Midnight Murders (13 page)

‘Causing the mess you had to clean up.'

‘I'd rather clean a mess than be haunted by something I didn't do, and should have.'

‘And I'm also sorry for making trouble between you and Karl Lane,' Trevor added.

‘You can hardly hold yourself responsible for that.'

‘I hope it doesn't affect you two,' he dropped a tea bag into a cup.

‘There was something between us. And “was” is where it will stay after tonight,' she said emphatically.

He poured boiling water on top of the bag. ‘How do you like your tea?'

‘Milk, no sugar.'

‘If you were going to hide a body in this hospital, where would you put it?' he asked.

‘A hundred and one places spring to mind.'

‘Try naming ten.'

‘There are all sorts of odd corners in the original old building. Last Christmas some bright spark at the staff party came up with the idea of playing hide-and-seek. We found staircases, towers, and lots of little rooms. Most were locked, but not all. It's a regular rabbit warren.' She smiled.

‘Something funny?'

‘Karl, me and the staff nurse from manias, caught out Mr Waters. If he'd found out who we were he'd have sacked the lot of us.'

‘What do you mean “caught out”?'

‘Karl barged into a room at the top of the building, God only knows where. I doubt any of us could find it again. There was a mattress in the corner, and a half-naked couple going hammer-and-tongs on top of it. We stayed just long enough to register what they were doing, then beat a hasty retreat.

‘You sure it was Tony Waters?'

‘No other man around here has that colour hair. I'm sure the woman saw us. But if she recognised us, she couldn't have said anything. If she had, he'd have followed it up. He can be a vindictive bastard.'

‘What makes you say that?'

‘Nothing he's done to me. Just what I've heard from some of the other nurses; written warnings when they've booked in two minutes late for a shift, when the traffic in the town's ground to a standstill. Like last month, when there was that mammoth pile-up. Remember it?'

‘I don't remember anything that happened last month – or the three before that.'

‘Sorry, that was stupid of me.'

‘You're not stupid. Has Waters a reputation for womanising?' He handed her the tea he'd made.

‘According to his secretary, Angela. She says that strange women are always phoning him. I'd feel sorry for his wife but… '

‘Carol Ashford?'

‘She's a first-class nurse, but she's also a cold fish. Always gives the impression that she couldn't give a damn about anything except herself. But that comes with the job; concealing your feelings, I mean. You get hard-bitten doing work like this, whether you intend to or not. And, then again, Karl told me that he's occasionally seen her about town with some fellow – but this is nothing more than hospital gossip. You're not interrogating me, are you?'

‘Absolutely not.' He handed her a box of biscuits. ‘I'm sick – unfit for duty.'

‘But you spend hours talking to your colleagues.'

‘Policing is a funny job. You can go months without seeing a civilian outside of the villains that get booked – and when a big case needs cracking, like now, you eat sleep and drink nothing but the case. You live with coppers, eat with coppers, but you can't even socialise with coppers because there's no time for social life for the duration.'

‘So I take it you don't sleep with coppers?'

‘I've had to share a room with Peter and twelve down-and-outs, when we went undercover in Jubilee Street.'

‘That must have been fun.'

‘Police work can be funny, but not for coppers' girlfriends, family or wives. It takes a toll. None of us are married. Peter's divorce is being finalised later this year. The super's wife walked out on him during our last big case, the one I got mangled on. And Dan Evans is a widower.'

‘And you?'

‘I was never married,' he said shortly.

‘But there was someone?'

‘I lived with a girl for a while. She got tired of spending nights on her own, and found someone else.'

‘And she had long dark hair.'

‘Short blonde actually. Why do you ask?'

‘The girl you keep sketching.'

Trevor took the biscuits from her.

‘I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry.'

‘You're not. I'd probably find it easier to talk about her if something had happened between us. But it didn't.'

‘You wanted it to?'

‘Yes. But whenever we met, it was always the wrong time and the wrong place.'

‘And now?'

‘She's abroad. I couldn't get hold of her, even if I wanted to. Which I don't. Dreams are best left where they are.' He wondered if he meant what he'd said. He'd carried a torch for Daisy Sherringham for so long, he couldn't imagine what life would be like if he relinquished it. He'd have nothing left – nothing except bleak reality. All the time he'd lain in intensive care, he'd dreamt of her returning to him. Visiting his bedside with a smile on her beautiful curved mouth.

‘
I've come back Trevor
… '

He couldn't even be sure, really sure, what he'd feel for Daisy if she did return. So much of his life – and hers – had been destroyed.

He jerked himself out of his imaginings, and returned to Lyn and their conversation.

‘So, if you wanted to hide someone's body you'd go into the old hospital?'

‘And hope I didn't stumble across Tony Waters indulging in extra-marital activities. Or I'd look to the grounds. There are supposed to be passages in the cellars that come up outside in the bushes. But I've never seen them, only heard the older staff like Jimmy Herne talk about them.'

‘Does Jimmy Herne know where they are?' Trevor realised that if a passage did exist, it might provide an ideal route out of the building for the killer.

‘According to Tony, who knows more than anyone about this place, they were all blocked up years ago. Jimmy did show me the entrance to one once, down by the folly, but the earth had caved in.' She paused for an instant. ‘But knowing about the way this place is run, there'd be no need to hide a body.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘One extra drugged zombie wouldn't be noticed, or even counted on most wards from one week to the next. Especially geriatric.'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Vanessa was cold. Freezing but not shivering. There was no feeling in her body other than cold. Nothing – no sensation at all. Not the slightest tingle, the slightest pain – only numbness, as though her mind was floating, disembodied in an icy, black void. She strained her eyes and stared intently into the darkness. She knew her eyes were open because she could hear the whisper of her eyelashes. The single, alarming sound in a vacuum of silence. All around was frosty, enveloping darkness unpunctuated by the slightest glimmer of grey shadow. She wondered if the air itself had changed colour.

She tried to move, but there seemed to be no physical form for her brain to command. Her mind sent messages to nerves that no longer existed. She had no limbs, no body, only eyelashes. She heard her eyelashes again, and concentrated on her facial muscles. She screamed, but the screech resounded only in her imagination. Her lips refused to open, and the only sound born in the back of her throat was a grunt that conveyed terror and panic. She forced herself to think – to remember!

A scene from a horror film flooded her mind. A brain in a jar? No, she had to be more than a brain in jar. A head – but a head without a body. Or was she already dead? Was this what death was like? Cold, black, wakeful, aware, nothingness.

She concentrated on her immediate past. She had been – where? The day room. Roland, disgusting, fat, lecherous Roland, who put his damp sweaty hands on her knees and tried to move them higher every chance he got. She saw the small half-moon slivers of skin she'd gouged out of the back of his hand with her fingernails when he'd tried to touch her thighs.

Lucy, sweet naïve Lucy, her eyes wide open, agog with a mixture of wonder, terror, and morbid curiosity as she'd related the embroidered version of the phantom burying the body. The phantom! The phantom who buried live woman, after – if Roland was to be believed – gross violation of their bodies. Was she in the earth? Was that why she couldn't feel anything?

No. She could hear her own breath. Soft, quiet, but there; in – out – in – out. If she was buried, she wouldn't be breathing. She would be suffocated. Dead! Was this hell? No, she was cold, and hell was hot; devils hammering red hot spears of metal. She listened for the blacksmith sounds, her eardrums straining to breaking point. But the only noise was a droning that came from inside her fevered brain. Then faintly in the background the tired jingle of an old pop song. ‘Bop, bop, bop, de bop' – as incessant and irritating as a dripping tap. Was that also a product of her imagination? She could no longer tell what was real and what was not.

Panic again. Hysteria when she remembered the woman at the bottom of the pit. Was she planted? Dead? A people tree? she had said something about a people tree. But there was no such thing as a people tree! Dead people didn't grow into anything. They rotted. Decayed and rotted. And Ian wouldn't know where she was. But he wouldn't have wanted to visit her. He hadn't visited her once. Not in any of the other places they'd put her in. It wasn't fair. If he'd tried to kill her, she would have visited him.

She pictured her husband as he had been when they had first met. When he'd loved her. Slowly, tenderly she recreated every detail she could recall of his features. The lock of hair that fell over his right eyebrow. His smile, lopsided, cynical. His eyes, deep dark-brown, mirroring yet concealing so many thoughts in their depths. The feel of the skin on his back, smooth, silky beneath her fingers when they'd made love in their king-sized bed in the bridal suite in their hotel. No point in stinting themselves when life was good. If the guests lived in luxury, why shouldn't they?

And afterwards, when she was alone and Ian was no longer part of her life. Horrid little cells with nasty iron bedsteads covered by ugly, grey, itchy blankets and cold cotton sheets, not the silk or satin she'd slept on with Ian. Odious little cells with chamber pots in the corners. Ugly, foul-smelling, not even clean. But then neither had she been clean when she'd been allowed only one shower a week.

A noise came from outside her head. The sharp rasp of metal scraping against metal. A light, intense, blinding, shone into her eyes, forcing her to close them. She tried to speak, but again managed only grunts. Something came towards and over her, blanketing, smothering. It touched her face, fell over her nose, but she still breathed, then it went away. The light grew dim. There was a quick, sharp pain in her arm. Despite the hurt she marvelled that she felt it. She still had a body after all.

Warmth came. A pleasant glow that enveloped her. A radiation that rapidly became an agony of scorching pain. She tried to cry out, but all she heard was a succession of the same, small, bestial whimpers as before. Metal on metal. Darkness. No light. Only agony, she could only feel pain. Total, consuming, absolute. She was pain. Absolute pain. Burning, searing, raging – nothing else existed. Nothing at all!

* * *

‘All of you to the attic. Station one man at the top of every staircase, radios at the ready. The rest of you, comb the building. I want everything up there moved and searched; boxes, files, rubbish sacks, furniture. I don't care how thick the dust is, or how small the space. I want every door unlocked, every room scrutinised, every cupboard emptied, all the walls tapped. Anything that rings hollow, rip apart. This place is condemned. If we have to, we'll raze it to the ground and worry about the inconvenience later. When you've finished the top floor, leave a man on every staircase and check all the routes down to the next floor. Then repeat the procedure, until you've worked your way to the cellar. I want men left on every floor. The second you see anything suspicious, you shout down your radios. Check for gaps between ceilings and floorboards and remember to use the floor plans and measuring tapes you've been given.' Peter knew he was labouring the point, but weariness had set in, making him unwilling to trust anyone's work but his own.

‘Sergeant Collins,' Michelle was at his elbow, bright-eyed, sharp as a button. Didn't the damned woman ever get tired like the rest of them? ‘Superintendent Mulcahy and Inspector Evans would like to see you in the mobile HQ as soon as possible, sir.'

‘Tell them I'll join them when I can.'

‘There's a man from the Home Office with them, sir.'

‘I'll be there, Constable.' He turned away from her and faced the teams lined up in the shabby hallway of the old hospital. ‘Right, go to it. I'll be with you as soon as I can. Note everything that's remotely out of the ordinary, and call me the minute you find anything suspicious. Constable Grady will go with you. She knows where we disturbed the dust the last time we took a look around.'

Reluctantly turning his back on the search parties, Peter walked through the back door to the mobile HQ. He passed through the outer office, and acknowledged Sarah Merchant, who was operating the computer, before opening the door into the inner sanctum Dan and Bill had claimed as their territory.

Harry Goldman and a burly, red-headed man he'd never seen before were sitting sweltering in the atmosphere that reeked of stale coffee, cigarettes and greasy food.

‘Peter,' Bill said wearily. ‘This is Professor Crabbe.'

‘John Crabbe, Home Office,' the red-headed man extended a square and hairy hand to Peter. ‘I've come down here with a psychological profile of your chap.'

‘I thought we should run through it with Professor Crabbe, before informing the team,' Bill lit a cigarette.

Peter pulled a chair up to the table and sat alongside Dan. Bill banged on the door and shouted in a voice calculated to carry through the thin wall. ‘Coffee for five.'

‘Yes, sir,' came a reply from a constable. Peter sensed resentment in his voice.

Peter could detect the strain in Bill. Vanessa's disappearance had brought a new and keener edge to the investigation. Yet here they were, the three most senior and experienced officers on the case, sitting idly on their arses listening to two shrinks, instead of getting out there and on with catching the killer who had already claimed three innocent lives and was probably in the process of claiming a fourth.

‘We've taken your data and fed it into a computer that holds everything we know about serial killers who've been convicted during the past thirty years, both here and in America – '

‘Why America?' Peter asked John Crabbe.

‘You know the saying,' John smiled. ‘What America does today, we'll be doing in twenty years. When it comes to crime, that maxim appears to be true; the Americans seem to have cornered the market on serial killers.'

Peter remembered Spencer Jordan and his American connections, but remained silent. That was something to bring up later, when Harry Goldman and this Home Office chap were elsewhere.

John Crabbe lifted his steel-coated briefcase on to the desk and opened the combination lock. He extracted a thick file, bulging with loose papers. ‘We're looking for a man, the computer says anything between twenty-five and forty, but I'd be inclined to lower the upper limit to thirty-five. He's a loner, finds it difficult to form relationships with either men or women, but the lack of women in his life upsets him more than the lack of male friends. He's impotent… '

‘How do you know?' Dan broke in.

‘No sperm,' Crabbe declared.

‘I thought there was no evidence of rape?' Dan said slowly.

‘Without sperm, or physical signs such as tissue tearing, it's not always possible to determine if entry has been forced. But whether the victims were raped or not is immaterial to this profile.' The Professor sat forward in his chair.

‘Immaterial?' Peter asked with a feigned air of innocence.

‘Psychologists have determined that rape is not a sexual crime.'

‘Try telling that to some of the women I've interviewed after the event,' Peter challenged.

‘Rape is a crime of violence. It's all about power. Our man takes a woman, holds her prisoner, and whether he attempts rape or not – and I'm inclined to the latter opinion – he's unable to engage in a meaningful relationship with his victim, physical or otherwise. He's a loner who needs to assert power over his victim.' The professor opened his file. ‘He's from a small family, probably an only child. Unused to living with or relating to others. He lives alone or with a single domineering female relative – mother, grandmother, aunt or older sister. He has no friends. He finds it difficult to form any kind of “normal” relationships. He almost definitely comes from the lower socio-economic group. Blue collar worker or unemployed, and he's a low achiever.'

‘Except in the case of murder,' Peter commented. ‘Are we looking at a patient or member of staff?'

‘Difficult to say,' the professor hedged. ‘Could be either. As a rough guideline I'd say your man will fit at least fifty per cent of this profile, possibly more. But on occasions, we have been proved wrong. This is not an exact science.'

‘We're aware of the possibility of error.' The irony of Bill's reply wasn't lost on Crabbe.

‘If the killer has a police record, it will only be for minor, unrelated offences.' John Crabbe continued. ‘We have discounted the kidnapping-for-profit theory. I am right in saying there have been no ransom demands?'

‘You are,' Bill agreed. ‘Apart from Claire Moon, the victims have not been wealthy.'

‘Have you considered that this man may be a collector?' Harry Goldman made his first contribution to the proceedings.

Dan turned to the psychiatrist. ‘Please explain, “collector”.'

‘A collector is someone who accumulates a number of related, generally useless, objects purely for his own personal gratification and the pleasure of ownership.'

‘Like the people who fill books with out of date stamps?' Peter suggested.

‘Precisely,' Harry concurred. ‘Or butterflies, or china frogs, or photographs, and memorabilia connected with a film or sports star.'

Bill set his hands on the table. ‘Are you saying our man could be a collector of marbles who's moved on to collecting women?'

‘Could be,' Professor Crabbe said thoughtfully. ‘Have your people noticed anything significant in where you found the bodies, or the way they were laid out?'

‘What do you mean?' Dan asked.

‘Were the bodies buried in a pattern? Were their feet pointing north? Is he planting them at the four corners of the hospital grounds, or in the shape of something recognisable; a star perhaps?'

Peter left his chair and walked over to the wall behind the desk. He retracted a roller blind that covered the back wall. Stuck to the glass board was an aerial photograph of the hospital grounds, marked with the burial sites of the victims and a series of photographs taken after the corpses had been uncovered, but before they had been removed.

‘Take a look for yourself.' Peter pointed to the board. ‘All four – that's including the dog – were buried in flowerbeds, all in holes that had been dug out by the gardeners and left unattended overnight. The last victim was laid north to south, the second north-west to south-west, and the third east to west. Personally I think the positioning has more to do with where the flowerbeds were than Voodoo circles.'

‘I just wondered if you had considered all the options,' the Professor said shortly.

‘I'm inclined to think that the killer simply doesn't want to do any more digging than necessary,' Peter returned to his chair.

‘Never underestimate your opponent,' John Crabbe reprimanded.

‘Shall we recap?' Dan went to a flip-chart and turned the pages until he hit a clean one. He wrote PROFILE at the top. ‘We know he's strong because our witness saw him carrying a twelve-stone body.' He scribbled
Strong
beneath the heading.

‘Big as well, if Vanessa Hedley is to be believed,' Peter added.

Dan added
Big
to the list.