Valentin was good at forgetting all about serious things like death and destruction, and that was part of what made him such a good serial killer. He didn’t dwell on the past and how he could have done things differently because he always knew that he had acted accordingly at the time. Like the situation in Las Vegas, for example, which had seen him take two more lives even though he hadn’t been expecting to take any during his time in the desert. The first victim had been a man who Valentin had caught spying on him and chased out onto a rooftop before a fight had ensued between the pair. Valentin had been eager to know why it was that the man had been spying on him, presuming that it must have been because he somehow knew who Valentin was and what dangerous activities he liked to get up to in his spare time. But there hadn’t been much opportunity for conversation during the altercation, and it had ended rather abruptly when Valentin had pushed him off the roof.

  Any time for contemplation in the immediate aftermath of that incident had been wiped away when Valentin had noticed the female witness to his crime and chased her down from the rooftop into the stairwell before she had tripped and broken her neck at the bottom of the stairs.

  Two bodies in a very short space of time and both in a public place meant that Valentin had needed to flee the scene as quickly as he could, and he had done just that, leaving the premises and returning to his hotel before catching a flight out of the city at his earliest convenience. But after he had disembarked the plane back in London, he had made sure to keep an eye out in the news for updates on who the deceased may have been and why they had ended up in the same place at the same time as the Russian killer. That had been how he had found out the identities of the deceased and come to discover that they were married to each other, although the reports suggested that they had been in the process of separating at the time of their deaths. But that wasn’t the nugget of information that had interested Valentin the most. Rather, that was the fact that the man he had pushed from that rooftop was an officer in the Metropolitan Police, and at the time of his death, he had been assigned to a Major Investigation Team that specialised in investigating unsolved murders around the English capital.

  Being a killer himself, Valentin knew that a man like him was exactly the kind of person Tom should have been looking to bring to justice. But the question was, how the hell did Tom know that Valentin was a person of interest?

  Despite two months passing since that dramatic day in the desert, Valentin still didn’t understand why Tom had been following him, nor why his wife, Kelly, had been there with him too. All he knew was that both of them were now dead, and as of yet, nobody else from the MIT team in London had been on his trail. At least he wasn’t aware of it anyway. But just to be sure, Valentin had curtailed his killing spree and had not taken another victim since he had flown back to the UK from America, not willing to take the risk in case one of Tom’s colleagues was watching him and waiting for him to make a mistake. But the more time that went by, the more that Valentin felt confident that Tom had been working alone and not in a professional capacity when they had met each other so suddenly in the bathroom of that nightclub just before Tom took a tumble off the rooftop. There were several reasons why Valentin felt that was the case, not least of which was the way in which Tom had been conducting his surveillance operation on him. It had been sloppy to say the least, and it was that sloppiness that had given Valentin the chance to see that he was being watched and for him to do something about it. Of course, in his mind, doing something about it meant doing anything he could to prevent his secret from coming out into the world, and he had seemingly done that by killing both Tom and Kelly. But the only problem with that was that he didn’t know if anybody else suspected him of being the person behind the string of unsolved murders that had left many Londoners looking over their shoulders in fear.

  Was he free to start killing again?

  Or was there somebody else watching him now?

  Valentin did his best to feel confident that he was in the clear as he always liked to do whenever any paranoid thoughts tried to infiltrate his mind, and it wasn’t long until his mind was clear again, just like the road in front of him. Zooming past all the frustrated drivers sitting in their stationary vehicles in the opposing lanes, Valentin felt that sense of smug satisfaction that he was on this side of the road and not that jammed one because their Friday night was now ruined while his would carry on as planned. He was returning from a day spent driving luxury sports cars around a racetrack with corporate clients, and as fun as that had been, he was looking forward to much more pleasurable pursuits now that he was on his way back to his apartment in Greenwich for an evening of good wine, good music and the company of a good woman who he would pay an extortionate amount of money to be with. For a man who was taking an enforced break from killing until he was absolutely sure that the coast was clear, he was now going to have to engage in simpler pursuits and passions, and while they weren’t as exciting as taking another human life, they weren’t exactly dull either.

  With the crash site disappearing from view in his rear-view mirror, Valentin put his foot down on the accelerator pedal and returned to his normal cruising speed, which was 70mph on the nose and ensured he was not going over the speed limits set on British highways. For a man who had broken the law several times and for much more heinous crimes than speeding, it might have seemed funny that he would bother with sticking to the speed limit when he was behind the wheel. But for a man who loved to research things as much as Valentin did, he knew just why it was so important not to attract any attention to himself in silly and unnecessary ways. He had lost count of how many serial killers he had read about online who had ended up being caught because of something so trivial like exceeding the speed limit or having a broken taillight, and the resulting attention they had got from the police had ultimately led to their downfall. Some of them had been stupid enough to be breaking the law on the roads while having a body in the back of their vehicle, which Valentin found staggering, but some of them had not actually been expecting to have any trouble even after they had been pulled over by the police. They just assumed they would get a speeding ticket or a warning before being allowed to go where they would be free to continue their killing spree in their private life. But sometimes, that stop from the police could unravel a whole murder investigation because the officer at the scene might notice something about the man they had pulled over or the vehicle in which they had stopped, and that was sometimes all it took for them to link them to the unsolved murders in the area.

  Maybe the driver bore a resemblance to the description of the person who the police suspected of carrying out the crimes. Maybe there was a distinctive item in the car that an eye-witness had earlier described seeing just before they had escaped from the clutches of the evil person behind the wheel, and then the police officer had spotted it too. Or it could even be something as silly as the driver saying something he thought was innocent enough, like where he was going or where he had come from, but that could be the thing that tipped off the officer to the fact that the driver was much more than just an illegal road user. The last thing Valentin wanted was to get pulled over for speeding and have to have a conversation with an officer because even though there was nothing in his vehicle that could link him to any of his crimes, how was he to know if the officer had been told to look out for any men matching his description around the London area? After all, there had been that one potential victim of his who had got away on Valentine’s Day, and she would definitely have spoken to the police about him. Add in to that the fact that Valentin had experienced an unsettling altercation with a London police officer in Las Vegas, and that all pointed to the fact that perhaps he wasn’t quite as perfect at his illegal hobby as he might have previously thought. Just like all the other serial killers throughout history before him, he was capable of making mistakes, and he was capable of getting caught. With that in mind, he would continue to tread as cautiously as possible from here on out and not tempt fate in any way, which included not going a single digit over the legal speed limit on this road.

  As he continued to move down the motorway in the direction of the city, Valentin entertained the idea of waiting one more month before he would seek out another victim. In his mind, that should give him enough time to be 100% certain that nobody else was following him from the British police force and that he really was in the clear to continue his criminal ways unimpeded. He was tempted to strike much sooner than that, but he would continue to be patient because it was impatience that had got so many serial killers before him caught. He was determined not to be like those ones, all of whom were now behind bars and resigned to reminiscing about their crimes instead of being able to carry out any new ones. Valentin knew he would get caught one day, and he also knew there would come a time when he would welcome all the attention and the notoriety it would give him, but that day was not here yet. He still had a few more victims to add to his resume before he would metaphorically hang up his weapons and leave the nervous Londoners to get on with their lives in peace, and he was determined to get them.

  Just like this open motorway ahead of him, nothing was going to stop him yet. He had a one-track mind, and it was headed straight for its next target, just like this road was headed straight for the city.

  Valentin was as eager to kill again as his foot was to stomp down on the accelerator pedal.

  But all in good time, he told himself as he drove on.

  All in good time.

  Paula *

  17:37

  Paula Walsh was also one of the drivers feeling fortunate to be on this side of the motorway as she looked over the central reservation and saw the long lines of traffic not moving over there. She was sitting in the passenger seat beside her husband, Lee, and their nine-year-old daughter, Bella, was in the back, and all three of them were ready for this car journey to come to an end. That’s because it had been a long drive down from where they had enjoyed a week’s holiday in Scotland, and after several hours in the car during this return trip to their home in London, they had all got on each other’s nerves numerous times.

  ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?’

  Bella had been asking the same question for what felt like half the journey, and she was now asking it again even though her parents had already given her a sufficient answer on more than one occasion.

  ‘Not yet, Bella! We’ll tell you when we are there! Now stop asking us!’ Lee cried loudly after growing tired of the incessant noise from the backseat, and Paula was just grateful that it had been him who had snapped first instead of her because it had been a close race between the pair of them.

  ‘Daddy’s in a bad mood,’ replied Bella to nobody in particular, but her father’s tense response was enough to get her to go back to watching her children’s show on the iPad in her hands.

  That gave the two exhausted parents in the front the chance to savour a few sweet seconds of silence before Bella decided to try their patience again.

  ‘I need a wee!’

  ‘We’re almost home,’ Paula replied, checking the Sat-Nav to see exactly how far they did have to go. Thankfully, it wasn’t far now, but every mile felt like torture at this point, and she had already entertained the idea more than once of getting out on the hard shoulder and walking the rest of the way home by herself. It would be stupid and dangerous, but it would probably be quieter than staying in this car.

  ‘I can’t wait until then!’ Bella complained.

  ‘You’re going to have to. There’s nowhere to stop,’ Paula fibbed, not wanting Lee to turn off into another service station because they had already stopped off at enough of them on the way home, and that was why they were still on the road and not relaxing at home by now.

  ‘Yes, there is!’ Bella cried when she realised that her mother was lying to her because while she was still only nine, she knew enough about the world not to be treated as if she was stupid.

  Paula let out a deep sigh and glanced at her husband beside her, who looked like he was just about ready to turn the steering wheel into the crash barrier and put them both out of their misery.

  ‘Do you definitely need to go?’ Paula tried one more time, hoping that her daughter was going to change her mind.

  ‘Yes!’ came the loud reply, and that was all it took for Paula to tell her partner to move over into the inside lane so they could make the turn off for the upcoming service station.

  As the car slowed down and they indicated to leave the motorway, Paula thought about how this week off work had not exactly been the relaxing holiday that she needed. It had been her first proper break from her employment in almost a year, thanks mainly to her refusal to book any annual leave and remove herself from duty with so much work still on her plate in the office, but she had been forced to in the end by both her superiors and her husband. Being the Detective Chief Inspector of a Major Investigation Team in Central London was a high-pressured enough job as it was, but Paula knew it wasn’t half as difficult as being a good mother and wife. In some weird way, it felt easier to deal with crime and criminals all day than it did dealing with her daughter’s latest tantrum and her husband’s latest bad mood. She loved her family and knew she couldn’t have lived without them, but there was no denying that it was easier to be at work than it was to be stuck in a car with them all day or stuck in a holiday cottage with them all week. Paula was due back on duty tomorrow, but after her seven-day hiatus up in Scotland, she was far from refreshed and raring to go, and that was a problem because she knew there would be plenty to keep her occupied when she did return to the police station and dive back into all the outstanding tasks on her unit’s plate.

  The biggest thing they still needed to do was solve several murders that were continuing to perplex the police officers on the case as well as continuing to worry many members of the general public who were fearful that they weren’t safe until the killer or killers were caught. Paula was under pressure from her superiors in the police force as well as the media, who were always publishing articles about the failures of the MIT teams in London and their inability to provide answers to unsolved crimes. All of that stress and pressure was hardly conducive to taking a week off work and relaxing because it would all just be waiting for her as soon as she got back, but Paula had been forced to take her leave, so that was what she had done. But as she always said to both her colleagues and her family members, while it was all well and good for her to take time off, unfortunately, there weren’t many criminals who took the same approach.

  Every day off she had meant a day when a criminal had one less police officer hunting them down.

  As Lee steered the car into the service station car park and Bella clapped her hands loudly to get more attention, Paula did her best to push thoughts of work from her mind because she was technically still on annual leave, but it was easier said than done. It had always been difficult for her to switch off because she was very career-focused, but things had got even harder recently after a terrible tragedy within her own team. Tom Casey, a policeman who she had helped select for a place in her MIT team, had been found dead in Las Vegas a couple of months ago, and the loss of the popular colleague had sent shockwaves through the close-knit team. It was one thing to deal with death all day when it came to random victims of criminals, but it was another to have to deal with it when it involved somebody the officers all knew. Paula had been stunned to hear of Tom’s demise, but she had barely had any time to process it before she had been instructed to fill his place on the team with another officer and get back to work. Now there was a new officer sitting at Tom’s desk, and it was a new person for Paula to have to try and motivate to work hard for the greater good of the Great British public.

  She still didn’t understand what had happened to Tom and how he had come to have fallen off a roof in Nevada, although the rumours were that his wife, Kelly, had pushed him before accidentally killing herself as she fled the scene. Paula also didn’t really know where Tom had been up to with the various investigations that she had assigned him before he went to America. All she could do was welcome his replacement, tell him what was expected of him and let him get to work trying to catch the killers that tormented them and the rest of the English capital.

  But that was the problem. Nobody was catching any killers. Not in her team and not in any other team. That’s because they had no clues, and without clues, they had no suspects. All they had to go off whilst trying to solve the series of violent murders that had occurred around London was the word of one witness who had escaped a man on Valentine’s Day after he had tried to shoot her. But the description the witness had given them had failed to produce any leads, and whoever the man was, he was still out there now somewhere, no doubt laughing at the police and how their failure to catch him would only lead to more death and destruction.

  It seemed extremely trivial in comparison to catching a murderer, but Paula now had to turn her attention from her very important job within the community and instead focus on the task at hand, which was to make sure her daughter made it to the toilet in time at this service station. Her husband parked the car with a weary sigh and told his wife that he was going to wait there while she exited the vehicle and got the little girl in the back to get a move on.

  Bella came skipping out of the car, and Paula took her by the hand as she led her across the busy car park and into the service station where much to the older woman’s dismay, she saw that the place was full of screaming, shouting and sugar-overdosing children of all ages running riot.

  ‘Come on,’ Paula said as she led her daughter past all the rowdy children who were running around with bottles of fizzy drinks in one hand and packets of teeth-busting sweets in the other. Clearly, their parents had conceded defeat in trying to get their offspring to be quiet and well behaved for the duration of their car journeys and were now just plying them with as much food and drink as they could in the hopes that it would at least keep the kids in a good mood until they all arrived at their destination. Paula and her husband had certainly tried that tactic enough times with Bella over the years, and it sometimes worked in the short time, but there was always a price to pay in the long term, and it was usually in the fact that with that much sugar in her system, Bella would be awake long into the night. That was why Paula said no to all of her daughter’s pleas to buy her crisps, chocolates and fizzy drinks and instead ushered her into the toilets where the little girl was free to do her business and return out of the cubicle a hopefully calmer and more balanced individual.

 

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