hapter 35

What she wanted to do was to jump in the first passing taxi and go straight home to Kit. But Fiona had always struggled against putting desire before duty, so she swept through the streets back to her office, oblivious to everyone and everything, her head buzzing with chaos, her gut knotting with fear. There was no particular reason why Kit should be the next name on the list, but equally, no strong reason why he should not be. She had to find a way to make him take her seriously without leaving him as scared as she was.

She was walking into her office when she heard someone call her name. She turned to find Steve running down the corridor towards her, a fine sheen of sweat on his face. "Wait, Fi," he shouted as she turned on her heel and slammed her door behind her.

She hadn't even got her jacket off when he was in the room beside her. One sleeve in and one sleeve half out, she had no way of resisting when he pulled her into his arms and hugged her close. "I know you're scared," Steve said.

"Fuck scared," Fiona snarled. "I'm furious. People are at risk, and you won't protect them." She pulled away and dragged her jacket off, throwing it on the sofa. "You wouldn't be keeping this under wraps if somebody was murdering police officers, Steve. Why don't Kit and his friends merit the same consideration?"

"Apples and oranges, Fi. Police officers know how to keep the lid on things. But if we start issuing blanket warnings to crime writers, it'll be a madhouse. We can't offer them protection, we don't have the bodies. So some of them will run screaming to the media about how crap the police are and the papers will whip it all up into mass hysteria. And then the cranks will start. And the stalkers. And the hoax phone calls. And then it'll be the vigilantes taking the law into their own hands, protecting their heroes. And before you know it, somebody will get hurt who is nothing to do with this whole mess." Steve paced as he spoke, his tension evident in every movement.

"It stinks, Steve, and you know it. If Georgia has been killed and believe me, I am praying that Sarah Duvall's team don't find anything in Smithfield apart from animal carcasses then I think it's inescapable that there's a serial killer out there. And I won't let my lover and his friends be the stalking horses while you guys fuck around failing to catch the right person." Fiona slammed open her desk drawer and pulled out a plastic folder, throwing it towards him. "There're the letters. Kit's, Georgia's and the other four. You get them to Sarah Duvall."

Steve's face tightened. "Fine. Just promise me one thing. Promise you'll do what you have to do in a responsible manner."

Fiona looked as if she was about to burst into tears of rage. "Oh Steve, you should know me better than that." Her voice was a reproach that cut like a whip.

Steve flinched, as she had intended. "I'm sorry, Fi. But you've got to see my point. We can't afford to start a media witch hunt. Look, I'm scared too. If anything happened to Kit, I'd never, ever forgive myself."

"So do something to make sure it doesn't."

Steve threw the folder of letters on to a chair in frustration. "Don't you see? I can't. It's none of my professional business. The City force are totally separate from us and I can't interfere in their case."

"Well, there's nothing more to say, is there?" Fiona's voice seemed to come from a long way off.

Before Steve could respond, the phone rang. She reached for it automatically, saying, "You'll have to excuse me. I have work to do." Fiona deliberately turned her back on him. "Hello, Fiona Cameron."

Steve watched her shoulders slump as she registered who was calling. "Just give me a minute, Major," she said, covering the mouthpiece with her hand. She glanced over her shoulder. "Goodbye, Steve." She waited until he had picked up the letters and was walking through the door, then moved to the chair behind her desk.

Stifling a sigh, she spoke into the phone. "Sorry about that, there was someone just leaving."

"I'm sorry, I have called at a bad time," he apologized.

"Right now, believe me, there's no such thing as a good time. How can I help you, Major?"

"I have very good news," he said. "We have Miguel Delgado in custody."

Fiona forced herself to sound bright in spite of the headache that was starting behind her eyes. "Congratulations. You must be very relieved."

"Si, and pleased that we have succeeded. You were right, he had another line of defence in place. He had a friend with what my wife calls a Winnebago. Somebody he thought he could trust, because he knew this friend was himself a criminal. But his friend is only a small-time thief, a burglar. His friend, he had seen Delgado's face in the paper and he knew whatever Delgado had done, it must be very serious. And the only really serious crimes he had heard about were the murders. He didn't want to be implicated in crimes like that, so although he let Delgado take his van, he tipped off the local police. We found him early this morning on a camp site a few miles out of the city."

"Well done. Has he confessed?"

She could hear Berrocal sigh. "No. He has said nothing since he was arrested."

"Is there any solid evidence tying him to the crimes?"

"The second victim? The American? A waiter has come forward who says he remembers seeing Delgado with him a couple of days before the murder. We are hopeful that forensics will be able to match up fibres, but we won't have that for a while yet. Also, we are testing the knives that Delgado had in the van when we caught him. Again, we don't have the results yet. So, we have nothing much to put pressure on with."

She hoped he wasn't looking for help from her. She wanted to tell him to fuck off, that she had far more important things to worry about. But the professional in her knew that putting an end to the Toledo murders was just as important as what was happening in her own life. When it came to value, she had to believe all human lives were equal. Otherwise there would be little point in her work. So she forced herself not to let her frustration and hostility loose on Salvador Berrocal. 'I'm sure you've got a very experienced team to work on him," she said, reaching for the button to switch on her computer.

"I have never dealt with a serial killer in interrogation before. But I have a plan," he said, sounding enthusiastic. "I figured I would make him angry. Use one of my team to taunt him. You know the kind of thing. These stupid local cops, how could they be so dumb as to arrest a pathetic specimen like him? It's obvious that whoever did these crimes was clever enough to plan very carefully and charming enough to get his victims to go along with him willingly. And an ugly, smelly failed shopkeeper like Delgado couldn't possibly have what it takes to be the Toledo killer. My man will act as if he's disgusted to be wasting his time on such a pointless interview."

"I think that'll make him very angry," Fiona said. "Which will almost certainly work to your advantage. You've obviously thought it through very carefully." Now go away and leave me alone, she thought. "Let me know how you get on."

He was still thanking her for her profile when she put the phone down. So let him think she was a rude bitch. She was past caring. Fiona headed straight for her e-mail program and started to write a new message. Kit wouldn't answer the phone when he was writing, but she knew he checked his e-mail every hour or so.

From: Fiona Cameron <fcameron@psych.ulon.ac.uk>

To: Kit Martin <KMWriter@trashnet.com>

Re: Advice

Remember the message on the front of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Well, DON'T PANIC.

I didn't want to alarm you this morning. I had an idea, but I

wanted to run it past Steve first. Overnight I discovered that the locals think the Garda have arrested the wrong man for

Jane Elias's murder. Taking into account Drew's death and

Georgia's disappearance, I had to think about the possibility of a serial offender. So I took a look at And Ever More Shall Be

So and was disturbed by certain parallels I found there. I've had a meeting with the officer in charge of the case in the City of London Police, and the good news is that they're taking me seriously.

The bad news of course is that if I'm right, then Georgia is probably, as we feared, dead.

And the worst news is that there may be other killings. And of course, the police are already saying they don't want to issue a general warning and start an unwarranted panic, not least because they don't have the staffing levels to offer people any protection .. .

There is NO REASON to suppose you're specifically at risk (and yes, I still think the death threats are probably unrelated to the murders), but it makes sense to take precautions. Don't answer the door to strangers. Don't go anywhere alone. I mean, anywhere. Fuck bravado, I want you safe.

I'm at work if you need to talk. Departmental meeting 2-3,

seminar 3.30-5, home by 6. I hope.

I love you.

Keep safe.

F.

She hit the send button and watched her message disappear into the ether. The logical part of Fiona's mind knew that she could not save Kit if someone was determined to kill him. But she could adopt the alarm principle. A burglar had once told her that security systems on private houses were no deterrent to the determined raider. If he wanted to get into a specific house, he could and he would. Where they were useful was in putting off the casual burglar. "You gotta make the house next door look like an easier option," he'd explained. Well, if the price of Kit's life was making someone else look like an easier option, Fiona was prepared to do that.

Afterwards, she'd live with the consequences. For now, what was important was keeping Kit alive.

In spite of what she'd said to Fiona, Sarah Duvall was conscious that she owed a duty to potential victims. She'd always been a proponent of preventative policing, but it acquired a new urgency when murder was the crime in question rather than burglary or street crime. Her first priority was the preparation of an application for a search warrant for Smithfield Market, but once that was under way, she had turned her attention to what else she could usefully achieve.

Because she'd never worked with Fiona, Duvall recognized she was probably far more sceptical of her insights than Steve Preston, who seemed to regard the psychologist as virtually infallible. So she was wary of Fiona's contention that the death threat letters were unlikely to be the work of the murderer. Duvall didn't believe in coincidence. In her book, even synchroniciry was suspect. She simply couldn't believe that a serial murderer happened to be targeting thriller writers at the same time as a completely different individual was sending them death threats. Either they were one and the same person, or the letter-writer had inside knowledge. So if she could go some way towards identifying the source of the letters, she would either have uncovered the identity of the killer or at the very least, someone who might lead her to her culprit.

While she wasn't willing to take everything Fiona had said at face value, Duvall was prepared to acknowledge common sense when she heard it. And it seemed to her that it was more than likely that the letter-writer could well be either a frustrated wannabe writer or someone whose career had crashed and burned. If that were the case, then the chances were that there were authors' agents and publishers' editors who would have come into contact with the writer of the letters and who might even be able to make a guess at their creator. These people worked with words; it wasn't beyond the bounds of possibility that they might recognize the prose style of the writer.

So she had set one of her team the task of identifying appropriate authorities, including an expert in the genre of crime fiction. As a result, she had arranged a breakfast meeting for the following morning with two leading agents and three editors in the field. They had no idea what she wanted to talk to them about, though she had impressed them both with the urgency of her request and the need for confidentiality.

But that was for the morning, and she'd work out how best to handle that later. What she had to focus on now was finding out who might be the future targets of her putative serial killer.

It was a goal that had brought her to Clapham and a quiet row of terraced cottages set a couple of streets back from the Common. According to her detective constable, what Dominic Reid didn't know about contemporary crime fiction wasn't worth knowing. As the car pulled up to the kerb a couple of houses away from Reid's, Duvall switched on the interior light. "Give me a minute," she said to the DC who was driving her. She used the time to refresh her memory on the brief he'd prepared for her earlier.

Dominic Reid, forty-seven. He'd started off working in BBC Radio, then branched out as an independent producer. His company currently made a couple of Radio Four quiz programmes, and he had a list of credits in radio documentary, mostly concerning one aspect or another of mystery writing. He'd written a guide to crime fiction for a major book selling chain, reviewed the genre for a couple of magazines, and had recently published Paging Death, a critical study of modern British crime fiction. If anyone could tell Duvall who might be in the sights of a serial killer, it was Reid. "Do you read this stuff?" she asked the constable. "Crime novels?"

He shook his head. "I tried to read one once. I counted five mistakes in the first twenty pages, so I binned it. Too much like a busman's holiday. What about you, ma'am?"

"I never read fiction of any kind." Duvall sounded like a tee totaller talking about strong drink. She clicked off the light. "Let's do it," she said.

Reid opened the door almost before the twin tones of the bell had died away. He was a lean, gangling man with an engaging, bony face under a thatch of untidy greying blond hair. "Detective Chief Inspector Duvall?" he asked, suppressed excitement obvious in his expression.

"Mr. Reid," Duvall acknowledged with a nod. "Thank you for agreeing to see me at such short notice."

He stepped back, gesturing that they should enter. Duvall and the DC filed into the hall. There was barely room for the three of them; stacks of books leaned against one wall, reaching above waist-height. They followed Reid into the front room, where three walls were lined with shelves crammed with more hardbacks. Apart from books, the only furnishings in the room were four battered armchairs and a couple of occasional tables. On one chair, a large black and white cat lay curled, not twitching so much as a whisker at their arrival.

"Please, sit down," Reid said.

Duvall gave the chairs the once-over for cat hairs, and opted for the one nearest the door as being least likely to do major damage to her suit. She caught the DC's eye and nodded to the far chair.

"Can I get you anything to drink?" Reid said eagerly. "Tea, coffee, soft drinks? Or something stronger?"

"Thanks, Mr. Reid, but I don't want to eat into your time any more than necessary. Please?" Duvall waved a hand at the remaining empty chair.

Reid folded his long body into the chair. "I've never actually met a senior police officer before," he said. "Seems strange, I know, since I've read about so many. But there it is." He swallowed, and his Adam's apple bounced in the open neck of his shirt.

"I appreciate you making time for us. And I'm sorry my colleague wasn't able to explain why I needed to see you so urgently."

"Very mysterious. But of course, you would expect that to appeal to me, wouldn't you?"

Duvall acknowledged his remark with a thin smile. When necessary, she could be as warm and confiding with a witness as anyone. But anoraks like Reid didn't need to be cosseted to part with every piece of knowledge they possessed. "It's a highly confidential matter.

Before I can lay it out for you, I have to be certain of your discretion."

Reid sat up straight, a look of surprise on his face. "That sounds serious."

"It is very serious. Can I rely on you not to repeat this conversation to any third party?"

His head bobbed up and down several times. "If that's what you want, yes, of course I'll keep it to myself. Is this anything to do with Georgia Lester's disappearance?" he asked.

"What makes you say that?"

He gave an awkward little shrug. "I just assumed ... You're from the City Police, and I know that's where Georgia lives. And with her disappearance being in the news ..."

Duvall crossed her legs and leaned forward from the waist. "It's true that I am the officer investigating Ms Lester's disappearance. But I have a further concern. In the light of the recent murders of Drew Shand and Jane Elias, we are considering the possibility and I put it no stronger than that that there might be a connection."

Reid folded his arms across his chest in an automatic gesture of defence. "You wonder if there's a serial killer targeting crime writers." It was a statement, not a question. "Yes, I can see why you might be thinking along those lines. I won't pretend it hadn't crossed my mind, but' he inclined his head towards the bookshelves "I put it down to too much reading." He gave a lopsided half-smile.

"And it may well be that we're letting our imagination run away with us too," Duvall acknowledged. "But we have to explore every possible avenue. And that's why I want to pick your brains. I'm anxious to try to establish who else might be at risk, if our theory proves correct."

Reid was nodding. "And you think I can help. Well, nobody knows more than me about the genre. Tell me what you want to know."

Duvall allowed herself to relax slightly. She was going to get what she needed with almost no expenditure of energy. Which was just as well, because she was beginning to feel the day had gone on altogether too long. "If there is a connection, there seem to be certain linking factors. All three have written serial killer novels. All three have won awards for their books. And all three have had their books successfully adapted for TV or film. I imagine there aren't too many others who fit that category?"

Reid unfolded his arms. "More than you'd think, Chief Inspector.

Obviously, you'll be thinking about thriller writers like Kit Martin, Enya Flannery, Jonathan Lewis."

Duvall blinked quickly at the mention of Kit Martin's name, but otherwise showed no sign that his name held any more significance than any other. But if he was the first name out of the expert's hat, Fiona Cameron might well be justified in her fears, Duvall thought as she listened to what Reid was saying.

"But as well as the pure serial killer novels, some authors of police series have included serial murderers in their books. Ian Rankin and Reginald Hill, for example." He got to his feet. "I've got a database on my computer next door. All the factors you describe are among my criteria, so we can do a multiple search and find out exactly who fits the bill. Why don't we go and see what that comes up with?"

Duvall uncrossed her legs. "That sounds like a very good idea. Lead on, Mr. Reid."

IV

Susannah's teeth were chattering. Uncontrollable castanets rattling through her head. She didn't remember the cottage being cold when they'd been here. But then, the weather had been mild in September. An hour of the gas fire in the late evenings had been enough to take the nip off the air. That and Thomas's warm body next to hers. Now, there was no warm body. And only the chill of damp November air to caress her body. Her captor clearly wasn't about to spend his money on the gas meter just for the sake of her comfort.

Her naked skin was gooseflesh. That had as much to do with ambient temperature as fear. Though certainly her fear was enough to produce goose pimples in a tropical climate. One minute she'd been working on her monthly billing, the next minute there had been a knock at the door. She'd looked out of the window. An unfamiliar white van in the drive. But the man standing on the doorstep with the package and the clipboard wore the familiar uniform of the courier that her company always used to send her packages of work.

She hadn't been expecting anything from head office that afternoon. And it was late for the courier, who usually arrived mid-morning. It must, she thought, be something urgent. Perhaps the Brantingham contract. Phil had mentioned in that morning's e-mail that it was close to finalization. Susannah had opened the door and smiled at the courier.

She never knew what hit her. Only that something did.

The next thing she knew was excruciating pain. Pain expanded to include blackness and movement. And the low thrum of an engine. She was lying on her side, drool running from her mouth. And she couldn't move. Slowly, as if she was very drunk, she identified the pain. The principal source was her head. Like a very bad migraine, except that this originated in the back of her head, not the front.

Next in the hierarchy were her shoulders. Her arms seemed to be pinioned behind her. That was the information her screaming muscles sent her. She tried to straighten up and a new wave of pain swept up her legs. As far as she could figure out through the blitz of sensory overload, her feet were fastened together and linked to her wrists. Hog-tied, wasn't that what the Americans called it?

By keeping perfectly still, the pain diminished. Still unbearable, but at least now she could think of something else. Blackness and movement. And the rough feel of carpet under her cheek. What else could it be but the boot of a car?

That was when the fear kicked in.

She had no idea how long they'd been travelling. There was no way to measure the duration of pain.

At last, the movement stopped with a jerk. Then the engine noise ceased. She strained to hear something but nothing came. Then the boot cracked open. The shock to her eyes triggered a nauseating pain in her head. Then they adjusted and she saw a dark silhouette against the night sky.

Susannah opened her mouth and screamed. The man laughed. "No one to hear you, pet," he said. The accent was Geordie, she registered that much.

He bent over and grunted with the effort of lifting her out of the car. He staggered slightly under the weight as he walked. With her face jammed against his shoulder, Susannah could see nothing. The quality of the air changed and she realized he had taken her indoors. A few more steps, a turn to the right and suddenly they were in glaring fluorescent light. He let her fall and she screamed as she hit cold tile. Her head cracked against something cold and hard.

The next time she came round, she was naked. She was sitting on a toilet, her right arm handcuffed to a towel rail firmly bolted to the wall. Dazed, confused and in pain, she worked out that her legs were shackled, the chain passing behind the bowl so she was anchored to the toilet seat.

But at least now she knew where she was. Thomas had rented the cottage on a remote Cornish headland to celebrate their first anniversary. They'd spent a week here, walking on the cliffs, watching the birds, cooking simple meals, making love every night. It had been idyllic.

This was a nightmare.

And it had only grown worse.

When she had called out, he had reappeared. Tall and broad, with the muscles of a weightlifter. His dark hair cropped in a crew cut over a face that seemed oddly familiar. She couldn't figure out where she'd seen him before. But then, his face was unremarkable. Nondescript. If she'd written an inventory of his features, it would have fitted thousands of men. Dark eyebrows, blue eyes, pale complexion, straight nose, average mouth, slightly receding chin. The only strange thing about him was that he was wearing a white lab coat and he had a stethoscope hanging round his neck like a doctor. He stood in the doorway, appraising her.

"Why are you doing this?" Susannah croaked.

"That's none of your business," he said. He produced a second set of handcuffs. "If you struggle, it's going to hurt a lot more."

She lashed out with her free arm, but he was too quick for her. He gripped her wrist and snapped the cuff round it. He extended her arm and fastened the other cuff round a water pipe. Then he took a roll of elastoplast and taped her wrist and hand to the wall so her arm was immobilized.

As bemused as she was terrified, Susannah stared disbelieving as he wrapped a blood pressure cuff round her upper arm and inflated it. Then he left the room. She recognized the apparatus he came back with. She'd been a blood donor for years. "What are you doing?" she protested as he located a vein and inserted a needle.

"Taking your blood," he said calmly, with all the assurance of one of the nurses at the blood transfusion centre.

Incredulous, she watched mesmerized as her blood started to flow down the tube and into the container. "You're mad!" she shouted at him.

"No. I'm just different," he said, settling down on the edge of the bath to wait.

Susannah stared. "What are you going to do to me?"

"I'm going to feed you and make sure you have enough to drink. And I'm going to take your blood." He got to his feet and started to walk out of the small bathroom.

"You're a vampire?" she said faintly.

He turned and smiled. Its very normality made it the scariest thing she'd seen so far. "No. I'm an artist."

When he came back, he was carrying an assortment of paintbrushes,

from the finest calligraphy brush to one that was almost an inch across. Satisfied that he'd drawn almost a pint of blood, he detached the apparatus and released the blood pressure cuff, keeping his thumb over the puncture. He applied cotton wool and elastoplast to staunch the bleeding, then stripped away the restraining tape. He unlocked the handcuffs and stepped back quickly so she could not hit him.

"There, that didn't hurt a bit, did it, pet?" He placed the jar of blood in the sink and walked out of the room. He returned with a can of energy-giving electrolyte drink and a paper plate that held a stack of liver pate sandwiches and half a dozen chocolate biscuits. He put them on the floor, within reach of Susannah's free left hand. "There you go. That'll stop you feeling faint. And it'll help your body replace some of the blood you've lost."

Then he turned his back, as if she had ceased to exist for him. He picked up the jar of blood and stuck the brushes in his pocket. Then he stepped into the bath and stared consideringly at the wall. There were two rows of tiles above the edge of the bath, but above that there was an area of blank plastered wall about six feet square. He selected a medium-sized brush and dipped it into the blood.

Then he began to paint.

Susannah began to sob.

Chapter 36

By the time he was on his second cup of coffee, Steve was beginning to wonder if he'd turned into a manic depressive overnight. Less than an hour out of bed and he'd already swung between the poles of nervous anticipation and deep despair more times than he could count.

But then, as he'd commented to Fiona only the day before, these were only the symptoms of mental illness if they were groundless. And he had good reasons for both sets of emotions. His optimism, tempered though it was with his natural wariness, all centred round Terry Fowler. If she was as good at her job as Fiona had promised, and if Joanne had identified the right cases, the Susan Blanchard case might take its first positive move forward in a long time. That would be reward enough. But added to that, he had the prospect of dinner with her this evening. He couldn't remember the last time he'd looked forward to a date with a woman with such conviction that it would be fun. He'd better remember to book somewhere for dinner. Not too upscale; he didn't want them to feel uncomfortable. But not too informal, either; he wanted her to realize that he was taking her seriously. Normally, he'd have asked Kit to recommend somewhere. But that was out of the question today.

For, like his optimism, his pessimism was both professional and personal. There was no escaping the fact that he had done serious damage to his oldest friendship. Fiona had demanded more of him than was in his power to give, but she was bound to feel he'd failed her. Her and Kit both. He'd tried to phone several times the previous evening, but the answering machine had been switched on. Doubtless Fiona had decided they should monitor their calls, and he was clearly not on the approved list.

The trouble was, she was right in emotional and moral terms. But he was right in practical terms. And those two certainties were mutually incompatible. All his adult life, he'd been glad that the job he loved had never turned on him and threatened to destroy something that was important to him. He'd seen it happen with colleagues marriages crumbled, children become enemies, friendships betrayed and he'd always known that, but for fortune, it could have been him.

Now, he'd run out of grace. His oldest friend estranged and his best male friend at risk, and there was nothing he could do about it. It wasn't even his case. All he knew about what was going on he knew because Sarah Duvall had had the courtesy to tell him. But he had been a senior CID officer for long enough to know that this was the worst kind of case to resolve. No criminal was harder to catch than a killer who killed without apparent connection to his victim, who operated on a logic clear only to himself, who left few traces and who was smart enough to stay several steps ahead of any pursuit. When such killers were caught, it was often almost by accident. Neighbours complained about the smell of the drains; a spot check of a number plate revealed it belonged to another car entirely; a police officer stopped a random speeder.

That Kit's life might hang by so slender and serendipitous a chance was almost more than Steve could bear to contemplate. How much worse it must be for Fiona, who had already had to live through one such apparently random loss. And now, when he should be at her side, supporting them both, he was the outsider.

Steve carried the remains of his coffee through to the bedroom and contemplated his wardrobe. He couldn't rely on being able to get home to change before the evening. He chose a lightweight navy wool suit that he knew didn't easily crease. A white shirt and a blue tie for now; a dark grey shirt, carefully folded and bagged, and a scarlet silk tie for the evening. Fiona had given him the tie, he remembered. Strange that it was the exact shade of Terry's lipstick. Even in something so basic, the two strands of his life were intertwined.

As he dressed, Steve tried to put his personal feelings far from the front of his mind. He had important things to do today, and he needed to be clear-headed. But it didn't work, and as he walked to his car, he knew that whatever broke with the Blanchard case, he wouldn't settle until he knew what Sarah Duvall was doing.

What Sarah Duvall was doing was wondering why she'd ever imagined that authors' agents and publishers' editors would be able to tell her anything about the death threat letters that Kit Martin, Georgia Lester and at least three other crime writers had received.

The five people she'd just had breakfast with had listened with rapt attention to what she had to say. Then they'd dropped their quiet bombshell. "We get over three thousand unsolicited manuscripts a year," one of the agents had said. "Out of those, we might ultimately take on perhaps a maximum of three new authors. That means there are a lot of unhappy people out there, and frankly, DCI Duvall, if you'd read some of those typescripts, you'd realize we're not always dealing with the most balanced of individuals."

"I regularly get abusive letters," an editor said, backing up the agent. "Usually from people I've turned down, but once or twice from authors I've dropped from my list because of poor sales. People take it very personally, because writing is a very personal thing. But it never goes beyond that. They let off steam, add you to their mental hate list, they bad-mouth you round the business, but that's all."

They'd passed the letters round from hand to hand, commenting only that they seemed rather more hostile than usual. But they all agreed that none of them would have bothered the police, or even their company door security with them. "We're in a very emotive business," another of the agents had said. "Feelings run high. But we're dealing with people who regard words as weapon enough."

However, Duvall had extracted from each of them a promise that they would take copies of the letters back and check them against any hate mail in their own files on the off-chance that they might spot some congruence. It had been a long shot, so she wasn't unduly surprised that it hadn't paid off.

That didn't stop her feeling disappointed. She hoped it wasn't an omen for the rest of the day. She didn't want to end up with egg on her face after an operation as major as the search of Smithfield Market.

It never occurred to her that, indirectly, what she was hoping for was the murder of Georgia Lester.

Terry Fowler looked as relaxed as she had done the day before. She was wearing a thin black cardigan over a white T-shirt and what looked like the same pair of black jeans. She had pulled up a chair next to her so Steve could look over her shoulder at the computer screen. "Interesting results," she said, her fingers tapping the keys. He noticed her hands were surprisingly broad, with strong fingers that ended in short, blunt nails carefully trimmed, as if to remove the temptation to chew them. She wore a heavy silver ring on the third finger of her right hand. "I was able to use a set of parameters that Fiona's already developed for serial rapes. It needed one or two modifications, but because I was working with a more or less off-the-shelf package it was a lot quicker than starting from scratch. And since you seemed to be in a bit of a hurry ..."

"Habit, I'm afraid. Another day or two probably wouldn't have made a lot of difference."

"Urgency's not a bad habit in your line of business, I imagine," Terry said, half turning to give him a grin. "You gotta try and get to the bad guys before they do worse things."

"Something like that." Steve sighed. "Sometimes it's more a matter of getting things done before the bureaucrats notice how much of the budget you're draining."

"Yeah, right. Well, this particular budget drainage ran the crime linkage program on the files you gave me." She raised her eyebrows at him. "Including the four that you slipped in to see whether I was doing it properly."

"That's not why I put them in," Steve protested. "It's not about putting you on the spot, it's about showing my colleagues that this isn't a load of mumbo jumbo. It strengthens the value of the results if I can demonstrate that the programme weeds out the cases we know to be irrelevant."

"Just testing," she murmured. "It's OK, I'm not really offended, I understand the principle of control groups ... Anyway, having run all the cases through the computer, it appears you do have a cluster here." Her tone became more brisk as she got into the meat of her results. "Four of the rapes and two of the serious sexual assaults. The Hertfordshire case has a slightly lower probability than the other five, but it still comes in at eighty-seven percent, which I would regard as a definite positive."

Steve felt a small surge of excitement, though years of practice kept it well hidden. "And how does that translate in terms of the geographical profile?"

"Let's take it stage by stage," Terry said, her right hand clicking the mouse over dialog boxes. A map of North London spread out before them in monochrome. She tapped a couple of keys and the screen flooded with colour, iridescent greens, blues, yellows, purples and a patch of burgundy. "This is what we get from the first two. Add in the third and fourth ..." More five-finger exercises on the keyboard. Now the patch of red was more clearly defined, the colour clearer. But a second, purplish-red zone had also appeared slightly to the north of the original scarlet. Steve, who had seen Fiona do this enough times to be able to glean some meaning from what was in front of him, noted that the main highlighted area covered a dozen streets in the northern part of Kentish Town. The second patch was up towards Archway.

"Add in the fifth, and that second patch gets less significant," Terry continued. "But when we introduce the sixth incident, see what happens." The original red sector changed scarcely at all, but the purple area grew noticeably more reddish in tone.

"And what do you conclude from that?" Steve asked, pretty sure he knew what was coming next.

Terry turned her head and grinned at him. "Same as you, I expect." She picked up a pencil and pointed to the main red zone. If we have correctly identified a genuine cluster, then chances are your man lives in this area here. It's possible that he lives in the other hot spot, but I'd be more inclined to think that's where he works. When an offender is at the start of his career, he tends to stick closer to home. And if we look at the first two cases, the only hit we get is this section here that simply intensifies in probability the more cases we input."

She leaned back in her chair and swivelled it around so she was half facing Steve. Without looking at the screen, she hit a couple of keys. "And when we add in the Susan Blanchard murder, let's see what happens."

No amount of self-control could prevent Steve from revealing his shock. "What did you just say?"

Terry grinned. "You look like a stunned cod," she said. "I thought that would shake you."

"Have you been discussing this with Fiona?" Steve demanded, hiding his feelings behind a sharp tone.

"Nope. I worked it out all by myself. When you said there was another case to add in to the series, I figured it had to be something pretty serious. And the only thing more serious than violent rape is sexual homicide. Also, it had to be an important case for you to be prepared to lash out on crime linkage and geographic profiling. Probably one that had stalled, because this sort of process isn't your first port of call. Since you were interested in North London cases, chances are you were looking at a rape-murder north of the river, as yet unsolved. Put it all together and it comes up with Susan Blanchard." She spread her hands in the theatrical manner of a magician revealing the rabbit in the hat.

"I'm impressed," Steve acknowledged. Fiona had said Terry was impulsive; she hadn't mentioned she was also intuitive.

Terry shrugged. "It was no big deal. I'm supposed to be trained to make connections." She smiled. "You really shouldn't be surprised when I do it."

Steve laughed. "I'm surrounded by people who are supposed to be trained to make connections, and most of the time you'd never know it. You're right, of course, it is the Susan Blanchard murder I'm interested in."

"I thought you guys had closed down the investigation after that complete fuck-up at the Bailey? Wasn't the official line that you weren't looking for another suspect?"

"Well, we couldn't exactly say anything else without making ourselves look even more foolish than we did already," Steve said, the edge of bitterness in his voice creeping through in spite of his best intentions.

"Yeah, right. But secretly, you're still ferreting away?"

He nodded. "I have a small team of officers working on it."

"But not Fiona?"

There was a silence. "I'd rather not get into that, if you don't mind," he said. "Maybe you should ask Fiona the history."

"Cool." Terry flapped one hand from the wrist in a dismissive gesture. "It's none of my business. I'm just grateful for the cheque in the post. So, you want to see what happens when we add the Susan Blanchard murder into the mix?"

"Is Sinn Fein IRA?"

"Whoa, there speaks the detective. OK, in spite of the fact that you're a prejudiced bigot, I'll share my results with you." Her grin took most of the sting out of Terry's words and she hit the enter key. The principal scarlet sector changed not at all, but the more northerly area grew less red. "I don't have to spell it out for you, do I?"

Steve shook his head, a feeling of deep gratification surging through him. "No. Your program thinks that whoever killed Susan Blanchard is the same man who committed four rapes and two serious sexual assaults in the course of the previous two years. And I have to tell you that from where I'm sitting, that's the best news I've heard in a long time."

Terry gave him the grin he was beginning to recognize as a marker that he was about to be challenged. "Yeah right. You have a well weird take on the world, Steve. Not a lot of people think a serial rapist turned killer falls into the good-news category. You should get out more."

"I thought you were already taking steps to rectify that," he said, returning the smile.

"It's a dirty job, saving the filth, but somebody's got to do it," she said flippantly. "So where are we going?"

"There's a new brasserie opened in Clerkenwell. The chef trained with Marco Pierre White and he specializes in fish. I managed to get a cancellation for seven-thirty. How does that sound?"

"Sounds cool."

For a brief moment, Steve thought about offering to pick her up, but he knew he was unlikely to have the time. He didn't want to start letting her down so soon. If things worked out between them, his job would provide plenty of opportunities for dislocated social engagements in the future. Besides, he didn't want to appear the pushover he secretly knew himself to be. Instead, he scribbled the name and address of the restaurant on a piece of scrap paper. "I'll see you there." He stood up. "I've got to get back to the Yard and get my team working on this. Can you give me a printout of the map?"

Terry turned back to her computer. "You want a blow-up of the red areas?" she asked.

"Please."

"You need a written report?" she asked.

"Might as well get my money's worth," Steve said.

"Fax or e-mail?"

"Both, if you don't mind."

"Be with you by the end of the morning." Terry winked. "See you tonight."

Steve nodded and walked to the door. As he turned to leave, she blew him a kiss. The blush lasted all the way down the stairs. So did the smile. Terry Fowler had done more than waken his dormant case from its slumber. She'd wiped all his fear for Kit from his mind for as long as he'd been with her. And that was worth far, far more than the Metropolitan Police could ever imagine paying her.

Back at the Yard, Steve summoned Joanne into his office. Neil was busy watching Francis Blake, and John was off duty, so his resources were minimal, in spite of the new possibilities that Terry's study had produced.

Steve tossed the maps across the table to her, unable to keep his exultation off his face. "Looks like we're on the way to somewhere at last. Geographic profile of your rapes. When the Susan Blanchard murder was factored into the analysis, the central red area didn't change at all."

Joanne looked up, the excitement sparkling in her eyes. "That's brilliant. Wow! So, what do you want me to do?"

"I'm afraid it's time for drudgery. Identify the streets outlined in red -and one street either side, for the sake of my peace of mind and get the electoral roll."

Joanne sighed. "And go through the electoral roll checking it against CROs?"

"Unless you can think of a better way of doing it."

"When I rule the world, they'll organize the criminal records database so you can search it with any one of a dozen parameters," she said, getting to her feet. "I'm on it."

"Thanks, Joanne. Oh, and thanks for the restaurant tip."

She raised her eyebrows. "I hope you enjoy it."

Steve grinned. "I fully intend to."

Joanne turned on her way out of the door. "If you get there, of course. I mean, if I get lucky, we could all be checking out a new number one suspect this evening. Right, sir?"

"Get lucky, Jo. But try not to get lucky before tomorrow morning if you want to remain my favourite DC."

After she left, Steve stared at the closed door, feeling the buzz in his veins that came from the knowledge that at last they might be only hours from a lucky break. Thinking of lucky breaks reminded him that there had been a message on his desk asking him to ring Sarah Duvall.

Part of him dreaded the call. If Georgia Lester had been found dead, he wanted to put off the knowledge and its implications for as long as possible. On the other hand, it was feasible that she'd turned up alive. Steve reached out and punched in Sarah's number.

Extract from Decoding of Exhibit P13/4599

Azoqf tqkru zpsqa dsumx qefqd edqym uzeyk xurqe sauzs fasqf mxaft mdpqd. Ftqkx xtmhq faefm dfeqq uzsft qbmff qdzft qzuze bufqa rftqp gynet ufbmp pke.

Once they find Georgia tester's remains, my life's going to get a lot harder. They'll have to start seeing the pattern then. But it'll take them a day or two to go official with it. They won't want to admit what's going on because that'll cause a panic.

So I need to hit my nexttargetfast, while he's unsuspecting. But I've got to be careful not to rush things. Patience, that's the secret. Never snatch at half a chance. Never lose your cool. Just sit it out. Even when the waiting's hard and bitter.

Take the courier's uniform. I knew right from the beginning what I needed to get Kit Martin. But I had no idea how I was going to lay my hands on it. Then the gods smiled. I was in the launderette one evening, watching my clothes tumble around in the washer. There was only one other man there, and when he dragged out his damp clothes and stuffed them in the drier, I couldn't miss the logo of Capital City Couriers blazing across the dark-blue drill jacket. And there were matching trousers. Pure manna from heaven.

After he dropped some tokens in the slot, he looked at his watch and headed across the road to the local boozer. I waited a few minutes, and then loaded the courier's entire wash into my holdall. Piece of piss.

I sat and waited for my wash to finish, cool as a cucumber. Ten minutes later, I was walking back to my flat with my wet laundry on top of his. The trousers needed taking up, and the jacket's a bit tight on the shoulders, but that really doesn't matter. It's not like I'll be wearing it for long.

Just long enough to convince Kit Martin to open his front door to Postman Pat.