Fever of the Bone

(Edmund) Arthur Blythe

In spite of his determination not to be moved, emotion closed his throat. Tony struggled to swallow, touched by the simple honesty of Arthur’s letter. This was far more than he’d expected and he thought it might be more than he could bear. At least for now. He reread the letter, taking it line by line, feeling the weight of the words, imagining Arthur putting it together. How many drafts had he taken to get it right? His precise engineer’s hand crossing out first and second and third attempts, trying to strike the right note, making sure he said what he meant, not leaving room for misunderstanding. He could picture him in the house, at the desk in his study, the lamp casting a pool of light over his writing hand. It suddenly occurred to him that he had no clear idea what Arthur had looked like. There had been no photographs on display in the house, nothing to indicate whether father and son shared any physical resemblance. There must be some; he made a mental note to look next time he was in the house.

Next time. As soon as he had the thought, Tony understood its significance. There would be a next time. Something had shifted inside him in the previous twenty-four hours. From wanting to maintain the distance between him and Arthur, he now wanted connection. He didn’t know yet what form that would take. But he’d know when he got there.

What he did know was that he wasn’t ready for Arthur’s message yet. He might never be. But right now, he had work to do. Work that was more important than his own emotional state. He turned back to his laptop and started typing again.

‘The killer is likely to be white,’ he wrote. Almost invariably this kind of killer stayed within their own ethnic group. ‘He is aged between twenty-five and forty.’ Twenty-five, because it needed a level of maturity to engage in this degree of planning and to sustain the plan once the killing started. And forty, because the rule of probabilities stated that by then they’d either been caught, killed or calmed down.

He is not a lorry driver - several of the locations where he has used public-access computers are not convenient for lorry parking, e.g. Manchester Airport and the shopping centre in Telford. But he certainly owns his own vehicle - he would not risk leaving traces in a vehicle owned by a third party. It’s likely to be a reasonably large car, probably a hatchback. I don’t think he’s a commercial vehicle driver, even though that is a hypothesis that has some attractions. It would certainly account for his movements up and down the motorway network. But given the tight schedules of commercial drivers, I doubt whether this would give him the degree of flexibility or free time to have set Jennifer up then abducted her.

He is likely to be educated to university or college level. His awareness of computer technology and his level of familiarity with its possibilities indicates a high level of skill in this area. I believe he is an ICT professional, probably self-employed. The electronics industry is a loosely knit community of consultants who have a great deal of flexibility in their working hours and the locations of the companies they contract to.

In terms of personality, we’re looking at a high-functioning psychopath. He can mimic human interaction but he has no genuine empathy. He’s likely to live alone and to have no deep emotional ties. This will not mark him out as particularly unusual in his work community, since many ICT professionals appear similar although in fact many of them are perfectly capable of emotional interaction. They just prefer their machines because that takes less effort.

He may well be addicted to computer gaming, particularly to violent online multi-user games. These will present him with an outlet for the nihilistic feelings he has towards other people.

Tony read over what he’d written without any sense of satisfaction. Apart from his highlighting of the fact that this was not a sexual homicide, he felt he’d come up with nothing that wasn’t either textbook or plain common sense. There was much more to be deduced about this killer, he was sure of that. But until someone came up with the connection between the killer and the choice of victim, they were all dancing in the dark.

CHAPTER 26

After the tragedy of Jessica Morrison’s death, the last thing Paula wanted to do was sit down with another set of grieving parents. What was worse was having to do it on her own. Whatever had happened at top level, West Yorkshire had backed right off, to the point where they didn’t want anything to do with the death knock. And Kevin was busy setting up protocols for collating all the West Yorkshire intel. So here she was, doing what she liked least. But if she’d learned one thing from her own encounters with grief it was that avoidance never worked. What they said about having to get back on the horse was right. That still didn’t make it feel any easier.

The woman who opened the door looked like she was at war with the world. Her dark eyes were angry, her skin tone faded to jaundiced yellow, her mouth set in a tight line. ‘We’ve got nothing to say,’ she snapped.

‘I’m not a journalist,’ Paula said, trying not to feel insulted by the mistake. ‘I’m Detective Constable Paula McIntyre from Bradfield Police.’

The woman’s hands clawed at her cheeks. ‘Oh fuck. No, tell me this is just routine.’ She stumbled backwards, caught by a second woman who had appeared behind her. They fell into a tight hug, the second, slightly taller woman meeting Paula’s eyes with a look of naked terror.

‘If I could just come in?’ Paula said, wondering where the hell the FLO was.

The women edged backwards and Paula slipped inside. ‘Are you on your own?’ she asked.

‘We sent your liaison person away. We couldn’t settle with her here. I’m Julia Viner,’ the second woman said, postponing what she must know was inevitable with the gloss of social convention. ‘And this is Kathy. Kathy Antwon.’

Kathy turned to look at Paula, tears streaming down her face. ‘This is bad news, isn’t it?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Paula said. ‘A body was found earlier today. From the description of what he was wearing, we believe it’s Seth.’ Her mouth opened but she could find nothing else to say so she closed it again.

Julia’s eyes closed. ‘I’ve been waiting for this,’ she sighed. ‘Ever since we realised he was missing. I knew he was gone.’

They clung together wordlessly for what felt like hours. Paula stood there, dumb as a rock and feeling about as much use. When it was clear they weren’t going to speak any time soon, she slipped past them and found the kitchen, where she put the kettle on. Sooner or later there would be a need for tea. There always was.

There was a teapot on the worktop nearby. All she needed now was to find the tea. She opened the cupboard above the kettle and saw a ceramic jar marked tea. She took it down and opened it. Instead of tea, she found it contained two five-pound notes, a few pound coins and a scrap of paper. Curious, she