by James Carol
‘That’s a bad word,’ he said in Eve’s voice, and laughed.
Adam went back over to the blonde woman in the chair and slapped her face a couple of times.
‘Wakey, wakey.’
‘Leave me alone,’ the woman mumbled. The words were indistinct and mashed together.
‘Wakey, wakey!’ he screamed in her face. He grabbed hold of her ponytail and pulled hard, kept on pulling until her eyes were wide open and he had her full attention.
‘Sarah Flight isn’t dead, is she?’ he said.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Adam wrapped the ponytail around his hand and pulled harder. ‘Let’s try that again. Sarah Flight is not dead, is she?’
‘She’s dead.’ The words came out as a gasp.
‘That’s what they said on the five o’clock news. It was the lead story. And then at six, there’s no mention of her whatsoever. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? It strikes me as odd. So, I asked myself what was going on, and, I have to say, the conclusions I reached weren’t good. Third and final time: Sarah Flight is not dead, is she?’
The woman met Adam’s gaze. ‘No.’
‘Do you think I’m stupid?’
‘No, I don’t think you’re stupid.’
Adam moved in closer. ‘I was clever enough to find you, wasn’t I? I’ve known where you lived from the start. I know where you all live. I saw you in the park where I left Number One, and I saw you at work, and I followed you to that pathetic little hovel you call a home, and you didn’t suspect a thing.’ He straightened up again. ‘You definitely look better as a brunette, though.’
Adam took a deep breath, then smiled. Rachel almost shouted out a warning. When Adam smiled like that, that’s when he was at his most dangerous. She looked at the space where her little finger had been and kept quiet. If Adam was hurting this woman, then he wasn’t hurting her. Rachel stared at her hand, guilt-ridden and conflicted. She kept staring at it so she wouldn’t have to look at the blonde-haired woman in the dentist’s chair.
‘I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that,’ said Adam. ‘Here’s how it does work. I’m going to hurt you and you’re going to tell me what I want to know. Everything. Then I’m going to hurt you some more because I don’t like liars. And then I’m going to hurt you some more because I can.’
He took the orbitoclast from his pocket and held it up for the woman to see. ‘Do you know what this is for?’
‘Yes,’ said the woman.
‘When I’m done hurting you, I’m going to use this on you. And then I’m going to deliver you back to your colleagues. Maybe they’ll think twice before they try playing me again.’
‘If you do that they’ll just come after you twice as hard. Kidnapping me was a mistake.’
‘We’ll see.’
Adam left and the lights went out.
‘Are you okay, Rachel?’
Rachel started to say yes. It was an automatic response. She stopped and thought about what the woman just said. ‘How do you know my name? Who are you?’
‘My name’s Sophie Templeton. I’m a police officer.’
All Rachel heard was one word: police. She glanced through the dark in the direction of the nearest camera then moved carefully over to the chair.
‘You’ve got to be quiet.’ Her lips were right up against Sophie’s ear, her voice more breath than sound. ‘I think the room’s bugged. Are you working undercover? Nod if you are.’
Sophie shook her head.
‘What do you mean no? Someone must know you’re here?’
Another shake of the head.
‘The police are coming, though? They must know where you are.’
‘They’re going to find us, Rachel.’
Rachel pulled the blanket more tightly around herself. ‘They’re not coming, are they? Nobody’s coming?’
‘They’ll find us. You’ve got to believe that.’
60
‘The bedroom light was on,’ I said.
‘And?’ said Hatcher.
‘And that means this is where he staged his ambush. Templeton came in and switched on the light and the unsub attacked her.’
‘I thought we’d already established that.’
‘No, what we’d established was that he waited for her here. I couldn’t decide whether the actual abduction happened downstairs or up here. But it must have happened up here because Templeton switched the light on. It couldn’t have happened any other way. There’s no way the unsub switched it on. He waited for her in the dark.’
‘How can you be so sure about that, Winter?’
‘Because if the light had been on when she got back from work she would have noticed it from the street. Just like we did.’
‘Assuming you’re right, how did he incapacitate her?’
‘Hold on a second. We’re getting ahead of ourselves here.’ I put Mr Bojangles down on the bed, gave him a stroke and got a purr for my troubles. ‘The cat is the big problem here. The second Templeton stepped through the front door he would have been all over her, demanding to be fed. She would have gone through to the kitchen, and she would have seen the broken window, and she would have got the hell out and called for back-up.’
Hatcher asked a question and I shut my eyes to block out the distraction. A good hunter will always choose where to stage their ambush. If you control the environment, you stand a better chance of success. The unsub had chosen to ambush Templeton here in the bedroom. I was sure of it. Earlier I’d thought the living room was a possibility, but there was no way he could have got down the stairs quickly enough. Also, because of the layout of the house, he would have been ambushing her after she’d seen the broken glass in the kitchen. By that point, she would have been on her guard, and possibly armed. It was a complete non-starter.
The bedroom made much more sense. But how did the unsub lure her up here? The cat would have started shouting for food the second she stepped through the door, and he would have kept on at her until she relented and fed him. He would have had Templeton conditioned to feed him, because that’s what cats did.
Unless he wasn’t downstairs.
‘The cat was in the bedroom with the unsub,’ I said. ‘Templeton got in from work and the first thing she heard was Mr Bojangles calling out from upstairs. The unsub probably tugged his tail, something like that. Anyway, Templeton assumes that the cat has shut himself in one of the bedrooms so she rushes up the stairs.’
I closed my eyes again and pictured the scene. Ran scenarios until I found one that worked.
‘The unsub would have been standing behind the door when Templeton came in,’ I said. ‘That’s the most obvious place to hide. She would have opened the door and switched on the light and seen the cat. Then she would have marched in and headed straight over to the cat and picked him up. She would have been talking to him, telling him off for getting himself locked in the room. By the time she realised she wasn’t alone it would already have been too late. Which brings us to our earlier question. How does he incapacitate her?’
‘We’ve already ruled out guns and knives,’ said Hatcher.
‘My money’s on electricity.’
‘A taser?’
I nodded. ‘That would be my guess. He zaps her with 50,000 volts before she even knows he’s there.’
‘That still doesn’t explain how he got her to his car.’
‘The most likely scenario is that he did drug her, but rather than knock her out completely he used a smaller dose, just enough to keep her compliant. The effects of a taser wear off pretty quickly, but so long as he moved fast he would have had enough time to inject her.’
‘Okay, so what happens next?’
‘Once the drug takes effect, the unsub can get her out to the car. And once she’s strapped into the car, he gives her the full dose of the drug and knocks her out. Then they drive off to wherever the hell it is he takes his victims.’
‘Somewhere north of the Thames,’ said Hatcher.
/> ‘Somewhere north of the Thames,’ I agreed.
I put the cat on the bed and headed for the landing. Hatcher made his call as we retraced our route through the house to the backyard. He finished his call and closed the phone. I took off my latex gloves and booties, balled them up and stuffed them into a pocket. Hatcher did the same.
‘We need to wait here,’ said Hatcher.
‘No we don’t. What we need to do is find Templeton. And we’re not going to do that by hanging around here answering a whole bunch of useless questions. I have no intention of finding out first-hand how incompetent Fielding is. I’m happy to trust your judgement on that one, Hatcher.’
Hatcher sighed. ‘Where are we going?’
‘My hotel’s not far. We can work from there.’
We hurried around to the front of the house and out onto the quiet street. The snow had held off for the best part of the day but it wasn’t going to hold off much longer. The clouds were lower than ever and the air was heavy and oppressive. There was a cold wetness in the air that chewed at my bones. I climbed into the car and buckled up, and fifteen minutes later we were back at the Cosmopolitan.
While Hatcher parked up, I hurried to my suite. There was no way Hatcher would approve of what I was planning. He would try to talk me out of it, and I would ignore him and do what I was going to do anyway. My way saved time and energy. I dumped my coat on the back of a chair, then fished out my wallet and found Donald Cole’s business card. Cole answered on the first ring, like he had the phone in his hand and was just waiting for my call.
Our conversation lasted less than twenty seconds.
61
I was on the phone ordering coffee from room service when Hatcher got back. This was gearing up to be an all-nighter so we’d need caffeine, and lots of it. I switched on my laptop and wired in the printer, then logged on to the internet and found a map of North London. I printed the map across four sheets and pinned these to the wall. The walls were made from sheetrock and the pins went in easily. The downside of sheetrock was that we could hear the couple next door having sex.
The abduction sites got marked in green, the dump sites in red. Templeton’s house got a green cross, and the location where Charles Brenner’s body was found was marked with a theatrical black cross. I pinned the after photos of Sarah Flight, Margaret Smith, Caroline Brant and Patricia Maynard next to the map.
The coffee arrived, two cafetières and two mugs. I tipped the girl who brought it and told her to bring the same again in an hour. My blood sugar level was taking a dive so I added three sugars to my coffee, then raided the minibar and came up with some peanuts and a candy bar. I tore open the peanuts and ate a handful. Ripped open the candy bar and took a bite.
‘So, where the hell do we start?’ asked Hatcher.
‘We go right back to the beginning,’ I said. ‘With Templeton’s abduction the unsubs deviated from their MO. That’s great news. It means all bets are off. It means we get to wipe the slate clean. We challenge every assumption, every theory, and we see where that leads us.’
‘He snatched Templeton because of the press conference, didn’t he?’
I nodded and ate another handful of nuts.
‘She could be dead,’ said Hatcher.
‘She could be,’ I agreed.
‘And you don’t feel guilty about that?’
‘Guilt isn’t going to help us get Templeton back. Right now that’s got to be our primary focus. Until we hear otherwise‚ we assume she’s alive.’
‘Did you know this was going to happen?’
‘If you’re asking whether I used Templeton as bait, then the answer is no. If I’d done that I would have made sure she was protected.’
‘But?’ said Hatcher.
‘But when you push an unsub, they don’t always act in ways that you can predict. In hindsight I can understand why he’s done what he’s done. He’s angry at us because we lied to him, and Templeton is the focal point for that anger.’
‘Jesus.’
Hatcher’s voice had shrunk to a whisper and there was a faraway look in his eyes. I knew where he’d disappeared to. He was watching the flash of a blade as it cut into flesh. He was seeing the blood seep and drip and gather into pools.
‘Hatcher!’ I called out, loud and sharp to get his attention. ‘The guilt and the what-ifs and the finger-pointing we deal with later. Right now the only thing that matters is getting Templeton back, okay?’
‘Okay,’ he said.
We drifted into a short silence that was punctuated by the moans and groans from the couple next door. They sounded like they were just about there. I hoped they were. The fewer distractions, the better. I tipped the rest of the peanuts into my mouth and finished the candy bar in three bites. My blood sugar was on the way up again. I felt energised, and the low-grade headache that usually preceded a crash had gone.
I got a fresh packet of cigarettes from my suitcase and lit one. Hatcher glared but kept his mouth shut. I smoked my cigarette and drank my coffee and did my best to stop myself thinking about what Templeton was going through. All that stuff I put into a box and nailed the lid on tight. If things went bad, I would take the lid off and deal with it then. Like I’d told Hatcher, all that mattered was getting Templeton back.
Hatcher’s cellphone rang and I plucked it from his fingers before he had a chance to answer it.
‘What the hell, Winter!’
I turned the phone around so Hatcher could see the number. ‘Fielding?’
A nod.
I switched the phone off and tossed it back to Hatcher.
‘I can’t think of anyone I need to speak to right now,’ I said. ‘That means there’s nobody you need to speak to either. We don’t need any distractions.’
Hatcher didn’t look convinced, but he put his cell away.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘The biggest assumption we’ve made is that there are two unsubs. I still believe that’s the case.’
‘Even though we only have actual evidence of one person.’
‘There are two very different signatures. That means two unsubs.’
I found a black marker and a clean section of wall and wrote TWO SIGNATURES TWO UNSUBS in big, bold letters. Hatcher gave me a look.
‘Can you see a whiteboard anywhere?’ I said.
Hatcher shrugged. Whatever. ‘Maybe he’s got a split personality,’ he said.
‘Unlikely. You see that sort of thing in movies and books because it makes the writers’ job easier, but in real life it’s extremely rare.’
‘If Cutting Jack does have a partner then she’s keeping very quiet.’
‘As all good little submissives do. Which leads us to another assumption. We’re assuming the female partner is the submissive. Pairings are governed by a complex set of dynamics. Usually the male is the dominant partner, but not always. Take the Wests. It was originally believed that Fred was the dominant partner. These days it’s widely acknowledged that Rose called the shots. What if the female is the dominant partner here?’
‘Is there any evidence to back that up? Anything at all?’
‘Templeton’s abduction.’ I was thinking on my feet here, brainstorming. ‘The male unsub stepped way outside his comfort zone there. The MO was completely different. This was the first time he’d taken someone from their own home. It was done quickly, too. Usually he takes his time. He stalks his victims over the internet for months before he abducts them. Templeton’s abduction was planned and executed in a matter of hours.’
‘Which proves what, exactly?’
‘It proves he’s not calling the shots,’ I said. ‘Okay, we know he abducts the victims. The way he usually does this is risky enough, but Templeton’s abduction took the risk factor up to a whole new level. The female partner has no appreciation of the risks because she’s not involved in the abductions. She’s sat nice and safe at home waiting for him to come back with the victims. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be out there on the front line, your heart rac
ing, the threat of capture constantly there.’
I nodded to myself, liking the way this was slotting together. ‘If it had been left to the male partner, he wouldn’t have gone through with the kidnapping. But it wasn’t his call, it was his partner’s. There’s a good chance he tried to talk her out of kidnapping Templeton, but he might as well have been talking to a brick wall. She wouldn’t have been listening. She wanted Templeton, and nothing was going to stop her.’
I crushed my cigarette out in the saucer. FEMALE DOMINANT PARTNER went on the list. So did MALE PARTNER LOW SELF-ESTEEM.
‘Another thing,’ I said. ‘The change in MO is further proof that these unsubs are devolving.’
‘Which you said is a good thing.’
‘Yes and no. It’s good because it means we’re going to catch these assholes, and we’re going to catch them soon. But it’s bad because it means their behaviour will become increasingly erratic.’
Hatcher sighed. His whole body seemed to sag as the exhalation left his body. ‘Which could be very bad news for Templeton.’
‘Forget about that, Hatcher. It’s not going to help. Focus on the here and now. What other assumptions have we made?’
‘We’re assuming they’re lovers,’ said Hatcher.
‘Good,’ I said. ‘The Hillside Strangler turned out to be two cousins. Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono. We could be dealing with cousins here, or a brother and sister, or a mother and son.’
‘Or they could be lovers.’
‘Or they could be lovers,’ I agreed.
LOVERS went onto the list. So did COUSINS, BROTHER/SISTER and MOTHER/SON.
‘We’re not looking at an all-male partnership then?’
I shook my head. ‘No. The use of knives is a male signature. Playing dolls is a female signature.’
‘And you’re still convinced he lives north of the Thames?’
‘No question about it.’ I nodded to the map. ‘The river forms a natural boundary, and all the abduction and dump sites are north of the river. That’s his hunting ground. He’s acting on some primal instinct here, something that’s been with us since we lived in caves. He won’t even be aware of what he’s doing. So what do we know for certain?’
