Killing the Shadows. Val McDermid
the visiting fireman.’
Fiona acknowledged his idiom with a half-smile. ‘Sometimes that has other disadvantages too. It’s possible that my unfamiliarity with a place and its local customs may lead me to place more—or less—significance on something than it should have.’
He shrugged again. ‘The other side of the coin is that locals can take for granted what strikes you as an alteration in a pattern, I think.’
‘Toledo is very much a tourist city, is that right?’ Fiona asked.
‘That is correct. It is also the seat of the archbishop, so the bureaucracy of the Church occupies a significant share of the buildings around the cathedral. Between the Church and the tourist trade, there is little room for anything else in the old city. With every year that passes, fewer people live in the old part of Toledo, fewer traditional businesses survive.’
Fiona made a mental note and continued, aiming for a tone of casual interest. ‘Does that cause ill-feeling among those who are pushed out by the demands of the tourist industry?’
Berrocal grinned. ‘I think most people are happy to trade a gloomy medieval apartment up five flights of narrow stairs for a building with air and light and an elevator. And a patio or a balcony where they can sit outside and enjoy the air. Not to mention constant running hot water.’
‘All the same…’ Fiona chose her words carefully. ‘I grew up in a small town in the north of England. Not much more than a village, really. It’s a very pretty village, right in the heart of the Derbyshire Peak District. The perfect place to go walking from, or to visit the caverns that are open to the public. Over the years, more and more tourists came. Whenever cottages went on the market, they were bought up by outsiders and turned into holiday homes. Every shop in the main street became a tearoom or a craft shop. All the pubs were more interested in catering to day-trippers than locals. You couldn’t stroll down the main street or park your car near your own house in the summer months. By the time I left home, half the population would change weekly, holidaymakers who turned up with a carload of shopping. All they ever bought locally was bread and milk. The village lost its heart. It became a tourist dormitory. And the locals who were pushed out in the process weren’t happy at all. At a guess, I’d say there must be some native Toledans who don’t like what’s happening to their city.’
Berrocal gave her a shrewd look. He was sharp enough to realize this was no idle conversation. Following on as it had from her easy dismissal of the obvious analysis of the background of the killer, he understood that she was trying to tell him something. ‘You think someone is killing people because he doesn’t like tourists?’ He tried to keep the incredulity from his voice. This woman had, after all, come with the imprimatur of Scotland Yard.
Fiona turned away from his eyes and stared out across the rolling green fields they were now passing through. ‘I don’t think it’s quite that simple, Major Berrocal. And really I don’t want to theorize ahead of the data. But I do think your killer is motivated by something rather more out of the ordinary than sexual frustration.’
‘OK. How do you want to work this?’
‘What I’d like to do is precisely what you’ve suggested. I’d like to look at the sites where the bodies were displayed and then back at your incident room, I’d like to look at the crime-scene photographs and read the pathology reports in full. I’d also like to see the guide books that were found at the scenes of the crimes, if that would be possible. And then I would like to go back to my hotel room and think about what I’ve seen.’
He nodded. ‘Whatever you wish.’
‘I would also appreciate it if you could extract from your Toledan colleagues any reports of vandalism against tourist sites or hotels or businesses that cater to the tourist trade. And any attacks on tourists themselves. Going back, say, a couple of years. Solved and unsolved, if that’s possible.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll also need a reasonably detailed map of the city that can be scanned into a computer.’
‘I will arrange it.’ He inclined his head in a half-bow. ‘Already you have shown me a different way of looking at these cases.’
Fiona shifted in her seat so she was staring ahead over the driver’s shoulder. ‘I hope so. When I look at a crime, I don’t look with the same eyes as a detective. I’m searching for the psychological as well as the solid practical elements that link that one crime to others. I’m also looking for geographical clusters. But as well as that, I’m watching out for other signals that can tell me something about the criminal.’
‘So then you can figure out the way his mind works?’
Fiona frowned. ‘It’s not so much his motivation I’m trying to get at. It’s more about developing a sense of how he looks at the world. Motivation is highly individualistic. But what we all have in common is that we construct our own identities based on what we’ve learned of the world. So the way a criminal commits his crimes is a reflection of the way he lives the rest of his life. Where he feels comfortable, both physically and mentally. I’m looking for patterns of behaviour in the crime that give me clues to how he behaves when he’s going about his ordinary business.’
She gave a wry smile and continued. ‘Some of my colleagues have a different approach which you’re probably more familiar with. They look at the crimes and seek a set of symptoms in an offender’s past that have produced a particular way of life in the present. I’ve never found that very helpful. For my money, too many people share the same sort of background and don’t turn out to be psychopathic serial offenders for it to be a precise diagnostic tool. I’m not saying that my methods necessarily always produce a more accurate result, but that’s more because I seldom have sufficient data rather than that the methods themselves are flawed. There isn’t a magic formula, Major. But my training is so divergent from that of a police officer that I’m bound to look at things from a different perspective. Between us, we see this thing in stereo, rather than in mono. I can’t help believing that has to give us an advantage over the criminal.’
‘That’s why you’re here, Doctor.’ Berrocal leaned forward and said something in rapid Spanish to the driver. They were approaching a sprawl of modern suburban housing, the road lined with concrete boxes containing furniture stores, car showrooms and small businesses. He sat back and took out a packet of cigarettes, twiddling them restlessly between his fingers. ‘Ten minutes more. Then I can have a cigarette and you can go to work.’
This time, Fiona’s smile was grim. ‘I can hardly wait.’
Extract from Decoding of Exhibit P13/4599
Uzqhq dftag stfyg dpqdo agxpn qeaqm ek. Upuym suzpq ufarf qzngf uzykt qmpuf tmpnq qzyqe ekmzp rdust fqzuz s…
The document in question utilizes a simple transliteration (a=m, b=n, etc) and the arrangement of letters into groups of five instead of the normal layout of the words. What follows is a transcription of the coded material, with appropriate punctuation added for sense. J. M. Arthur, Document Examiner.
I never thought murder could be so easy. I’d imagined it often, but in my head it had been messy and frightening. The reality is quite different. The power surge, that’s what carries you through it. Imagination really doesn’t prepare you for the real thing.
The other mistake I made was in thinking murder always had to be part of something else. But the truth is, murder can be an end in itself. Sometimes, people have to pay for what they have done, and taking their lives is the only way to do it.
I never thought I was going to be a murderer. I had my life sorted out. But then something shifted, and I could see them laughing at me, flaunting their so-called success in my face. I’d be a poor excuse for a man if I just took provocation like that on the chin.
Nobody knows how they’ll react when their life gets stolen by people who don’t give a toss who gets hurt. Well, I’ve never been the sort who just sits back and lets things happen, and I’m going to make them pay. I’m going to change the rules. But