Brian Freemantle - In the Name of a Killer

‘Whoa!’ cautioned Meadows, raising halting hands. ‘I said colour in the picture, not black it out completely! Surely there’s a much simpler explanation for the attack on Suzlev: it’s even obvious from the evidence you’ve already got. With Suzlev, no buttons were taken. Because your killer realized when he turned him over that he wasn’t a woman. Even though he wore his hair long enough to be mistaken for one, in the near-darkness and in the split second before the knife went in.’

Cowley nodded, taking the other man’s interpretation. ‘Lydia Orlenko talked about him feeling her breasts. At the time it seemed obviously sexual. But it could have been his assuring himself that she was a woman. In the bundled-up way people dress in Moscow at this time of the year, it would be difficult positively to decide anyone’s sex, particularly in a dark alley.’

‘I’d go with the confirming theory, rather than straight sex. Physical sex isn’t ever a factor in these sorts of murders.’

‘But he does know what he’s doing?’

‘Oh yes,’ said the psychologist, quickly. ‘And that it’s wrong. Asocial killers are invariably clever. And cunning. The game — challenging the authorities to catch them, keeping one step ahead — matters a lot to them. I’ve read Senator Burden’s complaints, about things being kept secret: a cover-up. Your killer would have been angry about that. He wants to know he’s frightening people: causing panic.’

‘How about using the media?’ suggested Cowley, again speaking as the idea occurred. ‘Could we evolve some way to challenge him back? Use his own madness to make him disclose himself? I think we could quite easily manipulate the Moscow media, which is what he’ll be reading and watching.’

Meadows gave another doubtful expression. ‘It’s been tried. Worked sometimes, but not often enough. And there’s a risk. You start playing mental games at a distance and you’re going to get all sorts of nuts coming out of the woodwork. You end up with copy-cat killings. And looking for more than one murderer.’ The man shook his head, ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea. Not at this stage, anyway. I know all about political pressure — that’s why I had to get the profile out as quickly as I did — but try everything else first.’

‘Anything else I should be looking for?’

Meadows pursed his lips, contemplatively. ‘General guidance,’ he offered. ‘He’ll probably have been neglected as a kid. Not properly know what love is. If he is married, their sex life won’t be good. As I’ve already said, asocials have trouble with the physical act. Fantasy plays a part, particularly with the violence. He’ll probably enjoy violent pornography: absorb himself fantasizing about it and carrying it forward into a definite attack. So look for pornography, when you make an arrest: it’ll be a pointer.’

‘You’ve helped a lot,’ thanked Cowley. ‘I appreciate it.’

‘Don’t rely upon it!’ warned Meadows, again. ‘The Behavioural Unit has had its successes, some pretty impressive. But it’s not a science: it never can be, despite a lot of people claiming that it is. At best it’s a psychological art, developed from experience. So it’s an aid to detection, not a replacement for it. You’ll still have to follow investigative procedure. And keep in mind at all times what I said at the very beginning: the profile might not be any good at all because you’re hunting a Russian, not an American.’

‘It’s still been useful,’ said Cowley.

‘I’ll be interested to see how close we made the fit, when you get him,’ said the psychologist.

‘ When we get him,’ said Cowley.

The arrival delay was compounded by his spending more time than he’d expected at Quantico and even heavier traffic on the 95 returning to Washington, so he was quite late again getting to Judy Billington. Her apartment was less than a mile from his own shut-up flat, with a better view of the Washington Monument but nearer the airport: as he drove up, Cowley had a constant view of the commuter aircraft hovering for landing permission like predatory birds, waiting to plummet on to their prey.

The girl answered the door in a loose, figure-enveloping sweater, over jeans that in complete contrast were skin-tight. She wore loafers, although unlike the man he’d just left, Judy did not wear any socks, holed or otherwise. Her hair was so black Cowley decided it had to be dyed to deepen its natural colour. She wore it very short. The only make-up was around her eyes, and black again, as if she were trying to create an effect. He started to apologize for his lateness as he entered the apartment. She said it didn’t matter; she’d taken the entire day off, after the funeral. Cowley said he hoped it had gone OK. She grimaced at the remark, asking if funerals of murder victims ever went OK. Cowley decided he deserved the put-down.

‘You want anything? Coffee? Booze?’ There was a glass of white wine alongside a chair in which she had obviously been sitting before he got there.

Cowley declined, choosing his own seat on a couch which ran in front of the window with the panorama over the river. It was an unavoidable fact of murder investigations that a victim’s mail was read: that was how he’d located her. He was grateful, for her time.

Judy listened patiently, occasionally sipping her wine, a smile quite close. When he finished, she said: ‘Shocked by what you read?’

‘No.’

‘Hard-assed G-man, eh? You know you’re the first FBI agent I’ve ever met.’

She was trying hard with the repartee. ‘We come in all sizes,’ he said, quickly regretting his own effort, not knowing why he’d tried.

‘That must be convenient.’ The look was openly appraising, the smile finally forming. ‘I’d guess you’re the jumbo version, right?’

Why the hell was he letting this happen? ‘You and Ann were pretty close, from the letters?’

‘Close enough, I guess.’

‘I’ve only read one side of the correspondence: yours to her. Do you have hers?’

Judy shook her head. ‘She was like that at college. Kept everything. Theatre tickets. Programmes. Letters. Notes. A fucking magpie. I’m the opposite. Can’t stand clutter. Souvenirs bore me.’

Cowley guessed she said fuck to see how he’d react, which he hadn’t. He was thinking more about the point she’d made. There was a possible paradox in Ann Harris’s hoarding — neat though that hoarding had seemingly been — and her scrupulous cleanliness. ‘You didn’t keep anything?

‘Sorry.’

‘What about personal contact, while she’d been in Moscow? Any phone conversations? Vacation visits maybe?’

‘She came back, about a year ago, on home leave. There was always talk of my going to Moscow but I never got around to it.’ She appeared surprised that her glass was empty, rising with it in her hand. ‘You sure about not wanting anything? It’s Chablis.’

‘Positive.’ She clearly knew how good her body was: there was an exaggerated hip movement as she went into the kitchen annex. She would probably have been offended if she’d known what little effect it had upon him. He tried to look as if he were enjoying it as she returned, not wanting the performance to have been entirely in vain. ‘You see much of her, when she was back?’

‘Sure. Three or four times.’

‘Think back!’ demanded Cowley. ‘As much as you can. To the visit and to the letters. I want names … any name, Christian name or nickname. A lead, to the guys she went with. Anyone.’

Judy toyed with the glass, held before her in both hands. ‘No names,’ she said at last. ‘There was a guy who worked out at the embassy gym …’