Cold Kill (8 page)

‘And you are–'

‘Detective Sergeant Mooney.'

‘Tom.'

‘What?'

‘My first name: Tom. What's yours?'

‘Are you flirting with me, Davison?'

‘I don't know. What colour underwear have you got on?'

‘Black,' Stella said. ‘Lacy thong. Silk panels.'

‘Phone me in the morning.'

When Stella looked up, Sue Chapman was standing a few feet away and smiling. She said, ‘Don't you find they ride up?'

‘I'm wearing M & S. There's a “process”, it seems, and I want a quick result. Forensics should get out more.'

‘We've been in touch with the teams handling the other attacks. No matches that we can find. We've covered attacks further afield, too, and murders of women going back five years. If the faces are among Kimber's photos, we can't see them. No luck with missing persons either, not so far; but that's a much bigger job. You asked me to update you.'

‘Keep them looking.'

‘About two hundred and ten thousand people are reported missing each year,' Sue said. ‘Most return within seventy-two hours, but that still leaves twenty thousand. A lot of those are kids; some are men. Bring it down to women under thirty-five living in London and the south-east and, okay, you're only talking about three thousand but he had a couple of hundred photos in that flat. Trying to make a match–'

‘I know it's a long shot.'

Sue started back towards her own desk, then paused a moment; she turned and spoke from where she was. ‘The thing is… you look at Kimber's pictures – those women being spied on. They don't know they're being watched. There they are, wearing their everyday faces. Then you look at the missing persons shots and they're a section out of a family photo more often than not: a holiday snap or something taken at a party; and they're laughing or smiling at the camera.' Stella waited. ‘You've got the private face and the public face, haven't you? They don't look like each other.'

‘You're right,' Stella said. ‘I know you're right.' She went back to Kimber's diary. ‘Keep them at it.'

I will call this one Anthea.

I will call this one Beatrice.

I will call this one Cherie.

I will call this one Davina.

I could be anyone thats the point. Davina walking down the street she thinks whos following me? She turns around to look. There are twenty people following her. Fifty. A whole streetfull of people. I could be anyone.

Look at how she walks my Elaine. My Fenella. Look at how things move. You can get in front some-times and watch her go by then drop back again to let her lead the way. You can take risks let her go round a corner and out of sight then find her again.

She stops for a coffee or she goes to a park with her lunch to catch the sun or she stops to look at something in a shop or she stands by the side of the road waiting for a cab.

You can be a long way off. You can be almost out of sight. Fast telephoto lens 500mm F4 800 ISO film. Its as good as binoculars you get right up close.

See her make a cup of her hands to shield the flame when she lights a cigerette.

See her undo the top two buttons of her blouse
and hitch her skirt up to her thigh turning to put her face to the sun.

See her put out her tongue to catch a drop of mayonase that falls out of her sandwhich down along the side of her hand.

See her hook back some hair that the wind has blown across her face when she sits with her knees up reading her book.

The book is called
Experience
thats how good the lens is. Thats how close I can get.

See how she sits crosslegged in those jeans her hands resting between her legs the croptop the little pucker-up of her belly the silver ring.

This is where she lives my Gina. My Harriet. Now I know I can come back and find her here. Come back tonight. You need fast film. You need somewhere to stand.

Important to work out the gography. Wheres the bedroom? Wheres the bathroom? And the timing thats important. When does she go to bed? Does she take a shower in the morning or at night?

If she lives with a man

If she lives

If someone else is around I wait. I bide my time. If she draws the curtains I wait. I bide my time. If she goes out again if she gets into her car if a taxi calls I wait. I bide my time.

See her in the bedroom as she goes back and forth unbutoning shaking her hair free.

See her in the bedroom in her panties and her bra deciding what to wear.

See her in the bedroom turning naked thinking that perhaps she ought to draw the curtains. Maybe coming over to draw the curtains. Now she comes over.

See her in the bathroom the window a little foggy. The windows not overlooked. Why worry?

Or you can go up to the Strip. Sometimes I go up to the Strip. The girls on the Strip are okay for some things but theres nothing secret about them. Nothing private. I fuck them. I fuck them really hard and I make them do things and thats OK but you cant really get close to them because they can see you. You can fuck them but you cant get right up close like you can with the binoculars or the supertelephoto. You can fuck them and there giving it come on come on baby thats great and there right in your face but it doesnt matter who you are. Theres one called Nancy is what she says shes called. Ive used her a few times. Shes got a room upon the Strip. They dont all have rooms some want to do you in the car or in a doorway. Some go into the cemetry. They suck you off there just inside the gate. I tried following her but it didnt work. There wasnt any danger in it. Danger for her I mean. I followed her back to where she lives and I took a photo through the window but what good was that when she had already taken her clothes off in front of me? Also they are prostitutes and any-body can do anything they want to them.

See my Irene walking to the tube station. I'm a long way off. Supertelephoto 500 F4. Long way off
and right up close. See the way the wind lifts her hair.

I will call this one Jennifer.

I will call this one Katherine.

I will call this one Lavinia.

Stella and Maxine Hewitt passed Jack Cuddon on their way to the interview room. ‘He's had a chicken curry,' he told them, ‘and he's had his rest period and he's all yours.'

Stella started the tape, gave the date and time, then announced herself and Maxine. She let Kimber know that they'd found his flat and they'd looked at the walls. He smiled at her. She told him they'd found the locks of hair. He smiled again. He said, ‘Is that all you found?'

A breath of the ice-wind crept into the room. ‘What did I miss?'

‘My little keepsake.'

It was the same word that Duncan Palmer had used. Stella let the tape run. She could feel the pulse in her own wrist. ‘A keepsake –'

‘Valerie's cross. Gold cross on a chain. Gold chain.'

Stella lowered her head as if in thought; she was pacing herself, trying not to rush him or offer a lead. When she looked up, she asked, ‘Where is it?'

Kimber smiled at her, then redirected the smile to Maxine. He looked pleased and excited. ‘Where is it?' he said. ‘That's for me to know.'

They went back to the flat with a full crew; they took the place apart. Maxine went as a fresh pair of eyes. She looked at the photos on the walls and what was written beneath them. She didn't speak until she and Stella were back in the car. Then she said, ‘It's a man's world.'

They'd pretty much dismantled the flat and everything in it. Under the floorboards they'd found a collection of dull porno tapes and a trunk-tracking police-base scanner, but they hadn't found a gold cross on a gold chain.

‘He knows about it, that's the important thing. The jogging sweats and the chain.'

‘He was logging police calls,' Sorley said. ‘He's got a hundred-channel, twelve-band Bearcat scanner, for Christ's sake. He probably knew what the scene of crime guys were
thinking
. Look at the transcripts. See if there's anything on them about the sweats and the chain.'

‘There couldn't be anything about the chain. Sam Burgess picked up on that and Duncan Palmer confirmed it later.'

‘About the sweats, then.'

‘He did it,' Stella said. ‘He's playing a game. Maybe he thinks he can withdraw the confession later, get a smart counsel.'

‘Has he signed a statement?'

Stella shook her head. ‘That's something else… he's teasing. But the chain's real evidence: on the tape, loud and clear.'

‘DNA,' Sorley observed. ‘That's
real
evidence.' He glanced at his watch and lit a cigarette. Stella wondered whether the two events were causally connected: a sixteen-hour, forty-cigarette day would allow him a cigarette every twenty-four minutes. He looked hungry for it. ‘What else do we know about this guy – apart from the fact that he's a self-confessed killer?'

‘Nothing. No form, no social services record. He lives up on Harefield. His neighbours have collective amnesia. But it's not his background I need to know about.'

‘No?' Sorley drew on his cigarette so hard that his cheeks dimpled. ‘What, then?'

‘How he thinks.'

‘And –?'

‘There's someone who might be able to tell me about that.'

‘A friend of his?'

‘She's never met him.'

Anne Beaumont spread copies of the forensic search-site photos of Kimber's flat out on her conservatory table and looked at them one by one, moving as someone moves at an art exhibition: comparing, judging, looking for continuity and style. Photos of photos; they took in three or four areas of wall and were sufficiently detailed to make legible the stories Kimber had written beneath.

Stella asked, ‘You read the book?'

Kimber's journal had been scanned into a computer and printed out.

‘I did. I'd sooner have seen the book itself. I'm not a graphologist, but there are certain signs that can't be missed.'

‘He's very neat.'

‘That's one of the signs.'

‘He had a computer. Why would he write this in a notebook rather than use a word processor?'

‘More personal. Also it's unique. I suspect he likes the process of writing these things down in longhand, likes forming the letters. Handwriting's sensual. Here's another thing: no one can hack in.'

Anne Beaumont was a shrink; also a criminal-profiler. For a short time she had been Stella's shrink, when a case had collided with Stella's personal life with all the velocity and concomitant damage of a car-crash. That relationship
was over, though Stella always used Anne as a profiler if she needed one and if the budget allowed. She liked Anne's wryness and her sharp sense of humour; she liked the fact that her approach to life was on a nil-bullshit basis.

‘What can you tell me?'

‘Well, first off, he's a collector. Trophy-hunter. In the days of washing-lines he'd've been stealing underwear. He puts the women up on the wall – on display – like the heads of buffalo or antelope in the trophy room of a man who shoots big game. He's captured them. Same with the locks of hair.'

‘How did he do that?' Stella wondered. ‘How did he get close enough to cut their hair?'

‘You think he did it after they were dead?'

‘There's no evidence for that. Fifty locks of hair – fifty deaths, all unnoticed? It's not possible.'

‘In the movies,' Anne suggested. ‘Sitting behind them on a bus. In a crowded tube. Simply walking close behind in the street. The hair might not belong to the women he regularly stalked. In effect, he's collecting two different kinds of trophy: a lock of hair – which is one sort of capture, a token – or else he's stalking – when he gets not a token but the woman herself.'

‘People would see him do it: cutting the hair.'

‘You'd be surprised at how little people see. Ever see.'

‘What about the things he writes under the photos?'

‘Yeah… Twisted bastard.'

‘Is that a detached psychoanalytical assessment?'

‘About as detached as I felt when I read them.' Anne paused. ‘They represent a slight problem, in that collectors are usually pretty harmless. They possess the item instead of the person. Of course, things can go from bad to much worse. This guy's collecting is tied in with stalking and there
are classic escalation patterns involved in that activity. I'm interested in the way he keeps talking about being up close, liking to be close, using binoculars and the long lens.'

Stella mentioned what Kimber had said in interview: how the binoculars brought him almost nose to nose with his quarry; that he was the invisible man; the way a woman might look up as if she had sensed him watching.

‘Yes,' Anne said. ‘It's all about power. How are you? How's John Delaney?'

Stella smiled. In their patient–shrink days, Anne had often asked unprofessional questions; Stella had come to recognize it as professional trickery. ‘I think we're okay. Lots of sex. Is that a good sign?'

‘Who cares? Have you moved in together?'

‘No.'

‘Why not?'

‘I have a feeling that we'd need more space. There's something adversarial about the way we joke with each other.'

‘Is there? God, Freud would have loved that.'

‘Is he a killer? Did he kill Valerie Blake? Has he killed others?'

‘I'm an analyst, not a crystal-gazer.'

‘Is it likely?'

‘It's possible. Look, some stalkers set out to oppress their victims, they hang about, make a nuisance of themselves, they phone, they send letters, they apply pressure. Others begin by simply following. It's a way of being intimately involved with someone without their knowledge, a bit like contact-free rape. Then they want to get closer. This guy talks about that all the time. When he says he's the invisible man, he's enjoying a common power fantasy. Where is he – the invisible man? He's in the next seat on the bus, he's
breathing down her neck in the street, he's slipping in with her when she enters her flat, he's in the bedroom when she undresses, in the bathroom when she takes a bath. Ever had that sort of thought yourself?'