Killer Instinct

I stepped back and left Wilks to admit him, looking all official. My father reacted well to having his daughter's door opened by an officer of the law. But then, we had been through something like this before.

“Charlotte,” he greeted me impassively. Eyes the same colour as my own studied the contusions on my face with professional detachment. I saw them shift downwards, as though calculating what other injuries lay beneath my clothing. I could almost hear his mind ticking over probable cause, course of treatment.

He looked the same as ever. Thinning grey hair cropped close to his scalp, skin tanned from three foreign holidays a year. He was wearing a good if rather funereal suit, topped by an impeccable raincoat, and carrying a leather dispatch case.

He could easily have been mistaken for a retired army officer. Major at least, but more like lieutenant-colonel. Matey enough with the lower ranks to earn loyalty rather than just expect it, I considered. And remote enough to order them to their deaths without a qualm.

Wilks broke in to our mutual visual assessment, cheerfully offering my father coffee, calling him sir.

He thanked her gravely, then returned his gaze to me. I waved to the sofa and, after a moment's hesitation at the prospect of placing himself on something with such a motheaten appearance, he removed his raincoat and sat.

“I take it,” he said, choosing his words with care as he checked the crease in his trousers, “that there have been further developments since we last spoke.”

“You could say that,” I returned with equal caution.

Wilks reappeared with the coffee and then hovered, looking uncomfortable. “I don't suppose you would be compromising your orders if you went to make a check on the stairs and left us to chat for a while, would you?” I asked her.

She smiled, looking suddenly human, and made for the door. I could see her brightening at the prospect of the day's first delayed fix of nicotine.

My father waited until she was gone before he slid the dispatch case onto his knees and unbuckled its leather straps. He pulled out three slim files and stood the case back on the floor.

“I didn't think it was wise to discuss these while your little friend was around,” he commented. “Particularly as officially I'm not supposed to be in possession of them, let alone be showing them to you.”

He handed me the files. For a moment I stared at the stamp on the front that identified them as the property of a pathology lab in Preston. “Are these what I think they are?”

He inclined his head in agreement, suddenly – painfully – reminding me of Marc. “Results of the post mortem examinations on the three people you mentioned,” he supplied. “It took me a little while to locate them. Suspicious deaths aren't dealt with at Lancaster. Those are the full reports,” he added. “Would you like me to go through them and give you the layman's precis?”

I resisted the urge to bite at him and acknowledged that he wasn't being condescending. Left to my own devices I probably wouldn't be able to make out a single useful piece of information.

I gave in, not very gracefully, and he opened the first file. “If we take the male victim first,” he said, his voice coolly unemotional, as though we were discussing the weather. “This is a fairly straightforward case of disembowelment. Apart from numerous superficial defence wounds, there was a single large incision to the abdomen.  Death was caused by massive trauma to just about all the major organs, blood loss, and shock.”

“Even I could spot that one,” I pointed out.

He stilled. “You saw the body?”

I realised I'd just made a mistake, but covering it up now was going to be difficult. “Yes,” I said shortly. “What about the others?”

He continued to stare at me for a moment longer, then consulted his other files. “The two girls were killed by the same man, without question,” he said. “DNA evidence confirms it, not to mention the modus operandi. It seems he raped them both at knife-point, probably inflicted some of the injuries seen on the head and neck at the same time. Then he cut their throats. The first girl – Susie – was subjected to a longer, more sustained attack. Her facial injuries are more severe. The second victim was dealt with much more hurriedly, and she managed to scratch her attacker. Skin and hair samples were recovered from under her fingernails.”

I sat for a few moments digesting what he'd just said. I vividly remembered the marks on Angelo's face I'd seen the night we'd tried to trap him at the club.

Before, I'd assumed he'd either received that at the same time, or maybe Victoria had managed to land one on him during their bust-up. Instead, it must have been Joy who'd done him the damage . . .

“So Angelo did them all,” I murmured, almost to myself.

My father glanced at me. “You think these three crimes were all the work of one man?” he asked. There was something in his voice that grabbed my attention.

Pulse jumping, I turned to him. “Aren't they?”

He didn't answer outright, picking up the reports again. “The knife wound to the man runs left to right, as you'd expect from an assailant who was right-handed,” he explained, “but the two women were beaten on the right-hand side of their heads, and the initial wounds to the throat are also on the right side, indicating strongly that the rapist is a left-hander.”

He regarded me solemnly, and I didn't doubt for a moment that he was right. “But if that's the case . . .” I began, my voice tailing off.

He nodded, following my line of thought. “That's right. There are two very different men at work here, Charlotte. I'm afraid there's no doubt about it.”

Twenty-four

By the time WPC Wilks returned from her crafty cigarette, my father had gathered the post mortem reports back into their individual files, and discreetly returned them to his dispatch case.

There was more I wanted to ask him, but felt inhibited by the third set of ears. Wilks tried not to make it obvious that she was eavesdropping, but they were flapping, all the same.

My father left soon afterwards, giving me the sort of impersonal kiss on the cheek you would a maiden aunt. “Take care of yourself, Charlotte,” he told me, his voice serious. “And call your mother.”

“I will,” I promised, and realised that I probably meant it. “Just don't tell her about – this,” I finished lamely. “I don't want her to worry about me.” Or not to care, I added silently.

He nodded and agreed to keep my mother blissfully unaware of my troubles. I almost detected the faintest glint of a conspiratorial smile as he turned away down the stairs.

When he'd gone I sat on one of the window ledges, staring out across the river, lost in my thoughts. It was cold and windy, and by the look of the clouds sweeping across the sky, soon the rain would arrive to make it a hat- trick.

If Angelo had killed Terry, but not the women, then who had done it? And how had they got hold of my voice changer?

On the other hand, if Angelo wasn't Terry's murderer, then who was? I'd been so sure it was the same man that, suddenly faced with evidence to the contrary, I was utterly lost.

I tried to remember who at the club was left-handed, but even that fact escaped me. I couldn't recall ever having noticed Angelo writing anything down. He fought fairly evenly with both hands, and I'd never seen him pull a knife.

Somewhere, in the back of my mind, something rang a bell, but the harder I reached for it, the more elusive it became. Eventually, with a sigh, I gave up and climbed awkwardly off my perch. More coffee, that was what I needed.

I tottered through into the kitchen, my aching muscles protesting at the simple activity of refilling the filter machine. The rain started to fall, abrupt and heavy on the skylight over the sink. I had a sudden thought that there was no way I was going to ride up to Devil's Bridge with Clare if I didn't have to.

I moved back through to the lounge straight away, and picked up the phone, punching in Jacob and Clare's number.

Jacob answered, sounding slightly taken aback, but I jumped straight in with my excuses. “Hi Jacob, it's me.