Ready or Not (31 page)

             
‘I’d love to,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a few things to see to in the morning, so it’ll have to be after that. That OK?’

             
Liar, Kate thought. ‘Of course. That’ll be fine.’

             
Kate moved the phone away from her ear and grimaced. She wanted to throw the thing across the room.

             
‘Actually,’ she said, looking at Chris, ‘I need to do a bit of shopping in the morning as well, so if we could meet somewhere in town that’d be ideal. How about the park? Midday?’

             
‘Look forward to it. Where shall I meet you?’

             
‘Do you know the outdoor coffee shop in the middle of the park?’

             
‘Is that open this time of year?’

             
‘Yeah. I’ll see you there.’

             
‘OK. See you tomorrow. Bye, Kate.’

             
She ended the call and exhaled loudly.

             
‘Well done, Katy,’ Chris said. He smiled approvingly at her, but it failed to make her feel any more confident. She was going to have to put on a first class performance tomorrow. She’d never been a convincing liar and was certainly no actress. She wasn’t sure she was up to it.

             
Kate looked to Chris. She wasn’t sure he believed she was up to it either.

             
‘I don’t like this,’ she confessed. ‘I don’t like it at all. If this goes wrong…’

             
‘It won’t go wrong,’ Chris reassured her.

             
‘You hope.’

             
Chris said nothing.

             
‘It still doesn’t make sense,’ Kate said, shaking her head. ‘If he murdered those men, or even just Ryan, why would he try to get close to me? Why would he expose himself like that – put himself at that sort of risk? He kills a man and then takes a detective for lunch? It’s like he’s trying to get caught.’

             
Matthew put his coffee on the desk. ‘Perhaps he is,’ he said thoughtfully, looking past Kate. His voice sounded hollow; distant.

             
‘Perhaps that’s exactly what he wants.’

F
orty Three

By the time they arrived back at the flat Kate felt physically and emotionally exhausted. Chris had followed behind in his own car, insisting on making sure she got home safely. He didn’t trust Neil Davies not to be following Kate, and wasn’t prepared to take that chance. 

             
Kate had been clearly upset at the station and had made a poor attempt at trying to conceal her conflicting emotions. She had pointed out that if her acting skills were so poor that she was unable to hide her feelings from Chris, it perhaps didn’t bode well for the challenge that faced her with Neil tomorrow.

             
Chris didn’t want to be the one to tell her that tomorrow it would be easier; that perhaps hiding her feelings from him was harder than keeping them from anyone else.

             
Or perhaps, he thought, that was what he hoped.

             
He pulled the car up behind hers in the car park. The sky was unusually dark, clouds lying oppressively over the town. The threat of a storm hung over them and Chris hoped it would hold off until the following evening. If it rained tomorrow morning the whole plan could be kicked into touch. Neil might suggest elsewhere and there was no way that Chris would allow Kate to meet him unprepared and without back up. He wasn’t going to risk Kate meeting Davies somewhere less exposed, it was too risky. If anything happened to her…

             
He shook off the thought and waited in the car, watching as Kate took her bag from the passenger seat. She locked the car and made her way over to him. 

             
‘Thanks,’ she said, leaning against his car door.

             
‘You going to be OK?’

             
Kate shrugged. She looked suddenly far younger than her thirty seven years, vulnerable and insecure and Chris wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and hold her, if only to offer her some sort of comfort. He cast the thought aside.

             
‘If you need anything, just call,’ he told her. Kate nodded. Chris started the engine. ‘Tomorrow then,’ he said, not wanting to leave her on her own but not wanting to question her independence. ‘Try and get some sleep.’

             
He put the car into reverse, but before he could lower the handbrake Kate’s hand was on the opened window, urging him to stay a moment longer.

             
‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ she asked.

             
She hated the sound of her own voice: weak, pathetic; desperate. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to be on her own, not tonight.

             
Chris breathed an inward sigh of relief and accepted the offer. 

             
Up in the flat Kate kicked off her shoes and went straight to the kitchen to put the kettle on. She opened the fridge to get the milk from the door and saw a half empty bottle of wine that was begging to be finished. She took it from the shelf and into the living room.

             
‘Fancy something a bit stronger?’ she asked.

             
‘I’m driving,’ Chris reminded her, jangling the keys that were still in his hand.

             
Kate smiled tiredly. ‘Of course. Sorry.’

             
She went back into the kitchen, taking the wine with her. Ask him to stay, Kate, she thought. You don’t want to be alone. Especially not tonight.

             
Just ask him.

             
She reached for two mugs from the cupboard. She couldn’t ask him, not now. It would be misleading, would give the wrong impression, and she didn’t want to step on Lydia’s toes, not while there was a chance that she and Chris were trying to work things out between them.

             
She turned suddenly when she sensed Chris in the doorway.

             
‘Want me to make them?’ he offered, nodding at the mugs. ‘Look, I can go if you want,’ he added. ‘You look tired.’

             
Kate placed the mugs on the worktop. ‘Can’t imagine I’ll get much sleep anyway,’ she said.

             
‘You have to try. I know it’s going to be hard, but you can’t be tired tomorrow. You’ll need to be one step ahead of Davies.’

             
‘I’m just worried I’m not that good an actress.’

             
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Chris said. ‘You can be a bit of a drama queen at times.’

             
Kate laughed softly. ‘Thanks.’

             
Her smile faded and she distracted herself by pouring boiling water into the two mugs.

             
‘Sorry,’ she said, changing her mind and pushing her mug to one side. ‘I definitely need something stronger.’ She reached for the wine bottle and took a glass from the cupboard. ‘You don’t mind do you?’

             
Chris shook his head. ‘Carry on.’             

             
Kate poured a glass and returned the bottle to the fridge. She squeezed the tea bag in Chris’ mug, put it in the bin and added milk to the water.

             
‘Chris…’ she started, stopping herself before she continued. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

             
‘What is it?’

             
She shook her head. ‘I’m just being silly,’ she said.

             
‘What’s new?’

             
Kate jabbed him in the stomach with her elbow as she made her way past him and into the living room. Chris took his tea and followed after her.

             
‘Does Neil know where you live?’ Chris asked, sitting next to her on the sofa.

             
She looked at him, surprised that he had forgotten the details of her confession earlier that evening. She then remembered that she hadn’t provided him with that many details. Nor had Chris asked to hear them. She’d been sparing his feelings, or trying to at least. If he had known, it was almost certain he wouldn’t have forgotten about it.

             
‘He walked me home,’ she said, flinching at the recent memory.

             
Chris shook his head incredulously. ‘Christ, Kate. What if he comes here?’

             
She put her wine on the coffee table. ‘When?’ she said concerned.

             
‘Tonight!’

             
‘You don’t think he would?’

             
‘I don’t know. Like you said, we know nothing about him. We don’t know what he’s capable of, do we?’

             
‘God,’ Kate said, taking a large swig of her wine. ‘What’s wrong with me? I can’t believe I’ve been so bloody stupid.’

             
Chris distractedly fiddled with the zip of a cushion beside him. ‘Let me stay,’ he suggested suddenly. ‘I’ll sleep on the sofa. He probably won’t come here, but we don’t want to take the risk.’

             
‘I’ll be OK, honestly,’ Kate said, not wanting to appear any more desperate than she already had that evening. ‘I’ll be locked in, I’ll be safe enough.’

             
‘Please,’ Chris said, unprepared to take no for an answer. ‘I won’t sleep if I know you’re here on your own.’

             
She smiled; her relief a little too obvious. ‘Thanks, Chris. You have the bed – I’ll take the sofa.’

             
He frowned. ‘As if,’ he said. ‘Don’t be daft. And don’t let me keep you up either.’

             
Kate got up from the sofa and went back into the kitchen. If he was going to stay, it wouldn’t matter if he had that glass of wine she’d offered. She took the bottle back out of the fridge and paused at the end cupboard, looking at the calendar that was stuck to its door. Tomorrow was marked with a thick black X.

F
orty Four

She couldn’t sleep. She was too hot and lay with the duvet pushed down to her legs. Occasionally she thought she heard Chris in the next room, shifting about on the sofa. She had never slept this close to him, with just a wall separating them, and she wondered if he was also lying awake, unable to sleep. She wondered what he was thinking about. She’d like to talk to him, although she wasn’t sure exactly what she’d say if given the chance.

             
In her head she had listed all the things she needed to ask Neil the following afternoon. It should be easy enough to bring up the subject of his kids and wife; after all, she had already told him too much about her own family and she thought it was his turn to do the talking. She would be returning the favour by lending a patient, attentive ear. That should be the easy bit, unless he managed to so skilfully divert attention from himself yet again. If he did that Kate wasn’t sure how she would cajole him into talking. He’d been two steps ahead of her all week and if she tried to push the subject he was bound to see straight through her and suspect that she was fishing.

             
And if he did talk it was going to be difficult to sit through his lies, nodding and responding as though she didn’t know any better.

             
The more Kate thought about it, the less likely it seemed that Neil would confide in her with the things she needed to hear. There was always the chance that he would evade the subject of his wife and kids, as he had successfully managed to do all week. He would shift the focus back onto her; turn things around in a way he was obviously expert at. He had done it without her even noticing. He would manipulate the conversation, as he had been doing all week.

             
She couldn’t let him, not this time. It was definitely Neil’s turn to do the talking, no matter how she had to persuade him to do it.

             
The image of his face on the CCTV footage they had watched from Candy’s haunted her. The image of him froze in her mind, as it had on the TV screen. His face, already so familiar and yet now strange to her, stared back at her with a vacant stare, both beckoning and repelling her. Was he really responsible for the murder of Joseph Ryan, the man whose body had been found in the same park in which they were to meet tomorrow? If so, had he also been responsible for the deaths of Michael Morris and Jamie Griffiths?

             
The thought chilled her and she reached for the duvet, pulling it closer around her.

             
Kate had tried to fit all the pieces together, but there were a few corners still missing and a huge gaping hole in the centre where she was only able to see a black void of deceit. Having spoken further with Sophie and now with her aunt, Kate could not deny the fact that Neil was a violent man. He also seemed to be a compulsive liar and a highly manipulative one at that; he had succeeded in making Kate feel sorry for him, even after she had discovered his affair with his sister-in-law. She hated to admit it, but even then there was a part of her that had thought there still may be more to it; the part of her that always wanted to see the best in people; though, God knows, her job should have taught her differently. 

             
Maybe he wasn’t the man they were saying he was. How far was she to believe Claire’s accusation when she had told Kate that Neil had tried to strangle her? Was she simply a bitter woman who had been rejected by the man she had believed once loved her?

             
Were the words of Sophie simply the words of an aggrieved daughter seeking a form of revenge on the father she felt had abandoned her when she’d most needed him?

             
Was either of them telling the truth?

             
Kate turned onto her side. Of course they were telling the truth.

             
But how did Neil know Joseph Ryan? How did he know Michael Morris? Could he really have been capable of the murders of all three men? And if so, why?

             
Stacey Reed. The name kept throwing itself amongst the many questions free-falling in her head. It made no sense. Neil Davies didn’t have any link to the girl, nor to her family. None that Kate knew of, at least. What had he possibly had to gain from Dean and Nathan kidnapping her?

             
He hadn’t asked for money. He hadn’t asked, it seemed, for anything in return. He was playing a game, but as hard as Kate tried, she was unable to guess what it was. He had written the rule book and kept it hidden from every other player.

             
Kate was glad that she hadn’t allowed him into the flat. She had been attracted to him - had felt an almost tangible connection with him, pulled towards him in a way she couldn’t fathom – and, had she let him in, what else may have happened? She liked to think that common sense would have prevailed, but she knew herself better than that. She’d been lonely. She was impetuous and reckless, and there was a part of her that loved the danger of the unknown.