In the Still of the Night

The matter-of-fact voice was making her nerves jump with horror.

Johnny seemed unaware of her reaction. He clicked his tongue like someone who felt he had made a silly but forgivable mistake. ‘That’s what I should have done. I had every chance to bury him in the forest without anyone seeing me, but I’d forgotten he was there, you see.’

Forgotten! she thought dazedly. How could you forget that you had killed someone and buried them under the floorboards of your house?

He looked down at her, his finger stroking her cheek. ‘Once I got out, all I thought about was you, of course.’

He didn’t look mad, those dark blue eyes were wide and clear, but she would never be able to look at him again without remembering that they had made love in that house – and all the time Roger Keats had been buried under the floorboards. Horror darkened her sight.

‘I hate violence, but I couldn’t let Keats get away with what he’d done to you, Annie. When I was in a prison up north I shared a cell with a sex offender. The first day they moved him in with me he looked at the pictures of you on the wall and made some gross remarks about why I had them there. I wasn’t having that, so I went for him. I half killed him before they got me off him. I was put in solitary for weeks, and it set my parole back.’

‘All because of me,’ she thought aloud, her hands clenched. ‘I suppose it was you who killed Derek, too?’

‘He was blackmailing you, and he was the one who paid for you to have the abortion – if it hadn’t been for him you would never have had it. That’s why I left the parcel with the bootee in it on his dressing table.’

She started. ‘He said Marty Keats had given it to him!’

‘Maybe she did – but I left it in the dressing room that had his name on it when I visited the studios.’

‘But Marty got a phone call from Roger!’

He laughed. ‘If you whisper through a handkerchief it’s impossible to tell whose voice it is. You gave me the idea when you kept saying Roger was still around. I thought, well, why not throw all the blame on him? I only said a few words, very quickly, so that she didn’t have much chance to identify the voice, anyway.’

‘But the police said a woman was with Derek the night he died.’

A grin appeared on his face, making her sense of horror deeper. He looked so boyish, pleased with himself.

‘Something else I learnt in prison – we had a dramatic society. Of course some of us had to play women. Make-up, a wig, clothes … simple. I can even walk like a woman, in high heels.’

‘You were the woman?’ She was incredulous. ‘And Derek didn’t notice you were really a man?’

‘He was too drunk. He was past noticing anything.’ Johnny’s mouth twisted. ‘I made up to look like you – he was so interested in that that he didn’t think about anything else. I wanted to tell him why he had to die, but he was too drunk to listen. It was a death for a death. He murdered our baby.’ His eyes flashed. ‘And you let him, Annie.’

She shut her eyes, swallowing, terrified. ‘I’m sorry, Johnny, oh, God, I’m so sorry.’ But even with her eyes shut she could still see the pain in his face, and the anger. Fear dragged at her; he might love her, but she sensed he half wanted to kill her, too, that he was torn between his love and his rage over the death of their baby, and what he saw as her betrayal of him.

Is he going to kill me, too? she thought, trembling.

He bent and kissed her. ‘No, don’t look like that, darling. I was angry with you for a little while, but I can’t bear to see you unhappy. Don’t worry, I’ve forgiven you. You didn’t want to kill our baby, you loved me and you wanted my baby, you told me that. I know who was to blame. They talked you into it, they lied to you, Fenn and your mother.’

Her eyes opened again in shock. ‘Johnny … my mother …’ Somehow that was the biggest shock. She loved her mother, and she knew Trudie loved her too. Whatever Trudie had done had been for her. ‘Did you try to kill her too?’

He looked quickly at her, a shade of anxiety in his face. ‘I’m sorry, darling, I had to, you know. She hated me.’

‘But … she said … a nurse …’

‘Oh, I’d been working there part-time on night duty ever since I got out of prison. I told you I worked in the hospital prison, didn’t I? I’d taken some of the nursing exams while I was there.’

‘So you are a qualified nurse?’ She was taken aback and Johnny laughed.

‘Of course not, but I knew enough to get by in practice, because I’d done the job for a couple of years, and it’s easy to get forged papers. I learnt a lot in prison, including how to get forged official documents. I borrowed a set from a nurse I’d met in prison and had them forged by someone else, a guy who’d shared my cell for a year. Clever guy; he can forge anything, money, documents, even paintings. Annie, I needed the extra money. The magazine I was working for didn’t pay me enough to live on. It was a coincidence that your mother turned up on the ward.’

‘Was it you she saw the day she wandered out and went to that park? Did you try to kill her that day?’

‘No, not that day. I saw her walk off down the road in her dressing-gown. I was worried about her, would you believe that? I liked her then, I thought she had liked me. I followed her and she turned on me. It was only later that I found out what she’d done, how she’d made sure you never got my messages and letters. She told me about the baby when she was on the ward, and I nearly killed her then, but once I’d talked to you and realised just what she had done to me …’ He put his cheek down, on Annie’s hair, murmured, ‘She hated me, darling. And she hurt you, just as Fenn had hurt you, and Roger Keats. I would never let anyone hurt you and get away with it, Annie. I’ll always look after you. When we’ve got rid of Halifax we’ll go away together.’

She couldn’t take it all in; how many people had he killed? His father, Roger, Derek.