Imago (16 page)

You know who
, whispered that small mean voice again.

Kate shook her head. This was ridiculous. Truly ridiculous. She stood up, wobbling a little, and walked to the window, staring out at the quiet suburban street outside. A woman walked past the house with bulging supermarket shopping bags in each hand, a little boy on a scooter following behind her. Could Jerry really be the killer? Kate thought back to the last crime scene, Jerry staring at the body, grey in the face, as within him his heart ruptured. What had Anderton said? 
He’s escalating. He will have made mistakes.

Had Jerry seen something then and realised that he would be caught? Had he remembered something, some piece of evidence that would point the police to his guilt? 
Was
 he guilty? 
He must be, Kate. How else can you explain finding these handbags?

He might be shielding someone else.

Kate realised she was pacing the dusty carpet, arguing with herself. Who would Jerry shield? Who would he risk his career, his reputation, his freedom for? She turned on her heel and paced back. There was no one. Surely, no one.
It must be him
, Kate told herself, staring at her white face in the mirrored door of the wardrobe.

Oh fuck, what was she going to do? She probably shouldn’t have even touched those bags, tissue or no tissue. She looked again into the wardrobe but there was nothing else there. No other bags or purses or anything suspicious.

She pulled out her phone and brought Anderton’s number up on the screen. Her thumb hovered over the ‘call’ button for a moment and then she pressed it, listening to the ringing on the other end of the line.

He might be shielding someone else.

Kate jabbed the ‘end call’ button. Her chest felt tight. She told herself she was being ridiculous. Paranoid and ridiculous. She tried to think back over the times and dates, tried to tally them up with her own memories. 
Anderton was with me the night Claudia Smith was killed. He was with me for the whole night.

But had he been? Kate had slept for several hours. Was it conceivable that Anderton could have left her sleeping, crept out and… Surely not. It was impossible.

Other memories were creeping back. What had Anderton said when he walked her home? 
There’s a man who kills women on the loose in this town.
 And Kate had queried the use of the plural. Why had he said ‘women,’ not woman? Only one woman had been killed then. She’d even said as much to him.

Kate groaned. What she was thinking was impossible. Surely it was impossible. There was no way that Anderton could have left her room, driven to the factory wastelands, somehow lured Claudia there and killed her, returning in time to be there, naked in bed, when Kate woke up. Surely not?

Kate was pacing again. She stopped dead, suddenly struck by a thought that was so devastating that she thought she might faint. She sat down hurriedly on the edge of the bed again.

What if it was both of them? Anderton 
and
 Jerry? Of course they would have rock solid alibis for some of the murders if the other one was committing them.

What you’re thinking is madness.

Kate picked up her phone again and brought up Olbeck’s number. On the verge of ringing it, she hesitated. Now that her imagination had begun working overtime, she saw News of the World headlines, tabloid fever. Was it possible that her phone was tapped? Had someone been leaking information to the media? She thought of the scrum of photographers that they’d driven through yesterday.

In the end, she sent him a text that read: 
need to see you here at Jerry’s URGENTLY. Can’t talk over phone. COME HERE ASAP!

After she put the phone back in her pocket, Kate stood for a moment in the middle of Jerry’s fetid bedroom, hugging her arms across her body. Despite the dusty, prickling heat of the room, she felt cold. She could feel her lungs fluttering within her, her breath coming in short, tight bursts.

Realising she was three steps away from a panic attack, she forced herself to sit down again on the edge of the bed, drop her head forward and breathe deeply, in through her nose and out through her mouth. She kept this up until her hammering heart had slowed a little and she felt very slightly calmer. The buzzing in her ears receded.

The house seemed very quiet. Kate sat for a moment longer, trying to keep hold of the momentary calmness. Now that the thoughts in her head had settled a little, she became more aware of her surroundings, the dust flying in the shafts of sunlight that lanced through the gap in the dirty curtains. The smell of the room filled her nostrils. A thought struck her which made her heartbeat speed up again to alarming levels.

What if there were more bodies in the house?

Kate leapt up, her hand to her mouth. Her imagination was flying again, bringing up all sorts of hideous pictures. She thought again of tabloid headlines, pictures of erstwhile normal suburban houses that had concealed a raft of horrors. Would the paparazzi be camped outside this innocuous-looking Victorian terrace tomorrow morning? Of course they would. Perhaps they were already on their way. But how could they be?

Kate no longer knew what she actually knew or what she had conjectured. She felt dizzy with the enormity of what had happened. Where the hell was Olbeck? She breathed in sharply, and the room smelt even ranker than it had before. Kate backed away from the bed, eyeing the dark space beneath it. She stood for a moment, indecisively, wringing her sweaty hands. She knew she should look under the bed. She knew she should, but she quailed from the idea. Although it was unusual, she was afraid to look. 
Come on, Kate. What could be as bad as what you’re imagining?

She took a deep breath, almost gagged and dropped to her knees with a thump, peering into the murk, sweating with fear. There was nothing under the bed but clumps of dust and hairs, an empty shoe box and a plastic biro. Nothing there. Kate sat back up, her in-held breath rushing out in one long sigh.

She checked her phone. Nothing from Olbeck. Nothing from Anderton. Her fevered speculation about her boss was beginning to die away. Surely it was too ludicrous a thought even to be entertained?

All of a sudden, Kate knew she had to get out of the house. Another minute here in this fetid, dusty atmosphere would see her lose the plot. She hurried downstairs, prickling with fear, terrified of what she might see in the corner of her eye. She closed and locked the front door behind her and stood for a moment on the porch, taking in great gulps of fresh air.

Her relief at being outside the house was so great that it took her a moment or two to realise that someone was talking to her, addressing her by name.

“—Redman?”

Kate blinked. The woman speaking to her from the pavement was vaguely familiar, but Kate’s current emotional state was such that she couldn’t place her. After a moment, thankfully, her memory returned.

“Hello, Miss Paling.”

Margaret Paling was looking at her curiously.

“What brings you hear, dear?”

“Do you live near here?” asked Kate, countering with a question. Margaret waved a hand at the row of houses opposite.

“My house is over there. Number Fifteen. This is Jerry’s Hindley’s house, isn’t it? Didn’t he mention we were neighbours?”

Had he? Kate felt so battered by the revelations of the past hour that she couldn’t remember.

Margaret was still looking at her with concern.

“Are you all right, dear? You’re as white as a sheet. Quite as white as a sheet.”

Kate opened her mouth to say ‘I’m fine,’ but somehow the words wouldn’t come out properly.

“Why don’t you come over and have a cup of tea?” asked Margaret. “Or a glass of water, or something. Seriously, dear, you look like you’re about to faint.”

Kate opened her mouth again to refuse politely and then thought better of it. If this woman was Jerry’s neighbour, it was possible she might have witnessed something.
At the very least
, Kate thought,
I’ll be able to find out a little bit more about Jerry’s background.

“Yes, I will. Thank you.”

Chapter Seventeen

Number Fifteen, Smithson Street, was almost a carbon-copy of Jerry’s house in age, layout, décor and furnishing, except it was considerably cleaner and had none of the masculine accoutrements lying about. Margaret ushered Kate through the main hallway into a neat and tidy kitchen and sat her down at the table. She kept up a stream of inconsequential chatter as she prepared the tea, the words washing over Kate in a rather soothing stream that she barely heard. The kettle boiled and the water was poured into a fine china teapot to brew. Margaret handed Kate a plate of biscuits.

“I think you should have one of those, dear. Sugar’s very good if you’re feeling a bit shaky.”

She hadn’t yet asked what had so upset Kate. Kate wasn’t sure what she was going to say if Margaret did ask the question.

The tea was hot and strong, and Kate drank it gratefully.

“Do you know Jerry well?” she asked.

“Not very well, I must say. We’re neighbourly. Friendly but not 
friends
, if you see what I mean.” Margaret took a sip from her own cup. “How is he? We’ve all been rather worried about him.”

“Oh, you know he’s in hospital?”

“Yes, Mrs Culson at Number Nine told me yesterday. Poor man, he’s not had a good year, what with his bereavement and everything else.”

“Bereavement?”

“Yes, dear. His mother died, oh, it must be six months ago now. Terribly hard, isn’t it, when you lose a family member? I lost my own mother last year, and it does take a while to get over it.”

“I’m sorry,” said Kate automatically. She was going to say “I didn’t know” and then realised how callous and ridiculous that sounded. How could she not have known Jerry lost his mother? Why hadn’t anyone told her?

The knowledge of what Jerry had done thumped her in the stomach again, and she put the remainder of her biscuit down on the little plate in front of her.

Margaret Paling chatted on.

“Of course, it’s hard being on your own. I had Jerry over for dinner a few times, and I think it helped. He’s always struck me as a bit of a lonely person. Very much keeps to himself.”

The stuff of cliché: the quiet killer, the respectable murderer. Kate felt a hysterical giggle rise up inside her, and she coughed, a hand to her mouth. For a horrible second, she thought she wouldn’t be able to control herself – she could feel raucous laughter rising up her throat – and she swallowed, crookedly, which hurt and helped to push the feeling down.

She wasn’t sure Margaret had noticed. The other woman was engaged in pouring out the last drops of tea into Kate’s cup.

Kate swallowed, and then swallowed again and cleared her throat.

“Have you lived here long?” she asked, once she could be sure of her voice.

Margaret set the empty pot back on the table.

“Around here? My whole life, dear. My mother and father bought this house before the war, I believe. I was actually born here.”

“That’s nice,” said Kate, automatically. She wanted to check her phone to see if Olbeck or Anderton had tried to contact her, but she couldn’t think of a way to do it without looking rude.

“Yes, I’ve seen a lot of changes in the town over the years. Not always for the better either. But never mind me. I’m just an old woman stuck in my ways.”

Kate smiled again and did a sort of half shake of the head. What was there to say to a remark like that? An agreement was rude and a negation didn’t sound right either.

“You’re looking a wee bit better,” said Margaret. “Now, would you like some more tea? Or I can make coffee, if you prefer?”

Kate managed a smile.

“You’re very kind,” she said, “But please don’t worry. That cup did me good, and that’s all I needed, thank you.”

“That’s no problem. Happy to help.”

Margaret stood up.

“Now, would you excuse me for a moment, dear? I have to go to the little girl’s room.”

For some reason she giggled, a rather odd, girlish sound. Kate nodded and smiled automatically, her mind on something else.

When Margaret had left the room, Kate sat, trying to pin down what it was that was making her uneasy. Something that Margaret had said, just now. What was it? Something… something about 
coffee
. That was it. What was it about coffee that was important?

Kate stared ahead, her fingers unconsciously tapping the table. Coffee and Rav – something Rav had said. What the hell was it? After a moment of blankness, the memory returned. Rav and she had been sitting in the car, and she’d wanted to stop for a coffee. That was it. Rav had joked about her throwing a drink in his face, because she’d done that to Jerry the night before. What an idiot she’d been.

Kate frowned, unsure of why her brain was telling her this was so important. Then comprehension dawned. After he’d joked about the coffee, Rav had said something about going clubbing: 
that he and Jerry and the others had been at a club all night
. Hadn’t he said something about it being daylight by the time they left? That was the night Claudia Smith was killed. How could Jerry have killed her when he was with the other officers at a nightclub for the entire night?

For a moment, Kate felt as if her brain had actually given way under the strain. If Jerry hadn’t killed Claudia, then who had? Who had killed the other women? Who?

Kate came back to reality with a start, unsure of how long she’d been sitting at the table, staring into space and drumming her fingers on the edge. She looked around. The house seemed very silent. Where had Margaret gone?

Kate got up and stretched. It was time for her to go, but she should say goodbye first. She went out into the hallway and looked around, listening for sounds of movement. There was nothing. Kate hesitated. There was a tiny thread of uneasiness running through her, some almost subconscious sense of something not being quite right. Was it something else that Margaret had said?