‘Yeah, okay.’
She followed him inside and wrinkled her nose at the smell that lingered in the air. He’d sprayed air freshener everywhere, but the artificial smell of clean linen didn’t really cover the coppery tang that was a little too familiar to Morgan.
Stan was dragging the dog towards the bedroom, but it managed to slip its collar and come bounding towards her again with its tail wagging wildly. She laughed as it almost took her off her feet and bent down to scratch its ears. As she did, she felt every nerve in her body snap to attention. The dog had a slightly distorted crescent moon-shaped patch on its chest exactly the same as Lydia’s dog Barney had. Her radio was on the front seat of the car, and she could have kicked herself, but she had her phone.
Straightening up she smiled at Stan. ‘Cute dog.’
Stan shrugged. ‘Yeah, he’s not very loyal though. He’s a right pushover and will go to anybody. It’s my sister’s, I’m just pet-sitting it until she comes home.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’ll just be a minute, can’t leave it loose. I need to put it back in the bedroom, or it will cause all sorts of havoc if I let it have free rein of the flat. It chewed through my new trainers and the Sky remote. You can wait in the kitchen if you want, I won’t be long.’
Morgan looked at the front door and realised he’d locked it after her and removed the key. Her palms began to get clammy. She went into the kitchen where the unmistakable stench of a lot of blood hit her nostrils, and she had to try and control the gag reflex that was wanting to empty the contents of her stomach all over the floor. Her hands shaking, she took out her phone and dialled 999.
How could she have got this so wrong? She thought back to everything she knew about Stan, from the moment they met to every cup of tea they’d made one another.
As a voice in her ear asked her what her emergency was, she felt a heavy blow to the back of her neck that sent her to her knees. Her phone dropped out of her fingers, and she reached to grab it. He was too fast. He’d kicked it away from her and stamped on it. The screen cracked even under the protective case and went black.
‘Why the fuck did you have to come here, Morgan?’ He was shaking his head at her in disbelief at how stupid and reckless she’d been. He was dragging her to her feet. Kicking a chair underneath her, he dropped her onto it.
She was seeing double, but she was still capable of fighting him. She just needed a second to get her brain to function properly again before she made her move, but she wasn’t about to let him know that and slumped to the side. He was looking around for something to tie her up with and finally pulled some scraps of blue, nylon rope out of a drawer, the same kind that had been used to hang Jack with. She tensed as much as she could whilst he tied her hands behind her back and was thankful he didn’t have his handcuffs with him, or it might be a different story.
She looked at him. ‘I don’t understand, what you are doing?’
He laughed a little too manically. ‘You don’t expect me to believe that the great Morgan Brookes didn’t just realise I was the guy she’s been looking for all of this time, and all because of that stupid fucking dog.’
‘Stan, no. I don’t get it, the team are ready to go break Scotty’s door down.’
He straightened up and turned to stare at her. ‘Why?’
‘Because I told them he was the killer, and they believed me. The print on the blade at Lauren’s crime scene belonged to him.’
The look of confusion that crossed his face was enough to make her feel like she might just be able to get the upper hand if she carried on.
‘And why would you do that?’ He dragged a chair over so he was sitting opposite her, his knees pressing against hers, but he’d made his first mistake. He hadn’t bothered to tie her legs together, and she had her trusty Doc Martens on.
‘I thought he was. He fits my profile perfectly and you don’t.’
‘And what profile is that? Because you haven’t mentioned a profile in any of the team briefings or meetings we’ve had.’
‘That the killer was taken in as a baby by the Williams family. He never knew his own mother, and they treated him badly. I figured out that he was a copper and Scotty, for all his fault, fit the bill perfectly. He attended all three murder scenes, was friends with all the Williams sisters and, unfortunately for him, was first on scene at the fatal car crash of their parents.’
‘Really? I never knew that. I would say he’s been pretty unlucky, the poor bastard, and if you hadn’t come knocking on my door, we wouldn’t be in this awkward situation now. I mean Scotty would be in one, but he’d soon be released when his solicitor realised all you had was a lot of what ifs and nothing concrete to hold him with. Good effort though, Morgan, you were trying your best, weren’t you?’
‘Where’s Angela?’
He didn’t answer but his eyes betrayed him as they lingered a little too long on a cupboard next to the sink, and she felt her heart tear in two at the realisation that Angela was probably the source of the smell of all that blood. A lump formed in her throat, and her eyes stung with the warmth of tears that were threatening to pour from them.
‘You know, you have this all wrong. I think you’ve jumped to conclusions like you have with Scotty. I thought you were this brilliant, fast thinking, super detective but I think that all you have is a wild imagination. You make reckless decisions based on theories and scenarios, there is no skill involved at all. You thought someone else killed Lydia, and it put Lauren, Lynseyand Angela in danger. And now, you’ve made a really, really stupid decision based on the fact that you think the dog isn’t mine.’
Morgan shook her head. She wasn’t going to let him make her feel bad. ‘No, I think the dog is your sister’s. Barney belongs to your dead adoptive sister that you brutally murdered because you feel sorry for yourself. You think you’re the only kid to get adopted by people who didn’t really want you? I was adopted too. I didn’t go to the kind of warm, loving home I hoped for either. My dad was an alcoholic, and Mum hated her life so much she killed herself before my fifteenth birthday. It doesn’t give me the right to go around killing anyone who I think has done badly by me, you stupid piece of shit.’
Stan jumped up so fast his chair tipped over and he swung back his fist and punched her in the mouth. Blood gushed from her split lips and she wondered if he’d broken her teeth, but she didn’t cry out, there was no way she’d give him the satisfaction. She could taste the blood as it flowed into her mouth. He leaned a little closer and she spat a mouthful of blood into his face, which sent him into meltdown as he began to scrub at it with his sleeve.
‘You dirty bitch.’
He ran to the sink and began to wash her blood away with cold water.
Morgan couldn’t help smirking.
‘You know who Angela’s partner is, don’t you?’
