Broken Dolls (A Jefferson Winter Thriller) (2 page)

‘That’s fine in theory. The problem is there’s a woman out there who’s about to come face to face with her worst nightmare and there’s absolutely nothing I can do to stop that. My job is to protect these people.’

There was no response to that. I’d been in Hatcher’s shoes plenty of times and knew exactly what he was feeling right now. The helplessness, the need to do something when you didn’t have a clue what that something was. The anger was the hardest thing to deal with, though. Anger at yourself for not solving the puzzle, anger at a world where those puzzles even existed.

For a while we stood in a respectful silence and watched Patricia sleep. The heart monitor beeped, the bedcovers rose and fell, and the clock on the wall counted off the seconds.

Patricia was twenty-eight, brown-eyed, brunette. The second detail wasn’t apparent because her eyes were swollen shut, and the last detail wasn’t apparent because the unsub had shaved her head. The skin around her eyes was bruised, and her scalp was a shiny smooth pink dome under the bright hospital lights. There wasn’t even a hint of stubble, which meant this had been done recently, probably in the hours before she was dumped. There was no way this was the first time the unsub had done this to her. This guy got off on humiliation, pain and torture.

I’d interviewed dozens of murderers in an attempt to get an insight into the impulses that drove them. I had made it my business to try to understand why one human being would hurt another for pleasure. But I was having a tough time getting my head around the fact that Patricia Maynard had been lobotomised.

Cardiopulmonary functions are controlled by the medulla oblongata, a part of the brain that hadn’t been affected when Patricia was lobotomised. For as long as she lived, her medulla oblongata would keep her lungs pumping and her heart beating. Patricia wasn’t even thirty yet. She could easily live for another forty or fifty years. Half a century trapped in a twilight prison, completely reliant on others for help in every aspect of her life, unable to feed herself or go to the bathroom, unable to string a thought or a sentence together. It didn’t bear thinking about.

‘And there’s no scarring on the skull?’ Another rhetorical question, this one necessary because I needed to find my way back into the room.

‘That’s because access to the brain was gained through the eye sockets.’ Hatcher was still staring at Patricia Maynard. ‘You seen enough, Winter?’

‘More than enough.’ I was staring, too. I couldn’t help it. ‘Okay, our next stop’s St Albans. I need to talk to Graham Johnson.’

‘Is that necessary? My people have already interviewed him.’

I tore my eyes away from Patricia Maynard and looked at Hatcher. ‘And I’m sure your people did a wonderful job. But it was Johnson who found Patricia, which means there are only two degrees of separation between him and the unsub. And since our victims aren’t saying much, that’s the closest I’m going to get to him right now. So yeah, I want to talk to him.’

‘Okay. Let me make a call. I’ll find someone to drive you.’

‘And how much time will that waste? It would be better if you drove.’

‘No can do. I’m expected back at the office.’

‘You’re the boss. You can do whatever the hell you want.’ I grinned. ‘Come on, Hatcher, it’ll be fun.’

‘Fun! You know, Winter, you’ve got a pretty warped idea of what constitutes fun. Fun is a twenty-year-old blonde. Fun is partying all night on a billionaire’s yacht. What we do is not fun.’

‘You know your problem, Hatcher? You’ve got too used to pushing a desk. When was the last time you did any real police work?’ I grinned. ‘Come to think about it, when was the last time you did a twenty-year-old blonde?’

Hatcher let out another long, tired sigh. ‘I’ve got to get back.’

‘And I’ve just flown across the Atlantic to help save your ass. And did I mention it’s thirty-six hours since I last saw a bed?’

‘And that’s emotional blackmail.’

‘Your point?’

Hatcher sighed again. ‘Okay. I’ll drive.’

2

Hatcher drove fast and careful, the needle flickering around ninety and rarely dipping below eighty. We were headed north up the M1, an urban corridor on the outskirts of London. The motorway was flanked by dismal grey buildings that were made even more depressing by the dull December light.

Christmas was less than a week away but even the coloured fairy lights twinkling behind the windows we passed failed to brighten up the day. It was mid-afternoon, an hour before sundown, and the slate-grey sky was filled with dark storm clouds. According to the news reports, snow was on the way and people were already betting on whether or not it was going to be a white Christmas. I could understand the appeal of gambling but I didn’t understand the appeal of snow. It was cold, wet and depressing. At heart I would always be a Californian. I crave sunshine the way an addict craves crack.

‘I really appreciate you agreeing to take the case,’ said Hatcher. ‘I know how busy you are.’

‘Glad to be here,’ I said.
No you don’t
, I thought. And that was the truth. Right now I could be in Singapore or Sydney or Miami. Hot, sunny places. Instead I was in London on an icy December day, fighting off frostbite and hypothermia and wondering when the blizzard was going to hit.

I only had myself to blame. The main benefit of being your own boss was that you got to call the shots. I’d chosen to be in London for the simple reason that this case was unusual, and unusual made it interesting, and interesting was one of the few things that could trump sunshine.

Since quitting the FBI I’d travelled the world hunting serial criminals. Every day brought a new request for help, sometimes two or three requests. Choosing which cases to work was tough since declining a case could mean a death sentence for someone, often more than one someone since serial killers tend to keep going until they’re stopped. This dilemma gave me plenty of sleepless nights during my FBI days. I slept better now, but that was the combination of sleeping pills, whisky and jet lag.

Unfortunately there was never going to be a shortage of monsters to hunt down. That was the way it had been since for ever, all the way back to when Cain murdered Abel. Serial criminals were like weeds. When you caught one another dozen sprang up to take their place. Some people believed there were as many as a  hundred serial killers operating in the US alone. And that was just the killers. This figure didn’t account for the arsonists or the rapists or any of those other monsters whose only goal in life was to bring pain and suffering into the lives of others.

I’d been your archetypal G-Man when I was with the FBI. A sharp suit, shoes spit-shined until they shone like mirrors, hair cut into a neat short back and sides. My hair was black back then, dyed so I wouldn’t stand out. Put me in a line-up with a thousand other agents and I would have blended right in.

These day I’m more relaxed about my appearance. The starched white shirts and stiff suits have gone, replaced with jeans and dead-rock-star T-shirts and hooded tops. The shiny shoes have been swapped for comfortable, scuffed working boots. The dye ended up in the trash. I might not look as smart as I used to, but I felt a damn sight more comfortable. Those G-Men suits were like straitjackets.

‘What are your first impressions?’ Hatcher glanced over at me, one hand on the wheel, the needle pushing a hundred.

‘There are only two ways this guy’s going to stop. You catch him or he dies. Either from causes natural or unnatural. He likes what he does too much to stop on his own.’

‘Come on, Winter, this isn’t some rookie you’re talking to here. That description covers ninety-nine point nine per cent of serial criminals.’

I laughed. Hatcher had got me there. ‘Okay, how about this? When you catch him, he’s not going to come in easily. This one’s a prime candidate for suicide by cop.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Prison would kill him.’

‘Why?’

‘This guy’s all about control. He controls every aspect of his victims’ lives. What they wear, what they eat, everything. He couldn’t handle having that control taken away. Suicide by cop would appeal to him because he would be choosing the time and place of his death. In his mind, he’d still be in control.’

‘Let’s hope you’re wrong about that.’

‘I’m not.’

While Hatcher drove, I went over the details of Patricia Maynard’s kidnapping in my head. I would have liked more information, but that’s nothing new. It doesn’t matter how much information you’ve got, it’s never enough.

According to the police reports, Martin Maynard had reported his wife missing on August twenty-third, and in doing so made himself the prime suspect. Most murders are committed by someone known to the victim. A spouse, a relative, a friend. At that point, this wasn’t a murder investigation, but the cops were covering their bases.

Martin Maynard had had a string of affairs and the couple had been seeing a therapist in a last-ditch attempt to save a marriage that should have been signed off as terminal a long time ago. Add in a sizeable life insurance policy and there was plenty of motive. Murder was the logical conclusion.

After forty-eight hours of questions Martin Maynard was free to go. The cops kept an eye on him over the intervening months, but again, this was more about covering bases, and asses. When the cops assembled the puzzle pieces of Patricia Maynard’s last movements, they established that she had gone missing some time during the evening of August twenty-second.

Martin’s alibi was rock-solid and came in the form of his secretary, a woman he’d sworn to Patricia he was no longer seeing. On the night she disappeared he was supposed to be in Cardiff on business, but was actually still in London with his secretary. Hotel records and eyewitness accounts backed up his story.

For the next three and a half months, nothing. No ransom note, no telephone demands, no body. Patricia Maynard had disappeared off the face of the planet. Everyone assumed she was dead, then, two nights ago, she turned up in a park in St Albans, a small cathedral city situated thirty minutes north of London. She was disorientated and non-communicative, unable to answer even the most basic questions. Graham Johnson had been walking his dog, and found her wandering alone. He called in the local police, and they quickly identified their Jane Doe as Patricia Maynard. She was transferred to St Barts Hospital in London and Hatcher took over the case.

During her three and a half months in captivity, Patricia Maynard had been repeatedly tortured. Her body was covered in scars and bruising, some old, some new. This unsub liked to play with knives, and the tox screen showed that he used drugs to keep Patricia awake and hypersensitive while he had his fun. He had cut her fingers off one at a time, all except the ring finger on her left hand. The stumps were neatly cauterised. Curiously, he had avoided damaging her face, and even more curiously, there were traces of make-up that hadn’t been properly wiped off. Another interesting point: aside from her injuries, Patricia was in pretty good shape. Her weight was appropriate for her height and build, and there were no signs of dehydration.

We reached the turn for St Albans and Hatcher hit the indicator and swerved left onto the off-ramp. Five minutes later we were driving through St Michael’s, a part of the city made up of rickety terraces of little picture-postcard houses and larger properties that must have cost a small fortune. We drove past four bars. Too many for the number of houses, not to mention the demographic those houses represented. The area had tourist written all over it.

The cold hit me the second I got out the car. It was like charging head-first into a wall of solid ice. I was wearing my thickest jacket. Sheepskin on the inside to keep in the warmth, and waterproofed suede on the outside to keep out the worst of the wind and the wet. I could have been wearing shorts and a T-shirt for all the good it was doing. I lit a cigarette and Hatcher gave me a dirty look.

‘We’re outside,’ I said. ‘I’m not breaking any laws.’

‘Those things will kill you.’

‘So will a lot of things. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow.’

‘Or you could get diagnosed with lung cancer and die a slow, lingering, painful death.’

I flashed Hatcher a tight grin. ‘Or maybe not. My great-grandpa smoked two packs a day and lived to be a hundred and three. Let’s hope I take after him, eh?’

Graham Johnson’s house was opposite the Six Bells. Like all the other houses along this stretch the front door opened directly onto the sidewalk. One of Hatcher’s people had phoned ahead, so Johnson was expecting us. The living-room curtain fluttered down as we walked up to the house, and the door swung open before Hatcher had a chance to hit the bell. Johnson stood in the doorway, a Jack Russell yapping and bouncing hyperactively around his ankles. He was average height, average build, and his head brushed the top of the low doorframe.

According to the police reports, Johnson was seventy-five, and every single one of those years was etched into the lines that creased his worn, worried face. What little hair he had left was as white as mine and there were large bags under his rheumy blue eyes. He moved fluidly for his age, though, no stiffness despite the fact it was thirty degrees outside. Regular exercise rather than vitamins and joint supplements. Johnson didn’t strike me as someone who would go down the vitamin route.

‘Come on in.’

Johnson stepped aside to let us into the living room. The dog was going nuts, yapping and twirling and chasing his tail. The old guy shouted a sharp ‘Barnaby, quiet!’ and the dog shut up and bounced onto a chair, a guilty look on its face. I crushed my half-smoked cigarette out on the sidewalk and followed Hatcher inside. The dog’s eyes followed us across the room. Johnson ushered us towards the sofa and we sat down. The small fire burning in the grate warmed the room and cast a cosy orange glow.

‘Can I get you anything?’ he asked. ‘Tea? Coffee?’

‘A coffee would be great,’ I said. ‘Black, two sugars, thanks.’

Hatcher declined, and the old guy disappeared into the kitchen. I settled back on the sofa and checked out the room. My initial impression was that it was preserved like a museum exhibit. I’d noticed Johnson’s wedding ring when he answered the door, and I’d also noticed that the living room had been decorated by a woman. What I hadn’t noticed was a wife.