by Ali Gunn
‘I know,’ Stryker said. ‘She texted to say she’s at the mortuary attending Matthews’ autopsy. Might be a while.’
‘You should have taken over this meeting but as you weren’t here...’ Bertie whispered.
‘I’ve found him,’ Stryker said. ’We’ve got a witness who saw him buy the dresses and a sketch to match, CCTV footage of him going into and coming out of the restaurant he dined at with Matthews last night.’
‘And?’ Bertie prompted.
‘And what?’
Ian kept quiet despite loitering close enough to hang on every word. Stryker shot him a glare to warn him off. Now wasn’t the time to mention Namco Funscape. Dr Burton Leigh, oblivious to Ian’s nosiness, clearly thought Stryker was about to take off without the aid of a rocket. In a calm professorial voice, he said softly, ‘Young man, you’re clearly about to explode. What on earth do you mean you’ve found him? Is he in custody?’
‘He’s fled. No idea where, he’s a property guardian, an itinerant. He’s not local to any one place. That’s why we thought he was smart. We thought he was getting in and out of places like St Dunstan without being seen. He wasn’t. He’d been there the whole time.’
Bertie didn’t ask how Stryker knew this. His eyes narrowed. ‘He fled?’
‘Yep,’ Stryker said. ‘Seems like he left St Dunstan in a hurry. A lot of his stuff is still there but the essentials are all gone. What does that mean?’
‘It means we’ve spooked a dangerous psychopath,’ Bertie said. ‘He’ll feel like he’s losing all control, that time is running out until we catch him.’
‘Which means?’
‘It means, Inspector Stryker, that when he can’t assert control, he’s going to lose any restraint he might have had. He’ll do the only thing he knows to do when he can’t control the world around him – lash out violently. Someone is about to be murdered.’
Chapter 53: No More Amateurs
As soon as the big meeting fizzled out, Ian made a beeline for the safety of his office. He made it back unscathed and set to work on accessing Nelly’s mobile. It didn’t take long. Matthews’ list of attempted pin codes was bundled in with the chain of custody paperwork and the last number was circled in green.
Typing in 1962 worked like a charm.
The next task wasn’t so easy – finding something that DCI Mabey could use to catch the killer.
The same brick wall they’d been up against from the off had yet to be dealt with. Review My Ex was encrypted end to end and secured by a separate app-only password. There was no way Ian could break that without massive resources and a lot of luck to boot.
He flicked opened the address book and immediately swore. Nelly had thousands of contacts. Since she’d died, she’d had hundreds of messages, nearly all of them from men. They were split 90/10 between WhatsApp messages and iMessages.
Opening up WhatsApp to read them proved to be a schoolboy error. As soon as he did, new messages flooded in. Most of them were in the vein of “Hey bby, wuu2?” which Ian interpreted to mean “hello, what are you doing?”.
He switched the phone into Airplane Mode to prevent any more messages from appearing and then began to read through the messages that Nelly had received in the days immediately preceding her death.
There were hundreds. One conversation was with Vito. His messages were short and to the point. He wanted Nelly back and she was having none of it. Despite the stereotypical action man poses in his profile photo, he was a complete softie. He’d already forgiven Nelly and his messages were of concern, not hate.
The others made Ian cringe. Judging by the profile photos on WhatsApp, many of the men Nelly had been chatting with were at least twice her age. Nelly had been flirting with dozens of men, demanding that they send her money in return for her affection.
It was a train wreck two years in the making. The men who said no were blocked but not before Nelly verbally abused them first. Those who said yes set themselves up for greater and greater demands until they too said no. It was a scam that relied upon Nelly finding a continuous stream of new blood.
It also explained how she’d hidden the money. It never touched her actual bank account. Nelly had solicited the money via whatever online app the men were willing to use, and Cash App was clearly her preference. Ian swiped back to Cash App to double-check that he’d read Nelly’s balance correctly. It seemed she really did have tens of thousands of pounds sitting in her account. As it wasn’t a bank, it hadn’t been spotted by the Met’s standard financial background check.
Once the money was in her account, Nelly could use the money in one of three ways. The first was to withdraw the money to her real bank. Ian discounted that. If she’d done that, one of the detectives would have found the cash by now and then he’d never have been given this task. The second use was to pay other Cash App users using their @username. If she’d spend the money that way, it ought to be easy to find from her transaction history assuming they could subpoena the right records. Third, Nelly could have used the Cash Card feature which functioned exactly the same as a debit card but without being linked to her or her personal bank account. In many ways, it was like using a prepaid VISA gift card. No wonder her real bank account’s spending patterns had appeared to show such a frugal lifestyle.
Ian had to give it to her. Nelly was smart. She was also greedy. Some of the men she’d been chatting with had sent her thousands of pounds. Nearly every man eventually got blocked. Some lasted weeks, some months. It seemed that she had no intention of ever meeting up with any of them. Her messages were flirty but guarded. As far as Ian could see, she never deliberately disclosed any personal information. There were titbits here and there. Some men knew her favourite flowers were chrysanthemums. Some knew she loved the colour purple. A few big spenders had photos of an adult nature though even then Nelly had cropped out her face.
Taken together, Ian could see how joining the dots might reveal her identity. In isolation, however, it was all a bit useless. No one man held more than one or two pieces of the puzzle that was the real Nelly.
There had to be something in here that could identify the killer. DCI Mabey wouldn’t give up on the idea that the killer was a man known to both of the victims. If only Stryker hadn’t buggered up Layla Morgan’s phone, it would be easy. See which number they’d both been in contact with and voila, one serial killer.
Now Ian had to be even smarter. He was tempted to ignore those messages from men that were still contacting her. On the other hand, the killer might have been thoughtful enough to send fake post-death messages to try and throw the police off. Would the killer have foreseen the police breaking into the victim’s phone and combing through each message one by one to find him? Ian wasn’t sure.
For now, he had to cut down the search some other way else he’d never get through them all. The day before her death, Nelly had sent sixty messages. That was much more manageable.
He pulled his headphones on, turned his rock music up to maximum to shut out the world and got to work starting with the earliest messages.
THE ROOM WAS DARK WHEN Elsie entered, lit only by the lights of Ian’s computer. He seemed in his own little world as Elsie approached.
‘Progress?’ she called out. He didn’t react. The blare of Avril Lavine could be heard escaping from his headphones. Elsie yanked them off of him.
‘Hell, lady!’ Ian said. ‘Who do you think you are giving a man a heart attack like that?’
He spun around, whiter than a sheet. When he realised it was DCI Mabey that he’d just spoken rudely to, his head drooped.
‘Progress?’ Elsie demanded again.
‘Err, sorry about that, chief,’ Ian stammered. ‘I’ve managed to crack Leonella Boileau’s phone.’
‘You mean Matthews managed to crack it.’ Elsie glared at him accusingly as if to ask how he dared to take credit for a dead colleague’s achievement.
‘Right, right,’ Ian said. He recapped the last half hour’s work for her. ‘So now
I’m trying to work out which man she met on the night she disappeared.’
‘I assume,’ Elsie said, ‘that you’ve considered looking to see which phone numbers have connected to the cell towers around St Dunstan in the East.’
He hung his head again. ‘Well, I was just getting there...’
‘Then get there,’ Elsie said. ‘Before I get annoyed, write down each number that sent Layla a message. Don’t skip any of your sixty-message shortlist and then see which towers each connected to last.’
‘Okay,’ Ian said. ‘Before I do that, let me see if any of these numbers are registered.’
They both knew that it was a sensible suggestion. Elsie nodded her assent and then watched like a hawk while Ian sorted the numbers into pay monthly contract numbers and pay-as-you-go numbers. The latter, anonymous numbers would be of most interest, as it was likely the killer had used a so-called burner phone.
‘Hell yes!’ he cried. ‘That’s got us down to thirty-seven.’
‘Now, have any stopped being active since the murders?’ Elsie asked. If she were in the killer’s shoes, she’d have ditched the mobile in case it was used to trace her movements.
Precious seconds ticked by as Ian tried to find out. ‘Three are currently off. One of them last connected on... the night she died.’
It had to be him. How could it not be? The killer had contacted her, killed her, and then ditched the number.
‘One of the burner phones?’
‘Uh-huh, chief,’ Ian said. ‘Lemme find the messages from him.’
He did. He turned the phone to her. His last message to Nelly had been simple. It read:
See you at seven.
Elsie grabbed the phone and scrolled up to see the earlier messages. The first read:
Hi, it’s J from RME. Let’s cut to the chase and go for a drink.
A few messages back and forth later, Nelly had succumbed and agreed. It seemed that she actually wanted to date J. He wasn’t simply a mark to her. Either that or she’d envisioned such a big payday that he was worth the risk.
‘Let’s take a look at him,’ Elsie said. She hit the miniature icon at the top to enlarge J’s profile picture. It showed two men climbing a mountain. One man was in the foreground and he was gorgeous. Early thirties, chiselled jawline, sandy blond hair, and a six-pack that Elsie’s eyes couldn’t help but linger on. In the background was a man that looked a little like him. He was still in shape, but he was older with an asymmetrical face.
‘Fifty quid says it’s the gremlin in the background,’ Ian said as he struggled to see the screen. He was too short to peer over Elsie’s shoulder.
Elsie privately agreed. ‘Do you not think it inappropriate to bet on the outcome of a murder investigation?’
He cowed away, sitting back down and busying himself at the computer.
‘What’re you pretending to do now?’
‘Cars,’ Ian muttered.
‘What?’
‘He didn’t kill either woman at St Dunstan, did he?’
It was true. Annie had combed over the place today looking for any traces of blood.
‘So he had to have a car, didn’t he?’
It followed. ‘Right, but I asked Stryker to check CCTV and the ANPR cameras. I assume he enlisted your help with that?’
‘He did, yeah, but he asked me for any signs of the guy on the night of the murder,’ Ian said, ‘not any other time.’
‘Okay,’ Elsie said. ‘We know it takes him time to prep his victims to pose them. We know he killed Layla Morgan well before we found her last week on Friday so go back to the days before then and get me every car that’s been in the area.’
It would still be hundreds if not thousands of cars.
‘I tried that. It ain’t much help, but I think we can do one better,’ Ian said. ‘Lemme explain.’ As he worked, his computer grew louder as if it were under strain. Elsie was forced to raise her voice to be heard over the fan noise.
‘What’re you doing?’
Ian beamed as if he had just had a stroke of genius. ‘He’s been careful on the nights he’s committed murder, but if the body was in the car, he had to have come in and out of St Dunstan before. If he had one car, he’d show up on the same reg more than once? If I discard all the cars that only show up in the area once, I can narrow down our search. Might take me a while.’
Her phone rang. ‘Ian, how long will this take?’
‘An hour maybe?’
‘Find me when you’re done, okay? I need the killer’s registration plates. Get me that and I’ll order DI Stryker to go to Namco Funscape with you.’
Her phone was still ringing. Everyone wanted a piece of her today. ‘Mabey,’ she said.
The line crackled as her phone connected. This basement was awful for getting a signal. She nodded at Ian and headed towards the stairs where the line began to improve. ‘It’s Knox. You know the guy who owns the house, Mr Larkins, had been letting it out online? It turns out that someone had been robbing those who’d rented from him and he’d dismissed it all until now. He’s not sure when it started but it was eight or nine months ago. I’ve got a list of everyone he’s rented to. It’ll be in your inbox in a mo.’
‘Good work,’ Elsie said, her opinion of Knox thawing considerably. ‘Get yourself back here. I want a full team meeting in the incident room.’
Chapter 54: The War Room
‘Elsie, you’ve got to trust me on this,’ Bertie said. ‘Stryker and Annie’s visit to the killer’s abode won’t just have flushed him out into the open, it’s made time of the utmost essence. You’ve taken his sense of control and he’ll get it back the only way he knows how.’
She patted his arm. ‘I believe you, Uncle Bertie.’
After a long, stressful morning, Elsie’s eyes were beginning to close on her. Trying to keep up with an entire conference room full of colleagues was exhausting. There was no way she could corral and coordinate that many people without any advanced planning.
To try and avoid her brain shutting down, she’d downed three cups of coffee and then retreated to the incident room. In her mind, it was now “the war room”, the place where she’d plan just how she was going to find, arrest and convict the Lady Killer before he could harm anyone else. The theory was great, now she just needed to execute it before the brain fog was so strong that she couldn’t function.
Only Elsie’s immediate team was allowed in. If Bertie was right that the killer was about to lose control then the last thing she needed was for the press to find out. The enormous team of volunteers that had convened in conference room one could easily become a leaky sieve. For now, the most important task they could help with was protecting Matthews’ family – her mum, dad and younger sister – from the inevitable media onslaught. Their house in Hampshire was about to become a camping ground for the fourth estate if it hadn’t already.
True to her word the list Knox had procured from Mr Larkins was in Elsie’s inbox. It contained the names of everyone he’d rented to. In early April, he’d rented to one “James Robertson”. Could he be “J”? It fitted the timeline. Mr Robertson had stayed before the thefts started. It was an uncomfortably common-sounding name and could easily be fake.
The door clicked shut as Annie sidled in behind Stryker, and they were ready to plan their next move.
Elsie waited until everyone was seated and motioned for hush. ‘I’ve just come from the Digital, Cyber and Communication Department. Ian is now working on tracking where the killer’s mobile phone went before he dumped it. He’s also looking for any vehicles that the killer might have used to transport the body into the office car park by St Dunstan. What progress has everyone else made?’
Annie raised a hand. ‘At Stryker’s request, I returned to the office building to the east of St Dunstan. I found DNA evidence that is now with the lab. There is little doubt in my mind that it belongs to the killer. I found blood drops in the car park too. Everything is consistent with the current case theory that the kil
ler simply dumped Layla Morgan on his front doorstep.’
All eyes turned to Stryker for an explanation. He glanced down to avoid Elsie’s gaze. ‘And how, perchance, did you know to send Ms Burke there, Detective Inspector Stryker?’
‘Boss,’ Stryker said. ‘I... I messed up. When I sent Flick the witness from the charity shop, I had no idea what our killer looked like. But the moment that Flick showed me the e-fit she’d drawn, I knew it was the man from St Dunstan.’
‘What man?’
‘The witness,’ Stryker mumbled.
‘The witness?’ Elsie roared. ‘The man you told me didn’t see a thing? The man you neglected to ask for any form of ID?’
He had nothing to say that would stop her and so he merely mumbled his apologies.
‘Sorry? You will be sorry. Give me one good reason you shouldn’t be fired right this second.’
The rest of the room watched, mouths agape apart from Knox who looked amused.
‘Don’t you dare look proud of yourself, Knox,’ Elsie said, turning her glare towards her sergeant. ‘You didn’t even bother to stay sober that night. You’re on thin fucking ice too.’
‘Boss,’ Stryker said, ‘I’m sorry. I messed up. I know that. Once. You said we all get one mistake. That was mine. We’re already down one team member and if you fire me or Knox, or worse, both of us, then you’ll have nobody left to help you. Let me own this mess. I didn’t recognise him as the Lady Killer the first time I met him but I did find the witness and I went back to try and arrest him. We know who he is now. Fire me if you like. I deserve it. Just do it after we catch this bastard.’
She closed her eyes, shutting out his pleading puppy dog eyes. He deserved to be fired. So did Knox. But she couldn’t catch the killer alone. As much as she hated it, she needed to pull this useless team of hers together to get justice for Matthews, Morgan, and Boileau.
She ignored him and turned to Bertie. ‘What’s the psychology at play here, doc? Why is he picking these women when they’ve got nothing in common?’