Frozen Grave (Willis/Carter #3)(33)

Ellerman pulled up at a services outside Exeter. He went in and bought a sandwich and a drink and came back to sit in the car park with the lorries that were there for the night. He hadn’t yet decided where he was going to go for the night. He had intended to stay at Gillian’s, before she kicked off. He looked at the message he’d just received from her.

‘Jesus Christ. Why does it have to be so hard?’ he said out loud as he reread her text demanding that he give her back her money in the next twenty-four hours or it was over and she’d go to the police and she’d be paying his wife a visit as well. He knew she was capable. Ellerman scrolled down his list of recent messages and thought about where he could get some help with paying off Gillian. It was too soon to ask Megan – he hadn’t reeled her in far enough yet – but he needed to speak to her.

‘Have you had a good day, darling? I’ve done nothing but think of you,’ he asked as soon as Megan answered the phone. ‘I’m in a service station in God knows where and I wish I could be back in your bedroom, holding you close. I can still smell you.’ He knew she would be smiling. He heard her sigh contentedly.

‘I must admit I half-expected you to be tucked up with someone else by now,’ she said.

‘Really?’ He laughed. ‘You must be joking. You wore me out.’

She giggled. ‘Yeah. I had to sit down to paint earlier. For some reason my legs were wobbly.’

‘Good. I hope I always have that effect on you.’

Ellerman ended the call and looked at Gillian’s message again. He switched his music on as he sat in the dusk and thought what he should do. Nothing mattered now but the end prize. He turned his music up loud. Alice Cooper was belting out ‘Fire’. He sent a text to his wife:

I’m coming home tonight.

After Carter and Willis left, Harding stayed logged on to the Naughties website. She watched Mark washing down the dissecting tables. She could see him through the window in her office. She loved the way his hands moved. They were a ballet to watch; they were beautiful: light, soft, gentle. She turned back to the screen. But they weren’t what she needed, even if he was interested, which he wasn’t. She looked at her messages. Ellerman had viewed her profile. She looked at his. She smiled to herself – tempting . . .

A message came up on her phone:

Want to play? Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you – decided to keep you waiting. I know what you like. You like to be controlled. You like to be made to submit.

Who is this? She didn’t have a name against the number. She looked for previous messages – there weren’t any.

You gave me your number a few weeks ago. You don’t remember? I remember what you said – you like people to watch. You like living dangerously. Ever tried dogging?

Interesting.

Meet me next to the lorry park in Shadwell – in the adjoining car park. See you there at eleven.

Harding looked at her watch – it was seven. She poured herself another glass of wine and contemplated what to do. Another text came through:

I’ll be waiting.





Chapter 15


At seven o’clock, Gillian put three ice cubes in her vodka and tonic and climbed the stairs up to her bedroom. She plonked herself down onto her bed and rested the glass on her chest and lay looking at the ceiling. She thought it through. She didn’t regret the text. She didn’t regret finishing it and she meant it – but then, if that was true, why did she feel so sad? She sat up and opened her laptop and logged onto Love Uniform Dating. She scanned through the men – nobody new, nobody worth looking at. There was the policeman again. There were all the same men that had been on there the last two years. She gave a heavy sigh and lay back on the bed that still smelt of Ellerman’s aftershave. Maybe she should ring him and give him another ultimatum and try to force him along a bit? She wished he’d come back and she could talk it through with him. She’d been hasty maybe. Gillian regretted it now. She’d got into such a state about things. Two weeks of waiting for him to turn up, missing him like mad. She had too much time on her own to stew over things and some things just didn’t add up. But she didn’t want to finish it. She hadn’t meant to get so angry. Now she was lying here on her own; that was not what she wanted. She heard the squeak of her letterbox and waited for the sound of junk mail landing on the mat – it didn’t come; she picked up her drink as she sat up on the bed. It was then she smelt smoke.

She scrambled off the bed and ran to the loft stairwell. Between her and the front door was a wall of fire. She closed the door and grabbed her duvet – jamming it at the bottom of the door. She was crying, her hands were shaking as she found her phone and dialled 999.

‘Help me – I’m on fire – my house is on fire!’

Gillian ran back and forth from the locked window to the door with the phone in her hand as she waited for the sound of the fire engine. She felt the heat building in the room as she coughed and choked on the thin smoky air. She stared at the door and prayed as she listened to the roar from the other side. Then she heard the fire engine and ran back to the window and started to bang on the glass . . . She slammed her hand against it as she saw the firemen running towards her house.

‘Help me . . . help . . .’

She looked back towards the door. It was starting to blacken and smoulder and smoke was beginning to pour through.