Greg seemed to want to disagree, but he didn't.
'You can see him standing here,' Mercer said quietly, mostly to himself. 'He must have been totally absorbed in this. Making it perfect. This is full-time. This right here is his job.'
'The surveillance equipment as well,' I realised.
Mercer looked at me. 'What do you mean?'
'Well, he watches his victims, maybe for months. He wouldn't have time to immerse himself like that if he was holding down a career.'
Mercer stared at me for a moment, not blinking, then turned back to the wall, nodding slowly. Clearly, we had only half his attention. He was concentrating on the designs, trying to capture an elusive thought. Had I helped or hindered that? I left him to it.
'What about the poem?' I said.
Greg sniffed dismissively. 'We've done a preliminary online search and can't find it. That doesn't mean it's not there, but my guess would be that Farmer wrote it. Or whatever his real name is.'
I thought he was probably right. For one thing - and more explicitly than the devil mask on the counter - the poem seemed to be addressed to us: 'In the space between the days,
you
lost the melancholy shepherd of the stars'. Also, the theme appeared to fit with what he did, what he wore. There was an obvious religious element to the poem. But how much of it - if any - we could take at face value was another question. As was what it meant to the 50/50 Killer. Did he see himself as a wolf of space, picking 'us' off one by one?
I opened my mouth to say something along those lines, but Pete nudged me and I stopped.
Mercer was still staring at the wall, but his expression had altered. Where before he'd been half with us, he was now wholly absent, wrapped up in what he was seeing. I watched his gaze flicking between the different designs. Here, there. His expression altered again, and it reminded me of the sun coming up. A level of understanding was dawning in him, his face brightening as he allowed it time to rise over the horizon at its own pace. He was on the verge of--
'Sir?'
One of Greg's IT people broke the spell, calling from the other side of the room. Pete tensed slightly and he glared at the techie. Mercer's face froze. Then he gave a rueful shake of his head, filing the half-formed insight away.
The techie, holding out a piece of paper, was oblivious of the atmosphere he'd punctured.
'Sir, you need to see this.'
Pete walked across, took the paper from him and brought it back, passed it to Mercer.
It was a printout from Vehicle Licensing. Initially, we'd only got the addresses for the owners of the six white vans, but the IT people had now downloaded the full licence for Carl Farmer. He'd updated it within the last five years, so had one of the new licences that included the driver's photograph. The IT people had isolated it and blown it up to fill the A4 sheet.
At last, we had a face.
Carl Farmer glared emptily out of the page. He had a thin face, and skin that looked rough: leathered and hard, as though it had been bruised over and over, healing badly each time. His brown hair had been frozen by the camera in a messy, dark swirl. The expression was blank and dead. His eyes, more than anything - they were like hands pressed flat against you, pushing you away.
Mercer stared intently at the photograph, as he had at the designs on the wall. Seeing more than was there. All day I'd noticed how closely he paid attention to every detail of the case, but here in the killer's nest he seemed to have gone up a level. He looked as though he was receiving partial information on a wavelength the rest of us couldn't get. Trying to keep calm, listening carefully, but I thought there was also an air of controlled panic about him.
We're going to hope we can find these two people before dawn. Because Christ knows what it will do to him if we can't.
'Let's remember this probably isn't him,' Greg cautioned.
Mercer didn't look up. 'You don't think?'
'This could be anybody. He's been too careful before.'
'He's still being careful, Greg, still very capable and controlled. But he's been planning this for two years. Perhaps it's what he's being careful about that's changed.'
Greg turned away. 'It'd be a schoolboy error. This isn't him.'
Mercer continued to stare at the photo, but after a second he inclined his head.
'Maybe you're right. But we'll find out one way or another. At the very least, it's someone.' He passed it to me. 'So let's see if Farmer's neighbours have any idea who.'
My shoes crunched and packed the snow as I walked down and across to my team. They were bundled up in black coats and gloves, their faces pink in the cold. Ross passed me a polystyrene cup, its contents steaming.
'Coffee, sir?'
'Thanks.' I blew on it gently.
They already had copies of Farmer's picture, which had come through to the computer in the van. I told them we needed to get impressions of the man, information about his appearance and his manner, last sightings, known associates.
'He's lived in this place for nearly a year,' I said. 'In all that time, someone must have known him or talked to him. Someone must at least have seen him.'
I looked at the ring of houses round the cul-de-sac. The buildings were obscured by the falling snow, which seemed to be getting heavier.
'Someone must know him,' I repeated.
There were sixteen houses and flats and, despite my initial reservations, I thought that made good odds that someone would be able to tell us something about Carl Farmer. But at house after house we got the same response. It wasn't just that Farmer's neighbours had never seen him or spoken to him; they didn't even know his name. His van was sometimes seen outside, sometimes not; the curtains were opened or they were closed; windows lit up and then went dark again. He had done enough to make sure he didn't stand out.
My first impressions had been depressingly on-target. The people who lived here were young, well-heeled professionals, who just wanted somewhere neat and clean to spend the few hours they weren't in the office. The end of the day came along, and these people were like files returning to separate drawers in a cabinet. The 50/50 Killer couldn't have picked a better place in which to make a nest.
The sixth house that Ross and I went to was opposite Farmer's. At the top of the steps, the door into the bright kitchen was open and a girl was standing outside. We walked up to meet her, pressing footprints into the thickening snow.
She was wrapped in a big black coat, leaning against the back banister: little more than a mass of tied-back, pale dreadlocks, bowed over the mug of coffee she was cupping in her hands. She gave us a brief smile as we stopped in front of her. My immediate thought was that she was far too young to be able to afford a place like this, and I was in the wrong profession.
'Hi, there.' I showed her my badge. 'I'm Detective Nelson. This is Officer Ross. We're sorry to bother you and I hope we don't use up too much of your time.'
'It's fine.'
'Can I take your name, please?'
'Megan Cook.'
'Nice to meet you, Megan. Like I said, this won't take long. We're trying to find out a little bit about the man who lived opposite you.'
She sipped her drink and I caught a waft of it. Not coffee, hot chocolate.
'I don't think I'll be able to tell you anything, to be honest.'
'Well, we've interviewed a lot of your neighbours. Nobody seems to know much.'
'Nobody would. I think I've spoken to about three of my neighbours the whole time I've lived here. It's that kind of street.'
'I got that impression, yeah. So you don't know Mr Farmer?'
'Is that his name? No, I'm sorry. I never met him.'
'You've never had any contact with him at all?'
'I saw him this morning.' She wrinkled up her nose. 'I guess that doesn't really count.'
'No, I'll take that.' My stomach fluttered a little, but I did my best to keep my tone even. 'Where did you see him and at what sort of time?'
She gestured across the street with her mug.
'Over there. He came and parked by his house. I'm not sure what time. Probably about eleven? Something like that.'
'Okay.'
Not exact, but good enough. I did the maths in my head. Farmer had made the phone call to CCL just after eight o'clock, and presumably left Kevin Simpson's house immediately afterwards. Three hours later he was parked outside his own home, or one of them, anyway. What had he done in the interim?
'Did you see him arrive?' I asked.
'Yeah. I was on the phone by the front window.'
Megan told us that she was a self-employed web-developer and did most of her work from home, a file that never left the drawer. The fact she'd been on the phone was especially useful: we could check the records and pin down the time she'd been at the window.
'And you've never seen him before today?' I said.
'I don't think so. Seen his van a few times. I guess that's why I noticed him this morning.
That's
what he looks like. You know? Like, wow, I've seen my neighbour.'
I handed her the photograph from Vehicle Licensing.
'Yeah,' she said, looking it over, 'this is him.'
The fluttering in my stomach grew stronger. Without admitting it, I'd shared Greg's doubts about whether the photo was genuine. But now we had a positive on it. Just one, of course, and I wanted more, but unless Megan was lying it was strong support that this really was our guy. And I didn't think she was lying.
I took the photograph back. 'What was he doing when you saw him?'
'He parked and sat for a second. Then he went inside for a bit.'
'How long?'
'Not long. I was only on the phone for a minute, and I saw him come out, so it can't have been long. He came out and drove off again.'
So he must have already cleared the house out by then. Why had he come back? I couldn't be sure, but I could make a guess. He'd returned to leave us the devil mask.
'What has he done?' Megan asked.
'I'm afraid I can't go into that.'
'I mean,' she said, 'should I be worried?'
But I didn't reply. I was preoccupied by thoughts of what the 50/50 Killer
had
done, and what was happening here.
He'd held Kevin Simpson hostage overnight, tortured him and then killed him at dawn, leaving his usual signature: but beyond that, his actions were different from before. The nature of the game had changed. He'd made a phone call and he'd left us the recording. A message had been left for us here, where he'd known we'd follow. And there was the uncharacteristic lack of care, too: the fact we had his face. He'd never allowed himself to be seen before.
Yet Mercer was right that there was a similar degree of control. He'd come back here, for example, when the hunt was already on. It was unlikely but possible that we could have arrived here and caught him.
It seemed strange for him to be so precise about things like that, only to make the mistake of being seen. To me, it lent weight to Mercer's assessment of the situation: that our killer was still being careful, but what he was being careful about had changed: 'He's been planning this for two years.' That was fine - but if he was being as cautious as he wanted to be, it implied that concealing his identity was no longer a priority.
Why?
Megan was looking at me curiously, and I realised I'd gone away and done a Mercer for a moment. Gathering myself together, I tried to give a reassuring answer.
'No,' I said. 'He won't be coming back here.'
It was all I could say. Even that, I didn't feel I knew for sure.
Back at the van, I rubbed my hands and touched them to my cheeks. They were numb and frozen. All I could feel in my fingers and face was the coldness of my skin: dull pressure without sensation. I'd decided to leave Ross to do the last couple of interviews. I needed to get Megan Cook's statement on file and let Mercer know about the photograph.
I unhooked my recording equipment and handed it to the guy on plug-in duties inside the van. As the data was transferred, I glanced towards the entrance to the street and noticed that the media had gathered beyond the cordon. There were vans, groups of reporters, big bulky cameras balanced on shoulders. A moment later I saw Pete making his way back through the cordon, hands thrust into his pockets.
The snow was still heavy and his hair looked soaked, but he seemed troubled by more than just the weather. Snow was snow, and he had more important things to worry about. I figured he'd spent a good few minutes lying to reporters, which was never much fun. They could smell it, and always held it against you.
He headed back to Farmer's house. I looked across. Mercer was standing outside at the top of the steps, a dark shape leaning on the banister, staring away from the cordoned-off street below.
From that distance, with his back to me, he became a figure open to interpretation.
Perhaps he was unconcerned with the snow falling all around him. Maybe he was lost in thought and watching the night. But then again, it was possible he was simply exhausted: leaning on the rail for support. I had no way of knowing. Was his indifference to the snow a gesture of strength or surrender?
He didn't appear to acknowledge Pete when he reached him, but Pete stood beside him anyway, leaning on the banister and staring out into the night along with him, sharing the view. They stood in silence, two black figures, slightly apart in the snow.
Our job is to support him.
'Finish that up for me,' I told the officers behind me.
And then, carrying the photograph, I walked over to the house.
3 DECEMBER
8 HOURS, 40 MINUTES UNTIL DAWN
10.40 P.M.
Jodie
The first thing Jodie had done when he left her alone was follow the advice of the voice in her head and take a full inventory of the situation. Where she was, and what she had that might help her get somewhere else.
The 'where' was easy enough, provided she wasn't too specific. The man in the devil mask had made them walk deep into the woods, eventually bringing them to a location he'd obviously had in mind from the beginning. There was a clearing in the trees where he'd already built a large fire. Chunky logs were piled up, and he'd balanced a large rusty sheet of metal on top of four stone columns to keep the fuel dry. There were a number of old stone structures at the periphery of the clearing, most of them broken down to their foundations.