by James Carol
‘Isn’t that risky, though?’ said Templeton. ‘Hanging around here waiting for Rachel to get fed up and come out of the bar.’
‘It’s less risky than hanging around on the street. If our unsub had done that then someone would definitely have noticed him.’
‘But why bother waiting at all? All waiting does is increase the exposure time, which increases the risk of being seen, which increases the risk of being caught. Cutting Jack knows Rachel’s coming here so why not snatch her before she gets to the bar?’
‘Cutting Jack! Jesus Christ you’ve given him a nickname. I hate nicknames. It legitimises the unsub, turns them from assholes into legends.’
‘Back to my question, Winter. Why wait?’
‘Because the unsub wants to catch his prey off-guard. He wants them to let their defences down. Here’s a question for you. What do people do in bars? Don’t think too hard. Just say the first thing that pops into your head. The obvious thing.’
‘They drink.’
Templeton looked at me like this was the dumbest question she’d ever been asked, and the dumbest answer she’d ever given.
‘Exactly. They drink. Alcohol is one of the most effective drugs there is for reducing social inhibitions. You want someone to let their guard down, give them a couple of drinks. What’s more, alcohol is totally legal and you can get it anywhere.’ I nodded to myself, a smile spreading across my face. ‘This guy’s clever. Really clever. Do you want to know why you haven’t caught him yet?’
‘Enlighten me.’
‘It’s because he gets his victims to do all the hard work.’
28
Rachel paced the basement in the dark, building a mental map of her prison. She thought of the mattress as north and the door as south. If each of her strides was more or less a metre, then it was ten metres from the mattress to the chair, and another ten metres from the chair to the door. East to west, the width of the room was twenty metres. Each wall was a uniform twenty metres in length.
The dentist’s chair had been positioned in the exact centre of the room.
Rachel’s measurements tallied with the last time she’d done this, and the time before that. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d done this. It gave her something to do, something to relieve the boredom and stop her thinking. Something to stop her imagination running away with her, at least for a short while.
Rachel went over to the door and pressed her hands against the dog flap. The plastic was cold and smooth beneath her palms. She felt her way around the edge until she found the rough area near the bottom where the manufacturer’s name and logo had been cast into the plastic. She pushed against the flap. Gently. Carefully. It was locked, just like all the other times she’d tried.
Even if it had been open she didn’t know what she would have done. She could imagine herself crawling through the flap and making a run for it, but she was terrified of what Adam would do if he caught her. The fact it was locked wasn’t really a barrier anyway. The dog flap was made from plastic and all that held it locked was a small red plastic clip. If she wanted to, she could easily kick her way to freedom.
And Adam knew that.
Rachel walked back through the dark to the mattress, found the blankets and wound them around herself like a cocoon. She was building a picture of where she was being held. The house was big and old, and definitely detached. She had a sense of large rooms and space above her. Her hearing compensated for her blindness, the dark amplifying any sounds. There was a big boiler nearby that made a heavy thump whenever it kicked in, and the whoosh and rattle of pipes both distant and near added to her sense of being somewhere large. Occasionally she would hear a floorboard creak. Again, some of those sounds were distant, some close.
Noise wasn’t an issue. Adam had demonstrated that clearly with the speakers. Also, he hadn’t seemed bothered by how loud she’d screamed when he hit her with the cane. Then there were those bloodstains on the armrests. Whoever left those stains would not have done so quietly. If anyone lived close, or anyone was passing on a nearby street, the police would have been called by now and Adam would be in prison. Then there was the fact that the dog flap could easily be smashed open. Adam obviously believed that if she did get out, she wouldn’t get far. He was confident he could contain her, that there was nobody nearby who could help her.
All this added up to a large, detached house situated well away from any curious neighbours or passers-by.
Rachel ran a hand over her smooth skull and tried to tell herself it was just hair and that it would grow back. It didn’t work. It wasn’t just hair, it was her hair, and Adam had stolen it.
She wished her father was here, not because it was his job to make the monsters go away, but so that he could break Adam’s legs. Rachel had overheard the whispering conversations when she was little, the one-sided telephone calls. Her brothers had passed on the rumours and the speculation, and when she put it all together it was obvious what her father was. Rachel had come to terms with what he did long ago, and although she didn’t agree with the way he carried out his business, there was no doubt he loved her and would do anything for her, and that included breaking bones.
The dark was disorientating. There was nothing she could use to track the passing of time, no boarded-up windows with telltale shafts of daylight sneaking through, no cracks in the floorboards above her head. The corridor beyond the dog flap was as dark as the basement.
Rachel had no idea how long she’d been here. She reckoned at least a day, but couldn’t be sure because she had no reference point to work from. She remembered getting into Adam’s Porsche, then nothing until she woke up here. She might have been out for a couple of hours, but it could have been longer. Or it could have been less time. She just didn’t know.
How much time had to pass before she was officially classed as missing and the police started looking for her? Forty-eight hours was the figure in her head, but she wasn’t sure if that was the case, or if this was something she’d picked up from television.
Had Jamie contacted the police yet? Rachel wanted to believe that he had. She couldn’t see why he wouldn’t have. If he’d got home early and gone straight to bed then he might not have noticed that she hadn’t come home. He slept so heavily that bombs and earthquakes wouldn’t wake him, but he would have noticed she wasn’t there at breakfast. He would have contacted her friends to see if anyone knew where she was, and when he came up empty there he would have contacted the police.
It was the obvious thing to do, the only thing to do. A slither of doubt slid across Rachel’s heart. This was Jamie she was talking about. Obvious and Jamie didn’t necessarily go together.
She thought back to the conversation with the girls at work and wished she’d paid more attention. She remembered a few vague details, but nothing substantial. Torture, lobotomies, things being done with knitting needles. At the time these details had just struck her as gross. Tabloid titbits. Everybody’s reaction had been the same. Revulsion and disgust and total disbelief. Nobody could understand how anyone could do those things to another person.
A couple of the girls had even wondered out loud what it would be like, but only in a vague sort of way. They hadn’t considered what it would really be like to be at the mercy of a psycho who wanted to hurt you for kicks, someone who, when he’d finished getting his kicks, intended to mess your brain up and turn you into a vegetable. And why would they? It wasn’t as though anything like this was ever going to happen to any of them. The odds of winning the lottery were shorter than the odds of that ever happening.
Except it had happened to her.
The dog flap clattered and Rachel’s head snapped towards the sound. A wave of adrenalin hit, doubling her heart rate in the space of a single beat. Her mouth went dry, her palms turned clammy, and all she could think about was running even though there was nowhere to run.
The lights slammed on and Rachel automatically shut her eyes. A second wave hit and she started hyperven
tilating. Rachel forced herself to take a couple of deep breaths, told herself to calm down. Losing it every time the lights came on was not going to help. She opened her eyes slowly so she could adjust to the brightness. The anger hit as hard and suddenly as the adrenalin. She was angry with herself for letting Adam’s games get to her, absolutely furious that she’d been stupid enough to get in this situation in the first place.
Rachel noticed the smell of food before she saw the tray. Eating was the last thing on her mind, but that smell changed everything. Her stomach rumbled and her mouth flooded with saliva. Aside from a Mars bar, the last thing she had eaten was a BLT. That could have been twenty-four hours ago. It could have been longer. Rachel glanced anxiously at the speakers in the corners of the room, her head moving from one to the other. She was waiting for Adam’s distorted voice to boom through the speakers and tell her what to do. For once she wanted to hear that voice.
Rachel chewed one of her nails without noticing, paring it back to the quick, something she hadn’t done since she was a child. The speakers stayed silent. Was this another game? Some sort of test? If she moved towards the tray before she was told to, would it be taken away? Rachel decided to give it two minutes and started counting off the seconds in her head. If the speakers stayed silent after two minutes she would take the risk and go over. If the tray was taken away it meant Adam never intended letting her eat, that he was just playing mind games with her again.
Two minutes passed.
Rachel left it a little longer, just in case. She took one final look at the speakers, then got up unsteadily and went over to the door, giving the dentist’s chair a wide berth. The tray was still there when she reached the door.
There was a tall glass filled with water on the tray, a plate of ravioli, cutlery and a napkin. She took a closer look. The plate was antique bone china, so thin she could see veins and shadows, and the glass was crystal. Rachel turned the fork over and saw the hallmark imprinted on the back. Solid silver. The white linen napkin was neatly folded and pressed, the edges military-straight. The ravioli had come straight from a tin, though.
Rachel looked over at the chair with its straps and bloodstains, then looked back at the tray. She felt a sense of dislocation. Two universes had collided and she was trapped in the middle of them. She was Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole.
She tentatively tried the ravioli, wondering what the catch was, wondering when Adam would charge in and snatch the tray away. Rachel took another forkful, then another. She got herself as comfortable as she could, her back against the wall, the tray balanced on her lap, and made herself keep eating way past the point she was full because she had no idea when she would be fed again.
She put the plate back on the tray and wiped her mouth with the napkin. After everything that had happened she still couldn’t get away from the idea that this was some sort of trick, that something terrible was about to happen. For a while she just sat there with her back against the wall, the tiled floor cold beneath her.
The seconds ticked by.
Nothing happened.
Rachel tidied the tray and placed it back in front of the dog flap. She got up and walked across the room to the mattress. A voice stopped her in her tracks. This voice wasn’t booming from the speakers, and it wasn’t Adam’s. It was soft and timid, female rather than male.
‘Did you enjoy your dinner?’
29
Mulberry’s was busy and full of sound. Snippets of conversation, the rattle of spoons and cups and plates, the gurgle and rush of the espresso machine. The smell of coffee hung heavy in the air. Tinsel had been draped over the picture frames and a tree surrounded by presents glittered colourfully in the far corner. I glanced over the road at Springers. The bar glowed warmly on the other side of those four large panes of glass. The people inside made me think of ants trapped in an ant farm.
The girl behind the counter had finally noticed us, but didn’t seem bothered that we hadn’t ordered anything. There was a brief moment of eye contact and then she went back to her customers. This got me wondering. Once a customer placed their order they became part of the background noise, they were dealt with then forgotten about, move on to the next customer. I was certain the unsub had been here last night. It felt like the sort of thing he’d do. He might even have sat at this very same table. He would have ordered his espresso or his latte then he would have done his best to become invisible. Go back in time and it wouldn’t be Templeton sat opposite, it would be the unsub. I caught the waitress’s eye and waved her over. She swerved around the counter and came across.
‘Hi.’
The waitress was in her early twenties. She had a tasteful nose stud, dyed black hair, and her baggy jeans hung low around her hips, hiding her shape. Combat boots rather than shoes, worn in and comfortable. A student working her way through university was my guess, someone whose parents weren’t loaded.
‘Bit of a long shot,’ I said, ‘but I don’t suppose you were working here last night?’
The girl shook her head.
‘Any idea who was?’
Another shake of the head. ‘I’m only part-time. I do a couple of afternoons a week.’ She glanced at Templeton then looked back at me. ‘So, who are you guys? Are you police or something?’
Templeton flashed her ID. ‘I’m going to need a contact number for your boss.’
‘And I’m going to need a coffee to go,’ I said. ‘Black, two sugars, please.’
Raised eyebrows and a smile for each of us. ‘No problem.’
The waitress hustled back to the counter and got busy.
‘Wedding rings, Winter.’
Templeton gave me a look that left me in no doubt that the gloves were about to come off and things were going to get unpleasant.
‘Okay, wedding rings,’ I said. ‘There are four distinct phases with these sorts of crimes. Stalking, acquisition, enactment, and disposal. Acquisition is the riskiest phase. Why?’
‘Because with the other three it’s easier to control the situation, the environment and the variables.’
‘Exactly. That’s why so many serial criminals target low-risk victims. Prostitutes, drug addicts, homeless people. These targets have lifestyles that make it easy to isolate them, which reduces the risk of being caught. A prostitute will get into a car with a stranger. She might think twice about doing it, but she’s going to do it anyway because if she doesn’t then her pimp’s going to beat her up. A well-educated businesswoman won’t get into a car with a stranger. Fact. So what does that tell you?’
‘That our victims know Cutting Jack.’
‘But the victims have never met the unsub,’ I said. ‘So how do they recognise him?’
‘I know what you’re getting at, Winter. We’ve already looked at the internet angle and come up empty-handed.’
‘Look harder. You also need to check to see if the victims have any secret cellphone accounts their husbands don’t know about. This unsub builds up a relationship with his victims and this is done over time. We’re talking months rather than days. By the time he’s ready to reel them in, they’re prepared to lie to their husbands and friends. They’re prepared to take off their wedding rings and hide them in their purses. And they’re prepared to get into a car with someone they’ve only just met.’
‘Why bother taking off their rings? Surely Cutting Jack already knows they’re married.’
‘They do it partly to make the unsub feel better, and partly to ease their own guilt. They don’t want the unsub to think of them as married. They don’t want to think of themselves as being married. They want the unsub to see them as young, free and single. Ironically, that’s what they want to believe, too, since it makes the guilt easier to handle. Did you notice Sarah Flight wasn’t wearing a wedding ring?’
Templeton shook her head.
‘At the time I wondered who’d taken it off. I wasn’t sure if it was her mother or someone who worked at Dunscombe House. It wasn’t either. Sarah Flight took it of
f and hid it in her purse or her bag or wherever. The unsub found it when he went through her stuff and kept it as a trophy.’
The waitress came over with my coffee. She handed a business card to Templeton. It was decorated with the Mulberry’s logo and had the manager’s cellphone number scribbled on the back.
‘Okay, what now?’ Templeton asked.
‘Are you into role-playing?’
The look she gave me was priceless.
30
I stopped in front of Springers’ tall glass windows and took a good look all around, getting a feel for the environment. Left, right. North, south, east, west. The unsub had been sitting across the road in Mulberry’s last night. What had he seen? What had he heard? What had he done? Lazy trails of smoke wound upwards from my cigarette, twisting through the light that spilled from the bar. The throwaway cup was hot in my hand despite the cardboard collar. My breathing and heart rate increased as I slipped into the zone. Smells, sights and sounds were suddenly sharper.
‘Okay, you’re Rachel Morris,’ I said to Templeton. ‘You’ve been stood up and you’re feeling angry. The weather’s lousy. It’s cold and it’s snowing. You come out of the bar. What’s the first thing you do?’
‘I head for home. I’ve had a crap evening and I just want to be tucked up in bed.’
I shook my head. ‘You’re jumping the gun. Yes, you want to get home as quick as you can, but, despite the cold, you’re still going to stand in that doorway and check the street one last time to see if your date’s going to turn up. And the reason you’re going to do that is because you feel foolish for getting yourself in this situation in the first place, and if your date does make a miracle appearance then you won’t feel so foolish. It’s basic human nature. Psychology 101.’
Templeton moved into the doorway and made a big show of checking the street. ‘Looking left, looking right,’ she said. ‘No sign of the bad guy.’
‘That’s because I’m over in Mulberry’s, watching you. Okay, you came here on the Underground. The CCTV footage from the station showed that. Odds on you’re going to go back the same way. Except you didn’t. The CCTV footage showed that, too.’
