‘You are confident and in control.’
For the briefest of seconds she was tempted to rush forward, to drive the kitchen knife into his arched back and watch him fall face first to the ground, but she resisted. The visualisation had climaxed in the alley. She must stick to her plan. Only then would she be free. Only then would she retrieve her light.
‘You are a lone female behind a grown man and you are not afraid.’
She exited the shadows and fell into step a few paces behind him. Her trainers made little sound against two cars racing along the stretch of road.
In the alleyway, the sound of her footsteps was exposed. His body tensed, sensing a presence behind him, but he didn’t turn. He slowed slightly, as though hoping the pedestrian would pass by. She would not.
‘Your hand is wrapped around a knife in your coat pocket.’
Halfway into the alley, at the exact spot she’d visualised, her heartbeat quickened with her step.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, surprised by the calmness of her tone as she repeated the words Alex had given her.
His body relaxed at the sound of a female voice and he turned with a smile on his face. Big mistake.
‘Do you have the right time?’ she asked.
Her expression remained open when confronted with his face. He had raped her from behind and his facial features meant nothing to her. It was the sound that transported her back. His breathing was laboured from walking the dog. It was a sound she remembered well in her ear as he had split her insides open.
He used his right hand to uncover the watch beneath the elasticated cuff of his jacket.
‘I make it half past …’
The knife plunged into his abdomen with ease, traversing its journey through flesh, muscle and throbbing organs. The blade turned north and met bone as she thrust upwards. She turned the knife slowly, mincing anything in its path, like a kitchen blender. Her hand rested briefly against his stomach and could travel no further.
‘Feel his flesh against yours but this time on your terms.’
A sense of achievement washed over her as she withdrew the blade from his stomach. The thrust and turn needed to overcome resistance had been satisfying.
‘You watch the blood puddle and you know that his control over you is gone.’
His legs wobbled as his right hand clutched the wound. Blood ran over his splayed fingers. He clutched harder. He looked down, bewildered, and then into her eyes and back down as though unable to comprehend the unrelated incidents: her presence and a knife wound.
‘You take back your own control, your destiny, your light.’
He blinked rapidly and for a second his vision cleared and he stilled.
Every sense she had charged into life; a truck thundered past at the end of the alley. The sound lit her ears on fire. Her stomach heaved as a thick metallic smell filled her nostrils. The dog whimpered but did not run.
‘You take back your own control, your destiny, your light.’
Ruth drew back the knife and plunged it in again. The second penetration was not as deep but the momentum forced him backwards. A sickening thud sounded as the back of his skull met the concrete.
‘You take back your own control, your destiny, your light.’
Something hadn’t gone quite right. She’d missed a crucial detail. In the visualisation her body was suffused with peace, calm.
She towered over his writhing body and thrust the knife into his flesh again. He groaned, so she stabbed him again.
She kicked at his left leg. ‘Get up, get up, get up,’ she screamed but the leg lay inert like the rest of him.
‘You take back your own control, your destiny, your light.’
‘Get the fuck up,’ she aimed a kick to his ribs. Blood spurted from his open mouth. His eyes rolled back in his head as he squirmed like a demented mammal. The dog ran around his head, seemingly unsure what to do.
The tears rolled over her cheeks and fell. ‘Give it to me, you fucker. Just give it back to me,’ she ordered.
The body went still and the alley silenced.
Ruth drew herself back to her full height.
As the blood pooled like a paint spill beneath the lifeless body, Ruth waited.
Where was her relief?
Where was her salvation?
Where the hell was her light?
The dog barked.
Ruth Willis turned and ran for her life.
EIGHT
It started with a body, Kim thought, getting out of the Golf GTI.
‘Nearly got him there, Guv,’ Bryant said of the uniformed officer who had jumped out of the way to avoid the bonnet of her car.
‘I was miles away from him.’
She ducked under the barrier tape and headed for the bunch of fluorescent jackets milling around the white tent. The Thorns Road, a dual carriageway, formed part of the main link from Lye to Dudley town.
One side of the road was primarily made up of a park and houses. The other side was dominated by a gym, a school, and The Thorns pub.
The mid-March day temperature had almost broken double figures but the darkness had sent the mercury plummeting all the way back to February.
While Bryant confirmed their credentials, Kim ignored everyone and headed for the body. A dark gulley ran along the side of an end terrace that stretched up towards Amblecote, one of the finer parts of Brierley Hill.
To the left of the pathway was a plot of land overgrown with weeds, grass and dog shit, currently being trampled by crime scene officers or car body shop workers.
She entered the white privacy tent and groaned.
Keats, her favourite pathologist, was bent over the body.
‘Aah, Detective Inspector Stone. It’s been too long,’ he said, without looking at her.
‘I saw you last week, Keats. Post mortem of a female suicide.’
He looked up and then shook his head. ‘No, I must have blocked it out. People do that with traumatic events, you see. It’s a self-preservation mechanism. In fact, what’s your name again?’
‘Bryant, please tell Keats he’s not funny.’
‘Can’t lie to the man’s face, Guv.’
Kim shook her head as a smirk passed between them.
Keats was a diminutive figure with a smooth head and a pointy beard. Some months earlier his wife of thirty years had died unexpectedly, leaving the man far more bereft than he would ever admit.
Occasionally she would allow him a little fun at her expense. Just now and again.
She turned to where a Border collie cross sat patiently beside its prostrate master.
‘Why’s the dog still here?’
‘Witness, Guv,’ Bryant said smartly.
‘Bryant, I’m not in the mood for …’
‘Blood spatter on the fur,’ Keats added.
Kim looked closer and saw a few spots on its front leg.
She blocked out the peripheral activity and focussed on the most important part of the crime scene: the body. She saw a white male, early to mid-forties, overweight, wearing Tesco jeans and a white T-shirt that had been washed so many times it was the colour of cigarette ash. A stain of crimson coloured the front of the garment, which was littered with slash marks. A pool of blood had seeped from beneath. Looking at the ground, he had fallen backwards.
His jacket was a new, medium-quality leather bomber that clearly didn’t stretch across his stomach. Fastening the two sides of the zipper was nothing more than a pipe dream. A Christmas present from someone who loved him and was blind to his increasing girth, probably his mother. The garment had offered no protection against the penetration of a sharp object.