The Straw Men 3-Book Thriller Collection: The Straw Men, The Lonely Dead, Blood of Angels. Michael Marshall
one of the previous victims was sexually abused. Apart from minor head injuries, the others showed no abuse apart from the shaving of their heads.’
‘And their murder, of course.’
Zandt shook his head. ‘Murder is not abuse in this kind of situation. Murder is what ends the abuse. Forensics can only show so much, but it suggests that all of the girls were alive for over a week after their abductions.’
‘A week,’ the man said, bleakly. ‘It’s been five days already.’
There was a pause before Zandt answered. During the interview, his eyes had covered most corners of the room, but now he saw something he hadn’t noticed before. A small pile of schoolbooks, on a side table. They were too advanced to belong to the younger daughter. He became conscious that the other man was looking at him. ‘I’m aware of that.’
‘You sounded like you had another reason.’
‘I just don’t believe he will have killed her yet.’
Becker laughed harshly. ‘Don’t “believe”? That’s it? Oh right. That’s very reassuring.’
‘It’s not my job to reassure you.’
‘No,’ Becker said, face blank. ‘I suppose not.’ There was silence for a few moments. And then he added: ‘These things really happen, don’t they?’
Zandt knew what he meant. That certain events, of a kind that most people just watch or read about, can actually happen. Things like sudden death, and divorce, and spinal injuries; like suicide, and drug addiction, and fading grey people standing in a circle looking down at you muttering ‘The driver never stopped’. They happen. They’re as real as happiness, marriage and the feel of the sun on your back, and they fade far more slowly. You may not get back the life you had before. You may not be one of the lucky ones. It may just go on and on and on.
‘Yes they do,’ he said. Unseen by the other man, he touched the cover of one of the schoolbooks. Ran his finger over its rough surface.
‘What chance do you think we have of getting her back?’
The question was asked simply, with a steady voice, and Zandt admired him for it. He turned away from the table.
‘You should assume that you have none at all.’
Becker looked shocked, and tried to say something. Nothing came out.
‘A hundred people are killed by men like this every year,’ Zandt said. ‘Probably more. In this country alone. Almost none of the killers are ever caught. We make a big fuss when we do, as if we’ve put the tiger back in his cage. But we haven’t. A new one is born every month. The few we catch are unlucky, or stupid, or have been driven to the point where they start making mistakes. The majority are never caught. These men are not aberrations. They are part of who we are. It’s like anything else. Survival of the most fit. The cleverest.’
‘Is The Delivery Boy clever?’
‘That’s not his name.’
‘That’s what the papers called him before. And the cops.’
‘He’s called The Upright Man. By himself. Yes, he’s clever. That may be what causes him to fall. He’s very keen for us to admire him. On the other hand …’
‘He may just not get caught, and unless you find him we’re never going to see Sarah again.’
‘If you see her again,’ Zandt said, replacing his pad and pen in an inside pocket, ‘it will be a gift from the gods, and you should see it as such. None of you will ever be the same. That need not be a bad thing. But it’s true.’
Becker stood. Zandt didn’t think he’d ever seen a man who looked both so tired and incapable of sleep. Unknown to him, Michael Becker was thinking the same thing of him.
‘But you’ll keep trying?’
‘I’ll do everything I can,’ he said. ‘If I can find him, then I will.’
‘Then why tell me to assume the worst?’
But his wife came in through the French doors, with the FBI agent just behind, and the policeman did not say anything more.
Nina thanked the Beckers for their time, and promised to keep them up to date. She also managed to imply that their visit had been a formality, without direct relevance to the course of the investigation.
Michael Becker watched as they walked away down the path. He did not shut the door when they were out of sight, but stood a moment looking out at the night. Behind him he heard the sound of Zoë going upstairs to check on Melanie. He doubted his second daughter would be asleep. The nightmares of a year ago were returning, and he could not blame her. What little sleep he managed was an enemy to him, too. He knew she still used the spell he had written, and the knowledge filled him with horror. Irony was no protection, whatever he and Sarah and the directors of modern horror films might think. In a land of blood and bones, irony doesn’t cut it. He remembered discussing night fears with Sarah, several years before. She had always been a questioning child, and asked why people were afraid of the dark. He told her it was a leftover from when we were more primitive, and slept out in the open or in caves, and wild animals might come and kill us in the night.
Sarah had looked dubious. ‘But that’s an awfully long time ago,’ she’d said. She’d thought for a little while, before adding, with a ten-year-old’s perfect certainty: ‘No. We must be frightened of something else.’
Michael believed now she was right. It’s not monsters we’re afraid of. Monsters were only a comforting fantasy. We know what our own kind is capable of. What we’re frightened of is ourselves.
He closed the door eventually and walked into the kitchen. Here he made a pot of coffee, something that had become a ritual for this part of the evening. He would carry it into the sitting room on a tray, along with two cups and a jug of warm milk. Perhaps a cookie or two, which was all Zoë seemed willing to eat. They would sit in front of whatever the television had to offer, waiting for time to pass. Old films were best. Something from another time, from before Sarah had been born and any of this could be true. Sometimes they would talk a little. Usually not. Zoë would have the phone close by.
As he took two cups from the new dresser – old pine, imported from England after their recent trip – Michael thought back on the things the policeman had said, holding each sentence up for consideration. He realized that, for the first time since the disappearance, he felt a small thread of something that must be hope. It would be gone by the morning, but he welcomed its temporary respite. He felt it because he believed he knew what had been said between the lines, that what the policeman had said was less important than what he had not.
The female investigator had shown identification, but the man had never been named. With the dedication of someone who believed in the magic of articulation, that naming and containing events in words could subdue them, Michael Becker had read as much as he could concerning the previous crimes of the man who had taken his daughter. He had been on the Internet, and found copies of the news pieces, even sought out a copy of the supermarket hackbook on unsolved crimes. He had done this at the expense of, among other things, his work. He hadn’t touched Dark Shift since the night of the disappearance. He privately thought it was unlikely he ever would, though his partner was as yet unaware of this, and kept frantically rescheduling the meeting with the studio. Wang had money, and his contacts appeared inexhaustible. He was plugged into the city in a way Michael could never hope to be. He’d survive.
Through his research Michael had learned, or been reminded, that in addition to the LeBlanc girl and Josie Ferris and Annette Mattison, another young woman had disappeared at around the same time. This girl had been the daughter of a policeman who had been involved in the apprehension of two previous serial killers. There had been speculation, of a quiet kind, that she had been targeted as a taunt, a punishment for her father’s successes. He had become involved in the investigation of her disappearance, against the advice of the FBI, and at least