by Val McDermid
They sat by the fire, supplied with champagne by their personal waiter, who left them in peace, pointing out that he could be summoned by pressing a buzzer when they were ready to order dinner. “I really am sorry about this afternoon. I think your resemblance to Katerina unsettles me. It stops me thinking straight. And of course, in our line of business, paranoia is never far from the surface,” Tadeusz said.
“I won’t deny I was angry. I’m not accustomed to being accused of murder,” Carol said, allowing a little acid into her tone.
He inclined his head in a regretful nod. “It’s not a good basis for building trust. I feel ashamed of myself, if that’s any consolation.”
“Let’s try and put it behind us. I promise not to walk out if you promise not to ask if I assassinate my business associates.” She smiled.
“I promise. Perhaps I can demonstrate my good intentions by listening to the details of your proposal?” Tadeusz said.
Carol felt butterflies tumbling in her guts. This was one of the many testing points of the operation, she knew. She took a deep breath and outlined her fictitious business in East Anglia once more. “In exchange for a roof over their heads and food, they work for me without wages for a year. At the end of that time, they get an Italian passport and their freedom. And that’s the deal,” she concluded firmly.
He raised his eyebrows. “A sort of slavery, then?”
“I prefer to think of it as indentured labour,” she said. “Obviously, I only want adults. I don’t want families—kids are no use to me.” Carol marvelled at how easily she was playing the role of the tough businesswoman she was supposed to be. She seemed to be getting in touch with a side of herself that she hadn’t realized existed. She wasn’t sure how much she liked this cold and calculating person, but it took surprisingly little effort to slip into the personality she’d fixed on for Caroline Jackson.
“I don’t traffic in kids.”
Carol raised her eyebrows. “I had no idea you had such a sentimental streak.”
“It’s not out of sentimentality or squeamishness,” he said. “Kids are harder to control. They’re noisy. They cry. And they provoke stupid heroics from the parents. It’s better to avoid them. So, if we do make a deal, you can rest assured you won’t be getting any kids from me.”
He was talking explicitly now, Carol realized with quiet delight. Somehow, she’d penetrated his defences. It never occurred to her that part of the reason for his candour was that she was on his turf; if she proved to be dangerous, she could be closed down permanently without a trace. Had she thought of this possible consequence, she would never have had the courage to up the stakes as she did. “I’m glad we understand each other. But before we talk terms and details, I want to see how you operate. You can sacrifice me any time it suits you with a call to the British authorities. So I need to be sure that I’m linking up with an outfit that is every bit as professional as mine.”
It was a challenge, a gauntlet thrown down between them. Tadeusz stared at her long and hard, watching the changing light from the fire play across those features at once both strange and yet as familiar as his own. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“Like I said. You’ll have something on me. I show you mine, you show me yours. Take your time. Don’t decide now. Think about it. Sleep on it. Do what you have to do to satisfy yourself that I’m on the level. But if you’re not prepared to let me see for myself that you can run a serious operation, I’m not taking a chance on you.”
He looked at her, his face unreadable. Carol wondered if she’d pushed too hard, too fast. Had she lost him before she even had him on the hook? Eventually, his lips curled upwards in a smile. “I’ll see what can be arranged. But for now, let’s concentrate on paying our debt to pleasure.”
A surge of pure exhilaration swept through Carol. She was really getting somewhere, and it was a great feeling. She tucked her feet under her in the big leather chair and opened the menu. “Why not?” she said.
The worst thing about profiling, Tony thought as he read the detailed message from Marijke, was the deaths that he couldn’t prevent. His way of working was intense, burrowing under the skin of the perpetrator, finding a meaning in behaviour the rest of the world condemned as monstrous or perverse. It was as if he was conducting a dialogue with the dead that made it possible for him to have some sort of intercourse with the mind of the living killer. That, theoretically, should provide the police with a sign-post they could place on their own map of the information they had gathered, a signpost that would point them in the right direction. And so, when another name was added to the roll call of victims, it was impossible not to take it as a measure of personal failure.
It was important, he knew, not to let this profound disappointment erode his confidence in what he had already achieved. There was nothing in what Marijke had told him that undermined any of his previous conclusions. What he had to do now was to analyse the new material and incorporate it into his profile. This was simply an accumulation of more data, not an implicit criticism of his performance nor a marker of failure, he insisted to himself.
He could almost believe it, but not quite. He re-read what had happened to Dr. Calvet, his mouth tightening as his imagination conjured the scene before his eyes. This tiny, fragile woman, completely unsuspecting, an easy target for Geronimo. Odd, he thought. Most killers would have gone for such an easy target first. But this killer had so much confidence in his abilities that he’d started with much greater challenges. Tony wondered if having been disturbed in Bremen had shaken that confidence enough for him to have deliberately chosen a weaker victim in an attempt to shore up his belief in himself. “It must have been a shock to you, to have someone walk in on you in the middle of your moment of glory,” he said softly. “You dealt with it, but it must be preying on your mind. Is that why you killed this one in her office? Did you think there was less chance of being disturbed there in the evening, after everyone had gone home?”
Whatever the answer to that question, the change of venue demonstrated that Geronimo was flexible in certain elements of his crimes. But the rape and the attempted strangulation weren’t markers of adaptability. They indicated something quite different. He pulled the laptop towards him and began to type.
Following the murder of Dr. Calvet in Köln, he will be in a state of considerable agitation. The first three murders are apparently lacking in any obvious element of sexuality. However, there is invariably a link between serial homicide with ritualistic elements and erotic satisfaction for the killer. That there was no overt indicator of this in the earlier crimes would suggest to me that he was in denial about the sexual component in his actions. The rape of Dr. Calvet should not, strictly speaking, be seen as an escalation in his activities. In practical terms, it represents the surfacing of a motivation that has been there from the beginning, albeit suppressed.
What is more significant is that he has allowed this breach in his self-control to occur. I believe this may have come about in part because he was disturbed mid-murder in Bremen. This must have unsettled him to a considerable degree, making him much more nervous when approaching Dr. Calvet. I believe he will have shocked himself with his actions in Köln. To maintain his earlier level of denial about the erotic nature of what he was doing, he probably convinced himself he had some kind of altruistic mission. But now he has descended to rape, it will be harder for him to maintain the integrity of that delusion.
What does this mean for detection and prevention?
I believe he will try to kill again very soon, perhaps within a matter of days. He has to restore his vision of himself as some sort of avenging angel or righter of wrongs, to erase this momentary lapse into the behaviour of what he may well see as an “ordinary” criminal.
If I am right that he is somehow connected to the waterways, then his options may be limited to quite a small geographical area. I believe the time has come when his potential targets should be informed of the risks. I would urge that this be d
one in a low-key manner to avoid alerting the killer. Officers should identify university departments with an experimental psychology specialism and make personal visits to the campuses.
They should stress the importance of maintaining confidentiality if they are to have the best chance of capturing the killer, and they should invite co-operation. Lecturers who have been contacted about interviews for a new online magazine should be identified. This could allow a sting to be set up. If this is done quickly, it may prevent a fifth killing.
Tony read over what he’d written, then sent it to Marijke and Petra, with a copy to Carol. From what Marijke had told him, it looked as if the cases were already getting bogged down in red tape, with everything being routed through a secure area in the Europol computing centre at Den Haag. He hoped that, between them, they could inject a sense of urgency into the investigation. Otherwise, they were all going to end up with more blood on their hands.
Tadeusz walked Carol to the door of the apartment block. “Thanks,” she said. “It’s been an interesting evening.”
He took her hand and bowed deeply over it, planting a kiss on the back of her hand. “Thank you for coming. I’ll call you, yes?”
Relieved that he wasn’t angling to come up for coffee, Carol nodded. “I’ll look forward to it. Good night.”
She took the lift to the third floor and let herself into her apartment. If he was standing in the street below watching, he’d see that she’d gone straight home. As she walked through to the bedroom, Carol unzipped her dress and let it fall to the floor. She wanted to see Tony, but she didn’t want to go to him in Caroline Jackson’s clothes that held a whisper of Tadeusz’s cigar smoke. She grabbed a clean T-shirt and a pair of jeans and hastily dressed, then walked down the two flights of stairs to his apartment, taking care to check the hallway was empty before she stepped out of the stairwell.
He looked strained, she thought as he opened the door. But then, he had spent the day probing the murder of a friend. It would have been more strange if he’d greeted her with a cheerful grin. She stepped towards him and kissed him on the cheek. He responded with a tight hug. “It’s good to see you,” he said. “How did it go today?”
“Interesting,” Carol said. “As in, ‘May you live in interesting times.’”
Tony led the way back through to the living room where the curtains were already drawn, and they settled down at opposite ends of the sofa, both still more than a little tentative about the new shape of their relationship. “Tell me about it,” he said, pouring her a glass of red wine from the open bottle on the table.
Carol filled him in on the events of the day. He listened attentively, head cocked to one side. Finally, he said, “It had to happen. There had to come a moment where he suddenly freaked about the resemblance between you and Katerina and got suspicious.”
“Well, even though it wasn’t entirely unexpected, it still threw me. For a moment, I couldn’t think how I should react.”
“You ran with your instincts, which in your case is always a good way to go. You’ve got good gut reactions, Carol, and they worked to your advantage this afternoon. You didn’t cave in, you turned it around on to him, which was the best possible way to distract him from what was niggling away at him. But don’t be surprised if something like this comes up again.”
“So what do I do next time? Take umbrage again?”
Tony ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t have all the answers, Carol. Tell you the truth, I’ve seldom felt less infallible than I do tonight.”
Carol’s eyebrows rose. “Hey, you were the one who said you wanted to help me with this,” she protested.
“I know, but I’m not sure I want to feel accountable if I suggest something that turns sour,” Tony said with a weary smile.
Carol unconsciously drew away from him. “You could give guilt seminars to Catholics, you know. Look, Tony, I’m just asking for advice here. I take responsibility for my own actions.”
He cursed himself silently for striking the wrong note yet again. “You want advice?” he said sharply. “OK, entirely without prejudice, I’d say that if Radecki asks you again, you should tell him you didn’t kill Osborne and that you don’t know who did. And that you’re as uncomfortable with the resemblance to Katerina as he is. That you don’t want people thinking you’re the sort of person who would exploit his private grief for business advantage. And frankly, it would be easier for you to walk away from this whole deal, because it’s not like it’s hard to find a source of illegal labour.”
Carol nodded. “Thank you. I’ll give it some thought,” she said formally.
Tony shook his head. “Shall I go out and come in again? Then we can start fresh? Look, we’re both tired and scratchy, let’s not take it out on each other.” He reached for her hand and laced her warm fingers through his. “Tell me how you’re feeling.”
Carol shrugged. “It’s hard to describe. A mixture of exhilaration, because I feel like I’m doing better than I had any right to hope, and absolute terror because I know I don’t have a safety net if I screw up. I’m living on adrenaline, and it’s exhausting. So take my mind off me and tell me about your day.”
“It’s not exactly uplifting material. There’s been a fourth murder.”
Her eyes widened in shock. “So soon? That’s very close.”
“And he’s losing control.” Briefly, he outlined what he’d learned from Marijke earlier that evening. “Do you want to see my draft profile?”
“If you don’t mind letting me see it.”
He got up, crossed to his briefcase, and extracted a few sheets of paper. “Here you go,” he said, passing it to her. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Mmm, please,” Carol said, already reading the familiar opening disclaimer. While he brewed up, she gave her attention to the short report. Tony kept out of the way until she’d finished, then returned with the coffee.
“So, what do you think?” he asked. “I think it’s a bit thin, myself. I don’t feel that I’ve come up with anything that really moves the investigation much further forward.”
“Given how little you had to work with, I’d say you’ve done a good job,” Carol said reassuringly. “The most important thing is obviously your theory that he’s a boatman.”
“Yes, but have you any idea how much commercial traffic there is on the waterways of Holland and Germany? There must be thousands of craft on the rivers, and our man could be on any of them. I don’t even know if there’s any record kept of their movements. I spoke to Marijke briefly this evening, and she seemed to think that boats have to register when they go through locks or tie up at wharves, but that still doesn’t narrow it down much, and ploughing through all that material could take months. We haven’t got months, Carol.”
“And even if they warn potential victims, it might not be any help in catching him,” Carol said.
“That’s right. It’s possible he might just go to ground temporarily and resurface with a new strategy for cornering his victims.”
“If he’s on line, might there be any mileage in checking with the internet booksellers to see who’s bought a wide range of psychology textbooks?” Carol asked.
Tony shrugged. “If he lives on a boat, it would be easier for him to buy his books in a shop rather than have them sent to an address he might not get to for a few weeks.”
“I suppose,” she said, trying not to sound too dejected. “What about the Stasi angle?”
“Petra has arranged for me to talk to a historian tomorrow. But again, I think we’re going to be doing needle-in-a-haystack stuff.”
“I’m interested in what he thinks he’s doing here,” Carol mused. “If you’re right, and he thinks his life has been screwed up because somebody close to him was a victim of mental torture, what’s his goal here? Is it vengeance, pure and simple? Or is he trying to send a wider message?”
“Well, it depends on whether we’re taking conscious or subconscious motives here,” Tony said. “I’d sa
y that subconsciously he’s trying to get his own back. But that’s too personal, too petty for him to acknowledge as his primary motive. I think he sees himself as cleaning the Augean stables of psychology. He’s sending a message out—if you mess with people’s heads directly, you deserve to die.”
Carol frowned and fiddled with her coffee cup. “I know this is going to sound off the wall, but do you think he sees what he’s doing as a kind of cure? A form of ultimate therapy? Now you won’t indulge your horrible destructive habit any more?”
This was what Tony loved about working with Carol. Her mind sloped off laterally and came up with ideas that he would either never have or would have dismissed as too improbable for consideration. She’d done it before, and she’d been right when he’d been wrong. “You know, that’s not a bad idea,” he said slowly. “But where are you going with this?”
“I’m not sure…” Carol stared at the wall opposite her, trying to put into words the idea that was lurking at the corner of her mind. “If he sees himself as an instrument of vengeance, couldn’t it be that he chooses to humiliate them further, using the tools of their trade? What if he’s written to academic journals denouncing them or criticizing their work? It might be an idea to do an online trawl as well, given that he’s apparently posing as an e-zine journalist.”
Tony nodded. “It’s possible. Worth looking at, anyway.”
“Or maybe writing to their departments complaining about their academic failings?” Carol had a faraway look in her eyes now. “Maybe he sees their final encounter as a sort of therapeutic session?”
“You mean, he thinks they’re the patients and he’s the one with the cure?”
“Exactly. What do you think?”
“It’s possible. And?” Tony added, pushing to see where Carol might take this idea.
She slid along the sofa and leaned into him. “And nothing. Sorry, that’s my lot.”