by Val McDermid
Steve felt hot blood flushing his cheeks. “I have dinner with you?”
“Is it such a strange idea?”
He forced himself to cling on to his professional reserve. “I just don’t think it’s a very good one.”
“Why? You’re not married, are you?”
“No, but…”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“I’m not in the habit of mixing business and pleasure,” he said, aware as he spoke that he sounded like the kind of stuffed shirt he’d always prayed he’d never become.
“Where else do people like us meet interesting dinner companions? We don’t have to talk about work, you know,” Terry said. “I won’t quiz you about your ten greatest cases if you don’t ask me to define Piagetian theory. Come on, what have you got to lose? Even if you have a totally crap time, it’s only going to be for a few hours. And I won’t tell if you don’t.”
Pleasantly bewildered but still wary, Steve ran a hand through his dark hair. “This is all rather sudden.”
She shrugged. “Life’s too short. You’ve got to seize the moment.”
“But why me?”
“God, you lot know how to ask questions, don’t you?” Now she was laughing, even white teeth gleaming like the big bad wolf. “Because you’ve got a brain and a sense of humour, because you’re a nice-looking geezer and because you’re not a geeky psychologist. Four very good reasons. So, you going to have dinner with me, or what? It’s OK if it’s no, I can take it. I’m a big girl. And I’ll still do your analysis, no hard feelings.”
Steve shook his head, entirely disorientated by the way the meeting had deviated from his expectations. “OK, let’s do it,” he found himself saying, realizing as he spoke that the idea was genuinely exciting.
“Good call, Steve. I’ll ring you tomorrow when I’ve got something for you, OK?” She was already reaching eagerly for the file.
Understanding he was being dismissed, Steve got to his feet. “Er…about dinner? Where shall I book? What sort of food do you like?”
She shrugged. “You choose. I don’t eat meat but I love fish. And I never met a cuisine I didn’t like.”
“Why am I not surprised? Thanks, Terry.” He walked down the corridor to the flight of stairs that would take him to Fiona’s office, grinning from ear to ear. He couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. He’d been blown away by the charisma of a stranger. He’d thrown aside one of his strongest principles, and he was feeling more light-hearted than he had for months. Maybe at last his luck was on the turn.
THIRTY-THREE
Steve’s smile didn’t survive his encounter with Fiona. When he walked into her office, she was staring blankly at her computer screen, hands linked behind her head. “Isn’t it a lovely day?” he said blithely, settling on her sofa.
Fiona looked at him as if he’d gone mad. “It is?”
“I think so,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve just had a very interesting encounter with Terry Fowler.”
“Oh good,” Fiona said absently. “She’s very efficient. I’m sure she’ll do an excellent job for you.” Her voice tailed off and she frowned at the wall above his head.
“Earth to Fiona…Is there anybody home?”
“I’m sorry, Steve, I didn’t sleep much last night. I’m…a bit distracted.”
“You wanted to see me about something?” he reminded her.
Fiona scowled and squeezed the bridge of her nose between her finger and thumb. “I know. It all made perfect sense when I left the message, but now…Well, I don’t know if I’m overreacting.”
Fiona this distracted was too unfamiliar an experience for Steve to take lightly. “Let’s hear it,” he said. “Then we can both decide.”
She nodded. “Makes as much sense as anything else. I woke up in the middle of the night. You know, the way I do sometimes. No obvious reason, but I couldn’t get back to sleep. So I went upstairs to surf the web for a while, and I ended up in a chat room where people were discussing the Jane Elias murder. And the general consensus seemed to be that the Garda have arrested the wrong man.”
Fiona took a deep breath. “Now, I know you have a fairly low opinion of the kind of people who hang around in news groups in the middle of the night in cyberspace, but a couple of the people who had posted actually know this guy and they’re saying he just doesn’t have what it takes to plan or to carry out so complex a scheme. Now, if the police do have the wrong man and if Jane’s murder was nothing to do with her relationship with her Garda Siochana lover, then logic suggests that the same person might have murdered Jane Elias and Drew Shand.”
“That’s reaching, Fi, and you know it. Different countries? Totally different MO and no signature that we know of?”
“There is a signature of sorts, Steve. Both Drew and Jane were award-winning authors who wrote serial killer thrillers that have been successfully adapted for TV or film. And they were both killed in ways that mirror deaths that are described in the very books that were adapted.” Fiona was focused now, her previous abstraction history.
“It’s not a conventional signature,” was the only protest Steve could find.
“I know. But I’ve been working another case — the Spanish one — with an unconventional signature, and I suppose that’s why I’m probably more open to the idea than I normally would be. So, humour me. Just for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s a possibility that the two crimes have the same perpetrator.”
Steve nodded. “OK. Out of purely academic interest, let’s see where that takes us.”
“Where it takes us is that Georgia Lester is missing. Having had at least one death threat letter which, when she discovered Kit had also had one, scared her more than a little. Kit, who knows her as well as anyone, seems to think the papers are right and she’s gone to ground as some kind of bizarre publicity stunt. You said last night it’s possible she’s been abducted. Either of these may be the case. For all I know, the police are negotiating with a kidnapper as we speak. That’s something I imagine you could find out with relative ease if you were minded to. But there is another possibility.”
“I have a sinking feeling I know where you’re heading with this,” Steve said.
“I think Georgia could be the third victim of a serial killer. If that’s the case, then for the signature to hold, it would follow that she’s been murdered in the manner of one of the victims in a serial killer novel. Agreed?”
Steve decided to go along with Fiona for the time being. “Theoretically, yes.”
“After I’d been on-line last night, I checked out Georgia’s output. She’s only published one strictly serial killer novel, And Ever More Shall Be So. Which was made into a film. She’s an award winner she’s won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year twice. She fits all the criteria, Steve. So last night, I skimmed the book.” Fiona paused, pushing her hair back from her face, revealing dark smudges beneath her eyes.
She continued, her voice now the calm, dispassionate tone of the lecturer imparting information. “The killer in And Ever More Shall Be So does abduct his victims. He uses the trick of pretending to have broken down in a country lane, but in broad daylight so they won’t be suspicious of him. Then he takes the victims back to his lair, where he strangles them. Finally he skins and dismembers them and wraps them up like joints of meat.”
Steve stared at Fiona for a long moment. It was a grisly prospect, but if he accepted her basic premise, it was an inevitable conclusion. “And you think this might be what’s happened to Georgia Lester?”
Fiona looked him straight in the eye. “I’m scared shitless that this is what has happened to Georgia. Tell me I’m being paranoid here, Steve.”
“You’re the psychologist, Fi. You know it’s only paranoia when it’s groundless. What you’re telling me might be pretty far-fetched, but it’s not entirely without foundation.” Steve leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped. However sceptical he was trying to so
und, part of him was entirely convinced by Fiona’s thesis. “In the book, what does he do with the remains?”
“The killer’s a wholesale butcher in the town where his victims live. He’s got a big freezer that’s supposedly obsolete. He keeps it padlocked shut. That’s where he puts his packages of human flesh. So if I’m right, the logical place to look for Georgia Lester right now would be Smithfield Market. They live in the City, you see, her and Anthony.”
Steve closed his eyes. He wondered just how he was going to convince the detectives searching for Georgia Lester that they were going to need a search warrant for Smithfield Market. “One more question,” he finally said. “Do you think there’s a connection with the death threat letters?”
Fiona shrugged. “I don’t know. My first reaction was that the writer of the letters wasn’t a killer. There’s no boasting about the murders in any of the letters I’ve seen, which I’d expect if the letter-writer was the killer. And generally speaking, people who write anonymous threatening letters have a different mind-set from those who actually kill. But the more this goes on, the less certain I feel about trusting my judgement. If there is someone out there killing writers at the same time as someone else is sending those same people death threats, it’s hard to believe it’s pure coincidence.”
“We don’t know whether Jane Elias or Drew Shand had any letters similar to the ones sent to Kit and the others, though, do we? And the Garda told me they hadn’t found anything like that among her papers.” While he was willing to accept Fiona might have made a case for a serial killer, Steve was reluctant on a personal level to believe the letters held a direct threat. If they did, that meant his closest male friend could be the next target. And that was a prospect that chilled him to the bone.
Fiona stared numbly at him. His words washed over her, making no impression on the worm of anxiety that wriggled inside her. “All I know is that if there is a serial killer out there, Kit is almost certainly on his list, whether or not the letter-writer and the murderer are one and the same. He fits all the criteria, just like Georgia. You’ve got to do something about this, Steve.”
THIRTY-FOUR
Fiona was uncharacteristically silent as they walked through the busy Holborn streets from her office to the quiet cafe-bar where Steve had arranged the meeting. Her mood seemed matched by grey skies and tall, dark Victorian buildings that hemmed them in as they headed down towards Farringdon Road. In an attempt to distract her, he said, “Does your graduate student make a habit of propositioning strange men?”
“You mean Terry?”
“She asked me out to dinner.”
“I see her impulse control hasn’t improved any.” Fiona sounded amused.
“She makes a habit of this kind of thing?” Steve demanded, unaccountably deflated by the thought.
“Propositioning men? I don’t think so, no. But she is irrepressibly drawn to following her urges, hunches and inspirations without pause for thought.”
“Ah,” he said.
“It’s just what you need, Steve. Someone to jolt you out of your rut,” she said, slipping her arm through his and giving it a squeeze.
“Is that how you see me? A man stuck in a rut?”
“You must admit, you’re a creature of habit and caution. A brief encounter with a charismatic whirlwind like Terry could be just what you need.”
“You think that’s all she’s in the market for, then? A brief encounter?” Steve said, trying to keep his tone light to match Fiona’s.
“I have no idea. Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest she saw you as nothing more than a plaything. And it’s not as if she has a reputation for playing the field. I’ve been working with Terry for nearly two years now, and all I’ve ever seen her do with blokes is put them in their place. Which is usually very firmly at arm’s-length. Not,” she added hastily, “that there’s anything wrong with that. I’ve seen too many students distracted because they’re the most attractive woman in the seminar group and they can’t resist the lure of other people’s lust.”
“But Terry’s not one of those, that’s what you’re saying?”
They side-stepped to allow a woman with a push chair to pass. “Definitely not. She’s well aware of her charm, but to her credit, she doesn’t trade on it. When she started her PhD, she was living with someone, but they split up…oh, it must be eighteen months ago. Since then, I don’t know of anybody significant. So she must have really taken a liking to you.” She squeezed his arm and smiled up at him.
“You know a lot about her,” Steve observed.
“You’re fishing. Which I assume means you said yes?”
“I did.”
Fiona raised her eyebrows. “Good for you. Time to live a little, Steve. Let yourself go. And I think Terry’s the perfect woman to do it with. She’s bright and she’s talented. And she’s good fun.”
Steve smiled. “I’d worked that much out for myself. I suspect I’m going to have to keep my wits about me with Ms Fowler.”
“Which is no bad thing in a relationship,” Fiona commented with a wicked grin.
“Hey, steady on. We’re only having dinner, not moving in together.”
Fiona said nothing, merely pinning him with an inquisitive look as she let go of his arm to turn into the cafe-bar. It had opened on the crest of the city’s coffee craze, the decor Home Front nineties, with every wall a different off-primary colour, tall aluminium vases crammed with exotic foliage scattered strategically around. The chairs were low wraparound armchairs that gripped the hips, the tables knee-high and stained the colour of herbal teas. The background music was generic Britpop played just loud enough to cover the hissing and spluttering of the coffee machines. It was marginally too far from the university for it to attract the student population. Mid-morning, only half a dozen tables were occupied. Steve led the way to a corner table at the rear, where they were unlikely to be overheard. From the elaborate menu of hot and cold beverages, Fiona ordered a cappuccino, Steve an Americano. He produced his cigars and lit up, blowing a perfect smoke ring towards the ceiling.
Fiona smiled. “You only do that when you’re nervous,” she said.
“I do?”
“I’ve noticed it before. When you’re feeling twitchy, you blow smoke rings.”
“So that’s all I am to you, a walking laboratory rat,” he said affectionately.
Before she could reply, a tall black woman in a caramel-coloured business suit toting a briefcase walked into the café and looked around her. Seeing Steve, the woman headed purposefully towards them. As she approached, Fiona took in the details. Low-heeled court shoes, powerful calves. Hair cut close to her head, high cheekbones, a parakeet nose and dark eyes behind fashionable oval-framed glasses. It was hard to gauge her age, but given that Fiona knew she was a Detective Chief Inspector, she had to be in her mid thirties at least. When she reached their table, the woman nodded to Steve and reached a hand out to Fiona. “Dr. Cameron? It’s an honour to meet you. I’m Sarah Duvall. City of London Police.”
They shook hands and Duvall sat down opposite Fiona. “Good to see you again, Steve,” she added with a curt nod.
“Thanks for coming, Sarah. I know you’re up to your eyes at the moment,” he said.
“Aren’t we all?” Duvall replied. The waiter arrived with the coffees and Duvall asked for a large espresso. Fiona wasn’t in the least surprised. Something had to have fuelled this brisk no-nonsense woman through the ranks of the City police and it wouldn’t have been supportive praise. “So, Steve tells me you wanted to talk to me about the Georgia Lester inquiry,” Duvall said, giving Fiona a sharp look of appraisal.
“To be honest, the more I think about it, the more I think I’m probably wasting everybody’s time,” Fiona hedged, aware she was not operating in her usual assertive mode and wondering whether she was actually feeling slightly intimidated by the other woman.
“I’m willing to be the judge of that,” Duvall said. “So, if you’d care to lay it out for me?”
Fiona began at the beginning, with Drew Shand’s murder, and outlined the hypothesis she’d already explained to Steve. Duvall listened in silence throughout, her features immobile, her body still as standing water. When Fiona came to the end of her theory, Duvall simply nodded. “I see,” she said. She picked up her cup and sipped her coffee.
“I don’t think you’re wasting my time at all,” she finally said. She glanced at Steve. “I can speak frankly here?”
“Fiona understands issues of confidentiality,” he confirmed.
Duvall picked up her teaspoon and stirred her espresso thoughtfully. “The main investigation into Georgia Lester’s disappearance is being handled by Dorset Constabulary, since that is where she was last known to be and where her car was subsequently found. My involvement has come about because her London residence is on our patch. Certain inquiries needed to be made in London, and it was decided that these should be handled at a level rather more senior than would deal with most missing persons. For reasons I’m sure you’ll appreciate.” Fiona nodded, impressed with Duvall’s incisive and logical manner.
“There have been suggestions, as you rightly point out, that Ms Lester has engineered her own disappearance as a publicity stunt. And to some degree, we have been allowing that assumption to run. However, I do not believe that to be the case. Apart from anything else, she had already engaged a bodyguard to accompany her on her book tour, which I don’t think she’d have done if she was planning to disappear as a publicity stunt. Also, her husband’s distress is clearly genuine, and I have been assured by everyone I’ve interviewed that she would not deliberately cause him such anxiety. We have been monitoring Mr. Fitzgerald’s telephone and his mail, with his full consent, and there have been no communications seeking a ransom. And there would have been by now if she had been abducted. I think we can be fairly sure of that.
“As you suggest, this leaves the unpalatable option that Ms Lester is dead, and not by her own hand. There is nothing to suggest she has met with a fatal accident. And so, I have been proceeding as if I were dealing with the early stages of a murder inquiry. I find what you have to say both disturbing and also curiously satisfying, because it chimes entirely with my own instincts about this case. I do wish someone had told me about these death threat letters before now, however.”