Imago (18 page)

Kate smiled faintly, remembering hurling the photograph with all the remaining strength that she had. Thank God she had.

“What about Margaret?”

Olbeck looked serious.

“She’s dead, Kate.”

“I remember,” whispered Kate. “She hit her head on the wall, on the fireplace, didn’t she?”

“Well, yes. But she also fell on the knife. Talk about hoist by your own petard.”

“It was – her though? The killings? She – she did them all?”

Olbeck squeezed her hand again.

“Oh, yes. We’ve found – well, I won’t go into that now. Anderton will come and give you the run down when you’re feeling a bit stronger.”

“Okay.” Kate could feel a heaviness dragging down her eyelids. She forced them open, fighting against a sudden great weariness.

“You’re knackered,” said Olbeck. “Get some rest. Me and Jeff will be back later.”

He kissed her on the forehead, and Kate smiled weakly. She could still feel the warmth of his hand as she fell into unconsciousness.

Some time passed before she became aware of reality again. Like the last time, she heard the sounds of the ward before she opened her eyes, although there was no warmth of another human hand holding hers. Instead she heard her name, quite clearly.

“Kate. Kate.”

Kate opened her eyes. Anderton was sitting where Olbeck had sat before.

“Welcome back,” he said, smiling.

Kate tried to smile back. In truth, seeing him sat there without touching her, without holding her hand, hurt her almost as much as the healing knife wound.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better,” said Kate, not wanting his pity.

“You did well.”

“I’m just glad we caught hi—” She caught herself. “I mean, I’m glad we caught her. God, that sounds so weird, given the context.”

“You’re not wrong. The press are having a field day. Britain’s first female serial killer and all that.”

Kate rolled her eyes.

“What about Rose West? Myra Hindley?”

Anderton nodded.

“Well, there is a precedent, I suppose. But Margaret was killing on her own. Although—” He looked thoughtful. “We found her diaries. You’ll have to read them when you’re stronger. There’s material in there that would keep a team of psychiatrists busy for decades.”

He hesitated for moment.

“We found another body in the house. Searched the whole building – took it apart at the seams, obviously, after what happened. The body of a young girl, thin, dark-haired.”

“Stabbed with the same knife?”

“That’s right. Clearly her first victim. We know from reading her diaries that she killed her mother too. That’s what started all this off.”

Kate cleared her throat.

“Why did she do it?”

Anderton shrugged.

“Again, Kate, that’s one for the psychiatrists. Repressed sexuality? Self-hate? Self-loathing so extreme she created a whole new persona for herself, someone who could kill women and in killing women, act out the rage and shame she had for herself? I don’t know. I think it’s fitting she went for victims who resembled her mother when she was young.”

“Did they also resemble Margaret when she was young?”

Anderton looked startled.

“Now you mention it, that’s true. Perhaps that was an element as well.”

Kate was thinking.

“Why – why put the bags in Jerry’s house?”

Anderton shrugged.

“She did a lot of things to throw us off the scent. Remember the condom lubricant found on Mandy’s body? Nice little trick there to make us think it was a man. Well, of course we thought that anyway. Why wouldn’t we?”

Kate closed her eyes momentarily. She remembered her frantic speculation on the identity of the killer after she’d found those bags. Jerry – and then Anderton. How 
could
 she have thought that? 
That’s something I’ll never tell him,
she thought.

“How is Jerry?” she asked out loud.

“Better,” said Anderton. Then he hesitated. “A bit better. They think he’s going to pull through but...well, I don’t think he’ll be back at work again. But he is getting better.”

“Good,” said Kate and was glad she actually meant it. She wondered whether she and Jerry had been in Intensive Care together. Perhaps lying next to one another in beds side by side. What a thought...

“Their mothers were friends,” Anderton was saying. “Margaret Paling’s mother and Jerry’s mother. That’s his mother’s house of course – he inherited it when she died, he’s only been living there for a few months. Margaret had a key to his house which he probably didn’t know about. She must have thought he’d make a good scapegoat.”

Kate nodded, feeling the pillow rustle against her ears.

“She looked so harmless,” she said. “I can’t believe I sat across the table from her drinking tea and I had no idea. Not then. She just looked so ordinary.”

“Well, that made it so easy for her, didn’t it?” said Anderton. “Who on Earth would suspect a respectable elderly woman of these terrible crimes?”

“That’s why it was easy for her to get her victims to the canal ground,” Kate said, considering. “They trusted her. They wouldn’t have been afraid of her.”

“Exactly. We can’t know what she told them, but I’d imagine it was quite convincing. They wouldn’t have suspected her for a moment.”

“Perfect disguise,” said Kate.

“Exactly.”

Kate sighed, thinking of the girls who had died. Could they have been saved? Could the team have done anything different? She had no doubt that there had been mistakes made that had possibly cost lives. She’d have to live with that. 
I’m sorry
, she said to Mandy and Claudia and Karen inside her head.

“Thank God we caught her,” she said, aloud.

“Indeed. Although, from the pace of the killings, it was likely we’d have caught her sooner rather than later anyway. She was becoming frantic.”

“Right.”

Anderton smiled faintly.

“That’s not to do down your achievement, Kate.”

“I didn’t do much.”

“Nonsense.”

Kate couldn’t be bothered to argue. She felt weak and ill. Talking about Margaret was bringing up memories of the attack.

Anderton noted her pallor.

“We’ll talk about it later, Kate. It’s all in hand.”

“Thanks,” she said, with difficulty.

“You just need to concentrate on getting better. It’s not the same without you.”

“Isn’t it?” asked Kate. Their eyes met and for a second, she felt leap of something within her that lifted her temporarily out of her pain. It only lasted a moment before tiredness began to engulf her again.

“Get some rest,” said Anderton, and the tone of his voice was such that Kate found herself smiling as she slid back into sleep. The last thing she was aware of as unconsciousness engulfed her was the warm faint pressure of his fingers as he took her hand.

THE END

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Want more Kate Redman? The new Kate Redman Mystery,
Snarl
will be released in February 2014…

Snarl (A Kate Redman Mystery: Book 4)

A research laboratory opens on the outskirts of Abbeyford, bringing with it new people, jobs, prosperity and publicity to the area – as well as a mob of protestors and animal rights activists. The team at Abbeyford police station take this new level of civil disorder in their stride – until a fatal car bombing of one of the laboratory’s head scientists means more drastic measures must be taken…

Detective Sergeant Kate Redman is struggling to come to terms with being back at work after long period of absence on sick leave; not to mention the fact that her erstwhile partner Olbeck has now been promoted above her. The stakes get even higher as a multiple murder scene is uncovered and a violent activist is implicated in the crime. Kate and the team must put their lives on the line to expose the murderer and untangle the snarl of accusations, suspicions and motives.

Snarl
is the new Kate Redman Mystery from crime writer Celina Grace, author of Hushabye, Requiem and Imago. Released February 2014.

Hushabye
(A Kate Redman Mystery: Book 1)
is the novel that introduces Detective Sergeant Kate Redman on her first case in Abbeyford. Read the first two chapters below…

HUSHABYE

(A KATE REDMAN MYSTERY)

CELINA GRACE

© Celina Grace 2013

Prologue

Casey Fullman opened her eyes and knew something was wrong.

It was too bright. She was used to waking to grey dimness, the before-sunrise hours of a winter morning. Dita would stand by the bed with Charlie in one arm, a warmed bottle in the other. Casey would struggle up to a sitting position, trying to avoid the jab of pain from her healing Caesarean scar, and take the baby and the bottle.

You’re mad to get up so early when you don’t have to, her mother had told her, more than once. It’s not like you’re breastfeeding. Let Dita do it. But Casey, smiling and shrugging, would never give up those first waking moments. She enjoyed the delicious warmth of the baby snuggled against her body, his dark eyes fixed upon hers as he sucked furiously at the bottle. 

She didn’t envy Dita, though, stumbling back to bed through the early morning dark to her bedroom next to the nursery. Casey would have gotten up herself to take Charlie from his cot when he cried for his food, but Nick needed his sleep, and it seemed to work out better all round for Dita, so close to the cot anyway, to bring him and the bottle into the bedroom instead. That’s what I pay her for, Nick had said, when she’d suggested getting up herself.

But this morning there was no Dita, sleepy-eyed in rumpled pyjamas, standing by the bed. There was no Charlie. Casey sat up sharply, wincing as her stomach muscles pulled at the scar. She looked over at Nick, fast asleep next to her. Sleeping like a baby. But where was her baby, her Charlie?

She got up and padded across the soft, expensive, sound-muffling carpet, not bothering with her dressing gown, too anxious now to delay. It was almost full daylight; she could see clearly. The bedroom door was shut, and she opened it to a silent corridor outside.

The door to Dita’s room was standing open, but the door to Charlie’s nursery was closed. Casey looked in Dita’s room. Her nanny’s bed was empty, the room in its usual mess, clothes and toys all over the floor. She must have gone into Charlie’s room. They must both be in there. Why hadn’t Dita brought him through? He must be ill, thought Casey, and fear broke over her like a wave. Her palm slipped on the door handle to the nursery.

She pushed the door. It stuck, halfway open. Casey shoved harder and it moved, opening wide enough for her to see an out-flung arm on the carpet, a hand half-curled. Her throat closed up. Frantically, she pushed at the door, and it opened far enough to enable her to squeeze inside.

It was Dita she saw first, spread-eagled on the floor, face upwards. For a split second, Casey thought, crazily, that it was a model of her nanny, a waxwork, something that someone had left in the room for a joke. Dita’s face was pale as colourless candle wax, but that wasn’t the worst thing. There was something wrong with the structure of her face, her forehead dented, her nose pushed to one side. Her thick blonde hair was fanned out around her head like the stringy petals of a giant flower.

Casey felt her heartbeat falter as she looked down at the body. She was dimly aware that her lungs felt as if they’d seized up, frozen solid. She mouthed like a fish, gasping for air, but it wasn’t until she moved her gaze from Dita to look at Charlie’s cot that she began to scream.

Chapter One

Kate Redman stood in the tiny hallway of her flat and regarded herself in the full-length mirror that hung beside the front door. She never left the flat without giving herself a quick once-over—not for reasons of vanity, but to check that all was in place.
She smoothed down her hair and tugged at her jacket, pulling the shoulders more firmly into shape. Her bag stood by the front door mat. She picked it up and checked her purse and mobile and warrant card were all there, zipped away in the inner pocket.

She was early, but then she was always early. Time for a quick coffee before the doorbell was expected to ring? She walked into the small, neat kitchen, her hand hovering over the kettle. She decided against it. She felt jittery enough already. Calm down, Kate.

It was awful being the new girl; it was like being back at school again. Although now at least, she was well-dressed, with clean hair and clean shoes. It was fairly unlikely that any of her new co-workers would tell her that she smelt and had nits.

Kate shook herself mentally. She was talking to herself again, the usual internal monologue, always a sign of stress. It’s just a new job. You can do it. They picked you, remember?

She checked her watch. He was late, although not by much. The traffic at this time of day was always awful. She walked from the kitchen to the lounge – living room, Kate, living room – a matter of ten steps. She closed her bedroom door, and then opened it again to let the air flow in. She walked back to the hallway just as the doorbell finally rang. She took a deep breath and fixed her smile in place before she opened it.

“DS Redman?” asked the man on the doorstep. “I’m DS Olbeck. Otherwise known as Mark. Bloody awful parking around here. Sorry I’m late.”