Beautiful Losers: A Novel of Suspense (33 page)

eighty-five

The journey back was
fraught. In spite of the halogen driving lights, I was unaccustomed to travelling in the dark on the Triumph, and found myself constantly misjudging distances. On the outskirts of Exeter, the low-fuel light shone and I worried that it could have been on for some time. To try and conserve what petrol I had, I decreased speed and rode in the slow lane. It felt as if I'd painted a bull's eye on my back. I fully expected the traffic police to rock up and signal for me to pull over.

By the time I reached Cormorants Reach, it was well past two in the morning. Every muscle and sinew hurt. My eyes were practically bleeding with strain. As the tyres crunched across the gravelled drive, I experienced a profound sense of dread. Was someone lurking inside, armed for my return?

Impossibly wired, it took me a long time before I dropped off to sleep. Some time later, loud rapping at the front door roused me from unconsciousness. I shrugged off the duvet, dragged on a robe, and sleep walked to the open window. Pushing back the curtain, a shaft of bright sunlight prised open my eyelids. My bleary, stumbling gaze focused on Fiona North, who was looking straight up at me.

“Sorry, were you asleep?”

I mumbled a reply to the effect that I was exhausted. Her secret smile inferred that she was pleased—meant that I was in no fit state to argue.

“Your passport,” she said. “I should have collected it yesterday.”

“I'll be right down.”

“No hurry.”

I took her at her word and took a detour. After having a pee, I splashed water over my face and went downstairs to let her in.

“What time is it?” My mouth was furred with fatigue.

“Lunchtime.” She glanced at her watch. “Ten minutes past one, to be precise.”

I'd slept for almost nine hours straight and had to check myself from saying so.

“Are you all right? You look a bit peaky.”

“Tired,” I burbled. I asked Fiona to hang on while I fished out my passport from a drawer in my desk, probably not the best place to keep it, I now realised.

Handing it to her, I said, “That it? No more interviews?” I guess I sounded facetious because her responding look was cool and professional.

“Not today.” Which meant tomorrow.

“I've been thinking,” I said, wrapping my dressing gown tightly around me. “Perhaps he's done it before. Perhaps there are other victims.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Chris's murder infers a different type of offender.”

“Go on,” she said, her blue eyes locked on mine.

“Someone who has gradually worked his or her way up the criminal ladder, someone who might have started out with harassment or stealing, or …”

“Are you suggesting the alleged individual is a serial offender?”

“It's possible, isn't it?”

Fiona looked sceptical.

“Chris's murder is almost incidental. It's not the point of it all, don't you see?”

From the look on her face, she clearly didn't.

“Gaynor Lassiter had a birthmark on her face,” I burst out.

Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know?”

“Alexa Gray told me,” I lied.

“All right,” she said slowly. “You're saying that there is a tenuous connection to you.”

“It's not tenuous,” I said, appealing to her. “The stalker and murderer is driven and turned on by disfigurement. That's his bag. It's what grabs his attention.” Other than that, I had little idea about the exact psychopathology behind the symbolism.

“Ridiculous speculation.”

I shook my head in an agony of frustration. “What if there were other victims?”

“What others?” She looked genuinely take aback.

I reeled off the list. Fiona looked at me as if I'd announced I was about to
self-immolate
.

“Where on earth did you find this out?”

I swallowed. “I contacted a journalist whose been working on the Lassiter case. He—” I stopped. Fiona's expression said it all. Journalist equals trial by media equals rubbish.

Wildly out of character, I grabbed the sleeve of her shirt. “Will you pass on what I've told you?”

She patted my hand and framed her mouth into a smile. “Of course I will. Shall I make you a nice cup of tea? You could take it up to bed.”

Lost, I smiled back, obedient. “That would be lovely—thanks.”

I let Fiona faff about. I promised to rest. When she offered to stay I said, “I'll only be asleep, no point.” I had to send her away. I couldn't flush the perpetrator out unless I was alone. Cranky to an outsider—I was putting my life at risk—but without taking it to the limit, the game would never be over, never won.

As soon as she'd gone I showered and dressed and carefully put on my makeup. My mind was electric, consumed by the thought of the other women—what they had endured, the depths of their despair, the twisted way in which the stalker, abductor, and now murderer was turned on by our physical imperfection. Next, I thought about me.
Nice heap of metal
, Simon had remarked.
You're sailing pretty close to the wind
, Charlie had accused.
You shimmer with sadness,
Stannard had said. His perspicacity had amazed me. Was my stalker also turned on by my fragility, the sense that for all the show I had not quite transcended the consequences of an unfortunate accident?

Then it clicked.

Purposeful, I picked up the phone and called Carolla Dennison's close friend, Jo Sharpe. There was something I needed to ask her.

eighty-six

Andy arrived sooner than
planned.

“No Jen?” I squinted over his shoulder.

“She got as far as my place then threw up on the sofa.”

“About time you had a new one.”

“
Ha-bloody
-ha!”

“Poor woman—what was it, something she'd eaten?”

“She muttered about a dodgy prawn sandwich at lunchtime.”

“Not nice.”

Wearing a cream linen shirt and
stone-washed
jeans, he looked smart and clean and composed.

He chucked his jacket, a lightweight sailing affair in navy blue, onto a chair and handed me a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates,
oblong-shaped
and
gift-wrapped
in a harlequin design. “Don't open them now,” he said. “They're for later.”

I thanked him. “I thought we'd have a drink on the terrace. I haven't started cooking yet.” I took hold of the corkscrew. “Wine or lager?”

“Wine first.”

I popped a cork and poured out.

“I feel guilty,” he said.

“Why?”

“Here we are about to share a lovely meal and Chris is dead.”

“Survivor guilt,” I said. “Best cure is to make this a celebration of his life.”

“I'll drink to that,” Andy said. “To Chris.” We chinked glasses.

“Are you hungry?” I asked him.

“Not especially.”

“Good. We'll drink then. I can cook later—I promise not to get drunk,” I added with a knowing smile that made him laugh.

We went outside. I was glad of the fresh air. Andy sat down and spread his feet apart. I sank into the nearest chair. I hadn't had time to properly take on board what Jo had said. Something that had appeared impossible for thirty different reasons was now credible. I gazed across the water, listened to the sound of birdsong.

“You look preoccupied.”

I twitched a smile. “I've been thinking a lot about when I was growing up, places I visited, people I knew, family,” I said. “I guess that's what happens when someone dies. You start looking at your life in a different way. You see the constant themes, the things you should have changed but never quite got around to, what you should have said or, more often, kept quiet about. Sorry,” I said, “I'm dribbling on.”

“No, you're all right. You said you wanted to talk.”

“Yes, I did.”

“About?”

My pulse rate stammered. I fell momentarily silent.

“Kim?” he prompted.

“About you.”

“Me?” He tossed his head back and laughed. “You're so damn enigmatic. Is that the right word?”

“Probably.” I forged a smile, took a drink. I ought to listen.

“Nothing to tell that you don't already know.” His grin was off-
centre. Fleetingly, he reminded me of Stannard.

“There's lots of stuff I don't know about you.”

“Like what?”

“What your parents do for a living.”

Andy's grin split wider. “My dad's a retired accountant. My mum's a homemaker and
world-class
bore.”

“See, I don't know everything.” I took a sip, eyes fixed on the silvery water. “You're an only child, right?”

“Yeah, but I wasn't spoilt.”

I chuckled, as if sharing the joke. “Didn't you move from Cheshire to Plymouth?”

“Yes.”

“Ever go back to Cheshire?”

“Why would I?”

“No reason.”

“We hadn't always lived in Cheshire,” he said.

“Really?”

“My dad had a job in Kingsbridge, would you believe? We lived at Stentiford Hill for a short time.”

“How old were you?” I took a drink to avoid his sly gaze.

“Why?”

“Getting my bearings.”

Andy blinked rapidly. “Twelve, thirteen, I forget.”

“We might have gone to the same school if I hadn't been sent away.”

“And I hadn't moved back to Middlewich,” he reminded me.

“When was that?”

“When I was almost fifteen.”

“Odd time to leave,” I said. “You must have been in the middle of your GCSE exams.”

Darkness entered his expression.

“This is your cue to rattle on about your school days.” It was meant to sound playful. I wasn't sure that I'd struck the right note.

There was no return smile. His look was stark. I recognised common ground. “I hated them. It's why we relocated.”

This was big news to me. “Yet you teach in the same school.”

“Payback,” he said abruptly.

“For what?”

“Being bullied. I hadn't grown up with the other kids. I didn't sound like them. Walking the same corridors where I was teased and taunted gives me a sense of triumph, of power. I've mastered my demons.” A strange light crept into his eyes. I couldn't distinguish whether it was the slant of the evening sun or if it came from deep within.

“Did Chris know about it?”

“No one knows.”

“Except me.”

“Except you.” He held my gaze a fraction longer than was comfortable.

“Seems like neither of you confided too much in the other.”

He was dismissive. “Guys rarely confide.”

I knew and issued a direct look. “You discussed Carolla Dennison, didn't you?”

“Well, yeah, although I didn't know about his fling,” he said quickly. “Babe talk, us blokes do that kind of thing.”

“And there's me thinking that gossip was solely a female pursuit.”

He laughed a little, took another drink.

“It must have given you quite a buzz to be the first with that piece of news.” The crispness in my delivery was provocative.

“I didn't tell anyone about Carolla.” He sounded appropriately defensive.

“Yeah, I remember. So who
do
you confide in?”

Andy tensed. “About what?”

“Things that bother you.”

“I'm not the neurotic type.”

“I didn't say you were.”

He took out a pack of cigarettes and unwrapped the cellophane. “Something else you don't know about me,” he explained with a rakish smile, taking out a cigarette, tapping it on the pack, putting it in his mouth. “Does it bother you?”

“We're outside. Go right ahead.” He lit up, slowly, methodically, ritually, some might say pedantically. I thought of smoke in the night, the figure standing in the lamplight outside my flat. “What about Jen?”

“What about her?”

“Do you two talk?”

“It's not that kind of relationship,” he said with a sly
Know what I mean?
grin.

I looked out across the creek at the shivering light, the way the vegetation disappeared into the shadows.

“Did you always teach IT?”

Andy shook his head and blew out a thin wisp of smoke. “My degree is in mathematics. IT was a natural progression—both subjects require logic.”

Logic and logistics and getting from A to B. “You don't find it dull dealing with machines instead of people?”

“Machines are way easier to manage.” A smile spread across his face.

“And repair.”

“Well, yeah.”

“And control,” I murmured.

“Saves a lot of hassle.” He flicked some ash.

“Is that how you view people—as a lot of hassle?”

“Can be,” he said, clipped.

“Doesn't that make life lonely?”

His jaw tensed. “I've got lots of friends. You missed some great nights at the Hermitage, by the way.”

“So Jo told me.” I took a drink for courage. “Is that your story, Andy?”

“What?” He smiled, but his eyes, glinting with suspicion, didn't match the set of his jaw.

“Lots of friends, no deep relationships.”

“I'm not sure Jen would be happy with your assessment.”

“Ah, the elusive Jen, I was forgetting.”

“She's sick for one night and she's elusive? What are you like, then?”

“It's okay,” I said. “Not everyone is ready to settle down.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“I agree. We're all different. We each have our individual characteristics,” I said, flicking a lock of hair back from my face, giving him the full effect. Did I imagine a facial tick, a tiny shudder? “Every one of us has a different story to tell.”

“Not me. My cupboard's clean.”

“I never suggested it was dirty.”

“Got any lager?” he said, draining his glass.

I got up on tired legs, went inside, cracked open a can, and handed it to him. Moving the chair away a little, I perched on the edge. He flipped down some lager, took another drag of his cigarette.

“As you were Chris's friend, his
best
friend, his mate,” I said, with
blood-freezing
clarity, “I thought I'd test out a theory on you.”

He looked at me with slow eyes. “Go on then.”