The Beautiful Dead

by Belinda Bauer

  He laughed like a schoolyard bully.

  Mr Elias would have had something to say about that, but the gag wouldn’t allow it. It was one of his own pillowcases, stuffed hard into his mouth and taped around the back of his head with the same brown tape as was on the box.

  He scooped handfuls of peanuts on to the floor until, a few inches down, he touched something weird and recoiled with a little nnngg of surprise.

  The UPS man laughed and shouted, ‘Happy Christmas!’ and reached into the box, scooping the peanuts into the air in great showers of indoor snow, then ran out of the room, giggling.

  Mr Elias leaned forward gingerly, then grunted in shock.

  There was a head in the box.

  47

  23 December

  THE KILLER BATTED around the poky little house in a caged frenzy of anticipation.

  Everywhere he sought enlightenment. He stuck his fingers into every curious crevice. Every cupboard was spilled, every cabinet bared.

  He walked on jam and lettuce.

  He laughed at the UPS driver shivering on the phone in his pocket. At least give me some shoes, mate! How am I gonna walk home?

  ‘You’re not!’ he shouted gleefully in time to his own voice. ‘You’re not walking anywhere!’

  Now and then he pressed his ear against the adjoining wall, closing his eyes to hear better, silently muttering in time to the plans he heard in his ear or his head.

  There had been a piano; now it filled the back room with splinters and spun hoops of golden wire, and in the front room every ship and sepia portrait had been ripped from the wall to show much cleaner paper and paint underneath.

  Squares of loss and pain.

  No more. No more!

  He had eviscerated the house and now was so full of life that he thought he might burst! He tore off the brown uniform, and felt his skin straining to contain all the life he’d collected; all the blood and the guts and the eyes and the hair and the teeth and the meat and the bones filled him up to the brim! He was replete with life! His legs were all muscle, his cock like a rock. His once-numb heart was a great booming chamber pumping ox blood and fire!

  And his scar held tight. Not even a squeak.

  ‘Look at me!’ He spun on the rug, with arms like sparklers. ‘Look at me!’

  The sofa said nothing, exploded and torn.

  The chairs said nothing, piled like Jenga.

  The man said nothing, bound and gagged.

  Detective Superintendent Rees walked past the window, and the killer dropped to his haunches beside the big box.

  The policeman went down Eve Singer’s path, and then the faint sound of the rusty latch on the gate took the killer back to that very first fateful night.

  Right back to the beginning, in a wonderful circle.

  ‘The end is nigh,’ he hissed in the ear of Mr Elias.

  Then he ran up the stairs.

  Ten at a time!

  To the attic.

  48

  Christmas Eve

  CHRISTMAS EVE NEVER really dawned. London became marginally paler around the edges, but otherwise day was almost indistinguishable from night, as lights stayed on, and a sky the colour of a winter sea gave fair warning of foul weather. The top news on the Today programme was that the bookies were whining about the white Christmas to come that was going to put them all out of business.

  Emily Aguda rolled over and turned the radio off.

  TrrrrrrT.

  She sighed and went downstairs.

  Eve Singer was already up and dressed, drinking coffee and playing with the handcuffs.

  TrrrrrrT.

  Aguda poured herself a mug and sat down.

  ‘Nervous?’ she said. There was no point in beating about the elephant in the room.

  Eve nodded. ‘Feel sick.’

  She slapped the cuffs over her left wrist, then disengaged and did the right – all in the glittering blink of an eye.

  Aguda looked at the clock. 09.30. They were due at Madame Tussaud’s at noon, and she was allowing two hours to get there because of the snow.

  ‘Once we’re moving, you’ll feel better.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Eve. ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘Great.’ Aguda drained her mug and stood up. ‘I’ll grab a quick shower and my enormous gun and we’ll go kick some serial-killer ass.’

  Eve smiled.

  But when Emily Aguda came downstairs twenty minutes later, Eve had gone.

  Shit shit shit.

  Aguda called Eve repeatedly while she searched the house. She even peered into the attic with a torch but found only a rocking horse, ghostly with a thick layer of dust. Then she called Huw Rees to let him know they had a problem.

  ‘Has she gone or been taken?’ he demanded.

  Aguda hesitated. She’d only been in the shower for ten minutes, but a shower was an effective sound barrier.

  ‘I’d say she’s gone, sir. There’s no sign of forced entry or a struggle, and I think she’s the type who would give him a run for his money.’

  ‘So she’s chickened out.’

  Aguda hesitated, then said, ‘Yes, sir.’ She didn’t like the term ‘chickened out’ because she didn’t blame Eve Singer for not wanting to be bait for a serial killer. But what other explanation could there be?

  She stood at the kitchen table, awaiting further instructions.

  But before Rees could give them, she said, ‘Shit! Sir – I think she’s taken my cuffs!’

  The silence on the line told her that Superintendent Rees grasped just as well as she did that if Eve Singer had bolted simply because she’d chickened out, that was one thing.

  But if she’d deliberately taken Aguda’s handcuffs with her, that might be a whole other thing …

  ‘Right,’ said Rees. ‘We’ll proceed early to the scene. We’ll look out for her there in case she’s thinking about going freelance. You stay there and see if you can speak to her, or come up with any ideas about where she might have gone or what she might be doing.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Stay in touch.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘This is all we bloody need,’ sighed Rees.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Aguda agreed, with feeling.

  She hung up and immediately started to ring Eve again. As she did, she jogged up the stairs and started her search again – this time looking for clues in the form of items she was pretty sure had disappeared along with Eve. She couldn’t find her bank cards. There was a phone in the drawer next to the bed, but it was an old model and didn’t switch on and had a grubby sticker on the screen that said BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!

  So Eve had her phone with her, she just wasn’t responding. Hopefully out of choice – however irritating that might be.

  Emily Aguda tried to think like Eve Singer. Her father had been kidnapped, her life was at risk, the killer was still at large. And the police weren’t helping.

  She felt a jab of shame. If she were Eve Singer, she’d have lost faith in the Met’s ability to rescue her father. In fact, if she were Eve Singer …

  She’d be opening hostage negotiations on her own.

  A sudden fluttering in Emily Aguda’s gut told her that she was on the right track. She hurried downstairs. The clock in the hallway showed ten thirty.

  Already?

  She stood in the front room, trying to think faster, as the hamster ambled along in his squeaky wheel behind her.

  Could Eve Singer have put something in her diary? Feeling a little stupid, Aguda did a quick circuit of the house looking for one. There was a calendar over the fridge with two Border terriers on it, but it was from two years ago. She checked today’s date anyway.

  It said Do Christmas Shopping.

  She laughed at Eve. And then laughed again at herself. What had she expected? 10am Yoga, 1pm Serial Killer?

  Even if Eve had needed a reminder, nobody under the age of seventy put that stuff in a real calendar any more. It would be on her phone.

 
Which she had with her.

  But which might just be synced with her computer …

  In the front room on the coffee table was the trailing power cable for Eve’s laptop. If she had taken her laptop, then surely she’d have taken the cable too?

  Aguda started at one end of the room and searched it. She found the slim silver MacBook hidden under the sofa cushion, and plugged it in and opened it up. She had a little pang about the invasion of privacy, but her priority was to keep Eve alive, and that end could be justified by almost any means.

  The browser was already open, but it looked as if all Eve Singer had been doing online was her Christmas shopping.

  As far as Aguda could tell, everybody was getting a charity goat.

  Emily Aguda explored the Mac, seeking familiar programs and menus to guide her. There was a calendar, but there was no event or reminder listed for today. She found the Search program and typed in trigger words like ‘killer’ and ‘murder’, but got so many results that she had to refine it to ‘Christmas Eve’ and ‘December 24’, but still found nothing relevant.

  There was a drop-down menu called Recent Items. Twenty file names appeared in a new window, and she ran her eye down them for clues.

  She didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes …

  EXHIBITION.pdf

  Aguda opened the file.

  EXHIBITION

  Venue: Madame Tussaud’s

  Date: Christmas Eve

  Time: 14.00

  It was a copy of the flyer that the neighbour had found in the phone box. Maybe Eve would be using it at some point in her background report on the case.

  Aguda thought that felt possible. But it didn’t feel right.

  She dug about and found the properties for the file. The new window listed the type of file, its size and location, and the date it was created – December the twentieth.

  She stared at the screen.

  That couldn’t be.

  She counted back in her head. The flyer in the phone box had been found on the twenty-second, Mr Elias had been sure that it hadn’t been there even the day before. So how could Eve have seen it before the twentieth? She couldn’t. It was impossible.

  Unless she was the one who’d made it!

  That thought stopped Aguda in her tracks. That was possible. Confusing and disturbing, but definitely possible. And if Eve had created the flyer on the twentieth, had she put it in the phone box?

  Aguda thought of the brief night-vision glimpse of muffled face and glittering eyes before the flyer had been pasted over the lens of the hidden camera. They had assumed it was Vandenberg but it could have been anyone. It could have been Eve Singer.

  But why would she do that? Aguda struggled to follow the logic. If Eve wanted to contact the killer, why would she make a flyer and put it somewhere she knew it would be so easily found? Giving away their plans to the police?

  Aguda gasped as the answer hit her like iced water – a shock and then a chill.

  The flyer was a decoy!

  What had she told Eve? To catch a killer, you have to think like a killer.

  And Eve had replied: That’s exactly what I’m trying to do.

  The killer had sent Guy Smith a fake flyer – a decoy to misdirect him. If she was thinking like a killer, Eve’s flyer would have been created not to connect with Vandenberg, but to misdirect the police.

  And they had been duly misdirected, thought Aguda grimly. Like a fool having his pockets picked while gawping at something shiny.

  And if there was a fake flyer, then there must be a real one!

  But where?

  Aguda didn’t know.

  She only knew two things with sickening certainty.

  That the firearms unit was lying in wait at Madame Tussaud’s for a killer who would never arrive.

  And that – somewhere – Eve Singer was going to try to save her father from a serial killer.

  Alone.

  49

  TRRRRRRT.

  Joe drove east, towards central London. The roads were clear of snow, and none was yet falling, despite the lowering sky.

  ‘Do you have the camera?’ said Eve. ‘He’ll want to see a camera.’

  TrrrrrrT.

  Joe only nodded, and glanced nervously at the cuffs.

  They were at Hyde Park Corner.

  But instead of turning north towards Madame Tussaud’s, Joe took a right and they curved south, and headed for the river.

  Joe stared at the back of a bus. ‘I just hope you know what you’re doing.’

  ‘I’m going to a showdown with a serial killer, Joe,’ said Eve grimly. ‘How the fuck would I know what I’m doing?’

  Aguda left a message on Eve’s phone.

  ‘Eve, it’s Emily Aguda. I know what you’re planning. Please don’t do this alone. Please call me and tell me where you are so I can come and help you. It’s not too late.’

  Aguda hoped desperately that was true.

  She called Huw Rees at Madame Tussaud’s and told him her theory.

  ‘You may well be right,’ he said. ‘But I can’t move on a hunch.’

  ‘But sir—’

  ‘Emily,’ he cut her off. ‘I trust you, but you have no viable alternative for me. You bring me any shred of evidence of where this bastard is going to be at two o’clock today and I’ll move to wherever the hell that is. But until then, this location is all we’ve got.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Aguda hung up. She stared at her reflection in the living-room mirror. Rees was right. She knew that. But she also knew he was wrong. She would just have to prove it to him, or a few hours from now they’d get a call from somewhere in London, and go and pick up the pieces.

  Of Eve Singer, most likely.

  Or her poor father.

  The clock over the mantel read 11.17.

  There was irregular banging through the walls from next door, and a plane passed low overhead. She barely registered them now. It was amazing how the senses just excised what was unnecessary. Made things invisible, inaudible.

  But it didn’t mean they weren’t there. She just had to work harder to find them. She just had to think harder.

  She opened the file again. Exhibition.pdf

  She looked at the properties of the file again.

  She ran her eye down Recent Items again, opening files at random, scanning them for relevance, closing them and moving on.

  Then her eye was caught by a file name at the bottom of the list.

  Watergate.avi

  She opened the file. It was the iWitness news report about the killer dogs.

  Aguda recalled her sarcastic comment: It’s not Watergate.

  And it wasn’t Watergate, but the report was still pretty good. Serious yet ghoulish. Aguda supposed that was the skill of TV crime reporting, even when the alleged criminals were eight inches high. She let it run while her subconscious rumbled on in the background. Eve did her piece to camera outside the building, talking about the dogs by name – Boris and Bubba – while standing in front of the hoarding covered with—

  Flyers.

  Aguda gasped. She looked at the screen without seeing it as her memory went into overdrive.

  Eve Singer had not let her watch the TV report. At the time she’d thought Eve was just being churlish because of her Watergate comment.

  Maybe there was another reason …

  She hit Replay and watched the shot again. Not looking at Eve this time, but at the hoarding behind her.

  And there it was.

  She hit Pause and studied the image. You’d have to be looking for it. Or studying the report very closely. Or watching it repeatedly.

  You’d have to be obsessed …

  Off to one side of the bottom of the hoarding, freshly pasted over the other flyers:

  EXHIBITION

  Venue: Tate Modern

  Date: December 24

  Time: 14.00

  The Tate Modern gallery.

  What better place for an exhibition?

  50

/>   THE TATE MODERN squatted darkly on the South Bank of the Thames.

  The former power station’s utilitarian bulk was a brooding presence that could not be improved by the shimmering Millennium Bridge, the Eye to the west, or even the saintly gaze of St Paul’s Cathedral directly across the water.

  It was what it was. Sullen and squat and ugly and with a single giant tower its only remarkable feature. For thirty years it had powered south London, along with its more elegant, more popular sibling at Battersea, until oil prices drove it out of business. Even the knowledge that it was now home to the world’s most treasured modern art could not change its brutal post-war façade.

  But inside, the power station was changed beyond recognition. It had been disembowelled. The turbines and pipes and pumps had been removed and in their place were airy galleries filled with light and beauty.

  Joe and Eve descended the broad ramp from the early winter dusk into the hall, and stopped at the bottom, jostling with other amazed visitors whose first glimpse of the Turbine Hall itself might well be the most breathtaking moment of their entire visit. Five storeys high and running almost the whole length of the building, the hall was as impressive as any art contained in the gallery.

  Eve and Joe stared up, open-mouthed, at the giant iron tree that almost filled the cavernous space. Its thick, wintry black branches stretched out between the balconies above, and dwarfed the tiny people below, who milled about its trunk like ants.

  ‘That’s big,’ said Joe, momentarily distracted from the whole serial-killer thing.

  Eve smiled. ‘You like it? I can cancel the goat …’

  ‘Hmm,’ he mused. ‘But where would I put it?’

  They both laughed and then looked around, sobering up quickly as they remembered why they were here.

  ‘Where are we going?’ said Joe.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Eve confessed, and looked around a little nervously. ‘But if I don’t find him, I’m sure he’ll find me.’

  ‘There’s still time to change your mind.’

  ‘Maybe for you,’ she said, then looked at him seriously. ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted no part of this, Joe.’