Close Your Eyes (23 page)

‘Revenge and perhaps control,’ I reply.

‘You don’t sound very sure.’

‘I don’t know him yet.’

The pathologist shakes his head. ‘That’s the difference between you and me – you want to
know
your subjects. I prefer them dead.’

I am always scared in the days that follow. What if I was seen? What if the police come knocking? What if I left something behind – some trace of me that will lead them here? I have tried to imagine such a scenario, but cannot hold the picture in my mind.

I know I should stop now. But each time I think of pulling back or stepping away, the world becomes dull and vague and pedestrian; so bleached of colour, so boring, so full of cheats and liars.

This one barely struggled. Some people react like that, incapable of comprehending their situation, let alone planning a way out. She didn’t kick or squirm or claw at my forearm when I wrapped it around her neck and began to squeeze. When she regained consciousness she couldn’t remember being asleep.

‘Who are you?’ she asked. She noticed the tape on her feet and hands. ‘No, no, no. Please let me go. I can pay you. Take my purse.’

‘I don’t want your money.’

She threatened to scream. I held my hand over her mouth and nose, letting her understand how easy it would be for me to suffocate her.

‘You really shouldn’t walk home alone,’ I said. ‘Not through a lonely churchyard.’

‘Why me?’

‘You betrayed your husband.’

‘No.’

‘You’re still fucking your boss.’

She hesitated, trying to fathom how I could possibly know this.

‘You think you’re so clever – sneaking around behind your husband’s back … cheating on him. You think nobody knows. You’re wrong! I know!’

‘Why do you care?’

‘Think of what happens to the children when their parents lie and cheat and sneak around behind each other’s backs.’

‘I don’t have children.’

‘Your boss does.’

She began to cry and say she was sorry, repeating the word over and over, thinking her tears could melt my heart. The shock was subsiding. Her mind was waking up.

‘Where is your husband now?’ I asked.

‘Waiting for me.’

‘He should be here. He should be the one to punish you.’

‘Please don’t tell him!’

‘Oh, it’s too late for that. I’m going to write him a letter.’

‘What?’

‘A letter. Shhhhh. I’m just going to put my arm across your throat again. You’ll go to sleep for a while.’

‘Please don’t hurt me.’

‘You won’t feel a thing.’

I squeezed. She twisted. Twitched. Time suspended …

Something happened as I wrapped my forearm around her neck. I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to rock her in my arms forever, serenading her into the longest sleep. A clock is a clock. A knife is a knife. A life is a life.

Ruiz paces back and forth between the sink and the fridge. Three paces, turn, three more, turn … it’s like watching a guardsman on a battlement. He’s surprisingly light on his feet for a big man, but I can’t concentrate unless he stops moving.

‘So he didn’t suffocate her.’

‘It was a chokehold,’ I explain.

‘Like they use in cage fighting?’

‘Exactly. Instead of closing the windpipe, you deprive the brain of blood.’

I make Ruiz sit down and then move behind him, wrapping my right arm around his neck, so that my elbow is beneath his chin. Then I put my left hand on the back of his head and use it as leverage as I slowly squeeze his neck.

‘You’ll find it a little more difficult to breathe, but I’m not trying to close off your windpipe. Blood flows to the brain along two pathways – the carotid and vertebral arteries. The carotid artery is where the back of the jaw meets the neck, which makes it quite easy to compress.’

I squeeze. I feel Ruiz struggle. His legs twitch and he reaches for my arm, but within seconds his muscles relax and he wants to flop sideways, his eyes still wide open. I release my forearm and brace myself against him until he regains consciousness.

‘Was I out?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long?’

‘Seven, eight seconds.’

‘I don’t remember.’

He touches his neck and regards me sceptically, as though I might have hypnotised him and made him forget the whole episode.

‘Six pounds of pressure is all it takes. By cutting off the blood supply I tricked your brain into thinking your blood pressure had plummeted and it closed your body down.’

Ruiz rolls his head from side to side, checking that nothing is damaged. ‘What sort of person carves a symbol on a woman’s forehead?’

‘A is for adultery.’

Ruiz looks at me questioningly. ‘Cheating on your spouse might be immoral and selfish, but it’s not against the law.’

‘Not since 1857.’

‘OK, how do you know shit like that?’

‘I just do.’

Getting to his feet, Ruiz rocks forward as though testing the firmness of the floor. He begins pacing again. ‘So we’re looking for a cuckolded husband or a jilted lover.’

‘Or a jealous wife, or her family.’

‘Could it be religious?’

‘Feels more like a vendetta. He doesn’t just punish, he wants to shame.’

I begin telling Ruiz a story from my clinical work when I was summoned to Broadmoor, the secure psychiatric hospital, to interview a seemingly mild-mannered plumber from the Midlands who had beaten a man to death outside a secondary school. He was in his forties, average height, but hugely powerful, having bulked up in weight rooms and fuelled himself with protein shakes and possibly steroids.

The plumber told me he was hearing voices, but I couldn’t find any evidence of psychosis. Instead I discovered a man who was kind and considerate and even-tempered, until I mentioned his wife. The change in him was physical as well as emotional. It was almost like watching David Banner turning into the Hulk.

The plumber was convinced that his wife was having an affair. And it didn’t matter how often she denied it or professed her love for him, he could not shake the belief that she was unfaithful and the world was laughing at him.

Unpacking more of his past, I learned that his father had run off with another man’s wife, scandalising two families. He came back six months later. Forgiven. Impervious. Undeterred. The cycle began again. Another affair. More tears. Recriminations. Humiliations.

The son grew up watching his mother suffer these indignities and vowed it would never happen to him. He’d thought he’d found the perfect woman. She was bright, beautiful and adoring. They were married for fifteen years and had three daughters, but the plumber still suffered from low self-esteem. He took up bodybuilding, punishing himself with heavier and heavier weights. At the same time he grew increasingly critical of how so many young women dressed and acted, spilling out of the pubs on Friday and Saturday nights, going home with strange men. He vowed that his own daughters would turn out differently.

Around this time he became aware that someone connected with his wife’s work was spending more time with her. She was a drama teacher and directed a few amateur plays for a local theatre group. He asked her to stop. She couldn’t understand why. Slowly the demons entered his mind – the dark thoughts of his wife touching another man – the memories of his father’s faithlessness and his mother’s tears. He confronted her. She denied it. They stopped having intercourse. He found himself doing all the things his mother used to do – going through pockets, checking receipts, reading emails and text messages.

Then one day he saw his wife talking to a father outside the school gates. She laughed at something the man said and that was enough. The plumber beat him to death in front of a dozen witnesses, most of them children.

‘Jealousy,’ says Ruiz, filling the kettle. ‘Love is either equal or a tragedy.’

‘That’s very poetic,’ I say.

‘I must have read it in a fortune cookie.’

Teabags dance at the end of their strings. He takes the milk from the fridge, sniffing the carton before pouring. ‘Elizabeth Crowe didn’t have anything carved on her forehead.’

‘I know.’

‘So the only link between the farmhouse murders and Naomi Meredith is the bleach?’

‘You think I’m overreaching?’

‘It could be a coincidence.’

He’s right, but I can see other similarities – less tangible or easy to put into words.

Ruiz gives a heave as though shifting his weight from one shoulder to the other. ‘So let’s assume you’re right and he’s targeting unfaithful spouses. How is he finding his victims?’

‘Elizabeth Crowe had sex with strangers in public places.’

‘She also used an online dating service.’

‘DCS Cray is trying to get access to the company’s database to check if any of the other victims are registered users.’

There is a muffled cataclysm outside. Raised voices. An argument. Ruiz goes to investigate, calling out from the front door. ‘You might want to see this.’

A new-model Jaguar with personalised plates is parked outside the farmhouse. The driver, dressed in a well-cut suit, has a clipboard and seems to be ticking off boxes and scribbling notes. Hovering in the background, Elliot Crowe is dressed in an overcoat that’s too heavy for the weather with an upturned collar and his hands deep in the pockets.

‘What do you mean, I can’t get any money?’ he says.

‘That’s not how it works,’ replies the estate agent.

‘Just a few thousand up front – this place is worth a shitload.’

‘We don’t give advances or loans.’

‘I’ll go to another agent.’

‘That’s your prerogative, Mr Crowe. Can I look inside?’

Elliot hesitates. ‘I need to get the place cleaned up.’

He doesn’t see me until the last moment and reacts as though I’ve jumped out from behind a tree. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he demands, scratching at a patchy rash on his neck.

‘This is a crime scene, Elliot,’ I say. ‘Nobody is allowed here without permission.’

‘It’s my fucking house.’

‘Not yet.’

‘Do I fucking know you?’ he says, trying to shirtfront me. The whites of his eyes look jaundiced and streaked with blood. ‘You’re trespassing on my property.’

The agent suggests they should leave but Elliot is too busy screaming at me, sending white flecks of spit peppering the air. Ruiz suggests he take a step back and tone down his language.

‘You can’t tell me what to do! I own this fucking place.’

A woman emerges from the Jaguar. Barefoot and in her late twenties or a decade older, she’s wearing a discoloured dress that hangs from her bony frame. The neckline loops low enough to reveal ribs shining through her skin and shoulder blades as sharp as knives.

‘Calm down, babe,’ she says, putting her arms around Elliot.

‘He won’t give us the money,’ he whines.

She hushes him like a mother placating a sulking child, stroking his hair.

‘It’s my house,’ he says petulantly.

‘We’ll get it soon.’

I introduce myself. She doesn’t give her name.

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ I tell Elliot. He shrugs and looks again at the farmhouse.

‘I need to get a few things.’

‘That won’t be possible.’

He looks puzzled then petulant and finally angry. ‘You can’t stop me.’

‘I can,’ says Ruiz.

Elliot tries to step around him. Ruiz matches his movements. It’s a strange dance, right and left. Elliot threatens to call the police before realising how stupid that sounds.

His girlfriend tugs at his hand. Elliot pushes her away and sees the Jaguar bouncing down the drive. ‘Hey! Arsehole! What about us?’

The brake lights flare as the car reaches the road. Elliot looks deflated. ‘That’s our ride.’

‘We can drop you in town,’ I offer, glancing at Ruiz, who doesn’t seem impressed by the idea. Elliot wants to refuse, but his girlfriend accepts. ‘You can call me Ant,’ she says. ‘It’s short for Antoinette.’

I watch her climb into the back seat of Ruiz’s car, almost mechanical in her movements, as though her limbs are battery-operated. Her knees, pale as candle-wax, are pressed together and I see the outlines of her bones beneath her skin.

I try to make conversation.

‘You were adopted,’ I say.

‘So?’ snaps Elliot.

‘How old were you?’

‘Nine.’

‘That’s quite late.’

‘I had to wait for my parents to die.’ He smiles and fist-bumps with Ant before scratching at his neck again.

‘Where were you on the night your mother and sister died?’

‘Why do you care?’

‘You can tell them, babe,’ says Ant. ‘I’m not angry any more.’

Elliot fidgets and drums his fingers on his thigh. ‘I hooked up with a dancer in Bristol that night.’

‘Where did this dancer live?’

‘I can’t remember. I was wasted. She lived upstairs. Kept cats. The place stank of cat piss.’

‘The police haven’t managed to find her.’

‘Yeah, well, if they do I want her address. The bitch stole my phone.’

‘Did you report the theft?’

He shrugs and mumbles, ‘Maybe I left it on the bus.’

We’re driving through the outskirts of Clevedon, getting closer to the sea. The sky is streaked from edge to edge with pale trails where jets have passed at high altitude.

‘Did you get on with your mother?’ I ask.

‘Which one?’

‘Elizabeth.’

Elliot sighs as though exhausted. ‘I’m not going to sprinkle sugar on dog-shit. She was a tight-arse who knew where every penny went – and none of it came to me. Look at what she did to my dad. She screwed his best friend and then she screwed him.’

‘You knew about the affair?’

‘Oh, I knew. I saw them together – kissing in the front seat of her car. She said I was imagining things, but I know what I saw.’

‘Did Harper know?’ I ask.

Elliot shrugs. ‘I didn’t tell her. Wish I had now. Then again, it made no difference. She couldn’t wait to leave that house. That’s why she planned to run away.’