Cut Short (28 page)

  'Love to' she keyed in, then deleted the message and changed it to 'Sounds good.' Craig replied straight away with the name of a restaurant, suggesting they meet there. Geraldine smiled. If the fiasco of their first date hadn't put him off, he must genuinely like her.

  'Either that or he's desperate,' Celia chuckled when Geraldine called her.

  'Thanks a lot.' Geraldine said. She thought about Craig and sighed. It was easy for Celia to make light of her sister's relationship problems.

  'Seriously,' Celia added, 'you know what not to do this time.'

  'Don't worry, I won't touch a drop.'

  Returning to her desk, Geraldine was surprised when Sarah Mellor approached her.

  'Fancy a drink at lunch time, gov?' Mellor looked so uncomfortable, Geraldine thought the young DC must have a reason for wanting to talk outside the station. She could hardly refuse.

  'Just a quick one then,' she said. 'I've got a lot on. I'm going out later.' She resisted the temptation to tell her about Craig. There was no reason for Sarah Mellor to be interested in Geraldine's love life, such as it was.

  When she arrived in the pub at lunchtime, Sarah wasn't there. Peterson was. 'Sarah couldn't make it,' he said, pushing a pint across the table.

  Geraldine hesitated, recognising a set-up.

  'I'll get straight to the point,' Peterson said. 'What's going on?'

  Geraldine sat down heavily. 'I was going to ask you the same question.' She didn't touch her drink.

  'I asked you here because I want to know what's going on with your car.'

  'Just kids, messing around in the night.'

  'How do they know where you live?'

  She realised her mistake, and shook her head. 'They don't. It's just coincidence.' She didn't tell him it had happened three times.

  Peterson put down his pint. 'I'm not an idiot, gov.'

  'Well neither am I,' Geraldine retorted. 'And if I thought there was any cause for concern, I'd deal with it. So drop it, Sergeant.' She rose to her feet and swept out of the pub wishing she felt as self-assured as she sounded. At least she had a date that evening. It might take her mind off the case for a couple of hours.

  Geraldine left the station on time, for once, and was home early. After showering, she smiled uncertainly at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were her best feature, so dark the pupils were swallowed up by her irises which were almost black against her pale skin. She dragged her gaze away from her reflection with a sigh. She still had a report to type up for the morning before her day's work was over and by the time she'd finished, it was nearly time to go. Even though she'd arrived home in plenty of time, she still ended up rushing. Soon her clothes were spread out over the bed; she couldn't find the one dress she'd decided might be suitable. Finally, only twenty minutes behind schedule, she turned on her alarm, closed the front door and hurried to her car. She had to make a conscious effort not to glance over her shoulder as she unlocked her garage, but couldn't stop her eyes flicking nervously from side to side as she drove down the close. There was no sign of Arthur Ramsden.

  Her destination turned out to be a fairly expensive restaurant, and Geraldine was glad she'd chosen to wear a smart dress, simple but clingy in the right places. Craig was sitting at a corner table, his eyes fixed on the door. He half rose to his feet and raised his hand as she walked in. She waved back to let him know she'd seen him and he broke into a smile that flickered in the flame of a table candle. With a rush of pleasure she realised Craig was relieved she'd turned up. She called in the number of the restaurant, just in case, and checked her mobile in her bag. After that, she concentrated on trying to relax and enjoy dinner by candlelight with a good looking man, in an expensive restaurant, with romantic music playing softly in the background. Suddenly it wasn't difficult to silence her worries and focus on her evening, doing normal things like normal people did. It couldn't last.

  Craig was even more attractive than she remembered and the conversation flowed easily. The more she found out about Craig, the more she liked him. Their initial disastrous date had broken the ice between them, and she was surprised to find herself laughing about it without any embarrassment. She had a vague recollection of being carried upstairs, virtually unconscious, but Craig was able to add a few shameful details about her drunken performance that night. Beneath his superficial bravado, he was warm and funny.

  'You can't be shy,' he warned her at one point. 'Remember, we've spent the night together.' Geraldine grinned. She rather liked being called shy. It made a change for a ballsy thirty-seven-year-old DI. For the first time since Mark left her she felt feminine and desirable.

  Everything was fine until Craig started telling her about his week. He was a skilled raconteur, and made her laugh with his anecdotes. But she was aware of an invisible gulf yawning across the table. She dreaded the inevitable question.

  'What about you, Geraldine? You must see lots of interesting things in your job.'

  She hesitated. It wasn't classified information, but any account of her week would jar with the light-hearted atmosphere of their evening. She was trying to find a serial killer who'd strangled three girls. He'd stripped the third one and dumped her naked body in a dirty pond. He was likely to kill again if he wasn't caught and the police hadn't the faintest idea who he was. She couldn't share the details of her work with Craig. No one outside the force could understand. It would be the usual fake interest: 'How do you cope?' and 'How can you stand seeing all those dead bodies?' She was afraid he'd be repulsed by her work and she no longer just fancied Craig. She was really beginning to like him.

  This was the reason why so many relationships failed on the force. It wasn't the gruelling shifts and unpredictable hours, the stress and absorbing nature of the work, the phone calls in the early hours, that eroded any chance of intimacy with another human being. It was this chasm of experience. However close they grew, they would always look on horrors from different sides of the abyss. She could describe her current case to Craig, but his shock would be a natural reaction she could no longer afford to feel. To switch from her professional detachment into a woman with normal emotions was a demand too far. It would be more than stepping out of a role. It would affect her ability to do her job if she considered the hideousness of what she'd seen. Shock numbed. It slowed reactions, and clouded judgement. She couldn't allow herself to feel that kind of compassion. But if she gave a simple factual account of one of her cases to the accompaniment of soft background music, she'd sound like an inhuman monster. How attractive would that be?

  She decided to pre-empt his questions. 'I can't talk about my current case, and, if you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about my work at all.' She knew she sounded rude. If he agreed too readily, it might mean he wasn't interested to hear about her life; if he protested, he was insensitive.

  Craig responded with disarming honesty. 'I'm not sure I understand, Geraldine, but OK. But if you ever want to talk about it, I'm a good listener.' She couldn't ask for more than that. 'I can be very patient,' he added, pouring more wine. He held the bottle motionless for a moment, allowing it to drip into her glass. Together they watched the blood red surface ripple in tiny concentric circles.

  'How about telling me something about your life outside of work?' Craig suggested.

  Geraldine hesitated. 'What do you want to know?'

  He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. 'You could start by telling me about your family?'

  'My family,' she hesitated. 'They're not very interesting. My parents split up when I was eighteen. My mother still lives in the house where I grew up, although it's far too big for her. My father married an Irish woman and moved to Dublin, so I don't see much of him.'

  'Did you fall out?'

  'No. It's just that he's a long way away.'

  'It's not that far.'

  'No, but it seems a long way. It's not just that he moved away. He's moved on. His wife had three small children when they met and he's got his hands full with all of them.'

  'So he doesn't have time for you?' Craig smiled sympathetically.

  Geraldine shook her head. 'It's not like that,' she protested. But of course Craig was right. She resented her father's desertion, although she hadn't been angry at the time. 'When he left us, my sister had just met her husband and was busy planning her future, and I'd gone off to uni. My mother was the one who felt abandoned. It was hard for her.' She shrugged. 'It's all a long time ago.'

  Craig filled up her glass. 'What about you?' he asked. 'Have you ever been married?'

  She shook her head. 'I was with someone for six years, but it didn't work out. You?'

  He grinned. 'Never even close,' he replied. 'I'm still looking,' he added and he stared straight at her.

  Geraldine's spirits lifted. His comment about patience must mean he wanted to see her again. She smiled. It was hard to restrain the seed of hope. Not everyone on the force was single or divorced. Some people made relationships work. Maybe it would happen for her.

  The evening lost its romantic glow as soon as they stepped out of the restaurant. Geraldine's buoyant mood deflated at the sight of two uniformed constables. Craig stared at a youth being questioned and tightened his grip on Geraldine's arm. Following his gaze, she saw a boy with a bloody nose and split lip trying to speak. The police constable was having difficulty understanding him.

  'Fah Firriff,' the boy said.

  'Sam Phillips, is that?' the officer interpreted stolidly. 'And where do you live, Sam?'

  The boy shook his head, spattering blood from his dripping nose. 'Mo,' he insisted with belligerent despair, 'Fah Firriff.'

  'If they're like this on a Monday evening, what the hell are they like on a Saturday night? I hope you don't have to deal with that sort of trouble,' Craig said as they hurried past.

  'No,' she smiled. 'That's for uniformed officers.'

  'Good,' he said, taking her hand.

  'I just deal with serial killers,' she thought grimly. But she was relieved that the evening had gone well and pleased when Craig asked to see her again.

  'How are you fixed for Saturday?'

  'I'll have to check my schedule. All weekend leave's been cancelled and I may be on nights. But as long as I'm not working, I'm free on Saturday.' Craig raised his eyebrows and said he'd call her. Geraldine wondered if he would. At work, she was skilled at distinguishing truth from lies. In her personal life, her past judgement had been disastrous, but maybe this time would be different.

  Craig's goodnight kiss was gentle. Geraldine responded and for an instant his arms tightened around her before he released her and walked her back to her car. She felt a pang of regret when he didn't invite her home with him, but there was no rush. Although she felt as though she'd known him for a long time, in reality this had been the first evening they'd spent together properly. She didn't really know him at all. As she drove home, she made up her mind she wouldn't be disappointed if he didn't call. Craig had distracted her from work for an evening. That was all. She wouldn't allow him to become an additional problem for her to try and forget. When she reached home, she fell into bed, exhausted. She didn't even think about doing any work.

  She was standing in a vast church hall. An icy wind blew through a broken window. She moved to one side but the cold draught followed her. A man stood facing her across the empty hall. A silver sword gleamed in his left hand. She wanted to warn him of danger, but every time she tried to speak, the wind carried her words away. She struggled to call out to him, but she couldn't remember his name. She had to speak to him, but the wind was howling. Her eyes filled with blood as the silver blade carved an indelible mark on her face. She woke with a start to find her cheeks wet with tears.

  She glanced at her watch. It was two thirty in the morning. She knew she wouldn't get back to sleep so she got up to read through some more reports but couldn't concentrate. She put her laptop away, made herself a cup of tea and sat back in her armchair to think about her evening. She grinned, recalling Craig's shock when they'd come out of the restaurant and seen a youth with a bloody face. He'd have a huge black eye in the morning. His lip was split and he'd been struggling to give his name. 'Fah Firrith'. She smiled. He reminded her of something but she couldn't grasp what it was. She thought about Heather Spencer's description: 'He had a scar just above his top lip. It looked as though it had been split open in a fight a long time ago.' But there was something else. She knew it was important. Wide-awake now, she threw some clothes on and drove to the station. She had to find out what was stirring at the back of her mind.

  She arrived at the station at three a.m. The desk sergeant gave her a sleepy grin and went back to his paper. He was used to officers on the Murder Investigation Team wandering in and out at odd hours.

  Geraldine hurried to her desk and began rummaging through files. It was disheartening. Some of the recent accounts by so-called witnesses reminded her of stories she used to read when she was a teenager. Most were plagiarised. The killer had been seen roaming the streets with a chainsaw … with scissorhands … with steel teeth … She could have been judging entries in a competition for a horror story. Once the papers raised the spectre of a serial killer, people's imaginations went wild, fanciful stories interspersed with spiteful claims from people venting personal feelings. All the searching around the park, the questioning of local residents, and investigation of medical records had led them no nearer to the killer. Geraldine lowered her head in despair.

  The DCI had covered everything. She'd arranged a reconstruction on national television. The broadcast had concentrated on the strangler's first victim. Tiffany May had gone to the park after dark on a wet evening and might not have been seen before she was killed, but someone must have noticed Angela Waters going into the park in the middle of the morning. Regular appeals were read out on the local radio: 'Have you seen anything unusual in the park over the past fortnight? Anyone acting suspiciously?' Specially trained officers had visited all the local schools to talk to children and display posters. Young women were advised not to wander the streets alone after dark. Notices were posted at both entrances to the park: FATAL ASSAULT CAN YOU HELP? And, of course, the local papers had gone crazy.