The Domino Killer (12 page)

The workshop had been his sanctuary all the through the night. He’d curled up with his memories, wrapped up in a large blanket. He tended to his candles, his flickering angels, replacing those that burnt out. He’d been listening out for the crash of the door, the sound of heavy boots, but nothing so far. His wife knew not to disturb him, this was where he lived with his secrets, but the police wouldn’t care about that.

Things were changing. He sensed it like a scent in the wind. He’d given something up: a small bit of control, because he’d been directed to act. It had spoiled everything. So he’d watched the flames dwindle on the large church candles, the wicks like sand in a timer, burning to pools of wax, everything distorted and messy.

The morning announced itself with a chill, the walls slick with condensation, his breaths coming out as a slight mist. He gathered his blanket around his shoulders. The night had been long.

He blew out the remaining candles and let the morning light take over, muted by the curtain still over the window. He blinked as he opened the door, the creak loud, and pulled his blanket tighter. As he walked up the path to the house, birds sang the welcome to the new day. He didn’t feel their brightness.

Everything was quiet in the house. The burglar alarm buzzed. A tap dripped. Other than that, there was nothing. It was too big for just the two of them but Helena wouldn’t leave. The place was filled with memories. He didn’t mind that. Cause and effect, that’s what memories are, the impact of an event embedded into the mind. And more than the mind. Every room took them back to when they met. Her sorrow. How she’d held onto him as she sobbed.

Cause and effect. Ripples.

Helena was still in bed. The alarm would sound soon and she’d go through her morning routines. They’d talk, just polite pleasantries, like two strangers forced to share a space. But he needed her. Her presence was like a diversion. It made his life look normal. She concealed him.

She would be getting ready to go to work shortly. He didn’t want to be there when she got up.

He left the house, blinking at the morning sun. His eyes felt heavy. He had to get his control back.

And at that thought, he felt the first simmer of anger. If nothing else, he could hit back at those who could hurt him. If his life was changing, so must the lives of others.

Joe was impatient as he waited on his balcony. He’d been ready for fifteen minutes but Ruby was still taking her time. The morning was underway outside, the streets already clogged, the trains and trams busy over the bridges. Where was she? It was school she was going to, not a night out.

His fingers drummed on the balcony rail, impatient to get the day underway so that he could find out more about Mark Proctor. Even the view failed to calm him, as it usually would.

There was a noise behind him. The swish of the balcony door. Ruby was there, a canvas bag slung over one shoulder. She was wearing make-up and her hair looked like it had been curled. He was about to say something, knowing that she was dressed like that because their mother wasn’t there to tell her otherwise, but he didn’t want to fall out with her. Was it really that important?

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you to school.’

He was silent as they walked through the apartment building, and in the lift on the way to the underground car park. He passed a few people in the building who were leaving for work. Some of them cast a suspicious eye over Ruby, a dolled-up schoolgirl leaving an apartment complex with a single man. Joe didn’t have the energy to disabuse them of their suspicions.

As they walked through the car park, Ruby’s shoes clomped loudly, the soles thick and heavy.

‘What’s wrong with you today?’ she said.

‘Nothing,’ Joe replied, and pressed his key fob to open the car door. ‘Just not used to being a taxi this early.’

Ruby climbed in with a slump and her arms were folded by the time Joe joined her.

He turned towards her. ‘I’m sorry, but this is one of the reasons why you have to go home. What if I’d been called to the police station? How would you get to school then?’

She shrugged. ‘Get the bus.’

‘Do you want to get the bus now?’

Ruby paused, and then shook her head.

‘Exactly,’ Joe said, and started the engine.

Ruby sulked and looked at her phone, as if she was messaging someone. He turned off the engine and put his forearms on the wheel. He looked across at her.

‘What?’ Ruby said, without looking up.

He sighed. ‘Nothing. Just looking at you, all grown up. It’s gone so quickly.’

‘Stop it, you’re getting all weird,’ she said.

‘You know that if anything happened to you, we’d be devastated. That’s why I need to know you’re safe. I don’t know if I can do that as well as Mum.’

‘Devastated?’ Ruby said, and lowered her phone. ‘I’d want much more than that. I’d want you outside the town hall with candles.’

‘It’s not funny,’ he said.

‘So stop saying stupid stuff. We’re going to be late.’

Joe turned the engine back on and reversed out of his space. He drove up the ramp, towards the bright sheet of daylight, and turned onto the road as if to go towards Ruby’s school. Just as he joined the slow-moving traffic, there was someone ahead staring straight at his car, standing, rooted to the spot, his hands in his pockets. Except he was against the sun so Joe could only get the outline, like a cutout figure.

Joe lowered his sun visor to get a better view, just to make sure, but by the time he could see with less glare, the person had gone.

Ruby turned to look. ‘Who was that?’ she said. ‘He looked like he was watching us.’

‘No, I’m sure he wasn’t,’ Joe said, unconvinced.

‘I saw him before.’

‘When?’

‘When I was getting ready. I could see him near the corner, looking up at the apartment.’

‘Why didn’t you say something?’

‘Because there are a lot of apartments. He could have been waiting for anyone.’

Joe’s hands tensed around the steering wheel. Who was waiting outside his apartment building? And why?

Sam had already been up for nearly two hours. He didn’t want to wish away the childhood of his two daughters, Emily and Amy, but he longed for them to acquire adult sleeping patterns.

He’d opted to get up so that Alice could get some sleep, but it left him needing coffee. The girls were at the breakfast table, chirping away to each other and munching on cereal. He could see them through the glass in the door, but he enjoyed listening to them more. Aged two and four, it was the last precious few months before school started; Emily spoke garbled nonsense as Amy used her younger sister as a sounding board for whatever she had planned for the day ahead. It would all change when Amy started school. Sam had seen what happened then, from the moans of his colleagues. Regular birthday parties meant weekends lost in play centres, and then the arguments over homework. What lay ahead was an end to this magic, and he knew he would miss it.

It was different for Alice. Sam knew she was feeling cooped up in the house and that she was thinking of going back to work once Emily started school, or even a college course. Anything but stay at home all day, was how Sam interpreted it. He understood completely. He needed to work. Alice deserved that too.

There was the steady thump of feet on the stairs, and then Alice came into the kitchen. Her hair was dishevelled and there were lines on one side of her face where she had been lying on a crease in the sheet.

‘I’m tired,’ she said in a drawl.

He looked up and down her body in an exaggerated way. ‘But sexy,’ he said. And he meant it. She’d cut her blonde hair into a much shorter style, elfin-like, which suited her sharp features: the cute point of her chin, the outline of her cheekbones, her eyes wide and blue. He’d fallen for her the first time he saw her, a sudden rush of adolescent desire, and the wonder had never left him, that someone as beautiful as Alice would be with him.

It drew a smile from her, and she went to him and put her arms round his waist. She buried her face into his chest and he kissed the top of her head, enjoying the feel of her body against his. He reached round her to put his cup down before putting one arm around her shoulders, the other on her bottom, the silkiness of her short nightdress creating static on his hands.

‘So what have you got on today?’ he said.

‘Much of the usual,’ she said, her voice muffled. ‘I might take the girls into town.’

‘You’ll never get these times back, you do know that.’ He started to lift up her nightdress, wanting to feel her naked skin under his hand.

She laughed and pulled away. ‘Easy, tiger,’ she said, and reached round him to flick on the kettle.

Sam smiled. ‘I’ve got to go anyway.’

‘We could meet up later. My parents could have the girls for an hour.’

‘The first days of a murder case are hectic,’ he said, but when her smile faded he added, ‘I’ll try though.’

‘I’d like that,’ she said.

He kissed her and then opened the kitchen door to say goodbye to Emily and Amy. They shrieked and waved and then he was gone.

It felt suddenly quiet when he got outside. The calm of his suburban street, a bulb of a cul-de-sac. He said hello to his neighbour, who was climbing into his four-wheel drive, ready for the journey along the flat streets. His neighbour waved back. Sam had lived next door to this man for six years and didn’t even know his surname.

As he sat in his car, getting ready to set off, he remembered how Joe had been the night before: distant but somehow trying to reach out. Joe had touched his arm, as if to ask him to stay, but then held back, the moment gone. Something wasn’t right.

He pulled out his phone and texted Joe:
Everything okay?

Sam waited for a reply, under the pretence of looking for some music to put on in the car. After a few minutes, Joe replied,
Need to talk
.

Sam had been right. He texted back,
Meet me at the station
.

He turned on the engine and set off, disquieted by the uneasy feeling that the day was going to become stranger than it had started.

Joe waited for Sam outside the police station. His car window was open to let in some sounds; he didn’t know what lay ahead for the day and wanted to savour it. All he could hear was the steady hum of traffic noise. All those cars filled with people who had started the day with no worries. He was jealous of them, and longed for how he’d felt just a couple of days earlier, when Mark Proctor had been just a hooded figure in his past. A ghost, a shadow. Becoming real had changed everything.

He thought about leaving and not telling Sam anything, but movement in his rear-view mirror caught his eye. Sam’s stride was purposeful, his jacket over his arm.

Joe clicked the unlock button and carried on looking forward as Sam climbed in.

‘Is this about Ruby?’ Sam said.

Joe thought of how to answer that. This was the moment when he could still walk away from it and leave Sam out of it. He looked at Sam and saw the weary contentment in his eyes. The early mornings, the family routines, the very ordinariness of his life. Joe didn’t want to take that away from him.

But Sam needed to know. Ellie’s murder had shaped Sam’s career as much as it had determined his own.

Joe shook his head. ‘No, it’s not about Ruby. Nothing as simple as that.’

‘So go on, talk to me.’

Joe spotted Sam glance at his watch.

‘It’s about Ellie,’ Joe said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Go back a couple of years. Do you remember how I told you that I’d seen a man follow Ellie down the path where she was found and that I’d done nothing about it, hadn’t told anyone?’

Sam’s jaw clenched. ‘Of course I remember,’ he said. ‘How could I forget that my own brother had kept quiet about my sister’s murderer just because he was scared he’d cop for some blame?’

‘I was scared,’ Joe said. ‘I was just a kid.’

‘You were eighteen that day. You’d become a man, or at least that was the theory.’

Joe closed his eyes for a moment and put his fingers to his forehead. ‘I didn’t come here to have an argument.’

‘So what is it?’ Sam said. ‘Did you wake up this morning with some kind of delayed guilt trip?’

‘And whatever happened to understanding human frailty?’ Joe said, his voice rising, his eyes opening again. ‘Maybe you’ve been in the police too long. Not everything is black and white. People do stupid things or make wrong decisions. I should know, I deal with it every day. Yes, I got it wrong, but let’s just say that knowing I could have stopped my little sister getting murdered isn’t exactly a great feeling.’ He banged his hand on the steering wheel. ‘Forget it. Go on, go inside.’

Sam went for the door handle, but just as he pulled on the lever Joe reached out and grabbed him by the forearm.

Sam looked round. ‘What is it?’

‘The man I saw,’ Joe said, taking a deep breath. ‘Do you remember what I told you I would do if I ever saw him again?’

‘Yes, I do. You said you’d kill him.’

Joe stayed silent.

Sam’s brow creased. Realisation grew in his eyes. ‘You’ve seen him?’ he said, his mouth dropping open.

Joe paused, knowing that once he said the word, everything would change for Sam. But he deserved the truth.

‘Yes, I have.’

Sam sat back in the car seat and looked out of the window. Joe let the silence grow. After a few minutes, Sam turned back to him and said, ‘Where?’

‘At a police station early yesterday morning. He’d been arrested for burglary at the car compound. His name is Mark Proctor.’

‘Are you sure it’s him? It was a long time ago.’

‘I know all of that, and it was a fleeting glimpse from a distance, and his hood was up. I know exactly how I would defend him if he were arrested. There is no way he’d be charged; a novice lawyer could get him off, but I knew it was him straight away. His face has been burnt into my memory. There is no way I’d get it wrong. I was certain, absolutely positive. It wasn’t just a sighting. It was an emotion too, the knowledge that he was in front of me, talking to me, oblivious. Ellie’s killer, after all these years.’

Sam put his hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. His look of weary contentment was gone, replaced by something much deeper, the pain of what had been done seventeen years earlier. He opened his eyes. ‘So what are you going to do?’

‘Yesterday, I thought I could kill him.’

Sam snorted in derision. ‘Don’t be so stupid. What good will that do?’ When Joe didn’t respond, Sam added, ‘You’ll throw away your life just to take away his. And don’t forget he’ll die an innocent man, because you won’t be able to prove that he killed Ellie. None of us can. So all your noble act will do is make you a cold-blooded killer, murdering an innocent man, and no one will care what you believed.’

‘Like I said, that was yesterday.’

‘And today?’

‘I just want to make it right, but the system is all skewed. He’ll never pay for what he did, and for as long as he’s alive, someone else is at risk. What if he’s done it again? People like him often do.’

‘Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I don’t know how the system is twisted, because it always seems to be in favour of people like this guy, this Mark Proctor, whoever he is. People like you exploit it, for profit. That’s how it’s always been.’

‘This is different. This isn’t about you and me now. It’s about Ellie.’

‘Don’t turn the guilt onto me,’ Sam snapped. ‘If you’d shown more courage all those years ago, we might not be having this conversation.’

‘I know that,’ Joe said. ‘I think about that all the time. So let me put it right.’

‘You’ve given me his name,’ Sam said. ‘The minute I go in there, I report it.’

‘No, not yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s too early. Gina told me how little evidence there was. Do you think your Cold Case Unit will be interested in my recollection? Of course they won’t. It’s too vague, too late, I know that. So we need more than just his name. We need to investigate him so that they take it seriously.’

‘How come this is becoming a “
we”
?’

‘Ellie was our sister,’ Joe said. ‘Let’s work together on this one, find out more about him. I’m looking into him from my side. You find out what you can from yours. Once we get enough, take the lot to the Cold Case Unit.’

Sam reached for the handle and threw open the door. ‘How do I know that you’re not just trying to find out about him so that you can carry out your threat, that you’re not sure about Mark Proctor so you want me to shore up your doubts?’

‘You don’t,’ Joe said.

Sam slammed the car door and marched towards the police station entrance.

Joe’s fingers were white with tightness as he gripped the steering wheel and stared after his brother.

He started the engine, his jaw clenched. There was someone else who needed to be told about Mark Proctor, and this would be even more difficult.