Stephen Booth - The Dead Place

Soon there will be a killing. It might happen in the nextfew hours. We could synchronize our watches and countdown the minutes. What a chance to record the tickingaway of a life, to follow it through to that last, perfectmoment, when existence becomes nothing, when thespirit parts with the physical .

The end is always so close, isn’t it? Fate lurks beneathour feet like a rat in a sewer. It hangs in a corner ofthe room like a spider in its web, awaiting its moment. And the moment of our dying already exists inside us, deep inside. It’s a dark ghost on the edge of our dreams, a weight that drags at our feet, a whisper in the ear atthe darkest hour of the night. We can’t touch it or seeit. But we know it’s there, all the same .

But then again … perhaps I’ll wait, and enjoy theanticipation. They say that’s half the pleasure, don’tthey? The waiting and planning, the unspoiled thrill ofexpectation. We can let the imagination scurry ahead, like a dog on a trail, its nostrils twitching, its tonguedribbling with joy. Our minds can sense the blood andsavour it. We can close our eyes and breathe in thearoma .

I can smell it right now, can’t you? It’s so powerful, so sweet. So irresistible. It’s the scent of death .

Footsteps approached in the corridor. Heavy boots, someone pacing slowly on the vinyl flooring. Here was a man in no hurry, his mind elsewhere, thinking about his lunch or the end of his shift, worrying about the twinge of pain in his back, a waistband grown too tight. An ordinary man, who rarely thought about dying.

The footsteps paused near the door, and there was a rustle of papers, followed by a moment’s silence. An aroma of coffee drifted on the air, warm and metallic, like the distant scent of blood.

As she listened to the silence, Detective Sergeant Diane Fry rubbed at the black marks on her fingers with a tissue. The fax machine invariably did this to her. Every time she went near the damn thing, the powder ended up on her skin. There always seemed to be a spill from a cartridge, or fingerprints left on the casing. But tonight she felt as though she were trying to wipe a much darker stain from her hands than fax toner.

‘He’s seriously disturbed,’ she said. ‘That’s all. A sicko. A Rampton case.’

But she didn’t expect a reply. It was only a tactic to delay reading the rest of the transcript. Fry scraped at her fingers again, but the marks only smeared and sank deeper into her pores. She would need soap and a scrubbing brush later.

‘Damned machines. Who invented them?’

On the other side of the desk, Detective Inspector Paul Hitchens waited patiently, rotating his swivel chair, smiling with satisfaction at a high-pitched squeal that came from the base at the end of each turn.

Fry sighed. Waiting for her in the CID room was the paperwork from several cases she was already up to her neck in. She was due in court tomorrow morning to give evidence in a murder trial, and there was a conference with the Crown Prosecution Service later in the day. She didn’t have time to take on anything else, as her DI ought to know.

She’d also slept badly again last night. Now, at the end of the day, her head ached as if steel springs had been wound tight across her forehead and driven deep into the nerves behind her eyes. A growing queasiness told her that she ought to go home and lie down for a while until the feeling passed.

And this will be a real killing — not some drunkenscuffle in the back yard of a pub. There’ll be no spasmof senseless violence, no pathetic spurt of immaturepassion. There’s no place for the brainless lunge of aknife, the boot in the side of the head. There’ll be nopiss among the blood, no shit on the stones, no screamingand thrashing as a neck slithers in my fingers like asweat-soaked snake …

No, there’ll be none of that sort of mess. Not thistime. That’s the sign of a disorganized brain, thesurrender to an irrational impulse. It’s not my kind ofkilling .

My killing has been carefully planned. This deathwill be a model of perfection. The details will be precise, the conception immaculate, the execution flawless. Anaccomplishment to be proud of for the rest of my life .

TRANSCRIPTION NOTE: BRIEF PAUSE, LAUGHTER.

A cold worm moved in Fry’s stomach. She looked up from the faxed sheets, suppressing a feeling of nausea that had risen as she read the last sentence.

‘I need to hear the original tape,’ she said.

‘Of course. It’s on its way from Ripley. We’ll have it first thing in the morning.’

‘What are they using — a carrier pigeon?’

Hitchens turned to look at her then. He smoothed his hands along the sleeves of his jacket, a mannerism he’d developed over the past few weeks, as if he were constantly worrying about his appearance. Tonight, he looked particularly uncomfortable. Perhaps he wasn’t sleeping well, either.

‘Diane, I’ve heard this tape,’ he said. ‘This guy is convincing. I think he’s serious.’

When the footsteps outside the door moved on, Fry followed their sound and let her mind wander the passages of E Division headquarters — down the stairs, past the scenes of crime department, the locked and darkened incident room, and into a corridor filled with muffled, echoing voices. By the time the sounds had faded away, her thoughts were aimless and disoriented, too. They were lost in a maze with no way out, as they so often were in her dreams.

‘No, he’s laughing,’ she said. ‘He’s a joker.’

Hitchens shrugged. ‘Don’t believe me, then. Wait until you hear the tape, and judge for yourself.’

Fry regarded the DI curiously. Despite his faults as a manager, she knew he had good instincts. If Hitchens had heard the tape and thought it should be taken seriously, she was inclined to believe him. The printed words on the page weren’t enough on their own. The caller’s real meaning would be captured in the sound of his voice, the manner of his speech, in the audible layers of truth and lies.

‘He seems to be hinting that he’s killed before,’ she said.

‘Yes. There are some significant phrases. “Not this time”, for a start.’

‘Yet in the same breath he’s disapproving of something. Disapproving of himself , would you say?’

With a nod, Hitchens began to smooth his sleeve again. He had strong hands, with clean, trimmed fingernails. A white scar crawled all the way across the middle knuckles of three of his fingers.

‘He could turn out to be an interesting psychological case for someone to examine,’ he said.

The DI’s voice sounded too casual. And suddenly Fry thought she knew why he was looking so uncomfortable.

‘Don’t tell me we’ve got a psychologist on the case already?’

‘It wasn’t my decision, Diane. This has come down to us from Ripley, remember.’

She shook her head in frustration. So some chief officer at Derbyshire Constabulary HQ had got wind of the phone call and decided to interfere. That was all she needed. She pictured one of the ACPO types in his silver braid strolling through the comms room at Ripley, demonstrating his hands-on approach to visiting members of the police committee, hoping they’d remember him when promotion time came round.

‘OK, so who’s the psychologist?’ said Fry. ‘And, more to the point, who did he go to school with?’

‘Now, that’s where you’re wrong,’ said Hitchens. He pulled an embossed business card from the clip holding the case file together. As she took the card, Fry noticed that it was a pretty slim file so far. But it wouldn’t stay that way, once reports from the experts started thumping on to her desk.