Without Conscience

by Michael Kerr

  Larry was still working under the safety light an hour later, too absorbed to hear the creak of floorboards at the other side of the darkroom’s door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Amy taxied to a stop. The flight had given her the space to think, but the altitude had not lifted her spirits a centimetre above ground level. The emotional weight of the danger that Mark had intentionally placed himself in had deflated the blossoming joy that had initially bloomed at the thought of being with him, committed wholeheartedly to another person for the rest of her life.

  Taking the morning off to ‘reach for the sky’ had been a ploy to clear her mind and rise out of the dark hole of self-pity she had allowed herself to sink into. It hadn’t worked. She had soared above the earth, but had felt shackled to it by morose and fearful thoughts.

  Back home, Amy phoned Petra at Sentinel and told her she was taking the rest of the day off; one of the perks of being the boss, but she felt guilty as hell. She was being too self indulgent. Her absence would substantially increase Jon and Petra’s already heavy workload. She determined to make it up to them and work extra hours, when events permitted.

  After finishing her call to Petra, she phoned Cranbrook and asked to speak to Mark.

  “Hi, Amy. Is everything okay?”

  “In a word, no,” she said. “I feel as though I’ve been dismissed, and I don’t like it one bit. Our relationship has always been based on mutual respect and consideration, up until now.”

  “What’re you trying to say?”

  “That you have no right to hang me out to dry. I realise that you’re doing it with the best of intentions, but I’m an ex-cop for Christ’s sake. I can take care of myself.”

  “No, you can’t, Amy. That is exactly why you are an ex-cop,” Mark said, pulling no punches. “He sent me a letter. Even compiled a goddamn profile on himself. The asshole has fixated on me, and that’s just in response to knowing that I’m involved. If he has seen Larry Holden’s latest article, he’ll have gone ballistic.”

  “So, we’ll deal with it as a team. I’m not going to sit back and be a spectator.”

  Mark sighed with exasperation. “I’ve just told Larry that he’ll be a target by association. And that goes for you too, kiddo. If he finds out that you’re close to me, then you’ll go straight to the top of his hit list.”

  “You don’t know that for a fact.”

  “Yes, I do, Amy. It’s what I would do if I was him. I’d dismember his life around him. That’s what he’s done to Caroline, but in a different way. He’s isolated her, and killed look-alikes to terrorise her. Common sense dictates that―”

  “Fuck common sense. I’m driving down. I’ll see you at the flat, later.”

  He had the sinking feeling that he was fighting a losing battle, and had already lost a lot of ground, and before he could put up further argument, she ended the call. The dead line purred in defiance. He loved her for her many qualities, one of which was her fiercely independent nature. He just wished that for once she could have got the smarts and backed off, or at least compromised. Protecting his own ass might be hard enough, without the liability of having her far shapelier one to cover.

  As he hung up, the phone immediately rang again.

  “Amy?”

  “No, Mark, Barney.”

  “Are you psychic? I was just going to call you.”

  “About what?”

  “The Park Killer just sent me some fan mail, including a do-it-yourself profile. The dickhead has checked me out and read my book.”

  “I’ll have whatever he’s sent to you picked up. I phoned you because the bugger’s crawled out from under his rock. He attacked another woman this morning on a towpath in Chiswick.”

  “Same M.O.?”

  “I said attacked. The girl managed to disable him and run off. She left him rolling around on the ground with a damaged leg.”

  “What makes you think it was our boy? The date and location don’t fit.”

  “Because he was carrying a sharpened tree branch. He dropped it at the scene.”

  “Could be a copycat.”

  “Don’t rain on my parade, Mark. I’ve got forensics doing a comparison with the other stakes. It’s ash, the same length, and if the same knife or tool was used to sharpen it, then the striations will match. Bingo.”

  “Did she get a look at him?”

  “Yeah. She’s positive that she’d recognise him again. Said that she would never forget his face. There’s a police artist with her now, working up a likeness. She said the guy was average height, stocky, dressed in black sweats, and that he looked a lot like the bald guy in one of those Star Trek series.”

  “Patrick Stewart?”

  “That’s what she said. We’re looking for a fuller-faced Starfleet captain lookalike. She wasn’t sure about his age, though. With his being bald or shaven-headed, she guesstimated that he was anywhere between thirty and forty-five.”

  “That’s great, Barney. If it is him, and he works for the Beeb, then it could be game, set and match.”

  “It looks that way. I talked to Caroline Sellars. She says the description fits a sound engineer. She doesn’t have a name for us, but I’ve got detectives checking it out.”

  “It’s a race against time, now. He may run.”

  “Explain.”

  “He knows that he’s been seen. He might just go to earth like a fox. Identifying him is one thing. Finding and lifting him is another.”

  “You’re a real party-pooper, Ross. I’m hoping that we can ID and locate him before he has chance to think it through. He may believe that she didn’t get a good look at him. It was dark, and the incident was over within a few seconds.”

  “I just love optimism in a cop,” Mark said. “But I like to always consider the worst-case scenario.”

  “Which is?”

  “That he dumps his car, finds a new base, and changes his appearance.”

  “We’ll still find him.”

  “Maybe. But will that be before or after he kills again?”

  “What do you think his next move will be?”

  “He’ll feel at risk. That might make him go straight for Caroline, to complete what he thinks of as a mission, and finish the job.”

  “That would be irrational. Even if he could find out where she is, which I don’t buy, then he must know that she’s being protected by armed officers.”

  “He isn’t rational. Think of him as being like a lame-brained suicide bomber. As long as he takes his intended victim out, he won’t give much thought to walking away from it. Survival isn’t a be all and end all priority. Killing Caroline is.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Do. And let me know if you get lucky. I’ll feel safer when he’s cooling off in some mortuary drawer.”

  “I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that.”

  “And I’m hoping that it does, Barney. I like a done deal.”

  “You also like throwing shit at fans.”

  “Uh?”

  “I got carpeted by Pearce over that interview you did. You went out of your way to goad our boy, without letting us know. In Pearce’s book that makes you a loose cannon. If you want to top yourself, why not just find a high building to jump off.”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time. I wanted to―”

  “You wanted to piss him off and bring him out. He may have tried to murder the girl this morning as a result. Have you thought about that? You could have been the catalyst for an impromptu attempt to kill again; wound him up and sent him off at a tangent.”

  As Mark opened his mouth to answer, Barney hung up. It seemed that no one was going to let him have the last word. His mind was reeling with input. Amy was his main concern. He wanted to see her, but the emotion was mixed with a fear for her safety. He hoped that current events would negate any threat. He had no doubt that Barney would know the killer’s identity within the hour. A lot of cases needed a lucky break, and the failed murder attempt was
as lucky as you could get. He wondered if the girl who had faced the unsub and survived had any idea just what a horrific fate she had so narrowly escaped. His thoughts were unsettled. It was now impossible for him to feel what the killer would do next. Logic told him that the guy must know that the net was closing, and would put all other considerations aside, to concentrate on his prime target. Larry and himself would have been little more than side dishes, that may have been tempting, but were not the main course. Surely the impetus would be to seek out the safe house. Hopefully, they were coming down the back straight with the tape in sight.

  He left the office and let himself through the security gate, then took the stairs down into the main residential area. In the common room, six patients were assembled, seated on plastic chairs in a semicircle, waiting for him to preside over the group session.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, looking from face to face to assess their moods as he took his seat front and centre.

  “G... good m... morning, Dr Ross,” Billy Hicks said.

  Frank Marshall and Tony Skerrit nodded. Gordon Shaw gave him a toothless grin. Barry Fuller continued to pick his nose with gusto, while staring at the dark screen of the television that was bolted high up on to the wall behind Mark. Old Walter Stubbs just kept rocking, as he had done for the past six years, since drowning his wife in the bath before setting fire to the house that they had lived in for over forty years.

  The sessions followed a pattern. Billy would be attentive, but not contribute, while the others, apart from Walter, would bicker like school kids. It rarely came to blows, but with due respect of the fact that each of them had committed violent, murderous acts, an orderly was always present, ready to press an alarm bell or intervene, should things get out of hand.

  “Who’s going to start the ball rolling and share a few thoughts with the group?” Mark said, attempting to put his own problems to one side as he studied the way his patients interacted.

  “Come, mourn with me for that I do lament,” Gordon said, standing up and closing his eyes. His words sounded slushy without the benefit of his dentures, which reposed in a Perspex beaker on the bedside table in his room. He only wore them on Sundays, when he made a special effort to be presentable for the service in the institution’s chapel. “And put on sullen black incontinent. I’ll make a voyage to the Holy Land, to wash this blood off from my guilty hand.” Finished, he blinked rapidly as tears spilled out and ran down his creased cheeks.

  “Is that Shakespeare, Gordon?” Mark said, knowing that all the small, gaunt man’s quotes were from the Bard’s works.

  “Yes, Richard the Second.”

  “And what’s the meaning behind it?”

  “It means that I’m sorry for what I did, Doc. But being sorry doesn’t count for shit. You bastards are going to keep me locked up in this funny farm with all these loonies until I fucking die.”

  Absolutely, Mark thought. Gordon believed that he was the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper, and had set out on a quest to reconstruct the nineteenth-century mystery killer’s murders. When apprehended after just one savage killing, the police found a mass of literature on the original Ripper, that Gordon had collected since being a teenager. He would – in Mark’s estimation – never be mentally well enough to be released back into society.

  “Are you calling me a loony, you mad bastard?” Frank Marshall snarled; a plump vein throbbing at the centre of his forehead like a caterpillar, and his face flushed bright red with anger.

  “Hey guys, this is an open forum,” Mark said in a firm voice. “You know the rules. Anyone can off-load their thoughts and feelings without any comeback. Let’s not get personal.”

  “Okay,” Frank said. “But if Jumping Jack Flash calls me a loony again, I’m going to stick a pencil in his ear and push it into whatever substitutes for brains in there.”

  “Will you tossers keep the noise down?” Barry Fuller said, removing a bloodied finger from the depths of his right nostril. “I’m trying to watch some golf.”

  Apart from old Walter, they all looked up to the blank TV screen, half expecting to see Tiger Woods teeing up.

  “It was my hands,” Walter said, staring down at his gnarled hands, which were swollen-jointed and deformed by severe arthritis. “They do what they want. I have no control over the fuckers,” and as if in confirmation, one moved with lightning speed from where it had reposed on his lap, to scratch at his unshaven cheek, leaving red welts but not breaking the skin, due to his fingernails being kept ultra short. Walter had pleaded not guilty at his trial. He blamed his hands for murdering his wife, and for then torching the family home. He had asked that the offending appendages be removed, amputated, to prevent them from committing further mischief, and had even tried to damage them himself on numerous occasions, but they wouldn’t let him.

  “You don’t fool any of us with that shit about your hands havin’ a life of their own,” Tony Skerrit said, smiling sardonically at Walter. “It’s time you faced up to the fact that you’re a fuckin’ psycho. You drowned your wife because she was a pain in the arse, not because your hands took a personal dislike to the bitch.”

  “Thanks guys. Same time, same place, next week,” Mark said, standing, relieved once the hour session was over. It had followed its normal course. A lot of repressed angst had been got rid of, and the patients seemed more relaxed for expressing themselves in a controlled situation. They needed to let off steam.

  “You’re st... still in danger, Dr Ross,” Billy said, following Mark out into the corridor.

  “I don’t think so, Billy,” he said. “Things have changed, and I believe the danger’s past.”

  “N... No. It’s getting n... nearer, stronger.”

  “Do you still see an aura around me, Billy? Is that it?”

  “Yes. It’s vivid. Blood r... red.”

  “Thanks for the warning. I’ll be careful.”

  Billy just hung his head and shuffled off in the direction of his room.

  Mark felt extremely unsettled. There was something in Billy’s manner that said, ‘Being careful doesn’t always cut it, Doc. What’s ordained will happen, ready or not’. Believing anything that Billy said might be a dumb call, but Mark did believe. A part of his mind knew that the young man’s supernatural ability was the genuine article; the real deal. It wasn’t something that he could rationalise, but in his bones, he accepted that the killer out there had plans for him that would not be abandoned.

  It was after lunch. He was updating the files of the patients who had attended that morning’s session when he received another outside call.

  “Hello.”

  “Good afternoon, Dr Mark. I’m calling to give you fair warning that due to your insulting comments in that article, I’m going to make you wish that you were just suffering from terminal bowel cancer.”

  Jesus! It was him. He sounded calm, buoyant. His voice was raspy, dry, and full of menace.

  “How’s the knee, dickhead?” Mark said, hoping that he sounded unfazed. “You don’t expect me to be intimidated by some retard piece of shit who gets taken out by a defenceless woman, do you?”

  “Trying to wind me up won’t work, you sad FBI dropout. Have a quick word with a friend of yours.”

  Unbridled fear tore and gouged at his mind. He was truly terror-stricken. It had to be Amy. Images of the obscenities committed on the other victims sprang to the fore.

  “Mark...Mark. Oh, Christ, no, stop. Pleeease...”

  Larry. It was Larry Holden’s voice, full of fear and pain. God help the man, but thank the same god that it wasn’t Amy.

  “Still feeling like the cock of the north, huh?” Bobby said.

  “What do you want?” Mark said, knowing that bar a miracle, Larry was a lost cause. Nothing he might say would save the man now. The poor schmuck should have stuck to chasing celebs with his camera, or listened to Mark’s warning.

  “What I want, I take. I just thought you should know that I don’t forgive or forget...ever
. I’m going to kill you, Ross. Larry is just, what would you call it? An exemplar. You’re on borrowed time, courtesy of me. First, I’ll take everything that you value away. And finally, when you have nothing left to lose, I’ll cut your fucking heart out.”

  “You’re just a pathetic, psychotic little no-hoper,” Mark goaded. “Don’t threaten me with what you intend doing. Just come on in when you’re ready. I’ll be happy to put you out of your misery.”

  “You...You―”

  Mark slammed the phone down, then lifted it again and punched in Barney’s number. He felt sick to the stomach, and helpless. He was going through the motions, but knew that it was way too late to save Larry from whatever the killer was doing to him, which Mark didn’t want to even attempt to contemplate. Why for Christ’s sake hadn’t Larry listened to him and left his flat? Although the psycho had probably had him under surveillance and would have followed him. This was no dummy who had now declared war on Mark. He was cunning; a calculating son of a bitch who appeared to be one step ahead of them at every turn.

  “Yeah, Mark, what’s the problem?” Barney said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Ignoring the ball of fire that raged in his knee, he dressed, filled a training bag with necessary items, and left the house. He was almost certain that the woman had not seen his features clearly, but the fact that she had escaped him was a worry. He had to consider her a threat to his continued anonymity and freedom.

  Reversing into a tight space fifty yards along the street from where Holden lived, he parked and then eased himself out of the car and limped along the pavement. Beads of sweat pricked his scalp, saturating the band of the baseball cap that he wore to cover his baldness. He grunted with every laboured step, and sighed with relief as he reached the door of the large Victorian terrace house which, as so many others in the area, was now converted into flats.