The Various Haunts of Men (51 page)

But now she was the one causing trouble. He thought of her lying in the unit, scrawny and pitiful, though he never felt pity.

Freya Graffham had noticed the watch, but how had she come to know about it in the first place? Angela
Randall must have been stupid enough to leave something lying around in her house, a receipt, his name and address. Something had alerted Graffham.

He was tired. His actions and plans were being directed from outside, by events and by other people and he had always been careful not to allow that. It set him on edge. He had not slept well. Seeing the police all over the business park had not helped.

He buttered bread and cut the plastic wrapping from around a pack of smoked mackerel. He thought he knew how to tolerate frustration, thought
he had learned it years ago, but the build-up of tension in his body and mind betrayed him.

He sighed now as he mixed a salad. His hand had been forced again and there was not enough time. He knew what he must do next.

He sat down, swivelled the tuner of the radio until he came upon a programme of music by Philip Glass, and then, to its accompaniment, began to eat and think methodically.

The
cathedral was full. Sitting in the middle of the rows of altos, listening to the mighty waves of sound coming from the orchestra below, Freya Graffham felt exhilarated. Singing had always raised her up to a different level of delight and fulfilment. There was a heady satisfaction in achieving notes and melodies as part of a chorus of others, and the music took on another dimension from the perspective
of the performer in the midst of it. Listening was wholly inferior, a poor also-ran to this. The cathedral acoustics were not easy, and the pianissimo sections had a tendency to vanish like fine coils of candlesmoke up into the roof, but the fact that the building
was so full helped and the crescendos were magnificent. She noticed Cat Deerbon, as the altos stood up, and wondered if Simon was there,
but most of the audience blended back into the shadows.

As always in singing and listening, she quickly forgot everything else, as they all did. The high of the performance carried them on, long after it was over, after they had finally left the cathedral to its hollows and a silence that was somehow still full of music, after the post-performance drinks and sandwiches and mutual congratulations
in St Michael’s Hall. It carried each of them out into the streets, into their cars, laughing and calling, and floated them home.

Freya had walked from home tonight and only parted from half a dozen of the others on the corner of her own street. It was a mild, soft night, full of stars and sweet with the smell of freshly-cut lawns. She was tired but it would be a long time before she slept. She
would have a bath, potter about, watch a late-night film and gradually, contentedly unwind.

She checked her car, as always. It was parked under the lamp a few yards from her own front door. Her name was down for one of the few garages in the Old Town but one was not likely to become vacant for years. The street was quiet, as usual, and she was never particularly worried that her car might be
stolen or vandalised. Feeling safe, in her car and her house, was something she was still unused to, after the years in London.

As she closed the front door and felt the comfortable atmosphere of home settle around her, she wondered if she would ever be able to give this up again, ever want to share her space, her leisure, her waking and sleeping and daily routines even with someone she loved
a great
deal. Would Simon, as comfortably settled in his flat in the close as she was here, ever want to give up such independence?

For now, Freya had what she wanted in her peaceful rooms, filled with happy satisfaction at the music she had helped to make, her head still hearing the voices and instruments that had been all round her. She went into the kitchen, humming quietly.

At first, she
was uncertain if there had been a sound at the front door or not. She stood still. The soft knock came again.

It was twenty minutes to midnight and all the upstairs lights in the houses of her neighbours were out. Then she remembered Simon’s telephone message. She pulled a comb out of her handbag and ran it through her short hair before going quickly, heart in her mouth, to open the door.

Before
she had time to take in what was happening, Aidan Sharpe had stepped quickly inside and shut and locked the door in one movement. He put the key in his pocket.

‘I want to talk to you,’ he said.

Instinctively, Freya turned back into the living room and went rapidly across to the table on which she had left her mobile phone. Usually it was in her bag or the pocket of her jacket but tonight because
of the concert, she had left it behind here.

‘We won’t want to be disturbed.’ He was at her elbow and his gloved hand flashed in front of her to take the handset.

‘Give that back please.’

‘Sit down, Miss Graffham. You’re not in Lafferton station now, nor are you on duty as an officer.’

‘Give –’

From the left pocket of his jacket he pulled a syringe. Freya could see that it was full of a clear
liquid. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry.

‘I said sit down.’

His voice was very soft and held a note of manic calm and sweet reason which she had heard before in dangerous men. She knew very well that for the time being she had to humour him and do as he asked. Aidan Sharpe did not take his eyes from her as he walked across the room and switched off the main light, leaving only the two
lamps. Then he sat in the armchair opposite her and leaned back, the faintest of smiles on his mouth, his eyes staring. Freya began to think rapidly about the way to handle him, speak to him, change his mood, as well as about her means of escape. One door in the room led to the hall, the other to the kitchen and from there a door led to the side passage which ran between her house and the neighbouring
one. At the end of the passage was a wooden door, bolted from the inside.

‘I want to talk to you,’ Aidan Sharpe said again.

‘About Angela Randall? Or Debbie … or perhaps both of them?’

‘Shut up.’

He was a different man from the one who had sat opposite her in the Embassy Room, different and yet recognisably the same, like so many of the psychopaths she had dealt with. She ought to have recognised
the signs but then, subliminally, she knew that indeed she had.

‘Angela Randall was a stupid bitch. A very tiresome stupid bitch.’

‘You said “was” … does –?’

‘I told you to shut up.’

She had to remain rational and calm and not give off the smell of fear, nor betray what she was planning by the slightest flicker.

‘I loathe women, but I loathed that silly bitch more than most. She had no pride,
you see, she lay at my feet like a bitch on heat, she sent me messages full of vile language, fawning and clinging and yielding. Where was the pride in all of that? She sent me cards, she sent me gifts. This …’ He shot his cuff and displayed the watch. ‘Yes, of course, and so many other things. She wasted her money, she probably got herself into debt for it and then there were always the pathetic
notes. She was debasing herself. I despised her. I sold off most of the things. I didn’t want them round me, contaminating me, but I kept the watch. I knew someone who had a watch like it when I was a boy. A relative I used to see. I was fond of him. I haven’t seen a watch like it since.’

Now his voice had changed again, become casual in tone, as if he wanted to lull her, to make this seem like
a chat between friends.

‘It’s typical of her, you know, that she should be the one who alerted you. It’s typical that this should be her fault. None of the others would have done it.’ He fell silent for a moment, sitting with one leg crossed up on the other, hand behind his head, and still staring, staring. Freya calculated how many strides she needed to make to reach the kitchen and the outside
door, how easy it would be to get to the end of the passageway.

‘I like my work, you know, I find it satisfying. I’m good at it. A lot of people have reason to be grateful to me. I’m sure you know that from our friend Dr Deerbon. I sacrificed a lot to qualify. I lived in a room the size of
my present bathroom and scraped by for years in order to get where I am. But it was never going to be enough.
I don’t think I ever thought it would be, not when you consider how near I was to being a doctor. I was unjustly treated, victimised and betrayed. I had everything mapped out and they ruined it all. I discovered I didn’t need them at all. The joke has been mine for years. The study of the human body, the intimate, detailed comparison between one and another. The stages of life and of death.
I have come to know more about it than anyone in the world because I have had the luxury of time and been able to set up my own private place for research.’

He was silent again, this time for several minutes, and absolutely still, looking across the room at her.

The fear Freya felt was different from any she had known before. She had been confronted by angry and violent men, by men with weapons,
by the deranged and the dangerous in difficult situations, and fear, even terror, had been the inevitable response; but it had never been overwhelming, there had always been a corner of herself in which she was not afraid but filled with confidence in her own skills and determination, the adrenaline racing through her, heightening her thinking and helping her to deal with the situation. Now,
she could not find that corner of calm and confidence. Aidan Sharpe was mad in the most dangerous way of all, controlledly, quietly, rationally mad. His violence was not a fired-up, passionate reaction to finding himself at risk. Such a threat was alarming – but easier to deal with. This was a smiling psychopath, deluded and with all the strength and cunning of one who thinks himself omnipotent and
untouchable. Faced
with him holding that small, potentially deadly syringe full of who knew what, sitting in her own chair, late at night in this quiet house without her usual reliable access to help, listening to his monotonous, gloating voice, she understood the paralysis of every hunted and cornered creature.

‘Wouldn’t you like to hear more? I’ve teased you, haven’t I?’

‘If you feel the need
to tell me, please do.’

Aidan Sharpe laughed, almost a natural-sounding laugh. ‘Oh, my dear Freya, how charming! Up pops the well-trained detective sergeant who passed her practical psychology course … “Humour him, win him over by listening to him patiently. He will feel the need to confess so let him. This will lull him into letting his guard drop.” I have no need to confess, I assure you. I
enjoy my work and I will do so for many years to come. Confession is not on the agenda. I know myself, you see. I know my own psychology a good deal better than anyone else ever could. Recently, a young woman in Australia went missing for five years, did you read about that? Her family held a memorial service for her and a young man was charged with her murder. She reappeared quite suddenly. She
had been in hiding quite near her home. So what is to say that these three women won’t reappear too?’

‘But I think you want to tell me the reason why they won’t.’

‘Do I? How concerned are you? How curious are you?’

‘Very.’

‘The knowledge will be of no use to you, of course.’

Freya felt her stomach clench. She thought she might be sick.

‘You understand what I am saying.’

The walls of the
room seemed very near, the air felt as if it was giving out. They might have been in some cellar or underground space where they would only have air for a little longer. Her chest hurt her as she tried to breathe normally. Wait. Remain calm and think, think. You have to get out of here and there are only two exits. He has the front-door key in his pocket so you have to get out through the kitchen.
Let him talk and keep talking. Whatever he claims and however he seems, his own nerves will be strained and his blood pressure will have risen in excitement. He wants to tell you about the women. Let him. Hold his attention and then think, one move at a time. When you do move, move very fast and without warning, move from this sitting position across the room, into the kitchen, out of the door,
up the passage and scream as you go and keep on screaming, scream loudly, scream, ‘Police! Police! Police!’ Never mind if no one is likely to hear, it will throw him. Think. Think. Is the back door bolted? Yes. Is the key in it? Jesus, she couldn’t remember. If it was not, it would be on the shelf which meant another move. Was there time? As you go, look at the door, reach for the key, unlock, unbolt
… no, he will be right behind you trying desperately to stop you and he will have greater strength than normal in his panic and because he has absolutely nothing to lose.

Think, think. If you reach the kitchen door and he is behind you, turn, swing round on him because then you’ll catch him off guard and have the upper hand, you can bring him down. He is not large or very heavy. If necessary,
chop him across the side of the neck and wind him, then knock him out. This is not going to be easy.
He won’t give anything away. You will have to fight.

She sat without moving, looking at him, trying not to think so feverishly that her breathing quickened. He was trained. He would see it. He was watching her as intently as she had ever been watched.

‘Are you going to tell me?’ Freya said.

‘I think I should like a drink. Shall we be companionable and have a drink?’

Don’t make your move while you are getting the bottle and glasses from the cupboard. He is watching, he is expecting you to seize the moment, so don’t.

She set a bottle of whisky down on the low table between them.

‘If you want water, I’ll have to go into the kitchen.’

‘I would like water.’

She hesitated, then got
up. So did he. He followed close behind her and stood watching her take the jug and fill it from the cold tap. She did not glance at the door leading to the passage, merely turned and went back into the living room. She could feel his warmth, smell his smell behind her.

‘Thank you.’ He gestured as she added water to his drink. ‘Please join me.’