The Caller by Alex Barclay Page A

through?’
    ‘Machine’s bust,’ said Joe. ‘Can you run it by me now?’
    ‘I would say – surprise, surprise – white male in his thirties, most likely lives alone. He will come across as quite a regular guy. He won’t give off any weird vibes. He lives in the city – we’ve got one victim in SoHo, two on the Upper West Side. He’s mobile, drives to and from the scene. Reasonably stable work history, but probably with gaps in between jobs or maybe with a job thatmeans he works alone, but has intermittent interaction with people. He must spend a lot of time alone to finely tune this fantasy of his. There’s hardcore evidence of overkill at the scenes, which suggests all this is personal, so maybe you should be looking at linking the victims or maybe they’re people who slighted him along his path.
    ‘The guy is a mixed offender. He plans well: he gets in to the apartments easily, no forced entry, so he must be doing something right. He brings tools with him: his hammer, his twenty-two caliber handgun. He doesn’t leave behind any evidence. Yet his attack is frenzied, which implies he also lets his control slip.
    ‘Think carefully about the locations. Killers usually ease themselves into it by operating in an area that’s very familiar to them, so we could be looking at someone who lives on the Upper West Side or grew up there, same goes maybe for SoHo.’
    ‘Great,’ said Joe. ‘Thanks for that. Did you come up with anything sexual? You know, the whole nudity thing?’
    ‘I’m just not getting that. It seems more like a humiliation thing. Or a control thing. I’d be surprised if there was a sexual motivation. But as they say, guarantee: no guarantees.’
    ‘Sure.’
    ‘Listen, if you need anything else—’
    ‘Yeah, I’ll be in touch.’
    * * *
    When Joe got home, Anna was sitting at the kitchen counter with a stack of pages she had cut out of magazines. Joe kissed her on the cheek, then reached out to pull open the tall narrow cabinet that was wedged between the fridge and the wall. It rocked wildly from side to side.
    ‘This thing feels like it is going to fall apart every time I touch it.’
    ‘Pull it quick,’ said Anna, ‘and lift it at the same time.’
    He closed it and tried it again.
    ‘I have a lot of practice here all the time,’ she said.
    ‘Well maybe I can tempt you out on Friday. It’s Gina’s birthday. Danny has booked a table for the four of us in Pastis. Are you OK with that?’
    She paused, but then nodded. ‘I think so.’
    ‘You can always cancel at the last minute. No pressure.’
    ‘Thanks.’
    ‘But I’d love you to be there.’
    ‘I know’.
    ‘Let me go change,’ he said. He went upstairs, took a shower, then came down in jeans and a blue T-shirt with the logo of a bar he never remembered being in. He sat down on the sofa and turned on the television. He barely noticed the channels he was changing until he hit a press conference. The Police Commissioner was standing at a podium reading from a statement.
    ‘… established a link with two previous murders, the first of which happened in September last, that of William Aneto, and the second in December of Gary Ortis. ’ The room erupted. The Commissioner continued. ‘ All three victims were male, aged between thirty and forty years old and were brutally attacked in their place of residence and shot dead. A twenty-two caliber handgun was used in each of the crimes. There was no sign of forced entry, so we’re investigating the possibility that these men knew their killer. A task force working out of Manhattan North Homicide has been put together to handle the investigation .’
    Questions were shouted from all over the room:
    ‘ Are you saying there is a serial killer loose in New York? ’
    ‘ What I’m saying is that we have established a pattern between three homicides that have taken place in the city in the past year .’
    ‘ Why did you not establish a pattern sooner? The first murder happened