“You’ll have plenty of opportunity to put us right,” Neil said pleasantly. He could afford the courtesy; everything had gone according to plan.
Fiona rested her head on the steering wheel. “So what do we do now?” she asked. “I’ve got back-up Caroline should have called the cops by now. But they’re not going to treat this as a matter of urgency, I just know they’re not. Besides, it’ll take them forever to get here. You say there’s no other way out?”
“Not by road,” Kit said. He’d propped himself up into a sitting position. Now the cramps and the pins and needles had passed, he felt slightly less like someone knocking at heaven’s door. His head still felt like he was half-drunk, half-hungover, but he was gradually getting used to that. “On foot. There is a way on foot. It’s about six miles across the hill. I don’t think I can make it. But you could hike out and get help.”
“I can’t leave you here,” Fiona protested, her voice muffled as she spoke into her chest. “There’s nothing to stop Blake coming back for you. We don’t know that he’s left. If I was him, I’d be in the woods on the other side of the ravine waiting for us to plunge to our deaths. And if time passes and we don’t do that, he’ll probably look at the map and figure out what we’re doing. So he’ll come back for you. Even if he has to hike back down the road to the bridge by the loch side and back up again through the woods, he’ll still get to you before I can make it to the main road.”
“What other choice is there? Apart from waiting for your back-up?”
“You need to get to a hospital, Kit. And besides, what’s going to happen when they roll up? Either they’re going to spot what’s happened to the bridge and they’ll be stuck that side of the ravine. Or else they won’t and they’ll end up crashing into the gorge like we’re supposed to have done.”
There was a long pause. Then Kit said, “There is something that might work. But it’s a very long shot…”
“A long shot’s better than no shot at all.”
“You might not think that once you’ve heard it.”
Steve was generous in his praise of his team. “You did a great job. Like clockwork, and by the book. Not a thing that the defence could pick on. Well done. The drinks are on me tonight. He’s been formally arrested now, has he?”
Neil nodded. “On suspicion of murder. He looked completely gob smacked But he knows what he’s about. The only thing he said was that he wanted his lawyer.”
Steve picked up a sheet of paper from his desk. “Right. I’ve drawn up the authorization for a Section Eighteen search. I want you to take charge of that, Neil. You know what we’re looking for. Now, I want John and Joanne to start the interview. I’m going to be watching from the observation room. John, I want Joanne to take the lead. This guy has a problem with women. I want to wind him up, and Joanne coming on the macho cop will do just that. OK with that, Joanne?”
She smiled grimly. “It’ll be a pleasure, guy.”
Before he could say more, Steve’s phone rang. He grabbed it and said, “DS Preston.”
“Steve? It’s Sarah Duvall. I wonder, is there any chance you could drop round to Snow Hill? There’s something I’d like you to see.”
“Sarah, I’m up to my arse in alligators right now. Can it wait?”
“I’m not sure it can, actually. Let me just explain. I’ve had a team checking the Smithfield videos and we think we’ve narrowed down the man who deposited Georgia Lester’s remains in the freezer.”
“That sounds like good news. But why are you calling me?” Steve said impatiently.
“We think it’s Francis Blake.”
“What?” Steve couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“I’ve looked at it myself. I’ve compared it with Blake’s mug shots I don’t think there’s any doubt about it.”
Confused, Steve said, “But what about Redford?”
There was a pause before Duvall spoke. “We might be wrong about Redford.”
There was a strange ringing in his ears. If Redford wasn’t the killer, how could it be Francis Blake?
More importantly, if Redford wasn’t the killer, where were Kit and Fiona?
“So, can you come over and take a look?” he heard Duvall say, as if from a very great distance.
“I’ve just…no, I’m about to…Sarah, can you bike it over?”
There was a long pause. “This is an active murder investigation, sir. Can’t you spare me half an hour?” The reproach was in the tone as much as the words.
“We’ve just arrested someone for Susan Blanchard,” Steve said stonily.
“I can’t leave the Yard. Hang on a second.” He covered the mouthpiece and waved his free hand towards the door. “Give me five minutes. I’ll see you in the CID room.” As they filed out, he turned his attention back to Sarah Duvall. “Look, you should be aware that Fiona Cameron seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. She was supposed to meet Superintendent Galloway this morning and she didn’t show. Now, he tells me that she had a bee in her bonnet last night about Redford not being the man. She was convinced that the killer was still on the loose. And she was also convinced that he’d kidnapped Kit Martin. I can’t raise either Fiona or Kit. I think we’ve got a serious problem on our hands here.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Duvall said.
“But I don’t see how it can be Blake. According to my surveillance reports, Blake didn’t leave his flat at all yesterday.”
“It’s Blake, Steve. I’d stake my life on it.”
What worried Steve was that it wasn’t Duvall’s life that was at stake. “You need to talk to Galloway,” he said.
But Duvall had her own priorities. “The person I need to talk to is Francis Blake.”
From his vantage point in the trees beyond the ravine, Francis Blake stared at the track emerging from the trees. What was keeping them? She must have managed to get him free by now. There was a box of tools in the generator shed, he knew. That’s where he’d found the axe that he’d used to smash the padlock on the gun cupboard.
He couldn’t believe his bad luck. He’d only gone out to move his 4x4 to the far side of the gorge. But some inner caution had made him take the gun, hidden in a bundle of firewood. Luckily he’d heard her approach in the Land Rover and he’d had the sense to turn around and make it look as if he was walking out of the woods. A bit more warning and he could have been ready and waiting for the bitch. OK, it would have meant breaking the pattern, but to have killed Fiona Cameron at close quarters would just have been the icing on the cake.
He propped the shotgun against a tree and tucked his hands into his pockets for warmth. The sun might be shining, but it was October, and here under the canopy of the trees, it was like midwinter. But it would be worth the wait when the pair of them plunged into the ravine. That would finish them off, no messing.
Then he’d be free and clear, either to kill again or to leave it alone.
He didn’t think he was under any threat from the police. Fiona Cameron was acting alone, he felt sure of that. She hadn’t been able to convince her cronies in the force to back up what could only have been a hunch. After all, they had that lunatic Redford in custody. They must be pretty sure they had their killer under wraps. Otherwise, given the clout she had with the police, they’d have turned up mob-handed if they’d thought there was any serious chance of laying hands on a serial killer of his calibre. There was a kind of sweet irony in that, too. It was psychological profilers like her who had destroyed his life and he’d set out to destroy the people who had turned profilers into gods. Now, the profiler herself couldn’t get anyone to believe her. Maybe that meant he’d made his point?