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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Underwood and Dexter
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
As inspector John Underwood and his team frantically try to piece together the last hours of Olympic athlete Lucy Harrington, events take an extraordinary turn. Harrington's murderer contacts English Literature lecturer Heather Stussman and challenges her to explain his actions to the police. But not until another woman is murdered does Stussman realise that the key to the killer's terrifying motive lies buried in the works of a port who has been dead for nearly four hundred years...
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THE YEARE’S MIDNIGHT
ED O’CONNOR
For Mum, Dad and Alix
Blasted with sighs, surrounded with teares, Hither I come to seek the Spring, And at mine eyes, and at mine eares Receive such balms, as else cure everything.
John Donne, extract from TwicknamGarden
CONTENTS
Part I
A Bath of Teares
1
9 December 2000
Twilight drained from the sky in sudden streams. The ground felt damp. December winds had chilled the soil but had not frozen it. Crowan Frayne had hoped for a harder surface. Frozen earth makes no sound. Mud squelches and clings like an ugly memory. No matter. Frayne thought of forcing his face into the ground, to impress his image upon the earth. The idea amused him. He could peer down on the dead as God peers down on the living.
Tonight he heard music; voices abstracted by time. As if the piano in his mind was strung with the spirits of the dead, producing exquisite notes of pain at his every delicate keystroke.
The spot he had chosen was well concealed at the base of a dark cluster of elm trees. He could see the house clearly. The lights had come on an hour earlier. The garden – half illuminated – was small and neat. Flower beds huddled against the wooden panelled fence. In spring they would surge with colour but now they seemed skeletal and forlorn.
Frayne could make out the image of a woman beyond the windows. Young, tall, lean. She would be strong. He would have to be cautious. Finding her had been a Providence. Chance had dealt him an unexpected and brilliant hand. Lucy Harrington had fallen through his letter box.
He checked his watch. Not long. The details could not be left to chance. Precision was everything now. The house was old, a recently gentrified nineteenth-century cottage. The back door was ill-fitting, with an old-fashioned lock. He had already checked. The lock could be dealt with easily. None of the nearby cottages overlooked the garden directly. He would have privacy.
And time. She would need to leave by 7.50. The reception would last two hours at least. Time enough. An upstairs light threw a square of light onto the gloomy lawn. Crowan Frayne squeezed the flower in his left hand until his fingers were stained violet. He picked a scalpel from his selection of medical instruments and gently sliced the skin under his left eye. A spot of blood bloomed on his face. He spoke quickly and quietly as a single dark tear rolled down his cheek.
‘Let me power forth
My teares before thy face whilst I stay here.’
The words evaporated with his breath in the cold air. He became still. A hole in the night.
The cocktail dress fitted perfectly but Lucy Harrington was unhappy. Her shoulders were too big and her boobs too small. She wondered if she should have been a cyclist instead of a swimmer. Maybe a blouse would have worked better, been less unforgiving. She glanced at the clock. 7.52. There was no time. The reception started at eight and New Bolden was at least a ten-minute drive. It would have to be the dress. She straightened its soft lines and dabbed her favourite Issy Miyake perfume onto her neck. Satisfied, she grabbed her car keys and hurried downstairs.
Frayne caught his breath as the front door opened and Lucy Harrington emerged, silhouetted against the hall light. He knew that she couldn’t possibly see him, but he still felt conspicuous. As if the heat of his excitement created a variation in the texture of the night. She turned and double-locked the front door (as he knew she would) and walked quickly to her car. Her breath ghosted against the car windows as she fumbled with the lock.
This excited Frayne. He remembered that Donne had contorted the view of Aquinas that angels were spiritual entities that created bodies of air to assume visible properties. How did it go?
‘Then as an angel, face and wings
Of air, now pure as it yet pure doth wear …’
Perhaps Lucy Harrington would be an angel. He would help her.
The headlights blazed accusingly in his direction. Frayne sank low to the ground, until he feared that the earth might absorb him alive. The car spluttered to life and spat light against the ancient curtain of the woods. Inside the vehicle, Lucy Harrington cursed her vanity as her high heels slipped on the clutch and the engine stalled. Eventually, the yellow Fiat began to move away and, after a moment, passed within a few feet of the spot Crowan Frayne had just vacated.
It was a housebreaker’s trick. It only worked on older dwellings. New buildings had security locks fitted as standard and required different treatment. But, this time, Crowan Frayne’s research the previous night had proved correct.
He knelt at the back door. The cold stone grated at his kneecap. Moving rapidly, he withdrew a piece of card from his equipment bag and slid it under the back door, directly beneath the keyhole. The card in place, he carefully fed a narrow steel meat skewer into the keyhole until it stopped against the key that had been inserted from the other side. He held the skewer in place with his left hand and with his right picked up a hammer. He hit the skewer firmly once and heard the key fall gratifyingly from the lock inside. Smiling, he withdrew the card with great care from the crack underneath the door. Slowly the key emerged. Frayne snatched it up, inserted it into the lock and turned it. The whole operation had taken less than a minute. He was inside.
The warmth hit his face like a breaking Mediterranean wave. The door clicked shut behind him. He locked it and for the first time felt a flash of fear. Crowan Frayne placed his anxiety in a box: he would open it later.
The Civic Centre was crowded with journalists, local residents and dignitaries. It was hot and airless. Lucy Harrington found the atmosphere stifling. Still, this was what it was all about. All those lonely winter mornings in the New Bolden swimming pool, the pain of weight training, the sacrifice of a social life. She tried to enjoy herself and concentrate on what the Mayor was saying.
‘Few districts can boast their own Commonwealth gold medallist.’ New Bolden’s bald mayor paused for emphasis and breath. ‘Lucy’s achievement has put our town on the map.’ A firework display of camera flashes flared across the room as Lucy smiled a shy, embarrassed smile. The mayor continued, his forehead sparkling wet under the lights. ‘A personal triumph, yes. But one in which we can all share with a great degree of great pride. As the name suggests, New Bolden is a new town and Lucy is the first of its new generation of young people to make a real mark on the world. I therefore ask you to raise your glasses and toast the new Commonwealth 100-metre freestyle champion … Lucy Harrington.’ A noisy toast. A ripple of applause. Lucy Harrington rose nervously to her feet and fixed the audience with a grateful blue-eyed gaze.
‘I suppose a swimmer should never be out of her depth, but public speaking has always terrified me.’ Indulgent laughter. ‘I’m determined that this speech won’t last longer than my race did so that gives me about a minute to thank everyone. Swimming can be a lonely sport and athletes, almost by definition, have to be selfish individuals. But when I stood on the blocks last weekend I knew I had all of New Bolden right there with me. That feeling is hard to top.’ Lucy Harrington paused and looked around the room: the wallpaper of unfamiliar faces, the flashes from the press cameras. Suddenly she felt very tired.
It was 11.07. He had expected her back by now. However, Frayne was unconcerned: this had always been the variable and he was prepared. The time had passed quickly until now. He had familiarized himself with the house. He had checked and rechecked his instruments. Now he sat quietly and read. Lucy Harrington’s bedroom smelt vaguely of flowers and vanilla. A car rumbled up outside.
Crowan Frayne put his book away.
A weary Lucy Harrington slammed her front door shut against the cold. She dropped her keys on the hall table and kicked off her shoes. She leaned against it for a second as fatigue began to build up behind her eyes. Then, just as she was about to enter the kitchen, she heard running water. The bath. She must have left a tap running. She swore quietly as she hurried upstairs and strode into the bathroom, expecting the room to be awash. It wasn’t. Water gushed noisily from the cold tap but the bath was less than a third full. She hesitated. Was she going mad?
As she bent over the bath and turned the tap off, Crowan Frayne stepped quickly up behind her and smashed a hammer into the back of her head. Blood spat against the tiles and Lucy Harrington slumped to the floor. He hit her again, harder. It was important to be certain.
It was done in a moment and she had hardly made a sound. Frayne worked quickly. He was well rehearsed. He rolled her onto her back and pushed back her left eyelid. The pupil was dilated, black and unseeing. He brought in his equipment box and withdrew a scalpel, scissors and a set of forceps. This was the critical challenge. He anticipated no problems removing the eyelid but severing the lateral ciliary muscles that supported the eye in its socket would be awkward. He didn’t want to damage the eyeball. That was vital. He saw his own face bloated and floating in Lucy Harrington’s dead black pupil. He addressed the darkness softly;
‘On a round ball
A workman that hath copies by, can lay
An Europe, Afrique, and an Asia
And quickly make that, which was nothing, All.’
Conditions were cramped and he needed more light. There was a metal reading lamp in the bedroom. No need to rush. He had plenty of time.
2
10 December
Raindrummedagainstthebedroomwindow.Throughthechinkinthecurtains,Underwoodwatchedthedropletsmergeandstreamdownwards,sometimesflaringwithyellowfromthebrightlyburningstreetlights.HewasgratefulforthecentralheatingbutsweatedbeneathhisT-shirt.Hehadkickedtheduvetoffanhourpreviously.Tolittleeffect.Hefoundhehadproblemscatchinghisbreath.Duringtheday,hescarcelynoticed,exceptwhenbattlingupthestairstothestationcanteen.However,atnight,inthestuffinessofacentrallyheatedbedroom,heincreasinglyfoundhimselfshortofair.SleeprarelycameeasilytoDetectiveInspectorJohnUnderwood.Uglydreamsflewathimoutofthedarkness.Hefoundithardertodriftoffwhenhewasalone,impossiblewhenhewasangry.
The alarm clock glowered at him. 3.17. Julia had been due back at midnight. He had last tried her mobile an hour ago. It had been switched off and that was always a bad sign. He knew he was being punished but couldn’t understand why. Maybe it was because he couldn’t understand why. Eighteen years of marriage seemed to have driven him and Julia further apart. Familiarity didn’t just breed contempt. It bred unfamiliarity.
He was getting annoyed now and mainly with himself. Thinking is the undoing of the insomniac. Once his anxiety generator had been switched on, Underwood knew he would end up tracing the ripples of paint on the ceiling. Sometimes, if he was lucky, the ripples would wash together in waves of exhaustion and he would sink: but not tonight. His throat was dry. He reached for the can of Pepsi that he kept on the bedside table.
A car drew up outside. He peered through a gap in the curtain. A minicab: another bad sign. Where could she have been until 3.17? New Bolden was hardly Monte Carlo. Once the pubs cleared out at 11.30 the only action was at the kebab van. His mind raced. None of the alternatives was appealing. Julia stepped from the car and hurried inside.
He heard her climbing the stairs. She was trying to be quiet. He counted her steps. The fourth stair was loose but he heard no sound. She must have stepped over it. She was trying not to wake him up. Why? Thoughts ricocheted through his brain.
It’safterthreeinthemorning.Shedoesn’twantmetoknowwhenshe’scomingin.Why?Becausemarriedwomendon’tstayoutthislateunlessthey’refuckingaround.Shedoesn’twanttowakemesoshecanlietomorrowaboutthetimeshegotin.Whywouldshelie?Becauseshedoesn’twantmetobesuspicious.Butifshe’slying,thenIbloodywelloughttobesuspicious.
The bathroom light clicked on. He heard the sudden, brisk rush of the shower. A very bad sign. She had taken a shower before she went out. ‘Why would she have two showers in a night?’ His thoughts were spiralling and they kept spinning back to the same sharp, uncomfortable point. Underwood tried to block the thought from his head. He would not allow himself to think like that. Twoplustwodoesnotequalsix.Donotpassgo.Donotcollecttwohundredpounds.
The shower stopped. Julia opened the bedroom door, ever so quietly. She fumbled for her nightdress at the foot of the bed and cursed softly. Underwood could smell wine. He tried to breathe in and out with studied regularity. The bed creaked slightly as Julia slipped under the duvet. Then she lay, still as a corpse, until she was convinced that Underwood’s breathing pattern was authentic. Satisfied, she finally let her body relax. Underwood’s stomach had curled into a tight ball of frustration. His wife was playing games with him. And she smelled like a stranger. He was thirsty again but knew that reaching for his can would rupture his tactical advantage. Instead, he half-opened his eyes and tried to concentrate on the random collisions of raindrops against the black glass.
3
Breakfast was strained. Underwood savoured the bitterness of an instant coffee. Julia hid behind the Telegraph. He knew it was just a matter of time now. The clock was ticking on their marriage. What would he do then? He felt like a wounded animal: he wanted to crawl away and embrace the comfort of oblivion. The idea seemed increasingly appealing.
‘So when did you get in last night?’ He tried to make his opening salvo breezy. There was a brief pause. He sensed his wife collecting her thoughts behind the newspaper.
‘I’m not sure, to be honest. Quite late. Maybe half-one, two o’clock.’ That was clever; use a small admission of guilt to mask the bigger lie. Give the interviewer what he thinks he wants to hear and defuse the situation. Smart. He’d heard it a thousand times before, from more accomplished liars than his wife. Still, he had to concede that she was getting more adept by the day and this had been going on for weeks.
‘Hmmm … late one. You must be knackered. Where did you get to?’
‘Madeleine and I went to the Haydn recital at St Peter’s: the Bellini Piano Trio. We had dinner at Marco’s at ten and then went for a bottle of wine at her place.’ Julia lowered the paper and looked straight at him. ‘We both got drunk and fell asleep in the living room.’
It was undeniably plausible. Madeleine certainly liked a drink. Julia’s deliberate eye contact was calculated to convey sincerity. The sequence of events was a bit too ordered, though. It reminded Underwood of the well-thought-out, unrealistically symmetrical alibis offered by novice criminals. He hoped he was wrong. In the terrible chaos of life, he knew that guilt usually cowered in the details.
‘What did you have for dinner?’
The phone rang. Julia jumped slightly.
‘Fusilli Alfredo.’
Had she answered too quickly? Underwood’s train of thought had been derailed. He stood up. Julia seemed to breathe a silent sigh of relief. He was aware of her gaze trailing him across the kitchen, like that of a nervous cat tensing itself in anticipation of an attack. Acid fizzed in Underwood’s stomach. He picked up the receiver.
‘Double six two four.’
‘Sir, it’s Dexter.’ DS Alison Dexter had a sharp, loud London accent. Underwood winced slightly. Bad news coming.
‘Morning, Dex. What’s up?’
‘Shit start to the day, sir. We’ve got a stiff.’
Underwood was too tired to make the obvious joke. Besides, he knew that you didn’t flirt with DS Alison Dexter; it was like falling into a thorn bush. In any case, a flirty joke with his assistant would have ceded some of the moral high ground to Julia and he wasn’t prepared to do that. This was the endgame of their marriage. Tactics were all that remained.
‘Male or female?’
‘Female. Mid-twenties.’
‘Sex thing?’
‘Not sure yet.’ She paused. ‘You should come quickly, sir. I think it’s that Harrington girl.’
‘The swimmer?’ Underwood groaned inwardly. He had read the papers. New Bolden’s local heroine was fast becoming a national celebrity. This was going to be a nightmare.
‘Yeah. Someone really messed her up.’
‘OK, Dex. Seal the place off. Get Forensic out there. The press will be all over this like shit on a bed sheet. Try and keep a lid on it.’
‘That’s going to be difficult, sir. They’re already here.’
Underwood took down the address and grabbed the heavy blue jacket that he wore for work. He downed the remains of his coffee and turned to face Julia. She still hid behind the Telegraph, wide-eyed, not reading.
‘Three-seventeen,’ he said.
‘Sorry?’
‘Me too.’
She watched him leave. A bitter tide of guilt and frustration surged within her. She no longer had the energy to swim against it. Julia Underwood was exhausted.
4
Hartfield Road snaked out of the richer suburbs of New Bolden into Cambridgeshire’s cheerless flat countryside. A cold mist hung over the Fens. Underwood drove north towards Ely, trying to block the previous night from his thoughts. His chest felt tight. The damp didn’t help.
The journey to Fawley Close took him ten minutes. The four old cottages nestled at the southern edge of Fawley Woods. Previously occupied by farmworkers, a forward-thinking landlord had renovated the cottages a few years previously. They had been sold to young couples; mainly office professionals and teachers who worked in New Bolden or Cambridge. Lucy Harrington with her lottery grant cheque had been a recent arrival.
A police squad car blocked the entrance to the cul-de-sac, its blue lights twirling hypnotically. A few spectators had gathered nearby. Underwood parked on the main road. He could see DS Dexter outside one of the cottages; her dark hair was severely cropped. She seemed to bristle with authority. Dexter dealt in certainties. Underwood envied her.
The unforgiving air slashed at his lungs as he approached. There were puddles and, at the roadside, leaves crushed brown with mud that softened underfoot. Underwood coughed painfully as he approached.
‘Sounds nasty, sir.’ Dexter’s bright green eyes were watery with the cold.
‘It is, I’m getting old.’
‘You already are old.’
Underwood appreciated the joke despite his discomfort. Maybe it was an intimacy. ‘Thank you, sergeant. What have we got, then?’
‘A mess. A journalist at the NewBoldenEcho got a call at 7.30 this morning. Man’s voice told him that Lucy Harrington was dead and gave him this address. Journo called our duty sergeant.’
‘Did the guy have an accent?’
‘Nothing obvious. The journo’s over there if you want to speak to him.’
‘I’ll see him later. What else?’
‘We got here after eight. Her car’s in the drive.’ She gestured at Harrington’s Fiat. ‘Tried the door and called her phone. No reply. So we went in.’
‘Any signs of a forced entry?’
‘None. Apart from ours, of course. New Bolden CID – interior devastators.’
Underwood smiled. Dex was a live wire. The Met had been right about her. She continued, encouraged: ‘Inside is horrendous. The body is in the bathroom. Forensic are up there now. There’s blood everywhere. It looks like a slaughterhouse. The killer left the bath taps running, so the whole place is awash. Upstairs is flooded. Getting decent forensic evidence is going to be a nightmare.’
‘Clever if he meant it.’ said Underwood thoughtfully. Dexter seemed uneasy.
‘There’s something else, sir.’
5
Tenmilesaway.Asmallterracedhouse.Thereareflowerpotsoutsidebuttheflowersarewitheredanddead.Thecurtainsaredrawnforprivacy,respectandcelebration.CrowanFraynesitsonthepatternedcarpetinthelivingroom.Hesitscross-leggedlikeachild.Thereisaplasterunderhislefteye.Hestillhasbloodunderhisfingernails.Hewillneedanotherbath.Heistiredbutquietlytriumphant.
Infrontofhimisaphotographofanoldwoman.Sheissmiling.Herbandrestsontheshoulderofasmallboywho mightbeCrowanFrayne.NexttothephotoframeisanAfricanviolet.Itsflowersarerichlycoloured.Hehasnurturedit.Someoftheflowershavefallen.Therearevioletpetalsonthecarpet.
Fromhisinsidecoatpocket,Fraynetakesasmall,polishedwoodenbox.Therearesmallbrasslettersscrewedontothelid.Theyspellout‘V.A.Frayne.’Heplacestheboxcarefullyonthecarpet.Slowly,andwithcuriousrespect,heopensthebox.Ithasapurplesilklining.ItholdsLucyHarrington’slefteyeball.Therearetworemainingspacesinthebox.Frayneissatisfied.Thebackandsidesoftheeyeballaredamaged.Hisforcepshavegougedunsightlyscarsoneachside.Anoccupationalhazard.Hisfirstoperation.Nexttimewillbetidier.
Hecloseshiseyes.Heisonthedesertplanetwherehelikestohide.Sandisallaroundhim,sandandmountains,rocksandsky.Thesandisblackandthemountainshaveeyes:therockstalkwhentheskyreplies.Aheadofhim,lyingonthesand,isagiantmathematicalcompass.Itspointedsteellegsglitterthoughthereisnosun.Heclimbsoverthecompassandwalkstothegiantfleathatwinkswithinhim.Itisashighasabuilding,purpledandturgidwiththebloodofabillioninnocents.Thefleabelchesblood.
‘Markeme,’saystheflea.
Thefleajumpsoveragiantgrandpianothatchangescolourslikethesand.Thepianostoolistwometreshigh.Frayneclimbsupandstandsonthewhitekeysthatsoftenlikeglue.Thelidisheavy,soheavy,likeliftinganocean.Eventuallyhemovesitandlooksinside.Abillionsouls,stretchedandscreaming,singtheiragonyandabsurditybackathim.Thelidsmashesshut.
Heisbackinhislivingroom,LucyHarrington’seyeinhishand.Helicksitssmoothsurfaceasifitwereahighlypolishedjewel.
6
Underwood clipped the standard-issue plastic covers to his shoes and entered the house. It was old-fashioned inside, with white-painted walls and dark exposed beams. The carpet squelched unpleasantly underfoot. He looked up the stairway. Water and blood streamed down. The carpet had previously been blue but was now horribly stained and smeared with blood. He had never seen such a mess at a crime scene. The smell was terrible: a mildewy, damp deadness. Dexter was right. The chances of finding hair or DNA evidence from the killer would be small.
Police pathologist Roger Leach stood at the head of the stairs at the entrance to the bathroom. He was a heavy man, bearded and thickset. His habitually ferocious expression softened slightly as he saw Underwood gingerly clambering up the narrow staircase.
‘Need a hand?’ Leach smirked. ‘You look rather strained.’
‘Feeling my age.’ Underwood was out of breath.
‘You’re younger than me.’
‘Only just.’ The carpet gave up more blood. Underwood grimaced. ‘This is like a horror film.’
‘It doesn’t get any better, I’m afraid. I haven’t seen anything like this before.’ Leach heard Underwood’s rasping breath. ‘You sound a bit ropy, old man. I might be having a look inside you soon if you don’t get some exercise.’ Underwood finally joined him at the doorway and looked in.
‘Jesus Christ.’
‘That was pretty much my response.’ Leach moved carefully into the bathroom. Underwood stayed at the door.
Lucy Harrington lay on her back, still wearing the black cocktail dress from the previous evening. She lay in a terrible slush of blood and water that seemed to have engulfed the entire room. The bath brimmed with water, its taps finally turned off. Harrington’s face was unrecognizable, streaked red and distorted. Her right eye stared blankly at the ceiling. Her left eye was missing, the socket black with blood.
Underwood felt his stomach tighten. He bit his lip. The smell was getting to him. He looked up from the body. On the back wall of the bathroom the killer had written a short sentence in what looked like blood. The lettering had run down the white tiles and Underwood struggled to make out the words:
‘Draw not up seas, to drowne me in thy spheare,’ he mouthed quietly.
‘Freaky, isn’t it? Very Jack the Ripper.’ Leach had crouched over the body and was carefully inspecting the wound at the back of Harrington’s head.
‘Any idea what it means?’
Dexter had arrived at the bathroom. ‘Some mad shit from the Bible, I expect. An eye for an eye and all that,’ she said without enthusiasm.
‘Sounds more like Shakespeare to me,’ Leach replied.
‘So what else have we got here, Roger?’ Underwood was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. He wanted to get away from the house quickly.
Leach leaned back on his haunches and thought for a moment. ‘All this is subject to the post-mortem, of course.’ He gently turned Harrington’s head so they could see the wound in the back of her skull. ‘Cause of death: massive blow to the cranium with a blunt instrument. Must be metal to have done this much damage. The entry wound is ragged at the edges but is basically round, about an inch and a half across. Hammer, I’d say. Or a steel pipe. Your boy bashed the back of her brains in.’
‘One blow?’
‘Two, maybe three. The lights went out immediately after that, I’d say. Looking at the blood-spray pattern on the tiles above the bath, my guess would be she was bending down over the bath when he clocked her. She fell forward, face first, and then he flipped her over.’
‘What about the eye?’
‘Well, it’s hard to say – he’s taken most of it. Judging by the nature of the damage to the socket, I would say that he started very carefully but got increasingly frustrated. It’s a tricky procedure and our boy is no surgeon. He’s cut through the ciliary muscles tidily enough but the eyeball was eventually wrenched from the socket. The optic nerve and a chunk of the eyeball were left behind.’
Underwood frowned. ‘You don’t think our man’s a medic, then?’
‘No. At best, he’s a well-read enthusiastic amateur.’
‘Time of death?’ Dexter asked the obvious question that Underwood had missed.
‘Expensively educated guess – eight to ten hours ago. Can’t be certain before the post-mortem. The water has mucked up her body temperature. Mine too, as it happens.’
‘She was out at some reception until elevenish,’ Dexter observed. ‘Probably got home at about eleven-thirty. Assuming she didn’t stop somewhere first.’
Underwood had seen enough. ‘OK. We’ll assume death was around midnight until we get the PM results. I’ll get Harrison to start the house-to-house.’
‘John, you should understand that getting reliable forensic is going to be damn’ nigh impossible. Marty Farrell is dusting for prints where he can but my hopes aren’t high. I’ve never seen such a fucked-up crime scene. Whoever did this is smart –’ Leach looked around him despairingly ‘– and very ill.’
‘Do what you can. Dex, make a note of that writing before it slides off the wall. Find out if it means anything. He’s trying to tell us something.’
‘Fair enough.’ Dexter flipped open her notebook and carefully wrote down the strange text.
‘I’m off to find that journalist.’ Underwood shot a final glance at the bloody mess that had once been Lucy Harrington and cautiously made his way downstairs.
7
George Gardiner stood outside the cottages, rain beginning to prick at his bald head. He was trying to fight off impatience with the knowledge that he was at the centre of the biggest story New Bolden had ever seen. It beat the crap out of the car accidents and crimes against cats that he usually ended up reporting on. He consoled himself with a Marlboro Light and leaned against the bonnet of a squad car. Underwood emerged from the house.
‘You George Gardiner?’ the inspector asked.
‘About bloody time.’ Gardiner jabbed at Underwood with his glowing cigarette. ‘I’ve been waiting for an hour. It’s bloody freezing. Without me, you buggers wouldn’t even be here.’
Underwood felt the smoke sting at his lungs, scratch at his throat. He coughed. Gardiner smirked.
‘Tell me what happened, then.’ Underwood was running low on patience too.
‘Got a call on the news desk at seven-thirty. Some of us do a full day’s work.’
‘Get on with it.’
‘Bloke asked for me by name.’
‘Why you? Are you the crime reporter or something?’
‘No. There are only four of us on the news desk. We’re hardly the NewYorkTimes. Perhaps he appreciates my prose style. I picked up the phone and this geezer says that Lucy Harrington is dead and he gives me her address.’ Gardiner looked up at the house. ‘This address. I asked him who he was and he said I should concentrate on his great conceit.’
‘Conceit?’
‘That’s what he said. He sounded like an arrogant bastard.’
‘Did he have an accent?’
‘Not that I noticed. He didn’t say much. He hung up. I called you lot.’ Gardiner pulled out his notepad. ‘Now, if you’re finished, I’d like to ask you a few questions. We’ve all got our jobs to do.’
‘There’ll be a press conference at the station. Before you piss off, I want you to talk to one of my officers and get them to write down exactly what this bloke said to you. Do you know DS Dexter?’
Gardiner sniffed. ‘Looks like a dyke?’
‘I won’t tell her you said that.’
‘You can if you like.’ Gardiner blew cigarette smoke into the cold East Anglian morning.
‘Just tell her what you told me.’ Underwood walked away. He felt drained and it was only nine-thirty.
‘Thanks, by the way,’ the journalist shouted. ‘Thanks for nothing.’ But Underwood had gone.
8
There was a narrow side alley next to the cottage, sandwiched between the kitchen wall and the high wooden garden fence. Underwood edged around to the back of the house, realizing again that he had to lose some weight. He was struck by the garden’s simplicity: it was virtually all lawn and flower beds. Low maintenance. Lucy Harrington was obviously a reluctant gardener.
All of the back windows were intact and shut. There were no obvious signs of entry. The back door was locked from the inside. He thought for a moment. Lucy Harrington’s killer had surprised her upstairs. He had almost certainly been inside the house when she’d arrived. He hadn’t used the windows or the front door. There was no other way into the house: he had to have used the back door. But it was locked. What did that actually prove? Only that the killer didn’t leave that way. Maybe he found another key somewhere. Underwood looked around for a loose paving stone or a brick under which Lucy Harrington might have concealed a spare key. He saw nothing obvious. He rejected the idea. A single woman living alone was unlikely to leave keys lying around outside. He looked again at the back door.
It was heavy and needed repainting. There was a single large glass pane in the door. The house was set slightly higher than garden level and Underwood climbed the three concrete steps. He studied them carefully. Rain would have washed away any residual mud from the killer’s shoes. In any case, he hadn’t seen any mud inside the house. He crouched on the top step, noting the crack between the bottom of the door and the kitchen floor. Something caught his eye. Wedged against the foot of the door frame was a tiny purple flower petal. Was it significant? Doubtful. Underwood thought of his own house: all sorts of crap got stuck under doorways, especially those that backed onto gardens. Still, it was something. He looked down the line of the fence at the colourless flower beds; it hadn’t come from there. He picked the petal up between his thumb and forefinger and bagged it.
‘Any thoughts, sir?’ Dexter emerged effortlessly from the narrow alleyway.
‘Assuming she didn’t let him in the front door, and I don’t believe she did, he had to come in through here. But the door’s locked. Have you got a pencil?’
Dexter handed over one of her small notebook pencils. She always carried two. Underwood took it and forced it into the keyhole. The space was tight and he was concerned that the pencil might snap. After a moment of awkward fumbling he managed to wedge the end under the tip of the key. At the third attempt, Underwood managed to lever it from the socket. There was a soft clunk on the other side of the door as the key fell to the floor; just as it had ten hours previously.
‘Bingo,’ said Underwood.
‘That’s an old trick, sir.’ Dexter was unimpressed. ‘Why not just break a window? There’d be less risk of cocking up.’
‘But more risk of her noticing it when she got home. He planned all this very carefully. He wanted to be in the house waiting for her. He wanted her to come upstairs. There’s a good chance that if she’d come in and seen a broken window she’d have twigged that something was up.’
‘Makes sense.’ Dexter was annoyed she hadn’t thought of that. Something else was troubling her. ‘How did he know she lived here? Maybe he knew her; a boyfriend or someone she’d met.’
‘You think a jealous boyfriend would bother to hack her eye out?’ Underwood said dismissively. ‘Or write all that rubbish up on the wall?’
‘Why not? He might be trying to confuse us.’ Dexter looked around at the small cluster of houses. ‘I mean, if he didn’t know her, it’s not an obvious place to come looking, is it? Way out here in the arsehole of beyond.’
Underwood felt instinctively that the killer hadn’t known Lucy Harrington personally. His rational mind sought for a reason. It was the timing. If he had known her, Underwood reasoned, her killer could have knocked on the front door whenever he wanted and strolled right in. Why wait until a night when everyone in New Bolden knew that Lucy Harrington would be out somewhere else and force an entry? EveryoneinNewBolden. The thought niggled at him.
‘There was a newspaper article about her recently, wasn’t there?’ he asked.
‘Lots. All the local rags ran a feature on her winning that medal. Big news for a tinpot town like New Bolden.’ There was still something of the cockney snob about Dexter, Underwood thought to himself.
‘Not as big as this, though,’ he said.
‘The reception was well publicized,’ Dexter continued. ‘Anyone in New Bolden who can read would know that Lucy Harrington was going to be in the Civic Hall at eight p.m. So that narrows it down to you, me and the mayor.’
‘Behave.’
‘Sorry, guv, but I don’t see what you’re getting at.’
‘I don’t think he knew her. There’s something else going on here. He’s got some kind of fucked-up agenda. I think he saw a newspaper article, got horny about it and started planning. He’s very thorough. Leaves nothing to chance. Still, neither should we, I suppose. Put together a list of her friends and family. People she knew socially, people she trained with.’ It sounded pathetic. Underwood knew it would be a waste of time. He looked out at the dense clumps of trees, darkly entangled beyond the back fence. Dexter read his mind.
‘There are footpaths through the woods, aren’t there?’ she said. ‘Some lead out to London Road, some don’t go anywhere at all and some lead on to Hartfield Road. I wouldn’t fancy finding my way through there in the dark. You think he came in that way?’
Underwood had started to walk across the lawn, his eyes fixed on the grass. ‘I certainly think he left that way. Do you remember that article we all got from the police shrink about mental maps and criminal activity?’
‘Vaguely.’ She looked left into the near distance as she always did when retrieving information from her memory. ‘It was about how individuals make their own mind maps of areas where they live. A place looks different based on your own perspective.’ She was warming up as the article came back to her. ‘So, if you ask a Londoner to draw a map of London, they’ll put their own locality nearer the centre of the map than it should be and make the Thames look straight instead of bendy because as far as they’re concerned it is.’
‘Something like that. Most rape cases occur within five miles of the offender’s home.’
‘This isn’t a rape, as far as we know.’
‘No. But how would you know about these woods and pathways …’
‘Unless you were local.’ Dexter finished the sentence.
They looked more closely at the fence. There was a small amount of blood, a streak at the corner. Underwood gestured toward it. ‘He came out over here and into the woods. Somehow he knew where she lived. He knew she was going out at eight p.m. and wasn’t going to be back quickly. That gives him bags of time of to muck about with the back door, get inside and then do whatever it is he does to prepare himself.’
‘Put her knickers on and dance about, probably.’
‘Get the uniform plods to do a sweep of the paths behind the house. Our boy might have dropped something on the way out. I think that’s unlikely but it was dark and he was in a hurry. We’ll need to find out where these paths emerge onto London Road and Hartfield Road. Check for places he might have parked a car. Someone might have seen something.’ Underwood was short of breath. The cold air dug at his chest again. He coughed painfully, covering his mouth with cupped hands. His eyes filled with water. Dexter watched him closely for a moment before tactfully withdrawing to the house. Underwood hacked again. This time he had blood on his hands. It wasn’t Lucy Harrington’s.
9
Southwell College, Cambridge meant different things to different people. To Shelley, it had been a ‘medieval mediocrity’. To tourists, its sprawling gardens and curious chapel made it a convenient diversion en route to The Copper Kettle. To its undergraduates, it was a kind of baroque holiday camp. To Dr Heather Stussman it meant recognition. Or, at least, a decisive step towards it.
She cast her gaze around the ancient Combination Room, where the Fellows of the College took their meals. Even now, at lunchtime, the room seemed dark and oppressive. The steward had nurtured a raging fire in the sculpted stone fireplace that now threw strange shadows against the oak-panelled walls. Stussman was too close to the fire for her liking and was starting to get uncomfortably warm beneath her academic robes. The food was extremely rich and Stussman could feel her heart racing. The gloomy oil portraits of previous college masters stared down disapprovingly at her. Southwell only had one other female Fellow, a particle physicist, and she appeared so infrequently that Stussman assumed that the resident misogynists had shooed her off. The male Fellows treated her with a mixture of disdain and a kind of horrified curiosity. Still, she had expected a degree of hostility.
‘Who are you?’ the wolf-eyed Professor Dixon boomed at her from across the table, peering over his half-glasses.
‘Heather Stussman. We met last week, Professor Dixon, at the Master’s drinks.’
Dixon seemed surprised. ‘What do you think of our Master?’ he asked.
‘I found him delightful,’ Stussman replied. ‘He has been very helpful to me.’
‘Of course, he’s a raging queen, you know,’ Dixon opined learnedly. ‘A terrible poof. I only voted for him out of a misplaced sense of irony. Sadly, so did everybody else and now we’re stuck with the old fraud.’
Stussman was aware that another fellow, Dr McKensie, was eyeing her as he chewed his noisettesdechevreuilCumberland. He reminded her of a hyena coveting a corpse.
‘You’re the new English Literature research Fellow, aren’t you? The woman,’ he asked between delicate mouthfuls.
‘That’s right.’
‘Extraordinary world, isn’t it, Roger,’ he said to Dixon, ‘that we should have an American researching English Literature?’
‘I guess the world is moving on. We’re no longer divided by the same language,’ Stussman said quietly. Her collar felt uncomfortably tight.
‘Do you know what we call a female Fellow here?’ McKensie beamed. Stussman could feel the hyenas closing in around her. Other fellows were starting to tune in to their conversation.
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘A fellatio!’ McKensie squawked triumphantly. There was a ripple of laughter. Even Stussman managed a smile.
‘That should be pronounced fell-ah-tee-oh,’ she responded. ‘But maybe you are unfamiliar with the concept.’
‘Whereas you, clearly, are not.’
‘What exactly is your speciality?’ asked Dixon. He was still confused.
‘The metaphysical poets – John Donne in particular.’ Stussman put her fork down. She was not enjoying her first formal lunch.
‘Your book proved rather controversial,’ said McKensie.
‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs,’ she said, trying to be cheerful. The blank expressions deflated her. She continued, ‘I’m surprised you’ve read it, Dr McKensie.’
McKensie was sprinkling salt onto his sautéed vegetables. He looked horrified. ‘Oh, Lord. Not all of it. I made it to chapter three.’
‘What did you think?’ It was a dumb question. She regretted it immediately.
‘I thought your naivety was endearing.’ Conversation over. McKensie turned away, no doubt relishing the tang of his own acidity. Stussman fumed inwardly, attempting to console herself with the knowledge that these terrible people were only a means to an end. Cambridge still carried more academic clout on a CV than did the University of Wisconsin – for the time being, anyway. She retreated mentally into the subject matter of her forthcoming lecture series, Donne’s songs and sonnets. ‘The back of your mind is a good place to hide,’ her father had once told her, ‘but the back of a poet’s is better.’ Battermyheart,threeperson’dGod/Asyetbutknocke,breathe,shineandseeketoend/Yourforce,tobreak,blowe,burnandmakemenew. Not for the first time she marvelled at Donne’s verbal dexterity and manipulation of metre. She returned to her noisettesdechevreuilCumberland.
10
Dexter set up the Incident Room with her characteristic speed and accuracy. Her ability to focus was almost frightening to Underwood. All he had over her was experience, and every day Dexter was eating into that advantage. Underwood knew that it wouldn’t be long before she wanted to move on; before she realized he was holding her back. He wondered if Julia felt the same. Maybe he was paranoid. He was certainly scared. Scared of being alone. Underwood had never been alone before. He knew he would be soon: alone with himself.
The room was filling rapidly. Dexter had co-opted three detective constables to work with Harrison and herself on the house-to-house enquiries and two secretaries to work on the phones and the cross-referencing of information. A large white board had been put up at one end of the room. Dexter had pinned on it a picture of Lucy Harrington – obtained from the girl’s parents in Peterborough – next to the official crime-scene photographs. She always did this in a murder case. She liked people to remember that the victim was a person, not just a name or a set of horrific photographs. It was smart psychology but the juxtaposition made Underwood uncomfortable. Dexter had also attached cut-outs of recent newspaper articles about Harrington’s gold medal. Above them was a large blue paper sheet detailing the known facts of the case. Underwood and Leach were standing in the centre of the semicircle of plastic desks. There was a polite white noise of chatter. Marty Farrell, one of the scene-of-crime officers, was leaning back against a radiator. He offered Dexter a cigarette. She refused.
Underwood was finding it increasingly difficult to order his mind. Julia infected his every thought like a virus. Drawing energy from some hidden reserve, he eventually addressed the room.
‘Let’s get started. Lucy Harrington, twenty-six years old, single. Famous swimmer and local celebrity. She leaves a reception at the Civic Hall last night at around eleven o’clock. Drives home. It takes about fifteen minutes, assuming she didn’t stop anywhere. We don’t think she did.
‘Once inside the house she was attacked from behind and killed. The body was found in her bathroom this morning after a tip-off, presumably from the killer, was received by a reporter at the NewBoldenEcho.
‘I have asked Sergeant Dexter to put together a list of Harrington’s family and acquaintances. However, this is a particularly unusual assault: almost ritualistic in certain aspects. We should consider the possibility that we might have a serial murderer on our patch.’ Underwood nodded at Leach who cleared his throat and began his report.
‘Post-mortem has confirmed that time of death was sometime between eleven last night and one o’clock this morning. I’m afraid I can’t be much more accurate. The body and clothes were partially immersed in cold water. Cause of death was massive trauma to the brain following at least two sharp blows to the back of the skull.’
He held up a grisly picture of the back of Lucy Harrington’s head. ‘The occipital bone was impacted here, pretty much on the line of the lambdoidal suture. The diameter of the wound was approximately two inches. I would guess that the murder weapon was a steel hammer, a metal pipe or something very similar. Death would have been almost instantaneous. Considering what happened next we should be thankful for small mercies, I suppose.
‘After inflicting these blows, the killer turned the body over and surgically removed the victim’s left eye. This would have taken some time.’ Leach brushed the sweat from his brow as he continued. ‘He tried to do it scientifically at first but eventually resorted to brute force. I would guess one to two hours. Presumably after he had completed the operation, the killer turned on both bath taps and flooded the room. The search for forensic evidence is ongoing, but we don’t hold out much hope.’
A hand went up. DC Jensen: she was blonde and attractive. Heads turned quickly.
‘Was there any sexual interference, sir?’ she asked Underwood.
‘Apparently not,’ he replied.
‘The victim was found fully clothed and there does not appear to have been any sexual violation. We can’t find any bite marks, semen or saliva residues from the killer. Although I should point out that the water prevents us from making any final conclusions,’ Leach added.
Underwood took over again. ‘There are woods at the back of the property. My guess is that the killer came out the front door and made off through the back garden, climbed the fence (there are traces of Lucy’s blood on it) and legged it through the woods.’
He paused for breath. ‘Uniform are sweeping the woods but as yet they’ve drawn a blank.’ He moved to a large map of the area that Dexter had pinned to the board at the far end of the room. ‘The paths through the woods end at these points.’ He gestured at the five red stars on the map. ‘Three come out on London Road and two on Hartfield Road, here and here. If he drove – and bearing in mind that he was covered in blood afterwards, I think he had to – then he must have parked near one of these locations. I want you to check with the locals, see if anyone saw a car or a van parked nearby.’
DS Harrison had been carefully making notes, his face furrowed with ever-deepening lines of confusion. He looked up at Underwood. ‘Guv, I just can’t get a handle on this. What’s his motive? It’s clearly not a burglary gone pear-shaped. It’s not a sexual assault, as far as we know. If he just wanted to kill her – you know, like a domestic gone haywire or something – then there are much easier ways to do it. And why did he screw with her eye? The Doc said that takes time. Time means risk. He must have really wanted it.’
‘A souvenir,’ Dexter suggested. ‘I’ve read that some of these sick bastards like to take something that belonged to the victim. So they can relive the event afterwards.’
Harrison was unconvinced. ‘Yeah, but why not a lock of hair or some of her clothes? Much easier and far less messy. I think this guy has a seriously twisted imagination. I reckon he’s going to do it again.’
Underwood nodded. ‘The eye obviously has some special significance for him. The killer also wrote some text on the bathroom wall with some of the victim’s blood. Have we figured out what it is yet, Dex?’
‘Not yet, sir.’ She flipped open her notebook and read aloud: ‘Draw not up seas, to drowne me in thy spheare.’
‘Water,’ said Harrison. ‘He flooded the place, didn’t he? Maybe it wasn’t just to corrupt the crime scene. To drowne me in thy spheare. “Spheare” could mean eye. Draw not up water to drown me in your eyes. Don’t drown me with your tears. Sounds like a love song.’
The image of the blood-blackened eye socket and the filthy, thick water flashed across Underwood’s mind. Eyes. Water. Blood. Harrison had made a connection of sorts. It was something. They were up and running.
‘Dex, get Harrison to help you find out where that text comes from.’ Dexter nodded and shot a dark look at Harrison. She was irritated that he had made a connection she had missed. Underwood’s request implied that Harrison was more likely to source the text than she was. That rankled. However, now that the savage peculiarities of the murder had become clearer to her, she did agree with Harrison on one thing: this was just the beginning.
11
Heather Stussman left her rooms in Southwell College’s Osbourne Court and headed for the porter’s lodge. It was late afternoon. The interminable East Anglian rain had finally passed. Sunlight was starting to drizzle through the fragmenting grey clouds, glinting in the large puddles of rainwater that had gathered in the corner of the Court. The rain had scared off the tourists and the old college was wonderfully quiet. The air was clean and sharp like newly cut glass: maybe things were starting to look up.
Mr Johnson (the head porter) nodded curtly as Stussman entered the lodge. He didn’t speak. Presumably he was as unimpressed with her as McKensie and Dixon had been at lunch. Her pigeonhole was crammed with mail: university flyers, adverts for music recitals, a letter from her publisher, two personal letters – one from her mother in America and another written in a spidery hand she did not recognize. She stuffed the wedge of paper into her rucksack and headed out of the lodge up Trumpington Street. She turned left at the Silver Street junction and crossed the river over Silver Street Bridge, catching a waft of beer from The Anchor on her way.
Her lecture series, ‘Reconstructing Donne’, was based on her recent book. Stussman had set about the academic orthodoxy on the Metaphysical Poets with a ferocity she was beginning to regret. The NewYorkTimesBookReview had pretty much caught the critical response: ‘Stussman’s attack on post-structuralism is memorable more for its vigour than its rigour.’ The others weren’t much better. ‘Try to avoid meeting Dr Stussman down an intellectual dark alley,’ warned the WashingtonPost: ‘her vitriol is fatal at ten paces.’
Both of these reviews were better than the one in the SundayTelegraph, which had described her as ‘bereft of empathy, temptingly putdownable and probably certifiable’. The controversy had sold more books than she had ever expected. Her lecture classes were extremely well attended. However, she had clearly got the bird from the grey-hairs at the English Faculty who had given her the highly unpopular five p.m. lecture slot. Perhaps she was being paranoid. She doubted it.
The faculty site at Cambridge was a spectacular architectural horror. The dismal cluster of buildings resembled an old Eastern Bloc military hospital. The lecture rooms were no better. They were small, badly ventilated and uncomfortable. Stussman longed for the airy auditorium at the University of Wisconsin, with its remote-control slide projector and sound system. Still, at least the room was full and not many lecturers could claim that distinction. She noticed that for the second week running her audience was mostly male. Next time she would wear trousers.
‘Last week, we talked about the intellectual context of metaphysical poetry. We talked about its associations with the religious uncertainties of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and with the rise of humanist philosophy during the Renaissance. Today, I’d like to consider the anatomy of metaphysical poetry. In particular, the intellectual and stylistic devices deployed by the poets to force home their points. If we accept the view that many of these pieces were composed for a highly specific coterie audience, then we need to understand what that audience was looking for. Foremost among the literary devices used was die “conceit”. Who can explain that to us?’ There was a shuffling of feet and a couple of nervous coughs. She had expected this. British students were notoriously taciturn. She pointed at a shaggy student in the front row who seemed to be fixated on her ankles. ‘How about you?’ He jumped slightly and sat up in his chair.
‘Well, a conceit is a kind of metaphor. A clever image used to make an argumentative point.’
‘Good. A conceit is a metaphor or simile that appears at first glance to be unusual, improbable or even shocking. However, as the poet develops the image, the reader is gradually persuaded of its intellectual value.’ She heard a few students starting to scribble notes. The sound was always rewarding. ScrewtheNewYorkTimesBookReview. ‘John Donne famously compares a humble flea with a marriage bed. He is trying to seduce a woman and bitterly complains that because the flea has sucked his blood and his lover’s it has enjoyed a closer intimacy with her than he has.’ More scribbling. She was beginning to relax. Next week she would try making a joke.
It was dark when Stussman left the Faculty. The reflected lights of Queen’s College wobbled brightly in the black Cam as she retraced her steps across Silver Street Bridge. There was a lot of traffic in Cambridge, far more than the small town deserved, and Stussman was soaked with spray from the roadside puddles by the time she arrived at her rooms. She could hear her phone trilling sharply behind the door. She fumbled with the key and stepped quickly inside, making it to her cluttered desk just in time.
‘Heather Stussman.’ There was a faint crackle of electricity. Then she heard the voice that would come to haunt the silent spaces of her existence.
‘Your book is promising.’
‘Pardon?’
‘The newspapers have mistaken your originality for carelessness. Sadly, your obsession with logical clarity seems to have dulled your empathetic reflexes.’
‘I’m sorry. Who is this?’
‘Did you receive my letter?’
‘If you don’t tell me your name, I won’t know if your letter arrived or not.’
‘It would have arrived this morning,’ the voice said simply.
Stussman paused. This was getting weird. Her mind chewed over the alternatives: a practical joke, maybe. It was probably Mark, an ex-boyfriend from Wisconsin now researching Milton in Edinburgh. He could do all sorts of funny accents. She reached into her rucksack and pulled out the envelope, still unopened, that she had received earlier in the day. She wedged the phone between her right cheek and her collarbone and tore the envelope open. Inside was a neatly folded piece of writing paper.
‘What does the letter contain?’ said Crowan Frayne.
‘A line of poetry.’
‘You recognize it, of course?’
‘Is this some kind of joke? If that’s you, Mark, I’m going to kick your ass.’
‘Tell me.’ The voice was insistent. Stussman could feel the frustration rising within her.
‘It’s a fragment from “A Valediction: Of Weeping” by John Donne.’
‘You are familiar with it?’
‘It’s all in the book, Buster – maybe you should read it more closely.’
