The Torment of Others

by Val McDermid

  Dee looked momentarily uncertain. ‘You mean that?’

  ‘I mean it. Nobody on this investigation is giving any less than a hundred per cent. Now, I want you to come upstairs with me and look at some photographs. Will you do that for me, Dee?’

  ‘All right,’ she said. It was hard to say who was the more surprised.

  After midnight, the fluorescent lights in Carol’s office seemed indecently bright, turning skin tones grey. Carol was reading the scant computer files on Derek Tyler’s murders when the door opened and Tony walked in. ‘It’s rubbish, you know,’ he said without preamble.

  Carol, accustomed to the vagaries of his conversational style, humoured him. Thanks for coming in. What’s rubbish?’

  ‘Copycats. They don’t happen. Don’t exist–not in sexual homicide.’ He dropped into the chair opposite her desk and sighed.

  ‘What are you saying, Tony? That Derek Tyler managed to be in two places at once?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about Derek Tyler until I read the files. What I do know is that whatever we’ve got here, it’s not a copycat.’

  Carol struggled to make sense of what she was hearing. ‘But if the MO is the same…?’

  ‘Then you’ve got the same killer.’ He gave her an apologetic smile and shrugged.

  That’s not possible. From what Don says, and from what I’ve read here, there was no doubt on the forensics. And Derek Tyler is behind bars.’

  Tony yanked the chair forward and leaned on the desk. His face was inches from hers. ‘What is sexual homicide about?’ he demanded.

  Carol knew the answer to this one. The perverted gratification of desire.’

  ‘Good, good,’ he said, moving even closer. ‘How many lovers have you had?’

  Flustered, Carol looked away. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘More than one, right?’ he continued insistently.

  Carol gave in. It was easier than the alternative. ‘More than one,’ she agreed.

  ‘And have any of them ever behaved identically in bed?’ Tony asked, as if the answer would settle an important argument.

  Carol started to see a glimmer of where he was going with this. ‘No.’ Tony’s intense blue eyes were irresistible. In spite of herself, she grew tense at his physical closeness. Whether he recognized that or not, he gave no clue.

  His voice dropped, becoming intimate and gentle. ‘My particular needs can only be met by one specific ritualistic process. I need you bound to the bed, I need you clothed, I need your voice stilled by a leather gag, I need you in my power and I need to destroy the manifestation of your sexuality.’ He took a deep breath and pulled back. ‘What are the chances that there are two of us out there who want exactly the same thing?’

  Comprehension dawned on Carol. She relaxed now the immediacy of the intimacy had receded. ‘Point taken. But we’re still left with an identical MO. Which is a problem for me.’

  Tony leaned back and his voice changed. Carol recognized the shift. Now he was thinking out loud, unformed conclusions bumping into each other. It had taken him a while to be comfortable enough with her to riff like this, but now it was almost as if he saw her as an extension of himself in these moments of verbal reverie. ‘Unless of course someone wanted to get rid of Sandie specifically and thought it would be clever to do it in a way that made us run around like headless chickens looking for an impossible killer.’

  ‘I suppose that’s conceivable,’ Carol said reluctantly.

  ‘I mean, if it wasn’t for the history, tying it into past cases, it wouldn’t be that far out of the ordinary. Extreme, but not extraordinary.’

  ‘Jesus, Tony,’ Carol protested. ‘You think what he did to her wasn’t extraordinary?’

  ‘Divorce your personal response from your professional one, Carol,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve seen worse than that. A lot worse. Whoever did this still has a lot to learn about sexual sadism.’

  ‘I’d forgotten how far from normal you are,’ she said wearily.

  ‘That’s why you need me,’ he said simply. ‘Probably the only really interesting aspect of it is that she wasn’t undressed. I mean, if you go to the trouble and expense of going back to a room with a hooker, I’d have thought you’d want her to take her clothes off. I know I would. Otherwise, you might as well just do it in the back of the car or up against a wall.’

  ‘So what does that say to you?’

  ‘Rape.’ The word hung in the air between them. For months it had been unspoken and unspeakable. But now it was out in the open. Tony raised his shoulders in an apologetic shrug.

  Carol struggled to stay in the professional zone. ‘Why do you say that? There’s no sign of a struggle back there. Presumably Sandie agreed to be tied up. Presumably he’d agreed to pay her.’

  ‘Absolutely. But he wants it to feel like it’s rape. So he doesn’t want his victim undressed. That way he can fool himself that he’s a rapist.’

  It was Carol’s turn to look puzzled. ‘He wants to pretend he’s a rapist? And then he kills them? Why can’t he just pretend to be a murderer?’

  Tony sighed. ‘I don’t know that yet, Carol.’

  It’s ironic, but he’s calmer now the streets are full of cops. It’s what he expected, and it’s always comforting when what he expects happens, even if it’s bad shit. Because at least then he knows it’s not something worse.

  He was doing a bit of business in the toilets at Stan’s Café when he saw the blue strobe of their lights through the high frosted-glass window. One set of lights could have been anything, but three together had to be Sandie. And he didn’t panic. He’s proud of that. Before the Voice, he probably would have run, just as a matter of principle. But now he carried on selling rocks to the nervy black kid, acting surprised when he tried to hurry the action along because of the bizzies outside.

  The kid had barely walked out the door when the conversation started. ‘They’ve found her,’ the Voice said, warm and caressing. ‘They’re going to be all over Temple Fields tonight. They’re going to want to talk to everybody. They’re going to want to talk to you. And that’s fine. Just fine. You know what you’re going to say, don’t you?’

  He gave the door a nervous glance. ‘Yeah. I know.’

  ‘Humour me. Let me hear it again,’ the Voice coaxed.

  ‘I was round and about, just like usual. Dropped in at Stan’s, had a couple of beers in the Queen of Hearts. I never saw Sandie all night. I sometimes used to see her down the end of Campion Boulevard, but I never saw her last night.’

  ‘And if they ask you for alibi names?’

  ‘I just act thick. Like I can’t tell one night from another. Everybody knows I’m a bit slow, so they won’t think anything of it.’

  ‘That’s right. Vague is good. Vague is what they expect from you. You did a great job last night. Wonderful footage. When you get home tonight, there’ll be a little reward waiting for you.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that,’ he protested, meaning it. ‘I’m sorted.’

  ‘You deserve it. You’re a very special young man.’

  He felt a warm glow inside, a warm glow that’s still there. Nobody but the Voice has ever thought anything about him was special, except his educational needs.

  So now he’s out there, mooching around like usual. He checks out the cops, a mixture of uniforms and obvious CID. They’re working their way down both sides of the street. He could go back to Stan’s and wait for them to come to him, or he could amble towards them like a fool with nothing to hide.

  He recognizes one of the CID from before, when they were all over Temple Fields a couple of years ago. A big Geordie. Geordie didn’t treat you like shit. He changes his angle of approach to come close to Geordie and the woman he’s working with. They’re talking to a punter, but he’s got nothing to say, he can’t wait to be away. He’s probably given them a moody name and address and he wants to skip before they catch him out.

  They step back and the punter scuttles off si
deways like a crab. The cop looks up and sees him. He’s got that ‘I know you but I can’t put a name to you’ look. He gives Geordie a stupid grin and says hi. Geordie says he’s Detective Inspector Merrick.

  He repeats the name a couple of times to fix it good and proper because he knows the Voice will want to know everything. He tells Geordie his name and address almost before he asks and the woman cop writes it down. She’s not bad looking. A bit on the skinny side, but he’s learning to like them like that. The cop asks if he’d heard about Sandie and he says yes, everybody’s talking. And he comes out with the lines that the Voice has carved on his brain. Word perfect.

  They ask if he saw anybody acting strangely. He laughs loudly, playing up to the image of the Gay Village idiot. ‘Everybody acts strange round here,’ he says.

  ‘You’re not kidding,’ the woman cop mutters under her breath. ‘Can anybody vouch for your movements last night?’

  He looks puzzled. Mr Merrick says, ‘Who saw you around? Who can confirm where you were last night?’

  He opens his eyes wide. ‘I dunno,’ he says. ‘Last night, it was just the same as every other night, you know? I don’t remember stuff too good, Mr Merrick.’

  ‘You remembered you didn’t see Sandie,’ the woman chipped in. Smart-arsed cow.

  ‘Only because that’s what everybody’s talking about,’ he says, feeling a tickle of sweat at the base of his spine. ‘That’s a big thing, not a little thing like who was in the café or the pub.’

  Mr Merrick pats him on the shoulder. He takes a card out of his pocket and tucks it into his hand. ‘If you hear anything, you give me a call, right?’ And they’re off, ready for the next friendly little chat.

  Not a flicker of doubt. Not a breath of suspicion. He fooled them. They were talking to an assassin and they had no idea. So who’s the thickie now?

  Carol eased the door shut, not wanting to disturb Michael and Lucy. She was aware how even slight noises carried in the high-ceilinged loft. She slipped out of her shoes and padded through to the kitchen at one end of the open-plan living space. The concealed fluorescent strips that cast light on the worktop were turned on, revealing her cat Nelson sprawled on his side, soaking up the warmth. He twitched one ear as she approached and let out a low rumble that the charitable might have interpreted as a welcome. Carol scratched his head, then noticed the sheet of paper he was half-obscuring. She slid it out from under him, ignoring his wriggle of protest. ‘Hi, Sis. Lucy’s doing an armed robbery in Leeds tomorrow and Thursday, we got last-minute tickets for the opera so I’m staying over there with her tonight. See you Thursday night. Love, M.’

  Carol crumpled the paper and tossed it in the bin, allowing herself to be momentarily wistful about the prospect of a night at the opera in good company. Anything was better than thinking about a night alone in the apartment. Opening the fridge to take out the half-eaten tin of cat food, she was drawn irresistibly to the bottle of Pinot Grigio sitting in the door. She took both out, fed the cat and contemplated the wine.

  In her battle for restoration, Carol had resisted the easy comfort of drink, nervous of its easy promise of oblivion. She’d told herself she didn’t want to sleepwalk through the aftermath of the rape. She wanted to deal with it, to unpick its effects and put herself back together in something approximating the right order. But tonight she wanted erasure. She couldn’t bear the thought of closing her eyes and seeing the images she’d brought home from the mortuary. Without anaesthetic, there was no way she was going to sleep. And without sleep, there was no way she could effectively lead the hunt for Sandie Foster’s killer. Carol raked through the cutlery drawer for the corkscrew and hurriedly opened the bottle. Full glass in hand, she leaned against the worktop and buried her fingers in Nelson’s fur, grateful for the beat of his heart against her skin.

  Before last night, she’d had nothing in common with Sandie other than their gender. But what had happened to the prostitute had given her a sort of kinship with the woman charged with hunting down her killer. They both possessed a victimhood that had been conferred because they’d both been guilty of being female in a world where some men believed they deserved never to feel powerless. Sandie hadn’t merited what had happened to her any more than Carol had.

  Carol drank steadily, topping up her glass whenever it fell below the halfway mark. She understood the terror Sandie must have known as she realized there was no escape from her attacker. She knew that sense of utter helplessness, knew the absolute fear of the prey that has no defence against the predator. But in one crucial sense, perverse though it sounded, Sandie had been luckier than Carol. She hadn’t had to find a way to live with what had been done to her.

  Tony stood by Carol’s side, his eyes focused on Sandie Foster’s lifeless face. He didn’t mind being present at post mortems. If he was honest, it intrigued him to watch the pathologist uncovering the messages contained by the dead. Tony read corpses too, but his was a different text. What they had in common was that they both received communication from the killer via the conduit of his victim.

  The body lay in a pool of halogen light, the surrounding room a collage of shadows. Dr Vernon, the pathologist, stooped over the body. It offered a gruesome illustration in contrast. Below the waist, Sandie’s body was still caked in blood, a study in scarlet. Above the waist, she was apparently untouched. The plastic bags covering her hands partially obscured the bruising at her wrists, allowing the illusion of wholeness to persist. ‘Poorly nourished,’ Vernon said. ‘Underweight for her height. Signs of intravenous drug use–’ He pointed to the needletracks on her arms.

  He leaned forward and gently probed her mouth open. ‘Slight bruising on the inside of the mouth. Most likely as a result of the gag we removed earlier. Some indications of long-term amphetamine abuse.’

  ‘I know you hate it when we jump the gun,’ Carol said. ‘But can you give me any indication on cause of death yet?’

  Vernon turned and gave her a wintry smile. ‘I see you haven’t acquired patience in your time away from us, Carol. So far, I see nothing to contradict the obvious. She bled to death as a result of injuries inflicted vaginally. The tissue in the area is macerated almost beyond recognition. Not a pleasant way to go.’

  ‘She didn’t die quickly?’ Carol asked. Tony could feel anxiety vibrating from her. He could also smell stale alcohol on her breath. He’d only managed four hours’ sleep himself; God alone knew how little sleep Carol had managed to squeeze in between the bottle and the morgue. It certainly hadn’t been enough, judging by the bruised smudges under her eyes.

  Vernon shook his head. ‘No. No arterial bleeding. This was slow exsanguination. She would have been alive probably for an hour or more, in terrible pain and shock.’

  There was a long silence as they absorbed the information. Tony hoped Carol was not contemplating Sandie’s suffering too closely. He gave himself a mental shake. He had to stop concentrating on Carol. He had a job to do, and while that job might be easier if he could help Carol on a personal level, he had to keep enough distance to allow himself to do what he was paid for. Mapping the mind of a murderer was never an easy task, and he couldn’t afford to ignore an opportunity as good as this for finding a way in.

  A long, slow, painful death. ‘He watched her die,’ he said softly.

  Carol’s head jerked round. ‘What?’

  That’s the whole point of a lingering death. The killer wants to savour what he’s created. He’ll have recorded it as well. Video, probably. But you might want to check the room for fibre-optic cameras. It’s possible he wanted to watch the discovery of the body too.’

  ‘He stayed around till she was dead?’

  Tony nodded. ‘High risk. He’s confident, this one. He knew enough about Sandie’s routines to feel safe that they weren’t going to be disturbed. He’s probably paid her to have sex before so he could check out the lie of the land. He won’t have been able to manage intercourse, but he’ll have wanted to talk, to find out her regular patterns.
You should ask around, see if she mentioned anything to any of her mates.’

  Carol filed the information away for future action. Vernon unpeeled the plastic bags from Sandie’s hands and began taking scrapings from under her nails. ‘Any thoughts on time of death?’ Carol asked.

  ‘An imprecise science at the best of times,’ Vernon said drily. ‘My best guess would be somewhere between midnight and eight yesterday morning.’

  ‘No way to tell if she had sex before she was attacked, I suppose?’ Carol asked.

  ‘No chance. The damage to the surrounding tissues is so severe it will be impossible to tell whether there was any ante-mortem bruising. If it’s any comfort to you, there’s no apparent sign of any gross anal penetration.’

  Before Carol could respond, the door behind them opened. Tony glanced over his shoulder. That single look told him the woman who had entered was a police officer. There was something unmistakable about her casual air of authority in this context. She wore a long black leather coat, the collar turned up against the blustery weather outside, making her look as if she was auditioning for a feminist version of The Matrix. She barely glanced at the body on the table before crossing to Carol.

  ‘Morning, DCI Jordan,’ she said. ‘Mr Brandon said I’d find you here.’

  Carol hid her surprise, though not from Tony. He knew her well enough to read the faint rise of the brows, the slight widening of the eyes. ‘Sergeant Shields,’ she said. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘Mr Brandon didn’t call you?’ Jan’s face showed consternation.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah. I expect he’s left a message on your voice-mail. I tried to call you myself earlier and I couldn’t raise you. Anyway, he’s seconded me to your team for this investigation. He said you were a sergeant under strength and thought it might be useful to have someone on the team who knows the street scene.’

  ‘That makes sense.’ Carol’s voice had ice at its heart. Already Brandon seemed to be reneging on his promise to give her a free hand, and she didn’t like what that said about her.