Four
Leo feels as if all the air has been sucked from his lungs when Janet enters the room with Kitson. He gapes at her for a moment, before pulling himself together and greeting her with an awkward "hello" as she accepts Nikki's open embrace. She simply nods at him over Nikki's shoulder.
Why didn't anyone tell him that she would be coming? He doesn't need to ask why she's here, of course. She's the best. But maybe if someone had given him a warning that he would soon be seeing her for the first time in months, maybe he could have mentally prepared for her arrival. He could have planned something to say, for he feels that there's so much left unsaid between them.
He tries to focus on the conversation. Harry's giving Janet a brief run-down of the case. She's listening to him with that air of utmost concentration that forces her features into a delicate frown. He can almost see the cogs whirring in her brilliant brain.
And, oh god, he's missed her.
Nikki almost forgets that Leo and Janet are still broken up. It would be just like old times, if it wasn't for the simmering awkwardness and the fact that neither of them can seem to make eye contact with each other. Part of her wishes they were back together; she always liked Janet, and she was such a good influence on Leo after Cassie and Teresa. They just seemed to get each other, no matter what happened. They were always there for each other. She wants that. She wants what Janet and Leo used to have. Although ... look what they became.
When Harry stops talking and sits down she sighs, trying to pull herself back into the present as Janet turns around in her seat, now facing the people gathered around her.
"What d'you reckon then?" Kitson asks. "Twisted or what?"
Janet smiles wryly. "I think you're looking for a Caucasian male, aged between twenty-five and forty-five. He's a loner, doesn't have any close friends or relatives. If he does have family, then that family is difficult. Has been since he was a child. It's highly likely that he dipped into arson in his youth, or animal cruelty. He was and is an attention seeker.
" He's a hedonist, a thrill-seeker. Killing these women gives him a buzz stronger than any drug can, hence his rapid attack times. He might even find a sexual release from it, although I suspect that if he does then that's merely an added bonus – it's not the primary reason for him doing this."
Nikki frowns. "Then what is his primary motive?"
"His need for control," Janet explains. "He has this desperate need to show that he is capable of doing this, that he can control not only his life but the lives of his victims also. And he does this by playing God. As far as he is concerned, he's choosing when to end these lives and that, in his mind, makes him the most powerful person in the world. That's why he leaves you the notes. It's his way of telling you that he controls this game that he's playing with you. It's why he doesn't stick to a pattern-"
"But he does stick to a pattern," Kitson interrupts abruptly. "This copycat thing he has going on."
Janet pulls a face. "Yes, but that's more his ritual, his MO, than a pattern – and even then, he copies a different murderer each time. No, a pattern would be one body every day, or two victims every week. He's inconsistent with his attacks. You had two bodies within twenty-four hours yesterday, and yet absolutely nothing today. Although he appears to be murdering quickly, he's very much a process-focused killer."
"Maybe he's already killed again, but no one's found the body yet?" Nikki suggests.
Shaking her head, Janet says, "He's always going to leave the body where he knows it will be found, even if that means performing a location recce beforehand. He wants us to notice him. That's not going to happen if no one finds the victims."
Nikki can feel her brain beginning to ache. Her eyes drift to the window. Darkness has already fallen, swallowing the deep grey rainclouds which she suspects are still there, just waiting for her to leave. She sips at her lukewarm tea as Harry asks what she had been thinking. "But why doesn't he just stick to one infamous killer, why choose a different one every time he kills?"
"Many reasons," Janet says calmly, her fingers knotting together on the tabletop. "It could be because it makes it more difficult for the police. You can't focus on victimology, MO, or even times and dates as you would with an 'ordinary' copycat-"
"Some deep-seeded admiration of these killers?" Leo suggests, and he looks so lost in thought that Nikki wonders if he's forgotten that Janet's even there.
What Nikki does pick up on is the slight falter in Janet's voice when she replies. "No, I don't think it's that. If he so desperately loved and adored these other serial killers, then every single detail of the crime scenes, the victims, the times and the dates, would all be perfectly precise. Instead, it's almost as if he bases his own murders on these infamous ones. I think it all comes back to his need to show you all that he's in control; it's like he's declaring that he's better than Jack the Ripper, or Bundy. We can safely assume that he's going to kill again and copy someone else, which in his mind makes him better than all these original killers combined."
"That's great, but how the hell are we supposed to catch him?" barks Kitson.
At this, Janet sighs and visibly slumps on her stool. "I don't know. He's so unpredictable there's not an awful lot you can do. You just have to hope he slips up, makes a mistake. You try and find out who he is. Maybe someone will see something." She shrugs.
Kitson sighs wearily, running a hand over his unshaven chin. "All right. Janet, will you come back to the station with me? Give my guys a rundown of what you just said, so they know what they're looking for."
"You mean 'who'," Harry interrupts. "Who they're looking for."
A grimace spreads across Kitson's face. "No. I meant what."
He stands up and waits as Janet tidies some documents back into her briefcase. But before the detective can even reach the doorway, his mobile phone breaks the uneasy silence. Just a second later, so does Harry's. They glance at each other, then Harry mutters, "I'm on call," and puts the phone to his ear. Kitson does the same, turning his back to the room.
Nikki watches as a deep dread seems to settle on Harry's face, and everyone in the room instantly knows what he's being told on the other end of the phone. She passes him a pen as his eyes search for one and he jots down something on the corner of a piece of paper.
He and Kitson finish the calls almost simultaneously, sending each other another worried look.
"There's been another one," Leo says. It isn't a question.
Harry offers Kitson a lift with him to the crime scene, seeing as all his equipment is already loaded in his boot and they'd undoubtedly be returning to the Lyell Centre together afterwards. He regrets this almost immediately. It's not like he'd pegged the detective as a great talker, but they spend nearly the entirety of the journey in total silence. Harry feels slightly uncomfortable, but he has a suspicion that Kitson doesn't even notice. Indeed, when he opens his mouth a minute later, Kitson jumps as if surprised that he's there.
"Maybe he isn't sticking to a definitive time pattern, but he's killing pretty bloody quickly. Are we going to be getting a phone call like this every day?"
The detective shrugs. "What difference does it make if it's once a day or once a week? He's still destroying the lives of these poor women, and their families."
"How are we supposed to keep up?" Harry asks, indicating left and heading down an unlit narrow gravel track towards the river.
"It's not about keeping up," Kitson replies grimly. "It's about getting ahead."
They arrive at the crime scene, or as near to it as they can get by car. Parking beside one of the many police vehicles in what looks like a disused car park, Harry kills the engine. Kitson is out of the car and barking orders at a nearby police officer before Harry can so much as unbuckle his seatbelt. Reluctantly, he steps outside the vehicle himself, grateful that this morning's rain appears to be awarding him a brief respite. The wind has picked up, though, and the skies are already a deep navy, clouds smothering any light the moon and stars may have offered.
It's only when Harry and Neil have left, and Nikki announces that fresh coffee is needed, that Janet realises that somehow she has ended up in a room alone with Leo. He seems to figure this out at the same time, and there's an almost comical desperation in his eyes as he looks around for someone else to talk to.
A tiny bitter part of her feels a great satisfaction in his discomfort. Good, she thinks, serves him right. She rifles through some paper on the table, just for something to do.
Leo, however, appears to decide that perhaps talking to her isn't the worst thing in the world.
"How have you, er – how have you been?" he says.
She blinks at him, amazed at his tactlessness. "Oh, just great," she retorts, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
"Janet," he mutters, looking apologetic. "I'm sorry-"
"Save it, Leo," she snaps. "Just save it. I'm so beyond caring."
But, she realises as she sweeps from the room to go and help Nikki, that couldn't really be further from the truth.
At the crime scene, SOCOs have set up a line of dull lamps, supposedly illuminating a path down to the bank of the river. Harry suits up, grabs his case, and follows it precariously. The wind is causing the lamps to sway ominously, and the wooden walkway feels worryingly unstable underfoot. It's a relief when his shoes (thankfully encased in plastic covers) find the slushy, silty sand. Squinting through the darkness, Harry heads towards the glowing white tent twenty or so metres in front of him. To his left, the Thames laps loudly against the shore. Because of the wind direction, he can just about make out the metallic clangs emanating from the Docklands somewhere on the other side of the river to the East. A flock of squawking seagulls circle overhead.
A shiver creeps up his spine. It's so secluded here; it's no wonder the killer chose this spot. Harry doubts that there'd be anyone in a five mile radius to hear the screams.
Kitson is standing outside the tent waiting for him, a harsh expression on his face and a small evidence bag in his fingers. "Responding officer found this in her hand," he says, holding up the bag. Inside is another 'with sympathy' card, this time with the letters 'BS' scrawled on it in thick black pen. "Dunno what it stands for yet."
"I could think of something," Harry quips dryly, and for the first time since he met him over twenty-four hours previously, Harry could swear that a genuine smile briefly graces Kitson's lips. It disappears as quickly as it arrives, however, as he glances at the tent behind him.
"It's not pretty in there," he mutters, but Harry had assumed as much.
He ducks under the flap to be greeted by half a dozen SOCOs, taking photographs and jotting down notes and measurements.
"We've got under an hour before the tide takes our crime scene," Kitson says to everyone in the vicinity, following Harry into the tent. "So let's make this snappy."
Harry nods, and as a SOCO moves aside he finally lays eyes on the body.
He estimates her to be in her mid-twenties. She's wearing navy tracksuit bottoms and a grey t-shirt, both of which are twisted, crumpled and grubby. She's slightly on her side, her legs at odd angles, one arm bent over her head with her palm facing upwards, the other draped across her stomach. But there's something about her wide, staring brown eyes, slight frame and light blonde hair that causes his hands to shake violently as he bends down to get a closer look.
His balls them into fists involuntarily, screwing his eyes up tightly before releasing a breath and extracting a thermometer from his kit, which he jabs through the victim's stomach and into her liver. While he waits for a reading, Harry carefully brushes some hair away from her neck and inspects it carefully.
"She's been strangled. There are petechial haemorrhages clearly visible in the whites of the eyes. Ligature mark around the neck suggests a thin cord of some kind..." His eyes travel over her body, coming to rest on her trainers, only one of which is laced. "A shoelace, perhaps."
"Some tramp found her," Kitson supplies, carefully walking around to the other side of the body. "Reckons he comes here to kip every night and there she was. Wasn't here when he left to scrounge some lunch about twelve, apparently, but definitely was when he stumbled back here about an hour ago. Well, he says it was six o'clock, but he's as drunk as a skunk so take it with a pinch of salt."
"No, that sounds about right," Harry nods, inspecting the gage on the thermometer. "Liver temperature is still quite warm, she hasn't been here long. Rigor hasn't set in yet. I'd estimate time of death to be between ... four-thirty and five-thirty this afternoon."
"So the homeless guy probably just missed him," Kitson exclaims. "He said he never passed anyone, so I'm assuming our killer got here the same way we did: by car."
"Do we know who she is?" Harry asks, taking swabs now.
"Nope. Had nothing on her but this," he replies, holding up another evidence bag, this time containing a bright green iPod with headphones. "Looks to me like she was out running. But it's got a serial number, we'll see if we can trace it."
"Have you noticed her clothes?" Harry says thoughtfully. "I don't mean what she's wearing, I mean the state they're in. Her bottoms are on back to front."
"You're thinking sexual assault, aren't you?" growls Kitson.
"I won't know until I get her back to the lab, but I think it's a good possibility, yes."
Due to the unwanted pressure of the oncoming tide, Harry wraps up quicker than he normally would have done, leaving the SOCOs to bring the body back to lab and record the rest of the crime scene. He travels back the Lyell with Kitson, this time welcoming the silence, and walks straight past everyone in the office until he hits the locker room, where he stops and leans back against his locker.
He needs sleep. That's what this is. That's why he felt weird back at the crime scene. He's not slept in nearly forty-eight hours, he'll be fine once he goes home tonight and wakes up tomorrow morning, bright and refreshed.
Except ... his mind keeps wandering back to that blonde hair, those brown eyes...
There's a knock from somewhere near the doorway, and an amused voice says, "Are you decent?" with that trademark giggle.
When he doesn't reply, Nikki assumes it's safe to go in. It's not like she hasn't seen him getting changed before, anyway. Besides, she wouldn't even need to be here if he hadn't charged through the office like that when he'd returned and had actually stopped to talk to her.
She knows something is up as soon as she spots him, leaning there like that against his locker, his eyes shut, looking more exhausted than she's seen him in months.
"Hey," she smiles gently as she approaches him.
He opens his eyes and blinks at her, remaining silent. She doesn't push him. She knows if he wants to tell her what's wrong, then he will. Not that she expects him to be okay after where he just was.
After a solid minute of simply looking at her, Harry finally pushes away from the locker and steps closer. So close, in fact, that she can feel his breath tickling her cheek.
"She looked like you," he whispers.
She sighs sadly and doesn't resist as he pulls her into a hug, wrapping his arms around her so tightly and gripping her top in his fists for such a long time, it's as if he's scared to let her go.
Told you another chapter was on the way. And it's a nice long one, to compensate for the inexcusable delay. I also couldn't resist putting a bit of Harry/Nikki in at the end there. See how restrained I've been, so far? It will only make the inevitable fluff all the more glorious later on.
Thank you all so much for the reviews, they do keep me motivated to keep writing. Hopefully real-life won't get in the way this time!
xo