Dead End (37 page)

Geraldine thought she began to understand. ‘Are you saying your daughter had an abortion and that's why she killed herself?’

He ignored her question. ‘The boy wasn't part of the plan but he saw too much so he had to go. And now I'm afraid you know too much, Geraldine.’ He moved round the table towards her.

She edged away from him backwards, never taking her eyes off him. ‘What part of my anatomy are you going to remove?’

Paul shook his head impatiently. ‘You think too much. That's your problem.’

Geraldine raised her hand to her head, pressing her fingers against her skull in stunned comprehension. ‘What part of me, Paul?’

‘That's something you don't need to know, and you never will.’

Geraldine glanced frantically around for a weapon of some kind, but apart from the table, the cupboard, and a sink, the room was bare. She couldn't remember if Paul had locked the cupboard when he had closed it and, in any case, if she managed to edge around the table and make a dash for it, he would be on her with the syringe before she could grab hold of anything she could use in self defense.

‘Paul –’ Geraldine thought she heard footsteps overhead, and felt a tremor of hope. She had to stall him for another few minutes. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Let's talk about this. I can help you. Don't jump to conclusions. What makes you think I don't support what you're doing? Your daughter's dead, Paul. What you're doing, you're looking for justice. That's what I believe in too. You can't let the people responsible for Emma's death get away with it. I understand that. Someone has to be punished, it's only right. But there's no reason to kill me. I'm not to blame for what happened to her. And I can help you. What do you think is going to happen to you now the police know what you've done?’

Paul didn't appear to have heard anyone moving around upstairs. ‘Save your breath. I don't need your help.’

‘You'll go to prison, Paul, for a long time. But I can help you -’

‘I told you, I don't need your help.’ He smiled grimly. ‘I'm almost done. I have to finish what I set out to do. There's only one more – after you and your sergeant – and then it'll be my turn. Come on, we have to hurry. You understand, don't you? I have to finish this. I know it doesn't matter what you think, we'll both be dead soon, but I'd like you to understand.’

Geraldine's mouth felt dry. Her legs were shaking as she tried to circle round the table away from him, aware that he might rush her at any moment.

‘I don't understand why you want me to die. This is nothing to do with me. Emma's death wasn't my fault. I didn't even know her. Let me help you, Paul. You need help –’

Paul moved closer. He raised his arm and Geraldine screamed as she edged away from him. Upstairs all was silent. She wondered if she should make a dash for the cupboard where he kept grisly tools of his work, knives, syringes, razor-sharp scalpels, but she knew she would never make it before he reached her. She considered trying to thrust the table at him with a sudden desperate lunge so it would fall on his feet, pinning him to the floor, but there was no way she would be able to shift it by herself.

Suddenly they were startled by a loud thump. Geraldine dithered but Paul wasn't distracted for an instant. In one swift movement he raised his arm and stabbed. The syringe dropped from his hand and she stared, transfixed, as a drop of blood beaded where the needle had penetrated.

66

CELLAR

S
ergeant Bell and Constable Letwick were only round the corner when the call came through. The message was garbled but they heard the address quite clearly.

‘We're just round the corner,’ Bell answered. ‘We're on our way.’

‘Step on it,’ his companion urged. ‘We'll be first on the scene.’ A constable for nearly two years, Ollie Letwick was fed up with stepping in between brawling drunks, arresting kids who were high and taking statements from shopkeepers who called the station to report shoplifters. There wasn't much point. They were always impossible to identify, hooded, blurred images on CCTV. Ollie longed for some real excitement. ‘What exactly is going on?’ he asked as they sped along the road.

Bell shook his head without taking his eyes off the road. ‘You heard as much as I did. They think DI Steel's in some sort of trouble.’

‘Women,’ Ollie grinned. The sergeant grunted and put his foot down mumbling about political correctness. ‘Just joking,’ Ollie said. ‘The DI is hardly the sort to need saving. Reckon she can take care of herself.’

‘Should be able to,’ Bell agreed as they screeched to a halt outside a large detached property. ‘This is it.’ He hesitated. ‘Do you think we should wait for back up?’ As he spoke, they heard the wail of a siren. Several police cars raced into view and the pavement was suddenly heaving with uniformed officers.

‘Come on!’ Ollie leapt out of the car and almost barged into DCI Gordon. He and Bob Bell joined the group of officers following her up the path.

‘We had a call from DS Peterson,’ the DCI explained to them hurriedly over her shoulder. ‘It seems Paul Hilliard could be the man we've been looking for.’

There was a subdued clamour of questions.

‘He's the killer?’

‘Paul Hilliard? Isn't he the pathologist?’

There was no response to their knocking. They walked around the property but all the doors were locked. At a nod from the DCI one of the constables smashed a small window beside the side door, reached in to undo the bolt and they were in.

‘Hello! Police! Is anyone here?’ There was no answer. A rapid search of the house revealed it was empty. Constable Letwick and Sergeant Bell were instructed to remain behind until the property was secure, and the posse of police officers withdrew. The house was empty and silent once more as they waited in the front hall for the householder to return home, and for a glazier to arrive to fix the window.

‘So much for seeing something exciting,’ Ollie grumbled.

‘You what?’

‘I thought we might see some action here –’

‘Action?’

‘You know, something happening. A dramatic arrest, or something.’

Bell laughed and was about to reply when they heard a noise, like a muffled yelp. Their eyes met in a puzzled frown. ‘Sounded like that came from inside the house,’ Bell said in a low voice.

‘It came from under the floor,’ Ollie agreed.

They looked around. The hall was decorated in cream and pale blue. There was an empty wooden coat stand near the door, a tall bookcase along one wall and three doors leading to the kitchen, the living room and a downstairs cloakroom. They listened, but there was no more noise from under the floorboards.

‘There's no access to a basement from here,’ Bell said.

‘Unless –’ Ollie went up to the bookcase and shook it.

‘Watch it, you'll have all those books on the floor.’

‘That's odd. They're not real books,’ Ollie replied as he reached forward to take one off the shelf. ‘It's not a proper bookcase. Look, these books are painted on. Come here and give me a hand. I reckon there must be something behind it –’ Together they pushed the bookcase which slid sideways to reveal a door. Bell swore softly in surprise and reached for his phone. While he summoned back up, Ollie rapped sharply on the door but there was no response from the other side. The door had no handle, only a keyhole. Ollie pushed the door. It wouldn't budge. He tried again, yelling now for whoever was inside to come and open the door up. There was no answer so he stood back and charged at the door, shoulder first. It flew open with a crash.

Ollie rushed through the door so fast he almost fell headlong down a narrow staircase. Pausing to regain his balance, he stepped forwards.

His companion put his hand on Ollie's arm. ‘Do you think we should wait? They'll be here in a few minutes.’

‘If she's here, the DI could be in danger,’ Ollie whispered back. Bell nodded and Ollie made his way cautiously down the stairs. He had an impression of whiteness and then he heard a woman's voice crying out in alarm.

Ollie leaped down the final few steps and his eyes widened in surprise. On the far side of a table draped in white the DI was crouching on the floor. She glared wildly at him and gestured at a man lying motionless on the floor beside her. Apart from the two figures, everything in the room was perfectly white.

‘Over here!’ she called out. ‘He's unconscious. He's injected himself.’ Her voice rose hysterically and she turned away. As Ollie stepped forward he heard feet pounding down the stairs and the room was suddenly crammed with officers. A paramedic hurried forward and knelt on the floor beside the DI.

‘This doesn't look good. What did he take?’

The DI was upright now, leaning against the table. ‘I don't know, but he's a pathologist. He'd have access to all sorts of drugs – you might find something in the cupboard. That's where he took the syringe from.’ Her voice had recovered its strength and she spoke with authority.

‘I thought I recognised him,’ the paramedic said.

The DI went over to a tall cupboard, opened the door and began rifling through the drawers. The first was full of surgical equipment: scalpels, gloves, syringes, all laid out in neat rows. The contents of the second drawer was the same. The third was stuffed with photographs of a girl.

She picked up one of the photographs. ‘That's his daughter.’

‘I wonder if she knows he's got a whole drawer of photos of her down here,’ Ollie said gazing down at the body.

‘She's dead.’

The paramedic looked up. ‘So will he be if we don't get him into hospital soon. Where the hell's that ambulance?’

67

MOVING ON

O
verwhelmed by memories of Paul, Geraldine barely slept that night. At last she drifted into an uneasy dream where Paul was pursuing her along a dark tunnel that led to a bright white room. She knew that if she didn't reach the end of the corridor she would die, so she kept on running…

The next morning she woke up feeling so mentally drained it made her absurdly calm, as though she was still dreaming. After the shock of discovering Paul's true nature, she felt she would never care about anything again. If someone had rushed in and pointed a gun at her head she would simply have waited for the outcome, unmoved and incurious. After a shower and strong coffee she drove to work very carefully, numb and disorientated, not trusting her reactions. Driving to the station she tried to take a cold hard look at herself and it didn't make comfortable viewing. She had allowed herself to be distracted by her attraction to Paul, who had been playing her all along for his own purposes. Knowing she had been so gullible was even more painful than the loss of what had, after all, been no more than a romantic fantasy. She had not only been deluded about Paul but about herself too.

One thing was certain: she would never trust herself to take anything anyone said at face value ever again.

Her face burned with embarrassment as she walked into the station, wondering what her colleagues must think of her. Paul had stolen more than her romantic ideal, he had shattered her self-confidence. Geraldine had always prided herself on her sharp intuition about people. The intelligence to organise a deluge of information wasn't enough in her profession – after all, a computer could do a more effective job than her. It was her insight into hidden connections that had made her so successful in her career. Since the first day she'd joined the force at eighteen she had loved the job, but if she could misjudge Paul Hilliard so badly how could she ever trust her gut feelings about people again? She felt her self-assurance slipping away as she sat at her desk and began tidying up loose ends, checking her reports and emptying her drawers of sweet wrappers, pens, notebooks, receipts and other scraps of paper.

Kathryn Gordon was surprisingly understanding when she summoned Geraldine to her office to question her again about Paul's attempted suicide. ‘Don't be too hard on yourself,’ she said as Geraldine turned to leave. ‘I know you were close –’

‘Paul Hilliard meant nothing to me,’ Geraldine replied stiffly.

‘There's something else, Geraldine. I have to congratulate you on your successful application for a transfer to the Met.’

Geraldine spun round in surprise and returned Kathryn Gordon's smile. ‘Thank you, ma'am. Thank you very much.’

‘And now there's work to be done.’

‘Yes ma'am.’ Reluctantly, Geraldine collected her keys and set off.

She hesitated before she rang the bell to deliver the worst kind of good news, and flinched when Matthew Kirby's expression darkened on seeing her. ‘Mr Kirby, I wanted to tell you in person – we've arrested the man who killed your wife.’

He opened the door a fraction wider, his voice urgent. ‘Who is he? Why did he do it?’

‘His name is Paul Hilliard and he's – he's insane.’ Briefly Geraldine explained the reasoning behind Paul Hilliard's killing spree.

‘You're telling me he blamed Abigail for his daughter's suicide?’

‘Yes. Your wife and his daughter's best friend – another fifteen-year-old girl – were both killed. He was planning the death of the doctor who carried out his daughter's abortion and he also murdered a seventeen-year-old male witness and –’ She hesitated to disclose that Paul Hilliard had almost killed her too.

‘Oh my God.’ There was a pause while Matthew took in what Geraldine had said. ‘A fifteen-year-old girl. Well, thank you for coming to let us know.’

‘How's Lucy?’ Geraldine asked as the door began to close.

‘Do you want to come in? But –’ Geraldine waited. ‘I think it's better if you leave us alone.’

‘If you'd like a visit from the family liaison officer, you have the number.’

‘Thank you, but I don't think so. I mean, she was very helpful but we need to get back to some sort of semblance of a normal life, if we possibly can. We're moving back to York soon, leaving all this behind us. It's for the best, all things considered. Charlotte's never settled down here either, and her mother's not getting any younger so she wants to be nearby.’

‘Charlotte?’

‘Yes. She's coming with us. She's been great with Lucy and Ben.’