by Michael Kerr
Dressed and ready to go, they thanked Ron and left the hotel. Matt had switched off his mobile phone after having spoken to Dave Brent and the man who claimed to be the killer. Cutting his only line of communication had been a symbolic gesture, to impress on Beth both his determination and ability to keep a part of his life separate from his work. It was not an easy thing to do. The side of him that was of a stronger proof than the malt whisky they had imbibed, rebelled at the act. It was a sobering thought, to be suddenly cognisant of the fact that he had spent his entire career – up to this moment – on call, always in standby mode, ready to interrupt any and every activity to pursue what he had come to accept was an ongoing mission; one that he had put above and beyond all else. It was complex. He had been egoistic and self-seeking to a degree, in that what he did was to feed some inner motivational force. The catalyst may have stemmed from his being bullied at school. A pupil in the year above him, Eddie Sykes, had picked him out for special attention of the painful kind. To this day, Matt did not know what it was about himself that had made him a target. It was during a six week summer holiday that he had made the choice not to continue being a punch bag for the older, taller and much heavier youth. Enrolling at and starting basic training at the local judo club unlocked an untapped wealth of self belief in his ability to defend himself. The new term saw a fully motivated and far more able Matt Barnes walk out into the yard at midmorning break on that long gone day. Like an exocet, Sykes zeroed in on him, with two of his hangers-on in tow. The verbal and subsequent physical communication between Matt and his nemesis had lasted for all of ten seconds.
“You ready for another nosebleed, Barnes?” The tousle-headed lout asked.
“I don’t want any trouble, Eddie,” Matt replied. “Go pick on someone as dim-witted as yourself.”
Eddie swung a roundhouse punch that a one-eyed sloth would have seen coming and have had time to evade. Matt ducked under it, low, and as Eddie’s forward momentum took him off balance, Matt let him almost fold over his shoulder, then jerked upwards and threw him high into the air. Eddie landed on his back, resulting in him being badly winded and dazed. Matt casually placed the sole of his shoe on the throat of his persecutor and applied enough pressure to make him caw like a crow with a broken wing.
“It’s over, Eddie,” Matt had said. “If you’ve got any sense you’ll stay away from me.”
That early response to threat had taught Matt that being passive might work for some people, but not for him. He would not be anyone’s whipping boy. And yet, as a cop, there was also the bedrock of altruism running beneath the crust of his self-serving actions. He cared about victims, and wanted to be their champion; to protect and serve as the legend on the sides of LAPD black and whites proclaimed. Beth, and his absolute love for her, had taught him to revaluate, to look at his priorities and readjust them. He was not a man who could easily back down and side-step confrontation, but Beth had convinced him that he had nothing to prove to himself, and he knew that her belief in him would only be justified if he could not only accept who he was, but act on that knowledge and be more flexible. Switching the phone off had been a test of his character, that he commended himself for passing with flying colours. Having a psychologist as a partner had hidden benefits. She had shown him a way to look at each and every aspect of life through new eyes.
He drove from the hotel and dropped Beth off where her Lexus was parked outside his maisonette. They kissed and arranged to get together that evening at Beth’s apartment.
Matt was heading for the Yard when he remembered to switch his phone back on. It rang almost immediately.
“I’ve been trying to get hold of you for hours, boss,” Dave said.
“My mobile was off. What’ve you got?” Matt said, offering no explanation for being incommunicado.
“Nothing good. The signal of our mystery caller’s mobile was triangulated as coming from South Bermondsey, very close to Millwall football club. And it was made on a phone belonging to a Miss. Julie Spencer. Her home address is in Bethnal Green. We can’t locate her, and she hasn’t turned up at the laundry she works at.”
“Was...is she a redhead, Dave?” Matt said, already slipping momentarily into past tense, fearing that if she had been taken by Wolf Man, then she might already be a cigarette-burned, strangled corpse.
“No, a blonde. Her supervisor at the laundry says she looks like Dusty Springfield did back in the sixties; backcombed hair thick with lacquer, and enough mascara to put a racoon to shame.”
“Is she in a relationship?”
“Not that we know of. Although she has a reputation as a man-eater. Used to be a bike, if some of her work mates are to be believed.”
“Stay with it. Her phone might have been lifted. She could be tucked up in some guy’s bed, safe and sound.”
“You reckon?”
“No. I think he took her. But we have to know that he did. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. I’ll want a rundown on every scrap the team have come up with.”
Most of the team were gathered in the squad room. The entries on the whiteboards seemed to be proliferating with the speed of dividing cells. There were photographs of the victims, and a growing list of headings, sub headings and notes on each woman. There was also a board with the clearest shots that Kenny Ruskin had been able to produce of the man at the museum, whose image had been captured on CCTV. They were better than nothing, but only just. The downcast head and odd flash of a thick and presumably false moustache was not going to start the phones buzzing. The finger ring was their best bet. Marci had taken it to a jeweller in the Strand to be assessed. It was 14 carat gold, and the hallmarks denoted it as having been assayed in Birmingham in nineteen sixty-four. That itself did not particularly help. But it was an unusual ring. Any of its previous owners would recognise it, and would no doubt be able to give details of who they had given or sold it to. Marci thought it was their ace in the hole. It was not a latent fingerprint or DNA sample, but was hard evidence that tied the man who had given it to McCall to at least three murders.
Matt agreed with Marci. He went up to Tom’s office.
“Have you arranged to go public with the ring anytime soon?” Matt said.
“Yes. I plan to release some details of what was done to the vics to the media, and disclose the ring. There might be some redhead out there who has been victimised by him and survived; a girlfriend, wife, or his mother.”
“And the ring will have a history. We know it’s fifty years old, and that its origins were in the midlands. Someone will recognise it.”
“DC Brent filled me in on the phone call you got, Matt. We need to come up with a strategy to ensure that he doesn’t pull the same kind of stunt he did at the museum, if he really is stupid enough to try and arrange to get the money. You would think he’d have more sense than to believe that you would hand it over.”
“I won’t be handing over jack shit, Tom. I have no intention of promoting a relationship on any level with this nutter. Allowing myself to be sucked into a psycho’s life is a road that I’m not prepared to go down again. And he will know that we would follow the money to him. If he does try it on, then it will be with a plan that is so convoluted that he’d have us chasing our own tails.”
“He isn’t that smart a cookie, Matt. He wouldn’t have worn the ring and left his stamp on his victims if he had any real brains.”
“He might have only put the ring on when he was out looking for prey. Same as fox hunters get all dressed up for their blood sport.”
“I just hope we don’t push him into topping anyone who is close to him.”
“There won’t be anyone close to him. This is a lone wolf...excuse the pun. There is no way he can eradicate everyone who might have seen him wearing the ring. That’s if anyone who gets to see it survives.”
“I’ll be on the box at lunch time. Is there anything else that you think I should include in the release?”
“Not that I can think of. And if he tries to con
tact me again, I’m not speaking to him.”
“Bollocks, Matt. If he will only deal with you, then it might be the only way to move forward. I know that you won’t cut off any avenue that might lead to his being taken out of circulation. If you freeze him out and the bodies start stacking up, then you would know that you might have been able to make a difference.”
“I resent you laying any future actions he takes at my door. I am not personally responsible for every sicko who starts up an independent Murders R Us franchise on our patch. You’ve always slagged me off for getting too personally involved. I’ve been tagged as a loose cannon and a Dirty Harry type. Well you were right. I’m not a one-man answer to the world’s oddballs who freak out and go on the rampage. It has taken a long time for me to see the light; to put what goes down into perspective. I’m just a gear cog that gets turned by an engine powering a vast machine. And the truth is, Tom, my teeth are beginning to get blunt and wear down. I may even go for promotion and find a desk to ride for the duration.”
“You’d curl up like a dead leaf and die behind a desk, Matt. I know you, remember. You’re trying to protect what you and Beth have by backing off and looking for a safe life. But you don’t like safe. You have to be out there on the edge, up to your neck in the middle of the action. When you haven’t got something like this to work, you’re like the calm at the eye of a hurricane, waiting for the onslaught of it to whip you up again. I know you have to find some middle ground, but don’t try to kid yourself or Beth that you could be fundamentally different. Plant a daffodil bulb and you’ll grow a daffodil, not a rose.”
“You a gardener or a cop?”
“I’m a guy who knows that you reap what you sow. You are what you are, and it’s a wise man that is accepting of his strengths and weaknesses, and can find a way to accommodate both.”
“I may not be too wise, Tom. What I do know though, is that Beth is far more important to me than being a cop is. You have to be on the brink of losing something you can’t live without to fully appreciate it. Hanging my own arse out in the wind is one thing, but putting Beth at risk again is something I will not allow to happen. How would you feel if Jean was in danger of being raped, mutilated and murdered by a homicidal psycho? Try to imagine it, then tell me that I should put myself up as bait to bring this one in. If I recall correctly, you once said that I shouldn’t chum for sharks with my own blood.”
“I’ve never been the same type of cop as you, Matt. You’ve always seemed to need to prove something to yourself. You set yourself up against criminals. I think you need conflict. Without it, a part of you is unfulfilled.”
“That’s crap. I just do the job.”
“No, Matt. You’ve always gone that extra mile. Until Beth came along you lived the job 24/7. That’s why Linda pissed off. Now that you’ve let another person really matter to you, you’re being pulled apart, even if you can’t see the wood for the trees. Compromise is a noble, worthy characteristic that you do not possess an abundance of. If you try to be a different person, you’ll end up unhappy, and not be the man that Beth loves.”
“Forget gardener, you should have a column in some tabloid.”
“What’s the pay like?”
“Search me.”
“You want a cup of coffee?”
“No. You might start talking about mid-life crisis in men. I think I’ve had enough advice for one day.”
“So get the hell out of my office and go catch this guy. I’ve got a statement to rework for public consumption. And Adams wants to see it before I put it out on national television.”
“I’m gone,” Matt said, already up off the chair and heading for the door.
He went back down to his office at the back of the squad room with his mind whirling. Apart from Beth, no one but Tom Bartlett would have been allowed to preach to him like that. Tom didn’t often say a lot, but when he did it was usually succinct. That he had brought up both Beth and Linda, and rambled a little about how he saw Matt’s take on life was surprising, well meant, and a little too close to the mark. Matt knew that there had to be a lot of give and take to make anything worthwhile flourish. He also knew himself. The cop in him needed to be unleashed and able to operate without restrictions placed as obstacles in his way. Tom had brought it home to him that his love for Beth was as debilitating as it had been for Samson to have his hair lopped off. The divided loyalties would become strong enough to pull him apart if he could not find a way to accommodate the two most important things in his life without losing either one in the process. You can’t have everything, he realised that. The trick was to seek out middle ground and learn to live with the trade off. He knew that he could do it, but thought it might prove harder than giving up smoking. Jesus! He could murder a cigarette. He poured coffee and slumped into a chair that was not designed to promote comfort. Put his feet up, ankles crossed on the desk in front of him. Stuck a fresh cigarette between his lips and fought the urge to fire it up and calm his jangling nerves.
“Did you talk with Marci?” Pete said, strolling into the office and sitting on the edge of Matt’s desk.
“What about?” Matt said, gathering and redirecting his thoughts.
“About us,” Pete said, his stare stony, and his attitude confrontational.
“No, Pete. I wanted to give you both enough time to work it out.”
“So why do you think she is intent on putting in a request for transfer?”
“Can I phone a friend on that? She’s a woman. They are basically more practical than us. I would imagine that Marci has considered the long-term implications that working with you might throw up. She’s putting you before her place on the team. She will do well in any section, and won’t have to sneak around trying to pretend that you two have cooled it. She’s looking at the big picture, and you’re in it. You should be flattered that she would choose you above the SCU.”
“Will you―”
“I’ll give her a glowing assessment report, and do what I can to pull strings.”
Pete’s shoulders drooped. The expression on his face turned to one of embarrassment. “Sorry, boss. I thought you’d leant on her. I should’ve known better.”
Matt gave the younger man a withering look. “Yeah, Pete, you should have.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
He was carrying on what was a very old and revered profession. The art of tattooing has been practised by many cultures throughout history. Ancient Egyptians used tattoos as early as 2000 B.C. And the Greeks and Romans employed the method to brand slaves and criminals. The Polynesians have been making marks on the body with needles and ink since about 1500 B.C. Tongan warriors were tattooed from their waist to their knees. And North American Indians started to use tattoos in the seventeenth century. It was an intrinsic part of social life around the world, and in many instances was associated with religious and magical rites. Some, like the Japanese, used tattoos to punish people for wrongdoing. And the Nazis tattooed numbers on the wrists and forearms of prisoners.
Nowadays, tattoos are worn for many different reasons. Some people have them to signify that they are members of a gang or a branch of the armed forces. Others just think it is a cool thing to do. It individualises them and gives them a certain sense of importance. Lucas had become an illustrated man to cover scarring; to physically if not psychologically erase or disguise the burns that marked him as a victim.
He had brought Julie down from the loft at four o’clock on the morning of the second day, blindfolded and bound. She was now behind the curtain, laying naked on the padded gurney with straps around her neck, waist and thighs.
“What are you going to do to me?” Julie said.
“Shsssh,” he said, washing, drying and inspecting his hands for cuts or abrasions, before disinfecting the work area with a viracidal and donning a new pair of gloves.
He opened up the single-tipped needle and fitted it into the machine. Went to her and removed the blindfold. “You got lucky when I chose you,” he said. �
��I’m a tattoo artist, and am going to create some wonderful art on your skin. And it isn’t going to cost you a penny. How does that grab you?”
“It frightens me.”
“No need to be scared. I’m an expert. To execute the perfect tattoo, you have to create clear lines at the proper depth. Not deep enough, and the result will look scratchy. Too deep and there is too much pain and bleeding. Believe me, you are in very safe hands.”
Safe hands! Christ, she was in the hands of a fucking headcase. He had attacked and abducted her, raped her, and was now going to tattoo her. At least he wasn’t a dentist, who got his rocks off by filling and extracting his victims’ teeth without novocaine. Small mercies.
Without any further preamble, Lucas started in on the blank canvass of supple and clear skin. He did not use a stencil. This was freehand design, from the heart.
“I want you to stay still,” he said, depressing the foot pedal, to see her stiffen as the motor started to buzz and the magnetic vibrator drove the needle up and down. “This isn’t something I can erase and start again. If I make a mistake, well, I would just have to start again with a new subject.”
Julie contained the impulse to scream and struggle. What he had said, in effect, was that if she caused him to err, then she would be redundant. She gritted her teeth until the muscles in her jaws ached.
He started at the right-hand side below her breast and worked up. He would outline the whole body over the course of several weeks, then use a combination of needles to enhance the illustrations with shading. Some subtle colouring would complete what he believed would be his finest work to date. Not a square millimetre of this delectable skin would be left undecorated.
It was over two hours later that he wiped the site clean and studied the pair of coupling wolves that now graced the upper half of his subject’s abdomen. This was the start of a masterpiece, he could feel it. There was a picture in his mind of the finished work: Wolves fucking, hunting, and at rest and play under a full moon that lit the forest they roamed. He might even, when the time came, remove his finished pièce de résistance, to cure and preserve for posterity. He would have to search the internet for information on tanning human skin. It was not something he had any experience of doing. A new challenge. Life was rich, with so many intriguing avenues to explore.
