The Evil Beneath (10 page)

‘You’re right. It’s late. Will you be okay on your own?’

Tempting though it was to suggest he stayed, I didn’t have the energy to go through the inevitable coy two-step required in debating whether the sofa, the blow-up mattress or the floor in my room would be more comfortable. And digging out a fresh toothbrush and clean towel. And explaining how to flush the loo so that the handle didn’t fall off. All I could think about was my head slumping into my pillow without any consideration for anybody.

‘Yup. I’ll be fine.’

‘Let’s get a fresh start tomorrow. I need to be at the station at the crack of dawn, so how about we meet near there? There’s a place called Café Fresco almost opposite the police station - is eight o’clock too early?’

‘No problem.’ He was already walking towards the door. ‘I’ll try to remember to bring my brain with me,’ I said.

Shepherds Bush police station is only a few minutes’ walk from Hammersmith Tube, so I left the car behind. From my limited knowledge of Italian, the name Café Fresco implied there would be tables outside, but I was mistaken. Just as well. The establishment was on a busy road with a narrow pavement and the relentless stampede of traffic scorching past meant we wouldn’t have been able to hear ourselves think, never mind speak.

Café Fresco had a large plain window and the kind of hard-to-push door you find in dry-cleaners. There were round aluminium tables on which stood grubby plastic tubs of salt and pepper. Instead of a vase, each table had a dish of sugar. I didn’t want to look too closely, but there was definitely a cigarette butt embedded in the first dish I passed.

I found a table in the corner, squashed between an old electric fire and a stack of toilet rolls. I was trying to find a clean patch on the table on which to lean my elbows, when Brad walked in. His cheeks were flushed and his hair tousled as if he’d just got back from an invigorating hike. Didn’t he ever get exhausted? Didn’t cases like this gradually wear him down? It made me feel weak and inadequate by comparison, until I remembered he’d chosen this line of work. I hadn’t chosen any of it.

He waved and pointed to the menu behind the counter. I managed to convey my order for an espresso.

‘Thanks for coming. I’ve got about half an hour.’ A waiter brought over two warm apple turnovers with our drinks. ‘These are good, believe me,’ he said, taking a bite and sending a puff of icing into the air. I tried mine. At last. Something good about this place. I licked my lips and thanked him.

He pulled out the same notebook I’d seen the night before and I realised from his official tone that we were going to get straight down to business. No time for small talk.

‘I want you to think very carefully,’ he said. ‘We’ve got Hammersmith, Richmond, now Battersea Bridge - can you think of
any
connection to you?’

‘I’ve gone over and over it. There’s nothing.’

‘We’ve got to look at the slightest odd thing, the tiniest anomaly. Is there anything you can think of in the last few months that’s been out of the ordinary, disturbing? A person? An incident? However insignificant…’

‘Okay…’

I hesitated.

‘Go on…’

‘I’ve got a weird client, a bloke…I’m not sure, but he might have been following me…’

‘Following you?’

‘I can’t be sure. It’s difficult when it’s a client. They’re often a bit odd if I meet them on the street.’ I was thinking about the way Mr Fin looked like he was feigning surprise when I caught up with him in the park. ‘People sometimes feel awkward, embarrassed…you know…and it was only once.’

‘His name?’ His voice was reproachful, now.

‘It’s confidential…I don’t think I can…’

He folded his arms and sat back. ‘I think it’s gone beyond that, don’t you? Three women have died.’

‘Okay. But I’ll need to speak to him first. I’m seeing him later today - then he’s all yours.’

‘Phone me as soon as you’ve seen him.’

‘There was also that nasty bloke at the demonstration I told you about.’

‘We’ve had nothing back yet on that e-fit you did for us. It’s been in all the papers. We’re going to step that up.’ He scribbled something down and underlined it. ‘Someone must know who he is.’

‘It still doesn’t explain how someone knew about
The Secret Garden
…and there’s also the handkerchief.’

‘Who knows about your middle name?’

‘My middle name?’

‘Yes. The initials
J.L.G.
on the handkerchief. Are you in the phone book?’

I stopped to think. ‘Ah – of course. I’m listed as J. L. Grey.’ I laughed. ‘So that’s not such a mystery, then. Anyone could have gone out and bought a handkerchief with those initials on it.’

‘And the book? Who would have known about
The Secret Garden
? Presumably it wasn’t your personal copy we found?’

‘No - I don’t have one. I keep meaning to replace the battered paperback I used to have.’ His pen was poised over the page waiting for me to elaborate. ‘My parents know it was a special book to me. My aunt, Libby. Perhaps previous boyfriends - you’ve already got their names. Andrew, possibly.’ I also gave him the names of tutors on my psychotherapy course and my previous therapists; people who knew a lot about me. He put down his pen and yawned.

‘Sorry - early start. Okay, I’ve got more possible leads. That’s something.’

‘They’re all suspects?’

‘We’ve talked to your friends and colleagues already, of course, but we’ve got to step things up now.’ He took a final swig of coffee, but it must have been cold by then. ‘The SIO wants the name of everybody you’ve known right from the year dot.’

‘Crikey…’

‘Not now – go home and make a list - nursery, neighbours, schools, teachers, friends, college - do it year by year, everything…’ He gave me a pained look. ‘I know it’s going take time, but we can’t afford to let anyone slip through the net.’

‘Okay, if it might help…’

He slipped his notebook into his pocket.

‘Good.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

He looked surprised. ‘For what?’ He got up and swung his jacket over his shoulder. Starsky again. I was starting to go off Hutch.

‘For putting everything you’ve got into this… for taking me out to dinner last night, getting me home, mopping up my tears,’ I followed him to the exit. ‘For not treating me like an idiot…’

He held his arm against the door frame and I ducked under it. I caught the leathery resin smell of his jacket and recognised a trace of woody aftershave. I took longer to come out the other side than I should have done.

‘It’s just my job… plus,
certain
parts…’ he said, tipping his head to the side, ‘have been a pleasure.’ I managed a smile. ‘Call me later when you’ve seen your client. We’re going to have to talk to all of them, so be warned…’

As I walked back to the Tube I made a decision. I knew Brad wouldn’t approve, but I needed to do some investigating of my own. One question was all it would take.

Chapter Eleven

I didn’t need to push open the letter box to know that Scott Joplin was playing at fifty decibels louder than was healthy. There was no point in ringing the doorbell. I went around the back. A smell of linseed oil and pancakes met me as I climbed the fire escape. The door was wide open. A notice for Andrew’s next exhibition, tacked up with a single drawing pin, was flapping in the breeze. Nottingham, in a few days’ time. Something heavy dropped inside my chest, as I realised I would play no further part in Andrew’s future. The kitchen was empty, so I walked through into his studio.

It was the perfect place to paint. A previous owner had knocked down at least three walls to create a spacious living area, which now housed only two home-comforts: a sofa and a rocking chair. Andrew had pulled up the carpets and sanded the floor and everything about the room was devoted to and stained by paint. There were two easels, on one of which hung a dripping pair of jeans. Stacks of oil canvases, most with their backs to the room, leant against the walls. The centre piece was an oil drum, alongside a trestle table covered in opened and unopened tins of paint. In front of the iron staircase that led to the upper floor hung a skeleton from a hook. Someone had wrapped a scarf around its neck.

I found the hifi system under a cloth and turned down the volume.

‘Andrew?’

No reply.

It had been a while. There would be at least three months’ worth of new paintings here that I hadn’t seen. Andrew had always kept me up to date with his work. He was like a young child, eager to show me how well he’d done at school. He’d often talk me through his ideas, his starting points, the way his pictures developed and the meaning of the finished canvases. I liked the psychology of it, the way it revealed Andrew’s inner world.

I moved over to one wall and began tipping back the canvasses. They always reminded me of De Kooning: something savage and surreal in them, driven by a fascination with colour. Andrew said he’d developed his own personal iconography, using dream imagery. ‘I can do primal as well as fairy-tale,’ he’d said to me once, as if describing different flavours of ice-cream.

The recent pictures were in a pile near the staircase. I flipped the first one round. It was dark, mostly purple, with streaks of black. I stood back, hoping the extra distance would allow me to make out what it was, but no matter which way I tilted my head nothing was distinctive. Dismal and disturbing were the words that came to mind. I looked at the back to see if Andrew had given it a title.

Before I could take in the meaning of the small phrase written in pencil at the bottom, I straightened up. It was the smell of whisky which alerted me. I spun round.

‘About to make off with a masterpiece, Ms Grey?’ said Andrew, chewing the end of a thin paint brush.

I wasn’t sure if he was joking. He had a steely look in his eyes.

‘Sorry, I did shout.’

‘I was on the phone,’ he said. ‘What brings you here?’

His words were sliding into each other.

I turned to the pictures. ‘This is…interesting - these a batch of new ones?’

‘They’re not for sale. Leave them alone.’

I tried to tip the first picture towards me again, but he used his foot to push it back against the pile.

‘Not for sale,’ he said. He stood in front of the piles of pictures and put out his arm, like a policeman stopping traffic. I took the hint and moved away.

He sank into the sofa and the paint brush fell on the floor, rolling under his seat. He sniffed and made two attempts to get his foot to rest on his knee.

I wanted to leave, but I’d come here specifically to find the answer to a question. I’d know if he was lying. I knew the way his eyebrows became hyperactive whenever he tried to fob me off, usually about his drinking.

‘How have you been?’ I said.

He threw his head back. ‘What do you care?’

I was about to perch beside him on the edge of the sofa, but decided against it. ‘I do care, Andrew. You know why things didn’t work out between us.’

His response came back in a sing-song imitation of my voice, ‘Because,
Ander-wew
, there are three of us in this relationship… and I can’t…’

‘Well, it’s true. Listen to you.’ I picked up an empty bottle of Scotch - there were several to choose from - and waved it at him. ‘It’s not even lunchtime. How can this be helping?’

‘You don’t understand.’ He lurched forward and I stood back, thinking he might be about to throw up. ‘It helps
everything.
It never lets me down and it never judges me and it never walks out.’ He was looking up at me, but kept blinking as if he was trying to make my face come into focus. ‘I’m not the enemy, Jules.’

‘You’ve never been the enemy. Not to me. Only to yourself.’

‘Don’t go all self-help-guru on me.’

‘Don’t change the subject.’

‘Is this what you came to say?’

I took a deep breath. ‘No.’

I didn’t know how to introduce the question - the one question I’d come all this way to ask - so I came straight out with it. ‘Do you know the name of my favourite book?’

‘Your favourite book? What kind of question is that?’ He laughed. ‘I thought we were having an argument.’

‘I know it’s a strange question, but —’ I rubbed my forehead. ‘Just, yes or no?’

‘What’s it worth?’ He managed to get his uncoordinated limbs out of the seat. I stayed by the window and in a flash calculated how many steps it would take me to get to the door.

‘Never mind,’ I said.

Hoping his brain would take longer than normal to register, I moved fast, but I’d only taken three steps, before he blocked my path. I’d underestimated him. I had to turn away to avoid drowning in his whisky-soaked breath.

‘Not going without a goodbye kiss, are we?’

‘Don’t, Andrew.’

The sing-song voice again, ‘Don’t,
Ander-wew
.’ He grabbed both my wrists and pushed them behind my back.

‘You’re hurting me.’ I wriggled. He laughed and pushed his face into my neck, holding my hands firm.

‘Stop this. I’m going to have to fight back, if you don’t let me go.’

‘Fight back then. See if I care.’ He was drooling now and trying to fix his lips onto my mouth. I jerked my head away and simultaneously lifted my right knee. It landed somewhere soft. Andrew doubled over, letting out a high-pitched squeal.

‘I did warn you.’

I got to the door and started down the stairs. I heard scuffles behind me, but didn’t turn round. I felt sick that it had come to this. As I opened the back gate, I heard him call out.

‘Your favourite book is about a snotty little girl, just like you, who thinks she can change someone’s life by planting a few daffodils.’

I let the latch on the gate drop and didn’t look back.

When I got home I was still fuming. Underneath the anger, something else was simmering. Every connection between me and the dead women, Andrew knew about. My favourite book, my new job at Fairways, my middle name, my email address, my phone number. Even the clothes that went to the charity shop. I hadn’t mentioned it to the police, but he’d been there the day I’d cleared out my wardrobe. I remembered him moaning, ‘Not those’, when I dropped the ankle boots into the bin-bag. I was trying to shake the thought away, but it wasn’t going anywhere fast. Could the killer possibly be Andrew? Was this killing spree a deranged angry reaction to our break-up? Had I failed to spot the signs of a psychopathic serial killer?

As soon as the questions made it into the rational part of my mind, I dropped them like hot coals. It was unthinkable. Andrew had lashed out at me a few times; he’d cornered me like he’d done today, but he wasn’t a calculating murderer. He’d have to be drunk to do anything stupid and by then he wouldn’t be able to think straight. Not like the killer, who was incredibly smart with his cryptic clues and his ability to leave the bodies in public places, without ever being spotted. Andrew wasn’t capable of that.

Was he?

Mr Fin arrived at 2pm on the dot. He managed to look taller and thinner every week. He sat down and averted his eyes.

I wanted to get it over with. I plunged straight in with my I-have-to-tell-the-police-about-you speech. ‘Before we start today, Mr Fin, I’d like to…’

He was crying.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’m going to be coming back after today.’

‘Oh.’

‘I don’t think you can possibly understand me…’

‘Right.’

‘I think I need to see a man. I can’t talk to a woman. I should have realised before.’ He pulled out an offensive-looking handkerchief and blew into it loudly.

‘You seemed to be…’ I was going to say
doing quite well
, but realised it sounded patronising. ‘You managed to talk…a bit…about yourself.’

‘Yes, but it wasn’t real. It was all crap…to get you to like me.’

‘To get me to
like
you?’
How far off the mark can anyone get?

‘Yeah, I thought if I was kind of, distant and a bit difficult to pin down, you’d like it…like me…that’s what my mother always used to say…women like men mean and hard, she said.’

‘Your mother?’

The tears started up again. ‘She’s passed away.’

‘Oh.’

‘So, you see, I’m going to end it here and see someone else.’

‘Well, that’s fine, if that’s what you want.’ I certainly wasn’t going to argue with him.

He slid to the edge of the seat. ‘It’s nothing personal,’ he said. ‘Women just…I can’t…it’s always been difficult.’

‘Well, if you think a man could help you with these issues, I think that’s a good decision.’

He stood up. He half-offered me his hand, but by the time I’d got to my feet, he’d pulled it back. He fiddled instead with his few remaining strands of hair.

‘I’ll go now,’ he said.

‘I wish you all the best, Mr Fin,’ I said as I opened the door for him. Once he’d gone I went to my bedroom window and waited until I saw his wiry figure cross the road. Then I phoned Brad to pass on his details.

‘Only, you mustn’t tell him you got his name through me,’ I said. ‘I didn’t get the chance to mention that you were going to be in touch with him. He could see it as a breach of confidentiality. He could sue me.’

‘Unless he’s the man we’re looking for,’ said Brad.

‘I somehow doubt it.’

‘How come?’

‘Can I ask you something?’ I swapped the phone to my other hand.

‘Sure.’

‘Were any of the women raped?’

‘No. The pathologist said there was no evidence of anything sexual. No interference, no semen, nothing.’

‘I know Mr Fin has got problems with women - that’s obvious and I know that could easily be a reason for wanting to hurt them, but I wonder if someone like that wouldn’t also go for a sexual angle, a sexual attack?’

‘He doesn’t fit the profile, you mean?’ I could hear the faintest whiff of sarcasm in his voice.

‘Brad, I know I’m no expert in this, but I think someone of Mr Fin’s type, if they were going to harm a woman, it would be sexual. He’s probably never had a proper relationship. He doesn’t know how to seduce a woman in the usual ways. He’s frustrated and angry and I think sex, for him, would play a part in an attack.’

‘Okay, we’ll bear that in mind. But, he might have been following you. You said he freaked you out.’

‘I know, but I don’t think it’s him.’ I was picking at the bits trapped inside the woodchip wallpaper beside the window. ‘How did he get the bodies down to the water without being seen?’

‘By car to the nearest point? By carrying them to a boat over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift?’

‘What I mean is, he’s tall, but he seems so frail. I don’t think it’s an act. He struggled to pick up his newspaper from the floor today. I don’t think he could possibly be strong enough to lift anything remotely heavy…not a dead body.’

‘Okay. But we’ll still have a word with him. See how he reacts. Don’t worry, I won’t mention you. We’ll find a pretext.’

‘Thank you.’

‘By the way, I wondered if you might take a look at some of the reports.’

‘Reports?’

‘From a professional point of view. What you said about Fin makes me think we could do with your expert knowledge to try to get inside the mind of the killer.’

‘Isn’t that the job of a proper profiler?’

‘The SIO doesn’t believe in it. No scientific validity, she says. We have other methods.’

‘Such as?’

‘We have a database of every distinctive feature in serious crimes, such as rape and murder. For example, if a murder contains a highly uncommon element, something evident in less than five per cent of killings, it gets stored in the file.’

‘What sort of details?’

‘Cutting off the victim’s hair, putting objects in the mouth, ears, vagina or anus, sticking the lips together with superglue…’ I groaned. ‘Washing the victim down with bleach…that sort of thing.’

‘So you’ll have tried to get a match for
leaving objects behind belonging to another person
and
dressing the victim in another person’s clothes
,’ I said.

‘We’ve done all that - in various permutations - and there are no matches.’ He dropped his voice, as if afraid he might be overheard. ‘I thought if you could take a look at the details…see if anything strikes you…any psychological patterns.’

‘Is this above board?’

‘Not exactly, no. But if it helps us find this bastard - frankly, I don’t care.’

I had to admit he had a point. He wasn’t the only one who wanted to use every available method we had at our disposal to find this killer. ‘Okay. I’ll try.’

‘Brilliant. I’ll email the report. Ring me back when you’ve read it.’

Twenty minutes later I rang him back.

‘I’ve had a quick look at it,’ I said.

‘And?’

‘I feel like I could have more or less written it myself - I know so much about this case, far more than I’d like to.’

He made a sympathetic noise. ‘I know you’ll need time to take it in, but does anything strike you straight away?’

‘Not yet - just the sexual aspect I mentioned.’

‘You think the killer is probably someone who
doesn’t
have sexual difficulties or self-esteem issues around women?’