Killing the Shadows

TWENTY-SIX

Dusk on Hampstead Heath had never lost its magic for Fiona, especially at this time of year. By early October after a hot summer, full daylight exposed the dust dulling the turning leaves, the faded tones of the grass, the parched grey of the earth. But as the sky purpled in a hazy sunset, the colours resumed their depth and richness, providing maximum contrast with the city spread out below her.

Unlike the Heath, the London streets lost all definition in the gathering twilight. The dying sun dazzled off occasional windows in the taller office buildings, flashes of fire studding the amorphous grey mass like synapses sparking in a brain. It wasn’t the wild and varied landscape of the Derbyshire hills, not by any stretch of her imagination, but it reminded her that such places not only existed but were part of her mental map, there to be regained at need. It was a refreshment, of sorts. In the week since she’d read the news of Jane Elias’s death, Fiona had made her way to the Heath at least once a day. Now she settled on a bench at the top of Parliament Hill, content to do nothing more demanding than people-watching for a while.

Some of the passers-by were familiar from her walks on the Heath; dog-walkers; joggers; a gaggle of skate-boarding boys about to broach their teens; two elderly women from her own street who strode briskly past with a nod of acknowledgement; the bookshop assistant practising her race-walking. Others she’d never seen before. Some were obvious locals, often deep in conversation with partners or children, feet automatic at every junction on the path. Some were obvious tourists, clutching maps and frowning over their struggles to identify landmarks in the dim vista below. Some refused to fit neatly into any category, their pace anywhere between an aimless stroll and an intent hike.

Which category had Susan Blanchard’s killer fallen into, Fiona wondered? Suddenly alert, she asked herself what had prompted that thought.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t visited the Heath regularly since the murder, although she had tended to avoid the path that passed the crime scene. But why had that thought popped into her head now?

Fiona scanned the path in both directions, convinced she had registered someone or something that had subconsciously triggered thoughts of the murder. It couldn’t have been the thirty-something couple, the man with their baby strapped to his chest. Nor the middle-aged man with his black Labrador. Nor the two roller-blading teenage girls giggling over some anecdote. Puzzled, she looked around.

He was hunkered down in a hollow about fifty yards away, perhaps twenty feet from the path. At first glance, he looked like a jogger. Lightweight sweat pants and a T — shirt, training shoes. But he didn’t appear to be breathing hard, as someone who had toiled up the slope would inevitably be. Nor was he staring out at the view. No, he was watching the two girls on the roller blades as they swooped in circles round a wide junction of paths, their voices shrieking laughter and insults at each other.

When the girls moved off, their bodies hidden from his line of sight by a clump of bushes, he stood up, gazing back along the path to see who else was coming. For a few minutes, no one seemed to capture his attention. Then a pair of adolescents strolled into view, arms entwined, the girl with her head on the boy’s chest. At once, the man’s pose became more alert. His hands thrust into his pockets and he dropped back into his crouch.

Fiona watched the boy and girl out of sight, then got to her feet and took several paces in the direction of the man. She ostentatiously stared across at him and took out her mobile phone. As soon as he realized what she was doing, he straightened up and started running down the slope towards a path that wound through dense shrubbery.

Fiona put her phone away. She’d had no intention of calling the police, but it was enough that he thought she might be going to. What could she have reported, after all? A man who appeared to have an interest in watching teenage girls. He had done nothing threatening, nothing particularly out of the ordinary, nothing that couldn’t be explained in tones of outraged protest. Even his sudden departure could be easily justified; he’d paused in his run and was sufficiently rested to continue.

Innocuous though his behaviour could be made to sound, it had been enough to set Fiona’s antennae jangling. It wasn’t that she suspected the strange man of being anything more than a rather timid voyeur. But it reminded her that Susan Blanchard’s killer must have scouted his killing zone thoroughly before he had struck. He would have walked the ground, not cycled it, taking in every detail of landscape, plotting his escape routes, selecting his victim. He might have been sophisticated enough to disguise his interests entirely, but Fiona doubted it.

She wondered where he was this evening. The urge to kill again would be strong in him, she reckoned. Where would he be walking now? What reconnaissance would he be making? How would he choose his next location? Would he come back to the Heath? Or would he try another nearby site? Highgate Cemetery? Alexandra Palace? Or did he know his city well enough to move further afield? Where were the borders of his mental map? She knew the limits imposed by his psychology; they were evident in his actions. But where did his geographical boundaries lie?

Questions she couldn’t answer crowded into her head, shattering the peace she had come to the Heath to find after a trying day at work. Time to walk back home through streets of substantial houses with their grubby stucco and grimy yellow London brickwork turned gloomy by the dirty orange of sodium streetlights. Time to enjoy her own voyeuristic pleasure by glancing in at the lit windows she would pass, savouring glimpses of people’s lives played out in brief snatches caught in her peripheral vision. And of course, the feeling of superiority she couldn’t stifle when she noted some particularly tasteless interior.

“You should get a life, you sad girl,” she muttered as she spotted a newly decorated living room that incorporated three clashing wallpaper patterns, and made a mental note to share it with Kit later.

As she pushed open the front door, the phone began to ring. Fiona hurried through to the kitchen and grabbed it on the fourth ring. “Hello?” she said.

“Dr. Cameron?” The voice had the tinny echo that mobile phones sometimes produce.

“Is that Major Berrocal?” Fiona asked uncertainly.

“Si. I am sorry to trouble you at home, but we have some developments here I thought you would want to know.”

“No, that’s fine, it’s no trouble. Have you found Delgado?” As she spoke, Fiona shrugged out of her jacket and reached for the pad and pen kept by the phone.

“Not exactly. But we have found where we think he has been hiding out.”

“That sounds like progress.”

“Si. And it is thanks to your idea.”

“He was living in a mausoleum?…A tomb?” Fiona felt a quickening of gratified pride.

“Not exactly, no. There is a big cemetery to the north of the city that fitted the suggestion you made, so we persuaded the local police to make a search of it. There were no signs that any of the tombs had been opened, so the officers decided we were truly crazy and Delgado was not to be found there. But one of my officers, he is what my wife calls a bulldog, and he went back there today.”

“And he found something?” Fiona urged.

“Si. There is a small shed that used to be used by the workmen to store their tools. It has been empty for some years now, but my officer discovered that the boards nailed over the window had been loosened. He went inside and he found what we think is Delgado’s camp. There was food, water, a sleeping bag and some clothes. We compared fingerprints we found with the ones on Delgado’s possessions in the apartment, and the match was perfect.”

“So, you know he’s been there.”

“Si. I have men watching the cemetery now, but I fear he will not return. The fruit in the shed was starting to rot, and so I think he must have seen the local police searching and now he will not go back there.”

“What a disappointment for you,” Fiona said. “So near, and yet so far.”

“Close, but no cigar, huh? I think he will be dangerous on the run, no?”

Fiona thought for a brief moment. “I don’t think he’ll panic. So far, his reactions have been quite controlled. He knows the city and the surrounding area well. He probably has a fallback position in mind.”

Berrocal grunted noncommittally. “What I am afraid of is that he will feel cornered and he will decide to go out in a blaze of glory. Something spectacular. He has nothing to lose now. He knows we know he is the killer. Maybe the best he can hope for is to make his point in one final dramatic way.”

“You’re thinking a spree killing? A massacre?” Fiona asked.

“It’s what I fear,” Berrocal acknowledged.

Fiona sighed. “I can’t think offhand of another case where a serial killer has moved on to a spree killing. But then, most serial killings are primarily sexual homicides, and I’ve felt from the start that these murders stemmed from a different motive. I honestly don’t know what to say, Major. I have to say your reading of the situation seems plausible to me.”

There was a long pause between them. Then Berrocal said, “I will make sure the city is on full alert. It’s not a big place. We should be able to find him.”

Whistling in the dark, Fiona thought. Everyone who deals with serial offenders ends up doing it. “Sit down with someone who has an intimate knowledge of Toledan history,” she advised. “Ask them about sites in the city connected with violent death. If he’s going to strike again, either with a single murder or a spree, that’s what he’ll focus on. And that’s probably where you’ll catch him.”

“Thank you for the advice.”

“You’re welcome. I’m sure you must have worked it out for yourself, though. Let me know how you go on.”

“Of course. Good night, Doctor.”

“Good night, Major. And good luck.” As Fiona replaced the phone with heavy heart, she heard the click of the front door opening. “Kit?” she called, surprised.

The door closed and her lover’s familiar voice replied. “Hi, babe, I’m home.”

He walked into the kitchen and enveloped her in the suffocating hug she had come to find comfort in. Fiona tilted her head back to kiss him, her hazel eyes bright with pleasure. “I wasn’t expecting you till late. I thought you were all going out for supper with Georgia after her event.”

Kit let her go and crossed to the fridge. “That was the plan. Only, no show without Punch.”

“What? Georgia decided she needed her beauty sleep more than a night of drunken revelry with reprobate crime writers?” Fiona teased, taking down a couple of glasses for the wine Kit was opening.

“Who knows? She didn’t show.”

“You mean she cancelled?” Fiona’s incredulity was obvious. The notion of publicity-hungry Georgia Lester missing the chance of delivering a lecture at the British Film Institute was almost beyond belief.

“No. I mean she didn’t show. No message, no word to the BFI or to her publicist. No answer from her home phone or her mobile, according to said publicist.” Kit drew the cork and poured the wine.

“So what happened?”

“Nothing much. The audience hung around like lemons for about half an hour then the guy who was supposed to be introducing her got up and said that Ms Lester was indisposed and they could obtain a refund from the box office. We all went for a quick drink then I came home.”

“So, a mystery, then,” Fiona said lightly. “What’s the theory, Sherlock?”

“The drinking team ended up with two schools of thought.” Kit settled into a chair and prepared for narrative. “The charitable one goes like this. Georgia has a cottage down in Dorset where she goes allegedly to write, but in reality, I happen to know, to shag senseless the latest Italian waiter she’s got her claws into. Well away from Anthony, the boring but doting husband, right? So, there she is, having her wicked way with Super Mario, she loses track of the time and ends up leaving at the last minute, only to run out of petrol miles from anywhere. And the battery on her phone has died.”

“That’s the charitable version?”

“Come on, Fiona, you know Georgia. Most people who only see the public face find it hard to say much about her that doesn’t involve a certain degree of bitching.”

“I can’t wait for the uncharitable alternative,” Fiona murmured.

“That goes like this. After Drew’s murder, Georgia was bleating that she wanted Carnegie House to provide her with bodyguards. She took the line that she was a high-profile Queen of Crime who needed protection from the nutters out there, and that was the duty of her publisher. Of course, several of my colleagues thought it was just a way of getting Carnegie to pimp for her…”

“Oh, cruel.”

“But possibly true. Anyway, as you know, she was threatening that she wasn’t going to tour with the new book if they didn’t give her some protection with a bit more muscle than a publicist and a sales rep. And of course, this lecture was technically the first event of the tour. So several of my colleagues reckon that Georgia decided to do a no-show to put the frighteners on her publishers. After all, it’s not like the BFI is a bookshop. Not turning up there would hit the headlines without costing her too many sales,” he added cynically.

“The intention being that tomorrow morning her publishers will be calling her with promises of a pair of thugs to escort her round the book shops of Britain?” Fiona asked, trying not to sound as bemused as she felt.

“Yup. She’ll be ringing them up doing the pitiful, “Poor little me, I was so terrified that when it came to it, all I wanted to do was run away and hide.” Not to mention how heartbroken she is to have let down her legion of devoted fans. So, if Carnegie House really value their top-selling crime author, they will of course be laying on a bulletproof limo and a team of minders for her…”

“Which in turn will generate even more publicity.”

“A point which everyone is sure never crossed Georgia’s mind,” Kit said with affectionate sarcasm.

“That really is the most disgustingly cynical analysis I have heard in a very long time. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.”

Kit gave a grim smile. “A fiver hopes they’re right. Because what they don’t know is that Georgia’s had a death threat. And that Georgia really did think she might be on a killer’s hit list.”

“You didn’t tell them?”

“What would have been the point? Someone would have blabbed. When I started asking around to see who else had had letters, I was careful not to mention Georgia by name. With her name in the frame, somebody would have sold the story to one of the newspaper diary columns. So everybody was being very entertaining at Georgia’s expense this evening.”

“And you? Knowing what you know, what do you think?”

Kit ran his hands over his face and his scalp. “There are far worse things that could have happened to Georgia. I just hope everybody’s right. That she’s at the wind-up. Because if she’s not, then I think it’s about time I started to get seriously scared.”