The Advent Killer (17 page)

‘Chief, can I in—?’

‘Not now, Harris,’ Hawkins snapped at the young sergeant. ‘Talk to Yasir.’

Heads had turned as she and Mike had entered the main operations room at Hendon, and the noise level had dropped notably in response, but Anton Harris had been the only officer stupid enough to break their stride.

‘Sorry, ma’am.’ Harris backed away.

‘Bloody temps,’ Hawkins said under her breath. Westminster Morgue may have been cold and putrid, but at least the inmates didn’t interrupt.

They made it to her office and closed the door on the undoubted gossip. Simon Hunter turned towards them from the window, while Frank Todd looked up from his seat in front of Hawkins’ desk. Hunter carefully replaced a framed Community Service Award on the windowsill.

‘Gentlemen,’ she said. ‘Thanks for coming.’

The air smelled stale as she moved into the room, probably due to the fact that her office door had been permanently closed for almost two weeks. So far she had resisted the temptation to change the name plate on it for one that said: ‘Fuck Off’.

She walked around the desk and sat, checking that the window blinds were blocking the view to and from the
main office. Mike occupied the seat next to Todd’s, while Hunter remained standing.

Hawkins shifted, trying to get comfortable in the high-backed leather chair she had worked so hard for, realizing after a moment that the seat itself wasn’t the cause of her discomfort. She sighed, aware that rank meant the silence was hers to break.

‘OK,’ she leaned forwards, linking her hands on the desk, ‘let’s not prevaricate. You all know what happened to Connor, and I don’t like deaths on my watch, especially when we’re talking about a well-liked and respected colleague.’

She paused to make eye contact with each of her audience. Todd’s face was taut; Hunter’s blank. Mike nodded.

She continued, ‘Yes, we nearly caught the guy, but yesterday turned into a second-rate joke, and those above us with arse-covering options are beginning to take them. Unfortunately,
we
don’t have anywhere to hide. Sooner or later, one of the victims’ families will go to the Complaints Commission, and once that happens they’ll all be at it, which means this Sunday might be our last chance to stop Nemesis,’ She paused to emphasize the point. ‘I purposely kept this meeting to senior level so we can talk candidly, and come up with a decent briefing for the team. We’ll present that later on – the gossip is so strong out there at the moment that most of them wouldn’t be listening anyway. And I’m sure that by now you’re all on first-name terms with the reporters camped outside, which means the rest of our people are, too, and the last thing we want is another leak. So we’ll do an after-action review of yesterday, and then we’ll talk about next moves, OK?’

The men nodded. She began by reciting her own experience of the previous night. Her description started with the name on one of the transcripts that led them to the house in Old Queen Street, included details of Connor’s death, and culminated in the chase through St James’ Park.

The others gave their accounts, too, with everyone taking notes. If nothing else, it looked like all their reports would tally. But one question still bothered Hawkins.

She put down her notebook on the desk in front of her. ‘What I really can’t understand is why Eddie didn’t get a shot off. His gun was drawn, but he lost to a guy with inferior weaponry. Why?’

Todd interrupted. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. What if the killer only opened the door a crack, and fired those projectile things through the gap? Connor wouldn’t have pulled the trigger unless he was sure. It’s part of their training, like.’

‘It’s possible, Frank.’ Hunter took over. ‘But I wonder if there’s another explanation. Has anyone checked whether Eddie ever discharged his weapon outside a training environment?’

Hawkins glanced around. No.

‘Well,’ Hunter said, ‘there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that some officers – and it’s impossible to tell which ones before they’re faced with the real thing – freeze in live situations like that. A lot of us just aren’t capable of murder.’

Unpalatable as Hunter’s theory was, Hawkins had to admit it made sense. Mike offered to trace Connor’s duty
records once they were done. Then she asked Todd for an update on subsequent events.

‘Right.’ Todd screwed his face up and stared at his notes as if he hadn’t written them. ‘As you might have expected, SOC haven’t come up with a positive on prints or DNA from the scene yet, although they took a lot of stuff. I’ve got printouts of all the evidence from the house.’

He reached into a worn Newcastle United folder and handed out sheets from it. ‘Tag numbers are next to each item. The list isn’t complete yet; there are a few items outstanding.’

Hawkins drew breath, but he held up a hand. ‘I’ll be on the phone to the lab every half hour. Should be able to let you know about the gun later today.’

‘Soon as you can, please, Frank. What about witnesses?’

‘Neighbours say they stopped being surprised by blokes turning up at the victim’s place ages ago. Nobody saw the killer arrive, but most of the street heard the shots. He was at full pelt after that, obviously, so descriptions are pretty limp – certainly nothing you didn’t see for yourself. And the two lads near the steps – we interviewed them, but don’t get too excited about the photofit; they’d both had a skinful. Would’ve been lucky to recognize each other at the time.’

Hawkins rolled her eyes at Mike. ‘CCTV?’

‘Tapes are on the server if you want a look,’ Todd went on. ‘But we couldn’t make out any detail.’

She held up her palms. ‘So we’ve got nothing new – again?’

‘Well, almost nothing.’ Frank made an uncharacteristic attempt at a positive tone. ‘We know Charles Anderton
was home alone all night Saturday. No phone calls in or out. And De Angelo’s been tagged. He spent the weekend at home, too.’

Hawkins sighed. ‘OK, Frank, cancel the surveillance on Anderton. These aren’t contract killings; we’re just wasting resources.’ She presided over silence for a moment. ‘Anything else?’ The quiet eventually prompted her to bring up her own mildly desperate suggestion.

‘OK, so we know that Summer Easton was a …’ She looked at Mike, her hand circling. ‘What’s that word her mum used on the phone earlier?’

‘Psychometrist.’

‘Yes, contacting the dead and all that stuff. Well one of the uniforms, Katrina Wilson, found something in her celebrity magazine about Jessica Anderton having hired a personal astrologer. And now I’m wondering whether there’s a link. I know it’s not much, but we’ll kick ourselves if there turns out to be something in it.’

She turned to Todd. ‘Frank, get a couple of the guys to look into connections the previous victims had with anything, you know,
spiritual
. Tarot cards, palm reading, the lot.’

‘Right-oh.’ Todd straightened.

She addressed Mike. ‘And it should go without saying, but I want Summer Easton’s past torn to pieces. It won’t be pleasant for the family, but there’s a link here somewhere. This killer doesn’t do casual; every detail is planned, so I just don’t believe the victims’ identities aren’t significant. Tell the guys,’ she waved a hand at the main office, ‘the next person who says the word
random
is in charge of filing reports for a month, OK?’

Maguire nodded.

She turned to Hunter. ‘So, any helpful footnotes to add to your profile on Nemesis? As you can see, we’re open to suggestions.’

‘Yeah.’ Hunter scratched his head through the mop of black hair. ‘Well, the good news is that I don’t think this case will be open for much longer. I believe Nemesis is building towards something, and unless your people intercept, his campaign is likely to end in one of two ways. Scenario one is that he’s close to achieving what he sees as the definitive act, as in one that he can’t top. In this case, after he’s made his ultimate kill, he may just disappear.’

‘Which would constitute finishing his crusade.’ Hawkins said.

‘You think,’ Todd interrupted, ‘he’ll just, like,
get it out of his system
? Are you joking?’

‘OK,’ Hunter said, ‘I admit scenario two is more likely. It could be that he’s on some kind of invincibility-trip, where he’ll see it as necessary to keep outdoing himself, to prove to everyone, including himself, that he literally
can
get away with murder. We see the pattern building if we look back. At first plain homicide is enough, but the next attack is more gruesome. Then he goes for a celebrity. After that, whether it was planned or not, he decides to kill right on the Met’s doorstep. Next … who knows?’

‘So.’ Todd wasn’t finished. ‘You’re telling us he’ll go on taking bigger risks each time. Until what, he gives himself an A-star and surrenders?’

Hunter smiled. ‘Uh, no, Detective, I don’t think he’ll do
that
, but there are elements of good news here. You see,
the bigger the thrill, the greater the risk. Inevitably, at some point, he’ll push his luck too far.’

‘His luck’s held pretty well up to now,’ Hawkins reminded him. ‘Anything we can do to speed this along?’

‘Actually there is.’ Hunter removed his glasses and began cleaning them with a corner of his crumpled white shirt. ‘You must appreciate the importance of last night’s events.’ He came forward and sat on the corner of Hawkins’ desk. ‘Nemesis is a lot easier to understand than he is to catch. His mind may seem unbalanced, downright deranged, when compared to a healthy mentality, perhaps, but he’s behaved logically and consistently so far. That means he should also continue to feel a range of emotion within his own capabilities. Last night, you will have shocked him, don’t doubt that. Not only did you come close to catching him, you forced him to kill in the interests of self-preservation. All his victims to that point had been meticulously chosen and screened. But Nemesis didn’t plan Sergeant Connor’s death any more than you did. He must have known it would become public knowledge, thereby adulterating the message he wants to broadcast.’

‘Is there a
point
on its way?’ Todd asked.

‘Sorry, Frank.’ Hunter didn’t rise. ‘In English, right? Last night you dented the man’s pride by messing with his schedule in ways he didn’t think you could. You’re going to see a reaction one way or another.’ He glanced at Hawkins, who tried to hide her apprehension behind a frown. Hunter went on. ‘You may have knocked his confidence by nearly taking him down, or you may have boosted it by failing. Either way, my advice would be to push even harder now.’

Mike beat Hawkins to the obvious question: ‘How?’

‘Well, it may not be the most elegant plan, Detective, but I think you should get back on TV and wind the guy up. Make a big deal of the fact you nearly got him. Tell him that next time you will. Start some proper rivalry; get him angry enough to make that mistake you’re waiting for. Let’s face it, he’s due one.’

‘What effect do you foresee?’ Hawkins asked.

‘Well.’ Hunter’s brow twitched. ‘The idea is to amplify whatever emotion you’ve sparked. If you’ve worried him he might ease off, but it’s much more likely he’ll want to exact revenge.’

‘On us.’

‘Yes.’

‘Put the rest of my team in the firing line?’ she snapped. ‘I won’t do that, sorry.’

‘I’m just working with what we have,’ Hunter said. ‘I wish you had got him last night, Detective, but I’m afraid you just made things personal.’

Hawkins closed her eyes, drumming the fingers of one hand on the windowsill of Mike’s car and massaging her temples with the other. Unfortunately, neither action was having any effect on her headache, or helping to organize her thoughts.

She was finding it difficult to remove Connor’s ashen features from her memory, especially when every conversation she’d had that day involved the DS in one way or another.

Mike had rung the police records department in Northern Ireland straight after their meeting. They’d called back just before she and Maguire left Becke House to confirm Hunter’s suspicion.

Eddie Connor had never fired his weapon in a live situation.

Sergeant Harris had managed to corner Hawkins on her way out. He’d been given the unpleasant task of introducing Connor’s swiftly enlisted replacement, Pete Walker.

More commonly known as ‘Tank’, thirty-four-year-old DS Walker was a former prison officer, six foot seven, with close-cropped, almost translucent blond hair. His sheer size was often enough to guarantee most people’s cooperation, whether they were being placed under arrest, or just under pressure to fill a gap in the Met’s rugby team.

His arrival was the first bit of good news Hawkins had
received for a while. She had worked with Walker when he was an inexperienced constable; he had sharp instincts, and he got things done.

Antonia now opened her eyes, just as Mike exited a small chemist’s shop opposite, followed by an elderly woman. He jogged across the road as the lady raised her walking stick.

‘Bloody Johnny-foreigners,’ she shouted. ‘Ruined our police force, you have.’

‘Time to split.’ Mike posted a paper bag and a bottle of water to Hawkins through her open window before heading round to the driver’s side.

‘Making friends with the locals?’ Hawkins asked, as he took his seat.

‘She saw me on the news.’ Mike fired the Range Rover’s engine and pulled away. ‘Says we should get our act together and stop all these murders.’

‘You can’t teach common sense like that.’ Hawkins removed a pack of tablets from the bag. ‘We should get her number.’

Mike watched her wash down three pills. ‘You know they’re max strength, right?’

‘I know.’ She popped a fourth blister. ‘But as things stand, I’m more interested in immediate solutions than long-term effects.’

They stopped at some lights, as Hawkins assessed the mucky remnants of the recent weather churned up by the Boxing Day traffic. Across the road a convertible Mercedes slewed sideways as it pulled away, its rear wheel drive system struggling in the slush. The snow had stopped falling the previous afternoon, but temperatures
still hadn’t risen sufficiently to melt what was left. Hence their decision to bring Mike’s 4×4.

She sensed him studying her before he spoke. ‘You sleep last night?’

‘I had my moments.’ She turned to look at him. ‘You?’

‘Same.’ He drew breath. ‘
Man
, this case is crazy.’ He paused. ‘But I can’t stop thinking about our, uh,
situation
from the other night.’

‘Oh.’ Hawkins was unsure of how to respond. There hadn’t been opportunity to discuss their relationship in the day and a half since their kiss. But now Mike had taken the initiative, she found herself remarkably unprepared.

‘My head’s all over the place, Mike. Do you mind if we get this thing with Eddie’s wife out the way first?’

‘Hey, bad timing, I get it. Forget I said anything.’

They drove on in silence.

Hawkins thought about picking the conversation up again, but then decided against it. There was just too much going on; one of them would end up saying the wrong thing. Instead, she leaned into the breeze rushing through the open passenger window, trying to appreciate the fresh air, thinking about her pending appointment.

Tara Connor had been so calm on the phone when they’d arranged today’s visit, but Hawkins was still dreading what would be their first meeting. Family Liaison officers had informed Eddie’s wife of his death yesterday morning, so at least she wouldn’t have to deliver the initial hammer blow. But spending Boxing Day returning the possessions of recently deceased husbands to their newly widowed partners was an appalling job by anyone’s standards.

What really turned her stomach, though, was the thought that if her superiors suspected incompetence – and more specifically
her
incompetence – was to blame for Eddie’s death, then surely it had crossed Tara Connor’s mind, too.

But she had no choice; avoiding this duty would only have made things worse. Hopefully the paracetamol would kick in before they arrived.

Mike said they needed fuel as he stopped opposite a garage, waiting for a line of cars to pass. He stuck his foot down to jump through the first gap in the traffic, blurring Hawkins’ vision as the Range Rover bumped onto the forecourt.

‘Thanks for that,’ she said, waving the pack of headache pills at him as they arrived at the pump.

‘Oops.’

She saw Mike wince at the price on the pump. ‘And don’t you
dare
complain about the cost of our fuel when this thing gets through petrol like a refinery fire.’

‘Not a word.’ Mike began clambering out. ‘Your dinky British cars are actually kind of cute, but to get a real engine, you gotta go large.’

She shook her head, making sure he saw; heard him laugh as he shut the door and moved around to fill the tank. They both knew that beneath her fake disdain she loved the 4×4, with its elegant cabin and effortless panache.

Hawkins heard the petrol pump kick in and let her head drop back. She tried taking her mind off Connor by focusing on the case, strategically positioning the team in her mind like chess pieces, the way she always had.

Ploughing ahead with active investigation, Barclay and
Yasir were chasing down the latest leads on Summer Easton’s boyfriends. She had Mike primed to incite Nemesis through the media, while Todd had been despatched to re-interview the previous victims’ friends and relatives, in case further information had resurfaced now the initial shock had passed. And a small army of officers, including new-boy Pete Walker, was positioned around St James’ Park, looking for undiscovered witnesses who might have seen something useful during Sunday morning’s chase.

They also had Simon Hunter.

The criminal psychologist had backtracked after claiming that Nemesis would want to take direct revenge on the police, although not sufficiently to set her mind at rest. His revised implication was that he hadn’t meant retribution of the physical, shot-in-the-face kind; rather that increased humiliation or dragging the Met’s name further into disrepute would be as likely a course of action for the killer now.

But Hunter’s reassessment felt more like an excuse made by someone who realized they had said too much. And none of it was moving them any nearer to an arrest. They needed that moment of inspiration, something that would bring them back into contention. Their current lines of enquiry felt insufficient, as if Nemesis had already thought of everything. Unless …

‘The chat room thing,’ she asked, as soon as Mike returned to the car. ‘Any progress?’

He pulled on his seatbelt. ‘Still zip.’

‘Keep going. We have to make the most of our decision not to warn the public. It’s a huge risk, but it’s only
going to work in our favour if we take advantage of the gamble. Think about it. From the public’s point of view, the case is falling to pieces around our ears, right?’

‘Right. So?’

‘So Nemesis gets the same story as everyone else – that’s why we kept it out of the papers in the first place. Even if he thought we were on to him, he’d have expected us to release the information by now, don’t you think?’

Mike kept his eyes on the road, nodding.

‘I’m amazed we managed it,’ she continued, ‘but only you and me, Anderton, Kirby-Jones, and a couple of the tech guys know about the chat room line of inquiry. If it was going to leak, it would have by now. By keeping it quiet this long, we may just have convinced Nemesis that we missed it altogether.’

‘OK, so what next?’

‘Well we know he isn’t afraid to come right into the city, so if you get anyone promising, try and arrange a meeting somewhere in the centre of town, where he won’t notice a few dozen undercovers.’

They discussed possible strategies until Mike turned off the main road into a housing estate. It was a well-presented modern development, almost too charming to host the coming encounter.

‘You ready for this?’ Mike asked. ‘I can go in if you want.’

‘No. I should do it.’

She hoisted the box of Eddie’s possessions from the foot well onto her lap, thankful there hadn’t been long enough for many personal items to congregate in his locker. Among them were two packs of playing cards, a
pair of Ted Baker shoes, and six king-size Mars bars. On top was a double picture frame, one side containing a picture of Eddie and a short, attractive woman that must be Tara. They were dressed in hiking gear at the top of a mountain, the angle suggesting a self-timer had been used to take the picture.

Hawkins looked away, composing herself. She turned her attention to the second picture. It showed Eddie holding a certificate in one hand and a rifle in the other, obviously around the time he graduated from firearms training.

But at this point, the Nemesis case barged its way back into her thoughts, as her phone rang.

She pulled her mobile out of her jacket and answered. It was Frank.

Without much in the way of lead up, Todd launched into the final inventory of items recovered from the house in Old Queen Street the previous day.

She shook her head as he reached the end of the list. Of course it wasn’t there; life just wasn’t that simple.

Connor’s gun hadn’t been found.