time of morning was funneling commuters through its narrow canyon. The noise level was intense, and the cold air was heavy with diesel exhaust fumes. These were doing their best to deposit even more grime upon the already grimy buildings that sat back from pavements littered with everything from beer cans to condoms limp with use. It was that kind of neighbourhood.
Barbara was beginning to feel the stress. She'd never worked on a serial killing before, and while she'd always known the sensation of urgency attendant on getting to a killer and making an arrest, she'd never actually experienced what she was experiencing now, which was the feeling that she was somehow personally responsible for this latest murder. Five now, with no one held to an accounting. Whatever else, they weren't working fast enough.
She was finding it difficult to keep her focus on Kimmo Thorne, victim number four. With number five dead and number six out there, somewhere innocently going about his daily affairs, it was all she could do to stay calm as she entered the Borough High Street station and flashed her identification.
She needed to speak to whoever had nabbed a kid called Kimmo Thorne in Bermondsey Market, she told the special. The matter was urgent.
She watched as he placed three telephone calls. He spoke low, keeping his eye upon her and no doubt evaluating her as a representative of New Scotland Yard. She didn't look the part-disheveled and ill dressed, with all the glamour of a wheelie bin-and this morning she knew she was particularly unkempt. One did not rise before four A.M., spend several hours in the grime of South London, and still manage to swan about looking like the catwalk was in one's afternoon diary. She'd thought her red high-top trainers had added a cheerful touch to her ensemble. But they seemed to be causing the special constable the most concern, considering the disapproving looks he kept casting in their direction.
She paced over to a notice board and read about community-action committees and neighbourhood watch programmes. She considered adopting two sad-looking dogs whose pictures were posted, and she memorised the phone number of someone willing to sell her the secrets of instant weight loss while allowing her to continue to eat whatever she wanted. She went on to read all about "Taking the Offensive When Walking at Night" and was halfway through this when a door opened and a male voice said, "Constable Havers? You're wanting me, I believe." She turned and saw a middle-aged Sikh in the doorway, his turban blindingly white and his dark eyes deeply soulful. He was called DS Gill, he told her. Would she accompany him to the canteen? He'd been having his breakfast, and if she didn't mind his finishing it...Mushrooms on toast with baked beans. He had become more English than the English, he said.
She took a coffee and a chocolate croissant from the food on offer, eschewing the wiser and decidedly more nutritious possibilities. Why indulge in a virtuous half grapefruit when she was soon to learn the secret of weight loss while continuing to eat whatever she wanted, which was usually something laced with lard? She paid for her goodies and carried them to the table where DS Gill was once again tucking into the breakfast she had interrupted.
He told her that everyone at the Borough High Street station knew about Kimmo Thorne, even if not everyone had met the boy. Kimmo had long been one of those individuals whose doings were never far from the police radar screen. When his aunt and his gran had reported him missing, no one at the station had been surprised, although to have him turn up as a murder victim whose body was dumped in St. George's Gardens...That had shaken a few of the less hardened officers at the station, making them wonder if they had done enough to try to keep Kimmo on the straight and narrow.
"You see, we quite liked the boy here, Constable Havers," Gill confided in his pleasant Eastern voice. "My gracious, he was a character, Kimmo: always ready with the chat, whatever his circumstances happened to be. To be honest, it was very difficult not to like him, despite the cross-dressing and soliciting. Although, to be frank, we never actually caught him in the act of soliciting, no matter how we went about it. That boy had such a sense for when someone was undercover...If I may say so, he was streetwise beyond his