Now She's Dead: A psychological suspense thriller that unwinds in dizzying spirals Page 2

  Jack gave his head a shake of self-recrimination. “I’m sorry, Laura, I should have come over.”

  “From the looks of you, you wouldn’t have been much use if you had done.”

  Jack acknowledged the truth of Laura’s words with a sigh and repeated, “I’m sorry.”

  “Listen, it was the first anniversary of Rebecca’s death. I understand that you needed to be alone.”

  “But does Naomi understand?”

  Jack waited for Laura to say, Yes. Instead, agonisingly, she avoided his gaze. She manoeuvred past him into the hallway, sniffing the air. “This place smells worse than the geriatrics ward,” she joked grimly, putting the carrier-bags down in the kitchen. She pointed at Jack. “Upstairs now. Shower, shave, put some clean clothes on if you’ve got any. I’ll make breakfast.”

  “There’s no food in.”

  “Yeah, I know. That’s why I brought some with me.”

  There was no point arguing with Laura when she was in this mood. Jack went upstairs. He stood under the shower, trying to feel the hot water and nothing else. Then he shaved at the sink. The face that emerged from under the heavy stubble was thinner than it had been a year ago, more lined. The eyes stared back at him from hollows of grief. He dug jeans and a t-shirt out of a suitcase. Mixed in amongst his clothes was one of Rebecca’s blouses. He pressed it to his face and inhaled. He could still smell her on it, but the scent was fading.

  “Breakfast’s ready,” Laura called to him.

  The sizzle of frying bacon greeted Jack as he descended to the kitchen. The windows were wide open. Laura surveyed her brother approvingly. “There you go. You almost look like a member of the human race.”

  Laura had set the table. She served up two fried breakfasts, which they ate in silence. Laura leaned back in her chair, looking steadily her brother. Now it was his turn to avoid her eyes.

  “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?” she began. There was no firmness in her voice, only compassion. “I love having Naomi. She’s welcome to stay with me for as long as necessary. But it’s not me that she really needs. She needs her dad.”

  Jack lifted his guilt-wracked gaze to Laura’s. “Don’t you think I know that? She’s the most important thing in my life. I want to be there for her more than anything. I just... I can’t stand the thought of her seeing me like this.”

  “So sort yourself out.”

  “I wish I could, Laura, but I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Start by doing something to bring you out of yourself. Go back to work.”

  “I’m not ready.”

  “Well you can’t keep on like this, Jack. You seem hell-bent on slowly killing yourself, but you don’t have that luxury.” Laura reached to rest her hand on Jack’s. “You have to be strong for Naomi.”

  He almost scoffed at the platitude, but caught himself. “Look at me. How am I supposed to be strong?”

  “I don’t know, but you won’t find the answer in a bottle of vodka.” Laura glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to go. I’m due on the ward in twenty minutes.” She gave Jack’s hand a squeeze and pushed her chair back.

  “Leave them,” he said as she cleared the table. “I’ll do it.”

  At the front door, Jack kissed Laura on the cheek. “Thanks for breakfast, sis. Tell Naomi I love her.”

  “Phone and tell her yourself. Or better yet, come round and see her.”

  The crow’s feet at the corners of Jack’s eyes deepened. “I will.”

  “You’d better,” Laura said in a mock-threatening tone.

  Jack watched his sister get into her car and waved as she accelerated away. He returned to the kitchen and picked up the breakfast plates. He thought about Naomi’s blue eyes, black hair and china skin. It was impossible to look at her without seeing Rebecca. He’d promised himself time and again that he would hold it together for his daughter, but every time he saw her he fell apart. He dropped the plates into the sink and moved through to the living-room. He drew the curtains and slumped into the armchair. Rebecca. He closed his eyes. What happened, Rebecca? What happened?

  Chapter 4

  Jack stood outside Laura’s little terraced house for a long time, working up the nerve to knock on the front door. All he could see in his mind’s eye were the cliffs and the sea. All he could hear was the whoosh of waves and the whump-whump of rotor-blades. His hand clenched into a fist, but instead of knocking he thudded it into his thigh. What was the matter with him? He hadn’t lied to Laura. Nothing meant more to him than Naomi. So why was he standing out here instead of showing her how much he loved her? He already knew the answer. It wasn’t simply that she reminded him of Rebecca. That was part of it, for sure, but there was something else. The way she looked at him with such need, hope and vulnerability. It terrified him because he knew he was going to fail her the same way he’d failed to save Rebecca.

  He turned suddenly and walked away from the door. “You’re a fucking coward,” he told himself.

  As he trudged along, Jack tossed vodka down his throat. His face glistened with the drizzle that had been falling for the past hour or so. The fine droplets were thickening into heavy rain. He glanced upwards as thunder rumbled across the starless night sky. On the other side of the road were tall wrought-iron gates set between stone posts. Beyond the gates a tree-lined avenue led through ranks of graves.

  Jack had spent a lot of time in graveyards since Rebecca’s death. He’d visited her memorial plaque at Hastings Crematorium a few times, but he felt no connection to her there. Rebecca wasn’t in the urn behind the plaque. She was somewhere at the bottom of the Channel. Besides, the Crematorium was always busy. He preferred the solace of old cemeteries. He felt more comfortable with the dead than the living. They didn’t judge or expect anything of you.

  He staggered across the road and rattled the gates. Padlocked. He put the bottle through the bars and scaled the gates. His t-shirt caught on a fleur de lis spike. He pulled it free with a tearing sound and lowered himself to the path.

  As Jack wandered deeper into the cemetery, the sounds of the city receded and silence stole over him. He looked almost jealously at the graves. For their occupants the suffering was over. No more memories. No more questions. No more pain.

  Most of the graves were marked by standard headstones. Interspersed amongst them were clusters of elaborate memorials – tall pedestals with winged angels atop them, miniaturised classical temples, pointed obelisks.

  The rain was weighing Jack down. He felt as if he could barely take another step. He veered off the path, dragging his feet along in search of somewhere to shelter. Neatly tended graves gave way to weed-choked plots occupied by cracked and fallen headstones. Light from a building that formed part of the cemetery wall faintly illuminated an altar tomb half-shrouded by ivy and enclosed by a low rusty fence. The altar tomb was carved into the likeness of a church ornamented with spires and arches. The church roof overhung the walls sufficiently to provide some shelter.

  Jack stepped over the fence and squatted under the overhang. He put out a hand to balance himself. It passed straight through the ivy. He lifted the tangled veil aside, revealing a collapsed section of wall. He sparked his Zippo into life. The flame illuminated a patch of compacted earth long enough to lie out on. He crawled into the tomb’s hollow interior. It smelled of old stone and damp earth. Rain drummed against the arched roof, dripping through unseen cracks. He swallowed more vodka and closed his eyes. He imaged he was the grave’s occupant, buried six feet under, and that all he knew was darkness. He wished he could stay in that place where there was no past to torment him – not forever, but long enough for the pain to fade. He would gladly have given up a year or two of his life if only it allowed him to live again.

  A drip hit his forehead. He wiped it away. A sliver of bright light at the rear of the tomb caught his eye. Had someone seen him climb the gates? Were they searching for him with a torch? He pressed his eyes to a flared horizontal crack. His breath stopped in his throat. The crack looked towards the nearby building – a big old house with tall windows. A light had come on in a first floor window. The curtains were open and the sash-window was drawn up as if to let in the sounds of the storm.

  A woman was sitting in the window. A red blouse hung off one of her slender shoulders. She was brushing long black hair that framed a china-white, strikingly beautiful face. Jack watched the motion of the hairbrush as if mesmerised. His gaze glassily traced the lines of her neck, jaw, lips, nose, cheeks and eyes. She was about fifteen metres away. He couldn’t tell the colour of her eyes from that distance, but in his mind they were startlingly blue. It was as if he was looking through a window into heaven.

  “Rebecca,” he murmured. “Rebecca.”

  His heart plummeted as the woman rose and moved away from the window. “No,” he whispered. “Come back.”

  A light came on in a larger neighbouring window. Jack exhaled as the woman reappeared. She stood at the window, staring into the rain. Her blouse’s plunging neckline revealed a swell of cleavage. It wasn’t the kind of thing Rebecca would have worn, but that didn’t matter. Everything else was as it should be – the hair, the skin, the facial features, the build. She even looked about the same age as Rebecca had been. Jack ached to reach out and touch the woman, pull her into his arms and crush her to him.

  She glanced over her shoulder as if at a sound. A low moan rose in Jack’s throat as she moved away from the window. Long minutes passed with no sight of her. The light went off in the larger window. Seconds later, she approached the other window and closed the curtains. The light went off behind them too.

  Jack continued to stare through the crack until it became obvious that he wasn’t going to catch another glimpse of her. He collapsed face first to the e
arth, trembling all over. Behind his eyelids he saw Rebecca, only now she was wearing a red blouse. Tears filled his eyes as he asked her, “What happened?”

  If you don’t know, I can’t tell you, she replied in her soft Sussex accent.

  Chapter 5

  When Jack came to, the first thing he did was put his eyes to the crack. He blinked at the sun peeping over the house’s slate roof. It was the sort of oversized Victorian mansion that developers loved to convert into flats. It was positioned side-on to the cemetery, facing a quiet, leafy street. The curtains were open in both first floor windows. The window where the woman had sat brushing her hair was now closed. She was nowhere to be seen. Had she gone to work? From the position of the sun, Jack guessed it was around eight o’clock. He’d been passed out for a good seven or eight hours. He felt a twinge of disappointment. He’d hoped to see the woman in daylight, partly to get a better look at her, partly to confirm she hadn’t been a phantom of his inebriated mind.

  He watched the windows for a while before skulking out of the tomb. If the woman was in, he didn’t want her to see him. The cemetery gates were open. He made his way back to Chorlton, feeling set apart from the bustle of the rush-hour streets. Noises and faces seemed distant, vaguely unreal. He went into a shop for vodka. A schoolgirl was standing in the queue. She looked curiously at him. He thought about Naomi. She would be just about to leave for school. He found Laura’s number on his phone. His finger hovered over the dial button.

  Coward! Failure! The familiar words rang in Jack’s mind like accusations in a courtroom. More followed them. You couldn’t be the husband Rebecca needed and now you can’t be the father Naomi needs. All you’re good for is wallowing in self-pity and booze. As if to confirm the words, he returned the phone to his pocket and took out his wallet.

  Upon arriving at his house, Jack pored over the photos of Rebecca. He conjured up a mental image of the woman in the window. The photos reinforced her striking similarity to Rebecca. They could have been related. Sisters even. The thought of the woman’s black hair, pale skin and long slim body made his heart pump with, if not renewed life, then at least something that resembled it. Who was she? What was her name? He had to know.

  He rooted through boxes until he found what he was looking for – a pair of binoculars he’d used for birdwatching on the Sussex coast. He’d often taken Naomi with him. She’d enjoyed listing the birds they spotted. Sometimes she would grow bored and noisy in the way all children do, but Jack hadn’t cared. He’d simply been happy that she wanted to be there with him. That seemed like a different life now.

  Jack showered, shaved and dressed. He ate what remained of the bacon and eggs Laura had brought. A free local newspaper landed on the doormat. ‘Were They Killed By The Same Assailant?’ ran the cover headline. Underneath were two photos of attractive young women. Both were dark-haired and slightly built. ‘On July 16th the body of Abigail Hart, 26, was found near a lonely road in Didsbury.’ began the article. ‘She had been brutally stabbed and mutilated whilst making her way home from a night out in the city centre. Her body had been posed in what police describe as a sexually provocative position. Two days later, Zoe Saunders, 29, was also making her way home after a night out. Her body was found the following morning in Alexandra Park, Moss Side–’

  He tossed the newspaper aside. He wasn’t interested in the murders. Right that moment, he wasn’t even interested in finding a way to break through his fears and doubts about his ability to be a dad. All he was interested in was the woman in the window.

  With the vodka bottle stuffed into one jacket pocket and the binoculars in the other, he headed back out. It was a warm day. Vodka-scented sweat beaded his forehead by the time he got to the mansion. It was at the head of an affluent-looking street of similar properties, many of which had been broken up into flats and offices. Jack approached the mansion’s front door. An intercom indicated that it comprised of four storeys of flats, including a basement level. Each floor had three flats on it, which meant the flats on the first floor were numbered 7-9.

  He continued around the back of the building, holding himself as if he had a right to be there. A slatted wooden fence screened communal bins. There were large bins for general waste and smaller ones for recyclable materials. He upended a paper bin. Amongst the newspapers, magazines, cardboard and junk mail, there were personally addressed envelopes and letters. Some letters had been torn to pieces. Others had been screwed up. He found a fragment of one addressed to a Mr Zhang in flat 8. The name was Oriental, unlike the woman. So, unless she and Mr Zhang were an item, she most likely lived in flat 7 or 9. More searching revealed an empty brown envelope addressed to a Miss Camilla Winter, flat 7. He sifted through the rest of the rubbish, but didn’t find anything for flat 9. He headed for the street.

  A sporty little car was pulling into the carpark. ‘DALE 1’ boasted its personalised number plate. Jack wondered what sort of arsehole would drive around with a reg like that. A man got out of the car. Dale – assuming that was his name – looked to be in his early thirties and was dressed in a polo shirt, jeans and sockless loafers. He was a little taller than Jack, broad-shouldered, blonde and handsome in a catalogue model sort of way. He cast an uninterested glance in Jack’s direction, walking with a swagger that made it seem as if he owned the entire building.

  Jack avoided eye contact. He found a shady bench in the cemetery and Googled Camilla Winter on his phone. A list of hits came up. Top of the bill was a link to the Manchester Evening News: ‘Rising Opera Star To Headline Hometown Charity Concert’. He followed it and found himself staring at a photo that made his hands shake ever so slightly. Camilla was wearing a low-cut black dress. Sleek black hair cascaded down her back. She was casting a seductive look towards the camera over her shoulder. Her full lips glistened with crimson lipstick. A hint of blusher highlighted her high cheekbones. Mascara outlined her eyes – eyes that were as blue as Rebecca’s.

  He tenderly traced her outline. The shadows had shifted a couple of centimetres by the time his gaze moved on to the text. ‘Camilla Winter has deservedly won plaudits for her performances with La Bella Vita Opera Company. Now the talented young soprano is bringing her silky voice to Manchester Opera House. On Saturday 22nd July she will be singing the role of Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata. All proceeds from the concert will go to Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. Miss Winter, who grew up in Didsbury, commented, “It’s wonderful, if a little nerve-racking, to be performing in my hometown for the first time. I’ve been lucky enough to perform all over Europe, but it’s been a lifelong ambition of mine to take to the stage at Manchester Opera House.”

  At the end of the article there was a ticket line number. Jack rang it. There were single seats still available. He booked the one with the best view. Then he weaved his way through the headstones to the altar tomb. He glanced around to make sure no one was about. A small, empty silver car was parked outside the cemetery railings near the entrance to the flats’ carpark. He took out his binoculars for a close-up view of the interior of Camilla’s flat.

  The smaller window looked into a bedroom. The walls were hung with paintings of naked lovers embracing. There was a mirrored wardrobe and a dressing-table. From that angle, he couldn’t see the bed. The other window looked into a living-room. There wasn’t much to see – a few more paintings, a mantelpiece with two candles on it and a flat-screen television attached to the chimney-breast above it, shelves of books and ornaments, a closed door.

  Jack ducked behind the altar tomb as the door opened and a figure stepped into view. It was the man from the carpark – Dale. Jack’s eyebrows knitted together. Who was he? A friend or relative of Camilla’s? Her boyfriend?

  Dale dropped from view and the television came on. Jack crawled inside the tomb and kept watching. The morning tipped over into afternoon. It was pleasantly cool in the stone cavity. Jack’s eyes began to drift shut. They sprang wide when Camilla appeared in the living-room doorway. The binoculars made her seem close enough to touch. She was wearing a white summer dress that clung to her tiny waist. Her hair was up in a tight bun. There was little makeup on her face other than eyeliner and pink lipstick. Her lips were drawn into a smile that reached up higher on one side than the other. Jack’s heart thumped against his ribs. Rebecca had used to smile like that before depression sank its claws into her. Dale rose back into view. He approached Camilla, and they kissed passionately.