As usual, he left the tram in Woolmarket Square. I was less than a dozen yards behind him. He turned back to wave to his soon-to-be bereaved lover. I swiftly turned away, pretending to read the tram timetable. The last thing I wanted right then was for him to notice me, to realize I was dogging his steps. I gave it a few seconds, then took up the pursuit. Left into Bellwether Street. I could see his dark hair bobbing among the shop and office workers crowding the pavements. Adam cut down an alley to his right, and I emerged in Crown Plaza just in time to see him enter the Inland Revenue building where he worked. Satisfied that this was just another Monday, I carried on through the plaza, past the squat glass and metal office block, and into the newly restored Victorian shopping arcades.
I had time to kill. The thought brought a smile to my lips.
I went off to do some studying in the Central Library. They had nothing new in, so I settled for an old favourite, Killing for Company. Dennis Nilsen’s case never ceases both to fascinate and repel me. He murdered fifteen young men without anyone even missing them. No one had the faintest idea that there was a gay serial killer stalking the homeless and rootless. He befriended them, took them home, gave them drink, but he could only cope with them once they had been perfected in death. Then, and only then, could he hold them, have sex with them, cherish them. Now that is sick. They’d done nothing to deserve their fate; they had committed no betrayal, no act of treachery.
The only mistake Nilsen made was in the disposal of the bodies. It’s almost as if subconsciously he wanted to be caught. Chopping them up and cooking them was fine, but flushing them down the toilet? It must have been obvious to a man as intelligent as he was that the drains wouldn’t be able to handle that volume of solids. I’ve never understood why he didn’t just feed the meat to his dog.
However, it’s never too late to learn from the mistakes of others. The blunders of killers never cease to amaze me. It doesn’t take much intelligence to understand how the police and forensic scientists operate and to take appropriate precautions, especially since the men who earn their living trying to catch the killers have obligingly written detailed textbooks about the precise nature of their work. On the other hand, we only ever hear about the failures. I knew I was never going to appear in those catalogues of incompetence. I had planned too well, every risk minimized and balanced against the benefits it would bring. The only account of my work will be this journal, which will not see printer’s ink until my last breath is a distant memory. My only regret is that I won’t be around to read the reviews.
I was back at my post by four, even though I’d never known Adam leave work before a quarter to five. I sat in the window of Burger King on Woolmarket Square, perfectly placed to watch the mouth of the alley leading to his office. Right on cue, he emerged at 4.47 and headed for the tram stop. I joined the knot of people waiting on the raised platform, smiling quietly to myself as I heard the tram hoot in the distance. Enjoy your tram ride, Adam. It’s going to be your last.
The fact was, I ‘fancied’ him, and resolved to commence business upon his throat.
When Damien Connolly failed to turn up at the start of his shift as local information officer in F Division’s station on the south side of the city, the duty sergeant hadn’t been unduly worried. Although PC Connolly was one of the best collators in the force, and a trained HOLMES officer, he was a notoriously bad timekeeper. At least twice a week, he came hurtling through the doors of the station a good ten minutes after his shift was due to start. But when he still hadn’t shown up half an hour after he was due on duty, Sergeant Claire Bonner felt a twinge of irritation. Even Connolly had enough sense to realize that if he was going to be more than fifteen minutes late, he had to phone in. Today of all days as well, when headquarters were demanding a full turnout of HOLMES officers on the serial-killer investigation.
Sighing, Sgt Bonner checked Connolly’s home number in her files and dialled it. The phone rang and rang, till finally it was automatically disconnected. She felt a prickle of concern. Connolly was something of a loner outside the job. He was quieter and maybe more thoughtful than most of the officers on Sgt Bonner’s relief, always keeping his distance when he joined in the social life of the station. As far as she was aware, there was no girlfriend in whose bed Connolly might have overslept. His family were all up in Glasgow, so there were no relatives to try locally. Sgt Bonner cast her mind back. Yesterday had been a day off for the relief. When they’d knocked off from the previous night shift, Connolly had come for breakfast with her and half a dozen of the other lads. He’d not said anything about having plans for his time off other than catching up on his kip and working on his car, an elderly Austin Healey roadster.
Sgt Bonner went through to the control room and had a word with her opposite number, asking him to have one of the patrol cars swing round by Connolly’s house to check he wasn’t ill or injured. ‘See if they can check the garage, make sure that bloody car of his hasn’t come off the jack with him underneath,’ she added as she went back to her desk.
It was after eight when the control room sergeant appeared in her office. ‘The lads have checked Connolly’s house. No answer to the door. They had a good scout round, and all the curtains were open. Milk on the doorstep. No sign of life as far as they could make out. There was only one thing a bit odd that they could see. His car was parked on the street, which isn’t like him. I don’t have to tell you, he treats that motor like the crown jewels.’
Sgt Bonner frowned. ‘Maybe he’s got somebody stopping with him? A relative, or a girlfriend? Maybe he’s let them stick their car in the garage?’
The control room sergeant shook his head. ‘Nope. The lads had a look in the garage window, and it was empty. And don’t forget the milk.’
Sgt Bonner shrugged. ‘Not a lot more we can do, then, is there?’
‘Well, he’s over twenty-one. I’d have thought he’d have more sense than to go on the missing list, but you know what they say about the quiet ones.’
Sgt Bonner sighed. ‘I’ll have his guts for garters when he shows his face. By the way, I’ve asked Joey Smith to stand in for him in the collator’s office for this shift.’
The control room sergeant cast his eyes upwards. ‘You really know how to make a man’s day, don’t you? Couldn’t you have got one of the others? Smith can barely manage the alphabet.’
Before Sgt Bonner could argue the toss, there was a knock at the door. ‘Yeah?’ she called. ‘Come in.’
A PC from the control room entered hesitantly. She looked faintly sick. ‘Skip,’ she said, the worry in her voice obvious from the single word. ‘I think you’d better have a look at this.’ She held out a fax, the bottom edge ragged where it had been torn hastily off the roll.
Being nearer, the control room sergeant took the flimsy sheet and glanced at it. He drew in his breath sharply, then closed his eyes for a moment. Wordlessly, he handed the fax to Sgt Bonner.
At first, all she saw was the stark black and white of the photograph. For a moment, her mind automatically protecting her from horror, she wondered why someone had gone over her head and reported Connolly missing. Then her eyes translated the marks on the paper into words. ‘Urgent fax to all stations. This is the unidentified murder victim discovered yesterday afternoon in the back yard of the Queen of Hearts public