The Rain Killer (5 page)

‘You alright?’ Ramsay broke into his thoughts.

‘I’m fine,’ he assured him. ‘It’s just …’

‘Just what?’

‘Just it seems a long way to have carried her,’ Sean told him. ‘Must be fifty metres from the road. Why walk so far carrying a dead weight?’

‘Maybe she was still alive,’ Ramsay suggested.

‘Maybe,’ Sean shrugged, keeping his deeper thoughts to himself – for now. ‘Have you looked at the body yet?’

Ramsay sucked in a deep breath. ‘I have and it’s not good.’

‘Mind if I take a look?’ Sean asked.

‘Well I didn’t bring you out here just to keep me company,’ Ramsay mocked him. ‘Here,’ he added stepping forward. ‘I’ll keep the rain off her with my brollie as much as I can, but be quick.’ Sean nodded and squatted down next to the covered body, preparing himself for what he was about to see while he pulled a pair of latex gloves from his coat pocket and put them on. He breathed deeply through his nose and held his breath as he peeled the plastic cover back and peered underneath, letting the air slowly from his lungs as he took in the scene of horror under the sheet. She was frail and dark like the others, but he couldn’t see her face as her head was turned away from his and further obscured by her wet hair. Her upper clothing was torn open, revealing her torso and abdomen. What blood there would have been from the dozens of wounds inflicted after death had already been washed away. Sean had to look away for a second.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he whispered, his words lost in the sound of the rain. After a few seconds he looked back at the broken young woman and reached out, gently gripping her by the chin and rotating her stiff neck so she at last faced him, noting the bruising that already showed on her neck and throat.
So quick, so efficient, but then what?
Gently he brushed the wet hair back until he could see her still-pretty, young face, although her features were beginning to desert her – her half-open eyes making her look unreal
– doll-like. Then the importance of what he was seeing ran over him like a steamroller.
How could he have not seen this before? How did I miss this
? He carefully replaced the plastic sheet and stood, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples, feeling exhilarated and exhausted at the same time.

‘You alright?’ Ramsay asked.

‘She’s Southeast Asian,’ Sean told him – expecting Ramsay to immediately understand his revelation.

‘So?’ Ramsay questioned. ‘She still fits his victim profile – small, slim, long dark hair. She was killed by our man.’

‘Yes she was,’ he agreed, ‘but she doesn’t just fit his profile – she
is
his profile.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Ramsay demanded.

‘The others were him making do,’ Sean explained, ‘getting as close as he could to what he really wanted – what he was really dreaming of. They were all small and slim, with long, straight black hair. He was looking for his
own
kind, but they were as close as he could get, so he took them.’

‘His own kind?’ Ramsay asked. ‘So you think he’s Southeast Asian – because this victim is?’

‘Serial killers almost never kill outside their own racial group,’ Sean reminded him.

‘Spare me the lecture in criminology,’ Ramsay complained. ‘I’ve done the courses too, Corrigan.’

‘Then you know I’m right.’

‘I think you’re moving a little too quickly. I mean how do we know he doesn’t just have a taste for petite, dark-haired women and that she happened to fit that criteria, like most Southeast Asian women would?’

‘No,’ Sean shook his head. ‘The things he looks for are too race specific.’

‘But he’s been active for a year now,’ Ramsay reminded him, ‘and this is the first Asian victim we’ve had.’

‘Southeast Asian prostitutes working the streets are a rare thing,’ Sean explained. ‘The chances of him finding any were slight at best.’ He looked down at the young woman under the cover. ‘She got unlucky, or maybe it was just her time.’

‘Say you’re right,’ Ramsay asked, ‘and he is Chinese or something – how’s it going to help us find him? We can’t tell the public we’re looking for a Southeast Asian man just on your hunch.’

Sean considered it for a few seconds before speaking. ‘I have an idea,’ he told him. ‘I need to see Superintendent Middleton. When you identify her, let me know straight away.’ He tried to walk away, but Ramsay grabbed him by the bicep.

‘You need to remember who the DI is here, sergeant,’ he reminded Sean. ‘If you have an idea then I want to hear it before you go running off to see the superintendent.’

Sean pulled his arm away and looked hard into Ramsay’s eyes. ‘I don’t have time for this,’ he argued. ‘If you have a problem with me being here then I suggest you take it up with Superintendent Middleton.’ He turned his back on Ramsay and began to walk away before stopping and turning back. ‘One more thing you should know,’ he called through the rain.

‘Oh yeah,’ Ramsay smirked, ‘and what’s that?’

‘Don’t ever touch me again,’ Sean warned him.

***

Sean quickly climbed the stairs of Shooter’s Hill Police Station in south-east London, his discovery at the scene in King’s Cross invigorating his tired body and mind. He reached the small reception area of Superintendent Harry Middleton’s office and was relieved to see his Rottweiler of a secretary was yet to make it into work. He knocked on Middleton’s partially-open door and got an immediate answer.

‘It’s open,’ Middleton called out. ‘Come in.’

‘Morning, sir,’ Sean greeted him as Middleton looked up from the mess of reports littering his desk.

‘Sean,’ he sounded surprised. ‘What’re you doing here? Thought you’d be busy over in King’s Cross. I hear you have another victim. Bad business. You helping them get any closer to catching this sick bastard?’

‘I’ve just come from the scene,’ Sean answered, ‘and yes I think I might be getting closer.’

‘How so?’ Middleton suddenly sounded very interested.

‘The latest victim is Southeast Asian,’ Sean told him. ‘I think probably Chinese.’

‘And?’

‘I think that’s what he’s been looking for since he began – Southeast Asian women – prostitutes. The other victims were as close as he could find, but now, with this one, it just seemed clear to me that’s what he’s been looking for all along – someone of his
own
ethnicity.’

‘So you think he’s Chinese or something similar too?’

‘Serial killers stick to their own race.’

‘Not always,’ Middleton argued, ‘but if you’re sure it’s something worth looking into …’

‘I am,’ Sean interrupted. ‘Pathologist’s reports also state the killer could be skilled in martial arts. It’s not a conclusive point, but it’s another indicator.’

‘Fine, but we need to tread carefully,’ Middleton warned. ‘I can’t go around blabbing to the media that we’re looking for a Chinese killer on your fairly tenuous conclusion. If you’re wrong we’ll be murdered – accused of being anti-Chinese and it’ll be Stephen Lawrence all over again, just with a different ethnic group. So what d’you want to do – make some discreet enquiries with the South Asian community, see if anyone’s heard anything?’

‘No,’ Sean answered quickly. ‘Not yet. Better to keep it to ourselves for now, use it to our advantage. Set a trap.’

‘A trap?’ Middleton asked nervously. ‘I already don’t like the sound of this.’

‘We run an undercover decoy operation,’ Sean explained, ‘draw him out into the open.’

‘A decoy operation to catch a serial killer?’ Middleton checked. ‘One who we know carries a knife. SO10 are gonna love that idea.’

‘Don’t worry about SO10,’ Sean assured him. ‘I’ll swing it with them. They owe me a favour or two.’

‘Well even if you do, given that our killer’s just struck again it’ll be a few weeks before he’s around to walk into a trap. We can’t just sit around waiting for that.’

‘We won’t have to,’ Sean explained. ‘This one’s not on a time cycle. Some of his attacks have been months apart – others only weeks. It’s not the time that dictates when he attacks, it’s simply the opportunity and circumstance. He needs rain and he needs a victim type.’

‘So,’ Middleton asked, ‘as long as it’s raining he’s cruising the streets looking for the ideal victim?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying,’ Sean confirmed. ‘So let’s give him the ideal victim.’

‘Christ,’ Middleton moaned. ‘So that’s our
master plan
, hang a decoy out for him to see and pray for rain.’

‘That’s about it,’ Sean answered.

Middleton leaned back into his chair. ‘Christ,’ he repeated. ‘Well in the absence of anything else I’ll agree to it, if SO10 will. But for God’s sake, Sean, be damn careful. You’re playing with fire here.’

‘I understand,’ Sean assured him. ‘All the t’s will be crossed and the i’s dotted.’

‘They’d better be,’ Middleton warned him, ‘or at the very least you can forget about any future promotion.’

***

The sweat ran off his back and trickled over his ribs, down his chest and abdomen as he pushed his body to the limits of tolerance. The smoke from dozens of incense sticks and candles swirled around the room, daylight kept at bay by thick, black curtains that hung from the windows. Eventually he couldn’t push his body from the floor anymore and pulled his knees forward into a kneeling position. He hadn’t washed since the night before and the victim’s dried blood still stained his hands. Mixed with his own sweat it liquefied once more. He placed a hand on either side of his chest and slowly slid them down the length of his naked body until they rested on his thighs, leaving behind glistening stripes of dark red that gave the snake
tattoo an even more life-like appearance. He controlled his breathing as he recalled the events of the previous night. How beautiful she had been – so close to perfection. So close to what he had been searching for since he arrived in this cursed city. There was a time when he might have let her live –taken her sex and released her – but he was merely a man then. Now he was the Great Serpent
and the beast needed to be satisfied. He closed his eyes and saw her face: desiring him, wanting him, giving herself freely, in joyful sacrifice. But his beautiful daydreaming was shattered as the image changed to one of the knife slicing into her lifeless body. His eyes flashed open as he composed himself and regained control of his breathing.

After a few seconds he stood and walked across the room to kneel in front of a beautifully ornate, wooden chest decorated with dozens of carvings of Chinese snakes. It was one of the few things he’d brought with him from Hong Kong, but as soon as he saw it in the Cat Street Market he knew he had to have it, no matter what the price – knew that even though it was over two hundred years old, it must have been made solely for him – must have been waiting for him to find it all these years.

Slowly and with the deference his treasure trove deserved, he lifted the heavy lid that slid backwards smoothly on its original hinges – the displaced air causing the smoke in the room to swirl and dance. He reached inside and lifted out a small stack of photographs, examining them briefly before dropping them back into the chest: a few of him with his mother, faded now, some official school photographs, his expression one of deep unhappiness, and finally several pictures of him as a young man looking stronger and more powerful as he rose the ranks of the Triads. It was they who first gave him the name of the Great Snake, his criminal name that would strike fear and respect into the heart of his associates and enemies alike. But the old photographs weren’t what interested him now – it was the large, ever-swelling scrap book he needed to see.

He lifted the heavy book from its resting place and laid it on the floor, its plain green cover belying what lay within – a sketch plan of the tattoo that now wrapped itself around his body. Deeper he went into the pages of the book, arriving at a selection of newspaper cuttings from Shanghai and Hong Kong detailing the murders of three young Chinese women interwoven with drawings of the Great Snake
coiled around its victims before it devoured them. Delving further into the journal, he came across cuttings from British newspapers about more murders, only these had been committed in London – the bodies found mutilated and dumped at outside locations. There were more colourful drawings of the snake swallowing its victims, as well as photographs cut from magazines and downloaded from the Internet: pictures of real giant snakes that had been captured and slit open to reveal human corpses consumed whole. He wondered whether if he were slit open they’d find the bodies of his victims inside or just their souls. One thing he knew was that the Great Serpent
would never be satisfied, no matter how much it was fed. It would always need another
.

***

Sean knocked quietly on the door of the fifth-floor bedroom in London’s Intercontinental Hotel on Park Lane and listened for sounds of movement inside. After a few seconds he sensed someone looking through the spy hole before the door was opened by an unsmiling DS Arif Chopra, who stood aside and silently ushered him in. He walked along the short corridor into the main bedroom area where a pretty young Chinese woman nervously stood eyeing him.

‘This is PC Daiyu Jiang,’ Chopra told him. ‘PC Daiyu, meet DS Sean Corrigan.’

She held out a small hand for him to shake. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she told him in a gentle, quiet voice as they shook hands.

‘Likewise,’ Sean answered as he took all of her in – her size, ethnicity, hair, age and attractiveness. She was perfect, but she looked so vulnerable that for the first time he was beginning to have doubts about using anyone as human bait for the monster he hunted.

‘Sorry about dragging you into the West End,’ Chopra apologized as they all sat down, ‘but Daiyu can’t risk being seen anywhere near the Yard or any other police buildings.’

‘Problem?’ Sean asked.

‘No problem,’ Chopra assured him. ‘It’s just Daiyu’s been permanent undercover for the last two years – working in a restaurant owned and used by a Triad boss. She hasn’t been near a police station in that time as it’s safe to assume that periodically she’ll be followed by her employers – just in case. Daiyu’s the only undercover Chinese officer we have in the entire country. I’d hate to risk losing her for anything less than a critical operation.’