Fade to Black (18 page)

He knew that tattoo. Staggering backwards, he squeezed his eyes hard shut. How could he have not picked it out last night? The girl… he knew her, had photographed her just a week ago at the Club. He’d even asked her out for God’s sake! It was Georgie. Feisty, sexy Georgie. She’d loved the camera and, with a soft lens to disguise her poor skin, it loved her, every stark-naked inch of her. Now she was dead—
slaughtered—
and he hadn’t even realized it was her.
Holy fuck
… Mr. Riley was going to be
so
pissed off.

*****

The corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road was chaotic. The tube station was wrapped in plastic, like every second building in London, presumably some major repairs underway. The impending Olympic Games had everybody sprucing up any building that might conceivably be filmed as part of the ‘Postcards from the Olympics’ television vignettes. They would be flashed around the world to two-hundred million sports-hungry and, hopefully for the London City Council, travel-hungry viewers.

Buses, cars, bikes and myopic pedestrians all vied for the same restricted strips of pavement. Arthur checked his watch and cursed. He was on time to meet Paula, but he’d dallied too long at the menswear store. He’d not gotten to Manny’s Army Disposals for his supplies, nor had he booked anywhere for lunch as he’d promised Paula. He’d allowed himself to be caught up in an adrenaline-filled little space and now he’d have to wing it. At least Greek Street and Soho Square were only a stone’s throw back behind the Tube station and he had an enormous wad in his trousers. He laughed aloud. “An enormous wad of
cash
, my friend, not…”

“
I get it, Arthur,
” Mr. Black said wearily. “
Pay attention, now; she’s standing over there in front of the theatre.
”

Paula had spotted the man on the opposite corner. On her second well-disguised appraisal, she’d confirmed it was Arthur. She marveled at how good he looked! She thanked her new blue-tinted contact lenses for being able to see across the road at all. A week ago, he’d have been a camel-colored blur. She’d looked away again, preferring that he see her and make the first move. She didn’t want to seem too keen. She didn’t have to wait long. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him talking to someone. Was he on the phone? He was certainly laughing. At last, he looked over at her. It struck her, momentarily, as being odd. He’d zeroed in on her like a laser sight after having previously looked everywhere but at her. Excitement, nonetheless, tickled her. She was pleased to see him wave and trot to the crossing.

*****

Arthur thought Paula looked fabulous. Slim and shimmering in a green skirt and white top, slightly blonder-than-he-remembered hair now swept coquettishly around her face. She was a stylish pixie waiting to grant his every wish. He thought she looked thirty, but he knew her to be forty-three. His own pulse galloped. Goddamn, she was a fine specimen, but where the hell was he going to take her? The traffic lights changed and he joined a large crowd, many of whom were surging towards the Dominion Theatre, no doubt. Arthur looked up at the huge billboard and a slow smile crept across his face. There was an afternoon showing of Ben Elton's Queen Show that everyone was raving about.
Hmmm, maybe later, that might be an option.
Plans were made to be modified, improved and then implemented with a minimum of fuss. He sang quietly to himself as he shuffled along with the crowd. ‘Big disgrace, blood on your face…’

“Hi there, Arthur.” Paula rushed to him, kissing him on the cheek. It was an encouraging start. He greeted her with equal enthusiasm.

“Paula! You look… delicious.”

*****

Allie St. Clair figured they could be back at New Scotland Yard by 1:30 p.m. if she took the right route. They were no further out of Westminster than West Brompton, so the King’s Road would do the job. It would take half an hour at best. She was keen—in a professional way, as she imagined all of her team was—to see the CCTV footage from the Earl’s Court scene. She rang Wilkinson and asked her to assemble everybody who was available in the media room at 1:45 and perhaps organize sandwiches from the canteen. She was uncommonly hungry now, as well as tired.

Wilkinson advised that Strauss and Banks were already back and that she hadn’t yet heard from Connors. Allie heard her hesitate.

“Is something bothering you, Jacinta?” The phone reception dropped out for a moment, but she caught ‘…the address off me so I couldn’t follow up.’

“I’m sorry, repeat that, please,” Allie said loudly. Michael glanced at her.

The phone reception dropped out completely. Allie stared at the phone as if to admonish it.

“Problem?” Michael asked.

“I don’t know. Jacinta, one of my detectives, seems ruffled by something. We’ll be there soon, in any case.”

“Which, of course, means,” she said, looking at him, “you’d better hop out somewhere soon.”

Michael was relaxed. “The bike is near Queen Anne’s Gate. Anywhere near there is good.”

She still hadn’t gotten an answer from him about her safety. She decided to let it go, although dropping him off would leave her vulnerable.

“I’ll be around; you’ll be alright,” he said calmly.

Allie pounded her hands on the steering wheel. “Stop doing that! My thoughts are my own, surely!”

“Surely, they are, yes,” he said. “At least, they certainly should be, I agree. And they will be… later.”

She threw him a confused look. “Later? What does that mean exactly?”

“It means ‘afterward’ or ‘anon’. Look it up.”

Exasperated as she was, she guffawed. “Alright smart ar… err... Michael. Will I see you later, at home?”

“I don’t see why not,” he said. "What will we eat?”

Allie was about to tell him they’d have whatever he cooked, but thought better of it. She glanced at him to see if he’d picked that up. There was no sign of it. “Tell you what, there’s a new Fish and Chip shop just opened up on Lower Richmond Road, just near my house. We’ll get something from there.”

“I don’t like fish and chips.” He said this like a five-year-old boy.

“Oh, for God’s sake, why not?”

“They give me a terrible haddock.”

Allie nearly ran off the road. “That is a
terrible
joke!” But she was laughing just the same.

She dropped him off where Birdcage Walk intersected with Queen Anne’s Gate. She continued the short distance to the Yard. Her phone rang. It was Connors.

“Ma’am, have you heard from Strauss?” He sounded edgy.

“I believe she’s here at headquarters, Mathew. I’m just arriving myself.”

“She’s ok, then?”

Allie frowned. “As far as I know; Jacinta said she was at her desk. Is there a problem?”

“No, no, I just haven’t been able to contact her since we split up earlier, that’s all.”

“‘What time was that?”

“About two hours ago. She said we should separate to do the door knocking.

“Quite right,” Allie interrupted.

“Yes,” he went on, “of course, but she… look, it’s nothing. Just so long as she’s ok.”

Allie was reminded again how high-strung Connors could be. Still, he was right. They should have closer and more regular communications than this morning’s effort. She was coming up in the elevator and was about to hit her floor.

“Right, where are you now and what are your plans for the next few hours?”

She heard him hesitate. “There’s still plenty to do here.” She lost his voice for a moment due to loud jackhammering and traffic noise at his end?“…be an hour or so, just another street to door-knock, then back to headquarters.”

“No luck yet, obviously?”

“No, it’s amazing to me, but no one has seen or heard any damn thing.”

Allie stepped through the elevator door opening. She heard Mathew trying again to yell over some loud background noise. It sounded as though he said something like ‘see you later.’ The line was broken off.

Allie rang off, a slight concern lingering about Connor’s work ethic. Banks spoke from behind.

“Ma’am, the CCTV footage is ready to roll in the media room, if you’re ready?”

“Great, thanks.” She looked around the room, noting that Strauss and Wilkinson were there, absorbed in their respective tasks.

“Grab those two, would you please, Pete,” Allie said, jerking her thumb towards the centre of the room. “We should all view the footage.”

The windowless media room was compact, but it, nonetheless, housed two staff and a huge control panel that featured the latest Avid video edit suite gear. There were, after all, nearly two million cameras in the UK and no one really knew just how many in London itself, but it was arguably the most ‘watched’ city in the world. But, strangely enough, there were disproportionately fewer cameras in the Chelsea, Kensington and Earl’s Court areas.

Allie greeted the two staff and asked them to roll the footage. The balance of her team now stood beside her, peering at the square Sony monitor. The footage was black and white and opened with a scene of the laneway, shot from the camera she’d seen mounted on the corner of the Chinese restaurant.

“This is from camera one,” advised ‘Smiley’ Lang, who was the senior of the two media room staff.

“How many camera views do you have altogether?” Strauss asked.

“Just two, but this is the best one.”

Allie wondered what ‘best’ meant. Most graphic? Clearest?

“Here we go,” Lang said, leaning forward in his high-backed chair.

They watched in rapt attention as the previously empty lane was subjected to the incredibly heavy rainfall from the previous night. “Great,” someone said.

A man and a woman appeared at the left of the picture. Allie knew from her visit to the scene that they must have entered via the connecting lane from Hesper Mews. The woman had already been dispossessed of the blue handbag. Despite the rain, the images were clear—they were close to the camera. The woman,
Georgie,
tottered into frame wearing very high-heeled shoes. She appeared to be naked from the waist down.

Wilkinson frowned. “Is she…?

“No,” Strauss said quickly, “I think,
I hope
, she’s wearing tight, skin-colored knickers.”

“Oh, right.” Wilkinson still wore a horrified expression.

The man in the video was about average height and wearing a light-colored jacket and a baseball cap. There was a logo on it that would bear further scrutiny. He was carrying a small black bag in his right hand while ushering the woman to the end of the lane forcefully with his left. He was a strong man—that much was obvious.

He looked at the camera. Smiley stopped the footage. They all stared at the man’s face. Or, at least, at the place it should have been. There was nothing there. Puzzled looks were exchanged. “What th’?” Banks said. “Can you zoom in?”

Smiley zoomed in. For a few seconds, there was just the sound of breathing in the tiny room as they grappled with what they were seeing. Or
not
seeing. There was just a black smudge where a face should have been.

“Well," Banks said, “It doesn’t look like a mask.”

“Ok,” Allie said at last, “keep going.”

The film moved forward. The man shifted his attention from the camera, then looked over his shoulder at something else out of shot. He walked the girl another three steps and checked the camera again. He turned to face the brightly lit restaurant.

“He’s stage-managing this,” Allie said quietly.

“Ok, folks,” Lang announced. “From here on in, Brett and I are out of here. I’ll start the tape rolling again, but that’s it—neither of us wants to watch this again.” He looked at St. Clair. She knew he was asking permission to leave, but at the same time, he was brooking no objection.

“Will it roll on to camera two?" Allie asked, tacitly giving him the ok to scoot.

“It will. Thanks, ma’am.” A relieved Brett pushed the green button to resume playback. The two operators hurried from the room. What followed was a horror show the likes of which no one in the room would ever forget. They were transfixed as the man dropped the bag on the cobbled laneway floor, turned his attention back to the woman, reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of pliers.

“Oh, no!” Jacinta Wilkinson moaned and turned away from the screen, her hand covering her eyes. St. Clair, Banks and Strauss watched intently as he pulled the woman towards him roughly and shoved the hand gripping the pliers deep into her mouth. What looked like white shards of teeth fell to the ground. Her head was bent back at a crazy angle as he suddenly jerked away from her, the pliers emerging with a long lump of wriggling, dripping flesh, like a calf’s liver only narrower, pinned between the pincers.

Gouts of dark blood welled from the girls’ mouth as she sank to the laneway. He opened the bag and delicately placed the tongue and a tendril of attached stringy matter into it. From then on, it was a systematic, psychotic ritual. From the ripping of the girl’s shiny top, the slicing of her knee and wrist tendons, to the gouging and
throwing
of the eyeballs and the final, blind, flailing attempts by the girl to have her life spared–it was a frenzied, visceral attack, a demonstration of inhuman ferocity and intent that simply stunned and sickened the detectives.

Footage from camera two rolled on relentlessly to show the whole panorama from a perspective just north of the first camera. But it added neither fresh clues nor any relief from sixteen minutes of hell.

The screen faded to black, then to vertical, color-spectrum lines. No one moved, spoke or dared look anyone else in the eye. Self-control teetered on the edge of collapse.

Allie finally chanced a look across the room at Strauss—she could see her just on the other side of Banks. Thick tears ran down her face. Banks was visibly shaken as well. Immediately next to Allie, Wilkinson looked to be in shock and she put her arm around her. Still, no one had spoken.

Rachel Strauss’ voice eventually smashed the silence. “No one,” she said, her voice unnaturally constricted with emotion, “should
ever
have to endure something like…
that
.” She spat out the final words of the sentence, her voice breaking at the end.