The custody officer ignored the last remark. Instead he pointed to the bloodied half of a razor blade which lay alongside George on the bunk.
‘Seems he smuggled it in, guv,’ said Sergeant Pierce.
Again he pointed. This time to a small cylindrical object with some sticky tape attached to it. Vogel recognized it as the curved end of a cigar container. He didn’t need to ask how George had smuggled the half-razor in. He had inserted it in his anus, and an anal search is not a routine part of custody procedure at British police stations.
‘He must’ve had that damned thing up his arse when we arrested him,’ muttered Vogel. ‘He had it all planned. He knew exactly what he was going to do if we came to get him. He was one step ahead of us, the bastard. Just as he’s been all along.’ Vogel shook his head angrily. ‘How can a man cut his own throat?’
George’s eyes were closed. Vogel moved closer and lifted one eyelid. A pale blue eye stared at him, presumably the man’s natural iris colour. Having decided to end his life, Burns had finally abandoned all pretence and removed the tinted contact lenses that had been part of his George Kristos disguise. The cold blue eye was full of hatred. Vogel stared into it. He could see a kind of triumph there too, he was sure of it.
Then Burns’ entire body convulsed and he spewed black blood from his open mouth. Vogel let go of the eyelid and stepped back.
At the same moment the doctor arrived in the cell and rushed to Vogel’s side, bending over the blood-covered man.
After a couple of minutes he stood up and turned to face Vogel.
‘There’s nothing I can do,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid your prisoner is dead.’
Vogel’s gaze remained fixed on the prisoner. Who had beaten who? Vogel was not sure. He did wonder, however, how many questions would remain unanswered. All hope of a confession was gone. There would be no cross-examination in a court of law. They could only guess at what had motivated him, and they might never be able to determine exactly how many victims he had claimed.
Vogel allowed his eyes to wander around the cell, taking in the volume of blood and the crumpled blanket, which he assumed had been pulled off the dying man by the custody officer.
Kristos had removed his police-issue paper suit and folded it neatly on the bottom of the bunk. He lay now with his nakedness exposed, which presumably had been his intention. His body was almost hairless, presumably because of his emasculation. Between his legs there were no recognizable genitalia. No testes and no penis. Just a jagged scar and an almost vaginal opening which had presumably been fashioned in order for him to urinate.
Vogel shuddered. What a secret to keep, he thought.
Then the piece of cylindrical cigar casing caught his eye. Was there something in it still? Vogel thought so. He reached for it carefully. Using only the tips of one forefinger and thumb he removed a neatly folded piece of paper.
It bore an inked message, rather beautifully handwritten and resembling medieval biblical script, Vogel thought.
Thus saith the Lord: Though I have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more.
Epilogue
DCI Nobby Clarke waited until seven days had passed before visiting Vogel at his home. He was on mandatory sick leave. His upper arm and shoulder had become infected, almost certainly due to his refusal to undergo proper treatment until several hours after he was shot.
Vogel’s wife, Mary, greeted the DCI warmly and ushered her into the living room of the Pimlico apartment.
Clarke took in the abundance of pink, the floral wallpaper and curtains, and the predominantly feminine air of the place. For some reason, Vogel, sitting on an ornately covered settee with luxuriously deep cushions, seemed to fit in perfectly — but then, why shouldn’t he, in his own home?
Next to him was a young girl, in her early teens, Clarke thought, holding a purple Nintendo Game Boy. She waved one arm awkwardly. All her movements seemed awkward.
Vogel stood up and shook Nobby Clarke’s hand.
‘Thanks for coming, boss,’ he said. Then he gestured to the girl.
‘This is my daughter, Rosamund,’ he said.
‘Hello,’ said Rosamund. She spoke in rather a slow, stilted way, but her smile was captivating.
Clarke found herself smiling back. Then she returned her attention to Vogel. He was wearing, or half wearing, a large white cotton shirt, the sleeve hanging loose over his left arm and shoulder.
‘How’re you doing, David?’ she asked.
‘OK, the antibiotics appear to be doing their stuff,’ Vogel replied.
‘Good,’ said the DCI. ‘You know you’re bloody lucky to still be in the job, don’t you? Blundering into a gunfight as if you’re a sheriff in a very bad western. Against every damn regulation.’
‘Yes, boss,’ said Vogel.
‘Anyway, I managed to bring the brass round. They’re convinced you’re some kind of hero now.’
‘Thanks, boss.’
‘Must say, I never expected this sort of trouble from you, Vogel. Thought they called you the Geek?’
‘Yes, boss.’ Vogel was staring at Nobby Clarke with a wicked gleam in his eye. ‘But names can be very inappropriate, can’t they?’
‘Don’t even go there, Vogel,’ growled the DCI.
‘No, boss,’ said Vogel, just as his wife walked into the room carrying a tray bearing teapot, cups and saucers, and a large round fruit cake, yet to be cut.
‘Any further news about Kristos?’ Vogel asked, changing the subject and getting on to the topic he was really interested in.
‘No more than you know already,’ said Clarke, accepting a cup of tea. ‘Kristos and Burns checked out to be the same person. There was a load of stuff found in Kristos’s flat that none of the idiots searching it previously had thought important — hair dye, medication, jockstraps, that sort of thing. And, of course, the original photo of Alice Turner was on his hard drive, along with the one he’d doctored, the one that was supposed to be his girlfriend Carla. All circumstantial, as evidence goes. So perhaps it was a good job he topped himself.’
‘Surely nobody could doubt his guilt?’ said Vogel.
‘A bloody court of law could,’ muttered Clarke. ‘We have, however, officially closed the investigations into the King’s Cross murders, the two Sunday Club murders, and all the other Sunday Club crimes, major and minor.’
Vogel had expected that. ‘What about Amsterdam?’ he asked.
He might have been on sick leave, but contacts within MIT had told him about the murder of a prostitute in the notorious red-light district of De Wallen in 2007. It had not previously been linked with the 1998 King’s Cross murders, even though the young woman found dead in the cabin she rented in order to ply her trade had been strangled and then repeatedly stabbed and mutilated in the same manner as the London victims. The Internet had still been in its infancy in 1998, in Europe at least, and information, both official and unofficial, did not cross international boundaries as freely back then.
‘Well, we were able to inform the Dutch police that Kristos/Burns was in Amsterdam at the appropriate time,’ said Clarke. ‘Filming a walk-on role in a commercial for a budget airline, it seems.’
‘Don’t think they’ll be repeating it then,’ murmered Vogel.
‘No. Anyway, we just heard that the Dutch have officially closed their murder investigation.’
‘What else could they do?’ Vogel asked. ‘It all seems so unfair on the victims and their families though. No proper closure.’ He looked Clarke in the eye. ‘And speaking of unfair, it seems very hard on Greg Walker. If only I’d been quicker off the mark, I might have stopped that shooting.’
‘Hmmm, and if you’d been a bit slower, Walker would be dead. I know it doesn’t seem fair that he’s facing a murder charge, and I don’t give a damn about Kwan’s goon, but there’s no alternative, is there? Walker set out with a loaded handgun, intent on killing a man — and that’s just what he did, albeit the wrong man.’