Jigsaw Man, page 29
But when Tartaglia thought about Finnigan’s murder, calculated and cold-blooded in every detail, only one thing made sense. From the start, Simpson had intended to kill English. The reason for taking English all the way to Peckham was to string it out, to make him pay for what he’d done. Perhaps Simpson was also a man who liked to make things complicated. Perhaps that was what gave him satisfaction. Simpson had kept a great deal from Chantal, it seemed. Tartaglia remembered how Ellie Simpson had described her husband as a loner who kept things bottled up inside. It was easier for somebody like him to compartmentalise things and act completely alone.
Simpson was still saying nothing and had closed his eyes, either asleep now or pretending to be so. They were all tired, they were getting nowhere and, listening to the occasional interjection from Simpson’s brief, Tartaglia could see the insanity plea looming large on the horizon.
Steele got to her feet. ‘Let’s take a comfort break, everybody. I need to make some calls, and we could all use some refreshments.’ She looked meaningfully in Simpson’s direction. ‘We could be here all night, and tomorrow if need be. Hopefully, Mr Simpson will be fit enough by then to accompany us to the nearest station. Lying in bed doesn’t really help focus the mind.’
There was no sign that Simpson had registered any of it. Wightman switched off the recorder and Tartaglia watched them all file out of the room into the corridor. He hung back.
‘You coming?’ Steele asked, from the doorway.
‘I’ll catch you up in a minute.’
Once she had gone, he turned to the bed, bent down and whispered in Simpson’s ear:
‘This is Detective Inspector Mark Tartaglia, Dave. You’re not being recorded and there’s nobody in the room except you and me. You don’t need to open your eyes. Just listen.’ Simpson’s eyes remained closed, his breathing steady. There was nothing to suggest that Simpson had heard him but he didn’t wait for a response. ‘I can understand why you killed Richard English. I imagine you thought about it all the time you were in jail. It must have been eating away at you. I know you meant to kill him right from the get-go and what you told Chantal was a pack of lies, but it doesn’t matter. There are those who’d say English got what he deserved. Same goes for Jake Finnigan. They both ruined your life. I guess John Smart was just collateral damage. He poked his nose in where it wasn’t wanted and threatened the new life you’d made for yourself in Barnes. We don’t yet know who the fourth victim is, but I have my suspicions. I think he’s the Polish gardener, Marek Nowak, and you killed him – same as with John Smart – to silence him, to stop anybody finding out what you’d done. All of this I understand, even if I can’t sympathise with you.’ He paused, studying Simpson’s thin, boyish face for a reaction. But there was none. In a way, he didn’t care. ‘What I don’t get is why you killed Jane Waterman. You didn’t have to. She offered you a home. She was kind and you meant something to her. She wanted to help put you back on your feet and rebuild your life.’
He paused again, but there was still no indication that Simpson was listening. ‘We’re waiting for DNA confirmation,’ he continued, ‘but when it comes through, you’ll be charged with her murder too. Is that really what you want? Doesn’t the truth mean anything to you?’
There was still no sign of life from Simpson. Tartaglia straightened himself, flexed his tired shoulders and made as if to go.
As he turned, Simpson opened his eyes and grabbed hold of Tartaglia’s wrist.
‘I didn’t kill Jane.’ His voice was hoarse and strangely high-pitched. ‘I killed the others, but not Jane.’
Donovan watched Adam from behind the door, saw him creep into the room and slowly climb onto the bed, straddling the inert human shape she had created in the middle. He bent down over the mound and she heard him whisper her name. Hate filled her and she rushed forwards, a low growl erupting from her throat. He turned and, as she swung the baseball bat, he tried to duck. The blow glanced off the side of his head. He stared at her for a moment then made as if to get off the bed, lurching forwards like somebody drunk. He stretched out a hand to the wall and tried to steady himself, putting his other hand to his head and touching the place where she had hit him. He stared for a moment at the blood left on his fingers, as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Was it enough? Had she struck him hard enough? She held the bat ready to do it again.
‘Sam?’ He sagged forwards, then fell onto the floor in a heap. She switched on the overhead light. He lay there motionless, eyes closed. It looked as though he had passed out, but she didn’t trust him. A small, black rucksack sat on the floor beside him. Careful not to get too close, the bat in her hand in case he should try anything, she grabbed the rucksack by one of its straps and pulled it towards her. Quickly unzipping it, she tipped the contents out onto the bed. Along with a bottle of small white tablets, handcuffs and a gag, there was a pistol, which she recognised as a Glock. She put down the bat and picked up the gun. It had no safety catch, she remembered from her firearms training. Not knowing if the trigger pull had been lightened, she would have to be extra careful not to touch it until she was ready. With the gun in one hand, she clipped the handcuffs around his wrists. He didn’t stir.
‘Get up,’ she shouted, kicking him as hard as she could between the shoulders. No reaction. She kicked him again, this time in the small of his back where his kidneys were, and he moved slightly and groaned. ‘Get the fuck up.’ Still he didn’t stir. Had she overdone it or was he faking? She was sweating, shaking from head to foot. Careful not to get too close, she bent down and pressed the muzzle of the Glock hard against his temple. ‘Can you hear me, Adam? This is your gun pointing at your head. Can you feel it?’ She shoved it harder into his skin and slowly he opened his eyes. ‘I found it in your rucksack, along with all the other disgusting stuff you like to use. If you don’t get up, I will kill you.’ Even though his hands were secured behind him, she still didn’t trust him not to try something. She watched every movement as he struggled to roll over onto his back.
‘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.
