Val McDermid: The Mermaids Singing

The sound of shuffling feet drowned out the rest of Rasmussen’s spiel. When it came to a choice between a civil servant’s vote of thanks and a cup of coffee, it was no contest. Not even for the civil servants. Tony took a deep breath. Time to abandon the lecturer. Now he had to be the charming, well-informed colleague, eager to listen, to assimilate and to make his new contacts feel he was really on their side.

John Brandon stood up and stepped aside to allow the other people in his row to move out of their seats. Watching Tony Hill’s performance hadn’t been as informative as he’d hoped. It had told him a lot about psychological profiling, but almost nothing about the man, except that he seemed self-assured without being arrogant. The last three quarters of an hour hadn’t made him any more certain that what he was planning was the right course of action. But he couldn’t see any alternative. Staying close to the wall, Brandon moved forward against the flow until he was level with Rasmussen. Seeing his audience vote with its feet, the civil servant had sharply wound up his speech and switched off his smile. As Rasmussen gathered up the papers he’d dumped on his seat, Brandon slipped past him and crossed the floor towards Tony, who was fastening the clasps on his battered Gladstone bag.

Brandon cleared his throat and said, ‘Dr Hill?’ Tony looked up, polite enquiry on his face. Brandon swallowed his qualms and continued. ‘We haven’t met before, but you’ve been working on my patch. I’m John Brandon…’

‘The ACC Crime?’ Tony interrupted, a smile reaching his eyes. He’d heard enough about John Brandon to know he was a man he wanted on his side. ‘I’m delighted to meet you, Mr Brandon,’ he said, injecting warmth into his voice.

‘John. It’s John,’ Brandon said, more abruptly than he’d intended. He realized with a spurt of surprise that he was nervous. There was something about Tony Hill’s calm assurance that unsettled him. ‘I wonder if we can have a word?’

Before Tony could reply, Rasmussen was between them. ‘If you’d excuse me,’ he interjected without any note of humility, the smile back in place. ‘Tony, if you’d just come through now to the coffee lounge, I know our friends in the police will be eager to chat to you on a more intimate basis. Mr Brandon, if you’d like to follow us.’

Brandon could feel his hackles rising. He felt awkward enough about the situation without having to fight to keep their conversation confidential in a room full of coffee-swilling coppers and nosy Home Office mandarins. ‘If I could just have a word with Dr Hill in private?’

Tony glanced at Rasmussen, noting the slight deepening of the parallel lines between his eyebrows. Normally, it would have tickled him to wind up Rasmussen by continuing his conversation with Brandon. He always enjoyed pricking pomposity, reducing the self-important to impotent. But too much hung on the success of his encounters with other police officers today, so he decided to forego the pleasure. Instead, he turned pointedly away from Rasmussen and said, ‘John, are you driving back to Bradfield after lunch?’

Brandon nodded.

‘Perhaps you could give me a lift, then? I came on the train, but if you don’t mind, I’d rather not wrestle with British Rail on the way back. You can always drop me at the city limits if you don’t want to be seen fraternizing with the Trendy Wendies.’

Brandon smiled, his long face creasing into simian wrinkles. ‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I’ll be just as happy to drop you at force headquarters.’ He stood back and watched Rasmussen steer Tony to the doors, fussing all the way. He couldn’t shake off the slightly disconcerted feeling that the psychologist had given him. Maybe it was simply that he’d grown so accustomed to being in control of everything in his world that asking for help had become an alien experience that automatically made him feel uncomfortable. There was no other obvious explanation. Shrugging, Brandon followed the crowd through to the coffee lounge.

Tony snapped the seat belt closed and savoured the comfort of the unmarked Range Rover. He said nothing as Brandon manoeuvred out of the Manchester force headquarters’ car park and headed for the motorway network, unwilling to interfere with the concentration necessary to avoid missing the way in an unfamiliar city. As they cruised down the slip road and joined the fast-flowing traffic, Tony broke the silence. ‘If it helps, I think I already know what it is you wanted to talk to me about.’

Brandon’s hands tensed on the wheel. ‘I thought you were a psychologist, not a psychic,’ he joked. He surprised himself. Humour wasn’t his natural mode; he normally resorted to it only under pressure. Brandon couldn’t get used to how nervous he felt asking this favour.

‘Some of your colleagues would take more notice of me if I was,’ Tony said wryly. ‘So, do you want me to have a guess and run the risk of making a complete fool of myself?’

Brandon snatched a quick look at Tony. The psychologist looked relaxed, hands palm down on his thighs, feet crossed at the ankles. He looked as though he’d be more at home in jeans and a sweater than in the suit which even Brandon recognized as well past its fashionable sell-by date. He could relate to that, remembering the scathing comments his daughters routinely passed on his own plain clothes. Brandon said abruptly, ‘I think we’ve got a serial killer operating in Bradfield.’

Tony released a small, satisfied sigh. ‘I was beginning to wonder if you’d noticed,’ he said ironically.

‘It’s by no means a unanimous opinion,’ Brandon said, feeling the need to warn Tony before he’d even asked for his help.

‘I’d gathered as much from the press coverage,’ Tony said. ‘If it’s any comfort to you, I’m as certain as I can be from what I’ve read that your analysis is right.’

‘That’s not entirely the impression you gave in those quotes of yours I saw in the Sentinel Times after the last one,’ Brandon said.

‘It’s my job to cooperate with the police, not to undermine them. I assumed you had your own operational reasons for not going public with the serial-killer angle. I did stress to them that what I was saying was no more than an informed guess based on the information that was in the public domain,’ Tony added, his genial tone contradicting the sudden tensing of his fingers that ruched the material of his trousers into loose pleats.

Brandon smiled, aware only of the voice. ‘Touche. So, are you interested in giving us a hand?’

Tony felt a warm rush of satisfaction. This was what he had craved for weeks now. ‘There’s a service area a few miles down the road. D’you fancy a cup of tea?’

Detective Inspector Carol Jordan stared at the broken chaos of flesh that had once been a man, determinedly forcing her eyes to remain out of focus. She wished she hadn’t bothered to snatch that stale cheese sandwich from the canteen. Somehow, it was acceptable for young male officers to throw up when they were confronted with victims of violent death. They even got sympathy. But in spite of the fact that women were supposed to lack bottle anyway, when female officers chucked up on the margins of crime scenes they instantly lost any respect they’d ever won and became objects of contempt, the butts of locker-room jokes from the canteen cowboys. Pick the logic out of that, Carol thought bitterly as she clamped her jaws tighter together. She thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her trench coat and clenched her fists, the nails pressing into her palms.

Carol felt a hand on her arm, just above the elbow. Grateful for the chance to look away, she turned to find her sergeant looming above her. Don Merrick towered a good eight inches over his boss, and had developed a strange hunchbacked stoop when he spoke to her. At first, she’d found it amusing enough to regale friends with over drinks or the occasional dinner party when she managed to squeeze a night off. Now, she didn’t even notice. ‘Area’s all cordoned off now, ma’am,’ he said in his soft Geordie accent. ‘Pathologist’s on his way. What d’you think? Are we looking at number four?’