Page 42 of The Serial Killer’s Sister (The Serial Killer’s Daughter #3)

This time, DI Walker is sticking so close he’s practically tailgating me.

When I’m about a mile away from the location Henry wants me to meet him at, I take a left turn.

The opposite turning would take us to Finley Hall, but this one leads to a wooded area.

Back then, it wasn’t frequented a lot by the locals, wasn’t somewhere that was mentioned on the maps.

I wonder if that’s changed. I’m guessing it can’t have if Henry is confident to bring me here – he’s bound to have checked the place out first.

Unless, of course, that’s the point. That he wants this to be a very public affair.

My stomach grumbles – it was already unhappy with the lack of food, but now it’s cramping from the churning of acid.

Why didn’t I pick something up at the service station?

Eating is the last thing on my mind, but consuming some form of energy would’ve been wise given what the next few hours could have in store.

The thought makes me cold. Every inch of me wants to pull over, stop this madness.

Go back to my home and forget Henry’s game.

Ross. He has Ross.

I don’t make a U-turn, but I do steer the car into a layby, then open the door to expel bile. I cough violently, the burning in my stomach, my oesophagus, my throat, making my eyes stream. A car slows up, I hear its tyres on the gravel behind me. Christ. I can’t even puke without an audience.

‘Here,’ DI Walker says, passing me a pack of wet wipes.

I eye him cautiously as I pull out a clump of them.

I equate wet wipes with babies, toddlers – messy kids.

When I’d asked him before about his own family, he’d neatly side-stepped the topic, but now I wonder if he has, in fact, got children.

‘Always prepared for every eventuality,’ he says, as if reading my mind.

‘Good job one of us is.’ I spit the last of the acidic saliva out and drag the wipe over my lips. Then I take another and use it for the rest of my face, the coolness offering a little relief. DI Walker goes to his car, then returns with a bottle of water and thrusts it at me.

‘Keep it.’

I attempt a smile, then sip the water. It tastes bitter on my tongue from the remnants of bile. I swallow more in the hope of being completely rid of it.

‘Don’t suppose you have some mints, too?’ I raise a hopeful brow.

‘You really aren’t prepared, are you? Call yourself a teacher?’ He tuts, shakes his head and trudges back to his car again. I think he’s genuinely annoyed I’m not as organised as he imagines a teacher should be.

‘I used to be,’ I say, holding out my hand for him to drop a few mints into. ‘Prepared, I mean. Organised. If you’d met me prior to this past week, you might’ve gained a better idea of me.’

He cocks his head to one side. ‘Oh, I think I’ve got the measure of you.’

I flush, embarrassed. He’s seen me lose my temper with a child on a zebra crossing, he’s caught me out in numerous lies and breaking promises, he knows I broke off contact with Henry, which may have led him to murder five women – everything he’s seen has been the absolute worst of me.

‘There are some good bits,’ I say, screwing up my face.

‘I’m used to seeing people at their most vulnerable, Anna. You’re no different.’

He turns away, calling over his shoulder that we need to get moving again.

The fluttering in my tummy subsided after I ejected the bile, but now it’s replaced with something else: an ice-cold lump is swelling, filling me up like I’m freezing from the inside out.

A violent shiver judders up my spine and I begin to shake all over.

There’s nothing I can do to stop Henry, I realise.

Today will play out the way he wants it to; he’s the one with all the power.

I thought I was in control of my future, but maybe that was an illusion.

From that date – the thirteenth of May, seventeen years ago – it’s been Henry who could dictate what happened and when.

I was a fool to believe we’d both take our secret to the grave.

Once I’m on the road again, I switch the heater on.

But it doesn’t seem to abate my shakes. They’re more fear than temperature induced, I realise.

I sing to myself – ‘Wonderwall’, a comfort song from long ago, forcing my mind to go elsewhere, not to dwell on the destination.

The words die on my lips as I spot the small lane branching off to the left just ahead of me.

I indicate and check DI Walker is following as I take the turn.

His car has backed off a little, the track becoming rough, uneven.

Probably doesn’t want to damage the underside of his fancy car on tree roots and mounds of earth, so he’s taking it slowly.

My car, on the other hand, bumps wildly.

I jerk about as if I’m being thrown around during a washing machine cycle, my head knocking against the inside of the car door several times before I reach the small clearing.

I park up, but I don’t get out, taking a moment for my head to stop spinning.

After some steadying breaths, I scan the area.

Is Henry there, in the trees, watching me?

The Audi draws up next to me and I see DI Walker doing the same – conducting a visual sweep of the area.

He reaches down and I lose sight of him for a few seconds before his head bobs back up and he gets out of the car.

I think he’s got a gun. A cold trickle of fear runs down my back.

I remember that he said he’d ensure reinforcements were close by, and feel a wave of relief.

‘You ready?’ DI Walker ducks down at my window.

I nod, grab my jacket and get out. My legs don’t seem as though they’ll hold me up; they feel spongy as I walk.

DI Walker holds onto my arm, so I’m guessing it’s clear just how wobbly I’m feeling.

I have to at least appear stronger – I refuse to allow Henry to take every shred of my self-worth and dignity.

As we make our way into the woodland, it’s like I’ve somehow stepped back in time.

Each tree, each patch of ground has a familiarity to it that makes the hairs on my neck stand up.

I even feel like I did the last time I was here, the way listening to a certain song can transport you back to the specific time when it meant something to you.

I’m charged with electricity. A sense of anticipation.

Only this anticipation is for something very different than before.

‘Where exactly are you taking us?’ DI Walker stops, looking back at the way we’ve come. ‘How far are we going?’

‘Not far,’ I say, my breathing laboured.

‘The cars will still be in sight? We shouldn’t stray too far—’

‘We have to go where we have to go,’ I say, somewhat cryptically, I realise. But he’ll understand soon.

‘There were no other vehicles. Are you sure he’s going to be here?’

‘He’ll be here.’ I don’t know Henry any more, if I ever did, but there’s a certainty in my gut. ‘I’ve got the right place, detective.’

‘How can you be so sure? I know the riddle said Meet me where the lie was spoke , but could there be a chance it’s somewhere else he meant?’

‘Nope.’

I hear him give a huff, followed by a curse as he bats away some low foliage. ‘You’re the boss,’ he mutters.

I stop, turning sharply back to face him. ‘That’s the last thing I am. Henry is in charge here.’ For a moment we are locked in each other’s gazes and something behind his eyes shifts. He blinks rapidly a few times and looks over my head, towards something beyond. ‘Is that where we’re going?’

Turning around I see the gap in the trees ahead. And something solid in the centre. I swallow hard, a sense of dread spreading rapidly through me. I put my hand to my chest; the thud of my heart vibrates against my palm.

‘Yes. That’s it.’ My words, no more than a whisper, are immediately stolen by the breeze sighing through the trees. DI Walker gently moves me to one side, stepping in front of me.

‘Stay back,’ he says, drawing a gun from his waistband. A breath catches in my throat. I knew that’s what he was getting when I saw him reaching down in his car. He holds it out now, sweeping it left to right as he checks the area. He indicates it’s safe for me to carry on.

‘Why do you have a gun?’ I ask when we’re level.

‘I know it’s not routine – and firearms support isn’t far away – but I didn’t want to risk …’ He pauses, giving me a look I can’t read.

‘Risk what?’ I prompt.

‘I didn’t want to risk losing you.’

I’m not sure how he means this – in an entirely professional “I don’t want another woman to die on my watch” type way, or a more personal “I don’t want you to die because I like you”.

‘Right, okay. Good,’ I say. ‘Then we’re on the same page.’ I attempt a smile.

We’re almost where I need to be now, but my feet refuse to move any closer. I stand, rigid, squeezing my hands at my sides.

‘Now we wait, I guess,’ he says. I look away as he walks up to the stone-walled structure. ‘Weird to have an old well in the middle of nowhere, isn’t it?’

I don’t answer. My vocal cords feel tight, like they’ll snap if I try to talk.

I take the water bottle he gave me and suck from the sports cap.

When I am more confident of speech, I tell him about the woods.

How some of the kids from the children’s home came here to escape sometimes, but mostly it was deserted.

‘This area was likely a farming region, or a settlement thousands of years ago,’ I say.

DI Walker leans over the well. ‘I wonder how far down it goes.’ I half expect him to yell down it, like a child might do. But instead, he delves a hand into his pocket and throws a coin down. I hold my breath.

‘I didn’t hear it hit,’ he says.

‘The deepest hand-dug well is in East Sussex and it’s 1,285 feet deep.’

He shoots me a curious look.

‘I researched it once.’ I shrug, giving a cautious glance around. ‘Where are you, Henry?’

‘It appears we still have some time.’ DI Walker sits on the edge of the well.

‘Can you not?’ Irritation edges my words. He’s going on about risks, but then he sits on an old stone well that could collapse at any moment.

‘Maybe you should explain why we’re here. What’s the importance of this place for Henry?’

Now we’re at the location and I’ve accepted this is where it all ends, there’s no reason to hold on to my secret.

‘You asked what the significance of the second date was. May the thirteenth. Well, this is it. It’s the last place Henry and I were at together. It’s where promises were made.

‘He said it’s where the lie was spoken, though?’

‘I think he was referring to a line from the old poem. You know, the one I was telling you about: cross my heart, hope to die? Well, one of the lines from it is, “I spoke a lie – I never really wanted to die.”’

DI Walker nods. Keeps nodding. ‘I see. Or, I don’t – but I’m guessing that was something between you and him. And each of the murders was a reference to that poem.’

‘Exactly.’ I take my jacket, and pull out the paper with the poem scrawled on it:

Cross my heart and hope to die,

Stick a needle in my eye.

Wait a moment; I spoke a lie –

I never really wanted to die.

But if I may, and if I might,

My heart is open for tonight.

My lips are sealed and a promise is true:

I won’t break my word; my word to you.

Cross my heart and hope to die,

Stick a needle in my eye.

A secret’s a secret – my word is forever;

I will tell no one about your cruel endeavour.

You claim no pain, but I see right through

Your words in everything you do.

Teary eyes, broken heart:

Life has torn you apart.

I pass it to the detective, then lay the jacket on the ground, sitting on it.

I need to be comfortable to tell him this story.

‘Those are all the verses. I scribbled it down when I couldn’t sleep.

I’m not sure who wrote it – I think there are a few variations.

Point is, the main verse was the one he used all the time.

Some kind of comfort blanket, really – a way of feeling sure no one was lying to him.

‘I see,’ DI Walker says. ‘If he wanted to feel safe, that he wasn’t alone, he’d make you swear to it. Cross your heart.’

‘Yes. If he was really serious, he made you say “stick a needle in my eye”. It was the ultimate show of trust, I guess.’

‘So, what happened here all those years ago?’ DI Walker scans the area, then looks back at me, his eyes imploring; intense.

‘On the evening of May the thirteenth, we came here because Henry’s clue for The Hunt led to the well.’

‘We?’

‘As much as she didn’t want to be dragged into Henry’s cruel games any more, my friend came too. She didn’t want me to face him alone. Much the same as you don’t want that now.’

There’s a pause so loaded I forget to breathe.

‘Go on,’ DI Walker says. ‘It’s time you told me everything.’