The Killing Habit Read online

  ‘Whatever’s necessary.’

  ‘“Listen, there’s this killer running about, and he’s probably got all your details, so you might want to rethink that date you’re planning on Friday night”? We’ll just be scaring people.’

  ‘You tell them that the website has been hacked and some of their personal information may have been compromised. Actually, probably best if you don’t tell them anything, because we don’t really want any of this coming from a Homicide unit.’ The DCI sat back, thinking. ‘Safety’s the most important thing here, but we don’t want to create panic either. Contact each woman’s local force, make sure they’re fully briefed and get them to make the call.’

  ‘What if one of these women goes to the press?’

  ‘Christ’s sake, Tom, do you want this on a plate?’

  ‘I’m just thinking it through —’

  ‘They’re told that their co-operation is much appreciated, that they’ll be assisting police with an important investigation and that under no circumstances are they to mention this to anyone, because they’ll be compromising a major operation.’ Brigstocke held his arms out wide. ‘I can write all this down for you, if you like.’

  ‘It all helps,’ Thorne said.

  Brigstocke did not smile. ‘Obviously, if any dates are made, there’ll need to be appropriate surveillance and protection put in place, which is going to mean liaison with the relevant force. I’ll leave that particular nightmare in your hands, because you deserve it, and because I’m not going to do your job for you any more than I already have.’

  Thorne nodded, stood up.

  ‘Put a dedicated computer forensics team together, a logistics team… get it done, OK? And there’s really no point walking out of here with a face like a smacked arse, because it’s the best you’re going to get. If you can’t make this work, I don’t give a toss if it’s compromising your operation… I’ll pull the plug.’

  Thorne walked quickly from Brigstocke’s office back into the Incident Room. Yvonne Kitson looked keen to talk to him about something, but instead he marched straight over to the desk where the officer he’d shouted at fifteen minutes earlier was working at his computer.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  The officer looked up and smiled. ‘It’s fine, sir.’

  ‘Sorry… because what I meant to say before was, you can fuck off back to Kentish Town any time you like.’

  FORTY-FIVE

  It was comfortingly basic and a lot cheaper than places in the centre of town. There was no TV or piped techno music to drown out conversation, but more important it was the closest pub to Hornsey mortuary; no more than a five-minute walk for Hendricks and on Thorne’s route home.

  More or less.

  ‘Funny how we always seem to get a table,’ Thorne said. ‘You noticed that? How nobody’s ever that keen to sit near us.’

  Hendricks shrugged. ‘Who’s complaining?’

  His friend’s appearance might have had something to do with it, of course, the piercings and the elaborate tats, but Thorne sometimes wondered if there was perhaps a lingering whiff of formaldehyde that they no longer noticed, but which was enough to put other drinkers off their beer. Or maybe the pair of them just didn’t usually look as though they would welcome company, which was probably because they usually didn’t.

  Either way, he was relieved to see that Hendricks looked every bit as ready for the beer in front of him as Thorne was.

  ‘Tough day?’

  ‘About average,’ Hendricks said. ‘Two strokes and a stabbing, and a partridge in a pear tree. You?’

  Thorne put away half his beer while he told his friend about the accommodation he had come to with Russell Brigstocke; an operation that had just become seriously delicate. ‘Could have been worse, I suppose. At least we don’t have to shut the site down, but now we’ve got to make direct approaches to a lot of the women who’ve registered. Which means they’re involved, like it or not.’

  ‘Don’t forget, one of them might already be getting eyed up by you know who.’

  ‘I wish I did know who.’ Thorne took another drink. ‘If it is Aiden Goode, I need to be going after him, instead of fannying about so that Russell gets his “contingency”.’

  ‘Can’t you narrow it down a bit further, make things slightly easier? The list of possible victims.’

  ‘Well, it’s only the women who’ve been matched in the last couple of weeks or so, since Alice Matthews was killed, and we’re only concerned about potential dates being made on Fridays or Saturdays. All the murders have been on one of those two nights.’

  ‘Most obvious night for a date, I suppose.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Thorne said. ‘Narrows things down a bit, but that’s about all we’ve got to work with. It’s not like he’s targeting any particular age group or physical type. Just… women.’

  ‘Single women.’

  ‘Desperate women.’

  Hendricks looked at him. ‘Harsh.’

  ‘I talked to the psychiatrist again,’ Thorne said, shaking his head. ‘She thinks that’s exactly how the killer sees them. Too needy, too pushy. He’s disgusted by the way these women are advertising themselves, because that’s not how he thinks proper women should behave. Women are there to be pursued… the thrill of the hunt, all that.’

  ‘Well, he’s certainly doing plenty of hunting,’ Hendricks said.

  Thorne picked up his glass again and glanced across at the bar. Two handy-looking sorts in work boots and dusty sweatshirts who had been looking in their direction quickly turned away and spoke in whispers. It was not quite a traditional old man’s boozer – there were no beer mats stuck to the wall or farting dogs asleep underneath tables – but clearly the sight of someone who looked as if he’d walked off the set of Hellraiser was causing something of a stir. It was certainly a very different establishment from the one in which Thorne had met Melita Perera the night before, and he guessed there weren’t too many regulars troubling the mute barman for a mojito or a cheeky glass of house red.

  ‘You really reckon he’s clever enough?’ Hendricks asked. ‘To know you’ve rumbled him if you close the website down?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s stupid.’

  ‘Good job too. It’s the stupid ones you need to be worried about.’

  Thorne saw his friend lean forward, keen to share something. ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘The Dunning–Kruger effect.’

  ‘Right…’

  ‘It’s a cognitive bias.’

  ‘Stop showing off.’

  Hendricks grinned. ‘Basically, back in the nineties, some idiot in America hears that lemon juice can be used as invisible ink. So, he proceeds to rub it all over his face and rob a bank, convinced he’ll be invisible to the security cameras.’

  ‘Sounds reasonable enough to me,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Apparently this moron was gobsmacked when he was caught… couldn’t believe it. Anyway, these two psychologists heard about it, so they ran some tests and discovered that very stupid people tend to dramatically over-estimate their own capabilities. Too stupid to know they’re stupid, if you see what I mean, because the skills they lack are exactly the same ones they need to recognise their own incompetence. Essentially, it means that a lot of people who are thick as mince can have ridiculous amounts of confidence that’s… misplaced at best.’

  Thorne nodded. ‘And dangerous at worst.’

  ‘Right.’ Hendricks lifted his glass. ‘Just look at who some of these morons vote for.’

  ‘I don’t think it matters much in the end,’ Thorne said. ‘I’ve had murderers who probably qualified for Mensa and I’ve had some who could barely string a sentence together. Doesn’t make much odds to the people they killed.’

  ‘Which ones are easier to catch, though?’

  ‘Sometimes the clever ones get a bit too clever,’ Thorne said. ‘Let’s hope this one does. As of now, he’s making a very good job of staying invisible and it’s not because he’s covered himself in le
mon juice.’ He glanced over at the bar again as he drained his glass. The two men who had been looking over were now chuckling and talking in hushed tones to the barman and Thorne suspected that he and Hendricks were the topic of conversation. Right then, part of him would have been only too happy if that proved to be the case, if a remark were to be made a bit too loudly.

  He wanted something to kick off.

  He reached into his pocket when he heard an alert sound on his phone. A text from Tanner.

  This flat’s even worse than last one. Avocado bathroom FFS! Hope you and Helen are enjoying your quiet night in. x

  Thorne put the phone away. ‘Nicola.’

  ‘How’s her case going?’ Hendricks asked. ‘The Spice gang?’

  Thorne turned back to his friend. ‘Not really going anywhere. I haven’t exactly been a big help.’

  ‘Yeah, because you’ve had sod all else to worry about, obviously.’

  ‘I suppose.’ He held up his glass. ‘Same again?’

  Hendricks looked at his watch. ‘Thing is, Liam’s cooking, so…’

  ‘No worries.’

  ‘Anyway, aren’t you driving?’ Hendricks looked and began to nod slowly, clearly able to see that Thorne was in no great hurry to get home. He said, ‘Oh…’

  ‘Helen’s sister,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Right.’ Hendricks had heard this before.

  ‘Helen’s been fighting with her and then she takes it out on me.’

  ‘Well, you’re there, aren’t you?’

  Thorne nodded.

  ‘Punchbag’s part of the job description, mate.’

  ‘Yeah, well I’m fed up with it. And the hours I’m working – both of us are working – there’s not a lot of time to sit around and talk about it.’ Thorne closed his eyes, and, when he opened them again, he was staring hard at the two men at the bar. ‘I don’t know… that, and this case. Took it all out on some gobby DC this morning… some newbie, barely started shaving. Getting it in the neck just because I am.’

  ‘What about a hit man?’

  Thorne looked at him.

  ‘For the sister.’

  ‘Not sure I can afford it.’ Thorne sat back and managed the closest thing to a smile since they’d sat down. ‘Mind you, I could always do it myself, I suppose.’ He reached across to pick up Hendricks’s empty glass. ‘You could fake the post-mortem results for me.’

  Hendricks grinned. ‘What are friends for?’

  FORTY-SIX

  Her real name was Frances Coombs and she’d never been awfully fond of it, so it had been fun dreaming up new ones and creating all those fake identities she’d needed. More often than not she’d gone for old film stars; the ingénues and femmes fatales she’d watched growing up. Those impossibly glamorous women, whose lives she pretended she had, once she’d got too old for all that princess-in-the-castle stuff and moved away from the dump she’d grown up in.

  She’d just mixed the names up a bit.

  Joan Rogers, Audrey Davis, Grace Taylor…

  She knew the nickname they’d given her too, some of the boys she visited in prison, and she wasn’t unhappy about that either. Why on earth would she be? Plenty of worse things they could have called her, and wasn’t it more or less exactly what she’d fantasised about, all those years ago, trying to keep her head above water on that terrible estate?

  She’d earned that nickname, she reckoned.

  She’d had to come up with a couple more names, now that she was back at work – Sophia Crawford, Barbara Leigh – and she was happy to be earning again, having something to get out of bed for, adding to that nest egg. She’d known it wouldn’t be long before she was given the nod. Buying more of those stupid little phones and collecting packages, and the people she was dealing with down here were actually a bit nicer than they’d been up in London. Well, not quite so unpleasant, anyway. The bloke she’d talked to on the phone back then, when she was still working Wandsworth, Brixton, Pentonville, was decent enough, but she’d never really taken to that one who’d made the deliveries. Creepy so-and-so never took his motorbike helmet off for a start, barely said a dicky bird, and when he did she couldn’t understand him.

  Polish, she reckoned, or Romanian. One of the two…

  She turned off the TV and wandered across to shoo a seagull off the window ledge. Size of the bloody things never ceased to amaze her and she couldn’t get over the cheek of them; bold as brass the evil bastards were, like the foxes back up in London. Swooping down to nick chips off her plate or sitting there on the roof of her car, like they didn’t give a monkey’s.

  Seagulls aside, she was already starting to think that she’d be happy staying here, as long as the work carried on. Asking herself what she’d say to them if they ever told her to come back. In the end, she probably wouldn’t have any choice, because she wanted to stay close to her daughter and she couldn’t see her settling for a life down here, with the grass and the sand and the silly little shops.

  It was probably all a bit old and all a bit white.

  Her girl had always preferred things a trifle more outlandish, more was the pity.

  She thought about her daughter while she was making tea to take to bed, and it wasn’t a big jump from there to thinking about some of those poor buggers she’d seen on the news. The Spice casualties in Manchester and other places, staggering around like they were half dead, or flat out and trembling on the pavement. The stuff was obviously getting way stronger than it used to be, killing people now, for heaven’s sake. She’d no idea how powerful the stuff she delivered was because she never asked. She’d seen a documentary a year or so back, a prison officer on the floor of the staffroom, writhing and shouting after he’d taken in a lungful, so she’d always known it was a lot stronger than the weed she’d occasionally smoked back in the day, but now things were getting daft.

  That’s why there was so much money in it, she supposed. So many nasty pieces of work. Why people got shot and stabbed, or fitted up like that poor sod Andrew Evans.

  Not her fault though, none of it; she could always tell herself that. Aside from the trips to the toilet and the acid reflux, she didn’t have any trouble sleeping. I mean, if somebody drank eight cans of White Lightning then got in his car and smashed into a bus stop, you wouldn’t arrest the bloke in the off-licence, would you? Whose fault was it her husband had got cancer? His or the newsagent who sold him the fags?

  She took her tea and carried it through to the bedroom.

  If they wanted her to visit anywhere else, she’d go brunette next time, she decided. Get it done properly; somewhere decent instead of using that cheap dye from the supermarket.

  She climbed into bed and listened to the sea and lay there thinking about nice new pictures and nice new names. Rhonda Hayworth or Maureen Sheridan. They sounded all right.

  Rita Fleming, maybe…

  FORTY-SEVEN

  He’d looked at pictures the day after Alice Matthews, maybe even the same day now he thought about it, but it hadn’t meant anything. He logged on and looked through a few pictures almost every day. Every night. It wasn’t even about planning for the next one, not really. It was just a case of seeing what was out there, who had recently registered or been matched, eyeing up a couple of possibilities. That was all.

  It certainly wasn’t any kind of hunger starting to build. There was no uncontrollable craving that would inevitably grow stronger and demand to be satisfied, none of that claptrap. He’d read his fair share of that cut-price psycho-bollocks; no shortage of it on the internet or those cheap and cheerful true-crime channels way down at the bottom of his TV menu. All entertaining enough if there was nothing else to look at, but you couldn’t take any of it seriously.

  Bloodlust.

  A killer’s perverted drives and twisted mind.

  Drivel, all of it…

  I mean, this was a service he was providing, or as good as. Like those people… customs officers or whatever, whose job it was to weed out fake perfume or moody design
er gear, to get cheap copies off the streets. The real thing was the real thing. How hard was that to understand? Nobody in their right mind would argue with that. Whatever something looked like, even if it had all the right labels and accessories, only something authentic was ever going to have the proper quality.

  You bought cheap, you bought twice. You bought umpteen times.

  He smiled.

  OK, so maybe he was stretching the analogy a little, but, as far as he was concerned there were real women, who behaved the way a real woman should, and there were replicas. All the right bits in all the right places and maybe you’d make do with one in an emergency or if there was really no other option, but nothing you’d choose. Not worth having once you’d measured it against the genuine article.

  A real woman had grace and strength and she always had confidence. She knew what she wanted and what a real man expected in return, because it was only real men she was interested in. She would never settle for anything but the best, because she knew what she deserved. She would never stop making the effort or paying attention, or taking the time to be that little bit sexier or more beautiful.

  And she would never beg.

  A replica couldn’t even come close. A third-rate copy on the lookout for a man every bit as inept and desperate as she was. The way he saw it, some of them were no more than a notch above those sex robots he’d seen on TV. They even felt like women, at least the really expensive ones did. All the holes anyone would need, tits designed to order, but seriously, what kind of man would shell out for something like that? The kind of man who couldn’t do any better for himself, simple as that, who made do with replicas.

  The things some of the women put in their profiles, for God’s sake! The things these no-hopers thought were selling points.

  I want to bring creativity into a relationship.