The Mermaids Singing (45 page)

Angelica stopped dead and scowled. ‘I said, I’m not letting you go.’

‘And I said I’m not asking you to. All I’m asking is that you cuff my hands in front of me. So I can touch you.’ Again, he forced the gentle smile.

She looked at him consideringly. ‘How do I know I can trust you? I’d have to set your hands free so I could cuff them in front of you. Maybe you’re trying to double-cross me.’

‘I won’t. I give you my word. If it makes you feel safer, chloroform me again. Do it while I’m unconscious,’ Tony said, gambling again. Her reaction would tell him all he needed to know about his chances.

Angelica moved behind him. An exultant voice in his head screamed ‘Yes!’ He felt the warmth of her hand between his as she gripped the cuffs and painfully jerked them up. ‘Shit!’ Tony yelled as new arrows of pain shot up his arms and through his shoulders. He heard a click of metal as the shackle connecting the rope to the handcuffs snapped free. Angelica released the handcuffs and Tony collapsed to his knees, his legs buckling under him. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he swore as he crashed forwards on to his face, feeling the rough stone graze his cheek.

Moving swiftly, Angelica unlocked one side of the handcuffs, seized the back of his hair and pulled him upwards. Still holding the arm with the handcuffs attached, she stepped in front of him and roughly gripped his other arm just below the bicep, dragging it across his body. Seconds later, his hands were cuffed again, this time in front of him. He knelt like a supplicant, his discomfort doubled by the tight leather straps round his ankles. ‘You see?’ he gasped. ‘I told you I wouldn’t try anything.’

Panting slightly, Angelica stood in front of him, legs apart. ‘So show me,’ she demanded.

‘You’ll have to help me up. I can’t do it by myself,’ he protested weakly.

She bent down and grabbed his hair again, hauling him up on to legs whose muscles trembled with the effort of staying upright. They stood, inches apart, the silk of her kimono brushing his hands. He could feel the warmth of her breath on the raw flesh of his grazed cheek. ‘Kiss me,’ he said softly. Whores never get to kiss, he told himself. This’ll make it different.

Something flickered in Angelica’s eyes, but she leaned over him, releasing his hair and pulling his face to hers. It took every ounce of his willpower not to flinch as her lips met his, her tongue invading his mouth, exploring his teeth and tongue. Your life depends on it, he told himself. You’ve got a plan. Tony forced himself to kiss her back, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, telling himself there were worse things in the world, and this woman had made her previous victims endure some of them.

After what felt like the longest kiss of his life, Angelica pulled away, looking critically down to his groin. ‘I’m going to need some help here,’ Tony said. ‘It’s not been an easy day.’

‘What kind of help?’ Angelica asked, panting slightly through parted lips. It was clear that she was having no difficulty with the sexual arousal that was beyond him.

‘Give me head. That’s the one thing that always works when I’m having trouble. I’ve felt your mouth now; I just know you’ll be terrific. Please, I really want to make love to you.’

Almost before he’d finished speaking, she was on her knees, hands flickering over his balls. Tenderly, she lifted his flaccid penis and slipped it into her mouth, not taking her eyes from his face. Tony reached out and began to stroke her hair. Then, with what felt like infinite slowness, he pulled her head forward on to him, forcing her head down, her eyes away from him.

Then, summoning up what remained of his strength, Tony raised his hands and brought the handcuffs crashing down on the back of Angelica’s head.

The blow caught her completely off guard and she went crashing forward between his legs, her teeth snagging agonizingly on him. Tony let himself fall backwards, feeling a tearing in his ankles as they protested against a movement they were never designed to make. As he hit the ground, he doubled forwards and grabbed Angelica’s head, banging it hard on the stone floor till her body stopped thrashing.

He dragged himself over her prone figure till his numb fingers could reach the ankle straps. With maddening clumsiness, he struggled to unfasten the sets of buckles that fixed him to the stone slab. After what felt like hours, he was finally free. As he tried to stand, his ankles refused the challenge, turning over and catapulting him to the floor again, sending excruciating daggers of pain up his legs. Moaning, he dragged himself across the floor towards the steps. He had barely travelled a couple of yards when the body on the floor groaned. Angelica lifted her head, blood and mucus turning her face into a grisly Hallowe’en mask. When she saw him, she roared like a wounded animal and started scrambling to her feet.

The search for a clue to Angelica’s killing ground was growing more desperate as their fear and concern for Tony grew. They had emptied out the contents of the filing cabinet on to the floor. Every scrap of paper was scrutinized for any hint of the location of the cellar revealed in the video. Invoices, guarantees, bills and receipts all got the treatment. Carol was wading through a file of official correspondence, hoping to come across some lease or mortgage details, anything that related to another property. Merrick was ploughing through the files relating to Thorpe’s sex change. Brandon had already had one false alarm, coming across a stack of solicitor’s letters relating to a property in Seaford. It soon became clear, however, that they concerned the sale of Thorpe’s late mother’s home in the town.

It was Merrick who found the key. He’d finished with the sex-change files and started on a bundle of assorted letters, filed under ‘Tax’. When he came across the letter, he had to read it twice to make sure wishful thinking wasn’t making him imagine things.

‘Sir,’ he said cautiously. ‘I think this might be what we’re looking for.’

He handed the letter to Brandon, who read the letterhead of Pennant, Taylor, Bailey and Co., Solicitors. ‘Dear Christopher Thorpe,’ it said. ‘We have received a letter from your aunt, Mrs Doris Makins, in New Zealand, authorizing us to pass on to you the keys for Start Hill Farm, Upper Tontine Moor, by Bradfield, W. Yorkshire. As her agents, we are empowered to allow you access to said property for the purposes of maintenance and security. Please make arrangements with this office to collect the keys at your convenience…’

‘Access to an isolated rural property,’ Carol said, looking over Brandon’s shoulder. ‘Tony said that’s what the killer might have. And now she’s got him there.’ A wave of anger poured through her, displacing the slow burn of fear that had been eating through her from the moment they’d unlocked the macabre secrets of that superficially normal office.

Brandon closed his eyes momentarily then said tightly, ‘We don’t know that, Carol.’

‘And even if she has got him, he’s a clever bloke. If anyone can keep himself out of trouble with his gob, it’s Tony Hill,’ Don chipped in.

‘Never mind whistling in the bloody dark,’ Carol said sharply. ‘Where the hell is Start Hill Farm? And how soon can we get there?’

Tony looked around in desperation. The rack of knives was over to his left, impossibly high up. As Angelica got to her knees, he clawed at the stone bench and hauled himself upright. His hand closed on the haft of the knife as she staggered to her feet and threw herself at him, still bellowing like a cow bereft of its calf.

Her weight and the momentum of her charge bent Tony backwards over the bench. Her hands scrabbled for his throat, gripping his windpipe so tightly that white lights started to dance in front of his eyes. Just when he thought he could hold on no longer, he felt the warm, sticky gush of blood against his stomach and Angelica’s grasp became flabby as a wet newspaper.

Before he could take it all in, he heard footsteps crashing down the stone steps. Like a mad vision of paradise, Don Merrick crashed downstairs, rapidly followed by John Brandon, his jaw dropping at the tableau in front of him.

‘Fucking hell,’ Brandon breathed.

Carol pushed past the two men and stared uncomprehendingly at the carnage before her.

‘You lot took your time,’ Tony gasped. As he passed out, the last thing he heard was his own hysterical laughter.

Epilogue

Carol pushed open the door of the side ward. Tony was propped up on a pile of pillows, the left side of his face swollen and bruised.

‘Hi,’ Tony said, a wan half-smile the best he could manage without too much pain. ‘Come on in.’

Carol closed the door behind her and sat down on a chair by the bed. ‘I brought you some bits and pieces,’ she said, dumping a plastic bag and a padded envelope on the coverlet.

Tony reached out for the bag. Carol winced inside as she saw the bracelet of bruises round his inflamed wrists. He took out a copy of
Esquire
, a can of Aqua Libra, a tin of pistachio nuts and a Dashiel Hammett omnibus. ‘Thanks,’ he said, surprised by how her choice touched him.

‘I wasn’t sure what you liked,’ she said defensively.

‘Then you’re obviously a good guesser. The perfect taskforce officer.’

‘If a little slow on the uptake,’ Carol said bitterly.

Tony shook his head. ‘John Brandon was here earlier. He told me how you worked it all out. I don’t see how you could have got there any quicker.’

‘I should have realized sooner that you wouldn’t have done a disappearing act at such a crucial time. Come to that, I should have realized as soon as I saw that profile that you could be a target and taken steps to protect you.’

‘Bollocks, Carol. If anyone should have realized that, it was me. You did a bloody good job.’

‘No. If I’d been on the ball, we’d have got there in time to save you having to… to do what you did.’

Tony sighed. ‘You mean, you’d have saved Angelica’s life? For what? Years in a secure mental hospital? Look on the bright side, Carol. You’ve saved the state a fortune. No expensive trial, no years of incarceration and treatment to pay for. Shit, they’ll probably give you a medal.’

‘That’s not what I meant, Tony,’ Carol said. ‘I meant you wouldn’t have to live with the knowledge that you’ve killed someone.’

‘Yes, well, I can’t pretend it was the perfect outcome, but I’ll learn to live with it.’ He forced a smile. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but the first thing I’m going to do when I can walk again is go out and buy you a new mac,’ he said. ‘Every time I look at that coat of yours, I get the urge to scream.’

‘Why?’ Carol frowned in puzzlement.

‘Didn’t you know? She was wearing the identical mac when she turned up on the doorstep. That way, if she left any fibres at the scene, Forensic would assume they’d come from you.’

‘Terrific,’ Carol said ironically. ‘How are the ankles, by the way?’

Tony pulled a face. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever play the violin again. I managed to make it to the loo on crutches, but I had to sit on the edge of the bath to pee. They’re saying there probably won’t be any permanent damage, but it’ll take a while for the torn ligaments to heal. How was your day?’

Carol pulled a face. ’Grisly. I suspect you’d have been in your element. You were right about keeping the fantasy alive. She, he, it, had tapes of all the telephone-sex conversations she’d had with her victims, and she’d stolen the outgoing message tapes from the men who had answering machines.

‘It took the boffins a little while to crack the computer stuff. We didn’t have anybody who really knew what they were doing, but my brother Michael came in and sorted it out for us.’

Tony gave a twisted smile. ‘I didn’t want to say anything at the time, but for a wild moment, I actually wondered about your brother.’

‘Michael? You’re kidding!’

Embarrassed, Tony nodded. ‘It was when you posited the idea of the computer manipulation of the videos. Michael had the expertise to do that, no question. He’s in the right age group, he lives with a woman but not in a sexual relationship, he’s got access to all the information the killer needed about the way the police and forensic scientists work, his job is in the general area where I’d expect the killer to work, and he was in a position to know exactly what the police were up to and be involved in the investigation. If we hadn’t caught Angelica when we did, I’d have been scrounging an invitation to dinner to check him out.’

Carol shook her head. ‘See what I mean about being slow on the uptake? I had access to all the same information as you, and Michael never even crossed my mind as a possibility.’

‘Not so surprising. You know him well enough to know he’s not a psychopath.’

Carol shrugged. ‘Do I, though? It wouldn’t be the first time a close family member, a wife even, has made the same mistake.’

‘Usually, they’re either deluding themselves or they’re emotionally unstable and dependent on the killer in some way. Neither of which would have applied in this case.’ He gave a tired smile. ‘Anyway, tell me about what your Michael uncovered.’

‘The computer was a total goldmine. She’d kept her own diary of the stalking and the murders. It even says that she wanted it published after her death. Can you beat that?’

‘Easily,’ Tony said. ‘Remind me to show you some of the academic papers I’ve got on the subject of serial killers.’

Carol shivered. ‘Thanks, but no thanks. I got a printout of the diary for you. I figured you’d be interested.’ She gestured to the envelope. ‘It’s in there. Also, as you’d surmised, she had video-taped the killings, and as I suggested, she’d imported them into her computer and manipulated the images to keep the fantasy alive. It was absolutely gruesome, Tony. It went way beyond nightmare.’

Tony nodded. ‘I won’t say you get used to it, because you never do if you’re going to be any use at this job. But you do get to the stage where you can lock it away, so it doesn’t jump out and wreck your head unawares.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘That’s the theory. Ask me again in a few weeks,’ he said grimly. ‘Was there anything in there about how she chose her victims?’

‘Just a fucking bit,’ Carol said bitterly. ‘She’d been at this for months before she even picked out the first victim. She worked for the phone company, a computer systems manager. Apparently, she used to work for a small private phone company back in Seaford, which gave her the experience to get the job in Bradfield. She was what they call a super-user of the computer system, so she had access to every piece of data in there. She used the phone company’s computer to extract all the residential numbers who had made regular calls to sex chatlines in the past year.’ Carol paused, letting the obvious question hang in the air.