find your killer elsewhere, because I can tell you now it had nothing to do with her. Now fuck off back to the job you love so much. We don’t ever want to hear from you again.’
‘Nathan, you’ve got this all wrong,’ Ruby said, following him down the stairs. ‘It�
��s Lenny. He’s set this all up. Just give me the chance to explain.’
‘We’re not interested. Cathy’s safe now, somewhere you’ll never find her.’
‘Please. Just ask her one question. Has she ever watched the movie Lucy’s First Christmas?’
Nathan looked at Ruby as if she was speaking a foreign language. ‘What are you on about? What movie?’
‘It’s part of the investigation. The killer’s recreating scenes from the film. I’ve got to know. Has Cathy watched it or not?’
‘You’re a piece of work, do you know that? Even now, you’re taking the side of the police.’ Nathan made towards the door, wrenching it open until it rebounded against the wall. ‘I’ll never forgive you for this, Ruby. You can go to hell.’
Ruby flinched as he slammed the door, leaving her alone in the hall. The energy of their disagreement still hung in the air, and she could not bear to leave it like this. But there was little point in chasing after him, and who could blame him for being mad? It was bad enough that she hid Lucy’s contact from him, but to hear it from Lenny… Ruby had walked straight into his trap and had nobody but herself to blame. She went crawling to him, and she should have known better than to trust Lenny Crosby. A wave of grief rose from within as long buried feelings of shame and regret made themselves known. She should have been stronger. Had she not given her baby up, things would be very different now. They could be together as a family. This was all her fault. Warm tears moistened her cheeks, and she swiped them away with the back of her hand. She would not allow herself to go there; at least, not until she had sorted out the mess her life had become.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Lavender bath salts mingled with the scent of warm sticky blood. It rose with the steam clouding the glass, blotting out the outside world. Lucy inhaled deeply, drawing it deep into her lungs. This had been her best yet. And the most satisfying. She had fooled herself into thinking that it would end any other way. She didn’t want to find her mother. She wanted to end her. And once was never enough. She had to pay her whore of a mother back ten times over for abandoning her as a child. Trying to recreate a happy ending was a façade. She understood that now. But every cloud has a silver lining… The nearer she came to perfection, the more exquisite the payback. Her body shuddered from the afterglow of her satisfaction. Who was she to deny that part of herself? Deep down she had known, even as Anita recited the lines, word perfect, that it would never work. How could Lucy live a normal life when everything about her was an aberration?
At first she turned the blame inwards. She was a freak who had committed crimes in the eyes of society. Her happy ever after was never going to come true. But who wanted normality if all it brought were rules and boundaries? It was easier to give into the longing rising within her. Inflicting pain on others made the horror go away. And the reward… oh what a bounty that had been: wave upon wave of ecstasy as she purged herself in a bath tinted with blood.
But now she had another problem to deal with. Sophie. The little girl was still sleeping on her bed. Now Anita was gone she was just a stranger: no longer a competitor for her mother’s affections. Like her she was motherless; cast adrift in a cruel world for wicked men to do what they would. And there were plenty of wicked men. She pulled the plug, allowing ribbons of blood to swirl into the void. What was she going to do with her indeed? She was not a child killer. But Sophie had to be disposed of. And there was no way she could return her home. She knew from the start that was never going to happen, despite her reassurances stating otherwise. If only she could just make her go to sleep: a deathless death, never to awaken. She was only a little thing, soft and pliable, free of the threat of rigor mortis. A slow, thin smile spread across Lucy’s lips. She thought about the final death note which lay on her dresser. Sophie would fit nicely into the suitcase. And Lucy knew just where to take her.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Ruby slammed the office door behind her, digging her hand into her leather jacket to check her phone. ‘Yes?’ She answered it stiffly, heat still inflaming her cheeks from her encounter with Nathan.
‘I take it things didn’t go as planned?’ Downes said. It was with great reluctance that he had offered to cover for her, but only on the proviso that she would call if she got into bother.
‘No. And I’m beginning to wonder if Lenny wasn’t just playing with me all along.’
‘Where are you?’ Downes said, an echo in his voice.
‘Back at work. Where are you?’
‘Oh.’ He gave a soft chortle, ‘so you are.’
Ruby turned her head to see him enter from the corridor. He sank back the last of his diet Coke before scrunching up the can in his fist and throwing it into the waste paper bin.
‘How was evening briefing?’ Ruby asked, trying to keep the scowl from her face. ‘Did Worrow miss me?’
‘I told her you were called out to Oakwood because of an emergency with Joy. Sorry, it’s all I could think of.’
‘How did she take it?’
‘She had a face on her that’d cut tin, but that’s her usual expression so I wouldn’t worry.’
Ruby sighed. She hated to use her mum as an excuse, but it seemed a valid enough reason for her sudden disappearance. ‘I don’t suppose there’s been any breakthroughs in my absence?’
Hands deep in pockets, Downes puffed out his cheeks as he exhaled. ‘They’re still going through all the CCTV, transport links, and phone calls. We believe the women were stalked prior to abduction. The victims kept to a routine and the killer’s profile suggests she was aware of that.’
Ruby had seen the suspect profile, which was too broad for her liking. ‘Let’s hope they catch something on CCTV.’
Closed circuit television was everywhere and it was easy to build up a picture of someone’s day, particularly if they had a set routine. Supermarkets, buses, trains, tubes stations and the streets of London – all sources of valuable information, with better image quality than in their rural counterparts. The team had already spent hours hunting down the victim’s last movements. Armed with a vague description of the suspect, they were feeling their way in the dark with a dimly lit torch. She needed to see Cathy, the person purporting to be her daughter. Then at least she would have something to look for in the sea of faces. Without a clearer description, Anita’s stalker could have been any of the women recorded out shopping that day.
‘I take it they’ve not got any further on my movie re-enactment theory?’
‘It’s a long film; the next placement could be from any number of scenes.’
‘Yes, but if Anita knows the movie as well as she should, the next scene should be the hotel reunion.’
Downes nodded. ‘They’ve notified hotels and guest houses; they’ll report anything suspicious.’
Ruby was in no doubt of that. Finding a corpse on their grounds was hardly good for business. The media had a strong grasp of the story, and she had read the headlines featuring the door-knocker killer all over the Metro newspaper that morning.
But there was something bothering Ruby: a feeling of being played. If Lenny had set her up by giving her the address, could he have been responsible for sending the emails too? She couldn’t see how the lost young homeless girl now in Nathan’s care could have the mental dexterity to carry out serial murders, particularly kidnapping a mother and child. But she would know for sure soon enough. Nathan did not trust anyone and would have Cathy under observation twenty-four hours a day.
Cathy. Ruby loved the name. It reminded her of her favourite book, Wuthering Heights. Could she really be her daughter? Or was it all part of some elaborate plan? Perhaps it had been a ruse to distract her all along. Ruby picked up the file containing the photographs of Monica’s post-mortem. There were inconsistencies that had been bothering her and now was the time to delve further.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
‘You need to give up the smokes,’ Downes said, as he took the stairs two at a time. The lift was out yet again, and Ruby
was made to feel wholly inadequate as she clambered behind him in between heaving intakes of breath.
‘I’m working on it,’ Ruby said, the craving stronger than ever. ‘Now if you just let me catch… my breath… ’
Fumbling in her pocket, she produced a shiny new key. It wasn’t good enough that she had replaced the locks. Downes had insisted on walking her back to her flat, reasoning that her daughter could be waiting to pounce. Given that Nathan had taken her in it was highly unlikely. In fact, the idea of Cathy being the killer was sounding more ludicrous by the minute. But there was a personal connection: how else would they have known her middle name?
As her eyes fell to the floor the world stopped turning. The black-edged envelopes were something she dreaded, and this one had been shoved under her door. A low groan escaped her lips. They were too late.
‘Don’t touch it,’ Downes said, as if they were dealing with a poisonous snake. Pulling a glove from his pocket, he pointed towards her bedroom. ‘Check the rest of the flat, just in case they got in.’
But her search proved fruitless. She returned just as Downes gently plucked the card from the envelope with the tips of his gloved fingers.
‘In Memoriam:
ANITA DEVINE
Died in her sleep
Rest in Peace’
‘Oh God,’ Ruby groaned. ‘What about Sophie? What about the little girl?’
Downes checked both sides of the card before sliding it into an evidence bag. ‘There’s no mention of her,’ he said, his voice low. Pausing only seconds, he slid his phone from his pocket and updated control.
Ruby clasped both hands behind her neck, bowing her head as responsibility formed a physical weight on her shoulders. A thought lit like a beacon in her mind. ‘I checked the flat after Nathan took Cathy in, which means she couldn’t have sent the death notice.’
Love You to Death: An Absolutely Gripping Thriller with a Killer Twist Page 25