The Thirteenth Coffin (24 page)

When the grey moods hit, all the smells that the thorazitol had subdued and kept at bay over the past days, real or induced by his synaesthesia, would come flooding back in: a bacon and egg roll on the train journey to Edinburgh, the people nearby and passing in the carriage, the recent meetings, interviews and forensics examinations – primrose, asphalt, vinegar, mould overlaid with cologne, sour cream, burnt toffee, formaldehyde – and he’d be gripped by stomach cramps and nausea, his senses reeling.

He’d find himself desperately reaching for the thorazitol bottle again, but the dilemma was the same each time: one pill would calm the effects for half a day or more, and then they might return more intensely. But if he took two pills or more, while that would work for far longer, he risked tipping over the edge and suffering hallucinations, which were equally daunting. Also, with too many pills he’d feel curiously numb to
most sensations, not just the smells assaulting his synapses from synaesthesia, and would feel he could hardly function at any level. Not ideal in many a circumstance, but particularly not in the middle of an investigation.

So when the mood gripped Lapslie not long after returning to his home in Saffron Walden to catch up on paperwork, he looked long and hard at the thorazitol bottle before finally taking one pill. And after nearly an hour, just as he was starting to think about preparing dinner – wondering in fact if he’d be able to stomach any – he felt the sharper edges of the multitude of tastes subside. His overall senses felt slightly numbed too, but with luck that effect would also subside over the coming hours. And through that faint haze, he was surprised to hear a car pull up outside his house.

He walked to the front door and opened it. Bradbury was standing there, a broad grin across her face.

‘You look like the cat that’s got the cream.’

Bradbury looked into his face. ‘And you look like you’ve lost a pound and found sixpence.’

‘I always do. It’s the way my face naturally falls.’ He
didn’t feel inclined to go into detail about having just topped up on his thorazitol. ‘Come in.’

Lapslie showed Bradbury into the sitting room and sat opposite her. ‘So what’s up?’

Bradbury pushed herself to the edge of her seat. ‘I’ve found the next victim, the teacher.’

‘Alive or dead?’ Lapslie asked, incredulous.

‘Alive.’

‘How did you manage to make that link?’

‘From a news story on local TV about a woman who had been attacked in her own home. The report said she was the wife of a local teacher. It just stuck in my mind, so I gave Stuart Lewins a call . . .’

‘He still on the job?’

‘He retires next year. Anyway, I asked him about it, and he said it was a little odd. The woman was knocked out, stripped naked, but not assaulted. Nothing was stolen from the house and there was no sign of a break-in. He thought the man might have been disturbed and legged it. I wasn’t so sure.’

Lapslie fought to shake off the remnants of his thorazitol haze, to focus. ‘Why not?’

‘Well, Lewins said there was no sign of a break-in,
so my guess is he picked the locks. All the doors were double-locked with the latest Chubb model and a complicated Yale. Your average burglar isn’t going to get past them, but chummy did.’

Lapslie nodded. ‘Very sharp thinking, but I’m still not clear on how you made the link.’

‘I went to see the girl that was assaulted. She wasn’t much help and couldn’t remember that much. Then her husband turned up—’

‘The teacher?’

‘Yes, and he told me a gown he had at school had been vandalized and a large section cut out.’

‘Has he still got the gown?’ Lapslie asked, feeling his heart race.

Bradbury shook her head. ‘No, threw it away. Well you would, wouldn’t you?’

‘I suppose – but a shame. So where is he now?’

‘I’ve sent two of the DCs to keep an eye on him until you decide what you want to do.’

Some clarity finally filtered through. ‘The answer is: nothing.’ Bradbury looked taken aback. ‘Not yet, anyway. I want him watched very closely. I don’t want him exposed to unnecessary danger – but this might just be what we needed.’

‘Use him as a sort of decoy?’

Lapslie nodded. ‘Yes. It might draw our man out, especially if he doesn’t know we’re on to him.’

‘Let’s not forget there is a doll of you too.’

‘The killer also knows that I know, and that I will be ready for him. Or maybe he’s trying to set us on edge, make me think more about my own safety than about the case. We know he’s a clever bugger.’

‘If he’s that clever, wouldn’t it be better to put Turner into protective custody for a while?’ Bradbury shrugged. ‘Or at least forewarn him of our plans, get his approval?’

‘Under normal circumstances, yes. But in this case it would just put him on his guard, make him act unnaturally. Put his life more at risk.’

‘But he might shoot Turner from a distance, as he did with Leslie Petersen, and how would we prevent him?’

‘We’ll keep a close eye on him, don’t worry. I’ll even get Rouse to authorize an armed unit to monitor him twenty-four seven.’

‘Some reassurance, I suppose.’

‘If we don’t do something like this, the killer will get to Turner eventually in any case. We can’t keep him in protective custody indefinitely, nor offer this sort of
armed back-up long-term. With a short-term concentrated plan, we can.’

Lapslie could tell from Bradbury’s expression that she still harboured strong doubts, and he questioned for a moment whether his thorazitol top-up might have skewed his own rational thinking: was he doing the right thing, or in his desperation to catch the killer was he putting an innocent man’s life at risk?

*

How the hell they’d got on to him so fast he didn’t know. Perhaps he should have raped the Teacher’s wife to create a reason for him having been in the house. Maybe stolen the few things they had that were worth anything. The police didn’t have a record of his DNA and were very unlikely ever to get one, so he would have been relatively safe. He could have chucked what he had stolen into the nearest river. As for fibres, well, he could have burnt his clothes as soon as he got back. Failing to plan was all very well until the unexpected happened, then even the best-laid plans turned to shit.

He was getting too old for this. If it wasn’t for the constant pressure of knowing that God expected him to complete his mission, he would have given up long ago. For every step forward, there seemed to be a step backwards. He couldn’t believe it when he saw Parkin and Pearce parked ‘discreetly’ outside the
school. Good job he had seen them before they saw him. He knew Lapslie was good, but he’d been hoping that the man’s neurological condition would be holding him back, making him careless. That obviously wasn’t the case: Lapslie had worked out what he had done with the Major, and now Lapslie had found the Teacher before he had a chance to kill him. Not even seeing his own doll had thrown him.

Perhaps he should have killed Lapslie first, or certainly earlier; then life would have been a lot easier. But the police always investigated the death of one of their own much more assiduously than with a member of the public. They never would have given up, and even had he faked an accident, that extra vigilance might have unearthed his modus operandi.

Still, he mused, what was done was done, and he had to deal with the situation as it was. First, Lapslie had obviously decided not to hide the Teacher in an effort to try and draw him out. Well that wasn’t going to happen. He could try and pick him off from a distance, but his guess was that Lapslie would have an armed unit standing by, and this time he might not get away. Especially if the police had air support ready to move in. No, he would have to be a lot cleverer than that. He already had a plan, and if it worked both Lapslie and the Teacher would come to him and then it would be ended. Finally ended.

8 August 2013

Dr Robert Cann wondered whether, at forty-one years of age, he wasn’t getting a bit too old for the hard climbs like this.

That said, climbing the Naples Needle had always been his dream. It was, after all, the birthplace of rock climbing, and it should be attempted by every climber worth his salt before they retired to talk of peaks they had climbed and, more importantly, failed to climb. Like fishermen talking about the ‘giant ones’ that got away.

This had to be his last climb. He dipped his fingers into the chalk bag, grabbed the edge of an overhanging rock and pulled himself upwards. He could feel his entire body strain against the effort as he searched for a foothold. He would remember this climb for the rest of his life, not just because he had wanted to do it for so long, but because he knew that for weeks, if not months, his body would remind him of it in various subtle and not so subtle ways.

He looked up, towards the peak. He still had a good way to go, but another hour or so should see him there. Then he could sit on the top and be master of all he surveyed.

He looked back across the Lakes. If he wasn’t going to climb again then he knew he would have to find something to do. Walking would probably be the thing. The Lakes had some wonderful walks, both long and short. He would try some of those out. Forty-one wasn’t that old, he knew, not these days, but he also knew he had to keep himself fit. It wasn’t that he was scared of dying, but he had three children and he didn’t want to put them through the same pain that he had felt when his own father had died too early. Everyone has to go through it in the end, but he would try to put the day off as long as possible. The older you got, the less the hurt seemed to be.

Checking his safety harness, he began to make his final ascent.

A couple of big pushes and he would be there. He had brought a camera and small collapsible tripod with him, to record the extraordinary moment. His father had photographed him, aged ten, after his very first climb; now he was going to photograph his very last. He would have to get them framed together.

Finding a good foothold, he pushed hard. As he did there
was an odd sound, like something hitting the rock with a hammer. All of a sudden his rope went slack. He grabbed wildly at the rock face, searching for something to hold on to, but there was nothing. Suddenly he was falling backwards. He cried out involuntarily and began to flap his arms as if he could somehow slow himself down. The summit of the Needle suddenly seemed to be a long way off, and getting further away with every moment. He didn’t think, and he didn’t see his life flash before him. The horror of his situation erased everything from his brain except the sheer terror of knowing that in a few moments he was going to be dead.

As his body hit a sloping section of scree, his skull fractured and over half the bones in his body broke. He died at once: a red flash, and then nothing. Nothing ever again.

*

Lapslie knew his next visit would have to be to his old friend Jane Catherall.

He pulled into the mortuary car park and made his way straight to her office. She knew he was coming, but still he knocked. Her familiar voice came back: ‘Come in, Mark.’

He opened the door. Catherall was sitting at her desk, writing some report. Longhand, with a fountain pen, of course. Without a word, she used it to point to the chair
on the opposite side of the desk. Lapslie sat, like a well-trained dog.

After a few moments she looked up. ‘So the accident-murder theory was proven right then?’

Lapslie nodded. ‘Yes. That’s what I’ve come to see you about.’

‘I see. So how can I help?’

‘There are a number of links yet to fully make,’ Lapslie said, ‘but we are now positive that a number of murders have been committed, and made to look like accidents. We have eleven dolls already inside their coffins, and two still outside. One is a teacher whom we think we have just identified, still alive, and the other is, well, me.’

Dr Catherall stared at Lapslie, her eyes wide. ‘
You
are the thirteenth doll?
You
are to go in the thirteenth coffin?’

He nodded. ‘The doll has my police number on its uniform, and the uniform’s made out of pieces of one of mine. There’s no mistake, but I’ve told Bradbury to keep it to herself. There’s no point confusing the issue by telling everyone. We have a murderer to catch, and a teacher to save.’ He paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts. ‘We also know that three of the people represented by the dolls were definitely murdered. Our task now is to determine whom the rest were.’

Lapslie handed Catherall a large A4 envelope.

‘Inside are photos of the remaining dolls. Each doll seems to represent a profession or the hobby the victim was involved in at the time of their deaths . . .’

‘And you want me to check through the files of the last so many years to see if anyone within those professions has died unexpectedly or in an accident. Yes?’

Lapslie nodded. ‘Yes. And one more thing.’

She looked at him quizzically. ‘If we find any of them I’d like you to arrange to have them disinterred and redo post-mortems on them.’

She nodded soberly. ‘I don’t have a problem with that. Don’t forget old Professor Gilbert was here before me. He might well have done the original PMs, and he wasn’t one for making mistakes.’

Lapslie shook his head. ‘He was, towards the end of his career. We just covered them up.’

Catherall looked surprised. ‘Would you do the same for me?’

Lapslie smiled broadly. ‘Let’s hope I won’t have to.’

Catherall threw the envelope Lapslie had given her down on her desk and looked across at him. ‘Very well: I’ll do the checks as quickly as I can. Probably by the end of the week.’

‘Thanks. I appreciate that.’

‘I’m not doing it for you. I’d like this twisted maniac caught as well.’

*

Bradbury was working in the office when DCs Parkin and Pearce came in. They both seemed puffed out with importance.

‘You two are back early. Thought you would be on the golf course by now.’