Motive

by Alan McDermott

  After checking her phone, Karen went back into the workshop and strapped herself in once more. She managed another sixteen strokes, then called it a day. She’d completed the front legs of the horse, but the rest could wait. She was already a few weeks ahead of schedule, and it wasn’t the only piece she was working on. She carefully released the ring from its mount and set it aside in a cloth-lined box, then replaced it with the gold piece she’d been working on for the last few nights.

  She wouldn’t receive a penny for this work, but she wasn’t doing it for the money. Pieces like the ring she was decorating for the Fordhams paid the bills, but this project was personal. No one would ever see the finished product. At least, not the block of gold she was working on.

  Once it was secured in place, Karen took the photo she was working from and placed it next to the gold ingot. The picture had been taken with a high-resolution camera and was exactly the same size as the piece of precious metal she was working on. There were no horses, no buildings or people, just a series of lines that looped and whorled to create a pattern so unique that it could identify one person among the seven and a half billion on the planet.

  While she was excited to get back to work on the latest set of fingerprints, her joy was tempered by the fact that she would have to destroy them once complete. She’d done so three times before, creating masterpieces and then obliterating them once finished, but that went with the territory. Only a fool would leave such evidence lying around for the police to find, though she never expected them to come calling. Up until now, each kill had gone as expected, including the latest one involving Sean Conte.

  She got to work on the piece of art, for that was what it was. It might not be a Caravaggio or Monet, but it gave her as much pleasure as any landscape or still life she’d drawn at school.

  Art had been the only class she’d enjoyed as a child. She’d done sufficiently well in her other topics to get Bs and Cs in her GCSEs, but her only A* had come in art. On leaving school at sixteen, she’d applied for jobs that would let her take advantage of her only skill, but there were few opportunities available. Karen had eventually found work in graphic design at an advertising agency, but it wasn’t what she’d hoped for. Mostly she was told what to draw and had to work within strict parameters, which stifled her creativity. She put up with it, though, because she had bills to pay. In her spare time she’d created works of her own and set up an online shop, offering framed original works. They sold slowly at first, and with each sale she’d upped the price a little until she was commanding over three hundred pounds per picture. It had taken her over a year to get to that point, but even then, two sales a month wasn’t close to what she needed to go solo.

  Her break had come three years after leaving school. On visiting an art gallery in the hope of getting them to show her work, she’d seen a display of engravings. One piece, a silver shield four inches across, had a price tag of thirty thousand pounds, and Karen could see why. The intricate carving was perfect in every detail. The roses, castle, archers and lion told of a truly gifted hand, and she’d researched the artist. There wasn’t much information online, but he did have his contact details on his website. She’d sent him an email asking to meet, expecting it to be ignored, but to her astonishment, he’d invited her around to his studio.

  Damian Elsworth was not quite the man she’d expected. He was in his sixties, much older than Karen had envisioned. He was also frailer, and over glasses of orange juice, he’d answered her questions with enthusiasm. He’d invited her to try her hand, she suspected in an effort to prove how difficult a craft it was, but Karen had surprised both of them. She’d recreated one of his roses on a piece of scrap silver, and though the cuts were deeper than ideal and the shape a little off, Elsworth had declared it a fine first attempt. Karen had seized the moment and asked if he was looking for an apprentice, but Elsworth had shaken his head, telling her that he was close to retirement and couldn’t afford to take anyone on. It was only when she offered to work for free two days a week that he relented.

  Karen immediately informed her boss at the advertising agency that she had to go part-time, and spent every Tuesday and Friday for the next year under Elsworth’s tutelage. The money she made from her own artwork more than made up for the cut in salary.

  From her last year in high school to her twenty-second birthday, Karen hadn’t stopped thinking about the man she’d murdered. She didn’t often think about the deed, more the feeling of raw elation at getting away with it. She’d never once considered repeating the feat until the day she smudged the sheet of silver she was going to be working on.

  Her first thought had been to wipe it clean, but something made her stop. She’d picked up her loupe and examined the smudge, clearly making out the individual ridges, loops and whorls. The seed of an idea was planted and when she got home that night, Karen began experimenting.

  At first, she was disappointed. The work was too fine to be done with just a small magnifying glass, so she’d purchased a cheap second-hand microscope. Subsequent efforts were better, but it was clear that if she wanted to do this properly, she would have to invest in the right tools. She’d bought the Kern online, and paid good money for a set of micro-gravers, but the outlay had been well worth it. Within a month, she had an exact replica of her own fingerprint in silver. After cleaning the piece to remove every scrap of dirt and dust, she made a plaster cast of it, and once that was dry, she used the plaster mold to produce a rubber copy. She’d tested it out, but the rubber left no mark on the sheet of silver. She found that she had to rub it on her own palm first to get the oils from her skin to adhere to the rubber. Only then would it leave a print on the metal. Karen had spent three hours comparing her own print with the fake one, and it was flawless. She’d used superglue to attach the rubber prints to a pair of gloves, then tried it on her laptop, which had a biometric entry system that logged her in when she ran her finger over the scanner. That, too, had proven a success.

  It was time to recreate the feeling she’d had when Dane Edwards had been convicted of murdering Colin Harper. However, research showed that her plan would backfire unless she took precautions. Several websites had mentioned that DNA could now be easily extracted from the oils in the skin that made up latent prints. Experimentation showed that most over-the-counter moisturisers left a decent enough impression on most surfaces, so she was able to use that as a workaround by smearing it on the gloves before putting them on.

  Two kills later, and she hadn’t made a single mistake. That was down to hours of research into forensic evidence. She’d purchased a pay-as-you-go mobile without registering it and created a new Gmail email account. The only time she used her disposable phone was when she was in the city, logging onto the internet at McDonald’s or one of the other Wi-Fi hotspots. She would sit for hours learning about techniques used by police forces around the world, though she was under no illusion that everything was being divulged. It would make a criminal’s life much easier if they could just look up the things to avoid when committing a robbery or murder, so much of it had been guesswork.

  She’d done okay up to now, though.

  The next one would be even better.

  Karen had to take another break as the thought of the upcoming kill caused her heart rate to increase. It took half an hour of deep breathing exercises on the sofa to get it back to thirty beats per minutes, and then she walked back into the workshop and got back into the groove.

  She’d started in the middle of the pattern and was working her way outwards. That way, if she made a mistake, it could be buffed out without having to start from scratch. It was painstaking work, but one mistake could scupper everything. Every ridge ending had to terminate at the right point, every bifurcation branching off at the correct angle.

  It was worth the effort. DNA found at a crime scene could be explained away in most cases by a semi-competent defence lawyer: contamination; a deliberate planting of evidence; an innocent brush with the victim on a prio
r date.

  Having DNA and fingerprints was a case-clincher, especially when complemented by her speciality.

  Motive.

  Chapter 10

  Ryan Anderson woke ten minutes before his alarm was due to go off. Paul had told him to have an early night and be ready to go at six in the morning, though he hadn’t been given any further details.

  At least he wouldn’t have to queue for the shower; none of the other residents were ever up at five in the morning.

  After doing a hundred sit-ups and a hundred push-ups, he threw on a dressing gown and took his wash bag down two flights of stairs to the small shower room he shared with five others. It was barely big enough for him to wash in, and he’d lost count of the number of times he’d hit his elbows on the wall while scrubbing his body. Just how the large woman in room two managed to squeeze in, never mind wash, was beyond him.

  Ryan swapped his slippers for plastic flip-flops and surveyed the tiled floor. No matter how clean he left the room after washing, it was always filthy the next time he used it. Today was no exception. Soap suds from the previous night had congealed into a green slime on the floor, and after putting a fifty pence coin into the meter, he used up half of his water allowance cleaning it away. He got under the tepid stream and washed as quickly as he could, forgoing the shampoo cycle.

  He thought about leaving the shower as it was, but his years in the army had taught him self-discipline. He used the last of the water to wash down the walls and floor, then went back up to his bedsit and dressed.

  Ryan was on his second coffee of the morning when the intercom buzzed. He grabbed his jacket and locked the room, then ran down the stairs. Paul was waiting on the doorstep.

  Ryan offered him his phone, but Paul shook his head. “Keep it.”

  It promised to be another beautiful summer day, the sun already up and not a cloud in sight.

  “So what’s the plan?” Ryan asked as they got in the BMW. “Pay Mickey another visit?”

  “No, we’re off to Dover. A consignment came in and the boss wants us to fetch it.”

  “Dover? That’s about three hundred miles away!”

  “Two hundred and eighty, give or take. We can do it in about six hours if there’s no traffic. And what’s with the designer stubble? You forget to shave, or d’ya think you’re the next George Michael?”

  Ryan rubbed his chin. “I like the look. The girls dig it, too.”

  “Maybe twenty years ago,” Paul laughed. “Word to the wise, Marsh likes his men smart, and that means shaving each morning.”

  “Got it. I’ll buy an electric razor as soon as I get paid for this job. How much will I get, by the way?”

  “Four hundred,” Paul told him. “But if everything goes smoothly, you’ve got the job. A grand a week, cash in hand. You can get yourself a decent pad and some proper threads.”

  “I’ll have to declare that if I want to rent somewhere,” Ryan said. “They’ll want payslips and all that.”

  “Nah, Marsh has a few properties dotted around. He’s got a nice place up in Castlefield for eleven hundred a month, but if anyone asks, he’s charging you six. He’ll put you on the payroll at minimum wage, part-time, just enough so that you don’t pay tax or national insurance but enough to pay your rent if anyone starts digging. He’ll make up the rest in cash.”

  “Sounds great. Can’t wait to get out of that fucking bedsit.”

  Paul turned the air blue as he berated an old lady who’d waited a couple of seconds too long to pull away after the traffic lights changed.

  “You got a surname?” Ryan asked.

  “Gardner.”

  “And how long have you known Mar...Mr Marsh?”

  “Ten years,” Paul said as he indicated and changed lanes.

  “So what are we picking up from Dover?”

  Paul looked over at him. “You’re a real nosy fucker this morning, ain’t ya?”

  “Sorry. I’m just used to being thoroughly briefed before an operation. That episode with Mickey was one thing, but this is different.”

  Paul honked his horn as a van driver slammed on the brakes in front of them. He spun the wheel to the right and drove around it, flipping the driver the finger as he passed.

  “All you need to know is that Marsh has a personal interest in the cargo, so don’t lose it.”

  “Me? You want me to drive it back?”

  “Of course,” Paul said, slapping the steering wheel. “Why the hell do you think I brought you along? You think I’m gonna drive two cars back by myself?”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t thinking,” Ryan said.

  “Good. Too much thinking will get you into trouble. Just do as you’re told, and ask no questions. All you need to know is, the car has to be back in Manchester by midnight, and don’t let anything stop you. Especially the police. If they seize his stuff, Marsh is gonna fuck you up big time.”

  Ryan remained silent as they drove through the centre of Manchester, heading south towards the M56 that would join up with the M6. If the police were likely to be interested in the consignment, it was safe to assume it was illegal.

  Drugs? Guns?

  This is what you signed up for, he told himself. If you take money from a guy like Franklin Marsh, you’re gonna have to do some dodgy shit.

  Paul pressed a button on the dashboard and music blared out of the speakers. He turned it down a couple of notches, and his head bobbed in time to the music. It was some techno beat, the kind of tune Ryan had never been able to get into. He much preferred songs from the late eighties and nineties, but knew that objecting to Paul’s selection would do no good. He was still some way from winning the guy over, so criticising his taste in music wasn’t a good idea.

  Before they reached the motorway, Paul pulled into a petrol station and got out.

  “Head inside and get something to eat for the journey. Take a piss while you’re at it. We won’t be stopping again.”

  Ryan went into the shop while Paul filled the BMW. He selected a couple of sandwiches for them both, plus crisps and chocolate bars. For drinks, he bought small bottles of water. If they weren’t going to stop again, he didn’t want a full bladder.

  Ten minutes later they were on the motorway.

  They talked very little on the way, mostly about Ryan’s time in the army. There hadn’t been any war stories to share as he’d never been called into action, but he did tell Paul about a couple of hilarious moments on exercise.

  “One guy in my unit, a Geordie called Matt, was a real dick. Everyone hated him because he was a lazy sod, never chipping in to keep the barracks tidy. When we found out one summer that we were going to Germany for a week, one of the guys brought long a jar of chili powder. When Matt was sleeping, we poured it into the crotch of every pair of underpants he owned.

  “Nothing happened for the first two days ’cos the dirty bastard didn’t change his undies, but on day three it was hilarious. Out in the woods, marching for an hour in full kit, and suddenly we see him squirming as the sweat mixed with the chili. Every step he took, he was marinating his own bollocks. We were pissing ourselves, but the guy who’d bought the chili had decided to get the most potent blend he could. Matt ended up in hospital and was medically discharged a few weeks later. No one confessed to it, but the whole platoon got in a ton of shit for it. Worth it, though. Well worth it.”

  Paul’s guess was correct. They reached Dover just after midday; the traffic on the M25 was kind to them. Once on the coast road, they headed west, then pulled into the car park of a housing estate. It was one huge building, and Ryan reckoned there must have been at least four hundred apartments in all. To the right was a row of lock-up garages, and a man in a black leather jacket was standing in front of one of them. Paul pulled up next to him and got out. Ryan joined him, glad of the opportunity to stretch his legs.

  “This the new guy?” leather jacket asked.

  “Yeah. Ryan, Terry.”

  They shook hands. Terry was a couple of inches taller than R
yan, and much thinner, but his handshake was firm. He had no visible tattoos, and shared the same taste in clothes as Paul.

  Terry pushed the garage door up and over and the trio walked inside. There was a black Audi parked against one wall to allow the driver access, and according to the plates it was less than two years old.

  Paul went to the back of the garage and picked up an old tin can. After emptying his bladder, he walked outside into the sunshine and threw the contents onto the ground. He went back inside and gave the can to Ryan. “You won’t be stopping on the way home.”

  Ryan took the hint and filled the can. He emptied it in the same place, then put it inside the garage door.

  Terry tossed a set of keys to Paul, who walked to the rear of the Audi and opened the boot. From the front of the garage, Ryan heard Paul unzip something, and guessed it was some kind of holdall. Paul studied the contents for a moment, then with a satisfied nod, he zipped it back up and slammed the boot shut.

  “All yours,” Paul said, handing the keys to Ryan.

  “Where do you want me to take it?”

  “Just follow the sat nav. I’ll be behind you all the way, so don’t even think about stopping to inspect the package.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Ryan assured him truthfully.

  “Glad to hear it. And be warned, that baby’s souped-up. It’ll do close to one-eighty, but I want you to stick to the speed limit all the way. Don’t draw attention to yourself. If you get nicked, Marsh will find you, no matter what prison they throw you in.”