IMPERFECTION

by Ray Clark

  The track changed to Cold As Ice by Foreigner, which led him into thinking about the case.

  It had been a long night. Technically speaking, he was still on duty: he’d only come home to grab a shower and a fresh change of clothes. He was tired, and his bed would have been a better option, but he didn’t have that kind of a job.

  Everyone had finally left the theatre at four o’clock in the morning. Gardener and Reilly had returned to the station to set up the incident room. He’d called Mike Sanderson and asked for HOLMES to set up their equipment to compare the first of the witness statements. The building had been sealed and closed, and a search team put in place. He had kicked off the ANACAPA chart by placing Leonard White’s name in the centre. He glanced at his watch: 7:30. He was hoping to return there shortly, when they would hopefully have all the photographs up as well.

  Gardener had been disturbed by what he’d seen. A body at the end of a rope was typical enough in his line of work. The lack of blood was the real problem, and he’d been distracted by that fact when trying to interview Paul Price.

  The first thing that had run through his mind was, “why?” Why had the killer removed it? A fleeting thought of Jack the Ripper came to mind; he had tried writing letters to the police using the victim’s blood. He’d failed because it had hardened in the fountain pen. Had the killer placed the blood in the eight one-pint glass jars in the dressing room simply to write the message? How had he done it? Gardener suspected there was more to it, that it was all a part of some perverse game, especially considering the quote on the wall.

  Then came the startling revelation that someone who closely resembled Leonard White had calmly walked out of the theatre as all the commotion was unfolding. In fact, resemblance was probably far too weak a word. By all accounts, the disguise was so good, it had completely fooled people. He wondered how many had actually seen him. So far, only Albert Fettle had come forward.

  The connecting door to the kitchen opened, and Gardener immediately caught the mouth-watering aroma of grilled bacon. His taste buds tingled. He would normally prefer a healthy option, but he hadn’t eaten for almost fourteen hours, so anything was better than nothing.

  His father appeared in the doorway. “You okay, son?”

  Gardener turned off the CD player, then turned to the old man. His complexion was still ashen. He was wearing the same clothes he’d worn for his night out, so he obviously hadn’t slept either. Malcolm’s posture was stooped. Gardener realised his father was no spring chicken. The bad news must have hit him hard. We all take our parents for granted, Gardener thought. We think they will be with us forever.

  He said he was fine, and they both walked into the kitchen. Chris, his son, was grilling the bacon. Mugs of tea were already on the table, as were placemats and plates. The room was warmer than the garage, and the music somewhat different. Spook was sitting in the corner wolfing down some scraps of bacon fat, paying little or no attention to anyone or anything apart from the snack.

  “Come on, Dad,” said Chris. “You have to eat.” He backed up his statement by serving his father first.

  Gardener smiled. No matter how good, bad, or indifferent times were, family meant everything.

  The telephone shrilled. Gardener answered it. Colin Sharp informed him the photos were back, and they were waiting to set up the incident room. He said he would be there shortly.

  Chapter Seven

  Every muscle in Janine Harper’s body ached, or at least it felt that way. Although her headache had subdued to a mild pounding sensation, her arms and legs felt heavy, and the stomach cramps were becoming unbearable. It was a symptom she recognised all too well: the first full day of her period always started – and finished – the same way.

  Adding to her explosive mood was the fact that she had had a violent row with her boyfriend Carl the night before. He was immature, and didn’t care about her feelings, or her moods – a typical male.

  She sighed and glanced around the room, holding a clipboard in her left hand, a pen in her right. Stocktaking was a job she disliked at the best of times. She worked in a retail outlet for theatrical supplies. A lot of the products they stocked were small, consumed a lot of space, and took an age to count.

  The room was clean and tidy, the decor easy on the eyes: plaster-finished walls in two different colours with a border separating them. The strong parquet floor supported at least a dozen racks of Dexion, which contained everything from bottles of acetone, aluminium powder, collodion and spirit gum, to flexible plastic skin, curling irons, eyebrow pencils and foam rubber – even obscure products like fishskin, a thin, tough, transparent material made from the stomach lining of animals used mainly in olden day theatre for building up layers of skin on the face or body.

  Janine made it to the top of the ladder when the doorbell suddenly chimed. She grimaced, slamming the clipboard on the shelving. The pen bounced upwards before finally landing somewhere behind the cabinet.

  Brilliant, thought Janine, glancing at her watch. And it’s only nine o’clock!

  She descended the ladder two steps at a time, and wished she hadn’t. Janine lost her footing, slid the rest of the way. At floor level, her left foot gave way. She keeled over and hit the Dexion before hitting the ground. Her ankle hurt from the collision, her hands burned from the ladder slide, and her back felt bruised. Janine picked herself up, dusted down her clothes, and set off towards the shop faster than she meant to, which left her feeling a little nauseous. She really didn’t need today.

  On reaching the entrance leading into the shop, she saw something else she didn’t need.

  The creep.

  Standing with her back to the wall, Janine wanted to cry. She felt closed in. Why of all days was she going to have to put up with him today? He was such a pompous bastard. He barely spoke, and when he did, it was always that soft nasal drawl. He had the ability to make her skin crawl simply by staring at her. He had a face that only a mother could love; one she wanted to punch, continuously.

  Janine summoned up the courage and stepped through the doorway, her greeting forced. “Morning.”

  He, of course, made no reply, but simply continued to gaze in her direction.

  Janine wondered if he ever slept. The bags under his eyes were huge. The wrinkles in his forehead were deep. His skin resembled an elephant’s hide. He had a long, scraggy beard and bushy eyebrows, and he desperately reminded her of someone.

  The man was dressed entirely in black, from what she could see: fedora, shirt, jacket, trousers, socks, as well as a pair of the most expensive shoes she had ever laid eyes on. In fact, despite his appearance, Janine would say that none of his clothes were cheap. They all appeared to have been cut from the finest cloth. She simply couldn’t understand why anyone chose to make such a fashion statement. But that was actors for you – an eccentric bunch if there was one.

  “My order is on the counter,” were his only words.

  He continued to glance around the shop as though he was bored, occasionally lifting an item from the shelves, clicking his tongue if it didn’t meet with his approval. He ran his finger along the ledges, rolling his eyes.

  The cheeky bastard was checking for dust.

  She started to pick at her fingernails, wishing he’d go to hell. Ignoring his glare, she searched underneath the counter for a pair of scissors. It was time she trimmed them. A complete makeover with a wild night out on the town was what she really needed. Having found them, she walked across the shop behind the counter, dragging a bin with her.

  She was about to make the first cut when the creep stood stock-still and stared at her. It was perhaps the most disturbing expression she had ever seen. The depth of his eyes was limitless.

  Janine suddenly thought of a saying her grandmother often used, about a person having an “evil eye”. She believed such a person could inflict disease or death simply by a glance.

  Her fear increased, and her stomach contracted. She suspected it had nothing to do with her perio
d. She’d always known that the man was strange, but he’d never frightened her to that degree. Janine even wondered if the heating in the shop had stopped working, as a chill crept up her spine.

  “What on earth are you doing, girl?” He dragged the sentence out as if his life depended on it.

  Janine lowered her head, noticed she was at the point of cutting the nail on her forefinger. The scissors were open, at the ready. For a reason she couldn’t explain, she felt ashamed. Perhaps it was the tone in the creep’s voice: the demeaning manner in which he’d addressed her. Another stomach spasm resulted in her mood flipping as quickly as his. “What’s it to you?”

  He lifted his head to the point where he must have struggled to peer down his nose, but he persisted. “Young lady, how you pass your time is of no consequence to me, but there is a certain etiquette one should follow.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  And with that, she cut the nail. A quick snip, and it fell into the bin.

  “Oh my good God,” he exclaimed, gripping his walking stick a little tighter. “She’s done it,” he said, as if he wasn’t actually talking to her.

  Janine snipped another, wondering if they had started a game, clearly delighted at having unsettled him for a change.

  “Stop it at once, you stupid girl,” barked the creep. “Don’t you realise what you’re doing?”

  “I’m cutting my nails for Christ’s sake–”

  “Never on a Friday!”

  Janine stopped mid-cut. He had managed it again. His expression and the tone of his voice had made her feel inadequate.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Janine, a little more placidly.

  “Don’t you know anything about fingernails, young lady?”

  “Not as much as you, evidently,” she replied, wishing she hadn’t.

  “White specs on the nails of the left hand, signify gifts on the thumb; friends on the first finger; foes on the second; lovers on the third, and a journey to be taken on the fourth.”

  He reached out and placed her left hand in his. His touch was so cold, Janine wanted to retract, but didn’t for fear of sending him over the edge.

  He stared intently. “Second and fourth, foes and a journey. To have yellow speckles is a great sign of death.” Glancing up, he held her gaze. “You must never cut the nails of a child under a year old. The mother should bite them off, or the child will grow up to be a thief...” He stroked her left hand with his right, his gaze distant as he rambled. Janine felt repulsed by his attention, but had neither the power nor the nerve to withdraw.

  “Cut them on Monday, you cut them for health. Cut them on Tuesday, you cut them for wealth. Cut them on Wednesday, you cut them for news; on Thursday, a new pair of shoes. Cut them on a Friday...” – his eyes met hers again, and he lowered his voice yet further, speaking even slower – “...you cut them for sorrow. Cut them on a Saturday, you see your true love tomorrow.”

  The creep then whispered, which she found even more disconcerting. “Cut them on a Sunday, the devil will be with you all of the week.”

  Janine flinched. The man was seriously fucked in the head. What the hell was he talking about, cutting your nails on different days of the week? She wished the manager, Mr Cuthbertson, were here. But he was even more of a creep. He would revel in what was happening. She tried to think of a way to persuade the eccentric thespian to leave. He had suddenly grown very quiet, but he was still staring at her, still holding her hand, and still stroking it, for God’s sake. She pulled away quickly, the draft whizzing past the list he’d left on the counter, blowing it to the edge.

  He continued to stare at Janine for what she thought was a long time. He didn’t appear to be gazing at her, more inside her. She felt her breath quicken. Her heart pounded against the inside of her chest. Her muscles weakened, and she became aware of how full her bladder was. When he finally spoke to her, the tone of his voice was soft and menacing.

  “You smell unwell, Janine.”

  Eventually, she found the nerve to speak, but the voice didn’t sound like hers. “How do you know my name?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Her entire body felt as if it had been enveloped in ice. Her skin started to itch, and her vision had dark shadows around the edges. What did he mean, she smelled unwell? Surely it wasn’t because it was that time of the month? She’d taken every precaution. Always had.

  “Fear, Janine,” he said, as if he’d seen inside her head. “I can smell fear. Are you frightened of me?”

  She saw his lips part, but it wasn’t a smile. “No,” she managed to lie.

  He let go of her hand. Smirking, he turned to leave the shop. “If you say so.”

  Chapter Eight

  Gardener and Reilly met outside the mortuary.

  For a Sunday morning in late March, the weather was acceptable: blue sky with a little cloud, the sun low, the breeze taking away any warmth.

  Reilly glanced at his partner. “Like the new image!”

  Gardener smiled. After a shower, he’d changed into a new pair of designer jeans and Ben Sherman shirt, finished off with a pale grey suit jacket. It was the fashion these days, Chris had assured him. He’d wanted his dad to change his image, bring himself more up to date. Gardener had readily agreed, feeling that the time was right.

  “Not really my idea, you can blame Chris for that one.”

  “A young man with taste.”

  “Maybe he can start on you next.” The pair of them laughed. Gardener replaced his hat. It was time to work.

  “So, what are we dealing with, boss? Why hang a bloke after you’ve killed him?”

  “Maybe he’s trying to prove a point.”

  “What point? The man was already dead.”

  “He’s trying to tell us something, Sean. There’s a reason to what he’s doing, as far as he’s concerned anyway. He’s drained the blood for a reason. He very obviously killed the man for a reason. We just have to find out what it is.”

  Reilly shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about what he might have done leading up to that. Did he leave him alive, and let him watch his life drain away? But once he’d done him in, he packed him up, moved him, hung him in front of an audience, and then calmly walked out of the place dressed as the man he’d killed. Why? It was a hell of a risk.”

  “Impact, Sean. Everything he’s doing is meant to shock. The first is for the audience. They have no idea anything has happened. Consequently, they think they’re watching an execution, which, to all intent and purpose, is part of the show. The second is for us. We have a corpse with no blood. The next is for anyone who sees him walk out. And the final shock is ours again, we get the blood back.”

  “A control freak?” asked Reilly. “Is he doing it all because he can? It’s a great way to cover your tracks, so it is.”

  “That’s all part of it, isn’t it?” said Gardener. “He can do anything he wants if we don’t know who he is. If he’s so good at disguising himself, how the hell are we going to stop him?”

  “The same way we usually do. We wait for him to make a mistake.”

  The pair of them entered the building, walking down the corridor leading to Fitz’s workroom, the resonant sound of their heels bouncing off the walls. Gardener nodded to the receptionist as they passed. “You know, I can’t believe that someone could be so good with make-up that he could fool everyone around him.”

  “Wouldn’t take much if you didn’t really know who he was supposed to be,” replied Reilly.

  “My dad did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Gardener turned to face his partner. “My dad went to see Leonard White at the Grand Theatre yesterday afternoon. He spent an hour with him.”

  “And he didn’t notice anything?”

  “I haven’t spoken to him yet. I’ve only had an hour at home, and that was before I came here. It doesn’t look to me like he’s had any sleep. I thought maybe we could both talk to him later.”

&nb
sp; “Has he not said anything?”

  “No. The only time we spoke was when I picked him up from the theatre. He was really quiet, so I asked him what was wrong, and he said he didn’t know. He told me that Leonard wasn’t himself, he was very subdued.”

  “Did your dad ask him what was wrong?”

  “He did, but he said his friend wasn’t very talkative, which was unusual in itself. But he also said that Leonard seemed worried about his wife... and how she was going to take the news.”

  “What news?” Reilly asked.

  “That’s just it, he didn’t say, even though my dad tried to get it out of him. He said he seemed depressed. My dad had the feeling something awful had happened, and his friend couldn’t bring himself to discuss it.”

  “Still, it doesn’t really matter now, does it? We already know that your dad wasn’t talking to his lifelong friend,” Reilly said.

  “Frightening thought, that one.”

  Both men turned and continued toward the steel silver door at the end of the corridor. Reilly opened it, allowing Gardener to walk in first. Theatre No.1 was a narrow building, long and low with strip lighting, accommodating four steel gurneys. Only one was occupied. Fitz stood behind it, facing Gardener, talking to DCI Alan Briggs. The pathologist wore gloves and a green surgical gown. His mask had been lowered. A microphone hung above his head.

  The smell of formaldehyde was overpowering. Gardener had never become accustomed to it.

  “Morning,” said Fitz. “You’re just in time.”

  Before Gardener had a chance to reply, four wall-mounted speakers powered out the opening bars of Puccini’s Tosca, which was quite possibly the only opera that Gardener knew. After the loud opening, the volume dropped to a more acceptable level. “For what?” he asked.

  “The next piece of the puzzle,” said Briggs, nodding to Fitz.

  “I’d like you to take a look at this.”

  Fitz had obviously been at work some time – the bottom half of Leonard White’s body was already naked. The pathologist pointed to the bruising on the inside of the dead man’s left thigh. “The killer has pumped the blood out through the femoral artery. While he shows a small amount of medical knowledge, he’s not as good as he’d like us to believe. If you look here...” – Fitz pointed – “…there’s extensive bruising where he’s probably jabbed away with the syringe until he’s found the artery.”