Each Day I Wake: A gripping psychological thriller: US Edition (23 page)

It was dark and raining as Ashley stepped out onto the street and waited.

She was dressed for a night out, in high heels and a short sequin-covered dress that sparkled as it caught the light from the nearby streetlamp.

A BMW drew up. She smiled, walked round to open the front passenger door and climbed inside.

I strained to see the face of the driver but as I looked, the car drew away at speed.

Delaney put the old Ford into gear and we followed. “Is that him?”

I shouted back. “It must be.”

We thought we’d lost them approaching Soho when traffic lights turned against us after the BMW had sped through. When the lights turned to green, the BMW was nowhere in sight. We pressed on and caught up with them pulling into the car park on Poland Street. By the time we pulled in and found where the BMW was parked, they had moved on.

Delaney pulled out his phone, tapped in the registration number of the car and waited for a reply from the police computer. He cursed. “Down for maintenance.”

We ran towards the car park stairs and made it back onto the street in time to see Ashley, arm in arm with the killer, walking into
Bollingers
, a Soho basement club. Once again, I could only see the killer at distance and from behind.

The inside of the club was all movement, light, sound and sexual energy. Trance music swirled as pretty young things gyrated in simulated ecstasy. Neither Ashley nor the killer could be seen.

Delaney and I separated, searching the club.

I was in the bar area, checking out the drinkers when there was a commotion from the dance floor.

The dancers there had stopped and had drawn back to leave a large open space. At its center, surrounded by gaping revelers, many of them crying or screaming, lay someone.

I pushed my way through the crowd. Blood flowed from a long gash at Delaney’s throat. His body was starting to convulse. A young woman who said she was a nurse was trying to staunch the flow of blood but her expression told me she was losing the fight.

I bent close to Delaney to hear what were to be his last words. “Don’t lose him.”

His right hand opened to reveal the keys to the Ford.

It was an unspoken last wish.
Take the Ford. Follow
.

I was certain I had to stay but the nurse pushed Delaney’s eyelids closed and looked back at me, shaking her head. He had died.

My thoughts turned to Ashley once more.

If there was a chance I could save her, I had to leave.

By the time I’d run to the car park and hurried up the stairs, I was in time to see, on the far side of the level, the killer bundling Ashley into the BMW, then climbing in himself, starting up and speeding away. Once again, I was too distant to identify him.

I found my way to Delaney’s Ford and started it up. It was a manual and I had only driven automatics so there was a loud grinding of gears as I struggled with the clutch control as I pulled away. I found the ticket that Delaney had bought when we entered the car park and used it at the exit barrier.

Back out on Poland Street, I caught sight of the BMW taking a right onto Oxford Street. I revved up the Ford and followed.

When the BMW made it onto the M25 motorway, I thought I would lose them, given the lack of power of my machine compared with his. But he settled for keeping to the speed limit. Perhaps he knew that above all he had to avoid being stopped by traffic police.

I followed as he took the exit to Amersham. The highway soon gave way to country roads. More than once I thought I’d lost him as he disappeared from sight around sharp bends but I kept the BMW in view until it pulled into the driveway of a large house.

I parked the Ford off the road and prepared to walk up the driveway. The automatic gates had closed after the BMW had passed through. I had to climb the wall nearby and hope that I wouldn’t encounter intruder alarms or dogs. As I landed on the other side of the wall there was nothing but silence.

The tree-lined driveway was in darkness and I was able to make my way along it unseen until I arrived at the house, a large residence in the Arts and Crafts style.

There was no sign of the BMW. The killer must have driven it straight into one of the three garages that adjoined the house. Chances were these had internal entryways into the house proper. He was inside with Ashley.

I was about to try to find a way into the house when the sound of a train passing nearby brought me to a halt. The value of the property must have been much reduced when the railway was built this close. But my thoughts were elsewhere. I was taken back to what I’d seen and heard when the killer had made me watch the videos of the missing girls. The sound of the train that had just passed, shaking the ground, was the same as then. This house was the place where those murders had taken place.

There was a sash window at the side of the house that had been left open just an inch. There was just enough room to fit the fingers of both hands into the space and I pulled with all my might to raise the window high enough so that I could climb in.

Once I had the window open far enough, I paused to collect my thoughts.

My best chance was to surprise him, given that in all probability he would be preoccupied with Ashley. And the best way of ensuring that was to remain silent.

I moved with great care, making sure that when I made it into the house I wouldn’t disturb anything. It was dark inside so there was a risk that I might collide with something I couldn’t see from outside but this was a chance I knew I must take.

As I dropped through the window and prepared to straighten up, the light came on.

He was waiting for me, gun raised.

“Tom, I can’t say I wasn’t expecting you.”

It was Tim Mason.

He had rolled back his shirtsleeves, revealing his forearms.

There, on his tight forearm, clear to be seen, was the rose tattoo.

He came closer and pointed the gun at my chest.

I thought he was about to fire.

But he smiled. “I want to show you something.”

He walked me from the room and along the hallway to a door at the far end, the gun all the time pushed into my back.

When the door opened and I was forced inside, I knew where I was.

Books covered the walls from floor to ceiling. This was the library where he’d carried out the killings that I’d seen in the videos he’d made me watch.

Ashley was lying face-up on a sofa at the far end of the room, her eyes open and staring.

I shouted out. “You’ve killed her.”

He laughed. A full, breath-filled laugh. “Not yet. She’s sedated. She’ll come round in a while.”

He motioned with the gun for me to sit facing him in one of the wingback chairs that stood either side of the log-filled fireplace. “We should talk.”

I knew my best chance of survival was to keep him engaged. “You weren’t surprised to see me.”

He smiled. “No, Tom. Your covert surveillance is not the best. I spotted you right away. Once I removed the protector who was with you, I knew you’d follow. I wanted to lead you here. I had to slow down more than once on the way here so you could stay in touch.”

“Why me? Why have you been so determined to make me suffer?”

He lowered the gun just a little. “You must know, Tom. Why it had to be you.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, first, you’d taken it on yourself to interfere. Continuing with your old crime work, investigating the missing girls when you should have been concentrating on the work you were supposed to be doing, helping the team to expose wrongdoing. I could tell. Tell you were about to expose me. So I had no choice but to stop you.”

“So that was it?”

His eyes moved back and forth at speed, as if he was struggling to control his emotions. “No Tom, that was just the superficiality of it all. This is about lies, Tom. A world full of lies. I’m the one who has to rid the world of those lies. We need truth. You must know that’s what we need.”

“And I’m somehow a part of that?”

“Of course you are! I began the investigation into Montague and OAM. I was poised to bring that to fruition by exposing the lies they peddle to the poor fools who give him their money. Until you came along. How did you ever imagine you could side line me?”

“I never tried to displace you. You must know that.”

His expression hardened. He raised the gun once more and aimed it at me. “How could you deny it? From the moment you walked into Hamilton’s office he was smitten by you. Your determination. You were the future. I was the past. You have no idea how that felt. How you placed yourself between me and the truth. It couldn’t go on. It had to be stopped.”

“And all the while you’ve been killing those women. How does that square with your dedication to telling the truth?”

He laughed again. “You still don’t get it, do you Tom? You’d know the answer to that if you really thought about it. You know they’re just another side of the same thing. The life they live is a lie. Pretending to be something they’re not. Pretending to be innocent and virtuous when all along they’re brazen and calculating. Their virtue is a lie. Their whole being is
a lie. They wouldn’t know the truth if it came up from behind and bit them. And as I’ve already told you, I’m the one to rid the world of those lies. The one who understands the truth.”

I knew then just how deep was his madness. “And you have no remorse? You don’t care about the futures that they’ve lost, the agonies that you’ve put their families through?”

He puffed out his chest. “That’s the price that needs to be paid for the truth to take its rightful place. Don’t you agree, Tom? I want you to agree.”

I tried to placate him, playing for time in the hope of finding a way to overpower him before he could use the gun. “I’ve never doubted that was what was driving your journalism.”

His face reddened with anger. “Don’t humor me, Tom. Don’t ever make that mistake. You talk of journalism when you don’t know the first thing about
real
journalism. About getting to the facts.” His eyes bulged. I could see his finger tighten on the trigger. “Well, let me tell you about real journalism.”

He picked up the pocket drive that had been lying on the table beside him. “See this. Geoff Tunny died for this. There’s enough here to sink Montague and OAM ten times over. And who’s going to break the story? Not you, Tom. You could never be trusted with as important a task as that. That will be
me
.” He smiled. “After all, everyone will know you’re the one who’s been killing those girls. No one would trust you to break the truth, to rid the world of the lies told by a man like Montague. No, Tom, that honor will fall to me once the police find you lying dead next to the corpse of Ashley, your last victim.”

I knew I had to find a point of weakness, something I could exploit to allow me the chance of an opening against him. “So, that was it all along? You were so jealous of me and my talent that you wanted to frame me for the killings.”

His face reddened further. “Talent? Don’t talk to me about talent. You have no talent, I thought you understood that?”

“So, you don’t deny it?”

“Why would I want to do that? You deserved it, Tom. Deserved it for ever thinking you could take my place. And, yes, I’ve enjoyed seeing you suffer, knowing the agony, the self doubt you’ve been going through. You deserved it, every minute of it.”

There was the sound of movement from the sofa behind us as Ashley began to wake. When she cried out, Mason turned his head towards her.

I knew this was the moment, win or lose, when I had to take my chance.

I jumped up from the chair and aimed a kick at the hand holding the gun.

He groaned but held his grip on the weapon. “You never should have thought you had a chance, Tom.”

I grabbed the gun hand. We struggled to see who would gain control. There wasn’t time to doubt my strength. I knew I’d been weakened by the ordeals he’d put me through. The trauma of being left for dead in the North Dock was receding but the imprisonment in the basement of Brookheath Hospital had come close to pushing me back to ground zero.

I summoned all the strength I had left to try to prevent him turning the gun towards me. But I was losing the fight. He was gaining control. Inch by inch, as the barrel of the gun turned towards me, his superior strength was winning out. I was back in Nottingham, losing the fight to Brogan all over again, struggling with the desire to want to submit, for an end to the fight.

There was the savage glint of victory in Mason’s eyes. “Don’t fight it, Tom. You know this is meant to be.”

The gun was now pointed into my face and he was attempting to fire.

I grappled with his fingers, trying to prevent them from pulling the trigger.

Ashley was on her feet and had picked up one of the logs that filled the fireplace. She hurled it in our direction, striking Mason full in the face.

I summoned up a last surge of energy. I wouldn’t submit. I would find a way to win. I’d make up for all the times I’d chosen compromise ahead of striking out for what I believed in.

Before he could respond, I turned the gun towards him.

He struggled to regain control but the gun fired. The trajectory of the bullet was critical. It entered beneath the chin and travelled upward into the brain.

He fell back, hit the floor hard and lay there motionless.

I felt for a pulse but there was none.

Ashley screamed.

I tried to calm her. “It’s all right. You’re safe now.”

I could see she was unsure what to believe. “You killed him.”

“He would have killed us both. And without you he would have succeeded.”

“He seemed so proper, such a gentleman. And then when he saw you he turned, forced me into coming here.”

“Because I knew he was a killer. Listen, Ashley, he’s been killing women. Four, maybe more. We need to call the police.”

She began to cry. “And he would have killed me?”

I nodded.

She sat back on the couch, trembling, in shock.

When I used the landline phone to call Lions Yard station and ask for DI Ives, the police operator wanted to know the reason for my call.

“Just tell him he’ll find the killer of Cathy Newsome here.”

“Where is here?”

I didn’t know the address. I’d followed Mason here in near darkness and didn’t know the location. “You can trace it. I’ll leave the call on hold.”

“You
are
reporting a crime?”

“Tell Ives the killer’s dead body is here.”

It would take time for them to trace the call, time I knew how to use.

I began to search the house. In the basement I found the rig he’d used to imprison me at Brookheath. In a cabinet nearby were the videotapes he’d made when stalking the girls he’d killed, the videos he’d made me watch. It was enough for Ives to be able to be certain that Mason was the killer.

Back upstairs, Ashley was recovering. I asked her to wait until the police arrived and then tell them everything that had happened.

She looked up. “You’re not staying here?”

I shook my head.

“But who do I say you are?”

“Tell them I’m Tom Markland. They’ll know who I am. Ask them to search the basement.”

I picked up the gun and the pocket drive and headed back down the driveway to the Ford.

As I waited there, out of sight, minutes passed.

Then there was light at the end of the road. From my vantage point, I watched as two plainclothes policemen emerged from the leading car and made their way up to the house, followed by three armed uniformed officers.

I put the Ford into gear and pulled away.