by Michael Kerr
Charles Lamont was more comfortable handling civil gay rights cases, but was confident that his initial representation would be all that was required. He truly believed that his current clients were totally innocent, and was convinced that there would be no charges to answer.
“Is Liberace in there with her?” Barney said to Mike as the DS came out of the interview room.
“Yeah, boss. He makes Graham Norton sound butch. Have you sussed that rug he’s wearing?”
“Yeah. It looks like an Astrakhan hat. Where are you floating off to?”
“I was going to organise coffee. Do you want one?” Mike said, looking from Barney to Mark. They both nodded, before bracing themselves to question Jabba the Hutt in human guise.
“Before we get this over with, I want it on record that I think you are all fascist, homophobic pigs,” Ellen said as Barney and Mark entered the small, dingy room.
Barney repressed a smile. “Good morning, Ms Garner,” he said, unruffled by her comments, having tucked decades of verbal abuse under his belt and developed skin thicker than crocodile hide.
Ellen kept up a tirade of insults throughout the interview, as she chain-smoked and glared at Barney in defiance. “To sum up, copper,” she said. “I haven’t seen or heard of Caroline since I dropped out of university. I fancied her for a while, maybe because as I recall she was playing hard to get and trying to kid herself that she was straight. As it turned out, I met someone else. Skip forward a few years and I’m into a relationship with Vicky, and love her to bits. I haven’t murdered anyone, but if I ever decide to, then you’ll be way up near the top of the list. Now, why don’t you take a swab, blood sample, bottle of piss, and anything else that floats your boat, and get me the fuck out of this place. I can’t wait to start prosecuting you turds for the barbaric treatment that Vicky and I have been subjected to.”
“You think the blimp with an attitude is squeaky clean?” Barney said to Mark as they walked out into the car park.
“Yeah. I think it’s time to initiate Plan B.”
“The BBC?”
Mark nodded. “You should to go ahead and check out all the Beeb’s employees who own a Toyota Corolla, and then we can narrow it down to probable suspects. Tyler, Payne and Garner looked good for it, but concentrating on them has just lost us valuable time.”
“And what if plan B turns out to be a dead end? The Toyota could’ve been stolen.”
“Then we get more bodies, and have to find another angle.”
“I’ll get on it. And the team can also check out anyone that works at Caroline’s regular watering holes and other haunts. We checked-out and eliminated all the tenants in her apartment block after she received the papers and notes from the killer, but some of them may bear a second look at. I still hope that the hippo in there is bluffing and that her DNA is a match.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“I won’t, but I can dream.”
“I’ll be at Cranbrook or home if you get anything you want me to look at.”
“When we have a list of all Toyota owners at the Beeb, and their personnel files, I’ll give you a bell. I’d like you to help sift through them.”
“I’d appreciate that, Barney. I think the killer will fit my original profile. Red flag any single or divorced guys, and do a fibre match on their vehicles first. That might just wrap it for us.”
“The coffee is freshly brewed,” Amy said as Mark was shown into her office at Sentinel Security. “Your timing is matchless.”
Mark poured them both black coffees, carried the wafer-thin bone China cups and saucers across to Amy’s desk and set them down on glass coasters.
“Thanks. How did the interviews go? Is the case solved?”
“No such luck,” Mark said, moving behind her chair, putting his hands on her shoulders and rolling his thumbs over tense muscles. “The Garner woman is potentially a nasty piece of work, but she’s no serial killer.”
Amy closed her eyes. If she’d been a cat she would have purred. His hands were working wonders. “It’s still the use of the sharpened branches that bugs me,” she said. “I can’t get my head around the killer using a substitute for his cock. Why doesn’t he rape them? Isn’t that the ultimate act of control and domination?”
“He has an agenda that’s not fuelled by sexual need. His motivation is in creating exhibits that have been executed to primarily scare the shit out of Caroline Sellars.”
“He’s succeeded.”
Mark withdrew his hands and turned to look out of the window behind Amy, to stare at the crooked black fingers of tree branches, whipped by gusts of wind that were far too late to strip the long-gone leaves from them.
“One more,” he whispered.
“One more what?” Amy said, getting up and standing next to him.
“He’ll take one more before he zeros in on Caroline,” Mark said, now fully concentrated, back from what had seemed to be a short mental excursion.
“What makes you think that?”
“Profiler’s instincts,” he said, raising his eyebrows as if to convey the fact that he had no idea how he sometimes homed-in and received insight. It was as though he was in some metaphysical way able to know how his quarry thought. He had always likened it to the tuner needle of an old radio, scanning the band until a clear signal emerged from the background garble of interference. “I don’t try to understand it. If I did, it might leave me. All I know is, he’s getting impatient. He knows that he has ruined Caroline’s life, and that she’s sweating it out in a supposedly safe location. The media coverage is tempting him to do another. Part of him wants the game to go on. His need will be like a fever in the blood. Caroline has been the catalyst and the driving force behind all his actions. Now, he wants her so badly that it will be hurting.”
“You really believe that he’ll be able to find her?”
“Yeah. I know he will, if we don’t stop him first. He knew that she would go to ground when he started this and contacted her. He’ll enjoy the thrill of the hunt.”
“And that’s why you’re trying to redirect him.”
“In what sense?”
“Today’s newspaper. Your interview with Holden is in it.”
“I’d forgotten about that. Do you have a copy?”
“Does a bear―”
“Shit in the woods?” Mark finished the saying that he probably overused, and which Amy was now apparently picking up on.
“The photo is flattering. You look like some sixties film star in black and white.”
“It’s amazing what they can do with an airbrush.”
“False modesty doesn’t become you.”
“Okay, so I’m a hunk. Your mother is a fine judge of looks, if not character.”
“Are you staying over tonight?”
“No. I need to be back at Cranbrook early in the morning.”
“I’ll leave Petra in charge and come back to the flat with you. Is that a problem?”
“You know it isn’t. Will you take your car?”
“No. I’ll get a cab back tomorrow.”
“Last of the big spenders. Business must be good.”
“Security is a balm for the paranoid society that we live in. Crime is on the increase, whatever the politicians say. And that makes for nervy punters, all wanting protection from their own shadows. I’m even advertising for two new operatives. There’s too much work for Petra, Jon and me to cope with, and I don’t like using freelance cowboys.”
“It looks as though I’ll be able to retire and be a kept man, once we tie the knot.”
“You could be my partner in every sense of the word, Mark. You’d find this business a challenge.”
“And waste my qualifications?”
“They’d be an asset to the company.”
“I’ll think about it, once we’re hitched.”
“Good. Do you want to read that article?” She opened the top draw of her desk and retrieved the newspaper.
“Later,�
�� he said. “When we get to the flat.”
Dark clouds piled up from the west, pregnant with rain. And rooks tumbled about the sky, screeching discordantly; black and ragged and windblown.
“Looks ominous,” Amy said. And as if on cue, lightning snaked out of the angry heavens in front of them, almost instantly followed by a whiplash crack of thunder that split the air.
“Lull before the storm,” Mark said, seconds before a violent deluge was unleashed from above, to drum deafeningly on the metal roof over their heads, pound the windows and obscure all vision through the windscreen in a machine-gun peppering of exploding droplets.
“Jesus!” Mark said, snapping the wipers to high speed and turning on the headlights. The wipers fought the tide; demented metronomes slapping to and fro, marking time at a frenzied rate.
Amy’s hand – which had been resting on his thigh – gripped him tightly, nipping his flesh.
“Aahh!” he cried out in surprise and pain. “I’m glad you weren’t holding anything more delicate.”
Amy giggled and moved her hand across his lap. “Shouldn’t we stop at the next pub until it passes?” she said.
“No,” Mark said, hunching over the steering wheel, straining to peer through the curtain of rain beyond the windscreen. “We should be at the flat in twenty minutes. This storm could hang around for hours.”
Nearer to forty minutes later, he parked as close to the entrance door of the flats as possible and cut the lights and engine.
“On three we make a run for it,” he said as they released their belts. “One...two...”
Amy didn’t wait for three. Just threw open the door and left JC like a bullet from a gun.
“Women,” Mark shouted into the wild night as he followed, his card key in hand.
Although only scant seconds out in the open, both of them were drenched. Amy had a laughing fit as they climbed the stairs flat-footed, their shoes squelching as they left a trail of puddles on the all-weather industrial quality carpeting.
“Th... That was fun,” she said, when able.
“Getting soaked to the skin by freezing rain is fun?” Mark said, wiping his eyes as droplets ran down into them from his plastered hair.
“Yes. I’d love to stand out in it for a while, if it wasn’t for the lightning. Being electrocuted would take the edge off it.”
Mark looked at her. She was radiant, with her hair flat to her cheeks, in ringlets on her brow, and with her eyes sparkling with innocent humour. He held that image and stored it in a mental photograph album; a favourite snap that he would cherish and always be able to turn to and study at leisure. When they reached the landing, he stopped, crushed her to him and kissed her wet lips.
“Let’s get dry before we catch pneumonia,” he said after they had been standing for too long, neither wanting the moment to end, despite the chill seeping into their bones.
Half an hour later they were seated in front of the closed balcony doors, dry and warm, nursing mugs of steaming coffee laced with brandy, and looking out through the mullioned windows, entranced by the fury of the storm which, now unleashed, knew no bounds.
“God, it’s beautiful,” Amy said, watching mesmerised as nature produced a staggering display of awesome visual and aural effects. An hour passed before the roiling clouds seemed to heal from the lightning wounds that had ruptured their underbellies. The living cinema screen blackened; the spectacle was over, and the travelling circus moved on, to set up its big top farther down the road, to thrill, amaze and entertain new crowds with its awesome and dazzling acts.
“Do you want another coffee?” Amy said.
“A Brandy would hit the spot,” Mark said. “You do the honours, while I go out to JC and get that newspaper.”
A few minutes later, sitting in front of the coffee-table in the lounge, Mark sipped fine cognac and read Larry Holden’s article, while Amy made roast beef and cheese sandwiches. Neither of them had the appetite for a cooked meal.
The photo was flattering. The camera liked him. Strange how some people always seemed to look good on film. He was one of them. The headline made him groan:
AN AMERICAN PROFILER IN LONDON
Mark winced. The connotation to the werewolf movie was painful. Was this piece by Holden going to be a ‘bad moon rising’? He read on:
DR MARK ROSS, PICTURED ABOVE, IS THE CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGIST WHO MAY BE ABLE TO HELP THE POLICE APPREHEND THE HUMAN MONSTER WHO HAS BEEN TAGGED ‘THE PARK KILLER’.
BENEATH A DISCIPLINED AND GUARDED FACADE, I FOUND THIS AFFABLE AMERICAN TO BE A PRINCIPLED AND DRIVEN MAN, WHOSE ALL-CONSUMING PASSION FOR HIS MORBID LINE OF WORK, DOES, I AM CONVINCED, MAKE FOR A FORMIDABLE ENEMY, SHOULD YOU BE THE TARGET OF HIS REVERED MAN-HUNTING CAPABILITIES.
DR ROSS SEEMED HAPPY TO DISCUSS HIS FORMER CAREER AS A PROFILER WITH THE BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE SECTION OF THE FBI.
HIS EXPERIENCES ARE THE STUFF OF HOLLYWOOD MOVIES. BUT IT IS TODAY, NOW, AS THE CAPITAL IS GRIPPED BY FEAR OF THE NIGHT STALKER WHO HAS MUTILATED AND KILLED THREE YOUNG WOMEN, THAT ROSS IS CONCENTRATED ON.
THE DOCTOR IS CONVINCED THAT THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR THESE HEINOUS CRIMES IS SUFFERING FROM A CHRONIC PERSONALITY DISORDER. HE ATTRIBUTES THE PERPETRATOR’S CONDITION TO CHILDHOOD IMPRINTING AND AN EMOTIO-PHYSICAL IDENTITY CRISIS THAT IS, TO A DEGREE, INFLUENCED BY A MECHANISM PATTERNED FROM EVENTS LEADING BACK TO HIS EARLY UPBRINGING.
DR ROSS STATED: ‘THE MANIAC WE ARE LOOKING FOR IS OF SUB-NORMAL INTELLECT, CANNOT CONTROL HIS SICK URGES, AND WILL NO DOUBT BE OF INSIGNIFICANT APPEARANCE AND INCAPABLE OF RELATING TO OTHERS. THIS IS AN INSECURE INDIVIDUAL, WHO IS BLAMING SOCIETY FOR HIS OWN INADEQUACIES. HE IS A PATHETIC AND PROBABLY IMPOTENT LITTLE MAN, WHO I IMAGINE MAY WELL BE PHYSICALLY AS WELL AS MENTALLY DEFORMED. HE HAS LEFT SIGNIFICANT CLUES, AND I AM CONFIDENT THAT THE POLICE WILL SOON HAVE THIS MAD DOG CAGED. HIS PREDILECTION TO PICK
ON WEAK AND DEFENCELESS WOMEN GRAPHICALLY SHOW HIM UP FOR THE SKULKING COWARD THAT HE IS....’
“Wow, this should get his attention,” Mark said, speed-reading the tail end of the piece, which was just a rehash of the first three slayings.
“You’re purposely trying to draw him out,” Amy said, appearing at the kitchen door carrying a stacked plate of sandwiches.
“Damn right I am,” Mark said. “Most of what I worked out with Larry for this article is bullshit. We’re dealing with an intelligent man, not an idiot. But his ego and vanity will bring him down. I doubt that he’ll be able to resist contacting me.”
“Why would he do that?”
“In an attempt try to convince me that he isn’t the sad, moronic piece of shit that I’ve painted him.”
“You’ve probably put your life on the line, is that professional?”
“No, it’s dumb, but we need more time to find him. This might save other women from the fate that the first three suffered. I have to distract him and divide or shift his attention from whatever schedule he’s working to. When you leave in the morning, we mustn’t see each other till this is a done deal.”
“We’re in this together, Mark. I―”
“Not anymore. If he knew about us, then you would be his way to get to me. There’s no way I want you in the frame.”
“You bastard,” Amy said, slamming the plate down on the table with such force that the sandwiches flew up a foot into the air and came apart, to disgorge the slivers of beef and cheese over a wide area of tabletop and carpet.
Walking over to the balcony doors to stand facing out into the night, Amy’s only view was the reflection of her own angry expression in the glass. “I know that you’re doing this with good intentions, and for all the right reasons,” she said, her voice controlled as she somehow repressed the urge to run across the room, beat her fists on his chest and scream at him. “But you had no right to risk what we have. This maniac has the advantage. If he decides to take the bait, then he knows who you are. You don’t know your enemy.”
“It’s just a part of the ride on the big, blue, spinning ball, Amy
. We all do what we have to. I decided that the only way to break this jerk’s focus is to add a new dimension to the game.”
“It isn’t a fucking game. It’s life or death.” Amy shouted. “I empathise with his victims but care more about you and me. Survival is like charity; it begins at home. If that sounds selfish, it’s because it bloody well is, and I make no excuse for it. You were out of order doing this.”
“I’m sorry,” Mark said, going to her and hugging her. He could feel the tension. She was shaking, not with cold, but with smouldering rage and deep fear in equal parts. After a while she relaxed a little.
“Too late for sorry. What’s done is done,” she said. “No point bolting the door when the horse is at least three fields away and running like the wind.”
“He’ll contact me,” Mark said. “Then probably try to take me out. But I’ll be ready. Barney will organise a reception committee. I’ll be covered.”
“You said he’d get to Caroline, and that armed officers and a safe location wouldn’t deter him. Why do you suppose that if he decides to go after you it will be any different?”
“Because it’s my line of work. Fire-fighters put out fires, bakers bake bread, and I hunt psychos down.”
“If you get out of this in one piece, promise me that you’ll never get involved with profiling again.” Amy said as she pulled back to look him in the eyes.
“I promise that I’ll consult you on anything that might come up. That’s the best I can do,” he said, then covered her lips with his, effectively bringing the conversation to an abrupt end.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Detective Superintendent Clive Pearce was standing behind his desk, tapping out a beat with a pencil on the newspaper that lay open before him as he muttered under his breath. Barney’s royal cock-up had brought the wrath of the top floor down on him, and the bollocking was still ringing in his ears, overwhelming the noise of the storm that raged over the city. Tearing a barn-sized strip off Bowen wouldn’t change a bloody thing, but might make him feel a little better than he did now. Shit, like everything else, finds its own level, and the DCI was about to find himself up to his neck in it.
