*
Lapslie sent Pearce and Parkin back to their section before they were missed, with instructions not to breathe a word of what had happened. He kept Bradbury with him. Guessing that there might be some uniforms at the house, he left Bradbury at the bottom of the drive and told her to make her way up to the cottage through the woods. He was right; there were two section cars, a traffic car and a dog van waiting for him when he arrived.
Lapslie stepped from the car and was greeted by a middle-aged traffic constable.
‘Afternoon, sir. Sorry about this. We haven’t been in yet. We’re waiting for Scene of Crime to arrive.’
‘Well, I’m not waiting. If some bastard’s been in my house I want to know why, and what’s gone.’
As Lapslie walked past him the traffic officer tried to dissuade him. ‘Not sure that’s advisable, sir. You might be walking across evidence.’
‘Okay, you can all go. Thanks for turning up. I’ll take full responsibility for the scene. I’ll wait for Scene of Crime here.’
Without another word, they all jumped back into their vehicles and drove away. As Lapslie watched them disappear along the drive he noticed Bradbury emerge from the woodland that surrounded his cottage. He waved her towards him before going into his house to see what had happened and what, if anything, had been stolen.
A rapid search established that this, as Lapslie expected, was no ordinary burglary. It had been done for a reason. If Whitefoot had wanted to burgle his home he would have been in and out without disturbing his alarm system. There had to be a reason for this.
As Lapslie walked into his bedroom, he saw the reason. Lying on his bed was a doll – a woman in hospital clothing. Next to it was a letter. The woman, he assumed, was meant to be Elizabeth Turner.
He picked up the letter. It had been typed and there was no envelope. There would be no DNA, no fingerprints, nothing that might help prove who had sent it. Whitefoot knew all the tricks.
Lapslie unfolded the letter and read it.
As you may know, I have Elizabeth Turner. She is unharmed at the moment, and she will remain that way if you do as I tell you. Go to the church where I murdered the young bride at 3 p.m. and wait. I will contact you. There is no point in me telling you not to tell anyone, as I know your arrogance will not allow you to do that anyway. We are of a type, you and I.
Lapslie read through it again. As he did, Bradbury entered the bedroom.
‘Anything interesting?’ He handed her the letter. She read it in seconds.
‘You’re not going, are you?’
Lapslie nodded. ‘I don’t see any alternative. Not if I want to keep her alive.’
‘That’s irrational thinking. He’ll kill her, and kill you too. Why wouldn’t he?’
He knew Bradbury was probably right. ‘What choice do I have?’ he asked heavily. ‘If I don’t, he will kill her. If I do, he might kill her. It’s a case of maximizing reward against risk.’
‘He can kill you from a mile away. You won’t see it coming; you won’t know—’
Before Bradbury had time to finish the bedroom window suddenly shattered. Bradbury fell backwards, behind the bed. Lapslie threw himself onto the bedroom floor.
‘Emma! Emma, are you okay?’
‘Shaken,’ she called back, ‘but uninjured. I think. Dropped my gun, though.’
Another window smashed, and a large section of plaster was blasted out of the opposite wall, crashing to the floor and shattering. This was followed by a third and fourth shot which smashed into various parts of the room.
Lapslie crawled back to his bed and picked up Bradbury’s 9mm automatic. He made sure there was a cartridge in the chamber before looking around the room for possible entry points. There were several. He would just have to hope to luck.
A voice from somewhere on the ground floor called up to him. ‘Hello! Hello! Scene of Crime here! Anyone there?’
‘Get down!’ he yelled, ‘for fuck’s sake, get down!’
Lapslie heard the sound of footsteps moving up the stairs. SOCO, or killer? He levelled his gun at the point where he thought the person’s heart would be. He would fire twice and then hold.
Before the person reached the door, Lapslie called out again: ‘I’m Chief Inspector Lapslie. Do not come into the room or you will be shot.’ His voice was shriller than he would have liked.
A voice came straight back. ‘Okay, sir. Understood. What do you want me to do?’
‘Walk towards the door with your hands high above your head.’
A man appeared in the doorway with his hands up. He was wearing white coveralls.
‘Okay,’ Lapslie went on, ‘throw your ID over to me.’
The man reached into his pocket with one hand.
‘Carefully.’
He threw his ID over to Lapslie.
‘Okay, hands back in the air.’
He did as he was told. Lapslie picked up and examined his ID. It seemed fine. Besides, he was now sure of two things. One: the killer wouldn’t put himself at this much risk. Two: if he were still outside, the SOCO would be dead. Whitefoot was just sending a message.
The police surgeon had made it very personal, and he was going to pay for that.
*
As Jeff Whitefoot drove away from Lapslie’s house, he felt a strong sense of satisfaction. He could have killed Lapslie there and then, but that would have been too easy. Besides, there were some vital issues he wanted to vent to Lapslie directly beforehand. He was sure Lapslie would turn up at the church in the hope of saving Elizabeth Turner. He had that kind of personality. He was also sure it would be there that he would kill him.
It had to be at the church, of course. That was where he’d tried to implicate Stowell, and when Lapslie had first become alerted to the murders, and that was where it had to end.
Before that, however, he had Tony Turner to consider. If all went well he would kill the Teacher first, then move on to Lapslie. Elizabeth Turner was already packed up and ready to go. He would really have to care for her for a while. Picasso had children at seventy, so he should have no problem at all. And, of course, God wanted it to happen, so it would happen. He could have a new family soon, making up for all the years he had gone without. Maybe the pain would then diminish. Maybe it would disappear altogether.
Failing to plan was planning to fail. How well he had planned everything, and now he was almost there. My God, he pondered, he was a genius. In less than twenty-four hours he would start his life all over again. No more killing. Just life, and more life.
*
Outside his cottage, Lapslie breathed in deeply, letting the cool early evening air fill his lungs.
His phone began to ring. He looked to see who it was. Unknown. He considered for a moment whether to take the call or not. What the hell? If he didn’t want to talk to them he could always hang up.
‘DCI Lapslie? It’s DC Pearce, sir. Can I ask, with respect, sir, what the fuck is going on?’
‘Someone shot at us. Look, you and Parkin need to get out of it. Plausible deniability. I don’t want you involved. No point dragging you down with me.’
‘We’ve already gone, sir. We’re about a mile away, just outside Great Chesterford. What do you want us to do with the guns?’
Lapslie thought for a moment. ‘Take them apart and throw the bits in various lakes and rivers.’
‘Understood.’
There was an awkward pause, which Lapslie picked up on. ‘Was there something else?’
‘I know this isn’t a good time to tell you, but we’ve just heard that the teacher, Tony Turner, has gone missing. It’s been reported on the radio.’
Lapslie was taken aback. ‘I thought he was surrounded by security. How the fuck has that happened?’
‘He ran.’
‘He what?’
‘Apparently he ran away from them, and the SOCO team lost him.’
‘Why the fuck did he run?’
‘No idea, boss. Sorry.’
Lap
slie thought for a moment. Ideas and concepts shooting though his brain like shooting stars. Finally he came to a conclusion.
‘Okay, meet me at his place in thirty minutes. If I’m right, I think I know why he ran.’
‘Ten four, sir.’
Lapslie hadn’t quite finished. ‘One more thing.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Ignore my previous order. Hang on to the guns.’
*
It took Lapslie forty-five minutes to get to Tony Turner’s house. Carl Pearce and Dave Parkin were already there. He waved them across and they climbed into the back of his car. ‘So, how’s it looking?’
‘They’ve pulled off most of the security: just left a woodentop on the door.’
‘Can we get rid of him for fifteen minutes? I need time to get inside and have a quick look around.’
Pearce nodded. ‘Not a problem.’ Jumping from the car, he quickly disappeared around the front of the house.
‘Dave.’
‘Sir.’
‘I want you and Carl to search upstairs: there are only two bedrooms and a bathroom. I’ve been here before. Social occasion.’
‘Anything and everything, boss?’
Lapslie nodded. ‘Sort of. I’m looking for a note or a letter. It might not be there – he might have taken it with him – but I need to be sure.’
Parkin was a bit confused. ‘What kind of note?’
‘You’ll know it when you see it. Can you tell Carl?’
‘No worries.’
Carl Pearce suddenly appeared again by the side of the car. Lapslie looked up at him. ‘Got rid of him?’
He nodded. ‘Her, actually. Sent her to get me some fags. She was a Special. You know what they’re like: keen to please. Good news is, she gave me the key to the front door.’ He held the key up triumphantly.
‘How long do you think we have?’
Parkin looked at his watch. ‘Well, the shop is about half a mile away. I told her not to rush, but she probably will. She’s that eager. So I’d say twenty, maybe thirty minutes, tops.’
Lapslie nodded. ‘Well, let’s get on with it then. Carl will brief you.’
The three detectives made their way to the front door and let themselves in. Pearce and Parkin made their way up to the bedrooms while Lapslie began his search downstairs.
He started with the waste-paper bins, and struck lucky. What he was looking for was sitting right on top of a pile of other disregarded papers. It was, he thought, some kind of sign.
Opening it out flat, he began to read:
If you want to see your beautiful wife alive again, go to St Mary’s Church in Finchingfield. I will be waiting there with her at 3 p.m. If you do not follow my instructions to the letter, I will first torture her and then kill her in the most painful way I can imagine. After all the work that I have done, I have a very strong imagination.
It wasn’t signed, but Lapslie knew who had sent it.
Lapslie looked at his watch. Ten minutes to three. He knew he would have to do the last part himself. He couldn’t involve Parkin and Pearce any further. He had a feeling this was going to be the final act, one way or the other. If anyone was going to end this it had to be him, and he didn’t want anyone else to die with him.
Pushing the letter into his pocket, he slipped out of the house and back to the car, leaving his two colleagues still searching the upstairs rooms. Once in the car he checked Bradbury’s automatic before driving off in the direction of St Mary’s.
*
The church car park was empty when he arrived. Nobody about, not a single car there. Making sure his 9mm was not on safety, he made his way towards the church. The automatic made him feel more secure, but that was an illusion. If he was going to be killed then it would be from a mile away, and he wouldn’t even hear it coming. Still, he thought, there was something reassuring in being dead before you knew it.
Lapslie walked around to the far side of the church, away from the main door. There he found the small door that must lead into the vestry. He tried it, but it was locked. Walking back to the front of the church would make him an easy target, so the only safe way now was through that door, and damn the blasphemy. Stepping back, he kicked hard at the lock. After three or four heavy kicks, the door finally gave way, and he could step inside.
Walking through the vestry to the main door into the church, which was also locked, he slid the large bolts across and managed to push it open. He didn’t want to open it fully: just enough for him to squeeze through and still remain low enough not to make an easy target. The door creaked slowly open.
Lapslie looked outside. At first it seemed clear, but then he noticed, slightly to the right of the door, a shoe, or rather a Doc Martin boot. He crawled out slowly and pulled at the boot. It was heavy, and Lapslie quickly realized it was attached to a body. He had a good idea whose body it was.
Keeping low to the ground, he crawled out through the nave of the church until he was fully over the body. When he got level with the head, he twisted to face it. Any hope he had of identifying the body was quickly dispelled. What was left of the face was just a bloody mess, with few, if any, discernible features to go by. Near the top of the head was one of the small coffins. Lapslie reached out and grabbed it, pulling it to him and opening it. Inside was the doll of the teacher. It was either the same as, or identical to, the one he had seen in the bunker. If there had been any doubts in his mind before that this body, or what was left of it, was Tony Turner, then this doll quickly dispelled those.
It struck Lapslie with crushing force that with the death of Turner he was the only one left. He was to fill the thirteenth coffin.
Keeping hold of both the doll and the coffin, Lapslie began to crawl back towards the vestry and the protection it allowed. As with the concept of medieval sanctuary, part of him felt that once inside the vestry he would be safe.
As he was still crawling across the nave of the church, only yards from the vestry door, he suddenly felt an object being pushed into his back.
‘That’s far enough, Mark. No sanctuary for you, I’m afraid.’
Lapslie rolled over, and came face to face with Doctor Jeffrey Whitefoot. The police surgeon was holding a sniper’s rifle, the barrel pointed at Lapslie’s face. For some reason, Lapslie didn’t feel afraid. If anything, he felt a strong sense of calm. Like a man coming to the end of a long journey of discovery to find the truth. Despite the calm, he carefully felt the outside of his pocket to make sure he could feel the shape of the automatic pistol. As the Arabs say: trust in Allah, but always tie up your camel.
‘So, it was you. I was hoping it wasn’t.’
Whitefoot nodded. ‘It was me. It always was. You came very close, Mark, very close, but God just wasn’t on your side.’
Lapslie knew he was finished. He just hoped that, given the information they already had, even fools like Rouse and Shaw would be able to track Whitefoot down.
‘So why the children, Jeff? Why not the jury members themselves?’
‘Two reasons. First, if I had gone after the jury members themselves then someone would have realized pretty quickly what the connection was between the victims. Going after their children muddied the waters a bit, especially since some of them had married or otherwise changed their names. And second, of course, I wanted them to suffer as I had. I wanted them to know what it was like to lose a child.’ Whitefoot smiled, but there was no humour in his expression. ‘ “Suffer the little children”,’ he said quietly.
‘You’re misapplying the quotation,’ Lapslie pointed out.
‘It’s not a quotation,’ Whitefoot said, ‘it’s the actual Word of God. And believe me, I know what God wants me to do, much as it might pain me from a personal point of view.’
‘Those people were pure innocents; nothing to do with the death of your daughter . . .’
‘Nothing to do with it!’ Whitefoot screamed. ‘Their parents released a man who murdered my daughter! He raped her, he tortured her, then he killed h
er! He made her suffer for as long as he could, then he killed her as if she was nothing!’
‘And you did the same to their children.’
His voice had regained its eerie calmness. ‘I didn’t torture them or rape them. They died quickly, and mostly painlessly. I made sure of that.’
‘You’re as bad as the man who killed your daughter. Do you think she would have wanted that?’
‘She was dead, Mark. I don’t think she wanted anything any more.’
‘So you killed twelve innocent children out of your own warped sense of justice.’
‘Yes, justice. That’s a very good word, Mark. Justice. The parents felt what I did. They were as responsible for the death of my daughter as the evil bastard that killed her.’
‘And what about all the other people you murdered along the way? The police officers, Major Thomas’s girlfriend . . . Elizabeth Turner?’
‘That’s the fault of the jury members. If they had made the right decision then none of this would have happened. I would have been happy with life. I would have accepted what had happened. But no: they let him go to kill again. People should realize that they can’t make those kinds of decisions without being responsible for the outcomes.’ He looked around. ‘It happened in a church, Mark, did you know that? She’d run there for sanctuary, for protection, but there wasn’t any. He raped and tortured and killed her on the altar. On the altar!’
Lapslie moved his hand down towards his automatic. He knew there was no chance of pulling it out of his pocket; he would just have to try and fire it while it was still there and trust to luck, and whatever divine influence happened to be pointing his way.
‘What about me? Why do I get a coffin?’
‘The evidence you gave in the case was pathetic.’
‘I told the truth. We didn’t have a lot, Jeff. It was a risky prosecution at best.’
‘You could have stitched him up if you had wanted to. I know you’ve done it before. You’ve gone as soft as those bastards in Parliament. If you’d said he had admitted it then he’d have gone down . . .’
‘But he didn’t.’
‘Maybe not, Mark, but you could have said he did. The police used to do that. They kept the scum off the street any way they could.’
The Thirteenth Coffin Page 24
