The Night Stalker (Detective Erika Foster 2)

Nothing.

More images flooded her mind: Gregory Munro, Jack Hart. Lying naked on their backs, naked bodies exposed, heads misshapen through the tight clear plastic bags.

There was a click as her front door closed.

‘Shit,’ she said, under her breath. Her heart began to thump against her chest. She could still smell the sickly aroma of the pond water on her sweaty skin. Quickly, she came out of the bedroom and, keeping one eye on the front door, she reached round the bathroom door for the light pull. It did nothing when she yanked it. She rounded the corner of the bathroom door and directed the phone light inside. It was empty: white toilet, bath and sink. She yanked back the white shower curtain. Nothing. The reflection from the phone’s light bounced back at her from the mirror, momentarily dazzling her. She tried to shake the painful sensation and the bright spot in her vision as she hurried back out of the bathroom, past the front door and through to the living room.

She tried the light switch but, again, nothing. It was just as she’d left it: messy. A couple of flies buzzed around above the old coffee cups on the kitchen counter. She relaxed a little. The flat was empty. She returned to the front door and put the chain on, and then came back through to the living room. She grabbed the string for the large blinds over the patio window and pulled them up with a whoosh.

A silhouette of a tall man stood in front of the window. Erika screamed and staggered back, falling over the coffee table with a crash of cups.

She dropped her phone, plunging the room back into darkness.

36

As Erika lay on the floor, the silhouette of the tall figure was still for a moment, then swayed a little, saying, through the glass, ‘Boss? You in there? It’s me, Peterson.’ He cupped his hands against the window and peered inside. ‘Boss?’

‘What the bloody hell are you doing coming to my flat?’ asked Erika, getting up and pulling open the patio door. The light pollution from the surrounding sky bathed Peterson in an orangey glow.

‘Sorry, I couldn’t find the front door. I didn’t know it was on the side of the building.’

‘Spoken like a true detective,’ said Erika. ‘Wait here a second.’

She retrieved her phone from the shadows under the coffee table, turned the light back on and grabbed a chair so she could reach the fuse box high on the wall above the television. She opened it and reset the trip switch. The lights all came on in the flat, apart from the one in the hall above the front door.

She could now see Peterson properly in the open patio doors. He wore blue jeans, an old Adidas T-shirt and he had a couple of days’ stubble. He rubbed at his bloodshot eyes.

‘Bulb’s gone,’ Erika said, more in relief than explanation. She stepped down off the chair and smoothed down her hair, realising she must look a little wild. ‘Where were you today?’ she added, looking Peterson up and down. She could smell stale booze.

‘Can I come in for a chat?’ he asked.

‘It’s late.’

‘Please, boss.’

‘Okay.’

He came into the living room. A light breeze wafted through from outside. ‘This is… nice,’ he said.

‘No, it isn’t,’ said Erika, moving back over to the kitchen. ‘Do you want something to drink?’

‘What have you got?’

‘You’re not having anything with alcohol in it. You smell like you’ve had enough.’

She quickly scanned through her rather bare cupboards. She had a nice bottle of Glenmorangie, unopened. In the fridge was an old bottle of white wine with a few inches left. Her coffee jar was almost empty.

‘It’s tap water or… Um Bongo,’ she said dryly, finding two small cartons of the tropical juice drink under some mouldy lettuce in the salad drawer.

‘The juice, thanks,’ Peterson said.

Erika closed the fridge and handed him one of the juice boxes. She grabbed the cigarettes from her bag and the two of them went out onto the little paved square outside the patio door. There were no chairs, so they perched on the low wall bordering the grass.

‘I didn’t know you could still get Um Bongo,’ Peterson said, pulling the plastic off a small straw and pushing it through the little hole of silver foil.

‘My sister and her kids came to stay a few months ago,’ said Erika, lighting a cigarette.

‘I didn’t know you had a sister.’

Her cigarette hadn’t lit properly and she puffed, trying to get the tip to glow. She exhaled and nodded.

‘How many kids has she got?’

‘Two. And one more on the way.’