by Ali Gunn
From a distant kitchen, the rattle of pots and pans echoed as the day’s mise en place prep work got underway.
‘We are not open yet for lunch,’ the maître d’ said. ‘Does monsieur wish to make a reservation?’ His tone was scornful as if he knew that Stryker couldn’t afford to dine there.
Stryker didn’t have time to mess about. This might be his best bet, but if he drew a blank here, there were two more restaurants on his list to check out. ‘Detective Inspector Stryker. I have reason to believe that one of your guests was murdered after she left these premises last night. Are you in charge?’
The maître d’ turned white. His accent dropped. ‘Murder? Are you serious?’
‘Deadly.’
‘Come through. The office is out the back.’
Once Stryker had been led through to the back, he found himself in a tiny back room on the side of the kitchen. From here he could feel the heat of the ovens and smell everything that was on offer. It was a dizzying combination.
Stryker pulled up a photograph of Matthews on his phone. It was the Met’s personnel file photo and bore only a passing resemblance to the fully-made-up look of a woman ready for a night out on the town. ‘Do you recognise this woman?’
The maître d’ shook his head. ‘I am afraid not.’
‘You were working last night?’
‘Oui.’ The affected accent was back.
‘Think harder. She was on a date. After six?’
‘Oui... Hmm...’ he picked up a thick leather-bound appointment diary from the desk and held it in his left hand. It fell open to today’s page which was marked by a ribbon. He flicked back a page and spent what felt like an eternity running his finger down the page, pausing over each name as if trying to match his customers to the reservations. ‘Ah, now I remember. This woman came in a few minutes after seven for a date. Her... partner? He was waiting for her to arrive.’
‘What name is the reservation under?’
‘James.’
‘First name?’
‘I only have the name “James”. I know not if this is his first or his surname. I am afraid I did not take the reservation.’
Stryker cursed. No last name and the first name James – easily one of the most popular in the UK. A person could barely swipe past a dozen profiles on Review My Ex without running into a James. ‘What about a credit card receipt?’
Once again, the maître d’ turned to the big desk and rifled through his papers. Eventually, he found a stack of duplicate credit card receipts held together with an elastic band. On top was a Post-it note marked “Friday 14th December”. He searched through them. ‘I cannot find one for his table.’
‘Look again,’ Stryker demanded.
The second pass was no more fruitful. ‘I am afraid he must have paid by cash.’
‘CCTV,’ Stryker said. ‘Please tell me that the camera by the entrance is real.’
Surely, Stryker thought, such a high-end restaurant would have a working CCTV camera for security. They had to be a ripe target for robbers if they took cash.
‘Of course, it is working... It records for twenty-four hours only and then we reuse the tape.’
Stryker wanted to fist-bump the air. ‘Get me that footage, now.’
‘Right away.’
Thirty minutes later, Stryker’s elation turned to despair. Unlike the older cameras that he’d seen in use at Holland Park, the restaurant had invested in pin-sharp lenses that picked out every detail. The moment he saw the man, he knew that he knew him from somewhere. He was so familiar, so distinctive. Even so, it took Stryker a few moments to place where he’d seen the tall, broad man with the lazy eye. It was the man who lived next to St Dunstan in the East, the “witness” who said he’d seen the car. What the hell was his name? Stryker pulled his notebook from his breast pocket and riffled through, desperately trying to remember the name.
Drew Rekshun. He turned the name over in his mind. There was something strange about it. What kind of surname was Rekshun? He’d sounded vaguely northern but Stryker himself was northern and he knew nobody called Mr Rekshun. He said it aloud.
‘Mr Rekshun. Mister Rekshun.’
Misdirection.
‘Fuck!’
Chapter 48: Without a Trace
Seconds after realising that Andrew Rekshun was the Lady Killer, Stryker impulsively leapt into his car and drove towards St Dunstan in the East. He called Mabey as he drove, his fingers drumming against the steering wheel. No answer. She was probably already in the mortuary or knee-deep in managing the press breathing down their necks.
‘Damn it!’ He didn’t leave a voicemail.
The GPS indicated that it was a mere five miles from Holland Park. Back in Yorkshire that would have been a snippy five-minute drive tops. In London, it was almost quicker to walk.
The bloody satnav didn’t help either. The robotic woman’s voice was as unemotional as normal – machines didn’t understand emergencies. “You will reach your destination in... twenty-eight minutes.”
The route it had selected couldn’t possibly be the most efficient. It had driven him right along the southern boundary of Hyde Park and was now telling him to head through Trafalgar Square on a Saturday morning.
Bugger. He’d forgotten that he had to pick up Doctor Burton Leigh. He couldn’t ask Knox to go – she was busy chasing down the landlord – and there wasn’t another detective. Desperate times called for desperate measures. He dialled Ian. He answered almost immediately as if he’d been sitting by his phone waiting for someone to call him.
‘Yo, yo, Seb Stryker! You finally decided to come to Funscape today, bruh?’
‘Ian, I need a favour. You drive, right?’
That would be the last thing Stryker needed, a forty-year-old tech who lived at home and didn’t even own a car.
‘Course, bruh, you need a lift?’
Stryker swallowed the urge to criticise his fake accent and cut to the chase. ‘Doctor Burton Leigh, you know him?’
‘Heard of him, yeah?’ Ian asked. ‘Hold up... is this a work call?’
‘I’m WhatsApping you his address. Go pick him up, bring him to New Scotland Yard. Right now. Can you do that?’
Stryker fiddled with his phone as he inched past frost-covered pavements and tourists wrapped in woollen mittens to avoid the biting cold.
‘Yuh, can do,’ Ian said. ‘It’ll take me a while... you know I live in Walthamstow, right?’
Where’s that? Stryker wondered. It didn’t matter. Ian was the best – and only – option he had. ‘Drive as fast as you can.’
He could hear Ian smile. ‘Like a real cop? Can I speed and get away with it?’
’No, you bloody can’t!’ Stryker snapped. What a lunatic. Ian had worked for the police for God knows how long. Surely even he ought to realise that only highly-skilled, trained drivers were permitted to exceed the posted speed limits. Even then, it was only with permission of rapid response control. Stryker sighed heavily. ‘Look, drive fast, but drive safe.’ Another heavy sigh. ‘And maybe we’ll sort out that visit to Funland when this is all over, okay?’
‘Funscape, dude, it’s called Namco Funscape. Give it the respect it deserves.’
‘Ian, not now. Are you doing the job or not?’
‘Yuh, I’m walking to my car right this second. I’ll have Doctor Whatshisface at New Scotland Yard before you know it.’
Once Ian was off the phone, the traffic worsened. Everything slowed to a crawl as he drove past Blackfriars Bridge, cars running bumper-to-bumper and only moving inches at a time. What was the hold up?
This was a disaster. The boss was going to kill him. He’d been face to face with a serial killer and he’d failed to notice a psychopath staring him right at him. He thumped his steering wheel angrily. Why hadn’t he asked to see some kind of ID? It was such a ridiculous name too. Who was called Rekshun?
His old boss had told him never to take anything at face value but that was exactly what he’d done. The mere n
otion of being a property guardian had been enough to distract him. Stryker had spent so long thinking about how that worked and what it was like that he’d failed to see the killer standing in front of him.
No wonder “Drew’s” accent had been so hard to place. It was as fake as his name. Stryker had fallen hook, line and sinker for “James’” routine. The moment he’d come close to asking a real question, the killer had distracted him by asking him to read his self-published drivel. Now he was willing to bet that the book didn’t exist either.
The cars in front of him came to a complete stop in the Upper Thames Street tunnel. According to the satnav, although there was barely a mile to travel it would take twelve minutes to get there by car. Twelve minutes! Now it really was slower than Shanks’ pony.
‘Fuck it!’ Stryker slung the steering wheel to the left and drove between the bollards running along the road and into the coned-off maintenance section. He motored past the traffic, cars honking him as he overtook. A familiar-looking skyscraper came into view in front of him as he emerged from the tunnel into yet more traffic. Here there were no more shortcuts.
Once his signal was back, he tried Mabey again. Still nothing.
‘Siri, call Patricia Knox.’
His phone buzzed to acknowledge his command. Knox declined the call.
Stryker swore again. Nobody was helping. He called the Met’s switchboard to put out an all-units call for help. Somebody ought to be backing him up. He couldn’t be expected to take a serial killer down all on his own.
The GPS continued to give him stupid directions. If he followed its instructions, he would have to drive past St Dunstan and come in from Aldgate. That loop would add another half mile to his journey.
Perhaps he really should ditch the car. He stabbed the small pedestrian icon on the satnav’s screen. The route changed to point straight as an arrow. The mileage showed as point seven – he could easily run that far. He jammed the brakes on, to the annoyance of the arseholes behind who’d decided to follow his lead. He killed the engine, slammed his door shut and then bolted for the pavement accompanied by a chorus of car horns. The source of the traffic jam became apparent as Stryker jogged. Two cars had collided in the Canon Street underpass. It was freezing as the rain pounded down upon him. Any colder and he’d be running through a hailstorm.
By the time he turned onto St Dunstan’s Hill, he was soaking wet and had a serious stitch in his side. He slowed to a brisk walk so he could catch his breath. The entire jog, he’d kept his eyes peeled for CCTV cameras. The initial search had been fruitless because the killer hadn’t needed to drive that night; he’d simply dumped Layla Morgan on his doorstep. No wonder his number plate recognition search hadn’t revealed anything.
Now that he knew where James lived, the CCTV footage that he’d already seized might be useful. He’d been looking at the night of her death but the killer hadn’t driven then. He was living right next door. Now he knew that, he could look at the nights either side of Layla Morgan’s death to see how the killer had travelled in and out of St Dunstan.
The rain had stopped by the time he arrived at the office building. Still clutching his side, Stryker tipped back his head to survey the place. In the cold light of day, the boarded-up windows gave the place a derelict air which, without the presence of a property guardian, would be catnip for squatters and vandals.
Nobody had responded to his call for backup yet. Why on earth was everyone being so slow? Was everyone stuck in traffic as he had been?
‘Now what?’ he muttered, and wondered why he’d busted his guts to get here. Surely, he hadn’t really expected to find James still hanging around? Stryker paced towards the office block entrance, trying to recall “James’” every word. He had to have said – or done – something that Stryker could use to catch him. What had they talked about?
The revolving door was locked, shutters pulled down tight over it. Next to it, the side door had an iron bar bolted across it secured in place by a massive padlock. Inwardly cursing himself for not paying more attention during that fateful meeting, Stryker pounded his fist against the door in frustration. The killer had literally been within arm’s reach last time he was here. It would have taken less than an hour to pull James into the station for the purposes of a formal statement. James might even have tripped himself up. At the very least, the station’s security cameras would have captured his image. If so, would Matthews have put two and two together and realised the bloke chatting her up via Review My Ex was actually the so-called “Lady Killer”?
Despite the freezing cold December air, Stryker broke into a sweat. He leaned his forehead against the door and groaned. He’d messed up big time. Again. And this time his mistake might very well have cost Matthews her life.
He squeezed his eyes shut. This was his fuck-up and he was going to fix it no matter the cost. A quick search revealed several ways in and out of the building, all seemingly barred. There was the main door on the southwest corner, but there were two fire exits too, one on the western side, one on the south. Then, to compound matters, there was the car park exit on the eastern side of the building. If the killer was here, Stryker couldn’t stop him running. There was no way to guard all four exits at once. He called the switchboard again, demanded an ETA. Ten minutes. It was too long. He’d have to go in.
The main door was no good – he’d need to go back to the car for a door ram, a “Big Red Key” in police parlance. There had to be an easier way. The west side of the building ran along St Dunstan’s Hill where every window was barred by metal grills to prevent vandals from getting in. The fire door was too thick to break without a ram. Stryker jogged along Cross Lane to the south. No luck there either. There were no doors, only a solid brick wall with a couple of windows at head height that were again barred by metal grills. Another fire door, again too strong to mule-kick.
There was no point looking to the north – that was where the main road was – so he turned his attention to Harp Lane which ran along the back of the building where he found a roll-down shutter hiding a vehicle entrance.
That’s more like it, Stryker thought.
He was going to need the car after all. He sprinted back in record time, carried by sheer adrenaline. A traffic warden on a motorbike had already written out a ticket and was plainly waiting for a tow-truck to come and remove Stryker’s car.
‘Sorry!’ Stryker said. He fished in his pocket. ‘Police. Look, my warrant card is in the glove compartment. Let me grab it real quick.’
Before the traffic officer could object, he’d leapt into the driver’s seat. He flashed the warrant card, locked all the doors to pre-empt any objections and then reversed back into traffic while honking to announce his stupidity. The cars in front parted before him like the red sea, his horn blaring continuously as he thundered towards St Dunstan in the East. His car was unmarked but still had lights built into the grill and dash. He flicked those on.
Before he knew it, he was turning back onto Harp Lane. Instead of slowing down as he approached the back of the building, he sped up. This was going to be fun. There was a fifty-foot clear stretch to use as a run-up between him and the big metal barrier guarding the car park. It wasn’t possible to accelerate too much in the short distance from Cross Lane. He managed to get to sixty-two miles per hour in the seven-and-a-bit seconds it took him to traverse the space.
It was enough. His bumper crashed into the metal with an almighty sound, metal scraping against metal. The barrier tore like cheap wrapping paper, folding around his car.
He was in.
Behind the roller was a cavernous car park devoid of cars. The space stretched for a couple of hundred feet, easily enough for a few dozen cars. At the very end, there was a single dim bulb illuminating the entrance to a stairwell.
Stryker’s hairs stood on end. He was alone in a car park, breaking into a suspected serial killer’s abode and it was too dark to see much. He killed the engine quickly so that he didn’t make any more noise than he
already had. He was plunged into darkness, the light from outside only reaching a few dozen feet into the enormous garage. His eyes would take a while to adjust and until then, he was at a marked disadvantage if James was lurking in the shadows.
He crouched low as he made his way towards the stairwell. This was the ground floor. There were five more above him for a total of six. When he’d last been here, it appeared that James had chosen to make himself at home on the sixth floor.
Every few seconds, he paused, held his breath and listened. No matter how much he strained, he couldn’t hear anything except for the sound of his own heart beating. Dare he risk using his mobile phone’s torch to search the car park? He was torn. If James was on the premises, there was a good chance that Stryker had already been rumbled. There was no mistaking the sound of a car crashing into a barrier.
If he were the killer, what would he do? Would he flee or fight?
The murders had been clinical and efficient but they also demonstrated a lack of brute force. The stab wounds were precise, neat, and delivered to unsuspecting victims. The lack of defensive wounds was testimony to that.
It was one thing to stab an unarmed woman in cold blood and another entirely to go hand to hand with a man Stryker’s size, especially one with police combat training under his belt. A sensible killer would flee. He’d seen three exits on a quick survey of the exterior of the building and there could be a way out through the adjoining building to the north too. Clearly, James had a key to the front door and the fire exits ought to be easy to open from the inside for the sake of safety. It would be child’s play to flee from an army of one. Why hadn’t backup arrived? The response time was abysmal and it was entirely because of the traffic in central London. This wouldn’t have been a problem back in Yorkshire.
He had no choice. He couldn’t see a damned thing in the darkness. He’d have to use the torch on his phone. He fumbled as he navigated his iPhone’s swipe menu, eventually finding the right place to tap the screen. The light came on, blindingly bright against the pitch-black car park. His eyes slowly adjusted as he spun through three hundred and sixty degrees straining for any sign of movement.