Broken Dolls (A Jefferson Winter Thriller) (27 page)

‘Number Five shouldn’t have tried to escape.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Rachel whispered.

‘No you’re not. But you will be.’

Adam tied the length of rubber tubing around Rachel’s arm and tapped up a vein. He pierced the vein with the needle then pushed the plunger and untied the tubing. The beep of the heart monitor sped up past a hundred and a wave of euphoria washed through her. This time she knew what was coming and the euphoria was mixed with dread. Her breath came in sharp, short gasps and her skin felt electric.

She watched Adam pick up a knife and balance it point-down on his index finger. He moved it back and forth so the lights reflected off the blade. A smile, a shake of the head, then he placed the knife carefully back on the trolley. Next he picked up the knitting needle and ran the heat-blackened tip slowly up her cheek. Rachel shut her eyes tight and moved her head back as far as she could. The knitting needle dropped back onto the trolley and she opened her eyes.

‘Maybe next time,’ he said.

Adam picked up a tool that was about eight inches long. It had a sharp point at one end and looked old. The other end was flat and designed to be hit with a hammer or a mallet.

‘This is an orbitoclast,’ he said. ‘When the time comes I’m going to use this on you. I’m going to go in above your eyeball and through the skull at the back of the socket, and then into your brain. And you’re going to be awake when I do this. Very, very awake. I’m going to turn you into the invisible woman.’

Rachel stared at the object in Adam’s hand, her heart racing. She knew Adam would follow through on what he said. He’d done it four times already. All she could do was try to stay alive for as long as possible and hope the police found her in time, or she somehow managed to escape. It wasn’t much of a plan. It wasn’t any plan at all.

Adam smiled again and put the orbitoclast back on the trolley.

‘That’s one for another day, though. Today I’ve got something really special lined up.’

He reached for the garden snips and looked at Rachel’s left hand. There was a blissed-out expression on his face and a faraway look in his eyes. Rachel followed his gaze and saw the bloodstains on the vinyl. She looked at the garden snips.

‘No,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Adam.

He brought the blades of the snips together twice.
Snick-snick. Snick-snick.
It was the sound of a tool that had been well cared for and sharpened regularly. Rachel could smell the oil. She curled her hand into a tight fist, fingernails digging into the flesh of her palm. Adam took hold of her little finger and bent it away from the others. He opened the snips as far as they would go.

52

‘I want my solicitor.’

‘And I want a supermodel girlfriend and a Caribbean villa,’ I said. ‘Life’s full of little disappointments, I guess.’

William Trent was on the opposite side of the table from me, Hatcher was to my left. The recording light on the camera aimed at Trent was lit red. We were in the same interview room where we’d talked to Jamie Morris. The room was just as depressing as it had been yesterday. Same scarred table, same battered chairs, same air of despair. The smell of cigarettes lingered, making me crave one. Hatcher saw me dip a hand into my pocket. He coughed and shook his head.

‘So what’s this?’ said Trent. ‘Good cop, bad cop?’

‘You watch too many movies,’ I replied.

‘I know my rights. I don’t have to say anything until my solicitor gets here.’

‘Like I said: you watch too many movies.’

For a while I sat and sipped my coffee and said nothing. I looked at my watch and followed the second hand as it ticked around the dial. Six degrees for every passing second. Three hundred and sixty degrees for every minute. 21,600 degrees every hour. 518,400 degrees every day. 189,216,000 in a standard year. 189,734,400 in a leap year.

‘So what?’ said Trent. ‘We just sit here? Aren’t you going to try and get me to confess or something?’

I drank some more coffee. Then I reached into my pocket and fished out the after photographs I’d stolen from the evidence board. I dealt them out in the order the women had been abducted, slapped them down like they were playing cards. Sarah Flight, Margaret Smith, Caroline Brant, Patricia Maynard. I watched Trent for a reaction, but got nothing except mild curiosity. The last photograph dropped down onto the table. Trent looked up at me and grinned. He was completely relaxed. Too relaxed. He was breathing easy and there were no twitches or any other signs of stress.

‘Are those your girlfriends? They don’t smile much, do they? I can see why you want a supermodel.’

‘You think this is funny,’ said Hatcher.

‘Actually, I do think it’s funny.’ Trent grinned again. ‘You know, when I get out of here I’m going to sue you for wrongful arrest. I should get myself a nice six-figure sum for all the pain and suffering I’ve been put through. I’ve got a great lawyer. The best.’ Hatcher’s hands balled into fists and then relaxed again. Trent saw this and his grin widened. ‘What are you going to do, Mr Policeman? Are you going to beat me up? Break an arm, maybe? A leg? A couple of ribs? I reckon that would add at least another twenty grand to the settlement, maybe even thirty.’

‘Where’s Rachel Morris?’ said Hatcher.

‘She’s that woman who was kidnapped, isn’t she? The one who’s all over the news?’ Trent paused and looked Hatcher straight in the eye. ‘The one who’s going to get sliced up and have her brain cut out.’

‘Answer the question. Where is she?’

Trent shook his head. ‘No idea. I’ve never met her.’

I drank my coffee and watched the two men go back and forth like this for a while, winding each other up. Hatcher’s face had turned red and he kept clenching and unclenching his fists. The vein in his neck was pulsing. I was watching Hatcher particularly carefully, ready to jump in if he blew up and took a swing at Trent. Hatcher getting suspended on some dumbass disciplinary charge would be a disaster.

I waited until the moment was right, then asked the question I’d been waiting to ask. My voice stayed casual, like I was asking about the weather, or today’s specials.

‘So what does it feel like to cut into flesh?’

Trent turned and stared at me. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Yes you do. I know why you were kicked out of med school. I saw Marilyn’s scars. So what’s it like?’

‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Skin’s quite easy to cut through, isn’t it? It’s when you dig deeper that you meet resistance and things get a bit tougher. Cutting into muscle, now that’s where the real fun begins. You can’t really do that with your wife, though, can you? So what’s the deal? Have you got a thing going with a funeral parlour? I mean, you have money, and money can buy you whatever you want, right? Even some quality one-on-one time with a corpse if you know the right person. And my guess is you’ve made it your business to know the right person.’

Trent looked deep into my eyes, trying to outstare me. There was puzzlement in his gaze, like he couldn’t work out where the hell I was coming from. Trent broke away, then looked back at me. For a fraction of a second his grin morphed into a knowing smile. His eyes lit up and he licked his lips, his hands slid down towards his lap. Then the mask came back down, and his hands went back onto the table.

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said.

I was finished here. Trent had told me everything I needed to know. Hatcher followed me into the corridor. The walls were grey, the linoleum was scuffed and past its best, and the strip lights cast a dull glow over everything because the covers hadn’t been cleaned since for ever.

‘He’s not our guy,’ I said.

‘He’s got to be,’ said Hatcher.

‘It’s not him. Did you see how excited he got when I started talking about slicing up dead bodies? I thought he was going to start jerking himself off.’

‘Which is as good as a confession in my book. We know that Cutting Jack gets off on using knives on his victims.’

‘His
live
victims,’ I corrected. ‘Trent gets off on cutting up dead bodies. Granted, he’s a sicko, but he’s not our sicko.’

‘What about the wife? She was covered in knife scars.’

‘The wife’s a poor substitute for the real thing. He uses her to hold his urges in check while he’s waiting for his connection at the local funeral parlour to come up with the goods.’

‘It’s got to be him.’

‘It doesn’t matter how many times you say that, Hatcher, it won’t make it true. William Trent is not the unsub. Did you see how calm he was?’

‘So he’s a sociopath,’ said Hatcher.

‘He’s not a sociopath. He’s just a pervert with a couple of million in the bank. Big difference.’

‘I’m not convinced.’

‘Okay, where’s Rachel Morris?’

‘He’s got her hidden in a secret location. Hell, maybe he’s got a dozen places and he keeps moving her around to make it harder for us to find her. He’s got the money to do it.’

I shook my head. ‘You’re clutching at straws, Hatcher. This guy needs to keep his victims close by. He
wants
to keep them close. He wants to be able to go and have fun with them whenever the urge strikes him. That means his house. You’ve been through Trent’s house. Did you find a single trace of Rachel Morris?’

Hatcher shook his head. ‘That doesn’t mean it’s not him.’

‘Okay, here are two more reasons. First, his house was on the south bank of the Thames. The unsub lives north of the river.’

‘Come on, Winter, that’s pretty tenuous.’

‘Our guy lives north of the river,’ I repeated. ‘Second, did you notice Trent’s reaction when I showed him the photographs? He barely registered them.’

‘So he’d make a great poker player.’

‘I’ve used that trick dozens of times, Hatcher. It’s foolproof. Show a serial criminal pictures of their handiwork and you’re going to get a reaction. The reactions you get range from indignant denial all the way through to out-and-out bragging. You wouldn’t believe how proud some of these assholes are. This is their masterwork, the highlight of their miserable little lives, and they can’t wait to tell you all about it. The one reaction I have never seen is indifference. Read my lips, Hatcher: William Trent is
not
our guy.’

53

‘Hatcher’s furious,’ Templeton said as we rode the elevator down to Scotland Yard’s subterranean levels. ‘He’s crucifying people left, right and centre. I got away just in time. I reckon I was next in the firing line.’

‘Cut him some slack,’ I said. ‘Hatcher’s got a lot on his plate and now he’s got to deal with the fallout from William Trent shouting wrongful arrest at anyone who’ll listen. That’s one headache he could do without.’

‘I really thought Trent was our man.’

‘So did a lot of people.’

‘But not you.’

‘He looked good on paper.’

‘That’s an evasion, not an answer.’

‘When it comes to suspects, I never get too excited. I’ve been disappointed too many times. I like to sit down and talk to them before I make a final decision.’ I thought about the child-killer from Maine who’d chosen suicide by cop, then added, ‘That’s assuming they make it into custody.’

‘Are you telling me you can work out who’s guilty or innocent just by talking to them?’

‘I haven’t been wrong yet.’

Templeton laughed. ‘With a superpower like that, maybe we should get rid of the justice system altogether. Save ourselves a fortune.’

‘The justice system has nothing to do with guilt or innocence,’ I said. ‘You know that as much as I do. It’s all about which side can afford the best lawyers.’

The elevator bumped to a gentle stop, the doors concertinaed open, and we started along the corridor side by side.

‘If Trent’s not our guy, then that’s us back at square one again,’ said Templeton. ‘We need to go back and review everything. There must be something we’re missing.’

‘Agreed, but we also need to be careful that we’re not looking at the forest and seeing only trees,’ I said. ‘The best thing you can do is to try and let this go for now.’

‘Easier said than done.’

I cracked a smile. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘Okay, how about we meet up at your hotel this evening and throw some ideas around?’

‘Sounds like a plan. It would probably be best to meet in my room, though.’

Templeton gave me a look. Her left eyebrow was arched and she had a strange little half-smile on her face.

‘So we can spread our stuff out,’ I added quickly.

‘Okay, let’s say eight. That’ll give me time to shoot home and shower and get changed and feed my cat.’

‘You’ve got a cat?’

‘That surprises you?’

I thought about this then shook my head. ‘It makes sense. You’re not wearing a wedding ring, so chances are you’re not married. You work long hours and you’re ambitious, neither of which is conducive to a successful long-term relationship. My guess is you live alone, but like company, so it makes sense you’d have a pet. Dogs are high-maintenance and fish are boring. That leaves a cat. Cats are independent and low-maintenance. They’re practical pets, and you strike me as a practical person.’

Templeton laughed and shook her head. ‘They say men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but what the hell planet are you from, Winter?’

We reached the computer room and Templeton did a quick three-beat knock on the door then pushed it open. Sumati Chatterjee had her head buried in her monitors on one side of the narrow room while Alex Irvine was manning the workstation opposite her. They both looked up together, but this time Alex was a little ahead of Sumati. I tossed the flash drive to Sumati, who caught it two-handed. She looked surprised and shocked, like I’d tossed her a live grenade.

‘I need to see what’s on this,’ I said. ‘I don’t think it’s rigged to wipe itself clean, but be careful.’

‘I’m always careful.’

Sumati plugged the flash drive into a USB slot. She clicked and pointed with the mouse, then her fingers flew over the keyboard with precision and grace. Alex pushed away from his desk and rolled across the room to join us.

‘Okay, I’m in,’ said Sumati. ‘And I’m happy to report there were no viruses or any other nasty surprises.’