Cold Killing: A Novel (23 page)

She started walking faster. She was aware that she was breathing heavily under the strain. She tried to listen for footsteps, but she could hear only her own. The streetlamps flickered into life. They cast faint shadows across the pavement. The noise of the leaves rustling in the trees all around her suddenly became deafening.

She felt someone coming closer. She wanted to stop, turn, and confront them, be brave, but fear was taking hold. It licked at her skin like a fire surrounding its victim. Every hair on her back stood erect, reverberating. She felt so cold. Panic was close now.

Too late, she heard the footsteps. He had been right behind her. At the last second she spun around, ready to scream. It was him. The man from the underground. He looked as scared as she felt. He jumped back a step.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. He had a nice voice. Well spoken.

“Christ,” she managed to say. She held a hand dramatically over her chest. “You almost scared me to death.” They both laughed.

She moved away a little from him. Her expression became serious. “Are you following me?”

He put his hand in his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a small black leather wallet. He flicked it open and showed it to her. She could see the Metropolitan Police logo on the metal badge. She sighed in relief. Her entire body seemed to relax.

“I couldn’t help but notice a couple of lads having a good look at that briefcase back there.” He pointed over his shoulder.

“The ones outside the betting office?”

“Yeah. I hate to stereotype people, but thought I’d watch them for a bit. Keep an eye on them.”

“Is that why you stopped at the bus stop?”

“Oh,” he said. “You noticed? Surveillance never was my thing.” They both laughed again. “Two of them looked as if they could be following you, so I thought I’d better do the same, just in case. But I seem to have lost them back at that junction somehow.

“Do you have far to go?” he asked.

“No,” she answered. “I live down here. A few houses along.”

“Nice,” he said. She couldn’t tell if he meant it. “You’ll be okay from here,” he said. “I think you got away with it today.” He winked at her. She could tell he was about to leave. She didn’t want him to.

“You don’t sound like a policeman.” It was all she could think of.

“Really,” he replied, smiling. “Well, we don’t all sound like they do on the television. Some of us can even read and write.”

She liked him.

“Look,” he said. “I’ve got to get on. Somewhere there’s a crime being committed and all that.”

She felt her embarrassment rising, but it was worth it to flirt a little. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t get your name.”

“Sean,” he replied. “It’s Sean Corrigan.” He was already walking away though.

“If he turns around he’s interested,” Linda whispered to herself. “Anytime now.” He turned and gave her a casual wave and a slight smile. “Yes,” she said to herself. “Yes.”

D
onnelly arrived home via his favorite local watering hole in time to catch the start of
Crimewatch
. He felt sorry for Sally being stitched up by Sean like that, but at least it meant he didn’t have to do it. Although there were always ways to get out of unpleasant tasks like telly work, especially for those with a little imagination and a lot of experience. He walked up the driveway of the family home, a large semidetached in Swanley, Kent. The five kids were all growing up fast. He had to live out here to be able to put a roof over their heads. London prices were out of the question. Still, the train ride was just about bearable and there was no need to worry about getting caught driving half drunk. He gave the decaying Range Rover, the only family car, a pat of appreciation as he passed it. It hadn’t cost him a penny in years.

His wife, Karen, confronted him as soon as he opened the front door. “You’re late again,” she accused in her East End accent. They’d been married for more than twenty years.

“Overtime, my sweetness,” he answered. “May I remind you we need every penny I can lay my hands on?” His wife answered with a roll of her eyes. “Speaking of financial burdens, where are the kids?”

Karen thrust her hands on her hips. “Jenny is out with her boyfriend, Adrian is out with his girlfriend, Nikki and Raymond are upstairs on the PlayStation, and Josh is in his bed.”

“Jenny lives at home?” Donnelly asked with mock surprise.

“She’s only seventeen, remember? Still at school, doing her A-levels?”

“Bloody further education,” he moaned. “We’ll be broke before any of our lot get themselves a job and leave home. By the time I was seventeen I was working in the shipyards in Dumbarton, earning a decent wage and learning a proper trade.”

“Until you decided it was too bloody hard and ran off to join the police in London.”

“Aye, well,” he stalled. “All the same, I was paying my own way in the world.”

“Spare me.”

“Give us a kiss and I’ll think about it,” he teased.

“I don’t bloody think so. When it comes to you, my mother was right: kissing does lead to children. And seeing how we’ve got four more than we can afford, you’re going to have to park your lips somewhere else. Besides, I hate it when your mustache tastes of beer.”

“I’ve not touched a drop,” he lied.

“A likely story.”

“Very well, I shall retire to the living room,” he sulked in a put-on accent. “I need to watch
Crimewatch
tonight anyway.”

“Jesus. Haven’t you had enough of the job for one day?”

“Our case is on tonight. It would be bad form to miss it. It’ll be the talk of the canteen tomorrow.”

“I wanted to watch that program about Princess Diana tonight.”

“You can watch the repeat,” he told her unsympathetically.

The television was already on in the living room. Some cheap production with a shaky set and worse acting. He pointed the remote at the offending program and surfed the channels until he found what he was looking for.

“When is your case on?” Karen asked.

“I don’t know. I’ll have to watch the whole bloody thing, no doubt. Bloody
Crimewatch
. Waste of bloody space, if you ask me.”

“Oi. Stop your swearing, the kids might hear.”

“Saying ‘bloody’ isn’t swearing.” He flopped his heavy frame into the old armchair reserved for his sole use. “Media appeals, waste of time. Expecting the public to solve crimes for us. It’s not how we used to get the job done.”

“We all know how you used to get the job done,” Karen said.

“Bloody right. We did what we had to do to keep the baddies off the streets. We may have sent the wrong man down for the wrong crime, but they were all criminals anyway. It’s our job to put them away. Didn’t matter how we did it, so long as we got the job done. The people we put away never complained either. They knew the score. For them it was just an occupational hazard. It’s my job to keep the scum off the streets. How I do it is my business. Everyone else can stay in their nice, fluffy little worlds.”

“The old days are gone,” Karen reminded him. “So you had better be careful.”

“Aye,” he grumbled. “Don’t worry about me, love. I can look after myself.”

“I don’t doubt it, but who’s going to look after me and the kids if you get the sack for fitting someone up?”

“Murders are different. You don’t fit people up with murder. Maybe you can give the evidence a bit of help here and there, once you’re absolutely certain you’ve got the right man, but you never fit someone up.”

“Your DI Corrigan doesn’t sound like the sort of man who would want you giving the evidence a bit of help.”

“Don’t underestimate the man,” he told her. “Corrigan knows the score. He’s no accelerated-promotion, graduate-entry brownnoser. He’s come up the hard way. If push comes to shove, he’ll do what it takes.”

“Sure of that, are you?”

“Absolutely sure.”

L
inda Kotler half watched
Crimewatch
. She listened to the item about the murder of Daniel Graydon and then the next item too. A sixty-year-old post office attendant killed in Humberside for a hundred and twenty pounds. It was not improving her mood. She changed the station to watch something less oppressive, but found herself thinking of the policeman from earlier. Sean Corrigan.

The telephone interrupted her reminiscing. Despite her loneliness, she decided to leave it until the answering machine betrayed the caller. It was her sister. Perhaps she was in the mood to speak after all. She had a secret to share.

“It’s me. It’s me,” she said into the phone. “Ignore the answering machine. I’m here, I’m here. Damn thing’s going to record us now.”

“Screening your calls again?” her sister asked. “That’s a nasty habit you Londoners have.”

“We have to,” Linda replied. “Otherwise the only people we’d ever speak to would be telesales people and unwanted relatives. How are you?”

“We’re all good, thanks.” Her sister was married to a man she’d been at school with. They had three children. She was younger than Linda. Once, her sister had been a little jealous of her. Now Linda was a little jealous of her sister.

“What about you?” her sister asked. “Met a nice, good-looking man yet? Preferably rich?” It was the same question she’d been asking for the past few months. Since he had left for pastures new and green.

“No,” Linda said. Then added, “Not really.”

“Not really?” Her sister’s tone was inquisitive. “What does ‘not really’ mean, exactly?”

“Well, I met this guy on the way home today and one way or the other we ended up talking. He seemed really nice, and good-looking too. It’s not like we swapped numbers or anything, although if he wanted to find me, he could.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because he’s a policeman. A detective, I think.”

“Ooh” was her sister’s reply. “And does he have a name?”

“Sean,” Linda answered. “Sean Corrigan.”

H
aving introduced myself, I let her go. For a while anyway. It’s the way I’ve seen it happening. Now I need to lose myself for a few hours. Wait for my old friend the darkness to arrive. I’ve done my homework and know the boat show is on at Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre. I have absolutely no interest in it, but it is nearby and doesn’t close until eleven. It’s a good place to hide myself. In a crowd, among the herd.

I mingle with them, my mask as secure as ever. It would be all too easy to lash out at them. Drag whoever into the stinking toilets and slaughter them there. But it is lack of control that more often than not undoes my kind. Control is the key. Control is everything.

How I admire the man with the rifle in Germany who features in the news reports every now and then. Every three months or so he blows the head off a nobody and disappears. He is a rare breed indeed. Most sniper killers take a rifle, find themselves a nice little vantage point, and kill until they are killed.

Why? Because they lack the control. Once they taste the power to kill, they just can’t stop. To take one life and then calmly pack away the rifle and go home is too much for most. They get greedy, drunk on the killing, and before they realize what’s happened, they’re surrounded by police marksmen. Most make the decision to go down fighting, but not this one in Germany. He is to be admired. I shouldn’t think he’ll ever be stopped.

Me, I prefer a knife. Or my own hands. A rifle’s not personal enough. I like to smell their last breath in my face.

I leave the show after eleven. I walk back to Shepherd’s Bush. It’s a fair walk, but I could use the exercise. It’s a good warm-up and also means I avoid potential witnesses like bus or taxi drivers. Pedestrians in London rarely look at each other. I’m carrying a small knapsack slung over my shoulder. It contains all I need.

By the time I get back to Minford Gardens, it’s close to midnight. Late enough for most people to be tucked up in bed, early enough for the sounds of the night not to be too alarming.

I move around to the side of the house. I checked the window here a few nights previously. It’s a sash window, leading to the bathroom. The lock is a classic style. A simple spin-around metal latch. Any thin metal object will make short work of opening it. She should have added side deadlock bolts. She probably used to share the flat with a man. That made her feel safe when she slept. Now she’s alone, but hasn’t had time to see to the window. On these warm nights she sleeps with the windows closed. Clearly she’s not totally unaware of the dangers that lurk in this city.

Most of the upstairs windows are virtually impossible to reach, but not the bathroom window. There’s a solid metal drainpipe that runs past it. It’s secured to the wall with large steel brackets riveted to the brickwork. It’ll take my weight. I’ve already tried.

I begin to strip. I remove my shirt and tie. My trousers. Shoes, socks, underpants. I fold them all very neatly and place them in a pile beside the drainpipe. The alley by the side of the house is dark and quiet. No one would have cause to come down here at this hour. The feeling of standing naked in the warm dark night is beyond the imagination of most. The blood pumps through me, bringing me to life. I stay in the alley longer than I’d intended, but it is not a moment to be rushed. I wish I had a full-length mirror to watch myself in—and rain. Heavy warm drops of rain pounding against my skin, forming small, fast-flowing streams that would find the channels of my swelling, aching muscles, making my skin shine like steel in the moonlight, the water flowing over my body looking like liquid metal, like mercury. If only it was raining. Never mind.

I pull a pair of tracksuit bottoms from the bag and put them on. I bought them from JD Sports in Oxford Street about a month ago. I also pull on a tracksuit top, bought at the same time, from the same place. They’re matching blue. I take a roll of wide gaffer’s tape from the bag and meticulously tape the bottom of the trousers around my ankles and the tops of the shoes. I need to seal the gap. I take a pair of new leather gloves bought from Selfridges and put them on. Rubber ones would have torn on the drainpipe. I use the tape to seal the gap at my wrists. I pull a stocking over my head. It doesn’t cover my face; there’s no need for that so long as it covers my hair neatly.