by James Arklie
‘Go and see Jenny because there’s no rush. He’s not passing through. I don’t think this bastard’s going anywhere.’
*
Kline stood beside Jenny and smiled at her smile. ‘You still make me sing inside, love.’
He stroked her forehead, tucked some stray hairs behind her ears, took her hand and told her about his day. About meeting Cassie and recounting Angie’s psychological battle with an Alice doll.
‘Crazy really. Getting so wound up by an inanimate thing.’
Kline perched on the edge of her bed. ‘Remember when I used to arrive home at the end of a case? A bottle of wine in my hand, wink in my eye and let’s get up those stairs?’
He paused, listening for a change in the heart monitor. There was nothing and for the first time Kline wondered if it was possible for her to leave him of her own accord. Kline couldn’t let her do that. He breathed deeply and tried to quell his rising panic with chat.
‘Angie thinks the killer knows all about me and you, but I doubt that.’ He leaned in.
‘But there is our little secret. I’ll make sure I get to him, Jen. I’ll make sure it never comes out.’
Kline used a finger and thumb to pinch the tiredness in his eyes. He looked at the bare top of the side cabinet and thought of the lilies that had been in her room yesterday. On the cabinet beside her bed the daffodils were in full bloom, a splash of yellow against the grey boxes that monitored and controlled her life.
Kline looked down, patting her hand, preparing to say ‘goodnight’. He blinked, pulled the picture of seeing her when he arrived, felt a frown crease his forehead. The nurses always placed Jenny’s hands across her middle, right hand on top of left. Yesterday and today they had been by her sides. Palms upwards.
He swallowed, feeling the heat in the room.
Just like Evie’s will have been that night, he thought. As her killer steadied the steel nails above them, then hammered them through.
*
Chapter Five
Kline didn’t need a diary to remind him it was a dialysis day. The swelling in his joints, the tiredness that permeated every muscle in his body and the buzz in his head were reminders enough. The toxins were building to dangerous levels.
They woke him at five-thirty a.m. and with the resigned knowledge of an alcoholic reaching for a fresh bottle and knowing the outcome, he swung his feet from the bed to the floor and eased himself to standing. Pain shot from his ankles to his calves and he looked down at the swelling. He’d have trouble getting his feet into his shoes this morning.
Kline looked round his one room bedsit. Cooker, fridge-freezer, bed, table and two chairs, a door to the bathroom. A distance of a light-year from the three-bed detached he’d sold to fund the ongoing treatment for Jenny. He had no complaints about his sacrifice and he didn’t give a damn what other people thought, Jenny was what mattered.
Kline shuffled through his morning routine and towed a black bin sack behind him to clear the work tops. He never realised how much Jenny used to tidy up behind him until she was no longer there to do it.
At six a.m. he dragged himself and the bin sack down two flights to the communal hallway of the apartment block. He reckoned he could get a couple of hours work in before the toxins forced him to Chandler’s Ford for dialysis.
Walking through the hallway, Kline surprised a thin, gangly, blond haired teenager of about eighteen, stuffing copies of something into mailboxes. He stopped when he saw Kline, eyes staring like a fox caught in the rubbish bins by car headlights. Over his shoulder was a leather satchel and he seemed to be trying to unload all the contents in one go.
As Kline walked stiffly passed him a guilty look held his eyes. He suddenly thrust a copy of the leaflet at Kline and smiled enthusiastically. ‘The Watchtower.’
Kline realised. He was a Jehovah’s Witness but was surprised he was up and about so early. Kline glanced at his mailbox where there was a wad of copies stuffed into and holding open the flap. It was the same for the other mailboxes.
Kline shook his head. ‘I think I already have enough copies.’
He reached for his mailbox, pulled them out and dumped them into his bin sack. He headed for the door to the street, pulled it open and saw someone had left it on the latch last night.
From behind him a voice full of keenness and excitement said, ‘This copy discusses personal disaster, faith in the face of adversity and…’
Kline dropped the latch and let the door close on him. He binned the sack and headed for Costa, breakfast and the office. His mind was not on God’s Kingdom, it was on someone that God continued to allow to live in his Kingdom. A lightning bolt from heaven would save Kline a lot of work.
He was in the office at six-thirty. The reports were in. Angie was in. They both sensed it. This could be a big case.
There was a printed copy of each report on Kline’s desk. The Greek and the French were translations which, thought Kline, was good of them, but not that hard given there was hardly anything in them.
Kline handed Angie coffee and her usual cinnamon swirl and gave her a questioning look.
She nodded and smiled gently. ‘I’m good.’
Kline doubted it, but who was he to talk? He talked to a woman who was brain-dead and he held conversations with a hairy toy gorilla named Charlie. He fell into his chair, eased off his shoes, tugged off his socks and used one hand to lift his feet to the table. The swelling had a purple tinge to it and elevation would only help for a couple of hours. He should probably go for dialysis now, but it would take four hours and getting this case up and running was a bigger priority.
Angie glanced at Kline’s feet and left the concern on her face even when he spoke to her.
‘It’s all good. I suggest we read, re-read, then discuss.’
Two hours later they drank fresh coffee and picked at some leftover crumbs of frustration.
Angie tap-tapped her sheets into a neat pile. ‘Nothing here, boss. No clues, no theories, no interviews with anyone who is remotely a suspect…’ She spread her hands.
‘Nothing.’
Kline knew that wasn’t the case. ‘Wrong, Angie, it’s all there. Cassie has told us as much. At each scene, he will have left something. This was a game to him. He threw down a challenge.’ Kline sipped at his coffee, not sure that a diuretic was what his failing kidney needed right now.
Kline was trying to create some positivity in his mind, turning this into the killer’s first mistake. ‘What we have now is all of the murders here in front of us at the same time. The same two minds can analyse them together.’ He waved a hand across the files.
‘Before this it was five individual minds analysing them in isolation. And, we also have more; we have new technology and new techniques we can throw at this.’
Kline held up a wad of photographs taken at the scene of the murder in New Zealand.
‘We get high resolution on these. Get them blown up to the size of the whiteboard if we can.’ He pulled out the photograph left resting on the body.
‘We have five women murdered. We get full background on each from the day they were born until the day they died. What is it that links them together?’ He waved another photograph.
‘We have five photographs of other women. We have face recognition software and God knows what other software that can age them. Who are they? What is the link to the woman on whose body they were placed? What is the link between any two or all of them? Is there a link between any of them?’
Kline pulled out a picture of Evie and tried not to look into her eyes. They always seemed to accuse him. ‘The one person we know inside out is Evelyn Arnold. Let’s look for links back to her.’
Kline thought he could feel his kidney pulsing in his back, ready to explode. He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll drop copies with Cassie on my way to Chandler’s Ford.’
Kline nodded at the whiteboard. Angie nodded back, knowing what he wanted; organise the facts and try and get some sense into them, some threads
linking them.
‘Any word on support, boss? I’ve been fishing without success and that was the speech you normally give to a team of fifteen.’
Kline knew she was right. They had enough work to see them through to natural retirement.
‘I’ll call Dave from my car.’
He reversed the process with his legs. Angie knelt and had to loosen his laces right out to get his feet into his shoes.
Kline eased himself to standing. ‘We can do this, Angie. Cassie said these are games to him. So, let’s play, because we only have to win once to win the match.’
*
Kline stopped by to see Jenny on his way to be dialysed. Her hands were once again clasped across her middle. A crystal vase of small, white lilies had replaced his daffodils. He made a mental note to buy more daffodils.
An hour later, on his way out, he asked reception if she’d had any other visitors. As a married couple they did have a circle of friends, but Kline had made increasing efforts to shut them out, shunning their company and sympathy the longer Jenny’s illness had gone on. The last thing he needed was their interference or be forced to listen to their words of concern about what he was doing.
The receptionist checked the register and said if there had been visitors they’d not signed in or out. And anyway, she wasn’t always there so it was very much a trust basis.
Kline asked about the hands and the flowers and was told that it was probably one of the part time auxiliaries. ‘Close bonds do build, you know.’ Kline didn’t know, but guessed if there was such a thing as the Stockholm Syndrome between captives and terrorists then why not patient and nurse.
He asked if they had CCTV on the main door or in the corridors and was told, ‘this is a respite and hospice care home, not a prison’.
Kline had smiled his grateful detective’s smile, said thank you and left. On his way back to the office from dialysis, he bought a home, wireless mini-spy camera from a security shop in Eastleigh. It had a motion sensor that would activate it and send the pictures directly to his mobile. Complex technology made simple.
Back in the office their support had arrived. Arthur – call me ‘Artie’ – Knowleden. Kline gave him the once over and decided that even police officers can be made to feel old when meeting the new recruits.
Arthur, Artie, had been with the force for three months and looked as though he was barely out of school. He’d joined on a six-month contract as something called a ‘police support auxiliary’. Kline had no idea what that was, but guessed it was someone who did all the shit jobs and got paid peanuts.
Artie jumped up with the spring-loaded heels of Tigger and shook Kline’s hand. Kline decided they were the longest and boniest he’d ever held. Artie’s head was shaved down both sides but not on top, he wore skinny green trousers and a white tee-shirt with a logo on that Kline found out later in the day was Extinction Rebellion. He wore cherry reds, was vegan and had a tiny diamond in one ear.
Kline gave Angie a questioning look which she returned with an affirming nod. It was like a father secretly checking with his wife over the dinner table that she approved of their daughter’s new boyfriend.
Kline tossed lunch for himself and Angie on the desk. ‘Sorry, but…’
‘It’s okay. I have a salad I made at home.’
Kline glanced at Artie’s Desk. It was already a mess of scribbled notes and coloured post-its stuck round the edge of his screen. While Kline had been hiding away from the realities of the world, Artie had clearly been a busy boy.
Kline put his jacket over the back of his chair and dropped his cleansed, but exhausted body into the seat. He needed to rehydrate and to eat. It was then that he noticed Artie’s face carried the residuary marks of a good beating. There was faint bruising round his eyes, a split on his lip hadn’t quite healed and the bridge of his nose was crooked.
Kline shot a questioning look at Angie. Her impassive expression told him not to ask, so he said warmly, ‘Okay, welcome to the team, Artie, what have we got?’
Artie looked at Angie who sent him to the whiteboard with a jerk of her head. ‘I asked Artie to start looking into the backgrounds of the five ALICE women.’
Photographs of the five women were now in a line across the top of the board. Artie used a pointer that was marginally thinner than he was.
‘All of our ladies were born and bred in the UK. They all moved abroad for specific reasons.’ He tapped their faces in order of death.
‘Marriage, work, marriage, emigration and emigration.’
He tapped along another line below them. ‘In the UK, they all lived in different towns and cities. That suggests they didn’t know each other, but I will need to go right back to their childhoods to confirm that. However, they were all alive and well and living in the UK pre-1995. Interestingly, 1995 was the year they all left.’
Kline reached for his tuna sandwich. Artie moved to the far side of the board.
‘Angie and I wrote up a few obvious questions and thoughts. What is the significance of the removal of the breast? Is the name ALICE significant or is it just coincidence? Why these women? We know they are all from the UK, but what is it about them that made the same person want to kill them? If the killer is from the UK as well, then it must have been important because they, or he, tracked them round the world to do it. That’s also expensive.’
He paused and sipped something green from a bottle, then, ‘If our killer is not from the UK, then where is he from? One of these countries? What is the significance of the sequential dates in May…?’
Artie stopped and shrugged. Angie turned to Kline. ‘It’s something and nothing, boss, but it’s a start.’
Kline was staring at Artie, but wasn’t seeing him. All that travel. Five women from the UK, not five random women from any country. A phrase had come into his mind. A purposeful killer, a killer with a purpose.
That was dangerous.
It was time to get back to Cassie.
*
Cassie agreed to meet late afternoon. Leaving the office, Kline learned that Artie wasn’t afraid to share his opinions. Kline annoyed him by insisting they take two cars. Artie mentioned environmental concerns and said it was unnecessary. He puffed out a chest he didn’t have to highlight his Extinction Rebellion tee-shirt.
Kline glanced at the logo and reminded Artie that, sound message or not, they sometimes seemed to verge on a little too radical and it might not be so appropriate to wear it in the office. Adding, that Artie could walk if he wanted to, but they were taking two cars anyway.
Artie said he would, at which point a smiling Angie, who’d being enjoying the exchange between youth and the older generation, stepped in. Artie went with her and, thought Kline as he recounted the exchange to Charlie, probably got a lecture on the best way to handle grumpy, senior police officers, fixed in their ways.
Cassie was waiting for them and Kline let Angie brief her. At the previous meeting Kline had sensed some friction that he didn’t want. Communication was always the best way to overcome that.
Cassie asked, ‘Have you got high resolution of the pictures yet?’
Angie answered, ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Good. We’ve got to study those rooms. He will have left a message in all of them. Back then investigating officers won’t have looked past the body.’
Kline gave Cassie his thoughts on purposeful purpose.
Cassie agreed. She gave Kline a deep look before she spoke. ‘He went after these women for a reason and it wasn’t to collect a right breast.’
Artie said. ‘They weren’t trophies?’
She shook her head. ‘If this was a killer, operating in one location, then I may say ‘yes’. But think about the practicality. This man travels the globe for five years selecting his victims. Where would he keep the trophies?’
Angie asked, ‘So you’re still dismissing hatred of women as his key driver?’
Cassie sat forward, elbows on knees, slowly rubbing her palms across one another.
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‘The classic attack in such situations is far more severe. There is no hatred here. The breasts have been delicately removed. Flowers have been placed over the wounds. It’s apologetic. As if he’s sorry for what he’s done.’
Cassie reached beside her and picked up a pile of pictures from a coffee table. She flipped through some of the pictures, selected a couple and held them up in front of her.
‘I think it’s a distraction. Part of his game. To make us look one way, when we should be looking the other. All these reports, us now, what are we talking about? You look at these pictures and your eye goes straight to the mutilation and the flowers.’
She tossed the pictures back to the table. ‘It’s horrible, it’s deliberate, which adds to the horror, but in the scheme of such killings, it’s minor.’
Artie spoke again. ‘And there are the photographs strategically placed to preserve decency. As if he doesn’t want them embarrassed.’
Cassie conceded the suggestion with a tight smile and a nod. Then looked at Kline.
‘Have you identified the women in any of the pictures?’
Kline glanced at Angie. She should answer, she’d been doing the work while he’d been stretched out on his back, head resting on a pillow. ‘We’re waiting for the enhanced images to come back.’
Cassie said, ‘It’s interesting though. There’s something called the ‘situational’ sociopath. They will exhibit friendship and respect towards certain people, but inhumanity and cruelty towards others.’
Kline laughed, ‘You’ll need to expand on that one.’
Cassie sat back and crossed long, thin legs. ‘The situational sociopath will see some people as fully human and others as less so, or even not human at all, but mere objects. Racists and sexists are simple examples.
‘Our killer seems to be caught in a conflict between the two. He’s applying both to the same person. On the one hand, he de-humanises because that allows him to kill; but then, he wants re-humanise them afterwards. I’m not sure anyone’s come across that before.’
