Val Mcdermid - Killing the Shadows

Kit reached out to take the box. It was as heavy as he’d expected and he stepped back so he could turn round and put it on the floor clear of the door. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move. He half turned as the courier’s arm came down in a savage arc. He saw the blow coming, half raised his arm to ward it off. He knew as soon as the impact hit his skull that he was too late. Red and white pain bloomed behind his eyes. Then everything faded to black.

The courier walked back down the path, swinging his clipboard. He climbed into his van and drove off. Two streets away, he found a parking space. He pulled off the tight uniform jacket and replaced it with black leather. He climbed into the back of the van and stripped off the coarse blue trousers, pulling on a pair of black jeans in their stead. Then he locked up the van and walked back to the lane that ran behind Kit Martin’s back garden.

He pushed open the garden gate he’d left unbolted a few minutes earlier, then, in the gathering dusk, he made his way past the bare branches of the plum trees and across the patio through the french windows he’d unlocked. Handy of Kit to have left the key in the lock. Across the kitchen and into the hall. Nice place, if you liked that sort of thing. Himself, he preferred the more traditional, farmhouse kitchen to all this stark modernity.

And there he was. Victim number four. Trussed up like a chicken, cuffed hand and foot with those convenient plastic restraints. Mouth stopped with a wide strip of elastoplast that would allow him to breathe even if his nose got bunged up. He didn’t want him dead yet. Not by a long chalk. Not so powerful now, Mr. Kit Martin, creator of false gods. Destroyer of lives.

Time for him to face his own destruction.

But first, more patience was needed. Darkness was what was required. It wouldn’t do for the neighbours to see their friendly neighbourhood celebrity rolled down the garden path like a lumpy carpet and dumped in the back of a four-wheel-drive.

He checked his watch. Half an hour should do it. Then they’d be on the road for the long journey home.

The video viewing room was as high-tech as anything a broadcasting company could have provided. Steve wasn’t quite sure how the techies had managed to swing the budget for such a sophisticated suite, but for once he felt it was worth every penny taken away from more direct forms of policing. He was sitting beside a technician who was taking him through the videos of Susan Blanchard’s funeral.

It had been a sparkling, sunny day, which had doubtless felt grotesquely inappropriate for the grieving family and friends, but which had made the police camera operators’ job easier. Three video cameras had been set up at a discreet distance from the graveside, taking advantage of the aged yew trees that ringed the churchyard. They had filmed the mourners arriving at the church, then assembling at the graveside for the interment. Then, as the crowd had dispersed, one camera had remained to film the grave itself for the remainder of the afternoon.

Steve’s eyes were glued to the screen as the video played out before him in slow motion. Every now and again, he asked for a freeze-frame and zoom so he could take a closer look at individual mourners. The first tape had yielded nothing concrete, although there were a couple of rear views that could have been Coyne.

By the time they were halfway through the second tape, his eyes had begun to feel gritty and tired. “I need a break,” he told the technician, pushing back his chair and stretching. “Give me ten minutes.”

He left the video suite and climbed the two flights of stairs to his office. On his desk there was a thick brown envelope with, “Urgent. FAO Detective Superintendent Steve Preston,” scrawled across it in black felt-tip. He ripped it open and pulled out half a dozen black and white photographs. A compliment slip fluttered to the desktop and he saw it had come from the picture editor of a national daily, a man he’d shared a drink and a few jokes with at one of Teflon’s ghastly cocktail parties the previous Christmas. Nothing could beat personal contact for results in that grey area of press and police cooperation.

The photographs had all been taken outside the Old Bailey on the day of Francis Blake’s acquittal. Steve rummaged in his top drawer for his magnifying glass and began to study the prints methodically. As he worked his way across the third picture, he let out a sigh of relief. His memory hadn’t been playing tricks on him. On the fringe of the crowd surrounding Blake was the unmistakable face of Gerard Coyne. Steve scanned the remaining photos and found Coyne on two others. In one, he was full-face to the camera, in the other two he was in profile. But there was no possibility of error.

The man who had been identified by Terry’s geographic profile had been there at the trial of Susan Blanchard’s putative killer.

Fired with fresh enthusiasm, Steve ran down the stairs to the video suite. “Let’s roll,” he said. “He’s here somewhere, I know it.”

His patience was rewarded a mere ten minutes later. The second tape had picked up Coyne emerging from the trees at the side of the graveyard. He was wearing a dark suit, with collar and tie, appropriate to the occasion. He had hung back from the main body of mourners round the grave, staying on the fringes. A significant number of people had respected the family’s grief and stayed well back while Susan’s twins had thrown roses on their mother’s coffin and watched it lowered into the ground. But they had all dispersed fairly quickly after the ceremony was over. Coyne, conversely, had melted back into the trees then, when the last of the congregation was long gone, he had re-emerged and crossed to the path that led to Susan Blanchard’s grave.

Steve felt his pulse quicken as Coyne moved in slow motion down the path. As he drew level with the open grave, he didn’t so much as glance sideways. Instead, he continued along the path. Two graves along from Susan Blanchard, he stopped abruptly and turned to face that headstone. “Damn,” Steve swore softly. “We can’t see his face. I bet he’s looking at her grave. I’d put money on it.”

Coyne stood, head slightly bowed, for a couple of minutes, then he turned and went back the way he had come. There was nothing in his behaviour to suggest anything untoward. He could, if pressed, have claimed he’d delayed his planned visit to the grave near Susan’s because there was a funeral in progress. But taken in conjunction with his presence at the Old Bailey and the geographic profile, it was another brick in a circumstantial case that might yet prove sufficient to put him behind bars.

“I want you to print me a series of stills from that video,” Steve said. “The best views of his face. Blow them up so we get the best possible definition. I don’t want there to be any doubts about this.”

“No problem,” the techie said. “I suppose it’s urgent?”

“It’s urgent.” Steve was already heading for the door. He checked his watch. Teflon had a habit of finding excuses to be out of the office early on Friday afternoons, but he might just catch him.

Commander Telford was actually waiting for the lift that Steve emerged from. “I’m glad I’ve caught you, sir. I need to speak with you urgently about the Susan Blanchard case,” he said firmly.

“Can’t it wait, Superintendent? I’ve got an appointment.”

With a large gin and tonic, Steve thought cynically. “I’m afraid it won’t wait, sir. Perhaps you could call ahead and tell them you’ve been unavoidably delayed?”

Telford pursed his lips and snorted through his nose. “Oh, very well. But keep it as brief as you can.” He turned on his heel and marched back to his office.