The Jackdaw

by Luke Delaney

  He breathed for what seemed like the first time since he’d heard the car approaching, his lips curling into a smile under the ski-mask that he promptly ripped off his head, the cool air exhilarating against his hot, sweating skin, his smile turning to a quiet laugh of relief. Why had they left before checking the entire building? He gave himself a few minutes for his ragged nerves to settle and to be sure the police wouldn’t return before he dared to venture from the white room, collecting his torch from the table and pulling the door slowly open. He paused in the doorway, shining the beam from the torch along the corridor, searching for any unseen foe hiding in the shadows until he was sure there were none.

  He ventured into the corridor, the cone of light sweeping one way and then the other until it fell upon the cause of their retreat: a broken, rotting floorboard the one who’d cursed had seemingly put his foot through. He examined it more closely with the torch and found a few small shreds of dark material. Pieces of the unfortunate policeman’s trousers? His broad smile returned, all fear swept away. It appeared luck was with The Jackdaw. Near disaster had quickly turned to his advantage. To save face and avoid a return visit to the treacherous floorboards, the two policemen would no doubt report that they’d searched the building and that it was empty. It would be crossed off the list of buildings to be searched – eliminated from their inquiries. The building was now a complete safe haven. He didn’t have to worry about the police finding the white room again − until he wanted them to. He walked back to the room and sat in the chair he kept for the defendants and began to gather his thoughts. He had much to do. Much to prepare.

  9

  Sean arrived at the expensive-looking Italian restaurant close to London Bridge and stood on the opposite side of the street, watching people coming and going. He was already late, but needed a few minutes alone before entering, trying to become a normal person before crossing the road, even if it was just for one night.

  ‘Shit,’ he whispered to himself. He knew he didn’t have time for this – for dinner with Kate and her normal friends. The killer was moving fast and with it the investigation was growing bigger all the time and he was already struggling to keep up. Scenes, witnesses, CCTV, forensic submissions, the endless chasing down of existing leads that only led to more leads was already beginning to swamp them. He needed the Your View Killer to slow down and he needed to be at his desk or stalking one of the crime scenes trying to become the man he needed to find and stop – anything but dinner with a bunch of civilians. But he couldn’t let Kate down again and hope to get away with it. Over the last couple of years he’d done little other than disappoint her – the job threatening to finally overtake and drown him. He’d seen enough detectives drift into divorces to know he had to give her something – even if it was just dinner with her friends.

  Just walk in, he told himself. Just walk in, kiss Kate, smile, shake hands and if absolutely necessary double-kiss the other women on their cheeks. Don’t look them up and down like they’re suspects. Get it over with and get back to work. He looked at the name of the restaurant: Il Forno. What the fuck did that mean? No doubt Kate’s friends would all know. He decided his metamorphosis into a normal person was never going to happen, so swallowed a sick feeling and dodged the traffic as he crossed the road, taking one last deep breath before pushing the door open and walking inside where he was immediately met by an Italian-looking man in his thirties wearing a suit that looked like it cost a month of Sean’s wages. He got the distinct impression the man’s eyes were telling him he didn’t look like he belonged in Il Forno.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ he asked in what sounded like a genuine Italian accent.

  ‘I’m here to meet my wife and some other people,’ Sean explained. ‘Kate Corrigan.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ the man acknowledged with a smile. ‘May I take your coat?’

  Sean thought for a second, trying to remember if he had anything in his coat pockets that he could neither leave there nor empty out in the entrance to a crowded restaurant. He was pretty sure most of his everyday cop things, his warrant card, his phone, his telescopic truncheon, had already been transferred to his jacket or clipped to his waistband.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ he told the man, slipping his coat off and handing it over.

  ‘This way, please,’ the man told him and headed off across the restaurant, leading him to a table he heard before he saw. ‘This is your table, I think,’ the man told him, pulling out a chair for Sean to sit.

  ‘Yes. Thank you,’ Sean answered, looking at the slightly uncomfortable half-smiles on the faces of the people who stared up at him: James and Kerry, old university friends of Kate’s, now married with one child. Chris and Sally, Chris being a fellow doctor from Guy’s Hospital, Sally his long-term partner. No kids. Leon, the Polish doctor and his doctor wife, Sophie. Married with two children. And then there was Kate who was barely smiling at all.

  ‘You’re a bit late,’ she pointed out, trying to sound casual.

  ‘Sorry,’ he told her, sitting in the seat the man offered, feeling it being pushed into the backs of his legs, making him forget all about the handshakes and kisses he’d rehearsed in his mind. ‘Got stuck at work.’

  ‘Just for a change,’ Kate added loud enough for everyone to hear. Sean tried to let it go.

  ‘Can’t expect London’s finest to drop everything just for dinner,’ James, Sean’s least favourite of the people gathered, joined in. ‘Isn’t that right, Sean?’

  ‘I guess,’ he answered without looking at him.

  ‘So what important case are you working on at the moment?’ Chris asked.

  ‘Sorry,’ Sean tried to finish the conversation, hoping for once they’d all get back to talking about things he neither knew nor cared about – just so long as he wasn’t at the centre of it. ‘It’s confidential.’ He turned to Kate before anyone else could speak to him. ‘How long you been here for?’

  ‘About forty-five minutes,’ she answered. ‘Which is how long you should have been here for too.’ He looked down at his clamped hands and said nothing, hoping she’d move on. ‘D’you want a drink?’ she finally asked.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ he answered. Maybe alcohol would make everything a little more bearable.

  ‘Red wine?’ she offered, reaching for a bottle.

  ‘That’ll be fine,’ he agreed, watching Kate pour the blood-coloured drink into an oversized glass. As soon as she’d finished he took a large swig, but the lack of an alcohol kick was immediately disappointing.

  ‘Nice to see you anyway, Sean.’ Leon appeared to be trying to help him.

  ‘You too,’ he answered without feeling.

  ‘Well it’s certainly been a long time,’ Kerry joined in.

  ‘Too long,’ James added with a sarcastic smile.

  Sean smiled unconvincingly for about a second before grabbing a passing waiter. ‘Can you get me a Jack Daniel’s?’ Sean asked him before he could speak. The waiter nodded once and disappeared.

  Kate leaned closer to him as the others began to talk amongst themselves again. ‘It’s a little early for that, isn’t it?’

  ‘Just catching up with you guys,’ he explained.

  ‘This is the first drink we’ve had,’ Kate told him. ‘We were waiting for you to get here.’

  ‘Then you shouldn’t have,’ Sean snapped back in little more than a whisper before James piped up again.

  ‘What do you think of this Your View Killer, Sean? He seems to be the talk of the town.’

  ‘I think he’s a loser and a coward,’ Sean answered, looking hard into James’s eyes. ‘Just like they all are, at the end of the day.’

  ‘But he has popular support, right?’ Chris joined in, the attention now squarely back on Sean.

  ‘Media crap,’ he told them, thinking of Jackson. Wait until they saw the newspapers tomorrow, with Jackson’s one-on-one interview splashed all over the front cover. ‘Don’t believe what the papers tell you.’

  ‘So you’re involved in the in
vestigation?’ James accused him with a satisfied smile.

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ he replied. ‘Just telling you what I think.’

  ‘But you know details of the investigation?’ James insisted.

  ‘No,’ Sean lied, ‘but if I did I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone.’

  ‘What’s the point of having a policeman as a friend if he won’t spill a few juicy details now and then,’ James told the group.

  ‘I’m not your …’ Sean managed to stop himself before he said ‘friend’. ‘I don’t know anything more than you do.’

  ‘No great loss to the world, a few bankers,’ Sophie added.

  ‘They have families,’ Sean reminded her. ‘The first victim had a wife and children.’ The table fell quiet for a while until he was rescued by the waiter bringing him his bourbon. He drank half of it immediately, enjoying the sensation until he felt Kate’s gaze. ‘What?’ he asked her. She just handed him a menu and he pretended to be reading while the others inevitably began to chat about medical matters and Guy’s Hospital. But other voices were now invading his mental space, loud and obnoxious − yet he seemed to be the only one to notice. He took another mouthful of bourbon and tried to ignore the noise coming from behind him, but it was no good – unless the voices stopped he’d be distracted all night, even more than he already was.

  ‘Anything grab your fancy?’ Kate asked, but he barely heard her.

  ‘Sorry?’ he asked.

  ‘On the menu,’ she told him. ‘The menu you’ve been staring at for the last few minutes.’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ he lied as the voices kept boring into him. ‘It all looks good.’

  ‘Then cheer up and relax,’ she encouraged him. ‘Who knows, you might even have a nice time.’ Her words only added to his increasing irritation – reminded him all the more of how different he was to everyone else sitting around the table, probably everyone else in the restaurant. And still the voices pounded in his head, making him look over his shoulder to find the source of his annoyance: four well-dressed men in their forties, although they were beginning to look a little dishevelled, with their jackets slung over the backs of their chairs and their ties loosened – all wearing belts and brightly coloured braces. Several bottles of wine adorned their table and each had a glass just like Sean’s in front of him containing a golden-coloured liquid. Their lascivious laughter grew louder as one of them accosted a passing young waitress, holding her by the forearm and inviting her to sit on his lap. Her smile was full of fear and embarrassment as she tried to pull away, but was held firm. One of the male waiters quickly came to her aid, bowing and smiling, trying to cajole the man into releasing her, but his appeals were only met with a torrent of abuse, much to the amusement of the other men. Sean could tolerate it no more. One thing he could never stomach was a bully.

  ‘We went to a restaurant in Venice last year called Il Forno, didn’t we, Kerry?’ James seemed to address him. ‘The owner told me what Il Forno means. Obvious really. Do you know what it “Il Forno” means, Sean?’

  ‘No,’ Sean told him, pushing his chair away from the table and standing. ‘No I don’t.’ He drained his glass and placed it on the table in front of the bewildered-looking faces. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he added before heading off towards the four drunks. When he arrived at their table he just stood in front of them and said nothing – waiting for them to notice him and one by one fall silent.

  ‘Can I help you with something?’ the ringleader asked in a fake cockney accent, smiling and looking to his friends for reassurance.

  ‘Let her go,’ Sean told him, his pale blue eyes burning with intensity. ‘Right now.’

  ‘Or?’ the ringleader asked, something about Sean’s eyes making his smile fade.

  ‘Let her go,’ Sean warned him. ‘Before you find out.’

  ‘Listen, mate,’ the ringleader told him, ‘why don’t you fuck off back to your table with your wife and her girlfriends and leave us alone.’

  ‘Why don’t you make me?’ Sean challenged him. The man released the waitress but as he tried to get to his feet Sean moved too quickly for him, one hand grabbing him around the throat, twisting and pushing his head forward until it slammed onto the table while his other hand whipped his warrant card from his jacket pocket. Sean flashed it around at the stricken man’s friends before holding it close to the face that was still pinned to the table. He released his grip on the man’s throat and grabbed him by the hair, lifting his head from the table slightly before banging it back down. ‘Police, arsehole.’ He turned to the waitress, still keeping the guy pinned to the table. ‘Do you want to press assault charges?’

  ‘No,’ she shook her head, rubbing her arm. ‘Thank you. Maybe they should just leave.’

  ‘You heard her,’ he told the silent gang of four. ‘Now pay your bill and disappear, and don’t forget to leave a tip.’ He released the ringleader with one last shove on his head and casually headed back to his table, while the four drunks re-gathered their senses and quickly began to pull on their jackets and ask for the bill.

  When Sean returned to his table he sat down as if nothing had happened, turning to Kate who was staring at him open-mouthed. ‘What?’ he asked with a shrug of his shoulders, but before she could answer he was distracted by his phone vibrating in his chest pocket. He checked the caller ID. It was Sally. He immediately knew something had happened. ‘Sally.’

  ‘Guv’nor,’ she answered. ‘He’s on Your View now and it’s live. Boss, he’s taken another one.’

  ‘Shit,’ he cursed, oblivious to the attention he was receiving from the other diners and staff. ‘How long?’

  ‘Less than a minute.’

  ‘Who’s he got now?’

  ‘A white male in his fifties,’ Sally told him. ‘We don’t know anything else yet.’

  ‘OK. Stay on the phone,’ he ordered. ‘Have you got your laptop with you?’ he asked Kate.

  ‘Yeah,’ she answered, shaking her head. ‘Why?’

  ‘I need it,’ he demanded.

  ‘But—’ she tried to argue.

  ‘Now. Please,’ he insisted. She shook her head more vigorously, but leaned down by the side of her chair and pulled her laptop from its bag and slid it across the table to Sean. He flipped it open, entered the same password they used for everything and waited less than a second before the screen sprang to life. A few seconds later he was looking at the images on Your View, a man taped to the same chair in the same white room as before. ‘Shit,’ he swore again and turned the volume to maximum, drawing more looks of despair from Kate and the others. The killer stood next to his victim, his terrible metallic voice preaching as before while the terrified-looking man squirmed and struggled in the chair, a hood still over his head and the tape that Sean assumed was across his mouth turning his pleas to little more than incoherent mumblings.

  ‘What’s going on, Sean?’ Kate asked, but he just held up a hand to silence her.

  ‘Is Bishop tracing this?’ he asked Sally.

  ‘He’s on it now,’ she assured him. ‘The signal seems to be coming from the same general area as before – on the outskirts of southwest London – possibly Surrey.’

  ‘Good,’ he told her, turning his full concentration back to the screen as the man in his black ski-mask pointed from the victim to the screen and back again. What wouldn’t Sean have given just to see the torturer’s eyes – just his eyes …

  ‘This man no doubt felt he was safe,’ the mechanical voice preached, ‘retired and living his life of privilege, surrounded by the wealth he’d accumulated after years of stealing and lying to the people – one of the ones who thought they were so smart, getting out of the business before they could ever be held accountable for their crimes. But now you, the people, have a chance to make this thief pay for this injustice – pay for his greed and incompetence. While he fled to live in luxury, in his mansion in one of London’s most exclusive areas, we struggled to feed our children and keep a roof over their heads. He may l
ook like any other man,’ he told his audience, pointing to the victim who was still taped to the chair, ‘but don’t be fooled. These people are as expert at hiding their guilt as they are the money they stole from us.

  ‘You may wonder why I have left his face covered and his mouth taped shut. Let me explain: for years his mouth has been used for nothing but telling lies and his eyes for nothing other than deceit. I will not allow him the chance to once again lie to the people through greedy lips or to falsely appeal to you for mercy through deceitful eyes. That is why he will remained hooded and helpless, so he too can feel what it’s like to be unable to control what is about to happen to him, just as we were unable to prevent being swept into poverty by his greed and that of others like him. He deserves nothing more than humiliation. But you, the people, deserve to know this criminal’s name before you make your judgement. Under this mask hides Jeremy Goldsboro – one-time vice president of King and Melbourn Capital Associates, who now lives off the grotesque amount of money our so-called government gave to his company – money that should have been ours, to educate our children and treat our sick.’

  ‘At least we know the name of the victim now,’ Sally told him.

  ‘Find out everything you can about Jeremy Goldsboro,’ Sean instructed. ‘The phones will probably start ringing off the hooks any minute now anyway.’

  ‘Will do,’ Sally assured him.

  ‘How’s Bishop doing?’ Sean changed tack, just as the restaurant manager appeared at the table.

  ‘Closer and closer,’ Sally answered, ‘but he’s still looking at a hell of a big area.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ the manager tried to get his attention, ‘but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to turn down or turn off your computer.’