Broken Dolls (A Jefferson Winter Thriller) (32 page)

Our conversation lasted less than twenty seconds.

61

I was on the phone ordering coffee from room service when Hatcher got back. This was gearing up to be an all-nighter so we’d need caffeine, and lots of it. I switched on my laptop and wired in the printer, then logged on to the internet and found a map of North London. I printed the map across four sheets and pinned these to the wall. The walls were made from sheetrock and the pins went in easily. The downside of sheetrock was that we could hear the couple next door having sex.

The abduction sites got marked in green, the dump sites in red. Templeton’s house got a green cross, and the location where Charles Brenner’s body was found was marked with a theatrical black cross. I pinned the after photos of Sarah Flight, Margaret Smith, Caroline Brant and Patricia Maynard next to the map.

The coffee arrived, two cafetières and two mugs. I tipped the girl who brought it and told her to bring the same again in an hour. My blood sugar level was taking a dive so I added three sugars to my coffee, then raided the minibar and came up with some peanuts and a candy bar. I tore open the peanuts and ate a handful. Ripped open the candy bar and took a bite.

‘So, where the hell do we start?’ asked Hatcher.

‘We go right back to the beginning,’ I said. ‘With Templeton’s abduction the unsubs deviated from their MO. That’s great news. It means all bets are off. It means we get to wipe the slate clean. We challenge every assumption, every theory, and we see where that leads us.’

‘He snatched Templeton because of the press conference, didn’t he?’

I nodded and ate another handful of nuts.

‘She could be dead,’ said Hatcher.

‘She could be,’ I agreed.

‘And you don’t feel guilty about that?’

‘Guilt isn’t going to help us get Templeton back. Right now that’s got to be our primary focus. Until we hear otherwise‚ we assume she’s alive.’

‘Did you know this was going to happen?’

‘If you’re asking whether I used Templeton as bait, then the answer is no. If I’d done that I would have made sure she was protected.’

‘But?’ said Hatcher.

‘But when you push an unsub, they don’t always act in ways that you can predict. In hindsight I can understand why he’s done what he’s done. He’s angry at us because we lied to him, and Templeton is the focal point for that anger.’

‘Jesus.’

Hatcher’s voice had shrunk to a whisper and there was a faraway look in his eyes. I knew where he’d disappeared to. He was watching the flash of a blade as it cut into flesh. He was seeing the blood seep and drip and gather into pools.

‘Hatcher!’ I called out, loud and sharp to get his attention. ‘The guilt and the what-ifs and the finger-pointing we deal with later. Right now the only thing that matters is getting Templeton back, okay?’

‘Okay,’ he said.

We drifted into a short silence that was punctuated by the moans and groans from the couple next door. They sounded like they were just about there. I hoped they were. The fewer distractions, the better. I tipped the rest of the peanuts into my mouth and finished the candy bar in three bites. My blood sugar was on the way up again. I felt energised, and the low-grade headache that usually preceded a crash had gone.

I got a fresh packet of cigarettes from my suitcase and lit one. Hatcher glared but kept his mouth shut. I smoked my cigarette and drank my coffee and did my best to stop myself thinking about what Templeton was going through. All that stuff I put into a box and nailed the lid on tight. If things went bad, I would take the lid off and deal with it then. Like I’d told Hatcher, all that mattered was getting Templeton back.

Hatcher’s cellphone rang and I plucked it from his fingers before he had a chance to answer it.

‘What the hell, Winter!’

I turned the phone around so Hatcher could see the number. ‘Fielding?’

A nod.

I switched the phone off and tossed it back to Hatcher.

‘I can’t think of anyone I need to speak to right now,’ I said. ‘That means there’s nobody you need to speak to either. We don’t need any distractions.’

Hatcher didn’t look convinced, but he put his cell away.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘The biggest assumption we’ve made is that there are two unsubs. I still believe that’s the case.’

‘Even though we only have actual evidence of one person.’

‘There are two very different signatures. That means two unsubs.’

I found a black marker and a clean section of wall and wrote
TWO SIGNATURES TWO UNSUBS
in big, bold letters. Hatcher gave me a look.

‘Can you see a whiteboard anywhere?’ I said.

Hatcher shrugged.
Whatever.
‘Maybe he’s got a split personality,’ he said.

‘Unlikely. You see that sort of thing in movies and books because it makes the writers’ job easier, but in real life it’s extremely rare.’

‘If Cutting Jack does have a partner then she’s keeping very quiet.’

‘As all good little submissives do. Which leads us to another assumption. We’re assuming the female partner is the submissive. Pairings are governed by a complex set of dynamics. Usually the male is the dominant partner, but not always. Take the Wests. It was originally believed that Fred was the dominant partner. These days it’s widely acknowledged that Rose called the shots. What if the female is the dominant partner here?’

‘Is there any evidence to back that up? Anything at all?’

‘Templeton’s abduction.’ I was thinking on my feet here, brainstorming. ‘The male unsub stepped way outside his comfort zone there. The MO was completely different. This was the first time he’d taken someone from their own home. It was done quickly, too. Usually he takes his time. He stalks his victims over the internet for months before he abducts them. Templeton’s abduction was planned and executed in a matter of hours.’

‘Which proves what, exactly?’

‘It proves he’s not calling the shots,’ I said. ‘Okay, we know he abducts the victims. The way he usually does this is risky enough, but Templeton’s abduction took the risk factor up to a whole new level. The female partner has no appreciation of the risks because she’s not involved in the abductions. She’s sat nice and safe at home waiting for him to come back with the victims. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be out there on the front line, your heart racing, the threat of capture constantly there.’

I nodded to myself, liking the way this was slotting together. ‘If it had been left to the male partner, he wouldn’t have gone through with the kidnapping. But it wasn’t his call, it was his partner’s. There’s a good chance he tried to talk her out of kidnapping Templeton, but he might as well have been talking to a brick wall. She wouldn’t have been listening. She wanted Templeton, and nothing was going to stop her.’

I crushed my cigarette out in the saucer.
FEMALE DOMINANT PARTNER
went on the list. So did
MALE PARTNER LOW SELF-ESTEEM
.

‘Another thing,’ I said. ‘The change in MO is further proof that these unsubs are devolving.’

‘Which you said is a good thing.’

‘Yes and no. It’s good because it means we’re going to catch these assholes, and we’re going to catch them soon. But it’s bad because it means their behaviour will become increasingly erratic.’

Hatcher sighed. His whole body seemed to sag as the exhalation left his body. ‘Which could be very bad news for Templeton.’

‘Forget about that, Hatcher. It’s not going to help. Focus on the here and now. What other assumptions have we made?’

‘We’re assuming they’re lovers,’ said Hatcher.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘The Hillside Strangler turned out to be two cousins. Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono. We could be dealing with cousins here, or a brother and sister, or a mother and son.’

‘Or they could be lovers.’

‘Or they could be lovers,’ I agreed.

LOVERS
went onto the list. So did
COUSINS, BROTHER/SISTER
and
MOTHER/SON
.

‘We’re not looking at an all-male partnership then?’

I shook my head. ‘No. The use of knives is a male signature. Playing dolls is a female signature.’

‘And you’re still convinced he lives north of the Thames?’

‘No question about it.’ I nodded to the map. ‘The river forms a natural boundary, and all the abduction and dump sites are north of the river. That’s his hunting ground. He’s acting on some primal instinct here, something that’s been with us since we lived in caves. He won’t even be aware of what he’s doing. So what do we know for certain?’

‘We know he’s five-ten, has brown hair and a medium build.’

MALE UNSUB 5'10" MEDIUM BUILD BROWN HAIR
went on the list.

‘We know he’s a sadist,’ said Hatcher. ‘And we also know he’s careful and methodical.’

‘Agreed,’ I said, and added those points to the list. ‘Even with Templeton’s kidnapping he was still careful. I’ll bet forensics don’t find anything. Okay, what do we know about the female unsub?’

‘Hardly anything. She might as well be a ghost.’

I considered this for a moment then added
FEMALE UNSUB GHOST
to the list.

‘Which brings us on to the one thing that’s been bugging me about this case from the start. The lobotomies. We need to disassociate from the horror of this act. How many dead bodies have you seen?’

Hatcher snorted. ‘More than I care to remember.’

‘And if we were dealing with dead bodies here it would be easier to disassociate since that’s what we’re used to. The fact that the victims are alive has thrown us a curveball. When I saw Patricia Maynard back at the hospital I couldn’t stop wondering what it would be like to end up like that. The thing is, if she’d been laid out on an autopsy table, I wouldn’t have been fazed. I would have been considering useful things, like how she’d got there and what her death told us about the unsubs.’

‘So, imagine she’s dead. What does it tell us?’

I looked at the cold bleached-out picture the forensic photographer had taken of Patricia Maynard. ‘I’ve no idea,’ I admitted.

62

‘Can you undo these straps, Rachel?’

‘I can’t. If I do that Adam will hurt me again.’ Rachel stared through the darkness in the direction of the dentist’s chair. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You don’t have to be sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. That wasn’t fair.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘How are you holding up?’

‘How do you think I’m holding up? I’ve been kidnapped and tortured, and I’ve had one of my fingers cut off, and my head’s been shaved.’

‘You’ve been very brave.’

‘You think I’m brave, try stupid.’ Rachel snorted a little half-laugh and shook her head. ‘I arranged to meet some guy I didn’t know over the internet, and I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. That’s pretty stupid.’

‘You’re not stupid, Rachel. You made a mistake. None of this is your fault.’

‘Nice of you to say so, but it doesn’t change anything. Adam will keep torturing me and then he’ll lobotomise me. Just like he did with the others.’

‘We’re going to get out of here.’

‘Stop saying that. It’s not going to happen.’

‘We’re going to get out of here, Rachel. You’ve got to believe that.’

‘No I don’t. You don’t know what he’s like.’

A thought occurred to Rachel, one that froze her blood. What if the woman in the chair was another Eve? What if this was like the telephone in the hall all over again? What if this was another of Adam’s mind games? She thought about what she’d said to this woman, replaying every word to see if she’d said too much. Sophie kept going on about getting out of here. Was that part of the game? Was Adam listening in, waiting for her to agree with Sophie so he had an excuse to torture her again?

‘You’re working with him, aren’t you?’ said Rachel. ‘You’re not really with the police.’

‘I’m a police detective, Rachel. You’ve got to believe that.’

‘Prove it.’

Silence, then a sigh. ‘I can’t.’

‘See, you are working with him.’

‘And that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Whatever I say you’re going to twist around until it proves what you want it to prove.’

‘And that’s exactly what I’d expect you to say.’

‘I know you’re scared, but you have to trust me here. I’m on your side.’

Rachel snorted out another small half-laugh and pulled her knees more tightly into her chest, hugging herself hard. ‘You don’t know anything,’ she whispered. ‘But, if you are who you say you are, then you will.’

‘Hopefully we’ll get out of here before I have to find out.’

‘There you go again. More lies. Adam’s not going to hurt you.’

‘My name is Sophie Templeton. I’m a detective sergeant with the Metropolitan Police. Right now, there’s an army of cops searching for us.’

‘More lies. If there really was an army of cops looking for me, why haven’t they found me yet? Why didn’t they find the others?’

‘Because I’m a police officer and that changes everything. When something like this happens to one of our own then we’re relentless.’

‘Great,’ said Rachel. ‘So there’s one law for the police and another law for everyone else. Maybe if they’d taken my kidnapping more seriously I’d be out of here by now. Maybe I’d still have all my fingers.’

‘I’m not saying it’s right, Rachel. I’m just telling you how it is.’

‘No. What you’re doing is lying. You’re not a detective, and you’ve never worked for the police, and there isn’t an army of cops out looking for us.’ Rachel shrugged off her blankets then stood up and stared through the dark at the closest camera. ‘I’m not playing your games any more!’ she screamed into the darkness. ‘Do you hear me? Stop messing with my head.’

The lights banged on, the door opened and Adam strode into the room. Rachel slid down the wall and reached for the comfort of the blankets. Adam walked across to the mattress and grinned down at her. He tapped the cane against his palm, slow and rhythmic,
tap tap tap
.

‘Number Five needs to learn to control her temper.’

He lifted the cane and Rachel shrank into the corner. Adam laughed and traced its tip down her body. The bamboo scratched at her naked skin and tugged at the grey sweatshirt and jogging bottoms. He stopped when he reached her feet. A shake of the head, another grin, then the cane swished through the air and hit skin. Rachel howled in agony and pulled herself deeper into the corner and buried her feet under the blankets. They felt like they were on fire.