Copycat Ripper by Bryan Stark - HTML preview

Chapter 22

As soon as she heard the click or creak or whatever it was, she knew. It was how she had imagined it would happen. He would find some chink that John had not thought of or they would be careless one day and leave something unlocked. It had to be the back door. He had watched them from the garage behind for months. He would know that was the best place. The balcony outside could be reached by climbing up the fire-escape ladder at the back. They had both thought of that. But the lock, how had he got through the lock John had installed? She would have wanted to know that and the fire, whose were the bodies? She might never know now. Still it had been clever of him however he had managed it.

He’d won after all but not really. In that short time when her own safety was not yet the only thing she could think about, she had changed the will. Whatever he had wanted he was not going to get; she was pleased about that. But the money meant nothing to him now; she understood — revenge, that was what he wanted. She wondered whether he would kill himself afterwards. But that was an afterwards she would never see. Would he go after the others: Amanda, Felicity, John himself? She couldn’t believe he would forget them. They had betrayed him, so he thought. She knew that’s the way he would see it.

She was very still. He might think she was in the bedroom. Could she get out? The hope quickened her body and her mind. If he went into the bedroom, she could go through the back door on to the balcony and climb down as he had climbed up.

She sat very still in the high backed leather chair that must hide her from his view if he looked through from the kitchen hatch into the room. She could afford no movement that might cause the leather to squeak and reveal her. In the quietness, she imagined she could hear him walk along the hall to the bedroom. Soon he would be able to see her from the open door leading from the hallway. She had to move.

She was up very quickly and smoothly. In her bare feet, she walked across the carpet to the opening that led to the kitchen. Her lungs stopped sucking in air for a moment. It was as though her body was catching up with what her mind already knew: he was there and he wanted to kill her. She had to quieten herself before hoisting herself through the hatch into the kitchen. Once inside, she lowered herself gently from the worktop and glanced through the kitchen door: there was no sign of him in the hall. Ahead of her was the back door. She hesitated. There it was: the small window to the side of the door hanging open. So he had not needed to pick the lock or in some devious way get himself a duplicate key. He had levered aside the window lock and slid inside. She could visualise him head first through the open window and then doing a sort of forward roll to land neatly on his feet.

But she must have made a sound for suddenly there were frantic footsteps from the bedroom and then down the hall. She turned and there he was in front of her — very large, very strong but different. There was no hope of her making it to the back door.

She looked at him and smiled. He was not as he used to be. He was unkempt — the word came easily to mind. And his eyes, they had lost that clearness that confidence. She didn’t imagine that she would have much time before she found his hands around her neck. But for her own dignity, she would not die without speaking.

‘Well Mark,’ she said, ’here you are, how clever of you. Are you going to tell me how you did it?’ Her voice was calm and strong and she was able to stand and watch the effect without wavering. He rocked back on to his heels. She had stopped him but for how long?

He smiled but it was not the warm sexy smile that she had known. It was coarse and cunning. The smile of a crook or a tradesman that has just swindled you out of twenty pounds, the smile of a madman who will soon squeeze the life from your neck.

‘I’m surprised that you trusted that fool,’ he said.

Clarissa admired the way he now had his voice under control. The hate, the excitement, the brutality — whatever it was that motivated him had been pushed aside. It was his moment of triumph. He was going to tell her how clever he had been. ‘Which fool?’

‘Julian,’ he said, ’and maybe John Anderson too. He wasn’t so difficult.’

‘Well Mark, I can only say well done. But are you prepared to spend the rest of your days in prison?’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ he said, ‘I have or two other scores to settle and then …’

He hesitated and then she knew that he hadn’t thought further than revenge until that very moment. She looked and she could see him thinking. It wouldn’t stop him killing her she knew that but he might now have to think about covering it up. Had he left fingerprints? Where were his gloves? Was he now thinking about her neck and the incriminating marks that he would leave? ‘So, you’re not really prepared are you? Not like the last time. Julian did get to you. By the way, whose was the other body?’

He didn’t answer but looked down at himself as if he hadn’t realised until then that he was without overalls, without rubber gloves. She walked forward and placed her hands on the doorframe, as she did so her right had brushed against something cold. She didn’t look but knew what it was. A row of knives stood upright stuck to a magnetic strip screwed to the wall. The nearest knife was a ten-inch kitchen knife. She slid her hand towards it and grasped the handle. Could she do it? Could she watch the blade sink into his chest?

She didn’t have time to answer herself. He gave a cry of rage and rushed towards her. She made no attempt to turn or run but offered up her neck as though accepting his execution. She took a deep breath and then found his hands tight around her neck. She was afraid that she would faint. Wasn’t there some sort of reaction to pressure on the neck that made that happen?

Her hand had already slid the knife off the magnetic strip before he had reached her but she had kept it hidden behind the doorframe. She allowed her right arm to drop down but cocked her wrist so that the knife blade pointed upwards.

In the film Dial ‘M’ for Murder Grace Kelly had stabbed her attacker to death with scissors from behind but she had never trusted that. It had never seemed to her possible to get enough power that way. No, in her mind, in her dreams, the knife would have to travel up under the rib cage into the heart.

At first there was no space between their bodies to do what she intended, so she allowed her legs to buckle and her eyes to close as though she had already fainted. Last time he had been interrupted and had no chance to finish the job but this time she knew he would hold on until certain there was no life left in her. He would not let go.

Her weight on his arms now caused him to lean forward from the waist while her torso was upright. There was a huge space between their chests. Her body was limp but to thrust effectively she needed the firmness of her legs to provide a fulcrum, so she bent her knees and then stiffened her whole body.

He almost fell on to her as she did this but, after staggering for a second, stayed on his feet. He still hadn’t seen the knife even though they had staggered through the doorway into the kitchen. She opened her eyes and saw him glance downwards and to his left. The kitchen light must have glinted on the metal of the blade but for him it was too late.

She thrust upwards with the knife and straightened her legs at the same time. The point of the knife entered his abdomen below the rib cage and the whole shaft buried itself inside his chest cavity. She could see he had died before his hands released their grip. His body crashed down towards her but she managed to twist and release the knife handle. His face hit the tiled floor of the kitchen as she moved her head and body to the side. There was a metallic sound as the hilt of the knife struck the ceramic. She saw the tip of the knife appear out of his back driven there by the weight of his body falling forward on to knife handle.

She found herself alive but trapped by his embrace. She took a deep breath and filled her lungs. It had not been as bad as the last time. She would not need to stay in hospital. When she had recovered her breath, she heard John’s voice. He must have been speaking for some time but she hadn’t heard. She looked up and saw him leaning over the two of them. Her eyes flickered and from the expression on his face she knew he had thought her dead.

Anderson lifted the dead body of Clarissa and then pulled her on to her feet. He guided her into the lounge and the winged chair and left her there. Then he walked into the kitchen to look at the body lying on the floor. He took a sharp intake of breath as he saw the blood pooling and congealing on the floor and the knife tip sticking out of Turney’s back. He walked back into the lounge.

She turned towards him. ‘I saved you the trouble,’ she said.

Anderson was puzzled. ‘What trouble,’ he said.

‘Poor Julian,’ she said.

Anderson walked over to her and put his hand on her head and then ran his palm down her neck. She shivered but with pleasure; she seemed calm, so he turned to the phone and called the station.

‘He’s dead,’ he said to Clarissa.

She turned to him and smiled. ‘I know,’ she said.

‘What trouble did you save me from?’

‘Killing him,’ she said, ’isn’t that what you had in mind?’

‘How did you know?’

‘We have to thank Julian. I suppose his is one of the bodies.’

'Yes,' said Anderson, ’we don’t know who the second one is.’

'Did you know he was living there, Julian did?’

'Yes.'

'You could have arrested him for theft. Julian told me he had stolen a lot of my things.’

'You were still married, it would have been difficult to prove.’

'Would you have done it?’

'Yes,' he said. Then he called Comben in from the car.