As we walked to my van, I glanced around, pretending to look at her to see if she was okay. In reality I was making sure there were no witnesses. But it was a cold, dark Monday night. Everyone was at home, curtains drawn. No one to see Melanie Oak jump into the passenger seat of my van. No one to see us drive off in the direction of the marsh.
We didn’t speak much on the journey. I put the radio on loud to drown out any noise and give me a chance to think, uninterrupted.
I definitely wouldn’t use the shotgun, I decided. Too noisy. Too messy. Too easy to trace back to me.
Perhaps I could somehow set her death up to look like suicide. People would totally buy that. If she caused me trouble once we were on the marsh, though, I could still just bash her head in, strangle her, whatever it took. Even if she were obviously murdered, it didn’t really matter. Suspicion would fall on others well before me. After all, Melanie had annoyed a lot of people. The Youngs, the Clarkes, the Daughtrey-Drews, even that James Harvey bloke – though he seemed to lack any bottle at all. All of them appeared to have a lot more reason than I to kill Melanie Oak.
Murdering Mel had never been part of my plan, but now it was happening, I was looking forward to it. It wouldn’t be as big a prize as killing a child, but it was way better than an animal. The longing that had been growing inside me these last months was finally going to be sated. My heart started to thrum, my blood singing with anticipation. I could barely keep the smile off my face.
Step into my parlour, little fly.
One Hundred Two
As usual, Glenn had chucked his coat onto the passenger seat rather than wear it. I pulled it over me like a blanket. This was crazy. Was I really going to face down a killer? But I thought of Tiffany, so casually murdered by this man. I thought of you, tossed aside like rubbish by your best friend. I thought of my unborn child.
I had to go through with this.
‘It’s freezing!’ I gasped. ‘Look at me, I’m shivering!’
I pulled it up under my chin, too busy doing that to bother with my seat belt for such a short journey.
‘Help yourself,’ laughed Glenn, watching me wriggling and trying to get warm despite my own coat, hat and gloves.
The weight of both phones in his inside pocket bumped against my body. Yes! It was the pocket on the side furthest from Glenn. Blindly, I slid my hands inside, hoping he wouldn’t spot my fingers wriggling.
‘Could you pop the heaters on full blast, please?’ I asked.
He turned the ignition, the engine roaring immediately. We plunged into darkness as the cab light went out. Glenn leaned over towards me – I fought the urge to lash out, to scream in panic – and pointed the air vents at me.
‘Better?’
‘Hmm, much. Thank you.’
He flipped the radio on too. Good – the noise would stop any conversation. The local station blared out tunes for lovers as we headed into the inky night. No time for nerves. I used the cover of darkness to get hold of the phones and slide them down towards my own pocket.
My heart was hammering. If Glenn saw me, anything could happen. A punch to the head to knock me out. Chopped into pieces with the machete, my dismembered corpse scattered across the marsh for the animals and birds to feast on, and the tide to steal my bones.
I thought of the police. I thought of the evidence they would need to convict a child killer. I thought of my plan.
The phones slid closer to my pockets. I fumbled at them, hands clumsy in my woollen gloves. In the dark, the mobiles slithered from my frantic grasp, skated down my leg onto the floor. If they made a thud it couldn’t be heard over the sound of the fans going full blast and the radio station’s advert jingles. I shuffled my feet desperately. The phones got pushed further under the seat.
That was my only shot.
My heart seemed to thud in my throat now. I reached for the notebook with frenetic fingers. Managed to hook it into my pocket and told myself that it was enough. That everything would work. It had to.
There were no tears. Only steely resolve. I was resigned to my fate now. No turning back.
One Hundred Three
As I drove over the hump of the sea bank and pulled into the car park, my stomach rumbled. I’d have pizza and chips for tea, and there was a film on television later that I fancied watching, once I’d dealt with Melanie’s body. This really was turning into the perfect night.
How best to kill her, though? My last kill had been planned for years, and now this one had sneaked up on me. It was a wonderful gift the world had decided to give me, in recognition of my power.
Keep things simple, I resolved.
I couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of trying to set things up cleverly to look like suicide. Not when I was this excited. I was like a child, eager to tear the wrapping off my present. My blood was pounding; my fingers twitching for the kill.
I was going to punch Mel, strangle her, then dump her in a creek. Not one of the meres, like those idiots the Clarkes had used for Beth; they were too shallow for the purpose. But the hidden fissures of the creeks were perfect. Overgrown. No one would notice her body. And if they did, well, hopefully she would have decomposed a bit by then; enough to disguise her injuries and confuse any possible forensic evidence. It would be particularly handy if some wildlife had a nibble at her.
Oh, to hear that last exhalation of breath as life slipped away. To feel the pulse quivering beneath my fingers, then stilling. To look into eyes begging me for mercy, and not to give an inch.
Melanie’s pale skin would turn a beautiful shade of blue, I decided, stealing a glance at her as I pulled into the car park. I bit my lip in delight at the joys to come.
One Hundred Four
When Glenn turned the van’s engine off, the silence was infinite. The isolation of the marsh was hammered home to me.
No one came here at night. No one would hear any screams for help.
Glenn shifted in his seat and turned to me. Hooked his coat away, exposing my body, and pulled it on. Then rested one elbow nonchalantly on the top of the steering wheel.
‘Well, I’m ready for anything. So, what now?’ he smiled.
It was not his usual boyish grin. It was slower, more calculated, and cold enough to freeze my bones. He knew. Oh God, Beth, he knew.
I was not ready to die. I would not let him take my child’s life the way he had stolen Tiffany Jones’s.
I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was 7.02 p.m. Time was running out.
Closer, closer, closer crept death.
I yanked at the door handle, just as I heard the central locking sliding into place. I was trapped.
A movement in the corner of my eye. I flung my body forward, thanking God I hadn’t done up my seat belt, and threw up my arm to ward off the expected blow. I struck out. Years ago I’d done a brief self-defence course, and had always remembered that instead of trying to hit a man where it obviously hurt, the best place to thump an attacker was his throat. My fist connected. Not hard, but enough to draw a gasp, a desperate struggle for breath.
I grappled for the lock, yanked it up and burst from the van, falling on all fours to the ground. The wind whistled a welcome that I ignored.