Part 21 (1/2)

'What kind of demons something from your childhood?'

Duncan raised his head and looked at her. He understood her so well, and he must have been able to see in her eyes that she knew something. He hesitated.

'Duncan, I know your name. I know your birthday. And you know that I can find out anything I want to. So stop messing about, for G.o.d's sake.' She omitted to mention that she didn't know his surname.

Duncan's lips tightened, and she knew he wasn't happy to be telling her this.

'How do you know about my name?' he asked.

'You were in care. I don't need to explain to you how I know. You need to tell me the truth. Why were you in care, and for how long.'

Duncan's eyes narrowed and she could see he was wondering how much she knew.

'I told you my mother was ill. She was ill for years. When she had to go into hospital, I had to go and stay with a lady called Pat. I didn't mention it because n.o.body's proud of being in care. There wasn't anybody else, you see. Just me and Mum. That's why it nearly killed me when she died. I was never with Pat for long only a few weeks at a time and I went home when Mum came out of hospital. I shouldn't have gone to university really, but she insisted. She wanted me to have everything in life, so social services arranged for a nurse to call in every day while I was away. But I know I shouldn't have gone.'

Maggie could feel his pain and had to stop herself from going to him. But she needed to pull him away from talk of his mother.

'Let's get back to the counsellor you mentioned,' she said. 'What happened there?'

'The people at the university knew about my mother and the fact that I was having to live with a lot of uncertainty about the future, so I was allocated an adviser. He was good. He helped me to face things and helped me to meet sort of people in a similar position. Chat rooms on the Internet were just getting going, and he introduced me to one where people talked through their problems. It was anonymous, and it helped me. I was given a room in the halls of residence for fifty-two weeks of the year and treated as a kid coming out of care because basically I had nowhere to go when my mum was in hospital no other family to turn to. I was a bit of a loner, so chatting to people online was a lifesaver. You really have no idea, Mags. Everybody has somebody. But for huge chunks of time I didn't. I had n.o.body. I felt like a shadow as if I had no substance of my own.'

The pain Maggie was feeling for the man sitting in front of her was real, but it was as if she were listening to a person she didn't know well. A friend's husband, perhaps. She felt detached. How had all of this stayed hidden?

'Then in my second year I started to see a girl. I'd been out with a few, but I didn't have any money and could barely afford to buy them a drink, so I'd mainly had one-night stands. Then I met Tamsin. She was pretty and funny, and didn't seem to care much about where we went. She just wanted s.e.x lots of it so we ended up at mine.'

He looked at Maggie. 'Do you mind if I get a gla.s.s of water, Mags. I've barely spoken in the last few days, and my throat's dry.'

'I'll get it. You carry on talking.'

Maggie went into the bathroom and found a plastic cup inside a polythene bag. She ripped it open as she listened.

'I thought we had an exclusive relations.h.i.+p, and it was going well, but one night after a late lecture I saw her walking along the other side of the road. I shouted to her, but there were lots of people milling around and she didn't hear me. She was all dressed up, so I followed her. She went into one of the staff car parks. It was pretty dark by then but I saw a flash of headlights and she gave a little wave. I thought somebody must be giving her a lift somewhere and was about to leave, but I wanted to see who it was. There was n.o.body else about so I crouched down behind one of the few remaining cars and waited for them to drive out. But they didn't. I had a peep after a few minutes, and they were still there in the car.'

Maggie returned to the bedroom and handed Duncan a gla.s.s of lukewarm water the best she could do.

'To cut a long story short, she was giving one of the lecturers a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b. I was devastated.'

Duncan fell silent and sipped at his water.

'I thought she loved me and that we had something special. When you don't have anybody, it hits much harder if somebody lets you down.'

Maggie tried to a.s.sess how it must have felt to be that kid with no family, few friends and n.o.body to turn to. He thought he had found somebody to love. She realised she was thinking of this boy as Michael. None of it had anything to do with her Duncan.

'What happened afterwards?' she asked, fearing that there was more to come.

'I went to see my counsellor. I told him what had happened and how I felt. I was so hurt. So angry that she would throw away what we had. I think I probably said that I wanted to kill her, but people say that all the time, don't they?'

He looked straight at Maggie as he spoke, his eyes slightly narrowed as if to gauge her reaction. She managed to keep her face impa.s.sive. He was right. How often had she said 'I could have killed him' about something trivial?

'What did your counsellor advise?'

'He suggested another chat room. He said it was designed for people who felt like me, who needed an outlet for their anger. It was a private site you know, not indexed and only accessible if you knew how to get in. I suppose you'd call it the dark web nowadays. Anyway, it was a place where I could express my feelings.'

Maggie was puzzled. She knew about the dark web of course, but generally thought about it in terms of p.o.r.nography and the buying and selling of drugs.

'What kind of site was it?' she asked.

'A fantasy site,' Duncan said, his dark eyes fixed on hers as if they were boring into her to read her thoughts. 'A fantasy murder site.'

The silence in the hotel room was claustrophobic in its intensity. Maggie stared at her husband, and he stared right back as if daring her to comment. She wasn't sure for a moment that she had heard him correctly. Did that mean what she thought? People went on there to fantasise about committing murder? It was as twisted as anything she had ever come across.

The tension snapped as the room phone rang.

's.h.i.+t,' Maggie muttered. 'Does anybody know you're here?'

Duncan shook his head.

'Could they have traced your van, like I did?'

'I don't see how they would know the registration number.'

'Okay, it's best if I answer this,' Maggie said, guessing who it would be.

She picked the phone up.

'Yes?' she said, trying to sound as if she were in control. 'Yes, I'm fine, thank you, Mr Trainer. It's okay, I've heard from the police. They called my mobile. I'm going to take my client to them when we've finished our meeting. He'll be checking out. Yes, I'm fine, but thank you so much for your concern, Mr Trainer.'

At the mention of the police, Duncan had pushed himself to his feet, panic spreading across his face. Maggie waved him down, ended the call and hung up.

'It's okay. There are no police, but when we've finished we're going to have to move you somewhere else. The guy downstairs thinks you're a criminal.'

Duncan's eyes asked, Is that what you think? but Maggie gave nothing away.

She took a deep breath. 'Now tell me what sort of sick f.u.c.k of a counsellor tells a disturbed kid to go to a fantasy murder site? What the h.e.l.l is a fantasy murder site, anyway?'

Duncan shrugged as if it were nothing.

'Exactly what you might think. It's a fantasy site. You go on and you talk about how you would kill somebody and why. Other people make suggestions. There's even a board that tells you how to commit the perfect murder. But it's just fantasy. It helps get it all out of your system.'

Maggie had no words. It wasn't just fantasising about wanting somebody dead; people actually discussed methods of committing murder. She didn't think this could get any worse, but there was more and Maggie knew it. This website was the most macabre thing she had ever heard of, but if that was all it was, Duncan wouldn't have mentioned it. She waited.

'One guy started to chat to me and suggested we go into a private side room. His name was Samil well, that was his pseudonym. We all had them. The only people who could access the private room were people who were specifically invited, so to start with it was just me, Samil, and the site administrator Invictus, he called himself.'

It all sounded so juvenile with the silly names, but no doubt they had some sinister meaning.

'Then Samil suggested that maybe we could help each other out. He had been fantasising about killing his stepmother so she didn't inherit all his father's money. He hated her. He said he would kill Tamsin for me if I would kill his stepmother. I thought he was joking.'