Frozen (27 page)

Now was the time. She could see that his anger was about to erupt. She must use it. ‘You see, Dave, that's why I said you're wasting valuable time, coming here to kill me. They're already on to you. But I'll make you a deal. If you let me live, I'll give you my car. You can drive it down the coast to Fishguard – if you hurry you'll catch the ferry to Ireland. You can lose yourself there. And there's no need to worry about me telling the police – you can handcuff me to the towel rail in the bathroom. As long as I can reach the tap I'll survive until Gareth gets here on Saturday.'

Megan hoped that in his confusion Dave wouldn't see through the naiveté of this plan. ‘The keys are in the pocket of my jeans,' she pressed on, ‘on the left hand side.'

With his free hand he made as if to reach into her pocket. But he stopped as his fingers touched the fabric.

‘You must think I'm fucking brain-dead, woman!'

Megan tensed as his hand swung up towards her throat, but the silence was suddenly broken by a tinny warbling. Instinctively he loosed his grip, his right hand dropping to his back pocket.

Neil! She seized her chance. Reaching one hand into her pocket, the other inside the towel, she plucked out both razor blades and slashed at his neck. He roared in pain and staggered back against the banisters. She sped across the landing to the stairs, leaping down them two at a time until she reached the hall. She could hear the thud of footsteps behind.

She fumbled with the front door knob. It wouldn't budge.
God, he's locked me in!
She made a dash for the kitchen. Reaching for the back door, she felt him grab her wrist. She screamed and kicked out. Twisting round, she saw he was on his knees, blood pumping from his neck, dripping onto the flagstones. For a second she was paralysed, staring at the blood in horrified fascination. Then his hand tightened on her wrist and she lashed out, kicking his head, his arm. He let out a gasp of pain and collapsed, his fingers slithering down her hand and twitching before falling to the floor.

‘My God,' she said aloud. ‘I've killed him. I've killed him!'

She slumped beside him, not knowing what to do. ‘Call an ambulance,' she ordered herself. Her voice sounded like someone else's. ‘Call for help. You can't let him die.' Her mobile was still on the table where she'd left it. She walked unsteadily across the room. She picked up the phone and punched out the number nine once, twice. She never made the third. She screamed and the phone fell from her hand.

His hand was round her ankle, the nails digging into her flesh. She tried to break away and lost her balance. As she fell she heard the sound of glass being smashed. Her head struck the edge of the table. The impact sent a flash of white across her eyes before the room turned black.

*   *   *

When she came round the room was full of people. Paramedics stretchering a body through the kitchen door. And there was someone holding her hand. Moving her head slowly, painfully, she saw Patrick's face. She opened her mouth but all that came out was a croak.

‘Don't try to talk,' he whispered.

Chapter 17

The rain was lashing down on New Year's Eve. The fairy lights in Harborne High Street swayed in the wind and people ran from their cars to the pubs with coats and umbrellas shielding their party clothes. Megan was curled up on the sofa, her hair pulled back from the black-stitched wound on her forehead.

‘I still can't believe you found it.' She leaned across to pour whisky into Patrick's glass.

‘Well, I didn't exactly have to be Sherlock Holmes,' he said. ‘You pointed it out in that photo – remember? And you said it was opposite the bakery.'

‘I wonder what would have happened if you hadn't turned up when you did?' She shuddered.

‘He'd be dead.' His tone was matter-of-fact. ‘He passed out at the same time you banged your head. You'd have come round to find him lying in a pool of blood.'

She looked at him. ‘I wanted to kill him. But now…' She bit her lip. ‘I'm glad I haven't got him on my conscience. Does that sound terrible?'

The phone rang out before he could reply. ‘Leverton,' she mouthed. By the time she put the phone down her face was flushed. She tugged distractedly at a strand of hair that had fallen across her forehead.

‘What's the matter? What did he say?'

Megan took a deep breath. ‘His condition's stable and he's been talking,' she said. ‘He
was
in the Italian police. Leverton's had him checked out. He was sacked just over a year ago.'

‘What for?'

‘He'd been stopping women drivers for minor traffic offences. He used to note down the car registrations of the ones he fancied and get their addresses through the police computer. Then he would go round to their houses and con his way inside. One of the women he did it to reported him.' Her hand went involuntarily to the inch-long cut on her forehead, her fingers touching the stitches. ‘He was never charged with anything. Sounds like they got rid of him to hush it up.'

‘Well, that explains his downer on the police.'

‘Not exactly,' Megan replied, staring into the fire. ‘It goes back further than that, evidently. He told Leverton that the reason he went to Italy was because he'd tried to join the West Midlands force but was turned down.' She frowned. ‘That was my fault.'

‘
Your
fault? How?'

She pressed her lips together so hard they turned white. ‘Leverton checked the records. It was fourteen years ago. He wasn't called Simon then. His surname was Garvey.' She paused, staring at the table. ‘Fourteen years ago I reported Dave Garvey to West Midlands police for raping me.'

Patrick's face tensed and he drew in his breath. ‘That nightmare you had when I stayed at your place. It was him, wasn't it?'

She nodded and he slid his arm around her, pulling her close.

‘I'd been to a party.' Her voice dropped. ‘Friends of my sister.' She blinked. It was hard to talk about it after bottling it up for so long. ‘I got really drunk and didn't even notice him following me home. I can't remember what time it was when he knocked the door but I must have been asleep. I opened the door in my dressing gown…' Megan closed her eyes, screwing her face into a tight frown. ‘He came out with some story about needing somewhere to spend the night. I let him in and told him he could crash on the sofa. I went back upstairs and I must have gone straight to sleep. Next thing I knew he was on top of me. I woke up with him…' Her voice trailed off as she buried her face in her hands.

‘What did you do?'

‘I just lay there, sort of paralysed. He didn't say a word. Just got up and walked out of the room. A few minutes later I heard the front door close and I ran down and bolted it. It was still dark and I didn't know what to do. I was too terrified to go back to bed. I had visions of him breaking into the house and doing it again. I just sat wrapped up in a blanket on the sofa until it got light.'

‘And then you went to the police…'

‘Yes. It was awful. They didn't have rape suites and sympathetic female officers in those days. When I got to the bit about opening the door in my dressing gown, they just looked at one another and I could tell what they were thinking.' Megan sighed, fiddling with the wedding ring on her right hand. ‘They actually got as far as arresting him but by that time I'd decided to drop the charges.'

‘Why?'

She turned to look at him, slowly shaking her head. ‘I don't know. Looking back, I can't believe I was such a wimp. It wasn't just the police. My solicitor said the defence would demolish me if it went to court. And I was in a pretty bad state emotionally at the time.' She paused, staring at her hands. ‘He'd made me pregnant.' Her words came out in a whisper. ‘I had an abortion, but it went wrong. They told me I'd probably never be able to have children.'

She blinked, wondering if she should really be telling him all this. He stroked her hair, saying nothing.

‘I had no idea he'd applied to join the police. I never saw him again. He was my brother-in-law's friend – that was the only connection. Neil knew but he never really believed me. I made him promise not to tell anyone else in my family. Not even my sister. I just sort of blanked it out, I suppose. And all those years he was harbouring this terrible grudge.' She got up and walked into the hall, bringing the newspaper she had found at the cottage. ‘Look at this.' She handed it to Patrick.

He stared at the photo and frowned, looking back at her.

‘That's how he found out,' she said. ‘He came back to the UK, set up his security firm and one day he opened the
Birmingham Post
and saw that feature on me. He couldn't have had any idea what had become of me – Neil knew how much I hated him so he wouldn't have said anything. To see me being hailed as a success and working with the very people who'd rejected him must have made him really mad.'

Patrick peered at the date on the newspaper. ‘This came out the week they found Natalie Bailey.' His eyes narrowed. ‘Could it have been the trigger?'

‘Possibly,' Megan said. ‘But I can't believe that would be enough of a reason to turn him from a rapist into a killer.' She took the newspaper from him. ‘I think he'd already killed Natalie when he saw this. I think he'd come back from Italy hating the police and was just looking for an opportunity for revenge. He met Helen Donalsen and found out her husband was a cop. He started dating her, pumping her for information, looking for something he could use. She told him all about Donalsen knocking off prostitutes, which would have been just what he was after.' She reached for the whisky bottle and topped up both glasses. ‘He started stalking Donalsen. Watching who he picked up. Franco, the pimp, would have helped because he owed Dave a favour. Leverton said Franco asked Dave to give him a job after he killed Donna Fieldhouse. He was worried the police would come sniffing round and needed to appear respectable.'

‘So Natalie was one of the prostitutes Donalsen was screwing?'

‘I don't think so, no, because she was soliciting in Wolverhampton. I think Dave used her to confuse the police.'

‘How?'

‘Well, think about what he was doing.' She ran her finger round the rim of her glass, staring at the clear brown liquid. ‘He had to find a way of framing Donalsen without DNA evidence playing a part. So he gave them a victim who'd obviously had sex with more than one man on the day she was killed. That confused them.'

Patrick rubbed his chin. ‘Go on.'

‘When he killed Maria Fellowes he planned to keep the body hidden for long enough for the DNA to deteriorate, but it didn't work because the body froze. If that hadn't happened the police would have discovered a body that bore all the hallmarks of Natalie's killer but no DNA trace. Franco was supposed to leave Donalsen's wedding ring nearby but he cocked up. Not only did he forget the ring but he dumped the body in the BTV car park.'

‘So Dave had to kill him?'

Megan nodded. ‘I think he knew about Franco's obsession with Delva Lobelo. But in the end it got to be a liability so Franco had to go.'

‘But what about Tina Jackson? What was the point of killing her?'

Megan stared into the fire, her eyes clouding. ‘I think that happened because of me.' Patrick gave her a puzzled frown. ‘I didn't tell you at the time, but I think he broke into this house.'

‘When?'

‘I don't know – it could have been more than once. I kept noticing odd things but I thought I was just being paranoid.' She told him about the maggots and the Christmas card.

‘God, Megan! He could have…'

‘I know,' she cut in. ‘But I think at that point he was trying to frighten me. My guess is that when he saw that newspaper article and realised I worked with the police it became part of his game. And when I think about Tina Jackson's death it seems like a sort of ghastly dress-rehearsal for killing me.'

‘Why? Because she looked like you?'

‘Yes. It's bizarre. Leverton even commented on the resemblance himself. God!' Megan buried her face in her hands. ‘If I hadn't been such a bloody wimp when he raped me, Tina and Maria and Natalie would all be alive now.'

Patrick pulled her hands away, stroking them with his own. ‘What about all the other women he victimised while he was in Italy? They probably felt the same as you. Rape is such a difficult thing to prove, especially when the victim already knows the rapist. Even if you'd taken him to court the chances are he would have got away with it.'

She looked at him, knowing that he was right but not feeling any less guilty. She was aware of his fingers on her skin, comforting and tempting. She drew away, reaching for the whisky bottle so it wouldn't seem like a snub. ‘You never did tell me,' she said. ‘Why did you come to the cottage?'

He laughed. ‘Do I have to spell it out?'

‘But your girlfriend – fiancée – whatever she is –?'

‘Let's just say she wasn't very impressed with what I had to say. I was there all of half an hour. I took what little stuff I'd left in the flat and jumped on the next plane.'

‘Patrick, I hope you don't think…'

Before she could complete the sentence he slid off the sofa, pulling her with him until they were both lying on the rug in front of the fire.

‘Patrick…'

He laid a finger gently on her lips. ‘I've got a confession to make,' he said. ‘I'm putting in an application to change supervisors.'

‘You what?' She raised herself on her elbows.

‘Don't worry – I can still study at Heartland,' he smiled, ‘but I can be assessed by someone else. I phoned Liverpool University before Christmas and they said it would be okay.' He tried to kiss her but she broke away. All she could see was that face. The dark eyes like holes in the snow, the handcuffs dangling like a noose.