Never Look Back (22 page)

4 February – Tuesday

He slipped on some surgical gloves and stopped outside the house, squatting as if tying a stray shoelace. In fact his eyes were focused on the front window of the Victorian terrace. He could just see a young woman standing in the hallway, a phone pressed to her ear. The front door stood open; peculiar, given the temperature. The snow had gone but the temperature wasn’t much above freezing. The plants in front of the house looked frozen solid.

As he looked back the woman was finishing her call. She stepped towards the door and, without looking at him, slammed it shut. How unobservant, he thought. He watched her walk through to the living room, plumping cushions and, from what he could tell, singing to herself as she did so. Her black hair was long but unkempt. She repeatedly tossed her head to keep her tresses out of her pinched features. The dress she was wearing looked as if it was stretched to bursting over her rotund figure. A shiver took hold of his shoulders. As he watched her rearranging ornaments on the mantelpiece he realized she was the antithesis of Hayley. Where this woman was round, Hayley had been slim, her skin supple, white and perfect. This creature’s skin was stretched, puckering at her neck. Her wrists looked swollen.

When she finally disappeared back into the hall he moved to the left of the house and walked calmly down the alleyway. There was a gate, of course, tall and sturdy. Without so much as a missed step he put one hand on top and used the wall to his left to launch himself up and over. He landed with barely a whisper of noise and not a nick on his gloves.

The French doors that led into the lounge were unlocked, as he knew they would be. He checked the bottom of his shoes for any traces of dirt. There was a small amount of a red clay-like soil, so he wiped his feet carefully on the mat that said ‘Benvenuto’.

‘Thank you,’ he whispered, stepping into the house and listening. The woman’s humming was still audible but other than that the house was quiet. The carpet beneath his feet had once been plush. Thankfully now it was almost threadbare. No impressions of his shoes would be found. He approached the doorway and peered into the hallway. The girl was on the phone again, gesticulating and babbling away, completely unaware of his presence. Her back was turned to him. Without hesitation he made his way up the stairs, slowly, wrinkling up his nose at the flock wallpaper. The chattering woman never turned or noticed the slight creak of a floorboard near the top of the stairs so he continued down the hallway.

When he found the room he was looking for he opened the door and looked around him, fingering the tiny object in his hand. He looked at the shelves, cupboards and surfaces where he might leave his present. There was an abundance of pottery and canvasses covered in bright slashes of colour. The owner was obviously proud of their handiwork. As he looked back to the precious item in his hand he sighed. He was reluctant to part with it. He turned it over, the metal cool against his skin, resisting the urge to put it in his mouth, to let his tongue search for the taste of blood.

Footsteps on the landing made him turn and shrink back against a bookshelf. The humming woman walked past the door. He heard a door close and a lock slide into place. Before she could return he placed his prized possession on top of a pile of books He smiled, turned on the bedside lamp with a flick of a switch and looked pleasurably upon the metal catching the light. It couldn’t be missed.

The sound of rushing water broke his reverie and he left the room and walked down the stairs, in no hurry but with quiet steps. Within seconds he was vaulting the garden gate, walking down the driveway and vanishing into the grey suburban streets.

5 February – Wednesday

Lockyer looked at the e-fit in front of him and groaned. The breakthrough of a witness was a coup. The idea that Turner could identify the killer was another. But the e-fit was a joke. The man in front of him could be anyone. Did he recognize the face? Yes. Was it utterly generic? Yes. A physical description was detailed beneath the large black-and-white image. It stated that the individual wanted for questioning was Caucasian, average height, average build, brown or black hair, cut short. The clothing listed was laughable: jeans, blue or black, a jumper black or grey, a coat, black or navy. Shoes, blue or black trainers, or black boots. He turned the paper over so he didn’t have to look at it any more.

Malvern Turner, once he had stopped crying, had sworn he would be able to identify the man, but Lockyer suspected he would say anything to get out of the station and back to his beloved Sarah. He shifted in his seat and looked up at the ceiling, pushing aside the anger that swelled inside him whenever he thought about Turner watching Sarah.

The helpline attached to the e-fit had been inundated with calls. More staff had been drafted in to help. There was a little old lady who was positive it was her postman, an electrician who was sure it was his boss and even the headmistress who was almost certain the man in the picture was her year three History teacher. Every lead had to be checked, no matter how unlikely. Everything was taking too much time, time he didn’t have. According to Phil they had less than two weeks to find the girls’ killer before another body would be added to their number. Four girls in less than two months. It was crazy, senseless. The abortion link couldn’t be the only motivation for murder. He needed to get into the guy’s head to catch him. He had the distinct feeling the e-fit was doing nothing but slowing the investigation down, stretching his manpower and budget to the limit.

He turned to look out of his office window. It was snowing again. People were rushing along the pavements, using their hands, newspapers or briefcases to cover their heads. There was a line of five men standing outside the curry house, their backs flat to the glass window. The overhang of the sign was keeping them out of the snow, just. All five were smoking, their combined smoke adding to the plume of steam coming out of the kitchen vent. The smell of cooking meat, oil and spices made Lockyer’s stomach grumble. As he watched a gang of kids climbing onto the number 176 bus, shouting at each other, practically throwing their money at the driver, he realized he was wasting time. He looked away and forced himself to go back to his desk.

He needed to forget about the e-fit, forget about dead ends and forget about yesterday, his disastrous meeting with Sarah. ‘What a moron,’ he said to himself, covering his face with the e-fit. The suspect’s face was turned away from him, replacing his own. Anyone walking into his office might wonder if this was how he got into the psyche of a killer. He remembered the pathetic excuses he’d used to justify Jane’s and his involvement in Sarah’s harassment case. He never told civilians about his work and he certainly didn’t make a habit of revealing sensitive information about a case. His intention when he walked into Bella’s was to reassure Sarah. Instead he had essentially told her that her stalker was connected to his murder investigation. What a way to terrify an already vulnerable woman. There was something about her that seemed to unhinge him professionally, incite his sympathy. The phone on his desk started to ring. He glanced at his mobile but there were no missed calls. Hardly anyone used his office line.

‘Lockyer,’ he said as he picked up the receiver.

‘Dad?’ Megan’s voice was quiet.

‘Hi, honey, what’s up?’ he said, pleased to hear actual cheer in his voice, rather than the forced joy he was getting uncomfortably used to. He hadn’t called her since last week when he had kicked her out of his flat. He simply hadn’t had time with Turner’s arrest and the discovery of Hayley’s body.

‘I know you’re busy but have you got five minutes?’ she asked, barely above a whisper.

‘Megs, I can hardly hear you. Where are you?’ he asked, putting the phone closer to his ear.

‘I’m in that café, just down from your office, Bella’s,’ she said. ‘Could you come down and meet me? Just for five minutes?’ Her voice sounded croaky. She sounded like she was or had been crying.

‘I’m coming down now. I’ll be with you in two minutes.’ He slammed down the phone, grabbed his suit jacket off the back of his chair and jogged out of his office, across the open-plan room towards the lift. ‘Penny, back in five,’ he called over his shoulder. He didn’t even know if Penny was at her desk but either way someone would have heard him. As he pushed the lift’s call button, he noticed a few beads of sweat on his forehead reflected in the metal doors. His heart felt like it was leaping about in his chest. ‘Calm down,’ he told himself. This was exactly what he was like as a father. Either he barely noticed his daughter’s distress or he went completely overboard. A classic case of guilt-fuelled parenting. He crossed the foyer and went out of the automatic doors, a swirl of falling snow now catching him full in the face. He patted his pockets to check he had his wallet.

The bell jingled as he pushed open the door to the café. Megan was sitting in the same place where Sarah had been the day before. The place was empty but for an old couple at the back of the room in a leather-lined booth. The waitress seemed to recognize him.

‘Espresso?’ she asked, smiling.

‘No, thanks,’ he said, looking over at Megan. ‘Do you want a cuppa, hon?’ he asked, trying not to panic when his daughter looked up at him with puffy eyes and a red face.

‘Latte, three sugars,’ Megan said.

That made him smile. She only took three sugars because he used to. When she was a little girl she had wanted to join him in his ritual of morning coffee from the age of three. He had managed to hold her demands at bay until she was ten but then she had devoured a small morning coffee with three sugars with as much gusto as her father. She obviously still did.

The girl behind the counter passed him Megan’s drink; he added the sugar and dropped a fiver on the counter. ‘You can put the change in the tin,’ he said, walking over to join his daughter. He took off his jacket, slung it over the back of his chair and sat. Neither of them said anything. Megan wasn’t even looking at him. This was the second day in a row he had sat across from a distraught woman and not known what to say.

‘OK, Megs, come on, why the tears?’ he said, reaching across the table and giving her hand a squeeze. Megan shook her head and resumed sipping her coffee. ‘You’re going to have to give me something, Megs? I’m not a mind reader.’

‘Would it be OK if I came and stayed at yours for a few days?’ she said, finally looking up.

‘All right,’ he said, trying to remember the last time his daughter had stayed at his place, let alone asked to stay. ‘What’s happened, Megan?’ He watched her take a deep breath, pulling her hair over one shoulder, playing with the ends with her thumb. She was so like Clara it was scary.

‘Nothing. Well, nothing major. Mum and I had a row, that’s all. Things got a bit heated. I thought it would be a good idea if I made myself scarce until things calm down.’

As she was speaking, he was racking his brains trying to figure out what they could possibly have argued about that would have this much impact. She’d failed her driving test, or an exam. Did she have some coming up? He was ashamed to admit he didn’t have a clue. Had she been caught with marijuana or some other illegal substance? ‘What did you row about?’ he asked, not sure he had the mental capacity to deal with anything too big. Of course he might already know if he had actually taken the time to listen to her last week instead of making it all about him, his case, his work. Why did he always do that? He wanted to be there for her but somehow he always fell short.

Megan wiped her nose with a napkin, took a deep breath. ‘It was stupid, she has . . . I’d rather not talk about it, Dad, if you don’t mind?’

He reached across and tilted up her chin so she was actually looking at him. ‘Come on, Megan. You and your mother hardly ever argue these days. What’s this all about?’ He could see how upset she was but he could also see how hard she was trying to suppress her emotions.

She rubbed her forehead with her fingers. ‘It’s so stupid . . . childish, really.’ She shook her head. ‘Mum’s got a new partner . . . well, not new, it’s been going on for a while,’ she said, looking into her coffee cup. ‘She told me last night that he’s moving in with us.’

He didn’t know what to say. He knew Clara dated but there had never been anyone significant. She hadn’t had a serious relationship since their separation and they had never even discussed divorce. His hand went automatically to the ring around his neck. It was his constant reminder of what he had lost. This was his fault. If he had been a better husband none of this would be happening.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked, reaching across the table and resting her hand on his.

He could almost hear the tug of loyalties in her voice. ‘Megs, it’s fine. Your mum and I have been separated for what, five, six years.’

Megan nodded her head. ‘It was just a shock, that’s all, and we both said some pretty shitty things. It got out of hand.’ The regret in her voice reminded him again just how much she had changed, how much he had missed. She wasn’t his little girl any more. ‘Would it be OK if I stayed . . . just while Brian moves in and they get themselves sorted?’

‘Yes,’ he said, not trusting himself to say anything else. Just hearing the guy’s name was making his palms sweat. He needed to get out of here and get back to work. He wanted to push all thoughts of Clara and Brian to the back of his mind. Turner’s disastrous e-fit would be a welcome distraction at this point.

Megan pushed her empty coffee cup away from her and stood up. ‘Thanks, Dad, and I’m sorry for dragging you down here. I know how busy you are.’ She bent down and kissed his cheek. ‘I’m going to get the bus back and try to patch things up with Mum. Any chance you could pick me up Tuesday night? I’m going to Rachel’s this weekend and Brian isn’t moving in till Wednesday.’

‘Of course, hon . . . absolutely,’ he said, still feeling numb, ‘. . . and give my regards to your mother.’