by J. F. Kirwan
Yes, let’s! A live webcam in his fucking home. In the room where he spent most of his life these days, staring at his own personal evidence board. Someone watching his every move, his slow disintegration, his rages, his private grief, his Russian Roulette escapade. Maybe the timing of Fergus’s call hadn’t been a coincidence. But that wasn’t where Greg wanted to start.
‘How long has it been there?’
Donaldson cracked the knuckles of one fist, then the other. ‘Months.’
‘But not years.’
Donaldson sat back. ‘After, Greg. It must have been installed after Kate’s murder. We swept the place thoroughly, including electronically, during the investigation. It wasn’t there a year ago.’
Greg relaxed a notch. Half a notch. Because his mind connected two pieces of information. He met Donaldson’s eyes, then flicked his own to the microphone, because the conversation was being recorded. Donaldson sighed and gestured to someone behind the one-way mirror by discretely drawing an imaginary line across his neck with his forefinger. Greg glanced at the mike. A small green light changed to red.
Greg spoke quietly. ‘Whoever planted the camera, and whoever got the code for my bracelet, could be one and the same person.’
Donaldson grunted.
Good. They were on the same page. ‘Someone at the original crime scene, maybe?’
Donaldson leaned forward. ‘Stick to your job, Greg. I’ll do mine.’
‘The evidence board–’ Greg began, because it needed to be updated.
‘We’re working on it. Stay away from there for now.’
Greg tightened again. ‘I need–’
‘To take a breath, step back, apply all those trite psychobabble aphorisms to yourself.’ Donaldson trawled pudgy fingers through his lank hair. He motioned to the mirror, and the light on the mike flipped to green. ‘Finch wants you off the streets.’
‘For my own good?’
‘I’m not far behind her, Greg, and Rickard’s out in front. This is some serious shit we’re dealing with.’
Greg let it sit a while. ‘I need my stuff from the Evidence Room. And then I need to go see an old acquaintance at Reedmoor.’
Donaldson grimaced. ‘Finch goes with you.’
‘Won’t work, you know that.’
Donaldson said nothing, then fished around in his pockets, dug out a bundle of something black with flesh-coloured wire and tossed it on the table. ‘Don’t switch it off during the interview.’
Greg gathered it up and put it in his pocket.
‘We’re done here.’ Donaldson said, doing the line-across-neck thing again. The mike switched off. ‘Which one are you going to see?’ he asked.
‘The Painter.’
Donaldson put on one of his unhappy faces. Greg had once made a scale of one to seven for Donaldson’s unhappy faces, seven being the worst. This was a five.
‘Why him, and not one of the others?’ He stood up, raked out his chair.
‘Well, aside from the dead ones like The Surgeon and The Torch, not forgetting The Divine’s in a coma…’
‘The Reaper might be more cooperative,’ Donaldson finished, tucking the chair seat back under the desk.
‘Agreed, but I don’t think he’ll have any useful intel. The Reaper was a loner. The Painter was a socialite. Pretty unusual for a serial killer; it’s hard to keep hiding things from everyone.’
‘Last time I checked there wasn’t a Facebook page with Serial-Killers-R-Us on it.’ Donaldson was heading for the door.
Greg shook his head as he rose. ‘That’s not it. The Painter always wanted to be the smartest in the room. Always looking for information. He wanted to be the top serial killer.’
Donaldson’s hand was on the door handle, but he didn’t open it. ‘How so?’
‘When I was interrogating him last time, he’d been inside a while. He asked what The Dreamer’s ‘score’ was.’
‘Did you tell him?’
Greg nodded. ‘To see his reaction.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ Donaldson said, turning his back to the door and leaning against it. ‘If memory serves me, The Dreamer killed one more than The Painter, right?’
‘If we include Kate.’
He grunted again. ‘You’d better talk to him. How do you plan to draw him out?’ Donaldson turned once more and opened the door. Fresher air and the hubbub of office life wafted in.
‘Stick to your job, I’ll do mine,’ Greg said with a smile, then added in a more serious tone, ‘Good luck with Raj.’
‘Yeah, when he turns up. Thanks for tipping him off, by the way. Real helpful.’ He plodded to the lift, pressed the button.
Greg stared straight ahead, the wheels in his head accelerating. If Raj had gone AWOL… ‘How long have I got?’
The lift pinged and the doors opened. Donaldson stepped inside.
The doors began to close. ‘Twenty-four hours if he’s a no-show.’
‘Find him,’ Greg said, as the doors sealed. He suddenly didn’t want anything to happen to Raj. Despite everything, Raj was one of his last connections with Kate.
He went to find Finch.
Before they set off, he nipped out to a nearby shop to pick up a package. Something to draw out The Painter, whose true name was Boris Skiner, murderer of six young gay men.
14
Finch was driving. Not a problem. Smooth, unhurried, didn’t react when someone cut in front of her, even though Greg flinched and thrust his right foot down on the floor exactly where the brake pedal wasn’t. He studied her. He knew absolutely nothing about her – not even her first name – except that she was good at her job. Very good. Without meaning to, he began to profile her. Probably single, workaholic, running from something in her past or present. Likely blocked in her career or held back simply because she was female and the upper echelons of the police force were largely – despite all protestations – an Old Boys’ network. He stopped analysing and went back to his original premise.
He knew nothing about her.
‘Stop staring,’ she said.
Good peripheral vision, too. Eyes forward, he saw the motorway exit sign up ahead. She wasn’t using GPS. She knew where Reedmoor was. As did he. They pulled off. There was a shortcut at the second roundabout on account of an old construction site. He wondered if she’d take it. She did. He thought about making small talk, but wasn’t in the mood and doubted she was either. They wound their way through a village and then along country lanes, their speed always a trickle above the legal limit. She anticipated when a tractor swung out onto the road in front of them, neatly swerved around it and acknowledged the driver’s apology with a small hand gesture the farmer couldn’t possibly see, her palms never leaving the steering wheel.
They slowed down, finally approaching the signpost for the most infamous mental hospital in the UK. As they turned a sharp bend, the small, self-contained redbrick town that was Reedmoor Psychiatric Institution reared up behind its surrounding barbed-wire-topped grey wall. There was even a stubby watch tower. Reedmoor was the stuff of myth and misconception, and had its own shady history. He felt a gnawing in his gut, one he knew wouldn’t go away until Reedmoor Mental Hospital was in the rear-view mirror.
‘Passport,’ Finch said, holding out her hand as they approached the sturdier-than-usual barrier.
The armed security guard checked their IDs, gave them a once-over, walked around the car, released the boot catch and had a poke around inside, while another guard used a low-slung, mirror-on-wheels contraption to check under the vehicle.
The barrier rose, and they moved on through a set of high metal gates. All that was missing was a portcullis. Greg heard a keening screech and caught sight of an eagle.
‘For drones,’ Finch said.
He’d heard about that. Outsiders sending lightweight drones over the wall to deliver drugs, cigarettes, phones, you name it. Automated laser defences were prohibitively expensive and still far less effective than the sharp eyes and talons of a trained eagl
e.
They came to a secure car park and passed through yet another security station. The rest of the trip was on foot, via two sets of body scanners. The device Donaldson had given him – a wire – elicited a raised eyebrow from one of the guards, but only for a moment. The square package he’d picked up earlier went through the scanner without a blip. They let him keep his phone, which was unusual given he was headed to the high security ward. Greg felt compelled to ask, but the only response he got was ‘Governor’s discretion’. He didn’t push it.
Greg expected an argument with Finch over the interview – she had to be there, etc., but as soon as they were checked through the final barrier, she headed off in the opposite direction as though she had some place to be.
‘One hour,’ she shouted back to him. ‘Be here.’ She vanished around a corner, the sound of her heels reverberating behind her.
‘This way, please, Mr Adams.’ It was Collins, the Governor of Reedmoor. Again, pretty unusual. Very tall, rake-thin and straight-backed with a full head of bone-white hair, Collins walked Greg towards a set of steel bars that opened as he made small hand signals, giving the illusion that he had telepathic control of his prison. He stopped in mid-corridor, when no other guards were around, and they hadn’t yet entered the DSPD – Dangerous Severe Personality Disorder – corridor. It had gone out of fashion for a while, then had re-emerged after the past decade’s spate of serial murders.
‘Something’s going on, Greg. I’d like you to find out what.’
Greg knew Collins. Not that well, but they’d met numerous times, and once had an off-book discussion about the merits of the death penalty. They’d disagreed, except on one point: that certain prisoners should never be allowed outside Reedmoor’s walls. Collins ran a tight ship.
‘What have you noticed?’ Greg asked.
Collins stared toward Corridor H, where the most dangerous criminally insane killers in the country were locked up. The ones we know about, Greg reminded himself. Collins turned to Greg and looked him in the eye.
‘They’re not complaining about anything. Less screaming at night. Fewer staff injuries.’
Greg followed his gaze down the corridor to the thick, stainless-steel door.
‘I don’t like it, Adams. Dig away.’ He produced a small gadget from his pocket and aimed it at the door, emitting a click, followed by a thunk as reassuringly heavy tumblers shifted position, and cogs whirred. It began to open.
‘Do whatever you need to. Find out what’s going on.’
‘I’ll get more out of him if I can talk to him in his cell than in an interview room with a security guard present.’ That was standard protocol.
‘Then do so. I’ll see to the paperwork.’
Greg walked down the corridor. He turned to take one last look behind, but Collins was already walking away. Collins trusted his prison. Hospital, Greg reminded himself. Here to help people. The average stay was several years before rehabilitation into normal life, and most of it was somewhere between an open prison and a military style hospital.
Not corridor H.
A guard stood outside cell – that is, room – H14. The Painter’s room. Greg would have knocked, but the guard simply inserted the key and pushed open the door.
The room was compact. Bed, tiny sofa, table with some books on it and a chair, a private bathroom cubicle, a chest of drawers with a small oval non-glass mirror, a window that could be tilted open a fraction. No TV. That was in the common room, a privilege that could be granted or taken away, a small but important piece of leverage.
‘Why, Gregory. How nice to see you again. Looking fit, I see. Still practising yoga?’
Boris was leaning against the wall, hands behind his back, wearing chinos, a white-and-grey striped T-shirt and a pale green jacket. He looked… dapper. That was the way the only survivor had described him. The description fitted: Boris was an anachronism, a dandy from another epoch. Clean-shaven, in his late forties, a good head of hair he cut himself. He’d been a predator at gay nightclubs, taken men back to his place where he’d offered to paint them. He had, but only after killing them, always by strangulation. The Painter was stronger than he looked. He’d said at his trial that if you wanted to see the real person, what was on the inside, you had to squeeze until it came out. That single statement quashed the defence attorney’s feeble efforts and led to one of the fastest jury verdicts for multiple murders in UK judicial history.
‘Boris,’ Greg said. He sat on the edge of the sofa.
Boris pulled out his chair from the table and sat near Greg.
‘Not too close,’ Greg said.
Boris laughed in a disarming way, and Greg could see how all those young men fell for it, seduced by this monster. At least the case had been given priority; someone high up in government had lost their lover to Boris. After that, the gloves had come off.
‘You know, I’d love to paint you, Gregory. Such a manly face.’
Greg felt his stomach muscles tighten. He gripped the square package on his lap a little harder, because he was about to break Rule Number One: never play their games. But first he needed to test his hypothesis.
‘The Dreamer is dead,’ he said flatly.
Boris’s smile faltered, just a twitch, but it was there.
He’d known.
Boris got up and walked to the window, his back to Greg. ‘Still smart,’ he said, ‘catching me out like that. I must be losing my touch. Not surprising when all I have for company is a couple of guards.’
Greg didn’t dare consider for a moment that Boris – The Painter, a relentless killer – had lost his touch. That was a ploy, not just for him, but for the governing board who would see endless reports of good behaviour. The model inmate.
Greg said nothing.
‘I think you should leave,’ Boris said.
Power play. A countermove, to try to gain the upper hand, or at least equal footing. Always competitive. Dominant, too. He’d always selected submissive lovers.
Yet it was an effective gambit, because the rules protected the inmates. If he said Greg should leave he’d have to leave. One call to the guard was all that was needed.
Greg removed the contents from the bag, leaned forward, and placed them on the table.
‘Are you sure?’ he said.
Boris turned around, his eyes alighting on the drawing pad and thick-leaded pencil Greg had just placed there. Boris moved quickly and purposefully, like a drug addict prepping his next shot of heroin. He sat down, flipped open the book, seized the pencil in his fist. He closed his eyes and held the fresh vellum paper – his preferred medium for sketches – to his nose and inhaled. Then he leant back and began drawing in fast, practised strokes.
Greg had little doubt about the subject of the drawing, and although this was the plan all along, he felt a shiver. The Painter only ever drew dead people.
‘How did you know?’ he asked Boris.
Boris continued drawing in a frenzied fashion, but his voice remained calm. ‘Old boys serial killers network, don’t you know.’
Greg had to take a risk. Collins would never allow it, and Boris would guess that, but still… ‘If you give me something, Boris, I’ll let you keep the pad.’
The pencil paused mid-stroke. He flicked through the pages, probably calculating how many he could use or hide before they were confiscated.
‘You know something about who killed The Dreamer,’ Greg said.
This time no flinch, no giveaway ‘tell’, just those pale blue eyes, eyes that inspired trust, eyes The Painter had used as bait.
Greg waited. He was on the clock, but didn’t look at his watch. Boris said nothing, just stared. Yet Greg could feel it coming. After all, sitting in prison gave you all the time in the world to prepare speeches.
The Painter’s voice lost its almost boyish lilt and deepened. No, it darkened. ‘You won round one, Gregory.’
Here we go.
‘You used my paintings against me.’
‘I got luc
ky,’ Greg said.
‘You and I both love contemporary modern art. You saw several of my masterpieces close up–’
Greg tried not to wince, because Boris wasn’t talking about the paintings…
‘And recognised a similarity to several works by Francis Bacon.’
‘As I said, I got lucky.’
‘Why the false modesty? You had to do a lot of detective work to find me and get a search warrant to break into my workshop.’
Half true. Greg had spent a lot of time trying to profile and then track down an art connoisseur who might also be a murderer, and had finally met Boris at a charity gala evening at Tate Britain. He’d looked into those predatory eyes and known he was the one. Nobody had believed him, so he’d broken into Boris’s workshop and found the evidence. Donaldson had then worked his own magic and produced a search warrant pre-dated by six hours. Thank God it had held up in court.
‘Your point?’ Greg asked.
The sparkle in his eyes returned. He closed the pad and came over and sat down on the sofa, right next to Greg. He made to put a hand on Greg’s shoulder.
Greg felt bile rise in his throat. He knew that Boris was manipulating him, testing him, and it was way too close to how he’d seduced and killed those men. Greg was standing before he’d even thought about it. He stared towards the pad but didn’t approach. Instead he took his turn at the window.
‘You always preferred Lucian Freud,’ Boris said. ‘He and Bacon were fast friends, as you know.’
‘When they weren’t having violent arguments.’
‘Bacon saw the true darkness in the soul, the tortured violence in the human condition, and brought it to the surface. That’s what I do in my work.’
‘Your work…’ Greg said. He stopped himself from finishing the sentence. The Painter’s last victim had been just eighteen. After The Painter was captured, an image of the painting from the crime scene had been leaked to the tabloids. Greg had interviewed the boy’s parents, for once trying to emulate Kate, to help them make sense of something so awful. He’d botched it though, and the father had ended up yelling at him, threatening him with a bread knife while the mother sobbed. Greg had left, guilty at not finding the killer earlier. Greg had won the first round? In a pig’s eye.