by Max Manning
Leah reached across the table, placed her hand on Fenton’s wrist, and squeezed.
Blake shook his head in disbelief. “What the fuck is the matter with you? There is a good chance that a killer has threatened your daughter, and you’re wasting time wondering whether giving us your password is the right thing to do.”
Forty-Four
Blake walked briskly along Victoria Embankment, heading toward Westminster Bridge. On his left, the mud-brown Thames rolled by. A blue passenger ferry churned a trail of froth as it headed upriver to Hampton Court. He was in a hurry. The person he was meeting wouldn’t hang around if he was late. Jimmy Mouseman never stayed in one place for long.
Jimmy was a hacker for hire. He earned his living hacking into emails, Facebook pages, and cell phone messages. You name it, he hacked it. As long as you made it worth his while.
It was a cold afternoon, the clouds low and threatening. Blake zipped his jacket tight and turned up the collar to protect himself from the wind blowing off the water. As he passed Cleopatra’s Needle, he took advantage of a red traffic light to cross the road, jogged past Embankment Tube station and took a right into Northumberland Avenue. At the top of the hill, he crossed the Strand into Trafalgar Square.
Blake considered the place to be the heart of the city, and as always, it was heaving with people. Stepping inside the square’s low boundary wall, he turned right. Mouseman was where he said he would be, stretched out on a stone bench seat, his legs crossed, his arms folded, and the oversized hood of his gray top pulled over his face to his chin.
Blake approached stealthily, grabbed the man’s ankles, and swung his legs off the bench. The hacker grabbed the edge of the bench to stop himself from sliding off and let loose a torrent of swear words. Blake sat down beside him and gave him a nudge with his elbow.
“Caught you napping, did I, Jimmy? You must be losing it. I thought you prided yourself on being on the ball. Ahead of the game.”
Mouseman pulled his hood up until his eyes were visible and gave Blake a look that threatened to freeze his blood. “That was uncalled for, mate. Bloody rude as hell. Yer at least a minute late and bloody lucky I’m still here. You wanna do some business, then get on wiv it. I ain’t hanging around this shithole much longer.”
Blake had written a feature article on the murky world of hackers, and Mouseman had agreed to be interviewed, anonymously of course. People like him lived under the radar, permanently off the grid. Mouseman wasn’t his real name, and Blake was sure the appalling cockney accent was fake.
“Calm down, Jimmy. Can’t you take a joke these days? I’ve got a job for you. A big one. I’ll make it worth your while.”
Mouseman jumped to his feet, tucked his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, and scanned a group of Japanese tourists milling around the lion statues guarding the base of Nelson’s Column. The hacker stood as tall as Blake, but under his baggy sportswear, he carried a lot of surplus weight.
“Look, mate, you got a couple of minutes if yer lucky. I gotta go soon. The place is too open. Too many cameras. Too many watchers. It’s making me nervous.”
Blake took a moment to consider his approach. He didn’t want to scare Mouseman off. The hacker made most of his money working for the tabloid press, dodgy lawyers, and the odd internet fraudster. In the interview he’d given Blake, he had claimed that he’d never let a client down and boasted that he’d never been caught. Hacking into New Scotland Yard’s heavily protected computer system would be a significant step up. A bigger risk. Likely to bring a heap of trouble down on his hooded head.
“The thing is, Jimmy, we need you to get into the Yard’s system. Have a look around, follow a few trails, see if anybody’s been poking about in places they shouldn’t have. We’ve got one name in particular we want you to look at.”
When Blake stopped speaking, Mouseman turned slowly to face him and yanked his hood back, exposing chubby cheeks and uneven blond bangs. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?” he said.
“I’m deadly serious, Jimmy. This is important. And it’s going to be easier than you think. I’ve got a password for you.”
Mouseman’s eyes widened. Blake had come up with the magic word.
“You did say password?”
“I did. It’ll make it easier and safer for you.”
“I know what it’ll do. What’s this story about anyway?”
“I’m not doing a story, Jimmy. I don’t work for the papers anymore. This is bigger than any story. Believe me.”
Mouseman was thinking so hard, Blake could feel it. Thinking that maybe it’d be worth the risk. If it was that important, he was in a powerful negotiating position.
“Five thousand pounds,” Mouseman said.
Something about the greedy gleam in his eye made Blake’s skin crawl. “Five hundred. That’s the budget for this job. This is important. Life and death. You can use your dubious talent to do some good for once. Think about it.”
Mouseman used both his hands to pull his hood back over his head and stared into space. After a few seconds, he gave an apologetic shrug. “Thought about it. Gonna pass on the opportunity to do good. Doing good never got nobody nowhere. Find some other mug.”
Blake hadn’t allowed himself to consider the possibility of being turned down. He didn’t have a plan B. As the hacker turned away, he reached out an arm, grabbed his left shoulder, and spun him around. In one swift, forceful movement, he grasped two handfuls of hoodie material and slammed Mouseman onto the bench.
Tightening the material around the hacker’s fat neck, he forced his head down slowly until one side of his face was pressed against the cold stone. His eyes were closed tight, his face contorted in pain. Blake could feel him trembling. He bent forward, placing his mouth close to Mouseman’s ear.
“You’re going to do this thing for me because it’s the right thing to do. You’re going to do it, and when you’ve done it, I’m going to give you five hundred pounds. You’re going to be happy with the fee and overjoyed that you’ve helped your fellow human beings. Is that clear?”
Mouseman opened his eyes, and Blake relaxed his grip a fraction to allow him to nod.
“Good. That’s the right answer. I knew you’d see it my way in the end. Like I said before, this is important. Important to me. Life and death. Do you understand, life and death?”
Mouseman nodded again. A tiny clear droplet slid from his left eye socket, over his nose, and dripped onto the bench. Blake wasn’t sure if it was sweat or a tear.
Forty-Five
“So tell me why this was so urgent,” Belinda Vale said. She sat directly opposite Blake, her legs together at the knees and crossed neatly at the ankles. Her hands rested on her lap, clutching an unopened notebook.
Blake avoided the question. He looked around the consulting room as if seeing it for the first time. “This place must cost a fortune to rent. No wonder your fees are extortionate.”
The psychologist resisted the temptation to smile. Always best to keep things professional. She said nothing but tilted her head, inviting Blake to keep talking.
“Thanks for fitting me in at such short notice.”
Vale accepted the thank-you with a nod and tried again. “Why did you need to see me so desperately?”
“Because I’m worried. No, not worried. Scared.”
“About what? I thought you’d been feeling better.”
Blake squirmed in his seat, lifted a hand, and rubbed the back of his neck. “I was. I am. But stuff I’d locked away. It’s running loose now.”
Vale opened the notebook and started writing. After a few seconds, she snapped the book shut, lifted the pen to her mouth, and tapped her bottom lip. “Letting all these emotions out is the first step to getting back to how you were before you were traumatized,” she said.
Blake shook his head, hard. “These feelings aren’t good, and they’re
not going away anytime soon. They keep going around in my head, getting stronger and stronger.”
“What sort of feelings? How would you describe them?”
“You tell me what I’m feeling. You’re the psychologist.”
“Anger would be natural. The suppression of anger is bad.”
Blake gave a humorless laugh. “Anger’s natural? What about rage? All-consuming, blinding rage?”
Vale suspected there was more going on than the simple release of pent-up emotions. “I guess you’ve been following the news,” she said. “The murders.”
“It’d be hard to miss.” Blake did his best to keep the tone of his voice casual, but he wasn’t fooling anybody.
“It’s not a good idea to project your feelings about Iraq onto something else.”
Blake stared blankly into space, his jaw muscles twitching. “I know what evil looks like,” he said.
Vale resisted the urge to argue. She started scribbling in her notebook again, but only because she needed time to think. Mixing her therapeutic work with her criminal profiling wouldn’t be a good idea, but they were drifting together, and she felt powerless to stop them colliding.
“The nature of evil and whether it exists is a complex debate. Let’s not go there. What I am concerned about is the effect this killer is having on you. I know it’s hard, but I suggest you avoid the news coverage of the investigation as much as possible and focus on accepting what happened to you in Iraq.”
Blake rubbed the back of his neck again. “This is like going to see a doctor, right? Or going to a priest and confessing?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Well, I can be sure that anything I say here is confidential, right? You can’t repeat it to anyone. The police or anyone?”
Vale stiffened in her seat. “You’re worrying me now,” she said. “If you tell me anything that I feel poses a real threat to another person, then confidentiality goes out the window.”
Blake shook his head and smiled. “It’s nothing like that. I simply want to know exactly where we stand on what gets said here. It’s not easy telling a stranger your secrets. These murders are resurrecting emotions I thought were dead and buried.”
Vale wondered whether she should admit to being the profiler on the manhunt but decided it would serve no purpose other than to complicate the relationship between patient and therapist. “That is bound to be the case, and it’s why you avoid any temptation to view the images of the victims posted on social media.”
Blake winced at the mention of the photographs. “I think about Lauren, how I let her down, all the time.”
Vale lifted her pen but decided against making a note. The issues surrounding Blake’s therapy and her profiling were starting to get inextricably tangled.
“Let’s get back to this anger you talked about. I’m concerned that you may be linking the murders to what happened to your friend in Iraq,” she said.
Blake shrugged, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. “This isn’t about Iraq. That’s done with. This is about Lauren.”
Vale lifted her pen again and, this time, scribbled a short note. The session wasn’t going the way she expected. “You’re angry with Lauren?”
Blake didn’t answer.
Vale tried again. “With yourself?”
Blake stayed silent but looked away.
“Guilt can manifest itself as anger.”
“I didn’t love her enough. Not properly. I couldn’t.”
Vale nodded. “PTSD can do that to a person. Emotional detachment.”
“But I didn’t want to be detached. I needed her. She was a kind, beautiful, loving person. I couldn’t give her what she wanted, and she left. Now she’s dead.”
“Do you feel responsible for her death?”
Blake turned back to face Vale and shrugged. “I feel guilty about not being able to love her in the way she deserved. I was too damaged to love anyone then.”
Vale usually distrusted intuition as a therapy tool, but she had a strong feeling that there was another dimension to this guilt. “Is there someone else you have feelings for?”
Blake didn’t answer. He stared back at her, his silence saying more than words.
Vale closed her notebook. “I know you might not think it, but you are making progress. The fact that you understand what happened between you and Lauren and are able to talk about it suggests you are ready to free up your emotions, give yourself permission to feel.”
Blake shook his head. “The only thing I want right now is to see the monster who murdered Lauren locked up with no hope of getting out. I’m worried that if the police don’t get their act together soon, the evil bastard will go to ground.”
Vale wanted to steer Blake back to his anger issues but couldn’t help being drawn in. “That’s not going to happen.”
Blake swiveled slightly in his seat and gave the psychologist a sideways look. “Of course,” he said. “You’ll know something about the mind of a killer. At least your certainty about him not going into hiding suggests you do.”
“We shouldn’t be discussing this,” Vale said, “but this killer won’t be able to stop even if he wants to. His social media following is growing, and that acclaim will drive him on. He loves the attention. He won’t be able to give that up. He’s in the grip of an addiction.”
“Shit,” Blake said. “Where did that come from?”
Vale gave him a sheepish smile. “Sorry about that. I got a bit carried away. But believe me, I, Killer will murder again and soon. It’s as inevitable as death.”
Forty-Six
Fenton knocked softly on his daughter’s bedroom door and popped his head in the room.
Tess was sitting on her bed, propped up between two enormous fluffy pillows, her favorite book on her lap. She tore her eyes away from the page, an expression of mild irritation on her face.
Fenton gave her a thumbs-up sign. “Dinner’s ready,” he said. “Your favorite.”
Tess wrinkled her nose and gave him a curious look. “You don’t know what my favorite is.”
Fenton feigned a hurt expression. “Of course I do. Come see.”
Tess slid off the bed, carefully placed the book on her dressing table, and followed him to the kitchen. On the pine table were two pizza delivery boxes.
Fenton smiled to himself as Tess jumped onto her chair, her eyes shining in anticipation. “When I called the order in, I asked them to cut yours into slices so you can use your fingers.”
Tess pulled back the lid. “Extra cheese and pepperoni,” she squealed. She picked up a wedge and took a bite as Fenton sat down opposite her and attacked his pizza with a knife and fork. After devouring half, Tess put her slice down and eyed her dad suspiciously.
“You don’t like people eating with their fingers,” she said. “What’s going on?”
Fenton tried to smile, but the chunk of dough and cheese in his mouth made it impossible. He swallowed it quickly. “I thought you deserved a treat, that’s all.”
Her response was not what he’d expected. She shoved her plate away and sat back with a frown. “I don’t want another nanny,” she said. “I don’t need one. I’m not a baby.”
Fenton put his knife and fork down. “It’s nothing to do with that,” he said. “Come on, eat up. I’m expecting a visitor in half an hour, so I want to tidy up.”
Tess’s frown deepened. She crossed her arms across her chest, and her bottom lip quivered. “It’s a new nanny, isn’t it?”
Fenton shook his head. “I promise. It’s work.”
Reassured, Tess turned her attention back to devouring her pizza. She managed four slices before reluctantly admitting defeat and retreating to her bedroom. Fenton cleared the table, wrapped the leftovers in tin foil, and put them in the fridge.
The sound of the doorbell startled him. He sca
nned the apartment and realized he hadn’t got around to tidying. A pile of washed clothes sat heaped in a plastic basket on the kitchen floor, waiting to be folded and put away. Scooping them up, he stuffed them back in the tumble dryer. He hurried downstairs and opened the door.
“Sorry I’m late,” Leah said with a smile and stepped inside. She was dressed casually but smartly in tailored trousers and a sweater.
Fenton decided against offering his hand to shake or leaning in for an exchange of continental kissing. “Don’t worry,” he said, stepping to one side to give her space to pass. Before following her, he glanced at the two uniforms on guard duty. Both men acknowledged him with a nod.
Upstairs, Fenton gestured for Leah to make herself comfortable on the sofa and asked if she wanted a coffee.
Leah shook her head. “I’m fine, thanks. You said you had a few questions about Lauren?”
Fenton sat in an armchair opposite her, happy that she was eager to get straight down to business. “If I’m going to be any use to Blake, I thought it’d be handy to fill in a few gaps. As you know, it seems your sister walked across the park with her killer. I was wondering whether that suggests she’d met him before. Was she particularly cautious about that sort of thing?”
Leah took a moment to think. “Lauren was a free spirit. Very open, very friendly. If someone had spoken to her, passed the time of day with her, she would have responded in a friendly manner and not thought twice about walking with them if they happened to be going the same way. Not in a public place like Victoria Park. Having said that, she wasn’t stupid or reckless. If she had felt there was anything dodgy going on, she would have been careful. She was pretty good at reading people and sizing up situations.”