A Tapping at My Door: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller (The DS Nathan Cody Series) (3 page)

She steps onto the patio, feeling the cold of the flagstones against her bare feet. She holds the brush out in front of her. Thrusts it towards the bird.

Unimpressed, the creature merely angles its head a little more.

‘All right, matey. You asked for it.’

She pulls the brush back. Thinks, Please don’t come at me. Not the hair. Don’t get tangled in my hair. Bats do that, don’t they? They get all tangled in your hair. Please don’t do that.

Another thrust. Right up to the bird. She prepares to drop the brush and start running as the creature bursts into action again.

But it doesn’t come at her. It doesn’t even move away from the windowsill, for that matter.

It doesn’t, because it can’t.

Terri keeps hold of the brush, but lowers it, like a knight might lower his sword. She takes a couple of small, hesitant steps forward as she squints against the fluorescent light pouring through the window.

The bird is not moving freely. It is caught on something. It can’t get its legs free from some kind of thread or wire.

She realises now why it has been acting so strangely. It got tangled up, and now it’s panicking. All it wants to do is be free. It’s not evil at all. It’s frightened. It’s—

The blow is as loud as it is painful. Something hard and heavy ramming into her skull. It seems to echo around her garden.

She lets out a yelp and starts to turn. Sees the dark figure of a man behind her, his hand coming up for a second strike. She starts to raise her own arm in defence, but she’s too late. The object the man is holding – a brick or a stone – collides again with her forehead with a sickening hollow crunch that sends her reeling backwards. She feels her back slam into the wall and hears a screech that might come from her, the man or even the bird. Her head is swimming and the pain is agonising and her eyes are misting over. She knows she can’t allow the blackness to swallow her, she has to get out of this situation, call for help somehow, and so she opens her mouth to cry out, but receives another blow for her effort, this time in the throat. She lashes out blindly, feels her hands connect with something, but also feels him grab hold of her sleeve and pull her towards him, so she uses her feet, kicks low and hard into where his groin should be, and yes, she feels it connect and she hears a grunt of pain and a loosening of his grip. She pulls away and runs to the back gate, because her attacker is preventing her getting back to the house, and she opens her mouth again to scream as loud as she can, please help me, anyone, I don’t care who you are, but please come and help me.

She hears nothing and she doesn’t know why. She is yelling at the top of her voice and yet nothing seems to be happening. It is as if the knocks to her head have deafened her. But then she trips and falls against the garden fence, and she hears the thin, brittle panels rattle and crack against their concrete support posts, and even in her confused state she wonders how it is that she can hear that and not her own voice. So she reaches up a hand to her mouth to check that it’s working as it should be. Only it doesn’t get that far. It doesn’t reach her mouth because it feels the hot, sticky wetness that seems to be all over her neck. And when her fingers investigate further, they discover the reason for her silence. They disappear into the huge hole in her windpipe, and she freezes with the horrific realisation that this man has cut her throat.

And then there is no more time for thinking, because he is on her again. He is pulling her away from the fence and dragging her down to the ground, and she sees a smug smile on his face that tells her he knows he has won and that she cannot summon help and that she cannot fight back. Because she is dying. She knows this. Her wounds are too great, too life-threatening. Her mind is going into shutdown, and she wishes it wouldn’t. She wishes she could hold on to something. A chance. A possibility. But her mind has decided otherwise. It has weighed things up and decided to cut its losses, to put what is left of its energy into closing down its consciousness and detaching itself from a reality that is too appalling to take in any longer.

And if that were the end, it would be a mercy. But there is more to come.

The man straddles her. Takes hold of her chin and turns her head to face him. She sees his face again, and as the blood continues to pour from her throat she wonders with almost serene detachment what might be going on in this man’s mind. She wonders what experiences, what tragedies in his life have led him to this. She wants to know why.

As if in answer, he shows her the knife in his hand. Shows her from a couple of feet away, then brings it closer and closer. Until she knows what he is going to do with it.

She somehow finds it within herself to scream again then. But her pleas never escape her body. They remain locked within, tearing her apart, shredding her from the inside.

On the windowsill, the bird dips its sleek head and watches in rapt silence.

2

All eyes are on him when he enters the room.

There’s a little shuffling. A little unrest. A little trepidation, perhaps. But they all watch and wait. Every one of them.

‘I did it!’ he yells, pumping his fist in the air. ‘I bloody well did it!’

The room erupts. Becomes a maelstrom.

He shines his cheesiest grin at them.

‘I didn’t think I could do it,’ he says. ‘I thought it would be too hard, you know? I wasn’t even sure I’d get over the fence at the back. Not that it was too high or anything. I mean, I could climb it no problem. But I thought I’d back out. I thought I’d end up coming home again with nothing to show for it. But I did it. I actually did it.’

For a moment he can’t say anymore. He is too overcome with the emotion of it all. He stands there with tear-filled eyes and pushes his hands through his hair and listens to the chattering around him.

‘I need a beer,’ he says. ‘Wait there while I get myself a can.’

He hurries off to the kitchen. Reaches out a hand to open the fridge. Sees that it is caked in blood. Her blood.

Suddenly he is dashing over to the sink and being violently and copiously sick.

When his retching is over, he turns the tap on full force and washes the mess away. Squirts some Fairy Liquid onto his hands and washes those too.

He heads back to the fridge. Takes a can of Carlsberg from the shelf, pops it open, then takes half a dozen deep swigs before coming up for air.

When he gets back to the room, he has calmed a little. His hands are less shaky as he raises the can to his lips again.

‘She deserved it,’ he says. ‘Bloody hard head, though. I hit her twice with a brick – twice! – and she still didn’t go down. Had to use the knife in the end. Got a bit messy then . . .’

His thoughts drift off, and it’s a while before he can drag himself back into the present.

‘She knew why, though. I told her before she died. I explained to her exactly why I was doing it.’

With his free hand he points at one of his onlookers, then another, then another. ‘You all know why I’m doing this, don’t you? It’s for you. Every one of you. They’ve got to learn. They’ve got to be taught a lesson.’

Exhaustion hits him then, and he stumbles across to one of the high-backed chairs.

‘I could do with a rest, George, after the night I’ve had.’

George seems to take the hint, and relinquishes his position.

He slumps heavily into the vacated chair. Takes another long slurp. Scans the faces watching him.

‘You’ll all get your turn. Every last one of you. Don’t worry about that. Tonight was just the start.’

He puts a hand out. ‘Well? Is this the best welcome you can give me?’

As if in response, one member of his audience crosses the room and sits on his lap. He strokes her head softly.

‘Thanks, Freda,’ he says. ‘I can always count on you.’

Freda looks up at him. Stares at his face without appreciation, without empathy. Without even a glimmer of comprehension.

Freda is a pigeon.

From every vantage point in the room, almost one hundred pairs of eyes peer similarly at the only human in their midst.

3

And now he’s not so sure this was a good idea.

He didn’t give it a lot of thought at the time the request was made. It seemed like it would be a piece of cake. Not a patch on the stuff he used to get up to.

But now Nathan Cody feels the unease building inside him, the pressure in his chest increasing. It seems uncomfortably warm to him, even though it’s the middle of October and everyone is wearing dark, drab coats to blend in with the dark, drab days.

Play, he tells himself. Play like a bastard to take your mind off it.

So he does. Starts banging away on his guitar like he’s been doing for the past hour. Singing his heart out like it’s his only route to a square meal today.

He’s standing at the bottom end of Bold Street. He’s wearing a ragged, stained coat and greasy denim jeans, and there’s a week’s worth of itchy stubble on his chin. He hasn’t played in public for a long time, but if he says so himself, he’s sounding damn good. People have actually been tossing coins into the battered case yawning open on the pavement in front of him.

‘
Paperback Writer’ is what he’s singing now. Which couldn’t be any more apt given that he’s mere feet away from where Waterstones used to stand. Not that many of his passers-by are making the connection. Bit subtle for most of them at this time of the morning. They’ll know it’s a Beatles song, all right. Cody is trying to maintain a local flavour in his repertoire. Not doing ‘Ferry Cross the Mersey’, though. He hates that song. He can never resist the temptation to slip into an absurdly exaggerated Scouse accent when he attempts it – so much so that he ends up sounding like Harry Enfield doing his ‘Calm down, calm down’ sketch.

It’s nine o’clock on a Tuesday. Most of the people passing are on their way to work, but some are hitting the shops early. He wonders if any of them miss Waterstones as much as he does, or whether to them it was less about the books and more about being just another place to grab an espresso and a pastry to kick-start their day.

The thought saddens him and provokes him to give extra emphasis to the last lines of the song, but they get carried away on the breeze and nobody notices.

He takes a moment to look around. Opposite is the grand old Lyceum building, originally one of the first lending libraries in Europe, and more recently a post office. Now a homeless man sits hunched up on its otherwise deserted steps, his head resting against a stone pillar.

Farther along the street, a dark-complexioned woman stands at the entranceway to Central Station and tries to sell copies of the
Big Issue
. She is short, but probably not as stocky as her many layers of clothing make it appear. Cody suspects she would never win saleswoman of the year with her timid, mumbling technique. He decides that, when his own stint here is over, he will donate to her the money he has been given.

His gaze shifts up the street. Between him and St Luke’s Church at the far end lies an eclectic mix of cafes, coffee houses, art shops and clothing retailers. He has always liked this part of town. He can almost picture a time when the length of Bold Street was employed as a standard measure for ships’ ropes, and the surrounding buildings were being erected to house the rich merchants.

He is well aware that the city has its problems, just like any other. A few minutes of travel in almost any direction from the town centre and its tourist attractions leads to areas of dilapidation, decay and poverty. Toxteth, infamous for the rioting of the eighties, is not far from here. Unlike many other cities, though, Liverpool has long been looked down upon, certainly by politicians and the media, and usually by those who have never visited the place. Its people have often been the subject of cruel stereotype, spectacular prejudice, and ill-considered attempts at humour.

Things are changing, though, and rapidly. Following decades of stagnation, the city is being transformed. Money is pouring in. The docklands and shopping areas have been regenerated and revitalised. Liverpool has always had its history and its architecture and its football and the Beatles. But now there is a Debenhams and a Hilton, too. New restaurants and bars are popping up everywhere. Tourists are flocking here like never before.

And what all this brings to the inhabitants of Liverpool is a growing sense of optimism. Despite all the dirt and decay that may still lie on the outskirts, the people can look towards the shiny-bright heart of their city with pride, and with hope that some of the prosperity will trickle their way. But whether that happens or not, it will never deter them from the mission that seems to be written into their genes to make this the friendliest and most welcoming city in the land.

Cody sees and feels this as he looks around now.

But what he doesn’t see is what he came here for.

He spends a minute deciding what to play next. Opts for ‘Eleanor Rigby’. Gets all the way to the end without making a penny. But then two teenage girls stop in their tracks and smile at him. He smiles back.

‘What was that?’ one of them asks.

‘You don’t know it?’ he says.

‘If I did, I wouldn’t be asking.’

The cheekiness amuses him. ‘It’s by the Beatles. You’ve heard of them, right?’

‘’Course. I’m not thick. My granddad is always going on about them. Says he saw them at the Cavern before they were even famous.’

‘He’s a lucky man. Wish I’d been there.’

‘Do you know anything modern?’

‘Like what?’

She shrugs. ‘I dunno. Something by Beyoncé or Ed Sheeran?’

Cody scratches the stubble on his chin. ‘How about “Single Ladies”?’

Her eyes light up. ‘You can play that?’

‘No. I can do the dance, though, if you want to see that.’

The girls look at each other and giggle. The one who so far hasn’t spoken feels emboldened enough to put a question of her own.

‘Ever thought of auditioning for
X Factor
?’

A presence. Behind the girls. Cody permits his eyes a swift glance, but doesn’t allow them to linger.