The Next to Die, page 15
“Another blind woman pregnant?” Gibbs muttered.
“Shut it, gobbo. I hope you ordered for me.”
“Yeah. Weight Watchers bar, wasn’t it?”
Sellers made a face. “I think I’ve found Lane the Ishaya. If I’m right, her full name’s Marjolein Baillie. Lives in Rawndesley. She’s an Ishaya of something called the Bright Path, whatever that means. Known to family and friends as Lane. I spoke to her husband—she’s away till next Tuesday on a meditation retreat, but we can speak to her the next day, the Wednesday.”
“Another reason to think Billy’s local,” said Simon. “His therapist, mentor, whatever is Culver Valley–based, as were two of his victims, as is Kim Tribbeck, who he might have lined up as a future victim.”
“I was just saying I think books are important, whatever else is,” Sam said, filling Sellers in. “Billy gives his victims books before killing them, he sends Sondra Halliday a book, he admires someone called Lane, who teaches through story. But why those lines of poetry, and why Beloved by Toni Morrison? We ought to be able to get something from that. We’ve got not only his choice of victims to go on now but also his choice of literature.”
“You’re assuming Billy wrote the letter to Sondra Halliday,” said Simon.
“He did.” Sellers looked around for somewhere to dump his coat. Not finding anywhere convenient, he folded it up, put it on his chair and sat on it. “Report just came in from the prof. In court, he’d have to say there was an eighty percent chance the writing was Billy’s, same as in the little white books—”
“Eighty percent? Is that all?” said Proust. “Can’t he do better? As he’s not a real professor, I’m not sure his opinion has any worth.”
“Malcolm Coulthard’s a world expert in forensic linguistics and author identification,” said Simon. “‘Emeritus’ doesn’t mean ‘not real.’ He was the Foundation President of the International Association of Forensic Linguists, an expert witness in more than two hundred criminal and civil cases. Experts don’t come much better. Plus, if you’re going to hold a grudge against him for being technically retired, didn’t he say he’d consult with the professor who now runs his old department?”
“He did, and he has,” said Sellers. “They want a bit more time to put their formal report together, but when I pushed, what I got was an official eighty percent and an informal ‘Yep, that letter’s from Billy.’ I just got off the phone with Coulthard—there’s no doubt in his mind.”
Simon made an impatient noise. “There might be no doubt in his mind that the letter to Sondra Halliday and the lines from poems in the little white books were written by the same person, but we need to remember we don’t know for certain that person’s Billy. It’s just about possible that someone’s giving out white books, and someone else is doing the killing. I know we’re assuming they’re one and the same, but we shouldn’t forget that’s all it is: an assumption. We especially shouldn’t forget it now that this comedian’s turned up alive and well, saying she was given a book early last year. That’s a big blow to our presumed pattern, isn’t it?”
“I think James Wing’s right,” said Gibbs. “We need to alibi out Sondra Halliday. She’s ended up center stage. First she’s writing about Billy; now he’s writing to her . . . We need to focus on her.”
“Want me to talk to her again?” Sellers offered.
“I didn’t want you to talk to her yesterday,” Simon reminded him. “I wanted Charlie to do it. I wonder . . .”
“Lonely as a cloud, but not as pretty,” Proust contributed.
“If Billy was the man who gave Kim Tribbeck the white book, he wasn’t to know she can’t match a memory of a place to that place’s name because of the number of shows she does in one tour. Did he want her to say to us, ‘He was at my gig in, say, Falmouth’ because he lives nowhere near there? That could explain why on that one occasion he let himself be seen, if he wanted to mislead us.”
Sam frowned. “It’d be a risk for him. He’s surely safer if no one’s seen his face.”
“Kim got her book first, and could well have been Billy’s first intended victim,” said Simon. “We should remember that. It might mean he hadn’t settled on an optimal MO yet. I’m sure Kerensa Moore’d tell us that sometimes, with serials, the first kill’s different—more spontaneous, less thought through—before the scrote sorts out his ideal routine.”
“I don’t need Moore to tell me that,” said Gibbs. “We all know it’s true.”
A waitress appeared at their table with a plate of steaming hot food in each hand. Everyone was having the house shepherd’s pie with extra Tabasco sauce. Gibbs pointed to the table in front of him to ensure he was served first.
He stuffed two forkfuls into his mouth in quick succession, then said, “Why’s Kim Tribbeck still alive? Little white book means rapidly approaching death for all the others, so what makes Kim different? Unless it’s important to her to look like a potential victim. Because otherwise you might think Billy’d make sure to kill her pronto, if she saw his face.”
Simon passed the plate the waitress had put down in front of him to Sam. Sam always volunteered to be last; it got on everyone’s nerves. “Take it and shut it,” Simon told him. To Gibbs, he said, “You think Kim Tribbeck, famous comedian, might be a serial killer?”
“No. But only because I’ve met her and . . . it’s not her, I don’t think, but there’s no reason in theory why a famous person shouldn’t be a murderer. Maybe some of the impulses that make these people seek out fame could also make them more likely to kill. Egotism, the idea that everyone should do their bidding.”
“Monster Munch,” Sellers murmured without moving his lips.
“Fuck off, Dong-caster.” Gibbs picked up an empty peanut packet on the table and dropped it into Sellers’s pint.
“Kim Tribbeck’s a well-known TV face,” said Sam. “She’s always popping up on some panel show or other. If your doorbell rang unexpectedly and you found her outside . . .”
Sam broke off while two waitresses put the remaining plates down on the table.
“I wouldn’t let her in,” Simon said once they’d gone. “I’d look around for hidden cameras. Whether I could see them or not, I’d slam the door.”
“That’s you, mate,” said Gibbs. “Most people’d be excited a celeb was asking to come in and talk to them in their homes. They’d assume their life was about to take a turn for the more glamorous, probably—maybe that they were about to be offered some sort of TV opportunity.”
“Which is what happened,” said Proust briskly. “They ended up on the news. They’re all big names in the media now. For crying out loud!” Sometimes there were warning rumbles before one of his rage avalanches; on other occasions, they came from nowhere, startling everyone.
“We need to rein ourselves in before we lose our bearings.” The Snowman slammed his pint glass down on the table. We’ve got nothing, so we’re inventing things that ought to embarrass us. Sandra Halliday, Kim Tribbeck—we don’t seriously believe either of these women is a killer of four people, do we?” The wrong answer, his manner made clear, would disgust him forever.
Simon decided to brave it. “We don’t know. It’s more likely to be the man at the gig who gave Tribbeck the white book, but anything’s possible.”
“In one sense, our confusion’s a good thing,” said Sam. “We have new names and new faces, as yet unnamed, to consider: Kim Tribbeck, Sondra Halliday, this man at the comedy gig. Each new person we add to our list is someone we can take a DNA sample from, potentially—and maybe get a match with three of our four crime scenes.”
“I want uniforms taking any samples from here on in,” Simon told him. “Separate from any interviews we do—separate occasions altogether, I mean. The two don’t mix well if we want to establish trust.”
“I didn’t realize your interviews were about establishing trust, Waterhouse.” Proust chuckled. “I thought they were about making people want to jump out of the window.”
“What if Kim Tribbeck’s not Billy, but this is still all about Kim?” Gibbs said. “She gets a white book, but she also gets to live. She gets hand delivery while the others don’t. She hasn’t got a best friend, but all the others have. She’s the special one, isn’t she?”
“Different doesn’t mean special, Detective, whatever your primary school teachers told you.”
“Has anyone read the book?” asked Sam. “Beloved, Toni Morrison?”
No one had.
“I’ll read it tonight,” said Simon.
“Good idea, Waterhouse. Run yourself a bubble bath and read a novel. That’ll help us.”
“You know it will. That book was chosen out of all the ones that might have been sent. We need to know why.” Turning to Gibbs, Simon asked, “What do we know about Kim Tribbeck’s life and anyone in it who might not be favorably disposed toward her?”
“Or, turning it on its head, who might be,” Sam said. “Kim’s alive and unhurt. That could mean Billy is favorably disposed toward her. She’s scared, I suppose.”
“Not noticeably,” Gibbs told him. “Her gran’s just died and somehow that’s left her scared of cancer and hospitals and illness, but not of being shot by a maniac. It sounded a bit too convenient when she said it, but I still can’t persuade myself she’s killed anyone. In terms of people in her life who might be of interest: estranged husband, estranged lover—she dumped them both. Sister of estranged lover’s worth looking at, too. Her brother hid the affair from her because he thought she wouldn’t like it—saw Kim during the night when his sister was at work. Kim also has a brother she can’t stand, with whom she’s clashed big time over various family issues . . .”
“Four excellent suspects full of juicy DNA, right off the bat,” said Proust. “Good. Better.”
And not dismissed as far-fetched because not in any way famous, Simon noticed. How could you describe anyone as an excellent suspect with no idea of why a series of murders was happening?
“Kim’s definitely got issues with her family,” said Gibbs. “Dead grandmother included. She gave me a long list of bad presents they’ve all given her over the years.”
“Bad presents?” The words made Simon’s skin prickle. He couldn’t have said why. “Like a little white book with hardly any words in it?”
“No. Keep up, Waterhouse! Someone else gave her that: a man she didn’t recognize, not a relative. We’ll call him Excellent Suspect Number Five.”
“Is the list of bad presents in your notes?” Simon asked Gibbs. “I’d like to see it.”
Gibbs nodded. “Something else: Kim didn’t like thinking or talking about the man who gave her the book. She seemed to have an aversion to the memory.”
“Did you ask her why?” Sellers was barely intelligible through a mouthful of shepherd’s pie.
“No. It felt like an important question—perhaps one to come at from a more sideways angle, a bit later on. I had a feeling she’d deny and clam up if I asked outright. Plus I was busy asking her other things—mainly about this Faith woman who might or might not be in danger.”
“We need to get her details from the RGI, check she’s okay,” said Sam.
“Do we, Sergeant?” Proust pounced on the suggestion. “Frankly, Kim Tribbeck’s story about Billy secretly watching at the hospital and taking it upon himself to nominate Kendell as Tribbeck’s best-friend-in-waiting—”
“Kim didn’t present that as fact,” Gibbs cut in. “It was a theory, to explain the ‘Death devours’ book on the cancer ward noticeboard. She admitted it was far-fetched.”
“We need a police artist sketch of this guy from Tribbeck’s gig,” said Sellers.
“I had another idea,” said Gibbs. “I didn’t think Kim’d go for it and we can’t force her, but when I suggested it, she didn’t say no. I asked her if she’d revisit all the stops on her tour from early last year. I offered her a police driver. Me, if that’s what it takes. Though I was wondering if maybe . . .” Gibbs looked at Simon.
“Charlie?” he said.
“And she said yes?” asked Sam. “Kim agreed?”
Gibbs nodded. “Eventually she agreed.”
7
from Origami by Kim Tribbeck
He put on a specially reasonable tone to ask me. It sounded unnatural, as if he was straining to achieve it. And I was terrified.
It’s funny, the things that scare you.
I wanted to cry or hide. I wanted to say, “No, no, impossible! I can’t go back to those places.” Except it wasn’t impossible. It was practically and scientifically feasible. I had no good reason to refuse. No bad one either.
I couldn’t understand why the prospect of revisiting my old tour venues was so frightening to me. It was only—to put it casually, though I felt anything but casual about it—going back to some places, harmless theaters and auditoriums. It would be time-consuming, yes, but I wasn’t touring at the moment. Also, I knew it was the right thing to do. I could see the same glaringly obvious truth Gibbs saw: I was uniquely placed to help the police. How could I refuse? I fought hard with myself inside my head.
Don’t you want to catch Billy Dead Mates?
Of course.
And stop him murdering more people?
Yes.
Then what’s the problem?
I don’t know. Can’t put it into words. I just quite desperately don’t want to do it. I—
“Kim?” Gibbs was waiting for my response.
“I’m sorry. It’s a big ask, that’s all.”
“I know.”
“Are you sure it’s necessary? I mean, you don’t know this guy at my gig was Billy. Even if we find the right venue, how’s that going to help you find him?”
“We’ve been through this. It could be a pointer to him living in the area or having family connections there. We’d be able to make inquiries with some of the other people there that night. Maybe someone saw him who can help us ID him. You’ll need to give a description to a police artist. The sooner we get a sketch of this man to circulate—”
“I’m happy to do that. Can’t we just do the sketch and forget the historical comedy tour reenactment?” I wiped beads of sweat from my upper lip.
“What are you so afraid of?”
It was the same question I’d been asking myself. “I don’t fancy another encounter with Scary White-Book Man.”
“Interesting. You’re not scared of Billy Dead Mates the killer, though we have reason to believe you might be on his target list, but you are scared of a man who gave you a white book at a gig last year.”
Yes. “I don’t believe they’re the same man.”
“That was my point,” said Gibbs. “If they aren’t, how come the one you’re more scared of isn’t the one who kills?”
It struck me later that it was the retracing-of-steps aspect of Gibbs’s proposal that terrified me. I am someone who never stays in the same hotel twice; it’s a firm policy of mine. I didn’t want to see where I’d been. I could only cope with dragging My Life So Far around with me everywhere I went on the strict condition that I never had to look in its direction, let alone reenter it.
There would be no way to explain it to DC Gibbs, and no point trying, but I was relieved as well as alarmed to have worked out the truth about myself. In the two or three nights after Gibbs asked me to reconstruct my old tour minus all the laughs, I had some horrible nightmares in which some of the theaters I’d gigged in and the hotels I’d stayed in had become entangled with other scenes I’d been happy to leave behind: a screaming row Drew and I once had that I never thought about because I couldn’t bear to, except that in my dream it took place in the lift I once found myself in on tour, with the manufacturer’s name, “Schindler,” emblazoned across its interior wall. This prompted many comments about how you shouldn’t really joke, should you, but it was rather an unfortunate name for a lift, wasn’t it? Another of my nightmares featured Sarah Durdy, my best enemy, after the Dorian-from-the-tennis-club incident.In the dream, Sarah patiently tried to convince me that, yes, you could do something wrong over and over again for as long as possible, then turn around and say, “Sorry!” to the person you’d hurt and would still be hurting if opportunity allowed, and yes, really, you were truly sorry and would never do it again—unless of course you got the chance to. Dream Kim found both Sarah’s explanation and her contrition unconvincing and told her so. Our showdown took place in the foyer of an old music-hall-style theater I once played (God knows where), with elaborately patterned floor tiles, in front of the audience who had paid to see my gig.
Worst of all was the nightmare in which my grandmother climbed onstage halfway through my set at St. George’s Hall in Bradford (this time I remembered the venue) and shouted to the audience, “Will one of you take her? We don’t want her!”
Going back wasn’t safe for someone like me. I could only cope if I looked determinedly ahead. And then I realized I had the answer to another of Gibbs’s questions: Why don’t I fear the future, especially when it might contain my murder at the hands of Billy Dead Mates?
It’s because the future’s always been the best bit, the bit that’s not the past—it’s not losing your family or finding them when you’re eighteen and being hurt by them over and over again; it’s not finding your husband’s hidden stash of drugs for the twenty-seventh time and having to believe his lame promises that he’ll give up, he swears, he means it this time; it’s not realizing that your lover, who’s supposed to have hidden depths, is nothing more than a blank hard surface; it’s not being handed a small white book by a man who looks at you in a way that stops your breath and makes you want to run . . .
The future is none of those things. It’s where the good things are finally going to start happening. That’s why it’s not scary.
I thought everyone knew this.
From: inessa.hughes@goochandhughes.com
Sent: April 11, 2016 09:21:34
To: Susan.Nordlein@nordleinvinter.co.uk
