The Mermaids Singing

15

Can they not keep to the old honest way of cutting throats, without introducing such abominable innovations…?

The sound of a roaring crowd greeted Carol as she closed the door of the flat behind her. Michael, sprawled on one of the sofas, didn’t even take his eyes off the rugby match on the television. ‘Hi, sis,’ he said. ‘Needle match. Ten minutes, and I’m all yours.’

Carol glanced at the screen where muddy giants in England and Scotland’s colours were sprawled across the turf in a collapsed scrum. ‘Very hi-tech,’ she muttered. ‘I need a shower.’

Fifteen minutes later, brother and sister were sharing a celebratory bottle of cava. ‘I have some print-out for you,’ Michael said.

Carol perked up. ‘Anything significant?’

Michael shrugged. ‘I don’t know what’s significant to you. Your killer used five different-shaped objects to make the marks. I separated them out into five separate patterns. You’ve got what looks like a heart and some rudimentary letters. A, D, G and P. Mean anything to you?’

Carol shivered involuntarily. ‘Oh, yes. Plenty. You got the print-out here?’

Michael nodded. ‘It’s in my briefcase.’

‘I’ll look at it in a bit. Meanwhile, can I pick your brains again?’

Michael drained his glass and refilled it. ‘I don’t know. Can you afford me?’

‘Dinner, bed and breakfast at the country-house hotel of your choice, first weekend I have off,’ Carol offered.

Michael pulled a face. ‘At this rate, I could be collecting my pension before I collect on that one. How about you do my ironing for a month?’

‘A fortnight.’

‘Three weeks.’

‘Consider it a done deal.’ She offered her hand and Michael shook it.

‘So, what do you want to know, sis?’

Carol outlined her theory about the computer manipulation of the killer’s videos. ‘What do you think?’ she asked anxiously.

‘It’s a can-do,’ he said. ‘No question about that. The technology’s available, and it’s not difficult software to use. I could do it standing on my head. But you’re talking serious money. Say three hundred for a video capture card, four hundred for a ReelMagic card, another three to five for a decent video digitizer, plus at least a grand for a state-of-the-art scanner. The real killer is the software, though. There’s only one package that will do what you’re talking about to any real quality. Vicom 3D Commander. We’ve got it, and it set us back nearly four grand, and that was six months ago. The last upgrade cost us another eight hundred. Manual thick as a house brick.’

‘So it’s not a piece of software that many people would have?’

Michael snorted. ‘Damn right it isn’t. It’s a serious bit of kit, that. Professionals like us, video production studios and very serious hobbyists only.’

‘How readily available is it? Could you buy it over the counter?’ Carol asked.

‘Not really. We dealt directly with Vicom, because we wanted them to run us a full demo before we committed ourselves to laying out that much dosh. Obviously, some specialist business suppliers sell it, but they wouldn’t be shifting it in bulk. That would be mail order, anyway. Most computer stuff is.’

‘The other stuff you mentioned – are they things that lots of people would have?’ Carol asked.

‘They’re not uncommon. Off the top of my head, say two or three per cent market penetration on the video stuff, maybe fifteen per cent on the scanner. But if you’re thinking of tracking down your man, I’d start with the Vicom end,’ Michael advised.

‘How do you think they’d be about letting us look at their sales records?’

Michael pulled a face. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. You’re not a competitor, and this is a murder investigation. You never know, they might be happy to cooperate. After all, if this guy is using their stuff, it’d be bad PR if they didn’t. I can dig out the name of the guy we dealt with. He was their sales director. Scottish bloke. One of those names you can’t tell which is the Christian name. You know, Grant Cameron, Campbell Elliott… It’ll come to me…’

While Michael searched through his contacts book, Carol refilled her glass and savoured the prickle of bubbles against her palate. Lately, pleasure seemed to have been in short supply. But if she could come up with some leads on her theory, all of that might change.

‘Got it!’ Michael exclaimed. ‘Fraser Duncan. Give him a ring Monday morning and mention my name. Time you got a break, sis.’

‘You’re not wrong,’ Carol said with feeling. ‘Believe me, I deserve it.’

Kevin Matthews lay sprawled across the rumpled kingsized bed, smiling up at the woman straddling him. ‘Mmm,’ he murmured. ‘That was a bit nice.’

‘Better than home cooking,’ Penny Burgess said, running her fingers through the dark auburn hair that curled across Kevin’s chest.

Kevin chuckled. ‘Just a bit.’ He reached for the remains of the hefty vodka and coke Penny had poured for him earlier.

‘I’m surprised you could get away tonight,’ Penny said, moving forward languidly so her nipples brushed his.

‘We’ve had so much overtime lately she’s given up expecting me home for anything except for a bit of kip.’

Penny let her upper body fall heavily on Kevin, thrusting the breath out of his body. ‘I didn’t mean Lynn,’ she said, ‘I meant work.’

Kevin grabbed her wrists and wrestled her off him. When they subsided, lying side by side, giggling breathlessly, he finally said, ‘There wasn’t much to do, tell you the truth.’

Penny snorted incredulously. ‘Oh yeah? Last night Carol Jordan finds body number five, the suspect is arrested trying to leave the country and you tell me there’s nothing much doing? Come on, Kevin, this is me you’re talking to.’

‘You’ve got it all wrong, darling,’ Kevin said magnanimously. ‘You and all the rest of your media cronies.’ It wasn’t often he got the chance to put Penny right and he intended to make the most of it.

‘What do you mean?’ Penny propped herself up on one elbow, unconsciously covering her body with the duvet. This wasn’t a bit of fun any more; this was work.

‘Number one. The body Carol found last night wasn’t one of the serial killer’s victims. It was a copycat job. The postmortem proved that beyond reasonable doubt. It was just another seedy little sex murder. Central should clear it up in a few days with a bit of help from Vice,’ Kevin said, the self-satisfaction obvious in his voice.

Penny bit on the bullet and said sweetly through clenched teeth, ‘And?’

‘And what, darling?’

‘If that was number one, there must be a number two.’

Kevin smiled, so smug that Penny made the instant decision that he was on the out just as soon as she had an acceptable alternative lined up. ‘Oh yes, number two. Stevie McConnell isn’t the killer.’

For once, Penny ran out of words. The information was shocking in itself. But more shocking was the fact that, knowing this, Kevin had said nothing. He had remained silent and let her paper run a story that was eventually going to make her look an ill-informed pillock. ‘Really?’ she said, in the superior accent she hadn’t used since the day she’d gratefully quit boarding school and made the decision to go vocally downmarket.

‘That’s right. We knew that before he legged it.’ Kevin lay back on the pillows, blissfully unaware of the look of distilled hatred that Penny was beaming in his direction.

‘So what exactly was that pantomime at court this morning in aid of?’ she demanded in tones her elocution mistress would have been proud of.

Kevin smirked. ‘Well, most of us had already decided that McConnell wasn’t our man. But Brandon had put a tail on him, so when he tried to skip the country, we were more or less obliged to pull him in. By that time, it was starting to look definite that McConnell isn’t the Queer Killer. Plus, he doesn’t fit the profile that Tony Hill came up with.’

‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this,’ Penny said sharply.

Kevin finally registered that all was not well. ‘What? You got a problem, darling?’

‘Just a fucking bit,’ said Penny, enunciating each syllable crisply. ‘You mean to tell me you’ve not only put an innocent man on remand, you’ve also let the world’s press broadcast the assumption that this man is quite probably the Queer Killer?’

Kevin propped himself up and took another swig of his drink, reaching out to rumple Penny’s hair with his other hand. She pulled away with a jerk. ‘It’s no big deal,’ he said patronizingly. ‘Nobody can get a lynch mob together and go round his house while he’s inside. And we reckon that telling the world between the lines that we’ve got the killer banged up might just provoke the real killer into getting in touch with us to make sure we know he’s still out there.’

‘You mean you want to drive him to kill again?’ Penny demanded, her voice rising.

‘Of course not,’ Kevin said indignantly. ‘I mean, to get in touch. Like he did after he’d killed Gareth Finnegan.’

‘My God,’ Penny said wonderingly. ‘Kevin, how can you sit there and tell me that nothing bad can happen to Stevie McConnell while he’s locked up in prison?’

While Penny Burgess and Kevin Matthews were arguing the morality of Stevie McConnell’s remand, in C Wing of Her Majesty’s Prison Barleigh, three men were taking turns to show Stevie McConnell what happens to sex cases in prison. At the end of the landing, a warden stood impassively, appearing as oblivious to McConnell’s screams and entreaties as a deaf man with his hearing aid switched off. And on the moors above Bradfield, a ruthless killer put the finishing touches to the torture instrument that would help show the world that the man in prison was not the person responsible for four perfectly executed serial punishments.

The HOLMES room was a quiet hum of activity, operators staring into screens and tapping keys. Carol found Dave Woolcott sitting in his office picking listlessly at fish and chips. He looked up when she entered and managed a wan smile. ‘Thought you were having a night off,’ he said.

‘I’m still hoping to. My brother promised to buy me a bucket of popcorn all to myself if I make it to the multiscreen before the film begins. I just wanted to swing by and run something past you.’ She dumped two plastic bags on Dave’s desk. Glossy computer magazines spilled out.

‘I’ve got this theory,’ she said. ‘Well, more of a hunch.’ For the third time, Carol outlined her idea about the killer importing videos and transforming them into supports for his fantasies.

Dave listened carefully, nodding as Carol’s ideas sank in. ‘I like it,’ he said simply. ‘I’ve read that profile a couple of times now, and I really can’t accept what Dr Hill says about keeping stable just by using videos of the killings. It doesn’t make sense. Your idea does. So what do you want from me?’

‘Michael reckons that tracing the buyers of Vicom 3D Commander might lead us to him if we’re right. I’m not so sure. It’s possible that the company the killer works for has the software, and he does the manipulation work there. To be on the safe side, though, he’d need to do all the scanning and digitizing at home. So I thought it would also be worthwhile doing a trawl of the suppliers of video digitizers and video capture cards. We can find suppliers via the ads in these magazines, since virtually all computer stuff comes mail order. We should also contact local computer clubs too. If you’ve got any bodies to spare, that is.’

Dave sighed. ‘Dream on, Carol.’ He picked up a magazine and flicked through the pages. ‘I suppose I could draw up a list tonight and tomorrow, and first thing Monday morning we could get a couple of DCs to do a ring-round. When my operators will have time to input the data, I don’t know, but I will see that it gets done. OK?’

Carol grinned. ‘You’re a star, Dave.’

‘I’m a bloody martyr, Carol. My youngest’s cut two teeth that I haven’t even seen yet.’

‘I could stay and help you go through the magazines,’ Carol said reluctantly.

‘Oh, bugger off. Go and enjoy yourself. It’s about time one of us did. What are you going to see?’

Carol pulled a face. ‘It’s a Saturday Special double bill – Manhunter and The Silence of the Lambs.’

Dave’s laughter echoed in her ears all the way to the car.

The long howl seemed to come from the pit of his stomach. As his orgasm shuddered through him like a runaway train, Tony felt a glorious sense of release. ‘Oh, God,’ he groaned.

‘Oh, yeah, yeah,’ Angelica gasped. ‘I’m coming again, again, oh, Tony, Tony…’ Her voice faded in a gulping sob.

Tony lay back on his bed, chest heaving, the smell of sweat and sex heavy around him. He felt as if he’d been suddenly detached from a burden he had been carrying for so long he had ceased to notice its weight. Was this what being cured felt like, this sense of light and colour, this sensation of having dumped the past like sacks of coal in a bunker? Was this how his patients felt when they’d unloaded their mess on him?

In his ear, he could hear the ragged sound of her breathing. After a few moments, she said, ‘Wow. Just wow. That was the best ever. I just love the way you love me.’

‘It was good for me, too,’ Tony said, meaning it for once. For the first time since they had started this strange combination of therapy and sexual game-playing, he’d had no trouble with his erection. Right from the start, he’d been hard as a rock. No fading, no wilting, no shame. Just the first problem-free sex he’d had for years. OK, so Angelica wasn’t actually in the room with him, but it was a giant step in the right direction.

‘We make the sweetest music,’ Angelica said. ‘Nobody’s ever turned me on like you do.’

‘Do you do this often?’ Tony asked languidly.

Angelica chuckled, a husky, sexy gurgle of laughter. ‘You’re not the first.’

‘I could tell that. You’re far too much of an expert,’ Tony flattered, not entirely insincerely. She’d been the perfect therapist for him, that much was certainly true.

‘I’m very choosy about the men I allow to share with me,’ Angelica said. ‘It’s not everyone who appreciates what I have to offer,’ she added.

‘They’d have to be very strange not to enjoy it. I know I do.’

‘I’m glad, Anthony. You’ll never know how glad. I have to go now,’ she said, her tone changing abruptly to the businesslike one Tony had come to associate with the end of their calls. ‘Tonight has been really special. We’ll talk soon.’

The line went dead. Tony switched off the phone and stretched out. Tonight, with Angelica, for the first time in his life, Tony had felt a protective care that succoured without smothering. His grandmother, he knew intellectually, had loved him and cared for him, but theirs had never been a demonstrative family, and her love had been brusque and practical, meeting her needs rather than his. The women he’d been involved with in the past had, he now realized, been her emotional doppelgangers. Thanks to Angelica, he dared hope the pattern had been broken. It had caused him enough pain over the years.

His sexual life had started later than most of his contemporaries, in part because his body had been reluctant to mature. Until his seventeenth year, he’d been by far the smallest boy in his class, condemned to dating the thirteen-and fourteen-year-olds who were even more scared of sex than he was. Then, suddenly, he’d shot up five inches in as many months. By the time he’d gone to university, he’d lost his virginity in a clumsy fumble on a single bed, the candlewick bedspread leaving him with uncomfortable friction burns for days afterwards. His girlfriend, relieved to be rid at last of the encumbrance of her virginity, had dumped him days later.

At university, he’d been too shy and hard-working to improve his experience by much. Then, when he’d started work on his doctorate, he’d fallen head over heels with a young philosophy tutor in his college. Because he was bright and interesting, he captured her interest. Patricia made no secret of the fact that she was a woman of the world, just as she made no secret of the fact that she had ended their relationship because of his lacklustre performance between the sheets. ‘Face it, sweetheart,’ she’d told him, ‘your brain might be DPhil material, but your fucking wouldn’t earn you an O level.’

It had been downhill from then. The last couple of women Tony had been involved with had thought he was a perfect gentleman, never pressurizing them into bed. Until they got him there and discovered how seldom he could actually deliver. He had long ago discovered how hard it was to convince a woman that the fact that he couldn’t get it up had nothing whatsoever to do with her. ‘They just got fed up with having their egos bashed,’ he said aloud.

Maybe now he had finally found a way to confront the past and move forward. A few more nights like tonight with Angelica and maybe, just maybe, he’d be ready to try the real thing. He wondered if her services extended to that. Perhaps he should start thinking about dropping a few hints.

Brandon read the sheet of paper on his desk and rubbed the grit of sleep from his eyes. He and Dave Woolcott had spent the evening going through the dozens of reports that had flowed in from the actions Dave had ordered in response to the correlations thrown out by the HOLMES computer. In spite of their determined efforts to find some slender thread of evidence to unravel back to the killer, there was nothing that either of them could identify as a lead.

‘Maybe this idea of Carol’s will do the business for us,’ Dave yawned.

‘We’ve tried everything else,’ Brandon said, his voice as depressed as his face. ‘It can’t hurt to run with it.’

‘She’s a smart operator, that one,’ Dave remarked. ‘She’ll be running the shop one of these days.’ There was no bitterness in his tone, only a tired admiration. Another yawn split his face.

‘Go home, Dave. When was the last time you saw Marion awake?’

Dave groaned. ‘Don’t you start, sir. I was going to knock off anyway, there’s not a lot doing. I’ll be in tomorrow, finish off listing these computer suppliers.’

‘OK, but not too early, you hear? Give your family a treat. Eat breakfast with them.’ Before he took his own advice, Brandon wanted to go through the witness statements and officers’ impressions once more, unable to believe that there wasn’t something lurking in there that would give them their first serious break. By the time he was halfway through he was finding it almost impossible to motivate himself to get through the rest of the pile. The prospect of tucking himself round Maggie’s warm body was overwhelmingly appealing.

Brandon sighed and focused on the next sheet of paper. His scrutiny was interrupted by the insistent trill of his telephone. ‘Brandon,’ he sighed.

‘Sergeant Murray here, front desk. Sorry to interrupt you, sir, but none of the inspectors are in the station at the moment. Thing is, there’s a gentleman down here I think you’ll want to talk to. He’s a neighbour of Damien Connolly’s, sir.’

Brandon was already out of his chair. ‘I’m on my way,’ he said.

The man at the front desk was sitting on the wooden bench that ran along the wall, head down, the rough blur of stubble dark along his jaw. As Brandon came round from behind the counter, he looked up. Late twenties, Brandon estimated. Sun-bed tan, bruised circles under his eyes. Some sort of businessman, judging by the expensive but sombre suit and the silk tie hanging askew under the open top button of the shirt. He had the rumpled, red-eyed look of someone who’s been travelling so long they’ve forgotten which day or which city it is. Seeing someone more tired than himself seemed to inject Brandon with fresh energy. ‘Mr Harding?’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’m John Brandon, the Assistant Chief Constable in charge of the investigation into Damien Connolly’s death.’

The man nodded. ‘Terry Harding. I live a couple of doors down from Damien.’

‘My sergeant tells me you might have some information for us.’

‘That’s right,’ Terry Harding said, his voice thick with exhaustion. ‘I saw a stranger driving out of Damien’s garage the night he was killed.’