Let The Bones Be Charred

by Andy Maslen

  ‘But even if you cure them,’ Stella said, unable to resist hinting at her true feelings by pushing the word “cure”, ‘they’re only going to be transferred to a Cat A prison.’

  ‘True. But while they’re here, we focus on treating their afflictions. The criminal justice system will pick them up again when – if – we feel they’re sane enough to be discharged and a life behind bars awaits.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  Jamie smiled.

  ‘You’re an intelligent woman, Stella. Why don’t you tell me?’

  ‘Well, that’s not even slightly infuriating! OK, context. I see the killer as a criminal. You see him, probably –?’ she raised her eyebrows, and Jamie nodded, ‘as a sufferer. People who are suffering want to be cured. And people who believe, however misguidedly, that they are righting wrongs also have a need to be understood. And they—’

  An unwanted memory surged into Stella’s consciousness. What would Jamie think if he knew just how many people she had killed to right the greatest wrong of all, robbing a mother of her child? She pushed it down.

  Jamie nodded in agreement. If he’d noticed anything strange about the way she’d tailed off, he said nothing about it.

  ‘And before you say anything, I believe your first duty is to catch him before he kills again. Arrest him, charge him and then hand him over to the courts, see him convicted. Job done. If he ends up here, well, that’s another story.’

  Stella paused, digesting Jamie’s words. Context. Suffering. Understanding. It was her job to figure out a way to turn those insights into action. Then she spoke.

  ‘We must stop him.’

  Jamie nodded.

  ‘Yes, you must. As I said, he’s learning and he’s growing more confident. Even though there doesn’t appear to be a sexual motive, he’s almost certainly getting a thrill from killing. He’s learning how to do it and he’s enjoying the feeling of control, of power that he gets from, as he almost certainly sees it, defeating the enemy and avenging whatever humiliation he feels was inflicted on him. He’s enjoying making his victims suffer for their faith, but what he’s really all about is paying back the original woman for whom Niamh Connolly and Sarah Sharpe were substitutes.’

  Stella sat back in her chair and rubbed her hand over her face.

  ‘Great. No pressure there, then.’

  ‘There’s something else I’d like to offer you that might help a little.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Let me take you to lunch. There’s a lovely little country pub about a mile from the front gate. They do a cracking steak and kidney pie.’

  ‘In this weather? You have to be joking.’

  ‘They do salads, too.’

  ‘Actually, I could do with something substantial to eat. I’ve been mostly living off M&S sandwiches and takeaways for the last few days.’

  ‘Is that a yes?’

  Stella nodded.

  ‘Come on, doc. You’ve pulled.’

  50

  THURSDAY 23RD AUGUST 12.25 P.M.

  Stella felt the heat burning through her reinforced jeans and leather jacket and shucked off the latter as soon as she dismounted from the Triumph. Behind her, Jamie climbed off and handed back the spare helmet she routinely kept in the top box.

  ‘That was fun,’ he said, grinning. ‘I’m guessing you were taking it easy.’

  Stella unfastened her ponytail and ran her fingers through her hair before refastening it.

  ‘I may have eased off the throttle on a couple of the straights,’ she replied. ‘Come on then, let’s order some food. I’m starving!’

  The bar of The Bull’s Head was busy with punters from the nearby business park. Plenty of management types in clothes Stella supposed were ‘business casual’: the men in shirtsleeves and chinos, the women in cotton dresses.

  The seemingly never-ending heatwave had driven even the most conservative firms to relax their dress codes, Stella had noticed each time she’d had to interview people at their workplaces. At the headquarters of an American bank based at Canary Wharf she’d been startled to see one man sitting at a desk wearing what appeared to be tailored shorts.

  They ordered the same: steak and kidney pie and chips, plus pints of lager shandy. The barman handed Stella a flowerpot containing plastic flowers and a wooden spoon with a 17 painted on the bowl.

  ‘The garden’s nice, if we can find a shady spot,’ Jamie said.

  They were lucky. A trio of glamorous thirtysomething women – new and wealthy mums to judge from the hi-tech buggies parked beside the table – were getting up as Stella and Jamie arrived in the garden. Their table occupied a prime spot beneath the spreading branches of a copper beech tree with a gnarled trunk at least four feet across.

  As they settled their babies down, a toddler ran out from behind a huge flowering shrub. He was clad only in a pair of lime-green shorts and old-fashioned buckled sandals. His face was flushed and his brown hair spiked with sweat.

  ‘Tobias, come and get dressed, we’re going now,’ one of the mums said.

  ‘I don’t want to!’ he shouted, folding his pudgy arms across his mud-streaked chest.

  ‘We’re going to play at Elsie’s. You like Elsie.’

  ‘I hate Elsie! I wish Elsie was dead!’

  ‘It’s “I wish Elsie were dead,” Tobias, and no, you don’t. You like Elsie.’

  With much apologising to her friends and cajoling of the recalcitrant Tobias, the boy’s mother wrestled him into a T-shirt and led him, protesting volubly, to the car park. Sitting in one of the vacated chairs, Jamie tipped his head fractionally in the direction of the departing yummy mummies and rolled his eyes.

  Stella grinned at him, stifling a sudden urge to giggle.

  Cooling down in the shade of the tree’s broad canopy, she relaxed, and raised her pint glass.

  ‘Cheers!’

  ‘Cheers!’

  The lager shandy was cold. The sugar in the lemonade gave a quick top-up to her fading energy reserves as the alcohol unwound a tight little knot in her stomach. She looked around the garden. In patches of shade, or sitting out in the full glare of the sun, groups of drinkers were laughing, chatting animatedly and eating: sandwiches, steaks, burgers and vast golden slabs of battered fish.

  Normality, Stel. Looks nice, doesn’t it?

  Jamie was looking at her, his lips kinked up on the left side in a half-smile.

  ‘Penny for them,’ he said.

  ‘I was just thinking about that old line, I don’t even know if it’s true or not, that no Londoner is ever more than ten feet from a rat. Sometimes I feel it’s the same story with the people I hunt down and you treat. Statistically, how many of the people in this garden are psychopaths, would you say?’

  Jamie laughed. He turned round in his chair and made a show of scanning the garden, which held about thirty or forty people. He’d hung his jacket over the back off his chair and she admired the way his shoulders stretched his shirt tight, revealing rounded deltoids and nice biceps. Not bodybuilder muscles, maybe Mother Nature plus a few hours in a gym from time to time. Or a few games of tennis here and there.

  He turned back to face her.

  ‘Statistically? None. Generally, we go with a figure of one per cent of the general population, though that jumps to twenty-five per cent in the male prison population. If you go to a high-secure unit or a hospital like mine, well, maybe fifty to seventy-five per cent. But if you want to include people with a personality disorder, there are probably three or four people here who qualify.’

  ‘Hmm. Maybe it just feels like more.’

  ‘Goes with the job, I’m afraid. If you didn’t want to meet psychopaths you should probably have gone into, huh, well, I was about to say nursery nursing, but having just witnessed the antics of young Tobias I’m not so sure.’

  Stella laughed. This felt good. Sitting in a pub garden with an attractive man, poking gentle fun at the idle rich and, for a few minutes at least, not worrying about stopping n
utters from carving up innocent people for kicks. Reality asserted itself soon enough.

  To her left a group of young guys in sharp suits, foreheads red and shiny with sweat, were arguing about football. Judging from their flushed faces, their half-drunk pints didn’t appear to be their first.

  The volume increased to the point a few of the other diners were looking round anxiously. Then the swearing began. Nothing too outrageous at first, but the temperature rose fast when one of the men hurled a c-bomb.

  ‘You’re such a cunt, Sol!’ he shouted, then he jabbed an index finger into his friend’s chest.

  ‘Me? Fuck off! If anyone’s a cunt round here, it’s you.’

  The other two men had backed away a pace or so, and now Stella could see real fear begin to steal across the faces of the punters sitting at the closest tables.

  She put her pint down and smiled at Jamie.

  ‘Better go and get them to cool off before someone starts throwing punches,’ she whispered with a smile.

  The she strode over to the group, who were swearing more freely now, the finger jabbing escalating to pushing.

  ‘Hey!’ she shouted, barging her way into the centre of the group. ‘Quieten down, you’re frightening people.’

  They stared at her, this diminutive woman at least ten years older than they were. Their mouths hung open. Then the original shouter recovered his bravado.

  ‘Fuck off back to your husband, darling. This ain’t nothing to do with you, all right? We were just having a laugh.’

  Stella turned round and stood absolutely square on to him. She looked up into his eyes, which were the same blue as the sky. The sweet smell of alcohol rolled off him like a warm breeze. He smelled to her like he’d been on the sauce since opening time. In a quiet voice, she spoke.

  ‘He’s not my husband. And I’m a police officer. What I’m suggesting, is that you and your friends finish your drinks quietly, then leave. Let’s keep this low key, all right? People have come out for a nice quiet lunch. They don’t need you lot spoiling it.’

  One of the other two men patted him on the shoulder.

  ‘Come on, mate. Let it go. Let’s do what she says.’

  ‘No way! Why should we?’ He turned back to Stella. ‘Where’s your ID, then?’ he asked belligerently, thrusting his chin at her and hitting her with another gust of fumy breath.

  Stella sighed. She produced her warrant card and opened it. He stared at it, then at her.

  ‘Fine. We’re just having a laugh. No need to get all high and mighty.’ Then he turned and walked off a couple of paces. Stella breathed out. Idiot. Then the man spoke. A single, percussive word.

  She closed the gap between them.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I didn’t say nothing.’

  A young girl in a floral shift dress and black Dr. Martens, maybe eighteen or nineteen, chirped up from a table to the man’s left.

  ‘Yes he did. He called you a cunt.’

  Shit! Now I’ll have to do something. Maybe a chat in the car park’ll calm him down.

  She stepped closer to the belligerent young man and placed her right hand on his right shoulder.

  ‘OK, you, come with me.’

  What happened next, took Stella by surprise.

  He whirled round and threw the remains of his drink in her face. She staggered back, swiping at the beer that was stinging her eyes. Opening them, she found he was bearing down on her, teeth bared in a feral snarl.

  And then he was on the ground.

  Behind him, Jamie was standing, arms loose at his sides, one foot held firm in the centre of the drunk’s back.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Silly little sod just caught me by surprise.’

  ‘You want to arrest him?’

  ‘God, no! I wouldn’t be out of your local nick before teatime by the time I’d done all the paperwork and been interviewed.’

  Jamie nodded.

  ‘I understand.’

  Then he reached down and pulled the man’s left arm behind his back and folded it so the hand was almost behind his head, eliciting a yelp of pain.

  ‘On your feet!’

  He pulled on the twisted-back arm, leading the man to scramble to his feet. His three friends had melted away as soon as he’d thrown his drink over Stella.

  ‘You can’t do this to me!’ the man said, his voice a whine. ‘I run my own company. I know my rights.’

  ‘I bet you do. But you need to listen to me.’ Jamie bent closer to the man’s ear, so only he, and Stella, could hear. ‘I am a psychiatrist at Broadmoor. You know, the special hospital up the road?’ Wide-eyed, the man nodded. Jamie had his attention now. ‘This lady isn’t a police officer at all. She’s actually a patient of mine. We’re trying a little social experiment, giving her some accompanied time on the outside. See how she reacts to stressful situations. She made that ID in our workshop.’

  The man’s eyes swivelled to Stella, who smiled at him.

  ‘Wha— What did she do, then?’ he asked Jamie in a terrified whisper.

  ‘I’m not really supposed to talk about it, but let’s just say there are nine young businessmen in the Reading area who will never be able to father children. So, you know, if you could just apologise, it’ll calm her down and then it’s probably best if you leave.’

  The man nodded, his head bobbing up and down rapidly. He turned to face Stella.

  ‘Look. I’m sorry, yeah. Really sorry. I never meant to, you know, we were just, oh Jesus! Please, just leave me alone!’

  Jamie released him and he took off for the car park.

  ‘Don’t drink and drive!’ Jamie yelled after him.

  A couple applauded, and soon the whole beer garden was clapping. Jamie made a low bow and led Stella inside.

  ‘Thanks, Jamie,’ she said. ‘But didn’t you just break about a million ethics codes?’

  Jamie smiled.

  ‘He was too drunk. I doubt he’ll remember anything I said. And throwing beer over people is the sort of thing that makes you stay quiet once you sober up. Plus nobody heard except the three of us. I won’t tell if you won’t. Now, let’s get you cleaned up.’ He leaned over the bar and called through to a young woman ringing up a round of drinks.

  ‘Excuse me? When you’ve got a moment, my friend has had beer thrown over her by one of your customers. She’s a police officer. Can you help?’

  The young woman took in Stella’s beer-stained shirt and rushed over.

  ‘Yeah, of course. Come with me. We’ve got a separate room to change in, with sinks and whatnot.’

  Stella gratefully accepted the offer of help and when she emerged into the sunlit garden ten minutes later, wearing a spare staff shirt the woman had given her, Jamie pointed at the two plates piled high with pie and chips.

  ‘Perfect timing. It arrived a minute ago. Compliments of the house. And I ordered you another pint. I like the new look. Very you.’

  Stella looked down. The black uniform shirt was a size too small for her and had stretched tight over her chest.

  ‘Another ethics violation, doctor?’

  ‘Strictly speaking, as an NHS consultant, I’m a mister. And no, you’re not a patient of mine. I’m free and clear.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Stella said giving him a hard stare, before slicing off a chunk of the steak and kidney pie, which was aromatic, perfectly seasoned and deeply satisfying.

  They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Jamie asked.

  ‘What, because of that knob-end, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She smiled at Jamie and shook her head.

  ‘He was nothing. Compared to some of the people I’ve fought off in recent years, he didn’t even register. I was just pissed off because he got the jump on me.’

  Jamie frowned.

  ‘What is it?’ Stella asked.

  ‘When you say, “fought off ”, what do you mean?’

&nbs
p; ‘Just a figure of speech. You know what coppers are like. Turning every arrest into Terminator versus Alien.’

  Jamie stared at her for a moment. She could tell he wasn’t convinced. He was a shrink, after all.

  He smiled.

  ‘How’s the pie?

  ‘Great. Really good.’ She wanted, needed, to distract Jamie. ‘So listen, about my serial killer?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Any more thoughts about how we could flush him out?’

  Jamie took a pull on his drink then set the sweating glass down on the slatted picnic table. He sighed.

  ‘Well, men like this, they’re not exactly what you’d call susceptible to reason. In their minds, everything they’re doing is perfectly logical, even if they’re raping children or killing their entire family with a shotgun. But if I’m right, and he is driven by rage against the Christian faith and, specifically, its female adherents, maybe you could find a way to reach him by letting him know you understand how he feels.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Stella asked, forking a couple of the golden chips into her mouth and chewing as she waited for Jamie to answer.

  ‘I’m sort of thinking aloud, so forgive me, but I guess what I’m driving at is you could maybe draw him out into the open by seeming to agree with him and, oh, I don’t know, offering to meet him. To listen to his side of the story, maybe help him bring his concerns to a wider audience. Actually, that sounds incredibly facile now I can hear it out loud. Sorry.’

  Stella shook her head.

  ‘No. It doesn’t sound facile at all. To be honest, though, I don’t think it would work. For a start, my boss would have kittens if I suggested putting out a public appeal where I said, “You’re right, these Christian bitches deserve everything you give them. Let’s go and have a latte in Starbucks and talk it all out”. I mean, can you imagine it? The Daily Mail would go into orbit!’

  They both laughed as the image of the outrage such a stratagem would provoke in the media sank in. Then Stella’s smile slide off her face. She pursed her lips.

  ‘On the other hand…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What if I went to the other extreme? What if I said something like, you know, “As a committed Christian I truly believe I can bring this monster to justice”, something like that. I bet he’d get revved up by that.’