The Death Pictures (29 page)

He’d lain awake thinking about it, Annie’s soft breathing next to him. He’d said it before. Did he mean it now? It felt like he did, but what would happen the next time he was scrambled to a murder or rape? Or if the man they were hunting now struck again? Would it take him over? And what about Sarah? Could he justify it to her now? He was surprised to allow himself to let the thought slip away in his sleepy contentment.

The warmth had lingered until he’d got into work this morning and the call from the Assistant Chief Constable.

‘What the hell’s going on with the overtime budget, Adam? It’s soaring. And uniform are moaning you keep nicking their officers to sit around and do nothing.’

‘The rape case is staff-intensive, sir. We need uniform back-up.’

The phone line burst with a splutter. Brian Flood wasn’t a patient man.

‘Back-up yes, but not the whole bloody Plymouth division! You’ve got three cars out following people day and night. It’s costing a fortune.’

He’d expected the call, knew he wouldn’t get away with it for long.

‘They’re the prime suspects we’re following, sir. And we’re getting results. There hasn’t been another attack since we started following them.’

‘But you haven’t caught him, have you?’

‘We’re working on it.’

Another splutter. ‘Well you’re going to have to work on it some other way. We can’t afford the manpower or cost. Today is the last day of your triple surveillance operation, understood?’

‘But sir…’

‘Understood?!’

Adam knew from long experience it wasn’t worth arguing. He’d been amazed it lasted as long as it had. ‘Yes, sir.’

He told Suzanne as he stood with her and Claire in the MIR. She said nothing. Claire turned and mumbled something under her breath.

‘Enough, Claire. He’s the boss and that means what he says, goes.’

‘Sorry, sir.’ Her face flushed and she fiddled with one of the buttons of her white blouse.

Adam waited for a moment, then said, ‘So, where are we at the moment and where do we go?’

Suzanne walked over to the felt boards. ‘As was, really, sir. We still have three prime suspects, but no evidence against any of them apart from the circumstantial that they have motives, don’t have alibis and won’t give DNA. And that there have been no more attacks since we’ve been following them.’

A thought hit him. Or since Kid has been in custody... Where did that come from, Adam wondered? They had that hint Dan had passed on, that Kid could have been violent towards a previous partner, the Joanna woman, but that didn’t make him a rapist. It was only talk, just gossip, it meant nothing as evidence…

No, there couldn’t be a link between the rapes and McCluskey’s death. That was only Dan putting a journalist’s fantasies into his mind. But he’d better be ready for it in the trial, just in case. Desperate defence barristers resorted to incredible arguments to fog the evidence.

‘Have we got any more on their backgrounds?’ he asked thoughtfully. ‘Anything interesting?’

‘Yes sir,’ said Claire quickly.

Adam ran a hand over the stubble already gathering on his cheeks. A good officer, Claire, he thought, she was going to go far. Cute too, he knew at least one man who was very soft on her. Dan had asked him if she was attached, made that comment about her having the rare combination of looks and intellect. ‘She’s single as far as I know,’ he’d replied. ‘And you leave my staff alone!’

It wasn’t even a half jest, Adam thought. An intertwining between Dan and one of his officers… he didn’t want to think about the possible consequences.

‘Freeman and Godley have been checked as you know, sir, and you know about the previous convictions for violence we found for Freeman,’ Claire continued, checking her notebook. ‘Godley is clean. I also checked Munroe. He’s clean too and he does indeed work for Liberty on a regular basis. He charges only his costs apparently.’

Adam tried to think better of the man, but failed. The current government would surely be impressed by such good work when looking to appoint new judges.

He considered for a moment. ‘So we’ve hit a wall then, haven’t we? I don’t intend to sit around waiting for the rapist to make the next move. We all know what that means. So what do we do next? Any ideas?’

A sullen silence. Both Claire and Suzanne shook their heads. In fairness, he couldn’t think of anything either. That idea about taking DNA samples from Freeman’s, Munroe’s and Godley’s kids had been vetoed by the force’s solicitors. Too many legal and moral problems, the potential for a young child to effectively convict its father. So no evidence, no reason to take DNA, no chance of a search warrant on what they had, and to look for what, anyway? Witches’ hats in their wardrobes? Not a chance. These attacks were carefully planned. The rapist wouldn’t leave any evidence lying around at home ready for the police to find if they happened to come calling.

It was the DNA issue that was most frustrating. They had evidence to prove who the attacker was, but nothing to check it against with their suspects. Could they get some DNA from the men? They’d need just a little hair, blood, skin or saliva. How could they get that without their permission? The only ideas were the stuff of books. Break into their homes while they were out, steal coffee cups from their offices. All impossible in the real world.

‘OK then, let’s think about how this guy works,’ Adam said. ‘The attacks are planned, we know that. He intends to carry out six, he’s managed three. Any ideas what we should be looking for?’

Another silence. They looked at each other. ‘I think we’re stuck, sir,’ said Claire finally. ‘I reckon he’s already planned all six and knows exactly who he’s going to attack next. If he’s prepared it as we think, he’d know there’d be a big operation going on to get him after the first couple. He wouldn’t want to be out looking for new victims during that.’

Adam nodded. ‘I agree. And we’ve got no way of knowing who his next victim might be. We’ve still found no connection between the women, Suzanne?’

‘No, sir. Other than that they got those taxis, which may or may not have been driven by Freeman.’

‘Or it could just have been Munroe or Godley surreptitiously tailing a woman home, then building up his plan from there,’ added Adam. ‘Or it could be some connection we haven’t seen.’

‘Or it could be a totally different man who we haven’t even had a sniff of yet,’ added Claire gloomily, toying with her blouse again.

The door swung open and a cleaner shuffled in, emptied the bins into a black plastic sack and left without a word. They watched the door close again.

‘Listen,’ said Adam. ‘We’ll have to work on the basis it’s one of the three, because it’s no help to us at all imagining someone else out there without any way to find him. So let’s concentrate on what we’ve got for now.’

He pointed to each of the pictures on the boards, the three victims. ‘How long have we got before we get another broken face up here?’

‘If it is one of the three,’ said Suzanne slowly. ‘I reckon we’ve got a few days. First he’ll see we’re not tailing him any more. Then he’ll think we’re tailing him covertly. He’ll keep a look-out. Then he’ll realise we’re not. By that stage, the rapist story will have died down a bit and women will be relaxing and perhaps leaving windows open again. That’s his chance and that’s when he’ll think about striking.’

Adam drummed his fingers on the felt board above the picture of Rachel Bloom. ‘I agree. So, we’ve got just a few days.’ He blinked hard to blot out the looming image of the silhouetted man lurking outside a window, his fingers reaching for the latch… ‘That’s a few days to come up with a way to stop him.’

Dan jogged up to the support with 892 etched on it, then hit a dense patch of scrub. He was sweating again, a dark stain reaching up the back of his shirt. There was a notice about how important scrub was in preventing erosion in Mediterranean farming, but he didn’t see it. Surely he wasn’t going to have to push his way through that lot? The leaves looked dense and tipped with angry needles.

He took a look around. No attendants and only a few visitors. It wasn’t a busy day in Advent and the tropical dome tended to attract the most people. Was he really going to have to wade through those bushes? They looked like nature had designed them to stop an idiot like him trying any such move.

Was the answer in there? That it was difficult and probably painful to get to made him suspect it was. Knowing McCluskey, he could imagine the man standing here and laughing, thinking of the person who cracked his riddle and what their final ordeal would be. At least he was wearing jeans and not the shorts he had half considered when setting off from home. Dan took another look around. There was no one about.

It wasn’t quite as bad as he expected, but it still hurt. The heavy denim of his jeans blunted most of the thrusting needles, but some found a way through, jabbing into the soft skin of his thighs with sharp pricks. He swore quietly to himself and kept wading on, almost at the line of metal supports now, the edge of the thicket.

A needle stabbed hard at the top of his thigh. Another needle, penetrating just beside the kneecap, making him gasp, bringing a hot desire to kick out at the belligerent plant. He kept going, kept pushing. Then he was through, at the edge of the dome, by the supports. He was at number 909. He followed the line around. 910, 911, 912, 913, 914…

There it was, the one he wanted, just in front of him. He bent down to examine it, looking for a note pinned there, a picture perhaps, some kind of sign he’d finally cracked the riddle. There was nothing, nothing at all. He stood up and checked again. Still nothing. He bent down and stared at the support’s number. It was 001.

Dan waded back out of the thicket, this time not noticing the jabs in his anger. He sat down heavily on the bench, threw the pictures onto the sand by his side and got himself an ice cream. He deserved it and this time he would eat it, regardless of what thoughts came to him.

When he’d calmed down and stopped cursing McCluskey, he picked up the pictures and his notes again and looked through them. There was a funny side, he could see that, but he didn’t feel like laughing. Why did he have that sense that McCluskey was yet again watching, holding his sides to contain his hysterics?

The man had a malicious sense of humour. Clever though, he had to give him that. He’d foreseen all this happening, someone looking at his life, seeing what he’d done, what was important to him, matching that up with the pictures and coming here. He’d been here too and had planned it all. Dan wondered if he was the first to try looking in Advent. He couldn’t see any sign that anyone else had.

On Dartmoor, the National Park Authority had stationed a ranger to stop any more digging. Here there was no attendant, so perhaps he was ahead of the rest in working through what the pictures contained. A comforting thought, but no use if the answer you’d come up with was wrong. The swell of his excitement and anger had waned and he felt the tug of the swamp again. It was stronger now, pulling harder. He wondered whether to give up and go home, take Rutherford out and drown his frustration in a few beers.

Hang on though, what if it was a double bluff? Given how devious McCluskey was, what if the number of another support was hidden in the pictures? How would he feel if he read next week of someone solving the riddle, the answer on a metal pillar at the Advent Project? Dan checked the pictures again, his enthusiasm returning in an unexpected wave, pushing the swamp back out of his mind. Mood swings he thought, beware the mood swings.

Only two possibilities struck him. Number nine, from the key in picture seven, and 225, from the phone in the first picture. Surely that was the most likely, the most obvious? Nine was easy to check, it was just here. He examined it, found nothing. 225 then. That would be back in the tropical dome. Dan finished the ice cream and set off.

He’d expected it, but was still irritated to be right. 225 was well protected, hidden behind a dense thicket of bamboo. There were too many people around to take this plunge slowly. What the hell, he thought. He’d tell them his car keys fell off his belt and he was looking for them if they called an attendant, something pathetic like that. He wasn’t giving up now. And if it was the answer, he’d just tell them the truth. They’d love the publicity.

He hopped over the low wooden rail and started pushing his way through the trunks and stalks. They were smooth, springy, resistant, pushed right back at him, but this time at least they weren’t thorny. There were a couple of shouts of ‘Oi!,’ but he was through the first thicket and almost at the edge of the dome now. One pole jumped back at him, glancing off his shoulder. He hardly noticed. Just another push...

A foot slipped on some moss, but he kept going. He could hear shouting, ‘What you doing? Come out of there!’ and feet tramping from behind him, but he kept pushing, kept pushing. He almost fell as he reached the clear space of the concrete foundations of the supports.

Dan looked down at the one nearest him. 221. He moved on quickly, aware of the flailing behind and more shouts. 222, 223, 224, 225. Could it be here? It was certainly a good hiding place, he couldn’t imagine anyone finding it by chance. Shit! There was a small envelope taped around the bottom of the support, coloured grey to match the metal, invisible unless you were looking for it. His heart raced. Shit, was this really it? He reached down and ripped it off.

‘Here! You! You! What the hell are you doing?’ A middle aged man dressed in the white Advent polo shirt of the attendants appeared behind him. He stopped, studied Dan, his face slipping from angry to puzzled. ‘Here, blow me. Aren’t you that bloke on the TV?’