Read Online Cold Kill by David Lawrence - Free Book Online Page A

knew that. They were the wrong side of the DMZ for sure, but, as long as they kept their distance, things would be fine.
    You can name buildings after local dignitaries or poets or Cumbrian lakes. The man who’d designed Harefield was a realist. The blocks went from A to L. Stella and Harriman stepped out of the lift in Block C and on to the walkway of Floor 16; they were looking for Flat 31. Two dudes sat on the walkway rail, their backs to the sheer drop, sharing a spliff.
    They said, ‘Hey, motherfucker. Hey, bitch.’ That was as far as it went.
    The sound of a Hatton gun taking out the door-hinges of 16/31 went round the circle of tower blocks: sharp echoes hanging in the air. Kimber’s flat was stone cold. Everyone in the team was wearing white coveralls, and Jack Cuddon was doing Andy Greegan’s job of organizing an uncorrupted path from the door to the search site. The flats were basic clones: a passageway from the front door led to one or two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen. But you can customize any space – make it your own, make your mark.
    Pete Harriman walked into Kimber’s living room and stopped dead. He said, ‘Holy Christ.’
    Stella joined him; she said, ‘This guy’s a case. He’s a real
case
.’
    Harriman stood in the centre of the room and did a slow revolve. The walls were black and they were papered with ten by eight candid-camera shots: all women, all young, none of them posing or smiling for the camera because they weren’t aware that they were being photographed. A space had been left beneath each photo where Kimber had used a pen with silver ink to record the time, the date, and then to give to each an embellishment, a little story. His handwriting was small and fastidiously neat, the lines evenly spaced. If you stood a little way off, you might be persuaded that this was design: wallpaper that borrowed its ideas from the photograph album; a touch retro-chic for a sink estate, perhaps, but hey...
    Then you might take time to read what was written; you might read the
details
.
    â€˜Kimber, you sick fuck,’ Harriman said.
    Stella was looking at the pictures.
    A woman sitting at a pavement-café table, smoking, staring at nothing in particular, her hair drifting across her cheek.
    A woman sunbathing in the park, the camera taking in a long length of leg and probing under her skirt.
    A woman peering into a restaurant, searching for a friend maybe, her own reflection looking back at her.
    A woman walking down the street, all purpose and urgency, her coat making wings either side, her hair flying.
    A woman on a park bench leaning back to drink from a bottle of water, her throat arched, sunlight among the water as it flowed.
    A woman preparing to dress a naked mannequin in a clothes-shop window, her arms round the dummy from behind, her face looking over its shoulder.
    A woman leaning forward to attend to a child in a buggy, her blouse falling forward, the soft slope of her breasts.
    And women framed in windows at night, or at dusk, some part-clothed, some naked, some in motion so slightly blurred, some on the far side of the room so muddled with reflections, some removing clothes so indistinct, some closing the curtains so sharp and defined. Many such women… though it would have taken time and trouble to find them and catch them like that: trapped for a moment inside their own lives.
    Times and dates logged… and then the little stories, which were brief and dark and terrifying; stories of blood and pain and desecration. As Stella read them, they dizzied her; her throat tightened and the blood sang in her ears.
    â€˜You think he did any of this stuff?’ Harriman was reading too.
    â€˜I don’t know.’ She shuddered. ‘Jesus Christ, I hope not.’
    â€˜We can check some of them. Some of them have names.’
    *
    Jack Cuddon was going from room to room like a man with a purpose, but, in truth, it was just