Cass Green - The Killer Inside

Irene couldn’t help the rush of pleasure at hearing these words. It wasn’t something she would have assumed at all. Sometimes she thought she was an annoyance to her eldest son. She didn’t trust herself to speak and instead nodded and took another sip of the tea.

Rowan watched her carefully. Irene got the strange feeling that the other woman knew exactly what she was thinking. Michael wouldn’t have liked that. He was always private.

‘Yes,’ she continued, ‘he said that you’re the strongest woman he has ever known.’

Irene put the mug onto the table too briskly, so that the tea almost slopped out of the top. She mashed her trembling hands together in her lap. Impossible to hold onto any reserve now.

‘Did he really?’ she managed, emotion coagulating in her voice.

Rowan leaned forward and clasped her own hands together, as though praying. The dog slid off her lap and went into the kitchen, where Irene could hear it lustily slurping from a water bowl.

‘He really did.’ She paused. ‘Look,’ she said and gave a deep, wheezy breath inwards, ‘I know all about … well, Liam going missing.’

‘Oh,’ said Irene. ‘That’s not quite what …’ She picked up the cup again for something to do, even though she no longer wanted the tea. It felt strange to say he was ‘missing’ but wasn’t that word painfully on the money in so many ways? There was a long, strained silence. Then she said, ‘Where is Michael, Rowan? Where has he gone?’

‘Well, that’s the thing,’ said Rowan. ‘I think he’s gone looking for him.’

‘What makes you say that?’ This came out too sharply, but Irene couldn’t help it. It touched on the same painful well of hope that allowed her to get out of bed each morning. ‘Has he heard from him?’

Rowan blushed now, unexpectedly, and stared down at her cup. It was very bizarre. She didn’t seem like a woman easily given to embarrassment. Then she looked up and there was something in her eyes that Irene felt herself drawing away from.

‘What is it?’ she said tightly.

‘It came out wrong just now … about looking for him.’

Irene was beginning to feel exhausted from this visit. It was an emotional rollercoaster. Now she was getting irritated with this woman and her riddles.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean,’ said Rowan with excruciating patience, ‘that I think he’s trying to find out exactly what happened to him all those years ago.’

All those years ago … As if it were a hundred. As if it were a thousand. As if it didn’t matter any more.

‘Mrs Copeland,’ said Rowan. ‘You know Michael believes Liam is dead, don’t you?’

I was cycling home when it happened.

I’d naïvely thought, moving from London, that it would be easy to cycle here. I’m not exactly sure what planet I was on, thinking city drivers were the aggressive ones, but the way they hammered round the narrow lanes here at all hours had come as a bit of a shock. Still, we only had one car and Anya needed to drive to the next station along for the better train connection to London, where she worked, so I cycled in every day.

I was on the road that led from the top end of town when I heard the sound of a car behind me. It didn’t overtake as I’d expected it to where the road got wider. I turned to look behind me, but the driver had on a baseball cap and sunglasses; plus, they were sort of hunkered down in their seat. The car was a dark SUV – black or dark blue, I couldn’t really tell.

An uneasy feeling rippled up my neck and I pedalled harder, knowing that the turning to lead me off this road was coming up soon. The car just seemed to purr malevolently along behind me for ages. I thought about that movie Duel , where the guy is terrorized by a never-revealed maniac in a huge truck. The road was coming closer and I pedalled even harder. I was almost there when I heard the roar of the engine behind me – right there. Awash with shock, I wobbled and then toppled sideways, crashing onto the narrow pavement. The car zoomed away with an angry roar around the corner before I got a chance to see the number plate.

‘Shit!’ I said. Pain sliced through my knee, which was caught under the bent frame of the bike. My hands blazed with a burning, stinging pain. Looking down, I saw a constellation of tiny stones and beads of blood on both my palms. The front wheel of my bike was all bent from hitting the pavement, and I’d jarred my back.

‘Bastard, bastard,’ I said with feeling and hobbled towards home, having to hold the front half of the bike off the ground all the way.

I was surprised and grateful to find that Anya was there when I got back. She didn’t normally get in until about seven.

I’d taken the bike down the alley to the backyard and I opened the kitchen door to find her standing at the stove, stirring something in a pan. When she saw me, her face went from pleasure to concern in half a beat.

‘Did something happen?’ she said, wiping her hands and coming over to me.

‘Fell off my bike,’ I said. She made a sympathetic noise and took my backpack from me. ‘Well, I say that, but I was essentially forced off it by some tosser who thought I was Dennis Weaver.’

‘Oh no!’ she said, and it made me smile, despite the fact that most parts of my body were hurting right now. One of the things about being married that had never stopped thrilling me was the near-telepathy over cultural references.

She came over and turned my palms round, then gently kissed the grazes. It hurt but I managed not to wince.

Anya helped me wash the grit out, as I told her all about what happened, and then she gently applied antiseptic. Her brow was sweetly scrunched, as if she was doing highly skilled surgery.

My right knee ended up with a large plaster across it, which was bound to come off straight away, but I let her apply it anyway.

‘So,’ she said, as she put away the first aid kit and washed her hands. ‘Did you get a look at the guy’s face? The one in the car?’

‘No, not really,’ I said wearily. ‘He had on a baseball cap and sunglasses. Anyway, it all happened …’

I paused.

‘What?’ said Anya, turning back to me.

‘It’s probably nothing,’ I said. ‘Just that I had an encounter with a parent today and he was a bit aggressive.’ I filled her in on what had happened.

‘Do you think it was him who knocked you off your bike?’ she said. Her back was to me and she turned on the gas under the pan again, before starting to stir. ‘You really didn’t see him? Can you describe him at all ?’

I thought about it for a moment, touched by how seriously she was taking this.

‘No,’ I said after a few moments. ‘I can’t believe he’d do that. I mean, it really was nothing.’ I paused again. ‘It’s just that …’

‘What?’

I blew air out through my mouth. ‘I don’t know, Anya, he just said this really strange thing about knowing me . I swear I’ve never spoken to the man before.’

‘Knowing you?’

‘Yeah … sort of like we’d had a beef before.’

We were both silent for a moment, thinking about this.