Career of Evil

Unless he got to do one soon, he’d fucking explode.

Early on Monday morning he made an excuse to get out, but as he approached Denmark Street, intending to pick up The Secretary’s trail as she arrived for work, something quivered in him, like the twitching of a rat’s whiskers.

He paused beside a telephone box on the opposite side of the road, squinting at a figure standing on the corner of Denmark Street, right outside an instrument shop painted in the garish colors of a circus poster.

He knew the police, knew their moves, their games. The young man standing with his hands in the pockets of his donkey jacket was pretending to be casual, a mere bystander…

He’d invented that fucking game. He could make himself practically invisible. Look at that dickhead, standing on the corner thinking his donkey jacket made him one of the lads… never shit a shitter, pal.

Slowly he turned and walked out of sight behind the telephone box, where he slid the beanie hat off his head… He’d been wearing it when Strike chased him. Donkey Jacket might have a description. He should have thought of that, should have guessed Strike would call in his police mates, cowardly fucker…

There’s been no photofit issued, though, he thought, his self-esteem rising again as he walked back down the street. Strike had come within feet of him, though he didn’t realize it, and still had no fucking idea who he was. God, it would feel good, after he’d done The Secretary, to watch Strike and his fucking business sinking out of sight under the mudslide of the publicity, police and press crawling all over him, tainted by association, unable to protect his staff, suspected of her death, utterly ruined…

He was already pla

In the end he bought two new hats, a baseball cap and a gray woolen beanie to replace the black fleece version he put in a bin at Cambridge Circus. Then he caught the Tube to Holborn.

She wasn’t there. Nor were any students. After searching fruitlessly for a glimpse of red-gold hair, he remembered that today was Easter Monday. The LSE was closed for the bank holiday.

After a couple of hours he returned to Tottenham Court Road, looked for her in the Court and skulked for a while near the entrance to Spearmint Rhino, but could not find her anywhere.

After a run of days when he had been unable to get out and look for her, the disappointment caused him almost physical pain. Agitated, he began walking quiet side streets, hoping that some girl would stroll across his path, any woman at all, it didn’t have to be The Secretary; the knives beneath his jacket would be happy with anything now.

Perhaps she had been so shaken up by his little greetings card that she had resigned. That wasn’t what he wanted at all. He wanted her terrified and off balance, but working for Strike, because she was his means of getting the bastard.

In bitter disappointment, he returned in the early evening to It. He knew he was going to have to remain with It for the next two days and the prospect was draining him of his last vestiges of control. If he could have used It in the way he pla

Before forty-eight hours had passed, he was ready to explode with rage and violence. On Wednesday evening he told It that he would have to leave early next day to do a job and advised It bluntly that it was time It got back to work too. The resultant whining and mewling wore at him until he became angry. Cowed by his sudden rage, It tried to placate him. It needed him, It wanted him, It was sorry…

He slept apart from It on the pretense of still being angry. This left him free to masturbate, but that left him unsatisfied. What he wanted, what he needed, was contact with female flesh through sharp steel, to feel his dominance as the blood spurted, to hear total submission in her screams, her pleas, her dying gasps and whimpers. Memories of the times when he had done it were no comfort; they merely inflamed his need. He burned to do it again: he wanted The Secretary.

He rose on Thursday morning at a quarter to five, got dressed, pulled on his baseball cap and left to make his way across London to the flat that she shared with Pretty Boy. The sun had risen by the time he reached Hastings Road. An ancient Land Rover parked a short way from the house gave him cover. He leaned against it, keeping watch through the windscreen at the windows of her flat.

There was movement behind the sitting-room windows at seven and shortly afterwards Pretty Boy left in his suit. He looked drawn and unhappy. You think you’re unhappy now, you silly bastard… wait until I’ve had my fun with your girlfriend…

Then at last she appeared, accompanied by an older woman who greatly resembled her.

For fuck’s sake.

What was she doing, going on outings with her fucking mother? It felt like mockery. Sometimes the whole world seemed like it was out to get him, to stop him doing things he wanted, to keep him down. He fucking hated this feeling that his omnipotence was seeping away, that people and circumstances were hemming him in, reducing him to just another thwarted, seething mortal. Somebody was going to pay for this.

36

I have this feeling that my luck is none too good…

Blue Öyster Cult, “Black Blade”

When his alarm went off on Thursday morning, Strike extended one heavy arm and slapped the button on top of the old clock so hard that it toppled off his bedside table onto the floor. Squinting, he had to concede that the sunlight glowing through his thin curtains seemed to confirm the alarm’s raucous assertion. The temptation to roll over and sink back into sleep was almost overwhelming. He lay with his forearm over his eyes for a few more seconds, blocking out the day, then, with a mingled sigh and groan, he threw back the covers. As he groped for the handle of the bathroom door shortly afterwards, he reflected that he must have averaged three hours’ sleep over the preceding five nights.

As Robin had foreseen, sending her home had meant he had to choose between tailing Platinum and Mad Dad. Having recently witnessed the latter jumping out at his small sons unexpectedly, and seen their tears of fright, Strike had decided that Mad Dad ought to be prioritized. Leaving Platinum to her blameless routine, he had spent large parts of the week covertly photographing the skulking father, racking up image after image of the man spying on his boys and accosting them whenever their mother was not present.

When not covering Mad Dad, Strike had been busy with his own investigations. The police were moving far too slowly for his liking so, still without the slightest proof that Brockbank, Laing or Whittaker had any co

Balanced on his only leg, he wrenched the dial on the shower clockwise and allowed the icy water to pummel him awake, cooling his puffy eyes and raising gooseflesh through the dark hair on his chest, arms and legs. The one good thing about his tiny shower was that, if he slipped, there was no room to fall. Once clean, he hopped back to the bedroom, where he toweled himself roughly and turned on the TV.