of months’ time.
Once they were settled and concentrating, he tossed his folder of notes on to the table attached to the arm of his chair and ignored them. ‘Isolation,’ he said. ‘Alienation. The hardest things to deal with. Human beings are gregarious. We’re herd animals. We hunt in packs, we celebrate in packs. Take away human contact from someone and their behaviour distorts. You’re going to learn a lot about that over the coming months and years.’ He had their attention now. Time for the killer blow.
‘I’m not talking about serial offenders. I’m talking about you. You’re all police officers with CID experience. You’re successful cops, you’ve fitted in, you’ve made the system work for you. That’s why you’re here. You’re used to the camaraderie of team work, you’re accustomed to a support system that backs you up. When you get a result, you’ve always had a drinking squad to share the victory with. When it’s all gone up in smoke, that same squad comes out and commiserates with you. It’s a bit like a family, only it’s a family without the big brother that picks on you and the auntie that asks when you’re going to get married.’ He noted the nods and twinges of facial expression that indicated agreement. As he’d expected, there were fewer from the women than the men.
He paused for a moment and leaned forward. ‘You’ve just been collectively bereaved. Your families are dead and you can never, never go home any more. This is the only home you have, this is your only family.’ He had them now, gripped tighter than any thriller had ever held them. The Bowman woman’s right eyebrow twitched up into an astonished arc, but other than that, they were motionless.
‘The best profilers have probably got more in common with serial killers than with the rest of the human race. Because killers have to be good profilers, too. A killer profiles his victims. He has to learn how to look at a shopping precinct full of people and pick out the one person who will work as a victim for him. He picks the wrong person and it’s good night, Vienna. So he can’t afford to make mistakes any more than we can. Like us, he kicks off consciously sorting by set criteria, but gradually, if he’s good, it gets to be an instinct. And that’s how good I want you all to be.’
For a moment, his perfect control slipped as images crowded unbidden to the front of his mind. He was the best, he knew that now. But he’d paid a high price to discover that. The idea that payment might come due again was something he managed to reject as long as he was sober. It was no accident that Tony had scarcely had a drink for the best part of a year.
Collecting himself, Tony cleared his throat and straightened in his seat. ‘Very soon, your lives are going to change. Your priorities will shift like Los Angeles in an earthquake. Believe me, when you spend your days and nights projecting yourself inside a mind that’s programmed to kill until death or incarceration prevents it, you suddenly find a lot of things that used to seem important are completely irrelevant. It’s hard to get worked up about the unemployment figures when you’ve been contemplating the activities of somebody who’s taken more people off the register in the last six months than the government has.’ His cynical smile gave them the cue to relax the muscles that had been taut for the past few minutes.
‘People who have not done this kind of work have no notion of what it is like. Every day, you review the evidence, raking through it for that elusive clue you missed the last forty-seven times. You watch helplessly as your hot leads turn out colder than a junkie’s heart. You want to shake the witnesses who saw the killer but don’t remember anything about him because nobody told them in advance that one of the people who would fill up with petrol in their service station one night three months ago was a multiple murderer. Some detective who thinks what you’re doing is a bag of crap sees no reason why your life shouldn’t be as fucking miserable as his, so he gives out your phone number to husbands, wives, lovers, children, parents, siblings, all of them people who want a crumb of hope from you.
‘And as if that isn’t enough, the media gets on your back. And then the killer does it again.’
Leon Jackson, who’d made it out of Liverpool’s black ghetto to the Met via an Oxford scholarship, lit a cigarette. The snap of his lighter had the other two smokers reaching for their own. ‘Sounds cool,’ he said, dropping one arm over the back of his chair. Tony couldn’t help the pang of pity. Harder they come, the bigger the fall.
‘Arctic,’ Tony said. ‘So, that’s how people outside the Job see you. What about your former colleagues? When you come up against the ones you left behind, believe me, they’re going to start noticing you’ve gone a bit weird. You’re not one of the gang any more, and they’ll start avoiding you because you smell wrong. Then when you’re working a case, you’re going to be transplanted into an alien environment and there will be people there who don’t want you on the case. Inevitably.’ He leaned forward again, hunched against the chill wind of memory. ‘And they won’t be afraid to let you know it.’
Tony read superiority in Leon’s sneer. Being black, he reasoned, Leon probably figured he’d had a taste of that already and rejection could therefore hold no fears for him. What he almost certainly didn’t realize was that his bosses had needed a black success story. They’d have made that clear to the officers who controlled the culture, so the chances were that no one had really pushed Leon half as hard as he thought they had. ‘And don’t think the brass will back you when the shit comes down,’ Tony continued. ‘They won’t. They’ll love you for about two days, then when you haven’t solved their headaches, they’ll start to hate you. The longer it takes to resolve the serial offences, the worse it becomes. And the other detectives avoid you because you’ve got a contagious disease called failure. The truth might be out there, but you haven’t got it, and until you do, you’re a leper.
‘Oh, and by the way,’ he added, almost as an afterthought, ‘when they do nail the bastard thanks to your hard work, they won’t even invite you to the party.’
The silence was so intense he could hear the hiss of burning tobacco as Leon inhaled. Tony got to his feet and shoved his springy black hair back from his forehead. ‘You probably think I’m exaggerating. Believe me, I’m barely scratching the surface of how bad this job will make you feel. If you don’t think it’s for you, if you’re having doubts about your decision, now’s the time to walk away. Nobody will reproach you. No blame, no shame. Just have a word with Commander Bishop.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Coffee break. Ten minutes.’
He picked up his folder and carefully didn’t look at them as they pushed back chairs and made a ragged progress to the door and the coffee station in the largest of the three rooms they’d been grudgingly granted by a police service already strapped for accommodation for their own officers. When at last he looked up, Shaz Bowman stood leaning against the wall by the door, waiting.
‘Second thoughts, Sharon?’ he asked.
‘I hate being called Sharon,’ she said. ‘People who want a response go for Shaz. I just wanted to say it’s not only profilers that get treated like shit. There’s nothing you said just now that sounds any worse than what women deal with all the time in this job.’
‘So I’ve been told,’ Tony said, thinking inevitably of Carol Jordan. ‘If it’s true, you lot should have a head start in this game.’
Shaz grinned and pushed off from the wall, satisfied. ‘Just watch,’ she said, swivelling on the balls of her feet and moving through the door on feet as silent and springy as a jungle cat.
Jacko Vance leaned forward across the flimsy table and frowned. He pointed to the open desk diary. ‘You see, Bill? I’m already committed to running the half-marathon on the Sunday. And then after that, we’re filming Monday and Tuesday, I’m doing a club opening in Lincoln on Tuesday night – you’re coming to that, by the way, aren’t you?’ Bill nodded, and Jacko continued.
