Broken Dolls (A Jefferson Winter Thriller) (7 page)

‘You didn’t suspect anything?’

‘If you mean, did I suspect that my father was a serial killer, then, no, I didn’t.’

‘But there was something not quite right about him, wasn’t there?’

I remembered a barbecue back when I was eight or nine, a couple of years before the FBI swooped in and arrested my father and my world turned upside down. The men were all gathered around the barbecue, and my father was in the middle of them. He was wearing a cook’s apron, a beer in one hand, a set of tongs in the other. The beer had flowed freely all afternoon and everyone was laughing and joking and having a wonderful time. My father was laughing and joking right along with them. Except there was something a little too forced about his laughter. What I remembered most was that my father’s laugh didn’t quite reach his eyes.

‘In hindsight, the signs were there,’ I said. ‘I like to think if I met him now I would see straight through him. But I was just a kid. I was eleven when the FBI arrested him. He murdered his first victim before I was born. At home he swung between being distant and being controlling, but he was no worse than my friends’ fathers. In fact, he was better than most of them. Of course, all my buddies thought he was great, because that was the face he showed them.’

‘Why do I feel like I’m only being given the edited highlights?’

‘Because you are.’

‘Look,’ said Templeton, ‘if you don’t want to talk about this, that’s fine. I understand.’

‘It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, it’s just that I don’t really know what to say. If he was an unsub I could give you a complete profile, chapter and verse. But he was my father. I’m just too close to offer any sort of objectivity.’

‘You blame yourself, don’t you? You think you could have done something to save those girls.’

‘And you sound like the shrink back at Quantico.’

‘You’re dodging my question.’

‘Of course I am. We’ve only just met. Let’s save the heavy stuff for when we know each other better.’

I tapped another cigarette from my pack and offered one to Templeton. She declined with a shake of the head. A shaft of sunlight shone through the driver window and caught her just right. This was my first opportunity to study her profile up close. The view was every bit as impressive as the front view. She had great bone structure, a cute nose, high Scandinavian cheekbones.

She must have felt me staring because she glanced over and gave me a look. Front-on, her face had that perfect symmetry the camera loved. Break it down to a bunch of numbers and it would no doubt follow the Golden Ratio, 1:1.618, a ratio that had fascinated artists and mathematicians for the last two and a half thousand years. Evidence of the Golden Ratio could be found throughout nature, and it could be found in the driver’s seat of the BMW.

I wondered why Templeton had opted for a breadline cop’s salary when she could have earned a fortune trading off her looks. Following in Daddy’s footsteps was a plausible explanation, but my gut feeling was that I was also getting the edited highlights. I cracked open my window and lit the cigarette. A Stones tune came on the radio and Templeton cranked up the volume. She was lost in the song, head bobbing in time with the beat, lips following the lyric word for word. I took another drag on my cigarette then went back to thinking about the case.

12

Rachel’s eyes sprang open but all she saw was a darkness that was so dense it consumed her. There was no light whatsoever, not so much as a single stray shaft sneaking through a window or around a door. Her heart was hammering as though it was about to burst through her chest and her breath came in short, sharp gasps, each one edging her closer to a full-blown panic attack. The dark took each breath and bounced it back, amplifying the sound.

Her mattress was so thin she could feel the cold, hard floor beneath her. The smell of bleach scratched at her nose and the back of her throat. Everything came flooding back at once. She saw herself sat in the front seat of the Porsche, grinning like she’d won the lottery. She saw the shiny steel glint of the needle.

Rachel tried to stand and a wave of nausea washed through her. She vomited, but managed to tip forward at the last second so most of it hit the floor rather than her clothes or the mattress. The smell of last night’s red wine and stomach acid made her throw up again. She kept on gagging and vomiting until all that came up was bile. Rachel wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her head ached, her palms were clammy, and she felt shivery and shaky, like she was suffering from flu.

She slumped back onto the mattress and tried to control her breathing. Panic pulled at her and she forced herself back from the edge. Slowly. Gradually. She took a couple of deep breaths and the acidic stink of vomit stung her nose. She gagged, and would have been sick again if there had been anything left in her stomach. She coughed a couple of times and wiped her mouth, took another deep breath and told herself to get it together. Her breathing steadied.

Rachel waved a hand through the dark until she found a tiled wall. The tiles were smooth and cool beneath her hands, square like bathroom tiles, each side roughly fifteen centimetres long. Rachel used the wall to stand, little by little, moving slowly. Her head spun but her legs seemed to hold up okay.

The floor tiles were larger than the wall tiles, closer to a metre square, cold and glossy beneath her naked feet. She moved around tentatively, trying to get a sense of her surroundings. There was a door in the third wall she came to. It felt solid. Her hands slid over the painted surface until she found the handle. She tried it. Locked. Her heart started racing again and this time the panic got hold. A whooshing sound filled her ears and she had a sense of falling.

Then nothing.

When she opened her eyes everything was still pitch black. The floor was a cold crush against her back, and her limbs felt stiff and awkward. A bruise was growing on the side of her head from where she had hit the ground. She guessed she’d been out for a while, but couldn’t say how long. Rachel got unsteadily to her feet and followed the wall back to the mattress. There were no more doors.

She slid down the wall and pressed herself into the corner, hugged her knees in tight and turned herself into a ball. She barely noticed the tears streaming down her face. This situation was as messed up as it got. She was going to die. She was certain of it. That wasn’t what scared her the most, though. What terrified her more than anything was the fact that she was still alive.

She’d seen the way Adam’s smile changed last night. One second it had been friendly and full of humour.
I’m going to be your best friend
, that smile had promised.
I’m going to take you away from your sorry excuse for a life and transport you into the sort of life you always dreamt of, the sort of life you always felt you deserved.
In a beat his smile had changed to that predator’s smile. Rachel’s stomach tightened and she thought she was going to be sick again. Her legs and arms turned to water and the tears flowed freely down her cheeks. She wondered if Jamie had called the police yet. That thought was followed swiftly by another, one that brought a fresh wave of tears.

Had he even noticed she was gone?

Had anyone noticed?

13

The driveway was a minefield of potholes, but Templeton didn’t seem to notice. She drove across them as though they didn’t exist, the BMW’s suspension complaining with every bump and jolt. She pulled into a walled courtyard and skidded to a halt, kicking up a spray of gravel that rattled against the underside of the car.

Dunscombe House was centuries old, older than America. Over the years new bits had been added here and there. Different styles, different periods, different architects. The building had an air of randomness, and a sense that it had been dislocated from time. It was big enough to be classed as a manor house, but nowhere near big enough to be a stately home.

We got out of the car and walked to the main entrance side by side. Templeton pressed the buzzer then took a step back and peered into the lens of the security camera. There was a look on her face like she was daring whoever was on the other end to deny us entry. Two seconds passed, three. The door clicked, the lock released, and Templeton strode in like she owned the place. Shoulders square, back straight, hips swinging. From behind, those tight jeans looked fantastic.

A Christmas tree opposite the reception desk was ten feet tall and totally over the top. It had dozens of glittering ornaments and baubles, hundreds of tiny white lights, yards upon yards of tinsel, and a large silver star on top. Templeton marched straight up to the reception desk and showed her ID.

‘We’re here to see Sarah Flight,’ she said.

The receptionist looked surprised.

‘Is there a problem?’ I asked.

The receptionist shook her head. ‘No, not at all. It’s just that Sarah doesn’t get many visitors.’

‘When you say not many, how many are we talking about?’

‘Her mother visits every morning without fail. You’ve just missed her.’

‘Anyone else?’

A shake of the head.

‘What about her husband?’

The receptionist hesitated. She glanced left then right, a classic tell for someone with a secret to share.

‘He’s never visited, has he?’ I said.

‘Not once.’

‘Where will we find Sarah?’

‘She’s in the day room.’ The receptionist pointed to a set of double doors opposite a wide old-fashioned staircase.

The day room was large and churchlike. Wood panelling, parquet flooring and a high vaulted ceiling. Someone had gone to town with the Christmas decorations, and there had to be a mile of tinsel and banners and strings of silver bells. The Christmas tree in front of the large fireplace wasn’t as big as the one in reception, but it was still impressive. It was decorated in a similar style, probably by the same person.

The room stank of overcooked vegetables and gravy and cleaning products, and reminded me of every institution I’d ever been in. It was like something from
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
. The patients were being supervised by two orderlies, a black guy and a white woman who both looked bored to death. They were at a table near the door, killing time until their shift ended.

Sarah Flight’s chair was positioned in front of one of the bay windows and she was staring blankly out at the grounds. Her hair had grown back. It was shiny and healthy and neatly styled, and it had been brushed recently, probably by her mother as part of their morning routine. There was no way the orderlies would have taken the time to do it. Sarah was dressed in loose, baggy clothes. Easy to get on, easy to get off. A hundred and twenty pounds of dead weight was hard to manage, and the orderlies would be looking to make their lives as easy as possible. A trickle of drool escaped from the corner of Sarah’s mouth and dripped down the side of her chin.

‘Have you got any tissues?’ I asked Templeton.

Templeton fished a clean tissue from a pocket and I gently wiped the drool away. It was a small gesture, one that would go unnoticed, but Sarah deserved some dignity even if she wasn’t aware of it.

My first thought when I saw Patricia Maynard yesterday was that she’d be better off dead, and I was thinking the same thing now. That’s not a conclusion I’d come to lightly. Alive is always better than dead because any sort of life has to be better than a cold, lonely grave. If you’re alive, it doesn’t matter what horrors have been inflicted on you, there’s a chance you can be fixed.

That said, not everyone can be fixed. I know that from bitter experience. My mother had never been physically abused by my father, but the psychological scars ran deep, and they ultimately killed her. There will always be a few survivors who turn to drink or drugs to numb the memories, and in the more extreme cases, things will become so intolerable they kill themselves. Most manage to pull together something that resembles a functioning life, though.

Alive is always better than dead.

I looked at Sarah Flight sat there staring into nothing through dead eyes, and wondered if this was the exception to that rule. Sarah would never be fixed. For her, this was as good as it got.

I positioned a chair alongside Sarah’s, unzipped my sheepskin jacket, then pulled the hood of my top up and for a while just sat there sharing her view. Thoughts of the case tumbled randomly through my head and I did my best to ignore them. I wanted a few moments when my mind was as white and blank as the landscape on the other side of the glass. My biggest failing is getting too close, too involved. I want to solve the case so badly that the trees blur into one great big forest.

The winter sun made everything look sharper and more real, more defined. It reflected off the snow-covered lawn, dazzlingly bright, and the trees and bushes resembled white minimalist sculptures. The whole scene looked like a Christmas card. It depressed me that Sarah would never really see this.

For a split second my perspective shifted. The grounds blurred into the background and the window became a dull mirror that threw back a reflection of Sarah and myself. Because of the angle and the light and the lack of a reflective surface on the back of the glass, it was like the whole world had shrunk down until it was just the two of us.

And then my vision readjusted and I was back in the day room again. Templeton was standing behind me in a state of agitation. I could see her reflection in the window. She glanced at her watch, glanced at her cell, glanced over her shoulder at the patients. She sighed a couple of times, bit her lip. She was a woman with places to go and people to see.

I gave her another minute, a minute that was more like forty-five seconds. She crouched down and leant in close enough for me to get the full effect of her perfume. It was a good smell, one that monkeyed around with my overactive imagination and filled my head with all sorts of interesting and inappropriate notions.

‘If you don’t mind me asking, what the hell are we doing here, Winter?’ She was talking in a low whisper, her breath tickling my ear. ‘The reason I ask is because it looks to me like you’re sitting here watching the flowers grow when we should be out chasing the bad guy.’