Читать книгу The Jackdaw - Luke Delaney - Страница 10

Sean arrived at work the next morning early enough to be the first one in the office and was glad of it. He walked slowly across the main room, casting an eye over the tip that was supposed to be the nerve centre of their investigations. Discarded items of clothing hung on chairs and over computer screens, abandoned polystyrene cups of cold, stale coffee littered almost every work surface, while the wastepaper bins overflowed with crisp packets, chocolate wrappers and plastic sandwich boxes. The large brown paper confidential waste sacks that filled every corner fared no better. He shook his head in displeasure and retreated into the sanctuary of his own reasonably ordered and tidy office.

He slumped in his chair and peeled the lid off the black coffee he’d picked up from a nearby café − the grey filth they sold in the canteen at the Yard was wholly undrinkable. Next he placed his own personal laptop next to the coffee and started it into life. Once it was ready he pulled up the video of Paul Elkins’s murder and began to watch and listen: the victim taped to the chair, confused and terrified while the killer periodically stalked in front of the cameras, not even his eyes visible as he spoke in that eerie electronic voice – preaching more than appealing.

Sean pressed pause for a second, giving his mind time to absorb what he had seen so far, to analyse it, to pick up on some small thing they’d all missed. His eyes seemed to flicker as he studied the screen before pressing play again, only to pause it a few seconds later, the image of the killer staring out at him.

‘Confident bastard, aren’t you?’ he whispered. ‘Is that why you’re doing this, because it makes you feel confident – makes you feel good again? Gives you back the pride that they took away from you?’ He clicked on play and watched for a few more minutes, the killer’s organized and self-assured demeanour never changing as he explained the rules of the ‘trial’ to the watching ‘jury’.

He paused again and stared at the dark figure standing straight and purposeful. ‘What are you like when you’re not being this thing? What are you like when you’re just yourself? Are you meek and mild – a broken man too defeated to even stand up for yourself, your wife, your children? Did they beat the fight out of you – took your business, your house, your job? But when you put the ski-mask on, when you hear yourself speaking in that unrecognizable voice, does it give you your self-esteem back? Does it make you feel powerful? And why kill him the way you did? It was slow and painful. Was it the only way you knew how, or did you want it to be like that? Did you want him to suffer – want to make him pay?’

A knock on his open door shattered his concentration and he looked up to see Donnelly standing there with a small man in his thirties he didn’t recognize. Sean looked him up and down, taking note of his skinny arms and legs and little pot belly, spectacles balancing on the end of his nose, receding blond hair uncombed and unstyled.

‘Who the hell is this?’ he asked Donnelly, never looking away from the man who was now flushed red.

‘This,’ Donnelly explained, ‘is Detective Constable Bob Bishop.’

‘Where the hell did you find him? And more to the point, what are you doing with him?’ Bishop looked from Donnelly to Sean and back again, following the conversation anxiously.

‘I abducted him from the Cyber Crime Unit,’ Donnelly continued. ‘The DI there’s an old friend of mine. He said we could have him.’ Still neither of them bothered to address Bishop. Sean shook his head in mock disbelief. ‘What?’ Donnelly played along. ‘You said get an Internet expert.’

‘Is that what he is?’ Sean continued to stare at the very uncomfortable-looking Bishop. ‘Is that what you are – an Internet expert?’

‘I know my way around the Web as well as anyone from the Cyber Unit,’ Bishop stuttered in his Birmingham accent.

‘See,’ Donnelly jumped in. ‘Like I said – an expert.’

‘You know why you’re here?’ Sean asked.

‘Something about the Your View Killer. DS Donnelly told me.’

‘It’s all about the Your View Killer,’ Sean told him. Bishop visibly swallowed hard. ‘Can he be traced? Can we trace him to wherever he’s broadcasting from?’

‘Yes,’ Bishop answered, ‘but it’s not like on the telly – it can take a while. But why d’you need me? Can’t you use one of your own team?’

‘Sure,’ Sean teased him, ‘because my team’s full of Internet and computer experts. The Commissioner lets me keep them locked in a room for whenever I might need them – along with thousands of pounds’ worth of tracking equipment for the once in a blue moon when I might need that too. Bishop, this is the Metropolitan Police: you don’t get given anything until you absolutely need it and then you beg, steal and borrow it before handing it back to wherever it is you got it from. And right now I need you.’

‘Well then, I guess I’m all yours,’ Bishop gave in.

‘Good. Can we trace it even when it’s not on?’ Sean pressed ahead with his queries.

‘No,’ Bishop told him. ‘We can only trace him when he’s connected to the Internet. Every time he’s connected we inch a little closer to his location, but he has to be connected.’

‘What if he changes computers or changes the location of his broadcasts? Donnelly asked.

‘If we’ve already got a hook into his computer we can trace him even if he changes location – although we’d have to go back a few steps, which would slow us down. But even without a hard modem we can trace his wireless fingerprint via the—’

‘Stop. Stop,’ Sean interrupted. ‘Save the technical jargon for someone who gives a shit. Now try that again in English.’

‘Well, like I said, once we’re into his er … computer, we’ve pretty much got him, but it’ll take time, depending on how long he stays online each time. If he ditches the computer we’re buggered, unless he’s using er … something that sends the signal on that he also used with the original computer.’ Sean and Donnelly looked at each other. ‘It’s like at home, right,’ Bishop explained. ‘Most people have more than one device that can access the Internet, but they’re all getting that access through one modem, right, so even if they ditch the device, we’re still into the source. Get it?’

‘I get it enough,’ Sean told him. ‘Dave, get him a desk in the main office and put him to work.’

‘He can share with me and Sally. There’s enough room. He wouldn’t survive in that shark pool.’

‘Fine,’ Sean agreed.

Bishop’s eyes darted around nervously. ‘Excuse me,’ he began. ‘I know my way around computers and stuff, but I’m not qualified to call myself an expert and you sound like you need an expert.’

Sean looked him in the eyes. ‘Do you know anyone better than you who also happens to be employed by the Metropolitan Police?’

‘Er … well no, but—’

‘I didn’t think so,’ Sean cut him off again. ‘Listen, you can speak to whoever you need to speak to for technical advice, go and see whoever you want to see, spend whatever you have to spend – but I need you to trace the location of where this madman’s broadcasting from. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, but it’s just that I was right in the middle—’

‘You may be our best chance to catch a killer, and if you do, it won’t be forgotten,’ Sean encouraged him. ‘Are you my man?’

Bishop finally straightened as a sparkle came to his eyes. ‘Yeah,’ he answered. ‘Yeah. I’m your man.’

‘Good,’ Sean told him as Donnelly led him away to the next-door office. Sean hadn’t finished shaking his head when he saw Anna enter the main office and start to approach him. He felt a pleasant vibration in his chest and his head became a little light. He pushed the feelings aside and quickly stood, pulling on his coat and gathering his belongings, stuffing them carelessly into his pockets.

Anna entered without knocking. ‘Going somewhere?’

‘Yes,’ was all he said, aiming for the door where he’d have to pass close to her.

‘Mind if I ask where?’

He sighed before answering. ‘If you must know, I’m meeting Dr Canning for the post-mortem.’

‘Can I tag along?’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’

Sean realized he was being unnecessarily blunt and reminded himself it wasn’t her fault he felt the way he did about her. Being close to her made him feel uncomfortable, vulnerable; but he didn’t want to hurt her either.

‘I’m sorry,’ he explained. ‘It’s just Dr Canning doesn’t like additional people coming to his post-mortems. He likes it to be just him and me. Post-mortem’s his call. He’s the pathologist.’

‘That’s OK,’ she told him. ‘I understand. I’d probably be the same.’

‘Look,’ Sean continued. ‘I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. I’d be interested in your opinion.’

‘I’d appreciate that,’ she told him as he slid past. ‘I’ll see you later then.’

He walked quickly through the main office without looking back and was gone.

Georgina Vaughan sat on the corner of her desk on the seventh floor of Glenhope Investments in the City of London. She kept a sharp eye out for her boss who often stalked the floor looking for employees who were engaging in social discourse rather than working. She shared her limited working space with two colleagues, Nick and Oscar, and when they weren’t being spied on there had only been one topic of conversation that morning – the Your View Killer.

She peeked over the top of Nick’s screen. ‘So who do you think he’s going to do next?’ she asked in little more than a whisper.

He checked they weren’t being watched before answering. ‘I don’t know. Could be anyone. Could be you.’

She gave a short laugh. ‘Me? I don’t think so. You heard what he said – he’s only after the big fish.’

‘You’re a senior project manager and a rising star,’ Oscar joined in. ‘Maybe he’ll consider you to be a big fish?’

Again she laughed. ‘I doubt it. Not yet anyway. I reckon he’ll only go for CEOs. Probably doesn’t even know what a project manager is. By the time I’m a CEO he’ll probably be dead of old age.’

‘You’re on the senior management fast-track scheme – what more do you want?’ Nick reminded her in his slightly effeminate voice that matched his petite build and whiskerless complexion.

‘I’m thirty-fucking-three, Nick. Does that sound like fast-track to you? This whole job’s beginning to feel like waiting for dead-man’s shoes.’

‘Then you’ll be happy to see him dispose of a few of them,’ Nick suggested.

‘Ha, ha,’ she mocked him.

‘The higher you climb the less positions there are,’ Oscar chipped in. ‘Besides, with this lunatic running around out there, who’d want to be a CEO of anything?’

‘I would,’ she almost snapped at him in her clipped accent, her long, wavy brown hair falling forwards. ‘I just need him to bump off another couple of hundred and I should be fine.’

‘I doubt there’ll be any more,’ Nick argued. ‘I heard he was killed by some Eastern European gang he’d been laundering money for. Apparently his rates were beginning to piss them off so …’ He spread his hands as if an explanation wasn’t necessary.

‘That’s bollocks,’ Georgina told him. ‘Eastern Europeans would have chopped him to pieces.’

‘An expert on these matters, are you?’ Oscar asked.

‘I’ve heard things,’ she told them, trying to sound mysterious.

‘More like seen things,’ Nick teased her, ‘on the telly.’ Both he and Oscar laughed at her.

‘Well one thing’s for certain,’ she silenced them, ‘none of us have anything to worry about, sitting here doing these shit jobs. Nothing to worry about at all.’

Sean parked in the ambulance bay at Guy’s Hospital, leaving the police vehicle log on the dashboard to prevent his car being towed away. He strode off through a part of the grounds rarely seen by most hospital employees, let alone the public, and made his way to the mortuary where he found Dr Canning already examining the body. Canning looked up to see who had entered his domain.

‘Good morning, Inspector.’

‘Morning, Doctor,’ Sean replied, no feeling in his voice. ‘Here we are again then.’

‘Quite,’ Canning agreed. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve already cleaned the victim up. There’s plenty of photographic documentation as to the body’s state when it first came out of the river. I’ve already examined it for anything unpleasant the river left behind.’

‘D’you find anything?’

‘Not particularly. The usual organic life forms and other debris. I’ve taken samples and plenty of swabs for you. If there’s anything deeper in his throat, stomach or lungs I won’t find it until I open the poor fellow up later today.’

Sean moved closer and scanned the body slowly from head to toe, the man’s face close to unrecognizable from the image in the photographs Sean had seen – his expression in death a tortured grimace, the vivid rope-burn ring around his neck a stark reminder of how he died. The rest of his body was relatively untouched except for some reddening around both his ankles and wrists – from where he’d been taped to the chair, Sean guessed. Other than that the river had left its mark, but nothing of note, the victim’s clothing having protected his dead body from too much exposure to other floating debris.

‘These other cuts and marks,’ Sean checked, ‘they caused by being in the river?’

‘Almost certainly,’ Canning assured him. ‘I had a quick look and found most of them to be post-mortem and none that would have contributed to his death even if he had been alive before being disposed of in the river.’

‘He was, wasn’t he?’ Sean interrupted.

‘Was what?’ Canning asked.

‘Disposed of. Like he was nothing. Something to be rid of. An annoyance.’

‘Not like the last unfortunate victim we saw together,’ Canning reminded him. ‘Quite the ritual of guilt.’

‘Best not to think of it too much,’ Sean told him, trying not to let the images of the small boy on Canning’s autopsy table invade his mind.

‘Trial on that one must be coming up soon. Had a letter from the CPS putting me on standby.’

‘We’re just waiting for our slot at the Bailey to be confirmed and then the trial begins,’ Sean informed him. ‘I’ll try to make sure they don’t keep you hanging around too long.’

‘Appreciated.’

‘Anyway.’ Sean pulled them back to the matter in hand. ‘Apart from the rather obvious cause of death, can you tell me anything else?’

‘Ah,’ Canning began. ‘The cause of death is not as straightforward as you may think.’

Sean’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t like surprises. ‘Meaning?’

‘Cause of death wasn’t hanging, it was strangulation.’

He had Sean’s interest. ‘I’m listening.’

‘Technically hanging is when someone falls from a height with a ligature around their neck, causing both a broken neck and fatal restriction of the blood supply. Death is more often than not instantaneous. Strangulation is the compression of the carotid arteries or jugular veins, causing cerebral ischaemia – which is the brain dying as a result of the lack of oxygen – while at the same time there is a compression of the larynx or trachea, causing asphyxia. Strangulation is a much more unpleasant way to leave this mortal coil than hanging. I’m afraid your victim was hoisted to a slow and painful death as opposed to being dropped to a relatively quick and painless one.’

‘Then he wanted him to suffer?’ Sean asked himself more than Canning.

‘I couldn’t say, Inspector. We both know that’s your domain, not mine. But I saw the Your View footage. The killer looked and sounded pretty angry at the world to me. The sort of person who would want to make others suffer.’

‘Maybe,’ Sean answered.

‘Keeping your options open, Inspector?’ Sean just shrugged. ‘Well, unfortunately the killer took the rope from around his neck before disposing of the body, so we don’t have that to work with, but from the video I could just about tell what sort of knot he used.’

‘Go on,’ Sean encouraged, glad to be discussing simple, tangible, physical evidence.

‘I’m pretty sure it was a poacher’s knot – used primarily in sailing.’

‘Sailing.’ Sean took the bait. ‘What type of sailing?’

‘All types of sailing,’ Canning replied. ‘Royal Navy, Merchant Navy, a yacht owner. Maybe he had a small dinghy as a child or a rowboat or … the possibilities are endless.’

‘I can’t see this one on a yacht,’ Sean told him, squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing them with a pinched thumb and index finger. ‘Not a great look for a man of the people – sailing around on a yacht.’

‘No. I don’t suppose it would be,’ Canning agreed, ‘but it’s definitely the sort of knot someone would use out of habit – without thinking about it.’

‘Or they learnt it specifically so they could use it on the victim,’ Sean suggested.

‘I suppose so,’ Canning agreed, ‘but there are easier knots to learn, so why pick this one?’

‘God only knows, but you’re probably right – he knew this knot, so he used it. He could be ex-navy – merchant or royal, or even an ex-docker. Plenty of them have lost their jobs in recent years.’

‘Doesn’t really narrow it down for you, does it?’

‘No, but it might help me know if I’m heading in the right direction later on.’ Sean thought for a few seconds before speaking again. ‘When you watched the video, what did you think?’

‘Like I said,’ Canning answered, ‘the killer struck me as being very angry. Angry at the world.’

‘In what way angry? What specifically was angry about him?’

‘His words,’ Canning told him. ‘His words were angry.’

Sean thought silently again. ‘You’re right, his words were angry, but …’ He stopped, unsure of his own thoughts.

‘But what?’ Canning encouraged.

‘But the killing seemed cold and impersonal. More like an execution. It was slow and the victim suffered unnecessarily. That could have been because the killer didn’t know what he was doing … and why would he, unless he’s killed before?’

‘Do you think he has – killed before?’

‘No,’ Sean answered quickly. ‘No I don’t.

‘So what’s troubling you, Inspector?’

‘He preached angry words, even acted aggressively, pointing into the camera, accusing the victim, yet the killing was cold. Emotionless.’

‘How would you expect an angry man to kill his victim?’ Canning asked.

‘A knife, a club or bat – something more frenzied and personal – something that let the anger out – true revenge. Not to just stand back and watch the man hang. If he’s as angry as he seems to be that couldn’t have satisfied him, couldn’t have given him the release he needed.’

‘Maybe he’s more sadistic than you considered?’ Canning offered. ‘Wanted to sit back and watch his victim suffer rather than being embroiled in an act of frenzied violence.’

‘Could be,’ Sean agreed, ‘but when I watch that video I can’t help but feel like I’m watching two different people – the preacher and the killer.’

‘Entirely possible,’ Canning told him. ‘The killer comes in and out of shot – appears and disappears from the screen – so you’d have to consider it.’

‘I am,’ Sean admitted. ‘But he could be two people in one man.’

‘Also possible,’ Canning agreed enthusiastically. ‘Another schizophrenic for you to decipher.’

‘Let’s hope not.’

‘Have you shared your thoughts with anyone else yet?’

‘No,’ Sean told him, Anna’s face suddenly burning in his mind as he wondered how long it would be before she saw in the video what he had seen. ‘Not yet. Best to keep it simple. Won’t change how we investigate it anyway. The killer’s told us he’s someone with an axe to grind against the rich and so far he hasn’t given me any reason to disbelieve him. I’ll play his game for now – let him think he’s in control.’

‘Why would you do that?’

‘Because the more confident he is, the sloppier he’ll get and that increases his chances of making mistakes, and that increases my chance of catching him quickly.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ Canning told him as he began to examine his surgical tools before selecting a scalpel, ‘because I should think a man capable of killing another human being in this way is probably capable of anything.’

DC Bob Bishop sat at the desk that they’d squeezed into the corner of Donnelly and Sally’s office. Sally hadn’t bothered to protest as she watched the two of them manoeuvre the desk into the already cramped room, shaking her head and tutting as they crashed around. He was deep in concentration as his fingers typed away on the relatively state-of-art laptop he’d commandeered from his regular unit. A heavy hand falling on his shoulder and a gruff Scottish voice made him jump with fright.

‘All right there, Bobby Boy?’ Donnelly asked before slumping down in his own chair, which creaked a little under his weight. ‘Cracked the case yet?’

‘Not exactly,’ Bishop replied in his Birmingham tones.

‘Why not?’ Donnelly asked, half teasing. ‘All you got to do is trace this psycho’s signal, right?’

‘It’s not that simple.’

‘Thought you were an expert, Bobby Boy.’

‘I told you before, I’m no expert and your killer knows what he’s doing too. He’s using a wireless mobile device and staying off any broadband connections. Looks like he’s put in a few levels of encryption as well.’ He turned away from Donnelly and resumed his frantic typing, but kept talking, to himself more than Donnelly. ‘Yeah, he’s a clever bastard, all right, but not as clever as he thinks he is. He may have slammed the front door shut, but he’s left the back door slightly ajar.’

‘So you can trace him?’ Donnelly reminded him he was there.

‘What? Oh, yeah. I can trace him. You see, I reckon he thinks that every time he turns his computer off he’s breaking the line, so to speak, destroying any connections that had existed and with it our chance to trace him. But he’s wrong,’ Bishop grinned.

‘Really,’ Donnelly half-heartedly asked, not remotely convinced.

‘Yeah. Very wrong. You see, all those little satellites floating round the world have already been working away to pinpoint his transmission location. Sure, when he stops they stop, but they don’t ever go back to square one. So the next time he transmits they’re already that much closer to finding him and therefore so are we. It’s only a matter of time.’

‘Unless he changes location,’ Donnelly reminded him.

‘Even if he changes location,’ Bishop explained, ‘although that would slow us down a bit, but DI Corrigan doesn’t seem to think that’s going to happen.’

‘No,’ Donnelly agreed. ‘No he doesn’t, and with good reason. Our man’s invested a lot of time in setting all this up, including the location he uses. I can’t see him having multiple sites. He may have Joe Public fooled he’s some sort of protector and avenger of the people, but to me he’s just another killer. Nothing more. Nothing less. You see, I don’t let them get in my head like DI Corrigan does. To me they’re all just losers waiting to be taken down and this one’s no different. Once he feels safe somewhere he’ll stick with it – mark my words.’

‘But DI Corrigan does?’ Bishop seized on something Donnelly had said.

‘Does what?’

‘Does allow them to get inside his head?’

‘Oh aye. Heard something, have you – the old detectives’ grapevine been at work?’

‘Just picking up on something you said,’ Bishop answered.

‘Bullshit,’ Donnelly challenged him. ‘Come on – what have you heard?’

‘Like, that he can predict them – tell what they’re going to do next.’

Donnelly laughed short and hard. ‘That’s fucking Mystic Meg you’re thinking of, Bobby Boy.’

‘Just saying what I heard.’

‘Well you heard wrong. I’ve seen him do some stuff I’ve never seen anyone else do, granted, but I’ve never seen him do that. Be nice if he could, mind – save us all a lot of grief. But just for the record, it’s more a case of him getting into the killers’ minds than them getting into his.’

‘What d’you mean?’ Bishop asked, confused.

Donnelly smiled a mischievous smile and leaned further back into his chair, hands behind his head. ‘You’ll see, Bobby Boy. You’ll see.’

Geoff Jackson spotted the woman he’d come to meet as soon as he entered one of the few surviving independent coffee shops in Soho. Joan Varady was, as usual, furiously typing on her iPhone and never once looked up as he approached her, or even when he sat down. Her small build and the simple haircut that framed her pretty but ageing face belied the powerful position she held in one of the world’s biggest publishing houses.

‘Late as usual,’ she accused him, still without looking up.

‘Sorry,’ Jackson apologized. ‘Busy, busy, busy. You know how it is.’

‘I do indeed,’ she told him in her educated, but not clipped, accent. ‘Which is why I don’t like hanging around waiting for journalists in coffee shops.’

‘Fair enough,’ Jackson agreed, ‘but you’ll realize it was time well spent, once you’ve heard what I have to say.’

Finally she looked up from her phone. ‘Well. I’m listening.’

‘I’ll assume you’ve heard all about this new killer – the one they’re calling the Your View Killer.’

‘Ah,’ Varady almost sighed. ‘I might have guessed it would be about him. I’ve seen some of your coverage in that rag of a paper you insist on working for.’

‘I didn’t know The World was your kind of a paper,’ he teased her.

‘Believe me,’ she assured him, ‘it isn’t.’

‘Whatever,’ he told her, bored with the jousting. ‘Fact is I’ve got exclusivity on the story – the inside track.’

‘Still got a couple of cops in your pocket – feeding you the low-down?’

‘Maybe. Or maybe I’ve got even more this time.’ Varady didn’t look impressed. ‘I can have the book written and ready to go within a week of the killer being caught, clean and no need for major editing. You could have it on the shelves within a couple of months while the story’s still hot. Feed the public while they’re still hungry for the grisly details.’

‘If you really want to feed the public grisly details you need to write the book about the celebrity paedophiles you broke,’ Varady told him.

‘No,’ he snapped at her a little. ‘That’ll never happen.’

‘Someone’s going to write it. Might as well be you.’

‘Forget it,’ he insisted. ‘Besides, this is the better and bigger story, and I’ve got exclusivity.’

‘That’s fine, but just because you have exclusivity with your paper doesn’t mean other journos at other papers, not to mention the television boys and girls, won’t be covering it. What can you offer that they can’t?’

Jackson spread his arms, inviting her to look at him with admiration. ‘What can I offer? The best, that’s what I can offer, and you know it.’

Varady looked him up and down before speaking. ‘OK, Geoff, you’re good – we all know it – but the last book got as much stick as it did praise. I had to work my arse off to keep it on the shelves. Did you really have to call that psycho “The Toy Taker”?’

‘Public need a handle, Joan – something not too difficult to remember. Something that identifies the story at a glance. Remember “The Crossbow Cannibal”? That was a beauty. Wish I’d thought of it.’

‘So what you going to call this one, or are you going to stick with “The Your View Killer”?’

‘Don’t know,’ Jackson mused. ‘Might do. Depends what else turns up. Might need something a little catchier. Something that makes him sound more man of the people than crazed killer.’

‘Well, whatever you call him, I’m still not sure,’ Varady told him. ‘I’ve no great desire to piss off the Met – again. They know some of their own are speaking to you and they were none too happy when you started sniffing around trying to find out personal details of that SIO, whatever his name was.’

‘Ahh,’ Jackson smiled. ‘Detective Inspector Sean Corrigan. He’s a slippery bastard, but I have to admit he’s more interesting than the usual plastic detective on accelerated promotion.’

‘Yeah, well just stay away from him would be my advice.’ Jackson grinned. ‘Oh no,’ Varady leaned back, ‘you’re not telling me he’s in charge of the Your View Killer investigation as well, are you?’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Jackson reassured her, but she was already packing her handbag and shaking her head. ‘Listen, Corrigan is gold dust. He’s the lead detective on the Special Investigations Unit. He’s gonna get all the juiciest cases across London – he’s like the bear that leads you to the honey every time. You want the hot crime story, follow Corrigan.’

‘I’m your fucking publisher,’ Varady reminded him, standing and stretching to her full five foot two inches, ‘not your bloody editor.’

‘You still need stories though, right? You can’t always rely on celebrity autobiographies.’

‘Not interested,’ she insisted and moved to leave, taking his publishing deal with her.

‘All right,’ he told her in a desperate last effort to get her to listen. ‘What if I told you I’m going to interview the killer?’

She looked him up and down for a second or two. ‘So what? Interviews with banged-up killers are nothing new. Still not interested.’

‘No,’ he told her, smiling again. ‘Not when he’s banged up – now, while he’s still on the loose. While he’s still committing his crimes.’

Varady sat down again. ‘Jesus. You’re joking, right?’

‘Would I joke about a thing like that?’

‘Think you can pull it off?’ she asked, her eyes narrowing.

‘Of course I can. Do I have your interest again? Ready to talk about a deal yet?’

‘You get the interviews and we’ll talk.’

Sean arrived back at the Yard and stuck his head into Sally and Donnelly’s office to ask them to join him and Anna next door for a catch up of the day’s progress – if there was any.

‘How did the PM go?’ Donnelly asked while he was still emptying his pockets and hanging up his raincoat.

‘No surprises yet,’ Sean told him. ‘Death seems to be by hanging, or strangulation to be precise.’

‘The difference being?’ Donnelly asked.

‘No broken neck to accompany the asphyxiation,’ Sean explained. ‘He hung until his brain died through lack of oxygen.’

‘Nice,’ Sally added.

‘Dr Canning reckons the killer used a knot used in boating or yachting. He recognized it from the video, so it would seem our man has some knowledge of boating or sailing.’

‘And he dumped the body in the river,’ Sally reminded them, ‘so possibly he has a boat or access to one. Something for us to work with.’

Sean frowned, concerned he’d failed to think of what Sally had suggested. The connection between the knot, the river and possible use of a boat should have obvious to him, but for some reason he’d missed it, as if his mind wasn’t fully focused on the investigation. He involuntarily glanced at Anna.

‘A good point well made,’ Donnelly told Sally. ‘He’s probably got some knackered little rowboat tied up under a tree somewhere.’

‘Well, if he has we need to find it,’ Sean told them. ‘How’s your man DC Bishop getting on with the Internet inquiries?’

‘Seems to be getting on all right, although if you want an explanation of what he’s doing you’re better off asking him yourself – all sounds like technical gobbledegook to me.’

‘I’ll spare myself the experience,’ Sean answered. ‘What about forensics?’

‘Nothing of note so far,’ Sally explained. ‘In fact, nothing at all from the abduction site and obviously we don’t know where the murder scene is so all we’re left with is the body and his clothing, which are currently in the hands of Dr Canning.’

‘All right,’ Sean told them, pushing his fingers through his short hair, ‘Dave, organize the door-to-door in the street he was abducted from and the surrounding ones too. Maybe we’re missing a witness or two. Sally, get a Met-wide request out asking for all derelict buildings to be checked – in fact, see if you can get that out to our surrounding forces as well. If the body washed up in Barnes then this kill room could easily be outside the Met area.’

‘Anything else?’ Sally asked.

‘No,’ Sean told them, looking and sounding disappointed. ‘Right now that’s all I’ve got … except for the electronic device he uses to change his voice,’ he suddenly remembered. ‘Get Paulo on the case,’ he told Donnelly. ‘He bought it somewhere or made it himself, but we might get lucky.’

‘OK,’ Donnelly agreed as he and Sally made their way from his office, leaving Sean alone with Anna. She motioned as if to speak, before the phone ringing on Sean’s desk stopped her.

Sean wearily answered it. ‘Hello.’

‘Sean. It’s Superintendent Featherstone.’

‘Guv’nor.’

‘Any progress?’ Featherstone asked. ‘Everyone would like to put this one to bed early.’

‘Me too.’

‘I bet – especially with that trial coming up. When’s that kick off, by the way?’

‘This week,’ Sean told him. ‘Probably.’

‘Fuck me,’ Featherstone cursed. ‘All the more reason to get this wrapped up sharpish.’

‘I’m trying,’ Sean answered, hiding his frustration, ‘but it’s a little early to expect a breakthrough with what’s essentially a stranger killing. I have no obvious suspect.’

‘I understand,’ Featherstone said, ‘but as you know, not everyone’s as patient as I am.’

‘Meaning Assistant Commissioner Addis?’

‘No need to mention names. Just make it look like we’re making progress. Understand?’

‘I understand,’ Sean assured him.

‘Good,’ Featherstone said, sounding like he was about to hang up before Sean stopped him.

‘One thing you can do for me.’

‘Go on.’

‘Get the enhanced images of the room he used out to the media with an appeal to the public. Someone might recognize it.’

‘No problem,’ Featherstone agreed and hung up.

‘Everything all right?’ Anna asked.

‘Yeah, fine. Why wouldn’t it be?’

‘You seem a little distant.’

Sean leaned back into his chair, puffed out his cheeks and decided just to come straight out with it. ‘I’m sorry. It’s having you around,’ he tried to explain. ‘It’s … distracting. I’m beginning to miss things. I can’t afford to miss things.’

‘Such as?’

‘The sailing knot and the river – I shouldn’t … wouldn’t have missed that.’

‘And you’re blaming me?’ Anna asked, though she didn’t sound accusing.

‘Not blaming you … it’s not your fault. It’s down to me, I know, but having you here all the time, seeing you all the time, is distracting. I try to not let it be, but I can’t.’

‘I thought we’d dealt with this,’ she told him.

‘Had we?’ he asked. ‘Really? We agreed it would have been the wrong thing to do, for both of us, but we didn’t … solve anything.’

‘I’m not a mystery to be solved, Sean, like one of your cases. Is that what’s distracting you – that I’m an unsolved case?’

He looked at her unsmilingly for a long while. ‘Yes,’ he answered honestly. ‘Yes it is. Perhaps it would have been better for both of us if we had, you know … got it out the way. We’re both grown-ups – we could have dealt with it.’

She moved closer so he could still hear her now quiet words. ‘No it wouldn’t. We both know it. We all need some things to anchor us in this life, otherwise we can begin to drift. Some of us would simply drift along until we hit land again, where we can rebuild, start over. But some of us would drift to dark places – places we might never find our way back from. You’re a danger junkie, Sean. You need it to stay alive, to be who you are. For you, living on the edge is a necessity, not a rarity. But you can’t live your private life like you live your professional one – it has to be stable or you might just fall off that edge you like to be on so much.’

His startling blue eyes sparkled and danced as he deciphered the meaning of her words and their implications, knowing that if she knew how deep into his past the darkness ran she might have even worked out that perhaps, secretly, for reasons even he didn’t understand, he wanted to destroy the only truly stable thing in his life. He carried the guilt that all the abused carried, making him doubt whether he even deserved to have a loving family. Maybe he did want to cast himself adrift, free from the responsibility of giving and receiving love – free to stop trying to control the darkness inside of him – to finally allow himself to spiral downwards until he crashed and burnt. If Anna truly knew his past, his childhood, then she might understand that for him every day he managed to appear normal was like another day for an alcoholic of not taking a drink. But the temptation, the thought of slipping into the warmth of who he perhaps really was, would never leave him.

‘You all right?’ Anna asked.

‘Yeah. Fine,’ he lied. ‘So what do we do now?’

‘We forget it ever happened and get on with our jobs.’

‘As simple as that?’

‘We have no other choice.’

‘No,’ he agreed, still troubled by his own thoughts. ‘I don’t suppose we do.’

‘Good,’ she told him. ‘Perhaps we can start with you telling me if you’ve had any new ideas, any insights as to what the killer may do next.’

‘Insights?’

‘Yes, Sean. Insights. It’s no secret between us that you have them. Remember?’

‘If you think I can tell you where and when he’s going to hit next then you’d be wrong.’

‘I know I would be. I don’t believe in psychics. Maybe you remember that too?’

‘Not really.’

‘But you must have some ideas. An imagination like yours doesn’t just stop working. It can’t.’

‘I know he’ll attack again,’ Sean admitted, ‘but so do you.’

‘In all probability, yes he will, for reasons we’ve already discussed, but perhaps there’s something else – something you haven’t told anybody else?’

‘Nothing solid,’ he told her. ‘Just loose ideas rattling around inside my head, nothing I can grasp hold of. Nothing that makes much sense.’

‘Try me.’

‘Look, I don’t want to overcomplicate something that’s already complicated enough. Last case we had I made my mind up too early and I was wrong. Evidence here says it’s a disgruntled member of the public getting some payback on the banks and that’s probably going to be exactly what he is, but …’

‘But what?’

‘But I want to keep an open mind. Just in case. I don’t want to get fooled again.’

‘You sure you don’t know something?’ Anna persisted. ‘I might be able to help. It is what I’m here for.’

‘Is it?’ Sean found himself asking, unsure of where his own suspicions had suddenly sprung from.

‘Of course,’ Anna told him. ‘Why else would I be here?’

He studied her hard before speaking, looking for the tiny telltale signs of a lie he’d seen thousands of times before. ‘Forget it,’ he finally answered. ‘I’m being an idiot. Forget everything. I’m glad you’re here. We’ll make it work.’

‘Good,’ she replied, ‘and thank you.’

‘Don’t thank me yet,’ he warned her, his friendly tone and slight smile hiding what his eyes had seen in her face. ‘Remember we’re only at the beginning. There’s plenty more to come from our boy yet. Of that, I’m certain.’

Georgina Vaughan pulled on her expensive training shoes, checked her iPhone was strapped to her bicep properly, selected the music she wanted to listen to, took a couple of deep breaths and then opened the door leading to the communal area of her flat in one of Parsons Green’s Victorian redbrick mansion blocks. She skipped down the three flights of wide stairs and exited the building into Favart Road. She enjoyed the spring sunshine on her face as she ran, turning into the King’s Road, dodging past the late afternoon commuters and shoppers until she was able to turn into Peterborough Road and jog towards a small park known as South Park. She never noticed the white panel van that pulled away from the kerb as she left her building, nor the same van overtaking her in the King’s Road as she headed towards the park where she always went running.

She was enjoying the relatively fresh air of the park, the steady pace of her feet moving to the rhythm of the music that deadened all other sounds, but she was aware the evening was growing late and the sun was moving quickly from the sky. She didn’t want to be in the park when darkness descended, so she picked up her pace, the solid tarmac of the park’s path turning to the loose gravel of the parking area as she approached the exit.

As she drew closer to the gates she began to feel strangely unnerved, eager to rejoin the streets outside where she’d be back amongst other people. She increased her speed, but the entrance seemed to grow further and further away.

She would have screamed if he’d given her a chance, but his hand hit her hard in the throat as he stepped out from behind the tree and grabbed her, pulling her behind it and slamming her against the rough trunk, her head banging hard and dislodging her headphones. For a second he released her throat and ripped her iPhone from her bicep. He threw it on the ground, smashing it with the heel of his black boot before he again gripped her around the throat hard enough to stop almost any sound escaping. For the first time he showed her the knife, no more than six inches in length including the handle, but lethal looking, bladed on one side, with teeth on the other. Her eyes grew wide with terror, her mind already assuming rape was the least she was about to suffer, until she heard the strange electronic voice that came from the box attached to his chest, his mouth moving only slightly behind the ski-mask, the mirrored sunglasses showing nothing but the reflection of her own fear.

‘I’m not here to hurt you. I’m not going to rape you,’ the mechanical voice explained as he moved the knife closer to her face, ‘but if you try to escape, struggle or make a sound I will kill you, here and now. Do you understand?’

She tried to speak, but he squeezed her throat tight and held the knife to his own hidden lips and shushed her, the voice distorter making it sound like the ocean.

‘No sound. Remember?’

She managed to nod as the tears began to roll down her face. Her brain scrambled to remember why this creature with the monstrous voice seemed so familiar, her mind rewinding back through conversations she’d had with colleagues and friends, back through news items she’d seen, until it reached the memory of watching the man being hanged live on the Internet – the Your View Killer.

Panic threatened to overwhelm her and make her pass out and she welcomed the promise of oblivion, but suddenly she was moving, being pushed and dragged across the loose gravel, her legs intermittently giving way, his strength obvious as he held her weight without breaking pace or breathing hard. And all the time the knife was held against her throat, its sharpness causing stinging cuts every time she slipped, until they reached a white panel van waiting in the car park. He slid the side door open and pushed her inside then took hold of her right arm and twisted it painfully behind her, making her call out in pain as he strapped her at the wrist into a leather buckled restraint. Within seconds he’d strapped her other wrist into an identical restraint. She twisted to look into the face she couldn’t see and spoke despite his demands.

‘Please,’ was all she could say. He just placed his finger to his lips and again made the sound of the ocean, grabbing her by the feet and pulling her legs straight before attaching further straps to her ankles. She was about to try one last time to plead with him to let her go, but the thick, sticky tape plastered across her mouth took the chance away. Daylight turned to blackness as a thick hood was pulled over her head.

‘Time to go,’ he told her and slid the panel door closed, leaving her strapped in the darkness of the back of the van with nothing but terror and the smell of her own urine seeping between her legs.

Sean sat quietly in his office trying to concentrate on the latest influx of information reports. Anna was only a few feet away, studying her own files when suddenly the calm was shattered as Bishop burst into the room, his eyes wild with excitement. He waited a second until both were looking at him before speaking in an almost frantic tone.

‘He’s back on. He’s back on Your View,’ he managed to tell them. ‘I’ve got it up on the laptop next door.’

Sean was already up and moving. ‘How long?’ he asked.

‘Seconds,’ Bishop answered. ‘My alert went off and there he was.’

Sean pushed past him, calling out to Donnelly and Sally who were in the main office checking on the other detectives. ‘Our man’s online,’ he told them. ‘Get in here now. Everyone else,’ he shouted across the office, ‘get Your View online any way you can.’ He turned back to Bishop as he entered Sally and Donnelly’s office. ‘What’s he doing?’

‘Nothing,’ Bishop answered, resuming his seat in front of the laptop with Sean now looking over his shoulder. ‘All we’re getting so far is this.’ He pointed to the screen where a woman dressed in exercise gear was tied to a heavy wooden chair with a hood over her head. Sean watched her wriggling and mumbling under the hood. By now Sally, Donnelly and Anna were also crammed into the room peering at the small screen. ‘The suspect hasn’t shown himself yet.’

‘Why?’ Sally asked.

‘Because he’s waiting,’ Sean told her.

‘For what?’ Donnelly asked.

‘For his audience to gather,’ Sean explained. ‘So the trial can begin.’ They all inadvertently cast their eyes to the on-screen view counter that showed the number of viewers growing rapidly as news of the Your View Killer’s latest appearance spread across the Internet and the digital world – live texts, emails, Twitter, Facebook all spreading the word like an electronic wildfire that played directly into the puppet-master’s hands.

‘Bastard took a woman,’ Donnelly said. ‘I never expected him to take a woman.’

‘Neither did I,’ Sean admitted.

‘Says more about you two than it does him,’ Sally told them. ‘Plenty of rich women out there too, you know.’

‘No,’ Sean explained. ‘It’s just this was as much about his wounded male pride as anything. That doesn’t tally with killing a woman.’

‘He hasn’t killed her yet,’ Anna pointed out. Before Sean could answer a dark figure appeared on the screen standing next to the hooded woman before the shot focused in solely on his hidden face.

‘That’s clever,’ Bishop told them. ‘He must have rigged something up so he can control the camera’s lens remotely.’

‘Or someone else is operating the camera,’ Sally pointed out.

‘Either way it’s different,’ Sean explained. ‘Why change the way he films it?’

‘Practising?’ Anna suggested. ‘Honing his art?’

The disturbing electronic voice began to speak.

‘I see you’ve gathered in greater numbers now, my brothers and sisters. Good. Only together can we defeat the greedy vultures who rule over us. Only together can we change our unfair and unjust society where hard-working people can be cast out of their jobs and homes to save the riches of the rich – the power of the powerful. Only together will we ever be listened to. Only through strength in numbers will we succeed where governments and unions have failed us – us, the common people.’

‘The speeches sound prepared,’ Sally observed. ‘Like he’s reading off an autocue.’

‘Maybe he is.’ Sean considered it was possible.

‘Oh he’s definitely a pissed-off lefty,’ Donnelly insisted.

‘Appears so,’ Sean agreed. ‘The second that hood comes off I want people trying to identify her.’

‘Will do,’ Donnelly told him and headed into the main office to assign the task.

‘And now the wealthy and powerful who own the British media have unwittingly brought us together in our tens of thousands with their coverage of these events. What do the fools call me – “The Your View Killer”. What could be a more ridiculous name? Naming me at all undermines the seriousness of what I’m trying to achieve, but if they help to bring us together, then so be it.’

‘He’s no idiot,’ Sally stated. ‘Sounds … educated.’

‘Doesn’t mean he’s not insane,’ Sean pointed out.

‘Not long ago I saw a jackdaw flying low in the sky, carrying something in its beak – its next meal, I assumed. Suddenly a huge crow appeared from nowhere and began to attack the jackdaw, stabbing at it with its sharp beak, grabbing at it with its talons, trying to take the very food from its mouth. But just when I was sure the jackdaw would lose its hard-fought prize, a hundred jackdaws rose from the trees and swept into the sky, communicating with each other in a thousand different sounds, mobbing the fat crow, barely letting its wings beat until they’d driven it from the sky. The fat crow was defeated by the might of the many and the determined. That is what we must be if we are to defeat the fat crows that infest our skies. We must become as the jackdaws are – then nothing can stop us.’

‘He’s completely mad,’ Sally offered as they watched the film return to a wider shot, the killer’s arm stretching out and ripping the hood his new victim’s head, making her turn away and squeeze her eyes tightly shut. ‘Christ,’ Sally spoke again. ‘She’s so young.’

‘What is she?’ Donnelly asked. ‘One of those young website millionaires you hear about?’

The man tore the tape from the woman’s mouth, making her scream out in pain.

‘You bastard. Please. Why are you doing this to me?’

‘I’m doing it for the people,’ he told her in the cold electronic voice. ‘This is for the people.’

Mark Hudson was happy to be alone in the bedroom of his council flat in Birmingham, glad his moronic mates weren’t around to spoil his enjoyment. This one was even better than the last – he’d taken a woman this time and a young, attractive one too. Hudson licked his lips at the thought of what the man might do to her. He wanted to see her humiliated before he killed her and he was sure his new hero would kill her – after he’d had a bit of fun. He and the Your View Killer were cut from the same stone, he was sure of it. He knew the man on his screen wouldn’t disappoint him.

‘Come on,’ he urged the man. ‘Fucking do her, man. Do her.’

‘Open your eyes.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Open your eyes or I’ll cut your eyelids off.’

‘Please, I haven’t done anything to you.’

‘Open your eyes.’

Hudson watched as the woman slowly opened her eyes and then tried to lean as far away as she could from the hooded man.

‘Yeah. Do as you’re told, bitch.’

‘You are Georgina Vaughan, yes?’

‘How … how d’you know my name?’

‘That’s not important. What are important are your crimes against the people.’

‘I haven’t committed any crimes against anyone.’

‘Wrong. You work for Glenhope Investments, correct?’

‘I’m just a project manager.’

‘The same Glenhope Investments that needed a government bail-out to stop it from going out of business, while at the same time continued to pay its employees grotesque bonuses.’

‘I don’t know anything about that.’

‘Liar. You’re a liar and a whore to money and wealth, and soon you will be judged for your crimes.’

‘You’re so dead,’ Hudson said out loud, an ugly smile on his face, eyes frenzied with excitement. ‘You’re dead, bitch.’

Gabriel Westbrook stood leaning over his desk as he watched the hooded man preaching to his audience on the screen – an audience the live viewer count put at over one hundred thousand and growing. He sensed little sympathy from the watching public for the plight of his fellow financial sector worker, imagining them as a mob, stalking through the City looking for more victims to lynch. Already he sensed an uneasiness spreading across the City. Nothing too serious yet, but people were beginning to talk and the talk wasn’t positive. Now, with a second victim taken, fears would increase and spread. Not a wholesale panic, but it didn’t take mass hysteria to cause serious financial problems – just a sustained shift in momentum. With the threat of more victims to come, some people would start to choose to take their holidays early, in the hope that by the time they returned the madman would have been caught. Others would take time off sick and many would no longer be comfortable working late – keen to hurry home in the hours of daylight. The streets of the City would hardly be deserted, but the country’s financial heart was like a giant old tanker relentlessly carving its way across oceans, driven by perpetual forward momentum. Were the balance to be tipped, no matter how slightly, momentum would be lost and it would be a long hard process before the huge financial institutions once again reached full speed ahead, by which time billions would have been lost. In a time when the sector was still recovering from its first self-made crisis, the effects would cause significant damage – maybe even more.

He wanted to turn off his computer, but somehow couldn’t.

‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘You are part of the organization that made our government steal the people’s money so you could survive – money that you were supposed to give back to the people, but didn’t. Instead you invested it in property, African gold mines, Australian mineral mines, the vast profits of which you shared amongst yourselves like pigs at the trough while decent, hard-working people lost their jobs, their houses and their life savings. And yet you say you’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Westbrook shouted at his screen. ‘Someone needs to stop you – someone needs to shut you up, before you start a bloody civil war.’

‘You should watch this,’ Phil Taylor called out to his wife Cathy. ‘This man’s talking a lot of sense.’

‘I don’t want to listen to that lunatic,’ she called back to her husband who sat in the small office-cum-storage room.

‘Don’t you want to know what those bastards did with the money they stole from us?’

‘Stole from us?’ she questioned, continuing their inter-room conversation from the kitchen. ‘I was under the impression bad debtors put the business under. That and you overstretching.’

‘Yeah, well, if the banks had just lent me a bit more we would have been all right.’

‘Sure about that, are you?’ she doubted him.

‘Whatever,’ he mumbled quietly to himself, eager to get back to the hooded man on the screen.

‘Nothing wrong indeed.’

‘I swear. I haven’t.’

Taylor watched as the man walked behind the woman and rested his hands on her shoulders, making her squirm and twist as she tried to see what he was going to do.

‘I’m going to ask you a question now and I want you to answer it honestly. If you lie I will know and your punishment will be severe. Do you understand?’

‘No. No I don’t understand. I just want to go home.’

‘Answer the question honestly and perhaps you will.’

‘OK. OK, I’ll answer the question as honestly as I can.’

The man took a deep breath, the voice distorter making it sound like a rush of wind.

‘Have you received any bonuses since the banking crisis? A simple question.’

‘OK – yes, yes I have, but it’s not what you think.’

The man straightened and took another deep breath, as if he’d unearthed a great truth.

‘How much? How much each year?’

‘I can’t remember, exactly.’

‘Try. How much?’

‘About . . . about forty thousand pounds.’

‘Forty thousand pounds.’

‘But it was in shares. I couldn’t even spend them. They were just . . . just paper.’

‘And your salary, how much do you get paid each year?’

‘I told you – I’m not rich. I’m just a project manager.’

‘How much and don’t lie to me.’

She slumped in the chair.

‘About ninety thousand pounds.’

‘Ninety thousand pounds and forty thousand bonus, while others can barely feed their families. Shame on you. Shame on you.’

‘D’you hear that?’ Taylor called out. ‘Hundred and thirty grand a year for being a bloody project manager.’ His wife didn’t answer. ‘Greedy bitch,’ he whispered. ‘Bet you weren’t thinking about people like me when you were celebrating your fat City bonus. No – of course you weren’t. None of you were.’

Father Alex Jones had received the text message he’d been dreading informing him that the Your View Killer was back live on the Internet. He sat at the altar of his empty church in Dulwich and logged onto Your View on his old iPad and soon found the images he feared, but looked for anyway – the hooded man with the deeply unsettling distorted voice standing next to a terrified-looking young woman. He’d prayed as the man had preached, pleading with God to touch the man’s heart with mercy while begging for the woman’s safety, but so far neither prayer seemed to have been answered.

‘The people have heard enough. It’s time for them to judge. Time for them to decide whether they find you guilty or not guilty.’ The man’s face grew larger on the screen. ‘I know what they’re thinking – that they can stop me talking to the people. Think they can stop the people having their justice by shutting down this website. But if they do her fate will be more terrible than they can possibly imagine. The people will not be silenced. I will not be silenced.’

Father Jones dropped to his knees in front of the altar, pressed his hands together, closed his eyes and began to pray. ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come …’

‘Get me someone from Your View on the line,’ Sean told anyone who was listening. ‘The more senior the better.’

‘D’you think they might be trying to pull the plug?’ Donnelly asked.

‘We can’t take the chance they are,’ Sean warned him.

‘I’m on it,’ Donnelly told him and grabbed the nearest phone as the others continued to watch the pictures coming from the small screen.

‘The people are beginning to vote. Soon we’ll know if this whore of wealth has been found guilty by you, the people. I have nothing else to say while we wait for the judgement.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Sally exclaimed. ‘What must she be thinking – tied to that chair by this psychopath, waiting for a bunch of voyeurs to pass judgement?’

‘She’ll be thinking a lot of things,’ Sean told her. ‘None of them good. But wasting time worrying about that’s not going to bring us any closer to finding him, and stopping him. How you doing, Bob?’

‘Getting closer and closer. The longer he stays online the closer I’ll get.’

‘How close are you now?’ Sean asked impatiently.

‘He’s definitely transmitting from the southeast,’ Bishop told him. ‘If he keeps this up it’s only a matter of time before we have him.’

‘The southeast?’ Sean didn’t hide his disappointment. ‘Can’t you do better than that?’

‘Yes, but it’ll take time,’ Bishop explained. ‘We’re not just trying to track a mobile phone signal. This is far more complicated. But we’re linked into the Internet Crime Unit’s tracking software. We’ll get him soon enough.’

‘So long as he doesn’t ditch the computer he’s using, or move to another location,’ Sean reminded him. Bishop just shrugged, concentrating on the computer in front of him. Donnelly grabbed Sean’s attention, holding the corded phone out as far as he could for Sean to take.

‘Nick Poole on the phone, boss. CEO of Your View.’

Sean stepped towards him and took the phone. ‘DI Corrigan speaking. I assume you’re watching this.’

‘I am,’ Poole answered.

‘I’m just calling to make sure you have no intention of pulling the plug.’

‘Listen,’ Poole told him nervously, ‘I know I gave Assistant Commissioner Addis assurances that we wouldn’t take this whole terrible business offline, but this is getting too much. We can’t be dictated to by this lunatic. I don’t want to be a part of this any more.’

‘You heard what he said,’ Sean snapped down the phone. ‘You pull the plug – you seal her fate. Let it play out.’

‘And I can tell people you made us keep the site live?’ Poole asked. ‘We can tell the media it was the police’s idea?’

‘If you want to use my name to cover your arse then use it. Just don’t shut this down.’

There was a slight pause before Poole spoke again. ‘OK, but it’s your call. Your responsibility,’ Poole insisted.

‘Fine,’ Sean told him with barely disguised contempt and hung up.

‘Problem?’ Donnelly asked.

‘Not now,’ Sean answered and moved to better see the screen, the hooded man still standing silently next to his victim. ‘You any closer?’ he asked Bishop.

‘A little, but not much,’ he answered.

‘Quiet a second,’ Sally interrupted. ‘I think he’s about to say something.’ The group watched as the man moved out of camera shot.

‘Look at the voting count,’ Sally told them. ‘People are voting not guilty.’

‘Looks fifty–fifty to me,’ Donnelly disagreed.

‘Yeah, but with the first victim it was an overwhelming majority finding him guilty,’ Sally explained. ‘This is a split jury – so what does he do now?’

‘I think we’re about to find out,’ Sean silenced them as the hooded man came back into view.

‘The people have voted. It appears you cannot decide whether her guilt is clear. I am disappointed. Too many of you have allowed yourselves to be seduced by her femininity and false tears. But it’s not your fault. The rich and powerful have used their media empires and influence to brainwash many of you over decades and decades – pumping you full of the news they want you to hear as well as mind-destroying soap operas and reality shows to ensure your misplaced sentimentality.

‘However, your decision is your decision …’

‘He’s gonna let her go,’ Sally said, sounding desperate for it to be true.

‘but I cannot ignore the thousands who have seen through her disguise and recognized her guilt.’

‘No. No. I haven’t done anything. They see that.’

‘Brothers and sisters – this is no time for mercy. This is a war: a war we must win or forever be trodden under the foot of oppression, growing weaker and weaker as they grow ever more powerful and wealthy. We must be strong, must be prepared to act against our gentle nature and strike back when we are wronged.’

They watched as he again disappeared from camera shot before quickly returning and moving behind his victim, holding a set of hair clippers up for the cameras to see.

‘My God,’ Sally said through clenched teeth, ‘what’s he going to do to her?’ No one answered as they held their collective breath.

‘She has humiliated us – the people. Laughing at us as she climbs the corporate ladder to unimaginable riches – fucking us at every turn, her vanity her shield. Now let her feel the bitter sting of humiliation.’

The clippers buzzed as he grabbed her by her long ponytail and scythed it off in one motion, allowing her head to fall forward as it came away. Sean closed his eyes for a second at the sound of her sobbing, saddened by her humiliation but relieved she was suffering no worse. His relief turned rapidly to extreme anxiety as the hooded man grabbed what remained of her hair and yanked her head backwards, exposing her throat.

‘Shit,’ he muttered involuntarily, imagining the clippers being replaced with a razor-sharp knife sliding across her taut skin. Instead the man gripped her in a headlock and began to saw great chunks of hair from her scalp, leaving multiple cuts and grazes. Finally he stood aside, leaving the victim bowed in her chair, looking down at her own hair gathered at her feet.

‘Bastard,’ Sally said loudly, her eyes glassy and reddening. No one disagreed.

‘Humiliation enough? Perhaps. But hair will grow and her vanity will return.’

Once again he stepped out of view. ‘Christ, not more,’ Sally pleaded as the man returned holding a relatively small knife. He stood facing the victim, the knife disappearing from view, shielded by his own body as her pleas screamed from the computer’s tinny speakers.

‘Please, no. Please don’t kill me. Please.’

The screaming seemed to last for an age as his elbows and shoulders jerked side to side and up and down, until at last he stepped aside so the world could see Georgina Vaughan slumped in the chair, dead or unconscious, her running top and sports bra split up the middle revealing her small breasts. In the centre of her chest blood seeped from the eight-inch-tall dollar sign he’d carved into her skin. The camera focused in on the wound before pulling back to show a wider shot. The man faced the camera, breathing hard after his exertions, struggling to regain his breath.

‘Is she dead?’ Sally asked, her voice still shaking.

‘No,’ Sean answered without conviction. ‘I think she’s just passed out.’

‘Best thing for her,’ Donnelly added. ‘Fuck. That was hard to watch.’

‘We’ll be watching more if we don’t find him,’ Sean soberly reminded them.

‘Her pain and suffering were necessary. She will live, but this is war. If the rich and powerful fail to heed this warning, next time I will not be so merciful.’

Sean and the others were in a state of shock at what they’d witnessed as the man put a hood back over the victim’s head and walked from sight. A second later the link went dead.

‘He’s gone,’ Bishop broke their silence. ‘The link’s been cut.’

‘D’you get any closer?’ Sean asked.

‘A bit. He’s in the Metropolitan area or very close to it,’ Bishop explained. ‘Which means we have to find his signal in amongst millions of others. Best bet is he’s broadcasting from a rural area somewhere just outside London.’

‘Could he know we’re trying to trace him?’ Sean asked.

‘I would assume he’d assume we would be.’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ Sean explained. ‘I mean, could he somehow see how close we’re getting to him? Could he measure that somehow?’

Bishop sucked air in through his teeth like a mechanic presenting a large quote. ‘Well, he’d have to have some state-of-the-art software – very difficult-to-get-hold-of stuff – and then he’d have to know how to use it. It’s possible, but unlikely. We mainly use this stuff to track paedophiles grooming kids online. Those bastards know their business, but they still never seem to see us coming.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ Sean told him before turning to the others. ‘All right. We’re all feeling pretty shit right now and so will the rest of the team. I need you to get them out there doing whatever they can to find this fucker. Keep them busy. I want them to remember what they’ve seen, but not dwell on it. They’ve all got jobs to do. There’ll be witnesses we haven’t found yet and we need to intensify our efforts to find this van. Let’s have every white Renault Trafic van in London stopped and checked if we have to. If the driver seems even a little strange then have them arrested and held until we can take a look at them. And check on number plate thefts too. Anyone who’s reported having their number plate stolen within the last few months we need to know about it – all vehicles, not just vans. And this damn white room. Somebody somewhere might have recognized it. Let’s pump the public for information – let them know just because they might know where it isn’t doesn’t mean we do. Some people assume we know everything while others just don’t want to get involved. We need people to start coming forward with information. Maybe someone out there even knows who he is. Maybe they’re covering for him. Make sure we’re pricking their conscience. An anonymous phone call with a name could break this whole thing open.’

‘What about the equipment he uses to disguise his voice?’ Sally asked.

‘Looks homemade,’ Sean reminded her, ‘but he may have had to buy some of the component parts. If we’re lucky he’s not competent with electronics and paid someone to put it together for him, although I doubt it. Get Summers or Jesson to check it out from all angles anyway. Find out what shops sell this kind of stuff and start phoning around – see if someone remembers dealing with anyone they thought were a little off and check for CCTV. You never know your luck. As soon as I think of anything else I’ll let you know.’

Sally and Donnelly nodded and headed off into the main office to rally the team. Sean tapped Bishop on the shoulder. ‘And you just keep doing whatever it is you do.’ He felt a presence at the door and turned to see an ashen-faced Addis standing, staring at him.

‘A word, Inspector,’ Addis insisted. ‘Your office will do.’ Addis spun on his heels and led the way, Sean following without enthusiasm. ‘Take a seat if you like,’ Addis told him calmly, but menacingly. Sean took him up on his offer and slumped in his own chair behind his desk. Addis remained standing, looking at the door Sean had left open behind him. ‘You may want to close that,’ he told Sean, ‘unless you want your entire team to hear what I have to say.’

‘I have no secrets from them,’ Sean lied, hoping the open door might curb Addis’s words.

‘Really? Perhaps you should,’ Addis told him, moving on before Sean could ask what he meant. ‘I assume you’ve just watched the same footage on Your View as I had to watch. For God’s sake, Inspector – a young bloody woman this time – one even the public voted to spare. The media will crucify us over this and frankly I don’t blame them. Why don’t we have anyone in custody yet? Why is this madman still running around out there wreaking havoc across London?’

‘With all due respect,’ Sean cut in, ‘it’s only been a matter of days and this is only the second victim he’s taken. But we’re making progress. We’re getting closer and closer to tracing wherever it is he’s broadcasting from.’