The Advent Killer (5 page)

‘
Antonia, it’s your mother. Tuesday morning. Your father says you’ve requested Christmas vouchers for that business-clothing store again. He’d be devastated if he knew I’d said anything, but I think he’s hoping this year that you’ll spend them on something a little more feminine. Truth be told, I think he’s concerned for your health, so please don’t stress him out by working right through the holiday period again. Your Auntie Joyce and
—’

Hawkins pressed the button on her mobile to delete the message. There were two things her mother would never realize: first, that everybody knew Alan Hawkins was so laidback that he probably hadn’t stressed about
anything
since 1978 – especially work-related clothing choices made by his eldest daughter – and second, that unless they apprehended this killer in the interim, for the first time in eight years, her daughter’s routine excuse about having to work on Christmas Day might actually be true.

Hawkins dropped the phone in her bag and entered the underground station, heading for Scotland Yard, reminding herself that despite their mildly patronizing nature, her mother’s awkward attempts to avoid any bad feeling were pretty harmless. Christine Hawkins was an ex-hospital ward sister and was therefore used to telling people what was best for them. And she’d been completely unable, once retired, to stop doing it.

Hawkins used her Oyster card at the barriers and arrived on the platform as the underground train drew in. Now, post morning rush hour, she found a seat straight away. Unfortunately, the carriage’s only other occupants’ subject of conversation was a little too close to home.

‘Well, I ain’t becoming a sad-case hermit just because there’s some psycho out there,’ the blonde girl said. ‘What are the odds, anyway?’

‘You’re
so
going to die now,’ the one with knitted leggings replied. ‘That’s like someone in a horror film saying “I’ll be right back”!’ They both snorted with laughter at her witticism.

Blondie and Leggings were seated opposite her. Neither had looked up from their mobile phones during the exchange. Their friend, Bangles, was toying with her heavily braided hair and vast pink earrings, watching herself in the reflection cast against the black void of the underground line beyond the window.

‘My mate Sophie lives right near where the second one got killed,’ Bangles told them. ‘She’s scared shitless, hardly left the house since it happened, and then she slags me off on Facebook ’cos I won’t go round there.’

‘She’s paranoid,’ Blondie sneered. ‘Everyone is. Stick with us and you’ll be fine. He only goes after girls on their own, anyway.’

The train began to slow for the next station, and the skinny-jean and leggings brigade moved towards the doors.

Hawkins watched them. For someone who spent a decent amount of her life trying to protect young people like those three, and who was old enough to be any of
their mothers, she felt not even the beginnings of a maternal impulse.

Another point of contention between her and Paul.

You’re thirty-five, Toni,
he would say.
The bloody job will still be there in a few years.

Patronizing bastard.

She checked herself, putting her bad mood down to the case and her resulting lack of sleep the previous night. She was still hoping that Hunter was wrong about the gore escalator thing, but that hadn’t saved her from lying awake. She’d ended up writing full-on development reviews for three of her team, just to keep her mind from generating worst-case scenarios about what the killer might present them with just five days from now.

On Christmas morning.

Even her eventual descent into sleep hadn’t provided shelter – she’d had a dream where she’d unwrapped her first Christmas present to find a severed head in an evidence bag.

She shuddered and turned to her paper as the train moved off again. Usually she ignored the media, but this morning every headline felt like a personal attack. There were no details about MOs or pictures of the bodies yet, but now that a third victim – and a semi-celebrity at that – was involved, the papers were full of nothing but.

The
Mirror
’s centre pages were headed
DEATH LOTTERY CLAIMS THIRD VICTIM
, above photographs of all the victims’ prettiest sides.

Glenis Ward had probably never been referred to as a stunner – certainly not in the last thirty years – but one industrious researcher had dredged the Ward family album
to produce a black and white shot of twenty-four-year-old Glenis wearing the runner-up sash in the Miss Butlin’s Ramsgate pageant. What a second Tuesday in July 1973 that must have been.

Stop it.

Adjacent was a picture of the second victim, Tess Underwood. At forty-eight, Tess’ relative youth and mildly more glamorous appearance afforded her a slightly larger photo. But what had obviously been one of those make-up-with-a-trowel-and-soft-focus beauty shoots couldn’t compete with the image occupying at least 80 per cent of the remaining space.

The tabloids rarely required an excuse to print pictures of women who looked even half as good as Jess Anderton, and now that she was both involved and unable to object, they were making red-top hay.

Unfortunately, the papers hadn’t been able to link the three women, either. Instead, the
Mirror
had gone for the random-target theory, printing a map of where the killer had struck already, along with supposedly helpful tips on how to reduce your chances of becoming a mark. Somehow their suggestions of self-imposed curfews, locking doors and joining the Neighbourhood Watch seemed of even less use than bracing yourself before being run over.

Hawkins turned the page.

The next spread was covered with images of the Andertons under the headline
DOWNING STREET’S SHATTERED FAIRYTALE
. There were shots of Charles and Jessica on their wedding day, with the prime minister, and at the Beckhams’ most recent party. But the main
picture of Charles Anderton leaving his office had been taken yesterday morning, shortly after Hawkins’ visit.

Anderton had returned earlier in the day to his constituency home direct from a convention in Bath. He apparently hadn’t been back to Hampstead or attempted to ring his wife since Saturday afternoon.

Hawkins had literally bumped into him on his way out of the door. He’d had a face so white that it was obvious her news was going to be no more than confirmation. A man didn’t make Culture Secretary without being well connected, and if the press had already known his wife was dead, it was no surprise that word had reached Anderton. But it hadn’t made her task any easier.

His pallid physiognomy had remained the same from the moment she’d arrived, along with a Community Support officer, officially to inform Anderton of his wife’s demise and to provide personal assurance that the Met would bring her killer to justice.

As soon as they had shaken hands, it had been obvious that the politician’s renowned charisma had died, at least temporarily, along with his wife. He seemed to have shrunk inside his tailored suit, his silver hair had started to look grey, and the creases of his face that usually spoke of great wisdom had only wanted to talk about the fact that he was approaching sixty.

Hawkins felt guilty now that her decision to break the news personally had been motivated by hope that he might be responsible for Jessica’s murder.

It was the first time she had ever seen a politician cry.

As Hawkins stood in the exit of St James’ Park tube station, contemplating the short walk along a soaking Broadway, she wondered why she’d granted Paul custody of their only car without a fight. Admittedly, the fact that he had stronger relationships with most of their mutual friends meant she’d found less need for social commuting since their split, but that wasn’t exactly a plus-point in itself.

Not having her own transport was making an already overloaded schedule almost unmanageable. She’d been at the office before seven that morning, cramming half a day’s worth of paperwork into three quarters of an hour. At least her administrational autopilot was working as well as ever.

Festive crowds filled the pavement, umbrellas clashing, routes in constant states of adjustment to preserve momentum through the rain. Hawkins backed up as a group of gabbling youths emerged from the crowd and headed for the station entrance. They passed in a whooping haggle, a couple of the taller boys eyeing her up as they passed.

She made a point of looking disgusted, turning away to scan the street for a way that might provide some cover, finding none. There was no time to hang around until the
rain stopped; Lawrence Kirby-Jones was waiting. And he was a man who took his role as head of the Specialist Crime Directorate more seriously than Hawkins had ever imagined possible. Of greater concern, though, was the fact she’d been summoned to meet him at New Scotland Yard, instead of Kirby-Jones’ office at the Met’s Becke House facility in Hendon.

She had already updated him on the small amount of progress in the investigation during their increasingly regular morning phone call. Initial results from the team regarding things like debt and previous interactions with the police weren’t exactly encouraging: Glenis Ward had been a hypochondriac; Tess Underwood had missed a few mortgage payments prior to getting married. And Jessica Anderton had recently fielded volleys of mail from a zealous admirer called Derek who, at eighty-three, hadn’t proved a plausible suspect, especially after the lengthy consolatory cuddle he’d required from the male detective sent to question him.

In short, the victims’ lives remained frustratingly unconnected.

So, apart from being able to link the victims, their best chance of tracing the killer was still via the Taser.
Thinking of which …

She found her mobile and selected Frank Todd’s number. She had the DI and a couple of newly recruited constables looking at known suppliers of such weaponry. Their initial research had shown that, while public ownership of stun guns or Tasers was still illegal in the UK, hundreds were ordered online every year, and a good percentage made it through customs. They had replaced
conventional firearms as tool of choice in bank robberies, and their use was on the rise.

He picked up on the fourth ring.

‘Frank, it’s Antonia. Any progress with the Taser?’

‘Sort of.’ He sniffed. ‘We got that firearms consultant in like you said. He looked at the bodies, reckons it was the same medium power Taser used on all three. Some of these things go over two million volts now, but this one’s more like eighty thousand. Killer probably went for that type because they sell in higher numbers, and customs don’t go Spartacus if they find one.’

‘What are our chances of tracing it?’

‘Difficult to say. We can be semi-specific about the model now. Apparently it uses detachable nitrogen cartridges to fire the projectiles, although it can also be used in direct contact with the body if no cartridge is attached. He’s used three cartridges so far, although they might not have been ordered with the weapon, and they have a ten-year shelf life, so there’s no knowing how long he’s had any of the gear. And there are loads of online suppliers.’

‘OK, Frank.’ Hawkins thought for a moment. ‘Get the Borders Agency to send over a list of all similar weapons seized in the last ten years, including the addresses they were headed for. The killer may have ordered others that didn’t get through. Even if the list’s huge, at least we’ll be able to check suspects against it.’

Todd agreed and rang off.

Hawkins checked her watch. She didn’t have time to ring Yasir, who was looking into whether the killer could have sourced the Taser locally from one of the capital’s illegal arms suppliers. It was less likely; those transactions
were usually done in person, and he’d been too careful with everything else to make that sort of mistake. But it was possible.

She had less hope for their ongoing battle to discover a link to 1 a.m.

So far, research had produced no particular documented meaning linked to that time of day. Barclay had volunteered to look into whether the killer’s MO might have been ‘inspired’ by music. According to his very thorough report, there had been several music tracks or albums called ‘1 a.m.’ over the years, but he’d listened to them all, and none contained lyrics that pointed towards a potential motive. Apart from that, there seemed to be no film quotes, no Bible passages; no cultural references. The time, if it meant anything, had to be of personal significance to the killer, so they were unlikely to expose its meaning without first knowing who he was.

Hawkins buttoned her jacket and stepped onto the unsheltered pavement, straight into a gust of wind that whipped a stinging spray of rainwater into her face. She cursed herself for having left her umbrella in the office, drawing startled looks from those around her. Ignoring them, she kept moving, trying to shelter behind the biggest man she found going in her direction, still trying to imagine an angle from which the current state of the case would sound positive to her boss.

The good news was that the celebrity angle provided by Jessica Anderton’s death had heightened the wider public’s awareness of the potential danger. And greater alertness among the killer’s target group should at least reduce the chances of losing another one.

Hawkins wiped away the rain dripping from her eyebrows and glanced up at New Scotland Yard. There were few more iconic symbols of modern policing, despite its modest origins as an office block.

Nearing the famous rotating sign, she noticed a group of about thirty people huddled near it, fending off the rain with umbrellas. This in itself was no surprise: the Yard was five minutes on foot from Buckingham Palace, and most guides included it in their tourist walkabouts. But this group was not only larger than usual; it had seen her heading for the Yard’s entrance, and was now moving towards her.

Why hadn’t she expected this? These people weren’t tourists. They were reporters.

She batted away the first couple of Dictaphones, but within seconds she was surrounded.

‘Are you involved with the Jessica Anderton murder inquiry?’

‘Has anyone been arrested yet?’

‘Is any woman in London safe while this killer is free?’

Her second mistake was to confirm that she was working on the case, by making some stupid comment about ‘… giving official statements when we’re ready.’ This only intensified the enthusiasm with which microphones were thrust into her face, and further blunted her progress.

Finally, she managed to trip on the pavement and sprawl into the arms of one of the hacks, who leered down at her and commented on how friendly the Met were these days.

By the time she had staggered across, fumbled her
pass onto the electronic scanner and made it through the security doors, she was soaked, angry and shaken.

She stood in the lobby, shivering, staring down anyone that dared to turn a gaze her way. And then she realized what she was doing, unconsciously. There was only one reason why anyone so dishevelled and embarrassed would remain in view of the reporters still laughing at her through the glass doors to her left.

Her next appointment – for which she was now late – was with a boss who hated her even when she was on time.