My Little Eye

by Stephanie Marland

  Silence.

  He tries the handle. It’s locked. Thumps the door with the heel of his fist, louder, harder. ‘Open the door.’

  Again nothing.

  In his mind’s eye he sees Melissa, dead but sitting upright, her head slumped forward, the noose around her throat holding her captive.

  He steps back. Aims. Kicks hard, his heel connecting with the bottom of the lock mechanism and the wood surrounding it. The timber splinters on impact. Dom feels the aftershock vibrate through his leg, his hip. The lock’s still holding, but the wood around it is not. He slams his shoulder against the door, once, twice. It gives way, swinging open, propelling him into the flat.

  ‘Clementine?’ he shouts, stumbling forward, just managing not to trip.

  Still nothing.

  Is she here? Am I wrong?

  There’s no sign of anyone. It’s bizarre. There’s music playing – some eighties crap, Simply Red, he thinks – but the volume’s not that high. Whoever’s here must have heard him kicking the door down, so where are they?

  He spots a woman’s bag half-open on the red sofa, its contents spilling out onto the turquoise throw. A phone lies on the floor; its screen is shattered and lifeless.

  Is he here? Is she his prisoner?

  There are two doors leading off the living space. One is the bathroom; he can see the tiled floor and the corner of the washbasin from here. The other door is shut.

  Four strides and he reaches it. Yanking the handle down, he shoves the door open. ‘Clementine Starke, this is the …’

  She’s naked. The bed she’s lying on is covered in a white sheet and strewn with petals. The man beside her has his back to the door. He’s bending over her, obscuring the upper half of her body and her face from view. On the floor beside the bed is a black doctor’s bag.

  It’s him.

  Clementine isn’t moving. Dom can’t tell if she’s dead or alive. He has to get to her. ‘Stop. Police. You’re under arrest.’

  The man turns as if he’s moving in slow motion. He twists at the waist but his feet don’t follow. He drops to his knees.

  He jerks his head to the right, and that’s when Dom sees the syringe. It’s sticking out of his left eye, the plunger depressed. Empty.

  He looks at Dom with unfocused eyes. Tries to shuffle across the floor towards him. He’s trying to say something, his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish. Dom can’t make out the words.

  He falls to the ground. Eyes open. Gone.

  65

  CLEMENTINE

  ‘Clementine, can you hear me? It’s over.’ It’s Dom’s voice, close beside me.

  I start to whimper. Don’t open my eyes. Can’t, not yet. The pain won’t stop. It keeps building, the napalm in my blood sending a continuous ripple of explosions through me until it feels as though they will split me apart.

  ‘Breathe, Clementine. You’re in shock, but you’re safe. Breathe in. Breathe.’

  I exhale too fast. The breath grates across the back of my throat, choking me. The void it leaves in my chest is a vast ache of grief. Rolling onto my side, I curl into the foetal position. It feels as if I’m imploding.

  I feel a hand on mine. Warm. Squeezing. I hear Dom’s voice, closer now, saying, ‘Clementine. For fuck’s sake, breathe.’

  Opening my eyes, I see Dom staring at me. I breathe in. The pain ebbs a fraction. ‘Sorry,’ I try to say, but through my closed lips the word is just a mumble.

  Dom frowns, and for a moment it looks like he doesn’t know what to do. He looks from me to Bloodhound’s body lying on the floor at his feet, then back to me. There’s a mixture of shock and relief on his face then, as he holds my gaze, his expression hardening into something else. Anger.

  Murderer. He’s seen what you are.

  The voice inside my head was wrong about Father; it always has been. I know that now. So I cry. I really let go. Let the sobs burst from deep inside me, twelve years of stored-up loss and guilt and sadness. Tears that I’ve never felt the need for until now flow down my face, washing away the make-up. Erasing Veronica.

  Dom grabs my robe from the back of the door and covers me. His scowl is gone. There’s concern in his eyes. ‘Clementine, are you hurt? Are you OK?’

  Shivering, I pull the robe tighter around myself. I’m cold, and every nerve in my body is jangling, but I’m glad. I realise that it means I’m whole, real. Alive. I survived the fire and the dark shadow that killed my father, I survived Bloodhound trying to kill me and now I’m feeling something again – glorious and terrible, suffocating and overwhelming emotion. It’s what I’ve yearned for all these years. I’m beginning to believe I can survive it too.

  I look up at Dom and try to smile.

  Everything happens so fast.

  Dom’s asking questions and I’m answering, trying to write down answers although the pen feels heavy, my movements uncoordinated. More people arrive and they’re talking, too. Dom is pushed further away from me. Then another detective, one I recognise from the press conference, says something to him and he frowns. He looks over at me, holds my gaze for a moment, then turns and follows his colleague out of my flat.

  I remain, as do the people and their questions. As stern-faced people in white paper suits take things away in clear plastic evidence bags – the bed sheet, my laptop, my phone and Bloodhound’s bag – questions and answers and more questions are fired at me. I nod, and I shake my head, and I try to tell them what I can, what I’m able to. I feel grateful, so very grateful, that I have survived, but I cannot rid myself of the nausea, the horror, the stifling fear I felt with Bloodhound and the knowledge that those other women, his previous victims, died with that feeling as their last.

  I tell them what happened. They believe me, I think, but they keep on asking questions. Keep saying it shouldn’t be possible for someone in my condition to have fought back. Say it’s a miracle I’m not dead.

  I nod. It’s best if they put it down to a miracle so I don’t tell them about the fury. How I gave in to it and let it take me over.

  How I unleashed the wolf and let her fight to the death.

  Murderer.

  66

  www.darkstreetsdarkcrimes.com

  Bringing you off-the-record crime news as it happens – pop back soon for more …

  THE END OF THE LOVE AFFAIR [posted 17:43 by Crime Queen]

  The rumours are true – THE LOVER is dead. Sources say it happened this afternoon as he tried, but failed, to claim another victim. She, according to my intel, is at Hammersmith Hospital getting checked out.

  UPDATE: THE LOOK OF LOVE

  It’s been revealed that the twenty-seven-year-old woman who fought off THE LOVER was a friend of Glen Eastman, the freelance journalist who got too close and became the killer’s fifth (and first male) victim. Seems the amorous murderer spotted her and decided he liked what he saw. Tried to make her number six. More fool him!

  UPDATE: ALL YOUR FEARS ABOUT DENTISTS CONFIRMED

  Sources tell me becoming the object of THE LOVER’s affections wasn’t down to chance. His first four female victims had dental work done prior to their murder. THE LOVER selected his victims from the women visiting him – a cosmetic dental surgeon – for a consultation. Turns out we’re RIGHT to be scared of going to the dentist!

  UPDATE: NO CHARGE – IT’S SELF-DEFENCE, DARLING

  At last, the powers that be have decreed the twenty-seven-year-old woman who wrestled THE LOVER’s lethal injection from him and stabbed him with it acted in SELF-DEFENCE. Hurrah for girl power! I hope to be chatting with her soon.

  NINETEEN DAYS LATER

  67

  DOM

  ‘It’s bollocks, that’s what it is.’

  Sitting behind his desk, Jackson frowns at the profanity but doesn’t pull him up on it. ‘It’s the process, Dom.’

  ‘Like I said, it’s bollocks.’

  ‘We’ve been over this already. The IPCC are within their rights to suspend Darren Harris. You didn’t show a
t the meeting, so they made a decision in the absence of further information being forthcoming.’

  Dom says nothing.

  Jackson shakes his head. ‘Look, with the next round of budget cuts coming we need to do anything that’ll make the powers that be look at us with a bit of favour. You just need to sit tight. Do the interview with Holsworth on Monday, and get things straight. Things will work out.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Dom hopes his DCI is right. Once the stuff with the IPCC is done, he knows he’ll need to tackle Abbott about the information he was allegedly leaking to the press. He hasn’t forgotten what Clementine Starke told him, but he hasn’t told Jackson about that yet. Wants to have evidence to hand when he does. He can only cope with one internal investigation at a time.

  The only positive thing to come from his missing the IPCC interview is that they caught Thomas Leopold – the Lover. Or at least, Clementine Starke caught him. Dom shivers at the thought of her name. Of the lies she told him or, at least, the things she didn’t tell him that she should have.

  Jenna Malik. Zara Bretton. Kate Adams. Melissa Chamberlain. Glen Eastman. Leopold had picked his victims as they made arrangements for their cosmetic procedures, all except Eastman and Clementine. The DNA matched. They’d found a polaroid camera in the bag he took to Clementine Starke’s flat, and at his home, hidden inside a battered old armchair, they’d discovered a stack of photos, hundreds of them, dating back to the eighties. All the women in them had been made up to look the same, although there were only five who’d been photographed dead; the last four and the first.

  ‘Look, I know you had a few doubts about Clementine Starke, but she’s been nothing but helpful. Her only crime was being a friend of Eastman.’ Jackson says.

  Dom purses his lips together. Doesn’t speak. Jackson doesn’t get why the truth about Clementine Starke – her involvement in True Crime London, and the research she’s been doing online – bothers him so much, and he can’t explain. She should have told them about True Crime London before, and she should have told them she knew Leopold as Bloodhound, even if she thought his name was Colin Blunt. And, even if she didn’t feel she could tell him as a police officer, she could have told him off the record. She should have told him. He’d given her enough chances.

  ‘She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s all – being on that online forum thing attracted the attention of our killer.’ Jackson peers at Dom over the top of his glasses. A fatherly look that said I know what I’m talking about. ‘You took her statement. Leopold was guilty, not Clementine Starke.’

  He had taken her statements. She’d been subdued, in shock; speaking hesitantly and largely avoiding eye contact.

  Dom rubs his forehead, trying to ease the pressure he can feel building. ‘I still don’t like it. I mean, self-defence, really?’

  Jackson sighs, knowing they’ve been through this many times already, and knowing Dom’s going to keep pushing. He sounds resigned to going over it yet again as he reels off the facts. ‘You’ve seen the report. With the amount of drugs he’d pumped into her system it’s a miracle the poor girl managed to move at all, but she did. When pushed to extremes, people can do remarkable things – it’s the primal flight or fight response. Hers was very strong.’

  The moment he’d held Clementine Starke in his arms replays in his mind. He remembers how blood oozed from where the plastic had scored into her flesh, staining his hands; how cold she’d felt; and the gut-wrenching sound of her sobbing. He tells himself he’s being unfair. Letting his anger over her not telling him about True Crime London colour his judgement. ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘So let it go, Dom. It’s over.’

  ‘I guess.’ But if it was over, if he’d got justice for Jenna, Zara, Kate and Melissa, why do they still haunt him? Why does he lie awake, unsleeping? Why does he punish himself in the gym for hours every night? Why does he see the dead girls’ faces on every woman he speaks to? And why can’t he stop thinking about Clementine Starke?

  ‘Good. Don’t forget, you owe me.’ Jackson raises his eyebrows.

  Dom gets the message. If the DCI hadn’t stepped in to sweet-talk Holsworth things could have gone very wrong with the IPCC. He’d have been waist-deep in shit, even more than he is now.

  Chrissie still won’t talk to him. She’d left a message on his voicemail as soon as Harris told her he was suspended. Her voice was tight, her words stilted. Disappointment and anger were audible in every breath as she said it was his fault Harris had been suspended, and that there was talk of a criminal investigation. Told him if he’d bothered turning up to his own interview things would have been different, but that he never gave a crap about her, about family, and this bloody well proved it. From now on, as far as she was concerned, she had no brother. It wouldn’t be much of a change.

  It was the hurt, the fear talking, Dom knew that, but it didn’t change the facts. He had not taken responsibility. She’d trusted him, depended on him to come through for her like he always had since their parents died, and he had let her down. He’d felt it, like a punch to the chest, as Chrissie’s voice cracked when she said goodbye and he fought to stifle the sob welling up inside him as the voicemail ended. But still, he knew – Chrissie was right to get shot of him.

  Out of habit he takes out his phone and checks to see if he’s got any texts.

  1 new message

  He feels a moment of hope, then he reads who it’s from and adrenaline spikes his blood. Clementine Starke. Her words are brief and accompanied by a geotagged location.

  I have to see you. Now. Please come.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Writing a book means sitting on your own at a keyboard for hour upon hour. It sounds like a lonely process, and it would be if it wasn’t for the wonderful people I have around me, and who kindly forgive me for my reclusive ways when I’m absorbed in creating my story.

  First thanks must go to Jock. My Little Eye started life as an idea that came out of one of our many conversations. I can’t remember exactly what he said to spark the idea, but I know it was a long and lively debate about conspiracy, true-crime fans and social media. I was on the train home when I wrote the first scene with Clementine.

  I also owe Laura Wilson a huge debt of thanks. Laura – without your expert mentoring and guidance this book would never have happened. Thank you so much.

  Massive thanks to my subject experts – to Dave for teaching me about policing (and Cathy for keeping us piled up with food and wine); to Dr Chris for keeping me true on academic theory and research, and to Tors for her medical knowledge – these guys totally know their stuff, so any errors are absolutely mine.

  I remain eternally grateful to Andy and Helen for reading sections of the story when I lost confidence, and for telling me it’d be OK – you guys are awesome, and your support means everything.

  A thankful shout out to the City writers group – Rod, David, Laura, Rob, James and Seun – we started this journey together and I love that we’re continuing it shoulder to shoulder. You guys rock!

  As do my crime-writing sisters – Susi, Alexandra and Helen – who continue to keep me sane with a heady mix of laughs, hugs and wine. Your input is always spot on, and I love you muchly!

  The crime-writing community is such a lovely place and crime writers are the most generous bunch of people. I’ve met amazing friends, laughed till I’ve cried and learnt a huge amount from you all. Thank you. Please keep the advice and the smut coming!

  I’d also like to say a huge thank you to all the readers and bloggers who’ve been so supportive and cheered me on via social media and IRL – bookish people really are the nicest folk! A special mention goes to Liz Barnsley, who championed this book from an early stage, and continues to pimp it wherever she goes – Liz, you are legend.

  Massive thanks to my brilliant agent Oli Munson and the team at A.M. Heath for having faith in me and helping me navigate a whole new world. And to the Trapeze team and my super-fabulous editor Sam Eades – for her tirele
ss enthusiasm, pitch-perfect input and for helping me craft and polish this book into the story that it is today. I love every moment of working with you.

  And last, but absolutely not least, to my family – to Mum and Richard, Dad and Donna, to Will, Rachael and Darcy – thank you for always being there and for supporting me no matter what. And to Pod, who showed me you can achieve anything as long as you apply enough determination (and gin!).

  AUTHOR Q&A

  WITH STEPHANIE MARLAND

  Clementine Starke is a strong, complicated character. Did you have a clear idea of her from the outset, or did she develop as the story gained pace?

  I had a clear sense of her voice and peculiarities from the beginning but it took me a number of drafts to get her side of the story to a place I was happy with. A lot of that was due to her unpredictability – as a character she’s by nature inconsistent, yet I needed to have her actions consistent enough to be believable, while being inconsistent enough to be true to her nature. Another challenge was writing a character that’s numb emotionally, and therefore has very little empathy or emotion towards others, but still making her someone the reader can get behind. Through the editing process, by tweaking her character and emotional journey a bit more each time, I was able to refine her into the character she is now.

  Clementine joins an online ‘true crime group’ and becomes involved in the live pursuit of a serial killer. This is such an original idea – what inspired you?

  The idea of Clementine came out of a conversation with a friend about conspiracy theories and true crime, and how through social media we have access to far more information, far faster, than ever before. The way true crime draws people into trying to solve crimes that have gone unsolved seems to have accelerated and there are an increasing number of television programmes and podcasts dedicated to true crime. Now there are numerous online groups of true crime fans that come together and try to solve cold cases. It got me to thinking about where the phenomenon might go in the future, and I wondered ‘what if a true crime group decided they could beat the police at their own job?’. I wanted to explore the idea, the personalities attracted to doing something like that, and what lengths they might go to find out what really happened.