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Chapter 4

Itwas the strangest stakeout Poe had ever been on.

Three days in the box room belonging to Mr and Mrs Emsley, the octogenarian couple who lived opposite their target.

Three days of nothing.

No sightings, no hint that anyone even lived in the house they were watching. Just three days of rain, wind and sleet and the occasional visit from Colin, the Emsley’s arthritic and flatulent Miniature Schnauzer.

Christmas had been and gone, the January wind was raw and the drab clouds were low enough to touch. The temperature hovered just above freezing. Cold enough to ache the bones; not cold enough to let snow settle. It didn’t matter how careful Poe was, every time he stepped outside, the bottom six inches of his jeans ended up spattered with dirty water.

Even the Emsleys – initially excited to be hosting the Serious Crime Analysis Section, the National Crime Agency unit tasked with hunting serial killers and serial rapists – had had enough. Mrs Emsley had been dropping hints all morning about a cheap Saga cruise she and her husband had been offered.

Flynn had told her that it wouldn’t be too much longer. She wasn’t lying. There were almost thirty cops dotted around the target’s house and she didn’t have a bottomless budget.

At least they were inside, Poe thought. The Emsleys’ box room was the command centre for the surveillance operation. Flynn needed somewhere with a decent signal and an unrestricted view of the target’s house. She also needed somewhere dry and private so she could express her milk. Bradshaw had told Poe that if Flynn didn’t do it regularly, her breasts ached. He didn’t ask how she knew this.

Poe had been on stakeouts before. Hundreds of them. He had been a cop for a long time and they were second nature. Flynn had been on almost as many.

But neither of them had been on one like this.

One of the reasons was their target. The media had dubbed him Spring-heeled Jack, and for three weeks he’d been terrifying the women of Watford. A vicious rapist hiding behind a Guy Fawkes mask, he’d committed a series of brutal sex attacks in broad daylight. During six of his eight offences, members of the public had tried to apprehend him. And on one occasion a police dog unit with two Alsatians had been in the area.

He’d escaped.

Easily.

Because Spring-heeled Jack was atraceur. A practitioner of parkour, the combined discipline of, among others, freerunning, jumping, swinging and climbing. Each time he had been chased – and Poe was convinced being chased was the real thrill for Spring-heeled Jack – he had been caught on CCTV and mobile-phone footage. The way he climbed buildings, leaped huge distances and vaulted over his pursuers when he was cornered almost defied belief.

It was why so many cops on this operation were young and athletic. One of the women had represented Great Britain at the Olympics. It was also why, despite the lack of action and the miserable weather, each time Poe did a welfare check, he didn’t hear a single gripe. They wanted Spring-heeled Jack off the streets and they wanted him to know he wasn’t the only one with fancy tricks.

The other reason the stakeout was strange was because Bradshaw was there. She was an analyst, and analysts didn’t go on surveillance operations. Poe had never been on a stakeout with a civilian before. It wasn’t professional snobbery; they were allowed to join a union, the police weren’t.

On this occasion, Bradshaw had insisted.

She and her team, affectionately known as the Mole People because they tended to squint when they stepped outside, had written the computer program that analysed and put values on the moves Spring-heeled Jack had used on the captured CCTV andmobile-phone footage. They compared them against thousands of hours of freerunners’ andtraceurs’videos on YouTube and other websites. Their not unreasonable view was that someone with Spring-heeled Jack’s parkour skills was unlikely to hide them. If he was a showman when he committed rape, he would also be a showman when he wasn’t committing rape.

And it worked.

They had compiled a list of six people within their margin of error. Good police work narrowed that list down to one suspect: Patrick ‘the trick’ Barnetson.

Flynn made the decision to take him at his home. A covert entry team established he wasn’t in, but DNA samples taken from his toothbrush confirmed Barnetson was indeed Spring-heeled Jack. Rather than go public, Flynn decided to wait. There was a risk of further victims, but exposure might force him to flee. And because of his parkour contacts in non-extradition countries, it was possible he could disappear forever.

Bradshaw had mapped out the area around Barnetson’s address and rendered it into a 3D computer model. She had carried out a series of simulations that predicted where he might run, and the moves he would make, if he managed to evade the cops attempting to arrest him at home. She claimed she had to be on the stakeout so she could direct the chasing cops.

Therealreason became apparent when they had settled in for the long haul. Appalled at Poe’s stories about the food on stakeouts, Bradshaw had taken it upon herself to make sure the breastfeeding Flynn still had a nutritionally balanced diet. And because she didn’t think it would be fair for Poe to eat pies, chips, kebabs and Chinese takeaways while Flynn ate fruit, vegetables, seeds and oily fish, she’d taken matters into her own hands. She had told Poe that Flynn was arranging the food, and had told Flynn that Poe was doing it. And because Bradshaw had never deliberately deceived anyone in her entire life, neither had thought to check with the other.

The first indication that something was wrong, was when Poe stepped into the box room – it didn’t smell like a kebab shop.

Flynn looked at his empty hands and said, ‘Where’s the fucking curry, Poe?’

Instead of the baked, fried and sugary snacks they’d been looking forward to, Bradshaw had brought date and goji berry bars, fresh fruit, hummus with carrot batons, unsalted nuts and peculiar-smelling bread. She had also brought a mini-fridge so they wouldn’t need to use the Emsleys’.

‘It’s got yoghurt in it, boss,’ Poe had whined. ‘You can’t have yoghurt on a stakeout.’

‘But it contains active bacteria, Poe,’ Bradshaw had said.

‘Why don’t you stick your bacteria up—’