A Thousand Small Explosions (32 page)

Ellie wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole. She felt her cheeks glow red, a combination of embarrassment for allowing him into her life without question and anger for trusting him.

              ‘You fell in love with me through your own free will,’ Matthew continued. ‘You can’t blame your DNA for getting you into this mess – you can only blame yourself.’

Ellie took a moment to regulate her shallow breaths.

‘There are several reasons I spent the last twelve months poking around and then immersing myself inside your servers,’ Matthew continued, sinking deeper into his sofa. ‘Humiliating you was one of them. But I also wanted to demonstrate how greedy we are as human beings. How willing we are to give up everything and anyone we hold dear on the suggestion there might be something better around the corner. What you felt for me wasn’t a DNA Match; we weren’t designed for each other, we weren’t written in the stars. It was mind over matter that made you fall in love, not science. It was a good old-fashioned boy-meets-girl relationship, nothing more and nothing less. And once I tell everyone how I fooled the woman who “discovered” Match, you’ll be a laughing stock and your credibility will be ruined.’

Ellie gripped the arms of the sofa as her temper got the better of her. ‘So what now, you’ll go public with it? Go ahead, be my guest, I’ll survive it. In the end, plenty of others have found a true happiness they never thought possible because of me.’

‘But you’re not the only one to have the rug pulled from under your feet, Ells. Half a million of your subscribers are about to have their lives turned upside down too.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Ellie, hesitantly.

‘Did you think I’d just Match you and me? Of course not. I re-wrote your own computer coding so that over the space of the last twelve months, two million people on your database were Matched with someone completely at random.’

Ellie swallowed hard and her heart beat so fast, she thought it might break her chest bone.

‘My Matches are so completely random, I don’t even know who’s been switched,’ Matthew continued. ‘Anyone signed up and Matched in the last year - which by your company’s growth rate is around twenty-five million people – could be one of my randoms. Thanks to me, your business has just become completely worthless. Nobody will know if their Match is for real or if they’ve just talked themselves into it.’

CHAPTER 96

AMANDA

‘Stay in the car until I know what’s happening, all right?’

Amanda’s Police Liaison Officer Lorraine was firm in her demand and didn’t wait for a reply before jumping from the driver’s seat and hurrying towards the front door of the cottage.

Two other police cars and a van were already on the scene, parked on a cobbled driveway along with two ambulances on the road outside. Amanda hunched forward in the rear of the car, barely breathing and craning her neck to see past the headrests and gain a clearer view of what was happening in the house. For the next few minutes, uniformed police officers came and went, speaking into walkie-talkies and mobile phones.

Finally a frustrated Amanda couldn’t wait any longer for Lorraine to return, so she clasped her fingers around the door frame and pulled herself out.

The journey from Northamptonshire to the Lake District had taken three hours and on occasion, the vehicle’s motion made her so uncomfortable that Lorraine was forced to pull onto the hard shoulder so that Amanda could vomit into the grass verge. Her head was spinning with adrenaline and with the number of painkillers floating around her system but nothing was going to prevent her from reaching her destination and being reunited with her child if he were being kept in the house ahead.

It was during her return to Jenny’s house when she was examining the photographs pinned to Richard’s wall that one image jumped out at her. It took her back to a conversation she’d had with Jenny some months earlier, the day she’d taken Amanda to a local hill where she claimed to have scattered her dead son’s ashes. Jenny had recalled how her family had spent many a happy summer in Mount Pleasant, the name given to their Lake District cottage. It was a name Amanda remembered as it was also the name of a television drama she enjoyed watching.

Lorraine immediately contacted the detective leading the case and his team discovered the title deeds to the home had been transferred to Richard’s name some months earlier, hence it not being flagged up during their earlier investigation. An immediate operation was launched, beginning with officers inside an unmarked police car stationed close to Mount Pleasant. When they confirmed a woman matching Emma’s description had entered the home, the rescue plan began in earnest.

Lorraine announced her plan to drive to Cumbria immediately and Amanda insisted on joining her. She’d already spent too much enforced time apart from her son to wait for him to be brought back to her, no matter how physically uncomfortable the journey might be.

‘Where is he?’ shouted a panic-stricken Amanda as she made her way towards the front door from which Lorraine was exiting.

‘Amanda, I need you to stay calm,’ she began and took hold of her arms. ‘Emma has been arrested and taken away from the scene for questioning. However your baby is with Jenny but she’s barricaded herself in the bathroom.’

‘What’s she doing to him in there?’

‘Nothing as far as we can ascertain, but she wants to talk to you before she unlocks the door and gives him to us.’

‘I don’t have anything to say to her, I just want my baby back.’

‘It goes without saying that we want a positive outcome from this, so let’s give it a try. I’ll be by your side so please don’t worry.’

Amanda wiped her eyes with the back of her hands and was led inside the small, thatched cottage, up a narrow carpeted stairway and towards a panelled wooden door. Dusty, framed photographs of Richard and his family hung from the walls, partially hidden by half a dozen police officers crowding the corridor. One held a black metal battering ram, ready to break down the door if necessary.

‘Relax, take deep breaths and talk to Jenny in the same way you used to before all this happened,’ Lorraine began. ‘Nice and calm, okay? Don’t get involved in any arguments or lose your temper with her. Do you understand me?’ Amanda nodded, unsure how she was going keep a lid on her emotions when she’d spent so much of the last month hating her baby’s grandmother.

‘Jenny, I have someone here who wants to talk to you,’ Lorraine spoke to the woman behind the door, and nodded at Amanda.

Amanda paused and took a few breaths before she spoke. ‘Hello Jenny, it’s Amanda.’

She could hear movement - a shuffling sound - in the bathroom and for the very first time, she also heard her baby make a noise, like a delicate whimper. She closed her eyes and wanted to cry because suddenly her son was real and all that separated them was a few feet of wood and plaster. It was all she could do to stop herself from tearing down the door with her bare hands.

‘Is my baby okay Jenny? Can you tell me he’s safe?’

‘He’s fine,’ a voice inside replied. She sounded exhausted, Amanda thought.

‘Jenny, I need to see my son.’

‘I know you do, I just need a little bit longer with him.’

‘You’ve had long enough Jenny, I haven’t seen him at all.’

‘He looks like his daddy don’t you, Son? You have the same eyes and the same colouring.’

‘I can’t wait to meet him.’

‘I’m sorry for what happened on the stairs but I couldn’t let you walk out of my house with him.’

‘It’s okay.’

Amanda looked towards Lorraine for validation that she was saying the right things and Lorraine nodded encouragingly.

‘Why did you take him Jenny? Why did you run away with him? We’ve all been so worried.’

‘I’m sorry, but we had no choice. You weren’t going to let us see him.’

She was right, thought Amanda. Once she’d learned how Jenny and Emma had lied to her about Richard’s death, she wanted to get herself and her baby as far away from them as possible.

‘Of course I would,’ she lied. ‘You’re his grandma. Why would I keep him from someone so important?’

‘I don’t think I believe you, darling, and I wouldn’t have blamed you. But we had to see if it worked…’ Jenny’s voice trailed away.

‘What worked?’

Both the bathroom and the hallway fell silent. ‘Jenny, what do you mean? To see if what worked?’

‘We didn’t want to replace Richard like you think we did…’

‘Then why did you take the baby? I don’t understand.’

‘Emma read studies that claim the children of Matched couples can be powerful enough to bring a parent out of a coma… he was our last hope.’

Amanda looked at Lorraine to see if what she was saying was true, but Lorraine shrugged.

‘But Richard’s not in a coma, he’s in a permanent vegetative state. They’re two very different things.’

‘I know, but don’t you see, we had to try. We took the baby to Richard’s nursing home and we sat with them both for hours but nothing happened. He didn’t move. My boy just didn’t move…’

Amanda thought she heard gentle sobs coming from behind the door.

‘So why didn’t you bring my baby back to me then?’

‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know. We need to rest now, I’m sorry.’

Amanda felt herself growing more and more anxious. ‘Can I have him back now please Jenny?’ When she got no response, she repeated herself. ‘Jenny!’ she said again, raising her voice.

‘I just need to sleep,’ Jenny replied, her voice barely audible. ‘My grandson and I, we need to sleep. When Richard and Emma find out the truth, tell them I’m sorry.’

‘What’s she talking about?’ Amanda asked Lorraine, who turned to look at another detective. ‘Lorraine!’ yelled Amanda. ‘What’s going on?’

Amanda felt someone from behind her pull her backwards by the shoulders before the police officer with the battering ram slammed it against the door handle to break the lock. As three officers charged into the bathroom, Amanda rushed in after them to locate her son.

Slumped on the floor against the side of the bath was Jenny, eyes closed and skin as white a ghost, with her grandchild in her arms and a river of blood covering both of them.

CHAPTER 97

CHRISTOPHER

For a moment, the connection they shared was so powerful, it was like Christopher could read Amy’s mind.

She knelt before him as he sat restrained in a chair inside the home of what should’ve been his final kill. In her tightly-clenched palm she held the key that could unlock the handcuffs keeping his ankles bound tightly together.

When Christopher admitted she was responsible for making him a better person, she believed the sincerity of his words and didn’t doubt that she still loved him despite the evil inside him.

‘The only small mercy I can get from this awful, awful nightmare is that it’s not me who triggered this side to you,’ Amy said, slipping the key in the lock, ‘because when I pieced together the dates of each murder, they started about three weeks before we met.’

Christopher nodded. ‘This…
thing
… in my head, that makes me … well, it has nothing to do with you. Then when we first started dating, I even got a buzz from doing it behind your back; not just my girlfriend’s back, but a police officer’s back. But the more I got to know you, the deeper I fell and the less of a thrill it became. I could feel myself changing the longer we were together.’

Amy stopped turning the key and paused.

‘Then why did you keep killing if you didn’t get a thrill from it anymore?’

‘Sorry?’

‘If I made you a better person why did you need to keep killing?’

‘Because my goal was always to reach thirty people.’

‘So it wasn’t that you felt you
had
to do it any more, but you
chose
to do it? It was a conscious decision and nothing to do with what you are?’

‘I guess so.’

‘And then, what? You were just going to stop?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you hope to get out of it? Recognition? Would you have turned yourself in to the police? Or to me?’

‘No. It was enough knowing that nobody would ever have any idea who I was, why I suddenly started and why I stopped just as suddenly.’

‘And what if you didn’t reach thirty? What if you’d put our relationship first and quit? Then what would’ve happened?’

‘I don’t know. I did think about it but I was scared that I’d grow to resent you for coming between me and what I had planned and that I might…’

‘…kill me too.’

Christopher nodded and the scales fell away from Amy’s eyes. In a moment of clarity, she removed the key from the handcuffs and rose to her feet.

‘There are so many things I want to ask you but I don’t know where to begin and I’m afraid of what I might hear.’

‘Try me.’

‘Were you born this way?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you always been a killer?’

‘No.’

‘Why do you hate women?’

‘I don’t. They’re just easier to overpower than men.’

‘Why did you start killing?’

‘To see if I could get away with it.’

‘Why? You’re an intelligent man - that’s one of the things I love about you. Why not put your efforts into something that helps people?’

‘That’s not how my brain works. I don’t care about people. I only care about you.’

‘Why did you take me for dinner at the restaurant where the young waitress with the pierced nose worked?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You do know, Chris, it was to get some perverse kick from having her serve us knowing that later, you were going to murder her. It was like a cat leaving a mouse at its owner’s feet. You were showing off.’

Christopher averted his gaze from Amy’s like a scolded dog.

‘What does the symbol you leave spray-painted on the pavements outside your victims’ houses mean?’

‘I’m surprised nobody has worked that one out. It’s a Saint Christopher, the patron saint of travellers. He’s carrying Christ, as a boy, on his back, over a river.’

‘And that’s what you think you are? Saint Christopher, leading these girls from life into death?’

‘Kind of, but they’re never really going to remain dead. They are always going to be associated with this case and when you’re remembered, you’re never truly dead.’

‘Don’t kid yourself Chris, they are truly dead.’

‘Can I ask you a question now? Why didn’t you just turn me over to your colleagues when you discovered who I was? That would’ve been the obvious thing to do, not … this.’

Amy switched her neck from side to side and was about to run her fingers through her hair. ‘Don’t do that,’ Christopher barked. ‘If even one follicle falls out, you’ll be leaving your DNA.’ His concern surprised her.

‘We are supposed to be living and working in an age of equality and I have just as many opportunities to climb the promotional ladder as any of my male colleagues. But if I told them what I know about you, then to my friends, my family, to strangers in the street, in books that’ll be written about you and television dramas that’ll feature the two of us, I’ll always be the policewoman whose boyfriend was one of the country’s worst serial killers; the detective whose Match murdered twenty-nine women right under her very nose. As well as ending the lives of those girls and ruining their families, you will have destroyed me, my career and any chance I might find of happiness with another man because the world will know I’m damaged goods.’

Christopher felt something akin to jealousy by her mention of other men. For the first time, he began to imagine how he might feel knowing Amy was with someone else, and he didn’t like it.

‘So let me go and you’ll still have me, albeit a flawed me,’ he reasoned. ‘Untie me and let’s make this work. If I’d have just stopped killing a couple of months ago, you’d have been none the wiser and we’d still be happy. Now you know everything there is to know about me, we have nothing to lose. You think I’ve ruined what we had, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I won’t ruin what we could have from hereon in.’

‘You can’t ask me to do that, Chris,’ Amy replied, her voice trembling. Her face began to screw up like a ball of paper as she fought to hold back the tears, desperately wanting to believe him. She was torn by the love she had for her Match and knowing the right and wrong thing to do. She began to pace around the room again, cautiously sidestepping him.

‘And what happens when your true nature rears its ugly head again? What happens when you need to find that thrill you get from killing again, that project, that buzz, that I can’t give you? I love you so much, but you didn’t love me enough to stop killing when you had the chance. And as much as I want to believe that this won’t happen again, it won’t be love or our shared DNA that keeps us together, it will be my fear that you will strike again and hurt another innocent person.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Christopher replied sharply as she fell out of sight. He was becoming increasingly frustrated that he was losing his battle to convince Amy that as long as they were together, he’d never need to hurt another soul. ‘I love you Amy.’

But before he could continue, the cheese wire he had used on twenty-nine separate occasions wrapped its way around his neck and tightened. He rocked his body back and forth and then sideways in an attempt to free himself but Amy refused to let go of her grip. She felt every muscle in her arms and torso stretch to the point of bursting as she held firm.

As the wire began to penetrate his skin, he suddenly stopped fighting and allowed a feeling of calm to take over his body and mind. He snapped his head backwards and stared Amy in the eyes, watching as the tears fell from her chin onto him and merged into his own until eventually, everything became black.

Six minutes later, Amy released her grip on her Match and she collapsed to the floor, physically and emotionally wrecked, as the lifeless body of Number Thirty sat before her.