The 50/50 Killer Read online

  ‘We know.’ I tried to be as reassuring and decisive as possible. ‘And we’re going to find her. There’s a search team in the woods. Jodie’s going to be fine.’

  His expression settled down a little. ‘Do you promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  Change the subject.

  ‘What I want to do first is get as much information from you as possible. Some of it might help us find Jodie, but we’d be talking about all this anyway, because you’ve been the victim of a crime. This conversation is about you. Okay?’

  He nodded uncertainly. I weighed it up and decided to keep moving the conversation away from Jodie. Steer it onto safer ground for now. I put his file on the floor and gave him my full attention.

  ‘Let’s start with your flat. You were working at home today?’

  ‘Not really working.’

  ‘What were you doing?’

  ‘I’ve got the week off. I was doing some things on the computer. Photo-art stuff.’

  ‘Oh, right. You’re an artist?’

  ‘No.’ He looked sad for a moment. ‘Not really. But I was messing around with that today. Then I went and did some weights in our spare room.’

  Our spare room. So he lived with Jodie. No great surprise, but still an important detail. And it raised the question again. This couple had a base, but rather than holding them there like all the others the 50/50 Killer had taken them into the woods instead. Why had he done that?

  ‘What time was this?’ I said.

  ‘About three, maybe.’

  Scott ran through what he remembered. The delivery was slightly fragmented, but I took that to be a symptom of both the painkillers he was on and the overall confusion he was suffering. The important thing was that the basic details matched what he’d told the first officer on the scene, and then the doctors here. It was a good indication that what he could recall was at least coming out right.

  When he’d nearly finished exercising, he’d heard a noise, he said, and emerged from his weights room expecting to find Jodie home from work early. The television had been on, but the front room was empty. He’d walked across.

  ‘And I had time to think “What?” and then he came at me.’

  The man hiding in the kitchen had leaped out from the side. Scott had been attacked and subdued - hit hard, before having something pressed into his face. That was all he could remember from the flat.

  The more he talked, the more frustrated he became - increasingly angry, to the point where he seemed almost disgusted with himself. I recognised the emotion, and as he finished, if his hands hadn’t been bandaged up like boxing gloves, I thought he might have punched himself on the thigh in anger. It was something I’d done myself over the past six months, when the feelings got too much for me. Sometimes you had to let them out.

  ‘I was so stupid,’ he said. ‘So useless.’

  ‘No, you weren’t.’

  I tried to put myself in his situation. He obviously kept himself in good shape, yet all that time spent working out had proved meaningless when it actually mattered. If he’d been able to defend himself everything would have turned out differently. By failing, it felt like he’d condemned them both to what followed.

  It was an area of self-recrimination that I wanted to keep him away from for now.

  ‘I lift weights a bit, too,’ I said. ‘You know how it feels after a big workout - you can barely lift your arms. The man who did this to you has done it before, and he’s smart. He waited until you were exhausted and less capable of fighting back, and he distracted you so he could get the upper hand. It would have happened the same to anyone.’

  But he kept shaking his head.

  All too much, I thought. Move on.

  ‘Let’s talk about the man in the devil mask.’

  I picked up the file again, mainly so I had something to do with my hands.

  ‘I know it’s difficult,’ I said, ‘but I want you to separate him off in your head. I don’t want to know about the things he did, but I am interested in anything you can tell me about him. Imagine him just standing in a street. What do you see him wearing?’

  The look of frustration on Scott’s face remained, but he seemed to relax a little. He thought about the question carefully.

  ‘I’m not sure about his clothes,’ he said. ‘He had trainers on. They were white, scuffed. Blue bits round the lace holes, I think. Dark, anyway. The rest of his clothes were black, I think. Like he had overalls on.’

  He spoke quietly, his expression settling. It was going to be a night of peaks and troughs, I realised. Every time he flinched, I would need to back off a little.

  After talking about his clothes, we moved on to a more general physical description. By the time Scott had confirmed the previous accounts we had of the killer - short brown hair, quite tall, strong build - he seemed to have calmed down enough to move on to something more specific.

  ‘Do you remember how you got to the woods?’ I said.

  ‘We were in a van.’

  ‘You and Jodie?’

  He nodded.

  ‘She was tied up in the back already. I felt so awful. I think we stopped on the way, maybe once or twice, I don’t remember.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘There was something, but ... I think he got out, but I’m not sure.’

  He frowned, looking annoyed with himself again.

  Move on.

  ‘Okay. Then he took you to the woods?’

  ‘When we all got out, he put a bag over my head. There was nothing I could do.’

  I nodded. Wherever I moved the conversation, the guilt he was feeling kept surfacing in one form or another. He was veering between I should have done this and I couldn’t do anything.

  I decided to leap forward in time. ‘So you had a bag on your head on the way into the woods, but what about on the way out? Can you remember that?’

  Immediately, he shook his head.

  ‘Can you remember how long you were running before you reached the road?’

  ‘No. A while.’

  ‘Like a few minutes or more like an hour?’

  ‘I can’t remember. More like an hour.’

  I glanced at the pulse monitor on the machine by the bed. His heart rate was increasing. Time to retreat slightly.

  ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Do you remember the man being there at that point? Was he chasing you?’

  ‘Chasing ... ?’ Scott frowned. ‘No.’

  I could see the question ticking away inside. Obviously, it led to others. If he wasn’t being chased, why not? How had he got away? After a moment, his subconscious warned him to back off and not test this ground with any real weight.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He shook his head firmly. ‘Everything in the woods is just ... flashes. Dark and cold. Snow. I was running most of the time. It’s all a mess until I reached the road.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I do remember talking to myself. In the woods, before I got to the road. I told myself over and over that it was going to be okay.’

  ‘That’s understandable,’ I said. ‘In that kind of situation, your subconscious can sometimes take over. It helps to get you through it.’

  That’s when it happened. Something - either a memory or a fragment of my dream - appeared in my head. It was a voice in my head, clearer and more distinct than my thoughts.

  Swim, it said. Swim as hard as you can.

  I shook my head.

  ‘That’s all I remember,’ Scott said. ‘It’s like you just said - like someone else took charge and told me to take a back seat. I don’t know where I was or what I was doing.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ I leaned forwards, shook my head again. The voice had gone, but it felt like something was crawling in there. ‘If you can’t remember that, we’ll ... we’ll leave it for now.’

  Pull yourself together. But it wasn’t as easy as that. My heart was beating too quickly. The voice had brought a flash of panic with it. Suddenly, I couldn’t think prope
rly.

  Scott and I were staring at each other. He was waiting for me.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Okay. Let’s talk about Jodie for a moment. How would you describe her? What’s she like as a person?’

  He started to answer, but then stopped. His expression became blank for a moment, and I understood immediately that I’d slipped up. Moved too quickly. Before I had a chance to reverse away from the subject, his face crumpled and he began to cry.

  I sat there for a second, thinking, You fucking idiot, over and over again.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said.

  But it wasn’t. It might not have been a direct question about the ordeal itself, but it didn’t need to be. The fact that he was here meant he’d probably abandoned Jodie in the woods. He might not remember doing it, but thinking about her in any depth would still bring up those feelings of weakness, betrayal and guilt. What’s she like? His feelings about her were a straight route into the heart of his evening. His mind would probably rather run over hot coals than think about that, and if my mind had been properly here in the room where it belonged, I’d have realised that.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I repeated.

  But the blinds had come down. He was crying quietly to himself. I sighed inwardly, annoyed at myself. What the fuck was wrong with me? Maybe it was for the best. Maybe it was time for both of us to take a break.

  He wasn’t listening, but I said it again anyway as I stood up: the same lie I’d started the interview with. The despair I was feeling seemed to cancel out the conviction I was aiming for.

  I said, ‘We’re going to find her.’

  4 DECEMBER

  5 HOURS, 5 MINUTES UNTIL DAWN

  2.15 A.M.

  Eileen

  Eileen was upstairs in John’s study, reclining in the comfortable leather chair he occupied for at least an hour most evenings. Since he couldn’t be here, it seemed a shame to let it go to waste. When John used to get up early, she’d often rolled across and slept on his side of the bed to feel closer to him in his absence. This was much the same, although her emotions were somewhat different.

  The study was where her husband did most of his work at home. There were two bookcases side-by-side along the wall, and a desk opposite where he kept his computer. Behind it, the wall was adorned with framed certificates, newspaper reports and photographs: clippings that spanned his entire career. The room was illuminated by a single standing lamp, the light from it pale and soft.

  Across from her the curtains were open, and her reflection stared back from beyond the window: a gentle, almost ghostly blur. It was holding the phone against the side of its face.

  In her ear, the ringing continued, her frustration growing with every infuriating burst of sound.

  Pick it up, she demanded.

  Their home number was programmed into John’s mobile. She visualised him looking at the display, knowing it was her and debating whether to take the call. The frustration was joined by anger.

  Answer me.

  She watched her reflection pick up the glass of wine and take another sip.

  ‘Hi, there,’ he said.

  Thank God. Now that he had answered, her fear relaxed slightly. The anger remained. She put the glass down on the table beside her, perhaps a little loudly.

  ‘You took your time.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I had to move out into the corridor. I am at work.’

  John had never liked talking on the phone, and he was uncomfortable with other people’s silences. So she let one pan out for a moment to see what he did. It was gratifyingly awkward, and then he said: ‘It’s late for you to still be up.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it?’

  There was a clock on the far wall - coming up on twenty past two in the morning. It was a long time since Eileen had looked at a clock and seen that.

  When she was younger, it had been more common. She’d made a habit of staying up as late as possible, and rising early on, because there was simply so much to do. On your death bed, you weren’t going to look back on your life and wish you’d spent more of it sleeping. John had always been like that as well. There was the same drive to him, and it was partly what had attracted her to him in the first place. For a long time, there had been an ease and rhythm to their relationship, and it had helped to persuade her they were well-matched, equal partners. That it was all okay.

  Strange to think that now - given how much she hated his dedication to work - but true.

  As they’d grown older together, of course, things had changed. While Eileen’s day had dwindled at both ends, John’s had become even longer. He would come to bed hours after her, and then she’d wake to find his side empty again in the morning. It hadn’t seemed to matter at the time, but John’s breakdown had forced her to reconsider that. When he came out of hospital, the fact he was suddenly in her bed every evening brought home to her all the times when he hadn’t been. It began to feel as though she’d been dutifully keeping it warm for him the whole time: waiting patiently, while he put her to one side and chased goals of his own. Goals which, in the end, had jeopardised them both. Those days should have been long behind them.

  ‘It is late,’ he repeated. ‘I thought you’d be in bed by now.’

  ‘That’s why you didn’t call? You didn’t think I’d be waiting up to hear from you?’

  Panicking? Scared out of my ... fucking mind?

  ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You know you’re supposed to ring me.’

  ‘There just hasn’t been a chance.’

  Eileen felt her jaw clench, recognising the tone in her husband’s voice. Imagining him there. He was looking off to one side, she thought, running his hand through his hair, already distracted from this conversation and concentrating on something else. On all the other things that were apparently more important to him than she was.

  ‘It’s really busy here,’ he said. ‘Non-stop. You know how it can be.’

  ‘I remember exactly how it can be.’

  She was simmering. The emotion was fresh but familiar. It had got to a point during his recovery when she was as angry with John as she would have been if he’d had an affair. In a way, he had - though with his work, not another woman. But Eileen had seethed quietly and put those feelings to one side, for no other reason than that he was her husband and this was her life. Whatever mistakes had been made, they could fix them together. All she really asked was that he didn’t repeat them, or at least that he didn’t put himself in a position where they might repeat themselves. Yes, she recalled perfectly how it could be. It seemed to be her husband who was blanking the risk he was taking.

  Another sip of wine.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he said. ‘You sound like you’ve been drinking.’

  ‘I have been drinking. I still am drinking.’

  He paused. ‘It’s two thirty in the morning.’

  ‘So I should be in bed?’

  ‘No. I just mean it’s late to be drinking.’

  ‘I suppose it is.’

  Eileen’s sister had said exactly that when they’d spoken on the phone earlier, just before midnight. She shouldn’t be drowning her sorrows this late. ‘Why not, though?’ Eileen had replied. She was sick of taking responsibility for all the shoulds. John should be here with her - there was one - but he wasn’t. Why did it always fall to her to do the responsible thing? She needed to do something to keep calm.

  Up at two thirty, she realised. Nearly a bottle of wine down. It really was like being young again. All she needed now was John beside her to share the experience.

  ‘Are you going to bed soon?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. When will you be home?’

  ‘It’s all go here, so I’m not sure. One of those cases where if we don’t move on it quickly, we’ll lose it, and ...’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Where? I’m at the hospital. We’re interviewing someone. He’s injured and he’s receiving treatment here.’

  ‘Yes, I know what a ho
spital is for. Rutlands, I guess? Is that where you are?’

  ‘Rutlands, yes.’

  Eileen nodded to herself. Rutlands was the hospital she’d taken him to when he broke down at Andrew Dyson’s funeral. The place held unhappy memories; she’d spent that first night there, and then been back to visit on each of the four days he’d been in before being released. She associated the long corridors of the psychiatric unit with the feeling that her world was broken beyond repair.

  Briefly, she wondered how John felt, being back in the place, and she felt concern for him beneath the anger. Just as quickly, she suppressed it. The choice to be back there was his. It affected her, too, and he shouldn’t be doing this to her. That was the bottom line. Eileen’s sister had said she owed it to herself to be harder, and that was true: it was time for the scales of their commitment to tilt back towards level, and after everything he’d put her through John really ought to have known that. ‘Do you want me to come and get you?’ her sister had asked, concerned, and Eileen had smiled because she knew Debra would be here in a heartbeat if she asked her to, no matter how much it put her out. ‘No, thank you,’ she’d said. ‘It’s something I need to sort out. It needs dealing with.’

  Eileen said it firmly now: ‘I want you to come home. To me.’

  There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line.

  ‘I can’t do that right now.’

  ‘Well, that’s what I want.’

  Too quick and snappy, she told herself, too petulant. She fought to regain her composure, and then repeated herself: ‘I hear what you’re saying, John, but this is what I want you to do. Please come home.’

  ‘I can’t. I wish I could, but it’s my job.’

  She almost laughed. ‘A man’s gotta do?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  She sipped the wine, and then put it down hard again as something occurred to her.

  ‘Tell me this isn’t about Andrew?’ In the window opposite, her reflection leaned forwards suddenly. ‘Oh God, John. Tell me you’re not after that man again?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing to do with that.’

  Was the drink making her paranoid? Whatever the reason, she wasn’t sure she believed him.