The Jackdaw

She moved closer so he could still hear her now quiet words. ‘No it wouldn’t. We both know it. We all need some things to anchor us in this life, otherwise we can begin to drift. Some of us would simply drift along until we hit land again, where we can rebuild, start over. But some of us would drift to dark places – places we might never find our way back from. You’re a danger junkie, Sean. You need it to stay alive, to be who you are. For you, living on the edge is a necessity, not a rarity. But you can’t live your private life like you live your professional one – it has to be stable or you might just fall off that edge you like to be on so much.’

His startling blue eyes sparkled and danced as he deciphered the meaning of her words and their implications, knowing that if she knew how deep into his past the darkness ran she might have even worked out that perhaps, secretly, for reasons even he didn’t understand, he wanted to destroy the only truly stable thing in his life. He carried the guilt that all the abused carried, making him doubt whether he even deserved to have a loving family. Maybe he did want to cast himself adrift, free from the responsibility of giving and receiving love – free to stop trying to control the darkness inside of him – to finally allow himself to spiral downwards until he crashed and burnt. If Anna truly knew his past, his childhood, then she might understand that for him every day he managed to appear normal was like another day for an alcoholic of not taking a drink. But the temptation, the thought of slipping into the warmth of who he perhaps really was, would never leave him.

‘You all right?’ Anna asked.

‘Yeah. Fine,’ he lied. ‘So what do we do now?’

‘We forget it ever happened and get on with our jobs.’

‘As simple as that?’

‘We have no other choice.’

‘No,’ he agreed, still troubled by his own thoughts. ‘I don’t suppose we do.’

‘Good,’ she told him. ‘Perhaps we can start with you telling me if you’ve had any new ideas, any insights as to what the killer may do next.’

‘Insights?’

‘Yes, Sean. Insights. It’s no secret between us that you have them. Remember?’

‘If you think I can tell you where and when he’s going to hit next then you’d be wrong.’

‘I know I would be. I don’t believe in psychics. Maybe you remember that too?’

‘Not really.’

‘But you must have some ideas. An imagination like yours doesn’t just stop working. It can’t.’

‘I know he’ll attack again,’ Sean admitted, ‘but so do you.’

‘In all probability, yes he will, for reasons we’ve already discussed, but perhaps there’s something else – something you haven’t told anybody else?’

‘Nothing solid,’ he told her. ‘Just loose ideas rattling around inside my head, nothing I can grasp hold of. Nothing that makes much sense.’

‘Try me.’

‘Look, I don’t want to overcomplicate something that’s already complicated enough. Last case we had I made my mind up too early and I was wrong. Evidence here says it’s a disgruntled member of the public getting some payback on the banks and that’s probably going to be exactly what he is, but …’

‘But what?’

‘But I want to keep an open mind. Just in case. I don’t want to get fooled again.’

‘You sure you don’t know something?’ Anna persisted. ‘I might be able to help. It is what I’m here for.’

‘Is it?’ Sean found himself asking, unsure of where his own suspicions had suddenly sprung from.

‘Of course,’ Anna told him. ‘Why else would I be here?’

He studied her hard before speaking, looking for the tiny telltale signs of a lie he’d seen thousands of times before. ‘Forget it,’ he finally answered. ‘I’m being an idiot. Forget everything. I’m glad you’re here. We’ll make it work.’

‘Good,’ she replied, ‘and thank you.’

‘Don’t thank me yet,’ he warned her, his friendly tone and slight smile hiding what his eyes had seen in her face. ‘Remember we’re only at the beginning. There’s plenty more to come from our boy yet. Of that, I’m certain.’

Georgina Vaughan pulled on her expensive training shoes, checked her iPhone was strapped to her bicep properly, selected the music she wanted to listen to, took a couple of deep breaths and then opened the door leading to the communal area of her flat in one of Parsons Green’s Victorian redbrick mansion blocks. She skipped down the three flights of wide stairs and exited the building into Favart Road. She enjoyed the spring sunshine on her face as she ran, turning into the King’s Road, dodging past the late afternoon commuters and shoppers until she was able to turn into Peterborough Road and jog towards a small park known as South Park. She never noticed the white panel van that pulled away from the kerb as she left her building, nor the same van overtaking her in the King’s Road as she headed towards the park where she always went running.

She was enjoying the relatively fresh air of the park, the steady pace of her feet moving to the rhythm of the music that deadened all other sounds, but she was aware the evening was growing late and the sun was moving quickly from the sky. She didn’t want to be in the park when darkness descended, so she picked up her pace, the solid tarmac of the park’s path turning to the loose gravel of the parking area as she approached the exit.

As she drew closer to the gates she began to feel strangely unnerved, eager to rejoin the streets outside where she’d be back amongst other people. She increased her speed, but the entrance seemed to grow further and further away.

She would have screamed if he’d given her a chance, but his hand hit her hard in the throat as he stepped out from behind the tree and grabbed her, pulling her behind it and slamming her against the rough trunk, her head banging hard and dislodging her headphones. For a second he released her throat and ripped her iPhone from her bicep. He threw it on the ground, smashing it with the heel of his black boot before he again gripped her around the throat hard enough to stop almost any sound escaping. For the first time he showed her the knife, no more than six inches in length including the handle, but lethal looking, bladed on one side, with teeth on the other. Her eyes grew wide with terror, her mind already assuming rape was the least she was about to suffer, until she heard the strange electronic voice that came from the box attached to his chest, his mouth moving only slightly behind the ski-mask, the mirrored sunglasses showing nothing but the reflection of her own fear.

‘I’m not here to hurt you. I’m not going to rape you,’ the mechanical voice explained as he moved the knife closer to her face, ‘but if you try to escape, struggle or make a sound I will kill you, here and now. Do you understand?’

She tried to speak, but he squeezed her throat tight and held the knife to his own hidden lips and shushed her, the voice distorter making it sound like the ocean.

‘No sound. Remember?’

She managed to nod as the tears began to roll down her face. Her brain scrambled to remember why this creature with the monstrous voice seemed so familiar, her mind rewinding back through conversations she’d had with colleagues and friends, back through news items she’d seen, until it reached the memory of watching the man being hanged live on the Internet – the Your View Killer.

Panic threatened to overwhelm her and make her pass out and she welcomed the promise of oblivion, but suddenly she was moving, being pushed and dragged across the loose gravel, her legs intermittently giving way, his strength obvious as he held her weight without breaking pace or breathing hard. And all the time the knife was held against her throat, its sharpness causing stinging cuts every time she slipped, until they reached a white panel van waiting in the car park. He slid the side door open and pushed her inside then took hold of her right arm and twisted it painfully behind her, making her call out in pain as he strapped her at the wrist into a leather buckled restraint. Within seconds he’d strapped her other wrist into an identical restraint. She twisted to look into the face she couldn’t see and spoke despite his demands.

‘Please,’ was all she could say. He just placed his finger to his lips and again made the sound of the ocean, grabbing her by the feet and pulling her legs straight before attaching further straps to her ankles. She was about to try one last time to plead with him to let her go, but the thick, sticky tape plastered across her mouth took the chance away. Daylight turned to blackness as a thick hood was pulled over her head.

‘Time to go,’ he told her and slid the panel door closed, leaving her strapped in the darkness of the back of the van with nothing but terror and the smell of her own urine seeping between her legs.

Sean sat quietly in his office trying to concentrate on the latest influx of information reports. Anna was only a few feet away, studying her own files when suddenly the calm was shattered as Bishop burst into the room, his eyes wild with excitement. He waited a second until both were looking at him before speaking in an almost frantic tone.

‘He’s back on. He’s back on Your View,’ he managed to tell them. ‘I’ve got it up on the laptop next door.’

Sean was already up and moving. ‘How long?’ he asked.

‘Seconds,’ Bishop answered. ‘My alert went off and there he was.’

Sean pushed past him, calling out to Donnelly and Sally who were in the main office checking on the other detectives. ‘Our man’s online,’ he told them. ‘Get in here now. Everyone else,’ he shouted across the office, ‘get Your View online any way you can.’ He turned back to Bishop as he entered Sally and Donnelly’s office. ‘What’s he doing?’

‘Nothing,’ Bishop answered, resuming his seat in front of the laptop with Sean now looking over his shoulder. ‘All we’re getting so far is this.’ He pointed to the screen where a woman dressed in exercise gear was tied to a heavy wooden chair with a hood over her head. Sean watched her wriggling and mumbling under the hood. By now Sally, Donnelly and Anna were also crammed into the room peering at the small screen. ‘The suspect hasn’t shown himself yet.’

‘Why?’ Sally asked.

‘Because he’s waiting,’ Sean told her.

‘For what?’ Donnelly asked.

‘For his audience to gather,’ Sean explained. ‘So the trial can begin.’ They all inadvertently cast their eyes to the on-screen view counter that showed the number of viewers growing rapidly as news of the Your View Killer’s latest appearance spread across the Internet and the digital world – live texts, emails, Twitter, Facebook all spreading the word like an electronic wildfire that played directly into the puppet-master’s hands.

‘Bastard took a woman,’ Donnelly said. ‘I never expected him to take a woman.’

‘Neither did I,’ Sean admitted.

‘Says more about you two than it does him,’ Sally told them. ‘Plenty of rich women out there too, you know.’

‘No,’ Sean explained. ‘It’s just this was as much about his wounded male pride as anything. That doesn’t tally with killing a woman.’

‘He hasn’t killed her yet,’ Anna pointed out. Before Sean could answer a dark figure appeared on the screen standing next to the hooded woman before the shot focused in solely on his hidden face.

‘That’s clever,’ Bishop told them. ‘He must have rigged something up so he can control the camera’s lens remotely.’

‘Or someone else is operating the camera,’ Sally pointed out.

‘Either way it’s different,’ Sean explained. ‘Why change the way he films it?’

‘Practising?’ Anna suggested. ‘Honing his art?’

The disturbing electronic voice began to speak.

‘I see you’ve gathered in greater numbers now, my brothers and sisters. Good. Only together can we defeat the greedy vultures who rule over us. Only together can we change our unfair and unjust society where hard-working people can be cast out of their jobs and homes to save the riches of the rich – the power of the powerful. Only together will we ever be listened to. Only through strength in numbers will we succeed where governments and unions have failed us – us, the common people.’

‘The speeches sound prepared,’ Sally observed. ‘Like he’s reading off an autocue.’

‘Maybe he is.’ Sean considered it was possible.

‘Oh he’s definitely a pissed-off lefty,’ Donnelly insisted.

‘Appears so,’ Sean agreed. ‘The second that hood comes off I want people trying to identify her.’

‘Will do,’ Donnelly told him and headed into the main office to assign the task.

‘And now the wealthy and powerful who own the British media have unwittingly brought us together in our tens of thousands with their coverage of these events. What do the fools call me – “The Your View Killer”. What could be a more ridiculous name? Naming me at all undermines the seriousness of what I’m trying to achieve, but if they help to bring us together, then so be it.’

‘He’s no idiot,’ Sally stated. ‘Sounds … educated.’

‘Doesn’t mean he’s not insane,’ Sean pointed out.

‘Not long ago I saw a jackdaw flying low in the sky, carrying something in its beak – its next meal, I assumed. Suddenly a huge crow appeared from nowhere and began to attack the jackdaw, stabbing at it with its sharp beak, grabbing at it with its talons, trying to take the very food from its mouth. But just when I was sure the jackdaw would lose its hard-fought prize, a hundred jackdaws rose from the trees and swept into the sky, communicating with each other in a thousand different sounds, mobbing the fat crow, barely letting its wings beat until they’d driven it from the sky. The fat crow was defeated by the might of the many and the determined. That is what we must be if we are to defeat the fat crows that infest our skies. We must become as the jackdaws are – then nothing can stop us.’

‘He’s completely mad,’ Sally offered as they watched the film return to a wider shot, the killer’s arm stretching out and ripping the hood his new victim’s head, making her turn away and squeeze her eyes tightly shut. ‘Christ,’ Sally spoke again. ‘She’s so young.’

‘What is she?’ Donnelly asked. ‘One of those young website millionaires you hear about?’

The man tore the tape from the woman’s mouth, making her scream out in pain.

‘You bastard. Please. Why are you doing this to me?’

‘I’m doing it for the people,’ he told her in the cold electronic voice. ‘This is for the people.’

Mark Hudson was happy to be alone in the bedroom of his council flat in Birmingham, glad his moronic mates weren’t around to spoil his enjoyment. This one was even better than the last – he’d taken a woman this time and a young, attractive one too. Hudson licked his lips at the thought of what the man might do to her. He wanted to see her humiliated before he killed her and he was sure his new hero would kill her – after he’d had a bit of fun. He and the Your View Killer were cut from the same stone, he was sure of it. He knew the man on his screen wouldn’t disappoint him.

‘Come on,’ he urged the man. ‘Fucking do her, man. Do her.’

‘Open your eyes.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Open your eyes or I’ll cut your eyelids off.’

‘Please, I haven’t done anything to you.’

‘Open your eyes.’

Hudson watched as the woman slowly opened her eyes and then tried to lean as far away as she could from the hooded man.

‘Yeah. Do as you’re told, bitch.’

‘You are Georgina Vaughan, yes?’

‘How … how d’you know my name?’

‘That’s not important. What are important are your crimes against the people.’

‘I haven’t committed any crimes against anyone.’

‘Wrong. You work for Glenhope Investments, correct?’

‘I’m just a project manager.’

‘The same Glenhope Investments that needed a government bail-out to stop it from going out of business, while at the same time continued to pay its employees grotesque bonuses.’

‘I don’t know anything about that.’

‘Liar. You’re a liar and a whore to money and wealth, and soon you will be judged for your crimes.’

‘You’re so dead,’ Hudson said out loud, an ugly smile on his face, eyes frenzied with excitement. ‘You’re dead, bitch.’

Gabriel Westbrook stood leaning over his desk as he watched the hooded man preaching to his audience on the screen – an audience the live viewer count put at over one hundred thousand and growing. He sensed little sympathy from the watching public for the plight of his fellow financial sector worker, imagining them as a mob, stalking through the City looking for more victims to lynch. Already he sensed an uneasiness spreading across the City. Nothing too serious yet, but people were beginning to talk and the talk wasn’t positive. Now, with a second victim taken, fears would increase and spread. Not a wholesale panic, but it didn’t take mass hysteria to cause serious financial problems – just a sustained shift in momentum. With the threat of more victims to come, some people would start to choose to take their holidays early, in the hope that by the time they returned the madman would have been caught. Others would take time off sick and many would no longer be comfortable working late – keen to hurry home in the hours of daylight. The streets of the City would hardly be deserted, but the country’s financial heart was like a giant old tanker relentlessly carving its way across oceans, driven by perpetual forward momentum. Were the balance to be tipped, no matter how slightly, momentum would be lost and it would be a long hard process before the huge financial institutions once again reached full speed ahead, by which time billions would have been lost. In a time when the sector was still recovering from its first self-made crisis, the effects would cause significant damage – maybe even more.

He wanted to turn off his computer, but somehow couldn’t.

‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘You are part of the organization that made our government steal the people’s money so you could survive – money that you were supposed to give back to the people, but didn’t. Instead you invested it in property, African gold mines, Australian mineral mines, the vast profits of which you shared amongst yourselves like pigs at the trough while decent, hard-working people lost their jobs, their houses and their life savings. And yet you say you’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Westbrook shouted at his screen. ‘Someone needs to stop you – someone needs to shut you up, before you start a bloody civil war.’

‘You should watch this,’ Phil Taylor called out to his wife Cathy. ‘This man’s talking a lot of sense.’

‘I don’t want to listen to that lunatic,’ she called back to her husband who sat in the small office-cum-storage room.

‘Don’t you want to know what those bastards did with the money they stole from us?’

‘Stole from us?’ she questioned, continuing their inter-room conversation from the kitchen. ‘I was under the impression bad debtors put the business under. That and you overstretching.’

‘Yeah, well, if the banks had just lent me a bit more we would have been all right.’

‘Sure about that, are you?’ she doubted him.

‘Whatever,’ he mumbled quietly to himself, eager to get back to the hooded man on the screen.

‘Nothing wrong indeed.’

‘I swear. I haven’t.’

Taylor watched as the man walked behind the woman and rested his hands on her shoulders, making her squirm and twist as she tried to see what he was going to do.

‘I’m going to ask you a question now and I want you to answer it honestly. If you lie I will know and your punishment will be severe. Do you understand?’

‘No. No I don’t understand. I just want to go home.’

‘Answer the question honestly and perhaps you will.’

‘OK. OK, I’ll answer the question as honestly as I can.’

The man took a deep breath, the voice distorter making it sound like a rush of wind.

‘Have you received any bonuses since the banking crisis? A simple question.’

‘OK – yes, yes I have, but it’s not what you think.’

The man straightened and took another deep breath, as if he’d unearthed a great truth.

‘How much? How much each year?’

‘I can’t remember, exactly.’

‘Try. How much?’

‘About . . . about forty thousand pounds.’

‘Forty thousand pounds.’

‘But it was in shares. I couldn’t even spend them. They were just . . . just paper.’

‘And your salary, how much do you get paid each year?’

‘I told you – I’m not rich. I’m just a project manager.’

‘How much and don’t lie to me.’

She slumped in the chair.

‘About ninety thousand pounds.’

‘Ninety thousand pounds and forty thousand bonus, while others can barely feed their families. Shame on you. Shame on you.’

‘D’you hear that?’ Taylor called out. ‘Hundred and thirty grand a year for being a bloody project manager.’ His wife didn’t answer. ‘Greedy bitch,’ he whispered. ‘Bet you weren’t thinking about people like me when you were celebrating your fat City bonus. No – of course you weren’t. None of you were.’

Father Alex Jones had received the text message he’d been dreading informing him that the Your View Killer was back live on the Internet. He sat at the altar of his empty church in Dulwich and logged onto Your View on his old iPad and soon found the images he feared, but looked for anyway – the hooded man with the deeply unsettling distorted voice standing next to a terrified-looking young woman. He’d prayed as the man had preached, pleading with God to touch the man’s heart with mercy while begging for the woman’s safety, but so far neither prayer seemed to have been answered.

‘The people have heard enough. It’s time for them to judge. Time for them to decide whether they find you guilty or not guilty.’ The man’s face grew larger on the screen. ‘I know what they’re thinking – that they can stop me talking to the people. Think they can stop the people having their justice by shutting down this website. But if they do her fate will be more terrible than they can possibly imagine. The people will not be silenced. I will not be silenced.’

Father Jones dropped to his knees in front of the altar, pressed his hands together, closed his eyes and began to pray. ‘Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come …’

‘Get me someone from Your View on the line,’ Sean told anyone who was listening. ‘The more senior the better.’

‘D’you think they might be trying to pull the plug?’ Donnelly asked.

‘We can’t take the chance they are,’ Sean warned him.

‘I’m on it,’ Donnelly told him and grabbed the nearest phone as the others continued to watch the pictures coming from the small screen.

‘The people are beginning to vote. Soon we’ll know if this whore of wealth has been found guilty by you, the people. I have nothing else to say while we wait for the judgement.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Sally exclaimed. ‘What must she be thinking – tied to that chair by this psychopath, waiting for a bunch of voyeurs to pass judgement?’

‘She’ll be thinking a lot of things,’ Sean told her. ‘None of them good. But wasting time worrying about that’s not going to bring us any closer to finding him, and stopping him. How you doing, Bob?’

‘Getting closer and closer. The longer he stays online the closer I’ll get.’