‘Oh, I’d have no problem with that.’
‘I bet you wouldn’t, you dirty old man. That’s what you are you know, a dirty old man.’
Sophie smiled and snuggled into the hook of Jack’s shoulder as they reached the gate. He pulled her towards him and gave her a little squeeze before leaving her to open it. Then, all of a sudden, he made a quick movement and let out a cry of alarm.
‘Dad, what is it?’
As Sophie watched in horror, Jack collapsed to one knee, his hand clutching at his chest.
‘Oh my God, Dad, Dad, are you all right?’
Sophie was convinced Jack was having a heart attack or maybe a stroke. She had studied first aid at school and knew she had only minutes to react. She racked her brain to try to remember what she knew. She had to raise his legs, but nothing seemed to happen. There was nothing to put them on, no way of getting them above his chest.
She closed her eyes, forcing back the tears. What else? There was no need to check his breathing: she could hear him gasping.
Sophie was still wondering what to do when she saw movement for the first time just behind where Jack was lying. Until then her entire focus had been on her father, but now she realized that there was someone else there too.
Any thoughts that someone might be there to help were dashed instantly when she saw the deranged face of Jessica Matthews bearing down on her. In her hands she held a syringe and a taser gun.
Matthew’s mind was racing. This wasn’t some pervert; this was Sophie’s father. The man she thought was no longer around. Collins had lied to her and she had not realized it.
The woman stepped over Jack’s convulsing body and advanced on her. Sophie Collins opened her mouth and screamed.
24
Stacey Collins was totally lost in the world of Jessica Matthews. She was rereading every statement and interview with anyone who had ever known Matthews in an effort to get inside her mind, to understand her better than anyone in the hope of finding the clue that would assist in tracking her down.
Dr Jacques Bernard had been very clear about criminals, and psychopaths in particular, using established patterns of behaviour. They would do everything for a reason. There would be conscious decisions behind every seemingly minor detail. Nothing would be a coincidence, nothing would be without thought. Dumping a body down a quiet country lane said more than wanting to hide it for a while; it would speak of a place known as a child or in the past. More often than not there would be strong and powerful associations of time and place.
Collins scanned the pages again and again. There had to be something she was missing, something she was not picking up on. There had to be a clue to exactly where Matthews might be hiding, where she might have carried out the killings. Matthews needed somewhere where she could work in absolute privacy, somewhere the smell and sight of blood would not cause alarm, somewhere with access to a cold-storage facility.
Then there was the question of the heads. They had not been found and it was all too likely that Matthews had kept them as trophies. She needed to know where they were.
Her eyes danced across the pages as she flicked through them. She was concentrating so hard that at first she did not even notice that the phone on her desk was ringing. It was only when one of the DCs on night duty called out her name and said he was putting a call through that she picked it up immediately.
It was after seven and the rest of the day team had already left for the evening, leaving only Collins and a couple of DCs on night duty to man the office.
The voice on the other end of the line was slurred and quiet. At first she thought there was some kind of fault on the phone but then all at once something in the voice became eerily familiar.
‘Jack?’
The sound he made in reply was somewhere between a gurgle and a splutter. She felt her hackles rising immediately. She turned her face away from her colleagues and whispered into the receiver, her voice taut with anger.
‘You’re drunk. You fucking idiot, I can’t believe you’re calling me at work, let alone doing it when you’re pissed up. Is this some kind of a joke?’
‘Sophie …’ he gasped.
‘Just forget about her, Jack, just forget you ever had a daughter. It’s over. It was a mistake to ever introduce her to you.’
‘You don’t understand … not drunk. Sophie … gone.’
This time his voice was a little clearer, a little louder. His breathing was hard and laboured. And now Stacey wasn’t quite so sure that he was drunk after all.
‘What the hell’s going on?’
She could hear him gulping in great big breaths, trying to steady himself.
In the call box on the edge of the park, Jack braced himself against the side of the booth. He had to make her understand, but he was so tired. So much had happened and his mind was still spinning with the effort of it all.
That woman, that mad crazy woman, whoever she was, had appeared out of nowhere and jumped towards him. She had caught him by surprise but it had taken only a few seconds for him to compose himself. His rule about not hitting women did not apply to those who were in the process of attacking him. This in particular was a special case. As soon as he saw her, he knew she was there to kill him. She had clearly been sent by the Albanian gang to assassinate him. He had heard rumours about such gangs using women for these tasks and now he was going to experience it first-hand.
He could not hesitate, he could not delay. The natural reluctance to fight with a member of the opposite sex had to be overcome if he was going to survive this. There was another reason to fight too. Experience had taught him that gangs from this part of the world had none of the usual reluctance when it came to killing women and children. Their philosophy was one of leaving no eyewitnesses. If he did not survive this encounter, then Sophie too would be dead.
He had drawn back his right arm, ready to deliver a blow to her head, when he suddenly felt like a balloon with a leak. It was as if all the air, all the energy, was seeping out of him.
There had been a flash in her hands and all too late Stanley realized that she was holding a stun gun. The voltage shot through his body and felt like … his body froze and his mind went numb. He started to fall to the ground. He realized he had been tasered. As he lay there, eyes open and unable to move, the woman advanced on him. He felt a pin prick of pain in the side of his arm. Sophie’s screams were in the background. She had injected him.
He saw the woman, her mad eyes flashing with excitement. Sophie started screaming, but it seemed as though time had slowed down. Her scream was of a much lower and deeper pitch than usual. It was like a record being played at the wrong speed. Time seemed to be dragging.
The woman was saying something, but he couldn’t really hear her words properly at all. All the strength was seeping out of him. As he started to lose consciousness he saw for the first time the syringe in the woman’s hand. He knew he had been injected with something but he had no idea what. And then everything faded to black …
When Stanley came round he had no idea how much time had passed. He was certain his eyes were open but he could not see anything. It was as if he was in the dark. Then, slowly, his eyes began to adjust. Sophie and the woman were nowhere to be seen. His mobile phone had been taken along with his wallet. All he had left were just a few coins in his pocket.
When he tried to stand up his legs collapsed as though they were made of rubber. He felt around him and soon realized he was still in the park, behind a bench. He held on to the back of it and tried to drag himself to his feet. The effort made him sweat. Whatever had been injected into him was still affecting him deeply. But none of that mattered. He knew what he had to do. He had to find Sophie. And fast.
Who had the woman been, what had she wanted? At first he was certain that she had been after him. He assumed that she was an assassin hired by the Albanian gang. He had been wrong.