“Do you believe it, Chief Inspector?” Hamm said.
“I do and I don’t. Unlike Mr. Finter, I don’t believe the past is prologue. This Rover is toying with us. Just because he strikes every six kilometres over a space of twenty-four — or even thirty or thirty-six — he’s capable of stopping, even reversing direction. There’s no inherent logic in ‘six kilometres.’ I’d put more faith in the phases of the moon. He thought he was being clever with Daniella, but it was a mistake, because he let us know he’s a player of silly games. The Task Force, depending on whether Jack McElroy takes the bait,” — Peter and Stan exchanged glances — “now shifts direction, and he keeps us wondering where he’ll strike next. It’s all a game.”
“So, Peter,” Hamm said, “why exactly are we looking for Molly?”
“Finding Molly Jonas wouldn’t prove that he’ll keep the pattern in the future, but it will tell us several things about him. Say we find her at the six-kilometre measure. Supports the theory, right? But, why was he inconsistent regarding the body? Did something go wrong? The Rover left the first three girls in places where they could be found by a not-too-intensive search. They were laid out in formal poses that were meant to be seen. Recover Molly and we learn a lot about our man.”
“The first three were like bodies in a funeral pyre along the Ganges,” Hamm added.
“Why didn’t he leave Molly in the same kind of location?” Peter asked.
“For that matter,” said Bracher, “why bother with the Six-K intervals at all? It just exposes him to surveillance.”
Peter knew the answer, but it was Hamm who responded. “There’s a broader question. What kind of publicity does he want? What’s the point in just killing women? If you see yourself as an avenging angel, or if you want to be famous and notorious, you’ll want something more. He wants to be known for his murdering style. The Six-K thing provides a template, but I agree with Peter: he thinks he’s invincible and he’ll ditch the old pattern when he feels like playing silly buggers.”
Peter smiled. Bracher looked stunned. “Brilliant! I’d like to buy this man a beer.”
“I wonder if he likes his nickname, the Rover?” Hamm said.
“Better than the Six Kilometre Man,” Bracher said. “Sounds like The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.” The Canadian was a fanatic for British films.
Peter turned to Hamm. “Jerry Plaskow committed to taking us anywhere we want along the coast. I propose we cruise the section about three kilometres either side of the Six-K mark where Molly Jonas logically would have been found. Ron, did they leave up that huge aerial map in your boardroom?”
“Yes. I’ll go back and do the calculation.”
“Then we’ll meet at the harbour tomorrow morning.”
“Yes. And I don’t get seasick.”
Hamm headed back to the station while Peter and Bracher, laden with equipment, took a taxi to the Sunset Arms. Stan excused himself and rushed to the lift. Peter knew that he would be up all night with his slides, feeding a stream of digital photos into his plug-in viewer.
Peter registered and reclaimed the Subaru keys left by Sam. His new room was perfectly adequate, and the in-room computer connection was a bonus; this time he had brought along his laptop. The cool evening air had sobered him up; it was still early and he was restless. He felt like driving somewhere. He left the hotel and walked around to the parking area. Booting up his mobile, he selected the stored phone number for Father Vogans in Weymouth. The priest showed no surprise at the call.
“Drop by if you don’t mind sitting through a late christening.”
When Peter arrived, the door to the downstairs was open, as before, and he simply followed the light to the admin office. Vogans stood at a lectern thumbing through a sheaf of correspondence. Peter saw that he was working standing up to avoid wrinkling his impeccable cassock. Vogans was wearing the full chasuble, with its dramatic white panels and woven gold trim. It made Peter feel seedy.
The priest looked up. “Good evening, Chief Inspector. Please come in.”
“Am I interrupting, Father?”
“Not at all. But I have a christening at 8:15.” That was forty minutes off.
The two men were old enough to cherish comfortable pauses (and both in professions that demanded patience). Peter took off his rumpled coat but remained standing while Vogans finished with a handwritten letter, taken from a stack of similar correspondence.
“Constituency business,” he said, not looking Peter’s way.
“Mm.” Peter looked at the walls. There were numerous plaques, attestations; some were in Romanian. Vogans appeared to be wrapping up and so Peter said, “My two were christened on a Sunday morning.” He was making conversation but it sounded slightly inane to him.
“Ah, Peter, so you have a religious streak after all.”
“I’m a little outside the tent, Father.”
“Why don’t you stay for the service? It might bring back fond memories. Frankly, we don’t have many evening christenings, but young parents have such schedules these days.” He moved away from the lectern and eyed the coffeemaker, then thought better of it. Guests would be arriving any minute.
“It’s a family occasion,” Peter said.
“I’ll say you’re the policeman we’ve brought in for security. That’s a joke, Peter. Christenings are joyous occasions. People are so busy these days that we do them when we can. And, yes, people do wander in to enjoy them.”
“Thank you anyway, Father.”
Vogans leaned against the back wall of the office and folded his arms. “Is it about Anna?”
“Yes.” Peter paused to shape his question. The room was silent, the atmosphere expectant. “I need to know one more thing about her. Please understand that I’m in no way asking you to violate the confessional. This conversation is not about the legal protection of her privacy. I don’t think what I’m asking is a Church secret, but if you can’t tell me, don’t tell me.”
Vogans held up his hand. Ninety per cent of parishioners who sought confidential advice from him were worried about sex, infidelity or conception. Like the Church of Rome or the Anglican faith, Eastern Orthodox priests performed their duties against a backdrop of complex edicts and doctrine. They acted a role, fatherly, stern or comforting, as needed, but always sympathetic to wives and mothers in distress. The doctrinal rules affecting women might shift up and down over the years, into and out of view, like the scrims behind the actors on a proscenium stage, but the edifice still exerted the same powerful force. Peter sensed the heavy presence of the altar above them.
“Let me be clear,” Vogans finally said. “I’ll tell you as much as I know, and I do so because I feel guilty. I didn’t help Anna when she was in agony.”
“Are you sure she could be helped?”
“Do you, Chief Inspector, tell yourself that you could have prevented any given death?”
“Not for many years. But I understand regrets.”
“She did come to me. She wanted children, several she said, but her husband did not. Is that your question?”
“That’s helpful, but no. My question is this: did she ever tell you that she had ever been pregnant?”
“Was she pregnant at the time of her death?” Vogans said.
“No, she wasn’t.”
“I’ve been bothered by the possibility. That she died pregnant.”
Peter, more firmly now, said, “Could you answer my question?”
“No, she had never conceived, I am certain, but she said she was going to try to get pregnant, drop her birth control without telling André.” Vogans avoided a direct look. “Do you want to know what I told her?”
“It’s not absolutely necessary.”
“Perhaps I need to confess. Ironic, isn’t it? But I want to tell you. I told her that the Church does not approve of birth control pills, but she should talk to her husband, not give up all precautions using Church doctrine as an excuse.”
“Thank you.”
“Does that answer your question?”
“Yes.”
“You’re still trying to figure out her state of mind that night.”
“Yes.” Peter didn’t tell him that his inquiry into her mind and heart would suddenly end when he determined once and for all how she died. It was a cruel truth of his profession.
“Are you sure that she wasn’t pregnant?” Vogans said.
“Positive.”
“Well, I don’t know if I could have deterred her death. But I could have tried harder.”
They stood in sad silence while the new parents waited for Father Vogans upstairs.
“I’m doing a communion before the christening, to catch people on their way home from work. Why don’t you stay for the service, Peter?”
Peter left the church as the last light was vanishing over the rooftops. As he passed the staircase that led up to the main floor, he smelled cool air and flowers. The olfactory memory stayed with him as he started the car and drove below the speed limit back to Whittlesun.
All the way he wondered why he was tempted to go back to St. George’s for the evening ceremony.
CHAPTER 17
“We’re landing there,” Jerry Plaskow announced from the railing of the Ports Security craft.
Peter and Ron Hamm followed the line of his outstretched arm towards a distant bay. It was a fine landing spot, if they could reach it. They had been on the water for about an hour since leaving the Ports jetty in Whittlesun. Jerry had advised them before departing that he would try to drop them in the centre of the “Zone,” the so-called Six-K spot on his marine charts, but it had become evident at once that none of the coves marked on the maps for that stretch was accessible, and they had been forced to sail well beyond Jerry’s target. Peter was not a sailor but the sea appeared rough to him, diminishing his hopes of landing anywhere close. Even at mid-tide, waves crashed against the bluffs, intimidating anyone who would dare infiltrate the rocks from below.
At least, in Peter’s view, they had the right boat for the job. At fifty feet long, the tri-hull steel craft spoke of speed and stability. Its two 420-horsepower turbo diesel engines were enough for every kind of sea. Ports Security not only provided general monitoring of coastal zones and safety enforcement in the harbours, it also supported scoops of illegal immigrants and seizure operations by the Border Agency. Since 9/11, its list of duties had doubled. Peter could well imagine a further doubling as the Olympic sailing schedule advanced. For Peter and Ron, the Ports Security boat guaranteed that none of the many agencies mandated with shoreline security would question their snooping along the inlets and caves of the Jurassic Coast.
The crew were an odd collection. While Jerry claimed the post of captain, the real sailing was done by Lieutenant Hogart, introduced as a Royal Navy secondment and an expert in inshore navigation. He sported a George V spade beard and wore military flashes on his pea jacket. Hogart stayed inside at the controls while the others gazed at the shoreline.
The landing place chosen by Plaskow and Hogart lay behind a crumbling breakwater of stone and cracked cement, and Peter could see that they would have to go around the far end in order to achieve the calm water of the bay.
Jerry called above the idling engines, “There’s an engineering marvel bequeathed to us by the Victorians. A hundred and fifty years old, probably. The Victorians loved their engineering projects, and you know what? They dealt with coastal erosion in perhaps the best way possible. Look how the rock face up from the beach is still intact, almost fully protected. Now every town along the Coast wants their own sea barrier.”
Jerry turned towards the wheelhouse, looking for someone. A tall, lean figure emerged from the entrance. Peter had not seen him before, and Jerry did not introduce him now. He wore a ribbed sweater that displayed a shoulder patch that Peter did not recognize, but he was sure this man was SAS. He and Jerry consulted while Hogart, exercising his own judgment, eased the boat farther along the breakwater to the opening.
Jerry turned to the detectives and spoke again. “The first victim was found in a niche in the rocks pretty near the rim. The second girl was laid out in a rock cave halfway along a defile that continued to the shore. The third girl was found much closer to sea level. Our man, we’re agreed, most likely would have come down from the top with Molly Jonas. But we don’t know how far. You’re going to have to use your judgment to identify the killing grounds.”
Peter agreed with Jerry’s analysis, as far as it went. The Rover had been very picky, and had roamed far and wide to find just the right chapel-like setting where he could pose a body. That didn’t mean that he hadn’t searched them out before abducting the girls. It was Hamm who amplified Peter’s thoughts.
“The killer has been consistent. In the first three, he worked hard to put the bodies on show, in ritualistic settings. He would have tried it with the Jonas girl as well. Even if he fouled it up, we should look for a distinct, unique spot.”
“Okay then, what we’re looking for initially is any substantial path up from the shore,” Plaskow stated.
They nodded. They had a rough plan to follow.
Hogart piloted them around the artificial point and into the tranquil bay. Without hesitation, two sailors lowered a Zodiac dinghy with a small motor attached. Peter regarded the benign shore, green and gently sloped, and protected from the tide. A farmhouse, really a crofter’s cottage, sat at the top of the rise; there was no smoke or other sign of life, but the day was exceptionally warm and the farmer was probably trying to save fuel. Even from this distance, Peter could feel the loneliness of this spot, which hadn’t been altered in a century. He was reminded of the UNESCO designation protecting this area; it was one more effort to stave off change. He had briefly seen sections of a walkway on the heights west of Whittlesun Harbour as they passed, but not since. This locale seemed too rugged and distant for strolling tourists or anyone other than extreme hikers. He wondered what he had gotten them into. He looked at Hamm, who appeared to be having the same thoughts.
The detectives, assisted by the crew, eased down into the Zodiac. Jerry joined them in the front. Peter hadn’t seen them load the pile of equipment, but two yellow rain slickers, sou’wester hats, rubber-coated torches and coils of nylon rope were now stacked around the motor in the back. Three walkie-talkies poked out of a gym bag at Plaskow’s feet. The dinghy roared across the bay and the SAS man (if that’s what he was) at the throttle homed in on the sandy landing spot ahead. With a last acceleration, the rubber boat raised its bow and they were home and dry, literally. They eased over the rounded gunwale and the helmsman began to unload the gear. The three passengers walked up the beach like arriving explorers. Hamm saw the path first and pointed.
“There, leading uphill to the east. That must be the route everyone uses.”
Peter, Hamm and Jerry Plaskow gathered by the small pyramid of equipment.
“Here’s what I suggest,” Jerry said, and gestured to the filament of a trail, evidently the only way up from the beach, aside from the route that led to the cottage. “The path you’re looking for isn’t on any of our maps, so look sharp and think logically. Molly Jonas was riding her bicycle that night, so she could have ridden to this area even though it’s a long way from home. She liked to admire the views, her mother said, so she probably knew the cliffs in detail. They never found her bike. Watch your descent. You’ll come across tracks that end suddenly at a sheer face. These are fisherman’s stoops: a man stands on the crag with a rod and three hundred feet of line, and fishes for sea bream. The only other place I’ve seen this is Portugal, down in the Algarve. Why they do it, I can’t imagine. We lose one or two each season. I’m allowing you four hours. We’ve loaded a rucksack for each of you: a food packet, water bottle, gloves, climber’s rope and a walkie-talkie. Stay hydrated. Call us on the walkie-talkies an hour before your arrival back here at the beach. Report to me on your weather. It may be different on the clifftop than it is down here. Any storm that moves in shouldn�
��t block your signal, but big rocks will. Now, let’s get you dressed.”
He held up a bright yellow rain slicker, surprisingly light given its rubber coating and dense weave. Peter took off his old jacket and handed it to the SAS officer; he wore an Irish wool sweater underneath. Plaskow examined his gumboots and pronounced them acceptable. Underneath his coat, Hamm sported a red wool pullover, as well as canvas trousers and work boots; they weren’t climbing boots but Hamm was secretly proud that they contained a steel shank: protection against nails and, hopefully, sharp rocks. Jerry frowned at them but let it go. He handed a slicker to the younger detective. Hamm and Peter resembled SAS commandos who had bungled the dress code.
With a wave to Plaskow, the two policemen began to trudge up the windy trail, heading due east. Near the crest of the first hill, Peter looked over his shoulder and noted that the dinghy had already moved out into the bay.
Peter had his own ideas of where to look. If Molly had cycled to the cliffs, she would have started on familiar paths, the established ones, and then jettisoned the bike in a regular hiding place before exploring on foot. Of course, it was possible that she had a rendezvous with the rapist, and that might have altered her route. All the principal tracks had been searched, the fringes and the lay-bys too, but no bicycle had turned up.
Inland from their current vantage point, the police officers could see that the promontories were treeless, cleared over the centuries for firewood and replanted with grass for sheep. Peter saw no herds or flocks, and the fences that had once kept livestock from the rim were gone entirely. Nor could he see any human beings, or even houses. The point was: the heights extending inland in this subsection of the Zone were passable for a girl on a bike but too exposed for the Rover to risk seizing her there. Peter was certain he had waited until she came closer to the water.
But not here. The fields and ridges to the north led nowhere. Ahead about a kilometre the terrain changed. The forbidding cliffs began — he could hear the grind of the crashing surf — and the plateaus, which ran back from the brink several hundred yards, supported copses of windswept, stunted trees interspersed with piles of boulders. Anyone might hide there.
Walking Into the Ocean Page 20
