The Evil Beneath Page 5

  I cut across the grass to the embankment walkway that runs along the north side of the Thames. Before the incident at Hammersmith Bridge, a solitary stroll here meant a peaceful, reflective time to listen to the river lapping against the banks and take in the damp musty smells. Not anymore. Once I arrived at the riverside, I realised that things had changed. Despite there being good lighting along this stretch and a regular stream of joggers, I felt a frisson of doubt about my personal safety that I’d never had there before. I hated that feeling. It robbed me of my freedom; that feeling of being able to go anywhere at any time, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get it back.

  Several boats, moored in the centre of the river, bobbed gently as the tide came in. I stood and leant over the railing, determined to spend as much time here as I wanted without being forced by my newfound fears, to move on. At this time in the evening, the water looked inky black with a green hue. The mud banks were gradually disappearing as the water crept higher, imperceptive to the passing glance, but resolute in its purpose. I stared down at the cold wash of foam and blinked hard to try to remove the image of the body I’d seen at Hammersmith Bridge. It didn’t work and my stomach clenched as I remembered the woman’s arms, spread out like the wings of a dead bird and her head, pressed up against coarse tangles of branches. I wondered if the police had found out who she was, by now - and how she’d died. Someone, somewhere was waiting for her to come home.

  I looked up to the right, following the line of the water, but Hammersmith Bridge was out of sight due to the sweep of the river. I rested my head on my arms. Would the strange text I’d received that afternoon turn out to be just as ominous as the first?

  I was still caught up in my internal monologue when I heard a twig snap behind me. I turned round, expecting a dog, but there was nothing there. No need to get jumpy, I said to myself. A sweet-wrapper danced across my path and was swept by a small gust over the edge and into the water. Someone knew she was going to die. How much of a fight did the woman put up, before someone took her life? Was she pushed off the bridge, alive? What were her thoughts in those final moments before her life came to an end?

  I turned to go and as I did, a flash of grey slid behind the bush beside me. It didn’t look like a dog; it looked more like the elbow of an anorak. My pulse notched up a gear. I looked both ways on the path, but there was no one else in sight. I strode out towards Putney Bridge, head down, staring at the path ahead of me. Keep walking, keep moving; other people will appear any minute.

  Only, no other people did appear. I had taken several steps, when I heard another rustle in the bushes. There was definitely someone there. I didn’t know whether to stop and confront whoever it was or continue to ignore it. I broke into a run, instead. Thank goodness I’m wearing flat boots and not high heels, I thought, realising I’d need to bear in mind my footwear, whenever I went out from now on.

  I got to the spot where the park opened out on the left. By now, I was wishing I’d paid more attention to my fitness in recent months, but with a surge of relief, I saw there were people about: a woman walking three dogs; a man jogging towards me and a couple, laughing, with their arms around each other. Safe people. I slowed down to a walk.

  More people were coming down from the bridge. I dared to turn and look behind me. A tall figure in the background was walking in the opposite direction. I could just make out shades of grey as he passed under a street light. Had he been the one lurking in the bushes beside me? I felt bolder, now that others were filling out the area and started retracing my steps. He was nearly out of sight and I didn’t want to lose him. I made a shortcut and ended up on the path about fifty yards behind him.

  He turned a corner and I lost him behind a hedge, so I broke into a run, trying to keep my heels off the tarmac, so as not to draw attention to myself. He came back into view. He had his hands in his anorak pockets and was walking purposefully towards a side road that led to Fulham Palace Road. He stopped at the end of a line of parked cars and pulled something out of his pocket. I slowed to a walk, realising that now he’d stopped, I would shortly catch him up.

  I hadn’t thought this through at all. What was I doing chasing after a strange man who could have been following me? There were no other turns to take, other than back the way I’d come.

  Before I had chance to make a decision, the man looked up in my direction. For a moment, he just stood there. The traffic hummed. A car tooted. It was my client, Mr Fin. I swallowed hard, not sure what to do. If I turned back now, it would look like I wanted to avoid him. As his therapist, that was neither appropriate nor professional.

  He didn’t acknowledge me, but an uncomfortable frown creased his forehead. He dropped his car-keys and was straightening up again. I was ten feet away from him. In the counselling room, the ability to think on one’s feet was a prerequisite and thankfully, I’d had a lot of practice. I pulled the hair back from my face and smiled.

  ‘I thought it was you, Mr Fin,’ I said, trying to filter the tremble out of my voice. ‘I didn’t want you to think I’d ignored you.’

  He looked at his shoes, then fiddled with the zip on his anorak. ‘Oh… I… actually…didn’t see you.’

  ‘I won’t stay and chat. I’m sure you understand. It muddies the water if we stand and chat.’ It didn’t come out as I’d intended. I knew he was going to take it as a form of rejection.

  ‘I’m not interested,’ he said. He turned his back and walked around to the driver’s door.

  ‘Not interested?’

  He looked up as he opened the door. ‘I’m not interested in having any kind of chat with you.’

  My smile was still there, but I knew it wasn’t sitting right.

  ‘Good. That’s…fine. That’s absolutely fine.’

  Mr Fin’s car was parked between a concrete bollard and a Range Rover. It was so tightly wedged that the bumpers were overlapping. I watched him get in and start the engine, then I turned away. I didn’t want to stand and stare as he tried to manage the tricky exit manoeuvre. For a second, I felt sorry for him - a sad, lonely man - but it didn’t last long. Goosebumps skittered down my spine like a daddy-long-legs and I knew there was something not quite right about him. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it sent me a clear message: I mustn’t let down my guard. I heard the grating of gears and cringed, keeping my head down, walking away.

  Chapter Six

  When I turned into the car-park at Fairways Clinic after lunch, I very nearly drove straight out again. There was a crowd blocking the front entrance. About thirty people or more were holding banners and placards. I found a space at the far side and stayed in the car, punching in the clinic number on my phone. I could hear the corresponding handset ringing inside the building.

  ‘I see we’ve got company this afternoon,’ I said. ‘I’m in the car-park - is everyone all right?’

  ‘We’re all okay,’ said Amanda. Her voice was far from steady. ‘Dina’s called the police.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘About ten minutes. They started growing in numbers about twenty-five minutes ago.’

  ‘They’re allowed to protest,’ I said. ‘But the police will pounce if they’re stopping anyone from coming in or if there’s any intimidation.’

  ‘I know. It’s happened before. Last year we had the same thing - Pro-Life demonstrators. We got paint thrown on our cars. Are you coming in?’

  I hesitated. ‘Yes. If I don’t appear soon, I’m in trouble.’ I laughed, but it wasn’t sincere.

  I craned my neck to look at the gathering of people and rolled down the window a couple of inches. They were chanting the phrase Save their lives over and over. Several had t-shirts with Say No to Abortion in black letters on the front and an old bed-sheet stretched between two poles had the words Protect the Embryo painted across it. One man was holding a rough painting of a gravestone, which read Here lies the Unborn Child.

  The front door of the clinic opened and a young woman tentatively slid out, her head do
wn. A man stepped forward, shouting at her, pushing a leaflet into her hand. She lifted up her arms to protect her face, letting the leaflet fall, and pressed her way through the tight-knit crowd. Once free, she ran towards the gate and disappeared. I watched two women approach the gate from the street and stop dead. They looked at each other, exchanged a few words and then did a U-turn off the premises.

  ‘This isn’t fair,’ I said out loud, still inside the car.

  I got out, clutching my bag close to my chest. There might be women coming today who have been raped or who have been told by their GP that their lives are in danger, if they went through with their pregnancy. They shouldn’t be bullied; they must decide for themselves. I was preparing my speech just in case I needed it.

  As I approached the group, a woman rounded on me.

  ‘You should be ashamed of yourself!’

  Others were booing and an elderly woman thrust a leaflet into my face.

  ‘You don’t know what these women go through,’ I shouted, but my voice was drowned out by the chanting and jeering. I elbowed my way towards the main entrance and was reaching out to open the door when a man pushed me in the back. I fell against the glass door, hitting my forehead. I tried to turn round, but the man was pressing against me, his chin in my hair. I managed to wriggle away from him, but he pulled my coat and wrenched me round to face him. He looked like he’d been in a fight. There was an open cut in his eyebrow and a bruise under his eye.

  ‘You murderer!’ he hissed. I could smell alcohol and stale tobacco on his breath. I tried to turn away, but the weight of the mob held me so tightly that I couldn’t move. ‘You’ll pay for this,’ he said, spittle flying into my face. The door behind me shook and I heard someone banging hard from the inside.

  Suddenly the group opened out, like melting ice rolling away. Three policeman were heading my way.

  ‘You all right?’ said one of the officers.

  I was wiping away the man’s saliva with a tissue. ‘Yes. I just need to get inside.’

  The police officer instructed the man to stand aside and I managed to pull open the door. I half-fell through and stumbled into Dina’s arms. I was still reeling from my unnerving encounter with Mr Fin - the last thing I needed was another one.

  ‘Shit! Are you okay, Juliet?’

  ‘Yeah. Just shaken.’ I straightened my coat, leaning against the reception desk as pin-pricks of white stars began to spin across my vision. ‘Any chance of a glass of water?’

  I flopped into a nearby chair and Amanda put a plastic cup in my hand.

  ‘No one hurt you?’ she asked, leaning beside me, stroking back my hair.

  ‘I’m okay. Not a nice welcome, is it?’ I didn’t want to create any more drama, especially as there were two young women waiting for me in the reception area, pretending to read magazines. ‘I’ll get started as soon as I’ve been to the bathroom.’

  The bathroom was actually a single disabled cubicle, with a mirror and padded seat. I wasn’t seeing anybody until I’d soaked my face with water to get rid of the threatening bloke’s saliva. I scrubbed with a rough paper towel, managing to turn my cheeks a raw pink colour, but I didn’t feel clean.

  The demonstration broke up shortly after I started seeing clients, but images of the angry bloke’s dirty and bloody face, pressing right up against mine, distracted me at regular intervals throughout the afternoon. His threatening words were still fresh and vivid in my mind as I left the building and walked back to my car: You’ll pay for this.

  As soon as I got home, I got straight into the bath. It still felt as though the remains of sticky spittle were eating into my skin. I hoped that hot water and plenty of sweet-smelling bath salts might cleanse it away, but even after I’d scrubbed with two different soaps, I still hadn’t managed to shift the sullied feeling.

  I settled on the sofa with my latest novel, hoping the words would take me somewhere else. When my brother died, books were my hiding place. My solace and protection. I loved the raw, fresh smell of sawn timber when opening a new book. But more than the promise of a good story, books taught me how to survive on my own. My parents were too preoccupied with their own grief to notice that I had gone into my shell. They didn’t realise that I cried myself to sleep or went to sit in Luke’s room in the middle of the night.

  Luke died because he went back into the house to find Pippin, our dog. He pulled himself free from my father’s arms, dodged the fireman who was directing a heavy hose at the windows and disappeared into the black fog. We never saw him again.

  At twelve years old, books like Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden had wrapped a comforting blanket around me and held me safe, while my parents paced the room beneath me. As I held the book close in the light of my bedside lamp, I would hear my mother sobbing and my father opening and closing drawers in his study, as if searching for something to bring Luke back. For me, books had been my private life-raft; the words on the page a reliable constant in a world where things could change dramatically and forever.

  This evening, however, I couldn’t concentrate.

  I switched on the London News, interested to see if there was any mention of the demonstration before I started chopping vegetables. There wasn’t. When I lived in Norwich, the local roundup might have covered such an event, but in London, the stakes were higher. I was about to leave the room, when a shot of Richmond Bridge filled the screen.

  ‘The body of a girl was found this morning under Richmond Bridge, in Surrey,’ said a female reporter, standing beside a boat. ‘Police have yet to make an identification.’

  I could see blue and white tape, wrapped around poles at the edge of the water. It looked just like the crime scene at Hammersmith.

  I was on my feet. All thoughts of making supper were instantly extinguished, as I swayed from side to side in my dressing gown. The shot cut to the familiar set-up. Uniformed officers with microphones behind a long table, answering questions. Detective Chief Superintendent Rollinson, presumably representing the police in the Richmond area, was speaking:

  ‘We have no reason to connect this death to any other crime at the present time, but, of course, we are exploring all avenues in our efforts to find out what happened.’

  ‘How old is the girl?’ called out a reporter.

  ‘We believe the girl to have been in her teens,’ replied DCS Rollinson. ‘She was found by a fisherman first thing this morning. We’re not able to release any more information until we’ve made an identification.’

  ‘Have you identified the other woman yet? At Hammersmith Bridge?’ called another voice.

  ‘We have no reason to link this death to the body found downriver, over two weeks ago. We are, however, appealing to anyone who might have any information about the woman found at Hammersmith Bridge, to come forward.’ He held up a detailed charcoal drawing of the woman’s face. He went on to give further details about her height, weight and what she was wearing.

  A voice from the back of the press conference called out: ‘Do we have a serial killer on our hands, sir?’

  Rollinson looked like he hadn’t heard the question and pushed his papers together, as he stood up. ‘That’s all we have for now, I’m afraid. We’ll keep you posted.’

  My mind was racing in several directions at once as I switched off the television. Was this connected to the second text message I’d been sent? Was this teenage girl also going to be wearing my clothes?

  I sank back onto the sofa, my head spinning, as I tried to slow myself down and decide what I should do. I’d spoken to DI Roxland again about the second text message; he’d been grateful, but his voice betrayed a certain tone in it - the kind normally reserved for small children who make outrageous claims. I wondered if they’d bothered to trace the message. Did it have any connection to this death? Without being consciously aware of it, I’d crossed my fingers, twice, on both hands. Please let it be nothing to do with me. But, even my most optimistic streak couldn’t convince me. It was another body under
a bridge - surely it had to be connected to the other one.

  I pulled myself to the edge of the sofa. What I needed most was more information and the only way I was going to get that was through calling the police station again. DCI Madison picked up the phone, this time. I didn’t expect to reach him in person; I must have been lucky. Of the officers I’d come across so far, he was not only the most approachable, but the only one who seemed to be on the same wavelength.

  What he suggested didn’t fill me with enthusiasm.

  He wanted me to see the second body.

  Because it was a river death, the Marine Policing Unit had taken the body to the mortuary at Wapping Police Station for identification. I needed to get there before they got started with the post-mortem, so I had to cancel my clients for Wednesday morning. Everyone else’s problems were going to have to wait.

  I showed my identification at the front desk and then followed the attendant along a bare corridor, until we reached a small booth on the left. Inside, one wall was a wide glass window with a view of a larger space on the other side. It was cold and there was a nasty smell that reminded me of dissecting frogs at school.

  ‘We can’t let you get too close to the body. Cross-contamination…’ said the attendant rubbing his fingers together, as if this explained what he meant. On the other side of the glass, a door opened and a covered trolley was wheeled in. My knees went rubbery and I wondered whether I was going to stay upright.

  ‘Ready?’ asked the attendant.

  I wasn’t, but gave the faintest nod.

  In turn, he nodded through the window and a figure, masked and gowned on the other side, pulled down the sheet covering the girl’s face. I craned forward in the cautious way one looks over the edge of a cliff, holding on to the thin ledge that ran under the window.

  I took a sharp intake of breath and covered my mouth. I recognised her at once. I didn’t feel too well. I looked around the room for a wastepaper bin: I might be needing it.