25

To the scene. There’s nothing else to get out of her. Fisher has what he needs for now anyway. It was a professional hit. Very professional. They knew exactly what they needed to do, and they did it without a single hiccup. Didn’t even speak a word. Most of the idiots who try to set themselves up as killers are just dreamers. Small brains, big ambition. They see these things in the movies and they think it’s all so easy. They go in all guns blazing. They shout their mouths off. They want credit when they get it right. They want to be celebrities. They get caught. The depressing truth is that the gunmen who get caught are the shitty ones. The talented ones know how to avoid that fate. Talented ones, like these two.

Nearly four o’clock in the morning now. Fisher gets out of the car and takes in the street. Not hard to see how they did it. Sit in the car somewhere down the street. Watch them come home. Wait five minutes. If she takes him upstairs, she switches on the light in the bedroom. Then switches it off, goes downstairs and switches on the light in the living room. They know how many people are in the house, and they can guess where each is. Easy. Going to need to get a hold of the taxi driver. He might have spotted something. And this guy who shared the taxi with them. Might be interesting to find out who he is. Could be very interesting.

They kick the door in. Does that tally? He’s thinking as he walks up the front path. If you know it’s just the two of them in there, and one of them’s downstairs, do you need to kick the door in? Surely they guess that he’s upstairs and she’s down. So you knock, don’t you? You knock, and when she answers, you force your way in. That’s how they tend to do it. Make as little noise as possible before you fire the gun. That’s the way the pros try to do it. She said the first she heard of them was a bang on the door, like someone throwing something at it. The first kick. Then they kick it in. Doesn’t sit well with their professionalism elsewhere.

Into the house. A forensic team already there. A DC comes across and shakes his hand, tells him where to find the body. Fisher nods, but doesn’t say anything. He’s trying to see what they saw. They come in the door, go straight to the living room. She’s there, drinking a glass of whiskey. There’s a glass on the cabinet on the far side of the room. A single glass, he notes. Okay. So one of them stays with her, pointing the gun at her. She stays there, not moving. Not speaking. And the second one goes upstairs.

Fisher makes his way up the stairs. The body is still in the house, going to be moved in the next hour. Single bullet wound, he knows that already. There’s a smell as he walks in through the open bedroom door. Piss. The figure is lying on the bed. Not a lot of blood. A little has run down the side of his neck from a wound under the chin. Sort of thing you see when someone kills themselves with a small handgun, he’s thinking. The man’s pissed himself. Before or after being shot? Wasn’t from fear anyway – no way he was awake when he was killed. Not unless there’s a second wound that he can’t see. He must have been lying like this when the killer entered the room. May have pissed himself after he was shot. It happens.

He looks more closely at the man. Typical middle-aged small-time dealer. A little overweight. Not too handsome. If his knowledge of Winter is correct, then not a big player. Not a big earner. Surprising that he has a house this decent. Surprising that he has a girlfriend who could obviously do better. Need to find out more about their relationship. Find out how long they’ve been together, what sort of life they lived. He’s looking round the room. No sign of any struggle. Even if you’re pissed, you fight for your life. He was already unconscious. All the killer had to do was put the gun to his head and pull the trigger.

‘Bullet’s still in there,’ one of the forensic team says to him, breaking his train of thought.

Taking in the room. Two wine glasses on the dresser, one empty wine bottle. She hadn’t mentioned that. Need to find out about that. He can see that the forensic mob want him out of their way. They have their scientific wonderment to be getting on with, and he’s blocking the path to the body. Fisher steps back to the bedroom doorway. So the killer kills. Then what? You turn out a light when you leave a room. Did he? Need to find that out as well. Find out the ID of the first cop on the scene, get some proper detail. Don’t rely on a report. Get it from the horse’s mouth. Few people write with the same sense of detail as they speak. You don’t get the mood of the place and people from a report.

Back down the stairs. His mate standing just inside the living room. The living-room door is directly opposite the bottom of the stairs. His cohort hears him coming down the stairs, no need to speak. They leave. Back out the front door, back to their car. Did they have a driver? Could be looking for three men rather than two. May not have felt they needed one. They didn’t. Textbook job. Easy. You avoid using a third man if you can. The pros make sure they use no more people than is necessary. Probably no driver. Can’t rule it out, though. Got to talk to that taxi driver, and the guy who shared the taxi.

Fisher is standing out on the front doorstep. Breathe in the cold night air. Did any of the neighbours hear the gunshot? They’re all up now. Lights in every house. Nosy bastards peeping around curtains. Heard the sirens, heard the chatter. One of them might have something interesting to say about their deceased neighbour and his girlfriend. One of them might have seen a strange car in the street. Sort of place where people notice that sort of thing. Sort of place where people have nothing better to do. If one of them hears the gunshot and runs to a window, they might have seen the killers leave. Might have seen what car they got into.

Hard to catch a pro. Relying on a lot of unreliable things. Give her a few hours, then question Cope again. Find out what club they were at. Get CCTV from there. They might have been followed home from the club. Slim chance, but worth the trouble. It’ll help them to ID the taxi driver who took them home. That’ll help. She won’t know who it was. Don’t trust the taxis. Too many of them tied up in the criminal business. Find out who the driver was. Find out if he might have tipped people off about movements. Then question the guy who shared the taxi. Is he involved in the criminal world? Was he there to make sure Winter got home safe and sound? Get him home pissed. Make the hit that much easier. Possible.

Not a lot more that he can glean from the scene. The first thing he’ll do is find out who the first cops on the scene were. If they’re still on shift, then have them come and see him. If not, get them as soon as they’re back on tomorrow. Not urgent enough to warrant getting them out of bed if they’ve already gone home. They’ll have filed reports. That’ll do for now. Only for now.

Fisher is driving back to the station. You never know how these investigations will pan out, but it already feels like a long shot. As the police become more professional, so do the people they’re up against. People learn how to avoid all the new tricks they develop. More and more, the ones they’re catching are the dregs. They get the occasional good one, but that takes so much more work than it used to. Smart lawyers make life difficult. The police spend so much time on that one good catch that they lose sight of other targets. Fisher has become convinced that the approach is wrong. They need to better target the people at the top of the tree, forget about the gunman halfway down.