Fade to Black (27 page)

“Allie! Wake up!
Allie!”

She stared sightlessly for a moment until Michael’s face crystallized in front of her.

“Allie,” he said more gently, “snap out of it.”

He had hold of her by the shoulders. He lifted her to a sitting position and stared into her eyes as if he was looking for the rest of the dream.

“God,” she breathed as she slumped against him. Even in her befuddled state, she realized this was the first physical contact they'd had.

“I’m only touching your stripey pajamas,” he said with a chuckle.

Stripeys
. She jerked and stared at him. “What were those things?”

“What things? What are you talking about?”

“Those horrible, giggling little creatures, like those monkey things from Madagascar…
lemurs
, but different!”

Michael let go of her shoulders and stood by the bed. “It was your dream, Allie, not mine. I can’t see dreams—they are in your subconscious.”

She saw a distant coldness come over him. He looked away with what soldiers call the thousand-yard stare.

Chapter Sixteen

The Green Room New Scotland Yard, Friday, 9:15 a.m.

Detective Sergeant Rachel Strauss wrapped up her summary of the Dominion Theatre crime scene with the infrared photos of the halved body. The number three was clearly visible, as was the distress on the faces of DC’s Connor, Wilkinson and Banks.

Allie St. Clair addressed them. “The victim was a Miss Paula Armstrong, forty-three, of 21 Chichester Close, Kensington. She was the successful and well-known editor of
La Mode
, which is a very glossy design/lifestyle magazine for the well-heeled.” Strauss coughed loudly and Allie saw the smirks go around the team. She glanced at Carr who remained impassive. She ploughed on.

“She had no children and lived alone after the breakup of her eleven-year marriage to Mr. Eric Leonardi, a middle-level real estate developer. We are yet to locate him or any next of kin, so therefore, cannot yet release any information to the media.”

She could not miss Carr’s wry smile directed at her from the back of the room.

“This is the only photo we have of Ms. Armstrong from our archives,” she said, throwing an image up on the big screen. “It was taken, according to this note, five years ago at a press launch for a new lifestyle section for the magazine. On her left, you will note, among the many guests, is the former Prime Minister.
La Mode’s
offices are in Soho and I will be visiting them in the next hour.”

Strauss pointed at the photo. “She is attractive, so she will have a boyfriend somewhere.”

“Or girlfriend,” Carr interrupted.

“Yes, of course—or girlfriend,” Strauss added.

Allie noted the wink from Carr. She picked up her file again and summarized from it.

“We don’t yet have a list of phone calls from her mobile phone, which was in her bag, but it shouldn’t be long.” She looked at her team and then switched off the noisy data projector.

“We can all see that this murder is linked to that of Georgie Konstanzo from yesterday. The number ‘three,’ which is clearly visible in the infrared photos—" Her mind suddenly fizzed back to her dream from early that morning, the glow from the rock in the cave. "—is evidence enough of that.” Everyone nodded. “So,” she continued, “we have two brutal murders in two days, both with female victims, both with biblical overtones.”

“What overtones are there in this murder?” asked Strauss. “I didn’t see anything to indicate that.”

“And we have no real idea where to go next,” Banks chimed in. “Is there anything from CCTV footage at the Dominion?”

Allie shook her head and shrugged. “The Dominion does not have CCTV covering the foyer. For whatever reason, their security system only covers the backstage area and the external stage entrances and exits. Given that, we have no prime suspect. I am inclined to exclude young Robbie the usher for the moment. He appears to be genuinely traumatised by his discovery of the body… and who wouldn’t be? But, having said that, I think we have plenty to occupy ourselves with. Let’s start with the biblical stuff. It may not be as overt as the first murder,” she said, once again noting Banks’ raised eyebrows at the use of ‘overt’, “but I think the splitting in half is a reference to good and evil, two sides of the one coin, denoting the duality of man, if you like. Anyone agree… or disagree?”

“I agree,” said Carr. Not surprisingly, everyone else suddenly did too. “But what of the number three—what does it mean, given that yesterday’s murder had the number two sprayed over it?”

Again, no one had any ideas, so Allie spoke up. “Well, I’ve thought about this and unless there is an earlier victim out there who is yet to be discovered, I think it relates to the number of people involved in the crime.”

“Go on,” said Carr. Allie walked to the window and looked out at the gathering storm clouds.

“If you look at the second crime, you see the impossibility of it. I mean how could one person manage to subdue the victim, saw her in half vertically while pouring a solidifying agent all over her, prop her up in seats Y23 and 24 and exit the theatre, all in such a manner as to not alert one single person as to what was occurring? It is preposterous that one person could do that. The first murder, we saw, had one perpetrator. This second one has to involve at least two people.”

“Ok,” said Carr, “Why the number three then?

Allie shrugged her shoulders. “Unless anyone has a better idea, I’d say the murderer thinks he works with the devil and now they have a little helper.”

9:30 a.m.

Sweat drenched his pillow. All he could see was the ever-widening fissure in Paula’s surprised face as it split down the middle. The commando saw was ruthless, carving a trench in soft tissue and bone with equal ease. The fine, powdered gelatin rained down on her, filling the gap in her being and thickening the blood around the jagged bone and the smooth cleft in her brain.

He’d had to push the saw to the left of her spine, as it took too much time sawing all the way down through bone, so he’d cheated a little with the consequence that the right half of her ended up a little wider than the left. He hoped his new assistant hadn’t minded. The gelatin powder had gotten on his hands and mixed with his sweat to set as a clear lump on his pink knuckles.

He’d found fine slivers of bone in his bed. He supposed they must have gotten into his thickening hair at the theatre. He carefully arranged them in two halves on his bedside table. He decided he needed a little display case; he had a momento of Georgie in his bag as well. He wondered if his new friend had also taken souvenirs.

He reached for his mobile phone and swiped and dabbed at it till he got to the photos section. Pushing his sodden pillow up behind his back, he sat up, looking at his photo gallery. There were six pictures of Georgie and four of Paula. Paula had been really lovely.

“She’s twice as lovely now, Arthur.”

He nodded. “I guess,” he said, only half-acknowledging Mr. Black’s comments. He was still lost in thought as he scrolled through the photos.

“She’d get into the theatre for half-price now, especially what’s ‘left’ of her, wouldn’t you say? Arthur?”

The black humor lost on him, Arthur said, “She was so nice… why did we have to do this? I’ve never had anything so beautiful in my life before and now… now I’ve destroyed it!”

He wailed in anguish, self-loathing now a tidal wave. He tore at the bed sheets, then pounded them over and over. He was breathing hard when his mobile phone pinged loudly. He stared at it as if it was a hand grenade. A text message waited. He grabbed the phone and read the message:

Good job last night; thanks for your leadership

Arthur read it again. 'Thanks for your leadership.’ Yes, he had noted the other man’s deference to him at the theatre. He had liked that; he had to admit. He supposed he did bring something special to situations; he had felt that quite strongly recently. No room for weakness in leaders. Look at Churchill—he was willing to sacrifice half of the colonies to ensure England’s survival.
That
was leadership. People had to die for the greater good. At least he, Arthur, did things at the frontline. Not like MacArthur who never stepped on a foreign beach until the enemy had been reduced to a whimpering rabble.

No, he’d been in there at the Dominion theatre parrying and thrusting, showing the way. That was leadership, wasn’t it? Leading by example meant never asking someone to do what you are not prepared to do yourself. He felt those self-inflating, feel-good endorphins flood through him again. His little crisis was over. He rolled his neck around on his shoulders and stretched his arms above his head. He let the relaxing muscles tingle. He was back in control. Perhaps it had been a little mid-death crisis. He chuckled.

“That’s it, Arthur,”
the voice said.
“You have to see the funny side of this.”

*****

La mode
magazine occupied the entire upstairs area above three shops on the corner of trendy Denmark Street and St. Giles High Street in what was loosely described as Soho. Allie knew the area well. She was reminded, as she walked with Connors towards the door of the magazine’s office, that she had bought her first guitar here with her father when she was fourteen years old. She remembered the tremor of excitement that ran through her that day. There were so many music stores, all selling much the same type of instruments, but the prices varied enormously.

“This is it,” Connors said, pushing at a narrow, brown wooden door that led onto a steep staircase. A tiny, arty plaque to the left of the door confirmed it to be
La Mode
. The fond memories of Denmark Street faded as Allie steeled herself for the task of telling Paula Armstrong’s unsuspecting workmates of her untimely death.

An hour later, they left
La Mode
, feeling they had a strong lead. Once the shock of the announcement had subsided, two of Paula’s workmates, Bridgette from the art studio and Jon from editorial, told of Paula’s excitement at having been suddenly asked out to lunch. It had happened so fast that she’d rushed off in a complete ‘flap’ to the hairdresser in the late morning, but hadn’t been seen since. She had not rung later, as promised, and the staff, which had been waiting for decisions on a range of issues, had gotten very annoyed. Those staff members now dealt with different emotions. It was clear to Allie that Paula had been a popular and respected leader at
La Mode
.

Connors had taken a note of the hairdresser’s address and the two detectives headed off. The big revelation from the
La Mode
staff had been that it had been some sort of advisor or insurance guy who had gotten Paula into a hot sweat. St. Clair and Connors had Paula’s home address and house keys from her handbag and Kensington was on the call list after the hairdressers, which was ironically named the Cutting Edge.

The gender non-specific ‘Jasmine’ from Cutting Edge confirmed Paula’s excitement from the previous morning. “He was so dreamy; she couldn’t believe it!” Jasmine’s thin arms waved a little too enthusiastically.

“Why couldn’t she believe it?" Connors asked.

“Well,” said Jasmine, sweeping ironed, black hair aside with a flourish, “apparently, she’d been going to this professional guy for advice for some time, but she suddenly saw him with fresh eyes, she said. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t picked up on it before.”

“Err… picked up on what, exactly?” Allie asked.

“His heat! Paula said he seemed taller and better-looking than she’d remembered and his eyes—Lord, she couldn’t believe his smoldering Mediterranean eyes!” Jasmine was going into orbit and other customers were looking their way. Allie thought ‘heat’ an odd word to use and ‘smoldering eyes’ was straight from a Mills and Boon.

“So, he was of Middle-eastern descent, then?” asked Connors.

“Hmmm, no, I don’t think so.” Jasmine pouted. “I think, at least my
impression
is, that she had never noticed his eyes before, so no, I don’t think he’s a Paki or anything like that.”

Allie smiled at the indelicate nature of Jasmine’s answers. Not so delicate either was the enormous, poorly concealed bulge in Jasmine’s pants suit. Jasmine had some work to do to finalize the transition.

“So," Allie said, “you think he is in insurance or something? An advisor, I think you said?”

Jasmine struck an exaggerated thinking pose, left hip flung out to one side. “Yes it was important to her at this time, anyway. Maybe he’s a shrink?”

It was clear Jasmine was guessing. Allie asked if Jasmine had heard Paula mention a name, but it seemed she had been careful not to reveal too much to anyone at
La Mode
or Cutting Edge. If you couldn’t trust your hairdresser to keep a secret, who could you trust?

Allie felt they had reached the end of the road with Jasmine, apart from the obvious question. “Do you know where they were going for lunch?”

“No,” Jasmine answered without hesitation. “He was going to surprise her.”

*****

DC Mathew Connors drove towards Paula Armstrong’s Kensington flat and St. Clair appeared to be deep in thought in the passenger’s seat, until she surprised him by asking where he had gotten to the previous afternoon.

“What do you mean? I was knocking on doors in Earl’s Court, as you know, ma’am.” It was a hurried, breathless answer, its implications not lost on Allie.

“Strauss said you had disappeared off on your own early in the afternoon. She was back at headquarters by four p.m., but you were not. Care to enlighten me?”

Connors flashed a look at her. “Strauss, that is
DS
Strauss, had half the workload I did. I kept knocking on doors around the Earl’s Court area and a little beyond until about six p.m., then I came in for your briefing. Simple as that.”