The Perfect Couple - Jackie Kabler Page 0,135

by a yelp from Albert and a booming ‘well done!’ I smiled. Dad. My parents were in there too, had come to stay for a few days, instantly hitting it off with my neighbours, Jo, Jenny and Clive, who I now saw almost daily and who were currently buzzing around in the kitchen, laying out neat triangular sandwiches and dainty fairy cakes on platters, food they’d insisted on providing for the party. There were balloons too, tied to the backs of chairs and to door handles, bobbing on their long strings. Blue balloons, to greet the guest of honour.

I turned to stare at him, and he stared back at me, wide awake, alert. I reached out and gently stroked his forehead, then moved my hand slowly to my throat, running my fingers across the livid scar that ran across it, less painful now, less raw, but still raised and ugly, a permanent reminder of the day my life changed forever.

He was still out there somewhere. Danny, and Quinn too. The police kept me updated on a weekly basis, but each time they called, there was less and less to say, less information to give me. At first, police forces across the world had been inundated with sightings, people who believed they’d seen Danny in a restaurant in Marbella, or Quinn working in a supermarket in Manhattan, or both of them hitchhiking at the side of the road at Bondi Beach. But none of the sightings had come to anything, and slowly the reports began to dry up. Helena and Devon – that’s what I called them, these days, the formality of DCI and DS long behind us – were in the living room too, taking time out from work to attend the celebration, and I was glad, not just because I’d come to think of them as friends, but because somehow they made me feel safe. They had, after all, saved my life. Saved two lives, because if I had died, he would have too.

I looked down at him again, his eyelids fluttering wearily now, the soft white blanket tucked under his chin, a rainbow-striped teddy bear nestling at his feet. I reached for the pram’s handle and began to rock it gently. My baby. My son. When the doctor had told me, that day in the hospital, that I was pregnant, the shock had been so immense I’d been unable to speak for a full minute. Pregnant? I’d actually lost weight in the previous few weeks. And yet it explained so many things; the tiredness I’d been feeling, the frequent waves of nausea, things I’d assumed at the time were simply reactions to the situation I was in, the stress and my grief at Danny’s disappearance. I’d conceived, it seemed, just a few weeks before the move to Bristol, back in January. Back in January, when Danny had already killed two men and was planning his escape. The thought of it chilled me. How could he have made love to me then, knowing what he’d done, what he was about to do? Knowing the hell he was about to put me through?

As I lay in hospital, recovering after the father of my new baby had slit my throat, had tried to kill me, I’d considered, briefly, terminating the pregnancy. How could I bring a child into the world when one day I’d have to tell him that he was the offspring of a serial killer, one of the world’s most wanted men? But almost immediately, I dismissed the thought. I could already feel my child’s presence, his life force. There had been enough killing.

And now he was here, my baby, born just a few days ago, and we were about to celebrate his arrival. The only significant person in his life who wasn’t there was Bridget, and although we were now slowly building some sort of relationship by phone, I knew we still had a very long way to go, me and this damaged woman who had suffered so much. It was as if she’d spent so many years keeping the secret about her abusive husband, shutting the world out, that it was just too hard for her to let anyone in, even now. Or maybe especially now, when the world knew she was the mother of a serial killer. She seemed to be dealing with that the same way she’d dealt with everything that had gone before – quietly, and alone. But at least she took my phone calls, asked a few questions about how I was, had even sent a ‘new baby’ card. We would never be close, I knew that, but I hoped that maybe one day I might be able to visit, let her meet her grandchild, the child I’d now be rearing alone.

We’d manage though, the two of us, wouldn’t we? The three of us, I corrected myself, as I heard another excited bark from Albert. For a while, I’d wanted to move from the Clifton house, terrified that Danny would come back, shaking every time I walked into the kitchen, remembering the horror of his words, the knife, the pain. And then, quite suddenly, I’d changed my mind about that too. I loved this house, loved my courtyard, loved my neighbours now too. And Danny had taken so much from me. He wasn’t taking this place as well. One day, when I could afford it, I would buy somewhere, but for now this was home, and to my surprise, I could afford to live a comfortable life in it. The money Danny had claimed he’d put away for me never materialized, not that I would have taken it if it had. But far from drying up, as I had feared, work offers had doubled, trebled, after my ordeal, and although I knew that this was due to my newfound notoriety as the wife of an on-the-run serial killer, I was grateful for it. The Lookalike Killer, that’s what they’d dubbed Danny. The murderer who’d killed men who looked like him, trying to slay the ghosts that haunted him. At first inundated by requests for interviews, for the inside story, I turned every single one down, and in the past couple of months things had returned to near normality.

‘And I’m lucky enough to have a job I can do at home, with you,’ I whispered. I turned away from the pram for a moment to check that the front door was double locked, that the chain was secure. I’d heard noises again last night, as I had the previous couple of nights too, scraping, tapping noises that chilled my blood, noises that made me sit bolt upright in bed, rigid, gasping for breath, shaking finger poised over the panic button the police had installed, just in case. But the noises had stopped, or maybe they’d never been there at all, and I’d fallen back into an uneasy sleep, the baby’s hungry cries waking me again what seemed like just minutes later.

‘Gemma! Come on!’

Clare again.

‘Coming! Just settling the baby, one minute, I promise!’

I turned back to the pram. His eyes had opened again, wide dark pools framed by fluttery lashes. Dark hair too, a surprising amount of it, not just wispy peach fuzz but a thick dark mop, soft curls on his forehead. Eyes like Danny’s, hair like Danny’s. Danny’s son. Son of the Lookalike Killer. A baby who looked just like his father, like his grandfather. Like four dead men, his father’s victims. I looked into my child’s eyes, and suddenly I felt a creeping sensation, like insects running across my skin. I shivered, and turned again to check the door, testing the chain, taking deep breaths, trying to slow my suddenly racing heartbeat. It was fine. We were safe, we were OK. The house was full of people, full of love and laughter. For today, at least, nothing bad could happen here.

I looked at my baby again. He’d fallen asleep, lashes resting delicately on his cheeks. I gripped the pram handle, watching him for a moment, the way the blanket gently rose and fell with each tiny breath. I glanced at the door again, checking one more time. Then I wheeled the pram carefully into the living room and went to join the party.