Perfect Stranger: A gripping psychological thriller with nail-biting suspense

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Perfect Stranger: A gripping psychological thriller with nail-biting suspense Page 19

by Jake Cross


  She was giving him a hard stare, as if doubtful of his version of history.

  ‘Katie, I swear that I never heard from your mother again.’

  ‘Makes sense.’ Katie paused to take a slow pull on her water. ‘I mean, seeing as you gave her a fake name.’

  He couldn’t work out if that statement had contained anger. They sat in silence for a few moments. For something to say, he brought up her drink. ‘I saw you put salt in your water. And you did it back at our house. Why’s that?’

  ‘I get a metallic taste in my mouth, like I’m chewing foil. Salt water helps. And it’s quite tasty.’

  He saw a tenuous link into what he’d been building the courage to ask her. The past. ‘Right. Katie, while we’re on the past… your burns.’

  Just for a moment, Katie looked shocked. But it became embarrassment. ‘I knew this moment would come. Of course it would. Families talk. I was silly to think otherwise.’

  ‘You told my wife, and Julia, and me all about those burn scars. But you gave three different stories. Are any true?’

  ‘I didn’t want to lie about my burns. But I was put on the spot… and yeah, sorry, I just made something up.’

  ‘I understand if it’s something you don’t want to talk about. But that’s what you should have said, Katie: “I don’t want to tell you.” Not a lie. Not three different lies. And it is three, isn’t it? You lied to me, as well.’

  ‘Yes. Do you want me to tell you the truth, is that it?’

  ‘If you have to tell me something, it should be the truth, yes, of course. But I’m not saying you should tell me anything you don’t want to.’

  ‘I will. Soon. But not tonight. I don’t want tonight to be ruined. Let’s just move on. I’ll get you another drink.’

  The difficult conversation, then, was over. But as Katie stood up, Chris’s hand snaked out, almost of its own accord, and snatched Katie’s.

  ‘I’m enjoying this, Katie. Whatever the result of the test, this is a good night. We’re bonding. That means the questions you’ve asked are all important. It will mean a lot if the result is back positive. You agree?’

  He released Katie’s hand and sat back, thoroughly surprised by his sharp fork off-script. Katie looked equally surprised.

  ‘We don’t know each other and that should change. It’s changing right now.’

  ‘Exactly, Katie. I said your questions are important and they are. Sharing information is. So when you’re ready to, tell me everything about you.’

  ‘I will. But I can’t promise you’ll like it all.’

  Chris returned from the toilets, but the table was empty. Figuring Katie must have gone to the toilet, too, he sat to wait. But a minute later, he grew concerned. He figured she would have waited to tell him where she was going. What if she’d left because he’d given her a fatherly telling-off? He walked over to a window and stuck his face to the glass to block the room light. It was a long shot, but there she was in the car park.

  With a man.

  They stood near a car, backlit by a lamppost so that they were little more than silhouettes. He couldn’t make out the male’s features. He watched her step up and kiss the man’s cheek. A boyfriend? Perhaps the man had been nearby, and they’d met so one could hand something over. Possibly Katie didn’t want Chris to know about boyfriends yet.

  Without warning, Katie started to jog Chris’s way, back to the pub. Chris ducked out of sight and quickly threaded his way to his table. He got his ass on a chair just as Katie re-entered the room. A guy Chris had noticed appraising her all evening stepped in front of her to chat, but she blanked him and slid by.

  ‘Cheers,’ Katie said as she took her seat and raised her pint of water.

  ‘Where did you go?’

  She sipped slowly and watched Chris over the top of her glass. As if trying to read his mind. She burned more time by ripping open a sachet of salt lying idle on the table and tipping a little more into her water. ‘I thought I saw a friend outside. It wasn’t her.’

  Her. He nodded and sipped his drink, unable to look at her. Why would she lie? She set her pint down with the solid thump of a woman who’d finally come to a difficult decision.

  ‘It’s time for honesty, Chris. So let me tell you a little truth about me that you don’t know.’ She leaned over the table. ‘I lied to you and the family, and I’m sorry about that. My burns. I want to tell you about my burns right now.’

  He didn’t forget what he’d seen out in the dark, but curiosity, like a sea tide, dragged it a little further back. For the moment.

  ‘I hope you understand why I didn’t want to say this to the family. And I hope we won’t talk about it again, not for a while. Not until I’m ready. I am internally damaged, like most people. But I deal with it by smoothing my dark past. I hope you understand that. So I will tell you this once, and then we’ll move on from it.’

  He waited.

  ‘Before Ron came on the scene, my mother had other boyfriends. Until I was about four years old. One man was a monster. I hope I don’t need to say more.’

  She didn’t. His stomach tightened, and the noise of the pub seemed to vanish. Did this horrible truth explain, condone, even force Katie to pitch lies about her disfigurement? Absolutely. Did he understand and accept this? Of course. Did he feel like a complete bastard for forcing Katie to re-open a slowly healing wound? With half his 100 billion neurons.

  The remainder were still in the car park, watching Katie talk with the strange man.

  ‘But don’t feel sorry for me,’ she said. ‘I am a rock, tough and strong. I know you sometimes think I’m placid, or too stony, that I seem emotionless, that I never smile or laugh. How could I, after the life I’ve had?’

  The tide once more drew the car park event towards deeper water. ‘I don’t think that, Katie. I…’

  ‘Don’t pity me. Anyone who endured the things I did as a child couldn’t ever sink so low again. So don’t pity me.’

  This bizarre announcement caused a rip current that carried away all thoughts but one. It was devout regret that he’d come here tonight, and it might soon become a path into wishing he’d never met Eve Levine.

  For the taxi ride home, Chris wanted the front seat but Katie insisted they take the back together. She sat very close, leg touching his, and for the first time he was able to determine a smell about her. Something natural, not a perfume. Possibly a cream for her burns.

  They were on the road just minutes, both sitting in comfortable silence, when Katie said, ‘I told you a lie. About what the police said to me when I spoke to them. About Dominic Everton.’

  Chris felt a spike of fear. ‘What lie?’

  ‘I told them that I knew him. I admitted everything, I honestly did. But I lied when I told you they claimed he was meeting lowlifes on the estate next to yours for a drug deal.’

  ‘So he wasn’t? He might have been on my street because of you after all? Which puts my family right back in danger.’

  ‘I can see you’re angry. I understand. I would be the same. First, he went after Ron, and now it’s me. I wish I knew why, but I don’t. Maybe he thinks I did something. Maybe Ron, in his final moments, gave him some line that tied into me. Maybe he thinks I know where treasure is buried. I don’t know. But the police did say he’ll be long gone and unlikely to return to the area.’

  Chris said nothing. There was too much darkness in the back of the car to allow him to see Katie’s expression. He couldn’t get to grips with this. The alcohol was clouding his brain and he didn’t know the correct response. Maybe all responses were correct.

  Katie said, ‘So I hired a bodyguard. He was watching us in the pub. I went out to thank him while you were in the toilet. He’s been watching over us. He’s been watching the family, all of us. No one is going to hurt us.’

  Chris felt something tightly wound slacken inside him, like an anchor in his gut suddenly cut loose. A bodyguard? He was supposed to feel grateful, or at least without worry. But he didn’t.
He felt tricked, betrayed.

  ‘You should have told me. But now we have to go to the police about Everton. He might be back. We’re going to need a long talk about this, Katie. In front of the family.’

  ‘I understand. We will have that talk. But, Chris, I promise no one is going to hurt you or your family. Ever.’

  ‘You’ve already hurt the family,’ he said, before he could stop himself.

  Thirty-Three

  Katie told the taxi driver to pull into a bus stop on a bridge over the River Don. She got out and stepped to the rail, her back to the car, eyes out across the land. He knew she wanted him to join her, so he did. Fifty feet below, the river oozed under the bridge with a lullaby whisper. Over to the left, four youths were knocking a ball about in a school tennis court, with string between two traffic cones as a net and their phone torches for illumination. Behind, the taxi driver played on his phone, patient and content because he was earning for nothing.

  ‘Why have we stopped?’ Chris didn’t like being out here, but the view of Sheffield and beyond had a calming quality. Seeing the lights of houses and the hills and white and red light trails on roads always made him think of the lives going on out there. Parties, sex, work, illness, laughter, sleep. It reminded him that he was a drop in the ocean, just a simple cog, and that his life wasn’t the hell it sometimes seemed to be in certain fleeting moments. For every hundred people out there doing better than him, another hundred would swap their lives for his in a heartbeat.

  But he was still curious as to why Katie had stopped the taxi. His question was soon answered.

  ‘I want to show you something,’ she announced. ‘It’s a video. A video of my mother.’

  Katie was gazing out at the world, so Chris didn’t need to feign surprise. He knew which video Katie referred to, of course, because he’d already seen it in secret. But he played naïve. ‘What’s on it?’

  He took his hand out of his pocket, ready to plant it on Katie’s shoulder in a reassuring, caring way. Because that would be the thing to do when Katie admitted it was a video of her mother killing herself.

  But Katie said nothing. She pulled out her phone, tapped at the screen, and leaned the device against a rivet atop the thick handrail so they could watch. It showed a black screen with a PLAY icon.

  ‘This might upset you,’ Katie said. ‘But I want you to see it. So you know what I know. Turn away at any time you like and I’ll stop the video.’

  He wouldn’t turn away, though. He hadn’t before, and he wouldn’t now. The woman he was about to watch kill herself for the tenth time was a hazy memory, no more real than a remembered movie scene. He would have to feign shock for Katie.

  But he didn’t do that. They watched in silence, as Eve Levine swallowed pill after pill. Soundlessly. Chris counted them, but in reverse, because when nineteen became zero that video was going to hit its first glitch. That moment when, Rose had pointed out, Eve speaks to someone. To Katie.

  Would she admit she was there? Was a confession the reason Katie was showing him this video?

  Nineteen pills.

  Eve flicks a glance to her left, beyond the camera, something there having caught her attention.

  ‘I came into her room,’ Katie said. She had her eyes closed, which spared Chris the act of surprise. It seemed less like an explanation than remembering out loud. Words not for Chris, but for Katie herself. Her timing was perfect, as if she was reliving the scene, faultless real time, behind her eyelids. ‘At this point I was prepared. I was ready. I had had time to think, away in another room. There was a strange calm in the house, if you can believe that. I wanted to see if she was all right, which I know sounds silly…’

  A pause. Something happening behind that camera. A pause, and then Eve’s mouth moves.

  ‘… This is where I asked her if there was anything I could do for her…’

  Eve had said No, according to Rose. It fit with Katie’s version.

  ‘… Again, that seems preposterous, asking if she’s okay, if she needs anything, because it’s not like she’s in bed with a stomach bug. She’s killing herself. But I wanted her to be comfortable. And she was. She’d planned this for a while, and she was calm. She was going to end the pain. Going to go out on her terms. She knew what to do, and I knew what was coming. It was just a matter of taking the tablets and waiting. But I think I also came in just in case she might have something final to say to me. I mean, we’d spoken, we’d said our goodbyes, but…’

  Katie’s eyes were tightly scrunched shut, as her mind went spinning back. Chris’s heart went out to her. He imagined those goodbyes Katie had mentioned. He remembered when his sister, Lindsay, had moved out of his mother’s house as a teenager: the hugs, the goodwill wishes. Similar, except here there would be no promises to keep in touch, no hopes for a reunion. An eternal goodbye.

  ‘… But I guess there could always be something forgotten in the heat of the moment. Or something new. Or maybe I wanted a fresher memory. I don’t know…’

  Twenty-one pills.

  Eve puts her face in her hands, and he can see her jaw moving. More words spoken into her palms. Not a yawn, as he first suspected. Words, the last of which is uttered as she lifts her face to the camera.

  ‘… And then she shouted at me and made me promise. Will I promise she’ll be in Heaven with Ron…’

  Eve had said Ron, according to Rose. The only word captured because Eve’s hands had smothered the rest. Again, it fit with what Katie had said.

  ‘… I’d already been told about you. She wanted me to find you, so you could know the truth, but I was worried…’

  At twenty-four pills, Eve’s mouth moved again.

  ‘… And I promised I would find you. I said I hope he accepts me…’

  In that moment, way back, Katie had been hoping Chris wouldn’t cast her aside; Eve’s response, according to Rose, was again a perfect fit: And his whole family.

  ‘…The last thing I ever said to her was… not what I should have said. I should have said I would miss her, my mother. See, something forgotten after all. But what I said was that I already missed having a father.’

  And, thirty pills down, that final utterance of Eve’s, her last in this life. As she looked past the camera, right at Katie. If Rose’s translation was correct, it was another perfect fit with Katie’s words, to complete the jigsaw, and a flawless answer from a mother thinking of her baby’s future once hers no longer existed.

  Let’s hope you find your real father, then.

  Katie opened her eyes as Eve cast aside the pill bottle and lay back, the deed done. There was nothing further to remember. Or worth remembering, because her mother had said and done no more.

  SATURDAY

  Thirty-Four

  ‘Katie told me about her burns.’

  Rose had been in bed, asleep, when he rolled home with Katie. Rather than wake her, he’d decided to wait until morning. But, with a mind filled with Katie, he’d forgotten to turn her and she’d stirred in pain after sleeping on one shoulder too long. She grumbled, not yet alert.

  ‘I know why she lied. Before Eve met Ron Hugill, she had other boyfriends. I know how she got the scars.’

  She gave rapid blinks and checked the time on her phone: 1.32 a.m. ‘Video,’ she croaked. ‘Did you mention it? Police.’

  ‘One of her mother’s old boyfriends abused her.’

  She sat up, eyes now attentive, police forgotten. ‘Burned her? On purpose? You mean tortured her?’

  ‘It explains the lies. She’s a grown adult now. I reckon I’d be the same. Maybe I’d lie because I was embarrassed. I totally understand now.’

  ‘Did he abuse her sexually?’

  ‘She didn’t say. I think she would have. So I’m guessing no.’

  ‘It must be so painful to talk about.’ She rubbed her aching shoulder. ‘It must bring back horrible memories. The poor girl tried to avoid talking about it and we forced her to. We forced her by bringing it up. By noticing. It must ha
ve been hard for her to think about whether to tell us or not. She just wanted to keep it covered up, but we were bound to notice those burn scars at some point. So hard for her. Chris, we don’t mention it again, not until she does. Not until she’s ready.’

  He nodded and they lay in silence for a short while. Since he’d retired to bed, he’d been surfing the Internet. When Rose had stirred, he’d brought forward a different Google tab. Now, her breathing got heavy and the eyes closed again, so he returned to his original Internet page. A website called The Court Book, where he’d been delving into the sentence archives of Bradford Crown Court.

  A few minutes in: ‘What are you doing?’

  Awake again, this time staring right at his phone. A part of him deep inside had wanted to be caught. Needed to be so he could share this. And now he could.

  It came easily. ‘The old boyfriend of Eve’s who did that to Katie. Maybe the guy had a history of it. Maybe he’s done prison time for similar attacks on children.’

  She sat up, pain forgotten. ‘Why are you looking into that? To find him, is that it? Are you going to contact all these prisoners to find out which one is him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘If you find him, what then? You want to visit him in prison?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, a little sterner.

  ‘Chris, my god. You’re serious. And if he’s walking around free now, then what? Pay a little visit and have it out with him?’

  ‘Yes,’ he snapped. ‘If Katie is my daughter, then hell yes. You saw her burns. Who does that to a kid?’

  She gave him a pitying look. ‘Put that away, you idiot. That would be a police matter, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Imagine if it was Julia.’

  ‘Good Lord, Chris. I like that you’re protective of her, because it shows you’re getting used to the idea of Katie in your life, that you’re no longer burying your head in the sand. I’m trying to do the same. But what good could this foolishness do? You want to bring more danger Katie’s way? Even Katie isn’t that stupid. Ever thought that Katie might have wanted to forget this animal, and now you’re planning to bring him right back into her life?’

 

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