20/20

by Carl Goodman

  She stopped for a moment. Sutton was absorbing the information she was giving her. She could almost see the DCI dropping details onto one side or the other of a pair of imaginary scales and weighing the facts. Eva needed to push her next point. ‘It’s thin, I accept that,’ she emphasised to Sutton, ‘but I want to take another look at Bertha Nicholson. I don’t think she’s a killer, but it’s at least conceivable someone she knows might be.’

  ‘Financials again?’ Sutton asked. She meant an in-depth background check, but Eva shook her head.

  ‘No. She’s filthy rich, that much is a given, but I don’t think Khan and the other women’s murders were anything to do with money. I’d take more of a direct approach with Nicholson. I have a hunch she’ll respond to that.’

  Sutton fell silent for a while as she mulled the information over. ‘If it is two killers,’ she said after a few moments, ‘it seems a bloody shame our first murderer has decided to set up shop again. What are the chances?’

  The question surprised Eva. The answer seemed obvious to her. ‘I’d have said quite high, if we assume Stepanov and the others were killed by someone with a rational motive and Khan was killed by a psychopath. Stepanov’s killer tried to use the earlier killings as a cover. Khan’s murderer saw that and wanted back in the game. They’re feeding off each other now. Not in any coordinated sense, but through the media. One is almost giving the other permission to kill.’

  Sutton stared. ‘So you don’t think they’re done yet.’ It wasn’t a question. Sutton already knew the answer.

  ‘No,’ Eva said. ‘They’ll just keep on going unless we stop them.’

  * * *

  Something else occurred to her then. ‘Judy? Could you kill someone?’

  Wren looked up from the liver she was weighing. ‘Is that a request? Whom exactly did you have in mind?’

  ‘I mean hypothetically speaking.’

  ‘If it was my sister-in-law,’ Wren said. ‘I’m not admitting to anything, but it’s crossed my mind more than once.’ She shrugged. ‘Probably more like twenty or thirty times this year actually.’ When Eva didn’t respond Wren put the liver down. ‘What’s on your mind?’

  Eva rested her elbows on the stainless-steel tabletop and ignored the organ Wren had placed in a dish. ‘Why does he strip them?’

  Wren took her surgical gloves off, threw them in a bin and then proceeded to wash her hands because the gloves had made them stink. ‘He strips them because he’s worried about leaving forensic evidence on the clothes. That’s most likely to be droplets of blood in his mind. It’s easier to spot those on skin. An alcohol wipe would remove them and we, meaning me, would not be able to analyse the residue.’

  ‘Okay. Why is he worried about blood?’

  ‘Most likely because he has this nagging doubt in the back of his mind that we could trace the sedative through its batch number,’ Wren re-stated. ‘He’s wrong of course, but then again he is actually murdering people and clearly not wanting to get caught. Better safe than sorry I suppose.’

  ‘Right,’ Eva said. ‘So why sedate them?’

  ‘It’s just a wild guess of course,’ she heard the sarcasm in Wren’s voice, ‘but I’d imagine it’s because he doesn’t want them fidgeting while he cuts their eyeballs out.’

  ‘Probably,’ Eva agreed. ‘So why not just kill them to begin with?’ She knew she had struck a chord because Wren didn’t answer. ‘Look at this,’ she pointed at the liver.

  ‘I already have.’

  ‘So you’ve just cut that out of somebody’s innards, right? You’ve taken a scalpel, sliced their guts open, stuffed your hands inside and scooped the damn thing out.’

  ‘I’d suggest there was a little more skill involved than that.’

  Eva waved her hand dismissively. ‘Back to my original question: Judy Wren, could you, who have just cut some poor sod practically in half, could you kill someone?’

  Wren hesitated. ‘Not in self-defence?’

  ‘In cold blood. Could you kill someone in cold blood?’

  ‘I find it very hard to imagine,’ Wren admitted after a moment.

  ‘Okay.’ Eva found a stool and sat down in front of the examination table. ‘Imagine that you could. Just hypothetically,’ she continued before Wren could object. ‘How would you do it?’

  Wren sighed. Then she picked up the dish with the liver in it, placed it in a fridge, pulled up another stool and she too sat down at the stainless-steel table. ‘I don’t want to sound like a stereotype,’ she said after a moment, ‘but being a woman I probably would go for poison. I don’t like guns and anyway, I don’t have access to one. I don’t know if I would have the physical strength to use a knife, not in what would turn into a struggle.’

  ‘Blunt instrument?’

  ‘Like Alicia Khan? I’d find it really difficult.’

  Eva nodded. ‘Next leap of imagination. You’re a six-foot bloke. How do you do it now?’

  A longer pause. ‘What am I getting out of it? Sexual pleasure? Revenge? Is it hate, spite or expediency?’

  ‘Let’s say it’s just something you need to get done. You have a reason, a rational motive. You’ve come to the conclusion these people have to die. You also don’t want to get caught. How do you do it now?’

  ‘I kind of see where you’re going,’ Wren admitted, ‘but sedation followed by exsanguination seems like a pretty extreme ploy.’

  ‘I think it depends on your starting point. So Judy Wren, now you’re six foot tall, physically fit and at a guess thirty-something. If you needed to kill someone could you, personally, cave the back of their head in with a hammer?’

  Wren thought for a moment. ‘Probably not,’ she admitted.

  ‘Knife them?’ Wren shook her head. ‘How about a rope? Strangle or garrotte them?’

  ‘What is this, Cluedo?’

  Eva spread her hands on the table. ‘I’m just making a point. You’re a forensic examiner, you cut up bodies for a living and yet by your own admission you would find it difficult to actually kill someone. I think the same is true of Irina Stepanov’s killer. I think he’s actually squeamish.’

  Wren folded her arms. ‘Oh, come on.’

  ‘Think about it,’ Eva insisted. ‘Imagine Robin Chatham. His day job involves slicing people’s eyes open. Does that mean he automatically has the capacity to kill someone?’ Wren didn’t answer. ‘I think whoever we’re looking for has some degree of surgical expertise but no actual desire to murder. He’s killing for a reason.’

  ‘It would have to be a bloody good reason.’

  ‘It would,’ Eva agreed. ‘Good enough to overcome his natural squeamishness. I think we’ve been looking at this the wrong way round. Find the motive and you’ll find the killer.’

  She had partly convinced Wren, she could see that much. ‘Maybe,’ Wren agreed, ‘but it sounds like you’re expecting a simple justification; I doubt very much it’s going to be like that. Look at the sophistication of those murders. Do you imagine the reason behind them is going to be any less complicated?’ Wren had a point, Eva had to admit that, if only to herself. ‘And anyway,’ Wren continued, ‘where does that put Alicia Khan’s killer?’

  Eva waved her hand again. ‘Oh, that’s obvious. That one’s a total head-case,’ she told Wren, ‘a psychopath and almost completely unpredictable. Apart from being good-looking, the four women don’t even bear any resemblance to each other. I know they were all students,’ she said as Wren started to object, ‘but I think that’s only because there are a lot of students around here. Ease of access, which is probably the only clue we’re going to get.’

  ‘So how are you ever going to catch him?’

  Eva shuffled on the stool. ‘I’m going to try to get myself invited to a party.’

  * * *

  Berta Nicholson draped herself on a white sofa that sat in the centre of a room with white walls and white carpets, and smiled an almost indulgent smile. ‘So you think one of my friends is a murderer,’ she said to Eva.
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  ‘I think all three women had a connection to New Thought.’ Eva chose her words carefully, like an archer selecting an arrow. ‘I don’t suggest that in an accusatory sense but the connection is still there. I think it would be more than merely remiss if we, the police, did not pursue every line of inquiry.’

  Nicholson did not so much as blink. ‘So you’re telling me this is about due diligence?’

  ‘Yes,’ Eva said. ‘I suppose in a way that’s exactly what it is.’ She waited for a moment. ‘I have another question. Did Lily Yu lie when she said the women had not attended any of your parties?’

  Nicholson laughed. It was a quiet, intimate sound. ‘It depends what you mean by “lie”. Or perhaps about which part. Lily said she would have remembered if any of the women had attended a party. That is probably not true. Lily is indeed a party animal. She would be entirely capable of forgetting that sort of detail. Please don’t misunderstand me. Lily is my dearest friend and does not have a malign instinct in her body, but I would never accuse her of being reliable.’

  She had suspected something along those lines. ‘Do you remember them?’

  ‘I’ll be completely truthful with you, Detective Inspector,’ Nicholson said. ‘Or may I call you Eva? I do not recall the women attending any of my parties. That, however, categorically does not mean they did not attend. My friends bring friends. I can’t keep track of them all.’

  Eva watched her face. ‘So they could have been here?’

  ‘They could,’ Nicholson agreed.

  ‘And Alicia Khan?’

  Nicholson spread her hands. ‘Honestly. Absolutely honestly, Eva. I simply do not know.’

  When she thought about it she found she felt inclined to believe Berta Nicholson. She was clearly an intelligent woman. If she needed to lie about something she would find some less blatant way of doing it. ‘And do you have any more parties planned?’

  ‘Always,’ Nicholson said. ‘I mean, another three or four this year.’

  ‘Are any of them soon?’

  Nicholson scrutinised her. This time she frowned. ‘You’re not thinking of organising a raid are you? I have to say my lawyers would take a very dim view of that. This isn’t some run-down pub in the back end of Kingston, you know. My friends are quite influential.’

  ‘Nothing of the sort,’ Eva insisted. She took a breath. ‘But I wondered if I might be able to get an invite.’

  For a moment Nicholson’s smooth façade slipped. She appeared almost shocked. ‘You do understand the nature of these gatherings? They are for my friends and I to meet for brief liaisons. Are you interested professionally or personally?’

  ‘Professionally,’ Eva said quickly. ‘I’m not interested in anything other than the case. At the moment anyway,’ she added.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Nicholson clasped her hands together, almost as though she wanted to wring them. ‘This is part of the ethos of New Thought, of our view of transcendentalism. We venerate the individual and their freedom. That means accepting behaviour that others might question – including,’ she placed her hands back in her lap, ‘an officer of the law.’

  Eva picked her way through the coded language. ‘You’re telling me there are recreational drugs available at your parties.’

  ‘I’m specifically not telling you,’ Nicholson said, ‘but you can draw your own conclusions. If there were such things they would be for personal consumption only. My friends aren’t pushers, Eva. This is a grown-up gathering, we’re all capable of making our own choices. Nobody does anything they don’t want to, nobody takes anything they don’t want to take. And most importantly, nobody gets out of control. There’s a strong element of trust amongst us. That is crucially important.’

  ‘It sounds…’ Eva grasped for a word.

  ‘Hedonistic? It is. It’s about pleasure, and about not being judged. That to one side,’ Nicholson leaned forward, ‘I still don’t understand what you think you might achieve.’

  Was she certain of that herself? ‘The killer had to have met the victims somewhere,’ Eva told her once she had arranged her thoughts. ‘It might have been at university. It might have been in a local club. I have officers investigating those possibilities again, as they did when the first three women were killed.’ Like Nicholson, she found herself clasping her hands together. ‘But those are ordinary locations, and these were not ordinary crimes. The killer is almost certainly a psychopath of some shade, but in itself that’s not enough of an explanation. He has a rationale even, assuming he’s a male. The mutilations are all the same and the cuts are almost identical. They’re making a design and there’s a reason for it, however perverted it might be.’

  Nicholson kept staring. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because I need your help,’ Eva admitted. ‘I don’t imagine for a moment you’re involved, but there is a chance that one of your friends may be.’

  ‘But even if I let you come, how would you know?’

  The same question she had asked herself, over and over. ‘I think there will be something about them, some physical clue. The design is an obsession, these striations that he cuts in women. What do they mean? What do they mean to him? It’s clearly crucial; four years on and Alicia Khan had the same marks. Why?’

  ‘Do you have an idea?’

  Eva shook her head. ‘No, and that’s actually not the point. I don’t need to know what the significance is for them, not at the moment anyway. All I need to know is that they are significant for them, and that some aspect of their life clearly revolves around them. If that’s the case then I think they will carry something of that symbolism with them, just something, probably no more than a token. Maybe it’s a tattoo or a piece of jewellery, something close to them anyway, some piece of memorabilia. Like a tell in a poker game, I don’t think they will be able to hide it.’

  Nicholson thought for a while. ‘And if you’re wrong?’

  She shrugged. ‘Then I’ll have wasted an afternoon. It’s not like I’m betting the farm on this. It’s just a reasonable line of inquiry.’

  The silence hung for a while. ‘I understand now,’ Nicholson said eventually. ‘I don’t agree with you, but I understand. I don’t think any of my friends are capable of such a thing. I know them all,’ she smiled, ‘intimately, but I accept your argument. I have a party planned for later this month. I can move the date easily enough; I’m happy to invite you on one condition.’ It didn’t seem like the point at which to object. Eva nodded. ‘You will see things at this party that are outside of the law. Nobody gets hurt, every act is consensual, but there are things that could get people arrested. I need to know you will ignore that. You’re only looking for one thing. Everything else is ignored.’

  ‘I’m only interested in one thing,’ Eva agreed. ‘This is actually policing by consent.’

  Nicholson snorted a laugh. ‘I’m glad to hear it. I can bring the next party forward to this weekend, nobody will mind; in fact quite the opposite.’ She looked Eva up and down. ‘And perhaps you’ll actually find something to your liking. Oh,’ she added as Eva stood to leave, ‘we start the parties at my pool, so bring a swimsuit.’ She grinned then, twisted and lascivious. ‘Assuming you feel you need one.’

  * * *

  Eva had only been driving for five minutes when her phone buzzed. The low autumn sun was in her eyes, leaves glowed amber and scarlet as they flicked past her. The road was silent. It felt as though she were driving through the land of the dead.

  ‘Where are you?’ It was Flynn. Eva picked up the tension in her voice immediately.

  ‘About half an hour from the station. Are you going to tell me what I think you’re going to tell me?’

  Flynn didn’t pause. ‘I’m afraid so. St Jude’s Hill again, I’ll text you the address. But, ma’am?’ Eva didn’t speak. She didn’t want to speak. ‘Raj was checking against Chatham Centre patients, and this person’s name came up.’ The road twisted away to the right. Eva concentrated on it. Flynn couldn’t know that
.

  ‘I think we’ve got the proof now,’ Flynn continued. ‘This guy is killing to a list. We think we know who his next victims are going to be. We can get the bastard now. I really think we can.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Katarzyna Liege’s property was on almost the opposite side of St Jude’s Hill to the Stepanov’s, Eva noted. It backed onto a road outside of the estate, and although the fence that divided it from the public thoroughfare was high and the area at the back of the house heavily wooded, it would not have taken much to get into the grounds. This time the killer had come in through a pair of unlocked patio doors.

  Eva sought out Moresby, who stood checking a list in his notebook near the front of the house while the scene of crime team combed the grounds. ‘Who found the body?’

  ‘Would you believe a local meals-on-wheels driver? Apparently, they have three or four houses in here they sometimes deliver to, older residents obviously. It’s not about money. It’s about contact. Ms Liege lived on her own.’

  Eva raised an eyebrow. ‘The driver found her?’

  ‘Ah no,’ Moresby said, ‘not exactly, sorry. The driver didn’t get an answer when she rang on the door so she called the local day centre. They called us and we had a patrol come out. DS Flynn and Newton turned up on their heels and insisted the uniform officers gain access. That wasn’t very hard because the patio doors were already unlocked.’