The Mermaids Singing

17

In a murder of pure voluptuousness, entirely disinterested, where no hostile witness was to be removed, no extra booty to be gained and no revenge to be gratified, it is clear that to hurry would be altogether to ruin.

The agony was so extreme Tony wanted to believe he was in a nightmare. He had never understood before how many different kinds of pain there were. The dull throb in his head; the harsh rasp in his throat; the screaming, wrenching rip in his shoulders; and the knives of cramps in his thighs and calves. At first, the pain blocked all his other senses. His eyes screwed up tight, all he knew was suffering so stark it made the sweat pop out on his forehead.

Gradually, he learned to bear the extremes of his pain, realizing that if he took his weight on his feet, the cramps would slowly subside and the excruciating tearing in his shoulders grow less. As the torment became more tolerable, he grew aware that he felt nauseous, a deep queasiness that sat in his stomach and threatened to spill over at any moment. God alone knew how long he’d been hanging here.

Slowly, fearfully, he opened his eyes and raised his head, a movement which sent a spasm of agony through his neck and shoulders. Tony looked around. Instantly, he wished he hadn’t. He knew immediately where he was. The room was brightly lit, spotlights mounted on the ceiling and walls revealing a whitewashed room, its rough stone floor marked with dark stains that he knew without examination were the visible remains of the blood that had pooled and splashed there. Facing him was the blind eye of a camcorder on a tripod, a red light on the side indicating that his scrutiny was not going unrecorded. Fixed to the far wall was a magnetic strip with a selection of knives hanging neatly on it. In one corner of the room, he saw the unmistakable implements of torture. A rack; a strange contraption like a chair which he recognized but could not name at first. Something religious? Something vaguely Christian? Something treacherous, not what it seemed? A Judas chair, that was it. And on the wall, a huge wooden saltire, like some hideously perverted holy relic. A soft moan escaped from his dry lips.

Now he knew the worst, he took stock of his own position. He was naked, his skin gooseflesh in the chill of the cellar. His hands were fastened behind his back; judging by the hard edges cutting into his wrists, by handcuffs, held taut in their turn by a rope or chain or something that was obviously fastened to the ceiling. This hawser was tight enough to force his upper body forward, leaving him doubled over at the waist. Tony managed to push himself on to the tips of his toes and twist his body sideways. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see a strong nylon rope leading from behind him, through a pulley, along the ceiling, through another pulley on to a winch.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he croaked. He was afraid to look at his feet, lest his worst fears should be confirmed, but he forced his eyes downwards nevertheless. As he had feared, each ankle was encased in a leather strap. The straps in their turn were attached to a rope cradle that held a heavy stone flag. An involuntary shudder of fear rippled through him, stressing his tortured muscles even further. He knew about torture; to treat his patients he’d had to study the history of sadism. Not even in his worst moments had he imagined he would face so inhuman a fate.

His mind was already racing ahead. He would be winched up till he reached the ceiling. His muscles would wrench and tear, his joints strain to their utmost limit. Then the winch would be released, letting him drop a few feet before the brake was applied. The weight of the stone flag, still hurtling downwards accelerating at thirty-two feet per second, would finish the job, ripping his joints apart, leaving him dangling in a jumble of dislocated limbs. If he was lucky, the shock and pain would thrust him into unconsciousness. Strappado, brought to a fine art by the Spanish Inquisition. No need for high tech in torture.

In a bid to escape the blind panic his knowledge had brought him to, he forced himself to cast his mind back to what had happened. The woman at the door, that was where it had started. As he had let her into the house, Tony had felt a niggle of familiarity. He felt sure he’d seen her somewhere, but he couldn’t imagine having seen someone so distinctively ugly and not remembering. He’d walked ahead of her down the hall and into his study. Then, the faintest whiff of a strangely medicinal, chemical smell, before a hand had sneaked round his neck and clamped a cold, disgusting pad on his face. A kick behind his knee to buckle his legs and bring him down. He’d struggled, but with her weight on top of him, it had only lasted for moment before he had lost consciousness.

Then he had drifted in and out of a half-world of light and dark, aware only of the pad that seemed constantly to send him out as soon as he struggled into consciousness. Until, finally, he had come round. In Handy Andy’s torture chamber. Out of nowhere, a quotation sprang into his mind. ‘Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.’ Somewhere, he knew there was a clue in what had happened that might just allow him to escape what seemed inevitable. All he had to do was to find it.

Had he been completely wrong in his profile? Was the woman who had kidnapped him Handy Andy? Was she the one? Or was she just the decoy, the willing accomplice who got off on her master’s vice? Again, he replayed what his memory would allow him to snatch back. He summoned up the woman’s image again. Clothes first. Beige mac, cut continental style, just like Carol’s, swinging open to reveal a white shirt, enough buttons undone to reveal the swell of full breasts and a deep cleavage. Jeans, trainers. Trainers. They were the same make and model as his own. But none of this was significant, Tony told himself. They were only outward symbols of the care Handy Andy took not to be caught. The woman’s garb had been chosen so that if she did leave any stray fibres, they wouldn’t show up as having any significance, being identifiable as having come from either Carol’s clothes or his. And Carol had been in his house often enough now for her to have left stray fibres.

The woman’s face didn’t really ring any bells either. She was tall for a woman, at least five feet ten, with chunky bone structure to match. Not even her mother could have called her attractive, with her heavy jaw, slightly bulbous nose, wide mouth and eyes set curiously far apart. Even though she was skilfully, if heavily, made up, there wasn’t a lot she could do with the basic building materials. He was sure they’d never been in a room together, though he couldn’t rule out having passed her in the street, at the tram station or on campus.

The trainers. For some reason he kept coming back to the trainers. If only the pain would stop long enough for him to focus properly. Tony locked his legs straight, trying to relieve the agonizing strain on his shoulders. The fraction of an inch he gained wasn’t nearly enough. Again, visceral fear gripped him and he blinked away a tear.

What was it about the trainers? Tony summoned every ounce of concentration he could master, and called up the image of the woman again. With a slow gasp of understanding, he realized what it was. The feet were too big. Even for a woman of that height, the feet were too big. As soon as he grasped that, he remembered the hands too. First, black leather, later thin latex gloves covering big hands, fingers thick and strong. The person who had brought him here had not always been a woman.

Carol pressed the doorbell again. Where the hell was he? The lights were on, the curtains drawn. Maybe he’d nipped out to pick up a pizza, post a letter, buy a bottle of wine, rent a video? With a frustrated sigh, she turned away and walked down to the end of the street, turning into the ginnel that ran between Tony’s street and the houses behind. She walked down to his back yard, where a previous owner had demolished the wall and concreted half the area to provide the hard standing where Tony had told her he always kept his car.

The car was in place, exactly where it should have been. ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ Carol complained. Edging past the car, she walked up to the house and peered through the kitchen window. The light from the open door into the hall cast a pale glow over the room. No sign of life. No dirty dishes, no empty bottles.

On the off chance, Carol tried the back door. No joy. ‘Bloody men,’ she grumbled as she strode back to her car. ‘Five minutes, pal, then I’m off,’ she said, throwing herself into the driver’s seat. Ten minutes crawled by, but no one appeared.

Carol started the engine and drove off. At the end of the street, she glanced across at the pub on the other side of the main road. It was worth a try, she supposed. It took less than three minutes to check the smoky, crowded rooms and discover that wherever Tony Hill was, it wasn’t in the Farewell to Arms.

Where else could he be within walking distance at nine o’clock on a Sunday night? ‘Anywhere,’ she told herself. ‘You can’t be his only friend in the world. He wasn’t expecting you; you only called round to arrange a meeting for tomorrow.’

Giving up, Carol drove home. The flat was empty. Michael, she remembered, was out to dinner with some woman he’d met at a trade fair. She decided to give up on the world and go to bed. But first, she’d better leave a message on Tony’s machine. If she turned up two mornings running without warning, he might start to get twitchy. The answering machine checked in after a couple of rings, but there was no outgoing message, just a series of clicks followed by the tone. ‘Hi, Tony,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if your machine’s working properly, so I don’t know if you’ll get this message. It’s twenty past nine, and I’m about to have an early night. I’ll be in the office first thing, working on the computer supplies stuff. Mr Brandon’s called a case conference for tomorrow at three. If you want to get together before then, give me a call. I’ll be in the HOLMES room if I’m not in the squad room.’

Sitting down with Nelson on her lap and a stiff drink by her side, Carol thought about the job that lay ahead. The list of computer supplies companies who sold the peripherals and hardware Handy Andy would need to construct his own images was depressingly long. She had told Dave not to start work on it until she’d had a chance to check out the software company. Their list of customers would be shorter, and they would have the Discovery to cross-reference that list with. Only if that came up blank would she set Dave’s team loose on the dozens of numbers she’d painstakingly compiled that evening. ‘We’ll get there, Nelson,’ she told the cat. ‘It just better be worth the trip.’

The clatter of high heels on stone cut through the delirium of pain like a wire through cheese. So everyday a sound, translated by its location into a threat. He had no idea whether it was day or night, or how long had passed since he had been snatched from his life. Tony forced himself into alertness as the sound approached him from behind. She was coming downstairs. At the foot of the stairs, the clicking ended. He heard a low chuckle. Slowly, one step at a time, the footsteps crossed behind him. He could sense the scrutiny he was under.

She took her time, skirting round his trussed body until she moved into his line of vision. Tony was momentarily taken aback by the magnificence of her body. From the neck down, she could have been a model for a soft-porn magazine. She stood with legs apart, arms akimbo. She wore a loose red silk kimono, which fell open to reveal an extraordinary red leather basque with peephole nipples and a split crotch. Black stockings sheathed shapely, muscular legs which ended in black stilettoes. Even under the kimono, he could see the clear outline of strong, well-muscled arms and shoulders. From where he was hanging, she was as erotic as a kaolin poultice.

‘Worked it out yet, Anthony?’ she drawled, the warmth of suppressed laughter evident in her voice.

The stressing of his full name was the last turn in the Rubik’s cube of his memory. His mind racing, Tony said, ‘I suppose a couple of paracetamol would be out of the question, Angelica?’

The low chuckle again. ‘Glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humour.’

‘No, only my dignity. I wasn’t expecting this, Angelica. Nothing in our phone conversations led me to imagine this is what you had in mind for me.’

‘You had no idea who I was, did you?’ Angelica said, pride unmistakable in her tones.

‘Yes and no. I didn’t know you were the person who killed those men. But I did know you were the woman for me.’

Angelica frowned, as if uncertain how to respond. She turned away and checked the camcorder. ‘You took long enough to get that far. Do you have any idea how many times you slammed the phone down on me?’ Her voice was angry, not hurt.

Tony sensed the danger and tried to find emollient words. ‘That was because I had a problem, not because of you.’

‘You had a problem with me,’ she said, moving over to the stone benches that ran along one wall. She picked up another cassette and walked back to the camera.

Tony tried again. ‘Quite the opposite,’ he said. ‘I’ve always had trouble with relationships with women. That’s why I didn’t know how to treat you in the beginning. But it got so much better. You know it did. You know we were wonderful together. Thanks to you, I feel like all my problems are behind me.’ He hoped she wasn’t alive to the unintentional irony in his words.

But Angelica was no fool. ‘I think you can safely say that, Anthony,’ she said with a wry smile.

‘You outsmarted me, you know. I was convinced the killer was a man. I should have known better.’

With her back to him, Angelica swapped the cassettes in the camcorder. Then she wheeled round and said, ‘You’d never have caught me. And with you out of the way, no one else will either.’

Ignoring the threat, Tony continued to chat, straining to keep his voice warm and even. ‘I should have realized you were a woman. The subtlety, the attention to detail, the care you took to clear up after yourself. It was stupid of me not to grasp that those were the hallmarks of a woman’s mind, not a man’s.’

Angelica smirked. ‘You’re all the same, you psychologists.’ She spat the word out as though it were an obscenity. ‘You’ve got no imagination.’

‘But I’m not like them, Angelica. OK, I made that one crucial mistake, but I bet I know more about you than any of them ever did. Because you’ve shown me the inside of your mind. And not just through the killings. You’ve shown me the real woman, the woman who comprehends love. But I guess they didn’t understand you, did they? They didn’t believe you when you told them you had a woman’s spirit trapped in a man’s body. Oh, I expect they pretended to, I expect they patronized you and talked down to you. But deep down, they wrote you off as a freak, didn’t they? Believe me, I’ve never done that.’ Tony’s voice cracked as he reached the end of his speech, his mouth dry with a mixture of fear and chloroform. At least the adrenaline coursing through his veins seemed to be acting as an analgesic.

‘What do you know about me?’ she said roughly, the pain on her face a strange contrast with the coquettish pose she had adopted.

‘I need a drink if we’re going to talk,’ Tony said, gambling that her narcissism would demand that she share her exploits, that she needed to hear his version of herself. If he was to have any chance of escaping with his life, he needed to build up a relationship with her. A drink would be the first brick in the wall. The more he could get her to see him as an individual, not as a cipher, the higher his chances rose.

Angelica scowled suspiciously. Then, with a toss of her head that sent her long hair swirling, she turned away and walked to a slop sink set against the wall. She turned on the tap and looked around vaguely for a drinking vessel of some kind. ‘I’ll get a glass,’ she muttered, passing him and clattering up the steps again.

Tony felt a surge of relief at his small victory. Angelica was gone for less than thirty seconds, returning with a thick white mug. Kitchen above, Tony deduced as she walked back to the sink. She moved well in the heels, her stride measured and feminine. It was interesting, since she had obviously reverted to more masculine movements under the stress of kidnapping and killing. That was the only way to account for Terry Harding’s conviction that he’d seen a man driving off from Damien Connolly’s.

Angelica filled the mug and approached Tony cautiously. She gripped his hair, pulled his head back agonizingly and tipped freezing water into his mouth. As much went down his chin as his throat, but the relief was palpable. ‘Thanks,’ he gasped as she withdrew.

‘One should always be hospitable to one’s guests,’ she said sardonically.

‘I hope to remain one for some time,’ Tony replied. ‘You know, I admire you. You’ve got style.’

She frowned again. ‘Don’t bullshit me, Anthony. You won’t get round me with stupid flattery.’

‘It’s not bullshit,’ he protested. ‘I’ve spent days and nights poring over the details of what you’ve achieved. I’m so deep inside your head, how could I not admire you? How could I not be impressed? The other ones you brought here, they didn’t have a clue about who you are, what you can do.’

‘That’s true, I’ll grant you that. They were like babies, frightened, stupid babies,’ Angelica said contemptuously. ‘They didn’t appreciate what a woman like me could do for them. They were treacherous, lecherous fools.’

‘That’s because they didn’t know you like I know you.’

‘You keep saying that. Prove it. Prove you know anything about me.’

The gauntlet was well and truly down now, Tony thought. Never mind singing for your supper, talk for your life. This was the proving ground, the place where he would discover if his psychology was indeed a science or just bullshit.

‘Fraser Duncan? Hello, this is Detective Inspector Carol Jordan of Bradfield police,’ she said. Carol had never grown used to referring to herself by her full title. She felt as if, any moment, someone was going to jump out and shout, ‘Oh no, you’re not! We found you out at last.’ Luckily, that didn’t seem to be happening today.

‘Yes?’ The voice was cautious, the single syllable drawn out in a question.

‘Actually, it was my brother, Michael Jordan, who suggested you might be able to help me with an enquiry we’re pursuing.’

‘Oh, yes?’ The climate was getting warmer. ‘How is Michael? Is he enjoying the software?’

‘I think it’s absolutely his favourite toy,’ Carol replied.

Fraser Duncan laughed. ‘An expensive toy, Inspector. Now, what can I do for you?’

‘It’s the Vicom 3D Commander I wanted to talk to you about. In strictest confidence, you understand. We’re pursuing a major murder investigation, and one of the theories I’m looking at is that our killer might be using your software to edit his own videos, maybe even to import other material into them. That would be possible, wouldn’t it?’

‘More than possible. It would be perfectly straightforward.’

‘So, do you keep records of all your customers?’ Carol asked.

‘We do. We don’t sell all the packages direct, obviously, but anyone who buys the Commander should register their purchase with us since that gives them access to a free customer helpline and also means they get priority mailings when we develop upgrades.’ Duncan was positively expansive now. ‘Do I detect a request for access to our customer database, Inspector?’

‘You do indeed, sir. This is a murder enquiry and the information could be crucial to us. Can I stress too that it would be completely confidential? I would personally undertake to ensure that your data is removed from our system as soon as we have finished with it,’ Carol said, trying not to sound as if she was begging.

‘I don’t know,’ Duncan said hesitantly. ‘I’m not sure I like the idea of you and your colleagues hammering on the doors of my customers.’

‘It wouldn’t be like that, Mr Duncan. No way. What we would do is input the list into our Home Office Major Large Enquiry System and cross-match it against existing data. We would only act on any correlations that came up with people who are already in there.’

‘Is this the serial killer you’re after?’ Duncan asked abruptly.

What did he want to hear, Carol wondered momentarily. ‘Yes,’ she said, taking a gamble.

‘Let me call you back, Inspector. Just to make sure you are who you say you are.’

‘No problem.’ She gave him the main police switchboard number. ‘Ask them to put you through to me in the HOLMES room at Scargill Street.’

The next five minutes passed in a fever of impatience. The phone barely chirruped before Carol had it to her ear. ‘Inspector Jordan?’

‘You owe me, sis.’

‘Michael!’

‘I’ve just been telling Fraser Duncan what an honourable little person you are and despite what he’s heard about the police, he can trust you.’

‘I love you, bro. Now get off the phone and let the man talk to me!’

Within the hour, Vicom’s data was inside the HOLMES computer network, thanks to Dave Woolcott and the miracles of modern technology. Carol had passed Fraser Duncan on to him after they had agreed the ground rules for the data use, and Carol had listened uncomprehendingly to Dave’s end of a conversation which consisted of alien expressions like ‘baud rate’ and ‘ASCII files’.

Carol sat by Dave’s side as he worked on one of the terminals. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’ve got the list from Swansea of everyone within a twenty-mile radius of Bradfield who has one of these Discoveries. We’ve also got the list of names from Vicom of people who have bought their software. I hit this key, and go down this menu to this option, wild-card match, and now we sit back and let the machine talk to itself.’

For an agonizing minute, nothing happened. Then the screen cleared and a message flashed up. ‘[2] matches found. List matches?’ Dave hit the ‘y’ key and two names and addresses appeared on the screen.

1: Philip Crozier, 23 Broughton Crag, Sheffield Road, Bradfield BX4 6JB

2: Christopher Thorpe [sort criterion 1]/Angelica Thorpe [sort criterion 2], 14 Gregory Street, Moorside, Bradfield BX6 4LR

‘What does that mean?’ Carol asked, pointing to the second option.

‘The Discovery is registered to Christopher Thorpe and the software was bought by Angelica,’ Dave explained. ‘Using the wild-card option means that the machine sorted by address as well as by name. Well, Carol, you’ve got something. Whether it means anything or not, we’ll have to see.’

Penny Burgess strode over the rough, fissured limestone of Malham Pavement. The sky was the bright blue of early spring, the rough moorland grasses starting to look more green than brown. From time to time, larks shot out into the air and poured their songs into her ears. There were two occasions when Penny really came alive. One was on the trail of a hot story. The other was up on the high moorlands of the Yorkshire Dales and the Derbyshire Peak District. Out in the open air, she felt free as the skylarks, all pressure gone. No newsdesk demanding copy by an hour ago, no contacts to be appeased, no looking over her shoulder to be sure of staying ahead of her rivals. Just the sky, the moors, the extraordinary limestone landscape, and her.

For no reason, Stevie McConnell burst into her thoughts. He’d never see the sky again, never walk a moor and watch the turning of the seasons. Thank God she had the power to make sure that someone would pay for that inhuman deprivation.

Philip Crozier’s house was a narrow, terraced three-storey modern town house, the ground floor consisting mainly of an integral garage. Carol sat in the car, eyeing it up and down. ‘We going in, ma’am?’ the young detective constable in the driving seat asked.

Carol thought for a moment. Ideally, she’d wanted Tony to be with her when she interviewed the people whose names the computer had spat out. She’d tried ringing him at home. No reply. Claire said he hadn’t come into the office yet, which surprised her since he’d had a nine-thirty appointment. Carol had swung round by the house, but it looked exactly the same as it had the night before. Off having fun with his lady friend, she’d decided. Serves him right if he misses out on the showdown with Handy Andy, she thought maliciously, then immediately regretted her childishness. Failing Tony, she’d have liked to have had Don Merrick with her. But he was out pursuing other lines of enquiry that had flowed from the identification of the Discovery. The only person she could find who wasn’t urgently involved with something else was DC Morris, on the third month of his secondment to

CID.

‘We might as well see if he’s in,’ Carol said. ‘Though he’s probably at work.’

They walked up the path, Carol taking in the details of the neatly trimmed lawn and the smart paintwork. The house didn’t really fit Tony’s profile. It was more like the victims’ houses in terms of value and status, rather than the home of someone who aspired to their lifestyles. Carol pressed the bell and stepped back. They were about to give up and return to the car when Carol heard feet pounding downstairs. The door swung open to reveal a stocky black man dressed in grey sweat pants and a scarlet T-shirt, his feet bare. He couldn’t have looked more different from Terry Harding’s description. Carol’s heart sank momentarily, then she reminded herself that Crozier might not be the only person with access to his software and his Discovery. He was still worth interviewing. ‘Yeah?’ he said.

‘Mr Crozier?’

‘’S right. Who wants to know?’ His voice was relaxed, the Bradfield accent strong.

Carol produced her warrant card and introduced herself. ‘I wonder if we could come in and have a word, sir?’

‘What about?’

‘Your name has cropped up in some routine enquiries and I’d like to ask you some questions for the purposes of elimination.’

Crozier’s brows furrowed. ‘What sort of enquiries?’

‘If we could just come in, sir?’

‘No, hang on, what’s all this about? I’m trying to get some work done here.’

Morris stepped to Carol’s side. ‘There’s no need to be difficult, sir, it’s just routine.’

‘Mr Crozier isn’t being difficult, Constable,’ Carol said coolly. ‘I’d feel just the same in your shoes, sir. A car answering the description of yours has been involved in an incident, and we need to eliminate you from our investigation. We’re speaking to several other people in connection with this enquiry, sir. It won’t take long.’

‘All right then,’ Crozier sighed. ‘You’d better come in.’

They followed him up stairs carpeted in functional cord carpet into an open-plan living-room-cum-kitchen. It was furnished in expensive but minimalist style. He waved them to two leather and wood armchairs and dropped into a leather bean bag on the polished wood floor. Morris pulled out his notebook and ostentatiously opened it to a fresh page.

‘You work from home, then?’ Carol asked.

‘’S right. I’m a freelance animator.’

‘Cartoons?’ Carol said.

‘I do mostly science animations. You want something for your Open University course that shows how atoms collide, I’m your man. So what’s all this about?’

‘You drive a Land Rover Discovery?’

‘’S right. It’s in the garage.’

‘Can you tell me if you were driving it last Monday night?’ Carol asked. God, was it only a week ago?

‘I can. I wasn’t. I was in Boston, Massachusetts.’

She went through the routine questions that established precisely what Crozier had been doing, and who she could check the information with. Then she stood up. Time for the key question, but it was important to keep it looking casual. ‘Thanks for your help, Mr Crozier. One more thing – is there anyone else who has access to your house while you’re away? Someone who could have borrowed your car?’

Crozier shook his head. ‘I live on my own. I don’t even have a cat or plants, so nobody has to come in when I’m away. I’m the only one with keys.’

‘You’re sure of that? No cleaning lady, no colleague who drops in to use your system?’

‘Sure, I’m sure. I do my own cleaning, I work alone. I split up with my girlfriend a couple of months back and I changed the locks, OK? Nobody’s got keys except me.’ Crozier was starting to sound tetchy.

Carol persisted. ‘And no one could have borrowed your keys without your knowledge and had them copied?’

‘I don’t see how. I’m not in the habit of leaving them lying around. And the car’s only insured for me, so nobody else has ever driven it,’ Crozier said, his irritation clearly mounting. ‘Look, if somebody did anything criminal in a car with my number on, they were using faked-up plates, OK?’

‘I accept what you’re saying, Mr Crozier. I can assure you that if the information you’ve given me checks out, you won’t be hearing from us again. Thanks very much for your time.’

Back at the car, Carol said, ‘Find me a phone. I want to try Dr Hill again. I can’t believe he’s gone AWOL the one time we really need him.’