James Carol - The Quiet Man

*

Winter opened his eyes.

‘Cause and effect,’ he said. ‘It’s not money that makes the world go round, it’s Newton’s Third Law. That’s what’s going on here.’

Anderton gave him a puzzled look. ‘I’m not really following.’

‘Earlier I was watching TV and it seemed that every other programme was a reality show. They all follow the exact same format. A group of people are put in a high-pressure situation and the viewers at home get to watch. The killer is doing pretty much the same thing. In this case the husbands kill their wives. That’s your high-pressure situation. The big difference is that there’s only one viewer watching at home.’

‘So, what? The purpose of all this is entertainment?’

Winter shook his head. ‘That’s where the analogy falls down. He’s not doing this for fun. This is serious business. And I doubt he’s sharing with the viewers at home. This is very much for his own benefit. All of us are voyeurs to one degree or another. That’s why reality shows are so popular.’ He paused. ‘The early reality shows were billed as social experiments, because back then they needed to be justified. Except they weren’t experiments. Not even close. They were mob events. In that respect they had more in common with the gladiator battles in ancient Rome than any form of legitimate science. This, however, is like a sociological experiment. Basically he’s caused something to happen and, like the good scientist he is, he’s sat out there somewhere observing and recording the results.’

‘Okay,’ Anderton said, ‘back to my original question. What do we say to him?’

‘At this stage we don’t say anything.’

‘We don’t?’

‘First we need to get his attention. We need him to understand that he’s no longer calling the shots. And we do that by making it so that he can’t watch. Believe me, that’ll make him sit up and take notice.’

Anderton shook her head. ‘That won’t work. If we disable the RAT then we won’t be able to communicate with him.’

‘Who said anything about disabling it?’ Winter walked over to the refrigerator. A pad of sticky notes was fixed to the door with a magnet. He took the pad down, peeled off the top sheet and held it up. ‘If you want to stop someone spying on you with a webcam, this will work every time. Stick it over the lens and your privacy is guaranteed. When we want to talk to him, all we’ve got to do is take it off.’

‘Yeah, that’ll work.’ Anderton found her cell phone and switched it on.

‘Who are you calling at this time?’ Winter asked.

‘Freeman. He needs to know about the RAT.’ She paused, smiled. ‘If I’m awake I don’t see why he shouldn’t be. After all, technically this is his case.’

Winter woke up with a stiff neck and warm sunlight on his face. The drapes didn’t quite meet in the middle and the light was flooding in. All that brightness was making his eyes ache. Anderton’s sofa was smaller than the one in his suite, and nowhere near as comfortable. It was better than sleeping on the floor, but not by much. He sat up and stretched and scrubbed the sleep from his eyes. Anderton was already up and about. He could hear her getting busy in the kitchen. Whatever she was up to in there, it sure smelled good.

He pulled on his jeans, then went through to join her. She was over at the stove, a frying pan in one hand, a spatula in the other, an apron to protect her clothes from fat splashes. The omelette looked impressive. Mushrooms, onions, peppers, the works. There was something almost maternal about the way she was looking at him. He half expected her to check behind his ears for dirt.

‘You look like crap,’ she said.

‘I’ll be fine after a coffee and a cigarette.’

‘The coffee I can help with, but if you want a cigarette you need to go outside.’

She poured a coffee and handed him the mug. Winter sat down at the table and took a sip.

‘This is great coffee.’

‘Glad you approve. You want something to eat?’

‘Does the pope shit in the woods?’

She laughed at that, then dished the omelette out on to two plates, half each, equal portions all around. She put one of the plates in front of Winter then sat down opposite him.

‘This is amazing,’ he said between mouthfuls. ‘Oh, and thanks for the use of your sofa.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘What time is it, anyway?’

‘Eight-thirty.’

‘It’s later than I thought.’

‘You were snoring when I woke up, so I left you to it. I figured you needed your beauty sleep.’

‘Yeah, it was a busy night.’

‘Busy but productive.’

‘Any news from Freeman?’ Winter asked.

‘Freeman’s dodging my calls. No great surprise there.’

‘What about your winged monkeys? Anything from them?’

‘Not yet. I’m hoping to hear something soon, though.’

Winter finished eating then went outside for a cigarette. Anderton was in her office when he got back. She gave him another quick once-over, starting at his head and working down to his toes.

‘I’ve got to say, I’m not seeing any improvement.’

‘Thanks.’

The fold-up chair leaning against the wall didn’t look as though it had been moved in a while. Winter set it up at the side of the desk and sat down. He glanced at the map, then the photographs. Then he looked at Anderton.

‘Some people believe that dreams are a way for the subconscious mind to communicate with the conscious mind.’

Anderton leant back in her chair and made a big deal of giving him her full attention. ‘I take it you’re going somewhere with this.’

‘Last night I dreamt of Marilyn Monroe. She was coming out of a giant cake, singing “Happy Birthday” to President Kennedy.’

‘Is this about August 5 again?’

Winter nodded.

‘Okay, so your subconscious was trying to communicate something through this dream. Any idea what?’

‘I think it was trying to tell me to simplify things. Everything about the dream was blown out of proportion. For a start, Marilyn never climbed out of a giant cake, she just stood on a stage under a spotlight and sang the song. And everything in my dream was in bright Technicolor. The only footage that exists is black and white. This got me thinking. Sometimes a birthday is just a birthday. It’s no big deal really. Same goes for death. It’s just one of those things that happen. So far we’ve been focussed on the trigger event being a big deal. What if it wasn’t? What if the killer’s mom just passed away? I want the names of all the women who died in the city on August 5. I don’t care how they died. In fact, the less spectacular the better.’

‘We already looked at that.’

‘But you only went back fifteen years. Let’s assume that Cody represents the killer as a boy and Myra represents his mom. Cody’s ten, Myra’s thirty-three. That means the killer’s mom died twenty-three years ago. So that’s where we need to start looking. Do you have a contact at the records office?’

‘You could say that.’

The response was purposefully vague. Before Winter could push for an explanation, Anderton’s cell phone rang. She glanced at the display, then grinned to herself.

‘It’s one of my contacts.’

The call lasted less than thirty seconds, just long enough for the caller to pass on whatever information they needed to pass on. It was easy to imagine her contact skulking around the corridors at headquarters, looking for somewhere they wouldn’t be overheard. She was still grinning when she hung up.

‘Good news?’ Winter asked.

‘There was a RAT on David Hammond’s computer. And there was one on Cody Hooper’s laptop, too.’