by Mel Sherratt
3.00 P.M.
‘Did I ever tell you that I have the best team in the world?’ Allie said as she joined Sam and Perry back at her desk. ‘We may be a man down but we’ve just nailed Jacob Granger and Kirstie Ryder for the murder of Jordan Johnson.’ She leaned across and high-fived first Perry and then Sam.
‘Fantastic,’ said Sam with a grin.
‘More than fantastic,’ said Perry. ‘Bloody amazing.’
‘More than amazing,’ said Allie. ‘It’s bloody epic!’ Her mobile phone rang. ‘Oh,’ she said, her shoulders dropping. ‘I have to take this. I – Mark?’ She listened to him, her world falling apart with every word he spoke. ‘Oh, no. I’m on my way.’
She disconnected her phone with shaking hands and turned to her team. All eyes were on her.
‘Karen’s had another bleed to the brain.’ She gulped in air. ‘I – I have to go.’
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before they all spoke at once and offered their help.
‘Would you like me to drive you there?’ asked Perry.
Allie blinked back tears but they fell anyway. ‘No, thanks. I – I need . . . no, thanks.’ She was already running out of the office.
3.30 P.M.
Allie parked in the multi-storey car park, killed the engine and reached into her bag for her purse. Almost automatically now, she switched her mobile phone to silent just in case it went off while she was on the ward. Mobile phones were allowed on some wards now but she couldn’t stand the incessant ringtones and voices babbling away on them when she was conscious that some patients needed peace and quiet.
Knowing that the hospital would wait until she arrived to give consent, she took a few minutes to gather her wits. The longer she stayed there, the longer she was putting off the inevitable, yet it was the only way she seemed able to gain control of the situation. The time had finally come. Karen was going to die. It was up to her and Mark now, but ultimately she was her sister’s next-of-kin.
So much responsibility was falling on her shoulders. After all this time of blaming herself for the attack on Karen, she was going to be the one who ended her life. Seventeen years – it now seemed to have gone in a flash, yet she couldn’t even remember the sound of her sister’s laughter. She took a few deep breaths to stop the tears from coming. Not yet, she told herself as she caught her reflection in the rear view mirror. There’s something I have to do for Karen first. Then I can grieve.
She watched two teenage girls walk past in fits of giggles. That had been her and Karen once, not a care in the world. How on earth had it come to this?
With a few more deep breaths, she got out of the car and went across to the ticket machine. As she pressed the green button to retrieve a ticket, she heard a noise behind her. She turned to see someone she knew. He held a small fire extinguisher in his hand.
‘Hi there, Graham,’ she said, swiping tears from her eyes. ‘Didn’t expect to see you here. Everything okay, I hope? The others mentioned that you didn’t deliver the oatcakes this morning.’
‘Hello, Karen.’ He smashed the fire extinguisher into the side of her face.
The force of it made her stumble and a burst of light flashed before her eyes. He grabbed her arm, almost running with her to the back of a van parked a few bays along. The rear door was already open and he pushed her in. Climbing in too, he slammed the door behind him.
Allie screamed, hands and feet hitting out. He punched her twice in the side of the head and once in the face. Before she could gather her senses enough to fight back, he’d bound her hands together. She tried to scream again as he lifted them above her head and looped the rope through a tie-down ring attached to the side panel of the van.
‘No!’
He forced what she thought was a scarf into her mouth and fastened it around her head. She gagged as the wool hit the back of her throat. Kicking out as she pulled at the binding, he grabbed for her feet and tied her legs together with rope at the ankle.
Kneeling beside her, he smiled. A hand came towards her and she screamed. It came out muffled as he stroked the top of her head, his fingers flicking through the length of her hair.
‘Be still, my angel,’ he smiled, pressing a finger to his lips.
Allie felt a tear drop down the side of her face as she watched him climb out of the van. The slam of the door made her flinch.
As the engine started and the van began to move away, she thought back to what he’d just said in the car park.
He’d called her Karen.
Above the sounds of the blood rushing to her head as fear took over her senses, Allie tried to work out what the hell was going on. Why had Graham Stott done this to her? He was someone she knew – the man who had delivered oatcakes to the station every Friday morning for as long as she could recall. She’d always liked him, even though he seemed a little quiet; always thought she had been kind to him, so he couldn’t be angry with her for her attitude towards him. But then thoughts came crashing at her, making her stomach flip over. He had called her Karen – this must be the man who had attacked her sister, which meant that Graham was the man who had been watching her.
A scream became stuck in her throat as she thought of how long she had known him. The years he could have been watching her at work as he delivered the oatcakes that they all loved. Should she have recognised that he was specifically fixated on her?
She thought back to the case before this where he’d stopped to talk to her about the serial killer terrorising the city. Had he given her any clue then, any inkling? Had there been any double meanings to his words that she had missed? She couldn’t remember.
Another gasp as her mind went wild with images she didn’t want to think about. Oh, why the hell hadn’t she told Nick about the rose that was delivered last week? Stupid, stupid, bitch.
Wait! Was that why Graham had been missing that morning? Had he been watching her all day? She felt bile rising in her throat. She was going to choke if she didn’t calm down.
Finally, her police training kicked in and she made an effort to remember every detail that she could. She felt like she was on a roller coaster as they dropped down two floors to ground level on the car park, her body taking the brunt of every turn as she rolled from right to left on the floor of the van. It was strange to feel glad that she was tied to its side, but at least it kept her more secure, saved her injuring herself more as she tried to keep her wits about her.
The van slowed down, came to a halt. She could hear traffic sounds as they stopped for a moment before moving off again. She veered to the right as he made a turn, groaning as her leg hit the wall of the van. He had driven on to Hilton Road, she was sure. Her survival instincts taking over, she concentrated on the roads they would be turning in to, see if she could work out where they would be when they stopped.
He braked sharply and her whole body shot forward. She heard him curse and the beep of a horn just before her head slammed into the back of the seat. For a few seconds, she lost her bearings again. Before she knew it, they had gone around a roundabout and she no longer knew what road they were on. She whimpered as panic began to set in. How would she tell anyone where he had taken her?
He put his foot down before slowing again, this time not stopping but crawling in traffic. A few seconds later and once more they were going at some speed. They were on a long straight road. Had they left the slower side streets behind them? Were they on the nearby A34?
Her left eye was swelling from the force of the hit she’d received, but she looked around the van, trying to get a grip on her senses, looking for clues, things she could remember if she ever got the chance to talk about them. A whiff of petrol caught her nose as they went around another corner and her feet slid across the floor. More than that, she could smell her own sweat, her own fear.
A garbled sob escaped her as she thought of Mark waiting for her at the hospital. Mark, her so
ulmate. The only man she would ever love and who would ever put up with her work ethics, her foibles, her silliness. He would be pacing the corridor waiting for her, worried where she was.
She thought of Karen. Was she going to fail her again? Unable to be there for her during her final moments because she was here, trapped in this filthy, stinking van with a man she vaguely knew.
Her bag slid along the floor at the same time she did as he veered to the left again. This time the van began to slow, seemed to swerve in and out – maybe through parked cars? Were they on a narrow street or a popular street for parking, a row of terraced houses perhaps? She had no idea.
Her phone! At least it was on silent. Maybe the team could trace her in time. It would give her something to focus on, help her through this ordeal. They would find her. They had to find her.
Finally the van stopped, the engine stilled and she heard the driver door open and close. For a moment she struggled to breathe, knowing that any second now the door would open again and she would be faced with her worst nightmare. Alone, unsure where she was, unable to get away from someone who was hell bent on hurting her. Tied up and gagged.
The van started to move, only metres forward before it stopped again. Allie blinked away tears, determined not to show him how terrified she was as she heard footsteps outside. The back door opened with a creak.
3.45 P.M.
At the station, Sam answered her mobile phone.
‘Sam, it’s Mark.’
‘Hi . . . I’m sorry to hear about Karen.’
‘I’m ringing about Allie.’ His tone sounded frantic. ‘She said she was on her way about forty-five minutes ago. I didn’t think she’d be this long. Has she been waylaid?’
Sam sat forward in her chair. ‘No, she left as soon as she’d taken your call. You’ve tried her mobile? Sorry, daft question.’
‘Yes, it keeps ringing out. Oh, Christ.’
‘You don’t think . . . Oh, Mark, we let her go alone without thinking.’
‘But it’ll be dark soon. Nothing can happen to her! Fuck!’ A pause. ‘Is Nick there?’
‘I’m walking down to him now. Stay on the line.’
Sam ran to Nick’s desk. ‘Mark Shenton’s on the phone, sir. Allie hasn’t made it to the hospital.’
Nick paled as she passed the phone to him. Her right foot jigged up and down as she waited for him to take the call.
‘Check in with the control room,’ he told her, almost toppling his chair over in his rush to stand up. ‘See if the roads are clear. No accidents reported, no ambulances on calls.’ He clicked his finger at Perry who had joined them. ‘Allie’s gone missing. Can you run her registration number through the system to see if we can see where she was last seen? And get the security guards checking for it on the hospital car parks too. I want her found right now!’
‘Sir,’ said Sam, with a gulp as she knew how much trouble she and Allie would be in when she spoke. But she had to tell him now.
‘Allie received another rose last week.’
‘It started when I saw you again at the police station,’ said Graham. ‘When I began to deliver oatcakes every Friday. But I’ve known you much longer than that.’
Allie turned her head, trying to focus on him. Her left eye had almost closed now and the other was blurry from her being knocked about in the van. She blinked a few times, struggled in vain again to release her hands. Already her arms, strapped behind her head, were beginning to ache. She was trussed up like a pig ready for slaughter. She couldn’t hear a thing. Not a passing car, no horns beeping, no voices. It was so quiet she wondered if they were in a warehouse or something similar, although she couldn’t recall hearing a door being opened.
She took a peek at him. He could do anything to her here. She was completely helpless, completely alone. Her breathing began to rasp and she concentrated on keeping it as regular as possible. Count up to ten. Count down from ten.
She glanced around. There was nothing she could use even if her hands were free. She was the only thing in the back. And him – Graham Stott.
He was sitting at the side of her on his knees, looking at a photograph. He turned it towards her. She blinked again. It was the same as the one that used to hang on Karen’s wall at Riverdale Residential Home. She’d taken it down recently when they’d been to fetch Karen’s belongings, say goodbyes to staff because they knew she would never go back there.
The six teenagers including Karen. Of them, only three were alive. Three of them had been killed on her last case; one had survived a stabbing. The remaining girl was Karen. The remaining boy was Graham. She had gone to the same school as him, was in the same year, too. Allie recalled taking the photo from the wall, the list of names written on the back of it. He must have been Gray – it was obvious to her now that it was short for Graham – and the one she had recognised vaguely.
‘Karen and I knew each other at school,’ he glanced her way for a moment and then back at the photo, ‘and when we hooked up we were having a great time – or so I thought.’
Allie turned her head away from him. She didn’t want him to say anything but she knew it was what she had been waiting to hear for seventeen years. The truth about what had really happened to Karen that night.
‘I bet you want to know about Chloe Winters, too, don’t you?’
Allie whimpered. She didn’t want to hear about any of them. Maybe it was better after all this time if she didn’t know. After all, Karen was dying. There would be no need for closure from him, too.
But even though she didn’t feel strong enough to cope with the fallout, she did need to know.
‘If I remove the scarf, there won’t be any point in screaming, you do know that?’
Allie nodded slightly. She wouldn’t scream; he knew she wouldn’t scream, because she wanted to know. Needed to know what had happened to her sister.
Once he’d loosened it, he ran a finger down the side of her cheek. She turned her face and squirmed but he grabbed her chin, made her look at him.
‘You knew it was me, didn’t you? You knew it didn’t fit in with the investigation – the serial killer in Stoke. Who would have thought that little geek Patrick would overshadow me? I knew him too – when I was younger. I used to bully him when we were all at junior school together but then I grew up and realised he was just the same as me. A loner, a loser. I wondered if he would come after me when I’d worked out we all went to the same school.’
There was so much anger in his eyes that she flinched.
‘I had it all under control until then,’ he seethed. ‘But he released memories that had been buried a long time ago.’ He moved to the other side of the van and sat down again. ‘They weren’t looking for me, though, were they? They were looking outside of the box and not necessarily at what was right under their noses. But you knew.’
‘Y.N,’ Allie whispered.
He smiled. ‘I planted that note for you to find. I tried to fight my feelings but the more I heard about you, the more I saw you on the television and in newspapers, the more I couldn’t keep everything back. I’d gone out that night and coming across her, and thinking it was you, it was just bad timing. A moment of lapsed concentration. Everyone was talking about Patrick and it reminded me of school, of Karen.’
Another smile that turned Allie’s stomach.
‘Did you work out what the letters stood for before I sent you the second rose?’
‘Yes.’ You’re next. She would remember them forever but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of saying them out loud.
‘Clever girl. I’d overheard someone at the station talking about alphabet letters when I was doing my Friday delivery.’ He raised a hand. ‘It was no one’s fault. Just chit-chat as I was in the car park. I thought it would be a great way of getting a message to you.’
Tears poured down Allie’s face as she thought of the words
Chloe Winters had screamed at her. Did he do this to me to get back at you? Chloe had been right: he’d ruined another life because he could. How was she ever going to live with that?
Her breathing began to go out of control. As she gasped for air, he noticed her struggling so she played on it.
He came closer.
4.00 P.M.
‘You and me, Allie,’ he said, ‘we’re both the same really. We like to be in control. We want to be liked, considered worthy to know. We want people to accept what we do. We want justice. We want power.’
Allie shook her head. She was nothing like him, didn’t he realise? She pulled again on the rope binding her hands and feet. Her fingertips began to tingle. She tried not to think that her nightmare of the past few years might suddenly become reality. Her chest rose and dropped rapidly. Stop panicking. Think of Mark, she told herself. He’s all you need to focus on.
‘I was having a great time in Flickers with Karen,’ he continued. ‘The bar was packed, and buzzing. We squeezed into seats at the back. I bought her lots of drink, and we were getting on fine until she checked her watch and stood up, saying she was half an hour late for you.’
Allie’s shoulders dropped. So she hadn’t missed her sister. Karen hadn’t been outside waiting for her: she’d still been in Flickers. They must have missed each other by minutes as Allie had waited around for a while, then gone to look for her.
Graham’s eyes narrowed. ‘I was on to a good thing until she mentioned you.’ He grabbed her chin and squeezed hard, forcing her to look at him again. ‘I took her outside but you weren’t there, so I used my tactics of persuasion and lured her away. It was easy really. She was quite out of it by then.’ He pointed a finger close to her face. ‘She was a feisty one, I can tell you. Didn’t complain much at all until I pushed her down the side of St John’s Church. She started to scream but I soon shut her up with my fists. She was still putting up a fight and well, I just saw red and I punched and I punched.’