by Kate Rhodes
‘Another blood pack’s been found at Guy’s Hospital. This time they emptied it outside the path lab. A nurse found it a few hours ago; apparently it was spattered everywhere.’
‘How much was in it?’
‘A pint, like last time; Riordan’s name was on the label. Are you coming to the station?’
‘Not yet. I’m seeing Clare Riordan’s mystery man with Tania.’
I puzzled over the information as the taxi trailed east towards Islington. Events seemed to be gathering pace. Leaving the blood of an NHS consultant inside a hospital campus had to be symbolic, as if her sins were coming home to roost. Her abductors were taunting us with cryptic clues about their obsession with blood, but the locations must mean something. So far Riordan’s career history showed a clean slate, apart from a turf war with her deputy. It seemed more important than ever to find out exactly why the two other blood specialists had come to harm, to see if they were connected, professionally or personally.
The cab slowed as we passed the Union Chapel on Upper Street. The air in the café opposite smelled of melted chocolate and fresh baked bread as I reached Tania’s table by the window. Her glamour always made me wonder why Burns had chosen me instead of her, especially since they’d been friends for two decades. She wore a dark green dress, cashmere or merino wool, the thin fabric hugging her curves. Her chic haircut helped her blend in with the hipsters who had turned the district into an intellectual ghetto, her face glossy with makeup and poise.
‘Coffee?’ she asked.
‘I’ll have camomile tea, I’m on overload.’
‘Very disciplined.’ She surveyed me again, her eyes one shade cooler than turquoise. ‘Do you want an update?’
‘Please.’
‘We got Travers in for an interview the day we heard he’d been seeing Clare. He admitted to the affair, but there’s no evidence he was near Clapham Common the morning she was taken. We took his prints at the station; the team have just found one of his thumbprints on a kitchen cupboard. I want you to assess him in his home environment, see if there’s cause for concern.’
‘Do you know any more about the bloodstain?’
She gave a distracted nod. ‘They think Clare could have been marched to her kitchen, stabbed, then carried outside, but that normally leaves a trail. Hancock says the place is clean as a whistle apart from that one stain.’
‘What about the abduction itself?’
‘We still think Clare and Mikey were attacked in the copse, by The Avenue. It’s a local pick-up spot. The SOCOs found needles and condoms galore on their fingertip search.’
‘Pete gets all the fun, doesn’t he?’
She managed a smile. ‘We’ve tracked the getaway car at last, based on the first witness’s ID. It had fake plates, caught by a road camera driving south through Wandsworth, two people in the front seat, but the image is too blurred to make out their faces. It’s a standard blue Nissan hatchback, with stripes on the bonnet to make it look official. It hasn’t been picked up by any other cameras, so they must have changed the plates and removed the stripes soon after that last shot.’
‘At least it clears up that we’re looking for two attackers. But they haven’t given us much to go on. How are you bearing up anyway?’
She grimaced. ‘Not bad, except Siobhan’s a royal pain in the arse.’
‘That’s her job. She’s thirteen, isn’t she?’ Tania only ever shared personal details about her independent-minded teenage daughter.
‘She’s on a curfew. If that fails I’ll need a cattle prod.’
‘I thought she seemed pretty mature.’
‘That’s her act for strangers.’ She pulled a notebook from her bag. ‘Here’s the lowdown on Sam Travers: he’s forty-two, a freelance film-maker. He met Clare in the first week of January when he was making a documentary about the health service. He’s been married eight years to a German woman, Isabel, who runs a media agency nearby, no kids.’
‘What do you make of him?’
‘I won’t prejudice you.’ A look of distaste crossed her face. ‘He says he was working at home when Clare was taken. His wife’s confirmed it, but they could be protecting each other.’
The entrance to Sam Travers’s house was between a bookshop and a vintage clothes store. When I pressed the buzzer the lock clicked loudly and a male voice summoned us to the first floor. Travers met us on the landing, but his home made a bigger impression than its owner. He looked like a typical media executive, blond with a neat beard, dressed in tight jeans, brogues, and a tailored shirt. He seemed to be aiming for an intellectual look, wearing heavy-framed glasses and an aloof expression. His living room had pale blue walls, so much light flooding the space it felt as if autumn had been replaced by summer; every piece of furniture was positioned to best effect, an abstract glass sculpture glowing on the mantelpiece. The computer screen on his table showed a man sprinting down an alleyway, buildings behind him exploding in flames. The sequence kept repeating in the corner of my eye as I perched on the edge of a sofa. Sam Travers looked irritated, as if we’d interrupted a productive morning’s work.
‘I can only spare half an hour, I’m afraid. There’s a meeting I have to attend.’
‘We won’t take long,’ I replied. ‘Would you mind talking me through your relationship with Clare Riordan?’
‘I interviewed her for one of my films. We had lunch, or met at her house sometimes. It was casual. She only came here once, to dinner with friends. Isabel didn’t need to know about it.’
‘How do you mean?’
He rolled his shoulders. ‘Even open marriages have rules; it’s disrespectful to rub your partner’s face in it. Isabel probably protects me the same way.’
‘But your wife knows about the affair now?’
‘How could I hide it? The police called here to take me to the station.’
‘Is your wife at work today?’
He nodded. ‘Her office is round the corner on Liverpool Road.’
‘And she was out the morning Clare was abducted?’
‘Isabel was staying with friends. She got back around ten a.m.’
‘Forgive me for saying this, Mr Travers, but you don’t seem very concerned about Clare’s situation. Why didn’t you report your relationship as soon as she went missing?’
‘Of course I’m concerned.’ His expression hardened. ‘But we haven’t seen much of each other lately. She was a vulnerable person. If I’d known that, I’d never have got involved.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Clare’s sister bullied her, and she had trouble at work. She seemed terrified of losing her job.’
‘Did she say why?’
‘To be honest, I didn’t ask.’
When I looked up from my notes, Sam Travers’s attention had been diverted. He might have been talking about Clare Riordan, but his gaze lingered on Tania’s hourglass figure. His distraction allowed me to glance around his living room. A large black and white photo showed a stunning platinum blonde with a beaming smile twined around him in a flutter of confetti. Travers’s expression was neutral, as if his wedding day was no reason to lose his cool. After a few more questions, we took our leave and returned to Tania’s car.
‘Either he’s suppressing his feelings or he’s genuinely cold,’ I said. ‘Open marriages only suit people who can compartmentalise their emotions. His body language was tense, though. He’s definitely hiding something and, like you said, his wife could be covering for him.’
Tania gave a loud sigh. ‘She doesn’t seem the type to lie. Isabel wept buckets when she found out he had a mistress; it’s bollocks about their marriage being open.’
‘It’s interesting that he said Riordan was having work problems. We know she was unpopular with a few colleagues. Maybe a case of medical negligence came back to haunt her.’
‘Her record’s clean, but I’ll check her employment history again.’
‘HOLMES 2 brought up a murder and a missing person case earlier this
year, both blood specialists. I gave Don the names.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You think it’s a series?’
‘It’s possible. With the blood link it’d be a big coincidence if there was no connection at all, wouldn’t it?’
Tania offered her usual crisp nod when I said goodbye. It would be easy to imagine her with someone like Travers, elegant and polished, unwilling to let emotions break the surface. But I felt certain Tania was grappling with her passions, while his were neatly locked away.
I spent the rest of the day at the FPU writing up assessments, scheduling meetings and working on my profile report. Eleanor Riordan and Sam Travers made very different case studies; Clare Riordan’s estranged sister demonstrated a high degree of agitation, while her lover seemed unnaturally calm. They were both smart enough to conduct a well-organised abduction with its grim calling card. It was too early to rule either of them out of the investigation, although her sister seemed the best fit, given their antagonism ever since childhood. If Travers had been honest about the affair being casual, only Eleanor had a powerful enough motive to trigger an attack. But Riordan’s abduction could be the latest in a series, so I needed to discover why either of them would want to hurt other blood specialists.
I drove to the safe house slowly, making an effort to clear my head. It was important to seem relaxed for Mikey’s sake. His trauma was deep enough without absorbing anyone else’s concerns. It was six p.m. when I finally relieved Gurpreet, the concern on his face increasing my liking for him.
‘Call me later,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back if you need me.’
‘You deserve a night off, Gurpreet. We’ll be fine.’
It was obvious that he’d grown close to Mikey, despite the child’s outbursts. He’d done well on a professional level too, emailing me daily case notes. The boy’s hyper-arousal was still intense: loud noises, sudden movement and changes to his routine induced a state of panic. But there were small signs of improvement. His attention span had lengthened, nonverbal communication increasing. He was starting to respond to questions by nodding or shaking his head. But the future could still go either way: he might slip into a silence which lasted months, or recover fully from the tsunami of shock that had crashed over him. I took a deep breath before tapping on the living-room door. Mikey lay on the floor watching the third Spider-Man movie.
‘Feel like cooking?’ I asked. ‘I’ll be in the kitchen.’
He stole into the room too quietly for me to hear. His jeans and T-shirt looked as if they’d been borrowed from an older boy, swamping his thin frame. When I smiled at him the corners of his mouth quirked upwards for the first time, so I took a chance.
‘If you ever want a hug, that would be fine. Even adults need them sometimes.’ He stayed rooted to the spot. ‘But right now, I could use a kitchen helper. Can you find a pan for the spaghetti?’
It was clear Denise Thorpe had been right about Mikey enjoying time in the kitchen with his mum. He chopped tomatoes and lettuce for salad and stirred the ragù sauce until it came to the boil. I kept up a steady flow of talk, telling him about where I’d grown up and places I’d gone on holiday, familiarity helping him relax. When we sat down to eat he managed a bigger meal than last time, but still looked haunted, his eyes never focusing on anything for long. It was difficult to judge how much of my monologue he’d heard.
Clare Riordan had trained her son so well that even on autopilot he remembered kitchen etiquette. He piled his plate and cutlery into the dishwasher, eyes still glassy. We spent the evening playing card games. A couple of times his lips formed shapes, but no words emerged. I made sure that he followed Gurpreet’s routine, sending him off for a bath at nine o’clock. When I checked on him again he was in his room, the single bed swamping him, nightlight burning at his side.
‘Sleepy?’ I asked.
‘Not far now,’ he murmured.
His thin arms lay on top of the duvet and I let my hand settle on his wrist, but his expression was unchanged. I wanted to ask what he meant, but there was no point. He was trapped in a daydream too absorbing to penetrate.
The living room felt even more smothering when I got back downstairs. I twisted the key to open the French window and stepped outside. The garden was in darkness, apart from a glow of streetlight above the fence. The space felt almost as claustrophobic as the house, with tree ferns and cordylines crowding the lawn, the air filled with the odour of rotting leaves. If the place were mine, I’d have uprooted most of the undergrowth to give myself breathing space. The only sounds I could hear were the city’s murmur of traffic, someone laughing in the distance, and branches shifting in the breeze. I can’t explain why the garden spooked me, apart from its dense shadows; the stress of the case was making my nerves jangle. I checked every door and window was locked when I got back inside, but the sight of the squad car parked by the porch restored my calm. A middle-aged uniform with a morose expression sat inside the vehicle; no one could approach the building without him raising the alarm.
It was eleven thirty when I put my head round Mikey’s door again. I switched off his bedside light, reassured by the slow regularity of his breathing. Knowing that he was fast asleep helped me relax when I finally lay down, even though the midnight-blue walls of the bedroom made me homesick for the pale decor of my flat.
A loud noise woke me just after two a.m. I flung on my bathrobe and raced across the landing towards the penetrating scream that came from Mikey’s room. He was sitting up in bed, releasing a wail of protest, eyes staring. I sat on the bed to hold him. At first he tried to pull away, then stopped fighting, his thin arms locking round my waist.
‘You’re safe, sweetheart.’ When I stroked his forehead, panic had plastered his hair to his skin. ‘What did you dream?’
His face pressed against my shoulder, jaw clicking like a rusted hinge. ‘I left her there,’ he whispered.
‘You had no choice, Mikey. Can you say what happened next?’
I carried on holding him, fighting my urge to bombard him with questions. He had already slipped behind his wall of silence and any attempt to probe could make him retreat permanently; after a while his arms slackened and I smoothed his covers again, leaving the light burning. The long embrace might have calmed him, but it had the opposite effect on me. I lay in the dark, fretting about what would happen if his mother was never found.
11
Friday 17 October
I was washing strawberries for breakfast when Mikey appeared in the kitchen at eight a.m., still in his pyjamas. I put my arm round his shoulder to give him a gentle squeeze.
‘Morning, sweetheart. Do you want cereal with these?’
He nestled closer. Clearly it was physical reassurance he’d wanted, not food. He burrowed against me as I switched off the tap with my free hand and pulled him closer for a hug. It made sense that he would connect with a female carer more easily than a man, just as Christine had predicted; he’d lived alone with his mother since he was five, his father’s presence a distant memory. It took a conscious effort to retain my professionalism. My work as a psychologist had taught me that compassion was necessary but empathy was pointless. Letting your heart bleed resulted in poor judgements, yet I couldn’t suppress my desire to spring Mikey from the confines of the safe house and care for him in my flat.
The boy’s face blanched as I prepared to leave when Gurpreet arrived. Maybe he expected me to vanish permanently, like his parents, one by one. He retreated to his usual position in the living room, and I saw that he was clutching the London A–Z that had been lying on the hall table. I crouched in front of him but he wouldn’t meet my eye.
‘I’ll be back tomorrow, I promise.’
He dropped his gaze to the book, keeping his face averted. After my handover meeting with Gurpreet, I escaped into the street, thoughts churning. I gazed back at the safe house. While Clare Riordan’s son was walled inside its airless rooms, someone was holding her captive, harvesting blood at regular intervals. And that was
the best-case scenario. She might already be dead. Although I sensed that her abductor was enjoying the chase too much to finish it soon. What had Riordan done to warrant that kind of punishment? The act seemed loaded with symbolism, too organised for a random act of sadism, and although the MO altered with each attack, the abduction could be part of a campaign. But the attack on Riordan differed from the quick slaughter of John Mendez. Her suffering was so protracted, it still made me believe that she was connected to her abductors in some way, the vengeance far more personal.
Angie was waiting for me at Belsize Park Tube at ten thirty, her pixie-like face avid as she checked messages on her phone. During the years we’d worked together, I’d never seen her do anything by half measures. I’d asked to meet the only member of staff Riordan had sacked from her department at the Royal Free, who lacked a convincing alibi: her name was Moira Fitzgerald, single, thirty years old. My heart sank when I saw the skyscraper that housed her apartment. It was a featureless concrete rectangle, without balconies or gardens to soften its hard edges. Living there would have forced me to pack my bags and leave London. The lifts were out of order, forcing us to walk to the eighth floor.