by Helen Fields
‘Where’re you from, then?’ lollipop lady asked.
‘Slovenia,’ Grom replied.
‘Never heard of it,’ she responded with a smile.
‘You know as Yugoslavia,’ Grom said, picking up a notebook and trying to focus on the crucial aspects of a perfect murder.
‘Damned foreigners,’ lollipop lady muttered. ‘Will I get myself a cup of tea then?’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sem Culpa, ‘blameless’ when translated from her native Portuguese, was meditating. She had a strict morning regime which included jogging, yoga, bathing in hot salted water, masturbation and finally meditation.
She brought herself back from her trance state, stretched and stared in the mirror. Her hair was shorter than she usually kept it, but the new length enabled her to hide it beneath hats, wear a variety of wigs, and disguise herself convincingly in male clothing as required. It was currently an unexciting shade of brown, but it matched her eyes and the overall effect was to make her appear younger than her twenty-eight years.
There was a discreet knock on the other side of her door. She wrapped a towel around herself and stood aside to allow the room service porter to deliver lunch. Scrambled eggs with chillies and avocado, mineral water and fresh pomegranate. Passing him a rolled up five pound note, she grabbed a fork. Her appetite was raging. Not that she would gain weight. Every day was about staying in shape, making sure she was strong and flexible, at her peak whether fight or flight was needed. Flicking on the television, she channel-hopped until the Scottish news appeared.
It appeared that Grom – what sort of low-level thug name was that? – had finally made his move. A lollipop lady was missing from her flat. Sem Culpa had been waiting impatiently for him to get on with it ever since she’d scrawled the victim choice on the wall. There was no corpse yet though. It wasn’t like Grom to take his time. His other efforts had been like teenage sex. All hot, sweaty, clumsy, grinding and grunting. No finesse. No artistry. And as far as she was concerned, with simply no sufficiently thrilling element of risk. It had been a nice touch, admittedly, taking those photographs of sweet Emily and getting the moderator to leak them to the press.
She bristled at how little publicity she’d received for her work on Michael Swan. Certain the moderator would be able to hack the forensic pathologist’s files, Sem Culpa hadn’t thought to take a camera of her own. Then there was her obsession with utmost professionalism. It was cameras that hung you. No evidence was quite as damning as the police finding crime scene photos on your mobile or hard drive. She remained philosophical though. Sooner or later the reporting dam would burst and the details would cause the most hardened readers and viewers to close their eyes.
In the meantime she had only to wait for notification of her final target, and that was unlikely to arrive until Grom had finished his latest challenge. She had a while to plan. The precise details would be subject-specific – male or female, age, location – but she could dream beautiful dreams of how to present the corpse. That was her pride and joy. Let Grom chase mindless notoriety. Her goal was to create the ultimate horror.
Turning the television off, she picked up a sketch pad and pencil. Drawing was one of her other passions. Those dark lines could express so much pain, such infinite wretchedness, as if they were soaking up through the paper rather than being trailed across it. Lacking a vision for her next masterpiece, Sem Culpa slashed lines and filled shade to recreate Michael Swan’s last moments as best she could. It wasn’t bad for the speed with which she’d drawn. Swan’s mouth was a broad hole of agony, his clotting blood the last hurrah of his deteriorating body’s efforts to sustain him. Arms spread wide like some falling angel, long legs flying behind him, graceful and lithe. Sem Culpa stared, breathless, reliving his plea for life until she’d shown him the picture of his wife taken outside their pitiable home.
After that Michael Swan had proved himself a good man. She was pleased. It wouldn’t have been worth half the trouble she’d gone to if he’d been a disappointment. All those articles about his community work, his forthcoming award, his dedication to children’s literacy. When he’d grasped the fact that it was him or his precious – and accessible – spouse, he hadn’t uttered one word more. He’d fallen willingly on the proverbial sword. Only his tears had lessened the effect. That softness. That weakness.
Sem Culpa was not weak. She was the arrow that always found its mark. Portugal had been too small to hold her. Her parents had been too simpering, too obliging to control her. Expelled from one private school after another, they had resorted to a series of ineffectual tutors to educate her. Eventually enough years passed and the prospect of university dawned. The University of Lisbon had accepted her application immediately. Not that they would have turned her away given the funding contributions her family had made over the years. That was in her early days, when she was taking tentative steps towards her true self. Back then she had been known as Amalia, meaning industrious. In that, at least, she had proved her parents right.
University had been a drag. Timetables, deadlines, puerile children playing at being grown-ups. She had hated it. It was supposed to have been the great equaliser. Living together, studying together, exchanging ideas and enjoying the day-to-day. And yet she was blighted by idiots teaching her, serving her, living alongside her, giggling, posing, stressing. That had been both her undoing and the start of her great adventure.
There had been poison involved. Industrial arsenic – not hard to obtain – and the university canteen’s ratatouille. No one had died, disappointingly, but it had been an awakening. Her first true orgasm.
She’d left soon after that, discovering that neither a university education nor a nine-to-five routine was necessary to make money in the digital age. A year later she was running a successful social media promotions website. All at a distance from her clients, no private details required, only a sound knowledge of how the internet worked and what people wanted from it. Between the allowance from her parents and the money her company made, she could afford to stay in five-star hotels wherever she went.
Her family didn’t try to contact her often. There were messages on her birthday, at Christmas, perfunctory monthly email updates. But never a plea for her to return home, to spend time with them. Almost as if her continued travels were a relief to them.
Her knowledge of the digital world had drawn her to the darknet’s twisty passages years before the game in which she was now star player had been imagined. She had bought knives there unlike anything the open market had to offer, found devices for sexual play that offered uses in other, more torturous scenarios. More recently an organ marketplace had sprung up. That one offered the really big money. If she ever found herself strapped for cash, it would be a joyous way to make money. Her skills with a scalpel were something to behold.
Then the moderator had found her on a different website, inviting her to join. At first she’d been sure it was a trap. Then membership grew. Identities were tested. No one made their way onto the forum without the right credentials. The darknet had stuttered briefly when the FBI and MI5 had made their lives a bit harder, but the programmers were always a step ahead. Encoding software these days was pretty much foolproof. No communications could be traced back to an IP address. It was like being on the sea at night, shouting from one lightless boat to another, alone in the company of others who also thrived amidst the rocking and crashing of waves others found too perilous to brave.
Covering the smoke detector and striking a match, Sem Culpa sent her sketch back to the realm of simple remembrances where it could never be found, nor ever do her harm.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ava should have gone straight to the chemotherapy unit. She was loath to leave her mother there alone, but Callanach was on her mind and missing from the station again, his phone diverting to voicemail. The only place left to check was his apartment, not that she held out any great hope of finding him there. It was difficult to conceive what the poi
nt would be of working from home when his squad was amassed in the incident room. Still, there was the impending press conference to discuss. They might finally have a break. He ought to be told about it in person. And Overbeck was coiling to strike. Ava could feel it. Overbeck had been deliberately vague in her questions about Callanach’s activities and had completely refused to detail the supposed complaint. However badly Ava and Callanach had been communicating of late, she wasn’t prepared to let him sink without so much as a warning.
Ava buzzed up to his apartment. No response. She buzzed again. If he was there, he wasn’t in the mood to be disturbed. Ava walked away, getting as far as putting her hand on the car door. If Callanach’s apartment was 2a then logic dictated his chatty neighbour was in 2b. Perhaps there was a reason why he wasn’t answering his phone. She owed it to him to check properly. Ignoring the sense that she was crossing a line, Ava pressed the buzzer for apartment 2b.
‘This is Bunny. Hello?’ a perky voice enquired.
‘Hi, sorry to bother you. I’m trying to get hold of Luc Callanach. We met before at his door.’
‘I’m not sure he’s in,’ Bunny replied, her voice a little flatter this time. Not too keen on having another woman calling for Luc, Ava guessed. Perhaps the sight of her new engagement ring would be reassuring. It had finally come in useful.
‘Could you buzz me in? I’m a police officer. I need to discuss a professional matter with him urgently.’
‘Of course,’ Bunny said, releasing the door catch immediately.
Ava made her way up the stairs.
‘I haven’t heard anything from his flat all day and I’ve had clients coming and going,’ Bunny called out before Ava reached the landing. ‘Have you tried his mobile?’
‘I have,’ Ava said, giving Callanach’s door a hammering. She should have left then, but Bunny was hanging around in a way that made it hard not to continue the conversation. ‘Have you seen much of him recently?’ Ava asked. Bunny laughed – a short, forced noise. There were tears in her eyes. ‘Are you all right?’
Bunny shrugged, leaning against the wall and letting herself slide down until she was sitting on the floor.
Ava fought the urge to check her watch, knowing the girl wanted someone to talk to as the seconds slid by.
‘I’ve been single so long, I thought I’d never meet anyone else nice,’ Bunny began, ‘and Luc is nice, isn’t he?’
‘He is,’ Ava agreed, wondering whether to wait a while to see if Luc turned up or cut her losses and go, a prickle of guilt descending as she realised that continuing the conversation was likely to be an invasion of her colleague’s privacy. It was just possible that the girl knew something that might help her locate Luc, though.
‘We were becoming friends. We’d chat whenever we saw each other, I cooked him dinner a couple of times. He seemed exhausted, coming and going all times of the night.’
‘Comes with the job,’ Ava said. ‘Did you ever see anyone else with him or visiting?’
‘Only you that one time and the other policeman. Max something.’
‘Tripp,’ Ava filled in.
‘That’s him. Apart from that, no one. Luc seemed lonely. I’m in hair and make-up so I’m really a people person. You have to be. I offered to introduce him to my friends but he was always working.’
Not really his kind of crowd, Ava suspected, knowing she was drawing conclusions based on a stereotype. But not unreasonably. Luc was a private person, not one for bars or parties. Much like herself. Then Natasha had gone to the States, her mother had been diagnosed with cancer, and Joe had turned up, bringing with him the drinks parties and dinners that she was used to avoiding. Since then she and Luc had barely spent any time at all together. Ava’s phone rang.
‘Sorry, give me a moment?’ She answered the call. ‘Turner,’ she said.
‘DS Black here, ma’am. Interpol responded to your query. The Slovenian police never went public about the DNA. The killer won’t be aware that he can be linked back to Slovenia.’
‘Good. Do we have a time for the press conference?’ Ava asked.
‘Two hours from now. Media team is organising it. I’ve let Superintendent Overbeck know. She actually smiled.’
‘Right. I’ll get into uniform and be back in the office soon,’ Ava said, ending the call. ‘Sorry about that. It never stops, you know?’ she smiled.
‘Nice to feel wanted, I expect,’ Bunny said, more tears forming in her eyes.
Ava finally allowed herself a time check. It wouldn’t take her long to prepare for the press conference, she was too late for her mother’s chemo appointment, and there was always a chance that Luc would turn up if she waited. Bunny looked truly miserable. ‘I’ve a couple of minutes for a cup of tea, if you don’t mind making me one,’ Ava said. Bunny’s face brightened up.
Callanach pulled into a public car park and got Lance on the phone.
‘I’ve spoken to Mrs Swan,’ Callanach said. ‘She knows what I’m going to do.’
‘Judging by your voice I’d say she wasn’t best pleased,’ Lance said.
‘You’ll print it?’ Callanach asked.
‘I’m a journalist. What do you think?’
‘Great,’ Callanach responded. ‘I’ll dictate, you type. DI Callanach has today confirmed that McDonald Road library murder victim Michael Swan did not suffer, according to the autopsy findings. Open speech marks – death was almost instantaneous – close speech marks, Callanach said. Whilst the victim suffered some trauma, he would have been unconscious throughout. Police conclude that the killer fled the scene immediately. Mr Swan’s body was found on the floor of the library basement. End the piece there. That should be enough to light a fire. Let Ben know when you’re uploading it, would you?’
‘Copying him in now,’ Lance said. ‘Ben’s a step ahead of you. The webmaster has already picked up Rory Hand’s application to join whatever bizarre club they’re running. Hand’s emails and computer drives have been remotely accessed.’
‘Just make sure Ben’s waiting for the backlash from your press release. If we can pick up any information from online chatter, it might just save Julia Stimple’s life,’ Callanach said.
‘Your lollipop lady. Thanks for not bothering to give me that story first. Whatever happened to, I scratch your back, you make sure I can pay my rent next month?’ Lance asked.
‘If you run too many exclusives, whoever is watching will get suspicious. This has to feel real.’
‘Got an answer for everything, haven’t you? I’ll post this to my site, make sure it’s all over social media, then I’ve got to get going. I assume I should pretend we’re complete strangers at the press conference later?’ Lance asked.
‘What press conference?’ Callanach replied.
‘DI Turner’s.’ Callanach didn’t respond. ‘Best leave you to sort that out then. I’ll tell Ben to text you if anything comes up.’
Callanach ended the call then checked through the notifications on his phone. He’d had his mobile on silent at Mrs Swan’s house, then been too busy to change it back, missing two calls from Ava and another from the station. He also found a text from DC Tripp.
‘Overbeck ordered full uniform for press con tonight 6 p.m. DI Turner to lead. You to follow re J Stimple. Pls call DS Lively for update, sir.’ Somehow Tripp even managed to be respectful when he was texting. Callanach sighed and dialled in to the incident room.
‘What’s up, Sergeant?’ Callanach asked
‘Door-to-doors in Julia Stimple’s block of flats and along the road have turned up one neighbour who overheard some banging, although it’s described as more like DIY than a fight, so we’re not sure that’s linked. Plus we have three vehicles in the road on the evening in question that aren’t normally parked there.’
‘Is that unusual for the area?’ Callanach asked.
‘Not particularly,’ Lively said. ‘Visitors, friends staying over, deliveries. The one we’re interested in is a van. It was first noticed very late in th
e evening and parked badly. We’ve only got a partial plate but there were recognisable bumper stickers on it.’
‘It’s a start,’ Callanach said. ‘Get the description and the partial out to all officers, and alert other government agency workers. Parking attendants, dog patrol officers, street cleaning crews. Someone may have caught a glimpse of it on a driveway or going into a garage. Make it clear that no one’s to approach.’
‘On it, sir,’ Lively said, all hint of previous sarcasm disappeared. Somehow that was all the reminder Callanach needed of just how dire the situation had become. He headed home to change.
Twenty minutes later Callanach entered his apartment block. He had time to shower and grab some food before getting back to the station, and he still had to prepare a statement about Julia Stimple’s disappearance. He ran up the flight of stairs to his landing and got the key in his door when Bunny opened hers.
‘There you are,’ Bunny said.
Callanach wondered how brief he could be. He hadn’t seen her since he’d bailed and fled back to his own apartment. She’d been upset then and he’d not made any attempt to put it right.
‘You’re a hard man to get hold of at the moment,’ Ava said, walking out from behind Bunny. ‘Thanks for the tea. It was nice getting to know you.’
‘That’s all right. Thanks for listening. I know you’re busy, so I’ll leave you to it.’ Bunny shut her door. Ava stood in the corridor, arms crossed.
