Killing the Shadows (2000) (49 page)

“You don’t even know the address?”

“No. We only ever communicate by e–mail when he’s up there. He’s got a satellite phone, but he doesn’t use it for voice calls. We both find it harder to get through the time apart if we actually speak to each other, you see? Somehow, e–mail is more bearable when he’s away for weeks at a time.” Suddenly realizing that she was wittering, she forced herself back to the practicalities. “But surely the local police must know where it is? I thought everybody knew everybody up in the Highlands?”

Galloway rubbed his hand over his mouth. Her fear had transmitted itself to him and he had sweat on his upper lip. “‘Near Loch Shin’ is a hell of a big area, Fiona. The loch itself must be, what, fifteen, seventeen miles long. I doubt very much that there’s anything they could do about it tonight, even supposing we could convince them there was any real reason why they should be looking.”

“There must be something we can do! We can’t just sit around doing nothing when Kit’s life could be at risk.” Now anger had taken over from fear in Fiona’s voice.

“Listen, Fiona, the chances are that you’re getting yourself worked up over nothing. Now, this fictional killer of Mr. Martin’s what does he do with his victims?”

“He keeps them captive for a week and draws their blood and paints murals with it.”

“Well, that suggests that time is not as much of the essence as it would be if this killer gave his victims a swift death, doesn’t it? Besides, if you don’t know where this bothy is, how would the killer know? Why don’t we wait till the morning? It might well be that Mr. Martin has turned up by then. But if he hasn’t, we’ll get Highland Police on to it first thing. That’s a promise. Meet me at St. Leonard’s at half past seven and we’ll see what’s what. OK?” His voice was reassuring without being patronizing. “No, it’s not OK,” she said bitterly. “But it’ll have to do, won’t it?” “Aye, I’m afraid it’s the best I can do. And I will talk to DCI Duvall in the meantime and see if there are any genuine grounds for concern. Try to get some sleep, Fiona. I know you’re imagining the worst, but the chances are, Redford’s our man and your chap’s alive and well and on his way out for a night’s drinking with his mates. Coming to terms with Georgia Lester’s death. You know yourself that’s by far the likeliest scenario. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He replaced the phone and stood for a long minute in the hall, pondering. No, he was right. There was no point in trying to get anything moving tonight on something as tenuous as this. Without something more solid than Fiona had, there was no prospect of getting Highland to take this seriously. By morning, he could maybe convince them there were reasonable grounds for action if Kit Martin hadn’t shown up safe, sound and hungover in his own bed. And really, there were no good reasons to think otherwise. Convinced that Fiona was overreacting because of what had happened to her sister all those years before, Galloway headed back to his TV show and his whisky.

Fiona slumped in her chair. She’d done her best. But sometimes, that wasn’t enough. After Lesley, she had done her best too. She couldn’t change the fact of her sister’s death, but she had taken every step she could to make sure the person responsible paid the price. She’d failed then, and she knew the price that failure had exacted. She couldn’t give up on Kit now, not just for his sake but for her own. Duvall and Galloway might think she was a hysterical idiot, but she knew Kit and she knew she had grounds for her worries. Galloway had tried to reassure her with his suggestion that the killer couldn’t know the location of the bothy. But Fiona knew him to be resourceful; he’d tracked each of his victims so far. She couldn’t afford to be complacent.

She reached for the phone and keyed in a number she knew by heart. Three rings, then the machine clicked in. “This machine takes messages for Steve Preston. Please speak after the tone and your call will be dealt with at the earliest opportunity.” Bleep.

“Steve, it’s Fiona. Call me on the mobile whenever you get this message. I need your help.” She ended the call with a finger on the receiver rest and immediately dialled his mobile. Silence. Then the impersonal voice. “The number you are calling has not responded. Please try later. The number you are calling—” She cut the line. “I don’t believe this,” she muttered, reaching for her personal organizer to find his pager number. When the pager service responded, she left a message asking Steve to call her straightaway on her mobile.

There was, she supposed, an outside chance he was still in the office so she dialled his direct line. She let it ring ten times before she gave up. Where the hell was he when she needed him?

It never occurred to her to try Terry’s home number.

Gerard Coyne’s flat could have been made for surveillance. It was on the first floor of a terraced house a couple of streets back from the Holloway Road. Neil assumed from the fact that there were two narrow front doors that there was no back entrance; Coyne’s front door would give straight on to a flight of steps leading up to the first floor. What made the flat so perfect for Neil’s purpose was the pub opposite. The Pride of Whitby was a typical North London corner pub cosy, cramped and busy. But the old–fashioned etched glass had been replaced by clear glass windows allowing a perfect view across the street. Neil had arrived just after half past six and had a quiet word with the licensee, impressing on him the need for discretion. He hadn’t specified who he was watching or why, only that he didn’t want to be pointed out to the locals as a copper.

The landlord had no problem with that. He kept an orderly pub and relied on the local police to turn up on the rare occasions there was trouble. As far as he was concerned, as long as Neil didn’t expect free booze, he was welcome to sit by the window for as long as he wanted.

Neil had already established that Coyne was home. There was a smart mountain bike chained up in the front garden. He’d seen lights on in the first floor flat and, as a double-check, he’d rung Coyne’s phone number. When it was answered, Neil had pretended he had a wrong number. Satisfied, he settled down with a copy of the Evening Standard and a glass of alcohol-free lager.

At half past seven, he’d ordered lasagne and chips from the bar snacks menu. It arrived at ten to eight. He’d finished eating it by five past. He returned to his paper, making sure the lighted windows of Coyne’s flat were in his peripheral vision. If there was any movement, he’d register it, tired though he was.

By half past eight, the place was heaving. Every other seat at Neil’s table was taken, the other occupants crowded round with their pint glasses and cigarette packets. Occasionally, one or other of them would try to draw him into conversation, but he kept himself on the fringes, answering in monosyllables and barricading himself behind his paper.

A few minutes before ten, Coyne’s light snapped out. Suddenly alert, Neil folded his paper and drained his third drink. He pushed his seat back slightly, on the alert for whatever was going to happen next. A light appeared in the glass panel above Coyne’s front door, then the door itself swung open. Neil couldn’t see Coyne very well against the light hitting him from behind, only the silhouette of a slim frame of medium height. Neil readied himself for the off.

Coyne pulled the door to behind him and emerged on to the street. Thank God he wasn’t taking the bike, Neil thought. Coyne glanced both ways past the parked cars that lined the street, then crossed the road.

Oh shit, Neil thought, he’s coming in here. He unfolded the paper and pulled his chair closer to the table. When he looked up again, Coyne was walking towards the bar, greeting a couple of the men standing there with their pints of Guinness.

There was no mistaking those deep-set eyes in the narrow face coupled with the goatee beard and moustache and the slightly prominent teeth. This was the man whose CRO photograph was etched on Neil’s memory. As far as he was concerned, the evidence might be circumstantial, but it had convinced him. If he’d been a gambling man, Neil would have staked a year’s salary that he was looking at Susan Blanchard’s killer.

He fought to hide his excitement and watched as Coyne bought himself a pint of bitter. Neil pushed back his chair, covered himself by saying good night to the others at his table, as if they’d been his drinking companions, and pushed through the crowd to the door.

The cold night air took his breath away after the stuffiness of the pub. But it did nothing to calm the thrill of anticipation that surged through him. It had worked. Good solid policing, helped along with a bit of flair and inspiration, and he was looking at the first serious suspect for Susan Blanchard’s murder since Francis Blake. Only this time, they’d got it right. He had a feeling in his bones.

He hurried along the street to where he’d parked his car earlier. It had a view both of the pub door and, at an angle, of Coyne’s front door. He dived behind the wheel and pulled out his mobile. Time to report. He stabbed the speed dial buttons to connect him to Steve’s mobile. He couldn’t believe his ears when he heard, “The number you are calling has not responded. Please try later.”

“Bugger,” he said, trying Steve’s home number. When he got the answering machine, he swore softly. But he knew better than to hang up without leaving a message. “This is Neil McCartney, guy. I’m outside the suspect’s house. He’s just gone across the road for a drink in his local. I know I’m supposed to go off duty at midnight, but I’m going to stay on here till Joanne relieves me or until I hear from you. I don’t want him to get away from us.”

Finally, Neil left a message on Steve’s pager. Surely he’d get that? The boss was never out of touch, especially since they’d been running this operation on a shoestring. He’d known Neil was watching their new suspect, so he’d be expecting a call. Sooner or later, he’d ring back.

Till then, there was nothing more he could do now except watch and wait.

W
aiting was not something Fiona could bear. Not when she feared for Kit’s life. Galloway had tried to be reassuring, but it hadn’t gone anywhere towards calming the torment. She knew there was no point in trying to follow Galloway’s advice to get some sleep. All that would happen if she went to bed was that she’d toss and turn restlessly, riven with anxiety. She might as well stay up and try to figure out a way to help Kit.

If only she knew where his bothy was. Given that whoever had Kit captive would have to drive up from London, the chances were that they were nowhere near Loch Shin yet. If she could find the exact location, it might be possible to head them off before they ever got there.

Whatever Galloway had said about there being plenty of time, Fiona knew she couldn’t rely on that. In each murder, the killer had deviated from the template provided by the book when it had suited him better. Keeping Kit alive for a week was clearly a huge risk to take, and from what she had seen of this murderer’s work, he was a man who liked to minimize jeopardy. The sooner she could get to Sutherland, the more chance she had of finding Kit alive. Waiting for Galloway to grind into action in the morning was too big a chance to take. She had to do whatever she could as soon as she could. Of course, it was too late now to find anywhere that could sell her an Ordnance Survey map of the Loch Shin area to check out possibilities. Fiona poured another glass of wine and logged on to the Internet. She entered the keywords ‘Loch Shin’ into her search engine and impatiently scanned the results. There were websites where amateur photographers displayed their photographs of the area; websites for those who believed the Loch Ness Monster had relatives in Loch Shin; websites for holiday cottages with views of the loch; websites that offered advice on fishing; and even a website devoted to the hydroelectric power station. But no large-scale map. The on-line version the Ordnance Survey offered was too small to show any useful detail.

She had even taken time out to torment herself with the ghoulish gossip of Murder Behind the Headlines. Fiona knew even as she was logging on to the site that it would give her no peace, but like an itching scab demanding to be picked, she had to see what Georgia’s death had provoked.

At last, confirmation from London of what anybody with half a brain already knew. Yes, there’s a serial killer out there preying on the weird and the wired who spend their days writing fiction about surprise, surprise, serial killers. Although it sounds a bit like biting the hand that feeds you, it’s true!

Even more amazing was the confession that stopped a police press conference in its tracks. As the police revealed to the world that British crime writer Georgia Lester’s butchered remains had been found in a disused freezer in London’s Smithfield Meat Market, a man claiming to be the killer distributed a FLYER to the waiting hacks that outlined his motives for the series of gruesome killings.

The confessor is a wannabe writer called Charles Cavendish Redford, who alleges that the three writers in question plagiarized manuscripts he had sent them in the hope of winning their support in getting his books published. Redford, 47, once worked as a hospital porter, which may be where he picked up his murderous skills. He’s now in custody, under arrest, but so far hasn’t been charged.

The discovery of Lester’s remains provided incontrovertible evidence of what some of us had already deduced. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde; One Drew Shand is unfortunate. Two Jane Elias looks remarkably like coincidence. And three Georgia Lester is a series…Lester went missing over a week ago. Sceptics said she’d deliberately staged a disappearance as a publicity stunt, as Queen of Crime Agatha Christie did herself back in the 1920
s
. And it’s true that Lester had been complaining that her publishers weren’t taking proper care of her. She’d demanded bodyguards for her latest book tour, but had been spurned by publishers with more sense than money a rarity in itself these days.

But when we read the accounts of her disappearance the deserted car in the country lane, the apparent lack of any signs of violence, the absence of any witnesses those of us with a sensibility tuned to these things felt the creep of dread, remembering the fate of the victims in And Ever More Shall Be So, tester’s only serial killer novel, which was made into a film.

Word is that the London cops got the tip to search Smithfield from a psychological profiler one of those legendary Clarice Starlings (and we all know what happened to Clarice, don’t we???) who figure out what the bad guys are going to do next. Mind you, it doesn’t take a doctorate in psychology to work that one out. All it takes is the ability to read.

Still, there must be a few thriller writers sleeping easier in their beds tonight. Because if Redford hadn’t conveniently spilled the beans, you can bet your bottom dollar it would have been a long time and a few more bodies before the police managed to nail him.

REMEMBER YOU READ IT FIRST ON MURDER BEHIND THE HEADLINES