Los Angeles 1963. San Francisco 1995. Two cities separated by 500
miles and over three decades; now linked by a series of murders and a
mystery.

In 1963 the murders of two school friends in LA were investigated and
solved within a couple of weeks. The ‘Classmates’ killer was caught
and confessed, the evidence and confession water-tight. He would spend
the rest of his life behind bars.

Over three decades later, in San Francisco, a new series of murders is
under investigation. The murders are random but bizarre, and the killer
is using a unique weapon. So unique that it was last used to commit
the double child murders in 1963. Yet the Classmates killer, now an
old man, has been rotting in jail for the last 32 years.

It is up to homicide inspector Johnny ‘Angel’ Rideout to span a
bridge across the decades and piece together not one, but two cases
inexplicably yet certainly linked.

But as the murders continue, inspector Angel has an added problem –
The killer seems to be stalking him.

The Rabbit’s body twitched involuntarily as Billy brought the brick down on its head one last time. The shadows had grown long and the sun was now a hot red disc burning through the low branches of the trees. The boy picked up the dead animal by its belly, feeling the wet warmth on his cold hands Squeezing it like a sponge until the blood dripped down his forearm.

Time to go, he thought and pitched the twitching carcass across the stream like a rag doll. It bounced on jagged rocks and left black splatters where the bile had burst from the animal's guts.

He checked his trap one last time. A wire mesh cage with a sprung door that slammed shut when pressure was placed on the floor inside. Crude but it worked like a dream and his fine-tuning meant a catch almost every night. What a thrill! Tomorrow he might get lucky. He was using meat as bait but with so many rabbits in the woods that was all he was catching lately. He was bored with rabbits he needed something bigger.  He was praying for the day when he might find a bigger catch, a fox perhaps, or a badger. He’d read about badgers, fiery bastards when angry or scared. That would be a challenge.

He sprinted the half mile it was home and his secret passages ensured that no one would spot him.  Billy and other kids never got along and the one cruel thing about kids is they never fight fair. He could handle one or two at a time but not a gang and not the big kids. He could feel the comforting giggle of the switchblade in his jeans pocket, he vowed never to get a beating like that ever again. Grandma had told him “In this world there are hunters and hunted, you never see a Lion being attacked. He has claws and teeth, so do you.” he got the knife to replace his bitten nails.

When he entered the front door he knew his mother was home. A handbag and a trail of clothes were scattered along the hallway of the dusty old cedar wood building. When he’d left this morning having sorted out grandma his mother had still not arrived home from the night before. Grandma assured him she would be okay and sent him out, even though she was still getting over her latest stroke.

“Billy, boy, is that you?” He heard his mother call. He sighed and rolled his eyes. Damn floorboards, he thought, always gave him away.

She was lying on the sofa in the living room, wearing only a bra and under slip. She was covering her eyes with her right forearm and a glass of Alka-Seltzer was resting precariously on her rising and falling chest. Next to the sofa was large Pyrex bowl filled with soapy warm water, which she used to soak any coins acquired during the previous night’s work. By the look of it, last night had been a profitable evening.

He didn’t say anything; he’d seen her like this a thousand times. She'd stay there all day except when grandma called, and then get dolled up in the evening and start all over again.

“Where have you been boy?” She muttered almost inaudibly.

“Playing.”

“Have a good time?” Billy frowned, this was not a usual question. “Make any new friends?” She struggled to sit up and started fumbling for a cigarette. “Take your hat off in the house. “ She said only slightly louder than before. Billy pursed his lips together. Shit, he thought, what have I done.

He slowly pulled the knitted tea cosy hat off to reveal his bald head.

Kissing her teeth she said, “You need a haircut boy.” She blinked the smoke from her eyes and a long plume came from her nose. “Come here.”

Billy paused but knew if he didn’t comply he would be sorely punished. It was better to get it over with quickly. Mother always made others feel like they were sharing the hangover with her.

The boy approached his mother and she slid her legs off the sofa. It was dull in the room, the shutters were blocking out most of the daylight - but the tip of the cigarette glowed like lava as she drew on it again. She saw the blood on his arms as he got nearer but waited until he was within reach to react. Grabbing him by his baggy knitted shirtfront she pulled him towards her so quickly his head snapped back. “You’ve been at it again ain't ya, you little fucker.” She slapped him hard across his face and he winced - but only momentarily. When these tantrums hit, he was well prepared and weakness was not an issue - pain, he’d learned to control; he was to all intents immune to it. It was the burns he found difficult to contend with. And they were about to come with the first on his inner arm. A crazy humming that hurt long after the event. He managed to hold his mouth but he screamed inside and the tears came without the crying - It was the tears he couldn’t control. She had stubbed the cigarette out on his arm. Normally it was only a touch and the cigarette would continue to smoulder, but for now, if she wanted to continue she’d have to light up again.

“That’s what it’s like to be in pain. You torture animals and I’ll torture you till you stop. Do you understand?” She threw him to the floor and the dust danced in the shafts of light. “Now... go see your Grandma.”

On the stairs the boy spat on his new burn, it seemed to ease the sting temporarily. Butter was good to, and pee. In grandma’s room the smell of linseed welcomed him and the familiar oldness was a small comfort to him. He liked this room, he felt protected and wanted, grandma wouldn’t take any lip from her, and she stuck up for the two of them - and mother hated that.

On the balcony he could see grandma sitting in her wheelchair, the breeze swaying the fly nets.

Before her stroke he used to creep up and surprise her but that was not allowed any more. ‘A nickel or a tickle’ was the game they used to play. Billy would creep up put his hands over her eyes and say “A nickel or a tickle?” sometimes he got the nickel, other times she use to spin around and catch him before he fled and then tickle him until he couldn’t breathe for laughing.

Now he had to broadcast his arrival, “Gran I’m home!” he said as cheery as he could muster. But she didn’t answer. When he saw her face a pain shot into his heart as if he’d just been stabbed with a knitting needle. “Gran!” he pleaded, but it was no good, she was dead.

Mother was framed in the doorway when he lifted his head from grandma’s bosom. Already the stinging hurt his in his eyes. The two looked at one another but exchanged no words. No comfort was forthcoming and Billy was certainly not expecting any, nor would he accept any consolation from her. His sorrow had been inhibited by an anger he felt too powerful to hold.

“You  f’kin caused this. She wouldn’a died it you were here when it happened. You f’kin let her die.” The tears blinded him and his nose was running. A bubble came from his nostril as he continued to rage.

She spoke calmly and with purpose. “Perhaps if you’d been here today instead of killing innocent animals she might have been alive now. I left you to look after her and I come home to find her swimming in her own piss and dead.” Billy didn’t stop to think, he felt his knife pressing against his calf and the instinct he felt told him to use it.  In a second it was in his hand and he was lunging at the target of his hate. He caught her in the thigh and felt the sensation as the blade clicked through the fabric of her under slip and then sinking into the soft flesh only to hit the hardness of bone. It was tight to pull out and the boy had to grip the handle hard to keep grip. She screamed so loud his ears buzzed and she caught him with her clenched fist against his right at the temple. He fell to the floor dazed and she retreated screaming obscenities until her distant voice merged with the ringing in his ears. He looked up at his dead Grandmother sitting in her wheelchair on the balcony with the red sun setting like a halo around her slumped head. The blade of his knife was bloodied and in the twilight the blood looked black like wet tar. He realised he was on his own now but he remembered the last words his grandmother had said to him before he left that morning,

“Billy my boy, look after yourself - because no-one else will.” He hugged his knees - rested his forehead on them - and cried.

This time of year, daybreak in San Fernando was a magical experience. The old turn of the century buildings appeared to glow like red-hot pokers in the early morning sunlight and the shimmer from the ocean played tricks on the eye. Emilio watched from his balcony window as a young couple apparently defied belief and walked on the water. A little mongrel dog snapped at the waves but its paws look as though they were a foot off the sand, all three figures were silhouettes against the backdrop of the rising sun.

Emilio took a sip of juice and winced. The radio was playing Caruso quietly in the bedroom and Solomon was scratching the new laid linoleum to be let out.

"Out Salty, before you wear a hole." Emilio said as he let the dog out. The beach was deserted except for a few joggers and people walking their dogs. Letting Salty chase the gulls in the morning was an effortless way of exercising the dog since Sal walked out a month ago. The dog was hers but Emilio had agreed to look after it until she'd sorted herself out.

The grapefruit was as bitter as the juice and Emilio was tempted to sweeten it with some Canadian Honey* But Honey wasn't on his diet sheet so he struggled through without. The gulls screeched their annoyance and Emilio smiled, Salty was as it again.

After breakfast, he thought, he should finish off the bathroom. He only had the rest of the week, four days, before returning to work and he hadn't even started clearing the rubble from the carport. He realised the car was beyond salvage while he sat and waited the six hours it took for the rescue crew to find and dig him out. In that time He made some harsh decisions about his future, if he had any and about where he and Sal were headed.

The radio news report told of another spate of looting during the night. Shop owners were having a rough time since the quake and the flood that had followed heightened their misery.

At that time Emilio was just finishing his night shift. He'd called into cafe Ol Lar for his breakfast and had just sat in his usual booth when the room began to shake. The plate glass windows of the diner shattered almost simultaneously and Emilio ducked under his table just in time to avoid an enormous shard which embedded in the table top. The road rippled like it was rubber and in the eight seconds the quake lasted the area looked like a shantytown. It was almost five in the evening before Emilio arrived home in a squad car driven by his partner Jim Kryzcki. Emilio's apartment looked pretty stable compared to some building in the area. When he entered, besides the fact it looked like the place had been burgled and trashed, it all looked quite sound. A call later that evening provoked him to venture out. Jim Kryzcki was missing, he hadn't returned to the PD after dropping Emilio off. Emilio set off without thinking and had just began to pull his Oldsmobile out of the carport when a massive aftershock struck.

He regained consciousness in total darkness. His arm and legs trapped in the wreckage. And there he stayed for six hours. During that time they found Kryzcki's car in a gaping crack in the highway. The cracked dam had flooded the area and Kryzcki had drowned in the car. Emilio's police siren was still working and it was the yelp from this that alerted the rescuers. Despite the fact that two tons of rubble had squashed the car like a paper cup Emilio suffered only a broken wrist and bruising. But he hadn't slept properly since. Every time he tried he only woke in a sweat with his friend's voice screaming for help in his mind.

The telephone rang before he had the chance to pour the milk onto his bran. He let it ring twice; he didn't feel up to another bout of crying from Sal. He answered anyway and recognised the curt tone of Lieutenant Koresh.  

"Hey Emilio, how's the arm?"

"It's needlework sir! What's this, your caring side?"

"Afraid I need you in son. We got a stiff but no personnel, any chance you can cut short your convalescence?"

"I'll be back proper in four more days, can't it wait until Monday?"

"I wouldn't be calling if I wasn't desperate. We got a body uncovered south of Baldwin Hill, looks like it's been there for a long time. I want you on the case. How about it?"

Emilio paused and thought about his partner Kryzcki. He would be getting a new partner now and it would be his turn to do the training and ass watching just like Kryzcki had done for him for the past three years.

"I don't know if I can handle a big one yet sir, can't you take someone off a desk?"

"I want you Emilio, this is your case, you've been waiting for this and you can handle it God damn it. Now, are you gonna deal or what?" The Lieutenant's voice sounded strained and Emilio new he had to accept. This was the new start he was expecting and he just had to take the plunge. "Give me the location." He said pinning the phone between his shoulder and chin.

||

The Sun was full in the sky and the torrent of mud that had spewed like lava the day of the dam break was now crusted enough to walk on - carefully. Emilio met up with Koresh at Inglewood and they drove the 3 miles to Baldwin hill in a polite silence with the odd break for menial conversation. The roads were like badly made jigsaws and trees that had stood for possibly a hundred years had been felled in the few seconds the quake had lasted. They past a dodge truck laying on its side in a ditch the driver's door open like a submarines hatch. Emilio glanced at the Lieutenant but said nothing/

"Gonna be a nice day again." The Lieutenant said, seemingly reading Emilio's thoughts and changing the subject.

"Uhu." Emilio agreed vaguely

"So Mickey, how do you feel now eh?"

"I don't, I'm still numb of it all."

"It'll take time. Perhaps you should reconsider." Emilio cut him off in mid-sentence,

"Don't even try sir. I'm not getting counselling, not now. Not ever. I can counsel myself out of it, I don't need a white collared slick play inkblot games with my head." The captain shrugged and a bead of sweat trickled down his high brow

A  SOC tent resembling a small circus big-top was billowing gently in the breeze when they pulled up. The yellow and white police tapes strung the area off although the site was far from any built up areas. Two white vans were parked end to end with rear their doors opening onto each other and Forensic people in white paper coverall were milling about.

When Emilio stepped out of the air-conditioned car the heat took his breath away. The smell of baking slurry made him feel like he'd stepped into a potter's kiln, in fact the ground looked like it had been littered with broken clay pots that crunched underfoot. They made their way to the scene.

Inside the tent the temperature was once again cool. Emilio and the Lieutenant took off their shades almost simultaneously and chief forensic officers Toni Marcellus glanced up from his kneeling position. One young lab technician was still dusting mud and silt from the legs of the victim and at once Emilio could see the body was of a child.

"Hey Toni, how's it going." The Lieutenant spoke as though he were in a chapel of rest.

"Almost done, we need to take part of the surrounding mud with the body, it's set like concrete and I don't want any more damage done." Marcellus was a small guy with a bald head that looked like he polished it every morning. He had a habit of blowing his top if things were not done how he wanted. And Emilio had first-hand experience of his temper almost on his first day as a rookie. He was as the Lieutenant always put it a nice guy away from the office.

Marcellus got to his feet and walked over to Emilio,

"Hey son, how you doing?"

"I'm doing fine sir."

"Sorry to hear about Kryzcki Quite a shock."

"Yeah right!" Emilio brushed past him not wanting the sterile conversation to continue. Marcellus glanced at Koresh, his lips pursed and he rocked his head minutely.

Emilio squatted over the body and examined it with his eyes. It had come to rest on its front although the torso and head were pointing in unnaturally angled positions.

"I'd say she would have been in the ten to thirteen age bracket and she's been dead no more than five weeks, but that's a rough estimate for now." Marcellus walked in a circle around Emilio and the body and began packing his tools away.

"How'd she die?" Koresh asked, Macellus shook his head and shrugged his thin shoulders.

"Too decomposed to tell at this stage. The peat preserved her while she lay undisturbed but she's been exposed for over two weeks and the sun and moisture have eaten her up. Wait until we get her in the lab, we'll know more then.

Emilio took the arm of his glasses and lifted the ragged material from around the neck of the corpse. "Did you see this?" Marcellus craned his neck to see over Emilio's head. "I saw it!" At the base of the skull was a puncture wound and around it an imprint almost like a tattoo on the blanched skin. Emilio saw the expression on the Lieutenant's face and he felt his own face go cold. He wasn't ready for this.