by Cross, Drew
‘I’m happy to be here with you, Mead, especially since you’re springing for the bill.’
I chuckled and took another refreshing sip of my lager, watching his eyes twinkle and dimples forming in his cheeks when he returned my grin.
The waiter arrived in a cloud of exotic scented steam before Lee could think up a smart reply, depositing the house special Akhbari Lamb on the table between us with a flourish as more staff arrived with half a dozen brightly coloured side dishes and arranged them all around us. I inhaled deeply, trying to separate out cardamom, ginger and fenugreek, and feeling my mouth start to water copiously.
‘I take it we’re switching our phones off for a change tonight, since we’re enjoying each other’s company so much?’
We had been disturbed on almost every other dinner date that we’d been on, and it had become a kind of running joke between us. Murderers and psychopaths don’t take nights off just so detectives can live some semblance of a life outside of work. We both knew that we’d be leaving our mobiles on discreet just in case there was either an unexpected breakthrough or another murder in the Grey Man case. We both wanted to catch him before another young life was cut horrifically short, and being disturbed over dinner or in bed was a small price to pay for the knowledge that another maniac was off the streets.
‘May I?’
Lee gestured towards the lamb, and I nodded enthusiastically and watched him start to serve up for me. It never ceases to surprise and delight me that behind the smart-arse façade lurks one of the last true gentlemen.
‘I love this place, Lee, it’s like this guy I know from work, straight-forward and non-showy on first glance, but with hidden surprises underneath.’
I forked a mouthful of succulent spiced lamb and pilau rice into my mouth and started to chew with a cheeky wink.
‘You left out the hot and tasty parts too, and, like the food, I’m guaranteed to make you sweat.’
He offered me a wink of his own in return and spooned chilli pickle onto a crisp poppadum for himself.
‘So what did you think of Russell’s performance?’
He asked, referring to the farcical press release.
‘I think he looked like we all felt. Uncomfortable and unhappy with the details we’ve just been asked to release, but all in all he held it together pretty well. I’m still trying to get my head around how Hardwick’s got this so apparently wrong though. His credentials are impeccable, and his previous psych evaluations have been spookily accurate. Did you know that the gutter press ran an article on him half a dozen years back after he helped out in a big case and he sued them over it?’
He shook his head and I carried on.
‘They compared him to the people he was helping to catch. Implied that it takes one to know one and dug up all kinds of dirt from his past.’
I paused and sampled the Bombay potatoes, moist, fragrant and with a subtle kick on the aftertaste, easily the best I’ve tasted outside of Birmingham’s famed Balti triangle.
‘Great food and no disturbances so far, wonders will never cease. We might even manage dessert at this rate.’
I raised an eyebrow holding his gaze with unconcealed intent, purposefully moving the conversation away from work, as a slow knowing smile crept across his face.
‘Detective Inspector, I want you to know that I will be only too happy to fully fulfil all of my duties with due care and diligence.’
I took another swallow of beer before I replied.
‘That’s pleasing to hear, of course. Although as the senior officer here, there’s still an awful lot that I need to teach you. It’s likely to be a long, hard, night.’
Chapter 11
The phone rang at seven thirty and dragged me back to a state of reluctant consciousness. I felt heavy limbed and still half-saturated with lager and red wine from the previous nights festivities with Lee, and my head had developed a heartbeat all of its own. I could hear Lee singing in the shower, and my puerile mind quickly made a quip about early risers. He never seemed to suffer the way that I did after a night of over indulgence, but then again he was still only a baby at side of me, I reflected bitterly.
'Damn it!'
I stumbled clumsily into the bedroom doorframe and bashed my shoulder hard enough to bring tears to the corners of my eyes, but at least it woke me up enough to slide unsteadily down the stairs, clutching onto the banister for support.
'I'm coming, I'm coming for Christ's sake!'
I shouted at the insistent ringing from the hallway.
'What?'
I answered the phone aggressively, forgoing my usual pleasantries in annoyance. My number was ex-directory and registered with the Telephone Preference Service, so it couldn't be a random sales call. Who the hell rang at seven thirty on a Sunday anyway?
'Wow! Nice to speak to you too big sis. Didn't wake you up did I?'
My baby sister Emily's voice emanated from the receiver and my heart sank.
'Whatever gave you that impression? After all it's practically the middle of the day.'
I knew as I spoke that the sarcasm would be wasted on her, she's as immune to it as she is to insults.
'Good. I've been up since six with the kids as usual, no rest for the wicked. Have you been drinking, you sound kind of slurry?'
I sighed deeply, rubbing at my temple with my free hand and silently praying for her to emigrate some time very soon.
'No, I had a stroke when I heard your voice coming down my phone. Have you called for anything in particular, or just out of concern about my drinking habits?'
Lee emerged from the bathroom and started to come down the stairs with a cream coloured bath towel wrapped around his waist. He caught me admiring his toned torso as he passed, and promptly whipped the towel away to give me a view of his bare backside, prompting my first grin of the day in spite of how I was feeling.
'David's gone and left me again. Can I come and stay with you for a few days?'
She spoke matter of factly, this would be the third time that her cheating rat of a husband had walked away and we were all starting to get used to the cycle. Even Mum and Dad had started to come round to my viewpoint and had recently started telling Emily that she was better off without him. I couldn't understand what she'd seen in him in the first place. He was habitually arrogant, aloof and cold towards virtually everybody around him, and I'd made no secret of the fact that I didn't like him on the few occasions when we'd been forced to spend time together. His family were little better, with his father expecting his poor downtrodden mother to run around after them all like a good little wifey. But then I guess some people seem happier that way.
'What about the children? I don't exactly have acres of space around here, as you know.'
I wondered why she hadn't gone to our parents place like last time, but after their change of heart about David I thought that might be at least part of the answer.
'They're staying with David's parents for the time being while we both get away for a few days to think about our future. So can I stay? You know I wouldn't ask if I wasn't desperate.'
I heard the coffee maker coming to the boil through in the kitchen and I wobbled before finally caving in.
'Okay, but just for a few days. I'm in the middle of a big murder enquiry and I don't have time to sit in and deal with your problems for you.'
I put the receiver back down so I wouldn't have to listen to her gratitude and wandered through to pour myself an industrial sized mug of coffee and to break the news to Lee.
Why am I such a bloody push over?
Chapter 12
The Grey Man pushed his foot down a touch harder on the accelerator and the new silver Jaguar XKR surged forward in response. He was usually as careful with his driving as he was with all other aspects of his life. It didn't pay to draw attention to yourself unnecessarily when your main hobby was the killing and eating other people. But he was a significant distance from civilisation on a single track country lane, so the risk of be
ing caught speeding was a small one.
The plan had been to scope out possible suitable settings for his next little soiree, but there had been disturbing developments in the police investigation that were playing on his mind. Now he found himself, for once, largely ignoring the vivid expanse of varying greens blurring past the windows on either side.
The biggest problem lay in the press release, which he'd awaited with growing excitement and anticipation. This would be the time when the famed Doctor Alan Hardwick entered the fray and gave an eerily accurate description of the Grey Man for all to hear. Then the games could really begin. On the evening of the scheduled broadcast he'd booked himself into a boutique hotel for the evening, making excuses about an unplanned business trip to Madeleine, and packing a modest overnight bag. She had accepted his explanation without question or complaint, of course. His sudden absences were frequent enough that they no longer raised any eyebrows and he'd been free to lay his mask to one side for a while.
‘His rage towards women in general has manifested itself in the past, resulting in incarceration and likely contact with the mental health authorities. Contrary to some of the speculation in the media, we believe that he is of no more than average intelligence.’
The words had bounced around inside the dark recesses of his mind until he finally skewered them in place and began to carefully dissect them. Was it possible that the great Doctor Hardwick had him down as a garden variety lunatic? A deranged, dribbling, uncontrolled sadist lashing out at any woman who crossed his path, and who existed in police records for his prior offences?
He'd obtained copies of each of Hardwick's previous books, even taking the trouble to get them personally signed, feeling immortal as he'd watched one of the world's foremost authorities on serial killers look him in the face from a mere three feet away on two separate occasions, and still not see him for what he was. He'd pawed over them for hours, marvelling at the powers of deductive reasoning that had undone some of the greats and brought their bloody sprees to an end. He was a worthier adversary than the rest of them put together, perhaps the most dangerous one who had ever lived. How dare the man disrespect him in this manner?
The Grey Man snapped back into the present, brushing away the cobwebs of remembrance and slowing the car back down again at the sight of a flock of young sheep crossing the road a hundred yards ahead. The flat-capped shepherd raised a hand in acknowledgement as he came to a complete halt, and he fiddled with the radio channels to kill time while the animals clambered all over each other to get through a break in the dry stone wall. It was a well worn cliché, but people were indeed like sheep, they lived in a state of constant neuroticism, and the whole lot of them could be scattered in panic by the presence of just one predator in their midst.
The more he considered it, the more unlikely it seemed that the esteemed Alan Hardwick could have gotten his evaluation so obviously wrong. They were beginning to forget how much they should fear him, and that meant it was time to scatter the flock again. It was time to pay the Doctor a visit.
Chapter 13
Unable to shake off my grave concerns about the psychological profile of the Grey Man that Doctor Hardwick had provided, I had made an appointment to meet with him at his home office in the Coventry countryside near Ryton on Dunsmore. The surrounding greenery on the short drive out, with golden sunlight streaming across rolling open fields, made a welcome change from my usual airless windowless surroundings lit only by flickering fluorescent strip lights, but soon had me reaching for my sunglasses. Evidently I'd have to start finding more reasons to get away from my desk before I started growing fangs and anaemia set in.
His home was practically an estate, with electronic gated access that necessitated me climbing out of my car and announcing my presence, before I was permitted to drive along the winding gravelled driveway. The house itself told me I should have concentrated harder at school, being as it was, a grand example of what bespoke architecture and a bottomless wallet can achieve together. I brought the car to a gentle standstill and stepped out, dropping my sunglasses on the driver's seat, and taking in the view of floor to ceiling glass held in place by a network of thick oak beams.
The front door was already opening before I'd even completed my appraisal, and the Doctor's wife, a tiny pale smiling lady with a waist so improbably small that I thought I could get two hands to meet around it if I wished, bounded energetically into view.
'Good morning, you must be Zara.'
I locked the car, immediately wondering why I was bothering in such surroundings, there was infinitely more likelihood of it being broken into on my own doorstep than here.
'Yes, guilty as charged, Mrs Hardwick.'
I jogged up half a dozen gleaming wooden steps to greet her, offering my outstretched hand.
'Please call me Anne, Mrs Hardwick makes me feel every single year of my age.'
She ignored my hand and instead opted to pull me into an unexpectedly tight hug, forcing me to stoop to accommodate her and enveloping me in a cloud of floral perfume tinged with something chemical that I couldn't place.
'Well thank you for making me feel so welcome here already, Anne. From the outside your home is really quite something. I'm starting to feel guilty for bothering your husband on what is probably a fool's errand.'
I delicately extricated myself from her insistent grasp and put some space between us, and noticed for the first time how glassy her stare was, as if she was intoxicated despite the hour.
'Oh the Doctor won't mind. He's big on investigators following up their hunches, he's even started research on it to try to isolate what that intangible factor is that experienced detectives seem to have which points them in the right direction time and time again. Yes, the house is rather lovely, we had it built to our own specifications in fact, it's just a shame that we'll be moving out soon.'
I barely had time to process the strange formality in how she'd referred to her husband, when her face suddenly dropped and panic bloomed in her eyes.
'Oh my! Here's me keeping you standing on the doorstep waiting when he's expecting you.'
She grabbed hold of my hand and practically pulled me into the house, shutting the door behind us with a bang. Then started to usher me quickly through the hallway, with its galleried staircase, and towards the rear of the property.
'The Doctor has an office down at the end of this inner hallway here.'
She stopped at the head of the passageway and pointed, clearly expecting me to continue onwards alone.
'Thank you, Anne. Can I just ask why you're planning on moving home? I mean, if I had a place as beautiful as this I can't imagine ever wanting to leave.'
The question hung in the air for a long moment before a deeper voice answered on Anne's behalf.
'That's what I like to see, a detective who can't break the investigative habit, even with their colleagues. With your successful track record I sincerely hope I'm not on your list of suspects, Ms Wade?'
Chapter 14
I felt my face working up to a scarlet glow as I sheepishly turned round to meet Alan Hardwick. I'd been caught in the act of crossing a line by digging into his private life and we both knew it.
'I am so sorry Doctor Hardwick, it was force of habit, and a bad habit at that. Shall we retire to your office so I can grovel?'
He didn't seem to be overly concerned by my questioning of Anne and laughed at my response.
'There's really no need, Detective Chief Inspector, I know you meant no harm by it. Follow me this way if you please?'
The Doctor made a sweeping motion with his chubby arm and waited for me to fall in step beside him, I noticed that he was four or five inches shorter than my five foot ten and that he had a purplish coloured birthmark shaped like South America in the middle of the expanding bald spot on top of his head. He stayed silent until we entered his study.
'Please have a seat and tell me what it is that's bothering you?'
He shut the door and manoeuvred hims
elf into a leather, high-backed, swivel chair that was raised up high enough to allow him to look down on me.
'Coffee?'
He gestured towards a shining, silver, Gaggia coffee machine perched on his desk and I nodded enthusiastically.
'Yes please. As for why I'm here, I alluded to it on the phone, but I'd rather be completely blunt if that's okay with you?'
I watched him as he carefully organised my drink, placing the cup on a fancy looking saucer to catch any spills. He's fastidious to a fault, not at all like the kind of person to put out a report that he wasn't entirely happy with.
'I get enough evasiveness from my charges during the course of a normal working day, if indeed you can call any day in Forensic Psychology entirely normal. Be as blunt as you like Detective.'
He smiled displaying slightly stained and crooked front teeth, which were at odds with the rest of his immaculate presentation.
'Okay. I disagree with your psych evaluation of the offender that we're calling the Grey Man. It doesn't concur with the modest amount of other evidence that we've obtained so far, and it seems to run counter to the theories and models that you espouse in your own books.'
I added cream and sugar to my cup and stirred quickly before taking a sip and making eye contact with him.
'Thank you for your honesty at least, but I'd have to counter that assertion by asking you where exactly you obtained your doctorate in the subtleties of behavioural science?'
There was a definite edge in his tone and I sought to clarify my position.
'My qualifications are of the variety that you can only obtain by catching a number of serial offenders for yourself.'
I’d intended to continue but he cut me off before I could do so.
'Perhaps you've decided that there's some sinister hidden agenda here, and that despite a long and illustrious career helping your colleagues up and down the land to solve the unsolvable and catch those responsible for the unthinkable, I'm deliberately misleading the investigation? Or better still, you've been reading the latest crime novel and decided that I'm the Grey Man. Is that it?'