Sudden Death (36 page)

‘And what about you? I read the article in the
Echo
, it just reported a suicide as the inquest verdict, nothing more.’

Charles looked down at his feet, cupping the whisky tumbler on his knees.

‘What could I do? Ruin some other kids’ lives for something as, and I hate to say it but it’s true, so run of the mill for teenage girls.’

Erasmus knew that Charles was right. Bullying had been rife at his school but he had managed to dodge its worst excesses. But he had watched as others were caught up in its chaotic, often seemingly random, selection of victims and seen how it ripped through their lives like a tornado. He also knew that no one had ever complained of being ‘bullied’, it was a mark of shame, something to be endured and hopefully escaped.

‘Do you remember the names of the girls who bullied Alison?’

Charles shook his head.

‘What happened to the family, the other daughter and the father?’

‘I heard they moved away, well, you would wouldn’t you. And I haven’t told you the worst yet.’

Erasmus sank back into the chair, he felt drained.

‘Go on.’

‘Well, officially the father found the body but he told me that it was actually the other daughter who found it. She watched her sister hang herself and slowly choke to death.’

‘How old was she?’

‘She was five.’

Bile rose in Erasmus’s windpipe, burning as it went.

‘Do you remember her name?’

Charles thought for a moment and then smiled a sad smile.

‘Yes, I think I do remember that. It was Catherine.’

Erasmus breathed in deeply and tried to calm the swelling tide of adrenaline he could feel rampaging through his body.

‘I’ve got to go.’

In the car Erasmus tried calling Karen again but again the line went straight to voicemail. He considered calling Poborsky but he knew what she would say: this is just a hunch, he had no proof and anyway no one was in imminent danger. Except Erasmus had a terrible feeling that she would have been wrong on that score, very wrong.

He would need to get proof and for that he needed his computer. He floored the accelerator and headed back to this apartment.

Fifteen minutes later he parked up on the gravel drive outside his apartment building. As usual for the last few weeks, his was the only car there. While he enjoyed the extra parking space he couldn’t deny that he would be glad when Ali’s old apartment was filled with a tenant again and when Mark and Sue returned from their holiday. The absence of others had made the place seem colder, like the inside of an empty school, now he thought about it.

He slammed the door and bounded up to the front door. He punched in the entry code and the door clicked open. He kicked a few copies of the local free rag to the side of the door and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. When he reached the first floor landing he opened his apartment door and rushed into the living room. His laptop was on the couch and he sat down and fired it up. As it booted up he glanced upwards: something wasn’t right.

Hanging from the fireplace was a felt doll. In a state approaching a trance, he padded over and picked it up. It had a wide black felt coat covered with spiky golden stars and was topped with a white, almost oriental, face. He moved it in his hand, examining it: its menacing expression, the knowing smile of small, sharp, bared teeth and the malevolent eyes made him feel nauseous.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out: a text message from Karen. It sent adrenaline like ice crystals running through his nervous system: ‘I’m in your building, Erasmus. Upstairs.’

He looked up, listening for any sounds from the apartment above but there were none.

Erasmus walked over to the kitchen and picked up the biggest carving knife he could find. He slipped it down the back of his jeans and then walked out of the apartment. He turned left and stood at the bottom of the stairs for a moment. He had climbed these stairs maybe five or six times in the three years he had lived in the apartment. The last time had been for Ali’s leaving party three months previously. The apartment had stood empty ever since.

The suffocating thickness of the silence made him feel like he was underwater. Pins and needles tingled at the ends of his fingers.
Focus
, he told himself,
now would not be a good time for a panic attack.

Erasmus climbed the stairs slowly, his ears straining to hear sounds that didn’t come. At the top of the stairs there was a small landing and then a corridor that doubled back, replicating the one below on Erasmus’s floor. The door to the apartment was at the end of this corridor and he could see from here that it was slightly ajar. Almost in a dreamlike state he walked towards the door. He paused outside the door and then gently pushed it open.

He knew the layout of the apartment was the same as he own. He entered the small hall. The door leading to the main living area was open and he walked through even though the sight that greeted him made him want to turn and run fleeing down the stairs.

The room was empty, bare floorboards and a single bulb hanging from electrical cord in the centre of the room. Tied to the electrical cord was a length of what looked like plastic washing line that had been fashioned into a rudimentary noose. Below the noose was a small three-legged wooden stool.

He stepped farther into the room. Now he was clear of the door he could see the room wasn’t as empty as he had first thought.

In the corner of the room closest to the big bay window there was a large, dark mahogany wardrobe with one door open. Inside he could see blankets, what looked like clothes and sheets. As Erasmus’s eyes became accustomed to the gloom of the room he realised that in the midst of those clothes he could see the white of an eye and an iris moving frantically from side to side.

He moved forward but a familiar voice stopped him in his tracks.

‘Take another step and she dies.’

From behind the wardrobe stepped Cat. She’d dyed her hair a bloody dark red colour and was carrying an old revolver: it was pointed towards the figure in the wardrobe.

‘Is that Karen in there?’

Cat smiled. Her face seemed paler, more pointed. Maybe it was the hair colour, but she looked older, sharper.

‘You already know the answer to that question. If you do as I say I promise you that she will walk out of here unharmed, well, physically unharmed.’

‘I know who you are, Catherine. I know what happened to your sister.’

Cat smiled, her lips stretching back almost unnaturally far, revealing her large white teeth.

‘You don’t know what happened to my sister and this witch – ’ she waved the gun towards the wardrobe ‘ – certainly never will, although she gets an insight today.’ She switched the guns aim back to Erasmus. ‘Stand on the stool and put the noose around your neck.’

Erasmus stood his ground.

‘Why would I do that?’

Cat frowned and let the gun drop to her side. Erasmus considered charging her but the distance between them, around fifteen feet, was too great. He would be dead before he was halfway across the room.

Cat’s eyes seemed to glaze over slightly.

‘This gun was my father’s. He was an officer in the Duke of Westminster’s Cheshire Regiment. He was a strong man who had to deal with a lot when my mother ran off. He brought me and my sister up all by himself. After she died, we moved away. He was worried the same things might happen to me. He died last year. He waited until I had left university and then he died. They said it wasn’t suicide but it was. He didn’t want to live from the moment he discovered my sister swinging from the light fitting in her bedroom. He just had to wait for me to leave and then he died at his desk. He kept this revolver in his desk drawer. I know he would have blown his brains out but he couldn’t put me through that so he waited, and then I left and he drank himself to death. All thanks to your girlfriend and her evil friends. But now they all know what it is to lose someone, except this bitch.’

Erasmus didn’t move.

‘I don’t believe you, Cat. You’re a good person, I know you. What they did when they were kids was wrong but this – ’ he waved his arms around ‘ – isn’t you.’

‘If you don’t do what I say she will die.’

Cat took a step back and leaned against the window. From outside the dim glow of a sodium street lamp cast her shadow across the dark of the wardrobe.

‘When I saw you arrive, I texted you using her phone. The next thing I did was use a razor blade to sever her femoral artery. Only a slight tear, mind you, I would think she has twenty minutes to live. So if you want her to live, if you love her as you told me, you will do as I say. Or maybe I’m wrong. You do love her, don’t you, Erasmus?’

Cat let the gun dangle from her finger.

Erasmus looked at the bundle of clothes behind which Karen was packed. He could now see they were wet with her blood and there were tears in the eye.

He knew the answer to Cat’s question, he had always known.

Cat twirled the gun on her finger and then pointed it back at him.

He stared for a second at Karen and then walked to the stool, stood up on it and placed the noose around his neck. Once he was on the stool Cat bent down and picked something up from behind the wardrobe. She took a step forward and then threw the object at him.

‘Catch.’

He caught it. It was a plastic facemask, black with a fierce red grin.

‘Put it on. I want her to see what my sister saw when they tortured her. Now!’

He slipped the elastic strap around his head and then pulled the plastic mask over his face. His vision was immediately reduced to the narrow tunnels offered by the roughly hewn eyeholes.

‘I thought we were friends, Cat?’

She laughed and pointed the gun at him.

‘I assume you are referring to the fact that we fucked? Well, I can’t deny I didn’t enjoy it but then I think you did too, Erasmus. Oh, I can see by the look on your face that you didn’t want Karen to know about that, that’s too delightful. Do you hear that, Karen? Your lover was cheating on you with me! Leopards really can’t change their spots, so it would seem.’

Erasmus focused on Karen. He didn’t look at Cat.

‘All too sweet. It meant a lot to me, it really did, but you still have to die. She needs to watch. If you love her you will do it. Step off the stool, Erasmus.’

He could feel the knife jammed in the band of his jeans. It would be easy enough to reach around and grab it, but then what? Cat would shoot him and Karen would die.

‘How do I know you will let Karen live?’

‘You don’t but it’s her only chance. I didn’t kill Ella.’

‘You killed her daughter.’

‘She killed herself Erasmus. These bitches were never charged or even blamed when my sister killed herself. Now they know what it feels like to see those they love choose death because of the actions of others.’

‘Ella’s daughter was innocent, so was Rebecca, so am I. And I don’t get it, why kill Louise?’

Cat’s face contorted into a twisted frown.

‘Louise wasn’t loved and loved no one but herself. She killed herself when she realised it was me, when she was given a choice between her dog and her life. She was miserable, she only needed a nudge. I did her a favour.’

As Erasmus talked he moved his hands around his back and placed his right hand on the handle of the knife.

‘Did you put the doll in my car?’

Cat started laughing.

‘Ah, my little joke. One good turn deserves another. You had used Rebecca’s computer to try and track me, I used mine to Google you. Turns out you were quite the badass. Dishonourably discharged for going on a kill crazy rampage because some local Taliban punish a class of girls for studying. They removed their eyes so they couldn’t study, cruel geniuses. We’re the same, Erasmus, you and I. Some people deserve to die for their crimes. I don’t blame you for what you did. I thought you needed reminding of it and, well, the thing with the eyes. Have you ever seen what happens to the eyeballs of a hanging person? I have.’ She was smiling, a wicked glint in her eyes. ‘She’s dying. You should step off now. Don’t think about it. It’ll be like falling asleep.’ Her tone was soft, like she was about to start singing him a lullaby.

He needed to get her closer though so he could use the knife.

‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ he whispered.

Her eyes narrowed.

‘She has maybe eighteen minutes left, maybe less, it’s not precise, is it? Your choice, Erasmus, who lives, who dies? Jump and I’ll untie her, she will have a chance.’

She turned and kneeled in front of the wardrobe, her face level with Karen’s bloodshot eye.

‘This is what I saw when Alison killed herself, Karen. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move and I watched her swinging back and forth, her tongue extended grotesquely out of her mouth. Do you know how that made me feel? Of course you don’t, you didn’t care, you just wanted your sport!’

Erasmus placed his left hand on the plastic and started to move the noose over his face. Cat span around and pointed the gun at him again.

‘Jump or she dies. She could have only five minutes left. Your choice.’

Erasmus shut his eyes.

Choice, what choice? She might let Karen live. She wanted her to suffer the way that she had. And what were the options? He wouldn’t get two yards before he was gunned down and then the only revenge left to Cat would be the murder of Karen.

If Karen could get to his telephone downstairs she might make it, if the ambulance was quick, and if she applied a tourniquet.

Cat took another step back and leaned against the side of the wardrobe. She looked almost relaxed now, happy to watch this play out.

He thought of his life: the time in Afghanistan and the happy times, and most of those times were a long time ago with Karen. He had hoped they could get them back, and maybe they would have done. But mostly he thought of Abby, how he should have tried more, how he had failed her and how he loved her. He had no choice.

Erasmus closed his eyes and stepped off the stool.

He dropped and then was jerked upwards by the bite of the plastic cord around his trachea catching his fall. His Adam’s apple was forced back against his windpipe and he gagged. The pain was overwhelming, beyond anything he had ever known. He brought his hands up to the cord but Cat shook her head. He lowered them, hung there, choking, as his legs kicked and twisted beneath him.