Текст книги "Jessica Daniel: Locked In / Vigilante / The Woman in Black"

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 60 страниц)

ONE YEAR AGO

There had been no better feeling than ditching the name Nigel Collins. It was something that reminded him of being weak and pathetic, of seeing those fists pounding down upon him until he woke up in hospital. People had thought he was stupid and weird but there was nothing wrong with being quiet. His parents had died for crying out loud and he had been left in a children’s home he despised. What did people want him to say and do? He had only been a child and all the other kids picked on him.

That was a few years ago now and he was finally getting things together. The main thing was getting rid of that name, which had taken a while. He never would have felt able to get on with his life the way things had been after he had left hospital. Luckily, he had made friends living on the street. It was funny that people who were overlooked could be so resourceful. Some of them were lost to drugs but that had never appealed to him. One of the people he had met had told him he could get him a new ID and national insurance number. You never knew whether to believe what you heard on the streets but his friend had come through with a brown envelope containing the few basic documents he would need.

He wouldn’t be able to drive without risking being discovered, or leave the country, but that could change with time. When it came to other homeless people you rarely got anything for nothing but Nigel had found that passing on money from begging and the odd bout of slippery fingers got him what he wanted. You learned all sorts of new tricks when you needed to.

With a new identity, things had started to come good. He got himself a flat. It was horrible but a roof was always better than no roof then he got a job. It was nothing special, just fixing shoes, engraving and cutting keys on the market but the stall’s owner had been great with him, looking to pass on his skills so he could semi-retire but still take the income. He had found out lots about himself; how practical and creative he could be. With a new name, somewhere to live and a job, he had found his confidence growing at last. He started making friends and creating a new life.

Talking to girls.

And then, within days of each other, two people walked into his life as if to taunt him, a reminder of a past he had forgotten. He recognised the faces as parents of the people who had destroyed his life. Names weren’t a strong point but he never forgot a face. These were features he knew but they had looked through him, not knowing or caring what their children had done.

First a man, mumbling something about having been burgled and needing new keys, pretending he didn’t know who he was talking to. You didn’t usually need to take name and address details but people rarely questioned you when asked. Every now and then he had got a few girls’ names and numbers in a similar way. When the man returned, he got his keys – without knowing about the extra one that had been cut.

At the time, the man formerly known as Nigel Collins didn’t know how it could come in handy in the future but then there was a second gift.

Two days later a mother of one of his other tormentors also pretended she didn’t know who he was and came to him with the same story. She said she had been burgled but wanted to chat, without even acknowledging who he was. She had been only too happy to give over her address details and another key had been pocketed.

He wondered if the other two would walk into his life, two more gifts, but they hadn’t so far. Maybe fate or God was telling him he had to find the other two himself? Perhaps it was time to be Nigel Collins for one final short period of his life and then he could get back on with things, find a career and a girlfriend and settle down.

FIVE MONTHS AGO

One of the hardest parts of leaving one identity behind was choosing yourself a new name. It had to be something you felt comfortable answering to but also something you actually liked. After the tedium of ‘Nigel’, he wanted to be more memorable; not weird but something not exactly regulation either. Although he had decided on his new moniker a few years ago, he had really begun to feel it sticking recently. He felt his senses moving quicker when people spoke his name. The acknowledgment they meant him was becoming instant and natural. He liked it.

The plan that started forming seven months ago was beginning to work too. The other two he wanted to target had not come directly to him, so he had to make sure they did. The first was easy, the woman even lived in the same house as years ago, although he didn’t recognise the man with her. He resolved then it would have to be the woman he took; the man could be completely blameless but not her. He had begun to watch the location and realised it would be difficult to get the right pattern of when she was alone. The first two would be easy but this would be a lot harder. He felt sure the right opportunity would come if he waited long enough.

He had thought of a way to try to make sure she came to him in the first instance, giving him complete access to her. Everyone loved to save a bit of money and a good offer. In his head it would be successful and if fate kept favouring him, it would work.

The other woman had been harder to find. Like someone who was homeless, whores could almost live in plain sight with many people driving and walking past but pretending not to see what was in front of them.

He had used the Internet to check the final name on his list and saw the tormenter was in prison, where he belonged. But that shouldn’t let him off the hook. Finding anyone close to him had proven hard though. He didn’t even know if they lived in the same area now. He had been waiting for fate to guide him with little luck. He did not want to continue with a plan that only contained three of the four people he wanted.

And then he saw what he had been wanting to see for all these months – and she had been right in front of him the whole time. He had walked past her row of shops on many occasions as he went home. He usually kept his head down. He had even heard her voice, ‘Do you fancy . . .’ as he hurried past. Then one night he glanced up and saw what he had been looking for the entire time. A familiar face from years before, a face he remembered walking young Shaun to school. Befriending her was easy; money tended to do that. Afterwards she wanted to be friends, offering him cigarettes and complaining about the local kids.

Then everything just appeared to him, a way to get access to both his final places. The owner of his stall had taught him some very useful skills in the past eighteen months, wanting someone to run the business for him but still keep the profits for himself. He had learned those skills willingly and now he had used them. He repaired the lock he had damaged the night before and pocketed a third key, and then the final woman came to him on the stall and the fourth and final key had been created.

Now he just had to wait and watch. He didn’t even know if he were capable of doing what he planned. He would have to be focused and think of what had been done to him in the past. He would have to build up his strength first, develop his body and keep a close eye on the comings and goings of his targets. When the time came he would have to be careful not to leave a trace but he could plan and wait for the perfect time when there would be little chance of him being discovered.

And then, when all four were gone and he could live with himself again, he could finally say goodbye to Nigel Collins and start his life over. It would be his tormenters who had to live with the wreckage they had caused, not him.

36

Jessica didn’t recognise the old man standing on the stall but then she instantly knew why not. The person who had worked there had got himself a new job. Emotions flooded through her and she kept repeating to herself over and over that she must be wrong. She had to be sure and approached the stall. She had been staring at it trying to take everything in and the holder must have been anxious as she reached the point where she was directly in front of him.

‘Are you all right, darling?’ he asked in a local accent.

Jessica couldn’t think straight. ‘Yes, sorry. I was just wondering about a man who worked here . . .’

The man half-smiled at her. ‘Heh, you’re not the first. I think a few of the girls around here have had their eye on m’boy over the past couple of years.’

‘Your boy?’

‘Oh not my son or anything but, yeah, he’s a good lad. He has a new job, so I’m sorry he won’t be around any longer.’ Jessica didn’t know what to say but the man clearly misunderstood the look on her face. ‘Oh don’t worry, it’s a good job. I’m pleased he’s sorted himself out. It just means I’ve had to come out of retirement until I can find someone else to take over.’

Jessica hadn’t been listening but said thanks anyway. Her mind was racing and she felt as if she were in a trance. It couldn’t be . . .

She felt she had to hear someone else say it before it would be true. She had taken a few steps away from the stall but turned around again and walked back towards the man. ‘Could you tell me what his name was?’

‘You didn’t even know? I didn’t think he was that shy. It was Randall. Randall Anderson. Maybe you’ll get lucky and come across him one day? I think he’s got a girlfriend so you might have to wait in line.’

The man laughed but Jessica didn’t. She moved quickly away from the stall, fumbling with her bag to pull her phone out. Once again, just as she needed to move quickly, her fingers betrayed her. She finally pulled it out of her bag but it caught on one of the handles and she dropped it.

Her heart froze as she saw it fall almost in slow motion. There was a small crash as it hit the ground. She bent down and snatched it up but the screen had a slight crack across it, although it seemed slightly responsive. Jessica pressed the button for her contacts list. The phone was being slow and the scroll was only half-working but she managed to get up a list of recent contacts then pressed the ‘call’ button next to Caroline’s name.

‘Answer, answer, answer,’ Jessica said quietly but out loud while the phone rang. She heard a click and for a moment thought her friend was about to speak. Instead, it was her voicemail message. While she listened to her friend’s voice, Jessica remembered that morning’s text saying her friend had been called into work. As the other end of the line beeped, Jessica spoke frantically.

‘Caz, it’s Jess. Look, wherever you are, go somewhere safe or somewhere public. If Randall is with you, make some excuse to get away and call me back? It’s urgent.’

She hung up and swore, much to the annoyance of a woman walking nearby with a young child. What did she do now? The obvious answer was to do what she always told everyone else to do – phone the police – but Jessica was thinking of her friend. What if there had been a mistake? She would be risking throwing away their friendship and perhaps her own career.

Ultimately, she wasn’t worried about treading on toes considering the case had been taken from her. It was better to be wrong and get a telling off than be right and do nothing. But if she ended up making allegations that turned out to be untrue, especially if it looked as if it were designed to coincide with Caroline moving out, their friendship would surely be irreparable. More practically too, if the police were looking for the killer and he got wind of it, he could go to ground and disappear. He had done it before and Jessica couldn’t risk that happening.

Jessica decided she should head back to the flat to see if Caroline had returned from work. If not she would at least be able to pick up her car and drive to her friend’s office and then the two of them could go to the police station while people senior to her decided what to do. From the market, the journey would only take ten minutes to get home and that might even give her a chance to see where she had gone wrong. There was a taxi rank next to the market and Jessica jogged towards it, before opening the door on the first one.

She gave the driver her address and then attempted using her half-working phone again. She called Caroline over and over with no luck but there wasn’t much point in leaving further messages.

As the taxi drove, she tried to think of things that might not fit but instead could only come up with things that justified her fears even more. Caroline had never met Randall’s parents. He said they lived abroad but it was an easy thing to say to get out of having your girlfriend meet them. And what about Ryan? He claimed he had found her files on the coffee table after she had left them under her bag but maybe he did find them where he said because Randall had already gone through them first? It was a horrible thought. It could have been her carrying those files around that led to Claire Hogan and Mary Keegan being killed quicker before the police could find the connection.

The taxi driver was good and Jessica gave him a ten-pound note before dashing out of the car towards her flat. She put the key in her front door, thinking about how a key had been turned by Nigel Collins or Randall Anderson to let himself into the victims’ homes.

She pushed the door open and went inside. ‘Caroline?’

There was no answer. Jessica put her bag on the floor next to the front door and took her phone out, putting it in her pocket and then went to pick up the car keys from her room. As she moved, she thought she could hear some sort of rustling sound coming from Caroline’s room. At first her heart leapt, with her instant thought being her friend was at home but then something far more sinister occurred to her.

Jessica crept along the carpeted hallway. She knew where the squeaky floorboards were and moved to avoid them. She passed her own bedroom door and carefully approached Caroline’s. It was mostly shut but there was a crack and she could definitely hear something moving inside. Jessica held her breath and tried to peer through the gap where the hinges met the wall but could see nothing. She looked through the already open part but could only see one side of Caroline’s bed. She slowly pushed the door open to reveal more of the bed through the widening crack, squeezing silently through the gap and looking behind the door.

Randall was standing there, his hands reaching into the built-in wardrobe but his face turned to look at her with a puzzled look on his face. ‘Jess? Sorry I didn’t hear you come in. Caroline was called into work but left me her key so I could start moving things for her. Didn’t she text you?’

Jessica felt frozen to the spot. What did she do? Randall was bigger and stronger than her. It wasn’t as if she could just go straight in and accuse him of being Nigel Collins and call the police. She already knew what he was capable of doing, having seen all four bodies. Not only that but, if he did kill her here, the police would just assume that Collins had come to deal with the officer assigned to his case. Even if Randall’s DNA was found at the scene, that would be expected as he was Caroline’s boyfriend.

She would have to be careful but couldn’t risk leaving the flat or letting him leave and losing him for good.

Jessica tried to keep her voice calm. ‘Hi. She sent me a message this morning. I’ve just been out and about.’ She thought her voice had faltered slightly but, if it did, Randall said nothing.

‘Do you want to help me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t really know what I’m doing with all these clothes and things. I’ve got these boxes but I have no idea how it should be sorted or anything.’ He indicated some cardboard boxes on the floor by his feet and was smiling.

Jessica tried to return the smile but it was excruciating. If she could just get away from him for a few minutes, she could call the station and get help.

‘No worries. I just want to get a drink. Do you want anything?’

‘Yeah, just some water would be fine.’

Jessica walked backwards out the room, her heart racing. She turned around and went into the kitchen, putting two glasses on the draining board letting the tap run as she took her phone out from her pocket. Even if he were nearby, perhaps he would hear the water and not her?

Her cracked phone screen was still not properly working. She pressed the screen to view her contacts but it wouldn’t load. She used one hand to fill both glasses, using the other to jab at the front of her phone ever harder. Eventually she had both glasses filled but left the water running anyway. Finally the phone started to respond. She needed to use both thumbs but got the list of names scrolling down. She could see her hand shaking and felt sick but kept telling herself to focus. She got to the entry ‘Station’ and pressed call. She put the phone to her ear and turned around to face the door.

Randall was standing there looking directly at her with a pair of scissors in his hand.

37

‘Are you all right?’ Randall said. ‘You’ve been a while.’

Jessica heard the call connect and the desk sergeant’s voice say ‘hello’. In that fraction of a second she weighed up blurting out as much as she could, saying, ‘It’s Jessica Daniel, I’ve got Nigel Collins in my flat, send help.’ Could she hold Randall off for long enough until help arrived? Would the sergeant understand everything in time? Was it worth the risk?

She hung up and put the phone in her pocket. ‘Yeah, I was just trying Caroline to see if she knew when she was going to be finished. There was no answer though.’ Randall looked as if he was weighing her up. Jessica thought she might have been imagining it. Could he know? She hadn’t said anything that could give her away.

He motioned the scissors in his hand. They had long blades and were sharp on the end. ‘Do you have any tape? One of the boxes just broke.’

‘Yeah, hang on. Here’s your water.’ Jessica offered him one of the glasses and turned the tap off. She focused hard on not letting her hand shake as she gave it to him, not showing she was nervous. He took it from her without saying anything and drank. She took a few sips from her glass then tipped the rest away. She felt sick.

Randall emptied the glass and offered it back to her. ‘Thanks.’

‘No worries. The tape is in that drawer behind you.’

Jessica pointed to a cabinet next to the door. Randall turned around and opened it, reaching in and rummaging. There was a knife rack above the drawer he was looking in. If he had figured things out, she knew she was in big trouble.

She watched him but he didn’t make any sudden movements and quickly pulled a roll of tape out of the drawer. ‘Got it,’ he said. ‘Are you coming?’

‘Yeah.’ She wanted him to turn around and walk out of the door first; that way she could at the very least pocket one of the knives.

He didn’t move and stood holding the door open for her. ‘After you.’

She moved slowly, looking at the knives out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t necessarily want to stab him but she wanted something that would give her an advantage if need be. She thought about the distances. There was no way she could pick something up without him noticing but could she grab a weapon and back him into a corner? Even if she did, what then?

Jessica walked past the knives, in front of Randall and through the open door towards Caroline’s bedroom. She could feel him moving behind her but kept her cool and went back into Caroline’s room, waiting by the side of the bed for him to go past her towards the wardrobes. He did what she expected and pulled one of the boxes onto the bed before taping it underneath where it had broken.

Jessica watched him carefully. He had put the scissors on the bed but then picked them up to cut the tape and pocketed them.

‘Right, where do we begin?’ he asked as he turned back around to the wardrobe.

Jessica couldn’t believe she was going to have to make small talk. This was a man who had killed four people. ‘I reckon put all the trousers and skirts and stuff in one box, then the tops and dresses separate.’

‘Heh, I was going to group everything by colour. Good job you’re here.’ Randall laughed and Jessica tried to join in but there was no substance to it. ‘Can you fold?’ he asked.

‘Okay,’ Jessica said. ‘If you take them out, I’ll fold and you can pack.’

The situation was almost laughable. Jessica was looking for a way out. Could she somehow lock him in this room then make a call? Once again, she had been stupid. She should have phoned the police in the first place.

They started working in tandem but to Jessica it was like an out-of-body experience, a bit like being back in the interview room with Peter Hunt and Wayne Lapham. Her body was folding the clothes but her mind was somewhere else, desperately trying to think of how to handle things.

‘How’s the job going?’ Randall said out of the blue. Jessica stopped halfway through folding a pair of jeans and looked up at the man in front of her. He had just put another pile of clothes on the bed and his hands were free. ‘I know you were taken off that Houdini case, it was all over the news but I just wondered how things were now.’

Jessica said nothing but folded quickly and put the trousers down on the bed. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I’ve been working on other things.’

‘Not one of those TV cops who keeps working a case then?’

She thought she detected something in his voice and tried to laugh but her voice cracked. ‘Nah, not me.’

‘What’s the flyer about in your bag then?’

She glanced up quickly and saw it in his face. He knew.

Instinctively, Jessica raced towards the door but Randall was faster. He pinned her against the wall, his forearm across her chest, shouting in her face: ‘Why couldn’t you leave it be?’

She could smell his breath and aftershave.

Jessica didn’t have time to think but acted instinctively. She couldn’t raise her arms properly but had enough leverage to smash the side of her hand hard into his windpipe. He instantly reeled back with a vicious cough and released her. She wriggled down away from his arms and escaped out of the bedroom, dashing for the front door, having no idea what to do next. He was quickly on her, bringing her down with something like a rugby tackle in their hallway. She tried to turn over but felt his fist punch her hard across the face as she did so. She saw stars, blinking to try to clear her head while hearing him continue to gasp for breath. She thought she could feel a trickle of what was almost certainly blood on her top lip.

Randall was now sitting astride her, his knees digging into her elbows so she could barely move. Her legs were relatively free but she knew she wasn’t strong enough to flip him over.

His breathing was tight but his blue eyes were staring right at her. ‘It was over!’ he shouted. His tone was lighter and he didn’t scream as he had done in the bedroom. ‘It was over. I just wanted to get on with things, settle down with Caroline.’

Jessica could feel the pain in her head from the blow but could just about focus. ‘Why did you do it, Randall?’

There were tears in his eyes but he still had a fierce look on his face. ‘It was Nigel. I had become Randall and was getting on with things but then two of them came to me on the stall. It was like a sign. A way to finally say goodbye to Nigel and get on with my life.’

Jessica realised he must mean the two burglary victims. They had gone to the closest place to them to get new keys cut after Wayne Lapham had broken into their homes but their appearance must have reminded Randall of a part of him he had buried. The part that still remembered being Nigel and feeling helpless.

‘How did you recognise them?’

‘I don’t forget faces.’

‘Really?’

‘I guess that’s part of being “weird”.’

‘Why didn’t you kill the boys who hurt you?’

Jessica felt the body astride her tense up. ‘What?’ It was almost as if he hadn’t heard her correctly. He used one of his hands to rub first one ear, then the other, the grip with his knees returning to what it was.

‘Why didn’t you go after the ones who had hurt you instead of their parents?’

‘They didn’t kill me, did they? They made me live like this.’

Jessica couldn’t move her body enough to nod but in some ways understood what he meant. If he killed their parents, the ones who had hurt him would at least have to endure the emotional pain.

‘How did you change your name so easily?’ she asked.

His volume went up again. ‘It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t just a name, it was everything associated with it: being pathetic and weak.’

‘But how did you manage to become somebody else?’

‘I lived on the streets for a while. Someone helped me, they reckoned they could get new identities sorted.’

Jessica had a chilling thought of Harry handing over a brown envelope to a homeless man on the street. She remembered Peter Hunt’s wording in court. ‘Have you ever seen Mr Thomas act in a questionable way while on duty?’ She had said ‘no’ but was suddenly confused. Had that act indirectly led to all of this?

Her expression must have changed. ‘What?’ Randall said.

‘What are you going to do now?’ Jessica asked, hoping he didn’t force her to answer.

She felt his grip lighten ever so slightly. He blinked away more tears. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t want to kill anyone else?’

‘I love her . . .’ Jessica knew he was talking about Caroline. He leant back slightly and she felt even more pressure release on her elbows. She could feel pins and needles but could probably free her arms if she needed to.

‘It’s why I wanted to get it all finished,’ he continued. ‘She came along and I wanted to leave Nigel behind. Once the four of them were finished with, we could have a life together. It was all over with.’

Jessica was playing for time. If she could get him to relax further, when the feeling came back into her arms, with her legs already free, she could surprise him and possibly get away. ‘Why did you lock all the houses after you left?’

Randall rubbed his ears again. ‘I didn’t want to get caught. I thought if your lot were busy looking at family members and trying to figure out how it all happened, you would forget to look for things like Nigel Collins. It worked, didn’t it?’

Jessica would have admitted that it had but didn’t want to let him focus on anything positive. ‘Can I ask you something?’ The directness clearly shocked him as he would have felt in control of the situation being on top. She didn’t give him time to answer. ‘Do you remember when the three of us were watching the news together that morning? You said the coverage was “sick” . . .’

‘I was talking about them using that old photo. With my face . . .’ Jessica knew he meant the one of him as a teenager with his features bruised and swollen. At the time she thought he had been talking about the murders themselves.

Her bluntness had worked and his tears stopped as he relaxed even further. The feeling had returned to both of her arms and the blurriness had cleared from her head. She thought about her options. Talking to him about letting her go or anything to do with the future would most likely anger him. He must know deep down his chances were hopeless. The only thing he could really do was either kill her and run for it or kill her and hope the investigators blamed it on Nigel Collins, not knowing he and Randall were one and the same.

Either way, her chances didn’t look good. She had to keep him off-balance. ‘How did you meet Ryan?’

It was a question completely out of the blue, something he wouldn’t have expected. He rubbed his ears again. ‘Ryan?’

‘Yeah, he was a nice guy.’

Randall shook his head slightly and stroked his neck with one of his hands. ‘Oh yeah, just around. We started playing pool together and . . .’

Jessica didn’t let him finish. She lunged forwards, using the spring of her free legs to propel him away from her. He yelled as he crashed backwards but as Jessica turned to run the few feet left to the front door, he flicked out with his foot and tripped her. She stumbled into the door, fumbling for the handle to open it. She had to take a step back to open it inwards but he slammed into her, crushing her between his weight and the door. Her arms were free and this time she reeled back and punched him as hard as she could in the windpipe. He stumbled fully back, obviously dazed.

Jessica let go of the door handle with her other hand and hammered the base of her palm upwards as hard as she could into the base of his nose. It was just as Harry had taught her and the same thing she had threatened to do to Wayne Lapham. Blood exploded over her arm and Randall’s face. She saw his eyes blink and close and quickly turned back to pull the door open, thinking she was free until she felt a hand grabbing her hair. Jessica’s face was slammed hard into the frame once, then twice as she felt consciousness slipping. She tried hard to focus, feeling her head yanked backwards.

She couldn’t open her eyes because of the pain but could hear Randall’s furious voice shouting behind her. Jessica couldn’t make out anything he was saying, his nose was most likely broken and his throat would certainly hurt from her two blows. She could hear him wheezing but couldn’t stop herself being dragged away from the door into her own bedroom and onto the bed. She was aware of what was going on but helpless to do anything about it, her head dazed and her limbs unresponsive. Jessica opened her eyes and could see him on top of her, tears running down his heavily bloodied face.

She thought she heard him say ‘I’m sorry’ and then felt his hands on her throat, squeezing. She could feel the pressure and was struggling for breath, not even able to kick her legs any longer.

And then she heard the front door open.