Chapter 37
‘I knew I recognised something about it,’ DS Renton said. ‘I’m still not sure, and it might be nothing. But this is what I was thinking of.’
‘What is this?’ I said.
‘It’s a shock-site. A forum filled with extreme images. Footage of death and torture. Suicide, rape, murder …’
‘There are forums for that?’
The strip light in the ceiling was humming ominously.
Renton shrugged as he typed in a username and password.
‘That kind of material is all over the internet,’ he said, ‘but this place is a bit of a hub for people. I mean, you don’t need to come here to watch a beheading video, say, because they’re everywhere, but this place sort of catalogues them. And the rest.’
‘Wow.’
‘Thousands of users online at any one time. Most new material of that nature gets posted here and commented on.’
Oh Christ, I thought.
‘Our video’s not …’
‘No, no. Don’t worry. But we scan these sites quite often – five minutes at the beginning of every day, just to keep an eye out for anything we might need to get involved with. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes someone’ll break the rules and post something they shouldn’t.’
I watched as the page changed to the forum listings. Still the same image at the top of the screen, now with rows of sub-forums underneath. True Gore Images. True Gore Video. The numbers to the right showed that each category contained thousands of postings.
‘This place has rules?’
‘Oh yeah. No kiddie stuff is what it mainly comes down to. Even nutters have their own conceptions of morality. But every now and then, someone’ll figure the secrecy here means open season. So we keep an eye out.’
‘Secrecy?’
‘Yeah. It used to be open but now you need to be a member to view or post, and they’re not allowing new members anymore. It’s a closed community of weirdos, and that allows them a certain degree of freedom. Or the illusion of it anyway.’
‘Okay.’
‘Here we go.’ Renton clicked on a link on his profile marked ‘favourites’. ‘I scanned through last night and found it again, saved the thread. It’s an interesting one. Not nice. Brace yourself.’
He opened the thread and clicked on the video link in the first post. After a moment, a new window opened and the file started playing.
It showed a static image of grassland: a short stretch that ended in a line of dark, shadowy trees.
The day it had been recorded, the weather had been good: the grass itself was bright and inviting, untended and shimmering slightly in the faintest of breezes as though under calm water.
In the audio feed, I could hear birdsong – and then something else. A clatter.
A hissing.
A few seconds later, a figure entered the frame, walking a little distance ahead of the camera.
He was wearing blue jeans, a black coat – and a black balaclava, with tufts of brown hair emerging from the back of the neckline.
In one hand, he was holding a hammer, turning it round and round in his grip.
And in the other – by the scruff of its neck – a tabby cat. It was twisting, jerking in his grasp.
‘Oh God,’ I said.
Renton nodded. ‘Yep.’
The footage didn’t last long – just over a minute in total.
When he was done, the man stayed crouched over the animal’s body for a few moments, tilting his head and peering down dispassionately at the damage he’d inflicted.
For all the distress and emotion he showed, he might have been studying a butterfly on a leaf.
Finally, he stood up and walked back behind the camera. The screen went blank.
For the last few frames, I had been holding my breath.
‘When was this posted?’
‘Last year,’ Renton said. ‘It’s local too, which is what originally caught my eye. He’s posted a few of them. This is the only video he took outside: the others look like interiors – a garage of some kind. There are photos too. Here.’
He opened a new window and loaded a different thread.
This one contained static images. Cats pinned down like laboratory specimens and slit open.
One had all its legs and its head cut off.
Four or five were hanging from trees by their necks, all with a gloved hand intruding into the frame from the side to point at them.
I stared at the photographs with horror. Below, there were messages from other users congratulating him on the post. I read the first – Great work! Can’t wait to see more! – and felt sick.
But also, just barely, a tingle of something else.
You didn’t expect us to find these, did you?
I said, ‘How do you know he’s local?’
Renton nodded. ‘He filled his location information in. Maybe he was lying, but I don’t see why he would be. Plus we identified the location the first video was shot. Swaine Hill.’
Shit. Killer Hill. Where Billy Martin had entered the woods. Billy Martin, who’d talked about someone killing a cat. My heart began beating faster.
First things first.
‘All right. Did you ever trace this guy’s account?’
‘That’s the downside, I’m afraid.’ Renton pulled a face. ‘The site’s totally anonymous. The server’s based abroad, and the registration shifts. That’s one of the things that makes it so appealing to the users. The lack of accountability.’
‘If we contact the admins?’
‘Good luck with that.’
‘Shit.’
I leaned back.
This was him. I knew it. He’d recorded these images last year and posted them online for some reason – to show off, maybe – and the whole time he’d been practising. Preparing for his work this year. A dry run of some kind.
The kids at school. They told me about someone who killed a cat.
Another realisation.
The guy hadn’t bothered to chase Billy Martin …
I stood up quickly and pulled out my mobile. Laura took an age to answer, then:
‘Hicks. What have we – ?’
‘Laura, listen to me. Get someone round to Billy Martin’s house. I think he might need protection. We’ve got to get him in here right now.’
I heard her typing. ‘I’m on it.’
‘Because I think he might have recognised Billy.’
‘What? Where from?’
‘I think –’ It was hard to bring myself to say it. ‘I think it might be a kid. An older teenager maybe.’
I reminded her about what Billy had said.
‘I’m on it,’ she said again.
‘I’ll be upstairs in a minute.’
I hung up. Shit, shit, shit. But there was hope now too – stronger than before. The guy might have hidden his identity online, but he couldn’t fucking hide in real life. Not forever. No matter how fucking clever he thought he was.
Renton said, ‘Think it’s our guy? Jimmy?’
‘Jimmy?’
‘The username.’
He tapped the screen and I saw what he was referring to. The username for the posts was Jimmy82.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes I do.’