by Stav Sherez
‘It tells us nothing we didn’t already know,’ Carrigan snapped. ‘Yes, he’s a sick fuck. Yes, he’s researched this and thought it through. We already know he’s bright enough to mix these drugs and apply them without killing his victim. That’s not what’s important here. What we should be asking is why we found Anna but not Katrina. We’ve checked all unidentified dead females in London from the last six months but none of them are a match – so, where is she?’
‘Maybe he’s keeping her alive?’ Geneva suggested. It had been the one possibility she hadn’t wanted to consider but could avoid no longer. ‘Perhaps in a house or a basement. Feeding her drugs and enjoying her prolonged suffering.’
‘Keeping her is a lot more difficult than disposing of her body,’ Hoffmann replied. ‘It requires a totally different mind-set. It would be too hard, logistically, to hold her captive somewhere like London.’
‘I’m aware of that,’ Geneva said. ‘And yet Ariel Castro managed to keep three women for ten years in his cellar in downtown Cleveland. John Jamelske kept an entire stable of girls in his bunker in Syracuse.’
‘Yes, but that’s different. They were—’
‘Look,’ Carrigan interrupted. ‘This may sound crazy, but are we even talking about the same killer? I know the MO is similar and both victims were staying at the hostel but is it possible we have two different killers? That we’ve been seduced into seeing him as one because of this similarity rather than the obvious dissimilarities?’
Hoffmann closed his eyes and thought about it. ‘It would be too much of a coincidence,’ he said. ‘The MO is too specific. It’s much more likely he’s escalating. We know all serial killers do this. They continually refine their fantasies. They get better at knowing what they like. They get cleverer at evading us. Maybe killing Katrina and burying her in an unmarked grave wasn’t enough. Maybe he felt an overwhelming emptiness when she was gone. So, this time, he leaves Anna in plain sight. She may be dead but now he’s watching the news, watching us, keeping track and keeping score. The kill lasts much longer this way but he’ll also be profiling his next victim. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he was already trolling her on Twitter, laying out the bait, getting her softened up and broken down.’
‘Profiling her?’ Geneva opened a can of Coke.
‘Serial killers profile their victims just the same as we do. You see it especially in hunter types like this one. They can smell loneliness and vulnerability. They can look across a crowded room and know immediately which of the women to go for – but what makes your killer much more interesting is that both victims were described by their friends as being assertive and strong.’
‘And predators always go for the weak and strays?’ Carrigan said.
‘Exactly. That’s what makes this one so unusual. He searches specifically for assertive women, probably through their social media presence, and he does this expressly so he can break them down. He starts with the tweets, then escalates to photos and threats. It’s a challenge for him – what’s the point in targeting someone who’s already frail? Much more sport in going after the lion than the gazelle. Social media allows him to pick out women with those characteristics. It allows him to learn a great deal about them and to track their movements and their interactions with others.’
‘Sometimes I think it’s almost as if the Internet was designed expressly with stalkers and sex fiends in mind,’ Geneva said.
Hoffmann laughed softly. ‘It may seem so, but humans have been very good at adapting technology to their own secret needs for thousands of years. No, what’s new is the profile. We’re seeing a type of killer we haven’t come across before. The Internet has transformed their pathology as well as their MO. Doesn’t matter if the cause is world jihad, white supremacy or a schoolyard grudge that ends with a class full of dead kids – the profile’s the same. Our killer will be very smart, mendacious and obviously computer savvy. He’ll pretend to be older, have an obsessive need to tinker, and above all, he’ll be convinced he’s right, which means he’ll have no moral limits, everything he does will be rationalised as necessary.
‘But you know all this. This hasn’t changed. There have always been unfulfilled men hiding in small rooms, disenchanted with the promise of their lives, harbouring feelings of inadequacy and filled with a yearning to solve history through one grand act. But now, they sit seething behind their screens, planning intricate and terrible atrocities, and no matter how extreme their views, they can instantly find thousands of like-minded followers – and then the echo chamber goes into effect and they become even more radicalised, until one day they turn off the computer and hit the streets. We’ll be seeing more and more of this – in bus stations and festivals, beaches, parks and schools – Breiviks of the world, unite, you have nothing to lose but your modems.’
Hoffmann smiled and Carrigan was annoyed to find himself agreeing with the profiler. Luckily, his phone rang before he could reply. He listened to what Berman had to say then flipped open his laptop.
‘We just got an email from Anna’s account.’ Carrigan looked up and saw Geneva and Hoffmann had moved closer. ‘There’s nothing in the email apart from a link.’ Carrigan hovered over the long string of meaningless consonants and random numbers and clicked.
The screen refreshed and an embedded video player appeared on an otherwise blank page. Carrigan pressed PLAY.
They saw a room. An old woman on the phone. Ancient Christmas decorations and a grandfather clock ticking in the background. The speakers burst into life and the woman’s voice cracked like a whip.
‘Ja?’
Carrigan watched Anna’s mother nodding and assimilating the information he was giving her over the phone. He knew what was coming next and he gripped the edge of the chair as it came. Anna’s mother dropped the handset mid-sentence and collapsed to her knees. A man hurried across the room and helped her up. He asked her something in German. The woman shook her head. The man picked up the phone. ‘Who is this?’
Hoffmann leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. ‘Jesus. He filmed them receiving the death notice.’
They continued watching as Anna’s father listened to Carrigan’s message, the old man nodding, mute and rock-faced, the tears streaming down his cheeks. He put down the phone and knelt by his wife. She opened her arms and he folded himself into her. The two held each other and sobbed and shook their heads as the minutes quietly slipped from the grandfather clock.
27
The incident room. A late afternoon lull. Departing bodies and unanswered phones. Geneva sat at her table, cocooned by lights. She tried to focus on her research into the hostel’s history but all she could think about was the sight of Anna’s parents curled up on the floor of their living room.
They’d watched the clip several times, Carrigan repeatedly stealing glances at Hoffmann, the air between them thick with unspoken history. Hoffmann speculated that targeting the families was something important they’d missed but Geneva suspected it was more than that. The clip had set something clicking inside her brain. She tried to focus on her task. She printed off web pages and bookmarked sites. She ran searches and checked links. A decade ago, this kind of work would have taken a week – visits to the library, the town hall, the newspaper morgue – but now it was available at the click of a button. Doors slammed outside, banter and laughter and the wheeze of the coffee machine. She shut it out, pumped the stress ball and focused on the material in front of her. Her phone pinged before she’d got to the end of the first page. Her gut clamped shut as she stared at the caller ID, the contained anxiety of the last few months rising inside her.
‘Miller.’
Her lawyer sounded distracted as if he had more important things to do while talking to her, which he undoubtedly did. ‘I have some good news for you.’
‘That would be a first.’
The ensuing silence was threaded with crackle. ‘There’s no need for that. In fact, the reason I was calling was to inform you that as of toda
y we’re no longer going to be representing you.’
Geneva took a deep breath. ‘You’re dropping the case?’
The lawyer laughed softly. She imagined him sitting behind a curving mahogany desk, so buffed you could see your reflection in it, drinks and briefs spread out in front of him, a secretary simpering in the wings.
‘Quite the opposite, actually,’ he replied. ‘It’s your ex-husband who’s dropped the case. Remarkable, frankly, when it was obvious to everyone involved he was going to win, but then, I suppose one can never underestimate the vagaries of the heart.’
The line went dead. Geneva stared at the phone as if it were an hallucination conjured up out of hope and need. She was suing her ex-husband, Oliver, over the proceeds from the sale of the house they’d called home for five years. Had the solicitor really said Oliver was dropping the case after three years of aggressively defending it? It didn’t make sense and Oliver never did anything that didn’t make sense.
The rain lashed the windowpanes in soft smacking kisses. She pushed Oliver to the back of her mind and dialled Carrigan’s extension.
‘I need to check something at the Milgram,’ she said.
‘You’re calling for my approval?’
‘No. I’m calling because I thought you might like to come. The clip of Anna’s parents reminded me of something.’
‘Are you going to tell me what it is?’
‘No. I’m going to show you.’
*
Carrigan got out of the car and waited for Geneva to finish her cigarette. He studied the tall dark upthrust of the Milgram as it towered above the neighbouring houses. From out here, the hostel seemed contained and knowable, but once you were inside, it was a different matter.
‘See what I mean?’ There was no one on the front desk. Geneva craned her neck and scanned the ceiling. ‘Anyone can just walk in.’ She stopped to scrutinise a small black speck in the far right corner. She took out her phone, snapped several shots then examined them, zooming in and flicking back and forth until she was satisfied. She put the phone back in her pocket and they made their way upstairs.
‘Look. I was going to find some subtle, clever way to bring this up but there’s too much going on and I haven’t got the time, so please, tell me – what the fuck is up with you and Hoffmann?’
Carrigan stopped. The stairs receded into the far distance. ‘This is our case and we can handle it perfectly well by ourselves.’
Geneva crossed her arms, blocking his passage. ‘Bullshit. I saw your face when he first came in. You recognised him. And I’ve noticed the way he acts whenever he’s near you. He gets uncomfortable, his voice drops and he overcompensates.’
‘Are you profiling him now?’
‘No. I’m trying to understand what history the two of you share and how it’s going to affect the case.’
‘I met him for the first time yesterday.’
‘Fine, if that’s how you want it – but whatever it is, you two need to work it out. It’s having an impact on the investigation.’
‘My personal problems are not important right now.’
Geneva uncrossed her arms and took a step back. ‘You know you can talk to me?’
Carrigan smiled. ‘I know and I appreciate that. But right now I’d rather you tell me what you found out about the hostel.’
Geneva started back up the stairs knowing that, for now, this was all she was going to get. ‘There was nothing useful or relevant. The usual ODs, suicides and accidental deaths you’d expect in a place like this.’ She turned into another dust-speckled corridor. It was only now that she realised how tense she’d been since the solicitor’s phone call. She should have been relieved by the news but she wasn’t. What the fuck was Oliver up to?
They ascended the last set of stairs and emerged on the fifth-floor landing. They ducked under the crime-scene tape. The door to Anna and Madison’s dorm was unlocked. The drop in temperature was instant. Geneva checked the windows to see if the SOCOs had wrenched them open but they were still tightly sealed. Light from another dorm spilled across the courtyard and through the windows. Anna and Madison’s beds, snug and neatly made, waited patiently for their former occupants.
Carrigan surveyed the room. It was exactly as it had been the day before. He looked up at the ceiling, the walls and window frames, thinking back to what Geneva had told him in the car. ‘You really think he was watching Anna?’
‘You seriously reckon he wasn’t?’ Geneva said. ‘There’s got to be cameras in here. It’s what the evidence points to – you saw the tape of her parents.’
Carrigan nodded, thinking how quaint that we still called it a tape, as if we were too terrified of the onrushing future we had to cling to recondite names in the vain hope of holding it back.
‘It’s the only thing which makes sense,’ Geneva continued. ‘He has to watch. To see the effect of his actions. He wouldn’t be able to resist. It’s what he needs to do for this to be meaningful to him. More so, it’s a natural progression from the Twitter trolling. Someone who has the patience to do that, who feeds them exactly the right cocktail of drugs to exacerbate their fear – someone like that wouldn’t be content without seeing the results of his actions. If he went to the trouble of filming Anna’s parents receiving the news of her death, you really think he wouldn’t keep her dorm under surveillance?’
‘He went all the way to Germany to plant those cameras?’
‘From everything we’ve so far gathered about him, I’d say yes. He’s patient and methodical and he enjoys watching. In his mind it would be worth the trouble and expense. He can watch this feed over and over again until their grief wears out.’
‘It never does.’
Geneva stopped, noticing the crease in Carrigan’s forehead. ‘You still miss Louise that much?’
‘It gets worse every year. That thing they tell you about time healing all wounds, it’s bullshit – only the cessation of time can do that.’
They began searching from the back of the room. Geneva aimed her torch into corners and behind dado rails. They searched every wall and joint. Every stain or mark was scrutinised until they were satisfied it was nothing more than stain or mark. They checked bookshelves and books, light fittings and doorframes. Under the bed and behind the posters. They studied the TV set and ran their fingers along the sides of mirrors and across skirting boards. They looked between the dark accordioned spines of radiators and along the burnished edges of wardrobes. They scoured windowsills and electrical sockets but found nothing to substantiate Geneva’s theory.
‘Maybe he removed the cameras when he came for the passport photo?’
Carrigan shook his head. ‘We’d have found traces.’
A door banged downstairs. A conversation in Urdu floated into hearing then just as quickly receded. The lights flickered on and off. Geneva felt her skin tingle and goosebumps burst out along her arms. She quickly turned her head, certain that someone was watching her from the corner of the room, but it was only the curtains flapping, throwing shadows against the wall.
‘The sooner we’re out of here the better.’ Geneva watched the shadows flicker, keeping an eye on them. ‘Maybe we can grab a coffee?’
Carrigan looked out the window at the storm-tossed trees, the branches rattling like arthritic limbs. ‘I’d love to but I need to get back to the station.’
‘Branch?’
Carrigan shook his head. ‘DPS.’
‘They asked you to go to them? You told me this wasn’t serious?’
‘It’s not.’ It was a lie but it felt good to say it, a necessary distancing, even if only for himself.
‘That’s crap. I can see it in your face. Whatever it is, I can help.’
Carrigan smiled. ‘I appreciate it, but for the moment you’re off Quinn’s radar and that’s how I want to keep it.’
Geneva looked at him for a long moment. A fly buzzed close to her ear, the sudden rush of noise like a drill starting up. They resumed their search in silence,
pulling up rugs and peering behind curling wallpaper. Geneva stood on a chair and aimed her torch at the ceiling. There were specks of random dirt, dead insects, brown stains, but no cameras.
28
Carrigan sat on the hard metal chair and thought about all the times this scene had been reversed. It was supposed to be an informal chat but Patterson had taken him straight to this room deep in the heart of the DPS. Even though the recording equipment was off, Patterson and his partner, Larkin, were making their intentions very clear.
Carrigan checked his watch. He thought about the case. He thought about his mother languishing between worlds. ‘Look. I know what this is about and why you—’
‘DI Carrigan. Please speak only when you’re answering a question. I’m sure we both want this to be as brief as possible.’
‘You told me this was meant to be an informal chat.’ Carrigan studied Patterson. He was young and smoothly shaven and wore a suit that stuck to his body like cling film. Larkin was playing bad cop, skulking in his chair, seemingly bored by the proceedings, but Carrigan could see flashes of intelligence behind his eyes and knew he was the one to watch.
Patterson chuckled, revealing perfect white teeth. ‘Oh, I assure you, this is exactly that. You haven’t been cautioned yet, have you? Haven’t been told to bring in your rep?’
Carrigan bit his lip and kept his mouth shut.
Patterson pulled out a file and from it, several sheets of paper. He pretended to be reading from one of them but his eyes didn’t move. ‘Did you order a member of your team to illegally gain access to the diocese of Westminster’s electronic database on 18 December 2013?’
Carrigan had thought long and hard about how to answer but in the end there was only one answer he could truthfully give. ‘It was the most efficient way to pursue the investigation.’
‘I didn’t ask why you did it.’