by Val McDermid
Then, summoning up what remained of his strength, Tony raised his hands and brought the handcuffs crashing down on the back of Angelica’s head.
The blow caught her completely off guard and she went crashing forward between his legs, her teeth snagging agonizingly on him. Tony let himself fall backwards, feeling a tearing in his ankles as they protested against a movement they were never designed to make. As he hit the ground, he doubled forwards and grabbed Angelica’s head, banging it hard on the stone floor till her body stopped thrashing.
He dragged himself over her prone figure till his numb fingers could reach the ankle straps. With maddening clumsiness, he struggled to unfasten the sets of buckles that fixed him to the stone slab. After what felt like hours, he was finally free. As he tried to stand, his ankles refused the challenge, turning over and catapulting him to the floor again, sending excruciating daggers of pain up his legs. Moaning, he dragged himself across the floor towards the steps. He had barely travelled a couple of yards when the body on the floor groaned. Angelica lifted her head, blood and mucus turning her face into a grisly Hallowe’en mask. When she saw him, she roared like a wounded animal and started scrambling to her feet.
The search for a clue to Angelica’s killing ground was growing more desperate as their fear and concern for Tony grew. They had emptied out the contents of the filing cabinet on to the floor. Every scrap of paper was scrutinized for any hint of the location of the cellar revealed in the video. Invoices, guarantees, bills and receipts all got the treatment. Carol was wading through a file of official correspondence, hoping to come across some lease or mortgage details, anything that related to another property. Merrick was ploughing through the files relating to Thorpe’s sex change. Brandon had already had one false alarm, coming across a stack of solicitor’s letters relating to a property in Seaford. It soon became clear, however, that they concerned the sale of Thorpe’s late mother’s home in the town.
It was Merrick who found the key. He’d finished with the sex-change files and started on a bundle of assorted letters, filed under ‘Tax’. When he came across the letter, he had to read it twice to make sure wishful thinking wasn’t making him imagine things.
‘Sir,’ he said cautiously. ‘I think this might be what we’re looking for.’
He handed the letter to Brandon, who read the letterhead of Pennant, Taylor, Bailey and Co., Solicitors. ‘Dear Christopher Thorpe,’ it said. ‘We have received a letter from your aunt, Mrs Doris Makins, in New Zealand, authorizing us to pass on to you the keys for Start Hill Farm, Upper Tontine Moor, by Bradfield, W. Yorkshire. As her agents, we are empowered to allow you access to said property for the purposes of maintenance and security. Please make arrangements with this office to collect the keys at your convenience…’
‘Access to an isolated rural property,’ Carol said, looking over Brandon’s shoulder. ‘Tony said that’s what the killer might have. And now she’s got him there.’ A wave of anger poured through her, displacing the slow burn of fear that had been eating through her from the moment they’d unlocked the macabre secrets of that superficially normal office.
Brandon closed his eyes momentarily then said tightly, ‘We don’t know that, Carol.’
‘And even if she has got him, he’s a clever bloke. If anyone can keep himself out of trouble with his gob, it’s Tony Hill,’ Don chipped in.
‘Never mind whistling in the bloody dark,’ Carol said sharply. ‘Where the hell is Start Hill Farm? And how soon can we get there?’
Tony looked around in desperation. The rack of knives was over to his left, impossibly high up. As Angelica got to her knees, he clawed at the stone bench and hauled himself upright. His hand closed on the haft of the knife as she staggered to her feet and threw herself at him, still bellowing like a cow bereft of its calf.
Her weight and the momentum of her charge bent Tony backwards over the bench. Her hands scrabbled for his throat, gripping his windpipe so tightly that white lights started to dance in front of his eyes. Just when he thought he could hold on no longer, he felt the warm, sticky gush of blood against his stomach and Angelica’s grasp became flabby as a wet newspaper.
Before he could take it all in, he heard footsteps crashing down the stone steps. Like a mad vision of paradise, Don Merrick crashed downstairs, rapidly followed by John Brandon, his jaw dropping at the tableau in front of him.
‘Fucking hell,’ Brandon breathed.
Carol pushed past the two men and stared uncomprehendingly at the carnage before her.
‘You lot took your time,’ Tony gasped. As he passed out, the last thing he heard was his own hysterical laughter.
Epilogue
Carol pushed open the door of the side ward. Tony was propped up on a pile of pillows, the left side of his face swollen and bruised.
‘Hi,’ Tony said, a wan half-smile the best he could manage without too much pain. ‘Come on in.’
Carol closed the door behind her and sat down on a chair by the bed. ‘I brought you some bits and pieces,’ she said, dumping a plastic bag and a padded envelope on the coverlet.
Tony reached out for the bag. Carol winced inside as she saw the bracelet of bruises round his inflamed wrists. He took out a copy of Esquire, a can of Aqua Libra, a tin of pistachio nuts and a Dashiel Hammett omnibus. ‘Thanks,’ he said, surprised by how her choice touched him.
‘I wasn’t sure what you liked,’ she said defensively.
‘Then you’re obviously a good guesser. The perfect taskforce officer.’
‘If a little slow on the uptake,’ Carol said bitterly.
Tony shook his head. ‘John Brandon was here earlier. He told me how you worked it all out. I don’t see how you could have got there any quicker.’
‘I should have realized sooner that you wouldn’t have done a disappearing act at such a crucial time. Come to that, I should have realized as soon as I saw that profile that you could be a target and taken steps to protect you.’
‘Bollocks, Carol. If anyone should have realized that, it was me. You did a bloody good job.’
‘No. If I’d been on the ball, we’d have got there in time to save you having to… to do what you did.’
Tony sighed. ‘You mean, you’d have saved Angelica’s life? For what? Years in a secure mental hospital? Look on the bright side, Carol. You’ve saved the state a fortune. No expensive trial, no years of incarceration and treatment to pay for. Shit, they’ll probably give you a medal.’
‘That’s not what I meant, Tony,’ Carol said. ‘I meant you wouldn’t have to live with the knowledge that you’ve killed someone.’
‘Yes, well, I can’t pretend it was the perfect outcome, but I’ll learn to live with it.’ He forced a smile. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but the first thing I’m going to do when I can walk again is go out and buy you a new mac,’ he said. ‘Every time I look at that coat of yours, I get the urge to scream.’
‘Why?’ Carol frowned in puzzlement.
‘Didn’t you know? She was wearing the identical mac when she turned up on the doorstep. That way, if she left any fibres at the scene, Forensic would assume they’d come from you.’
‘Terrific,’ Carol said ironically. ‘How are the ankles, by the way?’
Tony pulled a face. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever play the violin again. I managed to make it to the loo on crutches, but I had to sit on the edge of the bath to pee. They’re saying there probably won’t be any permanent damage, but it’ll take a while for the torn ligaments to heal. How was your day?’
Carol pulled a face. ’Grisly. I suspect you’d have been in your element. You were right about keeping the fantasy alive. She, he, it, had tapes of all the telephone-sex conversations she’d had with her victims, and she’d stolen the outgoing message tapes from the men who had answering machines.
‘It took the boffins a little while to crack the computer stuff. We didn’t have anybody who really knew what they were doing, but my brother Michael came in and sorted it out for
us.’
Tony gave a twisted smile. ‘I didn’t want to say anything at the time, but for a wild moment, I actually wondered about your brother.’
‘Michael? You’re kidding!’
Embarrassed, Tony nodded. ‘It was when you posited the idea of the computer manipulation of the videos. Michael had the expertise to do that, no question. He’s in the right age group, he lives with a woman but not in a sexual relationship, he’s got access to all the information the killer needed about the way the police and forensic scientists work, his job is in the general area where I’d expect the killer to work, and he was in a position to know exactly what the police were up to and be involved in the investigation. If we hadn’t caught Angelica when we did, I’d have been scrounging an invitation to dinner to check him out.’
Carol shook her head. ‘See what I mean about being slow on the uptake? I had access to all the same information as you, and Michael never even crossed my mind as a possibility.’
‘Not so surprising. You know him well enough to know he’s not a psychopath.’
Carol shrugged. ‘Do I, though? It wouldn’t be the first time a close family member, a wife even, has made the same mistake.’
‘Usually, they’re either deluding themselves or they’re emotionally unstable and dependent on the killer in some way. Neither of which would have applied in this case.’ He gave a tired smile. ‘Anyway, tell me about what your Michael uncovered.’
‘The computer was a total goldmine. She’d kept her own diary of the stalking and the murders. It even says that she wanted it published after her death. Can you beat that?’
‘Easily,’ Tony said. ‘Remind me to show you some of the academic papers I’ve got on the subject of serial killers.’
Carol shivered. ‘Thanks, but no thanks. I got a printout of the diary for you. I figured you’d be interested.’ She gestured to the envelope. ‘It’s in there. Also, as you’d surmised, she had video-taped the killings, and as I suggested, she’d imported them into her computer and manipulated the images to keep the fantasy alive. It was absolutely gruesome, Tony. It went way beyond nightmare.’
Tony nodded. ‘I won’t say you get used to it, because you never do if you’re going to be any use at this job. But you do get to the stage where you can lock it away, so it doesn’t jump out and wreck your head unawares.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘That’s the theory. Ask me again in a few weeks,’ he said grimly. ‘Was there anything in there about how she chose her victims?’
‘Just a fucking bit,’ Carol said bitterly. ‘She’d been at this for months before she even picked out the first victim. She worked for the phone company, a computer systems manager. Apparently, she used to work for a small private phone company back in Seaford, which gave her the experience to get the job in Bradfield. She was what they call a super-user of the computer system, so she had access to every piece of data in there. She used the phone company’s computer to extract all the residential numbers who had made regular calls to sex chatlines in the past year.’ Carol paused, letting the obvious question hang in the air.
‘It was research,’ Tony said wearily. ‘I published a paper on the role of chatlines in the development of fantasies among serial offenders. Someone should have told Angelica not to jump to conclusions.’
Reading his remark as a veiled reproach, Carol moved on. ‘She cross-referenced that against the electoral roll and came up with men who lived alone. Then she just checked them out by watching their houses. She had a clear picture of the physical type she wanted, and she wanted one with his own house, a decent income and good career prospects. Can you believe it?’
‘Only too well,’ Tony said grimly. ‘Her rationale was that she never wanted to kill them, she only wanted to love them. But they made her murder because they betrayed her. She kept telling herself that what she really wanted was a man who would love her and live with her.’
Don’t we all, Carol thought but didn’t say. ‘Anyway, once she’d decided on the likely candidate, she paved the way with the dirty phone calls. She got them on the hook that way, on account of all you sleazy men can’t resist anonymous sex.’
‘Ouch,’ Tony said, wincing. ‘In my defence, I’d have to say that a large part of my interest was purely academic. I was interested in the psychology of a woman who would do what she did on the phone.’
Carol smiled tightly. ‘At least I know now that you were telling the truth when you said you didn’t know the woman who was leaving the sexy messages on your answering machine.’
Tony looked away. ‘And the discovery that a man you were attracted to was getting his rocks off in kinky telephone sex with a stranger must have been delightful for you.’
Carol was silent, unsure what to say. ‘I’ve heard the tapes now,’ she admitted. ‘Yours are very different from the others. You were clearly uncomfortable a lot of the time. Not that it’s any of my business.’
Still unable to meet her eyes, Tony spoke, his voice clipped and clinical. ‘I have a problem with sex. To be precise, I have problems with achieving and maintaining an erection. The honest truth is that only part of me was treating the calls with professional interest. The other part of me was trying to use them as a kind of therapy. I know that makes me sound like a pervert, but part of the trouble with doing the job I do is that it’s virtually impossible to find a therapist I can respect and trust who isn’t connected in some way to the world I work in. And however much they verbally espouse the principle of client confidentiality, I’ve always been reluctant to expose myself to the risk.’
Realizing the difficulty Tony had had in making his confession, Carol reached out for his hand and covered it lightly with hers. ‘Thank you for telling me that. It won’t go any further. And if it makes you feel any better, the only people who have heard the tapes in full are me and John Brandon. You don’t have to worry about what people are saying about you behind your back within the force.’
‘That’s something, I suppose. So, go on. Tell me about Angelica’s phone calls to the other victims.’
‘It was obvious that the men thought this was sex without any commitment or comeback. Angelica’s analysis was completely different. She’d convinced herself that their responses meant they were falling in love with her. Unfortunately for the guys, they decided otherwise. As soon as they showed any interest in another woman, they signed their death warrants. Apart from Damien, that is. She killed him to teach us a lesson. You were going to be the other lesson.’
Tony shuddered. ‘No wonder she had to go abroad for the sex-change operation. The NHS psychologists she saw must have had a field day with her attitudes and aspirations.’
‘Apparently, they decided she was not an appropriate candidate for a sex change because of her lack of insight into her sexuality. They concluded that she was a gay man who couldn’t cope with his sexuality because of cultural and family conditioning. They recommended counselling with a sex therapist rather than a sex change. There was an ugly scene at the time. He threw one of the psychologists through a glass door,’ Carol revealed.
‘Pity they didn’t press charges,’ Tony said.
‘Yes. And you’ll be pleased to hear they’re definitely not going to charge you.’
‘I should think not! Like I said, think of the taxpayers’ money I’ve saved. Maybe we should have dinner to celebrate when I get out of here?’ he asked tentatively.
‘I’d like that. There is one other good thing that came out of all of this,’ Carol said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Penny Burgess took the day off yesterday to go walking in the dales. Apparently, her car broke down and she got stranded in the middle of a forest all night. She missed the whole shooting match. There’s a dozen by-lines in the Sentinel Times tonight, and not a single one of them is hers!’
Tony lay back and stared at the ceiling. Papering over the cracks, that’s what they were doing. He suspected Carol knew that as well as he did, and he wasn’t sorry
for the effort she was making. But he’d had enough for now. He closed his eyes and sighed.
‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ Carol said, getting to her feet. ‘I wasn’t thinking. You must still be exhausted. Look, I’m out of here. I’ll leave you this stuff to read when you feel up to it. I could drop in tomorrow if you like…’
‘I think I’d like that,’ Tony said wearily. ‘It just comes over me in waves sometimes.’
He heard her feet cross the floor and the click of the door opening. ‘Take care,’ Carol said.
The door closed behind her and Tony pushed himself back up till he was leaning against the pillows. He reached for the padded envelope. While he couldn’t cope with conversation, his curiosity wouldn’t let him ignore Angelica’s diary. He pulled out a thick wedge of A4 paper. ‘Let’s see what you were really made of,’ he said softly. ‘What’s the story? How did you justify, what did you hide behind?’ Hungrily, he began to read.
Wading through the outpourings of the psychologically damaged was normally a routine exploratory experience for Tony. But this was different, he realized after only a few paragraphs. At first, he couldn’t pin down what it was. The writing was more literate, more controlled and more immediate than most of their ramblings, but that didn’t explain why his response was so different. He moved on a few pages, fascinated and repelled equally. It was no more or less self-obsessed than other things he’d read, but there was a chilling relish here that was unusual. Most killers whose writings he’d read had gloried far more in their own bloody role, reflecting less on what they’d done to their victims and its effect on them, but here was someone who identified herself as much in terms of them. But even that couldn’t entirely explain why he felt so unsettled by what he was reading. Whatever it was, it was making him more reluctant to continue the more he read, the opposite to his normal response. He’d been so obsessively keen to get inside the head of the killer he’d dubbed Handy Andy, but now it was laid out before him, it was as if he didn’t want to know.
