The Evil Beneath

by A J Waines

  It had been a while. There would be at least three months’ worth of new paintings here that I hadn’t seen. Andrew had always kept me up to date with his work. He was like a young child, eager to show me how well he’d done at school. He’d often talk me through his ideas, his starting points, the way his pictures developed and the meaning of the finished canvases. I liked the psychology of it, the way it revealed Andrew’s inner world.

  I moved over to one wall and began tipping back the canvasses. They always reminded me of De Kooning: something savage and surreal in them, driven by a fascination with colour. Andrew said he’d developed his own personal iconography, using dream imagery. ‘I can do primal as well as fairy-tale,’ he’d said to me once, as if describing different flavours of ice-cream.

  The recent pictures were in a pile near the staircase. I flipped the first one round. It was dark, mostly purple, with streaks of black. I stood back, hoping the extra distance would allow me to make out what it was, but no matter which way I tilted my head nothing was distinctive. Dismal and disturbing were the words that came to mind. I looked at the back to see if Andrew had given it a title.

  Shadow in the water

  Before I could take in the meaning of the small phrase written in pencil at the bottom, I straightened up. It was the smell of whisky which alerted me. I spun round.

  ‘About to make off with a masterpiece, Ms Grey?’ said Andrew, chewing the end of a thin paint brush.

  I wasn’t sure if he was joking. He had a steely look in his eyes.

  ‘Sorry, I did shout.’

  ‘I was on the phone,’ he said. ‘What brings you here?’

  His words were sliding into each other.

  I turned to the pictures. ‘This is…interesting - these a batch of new ones?’

  ‘They’re not for sale. Leave them alone.’

  I tried to tip the first picture towards me again, but he used his foot to push it back against the pile.

  ‘Not for sale,’ he said. He stood in front of the piles of pictures and put out his arm, like a policeman stopping traffic. I took the hint and moved away.

  He sank into the sofa and the paint brush fell on the floor, rolling under his seat. He sniffed and made two attempts to get his foot to rest on his knee.

  I wanted to leave, but I’d come here specifically to find the answer to a question. I’d know if he was lying. I knew the way his eyebrows became hyperactive whenever he tried to fob me off, usually about his drinking.

  ‘How have you been?’ I said.

  He threw his head back. ‘What do you care?’

  I was about to perch beside him on the edge of the sofa, but decided against it. ‘I do care, Andrew. You know why things didn’t work out between us.’

  His response came back in a sing-song imitation of my voice, ‘Because, Ander-wew, there are three of us in this relationship… and I can’t…’

  ‘Well, it’s true. Listen to you.’ I picked up an empty bottle of Scotch - there were several to choose from - and waved it at him. ‘It’s not even lunchtime. How can this be helping?’

  ‘You don’t understand.’ He lurched forward and I stood back, thinking he might be about to throw up. ‘It helps everything. It never lets me down and it never judges me and it never walks out.’ He was looking up at me, but kept blinking as if he was trying to make my face come into focus. ‘I’m not the enemy, Jules.’

  ‘You’ve never been the enemy. Not to me. Only to yourself.’

  ‘Don’t go all self-help-guru on me.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject.’

  ‘Is this what you came to say?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘No.’

  I didn’t know how to introduce the question - the one question I’d come all this way to ask - so I came straight out with it. ‘Do you know the name of my favourite book?’

  ‘Your favourite book? What kind of question is that?’ He laughed. ‘I thought we were having an argument.’

  ‘I know it’s a strange question, but —’ I rubbed my forehead. ‘Just, yes or no?’

  ‘What’s it worth?’ He managed to get his uncoordinated limbs out of the seat. I stayed by the window and in a flash calculated how many steps it would take me to get to the door.

  ‘Never mind,’ I said.

  Hoping his brain would take longer than normal to register, I moved fast, but I’d only taken three steps, before he blocked my path. I’d underestimated him. I had to turn away to avoid drowning in his whisky-soaked breath.

  ‘Not going without a goodbye kiss, are we?’

  ‘Don’t, Andrew.’

  The sing-song voice again, ‘Don’t, Ander-wew.’ He grabbed both my wrists and pushed them behind my back.

  ‘You’re hurting me.’ I wriggled. He laughed and pushed his face into my neck, holding my hands firm.

  ‘Stop this. I’m going to have to fight back, if you don’t let me go.’

  ‘Fight back then. See if I care.’ He was drooling now and trying to fix his lips onto my mouth. I jerked my head away and simultaneously lifted my right knee. It landed somewhere soft. Andrew doubled over, letting out a high-pitched squeal.

  ‘I did warn you.’

  I got to the door and started down the stairs. I heard scuffles behind me, but didn’t turn round. I felt sick that it had come to this. As I opened the back gate, I heard him call out.

  ‘Your favourite book is about a snotty little girl, just like you, who thinks she can change someone’s life by planting a few daffodils.’

  I let the latch on the gate drop and didn’t look back.

  When I got home I was still fuming. Underneath the anger, something else was simmering. Every connection between me and the dead women, Andrew knew about. My favourite book, my new job at Fairways, my middle name, my email address, my phone number. Even the clothes that went to the charity shop. I hadn’t mentioned it to the police, but he’d been there the day I’d cleared out my wardrobe. I remembered him moaning, ‘Not those’, when I dropped the ankle boots into the bin-bag. I was trying to shake the thought away, but it wasn’t going anywhere fast. Could the killer possibly be Andrew? Was this killing spree a deranged angry reaction to our break-up? Had I failed to spot the signs of a psychopathic serial killer?

  As soon as the questions made it into the rational part of my mind, I dropped them like hot coals. It was unthinkable. Andrew had lashed out at me a few times; he’d cornered me like he’d done today, but he wasn’t a calculating murderer. He’d have to be drunk to do anything stupid and by then he wouldn’t be able to think straight. Not like the killer, who was incredibly smart with his cryptic clues and his ability to leave the bodies in public places, without ever being spotted. Andrew wasn’t capable of that.

  Was he?

  Mr Fin arrived at 2pm on the dot. He managed to look taller and thinner every week. He sat down and averted his eyes.

  I wanted to get it over with. I plunged straight in with my I-have-to-tell-the-police-about-you speech. ‘Before we start today, Mr Fin, I’d like to…’

  He was crying.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’m going to be coming back after today.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I don’t think you can possibly understand me…’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I think I need to see a man. I can’t talk to a woman. I should have realised before.’ He pulled out an offensive-looking handkerchief and blew into it loudly.

  ‘You seemed to be…’ I was going to say doing quite well, but realised it sounded patronising. ‘You managed to talk…a bit…about yourself.’

  ‘Yes, but it wasn’t real. It was all crap…to get you to like me.’

  ‘To get me to like you?’ How far off the mark can anyone get?

  ‘Yeah, I thought if I was kind of, distant and a bit difficult to pin down, you’d like it…like me…that’s what my mother always used to say…women like men mean and hard, she said.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  Th
e tears started up again. ‘She’s passed away.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So, you see, I’m going to end it here and see someone else.’

  ‘Well, that’s fine, if that’s what you want.’ I certainly wasn’t going to argue with him.

  He slid to the edge of the seat. ‘It’s nothing personal,’ he said. ‘Women just…I can’t…it’s always been difficult.’

  ‘Well, if you think a man could help you with these issues, I think that’s a good decision.’

  He stood up. He half-offered me his hand, but by the time I’d got to my feet, he’d pulled it back. He fiddled instead with his few remaining strands of hair.

  ‘I’ll go now,’ he said.

  ‘I wish you all the best, Mr Fin,’ I said as I opened the door for him. Once he’d gone I went to my bedroom window and waited until I saw his wiry figure cross the road. Then I phoned Brad to pass on his details.

  ‘Only, you mustn’t tell him you got his name through me,’ I said. ‘I didn’t get the chance to mention that you were going to be in touch with him. He could see it as a breach of confidentiality. He could sue me.’

  ‘Unless he’s the man we’re looking for,’ said Brad.

  ‘I somehow doubt it.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ I swapped the phone to my other hand.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Were any of the women raped?’

  ‘No. The pathologist said there was no evidence of anything sexual. No interference, no semen, nothing.’

  ‘I know Mr Fin has got problems with women - that’s obvious and I know that could easily be a reason for wanting to hurt them, but I wonder if someone like that wouldn’t also go for a sexual angle, a sexual attack?’

  ‘He doesn’t fit the profile, you mean?’ I could hear the faintest whiff of sarcasm in his voice.

  ‘Brad, I know I’m no expert in this, but I think someone of Mr Fin’s type, if they were going to harm a woman, it would be sexual. He’s probably never had a proper relationship. He doesn’t know how to seduce a woman in the usual ways. He’s frustrated and angry and I think sex, for him, would play a part in an attack.’

  ‘Okay, we’ll bear that in mind. But, he might have been following you. You said he freaked you out.’

  ‘I know, but I don’t think it’s him.’ I was picking at the bits trapped inside the woodchip wallpaper beside the window. ‘How did he get the bodies down to the water without being seen?’

  ‘By car to the nearest point? By carrying them to a boat over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift?’

  ‘What I mean is, he’s tall, but he seems so frail. I don’t think it’s an act. He struggled to pick up his newspaper from the floor today. I don’t think he could possibly be strong enough to lift anything remotely heavy…not a dead body.’

  ‘Okay. But we’ll still have a word with him. See how he reacts. Don’t worry, I won’t mention you. We’ll find a pretext.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘By the way, I wondered if you might take a look at some of the reports.’

  ‘Reports?’

  ‘From a professional point of view. What you said about Fin makes me think we could do with your expert knowledge to try to get inside the mind of the killer.’

  ‘Isn’t that the job of a proper profiler?’

  ‘The SIO doesn’t believe in it. No scientific validity, she says. We have other methods.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘We have a database of every distinctive feature in serious crimes, such as rape and murder. For example, if a murder contains a highly uncommon element, something evident in less than five per cent of killings, it gets stored in the file.’

  ‘What sort of details?’

  ‘Cutting off the victim’s hair, putting objects in the mouth, ears, vagina or anus, sticking the lips together with superglue…’ I groaned. ‘Washing the victim down with bleach…that sort of thing.’

  ‘So you’ll have tried to get a match for leaving objects behind belonging to another person and dressing the victim in another person’s clothes,’ I said.

  ‘We’ve done all that - in various permutations - and there are no matches.’ He dropped his voice, as if afraid he might be overheard. ‘I thought if you could take a look at the details…see if anything strikes you…any psychological patterns.’

  ‘Is this above board?’

  ‘Not exactly, no. But if it helps us find this bastard - frankly, I don’t care.’

  I had to admit he had a point. He wasn’t the only one who wanted to use every available method we had at our disposal to find this killer. ‘Okay. I’ll try.’

  ‘Brilliant. I’ll email the report. Ring me back when you’ve read it.’

  Twenty minutes later I rang him back.

  ‘I’ve had a quick look at it,’ I said.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I feel like I could have more or less written it myself - I know so much about this case, far more than I’d like to.’

  He made a sympathetic noise. ‘I know you’ll need time to take it in, but does anything strike you straight away?’

  ‘Not yet - just the sexual aspect I mentioned.’

  ‘You think the killer is probably someone who doesn’t have sexual difficulties or self-esteem issues around women?’

  ‘Yes - I’ll get back to you if I find anything else. How about you - any progress?’

  He huffed into the mouthpiece. ‘We’re working flat out over here. I’ve got three DI’s working alongside me now and we’ve rounded up officers from all over London. Place looks like rush-hour at Oxford Circus. Problem is a complete lack of witnesses and CCTV has given us very little to go on, so far.’

  ‘I wondered about that.’

  ‘There are a few PTZ cameras in the centre of Richmond, but none on the bridge. The nearest one is outside the wine bar on the run up to the bridge, on the town side.’

  ‘What’s a PTZ camera?’

  ‘One that pans, tilts and zooms, hence the acronym. Crafty little things - but there are none near enough the water.’

  ‘And Hammersmith?’

  ‘Similar story. There are various private cameras outside the pubs on the Hammersmith side of the river, but none on the other side where the body was found. None on the bridge itself.’

  I sighed. ‘I’d thought CCTV would have been really helpful.’

  ‘People have an exaggerated view about how useful they are in solving crime. Less than five per cent of crimes in the UK were solved by CCTV last year, according to our national reports.’

  ‘Crikey - I didn’t realise.’

  ‘So we’re back to any other leads we can get.’

  ‘There is something else,’ I said. ‘The killer is obviously highly intelligent and well-organised. He wanted the bodies to be found. Do you think he might even contact the police claiming to want to help with the investigation? I’ve heard of that happening before, when killers want some sort of credit for what they’ve done.’

  ‘Yeah – we’ve got everyone on the lookout for that.’

  I heard voices in the background and chairs being dragged across a floor. It sounded like they were preparing for yet another meeting.

  ‘Just one more thing,’ I added.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Actually, no, it’s nothing.’ There was something I wanted to check first.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘No. It’s fine.’

  ‘Let me know if there is anything you think of that might be useful, no matter how insignificant it might be.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  I didn’t tell him I had a bit of breaking and entering to do, in order to tie up my own line of enquiries.

  Chapter Twelve

  I had to wait until Sunday evening before I could be sure he wouldn’t be there. The flyer on Andrew’s back door had said the exhibition in Nottingham started on October 19th and knowing him, he would have gone up the night before to ‘sink a few bevvies’, as he w
ould have innocently put it.

  With any luck the spare key would be in the same place. Before I went up the fire-escape, I checked for any lights at the front and squinted through the letter box. There was post on the mat on the inside, left uncollected from yesterday. Good sign. The back gate was unlocked as usual, so I slipped through and climbed the iron staircase. I’d remembered to wear trainers to avoid making any noise, but it wasn’t necessary. People in the area knew me. They’d seen me come and go from Andrew’s flat often enough. I just needed to act normally. Don’t look round, don’t look furtive.

  The stone hedgehog sat amongst a hotchpotch of plant pots on the top of the steps. I lifted it up and pulled out the key. It was a simple Yale. Andrew didn’t have any sophisticated security measures. He always said a burglar would never steal his paintings, anyway, and that was all he cared about.

  I wanted to set my mind at rest and if Andrew wasn’t going to give me permission to see his new pictures, I was going to have to get a sneak preview myself. If Andrew was telling the truth and the latest ones weren’t for sale, then it was unlikely he’d have taken them to Nottingham.

  I’d brought a torch, but realised a flickering beam of light was going to look more suspicious than simply putting the light on. I needed to make sure I didn’t move anything. I didn’t want Andrew knowing someone had been in.

  The pile of new canvases behind the sofa had been covered with an old sheet. I’d need to put things back exactly how they were. I’d brought my camera, so I took a picture, so I could exactly replicate the way he’d draped the cloth once I’d finished. Paranoid, I know, but I wanted to be careful. Events had taken such a sickening turn in the last few weeks that I didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention to myself.

  I took a look at the first painting in the pile; the one I’d seen a couple of days before, Shadow in the water. I wanted to look at it again. I wanted to know what this latest batch of paintings was about. I knew Andrew put a lot of thought into his titles and they often revealed some deeper element to the picture.

  Mostly black and purple, it didn’t look like any recognisable shape. Purely abstract, which was new for Andrew. I pulled the second one out. Again, it was largely murky. Oil pigment in dark greens and black had been liberally spread over the canvas. These weren’t the colourful, exuberant pictures I’d come to associate with Andrew’s work. Perhaps, he was going through a morose phase. Perhaps, it was his way of dealing with our break-up. I checked the title: