by Ingrid Black
‘Maybe he just did that in order to conceal his true identity, to send us on the wrong track,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘To get a kick from watching us disappear up our own backsides.’
‘That’s possible, but I don’t buy it. There are plenty of other ways of screwing with our heads than borrowing the shade of some dead serial killer, and that causes problems in itself. Most killers are trying to assert some semblance of identity, to say “this is who I am”. They think the world’s misunderstood them, done them down, so murder is their way of making their mark, making themselves. So why has this one decided to subsume his identity in Ed Fagan’s when all experience suggests he should want to assert his own?’
‘They’re not going to like that back at headquarters,’ Fitzgerald pointed out. ‘You tell them most serial killers do what they do to assert their identity and they’re going to tell you that’s exactly what proves it has to be Fagan.’
I conceded the point with a shrug.
‘That’s why we have to eliminate the Fagan connection as quickly as possible, so they don’t get fixated. And the only way to do that is by going back to Fagan. Sounds contradictory, but there you go, that’s where I’d start. Why Fagan? And why now? Those are the two questions.’
I took a long drink, then pushed it aside. It tasted bitter now and I needed to think clearly, however much I might’ve longed any other day to sit there and drink myself into forgetfulness.
‘When’s the autopsy?’ I said.
‘Late afternoon,’ said Fitzgerald. ‘Ambrose is in court till then and we’re still doing the follow-ups. The autopsy’s not going to tell us anything we don’t know. It’s more important that we concentrate on the door-to-doors – there has to be a witness somewhere – then see what we can get from forensics at the scene.’
‘Find anything so far?’
‘Nothing that’ll be worth anything is my hunch. A few hairs from Mary Lynch’s clothing was about the best we got, but again they could’ve come from anywhere. We might be able to make a match if we can get a suspect in for this, but they’re not going to actually lead us to anyone, unless he’s really stupid and has been caught before.’
She drained her glass of orange juice.
‘There was one other thing, now that you mention it. A bottle.’
‘The canalside’s littered with bottles.’
‘This one was underneath the body. The crime tech boys found it when they came to lift Mary and take her to the mortuary. A Coors Light beer bottle. Looked like it had been placed deliberately, like the body was dragged on top of it for a reason.’
‘Could be that’s why he dragged her down the bank.’
‘That’s what I was thinking,’ she said. ‘We bagged it up anyway and took it with us, took some other bottles from the scene for comparison. You never know, we might be able to lift prints off it, get somebody for littering if nothing else, make sure the night wasn’t a complete waste of time. Though knowing my luck,’ she added pointedly, ‘Conor Buckley would turn up in court to represent the litterbug and tear all our forensic evidence to shreds, and we’d end up paying out damages. Christ, listen to me. Getting morose and I’ve not even been drinking.’
‘You need to sleep.’
‘Sleep be damned. That’s what graveyards are for, right? God’s way of telling you to get more rest.’ She checked her watch. ‘I’m out of time. Tell me quick what you want and I’ll get it for you.’
‘Reports going back from Vice, Serious Crime,’ I said. ‘Attacks on prostitutes. Murders. Sexual assaults. Things like last night don’t come from nowhere, they always leave a trail, there’s always a build-up, a progression. That might be where this nut’s trace’ll be picked up.’
‘How long do you want?’
‘Say the last five years. Everything since Fagan. You may not have the time or manpower to go through them all. I do.’
‘I’ll get Boland on to it soon as I get back. And I appreciate this, Saxon. I’m only sorry we can’t pay you anything. Bringing you in is shock enough for Draker; asking him to write a cheque for you’d probably tip him over the edge.’
‘I wouldn’t want his money, even if he was willing to give it me. For my own peace of mind, I just want to see what you’ve got, reassure myself all the angles are being covered.’
Alone again when Fitzgerald had gone, I realised she’d left the newspaper. On purpose, I guessed. She knew me well enough to know it’d annoy me so much I’d be itching to get going.
But it did more than annoy me. The Post was making all fingers point to Ed Fagan, and that was my fault. They wouldn’t think Fagan had killed Mary Lynch if they knew where he’d spent the past five years. But was I going to give them Fagan? And if I didn’t, wouldn’t I be responsible when the next woman died?
Chapter Five
The idea to call Fisher came to me as I was making my way back to my apartment. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Soon as I got in, I rang directory enquiries for his number. Where was it he lived these days? North London, wasn’t it? Highgate or Hampstead, I could never remember which. Whichever’s the one with the cemetery.
It seemed fitting.
A criminal psychologist for twenty-five years, Dr Lawrence Fisher had spent most of those years in prisons across England, professionally speaking, investigating the roots of pathological psychosexual behaviour, publishing his findings in small learned journals, helping the police behind the scenes with particularly obdurate cases when asked, before a starring role in my book on offender profiling had brought him belatedly to wider attention. Since then, Fisher had been the subject of a number of TV documentaries, as well as a radio series on the BBC, and he’d written four bestselling accounts of his work mapping the criminal mind.
By now, I sometimes half suspected, he was just making up his past cases; he surely must’ve run out of them after the first couple of books. His latest project was a TV series in which he cooked up profiles of the perpetrators of ten infamous unsolved murders.
He was quite the celebrity, as criminal psychologists go, but still found time to spend two days a week working on an ongoing project to update and refine Scotland Yard’s serial offender database. Fisher, in short, was one of the good guys.
When he finally picked up the phone, I could hear the sound of a kettle and children in the background, ordinary family noises. It must be his day off. I tried to remember the names of his children in case I needed to make small talk, then gave up when I realised I couldn’t remember how many he had, never mind their names.
‘Long time no hear, Saxon,’ were his first words.
‘You too, Lawrence. I see you’re keeping yourself busy.’
Phoebe, was that one?
‘It keeps me off the streets. What about you? Still stuck in dirty Dublin?’
‘Seems like it.’
‘I thought you’d have been back in the States by now,’ he said, ‘begging them to let you back in at the Bureau.’
‘Not a chance.’
Eleanor? Jake?
‘Not a chance of you getting back in, or not a chance of you wanting back in?’
‘Both.’
‘I’ll buy the first one. So, what is it you’re doing now?’
‘Right now, what I’m doing is waiting for you to cut the preliminaries so I can get round to what I called about.’
‘I see you haven’t changed. Go on then. Shoot.’
‘I want you to run something through that fancy new computer system of yours,’ I said.
‘This would be the fancy new experimental computer system of mine which isn’t up and running officially yet?’ he said. ‘Is that the one you mean?’
‘The very one. This is important. There’s been a murder.’
‘This is news? Join the queue.’
I ignored him.
‘A prostitute, strangled. Freak who did it claims he’s Ed Fagan, guy who did the five murders in Dublin a few years back.’
‘I remember Fagan well enough, Saxon,
but you’re not listening,’ Fisher answered. ‘Do you have any idea of the kind of backlog we’re trying to work through here? And I’m not just talking about murders; we’ve got rape, child molestation, stalking, pornography. Sometimes I get to thinking it’s HAL 2000 they imagine I’m setting up here, they’re trying to get me to do so much.’
‘You sound harassed.’
‘I am harassed, which is why I don’t need to add to my workload with extra cases from another jurisdiction.’
‘Case, not cases. Singular.’
‘Singular always turns to plural. That’s the first rule to remember when the police come knocking. What makes you think that you’ll get anything from me, anyway?’
There it was, the first chink in the armour. That wasn’t the sort of question you’d ask if you were really planning to give someone the brush-off. Never get too interested: that was the real first rule.
I took my chance.
‘The suspect spent some time over there before coming back here,’ I explained. ‘Three years. Moved round a bit, but he was mainly in London. And it gets better. It’s Fagan’s son.’
‘You think Fagan’s son is following in Daddy’s footsteps?’
Fisher sounded incredulous.
‘Someone’s certainly following in Fagan’s footsteps, and the son looks as good a place as any to start. Name of Mullen, by the way. Jack Mullen.’ I could hear him writing it down. ‘Murder always leaves a trail, you know that. And if Mullen really is our man, then you’re best placed to pick it up.’
‘Before I make a decision,’ he said, ‘just answer me one question. Is this the DMP’s prime suspect or one of yours?’
‘Would it make a difference?’
‘Try me and see.’
‘He’s more prime to me than them, but he fits all the patterns they’re looking for. There. I admit it. All I want,’ I said, ‘is for you to check it out for me. Fitzgerald here can pull up his criminal records from Scotland Yard, but that’s no help if he’s been keeping his nose clean. There are unusual features in this case. What I want to know is if you’ve had anything with points of similarity over there. It’s not much. You fax me through the forms, I can fill them out, then you just run them through your system and see if anything matches. It’s important.’
‘You’ve already used the it’s important line.’
‘OK, let me think. What if I try the line about how you can maybe clear up some of your own unsolveds as well?’
‘Better,’ said Fisher appreciatively, ‘but still no prize. You know, I think this is probably the point at which you’re supposed to try the you owe me one line.’
‘Well, it’s funny you should say that,’ I said. ‘I was saving that up for the next favour I was going to ask.’
‘There’s more?’
It was a testament to his trusting nature that he genuinely sounded astonished.
‘I need a profile,’ I said.
‘Now I know you haven’t been listening. I have enough to do. I’m working three cases for three different police forces this week alone, there was another on the phone yesterday looking for help, I’ve got a backlog longer than your list of social inadequacies . . .’
‘Yeah, yeah, plus the au pair’s got flu.’
‘The Black Death, actually. And I’ve got to film inserts for my new show.’
‘I saw that. You know, I think you’ve put on some weight.’
I heard the smile in his voice, but he didn’t shift.
‘I mean it, Saxon. I have learned to say no. To delegate. Keeps me sane. Why don’t you ask Tillman?’
‘Tillman?’
Now it was my turn for astonishment. Mort Tillman was the profiler who’d worked the White Monk case when I was still in the FBI. A psychologist out of Notre Dame in Boston, he’d been my personal recommendation for the job. We’d been friends for years, though things had iced over since then. I’d been hard on him in my book on the Paul Nado investigation. Too hard? He thought so.
In fact he’d thought I was virtually accusing him of having caused further deaths by bungling the evidence analysis. I didn’t think I was, but if he’d written things like that about me I guess I might’ve felt the same way. It was years since I’d seen him.
‘Is that supposed to be some sort of joke, Lawrence?’ I said. ‘Why on earth would I ask Mort Tillman?’
‘Because he’s in Dublin. Didn’t you know?’
‘Tillman’s in Dublin?’
‘Saxon, this conversation’s going to take all day if you insist on repeating everything I say. Yes. Tillman’s in Dublin. Been there a couple of weeks now. He was invited over by Trinity College to give a couple of guest lectures for the Psychology Faculty. So you see, he’s in a better position to help you than I am. He’s there already, in your boy’s shadow. In yours too.’
‘Be realistic. I couldn’t ask Tillman.’
‘That’s your choice, Saxon, but I’m not doing it. Listen to me. Not doing it, got that? I’ll run this fruitcake through the system for you, glad to help, but I’m not doing a profile. Look, I’ll even have a word with Tillman if you like, butter him up. I’ll tell him you’ve been looking for him, desperate for his help.’
‘You’d better have plenty of butter,’ I said. ‘He’ll not help. He’ll probably not even speak to me.’
‘Tillman isn’t the sort to hold a grudge, especially not if you give him the chance of being the big hero. Isn’t it worth a chance at least?’
I couldn’t argue with that.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Do it. Call him. Tell him I want to speak to him. But do it quick, all right? The end of the day at the latest. We don’t have much time. And the check on Mullen—’
‘I’ll fax you the forms soon as I can. You just send back the details.’
‘Thanks. I’ll speak to you again. Give my best to Ellen and the kids.’
‘Laura actually, but it’s the thought that counts.’
After the line to London went dead, I called Trinity College. Mort Tillman, I learned, was indeed in town as a guest of the Psychology Faculty. He’d be delivering his first public lecture later that week; meanwhile he was giving private lectures and seminars for the students alone. And when was the next one of those?
Four that afternoon.
‘Shall I take a message for him?’ said the girl at the desk.
‘That won’t be necessary.’
‘If you give me your number, I—’
She never finished. I hung up.
Chapter Six
Within an hour of having left my early lunch with Fitzgerald, the buzzer went and a man’s voice crackled over the intercom seven floors below.
‘Detective Sergeant Niall Boland?’ it said, as if he was making an enquiry rather than an introduction. ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Fitzgerald told me to bring these notes round?’
There’s formal for you.
‘Come on up,’ I said, and released the switch to let him in.
A few minutes later Boland was at the door, labouring under the weight of a large cardboard box filled, I noted, with files and papers. I held the door open for him to carry it in.
The newest addition to Fitzgerald’s murder squad team was not quite what I’d expected. He looked less like a city cop than some plodding country sergeant, not that appearances can always be relied upon. God knows what anyone’d conclude from how I looked.
There was certainly something ponderous and meaty about him, though. He had thick fat fingers that looked like someone had blown them up with a bicycle pump, and his shirt strained at a bullish neck. He was like an oak tree that had uprooted itself through sheer will but was still clumsy on its new feet. His hair needed cutting too, and his jaw was dark. Not so much a five o’clock shadow as the sort of daylong shadow that never really went away.
There was a shyness about him as he lingered at the door, looking around at the large apartment, openly appreciative, his eyes drifting to the huge window overlooking the city, and the terrace
beyond, like visitors’ eyes always did, before remembering why he was here and depositing the box down on the table with a sigh.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You want coffee?’
‘There’s another one in the car.’
‘You’d better get it then.’
‘Right you are.’
He went back down and returned with a second box, sweating now despite the cold. He made his own skin look uncomfortable. The lift must’ve been broken again. It usually was.
‘You could do with more exercise, DS Boland,’ I teased.
‘I don’t know about that,’ he said, ‘but I wouldn’t say no to that coffee you promised.’
‘See that over there? That’s called a kitchen. You’ll find what you want in there. Cups in the cupboard.’
‘Oh, right. I’ll do that. You want some, Miss . . .’
‘Saxon. Just Saxon. And no, I got some already.’
‘Right,’ he said again, and did as he was told.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him opening cupboard doors with the aimlessness of a man who had never actually been in a kitchen before and was alarmed by what he was finding.
‘Second on the left. No, left. There. Now top shelf.’
He lifted down an I Love NY mug and poured coffee from the percolator.
‘I didn’t see you last night at the canal,’ I said as he carried it back.
‘Off duty,’ Boland replied.
‘I didn’t realise there was such a thing as off duty in a murder case.’
‘There is if you’re out drinking and you’ve left your pager back at the station,’ he said. ‘It was only when I got home later that I realised everyone was looking for me.’ He took his first mouthful of coffee and winced. ‘That’s strong,’ he said. ‘Not bad, mind, but strong. I’m more of an instant man myself.’
‘I guessed.’
He gestured at the mug.
