“Get up!”
“Please, I’m begging you. Don’t hurt me. You can have all my money.”
Another bullet. This one struck the ground to his right, grazing him.
“No, fuck! Okay, okay!” He was whimpering. He’d wet himself, but he didn’t care about that now. He just wanted to get out, to save himself. He began praying as he struggled to get to his feet. If he didn’t die tonight, he swore he would behave for the rest of his life. But then, how many times had he made that promise before? Promises made and broken.
His pursuer took a step forward into the light pouring down from a street lamp overhead. He could see the person’s face.
He didn’t understand. Who the hell was this?
“Turn around.”
Whoever it was, there was a working gun in one hand, and so he did as he was told. But he couldn’t help from asking: “Who are you . . . ?”
“Death.”
He didn’t even have enough time to hear the response. His back was consumed with fire. A viscous liquid filled his mouth. Then everything disappeared.
CHAPTER 7
After having spent the previous day and the whole morning watching videos without knowing precisely what he was looking for, Stern was sick and tired of that damn entrance to the apartment building and the carousel of humanity that came in and out of it. There was no sign whatsoever of the mysterious madam dressed in black. Maybe she put a jacket on over her clothing and he’d missed her, or maybe the witness wasn’t remembering her correctly. After all, he was just a kid.
He could feel his eyes burning. Why was he always stuck with the crappy tasks? He wished he could just once go out into the field, but they kept telling him he wasn’t ready, that he was at his best in front of a computer. It was true that nobody else on the team was as good as he was in that area, but sooner or later he wanted to become important. When he’d started working in scientific investigations, he’d imagined he’d be given much more exciting assignments. But more often than not, he wound up here, taking people off the list of suspects—or worse yet, not finding a single thing. Just like now.
Then it happened.
Stern leaned forward to see more clearly, knocking a file off the table. He ignored it. Using his mouse, he rewound the video and stopped it. Then he brought up another window, going roughly half an hour back in time.
It was clearly the same person, but there was something strange.
Eric’s cell phone rang just as he was walking back into the office after his lunch break, though it was hard to consider a sandwich eaten standing up and a quick coffee at Starbucks an actual lunch. He held his coffee cup in one hand and fished around in his jacket pocket for the phone with the other. It was a delicate balancing act, but finally he managed to pull it out.
“Shaw,” he said, biting back a curse when a few scalding drops splashed out over the rim and burned his hand.
“Agent Gavin Lennox here. City Police.”
Eric put what was left of his coffee down on the desk and, holding the cell phone against one shoulder, wiped his hand clean with a Kleenex. “What can I do for you, Agent Lennox?”
The City of London neighborhood was the only section of the metropolis that didn’t fall under Scotland Yard’s jurisdiction. It had a relatively small population and was filled mostly with office buildings, including some of the city’s tallest, like London’s famous Gherkin building. The City Police often collaborated with the Metropolitan Police, but it was rare for the scientific investigations department to be contacted directly.
“I’ve got a murder case that might be connected with one of yours,” Lennox said.
“Why are you calling me?” Eric flopped down in his chair, his curiosity piqued. “You should get in touch with the detective handling it in homicide.”
“I’m calling you because this is directly related to scientific investigations. We’ve got a ballistics report that matches perfectly with the murder of . . .” There was a moment of silence punctuated by some vague background noises. “Nicholas Thompson. Last night a man near George Yard was killed by the exact same weapon.”
Eric stood up again. “How was he killed?”
“Shot in the back with a nine-millimeter, the same weapon used in your case.”
“Boss!” Martin Stern stuck his head in the doorway. He looked alarmed. Eric waved for him to wait, but he could tell Stern thought he was onto something big.
Once the phone call was over, the pair walked down to the video room.
“You have to see this,” Martin said in an excited tone.
Stern started the video. A woman dressed entirely in black walked in through the doorway. All they could make out was one long, dark outline.
“There’s a Middle Eastern family living in this building,” said Stern. “At first I thought she was the boy’s mother. I’ve seen her go in and out at least a dozen times in the footage. But then I realized that I’d already seen her go in two hours earlier, and I never saw her come out again.”
“Maybe that’s a friend or a relative. When does she come out again?”
Stern’s eyes were sparkling with a strange light. He was sure he’d found something, and he wanted to show Eric all the little details as a buildup to his big conclusion. “Just twenty minutes later!”
The video spun forward quickly and stopped just as the same figure was coming out of the building. She was wearing large black sunglasses and holding her veil up over her mouth.
“She’s hiding . . .” murmured the detective. “And that’s not how Jassim dresses; she’s not that . . . covered. You’re right. There’s something strange here. That just might be our suspect.”
“But that’s not it!” exclaimed Stern. They’d finally gotten to his point. “Watch this. Look carefully.” He started the video back up again from the beginning. The figure who came out through the building’s entrance walked down the sidewalk until she was out of the video camera’s field of vision. “See anything strange?”
Eric leaned in close to the screen and motioned for Stern to play it again. He was right. There was something strange. “Her gait . . . it’s extremely . . . ungainly. Uncomfortable.”
“That’s right. Imagine you were wearing high heels. How would you walk?” Stern’s mouth spread in a smile that ran from ear to ear.
Finally Eric understood what his colleague was referring to. “It’s a man . . .”
Up on the big screen in the meeting room a man was stumbling heavily down a deserted and poorly lit street. He turned around for a moment, then moved forward again. Then something startled him. The video stopped.
“This is when the first shot was fired,” explained Agent Lennox. “It hit the wall to the victim’s left. He collapsed here, which is where we found him.” Using a laser pointer, the officer indicated a small area in the image.
“Do we see anything else?” asked Eric.
Miriam and Jane were sitting alongside him. After receiving the call from Lennox, Shaw quickly organized a meeting with the City Police so that they could gather as much information as possible about their new case.
In all likelihood the killer was the same person. The detective handling the case for City willingly handed the reins over to the investigators at Scotland Yard, offering to help in any way he could. All the evidence they’d gathered, including the ballistics reports, was turned over to Eric and his team. The body had been sent to Dr. Dawson, who would handle the autopsy. The general impression was that City had decided to wash its hands of the case. The fact that they’d sent a simple agent to meet with Eric and his team, even though it was the detective who’d handled the crime scene, was indicative of the distance City was trying to put between itself and the dead body.
On one hand this annoyed Eric, but it was also the price they had to pay in order to make sure they wouldn’t wind up with someone from the union office bu
zzing around the department, putting pressure on everyone and harping on about the negative effects this sort of crime could have on summer tourism in the city. It could be worse. There might have been veiled criticism about how if only they’d done their jobs and caught the criminal, this second homicide would never have happened.
“Oh yes, we certainly do.” Lennox started the video again.
The man being followed fell down on the ground, and a dark outline appeared in the lower left corner of the image. Everyone’s eyes focused on it. The camera filmed the perpetrator from above, showing the left hand holding the pistol, then the rest of the body. It didn’t make much difference, though. The figure was dressed completely in black from head to toe.
“Looks like the same person from the other video,” said Miriam, who was seated at one of the tables. She was moving her legs in an agitated rhythm as if sitting on hot coals.
“Somewhat disturbing,” said Jane. “Looks like Death in person.” She got up and took a few steps closer to the screen, concentrating on the image while she nibbled on her enameled right index fingernail.
Eric sighed. “Could be anyone, but the clothing does look a lot alike.”
From what little they could see in the black-and-white images, the killer was wearing a sort of tunic or robe that stretched all the way down to his feet, and a veil over his head. The frame never showed the killer’s face, but they could see the murder weapon, which had been equipped with a silencer, just as they suspected.
The victim turned over on the ground, growing agitated. It seemed like he was saying something, but the camera was too far away for them to read his lips. Suddenly a little cloud of dust exploded alongside his right arm, and the man winced.
“That’s the second shot,” said Lennox. “I think he missed on purpose. He just wants the guy to get up. And in fact, here we see him stand up again.”
The man struggled to his feet. The black figure took a few steps forward, moving closer to the victim.
“The shooter looks a little less clumsy than in the other video,” said Jane, her eyes still glued to the big screen.
“Maybe the killer was wearing more comfortable shoes,” suggested Eric.
Jane responded with a skeptic look. “Let’s have Stern analyze the two videos. I’m sure he’ll be able to tell us more.”
Now the victim was standing up, facing the assassin. The killer made a small circle with the barrel of the pistol, and the victim turned around immediately, facing the other direction. There was a small flash from the weapon before the man collapsed on the ground.
“The killer had him turn around so that he’d be shot in the back!” Eric motioned to Lennox to stop the video, then examined the still for a few seconds.
It didn’t make any sense. If the goal was simply to kill that man, why have him turn around? The modus operandi was completely different from the other killing, although in both cases the assassin had behaved unusually.
“It all seems carefully studied, choreographed, even. It almost seems like the assassin is trying to reproduce something. As if the killings are a message . . .” Eric was talking to himself as much as he was to rest of the room.
“Do you think we’re dealing with a serial killer here?” said Detective Leroux. She had stopped squirming in her seat, but now she was drumming her fingers on both knees.
“I don’t know.” Eric shook his head, more in response to his own thoughts than to Miriam’s question. “Let’s move forward.”
Lennox started the video again. The black figure went over to the dead victim and stooped close to the body. Then he stood up and left, walking calmly in the opposite direction from which he had come, until he disappeared from view.
“Maybe the key is to figure out the content of the message,” suggested Jane.
Eric turned around and met the eyes of his second in command. “And who it’s for.”
From Mina’s Blog
I don’t know which one of the three killed Paul. Their boss chewed them out for not having left anyone alive, so it wasn’t him. Maybe it was the same one who killed my mother.
No matter how hard I try, I still can’t remember the order in which the yelling and the shooting took place. If I try closing my eyes to concentrate, I can see it all. It’s all still there in my head, just confused, like an endless nightmare.
So I decided to kill them at random.
Today I realized for the first time what I’ve become: a serial killer. Maybe not in the traditional sense of the term, since one day, when my mission is over, I’ll stop killing people. But I am able to enjoy the desire for destruction all the same, so maybe I am a serial killer. I feel like a predator hunting its prey—pulling it down and then tearing it apart. The feeling of supreme control this gives me is . . . intoxicating. Throughout my life I’ve tried to control the events taking place around me so that no one could hurt me anymore, so that nothing would ever sneak up on me and overwhelm me, but I’ve never felt as successful at it as I do now.
It doesn’t just happen when one of those bastards is begging me or when I pull the trigger and see his life drain out of his eyes. No. It’s as if, ever since I started doing this, everything around me has started to move and evolve according to a plan I created, according to my own design. I can face anything at all now because I know I’ll emerge victorious.
I’m not afraid of anything, not even the people trying to stop me. I feel untouchable. Not even he can get to me.
I know I’ll see it through to the end. The only fear I have now is that I might not feel as satisfied as I do now when the killing finally stops. Will this be enough? Will I thirst for more blood?
CHAPTER 8
“Oh, please, Dad!” Brian’s face had turned red. “You can’t ask me that.” He went back to playing with his french fries, spreading them all over the plate.
“I was just asking if there’s a girl at school who’s more than a friend to you,” Eric said with a laugh, even though his heart was filled with very real fatherly pride. He understood from the boy’s reaction that he’d hit the mark. “They’re reasonable questions between men.” He wanted to make the boy feel proud, make him feel older than his fifteen years, despite Eric’s hopes that he’d remain a boy for quite some time to come.
Brian scrutinized his father, apparently unconvinced. Maybe he didn’t believe him, but Eric was ready to bet that Brian would like to have that kind of relationship with his father.
Ever since Eric had moved out, the way he interacted with his son had changed. He’d always been an affectionate father, but one who stood firm when needed. Though recently, he’d felt a change in his son’s attitude. Brian was an adolescent now, and it seemed like the boy blamed his dad for bringing his parents’ marriage to an end. To be honest, Eric blamed himself a little too, even though he continued to tell himself that his ex-wife knew full well what she was getting into—that she knew he was a man dedicated to his work, and all the more so once his career took off and he quickly became head of the scientific investigations department. Despite this, he didn’t blame her for feeling abandoned, and he couldn’t bring himself to be critical of his son, who was the only real victim in the situation. The problems in his relationship with Crystal had been there from the start and had gotten more acute as time went on, but Brian was the only one who couldn’t possibly be to blame. With these feelings lingering, Eric had recently begun to try to change the way he approached his son, driven by the fear that the boy would merely grow further away from him.
So far he thought he was doing a good job. The positive thing was that, in a certain sense, right from the moment he and Crystal had separated, they’d begun spending more quality time together as father and son.
Of course, before, they’d lived in the same house, but that meant each took the other’s company for granted a little. Now the time they spent together had become special. At least, it was for Er
ic, but he could feel that somehow it was for his son too, even though it was all but impossible to get the boy to admit it.
“Let’s just say there might be a girl like that,” said Brian, abandoning his fork altogether. Apparently he needed all his strength just to concentrate on this conversation.
“And does this potential girl have a name too?” asked Eric, leaning forward like somebody ready to share a secret.
“Nicole.” The boy’s voice trembled just a little pronouncing her name.
“Nicole,” repeated his father, nodding in approval. “Let’s talk about her for a moment. What’s she like?”
“Blond. Tall.” Brian gesticulated, practically daydreaming. “With two . . .” Here he hesitated. His hands were open, eloquent, mimicking two particularly large somethings. “Beautiful eyes,” he concluded. His face flushed red.
Eric couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh yes. I’ve always been fascinated by women’s eyes too!”
Brian laughed too. In the end, they’d managed to create a nice rapport. “It’s not like that, Dad. She’s . . . intelligent. Very intelligent.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Eric, careful to look serious and thoughtful.
“She always sits at the desk next to mine during our French lessons. Sometimes she explains stuff to me that I don’t understand.”
Something in the tone of Brian’s voice told Eric that schoolwork wasn’t really the reason he was so interested in talking to this Nicole, but he preferred hearing that from Brian himself.
“You should hear the way she speaks French. It’s so sexy.”
Eric coughed. He’d almost inhaled his food. He wanted to be a hip, modern father, but hearing the word sexy come out of his son’s mouth was surprising nonetheless.
“I suck at it,” continued the young man, the corners of his mouth turning down in an expression that was more shame than sadness. “French might as well be Arabic for me!”
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