‘Victim’s name is Thomas Bristow.’ Tanner appeared in the bedroom doorway. ‘The woman next door says he’d been living alone since his wife died a few years ago, kept himself to himself. I’ve got a number for a daughter in Leeds. We’re tracing the address.’

  Thorne knew that some unlucky local officer would be dispatched to deliver the death message. A far worse job than any of them had tonight.

  ‘So, she had the order right after all,’ Tanner said. ‘The wise monkey business. See then hear then speak.’

  They stared at all that remained of Thomas Bristow; what little there was left for his daughter to identify. He was disappearing and it didn’t look like there’d been a lot of him to begin with.

  ‘Well, maybe that’s the end of it, then,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’

  He didn’t need to look at Tanner to know she was no more convinced of it than he was.

  Watching him bleed out, she’d remembered a random line from a book or a play she’d read at school, or had read to her. Something about not knowing the old man had so much blood in him. Three weeks on, in the pub, with a few more drinks inside her, she thought it was odd, because she didn’t actually remember much from school at all. Just that feeling of being constantly got at and written off. Underestimated. Knowing, when she walked into a classroom, that the kids who were already in there had been talking about her.

  She sniggered into her glass.

  So much blood . . .

  It hadn’t just been that old bloke she’d been cutting or the one in Gospel Oak or that soppy student. She’d done it all for the man who’d changed her life, of course, like a thank you, but while she’d been doing it she’d been happily slicing up all those wankers from back then, too. The kids who’d laughed behind her back or ignored her completely. She’d been lopping bits and pieces off everyone who’d told her she was ugly or weird or taken the piss because of what was happening to her at home, even when they didn’t know the half of it. Doing it to them, popping her souvenirs into a plastic bag, then standing back to watch her touchy-feely stepdad die.

  Thrashing around like he could fight it, but not for very long.

  That’s what it had been like in that flash house in Hadley Wood, same as the others. A story about monsters with a happy ending. A story that she was in. She couldn’t swear the old man had been dead by the end. It wasn’t like she took a pulse or anything, but he’d certainly stopped moving by the time she put the scalpel back in her bag and took the spoon out.

  Knelt across him and said ‘Be quiet,’ just like her stepfather had done.

  Rebecca – ‘The Bookworm’, ‘Morticia Addams’, ‘Unsexy Bexy’ – told herself that the tears were stupid, and were only because she’d had too much to drink and got herself into a state, as she stood up and walked, a little unsteadily, towards the Ladies.

  ‘Slippery bastards, eyes,’ Hendricks said.

  They were sitting in Thorne’s car on Claremont Road. Tanner was in the passenger seat and Hendricks, who had collected coffees from the all-night garage round the corner, was sitting in the back. The engine was running and the heater was on.

  Tanner turned to look at him. ‘What?’

  Hendricks leaned forward. ‘They’re all soft tissue, aren’t they, and they’re constantly lubricating to enable rotation. We already know she doesn’t bother wearing gloves, so I’m just saying, she’d have had a right job keeping hold of them. Probably chasing them all over that bedroom . . . like trying to pick up a sliver of soap when you’ve dropped it in the shower.’ He saw the look on Tanner’s face and sat back. ‘It’s all right for you. I’m the one that has to live with me.’

  Thorne stared out of the window and watched as more officers, CSIs and auxiliary staff came and went from Thomas Bristow’s house. Equipment carried in, bags and boxes carried out. Thinking that evidence was all well and good, that they already had a shed-load of it, but that none of it would amount to anything until it was presented. There were police lock-ups stuffed with evidence all over the country. Hard drives and rock-solid data, murder books full of statements and fridges full of samples; all of it gathering dust and degrading while cases cooled and the relatives of the dead struggled to move on. Precious, vital, damning, but ultimately worth no more than the shit people carted up to their lofts and forgot about.

  Tanner watched the comings and goings too, and it wasn’t hard to work out what Thorne was thinking, because he wasn’t the only one.

  ‘It all helps, Tom,’ she said. ‘And we’ll have plenty to get stuck into tomorrow.’

  Thorne turned to look at her. ‘Melita reckons she’s putting on a show, you know? All the wise monkey stuff, the trophies. Like she’s playing a part.’

  ‘Sounds feasible,’ Tanner said.

  ‘She’s making a good job of it,’ Hendricks said from the back.

  ‘What about the victims, though? There’s no connection. These killers she’s emulating usually target specific types . . . age and appearance, whatever, and I don’t think the fact that they’re all men is enough. It just feels . . . ’ He stopped.

  ‘What?’ Tanner stared at him.

  ‘Their names,’ Thorne said. He swore and slammed his palm against the steering wheel. He looked at Tanner and waited, like it was obvious. ‘The dead men’s names. Yeah, course it looks random. Christ, it even sounds random. Thomas, Richard . . . ’

  Hendricks got it, slapped the back of the seat. ‘Ah.’

  Tanner nodded, just a second behind him. ‘Any old Tom, Dick or Hari.’

  NINETEEN

  Saturday, late afternoon; over thirty-six hours since the body of Thomas Bristow had been discovered. Two nights earlier, outside the house in Hadley Wood, Tanner had talked to Thorne about ‘getting stuck in’, but the all-important process of following up on leads provided by the public had, by necessity, slowed a little. Now a third murder had been added to the caseload. Officers had been given new jobs to do, with associated evidence needing to be urgently gathered and another crime scene still being processed. There was fresh information coming in all the time via phone and email, but the focus had shifted and now it felt to Thorne like the team was playing catch-up.

  Sitting in Brigstocke’s office he made his feelings perfectly clear, and the DCI was more than happy to respond, with interest.

  ‘I’ve been doing this a while, Tom—’

  ‘I’m not exactly new to the game myself—’

  ‘And I’m not sure there’s any such thing as “too much evidence”.’

  ‘You know that’s not what I meant,’ Thorne said. ‘I’m saying, we’ve got enough. For now, certainly. Enough to put her away a hundred times over, but until we actually catch her, or get a half-decent sniff of catching her, all the evidence in the world is worth jack shit.’

  ‘I hear what you’re saying, but we can’t just ignore new evidence, can we?’

  ‘No, but we can try not to kid ourselves it’s getting us anywhere.’

  The new evidence consisted of yet more CCTV footage showing that a woman had visited Thomas Bristow’s house and departed approximately ninety minutes later, having left behind forensic traces that were, to nobody’s astonishment, quickly matched to those from the previous two crime scenes. The pay as you go phone the suspect had used to call the hotline had been purchased from a shop in Forest Hill the day before and paid for with cash. The computer removed from the victim’s home office had revealed a booking made the previous day through a website euphemistically called Capital Companions, and a bank transfer shortly afterwards as payment for the agreed service – £350 for a two-hour home visit from Bristow’s chosen ‘companion’.

  ‘So, she’s using escort sites as well as dating apps.’ Thorne shrugged. ‘I’m not convinced that really gets us anywhere and, to be honest, we probably should have assumed it anyway.’

  Brigstocke was staying surprisingly civil. ‘You know as well as I do that any piece of evidence can be the one that gets you the result. Some stupid thing. You never know where it’s coming from.’

  ‘Well, it won’t be from wasting more time looking at bloody camera footage,’ Thorne said.

  ‘You know that, do you? Because all I know is there’s been another murder and we’ve got to investigate it properly. Same as we investigated the others. Do you remember doing that?’ Brigstocke stared hard at him, then took off his glasses, rubbed at the bridge of his nose. ‘Christ, why do I feel like I’m talking to a teenager doing work experience? Look, I’m really sorry if the way we’ve been doing things round here like . . . for ever doesn’t meet with your approval any more—’ He raised a hand when he saw Thorne about to interrupt. ‘And the only reason I haven’t told you to fuck the fuck off out of my office already is that you’re clearly very frustrated. Or you haven’t been getting enough sleep. Or maybe there’s medication I don’t know about that you’ve forgotten to take . . . but the fact remains, it is what it is.’ Brigstocke put his glasses back on. ‘So, suck it up, all right?’

  Thorne said nothing; turned away to look out of the window.

  ‘What, now you’re going to sulk?’

  ‘Just . . . why aren’t a few more people working on the intel that’s coming in and a few less . . . doing the investigating?’

  ‘You do know how stupid that sounds, right?’ Brigstocke didn’t bother waiting for an answer. ‘Try asking Thomas Bristow’s daughter that question. I think we owe it to her to investigate her father’s murder every bit as thoroughly as we would any other. Every bit as properly.’

  ‘Yeah, I get that, but—’

  ‘Maybe you should take it up with the suits who allocate the resources around here. Better yet, why don’t you give the Home Secretary a bell and spend ten minutes getting on her tits for cutting our budgets?’

  Thorne’s phone rang. He took it from his pocket and saw a number he didn’t recognise on the screen. He looked at the DCI.

  ‘You go right ahead, mate.’ When Thorne hesitated, Brigstocke pulled across the paperwork he’d been working on before Thorne had interrupted him. ‘Might be somebody else you can annoy, give me a break.’

  The caller identified himself as a DS Brunt based at a station in Crystal Palace and began to tell Thorne a story. After listening for half a minute, Thorne was waving to get Brigstocke’s attention, and fifteen seconds later he was out of his seat. ‘Listen, I’ve got the SIO with me, so I’m putting you on speaker . . . ’ He laid his phone down on Brigstocke’s desk.

  ‘DCI Brigstocke here. I’m listening.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Thorne moved quickly to open the door and called Tanner in from the incident room. As soon as she had stepped into the office, Thorne said, ‘OK, go ahead.’

  ‘So, it’s like I told DI Thorne . . . ’ Brunt’s voice was echoey, but clear enough. ‘Just after eleven on Thursday evening, uniform arrested a young woman for drunk and disorderly . . . pissing in the street outside the Sparrowhawk pub on Westow Hill, if you want to be specific. They probably wouldn’t even have nicked her, but she took a swing at one of them, busted the lad’s nose. So anyway, they brought her in . . . ’

  Tanner and Brigstocke were both looking at Thorne. Brigstocke shook his head, mouthed, What the fuck?, but Thorne held a hand up.

  ‘We took prints and DNA, as per, and she was bailed yesterday morning, but, here’s the thing . . . when they got round to running them through the database an hour or so ago, we got a hit on two of your crime scenes. I’ve checked the reference numbers and we’re talking about the Sumner and Reddy murders? Prints and DNA. Hundred per cent match.’

  Brigstocke said, ‘Bloody hell.’

  Tanner just stared.

  ‘What’s the name?’ Thorne leaned down to the phone. ‘The woman’s name?’

  ‘Rebecca Driver,’ Brunt said. ‘Twenty-six. Works in a local supermarket, home address on Anerley Road.’

  Thorne looked at Tanner. She nodded.

  ‘I can send you all the details. She was very cooperative, once she’d sobered up a bit—’

  ‘So, any idea where she is now?’ Brigstocke came quickly around his desk, stood over the phone. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I dispatched a couple of units to Anerley Road five minutes ago,’ Brunt said. ‘Thought you’d want to move quickly. I’m waiting to hear, but fingers crossed we can pick her up and get her across to you asap.’

  Brigstocke asked to be transferred to Brunt’s DCI, and while he began to make what would hopefully be the necessary transfer arrangements Thorne and Tanner stepped out into the hallway.

  ‘We’ve got that name on file,’ Thorne said. ‘Somebody phoned it in.’

  ‘Yesterday, I think.’ Tanner still looked shell-shocked. ‘I’ve definitely seen it on one of the lists.’

  ‘But it’s not been checked out yet?’

  Thorne didn’t need anyone to confirm what was already obvious. The bullet they had . . . might have . . . dodged. A cock-up of seismic proportions that, whatever anyone had to say about ‘investigative priorities’ and ‘allocation of resources’, was the kind of thing that could end several careers. A mistake that could, had they not just got very lucky, have cost many more men their lives. As it was, the call of nature after one too many, and a young PC with a broken nose, might just have let them all off the hook.

  A little under two hours later, Thorne leaned against the wall of the custody suite at Colindale station and watched as Rebecca Louise Driver was booked in for the murders of Richard Sumner, Hari Reddy and Thomas Bristow. As per standard procedure, D&D and assaulting a police officer would be added to the charge sheet when the time came, though neither offence was likely to make a great deal of difference if and when it came to sentencing.

  ‘You never know,’ Hendricks had said, when Thorne had called to give him the news. ‘Some judge with a wasp in his wig about public urination, they might slap another six months on.’

  Thorne watched as handcuffs were removed and the woman calmly handed over the contents of her pockets, then those of a small plastic handbag. A hairbrush, bits and pieces of make-up, a shiny black purse, tampons. He watched her sign for her possessions once the custody sergeant had logged them and passed the requisite form across.

  He heard her say, ‘Thank you.’

  He saw the look of disinterest as she turned down the offer of legal representation; a stare and then a nod when the custody sergeant asked if she was sure. He saw the expression of mild amusement as she was informed that she would be taken to a ‘dry’ cell – where her clothes would be removed for forensic testing and where swabs and samples of blood and hair would be taken – before being given something to eat.

  ‘I’m allergic to nuts and shellfish,’ she said.

  Then, as the arresting officer moved forward and laid a hand on her arm, Thorne saw Rebecca Driver turn to look at him, as though well aware he’d been watching her the entire time. She ran fingers through her short dark hair and, just for a second or two before she was led away, Thorne saw the same smile he’d seen her give to that camera in the library. As though there weren’t too many places she’d rather be and she was happy that Thorne was there to welcome her.

  Like she was pleased to see him.

  TWENTY

  DS Dipak Chall and DC Susan White stated their names for the recording. Chall looked at his watch and announced that it was seven thirty-six p.m., glanced at the woman sitting on the other side of the table, then opened the folder in front of him. An hour and a half since officers from Crystal Palace had escorted Rebecca Driver into Colindale station.

  A ‘first account’ interview.

  ‘You have declined the offer of legal representation at this stage,’ Chall said. ‘Is that correct?’

  Driver nodded, stared around the room.

  ‘For the recording, please.’

  ‘Yes, I have declined it.’ A half-smile. ‘That is absolutely spot on.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Chall said. ‘So, now I’m going to show you photographs of a number of items that were removed from your home address at the time of your arrest.’ From the folder, he removed three large colour photos of the plastic bags found behind the peas and oven chips in the freezer at Driver’s flat. He laid them out in a row. The contents of the bags were iced up, compacted, but – certainly as far as the eyes and ears went – it was clear enough what they were. ‘Can you explain what these items were doing in your flat?’

  Driver didn’t bother to look. ‘No comment.’

  Chall produced a fourth photograph. A partially rusted scalpel that had been discovered wrapped in tissue paper in a shoebox beneath Driver’s bed. ‘Can you explain why officers found this hidden in your flat?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Can you explain what appear to be dried bloodstains here, on the blade?’ Chall pointed. ‘And here, on the handle?’

  Nobody was in any real doubt that the scalpel, currently being tested for prints and DNA, was the one that had killed Sumner, Reddy and Bristow. As far as moving to charge their suspect went, there was already sufficient evidence for what would surely be as quick a thumbs-up as the Crown Prosecution Service ever gave, but while they were waiting for forensic confirmation of the murder weapon, Brigstocke had been keen to put Driver into an interview room. To get her side of the story.

  ‘The scalpel’s going to put the tin lid on it,’ the DCI had said. ‘But it can’t hurt to see what she’s got to say for herself.’

  ‘No comment,’ she said.

  White sat forward and began to make the same speech she’d made many times before. The spiel about the suspect’s right to say nothing and the right of a jury to draw an adverse inference from her silence down the line. The DC hadn’t got very far when Driver leaned back and folded her arms.