TWELVE

  ‘Well, no prizes for guessing there’s at least one more coming,’ Thorne said. ‘Or what that poor bastard’s going to be missing.’ He stared out of the window. The scenery had become a lot greener since they crossed the bridge at Dartford and the houses had been getting bigger and further apart since they’d passed the first sign for Sevenoaks. ‘Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil. Jesus . . . ’

  Tanner shook her head. ‘Isn’t it supposed to be see first?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The three wise monkeys. See then hear then speak.’

  Thorne was not surprised that Tanner would know and care about such things. This was someone whose books were colour-coded, who laid out her clothes for the morning before going to bed. ‘I don’t think “Jasmine” or “Jenny”, or whatever the hell she’s going to call herself next time is that bothered about the running order.’

  ‘No, probably not,’ Tanner said.

  They slowed when the sat-nav announced that they had reached their destination and drew up outside a large, mock-Tudor house set back from the road. Tanner turned on to the drive and parked behind a black four-by-four.

  ‘Nice place,’ Thorne said, when he stepped out of the car. ‘Home comforts for the lad look seriously comfortable.’

  Luke McGovern, the twenty-one-year-old they were here to interview, had discovered the body of his friend Hari Reddy in the flat they shared in Clapham at lunchtime on Sunday, two days previously. He’d been staying with his parents ever since.

  ‘You think a big house helps?’ Tanner keyed the remote to lock the car. ‘Right now, I think “comfortable” would be anywhere there aren’t bloodstains.’

  The woman who answered the door studied their warrant cards and told them she was Luke’s mother. She showed them into a sitting room and said that she would go and fetch her son, who was in his bedroom. He’d been there nearly all the time, she said, since the police had brought him home on Sunday evening.

  Thorne and Tanner sat down on a vast sofa and waited.

  ‘I just meant there are worse places he could be,’ Thorne said. ‘That’s all.’ He looked around the room. ‘It’s better that there’s someone taking care of him.’

  Tanner nodded. ‘Times like this, you run for home. If you’ve still got one.’

  A few minutes later, while his mother stood watching from the doorway, Luke McGovern wandered over and dropped into an armchair. He was barefoot and wearing what Thorne would later learn was called a onesie. It was nearly midday but he gave the impression that he’d just woken up. He looked more like a schoolboy than a second-year student.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Luke’s mother was staring at her son. ‘Let me know if you need anything.’ Had he and Tanner been visitors of any other sort, Thorne was sure that the woman would have offered them refreshments by now, but politeness was trumped by concern for her child. She did not want him reliving what had clearly been a hugely traumatic experience any longer than was strictly necessary.

  ‘Thank you.’ Tanner waited until the door was closed, then turned to the young man opposite her. He had drawn his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. ‘So, Luke . . . I know you’ve already spoken to several officers in Clapham, but I’m afraid we weren’t made aware of this until yesterday morning. We’re keen to speak to you because we think what happened to Hari might be connected to a case we’re already working on.’

  In an effort to keep track of any murders with similar characteristics, flags had been set up on the Police National Computer in the days following the discovery of Richard Sumner’s body. Neck wound. Evidence pointing towards a romantic/sexual encounter. Missing body parts. Each of these alerts had been activated the day before and details of the Clapham crime scene sent through to Becke House.

  They had known straight away.

  ‘I know it’s horrible,’ Thorne said. ‘I swear we wouldn’t be asking you unless it was absolutely necessary . . . ’ He heard a creak outside the door and wondered if the boy’s mother was listening in. ‘ . . . but could you tell us about finding Hari?’

  Luke dropped his chin on to his knees and turned to look out towards the garden. ‘I got back really late on Saturday night and I’d had quite a lot to drink, so I didn’t get up until like, midday.’ His voice was flat and accentless and he spoke so quietly that Thorne and Tanner had to lean towards him to make it all out. ‘Even then, I didn’t know anything was . . . I mean, I went into the kitchen and made some coffee and I was like shouting for him. To get his lazy arse out of bed, you know? I knocked on his door for a bit. Then I went into his room.’

  Tanner watched the boy close his eyes. She had studied the crime scene photographs and knew very well what he was seeing, what he would see for a long time to come. She still opened her front door sometimes and saw blood blooming on the hall carpet, the scatter of white spots from the bleach they’d fired into her partner’s eyes.

  ‘What about the night before?’ she asked. ‘When you got back.’

  ‘Yeah, so I could see that he’d got somebody round,’ Luke said. ‘That he’d brought her back with him. Like they’d got stuck into the wine in the kitchen.’ Tanner glanced at Thorne. Luke had been confronted by the same evidence of a romantic liaison as Andrea Sumner, although his reaction on seeing it was very different. ‘I was seriously made up for him, you know? It was the first time Hari had got lucky since I’ve known him.’ His arms tightened around his knees, as though he was trying to make himself as small as possible. ‘Well, I thought he’d got lucky.’

  ‘Course,’ Tanner said.

  ‘So, you think he got catfished?’ Luke turned his head suddenly and stared at her. ‘That this woman wasn’t really a woman at all?’

  Tanner hesitated, so Thorne stepped in. ‘If by “catfish” you mean that the person Hari thought he was seeing was actually someone else entirely, then yeah, he got catfished.’

  Thorne had no idea what Luke McGovern was studying or even if he was a particularly good student, but he was obviously not stupid. His expression made it clear he could see that Thorne and Tanner were keeping something back. ‘So, it was a woman?’

  This was an investigation that would not stay out of the press for very long, so Thorne could see little point in being even operationally coy. ‘We believe so, yes,’ he said.

  ‘Fuck.’ Luke shook his head. ‘I mean . . . fuck.’

  ‘So, you knew all about it?’ Tanner asked. ‘What Hari was doing that night?’

  Luke was still shaking his head. ‘Yeah, we’d both put profiles up on the site. Looked at all the pictures. It was a laugh, you know?’

  The nerds had already extracted and analysed the relevant information from Hari Reddy’s phone and computer. Thorne and Tanner knew about Hookupz.com. They had studied transcripts of the emails, sent using one of the countless guerilla email sites that were freely available.

  They knew all about ‘Jenny’.

  ‘Hari was like, really excited. He showed me the messages she sent him, told me where they were meeting up, showed me a picture of her. Oh, wait . . . ’ Luke sat up suddenly and dug into his pocket. ‘I’ve got it on my phone . . . ’

  Thorne watched and waited while the boy tapped and scrolled.

  ‘Here . . . ’

  He leaned forward to look at the picture Luke had found. ‘Yeah, we’ve seen that one.’

  ‘He’d talked to her on the phone as well,’ Luke said.

  Thorne nodded. The nerds had checked. Another burner.

  ‘Hari said she sounded nice, you know?’ Luke stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of his chair. ‘He was properly keen. I mean I know it’s called Hookupz and I’m not saying he wouldn’t have been up for, like, just a shag or whatever, but he was really hoping it might lead somewhere else.’

  Thorne said nothing. Thinking: It did. He watched as Luke walked all the way across to the French windows and stared out, leaning his head against the glass; tearing at his scalp like there were things crawling across it.

  ‘What about . . . ?’ He turned, and he raised his arms, and the tears began to fall. ‘I mean, I saw all the blood around his mouth. What the hell was that about?’ He nodded, struggling to get the words out. ‘She took his tongue, right? She took his fucking tongue?’

  Thorne said, ‘Luke,’ and Tanner stood up when the sobbing started. The door opened a few moments later and Luke’s mother walked in. She moved halfway across the room and stopped, her own eyes brimming as the young man began to bawl. This time, Thorne and Tanner had no trouble hearing him.

  ‘What kind of person does that?’

  ‘It’s a fair question,’ Tanner said, her eyes on the mirror as she reversed off the McGoverns’ drive.

  Thorne was searching for something on his phone. ‘Even if we knew the answer, I’m not sure it would help us find her.’ He opened an attachment and stared down at the same picture Luke had been so keen to show them. The photograph sent to Hari Reddy.

  ‘She’s enjoying herself,’ Tanner said. ‘I know that much.’

  The woman was pale with dark eyes. The blonde hair had now been dyed black and was cut shorter than it had been on her visits to Arturo’s a week before. The smile was shy, not quite fully formed.

  Now, they had plenty of pictures.

  As well as the profile shot posted on the Hookupz website, Thorne had seen stills from the security footage at Nando’s, which had been checked immediately after Luke’s initial statement. He had seen the grainy pictures from CCTV cameras near the restaurant and from others close to the crime scene; images captured as Hari and his date had arrived at the flat, then again, a few hours later, when the woman had walked away on her own.

  It was all very helpful, but still. Thorne could not help wondering why, despite the untraceable phone and emails, the woman they were trying to find did not appear overly bothered about hiding any more.

  THIRTEEN

  Thorne sat in front of his laptop at the small table in his kitchen. Melita had pulled up a chair next to him and watched as he guided her through the contents of the Hookupz website, scrolling slowly through the hundreds of pictures.

  ‘No shortage of punters, is there?’

  ‘No big surprise,’ Melita said. ‘They make it very easy.’

  ‘Not sure I could do it,’ Thorne said. ‘Even if I was in the market for . . . ’ he looked at the website’s forthright mission statement, ‘“no strings nookie”.’

  ‘You sure?’ She leaned against his shoulder. ‘I’m only watching to make sure you don’t “accidentally” match with someone.’

  ‘Yeah, it would be easy to make a mistake. You know, click on the wrong thing.’ He held up his hand. ‘My big sausage fingers.’

  Melita looked at the screen. ‘To be honest, I am surprised there’s as many women as men.’

  ‘Well, it’s not quite fifty-fifty.’

  ‘Even so. It’s far easier for women to simply go out and get sex if they want it.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Thorne said. ‘I’ve always thought that was a bit unfair.’

  ‘And in a bar or whatever, at least you get to see the person first.’

  Thorne opened some of the tabs he’d saved and together they looked through a few of the other sites available, offering associated services. ‘Look at this lot,’ Thorne said. Many were even less subtle about what was on the menu than Hookupz. Adult Pursuits, Get-Off, ShagNow. There were plenty tailored towards specific demographics – Milfs, Dilfs and Gilfs – and no shortage of those geared towards those of more particular sexual tastes and persuasions. Thorne’s favourite was a site aimed at the older customer who fancied some immediate, no-questions-asked bondage, called Instant Whip.

  ‘Something for everyone,’ Melita said.

  ‘There’s probably a site on here somewhere for your enema man.’ Thorne smiled. ‘FastFlush dot com?’

  Melita sighed. ‘He’s not the only person on my books, you know. As it happens I’m seeing a number of very interesting clients at the moment.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘You know I’m not comfortable discussing that.’

  ‘You told me about the enema bloke.’

  ‘And now I’m wishing I hadn’t,’ she said. ‘It was only because it was relatively harmless and I knew you’d find it funny, because you have a juvenile sense of humour. Trust me, some of the issues my other clients are dealing with are rather more serious.’

  Thorne deleted his open tabs until he was back on the Hookupz site and looking at the profile and picture of the woman who had called herself Jenny.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ Thorne asked. ‘First time round she’s keeping well away from the cameras, now she’s all over them. Is she getting careless?’

  Melita stared at the picture. They had discussed it over pasta an hour or so earlier, but she was someone who preferred to think about things a while, who shied away from making snap judgements. ‘I think you may be right, but not in the way you mean. Not careless in the sense that she’s being sloppy and making mistakes . . . but perhaps she simply does not care any more.’

  Thorne looked at her.

  ‘I’m not saying she doesn’t care about getting caught. I see no reason to believe that she wants that. Maybe she’s rather more concerned with being noticed. Getting proper credit.’

  ‘We’ll take care of that.’ Thorne closed the laptop. ‘You reckon life without parole will be enough credit for her?’

  Melita topped up her wine glass, Thorne grabbed a bottle of lager from the fridge and they walked into the living room.

  ‘Something else I was thinking.’ Melita sat down. Thorne turned off the spectacularly dull Southampton v Leicester game he’d been watching and joined her on the settee. ‘This whole wise monkeys thing.’

  ‘If we’re right about that.’

  ‘Let’s presume you are. It’s all a bit . . . showy, don’t you think? A bit theatrical. As if she’s been studying murders like this which, as you know, are incredibly rare and she’s just . . . doing an impression of a serial killer.’

  ‘She’s not doing an impression,’ Thorne said. ‘She is one.’

  ‘Yes, of course, but only in terms of the statistics. I don’t think she’s being herself when she’s doing it, that’s all. I think she’s playing a character.’

  ‘Like someone in one of those books she’s obviously so keen on.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Melita said.

  Thorne sat back and stared at the blank TV screen. ‘What about the victims, though? You’ve got a middle-aged white accountant and an Asian student. She clearly doesn’t have a type. I mean they usually do, right? And if she’s following some Serial Killing For Dummies script, like you said, you’d think there’d be more of a pattern in terms of the victimology.’

  ‘Well, both victims do have one thing in common.’ She turned to look at him. ‘Yes, one was cheating on his wife and the other was single, but they were both men who were basically after sex.’

  ‘So, what . . . you’re suggesting this might be some kind of ultimate feminist revenge thing?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything. We’re just talking.’

  ‘Maybe a rape victim?’

  ‘Well, it might be worth considering,’ Melita said, ‘but it works against your three wise monkeys theory. I mean, if that is what’s behind these murders, and I have certainly come across cases like that, I think there might have been one body part she’d have been somewhat keener to remove than a tongue or some ears.’

  Thorne puffed out his cheeks and went back to staring at the dusty TV screen.

  ‘You can put the football back on,’ Melita said.

  ‘Trust me, this is more exciting.’

  ‘I don’t dislike sport as much as you think I do.’ She tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear, then laughed when she saw the look on his face. ‘There’s still all sorts of things you don’t know about me, Tom.’

  ‘Actually there is something you might like.’ Thorne turned the TV back on and scrolled through the channels, but sadly there wasn’t any axe-throwing available. ‘Never mind,’ he said.

  They sat in silence for a while, finished their drinks, then Melita moved closer. ‘You OK?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Thorne said.

  She reached across and rubbed his arm. ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yeah . . . ’ Thorne flicked back to Sky, to see if the match had got any more interesting. ‘I’m grand.’

  They watched for a few minutes, until Melita grew understandably restless. ‘So, early night?’

  Thorne nodded, like he was thinking about it. ‘Yeah, you’re right about how much easier it is for women to get sex if they want it. Basically, they just have to ask.’

  FOURTEEN

  A few minutes’ walk from Thornton Heath station, DS Dipak Chall stopped and pointed. ‘Do you think that might be it?’

  ‘I reckon there’s every chance,’ Thorne said.

  To be fair, it was hard to miss the place. The gleaming white pavilion certainly caught the eye rather more effectively than the nearby nail bar, the second-hand furniture shop and the ‘best hand car-wash in the UK’. What marked it out most particularly though, making its function obvious to anyone without the most serious eyesight problems, were the enormous, cartoonish letters that ran along three sides of the entrance.

  library

  Thorne and Chall showed their warrant cards at the reception desk and waited.

  While the obvious links between the murders in Clapham and Gospel Oak had seen the case officially handed over to the team at Becke House, it had been the nerds south of the river who had been given first crack at Hari Reddy’s phone and computer. Having quickly established that ‘Jenny’ had made use of a guerilla email account, they had now traced the ISP back to a public computer at Thornton Heath Library.