Involuntarily, he raised one hand to his lips. It was as he’d feared. He knew his breathing had quickened. So far, everything matched. He was pretty sure of that. But it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.
He made himself take extra special care. He knew he must be as sure of himself as humanly possible before proceeding. He closed the file and opened another containing the Met’s report on the murder of Timothy Southey in London, sent over by Nobby Clarke’s team.
He needed to double-check that the dates matched.
They did.
Vogel leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment. An occasional habit when under stress or in shock. He clasped his hands and rested them on his chin. His palms were clammy.
He told himself it could still be nothing. All of it. On the other hand, he thought, better safe than sorry.
He sucked in a gulp of air, filling his lungs, then he leaned forward and picked up his phone again to call Dawn Saslow.
AEOLUS
I knew the net was closing in at last. I suppose it was inevitable. Even so, it was probably a stroke of silly, bad luck that was going to bring me down, rather than any mistakes I had made. The events of the last few minutes had been disturbing; an unlucky coincidence that could destroy me. I might get away with it, yet again, or I could be wrong. It may not have mattered at all. I told myself to stay calm.
I was the one who would have to clean up the mess that Saul left behind in his foolish wish to meet Sonia. But, no matter, I was strong. I was clever. I could handle this. I’d handled everything else, after all. I controlled the winds. I could whip up a hurricane. I was all powerful. These people would never understand me. Never get close to me or be able to guess what I was capable of. They would never get inside my head.
I had always known, I suppose, that I would have to reveal myself one day. Show them who I was. I was proud of what I was capable of. Proud of what I had done right under their foolish noses. In some ways, I wanted it out there. I wanted the world to know who I really was. And there were people in my life I would quite relish bringing down with me too. Smug bastards who thought they were smart but, compared with me, they were stupid.
So it annoyed me immensely that they could now take credit for having brought me down. I had always imagined that I, and only I, would decide how and when to show myself. That I would reveal myself on my own terms, as I pleased and right now I wasn’t ready. Not yet.
I had to remind myself that it still might not happen. Not any of it. They had all repeatedly shown how slow they were. How clumsy their thought processes were. I told myself I was quite likely to continue to get away with it. They could not unmask me. I was Aeolus. I governed the winds. I governed a force that made all the sources of power and energy created by man look as pathetic as they really were.
It was at that moment that the phone rang.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Saslow was mildly surprised at Vogel’s instruction, not least because the DI was overriding a direct order from DCI Hemmings, but she wasn’t in any way alarmed. That’s how it was with policing. People kept changing their minds, particularly senior officers, it seemed to her.
‘I need you and Willis back here sharpish,’ said Vogel. ‘Something urgent has come up.’
‘Right, boss,’ said Saslow. ‘Are you sure you don’t want us to check out the Avonmouth Aeolus first? We’re nearly there.’
‘I said it was urgent,’ snapped Vogel. ‘Please don’t argue with me.’
‘I-I wasn’t, I mean, uh, sorry boss,’ said Saslow, stumbling over her words.
She was surprised and curious. This wasn’t like Vogel. He was almost always measured and quietly spoken.
‘Who’s driving?’ asked Vogel
‘Willis,’ replied the detective constable. She was really curious now.
‘Are you in his car?’
‘Uh yes, it was parked right outside, so …’
‘Of course,’ responded Vogel.
Saslow felt he was making an effort to sound as if everything was fine, when it wasn’t. Whatever he wanted her and Willis for, was something major, no doubt about that.
‘All right, well ask him to turn around soon as he can and get back here, OK?’
‘OK boss, will do,’ said Saslow.
She was aware of Willis glancing at her sideways.
‘What was all that about?’ he asked, turning his attention to the road again.
‘The boss wants us back straight away,’ Saslow told him. ‘Said something urgent has come up.’
‘Did he say what it was?’
‘Nope. Think it’s something big though. He practically bit my head off when I suggested we check out this alleged Aeolus first. After all, it was Hemmings who dispatched us …’
Saslow paused, suddenly aware that Willis had made no effort to find a place to turn around or even to slow down. In fact, he seemed to have speeded up.
‘Come on, John,’ she said. ‘We’d better get back there. The boss is in no mood to be messed about, I can tell you. In any case, I want to know what the hell is going on.’
‘Of course,’ said Willis. He aimed a smile at her, began to slow down and swung his vehicle into a side street, which appeared to lead only to a row of deserted lock-ups.
‘This will do,’ he said, putting the car into reverse.
Saslow was still musing about Vogel’s manner.
‘He sounded really stressed out,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard him quite like that … just can’t imagine what’s got him going. He’s usually so bloody cool …’
They slowed to a halt. Willis switched off the engine.
‘For God’s sake, what are you doing now?’ asked Saslow.
‘I think I need a slash,’ said Willis.
‘Well hurry up then …’ began Saslow.
She managed no more words. Willis’s fist caught her full on the right side of her head. It was a good punch. He was a fit man and he’d trained as a boxer, earlier in his police career. Saslow wasn’t knocked unconscious but she was stunned.
By the time she became fully aware again, she realised that Willis had used his handcuffs to fasten her hands behind her back, then pulled her seatbelt tight around her. Too tight. Her hands and arms were twisted uncomfortably. She was aware of shooting pains in her shoulders and her chest. It felt as if she could hardly breathe.
She began to shout and struggle, kicking out at the man she’d thought was just another colleague. The one she spent the most time with.
‘Stop that,’ Willis commanded. ‘If you do not stop I will kill you, here and now. If you do as I tell you, there is a chance that you might live. I have no wish to hurt you. I am not a common murderer. I need to protect myself, that’s all.’
His voice was very calm.
Saslow was afraid she was going to be sick. She’d heard and used the expression sick with fear, but she didn’t think she’d ever really understood what it had meant before now. She stopped struggling. She would do as she was told. Maybe he was going to hold her hostage. She had been trained for hostage situations but nothing, she thought, could ever prepare you for the real thing. The very thought of it terrified her even more, but she guessed it was her best chance of survival.
She stared at him. The man she knew only as DS John Willis. His eyes were dead and his lips were contorted. His voice sounded different. The tone was deeper than usual and he spoke with the hint of an accent she could not quite recognise. It could have been Greek, or perhaps Latin. Although Saslow, like most people, had never heard much Latin spoken. She wondered how she could not have seen something in that face, heard something in that voice before to make her at least suspicious of John Willis But she never had.
‘You are Aeolus,’ she murmured.
It was not a question, just a statement of fact, which she now accepted with a terrible, clear finality.
‘I am.’ He hissed the words at her, his face close to hers. ‘I am the ruler of the wind. I can dictate the direction
the world will take. I can be whomever I want and I can do what I want, just as I have always done. You cannot stop me. No one can stop me.’
His eyes were quite mad. Dawn could not understand how he had been able to hide his obvious insanity so well that neither she, nor Vogel, nor anyone else had suspected anything. How could they have missed it and for so long?
His words were those of a madman too. A madman who had killed three times. At least three times. How many more times might he have killed in his crazy mixed-up life, she wondered?
Her mouth was dry. Her throat was dry. There had previously been frightening moments in Dawn Saslow’s time as a police officer, but she had never before experienced blind terror.
So this was what it felt like.
Almost involuntarily, she began to scream. The uncontrolled wailing of a creature suddenly aware that it is in mortal danger. A sound common to all living things.
He hit her again in the side of the head. It was an even more powerful blow than before.
Afterwards there was nothing.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Sonia Baker had told Vogel that she thought it was Willis she had seen at Bath railway station, the day she had gone there to meet Saul.
‘He’s the man I thought was my Saul, I’m almost sure of it,’ she said. ‘The man who nearly got off the train, then seemed to change his mind. There wasn’t much resemblance to the photograph he’d posted online, but there was something about him. And then there was the way he peered along the platform, as if he were looking for someone. Our eyes met. I was convinced I saw recognition in them.’
Already shocked, Vogel had pressed her, pressurised her even, and it was then that she had said she couldn’t be certain.
‘Not a police officer, surely?’ she’d queried. ‘I mean you work with this man, Mr Vogel. How could it possibly be him?’
‘I don’t know, Miss Baker,’ Vogel had replied. ‘I certainly hope you are mistaken, I know that.’
‘Well, I probably am,’ she said then. ‘After all, surely you’d know if someone you were close to was capable of such terrible things. We’d all know, wouldn’t we?’
‘Well, we’d all like to think we would,’ ventured Vogel cautiously.
‘Yes,’ said Sonia Baker. ‘Yes, of course. Oh, take no notice of me, Mr Vogel. I’m just a silly woman approaching middle age still looking and hoping for love. I get everything wrong.’
But Vogel had taken notice, and his antennae had begun to waggle, even though he didn’t really want them to.
The first file he had looked at on his computer, just after his conversation with Sonia, was the attendance record of MCIT officers. He then double-checked that his immediate suspicions were correct. Timothy Southey had been murdered at the Leicester Square Premier Inn on the same day that Willis had so apologetically requested leave, because his younger child had been taken ill and rushed to hospital. And Vogel clearly remembered Willis going home with a migraine on the day that Melanie Cooke was killed. An excuse to disappear because he could not control one of his identities perhaps, a scenario presented by Professor Heath.
None of this was conclusive and Vogel sincerely hoped he had summoned Saslow and Willis back to Kenneth Steele House quite unnecessarily. It could all still be coincidence and he could be quite wrong in his suspicions.
He decided to call Willis’s ex-wife, now Mrs Vera Court, before alerting DCI Hemmings. Fortuitously, she remained listed as Willis’s next of kin. She was the mother of his children after all and luckily retained an unchanged mobile number.
Vogel opened the conversation by asking if her children were well.
‘Uh yes, very well, thank you,’ Vera had replied. ‘But why are you calling Mr Vogel? Has something happened to John?’
‘No, no,’ Vogel reassured her, thinking to himself that, really, he had little idea what may or may not have happened to John Willis.
‘No, nothing like that,’ he continued. ‘It’s just that I need to check something. Has your son been taken to hospital recently?’
Vera Willis giggled in a nervous sort of way.
‘Our Sam? Fit as a flea, that one. Can’t remember when he was last ill and he’s never been to hospital in his life. Oh, except when he broke his toe playing football, but he wasn’t kept in or anything …’
She paused.
‘What’s this all about, Mr Vogel?’
‘Oh, I’m just checking out attendance records here, that sort of thing,’ Vogel responded, trying to keep his voice light. ‘About a month ago, John suddenly asked for leave, because your son had been taken to hospital. He said it was very serious and he needed to be there. Do I take it that wasn’t the case?’
‘Absolutely not, Mr Vogel.’
‘Was he with you at all around that time?’
Vera Willis laughed, more genuinely this time, albeit with some irony.
‘I can’t remember when I last saw John, Mr Vogel,’ she replied. ‘He’s not visited the kids in years, rarely bothered since we parted. I doubt he’d turn up, even if one of them was rushed to hospital. I doubt it very much. He pays his child maintenance regularly on a direct debit, always has done. But he made it pretty clear, years ago, that was it as far as he was concerned. He would do his legal duty until they were eighteen, but he wanted nothing to do with any of us.’ She paused. ‘What’s he done, Mr Vogel? What’s that bastard done?’
Vogel was surprised at the bitterness in her voice and the note of resignation.
She spoke again, before he had chance to.
‘Nothing would surprise me,’ she said. ‘You should know that. I’ve always thought there was no limit to what he might be capable of.’
‘Why do you say that, Mrs Court?’
‘I lived with him didn’t I? I had his children. I’m not sure John has ever allowed anyone to get to know him, really get to know him, but if there is anyone in the world who does, then that would be me.’
Vogel felt his nerves jangle as the woman spoke.
‘Come on, Mr Vogel,’ she continued. ‘Anyone who’s lived with a copper knows DCIs don’t check on attendance records.’
She was right there, thought Vogel, but he couldn’t tell her any more, not yet.
‘Look Mrs Court,’ he said. ‘I’ll not insult your intelligence. It is possible that John may be involved in something very serious. But I’m not sure yet, so, for the time being, I can’t discuss it with you and certainly not on the phone. I wonder, you couldn’t pop along to Kenneth Steele House later on today, could you? I wouldn’t ask you if it weren’t important. Also, by the time you get here I should know more.’
‘You’re beginning to frighten me, Mr Vogel.’
‘I’m sorry. I can assure that’s not my intention. Indeed, it is still quite possible that I might be wasting your time.’ Vogel paused and took a deep breath. He no longer believed what he was saying. It was both extraordinary and terrifying, but everything was leading to Willis. ‘Could you make it in about an hour?’ Vogel continued. ‘I could send a squad car to pick you up, if that would help.’
‘No. I’ll drive myself. The last thing I want is a cop car pulling up around here. I’m fairly free during the day, as the kids are at school, but I shall have to be back well before three, when they get home.’
‘We shouldn’t keep you long,’ said Vogel, who actually had no idea at all whether that was true or not.
‘All right. I’ll see you in an hour or so.’
‘I’m most grateful, Mrs Willis,’ responded Vogel. ‘There’s just one thing more. Please make no attempt to contact John directly. This whole matter is highly delicate and highly confidential. So please don’t try to phone him.’
‘Phone him?’ queried the woman. ‘I couldn’t damned well phone him, even if I wanted to. Bastard changed all his phone numbers years ago and he’s certainly never given me the new ones. He doesn’t want me in his life and I can assure you, Mr Vogel, I certainly don’t want him in mine.’
Vogel put the ph
one down with Vera Court’s voice ringing in his ears. What she had told him made it even more likely that Sonia had been right and that her online suitor had been a disguised Willis. Or, if Vogel’s Aeolus theory was correct, a Willis alter ego, which was far more frightening. Not only was there evidence that Willis had lied about his whereabouts at the time of Tim Southey’s death, but Vera Court’s view of him, of a man who she thought had “no limit to what he might be capable of,” shed a disturbing new light on Willis’s character. Vogel reminded himself that husbands and wives often had low opinions of each other after an acrimonious break-up. None the less, this, on top of the accumulating evidence against Willis, led him to accept that an urgent investigation into the detective sergeant was now called for. And the time had come to make a full report to DCI Hemmings.
Vogel just hoped he had done the right thing, in attempting to quietly recall Saslow and Willis. But perhaps he should have had Saslow’s phone tracked and sent an armed response unit straightaway to intercept the two officers. He had chosen what he had considered to be the course of action least likely to bring about a violent outcome. If Willis had been confronted by armed officers, he would have known at once that he was a suspect. Dawn Saslow was with him and if he really were Aeolus, which was beginning to seem more and more likely, then God knows what he might do to her before he was apprehended.
Aeolus was totally ruthless.
He was supremely arrogant, too. The manner of his killings made that quite clear. Aeolus believed he was cleverer than anyone else and that he could do just what he wanted, that he was untouchable.
He was also totally mad.
Was Willis mad? Vogel couldn’t get his head around it. Could he be that mad and none of them aware of it? He remembered how closed up Willis had always been, how he’d rarely smiled or engaged in conversation about anything other than police business. Willis made Vogel look outgoing and open.
Professor Freda Heath had told him about people suffering from multiple personality disorders being totally convincing, but could anyone be that convincing? Vogel was still clinging to the hope that nobody could, that his suspicions were unfounded and that Willis was the socially awkward but professionally excellent copper he had always been, nothing more or less.
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