The Dead Tell Lies: an absolutely gripping mystery thriller

by J. F. Kirwan

  ‘But that’s…’ Greg stopped himself. He wasn’t helping his cause.

  ‘Not so long after you say you left,’ Matthews chimed in. ‘Anyone cross your path on the way out?’

  Greg shook his head. ‘Are we done here? I need some air.’

  Finch continued as if Greg hadn’t spoken. ‘Forget who might have done this for a moment. And we hope it wasn’t you, by the way, because apparently you’re smarter than this. What about why? Any idea of motive? Fergus pretty much owned nothing, the flat was on social housing, and from what we can gather, he was a loner. No friends, no enemies.’

  Yet Fergus did have something. Knowledge of The Dreamer. Despite Fergus’s preposterous ghost story, if he had somehow known that The Dreamer was dead, and that someone else had killed Kate… Silence was as good a murder motive as any.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Well, if you decide to share, you know where we are,’ Finch said with an idle flick of her fingers. ‘You can go.’

  Greg left the interview room and made his way to Donaldson’s office, but it was empty. Muriel said he was gone for the day and handed him a note. In scrawl that looked like a child’s.

  Work your magic.

  And there was the problem. His best working theory was that another killer was involved, but he had no idea who, or for what possible motive. He was still too close to it all, not ready to pick up the case again. Rickard’s instincts were right on that score. And he should have stayed to hear what Fergus had to say – who he thought the next victim would be, even if events had proven him wrong, since he doubted Fergus had meant himself.

  Greg needed some air. Actually, what he needed was water.

  He walked along the bank of the Thames. He’d not made this little trek for over a year. He used to run it, before… From Lambeth Bridge to Tower Bridge on the South Bank, then back on the other side, through the City to St Paul’s, then on through Holborn into Covent Garden and Neal’s Yard, winding through the lanes and scattered pubs to Trafalgar Square, then all the way down to the Old Tate on the edge of Pimlico, then up to Piccadilly before heading back to Maida Vale. His monthly Sunday half-marathon that didn’t quite work on a weekday. He used to run it to clear his mind of serial killers. Now he wanted the opposite. The killer was in London somewhere. He could feel it. He needed to pick up the scent.

  Although the air was clearing his mind, he wasn’t getting anywhere on the second spider theory. He sat down to watch the low sun’s reflections on the water, the chimneys of old Battersea Power Station lit up red. He recalled his criminology professor’s words, spoken just to him, and then only once, during a one-on-one tutorial.

  ‘Getting into a killer’s head is difficult enough. But that’s not the hard part. The nasty stuff in there can stick to you when you come back out. The only way to avoid that is to really know yourself, to know what belongs, and what doesn’t, so you can leave the latter behind.’

  Greg knew what he was. Every criminal psychologist in his specialty – and there weren’t that many – had to be analysed first, so that serial killers couldn’t pick them apart and reverse the tables during an interview. ‘Analysed’ was a polite way of saying probed, interrogated, profiled… Greg knew he was not especially zen like Kate had been. His mind wasn’t repulsed by inner darkness. He’d admitted to no one that he’d have gone further in his diagnosis had he been the one doing the analysing. He was attracted to darkness, patrolling the borders of sanity and morality. There were holes in that fence, and more than once he’d wriggled through in order to think like, and therefore catch, a perpetrator. At least two of his convictees had said that but for the grace of God, Greg could have been a serial killer, too.

  A horn blast from one of the river ferries brought Greg back. He recalled the questions Rickard had asked him. What would he have done to the killer if he’d had him in his sights? He knew the answer. Which was why he’d turned in his licence months ago. Yet he had no ideas, clues, or even directions to head in. Fresh air and turbid water weren’t enough. He needed a change of scenery. The spiderweb was here, in London, but he needed to see it from the outside to grasp it more clearly, to see the pattern. He knew exactly where he had to go to get his head back in the game. Somewhere he would never have gone had Kate still been alive.

  He crossed the Thames via Charing Cross bridge to pick up the Northern Line to London Euston. On the bridge, Greg pulled out his phone and sent a text. Need to talk. Urgent.

  Just as he was descending the escalator at Embankment, the reply arrived. The Old Shire. Harborne. 7pm.

  Greg looked at his watch. He could just make it if he caught the fast train to Birmingham. He had no spare clothes on him, but Jennifer might let him stay in the spare room.

  After all, what were ex-wives for?

  8

  It felt odd being back in Brum. Seemed a lifetime ago. Someone else’s. The mayor had ploughed a ton of money into Broad Street, as evidenced by swanky canal-side boutiques and French-style brasseries, not to mention a couple of upmarket table-dancing venues. But quickly the bus left Fiveways behind and headed into the leafy suburb that was Harborne, where they’d lived for four years in married blitz before their friends begged them to get a divorce. That was one of the drawbacks of their business – a tendency to see conflict everywhere. His ex, Jennifer – never ‘Jenny’ – had once quipped that psychologists don’t pick fights; they dissect them. Which meant that when they tried to put the pieces back together there was no glue left to hold them in place. He recalled the old joke: that if two psychologists were shipwrecked on a desert island, within a year all the animals would build a raft in order to escape.

  Peering through the window, he spied her through tinted glass. She had a glow about her, one he recognised from the early years before the big freeze. She was sitting on the edge of her seat, ready to leave at a moment’s notice if, or when, things turned sour. He checked himself to see if there were any dormant feelings for her, any residual… he wasn’t inclined to use that particular four-letter word. Once it had applied. Now it didn’t. It was that simple. He stole inside the pub, bought her a glass of Merlot and himself a pint of Stag bitter, and joined her.

  ‘You look good,’ he said, because she always did. Power-dressed, navy blue trousers and jacket, white blouse, auburn hair tied back in a tight ponytail, subdued make-up. Like this was a business meeting.

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied in a crisp tone. She didn’t return the compliment, so clearly he looked like hell, and she didn’t comment on that either, because she’d discovered The Power of Now, a positive way of life that involves not saying anything negative. Another reason the divorce went quickly, with no brakes or derailments. Other friends told him he’d been lucky. Greg felt he’d missed out.

  Next to her, neatly arranged as if the pub table were an office desk, were her mobile phone, an electronic cigarette and a laptop she’d closed as soon as he’d arrived. She put it away into her Vuitton bag – he’d bought her a Lancel handbag once, so clearly she wasn’t doing too badly – but the phone and cigarette remained. Both were reasonable, and also a statement, the phone in case she needed an excuse to make a quick getaway, and the cigarette… He’d helped her give up smoking before they got married, and now… With Jennifer, it had always been about subtext.

  He took a couple of swigs of beer, which she hated. She’d never make love to anyone with beer-breath she’d once told him, and it had turned out to be true.

  So far, they were even.

  ‘Does the gang still meet?’ he asked, employing their codeword for Shrinks Without Souls when in a public place. He’d left it when he and Jennifer had separated. It was as though she’d got custody of the kids.

  ‘Once every couple of months.’ She tucked her lower lip under her top one, the way she’d always done when she was deciding whether or not to tell him something. ‘We still toast you in your absence, Greg. And hope that, well, you know.’ She took a large sip of wine. ‘I presume that’s why
you’re here.’

  Straight to business. No small talk, no catch-up, no reminiscing.

  No going back.

  He listened as always to the curve of the words, their ebb and flow, their peaks and troughs, the choppiness or smoothness of the syllables. It definitely wasn’t a question, and there was no edge in her voice. No bitterness. No residue of longing. Good, because he’d only come for one purpose, and was about to bare his soul to her. There was no room for hidden agendas.

  ‘I need some objectivity,’ he said. ‘Some distance.’

  She leaned back on the bench seat, and put the electronic cigarette in her bag. He pushed the straight glass away from him. They were in the part of the old-style pub known as the ‘Snug’, quiet enough to talk seriously, but with enough noise around them so as not to be overheard. Two benches facing each other across a narrow, gnarled wooden table, the Snug’s tall wooden backs sealing him and Jennifer in semi-privacy.

  ‘Stream of consciousness,’ she instructed in her clinical tone that he’d initially found sexy, but then, with time, simply cold. She sat up straight again and took a polite sip of wine before pulling out a pad and pencil. He knew the ropes. Talk without pause, let it all come out unedited. The best way to prevent self-censorship, to trick the subconscious into revealing itself. He couldn’t do this with anyone but the gang, and even then Jennifer was really the only one. Talking this way was like stripping naked, laying bare your thoughts and emotions. Lying on the slab, disgorging your own entrails, offering them up for inspection.

  He ran through it all, from the past year to his near-suicide, to Fergus and his murder, talking fast, almost babbling. Several times Jennifer took another sip or two. By the time he finished, her glass was dry.

  ‘I’ll get you another,’ he said.

  ‘No need. Michael is picking me up in fifteen minutes. We can drop you back at the station. Trains leave on the hour, every hour, until eleven.’

  She didn’t glance at her watch, nor he at his.

  The curve of her speech had quickened, to smooth over emotional ripples. He let it go. Divorce was what it was. Yet he didn’t particularly wish to meet Michael or know anything about him. ‘I’ll find my own way,’ he said. ‘So… give me something, Jennifer. What am I not seeing?’

  Her tone warmed a few degrees. ‘It’s just conjecture, you understand that?’

  ‘I was the one who set up the gang and its rules, remember?’ It came out harsher than intended. After ‘unloading’, as the gang called it, there was usually residual emotional backwash. He calmed his voice. ‘Go on, please.’

  She resumed her professional tone. ‘Very well. I’ll cut to the chase. You’re about to kill yourself and you get a phone call. You meet with Fergus and shortly after you leave, he’s murdered.’

  He waited.

  She leaned forward slightly. ‘You never saw what was right in front of you, did you, Greg?’

  He stared at her a moment, not missing the double entendre but immediately discarding it. Then he got it. Of course. It was obvious. The thought hit him so hard it left an impact crater. He slumped back against the hard wood.

  ‘Someone’s watching me?’

  She nodded. A tinge of concern entered her voice, the first time he’d heard it in years. ‘Forget The Dreamer, Greg, at least for the moment. This is about you. It’s personal.’

  Greg cradled his pint of Stag in both hands, pulled it towards him, then downed it in big gulps. ‘I shouldn’t have come,’ he said. Because, if he was being watched…

  ‘Take care of yourself,’ Jennifer said, the freeze back in her voice. She had her phone in her hand, and was standing, putting her coat on.

  ‘Michael?’

  ‘No. That was just a test. Uber.’

  A test. To see if he was jealous, or still interested.

  She was ready to leave. Her eyes met his, something there, a complex cocktail of emotions that he would never untangle. ‘You passed with flying colours, Greg.’

  ‘I hope you do have someone,’ he said, out of nowhere. Something flickered behind her eyes and was gone. She flashed an empty smile, gave a curt nod, and left.

  ‘Say hi to the gang,’ he said, staring at his empty glass.

  He realised that despite everything, he couldn’t take it if she were harmed in any way. He stood up to verify that all was legit, watched Jennifer outside check her mobile, nod to the woman driver and get in. Watched the car pull away.

  He sat back down and visualised the incident map back at his place. Originally predicated on the assumption that Kate had been murdered by The Dreamer, and that it had been random selection… But what if it had been about him, Greg Adams, who had put a number of psychopathic killers behind bars over the last seven years?

  He walked from Harborne all the way to the university campus, past its impressive redbrick clock tower where he used to laze on the lawn in front of the library with fellow psychology students. Happier days. He meandered down to Bristol Road, where the Gun Barrels pub used to be, where he’d spent an indecent part of his grant, now replaced by a sports centre. While he waited there for a bus, he started compiling a list of those he’d put away. He needed to start a whole new evidence map. And he needed to have Donaldson put a tail on him. As he stepped onto the bus bound for New Street station, he smiled at the irony. If this had happened twenty-four hours earlier, and he’d told Rickard he thought he was being followed, he’d never have got permission to consult on the case.

  He found he couldn’t help but stare at a few people who looked suspicious as he made the journey back to London, and when he finally arrived home back in Maida Vale, he closed all the blinds and curtains, and checked Kate’s revolver was where he’d left it. At first he shut the drawer, but then opened it again, took out the revolver and the box of rounds, and filled the other five chambers. The Talisker bottle was still out. He put it away and washed the tumbler in the sink, as usual ignoring the dishwasher.

  Sleep didn’t come easy. He sat up and mentally created a completely new evidence board with the faces, the timeline, the locations, and the victims, even Kate, but no longer in a central position. He put his own face in there and hunted for a pattern. He couldn’t see it yet, but it felt like he was on the right track.

  He now knew what he had to do. Someone had killed Kate to get at him. Which meant the killer must have followed her in those last days, maybe even met her. The police working the case a year ago had interviewed everyone, her colleagues, best friends, acquaintances, neighbours. But they’d worked on the assumption it had been opportunistic, a random kill. The Divine had known about it, but that trail had ended abruptly after he’d suffered a fall in police custody – no one knew if it had been a genuine accident, or whether he’d been pushed or tripped by an angry officer – and hit his head. The Divine had been in a coma ever since.

  Greg had to start again. It wouldn’t be easy. He’d have to go back into Kate’s life. Find out if someone had appeared on the scene prior to her death. Someone who could have been watching her, planning her murder.

  Not The Dreamer. The second spider.

  9

  He arrived at Kate’s place of work. A dull, grey five-storey block in Islington, not far from the Angel tube, and Sadler’s Wells where they used to watch contemporary dance. He entered and presented himself to the young receptionist who wore a white Chinese collar blouse and had her hair piled up in a bun held together with two dark wooden chopsticks.

  ‘I’m here to see Mrs Moore,’ he said.

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘No, please just tell her Greg Adams is here.’

  She gave him a smile, but only a wax model version. He wondered if certain receptionists were trained to smile that way, to let people down more easily. With him at least it had the opposite effect. He recalled an early Russian study where people smiled at dogs and then shortly afterwards slapped them. The dogs became neurotic.

  ‘She has a very busy appointment schedule, perhap
s if you try her secretary–’

  ‘I think you’ll find she’ll see me,’ he said, in as congenial a tone as he could manage.

  The young woman stared back at him, the wax smile not going anywhere fast. Her tone sharpened. ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Greg Adams.’

  She started writing it down on a piece of paper. Then her pencil froze. She coughed. No more eye contact. Her voice almost a mumble now. ‘Would you mind waiting over there, Mr Adams, I’ll call her right away.’

  He sat down on the plush cream leather sofa and waited. The receptionist made the call, not that he could hear what she said, then she took some other calls. In front of him on a low pine table were a scattering of magazines. Therapy Today, New Psychotherapist, etc. He knew them well. He and Kate hadn’t met by pure chance. There had been a case. He’d been at the crime scene and had spied her. He’d asked the DCI who she was. A counsellor, dealing with the cleaner who found the decapitated body. He’d watched Kate, saw how she was so completely focused on the woman, leading her gently out of shock, laying the foundations to prevent post-traumatic stress gaining a foothold.

  ‘We’re done,’ the detective chief inspector had said, then had noticed Greg staring. ‘See you back at the ranch,’ he added, and left.

  An hour later, Kate finished with the woman, who was taken home in a police car. Greg walked over to her. ‘Excuse me,’ he began, as she picked up her things.

  ‘You’ve been watching me for over an hour,’ she said, her tone laced with anger. ‘It’s bad form hitting on women at a crime scene.’

  ‘I don’t get out much,’ he replied.

  She paused a moment. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just–’

  ‘Backlash,’ he said. ‘You give a lot doing what you do. You’re right, I was watching you and I was impressed. You really helped that woman. But it takes it out of you, doesn’t it?’