“You don’t–”
“I do.” I felt the softness of her skin beneath my fingers, ran them down her neck. When I kissed her, tasting the tears, I felt her clinging to me, the faster breathing, the way her body melted into mine, my own physical response to her closeness.
Why not?
Lucy had made it clear she didn’t want me. I’d nearly been killed today, had experienced a whirlwind of emotions, and needed the reassurance that someone, just someone in the world cared whether I lived or died. With Lucy the emphasis was always on her and her problems. Yet all the time it was me who had real, tangible life-threatening difficulties to deal with, and she was so wrapped up in her own issues she hardly cared.
My heart beat faster. My fingers ran along Caroline’s spine, my lips nuzzled her ear. She pulled away gently, smiling. Reached round behind her back to unzip her dress.
I saw the silky red material fall forwards to reveal the black lacy bra enclosing the soft mounds of flesh.
And suddenly in that moment I knew that I was making a mistake. I was on the rebound from Lucy. Tempting as it was, I just couldn’t go through with this. It was madness.
Then, as if to reinforce my decision, there was a loud knocking at the front door.
“Don’t answer it,” Caroline whispered in my ear, drowning me in the moment. “I want you Jack,” she whispered urgently, her eyes closed. “I want you now. Please! I’ll never ask again, I promise. You can forget me afterwards, but please, just this once, let’s be together. We’ll go upstairs, we can ignore whoever it is – they’ll go away soon.
“I’ve got to see who it is.”
Fearing the worst, I edged into the hallway and looked towards the door, wondering if I could make a run for it in time.
“Jack, open the door, it’s me!”
With relief I recognised Lucy’s voice, and walked to the door and opened it. She was standing on the step.
“Jack, thank God, you’re all right!”
And she was in my arms and I was stroking her hair and holding her close and breathing the soft scent of her skin, feeling desperately ashamed of my feelings of a few moments ago. And I realised in that moment that I didn’t want Caroline, it was a momentary impulse, a crazy moment of madness that had only happened because I was scared and confused. I wanted Lucy, No one but Lucy. And I’d been mad to think otherwise.
“I heard a newsflash on the radio that two gangsters had tried to run a journalist off the road, and one of them had been killed,” she whispered. “I was afraid you’d been killed. I’ve been trying to get you on your mobile all day.”
“It’s been switched off. I’ve been at the police station–”
“It was you then? You were involved in the accident?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry my darling, I’m sorry,” she was telling me, holding me close. “I didn’t mean what I said, I love you so much, I was just so upset I just wanted to lash out, and say whatever I could to hurt you. I swear I never wanted anything to happen to you.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re here. Northing matters anymore.”
When we went into the sitting room it seemed that Caroline had caught on to the situation. She’d already dressed and even put her coat on and was standing up, ready to leave. She even wore a good-natured smile.
And then something weird happened. Even today the thought of it sends a chill through me.
The moment Caroline saw Lucy’s face she stepped back and gasped. She tried to hide her shock, and managed to recover quickly.
“Lucy, this is Caroline – the young woman who was hurt–”
“Of course, you were in the hospital where I do voluntary work,” Lucy smiled at her, apparently unaware of Caroline’s double-take. “Edith Grendel Ward, wasn’t it?”
“That’s right. Oh!” Caroline returned the smile and nodded to herself. “That must be it – sorry Lucy, it’s just so peculiar because when I first saw you I was certain I’d seen you before somewhere – somewhere recently, around the time I had the accident. But of course, it must have been when I was semi-conscious in hospital in those early days.”
“Yes, I’m sure that’s where we’ve met,” Lucy agreed. “I’ve never worked on Edith Grendel, but I pass through there now and again.”
To my relief, Caroline made her excuses and stood up to leave, muttering that she’d just dropped in to thank me for what I’d done for her. I managed to move the wine glasses behind some furniture, so that Lucy didn’t see them.
Lucy stayed the night with me. In the morning I’d enjoyed the best rest I’d had for weeks. From being on the edge of despair everything was going better than I could have possibly hoped. Lucy still loved me, and had forgiven me for behaving as I had. I now knew for certain that my nightmare fear that Lucy could be Megan Foster was nailed once and for all.
The Caroline almost-incident was nearly forgotten. I put it down to being one of those mad things that just happen in life, and you move on and forget them. More than anything else I was glad that I hadn’t made love to Caroline. It would have been a disastrous mistake, and not fair on either her or Lucy. A temptation of the moment, that didn’t count for anything, something we would have both regretted later.
At least, that’s what I thought at the time.
Chapter 11
COMING HOME
Sean Boyd had got away. There was no proof he’d ever been in the car, only my testimony, which counted for nothing. However, the lesson to learn was, from now on I couldn’t take any chances at all and had to be on guard twenty four/seven.
But once the book was published I could breathe easily, and the reason for the contract would be null and void, and I could get on with my life without looking over my shoulder.
Admittedly the blood sample that the police had found linking me to the killing of the hit man might possibly be matched to my DNA, but I had my doubts. It had rained later that night, and the chances were that even if any of my blood had been on the step it had been washed away. Similarly, I considered that Fulford’s clumsy attempts to prove I’d set Sean Boyd’s car alight would fail. The detective hated me and wanted to put the squeeze on me as much as he could. I was confident that that was one worry that could be pushed to the back of my mind. All I had to be concerned about right now was completing The Bible Killer and making plans for when Lucy’s shop-owner friend recovered enough to return to her business, setting Lucy free to return home. When that happened we could see each other every evening, and perhaps we’d have the time to sort out our differences. I had not yet told Lucy about the book about the Canterbury killings I was writing, and when she found out there’d probably be another row; however, that could wait.
* * * *
Lucy’s childhood home was a Hertfordshire village called Chorton Hardy. The following morning, a Saturday, she insisted on us going straight down there, so she could show me her childhood haunts.
“Look, there’s no need for us to go,” I tried to explain. “I believe you. After all we’ve been through, I swear that I’m certain now that you’re Lucy Green, Megan Foster’s doppelganger.”
“That’s not the point,” she said, shaking her head. “If I don’t nail this suspicion in your mind once and for all, it’s always going to be standing between us, gnawing away and creating a rift.”
“But I believe you.” I held her in my arms.
“I’ve had to live with this nightmare since I was 19 years old, when that woman was released from custody. Everything’s fine for ages, then suddenly someone recognises the likeness between me and Megan Foster. When Lisa Chilcott died that seemed to be the end of it.”
“So?”
“But I’m in love with you, Jack. I have to prove to you I am Lucy Green, just an ordinary girl from an ordinary background. Don’t you see? While ever you have any doubts, our relationship is doomed.”
We started the drive early, after Lucy had made sure that her friend Kirsty could continue to cover for her in the shop.
We arrived in the small village in the early evening, and booked into the Golden Crown hotel in the main town square.
The next day started out sunny, Chorton Hardy’s main town square alive with shoppers swarming into Waitrose, and the high street was packed with Christmas shoppers, dashing in and out of the stores. Lucy directed me to the outskirts of town, to an area of semi-detached houses, and we stopped outside number 15, Crescent Gardens.
“This is the house where I was born, and we lived here until I was six,” she said quietly. “Go through the side gate and there’s a long garden with a weeping willow tree at the end, and a small pond. There are four fruit trees on the right.”
“You don’t need to do this–”
“I do! Because, Jack, until you’re absolutely convinced that I am Lucy Green, who was born in this house in 1972, the daughter of Daniel and Alison Green, there’ll always be this tiny shred of doubt in your mind.”
“You’re making too much of it all–”
“No. No I’m not. Come on!”
She got out of the car and I did too. I followed her up the garden path and watched her knock on the door.
The bemused lady who answered it seemed surprised at the intrusion, and when Lucy explained that she had been born and brought up in the house, and would the lady let us take a quick look, I never thought she’d agree. But when her husband joined her at the door, he listened to Lucy’s story and smiled and welcomed us inside.
And the house was just as Lucy had described to me in the car before we went in. A room on the right with a large Yorkstone fireplace, the bathroom which, when Lucy lived there, had had a green suite but now, as the man of the house explained, they’d replaced with a white basin, bath and WC. In the garden the weeping willow and the pond were still there, but the fruit trees had disappeared – the couple told us they had removed them when they first arrived.
After lunch at a pub, Lucy directed us to the south of the city, to a large school, Eden Gate Girls Public Day School. The gates were wide open, and people were marching in and out freely. The poster at the gate announced that they were holding an antique fair in the main hall. We paid for tickets and went inside.
Amid the throng of people I was intrigued by the antique furniture, something I’ve always been interested in, and while I admired a Chippendale desk, Lucy got talking to a woman who looked to be in her late fifties. A few moments later she introduced us.
“Jack, this is Miss Whitton, my old biology teacher.”
I shook hands with the amiable woman, who recounted stories of Lucy’s antics when she was in her form, the junior fifth.
It should have been an idyllic day, the day that ended all my doubts about Lucy’s identity, and of course it did. There was now absolutely no doubt in my mind that Lucy Green was simply Megan Foster’s doppelganger. And that it was certain that the killer, Megan Foster, was dead: she died under her new identity of Lisa Chilcott, when she deliberately crashed her car into a tree at eighty miles an hour.
I had no doubts about Lucy’s identity.
But I did have doubts about whether I was as much in love with her as I thought I was.
* * * *
It was midday on Tuesday, just after Lucy had left for York, and I was driving away from a long meeting with Stu to discuss how to approach the first chunk of The Bible Killer, and the best way to handle the rest of the book. I’d packed away all my papers, and Stuart’s notes and tapes, and was on my way to Wales, aware that Sean Boyd might easily make another attempt on my life, but that soon the book would be published and my problems would be over. My mobile rang and I answered it without a care in the world. I was on the A28, just outside Canterbury, heading for the motorway. I pulled in to the side of the road.
“Hi, Jack Lockwood.”
“Jack, this is Caroline.”
“Oh, hello.” I remembered I’d given her my phone number when she’d come to my house.
“Listen, about the other night.”
Guilt made my voice tremble. “Forget it. Nothing happened.”
“I know, I’m phoning to apologise. I’m sorry I embarrassed you. I was upset, emotional, I’d just finished with Geoff, and I was feeling pretty much at sixes and sevens. Let’s just forget all about it.”
“Sure. You’re right. It was a mistake.”
“Was it?”
There was a long pause.
“Are you sure about that, Jack? Frankly I’m sorry I embarrassed you but I’m not sorry about what happened – or rather what didn’t happen. No. I’m not sorry. Not sorry at all.” Her voice changed to a much more serious tone. “Frankly, I’m only sorry that nothing did happen. And believe me, I don’t think it would have been a mistake. In fact I know it wouldn’t have been. It’s all so cut and dried for you, isn’t it? But it’s not so easy for me.”
“Look, you just said let’s forget about it–”
“–Sure, because I was trying to let you off the hook. But now I realise I’ve got to tell you the truth. I meant everything I said last week. I can’t stop thinking about you. From the moment I saw you walking past my bed in hospital, I knew I wanted something to happen between us. And one day it will.”
“Listen, Caroline–”
“Forget it, Jack. It’s okay, I understand. You’re with Lucy at the moment.”
“Yes. Yes I am.”
“And that’s why I’m phoning. To warn you.”
“Warn me?”
“Tell me, how long have you known Lucy?”
“What’s that got to do with you?”
“How long?”
“A few weeks. Over a month.”
“You don’t know her. I’m warning you – Jack, you have to be careful.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Look, don’t take this the wrong way. But I think that Lucy is dangerous.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
There was another long pause before she spoke again. “Okay. So how do you think she’d have reacted if she’d found us upstairs in bed together?”
“That wouldn’t have happened. Don’t you remember? I stopped it, just before she knocked on the door–”
“Don’t deny it. We both wanted to make love. Just because you’ve now changed your mind out of guilt, and are trying to alter your memories of what happened it doesn’t change a thing. That night you wanted me as much as I wanted you – I know you did. Isn’t there just some part of you that wonders what would have happened if Lucy hadn’t turned up when she did?”
“I’m hanging up.”
“Shut up and listen! Remember when I came face to face with Lucy in your house? Do you recollect how shocked I was?”
“Yes, now you mention it. I wondered why.”
“It was because when I saw Lucy I had the feeling I already knew her. Not at the hospital, as she suggested, but before that. That perfume she wears, Heaven’s Dust, it’s very rare – hard to get hold of. I remembered smelling it somewhere before, recently. And I remembered. I smelt it on the night when I was attacked.”
“You couldn’t have done.”
“I did. Lucy was there, that night I was attacked.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
“Jack, I’m sorry, but she was there! I’m sure of it.”
“Based on a smell of bloody perfume? You’re mad.”
“I’m mad, am I? Well the police don’t think so.” I heard her sigh on the other end of the line. “Jack, I’m so sorry, but I told the police that I smelt a woman’s perfume Heaven’s Dust, just before it happened. And Lucy wears that same perfume, a perfume that’s so rare that hardly anyone even stocks it in London, let alone Canterbury. Besides, I have this distinct memory of seeing someone’s hand – a woman’s hand. And I saw Lucy’s hand that night in your house, and I swear it was her hand that I saw on the night I was attacked. I noticed it because one finger was shorter than you’d expect. Much shorter.”
“It was pitch dark and raining. How could you possibly
have seen–”
“It was right underneath my nose. I saw her hand, Jack. Lucy’s left hand. With a foreshortened third finger.”
I closed my eyes. Breathed deeply. “Are you saying you think Lucy attacked you?”
“I don’t know who attacked me! The person came up behind me. I couldn’t see what was happening. I just have disparate random, memories, nothing complete, it’s still a vague hotchpotch of impressions. I’m sorry, Jack. I know she’s your girlfriend, but you do understand, don’t you? I had to go to the police about it. I’m certain that your Lucy was there on the night I was attacked. And I think she tried to kill me.”
A sick feeling of dread terror gripped me. I closed my eyes.
“Jack, I’m sorry. But I think Lucy is the Bible Killer.”
* * * *
I drove back into Canterbury and parked, then went to a café and sat down to a cup of coffee. I was in a daze, scared and confused, not knowing what to think. Why would Caroline think she’d seen Lucy on the night she’d been attacked? What possible explanation could there be?
My phone rang again and I took the call, dreading more terrifying news.
“Hi, Jack, it’s Paul Dangerfield.”
“Hello Paul.” I wondered why my contact at AB Detectives was phoning me out of the blue. They’d done all the searches I’d asked for, and, frankly I was ashamed of having consulted the firm at all, because thinking of them reminded me of that dark time when I’d suspected Lucy of being Megan Foster, something I wanted to forget forever.
“We had a bit of luck,” Paul sounded breezy, excited almost. “You know that birth search you asked for? Lisa Chilcott? Between 1970 and 1974?”
“I remember. You couldn’t find her.”
Lisa Chilcott. The woman who’d killed herself and, it was reliably assumed, was the alter ego of the real Megan Foster.
“Right, but I was chatting to a colleague this morning, and she said that if the woman died in Wales, there was a chance she might have had a connection to Ireland – after all, the ferry goes regularly from Fishguard, close to Swansea, to Rosslare, in Ireland. I know you said she was most likely to be English born but, my hunches are usually worth following. So on the off chance I put in a search and found her. Lisa Alexandra Chilcott, born in Enniskillen, 23 February 1971. Do you think that’s the person you’re after?”
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