The Ingrid Skyberg Mystery Series: Books 1-4: The Ingrid Skyberg Series Boxset
Page 15
“Do you know when it might have happened?”
“The woman downstairs told me it wasn’t there last night when she came in around eleven. She asked me what I was going to do about it? As if it were my fault. My mess to clear up.” She started shaking her head and biting her lip. “Stupid bitch.”
“And you think Klaason is responsible?”
“Who else would do that?” She was squeezing her hands together, the knuckle bones straining her delicate skin. Faber’s fingers looked raw, as if she’d been scrubbing them obsessively.
Ingrid sat down, hoping to set an example for Faber. “There is no way Timo Klaason knows you’ve spoken to me.”
“I tell you where you might be able to find him, and less than twenty-four hours later, that message gets painted on my door.” Her head turned at whiplash speed, her fierce eyes locking onto Ingrid. “That’s one hell of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”
Ingrid sat back, attempting to look as nonconfrontational as possible.
“Please tell me you’ve found him,” Faber said, still pacing.
“Klaason hasn’t been apprehended yet. But I did find his meth factory.”
Faber didn’t appear to have heard her. “I’ve got to leave.” Her voice was jittery.
“I’m confident the police will track Klaason down soon.”
“I told you not to go to the police!” Faber flung her arms in the air. “Jesus.”
“I didn’t have much choice in the matter. I discovered his laboratory.”
“His what?”
“He was manufacturing methamphetamine.”
“Manufacturing? Jesus—no wonder he’s so fucking angry with me. I really need to get out of here now.”
“Are you still staying with your mom’s friend in Hampstead?” She had the car for another twelve hours at least: she could give the girl a lift.
A sob escaped from Faber’s mouth. “I only wanted justice for Lauren, and all I’ve done is make myself even more vulnerable. I’ve put myself at greater risk and for what?” She looked at Ingrid, an accusing glint in her eye. “The police have no intention of reopening their investigation. Why haven’t you convinced them?”
“How do you know I haven’t?”
“I know Lauren’s parents are taking her body home in three days.”
Where was she getting her facts?
“When were you going to share that particular piece of information with me?” Faber said. “After she’d arrived back on American soil?”
“Who told you about—”
“I went to see her parents.”
“When? How did you even know where to find them?” She remembered the note Alex Shelbourne had passed her. She still hadn’t managed to follow it up.
“It wasn’t that much of a challenge. I called every five-star hotel in central London until I got lucky.”
The prospect of a distraught and paranoid Faber trampling over their grief, telling them things they didn’t need to know about how much blood their daughter had lost, alarmed Ingrid. “What did you say to them?” she said warily.
“What did I say? My God, I wanted to scream at them to open their eyes. They’ve just accepted everything the police have been feeding them.” Spittle collected at the corners of her mouth. She dabbed it with the back of a hand. “Poor bastards.” She sniffed loudly.
“When did you see them, Madison?” Ingrid needed an answer.
“Oh? Yesterday,” she said offhandedly. “But anyone could see they were hurting too much for me to tell them that their daughter was murdered.”
Ingrid exhaled, relieved Faber hadn’t seen them since her meeting with them. “There’s no proof she was murdered, Madison. You’re right to keep your suspicions to yourself.” She reached for Faber’s arm and pulled her down onto the couch.
“You saw her body, Ingrid.”
An image of the crime scene thrust its way into Ingrid’s vision.
“And her laptop is still missing! Why am I the only one who thinks she was murdered?” Faber stared wide-eyed at Ingrid. “Will it take them killing me for you to believe me?”
Ingrid was starting to feel no amount of effort would be good enough for Madison. The girl needed counseling. She needed support. It was surprising her parents hadn’t flown over to take care of her, or insist she recuperate at home; it was no wonder the girl was falling apart.
Ingrid took a deep breath. “If you tell the cops about the graffiti on your door, maybe they would offer you some protection.”
Faber’s gaze hadn’t wavered. “I am done with the Metropolitan Police.”
“If you don’t tell them, they can’t help you.”
The girl finally blinked. “I have no faith in them. They’re all useless.”
Ingrid wasn’t going to respond. She felt responsible for Faber, she shared some of her concerns, but she couldn’t let herself be drawn any further into her delusions. Ingrid spread her hands into stars and pressed them against her thighs. “Was the graffiti why you called me, Madison?” She made an effort for her voice to sound level, reasonable.
The girl leaped up. “Gosh! No!” She was smiling.
“What is it?”
“I found something!” Her voice had become girlish, almost squeaky. “Come with me!”
Wary, Ingrid followed the increasingly unstable Faber down the hallway and into Lauren’s old room. The window was wide open, a light voile drape billowing in the breeze. Beneath the window was a black trash sack. Faber saw Ingrid looking at it.
“A few of Lauren’s clothes. She left them behind when she moved out. I thought I’d give them to her mother. I don’t know how much of Lauren’s things the police have given to her parents.” She picked up a ragged sheet of paper from the dresser opposite the window and held it up to Ingrid. It looked as if it had been folded and unfolded several times. There was a brown stain in the middle where it must have gotten damp and dried out again, leaving an inch-long hole near one edge. Untidy block capitals were scrawled across the page. A dozen or so lines of what Ingrid supposed was poetry.
“What is it?” Ingrid asked.
“I opened the window when I came in here—the room smelled musty—I thought it needed airing. This was folded and wedged between the window and the frame. To stop it rattling in the wind, I suppose.”
“I don’t see how it’s relevant.”
“It’s Lauren’s handwriting.”
“Really? How can you tell?”
“Believe me, it is. Besides, the content proves she wrote it.”
Ingrid looked more closely at the sloping scrawl. “A poem?”
“It’s a sonnet. A love poem.”
Ingrid scanned the text. English lit had been her worst subject at high school.
“It’s based on an Emily Dickinson poem. You must recognize it.”
Ingrid shrugged an apology. “You still haven’t explained how this is relevant to Lauren’s death.”
“Don’t you see? It’s a love poem. Written to her lover.”
“So?”
Faber jabbed a finger at the end of one line where three capital letters had been made to rhyme with ‘lie.’ “Look at that.”
“S-M-Y?”
“Stuart McKenzie Younger. Don’t you see! She was having an affair with Younger. With her tutor, for God’s sake. There’s the proof you need to reopen the case.”
Ingrid took a moment to work through the implications. Even if this were a poem to Younger, and even if they were having an affair, it didn’t prove he had anything to do with Lauren’s death. She hesitated, not wanting to voice her misgivings to Faber. She was close enough to hysteria already.
“You can take that to the police.” Faber pressed the piece of paper into Ingrid’s hands. “They wanted to know who she was seeing, didn’t they?” Faber’s eyes were shining with tears. “Because, you know, nine times out of ten, the boyfriend is the killer.” She looked expectantly at Ingrid. “Stuart Younger murdered Lauren.”
31
She drove Madison to Hampstead, returned the hire car, then installed herself in a quiet pub not far from her hotel in Marylebone. She then called the one person who was very interested in Stuart Younger: Angela Tate. The journalist pushed open the door, and Ingrid plastered a friendly smile on her face.
“Wow, the bruising has really come out since this afternoon,” Tate said.
You should see my ribs.
“What can I get you?” Ingrid offered.
“Oh, um, just a ginger ale, thanks.”
Angela Tate not drinking? That was a surprise.
Ingrid got up carefully; the effects of the painkillers she’d taken had long worn off.
“My God, you really are in the wars.”
Ingrid returned with a ginger ale for Tate and a neat double vodka for herself. The moment she put the drinks on the table, Tate pulled out a silver flask from her coat pocket and slipped a brazen measure of whisky into her drink.
“No point you paying for what I’ve already got,” she said. The pub—pastel colors, uniformed staff and blackboard menus—was part of a national chain. In the week, it would be rammed with after-work drinkers, but at the weekend it had a lackluster, insipid corporate vibe. “I think the shareholders will survive without my contribution. To be honest, when you suggested this place, I thought about not coming.” Tate slipped the flask back into her purse. “I’ve got principles.”
“You said it was urgent on the phone.”
“Well, I wanted to make sure you had all the information before you go to print.”
“All the information on what?” Tate asked.
Ingrid leaned in. “Stuart Younger.”
Tate’s eyebrows did a high jump. “You have my attention.”
“And you have mine. You tell me what you’ve dug up about the esteemed professor, and I’ll give you a killer final paragraph.” Ingrid regretted her choice of language the moment the words left her lips.
“Killer, eh?”
Ingrid left her hanging.
“OK, I’ll go first, but if I say anything you know not to be true, you have to correct me, understood?”
“Completely.”
Tate shuffled her chair closer to Ingrid and took a theatrically deep breath. “I finally managed to get through the force field Younger has constructed around his research. It’s genius, really, what he’s done.”
Ingrid took a long sip of her vodka and prayed the journalist would get to the point soon.
“So are you sitting comfortably? It might take a while.”
Ingrid shifted in her seat. She doubted she’d sit comfortably for weeks.
“How familiar are you with CIA history?” Tate asked her.
Ingrid had the feeling a good night’s sleep was a little further away than she had hoped.
“The Agency? Can’t help you. But feel free to ask me anything about the FBI.”
“How very loyal of you.” Tate pushed her glass out of the way and set a file in front of them. “Do you know about the psychological experiments the CIA undertook in the fifties?”
“A little before my time.”
“Mine too—believe it or not.” Tate removed a sheet from the file. “MKUltra—ring any bells?”
It did. “Keep talking.”
“From as early as 1953, the CIA conducted experiments in mind control, using electroconvulsive therapy, torture, hypnosis… and… wait for it—”
“The administration of LSD.”
“Go on, steal my punch line.”
“What’s this got to do with Younger’s research program?”
Tate raised her eyebrows. “Everything.”
“You’re not seriously suggesting he’s been using MKUltra techniques at Loriners? That would be totally unethical.”
“I’d wager a year’s salary on it.”
“Drugs? Hypnosis?”
“I don’t know exactly how many of the techniques Younger has decided to employ. As I said, he’s been quite rigorous in covering his tracks. Though I would imagine even he would draw the line at strapping electrodes to students’ temples.”
Ingrid remembered the claims of torture Mohammed had made. Maybe they weren’t so far from the truth after all.
“The girl who supposedly jumped to her death last week?” Tate continued. “She was a participant in the program. And the near miss two days ago? Same with her. Strange how Younger was right there to save the girl from jumping, don’t you think?”
Ingrid didn’t answer. She sat very still and attempted to work through the ramifications. “No,” she said finally. “I don’t buy it. Younger would never be able to hide that from the college authorities.”
“He’s a very smart man. I was actually looking for something and I had a tough enough time finding anything out. How would the college discover anything amiss if they didn’t suspect something in the first place to even go looking for it?”
“But the students who take part—why haven’t they come forward to report him?”
“He’s got some sort of hold over them.”
“Now that sounds a little far—”
“Please don’t accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist.”
Ingrid said nothing.
“I’ve been trying to make contact with the girl he rescued on Thursday afternoon, but I’m getting stonewalled. Maybe you could help me with that?”
Ingrid could only admire Tate’s tenacity. “I’ll see what I can do,” she lied. “I still don’t buy it. There would be too many people involved to keep something like that secret.”
“You’re having trouble believing it because I’ve only given you half the story.” The journalist’s eyes were sparkling. She wriggled in her seat and pulled out a blank sheet of paper from the file then quickly drew the spiky symbols they’d both seen painted on the wall at Loriners.
“You found out what it means?”
“Look at this.” Tate proceeded to draw the lines again, but this time made them much less angular. “What do they look like now?”
Ingrid was reminded of countless physics experiments at high school, wavy lines just like these flickering on the screens of a dozen oscilloscopes. “Sine waves.”
“Waves, exactly. Three waves.” A satisfied smile spread across Tate’s face. “The Third Wave. Heard of it?”
It rang a distant bell. “Go on—I can see you’re itching to tell me all about it.”
“It was a highly controversial psychological experiment carried out in the sixties. Never to be repeated. Until now, that is.”
“Controversial in what way?”
“I’m just getting on to that.” Tate cleared her throat. “Picture it—1967, Palo Alto, California.”
Tate certainly knew how to string a story out.
“Am I boring you, agent?”
“No, not at all.”
“Good. Where was I?”
“Palo Alto.”
“Ah, yes. A high school history teacher was having trouble convincing his students of the inevitable rise of fascism in Germany in the 1930s. They were skeptical otherwise ordinary people could turn against their fellow citizens. That they could lose their humanity quite so comprehensively.”
Ingrid nodded encouragingly.
“So… rather than teaching them from textbooks, he decided to demonstrate the phenomenon in action.” She pulled out another piece of paper and read aloud: “Strength through discipline, strength through community, strength through action, strength through pride.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“It’s the manifesto the teacher invented
for the experiment. Naturally, none of the students knew they were participating in an experiment at all.”
“How did he manage that?”
“It was the start of a new week. The class had been discussing Nazi Germany the week before. But on the Monday the teacher started his lesson not even mentioning history, but talking about the beauty of discipline.” Tate paused and sipped her drink. “You know, how an athlete or an artist has to be focused and hardworking to achieve success. You’re part of an organization that runs on a similar basis—doesn’t FBI training involve drills and routines a bit like an army?”
“Something like that, I guess.”
“I’m too much of a bloody-minded old bugger for any of that to wash with me.” She slipped the hip flask from her pocket and drained its contents into her glass. “The teacher got them all sitting up straight, eyes front, no talking, and asked them how much better they felt. How it was easier to breathe, easier to concentrate. Then he got them doing drills, marching in and out of the classroom in double quick time and in silence. And the surprising thing was, the students loved being told what to do.” She paused for a moment and Ingrid took her opportunity to interject.
“The high school students were what, fifteen, sixteen? Impressionable. I can’t see anything like that working with twenty-year-olds.”
“Just let me tell you the rest. The teacher invented three simple rules the class had to follow to the letter.” She started to count them off on her fingers. “One, they always had to carry a notebook and a pencil—now that’s a rule I’d subscribe to myself—two, they had to sit to attention before the class bell rang, and three, they had to answer questions in three words or less, standing beside their desks and prefacing each response with the teacher’s name.”
“That doesn’t sound sinister.”
“But the students got into it. Suddenly they wanted to please the teacher, and each other. Quiet or badly performing students started to participate for the first time, supported by their peers. The whole class found it empowering.”
“Which encouraged them to carry on.”
“Exactly. And the teacher assumed the role of dictator. After he got them enthusiastic, he was really smart—he talked about the importance of community, about supporting the members of the class, taking action to preserve and protect it from outsiders. He even distributed membership cards and invented a salute.” Tate brought her right hand up to her right shoulder, the palm facing outwards, the fingers curled. “The cupped hand is meant to symbolize a wave.” She uncurled her fingers and picked up her glass and took a large mouthful of whisky. “As news spread of the exclusive group, more students wanted to be part of it to enjoy that sense of belonging. After just two days there were over two hundred active members, a lot of them prepared to report any of their group for rule-breaking. After four days the experiment had got completely out of hand. Students were adopting fascist-like behavior with no prompting from the teacher. It was like an organism that had taken on a life of its own.”