The Sister(120)

‘Yes, sir?’

‘I want them run through the database, all burglaries where the owners have those combined initials.’

Brady groaned.

‘You got a problem with that, Brady?’ The chief scowled at him.

‘No, sir—’

Caulson cut him off again. ‘If we can tie it to a burglary, he might have left some forensic,’ he explained, a sudden weariness in his tone.

‘How far back are we going with this?’

‘Start digging your way backwards, I have a feeling in my water, it won’t be too far back.’

‘He probably got it from a boot sale.’

Caulson was uncharacteristically patient. ‘Maybe...he might have taken it out of a skip, but if this turns nothing up, you’ll follow that line of enquiry afterwards.’

‘We could just go public?’

Caulson shook his head. ‘At the moment I want it kept quiet, but yes if nothing else turns up...’ Caulson was already imagining the spate of copycat nutcases claiming to be the killer.

The chief stood up, signalling the end of their meeting.

‘Brady, I want answers. Get your teams working on it right now. We’ll reconvene in the morning.’

‘Yes, sir,’ he said, faking enthusiasm.





Brady returned to his own office. He wondered if Cooper was still around; he could have just walked around the corner to see, but his encounter with Caulson had left him drained. He didn’t even bother trying to raise him on the internal phone; he dialled him on his mobile.

Cooper was another ex-Metropolitan man, albeit he’d been in Scotland for ten years.

‘You still around? Good. Can you come to my office? Yeah, five minutes?’

Cooper dropped into the chair opposite. ‘How was he?’ he flicked his eyes in the direction of Caulson’s office.

‘Is he always that personable?’ Brady said.

Cooper laughed, ‘He’s getting worse. Coming up for retirement, he was already getting a bit flaky – I think he was hoping to get out before anything too drastic presented itself. Go out with a whimper and not a bang. Looks like he’s out of luck; the last time something like this happened was twenty years ago, I think he sees it getting out of hand, and you are the new boy.’

Brady shrugged. ‘He wants these initials checked out.’ He pushed a photograph of the handle towards Cooper.

Cooper frowned, ‘J.F.K...’

‘It’s one of three possibilities,’ he conceded.

‘It’s the only one,’ said Cooper. ‘Look, there’s a stop after the J. and the F. There isn’t one after the K—’

‘Let me see that!’ Brady interrupted, grabbing the photos back, irritated he’d missed that detail himself. Cooper was right; there are faint stops after only those letters. ‘J.F.K – well that narrows the field. I think we can safely say it’s not the former American president’s bat.’

Cooper grinned at him. ‘That’s just narrowed it some more!’

Brady took a swipe at him with the photo. ‘Seriously, we need to run a check on lost property – a long shot I know. All victims of burglaries with those initials, find out if they had a bat stolen. If we can find one and tie it in with forensics, that would be great. He doesn’t want to go public, so we’re stuck with doing it this way.’

‘Not a problem,’ Cooper said, ‘but I'd be surprised if we turn up a single lead.’

‘Well, he said to start local and then fan out. Let’s get onto it.’





Chapter 104



3 April 2007, late evening.





Paedophile Killings! Police Seek Vigilante Suspect.

The headlines were on billboards and newspapers everywhere. The story spread like wildfire. Aside from regurgitating the original story, the press was unable to do anything to satisfy public demand for the truth. Whoever he was, he’d captured the imagination of people all across the country. From up-market hairdressers to backstreet barbers, bistros, bars and restaurants – everyone was talking. The story quickly topped the list of the most searched news articles on the internet.

If he were to step out of the shadows, he’d become an instant celebrity.

For once, the press was not to blame for the reaction of the public. The stranger couldn’t quite believe the things he heard people saying.

‘He deserves a medal for what he done.’

‘I’ve heard the police aren’t looking for him too hard.’

‘I heard they had him, but let him go.’

‘It’s part of a secret crackdown by the government, costs too much to keep 'em in prison so they’re wasting 'em using ex-soldiers.’

‘He’s ex SAS; he has to be.’





In a pub, in North Wales, a stranger sat quiet and unnoticed, nursing a pint of dark ale at a small table, tucked away under the rake of the stairs. There was no room on the other side for another chair. Smoke curled from his cigarette joining the thin grey fug that collected above his head.

He had a way of watching from beneath his eyebrows that wasn’t obvious to the casual observer. The object of his attention was a tall, oddly balanced, curly haired man with a high voice who held court among a small crowd at the end of the bar a few feet away. Delivering a punch line he half-twisted and bowed with a burst of laughter, turning to reveal, an empty sleeve pinned to his chest at elbow level. The remaining arm had compensated for the loss and developed to almost the size of his thigh. Those who had known him before his loss would probably have said he’d also developed a bigger personality, and it had helped him to erase the bitterness he felt. Losing an arm was bad enough at any age, but in one so young… It also made him fiercely competitive, always out to prove himself. He was regaling a group of men around him in a loud drunken voice, with a version of how he thought the vigilante had pulled off the killings.