‘Not if the first death would have tipped off the other two,’ Hawkins said. ‘For all we know, Kowalski, Tennent and Wilson could have been collaborating on something, but we won’t find out what until we link the three of them somehow.’

Hunter interjected, ‘Perhaps the clue isn’t in the victims, but in the killer’s behaviour.’

She frowned. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘I’m saying there’s a reason for everything.’ Hunter drew breath before going on. ‘Ask yourself why, if there was no reason to select these particular men, did he go to the trouble of gathering strangers from all over London? Perhaps if they had died in separate locations, and at separate times, you could speculate the killer was trying to hide the fact they were connected at all, but he didn’t do that – quite the opposite, in fact. So why go through all the hassle and risk of assembling them at a single address, and leaving their personal details lying around at the scene?’

Frank snorted. ‘Perhaps he thought we needed a head start—’

‘Hold on,’ Hawkins cut in. ‘Maybe that’s it. What if this is some kind of challenge?’ She turned back to Hunter. ‘Could the killer be suggesting he can evade the Met, even if he gives us a leg-up?’

The profiler thought for a second. ‘It’s possible. Egotism is common among mass murderers. All the big names, from Fred West to Joseph Stalin, had heavily narcissistic personalities, so if this guy’s out to show off, you might be right.’

Silence descended, but as Hawkins scanned the expressions of her team, it became apparent that her speculation, accurate as it might be, didn’t move them forwards.

With few other suggestions, the meeting broke up. Hawkins told everyone to keep working on it, and retreated to her office.

It was discouraging that they were three days into a new case, with three dead men but no real leads.

She sighed and sat back in her seat, staring up at the grimy ceiling tiles. They were due some kind of breakthrough, but whatever it was needed to come soon.

Because at the moment it felt like they were going backwards.

20

Ninety minutes after the meeting, Hawkins eased herself away from the desk and rolled her shoulders. She’d been trying to make headway with her other bureaucratic duties, but the case wouldn’t let her concentrate.

It was now pretty much confirmed that they were dealing with a serial killer; one that had taken the sizeable risk of murdering multiple victims, and left few enough traces that one of the Met’s best forensics team had needed two days to work out how it was done. The lack of clues might be a consequence of the two weeks the bodies had lain undiscovered, but even that wasn’t necessarily good news.

As the old adage asked: was it better to be lucky or smart?