Luke Delaney - Redemption of the Dead

So what do you do now, when raping without killing isn’t enough anymore? Will you follow someone to their home where the children sleep — where you can have all the time in the world to live out your dreams and then all the time in the world to get cleaned up — wash the blood off and change your clothes — no fears of having to run through the trees painted red? Yes, yes,’ he hissed. ‘That’s where you’re heading, isn’t it, you sick bastard? That’s exactly where you’re heading, even if you don’t know it yourself yet …’

* * *

Sean walked into the Parkside Rapist Enquiry Office with a lot more confidence than he’d had earlier the same day, now believing he had information everyone would want to know — information that could seriously move the stagnated case forward — if they’d just listen to him. He saw DS Ray Melody was busy on the phone, his thinned lips and red face warning Sean that the detective sergeant was already not a happy man. He waited for Melody to slam the phone down on whoever had angered him before jumping in, but Melody beat him to it. ‘You’re back early. You were supposed to stay in the park until it closed, which isn’t until it’s dark, and it doesn’t look dark to me — not yet.’

‘I found something,’ Sean told him eagerly. ‘When I was in the park I found something.’

‘A witness?’ Melody asked, allowing his mask of indifference to drop for a second.

‘No,’ Sean answered, ‘nothing like that. Something else.’

‘Go on then, Sherlock — amaze me with your powers of deduction,’ Melody ridiculed him, his mask firmly back in place.

Sean swallowed dryly before saying his piece. ‘I think he selects his victims because they’re with children, not in spite of it.’ He stood straight and waited for the congratulations and appreciation.

‘Is that fucking it?’ Melody asked, his mouth breaking into a huge grin. ‘That’s what you rushed back early to tell me — this … this quite brilliant theory of yours. Did you bang your head on a tree branch in that bloody park or something?’ Sean could feel other eyes falling on his embarrassment, but instead of playing it smart and keeping his mouth shut he blurted out more of his theory.

‘And I think he’s already killed, but not in the park or anywhere outside. He couldn’t because he’d be covered in blood. He’d never get away with it.’

‘If he’d killed before he’d have killed again by now, at least once or twice. Once these nutters kill they can’t go back,’ Melody told him, still grinning.

‘I understand that,’ Sean continued to argue, ‘and he wants to kill again, he just hasn’t had the chance yet. But he will.’ Everyone in the room was staring at him now, but he stood his ground.

‘Where are you getting all of this from, son?’ Melody asked. ‘Who’ve you been talking to?’

‘No one,’ he answered. ‘I just …’ Sean let his words trail away as he sensed a presence behind him — a presence that had brought everyone else in the room to a sudden stop. He looked over his shoulder in time to see a small, slim man with a bushy blond moustache taking a seat on the edge of a desk. He had no idea who he was, just that he must be someone important. ‘Shit,’ he whispered to himself and waited for the ridicule he felt was sure to come.

‘Don’t let me interrupt you, son,’ the man with the moustache told him. ‘Carry on with what you were saying, how you think our man has killed before.’

‘Like I was saying,’ Sean stuttered, ‘I think he’s killed before, but it had to be inside because …’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ the man hurried him, ‘because of the amount of blood he would have been covered in. But you said he wanted to kill again, yet we know he hasn’t.’

‘Because he hasn’t worked out how to yet,’ Sean told him. ‘He’s comfortable in wooded areas, but they can’t give him the privacy he needs — not in the daylight — which is when he likes to work.’

‘Work?’ the man questioned.

‘A figure of speech,’ Sean explained.

‘Really?’ the man asked, but let it slide. ‘So what’s he going to do about it, this man of ours?’

‘He’ll wait. He’ll wait until he sees an opportunity to attack someone in their own home. Then he can take his time — all the time he wants — and get cleaned up before leaving the scene.’

The man pursed his lips and shook his head as he stood and crossed the room to Sean, holding out a hand as a goodwill gesture. ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Charlie Bannan, but you can call me guv’nor or boss, take your pick.’

Sean felt his stomach tighten with tension as he accepted the hand, the grip much firmer than he was expecting. ‘PC Sean …’

‘Sean Corrigan,’ Bannan finished for him, seeing the confusion in Sean’s eyes. ‘I saw you fight, last night. Very impressive.’ Bannan looked around the room to make sure everyone was listening. ‘This young man won the Lafone Cup last night, yet look at him — not a mark on his face and back to work the next day. Still, seeing as how no one managed to lay a glove on you there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be — is there?’

‘No, sir … sorry, guv’nor,’ Sean answered.

‘Let’s take a walk,’ Bannan told him before spinning on his heels and heading for the door. Sean hesitated for a second before following, finding he had to almost break into a jog to keep up with the older man. ‘How long you been boxing for?’ Bannan asked as they walked the corridors.

‘Since I was a teenager.’

‘You’re good,’ Bannan said. ‘Very good. Ever thought about going professional?’

‘No,’ Sean told him. ‘Amateur’s enough for me.’

‘Shame,’ Bannan declared, looking him up and down out of the corner of his eye. ‘In here, son. My office.’ Sean followed him inside the tiny, cluttered space. ‘Bit of a broom-cupboard, but it’ll have to do for now. Not as palatial as my office back at HQ, but as a temporary home it serves its purpose. Take a seat.’

‘Thanks,’ Sean told him and sat in one of only three scruffy, worn-out chairs in the room, while he watched Bannan rifling through a metal filing cabinet that took up more than its fair share of available space, until finally he pulled a pink folder marked confidential from within and threw it on the desk in front of Sean. ‘Have a butcher’s at that,’ Bannan told him, but the confidential stamp made Sean stall. ‘It’s alright — you have my authority to look inside.’ Sean shrugged and carefully opened the file, the horrific crime-scene photograph that immediately confronted him — its terrible bright colours — making him look away involuntarily.

‘Fuck me,’ he said slowly and quietly before he was able to look again. ‘Jesus Christ. I didn’t know it had been that bad.’

‘Recognise her?’ Bannan asked.

‘Yeah,’ Sean solemnly admitted. ‘Rebecca Fordham. She didn’t deserve this.’

‘Does anyone?’ Bannan asked.

‘Maybe,’ Sean said without thinking.

‘Sorry?’

‘Nothing,’ Sean answered, ‘just thinking out loud.’

‘Rebecca Fordham was murdered in her flat in Putney a little more than a year ago — raped, throat cut and stabbed forty-nine times. No witnesses to speak of.’

‘This is the same man,’ Sean declared, shaking his head in disbelief at what he was seeing. ‘It has to be — a beautiful young woman in daylight — the level of violence — stab wounds made by a large bladed instrument — sexually assaulted and sexually mutilated. This just feels like our man.’

‘She was wasn’t she?’ Bannan suddenly asked, knocking Sean from his train of thought.

‘She was what?’

‘Beautiful,’ Bannan told him, reducing them both to silence as they sat and thought about the smiling, radiant woman the papers and television had shown pictures of almost constantly after her cruel death. She’d been so full of life, yet they had to see her like this — as the maniac had made her look. ‘You said he wants to kill again, but can’t, not until he works out how to. What did you mean?’