If executed in the right way, he can remove himself from suspicion. Get it wrong and everything will come to a shuddering halt.

Now the game is afoot, he’d prefer to be captured so he can see how it all plays out, but he is still comfortable with the idea of dying. Perhaps in the greater scheme of things it will be better to die with some mystery to him. He may even be attributed with a few extra kills as the police look to clear one or two of their unsolved files.

Norm knows he’ll spill everything for the sheer hell of it if he’s taken alive. The thrill of telling his interrogators will be too great to resist. He knows he’ll want to see the look on their faces as he details each of his kills. The methods, research, selection process and the takedowns.

He’ll give them what they want and a whole lot more.

Gathering up his gear, he piles what he needs into his rucksack and sets off to check something he’s discovered on the sister’s Twitter feed.

Working in reverse a whole kill ahead is throwing his usual preparations. He’s not sure whether he should target the mother or sister first. Either will do, it’s just a question of which will be the easiest to set up. That’s what the watching is for. To make his decisions more logical and practical.

Chance is not allowed to figure in this one. Lady Luck mustn’t play a part unless he’s directing her.

62

When Alfonse lifts his eyes from the computer, they’re red from straining at the screen for so many hours. His voice and posture tell me the anger he felt earlier has been replaced by tiredness. A pang of guilt for my snatched two hours hits me before I dismiss it. He’ll be able to go home and rest now this task is complete.

‘That’s it. I can’t find anymore.’ Defeat rather than satisfaction for a job well done fills his voice. ‘As far as I can tell his first victim was Roger Ingerson. He was run off the road into Marton Creek just over four years ago. His car was found upside down in the water after a flood had subsided.’

‘What do you know about him?’

He shakes his head. ‘Nothing. I’ll have a look, see what’s on the system.’

Alfonse’s fingers rattle a couple of keys and he reaches for the mouse. A clacking whir comes from the corner as a printer starts to spit out sheets of A4.

I take them from the printer and sit back down.

Alfonse rises to his feet with a groan; he’s unsteady through exhaustion, but I’m not prepared to let him go just yet. ‘What did you get from the DMV?’

‘They wouldn’t speak to me so I got the chief to put someone onto it. Let me grab a few hours’ sleep and if we haven’t heard anything I’ll find a way into their system.’

I don’t like the delay, but recognise his brain and body need a rest.

He stops at the door and turns to me. ‘Stay safe, Jake. Before Kira, this guy had killed twenty-five times.’

I do a quick calculation. The total number of victims is thirty-one and we have no idea who he is or why he’s killing.

Reading the details on Roger Ingerson, I find there isn’t much to tell. At the time of his death he was married with a nine-year-old daughter. He worked the oilfields as a roustabout. His listed address is in one of Casperton’s less salubrious areas. Not the worst, but I don’t expect he had a white picket fence or a neighbourhood watch he could rely on.

From the report and its official language, I glean his death was listed as misadventure and hadn’t been investigated in any fashion. His body was trapped in the wreckage of the car and the coroner’s report stated his cause of death as drowning.

His legs were both shattered and there was internal bleeding, which would have killed him if he hadn’t drowned. I can only hope for his sake he was knocked unconscious by the crash.

I go in search of Chief Watson. He’s busy conducting the press conference I’d set up earlier, so I make a couple of calls.

When the chief is finished with the press, I manage to get him and the mayor to see me in his office.

‘What you got, Boulder?’

I tell him what Alfonse has uncovered and my thoughts about how Ingerson may have been specifically chosen as a starting point. The chief accepts the news with a sigh and a closing of his eyes. The mayor on the other hand looks as though he’s just caught his wife in bed with his brother. There’s anger, denial and incomprehension flashing across his face as he tries to come to terms with the number of homicides.

‘Any specific ideas about Ingerson?’

‘No, but Ingerson’s widow has agreed to see me so long as I’m there before ten.’ I hesitate, knowing what I’m about to say is crossing a boundary. ‘I’m going to have to tell her his death wasn’t an accident.’

The chief purses his lips. ‘Yeah, you’ll need to. I’d come with you, but the FBI have called. They’ll be here in an hour.’

‘That’s fine.’ I’m happy to go alone. To slip under the radar and steal a march. ‘That’s great about the feds. Have you heard anything from the DMV?’

‘I called and tried to light a fire under them. They told me the one guy who knows how to do that won’t be in until tomorrow morning.’ He raises his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘Perhaps the FBI will be able to put more of a squeeze on them, or go to a national source who can get that information.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

I don’t think there’s anything else to say just now, so I leave them to deal with their end of things and head off to see Faith Ingerson. On my way past the reception desk, Darla waves me across and hands me a bunch of files.

‘Hey, sugar. The chief told me to give you a copy of these.’

Flicking through the files, I see they are reports from the coroner and the CSI team.

With a glance at my watch to check I have time, I find a seat and skim read them.

Five minutes later, I’m handing the files back to Darla. Nothing in them came as a surprise, although I was interested to learn Donny Prosser and Wendy Agnew’s bodies had both displayed the tell-tale marks left by a Taser. According to the report, Prosser had been zapped four times.

That explains how he’d been put into the car where he’d been murdered. As a final nail into the coffin of the killer’s romantic-tryst-gone-wrong set-up, the coroner’s report also noted Wendy Agnew was on her period.

The CSI team’s report is filled with lots of little pieces of evidence which would have to be analysed in a lab before a firm conclusion is made. Due to the public location of where the bodies were found, I don’t hold much hope they have found something which will help identify the killer. Their evidence will be more use in the courts than the investigation.

Both had filed preliminary reports on Angus Oberton, but neither is detailed enough to tell me anything new.

63

Since the spat with Alfonse, I’ve taken to checking my rear-view mirror a lot more than usual. I don’t spot any particular set of headlights tailing me, but I’m not what you’d call an expert at this kind of thing.

I reach the edge of Maesher and turn onto sixth. There’s the odd street light not working, a pair of sneakers hanging from an overhead cable and there are cars on bricks in two driveways, but the area’s not as bad as I remember. One of the mayor’s programs must have actually worked for a change.

As I park outside the Ingerson house, I notice a bunch of youths playing a game of pick-up across the street.

Part of me half expects them to try and hustle me for a few bucks against the safety of my car. Considering my current frame of mind, it will be a whole lot safer for them if they don’t.