The Reborn (27 page)

‘Show me the other numbers.’

He didn’t move for a moment, and the thought crossed her mind that the other numbers didn’t exist, but then he pointed and clicked on the screen. A tag opened up at the other two red dots. Each speech balloon contained a number and a time.

Rhona didn’t recognise either number, although that didn’t necessarily mean anything. She had a poor memory for phone numbers and struggled to remember her own, resorting to programming it in her address book under ‘Me’. She remembered how oddly Chrissy had behaved earlier, as if she’d had something to say. On a hunch, she retrieved Chrissy’s number. It wasn’t a match.

‘I’ve done that already. Neither number matches any in your address book.’

She felt obscurely irritated at this breach of her privacy, although it had been the obvious thing for him to do.

‘So where do we go from here?’ she said.

‘I think you should leave it to me now.’

‘Why?’

‘You found out what you could about the post-mortem and the hospital.’

‘I haven’t finished with that yet.’

‘I think you’ve done enough.’

‘That’s not for you to say,’ she responded angrily.

‘I’ll keep you informed.’ He sounded equally determined.

‘I think it’s time we spoke to Bill.’

She was pleased to see the suggestion rattled him.

‘I wouldn’t advise that. Not unless you want McNab to die a second time.’

‘Bill could never be a threat.’

‘I agree, but if even a rumour of this gets out and Kalinin gets wind of it . . . I told you someone on the inside is helping him.’

‘And what if it’s you?’ she snapped.

He stared at her in amazement. ‘You actually think I work for Kalinin?’

‘Do you?’

He regarded her for a moment, then drew up his shirt, exposing the long purple scar.

‘I got this while on an assignment in the wake of the murder of a Russian journalist, who was about to reveal some interesting international connections of Kalinin’s. I followed her leads just short of the man himself. I had names, mobile data, dates, times.’

Rhona couldn’t take her eyes off the scar.

‘I regained consciousness in a hospital in Prague with a drain in my side. According to the doctor, the knife went up and under the ribcage, straight for the kidneys. I’m lucky to be alive, or so the doctor said.’ He let the shirt fall. ‘I told you. We both want the same thing.’

After Rhona had left, Petersson sat down abruptly at the table. His side ached as though it had never healed. It was always the same when he was tired. He rubbed at the scar absentmindedly.

Despite his exhaustion, his performance, he decided, had been adequate. Nevertheless, he wondered how much she had believed. He had been warned about Dr MacLeod. Only now did he acknowledge that he had not taken the warning seriously enough.

34

Magnus closed the notebook. Eleven phrases, not all sequential, yet all seeming to follow the same theme. Kira had been studying Greek as well as Maths, he knew; what he’d found embedded in the differential calculus and complex number calculations could be her playing with her newly found knowledge, or something more significant.

He studied the list of transcripted words on the notepad.

Myrrha, daughter of Theias of Assyria. Mother of Adonis. Was Kira likening herself or another to Myrrha? Ovid wrote of Myrrha in his
Metamorphoses Book X
. Myrrha, both daughter and lover to Theias. Her story was a disturbing one, as all Greek myths tended to be. But did it have any relevance to what had happened to Kira?

Magnus had no desire to expose himself to ridicule. He had interpreted something wrongly before, with grave consequences. One thing he was sure of – Kira may have been a model and gifted pupil, but she had another life. The theme of sexual awakening was strong, and the reference to Dionysos helped paint a picture of imagined or real excess. Bill had mentioned parties held by the Daisy Chain gang, where they indulged in alcohol, drugs and unprotected sex.

Most – if not all – teenagers had lives their parents knew nothing about, just as parents had their own secrets, sexual or otherwise. Bill had told him that Kira’s tutor had described her as having celebrity status, the rest of the gang fashioning themselves on her. This was not unusual in teenage peer groups; teenage behaviour was concerned predominantly with conforming to the norm, with not being singled out in any way as different. And Kira had decided what the norm should be in the Daisy Chain. Where she went, the rest would follow, so if she got pregnant, they must do the same. As a group they had taken hedonism to extremes, and in that sense they could be seen as acting out the role of the Maenads, Dionysos’ female worshippers.

The reference to Myrrha, however, had different implications. Magnus decided to call Bill and talk to him directly about it.

The detective answered almost immediately and launched into a disturbing story concerning Melanie Jones. It was the first Magnus had heard of the second death. Even as he listened to Bill’s account of Melanie’s mother finding the body, and the post-mortem confirming suffocation, Magnus was questioning his interpretation of the diary.

‘Is it possible,’ Bill was asking, ‘that Coulter was aware of some threat to Melanie and her baby?’

Magnus recalled Coulter’s watchful eyes. Had he been looking for a reaction to his use of the name ‘Melanie’ for the new doll?

‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly, no longer trusting his own judgement.

‘What if we’re right, and Coulter does have someone on the outside who’s feeding him information, or even acting on his behalf?’

‘You think Coulter could be controlling this from inside the prison hospital?’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time murders have been masterminded by prisoners. The questions are: how could Coulter achieve that, and why would he want to?’

‘I can tell you why, easily,’ Magnus said. ‘I don’t believe Coulter has changed, merely adapted his behaviour to suit his circumstances, a common skill in psychopaths. Everything he does is concerned with increasing hisposition and influence. He could be playing all of us, including Dr Shan.’

‘Well, not any longer.’ Anger crackled in Bill’s voice.

Magnus changed the subject. ‘I called you because I may have found something in Kira’s notebook.’ He explained about the Dionysos reference and the cult of the Maenads, then waited for Bill’s reaction, feeling a little foolish.

When Bill spoke, he sounded intrigued. ‘This Greek god, Dionysos – if you were fashioning a mask of him, what would it look like?’

‘A mask? Well, he’s often associated with wine, so probably a vine or grapes would be incorporated.’

‘We found one in Melanie’s room. Green, smiling, with bunches of purple grapes around his face.’

‘That sounds like it could be him.’

So his interpretation of the Greek references to Dionysos in the notebook might be correct. Magnus went on to describe the part that disturbed him the most – the story of Myrrha and her relationship with her father. He could sense the tension on the other end of the line as Bill listened without interruption.

When he finished, Bill said, ‘Thanks, Magnus. That’s one thing I hadn’t thought of. More fool me.’

35

Bill called the meeting to order. The men and women in the incident room had been working flat out for seven days without finding the missing baby, and they now had another dead girl.

Most already assumed Kira’s baby to be dead too. Bill hoped they were wrong.

He glanced round as silence descended, taking note of Magnus at the back next to Rhona. They were already aware that he would call on them as required.

The important thing was to try and present an overview of the situation, since so many of the team had been working on their own piece of the investigation. To keep up the momentum, everyone should be made aware of how important their own contributions were. Bill dealt with the most recent death first.

‘There were no signs of a break-in, and when Melanie’s mother arrived home, the front door was off the latch. Either Melanie had failed to lock it when she went for a nap, or she let her killer in because she knew and trusted them.’

They studied Roy’s recording of Melanie’s bedroom. Everything looked so normal, and in death Melanie appeared simply to be asleep on the bed. It was nothing like the horrific scene in the mirror maze.

‘Melanie was suffocated, probably with one of her pillows. There were no signs of a struggle. She was a slight girl, easily overpowered, especially if the perpetrator found her asleep. Hopefully forensics will tell us more when they’ve processed the material.’ Bill then brought up a photo of the mask on the screen, and asked Magnus to come forward.

Magnus explained about the Maths notebook as the relevant pages replaced the mask overhead. There were a few groans and mutterings from the assembled team about having been crap at Maths at school, but Magnus’s clear explanation and delivery soon had them all listening intently.

He showed them the opening message which he translated as ‘It begins’, then explained how he had pieced together the name Dionysos. He flicked the image back to the photograph of the mask and explained the cult of the Greek god and the young female Maenads who worshipped him.

Bill interrupted, seeing that the team were wondering what this had to do with Melanie’s murder, and filled them in on the drunken teenage parties and the girls’ apparent obsession with pregnancy. Then he ran through the details of their meeting with Coulter.

‘We think someone may have been feeding Coulter inside information about the case. Ian, Sarah, you’ve been looking into this – what have you come up with?’

DC Ian Murphy looked embarrassed to be put on the spot and stumbled a bit as he stood, to catcalls from the floor.

Bill raised his hand to silence them.

‘Let’s hear it.’

Murphy cleared his throat, then read from his notebook. ‘Geri Taylor, Coulter’s former partner and the mother of the infant he killed, is still in contact with him. In fact, she has visited him twice in the last month.’

That pronouncement sent shocked whispers around the room. Murphy waited until they subsided.

‘Apart from Ms Taylor, eleven women write to him regularly, one more frequently than the others.’

‘Who is she?’ Bill asked.

‘Her name is Caroline Sweet.’

Someone hummed the opening bars of Neil Diamond’s ‘Sweet Caroline’, causing some slightly sheepish laughter. Bill ignored it.

‘Address?’

‘A post office box, Sir.’

‘Coulter said someone called Caroline suggested he send me his diary,’ said Magnus.

‘OK, we need to find this woman. What about phone calls?’

‘He makes one every fortnight, to Geri Taylor.’

‘That’s it?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘No sign of a mobile?’

‘Not yet, Sir.’

Bill didn’t doubt that Coulter was using means other than the official PIN-controlled calls to keep in touch with the outside world.

‘What about the workroom? He may have hidden the components of a mobile phone among the doll material,’ Magnus suggested.

‘Was the workroom searched?’ Bill asked Murphy.

‘Dr Shan says it was.’

‘I want that room searched again, forensically this time.’

Bill turned back to address the room. ‘The doll found in the park was modelled on Kira as a child and bought by Mrs Reese-Brandon, who says it went missing from her house. Kira knew about the doll, so she may have mentioned its existence to the other girls or to David. We need to know who was aware that doll existed. Also, Coulter says he’s working on a Reborn he calls Melanie. He made a point of telling us the name.’ He paused. ‘If Coulter knew about these girls, I want to know how and why.’

Rhona was next up. She came forward, and Bill thought how pale and tense she looked; McNab’s murder had hit her hard, and he wasn’t convinced she’d dealt with it yet He’d wanted to talk to her but had held off, hoping that his own discreet enquiries about Kalinin and SOCA might soon bear fruit. He made up his mind to have a quiet word with her on her own as soon as possible.

Rhona began, her voice clear and steady. ‘We retrieved yak hair from under Kira’s fingernail, which is often used in making high quality wigs for clowns. Kira was known to have had a phobia about clowns.’

Bill nodded. ‘If there was anyone dressed as a clown in the vicinity that night, I want to know about it.’

Rhona went on. ‘The blood from the umbilical cord proved that David Murdoch was not the father of Kira’s baby, although we recovered two dentricles from his jeans. Shark skin dentricles, probably from the knife used to section Kira after she was rendered unconscious using chloroform.’

Someone at the back raised a hand. ‘How would the boy have known how to perform a Caesarean section? Do we know if he had any medical training?’