Except for the empty chair. Ben’s post hadn’t been filled—the funeral had only just taken place after all—so his desk and chair sat vacant. His personal effects had been bagged up and returned to his fiancée, so the whole workstation looked naked. An empty hole where a life had once been.
It was in Peter’s sight line. It was in everyone’s sight line. An insistent reminder of what had happened. Everyone—from management down to the canteen workers—had expected it to be hard for Peter. What no one expected was that, at three thirty p.m. on his first day back, Peter would head up to the office roof, shout his wife’s name, then jump over the safety rail to his death.
42
Japan? Australia? Mexico?
We had a globe when we were kids. One that lit up. God knows why or where we got it from. We weren’t an educated bunch and my mother’s geography extended as far as the nearest liquor store. But I loved that globe. It was the seat of all my fantasies. Running your hand over its smooth surfaces, jumping continents in seconds, it was easy to imagine that I was free.
I imagined myself hitching a lift to the port, knapsack filled with provisions—Jammie Dodgers a must—for a long journey. I’d climb up the slippery anchor chain, with links as large as your whole body, and once on board slip into the lifeboat and under cover. My body would thrill as I felt the giant vessel moving clear of land, and as it journeyed across oceans and past continents, I would be safe and snug in my little hidey-hole.
Eventually, we’d land in some far-off exotic location. I’d slide down the chain and plant my feet on new ground. My new ground. The start of a whole new adventure.
Sometimes fantasy veered dangerously close to reality. I’d take a couple of plastic bags and fill them with cheese triangles, Club biscuits and a mildewed sleeping bag.
And I’d slip out the door, closing it gently behind me. Along the pissy walkway and down onto the street. Freedom.
But something—or someone—always brought me back home before I’d got out of the projects.
You always brought me back.
43
Rubberneckers are an easy target, aren’t they? They are ghouls, feeding on the misfortune of others. And yet which of us can say we wouldn’t look? That we haven’t looked as we crawled past a motorway pileup or idled by a police cordon. What are we looking for? Signs of life? Or signs of death?
Peter Brightston had certainly pulled a big crowd, eager to see what fourteen stone of flesh and bone looks like as it collides with the pavement. Helen and her team arrived only minutes after the paramedics. But unlike the poor souls whose job it was to scoop up his remains, Helen, Charlie and Mark were not interested in Peter. He’d been seen by coworkers jumping—there could be no question of coercion; it was an open-and-shut case of suicide. No, what interested Helen was the rubberneckers. Those who had come to enjoy the carnage.
Something told Helen that the killer wouldn’t abandon her victims once she’d set them in motion. Peter’s suicide was surely the climax of all her hopes and dreams. The living calling card unable to cope with the guilt forced upon him by his abductor. The killer didn’t even have to do anything this time. Just sit back and enjoy her handiwork. Surely, though, you’d want to see it?
Which was why they’d brought cameras. From various discreet positions—some elevated, some on street level—they scanned the crowds, recording the masses’ morbid interest in a middle-aged man’s despair.
Reviewing the footage later was a depressing affair. They’d caught the moment when his wife, Sarah, had turned up. She was raving, frantic. She hadn’t yet taken in Peter’s abduction and bizarre reappearance. She hadn’t been able to penetrate his all-encompassing gloom ever since—she’d tried counselors, but his armor was too strong. And now this. Her entire world—and her place in it—had been destroyed in a matter of weeks. Before, it had been a world of comfort, private education, skiing trips, a sense of serenity and contentment. Now the world was a dark place, full of evil, sadism and danger.
“Let’s fast-forward a bit,” Helen suggested, and no one disagreed.
The images sped up briefly, then settled back down to normal. An endless parade of paramedics and gawpers.
“We’re looking for a woman of medium height between five-four and five-eight in height, slender build. Strong nose, fullish lips. Medium to large bust. Pierced ears.” Mark reminded the group what they were looking for.
But even as he said it, he wondered if they were wasting their time. Even if they saw the killer, would they know her? They had the e-fits as compiled by Amy and Charlie up on the board, but they were rough and ready, with different-colored hair and so on. Would they look the killer straight in the eye and not know her?
Shortly after, the footage came to an end.
“What do you want to do now, boss?” Charlie asked.
They had watched it twice without anyone spotting anything of interest. But it was hard to be across everyone—there were so many people on-screen—so after a moment’s hesitation, Helen replied:
“Let’s watch it one more time.”
They settled in for another viewing. Mark offered his Oreos around—they all needed a sugar hit and were grateful for a crack at his secret stash of goodies. They fixed their eyes on the screen once more and tried to concentrate harder than ever.
“There.”
Charlie said it so loud, she made Mark and Helen jump. Charlie spooled the footage back before replaying it. Then suddenly she paused it.
“Look there.”
She was pointing to a woman deep in the crowd who was watching the paramedics loading the body bag onto a trolley.
