Daniel Blake - White Death

Lustful: no, for the absence of sexual interference.

Which left psychotic. The killer was doing all this for his own reasons, and those reasons would be buried somewhere unfathomably deep within his psyche. It might turn out that they would find the reasons only by finding the killer, through traditional police work and evidence-gathering. Taking wild guesses at what was driving him might simply distract them from genuine leads.

But as for such evidence-gathering: well, so far there was no forensic evidence worth the name, as was often the case when bodies had been left outside. The police lab was doing its best, though no one was holding their breath for a breakthrough: not because the lab wasn’t good – it was as good as could be expected of any short-staffed, underfunded public body – but because this was real life, and in real life cases don’t get solved in fifty-eight minutes minus commercial breaks.

The tarot cards were part of a standard Rider-Waite deck, the most common tarot deck in the United States and Europe. They were trying to trace the manufacturer, but that was easier said than done, especially on a Sunday. Manufacturers tend to put their details on the packaging box, but not on individual cards themselves.

As for the symbolism of the cards, they’d managed to find some basic information on the Internet: the mighty Google, helping cops and porn fiends since 1998. ‘Hierophant’ was more or less a fancy ancient word for a priest: ‘Regina’ was Latin for ‘queen’, which would tie in with ‘empress’.

The curator at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library was one of the country’s foremost experts on the history and symbolism of tarot – the Beinecke had one of the oldest decks in the world, dating back to 1466 – but she was returning from vacation and wouldn’t be at her desk until tomorrow morning.

Kieseritsky had scheduled a press conference for an hour’s time. Patrese said he’d look after Kwasi, keep the press away from the world champion, and at the same time do some digging to try to find out what had happened to Regina King.

He hung up and dialed the Hyatt Regency in Baltimore, number helpfully supplied by Kwasi’s incredible memory. No, the receptionist said, we didn’t have a Regina King staying last night. Yes, sir, she was absolutely sure. Not in the general register, and not under the National Council’s discount rate block booking.

Could she have registered under a false name? Patrese asked.

Yes, the receptionist said, but only if she had a fake ID too: each guest had been obliged to present some form of photocard. The receptionist had a copy of the National Council’s own attendee list, and there was no Regina King on that either.

Patrese thanked her and hung up.

Regina had told Kwasi she was going to Baltimore. He’d dropped her off at Penn Station. She hadn’t gone to Baltimore. She’d gone to New Haven. Trains from Penn Station ran to New Haven too.

Time to go to Penn Station.

Patrese stepped back inside the apartment. Kwasi was sitting at a computer. Patrese noted without surprise that there was a chessboard on the screen.

He explained what he’d found out from the Hyatt receptionist, and said he was going to Penn Station to try to find out where Regina had gone from there. ‘I’ll give you my cell number. You got a pen?’

‘Tell me. I’ll remember it.’

Patrese did, and he had no doubt that Kwasi would.

‘Will you come back when you’ve finished?’ Kwasi said. He sounded so like a little boy lost that Patrese instinctively put a hand on his shoulder.

‘Sure, Kwasi. Sure I will.’

Penn Station was no one’s idea of a grand railway terminus, the kind of place movie crews would dress up in period detail and have steam trains come hissing to a halt beside men in thick tweed suits. It was a catacomb, mostly underground and as bland as it was dark. Armed police stood with their feet wide apart and tried to look as though they weren’t dying of boredom. The government had warned of terrorist attacks on transport hubs a few weeks back, so everyone was going through the motions of pretending to do something about it.

A bomb in this place might actually improve it, Patrese thought.

He found his way to the control center after a couple of wrong turns and a station worker who’d been less impressed by a Bureau badge than Patrese would have liked. The control center was half movie theater, half trading floor: rows of workstations, many of them empty, and an enormous wall covered in intricate maps of the railway system. Trains inbound and outbound were marked by little symbols in various colors. It looked pretty busy even now, midway through a Sunday afternoon. God alone knew what it must be like during a Monday-morning rush hour.

The train to Baltimore that Regina had said she’d catch had left at ten o’clock. The train to New Haven had left at exactly the same time: ten o’clock, on the dot. Patrese asked for CCTV footage of both platforms from the moment the gates had been opened until the moment the trains had departed. The angles weren’t great and the picture resolution left much to be desired, but after going over the footage in fine detail, often asking to rewind a frame two or three times, Patrese had to accept a simple fact. Regina had been on neither of those trains.

He looked at other services that had departed at round about the same time: the Adirondack line up to Montreal, the Empire service to Buffalo and Niagara, the Vermonter to, well, Vermont, and a plethora of smaller commuter trains. No joy on any of those either, nor on the next two trains to New Haven and Baltimore respectively, nor anywhere on the station concourse between 9.45 and 10.00.

Kwasi had dropped his mother off at Penn Station at 9.45 yesterday morning. She’d gone inside, vanished into thin air, and rematerialized without her head in New Haven almost eighteen hours later.

There was a crowd of perhaps twenty people outside the main door of Kwasi’s apartment block by the time Patrese returned there, and they weren’t part of the Hallowe’en parade. As Patrese got out of his car and walked toward the building, large lenses swiveled to follow him for a moment before being lowered. The photographers clearly deemed him of little interest. Fine with him.

The toothpaste-ad doorman was standing just inside the door, eyeballing the posse of reporters with a sailor’s determination to repel boarders. Patrese didn’t want to have to flash his badge in case the reporters saw and clocked who he was, but Toothpaste Man recognized him from earlier and unlocked. Patrese slipped inside, checking out the nameplate on the man’s lapel: BEN SHERWOOD.

‘Thanks, Ben,’ he said. ‘I’m Franco Patrese, FBI. You know why they’re here?’

‘Saw it on the news. Damn shame.’ Sherwood gestured toward the reporters. ‘Freakin’ vultures.’

‘They’re only doing their job.’

‘Flockin’ round when someone’s dead, waiting to get fed. Like I said. Vultures.’

‘Any of them tried to get in?’

‘Not yet. They can try all they want. I know all the residents by sight, and if I don’t know you, you ain’t comin’ in.’

‘Good man. I’m going back up. You have any problems, give me a shout.’ Sherwood had a pad on his desk; Patrese jotted down his cell number.

‘Will do. I’ll ring up to Mr King, let him know you’re on your way.’

Kwasi was waiting at the door of his apartment. Behind him, a phone was ringing.

‘Been like that the last twenty minutes,’ he said.

‘You answered any of them?’

‘First couple of times. People jabbering about my mom. I hung up.’

‘Good. Let me deal with this.’ Patrese walked over to the phone, crouched down and pulled the jack from the wall. The phone stopped ringing.