Robert Galbraith - Career of Evil

Wardle looked startled.

“I am, as it goes,” he said suspiciously. “Why?”

Strike shook his head, smiling slightly.

“I know a psycho wouldn’t care,” said Wardle with a trace of defensiveness. “I’m just saying... anyway, we’ve got people trying to find out where he’s living now. If it’s a council house, and assuming Alyssa Vincent’s her real name, it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“Great,” said Strike. The police had resources that he and Robin could not match; perhaps now, at last, some definitive information would be forthcoming. “What about Laing?”

“Ah,” said Wardle, grinding out his first cigarette and immediately lighting another, “we’ve got more on him. He’s been living alone in Wollaston Close for eighteen months now. Survives on disability benefits. He had a chest infection over the weekend of the second and third and his friend Dickie came in to help him out. He couldn’t get to the shops.”

“That’s bloody convenient,” said Strike.

“Or genuine,” said Wardle. “We checked with Dickie and he confirmed everything Laing told us.”

“Was Laing surprised the police were asking about his movements?”

“Seemed pretty taken aback at first.”

“Did he let you in the flat?”

“Didn’t arise. We met him crossing the car park on his sticks and we ended up talking to him in a local café.”

“That Ecuadorian place in a tunnel?”

Wardle subjected Strike to a hard stare that the detective returned with equanimity.

“You’ve been staking him out as well, have you? Don’t mess this up for us, Strike. We’re on it.”

Strike might have responded that it had taken press scrutiny and the failure to make anything of his preferred leads to make Wardle commit serious resources to the tracking of Strike’s three suspects. He chose to hold his silence.

“Laing’s not stupid,” Wardle continued. “We hadn’t been questioning him long when he twigged what it was about. He knew you must’ve given us his name. He’d seen in the papers you got sent a leg.”

“What was his view on the matter?”

“There might’ve been an undertone of ‘couldn’t’ve happened to a nicer bloke,’” said Wardle with a slight grin, “but on balance, about what you’d expect. Bit of curiosity, bit of defensiveness.”

“Did he look ill?”

“Yeah,” said Wardle. “He didn’t know we were coming, and we met him shambling along on his sticks. He doesn’t look good close up. Bloodshot eyes. His skin’s kind of cracked. Bit of a mess.”

Strike said nothing. His mistrust of Laing’s illness lingered. In spite of the clear photographic evidence of steroid use, skin plaques and lesions that Strike had seen with his own eyes, he found himself stubbornly resistant to the idea that Laing was genuinely ill.

“What was he doing when the other women were killed?”

“Says he was home alone,” said Wardle. “Nothing to prove or disprove it.”

“Hmn,” said Strike.

They turned back into the pub. A couple had taken their table so they found another beside the floor-to-ceiling window onto the street.

“What about Whittaker?”

“Yeah, we caught up with him last night. He’s roadying for a band.”

“Are you sure about that?” said Strike suspiciously, remembering Shanker’s assertion that Whittaker claimed to be doing so, but was in fact living off Stephanie.

“Yeah, I’m sure. We called in on the druggie girlfriend—”

“Get inside the flat?”

“She talked to us at the door, unsurprisingly,” said Wardle. “The place stinks. Anyway, she told us he was off with the boys, gave us the address of the concert and there he was. Old transit van parked outside and an even older band. Ever heard of Death Cult?”

“No,” said Strike.

“Don’t bother, they’re shit,” said Wardle. “I had to sit through half an hour of the stuff before I could get near Whittaker. Basement of a pub in Wandsworth. I had tinnitus all the next day.

“Whittaker seemed to be half expecting us,” said Wardle. “Apparently he found you outside his van a few weeks ago.”

“I told you about that,” said Strike. “Crack fumes—”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Wardle. “Look, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, but he reckons Stephanie can give him an alibi for the whole day of the royal wedding, so that would rule out the attack on the hooker in Shacklewell, and he claims he was off with Death Cult when both Kelsey and Heather were killed.”

“All three killings covered, eh?” said Strike. “That’s neat. Do Death Cult agree he was with them?”

“They were pretty vague about it, to be honest,” said Wardle. “The lead singer’s got a hearing aid. I don’t know whether he caught everything I asked him. Don’t worry, I’ve got guys checking all their witness statements,” he added in the face of Strike’s frown. “We’ll find out whether he was really there or not.”

Wardle yawned and stretched.

“I’ve got to get back to the office,” he said. “This could be an all-nighter. We’ve got a load of information coming in now the papers are on to it.”

Strike was extremely hungry now, but the pub was noisy and he felt he would rather eat somewhere he could think. He and Wardle headed up the road together, both lighting fresh cigarettes as they walked.

“The psychologist raised something,” said Wardle as the curtain of darkness unrolled across the sky above them. “If we’re right, and we’re dealing with a serial killer, he’s usually an opportunist. He’s got a bloody good m.o. — he must be a planner to a degree, or he couldn’t have got away with it so often — but there was a change in the pattern with Kelsey. He knew exactly where she was staying. The letters and the fact that he knew there wouldn’t be anyone there: it was totally premeditated.

“Trouble is, we’ve had a bloody good look, but we can’t find any evidence that any of your guys have ever been in proximity with her. We virtually took her laptop apart, and there was nothing there. The only people she ever talked to about her leg were those oddballs Jason and Tempest. She had hardly any friends, and the ones she did have were all girls. There was nothing suspicious on her phone. As far as we know, none of your guys has ever lived or worked in Finchley or Shepherd’s Bush, let alone gone anywhere near her school or college. They’ve got no known connection with any of her associates. How the hell could any of them get close enough to manipulate her without her family noticing?”

“We know she was duplicitous,” said Strike. “Don’t forget the pretend boyfriend who turned out to be pretty real when he picked her up from Café Rouge.”

“Yeah,” sighed Wardle. “We’ve still got no leads on that bloody bike. We’ve put out a description in the press, but nothing.

“How’s your partner?” he added, pausing outside the glass doors of his place of work, but apparently determined to smoke the cigarette down to the last millimeter. “Not too shaken up?”

“She’s fine,” said Strike. “She’s back in Yorkshire for a wedding dress fitting. I made her take the time off: she’s been working through the weekend a lot lately.”

Robin had left without complaint. What was there to stay for, with the press staking out Denmark Street, one lousy paying job and the police now covering Brockbank, Laing and Whittaker more efficiently than the agency ever could?

“Good luck,” said Strike as he and Wardle parted. The policeman raised a hand in acknowledgment and farewell, and disappeared into the large building behind the slowly revolving prism glittering with the words New Scotland Yard.

Strike strolled back towards the Tube, craving a kebab and inwardly deliberating the problem that Wardle had just put to him. How could any of his suspects have got close enough to Kelsey Platt to know her movements or gain her trust?