Tania Carver - The Creeper

Even her panic, her anger, had abated. In its place was a dull acceptance, her body slipping into a kind of fugue state, shutting down everything but the most basic of life-support systems. Even her ability to dream, to imagine, was gone. She just lay there, enveloped in nothingness.

‘Julie… Julie…’

Suzanne hoped she would answer. She had a question. But she doubted there would be a reply. She was just saying the name out of habit, a quickly established ritual. Something that kept her going. Or maybe if she could work out Julie’s sleep patterns it might help to synchronise.

‘Yes…’

A reply. Suzanne’s heart quickened.

‘What d’you want?’ Julie sounded drowsy, just pulled out of a deep sleep.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Suzanne. ‘You’re Julie, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re not Julie Miller, are you?’

Silence. Eventually, she spoke. ‘How… how do you know my name…?’

‘You disappeared. It was all over the news. The police were on the wing for days.’

‘On the wing?’

‘Gainsborough.’

‘But…’ Julie’s voice sounded animated, urgent. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I think we know each other. I’m Suzanne. I work there as one of the SALTs.’

‘With Zoe?’

‘That’s me.’

Silence, while they both took the information in.

‘God…’ said Julie eventually. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But… who’s done this, then? Do we know them?’

‘We must. We’ll have to think.’

There was the sound of a body moving. Julie must have been excited, turning in her box.

But another sound followed the noise Julie made in turning and moving. A different kind of sound, yet one that was also familiar. The ripping, tearing sound Suzanne had heard earlier, the one that accompanied the box being opened. Just small, fleeting, like an echo of the earlier sound, but unmistakeable.

‘What was that? Julie? What was that?’

The sound came again. Slightly louder, longer this time.

‘Julie? You there? What’s happening? What’s going on?’

Silence. Suzanne thought Julie must have disappeared again, but her voice came back eventually.

‘Suzanne?’

‘Yeah?’

‘I think…’ Her voice was no longer sleepy, she was wide awake now. Energised. ‘I’m not sure, but I think I’ve just found a way out…’

‘In here,’ said Rose Martin, ushering Ben Fenwick into his own office, closing the door behind him.

He looked round, nervous. Not wanting to be seen by other officers, going against years of accepted procedure. Whatever he was, he was a copper who did things properly. Followed the rules. Made them work for him. This was completely new territory to be in.

Rose guessed from the look on his face what was going through his mind. She smiled, unable to resist the urge to toy with him. As he crossed to his desk, sat down behind it, she put down the laptop she had been carrying, stood with her back against the door. Her hands went to her breasts, opening the buttons on her blouse. She threw her head back as if the touch of her own fingers were sending her into ecstasy.

‘I want you, Ben. Here. Now. In your office. Your lovely, shiny, DCI’s office.’

The look on his face was, she thought, priceless. He wanted her, too, no doubt about it. Here. Now. But it went against every action he had ever done, everything he had ever believed in.

She slid a hand between her denimed legs. She moaned, sighed. ‘All this power in here. And it’s all yours. God, I’m so horny…’

‘Rose…’ He looked like he was about to go into cardiac arrest.

Indecision played across Ben Fenwick’s face, so easy to read. Like he had a cartoon angel on one shoulder, a cartoon devil on the other, and he was listening to each argument put forward, weighing them both up. Rose almost laughed out loud.

Mind made up, he got up from his desk, came towards her.

Immediately she stopped what she was doing, dropped her hands, straightened up.

‘Later,’ she said, pushing herself off the door, picking up the laptop and walking across to the desk. ‘We’ve got work to do. Come on.’

She sat down in the chair he had recently been sitting in. Spun herself from side to side. Smiled. ‘Nice, though. A DCI’s chair in a DCI’s office. I could get used to this.’

‘I thought… thought we had work to do…’

Poor Ben, she thought. Didn’t know if he was coming or going. Put him out of his misery, get down to business.

She reached for the laptop, opened it, powered it up. ‘This was Julie Miller’s.’

‘Past tense?’

Irritation flashed in her eyes. ‘ Is Julie Miller’s. I entered her Facebook account. Found this.’ She flicked through some pages, scrolled up and down a screen. ‘Here. Look.’

Fenwick came round the side of the desk to join her. ‘What am I looking at?’

‘Photos. Julie Miller posted her life on here. There’s over a hundred of them. I went through all of them. Found a few coincidences. Well, more than coincidences, really.’

She moved the laptop over, pointed to the screen.

‘What am I looking at?’

The photo was of a house party. Students from the look of it, or at least all young people. Julie Miller was in the centre of the picture, tumbler of wine in one hand, a young man with his arm round her, clamped to her.

‘Him. There.’ She looked at Fenwick, triumph in her eyes.

‘That,’ she said pointing to the screen, voice raised higher than necessary, ‘is Suzanne Perry’s ex-boyfriend. Mark Turner.’

Fenwick frowned. ‘And he’s…’

‘Looking very friendly with our girl Julie, yes.’

‘So… they knew each other?’

‘I did some digging. It would have come up eventually. Julie Miller was at university the same time as Suzanne Perry and Zoe Herriot. Here in Colchester. The same time as Mark Turner. Well, he’s still there. Doing a Ph.D.’

‘And did he say he knew her?’

She shook her head. ‘Denied it.’

Fenwick straightened up. There was light dancing in his eyes now. ‘We might be on to something…’

‘I remembered something Mark Turner said to me. He’s part of a horror-film society that meets in the Freemason’s Arms on Military Road in New Town. So I did a bit more digging.’ She sat back, smiling. ‘Guess who the barmaid was there?’

Fenwick frowned once more.

‘I’ll tell you. Adele Harrison.’

‘So… Mark Turner is connected to all the women in this case?’

She nodded. ‘He is. And that’s something Phil Brennan doesn’t know.’

Fenwick stood up. ‘Then we’d better tell him.’

Rose didn’t move. ‘After the way he spoke to you earlier? Why?’

‘Because it’s procedure. Everyone’s so bloody accountable these days if proper procedure isn’t followed then heads will roll. Jobs will be lost.’

She turned to face him, stopping him leave just with her eyes. ‘But not your job, Ben. Phil Brennan’s perhaps, but not yours.’ She stood up, pushed her body against him. ‘We know something he doesn’t. If we act on it, bring Mark Turner in, while he’s off running round chasing non-existent leads, then we might well have cracked the case.’ She pushed right close against him. ‘What d’you think?’

Before Fenwick could reply, her phone rang. She ignored it.

She smiled. ‘Feeling hard, Ben?’

The phone kept ringing.

He was breathing heavily. But looking irritated. ‘Look, please answer that. It might be important.’

She sighed, took the phone from her pocket, glanced down at the display.

‘Phil Brennan. I’ll ignore it.’

She switched it off.