If he was surprised by this turn of events, he hid it well. “Right, then.”
“How well do you know Cassie Masterson?”
He was caught off guard, and waited for a long moment before saying cautiously, “I had some drinks with her.”
This was true, but not information enough. “And how did that come about?”
She could see that he didn’t want to tell her, and her heart sank.
“Why do you ask?” he countered.
All thought of a careful and measured interrogation flew out the window. “Thomas,” she whispered through stiff lips. “Are you workin’ with her?”
His brows came together in puzzlement. “No; I work with you, remember?”
Doyle hesitated, trying to figure out how to get the information she needed. “How many times have you spoken with her?”
“Once. We had some drinks. What is this about?”
She swallowed. “I don’t think that is exactly true.”
He stared at her for a moment, then abruptly confessed, “I rang her up and pretended interest—we had a few drinks together, and”—he tilted his head—“and so on.”
“You slept with her?” Men were a completely different breed, Doyle thought in amazement as she stared at him. Truly.
“I was trying to spare you the knowledge. You’re rather strait-laced.”
Bemused, she could only agree. “It’s a proper Puritan, I am.” Of course, there were the recent sessions in the stable and the Range Rover, but that was conjugal, and so a different sort of thing altogether. “Why on earth would you be doin’ a line with the likes of her?”
“Aside from the obvious?”
She made a face. “Stop it, Thomas, you’re givin’ me the willies.”
He took a breath, thinking about his answer. “I suppose I was trying to figure out what was going on. It seemed so—so unbelievable that Acton would throw you over for someone like her.”
“Well, Masterson didn’t find it so unbelievable, and a good thing. She was collectin’ information against Acton—was plannin’ an exposé about—about some of his recent activities.” She gave him a significant look; no need to go into detail with Williams—he probably knew more about it than she did.
Williams stared at her. “What?”
“Yes—Solonik put her up to it. But she was gettin’ information from someone on the inside.”
He was suddenly angry. “And you thought it was me?”
“No—well, not truly, anyway; will you listen? Acton found out about the plan and began doin’ a line with her, trying to make her think she could be the next Lady Acton so she’d break with Solonik.”
The light dawned, and Williams lifted his brows. “Those photos.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Those wretched photos.”
He regarded her for a moment, thinking. “But you didn’t know about Acton’s plan at the time—you thought it was real.”
“Indeed I did; and you have the bruises on your chest to show for it.”
Smiling slightly in acknowledgment, he persisted, “So why this interrogation? Why did you think I was working with Masterson?”
“You spoke of Acton’s filin’ for divorce—remember? She was the only person who would know of such a thing; Acton was lyin’ to her.”
He thought about this. “So that night when you were so upset, you weren’t going to faint about the divorce, you were going to faint because you thought I was helping her bring down Acton.”
“Exactly.”
“And as I am still alive, you did not tell Acton.”
She shook her head. “I just couldn’t believe it, despite what it seemed.” She remembered what Acton had said about perception trumping evidence—right again, that man. “So please don’t try to talk Acton out of filin’ for a divorce.”
He laughed. “No; that would be hazardous to my health.”
She smiled in return, immensely relieved, but knowing that she’d never truly believed it in the first place. “I don’t think Acton would have believed it either, Thomas, if that makes you feel any better—so not so hazardous, after all.”
“So where do things stand? Do I need to attempt another—infiltration of the enemy?”
“Oh—that is disgustin’. You will stop it, Thomas Williams, or I will give you the back o’ my hand. Acton has a very good plan to turn the tables, and you mustn’t interfere.”
He nodded, and opened the door for her. “So we are good?”
“We are,” she assured him as they passed out into the linoleum hallway. “We always will be—I’m sorry that I doubted you, even for a moment. Although I must say I can’t admire your taste.”
“It was strictly in the line of duty. She’s too old for me.”
“Not to mention she is the anti-Christ,” she reminded him with a look.
“That, too. Speaking of which, what has happened to your French friend?”
Seeking his own sexual favors, she thought as they approached the stairway. “Playin’ least-in-sight. Hopefully he’ll tire of this little sightseein’ trip and go back to his lair.”
“Remember that you are naïve, by your own admission,” he cautioned.
“Not about him.” This was true; she had no illusions.
He glanced at her sidelong. “Do I get to hear the story?”
“No,” she said firmly, “you don’t. And no detectin’, either; it would give you grey hair.”
“All right,” he agreed, and it was not the truth.
To change the subject, she switched back to the task at hand as they climbed the stairs. “I think this victim was the one that was intended from the beginnin’; they’re all ABC murders, with the difference that the other victims deserved to die, also—or at least in the vigilante’s eyes. It is important that this one was a Section Five, and not a murderer. Or not originally, anyway; pendin’ what we find out about the other deaths.”
But Williams was Williams, and not a leaper-to-conclusions. “Do you really think it is that significant? Section Five is a despicable crime—right up there with murder.”
“Yes,” she agreed diplomatically, aware that Williams had meted out his own justice on the subject. “But I truly believe it’s the key to this case, Thomas.”
They paused on the landing, and he must have been thinking about his own experience also, because he offered, “Perhaps the vigilante is a relative of an unknown victim—another boy who’d been molested.”
Doyle knit her brow. “I don’t know, Thomas—that theory doesn’t account for all the other murders of murderers. I think the killer is someone who felt he had to right all wrongs because this was the triggering event; he knew, in hindsight, that this man was not the civic leader that everyone thought he was—probably when the molested boy and the mother conveniently died. Suddenly our vigilante had it up to here, and set about killin’ this one, along with all the others who’d gotten away with murder, due to misplaced public sympathy.”
She paused, still frowning because there was something important here—she was tantalizingly close; so close that her scalp wasn’t even bothering to prickle. Slowly, she said aloud, “Their subsequent crimes made it clear they were guilty in the first place, and should never have gotten off. They were not the sympathetic victims that the papers made them out to be.” Much struck, she cleared her brow. “Faith, I can relate; I’m not who the papers make me out to be, either.”
But Williams shook his head slightly. “I disagree, Kath—you are one of the few people who are exactly what you seem.”
She couldn’t help but smile in response to his tone. “Yes, DI Williams; I am aware there’s a good reason that I’m not on undercover detail. But as for the bridge-jumpin’ heroine, believe me; that’s all puffery and sleight-of-hand.”
Realization suddenly dawned with such clarity that she had to steady herself by grasping the stair rail. It was almost anti-climactic, and she mentally castigated herself as a complete knocker for not seeing it sooner. It is all tied
up in everything else, she realized, and I suppose it was so obvious, I overlooked it completely.
“What is it?” He watched her narrowly. In a way, he was almost as adept as Acton in reading her—she should work on being less transparent; mental note.
“What is what?” she replied in all innocence, imitating Acton at his most infuriating.
“Don’t hold out on me,” he warned. “You tend to get into trouble.”
This was true, and she was touched by his concern. “I have to follow up on somethin’; I’ll let you know as soon as I have a grip on it.” She pulled out her mobile, and began to trot up the stairs to the top while he watched her from the landing, unmoving. “Don’t forget to follow up on the other murders.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said heavily, as though she were his superior officer, and she laughed, the sound echoing down the stairwell.
CHAPTER 43
DOYLE SAT ON A PARK BENCH, WAITING, AND THINKING ABOUT the vigilante killer and the hindsight murders—murders that didn’t seem like murders until the person killed again, and then the belated, horrified realization that a murderer had been set free to murder again. I’ve had my own fill of hindsight, she thought—what with the night visitor at Trestles. But apparently I’m tasked with the delivery of yet another warning, and this one just as important as the others.
It was a bit chilly, and she put her hands in her coat pockets, hoping she needn’t wait too long.
“Ho there, my lady.”
Kevin Maguire approached, looking less and less like a rumpled, out-of-shape newsman, and more like someone who was fighting a wasting disease. Unfortunately, Doyle was familiar with that look, having watched her mother waste away. “Mr. Maguire; thank you for comin’.”
Maguire sank onto the bench beside her, smiling ironically. “I suppose you already know that as we speak, there is a huge row going on in the editorial offices, and Cassie is about to get sacked in journalistic disgrace.”
While this was welcome news, she feigned puzzlement. “And why on earth would I be aware of such a thing?”
He smiled and shook his head, looking around him at the peaceful surroundings as he pulled out a cigarette. “I would never want to cross your husband.”
“I find him very amiable, myself.”
Maguire laughed aloud. “Someday you must tell me the story—I promise I won’t publish it.”
“You couldn’t,” she said frankly. “No one would believe it, and you’d wind up like Masterson.”
“I don’t know,” he ventured, still smiling as he drew on the cigarette. “I have learned—after many years in this business—that people will believe anything.”
She said a little sharply, “Particularly when a newspaper tells them to believe it.”
Sobering, he turned to regard her thoughtfully. “I take it we are not here to discuss Cassie, or your redoubtable husband.”
“You can’t just go about killin’ people, no matter how just the cause.”
There was a long pause, and then he drew on the cigarette and offered diffidently, “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Doyle placed a gentle hand on his arm. “You’re comin’ to the end, as we all will. Now is not the time to be blottin’ your copybook.”
He gazed at her in amusement. “There is no God. There is no one keeping track in a big, golden account book.”
“I would hate to be in your shoes and find out otherwise.”
He stared at her for a moment, and she wasn’t sure what he was thinking. “Perhaps I am trying to redeem myself; to make up for past hubris.”
Doyle wasn’t sure what the word meant, but she understood the gist. “Leave retribution to God, Mr. Maguire.”
He took a drag and scoffed, “There is no God.”
“I can see,” she said thoughtfully, “that we are not makin’ any progress, here.”
He gazed over at the ordered flowerbeds and blew out a breath of smoke. “I love places like this—love them. The parks are a breath of calm in the midst of all the evil; all the insanity. When you’ve been covering major crimes as long as I have, your view of the city gets a little warped.”
“Yes; you led the campaign to convince the Council to start up the recreation program at the parks for at-risk youth. Only in hindsight, you realized—with proper horror—that you’d only helped to serve up innocent victims to a monster.”
Tilting his head back, he rested his gaze on the spreading branches above them. “I thought I knew him. I thought I knew people. I was so certain of their inherent goodness.”
“You were a bit naïve, perhaps.” Ironic, that everyone thought her naïve, when she knew humankind better than most.
“I tried to shape opinion to fit my own views. And good people died—or worse.”
She touched his arm in sympathy again, reacting to the underlying bitterness. “Surely these were the rare exceptions in your career.”
With a chuckle, he tossed the cigarette stub onto the pavement before them. “You’ll not give me comfort, although I appreciate the effort. It is such a seductive, heady feeling, you know. You are so sure of your own righteousness; your own power. If you are proved wrong, it only makes you all the more arrogant.”
“It is the ultimate sin,” she noted gently. “To believe that you are unanswerable.”
“Stop trying,” he said with a smile. “It’s not going to work.”
“I have no choice,” she offered in apology. “I have to keep tryin’; it’s a long journey through eternity—imagine bein’ relieved of this burden of guilt.”
“I am relieved of it,” he assured her as he gazed out over their surroundings again. “Almost.”
Her scalp prickled, and she ventured, “Is that so? How many more on the list?”
“Only one.”
Doyle leaned forward to beg with all sincerity, “Please, please, reconsider. I know a good man to talk to, who would keep whatever you tell him private.”
“A priest.” This pronounced with mild contempt.
“A good man,” she reiterated. “He will not judge, but he may help to take the guilt away.”
“On the contrary, I’m putting the guilt to good use.”
She sat still for a moment and contemplated him, feeling that she was at an impasse. Impossible to try to make an arrest—she’d no evidence, as well he knew. “I’ll figure out who the remainin’ victim is, you know.”
He smiled. “Not this one, you won’t.”
Something in the way he said it gave her pause. “Is it Acton?” she asked, almost before she recognized the thought.
“No,” he replied, and was telling the truth. “I wouldn’t put you through it, even if he was on the list. You are one of my favorite people, did you know?”
She leaned forward again. “Then please let me convince you to change your mind. I am goin’ to find out about the last victim and put a stop to it; you don’t want to end your career as the subject of such a story.”
“No,” he agreed with bitter irony. “I am more suited to incite from the sidelines, and then run from the responsibility of what I have done.”
Doyle decided she’d done as much as she could, and it only remained to lay the whole before Acton and let him decide what to do. Gently, she asked, “Do you have someone who is takin’ care of you at home?”
He took a deep breath. “Yes. Better than I deserve. It’s a hard thing, dying.”
“Aye, that,” she agreed somberly, remembering her mother’s ordeal—incomprehensible to imagine having to face it without faith. Rising to leave, she gathered her coat around her. “I’ll remember you in my prayers, if you have no objection.”
“Not at all,” he smiled. “If anyone can convince God that he exists, it is you.”
CHAPTER 44
DOYLE WAS THOUGHTFUL AS SHE WALKED TOWARD THE MET; IT had occurred to her that all her crises seemed to be resolving themselves in a very satisfactory manner, and all at once. Williams was not a turncoat; Savoie did not seem inclin
ed to serve as Solonik’s henchman; Masterson could no longer serve that role even if she wanted to; and the vigilante killer was Maguire—something she probably should have figured out long ago. All in all, there seemed to be unmitigated good news, particularly if she was pregnant again. Now, her only task was to find out who the last victim was, and she had a sneaking suspicion—from the way Maguire’d raised it—that it was someone she knew. So—if one followed the thinking, someone she knew had gotten away with murder. Who?
She absently responded to the desk sergeant’s respectful greeting as she came through the lobby doors. The last murderer on the list could easily be Williams—Williams had dispatched his uncle the evil-doer; presumably with Acton’s help. But it was hard to imagine how Maguire would have discovered such a thing. No—more likely it was a crime the CID had investigated, so that it had come to Maguire’s attention in the first place. And besides, Maguire would have approved of Williams’s actions anyway—after all, Williams was a vigilante, himself. Maguire was more credulous—and soft-hearted— but in the end, he’d also turned to vigilantism. When he realized he’d been using his influence to champion cold-blooded killers, the remorse and guilt must have been overwhelming. The fuse had then been lit by the terrible realization that he’d aided and abetted a pedophile, and in an attempt to atone for all past sins, he’d tried to mete out a rough justice, however belated.
When she came to the lifts in the lobby, a PC held the door for her and she stepped in, smiling her thanks. The difference between me and them—Acton, Williams, and Maguire, Doyle realized, is that I believe in an ultimate justice, and so I am not so enraged or frustrated when earthly justice falls short. I have neither the desire nor the expertise to take the place of God.
“Have a nice day, Officer Doyle,” offered the PC when she stepped out at her floor.
“Thank you.” No doubt he’d tell his mates tonight at the pub that he’d shared a lift with her, but it didn’t rankle as much as it had in the past. We all need the assurance that right makes might, she thought; it’s a long wait ’til heaven.
Murder in Hindsight (A New Scotland Yard Mystery Book 3) Page 26
