The Christmas Killer (32 page)

Jake fumbled with his phone and keyed the numbers in with shaking fingers. He forced himself to focus and tried again. The phone rang.

‘Jake,’ said a voice he recognized as Father Ken’s. ‘Thank you for calling. Are you still at my house?’

‘Yes.’ Jake felt like a child – scared and weak.
Looking up at him, a man of authority
. He scanned the room, trying to focus on the here and now, not on the returning vision of a young Father Ken. The vision that was becoming clearer.

‘I’m sorry I can’t be there.’ The priest’s voice was calm. Soothing. ‘But I had to leave in a hurry. I’m sure you understand.’

‘Yes,’ Jake said again. He wanted to say more, but nothing would come.

‘You sound shaken, Jake. Why don’t you help yourself to a drop? The bottle’s by the sink.’

Jake looked and saw a bottle of Scotch.

‘I … I … I need to speak to you, Father,’ he said.

‘Yes. You have questions. I’ll do my very best to answer them for you.’

Jake sat down. Normally he planned an interrogation, but there was no time for that now, and he had a feeling that all of his usual strategies would be useless against Father Ken.

‘You killed them, didn’t you?’ he simply asked.

‘You’ll have to be more specific, Jake. Who did I kill?’

‘The skeletons we found under the coffins in the graveyard.’

‘Yes, I killed them.’

He’d found him. ‘How many?’

‘Mine is a select flock. You have to be a sinner to join. And you have to confess fully and sincerely to leave.’

It was all about the confessions. Jake blinked against the montage in his mind – the faces of Marcia Lamb and Candy in the awful archaic torture device, screaming for mercy and absolution, still clinging to the hope that the madman who was doing this would let them go, if they just confessed.

‘They all confessed, Jake,’ said Father Ken, his voice as level. ‘In the end. And they all went to meet their maker with their sins absolved.’

The calmness of the priest’s voice did something to puncture the numbness in Jake. So what if he was a man of the cloth? Jake had heard this type of tone on other killers. He was a psychopath, deranged. No better than any other murderer. And when he reminded himself of this, Jake felt a surge of strength in his body – a surge of strength that felt vaguely like the cockiness he
would present to his mother as a teenager when he looked to challenge her authority.

‘What’s murder, if not a sin, Father?’ he asked. ‘You have a different rulebook than the rest of us, huh?’

‘It was his work. I am just his servant.’

Jake was getting frustrated. ‘Will you kill again?’

‘If the Lord wills it.’

Jake needed to establish himself as the dominant one in the conversation, the one with the status. Ask the questions, get the answers. But he couldn’t.

‘Something on your mind, Detective? You always did have a habit of going off into your own little world when things didn’t go your way.’

Jake was helpless to stop the child-like voice slipping past his lips. ‘Father, do you know me?’

‘Yes. I knew your mother too.’

‘How?’ asked Jake. ‘I … I don’t understand how it’s possible. We’d never been to Littleton until I transferred here.’

The priest made a noise that was halfway between a sigh and a laugh. ‘My oh my, you really don’t remember anything, do you?’

Jake shook his head, forgetting that the priest couldn’t see him.

‘We’re old friends … aren’t we, Jeanette?’

Jake sprang up from the chair, feeling his heart somewhere near his throat. ‘Where’s my mother?’

‘Here with me.’

Jake’s head started to spin. He paced up and down
the small kitchen, but there was no air in his lungs to speak.

‘She’s safe … for now. But be warned: no cops, no APB, no telling your partner. Let’s keep this … in the family.’

‘Where are—’

The line went dead before Jake could finish his question.

Jake hit the brakes hard and was thrown forward against the steering wheel as he brought the car to a stop outside his house. He had driven straight home. There was only one thing he could cling on to: maybe Father Ken was bluffing.

But something about the way that the old priest had said ‘in the family’ sent a cold chill through Jake’s gut that doused even the fire of the ulcer.

He scrambled out of the car without even killing the engine. He shoved the door closed. Long strides ate up the path, and he threw open his front door.

In the living room Leigh was half-asleep on the sofa, in a white bathrobe. She jumped up as he charged inside. For a moment she was wide-eyed, obviously fearing they were being robbed. But her face softened when she saw who it was.

‘Jake, hi.’ Her soft expression quickly became concerned again. ‘Are you all right?’

He grabbed her by the elbows. ‘My mother – where is she?’

‘Didn’t you get my messages? I assumed you were out looking for her. She’s gone walk—’

‘Shit.’ He ran from the room into the hall, checking the coat stand. Her coat was still there. He ran up the stairs. Across the corridor the baby began to howl. Jake pushed open his mom’s door and checked her room. Hat and scarf were on the dresser. Her purse was missing. Quickly he threw open drawers, tossing the contents on the floor. No purse anywhere. Why had she taken it? Was she expecting to be picked up?

You bastard. You told her you would come for her. You set it all up.

Leigh had followed him up the stairs.

‘It’s OK, Jake. She’s done this before. You’ll find her.’

He didn’t answer; he kept tearing the room apart. The purse became more important with every second that passed. If she had taken it, that meant she had gone voluntarily, and the question was, why? If she hadn’t taken it, she had been abducted, and the question was, how?

‘Where the fuck is it?’ he muttered.

‘Jake, you’re scaring me,’ said Leigh, her voice trembling. ‘You’re not going to find her in the drawers. You need to get back out in the car and take a ride around town, like before. She’ll be OK.’

‘She’ll be dead,’ he muttered. He turned to Leigh. ‘Pack. Now.’ He snapped it out like an order, and he could see the shocked look on her face. But there was no time.

‘Do it,’ he repeated.

‘Jake, I’m not going to leave the house on Christmas Eve.’

‘Stop arguing and do what I tell you! For once, Leigh, just do—’

She cowered. ‘Jake,’ she pleaded, ‘talk to me!’

‘Grab what you can; I’ll get the kids.’

He ran from the room into their own bedroom, picked up the screaming baby and shoved him into Leigh’s arms.

‘I’ll pack his clothes. We’ll buy nappies on the way.’

Leigh put Jakey back down in his cot and stood in front of Jake. She hit him hard in the chest. ‘On the way
where
?’

By now Faith had woken up, and stood in the doorway, staring at her parents. Her eyes were sleepy at first, but her anxiety cleared the fog away.

‘Faith, you have five minutes to get some stuff together,’ Jake told her.

‘What have I done now?’ she whined.

‘Just
do it
.’

The shortness of his tone brought a wet gasp from his daughter. She lingered in the doorway as stunned as if he had slapped her.

He turned to Leigh. He bent forward and whispered, so that Faith wouldn’t hear, ‘The killer’s got my mother.’

Leigh looked at him, her eyes narrowing for a fraction
of a second before she saw that he was neither joking nor crazy. Her face went white. He had seen this look before, several times after Faith was born. When things got too much for her, Leigh got angry. Destructive. And Jake could not afford that right now. He had to keep Leigh busy, focused. He threw a bag on the bed. ‘Please, baby, start packing.’

Leigh, in a daze, began to fill the bag. He watched her for a moment, but she was moving too slowly and throwing the wrong things into the bag.

‘Forget it,’ he said, pulling the bag away from her. ‘Buy whatever you need. Get dressed. I’ll get Faith. You’re leaving right now.’

Ten minutes later Leigh was in the driver’s seat of her car, with Faith beside her. Jake’s little girl was pale and wide-eyed, her voice shaking as she asked, over and over again, ‘But where are we going?
Why
are we going?’ Her voice was drowned out by the screams of Jakey, strapped into his car seat in the back.

Jake barely heard either of them. He opened his wallet and took out all the cash he had.

‘Drive out of town,’ he told Leigh, ‘as far as you can go, and get a motel for the night. Don’t tell me where. In the morning I’ll call you. The cash should get you through until then. This will all be over in the morning.’

Jake saw Faith looking from parent to parent, her eyes getting wider and wider, and her breathing a
series of strangled whimpers. He did his best to look confident. ‘I’m just playing safe, that’s all. Probably overreacting … Silly dad!’

Leigh nodded, trying to mirror his bravery for Faith. ‘I’ll call—’

‘No phones. Keep it switched off, and only turn it on once an hour, for two minutes at most.’

He bent and took her face in his hands, kissing her deeply.

‘I love you,’ she told him.

‘I love you too.’

He watched the car screech off, not moving until they were out of sight. He was just walking back inside when his mobile phone buzzed. Jake answered, knowing whose voice he would hear.

‘I have a job for you.’

Jake did his best to sound in command. ‘I’m listening.’

‘You know the Chase Asylum?’

What did the Chase Asylum have to do with anything? The throbbing in Jake’s head was beating like a drum now as his mind opened to a whole new world of horror. Was Father Ken connected to the dead children as well?

Just how high was this madman’s body count?

‘Yes,’ Jake said.

‘There’s something in the asylum that the builders and the FBI haven’t found yet,’ said Father Ken. ‘It’s your job to get it for me. Tonight.’

‘Did you kill those children?’ Jake asked.

‘Take a flashlight. Call this number as soon as you arrive. And remember, no police.’

‘Can I speak to my—’

But the line had gone dead.

It took Jake until well past midnight to reach Springfield and another fifteen minutes to find the Chase Asylum on the outskirts of the town. He killed the headlights on the car and cruised the last quarter-mile, pulling silently to the kerb a hundred yards short of the gate of the asylum.

The streets were silent and still, as they no doubt had been every previous Christmas Day. But this year it was different. And only Jake knew
how
different.

He got out and walked a bit closer, sticking to the shadows. After twenty minutes’ observation he was happy the site was deserted. The FBI’s excavation team obviously got Christmas off. That was the difference with a cold case; a few more days wouldn’t make a difference. There was most likely a security guard around somewhere, watching the scene – for double time, probably – but Jake couldn’t see him.

Getting into the grounds of the Chase Asylum was easy. Much of the surrounding wall was already down, replaced with wire fencing. Jake walked along the wall until he found a gap where the fencing was loose and
clambered through. He looked across fifty yards of overgrown lawn towards the dark hulk of the building. He stayed low and watched. He saw nothing, and heard nothing. The only thing he felt was the sharp sting of the night air nipping his cheeks, the gentle patter of snow as it fell upon his shoulders.

He made his way towards the building. The night sky was clouded, providing great cover. When the moon broke through Jake dropped to the ground. The moon stayed out for more than five minutes, and he lay still, watching. He was glad he did as he doubted he would have spotted the flashlight in one of the upstairs windows otherwise. Whoever held it was moving. Jake followed its progress along the line of windows, and then it disappeared. A few minutes later the flashlight appeared in a downstairs window. It was the guard doing his round.

The moon concealed again, Jake resumed his approach, reaching the wall of the building. He took his time. He slowly circled the building in a clockwise direction, looking for doors or open windows. The obvious entry point was the front door, but there was a low light just inside it where Jake assumed the guard had his work station. He risked a quick look through a nearby window. He could see a desk and some monitors showing the gardens. None of the cameras seemed to cover the asylum interior. There was a radio on the watchman’s table cackling out an old rock and roll track Jake thought he recognized.

Jake squatted behind a bush and waited. He knew enough guys in security – mostly retired cops – to know how they worked their shifts. The likelihood was, this guy would do a round, and then he’d sit at his desk for thirty minutes before doing his next one. From where Jake squatted he had a clear view of the table where the radio was playing. Six minutes later, he saw the bobbing flashlight coming down a corridor. The security guard sat down at his table, took out a Thermos and poured himself a coffee.

Jake inched along the wall to the corner of the asylum. He had about thirty minutes.

He ran round the side of the building, hugging the walls to avoid the cameras, until he was as far from the main entrance as he could get. He found a window that wasn’t secured from the inside, and slowly pried it open. There was a creak, but he hoped he was far enough away that the security guard’s radio would drown the small noise.

Once inside, Jake took out his torch and risked a quick scan of his immediate surroundings. It looked like a classroom. There were finger paintings and posters on the wall still. Too much work for the demolition team to bother removing them, so they would all be swept away with the rubble. He walked to the wall and took a quick look at the paintings. Some were ordinary scenes you’d see in any classroom – kids outside perfect detached houses, with trees in the yard – but a high proportion were quite disturbing: images of vicious
dogs, monsters, children running from a shadowy figure. All of them seemed to be rendered in shades of angry reds and blacks. The products of damaged young minds.

He stepped into the corridor, checking up and down before he walked on. With its military-style grey and cream walls and high ceiling, this corridor looked eerily familiar to him.

Why?

He took out his mobile and texted the priest’s number.

I’m in. Where to?

Moments later the phone lit up.

The day ward. Know it?

Somehow, Jake
did
know it. He stopped thinking and moved automatically, turning right at the classroom door. He ignored the first intersection but at the next went left. He was using a muscle memory he never knew he had. Everything felt familiar except for the fact that the lights were off. Jake found he could picture these halls in harsh electric light.

This new hallway was wider than the last and led to a double door at the end. Jake walked to the double door. He pushed it open and stepped into the day ward.

He felt sick. It was empty now, just empty spaces where the beds had once been. But it was exactly how Jake had pictured it. Something drew him to the wall along the left, halfway along. He looked at the wall, covered with graffiti.

There it was:
BRUCE WUZ HERE
.

His legs went weak and he stopped breathing. ‘Bruce’ again. And now he knew …

How
did he know?

When did I come here?
he asked himself over and over again.

He reached out and ran his fingers over the rough letters, then he leaned against the wall and tried to bring his mind under control. He called the priest.

Father Ken answered first ring. ‘I’m here,’ Jake whispered.

‘Good. Go down to the nurses’ station. It’s—’

‘I know where it is.’

‘Of course you do …’ He heard a smile in Father Ken’s voice.

Jake walked to the far end of the room, where a built-in desk had not yet been removed. From what he had seen of the hospital so far, that seemed to be the pattern: a lot of the removable stuff had been taken, while the fittings were going down with the building. It was probably cheaper that way.

‘Look up at the ceiling.’

Jake looked up and saw the ceiling – low, only about three feet above his head – was covered with dirty white plastic tiles.

‘Start at the corner near the door and count four tiles along the long wall, then three in. That tile is loose.’

Keeping the phone to his ear, Jake climbed on to the desk and reached up with his free hand. He found the
tile and pushed. A choking cloud of dust fell on him, and he struggled not to sneeze.

‘Good,’ said the priest. ‘You should find it there.’

Jake reached his hand up into the space and felt around. His fingers met a few wires, cobwebs, dead flies and lots of dust. Then he felt something hard. It was small and moved when he touched it. He reached further in and removed the object. He turned on the torch to illuminate his find.

It was a long kitchen knife, solid steel. Some of the rivets on the handle had rusted with age, and the blade could have done with a good clean. But otherwise it was perfect. He looked closely at the wooden handle. There were dark stains that flaked off when he rubbed them. Blood. Was this one of the knives Father Ken had used in his killing spree?

No. Father Ken wasn’t the type to use a knife.

Then why would he want it? It was well hidden and would probably have been buried under tons of rubble once the building came down.

‘I’ve found the knife,’ he said. ‘I presume that’s what you want?’

‘Yes. You’ve done well.’

‘Do you want me to get rid of it?’

‘Oh no,’ said the priest. ‘I want you to keep it safe, just like I’m keeping your mother.’

Then the line went dead.

Jake stared dumbly at the phone for several seconds before shoving it into his trouser pocket. He wished he
could see the priest’s plan in the same way he could see everything else, but where Father Ken was concerned he could make out nothing. Nothing at all.

And Jake was getting a strong sense of certainty that this place, this building, had something to do with that mental block.