The Creeper

by Tania Carver

  He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have been more careful. But don’t worry, I’ll get you out of this.’

  ‘Oh will you, indeed?’

  The voice was familiar. He looked round. There, ahead of him, standing on the edge of the lamp’s beam, was Fiona Welch. She was smiling. It wasn’t pleasant.

  ‘Hello, Phil. Fancy meeting you here.’ She held out a piece of paper in her hand. ‘I’ve got my invoice. Do I give it to you or send it to accounts?’

  Phil said nothing. Just stared at her.

  She laughed, crumpled it up, threw it over the side. It took a long time to reach the bottom. Made only the slightest of sounds when it did.

  ‘Ooh,’ she said. ‘Long way down.’ She crossed towards him, crouched down beside him. Stretched out her hand, touched his cheek. ‘Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you now, would we?’

  Phil tried not to flinch, to pull away from her touch. He just about managed it. She kept her hand where it was, kept stroking.

  ‘Let it go, Fiona.’ He kept his voice calm, reasonable. It wasn’t easy. ‘Let it end now before you get into more trouble.’

  She just smiled at him. It wasn’t a smile connected to sanity.

  ‘And let Suzanne go. She’s done nothing wrong.’ No response. ‘Please, Fiona. Let her go.’

  She kept stroking, moved in closer to him. When she spoke, he felt her warm breath on his cheek.

  ‘How does it feel, Phil? Hmm? How does it feel to lose?’ Her eyes looking directly into his, fingers playing along his cheekbone. Her smiled widened, showing him her teeth. White and sharp and wet.

  Phil tried not to look at her. He looked away, into the shadows she had come from. And saw something.

  Or someone.

  A hulking presence, a shadow against shadows. Breathing raggedly, deeply. Waiting.

  Phil guessed who that was.

  He turned his attention back to Fiona Welch. ‘Is that what you think, Fiona? That I’ve lost?’

  ‘Of course you have, darling.’ In close to him, whispering, her breath on his ear, tickling. ‘I’m not the one chained up and… helpless.’

  He could feel an involuntary erection coming on. Hated his body, himself, for allowing it, fought to keep it down.

  He pulled his head away, looked at her face. Steel in his eyes. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You might not be. But there’s a nationwide manhunt going on for you. Your description is in the papers, on TV, the internet, everywhere. You can’t get away. They’ll find you.’

  She smiled.

  ‘Maybe they will.’

  She laughed, moved her body in close to his.

  ‘But not just yet…’

  96

  Marina sat back, waiting to see what Mark Turner would say next, waiting to see where Mickey’s questions would guide him.

  He was good, she thought. Getting the information out of him in his own way at his own pace. He was surprising her. She had thought on first meeting him that he was just a typical copper: boorish, macho, problems with women, especially those with authority over him, the usual. But he was proving himself to be different. There was a slight glitch when she saw his response to Turner’s goading of him, calling him thick, throwing quotes at him he didn’t know, but he handled himself well, recovered quickly.

  Her eyes caught her mobile on the desk. She had put it on silent when the interrogation started. She checked the screen: two messages. One from Phil, one from Nick Lines. She looked back at Mickey, thought he could handle himself for a few minutes, took out her earpiece and hit voicemail.

  Her eyes widening as she listened.

  ‘So who was this person?’ said Mickey. ‘The one you got to do things for you?’

  Turner shrugged. ‘Nobody. A real nobody. Even less important than our targets.’

  ‘Really? I’d have thought it would be someone quite important if you wanted to get them to do all that for you.’

  Turner shook his head. ‘Well you’d be wrong. As you have been about everything else, thick copper.’

  Mickey said nothing. Waited.

  ‘He was just a squaddie. Some damaged, war-traumatised squaddie. Completely mind-fucked. Piss easy to manipulate.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’d killed this translator. Woman in Afghanistan that he got obsessed over. Big cover-up about it. Threatened with a court martial, everything. But instead they invalided him out, on the quiet.’ He laughed. ‘Didn’t want the embarrassment. ’

  ‘Can’t blame them,’ said Mickey. ‘Already in enough trouble over there.’

  Turner nodded, back to being mates in a pub, then checked himself. Remembered where he was, who he was supposed to be. Worked the arrogance back into his features once more. ‘He burnt this woman to death. Raped her then killed her. Burnt himself pretty badly in the process too.’

  ‘So how did you come across him?’

  ‘Fiona did. At the hospital. He’d been sent for therapy.’

  ‘What kind?’

  Turner shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Speech, psychology, occupational, all sorts, I suppose. Whatever he needed.’

  ‘And he met Fiona Welch.’

  Turner nodded. ‘She said he so easy to manipulate it was laughable. She could tell him anything she wanted, anything at all. And he’d believe it. Didn’t matter what kind of stupid, twisted shit she said, he believed it. She used to come home telling me what she’d said and how he’d believed it.’ He smiled, shaking his head. ‘We used to laugh about that…’

  Mickey was about to speak when he heard Marina’s voice in his ear. Fast urgent. ‘Can you talk?’

  ‘Give me a minute, Mark.’

  Without waiting, Mickey stood up, exited the interview room.

  Marina was waiting for him in the corridor outside. ‘I wouldn’t have interrupted you unless it was something important,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a couple of phone calls. There’s something I’ve got to tell you.’

  She told him.

  When Mickey went back into the room he could barely keep the smile off his face.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Where were we? Oh yes. You were telling me about your squaddie.’

  ‘The Creeper, we called him.’

  ‘Why?’

  He shrugged. ‘Because he’s a creep.’

  ‘And Fiona chose him because he was easy to manipulate? ’

  Turner nodded. ‘Like a retarded little kid.’

  ‘No other reason?’

  ‘No.’ He saw the half-smile on Mickey’s face. Doubt crept into his features. ‘Why? What d’you mean?’

  ‘She didn’t choose him for another reason?’

  ‘Like what?’ Very uneasy now.

  ‘Like, the fact he was Adele Harrison’s brother?’

  Turner’s mouth fell open.

  Stayed open.

  Mickey kept his smile controlled.

  Got you, he thought.

  97

  ‘ I’m going to tell you a story,’ said Fiona Welch to Phil, still up close to him, almost sitting on his lap, moving her hips rhythmically, grinding slowly against him.

  Phil swallowed hard, tried to look – move – away. He couldn’t. ‘What about?’ he said. ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘Me,’ she said, the words whispered breathily, Marilyn Monroe-like. ‘How naughty I am.’ She traced her finger down his chest. ‘And what drives me to do… what I’ve been doing.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Phil. ‘Nothing interesting, then.’

  She drew back from him, teeth bared. Hissing. ‘Just another thick copper. Like all the others.’ Leaned into him again, her finger back on his chest, joined by the others, dug the nails of her left hand into him this time. Hard.

  Her nails were sharp. Strong. They hurt. Drew blood.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Tell me. Why you do what you do.’

  She took her finger away. Smiled. ‘That’s better. Much more fun when you play along with me, isn’t it?’ A sigh of contentment. ‘Now. Where were
we? Yes. Why I do what I do.’ She stuck her hands out, together at the wrists. ‘Because I’m a bad girl, Mr Policeman. You’d better take me in your big strong arms and handcuff me.’ She giggled. ‘Oh, I forgot. You can’t.’

  Venom in the final words.

  ‘You’re so funny,’ said Phil. ‘See how I’m laughing?’

  Her eyes blazed. ‘You think you’re clever? Do you? Really?’

  Her hands were on him, slapping his face, tearing at him.

  ‘Do you? Do you?’

  More slaps, more scratches. Digging her nails into the side of his face, deep, sharp, dragging them down to his chin.

  Phil wanted to scream, to shout right into her face. But he managed to stop himself, despite the searing pain in his face. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

  ‘Do you?’ The words screamed in his face.

  ‘No,’ he said, gasping for air, ‘No. I… I don’t…’

  She took her hands away. They were bloodied, parts of his face beneath her nails. She examined them like they had just gone through an expensive manicure. She nodded, pleased with the results. Turned her attention back to Phil.

  She smiled. ‘Good. I’m glad to hear it.’

  ‘So,’ Phil said, his face burning with pain, ‘why are you… are you doing… what you’re doing…’

  ‘Good boy. Doing what you’re told.’ Whispering again. ‘I like that in a man. In fact, I demand it. So why have I done all this?’ She swung her arms round, as if taking responsibility for their surroundings. ‘Simple. To prove a point.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘How superior I am,’ her voice sing-song.

  ‘You mean to me?’

  ‘Oh, certainly to you. But to everyone else, too. Everyone. I am the Nietzschean concept of the Superman made flesh. Or, rather, Superwoman.’

  ‘And how do you… do you go about that, then?’

  ‘I… bend people to my will. Make them do my bidding. Make them do…’ A gesture, a theatrical flourish of the wrist. ‘Anything I want.’

  ‘Even murder?’

  She knelt in close to him again. He felt her hot breath on his ruined face. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, licking his blood off her nails, ‘especially murder…’

  98

  ‘ What… what d’you mean?’ Turner looked confused, scared even. ‘He was… he was just a squaddie. Just a squaddie that Fiona found. That we could use.’

  ‘No he wasn’t, Mark. He was Adele Harrison’s brother.’ Turner shook his head. ‘No. You’re lying. Her brother died in Afghanistan. Roadside bomb. IED. She told me.’

  ‘She told everybody that, Mark. Because it’s easier to believe than what, or who, he really is.’

  ‘A murdering rapist,’ said Marina in Mickey’s ear. He nodded.

  ‘A murdering rapist,’ he said aloud.

  ‘No… no… you’re lying. She said you would, Fiona said you’d, you’d try something like this. Play mind games, try to get inside my head…’ He put his elbows on the table, head down. Hands balled into fists, rubbing his temples.

  Mickey leaned forward, his voice, calm, quiet. No need to shout or scream, just let the authority of his words carry over. ‘Mark. I’m telling you the truth, mate. She’s lied to you.’

  ‘No… no…’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She wouldn’t…’

  ‘He’s going,’ said Marina, ‘don’t lose him, keep him talking. If he goes into himself now we’ll have lost him. Bring him back, Mickey.’

  Mickey nodded. ‘Well, let’s come back to that. Tell me what you wanted him for.’

  Turner looked up, confused once more. ‘What?’

  ‘The Creeper, as you called him. Tell me what you wanted with him. What you did with him.’

  ‘We… we programmed him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To do what we wanted. To prove we could do it.’

  ‘And what did you do? What did you make him do?

  ‘We turned him into… anything we wanted, really.’

  ‘A weapon?’

  The sneering smile made a small reappearance. ‘The British Army had already done that to him.’

  ‘You just refined the process, yeah?’

  Turner shrugged.

  ‘So, this programming. How’d you do it?’

  ‘Told him… told him what he wanted to hear.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘Rani. That was the translator he killed. The woman. We told him she was still alive. Still… still in love with him.’ Another laugh. ‘And he believed it. Stupid bastard.’

  ‘How did that work?’

  ‘She spoke to him.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Through her BlackBerry. She texted him. We told him it was the spirit of Rani speaking to him. He had to imagine that the words that appeared on his phone he could hear in his head. And he could text back to talk to her.’

  ‘And he believed that?’

  ‘Yeah. Soft bastard.’

  Mickey sat back, sighed. This wasn’t what he was expecting. This was too much. He didn’t know how to deal with it. He gave a quick glance to the screen, hoped Marina saw the signal.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Marina in Mickey’s ear. ‘He must be some kind of… let me think… borderline personality? Psychopath? Certainly with psychopathic tendencies. Something like that. I don’t know enough about him. Ask him how they made it convincing.’

  ‘How did you convince him it was actually Rani talking to him? Could have been anyone pretending to be her.’

  ‘He did it because there’s not much left of him and he wanted to believe. She’s all he had left.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And she told him what he wanted to hear. That she was coming back to him. He just had to find her.’

  ‘Find her? How?’

  ‘She would be in different bodies. He’d be told where she was, what she looked like. And that Rani’s spirit would be inside some woman. He had to watch her until we told him otherwise.’

  ‘And then?’

  Turner shrugged. ‘We didn’t want them any more. Got rid of them.’

  Mickey sat back, letting the information sink in. He couldn’t believe it. Didn’t see how someone would fall for it, no matter how mentally damaged they must be.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ he said. ‘No one would fall for something as lame as that. No matter what condition they were in.’

  Turner just laughed. ‘You haven’t seen the Creeper. You wouldn’t say that if you had.’

  ‘Messed up?’

  ‘Totally.’

  And even more messed up by the time you two had finished with him, thought Mickey, but decided not to say it aloud.

  ‘So… help me here, Mark. I’m trying to understand. You’ve got this guy to… what? Kill for you?’

  Turner shrugged.

  ‘What does he do? Talk me through it.’

  ‘We give him a target. He stalks them, we get him going, tell him things about them, what they feel for him. He gets obsessed, goes mental over them. Then we tell him the spirit’s gone, jumped to another body.’

  ‘And… what then? He kills them?’ A feeling of dread went through Mickey as he waited for the answer.

  Turner shook his head. ‘We tell him they’re husks, the bodies. Just husks. No use any more. Then we get him to put them away somewhere.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Somewhere safe.’

  ‘And leave them there?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we might need them again. That’s the next stage. Programming someone who’s not a nutter like him. Someone normal. See what we can do with them.’

  ‘And because they might tell.’

  Turner shrugged. Casual. ‘Yeah. That too.’

  Mickey sat back, his head spinning from all the information. He shook his head, tried to clear it. ‘But why? Why, Mark? Why do all this?’

  Turner leaned forward, eyes alive with a sick, dark light. ‘Because we can, that’s
why…’

  ‘Keep focused, Mickey.’ Marina in his ear again. ‘Ask him about the victims. Who chose them, how they were chosen. He’s not telling us the whole story. And I don’t know why. Either he doesn’t know it all or he’s holding something back. Find out which it is.’

  ‘Who chose the girls, Mark?’

  ‘Fiona.’

  ‘All Mark’s ex-girlfriends,’ said Marina. ‘Interesting.’

  ‘So you didn’t mind that they were all your ex-girlfriends, Mark? That Fiona was targeting them?’

  Turner flinched, a sharp, quick stab of pain showed in his face. Then nothing. In control again. He forced a shrug. ‘Why? I’m above all that now. Doesn’t matter, does it?’

  ‘No he’s not, Mickey, he flinched. They’re his old girlfriends and it still hurts, no matter what he says.’

  Mickey looked at him, listened to Marina.

  ‘It’s his weak spot. We’ve got him,’ she said in his ear. ‘Go in for the kill. Finish him off.’

  99

  Phil stared at Fiona Welch, tried to ignore the pain in his cheek, just concentrate. Talk to her.

  ‘So…’

  A wave of pain ran through him. He tamped it down, breathed deeply. Fiona Welch’s head was cocked to one side as if she was an animal, listening. Or an anthropologist, observing. Her face was serene, sweet.

  Phil tried again. ‘Fiona,’ he said, ‘what’s this going to prove? You can’t get away with it.’

  She shrugged, smiled sweetly. Didn’t answer.

  ‘The rest of the team are going to be looking for me. I told them where I was going. When they get here, they’ll get you too.’

  Another shrug. ‘So?’

  ‘So you’ll be caught. Prison.’

  ‘So?’

  Phil shook his head. She was beyond reasoning with. ‘What d’you hope to get out of this?’

  ‘My Ph.D.’

  Phil wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly. ‘What?’

  ‘My Ph.D. It’s in Victimology and Coercion. It examines how a subservient personality can be totally controlled by a dominant one. It also examines the mindset of the victim, the methodology needed to create that particular mindset in the first instance.’ She smiled. ‘With examples.’