Split (7 page)

Mak got up from her chair and was pleased to find her passage unhindered by rogue bubblegum. But to her annoyance, when she reached the top of the stairs by the exit doors, she found Harold Gosper waiting for her. The instant she spotted him she did an about-face and headed straight back down the stairs towards the conference room.

Why won’t that man take a hint and just leave me alone?

Oh!

She was mid-step when she ran straight into the security guard, Roy Blake, who was walking up the staircase alone.

Their collision knocked the heavy bag off Makedde’s shoulder and it swung forward, narrowly missing Roy’s privates. If not for his quick reflexes, she might have been responsible for crushing his family jewels.

Horrified, Mak put a hand to her mouth. “Oh! I’m so sorry!” Her heart was pounding fast, and all that effort seemed to result in pumping far too much blood to her face.

“Don’t be silly,” her gum-saviour assured her. “I’m fine. Oh, you’re blushing.” He was standing a step down from her now, and was fractionally shorter than her, if
only by a touch.
Wow, he really is tall.
She found that sort of height intoxicating. They were still standing fairly close to one another, and Mak realised that his cologne was having a dizzying effect on her hormones. What was it? Obsession? Envy? Not Azzaro…not Old Spice…

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She refrained from asking him about his scent.

“I’m fine. Well, sort of,” Mak replied. She thought of Professor Gosper outside, and before she could edit herself she said, “Could you do me a favour and just walk with me out those doors?”

He looked a little surprised at her request. “Sure. Is there anything wrong? Is someone bothering you?”

“Oh no, nothing to be alarmed about. There’s just someone I don’t want to talk to.”

“Well, I’m happy to help,” he said. His expression was quite serious and sincere, and she realised that he probably put people at ease all the time, protecting them in the course of his duties at the university. This situation did not exactly require that kind of seriousness, however. It was only Professor Gosper, after all. Irritating, but harmless.

She thought she had better explain herself. “Actually, I saw you sitting with him earlier. Professor Gosper? Do you know him? He’s not a friend of yours, is he?”

“Oh no. Just met him briefly this morning. He talks a lot of crap though, doesn’t he?”

They both laughed. Oh, thank God…The tightness in her chest gave a little. She took a deep breath.

“Well, let’s go,” he said and pointed the way for Makedde with one hand, like a friendly and rather attractive tour guide.

They walked up the stairs and out the front doors. Gosper turned, opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again when he saw that Makedde was not alone. Perfect.

Roy and Makedde walked together for the five minutes it took to reach the cafeteria.

“Thanks,” Makedde said. “I wouldn’t normally enlist a stranger to walk me to lunch, but my God does he ever annoy me.”

“I could see that.”

He smiled again, and she felt a tiny part of the invisible icy fortress around her melt.

“Look, are you having lunch with someone? We only have forty-five minutes left before the next speaker. You better eat something. I don’t know how familiar you are with the campus, but this is about the best you can do on short notice.”

“I’d love to join you,” he said.

“Great. It’d be silly to sit alone on opposite sides of the cafeteria and everything,” she babbled.

Makedde ordered a tray of sushi and Roy ordered the same. They chose a bench and sat opposite one another.

“Is the sushi any good here?” he asked.

“I guess you’re about to find out. It’s not Tojo’s by any stretch, but it’s still my favourite option in this cafeteria.” She smiled. “I haven’t got sick from it, yet.”

“And you’ve got sick from everything else?” he fired back, not missing a beat.

“No, not quite, but I have it from a good source that Professor Gosper caught Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy from one of the burgers.”

He blinked a couple of times and looked blank.

“Mad cow. Sorry, my twisted idea of humour. Not funny.”

Who does he remind me of? A young Marlon Brando? No, not quite. Ah, I know who…

“Does anyone ever tell you that you look a bit like Vince Vaughn?” she asked.

“Who?”

“You know…the actor.”

He clearly didn’t know.

“He’s been in lots of movies,” she said. “
Swingers, Return to Paradise
. He played Norman Bates in the
Psycho
remake.”

“I remind you of Norman Bates?” He seemed alarmed.

“No, no…” she assured him.

“Maybe it’s just the conference that’s making you think of him.”

“Norman Bates wasn’t a psychopath,” Mak said.

Roy crinkled his face up. “He wasn’t? Forgive my ignorance, but wasn’t he running around killing people and dressing up like his mother?”

“Quite right, but he was more of a psychotic than a psychopath. That’s a different thing altogether.”

“Oh,” he said and ripped into a packet of wasabi and generously coated his Inari with it.

“Why do you find psychopaths so interesting?” he asked.

His question sent a chill down her spine.

“Well, what can I say? It’s an interesting area of research. Dr Hare is widely recognised as the world expert, and he is a Professor Emeritus at the university, which makes for a unique opportunity to look into the subject. People come from all around the world to hear him speak.”

“Have you learned much?”

“Yes, I think so.”
I hope so.

“So you think you could pick a psychopath, then? If one came up to you?” The blood must have drained from her face, because he was suddenly apologising for his line of questioning. “Oh, I’ve made you uncomfortable. I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” she said. “It’s a perfectly valid question.”

“I just wonder how much these experts and academics really know…I mean when it comes to the practical stuff. Sure, it’s fascinating to see those brain scans and everything, but when you are out in
the field dealing with those types…Does it really help?”

Makedde’s father sometimes asked her precisely the same thing. Dealing with psychopaths on the street was a very different experience to examining their brain in a laboratory. “I think it does help,” she said. “Knowledge is the best defence.”

He nodded.

“We need to learn more about human predators. I have a great deal of respect for the researchers and what they can teach us.” She was quick to change the subject. She had no intention of getting into her own experience with a psychopath. “So, what is it like in security? You kept pretty busy here?”

“Well, I haven’t been at this campus too long. They’ve had a bit of a push to employ more security,” he said. “There’s been an increase in complaints lately…assaults and so on.”

“And disappearances. I saw the poster for Susan Walker the other day. I think I remember actually meeting her once.”

“It’s awful, isn’t it? I hope she turns up okay.”

Mak nodded.

“I hope you take plenty of precautions yourself, Makedde.”

She felt her big toe start to tingle. Soon it would itch like mad and she would want to take her shoe off and scratch it to pieces. “I do. I take self-defence classes and I carry pepper spray…for the bears, of course.”
And I keep a little Saturday Night Special in my glove box, but that isn’t quite legal…

“Yeah, for the bears. Perfectly legal. You are a smart woman, Makedde. I try telling women to watch themselves, but some just won’t listen.”

Mak had a lot of reasons to listen.

“Why was that professor hanging around waiting for you to come out, anyway?” Roy asked. “I assume that’s what he was doing?” He bit into his Inari. He choked for a moment and his face started to go red.

“Are you okay?”

He fanned his face and then reached for the water. “Wow, that’s hot.”

Did he think it was avocado instead of wasabi? It occurred to her that he may have copied her sushi order without having eaten it before. She thought everyone in Vancouver ate sushi these days.

“It’s a long story. He seems to find me a little too interesting for some reason,” she said.

“Now, I can understand that,” he said and smiled, his cheeks flushed.

Lunchbreak flew past and their conversation became deeper and more relaxed as the minutes ticked by. Mak noticed that he kept the rest of the wasabi far from his food. Afterwards, she excused herself to sit alone through the afternoon sessions. She wanted her space, and she didn’t want to seem too eager.
But she was certainly aware of his presence on the other side of the conference room. She had been pleasantly surprised to find that she was still interested in Roy Blake after he opened his mouth.

Karen Hughen, with her dreadlocks and her pale smiling face, came quietly over and sat in an empty chair beside Makedde midway through the first lecture. She was a former study partner, and the two were friends.

“He was cute,” Karen said under her breath.

“Oh, you were watching all that, were you?”

Neither girl turned their head to look at each other. They both kept their eyes on the speaker, whispering like a couple of naughty conspirators.

“Did he get your number?”

Mak smiled to herself, still not turning her head.

“This is the new millennium, Karen,” Mak said. “I gave him my email address.”

It was 8.02 pm when the Air Canada Boeing 747 began its slow descent into Vancouver International Airport. The trip from Quantico had been rough, particularly leaving the rainy Los Angeles Airport a few hours earlier, and Detective Andy Flynn felt like he had travelled much more than the mere width of the North American continent that day. He felt like he had circumnavigated the globe.

The plane banked left and moved in a tight arc through the dark sky, the massive wing outside Andy’s window tipping down to reveal the top of Grouse Mountain, lit up and floating magically above the city like Lando Calrissian’s Cloud City in
Star Wars
.

Thrilled with the view, Andy looked to Dr Harris across the aisle from him, only to find his mentor asleep, eyes closed and head hanging to one side. Bob’s tie was loosened and crooked and his slack jaw gave the impression that he might be trying to eat the knot. Andy resisted the urge to gently nudge him back into
the waking world. He knew that Bob was overworked and could use every minute of rest.

They sped above the city heading south-west to the airport, the engines roared on their descent, and within minutes they touched down, bumping along the runway, the flaps on the wing outside Andy’s window jutting upwards and straining in the air current. The aircraft shuddered and complained as it slowed to taxi towards the gate, and finally it was still.

Andy exercised a touch of definance by standing up and stretching before the seatbelt sign was switched off. The rest of the passengers followed suit, and Dr Harris came back to life as well, as if some mysterious force had flicked his “On” switch. He stood up and grabbed his things out of the overhead compartment as if he were fresh out of a ten-hour sleep on a plush Sealy, not snoozing for half an hour crammed into a rigid airplane seat. This was not the first occasion when Andy had noticed the Profiler’s uncanny ability to bounce back from all kinds of physical and mental unpleasantness. He felt sure that Bob could sleep on a hard wooden floor and not get a crick in his neck, despite his age.

The two didn’t need to talk; they simply nodded at each other and followed the other passengers up the aisle and off the plane. Dr Harris lugged his briefcase and laptop along with him, containing the all-important Powerpoint presentation for the next day. Andy carried only his simple overnight bag and a
crinkled newspaper. He was glad he hadn’t brought a lot of work to do on the plane. He probably wouldn’t have touched it anyway. His mind was not particularly focused on work. He was tired, but more than that, he was distracted by his close proximity to Mak.

Andy watched his feet move over the carpet beneath him as they exited the ramp and emerged from the gate. It was only when he heard Dr Harris’s name being called that he looked up. To Andy’s surprise, he found that two stocky men dressed in business suits were waiting for them.

“Dr Harris?” the shorter of the two repeated in the same melodious Canadian accent.

The man stepped forward and his eyes flickered back and forth between them, searching for recognition. He appeared to be in his mid-forties and he looked to be quite strong. He had a thick knotted neck and a wide, faded scar visible across his nose that brought to mind a teenage bar brawl, or perhaps a school hockey game gone awry. This was Canada, after all. His partner was slightly taller and a fair few years younger, but shared his muscular build.

“I’m Dr Harris,” Bob said, raising a hand and stopping a few feet from the man. Andy noted his hesitation. He didn’t seem to be expecting the welcome wagon either.

“I’m Sergeant Wilson. This is Corporal Rose.” The man with the scar extended his hand and Bob shook it. “We’re with the local RCMP. Can we speak?”

At that point they both turned and looked at Andy. It wasn’t a friendly look.

“He’s alright,” Bob assured them.

“I’m Detective Andrew Flynn of the New South Wales Police Force,” Andy cut in, moving forward to join them. “In Australia.”

“You’re sure a long way from home,” Corporal Rose, the taller, younger one said. Andy didn’t like his tone.

“Detective Flynn has been studying with me at the Behavioural Sciences Unit at Quantico,” Bob said.

The men looked Andy up and down one more time, and then focused their attention on Dr Harris.

“So, how can I help you, gentlemen?” Bob asked.

The four men walked slowly along the long concourse towards the baggage claim, past the Coast Salish Spindle Whorl carved of red cedar, and down the steps suspended over a beautiful waterfall, where the soothing sounds of water cascading over smooth round stones calmed the busy minds of weary passengers.

The RCMP had come with a favour to ask of Dr Harris, and as they walked past the cool flowing waters, the carved welcome figures and the slowly spinning baggage carousel, words were exchanged in an urgent hush. Sergeant Wilson painted a dark picture. The dead bodies of two missing UBC students, Susan Walker and Petra Wallace, had been discovered, and the unidentified skeletal remains
of another victim had been found near their shallow graves.

When Wilson had spoken to Dr Hare, a consultant with the RCMP, he had recommended that they approach the visiting Profiler.

Wilson believed that this was the work of a serial killer.