The Psalm Killer

by Chris Petit

  She looked at him with a wry, breathless smile and gestured with her head towards her flat. Cross nodded and followed her inside.

  They stood a long time kissing on the landing outside her flat after the automatic light had switched itself off, leaving them in the dark. They moved slowly into the sitting room, still kissing.

  ‘Shall we go to bed?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m too nervous.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. I am too.’

  She started to unbutton Cross’s shirt. ‘We can stay in here. We don’t have to hurry.’

  They ended up lying half naked on the rug among their gradually discarded clothes. He wanted her but was not hard enough and was not sure how to proceed. The strain of the last weeks had left him exhausted and he was content to lie with her for the moment. He wondered if she was expecting more of him but she seemed quite relaxed.

  ‘It’s funny,’ said Westerby. ‘It feels like we’ve already fucked. Your body feels good. Most people’s bodies feel strange at first.’

  ‘Is that what you call it, fucking?’

  Westerby nodded. ‘What’s wrong with that? What do you call it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t suppose I call it anything. Do you like fucking?’

  ‘Rather more than the men I end up fucking.’

  Cross wasn’t sure if she meant him too.

  ‘We should try and sleep,’ she said and he felt again that he had disappointed her.

  The sight of her unself-conscious movement around the lit bedroom, which he could see from where he lay in the living room, made him realize how much he desired her – the nape of her neck, the hollow of her throat, the rise of her breast – and from the way she moved he was sure that it was the same for her. They recognized something in each other so there was no reason to be afraid or to hold back.

  The gentleness and circumspection of earlier were forgotten. Clumsiness only made them more passionate: the accidental scrape of teeth; their mismatched mouths sliding away from each other to range over each other’s bodies. Compared to his exhaustion of only shortly before, Cross felt tireless. When Westerby guided him between her legs he felt her slippery heat and as he slid into her she rolled on top of him with a look of sharp exhilaration. Both of them seemed surprised at their confidence, at the familiarity of it and the lack of wrong moves until she broke off suddenly with an expression of surprise and said, ‘You don’t mind a bit of blood, do you?’ Then, seeing his bewilderment, she laughed and added, ‘It’s all right, I’m not a virgin. My period’s just come on.’

  Cross ran his hand over her body and said, ‘I’m not squeamish.’

  ‘Come here,’ she said, aroused almost beyond control. ‘Come inside me again,’ and when she felt him hard and secure she said, ‘This is how I always thought it was meant to be.’

  50

  THEY spent the night heavy-limbed and drugged with sex, reluctant to give themselves up to sleep. They dozed once or twice and took a moment on waking to realize where they were. As they drifted off again one of them would pull the other back to start over.

  Intimacy gave way to a natural state of unself-conscious ease in the morning. Cross did not feel guilty, as he’d expected, and Westerby moved around the apartment with easy naked grace. Her smallest gestures fascinated him. He wondered if he wasn’t falling in love.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’ Westerby asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, still smiling. ‘This room reeks of sex.’

  ‘We’ve not finished yet.’

  He took a long time leaving. There was a false start after he had dressed and they’d gone back to bed. She looked sad when he went, and confessed that she dreaded returning to the business of Candlestick.

  About ten minutes later she worked out what she’d been missing, while she was sitting on the lavatory putting in a Tampax, and slapped her forehead at her stupidity.

  Cross tried to busy himself catching up on reports that he was late writing up. Hargreaves was on leave, he discovered, and he was annoyed that no one had told him. He’d also spied Moffat at the far end of a corridor and taken a sharp turn into an adjacent toilet rather than face him. He still needed time.

  He found it hard to concentrate. He wondered at what point they had recognized that something was at last going to happen – in the restaurant or not until they were standing outside her flat? Occasionally he brooded on the consequences of his actions. He was being unfaithful and the affair itself was a disciplinary offence, yet he didn’t care. But they would have to be careful in the light of Nesbitt’s premonitory caution.

  After work he drove to the O’Neills to see Fiona and Matthew and took them to a nearby park with a play-ground. Deidre wasn’t yet back, which was a relief.

  He pushed them on the swings and on the carousel and made sure Fiona didn’t get bumped off the see-saw when she went up in the air.

  ‘Hang on tight.’

  He couldn’t say when he had last spent any significant amount of time with the children. What would they remember of him in twenty years’ time: a man looking under his car in the garage?

  ‘That’s enough,’ he said. ‘Listen, where would you go if you could go anywhere in the world?’

  Greenland, said Matthew. Fiona opted for Africa.

  ‘I was thinking of a holiday,’ said Cross. ‘Somewhere nearer.’

  ‘When?’ asked Matthew.

  ‘Before the end of the summer. What about France?’

  ‘France is boring,’ announced Fiona.

  ‘I’ll talk to your mum.’

  ‘Why aren’t you living with us?’ asked Matthew.

  Cross ignored the question. Matthew was quiet on the drive back to the O’Neills’, while Fiona chattered happily on.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked Matthew, knowing perfectly well.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Matthew.

  Deidre was at home. Fiona announced that they were all going on holiday. Deidre expressed her delight then followed it with a cool look at Cross.

  ‘Whose idea is this?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought it would be good to get away.’

  A flicker of exasperation crossed her face.

  ‘I’ll try and come up again tomorrow,’ he said to the children. He ruffled Matthew’s hair and the boy flicked his head aside impatiently.

  They ate at the Italian restaurant and again were the only diners. Cross wondered how the place kept going, even with its concession to the Northern Irish taste for chips with everything, spaghetti included.

  Westerby drew tramlines on the tablecloth with her fork, talking quietly about what she had worked out, pausing to look up at Cross. She seemed withdrawn and serious.

  ‘It was staring me in the face and I didn’t see it,’ she said. ‘It’s been staring me in the face for days.’

  She went on to say that her previous assessment of the murders happening around the turn of the month was nearly right, but she had been working to the calendar month, which was wrong.

  ‘I thought he’d broken the pattern with Catherine Edge by killing her too early, but he hadn’t. It fits.’

  She got out a piece of paper on which she had already written out the dates. Cross glanced over them – the first five days of February and March, 29 March to 2 April, 26 to 30 April, 24 to 28 May, 21 to 25 June, 19 to 23 July.

  He looked at Westerby and raised his eyebrows enquiringly.

  ‘What do you know about the menstrual cycle?’ she asked.

  Cross frowned, not able to see the point. ‘It’s monthly, but I don’t—’

  ‘Menstruation is governed by the lunar cycle—’

  ‘How do you know he’s not killing according to the moon?’

  ‘Because it’s not as simple as that.’

  He apologized for interrupting and told her to go on.

  ‘It’s a twenty-eight-day cycle that starts with the first day of bleeding. The bleeding lasts several days. Five is about normal.’

  ‘An
d you’re saying these dates fit a cycle?’

  Westerby nodded. ‘I think our man has a woman in the background. And is killing according to her cycle.’

  ‘And she knows?’

  ‘Totally unaware, I’d say. Don’t forget he’s excellent at deception, but then most men are.’ She smiled hastily and added, ‘I didn’t mean you.’

  Cross smiled back while he privately agreed. A part of him relished secrecy and duplicity, even the deception he was enjoying now at Deidre’s expense. He frowned and looked at the details again.

  ‘So each murder occurs during the woman’s period?’

  Westerby nodded.

  ‘Is it that predictable?’ he asked.

  ‘If she’s regular. Then these dates all fall within the first five days of a new cycle. This is what I meant yesterday when I thought there was some trigger missing. During these periods he’s driven to kill.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Cross.

  ‘A lot of men – and some religions – regard women as taboo when they’re menstruating. This is not putting you off, is it?’ she asked cheerfully.

  She put her hand under the table and ran it up his leg.

  ‘Obviously not,’ she said with a smile. ‘Let’s get the bill.’

  51

  CROSS called Deidre from his office to say that he was temporarily staying elsewhere as he thought the house was being watched. She didn’t ask for his number. While relations between them had never been cooler, they still talked about a holiday as though everything was perfectly normal.

  He asked Westerby for a short dossier providing a brief biography of their killer, a psychological profile, noting the fact that he killed according to the lunar calendar.

  ‘Do you want me to put the exact reason?’

  ‘No. Keep it as straight as possible, but say that we can correctly predict when the next murder will happen. Also list his aliases and a sentence or two on likely motive.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘A revelation.’ Cross felt a chill settle on him. ‘He wants to show us something so monstrous that the events of the past fifteen years will pale by comparison.’

  ‘Is this for Moffat?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. We don’t have any other choice.’

  Moffat was untrustworthy and would sacrifice them both if it suited, Cross knew that. Moffat operated on a strictly need-to-know basis, which for Cross meant telling him next to nothing. More personally, he had systematically opposed the theory and evidence of linked killings and, in a further denial, had framed Willcox with two of the murders. But it was Cross’s duty as a policeman to see the murderer caught, and the notebook was incontrovertible proof of the multiple killings. He really had no choice except to go to Moffat. Even if it meant supping with the devil.

  Moffat was at languid ease, one Chelsea boot on his desk. Cross could not remember the last time he’d seen Chelsea boots. He flicked through Westerby’s report – given to him several hours before the meeting.

  ‘Well,’ he said, his drawl more pronounced than usual, ‘you have rather shown us up.’

  Cross said nothing, suspecting that Moffat’s capitulation was just another tactic.

  ‘OK, let’s cut to the chase, as our American friends would say,’ said Moffat, swinging his foot off his desk and leaning forward, all eagerness and co-operation. ‘What’s your assessment of this man? Is he a loner or do you think he’s still being run?’

  ‘I don’t know enough yet to answer that question, but your deliberate arrest of Willcox suggests to me that our killer has connections you want kept quiet.’

  Moffat looked stung, but kept his temper and told Cross to go on.

  ‘The man is killing for a reason, not just for gratification. It’s important somehow, for him, that the killings weren’t seen to be connected at first, but later they were, perhaps to show how stupid we are, like he’s saying, “Look, all these killings are going on under your noses and you didn’t even realize, and, while we’re about it, there are all these other things going on you don’t know about either.” So why did you arrest Willcox?’

  ‘Is this a conversation you want to have?’ said Moffat indifferently.

  Cross stared at Moffat until he turned away and eventually said, ‘It’s not a very edifying story. Not much of what I do is.’

  Then he looked up and held Cross’s eye. Cross, in spite of his instinctive suspicion, felt that Moffat wanted to be frank, or was he a better actor than he gave him credit for?

  ‘Northern Ireland actually works pretty well, and the opposing bits slot together better than you might suppose. I know that sounds cynical, but the system operates on what Reginald Maudling called an acceptable level of violence.’

  ‘You mean deals are made,’ said Cross, thinking of Eddoes and Breen and all the rest.

  Moffat shrugged. ‘A French general once said that all great battles are won and lost in the interstices of staff maps. Are you a student of military history?’

  Fuck off, thought Cross. ‘I know things go on in the interstices or whatever you want to call them. But I would stress that in this case the seriousness of the crime and the intention to kill again override any other consideration.’

  ‘Of course.’ Moffat nodded gravely and sighed. ‘Except this couldn’t have come at a worse time.’

  ‘Could it have come at a better time?’ Cross asked sarcastically.

  ‘Relatively, yes. The Prots are as windy as hell at the moment. They’re scared that Westminster’s going to sell them out. It’s happened before, of course. Churchill offered the Province to the South during the war in exchange for the Republic coming in with the Allies. Did you know that?’

  ‘De Valera refused.’

  ‘Well, it nearly happened again in 1974 and now the Prots are on the wobble because of the new Dublin agreement that is due to be signed in November.’

  ‘What’s this to do with our man?’

  Moffat ignored the question. ‘What do you know about Stalker?’

  Cross said that he knew what everyone else knew. Stalker had been invited over from England to conduct an investigation into allegations that the police had deliberately set out to murder IRA terrorists.

  Moffat shrugged. ‘Which they did.’

  ‘And Stalker insists on saying so and publishing the results, regardless of whose toes he treads on. Which is not quite the usual whitewash job everyone was expecting.’

  ‘God preserve us from moral crusaders.’

  ‘I can see Stalker’s point.’

  Moffat grunted. ‘I thought you might.’

  He yawned theatrically to underline his impatience at Cross’s stolid defence.

  ‘If we were officially at war with the IRA it’d be a lot easier, but we’re not,’ he went on, ‘so the rules are fluid, and with so much of our work being of necessity undercover the truth is the first victim in all of this. It is necessary to lie. This is not a moral issue, it’s a simple fact. Pretence, deception, stealth, without these none of the parties involved would be able to function. Were RUC officers trained by the SAS to carry out lethal ambushes, what do you think?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I think,’ said Cross. ‘What has this got to do with Willcox?’

  Moffat, stung by Cross’s bluntness, became aggressive. ‘I’ll tell you what it has to do with Willcox. We are politically at a very delicate time and clumsy policemen stamping around in their size-twelve boots and taking the lid off things that are supposed to stay covered is not what’s needed. Stalker will submit his interim report shortly and it will be highly critical of the RUC and Special Branch. What do you think’ll happen? I’ll tell you. It’ll get sat on because the last thing anyone needs with this agreement coming up is some big political stink. Or the news that a multiple killer is running rings round us and killing for some purpose which he’ll announce once he feels we’ve made fools enough of ourselves. Willcox was arrested as a pre-emptive measure.’

  Moffat got up before Cross could say anything an
d went over to the window. The view was of a rainy car park. ‘Fucking awful weather you get in this country. How long have you been over here?’

  Cross told him thirteen years.

  ‘I don’t know how you stick it. Jolly friendly people, beautiful countryside and all that, but there’s something about the place. It’s like Leicester with guns.’

  Cross didn’t laugh. He was being led off the subject.

  ‘Why did Willcox confess?’

  Moffat looked weary. ‘One of the things that’s bloody frustrating about this job is remembering what you can and can’t tell people. Need-to-know and all that. Public school, were you?’

  Cross shook his head, irritated by the question, but more annoyed with himself for the feeling of inferiority it provoked.

  ‘Smut and secrecy are no fun unless they’re shared. I dare say you can see that.’

  Moffat sat down again and swung both feet up on the desk, and paused. For an uncomfortable moment Cross thought he was about to tell a dirty joke.

  ‘All right, between you and me, a confidence not to be repeated. Willcox was easy-peasy, and put squarely in the frame because of Mary Ryan being killed in his lock-up. Which suggests that her killer knew Willcox. I’d go one step further and say that using the lock-up was deliberate mischief against Willcox. But I thought we could turn that to our advantage – using Willcox to trump the killer, by claiming two of his murders – and stinging him into making a slip.’

  ‘So you took the suggestion of multiple murder seriously from the start.’

  ‘Oh yes. I can’t afford not to.’

  ‘In spite of what you told me.’

  ‘We needed more proof. I thought that denying your theory might drive you to prove it all the harder. Sound move, as it turned out.’ Moffat gave a conspiratorial grin. ‘Don’t worry. We’re both on the same side in the end.’