by Michael Kerr
“We have all the data, and know that many of them come from the same sort of dysfunctional background. The average serial killer has a history of abuse, and could be recognised as being high risk if enough people were looking for it. As a child he would be a loner who might show his sadistic tendencies by harming animals, or bullying other children. A lot of them are fascinated by fire and become arsonists. There are patterns and signs as bright as neon. Trouble is, parents are the first line of defence, and they sure as hell don’t admit to maltreating their kids. Other agencies don’t have the resources to specifically monitor a phenomenon that is so rare as to be financially impractical. You can’t put every problem child under a microscope for years, on the off chance that he might turn out to be a Lucas Downey.”
“Tell the loved ones of victims that it’s down to funding: that their sons and daughters might not have been sexually abused and ripped to pieces by a psycho if the will had been there to have a system that would nip these mental mutants in the bud.”
“People like me do the research, Matt. You know that. We pass our findings on to government and law enforcement agencies. But we don’t have the clout to make the powers that be implement a strategy to prevent something that might not happen.”
“I know that. Thing is, you sometimes make me feel as though I’m some kind of paid executioner. Truth is, cops like me are the last line of defence. We have to clean up what everyone else has missed until it’s too late.”
“And I understand that, Matt. I know just how much a case takes out of you. But you still need to try and back off a little. Be able to accept that shit always has and always will happen.”
“I try to keep it simple. I’m a cop, not an undergraduate studying criminal psychology.”
“You’re as sharp as me when it comes to interpreting a killer’s personality. You just like to hear me affirming what you’ve already decided.”
“Not true. You work with them every day. I learn a lot of how they think from what you tell me.”
“Enough of heaping praise on each other. Let’s go back to your place and celebrate finding Orchard Cottage.”
“What with?”
“Champagne, and then bed.”
“I’m fresh out of champagne.”
Beth grinned. “Never mind. One out of two ain’t bad.”
It was the next afternoon by the time they had a complete list of all Vincent Walters’ properties. Those that were being rented were put to one side. Only vacant properties were initially considered.
Beth had joined Matt, Tom and Pete in Matt’s office, to sift through them and attempt to come up with a short list.
“I think you can safely discount apartments, and any property in a built-up area,” Beth advised. “Downey will only feel safe away from people. He’ll want to be in an isolated spot with total privacy.”
“Like a fox going to earth,” Tom said.
Beth nodded. “Exactly. He won’t want to be on the beaten track. We need to prioritise anything that is in a very secluded setting.”
Pete kept the coffee coming, hot and strong. And as they judged properties with the zeal of The Voice’ panel trying to find satisfactory contenders, Marci knocked at the door. Matt waved her in. Could tell by her expression that she had good news.
“Make our day, Marci,” he said. “What have you got?”
“A murder, with a link to Downey. The victim is one Ralph Hilton. He was a doorman at a night-club in Camberwell. Didn’t show up for work last night, or answer his phone. The club’s manager went round to check on him this morning. He was a pal of Hilton’s, and knew that if he’d been able to, he would have given him a bell. Anyhow, he couldn’t get an answer, so went around the back, looked through a gap in the curtains and saw Ralph lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood. He broke in, confirmed that he was dead, and rang the police.”
“What’s the link, Marci?” Matt said. “The suspense is killing me.”
“Sorry, boss. He had a few Celtic tattoos. One of the attending uniforms asked the right questions. The club manager, Cornelius Earl, stated that Ralph had got the tattoos done at Downey’s studio. The grabber is, Ralph’s Volvo 850 saloon is missing. And his place is only a five minute walk from Ink Magic.”
“You just won yourself a free coffee, Marci,” Matt said.
“Gee thanks, boss,” Marci said, and handed the paperwork to Matt with all the relevant details. “But I’ll take a rain check on that. Do you want me to put an APB out on the Volvo?”
“No. We don’t want to spook him. This is about containment.”
“If we can put the stolen car and one of these addresses together, then Downey is dead meat...figuratively speaking,” Tom said as Marci went back out into the squad room.
They got it down to fifteen addresses that fitted the bill. Then Tom left it to Matt and Beth to sift further. The list came down to six that were good possibilities.
“You think it’s one of those?” Tom said.
“Yes, if we had a complete list of everything Walters owns,” Beth said.
Matt didn’t feel the buzz. Usually when he was close he seemed to light up inside and everything felt right. This didn’t.
“What?” Tom said.
“We’re missing something,” Matt said. “It seems the logical way to go, and yet I know it isn’t going to be this easy.”
“What is your gut instinct telling you?” Beth said.
“It’s saying that Marjory Walters is the key. The more I picture her, the more I’m certain she knows exactly where Lucas is. She’s not stupid. Will figure that we’ll look at everything on her hubby’s books, which tells me that this might be a waste of time.”
“It’s all we’ve got,” Tom said. “We have to go with it.”
Matt pushed his chair back and got up. “You go with it, then. Beth, Pete, come with me.”
“Hold it,” Tom said with a steely edge to his voice. “Whatever notion you’ve got, run it past me. I want to know exactly what you plan on doing, and where you intend to go.”
“I’m going to take the kid gloves off and brace Marjory. Push her till she serves her nephew up on a plate.”
“You’ve got until I can jack up an operation to hit all these addresses,” Tom said. “If you’re no wiser by then, I want you back here, ready to roll. And that’s not a request.”
“Whatever,” Matt said and walked out with Beth and Pete in his slipstream.
CHAPTER FORTY
The cottage was ideal. Lucas had passed the entrance to it twice without even seeing it. The lane led off a side road, and was a dead end. No through traffic.
It had been Julie that saw the open gateway, which just appeared a shade darker than the thick evergreen foliage at either side of it. He had turned the Volvo’s lights off to negotiate the winding lane, not knowing if any other remote households were near enough to be alerted. He did not want to be seen arriving.
The cottage was invisible from the lane, due to an S-bend drive ensuring total privacy.
He parked in front of a two-car garage, unbuckled his seat belt and pushed Julie forward in her seat until her head was between her knees. Using his right hand, he took a length of twine from the pocket of his fleece.
“Put your hands behind your back,” he said.
Julie did as she was told. He was right to not trust her. Had she been able to get out of the car in the dark with no encumbrance, then she would have run away into the night and hidden from him. Clouds blotted out the moon, and visibility was almost nonexistent.
He bound her wrists. Released the seat belt that held her in place and turned off the dome light above the rearview mirror, so that it would not function when he opened his door.
“Now, very slowly, shimmy over here and get out at my side,” he said.
Julie obeyed.
He gripped her by the biceps of her left arm and led her to the front door of the stone-built cottage. Inserted the key in the lock and smiled as the door opened.
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“Home sweet home, darling,” he said, nuzzling Julie’s ear with his lips. “I think Aunt Marjory has done us proud.”
Leading Julie to one of the two three-seater settees in the lounge, Lucas told her to lay face down on it, then using more of the thick twine, he fashioned a noose, slipped it over her head and tightened it around her neck. He then lifted her legs up and tied the loose end around her ankles.
“Keep your legs raised or you’ll top yourself,” he said. “I won’t be a minute. I’m just going to garage the car and bring in the groceries. Then we’ll have ourselves a tour of the place and get comfortable.”
With the car under cover, Lucas went back into the cottage, carrying provisions he had bought at a small supermarket on the outskirts of Gloucester.
He set the carrier bags down and released Julie from the position she was in, but retied her hands in front of her, and used the remaining six foot length of twine as a leash, leaving the noose around her neck and tying the other end of it to his left wrist. She was going nowhere without him.
As they viewed the cottage, upstairs and down, Lucas made sure that the curtains at the windows were drawn properly, overlapping, so that no chink of light would be seen through the thick, lined and almost light proof material.
“Nice,” he said, leading Julie like a dog into the kitchen, that was snug and had a breakfast nook set in a corner. “My aunt has good taste. Christ knows where she got it from. How does a cheap whore reinvent herself as a woman of substance?”
Julie didn’t answer. He was talking to himself, and in any case the twine noose – though not drawn tight – was chafing her already bruised throat.
Lucas’s eyes were attuned to the small amount of ambient light entering through the kitchen window. He opened and closed cupboards and drawers. Found a torch, and only then closed the curtains above the sink unit.
Thumbing the torch on, he went over to the table in the nook and attempted to turn on a Tiffany table lamp. The darkness was not broken. Had the bulb gone? He went over to the door and tried the main light switch. Still no respite from the gloom.
No power. He found the fuse box in a wall unit. The electric was on; it was just the ring circuit for the lights that needed resetting. He pushed the button in and grunted with satisfaction as the multicoloured table lamp illuminated the kitchen in soft, diffused effulgence.
“What do you think, Julie? Isn’t this an improvement on the loft?”
“Yes, Lucas,” she said. Her voice was a harsh croak. And she winced as the sensation of broken glass ripped through her throat.
Lucas hugged her. He was beginning to feel in fine spirits. It was true, as one door closes, another opens.
“Let’s get this food and stuff packed away,” he said. “Then I’ll make you a nice cup of cocoa before we grab a few hours’ sleep. How does that sound?”
“That would be nice, Lucas.” Julie said. “Could I have a drink of water, please?”
He found a glass. Turned the cold water tap on and let it run for a minute, before filling the tumbler and handing it to her.
“Take these with it,” Lucas said, producing a slim carton, from which he removed a blister pack and popped three of the tablets out onto the palm of his hand.
“What are they?” Julie said.
“Sleeping pills, Julie. I plan for us to snuggle up together and be comfortable. And I wouldn’t rest easy with you laid next to me wide awake, planning to escape, or wondering how to murder me in my sleep.”
Julie didn’t argue. Just picked the pills up, put them in her mouth one at a time and washed them down.
Half an hour later, they were both fast asleep in the largest bedroom.
Lucas was dreaming of walking down a country lane, his arm around Julie, who was resting her head on his shoulder. Birds were singing, and the world was a beautiful place to be a part of. True love had entered his life for the first time, and he was captivated by the power of it.
Julie did not dream. The soporific drug had induced a state of total unawareness that even suppressed her subconscious.
Marjory had overlooked a very important detail. A detail that was life-threatening, though not to her.
Having such a busy and eventful schedule of dinner parties, evenings out at the theatre, and time allocated to all the societies and organisations that a woman of her position in the community was affiliated to, Marjory could be forgiven for ignoring the incidentals, that for the main part the staff attended to.
She had simply forgotten all about Norman. It was a little after ten a.m. when Norman Bartholomew left his house and headed off through the woods in the direction of Marjory’s retreat. Sam bounded along in front of him, stopping every few yards to sniff at the ground, hoping to scare up a bird, or come across a squirrel to chase.
Norman had lived in the forest since being medically retired from the army shortly after the end of the Falklands War in eighty-two. He had lost his left leg, courtesy of an Argie land mine. One second he was full of gung-ho, charging across a field littered with the bloated carcasses of dead sheep, and the next he was face down in a small stream with his leg hanging by a few threads of bloody skin from where his knee had been.
It was no big deal. He was flown home, and was soon limping around on a prosthetic limb. He had used the experience as a springboard into a new life, and now wrote action novels under the pseudonym of Ben Ryker. They were all the sort of stuff that the likes of Chris Ryan and Andy McNab were churning out so successfully. He was not threatening the best seller list, but made a living, and enjoyed the freedom and anonymity that his scribbling afforded.
As he neared Marjory’s weekend retreat, Norman had no reason to believe that his new war novel would never progress beyond the third chapter he was midway through. Or that this day’s walk, which incorporated checking the cottage, would be his last.
Sam loped up to the garage, sniffed at odours he did not recognise, and scratched at the bottom of the oak door.
“Stop that, boy!” Norman said to the ageing collie. “Come away.”
Sam whined, but obeyed.
Norman scratched his chin thoughtfully and considered the scene before him. All was as usual, apart from the curtains. They had been pulled together at every window since the day before. Somebody had been inside. Maybe they still were. Marjory always gave him a call when she arrived. They had a thing going. Nothing serious, just a nice, light friendship with no strings attached. Sometimes she would call by his place for a cup of tea and a chat. She had even read a couple of his books. And once in a while they would drink too much wine and end up between the sheets. His missing leg, or to be precise, the stump of it, turned her on. Funny to think that some people found amputees sexy. But he wasn’t complaining. Marjory was one hell of a lay.
Norman stood and thought through his options. He could just turn round and walk away, or call the local police and ask them to check it out. But he was here. If some kids had broken in, then he was more than capable of dealing with the situation. He gripped the stout cane that he carried and marched up to the front door. Hammered on it with the polished ram’s horn handle of the ash wood walking aid.
Lucas had showered and made coffee before Julie fought off the lingering effects of the sleeping pills and sat up in her new and comfortable surroundings. It took her a few seconds to remember where she was. He had removed her bonds. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, stood up and walked across to the window.
“Leave the curtains closed,” Lucas said, appearing at the open doorway. “And forget the windows. They’re all locked. Put something on and come downstairs. I’ve made coffee.”
Julie did as she was told. She still felt sluggish and subdued by the drug. She went across to the fitted wardrobe and slid open one of the doors. Found a lilac satin gown, slipped it on and tied the belt. It was cool on her skin, and the sheer fabric felt good.
“You look terrific,” Lucas said.
She walked towards him. He put his arm up to block
her way. She stopped and waited, not knowing what he would do next. His expression told her nothing. But the rising column in the body-hugging boxer shorts he wore spoke volumes, leaving her in no doubt that the coffee would be cold by the time she made it downstairs.
He reached out and put his hands on her shoulders, applying pressure to force her down onto her knees. Gripped the back of her head and pressed it up against his crotch. She knew what he wanted, so hooked her thumbs under the waistband of his grey, jersey FCUK shorts and peeled them down to his thighs.
Ten minutes later they were at the top of the stairs, about to descend when someone knocked at the door.
Grabbing Julie’s wrist, Lucas rushed back into the bedroom and parted the edge of one of the curtains a fraction to look down towards the door.
Relief. It was not the police. For a moment he had envisaged the cottage being surrounded by armed cops, and maybe Barnes at the door, about to shout, ‘Police, open up’. But it was some guy with a dog. He looked to be in his sixties; a sad bastard with a ponytail. He was wearing a green parka open over a plaid shirt, and blue jeans and Timberland-style boots. A black and white collie was running round in circles, trying to catch its tail.
“C’mon. Downstairs,” Lucas said to Julie. “I want you to find out who he is, then send him away happy. Tell him that you are Marjory’s niece, and that you’ll be staying here for a week or two.”
As they passed the lounge, Lucas paused, went in and picked up a large, brass poker from where it leant against the fireplace.
“Try anything stupid, and I’ll ram this down your throat,” Lucas whispered, pressing the end of the poker against her lips.
As the door was rapped again, Julie opened it.
“Yes?” Julie said to the man who faced her. “What do you want?”
Norman was momentarily lost for words. He had not expected a young woman in a dressing gown to open the door. In fact, he had not expected anyone to open it. Her appearance alarmed him. Her hair was shorter than that of the average raw army recruit under training. And her top lip was swollen and split. That aside, she was attractive, and the gown she wore was almost hanging loose, slightly agape. He could see a lot of breast, and lower, the inside of one milky thigh almost up to her...