The Killing Habit

by Mark Billingham

  ‘Yes, you can see that this particular prisoner went to all the right groups and classes, ticked the boxes he needed to, but it’s just a record. Files that have to be filled in to keep the likes of me and my superiors happy. The prison authorities. You won’t get a real sense of the man from anything that’s in there.’ The beard-tugging became a little more frenetic and Powell swallowed hard, as though something bitter had risen into his throat. ‘In theory, Goode was the kind of prisoner you dream of. While he was here, he didn’t do a single thing that would put so much as an extra day on his sentence… well, not anything that was ever seen or reported. But I’d rather be locked in a cell with any one of the habitual troublemakers we’ve got in here, the ones my officers get out the body armour for, than spend five minutes with Aiden Goode. He wasn’t someone I was pleased to see paroled, and I made my feelings about that very clear at the time, but I wasn’t sorry to see the back of him.’

  ‘We spoke to a former prisoner who’d been here at the same time,’ Kitson said. ‘He said it was like getting rid of a bad smell.’

  ‘A stench,’ Powell said.

  Thorne leafed through pages – details of Goode’s movements between wings, a trip to a local hospital for dental work – until something caught his eye. He took a sheet of paper from the file and showed the entry he was interested in to Kitson. He turned back to Powell. ‘Advanced computer classes?’

  ‘Yes, he had an aptitude for it. I think it was something he’d started when he served some time elsewhere and he was very keen to carry on when he was with us.’

  ‘How advanced is advanced?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. I could try to dig out a syllabus if you like.’

  ‘Advanced enough to hack someone else’s system?’

  ‘Well, that’s certainly not something they teach.’

  ‘He was good though, you said?’

  Powell nodded. ‘He could easily have carried on when he got out.’

  Thorne said he would need a copy of Goode’s course work, any exams he had taken. Powell told him he would get them anything they needed.

  ‘So, tell us about this business with the cats.’

  The deputy governor pointed to the papers in Thorne’s and Kitson’s laps, before his fingers went back to work at his beard. ‘That’s all there in the file, too. We’d been having a major problem with rats and the traps were useless, so we brought a couple of cats in. Two days later the poor things were found mutilated.’ He shook his head. ‘Dismembered. Laid out.’ He watched as Thorne and Kitson pored over the relevant pages. ‘You’ll see from the statements that none of my officers had anything other than a strong suspicion Goode was responsible.’

  Thorne read through a statement made by Aiden Goode himself when he was questioned about the incident.

  Why would anyone do something like that? To an innocent creature, I mean. Sick, that’s what it is. Whoever did it needs to watch their back, all I’m saying, because if people in here find out who it was, things could turn seriously nasty.

  ‘He was almost certainly responsible,’ Powell said. ‘But without proof, it doesn’t go on a prisoner’s record. We have the same need for evidence that you do.’

  ‘Why do you think he did it?’ Thorne asked.

  Powell turned his palms up. ‘Perhaps he hated cats as much as he hated women. There’s certainly no doubt about that. If he’d shown the slightest hint of remorse for what he’d done to his victims, he might have been released even sooner than he was. He may have said he was sorry to the parole board when it was necessary, but I saw no sign of it.’

  Thorne thought about what he’d seen on that face he’d spent so long staring at the night before. Nothing that had struck him as shame or regret. It wasn’t what anyone would call a smile, certainly not that, but there had been… something around the eyes.

  An invitation of some sort. A challenge.

  It had been late, Thorne told himself. He’d been tired. Perhaps he had just seen what he had needed to see.

  Kitson pulled out another sheet. ‘Not much in the way of Authorised Visitors.’

  ‘No, just the wife.’ Powell grunted. ‘She came every week, if she could. Stuck by him for some reason.’

  ‘She needs her head examined.’

  ‘I’m guessing she was scared of him,’ Powell said. ‘Plenty of people were.’

  Perhaps it had been plain and simple confidence, Thorne thought, that he had seen on Aiden Goode’s face. Knowing how easily you frightened people could give you that. He looked at Powell and said, ‘The truth is, we can’t find him. He’s dropped out of sight completely.’

  Powell nodded, as though this wasn’t much of a shock. ‘There’s actually a statement about that in the IIS, too. One of my officers overheard him talking to another prisoner, telling him how easy it would be to go off radar… something like that. Another thing the parole board chose to ignore.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he gave any helpful details?’

  ‘Like I said, it was just something somebody overheard.’ Powell flashed a thin smile, there and gone. ‘I certainly haven’t had any postcards.’

  ‘Worth a shot,’ Kitson said.

  ‘They don’t always get it right, you know?’ Powell watched as Thorne and Kitson put the paperwork back together. ‘The Ministry of Justice and the people they appoint to decide who’s safe to put back out on the streets. Well, you know that better than anyone, because you’re usually the ones who have to pick up the pieces.’ He took the file back when it was offered, pushed it to one side of his desk. ‘I know you can’t tell me what it is that Aiden Goode’s done, but if it’s what I think it might be, I can’t really say I’m remotely surprised.’

  FORTY-ONE

  It was the same bar as last time, the tables starting to fill up with those settling in good and early for a session or grabbing a quick one before heading home. Looking around, Thorne guessed there were a few bankers getting stuck in and others for whom the word would apply as rhyming slang; certainly a smattering of lawyers from the chambers dotted around Lincoln’s Inn. Right or wrong, he could not imagine that too many of the customers had quite the same need of a drink at the end of their day as he or the woman sitting opposite him did.

  Thorne raised his glass. Said, ‘Thanks for this.’

  ‘Not a problem,’ Melita Perera said.

  ‘A bit last minute, I know. Sorry.’

  He had got back from Maidstone after lunch and spent a couple of frustrating hours in the afternoon trying and failing – along with everybody else on the team – to make any headway in the search for their major suspect. After a terse discussion with Helen about arrangements for the evening and with the story Jeremy Powell had told him and Kitson still rattling around in his brain – that stench he was starting to get a good whiff of – Thorne had decided he needed to fit in a quick chat with someone who knew more about the likes of Aiden Goode than anyone.

  ‘As long as it’s not another game show.’ The psychiatrist reached for her own glass.

  Thorne looked at her.

  ‘On the hotspot, like last time.’ Perera smiled. ‘Stab or strangle?’

  ‘You picked the right one,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Lucky guess.’

  Thorne took another drink, swallowed. ‘I don’t think so.’ The skirt and jacket were lighter, he thought, than those she had worn last time, and something about her hair was different. ‘Did you… get a chance to look at the material I sent?’

  ‘I read it through once, yes.’ She reached down for a thin leather satchel and removed a sheaf of notes. She laid them on the table. ‘As you said though, it was a bit last minute.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Thorne said. ‘I don’t need a written report or anything. I just wanted to know what you made of it, that’s all.’ His turn to smile. ‘Wondered if you could take a few guesses.’

  Rolling her eyes, she put down her wine, leaned forward and began to turn the pages.

  A little more of it was
down, Thorne decided. Her hair. Last time she had tied it up with a band. ‘So, what about the cat killings, then? The fact they haven’t stopped, I mean.’

  Perera glanced up. ‘Well, of course, it might mean that the homicides have stopped. For a while, at least. If your cool-down theory is correct.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m starting to doubt that.’

  ‘Nothing’s ever going to be cut and dried,’ she said. ‘Not with this sort of offender. Maybe they’re just keeping their hand in with the cats while they look for another victim, or they could be doing both at the same time. Maybe there’s no rhyme or reason to it at all.’

  ‘No… he’s organised. He knows exactly what he’s doing —’ Thorne stopped and looked at her, remembering what she had said a fortnight earlier.

  Perera shook her head, reading. ‘Don’t worry. I know I hedged my bets a little last time we met, but I’m as certain as I can be that it’s a man who’s responsible for these murders. A man who hates women.’

  Thorne didn’t think a degree in psychiatry was necessary to work that much out. ‘Well, Aiden Goode is definitely one of them.’

  Perera raised a hand. ‘I should say, certain kinds of women.’

  Thorne waited.

  ‘I was just wondering if there was rather more to the whole dating agency thing than just being a nice easy way to select his victims.’

  ‘Well… they’re single women and those are the ones he’s after. Easy to load suspicion on to the men they go on dates with. Easy to find out everything about them.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s exactly what I’m talking about. What if it’s because they’re women who are… looking for someone? Who are advertising, if you like.’

  They stared at one another for a few seconds. Perera looked briefly across at the two young men who were taking seats at an adjacent table.

  She leaned forward and lowered her voice.

  ‘Perhaps that’s why he targets them. Perhaps he’s a man who is repulsed for some reason by women who… put themselves on display like that. Women who are older or maybe a little overweight or not what he’s decided is conventionally attractive, yet still have the audacity to say “here I am”.’ She held her arms wide and looked at him. ‘If that’s how he sees them, if “flaunting” themselves in that way doesn’t conform with his twisted idea of how a woman should behave, he would regard the women on that website as needy and pathetic. As worthless.’ She sat back slowly, taking her glass with her. ‘Look, you said you wanted me to make a guess. So…’

  ‘Yeah… that all makes sense,’ Thorne said. ‘Well, not sense, but you know what I mean.’ He saw that one of the men who had just sat down was looking at them; looking at Perera. The man caught Thorne’s eye and turned away. ‘So, what about Aiden Goode, then? You think that sounds like him?’

  ‘I’d need to see the details of his offences,’ Perera said.

  Thorne had guessed, even as he was asking the question, that she would not commit herself to quite that extent. A piece of educated guesswork was one thing, but an unprofessional stab in the dark was rather too much to hope for. ‘It’s more or less the only name we’ve got,’ he said.

  ‘What do you think?’

  Thorne had seen the details of the offences for which Aiden Goode had been convicted. The MOs were certainly rather less convoluted, but there was no question that his crimes had been about power and hate; that he had seen his victims as insignificant.

  He could still picture the look of revulsion on Jeremy Powell’s face.

  ‘He fits the bill,’ Thorne said.

  Perera finished her drink and watched as Thorne downed the last of his. Every table in the place was now taken and customers were queuing at the bar. She slid the papers back into her satchel and said, ‘Shall we have another one?’

  Thorne looked at his watch.

  ‘Oh. If you need to be somewhere…’

  He did, but, inexplicably dry-mouthed, Thorne sat there humming and hawing, desperately trying to work out how long he would need to get where he was going. If there was time for at least one more quick drink. If he could make a call and cancel, because there was nothing that couldn’t be talked about the following morning. Not really.

  Perera raised a pair of perfectly shaped brows. ‘Meeting someone? I’m guessing it’s a woman, judging by how worried you are about being late.’

  ‘Yeah… but not like that.’ Thorne hoped his smile would make it clear what that meant, but the smile he got in return only made things more difficult. Another few seconds ticked past, before common sense made its unwelcome presence felt.

  ‘I’d really love to stay for a bit. Honestly.’ The sigh Thorne let out was heartfelt and tasted of Guinness. ‘But the woman I’m meeting is a bit of a stickler.’

  FORTY-TWO

  This time it was Thorne’s place – Helen’s place – and Tanner chose to bring fish and chips. Thorne, who was very happy to eat from the paper, fetched beers from the fridge and smiled as Tanner helped herself to a plate and a roll of kitchen towel.

  ‘Helen’s got a late one,’ Thorne had told her when they’d been deciding where and when to get together. ‘And Alfie’s staying with her sister, so we’ll have the place to ourselves.’ He wasn’t sure then, or now, why he’d felt the need to go into detail. It was as much about reassuring himself as explaining the situation to Tanner, after the tetchy exchange of texts earlier in the day.

  Nicola T might come over later. ok?

  I won’t be there.

  Just a catch-up, not for long.

  Doesn’t matter.

  Helen’s mood had clearly not softened a great deal since their argument that morning. She’d snapped at him, irritable in the wake of another difficult conversation with her sister, and Thorne had snapped right back.

  ‘I prefer haddock, actually.’ Tanner delicately squeezed a blob of ketchup on to the corner of her plate. ‘But for some reason, your local place only does cod.’ Thorne took the bottle from her and squirted ketchup over everything.

  They ate.

  ‘How was Evans?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘He was OK when I got there.’ Tanner scraped batter from her fish. ‘A bit of a mess after he’d spoken to his wife. Once she’d told him about the baby.’

  ‘Worried he’s not going to be there when it’s born.’

  ‘With good reason,’ Tanner said. She told Thorne about the job she’d given Dipak Chall; the only solid line of inquiry she was pursuing on the Adnan Jandali murder. The hunt for the woman called the Duchess.

  ‘You never know,’ Thorne said.

  ‘I know we should be doing more, but I’m out of ideas. Whoever killed Jandali went to ground every bit as fast as the Duchess. No trace of that motorbike, no evidence other than the stuff we’ve got on Evans and we know that was all planted. Every time there’s so much as a sniff of someone who might have information, they’ve mysteriously become deaf and dumb by the time we get to them.’

  ‘You’re after some scary fuckers,’ Thorne said. ‘Always the same way.’

  ‘Doesn’t help Andrew Evans though, does it?’

  Thorne grunted and chewed. He was finding it hard to have too much more sympathy for the man being held at Long Barrow Manor than he did when they’d first brought him in. Evans must have had some idea of the kind of people he was dealing with; at least by the time he was waving a gun about and demanding money with menaces.

  ‘Sitting there going mental,’ Tanner said, ‘while his wife’s up the duff and he doesn’t know what’s going on, and the best I can do is send somebody online shopping.’

  ‘You said yourself, what else can you do?’

  ‘I can get him home to his family.’

  Thorne looked up and saw the concern on Tanner’s face. Now he felt it too; a flutter of something close to it, at any rate. Perhaps it was simply because he had too much else on his mind to spend a lot of time worrying about what Andrew Evans was going through.

  ‘Sorry I haven’t exactly been
pulling my weight,’ he said. ‘On the Jandali murder. Evans…’

  Tanner looked at him.

  ‘You pitched in on my case and I promised I’d do the same with yours. I know I haven’t exactly been keeping my end up.’

  Tanner smirked.

  ‘Seriously.’

  Tanner shook her head and speared a fat chip. ‘First off, your case has got way bigger than anyone thought it would, so it’s obviously your prime concern. And secondly, don’t worry.’ She smiled and popped the chip into her mouth. ‘Because you will pay.’

  Thorne didn’t doubt it.

  They carried on eating half-heartedly for a few minutes, but neither could finish. Tanner was on her feet and clearing the table before Thorne could stop her. She scraped leftovers into the bin then dropped papers and empty cans into the recycling. As she was rinsing her plate under the hot tap, she said, ‘So, what about this cat business?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘If he’s still doing it, or if he’s started again, what does that do to your theory? Is he cooling down?’

  ‘I talked to Perera again,’ Thorne said. ‘Came straight here from seeing her, actually.’

  Tanner put the plate into the dishwasher and closed the door. ‘Oh, you did.’

  ‘She still thinks it’s a perfectly reasonable theory, but she reckons it’s never going to be that straightforward. Maybe he’s been killing cats all the time. Or maybe he’s killing them again now because he can’t find human victims quickly enough.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound good.’

  ‘None of it sounds good.’

  As Tanner moved across to sit down again, Thorne fetched her a bottle of water from the fridge and grabbed another beer for himself.

  ‘So, everything’s pointing towards Aiden Goode.’

  ‘Seems to be.’ Thorne opened his beer. ‘Everything the deputy governor at Maidstone told us puts him in the frame and nothing Melita said takes him out of it.’