The Mentalist Page 5

But the admission he’d just made was already too much. He hadn’t expected her to react in that way. Suddenly he felt too tired to move.

  ‘I just need to sleep,’ he said.

  She opened her handbag, pulled out a creased tissue and dabbed it on the side of his head then showed it to him. It was stained with a drop of blood. She folded the tissue away. ‘The reporters are out there,’ she said. ‘And they still want more.’

  *

  It was six in the morning and raining hard when Morgan heard the news. By the time he reached Harry Gysel’s place, four uniformed officers were waiting. He led them up the stairs, knocked once, shouted a warning and then let them break the door down. The place was empty. Leaving the men to search, he sped across the empty city towards the house of Gysel’s one-night-stand, Chloe. But that was another blank. He drove off again, peering at the empty road through sweeps of the wiper blades, running red lights, heading for the only other place he knew of where Harry Gysel might hide.

  It was almost half past seven by the time he finally crashed open the door to the theatre dressing room and found Gysel apparently sleeping in a chair, covered by his coat.

  ‘What have you done with her?’ Morgan demanded.

  Gysel opened his eyes, seeming confused. ‘What?’

  ‘What have you done with Tia?’

  Chapter 3

  Time does strange things when you are in shock. Harry had felt it before — the day Angela, his first love, left him for the minister in their church. He remembered walking away from her in slow motion, turning back to see her in the doorway, baby Tia held on her hip. He remembered putting together the clues of her infidelity, thinking faster than he’d ever thought before.

  Stumbling ahead of Morgan, the same lucidity came to him. Even before they’d reached the end of the corridor, he knew Tia’s abduction to be the result of his idiotic bravado. He’d meant the killer to confront him. He’d meant to live or die as something more than a fake, to be a hero in his daughter’s eyes.

  He heard his own voice saying: ‘Have you searched Angela’s place?’

  Morgan didn’t break step. ‘She’s the one who told us you abducted the girl.’

  ‘Tia is my daughter.’

  ‘Save it for the station.’

  Harry fumbled his phone from his pocket. ‘Her mobile number… it’s on here. You can track her.’

  Morgan took it. For a moment he seemed uncertain, then he gave Harry a shove, propelling him towards the exit.

  ‘Don’t waste your time with me! It’s the killer who’s got her.’

  ‘Is that another premonition?’

  Harry wheeled on the detective. ‘For god’s sake! Help me!’ He put his hands over his face. Time compressed even further. Thoughts poured through his head. Through his fingers he saw Morgan moving towards him, about to push him again. He lashed out with his arm. The detective was falling and Harry found himself running, crashing the fire doors, spilling into the lobby then out through the front entrance and into the rain.

  How many seconds did he have before Morgan raised the alarm? A car door opened on the other side of the road. His own car. Harry caught a glimpse of Pickman at the wheel and dived inside.

  ‘Go!’ he shouted.

  Pickman was driving before the door was closed. The tyres screeched as they rounded the corner. Water was dripping from Harry’s hair, running down his face. He looked out of the back window. No one was following.

  ‘How did you know to be there?’

  ‘I’ve been listening to the police radio,’ Pickman said, steering the car into a narrow side-street.

  Harry turned to look at him. ‘Isn’t that illegal?’

  ‘Are you complaining?’

  They parked outside a KFC, bought coffees and took them back to the car. The windows fogged as they drank.

  ‘I’ve got to find Tia,’ Harry said at last.

  Pickman retrieved his camera from the back seat. It seemed as if he was going to continue with the documentary shoot, but this time he turned it so that the viewfinder rather than the lens was pointing towards Harry. ‘You should see this,’ he said. Then he pressed a button and the film started playing.

  Harry saw the view from the wing of the theatre — Davina and himself standing on stage behind the bank of microphones. After a few seconds the scene cut to a view from the balcony. He saw himself taking questions. The camera swung left, picking out Morgan, who was standing next to the wall downstairs, then right again. It had that jerky, hand-held feel. Almost unusable, Harry would have thought, though that was the fashion these days. The view shifted to the spotlight operator on the balcony then down to the audience.The young man, Diablo, stood up and began speaking. Everyone turned to face him.

  ‘What am I looking for?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Wait.’

  He watched as the camera jagged back to where he stood on stage. He’d often practised in front of a mirror, but never seen himself like this. With the spotlight tight on him and his arms to either side, the illusion of being suspended in the air was compelling.

  He listened to his own words — his challenge to the killer. He saw himself collapse and the audience rush to surround him. The camera angle dropped. Diablo was standing in the midst of the empty seats. The boy put his hands to his forehead and stood still for a moment. Then, as he turned to go, the camera caught his face. Pickman pressed a button and the image froze.

  ‘See?’

  Harry did see. The face was full of anger. ‘I spoiled his moment,’ he said, almost believing it.

  ‘His band use an old farm to practise in,’ said Pickman. ‘It’s out of the way. If he wanted to keep someone prisoner…’

  ‘You call the police,’ said Harry, ‘I’ll drive.’

  Pickman directed Harry south out of the city. They were quickly off the main road, taking turnings on smaller and smaller tracks, until there was a ridge of grass down the centre and banks high on either side. Ahead, down a gentle slope, was a cluster of dilapidated agricultural buildings. A derelict farmhouse, concrete and corrugated iron animal sheds and a large brick building that could have been some kind of barn or machinery store.

  ‘Cut the engine,’ Pickman said.

  Harry did as he was told, letting the car roll the last hundred yards. ‘How did you find it?’ he asked.

  ‘After the press conference, I followed him here.’ He pointed to the brick building. ‘He went in there. Should we wait for the police?’

  But Harry was getting out of the car already. He edged along the outer wall of the building with Pickman close behind. Here and there the mouldering brickwork had crusts of white crystals, as if chemicals had leached from the mortar. Overspill from a broken gutter was splattering onto the ground.

  The entrance was a dark opening. He peered around the edge into a bare room with an oil-stained floor. Then he was inside, heading for the doorless entrance to what appeared to be an inner room, placing his feet, trying to make no sound.

  He flattened himself against the wall. One step and he’d be able to see what was within. He made to move, but Pickman gripped his shoulder and pulled him back.

  ‘Me first,’ mouthed the cameraman.

  Before Harry could think what was happening, Pickman had slipped past him and through the gap. Harry was already following when Tia screamed.

  He rounded the corner and there she was, standing on the far side of a bare concrete floor, face streaked with dust and tears, cuffed by one hand to a rusting horizontal pipe above her head. Diablo was nowhere, but still she screamed. Harry started stumbling forwards but Pickman had got to her. He turned and Harry saw two things in one moment — that the man’s expression had transformed from apparent concern to angry contempt and that he held a Stanley knife in his hand, the triangular blade touching the skin of his daughter’s throat.

  *

  Morgan sat in the passenger seat of a patrol car, waiting. They were parked in a lay-by, listening to the stream of instructions coming through the
radio. Harry Gysel’s car had shown up on CCTV. They’d tracked him heading south out of the city. After that he must have turned off onto a minor road.

  At first the radio messages had come fast, one after another. The trail was fresh. All available resources were being sent out to search. That had been an hour ago. Now the radio traffic was punctuated by long periods of silence.

  They could have used Harry’s mobile phone to track him, of course, but Morgan had it. And Tia’s mobile wasn’t connected to the network.

  The car’s side windows had misted, in spite of the air blasting from the vents. Morgan’s driver turned the engine off.

  ‘Keep it running,’ Morgan said.

  ‘What are we expecting?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Then what can we do?’

  Morgan fixed his gaze on one raindrop from the many that were rolling down the outside of the glass. ‘Do you believe in prayer?’

  ‘I… I kind of do.’ The man seemed uncomfortable with this admission, as if it might lose him respect. ‘What about you, sir?’

  Morgan thought for a long time and then shook his head.

  ‘Do you not believe in anything?’ asked the driver.

  ‘I hope,’ Morgan said. ‘That’s all I can do.’

  *

  With a knife held to Tia’s throat, Harry had had no choice but to follow Pickman’s instructions, cuffing his own wrist to the rusting pipe above them and throwing the car keys on top of a small pile of Tia’s things in the middle of the room. He then watched as their captor set up a tripod and a movie camera.

  While Pickman was busy, Harry edged closer to his daughter, letting the loop of the handcuff scrape along the pipe until it ran up against a bracket. He was still five paces short but could move no further. Her outstretched hand was just beyond his reach.

  Pickman turned the camera to face them. Then he stepped around it, closing the distance to Harry in three long strides.

  ‘You’re nothing!’ he shouted.

  Harry flinched, expecting a blow, which didn’t come. Tia’s mobile was on the floor. He thought back to Pickman’s sham phone conversation in the car. He’d been a fool to believe the man had been speaking to the police.

  Tia had stopped whimpering now. He could feel her eyes on him, as if she still believed he could perform a miracle and rescue them, as if his mental powers weren’t fake. But fake was all he’d ever been — as a husband, as a father, always pretending to be what he was not, even to himself.

  Pickman was turning the knife in his hand, completely focussed on it. He seemed to be gathering himself, as if preparing for his grand finale. Harry looked from the knife to the camera and then to Tia.

  He tried to steady his breathing, as if this was just a stage show. ‘Are you really a filmmaker?’ he asked.

  Pickman brought his face close. ‘I can be anything. Don’t you remember? You’re the one who told me.’

  Harry made a guess. ‘You came to one of my shows.’

  Pickman nodded. ‘I thought you were psychic. You knew about my wife. But it’s me who has the power. I didn’t see it then. But I’m the one who was putting the thoughts into your head.’

  Harry had done so many small gigs back then, they blurred into each other. But Pickman’s words were chiming in his memory. A pub in Leicester. A man whose story had been a mirror of his own. Divorce followed by breakdown followed by what? Rebuilding? ‘I said you had the power to take control of your life.’

  ‘I make things happen,’ said Pickman.

  ‘What things?’

  ‘I think it up here…’ He tapped his finger against the side of his head. ‘I think it up here and it happens. I thought it and those women died. I thought it into your head and you knew the same would happen to Debbie.’ He held the knife blade in front of Harry’s face. ‘I thought you were like me. I wanted to show you. But now… now I know you’re nothing.’

  ‘Let her go and I’ll show you something magical,’ said Harry.

  ‘You know she has to die. I’m the one with the power now.’

  ‘I can… I can help you manifest your power.’ As soon as Harry said the words, he knew he’d scored a hit. Pickman swallowed heavily.

  ‘You could film it,’ Harry said. Another hit. The man was nodding. ‘You must have planned this all along.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Undo my wrist and I’ll show you.’

  Pickman’s slack face tightened and Harry knew he’d made a mistake. It was like seeing a curtain descending. Pickman turned and grabbed Tia’s free arm. She started screaming. Then he dug the blade into her wrist and blood was trickling onto the floor.

  Harry cried out.

  ‘I’m doing you a favour,’ Pickman said. ‘She’s not even yours.’

  ‘Stop it!’

  ‘Show me my power.’

  Tia was pressing her wrist against her chest. The blood began to bloom into her clothes.

  ‘Well?’ Pickman said.

  For a moment, Harry couldn’t move. Then he put his free hand in his jacket pocket. When he pulled it out he was holding a blank index card and, stuck to his thumb, hidden from view, was a grain of pencil graphite.

  He was sweating. He held the card up in front of Pickman’s face, snatched a breath and said, ‘You have power.’

  Pickman stared at the blank card. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You have psychic power.’

  Pickman screwed his eyes closed, as if trying to block out the confusion. ‘She’s still going to die.’

  ‘There’s a shape drawn on the other side of this card,’ Harry lied. ‘Use your psychic powers. Read my mind. Tell me what it is.’

  Pickman opened his eyes again. ‘A… a triangle?’

  Keeping the rest of his hand still, Harry started to move his thumb, dragging the grain of graphite slowly across the card, leaving a pencil line. If Pickman really looked, he might see the movement. ‘Think,’ Harry said. ‘What would you do if you’re right?’

  ‘Dad,’ Tia called. ‘I’m feeling faint.’

  Pickman whipped his head towards her. ‘Shut up!’

  Harry moved his thumb quickly, finishing off a triangle on the card.

  Pickman was facing him again. He grabbed Harry’s wrist and turned it. He stared at the shape. ‘I did it,’ he said.

  Harry paused and then said, ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe?’

  ‘It could have been chance.’

  ‘I can do it again!’

  ‘You can try. I don’t have more cards but I did send a text to Tia’s phone last night. If you could read that message from my mind…’

  ‘Do it,’ Pickman said. ‘Think it to me.’

  Harry could feel his heart thumping high in his chest. Tia would play along if only she understood what he was doing.

  ‘It’s something to do with love,’ Pickman said.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You said, “I love you”.’

  Harry pointed towards Tia’s phone. ‘Check for yourself.’

  Pickman grabbed it from the floor, opened it and clicked it on. It chimed as it came on line. He scrolled through the menu. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘No message.’

  ‘I did send it,’ Harry said.

  ‘It would be here!’ Pickman was next to him in one stride. He raised the phone and slammed it into Harry’s face.

  Tia shouted, ‘No!’

  Pickman rounded on her. ‘Shut up! Shut up!’

  ‘He did send it,’ she said. ‘He did! I deleted it.’

  There was blood dripping from Harry’s nose. He looked across the space that separated him from her. Maybe Angela was right. Maybe Tia wasn’t his. That didn’t matter any more. He knew he would give his life for hers.

  Pickman was blinking as if trying to clear his head. ‘What was the message?’

  ‘He said he loved me.’ Tia’s face looked deathly white.

  Harry’s gaze jumped from her eyes to the knife and back. ‘Why did you kill the first two w
omen?’

  Pickman took half a step towards him and stopped. He seemed stranded between his two captives. ‘They were after you.’

  ‘They were just confused.’

  ‘They wanted your power.’

  ‘Don’t you know what it feels like to be confused?

  ‘They… they were trying to use you.’

  It was only then that Harry understood. ‘You were saving me from being in love with another woman?’

  ‘I thought you knew!’ Pickman shouted. ‘I thought you knew it was me. Until… until yesterday in the theatre. You said my heart was empty.’

  *

  Morgan had been shifting in the passenger seat for the last five minutes, unable to relieve the sciatic pain jabbing down his left leg into his foot. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the sound of the rain hitting the car.

  Tension always did this to him — that and sitting for too long. But the pain served a purpose today. It stopped him from focussing on a doubt that he’d been incubating since the moment Harry Gysel had handed over his mobile that morning. Morgan had been so sure of his hunch. But what if he was wrong? What if his belief in Gysel’s guilt was pulling police resources away from the real killer? What if the missing girl died?

  He pushed the door open and stepped out onto the roadside verge, feeling his shoes sinking into the sodden earth. Straightening his back sent a needle of pain down his leg. He took a deep breath, turned his face towards the heavens and tried to immerse himself in the sensation of the rain spotting his skin.

  Then the radio crackled with a new message. Tia’s phone had registered on the network. They’d triangulated it to an abandoned farmhouse just two miles from his position.

  He was in the car again, slamming the door as the driver floored the accelerator. One mile straight down the ‘A’ road, then off onto a road with no number. The car slid as they took the turn, wheels slipping on the wet surface. Morgan braced himself. Hedges whipped past, close on both sides. The speedometer needle was touching 60. They crested a ridge and saw farm buildings below them.

  The driver didn’t touch the brake until they were in the yard. They were sliding but the ABS kicked in and they juddered to a stop.

  Morgan was out and running before the engine had died. Into the brick barn. Through another entrance. And there they were — Harry and the girl, chained to a pipe, her clothes soaked in blood. Pickman was standing in front of them, blinking as if dazed.