‘I don’t know either,’ said the man, looking up from his packing. ‘You know the sort of waves someone like Burden can create: it’s got to be something to do with that nonsense at his press conferences.’
‘Were you sleeping with Ann Harris? Doing things to her I won’t let you do to me any more?’
‘Stop it, Angela!’
‘Were you? I want to know!’
‘I’ll get to see the children, before I come back. You want me to tell them anything, from you?’
‘Nothing I haven’t written, every week since we’ve been here. So you were fucking her? Hurting her? Did she like it? Was she braver than me?’
‘I can’t see my being away for much more than three or four days. A week at the most. Anything you want me to bring back?’
‘How do you know it will be a week? How do you know you will be coming back at all?’
‘Don’t be stupid! If I were being permanently recalled you would have been included as well. This is what the message said. Just consultations.’
‘Did you kill her?’
Hughes turned from the bed on which his half-packed suitcase lay, fully to confront his wife. ‘You know damned well I didn’t! What the hell’s wrong with you?’
‘I’m frightened! That’s what the hell’s wrong with me! And I think I’ve got good reason.’
‘I’m not the phantom maniac! If you don’t believe me about Ann Harris, what about the Russian woman? You know for a fact I couldn’t have carried out that attack. So I can’t be involved with any of it.’
She stood regarding him steadily for a long time. Then she said: ‘Perhaps it would be a good idea for me to go back to the States, whatever happens.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You know as well as I do. Maybe better.’
‘This is an accompanied post, for married men.’
‘I think I’m through doing things for your career.’
‘Wait until I get back here. So we can talk about it properly.’
‘We stopped doing things properly years ago.’
‘Please, Angela!’
‘The little-boy-lost plea! That didn’t used to come for a long time yet.’
‘Wait until I get back.’
‘See a lawyer in Washington, as well as seeing the kids. That’s what I’m going to do. I don’t think I’ll have any problem claiming cruelty, do you?’
There were twelve buttons: would have been more if she hadn’t come alive the way she had. Six more at least. And some hair. Wanted more buttons. More hair. Why? Just because, that’s why. Important there should be at least one more to take buttons and hair from to show up what idiots they all were. No mistakes this time, though. No more bad choices. Or ones that came alive. Two mistakes already, one after the other. Too many. Next time would be perfect. Mustn’t get to like it too much. It was difficult, not to like it. Felt powerful. Hugely powerful. Had the power of life and death. But it would mean he was mad, if he liked it too much. That’s what they’d say. What they were saying. Maniac. In all the papers. Wasn’t mad. Not mad at all. The opposite. Clever: cleverer than all the others. So only one more. Maybe two. Definitely no more than two. Didn’t really want to stop. So much power. Wasn’t mad. Wish there was a way they could know. That would be best of all, if there was a way they could know. Show them the power. Wasn’t possible, of course. Pity. Just two more. Or maybe three. Definitely no more than three.
Chapter Twenty-Six
There was a tailback from a three-car accident on the 95, which delayed Cowley getting to Quantico. He detested being late for appointments, so there was an illogical annoyance, without a sensible focus. When he finally arrived, to the snap-crack-pop of agents practising on the training academy’s target range, the psychologist said it didn’t matter: he’d shunted into a car himself the previous week, so he knew what it was like. And the hold-up had given him a final opportunity to read through his assessment.
Despite the reassurance he’d received in Moscow, Cowley said: ‘I was worried there wouldn’t be enough to create the profile.’
‘That’s what we’re paid for.’ Peter Meadows was a small, intense man whose glasses seemed inadequate despite their thick lenses, because he constantly squinted and leaned forward to peer through them. He was in chino jeans and loafers: the roll-neck sweater was wearing thin at the left elbow and there was a definite hole in one sock. In contrast to the man’s outward neglect, the office in the Behavioural Science Unit was immaculate, the impression of near-clinical cleanliness heightened by the harsh, hospital-glare brightness of the artificial neon throughout a basement area with no natural light. Nowhere in the office were there any obvious personal or sentimental possessions, like family photographs or qualification certificates. Meadows smiled, brightly, and added: ‘But there are difficulties you must keep in mind.’
‘Such as?’
‘Russia,’ said the psychologist, simply. ‘Our assessments and profiles are predicated from an American society: certain basic characteristics that we calculate to be common, throughout. If your killer is Russian, some of those assessments might be a little off course.’
‘Some?’ pressed Cowley. ‘But not all?’
‘Not all,’ agreed the man. ‘General things first. I’m tagging him asocial. The most important thing about that classification fits in with where the murders and the failed attack took place, all in fairly close proximity. When you get him, he’ll live in the area: asocials attack close to their homes or workplaces because they feel most secure there. Usually asocials don’t know their victims: I’m not going to be dogmatic about this, but the victims are probably chosen at random, complete strangers to him. Asocials don’t bother to conceal their victims, after the crime, which again fits what you’ve given me.’
‘What about specifics: the shoes, hair and the buttons?’
‘One at a time,’ insisted Meadows. ‘The positioning of the shoes indicates obsessive neatness: the shoes are the most likely items to fall off, in an attack. So they must be restored. Putting them by the head could be taken as a plea for forgiveness, too: there’s no hate or dislike in the killing. But your asocial will knowhe’s doing wrong and that he’s causing pain. He’s saying sorry. But let’s not slip past the neatness. He’ll wear cross-over jackets: they’re smarter than single-breasted suits. He’ll wear suits on a Sunday: on a vacation. Always have a sharp crease in his pants. Always have clean shoes. The neatness could extend to personal cleanliness, although that doesn’t always follow. If it does, he’ll wash his hands a lot. Have clean fingernails.’
‘What about the hair?’
Meadows turned down the corners of his mouth, in a doubtful expression. ‘A lot of scope here. Could be he’s ugly: wants to make the people he kills ugly, too. Maybe he’s simply bald — could be medical baldness, from chemotherapy or nervous depilation — and just wants to make them look like he does. Certainly there’d be a connection to the obsessional neatness: so he won’t be completely bald. There’ll be hair that doesn’t fit his own idea of how he should look. Then again it could just be a souvenir. I’ve read that the hair is scattered about but he probably keeps some. Souvenirs are very important to them.’
‘So he’d have it, if we make an arrest.’
The bright smile came again. ‘That would make it all very easy, wouldn’t it?’
‘Which leaves the buttons.’
‘Nipple fetish,’ said the behaviour expert immediately. ‘Well documented, readily obvious. Ann Harris had bruised, bitten nipples: the Russian woman talked of her breasts being fondled.’
‘We think we know who bit Ann Harris. He was a lover who liked inflicting pain. He has an alibi.’
‘Russian?’
‘American.’
‘Does he fit the profile?’
Cowley tried to put the pieces together. ‘Similarities. They wouldn’t lead me directly to him. Are you saying it’s a sexual motive?’