Nick Oldham - Instinct

Henry knew there would be even more.

Driver had been a cunning predator and had prepared himself for each attack in terms of clothing, a hood, gloves and even condoms. The detectives learned that he timed his attacks to take place every four weeks, to coincide with his shift system, the week when he would be on nights.

He used the correspondence run from Poulton to Blackpool in the early part of the week to search for victims. These were at times when the police, generally, were less busy and he could use his down time to attack — but not in his own division, always in Blackpool.

The reason why Natalie’s attack had been out of sequence was that Driver had volunteered to cover for a colleague that night.

Driver had still done the correspondence run, but it hadn’t been on his agenda to commit a crime that night.

He still took the opportunity to have a cruise around Blackpool and in so doing had encountered Natalie sitting on a kerb, obviously upset, bawling her eyes out, wiping away the tears with her silk scarf.

Driver stopped like a cop should have done.

His usual MO was to spot potential victims, park up in the plain car, get out of his uniform — under which he wore his anti-forensic clothing — pull on his gloves and mask, stalk, then drag the girl away to rape her.

But Natalie was out of sequence, unplanned, but impossible to turn down.

‘I wasn’t going to do anything, just be a good cop,’ he told Henry and Rik. ‘Help her, take her home… let comms know what I was doing… as you would, but once she was in the car, it all changed and I knew I had to have her.’

Henry said, ‘What did she say to you?’

He blew out his cheeks. ‘That she’d fallen out with her boyfriend, even after she’d had sex with him, and an older man, too… and let him watch… Jeez, that news went straight to my cock!’ He laughed perversely. ‘Even cut his hair for him,’ he added.

Henry saw Rik grip the edge of the table. Henry touched his arm.

‘Then it was a haze. Always is — and next thing I knew, I was holding her down and I’d done it and she was squirming. Problem was she knew I was a cop. I was still in uniform. I was in a cop car. I mean, how brilliant was that? She was in the car, she was wearing a skirt right up to her fanny, and she expected me not to do anything?’ Driver’s voice was incredulous.

‘You are a police officer,’ Henry said stonily.

‘And…?’

‘I think you know the “and”.’

‘Anyhow,’ Driver stretched and screwed up his face, ‘I had to kill her, just self-protection, really. Couldn’t afford for her to go blabbing. The others, you see, never knew I was a cop, but she did. She shouldn’t have been there. It was all her fault,’ he rationalized, and if Henry hadn’t realized it before, he realized it at that point: he was in the presence of a psychopath who would never legally set foot outside some sort of secure unit for the rest of his life. If Henry did his job right — and that’s what he fully intended to do.

Henry said, ‘Did she scratch you?’

‘Oh yeah, fought like a cat.’ Driver tilted his head and Henry saw four fingernail trails, now faded somewhat, in the skin of Driver’s neck, just under his left ear. He recalled how, at the scene, Driver, playing the part of the deeply affected cop who’d stumbled on a murder, had been rubbing his neck with his hand in a gesture that was obviously part act and which in reality was just to cover up his injury.

‘What about DNA?’ Rik had asked. Driver shrugged. ‘You’re on the database, every cop is. Sooner or later…’

Driver shook his head. ‘Lancashire haven’t got my DNA yet, since I transferred in from Wiltshire.’

‘They would have eventually.’

‘A bridge I’d cross when I got to it,’ Driver said. ‘Like I did when I was in Wiltshire.’ He grinned smugly. ‘It was easy enough to substitute someone else’s and I would have found a way of doing it. I just would.’

Psychopath equals deceiver, equals manipulator, equals planner, equals problem solver, equals dangerous, Henry thought.

It was at Henry’s insistence that the interview was terminated, much to the relief of the ashen-faced duty solicitor, clearly out of his depth, who must have been rueing being on that night’s call-out rota. He could not have imagined he would end up representing a monster.

When Driver was back in his cell and under supervision, Henry and Rik leaned on the custody desk, both exhausted.

‘Result?’ Rik said. ‘And I hold my hand up about Carter.’

Henry shrugged wearily. ‘Result — but a million miles away from what we — I — thought had happened to her. I was sure she’d been murdered by an Islamic fundamentalist. I just thought that was it. But I’m still not completely clear on what went on there.’

‘We might never know.’

‘But we have to find out,’ Henry said, knowing that side of the investigation still needed sorting — Natalie’s relationship with Zahid Sadiq and Jamil Akram. He yawned, his brain now officially mushed out. He checked his watch and grunted. Almost six. ‘Talk about goosed.’

‘Mm. Where do we go from here?’

‘Let’s make sure he gets his rest quota. That’ll give us some time to get our heads together and sort everything out, including speaking to Wiltshire about any undetected rapes down there. By teatime we’ll have enough to charge him and get him to court for a three day lie down. If we plan it carefully, we’ll nail the bastard to the wall.’ He scratched his head, feeling gritty.

Rik was nodding and yawning.

Once again, Henry’s phone rang. This time he answered it.

‘Henry? It’s Karl. You’re not at home?’

‘No, still at work. Blackpool nick.’

‘Good. I can’t sleep. Did you manage a CSI — and a plumber?’

‘No, sorry, pal. I’ll turn out a CSI now. Got a bit distracted. As for a plumber, what do you need?’ Henry’s eyes locked on to the man in blue overalls just entering the custody suite, whistling tunelessly. He wasn’t sure of the man’s official job title, but he was basically the odd-job man for the station, who carried out minor bits of decorating, cleaning, electrical and plumbing repair work. He was a janitor, in other words, and of course went under the nickname of Hong Kong, derived from Hong Kong Phooey, the police janitor in the cartoon Henry used to watch years ago. The janitor in that was actually a dog.

‘Not much really… a handyman might suffice,’ Donaldson said. ‘Equipped with things for loosening bolts, I guess.’

‘Spanners, wrenches, that sort of thing?’

‘Those are the ones.’

‘I’ll see what I can rustle up,’ Henry said, trying to hide the miserable tone of his voice. Bed was what he needed, not rooting about in some pipework underneath a sink. DIY had never been his strong point, much to Kate’s chagrin. She was far better at it than him.

Rik had been listening. ‘Want some help on that?’ he asked. ‘I don’t think I could sleep right now, a bit adrenaline fuelled.’

Henry folded his phone. ‘Any good with a monkey wrench?’

Flynn hadn’t meant to kill Aleef, but his hand had been forced.

Aleef led him to the first floor office he used as a base. It was basic, but very secure, with a thick steel, multi-locked door that took ages for the dithering Aleef to unlock, especially with his broken finger.

Flynn stood behind him, watchful and wary, not trusting him at all, and wanted to get moving. They had left the four bodies in the house, locked behind them, all the window blinds fastened as tightly as possible. It would not be long before decomposition began in the African heat, but at least the locked windows and doors would prevent the smell getting out for a while longer. Flynn didn’t envy the person who would have to kick down the door and fight through a swarm of bluebottles.