“Yeah, but the rest of it’s fine. Smooth, and high-res. It’s top of the line security. It’s more like, I dunno…”
Detective Tuatu sat back. “What? You think it’s something to do with Behind?”
“I dunno,” I said again, rewinding it once more. “But would you call that a hesitation, just before he kills her?”
“Only if he’s moving at a speed faster than the cameras can pick up,” the detective protested. “And it’s not like that’s—is it possible?”
“Yeah,” I said darkly. “I reckon so. I would have tried to slow it right down to frames, but I don’t know how to do that.”
“Shove over.”
“You know how without your geek squad?”
“I came up through the geek squad,” he said, grinning. “Hang on a tick.”
It actually took him about half an hour, but when he was done, it was all laid out there on the screen, frame by frame for us to scroll through.
“It’s only sixty frames per second,” the detective said. “So there won’t be a lot more detail than we could already see in the video—and I won’t be much use if you’re trying to see the…the heart-pulling-out stuff.”
“We only need one of us to be able to do that,” I said. “Beauty! This is perfect.”
I scrolled through them swiftly, each business-card sized frame rolling upward, until I came to the series closest to the tearing out of the victim’s heart. More slowly now, I scrolled through them, and as I did there was a series of sixty or so that were exactly the same—the murderer, frozen, just before he tore out her heart. The only difference to each of the frames was the amount of darkness, and three of those frames were complete darkness just before the murder.
I studied them, frowning, and said, “He’s definitely hesitating—for about half a second, I reckon. But how come some of these are black?”
“I’ll ask the geek squad to look at them,” Tuatu said. “It’s probably just a problem with the file, like I said, but we’d better make sure.”
“D’you reckon he’s hesitating because she’s a woman? None of the other victims on the flash drive are female.”
“He could be,” Tuatu said. “But I don’t think so. Someone who can pull out someone else’s heart isn’t likely to be squeamish about killing a woman as well.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I said, in dissatisfaction. “But he’s definitely hesitating—and the shadows do something weird every time he hesitates.”
“It’s not when he hesitates,” the detective said. “It’s afterward. First the shadows are everywhere, then as soon as he does…whatever it is he’s doing, they’re gone.”
“Does it happen in any of the others? I only remember the one from the club in Salamanca.”
“Not that I noticed,” said the detective. “He keeps turning off lights before he goes in, though.”
“All right,” I said, clicking on a random footage file. I wasn’t so sure—I seemed to remember something about shadows in one of the other murders, but I couldn’t remember which one.
The footage flickered up, the date stamped in the bottom left-hand corner, and I said, “Hey, this is the one after the woman got killed. How come they weren’t in order?”
“They were when I sent them with Athelas,” Tuatu said, frowning. “Did you reorder them by accident?”
“Heck if I know. You reckon this bloke is planning on killing someone else? He’s already killed five people, and you’d think that’d be enough for one bloke.”
“Those three seem to think he is. They’re preparing to keep someone safe at the moment.”
“Ah, so that’s where they’ve been going all week!”
Detective Tuatu said something under his breath that might have been rude. I was pretty sure he’d forgotten he wasn’t meant to talk to me about any of this.
“Don’t worry,” I said, grinning. “I won’t tell on you. Oi. Does the murderer look a bit thinner to you in this one?”
The detective nodded. “I thought so, too, but he’s always wearing one of those big suede jackets, so it’s hard to get a good read on size. It might just be this recording, too.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. “I mean, the victim’s hair looks like someone put a mop on his head, so—”
“No, that’s because he’s wearing a wig and there’s a huge lump in his skull underneath it. Apparently he had a rare type of benign tumour—he was going in for surgery tomorrow. I found out from the slab boys in the morgue this morning.”
“So that’s why it bulges out funny on the right side.”
“Exactly. I thought it was just the shadows when I watched the footage the first time.”
“Yeah, that’s another thing. Doesn’t it look like there’s a lot of ’em in this one, too?” I asked him. “The shadows, I mean; more than usual. And they seem to move a lot, too.”
Detective Tuatu squinted at the monitor. “Are you sure it’s not just because the lights are out? It’s pretty hard to see anything along the bottom half of the room with that floor. It could just be the blood.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “Maybe. Let’s look at the one from the club house—it’s all pink and white on the bottom half. Should be easier to see shadow against that, even when he turns the light off.”
Tuatu switched videos with a few clicks of the mouse and brought up the exact time when the murderer entered the room.
“Watched these a few times, have you?” I said, with grim amusement. “Oi! Tuatu, his cap—!”
At the same time, the detective said, “No way.”
We looked at each other, wide eyed, then back at the screen. In the club room, the murderer’s right side was to the screen, his cap bulging at the side. The clothes were all the same as they had been in every other clip, but that cap…
Tuatu leaned forward and snapped down on the pause button.
“There’s no way,” he said. “This one is the latest murder—it’s after the one we just watched. The bloke’s dead, and he’s definitely not the murderer. It’s gotta be a trick of the lighting.”
“Pretty flamin’ specific trick of the lighting,” I said slowly, my thoughts whirling. I’d seen a dead man, and so had the concierge. He hadn’t taken it too well, but I knew better—I should have known better. I hadn’t even double checked the footage. I said in annoyance, “I’m an idiot.”
“What is it?
“You blokes thought the concierge had been drinking a bit, didn’t you?”
“He smelt like a brewery and he told us he saw the murdered bloke leave the club three hours after he was dead.”
“Fantastic!” I said, beaming.
“I’m glad you think so,” Tuatu said grumpily. “It’s not much good for us if we need to put him on the witness stand!”
“Yeah, but I saw a dead bloke yesterday, myself,” I told him, grinning. “I reckon we’ve got a lead for the psychos.”
“You saw a dead—have they been taking you to crime scenes again?”
“Nah, this dead bloke was walking around, buying smokes.”
“He what?”
“He was at the cigarette counter, buying cigarettes. His name’s Cameron Michaels, according to his ID.”
“That makes absolutely no sense, Pet.”
“You’re telling me! What kind of Behindkind smokes cigarettes? I didn’t think their lungs were even the same as ours. I know their blood’s not.”
“Talking with you is a rollercoaster, you know that? None of the murdered men were named Cameron Michaels.”
“I’d look into it if I were you,” I advised. “Reckon the psychos will be interested.”
“Haven’t you already told them about seeing a dead bloke?” There was incredulity to his voice. “Pet!”
“I thought the psychos already knew,” I said. Now, I doubted it. Whatever JinYeong had been looking at in the street that day, it hadn’t been the dead bloke. “I’ll tell ’em. You just find out about that name, and who he is.”
“I’ll look i
nto it,” he said. “But I’m telling them when I know.”
“I told you,” I said, a bit grumpily. “I’ll tell ’em about the bloke. Just make sure you’ve got the info ready when they ask.”
Tuatu sipped his tea and leaned back in his chair. “They’ve got a name now, you know.”
“You changing the subject?”
“Yes. The boys upstairs are calling them the Troika.”
“I already heard,” I said. “Flamin’ imaginative of everyone. Oi. I didn’t think there were any boys upstairs anymore.”
There was a brief pause before Tuatu said cautiously, “They don’t go up to the seventh floor any more, but they’ve got an upper floor feel to them. They’re just keeping their heads down.”
“Reckon that’s why no one’s followed up on trying to frame you? ’Cos they’re keeping their heads down for now?”
“I’m still keeping an eye out for that, believe me,” said Tuatu.
“All right,” I said. “I better tell the psychos about it, though. They’ll want to know that there’s still Upper Management worming their way around in the police station.”
“I’m not going to lose a limb for it,” Tuatu warned me. “I’ll tell them—and I won’t let on that I told you. I’m pretty sure that’s something I’m not meant to be discussing with you.”
“Sook,” I said accusatorily. “All right, you tell ’em about that. I’ll let them know about Cameron Michaels. Don’t go telling your boss you’re looking him up, though.”
“Of course, I was going to tell my boss that I’m running an address search on a dead bloke. Makes perfect sense.”
“You going straight back to the station from here?”
Detective Tuatu looked across at me. “Are you kicking me out?”
“Yeah. I’ve got to finish off dinner yet, and they’ll be back soon.”
“I want to ask them some questions, too.”
Oh yeah. Detective Tuatu was also investigating. “Sorry,” I said, grinning. I should be the last person trying to push people out of an investigation. “You can stay for dinner, too, if you want. It’s just chilli mince, so there’s a whole pot of it. You like cornbread?”
“If it’s cooked, I’ll eat it,” he said, shrugging. I had the feeling he didn’t trust my cooking.
Mind you, I’ve seen his place, and what there is to eat there. He couldn’t do much worse, if you asked me.
“It’s cooked and it’s good,” I said coldly. “C’mon; you can help me by setting the table.”
“Just a second,” he said. “I want to check something first.”
“What are we checking?” I plumped myself back into my seat and watched him flicker over the flash drive icon with the mouse.
First he turned it into a list, then he ordered it by date.
“Nice,” I said, giving him the thumbs up. “Make sure we’ve got the evidence in order. Good thinking.”
“I have my moments,” he murmured, and pressed play.
It was much more obvious watching the clips in the order that the murders happened. Still just as unbelievable, but more obvious. In the first clip our murderer was shorter than the bloke he murdered, a slightly chunky man in a big jacket and big shoes. In the second, I could see the difference in the way that jacket sat on him—the shoulders were filled out right to the seams, and if I wasn’t mistaken, there was a bit more wrist sticking out from the cuffs when he punched the dead woman in the chest.
Then in the next, the jacket was barely filled, a thinner, more boyish murderer who might, I thought suspiciously, be wearing a wig, or at least tucking it up under that cap. If we hadn’t been watching it in order—if we’d been watching it in the order it had come in—it might have evened out, or been put down to difference in security systems. Seen like this, it was very clear.
The fourth file was even more obvious. The lump on the side of our murderer’s head, the same one I’d seen on his victim in the previous clip, was too clear to be ignored. And in the fifth clip, in the Orient Hotel, was Cameron Michaels—or a flaming good replica of him—sitting on a couch and waiting to be murdered.
“Unless he’s doing a very good job of makeup for some psychological reasons of his own,” I said to Tuatu, when the clip ran out, “this dude is changing shape to look like his victim every time he murders someone. And that last one—that’s him. Cameron Michaels.”
“I see it,” said Tuatu slowly, “but I still can’t believe it. And the name’s still wrong.”
“Well,” I said, grinning. “At least you know that you can go back to the rest of the footage with a timeline in mind.”
“You think he’s going to be there in all the other footage, in order, as the last person he murdered, to scout out security cameras.”
“Yeah.”
“I hate my job.”
“Yeah,” I said again. “It’s gunna be hard to bring this out in court, isn’t it?”
“It won’t even get to court,” he said, grimly. “They’ll say the evidence is doctored, and I can’t disprove that. Or they’ll say it has no bearing on the case, and I can’t prove it does.”
“Ah,” I said, more slowly. “You’re cranky because you have no way of bringing the bloke to justice, so you know it’s going to be Zero and the others dealing with him.”
“I don’t like working like this.”
“Yeah, but how else are you going to get justice if our laws aren’t big enough to stop these people? Most of the victims weren’t human, either.”
“How many were human?”
“Just one. So it’s kinda a Behind problem anyway, right?”
“That doesn’t mean I’m happy about this.”
“I know. But it’s a bit better, right?”
“A bit.”
“C’mmon,” I said, getting up. “I’ll get you more tea and finish dinner. They’ll probably be back soon.”
Chapter Eight
The psychos were pretty good at knowing when dinner time was when they were out of the house—good enough that I wondered whether they had some sort of spell in the kitchen or something.
JinYeong wandered into the kitchen as I was just about to dish out, and I felt the familiar twitch of Between heralding the arrival of the other two.
“Here they come,” I said, without thinking about it.
Detective Tuatu gave me a funny look, but he jumped pretty high when the wall beside him softened and parted to admit first Zero’s huge figure and then Athelas’ slenderer one.
“Finally!” muttered JinYeong, his words caught up in the general excess of Between. “They came!”
“Ah, have we made you wait?” enquired Athelas. “And yet, it seems that the food is not upon the table.”
“We found a thing!” I said exultantly, ignoring both JinYeong’s disgruntled look and the way he stalked over to the table.
Zero didn’t look particularly excited, but Athelas said, “How interesting! We, on the other hand, found very little.”
“We were meant to find very little,” Zero said. There was a hardness to his voice that I wondered about.
“The fae take you for a ride?” I asked them. Flaming golden fae. I knew he’d do that. Well, I had good info for Zero, and if they’d made a bargain for catching the murderer, he’d have to keep to it.
“You use the quaintest phraseology!” said Athelas admiringly.
He waited, smilingly, in silence, until I explained, “I mean, did they give you bad info?”
“It wasn’t bad.” Zero sank into his seat. “It’s just…limited in its usefulness.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, we found a thing that might help.”
“I very much doubt it,” said Zero wearily. “Pet, we’re waiting for food.”
Athelas opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again. Taking my cue from him, I too shut my mouth and put the chilli pot on the table. Detective Tuatu, looking annoyed, brought over the corn bread.
“You might want to listen to Pet,” he said. “I
’m off, Pet. I know what I need to do. You can call me if you need anything else.”
“Thought you were gunna ask some questions?” I called after him as he stepped down into the living room. “There’s dinner!”
“I’ve lost my appetite,” he said.
“Now look what you’ve done!” I said accusingly to my three psychos, as the front door opened and closed. “You’ve scared him off again!”
“I don’t think we scared him off,” Athelas said. “I have the feeling the detective was annoyed.”
“He’ll have to learn to deal with it,” Zero said shortly. “Pet, what did you discover that is so important?”
“He’s changing his face every time he kills someone. Well, not his face—his whole body.”
“I wonder,” said Athelas thoughtfully, “I wonder just how you knew that.”
“I know you lot think humans aren’t that bright,” I said, “but you’ve gotta know we’ll realise it when you give us a game of spot-the-difference to play.”
“We didn’t expect you to be quite so perspicacious, Pet,” explained Athelas.
“Why bother giving it to me to look at, then?” I demanded. I’d only half been joking when I remarked that they’d given it to me to stop me following them and poking my nose into their business. Now, I felt more than slightly miffed. They’d already known about it? “You know I’m not a dog or a cat, right?”
Zero helped himself to more chilli with the short, exasperated movements of a man who would much rather not be having the conversation he was having. “No, but you are a human. You’re not expected to function on the same level that we do.”
“Yeah, thanks a lot.”
“If it helps, Pet,” said Athelas, “I was genuinely interested in what you would see when you looked at the footage. It was also my suggestion to mix the files out of order.”
Zero said around a mouthful of cornbread, “It wasn’t a particularly helpful suggestion, it seems.”
“Perhaps not in the event,” agreed Athelas. “Well, Pet, now that you know we already know this much about our murderer, do you think we could peacefully have tea?”
“Yeah,” I said, eyes sparkling, “but did you already know he’s still around?”
Between Frames (The City Between Book 4) Page 13