The Stalker's Song

by Georgia Brown

  ‘One hundred per cent. I never forget a face. It’s definitely him.’

  ‘And Tim Lawrenson knows him as Terry Archer? We need to speak with this Tim, urgently.’

  ‘I’ll see if I can get a contact number from Fiona.’

  ‘And you’re sure Carol and Pauline went into the flat? Couldn’t they have gone somewhere else, shopping or something, when the police didn’t turn up?’

  ‘It’s possible, but I’m sure Carol would have rung me. If only to complain about the police not turning up. And why aren’t they answering their phones now? I’m really uneasy about this.’

  ‘Right, we’ll ask around to see if the neighbours have seen anything unusual. Circulate the details of Carol’s car and see what that brings up. And get Tim Lawrenson to go to the station in Newcastle. We’ll interview him as soon as we get back.’

  Just then, a young PC came to the door of the ground floor flat.

  ‘Ma’am? Something you need to see here.’ Gayle followed the DCI and the constable into the kitchen. He walked round to the far side of the central island, where he pointed to some fresh-looking stains on the tongue and groove woodwork. ‘This looks like blood, ma’am. Still wet. Looks like someone’s tried to clean it up, but has missed the bit in the grooves.’

  ‘Oh,’ Gayle exclaimed, involuntarily. ‘How did we miss that?’

  DCI Mayne squatted down to take a closer look. ‘Right, this is now a crime scene. Gayle, get forensics here. Robin, man the door. You know the drill – nobody to enter until forensics arrive.’

  Two Detective Sergeants, and eight uniformed lads from Newcastle were drafted in, and door to door enquiries were swiftly under-way. The initial response didn’t produce anyone who recognised the photograph from the file. No-one seemed to know much about who had lived at number 27. Gayle spoke to an elderly lady, who lived in a bungalow to the rear of the block of flats. The lady said her bedroom window looked on to the garage door at the back of number twenty-seven. She told Gayle she’d often seen a large, dark-blue car being driven into the garage. Unfortunately, as the car had tinted windows and the garage door was operated by remote control, she never actually saw the driver, and so couldn’t give a description or recognise him from either photograph.

  It was now late afternoon, and after Gayle had checked again that neither Carol nor Pauline had returned home, nor been in touch with Fiona, the conclusion was reached that this could be a double abduction and a possible assault. DCI Mayne got the Superintendent on the phone and brought him up to speed.

  ‘Right, Mayne. I’ll be SIO on this. First briefing in the Major Incident Room in, say, an hour and a half.’

  On her way to the station, for the briefing, Gayle detoured to bring Fiona up to date. She omitted to mention the bloodstains. Fiona was shocked to learn that Carol and Pauline were missing, but Gayle was unable to give her any details. She knew that in any kidnap situation, information is tightly controlled and always at the discretion of the Senior Investigating Officer.

  ‘Oh God, what do you think’s happened to them?’ Fiona asked, searching Gayle’s face. ‘Where can they be? I’ll have to let Julia know. Give her more bad news about her mother. When will it all end?’ She looked very worried and began pacing about, running her hands through her short hair, making it stick up. ‘Pauline’s husband is working away in Quatar... I don’t know how to contact him.’

  ‘Come and sit down, Fiona.’ Gayle steered her to a chair. ‘We’ll advise everyone who needs to know. I’m going to ring Julia myself now and arrange for her to come straight home. We’ll have someone drive her up. I want you to keep her here, with you, until we get things resolved. Will you do that? You have my number. Let me know immediately if you hear anything from Carol or Pauline. I’ll let you know as soon as we have some news. In the meanwhile, apart from discussing this with Julia, you can’t tell anyone else what’s happening. It’s absolutely vital, in a potential abduction, that information is tightly contained.’

  ‘I understand.’ Fiona’s face had lost all colour.

  ‘I’m arranging for an officer to stay with you. She’s on her way now. And it shouldn’t be too long before Julia gets here.’

  In the car, Gayle got Julia on the phone and explained what had happened.

  When Julia went into panic mode, crying and shouting, Gayle felt the need to be firm. ‘Julia. Calm Down. I’m arranging for an officer to collect you to bring you home. I want you to stay with Fiona until I contact you again. Do you understand? We’re doing all we can to find your mum.’ Once she had established that Julia understood her instructions, she hung up before Julia could ask for more details.

  Gayle had to keep an open mind until they could establish exactly what had happened, but she feared the worst. She was pretty certain that Justin Green had abducted Carol and would probably kill her, if he hadn’t already done so. A chilling thought crossed her mind. If she hadn’t seen that photograph, and if she hadn’t been on that case in London five years earlier, the team now wouldn’t know who they were looking for. At least now they had a name, and a face.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  I was slumped in the chair, shivering. ‘But why? Why me?’

  ‘You’ve no idea, have you Carol?’ he was leaning over me, his face in mine, smelling of Davidoff aftershave. ‘From the moment I saw you on TV, I knew I had to have you.’

  ‘TV?’ I couldn’t think what he was talking about.

  ‘There you were, looking fabulous, outside the Albert Hall. All business-like and aloof in your blue suit. Cool and confident’ He grinned and took a seat on the settee, spreading his arms wide, hands on the back of it. ‘I needed to shatter that confidence.’

  The penny dropped. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been interviewed by the BBC for all of two minutes, a couple of years ago, on my way into a business conference. Something about my opinion on the economy.

  ‘I wanted to see you subdued and whimpering, so I tracked you down,’ he grinned, pleased with himself. ‘Found you were a landlord. I kept an eye on your portfolio and rented the first property that became available. When you came to interview me for the tenancy, I thought Wow she’s even better in real life’. He crossed his legs and settled back further into the settee, preparing to expand on his theme. ‘I’ve enjoyed watching you; fantasising about what I’m going to do to you.’ He licked his lips. ‘Couldn’t make my move while you were with that old man. Then after he’d gone, you were never alone. What with your breakdown and everything. How could you have a breakdown over an old man like him, when you could have me?’

  My heart stopped. Suddenly I knew. ‘That WAS you in the photograph, wasn’t it?’ I asked quietly. ‘You joined the hiking group.’

  He jumped up and loomed over me again, one hand on each arm of the chair, his face in mine. ‘What photo?’ he demanded. ‘What fucking photograph are you talking about?’ He was red in the face, screaming at me.

  ‘On Peter’s phone. A photo of the hiking group.’

  ‘Trust fucking Peter to have a fucking photo.’ I could see him thinking, making the connection. ‘So that’s why you sent your new ‘Agent’ over...’

  ‘But... Tim said it wasn’t you...’

  ‘Tim.’ He spat out his name, as he stood up. ‘I’m smarter than all your knights in shining armour.’ He smiled at me, a smile of pure malice. ‘Thought he’d recognise Terry Archer? The only trouble with that is, it wasn’t me who answered the door,’ he laughed heartily. ‘It was my brother.’

  Oh, Tim, that’s why you didn’t recognise him. ‘Did you kill Peter?’ I asked quietly. I had to know, yet I didn’t want to know.

  He was still laughing as he sat back down on the settee. ‘It was like taking candy from a baby.’

  ‘You murdered him? You murdered Peter?’ A wave of anguish coursed through my body. Painful. Overwhelming. I felt as though I’d been punched hard in my stomach.

  ‘Yes, naive little Carol, I murdered your belo
ved husband. And I enjoyed it. It was almost too easy. Waited til he was just about to descend the Chimney, then one hefty push and he was gone.’ He mimicked pushing someone, laughing.

  A wail of fury erupted from me. ‘You bastard. You evil, fucking bastard.’ I jumped up, screaming, struggling against the bonds on my wrists, wanting to kill him with my bare hands, but only managing to kick out at him.

  He got to his feet, took a step towards me, and pushed me violently back into the chair. I felt a stinging blow on the side of my head. Putting his face in mine once more, he pulled a pet lip and in a mock-hurt voice said, ‘You must have known you were better off without that old man dragging you down?’

  My mind was reeling. The shock of knowing he’d murdered Peter added to my terror. He was already a double murderer and that realisation brought with it the certain knowledge that he would kill me too.

  I tried to marshal my thoughts. We shouldn’t have gone into the flat before the police arrived. Will Gayle know by now that we didn’t have an escort? Will she be looking for us? It’ll be too late. She won’t know where to look...

  I had to keep him talking. Try to work out how I could possibly get away from him. ‘How did you know I’d be in Barbados?’ I asked, already knowing the answer.

  ‘Oh Carol, there’s nothing about you that I don’t know. Didn’t you know I was watching your every move?’ Without waiting for an answer, he went on. ‘I’ve listened to your phone conversations; all your little chats and emails with Fiona and Julia. I’ve watched you crying yourself to sleep over that old man…’

  He resumed his seat in the chair opposite me. ‘Pouring your heart out to that Linda. “He was my soul-mate” he mimicked, crossing his legs. ‘And as for the Barbados police. Those fools were never going to find me entering Barbados. As if I’d travel as Dan Smithson... give me some credit.’

  My mind was trying to process everything. It felt like a knife in my heart to know that Peter had been murdered, but I couldn’t let myself think about that now. Nor could I think about Pauline’s poor body lying in the boot of the car. If I dwelt on them, I’d go to pieces completely and I knew that if I was to stand any chance of survival I needed a cool head. I’d have to deal with those things later; for now I needed to keep my emotions in check. I had to concentrate on finding a way to survive.

  ‘It was great fun finding out that ex of yours had been arrested. Never laughed so much in my life. What a moron! Thinks he’s still in the SAS,’ he laughed scornfully. ‘Another little knight in shining armour. Well, just look where that’s got him. Actually, he’s lucky he’s in prison, safe from my attentions.’ Warming to his theme again, he went on, ‘What you don’t seem to have grasped, Carol, is that I’m cleverer than all your other admirers. I’m always one step ahead, of them, and the police.’

  My wrists were on fire and I had cramps in my arms. ‘Please, could you untie my wrists? They’re really hurting... I promise I won’t try to get away.’

  He gave me a withering look and I thought he was going to refuse, but he got up from the chair and pulled a knife from his back pocket. For a heart-stopping moment I thought he was going to stab me, but he roughly yanked me by the shoulder, turned me sideways, then sawed at the tape around my wrists. Relief was mixed with intense pain as I rubbed my sore wrists and felt the circulation returning to my numb hands, arms and aching shoulders. He leant over me again and put the tip of the knife against my throat.

  ‘Do anything stupid and I’ll slit your throat,’ he said, almost casually, and I didn’t doubt him. He resumed his seat on the sofa and went on, ‘While you were in the cupboard, I took your car to an old, disused garage, down by the docks. They won’t find it. And they won’t have a clue where to start looking for you.’

  In the cupboard? ‘But they know I was coming to see you.’

  ‘Really? They’ll find the flat empty; obviously not lived in for some time. Once they start to suspect something’s happened to you, they won’t know where to start looking. There’s no way they can trace you to this place. They don’t know my real name; they’ll be trying to trace Dan Smithson, who doesn’t exist. You’re the only person who knew me by that name. Ah, and I remembered you took a picture of me when I first took up the tenancy, so I took the liberty of removing it from your file when I was in your house. And replacing it with another. He looked pleased with himself. ‘You see, I think of everything. There are no photographs of Dan Smithson for anyone to find. Neat, eh?’

  ‘There’s the one on Peter’s phone.’

  ‘Well, let’s think about that, Carol.’ He got to his feet, pacing about the small room. I could see he was thinking through the implications of the police possibly having his photograph. ‘Best case scenario, the police don’t make any connection between Dan Smithson and the photo on the phone. Even if they know you thought the guy in the photo was your tenant from South Shields, Tim will tell them that it’s not. They’ll find the substitute photo I put in your file and be looking for a chubby, ginger bloke. Worst case scenario, they decide the picture on the phone IS of your tenant, and they circulate it. That could possibly bring up my real name. But, look at me now. I look nothing like I did. No-one seeing me now would recognise me as Justin Green. And I’ll be long gone by the time they work anything out, anyway.’

  He continued with his diatribe. ‘I got rid of my car after I realised that macho ex of yours had probably seen it. Got a replacement using another alias, so there’s no link there. I rented this place a couple of months ago. We’re very remote, high up on the moors. There’s no-one around for miles.’ He smiled at me again, a cold grimace.

  ‘I took risks to get to you, Carol, knowing your memory was coming back. I couldn’t have you telling your ‘friend’ Gayle, all about me.’

  ‘But I didn’t remember. I didn’t know who you were,’ I protested.

  ‘Too risky, Carol. You could’ve remembered any minute. Anyway, it’s too late now. Pity really that I hadn’t finished you off that night in Barbados. It would’ve saved me an awful lot of trouble. Then again, I wouldn’t have had all the fun I’ve had watching your feeble efforts to come to terms with things and try to work out what happened to you. Or the fun we’re going to have now.’ The chilling smile again; he was enjoying himself.

  ‘Whatever. Here’s the plan now. We’re going to have some fun. Lots of fun, together. You’ll enjoy it; well some of it, and then it’ll be time to say goodbye. When it gets dark, we’re going to go for a little drive on the moors. There’s no-one around, so don’t go thinking you’re going to get any help. I’ve been busy. I’ve prepared a nice little place for you. It took some digging in this cold; the ground was very hard. It’ll have to hold two of you now, of course. Friends forever,’ he laughed. ‘I hope you appreciate all the effort I’ve put in just for you? You’ll never be found. There’ll be no reason for anyone to ever start looking around here. You’ll just disappear off the face of the earth.’ He smiled again, spreading his arms wide, palms up, delighted with his ingenuity.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  As the realisation sank in that he really was planning to kill me, I felt faint, my guts churning. Oh God, Julia will never know what happened to me.

  ‘I can see you sitting there wondering how to save yourself Carol. But you can’t. If you try to get away, believe you me you won’t succeed.’

  ‘What’s wrong with you that you feel the need to kill me?’

  ‘Oh, Carol, Carol. Please spare me the psychoanalysis.’

  ‘What about your children? You’ll lose them forever if you go to prison.’

  ‘Children? What children?’ he laughed.

  ‘Your girls. The photos on your wall...’

  He laughed even harder. ‘You are so gullible. I’ve got no kids or ex-partner living around the corner.’

  ‘Well, why...?’

  ‘To make me seem like a regular guy, Carol. Someone you’d trust and rent your flat out to. Made me seem like less
of a loner, less of a weirdo. And it worked, didn’t it?’

  I didn’t respond. Changing tack again, he suddenly jumped up, put his face a few inches from mine again, and bellowed at me.

  ‘Have you any idea how long it took me to wash your blood off? I was in the sea for bloody ages. Then I had to walk for fucking miles to dry off! And then to find you were still alive! My God, I had a wobble then.’ He was yelling at me and seeing him ranting and getting more incoherent, I realised that he was becoming even more unstable. The thought was chilling. I’m going to die at the hands of this madman. With a cry of rage, I launched myself at him, kicking him and trying to gouge his eyes out with my thumbs.

  ‘You evil bastard.’ I screamed. He held me off easily, laughing. He grabbed one of my wrists, turned me round and twisted my arm hard up my back. The pain was excruciating and I cried out.

  ‘Scream all you want, Carol, there’s nobody to hear you. Oh, I do love it when you’re mad. Now, this way.’ he said, shoving me ahead of him. He propelled me out of the sitting room, into the tiny hall. With my wrist still held firmly in his grip, he pushed me forward, up the stairs. When I stumbled, he slammed his knee into my back and yelled, ‘Bitch... keep moving.’ We reached the upper landing and he pushed me straight ahead, into a bedroom. ‘I’ve had fun preparing this for you, Carol.’

  I looked around and saw a neat, lightly-furnished bedroom. I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. In the middle of the far wall, there was a double bed, covered with a white bedspread. The only other furniture in the room was a small pine chest of drawers and two matching bedside tables. Then I noticed the manacles attached to the wall behind the bed.

  ‘No.’ I said quietly, ‘You don’t need those... Please...’

  ‘Oh I love it when you beg. But trust me, they’ll add to the fun.’ He had the knife in his hand again. He yanked on my arm turning me to face him and put the point of the knife under my chin. ‘Take your clothes off.’