Eclipse Read online

  Table of Contents

  Recent Titles by Hilary Norman

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  The Room was. . .

  Recent Titles by Hilary Norman

  The Sam Becket Mysteries

  MIND GAMES

  LAST RUN *

  SHIMMER *

  CAGED *

  HELL *

  ECLIPSE *

  BLIND FEAR

  CHATEAU ELLA

  COMPULSION

  DEADLY GAMES

  FASCINATION

  GUILT

  IN LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP

  LAURA

  NO ESCAPE

  THE PACT

  RALPH’S CHILDREN *

  SHATTERED STARS

  SPELLBOUND

  SUSANNA

  TOO CLOSE

  TWISTED MINDS

  IF I SHOULD DIE (written as Alexandra Henry)

  * available from Severn House

  ECLIPSE

  Hilary Norman

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain 2012 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  First published in the USA 2013 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of

  110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  eBook edition first published in 2012 by Severn House Digital an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited.

  Copyright © 2012 by Hilary Norman.

  The right of Hilary Norman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Norman, Hilary.

  Eclipse.

  1. Becket, Sam (Fictitious character)—Fiction.

  2. Police—Florida—Miami—Fiction. 3. Serial murder investigation—Florida—Miami—Fiction. 4. Suspense fiction.

  I. Title

  823.9’2-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-352-5 (epub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8224-0 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-457-8 (trade paper)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  For Gabriella

  My beautiful little great-niece.

  It will be many years before you’re allowed

  to read it – but this is for you.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My thanks to the following (in alphabetical order):

  Howard Barmad; Diane Beate Hellmann; Daniela Jarzynka; Jeremy Joseph, MD, FRCS, FRC.Ophth.; Special Agent Paul Marcus and Julie Marcus (still putting up with me, and I can never thank you enough) and Scott Marcus, too; Annina Meyerhans; Wolfgang Neuhaus; James Nightingale; Katharina Peters; Sara Porter; Sebastian Ritscher; Helen Rose (who can answer almost any question); as always, gratitude to Dr Jonathan Tarlow; and special thanks to Euan Thorneycroft.

  Finally, and most especially, to Jonathan.

  The room was filled with dead things.

  Some sham – things that had never been alive. Toys which might, perhaps, almost have lived in their owners’ imaginations.

  Some all too real.

  A ginger cat in a coffin.

  More than one tiny coffin in the room.

  A white rat, too, nailed to a cork board.

  Numerous butterflies.

  And more.

  There was an old beige teddy bear, lying on its back in a small crib.

  A soft dog, part still fluffy, part threadbare, paws matted, testimony to small-child love, sucked on.

  The toy dog had been laid out in the crib, front paws crossed on its chest.

  Almost like a human corpse.

  A doll lay nearby – a pretty blonde thing, carried back to Florida once upon a time all the way from FAO Schwartz in New York City by a doting dad and given to a daughter long since grown, with no time left for toys.

  The doll was on her back too.

  Her lower half covered with a tiny sheet. Her arms raised, twisted around in their sockets. Her hands covering her eyes, making it impossible to see if they were open or closed.

  The eyes of every dead thing in the room were covered.

  Some with hands or paws – in the coffin, the ginger cat’s front limbs had been stretched, like the doll’s arms, so that they, too, shielded its eyes.

  The cat’s paws were encased in white mittens.

  The eye coverings were diverse. Everything from Band-Aids to miniature sleep masks to soft gauze and bandages.

  Even the eyes of the butterflies were concealed.

  In life, these were large and spherical, made up of thousands of hexagonally-shaped sensors, each directed at different angles, enabling the insects to see multidirectionally, albeit imperfectly.

  The butterflies in this room no longer saw anything at all.

  Their eyes blind now and invisible beneath tiny coverlets of white lace, like minuscule doilies at a child’s tea party.

  Unseen and unseeing.

  There were photographs, too, on the walls.

  Subject matter the same.

  Dead creatures, terminated toys.

  No eyes visible.

  There was life, however, in the room.

  A person, at work.

  Stooped over a table, engrossed in a task.

  Hard to see what the task was.

  If you could have come close enough to peer over their shoulder, you would have seen.

  Something horrible.

  The stuff of nightmares.

  The kind of thing it would be hard to forget.

  The kind of thing to make you need to close your eyes.

  And keep them closed.

  May 8

  On Sunday evening, Detective Sam Becket and Special Agent Joseph Duval were at Houston’s in North Miami Beach, having dinner.

  A first for them. The Miami Beach Police Department detective from the Violent Crimes Unit socializing with the man from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement – and not just a couple of beers in a bar after work. But Joe Duval had formerly been a Violent Crimes police detective in Chicago, and since he’d relocated to Florida the men had cooperated on a couple of major cases; Duval – fifty-something, sharp-nosed, sharp-jawed and slim – was an instinctive investigator and happy family man and, bottom line, he and Sam got along.

  So when Duval had called a week ago and mentioned that his wife and son were going to be busy Sunday evening, Sam had suggested dinner, because Grace, his wife, would be out of town, and in her absence her sister, Claudia, would be staying at their house, helping to take care of Joshua, their three-year-old.

  In fact, Sam had seen Grace off at Miami International just hours ago, and she would, within the hour, be boarding her flight to Zurich, Switzerland.

  So tonight he was dining out, and tomorrow evening he’d be rehearsing Act Three of the South Beach Opera’s production of Carmen.

  Long time since Sam had sung with S-BOP, his old amateur company. />
  Almost like being single again.

  Just the thought of that made him shudder.

  It was seven p.m., and hectic. No such thing as a quiet table at Houston’s, but on the other hand, in all the hubbub there was no big risk of neighbors listening in. Not that they had official work to discuss.

  Except Sam could not help being interested in and disturbed by Duval’s current big case. Another sicko loose in Florida, and just about everyone knew something about it. At least, as much as the investigators working the cases were letting the media know.

  It was often the way in bad serial killings that the crimes themselves, or their perpetrators, collected unofficial names. This one had started in Orlando, where the first victim had been found, and it had stuck fast.

  ‘Black Hole’ was the individual they were hunting.

  Ugly name, and so far, off the record.

  Three victims. The first in Orlando back in January, the second in Jupiter, Palm Beach County, almost a month later; the most recent in early March over in Naples, Collier County.

  Everyone hoping, but not really believing, that it would be the last.

  Details had been entered into ViCAP, the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. Matching fingerprints found at two of the scenes had thrown up no corresponding prints in the IAFIS – the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Restricted details were on the FBI’s Most Wanted website, and Joe Duval had entered the picture after the second murder.

  No case yet in Miami-Dade County, and everyone in the MBPD wanted it to stay that way, and Sam Becket, for one, had heard more than enough about these killings to hope and pray that if Black Hole was coming this way, he might just bypass the Beach.

  ‘No fresh links?’ Sam asked Duval now, quietly.

  ‘Nothing,’ Duval said.

  No more than Sam already knew. All three victims had been female and Caucasian, and the only other established common ground between them had been the manner of their deaths. The youngest twenty-two, the oldest forty-nine. One blonde, two brunettes. One married, one divorced, the youngest woman single. Two of them mothers. One not working out of choice; one in real estate; the last victim, Lindy Braun, owning and running her own bar.

  ‘And not so much as a sniff of a lead,’ the FDLE man went on.

  Which was when his Hickory Burger and Sam’s ribs arrived, and after that their conversation rolled around family, the Heat and the Hurricanes, then to the fact that Duval, who’d been living close to MROC – Miami Regional Operations Center – in Doral, was hoping to move house, and they’d been looking around Pembroke Pines, had liked what they’d seen.

  ‘Grace and I were considering a move a while back,’ Sam said, ‘but I think we’re kind of glad we stayed put.’

  ‘Our son’s a little tentative about relocating,’ Duval said.

  ‘It can be tough on teens,’ Sam said.

  Duval’s cell phone rang.

  Sam picked up another rib, and knew, from the expression in the other man’s intent gray eyes, that their dinner was at an end.

  ‘Fort Lauderdale,’ Duval said grimly, his call over. ‘Another one.’

  Not Sam’s jurisdiction, but Duval had told him he should come along.

  It wasn’t an invitation to be relished, nor was it one he could refuse. Not just because it would be impolite, but because he was a homicide detective, and a part of that man wanted to see this.

  Fort Lauderdale Police Department’s homicide unit were already all over the scene. A nice little single family house, a corner unit in the quiet, tree-lined Shady Banks neighborhood.

  A pleasant place to live.

  Standing in the victim’s bedroom, Sam Becket – the part who was just a man, rather than a cop – wished to hell that he’d passed on Duval’s invitation.

  Some sights a human being ought to avoid if possible.

  ‘Oh, man,’ he said softly, seeing her, his mind recoiling along with his stomach.

  He looked away – because he could, because this was not his case, so he could afford the luxury of averting his eyes from the horrors that had been visited on this poor woman.

  Amelia Newton, age thirty-three. Living alone in her two bed, one bath, nicely-appointed, tidily-maintained, one-story house. No signs of a break-in or of a struggle anyplace, not even in the room where she lay.

  Two photographs on her dressing table attested to the fact that she had been attractive. A slim, smiling woman with short blonde hair and blue eyes.

  Sam looked over at Duval, knew he was doing what they all had to at such times. Shutting down their human side. Starting the process of doing the only thing they could for the victim: getting her justice.

  He forced himself to look back at Amelia Newton.

  The crime perpetrated on her was – even by the standards of an experienced homicide detective – bizarre and appalling.

  She lay in the center of her double bed, tidily positioned. Her body, from the shoulders down, lay on a patchwork-style quilt covering the bed. She appeared fully clothed in turquoise cotton slacks and white T-shirt.

  Her clothes and the quilt were blood-splattered.

  Beneath her neck and head, someone had spread a sheet of latex, covering, but not really protecting, the pillows propping her up.

  Three pillows, Sam counted, and a lot of blood.

  A rectangle of foam lay on the floor to the left of the bed. It looked like the foam insert of a cushion, and it was scarred, burned-looking, had probably been used as a silencer.

  If the killer had been true to form, toxicology would eventually show that Ms Newton had been sedated not long before death with a large dose of Diazepam. Almost tasteless, easy to mix with food or drink.

  Duval came over, holding a Polaroid shot.

  ‘This was how she was found,’ he said. ‘By her sister, who was coming for dinner. She had her own key. She’d brought wine, says they were going to order takeout and watch a movie.’

  In the Polaroid, Amelia Newton was wearing a pair of oversized, very dark sunglasses.

  ‘Her sister says she’s sure the glasses weren’t Amelia’s.’

  ‘Were the other victims wearing sunglasses?’ Sam asked.

  Duval shook his head. ‘In Orlando, it was a sleep mask. The victim’s husband said he thought his wife had kept it from an overnight airline flight. In Jupiter, it was gauze covered by Band-Aids. In Naples, the victim’s white-gloved hands were covering the wounds.’

  Sam made himself look back at Amelia Newton again.

  At her face.

  Her eyes.

  Or rather, the hideous, dark cavities where her eyes had been.

  Two deep, round wounds.

  Black holes, probably created – like the first three – by .380 ACP cartridges.

  Not big slugs, but enough to do the job.

  Sam suddenly wished he hadn’t finished his ribs. He took a breath, became aware of the mix of odors in the room, tried separating them – blood and death, the lingering smell of burned foam, and something else . . . And then he reminded himself that he was not the investigator here, and quit trying so hard.

  ‘Some night off, huh?’ Duval said quietly.

  ‘Yeah,’ Sam said. ‘Thanks for sharing.’

  Grace Lucca Becket sat in her airline seat, sipping a martini, contemplating the days ahead and admitting to herself that as much as she would rather have been making this trip with Sam, it was kind of fun sitting up here with her drink ahead of dinner and, she hoped, a reasonable night’s rest.

  A pleasant kind of limbo.

  ‘And don’t go spoiling it with guilt,’ Claudia had told her yesterday.

  ‘As if,’ Grace had answered wryly.

  All her family knew her talent for that most pointless of emotions. Though having committed herself to this trip, Grace’s intention was to make the most of it. A good hotel outside Zurich, and the conference itself, with the stimulus of fellow professionals all with the same fundamental interest at heart
.

  Helping troubled kids.

  Which was, of course, what she tried to do at home in her role as a child and adolescent psychologist. No need, therefore, for trips to Switzerland or any other place.

  This was Magda’s doing. Dr Magda Shrike, fellow psychologist, long-time mentor and valued friend, with whom Grace had been sharing work space for about a year.

  The theme of the International Conference on Child Developmental Psychology to be held in Zurich, Switzerland, from May 10–12, was to be ‘Emotional education: drawing together the best to help give troubled young people the best’.

  The speakers had been booked long ago, but illness had created an opening in the teenage psychology group, and an acquaintance of Magda’s had asked her to suggest someone who could step up.

  ‘There must be any number of more suitable people,’ Grace had said.

  ‘No one more suitable that I can think of,’ her friend had told her.

  ‘That’s very flattering, but I’m not sure it’s true.’

  ‘From my perspective, it is.’

  ‘And is this the next stage, perhaps, of your therapy plan for me?’

  Because Magda Shrike, as her own psychologist, had been helping Grace to continue her recovery from a series of traumatic events and, most notably, her all-consuming guilt over what had happened last May.

  When Grace had killed a man.

  It was extraordinary, she often thought, the horrors that people did manage to get past, if not over. Sufficiently, at least, to continue their lives; to go on, in her case, being a wife and mother, sister, daughter-in-law, aunt, and psychologist.

  She had argued against accepting, but with Sam and Claudia both backing Magda, Grace had capitulated. So here she was tonight, wishing she had a satellite phone to use for a goodnight call to Sam, even if it would be disproportionately expensive.

  But worth every cent.

  May 9

  At night, he read ceaselessly, driven by insomnia and his never-sated hunger for learning.

  He had studied for so long, filling his brain with knowledge, had a passionate love for his chosen profession, yet that never stopped him exploring other fields. The mind, after all, being an infinite repository, requiring constant exercise and restocking, at work even when the body slept.