Killer Plan (5 page)

10

By Monday afternoon, Caroline
was struggling to cope with the twins.

‘Why did it happen, mum?’

She tried to explain that a bad man had attacked Dave for no reason. Violence like that hardly ever happened where they lived. The bad man would never come back to their street. The police would soon lock him up and never let him go.

‘But why did it have to be our dad?’ Ed kept asking.

She had no answer. All she could do was try to comfort the devastated boys. There were moments when their distress distracted her from the memory of Dave’s body, lying on the floor of the shed. But such respite never lasted long.

The head teacher suggested the boys keep to their normal routine, as far as possible, assuring Caroline that their teachers would keep a close eye on them. Caroline could see the sense in what the head said, but she didn’t argue with her sons’ demands to stay at home. At first inconsolable, the boys cheered up when they realised they didn’t have to go to school. Always keen to know exactly what was going on, Ed asked when they would have to go to back.

‘When you’re ready,’ she replied stupidly, and was rewarded with a grin from Matthew.

‘We’ll never be ready,’ he crowed, flapping his arms.

Ever serious, Ed disagreed. ‘What about our education?’ he asked. ‘We’ll have to earn lots of money so we can look after mum when we’re grown up.’

Caroline was relieved when they started squabbling again.

Although they weren’t keen to return to school, they were bored at home. Apprehensively, Caroline allowed them to cycle round the block. As long as they didn’t try to cross the road and kept each other in sight, it was safe enough.

‘Dad would have let us,’ Matthew pointed out.

It was probably true.

‘What if the killer’s out there?’ Ed asked.

‘Good,’ Matthew replied promptly. ‘We can zap him.’ He mimed holding a gun. ‘Peeow! Peeow!’

Caroline smiled anxiously. ‘You’ll be fine. Just stick together, boys, and don’t go on the road.’

Promising they would be careful, the boys raced off. Caroline watched them through the window until they disappeared from view. They seemed to be gone for hours, although it was only actually about twenty minutes before they ran back in, squabbling.

‘Don’t,’ she heard Matthew say. ‘She won’t like it.’

‘We have to. We promised.’

‘We didn’t want to.’

‘But we did.’

‘You did, I didn’t. We’re not allowed to talk to strangers.’

‘We never talked to him. He talked to us.’

‘You told him we’d tell her.’

‘I only said yes. One word doesn’t count.’

Caroline went out into the hall and asked what they were talking about. The boys hesitated. Matthew glared at his brother.

‘We got a message to tell you,’ Ed muttered.

‘Shut up,’ Matthew hissed. ‘She won’t like it.’

‘From a man,’ Ed went on, his face rigid with determination. ‘It was a message for you.’

Caroline smiled weakly, waiting to hear another expression of condolence from a neighbour she barely knew.

Ed cleared his throat. ‘He said to tell you it’s your turn now. He said he’s done what you wanted.’

‘And now it’s your turn to do what he wants,’ Matthew echoed.

‘He said it’s your turn to do the same for him,’ Ed corrected his brother earnestly.

‘Who was he?’ she asked, trying to quell the feeling of dread that had gripped her.

Ed shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘He had a spotty face!’ Matthew shouted, eager to join in as much as possible, now that Ed had spoken out. ‘He was ugly. He had ginger hair and pokey eyes.’

Caroline suddenly felt as though she couldn’t breathe.

‘What’s pokey eyes?’ Ed interrupted. ‘No one has pokey eyes. You’re an idiot.’

‘We didn’t like him. He had hairy hands.’

‘He likes us. He told us to be sure to tell you he said it was nice to meet us.’

‘Who was he, mum?’

Caroline shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea,’ she lied.

‘Well, I didn’t like him, not one bit,’ Ed agreed with his brother. ‘He was weird.’

Afraid the boys would sense her panic, Caroline sent them to watch television before she double locked the front door. Then she bolted the back door and went round the house checking all the windows were shut. In the morning she would think about going to the police to insist they move her and the boys to a safe house until Brian was locked up. She had to convince the police that Brian’s threat was serious, without explaining how she knew he was a killer.

11

The dead man had
been quite short and slight, with curly fair hair. Despite his good looks, there was something effete in his cleanly delineated features. Max had been working with the borough intelligence unit, looking into the victim’s circumstances. Geraldine wanted to quiz him about what he had found out. She found him in the canteen. Over coffee, Max told her that Caroline and Dave had been married for ten years.

‘Do you think they got married because she was pregnant?’

‘I guess. But listen.’ Max leaned forward. ‘They were in a bit of financial difficulty, thanks to him.’

‘I thought he was an electrician? They had quite a nice house. Finchley’s not that cheap.’

‘It was his parents’ house. He was living with them when they were both killed in a car crash, about ten years ago. He never moved out. His wife – widow, I should say – works part-time at a local cafe. Between them they managed to earn enough, but the point is, he was spending a hell of a lot. According to his workmates he was a bit of a player, always chasing after women.’

Geraldine wondered whether they had been rash to dismiss Caroline as a suspect.

‘I looked into their finances,’ Max went on. ‘He’d remortgaged the house, he was maxed out on credit cards, they had the bailiffs round more than once repossessing their stuff – they lost a TV and a car – and last month they were being threatened with repossession which would leave them with massive negative equity. As far as his wife was concerned, someone bumped him off just in the nick of time.’

Geraldine nodded. The sergeant’s youthful conceit was irritating, but she was continually impressed by his industry. If she could train him to control his tendency to jump to conclusions he would be an excellent officer, as Reg had intimated.

‘And I suppose you’re going to tell me next that he had a life insurance policy…’

‘Taken out when the twins were born. No doubt that would have been cashed in next…’

‘If he hadn’t gone first.’

Looking up, Geraldine saw Nick in the doorway. He saw her and raised his hand. Before she could acknowledge the greeting, Max stood up.

‘Come on, we’ll be late for the briefing,’ he said.

Geraldine was surprised to realise how quickly she had come to depend on Max to remind her of their schedule. She was used to being in control. As she passed Nick in the doorway, he touched her arm. Meanwhile, Max was striding on ahead.

‘Fancy a drink later?’ Nick muttered.

It seemed as though he wanted to catch her attention without anyone else noticing. Flustered, she hurried after her sergeant without stopping to answer.

At a nod from Reg, Max stepped forward. He looked around the room. Once again, Geraldine was struck by his self-assurance. She was beginning to feel he had earned the right to feel confident. Not yet in his mid-twenties and already a sergeant, he had entered the service on a fast track graduate scheme which promised rapid promotion. Not all entrants made the grade, but Geraldine thought Max would be fine. He brought the team up to speed about the victim spending virtually all his money on other women. A mutter rippled around the room. Everyone understood how powerful a motive Caroline had for getting rid of her husband.

‘It’s only hearsay,’ Max concluded.

Reg’s broad square face creased in a smile.

‘Who was it interviewed the wife?’

‘That was me,’ Geraldine replied sharply. He couldn’t have forgotten that she was the officer who had spoken to Caroline. ‘I spoke to her. There was something uneasy about the way she answered my questions, as though she was on her guard, but she has an alibi. She might not have been heartbroken, but I can’t believe she would have killed her children’s father, not at home where they could have found him.’

‘Yes, yes, you made that point before, and if we’re dealing with a normal mother that would be significant. But if she’s a killer who brutally assaulted her husband, well, the rules of normal behaviour are hardly going to apply to her.’

‘She has an alibi,’ Geraldine insisted.

‘She might have paid a hit man,’ someone suggested.

‘It’s possible,’ Reg agreed.

‘With what?’ Geraldine asked. ‘They were about to lose their house. They were skint.’

Reg turned to Max and instructed him to investigate Caroline’s financial circumstances further. If the widow had somehow managed to get her hands on a reasonable sum of money, then she might indeed have arranged for her husband to be removed while she was out, watching her sons play football, in the presence of several witnesses. Geraldine hoped they wouldn’t discover Caroline was responsible for her husband’s death. The woman had two young sons who had already lost their father.

It wasn’t the first time Geraldine had found herself at odds with Reg. He wasn’t an easy man to challenge. As her senior officer, she found him quite intimidating. Bombastic and self-opinionated, he seemed to solicit her views only to overrule her response when her ideas didn’t coincide with his own. As if that wasn’t sufficiently irritating, Reg favoured the opinions of a useless profiler. Apart from Jayne, all the profilers Geraldine had worked with had offered invaluable insights. Geraldine couldn’t understand why an intelligent man like Reg would have time for this woman’s inane views.

Jayne shook her long curly hair and looked around the room with a warm smile.

‘Wives killing their husbands isn’t as extraordinary as you might think. Think of Agamemnon, the king of Greece who led an army to recover Helen of Troy.’

‘Is he a suspect?’ someone called out.

Jayne gave a tolerant smile. A few people sniggered. Geraldine heaved a sigh of quiet protest. She wanted to focus on the investigation, not waste time listening to a lecture on ancient Greek mythology. Even Reg looked disgruntled.

‘While Agamemnon was away for ten years fighting, his wife took a lover,’ Jayne continued, apparently indifferent to the ribbing. ‘When Agamemnon returned, his wife and her lover killed him. It’s a pattern that has been repeated time and again. A wife takes a lover and they kill the husband and take his estate and make themselves rich.’

‘Rich in debts,’ Geraldine muttered. ‘And who’s the accomplice in this case?’ she demanded out loud. ‘It’s all well and good establishing her motive – a lot of wives probably want to see their husbands killed.’

There was a ripple of laughter. Jayne raised her eyebrows. Someone called out that it was no wonder Geraldine was single. Ignoring the reaction, she carried on.

‘Don’t forget Caroline has an alibi for the time of her husband’s murder.’

‘I heard about your little outburst earlier on,’ Nick said when he joined her in their office later that afternoon.

Geraldine hesitated, her eyes on her desk. She wasn’t sure what to say. His comment was tolerant, yet once again he was implying an intimacy that made her feel uncomfortable. There was no sensible reason for her to feel awkward in his company, but she did. If she knew for certain that he was seriously attracted to her, the situation would be easier to deal with. They hadn’t exactly been on a date, but several times he had asked her out for a drink, and they had stayed on for something to eat. She enjoyed spending time with him, and would have liked him to confide in her. At the same time, she was wary of making a fool of herself with a man she would have to see every day. He worked with her colleagues, and knew them far better than she did. His flattery was gratifying. She just wished she knew for certain what it signified.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he went on, moving closer until he was standing beside her chair, leaning on the back of it. She could smell his aftershave.

‘I’d like to stop and chat,’ she replied brusquely, panicking, ‘but I’ve got to go.’

She stood up and hurried from the room. She couldn’t allow anything to distract her from her investigation.

12

Caroline hadn’t slept since
she had discovered Dave’s body. It wasn’t that losing him had broken her heart exactly. She had given up hoping to reclaim his affection a long time ago. What worried her was her meeting with Brian. She had dismissed the encounter as irrelevant, until the boys had delivered a message that could only have come from him. They had both been clear about the wording. ‘He said he’s done what you wanted, and now it’s your turn to do what he wants.’ They had described Brian, right down to his hairy hands and his bad complexion.

Brian wanted Caroline to do something for him. Only the memory of Dave’s body prevented her from dismissing his message as a sick prank. Whatever Brian expected of her, it wasn’t going to be good. She wanted to tell the police, but that would mean admitting she had known in advance that Brian was going to see Dave. Worse, she was the one who had set up the meeting, telling Brian where to find him, and taking the boys out of the way. The police were bound to suspect her of being complicit in the attack.

She tried to reassure herself there was nothing Brian could do if she ignored his demands. He could hardly report her to the police. But he knew where she lived. She had volunteered that information herself. He had spoken to her sons. He was capable of murder. There was no knowing what he might do if she refused to carry out his request. She wanted to discover what he was after, and she was terrified of finding out. Meanwhile, all she could do was wait and worry. Brian knew where she lived, but she had no idea where to find him.

She tried to imagine his reaction when she refused to do as he asked.

‘I killed your husband, just like we agreed. Now it’s your turn.’

It was a surreal scenario, with an unspoken threat hanging between them. Fragments of memory slipped into her mind. She recalled Brian as a nasty boy in school uniform. But now ‘I’ll tell the teacher’ had turned into ‘I know where you live,’ and ‘You know I’m not afraid to kill,’ and, worst of all, ‘I know your children.’ She slept badly again the following night, disturbed by snatches of nightmares in which strange monsters pursued her children along dark streets. The boys were laughing as though it was all a game. Only she knew that the boys were going to be torn to pieces. She struggled to call out a warning, but she had no voice.

By Wednesday she was worn out with anxiety and lack of sleep. She hadn’t slept properly for three nights, not since Dave’s murder. She was sitting at the small breakfast bar in the kitchen, watching the boys eating spaghetti hoops on toast, when the doorbell rang. Shocked into immobility, she watched Ed jump up and run to open the door. Trembling, she forced herself to her feet. It was an effort to cross the kitchen and go out into the hall. Her mother was standing there, smiling at Ed.

‘I came as soon as I could.’

Caroline shrugged. It didn’t take three days to travel to London from Brighton. Nevertheless, she was pleased to see her mother. Her fussing would be a welcome distraction.

‘You look terrible,’ her mother said. ‘How are you coping?’

Caroline turned away. She couldn’t be bothered to try and explain. Only she and a pock-marked stranger knew that they were accomplices in a terrible crime. An encounter of just a few seconds had plunged her life from normality into the depths of a nightmare world of unbelievable horror. After explaining that she couldn’t stay long, her mother chattered to Ed and Matthew with forced cheerfulness until Caroline wanted to scream at her to shut up. She felt like locking herself in the bathroom, crouching on the floor and clutching her knees to her chest, crying. But she couldn’t allow herself to fall apart, for the children’s sake.

Her mother put the kettle on to make tea. They were out of milk. All at once, Caroline was desperate to escape the claustrophobic stuffiness of the house.

‘I’ll pop along to Morrisons.’ There was a small local store just across the main road. She hadn’t been out to the shops since her encounter with Brian. ‘I won’t be long.’

‘Off you go then. We’ll be fine here, won’t we, boys?’

‘Yes, granny.’

‘Get some Jaffa Cakes, mum.’

‘Get some chocolate fingers!’

With a promise to return with treats, Caroline left the house. She was preoccupied, thinking that someone would have to sleep on the sofa. Now Dave had gone, there was no reason why she shouldn’t give up her own room to her mother. On the other hand, if she made her too comfortable, her mother might never leave. She was startled out of her planning by a voice calling her name in an urgent whisper. It took her a second to realise someone was lurking among the trees at the end of her road, just out of sight.

‘Caroline! Caroline! Over here!’

She spun round. Brian was standing almost close enough to touch, his pale eyes seeming to glow in the shadow of the branches under the streetlight. Instinctively Caroline backed away, resisting an urge to turn and run. There was no point. Brian knew where she lived. On trembling legs, she stepped closer. Without warning he reached out and seized her arm in a pincer-like grip, propelling her further away from the road. In the silence, Caroline thought she could hear the pounding of her own heart. After a few steps, she recovered her senses and stopped. With a rough movement she shook herself free of his grasp.

‘What do you want?’

‘It’s your turn,’ he whispered. ‘I did what you wanted. Now it’s your turn.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Caroline whispered, furious with fear. ‘Leave me and my boys alone, or…’

Brian stepped closer. ‘Or what?’