by James Carol
‘And I guess this is the point where you tell me it’s all your fault.’
‘It is my fault, Winter. I could have done more. Hell, Winter, I should have done more.’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘enough feeling sorry for yourself. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to drink up and go home, and you’re not going to drink any more tonight. I want you with a clear head in the morning. Tomorrow we’re going to find this guy and bring him in.’
‘What part of “I’ve been taken off the case” don’t you get?’
‘That’s just a detail. What’s the worst that can happen?’
‘Well, they could suspend me from duty. They might even fire me.’
‘They’ll try and they’ll fail,’ I said. ‘Anyway, since when have you been worried about losing your job?’
‘I’ve got my pension to think about, Winter.’
‘A minor detail.’
‘No, a big detail. Also, didn’t I mention that I’ve been taken off the case and given a new assignment?’
‘And London will sleep just fine at night if all those parking tickets don’t get chased up. Look, you’re going home now and you’re going to get a good night’s sleep. In the morning you’re going to phone in sick. I want you back here at seven sharp.’
57
The best room always came with the best view, and the view from my balcony stretched way into the distance. Lights shone behind windows, from cars and buses and cabs and vans, from streetlamps. Christmas lights dotted the night with a rainbow of colours. The city looked like a pattern in a kaleidoscope. There were millions of people out there. Some were bad, some were good, and most fell somewhere between those two extremes, but there were only two that interested me right now.
I took a drag on my cigarette and the tip flared orange. Quarter to nine. Fifteen minutes until Templeton was supposed to arrive, which meant it would be twenty minutes until she actually got here since she’d no doubt want to be five minutes late again.
Sounds filtered through the night, a gentle symphony of traffic and trains and people going about their business. The day was winding down, bringing with it that heavy sensation in my chest that I got when the investigation was slipping into another lull.
Everything that could be done had been done. All the bases were covered.
The press conference hadn’t made the evening news at six, but it had been the lead story from midday all the way through to five. Five hours was long enough for the unsubs to see it. Organised offenders follow the news religiously because they love to hear that they’re outsmarting the police. They can’t get enough of it. That was a big part of the game.
How was Rachel Morris coping? Had she worked out who’d taken her yet? Probably. The story had been all over the news, which meant she’d have a good idea of how her future was going to pan out. Torture, mutilation and a lobotomy. I wondered how strong she was and decided it didn’t really matter. However strong she was, the unsub would eventually break her.
Unless we got her back first.
I flicked my cigarette over the balcony and headed back into the warmth. The second movement of Mozart’s clarinet concerto was playing on my laptop. This movement had always been my favourite piece. That mournful clarinet pulled at my heart in a way that was utterly breathtaking. Mozart had written twenty-seven piano concertos but only one clarinet concerto and my guess was that he’d decided to quit while he was ahead. It didn’t get any better than this.
I had already showered and changed into a clean Doors T-shirt. All that was left to do was wait. Waiting pisses me off. It always has. I like motion and action. I like to keep busy. When I stop, my brain goes into overdrive, and that isn’t always a good thing. According to my watch it was only five to nine. Ten minutes until Templeton got here.
To kill time I checked my emails. There were the usual requests for help in my inbox, some spam. One of the requests came with a bunch of attachments. Curiosity got the better of me and I opened them up.
This request came from the sheriff of a county in Alabama that I’d never heard of. Two thirteen-year-old girls had been abducted and murdered and the sheriff didn’t want a third. I scanned the crime and autopsy reports, and the pieces started falling into place almost straight away. The answer was in the details. On the surface the two murders appeared identical. They weren’t. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make them appear that way, and that someone was the stepfather of the first victim.
Both girls had been stabbed twenty times and the positioning of the wounds was almost identical. The first difference was in how far the knife had penetrated. The wounds were deeper with the first victim, on average a couple of inches deeper. The second difference was that the second victim had been stabbed in the heart first, which meant that none of the other nineteen wounds were necessary because she was already dead. The killer had needed her dead so she would lie still while he got the other nineteen wounds in the right place.
The first girl had been killed in a frenzy. It was a very personal murder. The second girl had been killed in cold blood. The rage from the first murder was missing in the second. The second victim was a smokescreen, another unfortunate soul who could be filed away under wrong time, wrong place.
I clicked back to my email account, hit the reply button and started typing. The first thing I told the sheriff was that the unsub was the stepfather. The second thing I told him was that he didn’t have to worry about a third victim since this guy was stopping at girl number two. Then I told him that he would find the knife hidden under a stash of porn magazines in the garage at the first victim’s house.
The clock on the screen said it was ten after nine, but I checked my watch anyway in case it was wrong. It wasn’t. I took out my cell, but decided to give it another five minutes. I laid the phone next to my laptop and waited. Five minutes passed. Still no sign of Templeton. I found her number. Five rings then her cell went to voicemail. The message I left was brief and cheerful. Hi there, wondering where you’ve got to.
Ten minutes late became fifteen minutes late and I called her cell again. Her phone rang out and the voicemail kicked in. There was no point leaving a message because the excuses were starting to sound hollow. Templeton’s cell wouldn’t be buried at the bottom of her bag. No way. She was switched on and plugged in, a twenty-first-century girl all the way. She wouldn’t go anywhere without her phone, and it would be somewhere she could get to within a maximum of three rings. If she was going to be late she would have called me.
I tried Scotland Yard next since it was possible she’d detoured via the office. Possible but unlikely. If she’d gone back to work she would have called. The person I spoke to told me the last time he’d seen her was that afternoon. He did a quick shout around but nobody else had seen her either.
I went out onto the balcony for another cigarette and wondered who the hell to call next. I didn’t have Templeton’s home number, and didn’t know any of her friends. Basically, I didn’t know anything about her life outside work. I assumed she had one, but she was a cop so there were no guarantees there. Being a cop was a vocation, not a career choice.
My next call was to Hatcher. The detective answered on the first ring.
‘I need Templeton’s home address and phone number,’ I said.
‘Why? I thought she was supposed to be meeting you.’
‘She never turned up.’
‘I’m sure there’s a good reason. She’s just running late.’
‘She’s not running late. Something’s happened to her.’
‘You’re worrying unnecessarily, Winter. Nothing’s happened to her.’
‘She’s not here, she’s not at work and she’s not answering her cell. You tell me, Hatcher, does that sound like nothing’s happened?’
A sharp intake of breath. A sigh. A pause. It was the sound of a heavy decision being made. ‘Okay, sit tight. I’ll come and pick you up.’
58
Templeton lived in a small red-
brick Victorian house on the end of a terrace of identical red-brick houses. The buildings looked old, but they also looked well cared for. This was a nice neighbourhood. Prosperous, middle-class, clean. The road was narrowed by the cars parked on both sides.
The house lights were on, upstairs and downstairs. Not good. Templeton was too diligent to go out and leave her lights on. Hatcher had given me her home number, but all I got was her answerphone. Her cell was now going straight through to voicemail, which meant it was either switched off or the battery had run down. Hatcher bump-parked between an SUV and a Mini and we got out.
‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Winter.’ Hatcher was looking up at the glowing windows, no doubt reading the situation the same way as me. The facts spoke for themselves. There was no room for misinterpretation. He shook his head and rubbed his tired eyes. ‘I should call this in.’
‘Let’s see exactly what we’re dealing with first.’
‘The lights are on, Templeton’s not answering her phone, what do you think we’re dealing with?’
‘Worst-case scenario, Templeton’s dead. Best case, she’s been kidnapped. Either way, ten minutes isn’t going to matter.’
‘Christ, Winter, that’s cold.’
‘Ten minutes.’
Hatcher nodded. ‘Okay, ten minutes then I’m making that call.’
We checked the front of the house first. The door was locked and there were no broken panes of glass in the bay window. The curtains were closed so we couldn’t see inside. Nobody had broken in through the front. Not that I’d expected anything different. We were too close to the street here. Having so many people passing by, on foot or in cars, made it much too risky.
We made our way around back. The kitchen light was on and the blinds were up and the glow from the kitchen lit up the tiny backyard. It was twenty feet by twenty feet and paved with uneven concrete slabs. There was some moss and a few stray blades of grass growing in the gaps between the slabs, but that was the only green in amongst a whole lot of grey. There were some empty plant pots and a padlocked mountain bike. High fences for privacy.
The broken window confirmed what I’d already guessed.
To minimise the noise and mess, the unsub had placed strips of tape across the small top panel before breaking it. Once the top panel was out all he had to do was reach in, unlatch the bottom part of the window and climb inside.
The back door was locked.
I remembered Templeton joking about getting a vault door fitted, and my response was that it wouldn’t make a difference because if someone wanted to get in, they’d get in. For once I hated being right.
‘I need to call this in,’ said Hatcher. He had his cellphone out and was thumbing through to the directory.
‘Ten minutes,’ I reminded him.
‘That was five minutes ago.’
‘The clock starts now.’
‘Okay, okay. But if we’re going inside we need to wear these.’
Hatcher pulled some latex gloves and booties from his pocket. It was like watching a magic trick. I slipped the gloves and booties on, and boosted myself up onto the windowsill. Then I put my arm carefully through the window, unlatched it and clambered inside. Clean dishes were piled up on the draining board and small diamonds of broken glass glittered in the sink. The key was in the back door. I unlocked it and let Hatcher in.
‘Nine minutes,’ said Hatcher.
‘Nine minutes,’ I agreed. ‘But I’m going to need you to shut up so I can do my thing.’
*
It’s dark when I arrive because I like to work in the dark, but it’s still early in the evening because I need to get a parking space before the after-work rush begins. I’m alone because I don’t know how long I’m going to be here for. It would be too suspicious to have my partner hanging out in the car waiting for me. Someone might notice and remember.
The lights are off, which means Sophie Templeton’s not home. I head straight to the backyard, walking fast but not too fast. Hurrying gets you noticed. Act like you belong and nobody ever asks questions. The high fence offers privacy from the downstairs windows of the neighbouring houses, but not the upstairs windows.
No upstairs lights. The coast’s clear.
I tape up the window, break it, let myself in.
For a minute I stand there and acclimatise myself to the sounds and smells. The house is rented rather than owned. It’s part-furnished and there’s a very definite distinction between Templeton’s taste and what the landlord has left behind. I go through the house a room at a time, looking for the best place to stage an ambush. The kitchen is out because it’s too narrow and there are too many things that can be used as weapons. Knives and pans and heavy things. This target is a cop, which puts her in a different league from the others. There’s no point taking unnecessary risks.
The front room is one possibility, but I’d have to wait somewhere else because the door opens directly onto the street and there’s nowhere to hide. The upstairs bathroom is out because it’s too small and the spare room is out because it’s filled with junk. I walk into the main bedroom.
No corpse on the king-size double bed. No corpse on the floor. The smell of death is absent.
The large wardrobe is filled with clothes and the chest of drawers is crammed to overflowing. Junk and dust bunnies under the bed. There’s an indent in the duvet near the top and the pillows have been fussed with.
This is where I’ll sit and wait for Sophie Templeton to return.
I open the window a crack and the noise from the street rushes in. Then I go back to the bed to sit and wait. Every time a car passes my ears prick up. Whenever someone walks by on the sidewalk my ears prick up.
Footsteps on the path that leads to the front door.
A key rattles in the lock.
There are two ways this can play out. Either she’ll come in and head straight upstairs to change out of her work clothes, or she’ll head to the kitchen to feed the cat. I move quickly out onto the landing so I can be ready for both possibilities.
*
So near, yet so far. I stared at the indent in the duvet and realised that if we’d arrived two hours earlier we’d be looking at the unsub right now. A seventy-year lifespan can be measured out at 613,620 hours, so two hours is nothing. A faint trace of aftershave lingered in the air. That’s how close we were. Hatcher was at my shoulder, his gaze fixed on the indentation, and from the way he was staring it was a safe bet he was thinking along the same lines as me.
I could picture the unsub sitting on the bed. Medium build, five-ten, brown hair. All that was missing was his face. Templeton’s cat padded into the bedroom and jumped onto the bed. It stared at us like we were a lower form of life, then meowed for food. According to the collar tag his name was Mr Bojangles. I tickled him under the chin and he let out a long, satisfied purr.
‘Acquisition is the riskiest part of any abduction,’ I said. ‘There are too many things that can go wrong. Somehow the unsub incapacitated Templeton and got her from the house to his car, and he did all this without anyone noticing. How?’
‘I’ve got to call this in, Winter.’
‘No, what you’ve got to do is answer my question. You’ve already told me that Fielding is incompetent. That means it’s up to us to get Templeton back. Which means doing our job. So, focus. How did he do it?’
‘He drugged her.’
I shook my head. ‘Then what? He carries her out the front door to his car without anybody noticing? Not going to happen, Hatcher. Not in an area like this.’
‘Okay, maybe he was armed with a gun or a knife.’
‘A gun is a false threat. If he fired a gun around here a hundred cops would descend on this place within minutes. The unsub would know that, and so would Templeton. The problem with knives is that they are really only effective at close quarters. Templeton is trained in self-defence and she would have had a good idea who the intruder was. She would have fought him. Can you see any signs of a struggle?’
Hatcher shook his head. ‘So how did he do it?’
I tickled Mr Bojangles under the chin and he gave another meow. ‘Good question.’
59
The lights slammed on, the door opened and Rachel shrank back into the corner. There was a woman with Adam, and to start with Rachel was convinced her mind was playing tricks. She blinked but when she opened her eyes the woman was still there. This was no hallucination, this was real.
The woman was walking unsteadily, her head wobbling from side to side like she was having trouble supporting its weight. Adam led her to the dentist’s chair and strapped her in. She was more or less the same height as him. Long legs and long blonde hair. Beautiful, too. Even dishevelled and drugged, there was no disguising that fact.
Rachel’s hand throbbed in time with her heart and each beat brought fresh waves of pain. The last thing Adam said during his previous visit was that the syringe had contained a saline solution. She’d stabbed that needle in her hand for nothing. Another game, another way to mess with her head.
She glanced at the open door and pictured the route to the front door in her mind. Along the corridor, up the stairs, along the high-ceilinged corridor that led to the entrance hall, past the staircase, then out through the front door to freedom. She glanced at Adam, glanced at the open door again.
‘How far does Number Five think she’s going to get?’
Adam didn’t even bother looking over. He made no move to shut the door. They both knew she wasn’t going to try anything, not after last time. Rachel sagged against the wall and pulled a blanket around herself.
‘Number Five thinks she can’t take much more, but she’s wrong. She’s stronger than the others. Much stronger.’
‘Go to hell.’
Adam reached the mattress in four long strides. He brought his leg back and Rachel cowered against the wall. She shut her eyes and braced herself. Nothing happened. Rachel opened her eyes and saw Adam hunkered down in front of her.
