by Michael Kerr
Shirley opened the door opposite it. “This was Paul’s room,” she said. “It’s as he left it. I’ve always thought he would come back.”
The three of them entered. The small bedroom was clean and bright, and the interests and character of its erstwhile resident was represented by its contents. There was a single bed with a cabinet next to it with a lamp and radio alarm clock on its top. Against the left-hand wall was a dresser with a poster of Arnie Schwartzenegger in his role as the Terminator Blue-Tacked above it. On the right stood a narrow wardrobe and a four-drawer chest. All the furniture was of flat pack origin. The back wall was crowded with bookshelves stocked with both hard cover and paperbacks. Matt was not surprised to find that most of the books were crime novels of the more grisly type. Paul apparently enjoyed chilling, gruesome fare that doubtless contained stomach-turning imagery. There were several titles by James Patterson, all of Lecter’s outings, courtesy of Thomas Harris, and even the autobiography of an ex-FBI profiler, John Douglas, who doubtless pointed out all the mistakes that serial killers made, and that eventually led to their downfall. It was in essence a very helpful manual for a would-be monster.
“Where is the dog?” Beth asked Shirley, pointing to a framed photograph of a German shepherd.
“With Paul. Hannibal was his dog. It intimidated me.”
“You mean it was vicious?”
“He trained it as a guard dog. It was savage. Not what I would call a pet, although it doted on Paul.”
As the two women talked, Matt searched through the drawers and found an exercise book taped to the underside of one. He took a clean, folded sports sock from another drawer and handled the book through the cotton, by its edges. Its pages were packed with small neat handwriting, all written in gold marker pen. He read a few lines under the heading: I THE JURY: They are all valueless and spend their mundane lives amounting to nothing worth more than the ordure they pass. They are waste, to be flushed into a deep, infested sewer, away from the light. But first they will be educated, experience the sorrow their verdict brought, then die, or be left to mourn, as I was: The women, who watch talk shows and dutifully fuck their husbands as infrequently as possible, happy to get fat and ugly: The men, who cheat on their bitch wives and work to pay mortgage and bills, their arteries furring up as their waist’s thicken and their hair recedes: The children, who suffer for their parents’ sins. This is the sentence I pass on the no account non persons that had the temerity to sit in judgement of a man who they did not know, and cared nothing for. After they have all paid the ultimate price, and the circle is complete, then I will be gone. No one will ever find me. They will search in vain for who I was, not who I have become.
Matt stopped. He had no need to read any more of the irrational drivel. He looked through the rest of the drawers. Nothing. The wardrobe last. Nikes and work boots stood in line at the bottom. Shirts, jeans and jackets hung on sturdy wooden hangers on the rail above. A glint of silver. The raised top of a cross-headed screw that was not flush. Removing the footwear, he saw that the Formica-faced MDF beneath it was higher than the level of the floor. It came up easily, and within the hidden compartment was a selection of women’s panties, neatly folded and of various styles and colours. There were also dozens of photographs, including Polaroid and 8x10 enlargements that had probably been taken on 35mm film with an old SLR and zoom lens. Flicking through them, he recognised Raymond and Laura Preston, Dennis, Kirstie and Faye Marshall, Lionel Garrick, and some of the other jurors and presumably members of their families.
“See these, Mrs. Roberts?” he said, standing up and holding out the damning evidence. These are of some people who Paul has already murdered, and of others who he has every intention of doing the same to. I want his number, and any other information you have. Now.”
Shirley snatched the photos from his hand and examined them one by one, stopping and staring at one of a girl with raven hair and bright blue eyes. She was posing, wearing nothing but a coy smile. A gold cross had been drawn corner to corner across the glossy surface.
“Do you know her?” Beth said.
Shirley dropped down to sit on the edge of her son’s bed. Her hands were shaking. “Yes. It’s Sandra Beaumont. She was Paul’s girlfriend for a while. It was tragic. Not long after they split up, she...”
Shirley swallowed hard, and her eyes misted.
“Tell me, ” Beth said. “She what?”
“It was a hit and run. She suffered terrible head injuries and died at the scene without regaining consciousness.”
“How did Paul take it?”
“He just shrugged and said she should have practised the Green Cross Code.”
“Was it Sandra who finished with him?”
“Y...Yes. She dumped him for another boy. It was over five years ago.”
“The number,” Matt repeated, handing her his notebook and ballpoint.
Beth took the photos from her, and Shirley jotted down Paul’s mobile phone number.
“Phone him, now. Wish him a Merry Christmas and tell him that the police have been round again, searching his room,” Matt said as they went back downstairs.
Beth asked Mickey to give them a few more minutes privacy, and he went back to the kitchen muttering about heavy-handed police tactics as he closed the door.
Shirley phoned the number, held for a few seconds and passed the receiver to Matt. The line was dead. Probably switched off. Never mind. He could arrange for any future calls made from it to be traced to the area, if not the location. Too many offenders were unaware of how sophisticated tracing techniques had become. Technology had its place.
“I would ask you to act as usual if he contacts you, Mrs. Roberts,” Matt said. “I know you’re his mum, but he isn’t himself. In fact I would go as far to say that if he considered you a threat to his freedom, he might harm you.”
“You mean kill me, don’t you?”
“In a word, yes. You don’t seem to be shocked by that.”
“I’m horrified, but not completely shocked. Paul took after his real dad, who was a violent and spiteful man. Paul also had a...a fiery side to his nature, that could flare up into a rage at the drop of a hat, even when he was a tot. The staff at the infants’ school he attended considered him a disruptive child.”
“How did his rage manifest?” Beth said.
“He would have a tantrum, break the nearest thing to hand, and scream his lungs out. After he’d settled down he would go into himself for days and be very petulant.”
The input was giving Beth more insight into the mind of their quarry. This was a young man who had in all probability killed a girl for spurning him. If so, then the act had given him a cruel satisfaction, and was probably the catalyst for his present killing spree. He had discovered a power; the inborn capability to take life with no downside. He was an egomaniac with the clear belief that only his own sense of morality mattered. Even if caught, he would be totally centred and without remorse, extremely vexed at not being able to complete his systematic slaughter of those he regarded as culpable of his stepfather’s undoing. The crimes were not without precedent. Many disturbed and violent offenders had held grudges against the police officer that had arrested them, the prosecution team, and the judge that had passed sentence on them. Some let the hatred develop, to be sustained by it as they planned what form of revenge they would mete out when they were released. And members of a convicted person’s family had also been known to cause harm to those that they adjudged to have been responsible for their loved ones incarceration.
“Will he call you, Mrs. Roberts?” Matt said.
“More than likely, but maybe not for weeks. He’s a loner, who has never really needed anyone in his life. The truth is, Inspector, we don’t have what you might consider a normal mother and son relationship. Even as a baby, he didn’t like to be held. He never cried, and was almost immune to pain. Hurting himself intrigued him. It was as if he found some pleasure in discomfort. I came home from work one day and found
him in the scullery of the terrace house we lived in at the time. He was only nine then, and was sitting on the floor with my sewing box. He’d fallen down and gashed his leg, and was using a needle and cotton to stitch the wound. Can you believe he was actually smiling, proud of himself.”
Matt suddenly felt cold. His skin crawled and tightened. There were ghouls on the loose who existed on a different plane. Paul Sutton was obviously one of them. It was apparent that even as a kid he had been possessed by some innate separateness. Had his brain been malformed even before birth? Could just one faulty weld in the circuit board of a foetus make for the creation of a saint or sinner, even as it floated and grew within a chamber of amniotic fluid? Or did evil have the ability to invade new life, to fuse with it and influence all future behaviour? Heavy shit! All he did know was, that children should embrace life and be full of optimism and wonderment, learning how to live without being imbued with rancour. It was only with the weight of time and adulthood that pessimism and the acceptance of one’s own mortality should have the ability to dampen the spirit, as a future that you would not be a part of advanced ever nearer with increasing velocity.
“After you were here the first time, I left the house and called him from a pay phone,” Shirley admitted. “I told him that you were looking for him, and that he was a suspect. He denied killing the girl and abducting the other woman. I...I believed him. He seemed taken aback. I asked him to come forward, but he said he didn’t trust the police. I don’t think he ever accepted that Ted was guilty.”
“What else did he say?” Matt said.
“He told me to destroy the number that I just gave you, and said he would stay in hiding until you caught the real killer.”
With Shirley’s permission, Matt arranged for a crime scene crew to go over the house. He also instigated a trace to be made of all calls made to and from the number of the mobile phone Sutton had used. With such a comprehensive network of service aerials, it was now possible to localise or even pinpoint the source. Things were looking up. He had the feeling that they had finally taken a step along the right trail. Sutton had proved elusive, but everybody makes mistakes, and he was no exception to the rule.
“Do you trust her?” Beth said into her mounted hand-free phone as she followed Matt’s Discovery towards Harrow.
“To a degree. I tend go with the motto ‘trust no one’. That way you don’t get bad surprises. She’s still his mother, but I think she’d give him up,” Matt said.
Beth felt a sudden hollowness. Was Matt aware of what he had just said? Was she included in his philosophy? Did he view her as less than totally trustworthy? Could his love for her be enough, if he didn’t have complete faith in her?
Matt waited for her to continue. Seconds passed and all he could hear was the low purr of the Discovery’s engine and the swish of passing cars. “You still there, Beth?” he said as he looked into the rearview mirror to be certain that the Lexus had not been sucked up into the now darkening sky by some alien craft or a tornado. It was still there, sixty feet back, headlights on and matching his speed.
Her mouth was dry, but her voice sounded normal when she spoke. “What is it about me that you don’t trust, Matt?”
Jesus, he hadn’t meant her. She was now the most real and valued part of his existence. And she should damn well know it, being a professional mind hunter who searched out repressed or masked emotions for a living.
“You know I was using that statement figuratively.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. I meant it in relation to criminals, suspects, witnesses and the like. Being a cynical bastard goes hand-in-hand with the job. I can’t afford to trust the people I come across on a daily basis. I don’t unravel cases by being gullible, or taking everything I’m fed verbatim. I expect to be lied to, but not by you.”
“Sorry, Matt, I sometimes misinterpret stuff. I’m not as together as I make out.”
“Don’t give me ‘sorry’. We don’t have anything to apologise to each other for.”
They parked outside Matt’s house, got out of the cars and went to each other, to hug and kiss on the pavement, bathed in the yellow sodium glow of a street lamp, parading their love for Mr. Laverick from number 23 to observe as he walked by and paused to let his mongrel dog cock its leg against the wheel arch of Beth’s car.
Inside, Matt switched on the central heating before pouring them both large brandies.
Beth took off her coat and smiled at the token acknowledgement of Christmas. The small and straggly tree was artificial. Some of the wire branches were a little bare, and others hung limply, their inability to maintain an upward angle a sign of advancing age and impotence. The few baubles looked ancient, complimenting the likewise old yet somehow stoic tree. “Did you buy this at a car boot sale, or have you been digging around in skips?” she said.
“That tree was my grandmother’s,” Matt said with a hurt look. “A family heirloom. If it could talk, it would tell stories of the Blitz that would make your toes curl.”
“I didn’t know they had artificial Christmas trees back in the dark ages,” Beth said, going over to it and examining a small adhesive label affixed to one of the three metal legs that supported it. “Especially the ‘Made in China’ variety.”
Matt grinned. “So I exaggerated. It’s a mere sapling. I backed over it in the garage a couple of years ago, which explains its condition. The bits and bobs hanging on it are vintage, though.”
There was one gift-wrapped parcel under the tree’s sagging branches, not much bigger than a matchbox.
“Is that my present?” Beth said.
“You could call it that,” Matt said. “Maybe more of an offering.”
Holding out her glass for him to hold, Beth picked up the package and opened the small, plain silver card that was taped to its top: ‘Now & Forever. Merry Christmas, darling. Matt xxx,’ was written in neat copperplate.
Using a fingernail to slit through the paper, she removed the small presentation box and opened the lid. Tears welled up, misting and multiplying the sparkling facets of the solitaire diamond ring.
“You can always trade it in for something else if you don’t fancy getting hitched,” Matt said.
“I’m not accepting that throwaway comment as a proposal,” Beth said. “Ask me properly.”
Matt put the glasses down on the coffee table and cupped her face gently in his hands, kissed her deeply, then pulled back a few inches to be able to look into her eyes. “I love you, Beth. And I can’t imagine a future without you in it. Will you marry me?”
“Yes, Matt,” she said with no hesitation or uncertainty.
They kissed again, before she gave him the ring and held out her hand for him to place the symbol of their joint commitment on her slightly trembling finger.
“How do we follow that?” Matt said.
“Come to bed and I’ll show you,” Beth replied, holding his hand tightly as she headed for the stairs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“CONGRATULATIONS you two,” Tom said less than five seconds after Matt and Beth walked into his office. The rock on Beth’s finger was impossible to miss. “We’ll have to celebrate when we all get time to come up for a breather.”
“It’ll just be a small shindig at Ron’s place in Tottenham,” Beth said.
They had taken three hours’ out of the loop, made love, then showered and had a snack before heading back to the Yard.
“Sutton is one slippery customer,” Tom said, all business again and motioning for them to look at the large motoring atlas on his desk, that was opened up to show the Greater London area. “We got the approximate location of a few calls made from the number you gave us. Seems he’s pre-empting us. He doesn’t stay in one place.”
“Have we got a target area?” Matt said.
Tom took a highlighter and drew a red circle on the map. “In there,” he said.
Matt and Beth studied the ringed area of north London. The M25 bisected it, with Enfield at its so
uthern limit, Cheshunt to the north, Potters Bar west and Waltham Abbey east.
“It narrows it down, but not anything like enough,” Tom said. “Even if he is somewhere near the centre, it’s still a needle in a haystack job.”
“But the stack’s getting smaller, Tom,” Matt said. “We’re closing in. We know he has privacy. This is someone who has a house with a cellar, and who is living in an outlying location. We can forget main roads, towns and housing estates. I reckon he’s on the outskirts of a village, or adjacent to a quiet country lane.”
“And he’ll work for himself,” Beth said. “This is somebody who is self-sufficient. What was his last known employment?”
Tom picked up a buff file and withdrew a sheet of copy paper. “He was a car mechanic at a garage in Southgate. The owner said he was a good worker who could fix anything on wheels. He was punctual, kept to himself, and didn’t talk unless he had to. This guy, Lenny Mercer, said that he was a little snotty, meaning supercilious. When Sutton’s stepfather was dying, he just didn’t come back. Never quit or phoned in to ask for time off. Just took a powder. Mercer only had Sutton’s mother’s address and phone number. He called her, but was told that Paul had left home.”
“I’ll go and see the guy tomorrow,” Matt said, making a note of the garage’s address, which was also where Mercer lived.
“You got any more insight, Beth?” Tom said.
“Only that he’s more emotionally damaged than I first thought. He’s not a ticking bomb, he’s already exploded like a nuclear device. He’s as deadly as fallout. Ted Roberts dying was just an excuse for him to direct his anger at a world he hates. Nobody measures up to his expectation. Sandra Beaumont will have seen his dark side, and no doubt dumped him because he scared her. I don’t think taking photos of her posing naked would be her idea, and it probably went far beyond that. He will have needed to control her with fear and pain.”
“In what way?”
