‘So. Victimology one-oh-one: what if that’s why he chose Adrian York? The other abduction, the Kintry kid, if they really are connected… it sounds like an unplanned snatch and grab gone wrong.’
‘A trial run,’ Howie says.
‘Exactly. So, say he was learning. Refining his methods. He tries brute force in broad daylight. That doesn’t work out. Maybe he’s closer to getting caught than we realize. So he decides to go another way.’
‘I don’t get you.’
‘I’m saying, what if he knew about the complaints the mother made.’
‘Chrissie York.’
‘What if he knows about the complaints Chrissie York made to social services? What if he knew they treated her with contempt? If he knew that, he knew he could snatch the York kid right off the street. And if he’s fast enough, and nobody sees… nobody would believe it had even happened.’
‘Which makes it the perfect abduction,’ Howie says. ‘But that doesn’t alter the fact that he’s completely silent about it for fifteen years. So why start phoning radio stations now?’
‘I don’t know,’ Luther says. ‘Maybe because the Adrian York thing went well and the Lambert thing didn’t?’
‘Didn’t in what way? He got the baby.’
‘Depends what he needed from it. But maybe he’s feeling embarrassed. Feeling the need to justify what he did.’
‘But why does he feel that need now?’
‘Because he’s a psychopath. He doesn’t feel shame or guilt. He’s superior. He’s unique. He looks down on us. He detests us. But it matters to him that we know he’s better than us. He needs our admiration.’
On the way to the car he calls Teller. He asks her to call Avon amp; Somerset, get them to bike over the Adrian York and Thomas Kintry cold case files.
He asks for the contact details of Detective Inspector Patricia Maxwell, probably retired.
He calls Ian Reed at home and asks him to look over Maggie Reilly’s old news report to see if anything strikes him as relevant or odd.
They’re all long shots: the York case is sixteen or seventeen years old. But the ground has to be covered.
Then he phones Zoe and asks her to meet him.
CHAPTER 10
Luther walks through a night swarm of briefcases, umbrellas, pinstripe suits and taxis, then steps into Postman’s Park. He walks through the icy rain until he reaches a long wooden gallery that shelters a wall decorated with ceramic tiles.
Waiting, he reads some of the tiles. Takes strange comfort from them:
Elizabeth Coghlam, Aged 26, Of Church Path, Stoke
Newington. Died saving her family and house by carrying blazing paraffin to the yard. Jan 1 1902
Tobias Simpson, Died of exhaustion after saving many lives from the breaking ice at Highgate Ponds, Jan 25 1885
Jeremy Morris, Aged 10, Bathing in the Grand Junction Canal.
Sacrificed his life to help his sinking companion, Aug 2 1897
It’s called ‘The Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice’. They knew how to name things in the Victorian era.
He turns and Zoe’s there, shivering wet in her coat and holding a takeaway coffee in each hand.
‘I saw the news,’ she says.
‘Yeah.’ He takes a coffee. ‘Bad day.’
They stand next to each other, read the tiles. Sip coffee.
She says, ‘Is the baby alive?’
‘I don’t know. Part of me hopes not.’
‘Will you be home tonight?’
‘I can’t. Rose has asked me to stay on.’
In fact, Teller has ordered him to go home and get some sleep.
He’s not needed: they’re pulling people off sick leave. Specialist surveillance units will be monitoring hospitals and late-night surgeries, drop-in centres. There are hundreds of coppers out there right now, waiting for Pete Black to show up somewhere on the sombre face of London; a baby bundled in his arms, alive or dead.
Luther says, ‘Will you be okay?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ she says. ‘Glass of wine, catch up on work. I spent two hours today with those sodding school kids.’
‘Lock the doors and windows,’ he says. ‘Set the alarm. Put on the deadbolts. Front door and back.’
‘I always lock the doors and the windows.’
‘I know.’
‘So why say it?’
‘To make me feel better.’
‘That’s the problem with all this,’ she says. ‘You spend all day in it. You see it everywhere.’
‘I know.’
‘It’s not everywhere.’
‘I know.’
‘When we were kids,’ she says, ‘when you’d just started out, you went to this flat. An old woman had died alone. She’d been dead in her chair for about two years. She’d mummified.’
‘Irene,’ he says.
‘That’s her. You came home. We had that little flat on Victoria Road, that tiny little place with the shared bathroom and that weird couple downstairs. Wendy and Dave.’
He smiles sadly, remembering.
‘I fell asleep before you got back,’ Zoe says. ‘You came in, sat on the edge of the bed. I watched you drink a pint of whisky in about ten minutes. It was the first time I ever saw you really cry.’
He shrugs. ‘It was sad.’
‘I know it was sad, it was really sad. I still think about her sometimes.’
‘Me too.’
‘But that night, when you were drunk, you were angry. I mean, really angry. Scary angry.’
He turns to her, not remembering. ‘Angry about what?’
‘The jokes they told. The police, the medical examiner, the ambulance crew. The lack of respect. You said they objectified her exactly like a killer would. And you got so angry at yourself, for not saying anything to them. Telling them to have more respect.’
‘I was a kid.’
‘And you wondered if you’d made a terrible mistake — done the wrong thing by joining the police.’ She brushes wet hair from her eyes. ‘That was the first time you talked about leaving the police. Sixteen years ago. And you’ve been talking about giving it up ever since.’
‘I know.’
‘But you never have.’
‘I know.’
‘And you never will.’
He doesn’t answer that. How can he?
She steps closer. They stand side by side, looking at the tiles. She says, ‘Have you ever heard of Bipolar Two Disorder?’
He laughs.
‘It’s under-diagnosed,’ she says. ‘I looked it up. Hypomania often presents as high-functioning behaviour.’
