The Career Killer

by Ali Gunn

  ‘Excellent taste, bugger all income,’ Stryker said. ‘Not a great combination.’

  ‘And the cash too. She liked to flash the paper money about.’

  Stryker had skimmed over the ATM withdrawals. The amount that Layla habitually withdrew grew progressively smaller over time – five hundred quid a time on the oldest statements then three hundred and then, most recently, a mere fifty pounds per withdrawal. The withdrawals were erratic and infrequent so it was no wonder that they hadn’t been noticed straight away amongst the myriad restaurant and shopping charges.

  ‘We didn’t find any cash at her home, did we?’ he asked.

  ‘Nah, not a penny in her purse.’

  ‘Killer might have taken it.’

  They hadn’t seriously been considering robbery as a motive. She still had her iPhone, her handbag, and her jewellery on her. Cash was much easier to steal. It was virtually untraceable.

  ‘I’d nick it, wouldn’t you?’ Knox said. ‘In for a penny, in for a pound. Not much point getting squeamish about a few quid if you’re willing to stab a woman through the heart.’

  Her logic was irrefutable and yet something didn’t gel. If the killer were, as Dr Burton Leigh’s report suggested, compulsive, then stealing was much too logical, too opportunistic. Perhaps the victim simply hadn’t been carrying any cash on the night she was murdered.

  He rifled through the pages Knox had handed him. She still had the most recent statement. ‘When was her last transaction?’ he asked.

  ‘Two days before we found her at St Dunstan.’

  ‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd? This woman took a private hire car everywhere she went. I can almost imagine the route that her car would have taken between the shops she bought things from. Look at this. On the fourth of September, she took an Uber from Fortnum & Mason to Nobu where she ate dinner. That’s a five-minute walk, tops. Layla Morgan was a lazy so and so. And yet she didn’t take an Uber when she left her house for the last time. We know she wasn’t killed there – the scene of crime boys have been all over it and found nowt but dust for their trouble, so that leaves us with two questions—’

  ‘Where’d she go and how’d she get there?’ Knox interrupted sharply.

  ‘Right.’ Again, Stryker was struck by just how quick off the mark Knox was. Why on earth wasn’t she more senior?

  ‘If she doesn’t ever walk anywhere, then chances are someone gave her a lift.’

  Her eyes twinkled, a mix of rheumy yellow and excitement. She was clearly thinking along the same lines he was. Could her murderer have picked her up?

  ‘Let me check something,’ Stryker said. He opened up the ANPR map he’d used at St Dunstan and homed in on Layla Morgan’s home way out west. If there were number plate recognition cameras in the vicinity then maybe they could find out who had given her a lift.

  ‘Damn.’ Nothing. Not one camera for at least two hundred yards. The nearest was on a major road and so would pick up thousands of cars a day. Might as well pull the list anyway just in case something showed up. It seemed the killer drove a blue or black car so that would cull a good half of the list. He pinged a quick email to Ian down in the Digital, Cyber and Communications Department and cc’d in DCI Mabey so she could sign off on the spending.

  ‘Mabey’s coming, look busy.’ Knox gathered up her papers and made off at ninety miles an hour in the direction of the stairwell.

  ‘Hey!’ Stryker called after her. ‘Grab me a cup.’

  It was too late.

  As Mabey’s footsteps grew louder, Stryker pulled the iPhone back out of his pocket and put it on the desk. The phone had to hold the answers. Every bit of Layla’s life was digital and her phone was the key to it all. He scanned down his list of pin codes. 2828 was next on his hit list – her house number repeated twice. He tried it.

  A red warning flashed up. Pin try number nine was wrong.

  2301 was next. January twenty-third, her late mum’s birthday.

  Wrong again.

  Before he knew it, the phone began to wipe itself.

  ‘Shit shit shit shit shit!’ Stryker said. He put his finger on the power button, trying to force Layla’s phone to turn off. It didn’t. The phone was forcibly deleting every bit of data it had ever contained, an optional security measure that Stryker had never expected to come up against. Worse still, the boss’ shadow loomed over him. He hastily shuffled the papers on the desk so that Layla’s phone was underneath and prayed that Elsie hadn’t seen him do so.

  ‘Everything alright, Stryker?’

  He looked up. ‘Uh, yes, boss, I’m fine.’

  ‘You don’t look fine. You look flushed,’ Mabey said. ‘What’s stressing you out?’

  He had to think of a lie and fast. ‘I’ve got to be in Yorkshire tomorrow afternoon. I’ve got a case I’m supposed to be testifying in... Should I ask them to reschedule?’

  ‘It’s a bit late to be asking now, isn’t it?’ Elsie put her hands on her hips. ‘What sort of case is it?’

  He racked his brain, trying to think of the most plausible case he’d really worked. This lying thing was damned hard work. If only he hadn’t been so stupid. Any old answer would have been better than “I’ve got be in court”. It was so easy to disprove. ‘Racketeering,’ he said, hoping that he hadn’t taken too long to reply and made his deceit obvious.

  ‘Then the Serious Organised Crime Boys won’t like it if you mess them about. Go, but come back as soon as possible. Think about taking the train so you can sort some of your paperwork on the way. I know you’re well behind on that front. And don’t even think about sticking around for a cheeky pint. I need you back here post haste.’

  He nodded. ‘Got it, boss. I shan’t be gone long.’ Especially not for a fictional hearing.

  ‘Have you seen Knox?’

  ‘You just missed her.’

  The moment that she was out of earshot, he scooped up his things, stuffed Layla’s phone back into the evidence bag and made a beeline for the place he should have gone all along: the Digital, Communications and Cyber department.

  Chapter 24: Bling Bling

  The victim’s spending confirmed that she had planned to go to Milan. She’d booked to fly out on British Airways going business class from Heathrow to Malpensa. The tickets were surprisingly reasonable, a mere £297.54 for the round trip including baggage. It back up what Étoile had said and established beyond doubt that Layla had been due to fly out to Milan on the Friday that she’d been found which was consistent with Spilsbury’s assertion that Layla had been dead for around a day before she’d been found.

  Now that she’d secured Layla’s bank records from SQ Private Bank her last three statements were spread out on the left-hand side of Knox’s desk. Despite being unfairly demoted by Fairbanks, she still had her old office which reflected her former rank of detective inspector. The title was gone, the big empty office a stark reminder of what she’d lost. It did, however, allow her the luxury of space to work. She’d also managed to get bank statements for the earlier victim, Leonella Boileau, and she’d had only to ask Nelly’s building society nicely for those, no warrant needed. She spread the most recent three statements top to bottom on the right-hand side of the desk so that the statements for each woman were side-by-side. She could now compare September with September, October with October and November with November.

  Each line item represented one transaction. Some were detailed showing exactly what had been bought and where, while others were bereft of specifics and impossible to decipher. Knox hoped to find something in common between Nelly and Layla but the two women couldn’t have lived more different lives. While Layla had spent and spent, Nelly had been her polar opposite. Nelly had been frugal to a fault, her penny-pinching such that her monthly outgoings were in the low hundreds and so her meagre bank balance had been climbing month after month right up until her death. It looked like Nelly had been saving up for something. A deposit perhaps? Or a car? There were no charges for insurance, not much spent i
n supermarkets, and only the odd restaurant charge, usually a cheeky Nando’s or a MOD Pizza which Nelly enjoyed no more than once every other month. It was reflective of an austere lifestyle. Nelly’s monthly spending would barely cover one night on the town for Layla.

  As much as Knox hated to admit it, she had to agree with Mabey. The victims’ paths must have crossed somewhere. Knox was sure of it. The killer had picked these two women for a reason. They were physically dissimilar in nearly every way. Nelly was black, Layla white. Nelly was tall, Layla short. The contrasts went on and on. Where Layla was an upper-middle-class socialite enjoying all the trappings of zone one living, Nelly barely ventured out of Croydon.

  The only things that the victims appeared to have in common were age and beauty. Both were in their mid-twenties and both were objectively attractive. Beyond that, they didn’t shop in the same places, didn’t share a gym or hobby. They lived almost as far apart as was possible within the limits of Greater London. Nelly’s home in Croydon was a world away from Layla’s upmarket Fulham address.

  Particularly lacking was spending in the days before their deaths. It was par for the course for Nelly not to spend but very unusual for Layla. All she’d spent the day before her death was a whopping twelve pounds via contactless payment at a place called “Katz Klawz” which appeared to be her local nail salon. Katz Klawz only appeared once on her bank statements so it wasn’t a regular appointment so far as Knox could tell. Perhaps then she was primping and preening for a reason. Could she have been headed out to meet a man?

  While there was scant information about Layla’s movements, there was even less about Nelly. Fairbanks hadn’t even bothered to canvass beyond her immediate neighbours. The file on her death was as thin as he was fat and devoid of meaningful content. His team had notified her next of kin –her mother – and then done very little. A family liaison officer had been assigned to the case but their work had been hamstrung by the lack of progress. Knox knew from experience that it was heartbreaking to tell a family member that they had no new information to share over and over again.

  There was only one thing for it. Knox was going to have to do some old-fashioned leg work. If she could find a big enough map of Greater London, she could put a pin in the map for every transaction the two victims had ever made. Red pins would mark Layla’s spending – Knox would need several boxes of those – while Nelly’s would be in blue. Perhaps then Knox would see somewhere they’d both been, some connection between them no matter how tenuous.

  But before that, she needed a drink.

  Chapter 25: Nelly

  At the time of her death, Nelly Boileau still called the same tiny house she’d grown up in home. She’d never even moved out of the smallest bedroom on the third floor. Like many young women her age in London, she still lived with her mother. She had died before she had had a chance to spread her wings and fly the nest.

  Elsie found the Boileau residence easily enough. It was at the end of a row of Victorian terraces on Ashling Road, a stone’s throw from the tram stop, and only a few minutes’ walk from the recreation ground.

  Sombre black curtains hung in the front window. They were drawn tight as if to exclude the outside world. Elsie had to knock on the bright blue front door several times before it was answered.

  The woman who answered was the spitting image of Nelly. She was tall, broad, and had the same hauntingly beautiful brown eyes except for the fact they were bloodshot, a sure sign that she hadn’t slept properly for weeks. Despite that, she was immaculately made-up and her clothing was nothing short of stunning. She wore a long dress that covered her from head to toe offset with a jacket, which Elsie recognised as a “karakou”, which was emblazoned with gold sequins that depicted a floral pattern running its length. The same pattern was traced around the cuffs and elbows while black fabric underneath contrasted against the gold to create an elegant, mature look. To top it all, she wore a thick golden necklace with loops leading down to a beaded pendant.

  ‘Mrs Beya Boileau?’ Elsie asked. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Elsie Mabey. May I have a few minutes of your time please?’

  She didn’t move. ‘Mabey... Mabey... where is fat man? He was supposed... supposed to come back. He promised me weeks ago.’

  ‘DCI Fairbanks is no longer leading the investigation into your daughter’s death,’ Elsie said. A hint of relief came over Beya Boileau’s face. ‘I’m the new senior investigating officer.’

  ‘Then in, in, come in... in out of cold.’

  She spoke in a disjointed way as if picking her words carefully. She was Algerian like her daughter and her voice was slow, melodious, and soothing with a Gallic accent that was unmistakably French.

  The house was surprisingly clean. Perhaps Beya had filled her days with dusting and sweeping ever since her daughter’s death. She took Elsie through to the kitchen which overlooked a tiny walled garden. The sink was empty as was the drying rack. Elsie wondered if the older woman had been taking care of herself.

  ‘Mrs Boileau, are you eating?’

  It was, in retrospect, far too forward.

  ‘Oui, oui. My friends, my neighbours. They bring me food... since it happened. Look, look.’

  Beya opened the fridge door to reveal dozens of containers, a mismatch of colours and brands. It was a lot of food. Elsie said as much.

  ‘They won’t listen. I tell them. I say no more. Still, they come. Day after day. More food than I have seen before. I gain weight.’

  It sounded wonderful if a smidge smothering. Elsie couldn’t imagine having that sort of support. Out here in Croydon, there were still pockets of community. By contrast, her own home in Muswell Hill felt isolated, the sort of lonely isolation that can only come with being lost in a crowd. She loved the area. It was full of lovely restaurants and she had both Hampstead Heath and Alexandra Palace on her doorstep so there was no lack of greenery to go ambling around. What she was missing was what Beya took for granted – a community to turn to when in need.

  ‘It must be nice to have so many people who care.’ Her tone was more wistful than she had intended. Beya’s expression softened, her demeanour switching almost imperceptibly from grieving to mothering.

  ‘Miss Mabey, it is nice. East Croydon is where the broken, the lost, and the poor come. We make our life here... we have no one and nothing else to turn to... so we look after each other.’

  Beya turned away and put a stove-top kettle on to boil. She shuffled over to the corner where glasses were stored in a high cupboard. Beya had to stand on tiptoes to reach. Two tiny glass cups were set by the stove. She cast a quizzical look in Elsie’s direction as steam began to erupt from the kettle.

  ‘Milk, no sugar for me,’ Elsie half-shouted over the whistle.

  Whatever tea it was, it smelled amazing. When Beya put the glass in front of her, she got a waft of mint.

  ‘Maghrebi tea,’ Beya said. ‘Forgive me... the lack of ceremony. I fetch the pastries.’

  The name of the tea rang a bell. Elsie had seen it on one of those Saturday morning television shows. It seemed to be a mix of syrupy sugar water and little pellets of mint that unfurled before her eyes. She took a sip, finding it soft and sweet, almost delicate.

  Delectable pastries were served on a small silver tray, each morsel no more than a mouthful. They were almost too sweet when combined with the tea.

  When they had supped a little, Beya set her glass down purposefully and exhaled. ‘So, Miss Mabey, how goes your investigation?’

  ‘It’s a work in progress,’ Elsie conceded. ‘I took over from DCI Fairbanks on Sunday. I’m trying to get up to speed. I hope you don’t mind me taking up your time today. I called your family liaison officer but he said you weren’t answering the phone.’

  ‘I didn’t feel like the chit-chat,’ Beya said drily. ‘As for my time, it is, how you say, invaluable. I have more time than I know what to do with.’

  Elsie didn’t correct her mistake. She clearly meant that her time was worthless, b
ereft of meaning without her daughter. There were photos of Nelly everywhere, her smile lighting up whichever photo frame that she found herself in. Noticing that Elsie had emptied the tiny glass, Beya poured a second. This time it was stronger, a bitter note coming in behind. Now Elsie understood why the tea was served with pastries, the drink needed the contrasting sweetness.

  ‘My Nelly, she loved this tea. Three glasses. The first, sweet. The second, warming and strong. The third... well... you wait.’

  Elsie wouldn’t have to wait long. Her second glass was almost empty and Beya snatched it up though she didn’t immediately refill it. The final steeping of the tea was a distraction that Beya fixated upon.

  ‘Tell me about Nelly,’ Elsie said.

  ‘She was a good girl,’ Beya said. ‘The night that she went, I lay awake in my bed. I wait and I wait for the jingle of her many keyrings. I wait for the key to turn in the door. Usually, it is like clockwork. That night I heard everything, every fox mewling, every door slam, every blow of the wind.’

  ‘What time was she usually home by?’

  ‘Midnight,’ Beya said. ‘Nothing good ever arrives from being out after midnight. That was our understanding. Nelly was a good girl – a sweet girl – and London is not a sweet place at night.’

  ‘What did you do when she didn’t come home?’

  ‘I text her. Then I text her again. I got the green label. It was not like her not to call or text if she was delayed. Look.’

  Elsie felt a pang of sympathy for the older woman as she watched Beya flick through her phone’s inbox. Nelly had been her only regular correspondent. Until Nelly’s death – which had brought out a deluge of well-wishers – Beya had received virtually no messages from anyone else. Just as Beya had said, Nelly was predictable. Every message was signed off with “JTM Maman”.