reminded them. ‘It’s a way of keeping them forever – as if they’ve ingested the victim’s soul. Any obvious reason why he didn’t consume something at the scene? It would have certainly been a statement of his violent intent.’
‘That’s not his mindset,’ Sean answered without having to think about it. ‘Yes, plenty of serial killers – if that’s what he is – have consumed a part or parts of their victims, but it’s not usually out of violence or anger. For them, it’s an act of love. They want to be one with the victim – keep them alive and with them forever by consuming them.’
‘Love?’ Donnelly asked disbelievingly. ‘Hell of a funny way to show love.’
Sean paused, wondering how to explain. ‘You’re a parent, right, Dave?’
‘Aye,’ Donnelly answered in his gruff voice with an accent part East London and part Glaswegian – the city where he’d spent that part of his life before joining police.
‘Remember when they were young and you used to play with them and hold them and tell them you were going to gobble them all up?’
‘Aye,’ Donnelly replied, shaking his head, ‘but that was different.’
‘No,’ Sean insisted. ‘Psychologically, the same. But not for this one. He doesn’t feel compassion or love for them and he doesn’t want them to live forever inside of himself. He wants them dead. He wants to destroy them.’
‘Why?’ Sally asked. ‘Why such strong feelings of violence and hatred towards strangers?’
‘Who says he hates them?’ Sean corrected her. ‘Maybe they’re simply a means to an end.’
‘What means? What end?’ Sally pushed him.
‘I don’t know,’ he told her honestly. ‘Not yet.’
‘Great – another paranoid schizophrenic off his meds,’ Donnelly said, dismissing anything more sinister.
‘No,’ Sean explained. ‘There’s no frenzy to these attacks. They’re controlled and planned. This isn’t someone hearing voices in their head or seeing demons on the train. I don’t sense mental illness here, or at least nothing a court would recognize as such.’
‘Then we’re looking for someone who’s made the conscious decision to select victims and kill them,’ Cahill asked, ‘but with controlled violence?’
‘That’s what these photographs say to me,’ Sean agreed. ‘And I reckon we’ve got about ten days to find him before he kills again. I could be wrong, but he doesn’t look like he’s going to become a sleeper. Now he’s started, he’ll keep going, probably at about the same pace or faster.’
‘Do you think he’s killed before? Sally asked.
‘Possibly,’ he admitted. ‘We’ll have to look into it – anything that looks remotely similar will have to be checked. But I think Tanya Richards was his first. He tried something new and he liked it. It didn’t scare him or freak him out. It was probably everything he hoped for, maybe more and he needed it again – and quickly, hence …’ he turned and tapped a photograph of William Dalton ‘… ten days later he strikes again. It’s a drug to him now. He needs it.’ He looked around at the quiet, stoical faces – all eyes on him, waiting for ideas and leadership. He let the responsibility sink in before speaking again.
‘All right,’ he stirred his team, ‘we’ve all done this before. We all know what an investigation like this means and how to get a result.’ A few heads nodded. ‘Dave,’ he turned to Donnelly. ‘You sort out the door-to-door. Dalton was living in a garage, so maybe he was something of a local celebrity. People might know him more than usual.’
Donnelly nodded. ‘Want me to do the same for Richards?’ he asked. ‘Not sure I want to trust some other MIT’s findings.’
‘Fine,’ Sean agreed. ‘They won’t like it, but do it anyway.’
‘They’ll survive,’ Donnelly shrugged.
‘Sally,’ Sean continued assigning tasks: ‘track down Dalton’s friends and family, will you? Chances are they don’t know he’s dead yet. He was a heavy drug user working the West End. Let’s find out what his associates can tell us about his lifestyle. They might have some useful information, as might his family – especially about how he ended up homeless. There’s a crucial piece of information hiding somewhere waiting for us. We dig and dig and dig till we find it. Don’t second-guess what could be important and what’s not.
‘We know he had an Oyster card and used it regularly, so let’s get it interrogated and see where and when he’s been moving around. Fiona …’ Cahill looked up from the notes she was scribbling; ‘Take care of it, OK.’ Cahill nodded her agreement. Sean turned to Jesson. ‘Alan: Dalton moved around the West End most days and travelled back to Southwark most nights, most likely to Borough Tube if he was living off Mint Street, so we’ll have CCTV coming out of our ears. Get hold of British Transport Police and tell them to preserve all CCTV from those areas and routes until we can give them something more specific once we’ve looked into his Oyster card.’
‘BTP. Done,’ was all Jesson said in his Liverpudlian accent.
‘As I’m sure you all understand, the original investigating team will not be happy about losing this case,’ Sean reminded them. ‘No MIT wants to lose a job like this, so if you come into contact with them, keep it nice. No rubbing their faces in it, please. We need them onside and cooperative. Don’t want them holding back any information to make things difficult for us. I’ll do my best to smooth things over with them and I expect each of you to do the same.
‘That’s it for now,’ Sean told them. ‘Get yourselves organized and ready to go. Dave will be office manager and will put you into teams as soon as he can and give you your individual tasks. OK – let’s get on with it.’
As the meeting broke up, the team moved quickly back to their desks gathering phones, notebooks, pens and anything else experience had taught them they might need, chatting loudly and excitedly to each other as they did so. Sean drifted back towards his office followed by Sally, while Donnelly remained in the main office and started barking out orders.
Sean paused next to him as he passed and quietly spoke in his ear. ‘Keep them on it,’ he told Donnelly. ‘Two victims is enough.’ Donnelly merely nodded. As soon as he entered his office, Sean started putting on his coat and filling his pockets with the detritus from his desktop.
‘Going somewhere?’ Sally asked.
‘Ugh,’ Sean grunted as he looked up, suddenly pulled out of his own thoughts. ‘Yeah,’ he rejoined the world. ‘I need to go out.’
‘Where?’ Sally pushed.
‘The scene, of course,’ he told her.
‘The MIT will be all over it,’ Sally reminded him. ‘Maybe we should leave them to it and take control of their exhibits when they’re done.’
‘No,’ Sean replied firmly. ‘I want our people on it. I want DS Roddis and his team. No one else. Roddis is the best.’
Sally didn’t argue. ‘OK. Want some company?’
‘No,’ Sean told her. ‘I’ll go alone. Stay here and help Dave.’
‘Fine,’ Sally reluctantly agreed. ‘If that’s what you want.’
Sean sensed her doubt. ‘But …?’
‘So long as you haven’t decided to try and solve this one all on your own,’ she voiced her concern. ‘It’s been a long time since we had a proper investigation. I know what you’re like, Sean. You’re hungry for this, I know you are, but we’re a team, remember? We work as a team we solve this quicker. You try and do it alone, it could be …’ She let her words trail off.
‘Could be what?’ he asked, puzzled.