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

by Jake Cross

  ‘We’ll double it and add a few days. Call it three months. Three months, Chris, and you’ll be over her. Those scientists know what they’re talking about. I bet after three months we could even joke about it. How does that sound?’

  ‘I would never get over it, Katie. Where is she? Think about this, please. Don’t hurt…’

  Something Katie had said ignited in his brain. An admission of planning to murder her mother: Well, I got right on it after that. But she’d used the same line shortly afterwards. About Julia.

  Praying he was wrong, Chris asked her, ‘Did you try to kill Julia? Before today?’

  ‘Of course,’ Katie said, looking at Chris as if he was being dumb. ‘Yesterday morning, Everton was five seconds from crushing Julia to death with his car, but fate intervened there, too. The BVT process should have already started. But your recovery is going to be delayed by half a day.’

  He tried to remain calm – outwardly. ‘Where is my daughter, Katie?’

  ‘Mind you, it’s lucky for all that you ran today. The plan sounded so good. This evening, Everton was supposed to storm your wedding anniversary in the pub and kill her. I couldn’t be there for that, because Everton might have given the game away by how he acted around me. And I didn’t trust myself to give a good performance of shock and terror. So I dumped my bike and pretended Everton had got to me. I would be found the next morning, unhurt. While you grieved for Julia on day one of thirty-six, you’d also care for me, your hurt and terrified new daughter. It seemed like a good plan, but I wasn’t thinking straight. Seeing your Julia slaughtered in front of you? Christ, that could take six months to get over. Half a day extra I can manage, but not an extra three months.’

  Chris closed his eyes. It made it easier to deal with the clearly psychopathic animal facing him. ‘But she’s alive, Katie. That’s all that matters. We can be a family again, all of us. You can experience real love, which you never have. It’s the best feeling in the world, Katie. Having someone to care about, and knowing others care about you, is something special. I pity those who don’t have love in their lives. You will come to love Julia like a sister. I say again: fathers can forgive their children almost anything. It’s not too late. But only if Julia is released unharmed.’

  ‘Fathers forgive their children, you say?’

  ‘Of course. Wholeheartedly yes. And we can help you, Katie. I know what you told Julia. About all those things you think you have wrong with your body. And we can get you help for that.’

  ‘Fathers trust kids, believe their word, even if evidence points the other way?’

  ‘Katie, listen to me. You need help, and as a family we can get it for you. The pain in your neck and back, the tingling in your hands and feet, and that metallic taste in your mouth. It’s not circulation, you’re right, and, it isn’t about a lack of vitamins. But you were wrong, too. It isn’t bits of your body falling into your hands and feet from some bouncy ball you swallowed. You spent hours cramped in that cellar, in pain. Chronic pins and needles, Katie, from day after day of bending your neck and spine too much. Chronic neuron and nerve damage, that’s all it is. We can help you treat that. We can treat you for everything that’s wrong. Including in your mind. The things you told Julia, they’re symptoms of mental illness, Katie. Your mind needs help as well as your body. We can fix it all.’

  Again, Katie ignored what was being laid on the table. ‘Do fathers also give kids the benefit of the doubt?’

  ‘Yes, Katie. I promise. We can be that family you always craved. We can get you help, to make you better, comfortable. Help with your mind, and your body. An end to the pain. But Julia’s pain has to end, too. You have to tell me where—’

  Katie slammed the table with her hand. It was the first piece of real emotion he’d ever seen in the girl, and it was neon bright, as if a long build-up had burst a dam.

  ‘How stupid do you think I am?’ she screamed. ‘After Julia, after I admit about Ron and Eve, you still try that bullshit? But you’re missing one vital point, Chris. You’ve already showed your hand. You ran from me. Again. You could have had doubts about that stupid £20 note thing. You could have sought my version of the story. Benefit of the doubt? Remember how I gave you the benefit of the doubt when all the evidence pointed to you as the man who attacked that woman you work with, Louise? You didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt, or forgiveness, Chris. Instead, you did what you did the first time, all those years ago. You ran. We should have been having family bonding time right now, but you dumped me. I even killed Everton to make you think he’d perished by accident when he burned your home. Still you didn’t try to reach out to me. With Everton gone, you were supposed to think the threat was over and come home, to try to find your missing brand-new daughter. But you continued to hide. You didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt. You’ve proved you don’t want me, and it angers me that you’re trying this trick now, playing on my emotions. On my desires. It’s too late. By eighteen years it’s too fucking late.’

  The rage on Katie’s face hit Chris like frigid water, and he was more fearful than ever for Julia, for Rose, for himself.

  ‘Do you know what I did for you, Daddy? I found that old army buddy friend of your father’s. I gave him a letter that I wrote for you, to give to your father. Because I wanted you to bond with him again. But look how you repay me.’

  Katie gave him a smile. Big, and wide, and obviously fake, like every single other he’d ever seen split her face. ‘Don’t be so shocked by my act. I, this empty shell you created, can pretend when I need to. It would seem I inherited acting abilities from you, too, given the bogus emotion you showed when eulogising my bitch mother. The Internet, as you well know, is beautiful for researching cliched endearing terms and when to use them.’

  His shock had been at her admission of trying to help him reconnect with his father, not the flash change in her temperament. But he would never admit that. ‘You’re no empty shell, Katie. You’re packed with corruption, stripped of everything humanly good. I tried to reason with you, but I might as well tell a lion not to kill. So what happens now? You kill us all right here?’

  ‘Maybe I should. I’m sure you’d kill me if you had the gun.’

  Chris shook his head. ‘No. You’re my daughter, monster or not. I don’t want to see your name on a headstone. But you should be locked up for the rest of your life. You’re a danger to the world.’

  From her reaction, Chris could see that Katie didn’t know how to react to this news, that he retained a level of care for his daughter still, despite what had happened between them. Then she shook it off, like casting away a daydream.

  ‘You would be dead already if I wanted it. Nobody will die if you do what I say. I just want to show you something. Something that will prove to you that I was right to kill Eve. You might even wish you’d done it yourself. There’s something nobody bar me in the whole world knows about that woman. We’re going to the old guesthouse down the road. And then I will set you all free. No more darkness.’

  Darkness. He thought of the cellar again. And this time something finally clicked into place.

  ‘Okay,’ Chris said.

  Fifty

  ‘You agreed so easily, Daddy. A trick planned, perhaps?’ Katie said, watching him carefully across the table.

  The denial was right at the edge of his lips, ready to plummet out, but he stopped himself. There was no guarantee that Katie’s cesspool brain was up for rational thinking. She could kill him in one second and regret it the next. So when the gun was lifted and aimed at his skull, he made a strange decision.

  ‘Maybe. Perhaps there’s a weapon in the guesthouse.’

  Katie thought long and hard. Chris waited for the irrational bullet. But Katie lay the gun down again. Flat on the table, not aimed anywhere lethal, but her hand remained on it. On that trigger. Bad news was still only one second away.

  ‘And when you’ve shown me this thing, what then?’

  ‘You’ll never see me again. I�
��ll be out of here. Unfortunately, you won’t get your wish to see me behind bars.’

  Chris doubted that very much – the first part of Katie’s claim – but he nodded.

  Again, Katie thought for a long time. Maybe she was visualising her plan, playing it out dream-like in her head, seeking holes and fragile sections and testing responses to whatever tricks Chris might have in store. Or maybe she was simply battling against the black neurons in her brain that preferred the fire and brimstone scenario of killing everyone. Chris could only wait. It seemed like an eternity.

  There was a scary moment when Katie swapped the gun into her other hand, because he got the wild idea that she was removing the weapon from a limb she didn’t trust, couldn’t control.

  But then she stood and said, ‘Any wacky trickery at all, I kill your wife and Julia. Let’s go.’

  They exited Wooderland, out of the warmth and into the chilly rain. She’d walked out behind him, but now moved past and got in the back of the Mondeo, leaving him standing there, as if unconcerned that he might run. Maybe she just hated rain.

  With Rose imprisoned and Julia’s location in Katie’s head alone, running was no option. So Chris got behind the wheel. Katie shifted into the middle of the rear seat and told him to turn the interior light on and twist the rear-view mirror so that they could see each other. In that moment, Chris heard once more the ticking of Katie’s clock, which stayed with her always. That rhythmic pulse, echoing the noise of old water pipes back in that cellar long ago. Maybe, like her old story relived in the Manor, the clock kept the memories constant, thus becoming another form of self-punishment. Or it was a sort of lullaby, to tranquilise vibrating nerves. But it was the last thing that mattered right now.

  The moment Chris started the engine, the satnav kicked into life and displayed his recent journey history. In a flick of the eyes, like Rose hours earlier, he noted the entry for Louise’s house. It had the number two next to it. Twice the satnav had been ordered to go there.

  ‘And don’t even consider the old crashed-car-sudden-stop-trick, Chris. If we survive, I’ll come right back here and make Rose suffer in a way that will make hardened detectives puke.’

  The satnav had made two journeys to Louise’s house. The first had been during his failed trip to bury the hatchet, because he’d had to input the postcode. The second? That was now terrifyingly obvious.

  Later that night, when Katie had left the house on her bike.

  ‘You attacked Louise,’ Chris rasped. He knew now why Katie had fixed the washing machine that same night. It was to wash her bloody clothing. And he remembered the toolbox item that Rose had discovered missing. ‘With my hammer.’

  She didn’t even consider denial. ‘The police were right. She did open the back door for me. No threat, another woman. I apologised for you, by the way. I told her you felt bad. But the silly bitch-ass was mean to my dad, wasn’t she? What kind of daughter would stand for that?’

  Chris could hardly believe his ears. A woman who had wanted him dead had then been prepared to kill to protect him. And now the circle had closed. ‘Yet here we are,’ he said.

  ‘You’re all mine, aren’t you? What business does anyone else have to hurt you? Besides, that was when I thought there was a chance for us. Before you abandoned me. Again.’

  Chris shut down, reminding himself, once again, that this human-shaped animal’s mind was rotten.

  He felt in the driver’s door pocket for the voice recorder. He’d taken it from his toolbox the other night in order to record his conversation with Louise, just in case she tried to lie later about what he’d said. He’d chickened out of knocking her door, so hadn’t needed it. But now he flicked it on, wanting a record of what Katie said.

  Partly in case he needed proof for the police.

  Partly so the police had evidence if Chris and his family suddenly vanished off the earth.

  He set it to record and tossed it under the seat. Then he put his eyes on the road. And drove into the unknown.

  Fifty-One

  The car slowly rolled past Ocean.

  ‘You feel sorry for Eve? You think I’m a monster?’ Katie asked, glaring. ‘You don’t know the suffering I went through. My burns? They were down to her. Yes, I developed a habit of setting fire to things, but how do you think Eve dealt with that? Professional help? She locked me in the bathroom, which was all tiles, no paper, no towels, every time I got the urges. She said if I wanted to burn things, then I should burn myself.

  ‘And I did. I couldn’t help it. She made sure I burned only where my T-shirts and trousers would cover it. She marked me. Marked the lines where T-shirts and shorts would sit. Anything outside the pen lines, anything that people on the street, or at school, could see, there was hell to pay. Maybe you think she tried to burn it out of me, like that old trick of forcing a kid caught smoking to smoke until she’s sick? No. She liked it. But you won’t ever believe that, because you see only a sexy young woman on holiday, before the madness took her.’

  Chris said nothing. He concentrated on driving. Coming here earlier, the car had bucked and jerked on solid ground. Now the land was wet and soft and the vehicle glided like a boat on water, with just as little control.

  ‘What makes you think you can trick me, Chris? I know you plan to.’

  Louise was still in his mind, and he was making room amongst the terror for anger. The correct response would be denial, but he said, ‘Throw a drowning guy a straw, see what happens.’

  Katie considered this veiled threat. ‘Surely even a drowning man knows a measly little straw won’t help?’

  ‘I got you away from my wife, didn’t I?’

  Katie nodded, admitting Chris’s neat little point.

  But then she said, ‘Guy still drowns.’

  Captive and captor drove past Savannah.

  ‘This guy might have five kids,’ Katie said. ‘Quintuplets all in wheelchairs, and all waiting for Daddy to get home with birthday presents and pain medication.’

  A black shape had stepped out of the woods and right into their path, forcing Chris to hit the brakes. A shaggy-haired guy in ripped denim and carrying a rucksack, with a dog that squatted to do its business right in the headlights. The guy raised a hand, as if to say Wait a minute, as if he was walking the queen’s dog on Her Majesty’s land and nothing else was as important. One of the Sanderson clan, from Savannah.

  Katie’s message was clear. Chris could have called out for help, two on one, or three if the dog had a killer sense of loyalty towards its master. But Katie had that gun. So Chris only raised a hand in return.

  The dog finished watering the ground, then dragged its owner towards the trees on the other side, and both vanished from the world and their lives.

  Chris drove on.

  As the Mondeo slid past Moonlight, the rain let up.

  ‘Christmas, every year. No presents,’ Katie said. ‘But I got no abuse. She would leave me alone. That was my present each year. Getting left alone. In my room, just me. One day. She had to bite her tongue. Literally. There was a backlog for the next day, though. If presents or money came from relatives who never visited, then Eve got rid of them, or spent it. The only presents I got for my birthday were bags of sweets from school. One time, when I turned seven, she forgot about it and told me three days later. I had no clue. Three days! “By the way, you little shit, you were seven three days ago.”’

  As the car pulled up alongside Eclipse, Katie sat bolt upright.

  ‘Stop right here. And stop looking at that guy’s house in hope. He’s old and was no match for me.’

  In other words, don’t call to him for help. Then Chris realised that Katie had used the past tense: was. Not an assumption, then. Katie had already learned that Mr Jernigan was no match.

  ‘Did you kill him?’

  She exited and opened the driver’s door for Chris. There was no answer to the question. But she had her back to the house and didn’t seem at all worried by standing in the glare of the ornat
e streetlamps.

  Answer enough.

  They trekked towards the house Chris first, Katie behind, gun between. Then alongside, down the path, into the gloom.

  ‘Was it worth it, Daddy Dearest? You gave me up, chose this life instead. But this life, look at it now. You thought you’d be happy without me. You could have lived to a hundred, but now there’s a real chance that you’ll die before you reach half of that. Think about the fear Rose and Julia are experiencing. Was it worth it? You cut me out of your life and ruined mine. You expected a long life, but you cut me out and now look! Are you happy now without me?’

  A memory fired a dreadful realisation that almost buckled Chris’s knees. Still walking, still looking ahead, still praying that an opportunity to strike back would materialise, he found his voice. Barely.

  ‘You tried to kill Simone Baker. It was you all along. Why?’

  Again, no lie was entertained. ‘You chose her over me. You were going to give her a room, and give me, your flesh and blood, nothing. That’s what I was to you: nothing. You wished then, and you wish now, that you could have erased me. Turned me into, as you say, white noise, at the press of a button. Into nothing. And I didn’t try to kill her, by the way. I covered the pipe in foam, just in case I lost myself.’

  ‘You lost yourself years ago.’

  Such a line could have made Katie lose herself, but by now he was well aware that her unbalanced mind was resistant to insult.

  ‘I did envision killing you with each strike, though. It was a kind of release, although I’m not sure why because by then I believed I could win you over. I heard her statement about what I’d said during the attack. My words were directed at you, but she tied them into a boyfriend that she recently dumped. I wanted her to blame a man, and of course she would, but it fit so sweetly, and her ex-boyfriend was arrested. I never did want Julia to be upset by that, though. But if not for her sorrow, we would never have discovered BVT.’