Chapter 12
GILCHRIST RETURNED TO the scene of the crime. Yellow tape stretched the width of Golf Place, and traffic cones diverted beach-bound traffic onto The Scores. The SOCO tent was erected, the van parked in the centre of the road, doors open. The wind had died, and dawn was peeling back a cloudless sky, as if the early morning storm had been only a dream.
He parked his Mercedes next to Mackie’s Volvo Estate. He walked towards the tent where DC Alan Bowers, the Crime Scene Manager, was talking to Lambert. He saw no sign of Watt. He caught up with Nance scribbling in her notebook.
“Have you seen Watt?” he asked her.
“Been and gone.”
“Did you tell him I wanted to talk to him?”
“Of course.”
Gilchrist tightened his lips. Watt’s insubordination stiffened his resolve to have it out with Greaves. But he needed to get moving with his investigation.
He nodded to the row of hotels and guest houses that ran along The Scores. “Before anyone has a chance to check out,” he said to Nance, “I want you and Lambert to go to every door along The Scores. Find out which guests occupy the seafront rooms. Maybe one of them saw something.” He glanced at his watch. “You don’t have much time, so split up. You start with the Scores Hotel. Have Lambert take the one next to it. Then alternate after that. Get back to me by mid-morning.”
Nance walked away as Mackie emerged from the SOCO tent peeling his coveralls from his head. “Getting too old for this,” he said to Gilchrist, unzipping his coveralls. He stepped out of them, ran a liver-spotted hand over a balding pate. “Bludgeon?” He eyed Gilchrist, his sandy eyes creasing against a brightening sky. “Any idea what it means?”
Yes, Gilchrist wanted to say. And it frightens me to death. “Not yet.”
“Murder, massacre, bludgeon?” Mackie scratched his head. “What’s this sick bastard trying to tell us? Tell you?” His gaze fixed on Gilchrist with a directness that could unsettle judge-hardened prosecutors, and for one moment, Gilchrist felt certain Mackie could see through his lie.
“The leg’s a mess,” Mackie continued. “The branding’s uneven, probably as a result of not being consistently hot or applied with even pressure. You know what I’m saying?”
“A DIY job?”
Mackie almost smiled, a quick tug of the lips. “Starts off with the letters being over-branded,” he went on. “Too deep. Too long. Running into each other. By the end, it seems as if he has it about right.”
“Practice makes perfect?”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
“And another way?”
“Anger.”
Gilchrist waited for Mackie to continue. But the old man stared over his shoulder. Gilchrist had come to understand Mackie’s periods of silence, when he gave the impression of being inattentive, but in reality was deep in thought.
“It’s as if he was angry to start with,” Mackie went on. “Then calmed down as he progressed.”
“Worked his anger out?”
“Precisely.”
“A sadist?”
“Definitely.” Mackie raised an eyebrow. “Among other things.”
“Such as?”
Mackie exhaled a long puff of air, and Gilchrist was almost wishing he had not asked the question. “I’m not a psychologist, of course. It’s just a feeling.” Mackie’s jowls jiggled as he shook his head. “It takes a certain kind of mental dysfunction to cope with cutting up a human body,” he said. “And an even greater insanity to brand words onto it. I would say whoever did this had to be more than cruel. He had to be devoid of feeling. No sense of compassion, no sense of ethics, moral or otherwise, an abject failure to consider the difference between right and wrong.”
“Psychopath?” Gilchrist tried.
Mackie nodded. “At a minimum.”
Gilchrist took a deep breath. He had dealt with a number of psychopaths in his day, had seen enough MRI scans on the brains of an assortment of criminals to know the neural activity in the pre-frontal lobe, that part of the brain that controlled impulsiveness, was lower in the brains of psychopaths than in normal humans. And without that ability to stop and think, to give consideration to the consequence of their actions, some psychopaths turned to murder.
Mackie cleared his throat. “This someone needs to be in control. The notes to you. The delay in the leg turning up. He’s keeping you guessing, letting you know he’s in control, or put another way, that you’re not in control. And if I had to guess, I would say he’s sexually deviant.”
“Why do you say that?”
Mackie shrugged. “Another feeling.”
Gilchrist thought he detected a hint of regret. “And?”
“This case is personal to you.”
“Let’s have it, Bert.”
Mackie frowned. “Whoever is doing this gains little or no pleasure from normal sexual activity. At a guess I’d say he’s into necrophilia.”
Necrophilia? Gilchrist felt his lips tighten. For God’s sake. What could he say to Jack? He closed his eyes and in his mind’s eye saw Chloe naked, her eyes staring blind-sighted to the ceiling, her small breasts shuddering from rhythmic thudding…
Dear Jesus. He opened his eyes, gulped some air.
“Live bodies. Dead bodies.” Mackie’s jowls shivered. “I don’t think it matters which to this demented creep.”
Gilchrist stared off to the horizon. The sun was shooting pink streaks across the sky. How could the beauty of nature be spoiled by the rotten-to-the-core creature known as homo sapiens, who killed its own species for… for…
For what?
Pleasure? Sexual satisfaction? Dead or otherwise?
He knew of no other species that killed for sexual pleasure. But maybe they were out there, hidden deep in some undiscovered tropical forest. Or at the microscopic level, where the struggle of life and death took on a-
“I’m sorry, Andy. I shouldn’t have…”
Gilchrist shook his head. “I need to know your thoughts, Bert.”
Mackie reached for Gilchrist’s shoulder, and squeezed. “How’s Jack?”
Gilchrist thought back to last night, at Jack’s show of bravado, at eyes that lay dead behind a forced smile. “Having a tough time.”
“And you?” Mackie asked. “You look as though you’ve been out on the binge.”
Gilchrist could use a pint right there and then, but was not sure he could keep it down. “Tired,” he said.
Mackie gave Gilchrist one of his direct stares. “Any suspects? Any ideas?”
Gilchrist shrugged. “Working on it.”
“I think the answer’s in your past, Andy. Maybe someone you put away, someone vindictive enough to get even with you. Maybe someone recently released from prison.”
Gilchrist’s own thoughts had already paralleled Mackie’s. Whoever was doing this wanted to get even for some reason, likely because Gilchrist’s investigation had put him behind bars. He already knew that.
He had just not wanted to believe it.
“And cut back on the booze,” said Mackie.
Gilchrist walked towards the seafront, the breeze refreshing on his face. He inhaled, tried to clear his thoughts, chase his fears away. Cut back on the booze. What was the point of that? So he could be stone-cold sober when he next witnessed the sickest depravities of mankind? He reached the seafront. Several joggers were already running along the West Sands. A woman slipped onto the beach from between dunes and marched across the sand with arm-swinging strides. He followed her progress, felt his mind pull him back to the cryptic notes.
Murder. Massacre. Bludgeon.
He saw a sequence. But it was too vague. He could be wrong. Dear God. Tell me I’m wrong.
He inhaled the sea breeze, reached for his phone. He was wrong. He had to be.