Val Mcdermid - Killing the Shadows

Blake had described himself as a professional man of twenty-nine with an interest in cinema, reading, walking in London’s parks, and enjoying female company. Under Andrew Horsforth’s guidance, Detective Constable Erin Richards had written the reply. Dear Francis, it read .

Thanks for your letter, it was easily the most charming of all the ones I’ve received. I must confess I’m a little nervous about this because it’s not the sort of thing I normally do. Would it be OK with you if we exchanged a couple more letters before we actually meet? Like you, I’m interested in going to the cinema. What kind of films do you like best? Although I know it’s probably not what women are supposed to enjoy, I love all those wonderful dark thrillers like Seven, Eight Millimetre and Fargo, and Hitchcock films like Psycho. But they’ve got to have a good plot to keep me going. As for reading, I don’t get to read as much as I should. I like Patricia Cornwell, Kit Martin and Thomas Harris best, and I sometimes read true crime too. I don’t really know London well enough to know where it’s safe to go walking. You read about such terrible things sometimes in the papers, people being mugged and raped in parks, that it makes me a bit nervous because I’m a stranger. Perhaps you could show me some of your favourite walks sometime? I work in the civil service. Nothing very exciting, I’m afraid. I’m a clerk at the Ministry of Agriculture. I moved here from Beccles in Suffolk after my mother died. There was nothing to keep me there, because my father passed away a couple of years before her, and I’ve no brothers or sisters, so I thought I’d come looking for adventure in London! I’d love to hear from you again if you think we might have enough in common to enjoy each other’s company. You can write to the box office number because I’m keeping it on for a couple of weeks longer.

Yours sincerely, Eileen Rogers.

Blake had replied by return of post. Dear Eileen, he’d written .

Thanks for your lovely letter. Yes, it does sound as if we’d have a lot in common. We seem to go for the same kind of books and films for a start. I can understand why you might feel a bit nervous walking around London on your own. I’ve lived here all my life but there are many parts of the city I don’t know at all, and if I have to go there for work I sometimes feel a little anxious because it’s so easy to end up somewhere that can feel threatening just because it’s unfamiliar. It must be so much harder for a woman on her own. I’d be happy to show you around. I know Hampstead Heath and Regent’s Park and Hyde Park well, I go there often. I realize you must be a bit nervous about meeting a stranger like me, but I’d like to talk face to face. I can’t help thinking we would have a lot to say to each other. We could meet somewhere public, like they recommend you should for a first time. I could meet you on Saturday afternoon and we could have coffee together. I thought we could meet outside the Hard Rock Cafe at Hyde Park Corner at three o’clock. You can phone me to confirm the arrangements if you like. Please say yes. You sound just the kind of woman I want to meet.

Best wishes, Francis Blake.

The fish had swallowed the bait remarkably easily, Fiona thought. It wasn’t so much that Horsforth had been particularly clever or subtle in the way he’d orchestrated the approach, as that Blake had been surprisingly eager to make the contact, in spite of having been the subject of such close police attention. Perhaps that was why he’d been so keen; he was desperately in need of a respite with someone who knew nothing of what he’d been through at the hands of the law. For a man who apparently liked to be in control, it must have been infuriating to be surrounded by people who thought they knew more about him than they really did. A stranger who knew nothing of his role as a suspect would allow him to feel relaxed.

Whatever the reasons, it had provided the opportunity for the operation to go ahead. DC Richards had phoned Blake and arranged to meet. The call had lasted for about ten minutes, Fiona noted. They’d chatted without much awkwardness, mostly about films they’d seen recently, then made arrangements to meet. At their first encounter, as on every subsequent one, Richards was wired for sound, transmitting the conversation to a back-up radio van that kept discreet tabs on the pair of them throughout.

Richards had played her role well, striking an appropriate balance between edgy nervousness and eager friendliness. They’d gone for coffee, then Blake had suggested a short walk through the park before they parted. As they’d walked, he’d pointed out to her the sort of places she could go safely on her own and the ones she should avoid. He seemed to know exactly which areas were open and well-lit and which were gloomy, dotted with shrubbery that could provide hiding places for anyone with dubious intentions. It wasn’t the sort of analysis that the average park stroller would make of his environment, Fiona thought. Just as someone who has almost been trapped in a fire takes an unnatural interest in fire exits forever afterwards, so only someone who imagined using a park for something other than fresh air and exercise would view their surroundings as Francis Blake viewed his. He looked at his world like a predator, not a victim.

That didn’t make him a killer, however. He might be a mugger, a voyeur, a flasher or a rapist and still exhibit a similar response. But Horsforth had allowed himself to be persuaded that Blake was a killer, and he had interpreted his behaviour accordingly. That much was clear from the clinical psychologist’s notes on the meeting. The conversation had been innocuous enough, but Horsforth had still managed to see what he wanted to see.

It was a realization that profoundly depressed Fiona. Any kind of objective analysis of the material was already compromised, because Horsforth’s early decisions about what Blake’s actions implied had dictated everything in the interaction that followed.

The meetings had continued two or three times a week. On the fourth meeting, Richards introduced the subject of Susan Blanchard’s murder, in the context of terrifying things that happened to women in the city. Blake had immediately said, “I was there that day. On the Heath. I must have walked past at almost the exact time she was being raped and murdered.”

Richards had pretended shock. “My God! That must have been awful.”

“I didn’t realize anything at the time. Well, obviously I didn’t or I would have raised the alarm. But I can’t help thinking if I’d chosen a slightly different route that day, if I’d gone over the rise behind the shrubbery instead of walking along the path, I’d have stumbled over her killer,” he’d boasted.

It was a significant exchange, Fiona knew. But again, it was capable of a different interpretation from the conclusion Horsforth had jumped to. What it told him was that Blake was a killer desperate to talk about his crime, however obliquely. What it told Fiona was something else altogether. She made a note on her pad and continued.

By the end of the third week, Blake was beginning to turn the conversation towards sex. It was, he indicated, time to take their relationship to the next stage, beyond cinema visits and walks and meals. Richards backed off slightly, as she’d been told to do, saying she wanted to be sure they’d be compatible before she took the ultimate step of sleeping with him. It was the planned route into talk of sexual fantasy. Fiona had to concede that this had been a shrewd move on Horsforth’s part, though she might have approached it in a more indirect way. But then, she wasn’t a clinician. In matters like this, she had to concede her instinct was probably not the most rigorous guide.