‘We need to check, but yeah, probably.’
‘What the hell did he take their organs for?’
Chief Inspector Holland spread his hands. ‘This guy was all kinds of nutter. For all we know, he was going to make a casserole with them.’
‘What did he say in the note?’ asked Kirsty.
‘He confesses to the four killings.’
‘Why did he do it?’
‘He was part of a group. Exchanging photos.’
Kirsty nodded. She’d seen the photos. ‘And what happened?’
‘One of the people gathering the photos. A Romanian nurse…’
‘Adriana Kisslinger?’
The CI looked puzzled. ‘How did you know that?’
‘I didn’t. I guess you just confirmed it, though. It was a line of enquiry.’
Holland looked for a moment as if he might press her on the matter but shrugged it off. Not his problem. ‘Anyway, she started blackmailing the group – a teacher, a social worker, a surgeon. Figured the surgeon in particular could be the jackpot.’
‘So, what – he killed them all?’
‘And then he killed himself.’
‘Guilt?’
‘Who knows?’ Holland gestured at the Japanese armour. ‘He was obviously a sick fantasist. Doubt we’ll ever really know what was going through his head. He says he was confronted with what he really was, according to his suicide note, and couldn’t deal with it any more.’
‘Very Japanese.’
The chief inspector nodded. ‘Looks like he was a big fan of the culture.’
‘And the fingers?’ asked DI James.
Holland shrugged. ‘No idea.’
‘Japanese again,’ said Kirsty Webb. ‘The Yakuza. They have a tradition of cutting off a finger if one of them does something wrong.’
‘You seem to know a lot about this stuff.’
Kirsty shook her head. ‘Only from films. Robert Mitchum was in a movie about it. Cut off half his finger in it.’
‘Seems particularly appropriate in this case, then,’ said the chief inspector.
‘Sir?’ asked DI James.
‘Kiddy-fiddlers,’ Holland said, anger sparking in his eyes. ‘It’s not all I’d cut off.’
Chapter 90
Suzy was leaning against the wall by the door to the three girls’ apartment.
Tim Graham was sitting on the couch, holding a bloodied handkerchief to his nose. He was glaring at me.
‘You’re not going to get away with this.’
‘You threatening me, Tim?’ I asked.
‘I’m promising you.’
‘Because if you want Suzy here to…’
He shrank back into the sofa.
‘He didn’t want to wait to meet you, Dan. I had to persuade him.’
‘You didn’t have to break my nose.’
‘He took a swing.’ She shrugged. ‘What’s a girl to do?’
‘You want to tell us what you are doing here, Tim?’ I asked.
‘I don’t have to tell you anything.’
I sighed. ‘See, this isn’t one of those good cop, bad cop situations. We’re both bad cops.’
‘Right,’ he snorted derisively. ‘You’re not even cops.’
I took three paces across the room and hit him. Hard. Backhanded my fist to the left side of his head. He flew off the sofa and landed on the floor, whimpering. Tears starting in his eyes.
I was glad. Truth was I was tempted to bust him on the nose again – finish the job that Suzy had started. But I needed to get some answers first.
‘Let me explain something to you, Mister Graham,’ I said, squatting down on my heels and speaking patiently. ‘Laura and Hannah drugged my god-daughter. She was clubbed with a baseball bat like a baby seal and was left to die in the gutter.’
I bent down, grabbed him with both hands, picked him up and threw him back onto the sofa.
‘Do I have your attention now?’ I asked.
Graham nodded, holding a hand to his nose which was running with blood and drool.
‘Because of them she is lying in intensive care, fighting for life.’ That last bit wasn’t strictly true any more but I had no intention of letting the maggot squirming on the sofa know that.
‘I had nothing to do with any of it.’
I turned to Suzy. ‘I’m going outside for a cigarette. Why don’t you see if you can loosen his memory some?’
I headed for the door. He wasn’t to know that I didn’t smoke.
‘Wait!’ He practically shouted it.
I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want Suzy putting the hard question to me, either. And I’m a professional tough guy.
‘She wasn’t supposed to get hurt.’
‘Who wasn’t?’
‘Chloe. She wasn’t even supposed to be there. Laura slipped something in her drink. It should have knocked her out of things for a while. Not enough to do any damage.’
‘Where did she get it?’
Graham shifted nervously on the sofa. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Where do you live?’
He shrugged. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Suzy, ask him again for me.’
‘Sure, boss.’ She stepped forward from the wall.
‘Okay, okay. Just keep that mad bitch away from me!’
I saw Suzy’s upper lip twitch a fraction and figured that young Tim would pay for that remark sooner or later.
‘I live across the hall,’ he said.
I hauled him upright. ‘Lead on, MacDuff.’
At the end of the corridor we entered a living room much like the one where we had just been. Only this one was littered with the kind of detritus you would expect from a bunch of male students.
Tim Graham was making a show of looking for the key to his bedroom door. Patting his pockets. I raised my right leg and kicked the door off its hinges.
‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Who are you people?’
I pushed him inside.
Suzy followed us in, wrinkling her nose. ‘For Christ’s sake, Tim, you ever think of opening a window sometimes?’ she said and crossed to do just that.
I was glad she did. If the outer room was a mess, this was a midden. I pushed the student onto his unmade bed and started going through his chest of drawers. Third drawer down I found what I was looking for.
Chapter 91
‘Studying to be a pharmacist?’ I asked.
‘Media studies, actually,’ Tim Graham replied petulantly and Suzy slapped him around the head.
‘What was that for?’
‘If there’s one thing I hate more than students,’ she said, ‘it’s bloody media-studies students.’
I tipped the contents of the drawer over him. Folded packets of paper. Bags of dope. Lumps of resin. Bottles of pills. I guess Tim Graham was your go-to guy on campus for recreational chemicals.
‘You don’t know who you’re dealing with,’ he said angrily.
‘Are you threatening me again, Tim?’
‘It’s not me you have to worry about.’
I knew who he was talking about. I’d get to him later. I picked up a DVD that had landed on the floor and put it in my pocket.
‘You got no right to take anything.’
‘You want to wait here with him, Suzy, while I phone this through to the police?’ I said.
‘No. Don’t do this, man. We can work something out.’
Man? Was he living in the 1960s?
‘Start talking.’
‘It was all supposed to be a joke.’
‘Some joke.’
‘Well, not a joke. Payback for Hannah’s old man. She was always ragging on about him. We were just going to wind him up. You know?’
‘I haven’t got the faintest idea.’
‘Laura asked me to get some of the guys to help.’
‘And you just went along with it.’
‘Laura said she’d make it worth my while, you know what I mean.’
He gave me a conspiratorial nod. I felt like smashing my fist into his face.
‘So it was all supposed to be an elaborate joke. Hannah getting back at her father. What went wrong? How did my god-daughter end up in hospital?’
Graham stood up from the bed, holding his hands out apologetically. ‘Like I said, Chloe wasn’t supposed to be there. Laura brought someone along. A real heavy dude.’
I had a fair idea who the ‘dude’ was and I had a fair idea who had introduced him to Laura Skelton.