Simon Beckett - Whispers of the Dead

As I passed the sideboard, I paused to look at the clutter of framed family photographs, a visual history of York’s life. They were a mix of posed portraits and holiday snaps, the once bright summer colours washed out and faded. York was the subject of most: a grinning boy in shorts on a boat, an uncomfortable-looking teenager. An older, amiable-looking woman who looked like his mother was with him in most of them. Sometimes they were joined by a tall, tanned man with a businessman’s smile who I took to be York’s father. He wasn’t in many, so I guessed he’d taken most of the photographs himself.

But the later shots were exclusively of York’s mother, a progressively stooped and shrunken copy of her younger self. The most recent one showed her posing by a lake with a younger version of her son, frail and grey but still smiling.

There were no more after that.

I caught up with Gardner at the bottom of the stairs. So far he’d made no mention of the phone call Tom had received the night before. I wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t think it was relevant, or if he just didn’t want to acknowledge that I might have done something useful. But I wasn’t going to leave without raising it.

‘Did Jacobsen tell you about the phone booth?’ I asked as we went along the hallway.

‘She told me. We’re looking into it.’

‘What about Tom? If the call was meant to lure him outside he might still be in danger.’

‘I appreciate you pointing that out,’ he said, coldly sarcastic. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

I’d had enough. It was late and I was tired. I stopped in the hallway. ‘Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but you asked me to come out here. Would it kill you to at least be civil?’

Gardner turned and faced me, his face darkening. ‘I asked you out here because I didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice. Tom brought you into this investigation, not me. And excuse me if my manners aren’t to your liking, but in case you haven’t noticed I’m trying to catch a serial killer!’

‘Well, it isn’t me!’ I flared back.

We glared at each other. We were by the front door, and through it I could see that the agents outside had stopped to stare. After a moment Gardner drew in a deep breath and looked down at the floor. He seemed to unclench himself with a visible effort.

‘For your information, I arranged extra security for Tom straight away,’ he said, in a tightly controlled voice. ‘Purely as a precaution. Even if you’re right about the phone call, I doubt that whoever made it is going to try anything while Tom’s in a hospital bed. But I’m not about to take the chance.’

It wasn’t exactly an apology, but I could live with that. The main thing was that Tom was safe.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘You’re welcome.’ I couldn’t decide if he was being facetious or not. ‘Now, if that’s all, Dr Hunter, I’ll see you’re taken back to your hotel’.

I started to go out, but I’d not even reached the front steps when someone called Gardner from inside the house.

‘Sir? You should take a look at this.’

A forensic agent, overalls grubby with oil and dirt, had emerged from a door further down the hallway. Gardner glanced at me, and I knew what was going through his mind.

‘Don’t go just yet.’

He set off down the hallway and through the door. I hesitated, then went after him. I wasn’t going to stand there like a schoolboy outside the headmaster’s office until Gardner decided if he needed me or not.

The door was an internal entrance to the garage. The air smelled of oil and damp. A bare lightbulb burned overhead, its weak glow supplemented by the harsher glare of floodlights. It was as cluttered in here as in the rest of the house, sagging cardboard boxes, mildewed camping gear and rusting garden equipment crowding round the bare area of concrete where York’s car had stood.

Gardner and the crime scene agent were by an old steel filing cabinet. One of the drawers was pulled out.

‘… at the bottom under old magazines,’ the agent was saying. ‘I thought at first they were just photographs, until I took a better look.’

Gardner was staring down at them. ‘Jesus Christ.’

He sounded shocked. The other agent said something else, but I didn’t pay attention. By then I could see what they’d found for myself.

It was a slim foolscap-sized box, the sort used for photographic paper. It was open, and the agent had fanned out the half-dozen or so photographs from inside. They were all black and white portraits, each a close-up of a man or woman’s face from chin to forehead. They had been enlarged to almost full size, and the perfect focus had caught every feature, every pore and blemish, in sharp-edged detail; a split second preserved with unblurred clarity. Each face was contorted and dark, and at first glance their expressions were almost comical, as though each of the subjects had been caught on the point of a sneeze. But only until you saw their eyes.

Then you knew that there was nothing remotely comical about this at all.

We’d always suspected that there were more victims than the ones we knew about. This confirmed it. It hadn’t been enough for York to torture them to death.

He’d photographed them dying as well.

Gardner seemed to notice I was there for the first time. He gave me a sharp look, but the rebuke I was half expecting never came. I think he was still too stunned himself.

‘You can go now, Dr Hunter.’

A taciturn TBI agent drove me back to my hotel after I’d changed, but those contorted faces continued to haunt me as we drove through the dark streets. They were disturbing on a level that was hard to explain. Not just because of what they showed. I’d seen enough death in my time. I’d worked on cases before where murderers had taken trophies of their victims: a lock of hair or some scrap of clothing, twisted memento mori of the lives they’d claimed.

But this was different. York was no crazed killer, losing himself in the heat of some warped passion. He’d played us for fools all along, manipulating the investigation from the start. Even his exit had been timed perfectly. And the photographs weren’t the usual trophies. They’d been taken with a degree of care and skill that spoke of a deliberate, clinical coldness. Of control.

That made them all the more frightening.

I didn’t really need another shower when I got back to my room, but I had one anyway. The trip to York’s house left me feeling unclean in a way that was more than skin deep. Symbolic or not, the hot water helped. So much so that I fell asleep almost the instant I turned out the light.

I was woken just before six by an insistent trilling. Still half asleep, I pawed for the alarm clock before I realized the noise was from my phone.

‘Hello?’ I mumbled, not properly awake.

The last vestiges of sleep fell away when I heard Paul’s voice.

‘It’s bad news, David,’ he said. ‘Tom died last night.’

You cut it fine. You knew it wouldn’t be long before the TBI agents arrived at the house, but you left it as long as you dared. Too soon and much of the impact would be lost. Too late and… Well, that would have spoiled everything.

It was a pity you didn’t have more time. You hate feeling rushed, even though there was no avoiding it. You’d always known it would come to this. The funeral home had served its purpose. You’d planned it all out in advance; what you needed to take and what would be left behind. It had called for fine judgement and more than a little discipline. But that was OK.

Some sacrifices have to be made.

You’re almost ready for the next stage now. All you’ve got to do is be patient. It won’t be much longer. Just one final chore to nudge the last pieces into place, then the waiting will be over.