Hermit Page 13

  ‘It’s a good point,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t bottomed out the MO yet. As I say, he’s reluctant to discuss it. Primarily because I think he’s ashamed to have done it. But my gut says that’s how he survived. Maybe he took a little from a lot of places – that way, they don’t notice or think it’s not worth reporting. Cassavette suspected it was his own staff at his place: that suggests low-grade, frequent, petty pilfering. Difficult to confirm, difficult to prove, too small to invest resources in stopping it.’

  Rainer thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I can see that. But should we discount the possibility that he was doing city homes and not locals’? Or perhaps he had a friend or relative giving him supplies? His brother, maybe?’

  Dana nodded. ‘Absolutely right. Until we can confirm it, then all options stay on the table. But one reason I’m inclined to think we’re on the right path is the other information he’s given. The key part being this: he says he hasn’t spoken to another human being in fifteen years.’

  The room stopped. Dana waited for the immediate howls of protest – that this was impossible, that Nathan was clearly unhinged and unreliable. And guilty. But they didn’t come straight away. After a few seconds, Mike chimed in.

  ‘I’m going to call it, from a personal point of view. This, more than anything else, is what I find difficult.’ He stood and spoke to the room in general, turning towards Dana every few seconds so she wouldn’t feel he was undermining her. Mike got office politics.

  ‘To back up a little, I’m not convinced he’s spent fifteen years in the wilderness. Oh, I think he’s spent spells there – maybe the summers, maybe even the past few months. But he doesn’t have the look or feel of someone who’s been beyond civilisation for such a long time. He’s too aware of current events, his skin isn’t right, his clothes aren’t used enough. And I don’t think he’s got the skills. I know a couple of people I think could maybe do that if they had to – maybe. They’ve been specially trained, have some killer equipment, and the cojones. Whittler looks like a mousy indoor worker – neat hands, newish clothes.’

  Lucy tapped his leg. ‘As a rodent-like employee in an office, I will be suing you, Mikey.’

  Mike laughed. ‘Have your people call my people. But really, even if I possibly buy that Whittler camped out all this time, it’s a stretch. Some of these winter nights have been brutal. I reckon he’s used cabins and got away with cleaning up before the owners came back in spring.’

  He paused to take in the room. He and Dana were usually rock-solid in their agreements: this was holding the squad’s attention.

  ‘But the no-talking thing? Nah. No one can do that. No one has done that, ever. People in solitary confinement – still get to speak sometime. People who go off and become hermits – only do it for a short time. Some of them have to talk daily: it’s part of their job. The conversation might be low level, or short. But I don’t think total silence can be done for that length of time.’

  Dana’s thumb and forefinger worked again. ‘So what you’re saying is, you find that no-speaking aspect impossible for anyone to pull off. And therefore, everything else he claims is suspect?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so. I don’t believe any human can do that. So yeah, credibility shot for me.’

  ‘Hmm. Thoughts, people?’

  No one blinked until Rainer offered, ‘I think it’s possible. It’s only one month, multiplied, isn’t it? Some people could do one month. Maybe it gets easier the longer you go? But I reckon you could tell that from how he behaves. Was his voice croaky? Did he want to talk all the time to make up? That kind of thing.’

  Lucy came in. ‘Oh, I know this one. The croaky thing doesn’t apply. I checked with a website on mutism, and with a doctor. Turns out your vocal cords can work fine, no matter how long you’ve been silent. Especially if Whittler’s in the middle of nowhere and can sing, or yodel, or whatever. And I think the other thing’s a judgement call: he might feel the need to jabber non-stop, or he might be addicted to clamming up.’ She glanced to Dana. ‘Right?’

  ‘Yes, he hasn’t been exactly a motormouth since he arrived. In fact, I’m the only one he’ll speak to at all. But your point’s well made, Rainer. We’d need something to corroborate a claim that unusual.’

  Bill stood, and the room turned to hear him.

  ‘All right, I’ve said this before to Dana, so it’s not a surprise to her. But I’ll reiterate it here. First off, we need to cover all the bases on this, because if there’s even a chance that Whittler isn’t the murderer, we’re currently losing evidence, forensics and time. The killer might be strolling away while we’re focused on one guy stealing beans. So let’s keep our options open as long as possible.

  ‘That said, Whittler has been off the radar for every agency we can find for over a decade. There’s a chance that he hasn’t done anything wrong – or maybe nothing significant – for that time. But he chose carefully how to become hidden and stay that way. It’s setting off alarm bells for me. If I wanted to commit multiple crimes and get away with it, I’d start by trying to be invisible. If the police don’t know I exist, how can they pin me for the crime? We didn’t know Whittler existed – had no reason to. He might have done anything – and I mean anything – in those fifteen years. Let’s bear that in mind. He may not be a hermit: he may be something else entirely. Dana has that in her thinking already.’

  The room bubbled with uncertainty. She’d had them with her at first, until she suggested Nathan hadn’t spoken in over a decade. Like Mike, many imagined this was physically impossible – at least without going nuts – and therefore it threw all Whittler’s other statements into doubt. Then Bill’s warning about seeing Nathan too benignly: it was timely, accurate and necessary. Dana covered her disappointment with an attempted display of command.

  ‘Bill’s right. We don’t assume anything about Whittler unless or until we can prove it. All options on the table until then. Okay, actions. Mikey, thinking about it, I’d like you to take the lawyer, Lynch, please. I want to know the state of the Cassavettes’ marriage and what was being planned. Megan obviously held back – bottom that out with Lynch.

  ‘Lucy, I’d like you to please focus on Whittler’s family. All the background we can get. As I understand it, the brother is some kind of international businessman. I want some more detail for my chats with Whittler. Thanks.

  ‘The uniform officers, on the list for door-to-door around the Cassavettes’ street, please. Lucy will co-ordinate who’s doing which homes; Mikey has prepared the strategy and questions for you to follow. Anything out of the ordinary, anything about their lives and habits, anyone asking questions about them in the neighbourhood.’

  Conscious they were starting to gather themselves to leave, Dana raised her voice.

  ‘Two points before we move. Thank you. First, let’s not forget that someone died today – they were murdered. For us, there are processes and work to be done, and that’s our day-to-day. For others, it’s the worst day of their entire lives and they’ll never recover. We owe it to them to remember that a human being is gone. Secondly, the door-to-door is important, everyone, it’s not a motion to go through. Last killer we caught came from those apparently routine conversations with neighbours, so don’t treat it as a chore, please. It matters. Thank you.’

  She was flushed with the sense that she’d lost the room before they’d taken it all in: that she’d failed. She beckoned Rainer over before he left with the gaggle of uniforms. He approached cautiously and it struck her that perhaps he thought he was in trouble for speaking up.

  ‘Hey, Rainer,’ said Lucy as she passed him.

  ‘Oh God,’ muttered Dana. She glanced up at him: he was basketball-tall, with a thin face and long fingers. ‘Is it pronounced Ryner? Jesus, I’ve been calling you Rayner for weeks, and now in front of everyone. Sorry, sorry.’

  He grinned. ‘Ah, I think it’s either way, to be honest. My mother was German, my father wasn’t, so I guess it’s a fifty–fifty.’

&nb
sp; ‘Even so, I’ve, uh, disrespected your culture and all. I should have checked at some point. Bad Dana.’

  ‘Not sure I have a culture, as such. No problem, boss. Was there something, or should I go with the door-to-door team?’

  ‘Uh, no. I’ve a job for you, actually. Good comments, by the way. They caught me in a stupid assumption – that Whittler had burgled and done it locally. I’d dismissed the car. So: two things, please. When you get back, I want you to chase up anything to do with the Corolla – Lucy ran the basic checks, but anything else you can track down: to either confirm it still exists or it’s been totalled somewhere. That’ll get us on firmer ground about where Whittler might have been stealing.

  ‘But first, I want you to go over to Earlville.’ She was momentarily distracted by Lucy’s return, and then skipped a beat as she wondered if Rainer had noticed. He seemed to be focused on making notes, she believed. ‘Speak to Pringle, the furniture guy.’

  Lucy looked up. ‘But don’t hammer him. Or nail him.’

  Rainer caught it straight away. ‘He’s a chip off the old block.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Lucy. ‘He could open doors. Hope he’s not unhinged.’

  Dana tried not to laugh, failed. ‘Okay, enough. The English language has officially lawyered up; we’re no longer allowed to abuse it.’ She gathered herself. ‘I want to know what Whittler was like before he went away – type of person, habits – especially sociability. Plus, I want anything we can get on why he went: it was almost certainly some kind of family mess, but I want some leverage on Whittler if we can. You have good instincts, you’ll be fine.’

  Rainer blushed momentarily, which Dana found sweet. He turned to Lucy. ‘Do you know if the old man’s still there, Luce? It was a long time ago.’

  ‘Yeah, he still runs the place. I spoke to his new assistant this morning. He might be . . . nah, I’m out of puns now. He’s working today, I know that.’

  Rainer turned back to Dana. ‘On it, boss.’

  As he walked away Lucy leaned into Dana, their arms touching, and asked, ‘Was I ever that keen?’

  ‘I don’t think either of us were, to be honest.’

  Chapter 14

  Billy Munro had left a message.

  ‘Yeah, couple of the older guys I know reckon your best bet for those caves is around Piermont Lake, about nine or ten clicks north of the Old Mill Road. Seems there’s some caves on the western shore, though they’re mighty hard to get to. You may have to canoe into them. Could be they’re full of bats, so to actually live there you’d have to be batshit crazy. Hahaha . . . uh . . . Yeah, well . . . the dinosaur club here thinks there might also be a couple upstream from the lake a ways. ’Course, they’ve got memories like a sieve. But it might be worth a thought. Adios.’

  Dana reached for the map Lucy had marked up.

  Piermont Lake was ‘C’; the third and most likely alternative she and Lucy had discussed. Billy had said that there might be some options upstream. Her finger followed a thin blue line snaking its way north from the top of the lake, until it wiggled its last and ended where the contours jammed together.

  Stuart Risdale coughed at the doorway.

  ‘Hey, Stu, pull up a chair.’

  Risdale sat carefully, as though landing on sprigs of holly. A back injury from falling off a motorbike: his wife had regaled Dana with the details at some compulsory office picnic a few months ago. Mrs Risdale had put it down to a mid-life crisis with a tutting weariness: a women-together, what-can-you-do shrug that Dana identified only retrospectively.

  ‘No sign of the murder weapon yet. I just checked. But I asked them to work outside–in, so they could pick up other traces as they went: if the knife’s near the blood, it might be another hour or two before we find it.’

  ‘Okay.’ Dana was more interested in the map at this point.

  ‘You wanted me to push Forensics about Cassavette having a weapon? Well—’

  Dana nodded. ‘Ah crap, yes, I did. Good catch. Any news?’

  ‘There’s no sign of a weapon of any kind – no ad-libbed grab item, and no gun or anything like that.’

  Dana was surprised. Given Cassavette had been running a vigil for a few months, she’d figured he’d be carrying some kind of weapon. Maybe something like a heavy bottle: then he could claim he’d simply grabbed it from a shelf without planning it, if the burglar sued later.

  ‘So he went at someone armed with righteous indignation? Didn’t get something from the stock?’

  ‘Apparently not.’ Risdale shrugged and turned over a page in the bundle he was holding. ‘Well, in truth he might have been spooked. There was no weapon, but where he was sleeping we did find red hairs and a hairgrip.’

  Dana smiled. Mike’s hunch about Cassavette using the ‘burglaries’ as a cover honed into view. ‘Oh, did we now? Cassavette’s as big and bald as they come. Mind you, that’s a stockroom and all the staff use it. So it’s possible it belongs to one of them. Could be an innocent reason.’

  Risdale ran his tongue around his cheek to demonstrate his scepticism. ‘Sure, sure. Could be. Not quite so innocent if you find it inside the sleeping bag, though.’

  ‘Ah, and there was me thinking that if anyone was messing around, it was his wife.’

  ‘Hmm. She might still be: wouldn’t be the first couple where they’re both playing away games. There could also be a reason that doesn’t involve screwing around.’

  ‘That’s true. I mean, it might not be his sleeping bag, or he might have loaned it to someone who lost a hair grip. But . . . really . . . I’m not seeing that. Could you sleep in that without the grip poking you at some point?’ She considered. ‘Unless it only arrived there, you know, last minute.’

  Risdale grinned. ‘My thinking, too. I’ve mentioned it to Mikey to pass on to the uniforms. Luce is searching the records on employees to narrow down the redheads; we can try them first.’

  Dana stood, buckling for a split second when her knee didn’t lock into position. ‘Good, we’ll leave them to that. Take a look at this map, please, Stu. I’ve narrowed down the search area.’

  Risdale had those kind of stiff army-style boots that strapped halfway up the calf; they squeaked when he stood up. Dana’s finger traced Piermont Lake.

  ‘I think Whittler’s been hiding in a cave somewhere on the shoreline here, or maybe upstream slightly . . . here. There’s sand in the soles of his boots.’

  ‘Yeah, Dakota Line. My brother goes fishing near there sometimes; not all of those lakes are sandy, but yeah. If I could?’

  She stood back when Risdale bent over the map, as though his eyesight were as bad as his back. He straightened up with a grunt.

  ‘I suggest we start upstream and work down. Reasons being: your man would need water, and unless he has millions of purification tablets, he has to take a chance there isn’t a dead animal polluting the water. Hence, upstream is less risky. It’s safer to take the water where it’s running, not static: the faster it runs, the safer it is. Also, it’s partly psychological – white water looks cleaner than water that isn’t moving. Plus, it makes sense to camp as near to the water as you can without risking flooding.’

  ‘See, I’d never have thought of any of that. Yes, makes sense. The kind of cave I’m thinking of is going to be quite big; tall enough to stand up and move around in. Whittler isn’t wriggling through some tiny gap each time, I don’t think. But the entrance would be pretty well hidden, including from above. He might have camouflaged it.’

  ‘Okay. We’ll do some extra research online: we can access some military maps and photos. But we’ll be in the air in fifteen minutes, and there soon after. I’ll take three guys, an inflatable canoe and a drone. We’ll do an initial sweep and email some images.’

  ‘Excellent. Make it to Mikey, actually. I might be back in the ring with Whittler.’

  Risdale moved to the door, turned. ‘I didn’t mean to sound bitchy in there, Dana. I saw the footage of the guy when he came in – I can’t believe yo
u could even get a word out of him.’

  ‘Appreciate it. You were right, though – I haven’t asked him yet. It could well be the last question – What happened in the store? Either he’ll spill his guts, or he’ll look daggers and never speak to me again.’

  ‘True, true.’ He paused. ‘He probably did it. You know that, right?’

  Dana smiled. ‘Quite possibly. But I’m guessing his home is going to be a hell of a window into his soul. Thanks, Stu.’

  There was a small gap – maybe half a metre wide – between the rear wall of the vehicle servicing shed and a two-metre metal fence at the back of the station. The space was carpeted with tenacious tufts of grass and hosted a few brambles climbing a concrete post towards the light. Where the gap emerged on to the parking area there was a collection of windswept cigarette stubs. Dana could recall figures hunched from the chill, cupping their smokes and simultaneously cursing the weather and their own weakness. A metre past that, the gap turned and was hidden from view. In the narrow channel backed by weather-lashed breeze blocks the noise from hydraulics and drills punctuated a steady wind.

  Dana stooped there, and vomited.

  At first it was a dry retch. She’d been too wound up this morning – awake since midnight, in fact – to have eaten anything. Eventually, her stomach muscles produced some yellowish bile, bitter as it left her. She gasped and spat for a couple of minutes, feeling her facial muscles quiver back to normality. Then she wiped her mouth with a tissue and popped a couple of mints.

  Her temples hammered with a pressure headache. Right on the psychopath zone, she thought: the area on the lobes where human empathy lay – or didn’t. She sometimes worried that her emotional freezing – the sense of standing helplessly outside normal human behaviour – was her mind telling her she was psychopathic. Maybe she was simply covering her pathology with a brittle coating of humanity, a veneer that would shatter like spring ice if she didn’t fight to protect it.