Fever of the Bone

by Val McDermid

  ‘I saw the news,’ Elinor said. ‘I imagine you’re having a rough day.’

  ‘I’ve had easier,’ Paula admitted, fishing a cigarette from her pack and wrestling her lighter free of her pocket. ‘It’s nice to hear a friendly voice.’

  ‘I won’t keep you. I realise you’re busy. But I wondered if there was any chance of you having time for a late supper?’

  It was a thought so beautiful that Paula could have cried. ‘I would love to,’ she sighed. ‘If by late, you mean something like half past nine, I could probably make it. Unless there’s something specific that needs a late-night posse, we’re usually through by then. Well, I say through. What I really mean is that we’re usually out of the office.’

  ‘Good. Do you know Rafaello’s? It’s just off the Woolmarket.’

  ‘I’ve seen it, yes.’

  ‘I’ll book a table. Nine thirty, unless you hear from me.’

  ‘See you then.’ Paula ended the call. She felt five years lighter, the weight of her recent past slipping from her. Restoration, that’s what it felt like. Being restored to a person for whom a relationship was a possibility. She turned back, enjoying the look of shock on Sam Evans’s face when he saw her transformed from leadenness to buoyancy. Oh, but it was going to be a fine evening.

  Meanwhile, there was the small matter of the Brucehill boys to deal with. The way she felt now, they better watch out.

  It had taken all Alvin Ambrose’s powers of persuasion for Patterson to assign him to the Manchester trawl. The DCI thought this was donkey work for the lowly, but Ambrose wanted to be there with his hand on whatever transpired. He’d pointed out that a good lead would be something for him to follow up on anyway, so he might as well be one of the bodies already on the ground. ‘It’s less than a hundred miles,’ he’d said. ‘If something breaks down here, I can be back on the motorway, blues and twos, in not much more than an hour.’ Finally, Patterson had given in.

  Now he was in the thick of it, Ambrose was less than excited about his assignment. But that was OK. He didn’t have a problem with the fact that so much police work was pure drudgery. He’d arrived in Manchester with a list of fifty-three vehicles registered locally that had been in Worcester on the day of Jennifer Maidment’s murder and abduction. DCI Andy Millwood had been welcoming, setting him up with a desk in the main Serious Crimes Unit. He’d given Ambrose a CID aide - a uniformed officer on assignment to the plain clothes branch to see if the work suited her - who would drive Ambrose round the unfamiliar territory and sit in on his interviews. Millwood made it sound like he was offering unparalleled assistance, but Ambrose knew the rookie was the lowest form of life available to be loaned out. And that she was there as much to keep an eye on the out-of-town guy as to help him. Still, it was a lot better than nothing.

  ‘We think our perp’s job is something to do with computers or ICT,’ Ambrose said. ‘But that’s a suggestion, not a definite, so we want to keep an open mind on that one. What we’re looking for is an alibi for the time they were in Worcester. What they did. Where they went. Who they were with.’

  ‘OK, skip,’ the aide said. She was a short block of a woman with legs like cricket stumps, her plain face redeemed by a luxuriant shock of blue-black hair and luminous dark blue eyes. Ambrose felt she was wary of him. He wasn’t sure whether that was because he was an outsider or because of the colour of his skin. ‘It’s quite a compact area. Mostly Victorian terraces and big semis, a lot of them turned into student flats.’

  ‘Let’s make a start, then.’

  Four hours in, they’d followed up ten leads and run the gauntlet of middle-class citizens who knew their rights and wanted to deliver a lecture on how the government was eroding civil liberties. It was a common theme right across the age spectrum, from students to legal aid lawyers. Ambrose, accustomed to a smaller city whose political ghettos ran to single streets rather than whole suburbs, felt stunned by the onslaught.

  But once they’d expressed their trenchant views, it turned out that these were also the law-abiding types. Eight had given chapter and verse on where they’d been and who they’d met, information that could easily be checked by a phone call or a visit by the troops back in Worcester. One had only come off the motorway to try the food at a newly refurbished gastro-pub. He had a timed receipt from the pub, and another from a petrol station on the outskirts of Taunton which seemed to make it clear he couldn’t have killed Jennifer. The tenth had set Ambrose’s antennae twitching, but the longer they talked to him, the clearer it became that the reasons were nothing to do with murder. The guy, a market trader, was obviously hiding something. But not what they were after. As they walked away, the aide scampering to keep up, Ambrose said, ‘You might want to get the local boys to turn over his lock-up. I bet they find it stacked to the rafters with pirate DVDs, counterfeit perfumes and fake watches.’

  Six other vehicle owners hadn’t been home. They’d stopped at a café for lunch when Patterson rang with the gobsmacking news that Jennifer’s murder was now officially tied in to three others in Bradfield, thanks to that clever bugger Tony Hill. Even more surprising was that the victims were male. Now they had three other abduction dates to use as disqualifying alibis for their potential suspects. Ambrose ended the call and gave a grim smile. ‘We’ve just been upgraded.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ she said through a mouthful of steak pie.

  ‘This is now officially a serial-killer investigation,’ Ambrose said. He pushed his plate of fish fingers and chips away. His appetite had disappeared with Patterson’s news. Jennifer’s death had been hard enough to bear. But add three other teenagers to the mix and the weight pressed down like a physical encumbrance. When he worked murders, Ambrose always got to the end of the day feeling like he’d literally been carrying an extra burden around. His muscles ached and his joints felt stiff, as if his body was taking on the psychological load. Tonight, he knew he’d lower himself gingerly into bed, hurting like he’d gone half a dozen rounds in the ring. ‘We need to get back on the job,’ he said, nodding at the aide’s half-eaten food. ‘Five minutes. I’ll see you back at the car.’

  They dealt with the next two hits swiftly enough. The first, a computer salesman, seemed promising. But they soon realised he knew next to nothing about the details of what went on inside what he sold. And he’d been on a three-day break to Prague with his wife which covered the abduction and murder of Daniel Morrison. The next was a woman whose entire time in Worcester was accounted for by meetings with the cathedral clergy to discuss designs for new vestments.

  And then they arrived at the address where Warren Davy’s Toyota Verso was registered.

  CHAPTER 33

  It wasn’t a house or an office. It was a back-street garage tucked away at the end of a cul-de-sac which was also home to a craft bakery and a vegan café. Even though it was Sunday, a compact, muscular man with blond cropped hair and oil-stained overalls was respraying the wing of an elderly Ford Fiesta. He didn’t stop what he was doing till the unmarked car came to a halt a few feet from him. Then he turned off his spray gun and gave them a challenging look. ‘What is it, then? A hit and run?’

  ‘Are you Warren Davy?’ Ambrose asked.

  The man tilted his head back and laughed. ‘That’s a good one. No, mate. I’m not Warren. What do you want with him?’

  ‘That’s between us and Mr Davy,’ Ambrose said. ‘And you are?’

  ‘I’m Bill Carr.’ A smile lit up his blunt features. ‘Carr by name, car by trade. Get it?’

  ‘And what’s your connection to Warren Davy?’

  ‘Who says there’s a connection?’

  ‘DVLA. Warren Davy’s Toyota Verso is registered to this address.’

  Carr’s face cleared. ‘Right. Now I get it. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but you won’t find Warren here.’

  ‘You’re going to have to give me a bit more than that,’ Ambrose said. ‘We’re here on a serious matter. It’s not the sort of thing where you want to be caught ou
t obstructing the police, believe me.’

  Carr looked startled. ‘OK, OK.’ He put the spray gun down and stuck his hands in his pockets. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide. I’m his cousin. Warren uses this place as an address for deliveries and stuff. That’s all.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’ Ambrose didn’t have time for finesse. He wanted answers and he was determined not to let this bodyshop monkey play games with him. Almost without thinking he moved a step forward, right on the edge of Carr’s personal space.

  Carr seemed unaffected by the move. ‘Simple, mate. His place is out in the middle of nowhere. He got fed up with missing deliveries when him and Diane were out in the data-storage building, so he started using this place as a mailing address. I’m always here, see? And I’ve got plenty of space to store stuff. When something gets dropped off, I phone them and one of them comes into town to collect it.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Ambrose was inclined to believe him. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

  ‘Warren? A couple of weeks ago. But Diane’s been in two or three times in the past week. She said he’d been out of town. Nothing unusual in that, you understand. They’ve got clients all over the place.’

  ‘Clients for what?’

  ‘They do internet security, data storage - whatever that involves. It’s all double Dutch to me.’

  The hair on Ambrose’s arms twitched erect. This was starting to sound like a serious prospect. ‘So where can I find your cousin Warren?’ he asked, casual as he could manage.

  Carr wheeled around and made for an office cubicle carved out of a corner of the workshop. ‘They’re out on the edge of the moors,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I’ll give you the address, but you’ll need directions as well.’

  Ambrose stepped smartly after him. ‘If it’s all the same to you, Mr Carr, I’d prefer it if you came with us, to show us the way.’

  Carr gave him a baffled look. ‘Like I said, I’ll give you directions. ‘

  Ambrose shook his head, a gentle smile on his face. ‘You see, Mr Carr, this is a bit complicated. Like I said, this is a serious business. What I don’t want to happen is for you to call your cousin the minute we walk out of here. I don’t want you to tell him there’s a couple of police officers coming out to his place to talk to him about his car. Because, you see, Mr Carr, I don’t want your cousin Warren deciding to leg it before I have the chance of a chat with him.’

  There was a hard edge to Ambrose’s voice that only a fool would have chosen to ignore. It dawned on Carr that his best option was to give in with good grace. He spread his hands. ‘I can see how you might feel like that. And I appreciate you not threatening me. I tell you what: why don’t you come with me in my car and your lass here can drive behind us in your car? That way, I can shoot off when we get there and Warren doesn’t have to know it was me that dobbed him in.’

  ‘Are you frightened of your cousin, Mr Carr?’

  Carr did the head tilt and laugh again. ‘Are you kidding? I’m not scared. Don’t you get it? I like Warren. He’s a good bloke. I don’t want him to feel like I let him down, you berk.’ For the first time, Carr sounded annoyed. ‘I know I’d feel pissed off if someone brought the cops to my door.’

  Ambrose examined the suggestion and could find no fault with it. Carr seemed both co-operative and harmless. Apart from his discomfort at the notion of someone bringing the cops to his door, which wasn’t necessarily a sign of guilt. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Lead the way, Mr Carr.’

  It had started as an experiment years ago, but now it had become part of the armoury Tony used to crawl inside the labyrinth of a killer’s mind. He set up two chairs opposite each other, each illuminated by a single cone of light. He would sit in one chair as himself and pose the question. Then he’d physically get up and sit in the other chair to grope for a possible answer. Now, having assimilated as much as he could from the files, this was where he had to go.

  Elbows on knees, chin on his fists, he sat staring at the empty chair facing him. ‘This isn’t about pleasure, is it?’

  Then he got up and crossed to the other chair, where he sprawled, legs apart, arms draped over the sides of the armchair. A long pause, then in a different tone, much darker than his usual light tenor, he said, ‘No. It’s a mission.’

  Back to the first chair. ‘A mission to achieve what?’

  ‘The end of the line.’

  ‘The end of whose line? It’s not random, is it?’

  ‘No, it’s not random. You just don’t know the link yet.’

  ‘I don’t, but you do. And there’s no room for doubt, is there?’

  ‘No. I take my time, I make sure they’re the right one.’

  Back in his own chair, Tony folded his arms. ‘Why do you care?’

  This time, the pause in what he thought of as the killer’s chair was longer. He tried to let the dark draw him into a place where these killings made sense. ‘I don’t want them to breed.’

  ‘So you’re killing them before they can get round to having kids of their own?’

  ‘That’s part of it.’

  ‘It’s all about them being the last in their line? That’s why they’re all only children?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Tony returned to his own chair, at a loss where to go next with this. He felt he was on the edge of grasping something, but it kept slipping from his reach. He went back to the victims, summoning their images up before his eyes, struck again by the underlying resemblance. ‘They all look like you did,’ he said softly. ‘That’s why you choose them. You’ve made your victims in your own image.’

  Into the other chair. ‘So what if I have?’

  ‘You’re killing your own image.’ He shook his own head, not getting it. ‘But most serial killers want immortality. They want reputation. You’re doing the opposite. You want to obliterate yourself but for some reason, you’re getting rid of kids who look like you rather than killing yourself.’ It was baffling. And yet he felt he’d made some sort of a breakthrough. It was often the way with these dialogues. He didn’t know how he did it or why it worked, but it seemed to free up some subconscious understanding.

  Tony couldn’t see how this latest insight would help them find the killer. But he knew that, when they did, it might be the key to breaking him. And for Tony, finding out why was at least as important as finding out who.

  It was late in the afternoon when Bill Carr drew up in the middle of nowhere. Ambrose was taken aback by the emptiness of the landscape. It had only been ten minutes since they’d left the margins of the city behind, but out here on the edge of the rolling moors, it was as if Manchester didn’t exist. Drystone walls bordered the narrow road. Behind them were slopes of rough pasture where sheep browsed uncuriously. The fields were broken up by dense stands of Forestry Commission conifers. They hadn’t passed another vehicle since they’d turned off the minor road before this one. ‘I don’t get it,’ Ambrose said. ‘Where’s the house?’

  Carr pointed ahead, where the road disappeared almost immediately round a tight bend. ‘It’s a mile up the road. As soon as you come round the bend, their security cameras pick you up. There’s no CCTV for miles on these roads, but Warren and Diane have their own setup. They’re paranoid about security. It’s what their clients are paying for, I suppose. So this is where I leave you to it. Just head on up the road. You’ll see the fence. There’s a pull-in by the gate. You have to use the intercom.’

  Ambrose checked the wing mirror to make sure his escort was behind them, then got out. He leaned back into the van. ‘Thanks for your help.’

  ‘Just don’t mention it to Warren, OK?’ Carr looked momentarily anxious but the cloud passed.

  Ambrose wondered if his cousin paid Carr for his mailbox service. If he did, that might go a long way to explaining why he was so nervous about bringing them out here. ‘I’ll keep you out of it,’ he said. He’d barely closed the door when Carr threw the car into a sharp turn and headed back towards Manchester. A
mbrose watched him go then got into the car.

  ‘Straight on,’ he said. ‘There’s a gate up ahead on the left.’

  It was just as Carr had described. The road swung round the corner and a line of trees gave way to a two-metre-high chain-link fence behind the wall. A camera was mounted on its corner, with others visible along the perimeter. Behind the fence there was more coarse moorland grass which grew right up to a cluster of traditional grey stone buildings. As they grew closer, Ambrose identified the farmhouse and two big barns. Even from the road, he could see that one barn had steel doors and extractor units on the roof. They pulled off in the gateway where a sign simply said, ‘DPS’ and identified themselves over the intercom.

  ‘Hold your ID out of the window so the camera can pick them up,’ a crackly voice said. Ambrose handed over his warrant card and the aide brandished them at the lens. One gate swung open and they drove inside. A woman emerged from the steel doors, which swished shut behind her. She waved them over to the farmhouse and joined them as they got out of the car.

  Ambrose sized her up as he introduced them. Somewhere around forty, five five or six, slim and wiry. The kind of sallow skin that would tan well. Dark hair brushing her shoulders. Brown eyes, button nose, thin-lipped mouth, dimples that were starting to turn into deep lines. Black jeans, tight black hoodie, black cowboy boots. A pair of glasses hanging round her neck on a fine silver chain. Right from the off, she seemed to be buzzing with energy. ‘I’m Diane Patrick,’ she said. ‘Half of DPS. Which stands for Davy Patrick Security or Data Protection Services, depending on how I’m planning to pitch you.’ She smiled. ‘How can I help you, officers?’

  ‘You take your security pretty seriously,’ Ambrose said, wanting to play for a little bit of time. Sometimes his gut instinct told him to ease into things, not go straight to the point.