Luke Delaney - Cold Killing

“Suit yourself,” Donnelly replied. “I’ll let the guv’nor know you’ve commandeered his vehicle.”

“No doubt that’ll make him very happy,” she said. “Almost as happy as when he finds out I still haven’t eliminated Korsakov as a possible suspect.”

“You will.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, the more I look into it, the more I don’t like it. Something’s not right-I don’t know what it is yet, but I know it’s something.”

“Christ. You’re getting as bad as the guv’nor.”

“No, seriously,” Sally argued. “It’s like everything to do with Korsakov has disappeared, as if someone made him vanish.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, for some reason, they’re hiding him, so he can commit further offenses without being identified. Or maybe. .”

“Go on,” Donnelly encouraged her. “You’re among friends here.”

“Or, maybe someone got rid of him-killed him.”

“Like who?”

“One of his victims, or someone connected to one of his victims, someone looking for revenge.”

“An eye for an eye,” Donnelly suggested.

“Or,” Sally continued, “someone got rid of him so they could commit crimes they knew we would eventually blame him for, because of the similarity of the method-have us chasing a dead man we’d never be able to find.”

“Now you really do sound like the guv’nor,” Donnelly told her. “Speaking of which, have you discussed this with him?”

“Sort of. But he’s so fixated on Hellier, I don’t think he took it seriously.”

“I know what you mean,” Donnelly agreed. “But don’t let him stop you doing what you think you should be doing. Remember, it’s our job to keep him on the straight and narrow-anchor him a bit-you know?”

She knew. “I’ll catch you later,” she said, and headed for the car.

The large bed was straight in front of Sean, the victim lying on it, a pretty red light softly illuminating the room. Sean checked for the source of the light. He found it in the far-right corner of the room. A thin red silk dressing gown was draped over a lampshade. At night the red illumination would have been far stronger. Had the victim constructed the homemade light? Did it stir a childhood memory? Had her nursery been lit with a red light and now the color helped her sleep?

No. The killer had made the light. He was sure of it. But had he made it after he’d killed her or before? And why? What did the victim look like as she died, painted with red light? Had the red been a replacement for her blood? But if blood is so important to him, why not cut her like the others? Method, Sean reminded himself. He’s changing his method again. Disguising his work.

The killer was showing his intelligence, his control, and his imagination. It was extremely rare for killers to have the ability to change methods so completely. They lack control. Their killings are repetitions. Some try and disguise their kills, but usually only after the murder. They’ll burn the body, place it in a car and push it off a cliff, sink it in deep water; but to plan the disguise from the outset, to ensure that everything from the victim selection to the murder weapon changes every time-that was incredibly rare. It made the killer all the more dangerous.

Did this killer have enough control to simply stop? To walk away and never kill again? That would be the ultimate show of his strength. Had he killed enough now to live off his memories? Sean thought of Hellier’s public face. Absolutely calm, calculating, and clever. But he had seen glimpses of the creature that hid behind Hellier’s public facade. The snarling, arrogant Hellier. Could that Hellier stop killing? No, he decided. Hellier liked the game too much. He would have to be stopped.

Staying as close to the walls as he could, he moved clockwise around the room toward Linda Kotler.

He passed a set of wooden drawers. They looked solid and expensive. One drawer was still open. He looked in without touching anything as he took one large step around them. He could see it was where the victim kept her tights and stockings. Had the killer or the victim opened the drawer? One glance at the body told him the killer had. He wouldn’t risk buying or stealing his own. A man buying stockings could easily be remembered by a sales assistant. A wife might become suspicious if her stockings or tights went missing. She might read about this murder and begin to suspect a husband, a boyfriend, a son. The killer would have been relatively sure he’d find what he was looking for inside the victim’s home. No need to risk bringing his own.

Sean kept moving around the room until he was no more than three feet away from the victim. He stopped. He wouldn’t go closer for fear of disturbing any forensic evidence. The three-foot circumference around the body would be the golden zone.

He studied the body, slowly and deliberately scanning it from head to toe and back. He tried to remain dispassionate, removed, as if the body weren’t real, as if this was only an exercise.

She was lying on her left side. Naked and pale now. Lifeless. She looked anything but peaceful. The dead never looked peaceful, at least not until a skilled undertaker did his work. One eye was half open. The other was swollen shut. He tried to imagine her alive. She’d have been quite attractive, he thought, but it was hard to tell.

Her legs were bent painfully far back. The thin, tightly stretched tights bound her ankles. They had cut into the skin. They were connected to another pair that ran up her back to her neck. This was in turn connected to another pair of tights or perhaps stockings, tightly bound around the neck. The flesh of the throat bulged around the ligature, concealing most of the material. Her hands had been bound separately at the wrists with more of her own tights. The hands had become swollen by the tightness of the bindings. Why had the hands been tied separately? So elaborate. It reminded Sean of the rigging on a yacht. The knots used would have to be analyzed. What sort were they? Were they used in sailing or some other sport or hobby?

Why did he need the bindings to connect so precisely? Bondage? Hellier’s favorite. Was he deliberately tormenting them?

She must have been in terrible pain. She would have tried to call out in pain, scream for help. Her killer wouldn’t have let that happen. He would have gagged her. But her mouth wasn’t covered. Sean leaned closer to her face. The area around the mouth was a little red. It looked sore. Had the killer used tape that he’d taken away with him? If so, he’d done that before. Heather Freeman had been taped across the mouth, but the tape had been removed and taken from the scene. The more he killed, the more similarities would start to appear. No matter how hard he worked at disguising his methods. The mouth area would need to be swabbed for traces of adhesive at the postmortem.

The left side of her face was badly bruised and swollen. Judging by the level of bruising, the injury had been caused at least an hour before she died. He guessed this was the first blow, used to incapacitate her. The killer hit her as she rose up from her sleep, knocking her senseless. There was no blood or cut around the injury. He probably used a gloved fist.

A small amount of blood on the floor, by the back of the victim’s head, caught his attention. Nothing more than a slight smear. He carefully moved around the body to get a better look. He saw the telltale signs of a bleeding head injury. The sticky hair. Not much, but a definite injury.

He scanned the room for an obvious weapon. He saw something, on the wall behind the bed. He stood and bent toward it, careful not to step too close. There was blood on the wall. Not much, but he was sure it would later be confirmed as the victim’s. The killer had slammed her head into the wall to make certain she was unconscious, because he needed time to find the bindings and secure her.