Chapter Twenty-Eight

It wasn't a conscious effort. A combination of bone-sagging fatigue and homing instinct propelled me all the way back to my flat for the first time in days.

With Jeremy already on his way to work, and no handy spare key with a neighbour or hidden in a plant pot, I was forced to wiggle through the open bathroom window to get inside. It wasn't an easy manoeuvre but, once my feet were planted on familiar ground, I exhaled in relief.

God, it was good to be home. I spent several minutes simply walking round, touching stuff and reassuring myself that it was the same place. The knowledge that my home hadn't changed, even if I had, made me feel better instantly.

I sat down on the sofa in the small living room, dropped the crossbow on the floor next to my feet and smiled at Jeremy's briefcase in the corner. He'd forgotten it again. It was surprisingly good to know that things were still the same here. No matter what had happened in the last few days, I could slot back into my old life. Nothing had altered – it was only me who was different.

I stripped off my borrowed clothes and climbed into the shower, setting the temperature to scalding. I scrubbed myself from head to toe, as if I could clean away all the cares and worries from the last few days as well as my curious guilt at walking away and leaving Tony's killer in the hands of someone else.

I don't know how long I spent in the shower. Far too long. When I finally stepped out, my skin was pink and raw. I gazed at my bare face in the mirror. I looked tired but I was still the same old me, even if I didn't feel that way.

I sighed deeply, grabbed the dressing gown hanging on the back of the door and padded through to the kitchen to get something to eat. Food, I decided, then sleep. Once my brain was clear again, I'd figure out what to do next.

The work surfaces were immaculate. Jeremy had obviously been busy while I was away. The thought that he'd been keeping the home fires burning and scouring the flat of any traces of muck only compounded my guilt. I'd make it up to him somehow; I'd do more to live up to his expectations.

There was a fresh loaf of bread, so I grabbed two slices and a plate. I drew out a hunk of cheese from the fridge, and opened the cutlery drawer to retrieve a sharp knife. Absent-mindedly, I grabbed the first one I saw. Then I paused and stared down at it. It was supposed to be part of a set, one that Jeremy and I had purchased when we'd first moved in together.

I opened the drawer again, picked out one of the supposedly matching knives and compared them. The handle on the first one was subtly different: the hard, plastic covering wasn't quite the same shade of black.

I stepped back and sank onto a chair. No. I was crazy. Or paranoid. Or both. I was seeing ghosts where there were none. I turned the knife over and over in my hands. It didn't mean anything. It was just a fucking kitchen knife.

I sprang to my feet and stalked through to the bedroom. The room smelled of Jeremy, his familiar aftershave permeating every corner. The bed was perfectly made, without a single crease on the cover. I flung open the wardrobe and gazed at the neatly arranged shirts on his side. Nothing looked different. Nothing seemed out of place.

Another thought hit me. I whirled round and headed to the hallway. Shoes. Check the shoes.

I crouched down. My spare pair of smart work shoes were there, together with my running trainers and a rarely used pair of wellies. Jeremy's brogues were missing; no doubt he was wearing them. His trainers sat where they always did.

I picked them up and examined them. Usually they'd have a vaguely unpleasant whiff of foot odour that I often teased Jeremy about, much to his chagrin. These trainers didn't smell of anything. Like the knife in the kitchen, the shoes were brand new. They didn't look like they'd been worn.

It didn't mean anything. He'd been shopping. So what? I licked my dry lips and realised that my hands were trembling. I mentally slapped myself. Get a grip, Emma.

I stood up on shaky legs, returned to the living room and reached for Jeremy's briefcase. I sat down, placed it on my lap and gazed at it. I wasn't the jealous type. Besides, I trusted him. I'd never had any reason to snoop through his things.

The briefcase wasn't locked. He'd never know.

I held my breath and opened it. There were a few pens arranged neatly in a row, and several manila envelopes containing printouts of spreadsheets and reports. There was nothing out of the ordinary. I was being completely stupid. I tutted to myself and started to close it again.

And that was when I spotted the phone. It wasn't the state-of-the-art smartphone that was usually glued to his side. This was a cheap throwaway, the sort of phone you picked up in a dodgy little shop when you wanted to communicate with someone without leaving a trace. We'd had a whole day of training at the Academy on crimes that involved the use of burner phones. I stared at it as it peeked out of a small inner pocket in the briefcase. Maybe Jeremy was having an affair.

I'd gone this far. I reached in and slid it out. Then I switched it on.

Only one call had been made and something about the number looked vaguely familiar. Maybe it was to one of his friends, Becky or Tom. Maybe it was to a tall, leggy blonde with a perfect tan and a boring job.

I looked at the number for a long time before I called it.

A warm, sympathetic voice picked up straight away. ‘Good morning. This is Dean at the morgue at Fitzwilliam Manor Hospital. How may I help you?'

I threw the phone across the room. My heart was thudding painfully against my chest and I felt sick. I could still hear Dean's voice; it sounded tinny now. ‘Hello? Is anyone there?'

I swallowed and stood up, then retrieved the phone. Without speaking, I went straight to the phone's messages. Dean's voice was unsure now. ‘Hello?'

I ignored him. The inbox was empty, but I could still recover any deleted texts. I pressed a few buttons and brought up the archive.

There was only one message. I pressed on it and waited for it to appear. When it did, the words on the small screen blurred in front of my eyes. I blinked furiously as I re-read it several times. But I wasn't imagining it. It was right there in front of me.

Apologies for today. Let me make it up to you. Meet me at St Erbin's Church at 10 tonight and I'll introduce you to the main vamp players. You won't regret it. Tony.

My legs gave away. Jeremy. All along it had been Jeremy. He'd bought a burner phone and, when I'd gone for a shower, he'd used it to message me. He'd pretended to be Tony and lured me out to the church. Instead of meeting his own friends, he'd gone to meet me. Afterwards, when nobody came round to inform him about the sad news of my death, he'd used the phone to call the morgue and find out what he could.

My own boyfriend had tried to kill me. I shook my head. No. My own boyfriend had killed me.

There was a loud, unmistakable click. I heard the front door open and, a moment later, Jeremy walked in. When he saw me, he froze.

I looked up, my eyes meeting his. ‘You forgot your briefcase,' I said. ‘I guess you came back for it to avoid another confrontation with your boss.'

He stared at me.

I held up the phone. ‘Why?'

‘Emma,' he said. ‘I…' His voice faltered.

‘You didn't see Becky and Tom that night, did you? You went to the church with a knife, a knife from our own kitchen. And you used that knife to slit my throat. You killed me. You fucking killed me.'

Myriad emotions flitted across his face, then his jaw tightened and his shoulders straightened. ‘How could I have killed you, Emma? Clearly, you're going crazy. You don't look dead to me.'

‘Yeah,' I said, ‘you didn't expect that, did you? You didn't expect me to rise again.' I laughed coldly. ‘You thought you'd made a mistake, didn't you? You thought that maybe, in the heat of the moment, you'd killed some other poor woman.'

‘The pressure of work is obviously getting to you.' His calm expression was infuriating. ‘Let me call a doctor. We need to get you some help.' He took a step towards me.

I leapt up. ‘Don't come any closer,' I snarled.

Jeremy held up his palms. ‘Emma, I don't know what's going on with you right now but—'

‘Fuck off. Just fuck off.' Then another thought occurred to me. ‘When you came to me at Supe Squad, when we sat down together and you reached into your jacket, that wasn't an engagement ring you were going for. It was another knife. You were going to try again. If Lukas hadn't interrupted us, you'd have stabbed me again.' I gazed at him in horror. ‘Why? Why did you do it?'

He folded his arms. The sudden switch from panicked confusion to pure ice in his eyes was genuinely terrifying. ‘I'm hardly the only one around here with some explaining to do. You were dead, Emma. I made sure of it.' He moved closer. ‘What the fuck are you? Are you one of them? Are you a vampire?' he sneered. ‘I knew there was something wrong with you. I knew you weren't right.'

‘Just tell me why,' I whispered.

Jeremy snorted. ‘The question you have to ask yourself isn't why, it's why not. Do you really think I want a girlfriend who's in the police? Do you know how long I've been trying to get you to do something else with your life, instead of running around playing cops and robbers like a child? It's always been about you, never about me and my feelings. When you wouldn't deign to come out with me and see my friends, I knew enough was enough. It's not my fault – I tried to make things work. But you,' he exhaled heavily, ‘you wouldn't listen to me. You always have to do things your way. And all I hear from people is how brave you are. How clever.'

He put on a nasty voice. ‘ "Emma is so wonderful",' he mimicked. He glared at me. ‘Well, you're not wonderful enough or clever enough or brave enough to stop yourself from getting attacked.'

‘You're telling me that you slit my throat to teach me a lesson? Because you didn't like my job? And because I wanted to stay home one night instead of going out? Why didn't you just break up with me?'

‘Because,' he spat, ‘then it would be poor Emma. I'd be the bastard who wasn't man enough to cope with your job. People would say I was sexist, that I wanted to hold you back.'

‘That's exactly what you were trying to do!' I yelled.

Jeremy took another step towards me. He was less than two feet away. ‘I wanted what was best for both of us, but you wouldn't see that.' He tutted. ‘Yes, I could have broken up with you, but if you died – if you were killed on the job – it would be so much better for me. Instead of feeling sorry for you, people would feel sorry for me. They'd look after me, help me. For a change, it wouldn't be all about you. Frankly, Emma, if you'd stayed dead, it would have been better for both of us.'

He was psychotic. ‘How?' I asked, utterly aghast. ‘How do you figure that?'

‘You've never been right in the head. Blame it on your parents' death, or on the fact that you're a freak.' He shrugged. ‘Who knows for sure? I could have looked after you and made everything right, but you wouldn't let me. Really, Emma, this is all your fault.'

‘You're nuts,' I whispered.

Jeremy pursed his lips. ‘Yes,' he said, as if considering the idea for the first time, ‘perhaps I am.' Then he lunged at me.

His first punch caught me on the side of my head. I reeled, the swiftness of his attack catching me unawares. I stayed on my feet – but only just. Jeremy didn't waste any time. He came at me again. I raised my hands instinctively to protect my head, so he drove an elbow into my stomach.

‘I'll be more careful this time,' he said conversationally. ‘This time, I'll cut off your head and burn your body. You won't come back from that. This time you'll stay dead, whatever manner of freak you are.'

I doubled over, gasping from the pain and struggling for breath. My fingers scrabbled around, searching for something – anything – that I could use to defend myself. My fingertips brushed against cold steel. The crossbow. It was still on the floor.

Jeremy's hands wrapped around my throat and he started squeezing. I grabbed the crossbow, my fingers curling round it. Then I swung it as hard as I could onto the back of his head. He released me instantly and collapsed to the floor.

I backed away, breathing hard.

‘You bitch,' he hissed. ‘You absolute bitch.'

I spun round and ran for the kitchen. The knife was lying where I'd left it. I picked it up, gripping the plastic handle and brandishing it in his direction. ‘Stay where you are!'

He staggered to his feet. Blood was dripping down from the side of his head. ‘Make me.'

‘Jeremy…'

‘I can work with this,' he said in a morbidly cheerful tone. ‘It's good that you hit me. I was planning to make it appear like someone broke in, but now I'm thinking I can say that you succumbed to the pressures of your job and the death of your boss. You went completely nuts and attacked me! I'll still be the innocent, wronged party.' He sucked on his bottom lip. ‘It can work.'

‘It'll never work.' I shook my head. ‘Jeremy, the police aren't stupid. They'll know this was you.'

‘You're the police,' he said. ‘And you didn't know.' He flashed me a terrifying grin. ‘And you're wrong, Emma. It wasn't another knife I was going for when I saw you last time. After you didn't die properly last time, I didn't want to take any chances so I found something more foolproof.'

He went into the kitchen and opened a cupboard. ‘I put it here for safe keeping. It's just as well that I did.'

I stared in horror as he took out a gun and pointed it at me.

‘You should have made it easier on yourself,' he said, almost sadly. ‘You should have stayed dead.'

I ran at him. I had no other choice. I held the knife in front of me and aimed it at his neck. As I plunged it into his exposed throat, he released the safety on the gun and pulled the trigger. I heard the noise and felt the force of the impact in my chest but, strangely, there wasn't any pain.

‘Bitch,' I heard him whisper, as the floor rose up to meet me. ‘You should have stayed dead.'

Then there was a gurgle and I heard nothing more.