Fiona stepped back and indicated that Duvall should enter. “Second left, the kitchen. We’ll talk in there.”
Duvall walked down the hall, taking it all in as she went. Good-quality wooden flooring, expensive oriental rugs, a couple of dramatic landscapes in oils on the walls. At the turn of the stairs, a man she recognized as Kit Martin appeared, looking curiously at her.
“It’s work, Kit,” Fiona called. “I need to have a word with DCI Duvall.”
“Can’t wait till morning, eh? No problem,” he said, turning and vanishing back upstairs.
“I saw on the news that you’ve got someone in custody,” Fiona said as she followed Duvall into the kitchen. “Please, have a seat.”
Duvall pulled out a chair and sat, crossing her legs precisely.
“I was making coffee. Would you like a cup?”
“Thank you.”
“Black, wasn’t it?” Fiona didn’t wait for a response, reaching for a second mug and filling it up from the cafetiere. She put milk in her own mug and brought them both to the table, where she settled down opposite Duvall. Carefully keeping her face blank to match the police officer’s, she said, “So, what brings you to my door?”
“As you said, we have someone in custody. We had little choice, given the very public nature of his confession,” Duvall said, an ironic note in her voice. “But the position is far from clear-cut. His name is Charles Redford and he’s admitting the killings, but he’s giving us nothing that isn’t already accessible to anyone who has studied newspaper reports and the Georgia Lester novel that the murder appears to be based on. A search of his flat produced nothing conclusive. He had copies of the three crucial books by Shand, Elias and Lester on his desk. There was a stack of newspapers containing stories about the three murders, but so far, nothing for forensics to have a serious go at.
“We have had one break, in that his phone bill shows that he made calls to both Shand and Lester’s numbers within the last three months. And an agent has given us a statement saying that Redford threatened her. She had been considering taking him on, but she’d decided against it. When he got her letter of rejection, he turned up at her office and barged past the receptionist. He got into her inner office and shouted abuse at her. He snatched a paper knife that was lying on the desk and waved it in front of her face, telling her she should be careful who she insulted. Then he threw the knife at the wall and stormed out.”
Fiona sipped her coffee and said nothing, merely raising her eyebrows slightly. Her earlier encounter with Duvall had left her with no desire to make this any easier for her.
Duvall cleared her throat and continued. “She says she decided not to call the police because she was flying out to New York the following morning and she didn’t have time for the quote, ‘hassle’.” Her expression was of grim disapproval. “We also took a look at his computer, but so far we haven’t found any trace of the threatening letters. I’m hopeful that the computer specialists will be able to find something when they examine the hard disk more closely, but I’m not prepared to pin my hopes to that.” She lifted her slim briefcase on to her lap and opened it. “I’ve brought with me copies of the letters and also a copy of the flyer he distributed at the press conference this afternoon.” She extracted a handful of transparent plastic envelopes, each of which contained a photocopied sheet of paper. She closed her briefcase, replaced it at her feet and placed the envelopes on the table. “I believe the language is distinctive enough to demonstrate they were all written by the same person. I intend to place these with a linguistics expert, in the hope we can demonstrate that.” Duvall met Fiona’s eyes. There was no help there, but she continued regardless. “What I hoped was that you could look at them from the point of view of a psychologist and tell me what you think.”
“What I think about what?”
Duvall pursed her lips. She hadn’t been expecting an easy ride. Open hostility she would have handled easily. But Fiona’s stubborn failure to give anything back was too similar to her own style for her to understand how to get round it. “Whether the same person wrote all these. Whether that person is capable of escalating from letters to action. Whether there are clues in this material to indicate a connection to the crimes. Whatever you find there, I’m interested in.”
Fiona held her mug in both hands and looked steadily at Duvall. “Do you think he’s the killer?”
Duvall pushed the bridge of her glasses against her nose. “Does that matter?”
“I’m curious. I have something at stake here, if you remember,” Fiona said coldly.
Duvall uncrossed her legs. “I’m not someone who operates on instinct. I work on evidence and experience. Based on that, I’d say he’s more likely the killer than not. He’s arrogant and overconfident. He’s vain, very vain. He’s convinced that he has been ripped off. I think he’s planned this very carefully, so that he’ll be charged and tried and found not guilty. Then he’ll finally get his chance to show off to his heart’s content. I think your partner is safe, Dr. Cameron.”
Fiona had heard what she needed to hear. “I’ll do it,” she said.
Duvall placed a hand on the envelopes. “There’s something else,” she said.
Fiona didn’t like the way Duvall worked. There was a cold calculation to everything the detective did and said that made her feel used. If it hadn’t been for her personal connection to this case, she would never have gone as far as she had. But she was irritated by the assumption that having gone this far, she could be pushed further. “It’s late, Chief Inspector,” she said, her voice cold. “Let’s cut to the chase.”
Duvall blinked. “I’m not here to waste time, Doctor. Yours, or mine. I’m well aware of your work on crime linkage. If we are to get this case into court, I believe it’s important that we make a convincing case for connecting the three murders. I’ve already spoken to my colleagues in Edinburgh and Ireland and they’re willing to let you review their evidence with a view to formulating a tenable theory that we can take to court that the three murders are the work of the same person.”
Fiona shook her head, an expression of disbelief on her face. “You took for granted that I would agree to this?” she said.
Duvall shook her head impatiently. “I hoped you would. If you say no, I’ll find someone else. But I’m told you’re the best. And, as you pointed out to me, you have had something personal at stake in this case.”
Fiona stared at Duvall, a mixture of reactions battling inside her. She was outraged at the woman’s presumption, angry that she had been out manoeuvred flattered in spite of herself, and intrigued as she always was by the prospect of a professional challenge. This wasn’t one she wanted to hand over to someone else, she admitted to herself. But the knowledge that Duvall would see her agreement as some kind of triumph smarted. “The circumstances of these murders are very different,” she said, determined not to give Duvall what she wanted right away. “It’s unlikely that I’m going to be able to come up with the sort of concrete connection that juries like.”
Duvall gave her small, tight smile. “We both believe that the same person killed Drew Shand, Jane Elias and Georgia Lester. We both know if that is the case, they have to have left their signature on each crime. You know how to read the invisible ink. I know how to translate that into hard evidence. Are you in or out?”
The two women stared at each other across the kitchen table. It was, Fiona knew, time to put up or shut up. And this case was too close to home for her to bear the thought of leaving it up to someone else. She reached out for the envelopes. “I’m in,” she said.
Charles Cavendish Redford leaned against the cold wall of his cell. He knew there was no point in trying to get some sleep. They’d be watching him through the peephole in the door and they’d simply wait till he nodded off, then wake him up to take him back to the interview room, hoping he’d be disorientated enough to let his guard drop and give them something only the killer could know. He wasn’t going to fall for that. The beauty of having read so many detective novels and true crime was that he knew all the tricks of the trade. He was going to stay awake and alert, fuelled by adrenaline. There was a strict time limit on how long they could keep him without charge. Whatever they did then would suit him fine. Charged or released, he’d still be within the plans he’d made so carefully.