A Killing Mind. Luke Delaney

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СКАЧАТЬ of relish in her voice, ‘they both had a number of teeth pulled out or cut out or something.’

      Jackson felt the surge of excitement he always felt when he could smell a big crime story brewing and this one sounded like it had real potential. He hadn’t had a killer who’d captured the public’s imagination since he covered the story of the Jackdaw – a name that he, unbeknown to the rest of the world, had bestowed on the killer. ‘Anybody covering it?’ he asked urgently.

      ‘Bill Curtis,’ she replied. ‘One of your own.’

      ‘Curtis,’ he muttered under his breath. He wasn’t about to let a junior reporter like Curtis have what could be the crime scoop of the year.

      ‘I would have put you straight on it,’ Dempsey explained, ‘but you were off meeting Gibran. Maybe you could get Curtis to give his expert opinion on this new killer,’ she teased him before walking off.

      ‘Very funny,’ he answered with a grimace, grabbing his phone and checking his messages and missed calls. He’d been so wrapped up in the Gibran interview it had been hours since he’d looked at his mobile. There’d been several missed calls, including one from Dempsey and one from Curtis. ‘Shit,’ he cursed. He tapped the screen to call Curtis back, shaking his head at Dempsey’s attempt at being funny – Maybe you could get Curtis to give his expert opinion, but even as he repeated her words to himself in his head a smile began to spread across his face. ‘Sue, my friend,’ he whispered under his breath, ‘you’re a genius and you don’t know it.’ He heard the scuffling sounds of the phone being answered.

      ‘Bill Curtis speaking,’ the reporter answered curtly.

      ‘Talk to me, Bill,’ Jackson demanded. ‘I want to know everything on these murders. Everything.’

      Sean sat alone in his office, poring over the crime scene photographs, studying every square centimetre of each one then swapping it for a corresponding report, searching both for something that might have been overlooked. Something he might have missed. But to his frustration he could find nothing he hadn’t already seen. He was about to go through the whole procedure again when Sally knocked on his door, entered without being asked, and slumped exhausted into the chair on the opposite side of the desk. He looked her up and down. ‘You look tired.’

      ‘I’m fine,’ she lied. ‘Nothing a dose of caffeine won’t fix.’

      ‘You find the family?’ he asked.

      ‘Was easy enough,’ she told him. ‘Dalton had a long and illustrious criminal record, going back to his early childhood. His mum and dad, Jane and Peter, still live in the family home in Lewisham. Neither had seen William in a few months, but they were pretty devastated when they got the news.’

      ‘They’ve lost a child,’ Sean reminded her. ‘Doesn’t matter to the parents what that child may have become. He’ll always be their boy.’

      ‘I know,’ Sally agreed. ‘Anyway, they tried repeatedly to help him turn it around, but ultimately he chose drugs over them. If we need them to formally identify the body, they will.’

      ‘We do,’ he confirmed.

      ‘Apparently, he has an older brother: Sam,’ she continued. ‘He tracked William down to the West End, found him on the streets begging. When he tried to get William to go with him, stay at his place for a while and get cleaned up, the lad wasn’t having it.’

      ‘Some people don’t want to get clean,’ Sean reminded her. ‘They prefer their own version of reality.’

      ‘Well, he sure did,’ Sally said. ‘None of the family knew he was living in a disused garage,’ she continued. ‘Or at least, they didn’t until now.’

      ‘OK,’ Sean sighed. ‘Find the brother and talk to him. He probably knows more about the victim’s life than the parents. Siblings usually do when a brother or a sister go off the rails.’

      ‘Won’t be a problem,’ she told him. ‘Parents gave me his address.’

      ‘And see if the parents will give us a decent headshot photograph,’ Sean continued. ‘Have some of the team hit Oxford Street and show it around. We’re going to need the homeless community to talk to us, but I don’t want to alienate them by using a mugshot of a victim taken while he was in custody. Let’s not create a them-and-us feel when dealing with them.’

      ‘Got one here,’ Sally told him and pulled a photograph of a smiling William Dalton from her jacket pocket, taken shortly before the ravages of crack took hold and he ran away from home. ‘Parents let me have it. Had a feeling we’d need one.’

      ‘Good work,’ he acknowledged. He checked his watch. ‘It’s late, Sally. Why don’t you go home? You can start fresh in the morning.’

      ‘Trying to protect me?’ she accused him. Ever since Gibran almost took her life, Sean had been treating her differently to anyone else on the team; he couldn’t seem to help himself.

      ‘No,’ he argued. ‘I know you can handle yourself. But you look tired.’

      ‘We’re all tired,’ she reminded him, ‘and we’re going to get a lot more tired before this is over. No,’ she said, dragging herself to her feet. ‘Now’s a good time to hit the West End. It’ll be reasonably quiet and the homeless will be settling into doorways. Easier to talk to them when they’re static and not trying to hassle tourists for coins. I’ll stir up some unwilling volunteers and see what we can turn up.’

      ‘OK,’ he reluctantly agreed. ‘If you’re sure.’

      ‘What about you?’ she replied. ‘Gonna try for home – see Kate and the kids while you have a chance?’

      Again he glanced at his watch – more to make a point than to check the time. ‘Too late for that,’ he told her. ‘For the kids, anyway.’

      ‘So what are you going to do instead?’ she asked. ‘Not sit here all night driving yourself insane reading reports, I hope?’

      ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Thought I’d check on Donnelly and the door-to-door team, and then maybe …’ Sally’s scrutinizing gaze stopped him finishing.

      ‘And then maybe what?’ she pressed.

      ‘I thought … as I’ll be in the area,’ he tried to convince her, ‘I’d take another look at the scene.’

      ‘At the scene?’ she questioned him. ‘At this time of night – alone? Despite the fact you were there earlier?’

      ‘That was the problem,’ he tried to ease her concerns. ‘Earlier, it wasn’t right. There were too many people around, too much traffic, too many lights on in the houses and flats. Too much … life. It wasn’t how it would have been when Dalton was killed. And the place was crawling with forensics. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t get a feel for what happened.’

      Sally sighed deeply. ‘Be careful, Sean,’ she warned him. ‘It’s been a while since we had a case like this. Maybe you should ease yourself into it – go through the normal motions of an investigation rather than trying to look into that crystal ball of yours. Don’t put yourself under too much pressure to solve this one by yourself. Don’t get isolated, Sean.’

      ‘I СКАЧАТЬ