The Jackdaw

by Luke Delaney

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘In any way,’ Sean told him. ‘Anything at all.’

  ‘You’re asking me if I think I know him?’

  ‘I have to consider it,’ Sean explained.

  Goldsboro shook his head slightly as he considered the question, his eyes squinting with concentration, taking his time before answering. ‘No. Nothing. If there had been I would have noticed. My powers of observation are well known. I don’t know this man.’

  ‘Then what about his other victims?’ Sean asked. ‘Paul Elkins and Georgina Vaughan. Do you know them?’

  ‘No,’ he told him a little unsurely. ‘Paul Elkins sounds vaguely familiar. I may have crossed his path when I worked in the City, but it’s been years since I was there. Georgina Vaughan means nothing to me.’

  ‘What about someone who may have had a personal grudge against you?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ Goldsboro answered. ‘I had my fair share of threatening emails and letters when the banking system had its little wobble, some more personal than others, but nothing too close to home – all just sniping from a safe distance, although … there was one who was a little more troubling than perhaps the others were.’

  ‘In what way?’ Sean asked.

  ‘I had plenty of threats to do this and do that, even threats against my family, but they were all so over the top you knew they weren’t serious – not really.’

  ‘But?’ Sean encouraged.

  ‘Well, there was one who was always a lot more specific, and calm … cold. There was structure to his threats – I don’t know, an intelligence about him, I suppose, and he seemed to know personal details. Nothing too specific, but enough to cause concern.’

  Sean and Sally glanced at each other. ‘Can you remember his name?’ Sean asked.

  ‘No,’ Goldsboro told him. ‘It was a long time ago now. I gave the City of London Police a statement, just like we all did and let them get on with it. I heard later he was arrested and charged or cautioned – I don’t remember which. I’m sure they’ll still have a record of it somewhere.’

  ‘Like we all did?’ Sean repeated Goldsboro’s words.

  ‘Yes,’ Goldsboro confirmed. ‘Apparently I wasn’t the only one he threatened.’

  ‘OK,’ Sean promised. ‘We’ll look into it, but right now you look like you could do with some rest. They may keep you in for the night, but you should be home by tomorrow. I’ll send one of my team round to take a full statement, if you’re up to it.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Goldsboro assured him.

  ‘Sorry,’ Sean said, shaking his head. ‘Before I forget, did you have a mobile phone with you, when he first approached you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Goldsboro told him. ‘He took it off me just before he forced me into the van.’

  ‘I see,’ Sean replied. ‘Oh well – we may yet find it. He may have thrown it close by. You get some rest.’

  He headed for the curtained exit before Goldsboro stopped him. ‘You will keep me informed, won’t you, Inspector? My wife, you see. She won’t sleep now until he’s caught. Anything I can tell her to ease her fears.’

  ‘Of course,’ Sean agreed and once more made for the exit before pausing and turning back to Goldsboro. ‘One last thing, Mr Goldsboro – are you right-handed or left?’

  Goldsboro frowned slightly at the question. ‘Right-handed. Why? Is it important?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Sean answered, not knowing whether he was telling the truth or not yet. ‘Goodnight, Mr Goldsboro.’ He escaped back into the corridor with Sally in pursuit.

  ‘What’s with the right-handed, left-handed question?’ she asked, struggling to keep up with Sean.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The right hand, left hand question,’ Sally repeated.

  ‘Goldsboro’s right-handed,’ he told her, as if that alone would answer her question.

  ‘And?’

  ‘But our boy cut his left little finger off.’

  ‘Which matters why?’

  Sean stopped and looked at her. ‘Doesn’t that strike you as being a little odd?’

  ‘Odd how?’

  ‘Our boy tells the world he wants Goldsboro to be reminded of his greed every time he looks down at his hands as he’s counting his cash – so why take his left finger and not his right?’

  ‘I doubt he was even thinking about it,’ Sally argued. ‘When you’re about to hack someone’s finger off I don’t suppose you’d be worrying about whether they’re right-or left-handed.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ Sean agreed and started walking again. ‘But perhaps he did consider it and decided to take the left finger as a sign of … mercy. Perhaps he’s losing the stomach for what he’s started, or …’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he told her. ‘Not yet. Best thing I can think of is he’s trying to send us a message. By de-escalating the level of violence in his crimes he’s trying to tell us something.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘That he’s not insane or that he’s had enough. That he’s trying to stop.’

  ‘Or maybe he’s just messing with us,’ Sally suggested. ‘Breaking a few rules to keep us off balance.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Sean replied without conviction, swooping through the ambulance bay exit and unlocking their car.

  ‘What now?’ Sally asked, opening her door.

  ‘Where else?’ Sean answered with a question. ‘Holland Park.’

  Sean parked in Abbotsbury Road, Holland Park, he and Sally walking the short distance to the small car park inside the park itself where they showed their warrant cards to the uniformed constable guarding the taped-off entrance and ducked under and inside. They could see someone moving around inside the car park, shining a torch at the ground as they did so, as if searching for something. Sean already knew who it was.

  ‘Paulo,’ he called out, pulling his own mini-Maglite torch from his belt pouch as Sally did the same. ‘Over here.’ The beam of light froze in the darkness, then bounced its way towards them, the shadowy figure becoming clearer until it was close enough to be recognized.

  ‘Guv’nor,’ Zukov greeted him before quickly turning to Sally, ‘Sal.’

  ‘Been here long?’ Sean asked.

  ‘Long enough,’ Zukov moaned.

  ‘Forensics?’ Sean questioned.

  ‘Be here in a couple of hours,’ Zukov answered. ‘DS Roddis is sending a couple of his team over and technical support are sending over some lighting, but they won’t get down to the nitty-gritty of it until morning.’

  ‘And have you found anything?’ Sally asked.

  ‘Nah,’ Zukov told her. ‘Nothing to find if you ask me. Geezer grabs him in the car park and forces him into his van, probably threatening him with a knife or something and they’re away. What’s to find?’

  ‘It was a shotgun,’ Sean filled him in on the details.

  ‘See,’ Zukov triumphantly declared. ‘Clean and fast. Nothing for forensics.’

  ‘Except his mobile phone,’ Sean told him. ‘Suspect took it off him and probably tossed it somewhere in this car park.’

  ‘Best we give it a ring then,’ Sally suggested, pulling out her phone, talking as she dialled. ‘His eighteen-year-old son gave us the number when he called in saying the victim was his dad. I thought it might come in useful.’ She held the phone to her ear to make sure she was getting a dialling tone and waited, all three of them standing absolutely still and silent, aware that even the slightest sound carried a long way in the quiet of night.

  ‘Over there,’ Sean told them and turned in the direction of the chirping, ringing sound coming from some bushes on the edge of the car park. After seven rings the noise stopped as the answer phone clicked in – Jeremy Goldsboro’s well-spoken voice, asking Sally to leave a message. ‘Ring it again,’ Sean ordered. She pressed redial and followed Sean who cocked his head to better track the ringing that had started again. He reached a thick bush just in time to see the illuminated screen before it dis
appeared. ‘In here,’ he told them. He pulled a single latex glove from his inside jacket pocket and stretched it over his fingers. ‘Now ring it again,’ he told Sally. This time he could both see and hear the mobile as he reached into the bush and pulled the phone free. It was locked, but the display screen showed it had received dozens of missed calls. ‘That’s a lot of missed calls,’ he told the others. ‘We’re lucky the battery wasn’t dead.’

  ‘Concerned family and friends,’ Sally suggested.

  ‘No doubt,’ Sean agreed. ‘You got an evidence bag?’ he asked Zukov.

  ‘Just a couple,’ Zukov answered, pulling a small plastic bag from his trouser pocket and opening it for Sean to drop the mobile inside. ‘Waste of time though. This one always wears gloves. We’ll get nothing from it but the victim’s prints.’

  ‘You never know your luck,’ Sean reminded him. ‘He may have got sloppy.’

  ‘Not this one,’ Zukov disagreed, folding the phone in the bag and slipping it into his pocket. ‘I’ll make sure Roddis gets it anyway.’

  ‘You do that,’ Sean told him, no longer really listening, looking up at the black trees that barely moved in the deadly still night – trees that ringed the entire car park. Did you sit in your van the whole time, Sean asked. Or did you hide in these trees, watching him as he strolled in the park, waiting for him to get close enough to strike? And the shotgun, where did that come from? Only three types of people have shotguns: farmers, rich people and criminals. Which are you, my friend? Which are you? For a second he could see the dark figure striding across the car park, shotgun down by his side, quickly stepping behind the nearby tree out of sight until Goldsboro was almost on top of him. But the figure had no face, no feeling, no anything. Who the hell are you? What’s this really about?

  ‘Sean. Sean.’ Sally’s voice brought him back to the present.

  ‘Sorry. What?’

  ‘What now?’ she asked.

  ‘Well,’ he answered, ‘Goldsboro said he had his phone taken off him just before he got into the van, so we can be fairly sure this is where it was parked.’ He looked at Zukov. ‘Make sure forensics pay special attention to this area. I want everything seized and taken to the lab: food wrappers, cigarette butts, apple cores, everything. He could have been waiting here a while before Goldsboro got close enough to snatch.’

  ‘Or he could have followed him from his home,’ Sally argued. ‘In which case he would have only been waiting here a short time.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Sean agreed, ‘but we’re not in a position to assume anything, so let’s give every scene the full works. Hoping he makes a mistake, or DC Bishop getting a trace, are our best chances to find him fast.’ He turned to Zukov. ‘Stay here and look after the scene, Paulo, and while you’re hanging around you can get on your phone and check something out for me.’

  ‘Why not?’ Zukov answered. ‘Give me something to do while I’m stuck here on my jack.’

  ‘Goldsboro said a man who threatened him a few years ago was arrested and charged or cautioned by the City Police,’ Sean explained, ‘but he can’t remember the suspect’s name. Get hold of them and see if you can get a name and current address.’

  ‘A few years ago?’ Zukov questioned.

  ‘It’s the City Police,’ Sean reminded him, ‘not the Met. If there’s one thing they’re good at, it’s keeping records.’

  Zukov nodded as Sean looked at his watch. It was almost one in the morning. ‘You should go home and get some rest,’ he told Sally. ‘I’ll drop you off before I go back to the Yard.’

  ‘You’re not going home?’ she asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ he answered. ‘I’ve still got a few things to take care of.’

  ‘After everything that’s happened tonight, Kate would probably appreciate you getting yourself home, even at this hour,’ Sally advised him.

  ‘I’m not exactly her favourite person right now,’ Sean explained, ‘and to be honest I’m not in the mood to go home and walk straight into a domestic. Better to give her a little time and space.’

  Sally rolled her eyes. ‘Men,’ she told him. ‘You just don’t understand women, do you?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Sean asked, feeling affronted.

  ‘You’ll see,’ she warned him.

  10

  Early morning and Sean had used the showers in the gym at the Yard to clean up, dressing in the clean shirt and underwear he, like all experienced detectives, kept in his office for the times when getting home proved impossible or simply not worthwhile. Better to grab a few hours’ sleep on the office floor than waste valuable time travelling between work and home. After several cups of strong coffee he felt functional, if not great, although he knew the tiredness would come earlier each day the investigation dragged on. He should eat, but his stomach wasn’t yet ready to deal with solids. He looked around his desk and office at the various piles of files. He decided he couldn’t bear to plough through more potential suspect reports and opted for a file containing buildings that had been checked in the ever decreasing target area. Some included printouts of photographs conscientious officers had taken on their own phones, but most were just a description of the property and the fact it had been searched with no trace of the man he sought. He was just reaching for a new file when he sensed a presence at his door and looked up to see an ashen-faced Assistant Commissioner Addis glaring at him. Despite Addis’s polished appearance, Sean suspected he hadn’t been the only one to spend the night in his office.

  ‘I’ve tried to help you.’ Addis got straight into it, his lips thin with anger. ‘Tried to protect you from powers you couldn’t even understand – gave you one of the best and highest-profile jobs in the police service − but let me tell you, DI Corrigan, I’m beginning to have serious doubts about your ability to run a major investigation such as this.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you,’ Sean reminded him, too tired and frustrated not to defend himself and just take it. ‘You came to me, remember? I never said I wanted this.’

  ‘Don’t give me that old bollocks,’ Addis told him, baring his teeth. ‘If I hadn’t stepped in when I did you’d still be rotting in Peckham, investigating dead drug dealers and teenage gang murders. If that’s what you want to go back to, just say the word.’ Neither spoke for a while. ‘I didn’t think so,’ Addis eventually said. ‘There’s DIs and DCIs out there would bloody well kill for your job and don’t you forget it.’

  Addis’s words hit Sean far harder than he could have imagined. For the first time since the Special Investigations Unit began he realized how much he needed it, how much he now lived and breathed it, how much he loved it – almost more than anything else in his life. Addis was right: he couldn’t go back to investigating join-the-dot murders any more than Addis could go back to walking the beat – if he ever had done. He lived for the chase now more than ever.

  ‘So what’s your point?’ he asked.

  ‘Your failure to catch this bastard is costing the country tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions of pounds,’ Addis explained. ‘Absenteeism in the City is now at an all-time high, with those who are still turning up for work all scurrying home before dark for fear of becoming the next victim. I tried to warn you about this before. When the City starts losing millions that creates pressure – pressure that heads down the line, all the way to my fucking office door. There’s only one way to stop the rot, and that’s to find this arsehole. And that, Inspector, is your job.’

  ‘I’m doing my job,’ Sean tried to assure him, ‘but the man we’re looking for is clever and careful. As of yet I don’t have a single decent suspect, and I can’t just pull one out of a hat because the City’s losing money. I have to follow where the evidence, the leads, take me.’

  ‘What about the van?’ Addis asked.

  ‘He false plates it every time,’ Sean explained. ‘Impossible to trace.’

  ‘And that … thing he uses to disguise his voice,’ Addis continued, ‘we must be able to find where it came fro
m?’

  ‘We’re on it,’ Sean told him, ‘but right now it looks to be homemade – from a mixture of phone and toy parts and God knows what else. We’re checking all the electrical stores across London and Surrey – the major ones and the small independents, just in case someone remembers someone or something. Maybe our man stood out for some reason. If we’re really lucky we might get some CCTV, but I’m not holding my breath. With a little help from the Internet and a basic grasp of electronics he could have put it together from almost anything.’

  ‘You have photographs of him driving from the scenes and witnesses,’ Addis argued. ‘Can’t you get them enhanced?’

  ‘Stills of him wearing a black boiler suit and balaclava, and when he’s not wearing the balaclava the windows are so heavily tinted we can’t get a decent shot of him. I have people going through footage from hundreds of CCTV cameras, so we may yet get lucky, but don’t hold your breath. Even his driving position is designed to minimize his chances of getting caught on camera: he stays pressed back against the headrest, in the shadows. He’s planned this meticulously – d’you really think he’s just going to let us have a nice clear photograph of him?’

  ‘What about the victims’ backgrounds?’ Addis persisted. ‘Have you checked to see if any of them are linked?’

  ‘Of course we have,’ Sean answered, unable to hide the growing irritation in his voice, ‘but there’s nothing. Different companies, different positions, different everything.’

  ‘Perhaps you haven’t been back far enough?’ Addis accused him. ‘Perhaps you need to go back years into their pasts?’

  ‘And how am I supposed to do that?’ Sean bit. ‘The investigation’s moving forward so fast we’re struggling just to cover the basics. Every abduction site is another crime scene we have to cover, as is every drop-off point, every body or survivor we find – more and more witnesses and potential witnesses to find and speak to – more and more door-to-door inquiries to complete – more and more CCTV to seize and examine – more and more Your View footage for the lab to plough through. We’re stretched to breaking point and with every new abduction we get even thinner on the ground – so why don’t you tell me where I’m supposed to find the people who can spend days, maybe even weeks, going years back into the victims’ backgrounds? Right now I’ve got enough people to cover the urgent inquiries and no more.’