by Clare Revell
“Problems?” Isabel glanced at him.
“Just Rosa. She decided to come over after all, and is moaning because I’m not in.”
“I thought she cancelled.”
“She did.” Zander started the car. “I told her I was working. Didn’t want to add fuel to the fire and tell her I’d had dinner with you.”
Isabel fastened her seatbelt. “Does she believe you?”
“I don’t really care either way, to be honest.” He reached for his seatbelt. “OK, let’s get you home. No sense both of us being up all night.”
Twenty minutes later, Zander parked outside his house. Rosa’s car sat on his drive, which meant he’d have to put his vehicle away later. If he bothered. He locked the car and headed up to the front door. The house seemed in darkness. He let himself in. “Rosa?”
A faint light shone in the dark hallway. He headed down the passage and pushed open the lounge door. Rosa lay curled up and asleep on his couch. So much for wanting to talk. More than irritated now, Zander weighed waking her up, but decided against that. He covered her with the blanket from the back of the chair.
He slung his coat onto the coffee table and headed upstairs to his room. He locked his bedroom door, something he rarely, if ever, did. It wasn’t as though he really needed to. He crossed to the bed, sank down onto it, and buried his head in his hands.
Why did things have to be so complicated and so messy? He changed quickly, tossing his dirty clothes into the linen basket. Pulling his Bible across, he opened it and read the designated passage. Next he turned out the light and knelt beside the bed, determined to hand the whole of the horrid day over to the One who knew how things would eventually pan out.
Sometime later a knock at the door roused him.
“Zander?” Rosa still sounded annoyed. “Are you in there?” The door handle moved, but because the door was locked, it didn’t open. “Are you awake?”
Zander didn’t move or respond. Finally, footsteps moved away and back down the stairs. Hardly daring to breathe, he kept still until he heard the front door open and close. A car started outside. Pushing upright, he padded to the window in time to see Rosa drive away.
He sighed. He probably should have answered her, but it was better this way. She’d only have taken him being dressed in pyjamas as an invitation he would never offer. Moving to his bedroom door, he unlocked it. What he needed to do now, was deadlock the front door, and then get some much-needed sleep. He’d need a clear head in the morning.
~*~
Isabel glanced up as Zander entered the squad room. He hadn’t shaved, his hair was awry, and he had bags under his eyes. “You look dreadful. Did you have a bad night?”
“That’s one way of putting it.” He headed over to the coffee machine. “You’re early. And way too chipper for just after eight.”
“The sun is shining and it’s a beautiful day.” She tilted her head, tossing her hair over her shoulder. Maybe she should tie it back. Isabel pulled her bag from the bottom drawer of her desk and fished for a hairband.
“Humm.” Zander grumped as he made some coffee. “Have we heard back from forensics yet?”
She reached for the folder on her desk. “Yes. Both vics—”
He groaned, draining the cup. “Someone has been watching way too many US cop shows. Vic’s is something that belongs to my Great-Uncle Victor. These were real people. They deserve dignity in death. Not generalisation.”
Her cheeks heated. What had rattled his cage so early in the day? “Sorry. Both Iona and Sally had the same blue fibres in their hair. The only fingerprints on the postcards were mine and yours.”
“What about the postman or post office handlers?”
“On the envelope yes, but that will be impossible to track down. Nothing is in the system—other than the officers who touched it. The first one had a frank rather than a postmark. The kind you’d find in an office that deals with its own mail. The second was printed off at home.”
He stared at her, cup mid-air. “Huh?”
“Yeah. Anyone can have an online account with the post office. You put your details, and the details of whomever you’re sending stuff to, in the required boxes. Then you pay using the already set up details. Hit print and off you go. Attach it to the letter, put in post box, and job done. Or if it’s being signed for, you hand it in at the post office, and get a receipt.”
“You have one of these?”
“Yes. I don’t use it very often, but yeah, I do.”
Zander refilled his cup and trudged over to his desk. He slumped into his chair. “There should still have been other prints. Even if it had been hand delivered, someone needed to have put it on your desk.”
“Fine. I’ll get them to redo it.”
“You do that.”
Isabel kept her sigh to herself. He obviously wasn’t listening to a word she was saying as she’d told him there were numerous prints on the envelope. But that was fine. She’d simply go through the motions and tell him again later. He was in a snit, and men in a snit were best left to get over it on their own time.
“What about the fibres on the bodies?”
“Blue carpet fibres. Other than that, they can’t be more specific at the moment. The comment says, ‘find the carpet and I’ll tell you if it’s a match’, but then there’s another note that says ‘I am running tests to find out which animal they came from’, so there is hope.” She paused. “I didn’t realise there was a difference. Carpet is just carpet, but apparently there is sheep wool, llama wool, angora wool, or man-made.”
“Maybe.” Zander massaged the back of his neck. “Sometimes I wish Arend would cut out the poor attempt at humour in his reports.”
“No trace of any drugs. Both girls had been drinking. He says he can tell us what they had for their last meal, but—no, I’d rather not know. TMI.”
“Especially this early in the morning.” Zander took another swig of coffee.
“The fibres were the same in both cases. Duct tape from the same roll. Looks like the cuts were made with the same blade. He’s not sure whether it’s scissors or a knife.” She handed him a couple of photographs. “Same kind you can pick up in any store.”
“DIY store?”
Isabel raised an eyebrow. “Uh, you can buy this stuff in a newsagent these days.”
Zander pinned the photographs to the board. “Wish I’d known that. Would’ve saved a long drive over to the DIY place by the stadium.”
Isabel retied her ponytail. “And that’s it so far. Now what?”
“More coffee. Then we go drag Miss Masters from her five-star accommodations into an interview room.”
Irate footsteps crossed the room. “Zander! This arrest you made.”
“Someone’s grouchy,” Zander mouthed. He rolled his eyes and tacked on a smile. “Good morning, Guv.”
“Don’t you good morning me!” DI Holmes, with eyes narrowed, lips thin, and fingers white around the handle of his briefcase was clearly upset. Fire smouldered beneath that dark gaze, making Isabel glad she wasn’t the subject of his wrath.
Zander didn’t drop the smile. “What’s up, Guv? Did the baby keep you up all night?”
Obviously, he was still trying to deflect the DI’s anger with humour, but even Isabel could tell it wasn’t working. She picked up a random file and hid behind it, hoping she could remain unnoticed.
“I’m serious. I had a call from the custody sergeant last night after the two of you finished booking in this student.”
Isabel caught her breath. So much for not being noticed.
Zander froze. “Don’t tell me he let her go.”
“No. He wanted to double check the charge. Reckless endangerment and assault because manslaughter wouldn’t work with the CPS? Unquote. Really?”
“Miss Masters deliberately spiked Sally Rollin’s drinks on Saturday night. Thus, putting her over the limit, which resulted in her car keys being taken away, put into a cab, dropped off somewhere in town, and murdered.”
Zander paused. “Sally Rollin that is. Not her keys.”
“Glad you explained. I was wondering how a set of keys could get murdered.” DI Holmes’s face remained impassive. “Isabel, did you agree with this?”
Isabel opened and closed her mouth a couple of times as she tried to find a good way of phrasing what she needed to say. Then she nodded. “I fully agree with Zander’s decision. We were planning to arrest all of them, but they agreed to come in voluntarily this morning.”
“All of them?”
The expression on the DI’s face was priceless. If only she had a camera to hand.
Zander sucked in a deep breath. “Too much paperwork was also a factor in that decision. I—we figured a night in the cells, a formal interview, followed by an official caution would suffice. Unless Miss Masters shows no signs of remorse at all—in which case I’m happy to go with manslaughter.”
DI Holmes face softened a little. “What will I do with you two?” He shook his head. “Don’t answer that. If Miss Masters doesn’t show any regret, I suggest you get her parents down here. Take it from someone who knows teenagers. Parents have a way of making a teen regret anything. The university will also take a dim view of this sort of behaviour. Oh, but I do agree with the formal caution. I’m happy to do it rather than the custody sergeant if need be.”
“The rest of the girls are coming in at ten. Isabel and I are planning on interviewing them one at a time.”
“Mind if I sit in?” DI Holmes asked.
Zander chuckled and exchanged a glance with Isabel. “Be our guest.”
~*~
Isabel slumped in her desk chair and stared morosely at the board. Her stomach wouldn’t settle. The interviews with the students had taken up all morning and proved no help whatsoever. They hadn’t seen the bloke hanging around outside the bar and couldn’t shed new light on anything. Nor did the second interview with the fisherman who’d found the body. She sighed, shoving her hands through her hair, disrupting her ponytail.
Zander twisted his chair around to face her. “What’s up?”
“There is no link between them. What if we can’t solve it?”
“We will. We have to because he’ll just keep on killing if we don’t.”
Isabel yanked the band out of her hair and threw it onto the desk. “They went to the same church yes, but they had different jobs, came from different walks of life.”
“So, find some commonality.” Zander tossed her the marker pen. “Write a list.”
Isabel caught the pen and rose. She walked to the board. “Fine. Both of them are female.”
He grinned. “We’ll make a detective out of you yet.”
She scrunched her nose. “Female, with long, black hair and brown eyes.”
“They both attend church, doesn’t matter if it’s not the same one, even though it is in this instance.”
Isabel scribbled on the right-hand side of the board. “They were both reported missing.”
Zander clicked his fingers. “We need to see when those reports were filed and how it ties into the time of death.” His phone rang and he snatched it up. “Ellery…oh, hi, Rosa.” He rolled his eyes at Isabel and turned away. “I’m at work. Where else would I be at this time of day?”
Isabel tuned him out, studying the board. There had to be some other link. Something both girls had done at the same time. Because a random picking a woman off the street and killing her made no sense. The very fact the killer was sending in pictures a day in advance showed he was doing this methodically. And planning that and choosing women without any kind of pattern didn’t match up.
Zander’s voice rose, and Isabel glanced over at him. Obviously, the phone call wasn’t a normal boyfriend-girlfriend conversation.
She turned back to the board. She tapped the pen against her teeth. Perhaps they’d met at some point. Just because they both attended the same church, didn’t mean they knew each other. Some of the churches she’d been to were huge, with congregations of over a thousand. Perhaps an inter-church event they’d both attended or a convention like Keswick or something? She strode to her desk and scribbled a list. There was the Colour Conference, New Wine, the London Women’s Convention. One of the big London churches also did a couple of conventions a year, plus events like Spring Harvest and Real Lives.
Zander threw his phone to the desk, the thud making Isabel jump.
“Women!”
She glanced over. “Yup. Can’t live with us, can’t kill us, and when you finally think you have us worked out, we rewrite the ten-thousand-page manual.”
He groaned. “Tell me about it.”
She chuckled. “So, what’s this one particular woman done to naff you off?”
“It’s my fault apparently. I’m an insensitive bloke who should know better. Other than that, nothing. What are you doing?”
“Writing a list of things to check. The girls have church in common but might not know each other from there. So, I was thinking. Maybe they met at an inter-church event like Keswick or something similar. I’ve made a list of the ones that sprang to mind.”
Zander held out his hand. “Give me a butchers.”
She handed over the paper. She didn’t know much cockney rhyming slang, but butchers—butchers hook—look was one of the more common ones in every day usage. “Figured we could take half each. See if they attended last year or are booked in for this summer or autumn.”
“Have you ever been to these?” he asked, studying the list.
“Keswick a couple of times. I went to New Wine last year. I’m meant to be going this year but haven’t given the Guv my leave form yet. It had been approved, but obviously new job and all…”
“If it’s a pre-booked holiday, the Guv will honour it. Especially if it’s a church related thing.”
“Don’t let me forget.” Isabel scribbled on another post-it-note.
“Hand in a holiday form,” he said helpfully. “OK, you take Keswick, Colour Conference, and the London Women. I’ll take the rest.”
“Sure.” Isabel spun to face the computer screen and pulled up the search engine to get the phone numbers. “As much as I don’t want this to be a link…”
“It would be nice to have one. Other than the fact they’re women and sinners.” He paused. “Yeah, I know.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
Isabel laughed and aimed her fingers at him, pretending to shoot him.
Zander clapped a hand over his heart and pretended to die before slumping back in his chair. “Good shot.”
“I’d better not really shoot you, even if you did ask me too. The Guv is in a bad mood as it is, and I don’t want to make it even worse. Besides, I might leave a nasty mess over your extremely tidy desk.”
He spread his arms protectively over his wooden surface. “Do. Not. Touch. The. Desk. You toucha my desk, and I’m a gonna breaka your face.”
She laughed harder and raised her hands in surrender. “Seriously, don’t you find doing this day in and day out rocks your faith a little?”
“Honestly? At first, it did. A lot. I mean, how could a loving God allow all this?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I’ve wondered that before, but this…?”
He swung his chair to face her. “The thing is, He doesn’t. It’s sin that causes this, not God. God gave us free will to choose our own path and actions, to choose what we do with our lives. But there are consequences to those actions. For example, you touch my desk and…”
“You kill me?” Isabel reached out and touched his desk with the tip of her finger. “Oops, I touched it.”
He snorted. “Well, I won’t break your face, but you won’t be popular if you make a mess on it. If God takes away our free will, what are we left with?”
She twisted her pen around her fingers. “A load of automatons serving Him because they have to.”
“With no joy in what they do.” He angled his head. “And while we’re on the subject of God and chur
ches, have you tried Headley Baptist yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“You should. Pastor Carson is speaking this weekend.” He winked. “He’s an ex-con and a really good preacher.”
Her jaw dropped. Surely, she’d misheard him. “He’s a what? Did he preach in the wrong place or something?”
“No. He did several years for armed robbery. He was converted in prison, went to Bible College on his release, and never looked back.”
“Wow.” She leaned back in her chair. That was a first for her. “Then I shall definitely be there Sunday, just to hear him.” She picked up the phone to ring the first number on her list. “OK, here goes nothing.”
15
Four days later, Zander pushed his chair back. They still had no real break, no real leads. He and Isabel had spent the last two days going over every statement, every report, hoping to find something, anything. But all they had was a big, fat zero. He’d been here what felt like hours, but it was only nine o’clock. He stood by the board. “So, both Iona and Sally attended New Wine last year and were both booked on week two this year.”
“And they both attended Keswick three years ago. Again, both of them attended the conferences on the same week. Iona went alone. Sally went with her parents and sisters.” She turned back to her computer and continued typing.
Zander added the new facts to the board. “But how would the killer know that?”
“Maybe he went too.”
Zander snorted. “A Christian wouldn’t do this.”
“I didn’t say that.” Isabel glared at her screen. “I just said maybe he attended the conventions as well. It’s not an exclusive club. But the way the girls died indicate some religious knowledge.”
He rolled his eyes at her. “Thousands of people go. At least twelve thousand, if not more. You want to carry out background checks on every single one of them? Because that idea will take weeks, maybe months, to track down and interview that many people. We’d need an army, and we don’t have one.”
“Uh huh.” She peered at the screen.
“Isabel? You sound distracted. Are you with me?”
“Yeah, sorry. Just checking something. So, both Iona and Sally were reported missing twenty-four hours before the bodies were found. If he was drugging them somehow, it would have worn off before we found them. Hence the absence of rohypnol or something similar.”