“Seems a bit suspicious, if you ask me,” Dean told her. “We get some important news and suddenly he remembers a meeting he’s supposed to attend on his old ground. I reckon that bloke’s a plant.”
“Don’t be silly, Dean. He couldn’t possibly have known that the first murder he’d be assigned to when he joined us would happen on his old manor.”
“I suppose not,” Fletcher acknowledged, grudgingly. “But I bet he’s reporting everything he finds out here straight back to his old paymaster.”
“Why would he do that?” Wendy asked.
Fletcher shrugged. “Maybe he’s keeping in with Porter so that he’s got somewhere to run back to if things don’t work out for him here.”
“They can bloody well have him, as far as I’m concerned,” she said with gusto.
◆◆◆
The Disciple smiled as he walked into Whitechapel canteen. It was five p.m. and the canteen was starting to get busy. He could barely contain his excitement as he gazed around at the pathetic minions of law and order. What a joke they were. If only they knew the truth about him! But they didn’t and never would.
He had prepared himself mentally and spiritually, and he felt replenished. He knew his superior intellect gave him a vast advantage over them; it enabled him to walk among them without drawing attention to himself. That was the supreme irony of it all. The wolf happily passed amongst the sheep, devouring them at will, and yet they welcomed him with open arms, trusting him explicitly.
It was simply delicious.
He acknowledged a detective standing in front of him in the line for the till. The man nodded politely. They would never catch him. Not in a million years! He would paint the streets with blood tonight, and there was nothing that anyone could do to stop him.
Nothing!
◆◆◆
“DILLON!” Jack Tyler opened his eyes with a frightened start, aware that the terrifying screams that had woken him were his own. He claustrophobically pushed the quilt aside and sat up. “Dear God,” he breathed, slowly rubbing his temples.
This was the third time it had happened, and the dream was becoming more intense with every rerun, flashing before his mind like a horror film on a loop.
As the mist cleared, he would find himself back on the railway platform with Dillon, fighting Winston. He watched helplessly as, in slow motion, the gun went off, again and again, the noise reverberating painfully within the confines of his tortured mind.
In his dream it was suddenly Dillon, not him, struggling with Winston as the gun discharged. As the two men moved apart Jack saw blood spraying everywhere as his friend fell to the floor, a massive hole in his chest, a look of disbelief on his dying face. Strangely, although the rest of his dream was played out in black and white, the blood was always a vivid red.
And then Steve Bull was running towards Dillon, shouting, “This is real life, not an episode of The Sweeney. People get killed in real life.”
Jack was screaming his friend’s name as Winston, laughing insanely, turned the gun on him. At this point, mercifully, he always managed to wake up.
He sat there, holding his head until the images faded and his heartbeat returned to something approaching normal. Running his fingers through his hair, Jack looked across at the alarm clock on his bedside table. It said six p.m. He had slept for a little over six hours. He groaned softly, knowing it was nowhere near enough.
Tyler took himself downstairs. Perhaps a cup of coffee and something to eat would help.
Chris Deakin had recently left a message on his answer phone, passing on the results of the DNA comparisons. It was the only message, which hopefully meant that nothing else of major importance had happened while he was sleeping.
With the DNA match and Dawson’s evidence, he was confident they would be able to charge Winston, even if they failed to recover the murder weapon and Tracey’s underwear. And yet there still remained a nagging doubt in the back of his mind that he found disturbing. It was probably nothing, but he would mention it to Dillon, get his view on it.
◆◆◆
Shortly after 8 p.m., a lone figure hurried along Three Colts Lane, making for the railway arches. Pausing briefly to sniff the air like the predator he was, The Disciple made sure that no one was around to see him enter his lair. A light breeze was already blowing and it was beginning to drizzle. Heavy rain was forecast for later. He pulled up his collar to keep out the damp. Rain was good. It would serve him well tonight.
The Disciple no longer thought of himself by his given name. He saw that side of his personality as a grubby outer garment, waiting to be shed, as the butterfly within finally broke free of the chrysalis that encased it.
He had completed the preparatory stage and was now undergoing the transition, which would take him to a higher level of being. Smiling to himself he began to hum his tune. What a ride. What a thrill. All I’m gonna do is Kill, Kill, Kill.
It was time to strike again.
CHAPTER 17
The Disciple’s battered van emerged from the lockup at precisely nine p.m. that evening.
Most of the surrounding arches were operated by an overhaul company that specialised in the maintenance and repair of London taxicabs, and while the area was always busy during the day, at night he could usually count on the cobbled streets being completely deserted.
Pausing at the main road, The Disciple glanced thoughtfully at the rucksack on the passenger seat beside him, running through his inventory in his head. Among other things, the bag contained his knives and scalpels, a Polaroid camera, a specially padded pair of rigid handcuffs, stolen from the police canteen three weeks ago, and a police issue radio he’d ‘borrowed’ for a few days. The rucksack also contained a scrunched up cool bag, smelling salts, and the artefacts and parchment he
