The Killing Habit

by Mark Billingham

‘Hopefully not for very long,’ Thorne said.

  ‘What about… longer term? I’ve sunk every penny I’ve got into this business.’

  ‘Well, bearing in mind what’s happened, I can’t make any promises at this stage.’

  ‘Why us, though?’ Marchant looked to her computer wizard for an answer, but Ablett shook his head. ‘After that man Summers, I mean. Why would someone else target us?’

  ‘Nobody’s targeting you,’ Thorne said. ‘They’re using you to target your clients. And we’re not convinced it’s a different individual.’

  Marchant looked confused. ‘But Summers can’t have been responsible for these other victims. He’s in prison.’

  ‘Terry Summers is dead,’ Kitson said.

  Marchant stared at her, trying and failing to process the information.

  Watching her face fall, her struggle in the few seconds that followed to summon a little strength and dignity, Thorne came as close as he was ever likely to get to feeling sorry for the woman. It wasn’t very close.

  ‘So what’s likely to happen?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, I’m hoping we catch the individual responsible for the deaths of five women.’

  ‘Yes, that goes without saying, but, I mean… are we going to have to shut the agency down?’

  Thorne thought it was more than likely and that it would be doing a lot of gullible individuals a big favour. He wondered what he should say, what the correct response should be, as a police officer with no agenda beyond seeing justice done. In the end, he decided that honesty was the best policy, but tried not to show just how much he was enjoying it. He said, ‘I can’t see you getting round this sort of publicity, however creative you are.’

  ‘Sorry, but it is likely to come out at some point.’ Kitson reached across to place her mug back on the tray, and stood up. ‘It would certainly be worth looking at a back-up plan.’

  ‘What if I don’t have a back-up plan?’

  ‘Well, I can work anywhere,’ Ablett said. ‘No shortage of jobs in IT.’

  Sandra Cook stared down at her feet. When Caroline Marchant turned to stare at Ablett, she looked as if she’d been slapped.

  Ablett sniffed and picked at a loose thread on the seam of his chinos. ‘Just saying…’

  Driving back towards the motorway, Thorne said, ‘We should probably talk to all the men Patricia Somersby, Annette Mangan and Leila Fadel were matched with.’

  Kitson looked at him. ‘Really?’

  ‘I know, it’s a waste of time and it’s exactly what the killer wants us to do, but it needs to be done. If we get to trial… when we get to trial, we don’t want some smart defence lawyer pointing out that we hadn’t properly considered other suspects.’

  Kitson stared out at the shops and houses, hunched pedestrians hurrying through rain that was getting heavier. ‘Marchant’s question was fair enough.’

  ‘What, were we going to shut them down?’

  ‘Why them?’

  ‘Well… because it’s a tinpot operation,’ Thorne said. ‘Anonymous. No personal contact, nothing other than a list of gullible clients handing over money and getting matched up. If it wasn’t that site it would just have been a similar one. I’m guessing there’s loads of them.’

  ‘You don’t think our man might have a personal connection with this particular site?’

  ‘We’ll find out.’ Thorne swore and stepped on the brakes, having just missed a green light. ‘Let’s get everything we can on our unassuming computer wizard. We should probably have a good look at Sandra Cook as well… I got the impression they might be more than just workmates.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Kitson shook her head. ‘She certainly found him a lot more entertaining than I did.’

  ‘And we need to get forensics in to take that computer system apart as soon as we can. See just how clever Kenneth Ablett is.’

  ‘You fancy him for it?’

  Thorne stared at the red light and drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, remembering how wrong he’d been about Gavin Cooper. ‘Not sure I’d go that far,’ he said. ‘But as of now, there isn’t anybody else.’

  Then Nicola Tanner called and gave him a name.

  PART THREE

  THIS BLOODY JOB

  THIRTY-NINE

  They sat close together, drinking coffee on one of the many sofas in the main sitting room. It was cold and Tanner hadn’t bothered to take her coat off. ‘I still can’t get over the size of this place.’ It seemed even bigger and less welcoming than the last time she had been here; the austere fireplace remained annoyingly empty. ‘I’ve been to see flats you could fit in this room twice over.’

  ‘You moving?’

  ‘Well, I’m looking.’ She glanced at Andrew Evans and saw that he was waiting for her to say more; eager for conversation. ‘Somewhere handier for work, you know.’

  ‘Right.’

  The door was open and Tanner saw one of the officers slow and glance in as he passed the doorway. ‘You must be feeling lonely, Andrew.’

  ‘Yeah, a bit.’ Evans shrugged and stretched out his legs. ‘There’s a couple of other people here now, but we don’t interact much. It’s not exactly a holiday camp.’

  Tanner nodded. She’d been informed on each occasion Long Barrow Manor was expecting a new arrival; a written reminder of the protocol, as patronising as it was unnecessary.

  ‘We’re not really supposed to talk to each other. I mean, sometimes we do, but they try not to give us the chance.’

  ‘That’s how it works,’ Tanner said. ‘Somebody lets something slip and it puts the other person at risk.’

  ‘At more risk.’

  Tanner said nothing.

  ‘I mean just “hello” or whatever, maybe a word or two when we’re all eating, but there’s usually plenty of officers around. There’s more of them than there are of us.’ Evans shook his head and smiled, visibly more relaxed than the last time Tanner had seen him. The most recent report sent by the facility’s on-site counsellor had been positive. The physical withdrawal from the drug was almost complete, she had been told, though that was only the first part of the process.

  Evans leaned closer to her and lowered his voice, even though there was nobody there to eavesdrop. ‘One of the new blokes is like something out of a Guy Ritchie movie, I swear. Messed up teeth, looks like he’d happily rip your head off… must be part of an organised crime thing. The other one’s younger. I don’t know… maybe he’s giving evidence in a drugs-related case, same as me?’ He looked at Tanner, enjoying the cloak and dagger. ‘Am I close?’

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘I mean, they’re both spending plenty of time with Call Me Rob, so they’ve obviously both got… issues. The gangster bloke looks like a major boozer. Got one of those noses, you know? Like a chewed tomato.’

  ‘I can’t say, because I don’t know.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘They’re working with different forces,’ Tanner said. ‘So honestly, your guess is as good as mine. All I can tell you is that anybody who gets brought here is helping the police investigate some seriously dangerous people.’ She saw his face change. ‘But you knew that anyway.’

  ‘Hard to forget.’

  ‘Anyway, you certainly seem to be making progress with… what did you call him? The counsellor…’

  Evans inched away from her. ‘Yeah well, problem with that is, the clearer my head gets, the more time I can spend thinking about just how much shit I’ve dropped myself in.’

  There was no longer any sign of a tremor, no tapping of his trainer against the grey carpet, but Tanner could see that Evans was still tense, still terrified; as eaten up by guilt as he had ever been.

  She said, ‘We’re going to get you out of it.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  Tanner reached for her bag, opened up the file she’d brought with her and carefully laid out the sheets on the low table in front of them. Printouts, photographs. Evans sat forward and stabbed at one of the pictures: an old wo
man with big glasses and candyfloss hair.

  ‘There she is.’ He spoke quietly, but his voice was thick with distaste. For the woman in the photograph or for himself. ‘The Duchess.’

  ‘They’re all her,’ Tanner said. ‘These are a few of the IDs she used to visit various prisons. All in different names. Fake driving licences, passports, whatever. The prisons took copies every time she visited, so we had them sent across.’ She pointed. ‘See how good she is at changing her appearance?’ They stared at the pictures of what appeared, at first glance, to be several women of anywhere between fifty and sixty-five. ‘Different glasses or no glasses, different wigs, make-up, whatever. We know that most of the time these things aren’t exactly scrutinised anyway, so she didn’t have any problem.’

  Evans sat back slowly. ‘So, is any of this going to help you find her?’

  ‘I’ve circulated these to all forces in the country, with regular follow-ups to those in coastal locations, because more than one witness thought there was a link to somewhere by the sea. So, Devon and Cornwall, Kent, Dorset, Norfolk. They’ve obviously gone to every prison in the country as well, in case she decides to go back to work. So yes, I’m hopeful.’ She looked at him, well aware that nothing she had said would raise his or anyone else’s spirits, and that she hadn’t really answered his question. ‘We are pursuing several other lines of inquiry, Andrew.’ ‘Several’ was an exaggeration, as, quite probably, was ‘inquiry’. The last time she’d seen Dipak Chall, he looked like a man who had been asked to punch himself in the face eight hours a day. ‘I’m every bit as keen to find this woman as you are, and she can lead us to the people she’s working for. The ones responsible for all this.’

  ‘How long?’

  Andrew Evans sounded tired. He was intelligent enough to know this was a question that didn’t have an answer, but desperate enough to ask it anyway.

  How long will I be here?

  How long will my wife be in danger?

  How long until we can see each other again?

  Tanner felt something twist and settle in her stomach. She reached for her bag again, took out her mobile and began scrolling through her contacts. She said, ‘I’m moving because my partner died. The house we lived in is just too big now, that’s all.’

  Evans blinked. Said, ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s fine. It’s just a house.’

  ‘Is it?’ He looked about as convinced as he had been by Tanner’s progress report.

  Tanner straightened up and dialled a number. When the call was answered she listened for a few seconds, then said, ‘Yes, he’s with me.’

  Evans sat forward fast.

  She handed the phone across and said, ‘Someone who wants to talk to you.’ She picked up her bag and waited until he was looking at her. ‘You know the rules, Andrew. I’m trusting you.’

  Tanner stood and walked quickly towards the doorway. She turned, just in time to see Evans’s eyes close, and watched his face soften before she shut the door behind her.

  Paula sounded happy enough, but he could hear the effort in her voice; the brightness a little forced. She did not ask him where he was, or what he was doing, and he guessed she had received much the same pep talk from Tanner as he had.

  She said, ‘Things are fine here, really.’

  ‘That’s great.’

  ‘Quieter, obviously.’ A laugh, again a little strained.

  ‘How’s Sean doing? Is he there?’

  ‘He’s at nursery.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Stupid.’

  ‘He’s good though, into everything.’

  ‘What have you told him? Why I’m not there, I mean.’

  There was a pause. He heard her suck in a fast breath. ‘I said you were having a holiday.’

  Evans turned and saw an officer staring in at him through the French windows. He stared back. ‘Tell him I’ll bring him something home, OK?’

  ‘Don’t worry, he already mentioned it.’

  Now, Evans laughed, and he bit it back before it became a sob.

  ‘Andy —’

  ‘Yeah, I’m —’

  ‘There are police outside,’ she said.

  Evans went cold. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Sitting in a car on the other side of the road. I mean… I was scared until I found out they were police, you know? Now I take them tea every so often, chat for a bit, but they’re always looking around, like they’re keeping an eye out. Actually, I should probably be more scared, shouldn’t I? That someone thinks they need to be there. Andy… ?’

  ‘It’s just a routine thing, OK? I promise, everything’s going to be fine.’

  ‘You swear?’

  ‘I’ll be home soon and I’m going to be different.’

  Another pause. ‘Everything’s going to be different,’ she said.

  He could hear the tremble in her voice. ‘What’s happened?’

  She told him about the baby that was on the way, the second child they’d been talking about before he’d been taken. She said that she was just beginning to show, and he shouted and grinned, and he started to cry when she told him that it was going to be fine.

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘I should be there…’

  ‘Just remember how much you’ve got to come home to, all right?’

  He couldn’t speak.

  ‘I love you,’ she said.

  The door opened, and Tanner’s head appeared briefly around it. The look on her face made it clear that his time was almost up.

  ‘You too,’ he said.

  He told her to tell Sean how much he missed him, to take care of herself and the baby, and there were only a few seconds left to talk after that. How much better he was feeling in himself, the jobs he’d been thinking about going after when he got back. A selection of small lies.

  He ended the call and dropped back on to the sofa.

  The elation he’d felt at hearing his wife’s voice – her shocking, wonderful news – had gone before he was still and settled. Like the blood draining from that junkie’s face. Quick as that kid coming across his bonnet; saucer-eyed in the fraction of a second before the gunshot-crack and the bloodied spider-web.

  He felt agitated and afraid.

  He wanted to get high.

  FORTY

  ‘Unfortunately, I remember Aiden Goode only too well.’ The deputy governor of Maidstone prison sat back and sighed. ‘He’s not one of those you tend to forget.’ Jeremy Powell had a thin face and a beard that he tugged at almost constantly, as though actually trying to tear out chunks of hair. He looked a good deal older than his forty-two years. ‘So, what’s he been up to?’

  ‘I’m sure you understand that we can’t go into details,’ Thorne said.

  ‘We need to find him,’ Kitson said. ‘That’s as much as we can tell you, I’m afraid. We want to talk to him urgently in connection with an ongoing investigation.’

  Powell nodded and pulled a thick manila folder towards him across his desk. ‘Of course, and I also understand that seeing as you’re both detectives with the Homicide unit, it must be a fairly serious investigation. You’re not likely to be after a man like him because he hasn’t taken his library books back.’ He opened the folder. ‘Not that he was a prisoner who spent much time in the library…’

  Since Nicola Tanner had passed on the name given her by Graham French the day before, and the reason it might be significant, the team had been working flat out to track down Aiden Goode, a forty-three-year-old released from prison in February the previous year, having served eight years of a fifteen-year sentence for multiple offences.

  Violent sexual assault.

  Attempted kidnap.

  Rape.

  The man they were looking for had been found almost immediately, but then, just as quickly, lost again.

  After being released, Goode had returned home to live with his wife in south London. They had regularly attended relationship counselling sessions together. He had seen his probation officer once a week, taken a series of sho
rt-term jobs when not registered for Jobseeker’s Allowance and, while hardly qualifying as upstanding citizen of the year, appeared to have been gradually reintegrating himself into society.

  Then, five months after his release, Goode had vanished.

  ‘Just before Karen Butcher was killed,’ Tanner had pointed out to Thorne, late the night before. ‘He cons everyone into thinking he’s a changed man, then starts offending again. Only now it’s a damn sight worse…’

  This positive development, at least in terms of identifying a suspect, was about as good as the news got. A bubble of hope that burst almost instantly. The whip was duly cracked and the overtime payments authorised, but however hard and deep the team had dug, it quickly became apparent that, having taken the decision to disappear, Aiden Goode had become an expert at staying invisible.

  Traceless…

  In the previous nine months there was no active record of him with the DVLA or HMRC. He had not used the mobile phone, credit cards or email accounts registered to him and had not interacted in any way with social media. There had been no communication with family members or known associates. He had not seen a doctor, claimed benefit or come into contact with the police, and his name did not appear on any death certificate.

  ‘Dropped off the grid,’ Tanner had said.

  Just the two of them left by then, hunched over screens in a semi-dark office. The discordant hum of sleeping computers and distant traffic. Empty coffee cups and grease-stained pizza boxes on the desk behind them.

  Thorne had stared down, scratchy-eyed, at the face on his monitor; the last known photograph of Aiden Patrick Goode, taken just before his release from prison. ‘Or become someone else…’

  ‘So, what was he like?’ Thorne asked now.

  ‘Well, officially, it’s all in there.’ Powell nodded towards the file he had handed over, the six-inch thick sheaf of papers that Thorne and Kitson had divided up and were now flicking through.

  Aiden Goode’s IIS file.

  ‘But it doesn’t really tell the whole story.’

  The Inmate Information System provided what amounted to a complete history of a prisoner’s time at Her Majesty’s pleasure: case notes; visitor lists; work details; rehab programmes and educational courses taken; disciplinary action; letters and statements.