‘I’d save your sympathy, ma’am. He still nearly killed you,’ Whelan said stubbornly. ‘He didn’t give you enough time to get out. If not for that tunnel… Well.’
He stopped, reddening. But for once we were in agreement. ‘Even if Jessop didn’t kill the people at St Jude’s, he deliberately drove the car at Adam Oduya,’ I said, aware my speech was starting to slur with fatigue. ‘And it won’t be much consolation for Daniel Mears to know he was just an accident.’
The atmosphere in the room suddenly changed. I looked at them, my tiredness dropping away.
‘What’s wrong?’
Ward turned to Whelan. ‘Can you give us a minute, Jack?’
‘You sure, ma’am?’
She nodded. ‘Wait for me outside.’
‘Sure about what?’ I asked her as Whelan left the hospital room. ‘What is it?’
‘I didn’t want to tell you yet, but we’ve found the car used in the hit-and-run. At the bottom of a disused quarry off the M20. It looks like it was stolen, and the driver either lost control or else deliberately drove through the fencing and over the edge. Either way, she must have died immediately.’
My mouth was dry. ‘She?’
Ward was looking at me with an odd expression.
‘It was Grace Strachan.’
Chapter 33
I was discharged two days later. Rachel brought my clothes and drove me back to Ballard Court. Stepping outside the hospital, the world seemed a little unreal. Even though it was overcast, the daylight hurt my eyes. Everything seemed too bright and too loud, a sensory overload of sound and colour. Yet another after-effect of Lola’s ministrations that I’d been assured would eventually fade.
Although some would take longer than others.
We didn’t speak much in the car. ‘Are you OK?’ Rachel asked, as we waited at traffic lights.
‘Yes,’ I told her.
We watched the lights change in silence.
We let ourselves into the apartment. Rachel quickly put on some music and began busying herself in the kitchen. I went into the lounge but then lost track of what I’d been going to do. That kept happening, though not as much as it had. I’d find myself thinking about something, and then suddenly be unable to recall what it was.
Going to the window, I stared down at the street below. The trees had lost most of their leaves and the pavements were dark and glossy from rain. The cars parked outside looked too small to be real, like part of a model set.
‘Why don’t you sit down?’ Rachel said, carrying a mug in from the kitchen. ‘I’ve made you a coffee while I make lunch. I know how much you hate the coffee machine, so I bought a percolator. Saves you drinking instant.’
‘I don’t mind instant,’ I said without thinking.
‘Well, now you’ve got both.’ She sighed. ‘Sorry. It’s just… you’re very quiet. I don’t know what to say.’
I made myself smile. ‘I’m just tired.’
Her look said she didn’t believe that any more than I did. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘No,’ I said, turning back to the window.
Just thinking about it was hard enough. I knew part of what I was going through was a reaction to what had happened at Lola’s. It would take time for the psychological as well as the physiological effects of the electric shocks to wear off, and the memory of being paralysed and helpless still provoked a clammy sense of panic. But I was prepared for that. It was a natural response, something I could understand and deal with.
It was what Ward had told me in the hospital that I couldn’t accept.
‘We think Grace Strachan might have been stalking you for months,’ she’d said after Whelan left the room. ‘We’re still trying to trace her movements, but it looks like she’s been living abroad. She couldn’t have kept off the radar all this time in the UK, so we believe she must have left the country after she stabbed you.’
‘But that’s…’ I’d lost my words: it was too much to take in. I tried again. ‘Someone must have been helping her.’
Grace had been too unstable to have remained free all this time on her own. When I’d known her before she’d had her brother, Michael Strachan, to protect her and contain the worst of her psychotic behaviour. Even then they’d had to keep on the move, until in desperation he’d tried to find refuge for them on a sparsely populated island in the Hebrides.
It hadn’t worked.
‘Someone could have,’ Ward had agreed. ‘But losing yourself is a lot easier if you’re rich, and the Strachans were loaded. All the known assets belonging to her and her brother were frozen but there could be offshore investments we don’t know about. And from what I understand, Grace was perfectly normal most of the time. She only turned violent when something triggered her.’
Like jealousy over her brother. Or blaming me for his death, I’d thought numbly. ‘So what brought her back now?’
Ward had looked uncomfortable. ‘We think you did. Your name was mentioned in news reports about the murder investigation in Essex earlier this year, and also after that mess in Dartmoor. They were both high-profile cases, so she could easily have read about them. It’s possible she thought you were dead until then. The fingerprint we found on your front door was probably from a failed attempt to break into your flat rather than something that was missed after the first attack. You weren’t home when she called, so we think she’s been looking for you since then.’
The room had seemed to swim as her words sank in. All this time, I’d been blasé about the threat Grace posed. So confident that Ward and Rachel were worrying about nothing, that I wasn’t in any danger.
All this time, I’d been wrong.
I’d swallowed the bitter taste that had risen in my throat. ‘I can’t have been so hard to find.’
‘Not always intentionally, perhaps. But you were in the Essex marshes for the murder investigation there, and then you moved into the new apartment. Grace couldn’t go around asking people where you were, so she had to wait until you resurfaced. We’ve checked CCTV, and we’ve seen a woman we believe was her outside the university building where you work on several different occasions. She was waiting there for hours at a time.’
‘She went to the university?’
‘I’m not going to say “I told you so,” because, if I’m honest, I didn’t believe there was any real threat either. But it’s a good job you used the side doors rather than the main entrance.’
Jesus. I’d thought back to a few days ago, when I’d forgotten Ward’s advice and left through the main doors. I’d convinced myself I’d imagined the trace of Grace’s perfume outside, but it had been late and I’d been almost the last to leave the building. A chill ran through me to think about it.
Perhaps I’d just missed her.
‘When we realized she’d been to where you work, we looked at CCTV footage from outside your apartment as well,’ Ward had continued, almost gently. ‘The security meant she wasn’t able to get inside, and luckily you used the underground car park. But we think she was there on at least two occasions, possibly more. One of them was the same night the fire service was called out when someone torched the rubbish bins. They thought it was kids, but the fire officers reported having to remove a woman who was hanging round the grounds when the residents were evacuated. They thought she was just some gawker, but… Well, let’s say I’m glad you weren’t home.’
That was the night I’d gone to the mortuary to help Mears. I remembered speaking to the fire officer when I’d arrived back at Ballard Court. We’ve already had to escort one of your neighbours away for being too nosy. Fires always bring out the weirdos.
‘How did she know where I lived?’ I’d felt surprisingly calm, as though this were happening to someone else. ‘I’m ex-directory and hardly anyone knows the address.’