Only when she’d left did Heck allow himself a smile, though it was tinged with concern.
Gail was clearly still Gail; she’d evidently got on top of her inferiority complex, but a hint of the old single-mindedness remained. She’d been in SCU less than a day and was already trying to make the running on their first case. On one hand that was good – she would need to be feisty in this world; Gemma was the perfect example of that. But a couple of questions still nagged at him. Firstly, how comfortably could she make the switch? Working CID in Surrey’s green and pleasant land was likely to be a very different experience from the Serial Crimes Unit, where they dealt exclusively with the worst of the worst. And secondly, did he really want to be the man in charge if it started proving problematic?
Heck was looking forward to going after Eddie Creeley. He was in no doubt that he would find and collar the murderous bastard, but only by doing it his way rather than the approved way. Gemma would tolerate that to a degree; if she didn’t, she’d never have accorded him his roving commission. Having Gail Honeyford along for that ride would be interesting. He just hoped that she was up to handling life at the sharp end.
If she had trouble coping when they were chasing this baddest of bad boys, that would be a level of complexity he really didn’t need.
Nan’s eyes sprang open in a face rigid as wax and beaded with sweat.
She didn’t think she’d ever seen her bedroom as dark as it was at this moment. Normally, yellowish streetlighting suffused through the curtain on the single small window, dappling the bare wall opposite with curious shapes. But tonight, there was nothing. Utter blackness. A void. And why was the room so deathly cold? Wasn’t this supposed to be summer?
She was unable to move as she lay there, rucked in damp, tangled sheets. Couldn’t budge so much as a muscle. Good God, was she paralysed? Had she become ill during the night, had a stroke or something? Dear Lord …
And then she heard it.
The voice. From the darkness alongside her.
‘Sorry, missus,’ it whispered. ‘I don’t like to wake you when you’re having your beauty sleep and all. But you know how things are. Sometimes a man can’t wait.’
Nan couldn’t answer because she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even utter a whimper.
‘That’s why I followed you home,’ he explained. ‘Had no choice.’
She tried to roll her eyes sideways, to visualise him. His voice was so close to her ear, his breath so rank – a mixture of onions and ketchup and something else too, a faint odour of rot – that he had to be kneeling right alongside her.
‘No choice at all,’ he said again. ‘When the mood’s on me, like. When the rest of the lads told me … well, that you’ve got a soft mouth.’ He sniggered, a snorting pig-like sound. ‘No teeth, they said. Nothing to chomp or chew me … you getting my drift?’
To her abject horror, Nan still couldn’t react.
‘I’ll be honest,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t think of anything more exciting. Getting a blowjob off Toothless Mary. I’d have asked you nicely, like … if you’d let me catch up with you. But you kept running and squawking … you know, like some typical fucking idiot lass who doesn’t know what side her bread’s buttered on. But it’s all right … I know you’re not like that really. I know you’ll co-operate …’
She sensed rather than saw him rise to full height next to her, and then felt the weight of him across her chest as he straddled her and knelt there. With a slow, metallic slither, his zipper was drawn down.
‘Won’t you?’ he chuckled.
Nan screeched as she leapt from the bed, arcing though the air, landing knees-first, then slamming the thickly plastered palms of her hands on the carpet.
She didn’t know which was the more painful, the smarting of recent flesh wounds, or the agonising thumping of her heart. She looked up, eyes goggling, mouth drooling, sweat dabbling her brow. What seemed like an age passed before her tear-glazed eyes were able to focus on the neon numerals of the clock on the dresser. It read: 5:28 a.m.
It was still early. In winter, it would feel like the middle of the night. But this was summer, and dawn light penetrated the curtains, revealing the bedroom’s meagre furnishings: Nan’s mirror, her wardrobe, the chair with her anorak draped over the back, two library books on an otherwise empty shelf.
But nothing else.
No hooded figure skulking in a corner or crouching to keep low.
A dream, then. Nothing but a dream. But good Lord … a dream from Hell, if ever there was such a thing!
She rose shakily to her feet, hands still smarting. A tugging at her side revealed that part of her nightie had adhered to her left hip, probably where it had caught on the Elastoplast she’d applied to the gouge wound from the old pram.
Nan had taken a long shower before coming to bed. She’d paid particular attention to that gash on her hip, because of the dirt and germs. But now she felt as if she needed another one. She brushed rat-tails of hair from her eyes as she turned to look at her bed. It was a foul nest, the sheets stained and messy. The last thing she wanted to do was climb back in there. Not, in truth, that sleep was a viable option. Not now.
It might only be half-past five, but she switched the bedroom light on and inserted her feet into her slippers. She really had to do something about her ‘coming home from work’ arrangements, she thought, as she opened the bedroom door. She couldn’t afford a taxi home every day, though even if she could, she’d still have to go out to the front of the shop to get it, which would defeat the object. Alternatively, perhaps she could arrange to work ordinary day shifts from now on. Though that wouldn’t be easy, because all the other ladies employed at the Spar were the same: they didn’t like walking home late either.
Nan crossed the hall to the kitchen, to make herself a cup of tea, when she spotted something lying at the foot of the front door. Something had been pushed through the letter box.
Her breath shortened again, her chest began to tighten. She took a couple of steps forward.
The dull light from her bedroom showed a relatively small object, two or three inches long, narrow, bright green. From this distance, it resembled a cigarette lighter.
‘Good … good God!’ she stammered.
Had someone put petrol through, and then had they tried to light it? It was beyond belief, but you heard about horrific things like that happening.
She blundered forward, heart trip-hammering. But as she approached, she realised that it wasn’t a cigarette lighter. Nothing so sinister, in fact. She ventured all the way up to it, and there was no mistake.
A pen drive lay on her welcome mat.
Nan wasn’t the kind of person one might automatically expect to be electronically proficient. ‘Dim’ was one term she’d heard people using for her. She’d been regarded as a ‘dunce’ at school. But in fact, in adult life, Nan had become familiar with computers, the internet and such because she’d needed to while she was working at the Spar. She’d even bought herself a second-hand laptop in order to practise at home. And though she wasn’t an expert yet, she certainly knew what she was doing.
She’d been so momentarily petrified by the thought of petrol that now she mainly felt relief, but she was mystified too. Why would someone stick something like this through your letter box in the middle of the night? If it was someone well-intentioned, wouldn’t they have attached a note? Perhaps not if it was a friend playing some elaborate but harmless joke – but Nan wasn’t friendly enough with anyone for that to be a possibility.
As