Broken Dolls (A Jefferson Winter Thriller)

by James Carol

  ‘We know he’s five-ten, has brown hair and a medium build.’

  MALE UNSUB 5'10" MEDIUM BUILD BROWN HAIR went on the list.

  ‘We know he’s a sadist,’ said Hatcher. ‘And we also know he’s careful and methodical.’

  ‘Agreed,’ I said, and added those points to the list. ‘Even with Templeton’s kidnapping he was still careful. I’ll bet forensics don’t find anything. Okay, what do we know about the female unsub?’

  ‘Hardly anything. She might as well be a ghost.’

  I considered this for a moment then added FEMALE UNSUB GHOST to the list.

  ‘Which brings us on to the one thing that’s been bugging me about this case from the start. The lobotomies. We need to disassociate from the horror of this act. How many dead bodies have you seen?’

  Hatcher snorted. ‘More than I care to remember.’

  ‘And if we were dealing with dead bodies here it would be easier to disassociate since that’s what we’re used to. The fact that the victims are alive has thrown us a curveball. When I saw Patricia Maynard back at the hospital I couldn’t stop wondering what it would be like to end up like that. The thing is, if she’d been laid out on an autopsy table, I wouldn’t have been fazed. I would have been considering useful things, like how she’d got there and what her death told us about the unsubs.’

  ‘So, imagine she’s dead. What does it tell us?’

  I looked at the cold bleached-out picture the forensic photographer had taken of Patricia Maynard. ‘I’ve no idea,’ I admitted.

  62

  ‘Can you undo these straps, Rachel?’

  ‘I can’t. If I do that Adam will hurt me again.’ Rachel stared through the darkness in the direction of the dentist’s chair. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You don’t have to be sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. That wasn’t fair.’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘How are you holding up?’

  ‘How do you think I’m holding up? I’ve been kidnapped and tortured, and I’ve had one of my fingers cut off, and my head’s been shaved.’

  ‘You’ve been very brave.’

  ‘You think I’m brave, try stupid.’ Rachel snorted a little half-laugh and shook her head. ‘I arranged to meet some guy I didn’t know over the internet, and I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. That’s pretty stupid.’

  ‘You’re not stupid, Rachel. You made a mistake. None of this is your fault.’

  ‘Nice of you to say so, but it doesn’t change anything. Adam will keep torturing me and then he’ll lobotomise me. Just like he did with the others.’

  ‘We’re going to get out of here.’

  ‘Stop saying that. It’s not going to happen.’

  ‘We’re going to get out of here, Rachel. You’ve got to believe that.’

  ‘No I don’t. You don’t know what he’s like.’

  A thought occurred to Rachel, one that froze her blood. What if the woman in the chair was another Eve? What if this was like the telephone in the hall all over again? What if this was another of Adam’s mind games? She thought about what she’d said to this woman, replaying every word to see if she’d said too much. Sophie kept going on about getting out of here. Was that part of the game? Was Adam listening in, waiting for her to agree with Sophie so he had an excuse to torture her again?

  ‘You’re working with him, aren’t you?’ said Rachel. ‘You’re not really with the police.’

  ‘I’m a police detective, Rachel. You’ve got to believe that.’

  ‘Prove it.’

  Silence, then a sigh. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘See, you are working with him.’

  ‘And that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Whatever I say you’re going to twist around until it proves what you want it to prove.’

  ‘And that’s exactly what I’d expect you to say.’

  ‘I know you’re scared, but you have to trust me here. I’m on your side.’

  Rachel snorted out another small half-laugh and pulled her knees more tightly into her chest, hugging herself hard. ‘You don’t know anything,’ she whispered. ‘But, if you are who you say you are, then you will.’

  ‘Hopefully we’ll get out of here before I have to find out.’

  ‘There you go again. More lies. Adam’s not going to hurt you.’

  ‘My name is Sophie Templeton. I’m a detective sergeant with the Metropolitan Police. Right now, there’s an army of cops searching for us.’

  ‘More lies. If there really was an army of cops looking for me, why haven’t they found me yet? Why didn’t they find the others?’

  ‘Because I’m a police officer and that changes everything. When something like this happens to one of our own then we’re relentless.’

  ‘Great,’ said Rachel. ‘So there’s one law for the police and another law for everyone else. Maybe if they’d taken my kidnapping more seriously I’d be out of here by now. Maybe I’d still have all my fingers.’

  ‘I’m not saying it’s right, Rachel. I’m just telling you how it is.’

  ‘No. What you’re doing is lying. You’re not a detective, and you’ve never worked for the police, and there isn’t an army of cops out looking for us.’ Rachel shrugged off her blankets then stood up and stared through the dark at the closest camera. ‘I’m not playing your games any more!’ she screamed into the darkness. ‘Do you hear me? Stop messing with my head.’

  The lights banged on, the door opened and Adam strode into the room. Rachel slid down the wall and reached for the comfort of the blankets. Adam walked across to the mattress and grinned down at her. He tapped the cane against his palm, slow and rhythmic, tap tap tap.

  ‘Number Five needs to learn to control her temper.’

  He lifted the cane and Rachel shrank into the corner. Adam laughed and traced its tip down her body. The bamboo scratched at her naked skin and tugged at the grey sweatshirt and jogging bottoms. He stopped when he reached her feet. A shake of the head, another grin, then the cane swished through the air and hit skin. Rachel howled in agony and pulled herself deeper into the corner and buried her feet under the blankets. They felt like they were on fire.

  ‘Stop it,’ Sophie called out.

  Adam walked over to the dentist’s chair. He studied Sophie for a second, head cocked to the side, then he went to work with the cane. It was a brutal display of fury. The cane came down on her legs and arms and body. It swished and whistled through the air, each blow bringing more screams and crying, screams that became increasingly quiet, then stopped altogether. Rachel wanted to shout for Adam to stop but her voice wouldn’t work. She wanted to run over and help the woman but she was paralysed with fear. She wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn’t even manage that. All she could do was stare helplessly.

  Adam stopped as suddenly as he started. Silence. A distant pipe rattled, a floorboard creaked. Rachel’s head was filled with the whistle and crack of the cane. She could still hear Sophie’s screams. She glanced over, convinced Adam had killed her. Sophie wasn’t moving. Her eyes were closed. She had to be dead. Adam leant the cane against the chair and took a syringe from his pocket. He jabbed it into Sophie’s leg and she groaned back into consciousness.

  ‘Tell me everything the police know,’ he said. ‘If you lie, I’ll know, and there will be consequences.’

  Sophie told him everything and when she was done Adam left and the lights went out.

  ‘Now do you believe me?’ said Sophie.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘We’re going to get out of here.’

  Rachel said nothing because there was nothing to say. Right now, Sophie needed hope. She needed denial. Rachel understood this because she’d been there. She’d also been through the anger and the bargaining and the depression stages of the cycle. What she’d just witnessed had pushed her into acceptance.

  She was never going to see the sun again and she was never going to walk barefoot across hot sand. All her memories were going to be taken away and it would be
like she’d never existed. This was worse than death, so much worse. Rachel walked through the dark to the chair and placed a gentle hand on Sophie’s shoulder. Sophie cowered from her touch, but Rachel stayed with her until she felt her begin to relax.

  ‘We’re going to get out of here,’ Sophie whispered again in a broken voice.

  ‘Of course we are.’

  63

  My cellphone chirped to tell me a text had arrived: Alex Irvine had emailed through the list of Porsche owners. I accessed my email account, downloaded the list, printed it out. There were more than three hundred names and addresses. Hatcher groaned when he saw them.

  ‘The good news is that one of these people is our unsub,’ I said.

  ‘The bad news is that even with my full team it would take hours to get through this lot. Also, it’s night so no one will be answering their phones.’

  I poured a fresh coffee, lit a cigarette, then scanned the names and addresses. The snow had started. It was light for now, but it was going to get worse. The weathermen were talking about drifts and blizzard conditions, motorists were being told to stay home, and Scotland and some parts of northern England were already snowed in. Small flakes floated down and stuck to the windows, hung there for a moment, then slowly melted and slid down the glass.

  ‘We need to make this list more manageable,’ I said. ‘First off, we can get rid of all the female owners.’

  I used the black marker pen to score out names.

  ‘And we can get rid of any males under thirty and over forty.’

  I scored out more names.

  ‘And we can get rid of anyone whose name doesn’t fit a white Caucasian profile.’

  I scored out another load of names and did a quick count. Forty-five names and addresses. Still not brilliant, but a hell of a lot better.

  ‘Now what?’ asked Hatcher.

  ‘Now we hit the computer and check the satellite maps. We want large, detached properties where neighbours aren’t going to be a problem.’

  I glanced at the list, memorised the first ten names and addresses, then tossed the list and the marker pen to Hatcher and got settled down with my laptop. The first address was a house in a cramped new development in Barnet.

  ‘Cross James Macintosh off the list,’ I said. ‘He’s not our unsub. Too many neighbours.’

  Twenty minutes later we’d whittled the list down to eight names and addresses. I transferred the addresses to the map, marked them with blue circles, then took a step back. I looked at the green crosses that marked the last known locations of the victims, the red crosses that indicated where they’d been dumped, then scored out one of the blue circles because it was in Essex, miles from all the other marks. It just didn’t fit.

  ‘We could send teams to all seven addresses,’ Hatcher suggested. ‘Getting enough people together would be a challenge, but we could make it happen for Templeton.’

  I shook my head. ‘Too risky. If the unsubs get even the slightest hint that we’re on to them they’ll panic, and that won’t be good for Templeton, or Rachel Morris. We need to work out which one of these is the right address, then we go in hard and fast with a precision attack. These unsubs need to be neutralised before they know what’s hit them.’

  ‘So, where are they?’

  I looked at the map, then looked at the list scrawled on the wall and scored out COUSINS. Thought a bit more and scored out BROTHER/SISTER. Underlined FEMALE UNSUB GHOST.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Hatcher asked.

  I was back in the zone, acting on pure instinct. I put a line through LOVERS, then underlined MOTHER/SON and added a second and third line under FEMALE UNSUB GHOST.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Hatcher asked again.

  ‘You’ve seen Psycho?’

  ‘You think Cutting Jack’s being told what to do by his dead mother?’

  ‘The mother/son relationship just feels right. More right than them being husband and wife or brother and sister.’

  I reached for my cell. Alex Irvine picked up on the second ring. Servers and cooling fans hummed in the background, which meant he was still at work.

  ‘Is Sumati with you?’ I asked.

  ‘She left ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Call her and get her back in. I’m sending through a list of names and addresses and I need them checked out. Thoroughly. I’m particularly interested in what happened to these guys’ mothers. How are your hacking skills?’

  Alex answered with a derisory snort.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I want you to hack into the computers of every medical supplier in the country. Big and small. See if any of them have sent anything to any of these addresses. Anything at all. I don’t care what it is.’

  ‘How far back do you want us to go?’

  ‘A couple of years. If you don’t get anything try going back further. Call me as soon as you’ve got something.’

  I killed the call and tossed the phone onto the bed, then glanced over at the victim photographs and thought about Templeton. I pictured her how she was when we first met in the Cosmopolitan’s bar, confident and swaggering and totally self-possessed. I pictured her how I got to know her later, softer and more vulnerable, a face she kept well hidden from Hatcher and the rest of her colleagues. This picture was followed by others, a whole host of mental snapshots I’d filed away in my memory.

  I couldn’t picture her like the other victims, and that was good. Whatever happened, she would not end up like that. I would do whatever it took to make sure that didn’t happen.

  Whatever it took.

  64

  ‘We think Adam has a partner. A wife or a girlfriend.’

  Rachel laughed. It was a dry, bitter sound. She was sitting on the mattress with a blanket pulled around her shoulders. She stared through the dark in the direction of the dentist’s chair.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Sophie asked.

  ‘Nothing’s funny. Not really. Adam made me think his sister was helping him but it was just another one of his mind games. He put on a voice and pretended to be a woman, and I fell for it. How dumb is that?’

  ‘It’s not dumb, Rachel.’

  ‘It was dumb. And do you want to know the stupidest thing? I actually felt sorry for her. I thought she was being forced to help him.’ Rachel laughed again. ‘I thought I was playing her and all the time it was Adam playing me.’

  ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. Adam’s manipulative and intelligent, and he’s a sadist. He gets off on messing with people’s heads.’

  ‘Well I wish he’d go and mess with someone else’s.’ Rachel realised what she’d said and added quickly, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean you.’

  ‘It’s okay Rachel. None of this is your fault.’

  ‘I just want to go home,’ Rachel whispered. Fresh tears ran down her face and she swiped them away.

  The lights came on with a bang and everything turned blurry. Too much brightness and too many tears. Rachel blinked away the brightness and wiped away the rest of her tears. She looked at her brutalised hand. It hurt, but not as bad as earlier. Most of the pain was still located in the empty space where her finger had been. She looked over at Sophie. The policewoman’s face was pale and drawn, and the slightest movement made her flinch. The dog flap clattered open and two black cable ties dropped onto the floor.

  ‘Number Five will pick up the cable ties.’

  Adam’s distorted voice boomed from the speakers, loud and intrusive. Rachel looked over at Sophie and saw the panic on the policewoman’s face. Her eyes were moving from speaker to speaker.

  ‘You don’t ever get used to it,’ Rachel told her. ‘You think you will, but you never do.’

  ‘Number Five will pick up the cable ties or face the consequences.’

  Rachel shrugged off the blanket and walked across the basement. She picked up the cable ties, then stared at the nearest camera and waited for her next instruction.

  ‘Number Five will unstrap the prisoner.’

  Rachel unbuckle
d the straps and Sophie sagged deeper into the chair, rubbing at her wrists.

  ‘Number Five will move the prisoner to the mattress.’

  Rachel put an arm around Sophie and helped her stand up. They staggered across the room together. The policewoman was leaning heavily against Rachel, feet shuffling. They reached the mattress and Rachel helped her sit down. Her breathing was ragged and she was biting back the pain. She was trying to put on a brave face, but wasn’t fooling anyone. The stress and effort of the journey from the dentist’s chair to the mattress was written all over her face.

  ‘Number Five will secure the prisoner’s hands and feet with the cable ties. Hands behind back. And make sure they’re tight.’

  Rachel did as she was told. The cable tie clicked tight but she gave it one more click just to be sure. Adam had said tight and there was no way she was going to disobey him after what he’d done to Sophie.

  ‘Sorry,’ Rachel whispered. She got in close and kept her voice low so Adam wouldn’t hear.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Sophie whispered back.

  ‘None of this is okay.’

  Rachel wrapped the second cable tie around Sophie’s ankles and ratcheted it tight. She stood up and stared at the nearest camera and waited for her next instruction.

  ‘Number Five will go over to the chair and take off her clothes. All of them.’

  Rachel didn’t hesitate. She walked over to the chair, pulled the grey sweatshirt over her head, tugged the jogging pants down over her hips, slid off the cotton panties. She stared at the floor, head cocked slightly to the right, arms tight to her sides. The door opened and Adam came in carrying a bucket and a towel. A purple dress was draped over his left arm. He put the bucket and the towel on the floor, then laid the dress carefully on the back of the dentist’s chair.

  ‘Number Five will get washed.’

  A sponge bobbed in the soapy water and wisps of steam drifted up from the bucket, small clouds that broke apart then disappeared. The water smelled of lavender. Rachel picked up the sponge and washed herself down. She scrubbed away the grime, scrubbed hard enough for it to hurt.