The Murder Code (13 page)

Bullshit, of course—I was increasingly certain that if we could rewind Vicki Gibson’s movements alongside those of the killer’s, the time and place of her murder would be the only real connection they shared. The same with the other victims. I didn’t think he scoped them out in advance. But of course, we couldn’t be sure. Maybe he was each and every one of them’s best friend, and we’d somehow missed it.

So you never say anything definitive to the press. It’s a balancing act—a weird kind of arms race. You need them and they need you. You need to get information to and from the public; they need a story to shift units. As an investigation progresses, they need new angles. It’s inevitable that, having drained all other resources, the angle that ‘the police know nothing’ appears eventually. Regular as clockwork, usually—you can time an investigation by it. You get to expect certain questions.
Reporter bullshit bingo,
we call it in private.

‘Have you any suspects at this time?’

‘We have spoken to a number of people in the course of our enquiries. We will continue to do so.’

The woman pressed it. ‘But nobody in particular?’

She wanted a quote on Tom Gregory, obviously, who’d been smeared in more than one of the papers and then predictably outspoken in others upon his release. Not our fault. Scenting blood, the press had just leapt ahead of us like a pack of hounds.

Laura said, ‘Several people have been questioned and those people have subsequently been eliminated from our enquiries. We are grateful for their assistance.’

The reporter seemed unhappy with that answer. She looked down at her laptop and began typing something.

Another hand.

‘Are you happy with the way the investigation is progressing?’

Out of sight beneath the table, I made a little ticking gesture on an imaginary scorecard. There it was. A stinker of a question too. What were you supposed to say? Yes? No?

‘We are not happy,’ Laura said slowly, ‘that the individual responsible for these horrific crimes remains at large. But our team is working hard, round the clock, in an attempt to apprehend him. We will continue to do so. Everything that can be done is being done, and I am confident that results will be forthcoming.’

‘Should the public at large be scared?’

Another tick there—because the one thing that sells newspapers even better than a serial killer is a serial killer who might theoretically come after you. It makes it very important you buy the paper to find out about him, and whether the police investigation is going well or not.

‘We are advising the public to be mindful,’ Laura said, sounding cautious. ‘We have more officers on the streets than ever before and are doing everything we can to safeguard the public. Where possible, we do advise people to avoid isolated areas, and to travel in groups whenever they can.’

Laura spun it out a little longer. Experienced as she was, she knew we were dealing with time here rather than a set number of questions. So she ran with that one. It also helped her avoid answering the question directly.

Should the public be scared?

Yes.

They certainly should.

‘But as we have said, the most important thing the public can do right now is
come forward
with any information they might have. Someone out there knows this man.’

‘Is there any connection between the victims?’

‘At this stage, we can’t comment on that.’

Another hand.

‘Have you had any communication from the killer?’

I did my best to remain implacable. It was too hot in here, and I wanted to loosen my shirt collar, but the cameras pick up everything.

Laura said, ‘Any communication?’

The reporter looked a little sheepish.

‘It’s not unheard of for killers of this type to communicate with the police, is it? Given the apparent lack of any motive for these attacks, I was wondering whether you were considering the possibility that he was enjoying the attention.’

Been reading too many books,
I thought.

But he was right, of course. We remained undecided as to whether the letter was genuine or not. With an operation like this, you deal with cranks. Aside from the letter, the front desk had received three confessions in person and eight over the phone. All turned out to be impossible, but each had to be followed up, and everyone involved would be charged with wasting police time. It sounds frivolous, that charge, but time is all we have.

‘Firstly,’ Laura said, ‘I would say it’s far too early in the investigation to speculate on what the killer’s motive might be. And as I said, we are discounting nothing. We are pursuing all possible lines of enquiry. As for communication—no, we have received nothing specific.’

Nothing specific. If the letter was fake, it was of no consequence. If it was real, perhaps not mentioning it would encourage the killer to write another. Or do something else.

I thought about that as Laura moved on to the next question, indicating that it would be the last.
Or do something else.
That was another balancing act.

B
ACK IN THE OPERATIONS
room, Laura and I slid into plastic seats on either side of the sergeant in charge of scanning the nationwide databases.

Her name was Alison Pearson, and she was the officer who’d asked the question about the killer’s motive during our initial briefing three days ago. She was only young—not yet in her thirties—but had seemed focused and on-task from the beginning. Her role was multifaceted: analysing missing person reports, both on and off the system, and searching for any past murders with similar specs to our current series, as it seemed more than possible that, despite the assertions in the letter, this was not our man’s first experience of killing.

We had a mounting pile of mis-pers on our desk, and had looked over a steady stream of possibly connected earlier crimes. Each one had been followed up as extensively as manpower allowed and come to nothing. Frustrating work, but necessary, and if there was anyone in the room who was not going to miss an important detail, it was Pearson.

‘I found this report on the system an hour ago,’ she said. ‘It was only added in this afternoon, so I pounced.’

The report was up on the screen, and I scanned the details quickly. On the far side of Pearson, I could see Laura squinting at the monitor too. Pearson talked over us as we read.

‘Victim is Kate Barrett, thirty-one years of age. She was killed this morning during what appears to be an aggravated robbery in which her scooter was taken. Bludgeoned to death.’

‘Christ,’ I said, more to myself than anyone else. The report indicated that her husband and son had observed the attack, but had been unable to reach her assailant in time.

Laura nodded. ‘Witness—her husband—says the killer hit her more than was necessary in order to steal the bike. Like he murdered her out of spite.’

‘No post-mortem yet,’ I said. ‘So we don’t know the weapon. Who’s in charge of this?’

‘Nobody here.’ Pearson tapped the screen. ‘It’s in Buxton.’

‘
Buxton?
’

Pearson nodded. ‘It’s about thirty miles south—’

‘I know where it is.’

Of course I knew. It was where I’d grown up—and I didn’t have particularly fond memories of the place. The name was just another random little dig in the mental ribs, as if the case wasn’t bothering me enough as it was. But Pearson looked put-out, and I realised I’d been too sharp with her.

‘Sorry, Alison. I’m just stressed out at the moment. It’s hard enough handling all this here without having to factor another bloody town in.’

Factoring it into the alleged pattern, of course, but I was thinking mainly of the inter-departmental work it would entail if the cases did turn out to be connected. We were the bigger city, at least, so we’d have primary, and we might blag a few officers by pooling efforts, but it would still be a massive headache to be co-ordinating investigations at this point. We were drowning in paperwork as it was. Drowning full stop.

‘It still might be nothing,’ Laura said. ‘As far as we know, robbery’s never been a factor before.’

‘No.’

‘And we don’t know the weapon.’

‘PM’s set for tomorrow morning.’ Pearson sounded a little brighter now.

‘Good.’ I stood up. ‘Can you get us a printout of this, Alison? Thanks again. Sorry for being snappy.’

‘Of course, boss. No problem.’

Back at our own desk, Laura sat down opposite and peered across at me.

‘What’s up, Hicks?’

‘Buxton. If this turns out to be true, it’s going to be a fucking nightmare.’ I held up a basic A4 printout of the city with the five known victims marked on it, along with various pencil swirls where I’d doodled prospective patterns, to no avail whatsoever. ‘Call stationery. We’re going to need a bigger bit of paper.’

Laura pulled a face.

I put the sheet down. ‘Also, I suppose I was hoping that this was over. But it’s never over, is it?’

‘Look. It might not be connected.’

‘No. But that man, the husband, he still saw his wife being murdered. So if it’s not our guy, it means someone killed a woman for a fucking scooter. I’m not sure which is better.’

‘This case is getting to you.’

‘Obviously.’

‘And it’s not like you at all.’

‘Yeah, we discussed this earlier.’ I sighed. ‘It’s not just that anyway. Like I said, it’s Rachel too. We’re supposed to go to counselling tonight.’

‘Counselling?’

‘Marriage counselling.’

‘Shit, Andy.’ Laura leaned back. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise things had got that bad.’

‘We’ve been going for a few weeks. It’s rubbish, but I’m trying to—you know—
show willing
.’

‘Things are really that serious?’

‘Things are really that serious. And before you say it, I would have talked to you about it, but there’s nothing much to tell.’

‘What’s the problem?’

‘We’ve just grown apart, I suppose.’ There was more to it than that, of course, but not that I wanted to talk about. ‘Honestly, either we’ll work it out or we won’t. Right now, I don’t know if we can.’

She looked a bit awkward. ‘Well … you sort of
have
to, don’t you?’

‘Because of the baby?’ I gave a hollow laugh. ‘Try telling Rachel that. You know how much of an asshole I can be, and you don’t have to live with me.’

Laura grimaced at the thought. ‘Yuck.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’

Pearson arrived with the printout of the report from Buxton. Laura held out a hand for it.

‘I’ll take that. Thanks, Alison.’

‘No problem.’

As Pearson retreated, I reached out for the sheet, but Laura slapped my hand.

‘Get out of here.’

‘No.’

‘
Yes.
’ I was about to protest again, but she didn’t give me a chance. ‘
I’ll
handle this for now. Like we both said, it’s probably nothing at all—not connected, at least. So I’m just going to make contact, get more info. Maybe arrange to attend the PM tomorrow. The sight of a corpse will help cleanse my mind of the thought of living with you.’

I said nothing. Eventually, she looked up.

‘Seriously, Hicks. Get the fuck out of here.’

She stared at me, not blinking, until I stood up.

‘Thanks, Laura.’

‘I was best man at your wedding. You do remember that, don’t you?’

I nodded. It hadn’t been because I had no male friends who could have performed the role, but simply because I’d asked Laura. Aside from Rachel, she was the person I was closest to in the world. I’d stood at the front of the hall with the two people I exasperated more than anyone else.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘So I won’t forgive you if you fuck this up. Go. Go save your marriage.’

I nodded and left.

Go save your marriage.

I wished it could be anything like as easy as that.

‘H
OW HAS THE LAST
week been?’ Barbara said.

Barbara was our marriage counsellor, a softly spoken, gently overweight woman in her fifties. Every Wednesday we attended an hour-long session in her office in The Croft therapy centre. It was a flat, sprawling building housing a number of practitioners. In addition to basic counselling, the centre offered services like homeopathy, acupuncture and fucking Reiki, all of which had underwhelmed me from the start.

I wanted to show willing, and I wanted to save my marriage, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d now spent close to a hundred pounds in order to tell a stranger all the things we
should
have been able to say to each other, and none of the things we needed to.

Which was my fault, I knew.

Rachel and I sat either side of a coffee table, facing Barbara. Out of the corner of my eye, I could tell Rachel was slumped in her seat, arms folded, reluctant. Something about the atmosphere in the office made it difficult to look at her directly, as though there was a curtain hanging in the air between us.

‘Andy?’ Barbara said. ‘Do you want to start?’

No, I didn’t want to start.
How has the last week been?
Obviously she meant in our relationship, but a few other answers suggested themselves far more readily.

Another part of the problem.

I said, ‘Not so much.’

‘Rachel then?’

Rachel shrugged. ‘I suppose.’

Despite my own response, my heart bit slightly at that, because, as with the shrug in the kitchen, it was as though she’d already given up. I didn’t want that to be true. But there was nothing I could do to change it. That’s the main problem with trying to solve your problems by talking: you have to want to, and you have to be able to.

‘It’s not been a great week,’ Rachel said. ‘I suppose it’s not been helped by Andy’s work, which has been very busy.’ She half turned to me. ‘Hasn’t it?’

‘I’ve been out more than I’d like. I’ve not had much choice.’

Rachel turned back to Barbara. ‘Yes, and I do know it’s not his fault. What he’s doing is important. I suppose that’s what I have to accept. That it’s more important to him than our marriage.’

‘That’s not true.’