Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(77)

The old man dawdled for another moment, staring at the van and back at the open gate. His dog went back to the gate and stepped through to sniff some weeds before cocking his leg and urinating. Finally, the old man whistled, and then he carried on up the street, the dog trotting after him. The Fan watched him through the tinted glass. He seemed doddery and wasn’t wearing any glasses. Hopefully this would be enough for him not to remember too much detail.

Five minutes later, his heart leaped when she appeared in his vision, walking along the pavement opposite. Her name was Abigail Clark, and she was perfect. Tall and athletic enough to present a challenge. He loved the girls to have a bit of fight about them, which made it all the more thrilling when he overpowered them. Abigail wore her hair long and tied back, and she wore a baseball cap. In the weeks leading up to this, he had watched her walk home in daylight. Her hair had shone like gold in the sunlight, and her face had been flushed from training.

As she walked toward the van, she had her head down, engrossed in her phone. She didn’t hear the sliding door as he popped the lock open, and as she came level, he slid the door open in one smooth motion and put out his hands to grab her.





44

Abigail didn’t notice the van until the hands emerged to grab her. The man was dressed all in black and wearing a black balaclava.

She yelled and fought harder as she was lifted off her feet and pulled into the van. She was thrown forward onto a mattress in the back.

Just before she landed, she reached for the small canister she kept in the front pocket of her hoodie. She thrashed and fought, feeling him on her back, and when he turned her over, she aimed for the eyes of the balaclava and sprayed him. It wasn’t Mace or pepper spray but the legal alternative her mother had bought her, which was a bright-red gel that temporarily blinds your attacker—and stains their skin red for days.

He screamed out and put his hands to his face, scraping at the red gunk on his face and pulling off the balaclava. His hair was almost as red as the gel. Abigail crawled and kicked and fought her way up to a standing position, then made for the sliding door, which was still open. He managed to grab hold of the hockey stick tucked in her backpack, but it came loose from her bag as she fell out of the van, landing painfully on the pavement.

She got to her feet, but he was right behind her, spitting red and gagging, sounding like a wild animal. Abigail made the fatal mistake of running through the open gate to the electrical substation; if she had run right or left, she would have quickly emerged onto busier streets and might have gotten away.

She ran around the small square brick building and saw there was a small door in the back. She tried the handle, but it was locked.

He appeared around the building and was on her. She felt her hockey stick around her ankles as he tripped her up, and she went down, landing in the grass.

He screamed something unintelligible and hit her hard across the back of the head. Stars and pain exploded in her vision. Abigail felt her baseball cap being pulled off, and she was dragged along the concrete path behind the small brick building. It was littered with the long shards of a broken wine bottle, and she cried out as the pieces of glass sliced through the skin on her bare legs.

It happened so fast, and she turned and tried to get up. His face, teeth, and the whites of his eyes were slick with the red gel, and it was foaming up with drool against his rubbery lips.

He lifted the hockey stick, and before she could get her arms up, he smashed it into her throat, crushing her windpipe. She gagged and flailed, and he began to beat her with the hockey stick. Over and over again. Each blow made her body numb, and as she lost consciousness, she heard the crack of her bones breaking.



Later that evening, a genuine Southwestern Electrical Company van pulled up at the substation. The run-down street was deserted and not the kind of place the engineer wanted to be after dark. An old man had called in to the head office, asking when the work would be completed on the substation and if his house would be without power.

The message had been passed along, and it had been flagged up that the substation wasn’t due to be visited by an engineer. A breakin had to be taken seriously.

He parked up, grabbed his flashlight and tool kit, and went to the gate. It was closed, but he saw the lock was broken. He had an odd feeling as he opened it and went through. Shining his flashlight on the scrappy grass, he made his way around to the back of the substation. He thought the young girl lying on the path was wearing red trousers until he saw that it was blood caked on her bare legs. Her long hair was a tangle of red and her face a battered pulp. Congealed blood had seeped out into a circle on the concrete around the body. A bloody, broken hockey stick lay discarded on the grass.

Flies often hung around the heat of the substation, and he could see they were already swarming over the face. It was then that he dropped his tool bag, and he only made it to the gate before he threw up.





45

Kate stopped at the petrol station on her way home from work. She had filled up her car and was looking through the limited selection of frozen food when she saw the evening news on the TV mounted above the till.

Varia Campbell was holding a press conference in front of the Exeter police station, and she was flanked by DI Mercy, who looked exhausted and solemn.

“Can you put the sound up, please?” she said to the bored-looking man sitting behind the till. He grabbed the remote and unmuted it.