Eye Contact

by Fergus McNeill

  ‘Sir?’

  Harland turned to find Firth behind him.

  ‘What is it, Sue?’ he asked.

  ‘Blake wants you,’ she said, with an apologetic little smile.

  Harland gave a quiet sigh and returned the tea bag to its box.

  ‘Dark blue nylon fibres . . .’ Blake spoke the words slowly, as though pondering their significance. He glanced up with a flat expression. ‘Is there anything specific about them? Any indication as to what kind of clothing they might come from?’

  Harland shook his head. ‘Not yet, sir. Forensics only picked up on them this morning.’

  ‘Pity.’ Blake returned his attention to the report. ‘Of course, it’s good to see some progress, as far as it goes, but I was hoping for rather more.’

  Harland said nothing. He sat still, his face carefully neutral as he waited to be told how important the case was. As if he didn’t appreciate that. As if he wasn’t fucking trying.

  ‘There’s a lot of interest in this case, you know,’ Blake was saying. ‘I want to be certain that we’re exploring all avenues, making the most of our resources.’

  Harland’s head snapped up as an unwelcome idea began to form in his mind. This didn’t sound good at all.

  ‘I believe we’re covering the ground fairly quickly,’ he said, ‘building a picture of the woman and her circumstances. We’ve been able to rule out a number of angles already—’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ Blake interrupted, ‘but I still feel we might move things along with a bit more urgency.’

  He sat back in his chair, eyes fixed on a point high on the wall behind Harland.

  ‘It’s important that we’re seen to be doing all we can,’ he said. ‘Do you think you have enough manpower on this?’

  ‘I think the manpower is appropriate, yes.’

  Blake paused, then tried a different approach.

  ‘It wouldn’t do any harm to rattle the cages of a few undesirables,’ he observed. ‘It shows we’re not standing still, and if it is a failed sexual assault, we might get a break that bit sooner.’

  There it was: failed sexual assault. Harland felt the tension wash down through his body as his suspicions were confirmed. Pope had gone behind his back and talked directly to Blake. The bastard.

  ‘I assume you’ve had someone take a look through the database, pulling up any similar cases,’ Blake continued. ‘There’s bound to be a few people with previous form in this area – it might be worth taking a look at them, seeing who can account for their movements and who can’t, that sort of thing.’

  Harland sat in silence, his body taut with anger. He stared out at Blake, biting his lip for fear of giving voice to the thoughts that boiled inside him, able only to nod in mute agreement.

  ‘Well, I mustn’t keep you, Graham.’

  He was dimly aware that their interview was at an end and, masking his emotions, got carefully to his feet.

  ‘Oh, and I see Russell Pope is back . . .’

  Harland froze.

  ‘Let’s get him onto this along with Mendel and the others. I’m sure he’ll have some ideas to contribute, and an extra man should get things done that little bit faster.’

  Harland shut the door and stumbled along the corridor. He veered off into the toilets and stood over the washbasins, breathing quickly.

  The little shit had gone around him and spoken to Blake directly. Made him look bad. Made him look weak.

  He gripped the edges of the sink and screwed his eyes shut for a moment, but he couldn’t shake off the terrible fury that seemed to be smothering him, boring into his skull. His eyes snapped open, glittering with rage as his pale reflection snarled back at him from the mirror. He wanted it to stop but he knew it wouldn’t.

  Pope was doing it on purpose – had to be. Manipulative little bastard.

  His fingers clawed at the soap dispenser on the wall in front of him, the joints whitening.

  Made him look weak.

  He lashed out at the dispenser, suddenly needing to hit it, to hurt it even though it was a lifeless object. Again, harder now, his hand swept down, splintering the plastic housing with a loud crack . . .

  . . . and then he was himself again, looking at the broken bits of plastic in the sink. His hand felt numb as he turned it over and studied it. For a moment it was fine, then painful red lines bloomed out across his palm and blood began to ooze from the beaten skin.

  There was no anger now, just a profound weariness as he ducked into one of the cubicles, grabbing wads of toilet paper to staunch the bleeding. Nobody had seen him. He’d be able to slip out, make some excuse, go home and bandage himself up properly. He ought to be glad.

  Huddled there in the toilet cubicle, shivering, he waited for the bleeding to stop.

  10

  Thursday, 7 June

  Harland stood by the window, tracing a line of condensation with his finger as he listened to the voice on the phone. Shoulders tense, he nodded wearily in response to what he heard.

  ‘No, I understand,’ he sighed. ‘Thanks for trying.’

  He ended the call and slipped the phone into his pocket, still gazing out at the rain. The droplet under his finger trickled down and seeped into the gap beneath the window frame.

  ‘Bad news?’ Pope had a talent for the obvious.

  Harland’s head drooped and he slowly turned round.

  ‘Forensics didn’t get anything off those blue fibres,’ he said. ‘They’re from a common fabric used in about a hundred generic clothing lines. It’s just another dead end.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Pope said. ‘That’s not much help.’

  Harland shot him a withering look, then walked slowly over to the table.

  ‘No,’ he admitted after a moment, ‘it’s not.’

  ‘Still,’ Pope continued undeterred, ‘I’ve just been speaking to Gwent Police about that murder over in Newport. You know, the one I was telling you about before? They never got the guy who did that so it might be worth getting a list of any suspects they had and start checking up on them?’

  Harland looked at him for a moment, then nodded.

  ‘I suppose so,’ he shrugged. ‘What have we got to lose?’

  He gathered his notebook and his coffee from the table and trudged back to his office.

  Vicky’s ex-boyfriend had been out of the country. One by one, her male work colleagues had been looked into and then ruled out. She wasn’t exactly the sort to have enemies – indeed it seemed nobody had so much as a bad word for her – but she was still dead.

  And now he was running out of leads. Even their searches on the database had failed to produce any likely suspects, though he’d not been particularly surprised at that. Without a motive – and despite Pope’s theories, he couldn’t see one – it was difficult to know what they were looking for, or how to proceed.

  He entered his barren little office and closed the door. Moving slowly round the desk, he sank into his chair and gazed up at the ceiling for a moment. He wanted a cigarette but the blustering rain that spattered against the window made the idea less appealing.

  Leaning forward he switched on his screen. Typing was difficult – he’d bound the injured hand himself, perhaps too tightly – and it hurt to use the mouse. And yet he sensed there was still something out there to look for, to dig into, if he only knew where to start. Something he could get a hold on and trace back through the fog that surrounded him. Sighing, working slowly to spare his hand, he began to sift through the records of unsolved cases, praying that he wasn’t about to add to its number.

  It was almost noon when there was a brisk knock on the door and Mendel looked in.

  ‘You look like you could use cheering up,’ he said.

  Harland sat back in his chair and shook his head.

  ‘I’ve got a case that’s turning out to be nothing but dead ends,’ he sighed.

  Mendel stepped in and closed the door.

  ‘They’re not all dead ends,’ he said quietly.

&n
bsp; Harland stared at him. ‘What are you saying?’

  Mendel gave him a grim smile. ‘Remember the key chain?’

  Harland nodded.

  ‘Well,’ Mendel said, ‘we never did find a match for that third key. Until now.’

  ‘What was it? Something at her work?’

  Mendel shook his head as he sat down.

  ‘Couldn’t find anything that fitted. But there was a decent thumbprint on it, so in the end we ran it through the system to check. Turns out it wasn’t from Vicky Sutherland at all.’

  Harland frowned.

  ‘Whose was it then?’

  ‘The print belongs to a Ronald Erskine, and that key will most likely be the front-door key to his flat.’

  ‘Okay,’ Harland nodded. ‘We’ll need to speak to him, figure out any connection to the victim.’

  ‘Ronald Erskine’s body turned up four months ago in Oxford,’ Mendel said. ‘He’d been beaten to death.’

  Harland sat back in his chair, his mind suddenly racing. His whole perspective on the murder had shifted.

  ‘This isn’t the first time our man has killed,’ he said after a moment.

  Mendel looked at him, then nodded.

  ‘Changes things a bit, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Harland got to his feet, ‘this changes everything.’

  11

  Thursday, 7 June

  Harland was humming to himself as he turned off the roundabout and drove out of Portishead. He accelerated down the long straight road that led towards the motorway, enjoying the feel of the car. Over the trees, the towering red cranes at Portbury loomed up against a steel grey sky, dwarfing the thin stains of smoke that rose from the buildings at their feet.

  The investigation would take on a different shape now. Someone from the Major Crime team would be over to see him tomorrow, and there’d be a whole new set of protocols and time-wasting. But he was still looking forward to it.

  He allowed the car to coast up onto the flyover, overtaking a slow-moving lorry before turning onto the Bristol road and powering up the hill.

  Blake’s face had been ashen when he’d told him. Finding a definite connection to another unsolved murder raised the stakes uncomfortably high. Neither of them had mentioned the words – serial killer – but the thought had been there, unspoken between them. Nobody wanted that sort of thing creeping onto his patch. But Harland felt the cold eagerness in his stomach, the guilt-laden thrill that he disliked so much. He needed this.

  There was very little traffic this evening. He was making good time, and had to remind himself to slow down for the speed camera in Leigh Woods, changing down a gear and letting the car leap forward as soon as the wretched thing was behind him.

  He would have to speak with Thames Valley CID, maybe go to Oxford, compare notes with the officers who’d worked the Erskine case . . . and then what? How far might this trail lead?

  He flung the car through the steep bends on the hill down into Bristol, making the most of the road being so quiet.

  Two bodies, almost a hundred miles apart. Two bodies that they knew of so far. No wonder Blake looked worried – this wasn’t petty politics any more, this was something serious.

  His mood lasted until he hit the outskirts, but he began to feel the familiar gloom descending as he drew closer to home. The traffic slowed as he emerged from the underpass, gently imprisoning him again in the unhappy rhythm of the city. Driving up Coronation Road, he considered letting it carry him straight on along the river – he could go into town, maybe get something to eat – but it would only be postponing the inevitable. He had to go home sometime.

  Sighing, he turned right into the warren of quiet residential streets and wound his way between the parked cars to Stackpool Road.

  He pushed the front door shut and chained it behind him. Keys dropped in the bowl on the hall stand, jacket draped over the banister, then immediately through to the lounge to switch on the TV, driving the lurking silence away. He paused, willing his shoulders to relax, before wandering through to the kitchen.

  It had been fish yesterday evening so tonight would be pasta – eating the same meal on consecutive nights made him feel uncomfortable about himself. He turned the oven on and slid in a piece of French bread to warm, then placed a pan of water on the stove. Even when his appetite deserted him, he made himself go through the ritual – cooking passed valuable time.

  When it was ready, he sat at the kitchen table with his food, a book and a single glass of wine – he knew better than to risk more when he was in this sort of mood – reading until the light from the windows began to fail.

  After the washing-up was done, he took what was left in his glass and stood in the back garden to smoke: Alice had never liked the smell of smoke in the house. It was dark now, and over the distant rumble of the city he could hear a girl laughing in the next street. Frowning, he went inside.

  By eleven, it was becoming difficult to stay awake. Wearily he climbed the stairs and went to the bathroom, then walked along the landing, past the closed bedroom door and on into the spare room. He hung his jacket in the single wardrobe and dropped his clothes in the wicker basket, then gathered up the duvet and pillows and went downstairs.

  The sofa bed opened out with a metallic creak and he arranged his bedding in the usual way before turning off the main lights. Settling down, he made himself comfortable, put the TV on timer and concentrated on the programme even though his eyelids were heavy. There was nothing on, just a documentary about architecture, but it didn’t matter. Anything, so long as his mind didn’t wander. This was how he survived, forcing himself to watch until, eventually, sleep claimed him and granted him peace.

  part 2

  SOUTH DOWNS

  12

  Wednesday, 13 June

  It was difficult to see over the dashboard so he lay back into the seat, gazing up and out of the windscreen, watching sunlight flicker down through the trees. The motion of the car was comforting, with the steady rumble of the road beneath them as tall buildings slid gently by. And then they were slowing down, the tick tick of the indicator sounding as they pulled in to the side of the road.

  They had stopped again. He looked up at his father sitting beside him, staring straight ahead with a blank expression. For a long moment they sat in dreadful silence, until a motorbike roared by, breaking the spell. With a deep breath, his father got out of the car and came round to open the passenger door.

  It was a warm day and the pavement looked pale and dusty as they walked along. A cat was sitting in the sun, just a few steps into someone’s driveway, but his father hurried him on down the street – there was no time for stroking cats today. No time for anything.

  They came to another telegraph pole – the same splintered grey wood as all the others. His father pulled out a piece of white paper, carefully covered in polythene, and began fixing it to the pole with drawing pins, his face an unfamiliar mask of fear as he smoothed down the clear film and pressed home the last pin.

  Another one done. Large, uneven capital letters at the top of the sheet, telephone number along the bottom . . . and the dark, photocopied face in the middle.

  He stared up at the face smiling out through the polythene in clean school uniform and smartly combed hair. It was the same photo that usually sat on the shelf above the fireplace at home. It was a photo of his big brother.

  ‘Come on.’

  A large hand reached down to take his and led him back towards the car. The door was held open for him and he climbed in, settling back in the seat once more. A moment later, his father got in and wearily reached across him, grasping the seat belt and pulling it over. It felt tight, pinning him down into his seat. There was a click as the belt clip snapped into the slot, and he looked up. His father was staring at him, the expression slowly changing from worry to puzzlement . . .

  ‘Sir?’

  Naysmith opened his eyes. Everything was suddenly very bright and very loud, and he became aware of a low rum
ble all around him. He blinked a couple of times and found himself looking up at a pretty blonde flight attendant in a smart red uniform.

  ‘We’ll be landing at Southampton in just a few minutes. I need you to put your seat back up for me, please.’

  She had nice eyes.

  ‘Thanks for waking me,’ he smiled as he pressed the button to raise his seat. ‘I hate it when I sleep through my stop.’

  She laughed and turned to walk back up the aisle. Naysmith watched her go, then rubbed his eyes and yawned. He checked his watch – 7.20 p.m. – before turning his attention to the window. A green patchwork of fields drifted up into view as the aircraft banked, occasional wisps of cloud whipping past the wing. Everything looked different from up here, bathed in the golden light of early evening. He leaned over, trying to identify the landscape that slid below them, searching for the coastline, motorways, rivers – anything he might recognise – straining at his seat belt to see better. It felt tight, pinning him down into his seat . . .

  . . . and suddenly he remembered the dream, that familiar dream he’d not had for years. Was it all beginning again, those memories of another life encroaching on his sleep? He stared out at the tilting horizon and wondered what it meant.

  A chime came over the public address system, followed by the captain’s voice saying, ‘Cabin crew, seats for landing please.’

  Naysmith stretched and let himself sink back into the headrest. An omen, or simply a dream? Either way, there was nothing to do now but enjoy the ride.

  He liked small airports. Everything was close together and the queues were short. Ten minutes after stepping off the plane and onto the tarmac, he was walking through the double doors into the main terminal concourse. Kim was waiting by the coffee bar, wearing a long charcoal jacket and jeans, her hair up. Her face broke into an excited smile when she spotted him and she ran over, greeting him with a long kiss.

  ‘Hey,’ he grinned after she let him go, ‘I’ve only been away three days.’