Path of Needles (23 page)

‘They also found the remains of a capsule in her mouth. She had swallowed most of the contents, but it contained more organic matter, traces of the same alkaloid as from the hemlock. He’d planted it there. They think it burst when her head was tilted back to give her mouth-to-mouth; it’s lucky the guy doing it didn’t end up in trouble himself. At any rate, we’re unlikely to ever know whether it was the extra dose that finally killed her or if the time of death is a coincidence – or indeed if she wasn’t dead already.’

Cate stared at him. The man who’d found the body – Gerry – he’d given Ellen Robertson the kiss of life.
But instead of waking, she died
.

Heath met her gaze and she knew what he was thinking. Unconsciously, she rubbed her cheek. The bastard set this up: Sleeping Beauty, condemned with the kiss that was meant to save her.

It’s like the killer is laughing at you. Making some kind of point.

She had that odd feeling that she should be able to reach out and touch the answer, if she only knew the right way to see it.

But Heath had moved on. He cleared his throat, then said, ‘Now, she’s been poisoned, she’s unconscious. According to our expert in folk tales this could have been the point where the killer raped her, like the prince in the story getting his bride pregnant. However, early indications show that isn’t what happened. There are no signs of sexual assault.’

Heath paused.

Cate couldn’t hear him draw a breath, but she saw it in the rise and fall of his shoulders. Whatever was coming next, he was finding it difficult.

‘But she
was
pregnant,’ he said.

There was a rush of exclamations, people shifting in their seats, and he held up a hand and quieted the room. ‘I know what you’re thinking: that the bastard knew her. That he picked her because she fitted the story he wanted to tell, as recounted to me yesterday by Ms Hyland, and as I told it to you. It isn’t that simple.’ He drew a breath. ‘There is a strong possibility that Mrs Robertson didn’t
know
she was pregnant. I spoke to her husband earlier and he said they’d been trying for months. He had no reason to believe his wife wouldn’t have told him if she’d found out she was having a baby. Of course, she may have had reasons he knew nothing about, but there were no odd changes in her behaviour, nothing like that. He was quite sure she didn’t know.’ He looked at Cate. ‘We need to speak to her friends and her family, but we have to proceed with the understanding that it could be a coincidence. It could be someone she knew, but it might also have been a complete stranger.’

CHAPTER THIRTY

Alice stood staring into space while the hold music played in her ear. She couldn’t straighten her thoughts; she knew what she wanted to say but wasn’t sure how she wanted to say it. The thought kept slipping away, as if still incomplete. She couldn’t push an image out of her mind: Cate’s expression when she’d seen her previously. There had been something wrong with it. What had they been talking about? She couldn’t really remember. The policewoman hadn’t liked the way Alice had spoken to Heath, and then there was that whole odd thing –
It’ll be easier for me to drive
, Alice had said, that was it, and Cate had looked as if she’d taken a punch in the stomach.

Alice chewed her lip. She wasn’t sure what it meant, only that there was a growing discomfort in her mind, a worm in the bud.

The hold music cut off and a steady, even voice answered: Cate. Alice took a deep breath and tried to remember what she had wanted to say. ‘I had an idea about the case.’

‘Wonderful.’ Cate’s tone was light, enthusiastic: that was better.

‘I started to think, not about what these killings have in common with these tales, but what they don’t.’

‘Really? And what’s that?’ Now she sounded distracted.

‘They’re dead. All the girls are dead.’

There was silence, then: ‘Is that it? That’s kind of taken as read, isn’t it?’ Cate’s tone was gentle, despite the words. ‘I mean – no death, no killings, no case. Of course that would make our job a lot easier, but—’

‘No –
listen
, all of the characters that have been chosen – Snow White, Little Red, Sleeping Beauty – are believed dead in the stories, or considered dead, or as close to death as makes no difference. And then they’re brought back to life, but in these variants – these
murders
– of course, they’re not.

‘Snow White is believed dead to the extent that she’s in her coffin, and yet she’s revived when the poisoned apple is jolted from her throat. Little Red Riding Hood is cut from the wolf’s stomach by the huntsman. Sleeping Beauty is woken with a kiss. It’s like they
should
have the power of life, but that’s the very thing he takes from them: in the moment of rejuvenation, of transformation, they’re instead condemned to death. And the killer – maybe he sees himself as the prince somehow, or the huntsman, the one with the power to confer life on the heroine at the end of the tale, except he chooses not to.’

‘Didn’t you think the killer was a woman?’

‘I – I did.’ Alice paused. ‘No, you’re right, that does make sense too. There’s always an evil stepmother or queen or something. Damn it. You can read this in so many ways.’ She fell silent. ‘It’s just, I felt like I’d
seen
something, you know? And I started thinking about the way he’s subverted the tales, and that was the thing I couldn’t get out of my mind: their deaths. It’s so final. In fairy tales there’s always magic – the happy ending, a lot of the time, anyway. I think that’s what I loved about them when I was little.’

‘And yet they’re red in tooth and claw.’

Slowly Alice said, ‘Yes. Yes, they are.’

Cate didn’t answer.

After a while, Alice spoke. ‘I’m sorry. This made sense when I called you, or seemed to anyway. I think maybe I’m getting too involved with this. It’s getting to me, that’s all.’

‘No, it’s all right,’ said Cate. ‘Of course we appreciate your help. I want you to call me whenever you feel the need – even if you just want to talk. I know this has been difficult.’ She paused. ‘Actually, there’s something else I wanted to ask you about. There was more poison found at this crime scene too, and not something that was in the variants of the stories you mentioned. Can you think of any reason why the fish should have been poisoned?’

Alice shook her head, then realised the other woman couldn’t see her. ‘Not one.’

‘Are you sure? There’s nothing you haven’t mentioned – nothing you’re keeping back?’

This time it was Alice who was silent.

‘It’s another departure, isn’t it, from the stories? The poisoned bread at the second scene, and the poisoned apple at the first.’

‘No,’ Alice said faintly, ‘there
was
a poisoned apple in Snow White.’ She stirred, looked around at the papers strewn across her table. They didn’t mean anything to her any more. She murmured something as Cate said goodbye, sounds that weren’t quite words. She didn’t know what to think.
Keeping something back?
Why would she? She’d helped with this case, given her time and her knowledge, and now – she remembered the vague thought she’d had during the conversation. Cate’s tone had been kind, almost forcedly so. And then the policewoman had pushed her to speak with her silence, had played her own words back to her:
red in tooth and claw
. That was the way they worked, wasn’t it? The police would try to trip people using their own words, probe their statements until something bled. When that person was being
interrogated
. When they were a
suspect
.

Alice replaced the phone into its cradle, turned her back on it. There were hot, angry tears in her eyes, and she wasn’t sure how they had got there. She must be wrong – she was overwrought, that was all. She put her hand to her face. She had thought she had known where she was going, that she was the one with the expertise, in control. Now it felt as if she had left the path a long time before, had been wandering in the forest without even noticing.

That made her think of something, and she slipped her hand into her pocket. Waiting there was the gift the blue bird had given her. She didn’t remove it, but in her mind’s eye she could see its exact shade, and as she ran her fingertips across it she became calmer at once. It was as if the bird had become her guide, her anchor, a reminder of better times. She needed it; it made her feel better.

She took a deep breath. She should centre herself, go back to doing the things that made her truly her. She needed to forget this for a while, forget about death and ugliness. She would do her job, catch up with some reading. Maybe she’d even read the tale of the blue bird, relive its transformation into its true self, Prince Charming, bringing jewels, a marriage, a happily-ever-after.

She smiled and her eyes went distant. If only things in life were so easy. People in stories had adventures, they experienced life and death and everything in between, but it all turned out all right in the end. And they barely ever seemed to feel as alone as she did now.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Cate stared at the morning newspapers, flipping through the headlines: W
OLF STRIKES AGAIN
. B
EWARE THE LONE WOLF
. W
OLF KILLER LEAVES THE WOODS
. She had seen it coming, but it still didn’t feel quite real. She threw them aside and rubbed the grime of newsprint from her fingers. She had to focus on the investigation, although it was a puzzle she couldn’t solve: nothing connected.

She had checked with Dan and found that Heath had already had the team examine old cases going back for years. They had found nothing to fit, nothing that even remotely related to what was happening here. They’d also been trying to make connections between the dead girls: Chrissie Farrell, Teresa King and Ellen Robertson. What did a local teenager, a Leeds prostitute and a housewife have in common? Nothing that they could find.

The profiler was having difficulty piecing together anything meaningful too. Cate had seen the report, and it contained a lot of words but little to go on: he suggested
the killer was likely to be male because of the physical strength required, but couldn’t rule out a female because of the knowledge of fairy tales. They were likely to be from a dysfunctional family, with a domineering mother and a father who was either also domineering or ineffectual, possibly absent. He – or she – could have suffered some trauma at a young age, possibly involving being exposed to a dead body; that could have been a reason for them to find a refuge in fairy tales. It was also likely they had difficulties in forming relationships. In short, there was nothing at all that could help them identify a suspect. The profile would merely be something to compare them with, after they’d found them.

Chrissie, a young beauty in her first blossom. Teresa, embarked on the path of needles. Ellen, a young bride – that was like something in a fairy tale too, wasn’t it? Didn’t most of them end with a happy marriage? For Ellen, though, it had only been the beginning. She hadn’t had a chance to make much out of it yet; there had been few new friends, few known acquaintances. Most of her connections lay miles away, in her past.

Cate sighed and tried to turn her thoughts in a more productive direction. She’d thought they’d catch the killer through their obsession with stories, but maybe that wasn’t it; perhaps she needed to think more about the practicalities, things that were concrete. She half closed her eyes, picturing the beautiful Chrissie in her ball dress; Ellen Robertson, an attractive woman, well dressed and
manicured; and Teresa King, a painted girl leaning against a wall. Is that how they’d appeared from the perspective of the killer, the wolf on the prowl? Maybe the way to catch them would be to understand how the victims had been chosen, what it was that connected them.

Cate frowned. The killer, whether male or female, had had to abscond with the victims somehow. Teresa King had quite possibly got into a car willingly, but with the others it would most likely have required strength. Had Chrissie Farrell gone with someone of her own volition? She’d been drunk when she’d left the dance, which would make it more likely. Ellen Robertson had apparently walked out of her house and vanished, at least until she was found dumped in the castle moat; the intervening time was a blank. There were signs of force, though – blows to Teresa’s face and Ellen’s head, and those ligature marks. The bodies must also have been moved some distance. He might have found it impossible to get Ellen up to the top of the motte, but the arboretum where Teresa had been found was still some way away from the nearest vehicular access; although that had been done at night and under cover. Chrissie, the first victim, had been left practically at the roadside. Had the killer been getting more ambitious each time, only to find his ideas had overreached his capabilities at last?

She stared down at her hands. Oddly, she found words running through her mind, something that Alice had said:
My mother isn’t well – she doesn’t remember much. She’s in a home now
.

Why had that come to mind? She frowned. Hadn’t Alice said she’d cared for her mother, before she had to send her away? But how much, and what kind of care? Perhaps she’d had to lift the old lady, so she knew the best techniques for doing so. No – what else had Alice said to her?
I couldn’t really cope with her on my own
.

Of course she couldn’t. No, the problem wasn’t with Alice. Her current ambivalence towards her was surely more to do with the way she’d felt when Alice had mentioned her car – not so much irritated by the possibilities it raised as by the fact that she hadn’t even considered it. She’d made an assumption. More than that, it was to do with the way Stocky had looked at her when she’d asked him to keep Alice’s presence at the lake off the record. She couldn’t blame Alice for that. Besides, she was her liaison now; she had a responsibility for her.

But the girls had been lured away, or snatched, or possibly some combination of both. The first two would have been straightforward – a helping hand offered to Chrissie, like a white knight offering rescue. For Teresa, just another job. And for Ellen – what? An unexpected caller, asking for help with some feigned crisis? There had been no sign of struggle, not at the house anyway; only those bruises left on her body, which suggested the battle had taken place elsewhere. The husband had got the same
impression too, and he knew her best, after all. What had he said?
She must have opened the door
. The alarm hadn’t been set, the house was empty.