Perfect Stranger: A gripping psychological thriller with nail-biting suspense
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‘Baldwin House? Wait a minute. What’s that?’
What they told him sank in like ice water. Baldwin House was a homeless shelter in Sheffield. Katie had self-referred a month ago and been offered a room two weeks ago. She’d been there just a few days, until last Sunday, when she packed her belongings without a word and vanished.
‘I thought she had a flat,’ Chris croaked.
The officers said no home was registered to Ms Hugill, but of course it could be privately rented, maybe cash-in-hand, and they asked for an address that Chris couldn’t provide. He didn’t mention the fire that was supposed to have burned her flat. Because that, it seemed, was a lie. Never happened. There was no flat. Instead, he gave them The Blue Swan.
‘She used to live there, but moved out a couple of years ago. I saw it the other day. It’s closed up and for sale, but I thought I saw movement inside. I thought it was a squatter, but…’
But could that have been Katie? Had Katie been living in the pub since her mother’s death, just like a squatter?
The police asserted that they’d look into the pub, then immediately returned to the subject of Katie’s enemies. Chris shook his head. No enemies. No strange phone calls. Can’t help you. Soon they decided they had all they were going to get. They told him not to worry, that residents of homeless shelters sometimes went missing without warning, but they also gave him a direct police station number and a call-us-if-you-learn-anything request. Then they left.
Parrot came back in, firing questions, but at least Ricardo had gone. Chris ignored the asshole’s questions because he was asking himself a whole bunch of his own. But not about whether Katie was hurt, or if she’d abandoned her bike after being chased by Dominic Everton. Everton, despite his danger, didn’t even figure.
But the fire did. Why had Katie lied about a flat fire when there was no flat, even going so far as to smoke-damage her own clothing? He had a theory. Maybe Katie had felt an aura of rejection pulsing off Chris and had created a fiction in order to get into the house, get closer to the family. To sort of force them to accept her. If so, he could understand that, which helped to take the shady edge off what was otherwise a very big, very scary lie. Only the edge, though.
Not the case with Katie’s phone, though, because he had no clue how to explain it. Why Chris’s numbers were the only ones stored in the phonebook was cause for a lot more worry.
Forty
‘KATIE HUGILL’
The results unfurled down the screen. A lot of Katie Hugills on Medway, with a lot of ailments. In the ‘location’ pull-down box, he selected Sheffield Royal Infirmary and got what he expected.
Wednesday, Katie Hugill, X-ray department.
In the notes for the appointment, the referring GP, visiting the homeless shelter called Baldwin House, had backed up the story that Katie had complained of a set of teeth growing beneath her external ones. A symptom of internal damage following a fall as a child. The doctor, it seemed, hadn’t been given the same story Katie had told Julia, of a rubber bouncy ball ricocheting about, wreaking havoc inside her. Based on the bizarre teeth claim, the doctor had recommended a visit to Handleway Home – which Google said was a psychiatric hospital – but Katie had refused. The doctor might not have known about the rubber ball, but he had information about various other claimed symptoms of this ‘fall’ and it was a shivering read. Chris was surprised the doctor hadn’t insisted on a little time in a special ward.
Her eyes turned upside down when she closed them.
Her stomach couldn’t digest meat, and there was twenty-year-old rotten flesh in there still.
She sometimes saw the future in her dreams, in which she was an old woman, just a head attached to a life-support machine.
Sometimes people’s speech echoed in her head for hours afterwards.
Chris seemed to die inside as memories of Katie alone in the Manor that night bubbled up. His girl. His blood. He had inherited a daughter. A daughter who needed more help than he knew how to give.
Lionel wouldn’t let up, so to save the guy from a broken nose, Chris went down to Specimens to get some breathing space. He decided he shouldn’t worry about Katie being missing just yet, until he knew more, but that became impossible when something popped into his head. He hauled his mobile as he walked.
Sixty seconds later, his fear was staring him right in the face. A Google map showed him that Neepsend, where Katie’s Suzuki had been found, was neighbour to Netherthorpe.
Where Dominic Everton had tried to chop up police officers with a machete.
Everton might be after me, Katie had said. Everton had killed Ron Hugill, the man Katie called Dad for her whole life – had he also now got to Katie?
Using the stairs while carrying the pathology box was a big no-no because some idiot miles away and years ago probably fell and broke samples, but Chris rushed into the stairwell to make a phone call. Despite his earlier reservations, and his promise to Katie not to mention her childhood connection to Everton, he was planning to tell the police everything. He regretted not doing so earlier. But before he could dial the first of three nines, Rose called him.
‘I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier,’ he blurted before she could say a word. He expected mirrored regret, but Rose’s tone was as sharp as the one he’d apologised for.
‘The police have just been to the house,’ she spat.
He forgot about their argument. ‘Don’t worry about Katie until we have more news. I’m going to call them in a minute and explain about—’
‘They wanted to talk to you about that girl you work with, Louise. Why, Chris? Why do they want to talk to you? Because of your argument? Tell me you don’t know anything about this horrible attack.’
So, she didn’t yet know about the police finding Katie’s bike. Or she did, and that problem wasn’t as urgent as this one.
‘Are you there, Chris? Did you hear me?’
‘I don’t know anything,’ he said, with a monumental effort at implanting calm in his voice. ‘They want to talk to everyone she knew, that’s all.’
‘No, Chris, that’s not it. Not now, anyway. They mentioned your car. They’re tracing Ford Mondeos because one was seen in the area and their eyes lit up when I told them you had one. Now they’re very interested that a Ford Mondeo belongs to someone Louise worked with. Someone she argued with.’
His throat was desert-dry. ‘What did you tell them?’
She started to cry. ‘They wanted to know where you were on Thursday night into Friday morning. Chris, I had to tell them that you went to see Alan. That’s what you told me.’
He said nothing.
‘But they’ve already talked to Alan. He’s already said he was in bed all night. You didn’t go to Alan’s, did you? Chris, please, did you go to Louise’s on Thursday night?’
‘Rose, I didn’t go to Louise’s house. Why would I? I just went for a drive to think about Katie, about all of this, which is messing up my head. That’s all. You don’t think I did this, do you? That I attacked Louise? You can’t think that, surely?’
‘The police just left and they’re coming to the hospital to talk to you.’
‘Rose, you didn’t answer my question. I didn’t do this. Jesus, you really don’t believe that, do you?’
A pause, which was bad, but when she came back, her tense tone had loosened up. ‘Chris, just talk to them and get it over with. Tell them the truth. They came to the house and I don’t like the neighbours seeing that.’
She hung up. No goodbye, no see you later. He almost dropped the pathology box. His own wife was suspicious of him, which didn’t bode well.
As he pushed open the pathology door, he froze and his heart jumped like a scratched record. Ahead, Ricardo, leading two men in what Chris could only call serious casual. He knew instantly that they were detectives. All three turned to stare at him. The scratch on his neck suddenly burned like a fresh brand.
The Louise police, finally.
Game over.
‘Listen, I know you already know about my record, but it was bullshit. I was driving to work, and I see this pair of teenaged girls, mean-looking ones, hassling another girl, a small-looking one, and then she tries to get away from them and runs right in front of my car, so I stop and get out, and the girl jumps into my car and shuts the door, and then the two bullies start yelling for her to get out, and one of them actually opens the door to get her out, and they’re both dragging her from the car, so I tore their hands away, and then the bigger one, about eighteen, she pulls out a knife, right, a knife, right at me, and she looks like the sort who might use it, and so I punched her in the head, and they ran off, but they got my registration and then the police came and arrested me for assault, but the charges got dropped and so I have a caution on my record, that’s all, a caution for an assault that wasn’t a bloody assault at all, so I do not hurt people and I liked Louise and I had nothing to do with her attack, okay?’
While Chris took a breath before he fainted from lack of air, one of the detectives made a quick call to base. The other guy said, ‘I’m sure the officers on that investigation will contact you in due course. But we’re not here about that. We’re Bradford CID and we’re here about a man we think you might know. He’s been in the news, as I’m sure you’ve seen. Dominic Everton. We’d like to know if and how you know him.’
Dominic Everton? The police thought Chris knew him?
‘What’s going on?’ he said, suddenly a lot more nervous than if this pair had been here to question him about his movements on the night Louise was attacked.
Forty-One
The police had been gone barely two minutes when the wall phone rang. It was Ricardo, the consultant. Enraged with news that another pair of detectives was here to see Chris. First Bradford bobbies, followed by Bradford CID, and now a couple of detectives from Doncaster. Doncaster: the Louise ones for sure this time.
‘I’m bringing them up. This is starting to officially piss me off. What the hell have you been up to, Mr Redfern?’
‘Nothing,’ Chris said. ‘It’s research for my wife’s book. Don’t be nosy. Bring them up.’
When he hung up, he pulled his mobile away from his chest, where he’d planted it so that Rose didn’t hear the conversation with Ricardo. Now, he continued a conversation he’d started as soon as the Bradford detectives had left.
‘I’m back,’ he said.
‘Okay. Look, what do you mean, meet?’ she said.
He’d called her to say that he’d spoken to the police, and they had evidence that supported his claim that he’d never been inside Louise’s house. She had calmed after that little lie, until he asked her to meet him and failed to hide concern in his tone.
‘Is Julia back from the town centre?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Her friend, Donna, who me and you need a little chat about, texted her to say she couldn’t make it, so Julia got the bus home. She’s here now.’
‘Good. Get Julia and meet me.’ He gave her a location near their home.
‘Chris, what’s going on? What did the police actually say? Is this to do with that? Are you in some kind of other trouble?’
‘Think I’d be talking to you on my mobile if I was in trouble with the police? It’s fine. I’ll explain when we meet. Just come.’ An idea jumped into his head. ‘I’ve got a surprise. A celebration of the fact that I’m a new dad, kind of, at thirty-eight.’
She took a little more convincing, given his secrecy and the urgent tone he couldn’t hide. But she agreed, and he hung up pleased with the way the last couple of minutes had turned out.
Lionel, sent out, came back into the lab now that the police had gone. Obviously, he was desperate to know what had been said. Chris said nothing.
Before he left the hospital, he had one thing to check on the Internet.
In a tense escape from the hospital to avoid the policemen who wanted to talk to him about Louise, Chris found humour in the fact that a squad car was parked next to his. He didn’t laugh when his car failed to start, but soon he was on his way to meet Rose and Julia.
Half a mile away from their house, outside a salad place called Tossed, which would have better suited a massage parlour, Chris pulled up behind Rose’s car and got out. He found Rose and Julia in the store.
‘So what’s this about?’ Rose asked.
‘Remember Wooderland? We got a free weekend there. I just got the email. I told Katie to meet us there tonight. So we can do our anniversary party out in the woods.’
Julia didn’t share his glee. ‘But you paid for the function room. The landlord won’t refund that. My friend Alex was going to have her eighteenth—’
Rose had something else on her mind. She cut in. ‘Katie’s okay? But where is she? I tried her mobile and it was dead.’
‘She got a new mobile and called me.’
She furrowed her brow, uncertain about this. ‘A new mobile? And she said she’s okay?’
Scorn was evident in her tone, but he pretended not to register it. ‘Yes, she’s fine. Missing the funeral upset her, though, just like you said. She wishes she’d gone now. So she’s having an afternoon of catching up with the family and explaining. She doesn’t want any interruptions, so she told me nobody’s to phone her until she phones us first. That’s what she wants. She withheld her new number. But she thinks the idea of a weekend away is good. A change of surroundings for a few days. She’ll meet us down there.’
‘But we can’t just abandon the party,’ Julia said. ‘You’ve planned it for months.’
Rose gave him a long stare that was half puzzled and half suspicious. He’d never claimed to be a good actor.
‘All very impromptu,’ she said, loaded with scorn. ‘After we booked the room at the pub, too. And a DJ.’
‘I couldn’t pass it up. Mr Jernigan said we could have Wooderland until Monday morning if we agreed to drum up interest by posting what a great time we have on social media. So who’s up for it?’
‘But you’ve got all your friends coming to the party,’ Julia said. Clearly, she didn’t want to go. He was surprised by his daughter’s reluctance to have a weekend away. She’d even asked him if she could miss the party.
‘How about we text everyone and say they can come down?’ Chris said. ‘They can’t stay, though, so it’s come and go. How’s that? It’s a free weekend, Rose. That place costs four hundred normally.’
‘That’s less than you paid for the wasted party,’ Julia moaned. ‘And you can’t expect your friends to do all that travelling.’
Rose looked between them both, carefully. He awaited more questions, but she said, ‘Well, we’d have to go home and pack.’
So he showed her the boot, which was loaded with bags of clothing. For all of them. It boosted the suspicious expression on her face, but she didn’t object or question him further. She ordered Julia into the car and within thirty seconds they were driving.
But her frequent sideways glances at him confirmed she was highly doubtful of everything that had exited his mouth in the last few minutes. Maybe even the whole day. He kept his eyes glued to the road and tried to look happy.
Forty-Two
On the A61, heading south towards Derbyshire, Rose kept looking into the back seat, where Julia was playing on her phone. Chris had a funny feeling he knew what his wife was looking for.
And sure enough, just a few miles later, she gave another look back and then turned the radio up a little. A quick glance in the rear-view mirror showed him that Julia had her eyes down on her phone but now wore headphones. He could hear the tinny thump of music from them.
‘Just like that. A nice holiday?’
So here it was, the moment Rose had been waiting for. He tried to gulp but his throat was too dry.
‘I didn’t think we could pass it up. It will be
nice for us all have some space to—’
‘Bullshit.’
He nearly jerked the Mondeo into a caravan in the next lane. ‘What’s wrong?’
She was burning a hole in his cheek with those eyes. He could almost feel the anger pulsing off her. But she kept her voice calm because of their daughter. ‘I don’t yet know what’s wrong, and that’s why I’m keeping my cool. Because you haven’t told me. Something is wrong, though. I know you better than you do, Chris. Ever since this morning, you’ve been cold and robotic, and in a rush, but since we got in this car, you’ve relaxed a bit. So, tell me, or we turn around at the next chance. We’re not holidaying, I know that much. Is this about that criminal, Everton? Have we been threatened?’
In Birchover it was an eastern run through fields, out of this small pocket of civilisation and onto Lees Road and into an empty pocket in an old pair of trousers lost in a loft for decades. The final part of the journey was a northwards burrow through thick woodland, possibly to give virgin visitors the impression that they were getting deeper and inextricably lost before a cut east delivered them into Stanton Lees. Perhaps by design the meek would be so thankful to God that their first man-made sight apart from the road, the Chapel on the Hill (‘A small church with a big message’), would impel them inside. But the Redferns had never got that far on their first trip out here, and again didn’t make it. Where the woodland section of road flicked east, there was a padlocked farm gate barring a track jutting away northwest into dead country. This was their route.
Two years ago, the old gate had been padlocked to a heavy wooden post on one side and that old chain with a spattering of green paint was still there. On the opposite side was a new post and fresh hinges which gave the impression that someone had bust that side to gain illegal entry. Mr Jernigan had had a problem with thieves for years.