She simply nodded, eyes sad.
Then turmoil broke out by the front of the house. Both York and Newport jumped from the car and sprinted to the terrace, Player and Mason too. One of Player’s team had burst out the front door, assault rifle hanging limply around his neck, and was retching on the path, a tendril of vomit stretching from the corner of his mouth.
York ground to halt at the gate. This kid’s violent response had nothing to do with a living suspect.
This was all about the dead.
*
They found the body in the master bedroom. A young girl in her early twenties lying naked on a wooden trestle table, arms by her side, gaping hole in her chest. The rest of the house was empty as predicted. Williams and his team had taken seconds to clear it.
‘Pretty girl,’ Judy Mason declared. ‘Do we know who she is?’
Nobody did.
‘And I suppose this means the paedophile gets off scot-free,’ she added. ‘Not the way you planned it, is it, Nick?’
Will Graham and Jonathan Wheeler moved solemnly into the room, pushing through the small gathering of officers milling on the landing. York turned away from the body.
‘How do you suppose he knows your name?’ Mason pressed.
York didn’t answer. He felt steam-rolled.
‘Nick,’ Mason pressed, her cold eyes penetrating. ‘I’m talking to you!’
He turned to the Pit Bull, focused in on her chips of ice. ‘I told you this was going to happen. Didn’t I tell you it was going to get personal?’
Mason held his stare. ‘I didn’t disagree with you.'
‘He knows my name, Judy. And he’s not afraid to let me know. He’s saying “Come and get me, I dare you,” because he knows he’s untouchable.' From the background, Graham and Wheeler stood eavesdropping, their faces masks of bewilderment. ‘How can he be gone from this location before we get here? How is it he knows my name? How is it that he’s one step ahead on every single level? He’s smarter than us. He knows that and he’s exploiting it.'
‘Almost sounds like you admire the bastard!’
‘Admire, no,’ he replied quietly. ‘Respect…of course.'
Mason’s hard boyish features softened. To blink would be to miss it. ‘Okay,’ she said aloud. ‘Listen up. Will, I want you to comb every surface of both houses. Look for a hair, a fingerprint, anything. Jonathan, use Will’s team to search for another recording. If this bastard’s the cocky shit I imagine him to be, he’ll want to brag again.’
‘And me?’ York asked.
‘You take Holly and go see Charles Kilroy. He should have finished with the Fullers’ bodies by now, see if there’s anything to learn.’
He nodded and turned to leave. ‘Wheeler, you’ll find the recording in the light fixture.’
Fighting through the drama of badges, York found himself in the terrace’s tiny back yard. It was deserted. Closing the door behind him, he took a seat on the single garden chair. It looked like it had been placed there solely for him.
Scratching at the crux of his arm he closed his eyes, tried to shoo away the burn. He began to shake, almost convulse as several sharp stabbing pains punctured his midriff. He doubled over, cramming a hand into his mouth to stop him from crying out.
‘Still playing this game, Nicky?’
York looked up, rubbed his eyes.
‘You’re going to keep on punishing yourself until it kills you, you know that? And you’re still no closer to pushing that demon out. Are you?’
Stamping down the agony, York tried to clear his blurry vision. From somewhere within, he managed to find some vocals. ‘I don’t know how.’
‘Your son may be alive, Nicky. You and I are the only ones who know that. Do you think the demon can be driven out by the truth?’
‘Everybody has demons,’ he muttered. ‘Theirs are just less compelling.’
‘Theirs are countered by an angel. The demon in you is more dangerous than the one you seek in reality because there is no black and white. There isn’t even room for shades of grey.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘There is only black.’
York continued to pick at the scabbing needle marks. ‘When my family left me, I died inside. My faith has gone.’
‘Oh, listen to yourself, Nicky. Woe. Is. Me. My heart bleeds. Children believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy. Some of them even believe in God. Are you telling me you have no fight left? I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it.’
‘I just need some time,’ he insisted. ‘I just need to get my head straight.’
‘I know you do, Nicky. I know.’
He turned his head at the sound of the door clicking open behind him. Newport stepped through. ‘Boss? What you doing out here? Mason wants us out of here. Kilroy’s waiting for us at the Dungeon.’
He climbed from the seat.
Newport glanced around the yard. ‘Who were you talking to?’
York dismissed the question and filtered back into the house.
24
In the catacombs beneath the Pit, Newport grimaced at the stench. Intolerably sanitised, the green-tiled tunnels reeked of pine disinfectant and death, like the entranceway to some recently cleansed abattoir. She hated it down there, but like every other aspect of her life she displayed a bravado that wasn’t necessarily real. York would tolerate no weakness, not now.
She’d been itching to ask how he knew about Kellie. She thought she’d kept her affair completely severed from her working life, and her home life. His perception infuriated her.
Next to her, York took long confident strides through the tunnel, hands dug deep into his jacket pockets. She had to struggle to keep up. He once told her that he liked it in the Dungeon, as it was nicknamed, that he could happily work down there. She’d asked him why and his
