The Nightmare Place (27 page)

Forty-Eight

For Karen Cooper, it was a small black book.

I had it in my coat pocket when I arrived at her house, and could feel the weight of it there, disproportionate to its actual size. That should have been strange, perhaps – but then again, it contained far more than it appeared to. It was heavy with things that weren’t actually there.

We would come to that, but in the meantime I wanted to talk to her about her husband: to help complete the picture of Derek Cooper we had been assembling over the past few days.

I rang the doorbell and waited on the step. The visit had been arranged in advance, so at least she would have had a chance to compose herself to meet the woman who had put her husband into the coma from which he was unlikely to emerge. And there was the sight of my face, as well, of course. The blatant evidence of what he had done to me. The visible legacy of his violence, which in some ways we shared.

Karen opened the door, and for a few seconds we didn’t speak. I smiled politely – professionally – as her gaze moved over my face, taking in the damage.

‘He did that to you?’ she said eventually.

‘Yes.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

I nodded once. ‘I’m sorry too.’

‘Please.’ She held the door wider. ‘Come in.’

‘Thank you. Are the children …?’

‘They’re still with my parents.’

She led me through the kitchen to the front room. It was the first time I’d visited the scene of Derek Cooper’s explosion, and I glanced around as I followed her. It was easy to imagine the flurry of violence in the air as he attacked the officers, but the house also
felt
like him, somehow, as though a hint of aftershave lingered in the air, or as if he might be lurking in another room. It wasn’t quite enough to give me flashbacks to the fight in Sharon’s bedroom, but I still felt my chest tighten a little.

A dangerous animal is nearby. A monster.

Not any more, I thought.

The front room was minimally furnished and spotlessly clean. Everything looked expensive and
just so
, like a show home. He would have insisted on it, no doubt: demanded that she play the good little wife. Appearance would have been everything.

‘How is she?’ Karen asked, after we’d sat down. ‘His last victim?’

That was me, technically, but I knew who she meant.

‘Sharon Hendricks is in hospital,’ I said. ‘She’s doing okay, actually, all things considered. And Kieran Yates’s condition has stabilised. Right now, it looks like he’s going to make it.’

‘I’m glad.’ She glanced towards the kitchen. ‘I haven’t seen her since. The lady next door, I mean.’

‘Margaret Smith? She’s barely left his side.’

Karen took a deep breath. ‘I keep thinking about the way Derek used to look at her. At Sharon, I mean.’

‘When he came to the shop to pick you up?’

‘Yes. I suppose I noticed it at the time and just never really took it in. He looked at a lot of women. She was his type, of course, but it felt stupid to be bothered by it. She was a smart girl. Pretty. Could probably have had anyone. So she wouldn’t have had anything to do with an older man, a married man. I was never worried. It was just Derek being Derek.’

‘I notice you don’t say that you trusted
him
.’

That got me a hollow laugh. ‘Because I didn’t. Why would I? He made it quite clear how
disgusting
I am.’

‘Disgusting?’

‘Yes. He never said it outright, but it was obvious. He used to look at me the way he looked at Sharon, but not any more. And I couldn’t really blame him, could I?’

I shook my head. Karen was an attractive woman, albeit obviously still clinging – with the make-up and the clothes – to an ideal of her younger self she could no longer really attain. I wanted to understand.

‘So he preferred younger women?’ I said.

‘Yes. And I’d trapped him, hadn’t I? I know that was how he saw it, deep down. The kids, the house, me. He never really wanted the kids, and then he didn’t want me any more either. He wanted something better.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like anything. That was Derek. He always wanted something better. And he always thought that whatever he wanted should be his by right. That he deserved it. Nobody crossed him.’

And nobody will need to again
. But I didn’t say it. Instead, I thought about what Karen had just told me, and remembered my impressions of the victims. They were all young, attractive and successful: women you could see on the arm of an alpha male, being shown off like a trophy or a badge.

It was easy to tell that Karen Cooper had been very beautiful once, but it was equally apparent that hers was the type of beauty that comes from maintenance: an act that becomes increasingly difficult to perform as time passes. The make-up she wore failed to mask her age, especially around the eyes, and whereas once she might have been vivacious and vibrant – full of hope for the future – now she seemed empty. Vacant, even.

Once upon a time, she would surely have been Derek’s type, and I tried to imagine how it might have felt to him, anchored as the years passed to what must have seemed an increasingly rusty trophy, one that polished itself with ever-diminishing returns. Coming to hate her, not because of who or what she was, but what she wasn’t.
Trapped.
He always
wanted something better
. And eventually taking that hatred out on her, and on the girls he felt entitled to but couldn’t have.

A lot of people felt like that, of course: constrained as the years passed; dissatisfied with the undeserved smallness of their lives. It could hardly be the whole picture. But Derek Cooper had been an angry, arrogant man, confined in a box he felt too tight for him, not good enough for him. I could at least begin to see it.

‘Did he ever mention Adam Johnson?’

Karen shook her head. ‘No. I had no idea. He was the other one?’

I nodded. ‘Your husband used to go and talk to him about what he’d done.’

‘Why?’

That remained a question, and I still wasn’t sure I had a definitive answer. Johnson had assumed the man was trying to groom him – or at least involve and implicate him – but given Cooper’s meltdown after Johnson’s suicide, I wondered if there had been something more to it all along. Just as Johnson had phoned the helpline, I wondered if, for all his rage at the world, Derek Cooper had needed someone to confess to as well. If some of that
hate
might have been directed inwards.

‘We don’t know,’ I said. ‘But let’s talk about your husband for now. He was out a lot, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes. But I just presumed he was with someone else. And actually, I didn’t mind that. Not really.’

The first time I’d interviewed her, I’d thought that, despite the make-up, Karen Cooper was no actress. And I thought the same thing again now.

‘He was out the night Amanda Jarman was murdered?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘Not all night. But it was late, and he smelled of drink when he got in.’ She seemed suddenly brighter at that. ‘That was the reason I left the shop early that day. You asked me what we’d been arguing about? It was that. We didn’t have the money for him to be going out drinking, but he didn’t like me telling him what to do. You can’t imagine what Derek could be like.’

I nodded sympathetically.

‘So how come you didn’t call her?’

Karen Cooper was nodding back. Slowly, she stopped.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Amanda Jarman,’ I said. ‘Because the thing is, we’ve looked through her phone records. She was due at work that morning, wasn’t she? Of course, she didn’t make it in. But you never called to find out why.’

‘I’m sure I did.’

‘Really? What did she say?’

‘I can’t remember.’ Karen shook her head. ‘Well, obviously she couldn’t have answered.’

‘No.’

‘Perhaps I’m mixing her up with someone else. I must be.’

I stared back at her, allowing any trace of friendliness to drain from my expression. To make it clear that she wasn’t going to be able to bluff her way past this, and that
appearances
didn’t count for much with me.

‘Let’s be honest here, Karen. Bit of a mistake, that, wasn’t it?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

But the temperature in the front room seemed to have dropped a few degrees, and there was a hardness to her voice now. While I still didn’t believe her, it was for a different reason. Rather than being a terrible actress, Karen Cooper was actually a pretty good one. It was just that now she was finding it hard to ad-lib.

I reached into my pocket and took out a small black book with a weathered metal clasp.

‘This is your diary.’ I undid the clasp, wondering if she’d had a chance to search for it yet and discover it was missing. ‘We found it when we were searching the house. You’ll forgive the intrusion, of course.’

I didn’t look at her as I flicked through the pages. Karen said nothing, but I could feel her gaze moving from me to the book and back.

‘It’s mostly trivia,’ I said. ‘Appointments here and there. Little notes about things too dull for us to bother deciphering. No offence. But then we saw this.’

I held it up and turned it around so that she could see the spread for this week.

‘On the day Amanda Jarman was murdered, you’ve drawn an asterisk in a circle.’

I could tell from her face that she wasn’t going to reply. I turned the diary around again, then leafed back.

‘And look – here’s Sally Vickers. Exact same thing. And then, hang on a second, here’s Julie Kennedy, with another little asterisk. And so on. All the victims. And the strange thing is that these symbols
only ever appear on those dates
.’ I looked up at her. ‘It’s almost like you were marking them for a reason, isn’t it, Karen? Like you knew something important had happened.’

Again, she just stared at me. On the surface, her expression was utterly blank, but I thought I could detect panic gathering below.

‘Why did you mark those dates?’

I let the silence pan out, giving her a chance, then smiled.

‘Do you know, I thought you
might
say it was because those were the dates when Derek stayed out all night. But you don’t think on your feet that quickly, do you, Karen? And of course, that would be ridiculous anyway. You read the papers. You must have put two and two together, assuming you didn’t already know.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ I said. ‘It must have been difficult for you, working with all those beautiful young women every day, knowing it was them your husband wanted, not you. That he was disgusted by you. That he was a monster. I imagine you felt
trapped
too, in your own way.’

I leaned forward.

‘I wasn’t sure at first if it was just that some miserable little part of you was glad it was
them
he was hurting, not
you
. That would be horrible enough, wouldn’t it? But now I wonder if maybe, deep down where you won’t even admit it to yourself, you hated them as much as he did.’

And even though she just continued to stare at me, I could tell that I’d shaken her: that my words had hit home. She had known, all right – to some degree, at least. Of course, whether she was prepared to acknowledge it, even to herself, was another matter entirely.

‘That’s ridiculous,’ she said quietly. ‘And you can’t prove it.’

I looked at the diary for a few moments, then snapped it shut, placed it back in my pocket and stood up.

‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘But believe me, it’ll all come out eventually. It always does.’

As I walked back to the kitchen, I focused my attention on the air behind me, making sure she wasn’t going to attack me. It was almost disappointing that all I felt was her eyes following me to the door. I turned back to see her still staring at me. She was visibly trembling. Not because I’d caught her out, I didn’t think – she was right that we’d probably never be able to prove anything – but because she knew. Well, whatever the exact truth about her involvement, she was going to have to live with it. However much she tried to pretend otherwise, she would always know.

‘Sleep well, Karen.’

Back outside, Chris was waiting for me in the car. I slid into the passenger seat and tapped the dashboard.

‘Let’s go.’

‘She didn’t cop to it?’

‘Not out loud.’

He started the engine and sighed.

‘You’ve got to do everything yourself, haven’t you?’

‘No,’ I said as we set off. ‘Not everything.’

Forty-Nine

For Miriam, it was the waste ground. For Karen, it was a small black book.

So what was it for me?

I didn’t know any more.

When I arrived at the care home the following day, I was met by the same nurse who had shown me to John’s room the first time I visited. She must have noticed the damage to my face, but she didn’t mention it. Perhaps she recognised my name from the news, and knew what had happened to me, or maybe it was just that the quiet gravity of the situation made my appearance irrelevant.

‘Come quickly,’ she said.

I followed her, moving as fast as I could. Sweat was beading in my hairline, tickling down my back.
We think you should come in as soon as you can.
Following the phone call, I’d driven fast across the city, but I was sweating as though I’d run the distance instead, and it wasn’t the exertion that was causing my heart to pound.

‘He’s very comfortable,’ the nurse told me. ‘He’s not in any kind of pain. He’s really very peaceful.’

‘Will he be able to hear me?’

‘I don’t know. I would have thought so.’

As we approached his room, I thought of all the things I needed to tell him. Not about Derek and Karen Cooper, because there was no need to weigh him down with another investigation now. About Jemima, perhaps. But mostly about him and about me.

I followed the nurse into the room.

For a moment, I couldn’t see him, my view of the bed occluded by the doctor and another nurse, both standing beside it. The nurse who’d led me up here cleared her throat.

‘Zoe’s here.’

They turned around. It was the same doctor I’d seen before, and he nodded at me by way of greeting and moved aside. No doubt it was practical as much as anything, but I thought there was something nice about that consistency of care. The same face, always there.

I stepped across to the bed, unhooking my bag from over my shoulder, and sat down on the chair next to it.

Looking at John, I was sure he was already gone. He was propped up at a forty-five-degree angle, with his hands above the covers on either side of his body. It didn’t seem possible, but he was even more emaciated than he’d been on my previous visit. His skin was entirely yellow. There was an odd sheen to it, as though he had been cast from wax, and he was painfully still, his eyes closed and his head tilted back. His mouth was open, with the lips sucked in and half covering his teeth.

‘John?’

I watched him for a moment, certain –
he’s gone
– but then realised that his chest was fluttering ever so slightly. I listened carefully, and heard thin breath, as distant as the weakest of breezes, the faintest of voices heard over a telephone line.

He was dying right now in front of me. I knew it, but it was impossible to make the thought land, though there would be time for that later on, along with the grief. Just then, all I felt was a tremendous and indescribable love for him. Many things can escalate, boil up, and culminate in one final explosion. It doesn’t always have to be hate.

I reached out and took his hand, wanting him to know I was here with him. His fingers flickered very gently against mine. I can never be sure, but I think he knew.

‘We’ll give you a couple of minutes,’ the doctor said, and then the three of them retreated from the room, closing the door behind them.

Keeping hold of his hand, I leaned closer to the bed.

‘John, there’s something I need to talk to you about. Something I should have said before now.’

I told him that what he’d said about the time after your life being the same as before wasn’t true at all. That it wouldn’t be the same after he was gone, because in the time he’d been alive, he had touched the world and changed it, and the impact of that would live on.

I told him that he had helped so many people, and that all of them were indebted to him for the way he’d shaped their lives, whether they had been able to acknowledge it before now or not. I told him he had been wrong – that I couldn’t have done it without him – and I thanked him for that. Then I told him that I loved him, and that I’d never really needed to wish that he’d been my father, because deep down where I wouldn’t admit it, that was how I’d always seen him.

Finally, I told him about Jemima. Not the details, but that I was going to do what I could to help her and her mother. It was too late in so many ways, but perhaps it would be something. I told him that he had been a good man, and that I was going to try to be more like him.

By the time I’d finished, his fingers had stopped fluttering and his chest was still. I leaned even closer and listened for the sound of his breathing, but it was no longer there. He was completely motionless. The difference now, even from just a few minutes earlier, was obvious. He’d gone.

I kissed him on his warm forehead, then went outside to join the medical staff in the corridor.

I have no idea if John heard me that day. I don’t know whether my words got through, and if he had at least a few seconds to hold them before they evaporated. And I suppose I never will. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? We can tell ourselves anything we like. Sometimes it matters when we pretend, or even when we lie to ourselves just to make our lives easier. But not always.

And so I’ll choose to believe that he did.