Skin and Bones (24 page)

Craig was back in Chilton by three o'clock, still feeling sick to his
stomach. He almost expected to find the police at the Old
Schoolhouse, waiting to arrest him. Their absence gave him no
comfort. If, as he suspected, Sullivan intended to keep this to
himself for his own amusement or gain, the implications were even
worse.

He had only himself to blame for the mess he was in. He should
have guessed Sullivan wouldn't take him at face value. He wondered
if the detective had been playing with him from the start. Perhaps
he'd only given him the report in order to lure him into a trap.

When Julia rang, he still hadn't got his thoughts clear. As he picked
up the phone he decided to say nothing about the meeting. He was
already worried that she didn't fully trust him. The last thing he wanted
was to create more doubt, especially after last night's events had seemed
to bring them closer.

Julia sounded every bit as tired and dispirited as he did. 'We made
a big mistake. We should have gone to the police and told them everything.'

'Why?'

'We forgot that George Matheson knows about our visit to Peggy
Forester. I saw him this morning—'

'You saw Matheson?' Without meaning to, he'd snapped at her.

'Yes. I bumped into him in Chilton.' Julia sounded mystified by
his tone.

'And did you ask him where his friend Vilner was last night?'

'No. I didn't think of that. Actually, he seemed quite upset. Look,
Craig, don't bite my head off. I'm only telling you what happened.'

'Sorry. What were you doing back there so soon?'

She began telling him about an entry in her father's diary which
mentioned Carl Forester, and her decision to go to Chilton to speak
to Alice Jones. Craig's attention drifted, only snapping back when she
said, 'George offered to buy the cottage.'

'What? The cheeky bastard!' He thought of the meeting on
Wednesday, and Julia's hunch that George had also got his hands
on the police report. And today, the way Sullivan kept pressing him
to say if he'd visited Peggy Forester, as though he already knew the
answer. He groaned.

Julia halted mid-flow. 'What?'

'Just had a thought about George's mole in the police.'

'Go on.'

'I'll tell you when I know for sure. What were you saying?'

Julia described her visit to Alice's flat. 'She's in a terrible state,
torturing herself over what happened.'

'She hid upstairs with her kids. Nothing wrong with that.'

A long pause. Craig even wondered if the connection had been
broken. He pressed the phone to his ear and caught Julia's fretful sigh.

'She saw the killer.'

'What?'

'Alice saw him, standing by Carl's body.' She laughed bitterly. 'At
least it means I didn't imagine it.'

'No, it's great news,' said Craig. He couldn't understand why she
sounded so defeated.

'The trouble is, she point-blank refuses to go to the police. She
thinks it's too dangerous to speak out.'

Craig groaned. 'She doesn't have a fraction of your courage.'

'I don't have three children to protect.'

'What about if we just tell the police ourselves?'

'She says she'll deny it, and accuse me of harassing her. We have
to face it, Craig. We're on our own with this.'

'Maybe, but we're making progress, I'm sure of that. Look, can we
meet up and discuss where we go from here?'

She agreed more readily than he expected. 'I'm coming to Chilton
tomorrow, to make a start on clearing out the cottage. Say, ten o'clock
at my parents' place?'

'Great.' Ending the call, Craig reminded her to take care, before
reflecting that he would have done well to follow that advice when
he became involved with Sullivan.

The killer spent a restless evening, thinking about what he had done
and what was still to do. Already he was savouring the moment of
Decipio's unmasking, the moment when the tables would be turned.
Just a day or two away, he hoped.

In the meantime there had been another curt exchange of messages,
and Decipio had warned him of a new threat.

When asked if he'd played a part in Peggy Forester's death, his reply
was carefully noncommittal. He had no intention of supplying any
more of the rope that could hang him. He understood now how naive
and trusting he had been, and he was furious with himself.

It was a severe disappointment that both Craig Walker and Julia
Trent had emerged unscathed on Wednesday night. Worse still, it
didn't seem to have scared them off. Trent was poking around, trying
to cause trouble, and it was scant consolation that so far no one else
seemed remotely convinced by her story.

In his darker moments he was prey to a queasy conviction that his
whole grand scheme was unravelling. That no matter what he did,
no matter how bold or resourceful his actions, some tiny snagging
detail always remained to catch him unawares. Even something as
trivial, as innocuous, as a
fucking diary
.

Julia woke on Friday feeling stronger and more refreshed than she had
for weeks. Perhaps it was just the effect of a full night in her own bed,
or perhaps evidence that she'd recovered from Wednesday's exertions;
whatever the reason, it provided a welcome antidote to an otherwise
bleak predicament.

Yesterday, after returning from her frustrating visit to Alice Jones,
she had occupied herself with mundane chores: shopping, housework,
catching up on her mail, while also taking plenty of rest. Once or
twice she had picked up her father's diary, but couldn't quite bring
herself to read on. In the evening she phoned her brother and some
friends to let them know she was back home. It felt like a significant
announcement: normal life was about to resume.

Nevertheless, she felt some trepidation as she drove to Chilton. It
was difficult not to think about the last time she'd intended to begin
the clear-out, or to dwell on everything that had happened in
the weeks since then. Without fully acknowledging it to herself, she
timed her journey to arrive at ten o'clock so that Craig could accompany
her.

It was another mild day, this time with heavy skies and a fresh wind.
Julia had to park in the village itself, and as she pulled up Craig
emerged from the Old Schoolhouse. He was wearing a thin v-neck
sweater over a white t-shirt. It was the first time she'd seen him without
a jacket, and she couldn't help noticing how broad his shoulders were.
Probably a good job, for it looked like he was carrying the weight of
the world on them.

Their greeting was a little awkward. A moment's hesitation, then
he kissed her cheek. 'Nobody followed you here?'

She shook her head. 'No. I kept checking.'

'Good. Sounds silly, but we really should take these precautions
until the killer is caught.'

Julia nodded, but couldn't help recalling Alice's bitter retort:
How
can they catch him if they don't even know he exists?

As if he'd read her mind, Craig said, 'I can't believe Alice Jones
won't help us. Do you think we could get her husband to persuade
her?'

'I doubt if she'd listen to him any more than she listened to me.'

Craig sighed. 'And what about Matheson? Is he going to dump us
in it over the visit to Peggy Forester?'

'I'm not sure. He seemed to be on a bit of a charm offensive
yesterday, but that might change. What was your theory about his
police contact?'

Craig looked decidedly evasive. 'Still working on it.'

Julia waited a moment, frowning. 'Okay.' They reached the row of
cottages and she found the front-door key. 'Did you get your claim
sorted out?'

'The Golf's being recovered today, allegedly. They won't give me
a courtesy car until they know if it's repairable, so I've hired one.'

Julia put the key in the lock and then froze. 'Did you hear that?'

'What?'

'Sounded like something inside.'

Not
something
, she realised.
Someone
.

The lock jammed for a second. The door swung open just as another,
sharper noise rang out: urgent footsteps clattering on the kitchen floor.
The back door banged open, and as Craig pushed past her, Julia
glimpsed a dark figure fleeing towards the rear fence. The same dark
figure who had hunted her in the dunes on Wednesday night.

Craig ran through the house in pursuit. For a second Julia was
transfixed by terror and confusion. Then she came jolting back to life.
She couldn't let Craig go it alone. This was her fight, too.

By the time she reached the door Craig was attempting to climb
the barbed-wire fence at the bottom of the garden. The fence backed
on to a field of dark soil where some kind of winter crop was just
emerging. The field rose in a gentle incline for about a hundred yards
and the killer was more than halfway up, anonymous in a baseball
cap and black coat.

'Wait here,' Craig shouted.

'No.' She joined him at the fence, slightly breathless but otherwise
okay. No pain. Craig saw the steely determination in her face and said
nothing more. He pressed down on the wire and helped her climb over.

The killer crested the ridge and disappeared from sight. Craig set
off after him, Julia lagging behind almost immediately. He was nearly
at the top when Julia hit a loose clod of earth and felt her ankle give
way. She cried out as she fell, causing Craig to hesitate. He turned
and ran back to her.

'What's happened?'

'Twisted my ankle. I'm all right.' She reached out and let him help
her up.

'You should have stayed at the house,' he said, then flinched at the
ferocity of the look she gave him.

Holding on to his arm, she hobbled the last few yards to the top
of the ridge. From here the field dropped away towards a line of oaks
next to a stream which marked the eastern perimeter of George
Matheson's land. The killer had vanished.

'Bugger!' said Craig. Julia wasn't sure if part of his resentment was
that she had slowed him down.

'If he's in the trees, he could have gone either way. We won't catch
him.'

'Was it the same man you saw in Camber?'

She nodded. Now that the immediate danger was past, the adrenalin
dissipating, she could feel her legs starting to tremble. There was
a peculiar coldness spreading through her body, turning every muscle
to jelly.

'He must have been lying in wait for you,' Craig said.

Julia tried to respond but her throat had closed. She noticed the
clouds had turned black and the sky white, like a photographic negative.
She heard Alice, booming out of the air like the voice of God:
He'll come after you again. And this time he'll kill you.

'What did you say?' Craig asked, but she wasn't aware that she'd
spoken. Perhaps he had heard Alice too.

Then he leapt at her, and in her last moment of consciousness she
understood that Craig must be the second killer. It had all been a
terrible deception.

The killer ran, thinking of 19 January, thinking of the risks he had
taken, but trying not to dwell on his failure. He had been in the
cottage almost an hour. The place was cold and neglected, and
with a bit of luck he might have completed his search without
being disturbed. Instead, the bitch had turned up with Walker
in tow.

He hadn't found anything incriminating, but it was of little consolation.
Once again he'd risked exposure, identification, even capture,
and gained nothing in return. At the back of his mind a shrill voice
warned that the situation was slipping away from him. But he wouldn't
listen to it.

Once he was deep in the trees, he made sure he was no longer
being pursued, then rested for a few minutes. Instead of dwelling on
another wasted effort, he thought about something more inspiring:
the embryonic flames licking at Peggy Forester's body.
That
was the
true measure of his abilities.

He had considered setting the cottage alight, but rejected the
idea. As far as he knew, the police hadn't yet linked the fires at
the hotel and Peggy Forester's, but another one might well attract
suspicion.

His car was about half a mile away, parked in a beauty spot on the
outskirts of Falcombe. When he reached it, he sat inside and spent a
while considering his options. He could return home now. Or while
he was down here, he could force the issue.

Julia regained consciousness just as Craig staggered to a halt, pondering
how to get her over the fence. His breathing was laboured and he was
very flushed.

'I'm okay,' she said. 'You can put me down.'

'Sure?'

'Yes. Before you have a hernia.'

Craig gratefully lowered her to the ground. He kept a hand against
her back, and she gripped his shoulder until she was sure she could
stay upright.

'What happened?' she said.

'You fainted. Just keeled right over.'

That's why you grabbed me
, she thought, with a frisson of guilty
relief. How could she have imagined Craig was the killer? It was a
silly idea, completely illogical, but it persisted in a corner of her mind,
a little warning light that wouldn't be extinguished.

He helped her over the fence and they went back indoors. He
insisted on sitting her down on the kitchen floor and soaked a towel
in water. While she dabbed her face and neck, he went to check the
rest of the house.

He was upstairs when she was gripped by a painful coughing fit
that left her feeling hot and woozy. There was a nasty metallic taste
in her mouth, and when she got up and spat into the sink, the sight
of blood nearly made her pass out again. Hearing Craig's footsteps on
the stairs, she quickly ran the tap and rinsed it away, then pretended
to be washing her hands.

'The only room that looks disturbed is the back bedroom. Paperwork
all over the floor.' He frowned, walked past her and inspected the
door. 'I wonder how he got in?'

'Mum and Dad kept a spare key under the back step.'

'But how would he have known that?'

'Everyone round here does it.'

'I suppose,' he agreed. 'Do we call the police, or not?'

She shrugged. She didn't want him to notice she was still gripping
the sink to stay upright. 'If nothing was taken, we could spend hours
giving statements, and what will it achieve? Even if we tell them everything,
they won't believe us.'

'Yeah,' he said wearily. 'You're probably right.'

Julia thought again of Alice's warning.
He'll come after you again.
And this time he'll kill you
.

'He can't have been lying in wait,' she said. 'How would he have
known I was coming here?' Looking at Craig, a thought popped into
her head. It was mean, and unworthy, but she couldn't stop it.

You knew.

'No,' she said, as if rebuking her own devious imagination. 'He
must have been looking for something.'

'But the house has been empty for weeks,' Craig said. 'Why now?'

'It must be connected to what we're doing. Talking to Peggy Forester,
Matheson, Alice Jones. All this activity, and somehow there must be
a link to this house. To my—'

'What?'

'It's the diaries,' she said, and a little of her spirit seemed to leak
out with the words. 'I told George Matheson about the diaries.'

It was eleven o'clock when the buzzer sounded, announcing a visitor.
George checked the monitor by the door, then pressed the button to
open the gates. Since speaking to his nephew the day before, he'd
given a lot of thought to what approach he should take with Vilner,
or indeed whether to contact him at all. Now that decision was moot.

He opened the front door as the Range Rover drew up. Vilner got
out and stood still for a moment, seemingly oblivious to George's presence
in the doorway. Instead he gazed in the direction of the village,
then turned and swaggered towards the house. There was an intensity
in his face that George hadn't seen before. When they first made
eye contact it was all George could do not to recoil. He was tempted
to slam the door in Vilner's face, or at least call up to Vanessa to alert
her, but saw how feeble he would look.

'I don't recall arranging a meeting,' he said.

'You didn't,' said Vilner, nimbly climbing the steps and brushing
past George. 'It's time we got a few things understood.'