Keeping (16 page)

Really
better hope she has a small dog then, hadn’t I.

“What are you going to do if there are no brown-haired women at the field, David?”
Mr Clever just asked.
“What if they’re blonde?”

I don’t know, do I! But if things go my way like they have before, the right woman will be there. I’ll have to see, won’t I. And now Mr Clever’s going on about there not being any women at all, just men. I hadn’t thought about that, because there are always women there.
“But the news,”
Mr Clever said.
“What about the news warning women about walking their dogs?”

Well, if there aren’t any women, I’ll just go somewhere else and find one. I
have
to, otherwise that copper will think he’s right.

No courage, my arse.

Chapter Twelve

Langham stood behind a wide oak trunk in the forest, Oliver by his side. Fairbrother was behind another a few feet away with Higgings for company. Langham had questioned that—the kid might fuck things up due to his inexperience—but Fairbrother had countered that the young officer had to learn some time and that Fairbrother would take responsibility if something went wrong. Langham had continued arguing, saying they couldn’t
afford
for anything to go wrong tonight, not with one of their own out there, vulnerable and ready to be picked up by some nutter, but Fairbrother had gone to their boss who had overridden Langham.

He was still pissed off about that, but there was nothing that could be done now. It was out of his hands. He told himself if Higgings made a hash of things, if he brought attention to their hiding place and put Villier in the shit… Langham would take much pleasure in gripping the lad around the throat and impressing upon him just how much he’d been against having him out here tonight—how much he didn’t want him on his team at all.

Villier had walked the perimeter of the field twice now, each rotation taking her twenty minutes. She didn’t rush, just like Langham had told her, and had her head bent most of the time, hands in her gray hoody pockets, feet looking massive in the size eight trainers she’d bought—the only ones she could find in her rush after visiting Cheryl in hospital, she’d said. Langham had sighed, telling her how wearing footwear three sizes too big might be a hindrance tonight if she had to run, and she’d shrugged, saying she had the dog as back-up and running wasn’t something she planned on doing. Something she shouldn’t have to do seeing as though other officers would be on scene. Despite her brave words, she’d blinked, looking at him with a mixture of apprehension and uncertainty in her eyes, and he’d felt a twang of sorrow for her. Just a twang, mind. And she’d put herself forward for this. There was no backing out now.

She whistled the dog. It came running, its long stride and body movements a sight of beauty. The German Shepherd—black and tan—reached her side and she took one hand out of her pocket to give him a treat. Great bastard of a dog, it was, his back level with the middle of her thigh. Langham wondered if they’d done the right thing choosing that breed. A smaller dog might have fared better—less menacing, less of a warning to the killer that he might want to keep away—but they needed the Shepherd’s strength in taking the man down.

Langham looked into the forest, just barely making out the buildings of the estate showing through the trees in the distance. Someone was parked down there, ready to tell them if anyone was on their way to the field from that direction. Langham didn’t think he’d choose that route, though. He reckoned he’d park up and walk around, entering the field from the Morrison’s side. A man emerging from a forest and approaching you was more threatening than one just looking as though he was using the field to cut across on his way through the woods to the estate.

At least, that was Langham’s take on it.

He wanted to talk to Oliver, to ask him if he was okay, but speaking wasn’t wise. Instead, he pulled his gaze from Villier, making sure Fairbrother was watching her, then turned to look at Oliver. He was staring at the field as though terrified if he looked away he’d miss something, miss seeing the killer being caught. Langham realized Oliver needed this to be over with tonight—not just for Cheryl’s and the future victims’ sakes either. No, Oliver needed it over so he could rest easy knowing his mother and sister wouldn’t become victims. That neither of them had dogs—none he or Oliver knew about anyway—was beside the point. Oliver would have gotten himself all coiled up over this, letting scenario after scenario go through his head until all he could see was his mother and sister in the stream, Oliver never having been able to explain who he was, why he was like he’d been as he’d grown up, that he wasn’t some freak they needed to be wary of.

Langham doubted that Oliver telling those two any of this would make a blind bit of difference. From what Oliver had told him in the past, his mother was a bitch on legs and his sister wasn’t much better—held some grudge or other because Oliver had gotten her into trouble when they were younger. To have lived growing up being told you were a weirdo couldn’t have been very nice, but Oliver had come out of it a well-rounded person all the same, level-headed and sincere. That he was gay had been the last straw, Langham thought, for a mother who seemed to want perfect children who lived as she thought they should. Her son shagging men up the jacksie wasn’t her idea of ‘normal’.

Langham gave the field his attention once more, not seeing Villier now. She must have reached the far bottom corner again. The trees were too thick for him to see that far, the opening from the forest onto the field only a few meters wide, but Fairbrother and Higgings would be able to see her. Langham glanced across and, seeing no expression of interest on either of the men’s faces, he surmised Villier was just walking. Just throwing the ball for the dog.

“Time?” he whispered, chin tucked low so his voice carried into the hidden microphone beneath his jacket lapel.

“Nearing nine o’clock,” a voice said in his earpiece.

Fuck. They’d have to pull Villier out soon. Another few rotations and she’d have been walking too long. They could manage up to seven laps at a stretch, but that was pushing their luck. Besides, would the killer even be out that late? Yes, it would be easier if the man had the cover of darkness, but he’d taken women last summer at an earlier time, when the sun hadn’t yet set and other people had been about.

He had balls, this one.

Langham shrugged off a shiver and let out a long breath as Villier came into view. She looked so different in those clothes, not the ice-queen bitch she was in uniform. She almost looked…nice. Approachable. And that’s what they wanted, what they needed, wasn’t it? Just some woman taking her dog for a walk, with her boring, straight, long brown hair and blue eyes that had itched so much back at the station she’d said she’d wanted to rip the contacts out.

He continued staring, adrenaline kicking up. Continued waiting, heartbeat growing erratic.

Something had to give. It had to.

* * * *

David stood in the far corner of the Morrison’s car park, where he usually parked when he met up with Conrad for breakfast. He’d left his Fiat a few streets away from his usual parking spot behind the forest—he’d gone and gotten the funny feeling he’d had before, hadn’t he—and while he’d walked to this spot he’d had to think about how he’d handle tonight. Parking so far away, and in plain view of the estate’s residents too, meant he’d have to make friends with the woman, encourage her to go with him. The dog too, like he had with the Yorkshire Terrier slag. It was a bind, something he could do without, but that feeling in him had been strong. The sets of eyes he imagined watching him—those gazes had been strong too. He’d told himself he was imagining it, that he’d gotten the jitters because he hadn’t had a chance to plan this one. That was all it was. That was
all.

“But what if it isn’t, David?”
Mr Clever had asked.
“What if someone
is
watching you? Yes, you’re better off following your instincts. Getting caught now would be such a shame, wouldn’t it? All that hard work going to waste? And then there’s needing to show those policemen that you’re nothing like they’ve said you are. Proving a point is important, David, remember that.”

He stared across the expanse of tarmac, over car roofs, past late-night shoppers pushing trolleys laden with goodies from the supermarket toward their cars. Did they ever feel like he did, hemmed in by their past, unable to shirk it off? He knew most people didn’t need to take drastic measures like he had in order to settle their raging minds. If they did, there would be more dead people turning up, wouldn’t there? So how did they cope? What did they do? Maybe he’d have a look on the Internet sometime, see if he could try other, less dangerous ways to pack his past up for good and move on to a better future.

He fixed his sights on the field over the road, ignoring the people who intermittently bobbed about in his peripheral. They weren’t important, weren’t anything to worry about. Were they?

Of course they weren’t. Their sort hadn’t been a problem in the past so why worry about them now? He frowned, wondering why their presence bothered him tonight, then shrugged it off as him being on edge because he had to prove himself this time. Prove to that pig copper he wasn’t weak and stupid. Before, all he’d been doing was picking up women similar to what he imagined his mother had looked like before she’d ruined her hair with home dyes. Before she’d had him and she was nice, like Dad had said she’d been. He’d have liked to have known her then, or to have been the little girl she’d wanted. To have known only a caring woman as his mother. Not the spiteful, vitriol-spilling cunt he’d had.

“David, stop thinking about her. If you look hard enough you’ll find a nice woman,”
Mr Clever said.
“Someone who won’t get tired of you, who likes you stroking them. She’s out there, you know, you just have to find her. And when you do, you won’t need to put them in a bleach bath because they’ll already be clean, already be the nice lady you wish to have in your life. Trust me, David. One day she will come.”

David brightened then. Mr Clever was right—he had to be. And who knew, maybe ‘one day’ was today.

And some woman had been walking her dog over there for a while now. Seemed like she was lost in thought, had troubles on her mind, staring at the ground like that. She’d be easy—and only her and her dog had occupied the field for the past hour. So why was he hesitating? Why didn’t he just go over there and talk to her?

What if she’s like all the others? What if she ends up hating me once we’re back at my place? What if she won’t even go with me? I can’t give her the medicine and get her to the car without someone seeing. What if she’s just like the bogey woman? I should leave it. Have a break, even if it means proving that copper right.

No, no, I mustn’t let him win. I’m not weak. I don’t need a break.

Do I?

Indecision was a whore, spreading its legs and inviting him to take a closer look at its messy redness. Something he hated because he didn’t have one. Hesitancy didn’t normally get to him in this setting. He was usually in control, knew exactly what he was doing, but something was nagging at the back of his mind. He couldn’t grasp it, not when he wasn’t sure what it was, and it danced there, a wisp of…
something
…a fragment that floated, taunting him with its presence yet was unwilling to fully reveal itself.

“What should I do, Mr Clever?” he asked, not moving his lips. He didn’t need those shoppers seeing him talk to himself.

“I already told you, David. If you choose to ignore me, think about what you might have passed up. What if she’s the one? What if she’s here visiting family for the night and won’t ever come back here to walk her dog again? What if you miss your chance?”

“What if she hasn’t got blue eyes? What do I do then?”

“You wait until someone else comes, and if they don’t, you do what you said you’d do. Find someone somewhere else.”

“I know I said that, but I wouldn’t go anywhere else. I can’t.”

“I understand. You choose them from here because—”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

To get away from Mr Clever, David strode across the car park and stepped onto the field, the grass springy underfoot, a vast difference to the concrete. A surge of belonging stole into him, like he was at home here, in the right place at the right time, and he knew then that his worries had all been for nothing. He could do this. He could switch on the charm and wrap this woman around his little finger.

He approached her as she headed toward the forest opening end, keeping his steps languid, hands in his fleece pockets, closing his fingers around the full syringe, just in case. If he had to, he’d drug her with enough shit that meant she’d stay asleep for hours, and he could come back in the early morning to collect her. Surely those eyes he’d sensed around the area wouldn’t remain indefinitely. Surely, if someone were watching, they’d get bored when they didn’t see him, giving up and going home.

She didn’t look up but continued walking. Her dog stopped running, halted and stared across at him, ears pricked, tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth. It might be a big animal, but it appeared friendly enough. Didn’t display bared teeth. Didn’t have raised hackles. Didn’t growl. It’s eyes were keen yet soft. No, he wouldn’t have a problem with this one.

“Hey,
nice
dog,” he called, jogging until he came abreast of her.

She looked up slowly, as though coming out of a daze. “Oh, sorry. I was miles away.” She smiled, then whistled. The dog trotted to her side. Stroking its back, she said, “Yes, lovely dog. Don’t know what I’d do without him.”

“Oh, I know what you mean,” he said, gazing directly into her eyes.

They were bright blue. Brightest he’d ever seen.

Christ, this is it. She’s the one. I know it. I goddamn know it!

“I used to have a dog once,” he said, walking along with her. “D’you mind me walking with you for a bit, by the way?”