by Val McDermid
She slipped out of bed. Kit grunted, turned over and began breathing rhythmically again. Fiona padded across the carpet, taking her dressing gown off its peg and moving out on to the landing. The distant hum of traffic was the only sound. She had no sense of another presence besides her and Kit. As she mounted the stairs, she looked out of the window to the garden below. The dim light of a three-quarter moon turned it into an eerie conglomeration of monochrome shapes. But none were unfamiliar. Whatever had disturbed her sleep, it wasn’t a stranger in either house or garden.
In her office, Fiona turned on the desk lamp and took a can of Perrier out of the tiny fridge by her desk, one of Kit’s more bizarre birthday presents. She’d been less than thrilled at the time though she hoped she’d disguised her disappointment but she’d come to appreciate its benefits since. He was good at that, coming up with things she’d never have imagined she needed. She popped the top of the can. It was so still in the soundproofed attic that she could hear the bubbles ping as they broke against the metal.
She switched on her computer and waited for it to boot up. Then she went straight on line. America was awake; there would be plenty of people up and about in the chat rooms to keep her amused. As she logged on, she remembered it was the night once a month when Murder Behind the Headlines had an on-line discussion that ran from ten till midnight. She pointed her browser at their site and waited to be connected.
Fiona scrolled through the subjects up for debate and clicked on Jane Elias. She came in on the middle of what seemed to be a heated exchange about the Garda Siochana. Offered the chance by the browser to backtrack on the conversation, she opted for that.
What she read gave her a physical chill in her chest. According to three separate posts, the word locally on the lane Elias murder was that the guards had arrested the wrong man, and they knew it. Allegedly, they’d been railroaded into bringing in John Patrick Regan by senior officials in the Serious Crimes Unit, in spite of the reluctance of local officers. Now, in the absence of any early forensic results linking Regan to the crime, it appeared that the local cops were getting jittery about the arrest and his lawyer was fighting for him to be set free. According to one post, everybody in Kildenny who knew John Regan was adamant that the man didn’t have the brains to organize an abduction, never mind the balls to kill a woman and mutilate her corpse.
That was the point where the discussion had degenerated into a slanging match over the police. Fiona couldn’t have cared less how good or bad the Garda Siochana were in an obscure corner of County Wicklow. She had more important things to think about.
She logged off, turned off her computer and stared at the blank screen. Regan’s arrest had been a far greater reassurance than she had been prepared to admit to Kit. Without him in the frame, the picture looked very different indeed. It wasn’t a matter of the subconscious forcing connections; it became a logical conclusion.
Normally, the murders of two people working in the same field on opposite sides of the Irish Sea would be so insignificant it would pass unnoticed. But when they were both public figures; both award-winning thriller writers; both writers whose work had been adapted successfully for film or TV; and both murdered in styles that followed elements in their work more or less slavishly, it stretched coincidence to a point where notice had to be taken.
Fiona weighed the elements of her knowledge in the balance of her experience. Yes, there were such things as copycat killers out there. And Jane Elias’s killer was as likely to be a copycat as a serial murderer at the start of his series, given the physical distance between the victims and the apparently very different manners of their death.
Fiona, however, had never liked coincidence.
She got up from her desk and ran downstairs to the spare room, where Kit’s vast library of crime fiction covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Nothing as straightforward as alphabetical order, Fiona sighed to herself.
She scanned the shelves, looking for one of Georgia’s books. The first one she found was Last Rights, the final part of a trilogy of legal thrillers she’d completed a couple of years before. Fiona turned to the inside back flap and read the author biography there.
Several of Georgia’s books had been adapted for TV, including the legal thrillers. Only one, a stand-alone psychological suspense novel whose graphic violence had shaken many of her traditional audience to the core, had been made into a movie. And Ever More Shall Be So had been a low-budget British film, made with sponsorship money from Channel 4. Fiona vaguely remembered reading about its success. Something in the film had captured the attention of a mass audience and it had become a surprise hit on both sides of the Atlantic. The haunting, ethereal theme tune of an unaccompanied boy soprano singing ‘Green Grow the Rushes-O’ as a lament, a plangent counterpoint to the nightmares of the film, might have had something to do with it. For some reason, she’d never seen it, though Kit certainly would have done.
Now all she needed was to find the book. One among two or three thousand couldn’t be so hard, could it? Methodically, Fiona made her way along the shelves, pausing whenever she encountered Georgia’s name. How the hell did he ever find anything in here, she wondered? And why was he incapable of ever throwing away a book, no matter how crap he pronounced it to be?
About halfway along the second wall, Fiona found what she was looking for. The first edition of And Ever More Shall Be So, a personal dedication on the title page in Georgia’s surprisingly neat handwriting. “To darling Kit, already il miglior fabbro. With lashings of love, Georgia Lester.” How very Georgia, Fiona thought with a sardonic smile.
Fiona turned out the light and made her way back up to her attic. She settled down on the futon, pulling the throw over her legs so she wouldn’t get cold. Then she began to turn the pages. But what she read there put all thought of normal comfort out of her mind.
THIRTY-TWO
Steve thrust his arm out to prevent the lift doors closing. They opened fully and he stepped in, coming face to face with DC Joanne Gibb. “Morning, Joanne,” he said.
“Morning, boss. Am I allowed to ask how the grovelling went?”
Steve pulled a face. “Let’s just say we’re heading in the right direction. Dr. Cameron is putting me in touch with one of her graduate students who will do the analysis. If I can find some money to pay for it.”
“But we could be making real progress here,” Joanne protested. “Surely Commander Telford’s going to see the sense in following up this lead?”
Steve smiled. “I think I can persuade him to share our view.” The lift shuddered to a halt at their floor. “Wish me luck. I’ll see you and Neil in my office in fifteen minutes.”
He turned down the corridor, walking past blank-faced doors until he came to his immediate superior’s office. Steve knocked and waited for the invitation to enter. Commander David Telford was sitting behind what Steve would have bet was the tidiest desk in the building. Not a single scrap of loose paper blemished its polished surface. Pens clustered in a metal holder, a pad of paper sat by the phone, and that was it. The walls were blank save for Telford’s framed commendations and his business studies degree from Aston University. “Sit down, Steve,” he said, his face stern. He was determined to obliterate from the collective memory of the Metropolitan Police the notion that anyone other than Steve Preston was to blame for the Francis Blake fiasco. Steve understood that, and knew it was the reason why Telford or Teflon, as he was known to the lower ranks continued to treat him as if he brought a bad smell into the office with him.
“Thank you, sir.” Sometimes playing the game was a killer, but Steve cared too much about catching criminals ever to consider seriously the alternative.
“Still no progress, then?” Telford’s question implied the answer he wanted to hear. He cared more about image than justice, Steve knew. Finding Susan Blanchard’s killer was not at the top of Tenon’s agenda. Better that his team never found the real killer so the world could go on thinking the Met had been cheated of Fr
ancis Blake by the trial judge rather than their own maverick operation.
“On the contrary, sir. I think we’ve opened up a new line of inquiry.” Painstakingly, Steve went through the fresh evidence about the cyclist and what Joanne’s trawl of records had produced. “Now I need budget authorization to commission a geographic profile based on this cluster of cases so we can develop viable suspects,” he concluded.
Telford frowned. “It’s all a bit tenuous, isn’t it? Nothing in the way of hard evidence, is there?”
“The problem with this case all along has been the absence of hard evidence, sir. The lack of forensics at the crime scene, the relative lack of witnesses, the lack of apparent relationship between killer and victim. It’s obvious that the killer has some experience in covering his tracks, and that suggests he’s committed sexually motivated attacks before. This is the most promising line of inquiry we’ve had since we began the investigation, sir.”
“Clutching at straws,” Telford complained.
“I think it’s rather more than that, sir.” The words, ‘with respect’ hovered on Steve’s lips, but he held back, unwilling to utter that particular lie. “It’s a valid investigative strategy. Sooner or later, we’re going to come back under the spotlight over this case if we don’t resolve it. When that happens, I’d like to be able to say we left no avenues unexplored.”
“I thought Dr. Cameron had publicly refused ever to work with us again?” Telford was off on another tack, unsettled by Steve’s subtle threat of publicity.
“It wouldn’t be Dr. Cameron doing the analysis, sir. We would be commissioning another member of her department.”
Telford cracked a smile. “One in the eye for her, then.”
Steve said nothing. Perhaps malice would win where common sense had failed.
Telford swivelled in his chair and appeared to study his degree certificate. “Oh, very well, do your analysis.” He turned abruptly back to Steve. “Just don’t screw up this time, Superintendent.”
Steve walked back to his office, his hands fists. How sweet it would be to find Susan Blanchard’s killer, he thought. OK, Telford would take the public credit, but everybody inside the force would know the truth. Justice served, in every possible way.
He pushed open the door of his office, where he found DC Neil McCartney and Joanne waiting for him. Neil was a large untidy man in his mid-twenties. Steve had never seen him look anything other than mildly dishevelled and he was incapable of sitting in a chair without looking as if he was sprawling. He often wondered what the lad had looked like in uniform. His appearance alone would probably have guaranteed that he’d be booted up to CID at the earliest possible opportunity. It also hadn’t hurt that he was a good policeman; shrewd, thoughtful and tenacious to the point of bloody-mindedness.
“All right. We’ve got the go-ahead for the geographic profile,” Steve announced as he squeezed round Neil’s awkwardly arrayed legs. “I’ll take the material over to the university personally as soon as we’ve finished up here. So, Neil, what’s Blake been up to?”
“As far as we can tell, nothing of any great interest. Sleeping late, going out for a paper and a pint of milk and a couple of videos most mornings, then back home. Down the bookies some lunch times a couple of pints in the local boozer then a walk in the park. Back to the flat and apparently staying in watching TV, judging by the flickering at the window. Nothing sinister, nothing dodgy. Which is just as well, with us running minimal surveillance one-on-one. For all we know, he could be up to all sorts when we’re not around. Some days when we are there, he doesn’t put his nose across the door. He could have a harem in there and we’d be none the wiser.”
Steve nodded sympathetically. “I know it’s less than satisfactory. But we’ll just have to keep as close an eye on our friend Mr. Blake as we can. Until we come up with a better active lead, he’s the only thing we’ve got. It might be an idea to have a discreet word with the people in the downstairs flat, see if they’ve seen or heard any sign of company. But only if we’re sure they’re not mates. I don’t want to alert Blake to our continued interest. What do you think, Neil?”
Neil wrinkled his nose. He’d worked for bosses who didn’t like to be told their suggestions might not work. But he’d learned enough about Steve Preston to know that speaking his mind would seldom be held against him. Especially in such close company as they were at present. “I don’t reckon it, guy,” he said. “They’re a youngish couple, mid-twenties, I’d say. They look like the kind that think we’re the bad guys, know what I mean? They’d probably think it was their bounden duty to tell Blake the pigs were sniffing round.”
It wasn’t what Steve had been hoping to hear, but he trusted Neil’s judgement. “Is John on him today?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Neil yawned.
“OK. So why don’t you take yourself off for the rest of the day, Neil? Get your head down.”
“You sure, guy?”
“I’m sure. Joanne can keep things ticking over here. If we need you, we’ll shout.”
Neil unfurled his body from the chair and stood up, stretching luxuriously. “I’m not going to argue. Fuck me, more than eight hours to sleep in. My body might collapse with the shock.” He slouched out of the room.
“Do you want me to hold the fort then, boss?” Joanne asked.
“Yeah. I’m going over to the university to see some bloke called Terry Fowler. Dr. Cameron left a message that she’s made all the arrangements. I don’t know how long I’ll be depends how much I have to brief this Fowler. And I’m supposed to drop in on Dr. Cameron herself when I’m done. So I’ll see you when I see you.”
It felt strange walking into the psychology department and not heading straight for Fiona’s office. The porter gave him directions to the cubicle on the third floor that Terry Fowler shared with another graduate student. Steve knocked on the door and was surprised to hear a woman’s voice invite him to come in.
He stuck his head round the door. There were two computer desks, one vacant, the other occupied by a young woman with spiky platinum-blonde hair, scarlet lipstick and glasses with heavy black frames. Her ears gleamed with silver from three sets of piercings and a pair of ear-cuffs. Steve smiled. “Sorry to bother you. I’m looking for Terry Fowler.”
The woman cast her eyes upwards in a parody of exasperation. Then she grinned and pointed at her head. “You found her. Theresa Fowler at your service. Fiona playing the old trick of working on your gender assumptions?”
Irritated with Fiona for setting him up as the perfect model of the prejudiced policeman, Steve walked in with an apologetic shrug. Nothing like starting at a disadvantage, he thought. “What can I say? I fell for it. I apologize. I’m not usually prone to sexist assumptions.” He extended a hand. “Steve Preston.”
“Pleased to meet you, Superintendent.” Her handshake matched his; firm, no nonsense, nothing to prove. “Don’t worry about it. Psychologists find it hard to resist playing silly games. It goes with the territory. Grab a chair and make yourself comfortable. Well, as comfortable as you can on one of those instruments of torture.”
Her smile was infectious, and he found himself returning it. “Call me Steve, please.” He pulled up a plastic bucket chair and sat down. “I take it Fiona has briefed you more fully than she briefed me?”
She shook her head. “Only in the most general terms. She said you had a group of cases you wanted me to run through the crime linkage system. Then if there’s a cluster, I’ve to do a geographical profile. And you’re going to pay me, which is a major plus, I have to tell you.” Terry leaned back in her chair, unconsciously showing off a slim body in black jeans and T — shirt.
“There’s a little bit more to it than that,” Steve said, opening his briefcase and taking out the file Joanne had compiled. He had added four unrelated cases, to test the accuracy of the crime linkage programme, but he wasn’t going to tell Terry that. “First of all, I have to stress that this material is highly confidential.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said stiffly, determined to keep things formal. “But I couldn’t help noticing that you share this office. So whenever you leave the office, you’re going to have to take this file with you unless you can be sure it will be secure in here.”
“OK.”
“Even if you’re only popping out to the loo or the coffee machine.”
“Point taken.” She smiled and raised her hands palms outwards in a placatory gesture. “It’s cool, Steve. I understand.”
“I don’t mean to teach you to suck eggs.”
Terry shook her head. “Hey, you’ve never worked with me before, how are you to know I’m not some ditzy blonde?” She widened her eyes, her mobile face a question.
Steve’s turn to grin. “Fiona doesn’t hate me that much. OK, here’s what I’ve got for you. Six rapes and four serious sexual assaults. As Fiona said, I want you to see if there are grounds for believing any or all of them to be linked. If you get a cluster, I’m keen to see what the geographic profile produces. If we get that far, I then want you to enter another location into the geographic profile to see what happens.”
Terry raised one eyebrow. It should have looked pretentious but somehow she avoided that. “Is the other location in the file?”
Steve shook his head. “I don’t want to influence the way you’re thinking. Once I see the results, then we’ll take it from there.”
“Fine by me. How quick do you need it?”
Steve spread his hands. “Yesterday?”
“Yesterday costs extra. But for the regular fee, you can have it tomorrow. On one condition.”
Steve tilted his head slightly, his face suspicious. “One condition?”
“You have dinner with me tomorrow.” Her smile was the calculated flirt of a woman who expects to get her own way.