The Jackdaw

‘I do the best I can. Hopefully we’ll get this sorted quickly and then you won’t have to worry about it.’

‘Until the next high-profile case they dump on you.’

‘We’re Special Investigations only now – they’re all going to be high profile. On the plus side there should be less of them – maybe less than one a year.’

‘You hope, or maybe you don’t.’ He didn’t answer. ‘Anyway, what’s this one about? The people at work seem convinced he’s some latter-day Robin Hood, come to make the rich and corrupt pay for their greed. There’s not a lot of sympathy out there for the victim.’

‘People are quick to judge, but I guess that’s the whole point,’ Sean told her.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘The killer – that’s what he does. Tells people to judge, although they only have a fragment of the facts. And they’re all too willing to go along with it, even if it means a man ends up losing his life.’

‘I don’t think people believed it was for real,’ Kate argued.

‘Did some of the people you work with vote?’ he questioned her.

‘Why?’ she asked, a little suspicious of her husband’s reason for asking. ‘Are they in trouble if they did?’

‘Maybe. Probably not – if they thought it was a hoax. But anyone voting in the future could be guilty of conspiracy to murder.’

‘You can’t arrest everybody,’ Kate said. ‘You can’t arrest tens of thousands of people, maybe hundreds of thousands.’

‘We might have to make a few arrests – scare people away from voting.’

‘I’d better not say anything else,’ she half joked. ‘Wouldn’t want to get anyone at work arrested. We’re short-staffed as it is.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he told her. ‘I promise not to arrest any of your work colleagues, or friends, or whatever you call them.’

Kate rolled her brown eyes, making the golden skin of her forehead wrinkle. ‘Gee, thanks,’ she replied, getting to her feet and beginning to clear the table. ‘Speaking of friends, don’t forget we’re going out for dinner with ours this week.’

‘We are?’

‘Yes. We are. It’s in the calendar on the computer, if you ever bothered to check it.’

He watched her head to the sink, her long, curly black hair tied back in a ponytail. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen her dressed for a night out, but couldn’t. ‘Who we going out with?’

‘James and Kerry, Chris and Sally and Leon and Sophie.’

‘So what you’re saying is we’re going out with your friends?’

Kate looked over her slim shoulder as she paused with a soapy dish in hand. ‘Feel free to arrange a night out with your friends any time you like. I’d love to finally meet some of them – properly.’ She went back to washing the dishes.

‘Not a great idea,’ Sean told her. ‘They’d just get pissed and talk job all night.’

‘Sounds great. I’ll look forward to it.’

‘Ha, ha,’ Sean mocked, getting to his feet and heading for the stairs.

‘Oi,’ Kate called after him. ‘A hand with the cleaning up would be nice.’

‘I’m knackered,’ he complained, ‘and I need to get back to the office super early tomorrow before anyone notices I’m not there.’

‘Fine,’ Kate relented. ‘Just remember – dinner – this week.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ he answered, but he’d already forgotten about it, too tired to care, his mind blissfully still. The case hadn’t got into him yet – hadn’t taken him over completely. He wondered whether it was because he too lacked empathy with the victim. If it had been a woman or a child killed in the same way but for different reasons he wouldn’t have felt as he did. He would have already been consumed by the overpowering urge to keep going until the killer had been caught – he doubted he would have even come home for the evening. Early days, he told himself as he climbed the stairs to bed. It’ll get to you soon enough.

4 (#ulink_3d843904-0f81-541b-9d0b-2daebf6b1589)

Sean arrived at work the next morning early enough to be the first one in the office and was glad of it. He walked slowly across the main room, casting an eye over the tip that was supposed to be the nerve centre of their investigations. Discarded items of clothing hung on chairs and over computer screens, abandoned polystyrene cups of cold, stale coffee littered almost every work surface, while the wastepaper bins overflowed with crisp packets, chocolate wrappers and plastic sandwich boxes. The large brown paper confidential waste sacks that filled every corner fared no better. He shook his head in displeasure and retreated into the sanctuary of his own reasonably ordered and tidy office.

He slumped in his chair and peeled the lid off the black coffee he’d picked up from a nearby café − the grey filth they sold in the canteen at the Yard was wholly undrinkable. Next he placed his own personal laptop next to the coffee and started it into life. Once it was ready he pulled up the video of Paul Elkins’s murder and began to watch and listen: the victim taped to the chair, confused and terrified while the killer periodically stalked in front of the cameras, not even his eyes visible as he spoke in that eerie electronic voice – preaching more than appealing.

Sean pressed pause for a second, giving his mind time to absorb what he had seen so far, to analyse it, to pick up on some small thing they’d all missed. His eyes seemed to flicker as he studied the screen before pressing play again, only to pause it a few seconds later, the image of the killer staring out at him.

‘Confident bastard, aren’t you?’ he whispered. ‘Is that why you’re doing this, because it makes you feel confident – makes you feel good again? Gives you back the pride that they took away from you?’ He clicked on play and watched for a few more minutes, the killer’s organized and self-assured demeanour never changing as he explained the rules of the ‘trial’ to the watching ‘jury’.

He paused again and stared at the dark figure standing straight and purposeful. ‘What are you like when you’re not being this thing? What are you like when you’re just yourself? Are you meek and mild – a broken man too defeated to even stand up for yourself, your wife, your children? Did they beat the fight out of you – took your business, your house, your job? But when you put the ski-mask on, when you hear yourself speaking in that unrecognizable voice, does it give you your self-esteem back? Does it make you feel powerful? And why kill him the way you did? It was slow and painful. Was it the only way you knew how, or did you want it to be like that? Did you want him to suffer – want to make him pay?’

A knock on his open door shattered his concentration and he looked up to see Donnelly standing there with a small man in his thirties he didn’t recognize. Sean looked him up and down, taking note of his skinny arms and legs and little pot belly, spectacles balancing on the end of his nose, receding blond hair uncombed and unstyled.

‘Who the hell is this?’ he asked Donnelly, never looking away from the man who was now flushed red.

‘This,’ Donnelly explained, ‘is Detective Constable Bob Bishop.’

‘Where the hell did you find him? And more to the point, what are you doing with him?’ Bishop looked from Donnelly to Sean and back again, following the conversation anxiously.

‘I abducted him from the Cyber Crime Unit,’ Donnelly continued. ‘The DI there’s an old friend of mine. He said we could have him.’ Still neither of them bothered to address Bishop. Sean shook his head in mock disbelief. ‘What?’ Donnelly played along. ‘You said get an Internet expert.’

‘Is that what he is?’ Sean continued to stare at the very uncomfortable-looking Bishop. ‘Is that what you are – an Internet expert?’

‘I know my way around the Web as well as anyone from the Cyber Unit,’ Bishop stuttered in his Birmingham accent.

‘See,’ Donnelly jumped in. ‘Like I said – an expert.’

‘You know why you’re here?’ Sean asked.

‘Something about the Your View Killer. DS Donnelly told me.’

‘It’s all about the Your View Killer,’ Sean told him. Bishop visibly swallowed hard. ‘Can he be traced? Can we trace him to wherever he’s broadcasting from?’

‘Yes,’ Bishop answered, ‘but it’s not like on the telly – it can take a while. But why d’you need me? Can’t you use one of your own team?’

‘Sure,’ Sean teased him, ‘because my team’s full of Internet and computer experts. The Commissioner lets me keep them locked in a room for whenever I might need them – along with thousands of pounds’ worth of tracking equipment for the once in a blue moon when I might need that too. Bishop, this is the Metropolitan Police: you don’t get given anything until you absolutely need it and then you beg, steal and borrow it before handing it back to wherever it is you got it from. And right now I need you.’

‘Well then, I guess I’m all yours,’ Bishop gave in.

‘Good. Can we trace it even when it’s not on?’ Sean pressed ahead with his queries.