Fever of the Bone

by Val McDermid

  The email unfurled on the central screen on the lower level. On the screen above it, a stream of numbers and letters suddenly sprang into life. But Ambrose was only interested in the message.

  Hi, Detective Sergeant Ambrose

  My partner, Diane Patrick, said you wanted me to contact you. Something about my car? Sorry not to phone, I’m in Malta on business and it costs an arm and a leg, plus I’m working pretty much full on so email is easier for me. If you let me know what it’s all about, I will get back to you asap.

  Best

  Warren Davy

  DPS Systems: www.dps.com

  ‘Interesting,’ Stacey said.

  ‘Looks pretty straightforward to me,’ Ambrose said.

  ‘Except that it’s not been sent from Malta.’ Stacey pointed at the upper screen, which had come to rest with a very straightforward message. ‘It’s come from a computer owned by Bradfield City Council libraries department. He’s in town, Sarge. And either he doesn’t care that we know it or he’s an arrogant twat who thinks we’re a lot less sophisticated than he is.’

  ‘Either way, he’s probably getting ready to roll. How are you getting on with your trap?’

  Stacey shrugged. ‘It’ll be done when it’s done. These things are hard to predict.’ She began to tap the keys again, her eyes flitting between screens. As Ambrose watched, she suddenly froze. Seconds ticked by and still she didn’t move. He thought she’d even stopped breathing.

  Then her fingers were flying over the keys, almost too fast to register. ‘Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha,’ she said, her voice a crescendo from whisper to shout. ‘We’ve got him,’ she yelled.

  Almost before her words had died away, they were all clustered round. Carol Jordan elbowed her way through. Ambrose made room for her at the front. ‘What is it, Stacey? What have you got?’

  ‘I’ve got two. BB and GG. BB is on top right, GG top left. Both scrolling down to the bottom screen.’

  They stood there transfixed as text unrolled before their eyes. BB was chatting to someone calling himself DirtAngel. From the sound of it, BB was setting up a meeting so they could go dirt biking the following day. He was promising to teach him the secrets of the sport. ‘He’s on the move tomorrow, ‘ Carol said.

  GG and his chat-mate weren’t online live, but Stacey had pulled up their last chat. ‘He’s pretending to be a girl. He’s setting up 1dagal for a makeover. After school on Thursday. Look: “Tel no1. I’l show u t bigst secrt. U’l look gr8 when we’re dun.” Secrets again.’

  ‘He’s playing with them,’ Tony said. ‘He knows their biggest secret, the one they don’t know about themselves. So he teases them with the idea of secrets.’

  ‘Who are these kids, Stacey?’

  ‘I’m working on it,’ she said absently. ‘Why don’t you all bugger off and leave me in peace? I’ll email you all I’ve got from the C&A. Now I need to backdoor these accounts and the less you know, the better.’

  They melted away. ‘She’s something else,’ Ambrose said to Paula.

  ‘She’s the best. She only works here for fun, you know?’

  ‘This is her idea of fun?’

  Paula chuckled. ‘Oh yeah. She gets to poke her fingers into all sorts of stuff and nobody’s going to be coming after her for it. But when she’s not here? She’s busy making millions with her own software company. Talk about secrets. She thinks nobody knows about her other life, but one time she let the name of her company slip to Sam and that was a red rag to a bull. No way he was going to stop till he’d found out every last cough and spit.’ She cast a speculative look at Sam. ‘God help her if he ever realises she’s in love with him.’ Suddenly she stopped short, her face shocked and puzzled in equal measure. ‘Why am I talking to you like this?’

  Tony, who had been standing behind them unnoticed, suddenly spoke. ‘Because he’s like you, Paula. People talk to him. The same way they do to you.’

  Ambrose’s laugh was a low rumble in his chest. ‘It’s a scary gift.’

  ‘Don’t tell Carol,’ Tony said. ‘She’ll be recruiting you before you know it.’

  Ambrose looked around the room where he already felt so at home. ‘A man could do a lot worse.’

  Tony studied Carol, who was talking to Kevin, her head bent over her desk. ‘He could. On the other hand, you could say she deserves better than any of us.’ And he walked away, completely heedless of the small sensation his words left behind.

  It was definitely Stacey’s day for demonstrating her value to the MIT. She’d been delighted by Paula’s suggestion of searching the national DNA database for familial connections to the murdered teenagers. ‘We can do it with the boys,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask me to explain, but it doesn’t work with female relatives in the same way.’

  Paula backed off in mock-horror. ‘Oh please, Stace. Not the scientific explanation, I’m just a simple city girl.’

  But Stacey was already sending an urgent request to the database, attaching the three sets of DNA. Unusually, she followed up her email with a phone call to one of the analysts that she’d worked with before. Paula, still hovering in the background, noticed there was no small talk. If the ICT staff had needed that to make things run smoothly, there wouldn’t be a functioning system in the Western world, she thought.

  ‘Stacey Chen here, Bry. I’ve just emailed you three sets of data that we need checked. I need you to prioritise it. We’ve got a serial killer working on a tight turnaround, and this might just break it before he takes his next victim . . . Now? . . . Thanks. I owe you.’ She hung up her headset and without turning said to Paula, ‘He’s on it. You can go and get a coffee now.’

  Dismissed, Paula went back to her desk and the mountain of paper that always came with a murder inquiry. Carol and Kevin were closeted with a team that had been put together from Traffic and Western Division, planning their surveillance of Ewan McAlpine, the dirt biker. There had been a big discussion about whether they should warn the boy and have him wired. Paula had been a strenuous advocate of that approach. She knew how wrong these set-ups could go, and she wanted maximum protection for the boy, even if it posed a different set of problems. But she’d been outnumbered and overruled. Her opponents argued that a fourteen-year-old boy wasn’t going to be able to carry off the subterfuge and the killer would sense a trap and abort, leaving them with nothing. They were probably right, Paula conceded. But at least her way meant the kid would have a better chance of coming out of it alive.

  She pulled up the transcript of his conversations with BB on her screen and read it again. Ewan sounded like a nice kid. He made cute jokes and he didn’t pick on anybody. Stacey had managed to track him down via his email account. He lived with his mum and dad near the city centre in a small enclave of Georgian houses that had somehow survived the post-war developers. His dad was a consultant urologist at Bradfield Cross, his mother a GP in one of the inner-city health centres. That was one thing about dealing with victims who were here as a result of fertility treatment - they weren’t exactly skint. A couple she knew had spent the best part of twenty grand on IVF and still had nothing to show for it except a series of miscarriages. The downside was that they were dealing with the articulate middle classes, the sort of people who would gut and fillet them if anything went wrong with this operation.

  Another good thing was that, thanks to Stacey’s infiltration of RigMarole, they knew where Ewan was meeting BB - presumably Warren Davy. Ewan was to take the Manchester bus to Barrowden, a small village about five miles outside the Bradfield city limits. BB had arranged to meet him at the bus stop so they could go to his farm, a couple of miles away. I’l com 4 u on t quad bike, he’d said. Another enticement to a lad gagging for a bit of wildness in his very civilised city life.

  ‘Alvin?’ Stacey called. ‘You got a minute?’

  Ambrose strolled across to Stacey’s corner, Paula in his wake. ‘What is it, Stacey?’ he said.

  ‘Warren Davy’s cousin? The guy with the garage? What was his name again?
For some reason, I can’t find your report on the system.’

  Ambrose cleared his throat, looking embarrassed. ‘Sorry, I forgot. I filed it with Manchester but I didn’t send it to you when I got here. His name was Bill Carr.’

  Stacey pointed to one of her screens. ‘That’s from the NDNAD. There’s only one hit on our DNA. William James Carr from Manchester comes up as having a familial relationship to all three boys. Probably cousins or nephews, according to Bry.’

  ‘Are you saying Carr’s our man?’ Ambrose was clearly puzzled.

  ‘Well, he’s a possible, I suppose,’ Stacey said sceptically. ‘But it strengthens the case against Warren Davy. If they’re cousins, then it means the three victims also have a blood relationship to Davy. So what was hypothetical and circumstantial becomes more evidentially based.’

  ‘But he’s still only a possible,’ Paula said. ‘And we still don’t know where he is.’

  ‘Which means we still have to do the surveillance,’ Ambrose said.

  Stacey shrugged. ‘As everyone around here delights in telling me, it always comes back to old-fashioned coppering.’ She turned back to her screens. ‘I better email the boss. There’s nothing she likes more than another brick in the wall.’

  CHAPTER 39

  Ewan McAlpine woke up with the fizzle of excitement racing through his veins. Today, it was today. He was finally going to get a chance at something he’d craved for so long. By tea-time, he’d be bouncing over rough terrain on a dirt bike, a cloud of dust enveloping him as he breathed through a kerchief, like a cowboy on the range.

  He’d never been allowed to do anything his mum and dad regarded as dangerous. They’d wrapped him in cotton wool all his life, like he was going to break if he so much as fell over. He could still remember the total humiliation of his first overnight school trip. He’d been eight years old and his class were staying at an outdoor pursuits centre up in the Pennines. As well as the teachers, some parents had come along to make sure there was the right ratio of adults to children. And of course, his mum had been one of them. And every time he’d been about to join in one of the activities - abseiling, climbing, kayaking or riding the zip drive, she’d intervened, stopping him from doing anything interesting. He’d spent two days on the obstacle course and the archery range. It had been God’s gift to his enemies.

  His mum meant well, he knew. But over the years, she’d made him the butt of endless jokes and sometimes worse. Luckily for him, his primary school had been hot on stamping out bullying and teasing. When he’d moved up to his private grammar school, he’d worked hard at being invisible. The sporty guys didn’t know he existed, so they didn’t notice he wasn’t allowed to do anything remotely dangerous.

  But still, Ewan craved the chance to do something exciting. He loved watching the extreme sports channel, and he’d worked hard over the last couple of years to get fit and build some muscle. Even his mum couldn’t object to him working out in the gym his dad had set up in the cellar. All he lacked was the opportunity to use his body for anything that would push it to the limits.

  Until he’d met up with BB on Rig. Lucky bugger lived on a farm where he had his own quad bike and dirt bikes. Even better, he’d chosen Ewan to be pals with. And now, tonight, he was going to get his chance to experience what he’d only fantasised about.

  His mum thought he was taking part in a debating competition over in Manchester. She wouldn’t expect him home till nine, which would work out perfectly. BB said he would lend him something to wear and he could shower before he left on the half past eight bus. It was all going to be perfect.

  Ewan had no idea how he was going to get through the day without bursting with excitement. But he’d manage it somehow. He was good at managing his life.

  A mile away, in the nearest police station to the McAlpine home, Carol was giving the surveillance crews their final briefing. There were three cars, one motorbike and an assortment of pedestrians, supported by a van where they could alter their look by changing jackets, hats, wigs and facial hair. ‘It’s going to be a long day,’ Carol said. ‘We’ll mostly be able to stand down when Ewan’s actually in school, but we will need someone front and back to make sure he doesn’t sneak out early. There’s no reason why he should - we know what the arrangements are. But the excitement might be too much for him. So we need to be alert. Any questions?’

  Paula raised a hand. ‘We know this killer acts fast. Are we going to move in as soon as he takes Ewan?’

  ‘I’m not making any decisions about the take-down till we’re in the thick of it,’ Carol said. ‘There are too many variables. Ewan is our priority, obviously. But we need to make sure we actually have evidence of abduction. Now, if we’re all ready, we need to move into position. Following him to school will give us the chance to fix his appearance in our minds, as well as being a useful rehearsal. So, let’s do it. And good luck, everybody.’

  The school run presented no problems. Ewan’s mother’s Audi was sandwiched between surveillance cars, with the van bringing up the rear. Mrs McAlpine dropped him on a corner about a quarter of a mile from the school and two of the walkers picked him up from there. They left three officers on watch - two on foot, one in a car - then went back to the station. Waiting around was always the hardest. Some played cards, some read, some put their heads on their arms and slept. By the time Tony turned up at half past three, they were all ready for some action.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you,’ Carol said.

  ‘I like to keep you on your toes.’

  ‘You’re staying in the control van with me,’ she said, steering him away from the rest of the team.

  ‘Perfect. I’m not trying to make your life more difficult,’ he said. ‘I just thought I might be able to help. You know - if you have to make difficult choices of when to intervene and when to sit tight. I’m quite good at this psychology stuff.’ He gave her the cute little-boy smile that always irritated and amused her in equal measure. ‘You might as well take advantage of my presence. After all, the more use I am to you, the easier your argument with Blake the next time he wants you to work with Tim Parker.’

  ‘Are they all as crap as him?’ Carol asked.

  Tony perched on a desk. ‘No. A couple of them have got real talent. One or two others are reasonably competent. And then there’s a few who learned all the prescriptive stuff, but they’ve got no insight, no empathy. And those are unteachable. You’ve either got it or you haven’t. When you do this for real all the time, if you’ve got the empathy and the insight, you should become a clinician. If you haven’t, you go down the academic route.’ He shrugged. ‘Tim’s got room for improvement, but he’s never going to be brilliant. You just got really unlucky. If Blake pulls this on you again, don’t let anybody else do the choosing. I’ve got a couple of names I’ll give you that’ll do a decent job for you.’

  ‘Not as good as you, though.’

  ‘I won’t argue with that. But I might not always be around, Carol.’ He sounded serious and it frightened her. She didn’t really know what had happened to him in Worcester, not on the inside. But he’d been in a strange frame of mind ever since he got back. Carol didn’t like what she couldn’t understand, and she didn’t understand this.

  So she made a joke out of it. ‘Aren’t you a bit young to be retiring? Or have you been lying about your age all these years?’

  He chuckled. ‘I’m not the sort who retires. I’ll be tottering around on my walking frame going, “You’re looking for a white male, twenty-five to forty, who had difficulty in forming relationships.” And some bright young DCI will still think I’m the bee’s knees.’

  ‘Well, that’ll be a novel experience for you,’ she said tartly. She stepped away and raised her voice. ‘Right, everybody. Time to get into position.’ She turned back to Tony. ‘Did you hear that we’ve tied Warren Davy in to the victims? The NDNAD came up with a familial hit on Bill Carr, the cousin who fronts up as Davy’s mailing address.’

  ‘That�
�s good to know. It’s always a relief when us profilers have sent you barking up the right tree. I definitely owe Fiona Cameron a big drink now.’

  They walked towards the door together. ‘You never thought of doing the geographic profiling? As an extra string to your bow?’

  He shook his head. ‘Number crunching? I’d be so bad at it, Carol. I’d spend all my time arguing with the computer. It’s bad enough that I talk to myself, without bringing inanimate objects into the equation.’

  Ewan’s journey to the bus stop was uneventful. He showed no sign of having noticed any of the watchers. Two of them boarded the bus with him - a middle-aged woman in a raincoat and a young man with a leather jacket and a scarlet baseball cap pulled low over his face. Carol made a phone call as the bus drew away. There were two detectives already in Barrowden. One would catch the bus there, the other would narrowly miss it and hang around studying the timetable in the shelter. They assured her they were both in place and there was no sign of life in the village apart from two old men playing dominoes in the pub.

  ‘This isn’t going to be easy,’ Carol said to Tony. ‘I took a recce out there last night and it’s like a bloody ghost town. Four streets, a village shop that shuts at six o’clock and a pub that you wouldn’t use if there was another option. We’re going to have to hang well back.’

  ‘Are you going to put more walkers on the ground?’

  ‘No. We’ve got the two on the bus, they’ll be getting off at Barrowden. She’s going to the pub, he’s going to stop and chat to the bus-misser. Any more than that and it starts to look suspicious. We’ve also put a camera in the ivy on the Wesleyan chapel.’ She pointed behind him. He turned to see a monochrome monitor. It showed a plexiglass bus shelter from behind and the gable end of the pub. Apart from the man standing in the bus shelter there was no sign of life.