the grim streets of Blackley. That was how Jack made his living, writing up court stories. He would have to speak to Dolby about the Whitcroft article later, because he got the sense that it wasn’t going to amount to much, despite the shopkeeper’s views. Perhaps he would go back later, when the sun had gone down.
Jack watched the crowd for a few seconds more, as they waited for a glimpse of something they didn’t really want to see, like knitters at the guillotine, but it felt grubby, like he wasn’t really that different to them. He had just found a way to make money from the excitement, that’s all.
He turned to walk towards his car. No one really noticed him going, and so he turned his thoughts to what might lie ahead at the courthouse.
The police van drove slowly past the crime scene. He couldn’t help but look, but as he glanced over, he could hear a ticking sound. Not loud. Just like a scratching noise on the inside of his skull. It wasn’t enough to distract him or make him close his eyes.
He allowed himself a smile. Now was the time. It had taken longer than he’d expected for her body to be found, considering that the path nearby was used by joggers and dog-walkers. He must have concealed it well.
He turned away when he saw people look over. The gaggle of the crowd. Someone taking photographs. Like fucking sheep heading for the pen. The first stretch of the crime scene tape and they all shuffle forward. All of that thrill could have been theirs, but they’re spineless, like leeches, second-hand thrill-seekers.
And then the images came back to him in flashes, bright snapshots of her clothes, of her walking, the cloth moving against her soft skin, young and unblemished. Not knowing. Just another night. Then that look in her eyes. The flash of fear replaced by anger, and then back to fear when she knew that her time had come.
Then it came, like always, the sharp focus, where he could see everything more clearly than ever before, in more detail than is possible with the naked eye. Her pupils, black saucers, but he could see the other colours in them too, swirls of dark green and deep blue, the clear view broken only by the flecks of spittle that bubbled up when she first went to the floor. And the coughs of mud. He could see the soil turning in the air in front of him as she spluttered, tumbling in the fading sunlight. Just tiny specks, but he could see their form, uneven and dirty. He remembered the whites of her eyes. He had seen the veins in them and how they were broken by the small explosions of red, just pinpricks, like splashes as the blood came to the surface.
He grinned as he felt the familiar tremble in his groin as he thought of her struggling, the fight under his hand. He knew it would come. He was waiting for it. He liked to feel it, to control it. He could do that, control it, so that it was a present for later, something he had to touch, to feel in his hand as he thought of her struggling and then slowly giving up the fight, her body limp.
He gave the crowd a salute but no one was watching as he slipped away.
Chapter Five
Laura leaned against her car and peeled off her forensic suit. The hood had made a mess of her hair, dark and long, and so she used the wing mirror to tease it back to life. The body had been taken away, rolled onto plastic sheeting and then wrapped up in a bag, and was on its way to the mortuary. Now it was time for the fingertip search of the undergrowth, and she could see the line of police in blue boiler suits waiting to crawl their way through the small patch of woodland. Joe was looking back towards where the body had been found, his hood pulled from his head. Carson was in his car, talking into his phone.
‘What is it, Joe?’ Laura said, reaching into her car for her suit jacket.
He didn’t answer at first, his gaze trained on where the stream headed under the estate. Then he turned round, chewing his lip.
‘Something about this isn’t right,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The location. It doesn’t make any sense. Why here?’
‘That occurred to me too,’ she said, and looked again at the houses that backed onto the crime scene, a line of wooden fence panels forming the boundary on both sides.
‘It isn’t secluded at all,’ Joe continued. ‘One scream from her and all of those lights are going to flicker on, and what escape route is there? There is only one way to the street, because the other way is down that path, into the woods, but he couldn’t get a car down there. So if he drove to the location, he would have had to leave his car on the street, and so he would be blocked in and easy to catch.’
‘Perhaps she was just walking past?’ Laura said. ‘You know, the wrong place at the wrong time, and he was hiding in there, waiting to pull someone in.’
‘Same thing applies,’ Joe said. ‘Too many houses. What if she fought back? If she ran or screamed? There is a whole community to wake. And you saw how the body was concealed, just left on the ground and covered in leaves and bark. She was always going to be discovered.’ He sighed. ‘It just doesn’t feel right.’
‘You’re giving the killer too much credit,’ Laura said. ‘How many people do we catch because they do dumb things?’ She checked her hair in the mirror again, and then pulled away when the sun glinted off some grey strands. ‘So what do you think?’
Joe looked around again. ‘It must have been the victim he was after, not someone random. He wouldn’t have chosen this location unless it was the only place he could get to her, and this is all about the victims, not the killer. We need to know about her.’
They both turned as they heard a noise behind them, and they saw it was Carson, grunting as he climbed out of his car.
‘We’ve got a possible name for her,’ Carson said. ‘Jane Roberts.’
‘Don’t know it,’ Laura said.
‘No, me neither,’ Carson responded. ‘But I know her father. Don Roberts.’
Laura shrugged, the name didn’t mean anything to her, but she saw the look of surprise on Joe’s face.
‘The Don Roberts?’ Joe said.
Carson nodded. ‘It was called in yesterday, when she didn’t return home at the weekend.’
‘How sure can we be?’ Joe said.
‘The description matches, and she doesn’t live too far away.’
‘It’s Wednesday today. Why would Don leave it so long?’ Laura asked.
Joe turned to her. ‘Because it involves calling us,’ he said. ‘Don Roberts will not want us digging into his life. He’s a long-time thug, Blackley’s most violent doorman before he started to run his own gang of bouncers, leasing them out to the clubs. He’s turned to clamping as well, and trust me, you were wise to pay rather than contest it.’
‘But why would that make him want to keep away from us?’
‘Because he makes a lot of money, and that cannot all come from fixing metal clamps to car wheels. However he makes his cash, he won’t be happy to see us looking into his life, and I can tell you one thing: we’ve got trouble now.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Because this is one of two things: targeted or bad luck.
