The Yeare's Midnight (25 page)

Underwood heard that. The idea was compelling.

‘So what are we saying here, in summary?’ Dexter asked.

‘The names of the victims are drawn from known members of John Donne’s creative and personal circles. The killer is focused on the idea of a coterie: an audience of like-minded intellectuals,’ said Stussman. ‘The poems address certain common issues. The power of the rational will, the exaltation of dead or sick women, the importance of celestial forces and the notion of microcosms: shrinking concepts or physical entities of giant proportions into something that is tiny by comparison.’

‘Like an eye,’ said Dexter quietly.

Underwood stayed behind as Dexter and Stussman made their way through to the Incident Room. He could hear the other detectives gathering and picked out Leach’s stentorian tones booming above the mêlée.

He had to clear his head.
Julia
is
screwing
Paul
Heyer.
They
are
going
away
together.
How could he sleep for the next week knowing that his wife was getting fucked by another man? He had to do something. Jealous, impotent rage was eating at his every waking moment. He was going mad.
Got
to
do
something;
use
the
power
of
the
rational
will.
Gain
control.

‘We’re ready in here, guv,’ called Harrison from the Incident Room.

‘On my way.’ Underwood gathered his papers and walked across the corridor. Perhaps he could make something happen. He had to seize the initiative.

The atmosphere was tense. The room had filled quickly and the new photographs on Dexter’s board reminded everyone of the consequences of failure. Even Jensen had lost some of her natural ebullience after seeing the images. First Lucy Harrington and now Elizabeth Drury: the newspapers would tear the police apart. There would be massive pressure from above and shit invariably flows downhill. Underwood, coughing and pale, came into the room and nodded at Leach who gathered his notes and came to the front of the room. Heather Stussman stood with Dexter against the back wall: a number of male eyes watched her. She ignored them.

‘OK. You all know what happened this morning,’ said Underwood. ‘Elizabeth Drury, thirty-seven, a leading dietician, found murdered at nine a.m. Similar circumstances to Lucy Harrington – Doctor Leach will tell you more. There are three things for us to concentrate on: one, how did the murderer find her? We almost didn’t find her at all. Two, how did he gain access? The house has a brand-new alarm system, security lights, panic alarm and yet there are no signs of forced entry. Three, the names of the victims are connected. The killer seems to be obsessed with a poet called John Donne: four hundred years ago Donne knew an Elizabeth Drury and a Lucy Harrington. Dr Stussman at the back there has provided us with a list of Donne’s other associates. Dexter used it and almost caught the bloke this morning. Dr Stussman, do you want to add anything on the names?’

Heather Stussman’s heart jumped as the collective attention of the room turned back to her. ‘Erm. All I’d add is that the killer seems to be focused on the notion of having a coterie. When these poems were written four hundred or so years ago, they were written for, and read aloud to, a specific audience: an audience that would appreciate the wit and logic of the poetry.’ She noticed the blank looks and for a second thought she was lecturing in Wisconsin again. ‘I am no expert on crime but I
think your murderer has chosen these women – and me, I suppose – as his coterie audience. He is performing for us; he wants us to appreciate his wit.’

‘Wit?’ said Harrison drily. ‘I don’t see anyone laughing.’

‘Wit doesn’t refer exclusively to humour,’ Stussman explained. ‘In Latin, for example, one word for wit is the same as the word for salt: “sal”. That’s because wit in ancient Rome was associated with intellectual sharpness – salt tastes sharp, right? Likewise, to the aristocratic coterie audience that Donne and the other metaphysical poets performed to, wit didn’t just mean being funny: it meant using bold, sometimes shocking images to get their points across.’

‘Can you give us an example?’ Harrison was beginning to get the point.

‘In a poem called “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” John Donne famously compares two lovers with mathematical compasses. As one foot of the compass moves away from the other, so the other leans after it. This in Donne’s mind reflected the soul of a lover seeking out its partner when the two are separated.’ She looked around, gratified by the scratching pencils. ‘Wit, you see.’

There was a silence. Underwood tried to push Julia from his thoughts and turned to Leach. ‘Doctor, do you want to give us a preliminary report on the scene of crime and the victim?’

‘Of course.’ Leach flipped open his notepad. ‘Judging from the pattern of blood dispersal I would say the victim was killed downstairs in the hallway, then dragged up to the bathroom. Her left eye was removed post-mortem, just as Lucy Harrington’s was, only this time more successfully.’ Leach looked at Underwood. ‘He’s getting better at it.’ Dexter shivered. It could have been her picture up on the board. Leach continued, ‘Time of death would be early this morning, say eight o’clock. She called her office at 7.40 and there is undigested breakfast cereal in the woman’s stomach.’

‘That’s a different MO, sir,’ said Jensen to Underwood. ‘Harrington was killed late at night.’

‘The burglar alarm,’ said Dexter. ‘She would have turned it off in the morning before she left for work.’

‘Except she wasn’t going to work,’ Leach replied. ‘Both the tyres on the passenger side of her car had been deflated. Presumably by the killer.’

‘So he stopped her from leaving, then biffed her as she went back to the house?’ Harrison was working the scene in his head.

‘There are no signs of struggle outside the house. It looks like he attacked her inside,’ Leach added.

‘Why would she let a stranger into her house at eight in the morning?’ asked Jensen.

Leach considered. ‘Well, what would
you
have done in her shoes, Jensen? A woman living alone, you need to get to work early and you find your tyres are flat.’

‘I suppose I’d call a cab,’ she replied. Her mobile phone suddenly rang loudly. She scrambled to turn it off.

Dexter fired a withering look at Jensen. An idea struck her. ‘There was a breakdown-recovery company sticker in her car.’

‘Check it out,’ said Underwood, his concentration failing him. ‘Go on, Doctor.’

‘Death was caused by repeated blows to the back of the skull. I would guess with the same instrument that was used to kill Lucy Harrington.’

‘I saw two hammers on the bed before the guy hit me,’ said Dexter. ‘One was a claw hammer, the other one looked heavier – maybe a masonry hammer.’

‘If he’s a mason, we’ll never catch him,’ said Harrison. There was some laughter.

Dexter continued after a second. ‘There was a case on the bed, too. A rectangular leather case: black. About so big.’ She made the shape with her hands.

‘That’s interesting,’ said Leach. ‘Tell me, did it have any writing on it? A crest, maybe?’

‘What are you thinking, Doctor?’ asked Underwood.

‘He needs to keep his knives somewhere. There were tiny indentations in the woman’s head – four marks around her left eyebrow. I would guess that the killer used clamps to hold her eye open, to pull the eyelid back from the eye and hold it open. It looks to me as though your killer has got himself a proper set of surgical instruments from somewhere.’

‘Where would he get them, Doctor?’ The same idea had occurred to Dexter the previous day. She kicked herself for not following it up.

‘There are specialist suppliers in London. It would be risky buying from them, though, since you would need a medical ID and they would keep a record of all sales.’ Leach thought for a second. ‘Did the case look old-fashioned to you?’ he asked Dexter.

‘I suppose so. I didn’t see it that clearly. What are you saying?’

‘I was just thinking,’ Leach said. ‘Modern skin clamps wouldn’t have pierced the surface of the skin like these did. Your man likes history. Maybe he’s been antique shopping.’

Dexter nodded and made a note. She would check it out this time.

‘Anything else? Did he leave any trace evidence we could get a DNA match from?’ Underwood seemed restless.

Leach paused before he spoke. He wasn’t quite sure how to put this. ‘There’s good news, bad news and potentially
very
bad news. The good news is that Drury fought with him: there are small samples of skin under her fingernails. The bathwater didn’t wash it all away. There’s enough to give us a match if we catch the bloke. Whether it would stand up in court I don’t know: the defence could conceivably argue that the water and Drury’s blood corrupted the DNA, but let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. The bad news is that there are no fingerprints anywhere – other than Drury’s and Sergeant Dexter’s, of course. He wore gloves all the time.’

Underwood thought for a second. ‘And the very bad news?’

‘Elizabeth Drury’s blood is group A. Sergeant Dexter’s is O-positive. There are small samples of two other blood groups at the crime scene: AB-negative and O-negative. There are traces on Drury’s neck and on the bathroom floor.’

‘Fuck.’ Harrison got the point. ‘Two other people.’

‘At a guess, I would say there were traces of blood on his gloves. We know he grabbed Drury by the neck at some point as there is some minor bruising on either side of her windpipe. Not enough to strangle her, mind,’ said Leach.

‘And the bathroom floor?’ Dexter asked.

‘Perhaps he changed gloves before the operation on her eye,’ Leach volunteered. ‘If he was waiting outside he probably wore thick gloves. Once he went to work on the poor woman’s eye he would need to be more dexterous. I guess he changed to surgical gloves or maybe rubber washing-up gloves. Again, the presence of multiple blood samples at the scene might undermine the credibility of any DNA evidence we were to submit at a trial.’

‘I’m more concerned that there might be two other corpses with their eyes ripped out lying around somewhere,’ said Underwood. ‘Have we had anyone reported missing in the last two days?’

‘Not that I can remember, sir,’ said Harrison. ‘We’ll check.’

‘He’s taking more risks,’ said Underwood. ‘Why? He’s killed two, possibly four people, in three days. That’s a very close grouping. He took pains to ensure that the crime scene at Lucy Harrington’s was a forensic nightmare. He stakes her place out, kills her in the middle of the night, escapes through woodland: no one hears or sees a fucking thing. Virtually no risk.

‘Then there’s the names. We would never have understood the significance of the names without Dr Stussman – and the killer told her to contact us, to explain it all to us. He must have known that Dr Stussman would have understood the link between the poem found at Lucy Harrington’s house and her name. Presumably, he must also have known that Dr Stussman would give us a list of similar names. He took a big risk and the upshot was that Dexter walked right in on him.

‘He kills Drury first thing in the morning. She’s supposed to be at the office: they’re bound to wonder where she is. Risk. There’s more traffic in the morning, even out in Afton: more chance of being seen. Risk. Maybe he poses as a taxi driver or a repairman to get in to the house. Risk. He felt he had to kill Drury today.’

Dexter followed the logic. ‘Then there’s the blood. At Harrington’s there’s no DNA evidence at all. At Drury’s there’s loads – from at least three unidentified sources. Why did he let
that
happen? He is risking us making connections. The more connections we make, the more vulnerable he is: the more likely that someone sees something, or remembers something.’

‘He put Drury in the bath, though, didn’t he?’ said Harrison. ‘He still made some effort to corrupt physical evidence. Dr Leach said the fingernail samples might not be credible in court. That mean’s he’s achieved the same effect as he did at Lucy Harrington’s.’

‘For
in
a
common
bath
of
teares
it
bled.
’ Stussman’s American accent sounded incongruous. ‘At both murders he left behind text that referred to water.
Draw
not
up
seas
to
drowne
me
in
thy
spheare
was the other one. I think that the bodies in the bath are more about the consistency of poetic imagery than about messing up DNA evidence.’

‘Consistency of poetic imagery?’ Harrison’s thick eyebrows had climbed to the top of his forehead. ‘Do me a favour!’

‘Sure. He takes the girls’ eyes, right? Eyes produce tears. Both examples talk about being swamped by tears; overcome with pain. A conceit is supposed to seem absurd at first but gradually persuade us of its brilliance, make us realize the direction of his logic. Isn’t that what we’re doing now? Aren’t we starting to piece together what he’s doing, why he’s doing it? Maybe he’s taking more risks to ensure we understand what he’s saying.’

The room was quiet as everyone tried to absorb the significance of what she had said. Underwood got it first. ‘He’s running out of time.’

The meeting broke up. Underwood disappeared back to his office. Dexter waylaid Harrison and Jensen.

‘By the way, how’s that list of local B-and-E arrests coming along?’ she asked.

‘We’ve worked it down to eighteen possibles, based on age, ethnic background and nature of offence.’ Harrison showed her a list of names and addresses.

‘Who are these guys down at the bottom?’ There was a cluster of five surnames without addresses below the main list.

‘They fit the age and ethnic type and they’re more or less local but they’re all very minor offences; they all got warnings from the magistrates but weren’t even served with sentences,’ Jensen said.

‘Vandalism, creating a public nuisance, nicking cars – that sort of thing. None of them actually broke into any houses,’ Harrison added. ‘We were going to drop them off the list at its next iteration.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Dexter. ‘I’m beginning to think this housebreaker thing is a waste of time anyway. This guy sounds like a one-off head case to me. I doubt he’s got any previous, There’s no point creating extra work.’

‘Once we’ve got a final list, we’ll go round each of them and check out alibis for the ninth and this morning. Don’t hold your breath, though,’ Harrison said.

Dexter nodded and went off to find Underwood. Stussman had been loitering uncomfortably in the background and quickly followed in Dexter’s wake. Jensen returned to her computer and called up the list of names she had worked up with Harrison. She scrolled to the bottom and, as requested, deleted the names of Darren Burgess, Andrew Hills, Shane Briers, Martin McMahon and Crowan Frayne.

Underwood didn’t have time to get the bottle back in its drawer before Stussman and Dexter appeared.

‘John. Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Stussman. ‘I should have knocked.’ She looked embarrassed. Underwood cursed his stupidity, his clumsiness.

‘Don’t be silly. I have toothache. Whisky’s the only thing that helps.’ It was a transparently poor excuse.

‘A dentist might be kinder on your liver.’ Stussman smiled gently. She fancied a drink, too. Those pictures had upset her: she wasn’t looking forward to turning out the lights later.

‘Guv.’ Dexter rode roughshod over his embarrassment, like a tank in a field of strawberries. ‘Dr Stussman’s car is outside.’

‘Do you need me any more, John?’ Stussman asked.