Broken Dolls (A Jefferson Winter Thriller)

by James Carol

  ‘The lull?’

  ‘It happens in every investigation. Everything that can be done has either been done or is being done. All the bases have been covered.’

  ‘There’s always something else we can do.’

  I nodded to the map and the pictures, to the whiteboards covered with scribblings in a variety of handwriting. ‘If you can see something I’ve missed, I’d like to hear it.’

  Templeton studied the boards for a while then shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Not a single thing.’

  I stared at the map a little longer, but still couldn’t discern any patterns. The idea that we’d missed something nagged at me. The lull was always accompanied by doubt. Had we done everything that could be done? Had we actually covered all the bases? Inaction always made me uneasy. In a perfect universe Hatcher would have unlimited resources and everything would happen that much faster. But this wasn’t a perfect universe, and the reality was that every investigation hit a lull, often more than one.

  ‘You’ll have to forgive me eventually,’ I said to Templeton.

  ‘I already have.’

  I looked at her. ‘Your lips are saying one thing, but your body language is telling a different story.’

  ‘I’ll admit it, I was pissed off with you, Winter, but I’ve got over it. The press conference was a good idea.’

  ‘It’s only a good idea if we get a result. Otherwise, it’s a dumb idea.’

  We went back to staring at the boards.

  One minute.

  Two minutes.

  ‘We don’t talk much about the subservient partner,’ Templeton said eventually.

  ‘So talk,’ I said.

  ‘It’s like she’s the invisible woman. Like she doesn’t exist.’

  ‘She exists,’ I assured her. ‘But the fact you’ve brought this up means you’ve been thinking about it. So, let’s hear what’s on your mind.’

  ‘Cutting Jack is a control freak, right?’ She looked at me for validation and I nodded for her to go on. ‘He has her emotionally locked down to the point where she’s scared to breathe. He belittles her at every opportunity, calls her names, bullies her. Basically, he’s waging a psychological war, and she’s the enemy. She learnt long ago to keep her opinions to herself because anything she says is met with ridicule and hostility. The fact is that she barely talks at all these days because she’s too terrified to speak.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the only person she has contact with is Cutting Jack. He won’t let her see anyone else.’

  ‘That’s pretty much how I see it,’ I said. ‘Okay, here’s something else for you to think about. Did she end up like this because of her relationship with the unsub? Or was she already like this before they met?’

  Templeton smiled. ‘The fact you’ve brought this up means you’ve been thinking about it. So, let’s hear it.’

  ‘My money’s on the latter. I’m betting she suffered similar abuse as a kid, most likely from her father. That’s why she was attracted to the unsub in the first place. Unresolved daddy issues. We’re talking moths and flames here. When the unsub walked into her life she didn’t stand a chance.’

  The door suddenly clattered open and we both looked over to see Sumati Chatterjee burst in carrying a laptop. Her face was flushed and she was breathing hard. Whatever had got her agitated was urgent enough for her to choose to sprint up the stairs rather than wait for an elevator. She spotted me at the front of the room and made her way over.

  ‘I’ve got a name for you,’ she said. ‘Tesla.’

  44

  Rachel heard Adam’s footsteps on the stairs, slow, measured footfalls softened by the carpet. This was someone with time on their side, someone who had total confidence in how things were going to play out. Rachel dropped the telephone receiver and it hit the wooden floor with a plastic clatter. She scrambled to her feet and sprinted to the front door, grabbed the knob and twisted hard. The door wouldn’t open. She tried again and again, twisting and pulling and banging her fist against the wood. Adam was calling out ‘Number Five, Number Five’ in a sing-song voice. He reached the landing of the first flight then slowly descended the stairs to the hall.

  She looked around, desperate for a way out, saw a corridor off to her right and ran down it. Every door she passed, she tried. All of them were locked. Adam was getting closer. She could hear his footsteps behind her. Rachel reached the door at the end of the corridor. This one was locked, too. She was trapped. Nowhere left to run. Rachel thumped a fist against the door and howled her frustration. She kicked it with her bare feet. Adam was right behind her now. She smelled his aftershave, heard his breathing.

  ‘Number Five will turn around.’

  Rachel didn’t move. She stood there with her palms flat against the door and her forehead resting on the wood, completely defeated. The sharp pain in her side was so sudden it stole her breath away. She collapsed to the ground, her nerve endings buzzing and sparking. Somehow she managed to turn her head. She saw Adam hovering over her, saw the cattle prod in his right hand. Rachel curled into a ball and shut her eyes. She just wanted to die and for all this to be over. She’d never wanted anything so badly.

  Adam used the cattle prod again, keeping it pushed into her stomach until her screams turned to sobs. Rachel bucked and thrashed, pain coursing through her body. She tried to suck in a breath, but her lungs wouldn’t work. The more she tried to get air, the more her chest tightened. The world turned grey around the edges, grey slowly fading to black. Rachel felt herself slipping towards unconsciousness and did nothing to stop the slide.

  The first thing she saw when she regained consciousness was Adam’s smile.

  ‘Number Five will get up and go back to the basement.’

  Rachel struggled to her feet. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever done, a major test of endurance, like climbing a mountain or running a marathon. She stumbled slowly back along the corridor. More than once she almost fell, but the walls helped her stay upright. She kept going, one uncertain footstep after the other. She didn’t trust her legs to hold her up. The electricity had upset her brain chemistry, causing her to twitch involuntarily, violent spasms that took her breath away.

  She reached the hall, saw the front door through the veil of her tears. So near, yet so far. On the other side of that door was the world she had left behind, a world she was convinced she would never see again. Adam saw where she was looking and grinned. Then he jabbed at her with the cattle prod to get her moving. Rachel braced herself for the next jolt of electricity to fire through her body, but all she felt was the sharp jab of the cattle prod. She looked at Adam. He was still grinning. He held up the cattle prod, made sure she got a good look.

  ‘Number Five will go back to the basement. Do I need to tell you again?’

  Rachel started walking, one slow, painful metre at a time. She was trembling all over and could hardly see for the tears. The edge of her vision was filled with grey static and every breath was a dry gasp, her lungs rattling like they were filled with dry paper. Adam followed a few steps behind. He marked her progress with the cattle prod, a muted tap tap tap on the side of his leg that made her think of the cane tapping on the basement floor. She wanted to scream at him to stop, but she bit her lip, kept quiet. Adam pushed open the door that led down to the basement and switched on the light.

  She glanced back and Adam smiled at her. He pushed the tip of the cattle prod gently into the small of her back, and she went down the stairs. She moved carefully, still using the wall for support. Reached the bottom and shut her eyes. For a brief moment she could see the beach and the sunshine. She could smell the salt on the breeze and feel her father’s rough hand wrapped around hers.

  Then she heard Adam’s footsteps on the stairs and the dream dissolved. She opened her eyes and saw Adam staring at her.

  ‘Number Five will keep moving.’

  Rachel glanced back up the stairs at the thin strip of light glowing beneath the door an
d wondered if this would be the last time she ever saw daylight. She took a deep breath and struggled along the corridor. Adam unlocked the basement door and Rachel went inside. The room was a bright white blur through the tears.

  She was trembling harder than ever. Adam was going to tell her to sit in the dentist’s chair. Then he was going to strap her down, pump her full of drugs and go to work on her with the knife. She glanced over at him, waiting for the order. Dreading it. Adam was staring at her from the doorway, his expression unreadable.

  ‘I’ll be back when I’ve thought of a suitable punishment,’ he said.

  The door closed, the lights went off, and Rachel was left alone.

  45

  ladyjade: how will i no its u?

  tesla: I’ll no u

  ladyjade: seriously?!?

  tesla: I’ve got dark hair and I’ll be wearing a long black woollen trench coat.

  ladyjade: eyes???

  tesla: brown

  ladyjade: red rose in the lapel??? LOL ☺

  tesla: soz allergic to roses ☺

  ladyjade: send a photo pleeeeezzzzzz

  tesla: sorry I h8 having my pic taken

  ladyjade: cant w8 to cu

  tesla: cant w8 to cu 2

  ladyjade: xxx

  tesla: xxx

  I held out the laptop and Templeton took it so she could read through it a second time. Sumati Chatterjee was grinning and wouldn’t stand still. The combination of adrenalin and the run up the stairs and her discovery of the fragment on Rachel Morris’s computer had put her in a state of perpetual motion. All around me, the incident room was a chaos of noise. Voices bounced off the walls and the ceiling, hitting me from all angles, but I barely noticed. All that mattered were the words on the laptop screen.

  My first real glimpse of the unsub.

  ‘Good work,’ I said.

  Sumati’s grin got even wider. She was practically glowing. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Was this on Rachel Morris’s laptop or her work computer?’

  ‘Her work computer. It was in a Word file.’ Sumati was talking at a hundred miles an hour. ‘She’d cut and pasted it from an IM conversation. Something you might find interesting. She’d removed all trace of the file from the Recent Documents list.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘She kept loading files until it disappeared from the list. When I checked the files in Recent Documents, a whole load had last been accessed within three minutes of one another.’

  ‘Did you find anything else?’

  ‘Not in Word. But now I’ve got some screen names to work with, I’ll go back through her computers with a fine-tooth comb. I thought you’d want to see this straight away. I’m going to take another look at the other victims’ computers, too. Maybe I’ll come up with something there.’

  ‘We need to find where this conversation originated from,’ I said. ‘Start by looking at chat groups dealing with infidelity. In particular, any forums that deal with revenge cheating.’

  ‘I’ll get right onto it.’

  Sumati held out a hand and Templeton returned the laptop. She hurried out the room, a woman on a mission, and the door swung shut behind her.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘We’ve got some new information. How does it help?’

  Templeton thought for a second, then said, ‘Well, for starters we’ve got that screen name to work with. Tesla.’

  ‘You’re right, that’s interesting. But not for the reasons you think.’

  ‘And how the hell do you know what I’m thinking, Winter?’

  ‘You’re thinking that we could go back to the other victims’ computers and look for references to Tesla. You’re also thinking that we can go fishing on the internet for Tesla. You’ve probably got some fantasy going where we could set up a cyberghost, someone who’s been cheated on and is looking for revenge, and use that to lure our unsub out.’

  Templeton’s eyes narrowed and a faint blush settled on her cheeks. ‘Wouldn’t that be the logical thing to do?’

  ‘It would be logical. But it would also be a waste of time. Tesla is the name he used with Rachel Morris. He would have used a different screen name with the other victims, and he’d have used a different name with whoever he’d targeted next. It would be stupid and unnecessary for him to keep using the same screen name, and our guy is definitely not stupid, or unnecessary.’

  ‘So the name doesn’t help.’

  ‘Of course it helps. Names are special. They have power. This name wasn’t chosen at random. So, the unsub called himself Tesla. Why?’

  ‘Does there have to be a reason?’

  ‘There’s always a reason. Organised offenders never do things just for the sheer hell of it. Every act, no matter how bizarre it might seem, has a reason behind it. Reason and forethought. Plenty of forethought. You hear the name Tesla, what’s the first thing you think of?’

  ‘The inventor.’

  ‘He wasn’t just any old inventor, though. Nikola Tesla was a genius. For me, he’s right up there alongside da Vinci and Thomas Edison. His theories were crucial in the development of wireless communication and radio. He was also highly influential in the development of alternating current as a viable power source.’

  ‘Are you saying that Cutting Jack is a genius?’

  I shook my head. ‘No way. I think he’s overcompensating for his low self-esteem. He’d like to believe he’s some sort of genius, that he’s superior to the rest of the world, but deep down he knows that’s not the case. By calling himself Tesla, he’s trying to convince himself that he’s more than he actually is. His low self-esteem drives his need to torture his victims. There’s a lot of anger there and he needs to channel it.’

  ‘What’s the root of his low self-esteem?’

  ‘My money would be on the parents, or whoever the main parental influence was in his life. Something this entrenched has to be rooted in the way he was brought up. Nurture as opposed to nature.’

  Templeton thought about this a moment. She was chewing her lip in a way that was both sexy and way too distracting. She looked vulnerable and intelligent all at the same time. A neat trick. She stopped chewing and said, ‘What about Rachel Morris’s screen name?’

  ‘I’m going to throw that one back at you,’ I said. ‘The fact you’re asking means you have a theory. So, let’s hear it.’

  ‘Lady Jade,’ she said. ‘It’s aristocratic, classy. She wants to be seen as someone whose status is higher than it actually is.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ I said. ‘Donald Cope is working-class through and through, but he definitely aspires to get higher up the greasy pole.’

  ‘And he would have passed that attitude on to Rachel,’ Templeton finished for me. ‘Maybe Cutting Jack isn’t the only one who’s overcompensating.’

  ‘Without a doubt,’ I said. ‘And the internet is the perfect place to do that. To some degree, when we go online we all become avatars. We’re constantly reinventing ourselves. So what else have we learned here?’

  ‘He didn’t want to give Rachel a photograph.’

  ‘But he has given her a photograph of sorts, only this is a photograph made from words.’

  ‘It’s pretty ambiguous, though,’ said Templeton. ‘Dark hair, brown eyes, a woollen trench coat. Like you said yesterday, he’s not giving anything away. At least, nothing useful.’

  ‘You’re missing the point. By the time they had this exchange Rachel was desperate to know what he looked like. Remember that long, drawn-out “please” when she asked for a photo. Why did she feel the need to keep this conversation? Why did she hide it?’

  ‘Because it’s the next-best thing to a photograph. And the reason she hid it was because she wanted to keep it all to herself.’

  ‘No. The reason she hid it is because the unsub has coached her to cover her tracks. He would have told her to delete any evidence of their conversations. He would have used her husband as the reason, telling her that she couldn’t leave any evidence behind in case Jamie Morris found it
. That’s why it was on her work computer. Rachel figured that the chances of Jamie finding it there were zero. Okay, what else?’

  Templeton was chewing her lip again, thinking. She shook her head. ‘I’ve got nothing, but I’m guessing you’ve got something.’

  ‘The unsub’s use of language is interesting.’

  ‘And interesting is good.’

  ‘Interesting is always good,’ I said. ‘Okay, there’s a lot of mirroring going on. When Rachel uses N-O for know instead of K-N-O-W, the unsub uses it in his response. She uses an eight and a two when she says she can’t wait to see him, and he fires that right back at her. Then you have those clusters of kisses when they’re signing off. Mirroring would make Rachel feel comfortable. She’d feel like she’d met somebody who really got her, something that’s missing from her marriage. The unsub will have been doing this all the way through the grooming process. Line four was the most interesting line in the whole exchange: I’ve got dark hair and I’ll be wearing a long black woollen trench coat.’

  ‘It isn’t written in textspeak,’ said Templeton.

  ‘Got it in one,’ I agreed. ‘There are no numbers being substituted for letters and everything’s spelt correctly. It’s grammatically correct, too. There are even capital letters and a full stop. This tells us two things. Firstly, it confirms that the unsub is educated. Secondly, it was important to him that Rachel got this piece of information.’

  ‘Because he needed her to recognise him outside Springers.’

  I nodded. ‘So, how are you at breaking and entering? I think we need to find out more about Rachel and Jamie Morris.’

  ‘Please tell me you’re not being serious, Winter.’ She looked at me and I answered all the questions in her eyes with a single grin. ‘Jesus, you are being serious.’

  ‘Grab your coat,’ I said. ‘Let’s go have some fun.’

  46

  Templeton pulled up to the sidewalk and killed the BMW’s engine. She was parked illegally on a set of double yellow lines, but we’d been driving around for five minutes and it was the only space she could find. Camden had a cosmopolitan, bohemian vibe that made me think of Greenwich Village before the money, or Venice Beach before the tourists took over. There was a vitality to the area, a buzz in the air. The shopfronts were brightly coloured and the bars were busy even though it was half past three on a Friday afternoon. The sky was as dark as ever, though, and the low clouds made it feel like it was already night.