The Echo Man, page 20
She watches as he walks to the computer and looks at it, his eyes scanning the words she’s already read. She wants to say something to make it better between them, but right now she has no idea what that is.
“Do you understand it, Nav?” she asks quietly.
He sits down slowly, moving the page on the screen. “Oh, Jess …” he whispers under his breath. His hand goes to his mouth, and he looks away momentarily, screwing his eyes shut. Then he looks up at her. “Are you sure you want to know?”
Jess nods and sits down next to him.
Nav takes in a long breath. “This basically says that Patrick was alive when the fire got to him. Someone tied him up.” He closes his eyes again and pinches the top of his nose. Jess can see he’s wrestling with his emotions. “They made sure he burned to death.”
Nav reaches over and puts his hand on her arm. “But you know what this means, Jess? Someone targeted him—someone targeted your house. You’re in danger. Please go to the police. You’ll be safe there, at least. Please?”
Jess sees the desperate look in his eyes. But she shakes her head.
Nav goes to say something else, but they both turn as they hear a key in the door.
Griffin pushes it open, then stops when he sees Nav. One look at the expression on his face and she knows things aren’t good.
He doesn’t say anything, just takes his jacket off and throws it on the sofa. He walks to the kitchen, takes a bottle of vodka out of the cupboard, pours a generous measure into a mug, and throws it back in one.
“You’re Nav,” he growls.
Nav stands up slowly. He’s hesitant as he goes across to Griffin. Nav’s tall and lean, but his bulk is nothing compared to Griffin. Jess sees Nav stand up straighter, mentally sizing himself up to the other man.
He holds out his hand. “Dr. Nav Sharma,” he says.
Griffin looks at the outstretched hand, then shakes it. “We met before at the hospital. DS Nate Griffin.”
Griffin sees the laptop open and glances over.
“What are you looking at?” He sees the name on the report. “Patrick’s PM?” He looks quickly at Jess. “You shouldn’t be reading this.”
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
Jess hesitates. If he’s seen this, then what else has he read? What else does he know? She’s angry, she wants to have it out with Griffin, to shout at him for not telling her, but also for his continued reticence, his reluctance to open up to her. But Nav’s here.
And she sees something else.
She’s come to know the dark behind his eyes, the way he moves depending on what sort of pain relief he’s on. The right drugs and he’s looser, calmer. The wrong ones—alcohol, nicotine—and he’s like this. The anger intensifies. The pain only adds fuel to the fire.
“Nav,” she says, “you need to go.”
Nav stares at her. She sees she’s hurting him again. “I’ll be in touch,” she adds. “I promise. Give me your number.”
Nav glances to Griffin. He’s turned away, ignoring them. Nav frowns, then leans down next to her, writing his phone number on a piece of paper and handing it to her as he goes to leave. Jess follows him to the door.
She opens it and Nav steps out into the hallway.
“I don’t like this, Jess. Not at all.” He pauses, looking back into the apartment. “What’s he on?” he adds in a whisper.
“What do you mean?”
“I know an addict when I see one. The shaking, the sweats. He’s going into withdrawal. His pupils are like black holes. What’s he on?”
“Painkillers,” Jess whispers. “Oxycodone.”
“He’s no good for you, Jess.”
“And you are?” she snaps back.
Nav recoils. She knows she’s upset him again. “Yes,” he replies. “Yes, I am.”
He turns and walks quickly up the stairs. There’s a flash of light as he pushes the door open at the top, then darkness as it shuts behind him.
Jess wants to cry. She doesn’t deserve someone as good as Nav. She never has. It’s better this way.
She closes the door behind her and goes over to Griffin.
“How much does it hurt?” she asks, and he turns quickly, glaring at her. “Take something.”
“I am,” he says, holding up the mug and downing another large shot of vodka.
“I mean something that will actually help.”
Jess picks up his bag, digging in the pocket, holding the box out to Griffin. He looks at her, then takes it, pulling the blister pack out and showing it to her.
“Four left, that’s it,” he says.
“So get some more.”
“I can’t. My doctor wants me to go to some sort of fucking chronic pain team. To give me something else instead. I don’t have time for that shit.”
Griffin takes one capsule out, swallows it, then carefully lowers himself onto the bed.
She follows him, pulling his boots off his feet, then lying next to him.
“Maybe when this is all over,” he mutters. “Maybe then.”
They lie together in silence. The day is coming to an end, darkness closing in, but she doesn’t put a light on. She thinks about Patrick, about his last moments. About the fear he must have felt, the pain. His struggle as the fire burned around him. She knows his last thoughts would have been about her and Alice, and tears silently roll down her face.
“I just want this nightmare to be over,” she whispers, lying next to Griffin. “I want to see my daughter. I want to go back to my life.”
“But what is that now?” she hears Griffin mutter.
She waits for the world to make sense again. And she thinks, What is my life from this point onward?
Do I stay here, in this apartment, with Griffin? Or do I leave? But go where?
She waits, as the apartment grows cold around them, as shadows form across the walls. She waits for the answer that never arrives.
CHAPTER
46
CARA SITS IN her office. Everyone else has gone home, even Deakin. But she doesn’t want to leave. She doesn’t like to go until she has a clear idea of where to focus the investigation the next day, and right now she has no clue, let alone a clear one. There are so many routes to take. She knows she needs to make a decision.
She reads update reports from the team. So far, despite the brutal rapes, the beatings, the murders, he’s left no evidence behind. Not a trace. The mood is downcast.
Earlier, she sat with one of the seconded detectives, going through the raft of evidence they’d reviewed for the cases from West Yorkshire. But there was nothing.
“And what’s this?” she asked, pointing to the final document.
The DC pulled it up on the screen. “It’s a report from an agricultural botanist. They had the plant matter found on the body reviewed.” He shrugged. “Guess they had budget to burn because the one odd thing identified was a type of rare grass only found on peaty moorland.”
Cara frowned. “And what did they do with it?”
“Nothing.” He looked at Cara. “I mean, it could have been a lead—the guy could have lived in the countryside. Or”—and he listed the options on his fingers—“he could have been on holiday once; he could have brought it there deliberately to throw them off track; or it could have come from the victim.”
She got him to write it on the board anyway.
And now their best leads came from apartment 214. Her gaze drops to the box of VHS tapes, still on the floor in her office. She leans down, moves them around in the box, thinking. Her stomach feels like a block of lead is inside. The tech team have already confirmed that the tapes are old, murders unconnected to their current spate of copycats, but it brings little reassurance. She can’t watch them, she just can’t.
But as she goes to sit up, one of them catches her eye. It’s not like the others: the label is different. She picks it up. Hampshire Children’s Services, RDK (DOB 03/31/86), 1 of 2, 02/27/96. Curiosity grabs her and she plugs the VHS machine in again, pushing the video into the slot.
To her relief, it’s an office. There are toys on a table—cars, dolls, Lego bricks—and a large, hearty-looking man sitting on the right.
“Do you know why you’re here, Robert?” the man asks. He has small round glasses and red cheeks. His tone is kind and encouraging. “Do you remember what happened to your father, to your uncle?”
The person he’s talking to is just out of shot. Cara sees a child’s hand move forward, playing with one of the toy cars.
“Can I go home?” a subdued voice says.
The man looks downcast. Cara assumes he’s a social worker. “No, I’m sorry, Robert, you won’t be able to go home for a while. Do you have any other family you could go to?”
The car moves back and forth. Then: “They call me Robbie.”
“Who does? Your dad?”
A pause. Cara assumes the boy must be nodding. The man on the tape scratches his forehead, then flicks through his notes.
“Robbie, can you tell me more about what we were talking about yesterday? About your dad and your uncle?”
Cara watches as the car is pushed off the table.
“You said they’d play games with you?” The man swallows visibly, his Adam’s apple bouncing up and down. “What sort of games?”
“Don’t know.”
The man points to the dolls in front of them. There’s an Action Man, in full army gear, and a Ken doll. “Can you show me?”
The small hands reach out and pick up the figures. Cara’s mouth is dry. On the tape the boy starts bashing the dolls together, then he puts one on the table while the other one is struck against it.
“Your father hit you?”
“Yes.”
“And your uncle?”
Quieter now: “Yes.”
The boy picks up one of the dolls, and with his other hand he slowly pulls down the Action Man’s trousers. The man on the video has turned white. The Ken doll is faced away. Cara can’t take her eyes off the small hands on the tape, child’s hands, doing a thrusting motion with these two figures. She can’t think about what this represents, she just can’t.
“Sexual abuse.”
The voice comes from behind her, making her jump. Shenton stands in the doorway of her office, watching the screen. She snaps the tape off.
“I didn’t realize you were still here, Toby.”
“Is this from 214?” he asks.
“Yes. You should go home …” she starts, but Shenton takes a step forward into her office.
He glances at the black screen, then rocks back on his heels, crossing his arms in front of him. “Child abuse is common in serial offenders. Sadly, despite what the media likes to portray, most killers are made rather than born.”
“You think that’s what happened here?”
“It’s likely. Although it’s worth adding that not all victims of sexual abuse go on to abuse others themselves. And certainly, a very low percentage actually become serial killers. But it’s a common factor.”
As he talks about this—something he clearly knows about—Cara sees how he grows in confidence, standing up straighter, his eyes brighter. Perhaps after this he should look into specializing, she thinks. Move out of general policing into forensic psychology.
“How’s the profile coming on?” she asks him.
“Should be done by tomorrow. Can you send me the Zodiac crime scene photos? I don’t seem to have access.”
“I’ll do it now,” Cara says. Then adds: “Are you okay?”
He looks up quickly. Shenton seems paler than usual, his skin almost translucent in the harsh overhead light. He blinks at her, then looks down at his shoes again. “I’m fine.”
“When this is done, we’ll all get some downtime,” Cara says. But her words sound insincere, even to her own ears. “Appropriate help for those who need it,” she finishes.
He stares at her again, then turns wordlessly. She watches him go back to his desk. She wonders about her hollow statement. Appropriate help? Even if anyone actually knew what that was, when would they have the time to talk to a shrink? When would she?
She opens up her email and starts sending across files. She does the same as everyone else in this line of work: put all the shitty stuff in some corner of your brain, block up the wall, and walk away.
Block up the wall, she thinks as she presses “Send” to Shenton, and hope and pray that one day the horror never manages to break its way back through.
CHAPTER
47
THE PAIN TAKES over Griffin’s whole body. It’s not just his back now; every muscle aches, his skin itches. He can feel his heart racing. He needs to take something, anything, but he knows it will only get worse. He needs more now for it to make a difference.
Driving back from the station, he considered taking a detour. He knows where the dealers hang out. He knows if he wants something, anything, to take the pain away, for a bit of hard cash he could get it. But he’s also seen the results of such a deviation. He knows where these people end up, and he doesn’t want to go there. Not yet.
Then he gets home and he’s there. Dr. fucking Sharma with his good hair and beautiful blemish-free skin. He remembered him from before—and here he is, looking even better. Christ—even he would fuck him if he was feeling a little more on form.
But at last he leaves. And Jess stays. Griffin doesn’t know why, but she lies down on the bed next to him. He waits for the one solitary capsule to work. He waits for some sort of relief.
Earlier that day, when Jess mentioned Mia, he’d felt a bolt go through him. He knew he should offer some sort of explanation, but the sudden thought of her blind-sided him.
For the best part of a year, very few had referred to her. People tiptoed around him, euphemistically talking about her “passing.” But now, with all these murders, she is everywhere. Her face in photographs, her name, back in the room.
And it’s good. He once thought that it would destroy him to talk about her, but it makes her feel more real. She is real—the person he loved, the person who loved him.
“Mia was my wife,” he whispers to Jess in the darkened room. “We’d been married for exactly one year and six days when she was murdered.”
And he starts to talk.
* * *
It must have been one or two in the morning. Griffin’s confused. The flashlight shines in his eyes, waking him up. Next to him, he feels Mia jump, her body move against his back for protection. Something hard and cold is pushed against his head.
“I have a gun,” a voice hisses. “Stand up.”
Griffin hesitates and the man moves. The gun is taken away, but next to him he hears Mia gasp in fear.
“I have the gun to your wife’s head. Don’t try anything stupid.” Spoken through clenched teeth, angry and hard.
Griffin slowly raises his hands. He swings his legs out of bed, looking around him. He’s wearing boxer shorts, he knows Mia’s in no more than a thin nightdress. In the darkness he can only see shadows, a figure in a ski mask standing next to his wife.
“Tie him up.”
Mia comes over and he puts his hands in front of him.
“No, behind you.”
He does as he’s told, and he feels Mia wrap cord around his wrists. Her hands are cold, she’s shaking. He holds them slightly apart, hoping to keep some give in the bindings, but after she’s finished, he feels them being adjusted, pulled taut so they dig tightly into his skin.
“What do you want?” Griffin says. “Take anything, anything you want.”
“Oh, I will,” the voice says, muffled through his mask. “Now lie down on the floor.”
Griffin gets to his knees on the carpet, and a hand pushes him over. He falls heavily onto his side. He’s thinking: overpower him, get the gun, punch him in the face—he’s probably smaller than you. But a thought goes round and round: What about the gun? What about Mia?
As if reading his mind, the man growls, “Don’t move, or I’ll kill her.”
He feels the cord being wrapped around his ankles, then his feet are pulled up behind him.
Something is pushed into his mouth, fabric, maybe an item of clothing. A gag taut around his head to keep it in place. A blindfold next. He tries to move, but he’s hog-tied—his feet securely fastened to his wrists. He pulls again, but it only seems to make the knots tighter.
He can’t see, but he can still hear. Footsteps, Mia’s bare feet stumbling away. He can hear whispering but can’t make out what the man’s saying. He guesses they’re in the living room, and a door closes. He can’t hear anything now; his imagination goes into overdrive.
Griffin struggles again. He curses for allowing himself to get into this position. But he’d been half asleep, he hadn’t imagined—
Imagined what? He still can’t hear anything. But then—Mia’s voice, pleading, begging. She’s saying no, don’t, please, no. He tries to shout, but his voice is muffled, useless. He struggles again, the cord cutting in tighter. He pushes his head against the carpet, trying to get the blindfold off, the gag, anything.
He hears her screaming in pain. He hears furniture falling, glass breaking. Sobbing. Crying. Sounds that pull his heart into pieces. Tears soak into the blindfold. Helplessly, he thrashes in anger on the carpet, listening to his wife howling his name.
He can’t feel his hands now, the cord has cut off the blood supply. But he still can’t get free.
Minutes pass, then hours. He loses track of how long he’s been lying on the floor. He strains to hear what’s happening in the next room. Occasionally he hears cries, a few words, whispering, then silence.
Then a click. A door opening. There’s someone in the room with him. He struggles again, and manages, somehow, to get upright, resting on his knees, his hands behind him. But before he can do anything else, he feels something hard strike him on the shoulders. Then in the stomach. Then across his face. He tastes blood in his mouth. Nose shattered. Pain rips through his body and he falls down, but his hands come loose. He pulls them around, numb, but the blows come fast, and all he can do is try to defend himself, putting his arms up in front of him. He feels the hit to his forearms, he hears the bones break.
