He chews on the inside of his cheek. What to tell her? He should just come clean, he thinks. Let her know exactly what’s been going on. She’s his wife. The woman he loves. She’ll understand.
‘There’s stuff I haven’t been able to tell you. Something going on. Nobody knows. If I tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone else.’
He watches her as she mulls it over. He can tell she’s not certain she wants to hear it.
‘I promise. What is it?’
‘You know that murder they brought me in on the other day?’
‘The bookstore girl? What about it?’
‘Turns out she’s not the only one. Did you hear about the cop shot in his apartment the other night? And then the psychologist being thrown out of his apartment window? They’re connected. We got a serial killer on our hands, Rach.’
‘Oh my God. A serial killer? How do you know? No, wait, don’t answer that. I’m asking too many questions, I know. But, well, Jesus. A serial killer?’
‘Uh-huh. This isn’t common knowledge, Rach. You mustn’t tell anyone. It could hurt our chances of catching this guy.’
‘No, I swear.’ She wipes her eyes, drying them off. ‘And there was me thinking it was another woman. Christ, was I way off the mark. I’m sorry, Cal.’
She pulls him into her embrace. And while he hugs her he tells himself, You don’t deserve this hug. You don’t deserve this woman. So, okay, you told her about the killer. But the phone calls? Your little helper friend? When did that creep into the conversation? Where was all that in your little confession?
Shame on you, Callum Doyle.
His ears should be burning.
The man who has just been the subject of discussion in the Doyle household is troubled.
He is in his living room, sitting bolt upright on a wooden chair, staring at the staircase. He does this each night, building himself up to the task ahead. It’s the reason he chooses a straight-backed wooden chair. Because it’s not very comfortable and he can’t sit here too long. His lower back will begin to ache, even though he was told that such chairs are supposed to be good for his posture. The pain will gnaw at him and it will gradually build and then he will have to stand up, and that will prompt him to carry out his task.
He hates having to do this, but he knows it’s necessary. It can’t be left. Not even a day. It wouldn’t be right.
He pushes himself off the chair. Orders himself not to think about things as he marches upstairs, toward the bedroom door. It’s okay, he tells himself. It’s fine. You’ve done this a million times. Just do it and get it over with.
He turns the doorknob and urges himself inside, snapping on the light before dark shapes can take on unwanted forms before his eyes.
He stands in the doorway, panting. His heart batters against his ribcage.
It’s okay. All okay. You can relax.
It’s a small room. Not much to see. A desk. A dresser. A closet.
And the bed, of course.
He steps across the room and stands at the side of the bed. He looks it up and down and he remembers.
The bed is empty now, but in his mind it is occupied. He is reminded of why he decided to help others. It’s a calling. There are people suffering out there, and they need him. Who else is going to do it?
He sets to work. He strips off the covers and the sheets and the pillowcases and piles them on the floor. Then he goes over to the closet and opens it and takes a fresh set of bed linen down from one of the shelves. He returns to the bed and makes it up again. He does this slowly, methodically and with great care. Edges tucked in neatly and tightly. All creases smoothed out. He walks around the bed, checking and rechecking his handiwork. And when he is finally able to tear himself away, he picks up the old bed things and carries them out to the bathroom and dumps them in a laundry hamper.
Tomorrow he will have to do it all over again. It’s never easy. Sometimes the stress of trying to get it right is unbearable. He can be in there for hours on some nights. It’s the price you pay when you care about people so much.
But tonight, at least, it’s done.
And yet his unease continues.
He goes back downstairs and tries to treat himself to a more comfortable chair in front of the television. It normally does the trick. He gets lost in a program and he feels his tension slowly dissipate to the point where he feels relaxed enough to go to bed. His own bed. Not the one in that room.
But tonight there is no respite. Something niggles. He can’t concentrate on the television, and that means he won’t sleep and tomorrow he’ll be grouchy as hell. And that’s not right. It’s not fair. Not when you’re doing your best to help people.
He knows what the problem is. His mind keeps showing him images to remind him. Keeps stabbing a pointy little finger into his consciousness.
It’s the nerdy looking guy. The one with the red hair and the glasses.
He was there outside Vasey’s apartment building, staring up at the broken window and talking to someone on his phone.
It should have meant nothing. The geek should have been just a passer-by. Someone who was just getting in or out of his car who heard a noise and happened to look up.
He would have been happy with that explanation. It would not have taken a shoehorn to fit an occurrence like that into his picture of what took place.
Except for one thing. Something that happened on the previous night.
Before helping out that drunk of a police sergeant, the killer had driven over to Vasey’s place. He wanted to finalize his plans. Work out precisely how he was going to help Vasey.
He’d parked up on Sixty-first Street and sat there for a while, staring up at the building. All was well until, just yards ahead of him, he noticed the driver of another car was doing exactly the same thing. Craning his neck to look up at the building. At one point the guy got out of his car and stretched his arms.
He had red hair and glasses.
It was the same guy.
And this is what has him worried. What was the geek doing there, not once but twice? Why did he feel it necessary to watch Vasey’s apartment?
The guy doesn’t look remotely like a cop, but could he be one? Could the police be onto him so soon?
It’s a thought that makes him shudder. He won’t sleep tonight, and it’s all the fault of that four-eyed fuckwit. Doesn’t the prick know that there are people who are desperate for help out there?
Perhaps not. But that’s not the point. Nothing must be allowed to obstruct the mission.
What makes it hard is that such people aren’t in need of his help. But if they’re in the way, they have to be removed. He’s already proved to himself that he’s capable of doing that, with the doorman at Vasey’s building.
And if he could do it once, he can do it again.
SEVENTEEN
It’s Friday evening. Doyle’s last conversation with his helper was on Tuesday evening. Vasey was killed on Tuesday night.
That’s three whole days. Of nothing.
Nothing doesn’t just mean lack of progress on the investigation. It also means no murders. Not a single person murdered in this city in the past three days — whether explicable or not.
