by Max Manning
Gem wanted Drew’s killer caught more than anybody. “All right. I understand.”
York glanced briefly down at the copy of her profile and pressed on. “The suspect’s delusional feeling and obsession with you lead him to make excuses for you not responding in the way he wants you to. He convinces himself that outside influences, other people are to blame, stopping you doing what you really want. Unfortunately, this can put family members, police officers, partners in danger.”
Gem thought about Drew and clenched her jaw to stop herself letting out a groan. Day pulled a wad of tissues from his pocket and offered them to her. “No, thank you,” she said. “I’m fine. Please carry on.”
“It is likely that his obsession was triggered during the carjacking incident,” York said. “Something you said or did, or even something that he imagined you said or did, sowed a seed in his mind, allowing the delusion to grow.”
“Like what? What do you mean?” Gem interrupted.
“Maybe you smiled at him to try to let him see you were not a threat or agreed with something he said to calm him down. It could be as simple as that. His mind would have seized on it as proof that you had a special connection.”
Gem closed her eyes and thought back to that night. All she had wanted to do was get out of that parking lot alive. She put her left hand on the right sleeve of her sweater and rubbed the cast on her wrist. The plaster had softened and was starting to crack. She had an appointment later that day to have it removed. If only shame, guilt, and grief could be removed as easily.
“I didn’t smile at him, no way,” she said. “I was too terrified to smile. But I did tell him that he could take the car, that I’d like him to have it, and that I wouldn’t even report it to the police. I desperately wanted him to leave.”
York looked across at Day and gave him a nod that Gem interpreted as “I told you so.” Are they judging me? she wondered. It felt as if they were, and she didn’t like it one little bit.
“Are you saying that because I tried to appease him, because I was desperate for him not to hurt me, he took that as meaning I felt some connection with him?”
“No one is blaming you for anything,” Day said, shaking his head. “It’s not the details of what you did or said that matter. It’s what your attacker wanted it to mean.”
Gem bowed her head and covered her face with her hands. Stay strong, she told herself. You’ve got to stay strong now.
“There is something else,” she said. “I left it out of my original statement after the carjacking because I was embarrassed, but he pressed himself against me and touched me.”
York pulled a pen from her pocket and scribbled furiously in the margin of her report. Day pressed his lips together and gave Gem a look of concern. She was relieved to see no hint of disapproval or pity. The psychologist stopped writing and dropped the pen on the table. “Let me stress that there is no criticism of your actions here,” she said. “I honestly don’t know how I’d react in that situation, but because there was no resistance and then no mention of sexual assault in the police appeal for information, the suspect could easily have convinced himself that you were keeping it secret because you had feelings for him.”
Gem uncrossed her legs and dropped her elbows onto her thighs as if she was about to throw up. How had this madness happened? This twisted killer thinks we have a special bond. He took Drew’s life because he thought that deep down, that’s what I wanted.
“If I’d tried to fight him off, if I’d been honest with you about the groping, do you think Drew would still be alive?”
“Don’t torture yourself,” Day said. “No one will ever know what might have happened. If you’d resisted, then maybe you would have been seriously injured or worse.”
Gem sat up slowly and straightened her shoulders. “Let me send him a message,” she said, the thought scary and exciting in equal measure. “I’d like to make it clear that any suggestion that I want to be with him is absurd.”
Across the table, Day and York exchanged doubtful glances, but Gem knew that she had to do this. The strength of her certainty surprised her.
“The media weren’t that interested in me before. I was just a sad victim. The story is so much bigger now. I’ll do anything you think will help catch this man, talk to the papers, do a TV appeal for information. I need to leave him in no doubt that I want him punished for what he’s done.” She took a deep breath and sat back.
Day was the first to respond. “There is a chance that a big publicity campaign will help us. It may well prompt someone’s memory, someone might recognize him, and we could get some valuable information out of it. I’d have to clear it with New Scotland Yard, because there will be a new team investigating the murders.”
Gem shook her head. “They can do what they have to do, but I only want to deal with you on this.”
Day smiled. “I’ll see what I can do. It’s possible, because the carjacking is still my case. We could focus any TV appeal around that investigation.”
York had been silent for a while. She picked up her pen and tapped it pensively on the table. “I can see the benefits, but I have to warn you that the whole thing is fraught with danger. The offender has created this fantasy about you and him belonging together, and he’s prepared to do anything to make that happen. He has objectified you. He’s not seeing you as a human being but as an object that he wants to possess and control.”
“But I don’t care what he thinks about me or what his sick mind needs, and I want to let him know that.”
“That’s the point,” York said. “I’m sure this won’t surprise you, but psychopaths don’t tend to take rejection well. If he thinks that you set out to deliberately humiliate him publicly, he’ll almost certainly feel he’s been unforgivably betrayed.”
“I don’t give a shit about his feelings,” Gem snapped. “In fact, I want to humiliate him, I want the sicko to think I’ve betrayed him, I want to hurt him in every possible way I can, and I want him to pay for what he’s done.”
York held up both her hands. “Please calm down and listen, would you? It’s important that you understand what I’m saying. All this time, the offender will have told himself that deep down, you want to be with him. A TV appearance in which you go out of your way to condemn him is likely to be a tipping point. Once he believes that you have rejected him, when his carefully constructed delusion has been shattered, things will change. It won’t be friends or family who will be in danger then. He’ll want to make you suffer. There’s a good chance he’ll come after you.”
Gem looked at Day and then back at York. She’d appeased this monster before and look where that had gotten her. For a moment, the psychologist’s warning sent her mind back to that night in the parking lot when she had looked into those eyes and saw the darkness inside. The memory made her shiver.
“Let’s do it,” she said. “I’m ready.”
43
Fight
The Mastermind
Norton sat at a table in the center of the budget hotel’s cramped breakfast room and stared down at the front page of that morning’s Daily News. The splash headline screamed Warrior for Women’s Boyfriend Killed by Psycho Carjacker. Underneath it, the byline read Exclusive by Matt Revell.
The reporter had used Gem Golding’s assertion that the killer was the same man who’d attacked her as the new angle for his story, padding the article out by repeating the lurid details of the earlier incident, explaining how she’d fought him off and run him down with her car. A young couple at an adjacent table glanced briefly in Norton’s direction before exchanging whispers and returning their attention to their fried eggs and beans on toast.
He pulled the peak of his baseball cap down, drained his mug of coffee, and read the news report for the third time. The murder of Drew Bentley was described as “an evil act of revenge.” According to Revell, the carjacker had killed th
e lawyer to get back at Gem Golding for publicly humiliating him. The final paragraph spelled out to the readers that New Scotland Yard had been given the chance to confirm or deny the story, but the press office had responded with a curt “No comment.”
The whole article contained just one fresh quote from Golding. “I want Drew’s killer to pay for what he’s done. I’ve looked him in the eye. I know he’s evil, and I know deep down, under all that arrogance, he’s weak.”
Norton clenched his teeth. The muscles in his jaw twitched. He rarely allowed himself to show anger, unless it was to make a point or to manipulate a situation to his advantage, but he had to call on all his inner strength to stay calm.
He took a couple of long, deep breaths and waited for his rage to subside. When he was able to think straight again, he started to draw up a plan of action. The time was coming when Golding would pay dearly for the insults, the accusations, the disrespect.
Any sensible human being would have learned by now to keep their mouth shut, but not her. She insisted on stirring up trouble. Even Bentley’s death hadn’t silenced her. Norton thought for a moment, then smiled to himself as the details of what he needed to do fell into place.
Everyone had underestimated his talents. In the children’s home, Bentley had truly thought he was the smartest kid, the leader, and Norton the grateful follower. He allowed himself a smile as he recalled how easy it had been to plant ideas in the idiot’s head. One afternoon, they stole a dozen cans of beer from a grocery store, laughing as they outran the overweight security guard, their hoods hiding their faces. Back at the children’s home, Bentley had laughed as he bragged to the other kids about how he’d decided to rob the place on the spur of the moment. Just for the hell of it. He truly believed the whole thing had been his idea.
Norton shook his head. He’d visited the store as a customer three times before that day. He’d checked out the positioning of the CCTV cameras and noted that the big-bellied security guard always spent several hours in a nearby pub before starting his afternoon shift.
Being misjudged made everything so much easier. Never underestimate the power of being underestimated. The police, the media, that bitch Golding, they were doing it too. If only they knew what kind of mind they were dealing with.
The Detective
Day pulled up in the car parking space below his office window and switched off the engine. He looked at the unopened letter lying on the passenger seat and considered tearing it up into tiny pieces and throwing it out the window.
He’d been pushing it to the back of his mind since the mailman had shoved it through his letterbox. He had a good idea what the envelope contained, and he didn’t want to touch it, let alone read it. A killer was on the loose in the city, and he needed to concentrate on catching him, not sit around reading letters from his wife’s lawyer. She’d never had a lawyer while they were together; she had never needed one. No doubt Hardy had encouraged her to engage a shit-hot operator. The bastard would be only too happy to pay for it.
Day snatched the envelope up, ripped it open, and pulled out the letter. He read it through quickly, just once, screwed it into a ball, and tossed it over his shoulder onto the back seat. Leaning forward, he pressed his forehead against the top of the steering wheel.
Opening the letter had been a big mistake. The morning briefing was due to start in twenty minutes, and he needed to pull himself together. He was trying to refocus his mind on work when the front passenger door opened and Shields slipped onto the seat.
“So, you’ve got a secret admirer who sends you fan mail,” she said with a smile. “There’s no need to beat yourself up about it.”
Day sat up straight. “What are you talking about?”
“That letter. You should show more respect to your fans.”
“It’s from Amy. Well, it’s from a solicitor on behalf of Amy. She wants a divorce. A quick one.”
“Oh, right. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need to be. It’s not your fault.”
“Are you all right?”
Day didn’t reply. He was the complete opposite of all right, but he didn’t think he should admit that to his sergeant.
After a few moments, Shields filled the awkward silence. “I don’t suppose this news has come as a big surprise though, has it? She left you to move in with another man, didn’t she? You must have seen this coming.”
Her bluntness stung, like a slap to his face. But she was right. “It seems a bit hasty, that’s all. I still harbored hopes that I could get them both to come home, Tom and Amy. Put my family back together. Get back to how it used to be. Once I’d achieved that, I was going to concentrate on earning myself a return to the murder squad. That was the plan.”
“You’d have her back, Boss? Forgive her if she asked you to?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. Once she’s divorced, then she can marry Hardy.”
“Tell me to mind my own business, but why would you want things back the way they were? They obviously weren’t good, or this never would have happened.”
Day stifled an urge to tell Shields that she’d been right, that it was none of her business. He wasn’t comfortable discussing his private life with a colleague, but in the short time they’d worked together, he’d come to value her way of looking at things.
“If we divorced, she can remarry, and Hardy will officially be Tom’s stepdad. I’m worried I’ll lose my son as well. I’m already making a mess of everything, letting him down when we should be spending time together.”
Shields half opened the car door and shifted her weight toward it. “Right now, you’re working every hour of every day trying to bring a killer to justice. Surely they understand that?”
Day shrugged. “I think they do, but understanding what being a detective means to me is obviously not enough. Not for Amy anyway.” He looked at his watch and shouldered his door open. “We’re going to be late if we don’t get a move on. Let’s go.”
They walked into the squad room together to find Stock sitting with his feet up on his desk chewing on a sandwich. He looked crumpled and unshaven. The young detective had been trawling through databases when they’d left the previous night, and Day suspected he hadn’t been home.
As they approached, Stock slid his feet off the desk, put his half-eaten sandwich in his jacket pocket, and brushed crumbs from the creases in the front of his shirt.
“You look like you’ve been here all night,” Shields said. “I hope it was worth it.”
Stock stood up and smiled. “I did find something interesting.” Next to his desk stood a whiteboard. Across the top were photographs of Gem Golding and Drew Bentley and a grainy CCTV image of Connor Norton.
Stock tapped the photograph of Bentley. “Andrew Bentley spent several years in a children’s home in Croydon after being taken from his drug addict mother. I found a couple of old newspaper articles describing him as a poster boy for the foster care system. A shining example of a children’s home resident made good.”
Day shrugged, failing to hide his disappointment. “Good victim background, I suppose,” he said. “But it doesn’t get us any nearer to finding Connor Norton.”
Stock’s shoulders slumped. He picked a copy of the Daily News off his desk and held it out to Day. “The information line has been getting quite a few calls this morning in response to this. We’re already checking out a few people who have reported sightings of Norton.”
Day took the paper and read the splash headline. Warrior for Women’s Boyfriend Killed by Psycho Carjacker. He kept his face expressionless as he read the lead article, but it wasn’t easy. “Why didn’t anyone tell me that this was being published?” he demanded.
Stock looked vacantly at Shields, desperately hoping that she’d come to his rescue.
“I don’t think anybody knew about it, Boss,” she said.
Day turned around and walked out of the squad room. The morning had started off badly. Things were going downhill fast.
44
Surrender
The Mastermind
Norton threw his head back and drained half a bottle of beer in one go. The televised police appeal had been running for a couple of minutes, and he watched with a wry smile as Detective Inspector Elliot Day explained how he wanted anybody who had information about the whereabouts of the suspect to call the confidential police telephone line.
He’d been intrigued to see and assess the man who was spectacularly failing to track him down. Day appeared to be fairly intelligent, physically fit, and relatively young for a senior detective, but Norton quickly came to the conclusion that, intellectually, he had nothing to worry about.
The detective’s ramblings soon started to bore him. He was impatient to hear from the main act, the star of the show. He slid off the sofa and knelt on the thick carpet to get a closer look at the woman sitting to the right of the detective.
He watched Gem Golding reach for a glass of water on the table in front of her and remembered how her body had pressed hard against his. She took a nervous sip, trying desperately not to make eye contact with a camera. Norton understood why her mouth was dry. She was being forced to take part in the appeal against her will. She’d eventually caved in to what must have been enormous pressure, and he wasn’t going to think badly of her for that.
The opposite was true. Seeing her paraded in front of the TV cameras, pale and vulnerable under the studio lights, made him want to protect her, take control, and whisk her off somewhere safe so she didn’t have to pretend any longer.
He heard movement behind him and turned slowly. Alice stood in the doorway, waiting for permission to enter. He waved the beer bottle at her, and she scurried back into the kitchen. Norton reached for the TV remote and turned up the volume. Day was starting to say something interesting.
“In addition to the carjacking incident, the suspect is wanted for questioning in connection with at least one other serious crime. I’m afraid I can’t release any details yet. We want to hear from anybody who can tell us anything about him, but I want to stress that he should not be approached. If you see him or know where he is, I repeat, do not try to approach him. This man is extremely dangerous and almost certainly armed.”
