‘Did Jacobsen tell you about the phone booth?’ I asked as we went along the hallway.
‘She told me. We’re looking into it.’
‘What about Tom? If the call was meant to lure him outside he might still be in danger.’
‘I appreciate you pointing that out,’ he said, coldly sarcastic. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’
I’d had enough. It was late and I was tired. I stopped in the hallway. ‘Look, I don’t know what your problem is, but you asked me to come out here. Would it kill you to at least be civil?’
Gardner turned and faced me, his face darkening. ‘I asked you out here because I didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice. Tom brought you into this investigation, not me. And excuse me if my manners aren’t to your liking, but in case you haven’t noticed I’m trying to catch a serial killer!’
‘Well, it isn’t me!’ I flared back.
We glared at each other. We were by the front door, and through it I could see that the agents outside had stopped to stare. After a moment Gardner drew in a deep breath and looked down at the floor. He seemed to unclench himself with a visible effort.
‘For your information, I arranged extra security for Tom straight away,’ he said, in a tightly controlled voice. ‘Purely as a precaution. Even if you’re right about the phone call, I doubt that whoever made it is going to try anything while Tom’s in a hospital bed. But I’m not about to take the chance.’
It wasn’t exactly an apology, but I could live with that. The main thing was that Tom was safe.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘You’re welcome.’ I couldn’t decide if he was being facetious or not. ‘Now, if that’s all, Dr Hunter, I’ll see you’re taken back to your hotel’.
I started to go out, but I’d not even reached the front steps when someone called Gardner from inside the house.
‘Sir? You should take a look at this.’
A forensic agent, overalls grubby with oil and dirt, had emerged from a door further down the hallway. Gardner glanced at me, and I knew what was going through his mind.
‘Don’t go just yet.’
He set off down the hallway and through the door. I hesitated, then went after him. I wasn’t going to stand there like a schoolboy outside the headmaster’s office until Gardner decided if he needed me or not.
The door was an internal entrance to the garage. The air smelled of oil and damp. A bare lightbulb burned overhead, its weak glow supplemented by the harsher glare of floodlights. It was as cluttered in here as in the rest of the house, sagging cardboard boxes, mildewed camping gear and rusting garden equipment crowding round the bare area of concrete where York’s car had stood.
Gardner and the crime scene agent were by an old steel filing cabinet. One of the drawers was pulled out.
‘… at the bottom under old magazines,’ the agent was saying. ‘I thought at first they were just photographs, until I took a better look.’
Gardner was staring down at them. ‘Jesus Christ.’
He sounded shocked. The other agent said something else, but I didn’t pay attention. By then I could see what they’d found for myself.
It was a slim foolscap-sized box, the sort used for photographic paper. It was open, and the agent had fanned out the half-dozen or so photographs from inside. They were all black and white portraits, each a close-up of a man or woman’s face from chin to forehead. They had been enlarged to almost full size, and the perfect focus had caught every feature, every pore and blemish, in sharp-edged detail; a split second preserved with unblurred clarity. Each face was contorted and dark, and at first glance their expressions were almost comical, as though each of the subjects had been caught on the point of a sneeze. But only until you saw their eyes.
Then you knew that there was nothing remotely comical about this at all.
We’d always suspected that there were more victims than the ones we knew about. This confirmed it. It hadn’t been enough for York to torture them to death.
He’d photographed them dying as well.
Gardner seemed to notice I was there for the first time. He gave me a sharp look, but the rebuke I was half expecting never came. I think he was still too stunned himself.
‘You can go now, Dr Hunter.’
A taciturn TBI agent drove me back to my hotel after I’d changed, but those contorted faces continued to haunt me as we drove through the dark streets. They were disturbing on a level that was hard to explain. Not just because of what they showed. I’d seen enough death in my time. I’d worked on cases before where murderers had taken trophies of their victims: a lock of hair or some scrap of clothing, twisted memento mori of the lives they’d claimed.
But this was different. York was no crazed killer, losing himself in the heat of some warped passion. He’d played us for fools all along, manipulating the investigation from the start. Even his exit had been timed perfectly. And the photographs weren’t the usual trophies. They’d been taken with a degree of care and skill that spoke of a deliberate, clinical coldness. Of control.
That made them all the more frightening.
I didn’t really need another shower when I got back to my room, but I had one anyway. The trip to York’s house left me feeling unclean in a way that was more than skin deep. Symbolic or not, the hot water helped. So much so that I fell asleep almost the instant I turned out the light.
I was woken just before six by an insistent trilling. Still half asleep, I pawed for the alarm clock before I realized the noise was from my phone.
‘Hello?’ I mumbled, not properly awake.
The last vestiges of sleep fell away when I heard Paul’s voice.
‘It’s bad news, David,’ he said. ‘Tom died last night.’
You cut it fine. You knew it wouldn’t be long before the TBI agents arrived at the house, but you left it as long as you dared. Too soon and much of the impact would be lost. Too late and… Well, that would have spoiled everything.
It was a pity you didn’t have more time. You hate feeling rushed, even though there was no avoiding it. You’d always known it would come to this. The funeral home had served its purpose. You’d planned it all out in advance; what you needed to take and what would be left behind. It had called for fine judgement and more than a little discipline. But that was OK.
Some sacrifices have to be made.
You’re almost ready for the next stage now. All you’ve got to do is be patient. It won’t be much longer. Just one final chore to nudge the last pieces into place, then the waiting will be over.
You admit to a few nerves, but that’s a good thing. You can’t let yourself be complacent. When the opportunity presents itself, you’ll have to be ready to take it. You can’t afford to waste chances like this. You know that better than anyone.
Life’s too short.
CHAPTER 17
IN THE END, all the precautions for Tom’s safety had proved futile. Doctors and medical staff at the ICU had been warned of the need for extra vigilance, if not its reason, and a TBI agent had been stationed in the corridor outside his room. No one could have reached Tom without their knowing, and even if someone had, Mary had been at his side throughout.
None of which had prevented him going into cardiac arrest just after four o’clock that morning.
The medics had tried to resuscitate him, but his heart had resolutely refused to restart. Stubborn to the end. The thought circled aimlessly round my mind, refusing to settle.
I felt numb, still unable to take in what had happened. After I’d spoken to Paul I’d called Mary and mouthed the usual, useless words. Then I’d sat on my bed, at a loss as to what to do. I tried telling myself that at least Tom had died peacefully with his wife beside him, that he’d been spared whatever final ordeal had been inflicted on Irving. But it was scant consolation. York might not have physically killed him, but Tom was still a victim. Ill or not, he’d had a right to live the rest of his life in peace, however long it might have been.