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Chapter 31
Thursday 4th March
Cheltenham Central Police Station
It’s Thursday morning, and I’m having a meeting with Jess. We’re in a bright, sunny room today with a pot of good coffee on the table, and I’m feeling strangely calm, now that I’ve decided. Jess, on the other hand, seems a little tense.
‘Are you absolutely sure, Mary? I really need to know that you’re certain about this, and the potential risks. You don’t feel that anyone’s pressured you into it in any way?’ she asks, looking at me with a deep frown creasing her smooth brow. She pushes a plate of bourbon creams across the table towards me.
‘Here, have one.’
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘And yes, I’m sure. And no, nobody’s put any pressure on me. This ismydecision.’
‘OK, well, great.’
She gives me a half smile, then taps the track pad on the laptop in front of her to wake up the screen.
‘Right, well, I’ll inform the team that you’re definitely staying at home, then. No safehouse required. Provisional plans for the day are already afoot, and I’ll be able to give you all the details by the end of next week, I reckon. I’m just sending an email confirming that you’re happy to go ahead, and then …’
She rapidly types a few sentences, and I take a bite of my biscuit and wash it down with a mouthful of coffee, watching her as she reads through what she’s written and then hits the send button.
‘Done.’
She looks up at me.
‘This could be it, Mary. If we can pull this off … I mean, unless it’s a double bluff, and he’s going to strike somewhere else while all our attention is on you. But, assuming that’s not the case, and he’s really coming to Cheltenham …’ She pauses, shaking her head. ‘I mean, he must know that you’re going to have police protection. Hemust. You’re hardly going to sit there all on your own on the 1st of April. So he obviously thinks he’s cleverer than us – that somehow he can get to you anyway. If he does turn up, and we can nab him …’
‘I know. Or itcouldall be a bluff. He might not turn up at all. Or he might wait another day, or another month. But he’s been bang on with all the other dates, hasn’t he? So fingers crossed, Jess.’
She nods.
‘Yes, we know all this preparation might be for nothing. And if he doesn’t turn up on the 1st, well, we’ll need to come up with a Plan B, and find a way of keeping you safe going forwards until we finally find out who the hell he is. But we’ll worry about that later. The best possible scenario right now is that he shows up as promised, and we get our man. And you get the story of the decade, which would be richly deserved.’
I smile at that.
‘Thanks. We’ll see. It would be a flipping amazing story to write though, if it ends like we want it to.’
I just need to write it very, very carefully,I think.
I’ve thought a lot about this. I’ll have to say in my article that I somehow managed to talk the killer out of harming me, without saying exactlyhow. And if this killer ends up in court and says I told him that I’m not Mary Ellis, that Mary Ellis is already dead? Well, I’ll just say I made it up. I lied. I pretended to be someone else in an attempt to save my skin. After all, who are they going to believe? A serial killer, or a respected crime writer?
‘Oh, that reminds me, Jess,’ I say now. ‘I need one more element for the article actually. Can you help me with this? I need to go and chat to a close friend or relative of David Howells. Do you think you could get me a contact?’
She nods.
‘I’m sure I can, yes. We’re due to have a briefing shortly, as a matter of fact, so I’ll see if DCI Lewis can suggest a likely candidate. I’m thinking David’s ex-partner, though. I’ll get his details for you.’
She makes a note on her pad, then looks at me again.
‘At least the bloody newspapers still haven’t linked the three cases, despite their nice little splash on our prior knowledge of David’s murder,’ she says. ‘But we’re going to have to tell the relatives of all three victims about the connection before your article goes to print, obviously. I know you haven’t been exactly straight with them about the real focus of the article you’re writing, and they need to know that their loved ones were actually the victims of a serial killer well in advance of any press. And you’re still happy to include the police side of this too? To explain why this was all kept from the public, and even from the victims’ families?’
It’s my turn to nod. It’s something she asked me about a while ago, and I’d been happy to agree.
‘Of course. I think we can make people understand that ithadto be kept quiet. The mass panic it would have caused … I’m really hoping that people will understand that the information the police had to work with was so ridiculously vague that it was just impossible.’
And I really, really do hope that people will understand. I know I need to explainmypart carefully too, when I’m putting this piece together, to explain why I didn’t go public with the diary and the horrors within its pages earlier. There will, undoubtedly, be some who will think the publicshouldhave been warned, that every Jane and David in the UK should have been given the opportunity to try to shield themselves from harm on the dates in question. But that would have been thousands upon thousands of people, quite possibly all baying for police protection, and that would have been utterly unfeasible. It had to be like this. And if we do manage to catch him now, it will be something, at least. It’s a risk I’m happy to take.
Jess is tapping on her keyboard again, and my mind drifts, wondering how the police are going to play this. I still can’t imagine how it’s going to work. I mean, the other victims were all taken by surprise, outdoors, in the dark, weren’t they? But if I’m staying at home, a sitting duck, waiting for him, pre-warned? He must have some other plan for me.
