Isaac Cook, their DCI, continued to have female trouble. Sue Smith, the latest in a long line of suitable women, had gone overseas, and he was alone again; not that he liked it, but there was not much he could do about it.
Wendy knew he could always find someone for a casual fling, but he had admitted to her on a couple of occasions that he wanted to settle down.
***
Isaac was pleased to be busy again, although troubled that a known murderer was walking the streets. The woman could be anywhere, he realised. With his other murder cases, it had been a case of sifting through the clues, interviewing people, aiming to solve the crime and to pinpoint the murderer, but with Charlotte Hamilton, none of this was needed.
The woman had been identified, the prosecution case was ready, and there was no question of her guilt. To Isaac, what he could see was a missing person’s investigation, and the person in question was calculating and able to strike at will. She was a phantom whose appearances signalled another death, but where would she next appear?
Not only had she videoed him leaving Graham Dyer’s house with Sara Marshall, but she was also videoing locations around London, including a distant view of the apartment block where Isaac lived. Her notoriety continued to gain momentum as she placed them on social media.
It was a world obsessed with celebrity, whether it was vacuous and worthless, talented or talentless, and it cared little that the person they sought out, even worshipped, was a psychotic murderer.
Some websites had been set up around the world by admirers, their hosting servers located in countries that did not enforce censorship, other than on their own people.
The copycat killings continued to occur: an unfaithful husband in North Carolina, a drunk homeless man in Alaska, even a male immigrant from Africa in Birmingham. And always a number had been painted on the man or on a wall, either in his own blood or with a felt pen.
None of the women involved in the copycats was as smart as Charlotte Hamilton, as they had all been caught and charged.
Isaac Cook, tall, black and intelligent, pondered the way forward. He had met Sara Marshall on a couple of occasions to discuss tactics, and to see if they could pre-empt the next murder, but both knew that Charlotte Hamilton did not commit murder by the book.
So far, she had killed five: the first, her brother, then a lover, followed by a flatmate’s boyfriend. Her last murder, three years previously, had been chosen for no other reason than he had been male, and he had been willing to accompany her out to a toilet at the back of a club.
Then three years of nothing, only to return and kill Graham Dyer.
Sara Marshall thought that she could disappear again, but Isaac’s instincts were more attuned. He knew she would strike again and soon.
Even he could see that the woman had a fixation on him, but why? He had seen her picture, even the video of the children’s party at the Chalmers’ house, and he had to admit she was beautiful. She had been twenty-four then; she would be twenty-seven now, and if she did not kill men, would be the sort of woman that he liked, her pale skin offsetting his shiny black.
‘Larry, what’s the plan?’ Isaac asked. Both men were sitting in Isaac’s office. There seemed little point in being out on the street looking for the woman.
‘We can just follow up on leads.’
‘Do we have any?’
‘According to Sara Marshall, the woman stays within certain areas. The three murders, three years ago, were centred around Richmond and Twickenham. Now, she is close to us, here in Challis Street. There is every reason to believe that her next murder will be within four to five miles of this location.’
‘Do you realise how many clubs, pubs, places of entertainment there are?’
‘More than we can hope to cover.’
‘Precisely,’ Isaac said. ‘We’re being forced to wait for her to make the next move. Her increasing baiting of us indicates a change in her modus operandi. In the past, she has been a silent killer, driven by her neuroses, her belief that she was providing a service, but now she appears to want the adulation as well.’
‘Plenty of sick people out there,’ Larry said.
Wendy Gladstone had come into the office, bringing a cup of coffee with her. ‘What do you reckon?’ she asked Isaac.
‘The best we can do is to issue a warning to the general public.’
‘The male public according to profiling,’ Wendy corrected Isaac.
‘As you say, the male public.’
‘Vague,’ Larry said.
‘Any better ideas?’ Isaac asked.
‘Not really, but what are they looking out for? A woman of twenty-seven, hair colour unknown, clothing unknown.’
‘Miss Average,’ Wendy said.
Chapter 15
A woman walked along Oxford Street, one of the busiest shopping locations in Europe. She drew no glances from the other people on the street. It was a warmer day than the previous four, but it was still cool. She wore a dark coat and jeans.
The day was drawing to a close, and it was becoming dark. She realised that she had been walking for hours, and had been deep in thought. She knew that life had given her a purpose, and she felt a degree of contentment.
For some years, she had been lost, unsure how to proceed. Integrating into a small country town had been easy. She had arrived there three years before. All that she owned or needed she carried in one suitcase and a backpack.
The old lady who opened the door at her accommodation had been pleasant and had welcomed her in with a cup of tea.
