‘I need to see my baby …’ she mumbled.
‘No, no, no, you must stay where you are, Mrs Taylor,’ he replied, as the nurse helped to clean her up. Mandy was too panicked to even notice he’d called her Mrs Taylor. ‘Your little boy is safe and well.’
‘Little boy?’ she asked. Pat’s prediction had been correct.
‘Yes,’ he continued, glancing at a chart which he’d pulled from a hook at the base of her bed. ‘You gave birth prematurely to a boy five days ago. Four pounds, four ounces. He’s safe and healthy and just down the corridor.’
‘What happened to me?’
‘We were told that you fell down a flight of stairs. You sustained a head injury and a fractured wrist along with a minor swelling to the brain, which put your body into shock. You’ve been kept sedated for the last few days and your baby was born by caesarean section as a precautionary measure. Now you need to take it very, very easy for the next few days. You’ll be of no use to him if you try to rush these things.’
‘When can I see him?’
‘I’ll ask one of the nurses to bring him to you in the next few minutes.’
‘Thank you.’
Mandy’s leaned her head back against the pillow and she sighed with relief. She could just about remember tumbling down the stairs during her confrontation with Pat and Chloe, but could recall little else. It wasn’t the ideal way for her baby to come into the world, but he was here nonetheless and he was healthy. It hurt her head to smile and cry but she did both regardless. She was a mother.
However, her delight quickly turned to concern when she saw the doctor’s face when he returned minutes later.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Griffiths. It appears your son is elsewhere in the hospital with your family at the moment. They’ve probably just taken him for some fresh air around the grounds.’
Mandy’s eyes widened. ‘My family?’
‘Yes, they’ve been here most days waiting for you to wake up. They’ve been spending a lot of time with him.’
‘Who? Who is it exactly that has him?’
‘Your mother and sister, I believe. They called the ambulance that brought you in.’
Mandy’s body filled with an ominous dread before she grabbed the perplexed doctor’s arm.
‘Call the police right now,’ she growled.
Chapter 87
CHRISTOPHER
The rear entrance to her ground floor flat was shabby. A dusting of fallen rendering was scattered across the pavement below and cracked putty held the window frames in place.
But the age and the lack of maintenance to the property were an advantage to Christopher, as it meant little had been updated or replaced in the last twenty years. For a man of his experience, the basic two-lever mortice door lock was easy to pick.
Two clicks of the barrel and he was inside, quietly closing the door behind him and familiarising himself with the layout of the apartment. He’d last visited Number Thirty some weeks earlier and she’d changed nothing since. A smell of damp still lingered in the air and the street light outside illuminated the cheap, flat-pack assembled furniture.
Christopher’s thirtieth kill should have been something for him to celebrate; a target that at times seemed insurmountable was now, against all odds, within his reach. Thirty corpses, thousands of newspaper and magazine column inches, television documentaries and appeals featuring dramatic and wide-of-the-mark reconstructions, and all because of his efforts. And still no one was any the wiser as to who was behind it or their motivation.
However, Christopher was in no mood to commemorate his achievement or rest on his laurels. He just wanted to get his last kill over with, leave his mark on the pavement outside and return home. Then tomorrow night he’d be curled up by Amy’s side and in her bed, his arm draped over her chest and holding on to her as if there was nobody else in the world.
They could move forward and lead their lives doing the same things other normal couples did. Once his fantasies only stretched to killing strangers; now they were about spending his weekends with the woman he loved, wandering through garden centres and National Trust estates, deciding how to decorate the home they’d buy together, running together or cuddling up on a sofa watching box sets and eating junk food. He used to revel in being different, but not any longer. Everything that had been alien to the psychopath before he met Amy now appealed to him because she had made him feel normal.
Christopher paced silently around the flat and wondered again if one day he might tell her the truth about who he had been and who he’d become because of her. But since being part of a couple he’d learned relationships didn’t need truth to make them work, they just needed one of them to possess a heart large enough to beat for both of them.
The muffled sound of a radio emanated from beneath the door of Number Thirty’s bedroom. Christopher took up his position in the hallway and removed his familiar white billiard ball and cheese wire from his backpack. The final time he would do this. But he had neither the time or the inclination to be sentimental. He threw the ball against the wall and, with the taut wire in his hands, he felt almost apologetic for what was about to happen. His heart had long since left this project and he would gain no pleasure from her death.
But despite his noise, the bedroom door remained closed. Christopher assumed she must have fallen asleep. This was no problem; it’d happened before with Number Eighteen. But as he went to pick up the ball and repeat the process, he felt two sharp pricks to the back of his neck. He turned quickly and felt a massive electric jolt tear through his body. He immediately dropped to the floor in pain.
The last thing he saw before the crippling convulsions pushed him into unconsciousness was Amy’s face.
Chapter 88
JADE
Susan and Jade glared at Mark, awaiting further explanation.
‘What do you mean you’re my Match?’ Jade asked, shaking her head. ‘Why would you say that?’
‘Mark?’ asked Susan, puzzled. ‘What’s going on?’
Mark hung his head and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath before he spoke again. ‘Kev and I did our tests at the same time, and the results came back on the same day, when he was in hospital for one of his early chemo sessions,’ he explained quietly. ‘I opened my email and I’d been Matched with you, Jade, but Kev, he didn’t have anyone. Mum, you remember how desperate he was to know there was someone out there for him after the diagnosis?’
Susan nodded.
‘I deleted his email and told him he’d been Matched but I hadn’t. I just wanted him to be happy. So I paid for your contact details, Jade, and sent them to his phone, so he never saw the original email. You should have seen the look on his face when he realised you existed, even if you were thousands of miles away. It was back when he still looked like the old Kev, remember Mum? He even begged the doctors to let him fly to England to visit you, but they wouldn’t allow it and he couldn’t get the insurance to cover the trip.’
Jade could see Susan nodding, remembering when this had happened.
‘As the treatment got into full swing, it was so awful to watch him starting to lose his hair and weight and become a brother I barely recognised. But I knew what I had done was worth it when I’d see the old Kev reappear in his eyes and watch him smile when he got your texts and your calls.’
Jade thought back to the day she had first received confirmation of a Match. The notification had come through during her lunch break at work and she’d been so thrilled that she’d paid for her link’s details without giving much attention to his name. Almost immediately, she’d received a text from Kevin introducing himself and, from their first conversation, she just assumed he was her Match. She liked his warmth and enthusiasm, and immediately warmed to him. It was a stark contrast to her feelings of failure for having a job she hated and living with her parents.