‘Penny for your thoughts?’ Sarah said. ‘You look troubled.’
‘I have between now and Saturday to prevent a terrorist atrocity. Four days to save tens of thousands of lives. Of course I’m troubled!’
‘Hey,’ Sarah said sharply. ‘Don’t take this out on me because I cared enough to ask. Do you want to talk through it?’
Morton shook his head. ‘Whoever it is, they’re taunting me. This isn’t about the victims. They’re almost incidental.’
‘Are they? Really? Totally random?’
‘You think they’re not?’ Morton said dubiously. He paused to twirl spaghetti carbonara around his fork as Sarah watched him thoughtfully.
‘Nothing is ever truly random,’ Sarah said. ‘Who are the victims?’
‘The wife of a policeman–’
‘Brian King?’ Sarah said. ‘The news said he shot a man in cold blood.’
‘He did,’ Morton said. ‘He had to.’
‘And that doesn’t seem significant to you?’
‘Everything seems significant. His wife was a closet lesbian, he shot a man and now suffers PTSD, but he didn’t do it. We know it has to be someone who was in my classroom that first week. Nobody else could be following this pattern. Even the students have worked that much out.’
‘What about the other victims?’
‘Hudson Brown, the MP. Everyone hated him.’
‘But who, specifically, would hate him most?’ Sarah asked. ‘His whole attitude was offensive, but he loved to extol the virtues of white men. Any ethnic minorities or women on your suspect list?’
It was an angle Morton hadn’t considered. Could there be a real victim among the four so far? Could three of them be camouflage?
‘What if it’s a double bluff?’ Morton pondered. ‘If the killer is as smart as I think they are – and everything I’ve seen says we’re looking for a high-functioning sociopath – then they could be using the victimology to mislead me.’
‘So, that’s what’s bothering you,’ Sarah said.
‘The endless wheels-within-wheels logic?’
‘No,’ Sarah said patiently. ‘The idea that the killer might just be smarter than you.’
Chapter 41: Sex Sells
Late on Tuesday evening, Almira was at her home in Notting Hill. Rafferty knocked on the door a little after seven. The first knocks went unanswered, and Rafferty was forced to keep knocking until Almira answered. What she saw when the door opened shocked her.
Almira stood there wrapped up in a bathrobe. For a moment, it seemed oddly normal, as if Rafferty had caught Almira at a bad time.
Except for the black leather gloves and thigh-high boots.
‘What the hell?’
Almira bit her lip. ‘Come on in. I’ll explain everything.’
In the living room, there was a high-end web camera mounted above a television screen. Leads trailed down from the TV to a computer on the floor. To the right of the TV, there was a microphone on a boom arm. It seemed like the sort of setup Rafferty imagined Twitch gamers might use.
‘You’re a cam girl,’ Rafferty said as everything clicked. That was where the money was coming from.
‘I’m a dominatrix,’ Almira said. She sounded proud, rather than ashamed, of her side gig. ‘I let men feel like the pathetic worms they are, and they show me their appreciation financially.’
‘And this didn’t get flagged when you applied to the force?’
‘Why would it?’ Almira asked. ‘I passed the physical and the assessment, and the financial status check only makes sure you’re not broke enough to be bribed. Having more money than you need isn’t a problem there.’
‘Why do you do it?’
‘It’s fun. I enjoy the power. In real life, men dismiss me as weak, stupid, vain. I know better.’
Rafferty could relate. There were still plenty of men who looked down upon her as “not a real detective”, and yet would take Morton or Ayala seriously just because they were men.
‘When do you... stream?’
‘Most nights. I assume you want to know if I was working Saturday,’ Almira said astutely. ‘I was. I have the video logs to prove it. Do you want to see them?’
Rafferty groaned. She didn’t want to see that, but there was no other way to verify if Almira was telling the truth. She hated the job sometimes. ‘I suppose so.’
Chapter 42: One Down, Seven to Go
With Rafferty having confirmed Almira’s alibi, they still had seven suspects remaining. Morton called everyone in early on Wednesday morning. With just three days to go, the risk of a major atrocity escalated with every passing hour.
The board with the estimated risk factor had been updated to strike through Almira’s name, and Morton had downgraded Villiers two points on the basis of his visit, though he knew he couldn’t rule him out entirely.
Babbage – 10
Sully – 9
Villiers – 6.5
Hulme-Whitmore – 6
Maisie – 5
O’Shaughnessy – 4.5
Rudd – 3
El-Mirza – 2
‘Anyone got anything to add?’ he asked, expectantly looking around the room.
Rafferty raised a hand. ‘Is it time to bring them all in for questioning? If they’ve worked out we’re looking at them, we’ve got nothing to lose.’
Morton considered her proposal. He could bring them in, show his hand.
‘Or,’ Ayala said, tentatively raising his hand, ‘we could play them at their own game.’
‘What do you mean?’ Morton asked.
‘You said this is about you, right? Jensen thinks they’re playing a game. Make them think the game is over. Force their hand.’
‘Okay, but how?’
Ayala looked around the room, paused for dramatic effect, then spoke in a barely audible whisper, forcing everyone to lean in towards him.
‘Arrest me.’
‘What?’ Morton said.
‘I’m the best way to provoke a reaction,’ Ayala reasoned. ‘If the killer thinks you’re not playing because I did it, they’ll be forced to do something to prove it’s not me. I was in the lecture theatre when you asked them to concoct the perfect murder. Rafferty and Brodie realised it last week: if I weren’t me, and you didn’t know me so well, my name would be up there with the others, and so would yours, but we can’t very well arrest you, can we?’
‘You know what this would mean,’ Morton said. ‘We’d have to drag your name through the mud. The press would be all over it.’
‘And we’ll clear my name when the killer comes forward.’
‘But what if they don’t?’ Morton asked.
The question lingered in the air. If Ayala was arrested and the killer chose to take the easy win rather than challenge Morton once more, then he could be vilified, or worse, subjected to vigilante justice.
‘Right now, that’s a risk I’m willing to take,’ Ayala said. ‘As long as we explain to the victims’ families what we’re doing first. I don’t mind the press, but I don’t want to hurt those people.’
It was an option. At this rate, it could be the only option.
‘Not yet,’ Morton said, making an on-the-spot decision. ‘I’m not ruling it out, but we still have time to investigate further. If we can break the case without going down that route, we should. Antonov, what’ve you learned about Babbage?’
‘His penchant for fire goes back a long way,’ Antonov said. ‘He is what’s known as a pyrophiliac, and he frequents a number of fetish websites looking at that sort of content on an almost-daily basis.’
‘That’s a result of his parents burning to death, isn’t it?’ Morton said.
‘Our psychologists would agree with that assessment.’
A thought struck Morton. Ten o’clock on a Saturday. It had to be significant. ‘When his parents died, was it on a Saturday night?’
Antonov opened up his laptop, fetched the file relating to Babbage, then plugged his laptop into the projector, us
ing the hub in the centre of the conference table. Then he copy-pasted the date into Google. The first result was for a site called “takemeback.to”, which revealed it had been a Saturday. Babbage’s parents had died on a Saturday.
Morton felt adrenaline pump through him. Sometimes, just sometimes, the hunches paid off. ‘And it was the evening? Was it around ten?’
He waited impatiently as Antonov searched the documentation, looking for a time. He eventually found an insurance document with the right details.
‘Sorry, midnight,’ Antonov said.
‘Damn.’ It probably wasn’t Crispin, then. ‘Let’s knock a couple of points off Crispin.’
Mayberry adjusted the board as directed, reducing Babbage from a ten to an eight. It left Sully at the top of the list as a nine, way ahead of anyone else.
‘Do we think it could be Sulaiman Haadi al-Djani?’ Morton asked. ‘Mayberry, what did Brodie dig up?’
‘H-hang on.’ Mayberry unplugged Antonov’s laptop from the projector so he could plug in his own, and brought up the bio he had compiled on Sully.
Morton watched as Mayberry became visibly stressed. He wasn’t up to speaking in front of a larger group again. As soon as the bio was on-screen, Morton read it aloud to save Mayberry’s feelings.
‘Sulaiman Haadi al-Djani, born in Libya. He was sent to a boarding school here, where he remained until age sixteen. At that point, the Home Office sent him back to his parents. His family fled Tripoli to avoid the fallout of the Arab Spring, and he was granted indefinite leave to remain. That sounds like a traumatic experience. He’s not a loner, though, and we haven’t seen any of the classic signs of a serial killer beyond the general horrors of living under the Gaddafi regime.
‘He’s our highest risk suspect, now you’ve downgraded Babbage,’ Ayala said. ‘We should bring him in and get an alibi if he’s got one. If he doesn’t, we investigate.’
It was hard to disagree. New evidence wasn’t likely to turn up in the next three days.
‘Let’s do it.’
Chapter 43: Race
Sully was quickly invited to Morton’s office on Wednesday afternoon. The team had debated creating a ruse for the invite, but Morton felt that, if he was the killer, Sully would see right through it.
He arrived earlier than Morton had expected.
‘Punctual. I like it.’
‘I was nearby,’ Sully said as he shrugged off his coat and slung it over the back of the chair facing Morton. He took a seat, then placed his bag on his lap and began to rummage around. ‘Mind if I eat? I’m starving.’
‘By all means,’ Morton said.
A Tupperware box was produced and placed upon the desk.
‘Palm dates,’ Sully said by way of explanation. ‘Want one?’
‘No, thanks,’ Morton said quickly. He didn’t want to end up bloated and gassy.
‘Why am I here? You didn’t invite anyone else.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘We have a WhatsApp group.’
Shit, Morton thought. Anything one of them knew, all of them knew. His investigation immediately became immensely more complicated. Now, he’d have to arrest others from the group at random to avoid looking like he was singling Sully out.
‘Then, you know I have to ask where you were last Saturday.’
Sully popped a date in his mouth, chewed it over, and looked at him searchingly. ‘Before I answer, why me?’
It was a fair question. The things that had flagged him were beyond his control. He was the right age, the right gender, and the wrong ethnicity. It was nothing he had done so much as the circumstances of his birth. The pregnant pause was just long enough for Sully to reach the same conclusion: Morton had nothing.
‘I thought as much. I refuse to be racially profiled. I am declining to answer.’
‘Don’t do this,’ Morton said pleadingly. ‘If you make me do this the hard way and interview you under caution, then guilt can be inferred from silence. If you’re not guilty, give me your alibi.’
‘No,’ Sully said flatly. ‘I can’t – I won’t – be party to the institutional racism within the Met. Go ahead and arrest me. It’ll be all over the papers by breakfast.’
He wasn’t wrong. Morton wanted to bang his head against the table. If he wasn’t the killer, why wouldn’t he just give up his whereabouts? It seemed astonishing that any innocent student could be alibi-free for four consecutive Saturdays, and yet nobody wanted to cooperate. Everybody had secrets. Everybody lied.
And why was Sully so unconcerned about being arrested? If he was the killer, surely an arrest would put paid to any plans. Sully had to know he could be held beyond Saturday under the counter terrorism laws... unless he had an accomplice. Or the plans for Saturday had already been put into place. Could the killer already have automated the final murder?
Morton tried again. ‘Please. There are lives at stake. You know the last murder method we discussed was a bombing. If there’s a killer out there, I have to catch him. We have less than three days to stop a terrorist atrocity.’
Sully’s expression softened, and, for a moment, Morton thought he had won Sully over.
‘No.’
Morton stood. Damn Sully. Damn his stubborn streak. ‘Then you leave me no choice. Sulaiman Haadi al-Djani, you’re under arrest on suspicion of the murders of Angela King, Hudson Brown, Edward Teigan, and Donald Bickerstaff. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
The shit had hit the fan.
Chapter 44: You Did What?
Morton wished he could go home. Wednesday was fast turning into a nightmare.
‘You look like you need a drink,’ said a voice.
He looked up to see Kieran O’Connor standing in the doorway to his office, holding a bottle of Mortlach 1981.
‘You could say that.’
Kieran sat down, produced a pair of nosing glasses from a travel case inside his big red QC’s cotton damask bag, and poured two generous glasses.
‘I hear you fucked up,’ Kieran said.
Morton nodded. ‘Possibly. One of my suspects backed me into a corner.’
‘Do you think he did it?’
‘No idea. I’ve got seven suspects, and any one of them could have done it. They’re all smart enough, and they were all there. We’re so far from cracking this case, and we now have...’ Morton checked his watch. ‘Less than 76 hours until the next murder, assuming our killer doesn’t change course now they know we’re on to them.’
‘You know what you need to do. Follow Ayala’s plan.’
‘He told you about that?’ Morton asked, surprised that Ayala and Kieran were in contact at all. They weren’t exactly friends.
Kieran drained his glass. ‘Who do you think suggested it?’
‘Bloody hell. I thought it was a bit too sharp for Bertram to have come up with.’
‘You know I’ve got your back. Let him take the fall. I can square it with the victims’ families so he doesn’t get lynched and we don’t get sued.’
Morton sniffed his whisky cautiously. ‘If I don’t have anything by the end of tomorrow, you win. I’ll arrest Ayala.’
‘Sold. You going to drink that or just sniff it?’
Morton took a sip. ‘Wow.’
‘Wow, indeed.’
‘How up-to-date are you with the investigation?’
‘As up-to-date as you are. The Counter Terrorism Command co-opted me to sort the legal side of things for them. You must have a suspect.’
‘I wish,’ Morton said. He took another gulp of whisky. There was little burn, but he felt the warmth spread through him almost immediately. ‘The best lead is the time. Ten o’clock. Why ten o’clock?’
‘Could be anything. A significant event for the killer. Something that drives the compulsion. I’ve prosecuted a few cases that had similarly specific time elements. I think one o
f them was ten o’clock too. Saturday’s a busy night.’
‘Wednesday’s the busy one for me,’ Morton lamented.
‘Then, I’d best cut you off,’ Kieran said as he picked up the whisky and replaced the cork. ‘And let you get back to work.’
‘Cheers – for the Scotch and the company. Have a good one.’
Kieran headed out, and Morton was left alone with his thoughts.
Three days to stop a killer. Three days to save thousands. He half-wished that Kieran hadn’t taken the bottle. With a yawn, he turned his attention back to the glare of his monitor. The answers had to be staring him in the face.
Chapter 45: Two Days to Go
The clock was ticking down faster and faster. Ayala was off trying to find out where Babbage had been the previous Saturdays. Rafferty was looking into Maisie and Rudd. Counter Terrorism’s Antonov had been assigned to investigate Eric, which left Morton with Danny Hulme-Whitmore.
He was, in Morton’s considered opinion, nowhere near smart enough, but Morton still had to confirm that. A quick call to Vice’s head honcho, Sylvester Fitzroy, ought to iron things out.
Sylvester was an old hand. He hated calls, especially unannounced calls, so Morton was forced to go through the man’s secretary. He didn’t have the number to hand, so Morton called the force switchboard.
‘This is DCI Morton calling for Sylvester Fitzroy. Could you put me through, please?’
A nasal voice belonging to a man came back immediately. ‘Hold, please.’
The line beeped as Morton was transferred.
‘You’ve reached the office of Sylvester Fitzroy. This is Darleen speaking. How may I help you?’
‘Hi, Darleen. This is David Morton. I need to speak to Sly urgently. Is he available?’
Sylvester had been trying to get a nickname to stick for years. He liked Sly or Fitz, though nobody really called him either. Morton knew that playing to his ego was his best bet of getting the man to take a call. It worked.
The DCI Morton Box Set Page 67
