Part 31 (1/2)

The questioning went on. Maggie felt removed from it all, as if it were happening to somebody else and she was merely an observer. She gave no thought to her answers and was barely aware that she was talking.

Tom jolted her back to reality. 'We're concerned about your ongoing safety, I'm afraid, and we do need you to be extra vigilant.' He was leaning forward and resting his forearms on his thighs.

'Why? You've caught them, haven't you?'

'We have two men in custody, but we have reason to believe there's a third man.'

She swallowed. How did they know? 'What makes you think that?' she asked, her voice, even to her own ears, sounding like stone scratching gla.s.s.

Becky took over. 'We don't know if he's involved in the current crimes, but we strongly suspect that a third man Michael Alexander was involved in the other unlawful killings we mentioned the ones that took place twelve years ago.'

Maggie couldn't speak. She wanted to, but her throat seemed to have seized up.

Becky continued to explain their concerns. 'Michael Alexander went off the radar about twelve years ago. He told his university tutor that he was going home to nurse his sick mother.'

Maggie felt herself relax a little. They didn't know where he was.

'That doesn't sound like something a murderer would do,' she said.

'Well, you never know with psychopaths,' Tom Douglas added. 'Sometimes they seem like the most caring people, although it's all a carefully constructed act. In any case, it wasn't true. His mother was an alcoholic and died when he was eight. He'd been in care since he was five.'

Maggie felt the room spinning and she gripped onto the arms of the chair.

'Are you okay?' Becky asked.

Maggie closed her eyes and tried to get some degree of composure back.

'Sorry, I've not eaten much in the last twenty-four hours, and I've drunk too much coffee.'

'Shall I ask your sister to join us?' Becky asked. 'If you need somebody with you, I could look after your kids.'

Maggie quickly shook her head. 'No, I'm fine.' She turned to look at Tom. 'Why do you think he's still a danger if he's not done anything in the last twelve years?'

Tom and Becky looked at each other for a moment.

'We didn't say that,' Tom said. 'You're probably aware that the police often hold back some information about murders, sometimes so that we can differentiate between copycat murders and repeat offences serial murders, in other words.'

Maggie felt herself nodding, although she didn't feel she had any control over her body at all anymore.

'There are some similarities between the murders here in Manchester and another series of deaths down south. I can't go into detail, but that coupled with some evidence retrieved from Ben Coleman's phone is enough to make us strongly suspect that Michael Alexander is involved.'

Tom Douglas continued to talk, but Maggie was far away. She remembered her shock when Samil Ben Coleman, as she now knew he was had read out the fantasy death of Tamsin from his phone. Duncan's fantasy. She had recognised it, but pushed it from her mind.

It was a mode of death that had become infamous in Suffolk over the past few years.

The murders had begun with a neighbour of Maggie and Duncan's. The wife of the couple concerned had liked a drink, and Maggie had seen the look of disgust on Duncan's face many times, but the husband seemed relaxed about it. Then there had been an embarra.s.sing occasion at a party when the woman had been so drunk she had fallen over, knocking into a display cupboard holding a number of pieces of antique gla.s.s. The doors of the cupboard had shattered and the wife had cut her arm. But worse, most of the valuable gla.s.s had been broken too. Her husband had gone white. He had picked his wife up from where she was laughing hysterically on the floor and apologised profusely to the hosts, saying he would recompense them in any way that he could. Two days later, the woman was found floating in the Suffolk Broads. Drowned.

At first people a.s.sumed she had been drunk and had fallen in, but the police soon made it clear that it was murder. There were marks on her neck that indicated her head had been held under the water. The nature of the marks, and the fact that there were multiple bruises, suggested that she had been repeatedly held under the water. The husband was the obvious suspect but was cleared almost immediately.

And so began the reign of terror of the Teetotaller, as the killer became known. Four women, including Maggie's neighbour, had been found floating in the broads. Each of them had had a serious drink problem. Other women in the area had disappeared over the past few years, and at least two of them were suspected to be victims of the Teetotaller.

The detectives' words washed over Maggie after that, and she wanted to curl up in a ball. The fear and heartbreak of the past few days had been collecting inside her, gathering to form a bomb that was about to explode. And when it did she would have no means of stopping everything from gus.h.i.+ng out, every little detail. She didn't know how long she could hang on. She no longer knew if she wanted to. But she couldn't tell them now because they would realise how much she had been hiding. She had failed to tell the police what she knew. Exactly as Duncan had all those years ago.

'We'd like to put a policeman in the house with you for your own safety,' Becky Robinson said, jolting her out of her reverie.

Maggie felt herself shaking her head. 'No, really. It's not necessary. My sister's husband is coming to stay. He's arriving any time now. And I want Josh to feel that everything's getting back to normal. I need him to stop worrying. We'll be fine.'

She listened to their arguments, but she couldn't let that happen. She knew what had to be done, and a policeman in the house would ruin everything.

The two detectives stood up. Tom was watching her carefully but she was sure he would put her distress down to a combination of the events of last night and concern about the third man. He gave her a sympathetic smile. 'We'll be needing a formal statement from you, but it's just procedure. The two men were caught with Leo, and they've no way of escaping justice for what they did to her.'

As Maggie opened the door to the hall, her sister was coming downstairs. She smiled at the two policemen.

'Thanks for the coffee, Mrs...?'

'Peters. Suzy Peters. Miss. And it was my pleasure.'

'Tom, I don't mean to be a total wimp, but I'm going to have to go and have a couple of hours' kip. I don't need much, but I do need to revive myself. I can't think straight.'

Tom was glad Becky wasn't the one behind the steering wheel; her driving was erratic at the best of times. He looked at her now, and her cheeks were a washed-out grey colour with two pink spots one on each side. She looked almost feverish.

'Me too. I need to go back to the hospital and see how Leo's doing as well, but we can leave the team to carry on hunting down our man.'

Becky turned to look at Tom, her head on one side.

'I know that look. What's going on in your head?' she asked.

'Maggie Taylor looks like the other three. That makes four potential victims. It's odd that they hadn't already killed Leo; their MO seems to have been to kill and get rid within twenty-four hours. Logically, they were planning on sticking to three victims, which means that Leo might have been a reserve. But a reserve for what? Was Maggie the real victim? Was she the one they wanted to kill all along, with the other two killed to confuse us? And if that's the case, why would anybody want her dead? As a criminal lawyer she's potentially got more reason to be hated than most, but she's a defender, so that doesn't make much sense. That fact is, we don't know, and with my brain the way it is at the moment, I can't work it out.'

'Where's Maggie's husband supposed to be? Given what's happened, I was surprised she said her brother-in-law was coming to stay but no mention of her husband rus.h.i.+ng to be by her side. She looked to have been knocked for six by the whole thing.'

'That's what I thought too. I'm going to have him checked out. She avoids talking about him, and there are no photos, even though there are plenty of her and the children. He could have left her, of course. Josh was uneasy about mentioning him as well. Anyway, forget about it all for a few hours and have a break. Coleman and Mellor have been processed so you deserve some rest. I'll be back this evening. What about you?'

'Oh, I'll be back. Four o'clock at the latest, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.' Her voice was drifting off as she spoke.

'Just before you leave this earth for your world of dreams-' Tom saw a faint smile on Becky's lips, '-there was something that Maggie's sister said, something I felt should have meant something. Do you remember?'

Becky gave a small grunt, which could have meant anything. 'She said she was Miss, and Maggie had referred to her husband, but that's not particularly odd. People do that sometimes if they've been together for a while.'

'No, it was her name. Why does Suzy Peters mean something?'