Simon Beckett - Whispers of the Dead

But he held himself as straight as ever as he strode across to my table, Jacobsen a pace behind him.

‘Can I get you a coffee?’ I asked, as they sat down.

They both declined. Gardner glanced around the other tables to make sure no one could overhear.

‘Security cameras show someone by your car at eight forty-five last night,’ he said without preamble. ‘It was too far away to pick out much detail, but the dark clothes and cap look the same as on the footage from the phone booth. Also, we checked with hospital security. It wasn’t one of their employees you saw in the car park.’

‘York.’ There was a bitter taste in my mouth that had nothing to do with the coffee.

‘We couldn’t prove it in court, but we think so. We’re still trying to identify the fingerprints we lifted from your hire car, but there’re so many it isn’t easy. And York probably wore gloves anyway.’ Gardner shrugged. ‘No luck with the sloughed skin, either. Its prints don’t match either Willis Dexter’s or Noah Harper’s. From the small size it could be off a woman or an adolescent, but other than that we can’t say.’

An adolescent. Christ. A skein of congealed milk lay on top of my coffee. I pushed it away from me. ‘What about the photographs you found at York’s house? Do you have any idea who the people in them are?’

Gardner looked down at his hands. ‘We’re checking them against the missing person database and unsolved homicides, but there’s a lot to wade through. And it’s going to be hard finding a match for them anyway.’

Remembering the contorted faces, I imagined it would. ‘Have you any idea where York might be?’

‘There’ve been a few unconfirmed sightings since we gave the press his details, but nothing definite. He’s obviously got a hideout somewhere. He doesn’t seem to have killed his victims either at his house or at Steeple Hill, so he must’ve taken them someplace else. Probably somewhere he can get rid of the bodies easily, or we’d have found others besides Loomis and Harper.’

With the Smoky Mountains on his doorstep, disposing of his victims’ bodies wouldn’t be difficult. ‘According to Josh Talbot, for a swamp darner nymph to get caught up with Harper’s body, it had to have been left near a pond or a slow-moving stream.’

‘That narrows it down to almost the whole of East Tennessee.’ Gardner gestured irritably. ‘We’ve been checking out recorded sightings of swamp darners, but we need more to go on than that. Diane, why don’t you tell Dr Hunter what you’ve come up with?’

Jacobsen tried to hide it, but there was a marked tension about her. I could see a pulse in the side of her throat, beating away in time to her excitement. I tore my eyes from it as she began to speak.

‘I took another look at the photographs we found at York’s house,’ she began. ‘They seem to have been taken when the victims were very close to death, perhaps at the actual point of death itself. I’d assumed they were just trophies York had collected. But if that’s all they were, seeing how he’d strangled them you’d expect the victim’s throat to be in the frame as well. It isn’t, not in any of them. And if York just wanted to relive his kills, why not just record the whole thing on video? Why take such an extreme close-up of the victim’s face, and in black and white at that?’

‘Perhaps he’s a photography buff,’ I said.

‘Exactly!’ Jacobsen leaned forward. ‘He thought he was being clever leaving Willis Dexter’s fingerprint on the film canister, but he gave away more than he intended. Those photographs aren’t just quick snapshots he’s fired off. According to the lab they were taken in low light without a flash, using a very high speed film. To get a print of that quality under those conditions takes serious photographic know-how and equipment.’

‘Wasn’t there a thirty-five-millimetre camera at his house?’ I asked, remembering the box of old photographic gear.

‘The photographs weren’t taken on that,’ Gardner said. ‘None of the equipment there had been used for years, so it was probably his father’s. Judging from the pictures at the house York senior was an amateur photographer as well.’

I thought about the fading photographs on the sideboard. Something about them bothered me, but I couldn’t think what.

‘I still don’t see why any of this is important,’ I admitted.

‘Because the photographs aren’t just souvenirs to York. I think they might be central to what he’s doing,’ Jacobsen said. ‘Everything we know about him suggests an obsession with death. His background, the way he treats his victims’ bodies, his fixation with a forensic anthropologist like Dr Lieberman. Factor in these photographs of his victims in extremis, and it all points to one thing: York’s a necrophiliac.’

Despite myself, I was shocked. ‘I thought you said there was no sexual motivation?’

‘There isn’t. Most necrophiliacs are males with low self-esteem. They’re drawn by the idea of an unresisting partner because they’re terrified of rejection. That doesn’t apply to York. If anything, he feels society doesn’t appreciate him enough. And I doubt very much that he’s attracted to his victims, dead or alive. No, I think his condition takes the form of thanatophilia. An unnatural fascination with death itself.’

This was getting into uncomfortable territory. I felt the first spike of a headache in my temples.

‘If that’s the case, why didn’t he take the photographs when his victims were dead rather than as he killed them?’

‘Because that wouldn’t be enough. Over and above the necrophilia, York’s a pathological narcissist, remember. He’s obsessed with himself. Most people are scared of dying, but to someone like him the notion of his own extinction must seem intolerable. He’s been surrounded by death all his life. Now he’s driven by a need to understand it.’ Jacobsen sat back, her face solemn. ‘I think that’s why he kills, and why he takes photographs of his victims. His ego can’t bear the thought that one day he’s going to die himself. So he’s looking for answers. In his own way he’s trying to solve the mystery of life and death, if you like. And he’s convinced himself that if he can take that definitive picture, catch the exact moment of death on film, it’ll all become clear.’

‘That’s insane,’ I protested.

‘I don’t think sanity is a prerequisite for serial killers,’ Gardner commented.

He was right, but that wasn’t what I meant. There was still no firm consensus on exactly when life ended. Stopped hearts could be resuscitated, and even brain death wasn’t always conclusive. The idea that York thought he could capture the actual instant his victims died on film, let alone learn anything from it, disturbed me in ways I couldn’t describe.

‘Even if he managed it, what good does he think it’ll do?’ I asked. ‘A photograph isn’t going to tell him anything.’

Jacobsen gave a shrug. ‘Doesn’t matter. So long as York believes it then he’ll carry on trying. He’s on a quest, and it won’t matter how many people he kills pursuing it. They’re all just lab rats as far as he’s concerned.’

The flush sprang up from her throat as she realized her mistake.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…’

‘Forget it.’ I might not like it, but I was no worse off for knowing what the situation was. ‘From what you say, York’s obviously been doing this for some time. Years, perhaps. God knows how many people he’s killed already, without anyone knowing about it. He could have carried on like that indefinitely, so why the change? What’s made him suddenly decide to draw attention to what he’s doing?’

Jacobsen spread her hands. ‘Hard to say. But I’d guess it’s precisely because he’s been doing it for so long. You said yourself that what he’s trying to do is impossible, and perhaps on some level he’s started to realize that himself. So he’s compensating, trying to make up for his failure by boosting his ego some other way. That’s why he went after Dr Lieberman, a recognized expert in a field York probably regards as his own. In a way it’s classic displacement—he’s trying to avoid confronting his failure by reassuring himself that he is a genius after all.’