DS Jessica Daniel series: Locked In/Vigilante/The Woman in Black - Books 1-3 (36 page)

Jessica crept along the carpeted hallway. She knew where the squeaky floorboards were and moved to avoid them. She passed her own bedroom door and carefully approached Caroline’s. It was
mostly shut but there was a crack and she could definitely hear something moving inside. Jessica held her breath and tried to peer through the gap where the hinges met the wall but could see
nothing. She looked through the already open part but could only see one side of Caroline’s bed. She slowly pushed the door open to reveal more of the bed through the widening crack,
squeezing silently through the gap and looking behind the door.

Randall was standing there, his hands reaching into the built-in wardrobe but his face turned to look at her with a puzzled look on his face. ‘Jess? Sorry I didn’t hear you come in.
Caroline was called into work but left me her key so I could start moving things for her. Didn’t she text you?’

Jessica felt frozen to the spot. What did she do? Randall was bigger and stronger than her. It wasn’t as if she could just go straight in and accuse him of being Nigel Collins and call the
police. She already knew what he was capable of doing, having seen all four bodies. Not only that but, if he did kill her here, the police would just assume that Collins had come to deal with the
officer assigned to his case. Even if Randall’s DNA was found at the scene, that would be expected as he was Caroline’s boyfriend.

She would have to be careful but couldn’t risk leaving the flat or letting him leave and losing him for good.

Jessica tried to keep her voice calm. ‘Hi. She sent me a message this morning. I’ve just been out and about.’ She thought her voice had faltered slightly but, if it did,
Randall said nothing.

‘Do you want to help me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t really know what I’m doing with all these clothes and things. I’ve got these boxes but I have no idea how it
should be sorted or anything.’ He indicated some cardboard boxes on the floor by his feet and was smiling.

Jessica tried to return the smile but it was excruciating. If she could just get away from him for a few minutes, she could call the station and get help.

‘No worries. I just want to get a drink. Do you want anything?’

‘Yeah, just some water would be fine.’

Jessica walked backwards out the room, her heart racing. She turned around and went into the kitchen, putting two glasses on the draining board letting the tap run as she took her phone out from
her pocket. Even if he were nearby, perhaps he would hear the water and not her?

Her cracked phone screen was still not properly working. She pressed the screen to view her contacts but it wouldn’t load. She used one hand to fill both glasses, using the other to jab at
the front of her phone ever harder. Eventually she had both glasses filled but left the water running anyway. Finally the phone started to respond. She needed to use both thumbs but got the list of
names scrolling down. She could see her hand shaking and felt sick but kept telling herself to focus. She got to the entry ‘Station’ and pressed call. She put the phone to her ear and
turned around to face the door.

Randall was standing there looking directly at her with a pair of scissors in his hand.

‘Are you all right?’ Randall said. ‘You’ve been a while.’

Jessica heard the call connect and the desk sergeant’s voice say ‘hello’. In that fraction of a second she weighed up blurting out as much as she could,
saying, ‘It’s Jessica Daniel, I’ve got Nigel Collins in my flat, send help.’ Could she hold Randall off for long enough until help arrived? Would the sergeant understand
everything in time? Was it worth the risk?

She hung up and put the phone in her pocket. ‘Yeah, I was just trying Caroline to see if she knew when she was going to be finished. There was no answer though.’ Randall looked as if
he was weighing her up. Jessica thought she might have been imagining it. Could he know? She hadn’t said anything that could give her away.

He motioned the scissors in his hand. They had long blades and were sharp on the end. ‘Do you have any tape? One of the boxes just broke.’

‘Yeah, hang on. Here’s your water.’ Jessica offered him one of the glasses and turned the tap off. She focused hard on not letting her hand shake as she gave it to him, not
showing she was nervous. He took it from her without saying anything and drank. She took a few sips from her glass then tipped the rest away. She felt sick.

Randall emptied the glass and offered it back to her. ‘Thanks.’

‘No worries. The tape is in that drawer behind you.’

Jessica pointed to a cabinet next to the door. Randall turned around and opened it, reaching in and rummaging. There was a knife rack above the drawer he was looking in. If he had figured things
out, she knew she was in big trouble.

She watched him but he didn’t make any sudden movements and quickly pulled a roll of tape out of the drawer. ‘Got it,’ he said. ‘Are you coming?’

‘Yeah.’ She wanted him to turn around and walk out of the door first; that way she could at the very least pocket one of the knives.

He didn’t move and stood holding the door open for her. ‘After you.’

She moved slowly, looking at the knives out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t necessarily want to stab him but she wanted something that would give her an advantage if need be. She
thought about the distances. There was no way she could pick something up without him noticing but could she grab a weapon and back him into a corner? Even if she did, what then?

Jessica walked past the knives, in front of Randall and through the open door towards Caroline’s bedroom. She could feel him moving behind her but kept her cool and went back into
Caroline’s room, waiting by the side of the bed for him to go past her towards the wardrobes. He did what she expected and pulled one of the boxes onto the bed before taping it underneath
where it had broken.

Jessica watched him carefully. He had put the scissors on the bed but then picked them up to cut the tape and pocketed them.

‘Right, where do we begin?’ he asked as he turned back around to the wardrobe.

Jessica couldn’t believe she was going to have to make small talk. This was a man who had killed four people. ‘I reckon put all the trousers and skirts and stuff in one box, then the
tops and dresses separate.’

‘Heh, I was going to group everything by colour. Good job you’re here.’ Randall laughed and Jessica tried to join in but there was no substance to it. ‘Can you
fold?’ he asked.

‘Okay,’ Jessica said. ‘If you take them out, I’ll fold and you can pack.’

The situation was almost laughable. Jessica was looking for a way out. Could she somehow lock him in this room then make a call? Once again, she had been stupid. She should have phoned the
police in the first place.

They started working in tandem but to Jessica it was like an out-of-body experience, a bit like being back in the interview room with Peter Hunt and Wayne Lapham. Her body was folding the
clothes but her mind was somewhere else, desperately trying to think of how to handle things.

‘How’s the job going?’ Randall said out of the blue. Jessica stopped halfway through folding a pair of jeans and looked up at the man in front of her. He had just put another
pile of clothes on the bed and his hands were free. ‘I know you were taken off that Houdini case, it was all over the news but I just wondered how things were now.’

Jessica said nothing but folded quickly and put the trousers down on the bed. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I’ve been working on other things.’

‘Not one of those TV cops who keeps working a case then?’

She thought she detected something in his voice and tried to laugh but her voice cracked. ‘Nah, not me.’

‘What’s the flyer about in your bag then?’

She glanced up quickly and saw it in his face. He knew.

Instinctively, Jessica raced towards the door but Randall was faster. He pinned her against the wall, his forearm across her chest, shouting in her face: ‘Why couldn’t you leave it
be?’

She could smell his breath and aftershave.

Jessica didn’t have time to think but acted instinctively. She couldn’t raise her arms properly but had enough leverage to smash the side of her hand hard into his windpipe. He
instantly reeled back with a vicious cough and released her. She wriggled down away from his arms and escaped out of the bedroom, dashing for the front door, having no idea what to do next. He was
quickly on her, bringing her down with something like a rugby tackle in their hallway. She tried to turn over but felt his fist punch her hard across the face as she did so. She saw stars, blinking
to try to clear her head while hearing him continue to gasp for breath. She thought she could feel a trickle of what was almost certainly blood on her top lip.

Randall was now sitting astride her, his knees digging into her elbows so she could barely move. Her legs were relatively free but she knew she wasn’t strong enough to flip him over.

His breathing was tight but his blue eyes were staring right at her. ‘It was over!’ he shouted. His tone was lighter and he didn’t scream as he had done in the bedroom.
‘It was over. I just wanted to get on with things, settle down with Caroline.’

Jessica could feel the pain in her head from the blow but could just about focus. ‘Why did you do it, Randall?’

There were tears in his eyes but he still had a fierce look on his face. ‘It was Nigel. I had become Randall and was getting on with things but then two of them came to me on the stall. It
was like a sign. A way to finally say goodbye to Nigel and get on with my life.’

Jessica realised he must mean the two burglary victims. They had gone to the closest place to them to get new keys cut after Wayne Lapham had broken into their homes but their appearance must
have reminded Randall of a part of him he had buried. The part that still remembered being Nigel and feeling helpless.

‘How did you recognise them?’

‘I don’t forget faces.’

‘Really?’

‘I guess that’s part of being “weird”.’

‘Why didn’t you kill the boys who hurt you?’

Jessica felt the body astride her tense up. ‘What?’ It was almost as if he hadn’t heard her correctly. He used one of his hands to rub first one ear, then the other, the grip
with his knees returning to what it was.

‘Why didn’t you go after the ones who had hurt you instead of their parents?’

‘They didn’t kill me, did they? They made me live like this.’

Jessica couldn’t move her body enough to nod but in some ways understood what he meant. If he killed their parents, the ones who had hurt him would at least have to endure the emotional
pain.

‘How did you change your name so easily?’ she asked.

His volume went up again. ‘It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t just a name, it was everything associated with it: being pathetic and weak.’

‘But how did you manage to become somebody else?’

‘I lived on the streets for a while. Someone helped me, they reckoned they could get new identities sorted.’

Jessica had a chilling thought of Harry handing over a brown envelope to a homeless man on the street. She remembered Peter Hunt’s wording in court. ‘Have you ever seen Mr Thomas act
in a questionable way while on duty?’ She had said ‘no’ but was suddenly confused. Had that act indirectly led to all of this?

Her expression must have changed. ‘What?’ Randall said.

‘What are you going to do now?’ Jessica asked, hoping he didn’t force her to answer.

She felt his grip lighten ever so slightly. He blinked away more tears. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t want to kill anyone else?’

‘I love her . . .’ Jessica knew he was talking about Caroline. He leant back slightly and she felt even more pressure release on her elbows. She could feel pins and needles but could
probably free her arms if she needed to.

‘It’s why I wanted to get it all finished,’ he continued. ‘She came along and I wanted to leave Nigel behind. Once the four of them were finished with, we could have a
life together. It was all over with.’

Jessica was playing for time. If she could get him to relax further, when the feeling came back into her arms, with her legs already free, she could surprise him and possibly get away.
‘Why did you lock all the houses after you left?’

Randall rubbed his ears again. ‘I didn’t want to get caught. I thought if your lot were busy looking at family members and trying to figure out how it all happened, you would forget
to look for things like Nigel Collins. It worked, didn’t it?’

Jessica would have admitted that it had but didn’t want to let him focus on anything positive. ‘Can I ask you something?’ The directness clearly shocked him as he would have
felt in control of the situation being on top. She didn’t give him time to answer. ‘Do you remember when the three of us were watching the news together that morning? You said the
coverage was “sick” . . .’

‘I was talking about them using that old photo. With my face . . .’ Jessica knew he meant the one of him as a teenager with his features bruised and swollen. At the time she thought
he had been talking about the murders themselves.

Her bluntness had worked and his tears stopped as he relaxed even further. The feeling had returned to both of her arms and the blurriness had cleared from her head. She thought about her
options. Talking to him about letting her go or anything to do with the future would most likely anger him. He must know deep down his chances were hopeless. The only thing he could really do was
either kill her and run for it or kill her and hope the investigators blamed it on Nigel Collins, not knowing he and Randall were one and the same.

Either way, her chances didn’t look good. She had to keep him off-balance. ‘How did you meet Ryan?’

It was a question completely out of the blue, something he wouldn’t have expected. He rubbed his ears again. ‘Ryan?’

‘Yeah, he was a nice guy.’

Randall shook his head slightly and stroked his neck with one of his hands. ‘Oh yeah, just around. We started playing pool together and . . .’

Jessica didn’t let him finish. She lunged forwards, using the spring of her free legs to propel him away from her. He yelled as he crashed backwards but as Jessica turned to run the few
feet left to the front door, he flicked out with his foot and tripped her. She stumbled into the door, fumbling for the handle to open it. She had to take a step back to open it inwards but he
slammed into her, crushing her between his weight and the door. Her arms were free and this time she reeled back and punched him as hard as she could in the windpipe. He stumbled fully back,
obviously dazed.