The Scent of Death

Chapter 33

I was discharged two days later. Rachel brought my clothes and drove me back to Ballard Court. Stepping outside the hospital, the world seemed a little unreal. Even though it was overcast, the daylight hurt my eyes. Everything seemed too bright and too loud, a sensory overload of sound and colour. Yet another after-effect of Lola’s ministrations that I’d been assured would eventually fade.

Although some would take longer than others.

We didn’t speak much in the car. ‘Are you OK?’ Rachel asked, as we waited at traffic lights.

‘Yes,’ I told her.

We watched the lights change in silence.

We let ourselves into the apartment. Rachel quickly put on some music and began busying herself in the kitchen. I went into the lounge but then lost track of what I’d been going to do. That kept happening, though not as much as it had. I’d find myself thinking about something, and then suddenly be unable to recall what it was.

Going to the window, I stared down at the street below. The trees had lost most of their leaves and the pavements were dark and glossy from rain. The cars parked outside looked too small to be real, like part of a model set.

‘Why don’t you sit down?’ Rachel said, carrying a mug in from the kitchen. ‘I’ve made you a coffee while I make lunch. I know how much you hate the coffee machine, so I bought a percolator. Saves you drinking instant.’

‘I don’t mind instant,’ I said without thinking.

‘Well, now you’ve got both.’ She sighed. ‘Sorry. It’s just… you’re very quiet. I don’t know what to say.’

I made myself smile. ‘I’m just tired.’

Her look said she didn’t believe that any more than I did. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘No,’ I said, turning back to the window.

Just thinking about it was hard enough. I knew part of what I was going through was a reaction to what had happened at Lola’s. It would take time for the psychological as well as the physiological effects of the electric shocks to wear off, and the memory of being paralysed and helpless still provoked a clammy sense of panic. But I was prepared for that. It was a natural response, something I could understand and deal with.

It was what Ward had told me in the hospital that I couldn’t accept.

‘We think Grace Strachan might have been stalking you for months,’ she’d said after Whelan left the room. ‘We’re still trying to trace her movements, but it looks like she’s been living abroad. She couldn’t have kept off the radar all this time in the UK, so we believe she must have left the country after she stabbed you.’

‘But that’s…’ I’d lost my words: it was too much to take in. I tried again. ‘Someone must have been helping her.’

Grace had been too unstable to have remained free all this time on her own. When I’d known her before she’d had her brother, Michael Strachan, to protect her and contain the worst of her psychotic behaviour. Even then they’d had to keep on the move, until in desperation he’d tried to find refuge for them on a sparsely populated island in the Hebrides.

It hadn’t worked.

‘Someone could have,’ Ward had agreed. ‘But losing yourself is a lot easier if you’re rich, and the Strachans were loaded. All the known assets belonging to her and her brother were frozen but there could be offshore investments we don’t know about. And from what I understand, Grace was perfectly normal most of the time. She only turned violent when something triggered her.’

Like jealousy over her brother. Or blaming me for his death, I’d thought numbly. ‘So what brought her back now?’

Ward had looked uncomfortable. ‘We think you did. Your name was mentioned in news reports about the murder investigation in Essex earlier this year, and also after that mess in Dartmoor. They were both high-profile cases, so she could easily have read about them. It’s possible she thought you were dead until then. The fingerprint we found on your front door was probably from a failed attempt to break into your flat rather than something that was missed after the first attack. You weren’t home when she called, so we think she’s been looking for you since then.’

The room had seemed to swim as her words sank in. All this time, I’d been blasé about the threat Grace posed. So confident that Ward and Rachel were worrying about nothing, that I wasn’t in any danger.

All this time, I’d been wrong.

I’d swallowed the bitter taste that had risen in my throat. ‘I can’t have been so hard to find.’

‘Not always intentionally, perhaps. But you were in the Essex marshes for the murder investigation there, and then you moved into the new apartment. Grace couldn’t go around asking people where you were, so she had to wait until you resurfaced. We’ve checked CCTV, and we’ve seen a woman we believe was her outside the university building where you work on several different occasions. She was waiting there for hours at a time.’

‘She went to the university?’

‘I’m not going to say “I told you so,” because, if I’m honest, I didn’t believe there was any real threat either. But it’s a good job you used the side doors rather than the main entrance.’

Jesus. I’d thought back to a few days ago, when I’d forgotten Ward’s advice and left through the main doors. I’d convinced myself I’d imagined the trace of Grace’s perfume outside, but it had been late and I’d been almost the last to leave the building. A chill ran through me to think about it.

Perhaps I’d just missed her.

‘When we realized she’d been to where you work, we looked at CCTV footage from outside your apartment as well,’ Ward had continued, almost gently. ‘The security meant she wasn’t able to get inside, and luckily you used the underground car park. But we think she was there on at least two occasions, possibly more. One of them was the same night the fire service was called out when someone torched the rubbish bins. They thought it was kids, but the fire officers reported having to remove a woman who was hanging round the grounds when the residents were evacuated. They thought she was just some gawker, but… Well, let’s say I’m glad you weren’t home.’

That was the night I’d gone to the mortuary to help Mears. I remembered speaking to the fire officer when I’d arrived back at Ballard Court. We’ve already had to escort one of your neighbours away for being too nosy. Fires always bring out the weirdos.

‘How did she know where I lived?’ I’d felt surprisingly calm, as though this were happening to someone else. ‘I’m ex-directory and hardly anyone knows the address.’

Not even the university: I’d arranged for my post to be redirected, and I hadn’t planned to stay long enough for it to be worth notifying many people. Ward sighed.

‘We think she must have followed you from St Jude’s. The murders were all over the news so she probably guessed you’d be working on the investigation. It wouldn’t be hard to blend in with the reporters outside the gates. Or she could have staked out the mortuary, hoping you’d turn up there sooner or later.’

Which I did. Oh, Christ. I’d passed my hand over my face as the memory of that night came back.

‘You said Adam Oduya called your name as you left the building,’ Ward went on, relentless now. ‘Mears was already crossing the road, so in the dark it probably looked as though he was shouting to him…’

I’d seen Oduya step off the pavement, umbrella tilted against the rain. Dr Hunter! Mears had looked towards him as he started across the road, backlit by streetlights and his face concealed by a hood. Even carrying a flight case like mine. Oduya hadn’t been the target. He’d just been in the way, and the car’s swerve before it hit Mears wasn’t a loss of control.

It was a steering correction.

‘You’re certain it was Grace?’ I’d felt sick and winded, as though I’d been punched in the stomach.

‘A street camera got a decent shot of her face as she drove off. She’s aged a lot from the photographs we’ve got on file, but… yes, it was her. The car’s registered to an address in Kent. We still think it was stolen but we haven’t been able to contact the owner.’

‘Oh, God…’ I’d said, closing my eyes.

‘Nothing like that, he’s just out of the country,’ Ward had said quickly. ‘He’s single and works abroad a lot, so he probably doesn’t even know his car’s gone.’

I’d tried to collect my thoughts. ‘You said… you said Grace died in the crash?’

Ward had seemed relieved to move onto firmer ground. ‘That’s right. It could have been an accident or intentional, we’re not sure yet. We still need to confirm the identity of the body, but—’

‘Hang on, you’re not even sure it’s her?’

‘As sure as we can be, but the car caught fire, so… What is it?’

I hadn’t been able to breathe. For a moment I was in another time and place. I could hear a crashing like waves, smell burning flesh and bone.

‘Are you OK?’ Ward had asked, starting to rise from her chair.

I’d forced myself to slow my breathing. I’d nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘We can leave this till later…’

‘No.’ I’d unclenched my hands. They were clammy with sweat. ‘No, I’d rather get it over with.’

There hadn’t been much more to tell. The body had suffered severe facial trauma in the crash, so the police were hoping that viable DNA could be extracted from the badly burnt bones. But an expensive alloy suitcase had been recovered from the boot, its metal shell insulated enough for its contents to have survived the fire. That had yielded DNA from hair follicles off a brush, as well as fingerprints and various personal items all positively identified as belonging to Grace Strachan. There had also been a platinum bracelet on her wrist, badly charred but with a still-legible inscription: To my beautiful Grace, with love. Michael.

Her brother. It was only then I’d begun to accept it.

Grace was dead.

A superstitious man might have thought fate was involved in the manner in which she’d died. Fire had played a fundamental role in our relationship from the start. I’d gone to Runa, the remote Hebridean island where she and her brother lived, to examine burnt human remains. While Grace wasn’t directly responsible for that victim’s death, her actions had set in motion the events that caused it. As well as the deaths that followed, including that of her beloved brother, Michael.

And, almost, my own.

Irrationally or not, Grace had blamed me. She’d followed me back to London, turning up at my home to stab me when it was thought she’d died along with her brother. I’d barely survived the attack, and since then I’d been living under her threat for years. Not knowing where she was, or if she’d try again.

Now she had.

Under different circumstances I might have felt relieved that it was finally over. But an innocent man had lost his life and another been maimed because of me, accidental victims of Grace Strachan’s crazed vendetta. Coming on top of the near-death experience at Lola’s hands, the news left me shell-shocked. Over the next few days, physically I continued to recover. My coordination was still off and I was prone to light-headedness, but the burns from the electric prod were healing. And while I still tired easily, my strength and stamina were slowly returning.

But I couldn’t settle. I felt as though I were a stranger in my own skin. When Ward phoned the day after I left hospital, I felt my stomach knotting in anticipation of more bad news. Instead, she was calling to let me know the cadaver dog had made a discovery at Lola’s house.

‘One end of the cellar had been bricked up with a false wall. This one was fully plastered, so if not for the dog we wouldn’t have known it was there. When we took it down we found human remains.’

That made me sit up. ‘Not Gary Lennox’s, though?’

‘No, almost certainly not. They’re male but they aren’t burnt, and it looks like they’ve been there for years. We think they might be his father’s. Lola wouldn’t say what she did with his body either, but it looks like the wall at St Jude’s wasn’t the first she’d made her son build.’

Of course it wasn’t, I thought. Lola had all but admitted it to me. He helped me clean up, get everything tidied away.

Gary was a good boy.

The atmosphere in the apartment became increasingly strained. Although I tried, I couldn’t seem to shake the lethargy that gripped me. I’d drift into a daze, suddenly coming back to myself with a shock to find Rachel looking at me with a furrowed, worried expression. Knowing this wasn’t fair on her, I tried to make more of an effort, attempting something like normal conversation.

Then, without being aware of it, I’d gradually drift away again.

Rachel put up with it until the evening of my third day back. We were at the dining table, eating a casserole she’d had cooking all afternoon. Or picking at it, in my case. After a while it occurred to me that the music from the expensive speakers had stopped and we were sitting in silence. I looked up to find Rachel watching me.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Miles away.’

She played with the stem of her wine glass, her gaze troubled. ‘How long are you going to go on like this?’

‘Like what? I’m fine.’

‘No, you’re not.’ Her green eyes bore into me. ‘It isn’t your fault, you know.’

She didn’t have to say what she meant. ‘Can we talk about it some other time?’

‘When? I know you’ve been through a lot, but we both know this isn’t just about what happened at the old hag’s house. Grace Strachan—’

I stood up. ‘Seriously, I don’t want to talk about her.’

‘Well, I do! If you don’t want to talk to me, fine, but you need to talk to somebody! Get some professional help!’

‘I don’t need it.’

‘Really? There’s a name for what you’re going through. It’s called survivor guilt.’

‘Oh, come on!’

‘Well, what would you call it? Are you really going to stand there and claim you’re not blaming yourself for what she did? That you don’t feel responsible?’

I started to respond, but suddenly I was shaking. I sat back down, my legs unable to support me.

‘I am responsible,’ I said, my voice unsteady.

‘No, you’re not! Grace Strachan was driving the car, not you. You didn’t even know she was still alive! I know it’s horrible, but blaming yourself isn’t going to change anything. If you want to blame anyone, blame her!’

‘Grace was ill.’

‘I don’t care!’ Rachel threw up her hands. ‘Jesus, how can you be so hard on yourself and still forgive an… an evil bitch like that? So she had a shitty life, so what? People do! Look what you’ve been through! And my sister was murdered — you think that was a barrel of laughs? People die, and yes, it’s awful, but guess what? We’re still alive. And you need to decide if you want to carry on living or… or act like you’re dead yourself!’

She got up and walked out, wiping at her eyes. I stayed at the table, knowing going after her now wouldn’t help. I could hear her banging about, but gradually the noise subsided and the sound of the bedroom door shutting — not quite a slam but not quietly either — told me she’d gone to bed.

After a while I got up and loaded the dishwasher. I poured myself a glass of bourbon and took it into the living room. I sat in the dark rather than switching on a lamp. The dishwasher had long since stopped, and the apartment’s quiet was broken only by the hum of the central heating when I went to a cupboard in the hallway. I’d left most of my case notes and files at my old flat, but I’d brought one box with me. Taking it out, I set it on the dining-room table and opened it up. The familiar pang returned as I lifted out the photograph albums. They were the usual chronicle of family holidays, birthdays and Christmases, what few of them we’d had together. They charted Alice’s growth from a tiny baby to a shyly smiling six-year-old the image of her mother. I went through them slowly, taking my time until I’d seen them all.

Then I carefully packed them back in the box and put it away.

The sky had started to lighten when I went into the bedroom. I sat on the edge of the bed next to Rachel. Sleep had smoothed away the stress of recent weeks and the earlier anger had left her face. A few dark curls had fallen across her cheeks, stirring slightly as she breathed. Resisting the impulse to brush them aside, I turned to look out of the window. The day was starting to come to life outside, shape and colour emerging from dark. A fresh start.

Something made me turn back to Rachel. She hadn’t moved but now her eyes were open, green and thoughtful as they watched me. I looked into them as I moved the hair from her cheek.

‘Will you marry me?’