James Carol - The Quiet Man

You could argue that the ball bearings weren’t necessary. And so far they hadn’t been. In all three murders the explosion alone had been enough to get the job done. The problem with using fireworks was that it would be difficult to know how big the blast would be. That was the unknown quantity in the equation. The killer would have carried out tests, so he would have had a rough idea of what to expect, but there would still have been some doubt. Was the blast going to be big enough? Would it do what it needed to do? The ball bearings were his insurance policy. If by some miracle the victim survived the explosion, then the shrapnel would finish them off.

Where, why, who. Winter was wondering about the why again. The road less travelled. When dealing with serial killers, the actual murders usually happened for one of two reasons: necessity or gratification. The problem was that neither explanation seemed to fit. Necessity would cover a scenario where the killer raped his victim and was worried about being identified, or a scenario where his fantasies had pushed him into going too far. Winter couldn’t see how that would work here. Which left gratification. Except that didn’t work either. This killer didn’t get their hands dirty. Nor did he need to look into the eyes of his victims as he took their lives.

It wasn’t unusual for serial killers to hang around at the scene of the crime. They got off on the confusion and pandemonium. The sense of superiority that this gave them was intoxicating. Anderton had known this. That’s why she’d had cameras and eyes on the crowds who’d gathered outside the murder houses. Nobody had stood out, though.

Another possibility was that the killer had been hanging around outside his victims’ homes prior to the explosion. That would fit with him taking a hands-off approach. Except that didn’t sit comfortably, either. The murders had all happened in residential areas between the hours of six and eight in the evening. People would have been home from work by then. Someone would have seen something.

Again, Anderton had been diligent. The neighbourhoods had been canvassed, but nobody had seen anyone acting suspiciously. Winter took witness statements with a pinch of salt. They could be useful, but sometimes they created more problems than solutions. People placed too much importance on them and that could lead to a wild goose chase. Memory was fluid and easily corrupted. The drapes in your childhood bedroom weren’t blue, they were in fact red. You’d actually had the chicken dish when you last went out for a meal, not the beef.

In this case Winter would be happy to accept an eyewitness statement as gospel. If the killer had been hanging around in a car, waiting for the bang, someone would have seen him and said something. Even if they hadn’t been able to give a halfway decent description of the killer or the car, they would at least have been able to confirm that he’d been there.

But that hadn’t happened at any of the crime scenes. On that basis Winter was happy to accept that the killer hadn’t been outside the victims’ houses when the bombs went off, which meant that gratification was off the table, too. If you took gratification and necessity out of the equation all you were left with was a large question-sized hole. Serial killers didn’t do anything without a good reason. The risks were too great to have your actions controlled by whims. Winter decided to park this one for now. He’d let his subconscious play around with it, see what it came up with. Sometimes hitting things straight on just led to that hole growing bigger.

Winter finished his whisky and put the glass back on the mat. The sensible thing would be to head back to the hotel and carry on working through the files there. Then again, that first whisky had gone down a little too easily. There was a mirror on the wall behind the bar. Light shone through the bottles lined up on the shelves and reflected back, sparkles of colour, like amber jewels. Faces were reflected there too. Laughing faces. Serious faces. Smiling faces. Sad faces.

A curious face.

Winter stood up and went over to the bar. The same guy who’d served him earlier served him again. He was in his late fifties with small eyes set in a fleshy face. He had the look of a hardened drinker, someone who should avoid bar work. Winter saw liver failure in his future. He knew what that one looked like because that’s what killed his mom.

The barkeep poured in silence, one eye on the big screen. He was the only person watching the game. Winter carried his drink back to his table and got settled. He put it down and squared the mat, making sure it was absolutely parallel with the table edge, whisky sloshing gently against the sides of the glass. The curious guy was at a table close to the bar, one where he could watch the reflections in the mirror without being obvious. He was shielded by two rowdy kids who were competing to see who could drink the most. It was good cover. Anybody looking in that direction would hone in on the kids.

Winter didn’t think he was here when he arrived, but couldn’t be certain. The timing was crucial. If this guy had been here, then he was just being paranoid. He hadn’t planned on coming here for a drink. This bar had ticked enough boxes to tempt him inside, but he could easily have kept on walking to the next one. And if this guy was watching him, how did he get here first? That would require the ability to see into the future, or a time machine, and Winter wasn’t buying either of those explanations.

On the other hand, if he’d come in after him then that raised a whole host of new questions. Winter picked up his glass and took a sip. His gaze skirted across the mirror, and kept going, stopping at the big screen. For a short while he watched a bunch of grown men chase a ball around a perfectly manicured acre of grass, and thought about what this all meant.

He glanced at the mirror again. The curious guy had positioned himself so the angles were conducive with catching his reflection, but that meant the angles also worked in reverse. At the moment the guy had his head down, eyes fixed on his phone, thumb swiping from bottom to top as though he was reading something. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. That didn’t matter though. He was exercising his right to be invisible, and the cell phone was as good a prop as any. Who was going to look twice at someone playing with their cell? Every single day you were going to see a hundred people doing that exact same thing.

Winter took out his own cell and unlocked it. He found Anderton’s number and typed a quick text.

In Frankie’s. Down by the river. Being watched.

Her reply arrived ten seconds later.

What? Who?!?

White male, early 30s, five five, slight build. Unremarkable. Surveillance savvy.

The killer?

Interview aired two hours ago. Do the math.

Calling Freeman. Stay where you are. Be there soon.

Before Winter could respond, another text appeared.

DON’T DO ANYTHING!!!

His response was short and sweet:

Certainties only become absolute after the fact. Up until that point there is always something waiting to crop up and prove the theory wrong. Winter had a pretty good idea what was happening here, but there was still that sliver of doubt. The curious guy was nursing a beer, eyes occasionally straying toward the big screen so that he had an excuse to look in the mirror. Winter was doing the same. An occasional glance at the big screen, his eyes tracing an arc that meant his gaze passed over the mirror. The fact that the guy was still here supported two possible theories. What happened in the next ten minutes would decide which one was correct.