The Collared Collection (39 page)

‘You should have gone with her, Callie – she was trying to get you out of harm’s way.’

Now she was confused – Susan had said that without moving her lips. Susan lowered her weapon and looked very worried. Callie couldn’t work out why.

‘Turn around, Callie.’

Still confused, she swivelled her top half around to face the open chalet door, as she’d been told.

They must have heard her screams way over in Australia.

Chapter Sixty-six

She tried to pull herself together, ‘You? It can’t be … how …’

‘Long time no see, Callie.’

With her mouth still hanging open, she turned back to Susan. ‘You knew? I thought …’

Susan was extremely pissed off. ‘You thought I was the guilty party? Give me a sodding break! I flew all this way to protect you, to get you out in one piece – bugger me, it’s true what they say; no good deed ever does go unpunished!’

‘Sorry …’

Susan explained, ‘Callie, I’d like you to meet Balaclava Man – Mike Durant was the monkey, not the organ grinder.’

‘No!’ She could feel her heart thumping in her ears. Ridiculously, she wondered if she’d be sitting there, held at gunpoint by a left-handed shooter for the second time in as many minutes, if they’d honeymooned in Blackpool.

‘When you two have quite finished … Callie, come inside and call Reception, tell them everything is alright. They can’t have failed to hear that racket. Make up something convincing and don’t try to be clever and summon help, or I’ll shoot you right now. But I’d kill Susan first – you don’t want another death on your conscience, do you? Oh, Susan, be a good girl and throw your weapon into the bushes over there, then you can come in too. Nice hair, by the way.’

When she’d put down the phone, she asked, ‘Why did you murder all those people, set fire to my house – and everything else you’ve done? Poor Elizabeth …’ While she shook her head in disbelief, her body trembled to its own rhythm, ‘You must be insane.’

‘Quite possibly. Shall we all take a seat – oh, sorry about the mess; I felt an overwhelming desire to spoil things for you. I’m afraid I’m like that.’ The gun waved at Callie again. ‘Straighten a few things out – we might as well make ourselves comfy. And if you think David is going to charge in here and rescue you like some saddo knight in shining armour, I’m afraid you’ll have a long wait – I made a large hole in the fuel line on the boat.’

The thought of David running out of fuel somewhere out at sea triggered a memory of Nic the Prick and his boating fiasco.

She couldn’t help herself.

‘Dominic was so right not to like you, wasn’t he, Ginny?’

Chapter Sixty-seven

Of course! The scent she’d recognised just moments earlier was Rive Gauche, Ginny’s perfume.

‘Are you going to explain what this is all about?’ Callie asked, trying to sound both gutsy and in control – and failing miserably on both counts. She felt shaken to the core and had to grip her hands together to disguise their trembling.

Ginny sneered. ‘That’s a bloody loaded question! We’ll be here for days.’

‘Let me guess,’ Susan offered. ‘It all started when you witnessed Joanne Clack, alias Christine Jones, alias Dee Symonds, murder Ben Ellison, when you were a child on holiday with your family?’

‘It did – give that woman a goldfish. I followed them from the hotel where we were staying; I was meant to be playing on the swings in the garden, but when I saw them walk past, I thought they were bound to be doing something more adventurous … and how right I was. Then they disappeared into the boat house, so I decided to spy on them – it was very exciting, but even as a five year-old, I could tell she was making a complete hash of killing him and I was tempted to offer to help … but she got it right eventually and so I stayed hidden.’

She imagined Ginny as a monstrous child, every bit as monstrous as the young Joanne Clack. She gulped down the taste of vomit that rose in her throat. ‘And you never told anyone? Not even your mum and dad?’

Ginny sighed, as though it were all too tedious for her to have to explain. ‘No, I didn’t tell them – but I did confide in my brother Jonathan when we were older. I only got to experiment on the odd animal and I thought it would be fun to conduct our own trials into human suffering – the Ellison experience had given me a taste for the macabre, you see. But he wouldn’t play ball and he got really quite prissy about it. I suppose he’d missed out on the mad genes … such a waste; I liked him a lot and I knew my life would be lonely without him, but he was threatening to tell our folks everything and goodness knows what that would have stirred up. I think Mum always had her suspicions about me, but chose discretion over valour. So I had to push him down a crevasse when Dad took the pair of us skiing. Mum wouldn’t fly and I think she always subconsciously blamed Dad for not preventing what was considered to be a tragic accident, when we were in his care. Jonathan was her favourite … my parents’ relationship was never the same after that – and neither of them ever realised it was his own stupid fault that he had to die.’

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing – someone she’d known and cherished as her closest friend for more than two decades was sitting there boasting about cold-bloodedly killing her brother. She looked over at Susan – her expression remained inscrutable, giving no hint as to what she was thinking, or plotting.

Susan asked, ‘Why did you murder Dee, all those years later? She’d done her time, built a new life and raised her own family – she was even heavily into good works. What gave you the right to be judge, jury, and executioner?’

Callie was afraid Susan would antagonise Ginny – she saw her bristle, as she debated whether or not to answer.

‘
I
gave me the right. And I killed her because I could, just as she’d murdered Ben. He seemed like a nice if weedy little boy and she was a mean, ugly cow with tons of puppy fat. Nice touch, don’t you think – the slashed wrists?’

She shivered as she revisited finding Dee’s body; nice touch it wasn’t.

‘I suppose I always had it in mind to mete out proper justice one day; she got off far too lightly, I felt. Her life banged up was a lot better than if she’d stayed with her yokel parents in that slum they had. Once I knew where she was, I could bide my time. If you remember, Callie, it was me who showed you the For Sale details of the house next to hers and persuaded you and Prick to buy it, when you were moving out of that pokey little flat?’

‘I’d forgotten … but that was years ago.’

She grinned. ‘It was, wasn’t it? See how I have the patience of a saint?’

‘Why did you wait so long?’

‘It wasn’t intentional – I did have other stuff going on in my life … I wanted to make it to the top as a barrister, so Dad would be proud of me and leave me the business – then I took silk … and I had my eye on the Bench. Time passed and there were long periods when I was reasonably content with my life. Then one day she really annoyed me, when I was chatting to her over your wall – she became that mean, ugly cow again, minus the puppy fat. That’s when I decided she didn’t deserve to live, because she was a waste of space.’

There was a noise outside – Ginny leapt up, gun poised.

‘Probably the chickens,’ Callie bluffed. ‘They scratch around here a lot.’

Susan’s eyebrows raised a fraction. ‘Chickens?’ she mouthed, while Ginny was peering out the window. Callie shrugged; it was the best she could come up with on the spur of the moment, to protect the person she prayed was outside, about to rescue them. Though who that person would be – if they even existed beyond her wishful thinking – she had no idea.

‘Or it might just have been a coconut, there are lots of palm trees at the back.’

Satisfied they were not going to be raided, Ginny said, ‘Listen, I’m not about to sit here and explain all the things Mike and I have done; his motives were straightforward enough; lust and greed. That made him very malleable and accommodating.’

Had she missed something? ‘But I thought you just met him when he was assigned to protect me?’

She laughed, ‘I’ve known him for years – he was the arresting officer in one of the first cases I prosecuted as lead counsel. I let him get into my briefs very early on.’ She threw back her head and cackled, ‘Sorry, hackneyed barristers’ joke. We screwed each other senseless in an empty cell, actually – that was a real turn-on. And we never looked back. It was him who helped me track Dee down.’ She eyed Callie with mock sympathy. ‘I’m afraid David didn’t in any way compare … I could always win Mike round to my way of thinking with the promise of sex. He liked it rough and dirty … as I believe you found out, Callie.’

She didn’t feel at all well. Sadly, she whispered, ‘I thought you two were soul mates …’

‘Ha! I have no soul and neither does he – haven’t you worked that one out yet?’

In an effort to keep up the momentum of communication, Callie asked, ‘Why did you kill Giles and Elizabeth? What had they done?’

Ginny pursed her lips. ‘Listen, I told you I’m not going through the whole kit and caboodle.’ She became increasingly agitated; while she paced, she spoke louder and faster. ‘Oh, alright. Joanne took a St Christopher necklace from Ben as he lay dying, and hid it in her knicker leg – it was never returned to his parents, so she must have managed to hold onto it somehow. I wanted it as a souvenir and we searched the house for it several times – it was mine by right – and I suppose I became a little obsessed with getting hold of it. Anyway, Giles came home unexpectedly and caught me; originally, I wasn’t going to bother to snuff him out, but he forced my hand. He tried to run away, damned cheek – that’s how come I couldn’t manage to hit him hard enough with the first blow and there was no time for second whack, because you came out of your house and I literally had to crawl away. I left a spare balaclava as a calling card – I’m good at nice touches. When he croaked of a heart attack, I couldn’t believe my luck – he had to be eliminated to tie up any loose ends and him dying of his own accord meant I wouldn’t have to sneak into the hospital and turn off his machine, or smother him.’ She shrugged, ‘Well, he should have had more taste than to get involved with a child killer.’

Susan spluttered, ‘That’s rich, coming from a murdering psycho bitch like you.’

Callie tensed, thinking, oh shit! And sent Susan a pleading ‘Calm down, we don’t want to upset her’ look.

But Ginny’s demeanour was unpredictable and she had shifted to a calmer plane. She either didn’t hear, or she’d dismissed Susan’s words.

‘And Elizabeth? Well, she was getting very nosy about Mimi Hammerton and might have worked out that it was me, incognito. I needed to access some of the money I’d invested in Mimi’s name, as you’d survived longer than I anticipated, Callie. Incidentally, did you enjoy my Jade-Mercy impersonation, y’all? I ordered the oxalic acid crystals off the Internet – it’s truly amazing what you can get …’ she pointedly admired her gun, ‘… and no questions asked.’ Her eyebrows dipped in a frown, ‘But the gun laws in the States are an absolute disgrace – wouldn’t you think they’d be more discriminating after 9/11?’

As she seemed to await a response from Callie, she nodded. ‘Just a minute, whose funeral did Elizabeth and I arrange, if it wasn’t yours?’

‘Oh! I meant to say thanks for that! I enjoyed it immensely, very touching. Loved the balloons. A complete non-entity took my place – her name isn’t important. She was a waster I defended pro bono a while back – everyone remarked at the time how alike we were, which I didn’t really take as a compliment, although it did prove useful. She’d touch me for money every now and again – and so when I asked her to do me the small favour of driving your car for me, she was only too happy to oblige …’

Susan sliced in – her gung-ho attitude was really worrying Callie, ‘And you chose the perfect time to fake your death, when pathologists were up to their necks in bodies, because people were dropping dead like flies in the heat wave. Death was very obviously caused by a road traffic accident and a fine, upstanding member of the constabulary had already identified the body.’

‘Well done, Susan, you aren’t as daft as you look, are you? Would you like another goldfish? You’re right, of course – they hardly examined the waster’s remains, especially with Mike in attendance at the PM, giving subtle little hints that the police regarded the result as a forgone conclusion.’ She looked wistful. ‘He certainly had his uses …’

Callie asked, ‘Why did you come after me? You must have known almost immediately I couldn’t identify you.’

‘Correct … pretty much from the word “go”, but I got so caught up in the game of cat and mouse, I didn’t want it to end. Later, I did think you might suspect Mike.’ She shook her head. ‘I should have realised that was beyond your powers of deduction, but I was having such fun anyway …’ Her face darkened. ‘You’re such a smug bitch, Callie – and you had the bloody gall to feel sorry for me, when you thought I was lonely. That’s rich! Mrs Dull-As-Ditchwater, feeling sorry for me! Pah! I really enjoyed wiping the smile off your face, watching you run scared.’

Callie stared at her – this was not the person she’d met all those years ago. This was a madwoman. A very frightening madwoman, who had no qualms about eliminating anyone who got in her way – or even someone she just didn’t like that much.

Struggling to her feet, she said, ‘I need some fresh air – I don’t feel too good.’

Callie dashed for the door, fully expecting to be shot in the back.

Chapter Sixty-eight

She leaned heavily on the terrace balustrade, feeling faint and sick; she couldn’t see for sweat and tears.

From inside, she heard Ginny bark, ‘What the fuck’s wrong with her?’

Susan answered calmly. ‘She’s pregnant.’

Ginny sounded indignant. ‘Christ, she’s turning into a brood mare! And to think I used to envy her family life.’

‘Can I go and see if she’s alright?’

‘Don’t you move your bony arse a single inch!’

Callie felt bad enough, without the baby making its presence known again. When the dizziness subsided, she remained outside, trying to think of a way through this mess. David would probably take hours making his way back from wherever he was marooned, if what Ginny said was true – and there was no reason to doubt her. She wondered if she could make it to the bushes and retrieve Susan’s gun; but without support, she doubted she could stay upright for that long. And if she did try then fluffed it, she’d put Susan in immediate danger – and the baby.