Michael
Michael made some more notes on the profile he was generating for DI George after the interview with Nathan. The outline of the killer was clear: reckless, sociopathic, thrill seeking, compulsive; the problem was filling in the detail to catch the man before he struck again. It was bloody frustrating to know so much and yet still have no suspect.
It didn’t help his concentration that his flat felt airless. He opened the garden doors, hoping to coax some breeze through the stifling living room. His computer added to the heat, fan whirring as it battled to keep its cool. He wanted to lie down and sleep but pride, coupled with a sense of urgency, kept him on task. Sweat trickled down his back, gathering at the point where the seat cushion met his buttocks. He was so hot, and longed for a swim in any of the pools Jago rhapsodised about, even with the threat of catching a water-borne parasite.
Michael’s mood didn’t help his patience. He hadn’t liked the guy – he was talking about Jago, not the killer obviously – before taking this on; that dislike had baked into loathing after knuckling down and watching the documentary last night. He even had the completely outrageous thought that watching Jago enthuse over another grubby bit of Thames would drive anyone to violence.
He tapped his lips with his steepled fingers. Was this evidence of a neurosis? He’d considered Jago as a possible stalker; such unbalanced judgements would fit the vicious person sending Jessica and him parcels. Unless it was a pose and there was more to Jago than met the eye? Jessica seemed to like him enough to sleep with him so he couldn’t be quite as awful as Michael found him.
Couldn’t he though? Jessica wasn’t always the best judge of character.
Maybe there was another clue in there? These victims were the people Jago brushed up against, briefly intersected with in that way of so many of our city encounters. Was the attacker circling ever closer? Was Jago actually the real goal?
Michael added that to his email to the inspector. There wasn’t much that could be done about what amounted to a hunch, not with the killer eluding them. He couldn’t even get a clear grasp of his character, other than this hunger to be someone else. Serial killers – and as he was the author of a short chain of linked murders, he could be given that title – usually had some rationale behind their actions, even if it sounded insane to the rest of us. ‘They needed killing’ didn’t fit here, because he admired his targets. Michael was thinking he was working along the lines of ‘it should’ve been me’ – that successful job or relationship, that profile or prowess. Could he be motivated by nothing more complicated than envy? Coveting, that was a better term. It was one of the original sins in the Ten Commandments. And there was no more ultimate takeover of someone else than to steal their life and lifestyle too.
But the takeover didn’t work, did it? How long would it take the killer to realise that this fantasy of being Ken, Ruby or whoever was just that – a fantasy? If he was moving so fast to new victims, Michael predicted this was going to be a short and not sweet killing spree. He wouldn’t be surprised if the murderer ended it all by killing himself, even before or shortly after his arrest. Serial killers often went that way, choosing death rather than submitting to justice.
He might die, but not, Michael was afraid, before taking more with him. Nathan escaping was going to enrage him, maybe spook him, and he’d want to get back on what he saw as his track. Where would he strike next?
It really was too hot to think straight today. Michael decided to take a break – perhaps even get in a late siesta. He wasn’t going to call it a nap because that just sounded so old. He tried to summon up the energy to move. The curtain billowed a little in the breeze. Leaves rustled outside. Blossoms bobbed on the neighbour’s climbing rose that had sprung up into Michael’s trees – a benign yellow invader laced through some pears that last year had never quite got ripe enough to eat, according to the woman from whom he’d bought the flat. Perhaps she just hadn’t waited long enough? If he just went and opened up a window in his bedroom, he would have a through draught, and that should help.
He wheeled into the bedroom and wrestled with the window. It stuck but with a thump, delivered from an awkwardly low angle, he managed to get it to shift. It was shady in here, a little cooler than the big expanse of sunlit lounge. He could maybe just allow himself five minutes.
He woke up thirty minutes later stretched out on the bed where he’d flopped after an exhausting transfer. He knew instantly that something had changed in the house – that something was wrong. There was a presence in here with him. His mind sprang to the open garden windows. He never usually risked …
Never mind that now. He could hear a person moving around. There was a muffled cry, like a kitten. Had he got Colette?
Cursing his slow body, he shifted to swing out of bed. Never had he felt more frustrated by his disability – not since lying at the bottom of his cellar steps, cursing his would-be murderer. Fuck this – FUCK this!
Phone the police, you idiot! his more intelligent brain shouted at his inner ape who just wanted to drive an interloper off his territory with some chest thumping.
He groped for the nightstand, but realised he’d left the phone by the computer.
Of course he had: he almost deserved this for being so stupid. He knew better than to let his guard down even for an instant.
There came the sound of sirens outside but they went past and stopped somewhere nearby with a final whoop. Had that scared off his housebreaker? But, shit – if he got his computer …!
Rage filled him. Finally – thank God, finally, he’d managed to haul himself into his chair. It was the heavier electric one, so at least good for ramming into someone. He grabbed a weighty metal doorstop in the shape of a hare and got it ready on his lap. He kept going down the corridor – the whine of the motor would have clued the intruder into his approach if the noise of him getting up hadn’t already done so. Pushing the chair to its top speed, he bumped from tiled hall to wooden lounge floor, brandishing the hare held upside down by its ears like a torch.
And found the room empty.
Or almost.
A Moses basket had appeared on the dining-room table – wicker affair with frilly cotton sheets. These were moving, and the distressed cat noise was even louder now.
He was almost too sickened to look. Was that Colette in there – eyes gouged out like Jessica’s doll? That was the next logical escalation. He’d have to put her down immediately if that was what had been done. He eyed the hare statuette, putting it in his lap just in case it was needed for a mercy killing.
Then two things happened at once. Colette slunk in from the garden, completely unharmed, and the strangled kitten noise resolved itself into a full-on baby wail. He reached inside the basket and touched soft, slightly damp, warm flesh.
The troll had left him holding the baby.