"She might be already dead," Delaney piped up, not bothering to look up from the doodles he was drawing on his copy of the letter. "My namesake was dead yesterday before The Examiner hit the stands. There's no reason this will be any different."
"She might be already dead," Frank repeated, raising his head for the first time. He glared at Delaney. "But we don't assume that anyone is dead until the pathologist confirms it."
"Sorry, Chief." Elizabeth noticed that he looked more annoyed than sorry.
"Anyway, I spoke to Harold Preston about an hour ago," Frank continued. The team groaned, and McGovern smiled indulgently, making his opinion clear. Elizabeth wondered if McGovern had even bothered reading Preston’s report.
"If you catch this killer all by yourselves, you'll have the right to condemn other methods, until then we'll listen to any expert advice we can get,'' Frank said. “Preston believes that Kay won't be killed before her name appears in The Examiner because the killer is looking for applause and validation. He wants to make it appear that this is a two-way game where everyone is an equal player."
"Like he did with Orla Delaney?" asked Delaney.
"We didn't know about Orla Delaney because The Examiner didn't pass the information to us. The killer didn't expect that. Preston believes that he’ll wait this time. Meanwhile, it’s business as usual for us. Call your contacts to see if you can find a lead on Kay. She's out there somewhere. The killer has already killed two women with names connected to this investigation, so bear that in mind. Don't expect the obvious. He's playing a game against us. He wants to show us that he's better than us. Don't prove him right."
"The profiler's theories won't help us sift through the evidence any faster," said Delaney.
"It won’t hurt,'' said Frank. “Do we have anything else on the latest victim?"
Elizabeth steeled herself for the most depressing part of the meeting: a rundown on Orla Delaney's life. So far, the investigation into her murder had been as fruitless as the investigation into Amber Foley's life. The detectives had failed to uncover a single viable witness. No one had seen or heard anything unusual on the night of Amber's death. They were dealing with a ghost who came and went without a trace.
Orla Delaney was almost as invisible. Her life was mapped out on the whiteboard in a list of summonses, court appearances, and short periods in prison for offences linked to her drug habit. As for her boyfriend/pimp, if he knew anything about what had happened to her, he wasn't telling.
"Any updates on the print on the knife?" someone piped up.
"It's being run against the files this morning," said McGovern.
"What about the cord around her neck, sir?"
"It was the same type used to strangle Amber Foley: standard garden twine, widely available, and impossible to trace to a specific batch."
McGovern didn't bother asking Holland or Elizabeth about their meeting with Trevor Purcell, or if any progress had been made on identifying the body in the churchyard, but Elizabeth didn't care; she didn't want his respect or approval. Besides, she still wasn't sure about Amanda Purcell. Amanda matched some of the criteria: right age and build, and she'd vanished at around the same time as the others, but something wasn’t right. She didn't fit any of the potential victim profiles, and the only scenarios she could weave around Trevor Purcell as a suspect were so outlandish that she would have been embarrassed to share them.
She’d gone through every possible scenario the previous night as Frank slept fitfully beside her. Maybe Purcell had killed his wife. He was a clever man. He knew that if he reported her missing and the body was found, that the police wouldn't be long finding a motive; Amanda hadn't exactly been a devoted wife. Maybe he decided to let someone else take the blame for her death: someone like Campbell. If he made Amanda's murder seem like part of a series, there'd be less chance of the police focusing on individual killings. Trevor Purcell could be the copycat killer. The only problem was that she didn't believe it.
Chapter Eighteen
Elizabeth switched on her phone as soon as the meeting ended. There was a voicemail from Ken Williams. She returned his call immediately. Williams was a busy man. He never called just to chat.
"I hear you've been talking with Preston," Williams said. Elizabeth found it difficult to figure out where he was. It sounded echoey and noisy, and there was a tannoy in the background.
"I've been listening more than talking. How do you know? Have you been talking about me behind my back?"
"Would you care if we were?"
"What's that old saying? The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."
"Oscar Wilde."
"If you say so."
"I was calling to let you know that I may have something for you, off the record," said Williams.
"I'm surprised."
"Why? Didn't you expect me to find anything?"
"I was hoping you'd find something, but I didn't expect it. Are you going to tell me about it?"
"Not yet. I'd prefer to tell you in person; over the phone is too dangerous."
"You're coming to Cork?"
"That's where you are, isn't it?"
"There's no need to be smart. At least that explains the background noise; you're at the airport. What time's your flight?"
"Ten minutes. I'll be landing in an hour."
"Thanks for the warning."
"That'll teach you to keep your phone switched on. I've been trying to catch you all morning."
"Okay, I'll pick you up at the airport. This better be good."
Elizabeth made it to the airport with fifteen minutes to spare. As she climbed out of her car, she marvelled at the irony of modern travel; she could have been halfway around the world in the time it took to drive through the city at rush hour. Airports always made her restless; the world seemed too close.
According to the arrivals board, Williams' plane was on schedule, so she grabbed a coffee, found a seat and waited. Fifteen minutes and two coffees later, Ken Williams appeared, clutching a briefcase and glancing around for her. She waved, surprised at the difference a decade had made to him. He was heavier, his hair was thinning slightly, and his moustache was greyer than she remembered, but there was something attractive about him in that bumbling professor sort of way. He smiled when he saw her.
"It's good to see you." He didn't bother offering a handshake, knowing that she hated any sort of formality.
"How was your flight?"
"Pleasant enough, I suppose."
"Do you have any luggage?"
"This is it." He held up his briefcase. "My return flight leaves tonight at 9p.m."
Soon they were stuck in the slow crawl of traffic back to the city centre.
"Tell me what you've found," said Elizabeth, getting straight to the point.
"I was hoping to have a bite to eat first."
"We'll be stuck here for a while, so you may as well start talking. You know I'm not one for idle chit-chat."
"A prostitute, Zoe Adams, was working in London, near Soho, last year when she was approached by a man with a strong Irish accent. He offered her £150 if she went back to his flat."
"Did she agree?"
"It was late and cold. She was desperate, so she went with him. As soon as she stepped inside, he put something over her head, and she blacked out. When she woke up, she was gagged, and her wrists and ankles were tied. She was lying naked on a dirty mattress in the middle of a room. The walls were covered with religious pictures and Bible verses.
"She was completely unnerved. She had no idea how long she'd been out, and her head ached from whatever he had given her. She drifted in and out of consciousness. When he finally showed up, he was reading aloud from the Bible about women and sin. At first, he whispered, and then he started getting louder and more excited. He raped her and tried to strangle her."
Elizabeth watched the normal world going by outside the car. She wondered how normal life really was. "Did he use a ligature?"
&n
bsp; "He used a tie. She blacked out several times, but he kept bringing her round. When he was finished he put the bag over her head, and she passed out. When she woke up, he was gone, and she was untied. She got up and ran downstairs to the next flat, where they called the police. Lucky woman."
"I'm sure she felt very lucky," Elizabeth snapped.
"You know what I mean: lucky to be alive."
"Sorry, I'm taking my frustration out on you. Did the police in London get anything from the investigation?"
"Nothing, just lots of names of possible suspects, but none of them checked out. There was DNA evidence and fingerprints, but no match. Her attacker had made no effort to cover his tracks. Apparently, he attacked two other prostitutes in London. I'd say there were others, but they didn't report the attacks."
"That's not surprising," Elizabeth said, thinking of Darcy Timmons and what had happened to her by the riverbank. "Sometimes going to the police only causes more trouble for the women. Did the police find the flats where the other two women were attacked?"
"Yes, but he was long gone by the time the police arrived. It seems he rented a flat for a few months, paid cash in advance, and then he lured the women back to his place, drugged them, performed his biblical routine, and moved on to the next flat to start all over again. After Zoe Adams, he stopped. Well, there were no other reports."
"You don't think he stopped?"
"He could only get worse."
"Murder?"
"I would have presumed that murder would have been his next step, but instead he went quiet. Now we have a killer with an Irish connection and a religious obsession, who strangles with a ligature and cuts pieces off his victims' hair. I forgot to mention that he cut Zoe's hair. I looked into Campbell's son, Oscar. He left London a few months after Zoe Adams was attacked."
"Maybe he was escalating to murder in London, but reached it in Cork?"
"It's a possibility. All I need is a photo of Oscar from you, so the police in London can get a visual I.D. from Zoe Adams and the others. Then we can move to force a DNA sample from him."
Elizabeth didn't say anything.
"What's wrong?" asked Williams.
"I don't think it's Campbell's son. He has an alibi for Amber Foley."
"His alibi won't matter if his DNA and fingerprints match."
"You're right, of course," she conceded. "I don't know what's wrong with me today. My head's all over the place. I'm glad you here; hopefully, you'll help me snap out of it. You know I would have sent you the photo of Oscar, saved you the bother of flying here."
"And missed out on seeing you, again? Not a chance.''
"Damn!" She swore as she realised that she'd missed the turnoff to the police station. She couldn't even remember crossing the river. Impatiently, she did a U-turn and headed back.
The moment she arrived at the Station, she knew something was happening. Excitement crackled in the air. "Delaney!" She yelled as he tried to rush past. He turned reluctantly. "What's going on?"
"Haven't you heard? We found a fingerprint match on the knife that killed Orla Delaney."
"Who is it?"
"It's Campbell, of course. Looks like you made a mistake, but I suppose that's what happens when you're out of the game too long."
"But Campbell's dead."
***
Elizabeth walked through the crowds of Christmas shoppers. She had no idea where she was going, but she had to get away. Snow fell softly, and the Christmas lights twinkled brightly, in stark contrast to her dark mood. She considered walking along the quays past the train station to where the city expired into dingy warehouses and shipping ports, but there was something ominous out there that even in her glum mood she didn't want to indulge. At that moment, she needed people around her. She couldn't face the ghostly emptiness of the docks. The city was the only constant left in the ever-changing drama of recent days.
Her world was disintegrating around her. Her skin tingled with the proximity of danger. She could almost sense Ross Campbell falling into step beside her, and she knew she'd never be rid of him. Deliberately, she summoned the image of Campbell dying in front of her. She had buried him. This wasn't a movie where he could claw his way out of the earth when her back was turned.
Campbell was dead.
She needed to focus on that fact.
Campbell.
Was.
Dead.
If she kept repeating the facts, a pattern would emerge. It might not give her the name or the face she was looking for, but the offender would emerge. However, no matter how much she tried, her brain tormented her with images of Campbell haunting the city. Every face in the crowd resembled his; every voice echoed his; and every laugh made her turn her head in fear. She wondered if the reality and fantasy battling in her mind was the beginning of madness. The further she walked, the more fractured and splintered she became.
It took two hours of step after aching step for the systematic rhythm to instill some order into her thoughts. Slowly, possibilities returned, and she started sifting through them, discarding what didn't feel right and hoarding what remained.
First possibility: the fingerprints were forged, but who would have the knowledge in Cork to forge Campbell's fingerprints?
Second possibility: the knife once belonged to Campbell, and the copycat killer used it to throw police off the track. It didn't matter that Campbell was dead almost ten years; fingerprints were immortal. A knife belonging to Campbell wouldn't be too difficult to find. His house and belongings had been auctioned a few years after he disappeared. Maybe someone bought the knife, but it would take months to track down who had it, and there was no knowing how many times it had been sold on.
Third possibility: the knife was the same one Campbell had used on Caroline Marsh, and the killer had stolen it from the evidence store at The Met. It was possible that it was an inside job.
What mattered now was putting an end to it. All she needed was courage. She headed back into the city-centre; it was the best place for her plan. The city made her feel calm, and being calm was what it took to be invisible. She checked the time: 4p.m. Williams was flying back to London at 9p.m. She could take her time.
She went into the nearest pub, pulled up a stool at the bar, and ordered a drink. She'd never been there before. It was one of those hopeless places where people with nothing better to do gather joylessly to drink, away from the world. She could feel their eyes on her as the barman brought her vodka. She downed it in one and ordered another before calling Frank.
"Elizabeth, how are you?" He sounded excited, breathless. She recognised the giddy restlessness of closing in on a killer. She hated what she had to do to him.
"We need you here," he said.
"I doubt that, I'd probably end up spoiling the party."
"Why would you spoil it?"
"The fingerprint is a fake, it has to be. Someone on the inside must have planted it; it's the only possibility that makes any sense, or maybe the killer got hold of something that Campbell once owned."
“I can't ignore the evidence."
"Think about it," she continued. "Shouldn't there be more than one partial print?"
"It doesn't matter what should be there," replied Frank, but she could hear the hint of doubt in his voice. "The evidence speaks for itself. You can come up with all the hypotheses you want, but in the end, you might have to face the possibility that Campbell is the killer. Maybe, just once, you might be wrong; have you considered that possibility?"
"It's not Campbell. I know I'm right about that, at least. I don't how the fingerprint got on the knife, but I know that Campbell isn't the one playing with us this time. It's someone else, maybe someone closer than you think."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Don't you think it's convenient finding Campbell's print now? It makes everyone’s job so much easier if the killer is who the entire city wants him to be. It's obvious how much McGovern wants it to be Campbell."
"Now you think Mc
Govern planted the knife?" He sounded incredulous. "The knife was found before he even reached the scene. He might be a pain in the ass, but he wouldn't do something like that."
"There are others: Delaney, Hayes..."
Frank sighed loudly. "Come to the Station, and we'll have a chat about it."
"Not today. I need to think. Would you do me a favour?"
"I'll try."
"I'm not saying the knife isn't important, but will you check it against the inventory taken from Campbell's crime scenes and against the lists of what was in his house?"
He hesitated. "I'll do it, but don't get your hopes up. I know how much you want Campbell to be dead. I want him dead, too, but maybe we need to face the fact that he got away, and try our best that he doesn't get away this time. I know it's difficult."
"You have no idea," she said. "Cover for me, will you?"
"Sure."
"Thanks. I should go; I'm meeting Williams later to see what he's found. I need to sort out a few things before then. I'll talk to you later."
She finished her drink and made her way to a slightly more upmarket pub, and that was her plan for the rest of the day: drinking and walking until she reached her destination. As she drank, she reflected on the irony of what she was doing. According to Preston's profile, the killer was using alcohol to stabilise himself, to prepare himself for each murder, to put himself in control, and she was doing the same.
It was dark by the time she left the third bar. Christmas lights and decorations swayed above her head in the cold wind. The day was fading to nothing again. She took a deep breath and focused on what she had to do. It was almost time. She slipped into the booth of another pub she'd chosen for her plan. It was her favourite pub in the city, and they knew her well. No one would notice her there; only strangers were remembered.
She left her gloves on, ordered a coffee, and eavesdropped on the conversation in the next booth. Two women--Yvonne and Tara--were heatedly discussing their love lives. Tara was having an affair with a married man, and she was thinking about telling his wife. Tara got up to order another round, while Yvonne went to the loo. They left their coats behind to claim the booth. Elizabeth finished her drink and left, glancing over her shoulder at Tara who was trying to catch the barman's attention.
Tear Drop: Serial Killer Thriller (Detective Elizabeth Ireland Crime Thriller Series Book 1) Page 9