Killing the Shadows

SIXTEEN

The silence that followed Fiona’s conclusion had the quality of empty air after the shock wave of a bomb blast. Even though Kit had guessed where she was heading right at the start of her exposition, the certainly of her judgement chilled him into stillness. Steve closed his eyes and dropped his head on to one hand, massaging the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “That’s a bit of a leap,” he said softly.

“It makes sense of all the information in a way nothing else does,” she said, reaching for the bottle and refilling her glass, as if girding her loins for a challenge to her reasoning.

Steve raised his head and met her eyes. He wanted to believe her, not least because it might give him fresh avenues to explore. But he was aware that his own feelings for her had always made him willing to give her the benefit of any doubt. He’d stuck his neck out to defend her reports to his bosses, and it had paid off in the past. This time, though, his very future hung on what he did with the Susan Blanchard case. If he screwed it up even more than it already had been his career was effectively over. No one would criticize him if he let the case slide into the unsolved regions; the public assumption would remain that they’d got the right man but had wrecked the case against him. But if he took a chance and pursued the possibilities thrown up by Fiona’s theorizing, he’d better be damn sure he got it right. He cleared his throat. “Or maybe Blake is entirely innocent,” he said.

Fiona shook her head. “Too many coincidences.” She ticked off the points on her fingers. “We know he was on the Heath that day. We know he fantasizes about being a voyeur. And we know he knew things about the murder victim that were never in the public domain. It’s stretching credibility too far to suggest that the one man who happened to be on the Heath that morning was also the one man who happened to be told in a pub by an unidentifiable stranger precisely how Susan’s body was arranged. All the reasons why Blake was a suspect in the first place have another interpretation, and only one interpretation that he saw what happened.”

“If you’re right and it sounds reasonable to me the irony is that Francis Blake could genuinely have helped the police with their inquiries,” Kit said. “He knows more about this killer than anyone.”

“If you’d treated him as a witness instead of a prime suspect the very first time you interviewed him, the day after the murder, it’s possible that things might have turned out very differently. But…” Fiona shrugged. “Probably not.”

Steve sighed. “One way or another, we blew it. I have to say, I think you might be right. I’m not totally convinced, but I’m going to have to take it into account.”

Fiona gave him a long, considering stare. She was used to Steve grasping her ideas more firmly than this. His very caution made her realize how much pressure he was under in this case. She hadn’t wanted to become involved, but now she was glad she had done what little she could to help. “I hope it’s useful,” she said, with more humility than she usually felt when she had offered her professional opinion.

“What I don’t understand,” Kit said, “is why Blake didn’t come out with the truth when he was interrogated after you finally arrested him. I mean, it’s the obvious get-out for him, isn’t it? “It wasn’t me, guy, but I saw the bloke who did it.””

“Not if you were supremely confident that the court would throw out the case against you. Not if you knew there could be no forensic evidence tying you to a crime you didn’t commit,” Fiona said. “He had a solicitor with him, didn’t he, Steve?”

“Right from the off. The first interview he did after the arrest was a ‘no comment’. Then when we laid out the evidence, his brief asked for an adjournment. When they came back, all Blake would say was that he’d been on the Heath that morning, he’d lost track of time and realized he was going to be late for work, and that’s why he was running when the witnesses saw him. As for what he wrote and said during the undercover operation, he was adamant that it was total fantasy, nothing more.”

“So when they had their little chat, the brief will have told him you’d never make it stand up in court,” Kit said, understanding dawning. “And that little shit sat there smug as a bug knowing that he knew more than you would ever know about what happened to Susan Blanchard, and that you’d never find out what that was. What a total scumbag.”

Fiona nodded. “He probably thought the whole thing would be thrown out in the magistrates’ court. Instead of which, he ended up spending eight months on remand. And by that stage, he had no way out. He couldn’t recant at that point and admit what he’d seen, because you would have been so furious that he’d jerked you around, you’d have charged him with being an accessory. He must have so much festering rage inside him for the police now.”

Kit leaned back in his chair. “Not a bit of it. Didn’t you see him on the TV? He’s revelling in it. He’s been having the time of his life. Not only does he have these powerful memories to relive any time he wants to. He also has the supreme satisfaction of knowing he’s left the police and the CPS looking like idiots.”

“More than that, he’s going to be paid for it,” Steve growled. “Massive compensation from the Home Office for wrongful imprisonment, not to mention what he’s screwed out of the newspapers.” He let out a deep breath. “Sometimes this job would make you fucking weep.” In the soft lighting of the dining room, the planes of his face seemed even starker than usual following the bitter confirmation Fiona had brought him.

There was a long pause. Suddenly no one felt much like eating. Kit reached for the bottle and topped up everyone’s glass. “So where can you go from here?” he asked Steve.

“Back to square one? Since it wasn’t Francis Blake, someone else was on the Heath that morning killing Susan Blanchard. We’ll have to go back and look at every single witness statement and reinterview them all.”

Kit gave a snort of laughter. “Yeah, right. It’s not like Blake’s going to be coming across with what he saw.”

“There is one thing you might like to consider,” Fiona said slowly.

Steve looked up, his eyes alert. “And that is?”

“It’s possible that Blake has managed to identify the killer. He may have recognized him, he may subsequently have seen him. He may even have seen the killer make his getaway in a car and managed to get the number. I’d say that given his moment of triumph, it’s conceivable that Blake has become confident enough to try blackmailing the real murderer. I don’t know if you’ve got the resources for this, since the investigation is officially dead, but when he comes back from his jolly to Spain, I’d watch him very carefully. Tap his phone, open his mail, carry out very discreet surveillance, monitor his bank account. It’s a slim chance, but Blake might just lead you straight to your man.”

Steve shook his head dubiously. “It’s reaching a bit, Besides, I’ll never get a warrant for a phone tap on the basis of this. The best I can manage is probably a loose surveillance.”

“It’s better than nothing. What else have you got?” Kit demanded. “Sure, you can go back and talk to all your witnesses again, like you suggested. But how much more are you realistically going to get out of them now so much time has passed? Plus, anything they have to say is going to be tainted by the media blitz surrounding the arrest and the trial. They’re going to lean even heavier on the idea that Blake’s your man. It’s only human. Seems to me a slim chance is better than no chance at all. You want to redeem yourselves on Susan Blanchard’s murder, I’d say you’ve got no choice.”

“I’ve also got no budget,” Steve said bitterly. “I’m supposed to be pursuing a discreet, deniable investigation here, which means I’ve got hardly any bodies to speak of and even fewer resources. There’s no way I can mount the sort of operation you’re suggesting, even if I thought I could justify it.”

“Maybe it’s time to call in your markers,” Kit said. “There’s got to be some of your team that owe you big time. Or feel like they owe Susan Blanchard and her family. Not to mention all those coppers that are smarting at what the judge had to say. I bet a few of them wouldn’t mind giving you the odd bit of unofficial unpaid overtime. Fuck it, if all you need is somebody to sit outside his house in a car, I’m up for it.” He grinned. “Never say die, Stevie.”

Steve shook his head. “You put me to shame, you two. Fiona spends hours analysing Horsforth’s shitty operation, and you offer to doorstep the number one scumbag in the capital. And all I can do is sit and whinge about how hard it’s all going to be.” He straightened his shoulders unconsciously. “Thanks, both of you. At least now I’ve got a new line of inquiry to get people energized.”

Kit raised his glass. “To a result,” he said.

Steve gave a wry smile. “To the right result.”

It was after midnight when they got home. Kit announced he was too wired to sleep and too mellowed on Steve’s wine to write so he was going on line to see if any of his international playmates were around on one of the several multi-user computer games he treated as a way of winding down. “Seven o’clock on the East Coast,” he mumbled as he wandered through to his office. “Should be somebody out there ready to be killed.”

Fiona climbed the stairs to her attic. She’d drop off her papers in her office, then head for bed and a blissful seven hours of sleep. The winking red eye of the answering machine gave her a moment’s pause as she turned to leave. Ignore it or hear it out? Duty won over desire, not least because there was obviously only one message.

It was Salvador Berrocal, his confident tones deadened by the soundproofing. “I thought you’d like to know that we have identified a suspect in the two Toledo murders,” he said. “I am sending you the details via e — mail, but I wanted to let you know as soon as possible that we have made progress.”

“Yes!” Fiona clenched her right hand and punched the palm of her left. Now she was as restlessly awake as Kit. Two swift strides took her to the computer where she accessed her e — mail. There were half a dozen messages, but only one that interested her. She downloaded it and opened it immediately.

From: Salvador Berrocal [Sberroc@cnp.mad.es]

To: Dr. Fiona Cameron [fcameron@ psych.ulon.ac.uk]

Subject: Toledo consultation

Dear Dr. Cameron,

Finally we have managed to procure the details that we needed to make progress. And so we now have developed what we believe will be a viable suspect. His name is Miguel Jose Delgado. He is a bachelor and is twenty-nine years old. Until two months, he was the owner of a small general store. The shop sold mostly groceries to local people. The business was failing, which Delgado believed was a result of the city centre residents being forced out into the suburbs. He lived in a small apartment behind the shop. The owners of the building wanted to sell it to an American hotel chain. The resistance was led by Delgado. According to locals, he spoke with great violence against the proposed development. He claimed that tourists were a cancer eating away the real life of Toledo. Interestingly, one witness said he was saying often that he wasn’t going to ‘bend down to be fucked in the ass’ by the Americans. So, two months ago, the landlord found out that Delgado was going away overnight. When Delgado came back, his shop was boarded up and he could not gain access to his apartment. The landlord had moved all his possessions and the stock of the shop into a new apartment about three miles south of the city. They gave Delgado the keys to his new apartment and ‘a large sum in cash’ and told him he could no longer run his business from their building. Delgado was not much liked by his neighbours or his customers and that probably has more to do with why his business was doing badly. They describe him as ‘sometimes surly and unwilling to be helpful’, although some say he could be charming enough if he wanted to, especially if he got on to his pet subject, which was the history of Toledo. He lived alone and had no girlfriend that we can discover. So, you will see that he is a close fit on the profile but also that he is appropriate to the geographical profile as well as the psychological one. We have only one problem. We are unable to discover where Delgado is living. He has never been seen near his new apartment. In fact, two weeks after he was to move in, the neighbours called the landlord about the smell. When the landlord’s men let themselves in, they found that all the perishable goods from the shop had gone bad. The one good thing is that in spite of our failure to track him down, the killer has not yet attacked another victim. Once again, I must thank you for your help. Without it, we would still have no idea who we are looking for. I will keep you informed of the progress of our search.

With best wishes, Salvador Berrocal.

Fiona reached the end of the message and smiled. At least one police officer looked like he was headed for the right result. She’d been nervous that the next time she’d hear from Berrocal would be when he reported that another foreigner had been killed. But for some reason, Delgado — if he was indeed the killer had temporarily stopped.

Either that or they just hadn’t found the body yet.

Whatever, there was nothing she could do about it. Fiona switched off her computer and headed downstairs. As she turned the last corner in the stairs, she saw Kit standing in the doorway of his office, a sheet of paper in his hand and a worried look on his face.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

He looked up, his eyes wide and troubled. When he spoke, his voice was uncharacteristically high in pitch. “I’ve got a death threat.”