Each Day I Wake: A gripping psychological thriller: US Edition (17 page)

I had the statuette in my hand. It was heavier than I thought. Lying prone, under Brogan’s body, I wasn’t sure I would be able to lift it but I knew I must try.

Brogan leaned back to wipe some of my blood from his eyes. It must have spurted from my mouth.

That gave me my chance.

I struck with as much force as I could muster and crashed the statuette against Brogan’s head.

He fell back and slumped on the floor, motionless.

The blow I aimed must have taken him on the temple.

I began to think I might have killed him.

I turned him over and checked his breathing. It was shallow and slow but present.

He was unconscious.

I staggered to the small bathroom and looked for something to staunch the flow of blood from my lips. The only thing available was an old, stained and frayed towel but I had no choice but to use it.

I sat on the edge of the bath with my head held back, hoping that the flow of blood would stop.

When would Brogan come back round? I needed to escape before he did. But where could I go, looking and feeling like this?

In a few minutes, the bleeding stopped and I became aware of the searing pain that told me my lips were swollen and would take time to heal.

I checked Brogan again. His breathing was becoming stronger. He would soon be coming round.

I knew then that he had been playing me all this time. Ever since he turned up in Lichfield and pretended to be my friend. Right from that first moment, he was clever enough to say that he didn’t want to burden me with his troubles as a way of drawing me in. All along he must have known about my contacts with Della. Long before I did. Maybe she mentioned something about me in her meetings with her brother. In the guise of being a blood brother, he’d used me to discover what was held in Della’s diary and found enough there to confirm his suspicions.

Looking down at my own blood staining Brogan’s face and shirt, I thought of the ironic meaning of that bond we’d formed all those years ago.

I headed for the door but before I left I collected up both of the printed copies of the diary and stuffed them into the file case I arrived with.

As I closed the door, I could hear Brogan groaning as he regained consciousness.

As I was about to enter the staircase that led away from Brogan’s apartment, I looked down and below could see DI Ives and DS Lesley getting out of a police car, heading my way. Before they saw me, I doubled back and hid behind a wall until they passed. They were on their way to Brogan’s apartment.

I was struggling to understand why they were here. If they’d come for me, why would they expect me to be here? Brogan wouldn’t have called them, not when he must have been planning to attack me all along. Or maybe they hadn’t come for me at all but for Brogan. Either way, I had other priorities. Getting away, establishing myself somewhere, anywhere else, was more important.

Ives or Lesley must have been driving the car because it was now unattended and I made my way unobserved along the narrow side street and onto the busy Commercial Road. From Shadwell station I took the DLR to the end of the line at Bank and took an underground train from there to Charing Cross where I left the print outs of the diary in the safe keeping of the left luggage office. Then I hopped another train and made my way to London Bridge. On the journey I spent most of my time reading the free newspaper I picked up at the station and tried not to look like a man on the run, though my stomach churned at the thought that this was now a precise description of who I was.

On London Bridge Station, I called Janet.

She picked up. “Tom. Where are you?”

I tried to keep my voice calm and even so as not to worry her. “Some complications, Jan. But I’m all right. No need to worry.”

“Come home. We can sort everything out from here.”

I knew I had to tell her. “That’s not going to happen, love. Ives is planning to arrest me.”

Her voice sounded comforting, but I could tell she was shocked by what she’d just heard. “That can’t be. And, in any case, what could you have to worry about? You’re an innocent man. You’ll have an alibi for anything you’re accused of.”

“It’s not that simple, Jan. How many innocent men are behind bars right now with or without an alibi, as if anyone can be expected to be able to account for every waking minute of their lives? Sooner or later the police get lucky and an innocent man can’t give proof of where he was. All of a sudden all the facts in the matter start to point towards him.”

Janet interrupted. “You’re worrying me, Tom. What is it you’re not telling me?”

I heard a noise in the room that Janet was calling from. “Who’s that with you?”

“It’s no one.”

“It’s the police, isn’t it?”

“They just want to talk to you.”

I understood now why Janet had found it so difficult to show her expected understanding. “Tell them it’s no use trying to trace this call. I’m in a public place and I’ll be putting the phone down in a few moments.”

“I wish you’d listen to what I’m saying.”

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I do.”

I closed the line and replaced the receiver.

Before I left Lichfield I’d made a plan with Janet. If I phoned and said
Do you love me?
she should act on what we’d arranged.

I knew she’d be careful in slipping away from the police, in withdrawing as much cash as the bank would allow and in making her way to meet me in London. I just had to wait and avoid being seen by Ives or his men.

The front door of the Shadwell apartment was not closed, which meant someone had left in a hurry and that meant caution was required.

Ives signaled to DS Lesley to stay close behind as he pushed open the door and went inside.

Brogan was lying flat on the floor with blood seeping from an open wound at his right temple. It was at times like this that Ives wished he’d signed out a weapon as a matter of course, like so many of his colleagues. There was no way of knowing if Brogan’s assailant was still in the apartment. Anything could happen next.

He shouted a warning. “Police. Come out with your hands raised.”

When no reply came, he edged his way into each of the other rooms. He found no one.

He returned to the room where Lesley was caring for Brogan, wiping the blood from his head with the towel she’d found nearby. “No one here, June.”

She gazed up. “That would explain the open door, sir.”

Ives stooped to look at Brogan. “How is he?”

“Concussed. Looks like the aftermath of a fight. There’s blood on this towel I’m using. Maybe not all his.”

Ives picked up the statuette with care. “Looks like this was involved. There’s blood and skin tissue residue on the base and I’d lay money that matches the damage to Brogan’s temple.”

Brogan groaned.

“He’s coming round, sir.”

Ives was quick to respond. “Don’t move him. Call the medics and keep him still until they determine the extent of the concussion.”

Brogan ignored this and began to struggle to his feet. “I don’t need a doctor. Just leave me alone.”

Ives helped Brogan to sit in an armchair and drew up a dining chair to sit facing the man. “So, you’re OK to answer questions.”

“Why are you here? I don’t need the police.”

Ives smiled. “Come on, Marshall. What happened here? The room’s a wreck and either someone decided to take it out on you or you were after someone. And I know which one of those is the most likely.”

“I told you. It’s not important. What’s happened here. It’s nothing I can’t handle. And I don’t need you, get it?”

“But we need you. Where’s your sister’s diary?”

“How do you know about that?”

“Accept that we do. Where is it?”

“You should ask Markland.”

“Tom Markland?”

“He was here. He did this to me. A lucky blow. I should have destroyed him when I had the chance.”

Ives cast a glance around the wreckage of the room. “Why were you fighting with him?”

“Because.”

“You need to tell me what the fight with Markland was about.”

“I told you, I can sort this out for myself. I don’t need any help.”

“You know where Markland is?”

Brogan shook his head. “Do I look like I know where he went?”

“OK. The diary then. Where is it?”

“I don’t have anything more to say.”

DI Lesley interrupted. “Marshall, it’s true what DI Ives says. We’re here to help. You want to find your sister’s killer, don’t you?”

Brogan looked away. “That’s rich. All I’ve been told is she died from an overdose.”

“We’re not so sure of that any more. You’ve never believed that, either, have you Marshall? So, open up. Tell us what you know about Markland. We know about Della’s diary. We think it’s important in another investigation and that it might be connected to Della’s death.”

“So how come you’re here asking about my sister after all this time?”

“As DI Ives told you, it’s in response to another case.”

“Cathy Newsome. What’s her case got to do with anything about my sister?”

Ives came back in. “What do you know about Cathy Newsome?”

“Just what Markland told me.”

Ives glanced at Brogan’s bleeding temple. “Did he do this?”

“A lucky blow, like I told you?”

“So why was he here?”

“Because I drew him here. He knew things about my sister that he wouldn’t own up to. Said he didn’t know her but, before she died, she told me he did. So I found him in Lichfield and brought him here. And together we found the diary.”

“So where’s the diary now?”

Brogan struggled to focus on the table where his print out of the diary should be. “It was over there. But Markland must have taken it with him.”

“And you had a chance to read it?”

“Some of it. Enough to know that if I see Markland again I’ll kill him.”

“Is that what was going down here?”

“Think what you like.”

“So why did you want to kill him?”

“Because he killed Della.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s in the diary. It proves she knew he was going to kill her.”

“And Markland now has it?”

“Yes, but it’s also online. Markland made print outs but he must now have them both.”

“But you know how to access it?”

“There’s a password and a login.”

“Where is it?”

“Markland kept it.”

“But if you’ve seen it, can you recall it?”

Brogan held his head in his hands. “It was something like
DaSilva999
and
Bashtree999
. But that’s as close as I’m going to get. Markland did all the logging in.”

Ives turned to face the still open doorway as the medical team came in. “We’ll get the technical team onto it. Shouldn’t take them more than a few hours to work out those logins.”

As the medics began to attend to Brogan, Ives sought to reassure him. “I’ll need to talk to you again once you’re out of immediate medial care.”

Brogan nodded. “One thing, I need you to know. If you catch him, keep him away from me. A long way from me.”

I made my way out of London Bridge Station, past the base of the Shard with its perpetual self-made wind and on towards Southwark Cathedral.

It was going to be some time before Janet made it to London and this was as good a place as any to avoid being found by Ives, as I hid in plain sight amongst the bustling crowds around Borough Market.

There is something that draws people to this place from all over the world. It’s a concentration of human industry and endeavor that stretches back over two thousand years, century on century, one chunk of time laid on top of the other, a continuity you can smell and touch. From the foundations of the outer wall of Roman Londinium now exposed and on display, to the pre-Norman origins of the Cathedral, to the subterranean ruins of Shakespeare’s first theatre, The Rose
,
now recovered in a water-filled basement beneath a concrete office block, to the medieval Borough Market now overarched by the railway, to the walled remains of the Marshelsea, the debtors’ prison of Dickens’ father, to the Victorian railway itself and onward to the dominating presence of the Shard, the tallest building in London. History on history, lives upon lives, all lived out in this one special place where the Thames reaches out to the darker side of the world.

I knew this place. Just as I knew Lichfield.

A part of me belonged here and I was part of its story.

It was another keystone in my journey back to knowing myself.

I walked the length of Borough High Street and found the alleyway that preserves what remains of the walled perimeter of the Marshelsea and, a small distance along, turned right under an archway to take a seat on a bench in Little Dorrit Garden.

The layers of history of this place were like the layers of my memory. Known and knowable each in themselves but difficult to connect into a single thread of history because of the gaps left by those who left no mark. My past was like its past. I needed to fill in the gaps. I needed
his
story to become
my
story and, as I took in more of the sights and sounds and smells around me, I knew this was something I could and would achieve.

I would recover all of my past. Then, and only then would I have a future.

My thoughts returned to Janet. According to our plan, she could be arriving in under an hour.

I returned to the station, took the Underground to Euston and joined the crowds on the concourse waiting for news of train departures and arrivals on the illuminated screens overhead. It was another good place to be hiding in plain sight, providing I was careful.

Two police officers in combat uniforms moved through the melee, holding oversize automatic weapons in clear view across their chests. But they were here to deter terrorism and they had no interest in people like me.

As trains were announced, the rush of arrivals was matched only by the surge of passengers jostling to find seats on departing trains. The concourse emptied and filled and remained as crowded and protective as ever as I waited for Janet’s train.

I kept my head down. The place was a goldmine for those collecting information. A line of five cameras, there to be seen if you knew where to look, peered down on the crowds below. As each soul raised a head to look up at the display boards to see if their train was ready to depart, those cameras were presented with a perfect opportunity to gather input for the growing databank of faces that the police were assembling. Facial recognition technology would soon link each face to images provided to the database from digital passports, drivers’ licenses and the like. Anonymity was fast becoming a thing of the past.

A Lichfield train arrived and there was no sign of Janet. I began to think she wouldn’t make it. The tasks she’d agreed to were too difficult. She’d been unable to shake off the police surveillance. They’d detained her and were questioning her on my whereabouts.

Then another train arrived without her and I was becoming ever more certain something had gone wrong.

I turned and began to pick my way towards the nearby café area where centralized seating is shared by the surrounding ring of takeaway food and hot drinks outlets that competed for custom.

Before I could make much progress through the crowd, a voice I knew. “Tom.”

It was Janet. I’d missed the arrival of her train but she’d found me after all.

She came up close and kissed me. “You knew I wouldn’t let anything come between us again.”

It was then that she noticed my split and swollen lips.

“I could tell you were in more trouble than you were letting me know. What happened?”

“I’m OK.” I changed the subject and led her toward the café area where we found seats. “You weren’t followed?”

She shook her head. “Ives’ man is a fool. Wrapped him round my little finger.”

“You turned off your phone.”

She nodded.

“And you had no trouble getting the cash.”

She tapped her shoulder bag. “There’s enough in here to keep us going until this thing is sorted out.”

I told her about my interview with Ives, how he was building a case that I was the killer of the girls.

Janet looked shocked but still responded with cool logic. “Everything he has is circumstantial. He has no proof.”

“They’re waiting for DNA analysis from Cathy Newsome’s body.”

“And that’s why you decided to run?”

“He left me no choice.”

“Why? You have nothing to hide. You couldn’t possibly be guilty.”

I placed my hand on hers. “You know that, Jan, and it’s wonderful that you have faith in me but, I have to tell you, right now, if I’m asked on oath, I wouldn’t be able to reply. The gaps in what I can recall are too great. Until I can fill those gaps, I’m in no position to defend myself.”

“And how do we fill those gaps?”

“By finding the person who all but killed me and dumped me in the North Dock. It’s the only way I’m going to be able to face Ives again.”