Part 23 (1/2)

'Before I got involved in the fantasy site, I used to chat on a forum for adults who were lonely. We helped each other. One guy on there was particularly helpful and I've been in touch with him since just after I started university. We still chat every now and again, mainly for his benefit. He knows I'm settled and happy, but he isn't so I've been trying to be supportive, as he was with me.'

Maggie waited. There had to be more.

'I told him I was moving back to Manchester. He said he was living here now I don't know where he was originally. We never said. He didn't even know my real name. Like all these forums, people can use any name they want. He called himself William, but I've no idea if that was his real name. Anyway, he asked if I thought it was time we met face to face. He would like to buy me a pint. He suggested a pub, and I said it would have to be lunchtime because of the kids. I went, but he never turned up.'

'Did he ever say why not?'

'He was ill, apparently. I waited half an hour and got talking to some guy about a plumbing job. He'd seen the van outside noticed the sign I prop up in the back window until I get the lettering done on the sides. He asked for my card.'

Maggie looked at him. Surely he had made the connection? She had come to realise many things about her husband tonight, but she had never thought he was stupid.

'It sounds to me as if you were well and truly set up,' she said as she pulled into the car park of a small private hotel.

'What, by William?'

'Who else? n.o.body else knew you both before and after, so who the h.e.l.l do you think it was? Somehow or other, this William must be connected to Samil. Was the guy who approached you Asian?'

'No, he was posh Manchester. Not that I think Samil's Asian. The name's got nothing to do with race. I looked it up once. It's a variant of the Hebrew Sama'el. It means Angel of Death.'

Maggie stopped breathing. Under different circ.u.mstances she might have laughed at the absurdity of the name, but she knew this man was lethal.

'It's him, Duncan. The man who called me. Your friend William must have told Samil where to find you. Either that or William and Samil are one and the same. There are coincidences, but this is way too much of one. You need to tell me everything you know about the man in the pub. I need to know him if I see him.'

And somehow Maggie knew that she would be seeing him, sooner or later.

50.

It was after three when Maggie finally crawled into her own bed. Her sister's light had been on, but she had ignored it and gone straight into a very hot shower, feeling as if her skin was crawling. After a brief and restless three hours trying to make sense out of everything she had learned, she still felt dirty. She scratched the flesh of her bare arms.

Somewhere out there a man calling himself by a name that meant Angel of Death wanted to kill her.

She had told Duncan they would find a solution, but Maggie hadn't a clue what that might be. Every spark of an idea she had was mentally ripped up and discarded with increasing frustration. Now she understood why Duncan hadn't wanted her to go to the police. He would be charged with conspiracy to murder for the deaths twelve years ago. His defence that he hadn't meant it to happen for real would mean nothing, and the evidence against him was compelling, the scene he caused when he caught Tamsin with the lecturer being one, and the fact that he had run away and changed his name whatever the reason being the other. He could get life imprisonment. Even if he could identify the real killers, who were fairly safe behind the walls of the dark web, Maggie didn't think it would make any difference.

Maggie had thought she and Duncan were as close as two people could be, but she now had to admit to herself that she knew very little about him. Even tonight he had tried to lie to her over and over again without realising how much she knew.

The phrase 'pathological liar' leapt into her head. She had come across it recently but couldn't remember the context. At that moment it seemed a perfect label for Duncan. And he seemed incapable of accepting any guilt.

There was no doubt at all that he should have gone to the police immediately the first girl was killed twelve years ago the girl called Sonia whose only fault had been that she looked like Tamsin. Maggie couldn't excuse Duncan for that. She could blame it on his youth and on his fear of imprisonment, but it didn't alter the fact that her husband the man she had loved devotedly for ten years had allowed somebody's child to be brutally murdered. The thought of the girl's last minutes almost drove all rational thought from her mind.

Maggie was trying desperately to think of Duncan and Michael as two separate people because it was the only way she believed she would be able to deal with it all. She visualised this young man somebody she didn't know who was only twenty years old and tried to understand his dilemma. She blamed him for inflicting this horror on Duncan, her loving husband, and on her family.

By the time she had left Duncan at his new hotel, suggesting he pick his van up in the morning as discreetly as he could and dump it somewhere miles from where he was staying, she was weak from emotional exhaustion.

'What's going to happen now?' Duncan had asked. 'When can I come home? When can my life get back to normal?'

'I don't have the faintest idea, but not yet. All I know is that one of us has to come up with a plan, and as far as I can see your only plan has been to do nothing,' Maggie had said. 'When has inertia ever won the day, Duncan?'

She paused for his answer, not really expecting one. Duncan said nothing.

'We're not just talking about your life getting back to normal, either,' she continued, 'so stop making it all about Duncan b.l.o.o.d.y Taylor. You'd better phone me tomorrow evening when the children are in bed and see if I've come up with something that will at least save anybody else from getting killed.'

She could see from his expression that Duncan sensed her fury and his next words confirmed it.

'You married me for better or for worse, Maggie. I know I've made a mistake, but surely everybody's allowed that? And we were happy. We'll be happy again. The kids need us both, and you know how good we are together.'

A mistake. If he called it that one more time she was certain she would lose it completely. But angry as she was with him, she needed some comfort too. Just for a moment, she had to think of him as the man she had loved for the past ten years. She needed to hold him, feel the warmth from his body pa.s.s into hers and let some of the tension seep from her limbs.

Could they ever get back to the people they had been? Of course not. Could they have a different form of happiness one that was based on absolute truth? She was no closer to an answer.

She couldn't stay in bed all day. She had to get to the office and try to find some time to examine past cases to see if there was any way that Duncan could go to the police and not be charged. She already knew it was highly unlikely.

Maggie forced herself to get up and go downstairs. She needed coffee. She pushed the kitchen door open and was only slightly surprised to see Suzy leaning against the worktop, both hands clasped around a mug.

They looked at each other. Suzy was obviously tired and Maggie felt terrible. She knew her sister would have been awake worrying about her the night before, but she couldn't have discussed things with her. Not then. She had made enough noise to ensure Suzy knew she was home, but that was the most she could manage. She didn't want to go into it all now either.

'Coffee?' Suzy asked.

'Please. Suze, I'm sorry I didn't come and talk to you last night. It's all so complicated and I don't know where to begin.'

'I take it you found him, then?'

Maggie nodded and stood quietly watching her sister make the coffee. 'Are you going home today?' she asked, changing the subject for the moment. She didn't want her sister to leave, but she had a life too.

'Of course not. I've taken a week off work family crisis being the excuse and I'll stay as long as you need me.'

'What about the kids?' Maggie asked.

'While you were out last night I had a word with Ian without screaming at him. He said the kids were winding Ruthie up, so I spoke to them and told them to cut it out.'

Maggie raised her eyebrows. She knew that Suzy took some pleasure from the children moaning about their soon-to-be stepmother.

'And then I had a word with Ruthie.'

'You what?'

'Yesterday when you talked about how it felt to truly love somebody you made me realise something, Mags. It's not Ruthie's fault that Ian didn't love me enough. Maybe I didn't love him enough. Maybe we just didn't love each other. Anyway, it's the children that count. They need to be happy there, and they need to respect their stepmother.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Suzy!'

'I still think she's a poser, but hey each to their own.'

Maggie walked across the room and gave her sister a hug. She knew that had taken a lot of doing but maybe her sister was finally on the road to a better place.

'What about you, though?' Suzy asked. 'Does it all make sense now?'