Spiritwalker (15 page)

Chapter twenty

Jane was still huddled under the duvet. She felt dreadful, she was shivering with the cold. Her body felt thin and frail as she wrapped her arms around it, in an attempt to get some comfort. She was aware that he had gone. She hadn't seen him all night. He had taken Sylvia. She wondered what he was going to do with her body. Would he bury her in some unmarked grave? Would she just be another missing person? Someone like herself that had simply vanished, never to be heard of again. Her throat was dry, she badly needed a drink; her thirst was insatiable. She kept breaking out in a cold clammy sweat. She was ill, it felt like she was dying. A part of her welcomed the thought but another part was screaming at her telling her not to give up, to think of her daughters. She knew that if she didn't get some water soon she would die. It had been nearly twenty four hours since she had anything to eat or drink. It scared her to think that he had just abandoned her here to die of thirst. She pushed at the duvet weakly and tried to sit up. Her head was swimming as she reached for the glass on the locker. Thankfully he had come back to free her hand from the cuffs. She managed to pick up the glass and put it to her lips, nothing inside, it was empty. She banged the glass against the locker in frustration, it shattered, cutting her. She stared at her bleeding hand, mesmerised by the vivid red fluid as it streamed down her wrist and onto the white sheet. The blood red stain spread slowly as her life fluid trickled away.

She knew what she had to do. She groped on the floor for the largest shard of glass she could find. Finding one she picked it up and held it between her thumb and fore-finger. She had made up her mind, she didn't want to slowly die of thirst or starvation. He wasn't coming back. He had murdered Sylvia, he was long gone. She wondered what it would feel like, would it hurt? She didn't like pain. She would never have thought herself capable of taking her own life before. Now she figured it was the only option. She began to feel empowered, as though she were in charge of her own destiny again. It felt good, the feeling gave her courage. She slowly scraped the two inch shard of glass across her wrist. It barely hurt as she sliced open the pale skin, childbirth had hurt a lot more she thought to herself as she watched her life blood ebb away slowly. She wondered how long it would take, she didn't mind dying; she was embracing death. Her only wish was that there was an after-life, it would be wonderful to see her mother again. These thoughts surprised her, she had never been a religious person. She and Ian had been married in a church by a vicar but that was more because she liked the church and the sense of tradition that went along it, than any great religious belief. They had had the girls christened, but again it was more for the party and celebrations after, than anything.

She lay back down and drew the duvet up over her head. Her mind was filled with happy thoughts of her daughters and her husband. She remembered the many happy times they had together as a family when the children had been small. She thought of her sister and her niece. She felt a tinge of sadness as she realised that she would never see them again. She could feel herself drifting, her mind began to cloud as she tried to hold onto her happy memories, she slowly lost consciousness thinking of a Christmas not so long ago, when she and Ian had taken the girls to Lapland to see Father Christmas, how happy and excited they had been to see the big man sitting in front of the huge open fire with his long white beard and red coat. The last memory she had before she lost consciousness, was of his loud rumble of a laugh, mingling with the excited giggles and gasps of her daughters.

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He hadn't heard the inspector enter the apartment, if he hadn't been so engrossed with Anna he would have heard him sooner. Luckily the Inspector had a loud commanding voice which had broken through his almost trance like state. He had blocked out his surroundings completely, so intent was he in his desire to make Anna suffer. He quickly released his hands from around her neck and dashed behind the open bedroom door. His subconscious desire for self -preservation kicking in swiftly. He watched for a moment as the inspector entered, rushing to the bed to examine Anna's motionless body. He thought briefly of trying to overpower the inspector, but caution won out and he slipped quietly out of the room while Morley was talking on the phone. He slipped down the back stairs and down to the underground car park. He cautiously made his way onto the street careful to avoid not being seen. He began to feel safer as he entered the park, it was easy to blend in with the other park users and he jogged along certain that no one was paying any heed to his presence. With the park exit in his sights, he got a strange prickling feeling at the back of his neck as though someone was following him, watching.

He looked around carefully but there was no one that he could see watching him. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to him. Two elderly men were strolling along together chatting, walking sticks swinging as they went. A mother was chasing a small child who in turn was trying unsuccessfully to catch a duck that had waddled close. He jogged along steadily, once more the feeling that he was being watched getting very strong. He jerked his head around, eyes searching for someone, anyone that might be watching him. No one stood out. He began to get agitated, the feeling becoming stronger, he sped up, his mind in a whirl. What if they had seen him? What if the inspector hadn't been alone? Enough. He ordered himself, there wasn’t anyone else there, no one was following him; no one had been lying in wait for him. His agitation eased slightly and he stopped jogging. He exited the park and walked unhurriedly down the street, trying to look casual, hoping that he wasn't drawing attention to himself. A black taxi was approaching, its “
For Hire
” sign lit up, he hailed it. He was still conscious of being watched but dismissed it as his imagination, entering the taxi he gave the driver the address of his London flat and sat back as he was chauffeured through the traffic. He began to relax, the feeling of being watched had dissipated; it was replaced by anger and disappointment. It took a great effort of will not to start ranting in the taxi. The driver pulled up outside his flat and without so much as a glance back took the money offered, waited until his passenger had closed the door behind him and drove off again.

As he entered his flat he began to relax, he steadied his breathing. He went to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a large Jameson. He threw it back in one gulp and sat down on the swivel chair by the desk. He could feel himself getting worked up again as he reflected on the morning's events, and he reached into the desk drawer and took out a strip of pills and popped two small Valium into his mouth. He took slow measured breaths as he waited for the tablets to do their job. He hated taking them but they were the only things short of taking hard drugs that worked for him. In the past he had dabbled with drugs but he hadn't liked the feeling of not being in control that he got from them. Cocaine was his drug of choice, it made him feel on top of the world, but the feeling didn’t last long; he was always fell back down to earth with a bang. He only took it now when he need that extra something to energise him; when he had to do something he didn't want to do. If he had to host a party he had a line or two before and maybe one during: he needed it just to get him through the evening.. Everyone did it, he reassured himself each time he snorted the potent white power. He knew he had begun to take it more and more frequently recently. He fooled himself by denying that he wasn’t hooked on it.

He began to feel calm again, in control. He was able to think rationally. Everything was going wrong lately. His charmed live seemed to be unravelling around him. All he wanted, he reflected was a happy family. A loving wife and a daughter. What was so wrong with that, he wondered. Was he not entitled to feel happiness like everyone else? He remembered his first wife Sarah, she had been beautiful. A goddess. It was hard to believe she had been dead for five years now. He remembered that terrible night that she had died. She had called to their house. The house she had once shared with him, she had demanded to come in and collect her things. That night she had told him coldly that she was remarrying again. Mocking him, daring him to react. Forbidding him from having any contact with Katie. Taunting him that her new husband was going to be Katie's father, that he was only ever a substitute for her real father. Telling him that he was just a stooge to pay the bills until someone better came along. Something inside him flipped that night. An anger so fierce, he hadn’t felt so much anger since he was a child. He stole out to her car while she was gathering her things and opened the bonnet and cut the brake lines, but only half way through. She had gotten home safely that night but the following night she had been taking Katie to her dance class and she had crashed headlong into the side of an oncoming bus. Sarah had died instantly, but Kate, poor Katie had been flung out of the car, she was in a coma for a long time. The car along with Sarah had been engulfed in flames, erasing any traces of what he had done. He had been granted custody of Katie after her Mother's death. It made him laugh when he thought of the day he got full custody, it was only when Sarah's family needed someone to foot her medical bills that they had stood aside and allowed him to have her. He wasn't her biological father. No one knew who her real father had been. He had a large insurance policy taken out on both of them, Sarah hadn't changed her will so he got everything. The thought that he had finally got one over on his wife made it all the sweeter. Every time he went to visit Katie, usually once a week and always on the anniversary of the accident, he felt nothing, she was just a lump of flesh lying there. She wasn't in a coma any longer but she wasn't able to do anything for herself, she had to be washed and dressed and fed. A useless lump of flesh that was how he had come to think of her. He wondered what she would say if she could talk. If she could communicate, the things she could tell. He loved relating to her what he had done to her mother and those other women he had hoped would take her mother's place. He felt unburdened telling her, like a sinner confessing to a priest. Once or twice he had thought he had seen a tear run down her cheek as he related his stories to her. Doctors had assured him that it was very unlikely that she understood anything he said to her. He wasn't so sure, it made him feel better to think that she could understand. He even fancied that the tears were for him that she was sorry for all the pain in his life. What the doctors didn’t know was that he liked having Katie in a vegetative state and he injected her weekly with a drug that paralysed her muscles; he had been injecting her for almost four years now and no one suspected. What made him laugh was how stupid doctors could be.

The old grandfather clock chimed and brought him back to earth. He looked at his watch, it was nearly six O clock; he had to get back to Jane. It had been nearly twenty four hours since he had been home. Suddenly the urgency to get back was overwhelming and he hurried out, locking the door behind him. He went to the garage he rented, here he kept a car to use when he came to London. He drove quickly away, weaving through the London traffic, a sudden urgency had enveloped him. He had to get back to Jane. He reached home and waited impatiently for the automatic gates to open, as soon as he had enough space he drove in wheels spinning on the drive. He braked to a halt and dashed to the front door fumbling in his pockets for the keys...shit he thought as he rummaged through. They weren't there. Where the hell were they? What if they had fallen out of his pocket at Sylvia's apartment? He didn't want to think about that possibility. He went around the back of the house and hastily removed his hoodie and wrapped it around his hand. He smashed a small pane of glass in the kitchen window and after carefully removing the remaining fragments he opened the window and scrambled through. He keyed in the code for the alarm and quickly ran down the hall and up the stairs, taking two steps at a time. Outside Jane's door he stopped for a moment listening...Nothing, he couldn't hear any sound from within. Then he remembered the key...It had been on his key-chain... Shit, he mouthed as he ran back down the stairs and into his office, searching for the spare set of keys. He couldn't find them. He was starting to get a bad feeling again. He abandoned the search for the keys and ran back up to Jane's room. Readying himself, he rushed at the door, smashing into it with his shoulder. It creaked but didn't open. He tried again, this time he was rewarded with the sound of splintering wood. The door was solid and it took a further three runs at it before it gave way.

The first thing he noticed as he unlocked the inner door, was the shape of her body under the duvet. He breathed a sigh of relief, she was still there. Then he saw the blood... It didn't look like much, but he felt that tightening feeling in the pit of his stomach and he knew something was badly wrong. He rushed over to the bed, pulling the duvet swiftly off. He gasped in horror when he saw the amount of blood, and Jane lying as still as a corpse in it. He pulled himself together quickly and felt for a pulse. He found one, though it was quite faint. He quickly tore strips off the sheets and wrapped them tightly around her wrists. Blood was still oozing out, but it looked to him as if she hadn't cut as deeply as she might have. Job done he tried to wake her, but she only flopped against him as he shook her, and she didn't respond to her name. He knew what he had to do. She needed medical care urgently and there was only one person that he trusted to give it to her. Hospitals were out of the question, too many questions and he wasn't ready yet to give up on his plans for a future with Jane.

Chapter twenty one

Dr. Nazir Naizi was at home relaxing, he was enjoying the peace and quiet of a rare Monday evening on his own. His wife Maluna had taken the children, three boys, all teenagers now aged between thirteen and sixteen to see her sister. His wife was a pleasant woman but not too easy on the eye. He had married her some twenty five years ago, when he had been thirty five. Theirs had been an arranged marriage and as was not unusual, he hadn't seen her before the marriage ceremony. She had come over from their native Pakistan with her parents to marry him. They were a wealthy affluent family and his new wife's family connections had opened many doors to him that might have otherwise been closed. The moment he laid eyes on her he had been glad that the dowry that accompanied her was so large. She had been a heavy girl with severely pockmarked skin which always looked greasy. He himself would never have won any beauty competitions, he was tall enough, but pudgy with dark bulging eyes that always looked bloodshot. Though he would never admit it, it was her money that had enable him to open a private practice in London. It had always been his ambition to have his own practice. Now he lived in a comfortable five bedroomed detached house near Warwick in Essex. He had a residence in London where he lived during most of the week, while he was at his clinic. There he had a housekeeper, whom he paid to look after his every need, she was young only twenty two. She was also from Pakistan, she was the niece of an old friend who had been glad to off load the girl to England. Her parents had both died and her uncle couldn't afford to look after her. Nazir seeing a photo of her on his friends Facebook page had enquired about her. It hadn’t been difficult to get his friend to agree to send her to England, especially as he promised that he would find a suitable husband for her. When she got to England he had indeed given her a job and it wasn't long before he had persuaded her to fulfil his other needs too.