Val Mcdermid - Killing the Shadows

There was a long pause. “This is an active murder investigation, sir. Can’t you spare me half an hour?” The reproach was in the tone as much as the words.

“We’ve just arrested someone for Susan Blanchard,” Steve said stonily.

“I can’t leave the Yard. Hang on a second.” He covered the mouthpiece and waved his free hand towards the door. “Give me five minutes. I’ll see you in the CID room.” As they filed out, he turned his attention back to Sarah Duvall. “Look, you should be aware that Fiona Cameron seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. She was supposed to meet Superintendent Galloway this morning and she didn’t show. Now, he tells me that she had a bee in her bonnet last night about Redford not being the man. She was convinced that the killer was still on the loose. And she was also convinced that he’d kidnapped Kit Martin. I can’t raise either Fiona or Kit. I think we’ve got a serious problem on our hands here.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Duvall said.

“But I don’t see how it can be Blake. According to my surveillance reports, Blake didn’t leave his flat at all yesterday.”

“It’s Blake, Steve. I’d stake my life on it.”

What worried Steve was that it wasn’t Duvall’s life that was at stake. “You need to talk to Galloway,” he said.

But Duvall had her own priorities. “The person I need to talk to is Francis Blake.”

From his vantage point in the trees beyond the ravine, Francis Blake stared at the track emerging from the trees. What was keeping them? She must have managed to get him free by now. There was a box of tools in the generator shed, he knew. That’s where he’d found the axe that he’d used to smash the padlock on the gun cupboard.

He couldn’t believe his bad luck. He’d only gone out to move his 4x4 to the far side of the gorge. But some inner caution had made him take the gun, hidden in a bundle of firewood. Luckily he’d heard her approach in the Land Rover and he’d had the sense to turn around and make it look as if he was walking out of the woods. A bit more warning and he could have been ready and waiting for the bitch. OK, it would have meant breaking the pattern, but to have killed Fiona Cameron at close quarters would just have been the icing on the cake.

He propped the shotgun against a tree and tucked his hands into his pockets for warmth. The sun might be shining, but it was October, and here under the canopy of the trees, it was like midwinter. But it would be worth the wait when the pair of them plunged into the ravine. That would finish them off, no messing.

Then he’d be free and clear, either to kill again or to leave it alone.

He didn’t think he was under any threat from the police. Fiona Cameron was acting alone, he felt sure of that. She hadn’t been able to convince her cronies in the force to back up what could only have been a hunch. After all, they had that lunatic Redford in custody. They must be pretty sure they had their killer under wraps. Otherwise, given the clout she had with the police, they’d have turned up mob-handed if they’d thought there was any serious chance of laying hands on a serial killer of his calibre. There was a kind of sweet irony in that, too. It was psychological profilers like her who had destroyed his life and he’d set out to destroy the people who had turned profilers into gods. Now, the profiler herself couldn’t get anyone to believe her. Maybe that meant he’d made his point?

Blake took his hand out of his pocket and chewed the skin on the side of his thumb. Fucking profilers. They’d set him up to prove how clever they were. But he’d outsmarted them. He’d turned the tables and now nobody could touch him.

He’d had plenty of time to lay his plans. He’d always known he would get off when his case came to court, and he’d spent his time on remand brooding on the injustice that had been done to him. It would have been too obvious to go for the cops and the psychologist who had concocted the campaign against him. Besides, they’d never suffer enough to make up for what they’d done to him. He’d lost his home, his job, his girlfriend and his reputation. They’d only lose their lives.

No, somebody else had to pay. Who was responsible for making the world believe that psychological profilers had all the answers? Simple. Thriller writers. Especially the ones whose books had been turned into films and TV shows that millions of people had watched. They were the ones who were really responsible for what had happened to Francis Blake. And they were the ones who would pay.

It had been easy to get hold of their books while he’d still been in prison, and relatively easy to find out about their lives. They were always talking to journalists. Plus the British ones all featured in a book of detailed interviews that some sad anorak had just published. Then when he got out, there had been the Internet. It hadn’t taken long to put it all together. The hardest thing to find out had been the precise whereabouts of Kit Martin’s bothy. He’d known the rough location, thanks to various interviews, but a search of the Land Registry had given him a precise address, and the Ordnance Survey map had done the rest.

Nobody had been watching him while he’d been in Spain, he’d made sure of that. And from Spain, it was easy enough to drive across the land borders in Europe and pick up ferry crossings from there. And eluding the pathetic Met surveillance on him once he’d returned couldn’t have been easier. As long as he showed his face every other day and made it look like he was living the life of a recluse, they’d looked no further, leaving him forty-eight-hour spans free to do what he had to do in Dorset and, later, in Sutherland. He wouldn’t mind betting they hadn’t even figured out there was a back way out of his flat into the van way behind the shops.

One thing they’d never understand, and that was how his life had changed after what he’d seen on Hampstead Heath. Then, he’d understood how easy it was to take a life away. Doing it himself had turned into a piece of piss, really.

Until Fiona Cameron came along and fucked up his neatly laid plans. Well, she’d get her comeuppance soon enough.

He ran over the getaway in his mind once more. He’d moved the Toyota away from the bothy as soon as he’d unloaded Kit and locked him up tight. It would cause much less comment if a local spotted it on the access road up beyond the turning to the bothy than if they noticed it sitting outside. It was parked about five minutes away from his present position, facing down the hill towards the loch. He’d be on the road south in no time at all.

Then he heard the Land Rover again, its engine revving out of sight. It rounded the bend and slowed down to a crawl. He could see the outline of two figures through the windscreen. Then it began to roll forward towards the bridge, the engine complaining at such high revs in first gear.

As soon as the front wheels hit the bridge, the ropes snapped. In a crash of wood and metal, the Land Rover kept on coming, plunging downwards in a tangle of planks and rope. There was a fragmentary moment of stillness, then a terrible rending crash as timber and steel hit the rocks below.

Blake struggled through the undergrowth and emerged near the lip of the ravine. He edged forward, nervous of slipping and joining his victims. He looked down, hoping to see the broken bodies among the wreckage.

The tumble down the gorge had ripped the roof from the Land Rover, leaving its mangled base exposed to the rushing river. But where he’d expected to see Kit Martin and Fiona Cameron, there was nothing but strewn clothing and what looked like a couple of saucepans.

Blake swore fluently. The bastards thought they could outwit him, did they? Well, they could forget that. Furious, he ran back to the Toyota and pulled the Ordnance Survey map out of the glove box. One way or another, he would have their blood on his hands by the end of the day.