River of Souls (5 page)

‘Tell me more about the married man,’ she said.

‘There’s nothing to say. His wife kicked him out because he’s a workaholic. We had a flirtation, but his sons missed him so much he decided to go back.’

‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘Nothing, obviously.’

She gave me a sorrowful look then kissed me goodbye. ‘Promise not to stay home and mope.’

‘Have I ever?’

I kissed her on the cheek and watched her leave. Even in the last month of her pregnancy, Lola could still turn heads. Most of the men in the café gave her admiring looks as she breezed away to her final antenatal appointment.

6

The man shelters between two buildings. He’s wearing one of the disguises he keeps in his car, a leather jacket and a short blond wig, grey woollen hat pulled low over his eyes. It’s vital that no one can identify him. Taking the priest’s life still haunts him, but there’s a higher calling now, and he must follow instructions. The river blessed him after it accepted the priest’s soul, singing his name for hours.

Pedestrians scurry past on St Pancras Way, hiding under their umbrellas. It would be easy to run at them, knife raised, but the river is more discriminating. It has already chosen its next victim. He searches the faces of the people rushing up the steps to the police station. At last a black woman with a beautiful face emerges and he slips further into the shadows. If she spots him, there’s a chance she will see through his disguise. Even from this distance, he can measure how pure her spirit is. He takes time to observe her as she talks to a friend by the station’s entrance, her uniform baggy on her slight frame. When she slips through the doorway, he feels bereft. He has memorised her features so accurately, he can see her even with his eyes closed.

It’s after two when the man looks at his watch. He must go back before anyone misses him, but seeing the woman’s beauty has strengthened him. Even though he’s soaked to the skin, he feels elated as he hurries away.

7

My next meeting was at three p.m. that afternoon with Jude’s older brother. I’d received a cryptic text from Heather, letting me know that Guy was prepared to see me at his art school on Granary Square. I was curious to know whether he had inherited his father’s slick manner and unwillingness to reveal secrets. From the outside, St Martin’s Art College was a drab industrial building, but the interior was lined with mirrored walls, glass mezzanine floors, and light flooding across abstract sculptures in the atrium. The students were much more glamorous than the geeks who had populated my psychology course. It looked like they’d spent days foraging in Camden Lock for retro clothes. It made me wish I’d been artistic, but my only talents at school had been a good memory and an obsession with the foibles of the human mind.

I recognised Guy Shelley from the photo in his parents’ kitchen. He was in his mid-twenties; tall, with an athletic build and spiky black hair. His skin was so pale it looked like he’d been living underground. He seemed determined to conceal his wealthy background, dressed in scruffy jeans and a black shirt covered in patches of white powder. His handshake felt dusty, as though he’d been sifting flour. He didn’t return my smile, which made me wonder if he’d been coerced into seeing me.

‘Thanks for making time to meet,’ I said.

He gave a rapid nod. ‘It’s fine. Jude deserves all the time she needs.’

We found a quiet bench away from the main thoroughfare, and I observed his body language. Guy’s hands were in perpetual motion, flying up to adjust his hair, or fidgeting in his lap. His mother hadn’t described the nature of his breakdown, but it must have been severe to keep him away from college for a whole year.

‘I’m trying to build a picture of Jude’s life before the attack. Do you remember much about the weeks leading up to it?’

‘Not really. I was planning to study sculpture in Rome that summer, but I got ill after she was hurt, so I never went.’

‘Did you speak to your sister the day it happened?’

‘She called to invite me to a party, but I told her I was too busy. If I’d gone with her, she’d still be safe.’ His hands clenched suddenly in his lap.

‘That’s not how it works,’ I said quietly. ‘If the attacker was determined to hurt her, he’d have found another way.’

‘I suppose so.’ His expression was a mixture of sullenness and rage.

‘Did you work that evening, at your mum’s?’

He gave an awkward nod. ‘I had some drawings to finish.’

‘But you ate together?’

‘Not that night. She had hay fever; after she went to bed I made myself some food.’

His story didn’t tally with his mother’s description of a cosy shared meal before she went for her bath. Guy’s behaviour was twitchy enough to make me concerned, but the shock of his sister’s attack might have made him forget the order of events.

‘Were you and Jude close as kids?’ I asked.

His gaze slipped away. ‘I wasn’t always the best brother.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I was a thorn in her side. Jude’s way smarter than me. Most of the time she tried to protect me, even though I’m a year older.’

‘Protect you from what?’

‘Myself, mainly. I’m my own worst enemy.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I’ve never had great self-control. Even as a kid it was all or nothing; I’d play computer games all night if I could get away with it. I’d been partying too hard at college last year. My panic attacks started after she got hurt; I’d go and see her then spend days locked in my room. I still struggle with it now.’

‘That can’t be easy.’

Guy picked at the chalk on his hands. I could understand why he’d been traumatised by his sister’s injuries. A single visit had unsettled me, but hours at her bedside watching her suffer could drive a loved one to breaking point.

‘Do you talk to your dad about how you feel?’

He let out a sharp laugh. ‘You’re joking. He thinks emotions are for weaklings, and Jude’s the one he’s close to, not me.’

‘What about Father Owen? Could you talk to him?’

He flinched. ‘Not really. I go to church for Mum’s sake these days; religion stopped working for me after Jude’s attack. But it was awful to hear he’d died.’

‘Do you ever go to confession?’

‘I haven’t for months.’

I studied him again. ‘Can you think of anyone who might want to hurt your family?’

He gave me a sharp look. ‘Dad’s surrounded by weirdos all day long. These freaks come to his office; I don’t know how he stands it. Maybe one of them attacked Jude to get at him.’ His skin was growing paler by the minute.

‘Do you know if your sister had ever been attacked before?’

His shoulders twitched. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘It’s all guesswork at this stage until I fill in the gaps. But this type of attack can be part of a history of violence. Attackers go to these lengths when it’s personal, not random. It’s often someone with strong feelings for the victim, like a jealous friend or an ex-partner.’

‘Jude should talk about her past, not me. She hates people gossiping.’

‘Maybe she can’t bring herself to look back – any details you remember could help her. Would you mind meeting again over the next few weeks?’

‘Of course not.’ Guy’s face tensed again. ‘You know where to find me.’

I watched him walk away, head down, slinking through the crowd. He’d come over as someone whose emotional pain lay very close to the surface, and it interested me that no one greeted him as he passed through the atrium. After a year of absence, his friends would have graduated while he struggled to catch up. Reintegrating must have been hard, on top of dealing with his condition.

I studied the artwork on the walls as I headed back to the exit, wandering through a maze of exhibition rooms. Tables were stacked with sketchbooks, and paintings pinned to the wall. A sign with Guy’s name on it brought me to a halt, and I peered into a narrow passageway filled with small white sculptures hanging on transparent twine. A cloud of bridges was suspended above my head, their frets thin as matchsticks, connecting nothing with nothing, each one snapped cleanly in half. The effect was beautiful, but the delicacy of the structures made me even more concerned about his fragile state of mind.

When I got back to the FPU, a copy of the
Guardian
lay on the desk beside mine and I couldn’t resist borrowing it. More details had emerged about the priest’s death: Father Kelvin Owen had worked at St Mary’s on Battersea Church Road for thirty years, well loved by his community. He had led evensong on Sunday, then returned to lock up at ten o’clock. A parishioner had spotted him entering the church, but when the gardener arrived next morning, the door was open and the chancel lights still burning. The priest’s body had been discovered on the riverbank at Westminster at dawn on Monday. The report said he had suffered a savage facial attack. I switched on my computer to hunt for more information.

Christine Jenkins summoned me to her office just as I was trawling the police database. She was perched on her desk, scanning the printed report she clutched in her hand.

‘Things are moving fast, Alice. The commissioner wants your work to run in tandem with the Westminster investigation so all bases are covered. Is that viable?’

‘Who’s the SIO?’

‘DCI Don Burns. Do you know him?’

My stomach performed a swift somersault. ‘We’ve solved three major cases together.’

‘Good. You already know each other’s methods, and I hear he’s a safe pair of hands.’

I gave a reluctant nod. ‘It makes sense to combine Jude’s case with the investigation into Father Owen’s murder.’

She gave a crisp smile. ‘You can act as Burns’s consultant and still report to me. I’ll ask his evidence officer to email you now – I appreciate how flexible you’re being; let’s review progress later this week.’

The loud ring of her phone terminated our conversation and my spirits sank as I closed the door. Burns was the last person in the world I wanted for my new boss, but Christine Jenkins didn’t seem the type to discuss personal issues. I sensed that she kept her emotions clear of the workplace and expected the same professionalism from all her employees.

When I returned to my computer, the evidence officer had already sent three emails, including encrypted images from the crime scene. I studied a photo of a white-haired man, dressed in long black robes, limbs splayed across the muddy ground. His face was a blur of colour, all of his features destroyed. There was another connection with Jude Shelley: a large blue bead was bound to his hand. A close-up showed that the glass circle had a bevelled edge, milky and opaque as the bottles that wash up on beaches, weathered by the tide. I stared at it for several minutes but its meaning lay beyond my grasp. I tried to visualise the kind of man who could mutilate a victim’s face, then calmly tie a keepsake to his wrist. My one certainty was that the priest and Jude had met the same attacker. Whitehall had prevented the newspapers from printing details about her injuries and the style of the attack, so it couldn’t be a copycat. It was becoming urgent to discuss the parallels between the two cases with Burns.

I made my way downstairs, hoping that caffeine would restore my good humour. The café was almost empty. A gaggle of elderly shrinks was holding an intense debate over an article in the
American Journal of Psychology
, which made me wonder if any of them had actually worked with patients before specialising in theories about the criminal mind. The FPU seemed so distanced from reality that most of the consultants had forgotten how to interact.

A stout, white-haired man with an unkempt beard appeared as I was struggling with the coffee machine. If he’d been a few stones heavier, he’d have been a dead ringer for Santa Claus. He reached over and jabbed one of the buttons, sending a gush of hot water into my cup.

‘You’re Alice Quentin, aren’t you?’ His voice had a broad Belfast accent. ‘I’m Mike Donnelly. How long are you with us?’

‘Just the next six weeks.’

‘Welcome to the madhouse.’ He glanced around like he was checking for spies. ‘A word to the wise: most of this lot have been incarcerated here for decades. Don’t be offended if they take forever to say hello.’