Simon Kernick - The Last 10 Seconds

‘Listen, ma’am, it wasn’t my fault,’ said Grier defensively. ‘How was anyone to know at the time that he could have been our killer?’

‘Have you got a number for this witness?’ she asked, not wanting to get into a debate about past mistakes. When he nodded, she told him to call her straight away. ‘Arrange to get a photo of Kent across to her, see if she recognizes it.’

Two minutes later, Grier was on the phone to seventy-six-year-old Beatrice Glover, reminding her of the case and asking if he could come round with a photo to show her. ‘Oh, you’ve got email,’ she heard him say, unable to hide the surprise in his voice. Ageist sod, thought Tina, and typical of an arrogant young guy like Grier to make rash and thoughtless generalizations. She wondered if that’s why he’d been so dismissive of her testimony in the first place.

She waited as he emailed Beatrice Glover the mugshot that had been taken of Kent after his arrest the previous night. Grier stayed on the line while she opened up the file to view it.

When he came off the phone, he looked utterly confused. ‘She’s not a hundred per cent sure — she says it’s been a long time — but she’s pretty confident the man in the photo is the man she saw on the staircase the week before Roisín’s murder.’ He sighed. ‘But if Kent didn’t kill her then what on earth was he doing hanging round her place when he had no reason to?’

Tina had been thinking about that for the last five minutes, and there was only one conclusion she kept coming up with. ‘I really hope it isn’t the case,’ she said quietly, ‘but it’s possible that Andrew Kent wasn’t working alone.’

Grier shook his head disbelievingly. ‘My God, two of them? No one’s even mentioned that as a possibility in the whole time I’ve been on the case.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Tina. ‘Two serial killers working together is a real rarity. I can only think of one case like that in the UK in the past thirty years.’

‘The Railway Killers, Duffy and Mulcahy,’ he said, confirming that he knew exactly who Tina was talking about. ‘Do you think there could be an innocent explanation for his presence there?’ he asked. ‘Maybe she called him back to service the alarm or something?’

Tina shook her head. ‘We’ll check with the alarm company, but as far as I’m concerned, Kent may not have been the killer, but he knows a lot more than he’s letting on.’

Tina was annoyed with herself. She’d been taken in more than once by Kent. At times, even with all the evidence against him, she’d thought it possible he’d somehow been framed. Now she knew he was nothing more than a cunning and manipulative sociopath who could potentially get himself acquitted over the Roisín O’Neill case, even though he had to have had something to do with it.

‘I’m going down to see him,’ she announced, getting to her feet.

Grier looked surprised. ‘Are you allowed to? He hasn’t actually given us permission to talk to him.’

‘He gave me permission earlier,’ she said, walking past him, unsure exactly what she was going to say when she got down there. ‘That’ll do me. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

On the way down to the cells, she thought about what they’d found out. Most murder cases are fairly straightforward and throw up obvious suspects, which is why the clearance rate’s so high. Even serial killer cases aren’t usually complicated. The killer kills until the police have gathered enough evidence to identify him. Then, bang, they make an arrest, and it’s the end of the problem.

But this case was different. It was turning into a complex puzzle with no obvious solution. Kent had installed Roisín O’Neill’s alarm system, and it was now almost certain that he had been stalking her, but he hadn’t actually killed her, even though it was highly likely he’d killed the other four women. Whoever had murdered Roisín, though, had also been able to break into her apartment on a winter’s night without tripping the alarm, and knew enough about the Night Creeper’s MO to carry out a copycat crime which, though not perfect, had thrown the investigating officers off the scent. But there was no obvious motive for Roisín’s murder. There’d been no sexual assault, and in keeping with the Creeper’s MO, no robbery either. Yet the killer had added the hammer blows because he’d wanted to make the police think it was the work of the Creeper.

But why? That was what she simply couldn’t work out.

Andrew Kent could supply the answer, she was sure of that. He hadn’t been forthcoming so far, but she was determined to at least try to get him to talk before they lost him the following day when he was remanded into the custody of the Prison Service.

The Welsh custody sergeant, the one whose name she could never remember, was still on duty when she arrived at the front desk. He was sitting down with a cup of tea and a copy of the Daily Express . ‘You’re working late,’ he said, looking up from the paper and giving her a smile that was only just short of lecherous.

‘The fight against crime never stops,’ she told him with mock seriousness, and they exchanged a few pleasantries before Tina told him as casually as possible that she needed a quick word with Kent.

The custody sergeant looked unsure. ‘He hasn’t asked to see you again, Tina.’

‘It’s just something to do with what he wanted to talk to me about earlier.’ She flashed her best smile. ‘Come on, it’s nothing major, and it’s off the record.’

Bloody jobsworth, she thought, as he finally got to his feet and led her slowly through to the cells.

‘How does he seem?’ she asked him. A suspect’s guilt or innocence could often be guessed at by how he or she acted in the cells. Anger tended to point to guilt, as did indifference. Resignation or tears tended to point the other way.

He gave a bored shrug. ‘He’s been fine. A lot politer than most we get. I just looked in on him a few minutes ago, and gave him a drink of water.’ He stopped at the cell door and lifted the flap. ‘You’ve got a visitor,’ he bellowed, peering inside. ‘Christ, where’s he got to? Mr Kent? Visitor.’

That was when Tina heard it. A tight, rasping sound coming from inside the cell. The custody sergeant heard it too, and reached for the keys.

‘Open up quickly!’ she snapped, and as soon as he’d turned the key in the lock she pushed past him and rushed inside, reaching for the CS spray in her belt in case it was a trap.

But there was no trap. Andrew Kent was lying on his back on the floor of the cell, writhing in agony, his eyes bulging out of his head as he stared up at Tina. His face was beginning to go purple and he was clutching his throat. Beside him on the floor was an upturned plastic cup.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Tina turned to the custody sergeant, who was standing stock-still, seemingly unsure what to do. ‘Call an ambulance, quickly! Now!’

He disappeared at a run, and Tina crouched down beside Kent.

But before she could do anything, he lurched over on his side, facing away from her. His legs kicked wildly as he vomited noisily on the floor. She jumped out of the way as his whole body bucked and jerked in a violent seizure, then he swung back round, immediately unleashing another projectile of vomit that only just missed her as it splattered across the floor. Finally, he rolled back on to his back and was still. His face was still a deep red, but even so, he looked a lot better than he had only moments earlier.

‘Oh God,’ he groaned, clutching his stomach.

‘What happened?’ Tina asked him, unable to stop herself from retching at the stench and mess around her.

‘They tried to kill me,’ he whispered.