The Cutting Room

by Ashley Dyer

  “He really messed up, didn’t he?” Ruth said.

  “Yi thinks that he could be unraveling.”

  Ruth shook her head. “His timing was just off. Biology is harder to control than plastic disks and LED displays. But he’s not going to like that we thwarted his latest presentation.”

  35

  Nothing. Not a damned thing. I have two desktop computers, several tabs open on each: Instagram, Twitter, local news, and—zilch. Thousands of punters out there, and not one of them managed to get a decent still, never mind a few seconds of video.

  I’d given the most active sharers and commenters a five-minute head start on the rest. They had the location, knew exactly where Carver and Lake would be—why the hell weren’t they ready? Why the hell is the only shot of my exhibit blurred and botched by flare off the crime scene spotlamps?

  “Shit!” I send a dissection tray, scalpels, spare blades crashing to the floor.

  It doesn’t make me feel any better.

  I should have known—less than one in one thousand of my followers might have the initiative to do what was necessary for the success of the exhibit—and what tiny fraction of those would actually be in the area at the right time? At that level of uncertainty, I probably had a better chance of winning the damned lottery. If I could have been there, I would have been. And of course, I’d considered finding a quiet spot inside the building where I could watch Carver and Lake, perhaps do some filming of my own. But my close call at Norris’s place gave me pause: his neighbor must have been five feet from me when he called across. I couldn’t take that kind of risk again.

  I had to rely on others, and they failed. Failed me. All the work that went into Art for Art’s Sake, wasted. Finishing up as offal on a mortuary slab.

  I am well aware that my art exhibits will all end up as exhibits of another kind; in fact, there’s a kind of poetry in their dismemberment. They will be examined—weighed and tested; stored separate from one another in labeled boxes and tamper-evident bags; reduced to mere components—I can accept that because they have been seen and appreciated. But Art for Art’s Sake is a central tenet of this series. Without it, all the rest lose coherence and integrity. It’s impossible to understand the artistic narrative without having seen this one core artwork.

  To hell with it. I may as well shut down and go and drink myself stupid.

  I reach for the mouse.

  There’s a notification:

  “#FerrymanFan is trending on Twitter.”

  I almost can’t bear to look. He has attached an image to a tweet, linked it to his YouTube channel. The image looks sharp, but it’s only a thumbnail—as soon as I click on it, I know it will make a mockery of my work.

  I circle the YouTube image, hover the mouse pointer over the red play arrow, tell myself I won’t do it. But I click anyway.

  And it is beautiful.

  36

  Ruth Lake couldn’t believe what she was seeing: a pin-sharp recording of her and Carver approaching the plinth in the center of the walled garden. Hughes had sent her the link a minute earlier.

  A sudden blast of light and noise, Carver frozen in the spotlights.

  “It’s not possible,” she said, watching herself turn at the screech of tires on the road beyond the wall.

  “It was posted by @Kharon three minutes ago,” Tom Ivey said.

  Ruth checked the camera angles. “He must have been inside one of the apartment buildings.” A quick glance around the incident room told her that everyone had seen the footage.

  “Who was on door duty?” she demanded. “Who logged residents in and out of the building last night?” She barely raised her voice, but every man and woman in the room stopped what they were doing and looked at her.

  A hand went up.

  Parr.

  “I handed the list off to the receiver last night, after the public areas of the building had been searched and cleared,” he said.

  So either Kharon/Karl had gained access to one of the apartments, or he’d walked straight past the police checkpoint.

  Ruth called out to the receiver. This was the HOLMES 2 database specialist whose job it was to control the paper flow. Every document, statement, and report that came in went first to the receiver, who would pass it to the right person for logging into the computer system.

  “Sarge?” He was partly hidden behind a cubicle panel, but he rolled his chair back to make eye contact.

  “Can we get a copy of the log?” Ruth said.

  “Got it here, Sarge.” The receiver passed the handwritten list to her.

  She skimmed the names. “He’s right here. Left the building forty-five minutes after we’d shut the display down.”

  Parr flushed. “I’m sorry, Sarge, I didn’t recognize him.”

  “Well, I’d sympathize with that, Jason. But since Karl gave you his real name, I’d say you did a bit more than not recognize him.”

  Carver took the news surprisingly well. “They’re all exhausted, Ruth,” he said. “Mistakes are bound to happen.”

  She shook her head, frustrated with herself as much as with Parr. “It’s partly my fault—he’s been doing stellar work around the office—I thought his talents were being wasted. I asked Bill Naylor to give him something more challenging,” she said. “Five minutes out in the field, and this . . .”

  “Well, now you know where his strengths lie,” Carver said.

  It was usually Ruth’s job to be the voice of calm and reason in such circumstances; perhaps it was an indication of just how tired she was herself that Carver was fulfilling that role today.

  “What did you do to him?” he asked.

  “He’s back on car monitor duties.”

  Carver nodded. “Probably for the best. And Kharon?”

  “I’ve sent someone to bring him in.”

  “Let me know when he gets here.”

  Ruth opened the door, ready to get back into the fray, and almost bumped into Parr, standing outside.

  “Parr, were you eavesdropping?”

  “No! No, Sarge.” He stepped back, avoiding her eye. “Tom Ivey said you’d be here. I thought you’d want to see this.”

  He showed her a clear plastic bag. It had a sheet of plain white paper inside it; written on it, in block capitals: “FERRYMAN—4, MERSEYSIDE POLICE—0.” He turned the sheet over. On the back, one word. “CLUELESS.”

  “What is this?” Ruth demanded.

  “I found it in one of the unmarked job cars, Sarge. In the boot well.”

  “Which one?”

  “Car seventeen.”

  “Did you touch it with your bare hands?” Parr was wearing pale blue vinyl gloves.

  “Sorry, yes—I picked it up before I realized what it was. But I gloved up right away.”

  Two definite sources of contamination, then—the car boot well, and Parr himself. Plus a possible host of others between the car park and Carver’s office, she reminded herself.

  “What about the bag?”

  He stared at her blankly.

  “Did you bag it, too?”

  “No—it was already in there.”

  “And did you open it?”

  “No!” Clearly the idea horrified him.

  “All right.” She got on the line to CSM Hughes and asked him to send someone to collect it. In under ten minutes, it was bagged, tagged, and with forensics; Parr was back on car check duty; and the car was being given a going-over by CSIs.

  Ruth Lake returned to Carver to catch him up on her initial checks.

  “The car was driven to the crime scene last night. They parked it at the outer cordon.”

  “Locked, or unlocked?” Carver asked.

  “They say locked, and in theory, it was under the watchful eye of uniform police, but you know how it got last night.”

  Carver nodded. “Any surveillance footage?”

  “Matrix was focused on the area around the courtyard, but I’ve asked Rayburn to check,” Ruth said. “And Doctor Yi says he’ll phone
you later this afternoon. Meanwhile, there’s Karl Obrazki to deal with.”

  Ruth kept him waiting another twenty minutes, but sitting across the table from her, Kharon, aka Karl Obrazki, looked bright-eyed, untroubled, sure of himself.

  “You didn’t believe me when I told you this man is dangerous?” Ruth asked.

  “I believed you.” He slouched in his chair like a poor man’s Brando in On the Waterfront. “I mean, it’s obvious, because—you know—people died.”

  “They were murdered,” Ruth corrected.

  He shrugged, as if to say, potayto/potahto. “That wasn’t personal—and anyway I don’t think he’s dangerous to me.”

  “You don’t think?” She scratched the back of her neck. “If it was me, I’d want a hundred percent guarantee.”

  “Oh, you needn’t worry—I don’t think he’s into the female form.”

  “Phew,” she said. “But, wait a minute—doesn’t that mean he is into the male form?” She widened her eyes as if she’d just realized that Karl fit the victim profile.

  For a few seconds he stared at her as though she’d started speaking Maori; then she saw a flicker of alarm in his eyes. “No,” he said. “You don’t get it. I brought Art for Art’s Sake to the public.”

  Ruth tilted her head. “You did, he didn’t.”

  “But that’s the way he wanted it. Did you see the feedback?” His eyes glittered with feverish intensity, and Ruth wondered if he was high on something. “I mean, people love what he did.”

  “They love that he murdered people?”

  “No, not that . . .” He gazed around the room as if he might find the right words daubed on the walls. “I mean what he did with the coins and the maggots? All the shit ordinary working people have to take. Art is above that.”

  “You’re not making sense,” Ruth said. “Do you really believe that displaying the body parts of murdered people is art?”

  “Maybe not the way you think of it—but it does what art is supposed to do. It challenges the way we see the world. Brings us face-to-face with death.”

  Ruth looked at the earnest half child, half man seated opposite her, his own features as yet unmarked by life, and thought that only someone who hadn’t seen the ugly face of death could talk that way.

  “So art isn’t supposed to be uplifting, or consoling?” she said. “It can’t be playful, or tender, or healing?”

  “Well, yeah . . .” Even as he agreed, he dismissed her with a flip of a wrist and the slightest hint of a sneer. “But Ferryman’s art is about shock and challenge and excitement.”

  “It’s certainly shocking,” she said, mildly.

  He pushed his fingers through his hair—a self-conscious gesture of frustration. “You’ve got to see the artistry in it, the use of symbolism.”

  She was interested to hear his interpretation, so she tilted her head, inviting him to go on.

  “Money ruins art,” he said. “Art shouldn’t be bought and sold—it belongs to everyone. It should come from the heart, and when it doesn’t, it corrupts the best intentions of the artist.”

  You’re so full of it, she thought. The Ferryman wants fame and power—and if that doesn’t corrupt, I don’t know what does. Even so, she sounded sincere when she said, “Wow, you really do understand him.”

  He dipped his head in a show of false modesty. “So people say.”

  “Does he?”

  “Does he what?”

  “Say you understand him?”

  “He chose me to get the message out about Catch the Gamma Wave, so . . .”

  “And last night?”

  “No.” A frown creased his smooth brow.

  “He didn’t message you?” she said, her tone coaxing, and with no hint of confrontation. “Ask you to record the scene, maybe?”

  “I wish.” The young fan sounded wistful. “I just—you know—did it.”

  “After he messaged you with the location.”

  “Me and a few others. But I got the jump on them, ’cos I was already tailing you.”

  “Were you indeed?”

  “I just knew he was planning a new exhibit.”

  “And you were right.”

  He preened a little.

  “How come you went inside the building—weren’t you taking a chance you’d miss the whole thing?”

  “As soon as I saw the place I could see it wasn’t gonna work,” he scoffed. “Your lot’d have us kettled in no time. At least inside the building, I stood a chance of finding a good spot.”

  “And you did.”

  Again, he quelled a triumphant smile, maybe thinking it wouldn’t look cool.

  Now he was feeling secure, she came back to something that had intrigued her. “Why are you so sure his choice of victims isn’t personal?”

  “Because . . . it’s art, isn’t it?”

  He’s still so sure of that. “Art is objective, then?”

  “No . . . well, sometimes. But it’s ways of seeing the world—we all see it different, but some artists have a gift of making other people see it their way.”

  “And if they don’t see it your way?”

  “Well, you can take it or leave it.” He seemed to think it a stupid question.

  “Like Professor Tennent?”

  “I don’t . . . ?”

  “He didn’t believe in the myth, and he ended up in what you so tactfully call an ‘exhibit.’”

  He flushed, uncomfortable at being challenged. “That was different—that was to prove the point.”

  “What point would that be?”

  He gave an irritated shrug. “That the Ferryman isn’t a myth.”

  “You mean, that there really is a killer snatching young men off the streets and murdering them.”

  “You’re twisting my words.”

  “I don’t believe I am,” Ruth said. “But leaving that aside for now—you say you weren’t in direct communication with the killer yesterday?”

  “The Ferryman,” he corrected. “No.”

  “Or since?”

  “No.”

  “Would you be willing to prove that by letting us have your phone?”

  A snort. “No.”

  “Why not, if you’ve nothing to hide?”

  This time, he made no effort to hide his smile. “I got into that building through an open front door, found a good angle from a window in the public stairwell, took some video footage. Even gave my name to the nice PC plod when I left. Is any of that a criminal offense?”

  “That depends if you’re telling the truth.”

  “Be hard to prove any different, wouldn’t it?” he said.

  Of course, she thought. He’s been briefed.

  “Thought so,” he said. Even had the cheek to wink at her as he left.

  37

  Kharon is standing outside Merseyside Police Headquarters. The press and media have been waiting for ninety minutes. A group of eighteen- to thirtysomethings form a guard of honor down the steps, every one of them wearing an F-logo hoodie.

  Have they completely lost touch with reality? Honoring Kharon as if he created Think Outside the Box, as if he recorded the final, dying brain waves for Catch the Gamma Wave, the ECG readings for Life Passes. As if the imagination, skill, and technical resourcefulness that went into the execution of Art for Art’s Sake were his.

  The little bastard is pleased with himself, talking about “artistic integrity” and the “function” of art. Insect.

  Don’t test me, little flea . . .

  There’s no denying that he retrieved the situation—even turned it into a media triumph. But media triumph too often turns into media circus, and I cannot have the clowns running the circus.

  Perhaps it’s time I took control, brought him under my instructive wing. After all, Andy Warhol had an entire “factory” of artists working under his instruction. And Damien Hirst’s self-described “pill mines” were little more than glorified sweatshops staffed by art graduates who ground their talent to dust, fashioning p
ills for reproductions of his “medicine cabinet” works. Imagine, a production line of apprentices disarticulating limbs ready for reassembly in an exhibit—piecework as a literal and metaphorical concept! While the notion appeals to my darker side, I think Kharon’s talent for publicity is a far more valuable resource.

  Often, it’s hard to recall the exact instant that inspires a work—the emotion or image or feeling. But I feel a sudden, hot rush of excitement like fire in my veins, and I know I will always remember this is one. I shelve an idea I’ve been toying with for Steve Norris—an organic/carbon fiber sculpture—using running blades. Because in this memorable instant, I know how I will induct Kharon into my series, and it will be magnificent.

  38

  Day 8, Evening

  There was nothing of forensic use on the sheet of paper or inside the bag. The sheet itself was standard 80 gsm A4 printer paper, available from thousands of outlets across the city; the bag was a Tesco zip-seal. The only fingerprints on the outside of the bag were Parr’s. Analysis of the ink would take longer, but it looked like cheap biro.

  Dr. Yi had little to add. “There’s not much to go on in the letter itself,” he said. “It’s unusual but not unheard of for serial killers to communicate with the investigators: the American serial killer Dennis Rader sent taunting messages to police and newspapers—and like your ‘Ferryman’ he gave himself a name—‘BTK’ in his case. There are other examples: in New York, George Metesky, aka ‘The Mad Bomber,’ sent letters and demands; the Beltway Snipers left messages scrawled on tarot cards at the scenes of some of their shootings. And of course, here in Britain—Jack the Ripper’s infamous ‘Dear Boss’ letter ridiculed the police, taunting them with what he intended to do to his next victim.”

  “So we can expect more?”

  “Almost certainly.” He paused. “One thing worth considering: usually, killers send letters in the post, or leave them in public places. This man took a huge risk, planting this note. He must have ice running through his veins to leave it in a police vehicle under police surveillance.”