Part 4 (1/2)
Jane just managed to make it into the bathroom before she threw up. The images had taken her unawares again, despite her best intention to block out any invasion. She still couldn't understand how this man was able to enter her mind, seemingly at will. This time she had not known the victim but she knew the killer. His scent was still wrapped thickly around her tongue and he tasted bad. She spat the remains of acidic vomit from her mouth into the sink and stared down at the splattered white porcelain, gripping the edges fiercely. The odd thing was that she had no sense of the here and now about this murder. It was almost as though she was watching a delayed playback. Quite how this was possible was only the latest in a growing list of questions.
She had hoped to enlist the help of Karl Meyers' son, but Detective Inspector Danny was carrying a deep-seated grudge against her based on the past, and in truth she couldn't blame him. At least Lana Genovese had found something more interesting to do and had disappeared for now. Perhaps the dead woman was satisfied that she had taken the case and would leave her to work it in peace.
She rinsed her mouth from the tap and spat the last of the bad taste out. Her first thought had been to leave town until the whole thing pa.s.sed over, but she knew that there was no way place she could run to that would be far enough away. For whatever reason, this killer was locked onto her. She was seeing through his eyes and that wasn't about to stop any time soon.
The other problem with running was that once she started, she was not sure that she could stop. 8 years ago she had foolishly rushed into the bas.e.m.e.nt of Arthur Durage convinced that he was the Crucifier serial killer. Her actions had led directly to the deaths of both Karl Meyers and Arthur Durage himself. After that night, she had been buried by the police and pushed aside by Karl's family to the point that she had only been able to observe her friend's funeral from a safe distance.
The phone rang in the other room and she wandered to pick it up without much enthusiasm. There was a tight knot in her stomach that told her that the point of no return was about to be pa.s.sed. She knew who was on the other end of the line without picking it up, just as she knew that the news was bad.
”h.e.l.lo, Danny,” she answered.
”Ms Parkes,” he began unsurely, before pausing.
Jane waited patiently in the silence, instinctively knowing that the man was having trouble coming to terms with calling her.
”s.h.i.+t..., I don't even know why I'm calling,” he finally said, sighing heavily. ”Look, there's been another murder. I've just spent the last hour at a very unpleasant crime scene. Fortunately for you, the doc puts the time of death at around about when I was with you late yesterday or just a little after. Certainly you wouldn't have had time to reach the crime scene so as alibis go, that's a pretty good one.”
”I know, I saw it happen, just like the first one,” Jane ventured. ”Well ... almost.”
This time the silence was even longer.
”Look. I don't know what any of this means or just what your motives are. I know that my father was usually a pretty good judge of character and that was one of the things that he pa.s.sed down to me. Everything in my gut says that you're on the level or, at the very least, you believe that you are.”
”Danny, I don't expect you to believe any of what I've got to say - you don't have to. All I ask is that you listen and keep whatever I tell you in mind during your investigation. I never received a penny from the police or your father. I never wrote a book or did a talk show or tried to cash in in any way and I don't plan on starting now.”
”Can I come and see you later this afternoon, say around 5?” he asked politely.
”Sure, swing by and I'll try and tell you what I can.”
”Ms Parkes?”
”How did I know about you being gay?”
”Was it something in my manner? My walk? The way I talk?”
”Sometimes I just know things, Danny, and they're not always bad.”
Danny Meyers headed into the station, still confused by his conversation with the Parkes woman. He'd spent so long picturing her as the charlatan who'd been responsible for his father's death, but now he couldn't marry the image that he'd carried with the woman that he'd finally met. He had indeed inherited many things from his father and his gut instincts had served him well during his career. It was those instincts that were now telling him to listen. He pushed aside these thoughts for now; he had far more pressing matters to attend to.
Faircliff station was a large and modern building with its superintendant sitting perched high upon his perch on the top floor. As far as Danny was concerned, Chalmers' best position was in his office far removed from the day-to-day grind of the job. The man was an effective paper pusher and could officiate with the best of them, but he was no copper.
Detective Constable Tim Selleck met him as he pa.s.sed through the lobby area, opening the secure door that led into the station beyond the public access.
”Is the team gathered?” Danny asked, knowing full well that it would have been. Selleck was a reliable officer and his right hand.
”Yes, Boss,” the young man answered.
Danny had no use for ”Sir” amongst his team. They were on the front lines together and ”Boss” sufficed.
He headed upstairs and along the corridor towards the large communal office that the investigative team shared. Faircliff was a relatively small town with thankfully only a limited amount of serious crime and most of that was in the hands of amateurs.
There were 5 of them in total, including him. Selleck was a DC and what was commonly referred to as a ”bagman”, a guy who carried the metaphorical bags for the boss. There was Kim Croft, the resident civilian admin a.s.sistant. Danny had plucked her from the secretarial pool, recognising a fiercely bright woman who was wasting away without challenges. Sergeant Eileen Landing was a short, somewhat rotund, woman with a bulldog att.i.tude that never quit once she'd sunk her teeth into something, be it a case or a sandwich. Her partner was DC Bryan Wilson, a veteran of the force but one who had never risen above his rather junior rank. He was a man who had forgotten more about the job than most of them would ever know but his personal life had not sat well with their superiors. Wilson had worked Vice back in the day and had formed a romantic attachment to a working girl that he had rescued from a particularly vicious pimp. The fact that Wilson and the girl had been married for over 20 years now still didn't offset her previous occupation as far as the bosses were concerned. Danny had nothing but admiration for the man who had stuck to his guns no matter the cost to his career, and he was a valuable a.s.set.
Danny knew that a lot of his admiration for Wilson derived from the fact that his own personal life was a closely-guarded secret. Just how Jane Parkes had managed to deduce his s.e.xual orientation from one brief look still mystified him. It wasn't that he was in any way ashamed of being gay, it was just that no matter what the posters said on the outside when he'd joined, the police force was still some way behind the times when it came to accepting anything new. He had realised from the very beginning that there was a low tolerance for his kind and as the years had pa.s.sed and the gla.s.s ceiling began to lift, he wanted no part of any promotion that came as a direct result of his s.e.xuality. He was no one's poster boy and wouldn't be pushed out in front of the cameras like a dancing monkey. Everything that he had, he'd earned through intelligence and hard work.
The chatter stopped as he entered the room and he was met with a respectful silence as upturned eyes looked to him for leaders.h.i.+p. It always gave him a sense of great pride.
He had been called out of a warm bed, and even warmer embrace, in the early hours of this morning to attend the scene of the latest murder. His first impression had immediately been that this killer was in serious danger of devolving. The scene was still carefully arranged, but the attack had been far more brutal than the first. He had been a student of the first Crucifier case, partly because of his father's involvement and partly because it was one of the most significant cases that the country had ever known.
He uncharacteristically closed the door behind him as he entered, to several raised eyebrows. ”Okay. First things first,” he started commandingly. ”There is to be no mention of the Crucifier outside of this office. None. Clear?”
Heads quickly bobbed up and down in silent agreement.
”Alright. Let's get to work,” Danny said as he approached the huge whiteboard that dominated the room.
As useful as computerised systems were, he needed to see the case in front of him. Pieces were strewn seemingly at random around the board. Photographs and reports were held in place by magnets as the images of before and after mingled perversely. Lana Genovese smiled down atop the board, her face happy and warm. Below that were images from her crime scene and autopsy mocking the life in her eyes. There were black lines drawn between her involvement in the original Crucifier case and the new. There was little reason to doubt that there was a connection.
Danny had little interest in ghost stories. As far as he was concerned, his father had brought down the Crucifier. Whoever had gone after Lana Genovese had intimate knowledge of the original case and that would only narrow the field.
”Anything come in on Lana Genovese?” he asked hopefully.
”Nothing, Boss,” Kim Croft shrugged.
”She was killed in the woods, no witnesses, nothing to suggest a motive as yet,” Wilson started. ”Well ... outside of the original case, that is,” he finished uncomfortably.
Danny had already set Wilson to work delving into the young woman's life, but so far nothing had raised any red flags. She had been a quiet woman who'd kept to herself, no jealous angry boyfriend, no disputes, just a life lived below the radar. They wouldn't stop looking for a motive, no matter how tempting it was to concentrate on her connection to Arthur Durage's bas.e.m.e.nt. ”Okay, last night's murder. What have we got so far?”
”Donna Moss,” DS Landing said, starting to read from her notes.
Danny winced at the sergeant's ketchup stains on her blouse. He always felt like he could almost tell the time of day by the remnants on her clothing. She favoured a bacon or sausage sandwich for breakfast and she always seemed to end up wearing part of it. He made sure that all of his detectives wore suits and projected an aura of professionalism at all times.
”22 years old, American citizen working as an au pair for a Mr and Mrs Spencer here in Faircliff,” Landing finished.
”No priors, no record of any kind, not even a parking ticket,” DC Wilson chipped in. ”Here legally, pa.s.sport and visa all in order, nothing about her anywhere in the system.”
”Witnesses?” Danny asked.
”Nothing yet. No one has come forward. The body was discovered by a park keeper a..., Malcolm Procter,” DC Selleck replied.
”So far nothing to cause any suspicion,” Wilson added.
”I interviewed him this morning myself; he seemed on the level,” Landing shrugged. ”He was pretty shook up by what he found, even puked.”
Danny trusted her judgement without question, but it was always his procedure to double interview any potential witnesses/suspects and he would talk to the guy himself at some point. ”CCTV?”
”The footage is being dropped off later this morning,” Selleck said. ”There's pretty good coverage of the park because of the kiddies' playground. The council actually stumped up the cash for once to pay for the installation, just in case someone tried to s.n.a.t.c.h a child.”
”Good,” Danny nodded. ”You go through them when they come in and Wilson will take a look afterwards.”