‘Meet our next victim,’ I said.
20
‘Number Five will sit on the chair.’
Adam’s distorted voice boomed around the basement. It was loud and terrifying and filled Rachel’s head with so much white noise it was impossible to think straight. The sound bounced off the smooth tiles and ricocheted throughout the room, creating strange, disturbing echoes. Rachel put her hands over her ears, crawled to the back of the mattress, and curled herself into a tight fetal ball. The lights were back on and she had her eyes shut tight to keep the glare out. To keep reality out. There was no way she was going to sit in that chair. It wasn’t going to happen.
‘Number Five will sit on the chair or face the consequences.’
Rachel pushed herself right into the corner, her whole body trembling. Hot, salty tears leaked from under her eyelids.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No, no, no, no, no.’
The door slammed open and Rachel’s head snapped towards it. Adam strode out of the brightness and stopped in front of the mattress. He was tapping an old-fashioned bamboo cane gently against his left palm. Rachel cowered deeper into the corner and tried to make herself smaller. Without warning, he brought the cane down on her back, putting his full weight into the blow. The pain was so sudden, so unexpected. Rachel let out a screech that was more animal than human and tried to push herself even further into the corner.
‘Number Five will sit on the chair.’
Rachel didn’t move.
The cane whistled through the air and bit into her back, and she let out another scream.
‘Number Five will sit on the chair.’
Adam tapped the cane against the tiled floor.
Tap tap tap.
The rhythm was monotonous and infuriating. All Rachel could hear was the sound of the cane. It obliterated all other noise. Adam stepped to the side and the dentist’s chair loomed large in the middle of the room, filling her vision. Rachel looked at the cane then stood up and began walking. Adam followed her across the room, tapping the cane against the floor.
Tap tap tap.
The way he was watching her made her feel like a bug in a glass jar. The dentist’s chair was only five metres away but those five metres felt like five miles. She hesitated in front of it, her eyes drawn to the dark stains on the cream-coloured armrests.
‘Number Five will sit.’
Rachel glanced over her shoulder and saw the cane, saw that Adam wouldn’t hesitate to use it again. The skin on her back burned where he’d hit her. She sat down and the coldness of the vinyl through the sweatshirt made her skin crawl. How many other women had been strapped to this chair? What had happened to them? Rachel forced herself to stay in the chair, but it wasn’t easy. All she wanted was to bolt across the room back to the illusionary safety of the mattress. All that stopped her was the thought of what Adam might do.
Adam leant across her to fasten the first arm strap and Rachel recoiled. His aftershave had smelled so good when she first met him, but now it turned her stomach. Adam spent a long time securing her to the chair, his fussy fingers fastening and refastening the buckles until he was satisfied. He attached the last leg restraint and straightened up, then flashed that charming smile she was learning to loathe.
‘There,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t so difficult now was it?’
21
I sat with my feet propped on a desk, drank my coffee, and watched Jamie Morris on the screen. He was doing clockwise laps of the table bolted to the floor of the interview room, going around and around like a clockwork toy. I could sense the pent-up energy, the frustration, the anger. He was wound up tight, a trapped animal, scared and desperate to escape. Morris was a reluctant forty-year-old, someone who would do anything to create the illusion that he was younger than he was. Plastic surgery, a deal with the devil, anything.
Rachel Morris was thirty, ten years younger than he was, and that was one of the reasons he married her. The women he screwed around with would be younger still. Like Jagger and Picasso, and a whole long line of deluded men that stretched way back to the start of time, Jamie Morris believed that eternal youth could be attained through sex. Morris was five-eight with brown eyes. His hair was black and short, the grey made to disappear with dye. Manicured nails. He was casually dressed in expensive designer jeans and an expensive designer sweatshirt, an outfit that probably cost more than a halfway decent suit. Stress had left him ragged around the edges, and my initial impression was of someone who was used to being in control, but who’d had the rug well and truly pulled from under their feet.
Eventually Morris got tired of pacing and sat down. I took this as my cue and nodded to Hatcher.
Time to go.
On my way out, I grabbed a fresh coffee and stuffed a couple of tubs of milk and some sugar sachets into my pocket.
The smell hit me the second we stepped into the interview room. It was a smell I knew well from all the hours I’d spent in prisons interviewing psychopaths and serial criminals, a unique smell made up from stale sweat, soap and desperation. The smell permeated the room. It was embedded into the walls, the floor tiles, the wooden table, the plastic chairs. Morris sprang to his feet the second he saw us.
‘Do I need a lawyer?’ He talked fast, the words coming out in a rush. ‘I didn’t do anything to Rachel. I swear to God I didn’t. I loved her.’
Loved instead of love. I noted the use of the past tense and filed that one away. ‘Relax,’ I said. ‘We know you don’t have anything to do with Rachel’s disappearance.’
‘So why have I been brought here?’
‘We need to ask you a few questions,’ said Hatcher. ‘We’re trying to build up a picture of what happened to your wife.’
‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’
‘Why don’t we all take a seat?’
Morris crumpled back into his chair. He looked small and defeated, weighed down by the weight of his uncertainties. I took one of the seats opposite, the scarred wooden table separating us.
I’d spent a while studying Morris on the monitor, but it was different when you were up close and personal like this. The picture was clearer, more defined. Morris was nervous, but that was to be expected. Last night his wife hadn’t come home, first thing this morning he’d reported her missing, and an hour ago a cop car had rolled up outside his apartment block and transported him here. The world he woke up to yesterday morning was very different from the world he now inhabited. I pushed the coffee, sugar and milk across the table.
‘I thought you might like a coffee,’ I said.
‘Thanks.’
Morris stirred both tubs of milk into the mug, but left the sugar. His right hand shook a little, but, again, that was to be expected. There was a faint nicotine stain on his middle finger.
‘I’m DI Mark Hatcher, and this is Jefferson Winter,’ Hatcher said. ‘We’re going to record this interview, if that’s okay with you.’
Morris nodded that it was okay. Not that his acquiescence made any real difference. This interview was being recorded whether he liked it or not. I understood why Hatcher had asked. This was a softly-softly interview and he was giving Morris the illusion that he had some control over the situation. Illusion being the operative word.
‘When did you last see your wife?’ Hatcher asked.
‘Yesterday morning. We had breakfast together.’
‘What time was that?’
‘Around seven.’
‘Do you normally have breakfast together?’
‘Most days. Rachel has further to commute so she tends to leave before me.’
‘And that’s what happened yesterday?’
Morris nodded.
‘Did you notice anything odd about your wife’s behaviour?’ asked Hatcher. ‘Anything different?’
Morris shook his head. ‘She seemed her normal self.’
‘And how would you describe her “normal self”? And please be honest about this, Mr Morris.’
‘Okay, let’s just say that Rachel isn’t a morning person.’
‘Did you argue?’ I asked.
‘No.’
‘Did you say anything to one another?’
‘Not really. She told me she was going out for drinks with some of her work friends so she wouldn’t be back until late. I think it was someone’s birthday.’
‘You think?’ I said.
‘I wasn’t really listening. I’m not much of a morning person either.’
‘So, you went to work, then you came home, had a quiet evening, went to bed, and when you woke up your wife wasn’t there.’
Morris hesitated. The gesture was so small anyone else would have missed it.
‘That’s right,’ he said.
‘What’s her name?’ I asked.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Yesterday morning, when Rachel told you she was going out for drinks, your ears pricked up, didn’t they? It was too good an opportunity to miss. So did you go out for a meal, or did you go straight to your usual hotel?’
‘I don’t know what you’re insinuating.’
‘Of course you know what I’m insinuating. You’re emotionally dysfunctional, and your marriage is a sham, but you’re not stupid.’
‘I love my wife.’
‘Of course you do.’
‘Look,’ said Hatcher. ‘We don’t care what you’ve been up to. All we care about is getting Rachel back.’
‘Getting her back.’ Morris repeated the words in a whisper. His hand was shaking worse than ever. ‘You think someone’s taken her?’
‘We know someone’s taken her,’ I said. ‘And before you say anything else I want you to listen very carefully. The man who took your wife is a sociopath. He enjoys watching his victims suffer. He spends hours watching them suffer. He had his last victim for three and a half months and during that time he repeatedly tortured her with knives, knitting needles, all sorts of things. He’s very imaginative when it comes to his favourite pastime. And then, when he got bored with her, he lobotomised her. He took a sharp implement called an orbitoclast, wedged it into her eye, bashed it through the thin bone at the back of the eye socket, and destroyed her brain.’
Morris’s face drained of colour. ‘My God,’ he whispered.
‘You said earlier that you loved your wife. Now I don’t know if that was ever the case, but even if it wasn’t you’ll want to help get her back safely because it’s the right thing to do. That means you need to co-operate with us. I’m talking full disclosure here.’
Morris slumped back in his chair, a conflicted look on his face. He wanted to do the right thing, but at the same time he didn’t want to.
‘Helen Springfield,’ he said quietly.
‘And how long have you been seeing Helen for?’
‘A couple of months.’
‘And before that there were other Helens, weren’t there? A whole string of them?’
Morris nodded.
‘Did Rachel know about your affairs?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
I raised my eyebrows and gave him a look. People knew, particularly when their partner was a serial cheat. They might choose to deal with it through denial, but they knew.
‘Maybe she suspected something,’ Morris admitted reluctantly.
‘What time did you get home last night?’
‘A little after eleven. Rachel said she’d be back by midnight, so I wanted to make sure I was back before her. I went to bed as soon as I got in and when I woke up in the morning she wasn’t there. I sleep soundly, particularly when I’ve had a couple of drinks. As soon as I realised she wasn’t there I tried calling her friends, but no one had heard from her. That’s when I called the police.’
‘Was Rachel ever unfaithful?’ I asked.
‘Rachel? No way. Never.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘My wife would never cheat on me.’
22
‘I’m ready to give the profile now,’ I told Hatcher. We were outside the interview room in a quiet, grey corridor, just the two of us. The corridor was long and lit with strip lights and smelled of disinfectant. It reminded me of a hospital corridor.
‘In that case I’ll go rally the troops.’
‘Not so fast. You owe me fifty pounds.’
Hatcher pulled a wallet from his back pocket. He counted out two twenties and a ten and slapped them grudgingly into my hand.
‘Double or quits,’ I said.
‘I’m listening.’
‘Get one of your people to phone up Rachel Morris’s workplace. I’m betting there was no birthday girl inviting anyone out for drinks.’
Hatcher considered this, then shook his head. ‘Too rich for me, I can afford to take a fifty-quid hit, but a hundred would be pushing it. The wife would kill me if she found out.’
‘Fine, but get someone to make the call. I need confirmation on that one.’
‘How certain are you that Rachel Morris is the next victim?’
‘Certain enough to leave my lunch half-eaten.’
‘Seriously, Winter.’
‘Rachel Morris is the next victim. If it makes you feel better you can have your people keep looking, but all you’ll be doing is wasting time and resources that could be put to better use elsewhere. Like finding Rachel Morris.’
‘But how can you be so sure?’
‘Because Rachel Morris did not go out for a birthday drink last night.’ I looked at my watch. ‘Give me ten minutes. I need a smoke before I give the profile.’
‘I’ll get someone to make that call.’
Hatcher strode off one way down the corridor, and I headed the other way. I took the elevator to the ground floor and went outside, found a quiet corner where nobody would bother me and lit up.
The thing that was most frustrating about this case was the lack of crime scenes. The police had no idea where the victims were being snatched, and there were no bodies, therefore no dump sites. I like to walk the same ground as the unsub. I like to see the same sights, to smell the same smells, to breathe the same air. It helps me feel closer to the people I’m hunting, which in turn helps me build a more detailed profile.
I huddled deeper into my sheepskin jacket in an attempt to ward off the cold and thought about Rachel Morris. She’d be alone right now, more alone than she’d ever been in her life. More terrified, too. There was nothing that could prepare her for what had happened, and nothing that could prepare her for what was about to happen. I dealt with this stuff day in, day out, and had built up a tolerance to the horror. I’d had to. It was all about self-preservation. Without that layer of insulation, I wouldn’t be able to do my job. But Rachel Morris was just a normal person who’d led a normal life. No doubt there had been plenty of ups and downs, but no real danger, at least nothing to match this.