by LJ Ross
Natalie smiled as a pair of rowers skimmed across the water, uncaring of the downpour, and raised their hands to wave.
She waved back, then straightened up again to continue her journey to Ryan’s apartment building. As she walked, she worried for him and whether he was coping with the extra demands that went alongside a career as a senior murder detective. There were things he must have seen that haunted him at night and that he may never want to tell her about, she knew that much. She was twenty-five years old but, to him, she would always be his little sister, just a kid.
But there were things she longed to tell him, too.
She wanted to understand what made him tick and to be understood in return. She didn’t want to continue their half-relationship; she wanted theirs to be a proper family where regular phone calls and visits wouldn’t be unusual, as they were at the moment. She wanted to remind him of all the good things in life, to help him to see that there were still decent people in the world.
She truly believed that.
As she approached the apartment building, she glanced up and noticed that the little CCTV camera above the door was hanging loose from its holder.
Ryan wouldn’t like that; she must remember to tell him about it.
* * *
Ryan was feeling the full force of long-term sleep deprivation. Caffeine sloshed around his empty stomach and made him jittery. His eyes ached but a quick application of some eye drops had bought a little extra time before he was forced to make up some of the deficit.
Until then, he rounded up his team for the second half of their briefing.
“Let’s focus on Nicola Cassidy for a moment,” he said. “One of the key features of her death is the commitment it must have required to keep her alive for as long as he needed. She was tied up and gagged—we believe, using her own underwear—but to ensure that the risk of escape remained low, he had to dose her with a sedative. The toxicology report hasn’t come back yet but there are needle marks on her body that are consistent with his MO. What I want to know is, how frequently would our perp need to keep topping it up?”
“I had a word with Pinter about that,” Phillips said, and popped a stick of nicotine gum into his mouth, wincing at the taste. “Depends on the drug but, assuming he continued to use lorazepam, he needed to tread a very fine line not to give her a fatal overdose. Hence, the adrenaline on stand-by. Pinter thinks, to strike the balance, you’d be looking at upping the dosage little and often.”
“How little, how often?” Ryan prodded.
“Every two to four hours,” Phillips replied. “According to Pinter, at least.”
“We can ask around. If we assume he’s correct, they’d need to sneak out regularly. Let’s think about this,” he said, boosting himself up onto the edge of his desk and picking up the nearest thing to hand, which happened to be a bottle of Tippex. He fiddled with it while he thought.
“If he dips in to see her before his shift, he can dip out again three or four hours later if he has a lunchtime window, or a late morning coffee break. It’s a busy department and her flat was only five minutes away; less, if he jogged part-way.”
“A lot of them say they go to the staff gym on site, or for a wander around the park,” Lowerson said. “Easy enough to make an excuse and say he’s going to do the same thing.”
“No CCTV in the gym, before you ask,” Phillips said, anticipating Ryan’s next question.
“Okay, this leads me on to the most obvious question,” Ryan said. “Nicola Cassidy was able to escape because the drugs wore off. That’s common sense. But why would he keep her alive so diligently and invest so much time in torturing her, only to let her escape before the end? The answer has to be that it was an oversight, or perhaps an unexpected delay that was out of his control.”
Phillips chewed his gum thoughtfully.
“You’re looking at the shifts,” he said, with approval.
Ryan nodded.
“We’ve got a problem, though. The rota we have doesn’t account for anybody who swapped a shift informally, or worked extra hours, or was off sick. I realised that today when I cross-checked Draycott’s story. We know he was at work when Nicola Cassidy came in because we happened to be right there, talking to him. Yet he wasn’t listed on the rota.”
“Did he swap?” MacKenzie asked.
“No, he was just working overtime, according to him,” Ryan said. “All the same, it tells us things aren’t quite as straightforward as we thought. Now, we need to go back and double-check everybody who was at work and might have been unable to go back and check Nicola at the usual time.”
There were nods around the room.
“That would narrow the field,” Faulkner said. “It’d give us a fighting chance to get through the DNA samples.”
“That’s what I’m hoping, Tom. We’re overdue a bit of good luck.”
CHAPTER 29
Stephanie Bernard was looking forward to her bed.
It had been a long run these past few months, touring the regional theatres with Gianni Schicchi, and she was ready to go home to her own little flat in Paris. She enjoyed visiting new places and spent much of her time in London, but nothing compared to the city where she had been born. Some people preferred the countryside, but she had never known anything other than the urban landscape with its ancient streets and elegant boulevards. She preferred its pace of life, its food, and its fashion.
She spread her arms wide to encompass the audience, who rose from their seats to applaud. She smiled warmly, grateful for their kind reception which made everything easier to bear.
She dipped into a low curtsy and accepted the obligatory bunch of red roses from the stage manager, stepping back as the curtain fell. She smoothed a hand over her hair and straightened her dress until the curtain rose again for an encore and she curtsied again, blowing kisses, playing the part.
Only after the final curtain fell did she hurry off stage and into her dressing room. Usually, she removed her make-up before heading back to the aparthotel the company had rented for her, but tonight she was much too tired.
She’d have a hot bath before bed and take care of it then.
Once the crowds had departed, she made her usual exit from the stage door and mustered a smile for the people who had waited around in the rain to see her, although her back was aching, and her feet wept from hours spent treading the boards.
“Goodnight! Thank you so much for coming!”
She waved them off and hovered in the doorway waiting for Mark, the usher who usually accompanied her back to her aparthotel. She was not normally anxious about these things but, in the present climate, she was grateful for the company. Everyone had seen the news reports and it was the stuff of nightmares for women like her; young women with dark hair. Pride prevented her from cancelling the final days of the tour but, as she stood framed in the doorway of the theatre, she found herself wishing that she had.
“Hi Stephanie, sorry to keep you waiting. I got held up dealing with some old codger wanting to know how he could get Puccini’s autograph.”
Mark joined her, wielding a large black umbrella.
“With some difficulty, considering he died in 1924,” she chuckled. “Shall we go?”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to call a taxi?”
“It’s only a couple of minutes away,” she said. “It’ll be quicker to walk, rather than wait around.”
“Okay, let’s make a run for it.”
* * *
After a mad dash through the rain, Stephanie said ‘goodnight’ at the door of her aparthotel, or tried to. It seemed that, since this was the last show, Mark had mustered the courage to ask her out. It was both endearing and awkward, considering he was hovering in the doorway of her hotel.
“So, um, I was wondering if you might want to have a drink before you go? The rest of the cast are heading out for a quick one to celebrate.”
Stephanie stifled a yawn and tried to think of a gentle way of saying ‘no.’
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“Ah, that would have been nice, Mark, but, you know, I don’t drink. I have to protect my voice.”
Thankfully, he took it well enough.
“Ah well, I had to ask!” He smiled beneath the rim of his umbrella. “Take care of yourself, Stephanie. It’s been really nice to know you.”
She watched him hop over puddles on his way back to the theatre and she smiled after him. If only every man could be so good-natured.
And she would know.
Two years ago, there’d been a man in London. Over the course of a weekend, he’d waited around after every performance and just the sight of his face had been enough to set her nerves jangling. He’d made no overtures and hadn’t insulted her in any way.
It was just something in his eyes.
Remembering sent a shiver across her skin and she found herself peering out into the gloomy night, imagining she would see him standing there waiting for her. Just watching her.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she told herself, and pulled the door shut.
* * *
A few miles further west, Ryan watched the sun go down over the city and knew that, somewhere out there in the darkness, a killer waged a war with himself. If he went out hunting tonight, there would be no way of pinning anything on Sebastien Draycott, and that would undo all the effort of planting Nicola’s keys in the man’s office.
And yet, to deny himself would require a level of restraint that was beyond his capabilities. More than twenty-four hours had passed since Nicola Cassidy died, depriving him of his chance to satisfy whatever need compelled him to kill. Ryan suspected there was a paraphilic desire to see inside the human body, or something equally perverse.
But, when all was said and done, he didn’t care what motivated him except to the extent it helped to stop him.
He continued to watch as the sun slipped off the edge of the earth and darkness fell. Warm rain beat heavily against the window pane and Ryan watched the drops run down the glass, wondering where the hammer would fall.
* * *
Stephanie never saw it coming.
The corridors of her hotel were impersonal and deserted, with yards of worn carpet in a geometric pattern that was hard on the eyes. Faded prints of Van Gogh’s famous works hung at intervals in cheap plastic frames and she followed them, counting them off until she reached The Starry Night which hung next to the door to her suite.
She already had the key in hand, some odd sense of foreboding having alerted her to move quickly to safety.
Despite it, she still didn’t see him until it was too late.
She caught a flash of movement behind her and then a firm hand clamped around her mouth while the other stabbed something sharp into the side of her neck. He used a knee in the small of her back to thrust her forward into the room she’d already opened, and she fought her faceless attacker, twisting so that he lost his grip on the needle.
But the drug was already taking effect and he watched her stagger into the room, trying to pull it out, her arms flailing.
Calmly, he closed the door and locked it from the inside.
“There now,” he said. “Together at last.”
She collapsed onto the floor and her last thought before she lost consciousness was that it was the same man as before.
He had come for her, at last.
* * *
Ryan hadn’t been able to settle down to any meaningful work and he acknowledged it was time he allowed his body some rest. His hands shook with fatigue and as Phillips had kindly remarked, he was starting to resemble the arse end of a bus.
“Go on home, lad, and get some shuteye. I’ll man the fort here and let you know if anything happens.”
Ryan nodded, putting a grateful hand on his sergeant’s shoulder.
“Thanks, Frank. You’ll let me know—”
“Aye, I’ll call you if anything breaks. Go home.”
So Ryan drove slowly through the quiet streets, his eyes focused on the road with the kind of intensity known only to drunk drivers and those who hadn’t slept properly in several days. He fiddled with the radio until he found a particularly obnoxious station and subjected himself to twenty minutes of house party anthems to keep himself awake until he made it home.
He could have fallen asleep at the wheel by the time he brought his car to a stop in his usual bay in the parking lot beneath his apartment building, but he dragged himself the rest of the way to the lift and punched the button for the top floor.
Natalie muted the sound on the television when she heard the creak of the lift outside and hurried across to the front door, not bothering to check the peep-hole before she threw it open to welcome her brother home.
When she saw him, she was shocked.
“You look awful,” she said bluntly, and he laughed.
“You’re as bad as Phillips,” he said, shrugging out of his coat and tossing it over a chair.
A pot of soup was simmering on the hob and his stomach rumbled loudly as his nose registered the scent.
“Come and sit down,” she told him, in the same tone their mother used. “I’ll put a bowl out for you.”
“You don—” He yawned hugely. “You don’t have to.”
“I know that,” she said to herself. “But I want to.”
She watched him spoon a few mouthfuls and, when he would have stopped, she bullied him into finishing the rest.
“That’s better. You look like you could sleep for England.”
“That’s because I could,” he said, stumbling towards his bedroom.
When he entered, he found she’d left one of the bedside lights on to greet him and, if he wasn’t mistaken, there was fresh linen on the bed.
“Nat?”
She poked her head around the doorway.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for all this,” he said, gesturing to the room and thinking of the soup in his belly. “It’s been a long time since anybody looked after me like that. Usually, I don’t need it but…it’s nice to come home to a friendly face, rather than an empty flat.”
She smiled beautifully.
“Goodnight, big brother.”
“G’night,” he replied, and face-planted on the bed.
It was only after she heard his gentle snores that she remembered there had been something she meant to tell him.
It would keep.
CHAPTER 30
Thursday 10th July
The housekeeping team didn’t find Stephanie Bernard until it was almost lunchtime. They had respected the ‘DO NOT DISTURB’ sign hanging outside her door but, when it remained hanging there for several hours, they decided to risk it. A discreet knock had not elicited a response, so they let themselves into the room she had occupied for nearly a week.
And what they found in there would stay with them for the rest of their lives.
Faulkner stepped carefully over a mound of drying vomit near the doorway, with Ryan and Phillips following closely behind. The team of CSIs were already on site and the aparthotel had been declared a crime scene. Lowerson was overseeing the process of re-housing other residents to provide a clear pathway for the police operation, while MacKenzie took over management of the Incident Room back at Police Headquarters. That was no small task, given the number of police personnel attached to the investigation which had now been given the jovial title of ‘OPERATION SUMMER’ by The Powers That Be.
The three men stood a few feet from the edge of the bed in full protective clothing, surveying The Hacker’s most recent handiwork. It seemed he had taken to his new title because this latest demonstration was less a feat of medical prowess than an act of total destruction.
“God in heaven,” Phillips choked out, focusing on his breathing so that he would not embarrass himself.
“He’s completely gone now,” Ryan said, feeling his own stomach churn. “This is something else.”
The woman was in pieces, laid out like chopped vegetables on the bed and decorated by rose petals taken from the bouq
uet she had been given at the end of her last performance.
“Do you realise who this is?” Faulkner asked.
Phillips could barely recognise the gender of the body parts, let alone determine an identity.
“Who?”
“I think this is Stephanie Bernard. She’s a French opera singer, a soprano.”
Ryan thought of what was playing across the theatres and musical venues and came to the correct conclusion.
“Gianni Schicchi?”
“Yes, she was playing Lauretta. I wanted to go and see it but couldn’t get a ticket,” Faulkner explained.
“You said she was French?” Ryan thought of the cross-jurisdictional complication and immediately hated himself for it.
“Yes,” Faulkner replied. “There was a write-up in The Guardian about the opera coming up to Newcastle as part of a tour of the UK. She was a real emerging talent.”
“He’s created a bit of his own theatre,” Phillips remarked. “Look at how he’s arranged the petals coming out of her mouth, to look like a song.”
Ryan nodded.
“I want a total press ban,” he said. “He’s peacocking, showing us what he can do to live up to his new name. I told them,” he raged, softly. “I tried to warn them, you can’t glorify a person like that.”
“He’s more animal than person, now,” Phillips said.
Ryan nodded, and stepped outside to put a call through to Gregson.
* * *
His superintendent answered after a single ring.
“This is Ryan. There’s been another one.”
Pause.
“Who?”
“He’s escalated again, sir, as we suspected he would. His victim appears to be an opera singer called Stephanie Bernard, but we haven’t confirmed her identity formally yet.”
“I know her,” Gregson said. “Or, at least, I saw her in The Marriage of Figaro at the Royal Albert Hall a couple of years ago. She was luminous.”
Ryan didn’t comment but thought it was funny that a celebrity was afforded a greater degree of sympathy from his superior than a shop girl or a student.
For his own part, he tried to treat every victim alike. Death was a great leveller, after all.