The man nodded. ‘The management come to you, ask you if you think I didn’t do right not checking the guy out more thoroughly, you going to say I screwed up?’
‘No,’ said Powell. ‘I’ll tell them you couldn’t have done anything more at the time and that you’ve helped us a great deal.’
‘I appreciate that.’
In the elevator on their way back up to the sixth floor Hirst said, ‘If you’ve got a suspect picture, there’s been more?’
‘Two cases. Three people dead,’ said Powell. ‘We’re not going public on it yet.’
‘That a good idea?’ queried Hirst.
‘No,’ agreed Powell. ‘Just the way it’s being played.’
‘Zeto’s description anything like that you’ve got from the others?’ asked the local agent.
It came to Powell as he was about to leave the elevator. He stepped out but remained standing directly outside in the corridor.
‘What?’ demanded Hirst.
It was not intuition after all, simply being a competent cop, but thank God the possibility had occurred to him. ‘This block’s on a main highway. Carr went along it every day since his wife got ill, certainly for breakfast, according to the janitor. Check all the stores – check everything – for a CCTV. If there’s a bank it’ll be more than a four-day loop. Maybe at the Hilton, too, which we know he went to.’
‘You think he was stalked?’ said Hirst.
‘I think we need to check all we can, to find out.’
‘It looks like a denominator,’ agreed Amy. ‘But where’s the military link to Johnson?’
‘That’s what you had to stay behind in Washington to research,’ said Powell. He’d left the murder scene early for the local Bureau office to pass on to Amy what he considered relevant and to get Gaynor’s impression wired to show to the janitor.
‘Everything’s arrived: Maddox’s stuff, Morrison’s records and Billie Jean’s answer tape.’
‘Anything?’
‘Wes!’
‘Sorry. Getting too used to Wonder Woman.’
‘You staying down?’
‘Tonight, certainly.’
‘You think the janitor’s is a positive sighting?’
‘More positive than Gaynor’s but there’s some wide disparities.’
‘The man Gaynor wanted to meet,’ she remembered.
‘I already thought of that. We won’t issue it – or your graphics – until we’ve got it sorted out,’ Powell decided.
‘Harry Beddows says for you to call.’
‘Tell him I will, when I’ve had the assessment meeting.’
There turned out to be very little to assess, when the rest of the Task Force assembled an hour later.
Barry Westmore had found fingerprints in the apartment bathroom that matched those from Johnson’s cab. From the Carrs’ bath and from a towel discarded in a laundry basket they’d recovered black head and pubic hair the forensic scientist expected to make a DNA match under analysis with the black hair also lifted from the Texas cab. Lucille Hooper apologized in advance for how imprecise she would be, hampered by the advanced decomposition of the body. That decomposition, as well as Carr maintaining low central heating, had kept the body warm, making it impossible to estimate the time of death to within a twenty-four-hour period, although she didn’t think any longer than a week, which fitted Zeto’s lobby encounter. There was a little of the eye remaining in the left socket, nothing in the right. The finger extremities had been eaten away, which made it difficult to establish under-nail debris. Geoffrey Sloane insisted it fitted a predictable pattern and that the killer’s having showered afterwards, as well as the neatly folded clothes, confirmed the obsession with cleanliness and tidiness.
‘We’ve got a military’ denominator,’ suggested Powell.
‘Too tenuous,’ rejected the psychologist.
‘But worth checking?’
‘If there’s anything to check.’
‘There was no forced entry. And no external evidence in the apartment of a struggle,’ Barry Westmore pointed out. ‘He either convinced Carr that he knew him. Or had a reason to be let in.’
‘As he did with Jethro Morrison,’ reminded Powell. ‘And why’s he so careless? Having tricked his way into his victim’s confidence he doesn’t take any precautions, leaves fingerprints, forensic evidence, everywhere. And why does a man so obsessed with cleanliness screw a hooker without a condom, risking infection?’
‘We’ve got a serial killer, pure and simple,’ said Dr Sloane. ‘Doesn’t think – worry – like an ordinary person or an ordinary criminal. Some things don’t fit but nothing ever does, not perfectly. Nothing here changes my profile. I think we should go public and start issuing it.’
‘I agree with—’ began Powell but stopped at Matt Hirst’s flushed entry. He had several film canisters under his arm.
‘What?’ demanded Powell.
Hirst shook his head, bemused. ‘It doesn’t make sense. There’s a man with two different faces.’
It was as good, as satisfying, as every return to England had been. It really would be good to live out this existence here. At once came the contradiction. What about the other intention, which excited him far more: causing a sensation? He still hadn’t thought of a way to achieve that. More important than deciding where finally to settle this time. He was aroused. Easy to satisfy that, the way he usually did. Water every new existence with blood. Fresh blood, he decided. Not that of someone on the list. He needed a woman.
Chapter Eleven
He was shaking with fury, almost beyond control, which he never became. Always in total command, in charge. He shouldn’t have let her live. She didn’t deserve to live. Should have been shown her mistake – the last thing she’d have seen on this earth – for laughing at him. Him! Laughing at him! No-one could laugh at him. Be allowed to think they were superior. Maybe he would kill her. Not now. Before he returned to America, to finish the list. A final, parting gesture. Knew where she operated from. What she looked like. Bitch. Whoring, cock-sucking bitch. Not give her any mercy. Not kill her, before setting out the sacrifice. Cut her tits off first. Let her know why he was doing it. Teach her. He’d refused before, when the room had been too filthy. But none of them had laughed at him before, sneering he couldn’t do it: grateful for getting the money they’d agreed and the tip, without having to do anything. Could have fucked her brains out: would do, before he killed her. Not just laughed at him. Badly lied to him about the room. Promised it would be clean, with a bath, even though he’d warned her. It had been disgusting, verminous: torn sheets thick with semen, blood, dirt. Unbelievably disgusting.
‘Whereabouts in Park Lane?’ demanded the driver of the taxi who’d brought him from King’s Cross.
Harold Taylor concentrated for the first time, seeing the Dorchester ahead. ‘Here’s fine.’
He hesitated on the pavement, knowing the direction he wanted but momentarily undecided. He felt he needed to be washed, cleansed, in surroundings if not by water. He liked the predominant whiteness of the Dorchester’s cocktail bar, the ambience of fresh-smelling people in polished surroundings although the smell of cigarettes and cigars was distasteful. He chose the bar and was careful to sit with his satchel wedged between his feet, where he could constantly feel it, to be sure it wasn’t stolen. He supervised the mixing of the martini, wanting to taste the harshness of the gin, which he did, so he ordered a second. He recognized as a professional the blonde at the end of the bar who was waiting and half smiled but she was high class and would have a maid, which wasn’t convenient. It was unfortunate, because everything – she most of all – would be clean. Always needed it to be rough – street whores – to get an erection but was always terrified of catching something. He considered a third drink and decided against it, leaving without again looking at the girl.
Shepherd Market was very busy, which was how he liked it, the restaurants crowded, people spilling out of the pubs into the narrow streets and alleys.
There were a lot of girls to choose from and he chose carefully, wanting one who appeared to be working alone, without a pimp. He was on the point of approaching one when he saw the obvious eye contact between her and a man in a parked Jaguar, about ten yards away. Four others were unacceptable, because they were smoking. He decided upon the redhead.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello.’ The smile was quick, professional.
‘You working?’ Good teeth, big tits.
‘Sure. You’re American?’
‘That’s right. What are we talking about?’
‘What are you talking about? You got special toys in that bag?’
‘Maybe. That a problem?’
‘No. But it’ll be extra.’
‘That’s OK. What are we starting at?’
The assessment was quick, professional again. ‘A hundred: anything kinky extra, depends what it is.’ She couldn’t quite keep from her voice the hope that she hadn’t pitched too high.
‘Sounds good. A hotel?’
‘You’ll have to pay for the room, of course.’
‘How much?’
Emboldened she said, ‘Fifty.’
‘Is it clean? It must be clean, with a bath.’
‘Bath will be £25 extra.’
‘That’s OK.’
‘I’ll do whatever you want,’ promised the girl, setting off past the cinema. ‘We’ll have a really good time.’
‘I know we will.’
‘My name’s Beryl.’
‘Harold.’
There was a vacant taxi coming up Curzon Street and Beryl hailed it with a flail of arms. He missed the address she gave, so as they sat he said, ‘Where we going?’
‘The Grand.’
‘You’re sure it’s clean.’
‘As a whistle. My dad’s name was Harold. What part of America you from?’
‘All over.’
‘Here on holiday?’
‘Business.’
‘How long for?’
‘As long as it takes.’
‘Might see you again, then? I’ve got a number you can call.’
‘Let’s see what it’s like tonight.’
‘You won’t be disappointed, I promise.’
‘You got any toys with you?’ he asked, looking at her shoulder bag.
‘A dildo and some nipple clamps,’ she said. ‘What have you got?’
‘Wait and see,’ he said.
‘You going to surprise me?’
‘Probably.’
‘Almost here now,’ said the girl, as the taxi turned down the Bayswater Road. ‘You’d better give me the money for the room. And for the taxi.’
He gave her two £50 notes and one £10. The hallway was shadowed and dark but didn’t hide Beryl sliding one of the £50 notes into her pocket. The night clerk only looked at the whore. On their way to the room, in stronger light, he saw how brightly red her hair was dyed, badly clashing with the different red of her dress. From the mangy state of it the animal from which her fur jacket had been made could only have died from old age. Beryl was very slightly cross eyed.
‘Nice room, isn’t it?’ she said, proprietorially, when she let them in.
‘Lovely.’ If Beryl had been his first choice that night he’d have paid her off in the hope of finding somewhere better. The curtains were threadbare and a hole was trodden in the centre of a carpet dotted with cigarette burns. The mirror of the dressing table that was the only furniture apart from the bed was whorled with verdigris stains. But there was a bath that he’d need to wash clean before he used it and when he pulled the covering back he saw that the bedsheets, so thin they were opaque, hadn’t been used before.
Beryl said, ‘You want to fuck without a condom, it’s an extra £50.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘A hundred then.’
As she took the money he saw her fingernails were badly bitten.
‘What do you want to do?’
‘Let me undress you.’
She raised her arms, wriggling her hips, as he lifted the dress over her head and lay back on the bed in what she imagined to be a provocative pose, easing her body this way and that for him to remove the bra, pants, suspender belt and stockings. She lay with her hands above her head, bringing her breasts up, as he undressed.
‘Like what you see?’
‘Very much.’ Her breasts were full, the nipples big.
The girl whimpered, pretending to enjoy them being kneaded. ‘You want to put the clamps on?’
‘Yes.’
She groaned more loudly when he did and said, ‘Mercy, mercy’, play-acting.
‘Go down on me,’ he said.
She did hungrily, another part of the act, head pumping back and forth.
He had to do it, let her see. He’d come when she did. ‘Look up at me, so you can see my face.’
She stopped working on him, crouched between his straddled legs, her mouth still open. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Can’t you see?’
‘Your face! What’s happening to your face!’
‘Isn’t that clever?’
‘Don’t. I don’t like it. Please. It’s not nice.’
‘You know what you’ve seen?’
She didn’t reply. She was crawling backwards, down the bed.
‘You’ve seen something that no-one else in the world has ever seen. That no-one else in the world would believe …’ He was quicker than her when she ran, getting to the door first, blocking her. ‘You haven’t got any clothes on.’
‘You’re one of them funny buggers! I should have known.’ She went back to the bed, snatching up her underwear and starting to get into it. He saw that her hands were trembling.
‘You believe in ghosts, Beryl? People being able to come back from the dead? Be reincarnated?’
From her handbag she unexpectedly snatched a bone-handled cut-throat razor, flicking it open to expose the blade. It wavered in her shaking hand. It looked very dirty and he grimaced.
‘This is a fucking razor! And I know how to use it. Get out of the fucking way or I’ll slash whichever face you want to pull.’
‘You might be reincarnated one day, Beryl. You won’t be able to remember this life, though. Not many people can. Some, but not very many.’ He went towards her as she opened her mouth to scream.
‘We’ve got more powerful photo-enhancing equipment in Washington, but this should be good enough,’ said Barry Westmore. ‘But at the moment it beats the hell out of me.’
Westmore, his photographic specialist Murray Anderson, Powell and intermittently Matt Hirst had spent four hours at the Pittsburgh police laboratory, carrying out every examination Anderson devised, magnifying until the picture disintegrated on the screen every millimetre of the CCTV footage of two identically dressed men, one young from several sightings on the Hilton hotel security video, always close to an easily recognizable Marcus Carr, the other old from a single shot, dated against the day Barney Zeto encountered the stranger in the apartment block lobby. Both carried shoulder satchels. Anderson’s first action was to enlarge both and print off freeze frames. The photograph of the young man was remarkably similar to Michael Gaynor’s impression of the man he’d seen in Lane Park. When Hirst returned with it to the apartment block the janitor denied ever seeing the young man in the artist’s drawing or in the freeze frame. He’d positively identified the elder as the man he’d confronted in the lobby.
‘Father and son?’ suggested Powell. ‘Some kooky guys dress identically like that.’
Westmore pointed to the two largest freeze frames that had been lifted and were now pinned on boards. ‘We’ve got to run them by physiognomy people back in Washington: get the precise measurements and make graphics to overlay one face on to the other but look! There’s not a single matching facial characteristic. They’re two totally different people.’
‘The heights compare,’ said Anderson. ‘So do the shoulder widths.’
‘A disguise mask!’ suggested
Hirst. ‘One of those things that pull right over your head. I’ve seen them at parties, gorillas, stuff like that. The neck goes right down inside your shirt collar!’
Westmore pointed to the blow-up again. ‘And the gap between the mouth and eyes of the mask and those of the person underneath is as wide as a cavern. That’s no mask. That’s a real face.’
Lucille Hooper had worked in another part of the building, carrying out her detailed autopsy in the police mortuary. All four men turned as she came into the room behind them. She said, ‘Seems like an appropriate entry.’
‘Why?’ asked Powell.
‘Picked up a message at the desk to call the incident room, so I did. Media have got the serial connection. Harry Beddows is going ape.’
‘I left messages! Told Amy!’ Beddows shouted down the phone.
‘And she told me,’ said Powell. ‘I haven’t had time. Things have been breaking here. And for Christ’s sake stop yelling.’
‘What things?’
‘We think we’ve got a picture of the killer. But there are two different faces.’
There was a long silence from the other end. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘That’s our problem and what I’ve been busy on. I don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s on security video and it doesn’t make an ounce of sense.’
‘What are we going to tell the media? They’re screaming for a release.’
‘We don’t tell them anything about this,’ warned Powell. ‘We do and we’re never going to be able to get the lid back on the box. How’d the media get it?’
‘You didn’t know Pittsburgh PD made a release.’
‘Saying it was serial?’ demanded Powell.
‘No. Just the Carr killing. Some smart-assed AP desk man recognized the similarity with the Birmingham killing which their Birmingham stringer had filed earlier. Ran a cuttings check and came up with Texas. Your sheriff’s the star of the moment: talking about rituals. AP wire is running a monster serial killer piece, no-one safe in their beds. Public Affairs say to let them know if you want a media person down there.’
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