DI Sean Corrigan Crime Series: 6-Book Collection: Cold Killing, Redemption of the Dead, The Keeper, The Network, The Toy Taker and The Jackdaw. Luke Delaney
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‘Murders are different. You don’t fit people up with murder. Maybe you can give the evidence a bit of help here and there, once you’re absolutely certain you’ve got the right man, but you never fit someone up.’
‘Your DI Corrigan doesn’t sound like the sort of man who would want you giving the evidence a bit of help.’
‘Don’t underestimate the man,’ he told her. ‘Corrigan knows the score. He’s no accelerated promotion, graduate entry, brown-noser. He’s come up the hard way. If push comes to shove, he’ll do what it takes.’
‘Sure of that, are you?’
‘Absolutely sure.’
Linda Kotler half-watched Crimewatch. She listened to the item about the murder of Daniel Graydon and then the next item too. A sixty-year-old Post Office attendant killed in Humberside for a hundred and twenty pounds. It was not improving her mood. She turned over and began to watch another re-run. It made her think of the policeman from earlier. Sean Corrigan.
The telephone interrupted her reminiscing. Despite her loneliness, she decided leave it until the answerphone betrayed the caller. It was her sister. She decided she was in the mood to speak after all. She had a secret to share.
‘It’s me. It’s me,’ she said into the phone. ‘Ignore the answer machine. I’m here, I’m here. Damn thing’s going to record us now.’
‘Screening your calls again?’ her sister asked. ‘That’s a nasty habit you Londoners have.’
‘We have to,’ Linda replied. ‘Otherwise the only people we’d ever speak to would be telesales people and unwanted relatives. How are you?’
‘We’re all good, thanks.’ Her sister was married to a man she’d been at school with. They had three children. She was younger than Linda. Once, her sister had been a little jealous of her. Now Linda was a little jealous of her sister.
‘What about you?’ her sister asked. ‘Met a nice, good-looking man yet? Preferably rich?’ It was the same question she’d been asking for the past few months. Since he had left for pastures new and green.
‘No,’ Linda said. Then added, ‘Not really.’
‘Not really?’ Her sister’s tone was inquisitive. ‘What does “not really” mean, exactly?’
‘Well, I met this guy on the way home today and one way or the other we ended up talking. He seemed really nice, and good-looking too. It’s not like we swapped numbers or anything, although if he wanted to find me, he could.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because he’s a policeman. A detective, I think.’
‘Oooh,’ was her sister’s reply. ‘And does he have a name?’
‘Sean,’ Linda answered. ‘Sean Corrigan.’
Having introduced myself, I let her go. For a while anyway. It’s the way I’ve seen it happening. Now I need to lose myself for a few hours. Wait for my old friend the darkness to arrive. I’ve done my homework and know the Boat Show is on at Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre. I have absolutely no interest in it, but it is nearby and doesn’t close until eleven. It’s a good place to hide myself. In a crowd, amongst the herd.
I mingle with them, my mask as secure as ever. It would be all too easy to lash out at them. Drag whoever into the stinking toilets and slaughter them there. But it is lack of control that more often than not undoes my kind. Control is the key. Control is everything.
How I admire the man with the rifle in Germany who features in the news reports every now and then. Every three months or so he blows the head off a nobody and disappears. He is a rare breed indeed. Most sniper killers take a rifle, find themselves a nice little vantage point and kill until they are killed.
Why? Because they lack the control. Once they taste the power to kill they just can’t stop. To take one life and then calmly pack away the rifle and go home is too much for most. They get greedy, drunk on the killing, and before they realize what’s happened they’re surrounded by police marksmen. Most make the decision to go down fighting, but not this one in Germany. He is to be admired. I shouldn’t think he’ll ever be stopped.
Me, I prefer a knife. Or my own hands. A rifle’s not personal enough. I like to smell their last breath in my face.
I leave the show after eleven. I walk back to Shepherd’s Bush. It’s a fair walk, but I could use the exercise. It’s a good warm-up and also means I avoid potential witnesses like bus or taxi drivers. Pedestrians in London rarely look at each other. I’m carrying a small rucksack slung over my shoulder. It contains all I need.
By the time I get back to Minford Gardens it’s close to midnight. Late enough for most people to be tucked up in bed, early enough for the sounds of the night not to be too alarming.
I move around to the side of the house. I’d checked the window here a few nights previously. It’s a sash window, leading to the bathroom. The lock is a classic style. A simple spin-around metal latch. Any thin metal object will make short work of opening it. She should have added side deadlock bolts. She probably used to share the flat with a man. That made her feel safe when she slept. Now she’s alone, but hasn’t had time to see to the window. On these warm nights she sleeps with the windows closed. Clearly she’s not totally unaware of the dangers that lurk in this city.
Most of the upstairs windows are virtually impossible to reach, but not the bathroom window. There’s a solid metal drainpipe that runs past it. It’s secured to the wall with large steel brackets riveted to the brickwork. It’ll take my weight. I’ve already tried.
I begin to strip. I remove my shirt and tie. My trousers. Shoes, socks, underpants. I fold them all very neatly and place them in a pile beside the drainpipe. The alley by the side of the house is dark and quiet. No one would have cause to come down here at this hour. The feeling of standing naked in the warm dark night is beyond the imagination of most. The blood pumps through me, bringing me to life. I stay in the alley longer than I’d intended, but it is not a moment to be rushed. I wish I had a full-length mirror to watch myself in − and rain. Heavy warm drops of rain pounding against my skin, forming small, fast-flowing streams that would find the channels of my swelling, aching muscles, making my skin shine like steel in the moonlight, the water flowing over my body looking like liquid metal, like mercury. If only it was raining. Never mind.
I pull a pair of tracksuit bottoms from the bag and put them on. I bought them from JD Sports in Oxford Street about a month ago. I also pull on a tracksuit top, bought at the same time, from the same place. They’re matching blue. I take a roll of wide gaffer tape from the bag and meticulously tape the bottom of the trousers around my ankles. I need to seal the gap. I take a pair of new leather gloves bought from Selfridges and put them on. Rubber ones would have torn on the drainpipe. I use the tape to seal the gap at my wrists. I pull a stocking over my head. It doesn’t cover my face, there’s no need for that, so long as it covers my hair neatly.
Last but not least, I put on a pair of flat rubber-soled shoes, bought a week ago from Tesco. I’ve never worn any of the items before. I hid them in the tiny car park at work until I needed them, in one of the ventilation shafts.
The shoes have little grip so I use my upper body strength alone to pull myself up the drainpipe. I’ll let my legs dangle. If I start to use them to climb I run the risk of making too many scuff marks on the wall. I’d rather keep the police guessing how I got in for a while, although ultimately I want them to work it out.
I make certain the rucksack is secure over my left shoulder, hanging so the bag is to my front. I begin to climb. I keep my legs crossed at the ankles, to help resist the temptation to use them to help. The leather gloves give me good grip as I pull myself up. It’s not too difficult and I keep enough control to make the climb fast and silent.
The ledge of the bathroom window is narrow and rotting, but I can rest a knee on it safely enough. I hold on to