by Helen Fields
‘You can find me there. No one needs to know where or when. I’m giving you this information because I trust you. I think you have a reason for everything you’ve done. I know the things you’ve done aren’t random or gratuitous. We understand each other.’
Connie sat back on the stool and wrapped her arms around her waist. Fergus wondered if she had children, but there was no ring on her left hand, and her stomach was so flat it was impossible to think her body had ever been stretched by a baby.
‘But call me soon,’ she said. ‘Xavier will get ill, and I need to know that Elspeth and Meggy are still alive. I think we have a lot to say to one another. Thank you.’
She gave a final gentle smile, then the picture faded to black, and an information screen with a telephone number came up. Fergus paused it, grabbing a pen from the glove compartment and writing the number on the back of his hand. Not that he was seriously contemplating calling. He had things to achieve to ensure his passage into the next life. No point jeopardising it.
Rewinding the footage one last time, he paused on a still frame of Connie. So slight and vulnerable. So haunted. Of course she’d reminded him of someone, he thought, staring in the rearview mirror. It was him.
Fergus left the car park at 8.30 a.m.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Once they’d helped Xavier in and out of the bathroom, and settled him back on the sofa, Meggy and Elspeth began rolling the carpet back once more. At least Fergus was leaving the lights on for them now – they were learning to be grateful for small mercies.
‘What time is it now?’ Elspeth asked.
‘Eight forty a.m. We’d better get on with it,’ Xavier said.
The single broken floorboard revealed nothing but a dark hole. As they pulled up the second that had been loosened during their first excavation, there was a hint of a grey mass in the cavity.
‘Show me,’ Xavier said.
Elspeth covered her hand with a tea towel and pulled out a long, dry bone.
‘It’s a femur.’
‘Are you a doctor?’ Meggy asked.
‘No,’ he replied gently, ‘but when your legs stop working properly, you suddenly learn a lot about anatomy in a very short time. Pull out the bones and anything else that’s in the way, but keep them in one pile right next to the opening so we can shove it all back if we hear him coming.’
‘I’m holding someone’s leg bone,’ Elspeth said. ‘Why don’t you seem bothered by it?’
‘I am bothered by it. Don’t think I’m not, but I don’t want it to be my leg bone,’ Xavier said. ‘And not yours or Meggy’s, either. That bone and the others in there mean we’re on borrowed time, so we sit around and lament our fate, or we find a way out. Which would you prefer?’
Meggy looked from Elspeth’s face to Xavier’s, shoved her arm as far into the cavity as she could and began joining in, dragging out bone after bone.
‘Where’s the complete body?’ he asked.
‘Further in. We saw it but couldn’t reach it.’
‘Good. I don’t want it to be in the way. We’ll need to get another floorboard up,’ Xavier said. ‘Can you get me down onto the floor next to the hole? My legs might be useless, but my arms might just make up for it.’
They helped him to the floor, and he worked on loosening the next board while bones came out of the hole fast.
‘There are so many bones,’ Elspeth said.
‘Two hundred and six in an adult,’ Meggy said. ‘We just studied it in biology. Maybe they’re all from one person?’
‘Only if that person had five legs,’ Xavier said, looking at the bone pile. ‘Keep going. This floorboard is nearly out. Then we’ll need something strong and heavy.’
Ten minutes later, and nails screeched against wood. The floorboard flew upwards. The three of them sat back and looked at the much larger hole. As one, they bent their heads to see inside.
A door slammed, and they jerked backwards, Xavier cracking his head against Elspeth’s. Meggy raced into the hallway and pressed her ear to the front door.
No one breathed.
‘Is he coming?’ Elspeth panted.
‘Shh,’ Meggy said.
Sweat trickled down Xavier’s forehead. Elspeth shook. Meggy gritted her teeth and made fists of her hands as she focused on what lay beyond their prison.
Another slammed door, then silence again. No footsteps on the stairs.
‘I don’t think he’s coming up,’ Meggy said.
‘We should clear up anyway. Put all this away. It’s too risky,’ Elspeth said.
‘I think it’s too risky not to carry on,’ Xavier said. ‘We should keep going.’
They looked at Meggy. ‘I’m twelve,’ she shrugged. ‘I can’t decide.’
‘Look, we’re nearly through. Meggy can get down in the gap now. She’s small enough to get between the rafters. Is there anything here we can use to bash in the ceiling below? It needs to be strong enough to smash through the plasterboard.’
‘If we had something like that, we’d have hit Fergus over the head with it,’ Meggy said. ‘Everything useful in here is fixed to the floor or the wall.’
‘She’s right,’ Elspeth said. ‘We don’t have anything that’s substantial enough to do any real damage. He’s been careful. But then I guess he’s done this before.’ She picked up a small bone and snapped it in two. ‘Nothing wrong with his learning curve.’
‘Then we’ll have to do it manually. Meggy, you ready?’ Xavier asked.
She looked at Elspeth, who held her arms open. Meggy walked across the room and accepted the hug.
‘You sure you want to do this? No one will blame you if you’re too freaked out,’ Elspeth said.
‘I’m sure,’ Meggy said. ‘What is it you need me to do?’
‘Okay. These floorboards are resting on top of rafters, thick, strong wooden beams that go between the floors of a building. Inside, there’s insulation – that yellow stuff you can see – and usually some space. With the bones out of the way, you should be able to shove your feet between the rafters and kick away the insulation between this pair of beams …’ He pointed downwards. ‘Attached to the underside of those beams from below is the ceiling you’d see if you looked up from below. The plasterboard might have been decorated, but basically, it’s just a thick piece of board. You’ll need to make sure you don’t put all of your weight on it at once, and that we’re holding you, because I need you to stamp your way through that board, okay? We have to make a hole in it, and that hole will have to be big enough for us all to get through.’
‘What then?’ Elspeth asked.
‘Then we’ll have to tie some sheets together for us to get down, or one of us will have to get out and get help. He might even have a phone in the rooms below.’
‘That won’t help if we can’t give the police an address to come to. How long do you think he’ll be out? And what are we supposed to do about you? We can’t just drop you through. Shit, I’m sorry, that came out much worse …’ Elspeth’s face reddened.
‘Forget it. Now isn’t the time for political correctness. You’re right. It’s not going to be easy getting me out, which is why one of you two needs to get through and escape. Time is limited. If we’re going to do this, we need to get on with it.’
Meggy sat on the edge of the hole and pushed her feet inside. Elspeth wrapped an arm around her waist, and Xavier took hold of her right hand. She scuffled her feet inside the space, kicking insulation aside. A cloud of dust rose up into the room. They turned their heads aside and covered their mouths.
‘It stinks,’ Meggy complained.
‘Never mind. Can you feel the plasterboard?’ Xavier asked.
Meggy nodded.
‘Good. Now kick. The fewer kicks and the harder they are, the better. The longer we’re doing this, the more chance that we’ll draw his attention. Okay? Now make them count.’
Elspeth tightened her grip around the girl’s body.
‘Go!’ Xavier said.
<
br /> Meggy raised her right knee, closed her eyes and slammed her foot down as hard as she could. There was a fierce crack, and Meggy’s body slipped to one side. She cried out, reaching down into the space.
‘My ankle,’ she said. ‘My foot hit something.’
‘Here, let me see,’ Elspeth said, lying on her stomach and reaching into the void, rummaging around through the remnants of the insulation where Meggy’s foot had gone down. When she pulled her hand back out, it held a tiny, round white ball.
A crack ran through the skull, and a section had come away, but the features were still clear.
‘It’s a baby,’ Meggy said.
‘It was a baby,’ Elspeth corrected.
Xavier put his hand over the sphere of bone and took it gently away, putting it delicately on the floor.
‘Now it’s one more reason for us to get out of here as quickly as possible,’ he said. He put one arm around Elspeth and the other around Meggy. ‘We can do this. But only if we don’t get distracted by our fear. When we get out, we’ll make sure everyone who died here is taken away and buried. We won’t let them be forgotten. I promise. I need you to be brave. Nothing’s changed. Meggy, ready to try again?’
‘I guess,’ she said. ‘Not with my right foot, though. I really hurt my ankle.’
‘Left foot this time,’ he said. ‘Clear more of the insulation before you try again. We can’t have any more injuries.’
They returned to their original positions.
Meggy made a space so she could see before she stamped again. She brought her foot up and smashed it downwards. No impact. They peered into the hole. The plasterboard hadn’t even registered the blow. Again, Meggy raised her leg and slammed her heel into the board. There was an echo that seemed to hit the ceiling above them and come back down towards their heads, but no result.
‘We’ve got to keep trying,’ Xavier said. ‘If he was in, he’d have heard that by now. Give it a few more goes, then Elspeth will have to take over. I know it’ll be harder to get your feet in, but we’re out of options.’
‘How do you think he killed those other people?’ Meggy asked.
‘I have no intention of finding out,’ Xavier said, gripping her chin and making her look straight into his eyes. ‘Because it’s not going to happen to any of us.’
‘I have an idea,’ Elspeth said. ‘Meggy can’t harness enough force to damage the plasterboard. But if I stood on it long enough, put all my weight through a single small area, then sooner or later it would weaken, right?’
‘The rafters are pretty close together. Meggy can’t hold you, I’m not mobile enough to guarantee I can stop you from falling, and you might get yourself injured either by the rafters or if you fall too far, too fast. There’s your left hand to think of, too.’
‘You can’t do that. It’s dangerous.’ Meggy shook her head. ‘I won’t let you.’
‘Nonsense. If it’s that or be killed by some lunatic in this bloody flat, then I know which I’d choose. At least we’ll have tried to escape. Come on, Meggy, out of the way. We might as well go for it,’ Elspeth said.
‘We only get one chance at this,’ Xavier said. ‘If he walks in while you’re dangling from the ceiling, you’d better be prepared to fight.’
‘You look after Meggy,’ Elspeth said. ‘I can take care of myself.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘You shouldn’t have given him the name of your hotel. That was too risky. One of the most basic rules of police work is that you never make it personal,’ Baarda told her.
Connie raised a hand at The Balmoral’s barman and motioned towards her empty glass.
‘Not personal? I’m not sure how that works. I suppose you can classify some crimes as not personal. Corporate banking frauds, illegal benefits claims, car ringing. But murder? Kidnapping? There’s nothing more personal than that, and if we don’t approach it the same way as the perpetrator does, then how do we understand his mindset?’
‘That wasn’t an invitation to play psychologist with me. There has to be a bottom line, and it should be not making an already dangerous situation more perilous. Now, the Major Investigation Team is not only stretched to its limits looking for Meggy, Elspeth and Xavier, but we also need a detail watching you and this hotel around the clock.’
‘He needed me to prove that I was willing to cross a line for him. Empathy isn’t as straightforward as being able to understand how someone feels. It’s communicated subtly. Dressing like him, sharing with him, trusting him. We can’t find him, Baarda. I don’t think that’s because he’s clever. I think it relates to the extent of his risk-taking. He’s not working on a level with other offenders. His agenda’s completely unique. It has elements of omnipotence and out-of-body delusions.’
Baarda drained his drink. ‘Yet here we are, sitting in your hotel bar, waiting for him to call. How is that any different from where we were before? We’re not even chasing our tails. Now, we’re just sitting around staring at our tails. Only if you misread the situation, at any moment a man could run in with a knife and decide to finish the person he saw on the television who’s helping the police identify him.’
‘He doesn’t want me,’ Connie said.
‘You’re much surer of your position than is warranted, given that we still know nothing about this killer.’
‘I’m a profiler. You don’t profile with a perpetrator sitting in front of you giving you information. And it’s a science, thank you. This is as certain as profiling gets. I have all the different strands. I just don’t have a single psychological diagnosis that pulls it all together yet.’
‘Is there one?’ Baarda asked.
‘Actually, yes. You hungry?’ she asked.
‘Not hungry, but curious about how things got resolved for you.’
‘The psychiatrist who diagnosed me as suffering from teenage hysteria – not a real thing, by the way, just a convenient phrase – was involved in a car crash. Coincidence is occasionally kind. A replacement consultant was sent to the ward, younger and more up to date than the great Dr Webster. He insisted on reviewing all the cases from scratch and was willing to spend time with me. I did my best to communicate with a sort of sign language, but it got muddled every time I started to send signals. He understood that my tears were of frustration rather than a fit of pique.’
‘So what happened?’ Baarda asked.
‘He ordered another brain scan, looked more carefully than Webster had and drew the conclusion that there was a small blood clot sitting in the part of my brain that controlled communication. They operated, and – thank God – he was right.’
Baarda drew in a long, slow breath. ‘That’s when you lost your colour vision?’
‘Same moment I got my life back. You win some, you lose some. Cheers.’ She raised her glass and clinked the edge of Baarda’s.
He left it untouched. ‘What happened to Dr Webster? He had you locked up for no reason at all. It was clear malpractice – in fact, nothing less than cruelty.’
‘Webster never fully recovered from the car crash. I know enough now to recognise him as a sociopath. Intelligent, incapable of empathy, manipulative, utterly self-centred. Hated women, especially women who didn’t pay him what he regarded as his due respect. My grandmother was furious, mostly I suspect for her own blind belief in Webster. A conversation was had with Webster’s lawyers and insurers. The money they paid put me through college and grad school, and there’s still plenty left over. This is a vocation. I don’t actually need the cash. I suspect you’re in the same position.’
‘Not exactly. School fees and a wife who likes our second home in Tuscany are expensive.’
‘Divorce her,’ Connie said.
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Yes it fucking well is. Take back control.’
‘You know, you’re a very angry psychologist,’ Baarda smiled.
‘I’m a very practical psychologist. Sometimes there’s unequivocal right and wrong. It’s okay to acknowle
dge that. Anger is important. It’s cathartic and paves the way for resolution. I’m prescribing a daily dose of fury for you. Get mad, Brodie Baarda. You’re owed it.’ Her mobile rang and she picked up. ‘Connie Woolwine.’
‘But it’s really Dr Woolwine, right?’
Connie pointed at the mobile, and Baarda grabbed his own phone to send a text.
‘That’s right. Who’s this?’
‘You sent me a message. I assumed you’d be expecting my call.’
‘I was, and I’m glad you’ve reached out. I’m just not sure what you want me to call you.’
‘Nothing. You don’t need to call me anything. That works. You said you wanted to know that Elspeth and Meggy are all right. They are. That’s all I called to say. I’m looking after them the way I’m supposed to. Do you have children?’
‘I don’t,’ Connie said.
‘That’s too bad. You’d be a good mother. I can tell.’
‘I’m not sure about that,’ she laughed gently. ‘Sometimes I worry that I’m too set in my own ways to become a mother now.’
‘That’s not what’s important. It’s about being able to make a commitment and stick with it. Being a parent is about staying the course.’
‘I agree,’ Connie said. ‘Listen, it’s a formality, but I need to check you really are …’
‘Elspeth lost a shoe somewhere. I didn’t notice until I got her home. It wasn’t mentioned in the papers. Is that good enough?’
‘It’s perfect,’ Connie said. ‘Speaking of which, does Meggy need any more clothes, or maybe her schoolbooks? I’m sure we could find a drop-off point that wouldn’t require you to come into contact with us.’
‘No. She’ll be fine. I thought of everything before …’
‘And Xavier, he’ll need his medication soon.’
‘How long can he go without?’
Connie paused. Questions about time were difficult. Pretend there was no urgency and she’d lose the chance to make contact. Make it sound too desperate and there was a chance he’d decide Xavier was a liability.
‘He’s good for another couple of days, but after that, Xavier will struggle with muscle control, and his general functioning will start to become more impaired. Activities like feeding and washing himself will become difficult.’