Helen Fields - Perfect Remains - A gripping thriller that will leave you breathless

Callanach retraced his steps and went back into her bedroom. The bed was bare, the sheets stripped by the forensics team looking for signs of sexual activity and DNA. None but hers had been found. There was minimal makeup in her drawers, only two bottles of perfume in her en-suite cupboard. He opened her wardrobe and found two rows of shoes, split between work and exercise. It was ironic how someone who valued order and neatness so highly could have ended their life in such chaos and trauma. At what point had she realised something was wrong? As soon as she’d left the gym, perhaps. Had someone been following her or was he waiting for her at home? Buxton was fit and healthy. She’d have put up a fight if she hadn’t been taken completely by surprise. There was no sign of a struggle, though.

Finally, among neatly folded sweaters, Callanach saw the one thing that had been missing. A ragged teddy bear peeked down from the top shelf, much loved, by the look of it, too precious to put away with the other childish things. Something to look at every morning and evening as she dressed and undressed. A fragment of warmth in an otherwise formal home. He closed the cupboard door against the bear’s forlorn, waiting stare. It wouldn’t help him find her killer and it didn’t progress matters to dwell upon the human loss. Only science, logic and research solved cases. Elaine’s house offered nothing further. Callanach locked up and was glad to leave the silence and stillness behind.

Calls to her ex-husband Ryan proved unrewarding. He’d been out of contact with her for more than a year. Following the autopsy report, police officers notified Elaine’s mother of her death that afternoon. Callanach was pleased it wasn’t his job on that occasion. No amount of training or experience made delivering death notifications any easier. The press was given the information shortly afterwards, with a renewed request for information. Callanach chased up the friend whose birthday celebration Elaine had attended at the gym and found she’d been more of an acquaintance in reality. They’d shared a Pilates class, worked out together each Wednesday and Friday but didn’t socialise anywhere else. Elaine hadn’t mentioned a boyfriend, she’d told Callanach, not that they chatted about that sort of thing. It was in keeping with the way she lived. Work colleagues all said the same. So, surely, Callanach mused, she’d have noticed someone taking an interest in her, watching her, following her. She was a lawyer. She’d have known there were court orders available to protect her. Was her murderer so restrained that he’d never once revealed himself?

Elaine’s diary and correspondence had been seized as evidence. Callanach took the paperwork home, expecting little more than meetings and reminders in to-do-list form. It had already been inspected by the missing persons team and no useful information had been identified. The diary was A4-sized, with a sheet for each day, the notations proficiently brief.

Three weeks prior to her abduction was this: Senior partner review. Resolution statistics good. Increase in billable hours required . Buxton was an achiever but not someone with a hard head for business then, failing to squeeze her clients hard enough for money. The oddity of a likeable lawyer. Callanach flicked through the remaining pages, finding only a well-organised professional who structured her day carefully and filled her time to the maximum.

The pages of the diary gave nothing away that Callanach didn’t already know but tucked inside the back cover was a card from what was presumably an old friend, announcing the birth of a baby girl and updating Elaine as to recent news. A house move, a career break while she enjoyed some parenting time, a joke about a mutual acquaintance. Nothing that indicated the friend had seen Elaine for months, if not years. The return address was London. Behind the card was a half-drafted letter in reply. It began with the expected congratulations, comments about the baby photos and questions about the house move. Then the tone changed.

I’m so sorry I missed the baby shower and it doesn’t look as if I’ll make it to the christening either. Work is a bit pressing at the moment. You always did tell me I take life too seriously – I’m starting to think you were right! I’ll do my best to get down to London for a visit soon. Perhaps I’ll amaze you and book a holiday like you suggested. I haven’t been away since the divorce. Maybe I’ll even meet someone new (you’re bound to like him more than you did Ryan). Time to get my head out of the books .

Callanach closed his eyes. There was no good murder, no fair or reasonable circumstances under which a life could be stolen, but Elaine Buxton had been cruelly robbed. How had she felt when the thought crystallised in her mind that she was being abducted? Did the irony of that unfinished letter occur to her, with its dreams of holidays and meeting a new man, or was the panic too all encompassing? Had she finally found her voice and fought for her life? Callanach put the papers down. One hand wandered into a pocket as he paced his small sitting room, and there, as if it was a stowaway, he found Elaine Buxton’s paperweight. He took it out, brushed a stray strand of cotton from its unblemished surface, tried to recall the precise moment he’d taken it and how he’d justified it to himself at the time, but the memory was a cloud. Slowly, quietly, almost as if he were being watched, he slid the heavy glass under his pillow.

King seethed at Elaine’s lack of cooperation. It was usually beneath him to be reduced to obscenities but, if he were forced to use a common phrase, he might say she was being a fucking bitch. He’d tried to fit her new dentures but she’d cried when he’d pushed them into her mouth, moaning at the pain from her gums, saying they were still too sore. The disgusting creature had shaken her head to and fro like a rabid dog, trying to avoid the procedure. He’d known he would have to tolerate her saliva and had gloved-up in readiness. Her head throwing, though, had sent streams of mucus from her snivelling nose across his face. He could have vomited with repulsion.

She had to respect her new situation. If she wouldn’t learn willingly then she would be taught. Discipline would do her no harm. The protein shakes he made her weren’t appreciated either. Half a dozen times he’d had to hold her nose and tip it into her mouth. She’d soon stopped thinking she could starve herself. King took an old, wooden ruler from a drawer in his study, picked up his laptop as an afterthought and retraced his steps down the official and up the unofficial staircases. A tiny nick at the edge of the panel hiding the keyhole would have to be polished out. It wouldn’t do to get sloppy. Not when everything else had gone according to plan.

Elaine frowned when he entered. Like a stroppy teenager, he thought. But it wouldn’t last long. If he could just help her progress through this stage, she would see sense. He walked to her bedside without speaking. There was no point engaging with her. It would only create another scene. This help he was giving her, this tough love, was best dealt swiftly and silently. King checked that the chains and cuffs binding her hands were tight enough that she couldn’t thrash and cause too much additional damage. She closed her eyes tightly and her mouth even more so, assuming, no doubt, that he meant to try again with the dentures. Her behaviour proved she needed more than just coaxing to comply. This was, he decided, an inevitability of neither his choosing nor his making. It was all her fault.

It wasn’t until he pulled her ankle chains tighter causing her legs to part wider, that she began screeching. However, he was delighted to note that no amount of hysteria made a millimetre of difference to her bindings. He was clever to have thought so carefully about the restraints he would need for his guest suite. King giggled shrilly. Elaine stopped shrieking and stared at him as if he’d grown a second head.