by Ingrid Black
‘We should go to that.’
‘Of course we should go,’ said Fisher. ‘We’ll go together. We can talk to Tillman afterwards, perhaps even clear this whole mess up. Either we put our minds at ease, or . . .’ He paused. ‘No, I don’t want to think about the alternative.’
‘Till then?’
‘We can bring one another up to date over dinner,’ said Fisher. ‘I’m buying. It’s the least I can do after playing hide and seek with you for the last couple of days.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ I said. ‘But don’t think this means you’re off the hook, Fisher. I’ve had thoughts these last few days I don’t ever want to have again. It’s made me wonder who I can really trust. Made me wonder if I can trust anyone.’
‘Give me another chance,’ said Fisher. ‘It’s all I ask.’ He stopped. ‘Actually, no. There is one other thing I have to ask.’
‘What is it?’
‘Can I please go back and fetch my coat before I freeze? I had no idea the city was going to get this cold.’
‘Cold in December,’ I said. ‘Who’d have guessed it?’
Chapter Thirty-Three
By the time Fisher and I arrived at Trinity, there was hardly an empty seat left in the hall. A murmur of conversation rose like an orchestra tuning up; and looking round as we took our seats near the back, I saw familiar faces.
There was Tim seated near the front, and Tillman’s other students scattered about. Academics huddled together for safety on the edge of the room. There were even some people I recognised from the DMP, including Healy with a woman I took to be his wife. So she hadn’t left him. It wasn’t all bad news.
And was that Assistant Commissioner Draker? Of course it wasn’t. The trees on St Stephen’s Green would grow leaves of gold before Draker would be drawn to a lecture on criminal psychology. God forbid he should ever learn something new.
Reporters were out in force too, eyeing one another warily. A lecture by a well-known American profiler with inside knowledge of the week’s murders was bound to attract their attention. There was no sign of Nick Elliott, though. He must still be keeping his head down. No sign of Fitzgerald either. She’d said she would try and make it, but perhaps she’d been held up at Dublin Castle.
And what about Gus Bishop? Was he somewhere, sitting unobtrusively among the rows, enjoying his anonymity, nursing his secret? I searched the ranks of faces for clues, contemptuous of myself for being so foolish as to think I might see something. What did I expect – a guilty look, a bloodstained collar? And maybe Gus Bishop was out in the back of the hall instead, drinking sherry with the college bigwigs and making small talk, preparing for his grand entrance.
The podium where Tillman would give his lecture was lit already with one bright spotlight. Ladies and gentlemen, we present – well, who?
Who was Tillman any more?
If I’d known so many people would turn up for a mere lecture,’ said Fisher quietly, ‘I’d have started giving them myself years ago. Fiver a ticket and I’d be rich by now.’
‘You’re rich already,’ I reminded him, ‘and half these people are only here because of what they’ve read in the papers all week. It’s just some cheap second-hand thrill for them.’
‘You’re too hard on people,’ he said. ‘Maybe they’re trying to understand.’
‘More like trying to give themselves something gruesome to talk about in the bar later.’
I checked my watch. Tillman was due to start speaking at eight. Still another ten minutes to go. I wondered if I had time to call Jackie again. I’d rung her after meeting up with Fisher and told her something had come up and I’d be later than I’d promised. She hadn’t sounded too pleased, but then I wouldn’t be too pleased if I was her either. The night was what she said she feared and the night was here. The time for shadows.
‘What about me?’ she’d said.
‘I’ll be there. I need a little time, that’s all. You’ve got Haran.’
‘I want you. You promised.’
And there was no denying that. I had.
I’d made up my mind to call her again, though I doubted it would do much good, when a figure stepped up purposefully to the end of the row where Fisher and I were sitting.
I made to get up and let the newcomer through until I saw that it was Tim. He was wearing a T-shirt with the name on it of some band I’d never heard of.
‘I thought it was you,’ he said.
‘So we meet again,’ I answered. ‘Fisher, this is Tim – I’m sorry, I don’t know your second name.’
‘It doesn’t matter. No one knows yours either,’ said Tim brightly. ‘You’re Lawrence Fisher, aren’t you? I’ve read your books. I found them intriguing.’
‘Is intriguing a compliment?’ said Fisher. ‘I’m never sure.’
Tim laughed, but Fisher didn’t get his answer.
‘Have you come to hear the lecture or to speak to Mort?’ he asked me instead.
Mort now, was it?
‘A bit of both,’ I said. ‘But what about you? I thought you didn’t believe in psychological profiling. At least you didn’t the first time I saw you. Has Tillman made a convert out of you?’
‘Not yet. I’m still on the side of real science,’ said Tim. ‘But I never said I wasn’t open to alternative ideas. Do you think he’ll talk about the Night Hunter killings tonight?’
‘I have no idea,’ I said. ‘You’d probably know better than me. You were friendly enough with him when I saw you both at lunchtime. I’m not someone he shares his intentions with that closely.’
‘He doesn’t like you.’
‘Are you asking me or telling me?’
‘Just making an observation,’ he said.
‘Is that what you call it?’
Tim leaned forward slightly and lowered his voice.
‘Don’t you want to know what he says about you?’
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘What I want is for you to go back to your seat like a good little boy so that I can listen to Tillman’s lecture.’
‘No rush,’ said Tim, straightening up again. ‘There’s no sign of him yet.’
It was the first sensible thing he’d said. There wasn’t.
Now I realised it, I also began to notice that the conversation in the hall had taken on a different tone, a higher pitch, shot through with impatience.
I looked at my watch again.
Ten past eight.
Fisher didn’t seem to have noticed the change in the mood of the hall. Some psychologist he was. Rather he was watching Tim as the student made his way slowly back to his seat.
‘He was a bundle of laughs, wasn’t he?’ he said with a glance at me. Then he stopped. ‘What’s wrong? What is it? Don’t say you let that boy needle you?’
‘Screw Tim. Look.’
A door had opened at the far end of the hall from where Tillman should have emerged ten minutes ago. Now a woman came out and walked briskly up the side of the hall to the exit.
‘Something’s going on,’ I said. ‘Come on.’
I left Fisher to fumble for his coat whilst I made my way towards the exit in pursuit. He had to hurry to catch up.
‘Do you have the faintest idea where you’re going?’ he said as we stepped out into the corridor again and the door closed and the voices fell away to a hum again behind us.
‘No,’ I said. ‘But they’ll do as a first stop.’
The woman who’d appeared from the door at the far end of the hall was standing about a hundred yards away in front of three men who, from the look of them, must have been part of the college, her hands upturned and outstretched in that universal gesture of bewilderment.
One of the men looked up sharply as he saw us approach.
‘Whatever you want, this isn’t the time,’ he barked.
‘I’m a friend of Tillman’s,’ I said. ‘I’m with the murder squad.’ And I wondered which of the statements was the greater lie.
‘Then perhaps,’ he said with a look hal
f of relief and half irritation, ‘you wouldn’t mind telling us where the hell he is.’
‘Tillman isn’t here?’
‘Don’t say you don’t know either?’
‘I came out here to look for him,’ I said.
‘Then as you can see, he isn’t here. He called about an hour ago, saying he had to go somewhere but that he’d be back in plenty of time for eight o’clock. Since then, nothing. There’s no answer at his rooms, he’s not responding to his pager. We have hundreds of people in there waiting to hear him speak and for all we know he’s decided to go and do his Christmas shopping.’
‘What’s the problem?’ asked a new voice.
We all turned and there was Sean Healy. I was glad he’d followed us out. A badge worked wonders sometimes. Quickly I explained to him that Tillman hadn’t shown up.
‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘one of us had better go to his rooms to check that everything’s OK.’
‘You’re not saying—’
‘I’m not saying anything. Just get the key.’
A couple of minutes later, the woman was leading Healy and me out into the rain and across the courtyard to the accommodation block where I’d been three nights ago to hear Tillman’s profile with Fitzgerald. Fisher hung behind at the lecture hall in case Tillman turned up in the mean time, though it was obvious from his face that he didn’t expect it.
The cobbles were wet with rain and shone with reflected light from the windows. Everything seemed restful and festive, the night at ease with itself, but that was only another lie. Healy was talking into a cellphone and the phone was replying in crackles.
Briefly I heard Fitzgerald’s voice fill the silence, then it was crackles again.
‘She’s on her way,’ Healy said.
A moment later, we were climbing the stairs and there was Tillman’s door. The sign on it still bore the name Dr Murray after the previous occupant. Healy stepped forward and knocked.
‘Dr Tillman?’ he said. ‘Are you in there? Open up. It’s the police.’ Silence. ‘Dr Tillman, can you hear me?’
The air held its breath, but there was no answer.
‘Open it,’ he said to the woman.
Her hands were shaking as she found the right key from the bunch in her hand, slipped it into the keyhole and turned.
The click was as loud as the tap of a hammer.
‘Stay here,’ Healy said to her. ‘You too.’
‘No way,’ I said. ‘I’m coming in.’
He didn’t bother objecting, or maybe he didn’t hear. He simply turned the handle, pushed open the door and stepped carefully into the dark. Or not quite dark. The faint glow of the city through open curtains took the edge off the blackness.
‘Tillman?’ I said quietly as I came after him, but I knew now that he was gone. Empty rooms have their own atmospheres.
Healy reached to the wall and pressed the switch. A dingy light like I remembered from the other night replaced the city’s glow and the room swam into relief.
Tillman’s coat lay draped across the back of one of the chairs. On the other lay a thin sheaf of papers. His lecture. The Science of Murder – A Few Practical and Impractical Suggestions, I read at the top of the page. The floor was littered with books – some from the library, others with barely a crease in the spine that might have been only days old.
I squatted down to take in the titles. They were books of theology mainly. Histories of the Church Fathers. The Confession of St Augustine.
I picked one up at random and flicked through it. Tillman had scribbled copious notes in the margin in pencil. He’d written so quickly, as though he was excited, that I could hardly decipher it.
Ox/pen/dove said one scrawl, and that reminded me of the pen which had been found at the grave of Liana Cassidy.
What did it mean?
‘Hello, what’s this?’ I said quietly.
For the first time, I noticed that there was a large cardboard box sitting on Tillman’s table with a sheaf of Christmas paper laid to one side, like it was waiting to be wrapped up as a present.
The lid sat slightly askew on top of the rim. Without thinking, I nudged it aside with my finger and looked inside.
The breath caught in my throat at once, but it was in expectation of a familiar stench rather than at the stench itself. The only smell was one of disinfectant and the hands were perfectly preserved, with no trace of decay. I’d seen pictures of Iron Age bodies that had spent centuries encased in ice and looked much the same; you almost expected to see them twitch, though they hadn’t been shorn off at the wrists or come with fingers folded neatly together.
‘Healy,’ I said, louder, ‘I think you’d better call Ambrose Lynch.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
I took a taxi, made a couple of stops, then ordered the driver to drop me three streets away, outside the sort of bar that even I might think twice about entering. Minutes later, I was letting myself in through the back door of Jackie’s house after checking that the entryway was clear.
The Armed Response Unit was good.
I hadn’t picked up a sign of them at all.
Jackie was sulking when I walked in. She was playing cards with John Haran, staring at her hand through glassy eyes; she didn’t even look up. No need to ask whether she’d got the gear, as she called it.
‘The wanderer returns,’ was all she said to me.
‘I told you I’d be here,’ I said, nodding to Haran and taking a seat across the table from Jackie.
‘You told me a lot of things.’
I didn’t bother arguing.
‘I brought you cigarettes,’ I said instead, digging into the pocket of my jacket and tossing two packets across towards her. ‘And I put some more beer in the fridge.’
A smile. At last.
‘Why didn’t you say so?’
Jackie rose to her feet to go get it, walking carefully like she was afraid of falling over.
‘I heard what happened with the profiler,’ Haran said when she was out of earshot. ‘Do you really think it was him all along?’
Where could I begin?
‘Later, yeah?’ I hedged as Jackie reappeared, carrying two bottles of Bud. She tossed one to me. Looked like I was forgiven, and that only made me feel worse. Jackie was so used to being let down that she’d learned to be easily bought off.
‘Rambo isn’t drinking,’ she explained.
‘I have to keep my wits about me,’ Haran said, ‘to beat this woman at cards.’
‘What are you playing?’ I said.
‘Gin rummy. It’s the only thing I know,’ said Jackie.
‘Then deal me in and prepare to lose all your money.’
‘Think you’re good, do you?’ said Haran.
‘Ask Ambrose Lynch. He played poker with me a couple of nights ago and had to take out a loan with the International Monetary Fund to pay me my winnings . . .’
It was like any ordinary night playing cards and drinking beer, except for why we were there, what we were waiting for. Jackie had the radio switched to one of the rock music stations I hated so much. I tried to tune it out of my brainwaves, but it kept sneaking in and invading my thoughts. She was singing along absently.
She was flirting with Haran too, making suggestive remarks and then laughing, and not at all put off by his unresponsiveness, especially now that she’d started on the beer. Maybe it hadn’t been such a great idea, but I’d hoped it would put her to sleep, make her easier to handle.
Now and again Haran got up to make a circuit of the house, checking everything was as it had been before. Couple of other times his pager went off and he retreated somewhere quiet to make a call. Each time he returned, he gave me a look to say there was nothing to report. He always took care not to walk between the light and the windows so as not to cast a shadow there that anyone watching Jackie’s house would have known was a man’s.
Close to midnight, Jackie excused herself and sneaked off upstairs to the bathroom, and Haran and I exchanged glances,
knowing what she was up to. A few minutes later she returned but the light had gone from her eyes temporarily and she was staring at nothing.
She lay on the filthy sofa and shivered.
Gradually she fell asleep.
‘What’s she been like?’ I said.
‘Jumpy,’ he said. ‘All over the place, never sitting still for a minute. I don’t know if it’s the drugs or she’s like that all the time, or whether she’s just afraid.’
‘She have any calls?’
‘Only one. Some man. Tony. Is he her pimp?’
‘Boyfriend, pimp, same difference.’
He snorted agreement.
‘She was trying to calm him down about something. I didn’t hear too much, but it didn’t sound like he was in the mood to be calmed down.’
‘He’s probably wondering where his next fix is coming from with her out of action for a couple of days. She tell him anything?’
‘Not that I could hear. She was whispering though. The Chief should have put a tap on the phone just to be sure.’ I saw his hand go to his gun, where it was hidden next to his shirt.
‘Do you mind if I take a look?’ I said.
‘At my gun?’ He seemed unsure. ‘You know how to handle one?’
‘Full ballistics training with the FBI. I carried a gun every day for the five years I was with the Bureau. Once took out a roomful of armed terrorists singlehandedly.’
‘You did what?’
He didn’t know whether to be impressed or dubious.
‘Yeah, seven of them. They were all made of cardboard. It was an exercise we did during my weapons training, and unfortunately I never got the chance to do it for real afterwards. Still, I don’t think I’ve forgotten how to handle one. You’ll be safe enough.’
He smiled and took out the handgun and handed it to me. It felt good to be holding one again, testing its weight.
I’d always liked guns, always felt safe when I had one. I didn’t know a woman who wouldn’t. That was always my standard response when people asked me, as they often did when they realised I was an American, whether I believed in gun control.
‘Only for men,’ I’d answer.
