The Handshaker (32 page)

His first action was to check the BBC website, calling up the live news feeds where he found himself to be the hottest item on the North West bulletin.

He was often astonished by the speed at which these TV people could move. A check on the time confirmed that he had been arrested just over an hour and a half ago, and yet here they were outside Oaklands, their cameras pointing straight up the drive from Allington Lane, his car in plain view.

Then he remembered that they had been down the lane at Allington Woods’ visitor car park, filming the police activity there, and it would have been a move of less than half a mile once news of his arrest broke.

He looked again at the pictures. His brow creased. Curious. He checked his watch once more; 93 minutes since he was driven away. Where was she?

He took out the mobile phone and began to put together a text message. It took a long time. He was more accustomed to the QWERTY keyboard of his word processor rather than the multi-function keypad of a mobile, but once it was done, he sent it off and grunted in grim satisfaction. If he was right, his unknown nemesis, who he remained convinced was The Handshaker, had struck again, and this time it was with devastating audacity.

The Handshaker at the forefront of his mind, he shut down the Internet connection, opened up the text processor and began to make notes on what was known about the man and what could be inferred from that scant knowledge.

Hard facts were thin on the ground, but half an hour after he began, Croft was able to draw a single conclusion from them, and it was so simple, so astounding that he was surprised he had not thought of it sooner. The Handshaker was a Winridge resident. He had to be.

In order to hypnotise Sandra to such a depth that she would commit suicide, he needed access to her over a long period of time, possibly as long as the two years Croft himself had been working with her. It was possible, but unlikely, that The Handshaker could have had Sandra come to him, but that would involve the risk of neighbours spotting her, and given the publicity of the last two days, that would mean people coming forward. The Handshaker was too careful for that. Every move was a masterstroke of planning, so that meant he would visit Sandra, probably at night when Alf was working. Furthermore, a car parked outside the Lumbs’ house would cause comment, so he obviously made the journey on foot. Croft dismissed the possibility of him using public transport. A series of attacks on the drivers had ensured that the buses no longer drove into the estate after 7 p.m., terminating instead, at the Winridge Inn. The Handshaker would not risk being seen walking the streets from the pub. He was a Winridge resident who lived close to the Lumbs making it easy to keep an eye on them and nosy neighbours like Gerry Humphries.

Sandra Lumb’s house was also where Croft had probably dropped his pen, which The Handshaker must have found, kept and then planted under Joyce Dunn’s bed, and logically, that meant that the man was a client of Joyce’s and he knew that Croft knew her from years ago. How did he know? Because Joyce told him.

Croft’s mind drew the scenario instantly. While taking a post-coital cup of tea, an item about him had appeared on TV and Joyce had casually remarked, “He used to book me for big business thrashes, years ago.”

Like all professional prostitutes, Joyce was discreet, but that kind of post-sexual conviviality was one of her specialities. Croft would bet that it was reserved for clients who either booked her for the night or were well known to her. He doubted that a man like The Handshaker would pay for her all-night services. His visits to prostitutes would be a quick fix, designed to stave off his ingrained sadism, burn off the testosterone so that he could think and plan more clearly. All-night sessions were simply no use to him without the S&M angle, which Joyce would probably not allow. That meant he was a regular client, which once more pointed to a Winridge resident, one who would not park a car there, one who could disguise his appearance through dress and headwear, allaying the interest of the neighbours each time he visited her.

Satisfied that he had narrowed down The Handshaker’s location, he needed to try to pinpoint his possible identity and fortunately there was help available. If there was one person who knew more about The Handshaker than anyone else, it was reporter Carol Russell.

Accessing her website, Croft read through the various pages on cookery, crossword compilation, general interest articles, her early life as a reporter, until he came across the ones he wanted.

He spent most of the afternoon on those pages, without making much progress. There was no hint of The Handshaker’s identity, and no hint at the connection between the victims, and yet Croft knew that these women were not selected at random. They all had something in common with The Handshaker, which in the past had permitted him to hypnotise them so that he could later abuse them.

Carol had met victim number 4, Sheila Greenhalgh, when they were both attending bereavement counselling five years previously. Sheila had lost her mother and Carol had lost her father, both to cancer.

Croft’s hopes rose when he read that, but as he worked further through the account, neither Carol Russell nor Sheila Greenhalgh had seen Evelyn Kearns.

Aside from the mention of Sheila Greenhalgh, there was nothing to indicate that Carol Russell was any wiser than the law when it came to The Handshaker’s identity.

With the web pages still open, he allowed his mind to freewheel.

The victims were all hypnotised. Of that he was certain. They had come to their killer via counselling services. During his lengthy time with them, The Handshaker had implanted a post-hypnotic suggestion telling them that when he shook their hands and gave the command, they would fall instantly into a deep state and obey his instructions. When he eventually decided it was their time, he abducted them and kept them for anything up to four or five days. What did he do with them during that time? He screwed them, of course. Where did he keep them? At his home. Hidden in a rear room or possibly a cellar … no, not a cellar. If he was a Winridge resident – and Croft had no doubt that he was – he lived in a council house, like the Lumbs, like Gerry Humphries, and those places had no cellars.

Hypnosis was notoriously unreliable for acts such as rape. It could break down at any time without warning. Falling into natural sleep would be sufficient to end the hypnotic state, and when the victim woke, The Handshaker would find himself confronted with a frightened and furious, potentially violent woman, ready to begin screaming her head off. How did he deal with that? He had them bound and gagged, obviously, but what did he do about feeding them, letting them use the toilet?

Simple problems with simple answers to a competent hypnotist. Re-hypnotise them. Croft could do it, so could The Handshaker. A hypnotised volunteer or victim had little or no control over the things he or she did, and getting them to behave while they went to the lavatory, was child’s play. Rather like training a dog to cock its leg on the command ‘empty’.

The same was true of getting the women out of his car and into the house. It was no problem to the skilled hypnotist. A hypnotised subject was far tamer than the most subdued slave. They would do exactly as they were told, and once he had them in his lair, they would be so
physically
secured that they would never leave until they went to their deaths.

Even if they gradually learned what had been going on and resisted the hypnotism, there were other means of getting the victims to behave; drugs, threats of instant death, absolute control with ropes, leashes, even tasers.

How did he cater for callers such as the gas and electricity meter readers? They needed access only to the hall, not the upstairs, but the window cleaner would use a ladder. How did The Handshaker deal with that? He would keep the drapes drawn.

Croft congratulated himself on his deduction. Was there any house, possibly on Sussex Crescent, close to Alf and Sandra Lumb where one room had the curtains permanently closed?

With a sadness, Croft realised it was not the lead he hoped it might be. In this day and age, the fashion was for vertical blinds not curtains, and many people left those closed all day and night. Not counting them, there were tens, possibly hundreds of men and women on the estate who, like Alf Lumb, worked nights, and they would leave the curtains closed all day.

Croft concentrated on the patterns to the killings. Eight had been mirror images of one another, but the ninth and tenth… Why change his pattern when it came to Victoria Reid? Simple. The same reason he had encouraged Sandra to commit suicide. He wanted Victoria hanged at the back of Oaklands to draw Croft further into the mystery, have him accused of the crimes.

So where did Trish Sinclair and Joyce Dunn, victims 10 and 11 fit into this?

Croft was momentarily stumped. Neither was a standard Handshaker victim. Joyce, like Sandra, had not been abducted, but unlike Sandra, she had been assaulted and hanged at home. Why? To incriminate Croft, of course. Leaving the pen under the bed practically shouted the answer.

So what about Trish? Why had he not yet heard anything? She had been missing two days now, and neither he nor the law had had any note to indicate that she was dead. Could it be that she had not even been kidnapped, but…

Hope leapt into his heart, and he quelled it instantly. She was not laid in a hospital somewhere suffering from amnesia. She really was a Handshaker victim and she would not remain alive for much longer. The note yesterday had mentioned her. I pail a ricin scart could not be anyone but her.

Finished with Carol Russell’s website, Croft noticed a line of links at the bottom, along with the usual disclaimer that the author could not be held responsible for the content of other sites.

Several led to message boards dedicated to The Handshaker, and on one of those discussion forums, he found a post signed by
shark hen death,
which he spotted instantly as an anagram of The Handshaker. Further down he found another post signed
shade then hark,
another anagram, the same one as had been used on Wednesday’s note. When Croft checked the source addresses for both messages, he discovered they were from the Scarbeck Internet Cafe on Union Street, not far from the police station.

The two messages, the only two he could find after hours of fruitless searching, told Croft nothing. The particular message board was populated by surfers praising The Handshaker’s work, and Croft could visualise the type of men contributing to its 1000+ posts: loners, disaffected misogynists, sadists ... the list could go on.

The Handshaker’s own posts – if indeed they were from him – were short and to the point. One read, ‘ty’, chat room shorthand for ‘thank you’, in response to a previous message congratulating The Handshaker on the hanging of Aileen Collier, and the other simply said ‘amen’ after a contributor had posted a laudatory note urging The Handshaker to ‘keep up the good work until we have once more taught women where their place is’.

Croft could imagine The Handshaker’s gratification at such praise, and marvelled at the man’s supreme self-confidence and sheer bravado at surfing this site in a public place like an Internet cafe, and one that was less than half a mile from the police station.

To Croft, this spoke once more of a man who had led a blameless life and had now planned to demonstrate how easy it all was, while at the same time venting his sexual urges, repressed for god knows how many years. Even hanging Victoria Reid and murdering Joyce Dunn was a part of that plan, designed to have Croft arrested ... arrested but not convicted, for there would be plenty of forensic evidence to prove Croft innocent. So why have him arrested? Why would he need Croft out of the way ... to get to Oaklands? No point now that he had Trish. No. It was something else. A preparatory move, but preparation for what?

Croft smiled to himself. There was one thing The Handshaker could not have planned. Croft escaping. That could not possibly be a part of the script. Croft was a pillar of the establishment with a distinguished High Court Judge for a father, and such people did not break out of police custody. They did their duty and endured the interrogation.

Time to let The Handshaker know the score. He attacked the keyboard.

Hey handy, I fukt up ur plans, man. Meet me tonight at Sandie’s drum. Cliff or Tex.

44

The Handshaker switched off the TV and yawned. 6:50 p.m. and total darkness had descended on the town. It had been a busy day and one that did not exactly go to plan.

Getting rid of Evelyn Kearns and Kathleen Murphy, a couple of items he had prepared in contingency, both went all right, but hardly smoothly . . . well Evelyn’s killing was simple enough, but Kathleen . . . the damned trance broke down while he was screwing her and she put up a hell of a fight. Almost clawed his eye out. In the end, he dragged her from her first floor bed and threw her down the stairs. She must have broken her neck on the way down because when he checked, he could not detect a pulse. Just to make sure, he found a walking stick and clubbed her viciously on the head. He heard the satisfying crack of her skull and concluded that even if, by some miracle, she survived, she would never get her mind back.

So even though the killings had been scheduled as an
ad hoc
necessity somewhere along the line, they certainly did not go to plan.