Page 30 of Watching You

Had Kev been a snail, he’d have retreated the soft parts of his body back into his shell. Instead, he just looked like he was sucking himself inwards.

‘We never reveal our sources,’ he said.

‘Suppose I said you’re completely wrong and that if you print it, we’ll sue you.’

Kev shook his head frantically. ‘It’s a good source. Anonymous but we have detail.’

‘Give it to me fast,’ she said.

‘Three murders, no suspects, no torture, no accidents, clean crime scenes, lack of motive, resemble assassinations. Someone in MIT dubbed him the Joyride Killer yesterday because it looks like he’s just enjoying himself for no particular reason.’

He was right. Someone had shouted the nickname in the briefing room as Connie was explaining the latest theory, although she hadn’t seen who. All of which meant that she had two choices. Lie and deny, or take the facts as she believed them to be and try to turn the situation to her advantage.

‘So a member of my team took a theory from yesterday’s briefing and presented it to you as fact,’ she said. ‘That’s not good. It means I’ll have to look at everyone’s phone records, emails, messages, social media—’

‘So you don’t deny it,’ he said, emboldened.

‘That someone’s getting disciplined, fired and might end up in court? Nope, don’t deny that at all. Keep walking. There’s someone I want you to meet.’

Connie greeted the early shift reception team at The Balmoral cheerily as Kev plodded along behind her still gripping his neck with bloodied fingers. If they wondered what was going on, they were well trained enough to simply smile and wish them a good day.

Baarda opened the door on the second knock, looking as if he too had already been awake and was in the middle of exercising.

He stared from Connie to Kev and back again, then sighed.

‘Come in,’ he said. ‘I’m not even sure I want to know what’s happening here.’

Connie filled him in as she put the kettle on. They took Kev’s mobile from him before letting him clean up in Baarda’s bathroom.

‘You realise we’re pretty much holding a journalist hostage right now?’ Baarda whispered.

‘Well, I can’t deny what he said, so we need to figure out a way to make this work for us before we can release him into the wild,’ she said. ‘And after that we need to figure out who gave the story to the press.’

‘All of which is far less worrying than the fact that you were running around with a weapon that you actually used on him. I never even realised what that thing was!’

‘That’s exactly the point!’

Kev emerged from the bathroom holding a makeshift toilet roll bandage against his neck.

‘Coffee?’ Connie asked him cheerily.

‘I don’t do very well on caffeine. Is there any hot chocolate?’ he asked. Baarda trod on Connie’s toe before she could say whatever was in her head, and a few minutes later they sat down together to talk.

‘Here’s what we’re going to do,’ Connie said. ‘You can print your story but only in the form of an interview with me. I want this to be in my words, not through some third party who’ll miss all the nuance and rationale. You can have the exclusive.’

‘We’d want to do a photoshoot with you,’ he said. ‘Properly, of course, hair and make-up, the works.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Baarda interrupted. ‘It’s too dangerous. You might as well paint a target on your back.’

‘It’s not as if there aren’t plenty of pictures of you available on the internet already,’ Kev said.

‘You’ve got a bit of a following. Mainly conspiracy theorists and nutters, of course.

Hey, maybe that’s who the killer is, someone who wants to mess with you and see if they can beat you at the profiling game, but the key is not to leave a pattern,’ he added with a disturbing level of enthusiasm.

‘There’s always a pattern,’ Connie replied, ‘even if it’s only the fact that it looks like there’s no pattern. Brodie, could you get him out of here, please? Give him Midnight’s phone number and email. She’ll make all the arrangements.’

‘Midnight?’ Kev asked.

‘Our remote research assistant and head of operations,’ Baarda said. ‘And it sounds to me as if Dr Woolwine has had enough, so best be going now.’

Connie stretched out on Baarda’s bed and closed her eyes. Either the early start was catching up with her or she was getting a migraine.

‘I’m making you a mint tea,’ Baarda said. ‘You’re pale.’

‘It makes me unhappy,’ she said. ‘Not mint tea, the publicity stuff.’

‘The idea that people are getting to know who you are? It was inevitable at some point. You’ve become a global expert in serial killers. It’s the modern obsession. People want to know what the secret of your insight is.’

‘It shouldn’t be about me. That’s insulting to the victims and their families.’

He put the tea next to her on the bedside table.

‘That may not be up to you to decide. But this interview will only put you more in the spotlight. We don’t want the killer coming after you, Connie.’

‘We have to do something. The bodies are piling up. Mmm, this tea is lovely, thank you.’

He sat on the edge of the bed as she sipped. ‘You think that giving an interview will force the perpetrator out of hiding? Maybe appeal to their ego? Get them to write to the newspaper or contact us directly?’

‘It’s worked before. If these are the efforts of a single person then they’re adapting as they go.

Most psychopaths get set in their ways. It’s the repetition that trips them up.

And most of them at some point express a desire to be profiled or some pleasure at the attention it brings them.

The majority of serial killers have asked to meet with their profiler after capture.

It’s as if they want someone to look into their soul and explain their whole psychological chemistry to them.

Kind of why some people buy books about the meanings of dreams, because they think there’s some code in there that will uncover their secret inner self. ’

‘Is there?’

‘No. It’s just your brain putting everything into a filing cabinet, only some of it needs to go in the stressors section, and those dreams are almost always bad. You think the interview is a mistake?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think Superintendent Overbeck is going to sign off on it, and I’m fairly certain she’ll go for the “don’t make yourself the story” angle.’

‘I think you might be right,’ Connie said, putting the cup down and getting herself comfortable on his pillows. ‘Do I have time for a nap? I got up way too early.’

‘You do,’ he said. ‘I’m heading down to the spa for a swim. You can stay here then we’ll get breakfast together. Sound good?’

‘Sounds like heaven,’ she said. ‘I was thinking today about when I used to run along Seaview Avenue at sunrise. You like the sea, right? You’d love it there.’

Baarda grabbed his swimming shorts and his mobile, and moved to the door.

‘Will you visit Martha’s Vineyard with me, Brodie, when we’re done here? I’ve stayed away too long. It feels like it’s time to go home, but I’d rather not go alone.’

‘Of course I will, if that’s what you want.’

Connie smiled and closed her eyes.

‘I’ll take you to the beach every evening.

We’ll light fires and make hot rocks that you hold in your hands so you never get cold even after the sun’s gone down.

And when it’s been really hot all day, the shallows are like a warm bath.

We can go skinny-dipping if you think your aristocratic English self can bear the indignity.

’ Her voice was drifting into a murmur. ‘We’ll eat lobster and get hot fried doughnuts at midnight.

And I can show you who I really am, Brodie, when I’m not doing this—’

She tumbled into sleep. Baarda watched her for a few more seconds then left, making absolutely sure the door was locked behind him and that Connie Woolwine was completely safe.