Fatal Act (25 page)

M
EGAN
DIDN
’
T
LIKE
going back to the flat by herself. It wasn’t just the nagging worry about who Dirk might be with when she wasn’t there to keep watch. She felt uneasy travelling in London by herself. Having grown up in a small village a half hour’s bus ride from Norwich, she had found that while life in the metropolis was exciting, it could also be disturbing. When she was out on her own after dark the atmosphere felt positively menacing. She had heard terrible stories of women being mugged and worse. Dirk always laughed at her fears, assuring her nothing was going to happen. But since two girls she knew had been murdered on the streets, she had found it harder than ever to go home alone. This evening Dirk had gone out with the other lads in the cast. At least, that was what he had told her. If he was telling her the truth he would be back late, probably very drunk. If it was a lie, he might not come home at all that night.

T
he streets were well lit as she walked to Russell Square, from where she took the Piccadilly line eight stops to Wood Green. From the station it was only a five minute walk to the safety of her flat. The newsagents kiosk at the station was still open, as was the McDonald’s takeaway restaurant by the cinema. She walked quickly past the closed metal shutters of the next few shops. Ignoring a few youths loitering at the bus stop, she hurried on. She glanced behind her as she turned off, past the pub on the corner. There was a constant stream of cars passing on the main road, plus the takeaway food shops were always open, however late it was when she went home. If there was any trouble on the street she could run into one of them, or into the pub, for help.

L
eaving the main road, she walked quickly along a side street towards the turning where she lived. This was the creepiest part of her journey. Away from the bustle of the station and the main road she felt uneasy, vulnerable to attack. She tried to imagine Dirk was walking beside her. He would laugh at her for being afraid. ‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ he would say, ‘it’s perfectly safe here.’ But the pretence didn’t help. If he had been with her, she wouldn’t have been nervous. Anna and Bethany must have thought they were safe, out on the streets of London at night, all alone.

A
s though in response to her fears, she heard footsteps behind her. She didn’t dare turn and look back. Instead she scurried on, walking as quickly as she could without actually breaking into a run. She didn’t want to let on she knew she was being followed. Displaying her fear might provoke her pursuer into launching an attack straight away. If she could reach her front door while he was still a reasonable distance behind her, she would be able to dash inside before he could get to her. It was her only hope.

H
er heart was pounding vigorously, blood pumping through her brain, pulsating inside her ears and behind her eyes. Gasping for breath, she stumbled on. Her legs ached but she didn’t dare slow down. With all her strength she willed herself to keep moving, knowing that if she faltered now, her pursuer might pounce. She didn’t care about losing her phone which had very little credit on it, or about her purse which was almost empty. Her credit card could be cancelled, her college swipe card blocked. None of those things mattered. But this would be no ordinary mugging. Because although no one had admitted as much in public, the truth was that a psychopath was targeting girls from her college.

T
he principal was busy playing down the connection between recent murders and the college, claiming it was an unfortunate coincidence two of his recent graduates had been killed in little more than a week. In a way his reaction was understandable. At the same time, it was recklessly irresponsible. He should have been taking steps to ensure the safety of his female students. It would be logistically difficult to protect them all as they lived in different areas of London, but they could at least have been warned against going out alone after dark. Dirk wouldn’t have been able to leave her to make her way home by herself if the college staff had advised all the students to be extra vigilant until the killer was caught, and not to travel on their own.

S
he was close enough to her flat to see chipped black paint on the front door. Stumbling up the front path, she thrust her key in the lock. To her relief the key didn’t stick and the door opened. As she turned to close it, she looked out into the street. There was no one there. She hoped desperately that whoever had been following her had packed it in and gone away. The thought that he might be prowling around outside the flat, looking for a way in, made her feel sick with fear. After a moment’s hesitation, she pulled out her phone and called Dirk. There was no answer. Hearing his carefree voicemail message didn’t make her feel any better. Although it was early, she went straight to bed with a mug of cocoa and her script. She hoped rehearsing her lines would take her mind off her Dirk, but she couldn’t help wondering where he was.

L
ying in bed, propped up against his pillow, she smelt traces of his sweat mingled with the familiar scent of his deodorant and struggled not to torment herself by speculating where he was spending the night. Eventually she slipped into an uneasy doze. She wasn’t sure what woke her from an incoherent nightmare where footsteps echoed along deserted streets while Dirk stood laughing at her. The script was lying on the bed in front of her where it had fallen out of her hand. Half asleep, she heard footsteps shuffling around in the next room. There was someone else in the flat.

S
AM
WENT
TO
SET
up the CCTV checks and Geraldine returned to her office. As she sat trawling through statements by Dirk, Megan, Marco, and all the other people associated with the drama school, Nick came in. He sat down at his desk but she knew he was looking at her. It was unnerving. She did her best to ignore him, gazing doggedly at her screen without acknowledging his presence.

‘Always busy,’ he remarked at last. ‘You really need to make some time to relax, get away from the pressure for a few hours. You’re not doing yourself any good carrying on like that. Get a life, for goodness sake.’

‘I’m not sure what I do with my life outside work is any of your business.’

O
nce again she had retorted sharply when he was only being friendly.

‘Look, Geraldine, I’m not being inquisitive about your private like, if that’s what you think. We’re colleagues and I don’t think we want to confuse our roles here. We might be on a case together soon, and it’s best to keep work and private lives separate.’

‘I’m not confused,’ she answered.

That wasn’t strictly true. Nick was attractive. More importantly, he wouldn’t be put off by her dedication to her work. He would understand her. She decided that if he asked her out again, she would say yes.

‘H
ow about a drink then, if you don’t fancy supper? Just a drink, Geraldine. Look, I’ll come clean, because we seem to have got off on the wrong foot, and maybe I’ve come across as a bit pushy. The truth is, I think you may need to talk to someone who’s not working on your case, someone you can bounce ideas off. That’s all. There’s no shame in that. We all need some help with hard cases. And as luck would have it, I’m not actually snowed under right now – well, nothing pressing. Take advantage of my availability and spend a little time offloading. It might help you formulate your ideas if you talk about it. You can do the same for me when I’m on my next case, if it makes you feel any better.’

There was no reason to refuse to go for an occasional drink with a colleague.

A
s soon as she agreed, he turned away and busied himself with a report he was writing. Somehow Geraldine felt uneasy. He wasn’t unattractive, and he was married. Unable to settle, she went to find Sam, keen to get to the bottom of the sergeant’s hostility towards Nick. Sam was in the visual images identification and detection office chatting to a middle-aged constable. She looked up when Geraldine entered. ‘We’ve seen Marco leaving Gower Street. Like he said, he was on foot. He didn’t go into the station but crossed Euston Road and walked to Camden where he went straight to the pub.’

‘There’s no way he could have legged it over to Holborn, no time even to have taken a taxi there and back,’ the constable confirmed.

Geraldine wanted to challenge Sam about her antagonism towards Nick but this wasn’t the time. In any case, the squabble was between them and nothing to do with her, just as it was none of Sam’s business if Geraldine chose to go for a drink with him. She left them to it.

A
fter working late they drove in separate cars, north out of London. Geraldine followed Nick along the Edgware Road and on to the Watford bypass. They had been driving for over half an hour when they reached a country pub in a village, off the beaten track. Neither of them acknowledged out loud that Nick had chosen to bring her somewhere they wouldn’t be recognised. The interior of the olde worlde black and white pub was dimly lit and quiet. Nick bought the first round, while Geraldine selected a table in as well lit a corner as she could find. When Nick sat down she shifted in her seat to avoid any contact with him.

T
hey chatted idly about their colleagues for a few minutes. Nick described Sam as ‘a fire cracker’, but didn’t volunteer any explanation for her animosity beyond what he had already offered. Geraldine didn’t pursue the subject. He was more forthcoming about Reg, for whom he professed admiration.

‘Don’t you find him a bit heavy handed?’ she probed cautiously.

‘He’s the boss. It’s best to do things his way, and hope we get results.’

‘And if we don’t?’

He shrugged when Geraldine said she suspected Reg would never take the rap for failure.

‘You can’t blame a bloke for covering his own arse,’ he said.

Respecting Nick’s refusal to be drawn into any further discussion about their senior colleague, Geraldine muttered in agreement.

A
s soon as he raised the topic of her investigation, Geraldine launched into a detailed account of the disappearing killer. The case had been nicknamed Houdini by the team working on it.

‘You keep talking about “him”,’ Nick pointed out, putting down his pint, ‘when surely everything you’ve told me so far points to the killer being a woman?’

‘You don’t think the killer – or killers – were motivated by jealousy, because Piers was sleeping with the victims?’

‘Quite possibly, yes. But doesn’t that make it all the more likely the killer’s a jealous woman, systematically eliminating her rivals for his attentions? Or else she’s taking revenge on him. Using his own van suggests someone wanted to frame him, which all points to a jealous ex-lover hell bent on revenge.’

‘W
hen you put it like that, it sounds so obvious, I don’t know why I never thought of that. The reporter who was first on the scene of Anna Porter’s crash was a woman, and a woman was seen following Bethany shortly before she was killed.’

She turned to Nick, excited. Perhaps the reason they hadn’t found the killer was because they had been looking in the wrong place all along.

‘Nick, I don’t know how to thank you –’ she began, and broke off, flustered.

The last thing she wanted was to be in his debt, but despite her best intentions she felt herself warming to him. When he stood up, she felt a flicker of disappointment. She reminded herself fiercely that he had a wife waiting for him at home, estranged or otherwise.

‘Same again?’ he asked and she smiled, relieved.

She wasn’t ready for the evening to end yet. ‘It’s just a casual drink,’ she reminded herself, watching him going up to the bar.

T
he evening passed quickly. They were both hungry so they enquired about food. Nick grumbled at the limited menu and asked Geraldine if she wanted to go somewhere else, but she was content to stay. If they had been on a date, she might have expected something better, but what they ordered was entirely appropriate for an evening spent with a colleague discussing work. In any case she was too engrossed in discussing the investigation to pay much attention to the menu. Despite her preoccupation with the case – or perhaps because she was able to talk freely about it – she enjoyed Nick’s company. All in all they spent a pleasant evening, and she told Nick as much when they were standing in the car park taking leave of each other.

‘T
hat was a very nice evening, thank you,’ she said, suddenly rather formal. ‘And thanks for listening. It was a great help.’

As he leaned forward she turned her head so that he kissed her softly on her cheek. If she hadn’t moved, his dry warm lips would have met hers. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Confused, certainly, and cautiously exhilarated. Given his marriage, it could be no more than a frivolous distraction from the case. But it would be foolish to embark on such an affair with a colleague. What was more important right now was that Nick had given her a new line of enquiry to consider. The killer might be a jealous woman, possessive about Piers. Focusing fiercely on that, Geraldine did her best to forget the memory of the soft touch of Nick’s lips on her cheek.

W
hile she was on her way home, her phone rang. Glancing down she saw Ian Peterson’s number. Although she was on speakerphone, she preferred not to chat in the car and said she would call him back when she got home. Sitting on her sofa with a mug of chocolate she phoned him.

‘You were working late,’ he said.

‘I wasn’t working, actually.’

‘Ha, a date?’

‘No. Well, maybe.’ She laughed. ‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing’s up.’ He sounded slightly put out. ‘I thought you’d like to know I got my promotion, that’s all.’

‘Ian, that’s brilliant! Congratulations, Inspector!’

‘Thanks. I thought you’d be pleased.’

‘Are you sure nothing’s wrong? You don’t sound very happy about it.’