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

by Jake Cross

  Julia bid goodbye to her mother and the car left. Julia started typing on her phone and walked away. Towards the rendezvous. Towards his car.

  The phone had her attention, so all he had to do was sit still and she’d pass him by, danger over. But, Lord knew why, he didn’t just not sit still – he got out. And she didn’t just see him, but had to jump aside when he climbed into the passenger seat and swung the door wide in order to exit.

  They stood face-to-face for a moment, and he smiled at her. She tutted and moved on, eyes back on her phone. He crossed the pavement and went into the bistro, where he shouted across the whole shop for a fried egg sandwich and waited by the window, watching the girl saunter away. Nice ass. Shame she pitched for the other team.

  When he left two minutes later, he couldn’t see her amongst the students, commuters and shoppers on the pavement ahead, but it didn’t matter. He knew where she was going. Towards the spot where she would die before his fried egg sandwich was gone.

  * * *

  ‘It’s all over Facebook,’ Lionel Parrott said, waving his phone. He was talking about Louise, of course. Now Chris remembered something from his fugue state as he walked through the hospital. His inquisitive ears had latched onto snippets of conversations – nurses he passed in the corridors, porters pushing beds into lifts, doctors lurking in alcoves – all of them had been talking about the same subject. The buzz of the story of Louise’s beating permeated the entire building.

  On Facebook, some of the hospital staff had mentioned their own theories, and the fact that the police had already contacted them for information. Authorities were rightly looking into her social circles for enemies, for people with motive and opportunity.

  ‘They’ll come chat to us two, I bet,’ Parrott continued, eyes glinting. ‘They’ll probably come here to the lab. You’ll be intriguing, what with that fight you had with her.’

  Chris wanted to slap him, but he had a point. The cops would doubtless find out that he and Louise had quarrelled. Then they’d have their story, so clear-cut. A car spotted outside her house on the night of the attack belonged to a guy she’d had a brouhaha with. A guy with a record they’d already known about.

  ‘He let her live,’ Parrot said, ‘but she was lucky. They start like this. A warm-up. He’s a monster in training. And now we’ve got two with the same MO. Louise and Meadow Moll.’

  Why were you there? they’d ask. They’d know he and Louise had never hung out socially, so they’d want to know what he’d been doing outside her house so late. They’d never buy his apology story: But she didn’t accept your attempts to say sorry, did she? And that got you angry, did it not? It sparked a brouhaha, am I right? You wanted her to shut her mouth, isn’t that correct? Well, you shut her mouth for her, good and proper, didn’t you?

  ‘The Bedroom Beast, that’s what he’ll be known as. The next one will die. Louise and Moll got lucky because he’s honing his art. They won’t catch this guy for years and he’ll be the next big British serial killer. You just watch. It’s about time. Oh, shit, wait – unless it’s two guys working together? You think having two serial killers is better than—’

  ‘Shut your bloody mouth,’ Chris barked at him.

  * * *

  The wanted man pulled into the traffic, into the left lane, alongside a BMW X6, a big vehicle that would suit his purpose well. Ahead, opposite the train station, there was a bench by a fence advertising The Outdoor City. The bench was wooden, perhaps in testament to the Steel City’s attempts to rebrand itself as a prime spot for tourism and the outdoor way of life. It was just a couple of feet from the road, sitting there like a boil on the pavement because there was no bus stop or anything else to sit and wait for. Maybe it was there to commemorate the site of someone’s death, like in a cemetery, which would be ironic. Or for those who liked to watch traffic.

  Julia Redfern, just as he’d been informed, reached the bench and dumped her sweet ass. The next second, she was lost from sight as he bore down on a beer delivery truck parked on the pavement a hundred metres away. Ten seconds until he reached her, and then there would be no more Julia left, unless they built a bench from her bones.

  The X6 driver, a glossy woman in a suit, gave him a look like she’d found him on the bottom of her shoe, and he made a big show of taking a giant chomp into his overcooked fried egg cob. He made damn sure she saw the whole mushy mess all over his teeth and tongue as he chewed like a cow. It was his way of avoiding screaming at her that she was about to have a bad day, which could have been dangerous for him in the long run.

  At the right time, he’d swerve too close, clip the X6, pretend to overcompensate, or bounce off, then precisely mount the kerb and splat Miss Bone Bench dead. A hit-and-run, a crime for sure, but no one would suspect the killing was intentional, and certainly not pre-planned. X6 lady would spend a couple of hours talking to the cops, and many more thinking she was partly to blame, even though the other guy involved in the car crash had scarpered. If they ever got him, he’d simply say he had lost control after being struck by the lunatic in the big German car and hadn’t thought to stop at the scene because of numbing terror. Maybe back that last bit up with a story about bedwetting and nightmares after being run down by a BMW as a kid.

  Or maybe he’d just admit it, because then he’d be a double-killer and that would get him a bit more respect in the slammer.

  X6 lady was still glaring at him, so he bit into his breakfast again and wrenched his head away from the food like a coyote tugging at flesh. The overcooked egg came free in one piece and dropped into his lap. He swore and his foot came off the accelerator, and the X6 pulled a couple of a lengths ahead.

  As it passed the truck, a delivery guy trying to get a barrel off the tailgate misjudged his strength or the weight or got ballsy in front of female students, and sixty litres of Dutch Courage hit the kerb with a gong-like clang. It immediately ricocheted into the road. Into his path.

  He stamped the brake, but he was too close, too fast, too hung-over to react quickly enough, if there had ever been chance of that. The barrel clanged again as it was sent bouncing down the road by his bumper, then again as an oncoming vehicle struck it.

  His car had stalled. The X6 was past the beer truck and safe, heading onwards as planned. The delivery guy was chasing his spinning barrel.

  Fifty metres ahead, Julia Redfern got off the bench to move away from the noisy traffic, to make a phone call. Against the shops, out of range, pedestrians between her and the road.

  He put his window down and angrily skimmed the egg away like a frisbee. Nobody was building a bone bench today.

  Thirty-Nine

  Like a reminder, the scratch on his neck started to itch. The one Louise had put there. As she fought for her life in her blood-soaked bedroom – how could the police see it any other way? Right now, skin from his neck would be in a lab similar to this one, transferred there from under her fingernails, and soon the results of DNA testing would light up a computer screen. He could almost see the bright flashing red word MATCH and his own ugly mug pictured above it. A klaxon would send armed cops sliding down a chute and into a vehicle with his address already in the satnav. The evidence against him was mounting up. The handcuffs were coming.

  For the next two hours, until lunch, Chris could barely concentrate and got no work done. It didn’t help that he was in a damn hospital and periodically heard the approach of screaming ambulance sirens, easily mistaken for police cars.

  Just before lunch, Rose called. ‘I just got back from dropping Julia off in town and Katie isn’t here.’

  ‘So what? She took that hire car back. It was due today.’

  ‘I know, but she’s been back since. Her bike is gone. Has she not been in contact? She seemed a bit off today. Do you think she regrets missing her mother’s funeral?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ What he meant was, he didn’t care. Bigger worries. ‘Give her time to have a ride around to clear her head. We had some big news today.’


  ‘Okay. You sound funny, too. Are you okay? Any worries now you have a new daughter?’

  ‘No. I’m fine.’

  Rose paused. He could hear heavy breathing, a sure sign that she was preparing to broach a tricky subject. ‘Chris, remember how I got that metallic taste in my mouth with Julia?’

  Of course he did. Only a couple of days after they’d first had sex, she had informed him she might be pregnant. Not because of anything so scientific as a missed period or morning sickness, or even a strange food craving. No, it had been a constant metallic taste, which she’d described as feeling ‘like I’ve got a penny stuck in my cheek.’

  ‘Sure. But what’s your point?’

  ‘What if Katie’s metal taste isn’t this parenthia thing you mentioned? Remember that empty condom packet I found in her trousers?’

  He felt a lurch in his stomach. At first words wouldn’t come, and what he eventually managed was a little razor-studded. ‘It’s pronounced paraesthesia. It’s my job to know these things, and that’s what she’s got. She’s not pregnant. She’s probably had that funny taste for a long time. And I’m a little busy here, Rose.’

  ‘Oh, well, pardon me. Anyway, I also phoned because I was just going to do that DIY thing you get so protective over and hang the whiteboard. The hammer is gone. It’s not in your toolbox. Have you moved it? Have you hidden it so I can’t do your precious DIY?’

  Tense, Chris said he hadn’t touched the hammer and hung up.

  ‘Afterwards, I think of ways I could have avoided getting attacked…’

  Chris felt trapped, as if the young woman and her mother at the Pitstop table next to his held him in some kind of traction beam. His eyes stared ahead as he sipped his coffee, but they saw nothing. Everything was internal and it was as if his brain had shut down his eyes in order to soak up the information coming into both ears. The young woman’s words reminded him of his own to Rose: alternate universes and big what-ifs.

  ‘What if I hadn’t been one of the last off the train? If I hadn’t paused to fix my shoe? Had got a later train? If I had made just one change to that day’s events, I could have delayed or brought forward my appearance in that dark park at that exact time, and the rest of my life would have mapped out differently. Five minutes earlier and I would have been on my way before he arrived. Sixty seconds later and he would have been past, beyond, gone about his way. But I arrived there at that exact time because of choices I made, so my collision with the man who attacked me was my fault.’

  The young woman was in a nightgown, barefoot and tapping a nervous beat on the floor with all toes. Her face was mostly shielded by a ball cap pulled low and thick sunglasses. But what skin he could see on her cheeks was bruised. She looked like a withered shell, as if every day alive had been a struggle.

  ‘An absurd viewpoint, of course, but in the moments right after the attack, my brain isn’t spinning how it should. As I slip in and out of consciousness and crawl to a bush, meaning to hide, to stay safe, I feel the calm coming over me. Strangely, I am alone in the dark in the middle of nowhere, but I feel safe. Attacks like this make the newspapers because they are rare, and much rarer still is the tale of twin attacks by different perpetrators upon the same woman in the same night. That is why I am calm. I have had my attack, and it cannot happen again. I am calm because I am probably the safest woman in the world right now.’

  He glanced across as the young woman finished her story. Simone Baker. Julia’s friend. Meadow Moll. Up and about now that the boys in white had taken their samples and the boys in blue had asked their questions. Telling the story of her attack to her mother. Maybe she was doing it right here in the Pitstop as a method of ingratiating herself back into the company of strangers, or as a form of catharsis.

  Something was wrong with her brain still because she’d seen him as she entered the café, but without recognition. Maybe she had put his shocked expression down to the state of her face. He hadn’t dared introduce himself to her, or even look her way, in case old emotions about him, about their argument, caused a… brouhaha.

  Simone and her mother spoke quietly, unable to be heard by anyone else. Only Chris. And maybe their openness suggested he shouldn’t have been able to overhear, as if his ears had developed a superhuman sense purely for this practised routine of his.

  Two men in hi-vis jackets entered the building, loud, and Simone Baker’s head jerked their way in terror so quickly it almost broke her neck. Chris could see her try to shrink into something smaller as the guys approached. They passed her table, passed behind her, and she leaned forward as if fearful of a blow. One guy did raise his hand, but not to strike a stranger. He called out to someone at another table, who waved back.

  Chris scraped his chair back and got out of there so fast he caught the table and knocked over the remainder of his coffee. The sound made Simone jump again.

  Soon afterwards, Ricardo, a man born in France and given a Brazilian name by his Afrodeutsche father, entered the lab, and behind him were two uniformed police officers, one male, one female.

  ‘Oh, man, this is about Louise,’ Lionel whispered to Chris, with sheer glee in his voice. Now he could boast at parties about helping the police to capture the Bedroom Beast. ‘Let’s try to get some information out of them.’

  Chris stiffened. From their bland expressions, this was just more legwork for the two officers, more of the monotonous and the mundane, and they weren’t expecting bombshells. They’d siphon information out of Lionel, and then thank him for his time, which would kill him, and then they’d turn to Chris, still in the routine. They would not be expecting to crack this case in the next few seconds.

  He had his lie ready. He had been at home that night, all night, and he watched Top Gun on Netflix, because it was a film he knew well. Just in case they tested him by asking about the plot.

  ‘Chris,’ Ricardo said, and all three aimed straight at him. Chris went from petrified tree to wobbly jelly in half a second. They weren’t here for information from Louise’s colleagues. They were here for Chris.

  ‘Police from Bradford,’ Ricardo said as they closed the gap. ‘They want to ask you some questions.’ The consultant looked puzzled and angry and scared all at once. It was clear he didn’t know what was going on, but was pissed off at Chris for this interruption to a working day, and worried about a black mark against his lab’s great reputation for not having criminals as staff.

  The officers stopped six feet away, but Ricardo moved closer to Chris because he hadn’t been trained to stay out of knife range. The officers said nothing at first, clearly waiting for Ricardo to get lost. He clearly didn’t want to. He didn’t leave when he was thanked for his time by the male cop, either. It took an order from the female for him to wait outside. Not something that pleased him, but he didn’t look half as dejected as Lionel when he was ordered out too. Chris managed to get his ass above his chair just as his legs gave way.

  The woman was quite young and quite pretty. Maybe she’d been sent to butter him up so he’d come quietly. If the butter didn’t take, the guy with her was big enough that they’d get their man down the station regardless. Chris rubbed his hands together to hide their shaking.

  They waited until the lab door shut behind Lionel, then the female officer opened her mouth to speak. Chris got there first.

  ‘I was driving to work…’ he blurted, the beginning of an explanation. But the puzzled faces stopped him. Right then he knew this wasn’t about Louise – West Yorkshire Police, not South – and they weren’t here to arrest him. ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘Do you know a woman called Katie Hugill?’

  There was a strange seismic shift in his gut as two emotions competed. Relief, because he wasn’t about to go into handcuffs, and trepidation. Because Katie might be hurt. Or might have done something.

  ‘She my… yes, I know her. What’s happened?’

  ‘How do you know her?’

  Despite the bubbling anxiety, his mind was on point enou
gh to develop a careful answer. ‘I knew her mother from way back. Katie found me through her and she’s been staying at my house for a few days. With my wife and daughter. Look, what’s happened?’

  He ground his teeth as the female officer explained. A motorbike registered to Katie Hugill had been found in Neepsend, just a few miles away. On a quiet street, partway up an embankment opposite the river, as if the driver had lost control. There was no damage to the bike, but it lay on its side. Could have happened when the rider hit a dead stop and pitched forward… but maybe not. Ms Hugill was missing, but her mobile phone had been found in the bike’s top box. There were only two numbers stored in the device: CHRIS MOB and CHRIS WORK. The work number had led police here. Did you see her this morning? Did she say where she was going or who she was meeting?

  Chris’s mind was way behind. ‘Did you say her phone only had my numbers in it?’

  His question was ignored. The male officer said, ‘Staff at Baldwin House say she left without warning and they haven’t heard from her in eight days, but that she seemed quite anxious on the day she left. Did you notice anything like that? Did she meet anyone you didn’t know recently? Did she have any enemies? Do you know of any threats against her recently or strange phone calls?’

  Enemies. He stiffened at the thought that Katie might have been attacked. That it had occurred because Chris had refused to talk to the police about the dangerous foe she’d dragged right along with her into the Redfern world. He jumped to his feet, about to unload all he knew about the fugitive killer Dominic Everton, but his slow mind was playing catch-up and it now latched onto something the officer had said earlier.