And the voice. It was growling at her, but she had heard it before, when it had been much softer and kinder.
The haziness started to clear. His face was suddenly unobstructed.
Kirsty Evans flicked open her eyes and gasped for breath “I know who it is.” she screamed from her hospital bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
DAY THIRTY-TWO: 7th August.
The persistent ringing tone from Grace’s desk phone was not going to go away. She mentally cursed herself for not putting it onto voicemail, especially as she had so much paperwork to go through.
She snapped it up and gave a curt “Grace Marshall MIT” and waited for the response.
There was a slight pause on the other end of the line, “Grace is that you?”
She immediately recognised the voice of the desk clerk from downstairs. “Sorry Cheryl,” she responded pleasantly, “I’ve got so much work to do and so very little time to do it. I promised I’d take the girls to their netball training tonight. I’ll really be in their bad books if I don’t turn up.”
“Tell me about it. What about that lump of a husband taking his turn? Or is he like mine, not much help?” returned Cheryl.
“Oh he tries his best, but it’s the third time this week he’s had to pick them up when I’ve promised. It’s not been helped by him just getting a new job. I’ll be getting the riot act read soon if I’m not careful.”
“Well I might be adding to your burden Grace. There’s a lady just turned up at the front desk. She wants to speak to a policewoman. She says she saw the Crimewatch programme last night and she’s not exactly sure but she thinks the killer could be her ex-hubby.”
The woman who Grace ushered into a side room within the foyer of the police station was nervous and twitchy and Grace being a non-smoker couldn’t help but notice that she smelled strongly of cigarette smoke. She seated herself at one side of the fixed table in the room clasping her hands between her knees and introduced herself as Rachel Beddows, adding that she was twenty-five years old. With only a little eye liner on for make-up, Grace thought she looked a lot older.
“The desk clerk says that you believe the killer we’re after could be your ex-husband,” Grace opened, taking out her pen, scribbling onto a sheet of paper; testing it was working.
“I’m almost certain it’s him,” she replied. Her voice was raspy and gravelly.
“What makes you say that?”
“I’ve been following all the local news about the murders because a couple of weeks ago I did have a thought that it could be him and so when I heard it was going to be on Crimewatch I sat down to watch the programme. When I saw that detective — I think he was a Superintendent or something — show that belt I just froze. I heard him say it’d been recovered from the attack on the latest victim and they could link it to at least two of the murders. Was that the exact belt he showed?”
Grace nodded.
“Then I’m certain it was Gabe’s. Well not exactly Gabe’s as such, it belonged to his father and Gabe used to play around with it.”
“What do you mean play around with it?”
“He used to twist it around in his hands whilst he was watching TV, as though he was getting it ready to throttle someone. It used to scare me.”
“You call him Gabe?”
“Yes his full name is Gabriel Wild. The last I heard he was still living with his mum on the Tree estate.”
“How long have you been divorced from him?”
“Oh I’m not divorced, but I’ve been separated from him nearly eight years now. I ran away and haven’t seen him since. I’ve been too scared to go to a solicitors or anything. He always said if I left him he’d find me and kill me. I live in Sheffield now and I changed my name by deed poll.”
“There’s obviously some reason why you think it’s him besides seeing that belt why don’t you tell me a bit more?”
“I don’t really want to get him into trouble if it isn’t him,” she retorted anxiously.
“Don’t worry we have the attacker’s DNA so if it isn’t him a quick test will clear him.”
Rachel unclasped her hands and set them on the table. She fiddled with several gold rings, which adorned a number of fingers on both hands. “I’ll start from when we met, that’ll give you a picture of what he’s like.” She licked her lips. “Gabe was into photography in a big way and was working as an apprentice at a big studio here in Barnwell. He used to come to our school to take all the form’s photographs. He was twenty-one when we first met and I was almost sixteen, in my last year at school before college. He chatted up all the girls but I was the one who fell for him. He told me I could be a model with my looks and figure and asked if he could take some private photos for a portfolio for a model agency he freelanced for. Like a jerk I fell for it hook line and sinker. I posed for some innocent shots at first and then he persuaded me to have some more sexy ones done. His dad had made him a photo studio in the loft and he used to photograph me there when his mum went out. Then the inevitable happened and we started having sex. Within six months, just after my sixteenth birthday, I left home after a bust up with my mum and moved into his mother’s house.” She paused her blue-grey eyes focussed on Grace. It was a gaze filled with sadness and despair. “Am I going round the houses too much for you?”
“No you’re absolutely fine. I’ve got bags of time,” Grace lied. In the back of her mind she was thinking about her girls’ netball practice, but at the same time she could see the tension etched on Rachel’s face.
“He started to do ‘kinky’ things when we had sex. It scared me at first but I suppose I just got used to them.”
“What do you mean kinky?”
“It’s a bit embarrassing this.” She wrung her hands. “Well he always wanted me to dress up in my schoolgirl stuff, which I could understand. But then he started asking me to resist so he could pretend he was raping me. Then one time he got his father’s belt and put it round my neck and started squeezing it. That really freaked me out and we didn’t have sex for a good few months after that. After he stopped sulking we talked about it and he said it was only a bit of fun, that he wouldn’t hurt me and it was just bondage. Well after we had a good drink one night he did it again to me. This time he really hurt me. He squeezed the belt so tight that I went unconscious for a good few minutes. That’s when I told him enough was enough. Things just soured after that. A couple of weeks after, he started to go out late at night and he would be gone for ages. On a couple of occasions he didn’t get back until the early hours of the morning. One night he came in absolutely lathered in sweat and I asked him what he had been up to. He said he’d just been out for a jog. But I knew he was lying because he’d never jogged in his life; he hated sport. He’d sooner light up a fag than go for a run. Anyway the next morning I saw he’d put his clothing in the washing machine but when I went to hang them out I thought there were bloodstains on a T-shirt. I asked him about it but he just said it was some dye from his photography processing.”
“When was this?” asked Grace, as she quickly started scribbling some notes.
“I’m sorry I can’t remember the exact day or even month. It would have been about a year before I left him, so you’re talking eight or nine years ago now. Why is that significant?”
“I’m not sure at this stage.” Grace thought the timing could coincide with the disappearance of Claire Fisher but she also knew there were still a number of other girls outstanding in the missing from home files they had upstairs in the MIT Office.
“Anyway after the bust-up he asked me to marry him, to show that he still loved me. I said yes thinking everything would be okay but within weeks of the marriage he was wanting to use the belt on me again and we just had row after row. I told him he was perverted and I’d had enough and he told me that if I left him he’d kill me and bury me where no one would be able to find me. A couple of weeks after that I packed what I could, and when his mother was out shopping, and he was at work, I left. I never got in touch with him again. I went to a refuge at first and didn’t even tell my parents where I was for fear he’d find me, and then they re-housed me to Sheffield and I’ve been there ever since.”