He hadn’t done too good on the betrayal front himself. In the year since he’d met her, he’d wound Hart up and pissed her off. She’d laughed at him and teased him, even yelled at him, on occasion. But she’d always respected him as a cop. Seeing her like this — cold and disdainful — tore him up. Jeff’s right, he thought, for the hundredth time. I should apologise.
It took a few more whiskies and a couple more hours to pluck up the courage. Even then, he didn’t admit to himself that he was really going to go through with it. Instead, he told himself he was going for a walk to clear his head, and just happened to fetch up on her doorstep at half past midnight and in the middle of a rainstorm. The light was on in her living room, and he took this as encouragement.
The intercom was equipped with a camera, and he looked up, to be sure she knew it was him. The lift up to the fourth floor was a touch too fast, given his delicate state, and he nearly lost the whisky that was warming his belly and messing with his head. She met him at the door of her flat, wearing a silk dressing gown that hung to the knee. He felt giddy just looking at her.
She held out her hand and drew him into the sitting room. ‘Jesus, Sarge — you’re wet through!’
He was wearing a waterproof jacket, but his hair was dripping wet and his jeans clung to him, chilling him to the bone. He had dim recollections of being jostled by the wind, of forging his way through the storm with his head bowed. At the lower end of Duke Street, something had whipped past his head — a slate, perhaps, or a loose ridge tile from one of the older buildings, but he had barely noticed.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked, and he realised he had been staring at her stupidly, trying to piece together the last hour.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’m fine.’
‘I came looking for you at the station,’ she said.
‘Didn’t feel much like sharing a bit of banter with the lads back at base.’ God, he thought, that’s a hell of a lot of ‘b’s. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said.
‘It’s okay, I can take a bit of alliteration.’
‘I’ve had a few drinks,’ he confided.
‘I guessed.’ His spirits lifted a little — if she could take the piss, she mustn’t be quiet so mad at him as she was before.
‘I was worried.’ She touched his arm and he felt a tingle of electricity.
‘I didn’t come for sympathy,’ he said. ‘I came to apologise.’
‘It was me that messed up, Sarge.’
This take on events didn’t compute, and again he stared at her while he tried to make sense of it.
‘I’ll make coffee,’ she said. ‘You need a hot drink inside you.’
It wasn’t what he’d expected, and he couldn’t think how to respond, so he followed her through a door directly off the living room, into the kitchen. A couple of plates were stacked on the drainer, an empty wine bottle stood next to them. Hart liked filter coffee — she had even brought a coffee machine into the station on one case they’d worked together.
She ditched the dregs from the machine and started fresh. ‘You should’ve rung me,’ she said. ‘We could’ve gone out for a drink.’
‘That’s me all over, Naomi — getting things arse-about.’ He managed a smile and felt more of an idiot when, instead of returning the smile, she gazed at him, her blue eyes filled with concern.
He took a breath. ‘I was wrong about Maitland.’
‘Sarge — this isn’t necessary.’ He had tried and failed, in the months they had worked together, to persuade her to call him by his given name. He suspected she used it as one more weapon in her arsenal, to keep him at arm’s length. ‘Why don’t you dry off in the bathroom — it’s the door directly opposite,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring the coffee through.’
The bathroom was neat and uncluttered, though she had dressed it with odd homely touches — candles on the edge of the bath, bubble bath and make-up ranged on a shelf next to the sink. Foster took a look in the mirror and winced. His hair was flattened and dripping and his eyes were bloodshot. He splashed his face with cold water, then towelled his hair dry and returned to the sitting room.
The lighting was subdued, and through the huge plate-glass window he could just make out the hulking shape of the Anglican cathedral, lit up by spotlights and blurred by the wind-lashed rain. Hart still had a hi-def TV, though he thought she’d upgraded to 4K. A Blu-ray disc case lay next to the player. The Negotiator. Naomi did like her action flicks. Maybe she was looking for a few tips — he hadn’t exactly been easy to get on with the last couple of days.
He didn’t think she would appreciate him sitting on her pristine leather sofa soaking wet, so he sank down onto one of the floor cushions, and felt a sharp stab in his buttock. He reached under the cushion, swearing softly to himself, and came out with a set of keys and a wallet. He thought again about the two plates in the kitchen, the empty wine bottle, pieced them together to imagine a romantic evening rudely interrupted. ‘Oh, crap . . .’
He should go — of course he should. But drink and bad judgement and, if he was honest, a touch of jealousy made him curious. Naomi didn’t date cops and didn’t like anyone to know who she was dating. He stole a guilty look at the kitchen door and flipped open the wallet.
The driver’s licence was visible through a clear window. Philip Ormerod. Bad picture. A badge clip hung out of the notes section and he gave it a tug. It was a hackney cab licence. Ormerod looked better in this photograph and Foster felt another sting of jealousy.
He heard the clink of crockery near the kitchen door and hastily replaced the wallet and keys where he’d found them. When Naomi came into the sitting room, carrying a tray, he was already on his way out.
‘Sarge?’ she said.
‘I’ve got to . . .’ He couldn’t think of a single thing he might be in a hurry to do — except get the hell out of there.
She put the tray down and caught up with him at the flat door. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Have your coffee.’
He looked at her, wondering if he should apologise again, decided it couldn’t hurt, and steadied himself, monitoring his speech for slurring. ‘Naomi—’
‘Sarge.’
‘I’ve been a dickhead.’ That was it. That was all he wanted to say. He looked into her face, thinking, If she laughs at me, it’ll kill me. But she didn’t. She just nodded, and he turned away.
‘I’ll see you in the morning, then,’ she called after him.
He raised a hand in acknowledgement and headed for the stairwell, feeling that a rapid descent in the lift might finish him off entirely.
‘Lee?’ she called.
His thought processes were slowed by the drowning effect of half a bottle of whisky on his brain cells, so he didn’t get it at first. ‘What?’
‘I was a dickhead, too.’
His reaction time was shot — he registered the last part of what she’d said first. Did I just hear Naomi Hart say ‘dickhead’? Then another, more shocking realisation hit him. Did she call me Lee? He turned so fast that the alcohol almost spun him off his feet. But she had already closed the door.
Chapter 41
In her nightmares, Kim Lindermann heard the whisper of the blade through her flesh. Felt the fearsome burn of it. Sometimes he’d used a knife, but more often he’d favoured a disposable scalpel. Disposable for the sake of hygiene, retractable because ‘accidents can happen,’ he’d told her once.
When he found a girl whose skin was firm and white and resilient, a girl who healed quickly and was compliant, he would come back again and again, working on her until he was satisfied — slicing and carving and scraping as a sculptor might worry at a piece of wood. Kim had been his favourite, and she’d spent many hours with him in that long summer before her overdose.
The cuts were superficial — he didn’t slice deep — but the pain was fierce, and sometimes the thin, hot slashes became infected. He wouldn’t touch her then — said he only wanted clean girls. His passion was to mar perfection, to take a smooth, clear pat
ch of skin and mark it for himself. His concentration was intense, and although the pain was now a distant nightmare, she could never forget the way he’d watched her as he cut. That was more terrible even than the searing burn of sharp steel.
He’d worn gloves, always, when he cut, and he never smiled — for him, this was serious work. He’d cut with surgical precision, paying close attention, measuring by eye the length and depth of each parallel slash, each curve, each point of pain, glancing from the wound to her face, weighing the fear and pain in her eyes against the bloody lines in her flesh. At the end of a good session he would sit back, dabbing his brow with the sleeve of his shirt, and she would see a glimpse of satisfaction in his face — that he had done his job well, extracted the maximum torment. Then his eyes would glaze, he would take a shuddering breath and exhale, long and slow. Kim, more than any of them, had recognised it as an addiction as powerful as her own to heroin.
Kim gasped, opening her eyes to the dark. A shadow seemed to pass over her, and she felt a tremor like the warning rumble of tectonic shift in the moments before an earthquake. The earth felt unsteady beneath her feet since she had seen Jasmine’s tortured flesh. She crept to the rain-battered windows and lifted a corner of the heavy drapes. The orange glow of the street lamps seemed to flicker wildly as the trees bent and twisted in the storm. Her heart beat fast against her ribcage, but nothing human moved in the street below.
She heard the click of a switch and the room was flooded with light. Her husband was by her, his broad hands on her shoulders, warming them.
‘It’s only the storm,’ he said. ‘Come back to bed.’
She allowed him to coax her back, his arm around her, and let him pull the duvet over them both.
‘I should have gone with you to the mortuary,’ he said.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Jasmine would hate to be seen like that, so exposed — it was bad enough the policewoman being there.’
He leaned on one elbow and stroked her arm with his free hand, gazing with a slight frown at the faded lines that her three-year-old son, in his innocence, sometimes mistook for pen marks. Suddenly ashamed, she slipped her arms under the covers, drawing the duvet up around her neck.
‘It’s upset you,’ he said. ‘I understand that. But you don’t have to hide the scars — not from me.’
‘I know.’ She cupped his face in her hands and the duvet slipped so that the lines were visible again. ‘I know that, Lars.’
He turned his face to kiss the palm of her hand. ‘It’s okay,’ he said, but he looked anxious and a little frightened. ‘I’m here. What happened to Jasmine will never happen to you. I’ll make sure of it.’
Lars Lindermann was a powerful man — in business, he could be relentless, and he was physically courageous and strong. But in this, he was naive. She broke down and wept for both his willingness and his inability to protect her, and, dismayed, he reached for her and held her close. ‘You have to tell me what’s wrong,’ he said.
She wiped her eyes and leaned against his chest, content, for a time, to feel the warmth of his skin against her cheek and to listen to the strong, steady thump of his heart.
‘How can I help you if you won’t tell me?’
She sighed, knowing that she would have to tell him, dreading what must come after. ‘The man who did this to me — the man who gave me these scars—’
‘You think he’s found you?’ His heart beat a little faster.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not that. Worse than that.’
He waited.
‘Jasmine.’ She gulped back the tears. ‘I think he killed Jasmine.’
She heard his heart slow, as it sometimes did when he was under extreme pressure. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
This was why she loved him — had always loved him: Lars didn’t tell her what to do, what her responsibilities were. He asked her. She would decide.
* * *
The house lights were on when Rickman arrived home. He made a dash from the car to the house, using his briefcase as an umbrella. The sound of the key in the lock brought Tanya into the hallway.
‘Tanya . . .’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, something came up.’ He dropped his briefcase to the floor and tossed his keys into the bowl on the dresser.
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘It’s just, with the storm . . . I was concerned.’ She shook her head, impatient with herself. ‘Silly of me.’
‘I suppose I’m not used to having someone else around.’ He shrugged off his raincoat and shook some of the water from it. ‘I really am sorry.’
She gave him a rueful smile. ‘Perhaps I’m becoming entrenched in the role of anxious mother — without the boys’ timekeeping to worry about, I have to find a substitute.’ She turned to the kitchen. ‘Come and eat.’
An hour later, they had eaten and were sitting companionably side by side on the sofa in the sitting room, sharing the last two glasses of a bottle of Merlot. The fire crackled, and Rickman was mellower than he deserved to feel, under the circumstances.
‘Did you talk to Simon about the Tuesday meeting?’ he asked.
Tanya nodded. ‘I wish it could be different. I wish — I wish he would come back to Milan with me. The boys would help him, he could relearn the language, the business.’
Rickman remembered a conversation he’d had with his brother.
Sometimes I think it’s a good thing my memory’s shot, Simon had said. ’Cos I don’t remember how easy it all used to be.
Simon had stared earnestly into his brother’s face, willing him to understand. I can’t learn stuff anymore, Jeff. Not hard stuff — not stuff like she wants me to learn. ‘She’ meaning Tanya. ‘Stuff’ meaning the language that had once been his second tongue, the business he had built from scratch, the legal documents and the accounts and all the other intellectual demands that he could no longer cope with.
‘He doesn’t want us, Jeff,’ Tanya said.
Rickman heard his brother’s words echoing hers. I don’t want them near me, Jeff. Simon’s eyes had darted right to left in rapid, tiny nystagmic movements — a sure sign of distress. They keep telling me who I used to be — I can’t be that man anymore.
Tears had started to his brother’s eyes and Rickman understood: Simon could function at the lower cognitive level his injury had forced on him — could even achieve a measure of contentment — but to be constantly reminded that he was so much less than he used to be tormented him. In trying to bring Simon back into the circle of his family, Tanya, Jeff junior and Fergus had only made him feel more alienated from them.
Rickman sighed. ‘Did he agree to the meeting?’
‘He told me to do whatever I want. But he has to be there, Jeff — it becomes so much more difficult if we have to do this in absentia.’
Rickman heard the pressure building in her voice again. ‘He’ll be there,’ he said. ‘I’ll see to it.’
Her brown eyes were almost black in the subdued light. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be burdening you with this when you already have so much to deal with.’
‘A young graduate was murdered this afternoon,’ Rickman said, half to himself. ‘Another team is investigating a drugs operation — it’s probably linked with that. But the drugs boss knew Mark Davis, maybe he even knew Jasmine before she straightened herself out. I don’t know, Tanya — these kids, do they stand any kind of chance at all? They’re ignored or kicked around until the Rob Maitlands of this world find them, then—’ He broke off, realising that he had said too much.
Tanya reached across and squeezed his arm. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘You can tell me.’
‘It’s not enough.’ He felt hot. Feverish, almost. ‘Whatever I do, it isn’t enough. I can’t help thinking if I’d been smarter or faster or luckier . . . If we’d had more personnel—’
‘Don’t,’ she said.
‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t punish yourself.’
Her brown eyes brimmed with concern, and suddenly the frustrati
ons of the last few days, the lack of sleep, the flashes he kept getting of Jasmine, tortured and violated, were too much for him.
‘What the hell kind of world is it where even an innocent isn’t entitled to expect compassion?’ he demanded. ‘Mark’s killer left an eight-week-old baby to die in that filthy cellar.’
‘The TV news said you’d arrested the people who ran the children’s home.’
‘Not for the murders,’ Rickman said, his stomach tightening as he thought again of the Shepherds’ implacable refusal to talk.
She leaned across and kissed him, and he was comforted. She held him to her and the warmth of her, the clean, fresh scent of her, made him giddy with desire. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her lips. Breathing hard, heart pounding, Rickman caressed her arms, her breasts, her body, felt her respond, felt the urgency of her response, felt more alive than he had in an entire year.
‘This is wrong,’ he murmured.
‘I know.’ She kissed his neck. ‘But he doesn’t want us, Jeff.’
Hadn’t Simon said it himself? He kissed her again.
‘Wait.’ She eased gently out of his embrace.
‘Where are you going?’ Drunk with desire, Rickman felt confused and abandoned by her sudden rejection. Until this moment, he hadn’t known how much he had yearned for a woman’s touch — this woman’s touch.
She closed the door and turned the key in the lock. ‘Force of habit,’ she said, a smile dancing in her eyes. She returned to the centre of the room and the play of firelight on her skin made it shimmer as though burnished. She was shivering, despite the heat. He went to her and lifted one trembling hand and touched her cheek with his fingertips. The fire sparked in her eyes and glowed in the golden highlights of her hair.
DON'T SCREAM an absolutely gripping killer thriller with a huge twist (Detective Jeff Rickman Book 3) Page 30
