He could see the dread in her eyes. "What's that?"

"If we don't find the killer, the next victim's going to be a dead Santa. Stuffed in a chimney would be my best guess."

Later, Tony's words would echo in Carol's head. When she least expected it, they reverberated inside her. As she sat in the canteen, half her attention on her lasagne and half on the screen of the TV, she was jolted by a newsflash that chilled her more than the November snow: SANTA s.n.a.t.c.hED OFF STREET.

II.

It had been a long time since Tony had been a student but he'd never lost his taste for research. What made his investigations different from those of Carol and her team was his conviction that the truth lay in the tangents. An exhaustive police investigation would turn up all sorts of unexpectedness, but there would always be stuff that slipped between the cracks. People were superst.i.tious about telling secrets. Even when they gave up information, they held something back. Partly because they could and partly because they liked the illusion of power it dealt them. Tony, a man whose gift for empathy was his finest tool and his greatest weakness, had a remarkable talent for convincing people that their hearts would never be at peace till they had shared every last morsel of information.

And so he devoted his attentions to identifying the unswept corners of the lives of Tina Chapman and Jonathan Meadows.

The first thing that attracted his attention about Tina Chapman was that she had only been in her current job for four years. In his world, history cast a long shadow, with present crimes often having their roots deep in the past. He wondered where Tina Chapman had been before she came to teach French in Leeds.

He knew he could probably short-circuit his curiosity with a call to Carol, but her gibe about the internet was still fresh in his mind so he decided to see what he could uncover without her help.

Googling Tina Chapman brought nothing relevant except for a Facebook entry describing her as "everybody's favourite language teacher", an online review of the sixth-form performance of "Le Malade Imaginaire" that she'd directed and a slew of news stories about the murder. None of the articles mentioned where she'd taught previously. But there was an interesting clue in one of them. Tina's son wasn't called Ben Chapman but Ben Wallace. "Lovely," Tony said aloud. If Wallace had been Ben's father's name, there was at least a fighting chance that his mother had used it at some point.

He tried "Tina Wallace" in the search engine, which threw out a couple of academics and a real estate agent in Wyoming. Then he tried "Martina Chapman", "Christina Chapman", "Martina Wallace" and finally, "Christina Wallace". He stared at the screen, hardly able to credit what he saw there.

There was no doubt about it. If ever there was a motive for murder, this was it.

Detective Inspector Mike Ca.s.sidy knew Carol Jordan only by reputation. Her major case squad was despised and desired in pretty much equal measure by Bradfield's detectives, depending on whether they knew they would never be good enough or they aspired to join. Ca.s.sidy avoided either camp; at forty-two, he knew he was too old to find a niche working alongside the Chief Constable's blue-eyed girl. But he didn't resent her success as so many others did. That didn't stop him showing his surprise when she walked into his incident room with an air of confident ownership.

He stood up and rounded his desk, determined not to be put at a disadvantage. "DCI Jordan," he said with a formal little nod. He waited; let her come to him.

Carol returned the nod. "DI Ca.s.sidy. I hear you're dealing with the abduction in Market Street?"

Ca.s.sidy's lips twisted in an awkward cross between a smile and a sneer. "The case of the stolen Santa? Isn't that what they're calling it in the canteen?"

"I don't care what they're calling it in the canteen. As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing funny about a man being kidnapped in broad daylight on a Bradfield street."

Ca.s.sidy took the rebuke on the chin. "As it happens, I'm with you on that one, ma'am. It's no joke for Tommy Garrity or his family. And apart from anything else, it makes us look like monkeys."

"So where are you up to?"

"Tommy Garrity was dressed in a Santa suit, collecting money for Christmas For Children when two men in balaclavas and blue overalls drove up the pedestrian precinct in a white Transit. They stopped in front of Tommy, bundled him into the Transit and took off. We got the van on CCTV, turns out it was stolen off a building site this morning." Ca.s.sidy turned to his desk and excavated a map from the stack of paper by the keyboard. He handed it to Carol. "The red line's the route they took out of the city centre. We lost them round the back of Temple Fields. Once you come off Campion Way, the coverage is patchy."

Carol sighed. "Typical. What about the number plate recognition cameras?"

"Nothing. At least we know they've not left the city on any of the main drags."

"So, Tommy Garrity. Is he known?"

Ca.s.sidy shook his head. "Nothing on file. He works behind the bar at the Irish Club in Harriestown, does a lot of charity work in his spare time. He's fifty-five, three kids, two grandkids. Wife's a school dinner lady. I've got a team out on the knocker but so far Garrity's white as the driven."

Carol traced the line on the map. "That's what worries me."

Ca.s.sidy couldn't keep his curiosity at bay any longer. "If you don't mind me asking, ma'am, what's your interest? I mean, not to play down the importance of daylight abduction, but it's not major in the sense of being up your street."

Carol dropped the map on Ca.s.sidy's desk. "Just something somebody said to me a couple of weeks ago. Can you keep me posted, please?"

Ca.s.sidy watched her walk out. She was more than easy on the eye, and normally that would have been all that registered with him. But Carol Jordan's interest had left him perturbed and anxious. What the h.e.l.l was he missing here?

News generally pa.s.sed Tony by. He had enough variety in his life to occupy his interest without having to seek out further examples of human shortcomings. But because he'd floated the suggestion of Santa as potential victim, he was more susceptible than normal to the scream of newspaper billboards that announced, SANTA s.n.a.t.c.h IN CITY CENTRE.

The story in the paper was short on fact and long on frenzy, queasily uncertain whether it should be outraged or amused. Tony, already on his way to Carol's office, quickened his step.

He found her at her desk, reading witness statements from the Santa kidnap. She looked up and squeezed out a tired smile. "Looks like you were right."

"No, I wasn't. I mean, I think I was, but this isn't him." Tony threw his hands in the air, exasperated at his inability to express himself clearly. "This isn't the next victim in a series," he said.

"What do you mean? Why not? You were the one who told me I should be looking out for Santa. And not in the sense of hanging up my stocking."

"There were two of them. I never said anything about two of them."

"I know you didn't. But it would have made the first two murders a lot easier if they'd been two-handed. And we both know that racially motivated fanatics tend to work in cells or teams. After what you said, I've had my crew looking at all our intel and we're not getting many hits on lone activists." She shrugged. "It may not have been in the profile but two makes sense."

Tony threw himself in the chair. "That's because I was ignoring my own cardinal rule. First you look at the victim. That's what it's all about, and I got distracted because of the eccentricity of the crimes. But I've looked at the victims now and I know why they were killed." He fished some print-outs from his carrier bag. "Tina Chapman used to be known by her married name. She was Christina Wallace." He pa.s.sed the top sheet to Carol. "She taught French at a school in Devon. She took a bunch of kids on a school trip and two of them drowned in a canoeing accident. The inquest cleared her but the bereaved parents spoke to the press, blaming her for what happened. And it does look like they had pretty strong reasons for that. So, she moved away. Reverted to her maiden name and started afresh."

"You think one of the parents did this?"

"No, no, that's not it. But once I knew that about Tina, I knew what I was looking for with Jonathan." He handed over the second sheet. "Seven years ago, a five-year-old girl was killed by a hit-and-run driver. The car was a Porsche that had allegedly been stolen from a garage where it was in for a service. The garage where Jonathan Meadows worked. I went over there and spoke to the local traffic officers. They told me that there was a strong feeling at the time that the Porsche hadn't been stolen at all, that Jonathan had taken it for a ride and had lost control. His DNA was all over the car but his excuse was that he'd been working on it. His girlfriend gave him an alibi and nothing ever came of it."

Carol stared at the two sheets of paper. "You're saying this is some kind of vigilante justice?"

Tony dipped his head. "Kind of. Both victims were implicated in the death of a child but went unpunished because of loopholes in law or lack of evidence. The killer feels they stole children away from their families. I think we should be looking for someone who has lost a child and believes n.o.body paid the price. Probably in the past year. He's choosing these victims because he believes they're culpable and he's choosing these murder methods because they mark the points in the year where parents celebrate with children."

Within the hour, Tony and Carol were studying a list of seven children who had died in circ.u.mstances where blame might possibly be a.s.signed. "How can we narrow it down?" she demanded, frustration in her voice. "We can't put surveillance on all these parents and their immediate families."

"There's no obvious way," Tony said slowly.

"Santa Garrity could still be a potential victim," Carol said. "We don't know enough about his history and there's nothing in your theory to say it couldn't be two killers working together."

Tony shook his head. "It's emotionally wrong. This is about punishment and pain, not justice. It's too personal to be a team effort." He ran a hand through his hair. "Couldn't we at least go and talk to the parents? Shake the tree?"

"It's a waste of time. Even you can't pick out a killer just by looking at them." They sat in glum silence for a few minutes, then Carol spoke again. "Victims. You're right. It all comes back to victims. How's he choosing his victims? You had to do some digging to come up with what you found. There was nothing in the public domain to identify Jonathan, and Tina had changed her name. That's why the motive didn't jump out at my team."

Tony nodded. "You're right. So who knows this kind of information? It's not the police, there's at least two forces involved here. Not the Crown Prosecution Service either, neither of them ever got that far."

Light dawned behind Carol's eyes. "A journalist would know. They get access to all kinds of stuff. He could have recognized Tina Chapman from the press photographs at the time. If he has local police contacts, he could have heard that Jonathan Meadows was under suspicion over the hit and run."

Tony scanned the list. "Are any of these journalists?"

DI Ca.s.sidy entered the Children For Christmas offices almost at a run, his team at his heels. A trim little woman got to her feet and pointed to her computer screen. "There. Just as it came in."

The e-mail was short but not sweet. "We've got Santa. You've got money. We want 20,000 in cash. You'll hear from us in an hour. No police."

"I thought I would ignore the bit about 'no police'," the woman said. "It's not as if we're going to be paying the ransom."

Ca.s.sidy admired her forthrightness but had to check she was taking all the possibilities into consideration. "You're not frightened they might kill Mr Garrity? Or seriously harm him?"

She gave him a scornful look. "They're not going to hurt Santa. How do you think that would go down in prison? You of all people should know how sentimental criminals are."

Carol's conviction that David Sanders was a serial killer took her no closer to making an arrest. There was a small matter of a complete lack of evidence against Sanders, a feature writer on the Bradfield Evening Sentinel Times. Even the apparent miracles of twenty-first-century forensic science couldn't nail this. Water and fire were notorious destroyers of trace evidence. She'd hoped that close a.n.a.lysis might fit together the cut marks on the tape and wire from the previous killings, but the fire had done too much damage. That meant there was no chance of definitively linking them to any materials still in Sanders' possession.

There were no reliable witnesses or meaningful CCTV footage. A couple of homeless men had turned up claiming to have seen Tina Chapman go into the ca.n.a.l. But the person pushing her had been wearing a Hallowe'en mask and the sighting had gone nowhere.

The only option left was to cling to Tony's conviction that the killer would strike again before Christmas. It was always hard to persuade her bosses to mount surveillance operations because they were so costly and because they took so many officers off other cases, but at least this one had a fixed end point.

And so they watched. They watched David Sanders go to work. They watched him drink in the pub with his workmates. They watched him work out at the gym. They watched him do his Christmas shopping. What they didn't watch him do was abduct and murder anyone.

Then it was Christmas Eve, the last day of authorized surveillance. In spite of the privileges of rank, Carol put herself down for a shift. It was already dark when she slid into the pa.s.senger seat of the anonymous car alongside DC Paula McIntyre. "Nothing moving, chief. He got home about an hour ago, n.o.body in or out since."

"The house doesn't look very festive, does it? No sign of a tree or any lights."

Paula, who had known her own share of grief, shrugged. "You lose your only child? I don't expect Christmas is much to celebrate."

The Sanders' four-year-old daughter had drowned during a swimming lesson back in September. The instructor had been dealing with another kid who was having a come-apart when Sanders' daughter had hit her head on the poolside. By the time anyone noticed, it had been too late. According to a colleague discreetly questioned by Sergeant Devine, it had ripped Sanders apart, though he'd refused to consider any kind of medical intervention.

Before Carol could respond, the garage door opened and Sanders' SUV crawled down the drive. They let him make it to the end of the street before they pulled out of their parking place and slipped in behind him. It wasn't hard to stay on the tail of the tall vehicle and fifteen minutes' driving brought them to a street of run-down terraced houses on the downtrodden edge of Moorside. On the corner was a brightly lit shop, its windows plastered with ads for cheap alcohol. Sanders pulled up and walked into the shop carrying a sports holdall.

"I think this is it," Carol breathed. "Let's go, Paula."

They sprinted down the street and tried the door of the shop. But something was jamming it. Carol took a couple of steps back then charged the door, slamming her shoulder into the wooden surround. Something popped and the door crashed open.

Sanders was standing behind the counter, a cricket bat in his hand, dismay on his face. "Police, drop your weapon," Carol roared as Paula scrambled to the far end of the counter.

"There's someone here, chief. Looks like he's unconscious," Paula said.

The cricket bat fell to the ground with a clatter. Sanders sank to the floor, head in hands. "This is all your fault," he said. "You never make the right people pay the price, do you?"

Carol collapsed into Tony's armchair and demanded a drink. "He didn't even bother with a denial," she said. "Being arrested seemed almost to come as a relief." She closed her eyes for a moment, memory summoning up Sanders' haggard face.

"It generally does when you're not dealing with a psychopath," Tony said.

Carol sighed. "And a very merry b.l.o.o.d.y Christmas to you too."

"You stopped him killing again," Tony said, handing her a gla.s.s of wine. "That's not an insignificant achievement."

"I suppose. Jahinder Singh's family can celebrate the festive season knowing their father's safe from any further consequences from selling solvents to kids." Before Carol could say more, her phone rang. "What now?" she muttered. She listened attentively, a slow smile spreading from mouth to eyes. "Thanks for letting me know," she said, ending the call. "That was Ca.s.sidy. Santa's home free. Two extremely inept kidnappers are banged up and n.o.body got hurt."

Tony raised his gla.s.s, his smile matching hers. In their line of work, making the best of a bad job was second nature. This wasn't exactly a happy ending, but it was closer than they usually managed. He'd settle for that any day.

end.