He rolled over and picked up his phone again.
He’d texted Kirsty just before he got on the plane, knowing that having no reception for hours would stop him obsessing over whether she replied. He tried to keep the tone light, casual.
Hi Kirsty
This is Jamie (Knight – just in case you’ve forgotten!) Long time no speak!
I bumped into Brian the other day and he gave me your number. Hope you don’t mind me texting. I just wanted to say hi. I live in Australia now – pretty much spending all my time drinking Fosters and chucking shrimps on the barbie, haha! But I’m coming to the UK for a couple of weeks. Would be lovely to meet up for a coffee if you’re free and don’t think it would be too weird! Hope to hear back from you.
Jamie
He wrote and sent the text quickly, so he wouldn’t agonise over every word, though afterwards he was convinced it made him sound like a dick. All those exclamation marks! And what was up with the lame ‘chucking shrimps on the barbie’ joke? She’d probably roll her eyes and delete the text the minute she got it.
But while he was waiting at the baggage carousel in Birmingham, his phone connected to a local provider and pinged. He had two new messages. One was from Anita, hoping he’d landed safely. The other was from Kirsty.
In his haste to read it he almost pressed the delete button. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his suitcase glide past but left it to go around again.
Hey Jamie – lovely to hear from you! You’re right, it has been a long time. Too long. Australia, eh? Wow, I’m jealous! And yeah, it would be nice to meet up. I work shifts (yep, still working at the same place) but text me when you get to England and I’m sure we can sort something out. K x
He stared at that kiss. It probably didn’t mean anything. Kirsty put kisses at the end of all her emails and texts.
Besides, it wasn’t like he was hoping they could rekindle their relationship, after all this time.
Was he?
He tried to tell himself it was ridiculous to entertain any kind of hope, that it would only lead to fresh heartbreak and disappointment, but it was hard to fight it. He’d already reopened the wound by coming here.
He lay back and listened out for Lucy’s car. It was midnight and she wasn’t home yet. He’d love to know where she was, what she was doing. Maybe she had a new boyfriend, someone she’d found on a dating site for psychopaths.
Looking for a fellow cold-blooded killer to team up with. Likes: cats, torturing people, murder. Dislikes: empathy, prison, happy couples. Must have no sense of humour.
He fell asleep with a wry smile on his face.
He didn’t wake up until ten. Sunlight flooded the box room. He got out of bed and went over to the window and checked out the view.
He shrank back.
She was out there. Lucy. She had her back to him and, as Anita had said, her hair was shorter now, dyed dark brown. But it was unmistakably her. The broad shoulders, the way she held herself straight, pulled up to her full height. When Jamie first met her he described her as Amazonian, and the last few years – the court cases, prison, the glare of hatred from a good portion of the public – hadn’t diminished her.
Staying back from the glass so she wouldn’t see him if she turned, Jamie watched his old adversary. She disappeared for a minute, and he thought she must have gone inside, but she came back with a small, grey wheelbarrow, gardening gloves on her hands. He was surprised. He was sure it was Chris who looked after the garden in Mount Pleasant Street. Maybe it was something she picked up in prison, a new interest. Or maybe she did it as some kind of tribute to her late husband. He killed that train of thought immediately, reminding himself it was a mistake to ascribe normal emotions to her. Chris had been her partner in crime, that was all.
Over the next thirty minutes, she wheeled the weeds away then came back with a number of plants that Jamie couldn’t name. Shrubs, he thought, though he was pretty ignorant about such things. Lucy crouched on the ground, carefully planting them.
When she was almost done, a black cat approached her, padding across the lawn. This must be Anita’s cat, though Jamie couldn’t remember its name. Lucy spotted it and stopped, peeling off her gloves and picking the animal up.
She stroked its head and turned towards the house, looking straight at Jamie’s window.
He jumped back, heart skittering. He didn’t think she’d seen him. Her expression didn’t change as she looked up and, thinking about it, she would have had the sun in her eyes. She didn’t know he was here.
He inched forward. She was still standing there, holding the cat and running her hand along its back. Her lips, he realised, were moving. She was talking to the cat.
He was thrown back to how Lucy used to act with Lennon, the cat who belonged to their upstairs neighbour, Mary. Afterwards, someone had joked that the creature was Lucy’s familiar. And watching her now, the way Anita’s cat twisted its body and looked into Lucy’s eyes, it didn’t seem far-fetched.
‘Jamie? Are you up?’
It was Anita. She came into the room, holding a steaming mug of coffee.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, and he held his finger to his lips, nodding to the window.
She came over and sighed. ‘I told you about that, didn’t I? She does it all the time. It’s as if Belle isn’t mine any more.’
‘Belle, like in Beauty and the Beast?’ Jamie asked. He looked back out at Lucy and the cat and laughed humourlessly. ‘How apt.’
Five
Later, after Lucy had gone back indoors and Belle had come in for breakfast, Jamie asked Anita to drive him to the nearest branch of Maplin. He headed straight to the home-security section and bought several miniature wireless cameras with built-in microphones.
Back at the farmhouse, he set one up in the living room, one in the kitchen and another outside the back door, watching the garden. Finally, he set a camera up outside the front door, concealed behind a hanging basket.
‘These are connected to my phone,’ he said, showing her his iPhone screen. ‘They record automatically. It gets wiped every twenty-four hours and records again, unless I choose to save it.’
She nodded.
‘So if we can record her breaking the law, damaging your property or threatening you, we’ll be able to use it against her. It would be even better if we could capture her harming someone . . .’
Anita’s already large eyes stretched wider.
‘Not that I’m suggesting one of us volunteers to act as bait.’
They went into the kitchen, where Anita filled the kettle.
‘Are you sure this is the right approach?’ she asked.
‘Have you got a better idea?’
She flinched and he immediately apologised. ‘Lucy is a murderer, Anita. She killed eighteen helpless people. People who trusted her. She doesn’t have a conscience like you and me. She has no empathy. No compassion. You contacted me because you needed help, didn’t you? Then you need to let me do it my way. She wouldn’t hesitate to hurt you, as long as she knew she’d get away with it. Okay?’
A reluctant nod. ‘Okay.’
His phone vibrated in his pocket and he took it out and glanced at it. Nothing important.