50/50 Killer (30 page)

He aimed the torch into the tree line, moving it slowly round in a full circle, listening carefully. It was utterly silent here, and that in itself struck him as--

Something there.

He moved the torch back and found it.

'What is
that
?' one of the officers said.

All three angled beams of light into the trees. At first, Pete wasn't sure what he was seeing. It looked like a triangular hole in the ground of the slope - a cave-mouth - except the angles were too symmetrical for that.

'A tent,' he realised.

The torch-light went all the way to the back; there was nobody in there.

Pete lowered the torch to the entrance, saw the new footprints and swirls in the snow. Followed them round with the beam, just as the shrieking man exploded out of the trees beside him.

He understood the danger a half-second before it hit him, swinging the torch at his attacker. Too late, though - something thudded against the top of his arm. It didn't feel like much but suddenly his hand was empty and useless. 'Fuck.' Thud, thud - he was turning, trying to fight the man off, but he couldn't lift his arm properly to defend himself. The woods were whirling around him. And then -
thud!
- the blow on his shoulder was too sharp, too
wrong
. Nothing like the hard impact of a punch, and suddenly he was on his knees from it.

'Down!'

Everybody was shouting. Pete caught the scent of pepper-spray in the air, and glanced up to see his attacker falling away backwards into the snow. Both the other officers were immediately on him: shouting; pinning his arm. A baton came down and the man screamed again. The light caught something falling out of his hand.

A knife.

Pete touched his shoulder. His glove came away wet.

'Fuck,' he said to himself.

He eased himself down into a sitting position. Not the worst thing in the world, to be stabbed in the upper arm. Not great, but not terrible. But the last blow bothered him. Down onto his shoulder, near his col- larbone. That wasn't good.

'Sir?'

'Get that helicopter back here,' he managed. 'Have it do something fucking useful.'

At least now, maybe he could go home. There were stars filling his vision. Pete closed his eyes and lay back.

There wasn't a lot of pain. And he was reasonably sure he wasn't going to die. So the last thing he thought about was what happened to Andrew Dyson, not in relation to himself but in terms of what this, right here and now, was going to do to John.

And then there was the presence crouching beside him. The officer's hand on his chest, and the clamour of his panicked voice on the radio. And then nothing.

4 DECEMBER

3 HOURS, 10 MINUTES UNTIL DAWN

4.10 A.M.

Mark

After Simon had logged off, Greg and Mercer had a predictable, yet remarkably calm, argument about how to proceed.

Greg was adamant that we should contact Hunter and merge the teams, and I thought he was right. We were looking for the same man, after all, and the investigation into the abducted baby had a large number of officers attached to it, many of whom could be sent to the woods to help with the search there.

Mercer, of course, disagreed. He argued that it would complicate matters. Any benefit gained from the additional men would be outweighed by the loss of time involved, because Hunter wasn't going to give up his resources without a thorough understanding of the situation. There was an urgent operation under way and it needed to keep moving forwards.

Of course, the real argument occurred in all the things that were left unsaid. They both knew that if Mercer contacted Hunter the case would be taken away from him. Any 'urgency' in the search of the woods was based on his assumptions rather than the facts. And we all knew that he'd kept quiet when I mentioned the baby, presumably intending to check that himself while hoping there was no connection. His need to catch the 50/50 Killer had taken him into the realm of professional misconduct, and this was undoubtedly the final moment at which we might step back from joining him.

But Greg didn't mention any of that. The argument was kept on a practical and functional level, where ultimately it was Mercer's decision.

'We're wasting more time here,' he said.

Greg was simmering, but he held himself in check and gave up. 'Do you need me for anything else before I head out?'

Mercer shook his head.

'Okay, then.'

Greg gave me a look as he walked over to the door. I didn't know what it meant at the time: whether it was the equivalent of Pete's 'Look after him', or something else. Later, I would understand that it was a look of reassurance: an
It'll be okay
. I should have thought more on the fact that he'd given up the argument too easily, but I was tired and stressed, and I put it down to the effects of Mercer's earlier outburst.

When he was gone, Mercer returned to his familiar pose: eyes closed, fingers massaging his forehead. It was as though this action was his way of recharging himself. Or maybe absolving himself from thought for a time.

'Coffee, sir?'

He didn't say anything, but raised his eyebrows. I figured that was as close to a yes as I was going to get.

Five minutes later, I was back with two coffees, and Mercer was back from the dead: elbows on the desk, hands clasped in front of him, staring intently at the screen.

'Thanks.'

He took the coffee and gestured absently to the monitor in the middle.

'Sit down. I've printed you a copy.'

I picked up the sheets of paper. It was the summary of Hunter's investigation, headed with the name James Reardon and the familiar picture of the man we knew as Carl Farmer.

I sipped my coffee and started to read through the details.

The first thing that struck me was the sheer amount of information about Reardon. Birthdate, family history, employment record. This was almost certainly not a fake identity. Here, finally, was the man behind the nests.

Reardon was thirty-one years old, and in his brief time on the planet he'd notched up a number of offences and upset a lot of people. A very bright child, he'd become increasingly distracted and disruptive as he grew older. As an adult, he had two charges against him for affray, three for drunk and disorderly, one for assault, several minor drug issues. And so on. The impression the report gave was of a big guy who turned into a nasty drunk - who lost control when he lost control - although the past few years had seen his offences become concentrated in a different area.

Amanda Reardon, his estranged wife, now went by her original surname of Taylor. There was a photograph of her in the file: thin blonde hair, pale skin. She was younger than Reardon but looked older, and most of that was in her eyes: she seemed tired all the way down to her soul. Like she was constantly on guard and unable to sleep much.

Their relationship had been on and off for several years. It was a dull and dispiriting tale of break-ups and reconciliations, punctuated by accusations of James Reardon being dangerous, volatile, unreliable - all retracted when the couple got back together again. A familiar story. I thought it was sad the way that certain people stuck with partners who were so clearly wrong for them, as though they believed they'd never find anything better. You invest and you cling.

Their second daughter, Karli, had been born just over a year and a half ago, and she seemed to be the turning point.

The document contained a brief summary of the initial custody battle that followed their separation. Amanda Taylor was awarded residence, but Reardon challenged it for both children, claiming that she was an unfit mother. He wasn't his own best advocate. On one occasion he was alleged to have attacked the car she was in, shattering the windscreen with a hammer, and then assaulting her by the roadside. A restraining order had been hard fought and repeatedly broken. There was more besides, but the end result was that James Reardon had recently been refused all access to his children in the short term. Amanda Taylor had patiently played the game, and she had won.

Hunter's current investigation related to James Reardon's abduction of his daughter Karli yesterday morning. The summary gave the details. Amanda Taylor's boyfriend, Colin Barnes, had taken Karli to the park in her pushchair around nine, and a man followed and then assaulted him. Barnes had identified Reardon as his attacker. Reardon had run off, taking his little girl with him, and subsequently vanished. Appeals for him to come forward had been met with silence.

I looked at the photograph, and was struck once again by how hard he looked: how blank. It was easy to imagine those eyes staring out of the holes in a mask, illuminated by a flicker of fire. Easy to believe this was the man who had tortured Scott and who would, if she was still alive, be torturing Jodie right now.

Easy - but could we be sure?

The first thing I realised was that the timings fitted, and that Reardon's connection to the case was independently corroborated. The killer had left Kevin Simpson's house after eight o'clock. The baby had been abducted around nine by James Reardon. Megan Cook had seen Reardon entering the Carl Farmer address at eleven. That was two independent witnesses, but we also had a third. Scott had identified Reardon as the man who came round to read their meter.

There was a triangulation of guilt there. Individually, there might be other explanations for the witness testimony, but together they seemed unshakeable.

I glanced up at Mercer, who was lost in the document. Despite everything, I realised he had been right so far. We had the killer's face; we had the killer's real name and identity. Maybe there still wasn't enough to justify the theory this was a direct challenge to us, but then, I didn't have another theory to offer in its place. What was Reardon doing? What had he been planning and what was he now carrying out?

I turned back to the summary.

Reardon's age and temperament fitted the profile: intelligent but antisocial; volatile in his youth, more controlled and calculating as the years had gone by. My gut feeling was that we'd also find a certain symmetry between the ups and downs of his relationship with his wife and the 50/50 crimes. But that was--

'Have you read about his parents?' Mercer said.

'Not yet.'

'They died in a car crash six years ago. They left Reardon their house and a reasonably large sum of money. He sold the house; used the cash to rent a place. Since then, he's only worked sporadically, here and there.'

I nodded. Another box; another tick.

My excitement was growing. The more I read, the more clicked into place.

The most telling detail in the summary was in connection with Reardon's custody battle. I felt my breath catching as I saw it. Towards the end of the legal battle, after his last access visit, their daughter had been returned to Amanda Taylor with a new teddy bear as a present. Suspicious, Taylor had opened the toy up and discovered a listening device secreted within the foam.

Reardon denied planting it, but admitted that he was desperate - concerned about the company his ex-girlfriend was keeping and the effect it might have on their children. The case had made the news: only a small item, but the clipping had been scanned and included in the file. Reardon had declined to give a full interview, but had spoken briefly to the reporter.

'Nobody understands how much a father loves his child,' he said. 'That woman doesn't know what love is.'

I looked across at Mercer and he was almost glowing. I caught sight of how I imagined the old John Mercer: the man who'd solved all of those high-profile cases, who could look through the files and single out the key details that would break them.

At that moment, all the weariness of the day's work and conflicts appeared to have lifted from him. He was fresh again. For the first time that day, I thought he seemed capable of seeing all this through. And I got the impression that, maybe for the first time, he felt it, too. There was a visible energy about him. It gave me a small thrill to see it.

All day long, I realised, I'd been fighting against a feeling of disappointment. Rightly or wrongly, this wasn't only about a good job for me; it was more than that. I was here at least partly because I wanted to do something as a validation of Lise's belief in me: something that would have made her proud. And yet it had felt as though I'd achieved no more in that regard than if I'd got a job filing paper in an office. But right there, right then, I was finally seeing the man I'd come here to work for.

'We're going to get him,' he told me.

I nodded; I believed him.

And I suppose it was inevitable that, right then, with a single beep from the computer in front of us, it all began to fall apart.

4 DECEMBER

2 HOURS, 50 MINUTES UNTIL DAWN

4.30 A.M.

Eileen

Eileen was having the dream again: the one she'd had the Friday before and then spoken to John about over breakfast. The one in which he left her.

I hope you're not planning to run away.

In real life he'd told her he was too tired to run, but in the dream he'd clearly found the energy from somewhere. Clothes were missing from the wardrobes, books from the shelves, paintings from the walls. She drifted from room to room and saw her possessions sagging into the spaces he'd left. A home which had been comfortably full of two people's possessions was reduced to a house half emptied, and the items still here looked awkward and out of place as a result. When two people's lives came together and grew, you couldn't simply rip one away and expect the remainder to stand unsupported, as it had before. It didn't work that way. Things had been carefully balanced, which meant they would fall.

At first, the noise brought her out of the dream slowly. While the events in her head were still vivid and real, she became aware of the bed at her back and the covers over her body.

The alarm was going off.