Playing With Death

by Simon Scarrow

  SURETHING: Who is this?

  DRWOODMAN: Someone who knows the danger you are in. See you on the pier.

  SURETHING: Who are you?

  DRWOODMAN: You will know me when you see me. If you want to know more about your friend’s death, be there. What have you got to lose?

  Rose hears footsteps on the stairs and realizes she is running out of time.

  She is forced to leave the email program on the screen as if the victim had been accessing it and not her. She turns her attention back to the body. Did Shaw really strangle himself at the end? Or was he choked by an assailant?

  There’s a knock on the door frame. A gloved CSI woman waves at Rose. ‘Hey, you done in here?’

  ‘I need more time to look round.’

  ‘I wish I could help you with that, but we’ve had the call. We’re needed across town at another crime scene, as soon as.’

  ‘Special Agent in Charge Flora Baptiste isn’t here yet. You should wait for her.’

  ‘Sorry, but we’re being pushed to get on with it. Budget cuts and all that. We go in now, or we’ll have to come back later. Could be a lot later.’

  ‘All right, then.’

  The CSI woman enters the room and begins to lay down the walk boards as she speaks. ‘What are we thinking? Latent prints, blood?’

  ‘Yep, full works. I want all the computer equipment bagged too, please.’

  The CSI woman gets to work.

  Rose looks at the other items on Shaw’s desk. A three-tiered tray of papers is to the left, a desk tidy, some tacky ornaments from holiday travels, including a chrome camel. There is a drawer to the right. Rose tries the handle but it is locked. It takes a small key. But where would Shaw keep it?

  Rose looks back at the camel, picking it up. It is a hideous trinket no ordinary person would keep unless it had sentimental value. On the silver camel’s back is a gold basket . . . Tipping the camel forward, its basket opens, revealing a key. Rose unlocks the drawer. She pulls it towards her.

  Resting on top of a diary is a chrome Magnum .44 with a black grip, and it’s loaded. It looks brand new.

  What would Shaw need a gun for? Protection? In this neighbourhood?

  Rose leaves the study and takes a look round the main bedroom next door. The bed is unmade and clothes litter the room. The drawers are still in place and the wardrobes are half full of clothes still on their hangers. Doesn’t look like anyone turned the place over, she decides. She steels herself to talk with Mrs Shaw and descends the staircase and heads back outside, breathing the scented evening air.

  39.

  Rose sits next to Mrs Shaw on the back step of the ambulance.

  Mrs Shaw pulls the oxygen mask away from her face, her eyes red-rimmed, gazing at everything like she is new to planet earth.

  ‘Mrs Shaw, I’m Special Agent Rose Blake. I work for the FBI . . . Excuse me a moment.’

  Rose sees Baptiste’s Mercedes pulling up. She waves discreetly at her, gesturing for her to go look at the crime scene first. Baptiste nods and heads inside the house, where she is greeted by Owen.

  ‘Mrs Shaw,’ Rose continues. ‘I’m sorry for your loss and I appreciate this is an immensely painful time for you—’

  ‘Do you? Have you lost your husband too?’

  ‘No, Mrs Shaw but—’

  ‘Then you can’t appreciate it.’ Mrs Shaw takes a deep drag of the oxygen. ‘I’m sorry. You’re just doing your job. Right?’

  ‘Yes. And I’d really like your help.’

  ‘OK. What can I do?’

  ‘If you can tell me what happened this afternoon, that would be a start. Why did you come over to your husband’s house?’

  ‘The house is mine just as much as his. I was aiming to have it when the divorce went through.’

  ‘All right, then why come to the house you jointly own, then?’

  ‘We stayed in touch after the separation. Used to have a coffee every other day at first. Then that began to slip. I hadn’t seen Seb – Sebastian – for nearly two weeks before I came over today to see if there was anything wrong. He’s been under a lot of pressure recently. That’s the main reason the marriage got into . . . difficulties.’

  ‘What kind of pressure?’

  ‘Seb was spending a lot of time at work. Said he was working on some kind of breakthrough technology. It began about a year ago. I hardly saw anything of him after that. When he was at home, he’d go straight up to his study and lock the door.’

  ‘Excuse me for asking, but is that usual in his line of work?’

  ‘Not usual. But from time to time he worked on classified projects. He’d lock the study then. But this was different.’ She pauses. ‘I even began to wonder if he was having an affair, or something. Only . . .’

  ‘Only what?’

  ‘He’s not the type. He’s a, well, he’s kind of a nerd. When we first met I had to do all the running.’

  ‘So you think he wasn’t having an affair?’

  ‘I doubt it, but then I heard him mention a name once, when he was taking a call one night, outside on the stoop.’

  ‘What name?’

  ‘Iris.’

  Rose feels a tingle at the base of her skull. ‘Iris? Are you certain?’

  Mrs Shaw nods.

  ‘Any second name?’

  ‘No. Just Iris. When he saw that I was listening he moved to his study to take the rest of the call.’

  ‘Did he ever mention this Iris any other time?’

  Mrs Shaw shakes her head. ‘No. Just the once.’

  ‘And you’re sure he wasn’t seeing another woman?’

  Mrs Shaw looks away in embarrassment.

  ‘Mrs Shaw, it’s important.’

  ‘Sebastian liked to see women sure enough. He liked pornography.’ She pauses, and lowers her gaze. ‘He liked me to watch it with him and try stuff. Sometimes I said no, and he didn’t like that.’

  ‘Stuff?’

  ‘It was a bit rough at times. That’s all I’m saying. I don’t want to talk about it. Not now. Is that OK?’

  ‘Later then . . . Do you think this Iris was someone who would let him do things to her? Things you wouldn’t, perhaps?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t want to know.’ Tears form in her eyes and Mrs Shaw wipes them away.

  ‘OK . . . OK, it’s all right. Let’s talk about this afternoon. How did you find Sebastian?’

  ‘I told the officer already.’

  ‘I know. Just give me the short version.’

  ‘When he didn’t answer his door I knelt down to look through the keyhole and I could barely see him . . . The lights were down low in there and Seb seemed to be in some sort of dark suit, but he wasn’t moving.’

  Mrs Shaw rubs tears from her cheeks.

  ‘I knew something was wrong. I knocked harder on the door. It was locked. There was still a bit of a gap showing through the keyhole so I had a look. I saw him in his chair. Only it didn’t look like him. Didn’t look like any person I ever saw. So I ran down to the kitchen and took a screwdriver from the gadget drawer and came back up and forced the lock. It’s not very strong . . .’ She pauses, shutting her eyes. ‘And that’s when I found him. It looked like he was . . . crushed. How could someone do that to a human being? I called 911 at once. You know the rest.’

  So far, everything Mrs Shaw had said rang true. All the same, the couple were going through a divorce and the wife wanted the house for herself. That was motive, and Rose makes a mental note to delve more deeply into Mrs Shaw’s background. But she can detect no attempt at evasion, or lying.

  ‘Thank you. That’s been helpful. I have a few further questions, if you don’t mind?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Did you know anything about what he was work
ing on?’

  ‘He could never tell me much. It was all hush-hush. But it was something to do with the development of new hardware for the military.’ Mrs Shaw pauses, remembering. ‘He did seem a little agitated lately when a colleague of his died. He seemed really shaken when he came back from the funeral. He said that there had been an FBI agent there. She had spoken with him.’ She pauses and stares at Rose. ‘You?’

  ‘Yes. Did your husband have any enemies?’

  ‘If he did, I wouldn’t have known about them.’

  ‘Did you know he had a gun?’

  ‘Sebastian had a gun? No way.’

  ‘It was in his desk. It was in a locked drawer.’

  ‘No. I had no idea about that. I hate guns. So did Seb. I have no idea why he would buy a gun. Why would he do that?’

  ‘I don’t have any answers right now.’

  Suddenly Mrs Shaw looks tired, and Rose decides to end her questioning. ‘Thank you, Mrs Shaw. You’ve been a great help.’

  She hands the woman one of her contact cards, then walks away from the ambulance, looking back up at the house. She can see Baptiste and Owen through the study window.

  Rose wonders – just what kind of a psychopath slips in, undetected, and breaks nearly every bone in a man’s body? What drives someone to do such a thing?

  40.

  Rose finishes relating her exchange with Mrs Shaw to Owen and Baptiste as they stand on the driveway.

  ‘No witnesses, no neighbours recall hearing anything unusual.’

  ‘Ah shit,’ Owen mutters. ‘The vultures are here.’

  Three news teams have arrived, cameramen and reporters jostling for the best angle, bright camera lights sweeping and flashing. Some are already interviewing neighbours. At the front of the cordon is a tall blonde reporter wearing a black beanie hat.

  ‘Hey, Agent Baptiste! It’s Gabby Vance, BNC,’ she shouts from behind the crime scene tapes. ‘Eric, tighter. Tighter.’ Her cameraman trudges forward with his HD camera and mike to get a closer shot of Gabby and the Shaws’ house.

  It’s not uncommon for the media to stalk the FBI, but Rose hates all the tabloids for doing it, and Vance from the Bay News Channel is by far the most sensationalist. Official news channels and newspapers are in their death throes. People want access to everything immediately and they want it free. Respected, principled journalists have been replaced by unofficial opinion-suppliers ranging from the tacky opportunist to the earnest moral crusader.

  Vance had ruthlessly elbowed her way through the competition to be the queen of online reporting. She also has her own vlog called ‘The Gab’, propounding all sorts of conspiracies and half-baked truths. The kind of thing that makes the clickbaiting Alt.Truths website look like the model of responsible journalism. How she obtains her information is another grievance altogether – some accusing her of hacking smartphones, webcams, and email. She’d stalked Rose for every tidbit she could glean on the Koenig case, even following her and Robbie to school, to get information from Robbie in the playground. Two months ago Rose had threatened to file a restraining order to get Vance off her back, and hasn’t seen her since.

  Until tonight.

  ‘What has happened here? Why is the FBI involved? We’ve a right to know,’ Gabby demands, her tone thick with righteousness. The light on top of Eric’s camera glares in Rose’s face, hurting her eyes.

  Baptiste tries to remain professional. ‘Ms Vance, this is a federal investigation and we cannot discuss any details at this time.’ She stoops under the crime scene tapes, heading towards her Mercedes.

  ‘What she said.’ Owen grins, Jared following suit. He taps the fob and the indicator lights quickly flash on his Chevy Suburban.

  Gabby squints, shifting her attention to Rose.

  ‘Rose Blake! Has this anything to do with the Backwoods Butcher?’

  ‘No,’ Rose says tersely.

  ‘So is there a new killer on the scene?’ Gabby probes. ‘Or just a tragic accident?’

  ‘We cannot discuss any details at this time.’

  Rose ducks under the crime scene tapes.

  ‘Can you give us any further news on the Koenig case, Agent Blake?’ Gabby steps in between Rose and her car.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any leads you’re following?’

  ‘No, excuse me, please.’

  ‘Why’d you let him escape, when you should have killed him?’

  ‘See you guys later!’ Rose calls out to Owen and Baptiste to emphasize that she’s done with Gabby Vance.

  ‘Shit . . . You coulda given me somethin’,’ she hears Vance complaining.

  Rose ignores her, hurrying to her car and climbing inside. She eases back against the headrest. For probably the first time in Vance’s career, what she just asked Rose was one hundred per cent right. A world without Koenig in it would be a better place.

  41.

  Koenig takes a sharp intake of breath as he watches the clip on ‘The Gab’. One face in particular is very familiar. He replays the clip back to the auburn-haired woman. As she moves up away from Vance, he pauses on the close-up of her face.

  It’s her. The bitch at the cabin.

  ‘Hello, Special Agent Rose Blake,’ he mutters.

  Koenig takes a screenshot of the FBI agent, zooms in on her irritated expression. Then he presses print and his desktop printer whirs into life.

  He mutes the computer’s sound and picks up the sheet of paper with an image of the screen grab. He takes some scissors and cuts around it, holding it between his thumb and forefinger. The satisfaction of recognition soon warps into deep, dark hatred. This woman has ruined everything for him. He’d had the perfect set-up: thousands of men and women on dating sites looking for Mr and Mrs Perfect had presented him with rich pickings. He’d made trophies out of thirty-six of them before that bitch had tried to trap him, and failed.

  Well, there are plenty more trophies to be had, the moment he emerges from hiding.

  Koenig takes the printout and crosses to the bulletin board in the corner of his living room. It is covered with news cuttings concerning the disappearance of the Backwoods Butcher and the hunt for the killer. He knows that there is far more interest in him online, but he likes these more tangible tributes to his fame. He takes out a thumb tack, places Rose’s image on the board and secures it in position, giving it a tiny adjustment to make sure that the image is level and in line with the other pieces of paper. He is a particularly neat and ordered killer.

  It has been too long since he took the English backpacker and tasted the thrill of the hunt and the ecstasy of watching his victims writhe beneath him as he applied his professional skills to remodelling their appearance, terminally.

  Koenig is particular about the way he selects his victims. He chooses those women, and a handful of men, who are vain about their appearance. The kind of people who feel that they are a cut above the rest of humanity, who think they are special. The kind of people who, back in their school days, made fun of those they deemed ugly, or simply plain. Just as they had done to Koenig himself. Even now, he feels his heart twist in pain as he recalls the insults hurled at him in the school yard, and the sneers and sidelong looks of contempt he had endured in class.

  ‘How many of you have done anything notable with your lives?’ he demands of the empty room. ‘Prom queens and sports jocks with IQs smaller than your fucking shoe size. That’s what you are. And me? I’m the one who worked hard. Who got the grades. The one who went to study medicine. And now look at me. More than you’ll ever be. You are cattle. With dull minds and glassy eyes, too stupid to see the hunter in your midst.’

  After medical school, he’d specialized in cosmetic surgery, and early on had borrowed a small fortune to correct all those features that had been the cause of his torment in earlier life. Besides, it always hel
ps a good plastic surgeon to have a handsome face to present to his clients. And he had enjoyed the patronage of many clients for years before he had met Kayla Holmes, the first person he killed.

  She was the daughter of a rich property developer who bought up chunks of inner-city slums and replaced them with luxury high-rise apartment buildings, subsidized by the municipal authorities he bribed. Kayla was a tall, slender beauty whose nose was just a shade too big, enough to mortify her every time she looked in a mirror. She’d come to Koenig’s clinic. She wanted the procedure to be a secret and she would pay him in cash to ensure there would be no record. Once he had given her his assurance that he would be discreet, Kayla had flirted with Koenig. After the first consultation he had felt bold enough to ask her out for dinner. He had booked a table in the best of restaurants, only for her to arrive an hour late, pick at her first course, and then abandon him for a male friend who had breezed up to their table with talk of the summer he had spent with a mutual acquaintance on his yacht touring the coast of Italy.

  The pain of his rejection opened old wounds and rubbed salt deep into every cut. But Koenig had kept his cool as he watched them quit the restaurant together, leaving him with the bill. It was on that night that his mind was flooded with the light of revelation about his true nature and his true purpose in life.

  So, when Kayla turned up at the clinic two months later for her procedure, after telling her friends and family that she was travelling to the Far East for some months, Koenig had made his preparations. He had arranged for her to arrive at the weekend, when none of the other staff were there. She lay, in her surgical gown, on the operating table in the small theatre, smiling up at him as he injected her with an anaesthetic. Her eyes closed, her body relaxed and she drifted off into unconsciousness.

  When she came round she was no longer at the clinic, but in the basement beneath Koenig’s secluded cabin in the forest. She was strapped to a large, plain wooden bench, stripped naked. And Koenig had taken his time with her, starting with the removal of her nose, then her ears, and lips, her screams merely music to his ears. Each cry compensation for the indignities and torments he had once suffered at the hands of people like Kayla. With a judicious use of further anaesthetics Koenig had kept her conscious but immobilized for several days until there was not much left of Kayla Holmes to recognize. He kept her eyes and finely manicured hands as trophies and disposed of the rest of the body parts in weighted garbage bags he dropped into the middle of a lake not far from the cabin.