Luke Delaney
Cold Killing
PROLOGUE
Saturday. I agreed to go to the park with the wife and children. Theyre over there on the grassy hill, just along from the pond. Theyve fed themselves, fed the ducks, and now theyre feeding their own belief that were one normal happy family. And to be fair, as far as theyre concerned, we are. I wont let the sight of them spoil my day. The sun is shining and Im getting a bit of a tan. The memory of the latest visit is still fresh and satisfying. It keeps the smile on my face.
Look at all these people. Happy and relaxed. Theyve no idea Im watching them. Watching as small children wander away from mothers too distracted by idle chat to notice. Then they realize their little darling has wandered too far and up goes that shrill shriek of an overprotective parent, followed by a leg slap for the child and more shrieking.
I am satisfied for the time being. The fun I had last week will keep me contented for a while, so everyone is safe today.
CHAPTER 1
Thursday
It was 3 A.M. and Detective Inspector Sean Corrigan drove through the dreary streets of New Cross, southeast London. He had been born and raised in nearby Dulwich, and for as long as he could remember, these streets had been a dangerous place. People could quickly become victims here, regardless of age, sex, or color. Life had little value.
But these worries were for other people, not Sean. They were for the people who had nine-to-five jobs in shops and offices. Those who arrived bleary eyed to work each morning, then scuttled home nervously every evening, only feeling safe once theyd bolted themselves behind closed doors.
Sean didnt fear the streets, having dealt with the worst they could throw at him. He was a detective inspector in charge of one of South Londons Murder Investigation Teams, dedicated to dealing with violent death. The killers hunted their victims and Sean hunted the killers. He drove with the window down and doors unlocked.
Hed been asleep at home when Detective Sergeant Dave Donnelly called. Thered been a murder. A bad one. A young man beaten and stabbed to death in his own flat. One minute Sean was lying by his wifes side, the next he was driving to the place where a young mans life had been torn away.
The streets around the murder scene were eerily quiet. He was pleased to see that the uniformed officers had done their job properly and taped off a large cordon around the block the flat was in. Hed been to scenes before where the cordon started and stopped at the front door. How much evidence had been carried away from scenes on the soles of shoes? He didnt want to think about it.
There were two marked patrol cars alongside Donnellys unmarked Ford. He always laughed at the murder scenes on television, with dozens of police cars parked outside, all with blue lights swirling away. Inside, dozens of detectives and forensics guys would be falling over each other. Reality was different. Entirely different.
Real crime scenes were all the more disturbing for their quietness-the violent death of the victim would leave the atmosphere shattered and brutalized. Sean could feel the horror closing in around him as he examined a scene. It was his job to discover the details of death, and over time he had grown hardened to it, but not immune. He knew that this scene would be no different.
He parked outside the taped-off cordon and climbed from the isolation of his car into the warm loneliness of the night, the stars of the clear sky and the streetlights removing all illusion of darkness. If he had been anyone else, doing any other job, he might have noticed how beautiful it was, but such thoughts had no place here. He flashed his identification to the approaching uniformed officer and grunted his name. DI Sean Corrigan, Serious Crime Group South. Wheres this flat?
The uniformed officer was young. He seemed afraid of Sean. He must be new if a mere detective inspector scared him. Number sixteen Tabard House, sir. Its on the second floor, up the stairs and turn right. Or you could take the lift.
Thanks.
Sean opened the boot of his car and cast a quick glance over the contents squeezed inside. Two large square plastic bins contained all he would need for an initial scene examination. Paper suits and slippers. Various sizes of plastic exhibit bags, paper bags for clothing, half a dozen boxes of plastic gloves, rolls of sticky labels, and of course a sledgehammer, a crowbar, and other tools. The boot of Seans car would be mirrored by detectives cars across the world.
He pulled on a forensic containment suit and headed toward the stairwell. The block was of a type common to this area of London. Low-rise tenements made from dark, oppressive, brown-gray brick that had been thrown up after the Second World War to house those bombed out of old slum areas. In their time theyd been a revelation-indoor toilets, running water, heating-but now only those trapped in poverty lived in them. They looked like prisons, and in a way thats what they were.
The stairwell smelled of urine. The stench of humans living on top of one another was unmistakable. This was summer and the vents of the flats pumped out the smells from within. Sean almost gagged on it, the sight, sound, and smell of the tenement block reminding him all too vividly of his own childhood, living in a three-bedroom, public housing duplex with his mother, two brothers, two sisters, and his father-his father who would lead him away from the others, taking him to the upstairs bedroom where things would happen. His mother too frightened to intervene-thoughts of reaching for a knife in the kitchen drawer swirling in her head, but fading away as her courage deserted her. But the curse of his childhood had left him with a rare and dark insightfulness-an ability to understand the motivations of those he hunted.
All too often the abused become the abusers as the darkness overtakes them, evil begetting evil-a terrible cycle of violence, virtually impossible to break-and so the demons of Seans past were too deeply assimilated in his being to ever be rid of. But Sean was different in that he could control his demons and his rage, using his shattered upbringing to allow him insights into the crimes he investigated that other cops could only dream of. He understood the killers, rapists, and arsonists-understood why they had to do what they did, could interpret their motivation-see what they saw, smell what they had smelled, feel what they had felt-their excitement, power, lust, revulsion, guilt, regret, fear. He could make leaps in investigations others struggled to understand, filling in the blanks with his unique imagination. Crime scenes came alive in his minds eye, playing in his head like movies. He was no psychic or clairvoyant; he was just a cop-but a cop with a broken past and a dangerous future, his skill at reading the ones he hunted born of his own dark, haunted past. Where better for a failed disciple of true evil to hide than among cops? Where better to turn his unique tools to good use than the police? He swallowed the bile rising in his throat and headed for the crime scene-the murder scene.
Sean stopped briefly to acknowledge another uniformed officer posted at the front door of the flat. The constable lifted the tape across the door and watched him duck inside. Sean looked down the corridor of the flat. It was bigger than it had seemed from the outside. DS Donnelly waited for him, his large frame filling the doorway, his mustache all but concealing the movement of his lips as he talked. Dave Donnelly, twenty-year-plus veteran of the Metropolitan Police and very much Seans old-school right-hand man. His anchor to the logical and practical course of an investigation and part-time crutch to lean on. Theyd had their run-ins and disagreements, but they understood each other-they trusted each other.
Morning, guvnor. Stick to the right of the hallway here. Thats the route Ive been taking in and out, Donnelly growled in his strange accent, a mix of Glaswegian and Cockney, his mustache twitching as he spoke.
Whatve we got? Sean asked matter-of-factly.
No sign of forced entry. Security is good in the flat, so he probably let the killer in. All the damage to the victim seems to have been done in the living room. A real fucking mess in there. No signs of disturbance anywhere else. The living room is the last door on the right, down the corridor. Other than that weve got a kitchen, two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a separate room for the toilet. From what Ive seen, the victim kept things reasonably clean and tidy. Decent taste in furniture. Theres a few photies of the victim around the place-as best I can tell, anyway. His injuries make it a wee bit difficult to be absolutely sure. Theres plenty of them with him, shall we say, embracing other men.
Gay? Sean asked.
Looks that way. Its early days, but theres definitely some decent hi-fi and TV stuff around the place, and I notice several of the photies have our boy in far-flung corners of the world. Must have cost a few pennies. Were not dealing with a complete loser here. He had a decent enough job, or he was a decent enough villain, although I dont get the feel this is a villains home. Both men craned their heads around the hallway area, as if to confirm Donnellys assessment so far. He continued: And Ive found a few letters all addressed to a Daniel Graydon. Nothing for anyone else.
Well, Daniel Graydon, Sean asked, what the hell happened to you? And why?
Shall we? With an outstretched hand pointing along the corridor, Donnelly invited Sean to continue.
They moved from room to room, leaving the living room to the end. They trod carefully, moving around the edges so as not to disturb any invisible footprint indentations left in the carpets or minute but vital evidence: a strand of hair, a tiny drop of blood. Occasionally Sean would take a photograph with his small digital camera. He would keep the photographs for his personal use only, to remind him of details he had seen, but also to put himself back at the scene anytime he needed to sense it again, to smell the odor of blood, to taste the sickly sweet flavor of death. To feel the killers presence. He wished he could be alone in the flat, without the distraction of having to talk to anyone-to explain what he was seeing and feeling. It had been the same ever since he was a young cop, his ability to step into the shoes of the offender, be it a residential burglary or murder. Seeing the scene through the eyes of the offender. But only the more alarming scenes seemed to trigger this reaction. Walking around scenes of domestic murders or gangland stabbings he saw more than most other detectives, but felt no more than they did. This scene already seemed different. He wished he were alone.
Sean felt uncomfortable in the flat. Like an intruder. As if he should be constantly apologizing for being there. He shook off the feeling and mentally absorbed everything. The cleanliness of the furniture and the floors. Were the dishes washed and put away? Had any food been left out? Did anything, no matter how small, seem somehow out of place? If the victim kept his clothing neatly folded away, then a shirt on the floor would alert Seans curiosity. If the victim had lived in squalor, a freshly cleaned glass next to a sink full of dirty dishes would attract his eye. Indeed, Sean had already noted something amiss.