by Helen Fields
‘Disability benefit?’ Baarda suggested.
‘That would fit. The weight loss alone would be enough to concern a doctor, and he would likely be suffering additional symptoms, such as regular migraines from the failure to eat, low blood pressure, anaemia, bowel and stomach problems. Regular work would be unsustainable.’
‘He killed Danny Taylor in cold blood. The witness reported that he hardly seemed to notice what he was doing. If he’s not a psychopath, how can you explain that?’ Overbeck demanded.
‘I didn’t say he’s not a psychopath,’ Connie corrected. ‘It’s possible that he is. Statistically speaking, enough cases of Cotard’s syndrome have now been reported that sooner or later, a sufferer is also going to have other mental health conditions, and then all bets are off. But I think Danny’s death indicates something else. At its most developed, Cotard’s syndrome is an absolute delusion. It’s world-destroying. This is perhaps the only time when it’s helpful to refer to it by the name walking corpse syndrome. Imagine believing you’re dead. I mean, truly being immersed in that belief. What stops you from killing at that point?’
‘My humanity,’ someone offered.
‘Good starting point, but is a dead person still human? Do they still feel or exercise humanity?’ Connie held her hands up in a gesture of submission. ‘Before you all start groaning, this isn’t Psychology 101, but the point’s valid. When you believe you’re dead, are you still constrained by the human idea of conscience, or rules? If there are no consequences, the brain is free to deal only on the basis of need, desire, or reaction.’ There was silence from the crowd. ‘Consider the sense of grief, of loneliness at being a walking corpse, unable to find a single person who can comprehend what you’re experiencing.’
‘Why take Xavier?’ Overbeck asked.
Connie shrugged. ‘We don’t know yet. The details of that are probably bound up in his delusion, and they may never become clear to us, even after he’s apprehended. What we need to do now is issue the description to all medical practitioners.’
‘Dr Woolwine,’ Overbeck said. ‘We cannot ask medics across the whole of Scotland to check their files. The amount of information we’ll get back is—’
‘Another woman’s been abducted!’
The female officer who’d burst through the door was panting and sweating. Every eye turned on her and she shrank backwards towards the doorframe.
‘In, Biddlecombe,’ Overbeck ordered her.
‘Ma’am,’ she replied, running a sleeve over her forehead.
‘Details, and make it concise.’
‘A man called saying his daughter had been taking their bins out when he heard screaming. He ran down the pathway to help, but by the time he got there, all he saw was tail lights heading out of the road, one of the bins on its side, and his daughter’s phone thrown onto the pavement.’
‘Name, description and address,’ Overbeck prompted, waving officers up from their seats to ready themselves for action.
‘Right,’ Biddlecombe un-scrunched the scrap of paper that was clutched in her hand. ‘Farzana Wakim, nineteen years old, five foot five, slim build, wearing long trousers and a pale blue hoodie. Black hair, brown eyes, very dark skin tone. Lives in Moat Place, Slateford. Uniformed officers are en route.’
‘Time of incident and description of the vehicle?’ Baarda asked.
Everyone in the room was slipping coats over their shoulders and grabbing notebooks.
‘Fifteen minutes ago, sir. He wasn’t able to describe the car. Said it was too dark,’ Biddlecombe said.
‘Right, this could be our man. I want the major routes west of the city blocked with checks on any single male drivers. Close down the whole Slateford area while we get this contained. No one talks to the press. CCTV from every source we can get,’ Overbeck said. ‘Baarda, liaise with the family en route. I want every house in the locality canvassed tonight, I don’t care how antisocial the hour.’
‘Superintendent.’ Connie stopped her at the door. ‘I need permission to send out an alert to medical practitioners.’
‘Dr Woolwine, we have an active lead. That seems to me to be the more likely means of tracing the offender.’
‘But you have no idea if it’s the same man …’
‘We don’t have multiple adult females killed or kidnapped in Edinburgh each year. The statistical likelihood of this being a coincidence is extremely low, as I believe you yourself argued earlier in the investigation.’
‘I just need to put out the alert. I’ll process the responses myself. Your team won’t have to deal with it.’
‘Fine,’ Overbeck snapped. ‘You stay here and field responses to the alert. Baarda, I need you with my squad.’
‘Sure,’ Connie said, pulling a draft of the alert from her pocket.
Ailsa Lambert walked past, patting Connie on the shoulder and offering a sympathetic smile.
‘Well done,’ the chief pathologist said. ‘It’s progress.’
‘Too little, too late, given that another woman’s been taken,’ Connie said. ‘If he needs another woman, it can only be because Elspeth is dead.’
‘You don’t know that yet. Don’t lose hope,’ Ailsa said.
‘I’m more pragmatist than optimist, I’m afraid.’
‘Then channel the pragmatism into getting results. People’s lives still need saving.’
Connie looked at her watch. ‘It’s two a.m. Who the hell takes out their trash at this time?’
Chapter Thirty-Four
Elspeth didn’t sound good, like a living bike tyre with a puncture. Her arm was a mess too, and while he could probably have fixed that for her, why bother? In pain and unable to use one of her arms, she was much easier to control. Meggy, too, consequentially. Right now, they were bound to one another on the floor of his bedroom. He was resting in the kitchen. The fight had worn him out, and he was trying to capture a memory that had stuck its tongue into his brain as he’d been choking Elspeth. He’d felt it there, squirming and elusive, as he’d pulled the light cord tighter. It wasn’t a sensation of enjoyment exactly, more a familiarity. A sense of prior knowledge, expertise even. The way he’d wrapped the cable around her neck three times to provide enough width to crush the windpipe rather than simply cutting straight through the flesh. The understanding that she would inevitably waste her energy on trying to release the cord rather than attacking him. It was a reliving of sorts, yet he really couldn’t figure out how he’d come by the knowledge. It had felt like an ending, though. Closure, the Americans would say. Connie Woolwine would know what it meant.
He heard her voice in his head, husky and exotic. He wished he could have seen America while he was still alive. Now, his body was in an advanced stage of decomposition. Perhaps that was why he’d become so thirsty during the fight. His corpse was shedding liquid from its cells and beginning to succumb to the bacteria that would reduce him to nothing but bones and hair eventually. He was beginning to bloat and his body reeked. There was mossy green growth between his toes, and the fingernails on his hands were blackening. Last night, two of his teeth had fallen from their sockets. He’d helped them along with some insistent tugging – the thought of swallowing them in his sleep had been disgusting – but they’d exited his gums with no blood loss. Naturally, how could he bleed while his heart wasn’t pumping?
The girl had been a handful. Little viper. It wasn’t just Elspeth who’d proved a disappointment. He thought he’d chosen so well. A child who wasn’t happy at home should be pleased to be given a new loving family. Still, she’d done nothing but whine and complain since she’d arrived. Fucking Emily. How could a ten-year-old be so much more trouble than an adult? He’d had to punish her on multiple occasions already, showing her who was boss with the sole of his shoe on her behind.
Only that wasn’t right. Emily had been blonde. She’d been sweet and giggly, hiding in the woods from her brother. He remembered throwing the girl’s pink running shoes into Linlithgow Loch after he’d put her in t
he boot of his car. Emily had been his only act of spontaneity. His first and last.
He tried to recall the hair colour of the girl tied up in his bedroom, only her features and colouring kept shifting in his mind.
‘The girl’s a monster,’ he told himself. ‘She’s been tricking me. She changed her face.’
And there was something else he’d forgotten. He’d left something somewhere. Not in his car. He was careful about keeping that free from anything that might make anyone suspicious.
Fergus looked around the kitchen for a clue. Nothing there.
He would ask Elspeth and Emily. They’d know.
Climbing the stairs slowly, his legs cramping and head thumping, he tried to figure out what the date was. He only had a little time left now. Not sufficient to achieve all he’d wanted to, but the world around him was disintegrating. Soon, his legs would be unable to support him. He had to finish preparations for the end while he could still drive. His eyesight was fading, too. There were pixelated edges to his peripheral vision, and he was having to turn his head left and right to see around him.
Stumbling into the bedroom, Fergus pulled the gag from the girl’s mouth and leaned down to see her clearly.
‘Emily,’ he whispered. ‘I can’t find something. What is it?’
The girl squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.
‘No, Emily, you have to help me.’ He shook her shoulders. ‘Open your eyes now.’
‘I’m not Emily,’ she said. ‘You’re insane.’
He sat up.
‘Then who are you?’
The girl opened her eyes. They were a different colour than he’d been expecting.
‘I’m Meggy,’ she said. ‘I’m Meggy, and you took me away from my dad. I want to go home now.’
‘What happened to Emily?’ he asked.
Meggy sobbed and shut her eyes again.
‘Did Emily run away?’ Fergus asked.
The girl screamed. She screamed in his face, then turned her head and screamed into the floor. The woman next to her groaned and dribbled blood from the corner of her mouth. Fergus looked up at the hole in the ceiling. That’s where they’d come from. The flat above. Perhaps that was where he’d left … the thing he’d forgotten.
‘Be quiet now, Emily,’ he said, slipping the gag back over the girl’s mouth.
She simply continued screaming into the wad of material. He decided to let her. Negotiating was exhausting.
He took the final flight of stairs one by one. Muscle memory kicked in and he stepped towards the upper peephole. The view inside was a bleary grey. The right-hand side of the corridor was completely obscured. Fergus took the key from the ring on his belt and opened up. The door budged three inches then jammed. He put his shoulder against it and shoved harder. There was another inch of movement, but the door rebelled, springing back to hit him in the face. He recoiled angrily and kicked it.
‘Let me in!’ Fergus yelled. ‘You can’t shut me out. This is my place, d’you hear me?’
He stood, head cocked to one side. Giving a final kick, he stormed off down the stairs to the ground floor, out of the kitchen door and into the tumbledown garden shed. Minutes later, he was on the stairs again.
He swung the axe high over his shoulder, bringing it down into the upper panel of the door with crushing force. The wood groaned and splintered but refused to break. Changing his grip, Fergus gritted his teeth and went again. This time the blade made some headway into the surface.
He moved to the left and swung again and again. The sound of splitting wood was music each time he pulled out the axe. Finally, he was able to damage enough of the upper panel that he could chop vertically downwards into the lower panel. He muttered encouragement to himself as he swung, each blow a monumental effort, but the pain was clean, refreshing, and real.
Ten minutes and there was enough of a hole in the door that he could step through, crawling on his hands and knees between two mattresses lying on the floor of the hallway and another bent in two, tense against the walls.
His brain was pulsating, and red lights were flickering on the inside of his eyes. Breathing through a wave of nausea, he entered the lounge.
The view from the window was magnificent. Walking to the wall, he looked out at the blue sky and across the green fields, relaxing in the warmth of the sun on his face as it filtered through the glass. Fergus felt joy. It had been so long since he had been peaceful. He gave a contented sigh and studied the furniture. It was a little frayed but designed for comfort. The only thing ruining the perfect room was an overturned rug and a pile of floorboards – two whole, one splintered in the corner. None of it made sense. He’d built this sanctuary, this idyll, and someone had ruined it with mess and disorder.
Fergus frowned. He was feeling anxious again. All he wanted to do was go back to the window and stare out into the countryside beyond, but now he had to clear up. He walked towards the hole in the floor, and the boards beneath his feet crackled and squeaked. Whoever had done this had weakened the entire area. He sat at the edge of the opening and looked down. The area below was dark, the only light spilling in from the hallway beyond. The light bulb must have blown. And there below him were a woman and a girl tied up.
‘You’re not Emily,’ he said to Meggy. ‘Emily went away. Where did she go? There’s still Angela, though. I love Angela. She’s my wife.’ He stroked the wedding ring on his left hand and grinned at the memory of the ceremony. ‘Maybe Emily made this hole.’
Leaning over, he stared into the pitch-black between the two floors. From deep inside the cavity there came a scrabbling, scraping, rustling. Fergus reached inside to find the cause.
‘Do I have mice?’ he asked. ‘Come on, little mouse. I won’t hurt you.’ His fingers felt a long, thin limb. Fergus yanked. ‘Got you!’
The fleshless femur appeared from the cavity and landed on Fergus’ lap. He stroked its length.
‘Who were you?’ he asked the bone. ‘Were you kind to me?’ He held it next to his mouth. ‘I’m dead, too,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t be scared. You’re not alone any more.’ Standing up, he took the bone in both hands and held it up to show the sun that streamed through the window. ‘This is it. This is what I forgot. We should go. All of us together.’
He moved towards the flat door, but the mess behind him wouldn’t let him leave. The flat wasn’t secure any more. The home he’d made for himself and his family was ruined. And the bone from the cavity wasn’t the only one. He should be honest with himself about it. There were ghosts beneath the floorboards, and now they were free to roam as they pleased.
He couldn’t put a figure on how many past loves had disappeared beneath the newly disturbed floorboards, but it was enough. There were faces jostling in his mind, fleetingly in focus then fading again. He didn’t want those memories. They were white-hot needles of loss and disappointment in his brain.
Someone coughed. A short bark of a cough from below his feet. A male tone cut short.
‘Who’s there?’ Fergus shouted.
As if he didn’t know. His brother had died in that house alongside their mother. He stamped violently on the floor and was rewarded with a cry in response.
‘Come out!’ he demanded.
Nothing.
‘Why did she choose you?’
There was no reply. His mother had chosen his brother for the same reason everyone else in his life had chosen someone else. Because Fergus wasn’t good enough for them. He never had been. He lay down on the floor, his mouth to the floorboards.
‘Come out, come out, wherever you are,’ he sang.
No response. The ghosts had gone quiet. They always did when he needed them most.
Fergus crawled to the cavity, lying on his stomach and letting his head dangle into the hole, peering into the darkness. He looked around, his eyes adjusting to the gloom, breathing in the scents of time and decay.
‘I see you,’ he hissed. ‘Did you think you could hide?’
Hair, dirt
y, bedraggled.
A pink dress.
He recognised her, although she was different now.
‘You’ve lost weight,’ he said. ‘I wondered where you’d gone.’
An earwig of a memory squirmed in his brain. A man called Finlay from Wester Hailes – a nasty piece of work – delivering the woman to him, a baby in her arms. He’d exchanged money for them, and at the time that had seemed easier than kidnapping a woman himself. But the woman wasn’t right for him, spoke barely any English, and the baby had screamed and screamed. He was better suited to be a father to older children, he’d realised then.
Soon after that, Finlay’s face had been plastered over every newspaper in Scotland, identified only by his tattoos after his headless body had been found. Better for Fergus that way. No chance of anyone finding out about his purchase. From then on, he’d begun selecting his own loved ones through careful research. He couldn’t remember how many there’d been. Or why none of them had stayed with him. Those facts were slipperier than oil in his conscious mind. No one stayed with him for long.
He was tempted to crawl into the cavity himself, to hide in the darkness and wait for the end, but that would take too long. He was done with waiting. If he didn’t end things himself, they might never end.
He stood up. The thumping of his heart was the painful beating of an animal trying to escape a cage. How could he come back to this house now? The memories needed eradicating. He no longer needed bricks and mortar, after all. The bones, the ghosts, the grief – they should all become dust with him. Perhaps this house had been the problem all along. It had been an anchor for his body to return to. A reason to keep living. Without a connection to his past, perhaps his soul could finally be free.
There was a solution in the kitchen, he realised. Stacks of newspaper. A can of fuel kept for the lawnmower. Matches in the cupboard. It would be as if none of his past lives had ever happened. No past, no present, no future. Just peace. All he had to do was pack up the girl and the woman first – he paused and frowned – their names would come back to him soon. Then he would be able to move on at last.