Luke Delaney - Cold Killing

“She’s only seventeen, remember? Still at school, doing her A-levels?”

“Bloody further education,” he moaned. “We’ll be broke before any of our lot get themselves a job and leave home. By the time I was seventeen I was working in the shipyards in Dumbarton, earning a decent wage and learning a proper trade.”

“Until you decided it was too bloody hard and ran off to join the police in London.”

“Aye, well,” he stalled. “All the same, I was paying my own way in the world.”

“Spare me.”

“Give us a kiss and I’ll think about it,” he teased.

“I don’t bloody think so. When it comes to you, my mother was right: kissing does lead to children. And seeing how we’ve got four more than we can afford, you’re going to have to park your lips somewhere else. Besides, I hate it when your mustache tastes of beer.”

“I’ve not touched a drop,” he lied.

“A likely story.”

“Very well, I shall retire to the living room,” he sulked in a put-on accent. “I need to watch Crimewatch tonight anyway.”

“Jesus. Haven’t you had enough of the job for one day?”

“Our case is on tonight. It would be bad form to miss it. It’ll be the talk of the canteen tomorrow.”

“I wanted to watch that program about Princess Diana tonight.”

“You can watch the repeat,” he told her unsympathetically.

The television was already on in the living room. Some cheap production with a shaky set and worse acting. He pointed the remote at the offending program and surfed the channels until he found what he was looking for.

“When is your case on?” Karen asked.

“I don’t know. I’ll have to watch the whole bloody thing, no doubt. Bloody Crimewatch . Waste of bloody space, if you ask me.”

“Oi. Stop your swearing, the kids might hear.”

“Saying ‘bloody’ isn’t swearing.” He flopped his heavy frame into the old armchair reserved for his sole use. “Media appeals, waste of time. Expecting the public to solve crimes for us. It’s not how we used to get the job done.”

“We all know how you used to get the job done,” Karen said.

“Bloody right. We did what we had to do to keep the baddies off the streets. We may have sent the wrong man down for the wrong crime, but they were all criminals anyway. It’s our job to put them away. Didn’t matter how we did it, so long as we got the job done. The people we put away never complained either. They knew the score. For them it was just an occupational hazard. It’s my job to keep the scum off the streets. How I do it is my business. Everyone else can stay in their nice, fluffy little worlds.”

“The old days are gone,” Karen reminded him. “So you had better be careful.”

“Aye,” he grumbled. “Don’t worry about me, love. I can look after myself.”

“I don’t doubt it, but who’s going to look after me and the kids if you get the sack for fitting someone up?”

“Murders are different. You don’t fit people up with murder. Maybe you can give the evidence a bit of help here and there, once you’re absolutely certain you’ve got the right man, but you never fit someone up.”

“Your DI Corrigan doesn’t sound like the sort of man who would want you giving the evidence a bit of help.”

“Don’t underestimate the man,” he told her. “Corrigan knows the score. He’s no accelerated-promotion, graduate-entry brownnoser. He’s come up the hard way. If push comes to shove, he’ll do what it takes.”

“Sure of that, are you?”

“Absolutely sure.”

Linda Kotler half watched Crimewatch . She listened to the item about the murder of Daniel Graydon and then the next item too. A sixty-year-old post office attendant killed in Humberside for a hundred and twenty pounds. It was not improving her mood. She changed the station to watch something less oppressive, but found herself thinking of the policeman from earlier. Sean Corrigan.

The telephone interrupted her reminiscing. Despite her loneliness, she decided to leave it until the answering machine betrayed the caller. It was her sister. Perhaps she was in the mood to speak after all. She had a secret to share.

“It’s me. It’s me,” she said into the phone. “Ignore the answering machine. I’m here, I’m here. Damn thing’s going to record us now.”

“Screening your calls again?” her sister asked. “That’s a nasty habit you Londoners have.”

“We have to,” Linda replied. “Otherwise the only people we’d ever speak to would be telesales people and unwanted relatives. How are you?”

“We’re all good, thanks.” Her sister was married to a man she’d been at school with. They had three children. She was younger than Linda. Once, her sister had been a little jealous of her. Now Linda was a little jealous of her sister.

“What about you?” her sister asked. “Met a nice, good-looking man yet? Preferably rich?” It was the same question she’d been asking for the past few months. Since he had left for pastures new and green.

“No,” Linda said. Then added, “Not really.”

“Not really?” Her sister’s tone was inquisitive. “What does ‘not really’ mean, exactly?”

“Well, I met this guy on the way home today and one way or the other we ended up talking. He seemed really nice, and good-looking too. It’s not like we swapped numbers or anything, although if he wanted to find me, he could.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because he’s a policeman. A detective, I think.”

“Ooh” was her sister’s reply. “And does he have a name?”

“Sean,” Linda answered. “Sean Corrigan.”

Having introduced myself, I let her go. For a while anyway. It’s the way I’ve seen it happening. Now I need to lose myself for a few hours. Wait for my old friend the darkness to arrive. I’ve done my homework and know the boat show is on at Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre. I have absolutely no interest in it, but it is nearby and doesn’t close until eleven. It’s a good place to hide myself. In a crowd, among the herd.

I mingle with them, my mask as secure as ever. It would be all too easy to lash out at them. Drag whoever into the stinking toilets and slaughter them there. But it is lack of control that more often than not undoes my kind. Control is the key. Control is everything.

How I admire the man with the rifle in Germany who features in the news reports every now and then. Every three months or so he blows the head off a nobody and disappears. He is a rare breed indeed. Most sniper killers take a rifle, find themselves a nice little vantage point, and kill until they are killed.

Why? Because they lack the control. Once they taste the power to kill, they just can’t stop. To take one life and then calmly pack away the rifle and go home is too much for most. They get greedy, drunk on the killing, and before they realize what’s happened, they’re surrounded by police marksmen. Most make the decision to go down fighting, but not this one in Germany. He is to be admired. I shouldn’t think he’ll ever be stopped.

Me, I prefer a knife. Or my own hands. A rifle’s not personal enough. I like to smell their last breath in my face.

I leave the show after eleven. I walk back to Shepherd’s Bush. It’s a fair walk, but I could use the exercise. It’s a good warm-up and also means I avoid potential witnesses like bus or taxi drivers. Pedestrians in London rarely look at each other. I’m carrying a small knapsack slung over my shoulder. It contains all I need.

By the time I get back to Minford Gardens, it’s close to midnight. Late enough for most people to be tucked up in bed, early enough for the sounds of the night not to be too alarming.