The Cutting Room

by Ashley Dyer

  The two who knew Karl were a badly frightened girl and a monstrously hungover lad. Both denied any knowledge that Kharon was Karl’s alter ego. The girl in particular seemed terrified that the Ferryman might think she had any inside knowledge, while the boy seemed resentful that Karl had won the attention of the media. Presumably he felt that in Karl’s place, he would have managed things differently—emerging as the triumphant hero instead of winding up dead.

  Milner followed her into the corridor afterward. “I’m afraid that wasn’t much help,” he said.

  “Do you believe they had no idea that Karl was Kharon?” she asked.

  “Karl kept to himself,” he said. “He was apt to go off and do his own thing, so, yes . . . it’s entirely possible they didn’t know.”

  “You’ve been following the case?”

  “The exhibits—yes, of course. Hasn’t everyone?”

  With the Ferryman’s followers rising by the hour, she couldn’t disagree. “This obsession with death,” she said. “Is it big in art right now?” She was thinking of Adam and his nasty story about the artist and the rat.

  Milner didn’t answer immediately. He stood in silent thought for a few seconds, then said, “Death has preoccupied artists since the beginning of time. When you have a moment, you should take a stroll around the Walker Art Gallery—death is represented in its many forms on just about every wall in the building. From religious art to Roman mythology.”

  “Do you have an opinion on what this killer is doing?”

  “Given the constraints and the difficulty of the settings, the quality of the work is exceptional,” he said.

  “I meant, do you think it is immoral?”

  “Ah, now that’s a different question entirely,” he said. “He’s driven, inventive—cruel, certainly.”

  “Do you condemn him—as an artist yourself?”

  He considered. “I try not to condemn disturbing and challenging works: they often have the most to say to us. But context is so important in art. A lot of people have a problem with Tracey Emin’s work My Bed. But place it in the context of autobiographical art—the fact that she stayed in that bed—or a version of it—for several days contemplating suicide, and you begin to understand it.”

  “Contemplating suicide is very different from actually committing murder,” Ruth said.

  “And yet suicide was a criminal offense here in the UK until nineteen sixty-one.” Milner smiled. “I can see you’re not convinced. But you have to acknowledge his work has impact.”

  “If we’re talking about impact, the Yorkshire Ripper had that—and nobody called him an artist.”

  He nodded. “Fair point. Is there anything else I can do for you, Sergeant?”

  “It’d be helpful if more of Karl’s friends came forward.” She handed him her card. “We need to track his movements in the days before he died.”

  “I’ll speak to my classes,” he said.

  Ruth called in to Carver’s office as soon as she got back and gave him the bad news.

  “John Hughes called while you were out,” he said. “The SSU found a partial print on one of the hinges of the triptych.”

  Metal, Ruth thought—it should give them a good-quality lift. “Fingerprint?” she said.

  Carver shook his head. “The edge of a hand. But there’s nothing in the database.”

  They only kept the edge prints of people arrested for suspected terrorist offenses, so that was no surprise.

  “We also got some hits from ANPR on the stolen number plates. A vehicle matching the suspect van’s description was spotted near St. Michael’s Station and at various points through the city on the day Steve Norris was abducted. It’s possible he’s still using the A33 VAN number plates.”

  “Well, it’s about time we had some good luck,” she said.

  Carver dipped his head. “It’s not all good. They lost him at the north end of the city, after he turned off the Dock Road into a housing estate.”

  Ruth felt her shoulders sag, but Carver seemed to take the disappointment in his stride; he looked rested and focused, and it occurred to her that his new therapist must be working wonders.

  “We just keep plowing away like we always do, Ruth,” Carver added. “Something will turn up. Which reminds me—any news on the soil samples?”

  “Early days,” Ruth said.

  His desk phone rang, and Ruth gave Carver a nod and left him to it, closing the door after her.

  As she reached the Major Incident Room, Carver appeared in the corridor.

  “Something just turned up,” he said.

  56

  Ruth reserved a briefing room on the next floor for the meeting, well out of sight and hearing of the MIR. As Carver walked in, the buzz of conversation stilled, though the nervous tension felt like a breath held.

  “Doctor Yi?” he asked.

  “He’s away at a conference,” Ruth said, “but he was able to access a secure line. He’s on speaker now.”

  Carver greeted him, thanking the psychologist for breaking into his schedule.

  “Happy to assist,” Dr. Yi said.

  “I’m going to address the team,” Carver said. “DS Lake is standing by—let her know if you need anything repeated.”

  “Will do,” Yi said.

  Carver called the room to order. “DNA samples from the heart have been identified as belonging to Marcus Fenst,” he began. “Mr. Fenst was a banker at Alderson Bank.”

  Ruth felt the excitement in the room as a hum in her veins. But they’d identified other victims, and in truth, she couldn’t really see how this one would be any different from Professor Tennent, or Steve Norris—or Karl Obrazki, for that matter. The Ferryman was clever, he was careful, and he’d left little trace of himself.

  What about the edge print at Karl’s flat? her inner optimist whispered. Maybe he’s getting careless—maybe this victim will be the one that helps us to nail the bastard.

  Ruth watched every face in the room. The sharper, more ambitious detectives were already working through possibilities, thinking of avenues to explore. DC Gorman looked bored, as usual; Tom Ivey was typing something into his laptop, glancing up every few seconds as though he was afraid he’d miss something.

  “Alderson is a private bank based in Manchester.”

  Frowns and murmurs.

  “That’s right. This victim wasn’t from Liverpool—the Ferryman has strayed out of his usual hunting grounds again. Mr. Fenst doesn’t fit the pattern of the other missing men, either: he’s older, for one thing—aged forty-five. He’s also wealthy, while the others, with the exception of Professor Tennent, were not.”

  “When did he go missing?” Naylor asked.

  “Thirteen days ago,” Carver said.

  “And we’re only hearing about it now? Why wasn’t his DNA in the national database?”

  “The investigating officer was seriously injured in a road accident,” Ruth supplied. “The sample went AWOL. It happens.”

  Carver spoke again: “We need to know everything there is to know about this man—his family, his friends, his enemies. His disappearance was reported by his wife. He also has two kids—but let’s dig deep. Was he having an affair? Did he have sexual preferences he kept from his wife? Did his banking partners have any concerns over financial misdeeds? To all appearances, Mr. Fenst was Establishment with a capital E—but something made him vulnerable. We need to know what that was.”

  Ruth took stock, matching the strengths of the personnel present with the tasks to be allocated.

  “Look around you,” Carver said. “Memorize the people in this room. They are the only people you can discuss this with.”

  Ruth saw confusion and doubt as the team exchanged glances.

  “I know it won’t be easy,” Carver went on. “I’m asking you to hold back information from your coworkers—but there’s a good reason.” He paused. “We may have a leak from within the team.”

  That caused a ripple of exclamations.

 
“Yesterday, a local press reporter got a phone call from someone claiming to be the Ferryman. He spoke with a fake Midlands accent, and he knew that we’d reevaluated the age of the heart victim, who we now know is Mr. Fenst.”

  “Doesn’t mean it was leaked by one of our lot, boss,” Gorman said. “Could be the Ferryman just guessed we’d’ve worked that out by now.”

  “It’s possible,” Carver said. “But we can’t take any chances. This killer has been ahead of us every step of the way. For once, we’re ahead of him. We need to play that advantage—if we can establish a link to Mr. Fenst, it might lead us right to his door.”

  Carver turned toward the conference phone. “Doctor Yi. We know that Mr. Fenst’s heart had been stuffed with coins and maggots. Now, I can see the rather obvious allusion to bankers, money, and corruption, but Fenst was not an obvious target for this offender.”

  Yi agreed. “But I would prefer to wait until you’ve gathered more information about Mr. Fenst before I comment—anything I say now would be purely speculative.”

  It wasn’t particularly helpful, but Yi was taking a properly scientific approach, and Ruth could identify with that.

  “Could he have knocked the killer back on a loan, or something?” Sergeant Naylor suggested.

  “Uh, he’s not that kind of banker, Sarge,” Ivey said, looking up from his laptop. “I’m looking at Alderson Bank’s website; they provide services for—and I’m quoting—‘ultra-high-net-worth individuals.’”

  Someone at the back said, “Ooh, get them!”

  Ivey colored slightly. “Fenst’s LinkedIn profile says he’s an investment banker specializing in ‘resurgence.’”

  “What the hell’s that?” Naylor demanded, apparently still ruffled by the fact that Fenst’s DNA wasn’t on the missing persons database.

  Ivey’s eyes darted from the keyboard to the screen as he typed in a search term. “According to Google, it means they buy shares and equity in undervalued and failing firms and make money on them.”

  “Asset strippers?” Carver said. “That’d make him a lot of enemies.”

  Ivey seemed to be swapping screens every few seconds. “The Financial Times reckons a good number of companies this bank has taken on have returned to profit.”

  “Okay,” Carver said, “so we look for the ones that didn’t get turned around.”

  “I don’t suppose any of them’s art galleries?” The smirk on Gorman’s face said he was joking, but Carver seemed to take the question seriously.

  “That’s a good question,” Carver said. “Let’s find out.”

  As people gathered their belongings, Carver called them to order one last time. “Remember what I said: this does not go beyond the people gathered in this room.” He waited for a “Yes, boss” from every one of them before he dismissed them.

  57

  Three hours later, tasks allocated and liaison established with Greater Manchester Police, Ruth got a call from Carver.

  “I’ve spoken to Mr. Fenst’s widow,” he said. “The DCI at Manchester Police who’s coordinating with us broke the news to her a couple of hours ago. She’s agreed to speak to us. Can we get to Hale Barns by four if we leave now?”

  Ruth checked her watch; it was 2:25. “That’s South Manchester?”

  “Not far from the airport, apparently.”

  “We should have plenty of time,” she said. “I’ll grab a car, see you down below.”

  As she left the MIR, she saw Superintendent Wilshire about to enter Carver’s office, and she ducked into the stairwell to avoid him.

  Voices echoed up from a couple of flights down.

  “. . . I don’t know what you’re on about, mate.”

  Tom Ivey.

  “Sure you do. Eight members of the team disappear for half an hour, come back looking like constipated ferrets.”

  Ruth recognized the second voice; it was Parr.

  “What does a constipated ferret look like, then?”

  “Like they’re keeping something in that’s paining them. Come on, Tommy. Something’s up.”

  “It’s Tom,” Ivey said. “And yeah, something’s up—a serial killer’s on the loose. You need to read your memos, mate.”

  Ivey was toughening up. Good for him.

  “Very funny,” Parr said. “Bloody hilarious.”

  Ruth heard a shuffle, then Tom raised his voice. “Get out of my way.”

  “Keeping secrets is bad for you—d’you know that?” Parr hissed. “I guess you would.”

  “What does that mean?” Ivey said.

  “Secrets, Tommy. Things locked in closets.” He affected an offensive lisp.

  “Piss off, Parr,” Tom said.

  She heard a brief scuffle, then a harsh, unpleasant laugh from Parr. Ruth opened the door to the stairwell again, slamming it wide, and began trotting down the stairs. Parr waited at the turn in the stairs for her to pass. She looked in his eyes and saw no hint of the nastiness in his exchange with Ivey. He gave her a respectful nod and carried on.

  Ruth caught Ivey as he was about to exit the stairwell on the next floor down.

  “Okay, Tom?” He looked at her in question, and she added, “I couldn’t help hearing.”

  He was pale but seemed more angry than shaken. “Nothing I can’t handle,” he said.

  “Okay. In that case, I need a favor.”

  Carver was shrugging into his jacket and shutting down his computer when Detective Superintendent Wilshire poked his head around the door.

  “Good work on the identification,” he said.

  “Team effort, sir,” Carver said. “But thank you—I’ll pass it on.”

  “You’re heading home—good. You’ve been looking washed out recently.”

  “It took a few days to settle in, but I’m finding my stride now, sir.”

  Wilshire eyed Carver suspiciously as he stuffed his personal phone in one jacket pocket and his work phone in the other. “You are heading home?”

  “Just on my way out now,” Carver said, avoiding a direct lie.

  Wilshire looked unconvinced.

  “Ruth and I are taking our work phones home with us for the duration,” Carver explained. “It’s all been cleared.”

  He heard footsteps in the corridor, then DC Ivey’s voice. “Sorry, sir,” he said, peering around Wilshire’s impressive bulk. “The chief inspector’s taxi’s waiting at the gate.”

  “Tell them I’m on my way,” Carver said.

  Wilshire left a moment later, and Ivey caught Carver as he passed the Major Incident Room.

  “Ruth said she’d meet you just inside the gates of the Albert Dock,” the young detective murmured.

  “Good lad,” Carver said, suppressing a smile.

  Traffic was heavy along each of the three motorways they had to navigate to get to south Manchester, and it took thirty minutes longer than it should have, but they made it in time. Hale Barns was an affluent suburb and the Fenst family home was one of the larger Edwardian properties in the area, comfortably settled on a tree-lined street. The iron gates securing the driveway were closed, but Ruth buzzed the call button on a pole at the entrance and they slid open.

  Mrs. Fenst met them at the front door. She was dressed immaculately in a skirt suit, her brown hair cut close to the nape of her neck; she looked as if she’d stepped out of a business meeting.

  They presented their warrant cards, and Mrs. Fenst studied both with a keen eye before stepping back to let them in. The hall floor was honey-colored parquet, polished to a liquid gleam.

  Mrs. Fenst insisted on taking their coats, and as Carver shucked out of his, he glanced up the wide staircase to the half landing on which someone stood, stone-white, poised with one foot forward. Carver broke out in a sweat: the legs were shapely, well-rounded, but the body was twisted horribly at the waist.

  Not now, he thought. I can’t do this now.

  “It’s a striking piece, isn’t it,” Mrs. Fenst said, following his line of sight.

  Carver blin
ked. The figure resolved into a marble sculpture.

  “It’s called Body Dysmorphia,” she said. “The artist had just come out of a long period of anorexia and bulimia.”

  Carver slowed his breathing, and the feeling of scrabbling panic abated. Mrs. Fenst showed them through to a sitting room twice the size of Carver’s entire flat. It was done out in Edwardian style, in pale blue and lemon, and thankfully, the paintings hung on the walls were more tranquil than the sculpture on the landing. A MacBook Air lay on a glass coffee table, next to an iPhone and a tray of coffee makings.

  “Do sit,” she said. “I hope coffee’s all right?”

  They murmured their thanks and as she poured from a cafetière into fine china mugs, Ruth made brief eye contact, a question on her face. She would have seen his reaction to the sculpture and would know that he found it more than just striking.

  He gave a quick nod in answer: I’m fine.

  “Help yourself to milk and sugar,” Mrs. Fenst said, acting the perfect host, despite the turmoil she must be in.

  It is an act, Carver thought, focusing on the widow to distract himself. Watching her, he was reminded of his therapist’s description of “white-knuckle sobriety”; it seemed that behind her composure Mrs. Fenst was keeping just as tight a grip on her emotions.

  When she was seated, Carver said, “We’re very sorry to intrude at such a difficult time.”

  She gave a minute shake of her head. “I’ve known Marcus was dead since the day he disappeared.” Her voice was strong. “He would never have voluntarily put us through this . . . hell.”

  She paused, and her eyes flicked to the large bay window to her left. “Before you ask your questions, I must ask—do I need to keep the children away from the TV, their tablets? They’re at an inquisitive age, Chief Inspector—I don’t want them to see—”

  Carver saw deep emotional pain gather at her brow, and he spoke before her feelings could overwhelm her. “We won’t release this to the press, Mrs. Fenst,” he said. “And—again, I’m sorry—I know this must be hard, but if you could limit who you tell for now, it would give us a better chance of catching the person responsible.”