Monday, 6 May 2019
A tear slipped down Jade’s cheek. She couldn’t understand Noah or where his obsession had come from. They had the perfect life, so she’d thought. Married with a beautiful four-year-old daughter whom they both doted on. All she wanted to do was find Noah, go home and cuddle Lilly.
She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her coat, shivering as she headed down the dark path. Her bare legs were tickled by the gentle breeze as she turned onto the path leading behind a row of long gardens, backing onto a small dividing row of thick bushes.
Fun way to spend a bank holiday, Noah had said. Not for her. It was far from fun, as far away from fun as it could ever be. She’d never want anyone to know what they’d done. Noah had pressured her for months until she’d caved.You never do anything I want to do,he’d spat as she’d cried.He was right, their relationship had gone stale. Sex was only on his terms and not that often; in fact, she couldn’t remember the last time they’d been intimate. Every time she tried to make a move, he’d say he had work to do before retreating to his office. Whatever she was doing, it just wasn’t doing anything for him. She’d have done anything not to lose him. Have being the operative word. Not any more. From now on, she was putting herself first. Some things couldn’t be saved and that evening had shown her that her marriage was one of those things.
She gasped and leaned against one of the garden fences, shaking as she broke down. The evening hadn’t been pleasurable. In her mind she had been screamingno, but that tiny little word had failed to escape her lips. ‘No’, it sounds so easy, but she’d let Noah down. She wanted so badly to keep him, but this was not happening again, ever. She’d happily let him go now. The evening had spelled their end. She wiped her tears away and continued walking down the path, not knowing which route to take. All the backs of the houses looked the same and she rarely ventured out onto their estate for a walk.
Home, that’s where she should have stayed, but she needed to find Noah. What she had to say couldn’t wait. If she slept on it, she’d never tell him.
A hot flush speckled her face and neck as she recalled everything that had happened. Her stomach turned as she passed an alleyway.
As she continued to walk along the quiet path, she heard footsteps approaching. Heavy thudding steps. As she clip-clopped ahead, the footsteps got louder and faster. Her heart began to thud against her aching chest. Stepping out of her heels, she bent to lift them and jogged barefooted.
The other pedestrian was probably walking with innocent intentions, maybe leaving a friend’s house to go home. She held her breath as she scurried along the path, aiming for the bright yellow street lamp that shone in the distance.
Her mind kept telling her to glance back and say good evening, breaking the silence between the two strangers in the night. Then she might realise how silly she was being.
‘Ouch,’ she yelled as a piece of jagged stone wedged itself in her fleshy heel. She hopped towards the fence and leaned on it. The footsteps continued until the stranger stopped behind her. His warm breath tickled her hot neck and she felt a tremble start at her knees before spreading through her whole body. He was no innocent stranger just leaving a friend’s house. His presence felt menacing. He hadn’t spoken a word even though she whimpered in pain. As she held her breath, she could hear him breathing, calmly in and out.
Adrenaline fired up from within. She gasped as she darted for the orange light but it was too late. He swiftly caught her, gripping her around the waist as he dropped his bag to the floor. She went to scream but he placed his large hand over her mouth and nose as he dragged her back into the darkness, the skin on her feet peeling off as flesh scraped along pavement. She glanced back. He placed his finger on his lips and moved his hand slowly away from her mouth.
‘You?’ she asked with a quivering voice. Gasping for breath, she opened her mouth to yell again. He brought a gloved hand swiftly back over her lips, supressing her scream.
Fight, she needed to get him off her. She opened her mouth and tried to sink her teeth into his glove but he was wise to what she was trying to do. He beat her around the side of the head, knocking her slightly senseless as he pulled a strip of plastic sheeting from the bag. Speckles filled her vision as she tried to refocus on the moon, honing in on the only light she could see. With his free arm, he pinned her to the floor using his heavy body to keep her fixed in place.
As she tried to release her hands and grab at his clothing, her thoughts flashed to her daughter. All she wanted to do was go home, forget that night and be with Lilly in her jungle-themed bedroom, just mother and daughter. She wanted to breathe in her daughter’s smell, stroke her soft wavy hair and read her a story. She just wanted them all to be exactly as they were a few weeks ago. Okay, things hadn’t been perfect, but perfect doesn’t really exist, she knew that.
Freeing a hand, she wriggled underneath him, grabbing the bottom of a garden gate to pull her body from under his. He leaned up, poised to attack. ‘Stop moving, I don’t want to have to hurt you, but you’re coming with me,’ he spat.
She wasn’t going anywhere with him. She knew he’d kill her. As she opened her mouth to scream, he brought the mallet swiftly down onto her head, pounding through her fleshy cheek and nose. As she tried to call out, blood spurted from her nose and flooded the back of her throat. Letting go of the bottom of the fence, she reached up and tried to poke her fingers into his face, missing as he moved aside. He loosely lay a sheet of plastic over her head as he leaned back and brought the mallet down again. It was then that the moon disappeared, along with the stars and the smell of dampness in the air. Through closed eyelids, she heard a click followed by a flash of light.
A tear slid down her face as she struggled to take her final breath.
Two
Detective Gina Harte listened to the man’s gentle snoring. She hadn’t told him he could stay for the night. The longer he lay there, the more she wanted him to go home. Her fingers itched to push him out of her bed and tell him to leave. As she lay there under the quilt cover, naked and irritable, she stared around the dark room. Time ticked on. Before she knew it, she’d be back at the station having had no sleep. She checked her phone. It was almost one in the morning.
The man stirred and reached across her breasts as he snuggled in closer. This was too cosy for her. She didn’t want to spoon in bed with some stranger. ‘Hey,’ she said as she shook him gently.
He lifted his hand and wiped his eyes. ‘I must have fallen asleep, sorry. I tell you something, your bed is comfortable. It’s soft and warm, just like you.’ He reached over, stroking her hair as he went to kiss her. She turned away, receiving his kiss on the side of her head. He began kissing her neck and she felt him harden beneath the quilt. It wasn’t happening again, not with him.
‘I think you should go,’ she whispered. He continued to caress her, his hands moving further down.
‘You’re so hot.’
As he tried to crawl on top of her, she pushed hard. Turning on the bedside lamp, she watched as he grasped at the quilt, trying to stop himself from falling over the edge of the mattress. ‘Whoa. You should have just said something. No need to pull a stunt like that on me. Although, it was rather erotic. I like a woman who can fling me halfway across a bedroom.’
‘I did say something. I said, I think you should go. You were too busy listening to your penis to hear me.’
He slipped out of the bed and grabbed his jeans from the floor. ‘Sorry, I genuinely didn’t hear. Anyway, I thought we had a great time last night and I didn’t hear you complaining then.’
He may have had a great time but Gina certainly hadn’t. He didn’t quite do it for her and she doubted a second run would be any different. ‘I’m sorry. I just don’t do stay overs. You know how it is. I need my space.’ That wasn’t entirely true. No one had compared to her boss, the department DCI, Chris Briggs. Out of the three lovers she’d encountered since subscribing to Tinder, not one had done it for her.
‘Get out more. Try it, you might actually have a good time,’Jacob had said to her as he showed her all the women he’d been paired with. Watching him swipe had almost given her hope that it could work and, to a degree, Jacob had been successful with the matches, at least on a casual basis. She’d laughed it off while in his company, even pushed the notion to the back of her head, but the winter had been lonely. She barely saw her daughter and granddaughter, and, after spending Christmas and New Year alone, she vowed to go out and look for some company. Briggs appeared to have moved on, accepting numerous dates, none seeming serious. She had to make the same effort. Her thoughts turned to Briggs, her superior and the man she’d had a brief but passionate affair with. Keeping their relationship a secret had become burdensome on both of them, especially Gina.
As her latest Tinder match slipped his jumper over his head, he paused and looked across at her. ‘Is it something I said, or did? I really like you and I thought—’
