Nine Lives by Anita Waller (best english books to read .txt) 📗

you here to co-ordinate what’s happening with the interviews in case anybody needs help. You can cope?’

‘I can.’

‘And at tomorrow afternoon’s briefing I’m going to tell them that in view of your upcoming sergeant’s exams, I’m making you acting sergeant until Beth returns. Maybe that will make Ian pull out his finger and put in for his promotion.’

23

Flick pulled her keyboard towards her, and with a couple of keystrokes began the job of rereading statements, and in particular looking for the word ‘gym’ in any document pertaining to the twenty-fourteen investigation.

There was nothing. She then tried looking at the timeline as far as they knew it for the day of death for each individual girl, to see if anything at all was common to them beyond the L name. All four had been at work, although none of them had any connection with any other of the victims, and Flick realised how frustrating this must have been to the investigation team. They all worked in different industries, again with no obvious connection.

The weather, she knew from her earlier work, was the only other connecting link. Every victim had been killed during a rainstorm. Either the killer was a meteorologist, or one who didn’t plan too far in advance. She took advantage of promised rainfall, offered the girl a lift home because of the weather, and had a handy prepared syringe in the car, ready and waiting. But still there was a degree of obsessive compulsive disorder about her. She had to have known the girls, she knew their names. She had to have been familiar with their working routine, and she had to have known where to take them to pose them for the unfortunate walker who found them. They weren’t random girls; once she had set them into her mind, they were as good as dead. And then she had stopped.

For five years, nothing. What had retriggered the psychopathic tendencies? What had changed in her life that would make her seek the satisfaction that murder gave her? The death of someone close to her? A marriage breakdown? Had she suddenly become happy five years earlier, but the happiness was evaporating? Maybe routine and boredom had set in?

Flick sighed and opened up the files for the current case. She began with Susanna Roebuck, checking what the other three housemates had said in their statements about Susie’s activities prior to her visit to the theatre.

It had seemingly been an ordinary day. She had got up around eleven after watching a film on Netflix with Clare. They had made cheeseburgers for lunch for all four housemates, taking Becky’s lunch to her room because she was working on an essay to be handed in before the evening was over.

In the afternoon Clare and Susie had snuggled on the sofa under a quilt, both reading Macbeth and making notes, waiting until the play started at half past five.

Flick sat back for a moment, thinking about the two girls. Within forty-eight hours they would both be dead, along with whatever relationship had been growing between them. It was an horrific thought, and Flick shivered. She wondered if their removal of Becky and Katie had thrown a firework of immense proportions into the plans of the killer, or if she had merely shrugged off the inconvenience and chosen somebody else – Imogen Newland.

How had she known Becky and Katie were out of her reach? Maybe she had guessed what would happen after the death of the second housemate, maybe she was one hell of a smart cookie who was one step in front all the time. But Flick would bet everything that the killer didn’t know about having been seen in the pocket park area on the night Susie was killed. Was this the only fact they had but she didn’t? If so, how could they use this to their advantage? Announce it to the world?

Flick rubbed her forehead. An irritating little headache was starting, and she knew it was because her mind was rioting. Was the way forward to push her, to tell her that she had been seen and identification was close? Which way would she go? Back down or try for a ninth victim…

Erica walked onto the ward and immediately saw Beth’s parents, huddled together and holding each other tightly, crying. Her immediate reaction was to turn and run in the opposite direction; she didn’t want to know why they were in tears.

She walked slowly towards them.

‘Erica, she moved!’ Mr and Mrs Machin spoke in unison, and Erica immediately understood the reason for the tears.

‘Thank God.’ She looked through the tiny window in the door of Beth’s room. The staff were pulling her up the bed slightly and her ventilator had been removed.

Erica’s smile was huge as she turned back to the elderly couple. ‘Has anybody said anything?’

‘Not yet, they sort of threw us out. She moved her head and tried to take the tube out of her throat and the nurse hit the alarm button, then asked us to leave while the doctors attended to her. We cried.’ Norma Machin turned to her husband and clutched at his hand.

‘I feel like crying too,’ Erica confessed. ‘I thought…’

‘So did I,’ Owen said, ‘but Norma here never gave up hope.’

The door opened and a doctor came out, moving towards them with long, easy strides. ‘You can go in to see her, but be gentle. She’s still fragile, and she may not be awake for long, but now we have hope.’

Beth had little colour, but she did have the tiniest of smiles. Her voice sounded raw, as if she had smoked twenty cigarettes before speaking, but she managed to say, ‘Mum.’

Norma promptly burst into tears again, and Beth turned her eyes to Erica.

‘Erica.’

‘I’m here, Beth. Don’t talk, gather your strength first. You’re safe now, and we’re all batting for you.’

Norma reached forward and grasped her daughter’s hand. ‘We’re here for you, sweetheart. Sleep when you want, we’ll still be here when you wake. I