Jigsaw Man (39 page)

‘Take off the cuffs,' he said softly. ‘They're hurting. I can't move like this. I
won't do anything, I promise.'

She stared at him. He looked different from how she remembered him. His face was
tanned, his hair streaked by the sun. She wondered where he had been living all this
time, how he had managed to hide himself away. The last time she had seen him was
in Ealing, a year earlier. He had taken her out for dinner and they had gone back
to his home afterwards for a drink. He had then tried to kill her. It was strange
to think she had once found him so attractive, but there was no shame in that. He
was skilful and infinitely manipulative. He knew exactly how to prey on weakness
and to seduce, and it wasn't
her fault or Claire's that they had both succumbed to
him. She hated him now more than she had ever thought it possible to hate anyone.

‘Unless you get up
right now
, I will kill you,' she said. ‘I mean it. I don't care
any longer what happens to me.'

Gradually, with difficulty, using his elbows and legs, he pushed himself up into
a sitting position and leaned back against the wall. He seemed disorientated, but
he was probably faking. She didn't care either way. Suddenly he gasped, bent over
and vomited.

‘Go on. Get up.' She kicked him again.

Coughing, he slowly tried to get to his feet but, as he did so, he lost his balance
and sank down onto the edge of the bed. ‘Christ, I feel sick. You really whacked
me hard, you know.' He sat there, shoulders hunched, looking strangely pale and pathetic.
Then, after a moment, he frowned and said, ‘You were waiting for me.'

‘Yes.'

‘How did you know?'

‘You wanted me to know. You couldn't help bragging, could you? Which is why you left
those clues.'

‘Clever little Sam.'

‘They were things only I would pick up on, so it was clear you were speaking to me.
What you wrote on her legs . . .
Eris quod sum
. What I am, you will be. It was meant
for me. It was a warning of what was to come.'

Coughing again, he nodded. ‘You're right. I was thinking of you all the time and
I did sort of want you to know. I wanted you to think of me too, to know that I was
coming for you. What other clue in particular did you pick up on?'

‘The food on the room service trolley. It was exactly what I had for dinner when
you took me out that night.'

‘It was a good dinner,' he said, with a faint smile. ‘I'm glad you remember. The
Krug was fucking expensive, but it was worth it.
You
were worth it. We could do it
again sometime.'

She shook her head, amazed. It was as if what he had done meant nothing, as though
the horror of it was locked away in some parallel universe and their relationship
was perfectly normal, like one-time lovers who had met up again by chance.

Slowly he eased himself off the bed and got to his feet.

She raised her arm and pointed the gun. ‘Stay right there or I'll shoot.'

‘Come on. You wouldn't shoot me, would you Sam?' He took an unsteady step towards
her. ‘Why would you want to do that?'

‘Don't move. I
will
shoot you.'

‘But then you'd be no better than me, would you?'

‘I don't care what I am any longer. And there's no point sending you to jail.'

‘But you do care, Sam. There's a part of you that still remembers that dinner, sitting
on the sofa together . . .'

‘Shut up. If you come any closer, I will kill you.'

He shook his head. ‘I don't think you've got the guts.'

She felt the trigger with her finger. She was so close to pressing it. Maybe he
was trying to provoke her. Perhaps he wanted her to kill him. Did it matter? What
mattered was what he had done to Claire and the others. The sad young girls and women
he had groomed and seduced and lured to their deaths. She could still remember some
of their names, their faces, the details of what he had done to them, the families
left broken in his wake. She had never killed anyone before. Never even been close
to it. But it was the only way. The gun felt light in her hand. All she had to do
was press the trigger, then it would all be over.

He was staring at her, smiling broadly in a lop-sided way, showing his perfect white
teeth. ‘You haven't got the fucking guts, have you Sam? Stop being a silly tart and
put the gun down.'

As he moved towards her, she closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened,
no pop, no recoil. She opened her eyes and saw the surprise in his. She relaxed her
forefinger, then squeezed the trigger again. Nothing. The slide was locked, the magazine
empty. He rushed at her, hitting her with his head and the full force of his body
weight, and together they fell to the floor.

Tartaglia punched the button for a large black coffee and waited while the machine
buzzed into action. He was in a corridor, not far from Simpson's room, Steele still
on her phone elsewhere, updating her superiors on the current state of play. As he
watched the cup slowly fill, he kept thinking about what Simpson had said.
I killed
the others, but not Jane
. It was all he had said, closing his eyes firmly afterwards
and letting go of Tartaglia's arm. But it was enough. The way Tartaglia saw things,
it hadn't made sense for Simpson to have murdered Jane Waterman and he was pleased
with the confirmation. Revenge had been Simpson's main motivation, followed by self-protection,
and her death didn't fit in with either. He was just wondering how he was going to
explain to Steele that he'd extracted an unofficial and unrecorded confession out
of Simpson with no witnesses present, let alone Simpson's solicitor, when he saw
her practically running along the corridor towards him. She wasn't a woman ever to
hurry and he wondered what was wrong.

‘Mark, there you are,' she called out. ‘I've just had a call from the lab. They've
processed the tapes from Claire Donovan's
face and they found DNA. You're not going
to believe this. It's Adam Zaleski's.'

He stared at her for a moment as he took in the information, reached automatically
for the cup, which was now full. Adam Zaleski, the serial killer known as The Bridegroom,
the man who had tried and failed to kill Sam Donovan a year ago, who had disappeared
afterwards without trace. He remembered her pinched, tired face the other night,
the strange look in her eyes as she tried to talk to him and her tears of anger and
frustration as he failed to understand. Her words rattled through his head in a
discontinuous fashion, something along the lines of
he's done this before, Mark .
. . you're just not looking at things straight . . .
She had said that the food on
the room service trolley was some sort of message – a message not meant for him,
but presumably for her. Of course, she was talking about Zaleski. He'd been incredibly
stupid not to understand. Then there was all that stuff she'd said about justice
and it all being crystal clear from where she was standing. She had tried to tell
him that night. She had wanted him to know, maybe wanted his help. He had just been
too wrapped up in his own thoughts to listen and he had dismissed it all as a flight
of fancy resulting from her mental state. He felt sick, his heart heavy. He had failed
her so badly.

‘She knew all along,' he said.

‘Who knew? What are you talking about?'

‘Sam knew it was Zaleski all along,' he mumbled, staring at the coffee cup that was
burning his fingers as he tried to block out Steele. He replayed again in his head
what Donovan had said about justice, or the lack of it:
Do you believe in justice,
Mark? . . . What do you think should happen to a man like this?

When he had asked her to explain her theory of what had
happened to Claire, she had
dismissed him. ‘There's no point. You won't do what's needed.' Jesus!

He looked up at Steele. ‘She's going to do something stupid.'

Donovan pushed Zaleski off her and sat up. He lay on his back, staring unfocussed
at the ceiling, lips moving as he mumbled something unintelligible, blood and saliva
bubbling from his mouth. The black, knurled grip of the knife stuck out of his chest
at right angles, blood still flowing freely from under the hilt. It was a Fairbairn-Sykes
combat knife, the stiletto blade seven inches long, designed for slipping easily
between the ribs and penetrating deep into the flesh of a human being. A former boyfriend
who had been into martial arts had given it to her. Up until tonight she had always
kept it in the desk drawer in her bedroom, using it for mundane tasks such as opening
letters or packages. Tonight, as a precaution, she had strapped it – in its sheath
– to her calf. The knife had certainly done its job well and, with his hands tied
behind him, even if Zaleski had had the energy to try, there was no danger of his
pulling it out. She could smell his vomit and his blood; her hands were slippery
with it. Blood had also soaked her T-shirt, which felt cold and wet against her skin.
It wouldn't be long, she thought. Then it would all be over.

She heard a footstep behind her and looked around. A very tall man stood in the doorway.
He was dressed head to toe in a black tracksuit, the hood pulled down low over his
face so she couldn't see his eyes.

‘Who the hell are you?' she asked faintly, too tired to move, let alone try and make
a run for it.

He pulled back the hood, revealing very short fair hair and a deeply tanned face.
‘Sorry. I didn't mean to give you a fright. My name's Peter. Peter Ward. Are you
OK?' The tone of his
voice was reassuring. As he spoke, his eyes turned to Zaleski
on the floor.

She nodded. She felt suddenly sick, brought her knees up to her chest and rested
her head on them. She started to shake.

Peter crouched down beside her and put a muscular arm around her. ‘Don't worry. Take
a deep breath. You're safe now.'

She breathed in and out, at first in shallow gasps, then slower and deeper. After
a minute or so, she started to feel calmer and leaned back against the wall.

‘You're not hurt?' he asked.

She shook her head. ‘It's his blood, not mine.'

‘Did you stab him with the knife?'

She nodded.

‘Bloody hell. You've done my job for me.'

He knelt down over Zaleski, felt his pulse, then peered at his face, pushing up each
eyelid in turn with his thumb. ‘There's no way he'll be coming back to trouble us
again.' He picked up the Glock from the floor and tucked it into his belt.

‘It's his gun,' she said, finding it difficult to speak.

‘I know. It was me who emptied the magazine.'

She looked up at the gaunt face and met a pair of strange, ice-blue eyes. They were
like the eyes of one of those sleek, grey dogs, she thought, although the expression
was kinder. ‘You know him?'

‘I don't know who he is, but I've been sharing a house with him for a few days and
keeping tabs on him in my spare time, with the help of some mates. I followed him
here tonight. I think he killed my uncle.' He held out a huge hand and gently lifted
her to her feet.

She unstrapped the knife's sheath from her calf and kicked off her trainers. At least
there would be no more deaths.

‘Did you know he'd be coming?' he asked, looking at the sheath.

‘I wasn't sure if it'd be tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day. But I knew it wouldn't
be long.'

‘You'd better give me that, then. Just say you had the knife lying around in your
room. It's self-defence, of course, and you and I know he had it coming in spades,
but I wouldn't want the police getting any silly ideas about premeditation, if you
get my drift. The law's a funny thing sometimes. Next thing you know, instead of
you being the victim, they'll be banging
you
to rights for his murder and his bloody
family will be suing for damages.'

She nodded and handed him the sheath, which he tucked away in his pocket. Although
grateful for his words of support, she was too exhausted to explain that she probably
knew the law better than he did. She had set a trap for Zaleski, using herself as
bait, leaving the ground floor window unlocked, knowing that he would find it. She
had armed herself with the knife and secreted other weapons about the house in case
she needed them and had waited for him to come. She could hardly argue spur of the
moment self-defence. She hadn't really thought about the consequences before, let
alone cared what happened to her. All that had mattered was to avenge Claire's murder
in whatever way she could and to make sure that Zaleski wouldn't escape to kill again.
She had also somehow wanted to make him feel fear and suffer for all the evil he
had done, but there had been no specific plan. In the end, it hadn't happened the
way she had imagined it. It was all over so quickly. The only consolation was the
look of surprise, followed by horror, in his eyes as she shoved the knife deep into
his flesh. It would have to do. Now that he was dead, she must pull herself together,
think things through carefully and get her story
straight. As far as she was concerned,
justice had been done. There was no point ending up in jail for his murder.

‘Are you going to be OK?' Peter asked.

‘Yes, I think so. What happened to your uncle?'

‘It's a long story, but he suddenly disappears off the radar out in Thailand, where
he's been living on and off. There were some odd emails, which we're sure didn't
come from him. Then a few weeks later this random bloke pops up in Uncle Kit's house
in London, behaving as if he owns it. As I said, I've been following him, trying
to find out who he was and what he was up to. He seemed to be interested in a house
in Brook Green . . .'