don’t all process these things the same way,’ Featherstone told him. ‘We don’t all have your … clarity of thought.’
Sean knew what he meant: if it had been Sean who’d pulled the trigger and killed Jeremy Goldsboro – the suspect in their last major investigation – he would have felt no guilt. It would simply have been something he had to do. ‘Well, the inquiry concluded it was a justifiable shooting. I think we’ve all moved on.’
‘Good,’ Featherstone replied, though he seemed less than convinced. ‘Well, speaking of moving on,’ he added, getting to his feet, ‘time I wasn’t here. Good luck with this one.’
‘Thanks,’ Sean replied.
‘Oh, one last thing,’ Featherstone turned at the door. ‘Addis wants Anna Ravenni-Ceron to work alongside you on this one. Given the nature of the killings, he feels the input of a psychiatrist would be useful. Since you’ve worked with her before, he thought best to stick with her.’
Sean felt an instant stab in the heart and a tightening in his stomach. He’d barely seen her in over a year, but his feelings about Anna remained confused. The only stability in his life came from his family and his job. Anna was a threat to both. ‘Fine,’ he answered without elaborating.
‘Regular updates would be appreciated,’ Featherstone told him as he left. ‘And watch out for the press.’
Sean’s eyes followed Featherstone across the main office and through the exit before he took a single photo from each file and slumped back in his chair – looking from victim to victim. The more he looked, the more he was sure the killer’s motivation was the act of killing. For some reason he felt compelled to kill.
Again Sean found his thoughts turning to Sebastian Gibran. He threw the photographs back on to his desk and cursed under his breath. ‘Shit.’
David Langley sat at his desk in the manager’s office of the Wandsworth branch of Harper’s Furniture store. Forty-two years old, six foot tall and muscular, he looked fit, tanned and handsome in an everyday way, short brown hair pushed back from his face to show off his deep green eyes. The office was hidden away from the customers who patrolled the showroom outside looking for bargains in the seemingly never-ending ‘All must go!’ sale, the office was crammed with cheap, utilitarian furniture, filing cabinets and computer equipment. The Christmas decorations had been removed from the showroom on 2 January, but a few tattered and depressing remnants still hung in the office.
Anyone who looked in through the office’s only door would have seen Langley facing forward, typing away on his keyboard like a man hard at work. He’d strategically positioned his desk so that no one could sneak up behind and look over his shoulder at the computer monitor. If they had, they would have seen that instead of checking stock levels or placing orders, he was searching the internet for news of last night’s murder of a homeless man in Southwark. To his intense frustration, only the local press carried any mention of the killing. The removal of the victim’s teeth seemed to have generated some interest, but there was no mention of the missing fingernails. He assumed that detail had been deliberately withheld by the police, so they could eliminate crank callers claiming responsibility for his unique handiwork. Planning and carrying out the killing had been sweet enough, but now he craved the fear and awe that only media attention could give him.
Disgusted, he gave up the search for in-depth coverage – the coverage he deserved. He told himself he shouldn’t be surprised his greatness had not been recognized. Only a blessed few were gifted enough to see in these two early works the blossoming of his special talents. But he had no doubt that his legacy would surpass everything that had gone before – even if he had to rub their faces in it before he was truly appreciated.
Almost without thinking he began to type the names of some of the gifted few into the search engine – those serial killers who had achieved fame on a global scale. He bit his lip to suppress his rising jealousy and anger. Why should they have been given so much coverage when he received so little? Could it be that the police had failed to make the connection? Fools! How easy could he make it for them? What would he have to do to make it more obvious? Cut out their eyes as well?
Though he tried to resist, it wasn’t long before he typed in the name of his most revered and hated rival: Sebastian Gibran. Several years had passed since Gibran had been sent to Broadmoor, but barely a month went by without yet another documentary devoted to him or another true-crime paperback trying to explain his compulsion to kill or speculating how many victims he’d claimed. Most pundits came to the same conclusion: the final tally would never be known. So varied were his methods of dispatching his victims, some would inevitably have been attributed to others, some would remain forever unsolved.
That was where he and Gibran differed. That’s what made his work superior. Where Gibran tried to hide his crimes, or at least his responsibility for them, Langley was proud of his work. He wasn’t afraid of the police or anyone else knowing these murders were the work of one man, and he knew the day would come when he’d be caught or, better yet, surrender himself to custody before he was cornered. After all, what was the point in creating such a storm of infamy if he could never stand in front of the world’s press and drink in the acknowledgements that he was the best ever? The most feared ever.
Unlike Gibran, who had settled for terrifying individual victims, he would terrorize an entire city. The world barely knew of Gibran until his capture, but soon everyone in London would be living in fear of David Langley. He would be the new bogeyman – the vampire in the night – the werewolf in the forest – the monster under the bed. His power would hang over the city like a vast black cloak. Soon no one would be talking about Sebastian Gibran any more.
The door burst open without warning, making Langley jump in his seat as his fingers scrambled to close down the browser and open an accounts file. ‘Christ’s sake, Brian,’ he complained as he recovered – his accent tainted with a trace of London. ‘Don’t you ever knock?’
‘Why?’ Brian Houghton asked, his beady eyes sparkling with mischief behind his thick, heavy-rimmed spectacles. ‘You watching porn again?’
Langley couldn’t stand his short, chubby assistant manager. Houghton’s jovial, over-familiar demeanour inevitably gave rise to thoughts of slashing his throat, maybe taking a pair of pliers to those nasty yellow teeth of his. Ever since he was a teenager, he’d been entertaining similar thoughts about any number of people who’d crossed his path. Then those thoughts had turned into visions – signs of what he was destined to be. And now the time had come to act.
‘I won’t tell if you won’t,’ Houghton continued cheerfully. ‘Just remember to clear your search history. I hear the area manager’s a real bitch.’
‘She is,’ Langley sighed, disinterested. ‘I’ve met her. Listen, did you want something?’
‘I need a bit of paperwork from the cabinet,’ Houghton explained.
‘Then don’t let me hold you up,’ Langley told him, losing patience.
‘Yeah, sure,’ Houghton shrugged and made his way to one of the tall cabinets before noisily pulling a drawer open and searching inside. ‘So,’ he asked, turning back to Langley. ‘Is it true then? Did you almost get the sack for banging some young assistant?’
Langley winced at the memory. It had been embarrassing and beneath him. How dare they insult him with their innuendos and accusations. ‘She was twenty-three,’ he replied through gritted teeth.
‘Sounds young to me,’ Houghton leered. ‘Fair play to you, I say, but head office frown on that sort
