Chapter 86

I'd been following him for about twenty minutes now as he followed the two girls who walked briskly along the towpath about forty metres in front of him. He was keeping it casual, just another guy on his way home, backpack slung over his right shoulder and one ear bud intact as the white wire coiled down his chest and disappeared inside his jacket. He'd made a couple of calls on his mobile. He'd kept a respectful distance. Not too close. Not too fast. But I knew he was following them. The calls he'd made were fake. The iPod hidden inside his jacket was mute. There was nothing remotely casual about his journey. And the reason I knew this was because I knew who he was. He had become something of a dark celebrity around here. The Regent's Canal Rapist had struck twelve times already. Eight rapes and four indecent assaults and here he was about to strike another notch on his filthy urban bedpost. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't the only hunter who stalked this route. The canal, with its o