Perfect Remains

by Helen Fields

  ‘Shut your fucking mouth, Natasha,’ he shouted, leaping towards Jayne and dealing a slap to her cheek that sounded like a balloon bursting. Elaine screamed and threw herself to the floor, hands over her head as if a bomb had gone off.

  Jayne lifted her face and stared at him. ‘Who’s Natasha?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’ King said. ‘How do you know about her?’

  Jayne blinked slowly, frowning.

  ‘You just called me Natasha,’ she said. ‘When you hit me. Do you not remember?’

  He didn’t. He didn’t remember at all. In fact he didn’t remember saying anything.

  ‘You misheard me,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.’

  Jayne persisted. It was an unfortunate side effect of her otherwise laudable hardiness. ‘I didn’t mishear it. Perhaps you weren’t aware that you said her name, but it was clear. She’s upset you. What did she do?’

  Unbidden, the memory assaulted him.

  He’d extended his hand to DI Turner, ready to greet her, about to offer to fetch her a drink.

  ‘Ava,’ he’d said. ‘I’m Dr King. Your lecture wasn’t bad at all.’ Then Natasha’s hand was on his arm, pushing his hand away before Turner took it, pulling her friend in another direction, whispering in Ava’s ear but he’d heard the words.

  ‘Sorry about that, just ignore him,’ Natasha had said. ‘He shouldn’t have called you by your first name.’

  ‘It’s really not a problem,’ Ava had responded, but she’d allowed herself to be moved away from him without a second glance. He’d been left with his hand reaching for air, looking like a fool. Ignored. Just as Natasha had intended.

  ‘Dr King,’ Jayne said, ‘are you all right?’

  ‘Quit the amateur fucking psychologist spiel!’ He grabbed her by the throat, pinching hard and dragging her face towards his. ‘And stop playing mummy to that pathetic parasite on the floor.’

  Jayne was trying to prise his fingers from her throat and failing. King was fighting his own rising excitement and failing to the same extent. ‘You should be grateful to me. I left your upper teeth intact so you didn’t have to suffer the way Elaine did. I’ve not had to bring you into line, as I did her. All I wanted was for you to respect me, yet you’re treating me like an idiot.’ He thrust her backwards against the pillow, wiping her tears and saliva off the back of his hand onto the bedclothes.

  King sat down and rested his feet on Elaine’s curled-up, juddering back, elaborately.

  ‘I shouldn’t let myself get so upset,’ he said. ‘Natasha’s just playing for my attention. I’ve been going about this the wrong way, thinking I could replace her. Not even you, Jayne, with your self-righteousness and your unshakable ideology can affect me as she does. It’s time to give in to it. I see that now. It’s what she wants.’ He kicked Elaine under her chin, forcing her head up, making her look at him. ‘And as there isn’t really the space for a third bed, you’ll have to earn your right to remain.’ He hauled Elaine off the floor and onto her bed. ‘So smarten yourselves up. We’re going to have a competition. You’ll like that, Jayne. You strike me as the quietly competitive type. Whoever impresses me more can stay. You’re both bright enough that I don’t have to spell out what that means for the other. I want to be treated with some kindness. I expect conversation, interest, debate. And I don’t want you to cry!’

  King was leaning into Elaine’s face, spittle flying into her eyes, sweat budding on his forehead. He was overwrought. And that, he told himself, was because he finally knew that he had to address his anger with Natasha directly. He couldn’t hide from it any more. With a dawning clarity, Dr Reginald King understood exactly what he had to do and how to do it.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ‘Felicity Costello is saying she’ll talk, but only to you,’ Ava said. Callanach shifted his mobile into his left hand so he could highlight some sentences in Liam Granger’s statement. The cyclist who had seen Jayne Magee’s abductor talking to himself was on his way to the station and Callanach wanted to be properly prepared.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Callanach said. ‘Why me?’

  ‘She said you were the first person who helped her. Can you take over the interview?’

  ‘You don’t mind?’ he asked.

  ‘If Felicity will talk, I don’t care who gets the glory.’ Ava sounded fired up, her tiredness from the previous evening had vanished even though she hadn’t left his apartment until they’d stopped chatting well after two in the morning.

  ‘Then of course I’ll help,’ he said, ‘but I have Professor Harris’s briefing.’ Callanach didn’t need to say what he was thinking. ‘I can be down by nine o’clock. Could you make sure she’s kept busy and distracted until then?’

  ‘Sounds like I’m going out for breakfast,’ Ava said.

  Callanach made his way to the briefing room. He’d have been happy to sit at the back but a chair had been reserved for him at the front, as DC Salter pointed out.

  ‘Did you contact Jonty Spurr last night?’ Callanach asked her.

  ‘I did. And I’ve made reservations for two rooms in Braemar.’

  ‘I’d forgotten about that hotel,’ Callanach moaned.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ she said. ‘The pub was fully booked with a coach party. We’re in a bed and breakfast up the road. We’ll need to set off by four tomorrow afternoon, if that’s okay.’

  ‘It will have to be,’ he said. ‘What’s everyone waiting for?’

  ‘The professor likes to be introduced. DS Lively said you ought to do it.’

  Callanach resisted the urge to simply remain in his seat and played along. He managed, albeit stiltedly, to thank Professor Harris for his assistance and acknowledged the funding provided by the Scottish Episcopal Church. It felt more like an awards speech than a briefing.

  ‘Thank you, Detective Inspector,’ Professor Harris said, pressing keys on his laptop to start a slide show. ‘Overnight I’ve read and assimilated the evidence, such as it is.’ DC Tripp huffed at the derogatory sub-clause. ‘This first slide sets out the physical characteristics of our murderer. We know he’s a Caucasian male, between thirty and sixty years of age, of average height and build. We also know that he is physically strong enough to pull the body of an adult female so we can deduce that he is not infirm.’ Callanach risked a glance at his watch. He was determined not to be late for Felicity Costello but if Harris was insistent upon setting out everything they already knew, they’d be there all day.

  ‘So in terms of your assumptions, Professor Harris, what do you have?’ Callanach moved things along.

  ‘Not assumptions, Detective Inspector, conclusions based on scientific analysis and years of experience.’ Callanach bit his tongue. ‘Let’s deal with the inescapable first. The sexuality of the offences. This man is targeting bright, outgoing, professional women, the sort of women one can infer are out of his league. Inevitably, he will be using them to fulfil his sexual fantasies, hence the need to dispose of their bodies so absolutely. This avoids the gathering of forensic evidence of sexual assault which, for him, means that he is able to hide from what he has done. He will suffer bouts of shame, remorse, probably panic. At other times he will want to relive the experiences, may well have filmed them so he can watch them again, and is likely to access other similar pornographic footage online.’

  ‘So should we be looking for someone with a history of sexual violence?’ DS Lively asked.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Harris. ‘Sexual offenders who get to a point where they kill at the height of the assault inevitably start small and build up. Offending evolution is a clear pattern in such cases. You should be screening known offenders in the geographical area with anything from indecent exposure to rape. You’ll no doubt already have checked registered sex offenders in the area where each woman lived.’

  All eyes turned to Callanach. He sighed. He’d planned to avoid answering questions at the briefing. ‘With no evidence of sexual assault on either woman
, my feeling was that limiting ourselves to considering one type of offender might narrow the search too greatly.’

  Professor Harris patted a grandfatherly palm on Callanach’s shoulder, whose hands curled into tight fists at the intrusion into his personal space. Any decent profiler, he thought, would have been able to read the body language a mile away. Not so, Harris. ‘Well, that’s why I was brought in. In terms of the psychology of the offender, we’re looking for someone chaotic. Capable of clear thought at times, but only for short bursts. He has a good scientific awareness and it’s worth considering persons who work in the industrial sector.’

  ‘He can’t be that chaotic,’ DC Salter chipped in. ‘He’s taken two women from their homes and disposed of their bodies in public places without being seen.’ Callanach could have promoted her there and then.

  ‘As I said,’ Harris continued unabashed, ‘capable of clear thought, but then we study the final execution. Leaving the baseball bat and Elaine’s tooth, dumping the barrel trolley with the Reverend Magee’s clothes. These are the actions of an offender who either panics or gets overexcited and that is what will allow us to catch him. He won’t be capable of holding down long-term employment. That same inability to complete a task without making errors will carry through into his working life. He may have been in and out of relationships, capable of starting them but not sustaining them long term. Those relationships will be with women he finds non-threatening. His partners will either have had blue-collar jobs or have been on benefits.’

  ‘What about his shoes?’ Tripp interrupted. ‘They were shiny, recently cleaned judging by what the witness at Jayne Magee’s abduction said. How does that fit with what you’re telling us?’

  ‘Many people keep their shoes clean, Constable.’ Callanach tried not to look down but he couldn’t stop himself, nor could many of his team. Professor Harris’s shoes were indeed spotless. ‘It’s a skill sadly lacking in the younger generation, apparently.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Tripp carried on. ‘I’d have worn trainers to pull that wheelie case to a car. I can’t understand why he didn’t, unless he doesn’t own any.’

  ‘It’s a fair point,’ Harris conceded, ‘but his footwear is really only going to tell us the size of his feet, not what’s going on inside his head.’

  Tripp looked disgruntled. Callanach thought that even Harris knew he’d missed a potentially important feature. The problem was that the professor couldn’t admit it. No doubt he’d be revisiting the shoe issue later and hypothesising about it at length with DS Lively.

  ‘I dedicated last night to reviewing other current missing persons files. It doesn’t appear that we have any more bodies about to surface, unless he abducts again.’

  That was when Callanach took out his mobile, put it to his ear and asked a nonexistent caller to wait a moment. It wasn’t clever and it wasn’t original but it was his only way out of the room. He poured himself an even stronger than usual coffee, would have added whisky if there’d been any to hand, and made his way down to the interview suite where Felicity Costello was waiting. Ava was positioned just outside the door.

  ‘Ready?’ she asked. He nodded and they went in.

  ‘Hello, Felicity,’ he said. ‘You asked to speak with me today. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered, her voice timid, eyes downcast.

  ‘You’ll need to speak up,’ a woman at her side reminded her. ‘This interview is being video-taped. We talked about that yesterday.’

  ‘I’m only going to talk to him,’ Felicity said. ‘I don’t want anyone else in here.’

  ‘I’m a social worker, not a police officer. I’m here to make sure you feel safe,’ the woman said. Felicity crossed her arms and glared at the floor.

  ‘We could watch from the filming room,’ Ava suggested to the social worker. ‘You can stop the interview if you have concerns and Felicity can ask for a break whenever she likes.’ The social worker looked unhappy but eventually picked up her handbag in defeat.

  ‘Felicity, my name is Detective Inspector Callanach. You understand that anything you say, any admissions you make, may result in you being charged with an offence. Did you understand that when you were cautioned before?’

  ‘I’m not stupid,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ he replied, ‘but I have to ask. It’s part of the process. Also, you can have a lawyer present. Are you sure you wouldn’t like us to arrange that for you?’

  ‘No, I’ve seen my father’s lawyer already. He told me not to say anything.’

  Callanach threw a concerned look into the camera. This was dangerous ground and Ava would be worried already. He didn’t want to jeopardise the admissibility of anything Felicity told him. Worse than that, he certainly wasn’t about to take advantage of the girl’s age and lack of understanding of the law.

  ‘Felicity, you don’t have to tell me what your lawyer said, in fact you shouldn’t. You can have whatever conversations you like with your lawyer and it’s none of our business.’

  ‘He wasn’t my lawyer and he wasn’t trying to help me!’ she shouted. ‘He was telling me what my dad wanted me to do. I thought you’d understand, that you’d help.’

  ‘All right,’ Callanach said. ‘I get it. I’m sorry. Do you want to tell me about the baby?’

  The anger drained from her immediately.

  ‘I didn’t want him to die,’ she said.

  ‘You wrapped him up warmly enough that he didn’t, so you did a good job. Was there a doctor at the birth?’ Callanach asked. She nodded. ‘Did you catch the doctor’s name?’

  ‘No, I didn’t like him …’ she faltered. ‘I was scared. I thought he’d be nicer.’

  ‘He wasn’t?’ Callanach asked. Again, the response came only from a shake of her head. ‘Felicity, you had only just turned fourteen when you got pregnant, so by law that means you were raped. Can you talk about what happened?’

  ‘Can I have a drink?’ she asked. Callanach watched her biting her nails and realised she was stalling. He fetched water and waited quietly until she was ready to talk.

  ‘I won’t tell you his name,’ she said. ‘I don’t want my parents or the police to do anything to him. I knew my father would stop me seeing him so I didn’t tell them I had a boyfriend. He didn’t rape me. I liked him.’

  ‘I see. Can you tell me how old he is, Felicity?’

  ‘Fifteen,’ she said quietly.

  ‘And he didn’t force you or threaten you at all?’

  ‘It was my idea,’ she said. ‘I told him I couldn’t get pregnant, that I was on the pill. I just wanted to find out what it was like.’ Callanach smiled at her and hoped that Ava would share his view that it was a line of investigation best dropped. Whatever the legal technicalities, this seemed to be a question of mutual teenage curiosity ending in tears, not cause for a rape investigation.

  ‘So why leave your baby in the park? You must have been very upset to have done that.’ Tears appeared in her eyes without warning. Callanach pushed a box of tissues towards her. ‘We can stop if you like.’

  ‘I made a promise,’ she said.

  ‘A promise?’ Callanach asked. ‘Who to, Felicity? The baby’s father?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘He never even found out I was pregnant. I promised my friends. We said we’d all do it and they did, then later I didn’t want to but I felt so bad for them, like I couldn’t let them down.’ She hugged her knees, letting the tears run down her cheeks without bothering to wipe them away.

  ‘Felicity,’ he said. She sniffed a few times before looking up at him. ‘You need to tell me their names.’

  ‘I don’t want them to get in trouble,’ she said. ‘It’s not their fault. They didn’t want those babies. We needed people to find out. It was all we could think of doing.’

  ‘The other girls?’ Callanach asked. ‘The ones whose babies died in the park?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Promise me they won’t go to prison.’

  ‘I can’t promise you that. It�
��s not in my power, but if you explain what happened we’ll do all we can to help them. Are they teenagers, like you?’ Another nod. ‘Where did you meet them?’

  ‘At school,’ she whispered.

  ‘At St Gabriella’s?’

  ‘No, at the other place.’ She was starting to withdraw again. Callanach’s gut told him he didn’t have much talking time left.

  ‘Do you mean St Gerard Majella’s?’ he clarified.

  Felicity scowled, her face pinched with anger, eyes blazing. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Are the girls still there?’ Callanach asked. Felicity dropped her face towards her lap.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘They let you out once it’s over.’

  ‘Once what’s over?’ There was silence. ‘Can you tell me anything else?’ She was finished and Callanach knew it. He looked at the camera and shook his head. They wouldn’t get any more from her. ‘Felicity, you’ve done really well. You haven’t hurt your friends. Is there anything else I can do for you?’ He expected nothing but she slowly met his eyes.

  ‘I want to see him,’ she said. ‘Would you ask if I can see my baby?’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘You’re coming?’ Ava asked him.

  ‘What do you think?’ Callanach replied, following her to the car.

  ‘I traced the money. All I could see from John Costello’s accounts were payments to St Gerard Majella’s, none to any private hospital. The school must have organised everything.’

  ‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ Callanach commented as Ava switched on the blues. ‘Two cases running simultaneously, one involving a church that has been unhelpful to the point of covering up offences and the other with a church trying to be so helpful they may be making things worse. Do you believe in God?’ he asked Ava.

  ‘Ask me in a couple of hours,’ she said, swerving round a cyclist. Callanach took out his mobile and left her to concentrate on the road.

  ‘You were good with Felicity,’ Ava said quietly as Callanach scrolled through a search engine.