‘Sure.’ Coop pinched his temples and then rubbed the corners of his eyes. He stared down at the bar top for a moment, his anger seemingly abated. He looked hollow-eyed and sullen. ‘Anyone here know anything about this Timmy guy?’

‘No. If he doesn’t live in Red Hill, he’s got to be living somewhere nearby. Someone knows him. A person with a metabolic disorder or skin condition or whatever it is that makes him smell like a walking dumpster – a guy like that is going to stand out like a turd in a punch bowl.’

‘You always knew how to turn a phrase.’

‘There’s something else, Coop.’

‘What?’

‘Nobody in this town wants to talk about the Red Hill Ripper.’

‘And that surprises you? It’s a small town. They’re wary of outsiders.’

Maybe, Darby thought, picking up a plastic drinking straw and twirling it between her fingers.

‘Look at where I grew up,’ Coop said. ‘In Charlestown, when you saw someone doing something illegal, stealing, mugging, shooting – whatever was going down, you never called the cops, and you kept your mouth shut when they came round asking questions.’

‘The whole “code of silence” bullshit.’

‘I’m not saying it’s right; I’m saying how it was. Charlestown, East Boston, Southie – they all had that small town, tribal mentality. That’s why a gangster and serial killer like Whitey Bulger was able to get away with all that shit for so long.’

And it certainly didn’t hurt that the FBI had been watching his back the entire time, Darby thought. For two decades – while Whitey and his gang flooded cocaine into Boston’s neighbourhoods, murdered their competition and smuggled guns across the sea to the IRA – he and his long-time business partner, Stephen ‘The Rifleman’ Flemmi, also worked as federal informants for the FBI’s Boston field office. In exchange for information about the Italian Mafia operating in Boston and Rhode Island, their federal handlers gave them tips about wiretaps – and about criminal rivals, who were later killed by Whitey’s gang. A witness who had come forward with information on Whitey’s illegal activities was brutally murdered. Others mysteriously vanished, never to be heard from again. The corruption grew, the bodies piled up; yet, when sealed indictments were about to come down, Bulger’s handlers ensured that he had plenty of time in which to leave town. For the next sixteen years, twelve of which were spent on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, he and his common-law wife lived as fugitives, until a call on a tip line revealed that the octogenarian couple were in an apartment complex in Santa Monica, California. The whole sordid affair read like a thriller – except that it was true.

She didn’t need to tell any of this to Coop. Not only had he grown up during the Bulger era, he had barely survived it.

‘Your people,’ Darby said, catching how Coop bristled at the words, ‘the people living in Southie and East Boston – they didn’t protect Whitey because he was keeping the streets safe and free of drugs.’

‘What are you getting at?’

‘Evil doesn’t operate in a vacuum.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning nobody in this town is afraid of the Red Hill Ripper.’ Darby tossed the straw back down on the bar top, then turned her head to him. He looked as exhausted as she felt. ‘What if we’re approaching this the wrong way? What if there’s another component at work here? Something that isn’t sexual?’

‘You saying this guy isn’t a sexual sadist? Because what we saw inside the bedroom yesterday says otherwise.’

‘No. This guy’s a textbook sadist. But not one of the female vics was raped. If we take away sex, what are we left with for motives?’

‘Money and power. Revenge.’

Darby nodded. ‘Here’s another question: why is the killer only targeting families living in Red Hill?’

A cell phone trilled. ‘That’s me,’ he said, and straightened. He reached inside his jacket pocket, came back with the satphone and flatted a palm against his other ear. ‘Cooper.’

She saw him swallow, saw the alarmed expression on his face when his gaze cut sideways to her; then, with his head, he motioned to the front door and quickly headed towards it. Darby followed behind him, walking through the space Coop left in his wake, the pulse racing in her neck. Another family is dead, she thought as she stepped outside, on to the enclosed porch. The son of a bitch watched that interview I did and he decided to kill another family.

‘Right around the corner,’ he said into the phone as he moved down the steps. A blast of wind howled past them, temporarily blinding her.

Coop hung up. ‘He called looking for you,’ he said, fishing the car key out of his jacket pocket. ‘Said he’ll call back in ten. We’ll take my car.’

‘What does he want?’

‘Don’t know yet. He told the dispatcher – this is a direct quote – he said, “Tell her fifteen minutes or I’ll kill them all.” ’

She buckled herself into the passenger’s seat and set the stopwatch function on her digital watch.

46

Darby entered the lobby of the police station expecting to find cops gathered in anxious crowds, pacing and drinking coffee and talking among themselves, wondering aloud and privately if the Red Hill Ripper was just minutes away from butchering another family. That had been her experience back in Boston. Instead, she found the lobby peacefully quiet and most of the nearby offices dark. A phone rang from somewhere down the hall.

She glanced at her wrist as she followed Coop into the squad room and saw that she had a little over twelve minutes until the Red Hill Ripper called back.

Hoder sat on the edge of his desk, rubbing the sleep from his face. His tie was gone, but he was wearing the same clothes she had seen earlier. Police Chief Robinson was with him, dressed in a pair of badly wrinkled khakis and a grey sweatshirt with frayed cuffs. His boots were damp, flecked with melting snow.

The chief eyed her coldly. Hoder too seemed to be looking at her differently now, not with contempt but with disappointment and, she thought, sadness.

‘He called 911 from a payphone in downtown Red Hill,’ Hoder said. ‘Chief Robinson sent a couple of cruisers. They’re still there, dusting it for prints. When this guy calls back – if he calls back – the chief’s got all his people standing by. Most of ’em got vehicles with four-wheel drive, so hopefully that will help their response time.

‘The woman who spoke to him, Betty, said his voice seemed altered. He identified himself as the Red Hill Ripper and asked to speak to you. When she said she’d have to put him on hold, he replied, “Tell her or I’ll kill them all.” Then he hung up.’

‘Where’s the call centre?’ Darby asked.

‘Right down the hall. We may have a lead on this Timmy person.’ Hoder turned his attention to the police chief.

Robinson said, ‘Like every other station, we hire a cleaning crew to come in during the night and empty the trash and clean up our holding cells. Outfit called RBG Cleaning, operates out of Brewster. Services them, us and a good number of the surrounding towns. Until about two years ago, they used to come in every night. Now we’ve only got ’em twice a week.’

Darby glanced at her watch again. Just under ten minutes left. The snow on her head had melted, making her scalp itch, and she felt sweat gathering along the small of her back.

‘Reason I bring it up,’ Robinson said, ‘is because a year ago, maybe a year and a half, the people working the night shifts complained about the halls stinking like rotten food. Couple of ’em said it smelled like fish. This was during the summer, so we thought that maybe someone dropped food somewhere or left it in a trashcan and it spoiled. We were bleaching all of our buckets. This went on for about a month or so and then it stopped.

‘Terry told me about the interview you two had with the hooker, escort, whatever she is, how this Timmy guy smelled, and it got me thinking, so I talked to Ray about it. He’s on his way to Brewster to talk to Ron Gondek, the guy who owns the cleaning company, to see if he employed someone matching Timmy’s description.’