Philip Brennan 02 - The Creeper (7 page)

Doctor Winter sent her into a cubicle with two small pots to fill. Suzanne did as she was asked, returned with the pots, put them on the desk as instructed.

‘OK,’ said Doctor Winter, snapping on latex gloves, ‘if you could just pop yourself on the table . . .’

Suzanne did as she was told. ‘Legs apart, knees bent, please. I’ll try to make this as painless as possible . . .’

Suzanne put her head back, closed her eyes. She had been fine up until then. This was the part she had been dreading.

12

I
t was afternoon, the sun was shining and Castle Park seemed to have been specially designed as the perfect place to enjoy the perfect day.

The castle had stood for two thousand years and looked like it was ready to stand for another couple of thousand. Flowers bloomed from the perfectly maintained beds and borders surrounding it, people strolled along the neat walkways. Even those who were hurrying to weekday work or business appointments slowed down to enjoy the surroundings. It felt to Marina like a small vacation in another world.

The parkland behind the castle sloped down towards the small lake and the children’s play areas. For Marina, sitting on a bench, taking in the view, the castle always brought to mind images of Boudica and her army, blazing around in their chariots. But where once the warrior-queen would have whipped her horses to get up the hill, attacking the castle while dodging arrows and spears, now the grounds were full of school children on educational day trips, young mothers, nannies and au pairs pushing their baby buggies round. The only kind of sustained assault on the castle came from busloads of primary school children running riot or the occasional Lycra-wearing, stroller-pushing mother taking on the hill as part of her jogging route.

One was running past Marina now. She looked up, smiled. The woman, thin, tanned, her blonde hair pulled away from her sweating face in a severe ponytail, saw Marina sitting with one hand resting on Josephina’s buggy, returned the smile.

‘Got to keep going,’ the woman gasped, passing, ‘get my shape back . . .’ And off she went.

Marina watched her go. What did she mean, get her shape back? The woman looked in perfect condition. Thin, fit-looking, her stomach didn’t even have the slightest bit of sag to it.

Despite the sunshine, Marina felt suddenly cold, like the black cloud from earlier was following her. Was that the kind of thing she was expected to do? Run to get back in shape? To have her new mother’s body scrutinised and deemed either acceptable or unacceptable? She didn’t want that. She couldn’t have that.

Marina thought back to her pregnancy. Before Phil. While Tony was still - was still around. That was hard enough. She felt like she was the first person ever to experience what she was feeling. There was no elation about it, none of the joy she had been told to expect. Just terror. Abject terror.

And then there was Phil. Getting together had been traumatic enough, and she had hoped that, once he was there, Josephina’s real father, then things would be OK. She would calm down. Enjoy the changes her life was going through.

But.

It felt like every time she looked at Josephina she was reminded of what happened. Of the real, dark world, not this sunny, colourful one before her. She saw not a baby but a living slab of guilt.

And that was it. She felt like she could never relax, never enjoy the life she ought to be having with her partner and daughter the way she should be. The way all the other mothers around her in the park seemed to be doing.

Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe they were just pretending, putting on a public face. Maybe they were shrivelled with terror inside.

She looked round. No. They didn’t seem to be. The mothers around her seemed to be as happy as their children in the play area. She looked down at Josephina. The baby was lying asleep, arms up as if in surrender, tiny fists at the sides of her head. Completely unaware of this world - or any world - and anything in it.

And Marina felt another layer of guilt. For the baby. She should be happy, enjoying herself for Josephina’s sake. She was with the man she loved, Phil, the baby’s real father. She tried to imagine what it would have been like the other way round, what she would have felt if they hadn’t all been together. But that didn’t work.

So she tried to wish herself happy. Tried. And failed.

Marina pushed the baby buggy backwards and forwards. Josephina stirred slightly, kept on sleeping. She had tried to talk to the other mothers in the park but they seemed to have their own circles of friends. None of her old friends from teaching had small children so she couldn’t talk to them. And she couldn’t talk to Phil either, no matter how much she loved him.

Sitting there in the sunshine, with children playing all around her, the flowers in bloom and what she usually regarded as the comforting presence of the castle, she felt alone. Completely alone.

Her phone rang. She jumped. Her first response was to check the baby, see if it had woken her, if she was upset in any way. But Josephina just kept on sleeping. Good. Relieved, she checked the display, answered it. She knew who it was.

‘Hey,’ she said.

‘Hey yourself.’

Phil.

Then couldn’t think of anything more to say to him.

‘You OK?’ he said.

‘Fine. Just in Castle Park. Pushing Josephina. Letting her see the sunshine.’ She bit her lip.

‘Wish I was with you.’ He gave a small, brittle laugh that died away. ‘You’ve probably heard on the news, there’s been a murder.’

She hadn’t heard. She was barely aware of anything or anyone but herself at the moment. Still, the old, dark familiar shiver ran through her. ‘So that means . . .’

‘I’ll be late.’ He sighed. ‘Sorry. You know . . . you know what it’s like.’

That shiver again. ‘Yes. I know what it’s like. Is it . . .’ she said, knowing she should say something. ‘. . . is it bad?’

‘Like there are good ones?’ An old phrase he always used. ‘Yeah. Worse than . . . yeah.’ There were some other voices on the line, the sound of Phil covering the mouthpiece to talk to them. ‘Look,’ he said, coming back to her, ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later, OK? Let you know what’s happening.’

‘OK.’

She rang off, looked at the phone. Only then realising he had still been talking to her, telling her he loved her.

She stood up. Looked around, saw nothing to keep her in the park, her vacation over. Started walking. She reached the top of the hill, the main road. Looked down the hill towards East Hill, upwards towards the town centre. Set off walking.

It was only when she found herself down by the bridge over the River Colne then she realised she had no idea where she had been or where she was going.

13

S
uzanne stood with her back against her front door, wondering when she would ever feel safe again, hoping the locks and chains would be enough to keep out any intruder.

She could still feel the ghost of the cold metal inside her. See the screw-top pots with her different bodily fluids and samples taken on cotton buds all in a line. And Doctor Winter checking her notes, looking her in the eye:

‘
You haven’t been raped
.’

There would be more tests, but that was the conclusion.

Suzanne should have felt relieved. But . . .

Before her was the phone table. Her landline handset lying across her hard-back address book. Had she left it that way? At that angle? Down the hall she could see into her bedroom, see the duvet pulled back, the open curtains, the raised, wooden blind . . .

‘Oh God . . .’

She sank to the floor, her back against the front door, covered her face with her hands. Tears came. Great, wracking sobs. She pulled her hands in tighter, her fingernails digging into her skin.

‘No . . . no . . .’

Her legs kicked out, impotent with rage and frustration. Felt herself caving in to the emotion, being weakened by it like acid eating away at her, destroying her from the inside . . . Then she opened her eyes. Willed the tears to stop.

‘No . . .’ Shouting. ‘No . . . you’re not going to win . . . No . . .’

Suzanne felt something rise within her. Hot. Fiery. Angry. She stood up.

‘No, no, you bastard . . .’

She looked around the hallway for something - anything - to hold. Saw the phone. Picked it up. ‘You hear me?’ Turning round on the spot, shouting at the walls. ‘You’re not . . . going to . . . fucking . . . win . . .’

She hurled the phone as hard as she could. It hit the far wall, fell to the floor.

She stared at it, sighed. Light-headed but the emotion subsiding, breathing like she had just run a marathon. Or run for her life.

And she hadn’t mentioned Anthony. Surely they would find out soon enough. They had records, they would check them. And then they would think she was lying. Making it up for whatever reason, to get attention.

Well, she wasn’t lying. Wasn’t making it up. And if the bastards thought that . . .

She wiped the tears away, her cheeks burning. Sat back on the floor.

The photo of her lying semi-naked would now be in some forensic lab. She could just imagine it being passed round by strangers, objectified like some porn image. Being commented on, judged, rated. It felt like a second violation. She tried to tell herself that they were professionals, that it was only a piece of evidence from which clues could be removed. But she wasn’t convinced. She began to tremble, from anger or pity she didn’t know. Didn’t want to know.

She breathed deeply, tried to focus. Concentrate. Her fingers picking at the plaster in the crook of her arm where she had given a blood sample. She looked down the hall again, into the rooms. Everything that she had built up, the place she regarded as safe, had been violated. No other word for it. Burglary victims talked of the same thing, but this, thought Suzanne, was something more. Something deeper and crueller. A kind of rape.

‘Bastard . . .’ Her jaw ached. She was grinding her teeth.

Then the doorbell sounded.

And Suzanne screamed.

14

A
nni Hepburn lifted the phone, keyed in a number, waited. It was answered.

‘DS Gosling.’

‘Jane? It’s Anni. You busy?’

‘Doing door-to-door. You going to be long?’ Door-to-door. The Birdies were working with Phil, of course they were. Well, good luck to them. And him.

A shudder of guilt ran through her. No. Bitterness wasn’t healthy. She should ignore it. But it had been happening more and more since Clayton’s death. The team had been shaken after that and, she told herself, they all had different ways of coping. As Phil had told her, grieve all you like, but get on with the job.

And she would. Just as far away from Phil as possible.

Anni leaned back at her desk, the phone cradled in the crook of her neck. ‘This won’t take long, Jane, thanks. Just a case you once worked on. See if you can remember it.’

‘I’ll try.’

Anni had left Suzanne in the rape suite of Southway station, come into the office to do a bit of checking. She had run Suzanne Perry’s name through the computer and was surprised to find a hit. She had come to their attention before. She had checked the case notes.

Two years previously Suzanne had been a student at Essex University on a post-graduate course in speech therapy. She claimed that one of her tutors, Anthony Howe, had offered her a first in exchange for sex. She had turned him down and reported him for sexual harassment. It came down to her word against his and, with no evidence to back up the claim, it was dismissed.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Anthony Howe, Suzanne said, began stalking her. Standing outside her flat at night, sending her obscene texts, leaving messages on the phone or just not speaking at all. Her claims were investigated. No further action taken.

Strange, thought Anni. Why no further action? She had picked up the phone.

‘Suzanne Perry,’ said Anni into the phone. ‘University student, couple of years back. You were the investigating officer. Ring any bells?’

‘Not offhand.’ Anni could hear traffic, voices in the background. Jane Gosling wasn’t giving her full attention. She would have to help her.

Anni filled her in on what the file said. The harassment claim, the stalking. ‘Any clearer?’

‘Student . . .’ said Jane. ‘Flat on Maldon Road?’

‘That’s her. Teacher was stalking her. Anthony Howe.’

‘Right. Except he wasn’t.’

Anni leaned forward, interested now. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah. Let me just . . .’ Another pause while she brought up the memory. ‘Phone calls, wasn’t it? Texts?’

‘What it says here.’

‘Only there weren’t any. We checked her landline. No messages. Her mobile. No texts. Said she’d deleted them. Made her feel violated. Same with her answerphone. This teacher said she’d been nothing but trouble the whole course, looked like she was going to fail, made the whole thing up to get a higher mark. He was furious, going to sue her for defamation of character, if she kept going. And that was that. We heard no more.’

‘You reckon she was making it up?’

‘Probably. I thought it was just a bit of a fling that went wrong and she was trying to get revenge.’

‘Did she mention a boyfriend? Mark Turner?’

Jane Gosling gave a laugh of irritation. ‘Two years ago, Anni. Can barely remember what I had for dinner last night.’

They both laughed.

‘She back in the news, then?’ said Jane.

‘Another stalker. Inside the flat this time.’

Jane’s turn to laugh. ‘Good luck with that.’

‘Another? What was it Oscar Wilde sort of said? To get one stalker is a misfortune. To get two is just carelessness.’

Anni laughed. ‘Oscar Wilde?’

‘Amateur dramatics. I was a very good Miss Prism. Got all the laughs.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’

‘Look, I’d better go. Listen, get your paperwork done and get down here. We could use a bit of help.’

‘I’ll see.’

They made their goodbyes, Anni rang off. She sat back once more, considering her options. Polish off the paperwork of what looked like a fantasist wasting police time and go join Phil, or investigate Suzanne Perry’s claims thoroughly.