The Nightmare Place (24 page)

Possible.

Then there was the psychological angle. The escalation in our creeper had been evident from the increasing ferocity of the attacks. Whatever the reason behind it, it seemed clear enough that Derek Cooper was also undergoing a meltdown of some kind, and that this afternoon he’d boiled over. The officers had only been there about some dead bees, but perhaps he’d suspected otherwise and attacked them before they could arrest him for what he thought they were really there for. Sticking the rolling pin in the bin also suggested disassociation from reality.

It’s you, isn’t it, Derek?

It had to be. I was sure that both Sharon Hendricks and Amanda Jarman had been attacked by the same man as the others, and that led straight to Eyecatchers. It could hardly be a coincidence that a man associated with the shop had also gone ballistic today and vanished off the grid. Cooper must have known that attacking Amanda would bring us to his door. Which meant either that he was out of control, or that he no longer cared about getting caught.

You’re the monster Adam Johnson talked about.

I pulled up the online file for Johnson’s attacks, then scanned through to find a number for Jane. Perhaps something about Cooper would jog her memory – remind her of something else Johnson had said. But the only number we had was her home phone, and it went to voicemail. I could have kicked myself for never taking a mobile contact for her.

I left a short message.

‘Jane, it’s Zoe Dolan. We really need to go over what Adam Johnson told you again. It’s a matter of urgency. Can you give me a ring as soon as possible, please?’

Since I didn’t know for sure where I was going to be, I gave her my mobile number, then hung up.

‘Result,’ Chris said.

I shook my head. ‘What?’

‘We’ve found his Range Rover.’

On the far side of the incident room, there was a flurry of activity. Officers on phones were clicking fingers at each other, everybody already moving.

‘Where?’

‘It’s in that open-air car park by the side of the bus station. No ticket or anything. Looks like he’s just abandoned it.’

‘Shit.’

That was bad news. The city’s bus station was a long, double-sided building, with local buses leaving from one side and coaches dispersing from the other, threading out all around the country. With a two-hour head start, Cooper could be almost anywhere by now.

Chris said, ‘He ditched the vehicle because he knew we’d be looking out for it. Figured he wouldn’t get far enough in it.’

‘Obviously.’

‘The station will have CCTV.’

‘Which we’ll now have to sort through to find out exactly which coach he’s on. He’ll have paid cash. By the time we discover where he went, he’ll have been there for hours. And if the coach made multiple stops, we’re even further behind.’

Unless we were incredibly lucky, Derek Cooper would have at least one more night on the loose, and a man in his situation could hurt a lot of people in that space of time. Especially when he had no reason not to.

‘We’re already tracing friends and family connections,’ Chris said. ‘All this does is broaden the net.’

‘To most of the country.’

Something else was bothering me, though, and it took me a few quiet seconds to work out what it was. Even though Cooper appeared to be in meltdown, there were still flashes of cunning in his behaviour. He’d waited with Amanda Jarman all that time last night. He’d been careful with the text messages. And even something as bizarre as the rolling pin he’d used to attack the officers in his kitchen – stuffing it into the kitchen bin was pointless, but it still showed a flicker of awareness. And then there were—

‘The windows,’ I said suddenly.

‘What?’

‘At the victims’ houses.’ I turned in my seat to look up at Chris. ‘He always climbed out of the window afterwards. He got in easily through the front door, but never left that way.’

‘So what?’

‘It was always just a stupid piece of misdirection. Maybe he even did it on impulse the first time. But think about what he’d done to those women. Think about how they described him – that he exploded at them. How violent he was. He must have been half out of his mind with rage at the time, and that’s probably the state he’s in now too. So how do we know he’s not misdirecting us again?’

‘Meaning?’

I turned back to the screen.

‘I don’t know. Meaning that maybe this is the same. Leaving his vehicle somewhere that will stretch us in the wrong direction. Maybe it’s not a coach he’s on at all. Perhaps there’s somewhere in the
city
he wants to go. It would take longer to get the CCTV from the local buses.’

‘Where, though?’

‘I don’t know, do I?
Christ
.’

Chris leaned against the desk and folded his arms.

‘All we can do is pursue it,’ he said gently. ‘We’ll get him eventually, Zoe.’

‘Not in time.’

‘We can only work with what we’ve got.’

I closed my eyes for a moment, rubbing my forehead. I was annoyed at his tone, but it wasn’t his fault, and deep down I knew he was right. It was the worst-case scenario, this, but we could only follow the leads that were open to us. For Chris and me, as tough as it was going to be, the next few hours would be a waiting game.

I opened my eyes and turned my attention back to the screen – to the photograph of Derek Cooper – and then clicked through to set it printing. When it emerged from the machine a moment later, I took it and stood up.

‘Where are you going?’

‘There’s no use both of us just sitting here, is there?’ I grabbed my bag and car keys. ‘I’m going to find out for certain whether he’s our man.’

Forty-One

After the frustrating experience at Eyecatchers, Jane wasn’t sure what to do next. She was emboldened by at least having gone in and
asked
– but at the same time, she still felt a little silly for having done so, and the lack of any real result only compounded that.

Sharon.

All she had was a name. She sat in her car outside the shop feeling that she’d failed, and wondering what was the best thing to do next.

The obvious thing was to give up, go back to Rachel’s flat and get on with work. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be in danger of missing the project’s deadline: a professional first for her, and not one she was keen to add to her CV. Of course, that wasn’t the only reason it would be sensible. She wasn’t the police, and she wasn’t a private investigator, and perhaps it was pointless to waste an afternoon pretending she was. What exactly was she expecting to achieve? If she carried on, come evening, chances were she was going to feel even more stupid than she did now.

But set against that was the same determination she’d felt in Rachel’s flat earlier. She needed to do
something
. If the police weren’t taking her seriously, then she had to make them. Never mind the danger to herself; she owed it to the
victims
to make them listen.

But that would require more evidence. She still needed something that couldn’t be simply brushed aside and dismissed.

So.

Cragg Road, then.

Are you really—

YES, I AM!

Despite the doubts, it made her feel a little brighter. And what had happened in Eyecatchers hadn’t been a total washout: she had a first name now, at least. That meant she might only have to knock on a few doors before finding someone who knew a young woman called Sharon living on the street. And if she didn’t manage to turn anything up, at least she would know she’d tried. The … bloody
universe
itself could think she was silly if it wanted. What did it matter? It felt important
to her
to follow this as far as she could, and that was reason enough to risk a little ridicule.

Jane wasn’t sure where exactly Cragg Road was, but she knew how to get to Westfield, and from there she’d be able to find the exact address on her phone. She did a quick mental calculation. The route along the ring road would take her close to her flat, so it made sense to call in there first, gather some things together. She had no idea how long she was going to stay with Rachel, but she could certainly do with some more clothes, and perhaps a few books to read. It would only take a few minutes at most.

She peeled off to the left at the turning, grateful to leave the afternoon traffic behind. A few minutes later, she pulled up a little way down from her flat; someone had parked a battered old car in her usual spot, one of the perils of living on a main road. As she approached her building, though, Jane felt that sense of dislocation again. The sight of it felt off, somehow, like something familiar seen from an unusual angle.

She unlocked the front door and went in.

Inside, the flat was silent – abandoned, almost – and the stillness and quiet seemed judgemental. She glanced up the stairs; the landing above was gloomy, and the air already felt stale, as though the place had been empty for much longer than a night.

Which was ridiculous, of course. And yet, as Jane started up the stairs, the flat did feel suddenly alien to her. She walked over the spot where Adam Johnson had attacked her and tied her up, and it didn’t evoke bad memories so much as the sensation that she no longer quite belonged here. As she reached the landing, she counted the time spent here backwards in her head.

Four years.

That was how long it had been. Her father had bought the place for her in her third year of university, after she’d come back from abroad. It was hers now, aside from the slimmest of mortgages. Before now, she’d never even considered selling it and moving somewhere else, but maybe it was time to think about that. It would be a break from the past, wouldn’t it? However comfortable you were, there could still be something stagnant about remaining in the same place for too long. And why not? There was nothing really to keep her here.

It was something to think about, anyway. Something she
could
do, if she decided she wanted to.

First things first, though.

She went straight through to the bedroom, pulling an old gym bag from the bottom of the wardrobe and beginning to pile folded clothes into it. In theory, she wouldn’t require much – just enough to get by for a few more days – and yet as she went, she found herself peering into drawers, and at the outfits hanging in the wardrobe, and selecting far more than she needed. Dresses that she hadn’t worn in years, and wouldn’t any time soon, but which had sentimental value; jeans that were too small for her, but which she couldn’t bear to throw away. She emptied drawers, the stained wood at the base smelling like long-forgotten school desks.

Personal possessions next.

Out of instinct, she turned to the desk on the far side of the room. There were photo albums in the drawers there, letters and trinkets, probably a few other things she had forgotten but which she liked to have close to her. And the photograph, of course – the framed one of her and Peter, smiling in the sunshine. The photograph that was now lying face down on the desk, the strut sticking up in the air.

She stared at it for a moment, frozen to the spot.

Behind her, the bedroom door closed.

And Jane turned around to find a man standing there.

Forty-Two

The victims
.

It all came back to them. It always does.

In truth, I didn’t have much of a plan, but it wasn’t like I’d be achieving anything by sitting around in the incident room waiting for news. To link Cooper to the attacks, we’d have to talk to all the victims again eventually. So with the printout of his photo in my pocket, I headed out. I was hoping that one of the surviving victims might at least recognise him. His eyes were distinctive, after all, and despite the mask, they’d all seen them. Or maybe it hadn’t always been Adam Johnson doing the following and stalking, and one of them would remember spotting Cooper at some point. It was slim, but possible, and I had to start somewhere.

So start at the beginning
.

In this case, that meant a second visit to Sharon Hendricks. She was the least promising, in some ways, as she’d presumably encountered Derek Cooper at work, but hadn’t recognised him during the attack. But maybe his name, his image, would jog something. Start at the beginning. Then I’d move on to the others.

By coincidence, I ended up driving the exact same route that Sharon would have taken on the night she was attacked. I followed the main road out of the city centre, heading west, before splitting off into the suburbs where she lived. Driving slowly, the day dimming around me, I found it easy to imagine her walking alongside me.

I parked up outside her house. The field across the road was still visible in the gloom, separated from the pavement by the trunks of old felled trees. Directly opposite Sharon’s house, there were a couple of large stone pillars, with enormous trees on either side, their sweeping branches hanging down almost to the ground, creating a shadowy doorway. In my mind’s eye, I pictured Derek Cooper there. Dressed in black, and peering around the stone column. Knowing Sharon was out with his wife. Waiting for her to come home.

Outside the car, a slight but welcome breeze was making the thin branches rustle together. I walked up Sharon’s front path, but even the sound of my shoes on the tarmac was oddly subdued and quiet: a peaceful whisper, hardly louder than the breeze in my ears. The world felt slightly
off
somehow.

Just past her front door, the front room curtains were open, and I could see the television on in the corner of the room: silent images flashing against the glass. That was good. She was at home, at least.

I rang the bell.

While I waited, I took the printout of Derek Cooper from my pocket and unfolded it. The creases had drawn a cross over the centre of his face: one line down the centre, the other bisecting his eyes, making his countenance even blanker than before.

After a few moments, I rang the doorbell again.

Again, nothing.

I stepped back and looked up at the house. The curtains were closed in what I presumed was the bedroom, but the light was on behind them, the bulb showing through the fabric like a hazy sun.

I pressed the bell again, then moved over to the front room window, cupping my hands around my eyes and pressing my face to the glass. The room was lit only by the flickering images from the television. On the carpet, by the base of the settee, there was a full mug of coffee, and an ashtray with an unlit cigarette angled against the rim. Close to the door, something dark stained the carpet.

I moved quickly back to the door and tried the handle. Locked. I banged hard on the wood, then crouched down and lifted the letter box flap.

‘Sharon? Are you in there?’

No response. Rocking slightly on my toes, I was granted an awkward, shifting view of the stairs. The stains were there too. A streak was swiped over the white wall beneath the banister. Without the glass in the way, it was obvious that it was blood.

Shit shit shit.

I moved back to the window. The hinged section was closed, but I reached out and pulled, and it came open with a creak, the small golden hinges stretching out.

A few seconds later, I had Chris on speed-dial.

‘What’s up?’ he said.

‘I’m at Sharon Hendricks’ house.’ My heart was hammering. ‘I need backup immediately, and an ambulance.’

‘Wait, what—?’

‘He’s been here. Cooper.’

Chris was silent for a moment.

‘What about Hendricks?’

‘I don’t know yet.’ I looked at the open window. ‘The house is locked, but there’s blood in the front room and on the stairs, and the downstairs window is open.’

‘Zoe—’

‘I’m not going in, Chris. Just get me backup.’

He started to say something else, but I cut him off and slipped the phone back into my pocket, then stared at the open window in front of me, thinking.

What on earth was going through Cooper’s head? Obviously he knew time was running out, and had decided to revisit the first woman he’d attacked. She’d got off more lightly than his other victims, after all. Perhaps he’d intended to rectify that before he was caught. The thought made me feel sick.

I stared at the open window. I’d told Chris I wasn’t going in, and at the time I’d meant it. It would be madness. Cooper was larger and stronger than me, and it was possible he was still in there.

And yet.

I had no idea what kind of condition Sharon Hendricks might be in. I flashed back to finding Sally Vickers’ body stuffed down the side of the bed – but that was different. That had already happened, and so that was what I’d found. Right now, it was possible Sharon was still alive in there, and my hesitating might make the difference.

Too risky.

I brushed the edge of the curtain aside, then carefully leaned a little way in. It was definitely blood on the carpet. In patches, the coils of fabric were still glistening with it. If Cooper was here, he’d already know he had company, so there was no point being coy.

‘Sharon? Are you in there? Can you answer me?’

Nothing.

I pushed the curtain a little further, trying to get a better view of the room, but this time, it didn’t move. This time, the back of my forearm met a solid object.

Immediately, a hand clamped hard around my wrist, and I was yanked forward, my chest slamming into the window ledge. My head and shoulders were already through the window, inside the stale warmth of the front room. Another hand grabbed hold of my hair, and I began kicking and screaming as I was dragged in over the sill, my thighs scraping against it. A moment later, the back of my shoulders hit the floor, all the breath knocked suddenly out of me. I tried to suck in air, and it wouldn’t come.

Above me, I saw Derek Cooper closing the window, then heard the click as he turned the handle and locked it. As he stared down at me, he seemed to fill the world.