by Ed O'Connor
Underwood had started to walk across the lawn, his eyes fixed on the grass. ‘I certainly think he left that way. Do you remember that article we all got from the police shrink about mental maps and criminal activity?’
‘Vaguely.’ She looked left into the near distance as she always did when retrieving information from her memory. ‘It was about how individuals make their own mind maps of areas where they live. A place looks different based on your own perspective.’ She was warming up as the article came back to her. ‘So, if you ask a Londoner to draw a map of London, they’ll put their own locality nearer the centre of the map than it should be and make the Thames look straight instead of bendy because as far as they’re concerned it is.’
‘Something like that. Most rape cases occur within five miles of the offender’s home.’
‘This isn’t a rape, as far as we know.’
‘No. But how would you know about these woods and pathways …’
‘Unless you were local.’ Dexter finished the sentence.
They looked more closely at the fence. There was a small amount of blood, a streak at the corner. Underwood gestured toward it. ‘He came out over here and into the woods. Somehow he knew where she lived. He knew she was going out at eight p.m. and wasn’t going to be back quickly. That gives him bags of time of to muck about with the back door, get inside and then do whatever it is he does to prepare himself.’
‘Put her knickers on and dance about, probably.’
‘Get the uniform plods to do a sweep of the paths behind the house. Our boy might have dropped something on the way out. I think that’s unlikely but it was dark and he was in a hurry. We’ll need to find out where these paths emerge onto London Road and Hartfield Road. Check for places he might have parked a car. Someone might have seen something.’ Underwood was short of breath. The cold air dug at his chest again. He coughed painfully, covering his mouth with cupped hands. His eyes filled with water. Dexter watched him closely for a moment before tactfully withdrawing to the house. Underwood hacked again. This time he had blood on his hands. It wasn’t Lucy Harrington’s.
9
Southwell College, Cambridge meant different things to different people. To Shelley, it had been a ‘medieval mediocrity’. To tourists, its sprawling gardens and curious chapel made it a convenient diversion en route to The Copper Kettle. To its undergraduates, it was a kind of baroque holiday camp. To Dr Heather Stussman it meant recognition. Or, at least, a decisive step towards it.
She cast her gaze around the ancient Combination Room, where the Fellows of the College took their meals. Even now, at lunchtime, the room seemed dark and oppressive. The steward had nurtured a raging fire in the sculpted stone fireplace that now threw strange shadows against the oak-panelled walls. Stussman was too close to the fire for her liking and was starting to get uncomfortably warm beneath her academic robes. The food was extremely rich and Stussman could feel her heart racing. The gloomy oil portraits of previous college masters stared down disapprovingly at her. Southwell only had one other female Fellow, a particle physicist, and she appeared so infrequently that Stussman assumed that the resident misogynists had shooed her off. The male Fellows treated her with a mixture of disdain and a kind of horrified curiosity. Still, she had expected a degree of hostility.
‘Who are you?’ the wolf-eyed Professor Dixon boomed at her from across the table, peering over his half-glasses.
‘Heather Stussman. We met last week, Professor Dixon, at the Master’s drinks.’
Dixon seemed surprised. ‘What do you think of our Master?’ he asked.
‘I found him delightful,’ Stussman replied. ‘He has been very helpful to me.’
‘Of course, he’s a raging queen, you know,’ Dixon opined learnedly. ‘A terrible poof. I only voted for him out of a misplaced sense of irony. Sadly, so did everybody else and now we’re stuck with the old fraud.’
Stussman was aware that another fellow, Dr McKensie, was eyeing her as he chewed his noisettes de chevreuil Cumberland. He reminded her of a hyena coveting a corpse.
‘You’re the new English Literature research Fellow, aren’t you? The woman,’ he asked between delicate mouthfuls.
‘That’s right.’
‘Extraordinary world, isn’t it, Roger,’ he said to Dixon, ‘that we should have an American researching English Literature?’
‘I guess the world is moving on. We’re no longer divided by the same language,’ Stussman said quietly. Her collar felt uncomfortably tight.
‘Do you know what we call a female Fellow here?’ McKensie beamed. Stussman could feel the hyenas closing in around her. Other fellows were starting to tune in to their conversation.
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘A fellatio!’ McKensie squawked triumphantly. There was a ripple of laughter. Even Stussman managed a smile.
‘That should be pronounced fell-ah-tee-oh,’ she responded. ‘But maybe you are unfamiliar with the concept.’
‘Whereas you, clearly, are not.’
‘What exactly is your speciality?’ asked Dixon. He was still confused.
‘The metaphysical poets – John Donne in particular.’ Stussman put her fork down. She was not enjoying her first formal lunch.
‘Your book proved rather controversial,’ said McKensie.
‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs,’ she said, trying to be cheerful. The blank expressions deflated her. She continued, ‘I’m surprised you’ve read it, Dr McKensie.’
McKensie was sprinkling salt onto his sautéed vegetables. He looked horrified. ‘Oh, Lord. Not all of it. I made it to chapter three.’
‘What did you think?’ It was a dumb question. She regretted it immediately.
‘I thought your naivety was endearing.’ Conversation over. McKensie turned away, no doubt relishing the tang of his own acidity. Stussman fumed inwardly, attempting to console herself with the knowledge that these terrible people were only a means to an end. Cambridge still carried more academic clout on a CV than did the University of Wisconsin – for the time being, anyway. She retreated mentally into the subject matter of her forthcoming lecture series, Donne’s songs and sonnets. ‘The back of your mind is a good place to hide,’ her father had once told her, ‘but the back of a poet’s is better.’ Batter my heart, three person’d God / As yet but knocke, breathe, shine and seeke to end / Your force, to break, blowe, burn and make me new. Not for the first time she marvelled at Donne’s verbal dexterity and manipulation of metre. She returned to her noisettes de chevreuil Cumberland.
10
Dexter set up the Incident Room with her characteristic speed and accuracy. Her ability to focus was almost frightening to Underwood. All he had over her was experience, and every day Dexter was eating into that advantage. Underwood knew that it wouldn’t be long before she wanted to move on; before she realized he was holding her back. He wondered if Julia felt the same. Maybe he was paranoid. He was certainly scared. Scared of being alone. Underwood had never been alone before. He knew he would be soon: alone with himself.
The room was filling rapidly. Dexter had co-opted three detective constables to work with Harrison and herself on the house-to-house enquiries and two secretaries to work on the phones and the cross-referencing of information. A large white board had been put up at one end of the room. Dexter had pinned on it a picture of Lucy Harrington – obtained from the girl’s parents in Peterborough – next to the official crime-scene photographs. She always did this in a murder case. She liked people to remember that the victim was a person, not just a name or a set of horrific photographs. It was smart psychology but the juxtaposition made Underwood uncomfortable. Dexter had also attached cut-outs of recent newspaper articles about Harrington’s gold medal. Above them was a large blue paper sheet detailing the known facts of the case. Underwood and Leach were standing in the centre of the semicircle of plastic desks. There was a polite white noise of chatter. Marty Farrell, one of the scene-of-crime officers, was leaning b
ack against a radiator. He offered Dexter a cigarette. She refused.
Underwood was finding it increasingly difficult to order his mind. Julia infected his every thought like a virus. Drawing energy from some hidden reserve, he eventually addressed the room.
‘Let’s get started. Lucy Harrington, twenty-six years old, single. Famous swimmer and local celebrity. She leaves a reception at the Civic Hall last night at around eleven o’clock. Drives home. It takes about fifteen minutes, assuming she didn’t stop anywhere. We don’t think she did.
‘Once inside the house she was attacked from behind and killed. The body was found in her bathroom this morning after a tip-off, presumably from the killer, was received by a reporter at the New Bolden Echo.
‘I have asked Sergeant Dexter to put together a list of Harrington’s family and acquaintances. However, this is a particularly unusual assault: almost ritualistic in certain aspects. We should consider the possibility that we might have a serial murderer on our patch.’ Underwood nodded at Leach who cleared his throat and began his report.
‘Post-mortem has confirmed that time of death was sometime between eleven last night and one o’clock this morning. I’m afraid I can’t be much more accurate. The body and clothes were partially immersed in cold water. Cause of death was massive trauma to the brain following at least two sharp blows to the back of the skull.’
He held up a grisly picture of the back of Lucy Harrington’s head. ‘The occipital bone was impacted here, pretty much on the line of the lambdoidal suture. The diameter of the wound was approximately two inches. I would guess that the murder weapon was a steel hammer, a metal pipe or something very similar. Death would have been almost instantaneous. Considering what happened next we should be thankful for small mercies, I suppose.
‘After inflicting these blows, the killer turned the body over and surgically removed the victim’s left eye. This would have taken some time.’ Leach brushed the sweat from his brow as he continued. ‘He tried to do it scientifically at first but eventually resorted to brute force. I would guess one to two hours. Presumably after he had completed the operation, the killer turned on both bath taps and flooded the room. The search for forensic evidence is ongoing, but we don’t hold out much hope.’
A hand went up. DC Jensen: she was blonde and attractive. Heads turned quickly.
‘Was there any sexual interference, sir?’ she asked Underwood.
‘Apparently not,’ he replied.
‘The victim was found fully clothed and there does not appear to have been any sexual violation. We can’t find any bite marks, semen or saliva residues from the killer. Although I should point out that the water prevents us from making any final conclusions,’ Leach added.
Underwood took over again. ‘There are woods at the back of the property. My guess is that the killer came out the front door and made off through the back garden, climbed the fence (there are traces of Lucy’s blood on it) and legged it through the woods.’
He paused for breath. ‘Uniform are sweeping the woods but as yet they’ve drawn a blank.’ He moved to a large map of the area that Dexter had pinned to the board at the far end of the room. ‘The paths through the woods end at these points.’ He gestured at the five red stars on the map. ‘Three come out on London Road and two on Hartfield Road, here and here. If he drove – and bearing in mind that he was covered in blood afterwards, I think he had to – then he must have parked near one of these locations. I want you to check with the locals, see if anyone saw a car or a van parked nearby.’
DS Harrison had been carefully making notes, his face furrowed with ever-deepening lines of confusion. He looked up at Underwood. ‘Guv, I just can’t get a handle on this. What’s his motive? It’s clearly not a burglary gone pear-shaped. It’s not a sexual assault, as far as we know. If he just wanted to kill her – you know, like a domestic gone haywire or something – then there are much easier ways to do it. And why did he screw with her eye? The Doc said that takes time. Time means risk. He must have really wanted it.’
‘A souvenir,’ Dexter suggested. ‘I’ve read that some of these sick bastards like to take something that belonged to the victim. So they can relive the event afterwards.’
Harrison was unconvinced. ‘Yeah, but why not a lock of hair or some of her clothes? Much easier and far less messy. I think this guy has a seriously twisted imagination. I reckon he’s going to do it again.’
Underwood nodded. ‘The eye obviously has some special significance for him. The killer also wrote some text on the bathroom wall with some of the victim’s blood. Have we figured out what it is yet, Dex?’
‘Not yet, sir.’ She flipped open her notebook and read aloud: ‘Draw not up seas, to drowne me in thy spheare.’
‘Water,’ said Harrison. ‘He flooded the place, didn’t he? Maybe it wasn’t just to corrupt the crime scene. To drowne me in thy spheare. “Spheare” could mean eye. Draw not up water to drown me in your eyes. Don’t drown me with your tears. Sounds like a love song.’
The image of the blood-blackened eye socket and the filthy, thick water flashed across Underwood’s mind. Eyes. Water. Blood. Harrison had made a connection of sorts. It was something. They were up and running.
‘Dex, get Harrison to help you find out where that text comes from.’ Dexter nodded and shot a dark look at Harrison. She was irritated that he had made a connection she had missed. Underwood’s request implied that Harrison was more likely to source the text than she was. That rankled. However, now that the savage peculiarities of the murder had become clearer to her, she did agree with Harrison on one thing: this was just the beginning.
11
Heather Stussman left her rooms in Southwell College’s Osbourne Court and headed for the porter’s lodge. It was late afternoon. The interminable East Anglian rain had finally passed. Sunlight was starting to drizzle through the fragmenting grey clouds, glinting in the large puddles of rainwater that had gathered in the corner of the Court. The rain had scared off the tourists and the old college was wonderfully quiet. The air was clean and sharp like newly cut glass: maybe things were starting to look up.
Mr Johnson (the head porter) nodded curtly as Stussman entered the lodge. He didn’t speak. Presumably he was as unimpressed with her as McKensie and Dixon had been at lunch. Her pigeonhole was crammed with mail: university flyers, adverts for music recitals, a letter from her publisher, two personal letters – one from her mother in America and another written in a spidery hand she did not recognize. She stuffed the wedge of paper into her rucksack and headed out of the lodge up Trumpington Street. She turned left at the Silver Street junction and crossed the river over Silver Street Bridge, catching a waft of beer from The Anchor on her way.
Her lecture series, ‘Reconstructing Donne’, was based on her recent book. Stussman had set about the academic orthodoxy on the Metaphysical Poets with a ferocity she was beginning to regret. The New York Times Book Review had pretty much caught the critical response: ‘Stussman’s attack on post-structuralism is memorable more for its vigour than its rigour.’ The others weren’t much better. ‘Try to avoid meeting Dr Stussman down an intellectual dark alley,’ warned the Washington Post: ‘her vitriol is fatal at ten paces.’
Both of these reviews were better than the one in the Sunday Telegraph, which had described her as ‘bereft of empathy, temptingly putdownable and probably certifiable’. The controversy had sold more books than she had ever expected. Her lecture classes were extremely well attended. However, she had clearly got the bird from the grey-hairs at the English Faculty who had given her the highly unpopular five p.m. lecture slot. Perhaps she was being paranoid. She doubted it.
The faculty site at Cambridge was a spectacular architectural horror. The dismal cluster of buildings resembled an old Eastern Bloc military hospital. The lecture rooms were no better. They were small, badly ventilated and uncomfortable. Stussman longed for the airy auditorium at the University of Wisconsin, with its remote-control slide projector and soun
d system. Still, at least the room was full and not many lecturers could claim that distinction. She noticed that for the second week running her audience was mostly male. Next time she would wear trousers.
‘Last week, we talked about the intellectual context of metaphysical poetry. We talked about its associations with the religious uncertainties of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and with the rise of humanist philosophy during the Renaissance. Today, I’d like to consider the anatomy of metaphysical poetry. In particular, the intellectual and stylistic devices deployed by the poets to force home their points. If we accept the view that many of these pieces were composed for a highly specific coterie audience, then we need to understand what that audience was looking for. Foremost among the literary devices used was die “conceit”. Who can explain that to us?’ There was a shuffling of feet and a couple of nervous coughs. She had expected this. British students were notoriously taciturn. She pointed at a shaggy student in the front row who seemed to be fixated on her ankles. ‘How about you?’ He jumped slightly and sat up in his chair.
‘Well, a conceit is a kind of metaphor. A clever image used to make an argumentative point.’
‘Good. A conceit is a metaphor or simile that appears at first glance to be unusual, improbable or even shocking. However, as the poet develops the image, the reader is gradually persuaded of its intellectual value.’ She heard a few students starting to scribble notes. The sound was always rewarding. Screw the New York Times Book Review. ‘John Donne famously compares a humble flea with a marriage bed. He is trying to seduce a woman and bitterly complains that because the flea has sucked his blood and his lover’s it has enjoyed a closer intimacy with her than he has.’ More scribbling. She was beginning to relax. Next week she would try making a joke.