The Winter Foundlings (4 page)

‘We’re so sure it’s a copycat I’ve intercepted Kinsella’s mail, in case the killer tries to contact him.’

‘You know he won’t talk to me, don’t you? He only speaks once in a blue moon.’

Goddard’s lips twitched in amusement or disbelief. ‘Burns says you’re a miracle worker. I’m sure you’ll find a way.’

‘You’d need the centre director’s agreement.’

‘I’ve already got it.’

The news didn’t surprise me. Tania had probably left heel marks on Gorski’s back when she marched all over him. She pulled a contract from her bag and talked me through her requirements with brisk efficiency. A consultant forensic psychologist from the Met was overseeing the case, but Burns wanted me to assist him and work directly with Kinsella. Once I’d signed on the dotted line, Goddard scooped the photos back into a plastic wallet without saying another word.

I caught one last glimpse of Sarah Robinson’s face. The photograph had been taken at such close range, it revealed a smear of dirt on her cheek, and a perfect set of milk teeth, but her eyes had lost their transparency. The irises were opaque, as though she was studying the world through a layer of frost.

5

The cottage had more surprises in store when I got back from work. It was a shock to discover that the WiFi worked perfectly, even though everything else was stuck in the twentieth century. A string of emails had arrived from friends at Guy’s, reminding me that I’d taken leave of my senses, and Lola had sent a picture of herself, posing glamorously by an emerald green wall in her newly decorated lounge. She looked so smug, I couldn’t help smiling. No doubt she and the Greek God had already christened every room of their rented palace. The next message was from my mother. She’d read a newspaper article about professional women struggling to find partners. Despite her spectacularly unhappy marriage, she seemed determined to find me a husband. She’d even attached a shortlist from Match.com, but her criteria differed from mine. The first man was a forty-five-year-old lawyer from Hunstanton. His hobbies included clay pigeon shooting and the music of Roy Orbison, and there was something alarming about his smile. Her next choice looked suspiciously like a drug dealer I’d assessed once in Brixton Prison. I deleted the message immediately. There was more chance of finding romance among the psychopaths at Northwood.

The thermostat was cranked to its highest setting, but the living room still felt chilly, so I collected a torch from the kitchen and went looking for the log store. All I could see was an expanse of snow, and an outbuilding at the far end of the garden. A pile of logs was stacked neatly inside the shed and I wondered why someone had bought a supply of fuel, only to leave it for the next occupant. Maybe they’d found somewhere warmer and decided to cut their losses. Something odd caught my eye as I trudged back across the lawn. There were footprints in the snow, which must have been recent as it had been snowing all afternoon. I ran my torch beam across the ground and saw that someone had circled the house. The tracks stopped by the kitchen window, then continued along the wall. I compared the marks with the imprints my size three boots had left. These were much bigger. I was still staring at the ground when something rustled behind me, and my pulse rate doubled. But when I swung round the garden was empty. I must have been imagining things; it was probably a fox hiding in the bushes. I hurried inside and slid the latch into place. There had to be a reason for the footprints. It was probably nothing more sinister than a neighbour, keen to say hello, but my heart rate took a while to slow down all the same. The footprints were a reminder of my isolation – there was no one to help me if I got into trouble.

I concentrated on getting the fire started. There were no matches, so I twisted a spill of paper and lit it from an electric ring on the cooker. After an hour it was finally roaring, and my phone rang as I was admiring the flames. When I turned round I realised that the noise was coming from my computer. Someone was Skyping me. I was expecting Lola, but when I pressed the reply key, a dark-haired, handsome man appeared on the screen. It made me wish again that I’d taken up his dinner invitation when I had the chance. Don Burns’s gaze was as sharp as ever, a smile slowly extending across his face.

‘DI Burns, long time no see.’

‘I’m a DCI again these days, Alice.’

‘Brotherton finally retired?’

‘The invisible woman vanished, thank God.’ He leant forwards and studied the screen intently. ‘You look well.’

Burns’s image flickered, then reinstated itself in another position. I’ve always hated video links. It’s like communicating with astronauts, their messages stuttering back to Earth, with time delays lagging between sentences. I wished he would stay still so I could see him more clearly. It looked like he was calling from his flat. There was a bookshelf behind him and a brightly coloured painting. I was curious to see more, because I knew that he’d joined the police after being thrown out of art school. He acted like a Scottish brawler with his colleagues at the Met, but I’d always suspected he was concealing highbrow interests.

‘Did Tania give you the details?’ Suddenly he was so close I could see his five-o’clock shadow. I thought about his new assistant; she was as tough and remote as he was humane and accessible. His face twitched with outrage when he spoke again. ‘Sarah Robinson was found by a poor sod walking home from his night shift, nineteen days after she was taken. The bastard got rid of her quicker than the first two.’

The statement hung in the air as his image froze, but he didn’t need to spell out the facts. Ella Williams had been gone three days, and the clock was ticking. But where was he keeping her? Maybe she was trapped in a pen outside, like a farm animal. Or her body was already lying in a freezer in a lock-up somewhere. When Burns reappeared, he looked homicidal.

‘Who’s your consultant, Don?’

‘Alan Nash. Scotland Yard’s insisting on it.’

‘They’ve pulled him out of retirement?’

‘More’s the pity. The commissioner’s his best chum, but so far he’s done nothing but whine.’

Burns had told me his opinion of Professor Nash on several occasions. In his view the man was a puffed up, self-seeking time-waster, more focused on writing true crime books than helping the Met. But his assessment wasn’t completely fair. I’d noticed Nash’s egotism when he trained me on my Masters course. He’d revelled in his applause after lectures, but he had genuine reasons to feel smug. He’d been a groundbreaker in the Nineties, and his expertise in interview techniques had sealed dozens of high-profile cases. When Kinsella was captured, it was Nash’s skills that flattered him into a confession. His book
The Kill Principle
analysed Kinsella’s mindset and gave new insights into the motivations of serial killers. It had been a bestseller and was still required reading on forensic psychology courses. But Nash was approaching seventy, and things had modernised since his heyday. Huge steps had been taken in geo-profiling and crime linkage software used to determine where serial killers would strike. His professional knowledge was unlikely to be up-to-date.

‘If you’ve got the top man, why do you need me?’

‘You’re my link to Kinsella,’ said Burns. ‘Can you interview him tomorrow? Our man knows things about his MO that never got released. He’s got to be a personal contact.’

‘Kinsella hardly ever speaks, Don.’

His grin flashed on for a second. ‘He’ll sing like a canary when he sees you.’

I noticed that Burns looked calmer than before; the shadows under his eyes were absent for once. He leant towards me as he said goodbye, but he wasn’t lunging at the screen for a virtual kiss. He was just reaching down to switch off his computer.

The silence grew louder after that. All I could hear were the logs hissing on the fire. I pulled back the curtain and stared at the empty lane, wondering who had been spying on me. Snow was falling again, but this time it was as fine as sand. Louis Kinsella’s face appeared in my mind’s eye then erased itself. I’d taken every precaution to stay safe, locking my windows, and bolting the doors. But Ella Williams had no choice. She’d been gone for three days and nights, held captive by someone who enjoyed killing children, outside in the cold. I stood there for a long time, peering into the dark.

6

Dr Gorski seemed as tense as ever next morning at the team meeting. The group consisted of psychiatrists, guards and mental health nurses from the Laurels, and one ridiculously good-looking man who introduced himself as Tom Jensen, the head of the fitness centre. It took me several minutes to realise that he was the one who’d helped me start my car. He had unkempt white-blond hair, and looked like he’d stepped straight from the pages of a brochure advertising the health benefits of outdoor holidays. He seemed completely at ease, relaxing in his chair, pale eyes monitoring every gesture in the room. Gorski’s bullying style didn’t seem to bother him. He listened calmly while the director snapped at his underlings and issued endless instructions.

A woman on the other side of the room gave me a gentle smile. She looked around forty, slim and elegant, with chestnut hair scooped back from her face. Her eyes had a dreamy look, but it was her hands that drew my attention. Every finger was adorned with silver rings, heavy bracelets around her wrist. She gave me a wave of greeting, but her hand soon dropped back to her lap, burdened by the weight of metal. At the end of the meeting she caught up with me in the corridor.

‘Sorry I missed you before. I’m Judith Miller, I’ve been away at the Mindset conference. How are you settling in?’

‘Pretty well, thanks. I’m finding my way round.’

‘Let me show you where my office is, in case you need anything.’

Her room was full of unexpected details that seemed out of keeping in a shrink’s office. A set of Tibetan prayer bowls stood on her desk, wind chimes dangling from the ceiling. The shelves contained none of the standard psychiatric manuals, but I could see
King Lear,
Paradise Lost,
and the poems of John Donne. The pin board beside her desk was covered with postcards and letters.

‘They’re from patients,’ Judith said. ‘I work in the main hospital too. They write to me sometimes, after they leave.’

I could see why she kept them. The letters were a reminder that mental health patients often recovered, even if the men in the Laurels could never go home.

‘How long have you worked here, Judith?’

‘Fifteen years.’

‘That’s quite an achievement.’

‘Not really, I’m addicted to fixing things. It’s the same at home; I never throw things away.’ Her expression grew more serious. ‘I hear the police have asked you to interview Louis Kinsella.’

‘Don’t remind me. I’ve already got stage fright.’

‘There’s no need. I treated him for years, until he stopped talking to me. He’ll want to charm you.’

‘Have you got any advice?’

Her calm eyes met mine. ‘He’s an expert manipulator, and he never forgets a personal detail. Don’t give any secrets away.’

It seemed impossible that she’d spent more than a decade counselling the sickest men in Britain. The confessions she’d heard could melt paint from the walls, yet she emanated calm. The display of gratitude on her wall must be preventing her from throwing in the towel.

I spent the next hour in my office reading the Care Quality Commission report on the Laurels. It supported Gorski’s claims about a catastrophic lack of funding. The place was so understaffed that most inmates spent just ten hours a week outside their cells, and the staff team was suffering too. Workers at the Laurels had the highest rate of sickness in any UK hospital or prison. It wasn’t surprising that Gorski was tense: there was no extra cash to get the Laurels back on course, and he’d only been given a year to turn the place around.

Outside my window it had stopped snowing, but there were no breaks in the cloud. It looked like someone had unrolled miles of grey cotton and pinned it to the sky. When I glanced down, Louis Kinsella was being led across the square. He walked with a straight back, hair combed rigidly into place. His deportment explained why his colleagues refused to believe that he was guilty of killing children. From a distance he looked like a textbook headmaster, with his military bearing and haughty expression. Even his gait reminded me of my father. I closed my eyes for a second, and when they blinked open again, Kinsella and his guard had disappeared into the maze of buildings.

I scanned the crime report Tania Goddard had given me. Kinsella’s spree had lasted for two years and infiltrated every corner of London: Hackney, Kentish Town, Lambeth, and Hammersmith. Most of the girls’ faces were still familiar; every other news story at the time had paled into insignificance. Several more girls had stories of lucky escapes. One had managed to run away, instead of being dragged into Kinsella’s car. It was her testimony that finally put him behind bars. She had memorised his number-plate, and her grandmother phoned the police when she ran home, but nine families had been traumatised forever. Kinsella had used every possible trick to increase their suffering. He sent audio tapes of their children screaming for their lives, and others had received photos of their daughters’ mutilated faces. When the news broke, Kinsella’s wife, Sonia, was working as a nurse in an old people’s home in Islington. The press released pictures of a mousy-looking young woman shrinking from the glare of flashlights. After his conviction, she’d vanished from the public eye, and I hoped she was living quietly somewhere, undisturbed.

*   *   *

The consulting room looked nothing like the ones at Guy’s. It had the obligatory box of Kleenex, and inoffensive still lifes on the walls, but the panic buttons were more plentiful. There was one on the desk, two either side of the door, and another in the middle of the wall. The window was barred, with cotton-thin wires threaded through the glass. Once the door was shut it would be impossible to smash your way out. The idea failed to comfort me when I heard Kinsella’s footsteps. Someone must have done an assessment and decided that a female shrink was high risk, because he was handcuffed to his guard. I recognised the nurse who accompanied him; he’d introduced himself on my first day. His name was Garfield Ellis. He was a tall, heavily built black guy of around forty, with an appealing West Indian lilt to his voice. It was clear he took his job seriously from the careful way he arranged the room while a guard blocked the doorway. A third man waited in the corridor as Kinsella’s handcuffs were locked to the chair.