Dead in Time (The Sara Jones Cycle Book 1) Read online

  The detective nodded once. ‘We’ve already come to that conclusion. Aside from a few troublemakers, racist incidents are uncommon around here. Surprisingly, Aberystwyth has quite a cosmopolitan attitude to outsiders.’

  Sara smiled. Why was that surprising? Years of experience had given Jamie the ability to speak with certainty about things he had only just learned. Sara knew that there was no real arrogance in it: it was an occupational hazard, and he did it unconsciously.

  ‘The second victim was Dan Williams,’ Jamie said, swiping the screen to get past Mr Kapadia to another collection of images. ‘Murdered four days later, on the evening of July twelfth. He was an English builder, working on a site next to the harbour. He’d hired a small holiday cottage in Llanfarian, just south of here.’

  The photo Jamie had chosen showed a well-furnished living room. The body could be seen in the far corner, lying against an ivory-white wall, on beige carpet stained maroon with drying blood.

  ‘No sign of forced entry. The offender probably talked his way into the house. It looks like he grabbed Mr Williams when his back was turned, and slashed his throat with one clean cut. Mr Williams stumbled forward, hitting his head on the fireplace.’ Jamie rifled through the images as he said, ‘The assailant waited until he had bled to death, turned him over ... and did this.’

  In the photo Jamie had selected, the focus was on the groin. Sara raised her eyebrows speculatively: the man’s penis had been severed with a single clean slice, and the skin of the scrotum had also been peeled away. The left testicle dangled from the body, still attached to the spermatic cord.

  ‘There’s very little blood,’ she murmured. ‘Has the pathologist confirmed that this happened after death?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jamie said. ‘There’s a shot of the severed penis, if you’d like to see it.’

  ‘Er, no thanks,’ she replied ‘I think I can imagine it.’

  Jamie nodded agreeably and covered the screen. ‘So,’ he asked, ‘any thoughts?’

  Sara straightened her back, levelled her shoulders, and took a breath. ‘Let’s start with the murders themselves,’ she said. ‘He killed each of them quickly with one clean slash to the throat. That’s significant, because it doesn’t fit the traditional profile of a serial killer.’

  Jamie raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Sara knew that such a simplistic exercise in profiling came second-nature to him, and wondered why he was making her start from square one.

  ‘Serial killers,’ she continued, ‘are after control. If this one were typical, he’d want to dominate his victims. He’d keep them alive, and in terror, for as long as possible, and then kill them as slowly as he could. But this killer wasn’t interested in toying with either man. He didn’t even want to cause them physical suffering. It appears he just wanted them dead.’

  She stared into Jamie’s green eyes, and saw a gleam of admiration. She lowered her gaze, and stumbled slightly on her words. ‘Moving on to the time frame ... serial killers also follow a certain cycle. You’d think this guy’s need to kill would grow until it became intolerable, and that’s when he’d strike. Then he’d calm down, cool off for a while, before he started to feel the prick of desire again.’

  She waved to the photographs on the table. ‘Instead, he attacked both of his victims in the same week.’

  ‘Okay,’ Jamie said, as if he were playing along, ‘if he isn’t a serial killer, what is he?’

  ‘In profiling terms, I’d say he’s an assassin. He’s got a reason for doing this; he thinks he’s on a mission.’

  Jamie pondered her words before speaking.

  ‘What about the mutilation?’ he countered finally. ‘An assassin usually doesn’t want physical contact with his victims.’ He picked up a close-up of Mr Williams’ mutilated groin. ‘He certainly wouldn’t entertain any sort of castration fetish.’

  Sara shook her head. ‘I don’t think it’s a fetish ... I think it’s a message.’

  Jamie raised his eyes sharply to her. ‘A message?’

  ‘Both Mr Williams’ castration, and the burning of Mr Kapadia. He wants us to figure out why he killed these men.’

  Jamie stood, and slipped the iPad into his leather briefcase. ‘Excellent work,’ he said happily, ‘that’s what we think too.’

  Sara frowned in annoyance at his offhand manner. If this investigation was all so cut-and-dried, then why was he here? She pushed her chair back and stood, resting her palms on the table. ‘Jamie, any good forensic psychologist could help you get into this offender’s mind – and you know every one in Britain. I am not a professional forensic psychologist, and have never wanted to be one.’

  Jamie smiled as if she were being modest. ‘You’ve helped me solve some of my most difficult cases,’ he said, deliberately missing her point.

  ‘They were all of a specific type. For my own reasons, I used to consult on certain types of crime –’

  ‘Ones linked to the occult, fringe religions, bizarre rituals –’

  ‘All the weird stuff, right. So clearly, there’s nothing here to interest me.’ Sara shook her head in frustration. ‘Jamie, if you wanted to talk to me, why didn’t you just ask?’

  He frowned, and looked past Sara, out of the window and over Cardigan Bay. ‘Maybe because it hasn’t worked for the past six months,’ he said, his voice quiet and firm. ‘That’s a long time to wait for a conversation.’

  Sara pursed her lips, and dragged the tip of her pen through a splash of coffee on the table, making a thin wet swirl. ‘I can’t even get a grip on why you’re here in the first place,’ she muttered.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Why would the Detective Chief Inspector at Carmarthen draft in someone from two hundred miles away? You must be costing him a fortune. And why would your chief at the Met agree to lose you? It doesn’t make sense.’

  Jamie snorted. ‘The head of CID isn’t happy about it ... but Aberystwyth needed my experience. Just as much as I need yours.’ He reached out across the table, as if to grasp her hand, but hesitated, and then withdrew.

  ‘I promise you,’ he said, ‘that our past has nothing to do with why I’m here. There is a lot more to this case than I’ve told you.’

  Sara’s eyes narrowed. ‘Go on.’

  Jamie slipped both stacks of crime scene photographs back into their envelope, and stretched languidly. ‘This place is uncomfortable. Where else can we go?’

  Sara hesitated, but a rush of curiosity overwhelmed the dim pang of caution that pulsed in her chest. ‘Where are you based?’ she asked.

  ‘Tonight? In Carmarthen.’

  She sighed. ‘My place is on the way. I don’t mind you stopping by – so long as we keep this professional.’ She raised her eyebrows, seeking agreement.

  Jamie handed her the envelope of photographs. ‘I’ll follow you in my car. Where did you park?’

  Eldon Carson lounged on a wooden bench and gazed at the building that housed Aberystwyth’s mental health drop-in centre. His nausea was dying down now, but his heart still beat rapidly; he took long, deep breaths, and willed the adrenaline to stop pumping.

  Carson’s back was to the sun, which sank rapidly into Cardigan Bay, pushing his shadow, long and narrow, across the flagstones. The shadow pointed across Marine Terrace, where the buildings glowed burnished orange. Everything looked so different here. Not at all like the wide roads and stately high-rises of Eldon’s hometown: Raleigh, North Carolina.

  A short time earlier, Carson had watched a police car and a blue Range Rover pull over on the side of the street. One person climbed out of each: a stocky lady cop and a guy in a suit. He looked like a cop, too – and the lady cop didn’t approve of his presence. Carson was good at picking up that sort of thing, and the emotional frisson made the couple more interesting to watch. It lent special meaning to the guy’s stiffened back, the woman’s turned shoulder, their lack of conversation as he followed her into the drop-in centre.

  Although Carson was on edge, the presence o
f two officers of the law did not contribute to his nerves. He didn’t expect they would notice a short, muscular, casually dressed young man on the promenade, where so many college kids lived. At twenty-three, Carson blended in; he could have been a graduate student, waiting for friends before a night of drinking.

  When Irene Davies emerged from the building, she was with the policewoman. Carson tensed, and watched the older woman intently. The two lingered on the sidewalk for several minutes, Mrs Davies doing most of the talking as the cop listened indulgently. Finally, the uniformed cop gestured goodbye, and walked down the street, in the opposite direction to where her car was parked. The old lady watched her go, then led her little dogs briskly towards Terrace Road.

  Carson drew a breath and began to stroll after her with studied nonchalance. He followed her all the way home, as the last ember of sun was extinguished behind the watery horizon.

  Sara had left her red BMW in front of the Chinese takeaway down the street. As she and Jamie went in opposite directions on the pavement, she told him to join her by the pier.

  As she approached the car, Sara noticed a uniformed arm dangling from its open window, fingers scissoring a cigarette, blue smoke curling into the cooling summer evening. Her radio was on – tuned for the first time ever to a country music programme. Ceri Lloyd sat in the passenger seat.

  ‘You should have locked up,’ Ceri murmured as Sara climbed in behind the wheel. ‘Car crime does happen in Wales, you know.’

  Sara smiled. ‘I’ve left the back door of my house unlocked, too. I suppose it’s the contrast with London – I just can’t imagine anything bad happening here.’

  Ceri glanced in the direction of the drop-in centre and snorted grimly.

  ‘Well,’ Sara added, ‘I couldn’t until recently.’

  ‘Police in this region handle something like three thousand crimes a month,’ Ceri said, ‘and it’s not all simple stuff like burglary. I’ve personally dealt with violent assaults, rapes, and murder. Maybe this isn’t London, Sara, but even here we’ve got our share of serious crime. Nowhere’s safe these days, and it doesn’t pay to take chances.’

  Sara smiled indulgently, but she knew that Ceri was right. People around here were frightened out of their wits at the thought that a killer might still be in their midst, and it was making everyone feel like a potential victim. Even Sara felt vulnerable alone in her farmhouse, isolated at the end of a lane in a thicket of trees.

  ‘Do you need a ride home?’ she asked.

  Ceri shook her head. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were all right before I left.’

  ‘All right?’ Sara asked. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  Ceri smiled thinly, and took a long pull on her cigarette. ‘Because of him ... the father.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Sara said, too harshly. She looked down the street for Jamie’s car.

  ‘You’re well rid of him,’ Ceri muttered.

  Sara rubbed glumly at a smudge on her steering wheel. ‘Why is he working on the case, anyway?’ she asked finally. ‘Do you know?’

  Ceri drew in a deep breath, as if she had been wondering that, too. ‘After the second murder,’ she said, ‘CID sent out a confidential email to all the Special Branches force-wide, requesting information. Detective Inspector Harding saw it ... and volunteered his services.’

  Sara blinked in surprise. ‘He volunteered? Why on earth?’

  Ceri adopted an expression of naïve innocence. ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ she said flatly. ‘You’ll have to ask him.’

  Sara remained still, then said, ‘He’s not such a bad guy.’

  ‘It would take a lot for him to prove that to me. Everything about him sets my teeth on edge. He did nothing – nothing – to help you when you lost the baby.’

  Sara gasped. ‘That is simply not true!’ She felt herself blushing. ‘He wanted to help – in fact, he was desperate to. I left him, remember? And with your encouragement, if you’ll recall.’

  Behind them, Jamie’s Range Rover crept up and pulled to the curb, waiting for Sara to pull out and take the lead. Ceri pinched her lips together in a sad smile. Sara’s anger broke and retreated.

  ‘Please don’t worry about me,’ she said. ‘I really am fine.’

  Ceri opened the passenger door and dropped her cigarette butt on the street, but did not climb out. ‘Remember that night you phoned me? The night you decided to leave? I don’t know what prompted you to do that, but it was the right decision. Believe me, Sara, you needed to be back here.’

  THREE

  Sara had met Jamie just over a year earlier, on a warm summer’s day in London. It had been an uneventful morning at the Harley Street clinic where Sara was a junior partner: she had been curled into her favourite batik chair with her Burmese cat, Ego, purring on her lap. Yet another session with her oldest client, Andrew Turner – a successful defence lobbyist, whose business card read ‘consultant’.

  A quick glance at the clock behind Andy: only six minutes to go. He was rabbiting on about the best ways to promote European battle tanks to military dictatorships – the kind of flak he deployed to dodge talking about his problems.

  ‘Do you know why weapons platforms look the way they do?’ he asked with ironic amusement. ‘Simply to flatter the generals’ egos. They want their armaments to look hard, these lads.’

  Although Andy Turner was wealthy and powerful, he spent his days feeling like a failure. Since childhood, he had harboured an impossible yearning to be a great military hero; he had even done a stint in the Territorial Army, but had shown little aptitude.

  ‘Think of a tank as a trophy dog for military kleptocrats ...’ Andy went on.

  Sara was not surprised he had proved unfit for military rigour – at heart, Andy was an aesthete, as fond of luxury as of military lore. Once, he had said he came to Sara because he liked her office – and meant it as a compliment. He was fond of bold fabrics and ethnic patterns, and Sara’s room had both: paintings by a recently famous Aboriginal artist, a beaded Sioux throw rug, and several Inuit sculptures. The theme that unified her eclectic decor was expense; it had taken money to make things look this primitive.

  ‘Thing is,’ Andy was saying, ‘these countries throw their peasants’ dosh at the products, but they don’t know how to use them. They waste more missiles on a training mission than the Yanks did in Afghanistan.’

  In treating Andy’s long-term depression, Sara was relying on a two-pronged strategy of drugs and therapy. An antidepressant dealt with the biochemical imbalances that stoked his negative feelings, while she tried to resolve his underlying issues through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Sara knew from experience the positive effect such a regimen could have: her own psychiatrist, Dr Shapiro, had been using the same combination on her.

  ‘Oh well,’ Andy muttered, ‘it’s all a game, really. Keeps our chums in the defence industry solvent – and me too, I suppose.’ He peered at her for the first time in several minutes. ‘So,’ he said, ‘how are you?’

  Sara’s eyes refocused, from the clock to Andy. ‘Me?’

  ‘I haven’t seen you on telly recently. Not even a word in the papers. Has your work with the Met dried up?’

  She sighed. ‘Mercifully, yes.’

  He shook his head sympathetically. ‘You must see some ghastly things. Does it bother you?’

  Sara puckered her lips and raised her eyebrows contemplatively. She didn’t feel like baring her soul to a patient. She put a layer of mock offence in her voice: ‘Andy, who’s the therapist here?’

  Andy shrugged. ‘It would bother me,’ he said simply.

  At two o’clock, the office door opened and Emma, the clinic’s secretary, leaned into the room. Ego stood with a quivering stretch and jumped from Sara’s lap.

  ‘Sara?’ Emma said, ‘I’m afraid Mr Turner’s time is up ... and there’s a police inspector in the waiting room.’

  Andy Turner grinned archly. ‘Speak of the devil.’

  Sara looked up quizzically. ‘Anyone I
know?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Emma said. Smiling slyly, she mouthed, ‘But he’s absolutely gorgeous!’

  Andy rose. ‘I’ll shuffle off now,’ he sang. ‘Wouldn’t want to keep you girls from the serious business of fighting crime.’

  James Harding was a handsome man in his mid-thirties, six feet tall with an athletic build, sharp green eyes and a shy smile. Although he had tried to comb his copper fringe off his forehead, it had fallen into his eyes. Probably, it always did. Sara noted he was better-dressed than most of the police she knew, without looking vain. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

  He sat on the edge of the chair that Andy Turner had just vacated. Ego occupied the rest, rubbing his chocolate-brown head against the detective inspector’s back. ‘You’re an expert on the occult, is that right?’ he asked, trying to ignore the cat.

  ‘It’s one of my areas of study, yes: why some people are attracted to fringe belief systems, how they integrate these world-views into their lives – and what can happen when they fail to. I teach a course on it at UCL.’

  The detective nodded. ‘I know – someone lent me one of your books.’ From his leather attaché case, he took a copy of Magical Thinking in the Secular World, by Dr Sara Jones.

  Sara wrinkled her nose. ‘Your friend has odd taste in reading material. What did you think of it?’

  ‘To be honest, I haven’t opened it yet.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, don’t!’ she chuckled. ‘It’s a bit of a slog.’

  He mimed tremendous relief. ‘I think I prefer talking to you in person.’

  Sara smiled, and decided she liked this detective. ‘Then let’s talk.’ She leaned forward. ‘Who gave you my name?’

  Harding’s cheer evaporated as he pulled out a file folder. He didn’t open it, but simply held it tightly, as though it would get away otherwise. ‘Former patients of yours. The Loxley family – they live up in Finchley.’

  Sara stretched her mind and remembered. A couple of years ago, she had given the couple and their thirteen-year-old daughter family counselling, and had also seen the girl, Vivian, on her own. She had not had word of them for eighteen months.