Philip Brennan 02 - The Creeper (40 page)

‘Oh,’ said Phil. ‘Nothing interesting, then.’

She drew back from him, teeth bared. Hissing. ‘Just another thick copper. Like all the others.’ Leaned into him again, her finger back on his chest, joined by the others, dug the nails of her left hand into him this time. Hard.

Her nails were sharp. Strong. They hurt. Drew blood.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Tell me. Why you do what you do.’

She took her finger away. Smiled. ‘That’s better. Much more fun when you play along with me, isn’t it?’ A sigh of contentment. ‘Now. Where were we? Yes. Why I do what I do.’ She stuck her hands out, together at the wrists. ‘Because I’m a bad girl, Mr Policeman. You’d better take me in your big strong arms and handcuff me.’ She giggled. ‘Oh, I forgot. You can’t.’

Venom in the final words.

‘You’re so funny,’ said Phil. ‘See how I’m laughing?’

Her eyes blazed. ‘You think you’re clever? Do you? Really?’

Her hands were on him, slapping his face, tearing at him.

‘Do you? Do you?’

More slaps, more scratches. Digging her nails into the side of his face, deep, sharp, dragging them down to his chin.

Phil wanted to scream, to shout right into her face. But he managed to stop himself, despite the searing pain in his face. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

‘Do you?’ The words screamed in his face.

‘No,’ he said, gasping for air, ‘No. I . . . I don’t . . .’

She took her hands away. They were bloodied, parts of his face beneath her nails. She examined them like they had just gone through an expensive manicure. She nodded, pleased with the results. Turned her attention back to Phil.

She smiled. ‘Good. I’m glad to hear it.’

‘So,’ Phil said, his face burning with pain, ‘why are you . . . are you doing . . . what you’re doing . . .’

‘Good boy. Doing what you’re told.’ Whispering again. ‘I like that in a man. In fact, I demand it. So why have I done all this?’ She swung her arms round, as if taking responsibility for their surroundings. ‘Simple. To prove a point.’

‘Which is?’

‘How superior I am,’ her voice sing-song.

‘You mean to me?’

‘Oh, certainly to you. But to everyone else, too.
Everyone
. I am the Nietzschean concept of the Superman made flesh. Or, rather, Superwoman.’

‘And how do you . . . do you go about that, then?’

‘I . . . bend people to my will. Make them do my bidding. Make them do . . .’ A gesture, a theatrical flourish of the wrist. ‘Anything I want.’

‘Even murder?’

She knelt in close to him again. He felt her hot breath on his ruined face. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, licking his blood off her nails, ‘especially murder . . .’

98

‘
W
hat . . . what d’you mean?’ Turner looked confused, scared even. ‘He was . . . he was just a squaddie. Just a squaddie that Fiona found. That we could use.’

‘No he wasn’t, Mark. He was Adele Harrison’s brother.’ Turner shook his head. ‘No. You’re lying. Her brother died in Afghanistan. Roadside bomb. IED. She told me.’

‘She told everybody that, Mark. Because it’s easier to believe than what, or who, he really is.’

‘A murdering rapist,’ said Marina in Mickey’s ear. He nodded.

‘A murdering rapist,’ he said aloud.

‘No . . . no . . . you’re lying. She said you would, Fiona said you’d, you’d try something like this. Play mind games, try to get inside my head . . .’ He put his elbows on the table, head down. Hands balled into fists, rubbing his temples.

Mickey leaned forward, his voice, calm, quiet. No need to shout or scream, just let the authority of his words carry over. ‘Mark. I’m telling you the truth, mate. She’s lied to you.’

‘No . . . no . . .’

‘Yeah.’

‘She wouldn’t . . .’

‘He’s going,’ said Marina, ‘don’t lose him, keep him talking. If he goes into himself now we’ll have lost him. Bring him back, Mickey.’

Mickey nodded. ‘Well, let’s come back to that. Tell me what you wanted him for.’

Turner looked up, confused once more. ‘What?’

‘The Creeper, as you called him. Tell me what you wanted with him. What you did with him.’

‘We . . . we programmed him.’

‘Why?’

‘To do what we wanted. To prove we could do it.’

‘And what did you do? What did you make him do?

‘We turned him into . . . anything we wanted, really.’

‘A weapon?’

The sneering smile made a small reappearance. ‘The British Army had already done that to him.’

‘You just refined the process, yeah?’

Turner shrugged.

‘So, this programming. How’d you do it?’

‘Told him . . . told him what he wanted to hear.’

‘And what was that?’

‘Rani. That was the translator he killed. The woman. We told him she was still alive. Still . . . still in love with him.’ Another laugh. ‘And he believed it. Stupid bastard.’

‘How did that work?’

‘She spoke to him.’

‘How?’

‘Through her BlackBerry. She texted him. We told him it was the spirit of Rani speaking to him. He had to imagine that the words that appeared on his phone he could hear in his head. And he could text back to talk to her.’

‘And he believed that?’

‘Yeah. Soft bastard.’

Mickey sat back, sighed. This wasn’t what he was expecting. This was too much. He didn’t know how to deal with it. He gave a quick glance to the screen, hoped Marina saw the signal.

‘Oh God,’ said Marina in Mickey’s ear. ‘He must be some kind of . . . let me think . . . borderline personality? Psychopath? Certainly with psychopathic tendencies. Something like that. I don’t know enough about him. Ask him how they made it convincing.’

‘How did you convince him it was actually Rani talking to him? Could have been anyone pretending to be her.’

‘He did it because there’s not much left of him and he wanted to believe. She’s all he had left.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And she told him what he wanted to hear. That she was coming back to him. He just had to find her.’

‘Find her? How?’

‘She would be in different bodies. He’d be told where she was, what she looked like. And that Rani’s spirit would be inside some woman. He had to watch her until we told him otherwise.’

‘And then?’

Turner shrugged. ‘We didn’t want them any more. Got rid of them.’

Mickey sat back, letting the information sink in. He couldn’t believe it. Didn’t see how someone would fall for it, no matter how mentally damaged they must be.

‘I don’t believe you,’ he said. ‘No one would fall for something as lame as that. No matter what condition they were in.’

Turner just laughed. ‘You haven’t seen the Creeper. You wouldn’t say that if you had.’

‘Messed up?’

‘Totally.’

And even more messed up by the time you two had finished with him, thought Mickey, but decided not to say it aloud.

‘So . . . help me here, Mark. I’m trying to understand. You’ve got this guy to . . . what? Kill for you?’

Turner shrugged.

‘What does he do? Talk me through it.’

‘We give him a target. He stalks them, we get him going, tell him things about them, what they feel for him. He gets obsessed, goes mental over them. Then we tell him the spirit’s gone, jumped to another body.’

‘And . . . what then? He kills them?’ A feeling of dread went through Mickey as he waited for the answer.

Turner shook his head. ‘We tell him they’re husks, the bodies. Just husks. No use any more. Then we get him to put them away somewhere.’

‘Where?’

‘Somewhere safe.’

‘And leave them there?’

He nodded.

‘Why?’

‘Because we might need them again. That’s the next stage. Programming someone who’s not a nutter like him. Someone normal. See what we can do with them.’

‘And because they might tell.’

Turner shrugged. Casual. ‘Yeah. That too.’

Mickey sat back, his head spinning from all the information. He shook his head, tried to clear it. ‘But why? Why, Mark? Why do all this?’

Turner leaned forward, eyes alive with a sick, dark light. ‘Because we can, that’s why . . .’

‘Keep focused, Mickey.’ Marina in his ear again. ‘Ask him about the victims. Who chose them, how they were chosen. He’s not telling us the whole story. And I don’t know why. Either he doesn’t know it all or he’s holding something back. Find out which it is.’

‘Who chose the girls, Mark?’

‘Fiona.’

‘All Mark’s ex-girlfriends,’ said Marina. ‘Interesting.’

‘So you didn’t mind that they were all your ex-girlfriends, Mark? That Fiona was targeting them?’

Turner flinched, a sharp, quick stab of pain showed in his face. Then nothing. In control again. He forced a shrug. ‘Why? I’m above all that now. Doesn’t matter, does it?’

‘No he’s not, Mickey, he flinched. They’re his old girlfriends and it still hurts, no matter what he says.’

Mickey looked at him, listened to Marina.

‘It’s his weak spot. We’ve got him,’ she said in his ear. ‘Go in for the kill. Finish him off.’

99

P
hil stared at Fiona Welch, tried to ignore the pain in his cheek, just concentrate. Talk to her.

‘So . . .’

A wave of pain ran through him. He tamped it down, breathed deeply. Fiona Welch’s head was cocked to one side as if she was an animal, listening. Or an anthropologist, observing. Her face was serene, sweet.

Phil tried again. ‘Fiona,’ he said, ‘what’s this going to prove? You can’t get away with it.’

She shrugged, smiled sweetly. Didn’t answer.

‘The rest of the team are going to be looking for me. I told them where I was going. When they get here, they’ll get you too.’

Another shrug. ‘So?’

‘So you’ll be caught. Prison.’

‘So?’

Phil shook his head. She was beyond reasoning with. ‘What d’you hope to get out of this?’

‘My Ph.D.’

Phil wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly. ‘What?’

‘My Ph.D. It’s in Victimology and Coercion. It examines how a subservient personality can be totally controlled by a dominant one. It also examines the mindset of the victim, the methodology needed to create that particular mindset in the first instance.’ She smiled. ‘With examples.’

Phil couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘So, you mean . . . you did all this, the murders, the abductions, everything . . . just for your Ph.D.?’

She looked affronted. ‘Why not? I told you I had a point to prove. This was it.’

‘But . . .’ Phil didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. ‘You’re going to spend the rest of your life in prison for this.’

‘So?’

‘So? What’s the good of your Ph.D. if you’re going to be in prison?’

She shook her head slowly, grinned patronisingly, as if explaining a very obvious point to a very thick child. ‘The Ph.D. is still a Ph.D. In prison or anywhere.’ Her eyes glittered in the dark, like stabbing razor flashes. ‘And just think . . . I’d be famous.’

Phil couldn’t believe what he was hearing. ‘Famous.’

‘Yes. Famous.’ She looked away, thinking, lost in her words, her mind. ‘No. I won’t just be famous, I’ll be notorious. No. That’s not right either. I’ll be . . . adored.’ She nodded. ‘Yes. That’s the right word. Adored. I’ll get letters. Visitors. They’ll write books about me. Serious, proper works, not just cheap lurid paperbacks. I’ll have my own acolytes. Disciples.’ She turned to Phil. ‘Do you know Charles Manson never killed anyone? He just made others do it for him. Yet he’s still locked up. And he’s just some stinking, addled old hippie. He’s nothing next to me . . .’

That’s when Phil realised she was completely insane. He had only suspected it before but now she had confirmed it. And in that moment another thought struck him.

I may not get out of here alive
.

He had thought up to now there was a chance. He could reason with her, keep her talking until his team arrived, carted her away. And, yes, she had said she expected to be caught. But she was insane. There was no telling what she would do next. Did she have one last trick, a final twist of the knife . . .

He saw Marina in his mind’s eye. Josephina next to her. Had he just got them back for him to be taken away from them? Permanently?

100

S
uzanne was awake. And listening to every word.

She lay curled up on the walkway, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe. It was something she had perfected in the box. Her eyes were half open, darting back and forward between this policeman, Phil Brennan, and the mad woman who had captured him. She recognised her from the hospital. Fiona something. A psychologist. She was behind this? Why? They had hardly exchanged two words.

But it was the presence behind the mad woman that eyes kept being drawn to. The hulking, mute presence, silent except for his rasping breathing. He was mostly in shadow but not totally, and as he moved from foot to foot she recognised him.

He had the face of a nightmare.

She tried not to look up, for fear of attracting attention to herself - because she had seen what the madwoman’s attention had done to Phil Brennan’s face - but she couldn’t keep her eyes off the man in the shadows. The Creeper, the madwoman had called him. That made sense. Considering what he had done to her. In her own home.

Her own bedroom.

But she had been following the conversation. Or as best as she could. The madwoman had made the Creeper think that she - Suzanne - was the spirit of a dead woman? And that’s why he was stalking her? If someone else had said that to her, told her that it had happened to them, she would have said they were lying. That she had never heard anything more insane in her life. But it wasn’t someone else. It had happened to her. And she had never been through anything more terrifying in her life.

And she still wasn’t free of it. She was still here.

She gave another surreptitious glance round. Directly ahead were Phil Brennan and the madwoman. Behind them was the Creeper. No escape there. She slowly moved her head, pretended it was a random gesture. Looked the other way down the walkway.

Darkness.

She squinted. She was sure she could see a set of stairs among the shadows, leading down from the gantry to the floor. But not sure enough to make a run for it. Along the gantry hung chains, clanking in the breeze, or when anyone moved. Some with huge hooks on them, some with heavy counterweights. Could she grab one, swing down to the ground? Would that be the best way to get down? Would that be faster than someone coming down the stairs after her?