The Infirmary (DCI Ryan Mysteries prequel)(71)

“He’s created a bit of his own theatre,” Phillips remarked. “Look at how he’s arranged the petals coming out of her mouth, to look like a song.”

Ryan nodded.

“I want a total press ban,” he said. “He’s peacocking, showing us what he can do to live up to his new name. I told them,” he raged, softly. “I tried to warn them, you can’t glorify a person like that.”

“He’s more animal than person, now,” Phillips said.

Ryan nodded, and stepped outside to put a call through to Gregson.

*

His superintendent answered after a single ring.

“This is Ryan. There’s been another one.”

Pause.

“Who?”

“He’s escalated again, sir, as we suspected he would. His victim appears to be an opera singer called Stephanie Bernard, but we haven’t confirmed her identity formally yet.”

“I know her,” Gregson said. “Or, at least, I saw her in The Marriage of Figaro at the Royal Albert Hall a couple of years ago. She was luminous.”

Ryan didn’t comment but thought it was funny that a celebrity was afforded a greater degree of sympathy from his superior than a shop girl or a student.

For his own part, he tried to treat every victim alike. Death was a great leveller, after all.

“She’s French or Italian or something,” Gregson continued. “We’ll need to manage that situation carefully because the last thing I want is the continental press picking up on our inability to bring this man to heel. This thing’s already going viral.”

Again, Ryan said nothing. He could have spoken of all the hours they had been searching, of all the spent resources and personal cost to every member of his team, but it would have been like water off a duck’s back.

“She’s French, sir.”

He knew, because he’d already looked up her Wikipedia page. Stephanie Bernard had been twenty-seven years old, born in Paris, and with a permanent home there on the Left Bank.

“Ryan, this breaks new ground,” Gregson said. “If you can’t put an end to this, this orgy, I’ll hand it over to someone who can. I’ve already had the Murder Squad on the blower, offering to take over.”

Ryan knew the team in London very well, since he’d completed his training with the Met years earlier. He knew them to be capable but no more so than the team he had the privilege of working with right now.

“Look, the nation is watching us, and people expect action,” Gregson said. “When this latest news hits the press, it’ll send shockwaves around Europe.”

“I want it suppressed for a few hours,” Ryan said. “At the moment, he doesn’t know that we’ve found his latest victim. We might be able to use that.”

“How?”

“It’ll give us time to get hold of the footage from the theatre, the ticket lists and anything else we can. If there’s a name or a face we recognise, we can move in without him rabbiting away.”

“You’ve got until three o’clock,” Gregson said.

The line went dead.

*

A series of discussions with Stephanie Bernard’s production company confirmed that the last person to see her alive was Mark Pepper, a thirty-year-old usher at the Theatre Royal. It was pushing one o’clock, but he answered his front door in a pair of rumpled tartan pyjamas and a t-shirt with a picture of a dancing frog embroidered on the front.

“Yeah?”

“Mr Pepper? DCI Ryan and DS Phillips from Northumbria CID. May we speak to you, please?”

The acronyms had an instantly sobering effect.

“Uh, yeah, sure. Am I in trouble?”

He thought of the bag of weed sitting on the window ledge in his bedroom and broke into a cold sweat.

“No, Mr Pepper. We’re here because we hope you might be able to help us.”

“Oh,” he said, relieved. “What with? Is it about the bloke at the pub the other night? Look, honestly, he was all over the place. The bouncer should have thrown him out before he got into that state.”

They followed him down a narrow hallway to a small living room that was decorated in what Phillips would call ‘man style’. An ancient sofa had been plonked against the wall and boasted a variety of food stains, while a gigantic television dominated the other wall and was flanked by freestanding speakers that must have cost a small fortune. A games console with four handsets was lying on the floor beside it, and every surface was littered with dirty plates and mugs.

“Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to clean up,” Pepper said. “D’ you want to sit down?”

His face was such a picture of hospitality, they were almost sorry to decline the sofa.

Almost.

“No, thanks,” Ryan said. “But perhaps you’d better take a seat. We have some bad news.”

Pepper sank onto the edge of the sofa.

“What is it?” he said. “Is it my mum? My dad?”

“No, lad. Far as we know, your family’s safe and sound,” Phillips said. “We’re here because Stephanie Bernard was found dead in her hotel suite, not long ago, and we understand you might have been one of the last people to see her before she died.”

They watched the changing emotions on Pepper’s face, from shock right the way through to grief and, finally, denial.