by Neil White
He felt the first growl of anger and took some deep breaths through his nose. He could hear the sounds in his head again. Like a constant song, the beat never leaving him, so that the only way to fight it was to sing along.
He looked up again. Think of something else. Not here. Stay calm. They were all eating their lunch, hadn’t noticed him. That’s how he liked it.
Then he saw something else. A touch on Laura’s leg. Personal. Close. Had he missed something? The noise in his head grew louder, taunting him, and a flush crept over his body. He had known his work wasn’t done. Now he knew why.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Laura sat at the back of the Incident Room as the rest of the squad filed in, all pulled in from their enquiries to listen to Carson’s update. Or rather, to listen to his warning. Carson was at the front of the room, glowering, pacing, with Joe Kinsella sitting in a chair nearby, his legs crossed. Laura was there to check for reactions at the back.
There was some chatter as people found their places, just casual exchanges. Some people were holding sandwiches after being dragged out from their lunch. Everyone seemed tense, as if they sensed trouble, with nervous glances to the floor or their hands, or at pretty much anything that wasn’t the prowling Carson.
Carson nodded to someone that they ought to close the door, and then once it had settled in the frame, he said, ‘You all know why we held back details of the bodies from the press – to filter out the weirdos and so that we control the information, not the media.’
Laura watched for a nervous reaction, an extra shuffle of the feet, but everyone was static, as if they guessed that something had gone wrong.
Carson put his hands on his hips and looked around the room, and the gleam from the lights that reflected off his head matched the angry glare in his eyes. ‘It’s got out,’ he said, trying to catch everyone’s gaze. ‘We have been contacted by a reporter who knows about the condition of the body. He was told this by email, someone leaking details to him.’
‘Which reporter?’ someone asked.
‘It was Jack,’ Laura said, and she felt her cheeks flush as everyone turned around to look at her. ‘And before you say or think it, it hasn’t come from me. He came down because he found out, to make sure that we knew there was a problem.’
‘So this is it,’ Carson said. ‘Confession time. Has anyone got anything they want to get off their chest?’ No one moved. ‘If you have told someone about this, for personal gain or just because you’ve got a loose tongue, head for that door. You’ll be off the team, but I’ll leave it at that. But if you don’t confess and I find out about it, you are fucked.’ He paced up and down, looking everyone in the eye. No one dared look away. ‘Anyone?’
Still no one moved.
Carson stopped. ‘Okay, thank you for your time,’ he said. ‘Go back to whatever you were doing. If anyone hears of a leak, I want to know. Squad loyalty comes before friendships, because if you cover for someone else, you both fall. Everyone got it?’
No one responded, but no one disagreed.
Carson headed for the door and nodded at Laura to follow. She felt everyone’s eyes on her as she made her way through the room, and once she was out of the door, she heard the rumbles of conversation start up.
‘You’re in the clear on this one, McGanity, so don’t worry what they think,’ Carson said, and then he smiled, the colour in his face draining slightly. ‘You worry about the killer. I’ll catch the bastard who contacted Jack.’
‘And if they are one and the same person?’
‘Then people will blame me for getting it wrong. Either way I stand to lose.’
Jack called Dolby and told him that the police were willing to go with the story.
‘I like it,’ Dolby said. ‘Dirty coppers leaking secrets. Let me have a look at it when you’ve finished, see if I can put my own special gloss onto it.’
‘No. This one goes in as I write it,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll be shut out from the police for ever if this gets messed up.’
Dolby sighed and then said, ‘But I retain the right to not use it all.’
‘No. You commission me to write it and you put it in. And it’s going to the nationals too. I’ve still got a few contacts.’
‘Come on, Jack, you know I can’t promise to publish what I haven’t seen. And this should be my exclusive.’
‘Do you want it or not, Dolby?’ Jack said. ‘Those are my conditions.’
There was a pause, as Dolby thought about it. Jack wasn’t sure it was material for the nationals. The court stories from Blackley made it big sometimes: teachers caught in bed with their students, or asylum seekers breaking the law. Sex and immigration always invited outrage, and if it could be mixed with a crime, it got shoved forward a page or two. But he wasn’t prepared to give it up.
‘Okay, I’ll go with it,’ Dolby said eventually. ‘But this is a one-off.’
‘Whatever you say, Dolby,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll have the story with you today,’ and then he hung up.
Then he called Harry English.
Harry English was Jack’s news-desk editor from his London days, when he worked on one of the nationals before he went freelance. Harry was a bear of a man who wore the smoke and stress of Fleet Street in the flush and broken veins in his cheeks. He was a good person to offer a decent story to, one that might interest the dailies, and he always gave a fair price if it was worth printing.
Harry answered his phone with a cough and then said, ‘Jack, it’s been a long time. I suppose you’re calling about the murders up there?’
‘You’ve heard of them then.’
‘We keep an eye on the north, you know,’ Harry said chuckling. ‘We just don’t feel like printing much of it.’
‘The police want to release some extra information, but through me,’ Jack said. ‘Would you be interested? It’s grisly stuff.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘You’re all heart, Harry, but I need a guarantee that it will go in tomorrow’s paper.’
‘That depends on how good the story is.’
‘Oh, it should be good.’
‘How come, hotshot?’
Jack smiled, even though Harry couldn’t see. ‘We’ve got someone from the police leaking details of the crime and bad mouthing the family.’
There was a pause, and then, ‘Sounds interesting.’
‘It is,’ Jack said. ‘The police are having to change their tactics because of him. So you’re interested?’
Harry coughed out a yes.
‘Good,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll have the story with you tonight,’ and then he hung up.
The car was quiet again. Bobby had to be collected from school shortly, but Jack knew that he could write the story as Bobby watched television. He enjoyed the buzz of a deadline.
Jack closed his eyes to clear his head, because he had to plan what he was going to write. Start with the ending, that’s always the way with newspaper stories, that you have to give away the cliff-hanger to make the reader have a look at the story.
The story was for one of the tabloids and the local paper, so it had to be snappy, make people feel threatened. It would be Cop Flops Secrets, and then a shock-horror tale of how the leak could cost lives. The person who had sent the emails had to be the villain, not the anti-hero. Jack felt good to be writing something different from the court stories or whatever Dolby wanted to highlight. It was something he could control and he realised that he missed it, the buzz of creating something that people would enjoy reading, even if only for a few minutes on a crowded bus or train.
Jack’s thoughts were interrupted by some shouting. Some kids strutted out of the station, in dark tracksuit bottoms and hoods, followed by David Hoyle. They shook his hand, street-style, making Hoyle look clumsy, before they walked to a taxi, laughing as they went.
Jack waved at Hoyle, who gave him a salute. Another day, another win.
He followed the reporter outside, but he was distracted by a noise behind him. It was David
Hoyle, his cologne drifting towards him, sweet and cloying. He knew how it worked – he was supposed to notice it, not enjoy it. Like the gaudy gold band on his wrist, and the diamond-studded ring he wore on his little finger. It was the show, just to say that he was winning, like the arrogance in his walk, bolt upright, feet apart, get out of my way. His clients bounced in front of him, another day of success for them. And he knew who they were, had seen them before.
He felt the first rumble of anger, so that the noises became louder as he got outside, his vision clouded, so that everything was on a time lag, the images blurring. He could see the reporter, but he was out of focus, just the red of his car visible. The sounds from the youths seemed to echo in his head. Anger turned to rage, starting as a tremor in his stomach, churning, hot. It spread quickly throughout his body, an urge he couldn’t control. It was a need. No, it was more than that. It was a demand to hurt someone, like a scream of desire.
His cheeks glowed red as his arousal grew. He clenched his fists and looked down. He couldn’t make it go away now, he knew that, but he could contain it, save it until he could use it, so that it was always there, the ticking bomb.
He heard a noise, the cough of an old engine, and through the blur he saw something red move away. The reporter’s car. That would help, he knew that. To hurt those who betrayed him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Incident Room was still busy from the lecture Carson had given not long before, the detectives muttering between themselves. Joe had gone to the back of the room, paperwork growing into a pile by his keyboard. Laura walked over, ignoring the icy glance from Rachel Mason as she passed her.
Joe looked up as Laura got close. ‘Did you see anything?’ he said, leaning back, taking a breather, rubbing his eyes.
‘No, nothing,’ she said. ‘If the leak was in here, he’s cool. What are you doing back here?’
‘So I’m near the printer,’ he said, and lifted up the paperwork scattered on the desk. ‘I’m looking for anything related to arsons or animal cruelty from twenty or thirty years ago.’
‘Any joy?’
He shook his head. ‘None whatsoever,’ he said. ‘It seems like the system purges itself every few years, and so the further back you go, the less there is, and go back more than fifteen years and it’s like entering some world where computers didn’t exist.’ He tapped his pen on the desk, frustrated. ‘If we had a name, we could do a better search, just to see if the suspect had anything relevant, but we don’t, so we can’t.’
‘How come arson or animal cruelty are relevant?’
Joe stopped tapping his pen. ‘Why do you think men kill pretty young women?’
Laura thought about that. ‘Sex, I suppose. Lust. They want what they can’t get, or maybe they get their kicks by killing, and prefer young women to older women.’
‘But why do they get their kicks by killing? You have to know the why to find the suspect.’
‘Power, would be my guess,’ Laura said.
Joe smiled. ‘You are nearly right, because it’s about having no power and then striking back.’
‘Isn’t that the same thing?’
‘Not quite,’ Joe said. ‘Some people kill because of the power trip, because they feel powerful, like predators, where it’s all about picking on the little man, or woman, whatever the case may be. But killers who have a history of arson or being cruel to animals do it for the opposite reason, because they have no power.’
Laura sat down. She could tell that this was going to be a long conversation, and with Joe Kinsella, you had to have your mind clear to let it all sink in. ‘Explain.’
Joe twirled his pen. ‘Children burn things down or torture animals as a way of striking back,’ he said. ‘Imagine an abused child, or a bullied child, or even just an odd or insecure child, different from the rest. How can he protect himself?’ Joe raised his eyebrows. ‘He can’t, is the answer. So he hits back secretly, at things that can’t strike back. Small animals, or buildings, where he can set the fire and retreat. It’s cowardice, but borne from revenge, not anger.’
‘But not all child arsonists turn into murderers,’ Laura said.
Joe nodded in agreement. ‘But most serial killers have arson or animal cruelty in their history. Something happens that takes them from the bud to the bloom. So it might be puberty, some misconnect of the wires, or an abnormally strong sex drive. All we have are generalities, not as good as neat forensics, but these best guesses are usually right.’
‘So why would he choose these women?’
‘That’s an important part of the puzzle, the future victim,’ Joe said. ‘Killers rarely attack the source of their resentment. If they were humiliated or abused as children, you would expect them to go back and kill the people who did it. But they don’t.’ He paused, before continuing, ‘Imagine spending your childhood as a victim of bullying, and the constant dreams of striking back, the satisfaction those dreams provide. So what happens when you hit puberty, and you are excited most by fantasies of revenge? They become something to masturbate to, something with more of a kick than watching the girl next door getting changed, and so hatred gets mixed up with sexual desire, and it becomes almost impossible to separate the two.’
‘So the motivation is desire mixed up with revenge?’ Laura said.
Joe nodded. ‘Something like that.’
‘Can we expect the next victim to be young and attractive, like Jane and Deborah?’ Laura asked.
‘Probably,’ Joe said, ‘but still connected in some way. Remember what I said about the location of Jane’s body. There is so much we don’t know about Jane’s movements. Deborah’s family were more helpful, but Don Roberts has put up a wall.’
‘Do you think it might be someone known to both of them?’
Joe thought about that. ‘Probably not, but it’s a close run thing. Just over half of killers like this attack strangers, and so we should try and root out the local psychopath, but we would be foolish to rule out a connection. It might be worthwhile going further back with Jane and Deborah. Were they friends at school, or at the youth club? Did they both know anyone called Emma? Or what about their parents? But this could just be about the weedy kid who was always humiliated by the pretty girls. Now he is all grown up, he sees the pretty girls as the cause of his problems, and so pretty girls are in his revenge fantasies.’
‘Do we have someone going to the schools?’
He pointed towards Rachel, who glanced over. ‘Rachel is doing the rounds. When I’ve finished trying to get something from the computer about grown-up child arsonists, I’m going to research Jane and Deborah, see if anything comes up from their past.’
‘Why didn’t you start there?’ Laura said. ‘You once told me that the victims are the most important thing to look at, because they help to identify the type of killer.’
‘And that’s still true, but I don’t think the killer is someone from Jane or Deborah’s past, because that would mean that the killer is in his early twenties, maybe even younger,’ he said. ‘That seems too young, especially for a well-developed method like this, repeated both times. We have to consider everything, so I’m looking, but I would put the age of the attacker as being nearer forty, or maybe even older.’
‘Because the young aren’t as controlled?’ Laura said, and when Joe smiled, she added, ‘you’ve told me that before.’ She pointed at the papers. ‘So how long will you be doing this for?’
‘Not much longer,’ he said. ‘I’m hitting too many blanks.’
‘What sort of person are you looking for,’ Laura said, ‘apart from someone with arson or animal cruelty in their past?’
‘Mr Invisible,’ Joe said, and frowned. ‘This person will not be immediately obvious. Think about the scenes. You mentioned control. That’s how they were, well-ordered, with the bodies laid out, clothes gone, no forensic trail. This killer is no fool, and most importantly, the bodies weren’t mutilated.’
‘They had dirt and leaves jammed into the
ir mouths and other orifices,’ Laura said.
‘I think that was part of the fantasy, because it happened before they were killed. If the killer is some oddball, unable to control himself, the body would have been badly mutilated. There would have been forensic trails everywhere, and we would have probably caught him pretty quickly. The fact that the bodies were not like that suggests that the whole killing was controlled and considered, which means that the life that he leads will be just like that, a façade, where no one knows what he really thinks. He may have built up the picture-perfect life. Steady job, local church. Maybe even marriage and children. His house and car will be neat, and everyone will comment, when he’s caught, that he seemed such an ordinary man.’
Laura exhaled. ‘So he won’t be on the radar much then?’
Joe shook his head. ‘This is a desperate trawl, nothing more, but we need to build up a suspect list.’
‘Don’t let Don Roberts see it,’ Laura said. ‘There’ll be a bloodbath. He’ll see it like a hit list.’
‘And that’s why we need to find whoever is sending the emails, in case there is a leak,’ Joe said. ‘So Don is still not cooperating?’
Laura shook her head. ‘That’s where I’m heading next, just for one more try,’ she said. ‘There are people working their way through Jane’s friends, but it’s all a mystery so far.’
‘And what about Jack?’
Laura sighed at that. ‘He’s writing the leak story.’
‘It’s a risky business,’ Joe said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m worried that Jack’s first instinct was right, that he might be something more than a leak, because there is one person who does know all the details, and that’s the person who killed the two women. If the leak is the killer, we risk giving him a platform, because he thinks he can communicate with us through Jack.’
‘Why do you think he’ll do that?’