Relentless (3 page)

had simply left. The Henderson boys opposite, two raucous
tykes of seven and nine, were out on their driveway washing
their father's car. Martin Henderson once told me that he got
them to do it by making the whole thing a game. One cleaned
one side, one cleaned the other; whoever did the best job won
the game. The beauty of it was that there was no prize for
winning, so Martin got a spotlessly clean car for free. The
normality of the scene was painful.
I slowed down and stopped a few yards past the cul-de-sac
entrance, parallel to the wall that ran alongside my back garden.
I got out of the car, leaving its engine running, and walked over
to a spot where I could see through the ivy-covered trellising at
the top of the wall. From this position I had a view across my
back garden and into the dining room at the back of the house. The dining-room door was open, and I could see the hallway and
the front door beyond it.
I stared for about thirty seconds. There was no movement. My
: house looked empty. I thought about going back inside and
j trying to find Jack's number, but there didn't seem much point. I
lew he wouldn't be answering his phone.
A man in a cap and glasses crossed the hallway, moving
sefully, and disappeared into my study. He was dressed in
c, and I thought he was wearing gloves too. He was only in
field of vision for a couple of seconds. I could almost have
gined it, but I knew I hadn't.
ilThere was a man in black in my house.
fel waited, watching. Nothing moved. In the background I could 1 my car's engine ticking over. I felt like some sort of peeping
even though I was looking into my own house. I also felt
first flash of anger. Some bastard had broken into my home vas strolling about as if he owned the place.

As I silently cursed him he appeared again, stopping in the
hallway. I pushed the ivy out of my field of vision but still
couldn't get a good look at him. He was medium height and
medium build, and was holding some of my files that he must
have pulled out of the filing cabinet. There was nothing exciting
in there, just bills and old tax returns, stuff like that. What the
hell was this guy looking for?
As I watched, he opened up one of the files, leafed through
the contents and, apparently satisfied that there was nothing in
there of any use, casually dropped it to the floor, spilling papers
across the carpet, before starting on another one.
'You bastard,' I hissed, then made a decision.
Jumping back in the car, I dialled 141 on the mobile so my
number couldn't be traced, then 999. When the operator came
on I told him I wanted the police, and was put through to the
police control room.
'I'd like to report a burglary in progress,' I told the woman at
the other end, giving her the address. 'The suspect's armed with
a knife and I think he may have attacked the occupant.' I was
trying to sound as alarmed as possible, something that was no
great feat in the circumstances. 'A woman lives there alone with
young kids. I think they might be in there with him.'
She seemed suitably concerned, which was the idea. I wanted the police there in five minutes, not two hours after the guy had
left, which would probably have been the case if I hadn't been
bullshitting. When the woman asked for my name, I told her to
hurry as I'd just heard a scream. Then I hung up and put the car
into gear.
It was time to find Kathy.

It was usually a twenty-five-minute drive to the university
campus where my wife delivered her lectures on environmental
politics (a subject in which I have to admit I have no interest
whatsoever), but today I managed it in twenty. Traffic was
quieter on the roads than normal, and I was hurrying. Halfway
through the journey, I tried Kathy's mobile for a third \ time. Still no answer. The same with the office extension. She'd
i fcow been non-contactable for forty minutes. Not unusual, but I worrying given everything else that was happening. This time I
Nteft messages on both phones, telling her to call me as soon as
l ossible. I made no attempt to tone down the urgency in my
Mce. I wanted to make sure she didn't go home. I didn't like to
what might happen if she ran into our uninvited guest, but
Miad a strong feeling he wouldn'f be very welcoming.
The university campus was a set of bland 1960s redbrick
ldings with oversized black roofs that looked like they didn't
: properly, and which were dotted to one side of a much larger
lding that stretched from one end of the site to the other. On
iietother side of this main building was a large car parking area

which, because today was Saturday, was only about a quarter
full. I parked as close to the main entrance as I could and
hurried inside.
There was one woman manning the main reception desk but
she was busy dealing with an enquiry by two Chinese students,
and she completely ignored me. A bored-looking security guard
of pensionable age sat on a chair beside the desk on duty in the
reception foyer, supposedly to vet people who came into the
building - a post created after the rape of one of the female
students several years earlier. His vetting skills must have been
on the blink, though, because he barely gave me a second look
as I turned right and made my way along the corridor, past the
lecture halls on my left and a cafe and Internet area on my right.
It was in this building that most of the university's lectures and
tutorials took place, but it was relatively quiet today, with only a
few students dotted about.
I looked out of place, being at least a dozen years older than
everyone else, but no-one challenged me as I made my way in
the direction of the library and the politics department. I was
just another irrelevant old guy. And yet I could have been
anyone. I could have been the rapist from a couple of years ago, but no-one seemed to care. There's a degree of truth in the
maxim that people only notice what they want to notice; a lot of the time they simply ignore what's going on around them, so absorbed are they in their own lives. I was beginning to wonder
if I'd been like that too recently, and had therefore missed
something important. Something that could have told me what
was going on.
As I cleared the cafe and Internet area, the number of people
dwindled, and when I turned left and mounted a staircase to the
first floor I found that I was on my own, my steady footfalls

echoing on the linoleum. The corridor was completely silent, and
it struck me that it would have been easy for a rapist to strike in
a place like this, somewhere that initially felt safe because it was
often alive with people, but which could just as easily turn into a
place of darkened hallways with lines of doors beyond which
anyone could lurk.
I felt nervous. Not for myself - no-one knew I was here - but
for Kathy, having to come and work here alone. She'd told me
they'd installed CCTV cameras throughout the building and that
they were constantly monitored by a security company, so there
was no need to worry. But I knew that not even cameras stop the
more foolish criminals, or the ones who can't control their urges.
If this were the case, Britain, which has more CCTV cameras
tiian any other country in the world, would be a relatively safe
and peaceful society. And it isn't.
At the end of the corridor was a set of double glass doors
which marked the entrance to the university's Department of
s Political Studies. They were shut, and beyond them I could
' aeither see nor hear any signs of activity. The silence here was
'Complete.
'. I stopped and looked at my watch. It was 4.25 p.m. Beyond
ie glass was another corridor that led down to an arch-shaped
Hfctternal window at the back of the building. There were four
jrs on the left side of the corridor, only one on the right.
pjKathy's was the second on the left, and I noticed it was closed, as
re all but one of the other doors.
VI pushed the double doors and they opened. As I stepped
High, they closed behind me with a loud bang that cracked
the silence like a gunshot. I flinched, resisting the urge to
iout hello, and went over and tried Kathy's door. tt was locked, which was strange. I knew I hadn't made a

mistake. Her name was engraved across it on an expensive
looking stainless-steel nameplate: dr katherine c. meron ph.d.
The C stood for Cynthia, a name she hated. It made me wonder
why she'd had it included. I tried the door again, just to make
sure. It remained locked.
My mouth felt dry. Something wasn't right. The silence felt
heavy and unnatural. I couldn't even hear the sound of traffic
outside. Then I remembered. The walls here were very well
insulated so that the academics could get on with their work in
peace, unsullied by the constant racket of urban life the rest of
us have to put up with.
Turning round, I went over to the door that led into the
department's library. The lights were off and it looked empty. I
turned the handle and stepped inside, shutting the door quietly behind me.
It was a big room, probably fifty feet square, with a walkway
running down the middle from the door to a bank of windows at
the far end. About a third of the space was taken up by large rectangular worktables, some with PCs on them, all of them
empty. There were no bags or coats to suggest that anyone was
around, no books out and opened, and the screens on the
computers were all blank. The tables gave way to lines of
floor-to-ceiling shelves full of books that ran left to right and
were bisected by the walkway, and which blocked out much of
the natural light, giving the room that gloomy feel you often get
in libraries. There was a line of further tables at the very end of
the room by the windows. They too were empty.
This time I did call out. 'Hello, is anyone here?'
No answer.
I pulled the phone from my ppcket and speed-dialled Kathy's
mobile yet again. At the same time I walked over towards the

lines of bookshelves filled with political tomes that took up
much of the space ahead of me. I was unsurprised but increasingly
unnerved when it went to message again. If she wasn't
here, where on earth was she?
I had to keep calm, I knew that. Maybe she'd left for the day
and forgotten to switch the phone on. But of course that meant
she might already have got home and run into whoever it was
who was rifling through our belongings. Whichever way I viewed
it, things were not looking good.
As I pocketed the mobile, something on the floor caught my
eye. Just in front of one of the shelves. Difficult to see against
the deep green of the carpet.
A stain, no more than a couple of inches across.
I swallowed hard, bent down, dipped a finger in it and flinched
at its wetness. I inspected the upturned fingertip. There was no
doubt about it. No doubt at all.
Blood.
And it was fresh.
' Slowly my gaze moved along the carpet. There was a second
fftain, smaller than the first, then another. Thick droplets of
blood. A trail.
My body stiffened. Please no. Please not Kathy. Not my wife,
§§ woman who's never hurt anyone. Anything but that. 'Keep
palm,' I said, aloud this time. 'Don't panic'
I looked up and saw a door facing me at the end of the
Dkshelf, fifteen feet away. It was about a foot or so ajar, and
I could see beyond it was darkness. I looked again at the
2t. The blood trail ran right along it towards the door. I
red at it, trying to detect movement.
My mobile started ringing. No, it wasn't mine. It was someone
?'s. A different ringtone. Mine was pretty normal; this was

more jaunty. Annoyingly so. And it was coming from beyond the
door.
Then it stopped.
The silence was so heavy that I could almost feel it weighing
down on me. My instincts told me to run, to get the hell out of
there. But what if it was Kathy who was bleeding in there? It
wasn't her mobile, I knew that. But that didn't mean it wasn't
her behind the door.
I took a step forward. Halted. I was unarmed. What on earth
was I going to do if I was confronted by someone? I needed to
get help. Now.
The door flew open and a tall figure dressed in a sky-blue,
paint-flecked boiler suit, black balaclava and gloves stood in
front of me. He held a knife in front of him. It had a yellow
handle and a long curved blade, similar to that of a filleting
knife. The end of it was stained dark with blood.
For a split second neither of us moved, each studying the
other. Only five yards apart. I didn't have time for fear. Instead,
I experienced a single, nightmarish jolt of shock that froze me to
the spot. And then suddenly he exploded out of the door,
coming at me with huge purposeful strides, the knife raised high
in a killing arc.
Instinctively I grabbed a book from the nearest shelf and flung
it at him, then turned and ran, but in my panic I went the wrong
way and found myself facing the windows at the far end of the
room rather than the door. There was no time to double back,
he was right behind me, so I took off up the walkway in the
direction of the windows, the sound of his breathing and
the rhythmic patter of his boots clattering on the laminated
plastic of the walkway spurring me on.
There was a wooden trolley full of books next to one of the

shelves and I grabbed the end of it as I passed and yanked it out
into the walkway behind me. I heard him clatter into it, and
the sound of books falling to the floor, then him knocking it to
one side, the delay to his progress giving me perhaps an extra
second and a half. I didn't dare look round; I was too busy
concentrating on getting to the windows. I could see that they
had handles and guessed - prayed - that they opened outwards.
The library was high up, twenty feet above the ground at least,
maybe more. It didn't matter. I had to get out.
I ran between two round reading tables in front of the
windows and pulled desperately at the first latch I came to. It
didn't move. The damn thing was locked. I could hear my
pursuer's footfalls gaining. I swung round and he was there, right
in front of me, five feet away and still running, the bloodied
knife thrusting forward at waist height. Ready to fillet me.