Soul Seeker (32 page)

‘He's admitted to being the brains behind the heroin factory – he could hardly do anything else, considering his fingerprints are all over it – but he denies absolutely anything to do with the death of the boys.'

‘He would, wouldn't he?'

‘But he specifically accuses his associate, someone called Tom Sheldon. He's a labourer on the estate. He says that they heard the boys near the shed, Sheldon went out, and then there was a scream. When Sheldon came in, he said he hadn't been able to find the boys, but Somersby thinks he's lying.'

‘Have you got Sheldon?'

‘Frobisher's picking him up now.'

Beverley did not know how to react. She was pleased that the murder of the boys was to be solved relatively easily and quickly, but perturbed. Colberrow was somehow connected to the Internet killer, she knew, and it seemed incredible that there should be two completely different murders in such a small, rural location. Yet Smillie guessed from the expression on her face what she was thinking. ‘I doubt that Sheldon is your Internet killer. Somersby seems to think he's little better than a Neanderthal.'

She couldn't argue, and was forced to accept that she was no further forward. She had earlier picked up Fisher's message, so there was at least a new lead there, and perhaps Lancefield had made some headway on Eisenmenger's suggested alcohol link. It wasn't all bad, she reasoned.

The Rectory, whither she had been directed by a gruff man with a lazy eye who, despite the late hour, was out walking his dog, was tucked well away from the road, itself just a lane. There was no street lighting, and the only man-made structure that was visible was the spire of a church about a kilometre away. There was an intrusive sound of traffic droning intermittently in what was otherwise country quiet as she got out of the car.

She looked around. It was just starting to rain and she had to hurry to get out of it and under the small porch. She rang the doorbell, looking around again. What, she suddenly wondered, was she looking
for
? Whatever it was, she felt it was important; important enough, she hoped, to be disturbing potentially innocent people in the middle of the night.

The door opened and she was confronted by a huge figure. For a moment it was in shadow, loomed over her, seemed about to engulf her; then, with his left hand, he switched on the porch light and she saw that the face was smiling and there was a dog collar beneath it. She did not produce any identification. ‘Marcus Pilcher?'

The smile broadened. ‘Yes. And you are?'

‘My name is Rebecca Lancefield. May I come in? I realize how late it is . . .'

There was no hesitation as he stood aside to let her enter and asked, ‘Are you in some sort of trouble?'

She surprised herself by answering, ‘Yes.' He didn't react to that beyond a small nod. The house was cold and, she thought, slightly damp. It had been built in the Thirties and was only sparsely furnished with what looked to her like other people's cast-offs. He showed her into the dining room where he had been working at the rectangular wooden table. He bade her sit and resumed his seat in front of a thick pad of paper on which was laid a black fountain pen; beside it was a pile of magazines and leaflets. She saw that the top one was entitled
God's Hypocrisies
.

‘What kind of trouble are you in?'

Again, her answer surprised her; she had the feeling that she was not the mistress of either her thoughts or her speech. ‘You are the Internet killer.'

What reaction did she expect? She couldn't have said, but probably she would not have put much money on the one she provoked. ‘Is that what they're calling me?' He laughed softly and, she thought, kindly. ‘I suppose it was inevitable.' He looked at her questioningly. ‘I suppose you want to know why?'

She shook her head. In a whisper and looking at the top leaflet with its intriguing title, she said, ‘I know why.'

‘They were strangled. I doubt that they were drugged first, although the usual proviso about the tox results applies. I've found no indications in the modus operandi that would link them to the previous murders.' Smillie glanced across at Beverley as Eisenmenger said this, perhaps hoping for a visible sign of capitulation but, in truth, she had already accepted that would be the verdict. They were facing Eisenmenger across the stainless steel dissection table on which lay the body of Darren Taylor; even in death they could see that he had been destined to be a handsome young Afro-Caribbean man. Eisenmenger hadn't finished, though. ‘There is something odd about the precise way they were strangled, though.'

Both Beverley and Smillie were pulled from any thoughts by his words, both of them looking intensely at him. It was Smillie who asked, ‘What?'

Eisenmenger indicated the boy's throat. He performed the dissection so that instead of the primary incision running straight up from the pubis to the Adam's apple, it split at the top of the breastbone and went off obliquely on the left and right to end at the tips of the shoulders; then he had peeled the skin away using a flat blade and delicate incisions, exposing first the throat, then the lower jaw, and then the whole of the face. It was now replaced but as he said, ‘There was a huge amount of compression injury, see?' He lifted the skin away and indicated what he meant. Even the two policemen could see that there had been considerable soft tissue damage done. ‘The trachea has been crushed, the jugular veins severely traumatized; there would even have been considerable compression of the carotids. It's the same pattern with the other child.'

‘Someone strong, then?' asked Smillie.

Eisenmenger laid the skin back down in its proper place, then reached up and pulled down a spotlight that was suspended from the ceiling; he shone it on the skin of Darren's neck. ‘The pattern of bruising would suggest that it was done with a single hand.'

‘Not two hands?' Smillie was surprised.

Eisenmenger shook his head. ‘Just one. The right.'

Beverley murmured, ‘Why? Why use just one hand?'

Smillie was clearly having a problem with this. ‘Are you sure?'

Eisenmenger looked up at him. ‘Yes,' he said. His tone wasn't particularly outraged or chiding, merely puzzled that anyone should ask.

Beverley was only half-joking when she suggested, ‘Perhaps the killer is one-armed or one-handed.'

But Eisenmenger said at once, ‘No, he's got the normal complement of arms.'

‘How can you be sure?' Smillie was sceptical.

Eisenmenger indicated the body of Josh. ‘Because he killed Josh in exactly the same way, only with his left hand.'

FIFTY-EIGHT

‘
I
was born out of death. My mother haemorrhaged and died within an hour of my birth. My father was in the SAS and had the soulless eyes of a killer; that is all I can remember of him. I had no brothers or sisters and both of my parents were only children. There was no family to divert me from the course that God had chosen for me.' He spoke calmly, as if reading from a text, and she could hear that she was listening to a man who was used to speaking to an audience. His huge hands were interlaced on the table in front of him and his face showed extreme, almost unnerving tranquillity. ‘My father did understand many aspects of love and affection but not, I think, what is required in a father. I have no reason to believe that he ever abused my mother, but I doubt that he showed her what she might consider to be affection. His world was one of valour and effort and masculine pride; I think that he thought that these were enough to love a woman or a child, too; I think that he knew no other way.

‘He brought me up, then, much as a deaf man might bring up a hearing child; he neglected – how could he not? – that which he knew nothing about, yet of course he laboured ceaselessly to educate me in those things with which he was familiar, those things that he considered important. He taught me about comradeship and loyalty and he was careful to make sure that I would survive in the world and, by that, I mean survive both emotionally and physically. I had just turned five when I killed my first animal. It was a rabbit that he had snared and I was given the honour of dispatching it . . .'

Pilcher trailed off into the memory and, as he did so, he looked down at his huge hands. Lancefield could almost see him throttling the rabbit herself. After a moment he continued, ‘Eventually, the camping in the forest and fending for myself became a regular thing, taking up most of my holidays. He sent me to a boarding school as soon as it was practicable; it wasn't a cruel place, except in that it was a heartless place, and if there is no affection, then there is a chance for badness to breed. There was only low-level wickedness, mainly from the older boys, but, for me, there was an ever present sense of hopelessness, because there was never a respite from the coldness; other boys looked forward to the holidays, yet all I had was a transfer from one place of desolation to another.

‘I think I must have looked around to find what might rebalance what, even to a child, seemed an existence terribly out of kilter, although you would not, I think, have known my feelings had you been in my company. My father had done a good job in that, at least; I was externally composed and detached, destined in his mind, I am sure, for a successful career in the armed forces. I killed the animals with efficiency and ease, not appearing to give thought to them beyond the use I could make of their carcasses, yet inside wondering what I was doing, wondering again and again if death was all there was to life. He taught me to ignore pain, that avoidance of pain is neither necessary nor particularly desirable, that minimization of pain is not compassion. They are not yin and yang but nor are they completely separate. I would go so far as to say that they are necessary for each other's existence; without one, the other cannot be. Only in true compassion is there the most exquisite pain; only in supreme pain does the average, slothful, incerebrate human come anywhere close to touching the face of the one true God.' His voice had risen and become more impassioned, but now he stopped and looked up at Lancefield. ‘But I am a poor host. Would you like some refreshment?'

She said at once no and he nodded acceptance of this refusal before continuing. ‘My father was a strident atheist; not for him was there a beneficent God who overlooked killing in a just war, one waged for the greater good. For him, either there was a God and he was damned forever, or there was not; it was more comfortable for him as a human being to deny than to accept. I think that he preferred to hope that there is some certainty to be had in this universe, but I, however, was beginning to think him wrong.

‘He died quite unexpectedly when I had just turned fourteen. It was an accident, when we were out walking in the Black Mountains; the weather had turned foul and there was a heavy driving, drizzle that caused us to walk with heads down and water trickling underneath our clothes. He slipped and fell perhaps twenty metres; I scrabbled down to him as quickly as I could and found him still alive, although only just. He had a terrible head injury and looked to have broken both his legs. I held him, talked to him, tried to comfort him, all the while aware that I was once again in the presence of death. It took him perhaps twenty minutes to die and, as cold and wet and shocked as I was, I was staring into his face all the while and . . .'

He stopped abruptly; Lancefield had been almost hypnotized for Pilcher was speaking in a soft, lyrical lilt, one that massaged and caressed. She came to from her reverie but before she could speak, he went on whilst looking into her eyes, ‘ . . . and I
felt
him die.'

She had been holding her breath, and continued to hold it. She knew that she was looking at a man who had, indeed, seen a moment of dying. He smiled, aware of her interest, aware that here was perhaps a kindred spirit. He explained slowly, ‘I do not know what I felt, nor did I even “feel” it as such; I certainly did not see anything, or hear anything. I just sensed a
passing.
'

Lancefield looked at him, her heart full of curiosity, and wonder, and, perhaps even envy. ‘What was it like?' she asked.

He lifted his head to look her directly in the eye and she saw a glow about his face, one of joy she could see. ‘It was
ecstasy
,' he breathed.

‘We've got Sheldon. Made a bit of a fuss, but he came along after a bit of persuasion.' The Smillie before them was very definitely a happy Smillie. He was rubbing his hands and, at least in Beverley's opinion, the smile on his face only made him look uglier. ‘Frobisher's got him tucked up in the cells now. And –' he nodded in Eisenmenger's direction – ‘he's a big strong lad with large hands.'

Eisenmenger, showered and dressed in civilian clothing had been sharing a cup of coffee with Beverley as Clive tidied up in the dissection room. He said softly, ‘Case closed, then?'

Smillie caught his mocking tone, paused and considered. ‘No, Dr Eisenmenger. Not closed, but it's only a matter of time. With Somersby's evidence and your findings, he's certainly got one foot inside a prison cell.'

Beverley suggested, ‘You'd better go and interview him, then.'

Smillie shook his head, still a lambent source of smugness for them all to warm their hands on. ‘I think a few hours' sleep is called for. Let Somersby and Sheldon stew.' He was about to leave the room when he appeared to think of something. ‘You'd better do the same, Beverley. You've still got a madman to catch.'

With that he was gone and Beverley murmured to the space he had just now occupied, ‘See you next Tuesday.'

Eisenmenger laughed, then stood up. ‘He's right, though. I desperately need a few zeds myself.'