Читать книгу The Straw Men 3-Book Thriller Collection: The Straw Men, The Lonely Dead, Blood of Angels - Michael Marshall - Страница 25

Nina sat in the yard with Zoë Becker. The night was cool and she wished she’d accepted the tea she had been absently offered. Zandt had already spoken with the woman, and stood in her daughter’s room, and was now inside with her husband. Neither Becker had seemed surprised to find two investigators on their doorstep, even this late in the evening. Their lives were already too far divorced from what they were prepared to accept as reality. The two women talked fitfully for a while, but soon lapsed into silence. Zoë was watching her foot as it jogged up and down at the end of her crossed leg. That at least was the direction in which her eyes were directed. Nina doubted she was seeing anything at all, but rather floating in a void in which the movement of her foot was as meaningful an event as any other. She was glad of the silence, because she knew the only thing the woman would want to talk about. Was her daughter still alive? Did Nina think they would ever get her back? Or would there, in this house that Zoë had spent so much time getting just so, now always be a room whose emptiness and silence would darken until it was a black crystal at the centre of their lives? On the wall of this room was a poster for a band that none of the rest of them had ever heard except by accident. So what was the point of it now?

Nina had no answer to this question or others like it, and when the woman appeared about to speak she looked up with dread. Instead she found that Zoë had started to cry, exhausted tears that seemed neither the beginning of anything nor its end. Nina didn’t reach out for her. Some people would accept comfort from strangers, and some would not. Mrs Becker was one of the latter.

Instead she leaned back in her chair, and looked across through the French doors to the sitting room. Michael Becker was perched on the edge of an armchair. Zandt was standing behind the couch. Nina had spent the entire day with Zandt without hearing more than five sentences that did not relate to the case. They had walked the ground of the disappearance early in the day, before the shopping crowds gathered. They had visited Sarah Becker’s school, so that Zandt could see how it fit into its environment. He had observed the sight lines and access points, the places where someone might wait, looking for someone to love. He spent a long while over it, as if believing there was some new view he might chance upon that would enable him to glimpse a man’s shadow in the daylight. He had been irritable when they left.

They had not visited any of the families from The Upright Man’s previous murders. They had the files of the original interviews, and it was very unlikely there would be anything new to be learned. Nina knew he held their interviews in his head, and could have told the families things they had themselves forgotten. Talking to them could only confuse matters. She also privately believed that if Zandt was able to lead them closer to the killer, it would be little to do with something he had learned, and much more to do with something he felt.

Nina had another reason for keeping Zandt away from the families. She did not want any of the relatives stirred up enough that they might call the police or the Bureau to check how the investigation was going. No one knew she had reinvolved John Zandt in the case again. If anyone found out, all hell would break loose. This time it wouldn’t just be disciplinary: it would be the end of her career. Allowing him to talk to the Beckers was a risk she had to take. The parents had seen so many police and Bureau men since the disappearance that it was unlikely they would remember one in particular, or mention him to someone else. Or so she hoped. She also hoped that whatever the men were talking about, it might spark something in Zandt’s mind.

And that he would tell her about it if it did.

‘I’ll go through it again if you want.’

Michael Becker had already recounted his movements twice, responding quickly and concisely to questions. Zandt knew that the man had nothing helpful to tell him. He had also gathered that, in the weeks leading up to the disappearance, Becker had been so involved in his work that he would have noticed very little about the outside world. He shook his head.

Becker abruptly looked down at the floor and put his head in his hands. ‘Don’t you have anything else to ask? There must be something else. There has to be something.’

‘There’s no magic question. Or if there is, I don’t know what it might be.’

Becker looked up. This was not the kind of thing the other policemen had said to him. ‘Do you think she’s still alive?’

‘Yes,’ Zandt said.

Becker was surprised by the confidence he saw in the policeman’s face. ‘Everyone else is acting as if she’s dead,’ he said. ‘They don’t say it. But they think it.’

‘They’re wrong. For the time being.’

‘Why?’ The man’s voice was dry, the breathing wrong, the sound of a man caught wanting to believe.

‘When a killer of this type disposes of a victim, he usually hides the body and does what he can to obfuscate its identity. Partly just to make it harder for the police. But also because many of these people are seeking to hide their activities from themselves. The three previous victims were found in open ground, wearing the remains of their own clothes and still with their personal effects. This man isn’t hiding from anybody. He wanted us to know who they were, and that he had finished with them. Finishing implies a period in which he requires them to be alive.’

‘Requires them …’

‘Only one of the previous victims was sexually abused. Apart from minor head injuries, the others showed no abuse apart from the shaving of their heads.’

‘And their murder, of course.’

Zandt shook his head. ‘Murder is not abuse in this kind of situation. Murder is what ends the abuse. Forensics can only show so much, but it suggests that all of the girls were alive for over a week after their abductions.’

‘A week,’ the man said, bleakly. ‘It’s been five days already.’

There was a pause before Zandt answered. During the interview, his eyes had covered most corners of the room, but now he saw something he hadn’t noticed before. A small pile of schoolbooks, on a side table. They were too advanced to belong to the younger daughter. He became conscious that the other man was looking at him. ‘I’m aware of that.’

‘You sounded like you had another reason.’

‘I just don’t believe he will have killed her yet.’

Becker laughed harshly. ‘Don’t “believe”? That’s it? Oh right. That’s very reassuring.’

‘It’s not my job to reassure you.’

‘No,’ Becker said, face blank. ‘I suppose not.’ There was silence for a few moments. And then he added: ‘These things really happen, don’t they?’

Zandt knew what he meant. That certain events, of a kind that most people just watch or read about, can actually happen. Things like sudden death, and divorce, and spinal injuries; like suicide, and drug addiction, and fading grey people standing in a circle looking down at you muttering ‘The driver never stopped’. They happen. They’re as real as happiness, marriage and the feel of the sun on your back, and they fade far more slowly. You may not get back the life you had before. You may not be one of the lucky ones. It may just go on and on and on.

‘Yes they do,’ he said. Unseen by the other man, he touched the cover of one of the schoolbooks. Ran his finger over its rough surface.

‘What chance do you think we have of getting her back?’

The question was asked simply, with a steady voice, and Zandt admired him for it. He turned away from the table.

‘You should assume that you have none at all.’

Becker looked shocked, and tried to say something. Nothing came out.

‘A hundred people are killed by men like this every year,’ Zandt said. ‘Probably more. In this country alone. Almost none of the killers are ever caught. We make a big fuss when we do, as if we’ve put the tiger back in his cage. But we haven’t. A new one is born every month. The few we catch are unlucky, or stupid, or have been driven to the point where they start making mistakes. The majority are never caught. These men are not aberrations. They are part of who we are. It’s like anything else. Survival of the most fit. The cleverest.’

‘Is The Delivery Boy clever?’

‘That’s not his name.’

‘That’s what the papers called him before. And the cops.’

‘He’s called The Upright Man. By himself. Yes, he’s clever. That may be what causes him to fall. He’s very keen for us to admire him. On the other hand …’

‘He may just not get caught, and unless you find him we’re never going to see Sarah again.’

‘If you see her again,’ Zandt said, replacing his pad and pen in an inside pocket, ‘it will be a gift from the gods, and you should see it as such. None of you will ever be the same. That need not be a bad thing. But it’s true.’

Becker stood. Zandt didn’t think he’d ever seen a man who looked both so tired and incapable of sleep. Unknown to him, Michael Becker was thinking the same thing of him.

‘But you’ll keep trying?’

‘I’ll do everything I can,’ he said. ‘If I can find him, then I will.’

‘Then why tell me to assume the worst?’

But his wife came in through the French doors, with the FBI agent just behind, and the policeman did not say anything more.

Nina thanked the Beckers for their time, and promised to keep them up to date. She also managed to imply that their visit had been a formality, without direct relevance to the course of the investigation.

Michael Becker watched as they walked away down the path. He did not shut the door when they were out of sight, but stood a moment looking out at the night. Behind him he heard the sound of Zoë going upstairs to check on Melanie. He doubted his second daughter would be asleep. The nightmares of a year ago were returning, and he could not blame her. What little sleep he managed was an enemy to him, too. He knew she still used the spell he had written, and the knowledge filled him with horror. Irony was no protection, whatever he and Sarah and the directors of modern horror films might think. In a land of blood and bones, irony doesn’t cut it. He remembered discussing night fears with Sarah, several years before. She had always been a questioning child, and asked why people were afraid of the dark. He told her it was a leftover from when we were more primitive, and slept out in the open or in caves, and wild animals might come and kill us in the night.

Sarah had looked dubious. ‘But that’s an awfully long time ago,’ she’d said. She’d thought for a little while, before adding, with a ten-year-old’s perfect certainty: ‘No. We must be frightened of something else.’

Michael believed now she was right. It’s not monsters we’re afraid of. Monsters were only a comforting fantasy. We know what our own kind is capable of. What we’re frightened of is ourselves.

He closed the door eventually and walked into the kitchen. Here he made a pot of coffee, something that had become a ritual for this part of the evening. He would carry it into the sitting room on a tray, along with two cups and a jug of warm milk. Perhaps a cookie or two, which was all Zoë seemed willing to eat. They would sit in front of whatever the television had to offer, waiting for time to pass. Old films were best. Something from another time, from before Sarah had been born and any of this could be true. Sometimes they would talk a little. Usually not. Zoë would have the phone close by.

As he took two cups from the new dresser – old pine, imported from England after their recent trip – Michael thought back on the things the policeman had said, holding each sentence up for consideration. He realized that, for the first time since the disappearance, he felt a small thread of something that must be hope. It would be gone by the morning, but he welcomed its temporary respite. He felt it because he believed he knew what had been said between the lines, that what the policeman had said was less important than what he had not.

The female investigator had shown identification, but the man had never been named. With the dedication of someone who believed in the magic of articulation, that naming and containing events in words could subdue them, Michael Becker had read as much as he could concerning the previous crimes of the man who had taken his daughter. He had been on the Internet, and found copies of the news pieces, even sought out a copy of the supermarket hackbook on unsolved crimes. He had done this at the expense of, among other things, his work. He hadn’t touched Dark Shift since the night of the disappearance. He privately thought it was unlikely he ever would, though his partner was as yet unaware of this, and kept frantically rescheduling the meeting with the studio. Wang had money, and his contacts appeared inexhaustible. He was plugged into the city in a way Michael could never hope to be. He’d survive.

Through his research Michael had learned, or been reminded, that in addition to the LeBlanc girl and Josie Ferris and Annette Mattison, another young woman had disappeared at around the same time. This girl had been the daughter of a policeman who had been involved in the apprehension of two previous serial killers. There had been speculation, of a quiet kind, that she had been targeted as a taunt, a punishment for her father’s successes. He had become involved in the investigation of her disappearance, against the advice of the FBI, and at least one newspaper had implied that he was believed to be making concrete progress where they were manifestly failing. Then he had simply dropped out of sight. The policeman’s name had been John Zandt. The Delivery Boy, as Michael Becker had reason to know, had not been apprehended. A retrospective published a year after the disappearances had reported that a Mrs Jennifer Zandt had returned to Florida to be close to her family. The journalist had been unable to discover what had happened to the detective.

Michael thought that tonight, whatever was on television, he and his wife should talk. He would tell her what he believed concerning the man who had come to see them, and he would suggest that when the other policemen and women came to visit, the well-meaning people with whom they now shared a horrible familiarity, they should not mention this evening’s visit.

And something else. Though his faith in words had been deeply shaken, he clung to the belief that words and names were to reality what pillars and architecture were to space. They humanized it. Just as DNA took the random chemicals and turned them into something recognizable, language could take inexplicable phenomena and tame them into situations about which something could be said, and thus about which something could be done.

He would no longer think of The Delivery Boy. He would call him The Upright Man. But in the meantime he would assume the worst. The policeman was right. More than that, Michael Becker realized that it was what Sarah would want.

Nokkon Wud be damned. If the fates demanded this level of tribute, then they could go fuck themselves.

They were sitting outside the Smorgas Board, a combination café and surfer hangout about eight yards down the street from where the Becker girl had been abducted. They had been for an hour, and the place was near to closing. The only other customers were a young couple hunkered around a table a couple of yards away, listlessly sipping something out of big cups.

‘Are you thinking, or just watching?’

Zandt didn’t respond immediately. He sat beside Nina, observing the street. He had barely moved. His coffee was cold. He had only smoked one cigarette, and most of that had burned away unnoticed. His attention was focused entirely elsewhere. Nina was reminded of a hunter, though not necessarily a human one. An animal that was prepared and able to sit, to wait, for as long as it took, without boredom, rage or pain to distract it.

‘They don’t all come back,’ she said, irritably.

‘I know,’ he said, immediately. ‘I’m not watching.’

‘Bullshit.’ She laughed. ‘It’s either that or you’ve had a seizure.’

He surprised her by smiling. ‘I’m thinking.’

She folded her arms. ‘Care to share?’

‘I’m thinking what a waste of time this is, and wondering why you brought me here.’

Nina realized it hadn’t really been a smile. ‘Because I thought you might be able to help,’ she said. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘John, what is this? You know why. Because you helped me before. Because I value your advice.’

He smiled again, and this time she actually shivered.

‘What did I achieve last time?’

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘Tell me. What happened?’

‘You know what happened.’

‘No, I don’t,’ she said, suddenly angry. ‘All I know is that you told me that you were getting somewhere. And you started getting secretive and not telling me anything, despite the fact that up until then you’d relied upon me to feed you stuff out of the Bureau. Stuff you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise because you’d been specifically barred from taking part in the investigation by your own department. I did you a favour and you cut me out.’

‘You did me no favours,’ Zandt said. ‘You did what you thought would do you the most good.’

‘Oh, fuck you, John,’ she snapped. The two slackers at the far table jerked upright, like puppets whose master had suddenly woken up. Heavy vibes.

She lowered her voice and spoke fast. ‘If that’s what you really think of me, then why don’t you just walk away, go back to fucking Vermont. It’s going to snow hard there real soon. You could just bury yourself in it.’

‘You’re telling me that you helped me out of consideration for my family?’

‘Yes, of course. What the hell else?’

‘Despite the fact you’d helped me be unfaithful to my wife.’

‘That’s pathetic. Don’t blame me for what your dick did.’

She glared at him. Zandt stared back. There was silence for a moment, and then she abruptly let her eyes drop.

He laughed, briefly. ‘That supposed to make me think I’m in control?’

‘What?’ She silently cursed herself.

‘Looking away. Kind of an animal kingdom thing. Male ego massaged by a sign of submission. Now I’m back to being king of the hill, I’ll do what you want again?’

‘You’ve gotten really paranoid, John,’ she said, though of course he’d been right. She realized she spent too much of her time with fools. ‘I just don’t want to argue with you.’

‘What do you think the deal with the hair is?’ he said.

She frowned, thrown by the sudden switch. ‘What hair?’

‘The Upright Man. Why cut the hair off?’

‘Well, for the sweaters. So he could embroider the names.’

Zandt shook his head, lit a cigarette. ‘You don’t need a whole head for that. All of the girls had long hair. But when they’re found, it’s all been cut off. Why?’

‘To dehumanize them. To make it easier to kill them.’

‘Could be,’ he said. ‘That’s what we all assumed back then. But I wonder.’

‘Are you going to tell me what you do think?’

‘I’m wondering if it was a punishment.’

Nina considered this. ‘For what?’

‘I don’t know. But I think this man took these girls, a very particular type of girl, on purpose. I think he had something in mind for them, and each of them failed to come up to scratch in some way. And as a punishment for that, he took something he thought would be of paramount importance to them.’

He took a drink of his coffee, seeming not to care that it was cold. ‘You know what they did to collaborators in France, at the end of the Second World War?’

‘Of course. Women who were thought to have accepted their German invaders too wholeheartedly were paraded down the street with their hair shorn off. A proud moment for our species.’ She shrugged. ‘I can maybe see the punishment thing, but I don’t see what global conflict has to do with it. These girls hadn’t fraternized with anyone.’

‘Maybe not.’ Zandt seemed to have lost interest in the subject. He was sitting back in his chair and gazing vaguely across the patio. One of the slackers accidentally caught his eye. Zandt didn’t look away. The slacker did, rapidly. He made a signal to his friend, evidently suggesting this might be a good time to go wax their boards. They got up and sloped off into the night.

Zandt seemed satisfied with this.

Nina tried to haul his concentration back. ‘So where does that lead?’

‘Possibly nowhere,’ he said, grinding out his cigarette. ‘I just didn’t think hard enough about it last time. Then I was hung up on the method he’d used to find them. How the intersection of their lives had come about. Now it strikes me as curious. How they failed. What he really wanted them for.’

Nina didn’t say anything, hoping there would be some more. But when he did speak, it wasn’t about the case.

‘Why did you stop sleeping with me?’

Caught again, she hesitated. ‘We stopped sleeping with each other.’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘That’s not the way it was.’

‘I don’t know, John. It just happened. You didn’t seem especially hurt at the time.’

‘Just kind of accepted it, didn’t I.’

‘What are you getting at? You don’t accept it now?’

‘Of course I do. It was a long time ago. I’m just asking questions that I haven’t before. Once you start doing that, you find they pop up all over the place.’

She didn’t really know what to say to that. ‘So what do you want to do next?’

‘I want you to go,’ he said. ‘I want you to go home and leave me alone.’

Nina stood. ‘Suit yourself. You got my number. Call me if you decide to get off your butt and do something.’

He turned his head slowly, and looked her directly in the eyes. ‘Do you want to know what happened? Last time?’

She stopped, looked at him. His face was cold and distant. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘I found him.’

Nina felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. ‘Found who?’

‘I tracked him for two weeks. In the end I went to his house. I’d seen him watching other girls. I couldn’t leave it any longer.’

She didn’t know whether to sit or keep standing. ‘What happened?’

‘He denied it. But I knew it was him, and now he knew I’d made him. He was the man, but I had no proof, and he would have run. I stayed with him two days. He wouldn’t tell me where she was.’

‘John, don’t tell me this.’

‘I killed him.’

Nina stared at him, and knew it was the truth. She opened her mouth, shut it again.

‘And then two days later the sweater and the note arrived.’

He looked suddenly very tired, and turned away. When he spoke again, his voice was flat. ‘I got the wrong guy. It’s up to you what you do with the information.’

She walked away, across the Promenade. She willed herself not to look back at him, and instead concentrated on the tops of the palm trees nodding in the faint breeze, a couple of blocks away.

But when she reached the corner she did stop, and turn. He’d vanished. She waited for a moment, chewing her lip, but he didn’t reappear. Slowly she started walking.

Something had changed. Until tonight Zandt had seemed malleable, but sitting with him in the café had been an uncomfortable experience. She realized it wasn’t a hunter that he had reminded her of, but a boxer, glimpsed on camera in the period an hour before the actual fight. The time when the show business was put to one side, and the fighter seemed to move off into a realm of his own, a place where he stopped meeting people’s eyes and became absorbed into his archetype. Other people might bet on the outcome, put on monkey suits, get high on corporate hospitality. The rest would crap on about how boxing should be banned, cocooned in lives from which nobody wanted an escape route, any escape route. For the guys in the ring, it was different. They did it for the money, but not only for that. They did it because that was what they did. They weren’t looking for a way out. They were looking for a way in, a road back to some place they sensed inside themselves.

The parents had been a mistake. Zandt had access to little enough real information as it was, and was already questioning what she wanted of him. The only new investigative material could come from the Beckers. She’d had to let him talk to them. But she’d known as soon as she came back from the garden that this had opened doors that would have been better kept shut.

She didn’t need this. She’d never wanted a hunter, or a killer. She believed the only thing that would draw The Upright Man into the open was a man he wanted to dominate.

She wanted bait.