The Calling (31 page)

Dr Strickland placed the phial of blood inside its plastic pouch and printed slow, deliberate letters on to the label. He clearly couldn’t write and talk at the same time, so Goodhew wanted to take the pen and finish it off himself.

‘I don’t want to make a mistake. It’s the little things that count, you know, Gary,’ Strickland burbled. He clicked the lid back on to his pen. ‘You were asking me about vomit?’

‘Yes.’ Goodhew sighed.

Strickland pushed his glasses up on to the bridge of his nose before speaking. ‘Usually, in the process of being sick, saliva and cells from the inside of the mouth are dislodged en route and can then be found in the vomit. As long as we can isolate either some of those from the other debris, we should be able to determine the DNA.’

‘So that’s a yes, then. And how long will such a comparison take?’

‘Well, that depends. This evidence is only about a year old, and the forensics team at the time may have thoroughly tested for DNA. But whether they managed a result is something else. We can do much more now, so even if they didn’t …’

Goodhew noticed a shadow looming, through the frosted glass in the door. ‘I’m sorry, I need to go now but it is urgent. If it matches the blood, we can make an arrest.’

Gully was waiting in the corridor, unsure whether she should knock. ‘She’s gone,’ she told him, as soon as he appeared. ‘Said she was off to get
The Cross and the Switchblade.
I wasn’t worried at
first, but she still hasn’t come back and she’s not at home. You were only going to be away ten minutes.’

‘I know, but Strychnine’s on duty tonight, so that screwed things up. Did she say anything else?’ They entered the incident room, where Goodhew grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair.

‘She said something about the
fleece
. Said it’s near the start of the book.’

‘Grab your coat, and get the number for that all-night locksmith. We’ll go over right away.’ A minute later, Goodhew strode out towards the car, with Gully almost jogging to keep up.

‘You can’t just break in, Gary,’ she protested.

‘She’ll get over it.’

‘Marks will go spare.’

Goodhew dropped himself into the driver’s seat and slammed the door in one fluid movement. He’d started the engine by the time Gully was properly in her seat, and she only pulled her door shut as he accelerated out of the car park.

‘Sue, I’m not messing around with search warrants for Marlowe’s flat. I’ll just go in, make sure she’s not in there, grab the book and take off.’ He passed her his mobile phone. ‘Call that locksmith and ask him to meet us.’

‘What if he gets there first?’

‘Don’t be stupid. We’ll probably be waiting for him for hours yet.’

Sue emitted a loud ‘tut’ but phoned anyway. They made the rest of their short journey in silence. The roads were empty apart from a milk float starting deliveries and a cyclist heading home from the night shift.

Marlowe’s road was asleep. Parked cars and darkened windows greeted them as they drove towards her block of flats at the far end.

Despite everything, Sue smiled as she caught sight of Vic Brown’s locksmith’s van parked outside. ‘Well, that’s just typical, isn’t it?’

She jumped out to greet him, as Gary headed on inside the block.

‘I thought you’d given me the wrong address,’ Vic Brown complained.

‘No. I didn’t expect you to get here so fast.’

‘I was just round the corner. It’s number 58, then?’

‘Yes,’ she nodded.

A loud crack echoed down the stairs, and Vic frowned. ‘Has he just broken in?’

‘No, of course not. I’d better see if he’s OK, though.’ Sue led him upstairs to find number 58. The front door hung open, torn from its frame and with a single shoe print clearly evident just beneath the lock.

Gary emerged from the living room, book in hand. ‘Can I leave you with this, please?’ he asked Gully.

‘No problem.’ She winked at him from behind the locksmith.

‘Help yourselves to tea and coffee,’ Goodhew said.

The lighter moment vanished as soon as Goodhew hit the cold night air. He was worried about Marlowe. She hadn’t been home, or why else would the book still be there? He sat for a while in the car, and studied the book by the orange light of a street lamp, as it slanted through the passenger window.

He scanned each page for the word ‘fleece’, and at the bottom of the third one he found it.

‘So that was it,’ Goodhew murmured, and gasped just as his mobile rang. ‘Goodhew,’ he announced.

‘Gary, it’s me.’ Marlowe sounded tense.

‘Where are you?’

‘In town. I think I can get Peter to lead us to Lisa. But I need you to release him and keep watch on his house,’ she said.

‘How is that going to help?’

‘Please, Gary, trust me. And you mustn’t come near me until Lisa’s safe. Promise me. It’s the only way.’

‘Explain to me, Marlowe.’

‘Will you do it?’

Gary closed his eyes and tried to listen to his instincts. The response was silence. He looked down at
The Cross and the Switchblade.
No clues there.

Release the main suspect when they had a rape witness, and possible scene-of-crime forensic evidence? The same evidence which Marks demanded for the arrest Goodhew had sought. He knew about the fleece, and the car hire and all the other cases. He should go back and shock Walsh with the facts –
make him tell us where Lisa Fairbanks is.

‘Gary, will you do it?’ she repeated.

‘Yes,’ he replied, finally.

Early-morning traffic was already trickling on to the roads as Peter Walsh travelled home in the back of the unmarked police car.

He didn’t know whether to go to work or stay at home for the day. His life had been thrown out of kilter, but at the same time he was experiencing an all-new sense of excitement. He looked grey with exhaustion and felt sweaty after that stuffy interview room, but altogether it was nothing that a shower and a couple of coffees wouldn’t fix.

Walsh felt confident. He had admitted nothing, although he didn’t like submitting to the blood test.

But of all the women to make a complaint. Donna? She was the biggest slag of the lot. He’d always known she wasn’t his type, but when she couldn’t even properly remember how many men she’d had sex with …

He took a breath.
Forget it.
She’d get torn apart in court, anyway. Nine out of ten women in her situation lost their cases.

And it wasn’t quite the same with her: all over and done with much quicker than for the others. It had been a shame that the biggest slut should have received the least punishment.

The driver turned his head. ‘Number 26?’

‘Yeah, that’s right.’

As the car stopped, Pete automatically pulled on the internal handle to let himself out.

The other policemen stepped out to open the rear door. ‘It doesn’t work from the inside.’

Pete walked confidently to his front door, key in hand. As he unlocked it, he saw the folded sheet of cream writing paper lying on the mat. He looked outside and waited for the tail lights of the police car to disappear out of Hanley Road before he bent to pick it up.

He nudged the door shut with his foot even as he unfolded it.

He began to read, then he took a few steps into the sitting room. He must have misunderstood. He read it back from the start. ‘What in God’s name …?’

Any thought of going to work evaporated.

He snatched up the handset and angrily stabbed out Fiona’s number.

No reply.

‘No, no …
no
.’ He fumed, his wrath taking hold of him and burning at his insides. He slammed the handset against the wall and left it to tumble on to the floor.

He ran upstairs to his bedroom and pulled open the wardrobe door. The video camera waited on its tripod, and he picked it up and dumped it on to the bed.

He reached towards the back, beyond the shoes on the shoe shelf, and retrieved a black sports bag. He unzipped it rapidly and held the jaws of its mouth wide. It was all still in there: the videos, a new ball of rope, a new set of clothes still wrapped in cellophane.

He removed his driver’s licence from his inside pocket. No time to hire a car this time, so no number plates either.

He’d find Fiona and show her how he made his decisions. She could experience it first hand, and he could leave her there and say
Fuck you.

He started to remove the camera from the tripod. ‘Damn!’ He couldn’t screw her either, or they’d catch him then. He’d just make her masturbate on camera; he needed that keepsake, at least.

His finger caught in a leg of the tripod as he folded it, so he threw it against the wardrobe door.
Fucking whore.
She wouldn’t last long outside in this weather, but she really deserved to suffer.

Or he could leave her inside like that gullible German girl, or better still in some derelict building. Appropriate for a stuck-up bitch estate agent.

The inferno of Pete’s rage swept through him, devouring even the
carnal cravings that helped him plan each abduction like an illicit tryst.

‘Where do I leave her?’ he shouted. ‘Where, where?’ His voice was loud but at the same time seemed distant, disembodied and unrecognizable. No, he didn’t have a new location ready, but he needed somewhere quiet. He needed a place where he could arrive and dump her without being seen. ‘Where?’

The answer suddenly came like an echo replying to his
outpouring
. One of the old places, somewhere he already knew? That was it. Not the caravan, though, because that had been removed. Not with Lisa either. Except why not?

Walsh paused, stock-still, gazing at the tripod, his thoughts on Fiona.

That would make her pay. Lisa would be already dead or nearly dead. And Fiona could watch her rot.

Goodhew had witnessed Pete return home. He’d seen Pete watch the police car leaving his road. And then he’d seen Pete’s front door close.

He saw no sign of Marlowe.

The sky had lightened to grey. It would not be a warm day.

His mobile rang once, before he answered it. ‘Goodhew.’

‘What the hell is going on?’ Marks barked at him.

‘I’m watching Peter Walsh’s house at the moment, sir.’

‘Why, for God’s sake? He isn’t the one!’ Marks yelled.

Goodhew scowled. ‘He isn’t which one, sir?’

‘The killer – it’s her. You know, your little victim friend Marlowe Gates.’

Goodhew’s stomach lurched.

‘Kincaide was right,’ Marks continued. ‘If Walsh is involved at all, it’s only with her. She’s more than just in on it.’

‘No …’ Goodhew protested.

‘The incident room received an anonymous call twenty minutes ago. Does that maybe ring a bell? The caller, female of course, told us to investigate the property of a Fiona Robinson.’

‘Pete’s girlfriend?’

‘Very good,’ chirped Marks. ‘And they found her bound and gagged, tied to a chair with all the phones ripped out. Guess what she then said?’

‘Marlowe did it,’ answered Goodhew weakly.

‘We have her here. And we’re not letting her contact him.’

‘Who, Marlowe?’ asked Goodhew, as he continued to watch Hanley Road.

‘No, Fiona Robinson,’ Marks roared. ‘Don’t play me as stupid, Gary. If you’ve developed a soft spot for this girl, you’d better forget it. She’s a killer and he’s a rapist. Think about it, there are plenty of well-known examples. Couples that commit rape. Couples that commit murder.’

Gary leant forward to study a figure walking towards him from the far end of the road. Marlowe.

‘Gary? Do you know where she is?’

‘No, I have no idea.’ She crossed between the cars parked in front of number 18, and stepped up to number 26.

Marks paused for a moment. Goodhew knew Marks would be biting on the edge of his bottom lip; as he always did when he was trying to calm down.

‘Stay there until Kincaide arrives. He’s still with Miss Robinson for now, but then he can watch Walsh’s and I’ll see you back here. And if you see any sign of Marlowe Gates in the meantime, arrest her.’

Goodhew watched as Marlowe tapped on the front door. And he watched the door open.

His hand rose and pressed his mouth shut, as if to smother an involuntary gasp.

She smiled at Pete and stepped inside.

Goodhew stared at the centre of the steering wheel. What if Marks was right? Marks was no fool.

But what if Marks was wrong?

He looked up at number 26 again. Did he still believe Marlowe?

She’d smiled at Walsh and stepped inside.

Goodhew picked up his phone and dialled. When his call was answered, he said, ‘Bryn, it’s me.’

Marlowe had been here earlier to deliver Fiona’s note; pushing it through the letter box with a hesitant prod, like a Dobermann lurked on the other side.

Now she had waited on Pete’s doorstep long enough to notice all the little details she’d since forgotten. A smear of paint on the brickwork. The disconnected doorbell. And the Chubb lock that she’d opened so many times when she still had her own key.

Since the front door stood five inches above the path, she’d stood on tiptoe, like a little kid, as she tried to see through one of the small panes of obscured glass.

She’d spotted a ripple of movement and shivered.

He’d known she was there.

‘I’m not alone, I’m not alone,’ she’d whispered to herself.

The lock had rattled, and she’d looked up just as the door had opened. Pete had let the door swing wide. He’d seemed to fill the doorway, still and expressionless.

She’d drawn a breath and held it, forcing a grin, hoping to look smug, and trying to speak. No words had come. The corner of her mouth had twitched. The moment had dragged on, making her dizzy.

Speak to him.

She’d propped up her smile, and exhaled. ‘Can I come in?’ she’d finally blurted.

He’d stood back to let her through, and she had stepped back into her own nightmare.

The door snapped shut behind her and Pete nudged her through to the sitting room. She stopped in the centre of the room and turned around. Her arm brushed against him and she recoiled, stepping quickly back against the coffee table.

She took a deep breath and sucked in a lungful of his smell: that forgotten cocktail of soap, fresh sweat and Aramis. Now she had to face him.

‘What do you want?’ he growled. His pupils had dilated, big matt pools threatening to swallow his entire eyes. Dark and soulless.

She knew she was now out of her depth. Way, way out, at that.

She nodded towards the phone still lying on the floor. ‘Did you have some bad news, Peter?’ she prompted. Her voice trembled; sounding too timorous, too reedy.

She tried again. ‘It still looks just the same in here. And there was me thinking you had big plans for the future.’

‘What do you want, Marlowe?’ he repeated, glowering at her.

‘I just thought I’d let you know that I told Fiona all about you.’

‘What …?’ Pete began, then faltered. He grabbed her upper arm, digging his thumb into the bones. ‘You’re the bitch who phoned the police, aren’t you?’ He lunged at her. She staggered sideways. He held her tight and propelled her on to the settee. She squealed, landing flat on her back. She had no time to sit up before he pounced again. He now held her arms flat and pressed his body heavily against hers, crushing the breath from her lungs. ‘You are, aren’t you?’ he repeated.

Marlowe’s eyes never left his, and she forced a defiant sneer to her lips. ‘Yes,’ she gasped. ‘You must have known that.’

He lifted his torso enough to let her breathe easier. His voice quietened to an insistent hiss. ‘What did you tell Fiona?’

Marlowe had forgotten the precise feel of his menace slipping into her, the dangerous tone of his voice. And now his mouth was less than a tongue’s length from her own; invasive like poison. ‘I told her all of it.’

‘Why do you do it, Marlowe? Why do you play these games?’ He slid the fingers of one hand through the hair above her ear and wove them in and out. He twisted them roughly till her hair tightened at the roots, pulling against her scalp. He held her head still, and brought his face closer. ‘Tell me exactly what you told her.’

‘Well, for a start I told her how you are a rapist and a murderer.’ She felt a drip of sweat run down the inside of her shirt. ‘She seemed a bit upset at that.’

The muscles in his jaw began flexing, as he clenched his teeth. Marlowe lay motionless beneath him. ‘There have been times when I’ve almost regretted leaving you,’ he said, after a long pause. ‘Now here you are up close. You smell the same and feel the same but, my God, you’ve become very spiteful.’

‘Because of you,’ she whispered.

‘Because of me? You should have pulled yourself together. You should’ve tried to get over it, Marlowe.’

‘I
am
over you,’ she snarled.

‘Tell me about your sex life, then. Tell me who’s ever fucked you.’ Pete released her hair and ran his middle finger across her cheek. He stroked her bottom lip. She felt him harden against her groin, and his other hand began pulling at her shirt.

‘Only you,’ she answered quietly.

He pushed himself away, to arms’ length. ‘Only me what?’

She impaled him with her eyes. ‘There has only ever been you, Peter. No one before and no one since. I follow you and watch you. I know who you’ve screwed. I also know you made a mistake when you left me, because none of the others were any better.’

Disbelief clouded his face. ‘You’re a liar.’

‘Oh no, you told me so many times that women shouldn’t sleep around, and therefore I never did.
Never
.’ She wriggled out from under and stood in front of him. He sat up straight, glowering, as she continued. ‘Whatever happened to your ideals that a man should always honour a faithful woman? That he should never walk out on a commitment?’

‘I never did.’

‘You know you did. Sex in itself is a commitment to you, isn’t it?’

He stared at her. ‘You’re obsessed.’

She bent over, pausing with her face only inches from his. ‘Isn’t it?’ she demanded.

‘Yes, you know it is. So what?’

‘You forget, Peter, that I know your family. You’ve been brought up in just the same airless, suffocating way as me. Full of inhibitions,
and no sex outside marriage for a start. So you can’t ever leave a girlfriend; not unless it’s not actually your decision.’ They glared at each other. Marlowe’s heart thumped loudly in her ears, and she turned away first. She moved back a couple of paces and leant against the kitchen door frame. ‘I know about the fleece,’ she told him, and let her words hang in the air just long enough to relish his panic.

The mention of the word jolted him and he sprang to his feet, and across the gap between them. She didn’t see the blow coming, but she heard it crack across her cheekbone. She saw it reverberate through her eyes like a firework display. Then she crashed on to the kitchen floor.

Pete followed her through the doorway. Unlike her, still on his feet, he kicked out at her. The hard edge of his shoe cracked into her ribs. ‘Oh shit,’ she gasped, clutching her stomach.

‘Tell me about it,’ he screamed.

‘You get tired of a girlfriend …’ she panted. ‘Or maybe you decide she’s not good enough … But you can’t just end it.’

She watched him cross the kitchen, away from her. ‘Keep talking,’ he demanded.

She dragged herself up on to one elbow, choking. ‘Otherwise you’d be the slag, then. Of course, you would.’

Pete pulled a bottle of Budweiser from the fridge.

Marlowe grabbed the edge of the work surface. But she kept talking. ‘You would then have broken your commitment, wouldn’t you?’ She hauled herself to her knees. ‘So you abduct a girl who resembles your girlfriend and you say to yourself, “If she dies it is a sign that I am right to leave, but if she lives I am wrong and deserve to be caught.”’ She managed to rise to her feet, but had to lean heavily on the worktop. ‘That’s about right, isn’t it, Peter?’

He shrugged. ‘Near enough.’ He placed the bottle in front of her, but just out of reach.

She knew she couldn’t outrun him. She closed her eyes instead. ‘And, whatever the outcome, your relationship is legitimately over, so you do what the hell you like with your girlfriend until the body is found.’

‘No.’ He tutted. ‘They all wanted it, even you.’ She felt his breath
as he brought his cheek up close to hers. His fingers started to rub at her belt buckle.

‘Do you think I’m rising to that bait?’ Marlowe snorted. ‘I don’t give a fuck. I’d just go to the police and tell them you raped me. At least I’d have the evidence this time.’

Pete spun her round to face him, to open her eyes. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

Marlowe shook her head. ‘I’m the only one who can stop you, Peter. No one believes me. They think I’m mad. So this is what I want.’ Marlowe brought her lips close to his. ‘It’s my fleece.’ Her voice trembled. ‘Leave me tied up just like the others. If I die, you get away with it. If I’m found, I’ll be vindicated. Simple isn’t it? One wins, one loses.’