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Unfortunately the info was within the vague boundaries
of a sketchy description applying to quite a number of the London
population.
    Madison sighed for the third time. In a few
hours, he’ll have to get into the now routine knocking on three
doors. “The shiny saddle of a repetitive loop”, he muttered for
himself.
     
    * * * * * * *
     
    Terri Harley opened the door with bleary,
brown eyes and a dark mauve toweling robe covering her with one
size too many. Madison noticed she had hardly slept. Possibly an
insomniac. She stood there staring at him for a full ten seconds,
her brain slowly registering the situation, a cog creaking the next
one into working gear, before letting him in. Her slippered feet
shuffled to the kitchen. He followed. Terri’s partner, Justine, a
willowy beauty with dark hair, waltzed out of the bathroom, fully
made-up and decently outfitted, and joined them.
    “What’s up?” She enquired, seriousness
darkening her eyes.
    “Gimme coffee and ask him,” Terri slouched on
a countertop.
    “I’ll need to see Dawn Ferndale, too.”
    Dawn, in between homes (the water pipes of
her new house were currently attended by an army of disagreeing
plumbers), happened to be squatting Terri and Justine’s spare
room.
     
    * * * * * * *
     
    He questioned the singer first, playing the
loop of sentences accordingly punctuated. At what time did you
arrive? At what time did you leave? What about your crew? Dawn
Ferndale? Your partner? Who did you talk with? Then, he outed the
victim’s weekly travel card dutifully sealed in an evidence bag,
that he had previously stashed in an inside pocket.
    Recognition flooded Terri’s still sleepy
eyes. Yes, she knew the woman, a regular groupie, often attending
Second Look’s gigs with a bunch of similarly looking friends. No,
she didn’t know her address or any specific particular. Alexi
wasn’t the kind of groupie always queuing to chat with Terri or
Dawn.
    Damn it! Terry worried for the safety of her
fans. Third death in the audience. Third murder. Madison hadn’t
mentioned the mysterious and complete lack of blood in and out of
the corpse. Sucked dry… This detail hadn’t been released to the
press for any of the cases. He dreaded the imagination of the
media.
    The keyboard player walked into the kitchen,
pale green clothes hiding her curves. Her eyes met Madison’s
without flinching and she poured herself a mug of hot and strong
coffee, not bothering with sugar or milk.
    “Look!” Terri almost shouted. “Someone was
killed again last night!”
    Dawn stared at the photo pass but offered no
pearl of wisdom. D.I. Madison asked Terri to leave the kitchen,
guessing she would squat behind the shut door with Justine. Having
been in charge of this serial case since murder one, he needed no
second sight to know Dawn would give only laconic and succinct
answers. Like the singer, she had noticed nothing different, she
could yield no light over the frustrating case.
    In turn, Justine corroborated the statements
of the band, the complete waste of his time, and provided names and
addresses of friends who could vouch for her own whereabouts at all
times that night, minus a window of five minutes when she would
have needed super-speed to commit the crime.
    D.I. Madison left, none the more
knowledgeable. On his way to South London where the crew resided,
wasting more petrol and more time on the futile wild goose chase,
he started to wonder. Ok, he had three murders. Same M.O.
Assumption: same killer, or killers. This killer could be anyone,
yes, but not necessarily one close to the rock band or a groupie.
The gigs could be just a convenient killing ground, a smoke screen
to distract the police. What if the culprit was no stranger to
murder? On a hunch, Madison picked up his mobile phone, not waiting
for the next red light, to auto-dial and talked to one of his
detectives, ordering a research of all unexplained murders for the
past year within London and its extended suburb.