The Killing Club (26 page)

Craig’s eyes blazed with anger. ‘Fuck off,’ he said, having been used to being shouted at for years and become heartily sick of it.

Roseborough fired a shot at the ceiling. It made a muffled, almost watery sound. Both Swift and Craig gave an involuntary grimace. ‘OK, no more messing me about,’ Roseborough snarled. He pointed the gun at Craig. ‘Sit down next to the chief inspector,’ he said. ‘You can hang on to the kiddy’s toy if you must. I’m tracking every movement you make.’

Craig was looking thunderous, but he did as he was told, still clutching the slate.

Roseborough levelled the gun at Swift. ‘I want to tell you something,’ he told the detective. ‘Something about killing. Killing is the highest, purest, sweetest form of pleasure. It’s something so few people ever get to understand, the sheer beauty of having life and death under your control. Of toying with someone else’s life. The ultimate sin, the most irreverent act one can contemplate. I’ve had all the psychiatric and psychological assessments you can think of. I know all the jargon. Psychopathic tendencies. Sociopathic tendencies. A detached personality, with a contrasting ability to come across as sociable. Gratified by violence. Cold, arrogant, detached.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘My parents paid for those assessments and reports. Perhaps they thought that if I ever got into a tight spot, my brief could plead madness rather than badness. What do you think, Chief Inspector?’

‘I think you’ve dug yourself into a deep hole, Julian.’

‘You’re a guy who can put on a brave face, I’ll give you that.’ Once again he made use of the bowl of pansies to grind out his latest cigarette.

‘You know, some of the reports put my “disorders”, as they termed them, down to a failure to make significant bonds in childhood because my parents left my upbringing to a succession of nannies, and subsequently pals and tutors at Eton. And others put it down to genetics, opining that I am constitutionally programmed to behave the way I do.’ He made a show of considering this choice. ‘I can see some validity in both views. My parents were neglectful and cold and my father is a pompous twat and my mother is a selfish, vain and self-regarding monster. So you see, what chance did I have?’

Swift kept silent, willing Craig to do the same. It struck him that Craig’s arrival had changed the dynamic of the duet being played out between him and Roseborough, and brought about a flicker of hope. He and Craig just needed to live through the next few moments until Roseborough saw the futility of his own situation. That is what he told himself, but another part of his brain was saying good-bye to Naomi, trying to picture Cat….

‘So now, which one of you do I kill?’ Roseborough mused. ‘Neither of you mean a jot to me; you’re of no more consequence than the arse shit under my shoe.’ He swivelled the muzzle of the gun between his two potential victims. He did it several times. He did it very slowly. ‘Who shall it be? Or should I simply shoot you both?’

Swift heard Craig’s breathing rasping in his chest. He tried to force his brain to come up with a way forward.

Roseborough continued his little piece of choreography with the gun. Without any noticeable pause in the flow of the dance, in one smooth movement he opened his mouth and took the gun into it. There was another muffled, watery noise and then the crash of his chair falling on the floor.

White bits of gristle flew up into the air. A pool of blood began to seep from Roseborough’s head.

‘Jesus!’ Craig said.

The two of them sat together for a time, staring at the body on the floor, temporarily numb with shock.

Swift snapped back into professional mode, planning to call Cat, get back-up. His hand shook as he grasped his phone, whilst his fingers of their own accord pressed Cat’s name. As he waited for her to answer, he looked at Craig. ‘Are you OK?’

Craig stared at him and then his face lit up in a way Swift had not seen before. ‘Bloody glad to be alive!’

Cat arrived before the back-up team. She stepped carefully around Roseborough’s corpse and blood, put her arms around Swift and drew him against her. And then opened one arm and brought Craig into the embrace.

Swift tried to think of an appropriate comment. Recalling Craig’s last remark, he decided he couldn’t better it. So he didn’t try.

Some hours later, Swift faced a stern and shocked-looking Ravi Stratton, who had hot-footed it from her conference in Manchester in order to hear his account of the events at the
Old School House
earlier on.

Swift offered a clear and detailed account of what had been said and done.

‘You went against all police procedure,’ she pointed out. ‘You broke so many rules.’

Swift knew this episode could bring disciplinary proceedings, maybe lose him his job. Taking events into your own hands, metaphorically shooting from the hip like a sheriff in a John Wayne movie, was not highly regarded in the higher echelons of any organization, let alone the nation’s vehicle of law enforcement.

He declined to make a protest, crediting Ravi Stratton with the intelligence to work it out why he had chosen to go it alone. He did, however, point out that through his actions a serial killer had been identified, a killer who would no longer be continuing in his evil career.

‘I shall have to make a full report to the chief constable,’ Stratton said, giving him no quarter, her face a mask of solemnity and foreboding.

‘Of course.’

Stratton walked to the window and stood there for a few seconds. She turned around. ‘Well done, Ed,’ she said softly.

He nodded, made no comment.

‘Do we know how many people Roseborough has killed?’

‘Inspector Wilton has a list of unsolved cases in the Kings Cross area which he’s examining in the light of what we now know. Of course, he’s likely to come up against resistance, high-ups manipulating and exerting pressure to keep the damage limitation on Roseborough as contained as possible.’

Stratton sighed.

‘You’ve no need to discuss this with me, Ravi,’ Swift said. ‘You have a job to do. A career to pursue. We’re not going to agree on the rights and wrongs of concealment of information about the rich and powerful. And maybe this is the time for me to bring my police career to an end and move on to something else.’

At this, she looked seriously perturbed and about to protest.

He held up a hand and stopped her from speaking, warning her not to pursue that issue.

‘Go home, Ed,’ she said kindly. ‘Get some rest.’

He got up. ‘Thanks for that.’ He headed for the door.

She called him back.

He turned.

Stratton was again sitting at her desk. ‘It’ll be no surprise to hear that I made it my business to familiarize myself with my colleagues’ methods of working when I first stood in for Superintendent Finch. And it appears that you have a record for a certain liking for going off on trails of your own.’

‘That’s true.’ Swift smiled, recalling Superintendent Damian Finch’s taking him to task more than once on that particular point.

‘And maybe it’s a quality which has some merit,’ she said.

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ he said. ‘If I were an eager young constable, this is the point where I’d assure you I wouldn’t let you down, which would basically be asking you to trust me not to do anything daft. But as I’m no longer young, and hopefully a touch cynical, I won’t insult you with such reassurances.’

She looked steadily into his face. ‘No.’

‘I’ll try not to get out of hand,’ he said. ‘Whatever comes next.’

In the car, he called Cat to discover her current whereabouts. She told them she’d booked Ruth into a small country hotel in Burley-in-Wharfedale and the two of them were there now. ‘She’d like to see you, Ed,’ she said. ‘Are you up to it?’

He felt himself vibrating with the need to sleep. ‘Sure.’

Ruth and Cat were sitting together in a cosily furnished bedroom on the first floor of the hotel, Ruth’s dog at her feet. Ruth jumped up when she saw him and greeted him with a vigorous handshake.

‘How are you?’ he asked.

‘Much better for knowing my family are safe. Cat has given me all the details of what has emerged from your investigations and prompt action. Thank you so much.’

Swift rather liked her description of his method of nailing Roseborough. ‘How will you feel about going back to the house?’ he asked her. ‘We will clean it and get it back to how it was.’

‘I’m not going back,’ she said. ‘All these deaths, all this sadness, and the menace and the evil. It’s been a lot to come to terms with. And the poor parents of the man who killed so many people and then himself. How will they ever come to terms with that?’

Swift and Cat maintained a respectful silence.

‘Harriet has asked me to go and stay with her and Charles and Jake for a time – she’s even invited Tamsin,’ Ruth continued. ‘And I’ve decided it’s time for a new start. I’m going to sell the
Old School House
and get myself a little place near my family. I’ve been doing a great deal of reflecting over these past days since Christian was killed, and I feel that many of the complaints my daughter has made to me have some justification. My daughter is not an easy person, but I love her and I’m very proud of her. And I can see how she would have felt pushed to one side by all the people my husband and I helped along the way over the years, and it must have been hard to accept Christian as an adoptive brother so late in her life. I want to learn to be closer to her, and I’ll be able to spend time with Jake. And I’ll try not to be too much of an ogre with Charles. It’ll probably be a touch hellish from time to time, but that’s life.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Cat.

‘Ah, and regarding Craig. I shall of course keep in touch with him, but he needs to make his own way now. I’ve contacted a friend who works in Social Services and asked her to give him support. I’ve also asked her to reintroduce him to his grandparents who were apparently estranged from his mother and prevented from making contact.’

‘When did you do all this?’ Swift asked.

‘Today. Whilst your colleague was looking after me. And when she wasn’t explaining all I wanted to know about what has been going on the past few days.’

‘Nothing like keeping busy.’ Cat said.

‘I rather think Craig is already making a move towards building a new life,’ Swift told Ruth. ‘He’s got a job and bed and board in a pub in Thirsk. And I rather suspect he and the landlady have taken a shine to each other. We’ll arrange for you to see him when he’s finished making his witness statement.’

‘A lady friend. Well, good for him!’ Ruth said. ‘Maybe she’s what is now termed a “yummy mummy”. He could do with one of those. I shall keep my fingers crossed for him.’

‘Here, here,’ said Cat.

‘I’ll be a rich old bird when Christian’s money comes through,’ Ruth said. ‘And I’ve promised myself to be a little frivolous for a change.’

‘May I enquire in what way?’ Cat said, genuinely curious.

‘Oh, I’ll pop into the West End and get my hair done at a top stylist’s. By the top man. Harriet will be astounded.’

‘I like your hair now,’ said Swift.

‘Don’t worry, I shall still be eccentric, just expensively so.’ She suddenly looked hard at the two detectives. ‘You both look totally exhausted.’ she said. ‘Go home. Right now.’

They duly departed. When Mrs Hartwell used her mother-warning voice, you had no choice.

Swift woke with the autumn morning on his face. Outside, a layer of white mist as high as a field wall had risen up from the ground. Above, the sky formed a delicate canvas of palest blue on which were painted a thin rind of silver moon and one tiny star.

He gently touched Cat’s shoulder. ‘It’s a new day.’

AN INDEPENDENT SPIRIT
BAVARIAN OVERTURE
A TENDER AMBITION
A MAN TO TRUST
DARK IMPULSE
STAR ATTRACTION
DEAREST PRETENDER
VENETIAN CAPTIVE
MOZART’S DARLING
THE ULTIMATE GIFT
WHERE DARKNESS BEGINS
A KIND OF JUSTICE
RETRIBUTION
THE BURDEN OF DOUBT

as Caroline Sibson

THE CHOSEN ONE

BIRDS OF A FEATHER