The Sister(61)
There was a pub about a mile or so away; they would drive and park nearby. They never stayed in the pub for more than a couple of hours. When he slipped in the first time to eavesdrop on them, they spoke in confidential tones. They couldn’t keep their conversation from him as long as he could see them because he was lip-reading. From where he sat, he could only interpret one side of the dialogue. Reading Kennedy’s face as well as his lips, he registered his concern in talking about his mother, ‘… she’s sick, but fiercely independent…’ ‘… Dad drinks too much.’ It was clear she was totally dependent on his father’s ability to carry on.
You’re only as strong as the weakest link in the chain, you should know that, Kennedy.
His continuing surveillance revealed where Kennedy’s parents lived, also leading him to his secretary’s address. She’d left the station one evening with her boss in his car; he imagined briefly that he might get some footage of them together in a compromising position, but he’d dropped her off at a garage, where she transferred into another car and continued her journey. He followed her.
She lived alone with her teenage daughter. In the dead of night, rifling through the refuse in the bin outside her house, he quickly established there was no man living there. No beer cans, no letters addressed to Mr Dick Head. No man-things at all.
You could learn a lot from people’s rubbish by examining discarded envelopes and empty boxes. If they had a cat or dog and how well fed it was. Near the top of the bin was a tampon wrapper. Someone was having, or just finished their period. From the mini size, he concluded it had to be the daughter. One of the best things about recycling, he mused, was that there was no more sorting through smelly food waste to build a profile of the inhabitants of the house. Picking up an old prescription box, the label revealed it belonged to Miss Terri Hunter. It was for Seroxat. He made no sound other than the dry, plastic whispering of the bags as he put them back where he’d found them. No dog, no man, no surprises.
Around midnight he fished through the letterbox with a specially shaped piece of metal. Sometimes his victims doubled locked the doors and then he’d have to find another way, but not tonight. Tonight was easy. He looked forward to warming up; the cold had chilled his bones, God, how he’d love to warm up with her. Silently opening the bedroom door, he listened to the soft sound of her breathing. His eyes adjusted to the light; he could make out her features, moving closer he leaned in over her and breathed in her exhaled breath. Now you’re mine.
Theresa stirred and turned onto her side. Biting his lip, he lifted the cover exposing her voluptuous form. Reaching to touch her, he bit down harder and controlling himself; he withdrew from the room. He had things for her to do first and then after that; she’d be eating from his hand. His lips tightened at the thought, into a semblance of a smile.
He did not get home until the early hours of the morning, but he wasn’t tired, instead strangely elated. Typing Seroxat, he googled it and found it was prescribed primarily for the treatment of anxiety, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. He wondered if she might be suffering from all three.
His observations also revealed the DCI had a taste for prostitutes. It quickly became apparent he was using one in particular, on a regular basis. He staked out her home, originally with the intention of finding a way to film him in the act. In order to do that, he’d have to break in and set up remote cameras he could monitor from outside. He already knew Kennedy had visited on three consecutive occasions, two Saturdays and a Friday. Patience would reward him with the opportunity to blackmail him and discredit him so thoroughly. He half smiled as he arrived outside the flat around midnight. Up on the fire escape, blended almost perfectly against the black metal landing, was someone dressed in dark clothes. He stood in the shadows watching, as the figure furtively peered through the gap in the blinds covering the back door.
A Peeping Tom!
Settling down into his haunches, shielded from the peeper’s view by a row of low bushes, he checked the direction of the breeze. Satisfied it would not alert the man, he lit a cigarette behind his cupped hand and watched him. The cigarette inspired a shift in his thinking.
An hour later he trailed the peeper home.
Chapter 48
In late January 2007, police authorities launched a joint coordinated action across several counties, code-named 'Operation Moonlight', in an effort to flush out the perpetrator of a one-man crime wave who was dubbed the Midnight man by the press. The campaign included the surveillance and monitoring of known criminals on a scale not seen for years.
At the same time, a series of prominent adverts announced in the local press. We Buy Your Unwanted Jewellery – Platinum, Gold, Silver – Top Prices Paid! Undercover officers took over vacant retail outlets and ran them as second-hand dealerships. We Buy Anything! By installing covert CCTV camera and recording equipment in the shops, detectives hoped some of the jewellery stolen in Midnight’s raids would surface, providing a lead back to him. The operation caught droves of junkies, muggers and casual criminals, but none of the items recovered matched any of the Midnight cases.
Kennedy had set up just such a unit under his jurisdiction and he monitored the arrests with interest. The Crimewatch programme had failed to achieve the results he’d hoped for, and he began to harbour a secret wish that ‘Midnight’ would surface in his Manor. If he did and Kennedy caught him, it would be a real feather in his cap.