50/50 Killer (21 page)

'Banks is abducted at his house,' he said. 'Presumably, he's taken somewhere in the woods, along with his girlfriend. He's subjected to a period of torture. He runs through the woods, gets to the road.'

'Succinct.' Mercer stared down at the top of his deputy's head. 'Okay. Banks has been tortured, so there's at least some correlation between this crime and the previous ones. If we assume the killer's playing his usual game, Banks is with us ahead of time, isn't he? It's not dawn yet. And I think there are two possible explanations for that. Greg?'

Greg shrugged. 'He escaped?'

'Look lively, Greg. That's one. Mark?'

'The killer let him go,' I said.

'Exactly. The game played out and Scott Banks chose to abandon his girlfriend. Which means we have until dawn to stop her being murdered. '

There was a moment of silence while we all considered this. It didn't make sense. Pete broke the quiet without looking up, his voice slow and weary.

'John, she's dead already.'

'No, she's not.'

'He's killed her.' Pete spread his palms on either side. 'Whatever's happened, he's smart and he's going to have counted on Scott Banks getting out of the woods. He's not going to wait around for us. The game's over. He finished it early. He killed the girl and he's long gone.'

'No.' Mercer shook his head confidently. 'It's not.'

'So you think he's just there, then? Waiting for us?'

'Not exactly. But he's been planning this for two years, Pete. He's not concerned about hiding his identity from us any more. And he left us the recording of Simpson's murder - he explicitly said "dawn". The game he's playing has changed, but not the time limit on it. So we have until dawn, don't we?'

Pete finally looked up at Mercer: looked at him frankly, right in the eyes.

'With the greatest respect, John, I think you're seeing what you want to see.'

Immediately, Mercer turned his back and walked over to the curtains. Pete stared at the empty space for a moment, then closed his eyes.

I knew what he was thinking. The killer had changed so many aspects of his MO that it made no sense to presume he wouldn't kill the girl before dawn. Mercer was simply hoping. It was what the team had been concerned about in the canteen. What would it do to him if we couldn't save these people? This case, this killer. Mercer was making assumptions based on what he wanted to be true. Maybe what he needed to be.

Earlier, Pete had made the decision to stick by his boss and friend. Now I could tell he was seriously doubting the wisdom of that. Greg was keeping quiet. Mercer clearly wasn't about to acquiesce. Instead, he began to pace back and forth, as though using the momentum to generate energy.

'Sir, I--'

'Noted.' Mercer stopped pacing, and glared at him. 'It's all been noted. All of it, all day. Noted.'

The air chilled instantly. Pete looked stung by Mercer's outburst.

'It's actually my decision,' he reminded us. 'I'm in charge here, and I know what I'm doing. I'm not broken yet, you know. But if that's what you think, what else should we do, Pete? Tell me. Two hours ago our killer was in the woods. Where else should we begin?'

Pete closed his eyes.

'All right, John,' he said quietly. 'Search team?'

'Search team, yes,' Mercer said.
Praise the Lord
. 'Check to see if the helicopter will fly. Wake up Search and Rescue and get some dogs out there. Get bodies physically into the woods.'

'It's a huge--'

'A huge area, of course, so start from where Banks was picked up. Mark will see what he can get from the interviews. If Banks can remember something specific, it'll narrow the parameters.' He turned to me. 'You've interviewed victims before?'

I nodded.

'First interview, just get as much as you can: confirmation of what he's told us so far, information about Jodie, anything about the woods. Ease him into remembering more, but don't give up too easily.'

'I know what I'm doing.'

It must have sounded snappy, because Mercer frowned. Everyone was rebelling against him. He ran his fingers through his hair.

'All right. You and Pete, get going. Pete, keep in touch. Be safe.'

'Yes, John.'

We left the room, and I followed Pete out to the entrance. He walked briskly, not saying anything but occasionally shaking his head, and I had to move quickly to keep up. He paused when we got to Reception, and turned to look at me.

'What are you going to do?' I said.

'I'm going to go to the woods and organise the search team. What else is there?' He sighed and shook his head one last time.

'Look after him.'

I nodded, slightly uncertainly. He stared at me for a second, then nodded in return. The glass doors slid open behind him, and he huddled up and headed outside, into the snow.

4 DECEMBER

5 HOURS, 35 MINUTES UNTIL DAWN

1.45 A.M.

Scott

In the dream, Scott was in his old bedroom. The one he'd been in during his second year at university.

Of the six bedrooms in the house, it was the smallest by far. He'd moved in with five friends he'd met in first year; the two who'd found the property took the large rooms downstairs, and he'd agreed to go in this box room to save argument among the others. It was only twice the width of the single bed and slightly less than twice the length, but he didn't have much stuff, and he quite liked the idea of existing in such a small space. It streamlined you as a person: kept you focused. His few possessions fitted in easily enough - CDs, videos and random objects, all on the bookcase by the window - while most of the materials he needed for his degree could be stored in the studio space the department allocated to him.

It was the year he'd met Jodie, and in the dream she was there too. They were sitting side-by-side on the bed, pillows propped against the wall to form a backrest, drinking vodka and Coke and watching a film on his worn-out video-recorder. Flickering light from the screen was casting odd shadows around the walls.

It was an old, damp room. The smell from the food they ate up here, the smoke from the cigarettes ... it hung in the air for days before settling into the wallpaper and bed sheets, getting under the skin of the room.

Nevertheless, he was glad to be back here. These had been happy times. Even though it was only a dream, every time he touched his new girlfriend he felt a thrill of excitement. The air seemed to glisten with possibility.

Scott drifted up slightly out of sleep, but not enough for it to leave him. They were curious, these dreams, so vivid and detailed that they felt real, but even in the thick of them he knew they weren't. They were strange, swirling concoctions of memory and imagination, images and instincts, and he found it hard to discern exactly what was what.

There was comfort in them, but he knew there were also dangers here. It was as though he was standing on the edge of some more terrible memory, and his mind had to keep distracting him from it. As he sank back into the dream, the bedroom solidified around him again, and it felt precarious: the walls, the curtains - all a paper-thin defence. It might occlude the threat from view, but it wouldn't keep it out for ever. Sooner or later, the real memories would find him, and all this would fall apart.

'Let me see.'

Suddenly, it was daytime, with bright light coming through the pale curtains, and Jodie was sitting on the edge of the bed. There was a pile of canvases at the far end. She was leaning over, reaching out for them.

He sat up quickly. 'Whoa. Hang on.'

He wanted to sort them first, make sure she only saw the ones he thought were best. He'd told her they were all rubbish, but in reality there were a couple that he thought might be all right - although he would wait to see her reaction before he admitted it.

It was no use protesting, anyway. Jodie was forceful. Already, she understood him too well.

'Ah-ah.' She slapped his hand away. 'I know your game, lad. Just let me see.'

He settled back reluctantly, and watched as she worked through his paintings. She spent more time on each piece than was necessary simply to be polite, even the really bad ones, and she asked questions and listened to his answers.

'I am quite proud of this one,' he said, when she reached the best.

'You should be. You should be proud of all of them. You're really talented.'

'No.'

She slapped his leg this time. 'Yes, you are.'

He gave up. Jodie was major computers, minor business studies, and by her own admission she didn't have a creative bone in her body. The paintings were pleasant enough, but he knew that if she'd been a fine-art student she would be far more critical - even snobby. Talent wasn't strictly the issue: any monkey could learn to paint. But what was the harm? He could take the compliments and enjoy them for what they were. He liked it that she said things like that. He wanted to impress her, and--

--the sun was blocked out. A shadow had passed over the room.

The devil, Scott thought, although he didn't know what that meant. He heard a throaty rattling to his left and turned slowly to face it.

Something else was in the room, sitting beside him on the bed. Its face was so close he could smell the heat rising off it, but he couldn't see it. There was just the impression of red and black skin, of an elongated snout like a goat's.

The face tilted quickly from side to side like a metronome, blurring the features even further.

You like my artwork and you support me.

Scott turned back to warn Jodie - but stopped abruptly, confused. The old student bedroom had disappeared. He was sitting in their front room, the one they lived in now, on the left-hand side of the settee.

Impossibly, he was staring at himself.

The second him was standing in the centre of the room, his face half hidden by the camera he was holding.

'Say "Cheese".'

'Cheese!'

He looked to his right in time to see Jodie illuminated by a flash at the other end of the settee. She was curled up like a cat, her legs tucked beneath her, giving the camera a huge grin.

Another flash.

The him with the camera frowned at the screen on the back.

'This one's better. See what you think.'

Suddenly, Jodie and the other him were gone, and Scott heard the rattle again. It was coming from the kitchen, behind him and to the left. He stood up quickly and backed into the middle of the room.

Round the doorframe, he could see the tumble-dryer, the washing-machine. He stepped to the right and could see more: the fridge, the edge of a cupboard ...

A set of fingers curled slowly round the doorframe. Then another set, further up. The devil. A second later, a black and red face leaned slowly out into view, and then the thing rushed out at him.

'Let me see!'

They were in the bedroom. He was standing behind Jodie, reaching round her and holding his hands over her eyes. She kept pulling half-heartedly at his wrists. Outside, he could see the weather was cold; the air hard and still. He started to shiver, and turned his attention back to Jodie.

'I love you.'

He took his hands away.

'Happy Birthday.'

The painting was on the bed, positioned on the pillows so that it rested against the headboard.

Starting with the photograph he'd taken of Jodie on the settee, he'd applied the same iterative process he'd been using recently in his work: painting, scanning, reducing the picture quality, painting again. The final painting on the bed, from about halfway through the process, was both Jodie and not Jodie. It was square blocks of colour - browns and pinks and beiges - painted onto a canvas that was about seventy blocks high by forty wide. If you blurred your eyes, you could see her. Sort of. He had worked very hard, and he was proud of it.

She put her hands to her mouth for a second, then turned and hugged him.

'I love it,' she said. 'It's perfect.'

He held her tightly, looking over her shoulder at the painting. She was telling him how wonderful it was, how much she loved him, thanking him for all the effort he'd put in ... She could say what she wanted, but he knew. He'd seen the disappointment in her eyes, and then the way it was swiftly hidden.

I fucked up. I should have given her the first painting I did
. He still could, but it wouldn't be the same. You could always do different things for someone; they told you, and you changed it. The trick was getting it right first time.

I just wanted to give you something different
, he thought.
Any idiot can paint. I wanted to do something that nobody else would do for you. Something that was me. I wanted--

Over her shoulder, Scott saw the devil. It was crawling awkwardly out from underneath the bed, steam rising off its face.

'Jodie--'

But she was holding him too tight, like a backpack tied round his front. She wouldn't let him go. He couldn't move.

The devil rose to full height, its joints clicking and cracking and popping, then walked across to them. Panic fluttered inside him. Somewhere, a baby was crying. He frowned.

'Shhhh.'

Bang!

His head was gone from the shoulders up, replaced by white, hissing static, a cloud of nausea.

Inexplicably, he was on his face on the carpet, back in the front room. The painting was leaned against the far wall, behind the dining table, where it had been for the ten months since her birthday.

'We must put that up,' one of them would say, and yet for some reason neither of them ever had. He fixed his attention on it now, blurring his eyes so that she came into focus. Jodie.

I love your brown hair.

As he stared at it, blocks of colour began fading away. He blinked, willing them to return, but instead even more began to disappear.

The smoothness of your skin.

Her hair vanished.

Small squares of white were appearing everywhere, the pink and beige shades of her skin melting out of existence.

I love the feel of your neck on my lips.