Hard Rain

Twelve

It was getting close to 2:30 hours by the time we left the police building. The wind was up again and plastic bags were drifting around on the currents like jellyfish. I pulled the zipper on my jacket up to my neck. As the three of us walked beneath the boom gate, Captain Cain said, ‘By the way, I sent Doctor Merkit a brief on the Bremmel murder.’

‘Good.’ That would save time debriefing her. I glanced at my watch. ‘We have an appointment with the doc in thirty.’

‘I’m heading down to the water for a snoop around,’ he announced. ‘Thought I’d see how big the police search area really is.’ With that, Cain peeled off at a trot to hail a cab.

I turned to Masters. ‘You want to go talk to Bremmel’s secretary while I go see the shrink?’

‘If it’s all the same to you, Vin, I want to hear what Merkit has to say about the killer’s profile. I already know what the secretary’s going to tell us.’

‘And what’s she going to tell us?’

‘What married men have been saying ever since they crawled out of the primordial slime to set themselves up with a piece on the side — that Bremmel’s marriage was unhappy, that his wife didn’t understand him, that he was going to leave her when the right moment came up, et cetera and so on.’

A tooting horn interrupted Masters’ words of wisdom. It was Emir, a hundred yards down the road beyond the bollards, leaning on the Renault’s open door, waving like an idiot.

Doctor Aysun Merkit’s office occupied the ground floor of a pink three-storey shoebox in the heart of Beyoglu, a hillside area of contrasts: consulates at the top, citizens closing in on the gutter at the bottom. In the middle of this layer cake, so Masters said, the quarter had been claimed by TV soap actors, pop stars, artists and various professional people. The street in front of the doctor’s address looked like a Mercedes-Benz concession. Shrinking murderers’ heads must be a good business in this neck of the woods.

Masters rang the security intercom at the front door and announced us. The lock buzzed and she pushed open the door. Immediately behind it, sitting at a sleek whitewood and stainless-steel desk with matching laptop, sat the doctor’s receptionist. It was a guy, which meant I’d lost money backing the old lady with throat cancer. He was the sort of guy who I imagined rich, bored ladies in Palm Springs would hire to clean their pools — deep tan, black hair slick with product, piercing blue eyes. His smile was so perfect it could have been a retouched magazine photo. The one Masters gave him in return was bright enough to have been plugged into a wall socket.

Give me a break.

I badged the guy. ‘Special Agents Cooper and Masters for Doctor Merkit.’

‘Yes, yes, the doctor is expecting you. Follow me, please.’

The accent was vaguely American, most likely picked up at a local international school. The guy got up from behind the desk and walked to a set of double doors like he was modelling something. He pulled them open and announced us.

We walked into a large white room featuring polished floorboards, dark Turkish rugs and a large, modern, chocolate-coloured couch with matching chairs. Bright modern art hung on the walls, the marble head of what looked like an ancient Roman senator sat on a black marble plinth, while books — hundreds of books — were piled into teetering stacks on the desk and on the floor, and crammed into bookshelves.

‘Thank you, Nasor,’ said a woman sitting on the couch, her legs curled beneath her. She gently closed a book she’d been reading and placed it on the floor. At that moment the phone rang and Nasor glided out, leaving the doors open. ‘My nephew,’ explained the doctor. Something in my face, or maybe it was in Masters’, made her say, ‘It is true. He is my brother’s son. Filling in. My regular PA, she is sick today.’

Actually, now the doc mentioned it, I could see the family resemblance. She had the same black hair, same blue eyes, same olive skin, although on her the combination worked somewhat better for me. A serious looker. My turn to smile. ‘I’m Special Agent Vin Cooper and this is Special Agent Anna Masters.’

‘Yes, I know,’ she said, getting up to close the doors. ‘Sit, please. Nasor will get us apple tea.’

I was about to tell her not to worry about it, on account of tea, especially made from apples, didn’t sound all that appealing, but I was enjoying watching her walk across the floor. The doc was somewhere in her thirties — it was hard to tell exactly where. Good genes. She was five eight, 140 pounds, twenty of those pounds filling her shirt, which was white, silk, fitted and sleek. She wore expensive black tailored slacks. On her feet were simple leather sandals featuring a small turquoise rock between the first and second toes, the nails of which were painted red. Her eyes, when they caught the light, were the colour of the sea. They were eyes a guy could get shipwrecked in. I took a seat beside Masters on the couch.

‘So, you are here to discuss these murders?’

‘You’ve had time to consider this latest one?’ I asked in reply.

‘Yes, I have received some notes from Captain Cain this morning.’

‘He sends his regards, by the way.’

The doc purred. ‘The captain is sweet.’

I hadn’t noticed, particularly. I wondered whether Rodney Cain and the doc had something cooking. ‘Special Agent Masters and I have read your report on the Portman case,’ I said. ‘You believe it was some kind of ritual killing?’

‘Yes, that was my opinion.’ The doctor had a formal way of speaking. I liked it; reserved, professional, but friendly at the same time.

The double doors opened and Nasor appeared with a silver tray that swung as he carried it, balancing a silver bowl of sugar cubes, three delicate bellflower-shaped glasses containing tea the colour of dark honey, and a small silver spoon. He set the tray down on the table in front of us and left.

‘Was your opinion?’ echoed Masters. ‘You’ve had a change of heart?’

‘Let me explain. I have done some work for your FBI in the past. My specialty is serial killers. The manner in which your Air Attaché was killed, it fitted the profile of a serial killing, which was why I was called in. But until several murders are committed that share a similar signature… well, it is not a serial killing.’

I knew that.

Doctor Merkit leaned forward to put a lump of sugar in her glass and as she did so I caught a glimpse of her bra — light blue and lacy. It was a half-cup number and those cups were seriously runneth-ing over. ‘What do you know about serial killers?’ she asked.

Masters shrugged. ‘Not much.’

‘I saw Silence of the Lambs once,’ I said.

‘I am what your FBI calls an “inductive profiler”. I look for patterns that give indications of the killer’s personality — racial background, habits, anything that will help with the killer’s identity and, with luck, arrest. Until the murderer strikes a number of times, no pattern exists that allows me to present a viable deductive profile, something the police can use. Just the one murder does not give me very much to work with.’

‘So this second murder should help,’ suggested Masters.

Merkit nodded. ‘You would think. First, Colonel Portman. He was murdered in Bebek, an affluent area. The way the killer came and went suggests he knew his way around. Did he live there? Does he live there still? Or did he simply study his prey?’

I made a mental note that Doctor Merkit hadn’t been informed on the latest developments. She was in the dark about the break-in at the leasing agent, for example, which might hone her speculation some.

‘There was also a robbery at the murder scene,’ she continued, ‘and a sophisticated one. Should the police search their records for a wealthy robber with a knowledge of explosives?’ Merkit shrugged at her own question.

I nodded, and hoped she’d reach forward for another lump.

‘Of course, there were other factors around this first crime that are worth consideration. There was nothing spontaneous about the method of killing; no aspect of the murder appeared to be improvised. It seems even the killer’s tool kit left behind was done so intentionally, providing police with no leads. Perhaps it was a taunt? Also, there were no fingerprints at the scene, no glove-pattern indentations. There was the use of chloroform to restrain the victim. And, of course, there was the most striking and dramatic aspect of the killing: the presentation of the dissected corpse. Finally, there was the collection of twelve bones.’

Masters and I listened and sipped tea. It was sweet and yet had a sour kick to it. Reminded me of someone.

‘The killer was practised and thought much about the execution of the crime,’ Doc Merkit continued. ‘Perhaps he had been caught in the past and learned from his mistakes. That could account for the great care taken at the scene of the crime. And so, from all of this, I have nothing the police could not conclude for themselves with access to the same statistics I have: the killer is most probably a Caucasian male, probably lives locally, is around thirty-five years old with above-average intelligence, might have a record for cruelty to animals — a not uncommon trait among serial killers — comes from a middle-class family, and so on. But then there was this latest murder.’ The doctor paused briefly. ‘It’s this second murder that makes me unsure about what we are dealing with.’

‘And why is that?’ Masters asked.

‘As I said, almost always, serial killers follow a pattern,’ Merkit replied, sitting back and swinging her hair away from her face in the one fluid motion. I noticed the buttons on her shirt were valiantly taking the strain from the pressure of those breasts, holding firm. ‘The way they kill is full of meaning to their subconscious minds. Mostly, it has something to do with events that scarred them deeply as children, events most often of a sexual nature — unfortunately and sadly, sometimes even when they were babies. Perhaps they were repeatedly molested, sometimes molested and tortured. The murders they commit later in life can often be explained in the context of this early developmental experience. Often, the reasons for the bizarre behaviour only become understandable when the killer is caught and interviewed.’

‘So they’re simply trying to resolve the issues and tensions buried deep within their subconscious minds,’ said Masters, going for a summary.

‘Yes, exactly. However, these murders are not following the rules as they are generally understood. Colonel Portman was cut up into pieces and laid out, displayed like a child’s aeroplane model. Did the killer have some frightening experience as a child with these models that we can’t even guess at? Certainly this murder implied a deep and tightly channelled rage within the killer. I believed the motivations for this rage would emerge when a second murder was committed. It certainly seemed to me that such a killer would not stop at one, and the pattern would be revealed when the second victim was taken. But then this murder last night… Most definitely, the crimes are linked — the planting of the first victim’s bones in the anus of the second puts that beyond doubt. Perhaps this is meant as another taunt. But where is the pattern within the murders themselves? It should be there, but I cannot see it. It is like the killer has two completely different personalities and motivations.’

Masters glanced at me.

‘What if we told you we believed there were two killers working as a team?’ I said.

Doctor Merkit sat back, genuinely surprised. ‘I had not considered this…’

‘Maybe they’re taking turns,’ I added. ‘Tossing a coin to see who kills next.’

‘Perhaps,’ said the doctor. ‘Yes, it’s possible. Different rules apply when there are two killers at work. But it is unusual. There’s not a lot of experience with this kind of partnership. Two killers — do you know this for sure?’ The doc seemed almost excited by the prospect.

‘We’re reasonably sure,’ said Masters. ‘We believe one killer on his own would not have been able to break into Colonel Portman’s residence. We also have surveillance footage from the Hilton that pretty much establishes as fact that we’re looking for a couple of killers working as a team.’

‘Hmm… yes. The surveillance camera pictures. I read about this in the notes from Istanbul homicide, which Captain Cain forwarded to me. They did not include this conclusion.’

‘Also, we’re reasonably sure the killers obtained a floor plan of Colonel Portman’s house from the leasing agent, as well as a key to the front door.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the doc to herself, nodding slowly. ‘Premeditation, planning… I thought this…’

‘Both murders were extremely violent and sadistic in nature, and both victims were dismembered to a greater or lesser degree,’ said Masters. ‘I can see parallels. From your professional point of view, can you tell us why you think the second murder was so different to the first?’

‘Yes, of course. Both murders were full of symbolism, but symbolism of a completely different kind. The first, with its unusual dismemberment, could, as I said, have something to do with aircraft, or models, which suggests something from childhood. But the second slaying is full of Islamic ritual: the cutting off of the hands representing the guilt of a thief, and then the beheading, which implies that the victim was an enemy of Islam. The two murders seen together are what you might call a mixed metaphor, a muddle, a riddle. That there are two killers working together explains so much, and yet…’ Doctor Merkit ran a finger up and down her nose, concentrating, running through the catalogue of her experience to find an answer.

‘Might a third murder reveal the pattern?’ Masters suggested.

Hoping someone would get horribly slain so that we could stop people being killed defied a big chunk of logic. But I had to admit at the same time it made a weird kind of sense.

‘Hmm… perhaps yes, perhaps no. I would be hopeful of that but you must understand, forensic psychology is not an exact science. It is also not a crystal ball. The murders might even stop — but I doubt it. If the killers took the bones from Portman for the purpose of placing them in the bodies of future victims, we are quickly going to have a pile of corpses, and a very frightened city of Istanbul to go with it.’ The doctor crossed her arms like she was reassuring herself with a hug.

If I wasn’t mistaken, her nipples had stiffened through the fabric of her shirt. I didn’t know where to look. Actually, that’s not true. I knew exactly where to look, but I didn’t want to get caught at it, especially not by Masters. ‘Assuming the killers will kill again,’ I said, ‘any ideas on whether that’ll be sooner or later?’

‘Sooner, I think. Definitely sooner,’ Dr Merkit replied confidently. ‘Serial killers usually strike when the pressure rises within them to do so. And usually the manner in which they kill gets bolder. Our killers are already bold, and there was just three days between Portman and Bremmel. I would say that we can expect another victim to turn up within the next couple of days.’

So, the killers would strike again soon and in a potentially even more bizarrely cruel and bloodthirsty way. The doctor leaned forward and put her empty glass on the tray. Masters and I didn’t really need someone telling us that the sun was going to rise in the east tomorrow, but damn if the doc didn’t look great letting us know.