‘Ah yes, McDonald’s or salad… McDonald’s or salad?’ he said. ‘You are what you eat.’
He flicked off his computer, and stood up, pulling on his jacket. He had a photo of Grendel tacked to the bottom of the monitor. He straightened it, and picked up his wallet and phone, studying Katrina from the corner of his eye. He knew exactly where she lived: in a small flat just off Chiswick High Road. She had a Facebook profile which she hadn’t bothered to secure; she also used Instagram and Foursquare. He knew she was single, and she’d been on two disastrous dates in the past month, the first to see a movie with a bloke ‘with hands like an octopus’, the second with a rich city worker, to a bar at Canary Wharf. She’d drunk Long Island Iced Teas, one at 7.30 p.m., and the second at 7.53 p.m. – if the timings on her Instagram photos were accurate – and she’d posted that she was debating a third drink, but she didn’t want the bloke she was with to think she was easy. However, judging by the hundreds of photos Darryl had copied from her Facebook page to the hard drive on his computer at home, Katrina was easy.
He’d spent a couple of hours the previous evening masturbating over pictures of her dressed in a schoolgirl outfit for Halloween, and a bikini shot taken on a beach in Ibiza.
Katrina caught him looking at her and smiled awkwardly. He grinned back at her and left.
‘It’s 1.02 p.m. Don’t forget to put that in your time sheet,’ called Bryony after him.
* * *
Darryl stepped out of the office and joined the lunchtime crowds near Borough Market. Wearing a decent suit and black jacket he blended in with scores of office workers on the lunch run. He wasn’t interested in Katrina. Well, he was, but as a colleague she was too close. It could be traced back to him.
The girl he’d set his sights on was called Ella. He’d found her a few months back, working in the Bay Organic Café further down the road from Borough Market. The first time he’d seen her, he’d genuinely gone in to buy lunch. She was beautiful, in an earthy way, with long dark hair, olive skin and a gorgeous figure.
He’d started going there regularly for lunch, to see how often she worked. He’d had a breakthrough on his sixth visit, when he’d gone to pay for his salad. It was a quiet day and Ella had been working on the checkout and engrossed in her phone. She’d given him a broad smile, and placed her phone face up on the counter whilst she put his lunch through. Her Facebook profile was open, and with one glance he knew her name was Ella Wilkinson.
He’d paid in cash, and she’d smiled at him again, but it was the kind of smile you gave a little brother and he’d hated her for that. Later that evening, back at the farm, he’d shut himself in his bedroom and found Ella on Facebook, dragging her profile picture onto his desktop. Then he’d opened Social Catfish’s Reverse Image Search. It was a remarkable piece of software, and within a few minutes he had her email address, a list of all the social networks she belonged to, and where she lived.
She was a part-time art student at St Martins, and she lived in North London. She also had a profile on Match.com, which made him think that things couldn’t be better.
He spent the next couple of months building up a brand new Facebook profile, adding friends, posts, and a legitimate history. He also created a profile on Match.com, aligning his likes to hers. It had been a difficult choice: how to choose someone’s identity to steal, and after much research he had realised that profiles of dead people were the way forward. This new profile was for Harry Gordon, a handsome blond who had just returned from travelling. In reality, the photo was of a person named Jason Wynne, from South Africa, who had died a year ago, while base jumping.
After several weeks spent building up the fake Harry Gordon profile, he started to work his way into Ella Wilkinson’s world. She had 650 Facebook friends, so he went through them all to find which of them he could friend without looking suspicious. Two of them friended him back, giving him and Ella mutual friends.
Just after Christmas, Darryl, as Harry Gordon, sent Ella a message on Match.com. She took the bait, and then he started to reel her in, slowly, at first, chatting to her within the Match.com messenger system, never trying too hard, and leaving gaps between responses. He knew he had her when she friended Harry Gordon on Facebook. The flirting had intensified, and now he just had to make the final crucial step. Harry Gordon needed to talk to Ella on the phone.
* * *
Darryl reached the Bay Organic Café, and saw it was crowded in the lunchtime rush. Ella was on the checkout and had a huge queue of people waiting. He watched her for a moment and then carried on walking, thinking, today, he’d get a sandwich from Sainsbury’s. Yes, cheese and salad would be nice. He didn’t mind that the café was busy. He’d be talking to Ella later, and then he’d have her all to himself.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
On Thursday morning, Erika and her team were back in the incident room. Crane had just wearily informed her that despite an exhaustive search through hours of CCTV, from several locations, they hadn’t been able to track the movements of the car after it had left the Blue Boar pub.
‘For Christ’s sake!’ said Erika. ‘He’s a lucky bastard. Twice I’ve been given points on my licence when CCTV cameras managed to produce pin precision images of me straying into a bus lane.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said Peterson. ‘My mum got caught in a bus lane with her hand in a tube of Pringles. She got three points and a hundred and twenty pound fine. And the camera picked up that they were salt and vinegar flavour.’
Despite this, Erika smiled. ‘That’s not true?’
‘It is! If you ever meet my mother, you’ll believe it,’ he said, sitting back in his chair and rubbing his tired eyes. There was an awkward pause.
‘Thank you for putting in the time, Crane, but we still have nothing on the killer’s car,’ said Erika. ‘Can anyone give me some good news?’