by Kate Rhodes
‘My wife thinks I quit months ago.’
‘It’s okay, I won’t blow the whistle.’ I watched him take a long drag. ‘How’s Mikey been?’
‘Missing you, I think. It’s amazing how fast you’ve bonded.’
‘He’s pining for his mother; transference was inevitable.’
He nodded. ‘Still no eye contact, and the smallest noise spooks him. In an ordinary case I’d suggest Ritalin.’
‘Tranquillisers would suppress his memories. He’ll feel better when he shares them; I’ll work with him again today.’
‘Be careful.’ Gurpreet turned to face me. ‘One push could send him over the edge.’
‘Are you like this with your own kids?’
‘Like what?’
‘Overprotective.’
He looked embarrassed. ‘My daughter calls me the Rottweiler.’
‘You’re doing a brilliant job, but maybe you should take a step back.’
‘Easier said than done, doc.’ Gurpreet gave me a meaningful look then ground out his cigarette with the heel of his shoe.
I studied the garden again before returning indoors. Even in daylight it looked ominous. Trees cast deep shadows into every corner; shoulder-high plants had proliferated until no space was left, their leaves brushing my face as I walked back to the house.
After Gurpreet went home I tried to entice Mikey from his room, but offers of card games or ice cream fell flat.
‘How about baking? We could make cookies.’
He inspected me through the crack in the door, his nod of agreement almost imperceptible. It interested me that he relaxed in the kitchen’s familiar terrain, quietly weighing ingredients, then pouring them into the mixing bowl.
‘You’re good at this. Maybe you should cook every meal from now on.’ I offered a wide smile. ‘I think you’re brave. You know that, don’t you?’
His face brightened, then he busied himself with the biscuits. It was good to see him absorbed in cutting out elaborate shapes. Thirty minutes later we sat on the sofa to sample them with glasses of milk.
‘Not bad,’ I commented. ‘Next time let’s try chocolate chips.’
The boy didn’t reply. He’d only eaten one cookie when he snuggled closer, his head resting on my shoulder, small hands clutched in his lap. I let my cheek rest on the crown of his head.
‘We could watch TV, but you’ll feel better if you say what’s wrong.’
His silence lasted so long it seemed set in stone, but his thin voice took me by surprise. ‘I left her.’
‘You had no choice, Mikey. It was the right thing to do. Did you see their faces?’
He burrowed into my side so hard it felt like he was trying to climb into my ribcage. When I looked down, the muscles in his jaw were in spasm, bones locking tight.
‘Okay, sweetheart. That’s enough remembering for tonight.’
I lost track of how much junk TV we watched: a repeat of Alias Smith and Jones, Supermarket Sweep and DIY SOS. He didn’t seem to care, so long as my arm stayed around his shoulders. I don’t know why the closeness left me raw. After all, I was only following standard guidance in psychology care manuals for supporting traumatised children. Specialists stressed the value of touch to provide comfort until the child stabilised. It seemed ironic that I’d advised Gurpreet to ease back, only to find my own professional boundaries blown apart. Maybe it was just bad timing. I was wrestling with feelings for Burns, my biological clock ticking. Perhaps that explained why this child clinging to me felt like the most natural thing in the world.
It took some coaxing to get Mikey through his night-time routine. When I sat on the edge of his bed to say goodnight, he looked so exhausted his skin was translucent, but his eyes fixed on me as I touched his wrist.
‘You did great today, sunshine. I’m proud of you.’
I stayed with him until he drifted into sleep.
I considered calling Burns when I got back to the lounge, but that would only have brought more confusion, so I flipped open my laptop and focused on work. Spending so much time with Mikey was turning my drive to find his mother into an obsession. I trawled for information about the sites where her blood had been left, but the locations seemed to have no uniting theme. All I had to go on was Riordan’s abduction, her sister’s well-documented dislike, and her lover’s tendency to lie. I was still no nearer understanding how the case linked to the two previous attacks, if indeed it did. I rose to my feet and escaped on to the patio, inhaling the city’s autumnal smell of traffic fumes, bonfires and decay. I took some deep breaths then went back inside, locking the door tightly.
Mikey’s call woke me again at three a.m.; a racking scream that made my heart race. This time he made no effort to hold back. Tears spilled from him, the sobs deep enough to jolt his whole body.
‘That’s the way,’ I said, rubbing his back. ‘Better out than in.’
He cried himself back to sleep, but his distress left me shaken. Even though his first release of emotion had been a breakthrough, I sat at the kitchen table, staring at the solid darkness outside, struggling to pull my feelings back under control.
14
The man stands outside the door of the lab, breathing the damp air, eyes fixed on the ground. When the woman joins him he can read the anger in her face.
‘We’ll have to make her eat more tonight,’ he says.
‘Who cares if she starves? We don’t owe her anything, the scales are tipping in our favour.’
‘How did we get here? It’s so much more than we planned.’
Her hollow stare unnerves him. ‘I want them all dead, finishing with the Minister for Health, then we can release a statement. We agreed to get justice, by showing they’re traitors. Clare should suffer most for breaking her promise.’
‘You said we’d only kill three.’
‘They committed mass murder. Why should any of them survive?’
‘We need Clare alive for the next week at least.’
‘Why? She’s named the next victim.’
He holds her gaze, even though the conversation’s a losing battle. ‘Jordan Adebayo’s at a conference in France; he may not talk when we catch him. You have to be patient.’
‘They killed thousands, remember? It’s an eye for an eye.’
Her comment hits a raw nerve. ‘Biblical sayings don’t convince me any more.’
‘Yet you still go to Mass when you feel penitent.’
He turns away; for the first time her anger frightens him. He’s longing to put his arms round her, but knows she’d brush him off. When did he lose the ability to comfort her?
Riordan is awake when they go inside, muscles in her cheeks twitching as her eyes fly open. The man watches the woman approach the chair, her voice harsh.
‘We’ll bring your boy here soon, if you don’t give us another name.’
Clare’s pale brown eyes roll back, arms thrashing against their constraints.
‘Don’t goad her,’ the man says quietly. ‘She’s the one suffering now.’
‘Stop protecting her.’ Grim-faced, she fills a syringe with transparent liquid.
Panic rises in his chest. ‘What’s that?’
‘Interferon. She needs some of her own medicine.’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘I bought it, of course.’
‘That much could kill her.’
She ignores him, tapping the needle and shooting droplets of liquid into the air, then staring into her victim’s eyes. ‘Tell me another name, Clare, or you’ll get the lot.’
The man waits for Riordan to speak, but her jaw is locked tight around her gag. The needle hovers above her face for an instant before its sharp tip plunges down.
15
Sunday 19 October
I reached the station early on Sunday morning. A few journalists were loitering on the steps, hoping for scraps of information, but I skirted round them. The incident room was already a hive of activity, a dozen detectives staring at their computers
, or babbling into their phones. Burns had cancelled weekend breaks and holiday leave until further notice. The evidence board was plastered with photos, Post-it notes, and a timeline showing each stage of the investigation. It looked like every detail was being chased. The plasma bags that held Riordan’s blood were NHS standard issue, and could have been stolen from any medical centre in the past year. Reports had been filed on possible sightings of Riordan, witness statements, the make and model of the getaway car. The team were hunched over their desks, the air humming with frustration.
Burns was nowhere to be seen, but the evidence from the Stuart and Mendez cases had been placed in a side room, as promised. The scale of the task hit home when I scanned the box files stacked to the ceiling along the facing wall. The witness statements alone would take days to sift. I settled myself at the desk, scanning the overview report from the first case: John Mendez, a researcher at the Institute for Biomedical Science, had been stabbed in January, after an evening out with friends. The autopsy report made me wince; his death would have been quick but agonising, a knife wound to the left ventricle of his heart. I flicked forwards and found the crime scene photos. Mendez looked close to retirement age, face bleached white by the arc light, sprawled across the doorstep of his house in Chiswick. But it was the second photo that stopped me in my tracks. On the doorstep beside a pool of blood, someone had chalked a white teardrop beside a black one. I stared at the image again, trying to remember where I’d seen the marks before. It must have taken me a full minute to realise that they matched the sign pinned to the tree where Riordan had been taken. I reached for Lisa Stuart’s file, riffling through the papers until I found pictures of her flat, two days after her disappearance.
‘Snap.’ The word was followed by a sigh of relief.
The same black and white marks had been painted on the bricks beside Stuart’s front door. Definitive proof at last that the killers had left exactly the same calling card.
I rushed to the incident room to show Angie my find, but she was immersed in a phone conversation, spiky red hair standing up in tufts, as if she’d been dragging her hands through it. She turned to me when the call ended.
‘What it is, Alice? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘They’re leaving a signature at every crime scene.’
‘So it’s a series,’ she muttered, when I showed her the photos. ‘We just heard that more blood’s been found outside St George’s Medical School. CCTV caught an unidentified male crossing the car park at three a.m.’
‘They’re getting bolder. St George’s is even more secure than Guy’s.’
The incident room was erupting at the news of another blood deposit. I hurried back to the office to gather my thoughts. When I peered out of the window, cars were moving down St Pancras Way at a snail’s pace, the pedestrians making faster progress. Clare Riordan’s abductors were using a symbolic language that I needed to decode fast, the haematologist’s blood their chosen form of communication. The hospital packs clearly had a symbolic value, otherwise they’d be using one of the millions of plastic bottles that clogged the city’s recycling bins. The locations must have a meaning too: Bishopsgate, Guy’s Hospital’s pathology department, and now a medical school. Facts churned through my head without forming a coherent sequence. I was acting more on impulse than judgement as I switched on my computer and searched the Internet again. It’s hard to explain the prickling feeling that crossed the backs of my hands when I saw that St George’s Hospital had been a pioneering centre for early blood transfusions. The breakthrough was highlighted on the webpage as if it was the organisation’s biggest achievement.
It was clear I needed expert help to find the link between the three locations, but I steeled myself before calling the Home Office pathologist, Fiona Lindstrop. Her spiky brand of professionalism had appealed to me when we’d worked together before, but her temper was legendary. There was every chance she’d slam the phone down on me for disturbing her weekend.
‘Of course I remember you,’ she snapped. ‘You were very attentive when you watched my autopsies.’
‘I could use some help, Professor Lindstrop.’
‘With a pathology matter?’
‘I’m looking for an expert on the history of blood treatments.’
She hummed loudly at the end of the line. ‘Try the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine. The place is heaving with overpaid academics.’
‘I knew you’d have the answer. Thanks for your time.’ I planned to end the call fast, before her ill humour surfaced.
‘Look me up tomorrow if you’re visiting. I’ve got information on the Riordan case.’
I spent the rest of the morning sifting evidence, but found no further links between the Stuart and Mendez cases, apart from the marks left at each crime scene. At one o’clock Burns put his head round the office door, his smile so slow to arrive that it must have lain dormant for hours. He was clutching the crime scene photos in his hand.
‘I’ve got someone hunting for the signature online. What do you think it means?’
I stared at the black and white marks again. ‘They look like inverted commas. It may just be a random mark they’ve chosen, like a graffiti tag.’
‘At least we know that a couple are attacking and killing blood specialists. It’s more than we had before.’
‘Is there any news about Moira Fitzgerald?’
Burns rubbed his eyes, as if he was having trouble remembering the irate nurse Riordan had sacked. ‘Angie says she’s got a good professional record; she and Lisa Stuart worked in different buildings at Bart’s. They probably never met.’
A squad car was waiting by the back entrance, but I was still thinking of Moira Fitzgerald; her anger about her unfair dismissal had bubbled so near the surface that it would have been unwise to light a match in her small flat. But I shelved my concerns as we set off to see Clare Riordan’s boss. Dr Dawn Coleman, Head of Clinical Practice at the Royal Free, had agreed to meet us at her home. Burns seemed preoccupied, even though his hand locked round mine when we shared the back seat. He gazed out of the window at the overcast sky, giving me time to consider my profile report. Patterns were beginning to form; the case held a balance between spontaneous violence and meticulous planning. I felt almost certain we were looking at two distinct personality types, idiosyncrasies emerging more clearly with each crime. One was planning the campaign, leaving their monochrome signature at each scene. The other was far wilder, with enough nerve to stab a six-foot-tall man straight through the heart. The division of roles fitted the prototype for serial-killing partnerships, which always included a leader and a follower; one member aggressively active, the other submissive. Ninety per cent of violent couples were sexual partners – only a small minority of partnership killings were carried out by friends or siblings.
The squad car pulled up outside a tall Georgian house in Belsize Park. Dr Coleman lived within walking distance of her hospital, but her home was dilapidated. Ribbons of dark green paint hung from the front door, flanked by sash windows desperate for an overhaul. The woman who answered the door was around fifty, with a curvy figure and a genuine smile. She had one of those tousled blonde haircuts that never go out of fashion; she was wearing faded jeans and a lime-green T-shirt spattered with white paint.
‘Forgive the mess,’ she said, beaming at us. ‘Welcome to chaos.’
‘It’s a great place,’ Burns commented. ‘High ceilings and plenty of character.’
‘That’s what drew me, but I could be mad. We’ve been working flat out since we arrived two months ago.’
Coleman led us along a hallway that reeked of turpentine and fresh emulsion. Two teenage girls were covering its drab walls with pristine white paint.
‘Nice work, girls,’ she sang out as we passed. ‘Remember, any drips mean you don’t get paid.’ Her kitchen was packed with stepladders, long-handled brushes, and cans of Danish oil. ‘Make yourselves comfortable, if you can find room.’
‘Thanks for seeing us at the weekend,’ Burns said.
‘We all want Clare found. How can I help?’
‘Did she ever talk about feeling vulnerable at work?’
The doctor looked surprised. ‘Clare doesn’t discuss weaknesses. She runs marathons, works twelve-hour days even though she’s a single mum and, unlike me, she never moans. Her strength is one of the reasons I appointed her.’
‘Does anyone at work dislike her enough to harm her?’
‘Her deputy resents her success and her perfectionism can upset people, but I can’t think of anyone. Being plain spoken’s not a crime, is it? That’s another difference between us. I’m a wimp when it comes to confrontations.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ Burns smiled back at her, and I sensed that she could charm anyone with the warmth of her manner.
‘Someone’s attacking doctors specialising in blood illnesses. Can you think why?’ I asked.
Coleman looked thoughtful. ‘A few of our patients are mentally ill; occasionally they blame the medical team for their condition. It doesn’t happen often, thank God.’
‘Did Clare treat anyone like that?’
‘She never mentioned a problem. Sorry, but you’d have to check her records.’
‘You make her sound invincible.’
‘She’s a paradox. Hard as nails at work, soft as butter at home. Her son brings out the best in her.’ For the first time Coleman seemed visibly distressed, lips trembling as she spoke.
‘Does Clare’s work ever put her in the public eye?’ I asked.
Coleman gave a slow nod. ‘She was on the Tainted Blood enquiry panel in 2012. I probably shouldn’t tell you; the membership’s protected information, but she needed my permission.’
‘What was the enquiry about?’
Her smile vanished. ‘Whitehall wanted industry specialists to assess the impact of infected blood reaching the supply chain in the Eighties, and decide whether patients deserved more compensation.’
‘But no one knew about her being on the panel, except you?’