Bleed Like Me by Cath Staincliffe Page A

clinging on for dear life.

 
     
     
Day Two

8
    Janet didn’t often discuss work with Ade. After all these years he had heard most of it before and talk at home, when there was any, centred on the girls and domestic affairs.
    But she knew she had to tell him about Geoff Hastings, the fact that she had agreed to interview him. She couldn’t keep putting it off. Janet had refused at first when Gill asked. Never wanting to set eyes on the man again. Preferring never to hear his name. Certainly not wanting to be in the same room as him, breathing the same air as him. Gill had emphasized it was Janet’s decision, no one would think any the worse of her if she refused. Gill had also let slip, on purpose Janet was sure, that Geoff Hastings was refusing to speak to anyone else. Had asked for Janet specifically. And the thought that if she bottled it they might never know what happened to the women he’d killed ate away at her. Eventually her anger at the possibility that he might escape with less than full disclosure, full punishment, equalled her anxiety at the prospect of encountering him.
    Geoff Hastings was accused of killing his sister Veronica, Janet’s school mate, and then several other women in the ensuing years. He’d had the perverted audacity to ask Janet to help him by looking into the unsolved case of Veronica’smurder. Why? Some twisted desire to play games and test the police? Or had he secretly wanted to be caught? To be stopped?
    It had been Rachel who made the leap, seeing a pattern to the other unsolved murders: the women all of a type, their ages consistent with how old Veronica would be if she had not been asphyxiated as a little girl. Then, working out the geographical profile, that all the deaths occurred when Geoff Hastings was working as a lorry driver in the relevant area.
    Rachel had rung Janet with her light-bulb moment. Geoff Hastings there, in Janet’s kitchen, as she took the call. Reading Janet’s face, Geoff Hastings grabbing the knife, Janet fighting, using every ounce of strength of will and energy . . .
    She wrenched herself back to the present and buttered toast. Put some down on the table and filled the kettle.
    Ade got up for the jam. She waited until he was seated. Choosing breakfast time because if there was a row, and she anticipated at least a few choice expletives, they’d be forced to adjourn for work, whereas if she told him in the evening it could rumble on for hours.
    They’d not argued much at all since her injury. First too fragile, then too thankful. Perhaps the new grateful Ade would take a different tack from the one she anticipated.
    Janet poured tea. ‘Something’s come up at work,’ she said.
    ‘What, on top of three murders?’
    She gave a faint smile. ‘I’m going to be interviewing Geoff Hastings.’
    His face froze and he put down his toast. ‘What? They can’t make you do that. They can’t, can they?’
    ‘No one’s making me do anything.’
    ‘You can’t do it, Janet.’
    ‘Ade, look—’
    ‘No!’ He began to shout. ‘I don’t want you anywhere nearthe man. How can you even think of it?’ He hit at the table, slid his chair back, the noise fraying Janet’s nerves.
    ‘It’s nothing to do with you,’ she said, ‘it’s work.’ She felt her temperature rising and with it her temper.
    ‘You’re my wife.’ He jabbed his finger towards her, proprietorially. ‘Don’t I get a say?’
    ‘No. This is my professional life. It’s none of your business. I’m only telling you—’
    ‘Whose idea was it,’ he demanded. ‘Yours?’
    ‘I agreed.’
    ‘Who asked you?’ he shouted.
    ‘Gill.’
    He swung away, clapping his hands to his head. ‘Has she lost the plot? You came that close . . .’ He held his thumb and forefinger millimetres apart. His face was red with exertion, a blob of spit on his chin. Janet knew she should try to calm him, take some heat out of the situation, but her own ill temper needled at her, pushing her on, avid