Cold Killing Read online

  ‘Between eleven p.m. and three a.m. is the best we can say.’

  ‘It would have been dark then,’ Sean pointed out. He looked around the building for lighting. There was none. The room would have been pitch black. ‘He had to have light to see.’

  ‘Maybe he used a torch?’ Brown said.

  ‘No,’ Sean replied. ‘He needed both hands free, and the light from a torch wouldn’t be right for what he wanted.’

  ‘What did he want?’ Brown asked.

  ‘He wanted to see her. He needed to see her die.’ Sean looked out of the window and saw his own car pointing towards the building. The headlight mountings glinted in the low evening sunlight.

  ‘He used his car headlights,’ Sean said. ‘He would have checked that ahead of time too. He went there on the night of the murder already knowing car headlights would give him all the light he needed.

  ‘And when she was dead, he stayed with her. He’d been dreaming about this for too long to just walk away from her now she was dead. He stood here and watched her bleed to death. Watched until her blood stopped running.

  ‘You didn’t find any signs the body was moved or mutilated after she’d died, did you?’ Sean told rather than asked Brown.

  ‘No,’ he answered. ‘She died where she fell and wasn’t touched.’

  ‘He didn’t want to spoil the perfect picture he’d created. All he wanted was to stand and watch her.’ Sean was silent for a while, troubled by the question forming in his mind. ‘Did you search this wasteland for used condoms?’

  ‘Not specifically for condoms, as far as I know, and I don’t recall seeing any listed on the lab submissions form. Why d’you ask?’

  ‘Because I think he would have masturbated while he watched her die, but he wouldn’t risk leaving his DNA, so he would have used a condom. Maybe he threw it away beyond where he thought we would search.’ Sean looked Brown square in the eyes.

  ‘Jesus! Where did you get that from?’ Brown asked.

  Sean moved on without answering. ‘Then he left her. He didn’t cover her, not even partially. It would have been a sign of guilt. Remorse. He has no psychological need to try and make amends for his crimes. He felt nothing. He walked away feeling nothing more than a sense of relief, maybe even what for him amounts to happiness.’

  ‘But what’s his motivation?’ Brown asked. ‘Is it sexual? Is this the only way he can get a hard-on?’

  ‘Not sexual,’ Sean answered. ‘Power. With this one, motivation is all about power.’

  ‘But there’s so many sexual overtones to his crimes. Making her strip, making her go on her knees in front of him. You said it yourself: he probably masturbated at the scene.’

  ‘Because the power excites him, makes him feel alive. The sexual acts are merely symptoms, a way he can release the power he feels building up inside him.’

  Brown seemed both impressed and unnerved by Sean’s analysis. ‘Done a few of these types before?’ he asked.

  ‘Some,’ Sean replied, managing a slight smile. ‘I do a lot of research.’

  ‘If I can make an observation of my own …’ Brown asked.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘If my killer, our killer, is as clever as you say, as good at disguising his methods as you believe he is, then how do we know he hasn’t killed other people? How will we ever know?’

  ‘Truth is,’ Sean admitted, ‘unless he decides to tell us about them, we probably never will.’

  They were back. Hellier could feel them before he saw them. Only these were clumsier than the last. Why would Corrigan put amateurs on him? Was the DI so arrogant that he thought these second-raters would be good enough to follow him?

  My enemy’s mistakes are my greatest gains.

  Hellier wasn’t in his own office. He had been earlier, long enough to let the surveillance see him, but now, unseen, he used the office of another junior partner. He’d let it be known he would be working late, to make up for his earlier absence. Truth was, he needed to access certain bank accounts held across the globe. He didn’t want to use the computer in his own office. The police had been in there. They could have somehow bugged his computer. They could be monitoring his online activities. He doubted they were smart enough, but why take the risk?

  He was the only person left in the offices. Tonight it was essential to be alone and to move fast. The police had seized many of his bank details and they knew where most of his money was, but not all of it.

  They would be moving to block his accounts, but that would require court orders and the banks would take time to comply with the orders’ instructions. That would burn up a few days, and by then it would all be a wasted exercise.

  Hellier was skilled on the computer. Able to cover his electronic tracks extremely well. He called up a website on the Internet. It was one he’d set up himself two years ago, but it was no more than an illusion, a front, just like a restaurant or bar could be, and like them there was a back door. But you had to know how to find it. Hellier knew. Of course he did. The illusion was his design.

  The site was entitled Banks and the small investor. There was a hidden command icon on the screen. Hellier carefully placed the cursor on the tail of the site’s symbol, a prancing horse similar to the Ferrari emblem. Pin the tail on the donkey and win a prize. He smiled again, pleased with his private joke.

  He clicked the cursor twice and waited a second. A type box suddenly appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, flashing, demanding a password.

  Hellier typed: fuck them all.

  When Sean arrived back at his Peckham office he found it deserted except for Sally. Ignoring the No Smoking signs, she was puffing heavily on a cigarette. She looked up from her paperwork and was relieved to see it was Sean. She held the cigarette up. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘No,’ Sean answered. ‘What are you doing here this late?’

  ‘Trying to work a few things out.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as how did Korsakov’s fingerprints manage to get up and walk out of Scotland Yard all on their own?’

  Sean didn’t understand and he wasn’t of a mind to ask for explanations. His thoughts were still with Heather Freeman.

  ‘And why are you back here so late?’ Sally asked.

  ‘I’ve been out east.’

  ‘Why?’ Sally sounded almost suspicious.

  Sean hesitated before answering. ‘I believe I’ve identified another murder committed by our man.’

  ‘What?’ The surprise made Sally stand involuntarily. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘As sure as I can be.’

  ‘Another gay man?’

  ‘No. A girl. A teenage runaway. He abducted her from King’s Cross and took her out to some waste ground in Dagenham. He made her strip before cutting her throat.’

  ‘I don’t see a connection,’ Sally confessed. ‘Did Hellier also know her?’

  ‘I doubt it. But he watched her before killing her. Once he’d selected her, he watched her. Learned her movements. Planned everything very carefully. Then he took her.’

  ‘So she was a stranger, yet Daniel Graydon was someone he knew.’

  ‘I’m not so sure any more.’

  ‘Not so sure of what?’

  ‘That he knew Graydon – or at least, not as well as he’d have us believe.’

  ‘I really don’t understand,’ Sally admitted.

  ‘I think he picked Graydon at random. A week or so before he killed him, he went to the nightclub and he selected him. He paid to have sex with him so that on the night he killed him he could approach Graydon without spooking him. Then they went back to the flat and he killed him, just like he was always going to do.’

  ‘Why didn’t he kill him the same night he first met him?’

  ‘Because he needed to kill him in his own flat. It was how he’d seen it – fantasized about it. But for that to happen he needed Graydon’s trust, he needed him to feel comfortable, so he approached him inside the club, surrounded by witnesses a
nd people who knew the victim. If he’d killed him the same night, it would have been too easy for us to work out what must have happened: stranger arrives in gay nightclub and leaves with known prostitute, next morning prostitute is found murdered. Too easy – too simple. Hellier likes things complicated, layer upon layer of possibilities and misdirection, endless opportunities to bend the evidence away from proving he’s the killer. But above all, there was no way he was going to miss out on a week of fantasizing about how it would feel – killing Daniel Graydon. For him, that would have been every bit as important as the killing itself. Once he’d killed the girl in Dagenham he’d opened Pandora’s Box – there’s no going back for him now, even though he knows we’re watching him. He won’t stop, he can’t. Knowing we’re watching him merely heightens his excitement – makes him even more dangerous.’

  ‘Did he leave any evidence at the Dagenham scene?’ Sally asked.

  ‘No. Just a useless footprint.’

  ‘Then how are we going to convict him?’

  Sean thought silently before answering. ‘If Hellier has a weakness, if he has one chink in his armour, it’s his desire for perfection.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Sally, frowning.

  ‘He can’t leave things half-done, untidy, incomplete. Look at his clothes, his hair, his office, his home. Everything immaculate. Not a thing out of place. He couldn’t have that. It’s the same when he kills. Everything has to be perfect. Exactly how he imagines it.’

  Sally puffed on her cigarette. ‘How do you know all this?’ she asked. ‘I’ve watched you study crime-scene photographs in the past, and suddenly it’s like you’re there. Like you’re the …’ A look from Sean stopped her before she’d finished.

  ‘I see things differently, that’s all,’ he explained. ‘Most people investigate crimes two-dimensionally. They forget it’s a three-dimensional thing. They seek the motive, but not the reason for the motivation.

  ‘You have to question the killer’s every move, no matter how trivial. Why choose that victim? Why that weapon? That location? That time of day? Most people are happy just to recover a weapon, to identify the scene, but they’re missing the point. If you want to catch these poor bastards quickly, then you have to try and think like them. No matter how uncomfortable that may make you feel.’

  ‘You feel sorry for them?’ asked Sally.

  Sean hadn’t realized he’d shown sympathy. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You called them “poor bastards”. Like you felt sorry for them.’

  ‘Not sorry for what they are now,’ he told her. ‘Sorry for what made them that way. Sorry for the hell that was their childhood. Alone. Scared to death most of the time. Terrified of the very people they should have loved. Fearful of those they should have been able to turn to for protection. Sometimes, when I’m interviewing them, I don’t see a monster in front of me. I see a child. A scared little child.’

  ‘Is that what you see when you look at Hellier?’

  ‘No,’ he answered without hesitation. ‘Not yet. It’s too soon. I haven’t broken him down to make him face what he really is. When I do, I’ll know if he’s a product of his past or something else.’

  ‘Something else?’ Sally asked.

  ‘Born that way. Whether he was born bad. It’s rare, but it happens.’

  ‘And you already suspect that’s the case with Hellier.’ It wasn’t really a question.

  ‘Go home, Sally,’ he said quietly. ‘Get some rest. I’ll call Dave and set up an office meeting for the morning. We’ll talk then, but right now you need to go home, and so do I.’

  Hellier typed the password fuck them all. The false screen began to break away by design. When it was gone it was replaced by a screen filled with twenty-four different banks’ insignia. Many of the major banks of the developed world were shown, as well as several more specialized ones. They all held accounts belonging to Hellier: some in that name, others in aliases he’d invented. He had excellent forged documents hidden across Europe, Northern America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and South East Asia.

  He’d created this website, which appeared to offer advice to private individuals considering purchasing stocks and shares, particularly shares in financial institutions; its main purpose, however, was to hide his complex network of bank accounts and the locations of the false identities that would allow him to access them. There were so many he could never have hoped to remember them all. But with this hidden guide, no matter where he was in the world, provided he could access the Internet he could access his funds.

  The priority was to empty his UK and USA accounts. The others couldn’t be touched by UK authorities. Fucking Americans, he thought, always happy to slam shut accounts on the flimsiest of suspicions. Always so keen to help Scotland fucking Yard. Sycophants.

  He worked fast. He would be at the terminal for hours, but by the time he was finished the vast majority of his considerable wealth would have been transferred to South East Asia and the Caribbean. Out of the reach of the police. Now, if he had to run, he wouldn’t have to be poor too. There were many places in this world where a man’s tastes were only restricted by the depth of his wealth.

  Donnelly and DC Zukov were hidden in the office building almost directly opposite Hellier’s. Donnelly was half asleep on the sofa when he felt the phone clipped to his waistband vibrate. The display told him it was Sean. ‘Guv’nor.’

  ‘Where’s Hellier now?’

  ‘Still at work, like us.’

  ‘He’s up to something.’

  ‘I’m sure he probably is.’

  ‘I’ve found another murder Hellier may have committed.’

  ‘What?’ Donnelly sat bolt upright.

  ‘About three and a half weeks ago. A teenage runaway found dead out by the Ford factory.’

  Donnelly’s eyes darted left and right as he thought hard. ‘I remember. It was on the news, right?’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s still unsolved. No suspects. I met the DI running the inquiry. They’ve got nothing.’

  ‘How though …’ Donnelly was a little confused. ‘How did you connect it to ours?’

  ‘Long story, bad time,’ Sean said. ‘Phone around and organize an office meeting for the morning. I’ll update you then.’ Sean hung up before Donnelly could ask any more questions.

  ‘Fuck it,’ Donnelly said out loud.

  DC Zukov lowered his binoculars and turned to Donnelly. ‘Problem?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye, son,’ Donnelly replied. ‘But nothing we can’t handle.’

  Hellier sat in the deep leather chair. It creaked satisfyingly. He’d completed the transfers. It had taken him less than three hours to move over two million pounds out of his UK and American accounts. He’d left a nominal few thousand in each, to keep them fluid.

  He buried the account details in the concealed web page and exited the Internet. He was happy with his night’s work. Extremely happy. He couldn’t help laughing. God, if they could see him, sitting here in the dark laughing to himself, they really would think him mad. He was anything but.

  It was time to get home. He cleaned up the desk and took one last look around the room to make sure nothing had been overlooked, then returned to his own office. Leaving the lights on, he went to the window and peeked out the corner of the venetian blinds. They made a plastic tinkling sound.

  He had an excellent view of the road below. It was always busy, no matter what time of day or night. He could still feel the police close by. It was of no matter tonight; there were others of more concern to him than the police. The press. The vile media. They had the power to ruin him merely by rumour. They wouldn’t be interested in proof. They wanted a story to titillate the masses. Something for people to drool over at breakfast. They wanted him. He couldn’t afford to let them take a single photograph. He couldn’t afford to be recognized.

  Sally parked close to the entrance of the building where she lived in Fulham, West London. She let herself in and moved quickly through the communal areas
. Dim hallway lights helped her. She tried to keep the noise down. She was a good neighbour. She entered her flat and locked the door.

  Following her usual routine, she turned on the lamp in the far corner first. She preferred its gentle light to the overheads. Next she flicked the TV on, for company, then moved into the kitchen, opened the fridge and scanned the contents before closing it again. Maybe she’d have more luck in the freezer. She did. A freezing bottle of raspberry vodka rested on its side. Grabbing it by the neck, she looked around for a clean glass. There was one by the sink. She poured a good measure of the thick vodka and threw the bottle back into the freezer.

  Sally sat at her kitchen table and rocked back on her chair, kicking her shoes off, the drink in front of her. She pulled the cigarettes from her handbag and lit one. It must have been the thirtieth of the day. She thought about stubbing it out, but hey, cigarettes cost a fortune these days. Covering a mortgage on a flat in this part of London didn’t leave much in the kitty for luxuries.

  Staring at the walls suddenly brought on pangs of loneliness. Being thirty-something and single hadn’t been part of her life-plan. The partner thing had just never happened. There had been lovers, two of whom had been close to measuring up to her standards, only to fall away as the stakes were increased.