Heath paused while the sheets were passed around. Then he began again: ‘There was another poison there, too. They tested for the same stuff that was at the earlier scene and they found it; the fish left in the bowl was laced with pesticide, like the apple at the first scene and the bread at the second. That wasn’t all.’ He looked suddenly very tired.
‘They also found the remains of a capsule in her mouth. She had swallowed most of the contents, but it contained more organic matter, traces of the same alkaloid as from the hemlock. He’d planted it there. They think it burst when her head was tilted back to give her mouth-to-mouth; it’s lucky the guy doing it didn’t end up in trouble himself. At any rate, we’re unlikely to ever know whether it was the extra dose that finally killed her or if the time of death is a coincidence – or indeed if she wasn’t dead already.’
Cate stared at him. The man who’d found the body – Gerry – he’d given Ellen Robertson the kiss of life. But instead of waking, she died.
Heath met her gaze and she knew what he was thinking. Unconsciously, she rubbed her cheek. The bastard set this up: Sleeping Beauty, condemned with the kiss that was meant to save her.
It’s like the killer is laughing at you. Making some kind of point.
She had that odd feeling that she should be able to reach out and touch the answer, if she only knew the right way to see it.
But Heath had moved on. He cleared his throat, then said, ‘Now, she’s been poisoned, she’s unconscious. According to our expert in folk tales this could have been the point where the killer raped her, like the prince in the story getting his bride pregnant. However, early indications show that isn’t what happened. There are no signs of sexual assault.’
Heath paused.
Cate couldn’t hear him draw a breath, but she saw it in the rise and fall of his shoulders. Whatever was coming next, he was finding it difficult.
‘But she was pregnant,’ he said.
There was a rush of exclamations, people shifting in their seats, and he held up a hand and quieted the room. ‘I know what you’re thinking: that the bastard knew her. That he picked her because she fitted the story he wanted to tell, as recounted to me yesterday by Ms Hyland, and as I told it to you. It isn’t that simple.’ He drew a breath. ‘There is a strong possibility that Mrs Robertson didn’t know she was pregnant. I spoke to her husband earlier and he said they’d been trying for months. He had no reason to believe his wife wouldn’t have told him if she’d found out she was having a baby. Of course, she may have had reasons he knew nothing about, but there were no odd changes in her behaviour, nothing like that. He was quite sure she didn’t know.’ He looked at Cate. ‘We need to speak to her friends and her family, but we have to proceed with the understanding that it could be a coincidence. It could be someone she knew, but it might also have been a complete stranger.’
CHAPTER THIRTY
Alice stood staring into space while the hold music played in her ear. She couldn’t straighten her thoughts; she knew what she wanted to say but wasn’t sure how she wanted to say it. The thought kept slipping away, as if still incomplete. She couldn’t push an image out of her mind: Cate’s expression when she’d seen her previously. There had been something wrong with it. What had they been talking about? She couldn’t really remember. The policewoman hadn’t liked the way Alice had spoken to Heath, and then there was that whole odd thing – It’ll be easier for me to drive, Alice had said, that was it, and Cate had looked as if she’d taken a punch in the stomach.
Alice chewed her lip. She wasn’t sure what it meant, only that there was a growing discomfort in her mind, a worm in the bud.
The hold music cut off and a steady, even voice answered: Cate. Alice took a deep breath and tried to remember what she had wanted to say. ‘I had an idea about the case.’
‘Wonderful.’ Cate’s tone was light, enthusiastic: that was better.
‘I started to think, not about what these killings have in common with these tales, but what they don’t.’
‘Really? And what’s that?’ Now she sounded distracted.
‘They’re dead. All the girls are dead.’
There was silence, then: ‘Is that it? That’s kind of taken as read, isn’t it?’ Cate’s tone was gentle, despite the words. ‘I mean – no death, no killings, no case. Of course that would make our job a lot easier, but—’
‘No – listen, all of the characters that have been chosen – Snow White, Little Red, Sleeping Beauty – are believed dead in the stories, or considered dead, or as close to death as makes no difference. And then they’re brought back to life, but in these variants – these murders – of course, they’re not.
‘Snow White is believed dead to the extent that she’s in her coffin, and yet she’s revived when the poisoned apple is jolted from her throat. Little Red Riding Hood is cut from the wolf’s stomach by the huntsman. Sleeping Beauty is woken with a kiss. It’s like they should have the power of life, but that’s the very thing he takes from them: in the moment of rejuvenation, of transformation, they’re instead condemned to death. And the killer – maybe he sees himself as the prince somehow, or the huntsman, the one with the power to confer life on the heroine at the end of the tale, except he chooses not to.’
‘Didn’t you think the killer was a woman?’
‘I – I did.’ Alice paused. ‘No, you’re right, that does make sense too. There’s always an evil stepmother or queen or something. Damn it. You can read this in so many ways.’ She fell silent. ‘It’s just, I felt like I’d seen something, you know? And I started thinking about the way he’s subverted the tales, and that was the thing I couldn’t get out of my mind: their deaths. It’s so final. In fairy tales there’s always magic – the happy ending, a lot of the time, anyway. I think that’s what I loved about them when I was little.’
‘And yet they’re red in tooth and claw.’
Slowly Alice said, ‘Yes. Yes, they are.’
Cate didn’t answer.
After a while, Alice spoke. ‘I’m sorry. This made sense when I called you, or seemed to anyway. I think maybe I’m getting too involved with this. It’s getting to me, that’s all.’
‘No, it’s all right,’ said Cate. ‘Of course we appreciate your help. I want you to call me whenever you feel the need – even if you just want to talk. I know this has been difficult.’ She paused. ‘Actually, there’s something else I wanted to ask you about. There was more poison found at this crime scene too, and not something that was in the variants of the stories you mentioned. Can you think of any reason why the fish should have been poisoned?’
Alice shook her head, then realised the other woman couldn’t see her. ‘Not one.’
‘Are you sure? There’s nothing you haven’t mentioned – nothing you’re keeping back?’
This time it was Alice who was silent.
‘It’s another departure, isn’t it, from the stories? The poisoned bread at the second scene, and the poisoned apple at the first.’
‘No,’ Alice said faintly, ‘there was a poisoned apple in Snow White.’ She stirred, looked around at the papers strewn across her table. They didn’t mean anything to her any more. She murmured something as Cate said goodbye, sounds that weren’t quite words. She didn’t know what to think. Keeping something back? Why would she? She’d helped with this case, given her time and her knowledge, and now – she remembered the vague thought she’d had during the conversation. Cate’s tone had been kind, almost forcedly so. And then the policewoman had pushed her to speak with her silence, had played her own words back to her: red in tooth and claw. That was the way they worked, wasn’t it? The police would try to trip people using their own words, probe their statements until something bled. When that person was being interrogated. When they were a suspect.
Alice replaced the phone into its cradle, turned her back on it. There were hot, angry tears in her eyes, and she wasn’t sure how they had got there. She must be wrong – she was overwrought, that was all. She put
her hand to her face. She had thought she had known where she was going, that she was the one with the expertise, in control. Now it felt as if she had left the path a long time before, had been wandering in the forest without even noticing.
That made her think of something, and she slipped her hand into her pocket. Waiting there was the gift the blue bird had given her. She didn’t remove it, but in her mind’s eye she could see its exact shade, and as she ran her fingertips across it she became calmer at once. It was as if the bird had become her guide, her anchor, a reminder of better times. She needed it; it made her feel better.
She took a deep breath. She should centre herself, go back to doing the things that made her truly her. She needed to forget this for a while, forget about death and ugliness. She would do her job, catch up with some reading. Maybe she’d even read the tale of the blue bird, relive its transformation into its true self, Prince Charming, bringing jewels, a marriage, a happily-ever-after.
She smiled and her eyes went distant. If only things in life were so easy. People in stories had adventures, they experienced life and death and everything in between, but it all turned out all right in the end. And they barely ever seemed to feel as alone as she did now.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Cate stared at the morning newspapers, flipping through the headlines: WOLF STRIKES AGAIN. BEWARE THE LONE WOLF. WOLF KILLER LEAVES THE WOODS. She had seen it coming, but it still didn’t feel quite real. She threw them aside and rubbed the grime of newsprint from her fingers. She had to focus on the investigation, although it was a puzzle she couldn’t solve: nothing connected.
She had checked with Dan and found that Heath had already had the team examine old cases going back for years. They had found nothing to fit, nothing that even remotely related to what was happening here. They’d also been trying to make connections between the dead girls: Chrissie Farrell, Teresa King and Ellen Robertson. What did a local teenager, a Leeds prostitute and a housewife have in common? Nothing that they could find.
The profiler was having difficulty piecing together anything meaningful too. Cate had seen the report, and it contained a lot of words but little to go on: he suggested the killer was likely to be male because of the physical strength required, but couldn’t rule out a female because of the knowledge of fairy tales. They were likely to be from a dysfunctional family, with a domineering mother and a father who was either also domineering or ineffectual, possibly absent. He – or she – could have suffered some trauma at a young age, possibly involving being exposed to a dead body; that could have been a reason for them to find a refuge in fairy tales. It was also likely they had difficulties in forming relationships. In short, there was nothing at all that could help them identify a suspect. The profile would merely be something to compare them with, after they’d found them.
Chrissie, a young beauty in her first blossom. Teresa, embarked on the path of needles. Ellen, a young bride – that was like something in a fairy tale too, wasn’t it? Didn’t most of them end with a happy marriage? For Ellen, though, it had only been the beginning. She hadn’t had a chance to make much out of it yet; there had been few new friends, few known acquaintances. Most of her connections lay miles away, in her past.
Cate sighed and tried to turn her thoughts in a more productive direction. She’d thought they’d catch the killer through their obsession with stories, but maybe that wasn’t it; perhaps she needed to think more about the practicalities, things that were concrete. She half closed her eyes, picturing the beautiful Chrissie in her ball dress; Ellen Robertson, an attractive woman, well dressed and manicured; and Teresa King, a painted girl leaning against a wall. Is that how they’d appeared from the perspective of the killer, the wolf on the prowl? Maybe the way to catch them would be to understand how the victims had been chosen, what it was that connected them.
Cate frowned. The killer, whether male or female, had had to abscond with the victims somehow. Teresa King had quite possibly got into a car willingly, but with the others it would most likely have required strength. Had Chrissie Farrell gone with someone of her own volition? She’d been drunk when she’d left the dance, which would make it more likely. Ellen Robertson had apparently walked out of her house and vanished, at least until she was found dumped in the castle moat; the intervening time was a blank. There were signs of force, though – blows to Teresa’s face and Ellen’s head, and those ligature marks. The bodies must also have been moved some distance. He might have found it impossible to get Ellen up to the top of the motte, but the arboretum where Teresa had been found was still some way away from the nearest vehicular access; although that had been done at night and under cover. Chrissie, the first victim, had been left practically at the roadside. Had the killer been getting more ambitious each time, only to find his ideas had overreached his capabilities at last?
She stared down at her hands. Oddly, she found words running through her mind, something that Alice had said: My mother isn’t well – she doesn’t remember much. She’s in a home now.
Why had that come to mind? She frowned. Hadn’t Alice said she’d cared for her mother, before she had to send her away? But how much, and what kind of care? Perhaps she’d had to lift the old lady, so she knew the best techniques for doing so. No – what else had Alice said to her? I couldn’t really cope with her on my own.
Of course she couldn’t. No, the problem wasn’t with Alice. Her current ambivalence towards her was surely more to do with the way she’d felt when Alice had mentioned her car – not so much irritated by the possibilities it raised as by the fact that she hadn’t even considered it. She’d made an assumption. More than that, it was to do with the way Stocky had looked at her when she’d asked him to keep Alice’s presence at the lake off the record. She couldn’t blame Alice for that. Besides, she was her liaison now; she had a responsibility for her.
But the girls had been lured away, or snatched, or possibly some combination of both. The first two would have been straightforward – a helping hand offered to Chrissie, like a white knight offering rescue. For Teresa, just another job. And for Ellen – what? An unexpected caller, asking for help with some feigned crisis? There had been no sign of struggle, not at the house anyway; only those bruises left on her body, which suggested the battle had taken place elsewhere. The husband had got the same impression too, and he knew her best, after all. What had he said? She must have opened the door. The alarm hadn’t been set, the house was empty.
The alarm. Cate frowned. The teacher, Matt Cosgrove, had been trying to set an alarm when he’d been held up at the dance, hadn’t he? An alarm that wouldn’t set properly, that kept going off. She shook her head. It was a spurious connection: as Heath said, she could find suspicion anywhere if she looked hard enough. And he was right, there was no real link: the Robertsons’ alarm hadn’t been set because Ellen had been at home, inside, supposedly safe. Cosgrove’s hadn’t set because – why, exactly? Had they ever even asked?
There could have been any number of reasons. He might have put the number in wrongly, or not hit the right buttons to activate it. Maybe something had been distracting him, making him clumsy. Or there might have been windows or doors left open; something to trigger any movement sensors dotted around the building.
Or maybe someone was still inside. That would have tripped the movement sensors too.
She rubbed her forehead. There couldn’t have been anyone there, could there? The girl she’d questioned, Hayley Moorhouse, had said she was the last, that she was only still there because her boyfriend had been sick in the toilets. And she’d waved to Mr Cosgrove as she’d left; yes, that was it, because her father had been waiting outside in the car and he’d been angry. She could still see the way he’d fidgeted through the interview, picking at his fingernails.
He went ballistic about the time as it was.
No. There was something wrong with that picture. The man had been impatient, yes, but Hayley hadn’t said that, had she? She’d said something else. She’d told
Cate how he’d waited, and – she couldn’t remember the words, but she could remember the look the girl had given her father. It had been too apologetic, too respectful to go with those words.
He went ballistic about the time as it was.
Then she remembered: it hadn’t been Hayley Moorhouse who’d said that, it had been someone else, another girl, one who quite possibly harboured feelings of jealousy towards Chrissie Farrell. It had been Sarah: Sarah Brailsford.
Cate closed her eyes. She felt sick. She had spoken to the girl herself, and there was something there that she had missed. She could feel it: something she should have seen. He went ballistic about the time as it was. Why so? According to all accounts the dance had finished on time, and Hayley had corroborated that; she’d been held up, but everyone else had left. If Sarah left on time, why would her father have been so angry? Unless he’d set some early curfew on his child. But she had appeared to Cate to be an outgoing, confident young woman; someone who’d been hoping for a shot of the other girls’ tequila, not wrapped in cotton wool. She’d struck her as someone her peers would be glad to gather into their clique – except Chrissie Farrell, maybe.
And why was that, exactly?
She remembered something else the girl had said when she had pushed her, applied a little pressure; and she remembered the way she’d looked away when she said it.
I thought he liked me too.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Alice picked out the Green Fairy Book from her shelf. Somewhere within its pages was the blue bird’s tale. First, though, she reached for another book and leafed to an old poem by Charles Perrault, a collector of fairy tales born in seventeenth-century France. The lines were his own addition to ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, his variant of the story influenced by his own moralistic interpretation of the tale:
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