There were more voices in the living room and a little hubbub of excitement in the interchange. At last, I thought, they were taking me seriously.
The Wolf came into my kitchen.
I knocked over my water in panic, scrambled to my feet, screaming, “That’s him, that’s the man, it’s his diary!”
Someone grabbed my arms and pinned them behind me. Someone else tried to calm me down.
The Wolf raised his eyebrows and lifted his hand. He held a small plastic bag; inside was a syringe.
“Not very well hidden.” His voice was soft.
“That’s not mine,” I yelled. “I am not a junkie.” I turned to the woman holding me. “Check my arms. I’ve never taken anything like that.”
“You slipped up, last time,” The Wolf said. “Kate Cruickshank. We found the mark.” He held up the bag again. Gave a wolfish grin. “Rebecca Colne, I am arresting you for the murder of Kate Cruickshank on…”
I didn’t hear the end of the caution. The room spun then dimmed. I passed out.
They gave me four life sentences. They tried me for four murders. The third one, she was Alison Devlin. She was two months pregnant.
The Metrolink had been closed the day I claimed to have seen the man leave the laptop and get off at Mosley Street: a system failure. When I told them the truth about the airport, they raised questions about my delay. Why wait so long? If I honestly thought this was information about a series of murders, why wait at all? I’d stolen the machine, I told them, I was frightened that I’d be prosecuted, I wanted to make sure it was true. None of my excuses made any difference. My change of story made them even more convinced I was responsible. And when I repeatedly claimed that the man who owned the laptop was one of the officers investigating me, they clearly thought me deranged.
They seized my own computer and found all the other files. All the internet junk I’d copied: methods of murder. My defence counsel argued about the dates, demonstrating that I’d downloaded stuff long after the first three murders, but I could see the jury turning against me. Looking at me sideways. I was told not to make accusations about The Wolf, it wouldn’t help my case. They linked me to Fiona Neeson. We’d been members at the same gym. It was news to me.
The clincher was the DNA evidence. A hair of mine at the scene of Kate Cruickshank’s death. It didn’t matter that I’d never been there. Someone had – with a hair of mine, or dropped it into the forensics lab. That coupled with the syringe “recovered” from my flat.
Juries love forensics, ask anyone. Never mind about logic or witnesses or other evidence – a bit of sexy science has them frothing at the mouth. Clamouring for conviction.
Like quicksand, the more I struggled for the truth the deeper I sank. Till I was swallowing mud day after day in the courtroom. The weight of it crushing my lungs.
A stream of acquaintances and people I barely knew were wheeled out to attest to my controlling, cold and dubious character. The prosecution harped on about my lonely and dysfunctional upbringing, my isolation, my prior mental health problems. They held up my severe weight loss, my Prozac use, my insomnia, as evidence of a guilty conscience. And my stunt at the police station as a cry for help. They never had a motive. How could they? I was a psychopath, I had a personality disorder – no motive required.
After the conviction, much was made of my lack of remorse and even more of the word murderess. The female of the species and all that.
They’ve turned down my application for an appeal. No new evidence. And no hope of being considered for parole until I admit my guilt.
Maybe I’m safer in here. The bars, the locks, the cameras. If they let me out he’d be waiting, wouldn’t he? Lips slightly parted, hair slicked back, those lupine teeth. Waiting to get me once and for all. The sting of the syringe as he inserts the needle. The dull ache as he presses the plunger, forcing the air into a vein. The seconds left as the bubble speeds around my bloodstream. Zipping along as if in a flume. An embolism. Fizzing through my heart and on into my lung – tangling with my blood vessels. Making me gasp, claw for air. A jig of death. Stopping everything. Blowing me away.
BLOOD ON THE GHAT by Barry Maitland
CHRISTINE WOKE BEFORE dawn. The night air was warm and sticky, and she threw off the cotton sheet and went over to the window. Opening it, she breathed in the unfamiliar smells of spices and pungent wood smoke and… well, something less pleasant. Down below her was the great river, the Ganges, which, very soon now, would begin to emerge from the darkness. She had arrived late the previous night with only a fleeting and confused picture of the city, of crowded narrow streets draped with electric cables and lurid signs, of old buildings tottering against each other, and of people everywhere, on foot, in tricycle rickshaws or sprawled on the footpaths. The glimpses of the people – the women wrapped in colourful saris and the men in white dhotis – had thrilled and also frightened her a little, for their strangeness and their sheer numbers. Her hotel, the Dubashi Guesthouse, was a modest affair of small rooms and limited facilities, but with spectacular views out over the ghats – the great cascades of stairs and platforms that descended from the edge of the city straight down to the river. The owners of the guesthouse, Mr and Mrs Dubashi, had welcomed her and offered her food, which she was too tired to accept, and shown her up to her room. There she had sat for some time at the window staring down at the spectacle on the ghat below, a line of priests performing a fire ceremony before a great crowd of worshippers and tourists, boats passing by on the edge of the darkness, the sound of chanting, bells and rhythmic clapping.
Now she quickly made use of the bathroom at the end of the short corridor, taking care not to swallow any of the tap water, and returned to get dressed and go downstairs to the lobby. An elderly woman wearing a bright orange sari and with white hair and pale European skin was there, talking to Mr Dubashi, who introduced them.
“Ah, Mrs Darling, please allow me to introduce Christine, another Australian. You are both going to visit the ghat at dawn, I think?”
Mrs Darling shook Christine’s hand. “How nice to meet you. Your first visit to India?”
“Yes.” She seemed a warm and enthusiastic woman, eyes bright with interest, although Christine thought that she detected some effort beneath the surface, as if perhaps she had been unwell and was struggling with fatigue.
“And this is your first day? How exciting for you. It is one of the great sights, dawn on the Ganges, the pilgrims drawn to the sacred river.”
“Have you been here for a while?”
“A couple of days, but I have visited Varanasi many times before. And you? Do you have a special reason for coming here, Christine?”
Mrs Darling was giving her such a penetrating look that Christine felt compelled to tell her the truth. “I… would like to understand death better,” she said, and saw the momentary look of consternation on the other woman’s face.
“But you are so young,” Mrs Darling said. “We must talk later.” And Christine was saved from replying by Mr Dubashi, who said, “You should be going now, ladies. See, the dawn is breaking and the people are arriving.”
Through the open door Christine saw that the street outside was filling with a stream of people heading for the ghat. The two women stepped outside and were immediately caught up in the crowd. Christine felt the excitement of becoming part of a great throng, and almost tripped over a woman sitting on the ground with a large basket of brilliantly coloured flowers. Nearby the driver of an ancient tricycle rickshaw was gesticulating to his two fat female passengers that they must get out now and walk because the way was becoming too congested. The crowd jostled and Christine found herself being squeezed back behind Mrs Darling. Ahead of them the street narrowed and the dark buildings on either side closed in, packing the crowd still more tightly together, and Christine felt a throb of panic as she tried to keep her companion in sight.