by Carl Goodman
Eva ground her teeth. ‘Well, that is a fortunate coincidence, isn’t it?’
‘Yes it is. But I have somebody checking it out as we speak.’
She should have known by now. She gave Moresby a brief smile and a nod of acknowledgement. ‘So what happened afterwards? When did he leave?’
Moresby face crumpled into a frown once again. ‘That’s proving harder to trace. The logs concerning vehicles exiting the estate aren’t as comprehensive as those going in.’ He shrugged. ‘It happens.’
It did; she understood that. Even with the best of intentions systems fall into disrepair. She remembered the quote from a lecture on database management. The discrepancy stuck in her mind, though. ‘So what would have happened when the killer’s van left?’
‘He’ll have been picked up on a traffic camera somewhere; it’s just a question of tracking him down. There’s extensive ANPR around here, even in some of the larger petrol stations.’
Automatic Number Plate Recognition; Eva knew the technology intimately. DVLC used it to alert police to vehicles being driven without road tax or insurance. It bothered her, it really did. It was a thought straining to escape, one that had the same flavour to it as all the other minute triggers and sensations that had pricked her consciousness and troubled her ever since she arrived at the crime scene. A crawling in her scalp, something hidden in plain sight.
When she spoke, the words came slowly, as though the ideas behind them were still forming, which they were. ‘So he was smart enough to fake the number plate on the van. Would he be smart enough to know about ANPR?’ Moresby said nothing. A rhetorical question, she decided. Of course he would. ‘And if ANPR picked him up, we would be able to track the van back to wherever he chose to get rid of it.’ She could see that Moresby was starting to understand. Lex parsimoniae, Eva told herself. Keep It Simple, Stupid.
She looked around the crime scene, at Wren and her gruesome gardening and groups of SOCOs turning over every blade of grass. No need to disturb them yet, Eva decided. She turned back to Moresby.
‘Sergeant, why don’t you and I go for a walk?’
Eva led them out past the line of blue-and-white tape that still twisted and jerked in the sporadic breeze. The lane was quiet; half a dozen police cars and a couple of black SOCO vans clustered around the entrance to the house, and beyond those she saw where she had parked her car, part way up on a grass verge.
If it had been almost anywhere else there would have been gawkers, Eva thought as they stepped into the lane. A knot of people hanging around the tape pestering the constable on duty with questions, craning their necks, hoping to catch a glimpse of a body being lifted onto a gurney or a suspect being led out in handcuffs. Not here. Here the lane was empty, the houses beyond it still and silent as though the occupants understood the true nature of violence and had enough sense to want to keep away from it.
‘You think the van is still here.’
It was not a question. Moresby spoke quietly and narrowed his eyes to protect them from the dust swept up by the breeze. They walked out of the gate and turned right, headed in the opposite direction from which Eva had entered the estate.
She did not bother to deny it. ‘The one thing you can say for certain about this killing is it was planned. No part of it was spontaneous, not even the mineral water bottle they used to drain the victim’s blood into. I’d bet a small amount of money they even brought that with them, because they knew the houses round here have water softeners and they might not find a suitable container on site. It’s a hard-water area, right? So they even anticipated that detail.’
‘I’m not arguing with you. I’m not taking your bet either.’
‘He knows about ANPR. I mean he has to, there’s a sign up at every petrol pump at the garage on the A3 roundabout that tells you it’s being used.’
‘You’re assuming it’s a he.’
She paused at that. ‘Eighty per cent plus probability I’d guess. Did the guy on the gate confirm the driver was male?’
‘I don’t believe he did. He said the driver opened the window and held the package out; he didn’t get a sight of his face. Oh.’ Moresby stopped as if remembering another detail. ‘He said the driver was wearing gloves. Like driving gloves, or maybe cycling mitts.’
Eva thought for a moment. ‘But he would have taken them off to commit the murder. I bet he would have used surgical gloves to do the actual job.’ They reached a fork in the lane, a few hundred metres from the gate to the house, and stopped.
‘Look at the chain of events leading up to the murder. The parcel was prepared, so we know the choice of victim was not opportunistic. The housekeeper was out, so he knew what time to turn up. The van was prepared, he had a uniform and he knew where he was going. If Wren is right then he shocked her with a stun gun of some sort, sedated her, stripped her, tied her to a chair with ties he must have brought with him, stuck a catheter in her carotid artery and drained her blood into a container he also brought with him, cut off her eyelids and extracted her eyes, probably with a surgical implement, again brought with him because I doubt we’ll find scalpels lying around the house. That’s a hell of a lot of preparation to get in and commit the crime. Is he going to show any less preparation on the way out?’
The question did not need an answer. ‘So what do we do now?’
Eva waved at the path. ‘Which way do you want to go?’
* * *
Moresby went left. She picked the path to her right. Not quite a random choice; Eva had one more suspicion, one she did not yet dare share with the hulking sergeant. She held her radio in her right hand, thumb on the call button just in case.
She knew it was not superstition, not some hypothetical sixth sense. Pattern recognition, Eva reminded herself, is the most powerful human cognitive skill. It’s what we do. It’s how our brains evolved to work, to see predators in the undergrowth and prey on the savannah. It’s a reflexive skill though, it happens without any higher-level function being required. It’s how, when we see something thrown at us from the corner of our eye, we know instinctively to duck or catch. And it’s how we make sense from chaos, seemingly without ever knowing what the process was.
The lane arced slowly around to the right and climbed gently. St Jude’s Hill was not much of a hill, but then Surrey was a county of only gentle undulations. When she looked at a map on her phone she noted that the lane would eventually double back towards the rear of the property where Irina Stepanov had lived. A thousand questions posed themselves inside her head. She tried to ignore all but one of them. The other questions would wait. Only one needed answering immediately. Was he still here?
Eva drew more Venn diagrams in her head, marked out overlapping circles of sets and circumstances, and thought about the meticulous way in which the killing had been planned. Nothing had been left to chance. So why risk rushing out of the estate and the possibility that he might be seen or even caught, when all he had to do was find somewhere to hide in a thousand acres of land, and wait until the scene of crime team had done their job? If you had enough nerve, Eva thought as she walked along the deserted lane, it would be the smart thing to do.
Fuck, could she actually believe that? The killing had been so cold, so clinical that she found she could. She did not dare share it with Moresby yet. To do so would reveal just how calculating her own thought processes were, and she didn’t know him anywhere near well enough for that.
A hundred metres along the lane she stopped and listened. Birdsong, the distant roar of traffic on the A3, but nothing else. Not a damn thing, Eva thought as she took a few more paces. The houses were silent bubbles within this network of lanes lined with dense hedgerows and high, mature bushes, each one keeping its secrets to itself. When she turned she caught sight of the roof of the Stepanov property, red tiles and satellite dishes just peeking above rhododendrons. Eva went to turn away, but as she did so something else caught her eye. She stepped towards it, triumphant, because she knew what she would find.
A white van, hidden in a space behind the bushes.
She thumbed her radio. ‘Moresby,’ she said when she heard the other end connect. ‘I think I’ve got it. About two hundred metres back down the lane.’
Eva imagined him turning to run. ‘On my way.’
She looked around her. There was nothing else, no sign of life or movement. She crept around the back of the bush and came to where the van had been parked, up on a grass verge and just out of sight of the lane, hidden by thick leaves and in shade from a conifer. It had to be the van. Same colour and the same make. Eva peered in at the back, but the windows were tinted and she could see nothing. She moved around to the front.
The driver’s side window stood open. Gingerly, she put her head into the van. A key still rested in the ignition. A smell. A stench maybe, like that of hospitals. Cleaning fluid of some sort. The van had been wiped. On the passenger’s seat, a brown package with an Amazon logo on it. Nothing else. She brought her head out of the car.
She nearly died.
It took her a split second to process the image of the thing she saw in front of her. Face covered, a thin black balaclava under a black waterproof hood. Eyes covered. Cycling goggles maybe, round and insectile, deep red, shielded by a reflective coating in which Eva could see her own image. Black trousers. Lightweight but with pockets down the legs, army-style. Black trainers, ankle high. Black gloves, thin but with pads across the knuckles. Six foot, lean but powerful build, moving quickly towards her and with something in his hand.
She screamed. A yelp maybe, a sound that caught in her throat. Eva swept her arm in front of her reflexively bringing the tangle of her coat with it, but she felt it none the less. A sudden crackling. A jagged white flame that danced between copper electrodes protruding from a black plastic casing. Wren had been right, she thought in that instant as the charge dissipated along the fabric of her coat, shocking her skin, sending her scalp crawling, lifting the hair all over her body and her head. The bastard had a stun gun.
Eva staggered back. He hesitated for a split second. She could guess why. Had he stunned her? Her coat had prevented him from making solid contact. He would see that in a moment and come at her again. If she turned to run he would jam the stun gun right in-between her shoulder blades. She did the only thing she could think of. She kicked him.
She aimed for his kneecap, although she knew she didn’t have much chance of doing any damage, but she caught his leg above the knee, just enough to hurt. She heard him snarl. For a moment he reached towards the pain. Eva slapped him round the side of the head with the flat of her palm, as hard as she could physically mange.
Muffled screaming. A shout of incandescent rage. ‘You fucking bitch! I’ll fucking kill you!’ He would too. She knew that for a fact. She started to turn away but he stabbed the stun gun at her. This time he caught her hand.
Pain exploded in her arm. She didn’t know if she screamed. Excruciating, like he had slammed a hammer down on her bones. The shock extended into her shoulder, her arm twitched and spasmed as if disassociated from her, as if it were possessed. She couldn’t move. He came at her again.
Behind her, a roar. A sudden bellowing, raw and animalistic. Moresby, extendable truncheon drawn, brandishing it like a broadsword. A hiss from the figure in front of her. She could not move, couldn’t get out of his way. He switched the stun gun to his left hand, reached across her with his right and slammed her head sideways into the side of the van.
Bright lights, brilliant, inside her head. She did not remember the next few seconds. Then she heard Moresby yelling, swearing, and a strangled cry. Eva turned. Felt the trickle of blood down the side of her neck where he had split her ear open. Saw Moresby on the ground a dozen feet away. Saw the black-clad figure straddling him, stun gun jammed into Moresby’s throat, Moresby twitching and spasming like a frog being fried alive. He was killing him.
Nothing else she could do. She ran at him. Screamed. Not some high-pitch keening, a visceral yell that came from her gut, from some place inside her she had never seen before. Left arm hanging useless at her side, she swung her leg with everything she had, punting it towards him. Right into his ribs.
It even hurt her foot. He arched back, almost dropped the stun gun. Eva screamed again. Kicked him in the head. Not so effective this time but enough to make him roll off Moresby. She went to kick him for a third time, but he was on his feet. The stun gun crackled in his hand, but then it died. No charge left, Eva thought. Then he punched her in the face.
She expected more, but nothing came. When she rolled onto her side she caught a glimpse of him on a black mountain bike tearing off down the lane. Moresby didn’t move. She crawled to where her radio lay in the grass, thumbed the panic button and screamed at it. ‘Officer down! Suspect on mountain bike, officer down.’ A moment’s silence. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ Eva screeched as she stared at Moresby, prostrate on the ground. ‘I need a fucking ambulance. Now.’
Eva straddled him and pushed down with her right arm. Sensation was beginning to return to her left, but it was not enough to help with CPR. Did he need it? She could not tell. She pumped his sternum anyway. Blood from her ear dripped down on his face. Around his throat she saw the livid marks of the electric stun gun where it had delivered thousands of volts into his neck and scorched the skin. She listened for breathing, but could not hear any. Maybe it wasn’t his heart. Maybe his oesophagus had spasmed and closed his throat with the shock. She didn’t know what to do. She could hear sirens in the distance, but they might not reach them in time, and she did not know what to do.
Then she did. Pushing down on Moresby’s jaw with her limp left arm, she shoved the fingers of her right hand into his mouth and down his throat. What she felt terrified her. Christ, she thought, he’s swallowed his tongue.
Eva gouged at the inside of Moresby’s throat, and tried to coax the flaccid organ back into his mouth. It wouldn’t come. It wouldn’t fucking come. She shoved all four fingers into his mouth, gouged, scraped at his oesophagus. Massaged the back of his throat. He’s dead, she thought. He must be. Then Moresby vomited.
A spume of acrid liquid soaked her hand and her arm. He jerked; his back arched and he rolled, throwing her off him. She crashed down on hard, dark tarmac while Moresby lay on his side, spewing his guts up. He kept vomiting for almost a minute. After that he managed to speak. Eva lay on her back and stared up at the tangle of branches above her.
The first thing Moresby asked was: ‘Are you alright?’ The second was: ‘Did we get him?’
Chapter Three
Eva finally made it to Kingston police station almost three hours later. She parked her car in the station yard at the back of the building, a brick construction barely a stone’s throw away from the Thames, and made her way to the front desk.
Her ear throbbed. When the paramedics arrived they had gone straight to Moresby’s aid, but the sergeant had been sitting up by then. They checked his heart but the greater concern had been for the burn marks around his throat. When Eva told them what she had done the two paramedics, a man and a woman, had glanced at each other. ‘Inducing vomiting convulsion to force tongue out of blocked airway,’ the woman had said. ‘That’s original.’
They insisted Moresby go to hospital for further observation, even though with predictable inevitability he had assured them he was fine. They patched Eva’s ear once they were done. She watched the ambulance drive off almost with a sense of envy. Moresby might have nearly died, but somebody had to take over the crime scene and organise the search for the killer, who would by now be miles away. It turned out she didn’t have to do much, though. Moresby’s people cut her a lot of slack that morning.
She wanted to go back to her flat to shower and change, but by early afternoon Sutton was sending her texts. Eva could not do any more at the crime scene, so reluctantly she found her car and snarled a postcode at the sat-nav. She stank; she stank and she hurt. And the bastard had got away.
Detective Chief Inspector Corrine Sutto
n did not strike her as a happy woman. A constable led her to an office on the third floor of the station where Sutton sat, one leg up on her desk. Eva almost raised a slender eyebrow but then noticed that the foot on the end of the leg was encased in plaster. She tried not to stare. ‘Good afternoon, ma’am,’ Eva said, intent on conjuring some pretence of professionalism.
Sutton put her head back and laughed. There was no humour in the sound. ‘How the hell do you work that out?’ Eva didn’t know how to respond, but Sutton waved at the chair in front of her desk. ‘I’m not going to stand and you look like you need to sit.’ When it seemed as though she hadn’t made herself plain, Sutton spoke again. ‘Sit down, DI Harris.’
It wasn’t exactly an impressive office, but Eva had not expected it to be. At least it had something of a view. Beyond the line of Victorian houses, the ground floors of which had mostly been converted into shops and restaurants, Eva could just see the rolling swathe of the Thames sparkling in the afternoon sun and the verdant trees of royal parks on the Hampton Court side of the river. Inside the office Eva noticed a handful of photographs of Sutton with senior officers, receiving awards of some sort or another. The placing of them struck her as telling. Shoved up at the back of a grey metal filing cabinet as though Sutton had put them there because they were required to be there, not because they meant anything to her. There was another photo, a family grouping of some sort. Sunlight had faded it.
Eva perched awkwardly, conscious of the fact she stank and that she had bloodstains smeared down her blouse. Sutton ignored her discomfort and waved conversationally at her own foot and the fluorescent yellow cast that wrapped it. ‘I thought I was going to be shot of this today. I suppose I shouldn’t bitch, though. First thing this morning I was still plastered up to the thigh.’
And suddenly the rest of the day made some degree of sense. ‘I had no idea, ma’am,’ Eva said. ‘Was it an accident?’
