The Yeare's Midnight

by Ed O'Connor

  Farrell picked up the phone on its fourth ring. ‘Lab.’

  ‘Marty, it’s Harrison.’

  ‘No joy as yet. The only clean match I’ve found so far is Dexter’s right index finger.’

  ‘Fuck. It looks like he’s taken someone else.’

  Marty groaned. ‘Who?’

  ‘Stussman, the lecturer.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Marty was already exhausted and the pressure had just been upped another notch.

  ‘I don’t need to tell you, Marty, that it’s going to be a long night. You might be our only chance of finding this fruitcake.’

  ‘I realize that. You need to understand something, though.’ Farrell took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘I have started with the less common letters in the two names you gave me. I’ve looked at D, R, J, T, H, and U, and haven’t found any matches in our records except Dexter. I’m about to do Z, B, N and Y now. It’s taken me six hours to get this far. Most of the prints are partial and overlaid with others. Getting the computer to match smeared partial prints with our files is virtually impossible. If I have to broaden the search and check every print on the keyboard I shall be here all night. And some.’

  ‘That might be too late, Marty.’

  ‘I’d better get on with it, then.’

  ‘Call me. When you get something.’ Harrison hung up.

  Marty Farrell sighed and tried to clear his head. He was beginning to think that this was a wild-goose chase. Not so much looking for a needle in a haystack as looking for a specific needle in a room full of needles. The thought of dusting and analysing every key on the computer filled him with gloom. There had to be a way he could short-cut the process. He swallowed the remains of his cup of coffee and frowned in concentration.

  Z, B, N and Y. He had lifted five partials from those keys. It could take two or three hours for his computer to process them. Could he prioritize those in some way? He thought about the software that the library computer used. He knew it was a basically just a search program. The same kind of format that he used to access files on the Cambridgeshire Police mainframe. How did that work? It was easy, he remembered. You just typed the name of the person you wanted to find and pressed the ‘Return’ key. He made a mental note to dust the ‘Return’ key of the library computer. However, that didn’t seem very promising: everyone who used the system would have pressed ‘Return’ at some point. There would be dozens of prints, all of them smudged beyond recognition.

  What else, then? Separation. You separated the forenames and surname of each subject with a comma. The same problem applied, though. Every user would have touched the comma key for precisely that purpose. He needed to isolate a key that only the killer had used. Forename and surname. The thought niggled at him. Why didn’t that sound right? In the back of Marty Farrell’s head an idea began to germinate. Suddenly he closed his eyes and cursed at his own stupidity.

  The principal search term was always the subject’s surname. You typed the surname first, then the comma, then the forename. In fact, on many of these systems you didn’t even need to enter a forename: the database presented a list of subjects with the same surname and you could just click on the one that you wanted.

  Marty looked again at the letters he had already checked: D, R, J, T, H, and U. Dexter’s prints had turned-up on D and R but not on U. What did that mean? Dexter had typed in the first two letters of ‘Drury’ and the computer had defaulted to the name typed in by the killer. Dexter hadn’t needed to type in the woman’s full surname. But the killer must have done. The U key was smeared with a number of prints so fragmentary and corrupted that he had been unable to lift any usable prints from it.

  Z, B, N and Y. He thought for a second. The killer must have typed in ‘Drury’ in full. He had to have pressed the Y key. Y was a less common letter than U. Marty called up the partial print he had lifted from the Y key on to his computer screen. It was a fragment: about a third of a full print. Right index finger, most likely: classic loop pattern. He decided to take a chance. He selected the print and ran for matches. The system began sorting through its files. This was the tedious part of the process; the time-consuming part.

  Marty stood and walked out of the laboratory area and into the toilet. He splashed some cold water on his face. He was annoyed with himself. He had wasted so much time concentrating on the wrong letters: he should have realized that the letters making up the surnames of ‘Donne’ and ‘Drury’ were potentially the most useful targets. Marty dried his face on a paper towel and walked round to the coffee machine. The coffee was nearly always awful but he needed some sustenance. He chose a cappuccino with extra sugar and walked back into the laboratory.

  A light blue dialogue box had appeared on the centre of his computer screen. Marty put his coffee down carefully. The box said: Print Search: One Possible Match. He tried to contain his excitement and clicked on the dialogue box. It took a second for the next screen to appear:

  Eleven Point Match: Probability 68.75%

  Subject Record Loading

  Please Wait.

  Marty Farrell tapped his finger against the Formica surface of his desk. It took a minute for the file to upload. He wrote down the details as they appeared on the screen:

  Subject Name: Frayne, Crowan

  Date of Birth: 11 February 1967

  Address: Flat C

  Beaufort House

  Ravenswood Estate

  New Bolden NM6 8QJ

  Arrested: 5 September 1995, Brierly Veterinary

  Practice, NM

  Suspected Breaking and Entering

  Arresting Officers: PC Woods & PC Hillgate

  Conviction: Criminal Damage & Resisting Arrest

  17 November 1995, NM Magistrates Court

  Marty Farrell picked up his phone and dialled the Incident Room. He had a name and an address. Suspected breaking and entering. The words sent a chill down the length of his spine. Marty allowed himself a smile as Crowan Frayne’s picture slowly materialized on the screen.

  69

  Dexter started at the noises above her: a thud, footsteps and a door slamming. She strained her eyes, peering into the darkness. More footsteps, then a door opened. A blinding shaft of light blazed into the room. She tugged frantically at the binders on her wrists and the cord tightened again around her throat. He was here. This was it now. She was going to die. Her eyes quickly adjusted to the light and she looked around her. It was a basement, piled high with books. There were books everywhere. It was like the storage room under a library. There was a heavy old-fashioned wooden table in the centre of the room and three chairs arranged around it.

  A torch shone in her face from the top of the stairs. She was dazzled by its intensity and yellow spots floated in front of her eyes. The light went away. She squinted hard. There were two figures on the stairs. Alison Dexter tensed again as the cord choked her. She was no longer alone.

  ‘Sergeant Dexter.’ A man’s voice, his voice. ‘I believe you know Dr Stussman.’

  Dexter could see more clearly now as her eyes grew accustomed to the light. The killer had sat Heather Stussman in the chair next to the table. He was in the process of tying her hands behind her. She had a black plastic bag over her head. Once Frayne had secured her to the chair he untied the bag and pulled it from her face. Stussman’s head lolled drunkenly to one side. She was swimming in and out of consciousness, mumbling to herself. Satisfied that Stussman was secure, Crowan Frayne walked quickly around the table and dragged Alison Dexter up from the ground.

  ‘I apologize for leaving you alone. But, as you can see, I have had a busy afternoon.’

  Dexter swore at him through her gag and coughed as the cord cut across her windpipe. Frayne placed her in the chair opposite Stussman and loosened the line around her neck. Then he left the room, bounding up the stairs like an excited child and slamming the door behind him.

  The room plunged into darkness and Dexter sat at the table in frightened confusion, listening to Heather Stu
ssman’s soft moans. She started work again on her wrists. The pain was acute, gnawing at her flesh like an insistent, hungry animal. She drove herself on with the thought of what she would do to her captor’s face if she managed to work herself free. When the pain became almost too much to bear, she thought of what he might do to her face if she couldn’t get free.

  Five minutes passed and he returned. The room was again bathed in light. Crowan Frayne stepped and clanked awkwardly down the wooden stairs, carrying a large metal barrel. It looked like an oil drum. Dexter watched him place it next to a stack of books and go back into the main part of the house. When he re-emerged Frayne was carrying a large brass candlestick that resembled a short metal tree with eight small wax candles attached. He put the object on the table between Dexter and Stussman and lit each of the candles in turn. Their flickering light illuminated Stussman’s face: Dexter could see that she had been bleeding. Crowan Frayne sat at the table and placed his black leather box of antique medical instruments in front of him.

  The gaunt lines of his terrible face creased into an abomination of a smile as he looked at Dexter.

  ‘Now then,’ he said, clapping his hands together. ‘Shall we begin?’

  70

  Three squad cars raced through the centre of New Bolden, a whirl of blue flashing lights and noise. Harrison was in the lead car. In all, ten officers accompanied him. He would have liked some firearms specialists with him but there hadn’t been time to call in the team from Huntingdon. Harrison hoped that surprise and the weight of numbers would be enough to overwhelm Crowan Frayne.

  The Ravenswood estate was an unpleasant sprawl of local-authority accommodation on the northern outskirts of the town. It took fifteen minutes for the cars to cut through the evening traffic. As they approached the estate from the south, the car sirens and lights were switched off. Beaufort House was a square, grey oblong in the centre of the Ravenswood. Harrison ordered that the cars park out of sight of Beaufort House and his team ran the final hundred yards. Surprise would be everything.

  Flat C was on the first floor. There was no light on. Harrison ordered two officers to wait at the foot of the stairwell and two more at the entrance to the lifts. He led the remaining officers up the piss-smelling stairs to the door of Flat C. Barker, a heavyset uniform sergeant came forward with a large sledge hammer and, at Harrison’s signal, smashed open the front door.

  The team piled in, shining torches into the darkness. The flat smelled stale and dirty. As soon as Harrison breathed the dead air, he knew Frayne wasn’t inside. It was the smell of neglect and absence. He had recognized it immediately. It reminded him of the smell he had encountered in the houses of old-age pensioners who had died of hypothermia and been left to decay in their own beds. His officers kicked open the doors to both bedrooms and the kitchen. The living room was barely furnished. There were no books or ornaments. There was no television.

  Harrison sat down in a threadbare brown armchair and looked at the shelf in front of him. There were eight glass flasks arranged in a neat line. He shone his torch at them. Each contained two or more eyes. They varied in size and colour from small yellow-centred pebbles that Harrison presumed had been taken from cats, to large scraggy-looking dog and sheep eyes.

  ‘Practice makes perfect,’ Harrison muttered to himself.

  Sergeant Barker flicked on the living-room light and started in shock as a row of floating eyes glowered back at him. ‘Stone me!’ he cursed as he jumped. ‘He’s not here, guv. There’s no sign.’

  ‘Check all the drawers and cupboards. Bag everything,’ said Harrison. ‘If you find any envelopes or forms with another address on them let me know right away.’ Frustration smacked him sharply in the face and he slammed his fist against the dusty arm of the chair.

  ‘Fuck!’

  He thought of Dexter and Heather Stussman. They were dead now, for sure.

  71

  The ward was nearly empty now, apart from the duty nurse and the male orderly who was chatting quietly to her. Underwood had woken ten minutes previously as the last dinner trays had been collected and taken away, clattering. He had not eaten and wasn’t hungry. In fact, he felt so nauseous that he thought he might never eat again.

  He picked up the New Bolden Echo lying on top of the cabinet next to his bed. He was faintly annoyed that no one other than Dexter had come to visit him. Then he remembered that he didn’t have anyone other than Dexter. Once Paul Heyer and Julia recovered, Underwood knew that he would receive lots of visitors: solicitors, the Chief Super, Norwich police. He tried to sort through the fragments of memory and madness that still littered his brain. It was painful to walk there.

  Lucy Harrington stared at him accusingly from the front page of the newspaper. He remembered the gaping hole in her face, the corruption of her beauty. She had been a strong, successful athlete, butchered for no reason. She left behind a devastated family who had supported and encouraged her in life. Now they would mourn the idiocy of her death. Underwood almost envied her. Who would mourn him? He had been cut adrift on an ocean of uncertainty; smashed against the dark edges of his personality. The people around us define us and bind us together. When those people fall away we are left alone to unpick the fabric of ourselves as if it were the only way to fill the silences.

  Underwood’s attention drifted back to the newspaper. He couldn’t bring himself to read about Lucy’s achievements again. He turned the pages slowly and with little interest. Most of the stories were tedious local news items about old ladies being mugged and pets winning awards at shows. He didn’t read them. Had the killer bothered to read the rest of the paper?

  The date on the newspaper was 1 December, just over a week before Lucy Harrington had been murdered. The killer had called the author of the article – George Gardiner – the morning after he had killed Lucy Harrington. He had read this paper and found something he hadn’t expected: a name that resounded with significance. A Providence, if you like, Underwood mused, a catalyst. If finding Lucy Harrington had been unexpected, had the murderer been looking for something else? What would you look for in a local paper? What would a local man look for in a local paper?

  Himself, perhaps. Or someone he knew, someone he was close to. The people around us define us and bind us together, Underwood thought again. When they fall away we pick ourselves apart. The killer values the wit of strange connections. He connected Lucy Harrington with something else he was looking for. Underwood looked at the rain thumping on the window; he thought of Julia, of his parents. When they fall away we pick ourselves apart.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he whispered to himself. He turned to page seventeen of the New Bolden Echo: the page that contained birth, marriage and death announcements. His tired eyes scanned the page quickly. He discounted births and marriages, concentrating instead on the death announcements. The first two obituaries didn’t seem appropriate: they were written in the clipped middle-class prose that announced deaths as if they were changes in a cast list at an amateur-dramatics evening. The third obituary in the column grabbed his attention, though:

  Violet Frayne, d. 13 December 1999, beloved mother and grandmother. Shee by whose lines proportion should be examin’d, Measure of all Symmetree, Whom had that Ancient seen, Who thought Soules made of Harmony, He would at next have said, That Harmony was she.

  Underwood knew he had him. He recognized the dedication. It was from Donne’s ‘The First Anniversary’: the poem that the killer had written on Elizabeth Drury’s ceiling. This woman, whoever she had been – mother, grandmother – had died a year before this edition of the newspaper had been produced. So that was it. The killer had been commemorating the first anniversary of the death when, by chance, Lucy Harrington’s beautiful round eyes had illumined his grief.

  Underwood reached over for his mobile phone and dialled the Incident Room. A woman answered.

  ‘Dexter?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said a weary voice. ‘This is Jensen.’

  ‘Jensen, it’s Insp
ector Underwood.’

  ‘Hello, sir.’ She sounded surprised. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Listen to me, Jensen. I think I have the killer’s name. His surname, at least. I won’t bother you with the details but tell Dexter that I think his name is Frayne, F-R-A-Y-N-E.’

  ‘We think so too, sir. We lifted the prints of a Crowan Frayne from the computer terminal at New Bolden Library. Harrison went to his flat with a team about twenty minutes ago. There’s no one there. Harrison reckons the flat’s been deserted for some time. I was just trying to dig up some more information on Frayne. Job records, relatives and so on.’

  ‘Look for a Violet Frayne. I think it’s his mother or grandmother. She died a year ago but I think she lived locally.’ Underwood paused for a second. ‘Did you say Harrison had gone after the killer?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘Where’s Dexter?’

  Jensen bit her lip. He didn’t know … how could he know? She took a deep breath and briefly told the inspector the story of Dexter’s abduction, of Dr Stussman’s meeting with the killer and subsequent disappearance and of how she, DC Jensen, had been knocking on doors all day and had missed virtually all the excitement. By the end of the story Underwood had stopped listening. He knew that Dexter and Stussman were dead. And he was truly alone. He hung up before Jensen had finished speaking.

  Annoyed by Underwood’s hanging up on her but focused on the task in hand, DC Jensen tried to call up the name of Violet Frayne on the New Bolden electoral roll. The database was two years old so if the woman had died twelve months ago she should still appear on record. It only took a couple of minutes to find her: Violet Frayne, 12 Willow Road, Hawstead, New Bolden. Jensen called Harrison’s mobile on her way out of the Incident Room.