by Simon Hall
So Adam’s on-off marriage was off again. It was like a soap opera.
When they’d first met, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, Adam had been living in a one-bedroom flat away from Annie, his wife and young son Tom. Dan had initially thought it had been the usual story of a man putting his work before his family. Sad but familiar, mundane even. Then Adam had told him about Sarah, how what happened to her had driven him to become a detective and how he couldn’t betray her by giving it up, not even by easing back.
He’d agreed with Annie to ask his Chief Superintendent for a better ‘work-life balance’, as the police had called it, and for a while it had made a difference. But that was over Christmas when the festive spirit meant there was a lull in the violent and deadly crimes that demanded a Detective Chief Inspector’s attention. He’d spent more time with Annie and Tom and they were edging towards reconciliation. But then there was a murder to deal with, a drugs killing, then a kidnapping, and now this rape.
Annie knew what a rape case meant. She’d been through it before, knew that she would scarcely see her husband until it was solved. And even when he was there beside her, his mind would be away, exploring the alibis and angles of the investigation. Her patience had stretched and finally snapped. Adam was back in the hated flat again.
They’d been through it all last night. What should he do? He wanted his family and his job, but couldn’t bear the thought of betraying Sarah. As always, Dan had no answers; he was there to listen and keep Adam plied with beer until he fell into a dark sleep. It had become a familiar supporting role.
An excited yelp signalled that Rutherford had found a stick. Good timing, Dan was glad of the respite it offered from the run. The beer was still a heavy weight in his stomach and head. But first they had to go through their familiar routine. He wrestled the dog for it, and faced with growling, jaw-locked determination he pretended to give up, looked around and found a better stick under a lime tree. Rutherford immediately dropped his and galloped towards the new prize, giving Dan a chance to grab the original and hurl it off through the trees. The dog sprinted happily after it.
So what about Kerry? Should he give it a try with her? He liked her, but that was about it. Was liked enough to justify continuing a relationship? He couldn’t see himself ever falling in love with her and wanting to spend years together, probably not even months if he was honest. He knew she felt very differently. Those hints about two flats being far more expensive to keep than one were hard to ignore, but he’d set his face and managed it.
Talking to Adam last night had put him off any real desire to get involved with her anyway. Better to be alone than live like he did. But life could get lonely, it was only human to need someone to cuddle after a dark day, and the sex was good too. Perhaps he’d call, or text her later? Another runner passed him, moving fast, purposefully, a young man carrying a backpack, probably training for the navy. Leave it for now, there were other things to think about besides Kerry. The Death Pictures. A fascinating story, he had to admit.
He began another lap of the park, picking up the pace to stretch his legs. That other runner had shamed him. A pigeon flapped fussily from a hedge as he passed. So what do I say to a famous and apparently cantankerous artist who’s probably got a month to live? The classic cliché of the journalist’s question – ‘so how do you feel?’ – wouldn’t be a good idea for someone as spiky as Joseph McCluskey, would it? How do you think a dying man feels?
He’d been given this job like a presidential order, because Lizzie expected McCluskey to open up to him. Well, that might be a problem. He couldn’t think of anything to ask the man at the moment. Maybe some hint about the solution to his riddle? That’d certainly get the viewers interested, and Lizzie would love it. But he couldn’t see McCluskey going for it. He’d kept silent on any clues so far.
Something would come to him, it always did. Sometimes he just needed the adrenaline rush and panic of a deadline to focus his mind. And then there was the interview with Rachel, the rape victim, later in the week too. He didn’t even want to start thinking about what to ask her. He’d certainly have to prepare that well, didn’t want to hurt her more.
Dan wiped his forehead with a sleeve and checked his ever-unreliable watch. Five to eight it said, so it was probably about five past. The Rolex had never kept accurate time, but at least it looked good.
‘Come on dog,’ he shouted to Rutherford, whose head was buried in a hedge, tail a wagging blur of grey and black fur. ‘That pigeon’s long gone. They can fly off, you know, just like I wish I sometimes could. It’s time to get back. I’ve got lots on.’
Dan grabbed a quick coffee from the canteen, scanned the newspapers, avoided the prowling Lizzie and logged in to a computer in the safety of the library to check his emails.
None were particularly interesting, although one was irritating. It quibbled about his pronunciation of schedule in a recent report, that making the ch sound like a k was the American way. He found his standard response and pasted it in.
‘We apologise, but the mail server is experiencing technical difficulties. It could be several days before your communication gets through, if at all.’
It was a ten-minute drive down to the Barbican. Dan had planned to use the time to think of some poignant and penetrating questions for Joseph McCluskey, but still nothing came to mind. Instead he kept wondering about Kerry, if Adam could be trusted to lock up the flat properly, and whether he should get a cleaner.
Nigel turned off the main road, steered the car around a corner, then braked sharply. ‘Bloody hell,’ he gasped.
‘Wow,’ agreed Dan, loosening the seat belt, which had locked around him.
They’d stopped just in front of a crowd of people milling across the street, indifferent to the impatient horns of the cars that were trying to pick their way past. They were clustered around McCluskey’s studio, the building almost obscured by the multiple layers of onlookers. Dan did a quick count. Several hundred he estimated. And it was only just before 10 o’clock, still an hour to the unveiling. There were a couple of satellite news vans too, their dishes stretching skywards.
Nigel turned the Renault up a back street and found a space. They got the kit out of the back, Nigel took the camera and rucksack containing spare batteries, tapes and the long furry gun-shaped microphone. Dan balanced the tripod over a shoulder, his notebook under the other arm.
‘Some shots of the crowd first, I think,’ said Dan, staring at the pack and thinking his way through the story. ‘Let’s get them now, before we have to push our way through. They’re important in showing the incredible interest the Death Pictures have generated.’ Nigel nodded. They stood back from the crowd and he set up the tripod and started filming.
From street level you didn’t get a real sense of the mass of people surrounding the studio, thought Dan. Some perspective, we need a high shot. There was a surf shop on the other side of the street with what looked like a stock room above, its windows dark with brown boxes. That would be ideal. He walked over and introduced himself.
‘Sorry, mate, can’t help you,’ the manager said. He had a pen behind his ear and looked flushed. ‘I’m on my own, see. I haven’t got time to go upstairs and shift the stock around.’
Dan smiled understandingly and pretended to open the door to leave. ‘That’s a shame,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘It would have fitted in nicely with the shot we were going to do from the opposite side, looking back at the crowd with your shop’s logo above them. I reckon half a million people will be watching tonight too with a big story like this. Oh well, if we can’t do it…’
From the shop’s first floor window it made a great scene. Like a medieval siege, Dan thought. The crowd had swollen to perhaps five or six hundred, pressed against the double glass doors of the studio. He admired it as Nigel filmed.
The gallery doors opened and a wave of people was
hed forwards. There were shouts and cheers from the crowd. A chain-of black suited security men linked arms and struggled to hold them back. A good-natured chorus of ‘Why are we waiting?’ began.
Dan checked his watch. It said ten past ten, so probably only ten twenty, nowhere near time for the unveiling. What was going on? The bouncers forced clear a space and a chubby, dark haired shape wearing a body warmer and with a camera slung around his neck was shoved quickly out. The doors slammed shut behind him. Dan laughed aloud, making Nigel look up from his viewfinder. He should have guessed. Dirty El.
The figure pushed his way through the crowd and shambled quickly off towards the city centre, the camera bobbing up and down in front of him. Dan couldn’t stop chuckling. He grabbed his mobile from his back pocket.
‘Hi, Dan mate, how you doing? Bit busy at the mo…’
‘OK, El, let me guess.’
‘Guess what?’ He was out of breath, moving fast, a sure sign a lucrative deadline was looming. Nothing else made El break sweat.
‘This is what. It’s almost ten twenty-five The Wessex Standard goes to print in 20 minutes and hits the streets about eleven. I’m guessing they were desperate to get the last Death Picture into the paper. It’s a huge story for them. They couldn’t wait until tomorrow and the official unveiling would have been too late for today’s deadline. So they send the dirtiest, most conniving photographer they know in early to try to get a snap for them.’
No answer, more panting. ‘Might have been.’
‘Did you get it?’
More panting. ‘Enough for a cover. Gotta go, at the offices now.’
They finished the high shots, shook hands with the manager and went downstairs to get a few interviews with the crowd.
‘He’s a great artist and we’ve got one of the last chances to see him,’ a young woman with a shock of black and purple hair shouted at him as Nigel filmed. ‘In years to come he’ll be world famous, him and the Death Pictures. I’m just hoping to get a glimpse of him and, if he’ll sign my print, that’ll make my life.’
‘I have to admit I’m being mercenary,’ said a balding, middle-aged man in a suit. ‘I’ve taken a couple of hours off work. I do crosswords and I’ve got a few ideas what the answer to the riddle might be. I want to get one of the first shots at it. I’d love that picture. I could pay off my mortgage with what it’ll be worth. I could even afford to divorce the wife.’
‘I just love him!!!’ screamed an older woman at the camera. ‘He’s a great painter and so sexy!’ She waved some photos of McCluskey at the camera, pouting with her vibrant red lips. ‘I want him to sign one for me, with lots of kisses.’
‘That’ll do for interviews,’ Dan said, as he and Nigel pushed their way through the crowd to the doors. ‘All good ones. That’s a first. I wish it was always that easy.’ He showed the bouncer his press pass and invitation.
The man peered at it with tiny eyes and scowled. ‘Ok mate, but behave in there please,’ he said. ‘We’ve already had to throw one of your kind out. He let off a firecracker at the back of the gallery and while we were all looking to see what it was, the sod pulled the curtain away to get a shot of the picture.’
‘That’s disgraceful,’ said Dan, trying to swallow a laugh.
She’d never quite understood why, but she’d applied to go on the course about dealing with victims of sexual violence and had become the specialist liaison officer for Plymouth. It had been distressing but strangely rewarding too. There was something about these crimes that marked them out from the standard assaults and muggings, even many of the killings they had to deal with.
It was the domination and humiliation, the violation, the most degrading and debasing of attacks. With the assaults the body usually healed in a few days or weeks. With the killings, that was it for the victim, sad, but nothing more to worry about with them, just catching the attacker. With these rapes, the victim was left alive, always conscious of what had happened, the knowledge stalking her like a cold shadow for the rest of her life.
‘How are you feeling, Rachel?’ Detective Sergeant Suzanne Stewart whispered the words. Hospitals made you do that, she thought.
Outside a young blonde nurse hovered, peering occasionally through the slit of smoked glass. Fifteen minutes she’d been given, strictly no more. The boyfriend – fiancé – Martin had been sent to get a coffee, Suzanne needed to be alone with Rachel. They’d managed to get a brief description of the man, for what it was worth. A rough height and build, a stocking over the face, a smell of tobacco. No words though, he’d stayed silent, no clues about accent or upbringing. It wasn’t enough. There had to be more.
‘A bit better, Suzanne, thanks. Just a bit.’
Rachel’s voice was thin and hollow, speaking an effort of will. She managed a faint smile, but it was almost imperceptible. Her head lay back on the pillows, her raven hair played out around it. Her once full lips seemed to have shrivelled after the attack, the bleaching making them blend into her pallid face. Her eyelid twitched as she spoke. Suzanne felt a familiar growing anger for the man who had caused this, had transformed a woman friends had spoken of as bright and vivacious into a wraith.
‘I don’t want to bother you any more than I have to, Rachel,’ she said, taking the limp hand that lay on the sheets. It was safe, her fingernails had been checked for any fibres or skin she might have clawed from the attacker.
Anyway, they had all the DNA they needed, the man hadn’t bothered with a condom. So now another lingering torment. The wait for the result of the Aids test. And why hadn’t he used a condom, when he had worn gloves and there were no fingerprints? Was he so excited he couldn’t control himself? Didn’t he care about leaving evidence? Did he have a criminal record, but one which dated back to before the DNA register? Did he want to be caught? Did he have Aids, and want to infect his victims? Was this about revenge?
If it was revenge, it didn’t seem to be specifically against Rachel. All the men she knew – particularly the exes – had been checked and had good alibis. Nothing in her past showed any reason why a man might have a grudge against her. Even the men living along her street had been checked to see if there was any chance one might have been harbouring a pervert’s fantasy. They’d found nothing.
So could the motive be a more general revenge? Against dark haired women? Single mums? Thin women? Women who happened to be wearing a white coat or a dark hat on a particular day? Suzanne knew that for a psychopath or sociopath with a festering motive in his past, any such reason could be a full justification for his attack. Or was he just hunting women? Any women? Because of something that had happened to him, were all women legitimate targets? Or was this simply about power, domination and lust?
She knew where the answer would come from and closed her eyes for a second at the thought. They’d only be sure when he attacked again. And they thought he would, were sure of it in fact. Because of that strange object they’d found and the question she had to find a way of asking Rachel.
Suzanne checked her watch. Her fifteen minutes were almost up. She had to ask it now, but despite all her experience, didn’t quite know how.
The fragile eyes stared at her, questioningly. Following her thoughts? She hoped not.
‘Sorry, Rachel, I was just thinking for a moment,’ Suzanne began, as soothingly as she could. ‘What I wanted to know was; have you remembered anything else about the attack that could help us? Anything at all?’
The head shook slowly, the eyes slipping closed with infinite tiredness. There was a whispered ‘no’. Suzanne wasn’t surprised, knew now to expect a suppression of memory, a reluctance, even an inability to relive the horror of the attack. She knew they wouldn’t get anything more from Rachel Bloom for days, perhaps even weeks.
That TV appeal DCI Breen was so keen on would have to wait. Now there was just one thing she had to know before she left. The obje
ct they’d found in Rachel’s living room, in front of the pictures of her and Martin, hand in hand at the beach, dressed up at a wedding with both their parents, all smiling at the camera at a birthday party. Just the one question, but how to ask it without inflicting more pain, stirring more fear, more vivid, haunting nightmares?
‘Rachel, there’s something else I must ask. It’s the last thing for now.’ Suzanne smiled as best she could, but it was lost. The woman’s eyes were still closed, her head resting back on her pillow. A couple of cards stood on the cabinet beside her. “Sorry you’re not well” they said in friendly typefaces, pictures of sunny countryside and a playing kitten. Shopper-friendly euphemisms, but then Suzanne couldn’t imagine a rack of ‘With sympathy for your rape ordeal’ cards.
‘Rachel, can you hear me?’ she whispered.
A slight nod, the eyes still shut. Suzanne knew it was time to leave, but she had to ask first.
‘Do you remember the man leaving anything in your house? Did he say anything… anything about…’ Suzanne hesitated. How to phrase it? What words? ‘Anything about… the occult… or… witchcraft?’
Now the woman’s eyes opened wide, and Suzanne could see the flash of fear in them. Her face looked ready to crumble, her chin trembling, her fingers finding some security in twining repeatedly together. ‘No,’ she said in a trembling whisper, her voice shaky and breathless. ‘No, he didn’t say anything.’
She looked about to ask a question when the door swung open and the nurse bustled back in. Suzanne struggled to hide her relief. ‘Time for a nice wash now, isn’t it, Rachel?’ the woman trilled in a Scottish accent. ‘You’ll have to excuse us please.’