Untouchable: A chillingly dark psychological thriller Page 20

  ‘No, I think he lost it.’

  ‘Okay, what was his name?’

  ‘Jamie Taylor.’

  She walked back to the reception desk and typed on the computer. She nodded to herself, then produced a bundle of master keys from one of the drawers and asked me to follow her. We headed into a unisex changing area, past private cubicles, to a row of lockers, which were situated next to a block of showers.

  ‘Here we are.’ She inserted a key into one of them, unlocked it, and stepped back so I could open it.

  I waited, my fingers poised on the handle, hoping she’d go away, but she just stood there with that pitying look I’d come to recognise so well.

  Thankfully, an employee came over then and asked the duty manager to return to reception.

  ‘I’ve just got to deal with something. I’ll be back in a moment.’

  I waited until she disappeared and then opened the door. Inside, I found a can of deodorant, a bottle of shampoo, and shower gel. I saw one of Jamie’s ties, another pair of goggles, some socks rolled into a ball, and nothing else.

  I picked out the tie, bringing it to my nose, trying to inhale his lingering scent, but all I could smell was chlorine. I threw the toiletries into a nearby bin, put the tie and socks and goggles in my bag, and took Sally’s keys from the door, then handed them back to the reception with a thank you.

  ~~~~

  I drove home, a weariness in my bones making it hard to concentrate on the road. I hadn’t slept properly since Jamie was killed; the nightmares were too real, and the lack of food was taking its toll. My eyelids drooped closed. My wheels hitting the kerb jerked me awake again.

  I wound the window down, blasting fresh air on my face, thinking again how easy it would be to just let go. I could drive into a wall. Off a cliff. I could go to the coast, step into the freezing waters, and never come out. Jump in front of a train, like Billy. There were so many ways to escape all this horror. The unending pain of grief and despair. The molten hatred and fury. It was tempting. Very tempting. The nothingness. The end of the loneliness. The end of the pictures of Jamie and those men that were now in my head, unable to go away. But then I would’ve let Jamie down, and I’d already failed him by not being the person he felt he could’ve leant on and confided in about what he was doing before he died. If I had been, he wouldn’t have been out there on his own when they got to him and strung him up and murdered him. If I had been, maybe he’d still be alive.

  So. I was his only hope now to get his story told. To get justice. To assuage the guilt that had mushroomed inside me like a mini Hiroshima. It was all down to me, because if I didn’t do it, who would?

  I stopped at the supermarket, grabbed a trolley, and filled it with things. I turned into one aisle and stood there in the middle, my mind a sudden blank. What was I doing here? People tried to get past me, giving me odd looks. Someone’s trolley hit the back of my heel. I think they did it on purpose to get me to move.

  ‘Hey!’ I yelled, anger bubbling to the surface, making the offending woman rush off further down the aisle to get away from the dishevelled nutter.

  It wasn’t until I got home that I found I’d purchased tins of cat food instead of baked beans, and a packet of frozen raspberries, which I was allergic to.

  I was throwing some of it in the bin when my iPhone rang from inside my bag. It was Mum. I kept meaning to call her so she wouldn’t call me, but I’d forgotten. Again.

  ‘Hi, love. How are—’

  ‘How’s Dad?’ I cut in before she could ask the dreaded words that made my head scream.

  ‘Oh, he’s improving. The infection’s cleared up nicely. He can limp along now, but he’s still in quite a lot of pain. I do hope these doctors out here know what they’re doing.’

  ‘Is he still moaning about being incapacitated?’ I forced words out of my mouth, anything to deflect the conversation away from me and stop her worrying.

  She tutted. ‘You know what he’s like. He keeps talking about what he’s going to do in the garden as soon as he can bend down properly. I’ve told him he should take it easy. You know, get back into his routine slowly, but he says he’ll be dead before long so he needs to make the most of it.’ She chuckled, then she stopped abruptly when she realised she’d mentioned the D-word. ‘Oh, I’m sorry!’

  ‘It’s okay. And how are you?’

  ‘You know me, I’m struggling on,’ she said cheerfully. ‘But I was ringing to see if you wanted to pop out for a holiday. I’m sure that your work will extend your time off, won’t they, under the circumstances?’

  I mumbled something but didn’t tell her I’d just quit. That would only give her something else to worry about.

  ‘So, how about it? You could come over for a while and just get away from everything. A break will do you the world of good. And I’d love to fuss over you. I don’t see you nearly often enough.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Mum. I’ve got too many things to sort out here.’

  ‘What things? The lawyer can handle Jamie’s estate. It’s not like you’ve got—’ Again she stopped and checked herself. ‘I’m making a right pickle of this, aren’t I? But the trouble is, love, I don’t really know what to say. Ava is really worried about you, and so am I.’

  I imagined the conversations they’d had about me. ‘She’s not eating.’ ‘She’s depressed.’ ‘I’m worried she’ll do something stupid.’ ‘She doesn’t want to talk to her friends anymore.’ ‘She’s not getting on with her life.’

  ‘We think you might be depressed. Why don’t you speak to someone about it? One of those grief counsellors. Or get some of that Prozac, love.’

  I bit my lip. I didn’t need a counsellor. Talking to someone would be like putting a Band-Aid on a shark bite. What I needed was an AK-47 or a grenade to blast the people who’d killed Jamie to smithereens. Could I get a prescription for that? ‘I’m fine, Mum. Stop worrying.’ I was stifled by her concern.

  ‘I can’t help it. No matter how old your children get, you still can’t stop worrying.’

  ‘Well, I’ll never know now, will I?’ I said bitterly.

  I heard her breathing, probably wondering what to say next that wasn’t going to upset me. ‘It would be really good to see you. Oh, hang on, Dad wants a word.’ She handed the phone to him.

  ‘Don’t listen to your mum,’ he said.

  I heard Mum’s mumbled protests in the background.

  ‘You have to do what’s right for you at a time like this. We miss you, though, and we’re thinking of you.’

  His voice wrapped me in a warm embrace. ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  ‘And we’re here for you. Any time. If you want to come out and stay, we’d love to see you. You just say the word.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘All right, then. Make sure you take care of yourself. You know what your mum’s like. She’s a worrier. I’ve told her when you’re ready to get yourself together, you will. You can’t rush these things. It’s not the same for everyone.’

  At that moment, I wanted to hug him. Hug them both. Book the next flight to Portugal, get on a plane, and forget everything.

  But that was impossible now.

  Chapter 30

  Before I passed out from hunger, I heated up a can of tomato soup and thickly buttered two slices of bread. Why had I bought wholemeal? I hated the stuff. I ate too quickly, the soup burning my throat. I dunked in some bread and brought it to my lips. Red soup dripped onto the table. Red. Like blood.

  And then the little I’d eaten threatened to come back up, vomit rising in my throat, burning.

  Blood. Death.

  I couldn’t bear to look at it anymore, so I poured the soup down the sink and left the empty bowl there with all the other overflowing dirty coffee cups and wine glasses I hadn’t bothered putting in the dishwasher.

  I poured a glass of vodka and Coke instead and found the Yellow Pages. There was definitely no sign in Jamie’s paperwork files at home that he’d opened a safety deposit box o
r rented a storage unit anywhere, but they could’ve taken that when they’d searched the house.

  Some fifty storage units were in the St Albans and surrounding area, and I called each one, giving them the same spiel. My boyfriend had died, I was his next of kin, I thought he’d opened a unit before his death, and could they confirm it.

  No one had any records for Jamie.

  I did the same with the banks, starting with HSBC and Barclays, where he had accounts, but they wanted to see proof of his death and my status as next of kin before they’d tell me whether he’d opened a deposit box, so I spent the next few days trawling round them with the letter from his lawyer and his death certificate.

  It was useless, though. He hadn’t opened a safety deposit box with anyone locally.

  I sat on a bench and called Mitchell on the pay-as-you-go Nokia. I hadn’t found anything that looked like a bug or listening device when I’d searched the house, but I’d watched a few spy movies before—in fact, it felt as if I was starring in my own episode of one—and I knew it was possible to hide those tiny things anywhere these days, wasn’t it?

  Mitchell was the only one who didn’t ask me how I was. He didn’t need to. From his own experience, he already knew.

  ‘I’ve got no more ideas,’ I told Mitchell. ‘It could be anywhere. It would help if his satnav history hadn’t been deleted. Maybe the evidence doesn’t even exist anymore. Maybe they already took it and destroyed it.’ I worked my neck from side to side, trying to disperse the burning knots of tension. ‘What can I do now?’

  ‘I’m thinking.’

  ‘I’ve got to expose them.’

  ‘I want that, too. They don’t deserve to get away with this. They’ve got away with it for too long already.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Was there anywhere that Jamie had a special connection with? Anywhere he liked to go? A place you went on holiday together, maybe. Somewhere he was happy?’

  I chewed on my lip, thinking of the screensaver photo of us Jamie had had on his laptop, before it had been wiped. ‘We drove up to Scotland once and stayed near Loch Ness. We hired this log cabin and did some walking and hiking, and he loved it there. He said when he retired, he’d like to move there. But he was still coming home at the end of the day, pretending he’d been to work. He wouldn’t have had time to get there and back after he’d seen Dave that day.’

  ‘Anywhere else?’

  ‘I’m thinking.’ I gnawed on my lower lip.

  ‘What did he like doing in his spare time?’

  ‘Swimming, but I checked his locker. There was nothing there. He liked walking in the countryside. We went together at weekends.’

  ‘Okay. Was there anywhere he particularly liked?’

  I thought about Bluebell Wood, where he was found. A picture of Jamie writhing at the end of a rope, his eyes bulging, his face turning red, flashed behind my eyes. A noise which sounded like a cross between a sob and a gulp flew from my mouth.

  ‘Maya? Maya, what’s happening?’

  I pressed the heel of my hand to each eye, trying to stop it. ‘He…there was somewhere he loved locally.’

  I told Mitchell about the photo next to my bed. The selfie I’d taken when Jamie and I went out to those woods near Codicote for a picnic in the summer. Jamie said he used to go there before he met me, whenever he needed to sit and think about things. Clear his head. I thought about the fresh mud I’d seen on his walking boots a few days after he’d been killed when I was searching through his things. Mud and clay. Of course! Jamie would never have usually put away his boots in the cupboard in that state. He would’ve cleaned them first. Unless…unless he was in a hurry or had been distracted.

  ‘I found fresh mud on his boots just after he died. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but the soil is full of clay up there. He could’ve gone straight there after Dave gave whatever it was to him and hidden it somewhere. I’ll go and have a look.’ I rose to my feet, adrenaline and a sudden burst of energy pulsing through my veins.

  ‘Let me know if you find anything.’

  ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be the first to know.’

  ~~~~

  I arrived home after an anxious journey, looking regularly over my shoulder. I only stopped to grab the framed photo of Jamie and me at the picnic: me smiling, my head on Jamie’s shoulder as I held the phone at arm’s length, snapping the photo. So happy. So in love. I shoved it in my bag, put my trainers on, and left again.

  I drove from St Albans to Wheathampstead then took the road to Codicote. Masses of fields were on either side, and I couldn’t remember exactly where the woods were. I drove the length of the road and found myself in Codicote village. I didn’t recognise where Jamie had pulled off the road and parked on that day, but I turned around in the village and drove back the way I’d come, checking again. There was a lay-by somewhere along here where we’d left the car.

  I drove at 30 mph, and a young guy in a BMW came up behind me, sitting practically on my rear bumper. Was he one of them? Was he following me? My chest tightened as I tried to keep one eye on the road and one on the rear-view mirror. I spotted a garden centre further up and turned into the car park. As I pulled off the main road, he treated me to a blast of his horn and sped off.

  I waited in the car a few minutes, trying to calm myself, then I pulled back out onto the empty main road and concentrated on looking for the lay-by.

  A little way along, I found it and pulled over. The lay-by was really a patch of gravel big enough for three cars. It was quiet and deserted. I got out of the car and stared at the fields, the hill of long grass ahead of me leading up into the woods.

  I was hit with an overwhelming sensation of being watched. I spun around, a cold bead of sweat sliding down my back, but I saw no one. Was there someone in the woods, though, watching for me? Waiting?

  I didn’t care.

  But that was a lie. I did care. I was scared to death. More scared than I’d ever been in my life. In five minutes, ten, half an hour, I could end up like Jamie. My only insurance would be to find what Dave had given him before he died.

  I ignored the prickling sensation on my skin and the tingling of my scalp as I clicked the remote control to lock the Jeep. I put my hands in my pockets, wondering why I hadn’t thought to bring a weapon with me. I should buy some pepper spray. A stun gun. Could I even get those in England? At the very least, I should have a knife.

  I kept my eyes open, scanning the hill for signs of life. At the top, I paused at the entrance to the woods. It felt as if there was an invisible brick wall in front of me, stopping me from going any further, as in my recurrent dream. I drowned out the warning voice in my head, telling me to go back, and stepped under the canopy of trees. It was darker under here. Eerie. Creepy. Decaying leaves crunched under my feet. At least I’d hear someone coming if they were following me. I walked on through, alert to the slightest sound. A raven cawed. I flinched, my pulse skyrocketing. The trees became denser. I stepped over fallen logs and the carcass of a dead fox. Rabbits scurried away from me down into their dens. It seemed as though I was walking forever. Seemed as though the woods were closing in on me, squeezing the breath from my lungs. Eventually I emerged out of the trees into the low sunlight. Down there, somewhere by the river was the spot where we’d picnicked.

  I walked down a sloping hill towards the slow-flowing water and took the photo out of my bag. My smiling face stared back at me beside Jamie’s as we sat in front of a large log with the picnic blanket spread out around us. On the blanket was a bottle of champagne, balancing precariously on the uneven ground, strawberries in an open Tupperware box, French bread, Brie, and vine-ripened tomatoes. I could taste them on my tongue as the memory lingered in my brain, and a jolt of grief kicked inside my sternum.

  I found the log and held up the picture, moving it around until I was standing in the same spot as the blanket. Then I crouched down and examined the grass, looking for any signs that the earth had been disturbed recently.

  The gra
ss was six inches long, still wet with dew that the weak winter sunshine hadn’t burnt off. I glanced up and down the riverbank but found no patches of mud that looked as if they had been dug up. I widened my search, walking around the area in increasing circles.

  In my rush to get there, I hadn’t even thought to bring a trowel or spade, but it didn’t look as if I’d need one anyway. It all appeared untouched.

  I sat on the log and cradled my head in my hands. I was wrong. There was nothing here.

  The feeling of something touching my shoulder made me jump to my feet. I glanced around wildly, but no one was there.

  Is that you, Jamie? Are you here?

  A breeze whipped up. A sudden, inexplicable heat wrapped around me. And I knew it was him. His presence, his spirit. Something. He was here with me, I was sure of it. Or maybe it was just wishful thinking. Longing.

  ‘I miss you,’ I whispered over and over again, as if by saying it enough, it could bring him back. ‘Are you here? Are you looking out for me?’ I called out. I waited for an answer, but nothing happened. Of course it didn’t. Maybe I was going mad.

  A noise made me jump. Then a squirrel hurtled out of the log and darted away from me, running towards the cover of the woods. I put a hand to my chest with relief and waited for my breathing to calm down. I was going mad. My imagination was working overtime. Jamie wasn’t here. He wasn’t watching over me.

  Even so, the hope that maybe he was there made me sit on the log again, waiting for him to come back to me.

  I didn’t know how long I sat there. Hours. The sun sank lower in the sky. Black clouds drifted overhead. I didn’t want to be there when it got dark. I was halfway back up the hill when the thought hit me.

  The squirrel. The log.

  The log was hollow.

  I ran back down, almost falling over my feet. Kneeling on the wet grass, I peered inside the log. It was dark inside, with spider’s webs and patches of fungus. A few half-eaten acorns were scattered around. And there was something else…