Killing the Shadows

by Val McDermid

  Hastily, she shovelled all her change into the coin box of the phone and keyed in the number. The phone on the other end rang three times, then she heard the choked-off ring of a call being diverted to another phone. This time, it was answered on the second ring. “CID, DC Mullen,” a husky male voice grunted.

  “I need to speak to Superintendent Sandy Galloway,” Caroline said.

  “He’s not available just now. Can I help you?”

  Where to begin? “Are you working on the Drew Shand case?” she asked.

  “Have you some information pertaining to the inquiry, madam? Can I take your name?”

  “No, I don’t have information, as such. I’m calling on behalf of Dr. Fiona Cameron. She’s been consulting with Superintendent Galloway on the case. Look, it’s vital that I speak to him.”

  “I’m afraid he’s not on duty. Can I pass on a message?”

  Exasperated, Caroline struggled to find a quick way to tell the detective what was going on, conscious that her credit was dribbling away by the second. “She’s following a lead, she thought she might be heading into a dangerous situation. She thinks the killer’s still on the loose, you see. And she asked me to call Superintendent Galloway if she hadn’t come back within the hour,” she gabbled, aware that she wasn’t explaining the situation well. “I think she needs back-up.”

  “Back-up for what?” He sounded bemused.

  “She thinks the killer’s holed up with his next victim. Nobody would listen to her, she’s gone after him on her own.”

  “Look, miss, I think you’re under a misapprehension here. We believe that Drew Shand’s killer is in custody. Where are you calling from?”

  “Just outside Lairg. On the shores of Loch Shin.”

  “Lairg? I’m afraid you’re a wee bit off our patch,” he said, sounding amused. He’d clearly decided to consign her to the drawer marked ‘crank’. “Maybe you should be talking to Highland Police?”

  “Wait, don’t hang up!” Caroline shouted. “I know this sounds crazy, but I’m not some kind of nutter. Fiona Cameron’s in danger. I need help here.”

  “Talk to the police at Lairg. They’re the men on the spot. They’ll be able to help you. Either that or leave a message with me for Superintendent Galloway.”

  “You’ll get it to him right away?” Caroline demanded.

  “I’ll make sure he gets it.”

  “OK. Tell him Fiona’s at Kit Martin’s bothy. It’s near the Allt a’ Claon on the shores of Loch Shin.” She spelled out the name of the river gorge for him. “She sent him a fax, but I don’t know it he got it. Please, tell him we need help, urgently.” An electronic voice in her ear told her she had ten seconds left. “It’s really important,” she stressed as the line went dead.

  Caroline slammed the phone down. “Bugger!” she shouted in frustration. “You really fucked that up, you moron.” She smashed the flat of her hand into the glass wall of the box. She’d blown her one chance with the Edinburgh Police, and every minute that ticked past might put Fiona’s life at even more risk.

  She had a horrible feeling that the local police were going to be even less inclined to take her seriously. But there was nothing else for it. She’d have to go back to Lairg anyway for more change to make phone calls.

  Still cursing her incompetence, Caroline made for her car, all the time praying that Fiona was still in one piece. “No thanks to you if she is, fuckwit.” she said out loud as she threw the car into a U-turn and headed back into town.

  When Gerard Coyne emerged from his flat that morning, Joanne let out a sigh of relief. “He’s not taking the bike,” she said, peering into the rear-view mirror.

  “Thank Christ for that,” Neil said. He watched in the carefully angled wing mirror as Coyne drew level with their car and continued on up the street. Before he reached the corner, two detectives were on his tail, one on either side of the street. Joanne started the car and pulled out of the parking spot. The brief was clear. Wait until Coyne was stationary, then close in. The two officers on foot were each shadowed by another back-up, with Joanne and Neil in the car ready to join in the end game.

  Coyne cut through the maze of narrow streets and emerged on Caledonian Road near its junction with Holloway Road. As he approached a bike shop with its wares covering most of the pavement outside, his pace slowed and he came to a halt, studying a racing bike. “Time to make a move?” Neil asked Joanne as they crawled towards the shop.

  “I think so,” she said, braking to a halt and flicking on the hazard lights.

  Neil spoke into the radio set. “Alpha Tango to all units. Move in on suspect now.” He jumped out of the car and strode across the pavement. The other officers had surrounded Coyne, who was standing with his back to the bike display, his eyes wide with astonishment.

  “Gerard Patrick Coyne?” Neil said.

  “Yeah, who wants to know?” Coyne demanded, trying for cool and missing by a mile.

  “I am Detective Constable Neil McCartney of the Metropolitan Police and I would like you to accompany me to a police station to help with my inquiries into a serious matter.”

  Coyne shook his head. “You must be mistaken, mate. I’ve done nothing.” His eyes were darting from side to side, as if seeking a way out. But his path was blocked by the police officers, as well as the pedestrians who had stopped to see what was going on.

  “In which case, you won’t mind answering a few questions, will you, sir?” Neil took a step closer.

  “Am I under arrest?” Coyne demanded.

  “That’s up to you at this point, sir. We’d prefer it if you accompanied us on a voluntary basis.”

  “I don’t have a lot of choice, do I?” he said, his voice the whine of those who feel victimized.

  “I have a car waiting,” was all Neil said.

  The officers formed a phalanx around him, and escorted him to the back seat of the car, where he was hemmed in by Neil and another detective. Coyne’s narrow face was set in a petulant mask, his arms tightly folded across his chest. “You’re making a big mistake,” he complained.

  “You’ll have plenty of opportunity to put us right,” Neil said pleasantly. He could afford the courtesy; everything had gone according to plan.

  Fiona rested her head on the steering wheel. “So what do we do now?” she asked. “I’ve got back-up Caroline should have called the cops by now. But they’re not going to treat this as a matter of urgency, I just know they’re not. Besides, it’ll take them forever to get here. You say there’s no other way out?”

  “Not by road,” Kit said. He’d propped himself up into a sitting position. Now the cramps and the pins and needles had passed, he felt slightly less like someone knocking at heaven’s door. His head still felt like he was half-drunk, half-hungover, but he was gradually getting used to that. “On foot. There is a way on foot. It’s about six miles across the hill. I don’t think I can make it. But you could hike out and get help.”

  “I can’t leave you here,” Fiona protested, her voice muffled as she spoke into her chest. “There’s nothing to stop Blake coming back for you. We don’t know that he’s left. If I was him, I’d be in the woods on the other side of the ravine waiting for us to plunge to our deaths. And if time passes and we don’t do that, he’ll probably look at the map and figure out what we’re doing. So he’ll come back for you. Even if he has to hike back down the road to the bridge by the loch side and back up again through the woods, he’ll still get to you before I can make it to the main road.”

  “What other choice is there? Apart from waiting for your back-up?”

  “You need to get to a hospital, Kit. And besides, what’s going to happen when they roll up? Either they’re going to spot what’s happened to the bridge and they’ll be stuck that side of the ravine. Or else they won’t and they’ll end up crashing into the gorge like we’re supposed to have done.”

  There was a long pause. Then Kit said, “There is something that might work. But it’s a very long shot…”
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  “A long shot’s better than no shot at all.”

  “You might not think that once you’ve heard it.”

  Steve was generous in his praise of his team. “You did a great job. Like clockwork, and by the book. Not a thing that the defence could pick on. Well done. The drinks are on me tonight. He’s been formally arrested now, has he?”

  Neil nodded. “On suspicion of murder. He looked completely gob smacked But he knows what he’s about. The only thing he said was that he wanted his lawyer.”

  Steve picked up a sheet of paper from his desk. “Right. I’ve drawn up the authorization for a Section Eighteen search. I want you to take charge of that, Neil. You know what we’re looking for. Now, I want John and Joanne to start the interview. I’m going to be watching from the observation room. John, I want Joanne to take the lead. This guy has a problem with women. I want to wind him up, and Joanne coming on the macho cop will do just that. OK with that, Joanne?”

  She smiled grimly. “It’ll be a pleasure, guy.”

  Before he could say more, Steve’s phone rang. He grabbed it and said, “DS Preston.”

  “Steve? It’s Sarah Duvall. I wonder, is there any chance you could drop round to Snow Hill? There’s something I’d like you to see.”

  “Sarah, I’m up to my arse in alligators right now. Can it wait?”

  “I’m not sure it can, actually. Let me just explain. I’ve had a team checking the Smithfield videos and we think we’ve narrowed down the man who deposited Georgia Lester’s remains in the freezer.”

  “That sounds like good news. But why are you calling me?” Steve said impatiently.

  “We think it’s Francis Blake.”

  “What?” Steve couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “I’ve looked at it myself. I’ve compared it with Blake’s mug shots I don’t think there’s any doubt about it.”

  Confused, Steve said, “But what about Redford?”

  There was a pause before Duvall spoke. “We might be wrong about Redford.”

  There was a strange ringing in his ears. If Redford wasn’t the killer, how could it be Francis Blake?

  More importantly, if Redford wasn’t the killer, where were Kit and Fiona?

  “So, can you come over and take a look?” he heard Duvall say, as if from a very great distance.

  “I’ve just…no, I’m about to…Sarah, can you bike it over?”

  There was a long pause. “This is an active murder investigation, sir. Can’t you spare me half an hour?” The reproach was in the tone as much as the words.

  “We’ve just arrested someone for Susan Blanchard,” Steve said stonily.

  “I can’t leave the Yard. Hang on a second.” He covered the mouthpiece and waved his free hand towards the door. “Give me five minutes. I’ll see you in the CID room.” As they filed out, he turned his attention back to Sarah Duvall. “Look, you should be aware that Fiona Cameron seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. She was supposed to meet Superintendent Galloway this morning and she didn’t show. Now, he tells me that she had a bee in her bonnet last night about Redford not being the man. She was convinced that the killer was still on the loose. And she was also convinced that he’d kidnapped Kit Martin. I can’t raise either Fiona or Kit. I think we’ve got a serious problem on our hands here.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Duvall said.

  “But I don’t see how it can be Blake. According to my surveillance reports, Blake didn’t leave his flat at all yesterday.”

  “It’s Blake, Steve. I’d stake my life on it.”

  What worried Steve was that it wasn’t Duvall’s life that was at stake. “You need to talk to Galloway,” he said.

  But Duvall had her own priorities. “The person I need to talk to is Francis Blake.”

  From his vantage point in the trees beyond the ravine, Francis Blake stared at the track emerging from the trees. What was keeping them? She must have managed to get him free by now. There was a box of tools in the generator shed, he knew. That’s where he’d found the axe that he’d used to smash the padlock on the gun cupboard.

  He couldn’t believe his bad luck. He’d only gone out to move his 4x4 to the far side of the gorge. But some inner caution had made him take the gun, hidden in a bundle of firewood. Luckily he’d heard her approach in the Land Rover and he’d had the sense to turn around and make it look as if he was walking out of the woods. A bit more warning and he could have been ready and waiting for the bitch. OK, it would have meant breaking the pattern, but to have killed Fiona Cameron at close quarters would just have been the icing on the cake.

  He propped the shotgun against a tree and tucked his hands into his pockets for warmth. The sun might be shining, but it was October, and here under the canopy of the trees, it was like midwinter. But it would be worth the wait when the pair of them plunged into the ravine. That would finish them off, no messing.

  Then he’d be free and clear, either to kill again or to leave it alone.

  He didn’t think he was under any threat from the police. Fiona Cameron was acting alone, he felt sure of that. She hadn’t been able to convince her cronies in the force to back up what could only have been a hunch. After all, they had that lunatic Redford in custody. They must be pretty sure they had their killer under wraps. Otherwise, given the clout she had with the police, they’d have turned up mob-handed if they’d thought there was any serious chance of laying hands on a serial killer of his calibre. There was a kind of sweet irony in that, too. It was psychological profilers like her who had destroyed his life and he’d set out to destroy the people who had turned profilers into gods. Now, the profiler herself couldn’t get anyone to believe her. Maybe that meant he’d made his point?

  Blake took his hand out of his pocket and chewed the skin on the side of his thumb. Fucking profilers. They’d set him up to prove how clever they were. But he’d outsmarted them. He’d turned the tables and now nobody could touch him.

  He’d had plenty of time to lay his plans. He’d always known he would get off when his case came to court, and he’d spent his time on remand brooding on the injustice that had been done to him. It would have been too obvious to go for the cops and the psychologist who had concocted the campaign against him. Besides, they’d never suffer enough to make up for what they’d done to him. He’d lost his home, his job, his girlfriend and his reputation. They’d only lose their lives.

  No, somebody else had to pay. Who was responsible for making the world believe that psychological profilers had all the answers? Simple. Thriller writers. Especially the ones whose books had been turned into films and TV shows that millions of people had watched. They were the ones who were really responsible for what had happened to Francis Blake. And they were the ones who would pay.

  It had been easy to get hold of their books while he’d still been in prison, and relatively easy to find out about their lives. They were always talking to journalists. Plus the British ones all featured in a book of detailed interviews that some sad anorak had just published. Then when he got out, there had been the Internet. It hadn’t taken long to put it all together. The hardest thing to find out had been the precise whereabouts of Kit Martin’s bothy. He’d known the rough location, thanks to various interviews, but a search of the Land Registry had given him a precise address, and the Ordnance Survey map had done the rest.

  Nobody had been watching him while he’d been in Spain, he’d made sure of that. And from Spain, it was easy enough to drive across the land borders in Europe and pick up ferry crossings from there. And eluding the pathetic Met surveillance on him once he’d returned couldn’t have been easier. As long as he showed his face every other day and made it look like he was living the life of a recluse, they’d looked no further, leaving him forty-eight-hour spans free to do what he had to do in Dorset and, later, in Sutherland. He wouldn’t mind betting they hadn’t even figured out there was a back way out of his flat into the van way behind the shops.

  One thi
ng they’d never understand, and that was how his life had changed after what he’d seen on Hampstead Heath. Then, he’d understood how easy it was to take a life away. Doing it himself had turned into a piece of piss, really.

  Until Fiona Cameron came along and fucked up his neatly laid plans. Well, she’d get her comeuppance soon enough.

  He ran over the getaway in his mind once more. He’d moved the Toyota away from the bothy as soon as he’d unloaded Kit and locked him up tight. It would cause much less comment if a local spotted it on the access road up beyond the turning to the bothy than if they noticed it sitting outside. It was parked about five minutes away from his present position, facing down the hill towards the loch. He’d be on the road south in no time at all.

  Then he heard the Land Rover again, its engine revving out of sight. It rounded the bend and slowed down to a crawl. He could see the outline of two figures through the windscreen. Then it began to roll forward towards the bridge, the engine complaining at such high revs in first gear.

  As soon as the front wheels hit the bridge, the ropes snapped. In a crash of wood and metal, the Land Rover kept on coming, plunging downwards in a tangle of planks and rope. There was a fragmentary moment of stillness, then a terrible rending crash as timber and steel hit the rocks below.

  Blake struggled through the undergrowth and emerged near the lip of the ravine. He edged forward, nervous of slipping and joining his victims. He looked down, hoping to see the broken bodies among the wreckage.

  The tumble down the gorge had ripped the roof from the Land Rover, leaving its mangled base exposed to the rushing river. But where he’d expected to see Kit Martin and Fiona Cameron, there was nothing but strewn clothing and what looked like a couple of saucepans.

  Blake swore fluently. The bastards thought they could outwit him, did they? Well, they could forget that. Furious, he ran back to the Toyota and pulled the Ordnance Survey map out of the glove box. One way or another, he would have their blood on his hands by the end of the day.