Page 26 of Kill For Me Kill For You
Ruth
Detective Farrow sat on the desk chair in Ruth’s room at the Paramount Hotel. His partner, Karen Hernandez, remained standing. Sweat stuck Farrow’s hair to his forehead and Hernandez couldn’t seem to raise her chin off her chest for more than a moment. Scott sat beside Ruth on the bed. One hand in Ruth’s, the other around her shoulders. Scott had taken the call from Detective Farrow the day before to arrange the meeting.
Ruth had already made a full statement from the hotel room. And she’d worked with a sketch artist who sat with her for an hour in the room afterwards, drawing a composite sketch. That was the last she’d heard from the police until yesterday.
Today was the fourteenth of November. Two months, exactly, since the attack.
‘So how have things been?’ asked Farrow.
‘Not good,’ said Ruth. ‘I get nightmares. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since . . . well, since I woke up in the hospital. I’m anxious all the time.’
‘That’s understandable. And have you been seeing any doctors lately?’ asked Farrow.
Ruth knew what the detective really meant. He’d used the word ‘doctors’ when he really meant ‘shrink’.
‘Not really. I haven’t been able to see anyone regularly. I had one appointment – he put me on some meds,’ she said.
‘I can give you a few recommendations,’ said Farrow.
‘No, it’s fine. I know a couple of therapists. I sold them their apartments. I don’t want to see anyone at the moment. It’s all so raw. Until you catch this guy, I just feel exposed. I don’t leave this room, really.’
Farrow’s eyebrows knotted together and he asked, ‘You haven’t been out of this room since you checked out of the hospital? How long has it been . . .?’
‘Around six weeks,’ said Scott.
‘Six we— Look, Ruth, I really think you should see someone. We’re concerned about you. There is a process every victim goes through – there’s stages to it. It can be conquered, you know? With the right help.’
‘I’m fine,’ said Ruth, drawing her closed lips into a trembling smile.
‘If you could leave some contacts, or email them to me, we can take a look,’ said Scott.
‘Good, great. I’ll do that,’ said Farrow, sitting up straighter in the chair. As he did so, he winced slightly, reached round and held his back.
‘We wanted to give you an update on the case. It’s taken a while, but we have the forensic results. I’m afraid it’s not good news. We were unable to find any forensic material that might have come from the perpetrator.’
Ruth felt Scott’s fingers tighten around her own.
Farrow said nothing more. He just sat there with his big eyes gazing at Ruth.
‘What about fingerprints? Or security-camera footage, things like that?’ asked Scott.
Hernandez was already shaking her head.
‘I’m afraid not. There are some cameras in the area. I’m afraid we didn’t catch anything useful on them. What we’ve found is that the attack comes after a protracted period of surveillance. The first victim reported a tall man in a hood following her home from work. That report came in five weeks before that particular victim was attacked. It’s likely he knew where the cameras were on the block and how to avoid them,’ said Hernandez.
‘What do you have on this guy?’ said Scott, his voice rising.
Farrow rubbed the stubble on his chin, then folded his arms.
He looked at Scott and said, ‘We’ve had a more detailed analysis done of our first two victims, and we found traces of chloroform, so we know for sure now that these attacks are connected and we are building a profile of this perpetrator. We have a description, and we have the composite sketch, thanks to Ruth working with our sketch artist. We’re talking to our media department about releasing the sketch to the public. We know he stalks his victims; Ruth has heard his voice too. We are asking the public to be vigilant.’
Scott let go of Ruth’s hand. He stood up fast, before she could pull him back down.
‘You haven’t released the sketch yet? Why wouldn’t you do that straight away?’
‘Well, there’s pros and cons. The sketch is good, but it could be a likeness for a lot of people, you know? We release it and we get flooded with calls. Pretty much all of them are going to be false leads and right now we don’t have the manpower to go chasing five hundred guys who look a little like the man in the sketch.’
‘So get more cops on this. Do you even have a suspect yet?’ said Scott.
