“Parker MacDonald was killed first, between twelve noon and three p.m. yesterday. The twenty-year-old man was killed by manual strangulation.” It appeared now that the superintendent was talking to her, his gaze locked on hers, his face flat. “He also had a wound to the rear of his head. It is believed he was struck by a blunt object, presumably to incapacitate him.”
Without wanting to, Mina dipped her head, breaking away from his gaze, and glanced sideways across the crowded room, close on a hundred people in there now. They stood and sat and perched, each one of their faces tight with tension. There was no chatter, no quietly held sense of excitement. No illusions left, everyone knowing now just how bad this thing could get.
“Jake Gilbert was killed between one p.m. and five p.m. Same scenario—blow to the head, which, in Mr. Gilbert’s case, was sufficient to fracture his skull, followed by manual strangulation.” Eric Bell shifted through his notes. “Interviews with acquaintances of the two young men have allowed us to determine the pattern of their day. Parker MacDonald attended a nine a.m. psychology lecture, had coffee with friends. He was seen around eleven a.m. in the psychology department. According to another student, he decided to return to his residence in order to collect an assignment he’d forgotten to bring with him.”
On the screen behind Eric appeared an aerial photograph of the university and its surrounding areas. He pointed to a footpath connecting the campus to the student village, a line of gray in among a blur of green. “This path cuts through moorland. It’s overgrown, trees on both sides. Students have been warned to avoid it. It’s been the site of a number of sex attacks over the past couple of years. But it’s considerably shorter than the route around the road, and students will be students.” The superintendent turned to Cain, who stood off to one side, arms folded. “Cain? You want to take it from here?”
Cain nodded, looking far older than he had before. But then, this had aged them all.
“Following on from the sexual assaults that happened in this area, CCTV was fitted along this path. Unfortunately, the system hasn’t been updated, and as such, there have been a number of failures, creating blind spots along the path. The footage that we do have shows Parker MacDonald entering this path at eleven thirty-six a.m.” Cain pressed a button, transforming the image into black-and-white footage.
The room fell silent as a lanky figure entered the screen, his hair swept unruly by the wind. He walked forward, hefting his bag up higher on his shoulder, and then vanished into the clambering trees.
Cain spoke softly. “Ninety seconds later, a second figure is seen entering the path behind MacDonald.”
They waited. Then the figure appeared, a dark shape, thick padded jacket, baseball cap pulled low, and a quick step.
“Parker does not reappear. He is not picked up again by the cameras at the campus end, and there’s no sign of him on the cameras that cover the student accommodation.” Cain pressed a button, and the image changed to a new angle. “This is the student village.” Wait. Wait. “And this is our mystery man.” He clicked on a closer shot this time. “His face is shadowed by the baseball cap, as you can see. I think it’s unlikely we’ll be able to use this to identify him.”
Cain sighed. “Now, Jake, on the other hand, attended lectures all morning. At around two p.m., he told friends he was going for a run.” Another image, this one footage of a lithe, strong young man jogging onto the path and vanishing. “He entered the path at two eleven p.m. At two twelve p.m., what appears to be the same man followed him.” He waited as the scene unfolded again. The hunter, the prey. “Again, we can’t see his face, and there don’t appear to be any identifying features that we can see.”
Eric Bell stepped forward, pointing to the frozen image. “We have to identify this individual. I need house-to-house throughout the entire student village. This man was there at least twice. Someone must have seen him. I need another team on the university campus. Maybe someone saw him there.” He glanced about the room. “I need someone to check the area for any additional CCTV, any ANPR.”
“This guy,” said Cain softly, “he’s picking up his kill rate. It’s only getting worse. Let’s get going.”
Words settled; glances were exchanged. A low rumbling mutter. Then, like a spell broken, came the scrape of chairs. Mina sat for a moment, watching the flurry of movement, watching Eric Bell standing just beyond it, head bent, in quiet conversation with Cain.
“Well, that was fun,” muttered Owen.
“No shit,” said Mina softly. The superintendent’s gaze had fallen on her again, and she noticed, as he said something to Cain, the younger man’s gaze drifting over to land on her too.
She pushed herself up to standing.
Cain separated himself off, weaved through the crowd toward her, spared a quick nod for Owen. “Mina. I’m going on out to the university. Come with me, yeah?”
It was the feeling of walking along a cliff’s edge. Mina nodded, forcing her face into a smile. “Sure.”
* * *
The university campus was quiet. The few students that were to be seen walked quickly, their heads down, shoulders pulled up, as if that way they could save themselves. Mina climbed slowly out of the car. It occurred to her that you would know it, even if you didn’t know. You would be able to tell that death had been here.
“I’m guessing the kids are reevaluating the whole ‘university is the best time of your life’ thing,” said Cain, slowing his pace so she could fall into step with him.
Mina snorted, watched as a woman spotted them. Detaching herself from a cluster of detectives, she strode quickly toward them.
“Eve. What have you got?”
She pursed her lips. “I was just about to call you. We found something on the path.”
“Show me,” said Cain.
She turned abruptly and, not waiting to see if they followed, ducked beneath the police cordon and onto the path beyond. Mina and Cain followed in her wake, watching as her blond ponytail swung with the wind. The path led through a tunnel of trees, until the campus had disappeared behind them and it seemed that they could have been anywhere. After they had been walking for five minutes, Eve stopped, held up a hand to stay them.
“It’s here.” She pointed at the undergrowth. “If you look closely, you can see where it’s been trampled down.” Eve racked her ASP, used the metal baton to move tree branches aside and reveal a clearing. “I’m not sure if you can see it, but if you look closely, there’s blood staining on the grass back there. CSIs are on their way. They’re pretty busy,” she added redundantly.
Mina shifted her position, peered through the undergrowth. “He left the bodies here.” She pulled back, scanning the scene. “Pretty good position. They’d have been hidden from the view of anyone walking by.”
“The question is,” said Eve, “how did he transport Jake Gilbert’s body to the wall?”
Mina stood up tall and pointed past the undergrowth. “The road is that way. Wouldn’t be too far if you didn’t mind fighting your way through the undergrowth. He could have had a car there, waiting. Moved them after dark.”
Mina shook her head—it seemed that she could smell the death here, though that was probably little more than her imagination. Then a sound cut through the susurration of the trees. Cain glanced at his mobile, its ringing vibration harsh and unwelcome.
He answered, listened, and Mina knew. You could see it in the color of his cheeks, the emptiness in his eyes. She didn’t need him to say it. But say it he did, the phone sinking from his ear.
“There’s another one. Stephen Doyle is missing.”
Getting what you want – Ramsey
They gathered on the moorland, the search team approaching fifty people, a shuffled together affair of uniforms and villagers. Ramsey looked out over their faces, tight with the cold and the fear of what they might find. Briganton had reemerged, had ventured from behind its locked doors onto the empty moor, drawn out of doors by a police appeal. We’re stretched too th
in. We need help. Off to one side stood a knot of police officers, faces Ramsey did not recognize.
“Mutual aid,” Cain muttered, pulling Ramsey to him in a half hug. “We’re drowning. Northwestern force has sent two dozen officers over.” His brother looked afraid, stripped bare by where they were now. “I’m glad you’re here, Rams.”
“Ladies and gentlemen . . .” Eric Bell stood on a mound of earth, his voice taking on a screeching tone as he battled to make himself heard above the murmurs and the wind. “Thanks for coming out. I know it’s not pleasant. We appreciate your help.”
Ramsey pulled his beanie hat lower, shifted his sling so that it sat more easily. He shivered. He had been driving when Cain had called him, had for once not been thinking about death. Instead, his mind had become hooked on the notion of soft baby cheeks, dimpled hands, a mewling cry. Would it be a boy or a girl? He had imagined that soft puff of breath on his neck.
Then the call. Stephen Doyle was missing.
“Now, we’ve already searched along the wall and have come up empty. That’s good. That gives us hope.” Eric looked about them, not saying the one thing that was on everyone’s mind. That no body on the wall did not mean no body at all. “So, what we’re going to do is have you walk about an arm’s length apart. We’ve got flashlights here for anyone who needs one. We’re looking for anything, be it property, footprints. Anything seems out of place to you, shout out.” He clapped his hands together. “Okay, people, let’s get going.”
They moved in a swarm, working outward from the rear of the modern housing estate—the home of Stephen Doyle’s sister, Bronwen, and, more recently, of Stephen himself—that edged Briganton, up toward Bowman’s Hill. Ramsey began to walk, his movements careful, measured, and glanced at Connor beside him. His jaw was tight with strain; teeth ground together in a rhythm at odds with their footsteps.
“You okay?” asked Ramsey.
Connor shook his head. “Should have damn well stayed in London. None of this drama there.”
Ramsey grinned, stepping carefully on the uneven ground.
“So, what do you think?” asked Connor quietly. “Is it . . . is he . . . another one? Or is it something else?”
They shared a glance, both thinking of Stephen Doyle on the edge of a roof. The plummeting drop below.
“I don’t know,” said Ramsey.
He thought of Bronwen Doyle standing on her front path as the searchers had gathered, her hands tucked into the sleeves of her sweater, tears bubbling up and over as she spoke. “Thing is, Rams, I thought he was okay. I mean, I took some time off after he tried to . . . you know . . . but I can’t keep that up for ever, and he said . . . I mean, he’s been living with me, just while he sorts himself out, and so you think, well, you’d see it, if he really meant it, if he was really going to do it. And today, see, I had to go into work today. The maternity ward, we’ve had this bug going round. All the midwives are going down with it, so they needed me to cover. And he said he’d be fine. That he felt much better. But then everything went mental at work. We had a shoulder dystocia, and then another one of the midwives threw up mid-shift, and I ended up staying on. I didn’t get in until three last night. I should have checked on him.”
She had twisted the hem of her sweater over and over again. “I should have gone into his room. But the house, everything looked right, so I just, I thought I shouldn’t wake him. It was only when I woke up this morning that I realized he wasn’t there.”
“The grief of losing Leila, it’s all been brought back up again by what’s been happening here. It’s tough for people to survive that,” Ramsey had offered. “Maybe Stephen . . . Maybe it’s been too much for him. Living all that again.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Cain said from the other side of Connor. It seemed as if he was ready to break, his voice uneven and fractured. “It’s the killer on the wall again. It’s always him. He’s like a ghost.”
Ramsey stared at his brother, startled.
“Sorry. Sorry, guys. Just . . . I want this whole thing to be over. That’s all.”
Connor looked uncomfortably from one brother to the other, then returned his gaze to the roughened ground. “Maybe Stephen’s just gone off somewhere. Maybe he needed to be on his own for a bit, away from here. To forget about everything that’s happening.”
His words hovered in the air, a potent magic, like the mention of Christmas or laughter or the fierce grip of a newborn baby.
Cain shook his head, shivering in the bitter cold.
And then, from a small rise about a hundred meters away, came the call.
“We’ve got him.”
Ramsey began to run, his damaged arm in a sling bouncing with the movement. He could hear Connor, Cain, their footsteps pounding behind him, while he fought to keep his balance as the ground became looser, boggier.
“No one touch him. No one touch him.” A uniformed officer whom Ramsey did not recognize held his arms out, an unofficial barrier between them and what lay beyond, and Ramsey stopped sharp.
In a puddle of light lay the dead body of Stephen Doyle. His knees pulled up, hands folded together, he lay, a fetus in its mother’s womb, face gray, the ground beneath him soaked black with blood.
“Oh God,” muttered Cain. “His wrists. Look at his wrists.”
In truth there was little left of them: the knife had sliced them open wide enough to expose the bone beneath.
Ramsey leaned forward, pressed his hands on his knees.
“I guess,” said Connor, “he finally got his way.”
Unmasked – Mina
Bronwen Doyle sat at the kitchen table and cried. Mina sat beside her, giving a tentative pat on the back every now and again, as if that could make any difference at all. Superintendent Bell stood off to the side, looking uncomfortable, letting his gaze wander over granite countertops, linoleum floors, anywhere to avoid the woman who wept before him. He opened his mouth, seemed as if he was about to speak, but then closed it again.
But, thought Mina, what is there to say now? What is there that anyone would want to hear?
It must have been suicide. That was what the guys out on the moor were saying. The MO didn’t fit—Stephen Doyle’s wrists were sliced open, no sign of strangulation, and the body had not been positioned like the others.
A coincidence, then. A grief-stricken man pushed too far.
Mina had heard one of the guys say that at least there was that—that at least Stephen Doyle wasn’t another victim of the killer on the wall. But as she sat there, her useless palm laid limply against the heaving back of Bronwen, it occurred to Mina that that simply wasn’t true. After all, what else had Stephen been but one more victim? It had just taken him far longer to die than the others.
“I need the bathroom.”
Bronwen’s voice shocked her, hoarse and broken, so different from what it had been before.
“Sure,” said Mina. “Of course.”
She watched Bronwen stand, her movements billowing, so that she seemed to be floating in space, and Mina stood, moved with her, one hand on her elbow. The woman stopped, pressed up against the kitchen table, and for a moment looked down at her feet, her forehead furrowed, as if she was trying to remember just what came next, how this whole walking thing worked.
Then, with huge effort, she began to move, and Mina followed her. They passed Superintendent Bell, Bronwen paying as little attention to him as if he were a cardboard cutout someone had left in her kitchen.
As Bronwen closed the bathroom door behind her, Mina let out a breath, searched for some oxygen in this airless house. The hallway was quiet. Beside the bathroom door, a bedroom, its door standing wide open, and Mina found herself moving almost in spite of herself, peering inside what was, it transpired, a ground-floor bedroom, with a neatly made double bed, a single wardrobe, an old-fashioned television on a narrow chest of drawers.
The bed had not been slept in. On the nightstand stood a single framed picture, of Stephen and his wife, Leila,
the only sign that the room was inhabited. Mina eased her way into the center of the room, thinking it felt like a morgue, that the grief and the loss seemed to seep out of the very walls. She studied the photograph, thinking how handsome Stephen had been once, before his eyes became hollowed out with pain, before his cheeks sank inward, and his hair thinned away to nothing. He had his arms wrapped around Leila, was smiling the kind of smile that seemed to suggest they had forever. How much longer had she lived after that? Mina wondered. How much time had they had left?
It’s perhaps best that you can’t see the future, she thought. Because who could bear knowing all that would come?
The floorboards creaked, and in spite of herself, Mina started. Eric Bell stood in the doorway to the room. And yet it seemed to be a different Eric Bell, with fingers that twitched at his waist, a gaze that danced from wall to wall. Gone was the certainty, gone was the ever-present cool. Now, something different.
“Sir?” She hesitated. “Are you okay?”
He looked about the room and sighed. “Aye. Tough couple of days.”
“Yes, sir,” Mina allowed.
The superintendent leaned against the doorjamb. “I remember him back then. Stephen, I mean.” He waved toward the photograph. “He’d just got into the fire service. He was so full of it. “Course, then Leila died and . . . he didn’t last too long after that. Seemed when she died, he died too. Only, he kept walking around for longer.”
Mina reached over and picked up the framed photo. “It’s so sad.”
Then something seemed off; her fingertips hit on something that simply did not feel right, an unevenness where smoothness should be. Mina frowned, turned the frame over in her hands. An additional layer of card had been laid across the back. Thick, but not thick enough to disguise the shape that lay underneath.
“What’s up?” asked the superintendent.
I Am Watching Page 24
