The Jackdaw. Luke Delaney

the three flights of wide stairs and exited the building into Favart Road. She enjoyed the spring sunshine on her face as she ran, turning into the King’s Road, dodging past the late afternoon commuters and shoppers until she was able to turn into Peterborough Road and jog towards a small park known as South Park. She never noticed the white panel van that pulled away from the kerb as she left her building, nor the same van overtaking her in the King’s Road as she headed towards the park where she always went running.

      She was enjoying the relatively fresh air of the park, the steady pace of her feet moving to the rhythm of the music that deadened all other sounds, but she was aware the evening was growing late and the sun was moving quickly from the sky. She didn’t want to be in the park when darkness descended, so she picked up her pace, the solid tarmac of the park’s path turning to the loose gravel of the parking area as she approached the exit.

      As she drew closer to the gates she began to feel strangely unnerved, eager to rejoin the streets outside where she’d be back amongst other people. She increased her speed, but the entrance seemed to grow further and further away.

      She would have screamed if he’d given her a chance, but his hand hit her hard in the throat as he stepped out from behind the tree and grabbed her, pulling her behind it and slamming her against the rough trunk, her head banging hard and dislodging her headphones. For a second he released her throat and ripped her iPhone from her bicep. He threw it on the ground, smashing it with the heel of his black boot before he again gripped her around the throat hard enough to stop almost any sound escaping. For the first time he showed her the knife, no more than six inches in length including the handle, but lethal looking, bladed on one side, with teeth on the other. Her eyes grew wide with terror, her mind already assuming rape was the least she was about to suffer, until she heard the strange electronic voice that came from the box attached to his chest, his mouth moving only slightly behind the ski-mask, the mirrored sunglasses showing nothing but the reflection of her own fear.

      ‘I’m not here to hurt you. I’m not going to rape you,’ the mechanical voice explained as he moved the knife closer to her face, ‘but if you try to escape, struggle or make a sound I will kill you, here and now. Do you understand?’

      She tried to speak, but he squeezed her throat tight and held the knife to his own hidden lips and shushed her, the voice distorter making it sound like the ocean.

      ‘No sound. Remember?’

      She managed to nod as the tears began to roll down her face. Her brain scrambled to remember why this creature with the monstrous voice seemed so familiar, her mind rewinding back through conversations she’d had with colleagues and friends, back through news items she’d seen, until it reached the memory of watching the man being hanged live on the Internet – the Your View Killer.

      Panic threatened to overwhelm her and make her pass out and she welcomed the promise of oblivion, but suddenly she was moving, being pushed and dragged across the loose gravel, her legs intermittently giving way, his strength obvious as he held her weight without breaking pace or breathing hard. And all the time the knife was held against her throat, its sharpness causing stinging cuts every time she slipped, until they reached a white panel van waiting in the car park. He slid the side door open and pushed her inside then took hold of her right arm and twisted it painfully behind her, making her call out in pain as he strapped her at the wrist into a leather buckled restraint. Within seconds he’d strapped her other wrist into an identical restraint. She twisted to look into the face she couldn’t see and spoke despite his demands.

      ‘Please,’ was all she could say. He just placed his finger to his lips and again made the sound of the ocean, grabbing her by the feet and pulling her legs straight before attaching further straps to her ankles. She was about to try one last time to plead with him to let her go, but the thick, sticky tape plastered across her mouth took the chance away. Daylight turned to blackness as a thick hood was pulled over her head.

      ‘Time to go,’ he told her and slid the panel door closed, leaving her strapped in the darkness of the back of the van with nothing but terror and the smell of her own urine seeping between her legs.

      Sean sat quietly in his office trying to concentrate on the latest influx of information reports. Anna was only a few feet away, studying her own files when suddenly the calm was shattered as Bishop burst into the room, his eyes wild with excitement. He waited a second until both were looking at him before speaking in an almost frantic tone.

      ‘He’s back on. He’s back on Your View,’ he managed to tell them. ‘I’ve got it up on the laptop next door.’

      Sean was already up and moving. ‘How long?’ he asked.

      ‘Seconds,’ Bishop answered. ‘My alert went off and there he was.’

      Sean pushed past him, calling out to Donnelly and Sally who were in the main office checking on the other detectives. ‘Our man’s online,’ he told them. ‘Get in here now. Everyone else,’ he shouted across the office, ‘get Your View online any way you can.’ He turned back to Bishop as he entered Sally and Donnelly’s office. ‘What’s he doing?’

      ‘Nothing,’ Bishop answered, resuming his seat in front of the laptop with Sean now looking over his shoulder. ‘All we’re getting so far is this.’ He pointed to the screen where a woman dressed in exercise gear was tied to a heavy wooden chair with a hood over her head. Sean watched her wriggling and mumbling under the hood. By now Sally, Donnelly and Anna were also crammed into the room peering at the small screen. ‘The suspect hasn’t shown himself yet.’

      ‘Why?’ Sally asked.

      ‘Because he’s waiting,’ Sean told her.

      ‘For what?’ Donnelly asked.

      ‘For his audience to gather,’ Sean explained. ‘So the trial can begin.’ They all inadvertently cast their eyes to the on-screen view counter that showed the number of viewers growing rapidly as news of the Your View Killer’s latest appearance spread across the Internet and the digital world – live texts, emails, Twitter, Facebook all spreading the word like an electronic wildfire that played directly into the puppet-master’s hands.

      ‘Bastard took a woman,’ Donnelly said. ‘I never expected him to take a woman.’

      ‘Neither did I,’ Sean admitted.

      ‘Says more about you two than it does him,’ Sally told them. ‘Plenty of rich women out there too, you know.’

      ‘No,’ Sean explained. ‘It’s just this was as much about his wounded male pride as anything. That doesn’t tally with killing a woman.’

      ‘He hasn’t killed her yet,’ Anna pointed out. Before Sean could answer a dark figure appeared on the screen standing next to the hooded woman before the shot focused in solely on his hidden face.

      ‘That’s clever,’ Bishop told them. ‘He must have rigged something up so he can control the camera’s lens remotely.’

      ‘Or someone else is operating the camera,’ Sally pointed out.

      ‘Either way it’s different,’ Sean explained. ‘Why change the way he films it?’

      ‘Practising?’ Anna suggested. ‘Honing his art?’

      The disturbing electronic voice began to speak.

       ‘I see you’ve gathered in greater numbers now, my brothers and sisters. Good. Only together can we defeat the greedy vultures who rule over us. Only together can we change our unfair and unjust society where hard-working people can be cast out of their jobs and homes to save the riches of the rich – the power of the powerful. Only together will we ever be listened to. Only through strength in numbers will we succeed where governments and unions have failed us – us, the common people.’

      ‘The speeches sound prepared,’ Sally observed. ‘Like he’s reading off an autocue.’

      ‘Maybe he is.’ Sean considered it was possible.

      ‘Oh he’s definitely a pissed-off