The Present: The must-read Christmas Crime of the year!

‘Fucking right he has,’ Lowry growled. He clenched his fists tight.

‘Mike,’ Jim said. ‘Please.’

Lowry held Maxen in a fierce look for a few more seconds, then sat back down.

‘Let’s keep this civilised,’ Jim went on, and he slid a sheet of paper across the table to Maxen. ‘Victor, I’d like you to take a look at this. It’s a list of dates. I’d like you tell me where you were on these dates, what you were doing and the names of anyone who can verify your alibis.’

‘Alibis …’ Maxen said, ignoring the piece of paper and staring straight across at Jim. ‘Now you’re asking for alibis, that means we’re getting serious.’

‘Look at the list, please.’

‘I’m not prepared to say another word until I have a solicitor present.’

Jim shrugged: ‘That’s your right, Victor. Interview terminated.’

At once, Lowry said: ‘Can I beat the shit out of him now?’

‘Mike, I won’t tell you again,’ Jim said firmly. ‘We’re doing this by the book. Don’t screw things up by getting emotional.’

‘Twelve years.’ Mike growled, still glowering at Maxen. ‘I’ve been on the Santa case for twelve years, right from the start. I’ve seen every victim, everything that bastard’s done … for twelve fucking years …!’

Lowry stood there for a moment, his muscles flexing, staring at Maxen with pure hatred. Then he took a breath and strode out before he did anything rash.

‘Ah,’ Maxen said, smiling now at Jim. ‘That’s what all this about. You’re trying pin that Santa thing on me. Good God, you must be desperate.’

‘I know it’s you,’ Jim told him.

‘Knock it off. I’m just an honest thief, you know that.’

‘But you know about the Santa killer right enough.’

‘A humble honest thief who keeps an eye on the papers,’ Maxen said with an insufferable smile. ‘I nick stuff. That’s what I do. I don’t kill women.’ And then he ran his tongue sloppily over his fat lips, and added: ‘I do something else to women, old sport, but I don’t kill ’em.’

Jim called in uniformed officers to take Maxen away to a holding cell to await the arrival of his solicitor. Then Anna was escorted down to the interview room where Jim and DS Mike Lowry were waiting.

‘Well, that interview didn’t achieve very much,’ she said as she strode in. ‘In fact, I think you made a pretty poor job of it.’

‘I’m glad you think that,’ Jim replied. ‘I’m hoping Victor Maxen feels the same way.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t want Maxen thinking too highly of me – especially after all the time and trouble I’ve taken to make myself appear incompetent in public. You of all people should understand what I’m saying, Anna. Think about it.’

Anna nodded, the penny dropping at last.

‘You’re keeping up the whole pretence of running a shoddy operation,’ she said. ‘If Maxen really is the Santa killer, then by now he’s going to be more convinced than ever that you and your team aren’t up to the job of stopping him.’

‘His self-confidence should be sky-high by now. Let’s hope he gets cocky enough to start making some serious mistakes.’

‘Are you going to let him go?’

‘We’ll have to. We can’t charge him, we’ve got bugger all hard evidence to link him to the crimes, no DNA or forensics, and his solicitor will have him back out in the street by breakfast time, I can assure you of that. But it wasn’t my intention to keep him locked up. If we held him here, he’d clam up – and if he is Santa, then all we’d be doing is dooming Sharon Steiner to a lonely, wretched death wherever he’s stashed her. But now that we’ve had him in here and shown him just how desperate our investigation has become, he’ll resume his “Twelve Days of Christmas” games with renewed enthusiasm, convinced he’s already got away with it for another year. And if I’ve calculated correctly, he’ll over-reach himself. That’s my big hope, that his overconfidence will lead him to make a fatal mistake, and then we’ll get the chance to grab him red-handed and find Sharon Steiner before she ends up like all those others before her.’

‘Unless, of course, you’re focusing on the wrong man.’

‘We are following other lines of enquiry, Anna, not just him,’ Jim assured her. ‘But, at the moment, Maxen’s top of our list.’

‘What happens now?’

‘Well, there’s no point you hanging around the police station all night. But you can’t go back to your flat, it’s too risky. I’ll have a car posted outside your place to keep watch on the place, just in case he shows. But as for you, Anna, is there anywhere else you could stay for tonight and maybe the next few nights? Somewhere safe?’

At once, instinctively, Anna thought of Miles. She always felt safe with Miles. And she had an open invitation to swing by any time she liked – even, perhaps, at three in the morning, uninvited and fleeing from a serial killer.

‘Yes, I know a place I can go,’ she said.

‘Very well, then. I’ll get one of the uniformed boys to drive you there. Here, take my number and contact details, and be so kind as to give me yours. We need to keep in close contact. You have to keep me fully informed if anything at all happens, okay? And you must also understand that you won’t be able to write about any of this. What happens on this case is strictly confidential.’

‘I understand perfectly. Writing’s the last thing that’s on my mind at the moment. All I’m concerned with is finding Sharon Steiner before it’s too late.’

Chapter 4

A patrol car carried Anna across town to Hampstead. En route, she called Miles’s number. He picked up almost at once. Anna guessed at once that he was struggling to sleep. Even now, nearly three years after his inexplicable trauma, he was still pacing around at three in the morning.

‘Sorry to spring this on you, Miles, but I need a place for the night. Right now. Something’s happened.’

‘Oh God, are you okay? Where are you?’

‘I’m fine. I’m in a police car heading towards you. Can you put me up?’

‘I’ll put the kettle on at once!’ Miles said, and he spoke with such seriousness that Anna could not help but burst out laughing, despite everything. Perhaps it was nerves as much as anything else.

The uniformed officer driving the patrol car shot her a glance, but Anna ignored it.

‘Miles, you truly are an angel of mercy,’ she said. ‘I’ll explain everything when I get to you.’

When they reached Miles’s Hampstead townhouse, all the downstairs lights were blazing in the deep, cold darkness of the December night. The uniformed officer watched from the car as Anna hurried along the front drive and rang the bell. He didn’t pull away again until Miles had opened the door and taken her inside.

As promised, the kettle was indeed on. Miles moved about the kitchen making them both coffee, his mop of dark hair as chaotic and unruly as ever, but now flecked with grey. There were dark lines under his eyes, brought about by stress and chronic insomnia, but despite all that there was still an air of boyishness lingering about him, an indomitable spirit of life and humour that had not been crushed out of him by his ordeal and which Anna believed was the life-support system which kept him going even in his darkest moments.

‘So – what’s the mess you’ve got yourself into?’ Miles asked, passing her a steaming mug of coffee. ‘Tell Uncle Miles all about it – from the beginning.’

‘I can’t quite get my head around it myself! It’s all happened so suddenly.’

‘Is it something to do with that awful Sharon Steiner business?’

‘God, Miles, how did you know?’

Miles shrugged: ‘An educated guess. When you rang me earlier you were railing about CID having a serial killer on their hands that they were too incompetent to catch. I’m guessing the killer you were referring to is Santa. He’s struck again, hasn’t he? I don’t get out much but I still keep a close eye on the news.’

‘Yes, it’s Santa. Do you know anything about him?’

‘I remember he was one of the unsolved cases I was looking into years ago. But I didn’t get the chance to go too deeply into it, my attention was on a number of other cases at that time. Santa’s been operating for … oh, let me think, it must be at least ten years by now.’

‘Twelve. He’s been getting away with it for twelve years.’

‘And you’ve set your sights on seeing that he doesn’t get away with it for another twelve years, I take it,’ said Miles. ‘But something’s not gone according to plan – hence your sudden, though not at all unwelcome, arrival in a police car at three in the morning.’

‘I’ve attracted his attention,’ Anna said. ‘I’ve shown up on his radar.’

‘Shown up on whose radar?’

‘Santa’s. He knows about me, Miles. He knows where I live. And a few hours ago, he came to my flat.’

Miles jolted, spilling his coffee half over the table and half over himself. Anna at once grabbed some paper towels and set about mopping him up, like a mother with a clumsy child.

‘Sorry about that,’ Miles apologised, his voice sounding tighter and edgier than before. ‘The thought of that monster getting close to you … it really upset me.’

‘Well, I’m fine,’ Anna said emphatically. ‘Well, I say fine, what I mean is that nobody hurt me. But I did receive a present.’

‘A present? A present from Santa? Wh … What sort of present?’

In her mind’s eye, Anna could vividly see herself tearing away the wrapping paper, unlatching the clasps on the plastic box, opening the lid and being hit by that stomach-churning stink of putrefying flesh …

She shook her head to clear it, then said: ‘Something awful. Blood. Bits. A present from a serial killer.’

‘And you rang the police straight away, I take it.’

‘Of course. DI Jim Townsend’s on the case. Do you know him?’

‘The name doesn’t ring any bells. But Anna, I’m much more concerned about how Santa knows where you live and why he’d show up like that. What have you been doing to get yourself noticed by him?’

‘Nothing out of the ordinary,’ said Anna. ‘I’ve been looking into the Santa case and asking why CID have been so hopeless in making progress with it. I’ve got an answer to that, by the way. Jim Townsend’s not nearly as incompetent as he’s been making himself look. It’s all been an act to make Santa feel overconfident. The hope is he’ll get too sure of himself and make a fatal mistake.’

‘But how does Santa know about you?’ Miles pressed her.

‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s aware of me from the Underwood case back in the summer.’

‘Why would he care about that? I know enough about serial killers to know that they’re interested in nothing but themselves. Even their victims are just extensions of their own psychological needs. Why would Santa come to your front door and leave blood and bits for you like that? And how the hell would he know where you live?’

‘Miles, I can’t answer any of that.’

‘Well, you’re not going back to your flat tonight. You’re staying right here where I can look after you. I’d die before I let Santa or anyone else touch so much as a hair on your head.’

‘Let’s hope it won’t come to anything like that.’

‘I’m serious, Anna. I mean it.’

‘I know you do,’ Anna smiled, and she reached out and squeezed his hand. ‘Jim Townsend’s got people watching my flat in case Santa shows up there again.’

‘He won’t. He’s too careful.’

Anna nodded: ‘He is careful. Careful enough to be getting away with murder for twelve years. But now he’s fixed his attentions on me – for whatever reason – he’s going to make contact again, one way or another. He’s playing his game, you see. His “Twelve Days of Christmas” game.’

‘Twelve Days of Christmas? You mean, partridges in pear trees and all that?’

‘He’ll send in a series of messages based on the Twelve Days of Christmas. Whether they’re clues as to how to find him, or taunts, or just sick sadistic jokes that he gets a kick out of, God alone knows. But it’s how he operates, and he’s stickler for his own procedures. He’ll work his way through all twelve messages, and if we don’t find him before he reaches the last one he’ll murder Sharon Steiner and disappear again, just like he always does.’

‘And then pop up again next Christmas or the Christmas after that, and start the whole awful game over again,’ Miles said.

‘I can’t let that happen, Miles. We can’t let that happen.’

‘We?’

‘I want to find Santa and save Sharon Steiner, and I want you to help me, Miles. Jim Townsend and his team at CID are determined to crack this case but I don’t think they’ll manage it. Santa’s been running rings around the police for over a decade, he knows how to out-think them. But he doesn’t know how to out-think me

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