50/50 Killer (35 page)

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.

And again.

Until now, finally, it was broken.

Eileen walked over to the computer and looked at the wall behind it. At the display John had made.

He'd tacked up fifty, maybe sixty, sheets of paper to form a collage of different colours, shapes and sizes. There were printouts from old files, invariably the ones containing the single detail that had finally unlocked the investigation for him. Press clippings and articles. His framed certificates. Pictures of the team.

All of it together formed a snapshot of his state of mind. John used it to focus his ideas and draw inspiration from, but to Eileen, if she blurred her eyes, it gave her an insight into his state of mind. These were the things that occupied him and filled his thoughts.

And where was she in all this? Where did his wife fit in?

The answer was that she didn't, not on the wall. John had kept the two sides of his life separate, and so instead of Eileen becoming lost among his work there were two pictures on the desk by the computer. The first was a reprint of the photograph downstairs, the one from their wedding day. The second picture, beside it, was simply of her and had been taken more recently. I loved you then, he seemed to be saying; time has passed, and I still love you now.

She blinked away tears -
No, don't
- and looked back at the wall.

The newest sheets had been added to the right-hand side of the display. Here she found a small photograph of Andrew Dyson, the man her husband had lost and whose murder had been the tipping point for him. Beside it, John had put up the eulogy he'd been preparing to read at Andrew's funeral, at the moment when everything finally tumbled down.

I fall asleep in the full and certain hope
That my slumber shall not be broken;
And that though I be all-forgetting,
Yet shall I not be all-forgotten,
But continue that life in the thoughts and deeds
Of those I loved.

EPITAPH OF SAMUEL BUTLER

Eileen read it again, concentrating on the last three lines.

I won't be forgotten. I will continue my life in the thoughts and deeds of those I loved.

They were words that John had taken to heart. She had seen the sorrow he still carried with him over what had happened. And his work was so important to him; the tension and frustration his incapacity had caused him over the last two years had been obvious. She'd seen it there while he was recovering, in the listless way he'd moved about the house. Even at the beginning, when she could pretend to herself that he'd never return to work in any capacity, she'd known he was already sensing the bars that had appeared. The barrier between John's nature and his broken ability. And this terrible man beyond them, who had done that to Andrew, and to him.

For the last two years, those bars had cast a shadow of sadness on him, and after a time it was only Eileen's fear that had kept them in place. Because she loved him, she had relented, lifting them and allowing him beyond, on the promise that he didn't wander far. And now, that man in sight once again, he had. Had she been so blind as to not realise that it was inevitable? He was her husband; she knew what he did. Long ago she'd loved him for his dedication, his hard work, his commitment to helping people. To saving them.

Now, after his breakdown, those same characteristics filled her with dread. What if it happened again?

Eileen sat down and closed her eyes.

She should have known it would come down to this. In asking what she had of John, she'd been attempting to stop him being the man she had loved for all those years. He'd tried to be that new person for her, but it was impossible for him, and it was that difference - the discrepancy between what they each needed from him now - that was tearing them apart. At that moment, it seemed impassable. She couldn't bear it.

So Eileen sat for a time in his chair, eyes closed, fingers rubbing slowly back and forth along her lower lip, not knowing what to do. It felt like he was a speck on a dark horizon. She was too frightened to keep watching, but what choice had he left her? He had taken her life along with him, without her consent.

All right, John,
she thought.
If this is what you need ...

She sat there for a while longer, thinking. And then she got up, walked slowly across to the phone, and began to put the pieces back together.

4 DECEMBER

1 HOUR, 30 MINUTES UNTIL DAWN

5.50 A.M.

Mark

Thirty minutes after my interview with Scott, I was back in the locker room, listening to the clank of water in the pipes and looking at a piece of Scott's artwork. Greg had been working at the flat and the evidence he'd gathered there had been added to the file - silently, I noted. He hadn't made any effort to contact us here. By now, he would have known the repercussions of his actions, and he would also have seen what was happening at the woods. I wondered what he was thinking.

The middle laptop showed the onscreen map. Most of the circles were clustered together at the comms van, but a small group of four was on the move, a quarter of the way up the screen.

The updates were painful. For seconds on end the display was static and they went nowhere. Then a flicker, and a slight adjustment to their position. Progress was excruciatingly slow, but at least they were moving in the right direction.

In the meantime I looked at the artwork. It showed a face, painted in shades of green and yellow, reduced down to blocks of colour. If you blurred your eyes, it made sense, but if you looked here and there, the overall image vanished. It was beautifully done, but the context made it ominous. The face appeared to be screaming as it fell apart, dissolving into a kind of soup.

'I've got the week off,' I remembered Scott saying. 'I was doing some things on the computer. Photo-art stuff.'

'You're an artist?'

'No.'>

But the picture was good, I thought. I didn't understand why he was so reticent about acknowledging an obvious talent. The more I looked, however, the more prominent the pain within it seemed. Most of it was my imagination, but still, it was like a howl of anguish.
Help me!

The map flickered again, the circles moving painfully slowly.

We were doing our best in that regard.

After running back to our makeshift office, I'd reopened the window to the comms team at the woods and sent through an urgent request for attention. I was worried I was going to get Hunter. I didn't know what the fuck I was going to say if I did. But it was Mercer who answered.

He still looked exhausted, but a combination of adrenalin and the bite of the early-morning air had brought some life to him.

'Just arrived.' He glanced off camera, frustrated. 'Hunter's not here yet, but everyone's back at the van. He really has put the search on hold. Everyone knows he's in charge, too, but nobody's called me on it yet.'

'Right.'

'Pete's okay, though,' he said. 'That's something.'

'I heard. We've been searching in the wrong area, sir.'

That caught his attention. He stared into the camera. 'Tell me.'

'I just talked to Scott again. On his way out of the woods, he remembers crossing a river, not far from where he was held.'

As soon as I started speaking, Mercer's attention drifted off-screen again. I guessed he was looking at the map. I did the same, and we saw it at the same time.

'There.'

A small area north of the river. It was hard to tell from the minimal details on display, but it looked like it was meant to represent a clearing in the trees with a handful of small buildings. I double-clicked on it to access more information. There wasn't much, but the report suggested that it might have once been part of a small farm, the buildings used to house animals.

When I read that, I knew we'd found Jodie.

'How is he?' Mercer said.

'He's okay, I think. Or he will be if we can reach Jodie in time.'

'We will,' Mercer said. 'Get the information into the system. I need to move on this before Hunter gets here.'