Creed (A Kate Redman Mystery Read online

  “Okay.”

  “Nothing worrying you, is there? Workload not getting on top of you?” How ridiculous I sound, thought Kate, but there was something about the silence in the room that made her want to fill it up with noise.

  “No.”

  Kate took another sip of wine and put the glass down. Again, that lightning fast glance from Fliss to her hand and then away.

  “Look, Fliss—” she began, patience beginning to be exhausted but Fliss was getting up again.

  “Can I just use your loo?”

  “Sure,” said Kate. “You know where it is, don’t you?

  Fliss nodded and left the room. Kate heard her footsteps climbing heavily up the stairs. Kate reached for her own mobile phone on the coffee table and brought up Olbeck’s number. Her finger hovered over the ‘call’ icon. Should she call him? Kate glanced at the mantelpiece clock – nine thirty pm already. A bit late, but did that matter? She put the mobile down and reached for her wineglass, exclaiming in annoyance as her fingers missed the stem and knocked the glass flying.

  Kate hurried for the kitchen for a cloth. There was silence upstairs from Fliss; not even the sound of running water. Kate ran back with a dishcloth and mopped up the spilled wine. Luckily the glass itself hadn’t broken. Kate picked it up, examining it for cracks. There was an odd white sediment at the bottom of the bowl. Kate looked at it, frowning and then took both glass and dishcloth back into the kitchen. Slowly, moving automatically, she rinsed out her glass, refilled it and went back into the living room. She drank the level of wine down to how it had been before she knocked it over. Vague suppositions were beginning to form in her mind and she could feel her heartbeat again, distinct against the bones of her ribcage. Fliss’s footsteps began to creak down the stairs. Kate sat back against the back of her chair, heart thudding, trying to decide what to do.

  When Fliss came back into the room, she looked even worse than she had before. A sheen of sweat lay over her pale face and - Kate sniffed discreetly – there was a faint but unmistakeable smell of vomit that hung around her. Kate looked at her mobile, screen now gone dark again and moved it onto the sofa casually, putting it down by her leg.

  “This is nice wine,” Fliss said faintly, gently tipping her glass.

  “Yes,” said Kate. She took a big gulp, just to see if her suspicions were proved correct. Yes, there went the glance again, to Kate’s glass, as if Fliss were fascinated by the ordinary contents.

  She put something in my glass. Kate could feel a coldness spreading through her, just as if she had in fact drunk the original drink, that drink that had left that strange white sludge at the bottom of the glass. But why? Thinking fast, Kate pretended to sip again. She must keep her wits about her.

  She was just about to speak again when Fliss spoke first. “I know you probably think it’s a bit strange, my coming round unannounced and everything.”

  “Well—”

  Fliss rushed on. The anger that Kate thought she had detected in her voice had gone. Had Kate just imagined that? “It’s just – well, I was talking to Mark and Theo and they – we – they thought it might be good if I just popped round for a chat.”

  Really? Kate struggled to keep the cynicism from showing in her face. Then she was suddenly swamped by a wave of paranoia. She remembered Olbeck telling her to stop shutting people out, in the office of all places. Not to mention that evening the night before, where he’d taken her to task for her drinking and for giving up her therapy.

  Fliss went on relentlessly. “We’re all worried about you, Kate. I know I’m much younger than you but I can see that you’re struggling, and I know how you must be feeling—”

  The words washed over Kate, still sunk in paranoia. Had everyone been talking about her? She tried to think back, recall incidents of sudden hushes as she approached, of shared complicit glances across the office as she spoke. What had Fliss put in her drink? Had she put anything in her drink? Kate swallowed, feeling her heart thumping away in her chest and a slow sick feeling rising from the pit of her stomach. Was she, in fact, the one who was having a nervous breakdown? Had she hallucinated that strange white substance at the bottom of her glass? Or had it been something entirely innocent, left-over limescale from the dishwasher, for example? As Fliss talked on, Kate’s gaze fell on her colleague’s handbag, and she thought back to the mystery of the phones. Had she made a mistake about that too? Perhaps Fliss’s pink iPhone was simply not working and she was using a substitute? Was Kate just making the most colossal fool of herself, with all these wild suspicions and accusations?

  Oh, God. Kate’s view of the handbag had just sparked another humiliating memory. Years ago, there had been a portion of time, perhaps twenty minutes or so, where Kate had believed an ex-colleague, Jerry Hindley, to have been a serial killer. And what was worse than that was for a short period of time, Kate had actually wondered whether Anderton himself had been a serial murderer. She blushed now at the recollection. She’d been wrong then, so wrong. Who’s to say that she wasn’t just as wrong now – that Fliss really had come round because she was concerned? That the whole of Abbeyford CID was concerned that Kate really was losing her mind? Was she?

  Abruptly Kate sat forward and put her face in her hands. She heard Fliss stop talking and felt a dim sort of relief.

  “Are you okay?” Fliss asked, anxiously.

  Where to begin? Kate shook her head, her face still hidden and suddenly felt a great wave of tiredness sweep over her. She lifted her face and slumped back against the back of the sofa. “I’m just so tired,” she said, alarmed at how weak her voice sounded.

  “You must be,” Fliss sounded sympathetic. “Why don’t you have a rest? I can stay with you as long as you want. Just put your feet up and take a nap for a while. Don’t worry, I’ll look after you.”

  Kate fought against it but it was like swimming against the tide. Grey waters were closing over her head. Was it just that she’d finally realised what was happening, that she didn’t need to pretend anymore? That the mask she’d been wearing ever since her mother had died had finally come off? She didn’t know and could no longer worry about. She put her head down on the arm of the sofa and was almost immediately asleep.

  Chapter Twenty

  There were sounds before seeing, just like there had been in hospital. The darkness of her closed eyelids and voices beyond, quiet voices. Just like before in the hospital, all those years ago. Am I in hospital? Kate wondered. But there wasn’t the antiseptic smell of the sheets and the clank and rattle of trolleys in the background. Beneath her cheek was the rough fabric of a cushion. Kate lay for a moment, her memories coming back to her. That’s right, she was at home in her living room and Fliss was here. Fliss was looking after her.

  So who was the other voice?

  As soon as Kate recognised it, she snapped awake, fully and completely. It was a male voice, a warm, vibrant, beautiful voice, made for the stage. It was Zac Downey’s voice.

  “She looks very peaceful,” he was saying.

  “Yes, I know.” There was the undercurrent of a sob in Fliss’s voice. Kate listened, keeping her eyes closed, her heart begin once again to thud in a painful manner.

  “You did the right thing, my darling. She was so unhappy, it was a kindness to do what you’ve done. You did absolutely the right thing.”

  Kate listened for Fliss’s response, but apart from an intake of breath, there wasn’t one. She listened, straining her ears, brain humming along the pathways of what the hell was going on.

  Zac spoke again. “How much did you give her?”

  “The whole lot.” Fliss’s voice was shaking. For a moment, lying there with closed eyes, unable to see, Kate wondered whether it even was Fliss; it sounded so unlike her. But of course it was. If she could just take a tiny look... Kate knew she couldn’t. Whatever was going on, she realised that displaying the fact that she was alive and conscious would be a very bad move. She wondered why they couldn’t see that she was breathing, but the so
ftness of a cushion pressed up against her chest suggested that the faint movement of her ribcage was blocked to their view.

  Zac spoke again. “That’s probably going to do it. She’ll just drift off into dreamland, no more worries, no more pain. It’s what she would have wanted.”

  There was a silence and then Fliss’s voice said, hoarsely, “No more worries, no more pain.”

  “That’s what you want too, my darling, isn’t it?” Kate held her breath, listening to Zac’s voice. It was curiously hypnotic, listening to him without actually seeing him. She realised now that he was who Fliss had been speaking to on that secret phone. “You don’t want the awful burden of this horrible life, anymore, do you my darling?”

  Kate tried to beam her thoughts into Fliss’s head. Say no, that’s not what I want, I’m fine, leave me alone... It didn’t work.

  “Yes,” said Fliss, in the voice of an automaton.

  “That’s what I thought. I know you, you see, my darling. I know what you want.” There was a rustle and the movement in the air of someone passing close to Kate’s face. The temptation to open her eyes was incredible. Could she risk it? Footsteps beside her moved further away, the sound diminishing, and she took a deep breath and opened her eyes, just a slit, just a crack.

  The light in the living room was dim. She could see the blurry outlines of both Fliss and Zac, over by the fireplace. Zac was holding both of Fliss’s hands in his and as Kate watched, slit-eyed, she saw him embrace her, enfolding her into his arms and rocking her like a child.

  Everything was falling into place now. The suicides, the slight wrongness that she’d felt about all of them. The unspoken questions. She didn’t as yet know why, but that wasn’t important. What was important was that she and Fliss were in terrible danger. Kate tried to see where her mobile was but it was nowhere in sight. What could she do? Even as she was thinking, running through scenarios, the couple by the fireplace turned towards her and she slammed her eyelids shut and lay as still as she could.

  It was growing cold in the room but Kate knew that she dared not shiver. She listened for the crackle and snap of the burning wood in the fireplace but could hear nothing; no doubt Zac and Fliss had had other things on their mind than stoking the fire. They were still not speaking but Kate could hear, very faintly, the sound of Fliss crying quietly, and despite herself, she felt a rush of sympathy for her. Whatever Fliss had done, she had done because Zac had told her to, of that Kate was certain. Zac had groomed her and manipulated her, Kate was sure of it. Is that what he had done to all the others? All those young, passionate, impressionable, vulnerable girls? But why? What was he getting out of it?

  She told herself not to waste time and mental energy speculating. She had to think about how she was going to get out of this situation alive. At that thought, a shudder involuntarily went through her and she froze the next moment, dreading that one of the two by the fireplace would have seen her. But if they believed her very deeply unconscious, if not dead already, then perhaps she would make involuntary movements anyway? Kate, unable to help herself, uncracked her eyelids again. Zac and Fliss were still embracing by the fireplace. Quickly, she looked for her mobile phone on the coffee table but it was nowhere in sight. Where the hell could it be? Kate closed her eyes again and, with the fingers of the hand trapped beneath her, began to feel as slowly and as cautiously as she could, hoping against hope that her fingertips would brush against the blessed cold hard shape of her phone. She could feel nothing and she dared not stretch any further for fear that the movement would be seen. She lay still again, trying not to breathe any more heavily in her frustration.

  There was another sound of movement and footsteps coming closer and then a louder rustle of cloth and the sound of the cushions of the armchair giving way as someone sat down in it.

  “There you are, my darling. Just sit there for now and it’ll all be over soon.” Kate marvelled at how soothing Zac’s voice sounded, how warm and comforting and hypnotic. One could almost imagine he was a therapist, or some kind of counsellor, helping the most emotionally damaged through the worst emotional pain. And then it struck her that of course – that was exactly what he was, what he had been to all those victims in some twisted, terrible way. He had found the ones who were suffering and he’d showed them how they could end the pain. Kate could hear Fliss’s jagged breathing becoming slower and more even as Zac murmured to her. She could imagine her settling back into the cushions of the chair, ready to accept her fate.

  No, no. Was Zac going to kill her? Kate risked another quick glance, just to see Zac handing Fliss a small kitchen knife – Kate’s small kitchen knife, she realised, with a sense of ringing shock. Fliss took it wonderingly and then, with a deep breath, grasped it firmly.

  “She’s waiting for you, my darling,” Zac’s voice said in the gathering dimness, as the embers of the fire flickered ever lower. “You have to be her guide, you have to find her out there, out there in the darkness. Then you and she can be each other’s guide to the next life. It’s just as you planned.”

  Kate still had her eyes barely open and she saw Fliss make the first cut, a sudden, firm, downward slice on the pale skin of her wrist. There was something practised about it, something confident, almost as if she’d done it before. Blood bloomed under the knife blade immediately, and a few moments later, Kate heard it pattering onto the floorboards below. Shock made her flinch but Zac was intent on Fliss, staring at the blood flowing from the wound on her wrist.

  “That’s it, that’s it, my darling. Now the other.”

  Again, that quick, clean, almost surgical precision, the flash of the knife blade in the dying light of the fire and another stream of liquid was heard falling to the floor below. Kate lay still, her heart hammering. What in God’s name was she going to do? How long before Fliss lost too much blood to survive? Frantically, Kate tried to recall what little she knew about the circulatory system. No arteries in the wrists, that was venous blood, or was it? Oh, God.

  She’d moved a little as she’d jerked in shock when Fliss made the first cut and Kate realised her bare foot, her big toe, was touching something incongruous. Something hard, unlike the soft cushions of the sofa. She took another quick peek at Zac, who was still stock-still, staring at Fliss slumped back in the sofa cushions as if hypnotised by the sight. Kate stretched out her foot as slowly and as silently as she could and as her foot made contact with the object again, her heart gave a leap. It was her phone, wedged underneath a cushion and thus invisible to Zac and to Fliss. Kate knew she didn’t dare move to grab it, Zac would see that big a movement for sure. Could she...? Straining her eyes, she looked down under lowered lids to see if she could see what she was doing. Carefully, she pressed her big toe against the screen. Nothing happened for a moment and then the screen sprang to life. Kate thanked God that she had never put a passcode lock on her phone, despite Olbeck taking her to task, time and time again, for not doing so.

  Olbeck! He was the last person she’d been going to call and she could see his details faintly on the small screen. There was the green telephone symbol for ‘call’... Kate stretched out her toe as far as it would go and then hesitated. If she called Olbeck now and he answered, Zac would hear his voice, even if muffled under the cushion. He would know what Kate had managed to do. I could rush him then, thought Kate, her heart beating fast, I might overpower him...Seriously though, what chance did she have, from lying supine on a low sofa to overpowering a man standing over her? Fuck, fuck, fuck.... She could still hear Fliss’s blood running from her wrists, slow but inexorable, carrying her chances of survival away with the stream.

  Agonisingly torn between what to do, Kate had been almost oblivious to Zac’s presence in the room for a moment. Recalled to it with a jerk, she realised that he was no longer still. Uncracking her eyes yet again, she could see him fumbling – doing what? He was turned away from her but she could see his hand reaching for...there was the sound of a zip going down and... My God... Kate closed her ey
es in shock and disgust and wished she could block her ears to the sound of his breathing becoming louder and more ragged. The sick, twisted—

  Just as she was thinking that the situation was hopeless, there was a familiar squeak and crash from the direction of the kitchen. Kate opened her eyes again. She knew it was Merlin, barging his way through his cat flap in the back door but Zac, who obviously didn’t, froze. Through her half-closed eyes, Kate could see him straighten up and stop the movements of his hand. For a moment, he stood still, obviously listening hard and then, zipping himself back up again, he moved towards the doorway. Unable to believe it, Kate stared at him as he hesitated and then left the room, obviously going to see what the noise had been.

  Quickly, Kate pressed the call icon with her toe. She didn’t dare sit up and grab the phone with her hands, not knowing if Zac would return any instant. She could hear the faint ringing as Olbeck’s number was dialled and then – oh miracle! – the sound of his voice, very faintly, too faintly to make out the words.

  “Help,” hissed Kate, trying to be as loud as she could whilst still whispering. “Help, Mark, I’m at home, help me...”

  With a sinking heart, she realised Olbeck’s voice that she’d heard on the other end of the line was a recording. The call had gone through to his voicemail. Feeling sick, Kate was just wondering whether she could possibly manage to hang up and dial nine-nine-nine with her foot when she heard Zac’s footsteps approaching the living room. Quickly, she closed her eyes and lay as still as she could, praying that the cushion covering the phone would muffle any beeps or noises as the call terminated.

  She could hear Zac walking back across the room to take up his stance by Fliss. Kate tried to breathe quietly, straining her ears over the pounding of her heart. There was silence again for a long moment. Was the patter of Fliss’s blood on the floor lessening? Oh, God. I’m going to have to do something, thought Kate, sickness rising in her stomach at the thought. I’m going to have to do something or Fliss is going to die.