Mirror Man

by McIntosh, Fiona

  Jack sighed. ‘What did she give you, Lauren? If there’s a leak at the Met, I need to know because it could endanger lives.’

  Lauren took a swig of her drink, which was losing its spritz. ‘Well, if she did know anything, she refused, absolutely point blank, to discuss any case, any operation, any files.’

  He stared back at her, saying nothing.

  ‘She works in admin, nothing sexy. And all she did say, to get me off her back, was your name. That was it. Jack Hawksworth.’

  He breathed in and breathed out audibly. ‘I see.’

  ‘All the rest is on me. I hunted you down, I began to put things together myself. But I sense I’m out of my depth on this unless I can get in on some background.’

  ‘Listen, Lauren, if the Met is going to cooperate, we’re going to do so with a reputable media outlet that will handle this properly, sensitively, with all the right research and a balanced view.’ She began to speak but he cut over her words. ‘Davey Robbins was a violent rapist, but the person who killed him showed equal violence. Now, a part of me believes it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke, but the policeman in me says all victims are due the same treatment, all murderers earn the same scrutiny and unforgiving hunt.’

  ‘I hear you, but are you admitting that there’s a killer at work picking off the bad guys?’

  ‘I’m not admitting anything yet. I’m simply saying that if you want me to talk to you about what I’m spending my time on, I will not talk to My Day. Otherwise it turns into sensationalist rubbish written purely to sell another week of cheap thrills to people looking for distraction rather than real news.’

  ‘But I work for My Day,’ she said, feeling helpless.

  ‘Well, I think we should address that. Maybe it’s the first of the changes we should make in your life.’

  We. ‘How?’

  ‘Just leave it with me for the time being.’

  ‘And what do I do?’

  ‘Promise me you won’t write a word in your crap magazine about this. If you can’t give me your word, I walk away now. You’ll have to chase me all over Britain and I will never acknowledge your presence, will have you removed at every chance.’

  She nodded.

  ‘No, you have to say it. I’m trusting you; dozens wouldn’t.’

  ‘Why are you doing this for me?’

  ‘Well, hopefully this will help you to forget the blip in your life, and fast-track you back to where you were . . . perhaps beyond.’

  ‘You shouldn’t feel responsible for me.’

  ‘I don’t, but perhaps if you counterbalance the bad experience with a good one, you won’t lose faith in men.’

  She smiled. ‘I won’t. And I promise that I won’t write anything about what we’ve discussed until I hear from you.’ She waited. ‘Okay?’

  Jack nodded.

  ‘But help me now – make it a bit worth my while. I have an editor breathing down my neck.’

  ‘Put her off. I will never give you anything that might find its way into My Day.’

  ‘I hear you, but give me something, Jack!’ She put her glass down, slightly shocked at herself. ‘May I call you Jack?’

  ‘You just did. Tell me what you know.’

  She didn’t hesitate, tears forgotten. She sensed he was turning over the wheels in his mind about how to break her out of her dead-end job, and maybe help her get a role that had some cred again. Lauren leaned forward. ‘I’ve been collecting bizarre deaths for probably six or seven years now, long before I started working for My Day. I had no real purpose for them to begin with, but they intrigued me, and I was actually storing them for a serious story on lenient sentences. But they are titillating, as you say, and when I got back to Britain, feeling sorry for myself, it struck me that my bizarre death stories could be handy for some sort of salacious piece that might just win me some notice – my own column, that sort of thing.’

  He nodded.

  ‘So I did some more hunting in my spare time. I had nothing better to do,’ she admitted.

  ‘And?’

  ‘There was a district nurse convicted of killing several patients in their late eighties, all with terminal illnesses. She claimed she was helping the families, who she said didn’t care about their elderly relatives nearly as much as she did. She apparently came across sympathetically at her trial.’

  ‘I remember the case. Are you telling me the nurse is dead?’

  She nodded. ‘Dead in her lounge in—’

  ‘Brimsdown,’ he said, the name dawning.

  ‘Good memory. According to her daughter, nothing was taken, nothing disturbed, and there were no signs of a break-in. What wasn’t revealed is that she died of a drug overdose. One policeman I spoke to – a senior-enough guy – said that a former nurse would have had connections for getting those sorts of drugs, although he never told me what sort of drugs, and that nurses who worked with the very ill, or very elderly, could get depressed, blah blah. The evidence was watertight that she helped several old folk to their last breath and, while they were mercy killings, they were still death by her hand. I never believed she topped herself. So if someone did kill her, she perhaps knew her killer, or certainly she trusted the person.’

  ‘How long had she been out?’ Jack was already reaching for his phone.

  ‘Er . . . she died a few months after being released from prison, but she only served a short part of her sentence before she was released on licence . . . served maybe eight months of a three-year sentence.’

  He held up a finger to stop her talking and lifted the phone to his ear. ‘Sarah? Yeah, got back about an hour ago.’ He listened. ‘First thing, I’ll be in. Listen, are you around for a bit longer? Okay, good. I’ll ring you shortly. Can you run a couple of names for me?’ He nodded as she spoke. ‘Great, thanks. Back soon.’ He rang off, looked back at Lauren. ‘Any others?’

  ‘Am I helping the police now?’

  His gaze seemed to darken further, though that seemed impossible.

  ‘Okay, er, one more off the top of my head, although I’m on the trail of another.’

  He waited.

  ‘There was a lorry driver who was distracted and also tired . . . he’d been swallowing yippee pills to stay awake and was doing a long haul round the M25. He dozed momentarily, swerved and cut up a family car carrying parents and three sleeping children.

  ‘I recall it. One parent dead, one consigned to a wheelchair and only the infant in the baby seat unharmed. He was convicted for death by dangerous driving.’

  ‘That’s the one. Well, he was killed in the Midlands somewhere, but he was originally from North London . . . Clay Hill, from memory. He was given a light sentence because the defence team was able to provide sufficient doubt about how secure the kids were. Apparently, two of the children had unclicked their seatbelts and the mother in the passenger seat had distracted their father driving, as she had turned around to help clean up a spilled drink.’

  ‘But the lorry driver was still culpable.’

  ‘Correct. Blood tests confirmed he was driving on a mix of amphetamines, concentrated caffeine and an anti-narcolepsy drug. They held him responsible, but not entirely, so the sentence was lenient. The lorry driver’s death was unsolved. Seems he was the casualty of a hit-and-run when he pulled into a truck stop. Happened at night on a motorway exit. No witnesses. He left behind a wife and two children.’

  It seemed to her that Jack’s somewhat tanned complexion had become paler. Now she saw only the gravely serious senior detective.

  He stood. ‘Lauren, I have to go.’ He pulled a card from his jacket pocket. ‘Here’s my direct number. I know we have yours. I promise to call.’

  ‘Give me something, Jack, please. I’ll keep my word – we made a pact, but I just need to keep my editor on a string. She’s in no hurry.’ She dug into her bag and ripped out half a page from a small notebook before rummaging for a pen. Finding one, she scribbled hurriedly. ‘Look, here’s my home address and my personal mobile. If
you’d rather keep it all away from My Day, contact me privately.’ He took the scrap of a note and pushed it into his wallet. ‘Is there any clue you can give me, no matter how vague, so my boss believes I’m making progress?’

  He regarded her carefully and sensed how earnest she was. ‘Think about where all the people you’ve researched have committed their crimes,’ he said, giving her a searching look.

  She stared back unblinking, her thoughts racing, invisible fingers in her mind picking through the files she held in what she liked to think of as her vault. When she returned her attention to the noisy pub, she realised her lovely senior detective from Scotland Yard had left.

  But something important had just clicked into place.

  16

  Martin Sharpe looked apoplectic behind his reading glasses, which were sitting far down his nose. ‘You did what?’

  No point in repeating it; the chief’s question was rhetorical . . . a shocked response to a shocking admission. In the morning light angling through Sharpe’s office, the idea no longer seemed so inspired. ‘You heard right, sir,’ Jack replied, anticipating the outburst and the subsequent dressing-down that was surely coming.

  ‘And what didn’t you understand about words like “covert”, “under the radar”, “no media”, “hush-hush” . . . or even straightforward “confidential”!’ His voice had risen with each word.

  ‘Careful, sir, you’ll spill your tea,’ Jack said calmly. Sharpe opened his mouth and closed it again, banging down the cup and saucer, spilling the tea anyway. ‘Oops,’ Jack murmured.

  ‘Don’t make light of this.’

  ‘I’m not. Did you hear my explanation?’

  ‘I’m retiring, not deaf! But perhaps you’re the one who didn’t hear clearly.’

  ‘Sir, she’s onto it . . . and us. I’ve already disentangled myself once from her but this woman has a nose for a story. She’s bloody good at her job—’

  ‘Jack, are you out of your mind? We’re not talking Time magazine here or The Guardian . . .’

  ‘Ms Starling and I have had that conversation. It’s why I called Mike.’

  It didn’t seem possible to shock him further but Sharpe looked like he might need smelling salts. ‘You’ve called the head of our press office?’

  ‘Last night. I wanted us to try and get ahead of her and stop it finding its way into the gutter press. I sought his advice and also wanted to ensure he knew what I was doing, so there would be no back . . .’ He couldn’t find the right word and ended up saying ‘flushing’. It made no sense, but Sharpe didn’t seem to care.

  What did make sense to him was what he was focused on. ‘Why wouldn’t you speak to me before Mike?’

  ‘Sir, with all due respect, if you choose to elevate me to the rank of detective superintendent, you need to allow for all that goes with it; I did not overstep the line. I felt it right to brief Mike immediately. It’s all you would have done, and there seemed little point in upsetting you at the end of the day and asking you to contact Mike.’

  ‘But you should have told me!’

  ‘I’m telling you now.’ Jack stared at Sharpe, who simply quivered with vexation. ‘I know the protocols, sir, and I followed them. Right now, I’ve got her under control and waiting for us to guide her, rather than defending ourselves against the circus tent that was potentially being built around our op.’

  ‘Who’s the leak?’

  ‘She refuses to say, and the leak only gave my name, nothing else.’

  ‘And you believe that?’

  ‘I do, sir. She is candid about this. It cost the friendship.’

  ‘Good!’

  ‘Sir . . . Martin . . .’ he appealed. ‘It is Starling who put it all together, not the leak. She’s a talented journo in the wrong job, just trying to claw her way back to a level where she can be taken seriously. Why don’t we use her – point her in the right direction as we need? Lauren— Ms Starling actually shows some depth of conscience and would much rather be doing a serious piece that consults with the Met.’

  ‘What’s being proposed?’

  ‘Mike rang this morning and said we could probably offer her an exclusive once you’re satisfied with our findings and the op is closed.’

  ‘What are my chances, Jack, of my big nose being wrong?’

  Jack risked a grin. ‘Slim, sir.’

  ‘Tell me.’ He did. Sharpe leaned back in his big chair, in his big office, which made him look smaller and somehow older and more ready for retirement than Jack thought possible. ‘Bloody hell,’ he murmured as Jack continued, grateful that Lauren Starling was mercifully becoming a distant problem. When Jack finished, Sharpe rubbed his face for several seconds. ‘We have a multiple murderer in our midst.’ He said it as though it seemed implausible, as though he was shocked, even though it was his instincts that had set up this covert operation to establish that very fact.

  ‘A serial killer, yes,’ Jack agreed, deliberately blunt. ‘He’s been at it for years, if Ms Starling is correct. There are probably many more deaths we are yet to link. And we do believe this is a male, sir, so we’re referring to the killer as such. I was almost ready to believe when I was up north, but after what Lauren Starling said last night – and my subsequent research – I’m convinced, sir.’

  ‘Have you briefed the ops team?’

  ‘Just about to. Um, one more thing.’ Jack looked sheepish.

  ‘Do I need to be taking my ulcer tablet for this?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Sharpe closed his eyes momentarily. ‘Why can’t you just be obedient, Jack, like other members of the police force?’

  ‘You wouldn’t find it at all stimulating if I was, sir.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Anne McEvoy.’

  ‘What about McEvoy?’

  ‘I went to see her.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Earlier this week.’

  Sharpe’s expression clouded. ‘Because?’

  Jack explained.

  ‘You astonish me,’ Sharpe said, sounding beyond frustrated.

  ‘Well, the idea, sir, was about stealth. I figured if Anne McEvoy could give us some insight into how a multiple killer might think, plot, act . . . it might just give us a speedier answer to the question you posed.’

  ‘And did it?’

  ‘Yes, sir. And then some. Her experience—’

  ‘As a serial killer?’ Sharpe snarled.

  Jack remained calm; he deserved this. ‘I was going to say in criminal psychology, plus the people she mixes with daily . . . and, yes, of course, being a serial killer herself, she’s got a perspective we could never have.’

  ‘And what’s in this for McEvoy, pray tell?’

  ‘Nothing, sir,’ Jack lied.

  ‘Just for old times’ sake?’ Sharpe couldn’t disguise his disgust.

  ‘A favour for a former friend.’

  ‘And what do you think your new friend – the journalist Ms Wren—’

  ‘Starling, sir.’

  ‘Whatever! What do you think she’ll make of this irresistible titbit when she discovers that a serial killer serving four life sentences at Holloway is now Scotland Yard’s go-to consultant?’

  ‘Blood pressure, sir.’

  ‘Oh, be quiet, Jack!’ He opened a drawer, took out a plastic sheath and popped out a small pill. ‘One conversation with you and I think I’ll need heart surgery!’ He flung the packet down with disgust and swallowed the white pill with a sip of cold tea.

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I want to see you in those deck shoes, heading off for your cruise, sir, when we solve this case.’

  ‘Solve it.’ He gave a mirthless laugh of frustration.

  ‘Operation Mirror needs a green light to pursue its findings, sir. In my opinion, and in the opinion of the senior members of our team, we are hunting a vigilante. You were right, Martin . . . and I’m going to make sure that you retire with no loose ends trailing
behind you.’

  Sharpe wagged a finger at him. ‘You’d better keep that promise.’

  Jack had asked everyone to gather. Even Joan leaned against the entrance to the incident room to hear progress. He could see Kate had been busy setting up photographs in chronological order of death and wondered if she was aware that the neat array was about to be disrupted.

  ‘Okay, settle down, everyone,’ he said, with a smile to set the tone. The room quietened. ‘All right, let’s get an update on exactly where we are with our enquiries, although I should probably pre-empt this conversation with news that I feel sure you’re all anticipating anyway.’

  Kate straightened. ‘No longer a look and see?’

  He nodded. ‘Upstairs has given us the go-ahead that this is now officially a hunt and catch. But—’ He raised his palms to quell the murmurs. ‘I want us to remain as lean as we can. This is not about money; this is about keeping the operation tight. We’ve already had a leak.’ His team looked understandably shocked and immediately began denying their involvement to each other. ‘No one from here, or else that person or persons would already be giving out parking tickets on the Isle of Skye.’ That won a chuckle, but he could hear the relief too. ‘No, I’m sorry to say that one of our admin team has been loose-lipped.’

  Kate looked vexed. ‘How much was revealed?’

  ‘Very little. Just my name, actually, but a wily journo has been following my tracks and met me off my train at King’s Cross Station.’

  ‘He knew you were in Yorkshire?’ Kate looked instantly guilty as people around her slid glances her way. ‘I mean, how could he—’

  ‘It’s a she, actually. Her name is Lauren Starling and rather embarrassingly for all of us, she works for a rag called My Day.’ He glanced at Joan, who raised a single eyebrow, which could mean anything, he realised. Jack took a minute to explain about Lauren, how they were going to try to work with her. Kate looked especially annoyed and he anticipated a prickly conversation with her later. He continued. ‘The point is, we’ll control what goes out and when. And to be honest, while I imagine Sarah already has some more unsolved cases that fit our criteria, Ms Starling has had nothing but her internal radar and she’s well ahead of us. She’s put this together herself over a few years, and I think we should show some respect for that and not underestimate her. So, the plan is to keep this journalist on a short but exclusive leash.’