Dead on Demand (A DCI Morton Crime Novel) by Sean Campbell, Daniel Campbell

long to get a nibble on the darknet. Barry's instinct had been right. The darknet was a world where anything goes. His seller wasn't strictly in London, but they met in Guilford. The weapon was concealed inside a guitar case, and cost Barry five hundred pounds in cash. Barry had to empty the slush fund under his bed, but that money bought him a double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun. It was old, and could do with a spot of polish, but Barry was sure it would work. It was bound to be loud, but there was no escaping that.
    Barry also bought one box of ammo – twenty-four shells – with the gun, for an extra twenty pounds. He probably wouldn't need a whole box, but it wouldn't hurt. He'd ditch both the gun and the ammo in the Thames after the hit. It was twelve-bore ammo, the most common kind, so it wouldn't attract too much attention should it be found, and the ammo wasn't illegal anyway, just the gun.
    Barry's second task was to home in on his victim. He knew she lived across from a chip shop, and he found her place easily enough. He loitered in a nearby coffee shop, and tried to keep an eye on her comings and goings, to work out when and where the hit would go down.
    ***
    Morton was beginning to make progress investigating the Brixton stabbing. The victim, Emanuel Richard, was in the system, having been arrested a number of times for rape and sexual assault. None of the charges had stuck, but if the accusations were true, it could explain motive.
    The conviction rate in rape cases was notoriously low, often hinging on a he said, she said case with the defendant claiming that the sex was consensual.
    Sometimes witnesses were reluctant to testify for fear of being victimised again on the stand. That was often more than enough to give rise to reasonable doubt, and so Mr Richard walked free each time.
    Morton wondered if his death was the result of vigilante justice. It could give him a lead, but could just as easily be a red herring. There were a huge number of victims that might want to see him dead, and Morton suspected that more might exist that never found the strength of conviction to come forward.
    The slight hole in the theory was the statistic that over eighty-five percent of violent stabbings were committed by men, and as far as Morton knew, Emanuel Richard did not swing that way. It was possible of course, but considering the number of victims it was unlikely.
    'Men often hide it out of shame. They don't want to be seen as the victim of rape.' Morton's colleague, Linda had read his mind. She was often the voice of reason in the squad room despite her relative youth. She was, at forty, an experienced detective but Morton considered her a relative newcomer nonetheless. He was demanding that way.
    'I agree, but it's more likely that a brother or father of a victim would carry out a vigilante hit. We've got an e-fit, so let's see if it matches up with anyone connected to the known victims.'
    ***
    The south end of the Caledonian Road was attracted a reasonable amount of foot traffic. Barry couldn't simply loiter, or he would be noticed. There wasn't a convenient cafe to sit in and watch the property, so Barry was forced to improvise. Across the street, above and to the right of the chip shop, was the Regal Fitness Centre and Gym. On the fourth floor a number of treadmills gave a clean view across the street towards his target's apartment building. The front door was off to the side, with an alleyway leading towards the bins at the rear of the property, and Caledonian Road at the front. Barry decided to take out membership at the gym and use it as an opportunity to spy on the property and its occupant.
    When he entered the gym he realised that there was a remote chance that a paper trail could come back to bite him. Barry bought a gift certificate for one month's membership, waited until the girl who sold him it went off shift, and redeemed it himself under an alias. That way he neatly avoided needing to sign up to a minimum