TANNAHILL STEPS OUT OF HIS shower pretty much straight into his kitchen. He towels himself dry and pours hot water into a mug with miso paste already squeezed into it.
The shower has made him feel slightly more human but no less tired. He stirs the soup, sending reconstituted seaweed strands swirling through the brown liquid, and glances longingly at his still-unmade bed. He has the strongest urge to lie on it, just for a few minutes, and close his eyes, but he knows if he does he’ll blink and it will be morning, and he can’t let himself sleep. Not yet. Not while a man who has killed three times is still out there. Not when that man’s fourth and fifth intended victims are Laughton and Gracie Rees.
He takes a sip of the scalding, salty liquid, stands at the kitchen counter that divides the room, and opens his laptop. He logs into the case file and reads through the latest updates as he pulls on fresh clothes.
Unlike the previous two scenes, forensics have pulled a ton of stuff from the police cell, including fingerprints that match the partial they found on the pages of Laughton’s book at the Kate Miller murder scene and prints found on the newspapers left by Mike Miller’s body. They tie Adam Evans to all three murder scenes. All they have to do now is find him.
Tannahill flicks to the next tab, containing more witness statements from guardians at the property who’d been missed in the first round of interviews. One is from a Nurse Erin Medford, who’d spoken to Slade as she’d left that morning to go to work. She seemed pretty traumatized by what had happened, even though she must be used to death in her job. You could see her distress in her answers:
. . . . I can’t believe Adam would do something like this. I mean I didn’t really know him very well. He just blended in, really. . . . He was a bit quiet but he seemed just like everyone else. . . . I mean I spoke to the man who died. I told him to knock on the door and ask for Adam. . . . If I hadn’t said that then maybe . . . I just can’t believe what happened . . .
His phone rings. He checks the caller ID, sighs, then answers.
“Hey, Mam.”
“You still at work?”
“No, I’m home.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I can FaceTime you if you like.”
“Oh God, no, I can’t bear looking at myself.”
“You’re not supposed to look at yourself, you’re supposed to look at the person you’re talking to.”
“Ah, everyone looks at themselves on those things. I’ve seen you fiddling with your hair when you’re talking to me, checking your quiff.”
“I haven’t got a quiff. Anyway no one uses a word like ‘quiff’ anymore.”
“Well, whatever you call it, I’ve seen you primping it. Have you eaten?”
Tannahill eyes his miso soup. “Not yet. Been a bit of a manic day.”
“I know, I’ve been watching the news. Terrible thing. Mind you, that Mark Murphy deserved to be killed, if you ask me. Promise you’ll never put me in one of those homes, Tanny!”
“I promise.”
“Good boy. Now tell me about the murders, you got any leads?”
“Mam, I can’t talk about live cases, you know that. We’re feeling confident with the direction it’s going.”
“What about your lady friend?”
“Which lady friend?”
“The consultant I’ve been reading about in the paper.”
“Laughton?”
“Yes. What’s going to happen with you two when this case is over?”
“Nothing! And I’m not quite sure where you got the idea there’s something going on between us.”
“Because you like her, that’s why, and I can tell you’re too scared to do anything about it.” The phone starts beeping in Tannahill’s ear. “If your father had been too scared to ask me out, you wouldn’t even be here now to be so annoying. No point fiddling with your hair and making yourself look pretty if you’re never going to do anything about it. What’s that bloody clicking sound?”
“I’ve got another call coming in.” He checks his phone and sees it’s Baker. “Sorry, Mam, it’s work, got to go.” He cuts her off to answer the incoming call.
“You done for the day?” Baker asks, sounding about as weary as Tannahill feels.
“No, not even close.”
“OK. Well, I’m done, literally and figuratively. I’m heading home now to remind my kids what Dad looks like and get glared at by the wife for a few hours, then I’ll be back bright and breezy. I’ve just uploaded the last few witness statements to the case file if you want to have a look.”
“I was just reading them. Anything useful I should be looking out for?”
“Not really. Stuck record. Kept himself to himself, didn’t really speak to anyone, seemed to keep odd hours. Mind you, a lot of them keep odd hours because most seem to be nurses and shift workers at various hospitals around London. I think they work even harder than we do.”
Tannahill glances back at his laptop at the name of the last witness whose statement he’d read—Nurse Erin Medford—and a cold thought forms in his mind.
“Get some rest,” he says and hangs up. He opens his recently called log and dials a number, his eyes scanning back through the witness statement he’d just read.
He just blended in, really, Nurse Erin Medford had said. He seemed just like everyone else. . . .