Grind Their Bones (10 page)

I tried on a weak smile and she turned her body to face me properly, pulling her feet up onto the chair and crossing her legs. Mike arrived right on cue with coffee, handing each of us a mug and sitting to one side with a newspaper, leaving us to get on with it.

'Okay, I'm not sure exactly how much use I can be with something like this, but fire away. What have you got that you're allowed to tell us so far?'

She sipped from her mug, keeping her eyes fixed on me.

'Well, I'm working on the theory that this one knows me somehow. That he's crossed my path in the past, and that's what's behind him leaving me these letters at the scenes. The only problem with that is that I've arrested an awful lot of nasty characters, anyone of which could be the one that we're looking for, and in the absence of anything meaningful from forensics so far I need some kind of criteria for reducing their number.'

I blew on my own coffee and risked a small sip as Mike surprised us all by speaking up first.

'If you don't mind me butting in for a minute, why exactly are you just focussing on the criminals that you've met?' He said.

Chapter 31

'What do you mean?'

We both looked over at him for an explanation as he casually folded the newspaper and rested it on the arm of his chair.

'Just that it's difficult to see how that fits with your theory in some respects.' He sat up straighter and leaned forward in the seat. 'I mean, when you discount the obvious fact that many of them are going to be violent and criminally inclined, it looks less likely that one of them is going to be your man without him really sticking out in your mind in some way. After all, if you're so meaningful to him that he's writing to you and only you at these scenes, then you'd have to assume that there's, in his mind at least, a much bigger connection going on than just the fact that you locked him up once for something relatively minor. It would have to be fairly minor or he'd still be in prison.'

He paused and took a sip of coffee, looking deep in thought.

'Unless, of course, there was some kind of resonance that I just didn't pick up on at the time, or they felt I was somehow to blame for something bigger that I'm not aware of, or I've never met them at all and they're just a common garden variety psycho with a fixation.' I ventured, sighing in frustration. 'This is hopeless isn’t it? I'm trying to attach logic and reasoning to the actions of somebody whose perception of those two concepts is as different from mine as night is from day.'

I fussed with my hair and Mike wagged a finger at me, tutting exaggeratedly.

'I'm no detective, in fact all of my knowledge on police investigations comes from books  and films and listening to you, so your experience and knowledge trumps mine every time Zara. But my point is that this freak might actually know you, and not just be somebody who you've arrested.'

He paused for a moment to let that opinion settle in before carrying on.

'I'm willing to bet that most crims don't even remember the faces of the police officers who arrest them, much less their names and how their careers have progressed. I'm pretty sure that serial killers with vendettas don't tend to exist outside of Hollywood movies. What I'm saying is that, to begin with at least, your list needs to be much bigger.'

His expression was open and serious, and I found myself wondering for the first time how much he and Hallie had been discussing the case that had been eating me up for so long now that I could barely remember life before it.

'We can both help you to narrow down the list once you've got it all together, no matter how big a job it is.'

Hallie stood up and manoeuvred her way around the coffee table between us, embracing me tightly while I leaned in gratefully.

'I love you, you know?'

I mumbled into her shoulder.

'I love you too. Now for God's sake go and make it up with Emily and then get some sleep, the fumes coming off you are making me tipsy. When you're feeling vaguely sober again start adding names to that list – ex-boyfriends, people you fell out with years ago, even male colleagues.'

She paused and let go of me, waiting for a reaction to the suggestion that another police officer could be responsible for these atrocities.

'It's alright, the thought had crossed my mind already, repellent as the idea is I can't afford to be sentimental about it.'

I massaged my temples in a vain attempt to soothe away the returning headache.

'And I'd better see my name on there too, Zara.'

Mike spoke up again and I looked across at him quizzically.

'I'm male and I've known you for a long time, that's enough to put me on that list until it can be demonstrated that I shouldn’t be. No omissions.'

Chapter 32

Elizabeth Josephine Perry moved around her small bedroom performing an elated mock waltz. Her thick, lustrous hair was still wet from the shower and it clung to her naked body as she twirled and tossed her towel aside. She looked at herself in the full length mirror on the back of her wardrobe door and liked what she saw. Contrary to the opinions of her colleagues back in the office, 'Shy Beth' was not the demure little girl that they evidently believed her to be. She blew the twin in the reflection a kiss and reached for her moisturiser, enjoying the chocolate aroma of the body butter as she smoothed it into her flawless skin.

'This show needs music.'

She told herself aloud, leaning across to flick on her battered old CD player. If tonight went how she thought it would then she'd be able to buy an upgrade before the week was out. Right away Florence and the Machine's 'Howl' filled the room.

'I hunt for you with bloody feet across the hallowed ground.'

She mimicked the atmospheric wailing passably well while she painted her nails in a shade of bright red polish that always reminded her of jelly beans. When she was happy that her fingers and toes were dry enough she started attending to her make up and hair. Opting for a couple of easily removable strategically placed clips  after she'd finished drying and straightening, with red lip gloss and subtle smoky eye shadow on her face. By the time that she'd finished attending to herself and started to put on her favourite little black dress, the album was moving towards its conclusion and Florence was mournfully singing about coffins and death.

Elizabeth had met men of all varieties, shapes and sizes through the internet before, keeping those experiences strictly to herself since she was perfectly adept at splitting her life into entirely separate secret compartments. Most of the one's she'd met had assumed that she was exactly what she had chosen to present to them, and she relished playing the different roles that her fertile imagination invented. However, some of them had been playing roles of their own too, which was why she carried an illegally obtained twenty thousand volt stun gun in her handbag. Truth be told she'd used it more often than had been strictly necessary in the past.

She snapped back out of her thoughts and gave herself one more appraising glance in the mirror, picking a couple of stray pieces of lint off the fabric of her dress. Pretty good, and she had to be tonight. This one was the big one, her possible ticket to a much more comfortable life than this for both herself and her mother. For somebody so adept at weaving fantasies, she was a realist on what counted, and she was under no illusions that he would be in a hurry to leave his wife and risk losing half of his considerable wealth for her anytime soon. Sheds make it clear that she was just fine with that, subject to a couple of conditions of course, when the time was right.

She stopped at her mother's room on her way out of the door, reminding her for the tenth time that evening that she was going out on a date with a wealthy older man and kissing the frail but not yet elderly woman on the cheek. She had no problem with sharing the titbit despite her soon to be companions instructions that she should not, because she knew for a fact that the information would drift back out of her mother's memory again like smoke in the wind before she had even caught her bus.

Chapter 33

When I arrived home Emily was back in super chef mode, busily preparing a banquet for lunch that would have comfortably fed a rugby team by the looks of it. She swayed merrily from side to side in time to Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance', with no apparent concept of irony, while she worked. She remained oblivious to my presence in the kitchen doorway until the song came to an end, and when she finally caught sight of me in her peripheral vision she flinched in surprise before she caught herself and smiled awkwardly.

'Before you say anything, I just want to apologise for last night, Zara. I had far too much to drink, not that it's a decent excuse for…what I did.'

She shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other and stirred some kind of fragrant garlicky sauce with the wooden spoon she was clutching.

'Anyway, I wanted to try to make it up to you, or to start making it up anyway. Now you go sit down, and I'll shout up when it's ready.'

She spoke rapidly and breathlessly throughout, giving me no chance to interject, and I was left struck by how manic she seemed and wondering how I'd missed it in her behaviour before. I tried to get a closer look at her eyes, but she was moving around too much for me to get a clear enough view, so I retreated to the living room with a tornado of questions whirling round my head.

'So what are we having today?'

I raised my voice up high enough for her to hear me comfortably over the noise of furiously bubbling pans, scratching around for a decision on what to do about her odd demeanour.

'It's spaghetti a la puttanesca with insalata tricolore and home-made garlic and oregano bread. David's been getting me to make it all the time recently, it's one of his favourites. We had it three times the other week!' Came back the reply.

I felt a growing sense of steadily worsening unease, both at the strained sense of cheerfulness saturating her voice, and at the strange snippet of information that she'd just shared with me. It's no secret that spaghetti a la puttanesca roughly translates as 'whore's spaghetti', a fact that I couldn't imagine was lost on Emily. She was, despite all appearance to the contrary, an intelligent, articulate and educated woman like me, and I began to have serious concerns that the current obvious difficulties in her marriage might be built around his growing suspicions about her indiscretions. Who the hell gets his wife to make a dish named after prostitutes three times in a week if he's not trying to make a point?

'If he knew then he'd kill me…actually murder me…' I remembered her drunken words from last night and tried not to put too much stock in them, after all, it wasn't at all unusual for people to express those kinds of sentiments and not really mean them. Hell, I'd even told Hallie how I might have killed Lee earlier, and I was beginning to love him deeply. The bad feeling refused to budge though, and in light of everything else that was happening I didn't want to dismiss my worries about her safety lightly.

Emily's handbag was perched beside her chair with an empty wineglass leaning against it. I took a quick glance up at the doorway and moved over in a crouch, not sure what I expected to find if I looked inside. My timing could not have been any worse if I'd tried. I flipped open the clasp, and after a brief rummage around, my hand emerged with a small cardboard packet labelled 'Prozac', and at that precise moment my baby sister walked right in and caught me red handed.

Chapter 34

‘What the hell are you doing in my bag?’

All trace of good humour vanished from Emily’s face in an instant, and she stood frozen in place with two plates of steaming food in her hands, staring at me as rage started to creep across her features.

Now that she was no longer moving around I could clearly see the dilation of her pupils, so I had to assume that she’d washed down the antidepressants with more than just one glass of wine today.

‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gone through your bag without your permission. But I’m really worried about you Em. Your moods and behaviour have been all over the place ever since you arrived, and some of what you said last night made me scared for your safety.’

I kept my tone neutral and tried to avoid too much direct eye contact, automatic reflexes when you’ve already served half of what is considered to be a full term in the police force. I still wasn’t convinced that I could diffuse the situation with all the history that lay between us, but I wanted to try at least.

‘So you thought you’d just go through my things anyway? My personal, private things, rather than letting me talk to you in my own time. Even after I told you that I came here because I trusted you not to pry?’

She didn’t shout but I could hear the accusation and venom in her voice. It wasn’t difficult to look at the situation through her eyes, I’d just let her down very badly indeed.

‘It wasn’t supposed…’

I started an attempt at an explanation but she cut me off immediately.

‘Spare me your pathetic reasons for Christ’s sake.’

I could see furious tears starting to well up in the corners of her unfocussed eyes, and she blinked hard several times to try to clear them away.