‘I did it because if the whores are not there, then no one will be tempted by them. No-one will fall from grace, descend to their level. Like McPhail did, for a start, he must have been all over them whatever he told us. I cross their arms so that when they meet their maker, they appear penitent. And killing them is a kindness, really, for them, I mean. What kind of life do they lead, eh? If they were animals the RSPCA would have something to say about it… doped, drunken and dirty. They’re like a controlled drug, only they’re not controlled and the substance itself has feelings – well, of some sort. And they’re just as destructive as smack or whatever. Breaking up families, my own dad…’
He went on and on, justifying himself, attempting to provide a rational explanation and then realising that he had contradicted an earlier argument, starting all over again. And although his speech was entirely intelligible, its coherence could not disguise the underlying chaos of his thoughts.
Still speaking, he moved towards her. Seeing the blade now so close, she felt her whole body tense, her mind alert to everything, ready to respond to his slightest movement. And time no longer mattered, no longer governed anything, its passage an irrelevance. As he lunged at her, she sprang towards the chopping board and seized the tenderiser, swinging it at his hand and bringing it crashing down onto his knuckles. Roaring with pain, he dropped the knife and turned to face her squarely, his features suffused with anger. She swung the mallet again, but as she brought it down, aiming now for his head, he caught her wrist in mid-movement. With his free hand he grabbed her neck, kicking away one of her legs with his own.
Immediately, she felt herself falling, crashing to the ground, her skull catching the edge of the chair and his whole weight crunching on top of her. It’s over, she thought, pinned down by his body, breathless and winded, and feeling his hands as they tried to link with each other around her throat, preparing to throttle her.
Somewhere at the back of her mind she heard a distant clicking sound, then footsteps, and sensed that someone else had entered the room, but the effort involved in staying conscious was becoming too much for her. The air seemed to be alive with shouting, but when she tried to scream, to draw attention to herself, all she heard was a dry moaning noise coming from her throat, more like a death-rattle than anything else.
Suddenly, a loud crack vibrated in the air, and Simon Oakley’s head fell forwards, lolling onto hers. She squirmed, desperate to rid herself of him and his clammy face. His skin was sticking to hers, and revolted at the very thought she closed her eyes and held her breath. A serpent’s scales touching her cheek would have been more welcome.
A few seconds later she became aware that someone was rolling the dead weight of his body off her, and looking up she saw a young woman, a wine bottle still in her hand, peering down at her with a look of intense anxiety on her face.
‘Are you all right?’ the stranger asked.
‘I think so,’ Alice said, slowly heaving the rest of herself out from under her attacker’s leaden limbs and fingering her neck, hardly able to believe that it had not been broken or squeezed out of shape.
‘Who are you?’ she added, her voice sounding hoarse and unfamiliar.
‘Fiona Shenton. I used to be his girlfriend,’ the stranger replied. And so saying, she dropped the bottle onto the floor and collapsed onto the sofa, covering her pale face with both of her hands.
‘Well, Fiona, thank you very much. You saved my life.’
With the engine of the ambulance revving outside and a paramedic attending to the concussed figure of Simon Oakley in the back, DC Littlewood was pressganged into escorting him to the Royal Infirmary. He grumbled loudly that he had been up all night and that a replacement should be found. Anyone could do the job, he said crossly, climbing into the ambulance and continuing to complain to the crew as the vehicle indicated right and then pulled out into the sluggish traffic on Leith Walk, heading for Little France.
In the lull before the DCI and the SOCOS arrived Alice sat down again. Everything had begun to hurt and the base of her skull seemed to have tightened around her brain. One side of her throat was throbbing, a painful pulse shooting through it every millisecond. Her rescuer leant against the arm of the sofa, drained of all colour and apprehensive, unable to leave until a statement had been taken from her. Her nails had already been bitten to the quick but she continued to worry at them, in search of any loose skin.
Conscious of her anxiety and keen to soothe it, Alice tried to think what to say to calm her and help her pass the time until they were free to go.
‘You were very resourceful with the wine bottle…’ she began.
‘I just grabbed whatever I could see, lucky that it came to hand. I’ve never hit anyone before, you know, never mind knocked them out. At first I tried to pull him off you, but he knocked me backwards…’ The woman rubbed her shoulder-blade, then patted it as if it had taken the impact from a fall.
‘How did you manage to get into the flat?’
‘Keys. I’ve still got my own key. I came to collect my stuff, I thought that the coast would be clear, that he’d be out at work.’ She bit her lip, chin now trembling.
‘We don’t need to talk,’ Alice said gently. ‘Maybe you’d prefer not to?’
‘No, I’d rather we did. Somehow it makes things seem more normal.’
‘Of course. Do you mind me asking what Simon was like?’
‘I don’t really know. It was all lovely to begin with… But after I moved in, after a couple of months I mean, he changed. It ended, well, when he hit me. It was so unexpected. Up until then he’d been so gentle. He’s always so kind to his mum, and I thought he’d be like that with me…’
‘But she’s dead – and he didn’t get on with her!’ Alice interrupted, startled by the final remark.
‘Yes, she’s dead,’ Fiona Shenton nodded, clearly surprised by the sergeant’s reaction, ‘but only very recently. And he adored her to the end, visited her every day at the home until she died. And she loved him to bits, too.’
‘That’s not what he told me,’ Alice replied, remembering vividly one of their earliest conversations.
‘No?’ The woman chewed on her fingernails again. ‘You don’t surprise me. You see, he played games with people, manipulated them… enjoyed seeing what he could get them to do. Told one person one thing, and another, another. But in amongst the lies, he usually threw in an occasional, unexpected truth… dared them to be able to tell the difference. He thought it was funny, and he didn’t mind what he risked by disclosing it. An intimate truth disguised as a joke or a throwaway line. No one would ever know.’
With her hand massaging her neck, Alice asked, ‘When did you break up with him, leave him?’
‘Er…’ Fiona hesitated, clearly thinking. ‘It would have been about the sixth of January or so.’
With a couple of photographers now bustling around them, and feeling too wan to think or speak, Alice headed towards the front door, intending to walk the short distance home to Broughton Place. Mobile clamped firmly to her ear, Elaine Bell signalled for her to wait, then held something out in her hand for Alice’s inspection. It was a polythene bag containing a wedding ring, like that normally worn by the second murder victim. Alice tried to smile, recognising the grotesque memento immediately and fully aware of its likely significance at the man’s trial. Instead, against her will, she felt tears forming in her eyes and quickly brushed them away, unwilling to let the DCI witness her weakness. Then, remembering the gold crucifix that she had found in her colleague’s jacket, she took it from her pocket, handing it mutely to her superior in the sure knowledge that she, too, would recognise its importance. Immediately, Elaine Bell ended her telephone call and put an arm around her sergeant’s shoulder.