Chapters (156)
- A DATE WITH DEATH
- Also by Mark Roberts
- A Date With Death
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- The Past
- 1977
- Day OneWednesday, 1st December 2021CatoptrophobiaFear of mirrors
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- The Past
- 1979
- Day TwoThursday, 2nd December 2021OneirophobiaFear of dreams
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- The Past
- 1980
- Day ThreeFriday, 3rd December 2021MonophobiaFear of being alone
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
- 85
- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- The Past
- 1982
- Day FourSaturday, 4th December 2021ThanatophobiaFear of Death
- 99
- 100
- 101
- 102
- 103
- 104
- 105
- 106
- 107
- 108
- 109
- 110
- 111
- 112
- 113
- 114
- 115
- 116
- 117
- 118
- 119
- 120
- 121
- 122
- 123
- 124
- 125
- 126
- 127
- 128
- 129
- 130
- 131
- 132
- 133
- 134
- 135
- 136
- 137
- About the Author
- An Invitation from the Publisher
Stone looked around the room at the Scientific Support officers drafted in from Admiral Street and was touched by the quiet confidence swelling in Sergeant Paul Price as he orchestrated his colleagues in the manner of his mentor, DS Mason.
Looking around Norma Maguire’s office, he saw the last thing to be done. He snatched up a handful of evidence bags and walked to the line of framed staff portraits on the wall facing the door.
‘I’ll get this one, Pricey,’ said Stone, as the filing cabinets were wheeled to the lift and evidence bags were piled on to trolleys.
He started with the oldest image, the first in line where Norma looked her youngest, and slipped it from the wall into a bag. Sticking the next frame into a bag, Stone noticed the clean rectangle where the picture had been beneath the four-cornered lines of grime on the wall.
Stone stopped at the third picture, his eyes drawn to the face of Richard Ezra, smiling at Norma’s side. As he bagged the picture, the image of him that The Ghoul had falsely circulated to his victims danced through his mind.
Lifting the next picture from the wall, he saw a pattern of sorts emerging. The disappearance of individual men from the photographic timeline, and he realised that they were the ones who had resigned from Maguire Holdings, and whose names had been plundered by The Ghoul, hunting down women on the internet.
‘Do you want me to take the bags from you?’ asked Sergeant Price.
As Stone handed the bags to Price, he said, ‘We can easily work out what the real James Griffiths and Geoff Campbell look like. It’s a process of photographic elimination. They just disappear one by one on the photographic timeline.’
‘There’s only one part of Norma Maguire’s body that’s more fucked up than her legs. Her brain.’
Stone took down the last two portraits and noticed that the only person not looking directly at the camera in every shot was Norma Maguire.
He focused on the last portrait, his eyes drawn to Francesca Christie, seated centre front next to Norma, the smile bleeding from her lips, her eyes lost and bewildered, the back of Norma’s hand drooping from the side of her wheelchair and resting against Francesca’s thigh.
Taking it from the wall, the glass moved within the frame, unstable in the wood as it sank into the darkness of an evidence bag.
Stone handed the bag to Price, the look in Francesca Christie’s eyes melting into his brain, and he wondered what the young woman was looking at now, if the act of looking was still a reality for her.
117
9.15 am
Norma Maguire gripped the metal hand rims of her wheelchair as she rolled herself towards the desk in Interview Suite 1.