He gave his appearance a final check in the rear-view mirror. Tonight, he had opted for shoulder length brown hair, a drooping seventies moustache and tortoiseshell glasses with clear frames. He had left off the additional padding he’d worn for the first kill, making his midriff look a lot slimmer.
Satisfied with his disguise, he pulled into Cambridge Heath Road and set a course for Whitechapel. The noise level inside his head had gone right off the scale, the words of his twisted song forming a mantra of evil that he repeated over and over again.
He reminded himself not to exceed the speed limit, but his foot had other ideas; it wanted to press the gas pedal to the floor and keep it jammed there until he reached his destination and the bloodshed could begin all over again.
His mouth was parched. Without taking his eyes from the road, he leaned over and removed a bottle of sparkling mineral water from a side pocket in his rucksack. Wedging it between his thighs, he unscrewed it, one-handed, and drank greedily, savouring every drop of the precious liquid. Soon, he reminded himself, he would be able to savour another of life’s precious liquids. He licked his lips as he contemplated the night’s menu: sliced whore, chopped whore, and fillet of whore. “Patience, patience,” he cautioned himself. There would be time aplenty to satisfy all his cravings tonight.
◆◆◆
At that very moment, some twenty miles distant, Tyler was nearing the end of his workout. Breathing heavily, he looked down at the treadmill’s control panel, spraying sweat everywhere. The digital readout told him he had completed two and a half miles.
Only another half-mile to go.
Jack glanced across at Dillon and was pleased to see that the big man looked every bit as fatigued as he felt, jogging on the treadmill immediately to his left. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into doing this after all the hours we’ve put in over the last couple of days. I must be bloody mad!” The leisurely run he’d come for, which was just intended to shake the cobwebs off, was fast becoming an endurance test.
“Don’t be such a wimp!” Dillon responded, increasing the speed of the machine despite the growing heaviness in his legs. “C’mon, I’ll race you to the finish,” he panted. “Loser buys the first round.”
“You sadistic swine!” Tyler wheezed. It was all he could manage. Digging deep, he adjusted the speed control on his machine and forced himself to sprint the remaining distance. He wasn’t going to be outperformed by Dillon, even if it killed him, which it probably would at this rate. He tried to shut out the pain in his legs by focusing on the music coming from the wall speakers behind him. Freddie Mercury was currently belting out ‘Who wants to live forever’, the song from the film, Highlander. As he listened to the lyrics, he thought about poor Tracey Phillips, who had barely lived at all.
Jack’s lungs felt as though they were going to burst out of his chest when the alarm finally sounded. As the treadmill slowed to warm down speed, he glanced over at Dillon and was pleased to see that he’d finished just ahead of his partner. “I’m…never...going to...listen...to anything you say…ever again,” Jack promised as he struggled to regain his breath.
Conceding defeat, Dillon slumped down on a mat next to the running machines and started massaging his calves.
Jack hobbled over to a large internal window that looked down onto the squash courts a floor below. Gasping in air, he spent a few moments watching two middle-aged men, with spreading waistlines and receding hairlines, stumble around the court, beetroot-faced.
“That could be us in a few years,” he told his partner when he was finally able to speak again.
“What could?” Dillon asked from the mat, where he was impersonating a beached whale.
“Never mind,” Jack said. When he’d phoned Dillon earlier, to discuss the case, they had both agreed that a trip to the gym, followed by a quick drink in the bar, might help them unwind. It had seemed like a really good idea at the time, but now they were both regretting their earlier enthusiasm.
“Let’s get showered and have that drink,” Tyler said, heading for the changing rooms on unsteady legs.
Dillon raised a hand, hoping that his partner would grab it and pull him up, but Jack had already gone. With a grimace, Tony Dillon slowly dragged himself to his feet and turned to follow Jack into the changing rooms – and immediately collided with a girl coming the other way. “I’m so sorry,” he said, horrified at his clumsiness. “Are you okay?”
She smiled. “I’m fine, although I must admit it was like walking into a brick wall.” She prodded his chest gently.” You obviously work out a lot.”
Dillon felt his face flush, but – as it was already beacon-red from where he’d been running flat out – he doubted any additional colour would make a discernible difference. He casually cast his eyes over her, ostensibly checking her out for any injuries. In reality, he was giving her figure the once over. The girl was blonde, in her mid-twenties, tanned, and wearing a baggy green tee shirt over a skin-tight purple leotard. Her face dimpled adorably as she smiled at him.
“Are you sure I didn’t hurt you?” he asked, smiling back.
“I’m fine,” she said, flexing her bicep. “See, I work out too.”
“And how much longer do you plan to work out for tonight?” he asked, his earlier tiredness forgotten.
“I’ve just got ten-minutes to do on the cross trainer and then I’m all done,” she said.
“Or you could just call it a night now join me for a drink in the bar,” he suggested. “It’s the least I can do after nearly knocking you over.”
The girl appeared to consider the offer, and for a second Dillon thought she was going to accept. Then her pretty face creased into a frown. “I really need to
