Chapter Five
A stunning young officer has one buttock planted on the edge of Sam’s desk when she arrives back from lunch, a bag of kibble, some puppy pads and a few other pet items under her arm.
The blonde tosses her glossy hair as she laughs at something Adam Taylor has said.
The TDC springs to his feet when he sees Sam approaching and the officer’s eyes run up and down Sam’s body, taking in every shabby, slightly stodgy inch of her.
Sam recognizes the woman as both the one from Holland Park and the one from the Jessica Patel interview recording she’d watched yesterday.
Sam tries to remember her name, but fails.
“Ma’am,” Taylor starts, “I was just—”
“Get a room, Taylor,” Sam orders, and the young man’s face turns instantly puce.
“Ma’am, you’ve got the wrong end of the—”
“Not interested, Taylor,” Sam snaps, cutting him short, and unloads her purchases on to her desk. “Find a room.”
“The DI means a meeting room, Adam.” The young woman smirks, retrieving a dog collar that has landed on the floor near her feet.
Red-faced, Taylor slopes off and Sam sits, quickly checking her emails and the database search output. She notices several emails from HR: welcome-back messages and well-being check-in appointments. She ignores them, opening a browser and typing in “.”
She’s surprised to be met with a stylish website. The homepage features a simple image of Denver’s book and an “Add to Basket” button beneath. Customers can choose between the hard copy and the ebook, and both seem averagely priced. She clicks on “A Message from the Author.”
Dear Reader,
Welcome. I’m the author of How to Get Away with Murder. I hope you enjoy my first book, and if you do, please leave a killer review. May I humbly suggest the following hashtags: #howtogetawaywithmurder and #teamdenver
It means the world to me to read about what you’ve discovered among my pages.
I appreciate every single one of you. If for some watery reason, you feel inclined to leave a negative review, pray that you know how to hide your IP address.
Ellie1985, I see you. Hope you enjoy your son Archie’s football match tonight. Go Blackheath Cubs FC.
Just kidding. But seriously, serial killers have feelings, too. Kindness costs nothing.
Warm wishes,
Denver Brady, S.K.
Sam rolls her eyes and goes back to the homepage, where she adds a book to her basket and proceeds to checkout.
As she suspects, the payment gateway is provided by a secure third-party plug-in, WorldSecurePay.
Sam smiles as she copies the payment URL and sends it to DC Chen, head of the technical inquiry team.
A warrant may be needed, but they’ll be able to request the details of the bank account receiving the money from the sales made via .
Closing her email, Sam quickly navigates to the police database.
There are no hits on any real-life Denver victims yet.
She broadens a couple of the search criteria, but Taylor’s done a good job overall and she sets it running again.
The database will identify any unsolved homicides where the victim’s name matches any of Denver’s victims: Sarah, Jono and so on.
Taylor has set up multiple searches for a man named Basil, who appears to have been attacked but not murdered, unlike Denver’s other victims. It’s more likely that they’ll find the homicide victims first. There are only around six hundred murders per year in the UK compared with countries like America, where there are around twenty thousand.
They only have forenames and approximate time frames to go on, but if the cases are there and their search terms precise, the database should flag them.
Sam doesn’t dwell on the obvious caveat: Denver could have easily substituted a victim’s real name with a fake. But they have to start somewhere.
Gathering her copy of How to Get Away with Murder and Charlotte’s case file, Sam stands to follow Taylor to the briefing room, but realizes she’s being observed.
The pretty young officer is lingering and clearly has something that she wants to say, but rank and etiquette seem to have tied her tongue. Sam stands and waits.
“Ma’am…” the young woman begins, “you have a little something…” She gestures with her fingers and Sam looks down at her shirt to where a glob of ketchup has landed on her boobs and slalomed farther down her chest. Once upon a time, before DS Phil Lowry violated her and sent her spiraling, Sam kept a clean, pressed shirt in her locker, along with makeup, deodorant, a hairbrush and a host of other items that normal women needed to smell, look and function perfectly. Now the only thing in there is dust.
Sam shrugs off her embarrassment and says, “Thank you, Officer…?”
“DC Spears, ma’am,” she says; and then, tentatively, “People call me Britney, ma’am, among other things, but my name is actually Chloe. I’m on the witness team. We’re working on interviews and statements for the Charlotte Mathers case.”
“Nice to meet you officially, Chloe. I thought you handled Jessica Patel’s interview very well.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Chloe blushes. “Adam mentioned that you’re leading the book inquiry team?
I’ve just started reading it myself. I know that it isn’t anything to do with my role in the investigation, but I saw a copy on Adam’s desk and, well, I’m struggling to put it down, to be honest. I love a good crime book. ”
Sam smiles. “Well, DC Spears, welcome to the Met’s first book club.”
“What are your thoughts on Denver so far, ma’am?”
“I’m keeping an open mind at this stage and I’m still reading, so I don’t want to leap to conclusions. There are three possibilities that I’m working with.” She listed them, gratified by Chloe’s rapt attention.
“Meaning we either have one serial killer, two killers or a made-up story that inspired murder. Wow. My mind is—”
“Spears…” Harry leans out of his office door. “Aren’t you meant to be interviewing the headmaster?” Chloe looks at the huge clock on the far wall.
“Shoot,” she mutters, spinning away from Sam. “On it, sir.”
Chloe Spears jogs to the lift and Sam spots Taylor, his face now its usual color, waiting at the door to the small glass meeting room in the corner of the fourth floor.
The room is tiny, and when she takes a seat she notices that their bodies are uncomfortably close to one another.
She suddenly finds herself wishing she had spritzed some of the old perfume she used to wear.
“Sorry, Taylor,” she starts, shuffling uncomfortably and knocking her knee accidentally against his. “I was just looking at Denver’s website.”
“It looks decent enough,” he says, “but I ran a SimilarWeb report and there’s very little traffic hitting it. What little there is seems to be coming mainly from Reddit. One particular sub is driving most of the visitors—”
“Sorry … Reddit?” Sam scrunches her brow.
“Yes, ma’am.” He pulls out his phone and she scrolls on it as he talks.
“It’s a website of online communities known as ‘subreddits’ or ‘subs’—basically, forum-style group conversations organized around shared interests.
Anyone can join and anyone can post. If a user’s post is interesting to others, people can upvote it so it gets more attention. ”
“OK. So, Denver joined a chat room to self-promote?”
“Basically, ma’am, yes. With Google or other search engines it’d take longer, require more skill and cost money to drive people to his website. Reddit has loads of subs about serial killers and Denver has basically hijacked the conversations and promoted his book there.”
“Send everything you have to DC Chen.” She hands back Taylor’s phone. “I’ve emailed him to pursue the payment provider Denver uses on the site and, with any luck, we can follow the money right to Denver’s door.”
Taylor’s head sags. “I should have thought to check the payment gateway…”
“Let’s talk about the book. What’re your thoughts so far, Taylor?”
“Well,” he begins, flipping some pages of his Moleskine, “I think we need a profiler, ma’am.”
“A profiler?” Sam swallows her tea. “I’m sorry to burst your bubble, Taylor, but offender profilers are pointless.
” He opens and closes his mouth. “I know,” she says before he can object.
“You’ve seen them on television, read about them in books?
These heroes with a sixth sense who can tell you what a serial killer had for breakfast or how his awful mother waved a pair of scissors at his…
” Sam takes a deep breath. Taylor crosses his legs.
“Sorry, you’re new and I’m supposed to be mentoring you, not jumping on my soapbox. ”
“It’s OK,” he says, rather awkwardly. “I just thought a profiler would have a field day with Denver.”
“I’m going to refer you to two cases, Taylor,” Sam says, taking his notebook and writing Rachel Nickell and Beltway Snipers on a fresh page.
“These will help you understand how offender profilers can derail an investigation entirely. Geographical profiling is much more useful, but How to Get Away with Murder is deliberately vague with place names and there’s just not enough data to construct a geographical profile.
In terms of compiling information about Denver, based on his book, we’ll be doing that ourselves over the course of the investigation.
” Sam hands him her “Who is Denver Brady?” list and explains that she’ll type it up and add it to a shared folder so they can both build on it.
“This is as good as any offender profile, Taylor,” she promises. “I’ll share it with DI Edris, too.”
“I, er, was also going to suggest we draw up a Denver timeline,” he says hesitantly.
“Great idea, Taylor.” She nods and he exhales, relieved.
“I’ve already started, actually.” Taylor unfolds a piece of A3 paper from the back of his notebook and Sam is reminded of watching Blue Peter or Art Attack with her mum. They both used to roll their eyes when the host said, “Here’s one I made earlier.’”