The Killing Mood (DCI Andy Gilchrist Book 27) by T.F. Muir

Author:T.F. Muir [Muir, T.F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408718674
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2023-11-08T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 27

No amount of shouting and commanding by a raging Dainty brought them any closer to finding Ibbotson. By five o’clock, with the day finished and dark as midnight, the street sparkling with ice, windows and house fronts glittering with fairy lights, Dainty dragged his hand down his face. He looked as if he’d aged three years in as many hours.

‘You’d’ve thought some fucker would’ve noticed something.’

‘Not if she did all her moving around in the night,’ Jessie said.

Dainty glared at her for a second, then gave a frustrated nod of agreement. ‘All we know is, she’s got an associate, and whether that associate helps her in her grisly task of killing, who knows.’

Gilchrist said, ‘Maybe she assists by driving only.’

‘She? I’m thinking it’s a he.’

‘Why?’

‘Someone strong enough to lug all the stuff away.’

‘Maybe she didn’t have a lot of stuff to lug away,’ Jessie said. ‘She’d only been living there for less than a year.’

‘If she’s anything like my wife,’ Dainty growled, ‘she could fill the fucking house in a weekend.’ He grimaced, as if in pain, then said, ‘I need to take a pish.’

Gilchrist watched Dainty stomp off. ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ he said to Jessie.

‘Need more than a penny. Head’s spinning with it all. I mean, I thought all we had to do was ring the doorbell and arrest her.’

Gilchrist had to agree. Ibbotson doing a midnight flit hadn’t entered the equation. But now it had, he wondered if she’d left because he, Detective Chief Inspector Andrew James Gilchrist, had made a mistake. He’d been the one who’d visited her home yesterday. And it was he whom Ibbotson might have seen on her CCTV camera as he walked up and down the street, passing her house a couple of times, speaking to one of the neighbours, then driving off slowly. It didn’t take too much of a quantum leap to realise that anyone with an ounce of military expertise would become suspicious in a heartbeat. But to up and leave?

That spoke of panic, or the sense at least that the noose was tightening, that a move needed to be made. But it also spoke of something else, something more worrying. Ibbotson could be decompensating, the strain on her mental health too much to sustain. She now knew that a connection had been made to all apparently random killings, and that soon she would likely be caught. But could that mean upping the ante, getting on with the job of racking up the numbers before her murder spree came to an arrested end?

‘How about a penny for your thoughts?’ Jessie said.

He grimaced, shook his head. ‘I don’t like it any more than you do. But if you ask the question – why move now? – I don’t think we’re going to like the answer.’

‘Bloody hell, Andy, don’t go all psychobabbly bullshitty on me.’ She held his gaze for a long moment, then said, ‘You don’t think she killed last night again, do you?’

‘Maybe that’s the answer we’re not going to like.

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