Mark of Guilt

by Diane Hester

  ‘Anything yet on those fingerprints you got from our flat?’ she said. ‘Did they match the partial from Bethany’s clothes?’

  ‘Turns out the only prints we lifted were yours and Shaunwyn’s. Whoever trashed the place must’ve worn gloves.’

  He’d forced the words through gritted teeth. They did little to ease her concerns. ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘We continue the investigation as before.’

  ‘You think what happened to our flat is related to the campus killings?’

  ‘Can’t say for sure, but it’s definitely possible.’

  ‘Well, then who do you think that was last night? Was it Collier who came after me in the hall?’

  ‘I’ll know more after I talk with him. We’ve already picked him up for questioning.’

  Her gaze shot back to him. ‘That was quick.’

  ‘After you left me your message this morning, I ran a background check on Collier. He was forced to leave his last employ over charges against him for sexual harassment. He’s also one of only three teachers that Martha Daniels and Bethany Willas had in common. Looks like we finally have a suspect.’

  ‘You mean besides me.’

  Though he didn’t respond, she noted the slightest shake of his head.

  He walked in silence for several paces. ‘You know, I couldn’t help overhearing your chat with Jen Dawson back there. Who would’ve thought she was the one who told those reporters about you, eh.’

  Lindsay looked forward. ‘Yes, who would’ve thought.’

  ‘As I recall you accused me of that. A pity you couldn’t have believed me when I denied it.’

  ‘It’s hard to pick a truth among so many lies.’

  Mac stopped dead. ‘What lies have I told you?’

  ‘Told me—none. Lies of omission, of agendas concealed … Where do I begin?’

  He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. ‘I take it your folks told you I called in to see them again.’

  ‘Called in?’ She laughed. ‘My god, you make it sound so innocent. Like you just popped around for a spot of tea.’

  ‘I was going to tell you.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure. What I’d like to know is how you live with yourself, Macklyn. Coming across all sympathetic. That bullshit about how rough it was that I hadn’t seem my family in so long.’

  ‘I meant every word.’

  She stepped closer, glaring up at him. ‘My spells were the reason I hadn’t seen them. Getting hassled by police was something I swore I’d never inflict on them again. You made short work of that promise all right.’

  ‘I think you realise I had no choice.’

  ‘That doesn’t excuse your using me to get to them. I made it so easy for you, didn’t I? Pulled you a seat right up to their table. It was all so perfect—you could deceive them into thinking you were a friend.’

  ‘You did that with your damn introduction. If you’d told them straight out I was a cop they’d have sure as hell known we couldn’t be friends.’

  With a tight-lipped smile, Lindsay stepped back. ‘That’s one mistake I won’t make again.’

  ***

  Mac climbed behind the wheel of his Prado, slammed the door and sat watching Lindsay walk away across the common. In the seat beside him, Sam sat recording notes on his iPhone.

  Gripping the wheel, Mac took a deep breath and blew it out again. ‘I need to know if you’d do something for me.’

  ‘Name it,’ Sam said without looking up.

  ‘I need to know you’d take over the case if I had to pull out.’

  ‘Pull out?’ The man stopped typing and turned to study him. ‘This because of what’s happening with your mum?’

  ‘No, but that’s the reason I’d give.’

  ‘And the real one is?’

  Mac twisted the wheel in his hands. ‘Could be I’m losing perspective on this one.’

  Sam followed his gaze out the windshield to the slim lone figure being rapidly swallowed by a sea of fellow students. ‘Your perspective’s always been spot-on as far as I could see.’

  ‘Then how can I be so sure she’s innocent?’ Mac growled. ‘Even when everything points to her involvement. Even when I don’t believe her alibi.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with following your gut. Every cop does it.’

  ‘Not every cop.’

  ‘Sure they do. One way or the other we all have our instincts.’ Sam shrugged. ‘Long as your instincts are what you’re following.’

  Mac gave a huff. His smile died as he started the engine. ‘Just tell me, mate, if it came to the crunch …?’

  ‘If it’s what you really wanted, of course I’d step up. Just do us a favour, would you. Sleep on it. If you still feel the same way tomorrow morning we’ll talk about it.’

  Mac nodded and drove from the park.

  Chapter 31

  The familiar hallway stretched before her, an approaching storm dulling the sunlight that normally streamed through its ceiling-high windows. The effect was a gloomy dungeon-like passage. The perfect reflection of her current mood.

  Lindsay hurried towards Ikeman’s lab. After her heated exchange with Mac and her close call the night before, she needed a sympathetic ear. Thank god she just happened to have this appointment.

  At Ikeman’s door she knocked but stepped through without awaiting a response. The sight of him speaking with a male student drew her up short. As she backed out again, the doctor waved, disengaged from his conversation and followed her into the hall.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have barged in like that. I just … I thought we had an appointment now.’

  ‘We did have one. But you changed it, remember?’

  ‘Did I?’ She put a hand to her head.

  ‘Not to worry, you didn’t interrupt, we were just starting.’ His bemused smile turned to a frown. ‘Is anything wrong?’

  There wasn’t much point in trying to hide it. Her brainless behaviour clearly spoke volumes. ‘Yes. Last night. Someone came after me.’

  As she related the incident, she found herself staring unwittingly at his hands, the sides of his face. Hands without bite marks, cheeks without scratches. She felt herself breathing a little easier.

  ‘I can understand why you needed to talk.’ Ikeman glanced towards his waiting student. ‘All right look, this is my last session for the day. Why don’t you go somewhere and wait for me and I’ll meet you in about half an hour. We’ll grab a coffee or a bite to eat and have a good chat.’ He touched her arm. ‘Can you hang on that long?’

  His touch, his concern, his soothing voice brought the first real smile of the day to her lips. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘So where shall I meet you?’ When she hesitated he offered a thought. ‘How about the art gallery? It’s close and wandering among the exhibits might help relax you. As soon as I’m done I’ll come and find you.’

  She nodded. The gallery, what a good idea. Her spirits were already starting to lift. ‘Sounds good. I’ll see you there.’

  ***

  Alone in the centre of the third vaulted gallery, Lindsay pulled her jacket closer around her. Another time she might have felt differently, but in her current state of mind she just couldn’t appreciate the abstract exhibit.

  Many of the paintings contained nightmarish images, frightening distortions of human faces and animal bodies. Others were disturbingly suggestive of violence, with slashes of red and areas receding into total blackness. Wondering at the mind that produced such work, she moved through the arch to the next gallery.

  Even here—the Australian exhibit, one of her favourites—the room felt cold. The air, normally suffused in a golden warmth, was today cast in shades of heart-attack grey, the paintings flat and bleached of colour.

  She shook her head. Certainly just the eye of the beholder.

  Then again …

  Candle-like flickering drew her gaze upwards. In the domed ceiling, shadows cast by overhanging trees flailed at the skylight. Darker spectres
of storm-swept clouds moved with sluggish purpose, oppressing the room for lingering moments.

  ‘So much for golden sunshine.’

  Her words echoed back from the marbled walls, deepening her sense of isolation. Apart from the attendant at the front desk, she’d encountered not a single other patron so far. A slow day due to the storm, no doubt.

  As her words died away she picked up another sound. From somewhere deeper in the maze of chambers, wind forced its way around doors and windows creating a constant ululating moan. She shivered and hurried towards the next room.

  She emerged from the photography exhibit a few moments later feeling little uplifted by the stark and desolate black-and-white images. A sign on a pedestal confronted her in the archway beyond.

  Gallery closed. Please proceed to the next exhibit.

  She started in the direction the arrow indicated then stopped and spun around. It was the third time since entering the museum she’d caught movement from the corner of her eye. The third time she’d felt that indefinable yet persistent certainty she was being watched.

  Each time she’d turned, she’d expected to find the hound staring back at her. Or worse, the killer. Each time she’d turned, there’d been nothing there.

  Berating herself for her growing paranoia, she continued on.

  The passage led to a single door that opened onto a narrow stairwell.

  Lindsay paused. Up or down? The way hadn’t been marked on the sign. But seeing as she was on the ground floor and the only thing below was the car park it seemed the logical choice was up.

  The stairway hugged the building’s outer wall with windows lining its entire height. Shadows writhed beyond the frosted panes, while grit and other wind-blown debris strafed the glass like shot from a gun.

  The moaning sounds were louder here, monsters imprisoned in unseen catacombs clamouring to be freed of their torment. Hurried by the sense they were rising in pursuit, Lindsay climbed to the first floor.

  At the landing she tried the closed steel door. Tried it again. Then stood staring at its unshifting handle. Locked? How could … Just where the hell was this exhibit anyway?

  She fought to smother a flutter of unease. ‘Something tells me I took a wrong turn.’ The tremulous sound of her words made her laugh. ‘Not to worry, I just read the sign wrong.’

  The flutter got stronger. Then again, maybe she hadn’t.

  The door below her, the one she’d just passed through, opened and closed. Another patron following the sign, lost as she was? Or someone who’d deliberately directed her here?

  The whisper of footsteps rose up the stairwell. She peered over the railing to find a large shadow, moving upwards.

  She swallowed. ‘Hello?’

  The whispering stopped. The shadow stilled. Nothing but the moan of the beasts in the cellar.

  ‘Who is it? Answer me. I know someone’s there.’

  For a moment even the monsters grew still. Silence to highlight a fresh source of terror. Low and intimate. Husky and deep.

  A man’s soft laugh.

  Lindsay turned and charged up the stairwell.

  One flight up, the stairs ended at another steel barrier. But here the door stood slightly ajar, propped by a brick. The work of her pursuer? She was meant to go through? If she moved the brick would the door lock behind her, barring his path?

  She pulled back the door and peered inside. A dark cluttered space, a room spanning the entire floor, crammed with storage.

  Her heart sank at the sea of obstacles. No light other than what came from behind her. There might well be stairs on the other side, but with the door shut she’d be totally blind. She’d never make it. With a groan, she left the brick in place and stepped inside.

  In the thickened shadows she searched the far wall for an exit sign, spotted one and started towards it. Nameless shapes rose to block her, snagging her clothes, bruising her shins.

  Halfway across, a swathe of light knifed through the room—her pursuer coming through the door behind her. She gasped at movement on the crate in front of her, then realised it was just her own shadow. An instant later the door clanged shut, plunging the room into total darkness.

  Holding her last-seen image in mind, she tried to navigate from memory—filing cabinet on the right, a stack of cartons on the left … She groped towards a gap she knew had been there but hit some kind of shelving instead.

  The files it held cascaded to the floor. She stumbled over them, feeling them slide like giant playing cards beneath her feet, the shifting boards of a funhouse floor reducing progress to a maddening crawl. She reached solid footing and pushed herself up.

  A full moon in the depths of night, the exit sign rose before her. She blundered towards it, clawing aside anything that got in her way, with every step expecting to feel the touch of her pursuer’s hand on her back, his fingers groping to entwine in her hair.

  The thought spurred her forward as though she’d grown wings. All at once the way was clear. She dived for the exit in a final burst and crashed through the door without looking back.

  Momentum drove her into the wall of another corridor. She pushed off and launched herself left up the passage. Brighter this way. Low ceiling, no windows but overhead lights.

  Around the corner she ran out of hall, but the wide double doors of a freight elevator kept hope alive. She slammed the call button and heard a distant ancient mechanism wheeze into life.

  A crash resounded from the storeroom behind her, by the sound of it, only metres from the door—the last thing standing between her and the killer. She hammered the call button, peered down a crack into the elevator shaft. No sign of the cage approaching.

  In the hall just beyond, in a corner darkened by a missing overhead light, stood another door. Lindsay ploughed through it.

  Concrete stairs smelling of mould, cloaked in shadow. If she missed a step, the fall would be fatal. She vaulted down them.

  Around the first landing her coat sleeve caught on the end of the railing, wrenching her arm. She yelped in shock. From above came the sound of a steel door slamming. Her pursuer had entered the stairwell.

  She yanked at her sleeve. It gave too easily. She stumbled back. Clutching the rail, she managed to keep herself from falling as she scrambled down the next flight of steps.

  On the landing she got her feet beneath. Not till the next did she realise she had missed the first exit. She blundered on. No going back. Around and down one final time and she burst from the well.

  Her heart dropped. Another corridor. Dark and close, lined with pipes and panels of switches. Would the maze never end?

  She chose a direction. The shortest stretch. Light at the end. Sprinting for its implied safety, she pushed every muscle her workouts had given her, tested every fibre of strength she possessed, at last breaking out into open space.

  Blinded, cringing, gasping for breath, she collided with a large solid form and shrieked.

  ‘Lindsay, good god!’

  The man before her looked as scared as she felt. ‘Doctor Ikeman.’ Lindsay took in the bland cream walls, the mounted portraits. She was back in the galleries.

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Someone’s after me.’

  ‘Where? Show me.’

  She looked back down the hallway and gasped. She’d half expected to find no-one there, that she’d once again have no proof of her claims. But the stairwell door was just swinging closed, with the silhouette of a man running towards them.

  The figure stopped dead—presumably seeing she was no longer alone—then turned and dashed in the other direction.

  Ikeman let go of her arm and ran. She watched her pursuer vanish around a distant corner. A moment later the doctor was gone as well. Their footsteps faded away into silence.

  Waiting became a fresh form of torment. She took an unwitting step up the passage. What if Ikeman cornered the man? Was the stalker armed? Would he ambush Ikeman? Would the doctor be injured because of her?

&
nbsp; When she could bear the tension no longer she started forward. Past the stairwell door she’d emerged from and on towards the corner around which the two men had disappeared.

  Near the junction she heard footsteps, growing louder. Only one of the two was returning.

  She held her breath. Who would it be?

  When the steps picked up speed she began backing away again. Then stopped when Ikeman swung into view.

  Breathing hard, he stepped to her side and took her shoulders. ‘Forgive me, Lindsay, I wasn’t fast enough. He got away.’

  ***

  The museum security guard unlocked the door and admitted a gaggle of uniformed and plain-clothes policemen into the lobby. Lindsay recognised a man in their midst and rose from the bench where she’d been waiting.

  He spotted her and started over. ‘Ms Cavenaugh. Sam Gifford. We met in the park and again at your flat the other night.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Please, call me Lindsay.’

  He frowned as he took in the otherwise empty foyer. The gallery was now closed, all patrons gone, yet he seemed to be looking for someone. ‘I understood there was a witness to what happened.’

  ‘Yes; Dr Ikeman. He’s just gone to get something, he’ll be right back.’ In turn she scanned the faces behind him. ‘Isn’t Detective Macklyn with you?’

  ‘No. He’s tending to another matter.’

  Lindsay was stunned by her reaction. When she’d rung the police to report what had happened, she’d simply assumed Mac would be the one to come and look into it. Perhaps he wasn’t as concerned about her as he’d made out.

  ‘I assure you he’ll get a full report.’ Sam stood poised with notebook in hand. ‘Now if you could start by giving me an initial rundown, then I’ll get you to show us where it all took place.’

  Lindsay fought to present the facts as calmly as possible. She had to pause at several points to maintain control of her shattered nerves.

  Halfway through her statement, Ikeman reappeared and slipped a steaming mug into her hand. ‘The cafe was closed but one of the attendants had some soup. It’s all I could get, but it’s warm so a bit of comfort at least.’