The Dark Series

by Catherine Lee

  His mind returned to Andrew Fox. Definitely hiding something, but what?

  And then there was this new idea, that somehow Grant had come into contact with the real Sylvia. They didn’t have much to go on there, except a couple of lines at the end of the journal. That was it. Max seemed pretty sure of himself, though, and Cooper had come to trust the doctor’s instincts over the years. If he was right, it meant both Sylvia and her husband were in the frame for Fraser Grant’s murder.

  Grant was killed on Monday morning. The most likely scenario was that he left Amanda some time on Sunday, meaning she had been locked up alone now for more than four days. They had no idea how much food and water he’d given her, if any. God, he hoped the killer had intended to keep her alive a while longer. They had already established that Grant usually returned to work once he had a victim safely stashed away, so depending on how far away the hideout was, it was possible that he left them alone for days at a time as part of his standard MO. If he hadn’t planned to return to Amanda for a few days, he would have at least left her a supply of water.

  They’d already confirmed with his colleagues that Grant had been on his four weeks annual leave and was due to return to work the day he was killed. But Fraser Grant hadn’t returned to work on Monday morning. Cooper recalled the first interview with Jack Simpson. He said Fraser called him that day, asking him to come over. There was someone he wanted his father to meet. When he got there, he found Fraser unconscious. Cooper had suspected at the time that Jack wasn’t telling the truth about this unknown person, that he made the story up to deflect attention from himself. But what if he was telling the truth? What if Fraser had indeed found Sylvia, and it was Sylvia he wanted his father to meet? That would explain him not showing up for work on Monday. Cooper decided he needed to talk to Jack Simpson again. He also remembered the paint found under Grant’s fingernails, so he added a call to the lab later this morning to his mental to-do list.

  By five a.m. he was dressed and ready for work. He stood by the bed for a moment and admired his sleeping wife. He kissed her lightly on the shoulder, and she stirred.

  “Couldn’t sleep, huh?” she said.

  “No. I don’t think I’ll sleep until we find her, whichever way it turns out.”

  Liz noticed he was fully dressed. She looked at the clock.

  “You going in already? Did you have something to eat at least?”

  “Can’t eat this early. I’ll get something from the café when I get in.” He leaned down to give her another kiss, this time holding her tight. “I love you.”

  “I know. Go, find the girl so we can get a decent night’s sleep.” With that she rolled over and closed her eyes.

  * * *

  In the car on the way to the station Cooper’s mobile phone beeped with a text message. It was Quinn: Are you awake?

  Cooper attached the phone to the hands-free kit in his car and called. He wasn’t a fan of texting.

  “What have you got?”

  “I’ve been going over the articles written by Andrew Fox again. Think I might have found something.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “At home.” Quinn’s answer almost sounded like a question, as if to say where else would I be at this hour of the morning?

  “I’ll pick you up. Be ready in ten.”

  Ten minutes later Cooper pulled up outside the address Quinn had given him. It was an apartment building in Darlinghurst, not far from City Central Police Station. He double-parked and buzzed Quinn’s number.

  “Where do you keep all your stuff?” asked Cooper, once he’d been shown inside. Quinn’s entire apartment was no bigger than his own living room.

  Quinn smiled.

  “There’s a small storage cage down in the basement carpark, but really, I have all I need here. It’s a good building, and close to everything. I like the city life. It suits me for now.”

  Cooper shook his head. He would never understand people cramming themselves into the little boxes that passed for housing units. He needed space.

  Back at City Central, they set themselves up in the strike force’s meeting room. Quinn spread the articles out on the table and started arranging them in chronological order.

  “So,” began Cooper, “what have you found to implicate our friend Andrew Fox?”

  “Nothing. I don’t think Andrew is involved.”

  “Seriously? The guys were practically best buddies. He has to be involved.”

  Quinn remained silent while he finished arranging the photocopies of newspaper cutouts. “Well, if he is,” he finally said, “I didn’t find any proof in here. I didn’t actually get anything from the content of the articles. Not that I expected to, I mean you’ve gone over them a thousand times yourself, not to mention the rest of the force.”

  Cooper was getting impatient. “Then what did you find?”

  “When I put them all out like this, it got me thinking about the whole timeline of the murders.” He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and smoothed it out in front of them. “I put them all onto a spreadsheet. Here’s a printout.”

  Cooper looked over the list of names, dates, times, and places. Nothing jumped out, so he waited for Quinn to explain.

  “I’ve been curious as to why he never escalated. We’re taught that serial murders get closer together as the killer gets a taste for it. But Grant didn’t. He kept them all about a year apart, always kidnapping in winter. All ten women went missing in either June, July or August, except one — Andrea Bonetti.”

  “And Amanda Fox. She was taken on September fourth,” Cooper corrected.

  “Yes, and Amanda. But September fourth is not that far off. Andrea Bonetti didn’t go missing until November eleventh, over two months later in the year than all the other victims.”

  “She was the second victim, so we had no idea of a pattern at that stage. What do you make of it now?”

  “I think something made him change his plans back then. I’m guessing that he took them in winter for a reason, whatever that reason may be. Max said a guy like this works to a plan, to a set pattern. We saw his apartment, everything all neat and freaky clean. His whole life was one big routine. So it must have been something important for this victim to be outside his pattern. I want to go back over the photos and reports of the victim before, and all the victims after, Andrea. Maybe something in there will help me to figure out what it was.”

  ‘Okay. Get onto it, and let me know what you find. I’m going to call the lab and follow up on that paint analysis. Actually I might go down there and sit on them, although a fat lot of good that did us yesterday. Once I’m done there I’ll rustle up Jack Simpson for another chat. I had some thoughts of my own this morning, and I think the old guy is still holding out on us — whether he knows it or not. Meet you back here in a couple of hours.”

  31

  Andrew was asleep in the chair in the corner when Eva woke. She was attached to the monitor again, she could tell without looking. She felt as if she’d taken two steps forward and about a dozen back; her chest heavy and her breathing shallow. She looked at Andrew, unshaven and dishevelled. He looked like he’d been in the same clothes all week. What had happened last night?

  Andrew woke soon after her, and explained what little the on-call doctor and Rob had been able to tell him last night. She had suffered some sort of rejection episode — they managed to get it under control, but there had been a few anxious moments. Andrew had spent most of the night out in the corridor until Rob let him back in an hour or so ago. He asked her how she was feeling, but before she got the chance to answer Dr Graham walked in.

  “I’d like the answer to that too, young lady,” said the doctor. “But first, who are you?”

  “Dr G this is Andrew Fox, the man I told you about the other day,” said Eva before Andrew had a chance to speak.

  The doctor’s eyes narrowed. “So you are the one we have to thank for this little episode then? Been filling her head with all that cellular
memory rubbish?”

  Andrew stepped up to defend himself this time. “No, this wasn’t my fault. Like I told the other doctor last night, I was here watching Eva sleep, that’s all. She had another nightmare — something I am trying to help with, by the way, not cause. All I’m guilty of last night is not waking her up sooner.”

  “He’s right.” She could see the doctor was getting ready to make Andrew leave. “Please, let him stay. I don’t want to be alone. The nightmares are getting worse, Doc.”

  “Eva, it’s normal to have disturbed sleep after a transplant.”

  “I know, but this feels like more than just an ordinary nightmare. If it is cellular memory, then I think Andrew and his friend can help me. And if it isn’t, then I guess that’s down to you. Either way, I need to get to the bottom of it. Last night proved that, if nothing else. So can you tell me what actually happened to me? Physically, at least?”

  Dr Graham took a long, exasperated look at both of them before speaking. “I’m ordering an echo first thing this morning, then I’ll do a biopsy of the heart to be sure, but it looks like you had an acute rejection episode, as Dr Burns diagnosed last night.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “It’s concerning, but not entirely unexpected. Almost all patients will experience some sort of rejection episode. Our job is to detect it early and treat it, which is what we will do today.”

  “Why?” asked Andrew.

  “Why will we treat it? I would have thought that obvious, Mr Fox.”

  “No, why does it happen? The other doctor said the same thing, about almost all transplant patients starting to reject their heart. Why? I mean, I understand that your immune system thinks it’s a foreign body and wants to get rid of it, but how exactly does it know?”

  Eva noticed the smallest hint of a smile starting to form on her doctor’s face. She’d heard it all before, but she enjoyed listening to Dr Graham explain the details of his work, almost as much as he seemed to enjoy talking about it. He was a natural teacher.

  “In order to do its job, your immune system needs a way of determining what is an invader and what isn’t. For this it uses histocompatibility antigens, which are found on the surface of every cell in your body. There are over two hundred thousand different histocompatibility antigens, and each person has a certain set, making the odds of two unrelated people having the same set about one in thirty thousand. So, your immune system identifies your cells by your set of antigens, and attacks anything that is not the same. This is good for getting rid of unwanted bacteria or viruses, but not so good for transplanted organs. Unfortunately, the immune system has no way of telling if the invader is good or bad for you, it just recognises that it’s different. You with me so far?”

  Andrew nodded and the doctor continued.

  “Transplant coordinators do their best to match histocompatibility antigens of donor and recipient as closely as possible in order to minimise rejection risk, but other factors such as the short time a heart can stay viable after harvesting, the physical distance between donor and recipient in a country this size, and the deteriorating health of the recipient all play their part. There is never an exact match, so drugs must be taken to suppress the immune system. What we need to do is come up with the right dose for the recipient, and a lot of that will have to do with histocompatibility.” He turned to address Eva. “You were treated with steroids last night to stop the rejection. Today we will do some more tests and hopefully be able to come up with the right medication requirements.”

  Andrew was quiet for a moment. Eva could see the journalist in him taking it all in. She nodded that she understood, and Dr Graham went back to listening to her heart before writing up his notes in her chart.

  “They’ll be up with the echo shortly. No physical activity today, Eva, at least until we get the biopsy done.” With that he replaced her chart and left.

  “So, did you get all that?” she asked.

  “He’s not like the doctors I’m used to, that’s for sure.”

  She laughed. “No, he’s not. He’s been brilliant, actually, through this whole thing. Anyway, looks like I’m in the clear for now.”

  The door opened again, this time it was a technician wheeling in the ultrasound machine. Andrew said he’d take the opportunity to clean up a little and get some breakfast from the cafeteria. He was back in her room by nine-thirty, and after managing to eat half a piece of toast herself she was ready to talk about what they’d been avoiding all morning.

  “I saw more last night,” she began. “I’m glad you didn’t wake me straight away. Georgie was right to let me sleep.”

  “What did you see?”

  “The house is definitely empty. You know when you go to inspect a place before you rent or buy? It looks like that. But I’m not there to inspect. I’m there to meet the woman. She knows me. I think she’s even expecting me. She’s a strong woman, confident, sure of herself.”

  “Can you see her face yet?” Andrew was trying to keep the excitement out of his voice, but he was failing. Eva ignored it and closed her eyes to focus on the memory of the dream.

  “Her face is blurred, but it’s not blank like before. I can see what she’s wearing, too. A skirt and jacket, business-like clothes. Does Amanda wear stuff like that?”

  “To work she does, yes. But not the night she disappeared. Can you give me any more details?”

  “It’s hard to make out, but it looks like a kind of retro-style suit. Damn. Taylor would be able to tell you the designer, the year, and probably how many were sold. Clothes are definitely her thing.”

  “It’s okay. Forget about the clothes for now. What happens when you walk into the room?”

  Eva took a couple of deep breaths before continuing.

  “As I walk toward her, I feel warm, and happy. This woman means something to me. I’m holding a sunflower for her. I hold it out to her, and she starts to speak, but I can’t hear what she’s saying.”

  “Do you mean you can’t hear her because it’s a dream? Or, do you think you couldn’t hear when this actually happened?”

  Eva opened her eyes. She had been concentrating so hard on remembering the dream that at first she didn’t understand what he meant. But then it made sense. It wasn’t just a dream. This was something that had really happened, something her heart remembered. This was a scene that had emotional significance, not to her, but to Fraser Grant. The killer.

  “Eva? Are you okay?” The concern in his voice brought her back. “Do you want to take a break?”

  “No, I need to do this now while it’s fresh.” She took a sip of water and closed her eyes again. “I can’t hear what she’s saying because it’s a dream. But he must have heard her, because I can feel his reaction.”

  Andrew took hold of her hand. “Take your time, and remember you’re here now, and you’re safe.” He’d been listening to Georgie when she’d told them before how important it was for Eva to stay aware of her situation so as not to put extra strain on her heart.

  “At first I’m sad. It’s rejection, she’s rejecting me. The sunflower falls to the floor. Then I’m angry. I’m in a rage. I’ve never felt anger like it. My heart hurts, and I want to make her pay.” Eva’s breathing increased and she tightened her grip on Andrew’s hand, but she kept going. “I’m coming at her now, my hand raised. She’s shocked. This is not what she expected. I hit her across the face.”

  She opened her eyes again and looked up at Andrew. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “It isn’t you. It wasn’t you. Keep going, you’re doing great.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “I keep hitting her. She fights back, scratching my face, but I’m too strong. I get her on the floor and hold her down with one hand across her throat. Oh God, I’m a monster.”

  “He was the monster, Eva, not you. You’re a good person. You are helping us find Amanda. Tell me about Amanda.”

  “She’s scared. She’s looking at me, pleading with her eyes. I’m on to
p of her now, tearing her blouse. She tries to push me off her, but I tighten my hand on her throat. I’m so powerful, she can’t get away from me. I use my knee to force her legs open and push up her skirt while I unzip my trousers.”

  Eva opened her eyes again. She was drenched in sweat and the heart monitor was beeping like crazy. Neither of them had noticed her blood pressure climbing. Andrew reached for the oxygen mask and placed it over her face as Rob had done last night, instructing her to concentrate on her breathing. He breathed evenly along with her, and she never took her eyes off him. Slowly her heart rate and blood pressure returned to a safe level. A nurse arrived to check on her, but left once Eva was back in control.

  “What are you doing here?” came a voice from the doorway.

  Eva and Andrew turned to see Brenda, hands on hips, staring at them. Her gaze moved to the heart monitor.

  “Why is that back? Eva? What happened?”

  “Mum, calm down. I’m fine.” Eva explained the previous night, but left out any mention of ‘rejection’. That was the one word her mother did not need to hear. To her credit, Brenda listened without interrupting. When Eva was finished, she nodded and turned to Andrew.

  “Mr Fox, if you don’t mind I’d like some time alone with my daughter.”

  Andrew nodded. “Of course. I need to go home and change, anyway.” He looked at Eva on his way to the door. “I’ll come by later.”

  Once he’d left, Brenda settled into a chair by the bed.

  “I’m not sure you should be spending so much time with that man,” she began.

  Eva interrupted. “Mum, I know you don’t believe in cellular memory, I know you think I’m nuts to be putting myself through all this, but can’t you just put all that aside? I don’t need you to understand it, but I need you to support me. Why can’t you do that?”

  Brenda fished a tissue out of her sleeve, her hands then twisting it in knots in her lap.