Phobia Read online

  He had long ago chosen a different path.

  He had showered, and now he shaved carefully as he considered that greater world, the one into which he had chosen to travel, one in which most feared to tread. He had broken free of the constraints of society, slipped the moorings of what was blithely considered acceptable, normal, and voyaged into the wild, uncharted waters of undiluted hedonism. And all of that had happened years ago. He recalled fetish clubs, where grown men and women chose to whip each other, to humiliate, to cause pain. He had been shocked to find people who actually wanted to be abused, to be struck, to be chained and whipped and even to have consensual sex as a part of the experience. It amazed him that any man would risk arrest and prison for crimes such as rape or assault, when, were they to look in the right places, they could live out their fantasies with like–minded souls. Some wanted to control, others still wanted to be controlled, pliant and submissive.

  But that had not been enough.

  There had been those who wished to be brought to the edge of death as part of their fantasies, and, occasionally, those who accidentally went too far in their pursuit of the sordid line between pleasure and death itself. And at one such event, he had witnessed it for himself.

  The woman had not wanted to die. She had been suspended by the neck with a belt from a door that was ajar, while being taken from behind by a man in a mask. He had watched with others, the woman groaning, her tongue rolling around her lips as though in pleasure, not the throes of death. Nobody had noticed when she fell silent, her body shuddering with each vigorous thrust. Nobody noticed that her eyes briefly filled with panic, her tongue bulging.

  Nobody except him.

  He had watched, enraptured, as the spark of life in her eyes faded, that last moment as she stared, unseeing, into the void of her own mortality. Then she died, the grimacing man behind her reaching a loud and violent climax.

  Only when she voided herself a moment later did anybody realise that she was in danger. He had watched as the other men in the room frantically tried to revive her before calling an ambulance. He himself had done nothing wrong, and every other person in the room was a stranger, so he had simply dressed and left the scene with images of the woman’s last, desperate moment of life imprinted on his mind. It was then that he had realised that the sex was not what he craved. Carnal pleasure was as transient as the feeble relationships he had forged with others in the BDSM community. Mortal pleasure, on the other hand, was literally for life.

  He combed his hair in front of the mirror, then pulled on a comfortable shirt. He dabbed a touch of aftershave onto his jaw, preparing himself for the night’s exertions. This would not be an easy or pleasant experience for the subject, but he knew that it would be worth it for all concerned, for this was the night when he would come out of his shell for all to see. This was the moment that he had been waiting for, planning for, all these years.

  He walked downstairs and checked his watch: 6.12pm. He then opened a small notebook that he kept on a mantelpiece in the living room. He opened the notebook with care and sat down, switching the television on as he turned to a page with a list of names. Slowly, carefully, as he watched a BBC newscast about the body found in Southwark cathedral grounds, he drew a line through a name on the list.

  Amber Carson.

  Above the name was another, with a line already drawn through it: Sebastian Dukas. Slowly, with a delighted relish, he turned back to the previous page, and cast his eye over the names therein, each with a thin line through the middle. Why had he not thought of this before? Why had he killed without being known? Such things were to be shared, to be marvelled at, to be shown to others. All work and no play…

  The media were aware of the deaths and were circling the scene for the next revelation, wolves around a decaying carcass. The police were scrambling, unsuccessfully, to catch a killer. Everything was in place for the game to begin. Timing was essential: too early, and his victim would recover consciousness too soon; too late, and they would not be conscious in time. He slipped on his jacket, and tucked a compact umbrella into an inside pocket, for he knew well that rain was on the way. Lots of rain. Autumnal storms were sweeping in from the Atlantic, threatening the city with torrential downpours. The foggy mornings were already gone, replaced with the squalls and gales of what was promising to be a turbulent September. He would have to hurry to make sure he was in just the right place, at just the right time, for his date with another victim’s destiny.

  Carefully, he put the notebook back on the mantlepiece, and was about to switch off the television when a reporter’s broadcast caught his eye.

  ‘… when onlookers were able to take some brief images of the Southwark crime scene before forensic teams were able to put up tents. While we were unable to see anything of the victim or victims, we were able to identify several City detectives at the scene who appear to be running the case, although at this time there has been no response to our enquiries with the force and…’

  He was no longer listening to the broadcast, and he hit the pause button on his remote as he saw an image of two detectives staring up at the onlookers, who must have been trying to take photographs of the crime scene from up on the A3. Slowly, he crouched down in front of the television, the high–resolution image easily picking the two faces out.

  A woman, tense–looking, shoulder–length blonde hair, small, maybe early–thirties. Alongside her, a younger, taller Asian man with black hair, a camera in his hand as he snapped an image of the onlookers.

  He smiled.

  ‘Hello, Detectives. Welcome to the game.’

  DI Katy Harper held a second briefing that evening, just as the sun was going down outside Honor’s office. The tower block opposite was bathed in golden light from the low sun that contrasted sharply with the dark, lumbering clouds unfolding across a brutal sky. Gusts of drizzle blasted the windows in random squalls that came as fast as they went.

  ‘We’ve lost one detective as of tomorrow morning,’ DI Harper announced. ‘DC Jim Broadbent is at the Old Bailey for the Abdul Mohammad trial, and won’t be back for at least two weeks. I’ve asked the MET for support but their hands are full, so all leave is cancelled until we can get a handle on the Dukas and Carson cases.’

  Nobody complained. This was what detectives did: when a major case broke, pretty much everybody gave up the idea of family or social lives for the duration. Honor found that easier than most, as she lived alone and had no dependents, and she imagined that Samir also coped well with such hardships. It was a tough call though for Danny, who might go several days without seeing his family.

  ‘Where are we on CCTV with either case?’ Harper asked.

  ‘It’s a bust at St Magnus,’ Danny reported, ‘absolutely nothing on any cameras that we have access to. He didn’t get there by road. Thames River Police are reviewing their records to see if this guy somehow got into the site via the river.’

  ‘Same from us,’ Honor said, gesturing to Samir. ‘All footage of St Magnus is in and it’s clear. Southwark Cathedral is in progress, but we’re expecting the same. This guy is moving about in some other way.’

  ‘He’s not a bloody genie,’ Harper snapped. ‘Stop looking at monitors, get back down there and start investigating, that’s what we’re supposed to do, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s not like we’re sitting here with our thumbs up our arses, boss,’ Danny shot back. ‘The sites didn’t reveal anything about our suspect’s movements, he hasn’t so far left a trail, and the scene at Southwark was wrecked by people trying to save Amber’s life.’

  ‘I understand that,’ Harper acknowledged, a little softer in tone. ‘Just try again to see if you can figure out how he’s pulling this off, and we might find a way to catch him in the act.’

  Honor had been thinking the same thing. ‘I’ll head to Amber Carson’s flat in the morning, see what I can see. The landlord has given us access to the property. It’s possible the perpetrator might have been there, even though the site
seemed secure when local police arrived.’

  ‘Good. What about the IT side?’

  ‘Nothing solid yet,’ Danny replied. ‘The phone used in the coffin to relay the signals was badly damaged, but the Cyber Griffin team think they can get the data out of it. That’ll allow us to identify the general area that the phone was sending signals to, once we contact the provider, but I don’t think we’ll have that until the morning.’

  ‘And the phobia sites, the ones the victims were using?’

  ‘We’re tracking down Face Fear users at the moment,’ Samir said. ‘So far, twelve people who live in the vicinity of the square mile have been identified as safe and well, but there are hundreds more on the site and countless other similar sites on the Internet who live in the city. It could take months to identify all of them.’

  DI Harper nodded, well aware of the scope of the issue.

  ‘If this gets any worse, we’ll have to use the media to get the message out,’ she said. ‘Spreading panic is the last thing I want to do, but if we’re not able to reach anybody who might be a victim of this killer, then it’s our only option. Twenty–four hours, folks, we can’t sit on this any longer than that. If we don’t get a major break in the case by tomorrow afternoon, I’ll contact the families of the victims for permission to take what we have to the media and officially announce the investigation.’

  ‘He’s going to strike again,’ Honor said, ‘there’s no doubt about it. That’s two now, and I’m willing to bet that he’s already hunting the third.’

  ‘Anything on missing persons to support that?’ The DI was answered by silence from the detectives. ‘So, theoretically, the Dukas and Carson cases could just be coincidental?’

  Honor shook her head.

  ‘I doubt that, there’s too much similarity between them. I still think that Sebastian Dukas’s murder went wrong, he wasn’t killed the way he was supposed to be.’

  She could tell that the DI still wasn’t buying her hypothesis in full, but neither could she deny that the facts they did possess supported the idea that one killer was responsible for both crimes. As though on cue, the door to the Incident Room opened and a uniformed officer hurried in with an urgent look on her face.

  ‘Apologies, but I thought that you should all know: the pathologist conducting the autopsy on Amber McVey got a baseline toxicology report back. She searched for GHB and found it in Amber’s blood, confirming that she was drugged prior to her murder. Is that relevant to the case?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ DI Harper replied, and then looked at Honor. ‘The CCTV, from the bar she was in.’

  ‘Understood, I’ll take it home with me and check it tonight,’ Honor replied.

  ‘I’m halfway through it,’ Samir added, ‘nothing yet but I’ll do the same. If he’s there, we’ll spot him.’

  ‘Good,’ Harper said. ‘We need this guy in custody before he can attack his next victim. I want everybody in here at seven–thirty sharp tomorrow morning, and make sure the CRIS database is fully updated in case the MET or river police pick anything up overnight.’

  Honor glanced at the clock and saw that it was already nearly eight o’clock. Thirteen hours in on day two, two bodies in the morgue and they still didn’t have a clue how their killer was making his way around the city without being seen.

  11

  Honor’s flat seemed somehow less inviting as she locked her front door behind her and switched on the hall light. Wherever she walked, all she could see in front of her was Amber Carson’s face, caked in cement, her skin sloughing off, her hair thick with congealed concrete: and behind it all, her features twisted into that hellish mask, her terminal scream of terror. The interview with her family had been overwhelming, their grief crushing Honor as though it were her child that had been lost…

  She leaned against the wall, suddenly fatigued beyond all comprehension, anxiety churning like black oil in the pit of her stomach. From the living room, Bailey strolled slowly around the corner of the door and looked at her before stretching expectantly. He wandered over and rubbed his body against her leg, wrapped his tail around it.

  Honor prepared some food for him, set it down on the kitchen floor before shoving a ready meal into the microwave and pouring herself a glass of chilled wine. She headed into the living room and switched on the news, keen to keep an eye on it while she scanned through the CCTV from the pubs that Amber and Sebastian had frequented before their untimely deaths.

  The footage from inside the Crosse Keys pub where Amber had spent her last night was of reasonably good quality, and she could see easily the group of four girls occupying one of the tables near the pub’s central, circular bar. The footage was in black and white, and only showed a frame every four seconds in order to save storage capacity on its solid–state drive. Still, that was enough to catch most people who were in the bar that night, and her eyes were particularly focused on the table where the girls were sitting.

  Bailey joined her on the sofa as she watched the footage play out. The girls were enjoying a few drinks and some food, Honor eating her own nuked meal as she watched. They were laughing, enjoying themselves, occasionally glancing at attractive young men entering the pub. The girls were probably single, then, or willing to play out of school – possibly something that a killer could take advantage of. Honor watched as the footage played out in staccato monochrome, fifteen seconds to each minute, fifteen minutes to each hour: she guessed that she would be done in forty–five minutes or so if…

  ‘… reports of a connection between the two recent murders in the capital, after an anonymous tip off from the public revealed that the victims were one Sebastian Dukas, thirty–two, from Camberwell, and Amber Carson, thirty–two, from Hackney.’

  Honor hit the pause button on her laptop and stopped chewing, her eyes fixed on the television as a sensation of dread gripped her. A woman was reporting from a location in Southwark, right alongside the cathedral, the building illuminated in a grand display against the night sky and the twinkling lights of the embankment.

  ‘The report revealed that both victims were in fact murdered in a particularly gruesome way, with both being exposed to their greatest fears. In fact, they were deliberately killed while enduring their greatest phobias.’

  ‘Oh, shit.’

  ‘It has been alleged that Sebastian Dukas was terrified of heights, and was hanged from the steeple of St Magnus the Martyr Church in Bishopsgate, two hundred feet above the ground, while Amber Carson was buried alive in the grounds of Southwark Cathedral, before tons of fresh cement were used to fill in the pit as part of an underpinning renovation on the cathedral’s wall. These allegations also confirm that the City of London Police already know that there is a serial killer at work in the city, and that they have actual footage of the moment of death of at least one of the victims. The witness report stated that the police are expecting more murders and are currently powerless to prevent them.’

  Honor heard her mobile phone spring into life on her coffee table, and she answered it immediately.

  ‘McVey.’

  ‘Harper,’ came the DI’s furious tone down the line, ‘what the actual fuck is going on?’

  ‘It’s not my boys, boss,’ Honor replied, certain that neither Danny nor Samir would have reported this to the media. ‘This isn’t a leak inside the unit. This came from the man who committed the killings.’

  ‘You can’t know that.’

  ‘We’re a small team,’ Honor shot back. ‘Nobody wants to see this killer get away after what happened to Amber Carson. You saw how that affected everyone.’

  ‘Could be the families of either of the victims,’ Harper said, cooling somewhat.

  ‘Maybe they’re not happy with the lack of results.’

  ‘Too soon,’ Honor countered. ‘They’re still in shock, the anger won’t have hit them yet. We need the BBC to reveal their source.’

  ‘They’re not going to drop an informer in the can and flush them on our say so,’ Harper pointed
out. ‘Besides, the tip–off was anonymous. This is on us, whether it’s a leak or this arsehole pulling our chains. Do we have anything new to tell them?’

  ‘We’re reviewing the bar footage now, and should have something to say within an hour or less.’

  ‘Such as? Blurry image of man in bar? And what if we don’t have anything to show?’

  ‘I can’t say,’ Honor replied, knowing that it was both the truth and entirely inadequate.

  Then, she heard nothing but the television in the background as she saw her own face on the screen, a pixelated blown–up image of her.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Honor McVey is reported to be leading the team seeking the murderer, a career police officer and detective with over a decade on the force, but who was recently off work for over six months for a stress–related condition. She’s partnered with a male detective who is known to have been a direct–entrant to the force with no prior experience. With an apparently sadistic killer on the loose in the city and no known leads at this time, it raises questions about the decision to assign a newbie and a recently recovered stress victim to the case. Sarah Griffiths, BBC News, Southwark.’

  There was a long silence on the line as Honor stared at the screen, her body numb, her heart battering the walls of her chest as her vision blurred. An image of DC Hansen flickered through her mind, smirking.

  ‘We need to get ahead of this, Honor,’ Harper said, breaking the silence with a somewhat more sympathetic tone – she had evidently heard the same broadcast at the same time. ‘Press conference, tomorrow, and I need you to lead it. Looks like you’ve become the face of this investigation. It’ll be a good opportunity to put doubting minds to rest. Let me know the moment you find anything on that CCTV footage.’