Killing the Shadows

FOURTY-SIX

The video viewing room was as high-tech as anything a broadcasting company could have provided. Steve wasn’t quite sure how the techies had managed to swing the budget for such a sophisticated suite, but for once he felt it was worth every penny taken away from more direct forms of policing. He was sitting beside a technician who was taking him through the videos of Susan Blanchard’s funeral.

It had been a sparkling, sunny day, which had doubtless felt grotesquely inappropriate for the grieving family and friends, but which had made the police camera operators’ job easier. Three video cameras had been set up at a discreet distance from the graveside, taking advantage of the aged yew trees that ringed the churchyard. They had filmed the mourners arriving at the church, then assembling at the graveside for the interment. Then, as the crowd had dispersed, one camera had remained to film the grave itself for the remainder of the afternoon.

Steve’s eyes were glued to the screen as the video played out before him in slow motion. Every now and again, he asked for a freeze-frame and zoom so he could take a closer look at individual mourners. The first tape had yielded nothing concrete, although there were a couple of rear views that could have been Coyne.

By the time they were halfway through the second tape, his eyes had begun to feel gritty and tired. “I need a break,” he told the technician, pushing back his chair and stretching. “Give me ten minutes.”

He left the video suite and climbed the two flights of stairs to his office. On his desk there was a thick brown envelope with, “Urgent. FAO Detective Superintendent Steve Preston,” scrawled across it in black felt-tip. He ripped it open and pulled out half a dozen black and white photographs. A compliment slip fluttered to the desktop and he saw it had come from the picture editor of a national daily, a man he’d shared a drink and a few jokes with at one of Teflon’s ghastly cocktail parties the previous Christmas. Nothing could beat personal contact for results in that grey area of press and police cooperation.

The photographs had all been taken outside the Old Bailey on the day of Francis Blake’s acquittal. Steve rummaged in his top drawer for his magnifying glass and began to study the prints methodically. As he worked his way across the third picture, he let out a sigh of relief. His memory hadn’t been playing tricks on him. On the fringe of the crowd surrounding Blake was the unmistakable face of Gerard Coyne. Steve scanned the remaining photos and found Coyne on two others. In one, he was full-face to the camera, in the other two he was in profile. But there was no possibility of error.

The man who had been identified by Terry’s geographic profile had been there at the trial of Susan Blanchard’s putative killer.

Fired with fresh enthusiasm, Steve ran down the stairs to the video suite. “Let’s roll,” he said. “He’s here somewhere, I know it.”

His patience was rewarded a mere ten minutes later. The second tape had picked up Coyne emerging from the trees at the side of the graveyard. He was wearing a dark suit, with collar and tie, appropriate to the occasion. He had hung back from the main body of mourners round the grave, staying on the fringes. A significant number of people had respected the family’s grief and stayed well back while Susan’s twins had thrown roses on their mother’s coffin and watched it lowered into the ground. But they had all dispersed fairly quickly after the ceremony was over. Coyne, conversely, had melted back into the trees then, when the last of the congregation was long gone, he had re-emerged and crossed to the path that led to Susan Blanchard’s grave.

Steve felt his pulse quicken as Coyne moved in slow motion down the path. As he drew level with the open grave, he didn’t so much as glance sideways. Instead, he continued along the path. Two graves along from Susan Blanchard, he stopped abruptly and turned to face that headstone. “Damn,” Steve swore softly. “We can’t see his face. I bet he’s looking at her grave. I’d put money on it.”

Coyne stood, head slightly bowed, for a couple of minutes, then he turned and went back the way he had come. There was nothing in his behaviour to suggest anything untoward. He could, if pressed, have claimed he’d delayed his planned visit to the grave near Susan’s because there was a funeral in progress. But taken in conjunction with his presence at the Old Bailey and the geographic profile, it was another brick in a circumstantial case that might yet prove sufficient to put him behind bars.

“I want you to print me a series of stills from that video,” Steve said. “The best views of his face. Blow them up so we get the best possible definition. I don’t want there to be any doubts about this.”

“No problem,” the techie said. “I suppose it’s urgent?”

“It’s urgent.” Steve was already heading for the door. He checked his watch. Teflon had a habit of finding excuses to be out of the office early on Friday afternoons, but he might just catch him.

Commander Telford was actually waiting for the lift that Steve emerged from. “I’m glad I’ve caught you, sir. I need to speak with you urgently about the Susan Blanchard case,” he said firmly.

“Can’t it wait, Superintendent? I’ve got an appointment.”

With a large gin and tonic, Steve thought cynically. “I’m afraid it won’t wait, sir. Perhaps you could call ahead and tell them you’ve been unavoidably delayed?”

Telford pursed his lips and snorted through his nose. “Oh, very well. But keep it as brief as you can.” He turned on his heel and marched back to his office.

Steve had barely closed the door behind him when Telford said, “What is it that’s so important, then?”

“We have a viable suspect in the Blanchard case, sir. It’s my intention to bring him in for questioning and search his premises. I thought you’d want to be kept informed.” He crossed to the visitor’s chair and sat down, ignoring the fact that Telford was still standing.

“Where has this come from?” Telford said, unable to hide his scepticism.

“If you remember, sir, you authorized a crime linkage and geographic profile based on cases with similar components. Using the results of that, my officers did a trawl of criminal records and we emerged with a likely name.”

“That’s it?” Telford interrupted. “You think that’ll stand up in court as a reasonable excuse for pulling someone in and turning over his home?”

“There is more, sir,” Steve said, biting back his frustration. “The suspect is a member of a cycling club and we have two witnesses who put a cyclist at the scene of the crime. Even more significantly, when I saw the suspect’s photograph, I recognized him. I had seen him before, sir. He was present at the Old Bailey when Francis Blake was in court. I’ve verified that from photographs taken there that day. And I’ve since examined the videos we took at Susan Blanchard’s funeral. He was there too. After the funeral, he walked past her grave. In my opinion, sir, we have enough circumstantial evidence to arrest him on suspicion of murder. And to conduct a search under Section Eighteen of PACE.” He held Telford’s eyes, willing him to agree. He knew his strength should be more than Telford’s weakness could withstand, but he’d never tested it in a head-to-head before. Maybe he should have done it months ago, when Telford had pushed through the decision to dump Fiona and use Horsforth. But he had backed down then, and the price had been too high for him to be comfortable with the idea that the same cost might be extracted again.

“It’s thin,” Telford complained. “And you’ve already come a cropper with this case. I don’t want another disaster on my hands.”

“We can keep the lid on it, sir. There’s no need to make any kind of announcement until we’re ready to charge him. Nobody need know about the arrest and search. I can keep it really tight just me and my immediate team.”

Telford shook his head. “You make a convincing case. But I want to run it past the AC Crime before we go any further.”

“But the AC’s on leave,” Steve protested. He could see his case slipping out of his grasp and he felt powerless to stop it.

“He’s due back on Monday morning. I suggest we have a meeting with him first thing. Until then, nothing must be done to alert the suspect.” Telford’s smile was genial. He’d found a way to pass the awkward buck, and he was happy. “We’ve waited long enough. Another couple of days won’t hurt.”

“That’s not good enough.” Steve could feel his cheeks flush with anger as Telford’s smile changed to a frown. “My team have worked all the hours God sends on this and I am not about to sacrifice our momentum. I propose leaving a message on the AC’s home phone so he can contact me for a briefing as soon as he gets back.”

“How dare you threaten to go over my head? You are out of order, Superintendent,” Telford shouted with all the bluster of a man who knows he is out of his depth.

Steve got to his feet. “That may be, sir. But this is my investigation and I will not jeopardize it. I’m prepared to take full responsibility.”

Faced with an implacability he could not shake, Telford immediately back-pedalled. “If you think it’s necessary, then do it. But you’d better be very sure of your ground if you’re going to disrupt the AC’s leave.”

“Thank you, sir,” Steve said, his tone bordering on the insolent. He left the room before his temper escaped his control, even managing not to slam the door. It wasn’t the result he’d hoped for, but at least he had side-stepped Teflon. The Assistant Commissioner for Crime wouldn’t be thrilled to come home from whatever foreign parts he was visiting to find an urgent message on his answering machine. But although he knew how to play politics as well as any other senior manager, the AC had been a far more courageous detective than Telford had ever managed. He would understand what was driving Steve. And, he felt sure, the AC would give him the go-ahead. Till then, he would have to keep the surveillance as low-key as possible.

Nothing, he thought as he walked back to his office, was ever as straightforward as it seemed.

It was a sentiment Fiona would probably have agreed with. She had ploughed through the murder file on Drew Shand, which had proved to be a singularly unproductive activity from the point of view of developing strong points of linkage. Among the few things she could say so far was that in spite of careful staging, there was no indication of the sexual motivation of the fictional killings being replicated in the real murders, which was significant in itself. It meant that there was clearly some other motive behind the deaths of Georgia and Drew. They had both been stalked; they had both been abducted; neither had been killed in their own homes, but at some unspecified site; and they were both award-winning writers of serial killer thrillers which had successfully been adapted by other media. All of this was in the realm of the psychology of the act, however. There was little of a concrete nature from which further evidence could be developed.

What had struck Fiona was that the killer was prepared to deviate from his template. In each case, there was a significant alteration between the events outlined in the book and the path the murderer had taken. With Drew Shand, the body dump was different. Although there were sites nearby that would have better matched the precise description in the book, his body had been displayed somewhere else, presumably because it was less exposed and the killer could drive right up to the location. With Jane Elias, the torture that had been carried out on a live victim had been translated into the mutilation of a body already dead. Either the killer had misjudged his initial attack or he hadn’t had the stomach for that degree of sadistic experiment. Fiona inclined to the latter view because it conformed to the element of expediency in the earlier variation.

In Georgia’s case, the crucial difference was the discovery of the head accompanying the victim. Furthermore, according to Duvall, there was no sign that the killer had slavishly stuck to the book; there was no indication that he had had sex with the severed head. Again, a mixture of squeamishness and expediency had come into play. For the killer to be certain that his actions would be identified, he had to make sure that the meat in the freezer was clearly the remains of Georgia Lester. So he had made changes.

It wasn’t exactly a signature, but it was a pattern. With this new realization in the front of her mind, Fiona approached Drew’s flat with more optimism than she had felt earlier. Perhaps there really was new material to be had there.

Late in the afternoon, Murray had been despatched to navigate her through the rush-hour traffic to Drew Shand’s New Town flat. He had let her in, then left her to it, with instructions to her to lock up after her and bring the keys back to St. Leonard’s in the morning.

It was a beautiful flat, she thought. The rooms were elegantly proportioned, with elaborate plaster friezes in the living room and main bedroom, which looked west across a large communal garden, grass and mature trees enclosed behind iron railings and separated from the surrounding houses by the road. The flat had been expensively fitted out, with heavy curtains and comfortable furniture. Framed film noir posters adorned the walls, an interest mirrored in the collection of videos that filled an entire bookcase in the living room. In spite of that, and the books that lined the freakishly tidy office, it felt more like a display for a magazine feature than a home. Even the bathroom was preternaturally tidy, with all the normal clutter hidden behind handsome mirror-and-chrome cupboards. Not even a half-squeezed tube of toothpaste disrupted the order.

This much she learned from her first pass through the flat. But Fiona was no behavioural psychologist. It wasn’t her business to try to read the crime by reading the victim. In this instance, her primary goal was to find something in Drew Shand’s life to connect him to Charles Cavendish Redford. She knew the police had searched the flat thoroughly, but at that point they’d been looking for a connection with the gay S&M world, not a communication from a frustrated writer.

She pulled the desk chair over to the filing cabinet and started going through the files. The bottom drawer was devoted to personal papers mortgage, accounts, household receipts, car insurance, the general detritus of modern life. The next drawer contained a series of suspension files that seemed to relate to Drew’s published work and work in progress. She searched the files quickly, on the off-chance that he really had stolen an idea from Redford. But there was nothing to indicate any source for his material other than his own imagination.

The top drawer was devoted to correspondence. There were files for his agent, his publisher, his publishing contracts and, finally, one marked ‘Fan Mail’. It was a surprisingly thick file, Fiona thought as she pulled it out of the drawer. She’d lived with Kit for long enough to have an appreciation of the sort of volume of mail a successful writer would ordinarily receive, but Drew’s file exceeded her expectations. The first dozen letters were much as she expected; letters of appreciation for his first novel, inquiries about when the second would be out, requests for signed bookplates, the occasional, slightly embarrassed pointing out of a minor error in the text. There were a couple of letters expressing disgust at the violence of Copycat, but nothing that would stir any great feeling of concern in the recipient.

The bulk of the file, however, consisted of letters and printed-out e — mail from men who expressed an interest in meeting the author of Copycatbecause they found him attractive and were intrigued to know if his personal sexual tastes were reflected in his novel. These were held together with a paper clip. Stuck to the top sheet was a Post-it note that read, ‘Saddo file’.

As she flicked through, a single letter dislodged itself from near the back of the sheaf. It was a folded sheet of A4. Fiona unfolded it, and let out a long sigh of satisfaction. Drew Shand, she read,

Your career has barely begun, but already it is based on the dangerous ground of theft. You have stolen from me. You know that you have taken my work and passed it off as what you have yourself made. And your lies deprive me of what is rightfully mine. Your work is a feeble reflection of other people’s light. You take, you destroy, you are a parasite who lives off the life force of those whose gifts you envy. You know this to be true. Search your pathetic grimy soul and you will not be able to deny what you have deprived me of. The time has come for you to pay. You deserve nothing from me but my contempt and my hatred. If killing you is what it takes to grant what is rightfully mine, then so be it. It is a fair price for stealing my soul. The hour and the day will be of my choosing. I trust you will not sleep easy; you do not deserve so to do. I will enjoy your funeral. From your ashes, I will rise like a phoenix.

There were differences between this letter and the ones she had already seen. But the similarities were overwhelming. There was no doubt in her mind that Drew Shand had received a letter from the same person who had written to Georgia and Kit, and who had also composed the flyer distributed to the press conference where he had admitted his guilt.

It was hard to find an argument to contradict what Fiona was now beginning to accept was the case. The coincidences were piling too high. Whoever had killed Georgia had also killed Drew. And it looked as if that person really was Charles Cavendish Redford.