The 50/50 Killer Read online

  ‘She’s still alive. Whatever you think you’ve done, it’s not too late to take it back. I envy you that.’

  He sniffed, shook his head again. ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  Nothing. He was trembling.

  I sighed to myself. I had no idea whether what I was going to say next would make the slightest bit of difference, but it was all I had left.

  Empathy.

  ‘Listen for a minute.’ I checked my watch. ‘It won’t take long, and I think we’ve still got some time. I want to tell you something.’

  We were on holiday, camping. This beach campsite. We went swimming. Just messing about, really, but we drifted out of our depth, and didn’t realise the current was so strong. We called for help, but there wasn’t anybody on the beach. So we just had to swim for it. And basically, I made it to shore and she didn’t. There was nothing anyone could have done.

  That was what I’d told the rest of the team earlier on in the canteen. But in its own way, this was my version of the photograph of Jodie that Scott kept in his wallet. It was a snapshot of an event in my life. One I kept close at hand; one I was prepared to share with people. And like that passport photo, it was only a small part of the whole story. The real truth is always between the lines. It’s hidden inside what you don’t say.

  We were on holiday, camping. This beach campsite.

  My memories of the evening were disjointed, as though what happened later had reached back and smashed a hammer onto the time leading up to it, leaving me only fragments to sort through. The tension of tent poles: I remember feeding them awkwardly through the tight canvas loops, curving them into position, the tent stretching itself into shape. Lise wafting away mosquitoes as we hammered pegs into the packed, sandy ground. Her bikini bottom was tangled slightly at the back.

  We went swimming. Just messing about, really, but we drifted out of our depth, and didn’t realise the current was so strong.

  It was me that noticed first. I wasn’t a confident swimmer and the sea was slightly rougher than I was comfortable with, so I felt the need to put my toes down on the seafloor every so often. And at one point I tried and went under. When I came back up, I was shocked, coughing.

  Panicking.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Lise said. ‘Just swim back to shore.’

  But I was floundering, and I accidentally kicked her in the stomach; I still remember the soft-hard impact. She told me, ‘Calm down,’ but I wasn’t listening, just clawing for the shore, instinct taking over and telling me I needed to get myself safe above and beyond anything else.

  Swim, I thought. Swim as hard as you can.

  I noticed how rough the water was this far from shore: choppy on the surface, full of motion underneath around my chest and legs. I swam hard, for what felt a long time, and when I stopped for a moment I saw that I was further from the beach than when I’d started.

  Lise had been swimming, too; we were still very close to each other at that point. I looked at her and saw my own panic reflected back at me. That was what did it. I’d never seen her look scared before; she was normally so calm, so together.

  ‘Scream,’ she told me seriously.

  We called for help, but there wasn’t anybody on the beach.

  I’d never shouted for help in my life and it sounded ridiculous and wrong, but I screamed. I screamed as loud as I could, over and over. Above the noise of the waves I could hear her doing the same.

  I was half shouting, half swimming when a wave punched me on the back, knocking me under. My lungs filled with water, and I was coughing and choking as I came up, my eyes stinging. The world around me was just a blur, a smear. Lise was further away, a misty smudge of colour. In my head, curtains of dark water were pulling themselves round her. Taking her from me.

  So we just had to swim for it.

  I started out again, thrashing as hard as I could, blind except for flashes of the sky. But I was panicking too much to control myself, and the sea kept pushing me under. I understood very clearly that I was going to die, and I’d never felt frightened on such a primal level before. Fighting against the waves, I was tensing my arms so hard that the muscles started to spasm. Mentally, I was absent: just an animal with death in sight, struggling desperately to escape. I wasn’t thinking about Lise. At that moment, all that mattered was myself.

  And basically, I made it to shore and she didn’t.

  It was a minute, if that, before I staggered up the beach. I was only wearing shorts, but I might as well have been swimming fully clothed. My arms and legs felt waterlogged: heavy and tired. Immediately, I collapsed to my knees on the sand and then forward onto my elbows, coughing out water, then heaving in air. When I could breathe, I forced myself to my feet and turned to scan the sea. Calling out for her.

  There was nothing anyone could have done.

  The funeral. Friends, colleagues; my parents and hers. The sea never surrendered Lise’s body, so all these people were standing round a patch of land that could never genuinely be called a grave. Her mother’s scarf was blowing softly to one side in the breeze. She told me:

  ‘There was nothing you could have done, Mark.’

  I’d started crying when she said that, but I’d accepted it anyway, and that single sentence lay at the heart of the picture I kept to show people. Just as someone seeing the photograph of Jodie would smile and say something complimentary, so the people listening to me would nod and be sympathetic. There wasn’t anything anyone could have done, so it was sad, but everything was right with the world. They wouldn’t look for the truth below the surface.

  But I couldn’t hand Scott that picture. If I wanted to know his secrets, I had to be prepared to show mine.

  ‘I was standing on the beach,’ I said. ‘And I was looking for her, trying to see her. Screaming her name. And suddenly, there she was.’

  I’d spotted her out in the water, about fifty metres from shore. By sheer blind luck, I’d escaped the current, while Lise had made hardly any progress at all.

  ‘She was shouting something, but I couldn’t hear it. I don’t know if she could even see me. Maybe she was just screaming.’

  I could see her, though. I could see the terror and panic and pain on her face.

  Scott had turned back to look at me. He’d stopped crying as well, although the part of his face that was visible was red and swollen, gleaming in the light. I wasn’t naïve enough to think that telling him this story was going to flick a switch and make everything okay, but at least he was looking at me. Listening to me. At least I’d got him back for as long as I could keep him.

  ‘I went back into the water,’ I said, ‘but only up to my knees. I was waving to her, shouting that she’d be okay, that she just needed to keep swimming. But the sea was so choppy. One minute she was there and then the next she just wasn’t.’

  I remembered the last I’d seen of her: a black Y bobbing in the waves. After that, it was only the waves, and I was screaming, ‘You’ll be okay’ to nothing.

  ‘You didn’t go back in?’ Scott said.

  ‘I wanted to,’ I said. ‘I started to. But I didn’t dare. I was too scared to go back into the water. And so my fiancée drowned.’

  Scott stared at me, shocked. I could hear him breathing.

  I smiled as best I could.

  ‘I know deep down there was nothing I could have done. I could have gone back in, and then I’d probably have drowned too. She was a stronger swimmer than I was. But I still blame myself for what I didn’t do. I could have tried to save her, but I didn’t because I was too afraid of dying myself. Do you understand?’

  He nodded slowly.

  ‘And in a way, that’s the game,’ I said. ‘That’s all the killer is, that’s all he does. He stacks it so that there’s too much to cope with, too much to deal with, until your only option is to walk away. Anybody would do the same. But I can’t imagine what she was thinking when she died. I can’t bear to.’

  Wh
en I said that, Scott looked so desperate, so helpless, that I wanted to take it all back. But we were in the thick of it now; it would be harder to retreat than to push through to the other side.

  He said, ‘I abandoned her.’

  I nodded.

  ‘You probably did. But right now you’re in the same position I was in when I was standing on that beach. Your girlfriend is still alive, Scott.’

  One of the ground rules for the interview. This time, I actually believed it.

  ‘So you’ve got one up on me. In your own way, you can still go back in there and save her. If you don’t, you’ll live with it, and everybody will understand. But please, don’t make the same mistake that I did. You won’t be able to live with yourself. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  His voice was sad as he whispered again: ‘I abandoned her.’

  I leaned forwards, clasping my hands together. If this was going to happen, it would happen now.

  ‘What do you remember?’

  The question hung in the air for a moment, and the only sound was the soft beeping of Scott’s pulse on the machine by the bed. It was calm now.

  ‘He showed me something. A piece of paper.’

  ‘In the woods? You were in an old stone building, and he was talking to you for a long time. Is that when he showed you this piece of paper?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Did you read it?’

  ‘I didn’t want to. He made me.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘It was an email.’ He took a deep breath. ‘She was having an affair with Kevin Simpson. Her ex-business partner. It was something about that.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He shook his head. ‘You knew that, didn’t you?’

  ‘No. We knew she’d spent some time at Simpson’s house. I didn’t want to tell you before. The man who abducted you did the same thing to Kevin Simpson. He was murdered yesterday morning.’

  ‘Good.’

  I didn’t reply.

  Scott didn’t say anything, either. His face had grown curiously blank, but it seemed hard to maintain and was threatening to collapse into something else. Anger? Grief? Self-pity? I couldn’t tell.

  Keep it moving.

  ‘So he showed you this email,’ I said. ‘What happened next?’

  ‘I told him I gave up,’ he said. ‘Just like that. “I give up.” I kept saying it over and over again so that he’d understand and stop hurting me.’

  I nodded. ‘And then?’

  ‘He ... let me go.’ Scott sniffed. ‘Oh, God, he let me go. As easy as that. I left her.’

  I was willing him on, but I forced myself to keep calm.

  ‘He untied you? How did you know which way to go?’

  ‘No.’ Scott frowned. ‘He walked with me for a while. Just a few minutes, I think. We crossed a river, crossed a path. All the time he was talking to me, telling me he’d take care of everything, that I’d made the right decision. He even told me I could come back if I changed my mind. Then we stopped and he pointed into the trees. He told me what direction to head in.’

  We crossed a river, crossed a path.

  I wanted to run downstairs as fast as I could. The search teams had been looking in the wrong area. The river was north of the top bar of the ‘n’ and the camp was just a few minutes from there.

  He looked at me with something close to desperation: ‘And ... so I ran.’

  I gave him a gentle smile, then walked over, sat on the edge of the bed and put my hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You’ve done everything you can. The next time I come up here will be to tell you we’ve found Jodie and we’ve got the man who did this to you.’

  He started crying again. But he nodded.

  I gave his shoulder a careful squeeze, then stood up and walked across to the door. As I opened it, I turned to look back. Light from the hall rested on the floor and the corner of the bed, but it didn’t quite reach him.

  ‘Officer.’

  He looked suddenly quite peaceful, despite his tears.

  ‘Whatever happens, thank you.’

  ‘I’ll be back soon, Scott.’

  I went out into the corridor, closing the door softly behind me. Then and only then, I started to run.

  4 DECEMBER

  1 HOUR, 50 MINUTES UNTIL DAWN

  5.30 A.M.

  Eileen

  She tried phoning John one last time.

  Her finger trembled as she pressed [redial], and her entire hand shook as she held the receiver to her ear. One last time. Since he’d switched his phone off, she’d repeatedly tried calling him, convinced that this time he would answer. But on each occasion, there was just—

  Beep, beep, beep

  Eileen threw the receiver across the study. It cracked open on the wall and clattered to the floor in two neat pieces, the circuit board leaning out on stubby wires. She couldn’t even break a phone properly.

  She slumped down, and the chair rolled back on its wheels until it nudged the wall behind.

  The second bottle of wine was on the table in front of her. She’d somehow managed to get two-thirds of the way down before abandoning it and going to bed. The empty glass was covered with last night’s misty fingerprints. Even so, as late as it was, the idea of pouring out the remainder was appealing. Except it was no longer even too late to be drinking; now it was too early. And two hours of sleep was never going to be enough to cancel out the debt in her head. The proof of that was lying broken against the far wall. Such an explosion of frustration was totally unlike her. The alcohol had mixed with her emotions, goading her into stupid, thoughtless action.

  Why have you done this to me, John?

  Had she really asked so much of him? They were supposed to be a partnership - that was what she’d dedicated her life to over the years. So when he’d collapsed her world had collapsed with him and she’d never felt so afraid, not ever. The idea that it could happen again, that he would even risk putting her through that ...

  Had she asked so much?

  And yet he couldn’t even phone her. One simple thing, set against everything she’d given him, and he couldn’t even do that.

  Eileen’s thoughts were like a car travelling through fog. All she could do was let the emotions guide her. She was sad and she was angry, but more than anything she was hurt. Deeply hurt.

  This was her husband who had done this to her. After all the love and support and the pain, after asking so little in return, he’d just ... put her aside for something more important to him, something which could destroy both of them. He’d lied to her, devalued her, given her nothing back. He didn’t seem to care how he made her feel.

  He doesn’t care about you at all.

  Eileen could feel her face tensing. She realised she was sitting in his chair, staring at the curtains opposite with an expression of bitter hatred.

  After the phone call from Hunter, she’d stood there aimlessly for a time, before dialling John’s mobile. It had rung and rung - and then cut dead. Eileen had stared at the handset in disbelief for a second, then tried again. There had just been that undulating beep. He had turned it off.

  He knew.

  After that, she’d spent a few minutes walking purposefully from room to room, switching on all the lights in the house.

  ‘I think you should know,’ Hunter had said, ‘what case your husband is working on.’

  A click of the switch had illuminated each room, but already she’d been moving on to the next. Each room, a slap: we have an emergency here; everyone wake up.

  ‘He’s after the man who killed Andrew Dyson.’

  She’d done her best to keep any surprise out of her voice and fill it instead with indifference: ‘Oh?’

  As she’d gone through the house, bringing it quickly to life, a feeling of panic had been trailing close behind, spurring her on.

  ‘He’s made a huge mistake in keeping quiet about that, and not just with you. He’s been removed from the case.�
��

  ‘Well, I’m sure you’re pleased about that, Detective Hunter.’

  Even keeping moving, she’d found her throat was tight, her breath thin, as though her heart had become a fist which was pushing its way slowly upwards. There was nothing she could do to stop it bursting out, only delay the inevitable.

  ‘He’ll be home with you shortly, anyway. Where he belongs.’

  By the time she had finished illuminating the house - standing there in the bright, cold kitchen, unsure what to do next - the fear had lodged in her windpipe. He’d lied to her. How could he? She had stood in the kitchen, remembering the last words she’d said to Hunter before cutting him off.

  ‘And that’s what you woke me up to tell me? You actually imagine I didn’t know that already? You underestimate John and you underestimate me. Do us all a favour, and stop wasting our time.’

  Had she managed to inject the correct amount of venom and derision into her voice? Probably not. She was sure Hunter could tell how upset and angry she was, so the denial would only have made it worse. But he was insignificant to her: one of those men who, incapable of raising themselves up, were forced to push others down instead and take whatever pleasure they could from that. Deep inside, those men always knew exactly how pathetic they were. So let him have his triumph. Ultimately, it was at John’s expense, anyway, and although her defence of her husband had come instinctively at the time, it had been as much about her as about him. She no longer cared how he might feel.

  He cut you off.

  And right then the panic had hit her. It hadn’t knocked her over and she didn’t fall, but nevertheless it was too much. She’d taken slow, deep breaths, trying to calm herself. And she’d stayed like that, deliberately thinking of nothing, for a long time, until she realised that her fingers were digging hard into her arms, and that she needed to do something.

  So: back upstairs, each step a mountain. All the time, she’d been telling herself: It was a mistake. He didn’t mean to cancel the call, didn’t mean to turn off his mobile.

  He wouldn’t do that to me.

  Back in the study, she’d picked up the phone again.