The Yeare's Midnight (27 page)

‘Or maybe they surprised him?’

Leach nodded. ‘Very possibly. There doesn’t seem to be any damage to the eyes of either victim.’

‘Poor bastards.’ Dexter looked back at the car. ‘Harrison’s with the parents at the station. Common as muck, he reckons; they’re already blaming each other. We can do the formal IDs whenever it suits you.’

‘Tomorrow. I’ll need to look them both over tonight, then we’ll clean them up a bit. We can’t let the parents see them like this.’

‘Understood. I can’t believe this is happening, Doc. I thought it was supposed to be quiet country up here. It’s worse than London.’ She looked tired and tried to stifle a yawn.

‘A long day,’ Leach observed as he placed the possessions of Katie Hunt and Steve Riley in a secure evidence box. ‘Where’s your guv’nor, by the way? No offence, I’m sure you are at least as capable as he is, but shouldn’t he be here? It’s his disco, after all.’

‘He’s chasing up a possible suspect.’ Dexter wanted to believe that. ‘I tried to call him but his mobile’s switched off.’

‘A difficult character, is Underwood. An enigma wrapped inside a monumental pain in the arse.’

‘Impossible bloke.’ Dexter let her guard drop. ‘God, I’m knackered. Have you got time for a drink?’

Dexter updated Harrison over the phone and left the scene with Leach an hour later. They drove in a two-car convoy to the edge of New Bolden where they parked outside The Plume of Feathers and went in. It was warm and welcoming. Dexter suddenly felt exhausted.

‘Double Scotch?’ asked Leach, with the ghost of a smile.

‘For starters …’

They sat in a quiet corner of the dark-timbered pub, the open fire licking at their heels. Dexter stared into the bottom of her drink and blinked away the bloody eyeball that stared back at her.

‘How long have you been doing this, Doc?’

‘Drinking, or my Dr Frankenstein bit?’ Leach grinned. ‘Actually, the answer is roughly the same either way: about twenty years.’

Dexter took a swig of Scotch: it seared straight to the centre of her brain. Fantastic.

‘Have you ever seen anything like this?’

‘Like this? No. The organization of the killer and the post-mortem mutilations on the body are extraordinary, in my experience.’ He looked up at a framed certficate of beer-worthiness on the wall of the pub. ‘We still haven’t got any real idea why he’s doing it. That’s the most troubling thing, as far as I can see.’

‘He’s trying to recreate these poems, isn’t he? Dazzle us with his wit, Dr Stussman reckons.’

‘OK, so why the eyes of Drury and Harrington but not those of the Hunt girl?’

Dexter thought. ‘The names are important to him. They are the names of people in Donne’s intellectual circle, whatever that might be. His merry bleedin’ men, I suppose.’

‘But when he killed Riley and Hunt he broke his pattern anyway. So why not take their eyes and have done with it? Why kill them, then hang around in the area for another seven or eight hours risking detection just to get hold of Elizabeth Drury? As Underwood said, it’s a massive risk.’

‘Like I said, the names matter to him.’

‘I think it’s more than that. Harrington and Drury both had blue eyes, Riley and Hunt both had brown eyes.’

‘Come on, Doc! You don’t think this lunatic has a thing about blue-eyed girls, do you?’ She laughed bitterly. ‘Then again, why should he be any different to the rest of the male population?’

‘What I am saying is that serial killers have highly specific fantasies that they act out. Now, if blue eyes are central to your killer’s fantasy that is something specific that doesn’t, on the face of it, have anything to do with the poetry.’

Dexter saw the point. ‘The poems refer to eyes but not to blue eyes. It’s more general stuff about tears and oceans.’

‘Right. But in the two murders where the poetry was left behind, both the victims had blue eyes. Riley and Hunt both had brown eyes that he left alone.’

‘So what are you saying?’

‘Why would someone specifically want blue eyes as opposed to brown or green?’

Dexter got it. ‘Maybe he thinks that the eyes refer to a specific person. Some fantasy woman he’s created.’

‘Problem is –’ Leach paused for a sip of his whisky, half for effect ‘– he took the left eye in both cases. If you were creating a fantasy woman – you know, eyes that you could stare longingly into on those cold winter evenings – wouldn’t you take a right eye and a left eye?’

‘I would have taken both of Lucy Harrington’s eyes,’ Dexter replied. ‘I had her all to myself, no chance of interruption.’

‘Exactly. And she was an attractive girl: a fantasy figure, if you like.’

‘But he didn’t do that.’ Dexter felt a twinge of excitement as pennies began to drop. ‘He took double the risk to get Elizabeth Drury’s left eye. Then, when he bumps into Riley and Hunt and knocks them off too, he multiplies the risks again.’

‘And still hangs around for eight hours to get what he really wants,’ Leach emphasized. ‘Imagine staying near to a spot – a spot where you’ve just battered two people to death – for eight or nine hours: that takes incredible will-power. He must have really wanted that left eye.’

Will-power.
The
power
of
the
rational
will.
Dexter remembered Stussman’s phrase. She frowned. ‘Why would anyone want two left eyes?’

Leach scratched his head languidly. ‘You’re the detective.’

Harrison was pissed off. It had been the worst day he could remember in his eight years in the CID. Three bodies, the local and national press baying for blood, a serial killer at large, distraught parents and no decent leads. He and Jensen had spent two hours trying to console Suzie Hunt and June and Duncan Riley before the counsellors from Huntington had turned up. Arguments, tears, recriminations: two hours of wasted time.

What did they have to go on after a week of legwork? No
fingerprints, some scratchy DNA evidence, a phantom white van, African violets and a list of eighteen housebreakers that nobody believed would be of the slightest value. It was demoralizing. As was being ordered about by little Miss Bossy-Dexter. He would love to stick it to her. He would give it to her hard – across the desk, maybe. That would shut her up. He would make her squeak in her stupid cockney accent.
Strike
a
light
with
that,
darlin’.

He wished all female coppers were like Jensen. You could have a laugh with her and she didn’t mind putting it around a bit. He was planning to go round to her flat later: she only had a single bed but he didn’t plan on doing much sleeping. There was always the couch for that.

Jensen walked back into the crime room, looking exasperated.

‘Have they gone?’ Harrison asked.

‘Yes. Thank Christ.’ She took a cigarette from Harrison’s pack and lit it hurriedly. ‘God, that was awful. The girl’s mother says that they went out for drinks in Afton. I made some calls. The landlord of The Farmer’s Boy says they were in there until after nine.’

‘The parents are coming in at ten tomorrow for the IDs,’ said Harrison. ‘Dexter can do that. I’m through being a bloody counsellor.’

‘Where is she, anyway?’ Jensen asked. ‘Shouldn’t she be back by now?’

‘Should be. Still cleaning up the crime scene, I guess. It always takes a bit longer when you have to use the AMIP team: different teams have different methods.’

Jensen slumped in her chair and rustled the bewildering pile of paper in front of her. ‘This African-violet business is a waste of time.’

‘Of course it is. You don’t think that Dexter would have let you follow it up if it wasn’t, do you?’

‘I’ve called all the local flower shops and the nursery and none of them stock S
aintpaulia
-bleeding-
Ionantha
. Wrong time of year, apparently.’

‘Our man must grow his own. Nice relaxing hobby.’ Harrison laughed at the thought.

‘Tomorrow I’ll start the house-to-house on the list of burglars. I’m tired of shuffling the list about. We might as well start interviewing them all: getting alibis and that.’ Jensen exhaled the blue cigarette smoke with a sigh of pleasure.

‘That’s gonna be another dead end. I tell you. This guy isn’t a burglar, he’s a cold-blooded fucking maniac. We won’t get this boy until he screws up or we get lucky like Dexter did this morning.’

‘Can we go? I fancy a beer. The pubs close in an hour.’

‘We should wait for her to get back really.’ Harrison thought for a moment. ‘Oh, sod it. The guv’nor’s not here. I’ll treat you to a Babycham.’ He stood and picked up his coat. ‘And after that I will take great delight in examining you for evidence.’

‘Returning to the scene of the crime, eh?’ Jensen smiled. ‘You’re very meticulous. Maybe I’ll pretend you’re Inspector Underwood.’

‘Maybe I’ll pretend you’re Sergeant Dexter.’

‘Don’t do that. I don’t want you to go all floppy on me.’

‘No danger of that, constable.’

‘Pulling rank?’

‘Whenever I can.’

Harrison held the door open for her. Jensen brushed past him a little closer than she needed to.

Suzie Hunt closed her front door. The house was empty and quiet. The police squad car pulled away outside. Through the frosted glass she watched its lights disappear. She was shaking but had no tears left to cry. Her little girl had gone. Gone. She hadn’t even been able to say goodbye. She felt that Katie was standing behind her, shouting, screaming for her to help.
Little
Katie
alone
in
a
vast
dark
night:
just
like
her
mother.
Calling
her,
calling
her.
She
was
so
young,
so
pretty.
Suzie Hunt collapsed, retching, onto her tired two-seater sofa and tried to think herself dead.

Underwood listened to Dexter’s voicemail message without emotion. Another two bodies, another Spaghetti Junction of directionless leads. He was almost past caring. He had visited the offices of Heyer Properties late that afternoon. Heyer’s secretary had given him her boss’s phone number in Norfolk and Underwood had decided not to push for the address: no point in alerting Heyer that he was coming. The prefix to the phone number was ‘01263’ and Underwood called Directory Enquiries to locate the area that the code covered. It was Blakeney in Norfolk: an hour up the A11, then the A1065 to Holt.

The drive had been easier than he had expected. The early-evening traffic had been light and he arrived in Blakeney just after nine. The tiny old medieval port was quiet as he drove in and pulled up in a car park overlooking the estuary. Across the water were the salt marshes and the bird watchers’ sanctuary of Blakeney Point. It was a beautiful spot.
Nice
place
to
unwind
and
fuck
someone
else’s
wife.

There were two or three small restaurants close to the small front. He would find the happy couple eventually. It was just a matter of being patient.
The
killer
of
Elizabeth
Drury
and
Lucy
Harrington
is
patient.
He
takes
risks
to
achieve
what
he
wants.
He
waits
and
wonders:
grateful
for
the
dark.
Underwood wound down his car window: the salty air was cold and unwelcoming but it heightened his senses.
I
am
the
hunter.
I
will
find
you.
I
will
bring
you
down.
The air made him hungry and he reached into his bag for a sandwich.

Time drifted by. Underwood became irritated. Sitting in a car park was pathetic. How else could he find them?
The
car.
Underwood still had Heyer’s car registration in his notebook. He reached into his jacket pocket and found the relevant page: blue BMW, S245 QXY. Blakeney was a small village with only three or four restaurants and a couple of pubs. Underwood
climbed out of his car and walked through the car park. There were only a dozen or so cars and none of them belonged to Paul Heyer.

He began to walk along the front. Sea water slapped at the yachts to his left. A couple emerged laughing from a restaurant. Underwood felt exposed and pulled his collar up to shield his face. The village was well maintained, with a plush Georgian-style hotel as its architectural centrepiece. Were they staying there? It was the obvious place. Underwood found a telephone box and called the number Heyer’s secretary had given him. No reply. It was unlikely to be the hotel, then. Perhaps they were staying with some friends of Heyer’s –
that
fucker
– or maybe they had got a cottage. A cottage seemed more likely, Underwood thought to himself: a bit of privacy for their sweaty little business.

Half an hour swept by and Underwood found no sign of Heyer’s car. Maybe they had stayed in. It was the first night of their fuckfest, after all. Perhaps they couldn’t control themselves.
Spoddy
little
Julia
Cooper
the
sex
goddess.
The thought almost made him laugh out loud. The air was breaking up the muck in his lungs and Underwood was beginning to feel uncomfortable: the mild pain in his chest was threatening to become more acute. He crossed a narrow cobbled road and headed for an ancient-looking pub: The Jack Tar. A brandy would help. After all, didn’t doctors use alcohol to sterilize equipment?
Equipment.
Lines
of
scalpels
and
bloody
forceps.
Rip
their
eyes
out.
Does
he
keep
the
eyes
in
alcohol?
Do
they
float
and
bob
in
a
jar,
like
pickled
eggs?