Touched - By Malcolm Havard Page 0,38

grabbed his laptop and switched it on. Perhaps a few hands of on-line poker would pass the time until sleep came and gave him respite.

Not that sleep had been exactly restful lately. His nights had become suddenly full of dark dreams – well true nightmares to be honest – things so vivid that they could easily have been real. That morning he had woken up sweating, almost convinced that he, himself had attacked someone. It was so real, so vivid that he had almost called the police, actually had the handset in his hand before he came to his senses and convinced himself that it had to have been a dream.

It had been a narrow escape, he could quite easily have involved someone else in his mental confusion. They might have ignored it but then again he might have found himself in front of a psychiatrist trying to explain himself.

He might be losing grip but he would prefer to go through it on his own.

But then one of the important lessons that you had to learn in life was to know what was real and what was imagined. If those boundaries really were getting blurred for him than he really was in serious trouble.

Ten minutes later he realised poker wasn't helping. He wasn't concentrating. Awake he might be but mentally he wasn’t at his best. Even on the small stakes tables he was getting quickly wiped out; his thinking was two dull to survive for long against the other players. When the last of his money was gone he logged out of the site and almost switched the laptop off.

At the last moment, on a whim, he called up Google. With only the slightest hesitation he typed “Tessa Williams murder” into the search box.

There were far less hits than his last search but still several hundred. Dan clicked onto one from a source he thought at least would be pretty reliable, the Manchester Evening News. The headline was pretty sensational though: ‘Manchester Solicitor Slain’. Underneath was a colour photograph.

Dan felt his hearth thump. He shook his head in disbelief.

Unless she had a double, Tess Williams was exactly who she said she was.

*

@fear_me_now Twitter Account

Tweets: 189

Followers: 465

@fear_me_now: A so-called 'young lady' thought she could make a fool of me tonight. She will soon – briefly – think otherwise

@___________: You're all talk and no action #fake

@fear_me_now: What you think is of no consequence. You are nothing. Less than nothing

@fear_me_now: Still, perhaps we should meet. I could introduce you to the bottom of the canal and let the eels feed on your bloated carcase

@____________: Yeah mate. Course you would #tosser

Chapter Nine

Tuesday Morning – 3 am

The girl cowered in the corner.

She might have been pretty – he didn't remember looking, he had been too angry to bother, She was just a target, something to satisfy him albeit fleetingly. She wasn't pretty now; her lipstick had been smudged and smeared, merging with her torn and swollen face where the punches had landed, and her mascara had run into black pools with her tears. The drops ran, clear and dark and mingled with the blood that dripped from the stumps of her broken front teeth, coalescing into a steady flow of liquids that pooled on the floor under where she lay.

She had stopped screaming. She had learnt her lesson. Now she just sobbed quietly, her entire body shaking.

She was totally terrified.

Just how he wanted her.

But he couldn't enjoy her like this for long.

That was amateur. That put him in danger.

He felt the reassuring feeling of having the knife in his hand.

The blade glinted as he leant down to the girl.

*

Dan woke with a start.

He didn't know where he was.

All he could think of was the girl. It was so vivid, he had to have been there.

Didn't he?

No. No, he was on his settee. He'd fallen asleep there.

Hadn't he?

Shaking he checked his hands, almost convinced that there would be blood on them.

He was remarkably relieved to find that they were clean.

Still trembling, he headed for bed.

*

To Dan’s relief, the next day in work was comparatively busy. A fairly urgent instruction had come in to value a portfolio of commercial investments and all of the team, including Ian, had headed out to do the inspections. Dan had paired up with Hannah and was pleased to have some sensible company. It at least kept his mind off all the issues in his life and, particularly, the enigma that was Tess and all the issues that went with her –