Rose had heard enough. This woman was a time waster. Plain and simple. Interested in one thing and one thing only: wasting Rose’s time. Over the years, she had developed a knack, a canny ability to sniff out the shit from the “I’ll pay anything for this shit!” and she could usually see them a mile off. This woman, however, had given her cause for the benefit of the doubt. There had been something about her that had made Rose second-guess her instincts. Perhaps it had been the designer fashion, or the freshly bleached blonde hair, or the husband who was clearly punching above his weight, drooling behind her every step, but as soon as she had bared her teeth at the price tag attached to the ring and started asking her fucking inane questions, Rose had decided the woman’s time was up. Time to get out and come back when they could afford her jewellery. She took the ring back from her and started to treat them with contempt, to ensure they knew that she’d sussed them out. After a few more interactions, they finally got the hint and started to leave. Rose showed them the way out.
‘If you need anything else, you know where to find me,’ Rose said behind a forced grin. The couple quickly receded onto the busy high street, melting into the backdrop of other pedestrians. As she shut the door behind her, she whispered to herself, ‘Fucking idiots,’ and made her way back to her crocheting.
She’d finished the angel doll that she’d made in memory of Angelica, and was now moving on to her next creation: a small police officer, complete with blue hat and blue uniform, even if the image she was using looked more like Postman Pat than Mr Plod.
She was in the middle of getting her equipment out when the shop door opened. Before greeting the customer, she inhaled deeply, switched on the pleasant, customer-facing smile that was growing increasingly hard to do, then turned to face the newcomer.
She froze.
There, standing in the doorframe, was her husband. The man she felt she barely knew, his shoulders hunched, towering, domineering.
Rose’s immediate thought was not for her safety, but for the safety of her creations. The man was a walking ape, and from the pale, haggard, slightly yellow cheeks in his face – not to mention the stench of alcohol seeping from his pores – he was still drunk.
‘You,’ he said.
She didn’t think it was possible to slur a one-syllable word, but somehow he found a way.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ she retorted. ‘Get the fuck out of my shop. You’re not welcome here.’
But he didn’t heed the warning. Instead, he shut the door behind him, slammed the door bolt into place, then locked the deadbolt. The sounds echoed throughout the shop like gunshots, ricocheting in her ears.
And then it stopped.
The two of them were separated by only a few feet. Him, outweighing her three to one. Her, without a phone beside her or the reactions to move faster than him.
Johnny made the first move. Despite his inebriated state, he covered the shop floor in almost a single stride, clattering into the display cases on the way, and was on her in an instant. Without hesitation, he grabbed her shirt by the collar, yanked her away from her chair, and dragged her out of the back of the shop by her hair. Rose screamed as searing pain flared on her scalp. There was nothing she could do, nothing she could think to do other than hold Johnny’s hand to lessen the fiery pain.
After fiddling with door handles at the back of the shop, they entered a small hallway. The door to their right led to the flat upstairs, where Rose had spent almost every night for the past few months. And yet she had very little to show for it. There was no carpet yet. The floor was messy and covered in tools and sawdust. The walls needed sanding, skirting boards applying, and plaster scraping over the surfaces. The lights, radiators and kitchen appliances all needed an electrician to visit, as did the wall sockets and extractor fan. The only thing that did work, however, was the water. She had plenty of running water, and the most advanced room in the flat was the bathroom.
But Johnny didn’t seem to care about that. He didn’t seem to care about anything other than hurting Rose.
As soon as the front door to the flat slammed into the adjacent wall, he threw her down on the floor and straddled her. His immense weight pressed her down and kept her there. He was far too strong for her.
And then he wrapped his hands around her throat. Immediately, she felt air expel from her throat and lungs. Then she felt her breathing tighten, her throat crush, her lungs collapse.
‘You fucking bitch!’ Johnny yelled. ‘You had to fucking find out, didn’t you? You had to fucking ruin my life! I will never forgive you!’
There was a demonic look in his eyes. The same one she had seen once before. When they’d first got together and Johnny had protected her from some creep on the train after a day out in London. The anger and fury had been directed at someone else that time, but it had been there all the same. At the time, she’d foolishly mistaken it for safety, a form of protection. Now she realised that same level of protection was killing her, rapidly suffocating the life out of her. And there was nothing she could do about it.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
If there was one thing Tomek hated most about his hometown of Leigh-on-Sea, it was the parking. He was absolutely, unequivocally, a hundred per cent certain that he had lost over a day of his life trying to find a bastard parking space, particularly along Leigh Broadway. And now, today of all days, there was nothing. He had driven round, up and down, in and out, for five minutes, trying to find somewhere suitable. Until eventually, he had pulled rank and mounted the pavement outside the shop. He was out of the car in an instant and hurrying towards the front door of the jewellery shop.
It was locked.
On the two occasions he’d been there, it had never been locked. He checked the time – 13:37.
The middle of the afternoon. Whitaker’s should have been open. The displays were still complete in the windows, so where was Rose?
Tomek banged and banged, but he knew it was futile. That he was too late. That Johnny was in there somewhere. He cupped his face to the glass but saw nothing, just an empty shop.
And then he remembered the flat above. Tomek craned his neck skyward, in the hope that he’d see the two of them chatting amicably through the glass, but he knew that wasn’t a possibility.
Johnny was angry, livid even. He’d killed before, and he could very well kill again.
Behind Tomek was a group of uniformed constables who’d followed his movements. Two of them had just parked beside him and were in the middle of disembarking their vehicle when he ordered them to try the back of the shop. In the meantime, another pair of officers had arrived on foot. One of them was carrying an enforcer, a large battering ram designed to destroy even the strongest of doors. The constable raised it high into the air, and with the helping hand of practice and a good set of muscles, let gravity do the rest. The door only required one hit before it buckled and gave way.
At once, Tomek and the rest of the constables flooded into the shop, squeezing past one another, fighting for first entry. The inside was empty, desolate. At the back of the room, Tomek noticed an open doorway. He headed straight towards it and came into a small hallway that reminded him of his own flat – cramped, old, and smelling of damp. The door to his immediate right was open, and there, in the hallway, he heard sounds of discomfort and struggling.
‘This way!’ he yelled to the constables.
Tomek was the first to go. First to take the plunge and race up the steps. He jumped them two at a time until he came to the top and burst through the door at the top of the stairs.
There he was, Johnny Whitaker straddling his wife, pinning her down, crushing the life out of her.
Tomek didn’t hesitate. He approached the man from behind, wrapped one arm around Johnny Whitaker’s neck, then locked it in place with his other arm and began squeezing. Hard. Giving him a taste of his own medicine. Surprisingly, the man lasted longer than Tomek expected – ten seconds instead of five – before he eventually released his grip on Rose’s throat and fell to the floor. Tomek held onto him until the man blacked out and the muscles in his upper body relaxed.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Four hours later, and Johnny Whitaker was finally ready to be interviewed. A quick test of his blood levels and a look at some CCTV footage had shown that since his discharge from the hospital, the drag star had ventured into The Broadway, a pub that was situated immediately opposite Rose’s jewellery shop. From there, he had found a table beside the window, ordered himself five pints, and sipped them patiently, biding his time, keeping a watchful gaze on the shop entrance. When Rose had got rid of her last customer, and Johnny had summoned enough disdain and frustration towards his wife, he had staggered across the road, stumbled into the shop, and locked them both in.
Tomek knew the rest.
With him in the interview room was Rachel, Johnny, who looked worse than he had the last time Tomek had seen him, and his solicitor, sitting on a single chair at the back of the room. In the corners of the room, video cameras recorded the meeting, and a digital recorder sat on the table against the wall. Rachel pressed the On button and began recording. After she’d completed the formalities, it was Tomek’s turn to question Johnny.
‘What were you doing at Whitaker’s jewellery shop this afternoon?’ Tomek said, struggling to stifle a yawn that had come from nowhere. It had been a long day, and he needed a drink at the end of all this.
‘No comment.’
