“We’ll see,” Duvall said.
“You’ll see nothing, Detective Chief Inspector Duvall,” he said, almost chewing the words of her title. “What’s your first name? Something pretty and girly that you hate, I bet. Well, Detective Chief Inspector, I am your worst nightmare.”
Duvall allowed herself an indulgent smile. “I don’t think so, Mr. Redford.”
“Oh, but I am. You see, I committed these murders. I’m freely admitting to that. And I’ll tell you how I did them and what I did. But only up to a point. I’m not going to lead you to any physical evidence, I’m not going to tell you places to look for witnesses. Do you have any idea how many tourist beds there are in Edinburgh? That should keep your opposite number in Lothian and Borders amused for a while. No, all you’re going to have is what I admit to, Detective Chief Inspector.” He grinned, showing small even incisors like a child’s milk teeth. “You’re going to have so much fun with the Crown Prosecution Service. No evidence except a confession. Oh, dear me.”
Duvall looked bored. “Fine. So can we get on with the confession?”
Redford looked momentarily hurt. Then he brightened again. “I see what you’re up to,” he said triumphantly. “You’re trying to wind me up by making me feel dismissed. Well, let me tell you, I’ve read enough and seen enough to understand all your tricks, DCI Duvall. You’re not going to put one over on me. Now, I consider myself to be a storyteller, so let’s start at the beginning.”
“No,” Duvall interrupted incisively. “Let’s try a more radical approach to narrative. Let’s pretend we’re Martin Amis or Margaret Atwood. Let’s start at the end, with Georgia Lester.”
“My.” Redford let out a long drawl of admiration. “A literate cop. I shall have to watch my story structure here. But don’t you want to hear why I’ve taken against thriller writers in such a big way?”
Duvall produced his flyer from her plain black no-nonsense handbag. “I am showing Mr. Redford one of the leaflets he distributed at a police press conference earlier this afternoon,” she said for the benefit of the tape. “I presume your reasons are outlined here? You sent them your novels, hoping they’d help you. But not only did they ignore you, you believe that they stole your plots and plagiarized your writing. An accurate summary?” Her tone was brisk. He was so filled with confidence, the best she could hope for was to unsettle him, and she was going flat out for that. She could feel the adrenaline coursing through her, creative tension holding her tight as a bowstring. It was so seldom that an interrogation proved anything approaching a challenge, and Duvall relished the confrontation.
“Well, yes,” he said, an edge of dissatisfaction in his voice. “But I thought you’d want to know more about that. It’s why I started. You should be interested.”
She shrugged. “Motive is much overrated in detective fiction, Mr. Redford. Remember that GP in Manchester? Harold Shipman? Convicted of killing fifteen elderly patients with morphine overdoses. Nobody really knows why he did it, but it didn’t stop a jury putting him away. I’ll leave the motive to the lawyers. I’m interested in the mechanics of what you did and how you did it. And let’s stick to Georgia Lester, eh? You’ll have plenty of opportunity to talk about your other alleged crimes with officers from other jurisdictions in due course. If, that is, you can convince me that you had anything to do with Georgia Lester’s murder.”
Redford sat back and steepled his fingers in the manner of a patronizing academic. “I knew she had a cottage in Dorset,” he began expansively.
“How did you know?” Duvall shot back. She was determined not to let him relax into his tale.
“Hello! magazine did a feature on her last year. There were interior and exterior photographs. The article said the cottage was seven miles from Lyme Regis. It wasn’t that hard to find. So I tracked down the cottage, and then I laid my plans. I made sure I knew what her schedule was”
“How did you find that out?” Duvall demanded.
“It’s on her website. All her public engagements. I knew she went down to Dorset most weekends, and it was easy to work out when she’d be due back in London from the events listing on the web page. Must you keep interrupting?” he demanded peevishly.
“I thought you’d welcome my questions,” Duvall said smoothly. “You say you want me to believe you. You should be grateful that I’m trying to confirm your story with all these details.”
His eyes flashed a momentary anger. “You think you’re clever, don’t you, Duvall? But you’re no match for me. I killed them, and you’re going to have to charge me with Georgia Lester’s murder.”
“Either that or with perverting the course of justice, Mr. Redford. So, you stalked Georgia. What a pathetic little crime that is. How did you capture her?”
An hour later, Duvall left the interview room. She felt drained and frustrated. In spite of her constant hammering of questions, she hadn’t been able to extract a single fact from Redford that hadn’t either been published in the press or couldn’t have been gleaned from a studious reading of Georgia Lester’s text. She let herself into the observation room where the DCS from Dorset was sitting with a notepad on his knee. “What do you think?” she asked.
He looked up and pulled a face. “I think you need something concrete from your search, something that isn’t already in the public domain. He’s given you nothing that a good brief won’t demolish for a jury. He wants his day in court, but he doesn’t want to be convicted, that’s how I see it. And he thinks he’s cleverer than you.”
Duvall leaned against the wall and folded her arms across her chest. “And that might just be where I can trip him up. Reading that flyer, I was struck by how similar some of the language is to the threatening letters that have been sent to some of the crime writers. With the right expert witness, I think I can tie him to the letters, whether or not we find the originals on his computer. And if we can tie the letters to the murders, then we’ve got a way in. It’s going to be a bastard to make it stick, though.”
“Do you think it really is him?”
Duvall pushed herself off from the wall and crossed to the one-way mirror. Redford was gazing up as if he could see her, a confident smirk on his face. “That’s what I keep wondering.”
The DCS tapped his pen on his pad. “It strikes me, reading that flyer, that he’d do just about anything to get his books published.”
Duvall sighed. He had expressed a notion that had already crossed her mind. “You think he’d go as far as murder?”
“I think he’d certainly go as far as confessing to murder.” He shook his head. “I tell you something, DCI Duvall. I’m not going to fight you over who gets this collar.”
Fiona found Kit upstairs in the living room, stretched out full-length on the sofa. On the floor beside him, a bottle held about two inches of red wine. The glass balanced on his chest contained another inch. There was an Australian soap on the TV. His eyes were looking at the screen, but she knew he wasn’t watching it.
“I’ll get another bottle,” she said.
“That’d be a good idea,” he agreed, no trace of the drink in his voice.
When Fiona returned, she sat down cross-legged on the floor beside him and tipped the remains of the bottle into her glass. “I’m more sorry than I can say about Georgia.”
“Me too,” Kit said, shifting his position so he was half sitting, leaning against the arm of the sofa. “I’m also scared. There’s somebody out there killing people like me, and it’s hard to escape the idea that I could be next on his list.”
“I know.” Fiona drained her glass and started on the second bottle. “And there’s nothing I can say or do that will change that. God, how I hate that feeling.” She reached up and gripped his hand.
The silence between them was filled with the inane chatter of the soap’s teenage love interest. More than she had ever wished anything, Fiona wished she could wave a magic wand and remove the sense of threat that clung to them both like a sticky spider’s web, blinding them
to everything except its presence. “It was kind of Steve to come and tell you himself,” she said finally. “Especially given the way we left things.”
“He loves you too much to be petty.”
Fiona gave him a quick glance of surprise. She had always thought the burden of Steve’s love was her private secret. It had never been mentioned between them before, and she had assumed Kit had accepted her version of their relationship; a long-standing defiance of the theory that friendship between heterosexual men and women was inherently impossible.
Kit shook his head, a tired smile creeping over his face. “You think I never noticed?”
“I suppose so. I presumed because you never objected to him that you took it at face value,” she admitted.
Kit reached for the bottle and topped up his glass. “Why should I have minded? It’s not as if he’s ever been any kind of threat. I’ve always known you didn’t love him. Well, you do love him, obviously, but like a friend. And he’s never tried to tell me how I should be treating you. So why should there be a problem?”
Fiona laid her head against his thigh. “You never cease to surprise me.”
“Good. I’d hate to think you had me sussed.” He released her hand and stroked her hair. “You’re a very good reason for staying alive, you know. I’m not going to take any chances.”
Fiona grasped the offered opportunity. “So first thing in the morning, we’re going to call a security firm and get you fixed up with a minder.”
“Are you serious?” His tone was a mixture of incredulity and outrage.
“Never more so. You can’t live like a hermit, Kit. You know it’ll drive you stir crazy within a couple of days. You’ll get frustrated and bad-tempered, you won’t be able to work and then you’ll do something that you think is safe, like going for a walk on the Heath. You’ll expose yourself.” As he started to argue with her, Fiona held up her hand in an adamant gesture. “I’m not going to argue, Kit. Your safety’s the most important consideration, but you’ve still got to be able to live.”
“Fair enough. But a minder? I’ll feel like a complete plonker.”
“It’s better than the alternative.”
Before Kit could say more, the final credits of the soap faded and the familiar urgency of the Six o’clock News theme swelled from the TV. Fiona swivelled round to watch the screen. “Let’s see what they’re saying about Georgia,” she said.
The newscaster gave his trademark sombre smile and launched into the news.
Good evening. The remains of missing mystery writer Georgia Lester have been discovered in a freezer in London’s Smithfield Market. And in a dramatic development, a man has confessed to her murder at a police press conference.
The rest of the headlines were lost on Fiona and Kit. “What the fuck?” Kit breathed.
They didn’t have long to wait. Georgia was the first item in the main bulletin.
City of London Police called a press conference this afternoon to announce that a search of Smithneld Market had ended with the discovery of Georgia Lester’s remains. Their grisly find came in the early hours of this morning as police worked through the night following a new line of inquiry. Ms Lester went missing somewhere between her cottage in Dorset and her London home ten days ago. Since then, concern has been voiced for her safety.
But the revelation was overshadowed by the events of the press conference itself. Over now to our reporter Gabrielle Gershon.
A solemn-faced thirty-something with fashionable glasses gazed into the camera.
Police were giving little away at the press conference. They admitted only that Georgia Lester’s dismembered body had been found in a freezer at Smithfield Market, but refused to be drawn into speculation as to whether there was any connection between the best selling crime author’s death and the recent murders of fellow thriller writers Drew Shand and Jane Elias.
But as the press conference drew to a close, a man pushed his way through the crowd of reporters, claiming to be responsible for all three deaths. He then distributed leaflets alleging that all three of the murdered authors had stolen his work and that he had killed them in revenge for their plagiarism.
For legal reasons, we cannot show the footage of this dramatic event. However, the man has been taken into police custody and within the last ten minutes, police have admitted that he has been arrested on suspicion of murder.
The news reader voice interrupted.
Did the police appear to be taken by surprise by this extraordinary intervention, Gabrielle?
—he asked.
Yes, Don, it threw them into complete confusion. Up to that point, they’d given no indication that they had any suspects whatsoever in Georgia Lester’s murder.
It’s a remarkable turn of events. I can’t recall anything quite like it ever happening before.
Don the news reader said as the screen returned to a view of the studio.
Thanks, Gabrielle. We’ll come back to you if there are any further developments.
He looked seriously at the camera.
Later in the programme, we’ll be bringing you an appreciation of Georgia Lester’s life and work. But now, the other main stories tonight.
Fiona reached for the remote control and flicked the mute button. “Unbelievable,” she said wonderingly. “He confessed in front of a room full of journalists?”
“Now there’s a man who doesn’t need a publicist.”
“Pass the phone,” Fiona said.
Kit stretched and grabbed the cordless handset. “Who’re you going to call?”
“Wood Street. I want to find out if this is the real thing or the local neighbourhood nutter.”
“You think they’ll tell you?”
Fiona gave him her disapproving tutor’s stare. “You think they won’t?”
Ten minutes later, she put the phone down. Sarah Duvall had, inevitably, been unavailable. But once Fiona had explained her connection to the case to a slightly wary sergeant in the incident room, she had been rewarded with the assurance that yes, the murder squad was treating the confessor seriously. And, strictly off the record, he was likely to be charged with something by morning. Maybe not murder, not quite yet. But something serious.
It was, she thought, like the moment when you realize the dental anaesthetic has worn off. She felt tension seep from her shoulders like a liquid flow. Her initial response of scepticism had been dispelled by the CID sergeant’s stolid reassurance that someone as sharp as Sarah Duvall was taking this seriously. And if the confessor had been one of the usual suspects who came out of the woodwork whenever there was a major crime in the headlines, the police would have known. She smiled up into Kit’s anxious eyes. “They seem to think he’s kosher,” she said, letting out a long breath. She hastily moved from the floor to the sofa and wrapped her arms round him. “I hope they’re right,” she said softly. “Oh God, I hope it’s finished.”
FOURTY-THREE
The air in the room was redolent with the heavy fragrances of ylang-ylang, sandalwood and rose. The flicker of a pair of candles took the chill off the clinical white of the walls and transformed Steve’s bedroom from a monastic cell to a place where romance was possible. The massage oil and the candles were Terry’s contribution to the atmosphere; after the first night when urgency had been everything, she wanted to give their love-making a more sensual framework.
They lay in a languid tangle of limbs, a pair of champagne flutes within reach but for the moment disregarded as they gave each other the history lessons of their past. As he listened to Terry’s tale of her childhood, Steve luxuriated in the sense of having been swept out of the mundanity of his life.
When the shrill note of his mobile phone cut through Terry’s gentle ironies, it was a dislocating wrench back into his former life. “Shit,” he swore savagely, even as he was disentangling himself from her.
She chuckled. “Ignore it. You’re off duty.”
“I can’t,” he said angrily, crossing the room in a handful of lon
g strides and abruptly grabbing the phone from the dressing table. “There’s too much on. Bloody thing.” He hit a button and barked, “Preston here.”
“Steve? This is Sarah Duvall.”
Steve stifled his exasperation and backed up to the edge of the bed, where he flopped down. “What can I do for you, Sarah?”
“Have I caught you at a bad moment?”
“No, it’s fine.”
Duvall registered his clipped tones, knew it wasn’t fine, but pressed on regardless. She wasn’t about to allow Steve Preston’s convenience to come between her and her objective. “I wanted to ask if you thought Dr. Cameron would be open to a formal approach from us to liaise on the Lester murder.”
Steve glanced uneasily at Terry. He felt faintly uncomfortable talking about Fiona in front of her. It felt almost incestuous. “I don’t see why not. The problem is with the Met, not in general. What was it you were after, specifically?”
“As you know, we’ve got a confessor in custody. But I’m having peculiar problems with checking out his authenticity because so much of the detail of the crime comes from Lester’s book. However, I think he could be tied to the letters. What I want to try for is linking him to the letters, then linking the three murders, especially if we can establish that Shand and Elias also had letters. I thought Dr. Cameron could look specifically at the letters and the flyer he distributed at the press conference, then she could review the evidence in the other two cases to see if there’s linkage. With three cases to go at, we’ve got more chance of turning up some witness evidence, or something else that would either tie in the confessor or eliminate him.”
“I’d have thought it was worth trying,” Steve said cautiously. “And there’s no better person for that kind of job.”
“I don’t want to wait till morning,” Duvall said. “Have you got a home number for her?”