The Runaway (2 page)

He couldn’t really justify why it had to be Brooke – but it was like a spark that was ignited in his mind after a prolonged lull- writer’s block did they call it? It was mere coincidence that he had decided to visit his friend in the Yard when he was discussing the Jefferson case with the Australian Federal Police. Cook knew, as he talked away on the phone, Richard could never pass a chance at eavesdropping on anything that had Paul Jefferson in it. He smiled impishly – they were discussing Paul’s extended sentence. It made no sense as to why the Yard had to be consulted for federal crimes in Australia. Richard was itching with at least a gazillion questions – but he knew better. Cook would only answer when he deemed fit, and only those which he chose to answer. Others were replied with mere non-committal shrugs. He bided his time, maybe if he feigned disinterest, Cook would open up – he liked to think aloud in any case. The earl grey tea had turned stone cold, and Cook still hadn’t returned from his call. Paul ambled along his garden – the full blossom of spring did wonders to the otherwise hardened Cook – he enjoyed spending time and talking to his plants. Somehow, they did respond to his care or whispers, God knows which, to grow splendidly.

At long last, Cook walked in to his garden and settled down. He looked quizzically at Richard, knowing that he would be charged with a volley of questions.
Richard smiled at him.

“The
lilies look lovely – I’m guessing Eve got a dozen bunch of these?”

It was no secret that Cook had a thing for Rick’s little sister. It was a pretty lame and yet a powerful weapon that could be yielded against him. Ronan Alexander Cook was not a man who appreciated humour – he was dry, sarcastic and unnaturally intelligent – one of the youngest to make it as Detective Inspector. How someone like Ronan could fall for the mad and overtly critica
l Eve was a mystery to him. She had a self-proclaimed misandry and she loathed romantics of any kind – and Ronan was exactly and surprisingly very romantic. The guy would wrack his brains after arresting the most dangerous criminals as to how he could woo Eve. It was a rather lucrative option for Richard to be exploited – and he had for a majority of his crime novels – an insight from the Scotland Yard was like porn to a crime novelist. Poor Ronan was almost at his wit’s ends when it came to Eve. However, this uncanny relationship had forged a strong friendship between Rick and Ronan.

Richard weighed his chances today – would Eve be a safe bet, or was it better to just ask him directly? He chose the direct option – Ronan respected honesty.

“What was all that about? Planning to join Australia?”

Ronan scrutinized his face for a couple of minutes before answering, “No… I’m sure you heard Jefferson’s name
...
Don’t
pretend Rick!”

“Well..
.!”

“Yeah..!! So I guess you
would
want to know “what all that was about?”” Ronan paused, as if weighing his words carefully.

“Paul is in a heavily guarded prison in Australia, as you know already judging by that smirk. You did know about Brooke, right? She was taken into witness protection by the AFP, but she was adamant to leave the country as soon as she could. They were having some trouble with her.”

“OK... so did they let her leave… and why now?”

“Rick.
.. I love Eve… Madly as I may add, and I love you... But you know I love my job too – so just leave it at that!”

He grimaced, as he knew no further cajoling would bear any fruit, good or bad, yet Cook’s comments were cryptic – not to mention not leading anywhere. What he did know was Scotland
Yard wouldn’t be consulted to soothe a troubled teenager’s angst. Ronan specialized in serial murders, and he had been to Melbourne to offer advice on the Jefferson’s case, he had even been present during the monster’s chase. Ronan was actually the perennial source of information when it came to Paul’s case. But how could he help in Brooke’s case – as he was sure that Brooke had never spoken to Ronan – or Richard would have squeezed it out of him.

He went back home with increased questions – he made a few calls to his contact in AFP , he in his own way had kept tabs on Brooke too, given the revelations
about Paul’s interest in her. But as time flew and as it was evident that Paul was going to be gone for a very long time, he had forsaken to butt in the girl’s life. It was when the idea of the book was conceived in his mind that he thought of digging up old graves again. And one of them certainly led him back to Ronan. And he would be the shining beacon to the other clues –some hidden and some not. Australian bodies would definitely deny any of his requests given the capture of Paul Jefferson was a global event, and anything related to it would be highly sensitive. He could wrestle out some answers though; his inputs had been of some importance after all. He decided to fall back on Ronan again – but he just couldn’t let this go, if something else had developed in this case.

He thought back, i
t had been an obsession- dangerous one at that. The golden goose of numerous bestsellers, his publisher had merely joked that a series of Australian murders had caught the media’s eye world over, and here he was moping about a new story. He had grown tired of his characters, his hero, the spy, and everything else he wrote about - he was in search of a new challenge.

It was a mere whim, or something that destiny had planned to make his life’s road way bumpier than he had intended it to be. He wouldn’t know what he was getting himself into. He just wanted to know about the murders and perhaps be inspired enough to hatch the next story. But he had wanted t
o go – just hop in on a plane to Australia and follow up with the case. He had a few friends at the right place, so pulling Jefferson’s cases out would be easy.

He had planned to merely skim through the case files, talk to a few relevant cops and visit a few places while in town to set a background for the next novel. He was piqued by the concept of the psyche of a serial killer, the never ending urge to kill and insatiable lust for blood. Not that he was suddenly a champion for their cause, he didn’t want to justify their needs or their minds or why they were different from us and our diurnal ticking – he just wanted fresh eyes on what is totally perceived to be black.

The flight to Melbourne was only about uncomfortable seats and lots of newspaper articles – he hoped to get a good look at the victims’ autopsy reports – God knew how many strings he had to pull to get his hands on the right reports. It was raining heavily when his flight landed – the all too famous thunderstorms of the Australian city had caused the flight to be delayed by a couple of hours already. It was a frosty biting night with no sign of the chauffeur who was supposed to receive him. He jumped in a cab and reached Wattson’s apartment directly.

Wattson
looked older, and somehow his features had turned gaunter, and hollowed – years of dealing with the psycho and it starts showing signs in your life as well.

The steaming kettle
in his kitchen jolted him back to reality – his long thread of memories were broken as he tried to piece back the story to get a clue as to what Ronan might have hinted at, something about Brooke. He poked his steak with the fork – appetite forgotten. He filled his fourth glass of wine. He needed to find the missing piece, or it would consume him like it had all those years back. It was a building passion – a fire that was lit, as he recalled that night in Wattson’s guest room. He immersed himself in the blessed caffeine and the case summary. Obviously he wasn’t authorised to get his hands on the real deal, not yet anyway. It was an enthralling case – the missing girls, the dead bodies all around in the woods of Walhalla.

The reports had a detailed version of the kills, the crime scenes and a probable profile for the killer. He was pleased to note Ronan’s name in the documents – he had made a mental note on influencing Eve to go out with him in return for information on this Paul Jefferson.
Ronan had been consulted on the profile building so he would be a reliable source to get the facts straight. In the meantime, Wattson would be more than happy to fill in the gaps for him, and perhaps take him out to visit the crime scenes as well for a first-hand assessment of the setting for his story.

Although a simple man,
Jefferson was a man of high IQ. You couldn’t fathom what those icy blue eyes had hidden for all those years. He was only deduced to be the primary suspect after the 8
th
body was discovered – and it was suspected that the count was probably higher. Wattson said that they were closing in on him – but they just couldn’t predict when he would strike next.

All his life had been
almost solved like a puzzle and yet people were still searching for clues as to make that monstrous apparition of Walhalla a little more human before law – as up till then, there were no such signs. He considered himself above the law, above all.

Going through his psych records, Richard noted that Paul
was the classic example of the Macdonald Triad:

• Fascinated with fire setting – Paul was obsessed with fire, resorting to fire as a means of ablution.
  
• Involved in sadistic activity; there were scattered incident around Miami, where he had grown up with his foster dad, of animals and pets that would end up dead or burnt.
  
• A
  large proportion wet their beds beyond the age of 12 – so was the case with Paul as a kid.
  

These facts had Richard wanting to know more of Paul and his life. He dug deeper; he collected names and places from his files, and made innumerable calls. After about a week or so, he could construct the story of the adolescent Paul who had run away from Miami to the state of Victoria to his uncle.
Previous to that, a chunk of his life was spent in a nameless coop called a foster care for abandoned kids – not to this day had he any clue to his real parentage. At 7, he was sent off to a Don Jefferson, Miami. The frail woman who had taken him up did her best to shield him from Don’s abusive and drunken stupor – and that was how she had died, while trying to save little Paul from Don. Once Don was released after his sentence – the abuse escalated. Paul was a regular bed-wetter, he would be forced to sleep in his bed, beaten with whatever Don could lay his hands on. He would channel his anger on his neighbour’s pets or whatever small animals he could find, and brutally kill them. It was apparent that the signs were there already – the abusive household was just something that triggered his urges.

It was when the abuse turned sexual, that he snapped and burned down his house one day with
Don sleeping in his room – he had just turned 21. But by then, he had tasted blood, and few can find their way back after that. He escaped from prison, and then the story turns murky as to how he reached Australia when he was 23. There were small time charges against him even in Walhalla, till he met Anne.

Anne reminded him of his
foster mother – a frail weakling, a runaway disturbed broken girl, Anne met Paul at a local bar in Cooper’s Creek. It was a whirlwind romance – if that was possible for a man like Paul. However, being with Anne had stalled some of his killing urges, and he was almost transformed into a normal being.

Richard took a break from his research – from his no-break reading spree of 14 hours. Wattson was more than willing to have company for dinner. As conversations turned towards Jefferson, his MO, his life
was discussed upon – and his love for the theatrics and limelight.

The bonus
, at least for Richard, was that Paul was yet to be caught – and there were chances that another victim would turn up if he was at large for too long. Richard chided himself on hoping that he gets to witness another while he was in Australia – but he couldn’t help himself; this close to a real serial killer, and to understand how he worked, how he operated and why he chose those girls and places were too big a temptation for a crime novelist. He asked Wattson for an unofficial update on the proceedings. The hesitation was predictable – yet he persisted, he needed to know, he had always hated mysteries.

“We don’t want him to claim anymore – the local people are scared out of their skin, business is down, tourism is on an all-time low – this is not good! Walhalla is a quiet place – close to nature, you come here to get peace, to reflect maybe… but not to get slaughtered. Even with such less population, we are still unable to catch him – I guess the next step is to go knocking from door to door in search of that psycho.”

Rick nodded in agreement.

“Why the
Doll maker
?”

“Have you seen his victims?”

Richard shook his head- he hadn’t. Obviously crime scene photos can’t be distributed generously among the masses. But he was yet to go through the case files – he was, firstly, making himself acquainted with the background of the elusive man. All of which indicated that he would have eventually turned out to be a tad psychotic – but well, everything depended on his choices and till now he wasn’t very promising in that sense. Dinner was a joyous event – given there was a lot of catching up to do with Wattson, who had been a guest lecture in Rick’s college way back. He had taken an intense liking to Rick the moment he put forward his stubborn questions. He liked inquisitive minds, and Rick had an insatiable one. Rick had badgered incessantly with questions about profiling criminals and he wasn’t even a student of criminal studies. Though a conversation with Wattson was always enlightening, Richard was itching to go back to study more, read more.

After Wattson had turned in for the night, Rick went back to his pile of papers with a flask of coffee – he knew he’d be burning the midnight oil today. Before resuming from where he’d last stopped, he decided to go through the murders. 8 bodies had been discovered – no one knew if they were more. He had of course seen murders before – dead bodies before, heinous crimes in the past. But the full blast of it hit him, when he placed the 8 girls’ photos on the table. There must be so rage, so much hatred in him to have subjected those young girls to such torture – eyes were bloody, swollen, ligature marks around
their ankles and wrists showed that they were in captivity for a very long time – repeated burn marks and discoloured bruises all over their bodies. But their dead bodies were rested beneath huge shady trees, sheltered from the sun and road. Their hands were folded over their chest – in a modest poise. It looked as if they were sleeping obliviously. It was hideous to watch. Richard hoped that the parents didn’t have to look at their daughter’s final moments. They were all so young – documents dedicated to each of their backgrounds had stories of life, fun, love and hope. Hope of a better tomorrow, better jobs, husbands and kids maybe. They looked like the cheerleader types – popular, bright, and beautiful. All of them shared a similar physique type- tall, almond eyes, brunette and heart shaped faces. All in the age range of 16-19. Much alike Brooke. Realization struck Richard as he looked at the photos repeatedly. The link between all his victims; the answer to why those specific girls. Predicting the dawn of another horror story behind this revelation, he delved further into the report that Ronan had helped in building regarding the profile. And for that he had to go back to where he had left in Paul’s story.