The Last 10 Seconds

The Black Widow, they’d called her at one time. Perhaps they still did, she wasn’t entirely sure. Either way, people tended to keep their distance from her, as if she was some kind of jinx, and because of this she’d become something of a loner. She was a nomad too, unable to settle fully in any one job. She’d already left the force once before coming back a year later and joining Soca, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, where she’d lasted a year before returning to where she’d first been a wet-behind-the-ears DC, at Islington CID. But regular detective work hadn’t lived up to her expectations either, so when a slot on CMIT had come up with a chance for promotion, she’d jumped at it. Perhaps her profile hadn’t done her as much harm as she’d thought, because she’d got the job, and was making a pretty decent go of it too, although she preferred detective work to the management of others.

The reinforced door to Andrew Kent’s flat had been propped open with a telephone directory and there was a vague smell of stale sweat coming from inside, mixed with cheap air freshener. It was a cramped little one-bed place with a narrow corridor connecting the rooms, and it was already busy with members of the team, working two and three to a room, meticulously going through Kent’s possessions. They would take this place apart piece by piece over the next few days until they’d searched every last inch of it. A man who’d brutally murdered five women was always going to keep some kind of trophy from his experiences – a means of helping him to relive them – and however well he might have hidden it, they’d find it. Because now they had him in custody, time was on their side.

Tina made her way down the corridor, flicking on the light as she did so, and stopped at Kent’s bedroom.

It was surprisingly spacious, with ancient-looking wardrobes rising up on either side of an unmade double bed with sheets that were badly in need of a wash. A framed Van Gogh print of a night scene hung, slightly crooked, above the bed and there was a stack of paperback books on the bedside table, one of which was Nicholas Nickleby.

DCs Anji Rodriguez and Grier were already in there. Rodriguez was going through one of the wardrobes, patting down various items of Kent’s clothing with the kind of ferocity that suggested she was imagining he was still in them, before chucking each item on to a pile next to her. She looked in a bad mood, courtesy no doubt of being made to look a fool during the arrest, and she didn’t look round as Tina came in. Grier, meanwhile, was on his hands and knees pulling open the bedside table drawers, and sifting through Kent’s underwear. He gave her a brief nod and went back to his work while she stood in the doorway thinking that it was hard to come to terms with what made murderers tick. To all intents and purposes, they lived just like anyone else. Watching soap operas, eating takeaways, reading Charles Dickens novels. Yet they could carry out crimes so horrific that it was almost impossible for a normal human being to comprehend them. And Andrew Kent’s crimes were about as bad as they got. Tina had seen what his victims had looked like after he’d finished with them. Tied helpless to their beds and beaten so savagely that they were rendered utterly unrecognizable. Mutilated both before and after death in ways that had made some of the officers on the scene physically sick. It was the main reason Tina had taken so much pleasure in spraying the bastard with the gas and hitting him with all her strength as he’d lain incapacitated in front of her.

‘What’s this then?’ said Grier, his voice interrupting her thoughts. He was tugging at something behind the bedside table. A second later there was the sound of tape being torn away from the woodwork, then Grier slowly got to his feet with his back to Tina and Rodriguez, who both stared at him, waiting.

And then, as he turned to them, a wide smile on his face beneath the coveralls, Tina saw what he was holding in his hand.

She tensed, her mouth suddenly dry, experiencing a curious mixture of elation and nausea.

It was the evidence they were looking for.

Part Two

YESTERDAY

Three