Death on the Coast

by Bernie Steadman

  A punch of anger exploded in Lizzie’s chest. She shoved the door back so hard that it crashed against the hall wall and sent the young man spinning into the wall. ‘No, you look, Luke. There are two dead men lying in the mortuary down the road. They’ve been burnt to death and I want to talk to your mate about that. We’re not messing about here. So, let me in, or I’m coming back with a warrant and I’m going to take the whole flat apart. Get it? Every room, every little stash you’ve got hidden away, every bit of porn you don’t want your mum to know about.’ She took a step towards him. ‘So, it’s up to you. We can do it now, with just the two of us in Jay’s room, or later, with a forensic crew crawling over everything.’ She cocked her head to one side and ignored the dig in her kidneys from Sam.

  The boy flattened himself against the wall and allowed the officers to squeeze past. ‘I’m gonna speak to someone about this,’ he said.

  Knowles bent down and stuck his face very close to Luke’s. ‘Seriously? And bring all that crap down on your head? Be sensible, just hang about until we gain access to the room, and you can go.’

  Luke passed Knowles a key he took from the top of the door frame above Jay’s door and disappeared into his own room with a theatrical slam of the door. Sam laughed. ‘Bloody hell, Lizzie, I didn’t think you had it in you.’

  She shrugged. ‘You don’t get out much, Sam. Doesn’t work with most of the people we interview, so there’s no point wasting it. If you’re going to bully someone, make it count.’

  The door wasn’t locked. Lizzie pushed it open and recoiled at the stench of vomit coming from a patch just inside the door. ‘Stop,’ she said.

  Sam stared over her shoulder. ‘Phew, stinks. Bit of a mess. Doesn’t seem to be anybody in there,’ he said.

  ‘No, but that vomit smells of whisky and there are three empty paracetamol packets on the floor.’ She craned her neck to see the rest of the small room. ‘Someone got a guilty conscience? Has he attempted suicide, do you think?’

  Sam widened his eyes. ‘It’s not like you to ask my opinion, Lizzie,’ he said, scanning the small room, ‘but yes, I’d say Vine took some stuff, but he was either well enough to get away or someone took him. Brought most of what he took back up again by the looks of the mess on the floor.’

  ‘So, where is he now?’ Lizzie asked.

  ‘He could have run away. If he has, that makes him a suspect.’

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘This could also be a crime scene, couldn’t it? I’ll ring it in.’ She wandered into the shared sitting room and stared out of the grubby window until she got through to Sergeant Bennett. She listened, and walked back to the bedroom doorway. ‘We’ll need to stay here and secure the scene until the boss arrives. Says he wants to look at the room himself. Thinks we may have a lead.’ She closed the bedroom door and found a kitchen chair to place in front of it. ‘We can be a nice welcoming committee for the other students.’ She drew out her notebook and plonked herself on the chair. ‘There are three more students living here, besides Vine and the charming Luke, let’s see what they have to say for themselves, shall we?’

  Dan arrived at the student house with Ben Bennett in tow. He had no idea if this was a crime scene, but he didn’t want anybody else collecting evidence, whatever the case was. He spared a swift ‘hello’ for his DCs, who were interviewing the other residents in the spacious sitting room, and changed into his protective clothing in the hallway. Suited up, he and Bennett stepped over the vomit. Bennett pulled down the window blind, against the blackness of the night, and started the photo evidence collection, working his way from left to right around the edges, then into the centre of the room. Dan drew a plan of where everything was in the room. He could see the smashed remnants of a phone, and there was a note on the bed. In the corner stood a guitar case. Now, what self-respecting muso would leave without his instrument? One in a hurry. The old wooden wardrobe stood open, and there was little in it, but that didn’t tell him much. He picked up the note and slipped it into an evidence bag, smoothing it out so he could read it:

  Hi guys, feel like crap, reckon it’s the flu. Going home early for Christmas. See you in …

  And that was all. Perhaps he had been interrupted while he was writing it. Had he had a visitor?

  Bennett finished photographing and scooped up some of the vomit into a plastic vial. ‘Do we need fingerprints, boss?’ he asked.

  Dan shrugged. ‘If this is like any other student’s room, there’ll be tons of them, all untraceable. No, we should have a good one or two from the note, assuming Vine wrote it. Let’s leave that until we need to do it. Currently we don’t even know if anything untoward happened here. We’re plucking at straws, aren’t we?’

  ‘Don’t say that. We have a suspect with a guilty conscience. Let’s see if we can catch him.’

  Lizzie stuck her head around the door. ‘Sir, the flatmates seem to know nothing, and I believe them. Jay was studying completely different subjects. Their paths hardly crossed. They could only suggest a girl I interviewed today, Scarlett someone, as being his friend, which is a good link. We’ve got Vine’s mobile number but I have a feeling that those ruined bits of plastic were his phone.’

  Bennett bent down towards the floor, huffing as he got to his knees. ‘Hold on, someone smashed the phone, but there’s a sim card in it, we may still have a lead.’ Using tweezers, he extracted the card, placed it into a small bag, and hoisted himself to his feet, beaming. ‘Intact. Now that has to make you smile, boss!’

  Dan gave half a smile. ‘Let’s see what’s on it first. Okay, Lizzie, let them go. We should seal this room for now. Threaten them with a night in the cells if they step over the doorway, and let’s get the team on door-to-doors. Did anyone see him leave, or did he have a visitor today?’

  He let Bennett finish and sat in his car. He had Jay Vine’s details in front of him; it wouldn’t do any harm to contact the boy’s parents and let them know he wanted to speak to him.

  * * *

  The front of the Exeter Road station was quiet at 8pm on a Monday night in November, and Dan was thankful. The reporters had given up on getting any new, juicy stuff and had gone home. He’d quite like to go home too, but they needed a debriefing before he could let anyone go. He parked on the front, in a proper parking space for a change, and walked round to the side entrance, head so full of what he had to do that he almost fell into Adam Foster, sucking on a cigarette. ‘Taken up smoking, Adam? Or trying to get rid of the smell?’

  Adam threw down the cigarette and stamped on it. ‘I don’t even smoke any more,’ he said, ‘it’s just …’ He shuddered.

  Dan suppressed a grin. ‘Yes, your first PM today. Fun, was it?’

  Adam gave a rueful laugh. ‘I’m not sure I’ll ever sleep again, but it was okay.’ He hesitated, and said, ‘What were you like on your first one?’

  Dan punched in the code and led the way along the corridor and up the stairs to the MI room. ‘I fainted clean away as soon as they took out the woman’s heart. Thunk, straight onto the floor. Glad I was unconscious, because apparently they wet themselves laughing at me.’ He stopped at the doorway. ‘Let them have their laugh, Adam. It won’t do you any harm and it will help them bond with you.’

  He opened the door and headed for the drinks corner, ready for his usual fix of Italian dark roast. Sally Ellis leant against the counter, arms folded, wearing a scowl he recognised only too well. ‘What?’ he asked, as she moved grumpily out of his way.

  Sally flicked her eyes across the room to where Adam was sorting out his notes, and whispered. ‘He, the little shit, bought cream cakes today for everyone except me. If that’s not having a personal dig, I don’t know what is. I’m doing this for all of us, you know.’

  Dan pressed the button and watched black liquid drip into his mug. ‘I’m not fighting those battles for you, Sal. Either give him a bit of time to bed in, or sort him out. You can manage that, can’t you?’ He gave her a slight smile, added milk to his coffee and changed
the subject. ‘Did you hear about him at the PM?’

  ‘No, been out interviewing people in Exmouth all afternoon.’

  ‘Up-chucked twice, passed clean out the third time. A natural.’

  Sally couldn’t stop the grin. ‘You’ve made my day.’ She straightened her shirt over her skirt and turned into the room. ‘I’m just off to catch up with Sergeant Larcombe, and see how the PM went this afternoon,’ she said, loudly enough for Foster to hear. ‘Back in a minute.’

  * * *

  ‘Okay, let’s get started.’ Dan waited until the team had gathered. They looked tired. On the whiteboard he wrote: Suspect: Jay Vine – where is he? Home? Sim card. Possible connection to Scarlett Moorcroft. Suicide attempt? Next to that, on the victim board, he added the best description they had for burns victim two: six feet tall, ginger hair, tattoo on right arm, possible eagle. ‘What else we got?’ he asked. ‘DC Foster, preliminary notes from PM?’

  Foster shuffled his pages and stood up next to Dan at the whiteboard. ‘The post-mortem revealed that this man was between thirty-five and forty years old, but was already showing signs of cirrhosis of the liver. Judging by the state of his teeth, it is likely he was another homeless person.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Although death was caused by burning and asphyxiation, the victim was incapacitated by a blow to the back of the head, in the same manner as the previous murder.’

  Bill Larcombe put up his hand, a smirk barely concealed on his broad face.

  ‘Sergeant?’

  Larcombe turned to Foster. ‘Did your gut tell you anything, Adam? Or were you otherwise occupied at the time?’

  Foster flushed.

  ‘I hear the hospital does a great job in keeping the floors clean,’ added Sally. ‘You could take a nap on them, they’re so pristine.’

  ‘Okay, you two, enough,’ interrupted Dan. ‘I bet you can all remember your first PM with vivid horror. Well done, Adam, you survived to live another day. It does get easier,’ he said, as Foster slid back into his seat. Dan drew an arrow across from vic one, Simon Ongar, to vic two.

  ‘Do you think they might know each other, sir?’ asked Lizzie Singh.

  ‘I know bits of tattoos don’t really tell us much, and there wasn’t enough skin left to tell us if he had similar ones to vic one, but he could have been a marine too, I suppose. I’d be interested to know if there is a connection between the victims. That could change things, couldn’t it? Look into it tomorrow.’

  Lizzie shook Adam Foster’s arm. ‘What was that younger guy called that we tried to talk to? You know, the one you took the bottle of cider off?’

  ‘Gimp? Wimp? No, Dimp, that’s what the older guy called him.’

  ‘Yeah, Dimp. Sir, there was a younger man with the group of homeless men we interviewed. He fits that description. Shall I call the hostel, see if he returned there on Saturday night?’

  ‘Do it, Lizzie.’ While she moved to the other side of the room, Dan surveyed the boards. ‘If Lizzie’s right, are we looking at a homeless person serial murderer, or is this something to do with the marines? Or is it just that they were homeless and available?’ He stared at the incident board for a minute, but nothing else came. ‘And why would students be killing them? Assuming it is a student-led thing?’

  ‘It’s probably just a coincidence,’ said Sally. ‘If you need bodies for ritual killings, who better to choose than a drunk, who’ll come with you for a few beers?’

  ‘Hmm. And if your murders are rituals connected to this fire cult, maybe you justify them to yourself by saying that they are men with no family; they don’t have a home and no one will miss them. Almost like doing them a favour.’ Dan perched on the corner of the large table.

  ‘Yeah, but you could get any student to follow you anywhere for less than that – once they’ve got a few beers inside them,’ added Foster. ‘Surely there has to be a reason why the homeless are being targeted.’

  Lizzie sat back down at the table and slipped her phone into her pocket. ‘Only the night manager is on at the moment,’ she said, ‘and the residents have another hour before they need to get back and the door is locked. I guess it will wait until the morning?’

  Dan nodded and added it to his action list.

  Sam Knowles, quiet up until that point, raised his hand. ‘Sir, the website says nothing about the victims, except that they were willing sacrifices and have been purified so they can rest in peace.’

  ‘Right. Okay, Sam, what else have you found out about the website for us?’

  Sam’s face dropped. ‘You’re not going to believe this, but the guy lives in Ireland, in Cork city.’

  ‘I can believe that, Sam. He’s got to live somewhere. Go on.’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean … oh,’ he said, and shuffled his notebook pages. ‘Conor Reilly, who is at this moment in Cork prison, serving eighteen months for tax avoidance, and, I quote, “gave the laptop away to a friend three years ago and hadn’t even realised that he was still paying for the site”.’

  ‘Right. Probably a stolen laptop, then. Presumably he could remember the name of this friend?’ asked Dan.

  ‘Yes, sir, she was called Kathy Kelly.’

  A ripple of appreciation went around the table, until Sam held up his hand. ‘But, I can’t find anything useful from that name. He had a brief fling with her then she disappeared. There are literally hundreds of women called that in Ireland, but those with a connection to Cork have been checked out by Paula Tippett, and none of them sound useful to us. Sorry, sir.’

  ‘Wasn’t she a singer in the sixties?’ asked Bill Larcombe. ‘Big, juicy red lips?’

  ‘That was Kathy Kirby, you twerp,’ said Bennett, tapping him on the head with his pen.

  Dan thought about it. It wasn’t great news, but it confirmed what he had suspected. ‘This is a woman serial killer, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I thought it must be, because of all the fire goddess crap, but now I’m convinced a woman is at the back of it.’

  ‘We need to find the Kelly woman, boss,’ said Bill Larcombe. ‘I’ll get on to the Garda first thing in the morning, see if they can help us to track her down.’

  ‘Thanks, Bill. We may need to get over there and interview this guy, Reilly, properly, and talk to the police. Sally, do you fancy a day in Cork?’

  ‘Ooh, yes. It’ll be like a little holiday.’

  ‘That’s not quite what I had in mind. Take …’ He scanned the table at faces that had perked up considerably at the thought of a trip away. ‘Take Lizzie, and get there and back in a day, okay?’

  Sally nodded, and smirked at Lizzie.

  ‘You do know you’re not going to Ibiza,’ he said, ‘it’s Ireland, in the winter?’

  ‘Guinness, log fires, folk songs …’ murmured Sally.

  ‘I’ve always wondered what craic meant,’ said Lizzie.

  Dan held up his hand before the rest of his team could complain. ‘I don’t want to hear it. Let’s do actions for tomorrow and go home.’

  22

  Early morning on the river. Dan needed to think, and what better place to do it? Mist twisted the trees and obscured the first stirrings of the swans that lined the banks. He sank his hands deep into the warmth of his hooded coat and strode out along the path that cut past his flat on the other side of the water. He couldn’t stop his eyes drifting up to the window, but, as he’d expected, all was dark and quiet. He wondered if he should give up the tenancy at the next six-month break the following March; Alison might be up to sorting out her own place by then. She may even have a job. He gave a wry smile. Let’s not get our hopes up too high, Daniel.

  Should he and Claire buy a house together? It made sense to put the money he was throwing away on supporting his sister towards a home of their own. Was it time to ask her to marry him? They’d been together almost six months and it was fantastic. He was even warming to the lump of a cat that had attached itself to her. He could kick himself for missing the chance the other night, but what if she’d said no? He stopped and st
ared across the weir – the water full and flowing – and allowed himself the luxury of thinking about kids. Taking a son or daughter along the canal, showing them the cygnets in spring, playing pooh sticks on the bridge. It was such a tempting dream, and maybe, with Claire, he could achieve it.

  Warmed by the thought, he struck out along the path while thinking about the case and why they weren’t any nearer to identifying the woman. Someone must be hiding her, and they were no closer to working out who that was. There was a huge amount of planning in these murders. It couldn’t just be a bunch of students having a bit of fun. Just couldn’t. But students were involved in the murders, even if they didn’t plan them. He felt like having another go at the professor, but first he wanted to talk to Jay Vine’s parents, and then Scarlett Moorcroft, his friend from uni that Lizzie was suspicious of.

  And he had to make sure that the second victim wasn’t a marine like the first one. It would take the investigation in a whole new direction if there was a link between them. He checked his phone, Sal and Lizzie would be landing in Cork within the hour. It was time to get to the office.

  * * *

  Lizzie yawned. Catching a 6am flight had done little to improve her mood and she hadn’t slept well. ‘I hope this isn’t a total waste of time,’ she grumbled as the small plane came in to land at Cork airport.

  ‘What happened to enjoying a day away?’ asked Sally. ‘You just think you might miss something because you’re over here with me, and you’re terrified Adam will do something right and steal all your thunder, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, course not.’ She examined her fingernails. ‘Well, maybe a bit. I like to be where the action is.’

  ‘Well, if we meet the bloke who set the murderer up with her website, you might be closer to the action than you know, so cheer up, we’re here, let’s make the best of it. I hope they’ve sent a nice, handsome Garda to meet us …’ She waggled her eyebrows at Lizzie.