Stephen Leather - Once bitten

On his way out he told me that there was a child-murderer waiting for me in Room B. Terrific.

I spent an hour or so probing the mind of the middle-aged woman in Room B. She kept me winking at me as she spoke. She was insane, but I guess that would be no comfort to the parents of the three children she'd mutilated and killed. Yeah, according to the Medical Examiner that's the way it happened, she cut off their testicles and forced them into their mouths and then, and only then, did she throttle them with a leather belt. It was unusual to find a female child killer, especially one who preyed on children other than her own. I mean, women sometimes kill their own kids, but almost never do they go out and hunt others. She blamed the murders on an alter-ego called Emma Wilson who spoke to all the time, even when she was running through the Beaverbrook Program, asking for her advice on which answer to give. She denied any involvement in the killings, even when confronted with the bodies in her basement and as evidence of her innocence produced notebooks full of scriblings which she said were messages from Emma.

According to her file, the notes were all in her handwriting. Her eyes were almost blank and she kept licking her lips as she spoke to me, and according to the flashing cursor on the Beaverbrook Program she was severely schizophrenic and needed help. She showed most of the primary symptoms of schizophrenia: thought-controlled disturbances and auditory hallucinations (Emma Wilson's voice in her head) and primary delusions (she kept on claiming that the officer who arrested her had been following her for nine months). The wink was a psychomotor disorder often exhibited by schizoid patients and the Beaverbrook program picked up another four factors indicative of the illness and pinned it down as Hebephrenic Schizophrenia. Given sensitive enough therapy coupled with medical treatment and she'd be able to live a normal enough life. That was unlikely to happen in view of the brutality of the murders, but at least I could tell De'Ath that there was no point in interrogating her, he'd have far more success if he let the shrinks loose on her.

She'd open up if handled the right way. De'Ath suspected she might hold the key to another half a dozen missing children cases. I hated child-killers. I really did.

I was alone in the office eating a turkey breast sandwich and pecking at the typewriter when De'Ath burst into my room. At first I thought he was pissed at the report on the woman, but it soon became clear that he had something else on his mind. He slammed the door behind him hard enough to rattle the glass and jabbed a black finger at me in time with his words.

"Why the fuck didn't you tell me about this guy Turner?" he shouted.

"Turner?" I said, confused, still thinking he was talking about the woman.

"Greig Turner. Old folk's home at Big Sur? You were there yesterday, remember?"

"What's happened?" I said. Something was wrong, I was sure. If it was just a matter of Lyttelton or his nurse making a complaint, De'Ath wouldn't be as angry as he was.

"He's dead," said De'Ath, pacing up and down. "He's dead and according to his nurse you were his last visitor."

"Some dish that nurse," I said. Male bonding, it never failed to win De'Ath over.

"I never saw her. I've just had my opposite number from Big Sur on the phone chewing me out and wanting to know what sort of investigation we're running on his turf." Well, it almost never failed.

"I didn't know they had someone as high as you over in Big Sur," I said. Flattery often worked, too.

"Don't fuck me around, Beaverbrook," spat De'Ath. But sometimes flattery didn't work, right?

"You're in deep shit. You've been passing yourself off as an LAPD detective and that's gonna go on your file. Now what the fuck are you up to?"

I tried to remember what I'd told Dr Lyttelton about the reason for my visit. I was pretty sure I hadn't mentioned Terry Ferriman to him but he'd told me about Matt Blumenthal. De'Ath would almost certainly have checked up with Blumenthal's agency which means they'd have told him the same as they told me, that the client was Greig Turner and that the subject of the enquiry was one Lisa Sinopoli. Was there any way De'Ath could connect Lisa Sinopoli with Terry Ferriman? I doubted it.

"Talk to me, Beaverbrook," De'Ath growled.

I couldn't think of a lie that would justify my visit to Turner. I racked my brains but I simply couldn't think of anything. If I'd had more time then maybe I could have come up with a half-way convincing story, but De'Ath was prowling backwards and forwards like a bear with a sore head and every train of thought I had ran straight back to Terry.

"It was the Ferriman thing," I said.

He stopped pacing and glared at me. "Fuck, I know that," he said. "You showed Lyttelton her photograph, don't you remember?"

Shit, I'd forgotten. I'd shown her the picture and asked if she'd ever visited Turner. And I'd told him her name. God, it was lucky I hadn't tried to lie because then De'Ath really would give me a roasting. "Turner's picture was in her apartment. In the bedroom. Remember? On the wall.

Movie star in a director's chair?"

De'Ath shook his head. "I knew it was a mistake letting you into the apartment. I knew it. Shit, shit, shit, Beaverbrook. Don't you ever fucking well listen to me?"

"Of course I do, Samuel. You just said shit. Three times."

He didn't laugh but I felt him loosen up a little. "I saw the picture and a friend of mine, an agent, said he knew where he was. I thought that if I spoke to Turner I might get more of an insight into her character. And Samuel, I don't remember trying to pass myself off as a detective, I really don't.

I told Dr Lyttelton that I was a psychologist, and he knew who I was anyway. He'd read some of my papers and he was interested in my research."

He held up a hand. It was big and square, the sort of hand that belonged to a heavyweight boxer, which is exactly what De'Ath had been during his army days. "OK, OK," he said. "What did you talk about? Whatever you said it must have upset him."

"What makes you say that?"

"Why else would he kill himself?" said De'Ath. "Didn't I tell you that? Must have slipped my mind."

Killed himself? When De'Ath had told me that Turner was dead I'd assumed that he'd just died naturally. It was obvious from what I'd seen that he didn't have much time left.

"How could he have killed himself?" I asked. "The man I saw could barely move. He was in a wheelchair and a nurse had to do everything for him."

De'Ath leant against my desk and folded his arms across his chest. "It looks as if Turner tied a scarf around his neck and then looped at around his bedpost and rolled himself out of bed. It doesn't take much to strangle yourself. I've seen people do it from doorhandles. It just depends on how determined you are. But you're getting away from the point again, Beaverbrook. What did you two talk about?"

"I asked him if he knew Terry Ferriman. He said he didn't."

"The nurse says you showed him a photograph."

"Yeah, the same one I showed Lyttelton. It was a photograph of Ferriman."

"The nurse said Turner seemed upset by the picture. Or by something you said."

I shrugged. "He was tired, that's all. His mind was wandering and a lot of the time he rambled.

He's practically senile, according to Dr Lyttelton."

De'Ath rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "A picture of Ferriman, huh? Where did you get it from?"

I had been hoping he wouldn't ask that because I'd stolen it from his desk. I shrugged. "God, I can't remember, Samuel. Somewhere, I don't know."

"Don't suppose you've got the picture on you now, have you?" he asked.

It was in my inside jacket pocket. "No," I lied.

"Just as well, I suppose," he said, looking me steadily in the eyes. He stood up and stretched his arms behind his back, interlocked the fingers of his massive hands and squeezed until his shoulders cracked. He sighed. "That's better," he said. "So, you went all the way to Big Sur, spent almost half an hour with this guy Turner, and got nothing from it. Is that right?"