The Dead (The Saxon & Fitzgerald Mysteries Book 1) (15 page)

‘Dismembering the body in the churchyard isn’t a minor variation,’ I pointed out.

‘As to that, I tend to agree with your initial idea that the motive for removing the head was to delay identification. Or to stymie the forensics perhaps,’ he said. ‘His own DNA would have ended up under her fingernails if she scratched him; he wouldn’t have taken that chance.’

‘That still doesn’t explain the feet.’

‘The head was gone, the hands were gone,’ Tillman said coolly. ‘So why not remove the feet as well to make it seem as though the quote about Jezebel has a deeper significance?’

‘You don’t think there’s anything in the quotations?’

‘I’m not ruling it out completely. What I am saying is that these killings are being perpetrated mainly to prove a point, to play out a game. He doesn’t actually believe any of that stuff about the wickedness of women and stumbling not at beauty. He feels contempt for them, sure. They’re disposable. But Fagan killed prostitutes because they offended his religious sensibilities; this one kills them simply to mimic Fagan in order to outwit the cops, all the experts.’

‘So he doesn’t want to kill women?’ said Fitzgerald. ‘He has a funny way of showing it.’

‘No,’ Tillman stressed. ‘He enjoys the killing, it’s a bonus to him, and that will assert itself ever more strongly the more women he kills. He will start to introduce variations and deviations, he won’t be able to avoid escalation. But for now the killing isn’t the point. If it was, he would’ve had to make things conform more closely to his own fantasies already. It’s the acting out of the game, this contest of wills, of intellects, which is the point. This little innovation of his in choosing the names of people connected to the investigation confirms that much.’

I wasn’t convinced.

‘You don’t think you’re dismissing the significance of the Hebrew writing on Mary Lynch’s body too easily?’ I said.

‘Of course it must mean something. I don’t think it’s part of his fantasy, that’s all. I made a few enquiries of my own, just to see what the ox metaphor might mean. The best I could come up with is that the ox ploughing a field disturbs the earth in order to make it ready for new life, just like he said he was doing in his letter, making the world a better place by ridding it of sin. It’s a standard mission motive scenario. It doesn’t mean anything except as a statement of intent.’

‘You don’t know that. It might be the key to this whole thing.’

‘OK, you have it your own way; but even if it is the key, then my guess is it’s either going to be so simple you’ll overlook it completely, or so esoteric, so personal, that it’s something which will only make sense in retrospect. Either way, all you’d be doing is wasting time. That’s what he wants you to do, lose yourself in some artificial complexity.’

Fitzgerald sighed and reached for her coffee, took a sip and realised it was cold. ‘So how the hell do we catch him?’ she said, pulling a face and pushing the cup away.

‘When’s Mary Lynch’s body being released for burial?’

‘It’ll be a while yet. There’re still tests to be done.’

‘Pity. I’d have said have people watching the funeral. I’m sure he’d turn up for it, send flowers, maybe visit the grave later when everyone’s gone home, leave a gift.’

‘Does the same go for the places where Fagan’s other victims were killed?’ I asked.

‘No. He won’t risk revisiting them now,’ Tillman insisted. ‘It suited the game for him to use the same places as Fagan for the first two killings, but he won’t carry it on once it’s ceased to be his private joke. He knows now you’re watching, waiting. The fact he didn’t take Mary Dalton to the Law Library, like Fagan did Tara Cox, proves that. He might still try, though, to insert himself into the investigation as Fagan did. Check it out. See if anyone’s been asking too many questions of a member of your team. Watch out for a witness who keeps ringing up with more details he’s claiming suddenly to remember. He’ll be obsessed by the media coverage he’s getting too. There’s a possible angle.’

‘How?’

‘Use the media against him. Plant stories. At the moment, it’s all positive coverage as far as he’s concerned, it’s all good for his ego. But if the paper started reporting that, say, profiles suggested the killer was sexually impotent, or had a low IQ, bad body odour, then it’s going to alter his cosy relationship with the media and maybe make him careless. Look how annoyed he was when Maeve Curran in the
Post
tried to psychoanalyse him. It’d be better if it came through Elliott, because he obviously has a relationship of sorts built up there.’

‘Elliott wouldn’t do it,’ I said. ‘He wouldn’t jeopardise his love-in with the killer. It’s too important to him to keep the exchange going. He wouldn’t want to scare him off.’

‘Then use other newspapers, TV, radio. Call a press conference. Say there was a witness even if you don’t have one. Say you have a description, a sighting of the offender’s car. Anything to make him start to doubt that he’s as much in control as he likes to think.’

‘And then?’

‘And then you wait.’

We all knew what that meant.

FOURTH DAY

The Third Letter

‘God I thank thee, that I am not as other men are.’ But still I am beginning to grow tired of being ignored. I have explained my purpose, is that not enough? Yet all I hear is hypocritical pity for those through whom I have chosen to work the alchemy of spiritual renewal for all. It is not as though I have made myself a menace to the innocent ‘Woman is a misbegotten man and she has a faulty and deceptive nature. One must be on one’s guard with every woman, as if she were a poisonous snake and the horned devil’ – St Albert, our Church Father. Surely that is simple enough for you to understand?’ But they seeing see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.’ I would, like Our Lord, that this cup had passed from me if possible. But it was not to be. This is my burden, I was charged with the salvation of souls, the expiation of sins, and still they speak of me as if I was some aberration of nature, some monster. And for what? For taking nothing from these filthy diseased vermin that would not be taken by time itself.

‘Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die.’

Is that such a complicated concept to grasp? Is it? They should be envied, that I have chosen them, as I have chosen Nikola – there, are you satisfied now that you have a name to run after? They have escaped from two prisons, the prison of flesh and the prison of this sick lustful earth, and you dare feel sorry for them? ‘I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. God promises us that the dead shall see Him as he is after the manner of His own being. Why then should the dead be pitied? They know as truth what the wise have only guessed at for centuries. And now they stand outside of time, as my enemies shall soon be out of time themselves. Seven days I gave and three are spent. Verily was it written: ‘There are nine things I have judged in my heart to be happy, and the tenth I will utter with my tongue: A man that hath joy of his children and he that liveth to see the fall of his enemy.’ Though that’s two things, surely? Naughty Scripture, cheating like that. Honestly, you just can’t trust anyone these days.

Chapter Sixteen

‘Right, people,’ said Assistant Commissioner Draker. ‘As you can see, we have another communiqué from our friendly neighbourhood serial killer, Mr Fagan. You should all have a copy by now. Anyone who doesn’t can pick one up from the front desk after.’

Communiqué? What a dumbass word. And jabbering on still about Fagan was even dumber. Presumably if the killer said he was St Francis of Assisi, Draker would believe that too.

He was standing now in front of the map of the city, to which, I noticed, he’d added another of his little pins to represent Mary Dalton. He always liked to take meetings himself when there was progress to report, Fitzgerald once told me, but was this what he called progress?

To be honest, I was in a bad enough mood as it was without having him to contend with as well. Tillman’s profile hadn’t exactly delivered what I’d been hoping for; I could have given the same preliminary sketch of the killer myself. I’d been looking for more from him. Some flash. And it hadn’t been there. I certainly wasn’t as willing as he was to ignore the evidence of the Hebrew writing or the dismemberment of the body. It may have just been part of the game, but leads were sparse enough without dismissing the few that we had as irrelevant.

Now this.

God I thank thee, that I am not as other men are
.

Was he for real?
Woman is a misbegotten man and
— Enough already. I was growing seriously hacked off with this half-baked mystic mumbo-jumbo. He didn’t really believe he was on a divine mission any more than I did.

Fitzgerald had handed me a copy of the letter that morning as I arrived in the crime team room, less than an hour after she’d been having breakfast in my apartment. I’d read the single closely typewritten sheet half a dozen times since then and despair gnawed at me each time. A name, that’s all there was. A less common name than before, maybe, but he wasn’t making this easy.

The only possible lead I could see was that phrase about a man that hath joy of his children. Could it be a hidden message about Jack Mullen carrying on his father’s work? But even that was stretching it.

At least, I tried to console myself, Tillman had come down strongly against the idea of it being Fagan we were looking for, that was something; but it wouldn’t be enough to convince Draker, and he’d made that plain in his opening remarks to the meeting.

He reminded me of Nick Elliott. I’d heard him being interviewed early that morning on one of the talk radio shows about his special relationship with Ed Fagan.

Did I say being interviewed? Addressing the nation was more like it. All of a sudden Elliott wasn’t just some second division crime reporter guzzling for scraps from the same trough as the rest. All of a sudden he was an expert, an authority, and boy did he wallow in it.

I’d switched off, disgusted, not least with myself. It was my fault Elliott and Draker could throw Fagan’s name about so easily, and only I could make them stop. What’s more, I was going to have to do it soon. If only I wasn’t so afraid of what might happen when I did.

My eyes sought out Fitzgerald. There she was at Draker’s side whilst he spouted inanities. She was leaning back against the desk, one hand either side of her body, grasping the edge, legs stretched out, feet crossed. She was looking at her shoes the whole time he spoke. Draker turned to her occasionally, for affirmation or support, but her shoes were just too damn fascinating each time. I liked her style.

She made contempt look like concentration.

‘It came in this morning’s mail to Nick Elliott at the
Post
,’ Draker was explaining right now about the latest letter. I hadn’t been listening, I realised, but I hadn’t missed much. ‘Same postmark, same typeface, same paper. The editor had it sent round to us straight away.’

At last, they were learning cooperation.

‘Are they publishing it, sir?’ said Lawlor.

‘They’ve promised to hold it over for one day. That gives us twenty-four hours to track down this Nikola. We’ve already been in contact with Vice and the various welfare agencies to find anyone with a record of prostitution over the past few years with that name. So far, nothing.’

‘For all we know, she might be dead already,’ Dalton piped up matter-of-factly.

He was sketching spirals on the copy of the killer’s letter on his knee. The page was covered with them. He didn’t even raise his head as he spoke. I knew what was eating him. He was still unhappy because he’d had to go back and redo all his interviews with Mary Lynch’s family and friends in an effort to try and track down her mysterious admirer Gus. He hadn’t had any luck, but it was the having to do it at all which bothered Dalton more than the failure.

‘Probably is dead,’ he added when he could be sure he’d got the attention of the room. ‘My little namesake yesterday was dead before the Post even hit the streets. No reason to think this one’ll be any different.’

‘She might be dead,’ said Fitzgerald firmly, raising her head for the first time since she’d taken her perch and glaring at Dalton. ‘But don’t assume anyone is dead until they are confirmed dead by the city pathologist. He’s the only one round here legally qualified to certify who’s dead and who isn’t. Besides, I spoke to Mort Tillman about half an hour ago . . .’

There was a low groan in the room at the sound of the profiler’s name, and Draker smiled indulgently, making his own contemptuous opinion plain. So much for official appreciation of Mort’s efforts. I wondered if Draker had even read Tillman’s profile yet. Or if he ever would.

‘That’s enough,’ said Fitzgerald, raising her voice. ‘You catch this offender all by your clever selves, then you’ll earn the right to turn up your noses at other methods. Till then we take expert advice where we can get it. And what Tillman says is that he won’t kill this Nikola, whoever she is, before her name appears in the Post. He’s seeking applause, validation. He needs to make it seem as if there’s some two-way game going on here in which we’re all equal players, hunter and hunted, quarry and prey. So he’ll wait.’

‘Like he did with Mary D?’ said Dalton.

‘We didn’t have prior warning about Mary Dalton because the
Post
kept it to themselves. The killer didn’t expect that. How could he? You don’t have to go along with it, but Tillman’s theory is he’ll wait this time to make sure everyone knows what he’s playing at before striking. Meanwhile, we do our job. That means all of you calling in all your contacts to see if you can get a lead on this Nikola. She’s out there somewhere. It might be someone with the nickname Nikola, the middle name Nikola. We know this guy has already murdered two women with surnames connecting them to this investigation, so bear that in mind too. And don’t just expect the obvious. He wants to play a game against you, wants to show he’s better than you. Don’t prove him right.’

‘Well, whatever the psychologist says,’ said Draker, seizing his chance to wrestle back control from Fitzgerald, and managing to make psychologist sound like it was something equivalent to snake-charmer, and equally as useful to the investigation, ‘it’s not going to help us trudge through the evidence any quicker. What about that? Have we got anything at all on the latest victim since yesterday?’

There followed the most depressing part of the meeting.

So far, the investigation into Mary Dalton’s death had been as fruitless as that into Mary Lynch’s. Door-to-doors had failed to uncover a single person who had heard or seen anything unusual on the night she died, much less a witness who had observed her with a possible suspect, or even noticed her at all. We were dealing with the same ghost who came and went without leaving a trace.

Mary Dalton herself was almost as invisible. Hers was a familiar story, mapped out now in retrospect in little more than a list of summonses, court appearances, short stints in Mountjoy Prison, all for relatively minor offences linked to her need to feed her drug habit. She’d even worked as a lap dancer for a time at one of the clubs that were springing up around the city, though she’d been sacked when her pretty obvious status as an addict started putting off the punters, bless their high standards. It certainly didn’t take long to summarise her career.

And that was it, was it, the sum total of a life? It seemed so.

Then it all ended, as Lynch’s latest autopsy showed, with multiple stab wounds to the body followed by a single expert stroke to sever the jugular, leading to massive and fatal blood loss – exactly like Tara Cox.

As for her boyfriend/pimp, if he knew anything about what had happened to Mary, he wasn’t telling; and according to Sean Healy, who took the man’s statement detailing when and where he last saw Mary alive, he didn’t seem too troubled by it.

His alibi wasn’t convincing either, but I doubted that he was the killer. Whoever wrote those letters and killed these women was methodical, attentive, intelligent, like Tillman’s profile said. Mary Dalton’s boyfriend, by contrast, was as unstable as a homemade explosive. He had a conviction dating back seven years for attacking a barmaid with a broken bottle; another time he’d been hauled in for an assault on a previous girlfriend, though she’d been too frightened to press charges. Violence was encoded in his being; he couldn’t hide it.

‘What about the print on the knife?’ someone asked eventually.

‘It’s being run against the files this morning,’ said Draker.

‘And the cord round her neck, sir?’

‘Same sort that was used to strangle Mary Lynch,’ he said. ‘Standard garden twine, available all over. That’s a dead loss. We’ll never trace it back to a particular batch.’

Draker didn’t bother asking how I was getting on, and that suited me fine. I wasn’t here to earn his respect or approval.

Downstairs, I picked up my cellphone from reception – Lynch had dropped it off that morning, having found it on the back seat of his car after I leapt out at the market – and switched it on to find a message waiting from Lawrence Fisher.

I called him back at once. Fisher was a busy man. He never just called to pass the time of day. Never just called me, that is.

It was hard to figure out where he was when I finally got through, but it sounded hollow, echoing, noisy. There was a murmur of crowds. And was that a tannoy in the background?

‘I heard you teamed up with Tillman again,’ he said when he recognised who it was. He sounded amused.

‘I wouldn’t exactly call it teaming up,’ I said. ‘And how come you’re so knowledgeable, anyway? You boys been talking about me behind my back?’

‘Would you mind if we did?’

‘What is it they say?’ I answered. ‘It’s not when people talk about you that you should worry, it’s when they stop talking about you.’

‘You didn’t hear what we said.’

‘Same difference. But you didn’t call to tell me that. Not when you could be opening a supermarket somewhere.’

‘I have never opened a supermarket in my life,’ said Fisher, pretending to be offended. ‘They couldn’t pay me enough, for one thing. No, I just wanted to let you know that I may have something for you off the computer records.’ A pause. ‘Are you still there?’

‘I’m here,’ I said. ‘Stunned, but here.’

‘Why stunned? You’re not saying you didn’t expect me to find anything, are you? Because if you are, why the hell did you get me to put in all the details in the first place?’

‘Just fishing,’ I said. ‘And a good job I did too if you’ve come up with something. Are you going to tell me what it is, or do I have to come over there and beat it out of you?’

‘I’ll tell you,’ he said quickly. ‘From anyone else, I’d take that threat as rhetorical. From you, I know you mean it.’

‘You’d better believe it.’

‘But I’m still not telling you right away. Not over the phone. I’ll tell you when I see you. I’m on my way over now.’

‘You’re coming to Dublin?’

‘That’s where you are, isn’t it?’ Fisher replied. ‘Where else would I be coming over to?’

‘No need to be smart,’ I said. ‘I was surprised, that’s all. At least that explains what all the noise is behind you. You’re at the airport. What time’s your flight?’

‘Five minutes. I’ll be there within the hour.’

‘You don’t give people much warning.’

‘That’s what happens when you have your mobile switched off. I’ve been trying to get you for the last hour. You wouldn’t . . .’

‘Pick you up? Of course I’ll pick you up. Is that what all the secrecy’s about then, Fisher – making sure you get a free lift out of me in return for your information?’

Fisher laughed.

‘Well, where’s the fun of claiming expenses for taxis if you actually take the taxis?’