Perfect Prey

by Helen Fields

  The ambulance doors finally opened and the trolley was wheeled out. Ava walked straight up, showed her badge and did her best to sound both authoritative and reassuring.

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Ava Turner. Can I confirm that you are Julia Stimple from Findhorn Place?’

  ‘I am,’ the woman cried, holding her head in her hands. She was trembling, obviously in need of some sedation.

  ‘It’s all right, Ms Stimple. We’ll get you straight to a doctor and leave a police guard with you. We’ll need to take a statement but not until you’re feeling calmer.’

  Ava looked at the woman’s hands as she raked them madly through her hair. It didn’t strike her at first what she was looking for, but it wasn’t long before it dawned.

  ‘Could you hold out both hands, please?’ Ava asked.

  The woman did as she was told, the extent of her shaking causing Ava to grip both hands with her own.

  ‘Turn your head right then left,’ Ava instructed. The woman complied, obviously terrified. It suddenly occurred to Ava that Julia Stimple might not have been terrified for the same reason they had all been expecting.

  ‘Ms Stimple, the man with you in the house, the one the police arrested. Can you tell me who he was?’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell everyone!’ she shouted. ‘That’s my boy. He didn’t mean any harm! We were only going to stay there a while then he was supposed to drop me off in the city again.’

  ‘So you left your house voluntarily?’ Ava’s voice was gravelly. She was aware that she wasn’t hiding her rising temper particularly well. One of the paramedics tried to intervene. Ava stuck out her hand and made it clear that would be a really bad move.

  ‘I was going to lose my job!’ Julie Stimple screeched. ‘Some nosy git complained about my language and about me leaning against a wall while supervising the children for crying out loud. I got disciplined! And there’s no way I’ll get a new job with my health problems.’

  ‘And you have had absolutely no contact with anyone who has threatened or hurt you?’ Ava asked, her fingers curling fistward.

  ‘No, I tried to tell them at the house, he never hurt me. We just needed a bit of spare cash. Those magazines’ll pay anything for a good story. No one got hurt, did they? Did you not see what they did to my boy? Treating him like some bloody criminal. They had guns. Real guns. I thought they were going to shoot us!’

  ‘And you have no physical injuries that need treating?’ Ava checked.

  ‘No, I keep telling you. My boy would never hurt me. It was just a wee bit of a ruse.’

  Ava dug deep into her self-control in spite of the heat rising in her cheeks and the bile high in her throat. She had a call to make to Callanach, but before that there was one thing she was going to do personally.

  ‘Julia Stimple. You are under arrest,’ she said.

  A few minutes later Ava left uniformed officers to transport the wailing woman back to the station. Ms Stimple would still have a story to sell to the magazines. It’s just that she’d have to wait until she’d been released from prison before she’d be free to organise it.

  Callanach took the call as he was striding towards the cells. He very nearly didn’t answer it, except that the prisoner was opting for silence as he was booked in, slowing the process down.

  ‘It’s me,’ Ava blurted before Callanach had said anything. ‘Don’t waste your time with an interview. Get Lively to take it. That’s not our murderer.’

  ‘What? How do you—’

  ‘Julia Stimple’s fingers and ears are intact. She and her son cooked the whole thing up. They decided the publicity would mean easy cash, only no one was supposed to find her.’

  ‘Oh Jesus, that means—’ Callanach sank onto a nearby chair.

  ‘We still have no idea who the hostage is,’ Ava finished for him. ‘I’ll get the squad checking to see if any of the other lollipop ladies is missing. We need to find the real victim. Whoever that is, is running out of time.’

  ‘I’ve got to go.’ Callanach ended the call. ‘Where’s DS Lively?’ he asked a passing constable.

  ‘Already in the interview room, sir. Suspect has just been taken in.’

  ‘Right,’ Callanach said, slamming open the door. Lively was just getting started. Julia Stimple’s son was crying. ‘Wrong man,’ he announced. ‘That’s Stimple junior on a money-making scheme. Charge him for wasting our time and whatever else you can throw at him.’

  ‘I bloody knew it,’ Lively said. ‘Your sister was in on it too, wasn’t she, pal? Her face when she was told her mum had lost a finger. She’d not a bloody clue! Cry all you like, mate. You’ll have reason when you’re stuck inside a cell twenty-three hours a day.’

  ‘We didn’t mean to do anything wrong,’ the man blubbed.

  ‘Aye, like you didn’t mean to make your mum’s flat look like a crime scene and divert police resources away from a real investigation,’ Lively said.

  ‘I don’t want to do time. It wasn’t even my idea,’ Stimple junior snivelled.

  ‘You need to stop talking,’ Callanach said, ‘or prison will be the least of your problems.’

  Back in his office Callanach was flooded with requests to answer questions about Julia Stimple and her abductor. The worst of it was that Emily Balcaskie’s parents and Helen Lott’s family had already been in contact. The press were a step ahead again, only this time they’d picked up a disaster story. It hardly seemed possible, given that he’d only left Ormiston forty-five minutes earlier.

  ‘Lance,’ Callanach said. ‘Shit.’

  The reporter had been dropped home while Callanach sped back to the station. It hadn’t occurred to Callanach to tell him not to report, he’d just expected him not to. His own mistake. Nothing like taking a journalist to a crime scene to ensure a nightmare ending.

  He dialled Lance’s phone, but a different voice answered.

  ‘Hey,’ the Californian twang came. ‘I’m at Lance’s. He’s getting beers. Sounds like you guys have one less lunatic to apprehend. Good work!’

  ‘Ben, you have to come up with something. Lance’s story was a mistake. I’ll explain later, but you have to keep going with the website. Read every thread you can. I’m right back at the start and reduced to waiting for body parts to be delivered.’

  ‘Already on it,’ Ben said, sounding remarkably unfazed. Callanach heard the clink of bottles next to the phone. ‘As soon as Lance posted his article about the arrest, a new poll went live on the website. I got an email saying I had two hours to vote. Let me read it to you. Lance, hold the phone,’ Ben said.

  ‘You not out celebrating, Luc?’ Lance asked.

  ‘We got the wrong man, Lance, and you posted the story before we realised it.’

  There was a pause long enough that Callanach could have filled a kettle and boiled water.

  ‘I’m finished,’ Lance said. There was a fumbling as Ben grabbed the phone back and began to read.

  ‘Okay, it says that voting rules for all polls are as follows. Each user is entitled to make only one submission. Once submissions close, the poll will become inaccessible. Your submission must be for a worthy victim, by employment or status description, whose death society will rightly be entitled to mourn. Do not enter names. The identity of the victim is for the competitor to choose. All entries must be in English. The suggestion with the highest number of like submissions will be selected and notified to the competitor.’

  ‘Is that everything?’ Callanach asked.

  ‘There’s a box to type in,’ Ben said. ‘You know we’re going to have to make an entry. I’ve logged in, there’ll be a record. Having applied for membership, if we don’t make a submission it’ll be an immediate red flag that something’s not right about Rory Hand.’

  ‘Put in something ridiculous that they’re not going to go for,’ Callanach said.

  ‘Any preferences?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Just make it a profession obviously repulsive to normal human beings.’ He coul
d hear Ben typing. ‘How long until the vote closes?’ Callanach asked.

  ‘Seventy minutes,’ Ben said.

  ‘Keep watching,’ Callanach said. ‘And see if you can trace anything else to do with Grom. He’s still out there somewhere and he’s holding someone hostage. Right now I have no idea who or where they might be.’

  ‘Got it. There’s another call coming in. I’ll get back to you.’ Ben hit end on Callanach’s call and opened the new line. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Ben, it’s Polly. I know you’re busy but Big Dave gave me your number and asked me to call. He said to stay out of the cafe tomorrow. Lots of police on the streets, the city’s gone a bit crazy. He said to say sorry.’

  ‘Not a problem, Pol. Thanks for letting me know. And I don’t mind you having my number,’ Ben said. ‘Would be nicer if you’d used it because you wanted to speak to me, but I’ll settle for second best.’

  ‘Really?’ she laughed. ‘And you’re not even going to ask me out now that you’ve finally got me on the phone?’

  Ben tapped at a speed Lance couldn’t even focus on properly, only pausing when he realised that Polly wasn’t following up with a joke or a jibe. ‘Okay, well, is there any chance at all that I could tempt you to spend some time with me? No cafe, no customers, no one except us, some beer and some food?’

  ‘All right then. I’m free this evening,’ Polly said. Ben flushed under Lance’s stare.

  ‘This evening? Um, great, yep. I’m just finishing something up then you could come over to mine. I’ll text you the address.’

  ‘Sure. Your place it is. And don’t get any big ideas. You know it’s just because you wore me down, right?’ she laughed.

  ‘Never thought it could have been for any other reason. See you in an hour.’ Ben hung up, allowed himself a grin, then began typing again. ‘Gotta speed this up, Lance. I have somewhere to be.’

  Chapter Forty-Two

  The news had been full of Grom’s disastrous failure and capture. Typical of his clumsy nature, and he hadn’t even finalised the kill. Sem Culpa had won, subject only to completing her last task and remaining free. Not that her destiny lay behind bars. She was a free spirit. Free within the world at large, free from normal societal constraints, free from the conscience and fears that kept lesser creatures bowed in compliance with laws and regulations. Her wings were not for clipping.

  Opening the email, she scanned it with only slight surprise. This target was more interesting. She fed the internet the appropriate search term and began to read. Edinburgh was home to remarkably few such targets. How Grom had managed to screw up his task with so many options was laughable. Still, the reduced field dictated that her research could be done fast and her next victim identified quickly. Sem Culpa was bored of Scotland, longing for an endless stretch of sandy beach and plates of food where protein was served with more delicacy.

  In fact it took her no more than an hour to find the perfect target, having obtained enough information to know where they worked, lived and preferred to dine. The only task left was to conceive of a fitting death – one that would leave people gasping at her ingenuity and cruelty – even as she boarded a plane for some less populated place. Articles read, websites perused, addresses memorised, she turned her attention to choosing her next destination. Somewhere in South America would be nice, she thought, selecting a passport for the booking and matching it with a credit card. It was almost time to become someone else again and rest enjoying the memories of her victory.

  Grom stared at the screen in disbelief. He had read and reread the news article, certain that it was simply his English letting him down. He hadn’t been caught. The lollipop lady had not been rescued. What would the moderator think? And that arrogant witch Sem Culpa would believe she’d won. He tried to log onto the darknet site to let the moderator know it was a mistake. His password failed once, twice. He retyped it, reloaded the site, checked his network connections. He’d been locked out, of course. As far as the moderator was concerned he was in custody.

  He went to look out of the windows of the house. It had been a risk, staying at the old woman’s place, but he’d watched the address for two days before making his move. Not a single person had come up the drive. No milk or post were delivered, no family or friends had come to visit. She’d once taken a bus, arriving home two hours later with a bag of food shopping, but she would hardly be missed by the supermarket staff. Her bungalow was out of the city, on the outskirts of a village, with little in the way of passing traffic. Even now the crossroads beyond the overgrown garden were deserted. Moving her had seemed even more treacherous with everyone in the city looking for him. He’d needed the time to plan, to think, to perfect the kill. Now he was starting to wish he’d simply driven up the motorway throwing her severed limbs out of the window into the paths of other cars.

  Back in the kitchen, the lollipop lady was cramming baked beans into her mouth. She’d given up speaking to him and he was grateful for that. He was still having to keep her alive though, stupidly assuming he could draw this out to his own timetable. Not now. This required immediate action to prove he was still very much in the game.

  ‘Put down plate,’ Grom said, picking up his favourite knife.

  The lollipop lady ignored him, shovelling tiny orange ovoids into her mouth, strings of sauce seeping from the corners of her lips and diverting into the wrinkles running down her chin. He brought a fist down into the plate and it skittered across the floor, leaving a mess in its wake that he would have to clean up later. No matter. There would soon be more to clean up than just that.

  Looking up into his face, she spat her as yet unswallowed mouthful so that it spattered his eyes and forehead. She stared, laughed hard, her hands flying into the air with the delight of it, and that was when he caught the first whiff of urine. She hadn’t even bothered telling him she needed to go. He should have known. It had been at least an hour since the last bathroom break. Her waning pelvic floor muscles were no match for the ageing process. He grabbed her by the hair, pulling her up from her seat, his face a knot of disgust. She dangled before him, a wet, withered puppet, wiping herself with the material of her skirt, still cackling occasionally in spite of the pain he was inflicting on her scalp.

  ‘Hold out your arms,’ he ordered, releasing his hold and letting her drop.

  ‘Make me,’ she said.

  Grom did.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Ava had to speak to Joe. It had all become so overwhelming. The endless consultations with medics, the hours spent in waiting rooms, the way that time seemed to liquify, each drop bloating slowly until the weight became too much and it fell. Like the drip that was feeding chemicals into her mother’s arm, an unwinnable attempt at saving her. A life-shortening cocktail of embarrassment and pride had kept her mother from seeking medical help at an earlier stage and now the cancer destroying her bowel had marched its poisonous army to other places from which they would never be made to retreat. Buying time was the best they could do.

  Regret was a massively understated word in Ava’s humble opinion, and yet she could find no better synonym. She did not feel remorse for the years she and her mother had not been close. It wasn’t in Ava’s nature to rewrite history. Her mother had set her own agenda and it hadn’t included Ava for most of her formative years. Little wonder that her daughter had embraced independence early and rejected later efforts at maternal closeness. Lamentation was too strong. She was not reduced to weeping nor dramatic scenes anticipating the loss to come. It was simple, clean regret. Mainly that she had not been a better daughter. Also that she hadn’t been able to forgive her mother’s failings. Largely that she had not applied the same detective skills to her family life as she did to the cases she worked every day. Consequently, Ava had failed to join the dots between her mother’s own childhood and her resultant inability to forge the sort of close bond between them that Ava had craved.

  A career in the police had been the result. Ava’s choice had been part rebel
lion, and part desire to get her hands dirty after the sterile English public school that had polished her accent, her dress sense and her fingernails. Her parents had wanted her to follow a pathway into something beautifully bland and suitably upper class. A fashion designer, high-end of course, would have been acceptable. Or a corporate lawyer, if she really felt she couldn’t hide her outspoken, confrontational traits. Her father had encouraged her towards the diplomatic service which her mother had seen as the perfect way to find a husband one would be proud to announce in the national newspapers.

  Ava had viewed their suggestions with disdain, making it her mission to pursue the opposite of what they had planned for her. Police work offered her endless hours in rough company, seeking out the bloodshed and human misery from which she had always been shielded. Her parents had tried for months to dissuade her, reasoning at first, refusing to allow it when reason failed. Desperate, her mother had threatened to cut her off from the money that could have bought Ava top-of-the-range cars and luxury apartments. Ava had walked out, content to make ends meet on her own. She had never stopped talking to her family. She wasn’t spiteful or vengeful. But there was an unspoken rule that the world’s filth should not be referred to in her mother’s presence. Ava was to leave her casework outside their door. In her attempt to align her life with the reality of other people’s, she had created a false relationship with her parents. Now her mother was dying. All those wasted years playing a game that had served neither of them.

  Ava was making it better now though. Her mother was softening. Over the last few weeks she had been able to hold her mother, slide a hand over hers as she sat shivering but stoic in the chemotherapy suite, and feel a real connection. How dreadful that it had taken the knowledge of the loss to come to jolt her from her arrogance. But it wasn’t too late. Not quite yet. She could stop playing games and start being honest. With her mother, with herself, and specifically with Joe.