by LJ Ross
“It’s not necessary,” he had argued, once again.
The High Priest had looked upon his servant with mild, unyielding eyes.
“Arthur, I’ve noticed a certain insubordination from you, recently, which I consider a mark of disloyalty.”
Gregson held the blade in his fleshy hands, testing the weight.
“I’ve supported you from the start –”
“You ought to be supporting the Master. I am merely his representative on Earth.”
Gregson looked away, out of the window. What did he care for some ridiculous notion of satanic witchcraft? The man had gone mad, if he genuinely believed there was any substance to it. Perhaps Jane Freeman was right, he thought. It might be time for the Circle’s first High Priestess.
“You’re wondering whether Freeman might make a good substitute,” he had continued blandly, reading Gregson’s thoughts with ease.
“No, I –”
“You’re thinking of how I might be ousted, aren’t you? Perhaps your ego has grown sufficiently to consider yourself as a potential leader, hmm?”
“Of course not.”
“Perhaps you’re even wondering if you have the balls to use that blade on me.”
Gregson looked again at the knife resting loosely in his cupped hands and gripped the handle tighter as he imagined plunging it into the belly of his tormentor, watching him double over and wither to nothing.
Then, he thought wistfully, he would be free of him.
“You will never leave the Circle, Arthur. You have pledged your life to its work, to the work of the Master. If you abandon us, you abandon him. Who would accept your soul then, Arthur? God?” The High Priest had laughed, at the thought of it.
“You think he’s a saviour, Arthur? Remember the cause, remember why we fight.”
Gregson looked ahead, peering through the gloom to pick out the back of Jack Lowerson’s head inside the black Fiat. Gregson had chosen his position with care and had parked in his present spot, engine and headlights off, long before Lowerson had rounded the corner. He had observed MacKenzie making her way to Donovan’s front door and wondered how that would end.
The clock read eight-thirty and there was still no sign of Ryan or Phillips. He knew they would be coming; there was no question of this being an unplanned visit. There had been no discussion on the police radio, no planning in the Incident Room, but Gregson had known. Of course, he had known that Ryan would eventually put the jigsaw pieces together be led here, so Gregson made sure he arrived first, waiting and watching. Still, time was marching on and if he was going to make a move, he needed to make it now.
Above him, the sky wept. Raindrops fell like warm tears, pattering against the bonnet of the car.
CHAPTER 24
Jack Lowerson watched the entranceway to the stone villa on the outskirts of the Town Moor, his thin fingers flexing on the steering wheel while he listened to MacKenzie’s voice flowing through the headphones at his ears. He found himself enthralled by both the smooth tone and the direction of the conversation.
“You’ve been under a lot of stress,” Paddy was saying.
“I have,” Denise agreed. “I really have. You’ll laugh at the next part …”
“What’s that?”
“I was starting to think that the mastermind behind it all really was one of us.”
There was a short pause and a tap, the sound of Paddy replacing his glass of port on the coffee table.
“That’s getting a little far-fetched, don’t you think? Let’s try to think clearly, Denise. Look at the facts.”
“I know that everything points to Colin and now he’s dead. Doesn’t that seem awfully convenient? Now, he can’t defend himself.”
Paddy sighed and eased out of his chair.
“Perhaps, you’re feeling a sense of loss, now that a man has died. You found him unnerving, didn’t you? Now that he’s gone, perhaps you’re feeling a sense of relief, which in turn makes you feel guilty.”
Denise huffed out a sigh.
“The style doesn’t fit Edwards or Colin Hart.”
“Why not?”
“It’s like I said, earlier,” Denise replied. “The man we’re looking for is better than both of them. Maybe he’s too smart. I don’t know if we’ll ever catch him.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to be caught but he wants to be acknowledged for his work?”
“Yes!” Denise exclaimed. “I think that’s it, exactly.”
There was another pause before she continued, in a whisper.
“I don’t know if I should tell you this, Paddy. I don’t even understand it myself, but … I wish I could meet him. Just once. I wish I could meet the man who could beat us all.”
Jack was so captivated that he missed the sound of his mobile phone the first few times.
He checked the time again. Ryan and Phillips would be on their way by now. Everything was going to plan, he assured himself.
* * *
Gregson stepped out into the light rain. Yellow light from the streetlamps cast shadows along the handsome avenue. The car door clicked shut behind him and he felt suddenly alone; no longer Arthur Gregson but a poor, hollowed-out shell of a man he might once have been.
His feet felt heavy as he stalked his prey. He was no natural hunter but a predator who preferred to find his meat ready-packed on the shelves.
The black Fiat came into view and he was careful to remain in the shadows, tracing the path of the walls, which delineated where one house’s front garden ended and another began.
He watched Jack for a several moments and found that he couldn’t bring himself to take another step. He thought of the consequences of betrayal, of what had happened to Mike and Jennifer Ingles, up on the island. Panicked, he reached for the knife in his pocket and the edge of the blade grazed his palm, drawing blood.
Arthur sucked in a breath and tried to muster up some strength. It was a dispiriting thought, to realise that he was still the coward he had always been; time, money and a decent wardrobe hadn’t changed that. His pulse pounded and his hand trembled against the hunk of metal. Rain washed over his ageing face, stripping it of pretence, soothing the sweat on his brow so that he could think clearly again.
He looked up, up, up into the sky. With child-like wonder, he watched the raindrops falling from above and traced the clouds plastering the night sky, moving and transforming before his eyes. He tried to read a message in their swirling folds, but could find none.
The clock was ticking.
* * *
Ryan made the turn along Eskdale Terrace and performed a hasty parallel park with a few jerky turns in the road. The surrounding area was manned by uniformed support and the side roads cordoned off. Residents had been contacted and told to remain inside their homes until further notice. There had been some loud mouthing, some grumbles, but the mention of ‘serial killing’ in the same sentence as ‘Jesmond’ had been sufficient to quell their complaints.
Now the large houses were shuttered up for the evening, their lights blazing as if to ward off unwanted guests.
The road where they parked ran perpendicular to Donovan’s house and to where Lowerson had positioned himself, thereby allowing them to intercept a fleeing suspect from the front or the side. The back road was manned by an unmarked police vehicle occupied by the same two handpicked DCs who had watched over Anna and a couple of other constables for good measure.
Trusted men and women, every one.
Ryan fired up a mobile radio unit rather than the car radio and fiddled with the dials to find the right frequency.
“Lowerson? Come in.”
Nothing.
“Lowerson? Come in.”
Hastily, he tried the man’s mobile number, which rang out.
Ryan and Phillips exchanged a look and, without further ado, sprung out of the car.
“You take Lowerson, I’ll get over to the house,” Ryan instructed, on the run. Rain fell steadily, but the air was mild rather than cold
. They passed the tall, silent walls of a well-known private school, which sang with the chirping voices of teenage girls during the weekdays but was now silent while they were at home, no doubt discussing the latest sensational gossip to come from the boys’ school, which was conveniently located on the opposite side of the road.
“Bugger that,” Phillips puffed. “I’m for Denise.”
Ryan nodded his understanding. He would have expected nothing less.
“Don’t enter until I tell you, Frank. We need him to attack or confess, otherwise we’ve got nothing.”
Phillips’ lips flattened at the thought but he didn’t argue.
Turning into Donovan’s street, their steps slowed, so as not to make a commotion along the quiet pavement. Scanning the road, they spotted the black Fiat and Ryan gave Phillips a supportive slap on the shoulder before jogging across to it with a light-footed, swift-legged stride.
Reaching the car, he flung himself inside the passenger door and snapped the headset against Lowerson’s ears.
The younger man yelped, rubbing at his ears.
“Hey!”
“Try answering your phone, dipshit,” Ryan snatched up the mobile, which had fallen to the floor on the passenger side.
Lowerson reddened.
“Sorry guv. I got carried away.”
“At least you’re paying attention,” Ryan muttered, before connecting his own headphones to the mobile radio unit. “How’s the doc, this evening? Let’s hope he’s feeling chatty.”
* * *
Seated inside Donovan’s study, MacKenzie took another tiny sip of red wine, surveying him over the rim of the crystal glass.
“If you could meet this man, what would you say to him, Denise?”
MacKenzie recognised the change in Paddy Donovan. His eyes were no longer calm and faintly paternal, but feral, their pupils dilated in sheer anticipation of the kill. She imagined that she felt much the same as a deer in the wild, sensing that a lion waited to pounce from somewhere out of sight.
She fought to remain at ease, even while he moved around, somewhere behind her head.
“I don’t know what I would say, really. He’d probably think I was beneath him,” she said, coyly. “I would love to hear how he did it.”
“Come, come,” Paddy tutted. “You’re a bright, lovely woman. What man wouldn’t be flattered?”
MacKenzie looked away, modestly.
“I’m not his usual type,” she continued with a trace of disappointment. “I’m older, for a start, with the wrong hair …”
She shook out her hair, so that it fell around her in soft folds. He watched the action and began to tremble.
“Nonsense, Denise,” he said softly, moving towards a tall mahogany cabinet he kept in the corner of the room. Quietly, he retrieved the key, but didn’t open it yet. First, he locked the door to the study, which turned smoothly. “Exceptions can always be made. But what about Phillips?”
MacKenzie trod carefully, now.
“He’s a wonderful man,” she said, honestly. “I care about him very much but I can’t help wondering …”
“What? What do you wonder?” He was eager now.
“I can’t help wondering if the real killer has been searching for someone who might understand him. Someone worthy.”
Donovan paused in his selection of a syringe and looked across to where Denise was seated with her back to him. Was she genuine?
“You believe you understand him?”
MacKenzie laughed and folded her arms, bracing herself. She judged that he was two, or three, paces behind her right shoulder.
“Oh, don’t misunderstand me,” she fluttered. “I could hardly hope to understand him, not straight away, but I could try. All the other women, maybe they didn’t appreciate him.”
“It’s possible, of course,” Donovan agreed, sucking a massive dose of Lorazepam into the syringe. “Where are the others now, Denise?”
“Who? Ryan?”
“Yes.”
She lifted a slim shoulder.
“Still up at Sycamore Gap, I imagine,” she lied, glibly.
“Did you tell them you were coming for … a debriefing session?”
Looking guilty, she shook her head.
“I needed to see you, Paddy. I really did,” she turned and looked up at him with large, green eyes. It was difficult, but she hoped that she looked submissive enough to tempt him. “I know I should have told Ryan, or Phillips, but I suppose I didn’t want them to know. It’s embarrassing, having to admit that I needed help.”
He smiled slowly, moving across to place a broad-fingered hand on her shoulder. She felt the weight of it pinning her down.
“I’ve got a surprise for you, Denise.”
“Oh? You’re not going to tell me you killed those women, are you?” She asked innocently, clenching her jaw against what she knew was coming.
His arm swept downwards in an arc and she snapped her own arm out to brace against it, diverting the needle from connecting with the artery in her neck. Unfortunately, with some added force, Paddy rammed the needlepoint into the soft tissue of her upper arm and she felt the sharp sting penetrate through her shirt. MacKenzie clutched at it while her body began to slump, the neural pathways in her brain clogged by the sedative, no longer allowing her to control her limbs. He took the glass from her nerveless fingers, murmuring that there was no sense in causing a spillage.
While he replaced the syringe inside the cabinet, dunking the needle into a cup of strong medical disinfectant, her body slid gracefully off the chair. Her legs twisted beneath her and the back of her head thudded against the side of the coffee table, hard enough that she saw stars.
“There now,” he said, breathing a bit heavier than normal as he fought to regain control. “Believe me, Denise, when I tell you that I will make sure you are my greatest masterpiece.”
Face lax, her eyes watched him bend over with a middle-aged wheeze to retrieve his bag, which he placed on the coffee table beside her.
He crouched down to look into her face, pinching her skin to gauge the level of reaction. She didn’t respond.
“Good,” he muttered, resting his chin on his hands. She smelled the port on his breath, could see the tiny lines of broken veins across his cheeks, which were ruddy from years of eating rich food and indulging in one too many glasses of dessert wine.
She fixed her gaze straight ahead.
“I must say, Denise, that this isn’t the way I planned my evening at all,” he chuckled his booming laugh and she understood then how unthreatening he had appeared to those young women he had killed; they would have seen a man very much like their father and would have trusted him.
“You were right, of course, when you said that you’re not quite my usual type,” he bobbed his head, self-deprecatingly. “I’ve always been a creature of habit, I’m afraid. Never could stop myself falling for those pretty brunettes.”
He sighed and then stretched his arms out.
“Getting creaky, in my old age,” he explained, as if chatting over the dinner table. “I’m more than willing to make an exception for you, Denise. I’ve admired you very much over the years. A few times, I’ve considered …” he shrugged off the rest of the sentence. “Well, isn’t it amazing, how our wishes are eventually fulfilled? There was I, preparing to meet another lady, when you turned up on my doorstep like a gift horse. I never look one in the mouth, you know.”
He boomed another laugh, delighted with himself, his eyes shining darkly in his excited face.
“Do you still want to understand, Denise? Even knowing that you’ll suffer the same end?” He picked up a lock of her hair and brushed it out of her eyes with a gentle, if slightly trembling hand.
MacKenzie continued to stare fixedly ahead, spittle pooling at the side of her mouth and dribbling down the side of her chin. With the back of his cuff, he swiped it away.
“Up you go,” he murmured, hoisting her body upwards until she was propped against the chair, he
r back bent and her arms limp. Then, he moved back to his chair and seated himself, picking up his glass of port once again.
“How shall we begin?” He mused. “‘Tell me what you’re thinking’. Isn’t that what I usually say?”
CHAPTER 25
Gregson could feel the sweat trickling from his forehead and into his eyes. He swiped a hand across them to clear his vision as he took the junction for the A1 northbound with dangerous speed. He knew where he was headed; it was the only place he could turn.
He couldn’t explain what had happened to him, as he had neared the black Fiat where Lowerson sat absorbed by his surveillance task. How easy it would have been to ambush him or even to lure him away from the vehicle under some pretext or another. Unaccountably, he, who had never prayed, had begun to pray. Long forgotten words from Sunday School had streamed from his lips:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, I walk through the valley of the shadow of death: I will fear no evil; for thou art with me …
Before he knew it, he was running back to his own car, crying like a baby against the steering wheel before reality had set in. Not long after, he had seen Ryan jogging across the road to slip inside the black Fiat with Lowerson, his window of opportunity gone.
Gregson had botched the job and he knew that if his High Priest heard of his failure, there would be no forgiving slap on the shoulder. No, “Never mind, do it another time”, or “Forget the whole crazy idea.” Now, it was a question of damage limitation and, for that, there was only one place left to turn.
With the city behind him, everywhere was in darkness. The car he kept for his outings into the country smelled dank and stuffy with a combination of petrol and old boots, unlike the polished leather interior of the saloon he used for work. His mobile phone flashed on the seat beside him and he knew that he didn’t have long.
