The Yeare's Midnight (17 page)

‘Go fuck yourself, McKensie.’

McKensie smirked: the girl certainly had spirit. He called out after her, ‘I frequently do, dearie. Though I doubt I could manage it as effectively as you have.’

Underwood sat in his office. He had dialled Julia’s number into his mobile but had not quite mustered the courage to call her yet. The interview with Heyer had been revealing. He had looked into the stranger’s eyes, the same eyes in which his wife saw some hope, some knicker-wetting false hope, and he had seen fear. Not many people were frightened of Underwood any more; it felt refreshing. Heyer had been afraid because he had something to hide and Underwood knew fully what that was: the impending destruction of his, Underwood’s, marriage, the corruption of his wife. It had been sweet to watch Heyer squirm but now he would have to be more careful. Still, despite everything there was a sadness nagging at Underwood’s heart. Whatever acidic gloss he daubed over the situation, however he tried to blot the thought from his mind, Paul Heyer had struck Underwood as a fundamentally decent man.

Jensen was at the door. ‘Sir. Have you got a second?’

‘Come in.’

‘I have put together the list of people arrested for housebreaking in the area as you requested. It’s pretty long, I’m afraid, over a hundred names.’

‘I thought there’d be more, to be honest.’ Underwood was only half-interested. ‘We seem to spend half our lives chasing burglars.’

‘I’ve only gone back five years, sir. There’ll be a lot more if I extend the search.’

‘No, let’s start with that. Cross off people aged under twenty-five and over forty-five. See how many that leaves us with.’

‘What’s the logic there, sir?’

‘As I understand it, most serial killers are aged between twenty-five and forty. What they do requires planning and control. Characteristics of an older man.’

‘I see.’ Jensen tried not to smirk and scribbled a note on the page. ‘Everyone’s calling him a serial killer but he’s only killed one person so far, sir.’

‘One that we know about. They’ll be more if we don’t get our shit together.’ Underwood thought for a second. ‘The likelihood is he’s white too, so take out members of all other ethnic groups.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Serial killers tend to stick to their own.’

‘I’ll get on it. Shall I run the remaining names through DVLA and see if any of them own a white Escort?’

‘You might as well but we still don’t know for sure that our man even drives a white Escort.’

‘OK. Forensic identified the flower petals, sir: the one you found at the Harrington girl’s back door and the ones Dexter found in the woods by the house.’

‘Go on.’

‘They’re African violets.’

‘Violets?’

‘Saintpaulia
ionantha,’
Jensen said after checking her notebook. ‘Pretty common, I’m afraid. Old ladies like them, according to Harrison.’

‘Are there any nurseries or flower shops around here?’

She had anticipated this and flipped her notebook open again.
‘Two shops in New Bolden and a nursery out near Feldreth. Worth checking, sir?’

‘Probably not, but let’s roll the dice. Take a trip round them. Ask a few questions. You might be able to turn something up.’

Dexter brushed past Jensen at the door. She had a habit of breezing in when Jensen was alone in the office with Underwood.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Dexter, brisk and businesslike. ‘We just got a fax of possible names from Dr Stussman.’

‘Is that all, then, Jensen?’ Underwood asked.

‘Yes, sir.’ She hesitated, ‘Do you mind if I hang on for a second, sir? I’d be interested in what the detective sergeant has to say.’ Jensen smiled sweetly at Dexter.

‘Be my guest,’ said Underwood.

Dexter bristled. She spoke quickly, hoping Jensen wouldn’t be able to follow her train of logic. ‘Stussman said that Lucy Harrington’s name was important. The name is the connection with the writing on the bathroom wall, the same text that Stussman received in the post. Four hundred years ago someone called Lucy Harrington was a patron of the poet John Donne.’

‘I asked Stussman to send us a list of other individuals connected with John Donne,’ said Underwood to Jensen.

‘There’re thirteen names on the list,’ Dexter continued, ‘eight of them women.’

She handed the fax to Underwood. He ran his fingers through his hair as if to push back the tiredness; some strands came away in his hand.

‘None of the names are that common, I suppose,’ he observed. ‘That’s the good news.’ He scanned the fax carefully, then shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Dex, this seems a bit far-fetched to me: all that stuff about coteries and like-minded individuals. The killer would be taking a huge risk if he limited himself to this list of names. He’s probably guessed that Stussman has made the name connection.’

‘Two things, sir,’ said Dexter. ‘For whatever reason, I think that he
wanted
Stussman to give us the names. Remember, she said he told her to “explain it to the police”. He wouldn’t do that if it was likely to make him vulnerable.’

‘What’s the second thing?’

‘I was thinking, sir: there’s no risk to him at all if he’s already done one of them.’

Underwood looked outside. It seemed to get dark by mid-afternoon. He hated December, the deepest, darkest pit of the year. ‘Let’s get cracking, then,’ he said quietly. ‘You two go through the list together. See if any people with those names live locally; use telephone directories, the electoral register, police records. Get someone to do a news run on the names. Our man likes to read the papers, doesn’t he?’

Dexter and Jensen exchanged a none-too-happy look and trooped out. Underwood looked at the list in front of him. Old-fashioned names. He noticed that Lucy Harrington was in two categories, ‘Dedications’ and ‘Patrons’. Scanning down the list he saw that no other name was entered in two columns. Except Drury: Sir Robert Drury and Elizabeth Drury. Was that significant? He searched on his desk for Stussman’s phone number. His desk looked like a tornado had torn across it. He found the scrap of paper and dialled. The phone rang once.

‘Heather Stussman.’ There was a nervous edge to her voice.

‘Dr Stussman. This is John Underwood, from New Bolden CID.’

He heard her relax. ‘Thank God. Every time the phone rings I have a baby.’

‘No contact from our man, I suppose,’ asked Underwood. Why did he feel nervous?

‘Nothing. Your friends at Parker’s Piece have sent my bodyguard over, though.’

‘Good. You’re perfectly safe there, Heather.’ Underwood knew that the words sounded empty. He also knew that he had called her by her first name and felt a tired thud of excitement. Desire and despair.

‘I guess so. I just feel kind of exposed.’

‘I need to ask you a question about the list you sent to us.’ Underwood was trying not to think of an exposed Heather Stussman but it was a compelling image.

‘Shoot.’

‘Robert Drury and Elizabeth Drury. Were they blood relations or husband and wife?’

‘Father and daughter. Is that important?’

‘I’m not sure. Other than Harrington, Drury is the only name that appears in two of your columns. Bearing in mind what happened to Lucy Harrington, I thought it might be worth checking out.’

‘OK.’ Stussman paused for a second to take a sip of coffee. ‘It’s a sad story, actually. Sir Robert Drury was a wealthy Suffolk landowner who had participated in the Cadiz expedition – you know, singeing the King of Spain’s beard and all that. Poets like Donne were dependent upon wealthy patrons like Drury or Lucy Harrington and Donne made a concerted effort to win favour with Sir Robert. In 1610, Sir Robert’s fifteen-year-old daughter Elizabeth died of some infection – we don’t know exactly what. Now, some commentators believe that Donne used the death of the girl to ingratiate himself with Sir Robert.’

‘By writing about her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

The penny dropped. Stussman’s hand felt clammy against the phone. ‘My God, John, you think he’s going to look for an Elizabeth Drury?’

‘If he hasn’t found her already. I’d better go. Call me if anything else occurs to you.’

‘Will do.’

Underwood hung up. He was attracted to Stussman but instead of stimulating him it just impaled him on the spike of his own worthlessness. He recalled a phrase: ‘Despair is easy to manage, but hope destroys you.’ Who had said that? A terrible weariness was seeping into him: a miserable sense of resignation. Perhaps he was going to die: they said animals wanted to be alone when they sensed their own death. Now, suddenly, Underwood just wanted to go home. Lucy Harrington’s killer was playing a game that required energy and Underwood had none left. He walked through to the Incident Room where Jensen and Dexter were arguing about how best to apportion responsibility for locating the owners of names on the list. Underwood summarized his conversation with Stussman, telling them to concentrate
their immediate efforts on the names Robert and Elizabeth Drury.

Dexter sensed a new sadness in her boss as she watched him leave: he had suddenly looked very small, pathetic almost. Outside the Incident Room Underwood was trying to blot Julia from his mind. Would she be waiting for him at home? He couldn’t bear to think of her, soiled by a stranger: except, of course, Heyer wasn’t a stranger any more. For a split second, Underwood occupied the space where Julia’s lips touched Paul Heyer’s and their pressure crushed the breath from him. It was only when he had returned to his office and cleared his clagging chest that he remembered Stussman had called him by his first name.

Dexter began with the telephone directories, just as Crowan Frayne had done, and turned up the same ten names in Cambridgeshire. Unlike Frayne she called each of the numbers in turn. It was a laborious process and after an hour and a half she had only got through to four of the ten numbers. No Elizabeths or Roberts but plenty of confusion and hostility. She became frustrated and handed over the task to Jensen who grudgingly accepted and spent the remainder of the day angrily listening to interminable ringing tones in empty houses.

Dexter began to sift through electoral registers. She began with New Bolden and after an hour had drawn a complete blank. With a heavy heart she had turned to Cambridge and eventually found a Robert Drury, living on Bentley Road. She immediately called and learned from a cleaner that Mr Drury had been taken into Addenbroke’s for observation after a kidney failure. Mr Drury was eighty-six. Dexter ploughed on: she knew that the electoral registers weren’t perfect. For a start, they were out of date and didn’t seem to have been amended for two years. Secondly, although they broke out family composition they did not include the names of people below voting age. Underwood had told her that the original Elizabeth Drury had only been fifteen when she died.

Police records were equally unhelpful. There were no Drurys whatsoever on file. ‘Law-abiding folk,’ mused Dexter. ‘Not even a shoplifter.’ She thought about the killer. He had found Lucy Harrington in a newspaper. A public data source. The likelihood was that he would look for Elizabeth Drury using other public sources: that would make it harder for the police to trace him. He was probably using something like a telephone directory or a newspaper.

Belatedly, Dexter remembered Underwood’s request for a news run. The County Police Headquarters in Huntingdon has access to a computer software program that could search for names and headlines in the local and national press. She looked at the clock: it was after six. The information office would be shut by now. She cursed herself for forgetting and left a voicemail message on the enquiry number requesting a two-year text run on Robert Drury and Elizabeth Drury for first thing in the morning. Dexter walked into Underwood’s office to tell him that the news run would be delayed: the office was empty. Dexter returned to the Incident Room and watched her reflection in the window: the blackening sky pawed at the glass. Maybe Underwood had gone home: she hoped so – he looked crumpled. She settled in for a long night with the electoral registers for Ely, Peterborough, Huntingdon, and the rural constituencies of Waterskill, Holton, Evebury and Afton.

Dr Elizabeth Drury gave up waiting for Thomas Stiglitz at 6.45 that night. She was disappointed not to have seen her old acquaintance but was determined not to sit around in an empty building all night waiting for him. After all, Stiglitz had told her assistant that he had a plane to catch that night: perhaps he had been delayed elsewhere and had decided to go straight to the airport. Still, it would have been nice of him to call. Fortunately, she got a taxi almost immediately outside the clinic
and jumped out at Liverpool Street station at 7.15 exactly. The train journey was as stuffy and unpleasant as always. Drury was mildly irritated that people who obviously had standard-class tickets were standing in first class. Still, at least she had a seat.

There was a tall dead-eyed youth standing with his back to her. She tried to blot out the electronic tippy-tappy of his personal headset and rustled her newspaper in annoyance. There was no peace anywhere. No quality anywhere. She felt life in Britain had been dumbed down and dragged to the lowest common denominator: the National Gallery had become filled with what seemed to her to resemble a football crowd. Conversely, she had read that football crowds had become flooded with people who used to go to the National Gallery. Paying for a first-class ticket now meant you could sit in sweltering, sweaty heat with a man’s backside next to your face for an hour and listen to the machine music that was battering his brain cells. ‘There is no beauty but the self.’ She had written that sentence to conclude
The
Weight
of
Expectation
: now she was beginning to believe it.

The cold air and stillness of Afton station was a huge relief: like diving into an ice-cold swimming pool on a stifling day. After the cramped tin-can suffocation of the train, even the inside of her Audi felt like a luxury leather armchair. She flicked the ignition and before driving off chose some music:
Miserere
mei,
Deus
by Allegri. She closed her eyes for a second as the piece started, still the most beautiful choral arrangement she had ever heard. She secured her seat belt and reversed out of the parking space. It was a shame that she had not been able to see Stiggy, she mused as she pulled away: his work on the genetic inheritance of the characteristics leading to obesity had influenced much of her own thinking. She turned left out of the car park. Twenty yards behind her, Crowan Frayne switched on his headlights.