Mirror Man

by McIntosh, Fiona

  ‘Well, do something!’ she bleated. ‘Show them how little respect you have for the judicial system. Protest, at least! It’s like they’re being paid off.’

  ‘Paid off? Judges? No. I doubt that.’

  ‘Why does it feel like it, then? If you were Judge Leland – a woman who should sympathise with the terror of the crime – why wouldn’t you give Davey Robbins the harshest sentence that you possibly could? We all knew he was lying. Even the judge knew it – I might be young but I’m hardly stupid and I could read the judge’s disgust as much as the next person. The clerk of the court even apologised for the way the trial was going. He suggested that I didn’t come in any more but nothing was going to keep me away.’

  ‘This was Hugh Pettigrew, right?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I think his name was Brian, but he was a really nice gentleman. He was always so polite and kind to my family.’

  Jack frowned. So Brian Jarvis had shifted courtrooms?

  ‘Anyway, at least now I feel we got our justice with both of those evil men dead . . . But we don’t have Granny, and I don’t have my life, and don’t tell me it will get easier, because I’m not interested any more.’ She turned to look out the window again.

  He nodded. ‘You know, I felt like that a couple of years ago when the woman I was seeing was murdered.’

  Amy’s head whipped around in shock. ‘Murdered? Really?’

  ‘Yes. I felt like giving up on everything because I felt like I’d failed somehow.’

  ‘But you didn’t give up?’

  ‘No, I absolutely did for a while, and it was probably the best thing. I stopped work, I gave up my house, I put my life on hold. And I fled.’

  She gave him a soft smile of shared understanding.

  ‘I travelled, I took time away from everything familiar so that when I did return – as I knew I must – it would feel different and also distant.’

  ‘Is it easier?’

  ‘The pain is easier to bear,’ he admitted. ‘And I’m glad I’ve picked up the threads of my life again. But the memories travel with me. You can’t escape what you know. Time simply makes the wound scar over and makes it easier to look at. Just take the time you need, Amy, to get that distance, but never give up on yourself. Your granny wouldn’t like that.’

  She chewed her lip. ‘Yeah, that’s what Dad says.’

  ‘He’s right. You’ve been incredible to get this far. Don’t stop.’ He stood. ‘Thank you for seeing me and for this,’ he said, holding up the letter.

  Amy shrugged. ‘I wonder if you’ll catch him.’

  Jack gave a sad smile. ‘I know I will.’

  Jack was waiting in the reception of Martin Sharpe’s office; his boss was running late but Jack was enjoying the view, looking out across London, which for the most part had nothing to fear from the man he was stalking. He was thinking about what Amy had snarled about Judge Leland. Why hadn’t she thrown as many years as she could at Robbins? At least he would have gone to prison feeling the horror of knowing he had a long sentence to serve.

  Jack’s thoughts were disturbed when his mobile jangled softly in his pocket. He grimaced. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured in the direction of Sharpe’s secretary.

  She waved away the interruption. ‘Happens all day with everyone . . . these mobile phones will be the death of us.’

  He grinned at her while answering the call. ‘Hawksworth?’

  ‘Boss, it’s Sarah.’

  ‘Hello. I’m sorry I had to rush away earlier.’

  ‘Er, are you still too busy?’

  She heard him gust a low laugh. ‘Not if you need me.’

  ‘I do, sir.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘If that would be possible, yes.’

  ‘Of course. Do we need Kate in on this?’

  ‘I’d like to just run some thoughts by you.’

  He got the message. ‘That’s fine. Hang on.’ He looked up. ‘Marjorie?’

  She smiled over her glasses at him. ‘Is it Mirror? Do you need to go?’

  He pointed at the phone. ‘It’s urgent, yes.’

  ‘Go. I’ll explain. He’s running late anyway.’

  The lift looked as though it was inching its way up the various levels. Sensing Sarah’s excitement – if he could put it that way – he didn’t wish to stand around waiting for the lift to haul itself up each floor, so he took the fire stairs, quickly. He arrived into Mirror’s suite and nodded at Joan, who was busy on a call and lifted a hand in greeting. Scanning for Sarah, he saw she was already seated in his office, in her brown anorak. It wasn’t cold today. She pushed her glasses up her nose as he arrived and stood.

  ‘Hello, sir. Thank you for coming so quickly.’

  ‘Sounds as though something’s about to burst out of you.’

  She gave an embarrassed half smile. ‘I think it might be. It’s been threatening since last night.’

  ‘I’m all yours,’ he said, opening his palms. ‘Impress me.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, sitting forward. ‘I have some odd observations I’d like to run through. In isolation they are easy to ignore, but I feel there’re enough of them to make my skin prickle.’

  He nodded. ‘And skin prickles are gravely important in our business. Never feel reluctant to share them.’ He smiled to reassure her.

  ‘Okay.’ She took a deep breath. ‘It’s about Brian Jarvis.’

  Jack frowned as the man’s name came up for the second time that day.

  ‘I don’t believe the big glasses he wears are real.’

  It was such an unexpected remark that Jack sat back, but he knew to school his body language to remain encouraging.

  She continued. ‘I could be mistaken, but you know the other night when we were going through the CCTV footage?’

  He nodded.

  ‘He turned to speak to you, and I was to his side but sort of at an angle.’ She made an attempt to gesture her position using her hands. ‘Anyway, because his glasses are so large, I could just see through them.’

  He caught on fast. ‘And there’s no magnification?’

  ‘Not that I could tell, sir. To me they looked like clear glass.’

  ‘But you’re not one hundred per cent certain?’

  ‘No, I’m not. He probably does need glasses for reading. As I suggested, on its own this idea seems inconsequential, but there is something else that’s nagging at me about him.’

  ‘Go on, Sarah,’ he encouraged her, as a thought began to nibble on the edge of his mind too.

  ‘I went to his house yesterday.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t stop the nag.’

  ‘I know that feeling, but Sarah—’

  ‘Sir, I’m aware it was unwise. But I felt I needed to catch Mr Jarvis slightly off balance. So far he’s . . . well, he’s sort of always been in control of the situation whenever we’ve been with him.’ She shrugged. ‘At North London Crown Court, in here showing us the CCTV footage. We trust him – why wouldn’t we?’

  ‘Okay?’ She was leading him and he needed to go with her.

  ‘So I thought if I took him slightly by surprise and thus unprepared, I might be able to rattle his almost constantly cheerful and genial composure. I can’t ever imagine him raising his voice, let alone a hand.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘I used the pretext of urgently needing to show him mugshots of two prisoners about to be released early. Don’t worry, they were fakes, and I am confident he accepted my excuse of turning up on his doorstep en route to a friend’s for the evening.’

  ‘Wow, Sarah. We’ll make a detective inspector of you yet.’

  ‘I hope so,’ she said, and for the first time since knowing her, he glimpsed her ambition. The fact that she didn’t encourage others to call her Sarge, or even refer to her status, didn’t mean she didn’t want to move up the ranks. Plus, he’d always trusted her judgement as he trusted it now; she was an asset to any team.

  ‘So
what happened?’

  ‘Well, nothing. He responded with calm confusion that he had no idea who these men were – obviously – but he didn’t give any sign of the sort of reaction that I was looking for.’

  ‘What were you looking for?’

  ‘I thought he might be interested in these two men – perhaps ask some questions about their crimes, their sentences. But he said nothing. He didn’t even ask their names. Him being a Crown Court official, I suppose I anticipated more.’

  ‘Absolutely no interest?’

  ‘None, sir. No body language suggesting otherwise.’

  ‘Do you think he sensed a trap?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not at that stage, no.’

  Now Jack was confused. Was she lining the mild-mannered Brian Jarvis up as a potential suspect or not? ‘Forgive me, but—’

  She held up a finger. ‘Just a couple more oddities, sir. Mr Jarvis speaks warmly of his family, would you agree?’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘His wife passed away about fifteen years ago but he didn’t say why or how. He also mentioned a daughter with daughters of her own.’

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘I was in his family sitting room and there wasn’t a single photograph of them anywhere at all that I noted.’

  ‘I don’t have family photos around my home. Doesn’t mean I’m hiding something.’

  ‘You’re not married, sir. You don’t have children, if I’m not mistaken, and a grandparent tends to be even more adoring than a parent. Would you agree?’

  ‘In general, yes. I do have a nephew and niece.’

  ‘Do you have a photo of them anywhere in your home?’

  ‘No.’

  She looked crestfallen.

  ‘But I used to. In the last house I did, but then I sold it and put a lot of my gear into storage, including photos. Where I live now is temporary . . . it’s not worth, er, well, unpacking my life until I have somewhere to put my own belongings.’

  ‘His house is not temporary, sir. He’s lived there all of his married life, raised his family there. Maybe twenty-five or more years in that house and not a photo to speak of the happy times, of childhood, of weddings and births? Please say you agree with me that this is strange, sir?’

  They paused and regarded one another as the curiosity percolated.

  ‘Is there more?’ he pressed.

  She nodded. ‘This is the one that did it for me, sir. As I was leaving, I was putting on my headphones in his hallway and I noticed he had an iPod in a basket on a small sideboard where he leaves his keys, et cetera.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I got the distinct impression that Brian Jarvis doesn’t know how to use an iPod. There was something about his manner, and I definitely don’t buy that he would be listening to the song I saw flash up on the screen when I mentioned his iPod and he picked it up.’

  Jack felt the second prick of something he liked to call The Tingler since he saw the terrible 1950s horror movie as a child. The dreadful B-grade movie starring Vincent Price explored the fictional discovery that the tingling of the spine in states of extreme anxiety is actually a parasitic creature that thrives on human fear and can crush humans when it curls up for long enough. As a child, he had worried that his tingler was going to kill him. Now he referred to moments of extreme dawning in his work as ‘tingler moments’ because they usually combined a new understanding of a crime with a sense of horror.

  Sarah was still talking.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The song that flashed up was by a band called My Chemical Romance, sir. I didn’t recognise it because I don’t listen to much contemporary music, but I looked it up and I am wholly convinced that Brian Jarvis is unlikely to be listening to what is described as pop punk and post hardcore.’

  ‘Whatever that means,’ Jack replied, frowning at where his own thoughts were travelling.

  ‘Exactly, sir. Now, I did note a CD player in his sitting room, and while he made me a pot of tea I glanced at a couple of the discs.’

  ‘Perry Como?’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  He shook his head with an ironic smile.

  ‘No, it was, er . . .’ She checked her notes. ‘Van Morrison’s Greatest Hits, the best of some band called The Carpenters, and a boxed set of Simon & Garfunkel. They looked like easy listening, going by the album covers. There were others but I didn’t have time to rummage.’

  His gaze narrowed. ‘Sarah, are you asking me to formally put up the clerk of the court, Brian Jarvis, as a suspect? Because right now, while I do share your bafflement at the photos and even the music, I’m not sure . . .’ His words petered out as he watched her expression struggle to disguise that she still had her main point yet to make. Apparently everything so far had been the warm-up. ‘Oh, Sarah,’ he said, with fresh understanding. ‘So now tell me something that’s going to make my hair stand on end.’

  She took a low breath. ‘I spent a lot of last night looking back through all the details we’ve assembled on the recent murders and I landed on Davey Robbins. Do you recall that the statements from the fellow residents at the sexual offenders’ home in Yorkshire all had one common component?’ She pressed. ‘Every single person we spoke to made a similar comment about Robbins.’

  Jack frowned as he reached for where Sarah was leading him; he mentally flipped back through the file that he stored in his mind. ‘Fuck!’

  Sarah risked a twitch of a smile. ‘I imagine that’s going to cost you, sir.’

  ‘His blue iPod,’ he murmured.

  She grinned hesitantly, looking like she had thoroughly enjoyed leading him to her reveal. ‘It was never found in his backpack or at the crime scene, and everyone we spoke to confirmed that he wore it to, from and during his day. He was never without it. One of the adults in charge recalled that Robbins had once claimed the blue iPod was the only thing he’d owned in his life; that he guarded it like a precious jewel and even kept it under his pillow at night. I made another call to the residents this morning to ask about his playlist.’

  ‘Make my day, Sarah,’ Jack pleaded.

  She smiled slightly wider. ‘All agreed – his favourite band was My Chemical Romance.’

  Jack stood, his chair rolling back to hit the wall as he punched the air. ‘Oh my fucking hell.’

  Joan arrived jangling a tin. ‘And don’t think for a moment I didn’t hear the first one, Detective Superintendent Hawksworth. What sort of an example are you setting?’

  As he dug into his pockets for pound coins, he shook his head with awe at Sarah. ‘Get everyone together, Sarah. You’ll be doing the briefing.’ He pushed past, dropped coins into the tin and kissed Joan on the lips with a big smooching sound before casting Sarah a beaming grin. ‘Amazing work, Sarah. Just brilliant!’

  As he left his office, Joan recovered from the kiss and grinned at Sarah, giving her a wink. ‘Oh, that’s a promotion for you right there.’

  26

  There was a stunned silence after Sarah had presented her ‘oddities’.

  Jack gave an audible low whistle. ‘Anyone else feeling goosebumps?’

  It burst the bubble of quiet and everyone began murmuring. He let it roar for a while, knowing it was like a valve that needed the release. Kate was shaking her head in quiet shock and he knew she would be beating herself up over what she might have missed.

  ‘Okay, let’s settle down, everyone. As shattering and indeed enlightening as Sarah’s observations are, there is no hard evidence yet to suggest that we have our man . . . unless we can get hold of that iPod, which I suspect is now highly unlikely.’ Jack nodded as though reaching a decision. ‘One more detail, referring back to the fake photos that our intrepid sergeant here showed Mr Jarvis; his lack of questions perhaps confirms that he’s only interested in cases he has worked. We’ll triple-check it but I believe every death we’re aware of can be attributed back to an original court case that he clerked for at North London Crown Court.’ He gave Sarah a triumphant nod, which she
returned with an embarrassed but grateful smile. ‘So now we have to work out a battle plan for gathering evidence against Jarvis that holds up.’

  ‘The CCTV we have isn’t conclusively Brian Jarvis,’ Kate confirmed, appeal in her tone.

  ‘But it could be,’ Jack cautioned. ‘You said the fellow was short.’

  Kate gave him a look that said he was clutching at straws. ‘And the woman? He could dress up as one, but he can’t make himself thin and tall.’

  ‘He could have paid someone to pick up the car. Have we had any luck tracing where it ended up?’ The notion of an accomplice arrived in his mind but he didn’t poke at it yet.

  One of the PCs shook his head. ‘Still looking through it all, guv.’

  ‘We’ve got three constables on that task alone,’ Kate cautioned.

  ‘Keep going,’ Jack insisted.

  ‘Perhaps not being able to pick him up easily via CCTV reinforces the speculation, though,’ Kate relented. ‘We know whoever Mirror Man is, he’s somehow well versed with police procedures and the sort of errors crims make that get them caught. His caution feels like second nature and his risks feel calculated . . . because he certainly does take risks. Jarvis would have professional knowledge of police operations and even the forensics experience to try and trick us with his shoe size.’

  ‘But there’s something about his daring, isn’t there?’ Mal remarked. ‘I agree with you,’ he said to Kate. ‘I mean, even with all his caution he’s taking huge risks. I’ve met Jarvis – he doesn’t strike me as someone with that edge to him.’

  ‘Could be faking?’ Jack offered.

  ‘Do you think he is?’ Kate asked. ‘How does a little beige bloke like him kill all these people?’

  ‘Flip it,’ Jack said, frowning as he talked it through. ‘It’s the little beige bloke who can fly under the radar. It’s why he’s not obvious. What Mirror Man has done has not once required much strength. He uses sedatives or hardcore hallucinogens to make his victims compliant before he does his deed. And each of those punishments seems to echo the original crime in some form or another. That’s his satisfaction – their final comeuppance . . . the justice that he and the rest of the public want.