He remembered the words of the crime scene report and the photographs. There was no evidence of the victim fighting back – no defensive wounds or arterial blood-spray patterns on the walls. ‘So you were too badly injured to fight back, or he was too strong. Strong enough to pin you to the floor while he cut through your throat and carotid artery. Did he hold you still while he watched the life drain from you? And when you were dead or near-dead, he took your teeth and nails – so he could relive killing you over and over again.’
Without realizing it, he suddenly switched point of view from victim to killer, as if in the moment Dalton died he left his dead body and entered the murderer’s very much living body. For a few seconds he was sure he could feel the excitement and power the killer had felt coursing through him, making him feel more alive than he’d ever been.
‘You raped the first victim, but your crimes are not sexually motivated,’ he said, almost too quietly to be audible. ‘Your excitement spread through every inch of your body, didn’t it? You became aroused by this great thing you had just done, but the tension in your body was too much, wasn’t it? You needed a release, so you raped her while she lay dead or dying.’ He closed his eyes for a second and allowed the images of William Dalton lying dead on the ground to flood in. His clothes appeared to be fully intact, his genitals unmolested. ‘Did you feel the same almost uncontrollable excitement when you killed for the second time? Did you need to release? But this was a man … Shit,’ he suddenly cursed. This one was coming to him too fast. Thinking like him was almost overwhelming, but at the same time it was intoxicating and seductive to follow the conscious and subconscious steps of a killer towards what most would consider to be madness, but what to them was a transformation into something greater and more powerful. He drew in deep breaths to regain his focus – to regain his own voice. To take back his own mind.
‘OK,’ he told himself, trying to think like a detective and not the killer he hunted. ‘No matter how hard you tried to keep clean, you would have been a fucking mess. Your hands, sleeves, everything would have been covered in the victim’s blood. Blood has a nasty habit of getting everywhere, but once you cut through his carotid artery you had to deal with arterial spray too – blood spraying out under pressure from a heart trying to stay alive. You must have been covered in it – warm and wet on your skin like slick hot oil— Fuck!’ he chastised himself for drifting back into the killer’s mind.
He gave himself a few seconds to regain his composure. ‘You must have been a mess. You couldn’t have casually walked on to the tube or a bus like that, and even if you had a car nearby, you wouldn’t have risked walking to it covered in the victim’s blood. No. You plan too much. Somehow you got clean or clean enough to slip past a casual look. So you took water with you or knew where to find it or had something with you that would cover your blood-soaked clothes until you could get home and get clean. But what about your wife and family, or your parents? They would have noticed something.’ He thought for a second. ‘So you live alone. The bloody ones always live alone.’ He paused for a few seconds to allow his observations to settle into something more solid in his mind. The first sketching of a mind-map that he knew, one way or the other, would eventually lead him to the killer of William Dalton and Tanya Richards.
He took one last look around the inside of the garage – at the squalor of Dalton’s life and the bloody hell that was his death. ‘What do you want?’ he asked the killer. ‘You’re not just killing because you can’t stop yourself, are you? You’re trying to … you’re trying to achieve something. But what?’
He clicked his torch off and walked into the darkness that waited for him outside.
4
Next morning Sean was in his office at New Scotland Yard, a takeaway black coffee steaming on the cheap wooden desk that had snagged more than one pair of trousers. Engrossed in typing up his findings on the virtually obsolete computer he refused to allow IT to replace, he was unaware that he had a visitor until a sharp knock on his doorframe alerted him. Somehow, without looking up, he knew who it would be. Maybe he’d subconsciously detected her perfume. His entire body froze with tension when he saw her standing in the doorway.
‘Anna,’ was all he could say.
‘Sean,’ she replied, looking at the floor for a split second to avoid his eyes.
‘Been a long time,’ he told her.
‘You’ve not had an investigation that needed my input,’ she reminded him.
‘You mean one that Addis wanted your input on?’ he replied. ‘Your input about me.’
She walked into his office and took a seat without being asked. ‘We’ve talked about this, Sean. My loyalty is to you. I’ll only tell Addis what we agree he should be told. I’ll keep him off your back while you try to find whoever committed these crimes – and maybe I can help you with that too.’
He watched her for a while before answering – taking in every breath, every minute movement and involuntary twitch of her body. ‘Perhaps you can,’ he eventually said. ‘This one’s certainly a bit different.’
‘I read the file,’ she told him. Sean raised an eyebrow. She saw it. ‘Addis,’ she explained.
‘Naturally,’ he replied. ‘And what do you think?’
‘I think he’s a vicious killer who needs to be stopped,’ she answered.
‘That’s your professional opinion?’ he asked with a smile.
‘Part of it.’ She returned the smile.
‘And the rest? I’d be interested in hearing what you think.’
‘You mean you’d be interested in seeing how far behind you I am?’ she accused him.
‘That’s not true.’ Or at least, it was only partly true. He did want to hear her thoughts.
‘Well,’ she began, ‘he’s certainly high on the violence score, but low on the rage score.’
‘Meaning?’ Sean asked, although he believed he knew the answer.
‘Meaning you can almost certainly rule out mental illness,’ she explained. ‘He’s not raging over his victims – there are no multiple stab wounds, for example. He’s very precise. If he’s mad at the world, he has a very calm way of showing it. Murderous, but calm. And he’s not concerned about leaving his DNA at the scene, so it’s unlikely he’s killed before or been convicted of any crimes.’
‘Could he have killed and gotten away with it?’ Sean asked, although he was sure he hadn’t.
‘It’s possible,’ Anna agreed. ‘He may have used a completely different method. But I doubt it. He’s used the same method twice now, which means he likes to stick to what works – what he’s comfortable with.’
‘Interesting,’ Sean told her.
‘Interesting enough,’ she said, ‘but nothing you hadn’t worked out.’
‘You’ve flagged things I hadn’t considered,’ he lied. ‘You’re the psychiatrist – not me.’
Anna didn’t believe a word. ‘I’m glad I could add something,’ she smiled.
‘He raped the first victim,’ Sean quickly moved on. ‘Yet his second victim was male. What’s he thinking?’
‘I don’t believe he’s sexually motivated,’ she explained. ‘There were no obvious signs of sexual activity with the male victim, but he may well be more of a sexual predator than he thinks. Certainly, when the opportunity presented itself, he took it.’
‘She had no defensive marks,’ Sean reminded her, ‘so he raped her when she was dead – or almost.’
‘Or he threatened her into submission, or he’s strong enough to totally overpower her,’ Anna argued.
‘So what is he?’ Sean asked. ‘A rapist or a necrophiliac?’
‘Neither,’ Anna answered. ‘His reason for attacking wasn’t to have sex with them – dead or alive. That was merely a byproduct.’
‘A release?’ Sean shared his own idea.
‘His excitement would have been intense,’ she agreed, knowing what he meant. ‘It would have manifested itself in some physical way.’
‘You mean he got so excited he became sexually aroused?’ Sean cut to the point. ‘He needed to orgasm to calm himself down?’
‘I believe so.’
‘So we should be looking more closely for signs of sexual activity with the second victim?’
‘Yes,’ she told him, ‘but you were already going to – weren’t you?’
‘I was considering suggesting it,’ he admitted. ‘Though Roddis and his team would probably have done it anyway.’
‘I’m not sure I can help you, Sean,’ she told him, shaking her head. ‘You’re always at least two steps ahead of me – ahead of anyone. Anything I can see you’ve already seen.’
‘You’re not going to start telling me I can think like them and all that shit?’ he pleaded.
‘Well?’ she asked. ‘Can’t you? Isn’t that what happens?’
‘I don’t think like them,’ he said, his voice betraying his frustration. ‘I can imagine what they might be thinking – there’s a difference.’
‘Is there?’
‘Why don’t you tell me?’
Before Anna could answer, Sally walked into the office and slumped into the one vacant chair, too tired to notice the tense atmosphere. ‘I wish I still smoked,’ she announced. ‘A ciggie and a coffee would go down very nicely round about now.’
‘What you got for me, Sally?’ Sean ignored her plea for vices of the past.
‘Well, the victim’s Oyster card is being examined today, so we should know his movements soon enough. And we’ve seized the CCTV from Borough tube station. The transport police are going to find out what train he used and seize the CCTV from that too, so if he was being closely followed we might get something. It was late and the station was pretty quiet. Could be our best bet.’
‘Then he didn’t follow him,’ Sean killed off any optimism. ‘He waited for him. He’s too smart, too careful to get caught following either victim on CCTV. But check it out anyway. You get anything from your trip to the West End last night?’
‘Nothing that sounds like it’s going to help,’ she admitted. ‘We tracked down plenty of his so-called friends and associates from the street. He was well known and well liked, but nobody has any idea why this happened to him. There were lots of sightings on the day and night he died, but he headed for home alone. No one knows what happened.’
‘Can they say what tube station he used?’ Sean asked.
‘Some reckon Tottenham Court Road,’ Sally told him. ‘We’ll know for sure once the Oyster card is examined.’
‘OK, fine,’ Sean agreed distractedly, suddenly aware of an absence in the room. ‘You seen Dave this morning?’ he asked Sally.
‘No,’ she shrugged. ‘Haven’t seen him since yesterday afternoon.’
Sean thought about his other trusted second in command for a few seconds, remembering how in the past he was virtually always the first one into work every morning. Since the Goldsboro shooting, he was usually the last. ‘If you see or hear from him,’ he told Sally, ‘let him know I need to speak with him, will you?’ Sally nodded as Sean’s mobile began to ring. He checked the caller ID and answered.
‘Andy,’ he began. ‘What you got for me?’
‘Early, peripheral findings only,’ DS Roddis from SIU’s specialist forensic team told him. ‘The Crime Scene Log tells me you’ve been to the scene, twice, so I doubt I’ll be able to tell you anything you haven’t worked out for yourself. Why wasn’t I given this scene when it was fresh? It doesn’t help that I’ve had to contend with another forensic team trampling over most of it and making off with exhibits.’
‘Exhibits that will be handed over to you,’ Sean tried to calm the unlikeable perfectionist that was Roddis, the best at his business Sean had ever known. ‘And the murder wasn’t connected to a series until it was too late. If we’re unlucky enough to get another scene, you’ll get it before anyone else steps foot in it.’
‘Except you,’ Roddis accused him in advance.
‘I’d be interested in your observations,’ Sean encouraged him. ‘And I want you to look for a couple of things the other forensics team may not have considered.’
Anna gave him a knowing look.
‘Such as?’ Roddis asked, intrigued. He’d worked enough investigations with Sean to know to expect surprises.
‘Semen. Probably close to where the body was found, but could be anywhere in the garage or just outside it.’
‘You think he sexually assaulted the victim?’ Roddis asked, confused by Sean’s suggestion.
‘No, but it’s possible he felt the need while at the scene. To reduce his heightened state of excitement.’
‘The need?’ Roddis questioned. ‘A killer masturbating at the scene when no sexual motivation is suspected? I’ve seen defecation, urination, killers that like to eat and drink from the victim’s fridge, but never what you’re suggesting, not when the crime isn’t sexually motivated.’
‘Let’s just say this one’s possibly confused,’ Sean told him. ‘Let’s not assume there was no sexual element to his motivation and let’s look for traces of semen.’
‘If you really think it’s worth it,’ Roddis climbed down in the face of Sean’s irritation. ‘But it won’t be easy – not at a scene of this type and not after it’s been trampled over.’
‘I know, but just do it for me, will you?’
‘Very well,’ Roddis conceded. ‘And the other thing?’
‘There was a lot of blood at the scene,’ Sean reminded him. ‘He was in close proximity to the victim when he cut through his carotid artery, meaning he must have had a significant amount of blood on him.’
‘One would imagine so.’
‘Which means he needed to clean up,’ Sean continued. ‘At least enough to get him past casual looks. There’s no water supply in the garage, so chances are he brought his own, something he may have chosen to dispose of after he’d used it – a plastic bottle, anything. Check inside the cordon – further afield too – for anything he could have used.’
‘Why you so worried about finding it?’ Roddis asked. ‘All it’ll give us is more DNA and fingerprints. We already have plenty.’
‘It’ll help paint a picture,’ Sean explained. ‘It’ll show he planned it. That he’s organized and careful – premeditating. If he tries to plead diminished responsibility, we’ll be able to disprove it.’
‘So be it,’ Roddis sighed. ‘We’ll look for your water bottle. Anything else?’
‘No,’ Sean told him. ‘You find anything interesting or unexpected, phone it straight through to me. Understand?’
‘I understand,’ Roddis answered.
Sean ended the call and threw his phone back on to the desk where it immediately started chirping and vibrating again. ‘Christ,’ he complained, snatching it back up. He didn’t recognize the number but answered anyway. With an investigation like this, he’d be getting a lot of calls from numbers his phone didn’t recognize and he’d have to risk answering them all or miss something potentially vital. ‘Hello,’ he said, withholding his name until he knew who he was speaking to.
‘DI Corrigan?’ a man’s voice asked.
‘Who’s calling?’ he probed.
‘PC John Croft,’ the man answered. ‘The Coroner’s Officer.’
‘You’re speaking with DI Corrigan,’ Sean told him. ‘What have you got for me?’
‘Dr Canning will be doing the post-mortem on your victim, William Dalton, later today. I’ve had a message from him asking if you’ll be there.’
My victim, Sean thought about Croft’s expression. Was that what Dalton was – another of his victims? ‘Yes,’ he said after a slight pause. ‘Tell Dr Canning I’ll be there.’
‘About eleven a.m. then,’ Croft told him, and hung up.
‘The post-mortem?’ Sally asked.
‘Yeah,’ he answered.
‘Want some company?’
‘No. I’ll go alone. You’re better off staying here and keeping everybody on it.’ As he spoke, his eyes scanned the main office through the Perspex wall. ‘Where the hell is Dave?’
David Langley paced the showroom floor of the furniture store. Head office had given him the grand title ‘manager’, but since they refused to supply him with a team of sales assistants to command – just an ‘assistant manager’ who was more trouble than he was worth – most of the time Langley was reduced to the role of a glorified salesman. There was a time when that would have bothered him, but now he knew it was simply something he had to put up with while he laid the foundations for his true purpose in life, his reason for being. He congratulated himself on possessing the strength of character to continue the charade of working in the furniture store until the time came to reveal his legacy to the world. The fantasies that had begun as a young teenager were now becoming a reality. He had everything planned, culminating in a final act that would see him seize complete control over the endgame. Something no one could imagine or predict. Not even Corrigan.
The automatic doors at the entrance to the shop slid open with an electric whoosh, drawing his attention to the attractive, dark-haired woman in her early thirties who casually drifted into the shop. He took in the fitted jacket and tight jeans that showed off her trim figure. No doubt another bored, wealthy housewife – plenty of those had moved into the area over the last two decades. She didn’t look old enough to have children, not for this part of London anyway. He’d had plenty of success with the bored ones in the past and fancied his chances with her, but at the same time he found himself looking on her as something other than a potential conquest, evaluating her instead as a possible victim. It would be risky; dangerous, even. This was no homeless loser or prostitute whom no one cared about; this woman would be missed and mourned, and her family would push the police hard to find her killer – not to mention the press, who would be all over it. For that reason alone, taking her life would be worth it. She would give him ten times the publicity he’d gained from killing the druggie and the whore.
He began to walk towards her as she moved between coffee tables, watching the pulse twitch in her slim, tanned neck – imagining slicing through her perfect skin until he cut through her carotid artery, pinning her to the floor as the warm, red blood emptied from her in intermittent sprays until the flow subsided with her dying heart and finally she lay lifeless. He imagined she’d smell of expensive perfume and cosmetics.
‘Can I help you with anything?’ he asked, flashing his practised seductive smile.
‘Hi,’ she smiled back, her eyes making momentary contact before returning to the coffee tables, but it was enough for him to tell she was interested. His nostrils flared at her scent. It was as he’d imagined, but warm too. ‘I need a coffee table,’ she explained in an accent that suited her appearance perfectly. ‘Ideally something I can take away today and won’t have to build. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it’s been to find anything. Everywhere’s saying eight weeks until delivery.’
‘You should buy online,’ he told her with a smile. ‘Probably shouldn’t have told you that, but how could I lie to you?’
‘Not my thing,’ she replied. ‘I like to see things in the flesh, so to speak, before I commit myself.’
Hearing her say ‘flesh’ fired a bolt of excitement through his body. ‘Well, you’re in luck,’ he continued. ‘We have plenty of good-quality tables and most are in stock, so if your car is big enough you can take one away today.’ He gave a shrug. ‘Trouble is, most retailers don’t keep stock any more. Takes up too much space. Costs too much money. They don’t like to build anything unless they know they’ve got a buyer lined up. But not here. We know not everybody wants to wait for weeks and weeks.’ He allowed a few seconds’ silence between them, until her gaze returned to him. ‘Please. Take a look. Ask anything you like. If you buy today, I can probably do you a special deal – if you promise you won’t tell anyone.’
‘I don’t know,’ she told him. ‘I’m not really seeing anything that grabs me.’
‘Let me guess,’ he tried to keep her interested. ‘You’ve recently moved to the area and upsized. The table from your old house or flat isn’t big enough and you’ve got friends coming around to help you celebrate moving into your new home, so you need a coffee table to fill that annoying space today? Am I right?’
She cocked her head to one side and smiled. ‘That’s … very clever,’ she replied.
‘So what if it’s not for life?’ he spoke in the code of illicit suggestion, hoping she would respond in kind. ‘So long as it works in the short term, who’s going to know? Once it’s served its purpose, you can get rid of it, replace it with something more permanent, but in the short term it’ll give you exactly what you’re looking for. Something to bridge the gap – without costing a fortune.’ He stood with his hands on his hips to augment his powerful physique – his chest inflated and triangular while his waist tapered away. He felt her eyes flick across his body. ‘Personally, I’d recommend this one,’ he said, resting his hand on the most expensive table in the shop. ‘It’s the best we have – a little more expensive than the others, but I’m sure you would appreciate the quality.’
‘Maybe,’ she replied shyly, a slight croakiness in her voice, a degree of dilation in her pupils. The flushing of her skin let him know she was interested even if she didn’t know it yet.
‘But,’ he blurted out cheerfully, ‘what’s the best way to test a new coffee table?’ The woman looked confused. ‘By using it,’ he explained. ‘There’s a great coffee shop along the street. You may know it – Bob’s Blends? Bit of a locals’ favourite.’
‘Like I said,’ she answered nervously, although he could sense her excitement too at his obvious interest, ‘I’m kind of new to the area.’
‘Then you have to try the coffee,’ he smiled. ‘I promise you’ll be a convert. Why don’t you take a look around’ – he was speaking fast now, denying her the chance to say no – ‘while I go grab us a couple of coffees. Don’t tell me what you usually have – let me surprise you.’
‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ she tried to back away.
‘You’re not,’ he assured her in his most cheerful tone – his smile friendly, but his eyes serious and flirtatious. ‘It’ll be my pleasure.’ He felt her slipping away. ‘You know what?’ he said, trying to sound genuinely excited. ‘I just remembered: we have some really nice tables in the storeroom. They’re old stock, due to be taken away, but they’re great tables. If you wanted one of them, I could do you a really great price and deliver today. I could even drop it round myself.’ He gave her a few seconds to understand what he was really saying. ‘Got to be worth a look – don’t you think?’
He watched her lips – her pupils – the tone of her skin – the pulse quickening in her neck – everything. If she went for it within the next few minutes he’d have both her trust and her address. Maybe he would indulge in a brief affair with her until the time came to slit her throat. He watched her mouth begin to open as the answer formed, but it wasn’t her voice that he heard – it was the all too familiar voice of his area manager.
‘David,’ she ambushed him, making him curse himself for having not kept an eye on the shop entrance. ‘A word please.’ Her voice was sharp, as if she was scolding an unruly dog.
He took a step back, before recovering from the surprise and answering, ‘Of course.’ Turning to the customer, he apologized: ‘Sorry to keep you – I won’t be a minute.’
The area manager had set off towards the far corner of the shop, indicating she wanted privacy. Where she was concerned, this was never a good thing. Reluctantly, he followed.
Jane Huntingdon was younger than him, but had been an area manager for more than a year and was clearly destined for higher things. He’d wanted the job she now had, but the company passed him over in favour of her. A clear signal he would never progress and would do well to hold on to what he had. In so many ways she looked and sounded like the customer he’d been trying to seduce, only she was formally dressed and had short blond hair.
‘What the hell are you doing, David?’ she demanded, her eyes looking over his shoulder at the customer. ‘Haven’t you learnt anything?’
‘I was trying to sell her a coffee table,’ he lied. ‘That is my job.’
