by James Carol
‘But you did manage to leave him.’ Winter nodded to the boots lined up neatly beside the porch door. ‘Does that have anything to do with the second pair of boots?’
Cathy smiled the first genuine smile that they’d seen. ‘It has everything to do with them. They belong to Brett. He doesn’t take photographs, and he doesn’t hang them up in every room of the house. He works for the Forestry Service. He is one of the good guys.’
‘Did you meet him online too?’
She nodded. ‘I was looking at dating sites one day and something about his profile picture made me want to know more, so I sent him a message. He messaged me back and we started chatting. He’s so laid-back and open, the complete opposite of Billy.’
‘So how did you manage to get away from Billy?’ Winter asked.
Cathy didn’t answer for a while. She was staring at the top of the Douglas firs that ran along the edge of the lake, watching them wave gently back and forth in the breeze. There was sadness in her eyes, a wish that things had turned out differently.
‘Billy bought me a kitten for my birthday, a cute little silver-grey tabby. I called her Sprinkles. Weird name, I know, but it suited her. Anyway, one day I woke up and found her lying dead at the back door. It turned out that she’d been poisoned. The most likely explanation was that a neighbour had put down some rat poison and she’d eaten it. That’s what Billy thought had happened.’
‘But you were never convinced.’
Cathy shook her head. ‘I couldn’t shake the feeling that Billy killed her. I didn’t have any proof, just a feeling. He was actually really nice about the whole thing. He couldn’t do enough for me. Those doubts still nagged away at me, though.’
‘How long had you had Sprinkles for?’
‘About three months.’
‘Long enough to get attached, then?’
Cathy smiled another genuine smile, this one tinged with sadness. ‘I was attached from the word go. I’ve always been a sucker for animals.’ She pointed to the sty. ‘Take those piglets, for example. Brett thinks we’re going to eat them. That is so not going to happen. They’re way too cute.’
‘Was Billy still taking photographs of you around this time?’
‘Actually, he stopped for a while.’
‘Do you think he might have been photographing you secretly?’
Cathy sat up straighter in her chair. Even though the temperature was in the mid-seventies, she had her arms around herself like she was suddenly cold. ‘It’s possible, I guess.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Jesus, what a freak. I can’t believe I stayed with him so long.’
‘So how did you get away?’ Anderton asked.
‘Brett drove up to Vancouver to rescue me. This was a couple of weeks after Sprinkles died. All I took was some clothes and a few personal belongings.’
‘And Billy didn’t kill himself.’
‘Clearly not.’
‘Did he try to find you?’
‘I guess so, but I can’t say for sure. The only thing I can be certain of was that he never found me. Not that I expected him to. Idaho might as well be a million miles from Vancouver. And Nordman is pretty much off the grid. Then there’s the fact that we’re in a different country. Those were the main reasons I moved here. Well, that and Brett, of course. I was confident that Billy would never find me. And even if he had, there’s no way that I was going back.’
‘Were you ever allowed in his office?’ Winter asked.
‘No, that was his space. If the door was shut I was supposed to leave him alone. I didn’t mind at first. I was struggling to get work, so we were living off of the money that he was earning. And it made sense. He needed peace and quiet to do his work. But as time went on, I began to wonder what he got up to in there.’
‘Were you ever tempted to sneak in and take a look?’
‘Of course I was tempted, but the door was always locked when he wasn’t at home.’
‘What about the attic?’
Cathy gave him a confused look. ‘What about it?’
‘That’s where Billy was building his bombs.’
‘Not while I was living there. And I know that for a fact. I needed to get something out of there just before I left. There were no bombs in there, just junk.’
Winter hesitated. ‘I’m really parched. It’s all this talking. Would you mind getting me some coffee, please?’
58
Cathy got up and went inside, her footsteps tapping across the old wood. Anderton waited until the porch door had swung shut before turning to face him.
‘I’m really parched. Nobody says that any more, not unless they’re taking part in a remake of Gone With the Wind. And if you’re dehydrated, water is better than coffee. But it takes time to make coffee, so I start wondering why you want Cathy out of the way. What’s on your mind?’
Winter smiled. ‘I want to take Cathy back to Vancouver. We can use her to draw Gifford out. He was clearly obsessed with her, and this was an obsession that ran deep. It isn’t going to disappear overnight.’
‘You think he’s still in love with her?’
Winter shook his head. ‘Anderton, he was never in love with her. Gifford’s a psychopath. A narcissist. He is incapable of loving another person. You need empathy to do that and he doesn’t have any.’
‘But he tried to kill himself. Surely that proves he had some feelings for her.’
‘He tried to kill himself because he didn’t want her to leave. She fulfilled a useful function in his life. If she’d left, it would have inconvenienced him. Pathologically pragmatic, remember?’
‘But to attempt suicide?’ Anderton shook her head. ‘I just don’t see it. It’s too extreme. He didn’t go across the wrist, Winter, he went up the vein. That proves he was serious. I’m sorry, I’m not buying the “pathologically pragmatic” line. Not this time.’
‘That’s because you’re thinking like a normal person. Try thinking like a psychopath.’
Anderton was still shaking her head.
‘Okay,’ he went on. ‘So Cathy tells Gifford she’s leaving. The first thing he’s going to do is establish if this is an idle threat. It’s not, so he starts running scenarios. He needs to do something that will stop Cathy in her tracks, and he needs her to think twice about doing anything like this again. Slashing his vein is the perfect solution. Cathy is immediately invested in the situation. If he threatens to do this again, she’s going to spin back in time and see herself covered in blood trying to save him.’
‘But he could have died.’
Winter shook his head. ‘Cathy wasn’t going to let that happen. Yes, they’d just had a big fight, but as soon as he cut himself she would have been straight on the phone calling an ambulance. It’s what anyone would have done, and Gifford knows that. He would have been thinking about ambulance response times while he was cutting his vein open. And that’s another thing. He only cut one vein open. If he’d been really serious he would have cut open both arms.’
‘It’s still a huge risk. He’s gambling with his life.’
‘You’re still thinking like a normal person. Psychopaths are risk takers. The bottom line is that he wanted to stop Cathy leaving him. This was the solution he came up with. What’s more, it worked, at least in the short term.’
Anderton thought this over for a second. ‘Okay, I can see what you’re saying, but I’m still not a hundred per cent convinced.’
‘But you’re in the high nineties.’
‘Try the low nineties. Okay, let’s say we somehow manage to persuade Cathy to come back to Vancouver. What then?’
‘We get Charlotte Delaney to interview her. If Cathy goes on TV acting all tearful then that could be enough to persuade Gifford to give himself up. At the very least he might try and make contact with her.’
‘Okay, the first thing that’s wrong with that scenario is that it involves Charlotte Delaney, and anything involving Charlotte Delaney is never going to be a good idea. As for persuading Gifford to give hi
mself up, that’s bullshit and we both know it.’
Winter smiled.
‘You want to put her on TV so Gifford goes after her. He’s obsessed and he’s angry. Seeing her again after all these years is going to tip him over the edge. As for what that looks like, or how much danger Cathy will be in, well, that’s another matter. I’ve got to hand it to you Winter. It’s a pragmatic solution to a tricky problem. It’s also a psychopath’s solution.’
‘We can keep Cathy safe. Play it right and she’ll never be in any real danger.’
‘But she’ll still be in some danger.’
‘Have you got any better ideas?’
Anderton shrugged and sighed. ‘At this stage, no. So how the hell do we persuade her to get on a plane and come to Vancouver? I mean, she didn’t even want to talk to us.’
‘Leave that to me.’
Thirty seconds later the porch door creaked open and Cathy came out carrying two mugs. She handed one to Winter, put the other on the table, then sat down. Winter looked over and waited for her to meet his eye.
‘We’d like you to come back to Vancouver with us.’
She shook her head. Her face was set and determined. ‘No. My life is here now. I’ll never go back there.’
Winter took out his cell phone and pulled up a picture of Isabella Sobek’s mutilated body. He held up the phone so Cathy could see the screen. Then he explained to her exactly what she was looking at, right down to the last detail.
Then he explained why it would be her fault if Gifford killed again.
Right down to the last detail.
59
It was almost six when they landed back at Boundary Bay. A headwind had pushed against them all the way, adding fifteen minutes to the return journey. This leg had taken a little over two hours. Winter was up front next to Dan. Anderton and Cathy were in the seat behind. Cathy hadn’t said a word since they’d left Nordman. She was locked into her own little bubble of misery, staring out the side window of the Cessna. In the end it had taken three photographs to break her. She eventually cracked when she saw an autopsy picture of Alicia Kirchner with her ribcage wide open.
The drive from Boundary Bay to the Shangri La took forty minutes. Nobody said a word for the entire journey. Nobody had said a word in the Cessna either, but the engine noise had made that an acceptable silence. This was anything but. The Mercedes was a quiet ride and you could barely hear the engine at all. Anderton had switched on the radio, but this just seemed to highlight how strained the silence was.
They parked in the hotel basement and took the elevator to the third floor. Freeman and Jefferies were waiting in the conference room. Charlotte Delaney was up on the stage with her crew, getting organised. The two large padded chairs that had been set up in the middle of it were angled so they weren’t quite facing each other. A camera on a tripod had been positioned to catch both chairs. The lights that the TV technicians had brought in were dazzlingly bright.
Winter gave a whistle and Delaney’s head jerked up. She looked over and he waved her to come and join them. Cathy had winced when he whistled. She gave the impression that she would prefer to be anywhere but here. And who could blame her? This morning she’d woken up in paradise, and now she was in hell. There was a round of introductions. Cathy didn’t shake hands. She was hugging herself as if she was cold. Everything about her body language screamed, ‘Go away and leave me alone.’
‘We’re almost set up,’ Delaney said. ‘The plan is to prerecord the interview. That way we can edit before broadcasting. We’ll air directly after the seven o’clock round-up.’
Winter turned through three hundred and sixty degrees, starting at the chairs on the stage and finishing back there. The conference room was painted in brown, beige and white. The carpet was brown, the upholstery on the chairs was brown. They could have been in any conference room, in any hotel, anywhere in the world.
‘This isn’t going to work,’ he said. ‘It’s too anonymous. We want Gifford to assume that Cathy is staying here. There’s nothing for him to latch on to.’
‘We were going to mention the hotel in the link,’ Delaney said.
‘That’s too brief, and if he does catch it then it could come across as being too obvious. The last thing we want is for him to think this is a trap. On the flipside, if he doesn’t catch it, then how is he going to know that this is the Shangri La?’
‘So what do you suggest?’
Winter took out his phone and ran an image search for the ‘Shangri La lobby’. The first picture that came up showed a comfortable seating area that had a polished floor, a high ceiling and tall windows. The Asian-inspired art on the walls would help Gifford to narrow things down further. He held up the phone and moved it in an arc so everyone could see.
‘This is where we do the interview. When Gifford sees Cathy his first reaction will be shock. He hasn’t seen her for over three years and there she is on his TV. Once the initial shock wears off, he’ll start to wonder where she’s staying. He knows that she doesn’t live in the city. If she did he would have found her by now. That means she’s staying in a hotel. Chances are he’ll recognise the lobby because he’s photographed weddings here, but even if he doesn’t it’s not a problem. He’ll just search the internet until he’s joined the dots. Just make sure the artwork is visible, but keep it at the edge of the shot. The key here is to lead him in the direction we want without making him suspicious.’
‘Okay,’ Delaney said. ‘That makes sense.’
She turned to her crew and started barking out orders. Ten seconds later they were hustling toward the stage to get their equipment moved downstairs. Delaney was leading the way, striding out in front like she was going to war.
‘A quick word, please,’ Freeman said to Anderton.
They went off into a huddle at the side of the room. Jefferies tagged along with them, leaving Winter and Cathy standing all alone in an awkward silence.
‘How are you holding up?’ he asked her.
Cathy just stared at the empty stage.
‘Look,’ he went on, ‘I know you probably hate me and I can live with that. I’m not looking for a new best friend here, I’m just trying to find a way to make this as painless as possible.’
She turned slowly to face him. ‘I don’t know you well enough to hate you.’
‘That’s good to hear. So back to my question. How are you holding up?’
‘How do you think?’
‘I think that right now you’d rather be sat on your porch with Brett, drinking cocktails and watching the sun go down.’
Cathy almost smiled. ‘Brett prefers beer and the porch faces east, so it’s better for watching the sun rise, but aside from that I’d say that pretty much covers it.’
‘This is a very brave thing you’re doing.’
‘It doesn’t feel like it.’
‘That’s how you know you’re being brave. Anyone who claims to be brave should be locked away. For everyone else’s safety, not just their own.’
‘Do you think this is going to work?’
The question sparked off a whole load of different scenarios inside Winter’s head. In some the plan worked, in others it didn’t. In some they were victorious. In others all he saw was disaster.
‘If I didn’t think it would work I wouldn’t have brought you here.’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘Do you know what you’ve got to do?’
‘I read the statement, then answer some questions.’
‘Put like that, it’s not so scary, is it?’
‘Aside from the fact that there’s going to be a TV camera pointing at me, and my crazy ex is going to be watching, no, I guess not.’
‘Billy needs to think you’re on his side, so bear that in mind. We want him to view you as an ally. That’s key here. His obsession with you is currently dormant, but it’s still going to be there. We want to tap into that. Seeing you on TV will send him tumbling back in time to when you were together. If that happens then there’s a good chance he
’ll try to reach out to you.’
‘How do you know he’ll be watching?’
‘Because he won’t be able to help himself. Serial killers follow the news religiously. Two reasons. They get a buzz out of hearing about their exploits, and it enables them to keep tabs on what the police are doing. The interview will get repeated throughout the evening. At some point he’s going to see it.’
‘Is that what he is? A serial killer?’
Winter nodded. ‘Without a doubt.’
‘Jesus, how could I not have known? I was living in the same house as him. We were sharing a bed.’
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. He wasn’t active when you were together. Those urges would have been well hidden.’
‘Even so.’
Winter hesitated. ‘My father was a serial killer and neither myself nor my mother suspected a thing. And he was active while we were living with him.’
‘You’re bullshitting me, right? You’re just saying that to make me feel better.’
‘No, I’m not. Cross my heart.’
‘You must have suspected something.’
‘In hindsight, the signs were there, but at the time it never occurred to me that he might be a monster. And why should it? Look at your situation and you’ll see that it’s not much different. Because that’s the really scary thing here. Serial killers like Billy and my father are experts at hiding in plain sight.’
‘When he comes for me, the police will be waiting to arrest him. That’s the plan, right?’
‘They’ll get him long before he gets anywhere near you. The interview will flush him out. As soon as he breaks cover he’ll get taken down. And remember, you’ll be staying at a different hotel. You won’t be in any danger whatsoever. I can guarantee that. Any questions?’
‘Just one. When can I go home?’
