Fearful Symmetry

by J. E. Mayhew

  “If I could magic her out of nowhere, Will, I would,” Cavanagh said, with a sigh. “But you know as well as I do, the odds of finding her alive are next to zero.”

  A fleeting silence fell across the room and Blake felt the focus drain from him to Cavanagh. The young DCI clapped his hands. “Right people! Let’s get moving. Dirkin will hand out assignments. Let’s get these people in and start grilling them.”

  Everyone started moving, except Blake. He watched them and caught DS Chinn’s eye. She gave an apologetic smile. Cavanagh strolled over; his hands shoved into his tight trouser pockets. “No hard feelings, Will,” Cavanagh said. “Why don’t you get home, like the Super suggested? This case is enough to drive anyone up the pole. Just let it go. We’ll catch your Scissor Man.”

  Blake said nothing but gave a brief nod. He strode out of the office, wishing he’d never been allocated the case, never visited Ross Armitage and never appeared on Searchlight.

  *****

  Blake’s mood darkened as he drove home, trying desperately not to think about the case. Cavanagh’s idea that Ralph was just an opportunist chancer who had leapt onto the case to make some weird connection with Blake was laughable. But Blake knew that Cavanagh wasn’t stupid enough to ignore the facts. He probably had Dirkin and a sub-team of officers sniffing along that trail right now. He just wouldn’t admit it to Blake, that’s all. It would look better for Cavanagh if he suddenly pulled the killer out of a hat while Blake’s old team were poring through lists of van registrations and interview notes.

  Anyway, Blake had done enough damage. It was better if he just went home, got some rest and let the others do their jobs. There had been too many deaths on his watch.

  The traffic crawled along, increasing Blake’s sense of frustration; the whole world seemed to be working against him. A fine drizzle speckled the windscreen, but the wipers squeaked horribly when he put them on. Someone cut in front of him as he approached the tunnel ticket booths and he nearly ran into the back of them. Everywhere looked grey and dismal.

  He pulled into the drive, groaning at the sight of Laura’s blue Hyundai. What was she doing here at this time? She practically lived here now, and Blake never remembered inviting her. He climbed out of the car and slammed the door.

  Laura met him at the door, but he strode past her without a word, throwing his bag down and his coat over the bannister rail.

  “Good day at the office, dear?”

  He filled the kettle. “No. I’m off the case. How’re things with you?”

  “Really?”

  “Ross Armitage is dead because of me and Ellen Kevney is too, probably.” Serafina wound herself around his ankles and he shoved her away. “The killer was watching us all the time. On my watch. I took a step back.”

  “Oh,” Laura said.

  “What’s that meant to mean?”

  Laura looked startled. “Nothing. I was sympathising. So, what are you going to do?”

  “Nothing…”

  “You’ve got time off?”

  “Yes,” Blake snapped. “I’m going to put my feet up and relax while my team hunts for the remains of a woman I couldn’t even find.”

  Laura held her hands up. “Okay. Don’t raise your voice like that.”

  Serafina growled at him.

  “What am I meant to do? Laugh it off? Maybe I should do a bit of that ridiculous meditation you seem so fond of…”

  “Pfft. Sounds like it might help, right now,” she said, picking her jacket off the back of the kitchen door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To my place. You aren’t very good company.”

  “Fine,” Blake snapped. “While we’re at it, you can give me that spare key back.”

  “Okay,” Laura said, pulling it off her keyring and slapping it down on the draining board. “Be seeing you, Will. You know, you’re a nice bloke but you need to sort your head out. You aren’t responsible for every bad thing that happens in the world.”

  The front door slammed, and the house fell silent. Serafina stared at Blake, her tail lashing back and forth. “What’s up with you?” Blake snapped, but Serafina turned tail and disappeared through the cat flap.

  Brand names are important these days. Coca-Cola, Mercedes-Benz, Hilton Hotels; they all carry a weight with the public. If you want to succeed in this world, you need a brand name that people can relate to. One that sticks in their mind.

  Apparently, research shows that our response to new brand names is not unlike that of a toddler learning a new word. When a new piece of vocabulary is introduced to a small child, they soak it up without any of the connotations it might hold. connotations might be formed later through experience. So, if a child learns the word fire, they might associate it with warmth and security. If they burn themselves, they might associate that word with pain. As adults, we react to brand names in a similar way; when we first encounter a company, we have no knowledge of it. If their product makes us puke, then their brand name will have bad connotations for us. It’s not rocket science, really.

  But brand names have a life of their own. Think about logos that appear on clothes or pencil cases or bags. McDonald’s don’t make pencils or pens, but you’ll see the logo on pencil cases. A really powerful brand name has a life beyond the product.

  Some companies choose names that already have good or bad connotations built in. So if I wanted to form a company that sells fast cars, it’s obvious that I’m going to use words that bring speed and power to mind.

  They’re calling me The Scissor Man now, which I like. It’s a name that will spread, it has all the right connotations. It could be the title of some cheap slasher movie. Just as I intended. It wasn’t some random savagery that led me to put the scissors where I did. It was quite deliberate. Scissors don’t mean anything, but The Scissor Man does. It’s my brand. A modern killer for the consumer age.

  Thursday 13th February

  Chapter 28

  There was a familiar, unpleasant stink when Blake came downstairs the next morning. His head throbbed from lack of sleep and he stared mutely at the offensive deposits in the middle of the hall. Clearly, Serafina had embarked on a dirty protest at Blake’s churlish behaviour the night before. Not only that, she’d knocked over the picture of Jeff, Blake’s little brother. In this regard, she was a serial offender. He could forgive that; Jeff was a pain in the backside.

  Having cleared up the mess, Blake took a mug of coffee, sat on the edge of the crumbling promenade outside his house and watched the seagulls skim the grey waters of the Mersey. He didn’t mind the cold; it woke him up and cleared the fog that swirled in his head. but nothing could shift the dead weight of guilt deep inside him.

  The visit to Armitage had been useless, disastrous even. Blake had provoked the killer by visiting the celebrity. Armitage wouldn’t have been targeted otherwise. But it wasn’t Blake who had advertised his visit and he had told Armitage not to post that picture. That didn’t make Blake feel any better.

  He wondered if he should ring Laura and apologise. That might lift some of the burden. But a tiny coal of anger still smouldered inside him. She could see he was upset. Why hadn’t she been more sympathetic? She had no concept of what he had to deal with; the things he’d seen in the last few days.

  No. He needed to do something practical. Something that would be a step forward. He turned and looked at the house. It stood tall, as if proud of its shabby grandeur. The first thing he should do is see an estate agent and get the house put on the market. It was true that every time Jeff rang, asking about the house, Blake felt less inclined to act. He’d been using work as an excuse for far too long and it wasn’t fair on Jeff. Maybe getting out of here would be the change he needed.

  Something shifted in the bushes and a pair of orange eyes peered through the foliage at him. Serafina extracted herself from the shadows and padded across to see him. Blake extended his hand to scratch behind her ear and she pressed her head against his fingers. That was one thing
he had to thank Laura for; the cat had been psychotic before her intervention. Blake gave a final scratch and withdrew his hand. Serafina spat as he did and sank her teeth into his hand. “Jeez!” Blake yelled. With a long, drawn-out meow, Serafina vanished back into the bushes. “Maybe I should just phone Laura and tell her to come and take you away!” Blake yelled after her.

  He picked up his mug and made his way back into the house. The dining room table lay bare after the Crime Scene Investigators had taken the magazines and papers from it. Blake stared at the grain of the wood, trying to remember the clippings in detail.

  They were pristine, not folded at the corners, not faded or yellowed. Someone had cut them out carefully and kept them very safe. That showed a high level of obsession over a long period of time.

  It was thirteen years since Searchlight had ended and Blake had fallen out of the public eye almost immediately. If Ralph was in his late twenties, early thirties, he would have probably been a teenager when it was on. There can’t have been many young fans of the programme, surely? From what he could remember of the demographics, it was more oldies and married couples who watched it. People who wanted both the thrill of true crime but the reassurance that it would never touch them. Perhaps the team should look at that, younger fans of the programme. Fans who were very keen indeed. Maybe they would. It wasn’t Blake’s concern anymore. He had an estate agent to call.

  *****

  The view from Laura Vexley’s flat was unremarkable. The flat itself wasn’t the most convenient; it was a top floor dwelling in a converted Victorian townhouse. One tiny living room formed the hub giving access to the other rooms: the bedroom, bathroom, and a kitchen. The bedroom was barely big enough to fit a bed in. It wasn’t in the most salubrious parts of Wallasey, either. But she’d chosen the flat for that very outlook.

  At the back of the flats, dark leylandii hedges hemmed in the overgrown garden where feral rhododendrons battled with brambles and knotweed. A few struggling sycamore trees pushed their way up to the light through the mass. But from the top floor, Laura could see beyond the hedges into the neatly tended garden that backed onto hers.

  She could see the neatly clipped shrubs, the wooden-framed greenhouse tucked in one corner and the trimmed lawn that stopped short of the York stone patio. The house was beautiful, too; old but never broken up into flats. The recently painted window frames shone white in the February morning sunlight and Laura glimpsed William Morris curtains peeking from behind them. Mind you, she could already tell by the patio furniture that the couple who lived there were loaded. She’d lived in a house just like that one. The perfect house; the perfect couple.

  She gave a hiss of disgust. No such thing. Like the perfect man.

  When she’d first met Blake, he had turned up at the cattery she worked at, psyching himself up to give Serafina up to a new home. He had seemed so confused and lost that Laura felt sorry for him. It was more than that.

  She looked out across the gardens; the way the neat orderly patch contrasted so starkly with the tangled jungle that belonged to her flats and to nobody. That was the trouble; nobody took responsibility for the land at the back of the building. Every now and then, a contracted gardener would come and hack everything down, cut things back and restore a little order for a few weeks. Maybe it was order she sought. Maybe she thought Will Blake, being a policeman, could bring the stability she needed.

  But, outside of the force, Will Blake’s life had its own special brand of chaos. Last night, she’d brought a bit of Blake’s foul mood home with her. She hadn’t slept a wink, going over Blake’s unreasonable outburst in her head again and again. She didn’t know he resented her having a key. Maybe they should have discussed it a little more; the house was difficult territory. Mind you, everything was difficult territory; some days she felt like she was walking on eggshells.

  At the same time, he needed to rest. He was burning out. The one chance they might have had to spend some real time together and he was too wrapped up in his work to take advantage of it. It wasn’t fair.

  A sudden thought occurred to her and made her smirk. What she didn’t really like was not having the upper hand. Blake was usually quite easy to manipulate; if she wanted something to go her way, she’d just channel him along with a load of closed questions that only required him to say yes. Usually, he wasn’t really bothered one way or another about most decisions and so would agree just to placate her. If it was about work, though, he couldn’t be budged. She could understand why. And she’d overstepped the mark keeping the front door key and treating the house like her own, when really it was his long-lost mother’s.

  He’d thrown himself into work after his daughter died. It was all he had left, the last shred of identity. Laura could relate to that. She looked down at the ordered garden and batted away a dark memory that flitted across her mind. From what little Blake had told her, he’d become so obsessed with work that he hardly noticed his mother’s decline into dementia until it was severe. Every case now was a chance to redeem himself. This one struck at the very root of who he was and his inability to solve it was a body blow.

  Her face hardened and she squinted at the rear of the perfect house; the French windows, the patio and planters. She couldn’t help Blake with his eternal guilt trip and she wasn’t going to be anyone’s doormat. She’d been there and worn the hair shirt. It wasn’t happening again.

  Friday 14th February

  Chapter 29

  The one great thing about estate agents, Blake always thought, was that they were more unpopular than police officers. He’d read this fact in a magazine once and it had intrigued him. The young man pacing around his living room right now looked a bit slick in his new suit but he seemed pleasant enough.

  “It’s a great space,” the estate agent said, pivoting round on his heels so he could take in the living room. “When these properties are renovated tastefully, they’re really popular with young professionals who want easy access to Liverpool but want the heritage style.”

  “Great,” Blake said, still wondering when rooms became ‘spaces’ and why they couldn’t just be rooms.

  “Of course, there’s a bit of work required and that could be reflected in the price or you could have it done yourself before you put it on the market.”

  “What kind of work?”

  The man pulled an apologetic face. “Well, hopefully just cosmetic things. You know, wallpaper, a lick of paint. But a survey might reveal other issues. These houses are old and prone to damp, subsidence, the roof can be a weak spot.”

  “Right.” The idea of leaving a load of hairy-arsed builders in here unattended left him cold. “So a price reduction, then. Quick sale.”

  The estate agent nodded but Blake wondered if the man’s face had fallen a little at the possibility of a lower commission. “That’s possible,” he said. “You could go for an auction if major structural issues are found. That way you can push the price up a bit. Or you could sell it with the potential to split it into a couple of flats.”

  “Wouldn’t planning permission be required?”

  “Yeah. Again, you could get that sorted before you sell. It certainly makes the house more desirable.” he looked around. “Do you live here?”

  “At the moment,” Blake said. “I sold my own flat to look after my mother. She had dementia.”

  “So, are you now the owner?”

  Blake felt himself reddening. “Well, it’s kind of complicated. My mother walked out of the front door two years ago and we haven’t seen her since.”

  “And you’ve had her declared deceased?” The young man looked uncomfortable saying it and Blake couldn’t blame him.

  “It’s pretty certain. She was frail, in her late eighties, and went out on a cold November night. I don’t think she could have survived long just dressed in her nightgown. The police searched thoroughly but found nothing…”

  The man pursed his lips. “I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been distressing for you.”
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  For a second, Blake was back in the front garden on that night, Kath Cryer talking to him, crime scene investigators searching the house. He’d been questioned thoroughly and without any preferential treatment. He’d been made to feel as though he had murdered his own mother and dumped her in the river.

  “It was,” Blake said. “I know I need to get her declared dead officially, but could we not put it on the market and see what interest there is?”

  The estate agent shook his head. “I’m sorry Mr Blake, but until that side of things is sorted out, I don’t think we can progress. Put bluntly, as things stand now, the house isn’t yours to sell. I can recommend a good solicitor, if you need one.”

  “No thanks,” Blake muttered. “I know plenty of them.”

  *****

  If estate agents weren’t popular with the great British public, then solicitors were almost as low on the list that Blake had read. Blake wasn’t sure why, but from all the solicitors he’d had the dubious pleasure of meeting, he chose Gareth Cornell. The man was young and inexperienced as far as Blake could tell, but he’d represented a suspect in one of Blake’s cases last year and his name had stuck in his head. Anyway, if it was going to be straightforward, why throw a ton of money at some pinstriped, wine connoisseur with a city-centre office?

  Blake was even more alarmed when Cornell agreed to see him that same afternoon. Wasn’t he that busy? Or did he want to get Blake out of the way as quickly as possible?

  Cornell’s office was a converted shop in Bromborough village. Blake had a vague memory of it being a travel agent when he was a child. The front reception occupied what would have been the shop floor. A desk filled one half of the space and the other half was occupied by a couple of armchairs and a coffee table laden with lifestyle magazines from last year. A middle-aged woman in a dark suit sat behind the desk and beamed at Blake as he entered.

  “Will Blake to see Gareth Cornell,” Blake said.