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“Thank you for meeting me.”
She smiles weakly as she sits down. “I’m not sure Marsh gave me much choice.”
“Do you want a coffee? Tea?”
“No. Thank you.”
“What are you working on now?”
“Still CID, but barely. Robberies, GBH, B and E. The stuff no one else wants.”
“Right.”
Niceties done, they sit in silence until she points at the file in front of him.
“This it?” she asks. Adam nods. “Can I see?”
“Be my guest.”
He pushes the file across, and she opens it. He watches her face closely as she flicks through the bloody crime scene photos, the close-up shots of the victim’s wounds.
“And the attacks are violent, frenzied?” she asks.
“On the first two. A complete lack of self-control.”
“And the others?”
“More planned. Kept them for a bit.”
“Wrapped the bodies in blankets. Shows remorse.” She pauses, studying the reports, and Adam sees the DCI she once was. “And you think it’s one offender?” she asks. “Even with the mixed MOs?”
“That’s our hypothesis. Same dump site. And there are other similarities. The exsanguination. The slow evolution to his method of killing.”
“To what aim?”
“That we don’t know.” Adam pauses. He knows the question he has to ask. “And you’re sure it’s not—”
She looks up sharply. “It’s not the Echo Man, no.”
“Not even if you factor in Richard Chase?”
She shakes her head. “Shenton looked into it,” she says, referring to her DC whom Adam’s met a few times. A quiet, studious man, pale and unassuming—and their resident expert on serial killers. “Chase had some of the same characteristics, if you consider the knife, the stabbing. But he consumed his victims, cutting out and keeping their organs to eat later. He was disorganized, frenzied. Always.” She pauses, deep in thought. “This isn’t him. The Echo Man was rigorous and obsessive. He never deviated from the MO of the serial killers he was copying.”
Adam reflects on her turn of phrase. She’s talking about the Echo Man in abstract terms, like he was someone distant to her. Unknown.
“Plus, as you know,” she says, her eyes still fixed on the case file in front of her, “we caught him.”
Adam nods. Eventually, he thinks.
“What’s your view on our guy?” he says instead.
She sighs, and flicks through the pages again. “The nature of the first disorganized kill, and the fact he was less careful with how he disposed of the most recent victim, would suggest an escalation. Even if you take into consideration the kidnapping and the slow torture of these two. Something’s changed. Led him to just dump the latest body. He doesn’t care about staying hidden anymore.”
“Why not?”
“It takes too much time? He’s got an aim? Some goal he’s trying to get to?”
Adam thinks about the numbers painted next to the bodies. The counting down. Is it possible he’s trying to get to zero?
