Inferno (CSI Reilly Steel #2) (18 page)

‘But does he want to be caught?’ O’Brien grunted.

‘Good point.’ Chris sat forward. ‘These guys enjoy their games of hide-and-seek, don’t they?’

Reuben gave Chris a gentle smile, the kind you give to a child when they have made a good effort to master something that’s way over their heads. ‘Don’t believe everything you watch on TV, O Brooding One.’ He sighed. ‘If he wants to kill more people, do you really think that he wants to be caught?’

Reilly could tell that Chris was quietly seething.
O Brooding One
? Priceless!

‘What he wants us to figure out,’ Reuben explained patiently, oblivious to the daggers look Chris was giving him, ‘is
why
he’s killing these people. And the clue to that will come from ...?’ He left the question hanging, like an encouraging teacher trying to bring the class along with him.

‘The extravagant way he’s killed them?’ Kennedy offered.

Reuben turned a beaming smile on him. ‘Bravo, Detective.’

‘In each case, he’s kept the victims for a time before killing them,’ Reilly put in. ‘Any particular reason why he’d do that?’

‘Miss Steel, your reputation does indeed precede you.’ He turned his smile on all of them. ‘Why indeed is our man keeping his victims for a while? What does he want from them?’

‘Maybe he wants them to suffer before he kills them,’ Chris said, and to Reilly it sounded like he was gritting his teeth as he spoke.

Reuben shrugged. ‘It’s possible.  Were there any signs of physical torture?’

She shook her head.

‘Psychological torture then,’ Chris said.

‘Letting them understand their predicament, lording his power over them?  That’s possible, Detective Delaney.’ Reuben scratched thoughtfully at his chin. ‘But I think there’s more than that.’

‘Such as?’

‘That’s his little secret right now and what
we
have to try and figure out.’ He stood suddenly, picked up his notepad, carefully buttoned his jacket and straightened his scarf. ‘This has been truly educational for you all, I’m sure, but I’m afraid I have to be on my way – I’ve got a hotel to check into. My dear man, will you get copies of these files sent over as soon as possible, please?’ he said, addressing Inspector O’Brien as if he were the hired help rather than the most senior person in the room.

Reuben turned and headed for the door, then paused with one hand on the handle. ‘Be warned, it won’t be long until he strikes again. I think he’s working quickly, working his way down a list of some sort. The only way to get ahead of him is to figure out the link between the victims.’ He opened the door, smiled brightly at the three of them. ‘And that, my dears, is what we are paid to do.’

Reuben flounced out of the room, the scent of his aftershave lingering heavily behind him.
Tom Ford,
Reilly noted distractedly.

She turned back to look at the detectives and O’Brien, expecting them all to be affronted by Knight’s behaviour. But, much to her surprise, they  burst out laughing.

‘I take it all back,’ Kennedy chuckled. ‘Working with this peacock should be a right barrel of laughs ...’

A
lan Fitzpatrick was not a man who usually felt fear. As a former trade union leader he had come to politics the hard way, working his way up from the shop floor to the negotiating table and then on to local issues.  Having served his time as a local councillor, he made his way into government, and found that the wheeling and dealing that had served him so well in his former careers were even more of an asset there. He quickly became one of his party’s go-to men when difficult deals needed to be made, and was someone who had a reputation for getting anything done if the price was right.

In keeping with his carefully groomed image as a man of the people Fitzpatrick liked to dress down, preferring an open-necked shirt and sweater for everything but the most formal of occasions. He had lost count of how many times little old ladies had patted his arm and told him how much they trusted him at his local constituency surgeries – ‘not like those other fancy Dans up in Dublin with their expensive suits’.

Right now, however, his open-necked shirt and light gray sweater were soaked with blood. It oozed from a nasty gash on his head, and ran down the side of his face, neck, and onto his clothes.

‘Head wounds do bleed quite profusely,’ the other man in the room said in a soft voice.  ‘But don’t worry – there’s no danger of you dying from that little scrape.’ 

Fitzpatrick looked around, trying to figure out where he was, and how he might get out of this. He was in an old barn, long abandoned. There were several stalls along one side, but it was the feeding trough that kept drawing his eyes, the trough and the drum of hot tar that the man stood over, stirring slowly with a long stick. The flame beneath it was gradually warming it, making it more and more liquid, easier to work with, easier to pour.

‘What’s that for?’ demanded Fitzpatrick. ‘If you’re planning on reroofing this place you’ll need a lot more than that.’

The man still had his back to him. ‘Don’t you worry, Mr Fitzpatrick, I have more than enough for my purpose.’

Fitzpatrick squirmed in his chair, strained against his binds, but he was securely tied. There was no chance of getting away.  ‘So what’s this all about, anyway?  Who are you?  What do you want from me?  No one will pay you a ransom, you know.’

The room was lit only by the glow of the flame beneath the oil drum. ‘Let’s just say I’m an old acquaintance – one of the many faceless people you have wronged in your time.’

‘Wronged? What are you talking about? I’ve never wronged—’

‘No? You don’t think anybody suffered from your deals and bribes and backhanders?’

‘What are you talking about? Who the hell are you? Show me your face!’ demanded Fitzpatrick, his features turning red with anger as he struggled against his binds.

The man gave a quiet laugh. ‘Oh, no, I can’t do that. You wronged me without ever knowing I existed.  Now you can make it right under the same conditions.’

Fitzpatrick stared at the man’s back. ‘But how can I fix anything,
do
anything to help you, if I don’t know who you are?’

The man turned round, pointed the stick at Fitzpatrick, hot tar dripping from it onto the floor. ‘By being a good boy and doing what you are told.’  Just for a second it seemed he was angry, but he immediately calmed himself.  He dropped the stick back into the barrel of pitch, then walked to a video camera on a tripod and switched on a bright spotlight that stood beside it.

Fitzpatrick flinched, and blinked as the bright light glared into his face.  ‘What are you ... what are you going to do now?’ he asked nervously.

The man checked the camera and approached Fitzpatrick. He was tall, his long shadow running high up the wall in the glare of the spotlight.  ‘It’s not what I’m going to do. It’s what you are going to do.’  He held a damp cloth in his hand, and began gently to wipe the blood from Fitzpatrick’s face.

At the first touch Fitzpatrick pulled away in fear, but when he realized what the other man was doing he calmed down, and held still while the blood was slowly cleaned from his face and neck.  He looked up, trying to catch a glimpse of the man’s face, but with the glare of the light in his eyes, he could see nothing.

‘That’s good enough.’ The man threw the cloth down and inspected his handiwork. ‘You’ll do.’  He stepped back behind the camera. ‘Now, it’s time for you to do what you do best, Mr Fitzpatrick – talk.’

Fitzpatrick looked confused.  ‘Talk? About what?’

He could feel the sweat beading on his forehead, running down his face.  It stung where it trickled into the wound on the side of his head. ‘I don’t know what you—’

‘You used your influence to affect the outcome of a recent parole board hearing.’ The statement was delivered in a calm, flat voice, but was all the more chilling for the sudden change in tone

Fitzpatrick tried to bluster. ‘The parole board is an independent body—’

‘That you paid off to ensure that a prisoner was released.’ The voice was harsh, challenging. There was no mistaking the threat and venom in it.

Fitzpatrick stared defiantly at the camera, blinked through the sweat as it ran into his eyes. ‘You can’t prove that,’ he said finally.

The other man continued softly, ‘No, I can’t. But you can.’  He turned the camera on. ‘Tell the truth.’

Fitzpatrick stared back. ‘No way. You’re full of bluster.  Even if it was true – which it isn’t –you can’t make me confess to it.’

The man gave a deep sigh. ‘I wish you would just make this easy, for both our sakes.’

Fitzpatrick snarled at him. ‘I've got nothing to say to you or your fucking camera!’

‘Very well.’ Leaving the camera still running, the man stepped over to the trough of boiling pitch. He gently took hold of the stick, rolled it around until it was covered with the thick, boiling liquid, and walked back across to where Fitzpatrick sat struggling against the tape that bound him. ‘Are you sure you won’t reconsider?’

Fitzpatrick stared up at him, defiance etched across his shrewish face. ‘Fuck you.’

The man slowly lifted the stick, held it above Fitzpatrick’s face, and watched impassively as the boiling pitch trickled down, beaded at the end, then dripped in thick, glutinous drops onto Fitzpatrick’s cheek as he struggled.

The scream filled the small barn, a ragged cry of fear and pain that was repeated as the burning pitch continued its slow drip, drip, drip ...

‘Do you know, I think Knight would be the kind to dance on your grave after you were dead,’ Kennedy muttered. ‘And what sort of a name is Reuben, anyway?’

Reilly couldn’t help but smile, despite being tired and stretched thin by her workload. ‘You really have a thing against psychologists, don’t you?’ she laughed. ‘Why? Are you worried he might get inside your head, get to the bottom of what’s really going on in there?’

‘Huh, you might like him a lot less if he wasn’t always making eyes at you.’ Kennedy repositioned himself in his seat. ‘Jaysus, my back really aches. I fell asleep on the couch in front of the telly last night. Josie said she tried to wake me but I was out cold.’

‘She should have put you over her shoulder and carried you to bed.’ Chris nudged open the door of the conference room, and set a tray of coffees on the table. ‘Then again, she’d probably need a forklift to do that.’ He handed a cup to each of his colleagues, and set one in front of his own seat, before putting the fourth in front of a vacant chair. ‘So have we heard from Prince Charmless yet?  He called this meeting, the least he could do is be on time.’

‘Punctuality is boring, and soooo predictable,’ Reuben announced, breezing into the room. He slipped into a seat beside Reilly. ‘Especially ravishing this morning, my dear.’

‘Actually, I thought punctuality was supposed to be the politeness of princes,’ Kennedy piped up.

Reuben raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean to tell me you can actually read, Detective Dinosaur?’

‘Hey—’

Reuben picked up his cup and peered into it. ‘Ugh! Coffee? How disgustingly American.’ He set the cup down and continued without pausing for breath. ‘The actual quote is “
L'exactitude est la politesse des rois.
”  Punctuality is the politeness of kings. It’s attributed to Louis XVIII.  He was a king of France, in case you're wondering.’

Kennedy took a quiet sip of his coffee. ‘Nope, if anything I was wondering how you get through each day without someone punching your lights out.’

Reuben flashed his most ingratiating smile. ‘Must be all down to my effortless charm – isn’t that right, Miss Steel?’

‘Testosterone versus aftershave – does anyone mind if I open a window? It’s getting kinda hard to breathe in here ...’

Chris pointedly clattered his cup down on the table. ‘You called this meeting, Knight, said you had a breakthrough for us?’

Reilly looked up quickly, studying Chris’s strained face and the dark circles under his eyes. Yes, their workload was punishing, but she couldn’t help but wonder if there was something else going on with him at the moment. Typically good-humored, now he seemed testy. And it certainly wasn’t like him to be rude.

Completely unaffected, Reuben nodded, the smile still on his face. ‘And I do, I do.’ He glanced mournfully around. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a cup of decent Earl Grey?’

‘Nope, no chance at all,’ Chris replied impatiently. ‘So what’s this amazing breakthrough you think you've made?’

Reuben looked at him in horror. ‘Think?
Think?
My dear man, I don’t merely think. I—’

‘Ah, will you just get on with it,’ Chris commanded roughly.

Reuben gave him a huffy look, before turning and addressing Reilly instead.

‘I was thinking, my dear, about one man found drowned in his own excrement, another frozen to death encased in ice, and a third hanged on a tree and feasted upon by birds. If they were each the work of the same man – which I believe they are – what is that person thinking? What is he trying to tell us? There’s got to be a message, something behind such macabre methods. So what is the theme that unites such disparate—’

‘Cut to the bloody chase,’ Kennedy growled, having long since run out of patience. ‘Some of us have work to do.’ 

Reilly thought she had better intervene to smooth the waters. ‘I’m sure any insights you have would be helpful, Reuben. What can you tell us?’

‘Give me just one moment.’ He reached into his pocket and withdrew his fountain pen. ‘Ah, here we are,’ he continued, looking lovingly at the pen as if it was some kind of talisman. ‘Well, from the outset, the elaborate tableaux and high classical elements immediately suggested that we were dealing with an artist of some kind, someone gifted with a consuming creative fire, and unbalanced by the banal evil of the world around them.’

‘Rightio ...’ Kennedy looked at him blankly.

‘A vigilante?’ Reilly said. ‘Yes, we’d considered that.  Well, the punishment aspect, at least.’

Chris was immediately dubious. ‘We’re blue in the face from working the revenge angle on Coffey. Granted Crowe would have had an enemy or two, but Jennings?’