The Ashes of an Oak (21 page)

The lights flickered – on/off – just once.

‘Yeah,’ said Frank, as the hairs on the back of his neck frosted his spine. ‘Run, you bastard, run. I’ll find you.’

Saturday

Chapter 29

‘It’s a steel.’

‘A what?’

‘A steel. A knife sharpener. More precisely, a
Lee Carved Handle steel from the nineteen-forties. Bakelite handle. Weighs about eight pounds. Heavy enough to open up a skull with one good swipe.’

Milt waited for a response from Emmet.

‘Is it what killed her?’

‘It’s got her blood and tissue all over it, Em. So, yeah.’

‘Prints?’

‘There were little paw prints all over it, all too small to belong to an adult. Also two from the kid that Frank says found it, probably thumb and forefinger.’

‘So this steel could have come from anybody’s kitchen drawer?’

‘Pretty much. Sorry, Em. You find the owner, we’ll try and connect the two, but without prints all he has to say is that it disappeared from their house ten years ago and hasn’t been seen since.’

‘Damn. One step forward, two steps back.’

‘No,’ rumbled Milt. ‘It’s a step forward. You have one more thing today that you didn’t have yesterday. You have a murder weapon. That’s always a positive thing.’

‘Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry. Thanks for letting me know.’

‘Sure thing.’

Emmet ticked and tutted as he put the phone down.

‘Sorry, Frank. The steel killed Charlene Astle, but there are no significant prints apart from the thumb and forefinger of the Cowdell kid and the kids who were playing with it. We have a weapon, but no owner.’

Frank didn’t seem too put out. ‘Never mind, Emmet. It beats having nothing.’

‘Yeah. Do you have the picture?’

Frank pulled the folded picture out of his jacket pocket.

‘Okay,’ said Emmet. ‘Get some copies made and distributed, then lock yourself away in a room and go through the files. We might have a picture of him somewhere. He didn’t seem like the kind of fella that would have a clean record.’ Emmet lit a cigarette. ‘What did you think of the Benoît guy? You think he’s real?’

Frank considered the question. ‘I think I do, Em. I can’t say for sure that it’s not some sort of shinola he’s feeding us, but it all seemed pretty kosher to me.’ He held up the picture. ‘I guess there’s only one way to find out.’

‘Go ahead. I’ll let you know if I hear anything. Keep this between ourselves, eh. If the press get hold of the fact that our best lead is a ghost we’re all back on traffic duty.’

Frank took up residence in the basement. There were no rooms in which he could lock himself, but at least this way he would be undisturbed. If he’d sat at his desk he wouldn’t have got a moment’s peace. For some reason, people found his scar a thing of fascination. They would peer at it for an age with their lower lips out in fascinated awe. Some even wanted to touch it.

How far to go back? Ten years? Fifteen? He could work on the psych’s reasoning that the perp would be somewhere between twenty and thirty-five. Benoît said that the Token Killer had been a kid when he had slit his father’s throat. How old’s a kid? Five? Six? Nineteen? The older you got, the more kids there were, that was for sure. Steve Wayt was a kid to Frank.

It would’ve taken some guts to take the opportunity that he did. To get a knife, perhaps a Stanley, perhaps an old, razor-edged kitchen knife, then creep up on your old man, your nasty old man, grab his hair and pull back his head back; that took strength in all sorts of ways.

Then, that moment, that infinite, split second of time, when a fleeting doubt goes through the mind faster than light, which then halfway through turns from uncertainty to deliberation to intent, and then the feel of the blade against the skin; the action, the slow, angry bite of the knife into flesh; the depth required, the strength, the willpower, the hatred.

How far to drag the knife? Six inches? Ear lobe to ear lobe? The further the distance and the longer it took, the less chance he had to succeed. His first thought would be: Suppose the old man fights back because I was too slow?

How deep? You couldn’t just fairy skate across it, you had to bury that blade and make sure you got to the arteries and veins and the windpipe. Then you had to listen to the gurgle, hear that final wind rush from him like a spirit sprung from a cage and stand over that spastic, jerking frame as life ebbed like a final tide from his body.

So, if the killer was, say thirty now and he killed his old man when he was, for convenience sake, sixteen, that would make it fourteen years ago. Allow for error, and say three years either way, then he would have to look at the files from between eleven and seventeen years ago.

A span of six years. Six years’ worth of files.

He got a clean glass ashtray and laid his cigarettes and lighter out next to it, then put a jug of water and a glass next to them. Coleman said he would send out for sandwiches at twelve.

Frank looked at his watch. Nine-fifteen.

He set the portrait Benoît had done out in front of him, then pulled the top file from a whole pile of files and began to look at photos.

‘Hey.’

Frank looked up to see Steve Wayt, leaning against the bannister, looking at him from the stairs.

Frank looked at his watch. It was twelve-ten. Time had gone by quickly. The ashtray was half full, the water half gone. The basement suddenly felt very stuffy. One quarter of the pile of photos had moved to the other side of the desk. Frank reckoned he must have looked at around four thousand of them.

‘Hey yourself, Steve. Those my sandwiches in your hand?’

Steve held up a bag. ‘They are. You want them down here?’

‘No. I need some air. Hold on there. I’ll come up.’

Frank grabbed his jacket and smokes and headed up.

He and Steve walked outside and sat on a wall. It was bright. He felt like he’d been in a cave for a year.

Steve gave him the bag and a take-out coffee.

Frank sipped the coffee and winced. ‘Hot,’ he said. ‘How’s your day?’

Steve shrugged. ‘Circular. I seem to be meeting myself on the way back. I’ve been to every hospital and almost every family doctor in this city and I’m damned if I can find one diabetic, never mind one with a harelip.’

Frank laughed. ‘It’s always the last one. You know that.’

‘So what are you doing?’

‘Just looking at mug shots. Trying to put names to faces. I got bored and asked the boss if I could do something useful. He’s got me in the basement.’ Frank took out a sandwich and started to eat. He raised his eyebrows in approval at the tuna and mayo. ‘I can’t sit at home, not knowing Mary’s killer’s out there.’

‘Understandable.’

‘You hear about the steel?’

‘Oh, yeah. Got pictures circulating, people going round hardware stores. Not sure what we’ll be able to do about it, but at least it’s something. You found it?’

Frank shook his head. ‘Informant of mine. I asked him to keep ears and eyes to the ground. James
Cowdell
. You know James. You met him on that stripper case last year. The twitchy kid.’

‘Oh, yeah, sure. I remember. Where’d he find it? At the scene?’

‘Yeah,’ said Frank between chews. ‘He saw some kids playing with it, saw the blood on it and took it off them.’

‘That’s a stroke of luck,’ said Steve.

‘Yes it is.’

Steve lit a cigarette and waved at a passing uniform. ‘You believe him?’

‘How? In what way?’

‘That he found it. Do you believe that he found it?’

Frank stopped eating and looked at Steve. ‘What are you saying?’

‘It didn’t occur to you that he never found it? That he might have had it all along? His fingerprints on the weapon? Come on. It’s the oldest trick in the book, Frank. Hide in the open. Put your prints on the weapon. Make up a story and no one will suspect you.’

Frank swallowed. ‘Get the fuck out of here, Steve. What? You think that he killed that girl then pulled off some sort of double bluff, thinking that we’re too stupid to catch on? You think he’d risk prison for a hundred bucks?’ He took another bite of the sandwich. ‘You’re crazy.’

‘It’s just an idea. That’s all.’ Steve took off his jacket and laid it out on the wall, then started to roll up his sleeves. ‘You asked him to do this for you when?’

‘Thursday.’

‘And the next day, this morning, by coincidence, he just happens to find some kids near the crime scene playing with the murder weapon?’

Frank took a sip of coffee and lit a cigarette. They were directly in the path of the high sun. It was hot, remorseless and sapped at his energy.

‘Take a step back there, Steve. I know this kid. He’s a good kid. Always trying to please, you know?’

‘And?’

Frank realised that he may have talked himself into a corner. ‘What? Because he’s trying to please makes him a murderer? Bullshit! No way could he have been involved.’

Steve crossed his arms and gazed nonchalantly across the street.

‘If it had been anybody else, Frank, what would you say?’

Frank walked a few feet and threw the bag in the bin. He took another sip of coffee, frowned in disgust and binned that too.

‘I would say bring him in,’ he said. ‘But I know this guy.’

‘Frank, we have two murders unaccounted for,’ reasoned Steve. ‘The guy’s a freak. He’s jumpier than a cricket in heat and has everything to prove. How many jobs has he had in the past two years? Five? Six? I know you like the guy, Frank, but he’s wired wrong. His way of thinking? I’ll tell you. Copycat murders and make a few bucks.’

‘It’s not a copycat. The psych said that,’ insisted Frank.

‘Or it could be a really shit one,’ said Steve. ‘Come on, Frank. He’s a fucking retard. He couldn’t copy a straight line.’

Frank wanted to argue, but it was hot and he was losing patience. ‘Let me think about it, would you?’

‘It’s a lead, Frank and there’s a fucking great guilty dog tugging on the end of it.’

‘Just leave it with me. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ said Steve. ‘I’ll leave it until you’ve looked through those pictures. End of the day. The guy’s a perfect match up, Frank. Simple, no direction, desperate to please. He’s got a fucking arrow on his head saying, ‘pick me’.’

‘I went to him, remember?’

‘So you did, Frank. So you did.’ Steve threw his cigarette into the gutter. ‘Maybe that’s the problem. No distance, Frank. No distance.’

Frank took his hat off and fanned his face. He felt like he was going to pass out.

‘Okay, Steve. Do what you must. I think you’re wrong, but I can understand why you think like you do.’

Steve put a hand on Frank’s shoulder. ‘Thanks, Frank. I’ll let you know.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’d better go. Listen, you think you’ll be staying on now? No more retirement talk?’

Frank shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Steve.’

‘Yeah but, with Mary gone and you getting back to health…’

‘Mary dying just makes me want to clear out twice as much.’ Frank put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall. ‘She wasn’t my passport out of here, Steve, she was my motivation. Now I’m just sick to the stomach of the place, of the people, of the whole fucking sewer. If I go now, it’s not because of Mary, it’s because I don’t have Mary. I need out more than ever now. I just don’t have the motivation anymore.’

‘Sure you do.’

‘Sure I don’t,’ retorted Frank flatly.

‘Okay,’ said Steve. ‘I’d better go. Sorry about the kid, Frank. I have to take action. You know that.’

‘Yeah,’ said Frank. ‘I know it.’

He just wanted to get away now. Steve was beginning to annoy him – Steve and the heat.

At four-thirty Frank found him. It was the second to last volume of photos. He had become resigned to failure. Each face had begun to blend into the next.

Then he thought for a second that his heart would actually stop. He doubted himself, completely and without boundary, he doubted himself. He rubbed his eyes, thought it was too much smoke, tiredness, the residue of the anaesthetic, worn out old eyes. He thought it could be anything but the truth.

He looked at Benoît’s sketch and then back at the photo. The more he looked the more different the two became until they had nothing in common but the placement of the eyes, nose and mouth. They became the Generic Man, the faded face, the same thin lips, the hard, flared nostrils, the depthless stare, the one we all recognise and yet have no idea why.

He turned away, closed his eyes and cleared his mind, took another look and saw the likeness all over again. He saw the truth.

He picked up the volume and carried it to records, the page laid bare, a psalter of sinners, a book of revelation, and dropped it down in front of the desk clerk.

He stabbed a finger down on the photo. ‘Find me him, Joe.’

Joe lifted his unflappable, hooded eyes towards Frank. ‘You look like you mean business, Frank.’

‘Like never before.’

Joe swivelled the photo album round and made a note of number below the picture. ‘Consider it done,’ he said.