Sycamore Gap: A DCI Ryan Mystery(62)

“You want to know about Amy?” Edwards murmured. “I bet you do. I bet you’d love to know about all the girls in those photographs. Only one way to find out, because all roads end here.”

“Did you kill her?”

There was a long pause.

“No, but I wanted to.”

It sounded like an honest answer, Phillips thought, but who could tell with this vermin?

“Why didn’t you?”

“Missed opportunity,” Edwards snapped.

“How did you know her?”

Edwards shrugged.

“She was a student at the university. I was on clinical rounds in the hospital at that time. She was in one of my student groups.”

Ryan nodded. It was only what he had imagined.

“You wanted her?”

“Oh, certainly,” Edwards mused, thinking back. He could picture Amy clearly, as he could picture the fantasies he had only begun to play out. “She was quite memorable.”

“How did this picture come to be taken, and when?”

“Tit-for-tat, Ryan. Why don’t you tell me how you’ve been, all these months? I hear you’ve found yourself a lady,” he rasped. “I hear she’s quite a looker. But then, I did tell you that we’re similar, you and I; more so than you would like to admit.”

Ryan said nothing, but fear gripped him. He didn’t want any trace of Edwards’ filth to taint Anna; he didn’t want her name mentioned here at all.

“It doesn’t work like that, Edwards. The privilege of free movement, you see. I get to ask the questions and then I get to leave. You get to answer them, or not answer them, but then you have to stay here. That’s it.”

“Spoilsport,” Edwards tutted. “Well, if you don’t want to chat, I’ll keep the conversation flowing. For instance, I hear your new lady-love is very much to my taste,” he continued, tracing his tongue along his upper lip. “We like our dark-haired beauties, don’t we?”

Beneath the table, Ryan’s hands clenched into fists.

“I did see a picture of her, in the local news,” Edwards added. “Very nice indeed. I spent a delicious few hours imagining how she would feel. Anna,” he let the name roll off his tongue. “I don’t believe I’ve ever had an ‘Anna’ before.”

“Aye, and never will,” Phillips butted in, sensing that things were becoming too close. “Why don’t you tell us about the women you did have. You met Amy at the university? When was this?”

Edwards stretched his shoulders.

“I met her in September of 2004. It took me a few weeks before I could convince her to become better acquainted, if you take my meaning.”

“You began a relationship?”

“Now, Inspector, you’re not the only one capable of keeping up a pretence, at least for a while. Yes, I took her out, I fed her and I fucked her.”

The casual cruelty lacing his stark words was hard to ignore, but Ryan and Phillips did their best.

“And then?”

“She didn’t like it. Clever girl, really,” He let out a soft chuckle. “Some of them sense what’s coming.”

They weren’t human, not to this man, Ryan realised. They were objects, slabs of meat to be used and disposed of at his whim. Still, the admission tallied with the information Phillips had found in Amy Llewellyn’s medical history, such as it was. A few weeks before her death, she had attended the GP at the Student’s union  , suffering from injuries ordinarily associated with violent sex. He imagined her family would have no idea. The doctor had prescribed creams and painkillers.

“Did you see her again?”

“Of course,” Edwards answered the question with a trace of boredom. “I saw her once or twice, around the hospital.”

“Then, you killed her?” Ryan finished flatly. “You’ve confessed to the murders of five women, already, so what’s with the sudden shyness? Might as well claim your conquests.”

Edwards grinned like a cat.

“You know me so well, Ryan, it’s really quite flattering that you’ve taken an interest. I would happily claim her, as you so eloquently put it, but sadly, as I said earlier, she was the one who got away.”

“You’re saying you didn’t kill her?” Ryan was bemused. He could not imagine this man investing time in a project and then walking away.

“I thought I had just made that clear. Are you disappointed? Would you like to have listened to the way I might have killed her, like I killed your sister?”

Ryan’s chest contracted and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. There was a roar in his ears as the blood pumped frantically through his veins and his fingernails dug little semi-circles into the palms of his hands.