Prologue
The girl heard the key in the door and her mum stopped singing. ‘Clear that up, love, quickly now’ she said, and the girl started to pile her Lego into a box. Her mum laid plates on the table and pushed her hair back from her face. The girl could tell she was nervous, and her tummy started to feel funny.
Her front door slammed behind her father, and the girl knew it was not going to be one of the good nights. Her mum looked at her with scared eyes and jerked her head toward the hallway. She knew it meant ‘run upstairs’ but she didn’t want to leave her. Her father came into the room looking like thunder and swaying into the doorway. She knew that meant he’d been drinking, and she trembled, she knew this was when he was most dangerous.
Her mum tried to smile and said ‘Shall I put the dinner out?’ and with a mumbled ‘yes’, her father slumped at the table. Her mum served the dinner, with shaking hands. All it took was a splash of gravy landing on his trousers, and the girl knew what was going to happen, like it always did. Her father’s roar of rage, the swinging fist, her mother crumpling to the floor and curling up. But this time was worse, her father wouldn’t stop, and she could hear herself whimpering ‘Please daddy, please stop, please…’ but her father carried on kicking and punching.
A white light grew behind her eyes, a pressure building until her head felt too small and something had to give, she just wanted him to stop, he had to stop, stop, ‘STOP! she was screaming, and the knife was in his hand and he plunged it into his stomach, again and again and again, he had to stop, stop and the blood was pouring over his trousers, much worse than the gravy and her father fell over onto the floor and she was screaming and crying, snot running down her face, and her mum looked at her father and at the girl and her mum picked up the knife and then there was a policeman and more police and she was so tired and her head hurt so much… she had to sleep…
1
Helen looked around the staffroom-cum-storeroom, with its tower blocks of paperwork, teetering boxes of donations: clothes, feminine hygiene products and milk formula, and then at her team, squeezed into the space around a small chipped coffee table, all on their third coffee of the morning.
She thought back to when she’d lived here with her husband, Eric, a brutal man. The house, a Georgian, with five floors and many original features, had been beautiful, but had been an unhappy place for her. After an acrimonious divorce, she used what little money was left, to divide its innards into small rooms, to house as many women fleeing from domestic violence, as possible.
The house, on a leafy street in Camden still had good bones, but the peeling paint, weeds slowly breaking the tiled path into a mosaic and a window pane boarded with plywood showed the surrounding gentrification had skipped this address. There’re other things I need to spend money on, she thought, like saving lives. Mrs Barnett next door can tut about the state of the house all she likes, but unless she’s paying for it, it’ll be as it is.
She cleared her throat and said ‘We’re here to talk about yesterday’s situation with Eleri and Robby.’ There was silence as the group remembered the scenes of a man kicking and hammering the door for his wife and son. Eleri had been frantic, and her four year old son, Robby, old had wet himself with fright. Once the police had come and gone, things had settled down. But now, Eleri was having second thoughts.
‘She wants to go back home, to Cardiff.’ Helen said.
There was a groan from Chloe, ‘She can’t!’. The others sat there, looking resigned. Chloe was the newest member of staff and still retained the energetic optimism volunteers started with. Agnes looked at her ‘I’m afraid it happens’ she said. Jean and Audrey nodded in agreement. They’d seen this before.
‘Yes, unfortunately it does. It’s not a straightforward decision, ‘Helen said, ‘and there’s the issue of custody of Robby which is complicating matters.’
‘Urggh’ Chloe said, ‘It makes me so mad, you’ve seen the burns up her arms! Can’t we do something? I could bloody kill him!’
Helen raised her eyebrows. ‘Unfortunately, that is not an option,’ she said wryly. Chloe slumped in her chair and Helen continued, ‘Agnes, can you help Eleri pack? And we’ll see what we can do about a legal contact in Cardiff.’
She made notes, and the discussion turned to general admin, before the meeting broke up, the women dispersing to the chores of the day, but the thought had been planted.
What if? What if killing him was an option?
2
Keith bought a paper and wandered in the direction of the Butty Box. He fancied a bacon sandwich, bugger Dr Cooper, always bleating on about his cholesterol, but he’d made it to retirement, hadn’t he? The day was warm, and he’d thought lovingly of a few pints at the Anvil, watching the game. He couldn’t complain, life was good, although he’d have to start looking for her again soon, and…
…a sharp pain flashed in his skull, enough to stop any thoughts dead in their tracks, but it was over before it started, and he continued walking. Nothing to worry about, just another sign of getting old, joints going, eyesight worse by the day and…
…white pain exploded across his skull, and he gasped, blinded with pain. He stopped, head in hands, waiting for it to pass, but when his sight returned, he saw he hadn’t stopped at all, in fact he had carried on and he’d turned…he’d turned from the direction he was traveling and was stepping off the pavement and he screamed ‘No, NO,’ but he couldn’t make the words come out, and his feet wouldn’t obey him and they carried him into the road…
—
The witnesses in the café reported that the man had seemed to veer into the traffic deliberately. At one point he had been walking normally along the street, nothing remarkable until he had made himself conspicuous by taking a sharp turn into the path of a lorry, travelling at a fair speed down the road.
The driver had no time to brake, as the man, later identified as a Mr Keith Travis, stepped in front of his vehicle; the people in the café heard the loud thud as it connected violently with Mr Travis’s body, sending him up and forwards along the road.
The vehicle, brakes squealing, continued for another hundred feet, running over Mr Travis’ rag doll body, leaving a twisted mound of irregularly angled limbs, and a long, bloodied smear along the tarmac.
Miss Gillan, watching this catastrophe unfold, from her window seat in the café, mouth agape, promptly ejected her breakfast of egg white omelette and a protein berry smoothie over the table, and onto her friend Miss Robinson, causing her to heave and retch in turn, although being made of sterner stuff, she managed to keep her breakfast down.
They watched agog as police and ambulances arrived, cordons were erected, photographs taken, and an ambulance had taken the misshapen Mr Travis and an errant limb away. The visibly shaken lorry driver was seen with a foil blanket and a hot drink, being fussed over by paramedics, as he recounted his story to the police.
Constables Perry and Kai were manning the area, preventing ghoulish spectators from slipping under the cordon to take close ups of the snail trail of blood, when the man arrived. He was dressed in a black suit, as if for a funeral and didn’t smile, even as he handed Perry his card. ‘Investigations’ it read, with ‘Mr. Snow’ underneath it, and a mobile number in the lower right corner. Constable Perry turned it over a few times as if expecting some other nugget of information to appear. He looked up and shrugged,
‘What are you? Journalist? Sorry, but you can’t be here, move along, sir.’
The man held up his mobile phone and pointed to Perry, finally smiling, although it didn’t reach his eyes, Perry noted. Perry’s mobile rang, and he answered it, looking at the man throughout the call. ‘Yes, sir, of course sir, yes sir, yes sir’. The call finished.
‘It seems I’m to give you every assistance, sir’ Perry said, displeased. He didn’t like this man, the smug bastard.
3
‘What have you got?’ the voice was a patrician sounding drawl of extreme boredom, which Snow had never heard raised or panicked, even in the midst of the bomb attacks last year.
‘I think it’s the same MO,’ Snow said thoughtfully. ‘Can’t be sure, of course, but the signs are there. Witnesses report a man walking down the street, not hurrying, no signs of distress, then all of a sudden, take a sharp turn into the path of an oncoming vehicle. CCTV confirms it. He didn’t even look to see if there was traffic; it’s the same as the others. Man walks in front of a vehicle. Not a car, or a bike, but a van or lorry, something large enough to do a thorough job. Dead at the scene. Not just dead actually, but…annihilated.’
There was a silence at the other end, but Snow didn’t speak, he knew Cardew would be digesting this information, slotting it into everything they knew of these ‘accidents’.
Cardew sighed. ‘Get the usual postmortem. Get Matthews to do it, she knows the drill by now. Press silence as usual. National security. Any of them made connections yet?’
‘No, luckily for us, enough pedestrians get killed on the roads for this to pass. For now.’
‘Good’ Cardew rang off and Snow sighed in turn. This case was tricky, if it was a case at all.
4
Snow climbed the stairs of the Department, housed in a sixties concrete eyesore, to his office, deep in thought. He needed to review the cases, and for that he needed coffee and god help him, he’d have to get it from the machine. The stuff was a thick brown brew, repulsive, and gave him indigestion but it did perk him up.
He waved a hand at Pete and Lucas and got to his corner, his little bolt hole, or the ‘Pit’ as Cardew called it, disapproving of the piles of paperwork. ‘Aren’t we supposed to be paperless these days?’ he’d complained. But Snow liked paper, he could think properly with paper. The way it felt in the hands, maybe it was a mind-hand connection, stimulating the nervous system…he pulled himself back. That was another fault he had, thinking too much, on random, unconnected ideas, but Cardew tolerated that foible, said he liked the way Snow thought. It wasn’t like other people’s, logical and linear. Snow thought that might be code for ‘weird’.
What had he got? At first sight, there wasn’t much to go on. People got killed crossing the road every day and walking into oncoming traffic wasn’t strange or unusual. Karl hadn’t been a close colleague, but Snow had known him from around the department and ex-colleague’s deaths were always given the once over – just in case.
The CCTV had shown a blurry Karl walking down a busy London street, looking relaxed in his retirement. Snow had felt a dissonance between Karl’s casual pace, and the abrupt swerve into the road, just as a large lorry had been travelling past. As with Mr Travis, the impact had been unavoidable and fatal.
It was weird, but on its own, didn’t mean much, just a split second bad decision on Karl’s part, no mystery.
Then he thought back to Edinburgh, sitting in the airport bar, a cold beer in hand, relaxing after the job. It had gone well, and he didn’t think that particular group would be making trouble again. The national news gave way to local with a warning about distressing content, before footage of a man walking in front of a van was shown. The moment of impact had been pixelated out for decency’s sake, but he’d seen enough of the man’s behaviour to recognise them as replica of Karl’s. Intrigued, he’d pulled the footage back at the office and had raised it with a sceptical Cardew, who had allowed Snow some limited investigative time.
They’d found two more cases since then, and Mr Travis brought it to five, that he knew of. It wasn’t strictly his bailiwick, but his job encouraged a certain degree of creative thinking and exploration of anomalous patterns in the general population, and this certainly fit.
But what did they have in common? He couldn’t figure it out. Victim profiles yielded no obvious commonalities: The man in Edinburgh was an osteopath, Karl was an ex-Department employee in London, there was an accountant from Northampton, a picture framer from Cardiff and Mr Travis had been a bus driver. They were various ethnicities, white, Asian, and Black. Different economic groups, educational levels and friendship groups. They were all heterosexual, which may or may not be significant. The Edinburgh man was teetotal, whilst the Cardiff picture framer had a history of alcohol abuse. Snow sighed, he didn’t even know if these were targeted victims or just bizarre accidents. But…there were five of them.
He was musing on the chemicals he was ingesting, when he heard Potty’s voice across the office ‘What bastard had nicked my fucking headset?’ Potty – so named for her potty mouth- was balefully watching a sheepish Lucas walk over with her headset, who was apologising profusely. Snow was amazed he’d dared, no one messed with Potty, her tongue lashings were legendary, but she was one of the best analysts they had, with a laser eye for detail and the hunting instinct of an apex predator.
She took the headset, giving Lucas a further basilisk stare for good measure as he slinked back to his desk, feeling a hole being bored into his back.
She was ensconced in her usual spot at a desk with three monitors and a chair designed to accommodate her ample frame. It had levers everywhere, all set to her specifications and an integral cup holder permanently housing a two-litre cola bottle, which she suckled on throughout the day, like a large baby. This month her hair was fire engine red, and she was tapping at a computer with four-inch nails.
‘Oi, Snow me darling, come over ‘ere. I might – and I say might – just have a little something for you’. Snow wandered over, carrying his poisonous brew, and saw Potty had pulled up footage of the accidents on the monitors. He leant to get a closer look. ‘Mmmm,’ Potty said as her nails flew across the keyboard in a rapid tattoo, ‘you smell gorgeous! New? Let me guess,’ she held up a talon before Snow could speak. ‘Its…. Fueguia 1833?’
Snow shook his head ‘I don’t know how you do it – and before you say anything’ he held up his hands in surrender ‘I’m not asking, I’m too scared’. Potty gave a loud cackle. She liked Snow – a lot. He was the quiet sort, but not in a weedy, nervous way, more like the strong silent type. She sighed inwardly, she could dream.
‘What have you got?’ He could see she was playing Karl’s accident, but from different CCTV cameras.
Potty wriggled with satisfaction, she lived for these moments, when she picked up the scent and was on the hunt.
‘I was looking through the footage again, but this time from other cameras which don’t show the best angles for the accidents, or were on surrounding streets, so, they been mostly ignored up to now, for obvious reasons but….’ She paused for dramatic effect, and Snow, recognising his cue, said, ‘And?’
‘And I think we might have something.’ She moved her cursor across the screen. ‘It’s not the clearest, I’ve asked Tech to clean it up, if they ever get round to it, but I think this woman …. here,’ she highlighted a woman wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, ‘is the same as this one …here’, clicking on another image on the Edinburgh footage, of a woman in a lighter coloured t-shirt and jeans.
‘What makes you so sure…?’
‘Look,’ said Potty with emphasis. ‘Watch how she is looking.’ She pointed again at the screen.
It took Snow a moment to get it. The face was blurred, and the woman was standing off to the side of the action, but the most remarkable thing was the way she was staring intently at the men in question. That wasn’t unusual in fatal accidents, ones that were this grisly, but what was unusual, was her intent stares were before the accidents happened, before the men suddenly veered off the pavement.
‘What about the other…’ Snow started, but Potty was ahead of him, pulling up the other accident footage, and there she was, watching the men, with a concentrated gaze, her head turning to track them as they walked into the oncoming traffic.
‘Play it on’ Snow said curtly, and Potty let the footage run, camera angles still on the woman whilst the accidents happened off camera. Snow watched the woman, a calm oasis amongst running, shocked people. A few moments after the accident, she turned and walked unhurriedly away.
Snow looked at Potty. ‘Did I ever tell you; you are a bloody genius?’
‘Not enough, darling, not nearly enough’ she laughed.
‘Get everyone in Tech on it, tell them its level one and…send me that footage.’ Snow yelled over his shoulder, as he ran back to his desk.
His instincts had been right. He didn’t know what the mystery woman was doing, but there was nothing accidental about these events.
—
‘Tech weren’t as much help as you’d have thought’ Potty said, ‘I mean, look, its slightly clearer, but…’
Snow leant over the photos. Potty was right, the figure was clearer but not enough for an ID. He sighed and threw them onto her desk. ‘Christ, I need a coffee. Want one?’
Yeah, why not, me mouths like a budgie’s arsehole’
Snow raised his brows. ‘Is that actually a saying?’
‘Well, I’m saying it,’ Potty shrugged.
He brought back the caffeinated sludge, and they sat thinking for a while, before Potty said,
‘I’ll carry on looking – you know, CCTV from around the area, further afield. Might get a better image.’ Potty sighed, ‘Mind you, I can’t find it in meself to feel sorry for the old wanker’.
‘Who?’
‘Karl- wanker’
Snow was confused. ‘Was he? Why?’
Potty looked at him incredulously. ‘You know. With his wife and that. Common knowledge.’
‘What about his wife?’
‘He used to smack her around.’
‘What?!’ Snow put down his coffee. ‘I never heard that. How do you know?’
‘Louise. She’s friends with Maria. Of course, it was hard for Maria ‘cos she felt he had influence in the police, and no one would listen to her. She upped and left, and Karl was furious. Remember when he went on that bender? Just before he retired. I reckon she legged it cos she couldn’t live with the thought of him being round the house all day. What? What is it?’
Snow had gone still, looking into space. He’d had a thought…hadn’t one of them recently separated?
He thought for a moment. ‘Can you check around and see If the others have any sign of DV in their history? Might need to request evidence of police cautions, NHO’s and talk to local police if nothing on record and…’
Potty held up her hand ‘I get it. I’m not your bloody grandmother’.
Snow looked confused.
‘Don’t teach me to suck eggs. Now piss off and let me work.’
5
She staggered inside her flat, pushing the door shut behind her. Her head was splitting in two and she had the aura that always presaged a migraine. She always got these after her best work. He had been a difficult one, resistant, but she’d done it. She managed to get a glass of water and swallow two Sumatriptan before staggering upstairs to her bedroom where she flopped into bed fully clothed and, groaning with relief, let her head sink into the pillow.
6
‘I don’t know that I can help you, Detective Snow. We are very serious about confidentiality here as you can imagine.’
Snow nodded putting his chosen ID card back in his wallet. ‘I’m not interested in causing you any trouble. But there are questions that need to be answered. Were you aware that the husbands and partners of women here have met their deaths in the same way?’
Once Potty had found that all the men had wives or partners that had reported DV at some stage, and then fled, it hadn’t taken long to track them to this address. They had access to records others didn’t, after all, including the usual trawl of CCTV, tracking bank cards and telephone records. He owed Potty a pint.
Helen paused ‘Well, yes, I suppose so. We discussed it at our admin meeting, it was strange, three of the women’s partners dying. But accidents happen, especially the way the roads are these days. It’s just a coincidence. What else could it be?’
Snow looked at her steadily. ‘I think three as a coincidence is pushing it far enough. But it’s five.’
Helen looked stunned. ‘Five? What do you mean?’
He pretended to look through his notebook and said ‘Eleri William’s husband, Brian. Maria’s husband Karl. Lavinia’s husband Mark, Mandy’s husband Pete and most recently, Sammy’s partner, Keith. Even allowing for the parlous state of our roads, the fact that five of your clients have dead partners all within the same year, and all in RTA’s is stretching it.’
Helen murmured ‘Eleri – she went back, I didn’t know that…’ she tailed off. She was lost in thought for a moment before asking, ‘I don’t understand. These women are traumatised when they arrive. They’ve left everything, their whole lives, behind. Are you saying you suspect one of the women here to have…have…what? Been involved?’
‘Not at all’ he said, soothingly, thinking yes, quite possibly. I’m not sure how, but someone is making this happen.
‘I’ll start with your staff members, thank you’.
7
Snow sauntered down the road, passing the row of shop fronts, a newsagent, a Chinese takeaway and a charity shop. Her flat was above the Chinese, which must be tough, however much you liked the food.
Helen had been reluctant, but she’d agreed to staff members answering questions and he’d quickly established that Jean, Chloe and Agnes, and Helen herself weren’t a physical match for the woman in the CCTV. That left Audrey who had her day off, but he’d extracted the address.
Potty had supplied the details, Audrey Trenchard, a couple of years younger than him at 35 years old, 5ft 6in, brunette, average weight, average appearance, no distinguishing marks. Could work for us, he thought, ironically, we like bland, unremarkable people who blend into the background and are instantly forgotten.
He mentally reviewed her record. Parents Gareth and Margaret Trenchard. Father, killed by her mother when she was six years old, mother went down for ten years. Audrey went to a care home in Bletchley, average at school, a stint in the local college, then a series of casual jobs, zero hours contracts and now working for a women’s refuge. She’d witnessed her mother killing the father, which must have had a huge impact. There was a small note, ‘counselling’, but no details and seemed to have been a few sessions at most.
She was quiet, no hobbies, no real friends, no record. He was probably wrong about her and even if she was the woman from the CCTV, what had she done? She’d just watched accidents happen.
‘You’ve got good instincts, sound her out. We’re not sure what she’s doing, IF she’s doing anything’ Cardew had said.
There was just the photograph that showed a woman, who was pretty much an exact match for the CCTV footage and his instincts that said Audrey was responsible. He didn’t know how, but he felt it in his marrow, and he was rarely wrong. It was a talent nurtured by the Department, something that could be honed, but only if it was there already, like a sixth sense, ‘Like a bloody magician,’ Cardew had said, who made full use of Snow’s talents.
He walked up the narrow stairs to her door and knocked.
—
‘Well?’ Potty demanded as he walked into the office, throwing his coat onto his chair. He’d bought a Costa’s, he just couldn’t face another lottery of death from the machine.
‘Well, what?’ he said. God, he was tired, he couldn’t remember feeling this tired for a long time, he flopped into his chair.
‘’Well, what?’ he says,’ Potty’s voice dripped with sarcasm. ‘How did you get on with Audrey-bloody-Trenchard?’
‘That’s a bust. We’ll have to go back over the records and try again’. Snow riffled through the paperwork on his desk. ‘There was a report somewhere here…’
‘No bloody way,’ Potty said, her arms folded. ‘She’s a dead ringer. You can see that! What did she say? Where was she when these ‘accidents’ were happening, then?’
Snow shrugged. Potty looked exasperated ‘OK, well what about the Travis one? She’s clearest on that one and it was only two weeks ago. So…where was she?’
Snow tried to answer. And couldn’t. What was it she had said? It had seemed so clear at the time, and he’d been completely convinced of her innocence, leaving her flat, despondent at the thought of starting the investigation again, but firm in the belief that she wasn’t involved.
Potty was still watching him, questioning. ‘Whassup? Cat gotcha tongue?’
Snow said slowly ‘I can’t remember.’
Potty rolled her eyes, ‘Don’t you bloody start, it’s bad enough with my mum, she can’t remember what she’s told me, two minutes after, and we’re having the same bloody conversation on repeat, it’s doin’ me nut. But she’s 76, what’s your poxy excuse?’
Snow shook his head to clear it. ‘Wait. This doesn’t make sense. I can remember going to the Home. Getting her address, phoning you, getting your file. I remember the Chinese. Her flat. Walking up the stairs, knocking on the door… then I can’t remember any …details. There’s nothing after that. Except – I remember. I mean, I know, its not her.’
‘And how do you know that?’ Potty asked.
Snow looked up at her. ‘Now, that is an excellent question’.
He dialled Cardew. ‘I think we have a bigger problem than we thought.’
8
She threw clothes into a suitcase and ran round the flat grabbing the few things she’d need. She knew the persuasion wouldn’t hold him for long, how had she been so stupid? She berated herself as she hunted for her driver’s licence. What was I thinking? Why didn’t I think this through properly? The women are all from such different places, I never thought…but of course, it was only a matter of time before a connection was made. The ones still at the Home, had talked about it -their other halves all dying! Three of them, all their partners dying in the same way! What a bloody moron.
But then she remembered Eleri’s husband, Brian, in Cardiff. She couldn’t let Eleri go back home to that life, not with Robby, such a sweet shy boy, gentle. He wouldn’t survive life with a drunkard that beat his mother up every other week.
She knew that life. She imagined Robby, being thrown around, punched, and kicked. Like her, her mind whispered, old memories always ready to come up to play, and she thrust them down.
No, she might not have been careful enough, but she was still proud for helping Eleri and Robby, no matter what. They were the first ones she helped.
9
Eleri had talked of home enough that it was easy to find Brian’s local. She took leave and travelled down to Cardiff. She was anxious, but committed – it felt right, this was justice. This was what her gift was for, a cull. That’s what you did with animals that were weak or spreading disease and these men were diseased, the violence rippling outwards to infect anyone they came into contact with. She was performing a public service.
It was easy to get him to invite her back to his place, which had strengthened her resolve. She’d felt relatively safe; if he tried anything, she’d ‘persuade’ him otherwise until she could get away.
Once inside, he’d offered her a drink and she’d agreed, she wanted him relaxed and off guard.
‘Can I use your bathroom?’ She wandered upstairs. There was a mirrored cupboard above the sink, and she pulled out ibuprofen, paracetamol, some ancient co-codamol and a tube of voltarol gel. That would do, she hoped, carrying them downstairs.
‘Here’s you drin…What the hell?’ Brian said, watching her dump them on the coffee table. She took her drink from him and knocked it back. Now the moment was here, she was so nervous and sweating so much the glass became slippery and she had to put it down. Dizzy, she sat on the couch, and tried to calm herself; her heart was going so fast she thought she was having a heart attack.
‘You alright, love’ he asked, ‘You must have the headache from hell’ he laughed and sat beside her, swigging his beer, his arm draped casually over the back of the couch. His fingers grazed her shoulder and she flinched. ‘Oh, come on’ he said ‘Don’t be shy’ and moved closer, his beery breath wafting over her as he moved in for a kiss. She pulled away, and then in her mind she…pushed…
…Take the pills, pick them up and take them, swallow them, wash then down with the beer. Pick them up…
She watched as, his mouth slack, his hand picked up the nearest pack of paracetamol. He fumbled with the packet until he had a few in his palm, his brow creased, maybe with pain, she didn’t care, as long as he…
…swallow the pills, go on, just put them in your mouth and swallow them…
…but something wasn’t right, he wasn’t doing what she said, and she felt conflict inside him, a deep opposition to doing this. She pushed harder, to compel him, and feeling a real headache starting as she persisted against this obstruction in his mind.
Brian sat motionless whilst the battle raged inside, the pills in his palm, his eyes watering and red with strain, but she just couldn’t make him do what she wanted, it was as if she’d encountered a barrier she couldn’t penetrate. She gathered the last of her strength, and striving to break through, pressed again, watching as Brian begin to shake, sweat rolling down his face, creating a wet collar on his t shirt, as foam bubbled from his mouth, his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out.
Her own head was cleaved in two with pain, a physical axe of agony. She rummaged in her handbag for the Sumatriptan, and then took some of the pills from his slackened hand and swallowed them, oblivious to the irony, as she staggered outside. The fresh air was a solace, but not enough as she wended her way, half blinded, to the end of the street.
When she woke, she had missed breakfast, and the housekeeper was knocking the door to make up the room. The night came back in flashes; dialling a taxi, a reluctant driver, no she promised she wouldn’t throw up. The bed, her sanctuary, riding large rollers of familiar pain, the briefest respite, before the next wave crushed her, until sometime in the early morning, sleep rescued her.
She lay in the bed and thought back to the night before. She hadn’t done it. That was the essential point. She had had the perfect opportunity, but she hadn’t been able to make him do it. He’d been too strong, or no…it was something else. A blockage, immovable, planted in the bedrock of his psyche, a primitive self-preservation. And what about me? Could she really do this? When push came to shove, she had felt sick. It was one thing to think of culling from the comfort of a train, and another when face to face with him.
She threw a pillow across the room in frustration. Breakfast first, then a plan.
She made her way back to his house, her ‘plan’ consisting of hoping he wouldn’t remember much, coupled with putting it down to too much drink, and hoping he’d be up for another meeting. Not much of a plan, but the best she could think of. She’d thought again of Eleri and Robby, his small face, lighting up when he gave her his painting of a flower. It was a big splodge of yellow paint and a purple stem, but she loved it. She thought again of Brian and his beefy arms crushing Robby and the cigarette burns along Eleri’s arms. She had to do this. Someone had to break the cycle. This had to happen.
As she neared Brian’s street, she saw him crossing a road and decided to follow him, walking in tandem down the main road, her following from a safe distance. She’d heard the lorry coming and with a flash of memory, thought of her father and the power and urgency of her thoughts at that moment, crashing into a mind unprepared for invasion, which had easily overwhelmed him. It could work. She gathered her anger and hatred into a hard ball of light and blasted into Brian’s awareness, steering him into the lorry’s path, no resistance this time, no chance of objective thought. He was dead almost before he was aware of it.
Flushed with success, sick with another looming migraine, she’d staggered from the scene, barely making it back to her Premier Inn room. She read about the accident in the local rag the next day, and felt, jubilant and powerful. She had done it – saved Eleri and Robby from a lifetime of abuse.
She was so excited for Eleri, she had wanted to tell her, to show her that someone was on her side, even if the law wasn’t, or demanded proof she couldn’t give. But by the time she made it back to London, she’d calmed down and realised she had to keep her secret. If this got out…she shuddered. No, it was best she kept quiet, like a little brown mouse. She’d lived under the radar all her life so far, and she wasn’t going to change that.
—
But now this man, detective, whatever he was, had turned up on her doorstep. She’d opened the door to a man, in a black suit, a few inches taller than her, with the same dark brown hair. His eyes looked were sombre, but there were laughter lines suggesting that he had a sense of humour, somewhere. It wasn’t in evidence now, as he started asking her questions about the accidents, what had she been doing there, did she know these men?
She felt the panic rising, her thoughts scrambling around her head like panicked animals. She’d been able to use her adrenalin to persuade him away, that she wasn’t of interest, and that he’d had answers to his questions that had satisfied him.
She’d seen his eyes become glazed and he’d turned and left.
Now she had to go, run. She swallowed Sumatriptan (why hadn’t she bought shares?) to fend off the migraine she could feel building behind her eyeballs.
Where? Where could she go? Her heart was racing. She knew she could be tracked by cards, so she’d use cash. Luckily, she’d taken some out for the grocery shop so she could use that and get more at the corner shop ATM. After that…. where? Where would she be invisible? She thought about living homeless for a while. She’d had a few weeks on the streets when she’d run away from the care home, distraught that her mum was in prison for what she did, desperate to see her. A memory rose up from the depths
…her mum shaking her head as Audrey tried to explain what she’d done, ‘it was me, leave her alone’. Her mum taking the blame. Crying as her mum was taken. Later, when she was older, social workers explaining her mum did a ‘bad thing’, no one listening that she had made her dad do it to himself. Her mums fingerprints on the knife incontrovertible proof.
She tamped that memory down, she had to be careful, the memories were resurfacing more often now.
Where? Where? She could lose herself in the city, or hitchhike down to Brighton. No cards, no trains, no trail.
She picked up her suitcase, checked her handbag for money and walked to the door, when it burst open, the window shattered behind her and men armed with guns piled into the room, lights and shouting all at once. She tried to think to work out what to do, but she was shot, and her world collapsed.
10
Audrey woke up by degrees, groggy and disorientated, struggling to remember what she had to do. It was urgent, she had to go somewhere.
She was lying on a bed, in a white cube of a room. She was in hospital, then, had she had an accident? She tried to sit up, but her arms wouldn’t move, and she saw the restraints, holding her to the bed. Not a hospital. A prison. Panic started in her belly as the door opened and a man in white scrubs came in, clipboard in hand and started jotting notes from the monitors beeping beside the bed. ‘Where am I?’ Audrey said, but the man was silent, ignoring her. ‘Hello? I’m speaking to you! Where am I?’
Five floors above, Cardew and Snow watched a monitor. Snow pointed and said, ‘This is what I wanted you to see.’
In the room, they watched the man continue for a little while, then stop as if frozen, before dropping the clipboard and start undoing the straps holding Audrey’s arms down. Before he managed to free her, the watch team situated outside the room sounded the alarm and a remote anaesthetic was administered. Within seconds, Audrey slumped unconscious, and the man stood up, confused and horrified by what he had been doing.
‘That’s incredible,’ Cardew breathed. ‘And you think she’s telling him to do that? Inside his head?’
Snow nodded. ‘I think so, although its conjecture at this point. I’ve experienced her methods first hand and its an odd sensation. Probably similar to being spiked –memories don’t get laid down. Either way, I’m missing a chunk of memory and yet, I know I met her, talked to her, because she implanted the suggestion that she wasn’t of interest’.
‘This is the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. And needless to say, of critical national importance.’
Snow inclined his head in acknowledgement.
‘Get onto Porton Down. If memory serves, there’s was a fellow there working on something related to this.’
‘Yes, a Dr. Lif and he’s on his way. He’s very excited.’ He paused, then said ‘Of course, there is precedent, from our American cousins. The CIA were looking at psychoenergetics in…,’
‘Yes, yes, Project Stargate amongst others. Although they shut it down in the nineties.’ Cardew thought. ‘We’ll have to move her to a more secure location but let Dr Lif see her first. We need brain scans, MRI, CT, the lot’
‘Already arranged, sir’
‘Good and get an ops team here. I don’t want to take any chances. She’s ours and we can’t afford for her to fall into the wrong hands – friends or foe.’
11
Dr Lif approached the bed, watching the sleeping woman breathing. He’d watched the earlier footage and was eager to meet her when she woke.
What a gift, after all these years. He’d worked in psychic research all his life and endured the eye rolling, sarcastic comments, and the name calling, ‘Watch out here comes Uri Geller’. He’d watched his old university pals avoid his eye at conferences, whilst they delivered Keynote presentations on groundbreaking neurological research.
But, this woman here, was living proof. She would be his resurrection, his acceptance back into the fold. He thought of Bowen, Scrivens and Astley and imagined their faces when he presented actual proof of psychic energy. How they’d have to fawn, come to him like craven dogs on their bellies. This could mean a Nobel Prize! He would be famous. He would be gracefully magnanimous, of course, but he would hold them at arm’s length, with a faint smile. They had to be punished for their lack of faith.
Wait. He was getting ahead of himself. Of course, this was secret. Beyond secret. In fact, that man upstairs, he was sure he hadn’t said his name, and Snow, had both been quite rude. He knew what the Official Secrets Act was for goodness sake, he’d worked for the government at Porton Down. There was no need to be quite so forceful about it. Really, they’d been almost threatening. He smoothed his hair down, conscious that he was being recorded.
He thought about the tests he could run. Everything about this woman would now be recorded, studied and pored over; her vital signs, urine, faeces, sweat, blood work, DNA analysis, brain scans. Although the latter he noted with dissatisfaction had been performed whilst she was unconscious. That would change now he was here.
‘Wake up, wake up’ he urged. He was impatient to meet his Muse.
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