Soul Seeker (15 page)

If, though, there was criticism to be levelled – and she was worldly wise enough to know that it was inevitable that there should be – then it was that he apologized too much, that he seemed forever to see himself in the wrong, was always ready to accept without question that he was the one who should be sorry. Whilst she would have abhorred a man who never admitted his faults, this constant and continuous apologia she found at times irritating. It was made all the worse because of recent times, he had had more than usual to be contrite for. She had known that pathologists who did forensic work – autopsies on suspicious deaths, employed by the police – had necessarily disrupted social lives; her own job did not require her to be on-call at all. But just recently, every single plan that they had made to spend time together seemed to have been destroyed by yet another death; and when Eisenmenger was called out, she knew that he would be gone for many hours, unlike her own on-call commitments which not infrequently required only advice over the phone. She was beginning to wonder if this was to be a perpetual cost of knowing him, and if it was worth paying.

That afternoon, when she had learned that yet again he would not be able to make their date, she had had to fight the anger, dissipate the frustration.

She had not yet started to cook, but she was not about to go to the trouble of preparing anything special just for herself; tuna salad and a glass of white wine would suit her just fine. Also, it would give her a chance to chill out in front of some mindless television, and then get an early night. Yet, despite trying to suck compensation from these prospects, she remained unhappy and changed her mind.

No, she decided. Damn you, John.

Beverley called a meeting in her office with Lancefield and Fisher for seven the next morning. Braxton, too, attended, and listened in silence as Beverley told him of Eisenmenger's findings. When she had finished, he merely asked, ‘What do you think?'

Beverley wasn't certain whether she was being tested or he genuinely didn't know either. ‘We have three deaths, but no identities yet. Two of them were killed in the same way, one by a completely different method. One was a woman, two were men; all were white and, as far as we can tell, they fit no particular age group. The bodies have been left in different locations throughout the county. On all three there is evidence of restraint at the ankles, wrists and neck, and all three were naked when found.'

She had run out of facts, aware that she hadn't been speaking long, although Braxton didn't seem perturbed. He said, ‘I assume you're looking through missing persons reports?'

‘We have been, but up until now we haven't had a whole body to go on, so I'm hopeful we'll strike lucky now.'

‘We have to have hope,' agreed Braxton drily, and it came across as something of a rebuke.

Before Beverley could repair the damage she thought the remark had done to her, Lancefield put in, ‘It's all wrong.'

Braxton turned to her and perhaps missed Beverley's expression. ‘What is?'

‘The disparity of the victims.'

He nodded slowly. ‘Go on.' He gave the impression that he was already aware of what she was thinking, but maybe he was just good at appearing so.

‘We've had two males and one female for a start. That's odd, since most serial killers confine themselves to one sex.'

He appeared to consider this learnedly which gave Beverley the chance to say smoothly and completely convincingly, ‘And, of course, there are the methods of killing. Apparently two different kinds, completely different.' She did not look at Lancefield, but was fairly certain that her inspector was not a happy inspector at that moment.

Braxton nodded. ‘Yes . . .' he said thoughtfully. Beverley had not missed the glance that Lancefield had given her, had enjoyed it rather, although her eyes were on Braxton and her expression was neutral.
Fuck you, Lancefield.

Braxton asked thoughtfully of the room, ‘Are you suggesting there might be more than one killer?'

Beverley looked across at her junior and asked interestedly, ‘Is that what you think?'

Lancefield found herself under a bright and very hot spotlight. Her demeanour, normally very confident, very self-contained, had become somewhat more frayed than was usual. ‘Well . . .' Then: ‘It's a possibility . . .'

Beverley said at once, ‘Two serial killers working together would be unique.'

Braxton nodded. ‘That's what I was thinking.'

Lancefield wasted no time in undertaking a total withdrawal from the field of battle. ‘It was just an idea.'

Beverley was magnanimous as she nodded sagaciously and said, ‘And worth considering, too.' That she immediately turned from Lancefield only underlined the disdain. She continued, ‘We should get the first of the toxicology reports tomorrow from the samples taken at PM. That might give us something.'

‘Have forensics given us anything?'

She shook her head. ‘Not so far.' He went back into his slightly distracted state; they waited, unsure of whether or not to speak, then he suddenly awoke, seemed almost to shake himself. ‘Until we find out who these poor sods are, you don't stand a hope in Hades.'

The subtle shift in pronoun again. She suspected he did it unconsciously, much as a chameleon changed colour. His next words did little to give her confidence that she was part of a team and could count on support.

‘This is one of those cases, Beverley. It'll either make you or break you.'

He smiled as he said this, perhaps hoping to make her see the positive side.

Strangely, he failed.

TWENTY-FIVE

T
he beef was tender, although for Eisenmenger's tastes it was a tad overdone; he was not enough of an epicure to note this down as a mark against Charlie and, anyway, she was clearly enjoying it, as was Paul. The potatoes were definitely out of the top drawer, though; Helena's potatoes had sometimes been a little too firm for his liking, although he had never dared say as such. The horseradish was excellent too, sourced – so Charlie had explained when he had commented – from a delicatessen in Leckhampton.

Paul was down for the week and Eisenmenger was not such a blind idiot that he could not see she was happier than she had been for some time; this observation, unlike most of those that he made, caused him pain. Despite such a promising beginning, he could see this relationship going the same way that all his others had done, that it was becoming scarred and flawed by circumstance, experience and misunderstanding. There was a feeling of consequent depression in his head as he laughed at the small talk, appreciated the company and the vivacity of Charlie's small house, drank the wine that Paul had brought with him. He was very afraid that unless he did something, and did it soon, the canker would grow and it would sour all things that he touched, as it had done so many times before.

He found himself continually repeating this enquiry until it became almost a beat within his head, a pounding yet peculiarly wimpish sound in the background as he watched mother and son engaging in easy conversation, aware of his relative ignorance, and effortlessly including him when they had to.

He knew that he was not particularly gifted as a social being, that he by nature needed solitude on occasion, that he made few friends and those with difficulty, and that his demeanour was frequently mistaken for arrogance, but he was forever hoping that these were barriers that were surmountable and, once surmounted, were of little consequence. Yet it never came about as he wished; forever he was climbing the barricade only to find potholes, gin-traps, unforeseen catastrophes, it seemed.

Try as he might, his fate did not seem to be his own to command.

Len Barker's face did not mutate from its frozen attitude of idiocy and the thin line of spittle did not pause or deviate as it ran down the rivulet formed by its antecedents from the right-hand corner of his drooping mouth. The scream was silent but was to him deafening; Mary Lavoisier carried on her desultory dusting, no longer bothering to attempt to converse with him, treating him increasingly as a piece of furniture, and one she didn't particularly like. He watched her from eyes underlined by drooping lids, his hatred for her smouldering, a living, writhing thing that he found almost invigorating. She was the carer that came most often and she was the carer who angered him most; she was sloppy, insolent and dirty. They were supposed to give him whisky every evening and sometimes she did and sometimes she didn't, depending on her whim; he suspected she helped herself liberally to his whisky, and who was there to tell on her? He found himself so deeply enraged at being powerless to stop her entering his flat, his tired eyes watered constantly and his left hand, the hand that he could raise, shook. Mary Lavoisier took this merely as another sign of his weakness. Her eyes held only contempt as she watched him lift the hand and grunt in yet another effort to communicate to her. She had long ago given up saying anything in response, even something hideously patronizing, and now contented herself with a smirk that suggested she thought him of a different, lesser species.

And he had to communicate in some way because by now it was an article of faith to him that his information about the white van was pivotal in the investigation; it was he and he alone that would break the investigation. He had seen on the television news about the dead body in the quarry and its likely links to previous murders, although the details had been scanty; from his experience, he knew that this dearth of data was deliberate, that there were things the public were not supposed to know. This was an important case, and he was determined not to fail in what he still saw as his duty. He could not speak and, since he was right-handed, he could not write easily either. He was convinced that he could have scrawled something reasonably legible, but there was never anything around that he could use, neither to write with nor to write on; the fools had tidied it all away and he could not tell them to do otherwise. Hour by hour, day by day his frustration had grown, eating into him, tensing his nerves, acidifying his stomach, bringing him to the point of an agonizing spike of frustration.

The pudding was a butterscotch tart, happily redolent for all of them of primary school meals and therefore of false memories of happiness, innocence and a mythic time when there were no concerns. As Paul poured cream over a second slice, Eisenmenger asked him, ‘You're writing a dissertation, then?'

Paul nodded. He was tall and thin with curly, slightly reddish hair and thick-framed glasses that gave him an automatic look of academe and, although Eisenmenger had yet to meet him, he had seen photographs of Paul's father and could see the resemblance. He asked, ‘How's it going?'

More enthusiastic nodding. ‘Really well, thanks.' They did not know each other well enough for Paul to use Eisenmenger's first name naturally.

Not out of an expectation or desire to learn, but out of politeness, Eisenmenger asked, ‘What is it on?' He had declined seconds of the tart, perhaps subconsciously (he wondered) worrying that his paunch was proving a bar to a perfect relationship with Charlie.

‘The Deep Web.'

Eisenmenger's curiosity was not peaked beyond more than polite interest. ‘Right . . .' He nodded, was suddenly aware that he might look as though he knew more than he did, and asked, ‘Which is . . .?'

Paul was an archetypal academic and a young one, to boot. He was enthusiastic about his subject to a point that left the audience bobbing helplessly, not to say drowning, in his wake. ‘It's something so few people know about . . .' he began.

Eisenmenger was enjoying the wine; it was the second bottle and the one he had bought; he thought it rather good.

‘Most people don't realize that when they “surf” the web, they are literally doing just that. At least ninety-five percent of inter-computer traffic is hidden, certainly not reached by standard Internet search engines.'

‘Defence stuff? Commercially sensitive information?' suggested Charlie. Eisenmenger knew her well enough to suspect that, like him, she was pleasantly relaxed and it was good to see. Compared with recent experience, she seemed almost deliriously happy.

Paul shook his head and even this was animated, even passionate. ‘Nothing like that, Ma.' This salutation was an affectation to which Eisenmenger had yet to become accustomed. ‘It's the “Darkweb”; it's not official in any way; far from it. This is where you find criminals conversing, serious pornography, political subversion—'

Charlie said at once, ‘It sounds very unsavoury, Paul.'

He hastened to provide filial reassurance. ‘Don't worry, Ma. I'm not becoming polluted.'

Eisenmenger was intrigued. ‘So how do you access this?'

‘You need specific software to access it, but there's no problem getting hold of it – it's called Freenet. It's been available for years.'

Had Eisenmenger not been the man he was, he might have appreciated that Charlie was becoming unsettled; as it was, he was intrigued, and that had taken hold of him. ‘But surely the police know about this? I mean, if there's criminal activity going on in there?'

Paul finished his extra of treacle tart. ‘This is the cyber equivalent of the wild frontier. In the first place none of the conventional search engines are configured to do anything other than skim the surface and, secondly, we are talking about people who don't
want
to be found and take very special care not to be; the Internet and search engines that we all know work on the principle that a website wants to be seen. The authorities know about it, but they can't actually police it.'