EPILOGUE
Around midday, I dialled the mobile of Detective Inspector David Maguire.
The new year was well under way and it had been some time since our last encounter outside the courthouse..
“I hear on the grape vine that there has been a double murder out in woodland in Buckinghamshire – and I’m not talking about the way your favourite teams were annihilated at the Marlow Regatta either,” I said.
“Who’s this calling?” replied Maguire. “If you are a reporter, piss off.”
“No change there then,” I said. “Still the most friendly and easily accessible copper on the block.
“Still the most suspicious and untrusting of journalists. Piss off.”
“How’s the delightful Mrs Maguire?”
“Delightful. Now piss off. And don’t call my mobile again. I’m busy.”
“With the murders?”
“If I tell you will you then piss off?”
“Sure. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Maguire hesitated. “Not like these two you wouldn’t. You remember only too well the Feathers murders a while back? The one you almost let escape? Just as bad Tighe.”
I held the BlackBerry closer to my ear. “How could I forget?” It wasn’t that long ago and the memory of it was as clear as anything else stored in the darkest recesses of my mind. “But it is a one-off isn’t it? I mean just the two murders in the same place at the same time? Not two different murders? Christ, you know what I mean.”
“Right,” answered Maguire. Then after another pause he added quietly: “But I have a bad feeling about this. It doesn’t have the right vibes to be a one-off. I hope I’m wrong, but I do have bad feelings about it.”
*
He had been so close.
If only he had had more time he was certain he would have been able to keep his experiment with the feathers going longer.
But he had new hope.
Maybe together they could achieve what he had failed to achieve by a whisker.
Well, maybe not a whisker.
With his background and experience and her determination success might well still be within their grasp.
He had high hopes.
Their correspondence had been infrequent.
It had to be.
And they had to be extremely careful.
Even encrypted communication had its risks.
And while he could communicate with her, she could not communicate with him.
Directly.
Nevertheless, he had latterly adopted coded messages in certain paragraphs.
Messages only they understood the meaning of.
Now he only could sit back and watch his experiments continue.
Not have a presence in the room, or wherever.
Not even within sight of his cell.
That was not possible.
Yet computers linked everyone to everything.
Computers had no borders.
Computers meant the internet.
And the internet meant freedom.
Even for him the internet meant freedom.
His only daily connection with the outside world was the television he was permitted to watch for one hour day.
And that included very little news.
He did not even need that for now.
Still, he was confident he would know.
When the time was right.
It couldn’t be kept from him.
She would make sure the world knew what she was doing.
What they were doing.
And even in his severely confined world he would know.
The experiments would go on.