by Cross, Drew
I was getting irritated too, and I wanted to plant the seed that there might be something dangerous in the pies in his tiny mind. I couldn’t understand the resistance in the first place. It wasn’t as if we made this kind of request every other week, so even an utter moron should have been able to compute that we’d come here directly out of urgency.
‘This is going to cost me money, and that’s if I do decide to do it in the first place. That frankly isn’t looking like a foregone conclusion in the absence of any kind of attempt at an explanation from you, by the way.’
He moved his hands away from his tie and started fussing with his over-gelled red hair instead. Seemingly, he was still labouring under the misapprehension that he was calling the shots on this one.
‘I assure you that you would grow to strongly regret not going with my polite but firm insistence on this, and I promise you that if you do decide to ignore me then it will ultimately turn out very, very badly for you indeed when it all comes out, Mr Barratt.’
I was running out of ways to apply sufficient pressure on the officious little jobs worth, without outright telling him what was going on. I watched him take offence immediately, growing steadily more pink from the neck up to the ears as my vehemence riled him even more.
‘I believe your thinly veiled threats have just made up my mind for me, Chief Inspector.’
He smiled nastily and then carried on.
‘As you’ve already told me, I don’t have to do anything that you say about this at the moment, and your refusal to give me a valid reason as to why I should leaves me entirely blameless in the event that my refusal proves to be the wrong decision. So if you don’t mind, I’d like you and your colleague to leave now so I can get back on with my work.’
I looked across at Lee who was still away with the fairies by the looks of it, and then back at Ian Barratt who looked like he’d just scored the biggest win of his life, and the red mist well and truly descended over me.
‘Then let me enlighten you on a couple of things you fucking idiot.’
He flinched at the insult and his hands went back to his tie for comfort.
‘A young woman went missing a matter of less than two days ago, and so far we’ve been unable to find her. Fortunately we received some helpful information from the person purporting to have killed her, and we now have good reason to believe that pieces of her body are being rung through your tills in nicely packaged meat bundles, while we waste time up here debating about the best way not to inconvenience you and your precious little profit margin.’
Chapter 48
It had been necessary to give the store manager a stern warning about the implications if he was to repeat any of the strictly confidential information that he was now privy to, but since my tirade there’d been nothing but unswerving compliance with every single request that I’d made. CCTV footage spanning the time between Elizabeth’s disappearance and receipt of the letter was obtained, and a team of junior detectives were tasked with watching the hours of footage in the hope of catching our man placing his substitute goods on the shelf. A number of suspect items had already been removed for analysis, the packaging on them being the same in most respects as the stores own brand products, but an annotated label underneath bore the word ‘longpig’.
‘Why longpig?’
I asked Lee, not understanding the reference and handing over another package to the forensic examiners.
‘It’s a word supposedly used to describe human meat in Polynesia apparently,’ came the reply, making me look up at him in surprise.
‘I just Googled it on my phone before you ask. I’m a little rusty on the finer details of cannibalism these days.’
He grinned but the gesture didn’t reach his eyes, and he was still obviously deeply effected by the thought that a teenage girl had been processed like a slaughterhouse cow.
‘Let’s take five and get ourselves some fresh air, they can finish up in here without us.’
I began to manoeuvre Lee out of a door at the rear of the storage area, ignoring his weak protestations.
‘I’m okay, Zara, just tired and frustrated.’
I ignored him until we were back out in the sunshine and fresh air.
‘Let’s get something straight, Lee, you’re definitely not okay at the moment, but that’s not a problem. This is beyond the pale and it’s got us all rattled.’
I kept my hands on his shoulders, facing him as I spoke.
‘Yes…sorry.’
He looked past me and I saw the fine creases in the corners of his eyes that he was too young to worry about yet, but which would grow steadily deeper as the stresses and strains of our work began to press down on him. Lee had spent almost three years in CID, compared to my eight, but the demands affect us all differently. Already I was seeing signs of burnout and was having to consider some respite for him.
‘I’ll keep this between us for now, but if I think for a minute that this is getting too much for you then I’ll have you rested.’
His eyes flicked back towards mine, and there was unmistakeable hurt written in his expression. I’d seldom had cause to talk to him in this fashion, and never since we’d become intimate. I had hoped that he’d be able to see that I was acting out of concern for him, but his recognition of that fact seemed to be temporarily obscured by his upset.
‘I’ve been on this case as long as you’ve been on it, and nobody has clocked up more hours and given more to trying to find this sicko than me. Don’t you dare threaten to take that away from me out of some misguided sense of protectiveness, Ma’am.’
He shrugged my hands off and strode purposefully away from me towards the High Street, not looking back to see if I was following. Sharp little tears nipped at the corners of my eyes as I watched him go, feeling the sting of his switch to the impersonal use of ‘Ma’am’ like a slap.
I hoped that with a little time he’d come back with a sheepish apology, but I feared that he might not. I didn’t want to lose him after everything else that had happened, but his rigid posture was so full of anger that I knew I’d just touched a nerve that might change things between us permanently. Remember the golden rule with men, Wade? Never injure their pride or they’ll hold a grudge forever. The more I silently rebuked myself and tried to empathise with his position, the more I realised how it would have looked to Lee. I’d just pulled rank on him over a simple display of human emotion, hardly a capital offence. Twisted words from one of the Grey Man’s letters swam back into my mind. Did they tell you how much it would cost you when you started out? And for the first time in my career I stood removed from myself and wondered what I had become.
Chapter 49
I arrived alone at Hallie and Mike’s house with flowers, a bottle of wine and an excuse. Tonight was the night of mine and Lee’s invite to sample Hallie’s cooking, something which we’d both been looking forward to since the evening of the dinner party at my house where everybody had hit things off so well. Unfortunately, Lee was refusing to answer my calls and texts since he’d stormed off outside the supermarket earlier, and I had no idea whether he’d turn up independent of me or not. The laughter and fun that we’d all had together last time around seemed impossibly distant, like a fading snapshot in a discarded photograph album, and I felt a miserable weight of loss settling down for an extended stay in the pit of my stomach.
Hallie answered the door at the third knock, looking chic and glamorous again in black trousers and a deep purple vest top with glittering jade green detailing, and she leaned her head out to make an exaggerated scan of the surroundings for some sign of Lee.
‘I’m afraid Lee couldn’t make it this evening, so it’s just little old me.’
I attempted a relaxed smile but the tension in my face wouldn’t allow it. Hallie knows me so well by now that she knew without me having to say what was wrong.
‘Oh babes, come here.’
She wrapped her arms around me tightly and I stifled a sob.
‘Stop
or you’re going to make me cry, and I don’t even know if it’s going to resolve itself by morning anyway.’
She let go of me and led me inside, where the smell of something mouth-watering drifted through from the kitchen.
‘Well whatever that is that I’m detecting, I’m feeling better already.’
I said, as Mike emerged with a glass of red wine and kissed me on the cheek.
‘I’m glad that my presence has that kind of power over you, Zara, but I’ve told you before, not in front of Hallie.’
He gave us both a self-satisfied grin and I couldn’t help but laugh.
‘So what’s cooking anyway? I’m detecting, something curry based maybe?’
I sniffed at the air and followed them both through to the lounge, sipping at my wine as I took a seat.
‘Nope, not curry, a lamb shank stifado, which is a slow cooked Greek dish with tomatoes, herbs and spices in the sauce; one of Mike’s specialities.’
Hallie shared a look with him and I envied their closeness for a moment. Settled couples seem to have a kind of telepathy, and Mike had known not to ask about Lee’s absence solely from the expression on Hallie’s face. I didn’t feel inclined to turn the evening into a forum about my relationship issues though.
‘I bought along my suspects list, together with approximate times and dates of the murders.’
I unfolded the crumpled sheets of paper and tried to smooth them flat on the coffee table as they both leaned in for a closer look.
‘Now I’m not expecting most of the names to be familiar to you, but I wanted to scratch off some of the ones that you do know, starting with Mike’s.’
They nodded in unison and Mike sat back waiting for questions.
‘Can you give me some kind of strong alibi for any of the dates and times, Mike?’
He leaned back in to get another look at the sheets, brow furrowing in concentration.
‘July the third we were at your parents all day weren’t we Hal’s?’
He asked, looking up at her.
‘Yes, and we were away with the boys in Scotland on that April weekend too.’
I drew a thick black line through Mike’s name and sipped at my wine again, ignoring my stomach as it growled for food.
‘Okay, what about Lee that should be an easy one to get rid of. Shit, sorry…’
Mike realised too late his unfortunate choice of words as Hallies shot him a fierce glance.
‘Don’t worry about it Mike, you’re right, so let me think…’
I sat back in silence running over each of the murders in turn, not needing to refer to the sheet of paper since they were indelibly etched into my mind. I’d been with Lee when several of the bodies had been discovered of course, but I dimly realised that I hadn’t been with him at the actual time of any of the killings themselves.
‘He wasn’t with me when any of them took place, so until I can think of a way to ask him about his other movements he’ll have to stay on the list.
Chapter 50
The evening at Hallie and Mike’s was soon over, and I walked the half mile or so home along well lit streets with my belly contentedly full of tender lamb and slightly too much wine. The Stifado had come accompanied with a sweet potato mash and Greek style bowls of side salad, and together we’d managed to scrub another half a dozen names of my suspect list using Hallie’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the lives of our former university friends. I was embarrassed to learn that while I was a virtual social leper, she had maintained casual online friendships with many of those that I had long since lost touch with. There’d been a small quiet moment of sadness as I learned that a shy and cerebral ex-boyfriend from back then had lost his long battle with a brain tumour at the beginning of the year.
The air outside was still warm with the residual heat of the sunny day, and the perfume of flowers in people’s front gardens scented the night that was closing in all around me. I watched a large hawk moth cutting a lazy trail between the silhouettes of trees, feeling much calmer than I had earlier in the day, until the streaking outline of a bat ended the insects life mid flight and whisked the body away for consumption and I thought of the Grey Man again.
As I approached my own front door I could see the shadow of a man standing in the porch, and my heart rate doubled until I caught sight of blond hair and recognised the shape as being Lee. I sincerely hoped that he hadn’t come to finish it with me or to read me the riot act about my actions outside the supermarket, and I scoured his stance for clues about his demeanour as I got up close.
‘Hi.’
Not exactly a killer line, but I couldn’t risk leaving us both in silence as I rummaged in my bag for keys.
‘Hi back at you. I know it’s getting late, but I was wondering if I could come in?’
He looked uncomfortable and sheepish, and I couldn’t decide whether that was a good or a bad thing.
‘Have you been waiting out here for long?’
I finally found my key and unlocked the door.
‘Not as long as I deserve.’
I felt an inner glow at the glimmer of an apology beginning.
‘Well then, in that case I might make you stand out here a bit longer.’
I offered up a small hopeful smile which he returned, and I gestured that he should come inside to join me.
‘I’m sorry about earlier, I know you weren’t questioning my ability to do my job, but I couldn’t get the image out of my head of him cheerfully making pastry and stuffing minced up dead girl in as a filling.’
He slipped off his shoes and hung his coat up on the rack in the hallway.
‘That’s okay. I didn’t intend to get all official on you and start stamping my authority all over the situation. I was just worried about you, and your own health and well being comes first on this.’
I dropped my own coat down on the back of an armchair and headed for the fridge.
‘I’m out of wine but I’ve still got a couple of cold Mexican beers left.’
I called back through to him, removing them from between plastic boxes full of salad and cold cuts.
‘Cold beer always sounds good to me,’ came back the reply, along with a sound like paper crumpling.
I stopped for a second, but the noise had finished, so I rooted around for a bottle opener and popped the caps off, leaving them where they landed on the kitchen worktop and debating whether to pour them out into glasses before deciding not to bother.
As I came back into the lounge Lee was nowhere to be seen, and I assumed that he’d nipped to the toilet until I heard the front door slam and footsteps moving quickly back down the short driveway. Confused I went to the window and separateD the slats of the blind with my hand, seeing Lee getting into his car and then pulling away at speed. My first assumption was that something else had happened on the case, but if that was it then surely he would have told me as my presence would have been required too? Then I saw the crumpled sheets of paper with my handwriting on discarded untidily on the seat cushion of the settee. My suspect list with his name on the bottom and a question mark alongside, and finally I understood.
Chapter 51
Grandma Madeleine left the girls to have fun in the playroom that she’d had carefully decorated like the one that still carried such fond memories from her own childhood, and quietly crossed over to the study, shutting the door behind her. She was not concerned about her husband arriving home and catching her, since they lived far enough out in the countryside that the sound of his car would tell her that he was home in plenty of time for her to cover her tracks if needed. Besides that, he was so accustomed to his comings and goings remaining unquestioned over the years that he wouldn’t go looking for signs that she was checking up on him.
She logged onto the computer first and checked the search history, which was predictably blank, before systematically opening up each file that she could find and then closing it down again after she’d had a read of the contents. She didn’t know what she was expecting to
come across on the laptop, and her instincts told her that he was too careful to go perusing anything that might cause alarm, but she knew him well enough that even an item of vague curiosity would give her something to go on.
She had taken down a note of the timings of his ‘business trips’ over the last twelve months, including snippets about where he had stated or implied that he was going to on the infrequent occasions that he’d offered up any kind of clue, and now she intended to see how much of that was true if possible. She had even considered phoning up his workplace before, or checking his credit card statements, but the first action would no doubt have been reported back to him, and the second had proven impossible since he received his statements electronically to an email account that she didn’t even know the address for, much less the password.
Closing down the computer, she stood and walked over to the imposing oak bookcase that stood next to a floor to ceiling window, stopping briefly to take in the view out over rolling hills and fields that stretched to the horizon. There were drawers in the unit, but upon trying to open them she found that they were both locked, and she stood on tiptoes to run her fingers across the top of the unit and then underneath the edge of the desk in a futile attempt to locate the keys. She paused again, breathing more deeply from her modest exertions and glanced up at the horrible painting that hung on the wall above his desk chair as she left the room.
The picture was a print of Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son, a bulging eyed giant figure with wild grey hair and a mouth stretched wide open as it went to take another bite out of the partially eaten white corpse clutched in its hands. It was an image from your worst nightmares, and its presence kept the girls out of this space. She had asked him to take it down on more than one occasion, but he had insisted that it stayed, citing the presence of artwork from such a master of the form as being a source of inspiration in his work. To her it was ugly and terrifying, the work of a man descending into madness.