Czytaj książkę: «A Killing Mind»

2

Detective Superintendent Featherstone entered the main office of the Special Investigations Unit in New Scotland Yard and made his way to the goldfish bowl of a room that belonged to Detective Inspector Sean Corrigan. He opened the door without knocking and tossed a pink cardboard file marked ‘confidential’ on to Corrigan’s desk to grab his attention. Sean flicked the file open before looking at Featherstone, who’d slumped into the seat opposite clutching another pink folder, and then his eyes returned to the file where he was confronted by crime scene photographs of William Dalton – his throat cut and face disfigured with dried blood congealed around his gaping mouth. He flicked through the first few photographs, making a special note of the victim’s hands, from which the fingernails had been removed, leaving behind bloody stumps. Sean winced and looked away for a second.

‘I hope he was dead before he had his nails pulled out,’ he said.

‘And before he had his teeth removed,’ Featherstone added, making Sean look up. ‘The blood and swelling in and around his mouth was caused when our killer extracted some of his teeth using a combination of knife and, most probably, pliers – too early to say for sure; nothing was found at the scene.’

Sean nodded to show he understood. ‘Who was he?’

‘William Dalton,’ Featherstone answered. ‘Eighteen years old, homeless and addicted to crack. Home was a disused garage in Mint Street, Southwark – that’s where he was killed. He sustained a significant injury to the back of his head, and then there’s the damage caused by removal of the teeth and fingernails, but that wasn’t what killed him. There were two distinct wounds to his neck and throat: his throat was cut – straight through the trachea – which wouldn’t necessarily have killed him, but the second wound sliced open his carotid artery. He bled to death, or at least that’s what it looks like. Won’t know for sure until the post-mortem.’

Again Sean looked down at the photographs and then to Featherstone. ‘Unusual and significant injuries,’ he admitted, ‘but why give Special Investigations the case? He could have been in debt to a particularly nasty drug dealer. Maybe they tortured him to find out if he had any drugs or cash hidden away. Teeth. Fingernails. All looks like torture.’ He didn’t tell Featherstone about the images the crime scene photos had conjured up in his mind – a madman stabbing and pulling at the victim’s teeth and nails, his face contorted with the effort, yet in control. Unafraid. Calm.

‘Firstly,’ Featherstone explained, ‘Assistant Commissioner Addis is aware of the case and has insisted that you take it on. His apologies, by the way. He’s away at a conference in Bramshill, otherwise he’d have briefed you in person.’

‘And …?’

‘And,’ Featherstone told him, leaning forward and tossing the other file on to his desk, ‘this isn’t his first kill.’

Sean tentatively opened the new file and was again greeted by crime scene photographs: a young woman’s body lying on the wet ground behind a large wheelie bin. Other photographs showed close-ups of wounds similar to those William Dalton had suffered: teeth and fingernails traumatically removed. He also noted that her clothing appeared to have been pulled and torn and assumed the worst had happened, but again he said nothing, knowing that Featherstone would start talking soon enough.

‘Her name is Tanya Richards,’ Featherstone obliged. ‘Twenty-three years old. A known prostitute. Ran away to the big smoke from some shithole in the Midlands a few years ago. Soon discovered the streets aren’t paved with gold and started using heroin. Prostitution paid for the drugs. Not an unfamiliar tale.’

Sean acknowledged this with a nod.

‘Her body was found not far from where she lived,’ Featherstone continued. ‘She had a room in a dump of a flat in Roden Street, Holloway. When she wasn’t there she was working the streets around Smithfield Market during the night – looking for punters. He left plenty of DNA, only it’s not on file, so looks like he has no previous.’

‘Could the DNA be from a punter?’ Sean asked.

‘Unlikely,’ Featherstone answered. ‘Looks like she was on her way to work when she was attacked. Judging by the contents of her handbag, she was careful.’

‘Condoms?’ Sean guessed. ‘Yeah,’ Featherstone confirmed, ‘and plenty of them. Also we found semen smeared on her abdomen that matches that found inside her, so everything points to it being the killer’s.’ Featherstone shook his head. ‘Strange thing to do – wipe himself off on her belly.’

‘He was marking her,’ Sean said before he could stop himself – drawing a concerned look from Featherstone. ‘Raping and killing her wasn’t enough,’ he tried to explain. ‘He wanted to mark her.’

‘Why?’ Featherstone asked.

‘That,’ Sean answered, ‘I don’t know yet.’ He turned his gaze back to the photographs, wishing he could be alone without being disturbed by Featherstone’s clumsy observations. His understanding of this killer was coming together faster than in any of his previous cases, as if the year-long gap since his last significant investigation had sharpened his instincts and senses. He needed this killer more than any of his team could possibly understand.

While his mind was engaged with the faceless killer who’d turned his fantasies into reality, using the helpless Tanya Richards as a conduit for his warped desire, Sean threw out a question to keep Featherstone occupied: ‘Was the same knife used on both victims?’

‘Hard to say,’ Featherstone admitted, inhaling deeply before continuing. ‘Neither victim was stabbed – slashed, but not stabbed. Makes it difficult to be certain. Maybe the post-mortem will help.’

Sean started flicking through the file with an increased sense of urgency. Something told him every second could be vital. ‘When was she killed?’

‘More bad news, I’m afraid,’ Featherstone answered. ‘Only ten days ago. This one’s not a once-a-year killer, Sean. He’s running hot.’

‘I didn’t hear anything,’ Sean told him. ‘Didn’t see anything on the news.’

‘A prostitute and heroin addict murdered in London,’ Featherstone explained with a shrug. ‘Not exactly front-page material. The first murder got a mention on the local news – nothing more. They’ll be all over it now though, that’s for bloody sure.’

‘But the fingernails and the teeth,’ Sean frowned, ‘that must have got the interest of the media?’

‘Ah.’ Featherstone cocked his head to one side. ‘Would have, only the MIT who picked up the Richards case had the good sense not to mention the fact she’d had her nails removed. They let on some of her teeth had been pulled out, but kept quiet about the nails.’

‘To eliminate nuisance callers claiming responsibility,’ Sean said.

‘Exactly,’ Featherstone confirmed. ‘Had we let it be known her nails were removed too, the better crime journalists out there might have started getting suspicious. The MIT reckoned they could explain the teeth away as a pissed-off pimp pulling out her gold teeth for their cash value.’

‘Sensible,’ Sean appreciated their thinking, ‘but why mention either?’

‘Trying to drum up some sympathy,’ Featherstone explained. ‘Not easy getting the media interested in a dead prostitute, or the general public for that matter. It was hoped that by making it clear she suffered, we could tug on a few more heartstrings – loosen a few lips.’

‘Doesn’t seem to have worked,’ Sean replied.

‘No,’ Featherstone admitted, sounding sad and worn out by yet another violent death few would care about.

Both men were silent for a while before Sean spoke again. ‘Unusual,’ he said. ‘Looks like it has to be the same killer, yet we have a male and a female victim. So, unless he’s bisexual, the motivation can’t be entirely sexual, despite the fact the female victim was raped.’

‘Dalton doesn’t seem to have been sexually assaulted in any way,’ Featherstone added, ‘but again, it’s too early to say for sure.’

‘So what’s his motivation?’ Sean directed the question at himself rather than Featherstone. ‘If killing is his motivation, then he’s a very dangerous and rare animal. A killer who kills because he likes it rather than to cover his tracks or out of panic – that’s about as bad as it gets.’

‘Rare like Sebastian Gibran?’ Featherstone asked, dragging a ghost from the past into the small, warm office. ‘Remember him?’

‘I’m not likely to forget him, am I?’ Sean sighed, memories of the most dangerous killer he’d ever dealt with swarming into his mind.

‘He was something else though, wasn’t he?’ Featherstone reminded them both. ‘Pure bloody evil, that one.’

‘Evil?’ Sean answered. ‘Not sure that exists. He was just wired differently.’

‘You mean wired wrongly?’ Featherstone checked.

Sean ignored the question. ‘He had everything anyone could ever want, but it wasn’t enough. Killing made him feel like he was some sort of god – that taking life was his entitlement.’

‘Do you think we could have another Sebastian Gibran here?’ Featherstone sounded concerned. ‘The last thing we need is another Gibran on the loose.’

‘I doubt it,’ Sean reassured him. ‘Gibran was … exceptional. A one-off. This one’s profile should be more straightforward. Gibran constantly changed his method so we wouldn’t make a link. This one has varied the sex of his victims, but he’s already showing a strong dedication to a particular method. And taking the teeth and fingernails – almost certainly souvenirs. Gibran only took memories.’ He glanced down at the files on his desk, the brutal crime scene photographs staring back at him. ‘All the same, we have a very dangerous individual on our hands.’ He drew a breath. ‘Ten days between the murders?’

‘That’s right,’ Featherstone confirmed.

‘Not good,’ Sean replied, shaking his head. He chewed his bottom lip, deep in thought for a few seconds before continuing. ‘Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe he’ll slow down for a while – use his souvenirs to relive the killings – keep his urges at bay.’ The image of a faceless man touching, smelling, tasting the extracted teeth and fingernails flashed in his mind.

‘You don’t really believe that, do you?’

Sean shrugged.

‘Anyway,’ Featherstone tried to look on the bright side, ‘it’ll be good to have a proper Special Investigations case again. Can’t have been much fun, being loaned out to other MITs these last few months.’

‘Don’t forget Anti-Terrorist, Special Branch and anyone else who was short of manpower,’ Sean reminded him.

‘Indeed,’ Featherstone agreed. ‘Nothing Addis could do to stop that happening. Can’t justify detectives sitting on their backsides doing nothing, not in this day and age.’

‘No,’ Sean admitted. ‘I suppose not.’

‘Still,’ Featherstone perked up again. ‘Your unit’s back now – with a proper investigation.’

‘So it would appear,’ Sean said, but without any cheer, although inside he felt himself coming to life – adrenalin and ideas, memories and anticipation beginning to flow through his body, sparking the darkest areas of his being that had lain dormant for months. Dark areas that he knew were dangerous to him and everything he’d achieved in his life, just as he knew that the answers tended to lie hidden in that darkness. Answers that could help him catch a killer before he claimed more lives.

‘Speaking of investigations …’ Featherstone appeared to change tack, ‘you should know that this will be my last.’

Sean leaned back in his chair. ‘Oh,’ he managed to say. He liked and trusted Featherstone. With him gone, there would be no protective buffer between him and Addis. Worse still, Addis could put someone else in charge of overseeing Sean and his team. Addis’s own man or woman. His own gamekeeper. ‘How so?’

‘Time for me to call it a day, Sean,’ he told him. ‘I’ve done more than my thirty years. Could have gone a couple of years ago. Was clinging on in the hope of making it to Commander, but it’s pretty clear that’s not going to happen. Every time it looks like it might, I get passed over by some graduate on accelerated promotion. Who gives a fuck if they don’t know their arses from their elbows, right?’

‘Will you be replaced?’ Sean asked.

‘You mean will you get a new boss?’ Featherstone smiled, sensing Sean’s concern. ‘Who knows? That’s Addis’s call.’

‘Great,’ Sean moaned.

‘You’ll survive,’ Featherstone assured him. They were silent for a while before he spoke again. ‘I was meaning to ask: how’s DS Donnelly getting on?’

‘Dave?’ Sean asked, confused.

‘Since the shooting,’ Featherstone added. ‘Not an easy thing to take a life.’

‘If he hadn’t shot Goldsboro,’ Sean reminded him, ‘Goldsboro would have shot me. Dave’s got nothing to feel … guilty about.’

‘We don’t all process these things the same way,’ Featherstone told him. ‘We don’t all have your … clarity of thought.’

Sean knew what he meant: if it had been Sean who’d pulled the trigger and killed Jeremy Goldsboro – the suspect in their last major investigation – he would have felt no guilt. It would simply have been something he had to do. ‘Well, the inquiry concluded it was a justifiable shooting. I think we’ve all moved on.’

‘Good,’ Featherstone replied, though he seemed less than convinced. ‘Well, speaking of moving on,’ he added, getting to his feet, ‘time I wasn’t here. Good luck with this one.’

‘Thanks,’ Sean replied.

‘Oh, one last thing,’ Featherstone turned at the door. ‘Addis wants Anna Ravenni-Ceron to work alongside you on this one. Given the nature of the killings, he feels the input of a psychiatrist would be useful. Since you’ve worked with her before, he thought best to stick with her.’

Sean felt an instant stab in the heart and a tightening in his stomach. He’d barely seen her in over a year, but his feelings about Anna remained confused. The only stability in his life came from his family and his job. Anna was a threat to both. ‘Fine,’ he answered without elaborating.

‘Regular updates would be appreciated,’ Featherstone told him as he left. ‘And watch out for the press.’

Sean’s eyes followed Featherstone across the main office and through the exit before he took a single photo from each file and slumped back in his chair – looking from victim to victim. The more he looked, the more he was sure the killer’s motivation was the act of killing. For some reason he felt compelled to kill.

Again Sean found his thoughts turning to Sebastian Gibran. He threw the photographs back on to his desk and cursed under his breath. ‘Shit.’

David Langley sat at his desk in the manager’s office of the Wandsworth branch of Harper’s Furniture store. Forty-two years old, six foot tall and muscular, he looked fit, tanned and handsome in an everyday way, short brown hair pushed back from his face to show off his deep green eyes. The office was hidden away from the customers who patrolled the showroom outside looking for bargains in the seemingly never-ending ‘All must go!’ sale, the office was crammed with cheap, utilitarian furniture, filing cabinets and computer equipment. The Christmas decorations had been removed from the showroom on 2 January, but a few tattered and depressing remnants still hung in the office.

Anyone who looked in through the office’s only door would have seen Langley facing forward, typing away on his keyboard like a man hard at work. He’d strategically positioned his desk so that no one could sneak up behind and look over his shoulder at the computer monitor. If they had, they would have seen that instead of checking stock levels or placing orders, he was searching the internet for news of last night’s murder of a homeless man in Southwark. To his intense frustration, only the local press carried any mention of the killing. The removal of the victim’s teeth seemed to have generated some interest, but there was no mention of the missing fingernails. He assumed that detail had been deliberately withheld by the police, so they could eliminate crank callers claiming responsibility for his unique handiwork. Planning and carrying out the killing had been sweet enough, but now he craved the fear and awe that only media attention could give him.

Disgusted, he gave up the search for in-depth coverage – the coverage he deserved. He told himself he shouldn’t be surprised his greatness had not been recognized. Only a blessed few were gifted enough to see in these two early works the blossoming of his special talents. But he had no doubt that his legacy would surpass everything that had gone before – even if he had to rub their faces in it before he was truly appreciated.

Almost without thinking he began to type the names of some of the gifted few into the search engine – those serial killers who had achieved fame on a global scale. He bit his lip to suppress his rising jealousy and anger. Why should they have been given so much coverage when he received so little? Could it be that the police had failed to make the connection? Fools! How easy could he make it for them? What would he have to do to make it more obvious? Cut out their eyes as well?

‘Or?’ Sally tried to bring him back.

‘Or,’ he continued, ‘he did it simply because he liked it. He liked pulling their teeth and fingernails. It made him feel … good.’

‘How the hell could doing that make anyone feel good?’ Zukov asked.

‘He’s not like you,’ Sean warned him. ‘He doesn’t think like you, any more than you think like him. He’s different.’

‘You mean us,’ Sally said. ‘He doesn’t think like us.’

‘What?’ Sean asked, confused by her words before another question saved him.

‘Why not take some of their hair?’ Cahill asked. ‘Hair’s personal and non-biodegradable and a lot easier to remove, so why not take hair?’

Again Sean had considered it. ‘Too gentle,’ he answered. ‘Too compassionate. Parents keep locks of their children’s hair. Lovers keep locks of each other’s hair. It’s a sign of affection and caring.’ The connection he felt with the killer was growing stronger as he expanded on each theory. ‘He wants us to know he feels no compassion. Wants us to know how strong he is – mentally – that he’s capable of anything. For this one, it’s all about the violence – and he wants us to know it.’

‘Killers in the past have eaten parts of their victims,’ Sally reminded them. ‘It’s a way of keeping them forever – as if they’ve ingested the victim’s soul. Any obvious reason why he didn’t consume something at the scene? It would have certainly been a statement of his violent intent.’

‘That’s not his mindset,’ Sean answered without having to think about it. ‘Yes, plenty of serial killers – if that’s what he is – have consumed a part or parts of their victims, but it’s not usually out of violence or anger. For them, it’s an act of love. They want to be one with the victim – keep them alive and with them forever by consuming them.’

‘Love?’ Donnelly asked disbelievingly. ‘Hell of a funny way to show love.’

Sean paused, wondering how to explain. ‘You’re a parent, right, Dave?’

‘Aye,’ Donnelly answered in his gruff voice with an accent part East London and part Glaswegian – the city where he’d spent that part of his life before joining police.

‘Remember when they were young and you used to play with them and hold them and tell them you were going to gobble them all up?’

‘Aye,’ Donnelly replied, shaking his head, ‘but that was different.’

‘No,’ Sean insisted. ‘Psychologically, the same. But not for this one. He doesn’t feel compassion or love for them and he doesn’t want them to live forever inside of himself. He wants them dead. He wants to destroy them.’

‘Why?’ Sally asked. ‘Why such strong feelings of violence and hatred towards strangers?’

‘Who says he hates them?’ Sean corrected her. ‘Maybe they’re simply a means to an end.’

‘What means? What end?’ Sally pushed him.

‘I don’t know,’ he told her honestly. ‘Not yet.’

‘Great – another paranoid schizophrenic off his meds,’ Donnelly said, dismissing anything more sinister.

‘No,’ Sean explained. ‘There’s no frenzy to these attacks. They’re controlled and planned. This isn’t someone hearing voices in their head or seeing demons on the train. I don’t sense mental illness here, or at least nothing a court would recognize as such.’

‘Then we’re looking for someone who’s made the conscious decision to select victims and kill them,’ Cahill asked, ‘but with controlled violence?’

‘That’s what these photographs say to me,’ Sean agreed. ‘And I reckon we’ve got about ten days to find him before he kills again. I could be wrong, but he doesn’t look like he’s going to become a sleeper. Now he’s started, he’ll keep going, probably at about the same pace or faster.’

‘Do you think he’s killed before? Sally asked.

‘Possibly,’ he admitted. ‘We’ll have to look into it – anything that looks remotely similar will have to be checked. But I think Tanya Richards was his first. He tried something new and he liked it. It didn’t scare him or freak him out. It was probably everything he hoped for, maybe more and he needed it again – and quickly, hence …’ he turned and tapped a photograph of William Dalton ‘… ten days later he strikes again. It’s a drug to him now. He needs it.’ He looked around at the quiet, stoical faces – all eyes on him, waiting for ideas and leadership. He let the responsibility sink in before speaking again.

‘All right,’ he stirred his team, ‘we’ve all done this before. We all know what an investigation like this means and how to get a result.’ A few heads nodded. ‘Dave,’ he turned to Donnelly. ‘You sort out the door-to-door. Dalton was living in a garage, so maybe he was something of a local celebrity. People might know him more than usual.’

Donnelly nodded. ‘Want me to do the same for Richards?’ he asked. ‘Not sure I want to trust some other MIT’s findings.’

‘Fine,’ Sean agreed. ‘They won’t like it, but do it anyway.’

‘They’ll survive,’ Donnelly shrugged.

‘Sally,’ Sean continued assigning tasks: ‘track down Dalton’s friends and family, will you? Chances are they don’t know he’s dead yet. He was a heavy drug user working the West End. Let’s find out what his associates can tell us about his lifestyle. They might have some useful information, as might his family – especially about how he ended up homeless. There’s a crucial piece of information hiding somewhere waiting for us. We dig and dig and dig till we find it. Don’t second-guess what could be important and what’s not.

‘We know he had an Oyster card and used it regularly, so let’s get it interrogated and see where and when he’s been moving around. Fiona …’ Cahill looked up from the notes she was scribbling; ‘Take care of it, OK.’ Cahill nodded her agreement. Sean turned to Jesson. ‘Alan: Dalton moved around the West End most days and travelled back to Southwark most nights, most likely to Borough Tube if he was living off Mint Street, so we’ll have CCTV coming out of our ears. Get hold of British Transport Police and tell them to preserve all CCTV from those areas and routes until we can give them something more specific once we’ve looked into his Oyster card.’

‘BTP. Done,’ was all Jesson said in his Liverpudlian accent.

‘As I’m sure you all understand, the original investigating team will not be happy about losing this case,’ Sean reminded them. ‘No MIT wants to lose a job like this, so if you come into contact with them, keep it nice. No rubbing their faces in it, please. We need them onside and cooperative. Don’t want them holding back any information to make things difficult for us. I’ll do my best to smooth things over with them and I expect each of you to do the same.

‘That’s it for now,’ Sean told them. ‘Get yourselves organized and ready to go. Dave will be office manager and will put you into teams as soon as he can and give you your individual tasks. OK – let’s get on with it.’

As the meeting broke up, the team moved quickly back to their desks gathering phones, notebooks, pens and anything else experience had taught them they might need, chatting loudly and excitedly to each other as they did so. Sean drifted back towards his office followed by Sally, while Donnelly remained in the main office and started barking out orders.

Sean paused next to him as he passed and quietly spoke in his ear. ‘Keep them on it,’ he told Donnelly. ‘Two victims is enough.’ Donnelly merely nodded. As soon as he entered his office, Sean started putting on his coat and filling his pockets with the detritus from his desktop.

‘Going somewhere?’ Sally asked.

‘Ugh,’ Sean grunted as he looked up, suddenly pulled out of his own thoughts. ‘Yeah,’ he rejoined the world. ‘I need to go out.’

‘Where?’ Sally pushed.

‘The scene, of course,’ he told her.

‘The MIT will be all over it,’ Sally reminded him. ‘Maybe we should leave them to it and take control of their exhibits when they’re done.’

‘No,’ Sean replied firmly. ‘I want our people on it. I want DS Roddis and his team. No one else. Roddis is the best.’

Sally didn’t argue. ‘OK. Want some company?’

‘No,’ Sean told her. ‘I’ll go alone. Stay here and help Dave.’

‘Fine,’ Sally reluctantly agreed. ‘If that’s what you want.’

Sean sensed her doubt. ‘But …?’

‘So long as you haven’t decided to try and solve this one all on your own,’ she voiced her concern. ‘It’s been a long time since we had a proper investigation. I know what you’re like, Sean. You’re hungry for this, I know you are, but we’re a team, remember? We work as a team we solve this quicker. You try and do it alone, it could be …’ She let her words trail off.

‘Could be what?’ he asked, puzzled.

‘Dangerous,’ she said with conviction. ‘For you and everyone around you.’

‘Don’t worry about me,’ he tried to reassure her. ‘We’re a team – I get it. It’s early days and there’s much to do. We just need to divide and conquer until things are moving, is all. You’re more use to me here, helping Dave, than you are trailing around after me.’

‘Thanks,’ she replied sarcastically.

‘That’s not what I meant,’ he tried to recover. ‘Look, I’ll be back soon and I’ll tell you everything I find. OK?’

‘Fine,’ she relented.

‘I won’t be gone long,’ he insisted as he brushed past and headed across the main office before disappearing through the door.

David Langley returned home to the small rented flat in the wrong part of Wandsworth that had been his home since his wife decided he’d had one too many ‘encounters’ with other women and had thrown him out. Where low-rise estates dominated and danger was never far away. The bitterness he felt towards her and at having to leave the family home burned deep in him like a stove of hatred. He blamed her for the failure of their marriage. She’d enjoyed pushing their sex life to the boundaries of near torture in the early years, but as he tried to push even further she had suddenly turned conservative and uninteresting. No wonder he’d looked elsewhere.

He grabbed himself a beer from the fridge and drank it quickly before taking another. The drab walls of the flat began to close in on him, making him feel trapped and depressed. He decided to phone his ex-wife, who still lived in their smart terraced family home in upwardly mobile Earlsfield. Maybe she would let him speak to their two children instead of constantly trying to poison their minds against him. So what if he’d forgotten he was supposed to pick them up or take them out a few times? He was busy providing for them, wasn’t he?

He punched the number into his phone and listened to the ringing tone as he waited for it to be answered. There was a click, followed by a familiar voice.

‘Hi. This is Emma, Charlie and Sophie Hutchinson.’ Hearing her use her maiden name for his children as well as herself started his blood boiling. How dare she? ‘We can’t get to the phone right now, so please leave your name and number and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Bye.’

‘Pick the phone up, Emma,’ he demanded. ‘I know you’re there.’ He waited a few seconds; nothing. ‘I said, pick the phone up. I want to speak with my children.’ Still nothing. ‘Stop being a bitch, Emma and answer the damn phone. You can’t stop me speaking to my own children. I have a right to speak to them whenever I want.’ He was met with more silence. ‘Fine,’ he shouted into the phone. ‘Have it your own way. I’ll be speaking to my solicitor first thing in the morning. Who’s paying for that bloody house you live in anyway?’ He slammed the phone down. ‘Fucking bitch,’ he cursed to the empty flat.

Painful memories of the day she made him leave the family home swept back into his spinning mind – him blaming her for his infidelities while she screamed at him to get out, calling him a complete loser. ‘Loser,’ he repeated the insult she’d thrown at him. ‘I’ll show you who’s a fucking loser. I’ll show everyone.’ He breathed in deeply and felt himself begin to calm as images of his victims washed over him, leaving him feeling powerful and in control. He chastised himself for not having mastered his temper. Control was everything. If he was to achieve his ultimate goal, he needed to put aside everything from his past – including his children and lost wife. He needed to let them go.

Calm once more, he knew he needed to feel strong again. Needed to relive the moments when he was at his most powerful. He returned to the fridge, opened the freezer compartment and removed a plastic box containing all that was now precious to him.

The first thing he took from the box was a transparent freezer bag that contained what looked like oversized playing cards. Again he took a deep breath before removing the items and spreading them out before him. Photographs of his victims, taken while they were alive. Tanya Richards leaving her flat. Tanya Richards walking to the tube station. Tanya Richards sitting on a bus. Tanya Richards walking the streets close to Smithfield Market. William Dalton begging in the West End. William Dalton walking into Tottenham Court Road Underground station. William Dalton walking out of Borough Underground station. William Dalton entering the garage he called home.

He arranged the cards carefully and neatly before retrieving two more small freezer bags from inside the plastic box and placed them side by side on the table. Again he took a deep breath to steady himself before emptying the first bag, which was marked with a number 1 in permanent marker. The nails and teeth slid out in front of him – the teeth rattling on the table like dice, whereas the nails sounded like tinkling raindrops. He picked up a few of the nails and dropped them into the palm of his other hand. They were still coated with cheap red nail varnish that blended perfectly with the traces of her blood. He hoped they would never fade. It may be necessary to repaint them if it did.

As he held the nails he could picture them as they had been when they were attached to the young woman’s slim fingers. They’d possibly been her best feature. That and her crystal blue eyes that were yet to be destroyed by whatever drug she was addicted to. He remembered her eyes staring into his in disbelief as she realized he had come to end her existence. He sighed almost happily at the memory before delicately spilling the nails from his palm back on to the table.

Next he picked up the teeth one by one and dropped them into the palm of his hand. Molars with gold fillings and other lesser teeth that showed little decay or staining. As young teeth should, despite her lifestyle. He pinched one of the molars from his palm and held it up to the light as if he were examining a diamond – slightly twisting and rotating it as he took in every detail of the tooth – every curve and peak – every scratch on the enamel. Finally he held it under his nose, closing his eyes as he inhaled deeply – each trace of its dead owner bringing exquisite memories of pulling them from her jaw flooding back. How he wished she’d been fully alive and conscious when he’d gone to work on her, but it would have been all but impossible to perform the extractions on a struggling victim.

Satisfied with the relics of his first victim’s death, he ritually placed all the items on top of the clip-seal bag and put them to one side. His back straightened as he took hold of the other bag – glancing at the photographs of the living William Dalton before sliding the seal open and allowing the odour of its contents to rush at him. To the uninitiated, the scents were barely detectable, but to him they were as vivid and raw as the smell of a zoo – animalistic and pungent.

He carefully tipped the contents on to the table and shifted them about with the tips of his fingers – ensuring each item had its own space to shine before picking up one of the larger fingernails that he assumed must be a thumbnail. It, like all the others, was in poor condition. The dark dried blood, mixed with the dirt that had built up over months of not being able to clean himself properly, had left the nails looking much older than they were. They looked as if they’d been taken from a body that had been buried for years – brittle, broken and jagged at the tips. But they were no less precious to him. He’d enjoyed killing the prostitute more, but the homeless man was still an experience beyond most people’s stunted and dull imagination. In any case, it was important that his second victim was a man so the police and media would know he wasn’t some perverted sex offender. They needed to understand he was much, much more than that.

He swapped the nail for a clean-looking molar, although the root was stained with the victim’s blood – the sight of it ignited images of the nearly dead homeless man lying on his back and gurgling on his own blood as it slipped down his throat. The memory pleased him and made his muscles tense as he remembered the power he’d felt as he crouched over the dying man. It was as if he was absorbing the victim’s energy, becoming more powerful with each new kill.

Without knowing why, he was suddenly overcome with the urge to taste the tooth, to engulf it in his tongue and roll it around his mouth. Wary of sucking the blood and odour away, he made do instead with delicately placing the tip of the tooth against the point of his tongue and holding it there – his eyes closing with the pleasure of it as his entire body became aroused. Removing the tooth, he cursed his body’s physical reaction and knew that others would use it as evidence that his actions were driven by sexual needs. But he knew they were not. Yes, he’d ejaculated inside the dying prostitute and done things to the dying homeless man, but they were not sexual acts. His body had simply become so electrified by the power he felt that it was overwhelmed with every sensation – as if he was feeling every emotion and physical feeling a person could ever have, only he was feeling it all at the same time. It was too much for any person to control – even one as strong as he was. Ejaculating in and on his victims had merely been an emergency release – to allow him to regain control of his own growing power. Still, he knew he needed to do better in the future and suppress his body’s crude needs when in a heightened state of stimulation. It was either that or risk forever being branded as a sexually motivated killer, which would undermine everything he was trying to achieve.

Using a breathing exercise he’d picked up from a yoga video, he tried to calm his tense body and relax. The killings had left him feeling invincible, but it was gratifying to know he remained in complete control of his own body.

After a few minutes of sitting in silence, he picked up the photographs and mementoes, placing them neatly in their bags before packing them tenderly into the plastic box that he returned to the freezer compartment of his fridge. As he closed the door he was already debating what type of person he should choose next.