Hush Little Baby Page 9

  ‘I want you to listen to me, Jefferson, and I want you to listen carefully. If you do come and work for us, you need to grow up fast. This isn’t a game. We’re dealing with real people and real lives. Believe me when I tell you that this is as real as it gets.’ She nodded towards Kerry. ‘She should not be dead. I get to carry that one on my conscience to my grave. If you have a conscience, I hope you do the same.’

  ‘But she probably would have been executed anyway.’

  ‘And you’re missing the point. That was not our call to make. No one should get to play judge, jury and executioner. No one. That’s too much power for any one person to wield.’

  Winter had nothing to say to that. She gave him almost a whole minute to respond and, when he didn’t, took out her cellphone and called Dixon. Their conversation was short, uncomfortable and predictable. Yoko hung up and put her cell away.

  ‘Have you ever killed anyone?’ Winter was staring at Kerry’s body again.

  Yoko sighed. ‘Yes, unfortunately I have.’

  ‘It’s nothing like I’d imagined.’

  The fact that he’d imagined himself killing someone didn’t surprise her in the slightest. She would have been more surprised if he hadn’t. Given what little she knew of him, he’d probably imagined it down to the last detail. The problem was that reality never matched the fantasy.

  ‘The Sandman was never a delivery driver, was he?’

  Winter shook his head. ‘The mothers weren’t the principal targets. That was the mistake everyone made. It was always about those little girls.’

  ‘And you worked that out from the autopsy reports?’

  ‘No, the autopsy reports just confirmed what I already suspected. Heidi’s murder was all about anger and Suzy’s was about love. I can see why people read the scene like they did, though. When I first looked at the photographs that was my interpretation, too. The mom was the target and the kid was collateral damage. That’s the way it looked, and it made sense. It was the make-up that changed my mind. Think about the timings. How long did it take for Kerry to hack Heidi to death? Forty or fifty seconds, a minute and a half, tops. That attack was completely frenzied. And how long did it take for her to smother Suzy, and do her make-up, and arrange her in the bed?’

  He let the question hang there. Yoko didn’t answer because there was no answer expected of her.

  ‘Heidi was murdered out of anger, though. You got that much right. Where you went wrong was your interpretation of that anger. This wasn’t the anger of an ex-husband who’d been denied visitation rights, this was the anger of a mom who’d failed to protect her child. Whenever Kerry killed one of the moms it was like she was killing herself.’

  ‘And this is exactly why the FBI needs you, Jefferson. You can look at a photograph of a murdered kid and see it as an act of love. I don’t know anyone else who could do that. I sure as hell didn’t.’

  It was Winter’s turn to keep quiet.

  ‘So how did you work out that Kerry Adams did it?’

  ‘After trawling through the back issues of the Tampa Tribune, I spoke to a couple of the journalists there, too. I wanted to find out about any little girls who’d died over the last four or five years. My next step would have been to go visit the moms and talk to them. The one thing I knew for a fact was that she would be still be living in Tampa. Her daughter had died here, where else would she be? She wouldn’t want to leave her all alone.’

  ‘You said you “would have” visited the moms. Why didn’t you?’

  Now he smiled. He was so wrapped up in what he was saying that he’d forgotten what just happened here. ‘I caught a break there. One of the journalists I spoke to remembered that Mary Beth’s father committed suicide on the anniversary of the accident. Guess when that was?’

  Yoko didn’t need to guess. ‘Just before the first two murders. That was the trigger.’

  ‘Exactly fifteen days before,’ Winter agreed. ‘It was just too much like a coincidence. It had to be her.’

  ‘Okay, here’s the thing I don’t get. While you were running around acting like this was an episode of Scooby Doo, we were out looking for a delivery driver with anger-management issues. And the reason we were doing that was because you led us to that conclusion. Why would you do something like that? Was it because you wanted to prove that you were smarter than everyone else? Was that it?’

  Winter was staring at Kerry’s body again. The arrogance had faded, leaving him looking uncertain. Yoko thought there might be a touch of embarrassment in there as well.

  ‘Jesus, that was the reason, wasn’t it?’ Yoko shook her head sadly. ‘For someone so bright, you can be pretty dumb at times. Do you know that?’

  He was still looking over at the body. ‘I guess I screwed up.’

  ‘Yes, you did screw up, but here’s a newsflash: people make mistakes. What’s important is that you learn from each situation, and you try not to make those same mistakes again. That’s the real difference between smart and stupid. So which one are you?’

  Winter snorted a small humourless half-laugh. ‘Believe me, I won’t be making that mistake again.’

  ‘No, what you’ll do is make different ones. And if you’re half as smart as you think you are, then you’ll learn from those too.’

  Yoko glanced down at Kerry’s body. This was not the way she would have wanted this to go down, but the bottom line was that The Sandman wouldn’t be claiming any more victims and that had to be worth something. But, if that was the case, why did this victory feel so damn hollow?

  It was a complete and utter tragedy. The photographs in the living room were evidence of a family that had once been happy together. And now that family no longer existed. When you got down to it the reason they were dead was because Mary Beth and her father had driven through that intersection at the wrong time. A couple of seconds earlier or a couple of seconds later and the truck would have missed them. There would have been blaring horns and cursing and sighs of relief, but Mary Beth would still be alive. Her mom would be alive too, because the chain of events that led to this moment would have been broken. It was such a waste. Sometimes she hated this job. Really hated it. In the distance, she could hear the sound of sirens getting closer. She got to her feet and motioned for Winter to stand up.

  ‘Come on, Jefferson, let’s go face the music.’

  In the Jefferson Winter series

  Broken Dolls

  It takes a genius to catch a psychopath

  Jefferson Winter is no ordinary investigator. The son of one of America’s most notorious serial killers, Winter has spent his life trying to distance himself from his father’s legacy. Once a rising star at the FBI, he is now a freelance consultant, jetting around the globe helping local law enforcement agencies with difficult cases. He’s not got Da Vinci’s IQ, but he’s pretty close.

  When he accepts a particularly disturbing case in London, Winter arrives to find a city in the grip of a cold snap, with a psychopath on the loose who likes abducting and lobotomising young women. Winter must use all his preternatural brain power in order to work out who is behind the attacks, before another young woman becomes a victim. As Winter knows all too well, however, not everyone who’s broken can be fixed.

  ‘A brilliant, conflicted profiler.’ Stephen Fry

  AVAILABLE NOW IN PAPERBACK AND EBOOK

  Watch Me

  It takes a genius to unmask madness

  Ex-FBI profiler Jefferson Winter has taken a new case in sunny Louisiana, where the only thing more intense than the heat is a killer on the loose in the small town of Eagle Creek.

  Sam Galloway, a prominent lawyer from one of Eagle Creek’s most respected families, has been murdered. All the sheriff’s department have to go on, however, is a film of Galloway that shows him being burned alive.

  Enter Jefferson Winter, whose expertise is serial criminals. But in a town where secrets are rife and history has a way of repeating itself, can Winter solve the case before someone else dies?

 
; ‘Toe-clenching, nail-biting, peep-from-behind-your-fingers suspense.’ S. J. Bolton

  ‘Jefferson Winter is a welcome new genius, and I can't wait to meet him again.’ Neil White

  AVAILABLE NOW IN PAPERBACK AND EBOOK

  The Jefferson Winter Chronicles

  Presumed Guilty

  Five victims. One killer. An open and shut case?

  Special Agent Yoko Tanaka is one of the best profilers in the FBI. She’s observant, smart and professional, but doesn’t really play well with others. She’s been called in to consult on the case of ‘Valentino’, a killer who steals his victims’ hearts. Literally.

  With five women already dead, time is running out for the police to catch the killer before he strikes again. Within twenty-four hours of Yoko’s arrival they have a suspect in custody: a precocious nineteen-year-old kid called Jefferson Winter whose IQ is off the charts. He’s also a textbook psychopath and the son of one of America’s most notorious serial killers. Not only does he confess to the murders, he knows details of the crimes that only the killer could know. It’s an open and shut case, or is it?

  AVAILABLE NOW IN EBOOK

  About the Author

  James Carol is the creator of the eccentric genius Jefferson Winter, a former FBI profiler who travels the world hunting serial criminals. The Jefferson Winter Thriller series includes Broken Dolls, Watch Me, and an e-book novella, Presumed Guilty, set during Winter’s FBI days.

  Broken Dolls became an e-book bestseller on publication, while Watch Me has been selected for the ITV Specsavers Crime Thriller Bookclub. Prey, the third full-length Jefferson Winter thriller, will be published in spring 2015.

  James lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and two children.

  For more information please visit

  www.james-carol.com

  Praise for the series:

  ‘James Carol is a non-American who has mastered the idiom of the US thriller . . . But Carol is no Child clone, and carves out his own menacing canvas with real panache.’ Barry Forshaw, Independent

  ‘If there’s one thing I love, a guilty but undeniable pleasure, it’s a cracking procedural serial murder thriller. Broken Dolls has it all. Horrifying evil, a brilliant, conflicted profiler and cracking pace and tension. I read it in what seemed like two trembling gulps.’ Stephen Fry

  ‘Toe-clenching, nail-biting, peep-from-behind-your-fingers suspense.’ S. J. Bolton

  ‘Visceral and gripping . . . made me gasp in horror. Jefferson Winter is a welcome new genius, and I can’t wait to meet him again.’ Neil White

  ‘A crazed serial killer, an eccentric FBI investigator, a tough female cop – all the ingredients here blend to make a brilliant police procedural. Jefferson Winter has to track down a psychopath whose fetish is to lobotomise women. The first of a series, this promises great, grisly things.’ Sunday Mirror

  ‘Strikingly well-researched and written with a real swagger, it leaves you desperate for more.’ Daily Mail

  ‘A rapid-fire read.’ Euro Crime

  also by James Carol

  BROKEN DOLLS

  WATCH ME

  The Jefferson Winter Chronicles:

  PRESUMED GUILTY

  First published in ebook only in 2014

  by Faber & Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  Typeset by Faber & Faber Ltd.

  All rights reserved

  © James Carol, 2014

  Cover design by Faber

  The right of James Carol to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–32230–5