'Yeah. I do. I'm hoping that her files might tell me some more about what happened to her. There could also be some information that helps us with the charges against the men we caught at the house where she died.'
'Let me know if I can help. Sick bastards.'
Their footsteps echoed on the cold blue linoleum-tiled floors. Mercy's rooms lay underneath this disused part of the hospital. She had told the other staff she liked the silence, and if her patients were particularly distressed during sessions, they did not disturb anyone else. The lighting was kept to a minimum here, to save costs. Virtually new desks sat empty. Signs seemed brand new. They passed examination rooms where shiny, expensive-looking machines sat in shadows, unused.
They clattered down two bare sets of stairs. The lifts here had also been decommissioned. When Jill had been out here for sessions with Mercy, she'd parked in a bottom level carpark closer to the doctor's rooms, and had entered through a back entry Mercy had arranged to have opened for her. That way, most patients didn't have to make this gloomy trip.
They arrived at last, and Kim unlocked the big door in the shadowy corridor.
'Jill, just call if you want to ask any questions, or can't find something you need. All the numbers are programmed into the phones. Mercy's files are in the storeroom over there. These are the keys. This one opens her desk. Good luck with it.'
Jill thanked her and entered the outer office as Kim's footsteps receded down the empty hallway.
Dr Merris had a self-contained suite of four rooms – a comfortable waiting area, a storeroom where the files were kept, a small kitchen, and her spacious therapy room and office. Jill walked into the storeroom first. Six white, four-drawer locked cabinets held Mercy's personal patient files. When she saw inpatients, Jill knew that Mercy also used to make notations in files held in the unit upstairs, however these were often just perfunctory notes, kept devoid of many details because they could be subpoenaed for court at any time.
Jill walked back into Mercy's main office and thought about the last time she'd seen her there, so flustered and anxious. Why couldn't you have asked me for help? she thought.
The afternoon came quickly to this part of the hospital, and Jill pensively watched a couple of finches playing in the last of the light in the courtyard outside the doors.
'We did some good work in here.'
Jill cried out. The man in the doorway put his palms forward, apologetically. The rooms beyond him had fallen into darkness.
'I'm so sorry. I thought you might have heard me walk in. I'm Dr Noah Griffen. My rooms are just down the hall.' He held out his hand.
'Sorry. Jumpy lately.' Jill felt a little embarrassed. 'Sergeant Jillian Jackson.' She shook his hand. He smiled. He was very good looking.
'I was Dr Merris' clinical supervisor. I'm afraid it will take me a good while to get over all of this.'
Jill nodded. 'I'm sorry. There must be a lot of sadness at the hospital at the moment.'
'Indeed. Are you here to take her files?' He looked around the room.
She nodded. 'There could be evidence in some of them related to the ongoing investigations.'
'I see.'
Jill knew she had sounded formal, and tried to explain a little better.
'I also thought that maybe I could understand why she behaved the way that she did towards the end.' She trailed off. There was only so much she could say while the investigation was still open.
'I tried to get her to slow down, you know,' Dr Griffen walked a little further into the room. 'She just wouldn't stop. I mean, we both knew our work was very important, but one can't keep helping others when one is not caring for oneself.'
'Did you work together a lot?'
'Very closely, yes.'
'Did she mention her cases to you?'
'Why yes. In fact, that was the nature of our work together. Mercy would bring her cases to me for supervision, and we would discuss them, her progress, how she felt towards the patient.'
'Did it seem to you, Dr Griffen, that she had become fixated on any cases in particular, or that she had developed a fascination with the offenders who had victimised her clients?'
The light in the office was fading more with each passing moment. They stood in the gloom, the room full of shadows. Jill suddenly wondered how she had first thought Dr Griffen handsome; in this light he seemed reptilian. She moved towards the door to hit the light switch.
'Have you ever thought, Sergeant Jackson, that it might be preferable to not bring some of your suspects in? To just ensure they had an accident of some description, saving everybody the trouble of a trial, all the expense of keeping them incarcerated, all the heartache they would cause when they re-offended?'
Jill wrinkled an eyebrow in annoyance. Not just because his question was a little close to the bone, given recent happenings, but because he'd shifted slightly to the right, blocking the light switch.
'It's getting a little dark in here,' she said.
'Mercy and I had worked together for many years, Sergeant Jackson, before she came to share the same level of hatred I have for paedophilia.'
Jill noticed his body also blocked the door.
'Did you discuss the offenders at any length?' she asked.
'Oh, indeed. Many of our discussions took place in here. In fact, I'd prefer that you didn't take Mercy's files today, for that reason. There are many patients we shared, and revealing all our secrets could be detrimental for everyone. Do you see?'
A snare drum started in Jill's brain. This man stood too close.
'Yes, I understand, Dr Griffen. I hadn't thought of it from that angle. If there are some of your patients involved, we shouldn't compromise confidentiality.' She moved to indicate to him that she was leaving.
'The problem, Sergeant Jackson,' he said, moving still closer, 'is that youhave thought of it from every angle. When you were speaking to me just then, your eyes moved to the left – you were creating your response. You should never try to kid a kidder. Isn't that what they say?'
'I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about, Dr Griffen, but it's pretty bloody dark in here, and I would like to leave. Are my eyes looking in the right direction when I say that?' Jill spoke in her cop voice, no sign of the trembling she felt inside. She suddenly felt very aware that she could not see both of his hands.
'But I'd like you to stay,' his voice was low and menacing now. 'Won't you have a seat?'
Jill stayed standing, eyes on the door over his shoulder. Could she make it around him?
As though he sensed her thoughts, Griffen moved his hand from behind his back. He had a claw hammer. He held it casually, but it was balanced. He seemed well-practised, confident.
'What is this?' Jill tried to sound irritated, to keep the fear from her voice.
'You haven't guessed yet? I'm surprised at you. Aren't you a detective, Sergeant Jackson?'
'Yeah, okay,' Jill wanted to stall for time, and now she also wanted to know. 'I'm guessing that Mercy brought the names of these offenders to you, told you she'd decided to follow them, try to catch them in a crime, report them. Basically, it sounds like she wanted to do my job.'
'Go on.' He seemed amused.
'But you couldn't let it go at that. Who knows why – maybe you're trying to deny or repress your own sexual deviancies? There was a claw hammer used in the killing of David Manzi. Was that your work?'
'Yep. He was a cockroach, but your amateur psychiatry is beneath you, and regarding my motives you are completely wrong.' His loose-handed grip on the hammer had tightened. 'And you are only half-correct about the way those men died.'
He paused. Jill remained silent.
'Think it through, detective. Do I look big enough to you to have alone inflicted those kinds of wounds upon four men? As I said before, Mercy and I have worked very well together.'
Her mind raced. Had Mercy and this man killed these men together? If so, she must have completely broken under the pressure of all of the horror she'd worked with
over the years. Jill couldn't imagine it. He must be lying, but why?
'Oh come on, why would Mercy help kill those men?' she said, taking small steps backwards. 'She sent me evidence. She called me and saved a child.'
'Indeed. She became much harder to control towards the end. But that's another reason you can't take the files. She often recorded our supervision sessions and there may be evidence of the hypnosis I used with her to help her to unleash her primal needs. She wanted those men dead. Most people in society do. She needed only a little assistance to see that society would be best served by her helping me take them out.'
As they spoke, Jill became aware that they were playing a physical game of chess. With the light behind her, he had a visual advantage, and he took slow, careful steps towards her. She countered each step with one of her own, aware that he was trying to herd her, to corner her at the back of the room. She did not need to look at the hammer to know he held it ready. Once more she listened in the dark for movements that could save her life.
'What about Sebastian?' She had to know. 'Was he involved in the killing?'
'He was next on the list.'
'And Jamaal Mahmoud?' she asked calmly, as though they were having a normal conversation. She'd seen offenders like this before. His ego was so inflated that he wanted her to know the genius of his actions. Of course, she was not stupid enough to think that he wouldn't end all discussion as soon as he was within striking distance.
'Another scumbag. Nothing to do with us.'
Us. So Mercy really had been a killer. Griffen lunged forward suddenly, but Jill had heard him tensing and, anticipating the move, she sidestepped quickly. From her peripheral vision she knew she had little room left. Her heart skidded along madly, her body steeling itself to fight for her life again.
'So you killed Mercy too?' She did not care what he answered. She had to keep him talking while she figured out a way out of here.
'Of course not. You are being deliberately obtuse, I fear. Mercy had become much too unstable, and Sebastian saved me the trouble of putting her out of her misery. A pity she could not keep it together. We had much work to do. Work you could, and should, have been doing, Jill.'
He stopped moving. She could sense him calculating his final approach. She had to do something.
'Have you had much to do with forensic psychiatry, Dr Griffen?' asked Jill, relieved to note his head tilting in interest. She could now see only his silhouette.
'A little, yes, Jill. And you're asking because . . .?'
'Well, while investigating this case I got to speak to a specialist in mass murder. A psychiatrist. Very interesting man.' She took silent, deep breaths between words, deliberately hyperventilating, pumping herself full of oxygen to increase her body's defensive mechanisms.
'Do you know, I think you'd count as a serial killer,' she continued, watching his body posture tense. 'And I learned that serial killings are always sexually motivated,' she lied. 'Do you think I didn't know that Manzi had his pants down when he was killed? Did you service him before or after you bashed his brains in? You have to admit, that's a fucked up way to get off.'
Rage made him rigid; she could feel it. She took another deep gulp of air, ignored the spots in front of her eyes caused by the imbalance in her blood between oxygen and carbon dioxide. She kept talking.
'Or maybe you're a closet rockspider. That's it, isn't it – you can't deal with your own feelings, so you kill the people who do what you really want to be doing. What's that called again – a defence mechanism? When you try to deal with your own unacceptable impulses by doing something you think is the opposite.'
With his bellow of fury Jill threw herself forwards and to the left. The move left her closer to a wall, but she was further from the hammer, the motion of which she felt just missing her shoulder as he lunged.
'Stupid! Stupid! You know nothing about the mind.' He breathed heavily; the hammer still raised.
Jill knew she was in trouble. Her back was now to a wall. There were two ways out of here – to the right, into the path of the hammer, and straight ahead. She'd have to throw herself into him and knock him over. There was no room to take a run-up. She sensed she would not have the weight behind her to push him backwards. She heard him breathing. He tensed to lunge. She sprang.
A voice calling her name from the front of the room overbalanced them both. Noah's head swung to the sound, causing him to stumble over a low table behind him. Jill, in mid-lunge, fell into nothing, and landed awkwardly. A hiss of breath next to her warned her to roll. The hammer struck the carpet next to her head. She moved from the roll to her feet in a single lithe motion.
'Hit the lights!' she yelled, as she threw herself to where she knew his body would be. She closed her eyes before the room flooded with light, and dropped with all her body weight onto her knee in the centre of his chest. She opened her eyes with his woof of pain and, one knee still in his gut, she scraped with her other foot down the arm that held the hammer, digging deep. His hand opened reflexively, the skin from his forearm now on the sole of her heavy, cop-issue boot. She pushed harder when she reached his hand, and felt his wrist break. She stood, stamped down hard again, and kicked the hammer away, ignoring his cries of pain.
Jill looked up at the stifled scream behind her, and saw Kim, white-faced, staring at her in horror.
'Take my phone, please, Kim,' she said steadily, reaching out with her mobile, giving the nurse something to do. 'The last number dialled is my partner. Press the send button now for me and get him on the line.'
In the moments it took for Kim to open the mobile, almost drop it, and fumble for the correct button, Jill had unplugged a computer cable from the desk nearby and rolled the moaning Dr Griffen onto his stomach, putting slight pressure on his broken arm to force him into easy compliance. Using noose knots, she tied one end of the cord around his unbroken wrist and the other to his opposing ankle, leaving him immobilised without further injuring him. She'd yet to face Internal Affairs over the death of Sebastian. She wasn't going down for excessive force on this one.
She slumped against a chair and waited for Scotty. I need a holiday, she thought.
Epilogue
CLAUS ZIEL AND BELINDA BEHM had been walking for two hours, but Claus was insistent that they not stop and rest yet. Belinda moaned and hooked her fingers into his belt, forcing him to drag her up another slight incline.
'Not long, baby, it's not far to go,' he said, looking at his map, putting on an extra spurt to help Belinda up the hill.
Claus and Belinda had travelled halfway around the world together, backpacking, and today, at a waterfall he had read about two years ago in his dorm room in Germany, Claus intended to ask Belinda to be his wife. He looked back over his shoulder at her, red-faced and trudging gamely up the hill. So beautiful. She'd fallen behind a couple of steps, and he decided they should stop for just a moment. He could hear the falls close by. They'd stop for a drink and arrive refreshed. The moment should be perfect. He'd waited two years.
As Claus and Belinda shared a water bottle on a rock, deep in the bush in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, a fat blue-tongue lizard skittered off the path ahead to avoid the noise they made. It waddled into its favourite hiding place and looked back at the path, blinking. It flicked its cobalt-coloured tongue across one of its eyeballs and sat back to wait for the humans to walk by.
Many more years would pass before anyone discovered the lizard's hiding spot, the eye socket inside Jamaal Mahmoud's skull. Around the time Claus Zeil had been sit-ting on his bed in Germany two years before, planning this day, Jamaal Mahmoud's brother-in-law had thrown Jamaal's badly beaten body off the ravine fifty metres above.
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