If only there had been another to understand, to really empathise with the extraordinary mind I was born into?
Perhaps, now, I have found that friend.
With very best wishes,
Doctor K. Edwards”
He flicked back to the original letter written by Colin Hart and tried to understand what led a man to idolise a killer.
“Dear Mr Edwards,
I trust that this letter finds you well, or as well as can be, given the circumstances.
I hope that you will not think me too presumptuous in writing to you, as a stranger. I have always harboured a keen interest in understanding man’s progression from the social norm towards that which is not readily accepted and I wondered if you would be willing to discuss your own evolution?
I look forward to hearing from you, in due course.
Yours faithfully,
Colin Hart”
“He calls it ‘evolution’ or ‘progression’,” Phillips muttered.
“Huh?”
“Colin Hart. He writes to ask Edwards about what he calls his ‘progression’ towards killing. That’s not normal, is it?”
Ryan picked up on the nuance immediately.
“Ordinary people would consider his actions to be a descent, or a degenerative failure of some kind. Not many would consider killing to be an evolution, or a progression.”
“Colin does,” Phillips grunted.
While Phillips continued to leaf through the letters in search of anything meaningful, Ryan cast his eye over the detailed record of all post delivered from, or to, Keir Edwards. There was a separate record of all Internet usage, which would take a lot longer to go through, alongside a telephone record of all calls made or received using the prison telephones.
Of course, that didn’t account for any unregistered mobile phone that Edwards may have laid his hands upon. Ryan wasn’t naïve enough to think that contraband didn’t find its way into the wrong hands, particularly when those hands belonged to someone as manipulative as Edwards.
Ryan traced a fingertip down the list of entries, noting the letters described as ‘fan mail’ and told himself not to feel disgust, or shock. After all the things he had seen in his thirty-five years, there ought to be nothing that could shock him.
Inexplicably, women wrote to Edwards on a regular basis.
Ryan continued running through the list, until he found what he was looking for.
“There!”
Phillips looked across.
“Outgoing mail, dated 1st June. One postcard image of Sycamore Gap, taken on Midsummer’s Night. Recipient was Colin Hart. No written content.”
“He sent an empty postcard?”
“Colin had it on him,” Ryan spat. “He had the postcard there, in his rucksack, when he found Amy Llewellyn.”
Phillips whooshed out a breath.
“Midsummer’s Day – that sometimes falls on the solstice. They can be the same thing.”
Ryan swore.
“Edwards sent him there. Why else send an empty postcard? It was a map, telling Colin to get himself up to Sycamore Gap on the solstice.”
“Sly bastard,” Phillips breathed.
“Call MacKenzie. Tell her we’re on our way back to the station. Any word from Faulkner on forensics?”
“Still nothing,” Phillips shook his head. “You want me to chase him again? We can’t hold Colin much longer without charging him.”
Ryan knew it.
“Try to light a fire up his arse. He should have Colin’s prints and swabs by now – tell him to hurry the fuck up and compare them with the DNA on Amy’s bracelet, for a start, then compare it with anything found on Claire. We’re more likely to find something on her.”
“All over it.”
Arthur Gregson slid his mobile phone into the breast pocket of his blazer and watched Ryan pull his car into the staff car park from his vantage point on the fourth floor of CID Headquarters. The day had been fine, but as afternoon slid into evening there had been light rainfall, leaving a glimmering sheen of moisture on the ground, which glinted in the last of the day’s sunshine. Ryan unfolded his tall frame from a snazzy little grey convertible and tucked a large folder under one arm as he strode purposefully in the direction of the main entrance. Without pausing in his tracks, his head shifted upwards and met Gregson’s gaze. No smiles were exchanged, no raised arms or waved hands.
That was not, of itself, too concerning. Ryan had always been a reserved sort of man, prone to bouts of antisocial behaviour and self-imposed seclusion. Yet, in recent times, he seemed to have softened. He had cultivated a kind of easy camaraderie with his colleagues, which Gregson was not privy to.
Perhaps, Gregson thought, social exclusion was one of the downsides of superior rank. On the other hand, it could signify something much more concerning: that Ryan knew, or had begun to suspect, that the carefully constructed world around him was built upon a foundation of sand.