Fearful Symmetry

by J. E. Mayhew

  ‘Be genuine’ his people had told him. ‘Just be yourself’ but Armitage knew that would never work. The whole ‘laddish’ vibe was toxic to these ‘woke’ youngsters. He didn’t want to be seen as some kind of dinosaur but that’s what he was. He stared into his whiskey glass, desperately trying to recapture that buzz from the retweets but it was gone; replaced with a starving desperation; a need to be seen and heard.

  His phone rang, startling him back to reality. Armitage snatched up his phone. “Ross! You dark horse!” The voice of his agent, Jerry Goldren bellowed, making Armitage hold the phone away from his ear.

  “Jerry!” Ross yelled back. “I know right? This Kevney case and the Scissor Man murders. It’s gold dust, mate!” Armitage pulled a contrite face. “I mean, shocking an’ all that but every cloud, right? If I can get involved in this somehow. Make a public appeal or something. Might reignite something? Yeah?”

  “Some people are going to hate you for it, Ross, me old mucker,” Jerry said, adopting a warning tone.

  “I’ve got broad shoulders, Jerry, you know me. I’m just performing a public service. Like in the old days and let’s be honest, I could do with the publicity.”

  “It’ll push you front and centre for a while, that’s for sure. Might be a stint on Big Brother in this for you or I’m a Celebrity. You can always do your penance in a bush tucker trial. Show ‘em you’re a nice guy really as you eat a cockroach or a wombat’s arse or something.”

  Ross grimaced. “How about a few magazine spreads? At home with Ross Armitage, Crime Fighter Extraordinaire…”

  “Love it! Then we need to find a way to boost it. Maybe pitch some documentary ideas. I was thinking Crime International, you know, Ross Armitage investigates cold cases from around the world. What d’you think?”

  “Genius, Jerry, now I know why I pay you your fifteen percent!”

  “Great stuff. Keep those tweets going. I’ll see if I can get your face all over the papers in the next couple of days.”

  “I’ll get over to the Police HQ tomorrow. Pretend I’m giving a statement or advising in some capacity. I’ll get myself centre stage again if it kills me.”

  Ross Armitage sank back into his leather armchair and took a long swig from his glass. Yep things were looking up.

  The lights went out, plunging him into darkness.

  “What the...?” Ross Armitage frowned and stood up, banging his shins on the low coffee table in the middle of the room. The house lay so far back from the lane that only a weak filter of moonlight made it into the room, reflecting blue off the tabletop and TV screen. Muttering, Ross shuffled across the room, holding onto furniture, and groping his way through the darkness. Then he stopped.

  Something filled the doorway. Or rather, someone. A shadowy silhouette stood feet away from Ross.

  “I’m telling you now, there are security guards on the way. This place is wired direct to the police station…”

  “No, it isn’t,” the man hissed, his voice muffled by a face mask.

  “Look, I haven’t got any money here. Take what you want. Just don’t hurt me, please!”

  The figure shifted a little and Ross thought he heard the creak of leather gloves. “I never really liked you on the show, Ross; too smarmy. You weren’t a proper copper, but you hogged the limelight. Now you can make amends. We’re gonna get you centre stage, again, Ross!”

  *****

  Newspaper and magazine clippings lay arranged on the front room table in Blake’s house. There were pictures of him as a younger man from his Searchlight days. An interview from the Daily Mail Magazine, some black and white head shots, done for the programme. Laura gripped his arm.

  “Could he still be here?”

  Blake shook his head. “I doubt it.”

  “How did he get in? He hasn’t broken a window or forced a door.”

  “The locks on these doors are old. I’ve never really improved the security since my mother… went… Jeez. I’d better phone CSI. Don’t touch anything!” he snapped as Laura reached for a magazine clipping.

  It was from another Sunday Supplement. Blake’s stomach lurched as he read the headline:

  Searchlight Sweethearts Nicole and Will at home with their cutest case yet.

  “I didn’t know you had a family,” Laura said.

  “I don’t.” Blake turned and headed to the kitchen.

  Laura followed and put a hand on his shoulder. “Where are they now?”

  “It’s no secret. Nicole was a runner on the show. We had an on and off relationship and then she got pregnant. I was over the moon. I almost believed everything was like in that photograph. Beautiful girlfriend, gorgeous baby, nice flat in Manchester and a dream job.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  “Nothing is perfect. And nothing lasts. In 2007, the show was axed. I thought my life was over. It’s amazing the hold a little celebrity can have over you. Nicole and I split up. Not long after that our baby girl, Ellie, contracted viral meningitis.” Blake felt the familiar burden of grief drag at his very core. Tears were rare these days; just this leaden weight inside him. He sighed. “The poor little mite didn’t stand a chance.”

  Laura squeezed his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. The last thing you need is this psycho raking up the past like this.”

  “Yeah,” Blake said, nodding. “But I get it all the time. People at work, the public. Every time Searchlight is mentioned, it drags everything up again.”

  “I see,” Laura said.

  “I was trying to play this down but, it’s true; the killer is fixated.”

  “On you?”

  “I think so. Look at those clippings. He left prints of poems by the poet William Blake and another magazine in the back of Ellen Kevney’s car.”

  Laura raised her eyebrows. “Why would he do that?”

  Blake knew what Laura was doing but he allowed her to steer him onto more comfortable territory. Work always chased the demons away, even if it was still close to home. “You tell me; you’re the one with a psychology degree.”

  “Serial killers are often narcissistic personalities. He’s involving you on a personal basis but really you need to think about what he’s getting out of it.”

  Blake nodded. That made sense. Although she styled herself as an animal behaviourist, Blake had benefited from her insights into human nature before. “Is it just the thrill of butchering people that he gets off on?”

  “Maybe, but why deliberately leave clues lying around. Could be that he thinks he’s cleverer than you. He’s showing off.”

  “Who to?” Blake snorted. “A load of cynical coppers? We’re the last people who’ll be impressed.”

  “I don’t know. The press, maybe? He doesn’t have to leave poems for you, does he? He doesn’t have to do any of this,” Laura said, waving a hand over the cuttings. “If he wanted to be the next Ted Bundy or Peter Sutcliffe, he could have gone out and killed multiple times and just run away.”

  “God, don’t say that. He may well have more surprises in store for us.”

  “My point is, he’s making an effort to draw you into this picture. I think he wants you to be part of his story.”

  “His story? Why me?”

  “You know why, Will. If you were a total narcissist, who would you rather be pursued by: PC Nobody or DCI Will Blake, TV star?”

  “I’m not a ‘star.’ I wasn’t back then. I just did a CCTV bulletin near the end of the programme. The director kept asking me not to be so wooden.”

  “I don’t think he sees it that way; maybe to him, you’re famous. he wants to beat you, Will. Then the world will know how clever he is.”

  “Jeez. I’d better phone in and tell someone what’s happened,” Blake said. “I don’t suppose I’m going to get much sleep tonight.”

  “You need to get your locks changed, too.”

  “True. But if the killer needs me for his little fame game, then he’s not really a threat to me, is he?”

  “It’s only a theory,
Will. But remember, if things don’t go his way, he may figure out that he could become infamous as the man who killed the TV policeman. I’d tread carefully.”

  Suffering is a curious thing. It’s meant to make you a better person. But the reality is that suffering just makes you bitter or fearful and distrustful. Survivors are meant to reflect on the horrors they’ve experienced and learn something from it. Tell that to war veterans suffering from PTSD and living on the streets. And what does it say about those who can bear the suffering no longer and end their own miserable existences? What can we say they’ve learnt? It’s total nonsense but we lap it up because otherwise, the world has no structure; if we can learn from suffering then we can endure.

  If the world is just one big gladiatorial stadium of suffering where one man rises only to be cut down by the next, how could we stand it? Or worse still, if we thought for one second that the world had no order to it and it was just a jumbled mess of random cruelty, we’d never get up in the morning. So, we impose a structure, don’t we? We tell ourselves that this tragedy will teach us something, that lessons will be learned.

  There’s a point in every story when our hero faces so great a hardship that it seems unbearable. There’s no way he can win through. Somehow, against all the odds, he does. He turns the tide of failure and rises above his enemies. And he learns something about himself. He changes.

  Total nonsense, as I said. Lessons are never learned. People rarely change. Ross Armitage was a selfish and venal man; he greased palms and played the old-boy network to get to the top. then he squandered his opportunity. He’d been divorced three times. Left behind him a wake of ruined lives. All his ex-wives and abandoned children learned was to despise him and to take whenever he felt guilty and waved some cash at them. When he tweeted that picture, I could see Blake wasn’t happy. I could see my plan going awry, too. Happily, I’m smart enough to see how Armitage could fit into things perfectly. It meant I had a busy night but a worthwhile one.

  Wednesday 12th February

  Chapter 24

  Treading carefully was something done more easily on a good night’s sleep. If Blake hadn’t been burgled, he would have spent the night stressing about how Martin would react to his sudden appearance on social media next to the gurning Ross Armitage. To put the tin hat on it all, the national news had a feature on Armitage and the Hilbre Grove case. They seemed to know an awful lot. Blake winced as he watched a shot of Aphrodites Club followed by a glamour shot of Ellen Kevney. They even showed Blake pushing his way through the press pack outside Armitage’s front gate. He’d only caught glimpses of it between watching the CSI people bag the clippings and jotting down any details that might help. It was a bit pointless; clearly, it was the killer who had done this, and nothing had been taken.

  Mallachy O’Hare, Crime Scene manager had given one of his annoying, trademark shrugs. “Looks like he came in through the back. You’ve got a dodgy sash window there, Will,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll find prints, but we’ll have a look.”

  Blake shook his head. “This is an absolute cat’s arse of a case, Mallachy. We’ve got two dead bodies, neither we can truly identify. One might be a cleaner from Romania and one might be a chimney sweep or maybe even the mysterious Ralph. We’ve got a missing woman, and the press crawling all over us and being briefed by a bloody celebrity. Jeez. What else can go wrong?”

  “Oh, there’s plenty more that can go wrong, Will,” Mallachy said, without a hint of sympathy. “I daresay the Superintendent will be chewing the fat with you soon enough. That might shed some light.”

  “Thanks, Mallachy, you’re a real tonic,” Blake muttered. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

  Mallachy’s bushy, white eyebrows shot up in surprise. “No, they haven’t, Will.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  *****

  Superintendent Martin actually put his head in his hands as Blake reeled off his concerns. “Oh,” Blake added, “and I’m pretty certain the killer broke into my house last night and left a load of magazine and newspaper clippings all over my dining room table.”

  “Good grief,” Martin muttered. “Why?”

  “I don’t know for certain, sir, but I think he may have some kind of fixation on me.”

  “A fixation?”

  “Yes, sir. The clippings were all of me from my…erm… Searchlight days.”

  “Is that why you were splashed all over the news last night,” Martin said. He pointed to a couple of tabloids lying on the desk between them. “And on the front pages of these? You and your pal Ross Armitage.”

  “Believe me, sir. He’s no friend of mine. I went in good faith to ask him if he remembered any strange super fans or people with a grudge. I didn’t expect him to turn it into a chimps’ tea party.”

  “You should know what these people are like, Will. What did you expect?”

  “He ambushed me, sir.”

  “This news conference is going to be a complete shitshow. D’you know what they’re calling this killer? The Scissor Man. The bloody Scissor Man.”

  “We need to focus on the positives, sir,” Blake said.

  “Which are?”

  “We’ve disrupted a major trafficking ring in the city, sir. That we’re pursuing a number of lines of investigation? I think we should play down the fixation with Searchlight.”

  “We need something concrete to give the reporters. A job to do. Anything that’ll distract them from pulling us apart.”

  “We haven’t found the chimney sweep’s van. We could ask people to look out for that. The killer dumped Ellen Kevney’s car in a station carpark, so he might have done the same with the sweep’s van.”

  “Do we have a picture of this Ralph character?”

  “We’ve got footage of him but it’s rather pornographic but we can’t rule out the possibility that our dead man is Ralph, either…”

  “Brilliant.” Martin’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

  “We’ve taken a still of his face. It’s quite clear. So we can share that.”

  Martin massaged his brow. “Thank God for small mercies, Blake. This better go well. I know we’re early on in this case but it’s an absolute shambles. I’m worried that your past might turn it into a circus. Don’t let it.”

  Blake felt himself reddening. “I won’t, sir.”

  “Now. I’m sure you’ve plenty to do before the briefing. I’ll let you get on,” Martin said and looked down at his paperwork. Blake gave a curt nod and hurried out of the office.

  Kinnear waited for him at his desk. “I checked on one of the van registrations from Pleavin’s list, sir, and it belongs to a Mark Skelly. He lives out in Widnes. He has convictions for aggravated burglary and sexual assault. Might be worth investigating?”

  “You got a mugshot of him?”

  Kinnear showed Blake a picture of a stocky bald man, late thirties. “It doesn’t really look like our man,” Blake muttered. “But we’ll need to eliminate him. Check him out.”

  “Right, sir.”

  *****

  The news conference room was buzzing with voices and a variety of accents. The story had gone international now and the number of reporters had doubled. Blake’s palms felt slick as he sat down at the desk next to Superintendent Martin. The cameras and the clamour of journalists dragged him back to a time he’d rather not remember. Ellen’s Mother sat on the other side of Martin. She was in her late fifties, her hair was dyed so dark, it made her look ghostly pale. She looked drawn and tired, her mouth a tight letterbox. Martin kicked off with a statement about how they were still searching for Ellen and outlined the resources Merseyside Police were throwing at this case. Then Blake outlined their lines of enquiry.

  “We still believe Ellen Kevney to be alive but held against her will. Our resources are focused on finding out where she is and bringing her home safely. As part of the ongoing investigation, we’re particularly interested in tracing a white Fiat Qubo Van with the words ‘Chimeree’ on the side.
We are also interested in the whereabouts of this man.” Blake held up the picture. “He has used the assumed name of Ralph Vaughan. If any members of the public see this man, they are asked to report the sighting to the police immediately. They should not approach him as he may be dangerous.”

  Mrs Kevney made a heartfelt plea for whoever was holding her daughter captive to let her go. Her children needed their mother. “If you saw them crying for their mum at bedtime, you’d let her go right away. Please, as a mother missing her daughter, I’m begging you. Let Ellen go. Set her free, now.”

  There was a moment’s respectful silence and then Superintendent Martin cleared his throat. “So, any questions…”

  A small, sharp-suited young man held up his hand. “What would you say the Scissor Man hopes to gain from his actions?”

  Blake shook his head. “It’s hard to fathom what is going on in that mind, to be honest. Maybe power or control. I’m no psychologist…”

  “Is it true that the Scissor Man has a personal attachment to you?”

  “I can’t comment on that.”

  “But he left prints of William Blake poems at the murder scenes, didn’t he?”

  “Again, I can’t comment on that as it relates too closely to the investigation. All I can say is that we have a number of leads and we’ll do our utmost to bring Ellen Kevney home safe.” Blake felt Ellen’s mother staring at him. “I have to say, it doesn’t help us if the media are repeating claims made by people who are not officially involved with the case.”

  “By that, do you mean Ross Armitage? Is it true he will be assisting you?”

  Blake gritted his teeth. “Mr Armitage has no connection with this case.”

  More questions bounced around the room about the car, the resources but time and again, Ross Armitage and Blake’s involvement with Searchlight cropped up. Blake parried each question with a blank indifference that belied his growing anger.