The Night Stalker (Detective Erika Foster 2)

‘Can you give us a profile?’ asked Marsh.

‘I’ve already submitted a profile based upon this being a predatory gay male…’

‘We’ve ruled that out, obviously,’ said Marsh.

‘It’s extremely rare to come into contact with a female serial killer. Profiling them is very difficult. We have very little data.’

‘Well, we’re paying you enough. Try,’ said Marsh.

‘Tim, is there anything else you got from the video?’ asked Erika.

‘It could be that she has measured herself, her sense of self-worth, in relation to you, DCI Foster. By appearing on the show, you have presented yourself as the person who is going to catch her, regardless of the team you have working for you. She may see this as a fight for supremacy. You also called her out as being a “dangerous and deeply disturbed individual”.’

‘And she could feel like she’s a victim,’ finished Erika.

‘Yes. And you called her out live on television. That would certainly rankle with her. It would certainly make her seek you out.’

When they had finished, Marsh asked Erika to stay back and have a word.

‘I don’t like this,’ said Marsh. ‘I’ve already had words with Woolf about giving out private numbers.’

‘He didn’t know.’

‘If you’d like, I could have a car stationed outside your flat. Discreet. I can spare a couple of officers.’

‘No, sir. She got lucky phishing for my number, and I don’t want a car outside my flat. I’ll keep my eyes peeled.’

‘Erika,’ said Marsh, looking frustrated.

‘Sir. Thank you, but no. Now I have to go. I will keep you posted.’ Erika left the viewing suite.

Marsh stood for a moment, looking at the blank TV screens, feeling uneasy.

49

Simone had followed the man at a distance for most of the afternoon. Their journey had taken them from outside his flat on the Bowery Lane Estate, near Old Street in Central London. He’d left just after lunch and walked through the financial district to London’s Liverpool Street Station. Simone had been confused at first, wondering where he was going with no bag, just wearing a fashionable pair of denim shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt. She had followed twenty yards behind. The throngs of people had been thick, as they surged towards the vast row of ticket gates, almost taking her with them, but he had gone off in the other direction, and for a moment she’d lost him.

Her eyes had darted to the bank of escalators on the far wall, which led up to the mezzanine with the shops, and high above it the vast glass roof of the station. She’d stood on her tiptoes, trying to see above the crowds, and then she’d seen him, heading down a set of double escalators to the public toilets. She went to the large WH Smith beside the escalators and joined several other people browsing at the rack of magazines, watching the toilets all the while.

She’d waited and perused the newspapers, many of them offering opinion pieces and shock articles about the identity of the ‘Night Stalker’. She had squealed with pride when a journalist at the Independent called her ‘a genius of subterfuge’. The woman next to her had glanced over and given her a funny look, so she’d glared at the woman until she put her magazine back on the shelf and hurried away with her suitcase.

Ten minutes had passed, and then twenty… Simone looked at the escalators going down to the public toilets. Was he ill? Had she missed him? Her eyes had been on those escalators every other second – well, apart from when that stupid woman had looked at her. It was only when she noticed the proportion of single men disappearing on the down escalator, and how long they seemed to stay down there, that she realised he was cruising. He had gone down to the toilets specifically for sex.

Many things disgusted Simone about men: their petulance, their sexual deviance, the way they resorted to violence when they wanted to control or didn’t get their own way. This didn’t surprise her – just another thing to add to the list – and it steeled her resolve. Simone always played the long game with the men she watched. She was prepared to wait weeks, to sit back and build a picture of each target on her list. Gregory and Jack had been ticked off in the same way.

She’d looked down at the copy of The Independent in her hand and read the description again: genius of subterfuge. She had to buy the paper, she thought. It was the first nice thing she’d heard about herself in years.

She was about to go to the till when he emerged up the escalator – slightly red in the face, looking glassy-eyed and relaxed. Simone replaced the newspaper, let him get ahead of her, then started to follow. He moved to the back of the station and into a Starbucks.