‘I’m only messing about,’ she said. ‘I’ve got plenty to say.’

  In an otherwise empty office two floors above, Thorne and Tanner sat staring at the screen of a computer broadcasting the live video and audio feeds from the interview room. Tanner shook her head. ‘I’ve seen people done for not paying their TV licence who looked more nervous.’

  ‘She’s not nervous at all,’ Thorne said. ‘Look at her.’ Driver was wearing a regulation grey sweatshirt and tracksuit bottoms, her Dr Martens replaced by dirty-white training shoes. The collection of thick silver rings and bracelets had been taken away, but she was still sporting the make-up she’d been wearing when she came in. A thick layer of pale foundation that made her look almost doll-like, heavy mascara and eyeliner, and purple lipstick that Thorne saw cracking just a fraction, now, as she smiled. ‘She’s like a pig in shit.’

  ‘Let’s get back to these photographs, then.’ Chall pushed the first three a little closer together. ‘We’ll start with the items found in your freezer.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Well, could you explain why they were in your freezer?’

  ‘You serious?’ Driver grimaced. ‘They’d’ve been stinking the place out otherwise.’

  ‘Cocky little bitch,’ Tanner said.

  ‘Let her enjoy herself,’ Thorne said. ‘She’ll be on remand this time tomorrow.’

  ‘You want to tell me what they are?’ Chall asked.

  Driver leaned forward, made a show of carefully studying each photograph. ‘This isn’t exactly the most difficult quiz ever . . . ’ She stabbed a finger at each one in turn. One, two, three. ‘Eyes, ears, tongue. What’s next?’

  ‘How about telling us who these body parts were taken from?’

  She sighed and shook her head. ‘Wouldn’t this be a bit more fun for you if you were asking me questions you didn’t already know the answer to?’

  Thorne picked up his phone and sent a text message to Susan White.

  Monkeys.

  ‘These are the eyes you harvested from Thomas Bristow.’ Chall pointed at a photograph.

  White took her phone out when she felt it vibrate. She glanced at the message.

  ‘Harvested?’ Driver laughed, repeating the word as though she’d never heard it before. ‘Well, I actually scooped them out with a soup spoon, but I don’t mind if you want to get all fancy about it.’

  ‘We do get the pattern,’ White said. ‘We understand the whole “see no evil, hear no evil” thing.’

  Driver shifted in her chair to look at her. ‘Well, thank God for that. I was starting to think I’d been wasting my time.’

  ‘And the business with the names. Tom, Dick and Hari.’

  ‘Yeah, did you like that?’ She seemed delighted. ‘It makes everything a bit more interesting, I reckon. For you as well as me.’

  ‘Why the three wise monkeys, though?’ White looked at Chall and shook her head.

  ‘Was it something you read about in a book?’ Chall asked. ‘We know how much you like your books. Hundreds of them back at your flat by all accounts. Must be just about every true crime book ever written, that’s what one of the lads said.’

  Driver had stopped smiling.

  ‘Something you nicked out of one of them, was it?’ Chall leaned towards her. ‘Your three wise monkeys. Some pathetic copycat thing?’

  Driver’s head dropped and she sank down in her chair.

  ‘Doesn’t look so cocky now,’ Tanner said.

  Thorne stared at the screen. He watched as Driver slowly put up her hand as though she was about to ask a question, raised four fingers and waggled them at the two detectives, like she was waving at them.

  ‘What the hell’s she doing?’ Thorne said.

  ‘It’s actually four.’ Driver lifted her head and smiled at Chall, like she was revelling in a joke they hadn’t got yet. ‘Four wise monkeys. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil and . . . do no evil. Maybe you should go and look it up. It’s only in some of the stories . . . the statues and whatever, and it’s usually ignored, because four is an unlucky number in Japanese. The whole idea comes from Japan, you know that, right?’

  Chall and White looked at each other and, two floors above them, Thorne and Tanner did the same.

  Driver sat back and slowly raised her fingers again, one at a time, counting off. ‘One, two, three . . . four.’

  ‘What’s she talking about?’ Tanner asked.

  ‘Sedzaru.’ Driver looked from Chall to White, as though she was searching for some glimmer of understanding she knew would never come. ‘That’s the name of the fourth wise monkey, if it helps.’

  Thorne grabbed his phone and fired off another text message.

  Break now.

  Thorne spent ten minutes talking it through with Brigstocke. It took the DCI another forty-five to get the necessary authorisation from higher up and for the technical arrangements to be made. Then somebody pressed the send

  button.

  Melita called when Thorne was halfway back to Kentish Town.

  ‘Have you watched it?’

  ‘Twice,’ Melita said. ‘And I don’t think you need to be so worried. I think she’s winding you all up.’

  ‘It has to be a possibility, though, right?’ Thorne had already told her what he and the rest of the team were concerned about. The fourth wise monkey, suggesting a fourth body, as yet undiscovered. ‘Or maybe there’s someone else involved we don’t know about yet and the fourth murder’s been assigned to them.’

  ‘Which is exactly the kind of thing she wants you all thinking,’ Melita said. ‘It’s about power, Tom, and right now, playing games is the only power she’s got. It’s not like you don’t know all this.’

  ‘You’re probably right, but we’re still waiting on the scalpel so we’re going to carry on talking to her.’

  ‘Whatever you think, but I’m not sure the games will

  stop.’

  ‘Can you come in tomorrow morning?’

  ‘I’ve got patients.’

  ‘I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’

  ‘My patients are important.’

  ‘I think it might help if you have a look at her, that’s all.’ Thorne slipped into boyfriend mode, though he wasn’t confident it would be any more persuasive. ‘Come on, I know you’re interested and maybe you’ll get some kind of . . . paper out of it. A chapter in a textbook or whatever.’

  ‘Again, exactly what she wants.’

  ‘Just for an hour,’ Thorne said.

  TWENTY-ONE

  ‘Where’s the other one, today?’ Driver asked, once the formalities had been completed. ‘The Indian bloke.’

  Nicola Tanner did not bother looking up from her notes. ‘Detective Sergeant Chall is busy on another investigation this morning.’

  Driver nodded, thinking about it. ‘So, like a rota kind of thing then, is it? Same as in a supermarket, basically.’

  ‘Not really.’ White checked her phone was switched to silent and slipped it into her inside pocket.

  ‘So, I might be getting other detectives as well?’

  ‘Others?’ White asked.

  ‘Different ones, once you’ve finished.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Tanner said. ‘If we’re needed elsewhere.’ Now she looked across the desk. ‘Yours is not the only case we’re dealing with.’

  Two floors up, Thorne and Melita sat in front of the computer. Thorne had laid on the coffee and a selection of pastries, as a thank you. Melita had her notebook open and had already begun to write.

  ‘Very nice,’ she said. ‘Don’t let her think she’s all-important.’

  ‘Nicola’s good at this,’ Thorne said.

  ‘She’ll need to be.’

  ‘Can we go back to your wise monkeys?’ Tanner glanced at DC White, like she might be a little confused. ‘However many of them there are supposed to be.’ White shrugged as though she wasn’t sure either.

  ‘It’s four, I told you.’ The flash of irritation had been brief, but had not gone unnoticed. ‘It’s four.’

  ‘Yes, we were wondering what you meant by that.’

  Driver had put four fingers up again, the way she had done the previous evening. She waggled them slowly. Then, having clearly worked out where the camera was, she turned and looked up to give it a wave.

  ‘What did you mean, Rebecca?’

  Thorne stared at the screen, at the young woman staring back at him. A hammy pout, then the deliberately goofy smile of someone trying to ruin a photograph. The make-up had been removed overnight and, stripped of her mask, pallid and pimply, she might just have been a stroppy teenager showing off.

  ‘She wants your attention,’ Melita said.

  Thorne turned. ‘Mine?’

  ‘Whoever she thinks is watching. Anybody’s.’

  ‘What did you mean when you told DS Chall that there were four wise monkeys?’

  Driver turned back to the two detectives, considered Tanner’s question, and shrugged. ‘I didn’t mean anything. I was just telling you the truth. It’s important to get the facts right, isn’t it? Why does everything have to mean something?’

  ‘That’s very helpful,’ White said.

  ‘Well, I’m trying to be helpful,’ Driver said.

  ‘And we appreciate it.’

  ‘That’s the whole point, isn’t it?’

  Melita scribbled something in her notebook, underlined it.

  ‘I’m interested in where the idea came from,’ Tanner said.

  Driver seemed interested, too. She sat forward and drummed her fingers on the table. ‘The murders, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, the murders . . . and the manner of them. The things you did to the victims afterwards.’

  ‘Not always afterwards,’ Driver said.

  ‘No . . . ’

  ‘I got a bit over-excited sometimes.’ There was another glance up at the camera, a small shrug. ‘I couldn’t wait.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Thorne said. ‘Is she actually proud of that?’

  ‘Probably,’ Melita said. They watched as Tanner simply nodded and pressed on. ‘That’s good.’ Melita was scribbling again. ‘It’s important not to rise to her bait . . . ’

  ‘We’ve already talked about the great many books that were found in your flat,’ Tanner said.

  ‘I like books,’ Driver said.

  ‘Who doesn’t?’

  ‘You’d be amazed. Some people are morons.’

  ‘Only I don’t recall seeing too many about Japanese mythology on the list. So . . . ?’

  ‘Something I saw on the telly,’ Driver said. ‘The internet, maybe. You just pick stuff up, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Tanner said.

  White took her turn. ‘Last night, you seemed to get a little agitated when DS Chall suggested it might all have been something you’d . . . borrowed. Something you were copying.’

  Driver appeared to find that funny. There was certainly no sign of the irritation she’d shown the night before or a few minutes earlier. ‘There’s a difference between borrowing something and being influenced by it. We’re all the sum of our influences, aren’t we?’

  ‘So, you committed these three murders because something influenced you?’

  Driver sat back. There was a half-smile. ‘Well, not exactly something.’

  Thorne sat up a little straighter. ‘What?’

  ‘More games,’ Melita said.

  ‘Someone,’ Tanner said. ‘You’re saying you’ve done these things because someone influenced you.’

  ‘Not influenced,’ Driver said. ‘Asked me to.’ She seemed pleased at the look she saw pass between Tanner and White; at the reaction she was perhaps imagining from those observing proceedings from elsewhere. ‘No, asked isn’t quite right, either. Suggested it . . . yeah, that’s better. Knowing that I was very suggestible, you see what I’m saying? Knowing I’d already done it a hundred times in my head, that I’d been doing it all my life, really.’ She smiled and shook her head, like she was confessing to a lifetime of minor shoplifting. ‘Someone special who just gave me that little nudge, that’s all. Made me feel brave enough to step over the edge.’

  Thorne began composing a one-word text message, but Tanner asked the question before he could send it.

  ‘Who?’

  Driver slowly shook her head, unable or unwilling to answer. She stared down at the tabletop for half a minute before finally looking up; uneasy suddenly. Paler than ever. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t feel too clever . . . I think I need a break. I can have a break if I want, can’t I?’

  TWENTY-TWO

  There were six of them, seated around a table in an overheated conference room on the second floor. Brigstocke watched Melita open her notebook and said, ‘I think it would be useful to hear Dr Perera’s thoughts before the interview recommences.’

  Thorne was sitting next to her. He glanced across at the word she’d underlined fifteen minutes before.

  ‘Your suspect’s being too helpful,’ Melita said. ‘She’s giving you too much, too quickly, and I think that might be a cause for concern. It’s something I would ask you to think about, certainly.’

  ‘You think she’s stringing us along?’ Brigstocke asked.

  ‘No, not necessarily. I’m not saying that what she’s telling you isn’t true, or true for her, at least. It all just feels a little too easy.’ She turned to Thorne. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘She definitely seems a bit over-eager,’ Thorne said.

  ‘I’ve already spoken to Tom about this—’ She paused, flustered for a second or two, and corrected herself. ‘To Detective Inspector Thorne . . . and the more I think about it, the more I begin to see discrepancies.’

  Tanner looked at her. ‘In what she’s saying?’

  ‘From the word go,’ Melita said. ‘From when the murders started.’

  Brigstocke glanced at Tanner and Thorne. Said, ‘Go on.’

  ‘You all believe that this young woman is clever, yes?’ Melita looked around the table. Chall and White nodded. ‘Right. I mean most of the people who do this sort of thing are, even if it’s not what you might think of as conventional intelligence. It doesn’t mean she’s good at chess or crosswords . . . but she’s got a highly developed sense of guile, at any rate. An animal cunning, if you like. But, if we accept that’s the case, why did she start off hiding from the cameras, taking all the steps she could to avoid them, and then very quickly start showing herself to them?’

  ‘Right.’ Thorne nodded to Tanner and Brigstocke. ‘Suddenly she’s in more photos than a Kardashian.’

  ‘She uses a burner phone and untraceable email addresses, she changes her appearance for each murder . . . but she makes no effort whatsoever to destroy forensic evidence, despite titles on her bookshelf which would indicate that she knows all about it. It would have been simple enough to take her victims’ phones and computers. That would have made your jobs a lot harder, but again, she chooses not to. She was very well prepared for the killings, with her selection of the victims, with the sedatives and so on . . . so, why so sloppy afterwards?’ She looked at Brigstocke. ‘I’m just asking the question.’

  ‘Are you saying she’s exactly where she wants to be?’ Tanner asked.

  ‘I’m putting the possibility out there, that’s all. For one victim she’s a young girl looking for love. For another she’s an escort. She’s all things to all men, so perhaps she’s being something entirely different for you.’

  ‘It starts to make sense when you put it together,’ Thorne said. ‘That maybe she wasn’t trying quite as hard as we thought not to get caught.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Melita said. ‘Look at how she was caught.’

  ‘So, maybe not the bit of luck we thought it was,’ Brigstocke said.

  Melita closed her notebook. ‘It’s just a suggestion.’

  ‘Arrested for having a piss?’ Thorne looked at his boss. ‘More like taking it, I reckon.’

  Brigstocke thanked Melita for her input, then turned to Tanner and White. ‘Well, at the very least you should be bearing in mind everything Dr Perera has said, when you go back in there—’

  ‘Can I talk to her?’ Melita asked suddenly.

  Thorne stared at her. This was something they had not discussed.

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t be something I could authorise just like that,’ Brigstocke said. ‘It’s not . . . standard, put it that way.’

  ‘Sounds like a good idea to me,’ Chall said.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ Brigstocke asked.

  ‘I don’t think it would be very sensible to go marching in there with a plan,’ Melita said. ‘Not one that can’t change from moment to moment, anyway. There’s certainly reason to believe the woman has narcissistic personality disorder, so the prevailing wisdom would suggest an initial approach that makes her feel special. Exalted. But, until I can be sure of that diagnosis, such an approach might actually be counterproductive. I think I should just sit and . . . talk to her and see where that goes.’

  ‘Suck it and see, Russell.’ Thorne immediately decided that he could have chosen his words better, as this was not an approach the DCI was known for. ‘She’s going down anyway, so if she’s playing some game we haven’t figured out yet, I can’t see the harm in it.’

  ‘Fine with me,’ Tanner said.

  Brigstocke still looked far from comfortable with the idea as he worried at what remained of his quiff. ‘OK, but we’ll have to inform her of our intentions when she’s well enough. Make the offer of legal representation again. She would need to give her consent, obviously.’

  ‘Course,’ Thorne said. ‘I reckon we’re in with a shout, though.’

  ‘She’ll bite your bloody hand off,’ Melita said.