by Val McDermid
At first, his opponents had been as insignificant as the crickets that chirped the night away outside this safest of safe houses. Dumb sheriffs officers who’d never investigated anything more complicated than a fucked-up raid on the local Seven Eleven had no chance of coming anywhere near him. He knew the chances of them even managing to complete a VICAP report and file it with the FBI were remote. All that paperwork, interfering with the consumption of Dairy Queen hamburgers and brew skis no chance.
So puny a challenge couldn’t last forever. He’d known that. He’d bargained on that. He’d set himself up right from the start to beat the finest, so there was no real satisfaction in running rings round the morons who’d gone into small-town law enforcement because they didn’t have the stones to make something of their lives. They thought they knew their turf so well, but that hadn’t stopped him moving into their territory and stealing a woman from under their noses. His greatest triumph this far had come with number five. La Quinta was the daughter of the local sheriff in a small Nebraska town.
As usual, he’d removed her from her own home. Saturday night, and her parents had gone out to a benefit dinner for the local Republican candidate for the Senate race. The girl had opened the front door without a second thought as soon as she saw the Highway Patrol uniform. It had been laughably easy to knock her to the floor with a single blow to the face. Hog-tied, she’d spent the night in the trunk while he drove the interstate, fueled by adrenaline and nicotine.
By mid-morning, he’d been home. Surrounded by dense woodland, away from the possibility of prying eyes, he’d carried her indoors and gotten down to making her his slave. Shackled to a bench in his workroom, La Quinta had learned that pain takes many shapes and forms. The delayed sting of the razor cut. The blossoming of a burn from a smart to a roar of pain that spread inwards as the smell of barbecued flesh drifted outwards. The searing agony of flesh forced to accommodate more than it has room for. The sickening pain of a broken bone never allowed time to knit. The dull distress of a blow strategically aimed at the organs nestling beneath the skin. It took her days to die.
He’d enjoyed every waking moment.
Then he’d taken her back home. Not all the way home, of course. That would have been reckless. He drove her as far as the first bend over the county line on a quiet back road, then left her body sprawled across the blacktop for the next passing driver to crush beneath his unsuspecting wheels.
La Quinta had made them sit up and pay attention at last. He’d read enough to know what would have happened next. An urgent request to the Feebies, then a computerized search of the country to find matches. As soon as they realized he meant business, the machine would have kicked in. True to his prediction, the suits had arrived. And then, finally, she had flown in to face a flurry of cameras at the airport.
Now at last, the game was on.
Jay Schumann was in town. Dr. Jay Schumann, the forensic psychologist who had turned her back on a lucrative private practice to become the FBI’s celebrity mind hunter Jay Schumann, who had single-handedly restored the tarnished image of psychological profiling with a string of spectacular successes. Jay Schumann with those intense dark eyes that contrasted so sharply with her bright blonde hair, a photo opportunity who gave the suits a human face. Jay Schumann, whose glamor had persuaded her bosses that they should use her skills on the media as well as on the criminals.
In the twenty years since she’d so heedlessly and needlessly humiliated him on the night of the senior prom, they’d both traveled a long way from the small New England town. But he had never forgotten nor forgiven the whiplash of her scorn that had branded him and distorted his life forever.
The first five had been his apprenticeship. The next fifteen would perfect his art. One for every wasted year. And then, only then, would he allow Jay Schumann to come face to face with her personal and professional nemesis.
There was a long way to go before then. But now Jay Schumann was on the case. At last the revenge proper could begin.
FOURTEEN
Fiona gave a final glance at her notes then looked out across the half-empty lecture theatre. “To sum up. That dreadful old misogynist St. Paul says, ‘When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.’ As do most of us. But the sociopath is different. Most of us come to comprehend that we are not the centre of the universe, and that other people can share centre stage in the narrative of our lives. The sociopathic personality never makes that adjustment. In his limited world view, others exist at a less than human level. Their only valuable function is to meet the needs and satisfy the desires of the sociopath himself.” She gave a sly grin. “That’s why they make such good captains of industry.” Depressingly few answering smiles, she thought ruefully. Probably because half of them had their hearts already set on such a career. So serious, the modern student.
“So if we are to develop any sort of empathetic understanding of the criminal psychopath,” Fiona continued, “we must learn to step back in time. I leave you with this thought, also from that fascinating psychological text, the Bible. “Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Or, as we so often find in our line of work, the kingdom of hell.” She gave a brief, courteous nod. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Same time, next week.”
Head down, Fiona gathered her papers together as the students shuffled out, their muted mumblings drifting back towards her. She wondered how much she disappointed them. She was certain a significant proportion of them signed up for her courses on the Criminal Mind because their imaginations had been fired by The Silence of the Lambs. Expecting some Jodie Foster fuelled by instinct and intuition, instead they were confronted with seminars on statistics and required to produce essays driven by intellectual rigour. The drop-out rate disturbed her departmental administrator, but not Fiona. She’d never been interested in woolly minds.
Some sixth sense made her look up and an unselfconscious smile spread across her face as she took in Kit’s burly frame strolling down the aisle between the ranks of seats. He returned her smile and leaned his forearms on the edge of the platform while she finished tidying her lecture notes into her briefcase. “Nice close,” he said. “I like the image of the sociopathic killer as Peter Pan. The boy who never grew up.”
“Now, that’s an interesting comparison. With a bit of work, I could make something of that. Captain Hook and the Lost Boys. Wendy as mother figure…Thanks, Kit, I think I’ll steal that. So, to what do I owe this pleasure?” Fiona asked, descending to his level and brushing his cheek with a kiss.
“I’ve been going like a train today, and I ran out of steam about an hour ago. And I remembered that there’s a launch party for Adam Chester’s new book at Crime in Store at six. I thought I’d swing by on the off-chance that you fancied joining me there.” Kit fell into step beside her.
“You haven’t forgotten we’re having dinner at Steve’s tonight?” Fiona asked.
“We’re not due there till eight, I thought we could swag a few glasses of publisher’s plonk on the way. Show my face and remind everybody that I’m still a contender. Up to you, love. If you’ve got too much on, I’ll meet you at Steve’s later.” Kit put his arm round her waist and gave her a quick squeeze before they emerged in the atrium of the psychology faculty building.
Fiona considered for a moment. Nothing more pressing than marking essays should lie in store for her, and those could wait until morning. “Let me check my office, and if nothing urgent’s come up in the last hour, you’re on.”
The mystery bookshop was crowded with a mixture of authors, collectors and fans of Adam Chester’s complex and beautifully written 1950s police procedural novels. For this, the tenth in the series, his publishers had reprinted all his previous paperbacks with new jackets, the misty photographs evoking the dark and brooding ambience of the books. His editor and publicist stood proudly beside a display of the covers, flash
ing encouraging smiles at the potential buyers.
As soon as he walked in the door, Kit was immediately surrounded by an enthusiastic trio of women who turned up at every crime fiction event in the capital and who apparently adored him above all other writers. Fiona left him to it, edging through the crowd and helping herself to a glass of white wine. Kit was a professional; he’d give the women enough of his time to reinforce their view of him as approachable and amusing before disentangling himself and settling in for a good gossip with friends and colleagues. For herself, she was happy enough to take a back seat and watch him work the room.
“He’s such a pro,” an admiring voice murmured in her ear. Fiona immediately recognized the genteel Edinburgh tones of Mary Helen Margolyes and turned to greet her with a kiss.
“Mary Helen, what a delightful surprise,” she said, meaning it. In spite of hating her melodramatic Jacobite historical mysteries featuring Flora Macdonald’s younger sister, Fiona had a soft spot for Mary Helen, not least because of her acerbic tongue. “What drags you away from the Highlands?”
“Oh, I had to come down to talk to some dreadful wee man at the BBC who’s making a TV series out of the Morag Macdonald books.”
“But that’s good news, isn’t it?”
Mary Helen’s face puckered as if she’d bitten a sour apple. “You wouldn’t say that if you knew who they’ve cast as Morag.”
“Tell me the worst.” Fiona had spent enough time around writers to know exactly what was required.
“Rachel Trilling.” Mary Helen’s voice was fat with disapproval.
“Isn’t she…?” Fiona struggled to make sense of the name. “She’s the lead singer with Dead Souls, isn’t she?”
Mary Helen’s eyebrows rose. “My God!” she exclaimed. “At last I’ve found somebody who’s heard of her. But then, what can you expect from a producer who thinks a white cockade is a tropical bird?”
“Oh, Mary Helen, I am sorry,” Fiona said.
“I’ll just have to follow Kit’s perennial advice and take the money and crawl,” Mary Helen said with a grim little smile.
“Apart from that, how’s life treating you?”
“It would be infinitely better if you’d pass me another glass of wine,” Mary Helen said. Fiona obliged, but before they could say more, the shop manager began his introduction to Adam Chester. Adam spoke briefly and wittily about his new book, then read a fifteen-minute extract. A few questions from the floor followed, then it was time for the signing.
As the purchasers formed a queue by Adam’s chair, Kit glanced across the room. “Uh-oh,” he said to Nigel Southern, the twenty-something writer of comic noir short stories he’d been talking to. “I better go and rescue Fiona from the clutches of Mad Mary Helen.”
Nigel raised his perfectly groomed eyebrows. “I’d have thought your lady was more than a match for the Highland Harpie. What’s it like, anyway, living with somebody who spends her days poking around the perverted fantasies of psychopaths?”
“Funnily enough, we don’t talk about it that much. We’ve got a life,” Kit said. “Anyway, that’s not what she does. She uses computer analysis, not psychoanalysis.”
Nigel shook his head pityingly. “I couldn’t be doing with that. I mean, it must be like living with the control freaks’ control freak. Isn’t she always telling you you’ve got it wrong?”
Kit gave him a good-humoured punch on the shoulder. “You haven’t got a fucking clue how the grown-ups live, have you? Listen, Nigel, if you are ever lucky enough to meet a woman with half the brains, the wit and the looks of Fiona, do yourself a favour. Go on a training course before you ask her out.” Without waiting for a reply, Kit squeezed through the crowd and enveloped Mary Helen in a bear hug. “How’s the queen of the glens?” he demanded, landing a resounding kiss on her cheek.
“All the better for seeing you and Fiona. If I’m honest, the main reason I came to this do tonight was in the hope of seeing a few cheerful faces. This business with Drew Shand has cast a terrible pall over the Scottish crime-writing community. We’ve all been phoning each other every day for the last two weeks, making sure we’re still alive.”
“You’re such a drama queen, Mary Helen,” Kit teased her.
“I’m serious, Kit,” Mary Helen protested. “It came as a terrible shock to all of us.”
“But surely there’s no threat to any of the rest of you?” Fiona asked. “I thought the police were pretty much convinced he’d been killed by somebody he picked up that night in the gay bar, what’s it called?”
“The Barbary Coast,” Kit supplied. “So unless you’ve got a secret life in sadomasochistic society that we know nothing about, the chances are you’re safe,” he continued, putting a reassuring arm round Mary Helen’s shoulders.
“Would that I could lay claim to anything so exciting,” Mary Helen said dryly. “But it’s not that straightforward, is it? I mean, Drew was killed in the precise manner in which he’d murdered one of his fictional victims. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that whoever killed him had some sort of morbid fascination with the genre. You know about these things, Fiona. Wouldn’t you agree with me?”
Put on the spot by Mary Helen’s sharp blue stare, Fiona shrugged. “Hard to say. I know no more about the case than anybody else who’s read the papers and surfed the Net.”
“You must have some sort of theory,” Mary Helen pressed her. “After all, this is your field. Come on, don’t be shy, you’re among friends here.”
Fiona pulled a face. “To my mind, it has all the hallmarks of a stalker murder. Someone who became obsessed with Drew and his work to the point where the only way he could resolve his compulsion was to destroy its object. And the fact that Drew had provided him with the perfect script was simply the most unfortunate element in the whole scenario. If I’m right, then the rest of you are as safe as you ever were before Drew died. Stalkers don’t by and large transfer their obsession to another target.”
“There, Mary Helen. Now you can sleep safe in your bed at night,” Kit said.
“You’re a patronizing wee shite, Kit Martin,” Mary Helen said, giving him a mock-punch on the shoulder. “Thank you, Fiona. I do feel better for hearing that, and I’ll pass it round my colleagues north of the border.”
“Wait a minute, Mary Helen,” Fiona protested. “I don’t know anything for sure. What I said was nothing more than guesswork.”
Mary Helen beamed at her. “Maybe so, but it makes more sense than the platitudes we’ve been getting from the police. Now, I’m going to love you and leave you because I need to go into a huddle with my publicist, if she can tear herself away from Adam for a minute.”
They watched her go, Fiona shaking her head in exasperation. “I fall for it every time. She just fixes me with the twinkle and the dimple and twists me round her little finger.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. She does it to everybody,” Kit said, reaching past her for a fresh glass of wine. “We’re all suckers for Mary Helen’s ‘little old lady’ routine. Anyway, I think she really needed the reassurance. She’s not joking about people being wound up by Drew’s death. Adam’s editor has just been telling me that Georgia is refusing to go out on her book tour next month unless her publisher provides her with a bodyguard.”
Fiona snorted. “The only way Georgia Lester would miss an opportunity for blatant self-promotion is if someone sewed her mouth shut. You know that. Don’t you remember her turning up at Waterstone’s in Hampstead with a sniffer dog in tow after the Docklands IRA bomb?”
Kit grinned. “You’ve always got the knife into Georgia, haven’t you?”
“That’s because I don’t get the benefit of the charm like you do. I’m the wrong gender.”
He spread his hands. “She can’t help herself, love. You know Georgia. She gets an idea in her head and she gets carried away. Anyway, according to Adam’s editor, she’s giving them hell. Threatening to move her next book to another house, threatening to tell the press that she’s
in fear of her life because her publisher won’t protect her.”
“I know she’s your mate, but if she devoted half as much energy to writing as she does to self-promotion, her books would have got better instead of worse over the years,” Fiona said cynically.
Kit put a finger to his lips. “Ssh. Don’t say that so loudly. You might give her publisher ideas. After all, there’s nothing like a dramatic death to boost your sales figures. I hear the advance orders on Drew’s new book have more than doubled since his murder.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Fiona sighed. “Maybe you should mention that to the cops. For all we know, Drew might have been planning to move publishers. An editor who was going to lose him anyway might well have considered giving her balance sheet one final hike.”
Kit shook his head sorrowfully. “Such a low opinion of the publishing trade. I can’t imagine where you got that from.”
“I’ve been hanging out with writers too long. It sours the milk of human kindness.”
Kit acknowledged her barb with a faint smile. “So, you really think Drew’s killer won’t strike again? Or were you just being kind to Mary Helen?”
Fiona shrugged. “If I could predict the future that well, we’d have won the lottery by now. I honestly don’t know. But if he does, he won’t go for someone who writes cheerful cosies like Mary Helen. He’ll be looking for someone on the noir side of the street.”
Kit’s face froze. “Someone like me, you mean?”
“Are you seriously telling me it hadn’t crossed your mind?”
Ignored by those around him, the man in the tweed jacket watched Kit Martin from the other side of the room. Whatever he was talking about with his girlfriend, it had shaken him up, that much was obvious. His eyes had widened and his normally mobile face had turned into a still mask. Good, the man thought with deep satisfaction. He liked the idea of Martin’s discomfiture.
