Val Mcdermid - Killing the Shadows

REMEMBER YOU READ IT FIRST ON MURDER BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Kit whistled softly. “That is seriously creepy shit.”

Fiona logged off. “You’re not kidding.”

“So what’s your take on it?”

“Probably much the same as yours,” Fiona said. “He clearly planned his crime to mirror the circumstances of one of the murders in Shand’s book. Which in turn mirrors one of the original Ripper murders, apart from the gender of the victim. That he’s succeeded so accurately indicates a high degree of control and organization. His intelligence therefore is likely to be significantly above average. He has a highly developed fantasy life and would probably use violent pornography to support that. He would be unlikely to respond well to authority, so if he had a job it wouldn’t be commensurate with his intelligence, which in turn would be a source of irritation to him.” She pulled a face. “But saying that is simply a matter of playing the probabilities.”

“But what about his relationship to Drew? Is he a stalker, a jilted lover, or some sort of fucked-up wannabe acolyte? What do you think?”

She dropped into one of the chairs by the window and stared out at the city. When her answer came, she spoke slowly, feeling her way from sentence to sentence. “That is without doubt the most interesting question, Kit.” She gave him a quick smile. “Hardly surprising that it was you who asked it. That the murderer fixated on the book and copied its crimes isn’t particularly remarkable. Often killers who display their victims’ bodies ritualistically are replicating images they’ve seen in pornography or in some situation that was particularly meaningful to them. But most sexually motivated killers would be satisfied with wreaking their havoc on any victim who broadly fitted their fantasy. To have chosen to hunt and destroy the creator of the very fiction that fuelled his desire to kill is curiously personal. And in a crime where depersonalizing the victim is often crucial to the process, it’s distinctly unusual.”

Kit ran his hands over his scalp, his face a mixture of amusement and exasperation. “It’s always got to be a lecture with you, hasn’t it? You still didn’t answer the question.”

Fiona grinned. “I sort of hoped you hadn’t noticed. If you pushed me on it, I’d probably plump for a stalker who has become obsessed with Copycat. But that’s purely speculation.”

“So is Murder Behind the Headlines, but it doesn’t stop you reading that,” Kit pointed out. He got up and wandered round the room. “It’s a bit freaky, isn’t it? The thought of somebody following Drew around like a shadow, invisible till the last moment when he shows himself. You never think of anything like that when you’re writing. That some nutter is going to read their life story into your words.”

“You’d probably never write another book if you give that possibility space in your head,” Fiona said. “Other people’s madness is not your responsibility. Come here, give me a hug.”

He crossed to her and gently pulled her to her feet, wrapping his arms around her. She turned her face up to his. “There are other ways of taking your mind off things, Kit,” she said softly as his lips came down to meet hers.

Inside the city walls of Toledo, the evening paseo was in full swing. Around the Plaza de Zodocover, people strolled in couples, families and groups, taking the evening air and catching up on the business of the day as they moved between pools of yellow light. Restaurants, many half-empty now the height of the tourist season was past, served dinner to tourists and locals, greeting their regular customers with smiles and the small change of social intercourse. The bars were doing a thriving trade, their tables full inside and out as older clients enjoyed a digest if with their coffee and the young men checked out the women gossiping and giggling in their separate groups. It was a sharp contrast to the dimly lit alleys and narrow streets that radiated out from the plaza, linking it with the rest of the city.

In one of the cafes on the edge of the square, Miguel Delgado smiled across at the Englishwoman who worked behind the reservation desk at the Hotel Alfonso VI. Two nights before, he’d engineered an encounter where he’d tripped over her handbag and knocked over her drink. She’d been with friends, so she’d suspected no ulterior motive when he bought her a drink to replace the one he’d spilled. Tonight, though, her friends were absent. For the price of another drink, he could make the down payment on his next act of revenge.

He swallowed the last of his café solo and folded up his newspaper. Careful not to draw attention to himself, he crossed to her table, inclined his head in a small bow and smiled. “ Buenas tardes ” he said.

The woman returned his smile, without a trace of uncertainty. Minutes later, they were deep in conversation. Delgado was back in business.

On a professional note, I heard last night that Blake has done a deal with one of the Sunday tabloids. You know the kind of thing my life of hell as the falsely accused Hampstead Heath killer. And on the strength of that, he’s gone off to Spain, allegedly to get away from all the pressure. Of course, we’ve been keeping tabs on him, albeit at arms’ length, and according to the travel agent, Blake has rented a villa outside Fuengirola for the next month. At least you’re far enough away in Toledo not to stand any chance of walking into a neighbourhood café and finding him propping up the bar. Let me know when you’re coming back and we’ll get together for dinner.

Love Steve

Fiona cleared Steve’s e — mail from the screen. She’d get round to replying later. It was thoughtful of him to pass on the news about Drew, but she didn’t want to be distracted from the task in hand by thinking about Francis Blake right now. While she waited for Berrocal to arrive, she double-checked that she had plotted her crime scenes correctly on the map. Just as she finished, Berrocal strode through the door, full of apologies for keeping her waiting. “So, what do you have to show me?”

The map of Toledo was monochrome on the screen, the streets and alleys black lines over the off-grey background. “This is how it works,” Fiona explained. “I started off with the street grid. Last night I entered the locations of the events that interest me.” She omitted to mention the news from England that had stirred memories, turning her sleep into exhausting restlessness. She wasn’t looking for Berrocal’s sympathy, nor, more importantly, did she want to give ammunition to anyone who might suggest her work failed to come up to the required standard. So she mainlined the cartons of industrial-strength coffee that the junior detectives had deposited on her desk and tried to keep the weariness out of her voice. “First of all, the vandalism cluster.”

She tapped a couple of keys and the screen came alive in an irregular spread of radiant neon colours, from sea-green, grading through blues and purples to red. There were only two small blocks of red, both to the west of the cathedral and the Plaza Mayor. “The program assigns different colours to different degrees of probability. The perpetrator of the acts of vandalism I’ve identified as a cluster is most likely to live within the boundaries of those red blocks,” she told him, pointing to them with her pencil.

“Very interesting,” Berrocal said softly.

“Don’t ask me how it works. The maths is way beyond me. I leave that to the techies. All I know is that it does have a frighteningly high degree of accuracy.” She cleared the colours from the screen. “Now, this is the picture we get from the muggings.” Again, the screen pulsed with vibrant colours. This time, there were three red blocks. One of them appeared almost identical to the larger of the two on the previous display, while the other two were more northerly.