Want You Dead (12 page)

So why, Grace wondered, was he still not convinced?

27

Sunday, 27 October

At 3 a.m. the alarm went off. Bryce sat bolt upright, shaking sleep out of his head. He climbed out of bed, padded through into his bathroom, ran the tap, filling a glass with water, and swallowed two anabolic steroid tablets.

Then, naked, he settled down into the rowing machine on his floor, and worked feverishly for fifteen minutes. Afterwards he lay on his stomach and did one hundred press-ups. All the time thinking of Red. Thinking of being inside her. Then he did fifty sit-ups, feeling the tightening of his abs. He followed it with twenty minutes of crunches with the weights. When he had finished, he went back to bed and lay there.

Thinking about Red’s beautiful, thick strands of hair. About the scent of her body. About all the things she had said to him.

God, Bryce, I can’t keep my hands off you. I feel you so intensely, craving you every second we are apart. I’m feeling the craving growing stronger and stronger every second we are apart. 20,047,210 seconds until we are together again. 20,047,141 now! God, I want you. Sooooooo much
))) XXXXXXXXX

And then you dumped me. Threw me out of your flat. Gave me back the beautiful watch I’d given you.

You didn’t mean to do that, did you, Red? You were poisoned, weren’t you? By your toxic mother. It wasn’t your fault. I should forgive you, shouldn’t I? Really I should.

But I don’t think that’s possible now. Killing you is the only option.

He looked up at the bank of monitors. The infrared camera in Red’s bedroom showed her stirring.
You’re so troubled, aren’t you, so troubled? They shoot wounded horses out of kindness. It will be an act of kindness to kill you, too.

28

Sunday, 27 October

Red woke up crying. The clock by her bed said 3.52 a.m. She had cried for most of Saturday. She felt so confused and scared, and most of all sad. A terrible sense of loss and helplessness. In reality, they had been lovers for such a brief time, and although she had secretly checked him out, she felt she hardly knew Karl Murphy.
Shit, how do you grieve for someone you barely knew?
She had never met his parents or any of his family, and did not know how she might contact them. Yet she felt a deep sense of loss.

And she felt a terrible sense of guilt. Was there something she could have done, should have done? Should she have noticed the signs and reached out to him? What was it that had pushed him over the edge? What was the inadequacy in her that had failed to change his mind about life not being worth living?

She lay in the darkness, thinking through all the conversations they had had. Sure, he had talked about his love for his children. And the intense sadness he felt about his wife. Yet, all the things he had said to her about moving on, about the importance of being strong for his children and giving them a proper family life, just did not chime with him committing suicide.

Karl had told her on more than one occasion that, deeply though he had felt the loss of Ingrid, his obligations lay with his children. To ensure they grew up loved. The connection Red had felt with him was very definitely less passionate than in the early days of her past relationship with Bryce Laurent; it was more gentle, more of a friendship. He was such a sweet guy. She wracked her brains, as she had done continually during the past days, for any clues, for anything he might have given her, anything at all he had said, that gave an indication that he had felt suicidal.

But she could find none.

He had told her how much he loved his children, and that they would always come first in his life.

She’d now heard he had mentioned suicide to his sister a couple of times, in the early days after his wife had died. One concern was that he had been taking anti-depressants, and she had read that there were some kinds that could suddenly, without warning, send people into a suicidal spiral. Had that happened to him?

She fell back into a deep, dreamless slumber, and woke again at 6.15 a.m. Knowing she would be unable to sleep any more, she got up, pulled on her jogging kit, went downstairs and let herself out of the front door, then ran down in the darkness to the seafront. She crossed the Kingsway, normally busy with traffic but deserted at this hour on a Sunday morning, ran down past the bowls club and onto the promenade, where she turned right. She jogged past the Hove Lagoon, the Deep Sea Anglers club building, and then past the terrace of white, elegant Moorish-style beachfront houses, home to a number of local celebrities, including Adele, Nick Berry, Norman Cook and Zoë Ball, and on along the perimeter of Shoreham Harbour.

Suicide?

He was a doctor. He was smart. He would have known which anti-depressants not to take.

Surely?

29

Sunday, 27 October

Shortly after 11.30 a.m., Bryce, dressed in jeans, work boots and a fleece jacket over a sweater, turned left off the road that led up to Brighton’s Devil’s Dyke onto the bumpy cart track that wound down for half a mile, south, past the farmer’s house, then on through farmland and towards the cluster of once derelict outbuildings that now housed his workshop and stores, and which he rented under a false name. The same name this vehicle was registered under.

The dark green Land Rover Defender bounced and lurched along the muddy track on its hard, sturdy springs. The vehicle suited him well; it was a true chameleon – like himself. It looked as much at home parked on a city kerb as it did in a rural field; it was the kind of workhorse that was a familiar sight to most people, and was therefore unlikely to raise eyebrows wherever he was.

And therefore unlikely to be remembered.

He skirted a tumbledown barn with an ancient plough entwined in brambles, and a short distance on passed a rotting railway carriage that looked as if it might once have been converted into a dwelling, and which sat incongruously here in the middle of nowhere. Then he drove down a short incline, past an abandoned horsebox trailer that sat on four flat tyres, a pile of rusty scaffold poles, and patches of scorched earth where he had conducted some of his experiments. He pulled up on the hard surface between his three small, well-secured buildings – a barn that was a former grain store, a large workshop, and a disused dairy – and climbed out.

A mile to the south was the residential sprawl of the Hangleton area to the west of the city of Brighton and Hove, with Southwick and Portslade beyond, and Shoreham. He could see the tall smokestack of the power station, and on a clear day he would have been able to see the English Channel, if he had cared. But there was a steady drizzle falling, and the sky was misty with rain. And the view did not interest him. It might have done once, in former days, in another life.

Life with Red.

Everything had interested him then. He had seen the world through different eyes. He had seen beauty in everything when he had been with her. With Red it had truly been a world of colour. Now it was all monochrome. He had never brought her here, to his secret place. Sure, he had planned to, to the place where he developed his conjuring tricks and his escapology tricks. He had learned about explosives during his time as a sapper and bomb disposal expert in the Territorial Army – before they had thrown him out. And he had learned about electronic security systems in his time installing alarms for a Brighton security company called Languard Alarms, before they had – totally unjustifiably – fired him.

But that was then.

He jumped down from the Land Rover and hurried through the rain to the workshop, which had bars across the frosted glass windows and a sign on the front door which read:
PT FIREWORKS LTD
.

As a registered fireworks manufacturer he was able to order all kinds of explosives without any problem. He unlocked the heavy-duty padlock and the two deadlocks, went inside, closing and double-bolting the door behind him, and switched on the lights.

As always he began with a quick check that everything was in order, as he had last left it. His eyes roamed around the plywood-panelled walls; the tanks of oxyacetylene gas, oxygen, nitrous oxide; a lathe; a chest freezer filled with dry ice; a fridge full of chemicals; the racks of Dexion shelving stacked with computer equipment, instruction manuals, cylinders of chemicals, dials, gauges, tubing; and one shelf piled high with tarnished silver cups he had won for his magic tricks at conventions around the country.

Oh yes, he was good. He was damned good! Other people recognized that. But not Red’s mother. And Red never gave him the chance to show it. One day she would be sorry, they both would. He was the best. The best ever. Eat your fucking heart out Houdini, David Copperfield, Siegfried and Roy.

But what consumed his thoughts right now was the bank of television monitors on the wall. He hit the power switch to activate them, and moments later they flickered into life. He saw Red at her desk in her spare bedroom, typing on her computer. Sending emails? Facebook posts? Tweets? He’d check all that out when he got back home – everything she typed got emailed, every fifteen minutes, to the computer in his flat.

She was dressed in conservative clothes. A black roll-neck sweater, a tweed skirt, black leggings and boots. All set for Sunday lunch with her mother – the witch – and her father. And her older sister who intimidated her with her successful career and her perfectly planned pregnancy and her pompous husband.
Poor you! But with luck, you’ll be spared! All sorted!

And she was again wearing that cheap watch she had worn on their first date. The one he had replaced with the Cartier, which she had returned when she dumped him.

Not good, Red
, he chided silently.
You are one classy lady. You should be wearing a Cartier, honestly. Whatever else may have happened between us, I so want you wearing a quality watch.

He punched the code into his iPhone and checked his texts, hoping as ever there might be one from Red. But there was nothing. His heart heaving, he scrolled back through all the texts she had sent him, which he had never erased. Scrolled right back, with tears in his eyes, to those earliest days, when she had been crazily in love with him. And he with her. When he had been on his way to her flat.

Can’t wait to see you, my gorgeous Red!
XXX 3 mins!

And her reply:

Can’t wait that long! XXX

Two mins now
XXX

I’m going to have to start without you! XXX

One min! XXX

God, Bryce remembered that night so clearly. And so many nights like it, when he’d driven, often at mad speeds, angry at everyone in his way who slowed him down, to see Red. He’d text his ETA as he got closer, until with minutes to go he’d text a final countdown. When he reached her doorstep, he’d buzz her flat; there would be a click and he would enter the communal porch of her apartment building, and run up the stairs. Her door would open and their lips would meet. They’d be entwined in silence, kicking the door shut, tugging at each other’s clothes, staring, grinning, lusting into each other’s eyes, and making love on the carpeted floor in her hallway, unable, because of the crazed grip of their desire for each other, to get beyond the threshold.