Inferno (CSI Reilly Steel #2) (27 page)

R
eilly recalled a recent reading of the
Inferno
in which traitors were mentioned. A dishonest policeman would certainly fall under the description of a betrayer of community ties.

Once again the punishment was designed to fit the crime.

Kennedy grunted in frustration. ‘This guy really knows how to leave his audience hanging.’

‘He’s certainly a tease,’ Chris agreed.  ‘Knows just when to lead us on, then makes a cut just at the pay-off.’

The picture morphed into a shot of Alan Fitzpatrick’s face.

Looking at the background, the politician was in the barn where they had found him, which led Reilly to assume that Crowe and Coffey’s footage had been recorded there too. This was good; it meant that they had information on a primary crime scene for at least three murders.

Like the others Fitzpatrick was bound to a chair. A streak of black pitch ran down his face, the skin at the edges of the pitch appearing red and angry.

Reilly grimaced.  This one seemed more brutal – there was no doubt, Fitzpatrick looked scared, much more so than the other two had been. He blinked at the camera, clearly in pain from the burns on his face.  ‘I’ll say whatever you want ...’ He blinked, gave a little sob.  ‘Please don’t hurt me again.’

There was another edit, and when the picture returned, Fitzpatrick looked more composed, the black pitch had been removed from his face, and the tar cleared off it. ‘We’d been friends for a long time—’

‘Friends with who?’ Kennedy muttered, irritation evident in his voice. ‘Who the hell are these guys talking about?’

‘It certainly sounds as though they’re all referring to one person in particular,’ Chris agreed.

‘To be honest, he owed me.’ Despite the circumstances, Fitzpatrick was still  unable to keep a faint note of pride out of his voice. ‘Lots of people owe me ...’ 

He glanced up at the camera, as if quickly remembering where he was and what he was supposed to be doing.  ‘All it took was a quick phone call to be sure that we got the result we wanted.’  He gazed at the camera lens, gave a wan smile. ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine.  That’s the way it works, isn’t it?’

He was obviously discussing his abilities to wheel and deal, bend the rules, make things happen, Reilly mused.

‘It was almost a formality getting early release approved ...’

Early release. They had to be talking about a prisoner ... perhaps the perpetrator Reuben was referring to?

Once more the screen went black, but was soon filled with another caption card.

A
gain the screen went dark and all that could be heard was the sound of heavy, ragged breathing. Then Fitzpatrick’s voice cut in.

‘When you do these things, you never think about the consequences, how it might affect someone else ... I’m sorry.’  Fitzpatrick was sobbing, tripping over his words in fear and remorse.  ‘You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?  Please don’t kill me ...’

A final caption appeared:

T
he screen went black for a long time. Finally, the recording was finished.

Reilly gave a deep sigh – she was unsure how to feel.  They now knew for sure that were dealing with the same killer, one with a Dante fixation. They also had a better sense of the perp’s motive – he was a vigilante, someone who had been failed by the system and was dishing out his own form of justice in his own unique way. And clearly his chosen victims had somehow helped bring about this injustice.

The light mark she’d noticed on the ex-cop’s jacket deserved further investigation, but that could well turn out to be nothing. She felt deep frustration . The killer was, as Kennedy had observed, a tease – a clever, motivated, meticulous tease. She glanced across at the detectives. Their faces seemed to be registering the same emotions as her own.

‘Thoughts?’

Kennedy scowled.  ‘He’s a clever little fucker.’

‘Let’s include that in our next press conference, why don’t we?’ Chris said drily.

‘Might as well – nothing else we’re doing is getting us any closer to finding him.’  Kennedy stood up and stomped over to the far side of the room where the coffee pot stood steaming. ‘He holds all the cards, doesn’t he?’ He poured himself a cup and looked over at the others. ‘You lot want any?’

Both Chris and Reilly nodded, and Kennedy kept talking while he poured.  ‘So he tells us it’s all about justice – well, we’d kind of figured out that much.  He tells us there are two more to come – but how do we know who they are, or how to stop him?’

‘I hate to say it,’ Chris admitted, ‘but Knight is right. Until this guy fucks up, we’re still just pissing in the wind.’

Kennedy scowled. ‘And from where I’m standing, the wind is blowing straight towards us.’

B
y the time Reilly got home it was after eight, and she felt exhausted – worn out but at the same time wired too. She warmed some leftover pasta in the microwave, found a half-bottle of wine in the fridge, then collapsed in front of the TV to chill out ...

Some time after midnight she woke up to find the half-eaten bowl of pasta had slipped off her lap and spread itself across her couch. The TV was muttering away to itself. Reilly shivered – the heat had been off for a couple of hours, and the room was now bitterly cold. She scooped the leftover pasta back into the bowl with the spoon – cleaning the couch would have to wait until tomorrow – then headed straight for bed.

She slipped off her skirt then burrowed deep under the covers, still wearing her blouse. Trying not to shiver, she curled herself up in a fetal position and wrapped the covers all the way up around her neck, cocooning herself in a deep layer of goose down and Italian linen.

Little by little she began to warm up, and was able to start to relax her muscles. But though she was tired – exhausted, even – sleep refused to come. Her nap on the couch had done just enough to take the edge off of her tiredness, and now sleep was as difficult to catch as a butterfly on a summer’s day.

Every time she started to relax, her thoughts turned back to the investigation. The arrival of the video footage had given them a brief moment of optimism, but in the end it had produced more questions than answers.

Was the barn they could see in the background the same one where they had found Fitzpatrick, or was there another location – the region where the samples of horse feed and cooking sauce had come from?  And, more pertinently, who were the next two victims? And where and when would the killer strike next?

Reilly had sent the disk on to the tech guys to analyze the footage itself, and to focus in on the dust mark she’d spotted, but she didn’t expect much; the killer was skilled at covering his tracks, and giving them nothing.

In fact, the only thing they had so far that she suspected he didn’t mean to give them was the orange pencil, which dovetailed with Reuben’s suggestion that he was an artist, sketching each individual scene for his own enjoyment.

Was that something to follow up on? And if so, how? All they knew about the guy was that he most likely worked or lived in an area frequented by horses, could have a taste for spicy food and liked to sketch.

Her thoughts then shifted to last night’s conversation with Chris, and his surprising revelation about his ex.

He obviously still held a candle for Melanie too, and her forthcoming wedding was clearly the reason for his recent short temper.

Reilly was also somewhat taken aback by how much the idea bothered her.

She lay in the darkness, unsure what to think. She and Chris had some kind of ... connection, she was pretty sure about that; she just couldn’t tell if it was solely down to what had happened earlier this year, and the closeness they shared throughout that investigation, or was it something more, something deeper?

One thing for sure was that she trusted him, felt safe around him.

And as she’d learned last night, there was so much more going on behind the calm, easygoing façade he presented to the world.

Now Reilly wanted to find out much more, wanted to know exactly what made Chris Delaney tick, besides work, of course.

She smiled, thinking about Pete Kennedy and his beloved Josie. She didn’t think she was made for quite that kind of domestic bliss, but maybe a piece of something similar might be good?

It would definitely be nice to have someone to share things with, someone to have breakfast with in one of those nice little cafés down by the canal at weekends, or a stroll through St Stephen’s Green on a sunny afternoon. Someone who understood the demands of the job, but could help her forget about them too.

Reilly rolled over, feeling annoyed at herself for even going there. Who was she kidding? In this job, there was barely time for sleep, let alone play.

Notwithstanding that, Chris had never given the slightest indication that he was interested in anything more than the findings of Reilly’s electron microscope, and clearly he was still nursing a broken heart. So how had she gone from thinking of him in terms of a good working relationship to almost comparing them to an old married couple?

When Reilly woke the next morning, she didn’t feel at all refreshed.

For just those few short hours in front of the TV she had been able to relax and forget everything about work, the murders (and Chris), but with the dawn of a new day it all came rushing back to her, along with the nagging feeling that there was something about this investigation she was missing.

Down on her knees scrubbing the couch in the gray light of a December morning, she wrestled with the idea, but whatever it was that had momentarily surfaced, was once more hidden in the depths of her subconscious.

For a brief moment she considered talking to Reuben Knight about it – he was a qualified psychologist, after all – but the thought of him snooping about in her subconscious ...

The last thing Reilly wanted was his lascivious mind probing her darker thoughts. Sometimes, the way he looked at her, it was like he knew everything about her. Her family – what had happened with Jess ...

Arriving at the GFU headquarters sometime after eight, she flicked on the light in her office and almost jumped in surprise: the devil himself was sitting in her chair in the dark, gazing up at the ceiling with his dark, thoughtful eyes.

Reilly stared at him in surprise. ‘Goodness, Reuben, what are you doing?’

He looked entirely comfortable behind her desk, fingers steepled together, lips pursed in thought. ‘I find the dark is much more conducive to creative thinking, don’t you?’

Reilly dumped her handbag on the floor, and sat in one of the chairs facing the desk. If he wanted to play the mysterious profiler, she was quite happy to humor him. For all his eccentricities – and there were many – there was no denying that he’d come up with the goods. ‘Really? So has your nocturnal cogitation produced any radical breakthrough?’ she teased, mocking his own way with the English language.

Reuben was pensive.. ‘Breakthrough?  I wouldn’t go so far as to claim that, but I am rather impressed with our little serial killer.’  He gave a wicked smile. ‘He has quite the sense of style, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes, I suppose he does have his own distinctive way.’

Reuben leaned forward, his face full of enthusiasm. ‘I watched the video several times last night.  I’m so sorry I missed the premiere but I was otherwise engaged,’ he added mysteriously. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t help but notice how our man set us up, then knocked us down several times.’

‘Detective Kennedy made the same comment.’

Reuben arched his eyebrows. ‘Detective Dinosaur? You deduced that from his grunts?’

Reilly did her best to resist a smile and kept her cool, steady gaze on Reuben. 

‘Also,’ he added, leaning forward in a conspiratorial way, ‘did you catch the potential reference to the upper echelons of the force?’

She nodded. ‘I was going to ask you about that – do you think the killer noticed it?’

‘What you mean is, do I think that another lawman is at risk?  Perhaps one of the two remaining victims he mentioned?’

‘Yes, because if there’s even the slightest suspicion—’

Reuben grinned wickedly. ‘How delicious that would be ...’ Then his expression turned suddenly serious. ‘I don’t think it’s a serious threat, no. I think our unsub included it as another tease, possibly another wind-up to send us off in a different direction.’

Reilly thought for a moment. ‘So if the police are not a target then who are the remaining two? We’d have to assume that the final one will be what you talked about before – the perpetrator himself?’

Reuben nodded. ‘Once again your beguiling looks are matched by your sharp-witted mind.’  He gazed at his immaculately manicured fingernails, then back at Reilly. He shrugged. ‘Assuming that we believe him when he says that this is all about justice—’

‘Or rather a miscarriage of justice,’ Reilly clarified.

‘Indeed. And given the effort he’s gone to with the Dante setups, it seems unlikely he’s lying.’

She thought for a moment. ‘Well then, I suppose the one person we don’t have yet is a judge.’

Reuben clapped his hands together in mock applause. He stood suddenly, and walked quickly round to her side of the desk. Reilly felt his warm breath on the back of her neck.

She laughed uneasily. Although she liked Reuben, there was no doubt that being alone with him unnerved her.

‘Tell me, is that work ethic of yours innate – or borne from a relentless drive to cast out the demons in your past?’ he remarked.

Reilly whirled around to face him, her heart pounding. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Oh, come, my dear.’ Reuben looked disappointed. ‘I am a behaviourist, after all. And given your rather ... impenetrable demeanor, but very obvious psychological fragilities, you must have known I’d be tempted by your personnel file.’