‘I’ve been…err…thinking. I think I was mistaken when we spoke earlier.’
‘Mistaken about what?’ Kim asked, allowing her voice to drop a couple of degrees.
‘I’ve checked my diary and I seem to have got confused with when we were actually working late, so there’s no need to confirm anything with my wife.’
‘Okay, Mr Stamoran, let’s be clear. What dates are you saying you were not with Lorraine Abbott?’
‘Any of them.’
Kim felt a chill steal around her. Was he changing his mind to prevent them checking with his wife?
‘May I ask why you’re retracting your alibi, Mr Stamoran?’
‘I told you. I was confused. It’s been a strange week, but I definitely wasn’t with Lorraine on any of the dates mentioned.’
‘That puts us in a difficult position with your colleague. Could you please ask her to give us a call to—’
‘I can’t. She’s left. She has plans and, no, they don’t include me,’ he added to drive the point home.
‘Thank you for the clarification,’ she said, ending the call.
Right now, she didn’t know what to believe.
‘Want me to turn around?’
Kim considered rushing to Lorraine’s address and confronting her.
‘No, keep going,’ she said, focussing on the road ahead.
They didn’t know for sure that Lorraine was the Jackal, but they did know that Stephanie was the Jackal’s next victim.
SEVENTY-ONE
Stephanie Lakehurst checked her appearance in the mirror for the tenth time. She had changed her outfit twice before settling on jeans with cut-out patches on the knees and a V-neck camouflage-patterned top under her petrol-blue leather jacket.
She had spent hours deliberating and analysing every decision for fear of how she might portray herself. Should she tease the quiff on her head to full height? Should she put a ring in her nose piercing or leave it bare? Should she wear the bulky, gadget-laden sports watch her mum had bought her for Christmas or the gold, dainty bangle one from her aunt, received on her twenty-first birthday? Delicate gold jewellery on her wrists and neck or meaty silver-plated curb chains? Should she wear her Tory Burch designer trainers that had been a present to herself, or the more comfortable ones that had lasted her years from Sports Direct? These decisions were important. What did every one of these choices say about her and her personality? Her mum always told her that you never got a second chance to make a first impression, and she still wasn’t sure what first impression she wanted to make.
Did she want to appear gay or not? If she did, how gay did she want to look? Would she scare off her date by looking either too gay or not gay enough? It was an absolute minefield, but time was moving on and she had to start making some decisions.
As she gelled the medium-height quiff into place, she marvelled at the progress she’d made. Spending time with Megan and actually understanding the reasons why she didn’t want to stand out had helped the healing process. Megan had made her understand that as young children we see how people who look or act differently are bullied, marginalised, taunted. It prompts in us a fear of standing out, of being that person on the end of the taunts or being ostracised. Megan had explained how, as humans, we are programmed to want to belong so we hide parts of ourselves, we stifle self-expression, individuality so we can remain within the collective and that we don’t challenge conformity. Megan had encouraged her to challenge everything, to start again, learn about that side of herself, accept it, embrace it.
With Megan’s help she’d signed on to just one dating site and had been lucky to click with someone pretty quickly. Jackal was in the exact same position, except that she’d had a boyfriend for a short while before realising that she was lying to herself. She was also nervous about meeting for the first time, which took some of the nerves away from Stephanie’s stomach.
They had been exchanging texts for weeks until Stephanie realised that chatting with Jackal was the last thing she did at night and first thing she did in the morning. Initially, she had dreaded the possibility of being asked to meet. Over time, the fear had turned to hope, and when Jackal had finally broached the subject, Stephanie had fist-pumped the air and enjoyed the stupid grin that had settled on her face.
As she chose the black sapphire nose stud, she remembered the day she’d entered the clinic. She had been full of hope that she would leave the place cleansed of what she’d felt were repulsive desires. Her own naiveté had been responsible for allowing her to think that her desires could be extracted, surgically removed like a harmful growth. She shook her head as she recalled that was pretty much how it had been sold to her.
As she chose the comfy trainers, she pushed away the guilt that she hadn’t been completely honest with the police officer the previous day, although she hadn’t actually lied. The officer had never mentioned Sarah’s name, but she had seen it on the news. At worst, she had evaded the truth but not outright lied. She had known Sarah. She had eaten lunch with Sarah. She had been at Change at the same time as Sarah. She was the one who had followed Sarah to her room when she’d been brought back from three whole days on the third floor.
Eventually, Sarah had opened her door to tell Stephanie that she didn’t want to talk about it. That she was fine. Sarah had closed the door and literally shut her out, but not before Stephanie had seen the empty, haunted look in her eyes as though she’d experienced something from which she would never return.
It had been a day later that Eric had informed them all at a group meeting that Sarah had completed her treatment and had left the clinic, cured and ready to begin a new life.
They had sat in their circle and cheered as though she’d just graduated a degree course, and Stephanie had masked the empty, hollow feeling in her stomach. It was an alien feeling but it was as though light cloud had obscured the sun. She’d realised just how much she’d enjoyed her time with Sarah. How much she’d looked forward to seeing her each day. It was the feelings she’d felt developing for Sarah that had made her realise that three weeks in and her treatment plan wasn’t working.
She’d asked Jerry, the kitchen guy, if he’d seen Sarah before she’d left and he’d shook his head. Seeing the disappointment on her face and realising what that meant for her recovery programme, Jerry had revealed that Sarah had been raped while up on the third floor. At first Stephanie hadn’t believed him but then she’d remembered the look on Sarah’s face before she’d left.
For the first time in her life Stephanie had felt real fear and had been about to pack her bags and run for the hills when she’d been collected and escorted up to the third floor.