A Tapping at My Door: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller (The DS Nathan Cody Series) (14 page)

Settling onto his sofa, Cody opens the book and begins to read.

When you’re imagining the plaintive screams of a man as he is being sealed in behind a brick wall, the last thing you want is to be shocked into reality by the phone shrieking into the night.

Cody’s heart does its best to readjust while he picks up the phone and focuses tired eyes on the display.

Number withheld, of course. This time of night, it usually is.

He’s a little early tonight. Or she. Could be a woman. Could be a bunny boiler, like in
Fatal Attraction
.

Good job I haven’t got a rabbit, thinks Cody.

He answers the phone anyway. Always does, in the hope that one day he’ll get some answers.

‘Hello, darling,’ he says. ‘What’s up?’

Silence. Always silence. Not a whisper, not a breath. Just silence.

Says Cody, ‘We should get together some time. What do you think? Let me know when you’re coming. I’ll bake some scones.’

He waits, ear pressed tight against the receiver in the hope of catching something – anything – that might give him a clue to the identity of the caller.

But he gets nothing.

‘Well,’ says Cody. ‘It’s been lovely catching up, you little chatterbox, you. We must do it again some time. What’s that you say? Looking forward to it? Me too. Take care now.’

He hangs up, knowing there’ll be another call in a couple of days. They started a few months ago, sporadically at first, but more frequently of late. He has no idea who they are from or what they are about, but something tells him he will find out one day.

For now, there’s no point getting worked up about it.

That’s what he tells himself.

And yet somehow he cannot bring himself to return to the man screaming behind the brick wall.

18

It’s amazing what noises there are out here.

We don’t do it very often. Stand outside in the middle of the night and just listen. Most people are asleep now, especially those lucky or willing enough to be in work tomorrow. The night owls will be watching TV or playing video games or surfing the internet. They won’t be out in the cold, just listening. Just soaking up the sounds of the suburbs.

The house is semi-detached. The front door doesn’t face the street, but is hidden inside a recently built porch that looks out on to the gravel drive. As you come up the drive, you can’t see what is on the other side of the porch. You can’t see where he is hiding.

He has been waiting here for hours. He didn’t think it would take this long. He thought maybe midnight at the latest, and now it’s – what? – after two in the morning. He’s feeling the cold now. Needs to get this over with.

He keeps wondering if he arrived too late, but there has been no activity inside the house. No noise, no lights going on or off. Nothing. He’s convinced the house is empty. The only flaw in his plan is if it stays that way.

But no. That’s not going to happen. Let’s remain positive here. Positive mental attitude – that’s the only way to a good murder.

So he continues to wait. And to listen.

He has good hearing. Detects the faintest of sounds. The scurrying of a mouse along the fencing. An empty crisp bag rolling across the gravel. The steady drip of a leaky garden tap. He treats the dripping as a metronome, using its beat to accompany the songs in his head. It keeps his mind occupied. Stops the nerves getting the better of him.

Several times he has considered abandoning this mission and going home. What if he’s discovered? What would he do then? At one point, the door of the neighbouring house was opened. He had to duck behind the wheelie bin. He squatted there, cowering. Praying that the neighbour wasn’t so neighbourly that he would come around and check the security of the property.

But it didn’t come to that. The neighbour just closed his gate and then went back inside and locked up for the night.

It felt like a close call, though. Far too close.

There have been other worrying noises too. Cars roaring up the street. People striding briskly along the pavement, talking far too loudly. A police helicopter buzzing ever nearer. He imagined that chopper turning on its searchlight, beaming it directly on him as a swarm of police officers descended angrily. Or perhaps it would have its infrared switched on. He would show up as a white blob of heat on a screen, and there would be no hiding place for him, no escape.

But the cars flashed past. The voices faded. The helicopter became a star in the distance. Luck remained on his side.

Fortune favours the brave, he tells himself. Because this is brave. It takes guts to do this. Too many people whine about the things that are wrong with the world, but don’t have the courage to do anything about it.

He sees the cat before it sees him. He watches it sauntering arrogantly up the driveway. He feels like leaping out and scaring it out of one of its nine lives, but he stays hidden in the shadows, thinking how brilliant it is that he can master the night and the silence even more expertly than this dark sinuous feline.

And then something alerts the animal. A sound, a smell – he doesn’t know. But the cat suddenly halts and turns its glowing eyes on him. It stands stock still, assessing this unexpected presence in its territory. It raises its head slightly, sniffing the air. Trying to determine whether this is friend or foe.

And then it issues a cry. It’s a loud cry for such a small animal. A noise like that could attract attention.

It comes closer and cries again, louder this time. The man looks up at the windows of the neighbour’s house. They’re closed, thank goodness. But he can’t take any chances. He waves his arm, trying to frighten the animal away. But the stupid thing seems to interpret this as an invitation. It meows twice more, pushing its side against the wheelie bin. It seems to have no intention of moving on.

‘Fuck off,’ whispers the man. ‘Go on, piss off.’

His hissing voice has the opposite effect to the one intended. The cat continues its calling and its pacing.

The man is becoming fearful now. He fully expects lights to start going on, doors to be opened. He has never had a cat. Doesn’t know what they’re capable of. Would its owner know that it has found something suspicious, just from the way it’s acting?

He wonders if he’s going to have to kill the cat. He doesn’t want to. The cat isn’t his target. It’s a case of wrong place, wrong time. But listen to it! It’s going to give me away. It might as well be a fucking guard dog, all that noise it’s making.

He reaches inside his coat. Takes out the heavy lump hammer. He has come more prepared this time. A good solid thwack – that’s what’s needed. No pissing about with a half-brick. Crack the skull, get ’em on the floor, game over.

He shows the hammer to the cat. ‘See?’ he whispers. ‘You want some of this? Do ya?’

The cat cries at him.

He hefts the hammer. Tries to decide what to do.

And then he hears the vehicle. A noisy diesel. Could be a cab. It comes nearer. Slows down as it gets to the house.

His heart thumps. This is it. The target is here. Jesus Christ, this is it.

But the cat . . .

‘Get out of it!’ he says.

But the cat stays put. And now there are voices.

Voices? More than one? No, don’t let there be more than one. That would screw up the whole thing.

But it’s only an exchange with the taxi driver. When the engine revs and the vehicle pulls away, the discussion dies with it.

Now there is just the passenger. Alone, coming up the drive, feet crunching on the gravel.

The cat turns its attention to the newcomer. The killer lies in wait, hammer clutched to his chest, trying to control his breathing. It’s all happening so fast now. He stood waiting here for hours, and now it’s all happening. People hear taxis, don’t they? They wake up and look out of their windows. They might be doing that now, watching the drunken neighbour weave to the front door, the door in the porch behind which lurks a murderer. And the cat still stands there, and it’s as if it wants to point, as if it wants to warn the house owner about the danger lying in wait. He so wishes he had killed that bastard cat. Mashed its head into the ground before it could give him away. But this isn’t about cats, is it? It’s about birds, the death of birds. And it suddenly occurs to him that cats kill birds routinely, and he wonders if this is some kind of omen, some kind of serendipitous symbol. Everything is lining up. The signs are there. The time is right.

A voice: ‘Here, puss, puss.’ And even in those three simple words the slurring can be heard.

That will make it easier, he thinks. A cinch. I could probably do this with one hand, even without the hammer.

But don’t get carried away. Never underestimate your enemy. People sober up quickly when their very lives are at stake. Stick to the plan.

But plans go awry sometimes. And right now seems like one of those times. Because the target is closing in on the cat. Moving steadily forward while talking to it like it were a child. And all the while drawing closer, closer. Even through the fog of inebriation it will soon be realised that there is another presence here – an unwelcome presence, waiting, a hammer clenched in its shaking fist. The intruder will be seen, and then there will be no more waiting. The trigger will be pulled.

But the cat has other ideas. It doesn’t want to play this game. Its idea of fun is to lash out with unsheathed claws, snagging on a hand that is too slowed by alcohol to escape. And when its victim calls it a ‘little shit’, the cat simply runs off to find other sport.

And now we’re alone, thinks the killer.

He listens to the figure moving into the porch. The jangle of keys. The rasp of one being slotted into the keyhole. The gentle sigh of the door being swept open.

Now. Now. Now.

Time slows. It seems to take an age for him to get around the porch, and he worries he might be too late – that all he will see is a door being closed in his face. But he is not too late. Time has slowed for the victim too, who is still in the doorway, withdrawing the key. Take a good look – your prey cannot move any faster than you. Look at that face. See the awareness of an intruder taking so long to percolate through that alcohol-addled brain. See the confusion in those eyes – a puzzlement that steadfastly refuses to allow alarm and urgency to rouse the body into action. Observe the pitiful inability to duck or bring an arm up to ward off this heavy, heavy lump of wood and metal that is hurtling oh so fast towards that dense skull surrounding its even denser brain. Smile as you realise you have already won this. This is no contest. You fretted so much you almost crapped yourself out there, and for what? This is easy. This is no harder than snuffing out a candle.

It’s a sound like no other. A sound to make your buttocks clench and your scrotum tighten. A sound that seems to reverberate around this small enclosed porch.

The victim goes down. Crumples like a marionette released from its strings. Not even a cry as it collapses. It just folds and stays curled up on the tiled floor, whimpering.

This is the way the world ends. A bang, followed by a whimper.

The killer permits himself a smile. He squeezes into the porch, staring pitilessly down at the quivering figure. He closes the door behind him. Now nobody will see. Nobody will hear.

He can take as long as he wants.

19

Déjà vu.

That’s what this feels like to Cody.

Groundhog Day.

He’s getting suited and booted again. So are Webley and the other detectives. Blunt is striding up and down. A crowd of onlookers has gathered on the street. This is all too sickeningly familiar.

Except for one crucial fact. This time the identity of the victim is known. Blunt tried to make sure there would be no surprises this time.

In that, she failed. A surprise is what they got. A shock, even.

Blunt finally selects a target and bears down on it. Unfortunately for Cody, it seems he’s the one in her sights.

She keeps her voice low but tinged with anger. ‘Please tell me you warned Garnett. Please tell me you offered him protection. Because if you didn’t . . .’

‘We did. It’s on the interview tape. We warned him. He wasn’t interested.’

Thinking back now, Cody wonders whether he could have been a little more forceful in alerting Paul Garnett to the danger he might be in. But how was he to know? The Vernon episode was one of possibly many reasons why someone might want to murder Terri Latham. There was no concrete evidence for making the assumption that Garnett might be in harm’s way. Even Garnett himself dismissed the notion as absurd. But still . . . perhaps if Garnett had been a bit more personable. Maybe if he hadn’t been such a little . . .

‘Shit!’ says Blunt. ‘The media are going to have a feeding frenzy over this.’

She’s right, thinks Cody. He can almost picture the headlines. He can see the smug grin on Dobby’s face. The malicious elf will take great satisfaction in recalling how he pointed out to the police that the first murder might have something to do with the Vernon case. He will practically wet himself as he writes the paragraph highlighting the fact that his suggestion went unheeded. He will become irritatingly pious as he emphasises the end result of this negligence on the part of the detectives involved. To wit, the death of another police officer.

The death of PC Paul Garnett.

Fuck it, thinks Cody. I’m not going to feel guilty about this. If anything, the reported argument that Garnett had with Terri Latham pointed to him as a killer rather than as a victim. Nobody could have predicted it. There’s only one person to blame. What we need to focus on now is catching him.

In a way, the killer has done them a favour. They know now what this is all about. They have something on which to hang their hats. The two deaths have a connecting thread. It would have been much more worrying if that link was not so obvious. The last thing they want is some psycho who is just running around killing random coppers.

There is nothing random about this. This has been calculated to the last detail. From what Cody has heard, the signs are all there again. Same MO. Same clues left at the scene.