“Just funny,” Martha said. She was crunching on a slice of crispy margherita pizza.

  “What is?” I asked. I stuck my fork into my bowl of rubbery fettucine au saumon and slurped at the over-savoury sauce. The sound of glasses clinking together, the sight of waiters buzzing around camply… it was all getting too much. I was looking forward to a good kip.

  “How caught up in other people’s business we can get. I mean… that guy, Gus. He was kind of sweet.”

  Sweet wasn’t the word I’d use for fat-bellied Gus. But I got Martha’s point. Gus’ death had been a real blow. Just when we’d figured out he was being bribed by the killer in some way… poof, out his life goes like a dodgy bulb.

  I chewed at my pasta. Craved a Domino’s pizza. “So we’ve got a killer who picks on random girls, pays other people to do his dirty work, and somehow knew we were onto Gus.”

  “And don’t forget the squad car,” Martha added.

  I swallowed down the congealed lump of food. “Which direction are we going in here?”

  Martha sipped back some water, obviously struggling with the bone-dry pizza. “I’m just saying. The police have no ID on the girls yet, which suggests the killer knows what they’re doing. We have a mystery squad car turn up out of nowhere. And we have Gus suspiciously dropping dead the second after we tell Lenny he might know something.”

  “I’ve got it—Lenny’s the killer.”

  Martha laughed. “I’m not sure that guy could catch a fly with spray, let alone kill one. What d’you think?”

  “About Lenny? Oh, he’s definitely a killer. A killer of my faith in the police’s logic. But I… I dunno. I mean, sure, there’s the car, but Lenny already said a car went missing a while back and, naturally, they just wrote it off. As for the method kills, sure, but who’s to say it wasn’t just Gus’ ‘turn’ to die in this killer’s mind? I mean assuming he was stabbed by our perp—which we can safely assume he was, and the police will be crawling along with us on that theory in no time. But what if the perp didn’t need him anymore?”

  Martha crunched at another slice of pizza. “I guess it’s just working out what this guy wants.”

  “Mmhm,” I said.

  I thought back to the photographs of the first girl, then to the second girl sprawled across that squad car. Eyes gouged out. Fingers snipped. Breasts cut off. “I think it’s safe to assume we have a woman-hater on our hands. A misogynist.”

  “Or a jealous housewife.”

  “Or a jealous housewife, sure. Doesn’t match Gus’ description of a guy in a hoodie, but maybe he was even dumber than he looked. But it’s damned near impossible to form a clear M.O. without knowing who these girls are.”

  “Nothing from Missing Persons?” Martha asked, coughing up a stray piece of crispy pizza base.

  “Nah. Nothing likely until after forty-eight hours. Most parents, spouses, leave it a day before they face the reality that something might have happened to their precious. And then the police leave it a bit longer anyway. So it’ll be tomorrow at least before a missing person report is actually taken seriously.”

  I put my fork down. My stomach tensed. Couldn’t stand another bite of this God-awful pasta.

  “And your problem with waiting ‘til tomorrow is…?”

  I wasn’t expecting Martha to say this, but I could feel my cheeks were warm and my jaw was clenched so she’d obviously picked up on how I was feeling. “I just… we’ve lost two people already. Three people counting Gus. That’s in the first day. I just don’t want this bastard killing anybody else, not while we can do something about it.”

  Martha raised her thinly-applied eyebrows. “Very ‘loving citizen’ of you. Ever thought about applying to Neighbourhood Watch?”

  “Not really,” I said. “I’m just more worried that my cut of money might fall with every death.”

  Martha whistled. “Oh there he is. The lovey-dovey Blake I know. How’s life with such a cold heart these days? Nobody to warm it up?”

  I looked down at my pasta bowl and considered taking another bite until I remembered it tasted like shit. “No.”

  Martha tutted. Shook her head, and looked around at the other tables, at the customers all tucking into their meals. “You’ll have to settle down some day.”

  “Why’s it always me who ‘has to settle down?’ What about you?”

  “I’m an extenuating circumstance, Mr Dent.” She propped up her breasts, stuck her chest out. “Although I do think I’ve got it more as a woman than I ever did as a man.”

  “You’d scrape a 5/10 if I didn’t know you were a man. And your Mart self, well, he was pretty low on the scale. So it’s an improvement I suppose.”

  Martha puffed out her lips. Sipped at her water. “Charming as ever. Forget I asked why you don’t have anyone to warm that stony heart of yours at night.”

  I wanted to tell Martha to back off the relationship questions. I didn’t understand society’s obsession with “settling down,” with “finding the one.” It always seemed counter-productive to me, even when I was in my late teens. Sure, I’d had a few short-term relationships, and sure, I’d had my fair share of one-night stands. But the idea of settling down was never appealing to me. Settling down? More like unsettling down.

  And to this day, no couple had made me think otherwise. Not my parents—God bless them—not my old friends, nobody.

  “Settling down causes the problems that we’re trying to fix,” I said. To be honest, it came out a bit hammy, and sounded better in my head.

  “Jesus, Blake. Just let it go for ten minutes. I mean I’m interested in this case, but you’re just obsessing. Trust the police to do their bit. We can only follow their lead.”

  “Wait, did you actually just say ‘trust the police?’ Or did I hear you wrong? Please tell me I heard you wrong.”

  Martha sighed. Planted her glass down hard on the table. “They hired us… you… for a reason. If they need your help, they’ll call you. You know how they work these days. You know how they’ve worked for years. Any chance they can get to let someone on the outside do their work for them, then take all the credit, they’re gonna take it. So let it drop for ten bloody minutes.”

  I wanted to bite back but I couldn’t. Martha was probably right. But my mind was spinning. Trying to clock on to what the killer’s next move might be.

  Women. One on Moor Park. One atop a police car.

  There had to be a link. There had to be something.

  “Have you ever tried Tastebuds?” Martha asked.

  “Taste-what?”

  “Tastebuds. It’s a dating website but it matches people based on their music taste. You’re into your music, right?”

  I shook my head at Martha. “Martha, I am not signing up to Tastebuds.”

  “I’m just saying,” Martha said, raising her hands and backing away. “Not being a very traditionally… traditionally good guy and all that.”

  “Traditionally good? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, you’re not really a restaurant man. You… you like your checkered shirts—”

  “There’s nothing wrong with wearing checkered shirts—”

  “Every day. I’m just saying. Maybe meeting a girl while rocking out to a bit of Nine Inch Nails might be more up your street than chatting someone up in a bar.”

  Martha was right about one thing: I wasn’t chatting anyone up in a bar any time soon.

  But the day I “rocked out” at a gig was the day I said goodbye to whatever dignity I had left.

  We paid the bill and made sure we weren’t hassled into buying desserts or coffee. I’d only drunk water all night—it was free, and I didn’t want anything beyond shit pasta eating into my Fun Funds. We got up to leave. I couldn’t wait. Couldn’t wait to get home to research a curved TV. Shit—Martha was probably right. I probably was obsessing.

  But hey. I was an obsessive person. That’s just who I was.

  At least now I could go home and obsess over whether I wanted a Sony or a Panasonic.

  I pulled open the glass door and almost walked out before remembering my manners.

  I stepped back. “Ladies first.”

  Martha widened her mouth. “Wow, Blake. Holding a door for a girl. Where did you find that tip? Buy that one on Amazon?”

  I shook my head and let go of the door so it swung against Martha’s back heel.

  We walked down the street in the darkness. Walked past Miller’s Square, up through the town centre, where scrotes were just commencing their shitty nights out, and then we headed down past the bus station towards the multi-storey opposite the courts. Martha insisted we make the most of her parking pass there, despite there being approximately a billion other parking spots in the middle of town that weren’t as far away.

  “You really should get on Tastebuds,” Martha said.

  “I’m not getting on Tastebuds—”

  “I can sign you up—”

  “You are not signing me up to Taste… What are you doing?”

  I noticed a flash and wafted my hand at Martha. She let out a girly giggle and tapped around on her phone.

  “Wow, look at that one!” She showed me her phone. “Profile picture or what? Very accurate representation of you, checkered shirt and pissed-off face. Perfect.”

  “You’re deleting that,” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah. What’s your email address? I can sign you up right… Shit.”

  Martha stopped speaking and I saw it too.

  The blue flashing lights across the street. All of them gathered around Preston Crown Court, yellow tape stretched around it.

  “What… what happened here?” Martha asked. “Nutter break free?”

  A wave of nausea hit me. I tasted the stodgy pasta making its way back up my trachea. Martha obviously hadn’t seen what I’d seen. Obviously hadn’t seen it.

  Seen her.

  “Come on, Blake. It’s getting chilly and my ticket’s only valid ‘til—”

  “Above the entrance,” I said. I pointed across the road with my shaking hand. “Above… above the entrance.”

  Martha squinted. Squinted over the street at the court. “I don’t know what you’re… Oh fuck. Holy fuck.”

  “Holy fuck indeed,” I said.

  We stood completely still and stared across the street.

  Stared at the girl, lit up by the blue police lights, an officer climbing a ladder to get her down.

  “Shit. Shit.”

  Stared at her gouged eyes, her sliced-off breasts, her fingerless hands…

  FIFTEEN

  “You can’t tell me there’s no CCTV. You just… you just can’t.”

  I scratched my forehead as I shouted down the phone to Lenny. Martha and I sat inside her Fiat Punto. I could hear footsteps tapping around in the background of the police station, hear voices chattering.

  “Hey, hey—I want to find this guy as much as you. More than you, in fact. Or at least equally. But when I tell you there’s no CCTV, there’s no CCTV.”

  “Why is there no frigging CCTV outside the court?” Holy shit, my heart felt like it was on the verge of bursting just having to deal with this inept clown.

  “Yes. Yes! Oi, McDone. Why is there no frigging CCTV outside the court?”

  I listened to a grumpy voice mumble in the background.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said CCTV was down. Some power fault or another. Thanks, McDone. Are you gonna say thanks to McDone?”

  “Why would I… Lenny, is there no backup CCTV? Nothing else covering the fucking Crown Court?!”

  “Hey, hey, hey. Quit that tone. Don’t take that tone with me. I don’t like that tone—”

  “I’ll quit this ‘tone’ when you tell me why we’ve got another unidentified victim hanging from a rope right in front of the Crown Court, with not a single witness or a single piece of CCTV footage.”

  Martha crunched on some Snack a Jacks throughout the conversation. What I’d give for some Snack a Jacks right now. In fact, screw Snack a Jacks—I wanted Snack a Lockets. Snack a Soothers. Snack a Tunes.

  “Power outages happen,” Lenny said. “We can’t help it.”

  “No. No you can’t. But a little note for you—when there’s a killer roaming the streets and killing women, you might want to speed up your little identification processes. You might want to reduce the missing persons search times by twenty-four hours. You might want to crack your heads together and—”

  “We can’t force witnesses, man. Besides, you’re the one who’s…” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be catching this guy. It’s on you just as much as it’s on us. Besides, we have had witnesses. Some bloke outside the Black Bull saw a guy walk out in a black hoodtop and bump into Gus.”

  I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t get my head around this circus. “You… When did you find this out?”

  “Earlier. Afternoon. Soon after the—”

  “And you didn’t think to tell me? Jesus, Lenny. I’m on the verge of a fucking cardiac arrest here. Thank you for your contribution.”

  I squeezed the bridge of my nose. I needed a break from speaking. Needed a break from Lenny’s whiny voice.

  “Is there anything else I might want to know about the case, you know, important-detail-wise? Because that would be really helpful. Really quite helpful.”

  “I, erm… McDone. Any important case shit? Oh it’s just, I’m just speaking to, er… the army. Yeah.”

  “The army,” I mouthed. I bit my knuckles and resisted the urge to scream out. “The pissing army.”

  “Yeah. No. Blake—I mean, erm, Major. No extra info.”

  “So no identification on the girls. No witness reports with substantial evidence. No DNA. No prints. Absolutely bat-shit-nothing?”

  “Bingo,” Lenny said. “I’d love to give you a prize for all those correct answers. Very impressive. But you’re gonna have to carry on your own little investigations. You got us to Gus pretty quickly. Shame the fatty went splat, but you did well there.”

  “‘Cause of course you wouldn’t have arrested and charged him with murder because he was the easy target.”

  Lenny hesitated. I heard the line crackling. “I can’t absolutely definitely assure you that we wouldn’t have locked Gus up for the murders, yes. Oh, yeah. Laters, McDone. Good guy, McDone. Grumpy shit, but a good guy. You’d like him. Both got that gloomy look going on. That dark vibe.”

  I didn’t even bother to try and get my head around what Lenny said. “Ring me when you identify these girls.”

  I put the phone down, let out a loud sigh, and pressed my head against Martha’s dashboard.

  “Oh, er—be careful, hun. Had an airbag problem over there once. Ballooned up in poor Aunt Nora’s face. Hate for that to happen to you. I won’t ask how Sergeant Airhead was.”

  “Airheaded like you wouldn’t believe.” I lifted myself away from the dashboard. Stared out into the darkness of the night outside the multi-storey car park and wondered what the hell I’d done and who the hell I’d insulted to end up bogged down in this investigation. “Get me home, would you?”

  Martha started the engine. Pulled out of the car park and drove down the ramp, out onto the A6.

  “You know, a million quid is a lot of money,” Martha said. “But it’s… it’s not as much as it used to be. Like, you can buy an alright house with it, but not an amazing house. And being a millionaire, it’s… it’s not as much a badge of honour as it used to be.”

  “Ah, nice of you to say,” I said. “Seeing as I’ll only be getting five hundred thousand of it anyway.”

  Martha pursed her lips as she indicated and turned the car. “Maybe we… maybe we drop out altogether. Better to earn the cash steadily and over time than risk our reputation all for one big lump sum, right?”

  I sighed. Shook my head. “It’s not as easy as just ‘getting out,’ Martha—”

  “Of course it is. You ring that budget Tom Cruise up and tell him to shove his money up his tight little asshole. Leave the professionals to do their jobs.”

  “The professionals,” I muttered. “I wish I could.”

  “What’s got into you, Blake? And don’t tell me you’ve had some sudden implantation of morals. Don’t start spouting that Batman shit about how the city needs you.” She put on a mocking deep voice for the last few words, which resulted in a raspy cough.

  I bit my lip. I didn’t want to tell her what was at stake for me because I knew that eventually, it would catch up with her too.

  But I didn’t see any other option.

  “They’ve got me right where they want me, Martha. The police. They’ve… I solve this case, catch this killer, and I get my one million. Or I…” I cleared my throat.

  “Or what?”

  “Or… or I go to jail and I probably never get out.”

  Martha was silent. She took her eyes off the road and frowned at me, as the car narrowly swerved past a honking Mercedes van. “Jail? What… What’s happening, hun?”

  No choice now. No choice but to tell her. “I… ‘07 happened. 2007.”

  In an instant, Martha’s face turned from plumb red to as white as a sheet, and I saw Mart as clear as ever behind the makeup. “But—but ‘07 was closed. We… A line was drawn under—”

  “Sometimes lines get erased if they’re drawn in pencil.”

  We were silent for the next stretch of the journey. I stared out at the street-lamps as we sped past, getting closer and closer to my flat.

  Martha broke the silence. “Am I… Should I be worried?”

  I took in a deep breath. I had to be honest. “After what happened, we should all be worried, yes. But immediately? No. You didn’t involve yourself with the police like I did, at least not directly. You didn’t become the lazy officer’s Yellow Pages for solving petty crime. You’re okay. For now.”

  More silence. We got closer to my street, and I could tell from the silence that Martha was pissed or afraid. One thing that hadn’t changed about Mart since his nads were stripped away was the way he/she went quiet when annoyed or worried.

  And if I were in her shoes, I’d be annoyed and worried. Couldn’t blame her.