The Nightmare Place (7 page)

Chris asked me something.

‘What?’

‘I said, can you find any keys? It would make it easier for you to get out.’

I shook my head. ‘Better not. Let’s leave everything as it is for Forensics. We want to keep it tight. We don’t want to miss a single thing this time.’

‘We didn’t any other time either.’

‘I know. But still.’

‘I’ll help you out, then.’

I glanced behind me, feeling the emptiness of the house again. Now that I knew for sure she was upstairs, the air felt less ominous than before. Just sadness now.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I think I’ll wait in here, with her.’

Eight

That evening, I got out of work both late and frustrated. The afternoon had been spent beginning the investigation into Sally Vickers’ life – her friends and family; her movements over previous days – and canvassing the neighbours for anything untoward they might have spotted. If she’d been targeted, and perhaps even followed over time, then surely
someone
must have seen
something
? But so far, just as with the other victims, the answer seemed to be that nobody had.

It was Monday, so I did what I always do: I went to the gym. It wasn’t like I was going to get much sleep anyway. Even if I could get Sally Vickers out of my head for long enough, the dream of the waste ground would undoubtedly be there waiting for me. So, close to ten o’clock that night, I pulled up in the car park of the Workhouse.

It’s open twenty-four seven, but is largely unattended after hours, so I had to use my keycard to unlock the door. Normally, when I step inside, the warm, sweaty air and the
thud
of bags is familiar enough to be a genuine relief from the horrors of the day behind me. It was quieter at this hour, but the smell of the place was still vaguely comforting.

The Workhouse is a no-frills, spit-and-sawdust kind of establishment. There are nicer places closer to the centre – the air-conditioned chain gyms, where everything’s colour-coordinated and the sounds are of whirring and swooshing – and I could afford them easily enough. But I prefer the Workhouse for various reasons. The main thing is that it feels like I belong here, in the way that I don’t in
any
fancy establishment – whether it’s pubs, restaurants, or whatever. I always suspect the owners are looking me up and down and thinking I shouldn’t be there. Which is ridiculous, of course. I have money, I’m well presented and behaved, and I have about as socially responsible a job as it’s possible to have. But even so, a part of me is always going to feel like the scruffy gang kid: the one the store detective follows around and keeps his eye on.

After I’d got changed, I slung a towel over my shoulder and carried my water bottle across the open-plan gym, towards the free weights area. Black rubber mats were interlocked on the floor – tacky in places, like tyres that had driven over oil – and one wall was covered with smudged mirrors, framed by an old stack-and-pulley set-up. Benches were dotted around, along with slightly rusty bars and plates, the labels long worn off the latter, the numbers on them little more than raised ridges in the iron. There was also a rack of newer dumb-bells, with rubber handles and black hexagonal ends, and I walked over to those, selecting the ones I was going to use.

There was only one man using the equipment tonight: a guy in his mid-twenties with dark shaved hair, dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a workout top that revealed the trapezius muscles on his neck and shoulders. I’d seen him a few times before. Right now, he was sitting facing the mirror, curling twenty-kilo dumb-bells – hammer raises. His arms were absurdly pumped, the veins standing out on his forearms as though the skin had been shrink-wrapped over them. As he finished his set, he placed the weights carefully on either side of his bench. Not a dropper, then. I liked that.

I dragged a bench into place a short distance to one side, dimly aware out of the corner of my eye of him tapping at his phone. Recording his set details: there’d be an app for that, for people who cared. I never bothered to count.

I lined the dumb-bells up, then shook my arms and twisted round at the waist to stretch my back. The weights I’d selected today were small. Sometimes I go for heavier ones – to test myself; to mix it up and keep things interesting – but I prefer to lift light, as there’s something about eight-rep sets that feels truncated to me. The sets I prefer have fifty repetitions or more, and I’m in pain for well over half of them. And that’s good, because it allows me to lose myself for longer.

It’s one of the main reasons I lift – to distract myself from dwelling on the day behind me: thoughts coming to life, whirling and dancing, like the mops and buckets in that Disney cartoon. Tonight, predictably, my head was all too full. A small part of it involved John; the day after tomorrow, he would be moving into the care home I’d found for him. The saddest aspect of the whole thing was that he hadn’t protested anything like as much as I’d anticipated – or perhaps even hoped – he would. He’d accepted the situation quickly, so it had felt as though he was already giving up the fight. On the surface, I was worried about how he was going to settle in; deep down, I was trying to ignore the fact that he was not going to be there for as long as I wanted. That given how fast he was deteriorating, he might not need to settle in at all.

But as big as those thoughts were, they were small in comparison to those of the case. The memory of finding Sally Vickers this morning kept returning to me. The image of her. The way he’d stuffed her down there like rags when he’d finally finished hurting her.

Six rapes and one murder, and we were no closer to catching him. I tried to imagine what might be going through his head. He had been escalating before, and had been lucky not to kill Julie Kennedy. Even so, murder was still a leap. I wondered if it had shocked him – frightened him, even – taking that step. My bet was that even if he was scared by what he’d done, there’d be excitement there too, and we’d have another victim to deal with before too long: another face to tack on our boards. And at that point, it would be seven rapes and two murders. Because, having killed once, there was no reason for him not to do so again. People like our man almost never slow down. If anything, he was likely to accelerate harder, and the real question was how many people were going to suffer before he finally crashed.

The faces of the victims swirled through my head, each with its own string of dates and details trailing behind. I knew them off by heart now, and my mind kept latching on to them and exploring, moving hand over hand from one to another, searching for connections. Something that mattered. Something that we’d missed. A hundred details. A thousand. If I didn’t make sense of them, another woman was going to die. Another woman could be dying
right now
.

And so you have to make sense of them
.

That’s another reason why I like light weights: the metaphor of them. It’s one small movement, one repetition at a time. You achieve the entire set in tiny increments, edging painfully towards the end. You can always manage one more. And if you can do it in the gym, with a weight, then you can do it outside the gym, with whatever else is required of you – events, people, information. All it takes is to keep going.

The guy beside me was done for the night. He wandered away behind me, and I allowed myself to watch him in the mirror for a moment, evaluating him. There are other ways of distracting yourself, of course – of making your thoughts go quiet. But not tonight. I caught my own eye in the mirror. Made sure I knew that I was serious: that we were about to do this, and that we would keep on doing it until it was time to stop.

Then I picked up the weights and began.

I got home just before midnight, resisting the urge to turn the television on and watch the news reports on the twenty-four-hour channel.

They would be covering the case, of course, and I knew
how
they would be covering it. An investigation like this always has the same narrative in the press, and we were well into the stage of recrimination against the police for not doing enough. I didn’t need to see that, or watch Drake’s inevitable talking-head performance, expertly fielding the implications of the passive-aggressive questions downwards. I prefer to feel guilty on my own terms, thank you.

Instead, I warmed up some leftover bolognese sauce from the previous evening, and ate it without pasta. Then I went to bed, not giving it time to go down properly. I was going to have bad dreams anyway.

Before going upstairs, I did what I imagined everybody in the city was doing this evening: I checked that my house was safe. Every window shut and locked. Every door secured. It was foolish, perhaps, but I even searched the obvious places, just to make sure I was alone.

Upstairs, I crouched down and looked under the bed. Both the cats were there, staring back at me. It had been the same most nights since the burglary.

‘You can come out, you know,’ I said.

Hazel licked her lips in response, but neither of them made a move to emerge.

In the middle of the night, I bolted upright, my heart hammering in my chest, my body drenched in sweat.

For a while, I sat on the edge of the bed, my face in my hands, trying to calm myself down. I could still see the waste ground, as vivid and unreal as when I’d been asleep: the ghostlike figure; the clouds moving faster and faster. The sense that the scene was rapidly approaching a breaking point, the sudden moment when something awful would rush straight at me, screaming into my face. And the velocity of the nightmare had followed me into real life. Eventually I lowered my hands and stared at the wall.

Something is coming
, I thought.

Something awful is coming
.

Nine

After Jane qualified as a volunteer, the sessions at Mayday fell into a familiar pattern almost immediately. While the calls varied in length and content, and there were often unpredictable stretches of boredom in between, when she could sit with a coffee and read, she quickly came to recognise the different types of caller.

A surprising proportion were men in prison. She had no idea where they got the phones from, especially when the calls came late at night, but the conversations were often lengthy. In some ways, that was good – it made the shifts fly – but there was also the sensation that she wasn’t accomplishing much. She rarely got the impression that the prisoners were in despair, so much as bored: just lonely and killing time. But then there were few rules as to who could phone the helpline, or for what reason. If someone just wanted to chat, then that was fine.

At least those calls were generally polite and comprehensible, whereas a small number came from people who were so disturbed that it was difficult to communicate with them at all. They usually just talked down the line at her, often in non sequiturs. These conversations all ended in one of two ways. Either the caller took offence at something perfectly innocent that Jane said, or else they hung up in the middle of an abandoned sentence, their voice trailing away, as though they could no longer remember why they had a phone in their hand in the first place.

The rest of the legitimate callers were …
lonely
, Jane supposed. Some were literally alone, while others did have people around them but still felt like they were on their own. Many of them had something they couldn’t talk about hidden away inside, and keeping that thing secret hurt them. Infidelity, memories of abuse, financial pressures. Whatever it was, there came a moment when they needed to share it, so they called Mayday to talk to the only person it felt like they could: a stranger, unconnected to their lives.

And then, of course, there were the sex calls.

They surprised Jane in two ways. Firstly, there were
so many
of them. And secondly, she wasn’t as bothered or embarrassed by them as she’d imagined she would be. In fact, she became good at delivering a curt but polite goodbye, and hanging up as soon as she recognised the caller’s intentions.
I’m sorry, but I don’t have to listen to you while you’re doing that
. She usually managed to inflect a little breezy jolliness into it, even when the call turned nasty.

You dirty little fucking bitch …

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t have to listen to you while you’re doing that.’

Click.

I’m going to find you and come all—

‘I’m sorry, but I don’t have to listen to you while you’re doing that.’

Click.

If anything, she actually got a small kick out of that. A few months ago, she would have had trouble engaging in a conversation at all, never mind taking control of one and ending it. She was getting better. At the same time as her natural empathy helped her fade into the background with the genuine calls, she was also becoming more assertive with the time-wasters. It made her feel strong.

Whenever she was on shift with Rachel, she usually ended up giving her a lift home afterwards. The girl didn’t live too far away – she had her own small house on the far side of campus – but Jane always offered, and Rachel always accepted. It had taken her a few lifts, with the girl chattering confidently away beside her, to realise that Rachel accepted the rides not because she needed them, but because she seemed to enjoy Jane’s company.
For some reason
, she thought – then told herself not to.

One night, she talked to Rachel about the sex calls.

‘
Why
do they do that?’

Rachel shrugged. ‘There are a lot of freaks in the world.’

‘Not
that
many, surely.’ Jane didn’t like to feel that the world was rammed to the gills with that sort of man. ‘I mean, there were three tonight, and that was just on my line.’

Rachel considered it. ‘Yeah, but think about it like this. Imagine you’re a man who wants to do that kind of thing. You’re going to call people like us, aren’t you? People who can’t answer back. You’re not going to cold-call the police and do it.’

Jane laughed. ‘I wish some of them would try.’

‘Yeah, me too. But it’s a skewed sample, is what I’m saying. It’s like asking why there are so many injured people in hospital.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Not that I think it’s particularly rare.’

‘You think there are lots of them?’

It was Rachel’s turn to laugh, but it was a hollow one.

‘I think there are a lot of
men
.’

‘That’s harsh.’

‘Maybe. But I think you’d be surprised. It’s the anonymity, you know? When there are no consequences, people start acting the way they really want to, deep inside. And a lot of men want to do that.’

That was an unhappy thought.

‘Why?’

‘A million different reasons.’ Rachel shrugged again, as though the details weren’t important. ‘A lot of them, I guess you could probably pick it apart from the story they give you while they’re jerking off down the line. The things they say. But it all basically comes down to the same thing.’

‘Which is?’

‘That they hate us.’

Us
meant
women
, Jane knew. She didn’t want to believe that, but the next time she received a sex call – one of the ones that ended with violent language and threats, the words practically spat down the line at her – she thought that, actually, there was something to what Rachel had said.
The man on the other end of this line hates me
, she thought. She was someone he’d never met. He knew nothing about her, beyond the fact that she was a woman, and yet a part of him really hated her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she told him, a little glumly, ‘but I don’t have to listen to you while you’re doing that.’

It was strange, as time went on, how at ease she began to feel in Rachel’s company. Rachel was young, slim and pretty, and she seemed enormously self-assured, from her dyed red hair to her confident manner. She gave the impression that nothing fazed her – that she could walk into any social situation and would feel immediately at home. Why she wanted to spend time with Jane still felt like a bit of a mystery, but after a while Jane convinced herself just to accept it, and began to relax around her.

One night, she found herself telling Rachel about Peter.

‘We’d been together for a couple of years,’ she said. ‘I’d never really questioned it before. I just sort of fell into it.’

‘Was he fit?’

‘I don’t know.’ Jane laughed. ‘He was okay, I suppose.’

‘Scant praise there. Come on, though. What was it that attracted you to him in the first place?’

‘He asked me out, I guess.’

It came across as a joke, and Jane laughed again, but there was a degree of truth to it. In hindsight, she saw how dull Peter had been, and there wasn’t much more she could say.
It’s not funny, though
, she thought,
because it’s true.
Ultimately, she’d gone out with Peter because she was grateful that he’d asked, and she’d stayed with him because she was grateful that he wanted her to. Even in the end, when he was drinking more heavily and they were hardly talking, it had been his decision to leave, and she’d been the one left upset.

‘What happened?’ Rachel asked.

‘He was always telling me how much of a pushover I was. That I was too timid.’

‘Nice.’

‘He was probably right.’

The split had been her therapist’s fault, which meant, ironically enough, that it was Peter’s. Peter had always resented her father’s influence on her life, weathering his frequent visits with often visibly gritted teeth. When Jane’s father was present, Peter was always aware that he was now only the second most important man in the room. While he hadn’t been glad when the old man died, he had certainly seen it as a chance for Jane to escape that influence.

In the most bitter argument they’d had, he’d claimed not to want a mouse for a partner.
It’s always me that makes the decisions
, he told her.
You never seem to have an opinion. You’re always … putting yourself out for me.

She’d been hurt and upset, but thinking about it, he was right. And so finally, more to please him than anything else, she had nervously agreed to book an appointment with a therapist.

One evening, a short while afterwards, Peter had suggested they go to the cinema to see the latest Jason Statham film. Jane had no interest in doing that, and said so. It had been almost comical, the double-take Peter did. He really wanted to go, he said.

I hear what you’re saying
, Jane told him,
but no.

She had felt very proud as the words left her mouth. Now, she recognised the same tone of voice in the way she ended the sex calls. That evening, she repeated the phrase three times to Peter. They didn’t go to see the new Jason Statham film, and he sulked.
I think you’re probably drinking too much
, she told him a few days afterwards.
I’m only saying it because I worry about you.
A couple of months later, it was all over and he’d moved out. Apparently he had wanted to be in a relationship with a mouse after all.

Jane laughed as she said that, and this time the humour was more genuine. Rachel gave a wry smile in return, but then shrugged again.

‘You see?’ she said. ‘Men.’

When Jane wasn’t at the helpline, it came as a surprise to her that she was often physically alone without ever actually feeling lonely. The flat she’d had since leaving university had always been too small and cramped for her to live in with Peter. Maybe it had been okay to begin with, when they’d been happy pressed up tightly, side by side, but in the later stages of their relationship that feeling had reversed and the place had become claustrophobic. Without him, it was just right again, as though it had been holding its breath for months, and could now finally get the air it needed.

Perhaps that was true of her, as well. After all this time, it was a revelation for Jane to discover that she really didn’t mind her own company. She wasn’t that bad.

For the first time in her life, she had begun to feel free.

Actually, it was for the first time
before
her life. That was at the root of the problem. She had been a dangerously premature baby, and it had been two months before the doctors finally allowed her parents to take their first – and only – child home from the hospital. She had then been a sickly infant, underweight and weak. Her parents were religious; they decided that their tiny daughter’s life was a gift from God, and responded accordingly by wrapping that life in blankets to keep it safe. They had treated her as though any little misstep might break a bone. She was not the kind of little girl who climbed trees.

Later, on evenings when her peers and her handful of vague friends were out socialising, Jane would be in her room, studying. As a teenager, she was bookish and shy. Even at university, studying French, her year abroad had seen her father phoning every night to make sure she was okay. And until his death last year, all her bank statements had still been sent to her home address; he would open them to make sure she was spending sensibly.

Her room-mate at university told Jane – affably, but entirely sincerely – that she really needed to tell the man to fuck off. Jane had nodded wearily: she had some sympathy with that position. But she also understood that her father was acting out of love: a crushing kind of love, admittedly – one that pressed in on her from all sides and kept her life small – but love all the same. Anyway, she found it hard to stand up to people at the best of times.

Now, all that had changed.

Or
was
changing, at least. She was self-reliant, alone but happy, and, it turned out, far more capable than she’d ever given herself credit for. It was as though she’d been standing at one end of a high wire over a canyon, afraid to step out and walk carefully across to join everyone else on the far side. Now, not only had she taken the first step, she was more than halfway across – and it wasn’t at all frightening. Even when she stopped and looked down, it didn’t remotely feel like she was going to lose her balance.

Volunteering at Mayday had been the biggest step, of course, but it had also provided the largest reward. At worst, the shifts were challenges, and Jane had begun to realise that when you forced yourself, not only could challenges be met and conquered, but it felt good when you did it.

And so, despite the prevalence of the bad calls, she found herself looking forward to her shifts. She was looking forward to one that night.

Of course, right then, she really had no idea.