Lazybones tt-3

by Mark Billingham

  Welch's movements between his release from prison and the discovery of his body, painstakingly reconstructed, had yielded nothing. Forensically, the photos recovered from the locker in Macpherson House had been a black hole.

  A hundred and more interviews with anybody who could feasibly have seen anything, and not a word said that might raise the blood pressure.

  The ACTIONS outlined and ticked off on the white board. Allocated and diligently carried out. Contacting the sex offenders who had themselves been diligent about signing the Register at the right time. Tracking down those who were not quite so assiduous, who had perhaps forgotten, or mixed up the days in their diaries, or buggered off to another part of the country and gone underground. Checking and double-checking the statements of everyone from the traumatised receptionist at the Greenwood Hotel to the semi-pickled dosser who had been occupying the bed next to Ian Welch for the few days before he was killed…

  This was what 99 per cent of police work really consisted of. It was procedure like this, together with a little bit of luck, that would provide pretty much the best chance, the only chance, of getting a result. And Thorne, of course, hated every tedious minute of it. While he was waiting for that elusive bit of luck to arrive, even his one moment of genuine inspiration was proving to have been useless… Sitting in Russell Brigstocke's office – Monday morning and feeling like it – Thorne listened as he was told just how useless it was. He had thought that the killer's access to the Sex Offenders Register might hold the key to catching him. Detective Chief Superintendent Trevor Jesmond was more than happy to disillusion him…

  'Fact is,' Jesmond said, 'tabloids or no tabloids, the information's already public property. Every force has a community notification policy. Supposed to be on a case-by-case, need-to-know basis. Information gets released to schools, youth clubs and so on, but, as with anything else, we can't know for certain where that information goes later on.'

  Brigstocke glanced at Thorne, raised his eyebrows. Jesmond was just getting warmed up…

  'Yes, we might be looking for a prison officer. But we might also be looking for someone who's a friend of a friend of a teacher with a big mouth. Or someone who lives next door to an indiscreet social worker, who likes to natter while they're washing their cars on a Sunday morning…'

  'Are you saying that we've been wasting our time for a week?'

  Thorne said.

  The Detective Chief Superintendent shrugged, like he'd been asked if he'd lost weight, or caught the sun. 'Ask me that again when we've caught him…'

  Jesmond seemed to relish moments like this. Thorne looked across at him and thought, You really enjoy pissing on my chips, don't you?

  'I see what you're getting at, sir,' Thorne said. 'But it can't hurt, I mean, at least in the short term, to carry on assuming that the killer has a direct contact with one of the bodies we're talking about. Social services, the probation service…',

  Jesmond cocked his head to one side, waiting to be unconvinced. Brigstocke tried to help out. 'It's a decent avenue of inquiry, sir,' he said. Thorne sniffed. 'Our only decent avenue of inquiry…'

  'Well, I think you'd better go out and find us another one,' Jesmond said. 'Don't you?'

  Thorne said nothing. He watched the hand pushing back the wisps of sandy hair. The strange area on either side of the nose where webs of veins met spatters of freckles. He looked at the dry lips cracking themselves into a smile and it struck him, as it always did, that Jesmond smiled with his eyes closed.

  Thorne smiled himself, remembering how he'd once described Jesmond's face to Dave Holland. 'You know the sort of face,' he'd said.

  'If you hit it once, you couldn't stop.'

  Jesmond leaned forward across the desk. 'Seriously, though, let's think about what you're saying. As an example, why don't we look at the possibility that the killer has a direct connection with the police service…'

  'A police officer,' Thorne said.

  Jesmond simply repeated himself and pressed on. 'A direct connection with the police service. Now, apart from the sheer numbers involved, the methods employed to access and utilise the Sex Offenders Register vary wildly from force to force. Some access it via the Police National Computer. Some graft Register information on to existing systems, or create dedicated databases…'

  Brigstocke puffed out his cheeks. Thorne could already sense things going away from him, could feel himself starting to drift.

  'Some are still using manual, paper-based systems, for heaven's sake,' Jesmond said. 'And we all know just how secure they are.'

  Brigstocke nodded. 'How secure anything is!'

  Thorne was tuning it out. Thinking about those jungle drums…

  'The fact is, the whole system's a mess,' Jesmond said. 'There is no single strategy for managing and sharing sex-offender information, either with other agencies o with one another. Some believe that general access to local officers is vital to 6btain the full intelligence benefit. Other areas, other stations, simply have a nominated officer who gets informed whenever the Register is updated…'

  Thorne could smell another turd in his bed… The way it was being laid out, the killer could have found his rapists almost anywhere. On the Internet or in a wastepaper basket. It was clear that if they had ten or a hundred times as many officers working on this, tracking down the man they were after the way he'd been hoping to was a non-starter.

  'It isn't just us, either,' Brigstocke said. 'The courts are supposed to notify us when there's a need for an individual to register, and for how long, and it should be confirmed by the prison or the hospital or wherever when he gets released. Well, that's the bloody theory, anyway. Sometimes the first you hear about a sex offender on your patch is when they tell you themselves, for fuck's sake…'

  Jesmond leaned back in his chair and smiled. Eyes closed. 'So, when I say you'd better find us another decent avenue of investigation, I'm simply being practical. I'm thinking of the best way, the fastest way to catch this man…'

  Thorne nodded. Said it under his breath…

  'Ooh! Whay-hay! Clack!'

  In the Major Incident Room, business carried on as usual, but each officer was keenly aware that things might be about to change. Each man or woman on the end of a phone or hunched over their paperwork glanced across occasionally in the direction of Brigstocke's office, knowing that behind its closed door, decisions were being made which would affect them all.

  Each casual conversation full of unspoken concerns. Some less to do with overtime than others. Some, at bottom, fuck all to do with work at all…

  'Jesmond had a face like fourpence when he marched through here,'

  Kitson said.

  Holland glanced up from his computer screen. 'Looked much same as he always does, if you ask me…'

  'I know what you mean,' Kitson said. 'He's a miserable sod. Still, I think we must be doing something wrong. They've been in there a while.' She looked across to where the Incident Room led out on to the corridor that housed the small suite of offices – Brigstocke's, the one she shared with Tom Thorne, Holland and Stone's… Kitson sat down on the edge of the desk. She placed a hand on top of the computer Holland was working at. 'Can't you do this in your office?'

  Holland peered at his screen. 'Andy's working in there…'

  There was grime on the top of the computer. Kitson took out a tissue, spat' on a corner, and began rubbing at the heel of her hand.

  'Not a problem, is there?'

  Now Holland looked up at her. 'No, it's fine. Just easier to concentrate in here sometimes…'

  Kitson nodded, carried on rubbing, though her hand was clean.

  'Sam Karim tells me you've been putting yourself up for quite a bit of overtime lately. Working all sorts of hours…'

  Holland clicked furiously at his mouse. 'Shit!' He looked up, blinked. 'Sorry…?'

  'It's a good idea. Trying to stash a bit of money away before the baby arrives.'

  Holland's face darkened for a second. The smile he co
njured didn't altogether chase the shadows from around his eyes.

  'Right,' he said. 'I mean, they're expensive, aren't they?'

  'You think nappies are a price, mate, wait until he wants CDs and the latest trainers. Is it a he or a she? Do you know…?'

  Holland shook his head, his eyes meeting Kitson's for half a second and then sliding away to her chin. 'Sophie doesn't want to know.'

  'I did.' Kitson's voice dropped down a tone. She opened up the tissue and began to tear it into small pieces. 'My other half wanted to wait and see, but I've never really liked surprises. I sent him out of the room after we'd had the scan so they could tell me. Did it with all the kids. Managed to keep it secret right up until the births…'

  Holland smiled. Kitson crushed the pieces of tissue into her fist and stood up. 'Are you going to take any time off afterwards?'

  'Afterwards?'

  'All this overtime you're piling up now, you can probably afford a break, spend a bit of time at home with Sophie and the baby. Mind you, the Federation's still fighting to get paternity leave up from two days. Two days! It's a bloody disgrace…'

  'We haven't really talked about it…'

  'I bet she'd like you to though.' Kitson saw something in Holland's eyes, nodded sympathetically. 'She must hate all this extra work you're having to do…'

  Holland shrugged. Let his head drop back to his computer screen.

  'Oh, you know…'

  Kitson took a step away from the desk. She opened her hand above a wastepaper bin and sprinkled the pieces of dirty tissue into it.

  Holland watched her go, thinking, 'Actually, you probably don't.' He thought wrong.

  Thorne stuck his head round the door of the Incident Room, tried not to gag on a breath of late-afternoon hot air and fermenting aftershave. He waved to Yvonne Kitson. She clocked him and walked quickly across.

  'Get everyone together at the far end,' Thorne said. 'Briefing in fifteen minutes.'

  Without waiting for a response, Thorne turned and moved away, back up the corridor towards his office…

  Sensing that Jesmond was probably right. Knowing that he was right about the Register, but that even if the killer was a social worker or a probation officer or a copper, they were going to have to get him some other way.

  He threw his jacket across the desk, dropped down into the chair. There was a small pile of mail he hadn't dealt with. He began to sort through it… If he was a copper?

  Thorne would not have bet on it. In all his years he'd known plenty of bad apples, worked with his fair share of shitbags, but never a Killer. It was an interesting idea, a seductive one even, but beyond being convenient in TV shows, it was not much use to him. He dropped a bunch of envelopes into the bin, those that obviously contained circulars or dreary internal memos going in unopened. He always saved the interesting-looking ones until last… There were still aspects of the case that bothered him, that he'd flag up at the briefing. The bedding that had been removed for a kickoff. And the other thing. The thought he couldn't articulate, couldn't shape and snap up.

  Something he'd read and something he hadn't… It pretty much amounted to less than fuck all. Not a decent lead, not a bit of luck. He could only hope that some bright spark came up with something useful at the briefing.

  When the photographs tumbled out of the white envelope, it took Thorne a few seconds to understand what he was looking at. Then he saw it. Then his heart lurched inside him and began to gallop. As an athlete's heart rate recovers more and more quickly as his fitness increases, so Thorne reacted less and less, physically at least, to images like those that would soon be scattered across his desk. The thumping in his chest was already slowing when he reached into a drawer, took out a pair of scissors and snipped away the elastic band that held the bundle of pictures together. The breaths were coming more easily as he used the tip of a pencil to separate them. By the time he'd decided that he wanted a closer look, remembered where he could find the gloves he needed, his heartbeat was stow and steady again.

  There was no longer any visible movement, no judder of the flesh where his shirt stuck damp against his chest… Thorne stood, moved of into the corridor and turned towards the Incident Room. As he walked, he felt amazingly calm and clearheaded. Coming to shocking conclusions and making trivial decisions. The killer was even more cold-blooded than he had imagined…

  He was supposed to be seeing Eve later on. Obviously, he would have to call and cancel. Perhaps she would be free tomorrow… Into the Incident Room, and Kitson was moving across from the right of him, eager to talk about something. He held up a hand, waved her away. The box stood, a little incongruously, on a filing cabinet in the far corner of the room, exactly where he'd remembered seeing it. He pulled out the plastic gloves, like snatching tissues from a cardboard dispenser, revealing the transparent fingers of the next pair. Holland was behind him, saying something he didn't catch as he turned to walk back…

  The briefing, whenever they had it, would certainly be a bit more lively. Whatever Jesmond thought about the route the investigation was taking, it had definitely become heavy going. Those photos, what was in them, would get it started again.

  Jump leads.

  Not a bit of luck, exactly, but fuck it, close enough… Thorne walked into his office and straight across to his desk. He knew even as he was doing it, even as he pulled on the gloves and delicately picked up a photo by its edge, that he was probably wasting his time. He had to go through the motions, of course, but the gloves were almost certainly unnecessary. Though he knew the surface of a photograph was as good as any at holding a fingerprint, he also knew that the man who had taken it was extremely cautious. Aside from the prints of postal workers and prison officers, or the hair and dead skin of the victims themselves, they'd got nothing from any of the photos or letters thus far. This was, after all, a killer who removed the bedding from his murder scenes.

  Still, everybody made mistakes now and again.

  Thorne flicked quickly through the photos. The close-ups of the battered and bloodied face, those thin lips thickened, then burst. Te movement in the full-length pictures captured in a sickening blur. Pictures taken, unbelievably, while the victim was still alive. Thrashing… He pushed aside the interior shots and lowered his head, checking to see if the killer had made one mistake in particular. He stared closely at the photo that had been very deliberately placed on the top of the pile. The first picture he had been intended to see. The window of the shop next door…

  A killer's little joke.

  Thorne was dimly aware of the figures of Holland and Kitson, watching him from the doorway as he squinted at the picture. Hoping to see a distorted image that would probably be worse than useless, but would show him that he was dealing with fallible flesh and blood. Searching in vain for a reflection of the cameraman in a tiny, black mirror. Looking for the killer's face in the eye of a dead fish.

  He was pretty sure he'd picked a good one.

  The list had to be looked at carefully. He couldn't just print off a copy and stick a pin in. Not that there was that much time to look at it when he had the chance, but he was getting better at selecting the likely candidates quickly. With the previous two he'd chosen a couple of decent-looking ones and gone through the details more carefully later, when he could take his time. He'd done the same thing with this one, rejecting a couple of names for various practical reasons – location, domestic set-up and so on – and coming up with a winner.

  Christ, though, there were plenty to choose from. The serious cases, the ones he was interested in, would be on the Register indefinitely, and those that did eventually come off the list, after five, or seven or ten years, had been replaced a hundredfold by the time their names were removed. It was a growth industry…

  This one would shape up very nicely, by the look of it. He lived alone in a nice, quiet street. Friends were an unknown quantity as yet, but it didn't look like there was any family around. It might even be possible to avoid using a hotel altogethe
r…

  He was ambivalent about that. Doing it in a house or flat would be simpler, but there was an unpredictability that made him uncomfortable. It would be tricky to get inside in advance and look at the layout of the place. He couldn't count on the place being as forensically friendly as the average hotel room. An unexpected visit from a neighbour couldn't be prevented with a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door.

  He hadn't had the choice with Remfry or Welch, but using hotels had worked out well so far and he was somewhat reluctant to change a winning formula. Hotels did mean a lot more possible witnesses and a security system to get around but that wasn't too much of a problem. He'd learned that people saw fuck all when they weren't really looking, and cameras saw even less if you knew how to avoid them.

  He'd avoided being seen, being really seen, for a very long time.

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