50/50 Killer (31 page)

That didn't seem right. She lifted her head off the pillow, peering around the bedroom with bleary eyes.

The curtains were black, the dressing table clouded in shadow. She checked the display. Only half past four, and the numbers weren't flashing.

The phone in the study.

It all came back to her then - John working late; the fear and the anger; the promise she'd extracted from him to phone her every two hours. What had happened? It had been her intention to stay awake to see if he called, but she remembered lying down on the bed, resting, and that had obviously been that. Idiot, she thought.

At least he's phoned.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and got rather unsteadily to her feet. The wine was swirling the remains of the dream around in her head, and tilting the world. It was hard to negotiate the hallway in the darkness, with everything turning slowly, and on the way she banged into the wall and, from there, the banister, and then missed the door to the study, flat-palming the cold wall just past it. Three or four desperate seconds to find the light switch. The same again while she winced and rubbed her eyes against the harsh pain of the light.

The whole time, the phone kept ringing.

'Hello?'

'Eileen?'

A man's voice, but not John's.

'Yes,' she said. 'Who is this?'

'It's Geoff Hunter,' he said. 'I'm sorry for calling you so late. I wouldn't normally disturb you.'

Hunter. An image of John's noxious colleague rose in her head, and she frowned. Of course he wouldn't normally disturb her, so what the hell did he want now? And why wasn't this John?

She froze. Something had happened to him.

Panic rose inside her, concern and love for her husband immediately replacing the anger she'd felt at his neglect of her, the risk he was taking at their expense. If he was hurt, if anything had happened ... But if something had, it wouldn't be Hunter phoning her. One of his team would do that. And so it must be about--

'James Reardon,' she remembered. 'You've found him?'

'Not yet.'

'Then what do you want?'

'It's your husband.'

There was an unpleasant note of triumph in his voice. Eileen closed her eyes and felt herself falling away. She didn't know exactly what was coming next, but she had an idea.

Hunter said, 'There's something I think you deserve to know.'

4 DECEMBER

2 HOURS, 40 MINUTES UNTIL DAWN

4.40 A.M.

Mark

Detective Inspector Alan White was Mercer's direct superior, but was slightly younger than him. It happens that way sometimes. In any organisation, there comes a point when you stop rising automatically up the ranks and have to push to move ahead. Mercer could have done that, I was sure, but he was happy enough to stay where he was, whereas White had involved himself more in politics and pulled himself higher up the ladder. From brief mentions in Mercer's book, there seemed to be good history and mutual respect between them, but right now that history was doing little to stop White looking incredibly pissed off. Perhaps it tempered the anger with a hint of sadness and regret, but that certainly wasn't going to prevent him doing his job.

I'd been aware of Mercer reporting to White that afternoon as I read through the 50/50 file, but this was the first time I'd actually seen him. He had black, receding hair, and a face with a strange sort of muscular pudge to it. His dark brown eyes were intimidating even through a computer screen and over a distance of miles. They could probably have scorched off skin in person.

'John,' he repeated, 'I want to know what's going on. This morning, you picked up a home invasion. All day you've been talking to me about a home invasion.'

'That's the case we've been working on, Alan--'

'No, cut the shit, John. I look at the file now, and I see a home invasion with a lot of activity we both know I should have been informed about. And why am I looking at the file? Because I've just had Geoff Hunter shouting down the phone at me. So I repeat -
again
- what the fuck is going on?'

Mercer stared back at him. For a moment, there was only steel in his face, but then the glimmer of a smile appeared.

He understood this was it now, the end, and he also knew exactly what had happened. He'd trusted someone, and he'd been betrayed. So Geoff Hunter had been on the phone to White. Earlier on, when Greg had left the locker room, I'd noticed he'd given up too easily, and now we both understood why. Finally losing patience, he'd taken the decision to go over Mercer's head. In many ways, I found I couldn't blame him.

'I was about to contact you both,' Mercer said.

'Is that right?'

'Yes.' He picked his words slowly and carefully. 'There was some doubt at the beginning of the case, but now it seems clear. The man we're looking for is the man responsible for Andrew's death. Among others.'

Some doubt at the beginning of the case. There was irony in that, of course, because it was Greg who'd queried the link at first. Mercer was staring down at his keyboard, with the same thin, humourless smile.

'We've talked about this, haven't we, John?' White said. 'You know my feelings. It was always going to be Geoff's case from now on. So that's bad enough. Compounding matters, I understand you've actually uncovered a link with Geoff's current operation. That's right?'

Mercer nodded once. 'That's correct.'

'Do you have any idea how difficult that makes this?'

'We've only just read the file summary now--'

'John--'

Mercer spread his hands: 'The connection is a new development.'

'John, please.' White shook his head and looked away. He looked as if he was rolling something around his mouth and not enjoying the taste all that much.

Mercer just waited.

'Right,' White said. 'Geoff's on his way to the ring road now, since that's where most of the men are. He'll be taking over. Until he's evaluated the situation, he's ordered the search teams out of the woods.'

Mercer looked up, frantic. 'But Alan--'

'No buts, John. It's the middle of the fucking night and there's a blizzard. What were you thinking?'

'Ordered', I noted. Past tense. White had already made the decision to replace Mercer before he made this call. Mercer sensed it, too. He was beginning to panic.

'We're at a key point in this, Alan. We're so, so close. A girl could die if we lose hold of this now.'

'You're far too close,' White said, 'and it's clouding your judgment. I've skimmed the file and what you're doing is madness. You're risking more of your men in there - you do realise that?'

'Alan--'

'We both know Geoff is perfectly competent. He will look at this case and he will take it forward in the most appropriate manner.'

'Damn it, Alan, we have to save her!'

There was a pause. White just looked at him, his expression wavering between contempt and pity. As with Mercer's previous outburst, I felt embarrassed on his behalf. Five minutes ago he had been bright and positive. Now he was collapsing, and it was painful to watch. We had all been worried about what the case meant to him, and what failure today might do. I was seeing that happen.

'I wish you could see yourself,' White said quietly.

'I'm fine.'

'I'll be the judge of that. No, you're not fine; you're falling apart. I'm telling you to go home. And out of respect for our history, that's all I'm telling you right now. But we'll be talking a lot more about this when you've slept.'

Mercer took a deep breath. Then released it slowly.

'Am I understood?' White said.

'Yes, Alan.'

'Put your man on.'

When Mercer didn't move, I activated the webcam on my own monitor and clicked the onscreen view so that White would receive the feed.

'Detective Nelson,' I said.

'I assume you heard all that?'

'Yes, sir.'

'I need you to prepare a report for Detective Sergeant Hunter.'

'Okay.'

He went through it. Hunter wanted a summary of the day's events: what had happened; what we knew so far; what our current situation was. The facts, White emphasised.

I listened, nodding in all the right places, and every second it felt like I was betraying Mercer. I wanted to do something - make some rebellious gesture of support - but that wouldn't accomplish anything. I was paid to do whatever job got handed down to me, and I forced myself to keep that in mind. Even so, below the surface the guilt and frustration were building. All the men, out of the woods.

When I disconnected, the locker room was very quiet. The soft hum of the computer equipment gave the silence an ominous feel: the atmosphere was charged, as though the air couldn't stand it any more and the next time there was a noise it would start screaming.

I looked at Mercer.

In the last few hours, I'd become used to him sitting a certain way: elbows on his knees or on the desk, his head in his hands, looking as though he was either concentrating very hard on something or allowing himself to drift and rest. Now that it was over, he was simply leaning back in the chair, hands resting casually on his thighs. The acceptance in his face revealed a number of emotions. Anger, certainly. But also, I thought, a sense of relief.

He reminded me of my father. When I was a child and his business had failed, he'd sat me down to explain about it. I'd felt awkward, because I was young and it was the first time I'd seen my father look vulnerable. He'd always been a rock, and it was terrible to see him stained by failure, and the worst thing was him knowing I was seeing it. Mercer had that same combination of age, fragility and sadness.

In my father's case, it had been reined in by a lifetime's understanding that whatever life dealt you, however hard it might be, you took it and kept going. Mercer just looked beaten, and that was immeasurably worse.

'I'm sorry, sir,' I said. 'I wanted you to see it through.'

He stared at me for a moment, as though weighing me up. Considering me. Seeing through me, almost. Then, he leaned forwards, and seemed about to speak.

Before he could, a sharp noise broke the silence, jarring us both. Mercer patted at himself. His mobile was ringing.

'Shit.'

He took it out of his pocket, looked at the display, and then paused, debating the call. I waited, but he just let it ring. The caller wasn't giving up. Thirty seconds later, Mercer used his fingernail to turn the phone off at the top, cutting the call dead, and then put it down on the desk by all his papers.

'My wife.' He closed his eyes.

'You don't want to talk to her?' I said.

'Not right now, no. I'll be home soon.'

I looked at my watch. 'It's late for her still to be up. Or else it's early.'

'She worries about me. But everyone worries about me, don't they?'

I thought about that. It reminded me, along with the impression I'd just had, that I hadn't replied to my parents after that text earlier on. They were worried about me, too, even though they didn't need to be. I knew how annoying it could be.

'People--'

It felt stupid, because he wasn't going to see it this way, not at the moment.

'People care,' I said.

'No, people worry. And you know what? I worry about myself sometimes. I'm the one who has to deal with it. People seem to forget that. But it's been two years, and I have to do something. I can't just sit at home for ever. Nobody seems to remember that, either. Well' - he glanced up at the screen - 'almost nobody.'

I started to reply, but then stopped. 'Almost nobody', he'd said. The words struck me as odd, and a second later something occurred to me:
He's been planning this for two years
, Mercer had said.

It was two years since we'd heard from the 50/50 Killer, and it was also two years since Mercer's breakdown. And he thought there was a connection. Staring over at him, I realised that had been at least part of the basis for his approach to the case. He thought that the two-year break had less to do with planning, more to do with the killer's desire to let the policeman in charge of the investigation recover and return to the fray.

Could he possibly be right? Unlikely as it might have seemed earlier on, now that it was just the two of us here the idea had a curious power.

'I know what everybody's been saying,' Mercer said. 'It's been obvious all day. Tiptoeing around me. They think it's all about Andrew. That I can't cope with the pressure. That I'm too close to it. That I'm just going to ... I don't know, fall over or something.'

He opened his eyes and looked straight at me.

'Do you know what I need, Mark?'

'No, sir.'

'Not even what I need, but what I want? What I want - more than anything - is not to feel like a
fucking invalid
.'

I stared at him.

'And faith,' he said. 'That's what I've wanted. A bit of faith. Two years ago, everyone might have disagreed or might not have understood, but they wouldn't have doubted me. But all day it's like I've been on probation and nobody trusts me any more. Do they honestly think I'd still be here now if I didn't think I had to be?'

'I don't know, sir.'

'Just a bit of faith.' He shook his head. 'My team to back me up like they used to. Instead, I've been on my own with this all day, while everyone
worries
. And now ... Well, we're done, aren't we?'

'I don't know.'

'Yes. We're done.'

He put his elbows on the desk, rested his head in his hands. 'And I'm glad.'

We sat in silence. He didn't move, didn't do anything. I couldn't even see him breathing he was so still. I wanted to excuse myself quietly and walk out of the room. Instead:

'Sir?'

There was no reply.

'Are you okay, sir?'

Nothing.

The computer in front of me beeped once, the screen coming to life, and I turned my attention to that instead. The search team at the woods, requesting a connection. I clicked them through, assuming it would be Pete again, or maybe Hunter.

Rather than either of them, however, I found myself faced by an officer I'd never seen. He looked nervous and kept glancing off camera, unsure whether the connection was working.