Bolton, J. - Now You See Me

I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I remember getting back one night and Tic was like all the fire had gone out of her, but it didn’t seem like grief somehow. After that, she stopped going out, she just hung around all day, brooding. When I tried to cheer her up, to say there were other places we could look, she just said there was no point, that some people just didn’t want to be found.’

‘Maybe she got tired of looking.’

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But I think if that had been the case, the change would have been more gradual. This happened instantly. I think she found her – Cathy – and it wasn’t a happy family reunion.’

Joesbury sighed. ‘You know, it would really help if you could put a timescale on this,’ he said.

‘Ten years ago. End of the summer,’ I said. ‘August, maybe September. I remember because we knew the place we were living in wouldn’t be suitable when the weather got colder, we knew we’d have to find somewhere else.’

‘The houseboat accident when Cathy died was 27 August,’ said Joesbury. ‘What happened to her, this Tic girl?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But I do know that she saved me.’

‘How so?’

‘She started talking about leaving,’ I said. ‘Saying that there was no point staying on the streets any longer. I’d got so dependent on her by that stage. I just couldn’t face the thought of being on my own again.’

‘So?’

I ran a hand over my face. A decade later, this was still a memory I struggled with. ‘So I took too much stuff one night,’ I said. ‘Maybe it was just corrupted shit, I don’t know. When I came round the next morning, I was in hospital.’

‘She took you there?’ asked Joesbury.

I nodded. ‘She managed to get me to the main street. It was the middle of the night and there was no transport. She couldn’t find a phone either. So she stole a car and drove me to hospital. I’d have died if she hadn’t.’

‘Then what?’

‘When I was well enough, she took me to a private clinic and gave them enough money for me to stay there for a month. I’d no idea she had money, but suddenly she produced thousands.’

‘Her grandfather’s house,’ said Joesbury.

I nodded. ‘She told me this was my one chance to sort my life out and I shouldn’t blow it. Then she went.’

‘Did you ever see her again?’

I shook my head. ‘Never. But I stayed at the clinic. It was hell, but I got through it. Social Services arranged for me to go to a hostel as long as I stayed clean. After a few months I got a job. Then my own place. I got accepted in the RAF reserves and found I quite liked the discipline, the camaraderie. A couple of years later, I started thinking about applying to the Met. I know she’s a monster, but she saved me.’

‘OK,’ said Joesbury, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. ‘I can buy that you came across the Llewellyn girl when you were an out-and-out and that the two of you hung out together for a while. I can even just about accept that you didn’t recognize the photograph. But what I’m struggling with is why she’s fixating on you after all this time. Why involve you in her little revenge games? You had nothing to do with what went on in Cardiff.’

‘No, but she knew what was happening to me in London,’ I said. ‘About all the punters I was expected to service, about Rich and the gang rapes. It made her furious. She kept begging me to put an end to it, to get myself out. I was a victim, just like she’d been.’

Joesbury leaned back in his chair, a frown line running down the middle of his brow.

‘I only knew her for a few months, but she was the closest I’d ever come to someone I really cared about,’ I said. ‘We lived together, if you can call a few square feet of concrete floor surrounded by cardboard any sort of home. I think this thing that she’s doing now, this revenge business, killing the boys’ mothers – in some weird way, I think she’s doing it for me too.’

Seconds ticked by. I took deep breaths, hoping my heartbeat would slow down.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before,’ I said. ‘But even now, I still can’t be sure that it’s her. And I had so much to lose.’

Joesbury gave a deep sigh, then stood up. He turned his back on me and pulled open the window. The room hadn’t been warm, but the air coming in felt like it was straight from the Arctic. I tucked my knees up inside his huge sweatshirt and watched him walk to the balcony rail and lean over. When the Ripper photographs started to blow around the room I got up too and stepped to the open window. He was looking across the bay, directly out to sea.

‘That’s it,’ I said to the back of his head. ‘Everything. And I’m dead on my feet. Can we pick this up again in the morning?’

He nodded without turning round. I waited another second, then went back into the room. As I walked past the bed, I caught sight of the photograph of the butchered Mary Kelly. The one Ripper killing still to be replicated.

The lift was about fifteen metres away along the corridor. I’d raised my hand to press the call button when the last piece of the jigsaw fell into place.

Oh Christ .

83

I WAS BACK AT JOESBURY’S DOOR, RAPPING LOUDLY, HARDLY caring who I woke up. ‘Let me in,’ I hissed, the second I heard him turning the lock. I pushed on the door, making him step back into the room.

‘What the—’ he managed.

‘We have to get back to London,’ I said. ‘Right now. Get Dana on the phone. We’ve been absolute idiots.’

‘Lacey, calm down. What the hell’s got into you?’

I pushed past him to get to the bed. The photograph of the horribly carved-up body of Mary Kelly was on the pillow. I reached out and picked it up.

‘I should have seen it,’ I said. ‘I knew she’d have a way, some way of getting to number five. She’s got her already, I bet you anything, we have to—’

Two warm hands were on my bare shoulders.

‘Right, deep breath. Stop talking.’

‘Sir, there isn’t—’

‘Shut up. Now.’ One hand was across my mouth. He was right. I had to get a grip. But Jesus, why hadn’t I seen it, why?

Carefully, reminding me of someone about to let a wild animal out of a cage, he peeled his fingers away from my mouth.

‘Slowly,’ he told me.

‘She knew we’d work it out after she killed Charlotte and Karen,’ I said. ‘Victims three and four. She knew we’d put a guard on number five.’

‘And we have,’ said Joesbury, speaking slowly. ‘Three hours ago, Jacqui Groves was fine and dandy. Are you saying she—’

‘Jacqui Groves wasn’t the one. Llewellyn never had any intention of going after her.’

Joesbury shook his head. ‘She’s the last of the mothers,’ he said.

‘The Ripper’s first four victims were women in their forties,’ I said. ‘Just like the mothers. Then he changed. He went for a younger woman. He upped his game.’

‘I still don’t see—’

‘How many people are there in the Groves family?’

Joesbury shrugged. ‘I don’t know, the mother, father, the son – what’s he called, Toby – and the – oh shit.’

He’d got it. At last. He was stepping away from me, looking for his phone.

‘Toby Groves has a sister,’ I said, just in case there was any doubt, although judging by the look on Joesbury’s face, I didn’t think there was. ‘A twin sister,’ I went on, as he picked up his phone and started to dial Dana Tulloch’s number. ‘She’s twenty-six. And I think Llewellyn has her already.’

84

Sunday 7 September

DARKNESS ISN’T STILL, JOANNA GROVES HAS LEARNED, IT moves. It shimmers, gathers itself, wafts closer and forms strange, drifting shapes. Sometimes, darkness becomes so heavy it presses down on her scalp, on the back of her eyes, her throat. Joanna had never really thought about darkness before she was brought to this place. Now, she finds it difficult to think about anything else.