Killing the Shadows

THIRTY-SIX

By the time he was on his second cup of coffee, Steve was beginning to wonder if he’d turned into a manic depressive overnight. Less than an hour out of bed and he’d already swung between the poles of nervous anticipation and deep despair more times than he could count.

But then, as he’d commented to Fiona only the day before, these were only the symptoms of mental illness if they were groundless. And he had good reasons for both sets of emotions. His optimism, tempered though it was with his natural wariness, all centred round Terry Fowler. If she was as good at her job as Fiona had promised, and if Joanne had identified the right cases, the Susan Blanchard case might take its first positive move forward in a long time. That would be reward enough. But added to that, he had the prospect of dinner with her this evening. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked forward to a date with a woman with such conviction that it would be fun. He’d better remember to book somewhere for dinner. Not too upscale; he didn’t want them to feel uncomfortable. But not too informal, either; he wanted her to realize that he was taking her seriously. Normally, he’d have asked Kit to recommend somewhere. But that was out of the question today.

For, like his optimism, his pessimism was both professional and personal. There was no escaping the fact that he had done serious damage to his oldest friendship. Fiona had demanded more of him than was in his power to give, but she was bound to feel he’d failed her. Her and Kit both. He’d tried to phone several times the previous evening, but the answering machine had been switched on. Doubtless Fiona had decided they should monitor their calls, and he was clearly not on the approved list.

The trouble was, she was right in emotional and moral terms. But he was right in practical terms. And those two certainties were mutually incompatible. All his adult life, he’d been glad that the job he loved had never turned on him and threatened to destroy something that was important to him. He’d seen it happen with colleagues marriages crumbled, children become enemies, friendships betrayed and he’d always known that, but for fortune, it could have been him.

Now, he’d run out of grace. His oldest friend estranged and his best male friend at risk, and there was nothing he could do about it. It wasn’t even his case. All he knew about what was going on he knew because Sarah Duvall had had the courtesy to tell him. But he had been a senior CID officer for long enough to know that this was the worst kind of case to resolve. No criminal was harder to catch than a killer who killed without apparent connection to his victim, who operated on a logic clear only to himself, who left few traces and who was smart enough to stay several steps ahead of any pursuit. When such killers were caught, it was often almost by accident. Neighbours complained about the smell of the drains; a spot check of a number plate revealed it belonged to another car entirely; a police officer stopped a random speeder.

That Kit’s life might hang by so slender and serendipitous a chance was almost more than Steve could bear to contemplate. How much worse it must be for Fiona, who had already had to live through one such apparently random loss. And now, when he should be at her side, supporting them both, he was the outsider.

Steve carried the remains of his coffee through to the bedroom and contemplated his wardrobe. He couldn’t rely on being able to get home to change before the evening. He chose a lightweight navy wool suit that he knew didn’t easily crease. A white shirt and a blue tie for now; a dark grey shirt, carefully folded and bagged, and a scarlet silk tie for the evening. Fiona had given him the tie, he remembered. Strange that it was the exact shade of Terry’s lipstick. Even in something so basic, the two strands of his life were intertwined.

As he dressed, Steve tried to put his personal feelings far from the front of his mind. He had important things to do today, and he needed to be clear-headed. But it didn’t work, and as he walked to his car, he knew that whatever broke with the Blanchard case, he wouldn’t settle until he knew what Sarah Duvall was doing.

What Sarah Duvall was doing was wondering why she’d ever imagined that authors’ agents and publishers’ editors would be able to tell her anything about the death threat letters that Kit Martin, Georgia Lester and at least three other crime writers had received.

The five people she’d just had breakfast with had listened with rapt attention to what she had to say. Then they’d dropped their quiet bombshell. “We get over three thousand unsolicited manuscripts a year,” one of the agents had said. “Out of those, we might ultimately take on perhaps a maximum of three new authors. That means there are a lot of unhappy people out there, and frankly, DCI Duvall, if you’d read some of those typescripts, you’d realize we’re not always dealing with the most balanced of individuals.”

“I regularly get abusive letters,” an editor said, backing up the agent. “Usually from people I’ve turned down, but once or twice from authors I’ve dropped from my list because of poor sales. People take it very personally, because writing is a very personal thing. But it never goes beyond that. They let off steam, add you to their mental hate list, they bad-mouth you round the business, but that’s all.”

They’d passed the letters round from hand to hand, commenting only that they seemed rather more hostile than usual. But they all agreed that none of them would have bothered the police, or even their company door security with them. “We’re in a very emotive business,” another of the agents had said. “Feelings run high. But we’re dealing with people who regard words as weapon enough.”

However, Duvall had extracted from each of them a promise that they would take copies of the letters back and check them against any hate mail in their own files on the off-chance that they might spot some congruence. It had been a long shot, so she wasn’t unduly surprised that it hadn’t paid off.

That didn’t stop her feeling disappointed. She hoped it wasn’t an omen for the rest of the day. She didn’t want to end up with egg on her face after an operation as major as the search of Smithfield Market.

It never occurred to her that, indirectly, what she was hoping for was the murder of Georgia Lester.

Terry Fowler looked as relaxed as she had done the day before. She was wearing a thin black cardigan over a white T — shirt and what looked like the same pair of black jeans. She had pulled up a chair next to her so Steve could look over her shoulder at the computer screen. “Interesting results,” she said, her fingers tapping the keys. He noticed her hands were surprisingly broad, with strong fingers that ended in short, blunt nails carefully trimmed, as if to remove the temptation to chew them. She wore a heavy silver ring on the third finger of her right hand. “I was able to use a set of parameters that Fiona’s already developed for serial rapes. It needed one or two modifications, but because I was working with a more or less off-the-shelf package it was a lot quicker than starting from scratch. And since you seemed to be in a bit of a hurry…”

“Habit, I’m afraid. Another day or two probably wouldn’t have made a lot of difference.”

“Urgency’s not a bad habit in your line of business, I imagine,” Terry said, half turning to give him a grin. “You gotta try and get to the bad guys before they do worse things.”

“Something like that.” Steve sighed. “Sometimes it’s more a matter of getting things done before the bureaucrats notice how much of the budget you’re draining.”

“Yeah, right. Well, this particular budget drainage ran the crime linkage program on the files you gave me.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “Including the four that you slipped in to see whether I was doing it properly.”

“That’s not why I put them in,” Steve protested. “It’s not about putting you on the spot, it’s about showing my colleagues that this isn’t a load of mumbo jumbo. It strengthens the value of the results if I can demonstrate that the programme weeds out the cases we know to be irrelevant.”

“Just testing,” she murmured. “It’s OK, I’m not really offended, I understand the principle of control groups…Anyway, having run all the cases through the computer, it appears you do have a cluster here.” Her tone became more brisk as she got into the meat of her results. “Four of the rapes and two of the serious sexual assaults. The Hertfordshire case has a slightly lower probability than the other five, but it still comes in at eighty-seven percent, which I would regard as a definite positive.”

Steve felt a small surge of excitement, though years of practice kept it well hidden. “And how does that translate in terms of the geographical profile?”

“Let’s take it stage by stage,” Terry said, her right hand clicking the mouse over dialog boxes. A map of North London spread out before them in monochrome. She tapped a couple of keys and the screen flooded with colour, iridescent greens, blues, yellows, purples and a patch of burgundy. “This is what we get from the first two. Add in the third and fourth…” More five-finger exercises on the keyboard. Now the patch of red was more clearly defined, the colour clearer. But a second, purplish-red zone had also appeared slightly to the north of the original scarlet. Steve, who had seen Fiona do this enough times to be able to glean some meaning from what was in front of him, noted that the main highlighted area covered a dozen streets in the northern part of Kentish Town. The second patch was up towards Archway.

“Add in the fifth, and that second patch gets less significant,” Terry continued. “But when we introduce the sixth incident, see what happens.” The original red sector changed scarcely at all, but the purple area grew noticeably more reddish in tone.

“And what do you conclude from that?” Steve asked, pretty sure he knew what was coming next.

Terry turned her head and grinned at him. “Same as you, I expect.” She picked up a pencil and pointed to the main red zone. “If we have correctly identified a genuine cluster, then chances are your man lives in this area here. It’s possible that he lives in the other hot spot, but I’d be more inclined to think that’s where he works. When an offender is at the start of his career, he tends to stick closer to home. And if we look at the first two cases, the only hit we get is this section here that simply intensifies in probability the more cases we input.”

She leaned back in her chair and swivelled it around so she was half facing Steve. Without looking at the screen, she hit a couple of keys. “And when we add in the Susan Blanchard murder, let’s see what happens.”

No amount of self-control could prevent Steve from revealing his shock. “What did you just say?”

Terry grinned. “You look like a stunned cod,” she said. “I thought that would shake you.”

“Have you been discussing this with Fiona?” Steve demanded, hiding his feelings behind a sharp tone.

“Nope. I worked it out all by myself. When you said there was another case to add in to the series, I figured it had to be something pretty serious. And the only thing more serious than violent rape is sexual homicide. Also, it had to be an important case for you to be prepared to lash out on crime linkage and geographic profiling. Probably one that had stalled, because this sort of process isn’t your first port of call. Since you were interested in North London cases, chances are you were looking at a rape-murder north of the river, as yet unsolved. Put it all together and it comes up with Susan Blanchard.” She spread her hands in the theatrical manner of a magician revealing the rabbit in the hat.

“I’m impressed,” Steve acknowledged. Fiona had said Terry was impulsive; she hadn’t mentioned she was also intuitive.

Terry shrugged. “It was no big deal. I’m supposed to be trained to make connections.” She smiled. “You really shouldn’t be surprised when I do it.”

Steve laughed. “I’m surrounded by people who are supposed to be trained to make connections, and most of the time you’d never know it. You’re right, of course, it is the Susan Blanchard murder I’m interested in.”

“I thought you guys had closed down the investigation after that complete fuck-up at the Bailey? Wasn’t the official line that you weren’t looking for another suspect?”

“Well, we couldn’t exactly say anything else without making ourselves look even more foolish than we did already,” Steve said, the edge of bitterness in his voice creeping through in spite of his best intentions.

“Yeah, right. But secretly, you’re still ferreting away?”

He nodded. “I have a small team of officers working on it.”

“But not Fiona?”

There was a silence. “I’d rather not get into that, if you don’t mind,” he said. “Maybe you should ask Fiona the history.”

“Cool.” Terry flapped one hand from the wrist in a dismissive gesture. “It’s none of my business. I’m just grateful for the cheque in the post. So, you want to see what happens when we add the Susan Blanchard murder into the mix?”

“Is Sinn Fein IRA?”

“Whoa, there speaks the detective. OK, in spite of the fact that you’re a prejudiced bigot, I’ll share my results with you.” Her grin took most of the sting out of Terry’s words and she hit the enter key. The principal scarlet sector changed not at all, but the more northerly area grew less red. “I don’t have to spell it out for you, do I?”

Steve shook his head, a feeling of deep gratification surging through him. “No. Your program thinks that whoever killed Susan Blanchard is the same man who committed four rapes and two serious sexual assaults in the course of the previous two years. And I have to tell you that from where I’m sitting, that’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time.”

Terry gave him the grin he was beginning to recognize as a marker that he was about to be challenged. “Yeah right. You have a well weird take on the world, Steve. Not a lot of people think a serial rapist turned killer falls into the good-news category. You should get out more.”

“I thought you were already taking steps to rectify that,” he said, returning the smile.

“It’s a dirty job, saving the filth, but somebody’s got to do it,” she said flippantly. “So where are we going?”

“There’s a new brasserie opened in Clerkenwell. The chef trained with Marco Pierre White and he specializes in fish. I managed to get a cancellation for seven-thirty. How does that sound?”

“Sounds cool.”

For a brief moment, Steve thought about offering to pick her up, but he knew he was unlikely to have the time. He didn’t want to start letting her down so soon. If things worked out between them, his job would provide plenty of opportunities for dislocated social engagements in the future. Besides, he didn’t want to appear the pushover he secretly knew himself to be. Instead, he scribbled the name and address of the restaurant on a piece of scrap paper. “I’ll see you there.” He stood up. “I’ve got to get back to the Yard and get my team working on this. Can you give me a printout of the map?”

Terry turned back to her computer. “You want a blow-up of the red areas?” she asked.

“Please.”

“You need a written report?” she asked.

“Might as well get my money’s worth,” Steve said.

“Fax or e — mail?”

“Both, if you don’t mind.”

“Be with you by the end of the morning.” Terry winked. “See you tonight.”

Steve nodded and walked to the door. As he turned to leave, she blew him a kiss. The blush lasted all the way down the stairs. So did the smile. Terry Fowler had done more than waken his dormant case from its slumber. She’d wiped all his fear for Kit from his mind for as long as he’d been with her. And that was worth far, far more than the Metropolitan Police could ever imagine paying her.

Back at the Yard, Steve summoned Joanne into his office. Neil was busy watching Francis Blake, and John was off duty, so his resources were minimal, in spite of the new possibilities that Terry’s study had produced.

Steve tossed the maps across the table to her, unable to keep his exultation off his face. “Looks like we’re on the way to somewhere at last. Geographic profile of your rapes. When the Susan Blanchard murder was factored into the analysis, the central red area didn’t change at all.”

Joanne looked up, the excitement sparkling in her eyes. “That’s brilliant. Wow! So, what do you want me to do?”

“I’m afraid it’s time for drudgery. Identify the streets outlined in red — and one street either side, for the sake of my peace of mind and get the electoral roll.”

Joanne sighed. “And go through the electoral roll checking it against CROs?”

“Unless you can think of a better way of doing it.”

“When I rule the world, they’ll organize the criminal records database so you can search it with any one of a dozen parameters,” she said, getting to her feet. “I’m on it.”

“Thanks, Joanne. Oh, and thanks for the restaurant tip.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I hope you enjoy it.”

Steve grinned. “I fully intend to.”

Joanne turned on her way out of the door. “If you get there, of course. I mean, if I get lucky, we could all be checking out a new number one suspect this evening. Right, sir?”

“Get lucky, Jo. But try not to get lucky before tomorrow morning if you want to remain my favourite DC.”

After she left, Steve stared at the closed door, feeling the buzz in his veins that came from the knowledge that at last they might be only hours from a lucky break. Thinking of lucky breaks reminded him that there had been a message on his desk asking him to ring Sarah Duvall.

Part of him dreaded the call. If Georgia Lester had been found dead, he wanted to put off the knowledge and its implications for as long as possible. On the other hand, it was feasible that she’d turned up alive. Steve reached out and punched in Sarah’s number. Extract from Decoding of Exhibit P13⁄4599 Azoqf tqkru zpsqa dsumx qefqd edqym uzeyk xurqe sauzs fasqf mxaft mdpqd. Ftqkx xtmhq faefm dfeqq uzsft qbmff qdzft qzuze bufqa rftqp gynet ufbmp pke.

Once they find Georgia tester’s remains, my life’s going to get a lot harder. They’ll have to start seeing the pattern then. But it’ll take them a day or two to go official with it. They won’t want to admit what’s going on because that’ll cause a panic. So I need to hit my next target fast, while he’s unsuspecting. But I’ve got to be careful not to rush things. Patience, that’s the secret. Never snatch at half a chance. Never lose your cool. Just sit it out. Even when the waiting’s hard and bitter. Take the courier’s uniform. I knew right from the beginning what I needed to get Kit Martin. But I had no idea how I was going to lay my hands on it. Then the gods smiled. I was in the launderette one evening, watching my clothes tumble around in the washer. There was only one other man there, and when he dragged out his damp clothes and stuffed them in the drier, I couldn’t miss the logo of Capital City Couriers blazing across the dark-blue drill jacket. And there were matching trousers. Pure manna from heaven. After he dropped some tokens in the slot, he looked at his watch and headed across the road to the local boozer. I waited a few minutes, and then loaded the courier’s entire wash into my holdall. Piece of piss. I sat and waited for my wash to finish, cool as a cucumber. Ten minutes later, I was walking back to my flat with my wet laundry on top of his. The trousers needed taking up, and the jacket’s a bit tight on the shoulders, but that really doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’ll be wearing it for long. Just long enough to convince Kit Martin to open his front door to Postman Pat.