Blake took his hand out of his pocket and chewed the skin on the side of his thumb. Fucking profilers. They’d set him up to prove how clever they were. But he’d outsmarted them. He’d turned the tables and now nobody could touch him.
He’d had plenty of time to lay his plans. He’d always known he would get off when his case came to court, and he’d spent his time on remand brooding on the injustice that had been done to him. It would have been too obvious to go for the cops and the psychologist who had concocted the campaign against him. Besides, they’d never suffer enough to make up for what they’d done to him. He’d lost his home, his job, his girlfriend and his reputation. They’d only lose their lives.
No, somebody else had to pay. Who was responsible for making the world believe that psychological profilers had all the answers? Simple. Thriller writers. Especially the ones whose books had been turned into films and TV shows that millions of people had watched. They were the ones who were really responsible for what had happened to Francis Blake. And they were the ones who would pay.
It had been easy to get hold of their books while he’d still been in prison, and relatively easy to find out about their lives. They were always talking to journalists. Plus the British ones all featured in a book of detailed interviews that some sad anorak had just published. Then when he got out, there had been the Internet. It hadn’t taken long to put it all together. The hardest thing to find out had been the precise whereabouts of Kit Martin’s bothy. He’d known the rough location, thanks to various interviews, but a search of the Land Registry had given him a precise address, and the Ordnance Survey map had done the rest.
Nobody had been watching him while he’d been in Spain, he’d made sure of that. And from Spain, it was easy enough to drive across the land borders in Europe and pick up ferry crossings from there. And eluding the pathetic Met surveillance on him once he’d returned couldn’t have been easier. As long as he showed his face every other day and made it look like he was living the life of a recluse, they’d looked no further, leaving him forty-eight-hour spans free to do what he had to do in Dorset and, later, in Sutherland. He wouldn’t mind betting they hadn’t even figured out there was a back way out of his flat into the van way behind the shops.
One thing they’d never understand, and that was how his life had changed after what he’d seen on Hampstead Heath. Then, he’d understood how easy it was to take a life away. Doing it himself had turned into a piece of piss, really.
Until Fiona Cameron came along and fucked up his neatly laid plans. Well, she’d get her comeuppance soon enough.
He ran over the getaway in his mind once more. He’d moved the Toyota away from the bothy as soon as he’d unloaded Kit and locked him up tight. It would cause much less comment if a local spotted it on the access road up beyond the turning to the bothy than if they noticed it sitting outside. It was parked about five minutes away from his present position, facing down the hill towards the loch. He’d be on the road south in no time at all.
Then he heard the Land Rover again, its engine revving out of sight. It rounded the bend and slowed down to a crawl. He could see the outline of two figures through the windscreen. Then it began to roll forward towards the bridge, the engine complaining at such high revs in first gear.
As soon as the front wheels hit the bridge, the ropes snapped. In a crash of wood and metal, the Land Rover kept on coming, plunging downwards in a tangle of planks and rope. There was a fragmentary moment of stillness, then a terrible rending crash as timber and steel hit the rocks below.
Blake struggled through the undergrowth and emerged near the lip of the ravine. He edged forward, nervous of slipping and joining his victims. He looked down, hoping to see the broken bodies among the wreckage.
The tumble down the gorge had ripped the roof from the Land Rover, leaving its mangled base exposed to the rushing river. But where he’d expected to see Kit Martin and Fiona Cameron, there was nothing but strewn clothing and what looked like a couple of saucepans.
Blake swore fluently. The bastards thought they could outwit him, did they? Well, they could forget that. Furious, he ran back to the Toyota and pulled the Ordnance Survey map out of the glove box. One way or another, he would have their blood on his hands by the end of the day.
FIFTY-SIX
Caroline looked at the police constable behind the counter in the Lairg police station and despaired. He looked about twelve. A gawky, awkward twelve at that. He had dark-blond hair that had been cut by someone with no feeling for the job. His face was a pale moonscape of lumps a bumpy forehead, prominent cheekbones, a thin nose with an angular bridge and a curiously round tip, jawbones like chestnuts, a sharp jut of chin and an Adam’s apple the size of a ripe fig. He’d actually blushed when she walked in and said she needed his help.
“This is going to sound kind of strange,” she said. “But it’s a matter of life and death.” Oh fuck, I already sound like a nutter.
He picked up a pen and said, “Name, please.”
“Dr. Caroline Matthews.” Sometimes, having a title helped. Sometimes, even the wrong assumption that went with it helped. “Look, I don’t want to be difficult about this, but can we leave the form-filling for now? My friend’s life may be in danger, and I think you need to deal with that as a matter of urgency.”
His mouth set in a stubborn line, but five seconds of Caroline’s cold blue glare reduced him to submission. “Aye. Right. What seems to be the problem, Doctor?”
There was, she realized, no point in attempting the whole story. “A friend of mine has a cottage locally. Kit Martin? The thriller writer?”
The young policeman’s face lit up in a smile. “Oh, aye, out at Allt a’ Claon.”
“The thing is, he’s been receiving threatening letters and his partner was worried about him because she couldn’t make contact. She’s afraid he’s got a stalker and that something must have happened to him. Anyway, she went out there about an hour and a quarter ago. She said if she wasn’t back in an hour, I was to go to the police.” She gave him her warmest smile. “So here I am. And I really think you should head out there and see what’s what.”
He looked doubtful. “I’m going to need to go and talk to somebody about this,” he said, in the tone of voice that indicated he was suggesting something monumentally difficult.
What’s keeping you, then? Caroline wanted to scream. “Make it quick. Please?”
He scratched his forehead with the end of his pen. “I’ll go and talk to somebody, then.” He unfolded his long, thin body and crossed to a door in the far wall. “You just wait there, I’ll be back.”
Caroline closed her eyes. She could have wept. With every passing moment, her dread grew. Please God, keep her safe, she prayed to a deity she had never believed in. He hadn’t kept Lesley safe; deep in her heart, she knew he’d be no use to Fiona either.
But there was nothing else she could do.
The news from the team searching Gerard Coyne’s flat was distinctly encouraging. Steve began to feel slightly less anxious as he listened to the preliminary report from the officer in charge.
Underneath the bathroom carpet, they’d found an area of floorboarding that had been cut and glued to allow a section to be lifted clear of the rest. Inside the cavity, they had found a plastic zip lock bag stuffed full of newspaper cuttings. The stories covered every one of the rapes Terry had identified as being part of the cluster, as well as a couple of general pieces in North London free sheets about the prevalence of sexual attacks in the area. Even more significantly, there was a thick wedge of clippings relating to Susan Blanchard’s murder. There were no other crime reports in the bag.