Like This, for Ever

second or two, just get your breath back.’ The psychiatrist’s eyes strayed to the panic button. ‘Just concentrate on your breathing. OK, well done. Would you like to carry on? OK, good. So they just watch you. And what do you do?’
    ‘I look at the patterns.’
    ‘The patterns?’
    ‘On the walls, the patterns on the walls and ceiling and floors made by the blood. It’s a bit like – I’ll tell you what it’s like – it’s like when you go to a school and all the kids’ pictures have been put on the walls for you to look at and you wander round, pretending to be interested and mutteringnice things like, “Oh that’s a good one, I like the way he used the colour blue in this one.” Well, that’s what I do. I walk round the room and I look at the patterns each boy made when the blood came out of him and I smile and say, “Yes that’s good, well done.” Like it’s artwork and they’re in a show and they’re proud. And the weird thing is, it is interesting, the patterns that blood makes. They’re like snowflakes, blood spatters, every one is different. Amazing thing, blood. Did I mention that? Sometimes I think I’ll never get tired of looking at blood.’

21
Saturday 16 February
    FOR ONCE, WHEN the phone rang, Dana didn’t wake up instantly. She’d been up late the night before, combing the internet for cases of female serial killers, or killers who’d fixated on pre-adolescent boys. By the time she realized someone was calling her, she knew it had been ringing for a while. Her landline. Mark. She picked up and saw the clock at the same time. Nearly ten. Christ, she was supposed to be at Heathrow in an hour.
    ‘Hi, you watching TV?’
    ‘No, why?’
    ‘Turn it on.’
    Mark waited while she ran downstairs, found the TV remote and took it off standby. ‘ITV1,’ Mark told her. Somewhere in his flat, she could hear Huck singing.
    The channel flicked on to the usual mid-morning news and current affairs programme. The two presenters, one male, one female, were sitting on the blue sofa along with a well-dressed man in his late forties with swept-back red hair and an unusually pale face.
    ‘For those who have just joined us,’ the male presenter was saying, ‘our guest in the studio this morning is clinical psychologist Dr Bartholomew Hunt. We’re talking about the serial killer who hastaken four young lives in just six weeks and who, in spite of huge resources pumped into their operations, the Metropolitan Police seem to be no closer to finding.’
    The red-haired man was nodding in the way people only ever did when they knew they were being observed.
    ‘Now, if I’ve got this right, Dr Hunt,’ the presenter went on, ‘these young victims all died from extensive blood loss.’
    ‘Massive blood loss following the severing of the carotid artery,’ replied Hunt. ‘The bodies were, quite literally, drained of blood.’
    ‘Jesus,’ whispered Dana. ‘The parents could be watching this.’
    ‘More importantly than that,’ the red-haired man went on, ‘wound patterns on at least one of the victims – it wouldn’t be proper to say which one – indicate that the carotid artery was cut several times before death, each time allowing some blood to be lost before clotting began.’
    ‘Oh my God.’ Dana dropped to the sofa, landing on its edge.
    ‘You’ve got a mole, sweetheart,’ said Mark.
    On the screen, Hunt and the presenter were still talking. ‘And this is the point at which some viewers may struggle to deal with the implications of what you’re telling us,’ said the presenter, ‘but you believe this blood loss is particularly significant.’
    ‘The Metropolitan Police are working under the erroneous assumption that the severing of the carotid artery is simply the means of death,’ said Hunt. ‘It isn’t. It’s the motive for abducting the boys in the first place.’
    The presenter blinked. ‘He takes them because he wants their blood?’
    ‘Absolutely. What we’re dealing with here is a case of Renfield’s Syndrome, an unnatural obsession with blood, particularly with the drinking of blood. People with this condition crave the taste of blood in their mouths. It’s also known as Clinical Vampirism.’
    Dana’s mobile was ringing. She leaned over to see who was calling and realized she wasn’t going to make it to the airport. Helen, her long-term partner who worked in Scotland, would have to make her own way across the city. ‘Weaver’s on the other