River of Souls (30 page)

‘He must be bloody lonely then.’ There was no sympathy in her voice, only cold rage.

‘Are you okay, Tania?’

‘Fine, except we’re getting nowhere and my daughter’s winding me up. Burns is in a foul mood too.’

‘Is he here?’

She nodded. ‘They’re filming him on the stairs where Speller was found.’ Her face set in a grimace. ‘He’s been a nightmare for days. Fuck knows why, but it’s hammering team morale.’

Tania looked as glamorous as ever, eye make-up immaculate, despite the weather. It annoyed me that we always struggled to communicate when there was so much to admire. She had serious grit, combining a tough career with being a single mum. I still believed that her attitude towards me alternated between friendliness and dislike because she held a candle for Burns.

‘How’s Sinead these days?’

She gave a rapid grin. ‘A handful most of the time. It doesn’t help that she hardly sees me.’

‘But she must be proud.’

Tania gave a short laugh. ‘That’ll hit her when she’s twenty-five. Right now she’s just pissed off I’m working again tonight.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Coming here for the reconstruction. It kicks off at ten.’

She set off to check on the actors and camera crew, who were starting their dress rehearsal. It surprised me that she’d revealed her frustrations instead of hiding them behind her glossy shell. I tried to focus again on the task in hand. By now I’d reached the spot where Amala’s corpse had been tethered to a mooring ring. The embankment towered above me, twenty feet of exposed brick, metal and wooden bulwarks designed to contain the highest tides. Even if she’d freed herself, no one could have climbed such a sheer wall of bricks, slick with algae, mortar worn flat by endless tides. I was still studying the river sidings when Burns tapped me on the shoulder.

‘How did it go with Altman?’ he asked.

‘He let slip that Julian Speller was planning to move in, then a month ago he cooled off for no apparent reason.’

‘You got more out of him than me. Maybe Speller had someone else.’

‘I’d like to know more about his movements for the past few months.’

Burns nodded. ‘We’re checking his phone and email. He only used his work diary for official meetings.’

‘Altman said Speller had been hunting for a new job. He didn’t have a good word to say about our friend the minister.’

He gave a frustrated groan. ‘I need a one-to-one chat with Shelley, but the press office are still blocking it. Their official line is that the minister’s privacy mustn’t be disturbed. They’re stonewalling every step of the way.’

‘Maybe his wife could fix a meeting.’

‘It’s worth a try.’ He gazed down at the murky water lapping at our shoes. ‘The river keeps pulling our man back, doesn’t it? I’ve got uniforms checking for his hiding places.’

On the opposite bank I could see a troop of uniforms scouring the foreshore. ‘He can’t keep operating under this kind of stress. He’ll slip up before long.’

Burns gave a half-smile, as if he appreciated the encouragement but didn’t believe it. ‘Christ knows whether the TV bulletin’s worth the effort.’

‘It only has to jog one person’s memory.’

‘Let’s hope it does. The heat from the top’s unbelievable. They want the case solved immediately but won’t let me interview the key players.’

I stared at the water’s dark surface, wishing I could teleport myself to the safety of my flat. The case had escalated from examining a single brutal attack to a nationwide hunt for a serial killer. The tension in Burns’s face indicated that he was finding the pressure brutal too. I was about to say goodbye when he turned to me.

‘You could have told me you were seeing someone.’

I did my best to keep my voice neutral. ‘Was I meant to put my life on hold while you got on with yours?’

He looked so crestfallen that I wanted to touch him, but reminded myself that he had a wife and kids waiting at home.

‘Where are you going now?’ he asked.

‘Back to mine to switch off for a few hours.’

Burns gave an abrupt nod. ‘Don’t go out alone tonight. Most of the attacks have happened inside a mile of your flat.’ He walked away at a brisk pace, leaving me to study the river churning at low ebb, cutting through an expanse of dark brown mud.

41

The man waits outside the police station at six p.m. He’s disguised as a tourist with a camera around his neck, a London guidebook clutched in his hand, wearing sunglasses even though it’s overcast. He leans against the railings, pretending to be waiting for someone. In reality he’s expecting his next victim. He knows nothing about her apart from the set of her features, memorised from the TV news. With luck she’ll appear soon and he can follow her home.

The river’s voice hisses out warnings, but it’s quieter than before, almost silenced by the rush-hour traffic. The delay frustrates him. He’s forced to watch and wait, pretending to be absorbed in his guidebook, glancing up frequently to see if she’s arrived. But the police station is quiet today. He can hear the journalists’ complaints. Most of the officers are on the riverbank, and he wishes he was there too. If he had the choice he would sit on a bench facing the water, lulled by its quiet conversation. The pain in his head has returned, pulsing behind his eyes like a drum beating, impossible to ignore.

The man allows himself to imagine the future. Once he’s killed the people who are chasing him, he can live just as before. He will have no regrets because he’s not a coward like the victims he’s taken. There will be time to concentrate on his own comfort for once.

He looks up again but still no one emerges from the police station. Two of the journalists walk by, one of them mentioning an address in Wapping. Relief floods his system as the river’s voice grows louder. It has a way of saving him. Whenever he’s lost, it comes to his rescue. He fiddles with his camera, scans the street to check that no one is watching, then saunters away.

42

My phone rang when I got home at half past six. The voice at the end of the line was a genteel London drawl.

‘Are we still meeting tonight?’

‘I can’t, Jake. I’m too busy.’

‘The department’s throwing a party to celebrate getting our funding. If you drop by, we could go for a drink after? I want to clear the air.’

Part of me wanted to see the history team again because I knew the killer was obsessed by the river’s past, but the photo on Jake’s phone still bothered me. ‘I can only stay an hour.’

‘That’s better than nothing.’ He sounded relieved, as if he’d been expecting a flat refusal.

I hung up swiftly, promising myself to find out his secret then make a quick exit.

The celebration was in full swing when I arrived at King’s College, salsa music spilling from the exhibition hall. There was no sign of Jake, so I grabbed a glass of wine and surveyed the crowded room. It was filled with students and academics, bunting trailing between display cases, an atmosphere of refined euphoria. Some discreet flirting had begun, and I could tell that gentility would soon fly out of the window. The event would morph into a riotous student hoedown when the lecturers went home.

Plenty of familiar faces were in evidence. Paul Ramirez, Jude’s old flame from the law department, was basking in his colleagues’ reflected success. I took care not to catch his eye. It still seemed odd that Jude had been attracted to him; the only reason I could fathom was that she’d been too naive to spot that he was a sleaze-ball. Ramirez was so absorbed by a stunning brunette that he didn’t notice my scrutiny. Many others in the room must have known Jude when she was a law student; most of the lecturers and postgraduates would have rubbed shoulders with her in the corridors. I found myself studying their faces, trying to guess who might have spoken to her.

The history department had turned out en masse, clearly relieved that jobs had been saved. The only person missing was Mark Edmunds, probably nursing his bruises from his interview the day before. Hugh Lister stood alone, brooding over his beer, as if social contact was torturous, even though he’d been so committed to the Thames excavation. Jake appeared before I’d touched my wine. For once he looked less than immaculate, with creases in his shirt, his hair uncombed.

‘It’s good to see you.’ He leant down to kiss my cheek. ‘The party started hours ago, I’m already hungover.’

‘How come your friend Hugh looks so unhappy?’

‘End of term isn’t his favourite moment; he prefers keeping busy. The guy’s been through a rough time.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘A bad divorce, he doesn’t see much of his kids.’

‘He’s alone, you mean.’

‘Even during the holidays, he comes in most days.’

My eyes travelled back to Lister. It fascinated me that some people could isolate themselves in the middle of a crowd. His colleagues were keeping a respectful distance, as if his loneliness repelled them, like an invisible force field.

‘You’re doing it again, Alice,’ Jake whispered. ‘Let’s get out of here before you psychoanalyse my whole department.’

The Globe on Bow Street had undergone a transformation since my last visit. It had changed from a spit and sawdust inn to a gourmet eatery. The waiter looked unimpressed to hear that we only wanted drinks. Jake pulled his phone from his pocket and a petulant, child-like part of me felt like hurling it through the window. The rum he’d bought me left a burning sensation at the back of my throat, but it took effect fast, the knot in my stomach quickly unravelling. Jake was classically handsome, even at his most dishevelled. His wide blue eyes looked so dreamy, half his attention seemed to be focused elsewhere.

‘The girl in your photo left her stuff in your bathroom, didn’t she?’

‘It doesn’t mean anything. It ended last year.’

‘What’s her name?’

He stared down at his drink. ‘Emily. I met her at college; we got married the year we graduated. She’s an archaeologist like me.’

‘Why did you split up?’

‘She got a job on an excavation in Peru. The dig was meant to last three months, but she never came back.’

I gaped at him. ‘She died out there?’

‘Nothing so romantic. Emily met an American guy and wanted a quick divorce. After six weeks she emailed to say she wasn’t coming home.’

For once I had his undivided attention. His eyes latched onto my face as if he expected me to evaporate into thin air. The story explained why he was locked in the past. Maybe he thought that a doppelgänger could answer all his questions about why his wife had left. The sudden loss must be the reason why he slept with the light on, to keep nightmares at bay.

‘Why did you keep her stuff?’

‘I hoped she’d come back at first. Then I didn’t know what to do with it.’

‘Sleeping with her double doesn’t seem like a great recovery plan.’

He shook his head firmly. ‘That could be why I spotted you, but it’s not how I feel now. I want to spend time with you.’

‘If I’d chosen you because you were the spitting image of my ex, how would you feel?’

His smile narrowed. ‘We’re in the same boat, Alice. You’ve still got feelings for someone else – maybe we can cure each other.’

‘Relationships aren’t my immediate concern.’

‘The case is still causing headaches?’

‘Migraines, more like. I shouldn’t have let myself be flattered into taking it on.’ I pulled out my crumpled map of the Thames and brandished it at him. ‘I’ve even been dreaming about where he leaves the bodies. None of it makes sense.’

Jake studied my scrawled notes. ‘It looks like he understands tides as well as estuarine history.’ His finger tapped the Battersea shoreline. ‘Dropping the priest’s body here guaranteed it would be carried straight to the House of Commons.’

‘Delivered like a birthday present.’

‘Exactly. Whoever he is, he’s probably spent hours researching tidal flow.’

I stared at the river’s sinuous profile. But the only face that came to mind was Guy Shelley’s, pinched and obsessive, struggling to conquer his demons.

‘Want another?’ Jake held up my empty glass.

I checked my watch. ‘I’ve still got work to do.’