by Tania Carver
For now.
8
‘ Fancy a coffee?’ The bright and perky voice was in Marina’s ear once more.
Marina turned. Caroline was standing with some of the other women from the group, heading towards the door.
‘A few of us usually head off into town,’ Caroline said. ‘Go to Life for a coffee. Well, those of us who can still drink it. And usually a little something else.’
‘Doesn’t that undo everything you’ve just done here?’ asked Marina.
Caroline laughed, shrugged. ‘What’s life without a few little treats?’
Marina smiled. ‘That’s kind, thanks, but I have to get back to work.’
Caroline, Marina noticed, was now dressed in the latest in designer and high-end high-street maternity wear. She had also done her make-up in the time it had taken Marina to get showered and dressed. How had she managed that?
Caroline smiled again. ‘You sure?’
And Marina saw something in her features she hadn’t noticed earlier. Tiredness, lines around the eyes. Her smile too brittle. Caroline was older than Marina had first thought, older than her peers in the group. She dressed younger, acted younger, but she couldn’t quite hide the extra years.
‘It would be lovely to have you along.’
Marina returned the smile. ‘Maybe next time.’
‘Okay, then. Next time.’ Caroline turned, went off with her happy, chattering friends, all similarly dressed. They smiled as they passed, and Marina reciprocated, letting it fade once they had all exited.
She watched them go, talking and laughing. They were a group Marina would have instantly categorised, even stereotyped. Middle class, husbands at work, the type of women who would have pain-free births and, by hitting the gym and the fad diets, get their pre-pregnancy figures back within a week. The type of women other women would envy and even secretly despise.
From a distance Caroline looked like she was one of the group, but Marina sensed something different about her. Something separate. Maybe that was why she had wanted Marina to go with them. Or maybe she was just being friendly. No matter. Not her problem. Marina waited until they had all gone, walked through the foyer of Leisure World.
The piped muzak drowned out the shrieks, cries and splashes of schoolchildren cramming in five minutes of play after their prescribed swimming lessons, the multicoloured flume and slide tubes sticking out of the side of the building taking a pounding. She walked through the doors and on to the forecourt. The noise was bad enough but the chlorinated smell was seriously starting to assault her nostrils. She knew things like that happened in pregnancy. The senses were heightened; women became intolerant of scents that had never previously bothered them. She knew one woman from university who couldn’t stand the smell of her own husband. A shiver of dread ran through her body. She hoped nothing like that happened to her.
Outside, she stood on the kerb of the car park on the Avenue of Remembrance, pulled her coat close to her to keep out the November cold, waited for the cab that would take her back to her new office and her afternoon clients. She had showered but her muscles were still aching, throbbing. She would suffer tomorrow.
A few minutes later, a 4x4 went past, tooted. Caroline and her friends. Marina gave a smile that disappeared as the car rounded the corner.
The changes in her life in such a short space of time had been huge. Leaving the comfort and safety of the university to go into private practice – although by the time she left it didn’t feel safe or comfortable – and the fact that Tony, her long-term partner, had proposed to her. But the most important change had been the baby. Unplanned and, initially, unwanted, she was still coming to terms with it. She felt she always would be.
She looked at her watch, getting impatient for the cab, killing time by working out what she would be doing if she were still at the university. Probably preparing for her second-year class, gathering together papers, books and notes in her old office, readying herself for the seminar she would be about to give. Chimerical Masks and Dissociation in the Perception of the Self. Something like that.
The self. Her hands, as they so often did these days, went automatically underneath her coat to her stomach. Began stroking the bump. Slight to a disinterested onlooker’s eyes, but to her enormous. And, she knew, it would only get bigger. This self – her self – was one she barely recognised any more. When she thought of her old life, her old self, she became choked, felt like crying. But she was beyond the tears stage now. Four months beyond.
She felt something flutter. Like butterflies in her stomach. Big butterflies. She jumped, startled and scared. Tried to breathe deeply, calm down. It was natural, it was expected. It was what the body did. But not her body. She didn’t feel it was her body any more. She was just a carrier, a vessel for this child. Which was fine while she was carrying, but when it had left her, what would she be then?
The physical stuff was scary enough – the changes that would occur in her body as the baby grew and demanded life from her, the actual pain of childbirth itself and then how ravaged her body would be afterwards. And then there were the years as a mother to come.
Her first response to the pregnancy was to get rid of it. Get it out of her, don’t let it grow, take her over, like some hideous invasion-of-the-bodysnatchers-type creature. And with her starting up in private practice it was the wrong time, if nothing else.
Tony said he would be fine with whatever she wanted to do. It was her body, after all. So she decided on a termination. But when the time came, she couldn’t go through with it.
Marina had swallowed her fear, tried to live with it. Prenatal yoga, relaxation and meditation, eating the right things, not drinking. Luckily she wasn’t one of those women who were sick all the time and couldn’t eat anything. Or at least not yet. Feeling the baby grow inside her was bad enough. That would have been intolerable. She also thought that being with other pregnant women would help. Take away the fear, the uncertainty. And it had, for a while. But now that she was alone again she felt the old doubts coming back.
She wondered how she had looked to the other women in the class. Long, dark hair, mercifully free of grey. Or rather chemically assisted to be free of grey. A pretty face for a thirty-six-year-old, she thought, just spoiled by worry. She had good bone structure due to her Italian parentage; the worry she had added herself. Her eyes looked sunken, hollow, like a ghost waiting to be brought back to life. Once she had resigned herself to the baby she had hoped it would do that. Four months in and it hadn’t. She was beginning to doubt that it ever would. She needed something else.
She checked her watch, stamped her feet. The cab driver had said goodbye to his tip.
From within her bag, her mobile rang.
Sighing, she extracted her hand from her coat, went to answer it. ‘Yes.’
‘Marina? Marina Esposito?’
She knew that voice. It took her a few seconds to place, but she did it. And gave an involuntary gasp. DCI Ben Fenwick. She exhaled slowly.
‘Ben Fenwick?’
‘Yes, Marina, hi. Sorry to bother you. I need to talk to you.’
‘Oh.’ She looked round. And there in front of her was Martin Fletcher. Advancing on her, features twisted by hate.
She screwed her eyes up tight, opened them again. Nothing but the cold car park, the missing cab. The faint sounds of screaming children in the background. Martin Fletcher had gone. But Ben Fenwick’s voice was still on the phone.
‘Marina? You still there?’
‘Yes… yes, Ben. I’m still here.’
‘Look, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’
That was all she needed to hear and immediately the barrier was back up. ‘Look, I’m… I’m busy. Can we do this another time?’
‘I’m afraid not. We’ve got a problem.’
‘What kind?’
He sighed. ‘The worst kind.’
She wanted to push the button, end the call. Get into her cab – if it ever arrived – and forge
t Ben Fenwick had phoned. Instead she said, ‘What kind of problem?’
‘A new case has come up and we need help.Your help.’ He paused as if thinking over what to say next. ‘Look, I realise this may be difficult for you…’
She saw Martin Fletcher advancing towards her out of the corner of her eye again, felt blind, trapped panic rise in her chest. She blinked him away, breathed deeply.
She kept her voice low, contained. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s… it’s not really the kind of thing we can discuss over the phone. Best if we talk in person.’
She felt a shiver run through her. Say no. Say no. Say no. ‘Okay. Where…’
‘I’ll get a car sent to pick you up.’
‘When?’
‘No time like the present.’
‘But I’m… busy. Clients…’The words sounded weak, even to her ears.
Fenwick sighed, evidently thinking again. ‘Please don’t take this the wrong way, but with all due respect, Marina, I think when you hear what I’ve got to say, you may find it takes precedence.’
She said nothing, thought. He took her silence as a need for more explanation, reassurance.
‘Look, I’m sorry about what happened before. We all are. It was horrific, unacceptable. Totally. If there was… if we could have done things differently…’
‘Not your fault,’ she said, her voice small and unconvincing.
He sounded relieved. ‘It won’t be like that this time. I promise. I give you my word.’
Despite everything she felt a slight thrill at Fenwick’s words. Perhaps enough time had passed to want to get away from the office. Like childbirth, she thought with a grim smile, the memory of the pain dissipates so you can go through it again.
‘Okay, send the car. Give me a couple of hours.’
‘Can you come quicker? It really is urgent.’
‘Right away then. I’m standing outside Leisure World. Tell the driver to hurry. It’s freezing here.’
‘Thank you, Marina. He’ll find you.’
She put the phone away while he was still thanking her. Smiled to herself. Didn’t even attempt to suppress the thrill that ran through her. Whatever they wanted her for must be bad, she thought. Psychosexual deviance was what she specialised in.
Another shudder went through her. Phil. She would be working with Phil.
She had tried to put him out of her mind. Concentrate on her life with Tony, the impending baby. But there he was again, Fenwick’s phone call summoning him up. He didn’t dress like any of the other coppers, but his clothes always showed off his broad shoulders and slim waist. She had thought he played rugby when she first met him but she soon found out that wasn’t him. He wore his childhood on his face; the nose that had been broken and reset, the small scars he still carried from fights that only showed up when he was angry. But it was the eyes she remembered most. The eyes that had drawn her in. His melancholic, poet’s eyes. Because when she talked to him, he listened. Actually looked her in the eye and listened. He would remind her a few days later of something she had said, proving it. And it wasn’t a trick, an affectation, it was the way he was. She imagined how this could make him a good policeman, but it had done something more to her. Made her feel wanted, special.
No wonder she fell for him. And now she would be working with him again. Well, things were going to be different this time. They would have to be. Because she might have told Fenwick that what happened with Martin Fletcher wasn’t his fault. But with Phil it was a different story.
Her cab chose that moment to arrive. She waved him off, told him he’d taken too long. The driver got out, started to argue, but the arrival of a police car behind him and the presence of a policeman seemed to shut him up.
Marina got in the passenger door of the police car.
Hoped this would be just the displacement activity she needed to take her mind off her own troubles.
9
H e watched them go in and he watched them come out.They didn’t see him, didn’t even know he was there. Not a clue. So sure were they of their place in the world, their importance in it. Safely inside their own protective little bubble.They would soon find out how unsafe they were.
Or at least one of them would.
He knew they wouldn’t see him. He was too good for that. Prided himself on it. Sitting in the car park of Colchester’s Leisure World, a clear view of the front entrance, just far enough back not to attract any attention. But he could see them. Talking and laughing as they emerged from their yoga session, their full, distended bellies sticking out in front of them.
Surrogates. All of them. If he wanted them to be.
He had the list, knew which one would come next. Knew the order.
It wasn’t for the babies. He didn’t care about that. It was all about the hunt. Planning. Preparation. The chase.The thrill.The kill. He had always enjoyed hunting. The breed of animal was unimportant.
There she was, his next prey. She had stopped to talk to another one on the pavement.This one didn’t have such a big belly; in fact she was barely showing at all. His prey wanted the new one to go with them. But she wouldn’t. His prey didn’t seem too bothered, just walked away with her pack.
Past his own vehicle. Didn’t even stop to look at him. He grinned. An invisible god with the power of life and death.
She got into her own car, drove away.
He didn’t need to follow her. He knew where she was going. He would catch up with her later. Instead he turned his attention back to the one left on the pavement.The new one who didn’t want to go with them. He shouldn’t have been interested in her but he was.There was something about her. She was alone, apart from the pack. But not because of weakness.The opposite, he sensed.A strength, an attitude.
He smiled. He liked that in his prey. A challenge. Something to work with. Something to break down.
He knew he should be driving away, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She wasn’t like the others. He sensed cunning, intelligence. Just from the way she stood, her body language as she talked on her phone. There was nothing he could do about her now, but she would be filed away. And one day, at a time of his own choosing, he would come back for her.
And then he would have fun.
He was about to start his engine when a taxi arrived. She bent down, spoke to the driver.The driver wasn’t happy with what she said. There was going to be a fight. He sat back, watching. This would be interesting. But before anything could happen, another car pulled up and the driver got out.There was no mistaking who this person was. Even if he didn’t know him, he knew the type. A policeman. He could see that from here.
The taxi driver drove away, clearly unhappy. The woman got into the unmarked police car and was driven away.
Interesting. Curious. He would look out for her, watch for her. She wouldn’t be forgotten.
With nothing else to stay there for, he turned the ignition, drove away.
She had been marked.
10
It was nearly lunchtime when Phil Brennan turned the Audi off the main road. Aware of the constant ticking of the clock, he had made the drive to Braintree as fast as he could. He had pushed the Audi to the legal limit, done everything short of sticking the siren on the roof.
The satnav pinged, informing them that they had reached their destination. Clayton Thompson reached across the dashboard and turned it off.
‘Hate those things,’ he said.
‘Thought you’d be all for them. Know how you love a gadget.’
Clayton shrugged. ‘Yeah, but it’s just their smug little voices. Like the top brass have put them here to spy on us. Like we have to stick to the journey. If we know a short cut or a better route they tell us we can’t use it, that they know best.’
Phil gave a grim smile. ‘Clayton, I think you’ve just discovered a metaphor for policing in the twenty-first century,’ he said.
He looked out of the window. They were on an industrial estate in Braintree, a few miles
south of Colchester, just off the A12. Low-level metal and brick buildings surrounded them, stretching all the way from the main road to the railway line running from London to East Anglia. Directly ahead of them was a double set of metal mesh gates bearing the name B & F METALS. Behind the gates was another low-level metal and brick building with a forecourt on which stood a pair of huge cranes and several trucks and lorries. Cars were parked at the side. Metal canisters were piled all around: old gas bottles, fire extinguishers. Further on were huge square bays made out of old railway sleepers in which sat various kinds of scrap metal, piping, wire and old electrical appliances. One of the cranes was moving, a grabbing claw on the end of it. As they watched, it lifted a massive handful of metal from a bay, swung it round and deposited it into the back of a waiting high-sided lorry.
Phil shared a look with Clayton, turned off the engine.
‘Come on,’ said Clayton, getting out of the car, ‘let’s do it.’
‘Yeah,’ said Phil. ‘Clock’s ticking.’
Clayton stopped to give him a look. ‘Nothin’ to do with the clock. Just a relief to get away from that awful music you keep playin’. Glasvegas? You listen to some shit.’
Phil stared at him, said nothing.
‘With all due respect, boss,’ mumbled Clayton, his eyes dropping.
Clayton had an attitude on him. Phil knew that. Most of the time he tolerated it because his junior was a damned good copper, but sometimes he overstepped the mark. Phil often wanted to hit him. But just as often wanted to praise him.
‘Well at least it’s better than that stuff you listen to,’ said Phil. ‘Just how many songs do we need by black ex-gang members boasting about their genitals and their bank accounts?’
Clayton didn’t answer, just looked sullenly at the ground, a naughty schoolboy facing detention.
‘Now get your head straight,’ said Phil. ‘We’re going in.’ He started off, Clayton trudging behind him.
They knew this wasn’t going to be an ordinary death-message delivery. In running a routine check on Claire Fielding’s boyfriend Ryan Brotherton before coming to his place of work, they had found something interesting. He had done time in HMP Chelmsford for assault. The reports were over five years old, but from what they could gather it had been a previous girlfriend he had assaulted. This had made them all the more interested in talking to him.