One of them is still out there.
The kids should be safe at school for the time being, but I need to speak to my wife. I ask Webber to give me a minute, taking out my phone and half turning away.
“Hi, Adam,” she says sleepily after four rings. “What’s up?”
“Hi,” I say, relieved just to hear her voice, to hear that all was still normal in her world. “Nothing, just wanted to check in. Everything OK?”
“Yup, all fine. Where are you?”
“Just talking to… someone. I’ll fill you in when I get back.”
She rings off and I put the phone back in my pocket, a measure of relief washing over me that I know is only temporary. She had been right all along—I should have left things well alone. Cleared everything out of the house, taken it all to a dumpster, and gotten rid of it without a backward glance. Without opening Pandora’s box and looking inside.
Without stirring up the past.
But now all that mattered was keeping this threat as far away from my family as possible. Better still: try to find a way to neutralize the threat.
Another thought, elusive and indistinct, is bubbling at the back of my mind. An echo of something else I’ve heard, but I can’t quite bring it into focus.
“Two killers,” I say to Webber quietly. “How did you figure it out?”
He looks around at the increasingly busy pub, the table in front of us now taken up by a trio of suited office workers, jackets off and ties loosened. Next to us, a family of four with two young children have settled onto the wooden bench seats with soft drinks and bags of crisps.
“Now’s probably not the time,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “But there are aspects of the victimology, the selection of targets, the psychological profiling work I’ve done that point very strongly to a pair working together. I’ve had this case in my head more than twenty years, I know every detail of every incident, inside out and back to front—and I’mabsolutely convincedthat’s why we never caught them. You’ll have to trust me.”
“What, so one died and the other one went to ground? Blended back into everyday life, carried on as if nothing had happened and still hasn’t been caught, all these years later?”
He nods. “I’ve got a proposal for you, Adam.”
I don’t like the sound of this. “Go on.”
“We work together to catch this person, once and for all. You and me.”
“Surely it’s the regular police that need to—”
“I can help you, we can help each other, we both want the same thing. And, first of all, I need to see that hidden room in your house.”
“Or… I could buy the watch back off you, hand it over, and forget we ever had this conversation. How much did you pay for it?”
“It’s not for sale.”
A beat of strained silence passes between us.
“Had a feeling you were going to say that.”
“I’m keeping it until this case is finally closed.” There is an edge to his voice now, a hint of consequences. “It needs a full, comprehensive forensic examination, along with everything else you found—I’m not going to just give up evidence that could help nail a multiple murderer.”
“So you’ve got me over a barrel, basically? I can’t give them what they want, unless you give me the watch.”
He shrugs. “We work together to find this person, we finally get justice for the victims and put a stop to all of it. For good.”
We leave the Olde Trip to Jerusalem and walk to my car for the short drive back to the house, back up the gentle incline of Peveril Drive, taking a left turn before the tennis courts, and passing almost no other traffic on the way to Regency Place. Parked up on the drive, we sit for a minute, both of us looking up at the big red-brick house with its high roof and tall windows, its wide chimney stacks, and ornate Victorian detailing around the front door. It’s been my home for more than a week now, but it still doesn’tfeellike home. If anything, it feels less and less like a family home with every passing day.
“Don’t build ’em like this anymore,” Webber says. “Did you meet the previous owners?”
I describe what I knew about the Hopkins family, the widowed father, the son who lived abroad. It’s only as I’m telling him, passing on what I’d heard from Mrs. Evans, that the elusive thought finally snaps into focus. The connection lands with the force of a punch as I remember Webber’s words in the pub.He just stopped.
“Oh, God,” I say.
