‘It’ll take hours to get there!’ Gaspare replied, anxious and trying to warn him off. ‘You’ve done enough. Let someone else take over.’
‘I can’t,’ Nino replied, arriving at his car and getting into the driver’s seat. ‘Don’t worry about me—’
‘Don’t be stupid! How can I not worry about you? I should never have let you get involved in the first place. I know why you wanted to – but stop thinking you owe me. You don’t. The only thing you owe me is your safety, your life.’
Turning on the engine, Nino tried to reassure him. ‘Relax. Eddie Hillstone kills women, not men.’
‘Perhaps he’d make an exception for you. He’s fixed on his purpose. He won’t let anything, or anyone, stop him now. How can he? He’s all over the internet, the news. He’ll have changed his name again. He’s been Eddie Ketch and Edward Hillstone – by now he could be someone else entirely.’
‘I can find him—’
Gaspare doubted it.
‘Can you? He’s clever. Remember, he’s been plotting this for a long time … You don’t know what you’re up against. He has to kill this last time, to prove himself. He has to, because he’s been advertising the killing. Getting the media revved up and the police looking like fools. He’s running on adrenalin and the whole world’s watching. How can he let anyone steal his thunder?’ Gaspare’s voice wavered. ‘Please stop. While you still can—’
‘I can’t let him kill her.’
‘Kill who?’ Gaspare countered, his tone desperate. ‘Rachel Pitt is a stranger. I’m sorry for her, believe me. I don’t want her to die. But I don’t want you to die either. Don’t risk your life for someone you don’t even know. She’s not your responsibility—’
‘If not mine, whose?’
67
Leaving London in the rush-hour traffic, it took Nino over five hours to drive to the South Lakes, and another half an hour to find Crook. It had started to snow as he entered the road to the hamlet and the cottages were in darkness, the only light coming from the pub. Parking, Nino got out of the car and stretched, moving towards the pub entrance. It said CLOSED but he could hear voices inside and walked in. A couple of men were seated round a fireplace, the landlord leaning against the bar and smiling a welcome.
‘Hello. You’re new round here.’
‘I’ve just driven up from London,’ Nino said, nodding to the customers who were looking at him curiously. ‘Could I get a drink?’
‘Beer?’
‘It’s cold outside – make it a brandy,’ Nino replied, turning to the nearest man. ‘I don’t suppose you get many strangers around here?’
‘Not many, no. Less around this time of year. You come up to see someone?’
‘Rachel Pitt,’ Nino replied, glancing back at the landlord. ‘She’s taken a cottage here.’
The landlord looked at his customers then back at Nino. ‘She expecting you?’
‘It’s a surprise,’ he lied. ‘We had a quarrel and I’ve come up here to make up. It was my fault – but you know women, she wouldn’t let me explain. She just ran off.’ Nino could see that he had the men’s sympathy and carried on. ‘She left without even giving me the address or the phone number.’
‘She’s just across the road, lad,’ the landlord said, moving around the bar and walking to the window. He pointed to a small cottage with two worn steps up to the door. ‘That’s where your girl’s staying. No lights on though. Might be better to wait till morning, in case she doesn’t let you in. You can stay here – I’ve guest rooms upstairs—’
‘You didn’t let that other bloke stay,’ one of his customers said, laughing.
The landlord shrugged. ‘I didn’t take to him.’ Nino frowned.
‘What was the matter with him?’
‘I dunno. Just sent him to the next village.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘So, you want a room or not?’
So Hillstone was here already, was he? Nino thought. Outside, watching, waiting. For a moment he was afraid that he might strike early, the attack brought forward. But then he realised Hillstone wouldn’t deviate from the plan he had made; from his homage to Vespucci. The last killing was set for the first of January. Not an instant before.
The room in question turned out to be larger than expected, but cold. Nino locked the door behind him and moved to the window. Across the road he could see the cottage where Rachel was staying, and he rubbed his forehead, realising how tired he was. Kicking off his shoes, he lay down on the bed, pulling a rug over him and checking the time. It was 11.30 p.m. and he needed to sleep. He would just rest for an hour or so, he told himself – just a couple of hours.
Having checked up on her, Nino knew that Rachel was safe, only yards away from him, and he could relax a little. Tomorrow was 31 December. He had found her in time. Nothing would happen to her until 1 January. Which could, of course, be just a moment after midnight on the thirty-first. But not before. Edward Hillstone was trailing the event, like a movie blockbuster, building up the tension until the final moments. But he wouldn’t strike early – that would ruin the climax.
So for now Nino could relax a little. Just a little. In the morning he would talk to Rachel, explain what was happening and get her to safety. Whatever Eddie Hillstone said, whatever he bragged on his website, he wasn’t going to get her. He wasn’t going to emulate The Skin Hunter. He was going to fail and the world was going to see what a craven bastard he really was. Taking in a slow breath, Nino imagined Eddie Hillstone in jail, reading the headlines which mocked his failure. No fanfare for him, no misplaced glamour of the serial killer. He had failed, fallen short. Lost out to a sixteenth-century Venetian.
His eyes closed, his body heavy with exhaustion, his breathing slowing down, Nino slid into sleep.
68
Edward Hillstone was finding the whole experience even more thrilling than he had hoped. To see Nino Bergstrom up in the Lakes, watching over Rachel Pitt like a guardian angel, was a revelation. What on earth was he doing? Bergstrom didn’t even know the woman. If he had been a sentimental man, it would have been touching. But then again, Edward wasn’t a sentimental man, and he decided that Nino was not so much interested in saving the victim as catching the killer.
Shifting his position, Edward looked down on the village from inside his parked vehicle, a nondescript white van with no markings. Even more nondescript under the first falling of snow. He clapped his hands to warm them, then drank some stewed tea from his thermos flask. He had to admit that he not been expecting his victim to run off to the Lakes. That had been an unexpected development, especially as he had worked out precisely how he would break into her Battersea flat.
But Edward liked to think of himself as adaptable. Reaching for his laptop he went online. The BBC news was talking about him, but not as its top story. Fuck it, Edward thought. Come January the first they’d have him on top. He’d be front-page news then all right.
He sighed, entered his website and typed an update:
Tomorrow is 31st of December – which leaves one day to go until the last victim is killed on the 1st January.
Beneath this, a timer counted down to that glorious day.
In a way it would be sad when it was all over, Edward thought, trying to conjure up some feeling of regret. But he couldn’t manage it. His feelings extended only to Vespucci and killing, nothing else. And even that was waning a little … He stretched his arms in the cramped van, and stared out into the village beyond. Movement, Edward thought. There he was – the hero, Mr Bergstrom. As if he would let that white-headed bastard steal his thunder. He was the hero. He was The Skin Hunter. Bergstrom was just an amateur.
But a persistent amateur, Edward thought, watching as Nino walked across the narrow road towards the cottage where Rachel was staying. He looked anxious, knocking at the door and waiting, waiting for an answer. Of course, Edward thought, he could have killed her already. Had thought about it – for a nanosecond – the previous night. The idea of Nino Bergstrom running up to the Lakes just to find a body was enticing. But not that enticing. No meddler was going to upset Edward’s plan. The death was planned for the first of January.