Perfect Remains

by Helen Fields

  ‘Not congealed yet,’ he whispered. ‘Whoever bled here did so very recently.’

  It was quiet and bare. No television or radio played in the background, no forgotten mug sat on the coffee table, no coat was slung casually over the banisters. But a smell lingered beneath the recent and explosive fouling of King’s home, one that Callanach thought must have hung there, unnoticed by its owner, pervading every fibre and fabric for years. It was like cleaning fluid only more sickly, a sweet, tangy odour. He took hold of a curtain as he passed a window, breathed in hard and there it was, mothballs, harsh in the lungs, making him wince. Reginald King would have stopped smelling it years ago, like a perfume too frequently worn.

  The blood spatters led to a door beneath the staircase, left ajar. Callanach braced himself.

  ‘Unlock the front door,’ he told Natasha. As she did so, he pulled the under-stair cupboard fully open, expecting the worst, finding nothing but hanging jackets and shoes in rows. ‘There’s nothing here,’ he said. ‘Fuck!’

  Natasha pushed past him, ripping the coats from their hooks, while Callanach went to the kitchen. The back door was locked from the inside, so King hadn’t made his way out of that exit.

  ‘I’m going to check upstairs,’ he said, poking his head into the under-stair cupboard. There was no response. He took one step further in, then another. A hand shot out from beyond the coats and grabbed him. It took a second to realise it was Natasha.

  ‘Don’t do that, I nearly punched you.’

  ‘Shush,’ she said. ‘It leads down to a cellar. Come on.’

  It was dark, and a damp chill hung in the air although it wasn’t exactly cold. Callanach reached out to his side and felt a wall of wood panelling.

  ‘It’s a dead end,’ Natasha said from the bottom of the steps. ‘There’s not even a grate for air up to the garden.’

  ‘Check the floor,’ Callanach said. ‘There may be a trap door leading further down.’

  They got on their hands and knees, feeling around the floor for unseen cracks or levers, finding nothing.

  ‘Wait,’ Callanach said. ‘Just listen.’

  They stayed completely still, heads cocked, breath held.

  ‘I can’t hear anything,’ Natasha said.

  ‘One moment. There was something, faint. I think it’s voices.’ Callanach walked back to the staircase, climbed a few steps and stood motionless once more.

  The sound was as vague as if they were underwater, a vibration of air, nothing more. This time, though, Natasha heard it too. Callanach saw her straining her neck to catch it better.

  ‘There’s a torch,’ she said, grabbing a black handle from a shelf and swinging the beam of light to and fro.

  ‘This way,’ Callanach said. ‘The noise is coming from behind the wall.’

  Natasha shone the torch along the panelling looking for a way through.

  ‘On the floor, here,’ Callanach was on his knees pointing at a dark blotch. The light made it a rusty brown colour. He rubbed a finger in it and held it to his face.

  ‘Blood,’ he said. ‘Give me the torch.’

  Callanach knocked gently on the wood. It was solid adjacent to the steps but at the base there was an echo when he banged. He found what he’d been looking for.

  ‘Finger marks,’ he said. ‘Look at the prints on this panel, clusters of them. And there’s a nick in the wood here.’ He slid the square of wood across to reveal an inset keyhole. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Needs a key.’

  Natasha yelled with fury, shoving hard on the panel, and went flying through to hit a wall the other side. Callanach pulled her up.

  ‘He must have had his hands full. God knows what we’re going to find up there,’ he whispered. ‘Please, Natasha, go back out. Someone needs to show them where to find us.’

  From above them, as clear as if they were in the midst of it, the screaming began.

  Callanach took the steps two at a time with Natasha racing behind. The staircase was narrow, enclosed. At the top was another door, thick, solid wood with a huge lock.

  They gritted their teeth and pushed, hoping he’d been too sloppy to remember to lock this one too but, finally, their luck had run out.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  ‘I won’t do it,’ Ava said. ‘You’re not going to make me responsible for taking a life, either the girl’s or theirs,’ she pointed at Jayne. Elaine was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘You think I’m bluffing?’ King asked, digging the knife further into Billie’s neck. ‘You think I won’t, because she’s so young, maybe? Let me tell you what young women think of me, Ava. They walk behind me in the corridors at the University and giggle. They turn their snotty noses up at the way I dress, whisper unkind words about my hair. Then they flash their bare legs and their under-developed tits at the childish boys who strut around campus as if they were gods. Well, who’s the god here?’

  ‘Put the knife down,’ Ava said. ‘That’s enough.’

  ‘Pick up the hammer or I’ll cut,’ he answered. ‘You’re running out of time.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Ava shouted. ‘When you’ve cut her throat, what’ll you do then? You don’t want to kill Jayne or Elaine yourself. That’s why you’re trying to make me do it.’

  ‘You think I’m that gutless?’ King screamed at her. ‘I’ve slaughtered two women in this room. You doubt I can kill two, three, twenty more?’ He removed the knife from Billie’s throat and took a step towards Ava, pointing the blade at her instead. ‘You think I won’t kill you?’ He lunged towards her, making Ava gasp and shrink backwards in a way he found unexpectedly enticing. ‘You want to know why I’m doing it? Because I want to see Natasha Forge’s best friend butcher another woman in cold blood. I want to hear you scream with more than pain. I want to witness the humanity ripping out of you.’

  ‘Is that what it was all for?’ Ava asked quietly. ‘To get Natasha’s attention? She must despise you.’

  ‘Pick up the hammer,’ he said. His voice was ice. ‘Twenty seconds. Choose one or I’ll catch the girl’s blood in a bucket and make you drink it.’

  ‘No,’ Ava screamed. King stepped back to Billie’s upside down body. Her face was purple and swollen. Ava stared at the girl. ‘Please, please don’t kill her.’

  ‘It’s all right, Ava. Choose me,’ Jayne said. ‘Cover my face first and make it a good blow. I’m not scared of dying. Truth is, I’m more scared of watching him kill again.’

  ‘Jayne, no. We’re not doing this,’ Ava said, putting a gentle hand on the other woman’s forehead.

  ‘This isn’t heroics. Believe me, the thought of the pain is terrifying. But you can’t let him take her life. She’s a child and she’s been through enough already. Save her. Do it for me.’

  ‘Ten seconds,’ King said.

  ‘Fetch the hammer,’ Jayne told Ava. ‘I’m closing my eyes.’

  ‘No,’ Ava whispered although suddenly she was a step closer to her bed, reaching out her hand. Tears were spilling down her cheeks. King tried to stop the grin spreading over his face, realised he couldn’t, and allowed himself to simply enjoy the moment.

  ‘Know that you’re doing what I want,’ Jayne said. ‘And that no one will ever think you did anything but what was right. Tell my mother I love her. Ask my congregation to forgive this man. It’s true that you can’t conquer hate with hate.’

  Ava was in front of her, the hammer’s old wooden handle rough against her palm, its metal head stained from years of use. She looked at King, her eyes pleading, beyond words. He responded only by positioning himself behind Billie’s inverted body, one arm gripping her around the waist, his other hand sliding the knife blade through the air in front of her windpipe. His message could not have been clearer.

  ‘May God forgive me,’ Ava said, covering Jayne’s face with a blanket and lifting the hammer up high, gripping it with both hands, sobbing as she spread her feet for balance, to get her aim clean and the blow hard. She could only bear to do it once, and she knew that when the blow h
ad been struck she might as well have died, right there, with Jayne.

  The hammering on the door came from nowhere, hard, insistent.

  There was a moment when King’s eyes met Ava’s, each assessing the other, planning their next move. King wavered, at first taking the knife from Billie’s throat to run towards the door, then returning to cling to her hanging body, knowing he would need the leverage.

  ‘Don’t touch that fucking door,’ he shouted but the hammer was falling from Ava’s hands to the floor, her post as executioner abandoned, and she ran for it.

  The key was in the back of the lock. King cursed himself. It was Billie’s fault. She’d been too difficult, made him too angry. He wondered how they could have found him.

  ‘Open that door and she’ll only survive for seconds. Do you want that?’ King screamed. ‘Do you want to see her bleeding out every time you close your eyes?’

  ‘Open the door,’ a male voice demanded, heavy with an accent King recognised.

  ‘Luc, I can’t,’ Ava shouted, ‘he’s got a girl strung up. If I open the door, he’ll kill her.’

  ‘He’ll kill her anyway,’ Callanach shouted back. ‘He killed two women before. I’ll take responsibility, Ava. Unlock the door.’

  ‘Ava?’ another voice called, this one female. ‘Ava, you’ve got to do as Luc says. You have to let us in so we can help.’

  ‘Natasha?’ King said, before the word could come out of Ava’s mouth. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Yes,’ came the reply. Silence. Waiting. Even Billie was mute, her struggling ceased.

  ‘Open the door,’ King instructed Ava. ‘I won’t hurt the girl. I’d like to see Professor Forge.’

  Ava reached out with shaking fingers and turned the key. The door swung open and Callanach and Natasha stared in.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  As the door opened Callanach took a step in front of Natasha. There had been an eerie quality to King’s voice as he’d spoken her name, part childlike, part menacing – the bully who offers sweets to lure a smaller child behind a tree to hurt them unseen.

  Ava’s face was battered. One cheek was badly swollen but she was still standing. That was good. Across the far side of the room, a woman was tied by the wrists to a metal, hospital-style headboard. Her face and body were covered with a blanket. Only her arms were visible. She was moaning and chanting.

  King was only partially visible, his body shielded by another female, this one upside down, hanging from a beam by ropes tied around her ankles. The state of the floor below showed she’d already lost some blood. She’d lose consciousness if they didn’t get her down soon. King was holding a long, serrated kitchen knife to her jugular. One wrong move and she’d be beyond help.

  ‘Reginald,’ Callanach said. ‘My name’s Luc. Can we talk without the knife, do you think?’

  ‘Don’t even start with the Psychology for Dummies speech, DI Callanach. I’m beyond it. It’s Natasha I want to talk to. Can I call you by your first name, here?’ he asked her sarcastically. ‘As I’m in my own home, where you’re no longer my superior. I guess I’m not welcome back at the University anyway. Human Resources probably doesn’t have a standard warning letter on file for this scenario.’ He laughed and Natasha brushed Callanach’s restraining hand off her arm to step into the room.

  ‘You’re not going to hurt that girl are you, Dr King?’ Natasha said.

  ‘Why do you care?’ King asked. ‘You never cared about me, never asked my opinion, never once in all the time we worked together did you enquire how I was. But this girl, this faeces on the shoe of humanity, her you care about.’

  ‘We had a working relationship, the same as I do with every other member of the department. I’m sorry you thought I didn’t pay you enough attention.’ She took another step towards Billie, showing King she was unafraid. Callanach tried to edge into the room.

  ‘That’s as close as I want you, Detective Inspector. Remember what’s at stake,’ King said.

  ‘Let me get her down,’ Natasha said. ‘You’ve proved what you’re capable of. You’ve shown me that I underestimated you. Nothing more is needed.’

  ‘No, I won’t let her down, not yet,’ he said. ‘But you can comfort her if it’ll make you feel better, if you want to show your friends how kind and compassionate you are. Be my guest.’

  Natasha took one of the girl’s hands in her own. There was a flicker of life from the teenager. Callanach heard Billie sigh as their hands made contact, saw her look into Natasha’s eyes with shining gratitude.

  ‘You see,’ King said. ‘You are capable of it. I don’t know why you always had to be such a fucking bitch to me.’

  Dr King sliced, severing long and swift, cutting deep. Billie’s face had no time to register the pain. With the tension from her throat gone, the front of her head slipped downwards to face the floor. Natasha tried to make sense of it, held her hands out to catch the blood, to push the girl’s face back towards her throat, both of them swimming in red.

  ‘No!’ Natasha screamed at him. ‘Oh God. Please no. Why did you do that?’ Ava ran towards Billie and Natasha. Callanach rushed for King, but too late. He was at Jayne’s bedside before Callanach could intercept.

  Billie’s body emptied itself of the remainder of its life-giving fluid. Natasha was on her knees, howling with grief and fury as Ava wrapped herself around her.

  Callanach watched as King whipped the blanket off Jayne’s face. His face was flushed and sweaty. He was enjoying it, had a taste for death. He wouldn’t stop.

  ‘No,’ Ava said. ‘You’re not going to hurt Jayne. You won’t get out of here alive if you do.’

  ‘Would you like to come and comfort this one as well, Natasha?’ he asked. ‘Hold her hand while I gut her?’

  Natasha pressed her face into Ava’s shoulder.

  ‘Your valiance was remarkably short lived. What a shame. Jayne doesn’t mind dying, do you? Presumably you think Heaven awaits. But what if the afterlife is only you, me and this room, the two of us trapped together forever, as I slaughter you over and over again?’ Jayne didn’t respond.

  Callanach heard a noise behind him, cast his eyes around and put one hand backwards to the doorframe.

  King was stroking Jayne’s cheek with the knife. She was shaking, her eyes bulging with fear. Callanach walked forward to Ava and Natasha, pushing them behind him.

  ‘Are you going to have a go, Inspector?’ King asked him, grinning. ‘Only it seems to me that I can slice faster even than Interpol’s brightest and best can run. Surprised? Well, you’re not the only one who’s done your research. Left France under quite the cloud, didn’t you? Although I dare say your colleagues weren’t upset to lose you. How was it being the golden boy and having it all ripped away? Let me recall … you’ve got a good degree, you spent time modelling, magazines and newspapers back then had you linked to more than a few celebrity names. After that, a brief but impressive period with the police in Paris, transfer to Interpol. And then your great downfall. Of course, I had to read it all in French, but then I’m self-taught and fluent. We have more in common than you realise, actually. I had my future cruelly stolen from me too, didn’t I, Natasha?’

  King glanced briefly in her direction. She opened her mouth to reply, but no more than a whisper and a sob came from her lips. Callanach did his best to remain impassive at the details King had been able to provide about his life. The fanatical ability to research was exactly the trademark of the killer they’d been hunting. His obsessive nature was what had made it so hard to catch him out. He must have planned the abductions for months, known everything there was to know about Jayne and Elaine.

  ‘Shall we try it, then, Callanach?’ King continued, waving the knife at the space between the two of them. ‘Ava didn’t want to play my game. Perhaps you’ll be a better sport.’

  ‘All right,’ Callanach said. ‘What’s the distance between us, do you think? You know this room better than me.’

  ‘I do,’ King said. ‘It’s
approximately eighteen feet. Enough time for me to kill her and turn the knife on you. Fancy your chances?’ he asked.

  Callanach nodded.

  ‘Luc, don’t!’ Ava shouted. ‘You’ll never make it. For God’s sake, stop!’

  ‘Any last prayers, Reverend? Only the inspector here is taking a substantial gamble with your life and you might want to be prepared for the worst.’ Jayne began furiously straining against the cuffs around her wrists and thrashing her legs.

  King put the knife to her throat with studious care, adjusting the angle, adding pressure as if he were about to carve a roast.

  He looked at Callanach and opened his mouth to give the go-ahead.

  Callanach jerked his hand from behind his back and fired. The taser wires hit King full in the chest, sending twelve hundred volts through his body. He dropped like a rock, and the knife went with him.

  Tripp’s face appeared from the stairwell. ‘Did you get him?’ Callanach nodded. ‘Medics and back up will be here in one minute.’

  Callanach started walking towards King’s body when a woman he hadn’t seen before, at least not in the flesh, stood up and held one hand out to stop him.

  ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t come any closer. He’s got to die.’ In her hand was the hammer Ava had thrown to the floor.

  ‘Elaine,’ Ava said. ‘It’s over. We’re going to arrest him. King’s going to prison and he won’t be let out in his lifetime, I promise you.’

  ‘It’s not enough,’ she said. ‘I don’t care if he’s locked up and tortured every day for a hundred years. It can never be enough.’

  She pulled out false teeth from red raw gums and threw them across the room. They landed at Callanach’s feet.

  ‘Elaine,’ Jayne whispered. ‘Honey, you can’t kill him. That’s not you.’

  ‘How can you say that after what he did to us? After what he did to the others?’ she asked, lisping and spitting saliva.