From the foot of the stairs, Dan asked, ‘How long has the shower been running?’
Mrs Vine glanced at the mantle clock. ‘Goodness, at least twenty minutes. Our Jay’s not that clean,’ she said, and banged on the door again.
Dan ran up the stairs, swearing under his breath, and rattled the door. Locked, but it was an old wooden door with an old-fashioned lock. ‘Have you got a newspaper, and something long and thin, like a chopstick or a wooden spoon?’
Worried now, Mrs Vine brought up her husband’s morning paper and passed it over. She held a wooden spoon out in front of her like a small sword. Dan spread the paper on the floor, pushed it through, under the door, and used the spoon to poke the key out from the inside. It dropped onto the paper and he carefully pulled it through. ‘That’ll save me breaking down the door,’ he said to her pale face. ‘Stand back, and let me go in first, please.’
The room was steamy, warm, and empty – just as he had suspected. He checked the wide-open window, but he knew he was too late. The couple of moments he had taken in the car to read the information on the family, and the chat to Jay’s mother, had probably been enough to alert the boy and he’d disappeared through the bedroom window before Dan had even got into the house. Damn. He turned off the water in the shower. ‘Your son has done a runner, Mrs Vine, which is most inconvenient as I want to question him about his possible involvement in two murders in Exeter.’
‘Murders? Jay? No, you’re mistaken. He would never hurt anyone. Not Jay.’
‘Then why did he run? And where might he run to?’
She could give no answer.
‘Will you check what he’s taken, please? Passport, computer, phone, all that stuff.’
After a quick check, Linda Vine confirmed that Jay had taken his passport and a bag full of clothes and toiletries. ‘He’s gone, hasn’t he? My boy? What has he done? You may as well tell me.’
‘I think he’s been involved in the murder of two men in bonfires. You may have seen it on TV? It’s been all over the news.’
Linda Vine sank onto the bed and let out a mewling sob. Total incomprehension made her mute.
Dan wished, and not for the first time that morning, that Sally was there to help him out with this part. He rang the local nick and spoke to the duty sergeant, who dispatched a PC to sit with Mrs Vine until her husband came home. Then he alerted all patrol cars to be on the lookout for Jay Vine at train and bus stops. The best picture his mother had of him showed a fresh-faced lad of eighteen, about to go off on the biggest adventure of his life to university, and now he was a suspect in a murder investigation. You never know what life’s going to throw at you, thought Dan, as he copied the picture on to his phone.
‘If he contacts you, Mrs Vine, you know what to do. If he hands himself in now, to the local police station, it will be much better for him.’ He handed her a business card. ‘Here’s my number, call me any time at all. Also, I haven’t got time to wait until your husband gets home, so tell him he can ring me to talk, too. Okay?’
He drove away as soon as the young PC had made herself and Mrs Vine a cup of tea. Bloody elementary mistake – coming out on his own to interview suspects. Superintendent Oliver wouldn’t be impressed. She’d offered him more bodies to assist than he knew what to do with. He turned onto the A30 and put his foot down, allowing the Audi to cruise up to seventy as soon as he got out of town. He desperately wanted to talk to Scarlett Moorcroft before she decided to disappear as well.
24
Exeter sprawled to his left as he rounded the motorway bend and came off at the Sowton junction, foot tapping on and off the accelerator as he waited in the inevitable queue to get off the roundabout. Bill Larcombe had assured Dan that Scarlett wasn’t in lectures that afternoon, and that she had a job in the local coffee shop at Pinhoe.
He turned right, onto the street, and parked behind a delivery van outside a small row of shops. It was vital that he didn’t scare her off. Dan stood outside and pretended to take a call so he could look through the window. He could see Scarlett, black hair tied up now, making a sandwich in a small kitchen. There were three customers inside, none of whom looked like any of the students they had interviewed already. He pushed the door open and kept his head down until he was at the counter. Damn, the back door to the kitchen was open. It was a quick getaway if she ran. Shrugging, Dan flashed his badge at the woman on the till, said, ‘Excuse me, please, I need to speak to Scarlett,’ and pushed past her into the steamy kitchen.
Scarlett’s mouth dropped open. ‘You can’t just walk in here, you know …’ She stopped. ‘You’re the policeman,’ she said. ‘What's happened?’
Dan stood between her and the open door, but she looked calm, rather than ready to run. ‘Your number is on Jay Vine’s phone,’ he lied. ‘When did you last see him?’
Scarlett finished buttering a roll and filled it with egg mayonnaise from a plastic tub. ‘Probably at the weekend,’ she said. ‘He was sick. I checked yesterday and he said he was feeling bad.’ She patted the top of the roll onto the bottom and slid it on a plate. ‘Give me a sec.’ She took the sandwich to a woman sipping a coffee and returned to lean back against the counter and stare at Dan. ‘You don’t think he’s involved in these burnings, do you?’
‘He might be. What makes you think he isn't?’
She laughed and ripped off the blue food preparation gloves she was wearing. ‘He’s a bit of a wimp underneath that Gothic exterior. Has the soul of a poet, if you know what I mean? I couldn’t imagine him hurting a fly.’
‘Did he sound depressed when you spoke to him?’
‘Depressed? What d’you mean? Oh God, he hasn’t tried to top himself, has he?’
‘Now why would you think that?’ asked Dan.
Scarlett folded her arms across her chest and stared at the floor. ‘I don’t, it’s just that he’s still not answering his phone and I’m a bit worried about him, that’s all.’
A voice called through the open door. ‘Scarlett, one cheese toastie, one ham salad, thanks.’ The woman poked her head around the door and glared at Dan. ‘We are busy, you know. She’s got a break in thirty minutes, why don’t you come back then?’
Dan turned his back on her. ‘You carry on, Scarlett, we’ll talk while you’re making the food, okay?’
Scarlett looked worried for the first time since he had entered the cafe. ‘Is Jay okay?’
‘He’s run away, Scarlett. I was hoping you might have some idea where he’s gone.’
‘Run away? From uni?’ She pushed away a strand of escaping hair and buttered more bread. ‘No, he’ll have gone home early for Christmas, that’s all. Lives in Cornwall somewhere.’
‘Look, Scarlett, I’m not messing about here. Jay has run away from home and we really need to speak to him. Why is he so frightened? Please would you call me if you have any contact with him at all? It’s urgent and important.’ He placed his card on the counter.
Scarlett glanced at it. ‘Sure, no problem.’ Her eyebrows contracted to make a deep furrow between her eyes.
‘Is there anything else you can tell me, Scarlett? To help your friend?’
She shook her head and refused to look at him again.
Frustrated, Dan left the cafe. He’d been intending to buy a sandwich, but something about Scarlett had put him off. He thought back to what Lizzie had said after the university interviews. Her instincts were, as usual, spot on. There was something about this girl that rang false, and the news that Jay had run away had certainly rattled her.
On impulse, he diverted round to the back of the cafe and hid himself behind a large bin. It didn’t smell too good. If Scarlett was in it up to her eyeballs, she would need to alert the others that he had been to see her. Of course, she could be completely innocent. He leaned against the wall, ignoring his rumbling stomach and the eight calls he’d received, and placed his phone on silent. After twenty minutes, he was ready to give up when he heard someone come out into the back and light up a cigaret
te. He heard Scarlett’s voice, talking on her phone.
‘Pig, yeah, same one as at uni the other day.’ A snort. ‘Not a clue. I told you not to worry, Tana, he’s just a plod like the other one. But, yeah, looks like Jay has done a runner. He’s not been right these last two weeks. Yeah, he knows that.’ She went quiet.
Dan held his breath as Scarlett wandered down towards the gate, shoulders up round her head like she was being told off. Tana?
‘No, course he’s not dead. What made you think that? At least I don’t think the pig would lie straight out, would he? No, he said Jay was missing, and did I know where he might have gone? Hey, calm down. It’s fine, isn’t it? Tana? You said it would be fine.’ Scarlett stared at the phone, silent in her hand. ‘Bitch,’ she said, took a last drag on her cigarette and turned back to the cafe door.
Tana, thought Dan. Unusual name. He made a note in his book. Were they finally onto something? Could Kathy Kelly be called Tana now? He slipped quietly out of the yard and back to the car. It was time to put a tail on Scarlett Moorcroft. He felt positive for the first time in almost two weeks.
* * *
Jay slowed down as he reached Fore Street, and bent low over his knees to get his breath back. Too much weed weakened your lungs. He thought he had fooled the police guy into thinking he was still in the shower. There was no sign of him anyway. Jay wasn’t stupid, he knew that by running he had made himself more than a suspect, it was just that he was scared of what would happen if Tana got to him first. She wouldn’t make a mistake a second time.
He needed cash, and almost emptied the savings account his gran had opened for him twenty years ago. He’d promised to leave it in there until he graduated. Couldn’t be helped. The girl in the bank had raised her eyebrows at him, and he had blustered and said something about a new car. He could feel sweat pooling under his arms, even after his long shower, and kept to the quiet roads as he made his way to the bus station via the local superstore.
He had no idea how to get to Jersey, but he knew he couldn’t afford to fly, so he had to go by ferry. It would attract less attention if he did that anyway.
Bodmin Parkway station was quiet after the rush hour and he felt a bit conspicuous with his height and his backpack. He stood in front of the timetable board and tried to work out where to head for. Exeter? But everything in him rebelled against it, he’d just escaped from there – from being almost murdered.
He fingered the cheap phone he’d picked up in the supermarket. If there was free Wi-Fi he could fire it up and check out the ferries. He bought a coffee and sat on a bench. The signal was weak, but good enough to cause him to break out into a rash of swearing and muttering. He had to go to Poole to get a ferry. Where the hell was Poole? It would take hours. Jay put his head in his hands. He knew if Scarlett had been with him he could have done this. They could have run together and it would have been fine. She was just good at all this stuff, and he wasn’t. But there they were. He texted her, to give her the new phone number, and said he was okay. Signed off with two kisses. Wondered if he would ever see her again.
The journey to Poole took four hours, and, of course, he had missed the last ferry for the night. Lost in a town he had never visited, he gave in and booked into a youth hostel. His money would dwindle fast at this rate. And there was an ache in his stomach that had nothing to do with drugs and alcohol swallowed. His brain was all too clear now.
* * *
Dan stared out of the large window. The major incident room behind him was almost full. The light faded from the sky and cars strobed their headlights across the ceiling as they filtered into the evening traffic. Time for a briefing before he let them all go home. He shoved the last bite of a sausage roll into his mouth and strode towards the whiteboard and wrote the word Tana next to Fire Goddess. He saw that someone had updated the Jay Vine board to say he had fled.
‘Right, we have, at last, got some sort of a lead on three possible members of this so-called cult.’ He looked at the team and the extra bodies gathered around the table. ‘Thanks to Team One, we have a round the clock surveillance available to start this evening on Scarlett Moorcroft. She is, I’m convinced, one of the gang, and she was talking to a person she called Tana, who I think, assuming it’s a woman’s name, may be the leader of the cult. She also referred to the young man we know as Jay Vine, so I think it’s safe to assume that they are the people of interest.’
He paused and allowed a low whistle to escape from Adam Foster’s mouth. ‘And, Scarlett had no idea that Jay Vine had tried to take his own life. But, the person she spoke to on the phone asked whether Jay was dead. Now why on earth would they think that, unless they’d had a hand in trying to make it happen?’
‘We’re getting somewhere, aren’t we, sir?’ asked Adam Foster, face alight.
‘We are. I need to hear from the house-to-house enquiries about who was seen in the neighbourhood on Monday afternoon. And I’m thinking we need to bring in the two girls Lizzie picked out, Scarlett Moorcroft and Amber …’ he checked his notebook. ‘… Northrop, for questioning under caution.’
‘And we shouldn’t forget the professor, should we, sir?’ asked Foster.
‘No. We shouldn’t. Why don’t you and Sergeant Bennett arrange to have all three of them brought in tomorrow morning.’
Dan gave them a moment to work out who would do what, then cleared his throat. ‘It’s not all good news. I lost Jay Vine this morning. He had gone home, just as I expected, but he got out of the window and legged it while I was trying to persuade his mother that I really needed to talk to him.’ He coloured slightly. ‘Bloody rookie mistake. Don’t ever let me catch you doing such a simple arrest so badly, Adam.
‘Anyway, alerts are out at all the stations, ferry points and airports. I doubt he’s got the cash for a major disappearance, but he could be heading abroad, I suppose.
‘Just one more thing before you toddle off home; what if they’re planning a third one, and, if they are, how can we prevent it?’
25
Dan waited in the major incident room for the enlarged team to assemble. He’d put the briefing back until 10am to allow the three suspects to be placed in separate interview rooms. And he’d wanted Sally and Lizzie to get a decent night’s sleep before they gave their reports. He quieted a flutter in his chest. They were getting somewhere. Maybe.
He added Scarlett Moorcroft and Amber Northrop to the whiteboards next to Jay Vine and Tana. The alert had gone out to local and port forces to arrest and detain, but he had no idea if they would even recognise him. It was only a hunch that he would try to go abroad, he could just as easily go to Ireland or Scotland, or even London, if he wanted to disappear. Dan sighed. No point in worrying about it, better to concentrate on the ones he’d got downstairs.
‘Morning all,’ he said. ‘Time to reflect on what we have so far. These have been carefully planned murders, with victims that were easy to get to the location. Someone, we suspect Tana, has spent a long time on this. Why?’ He looked around the room. ‘Assume for a minute that they were targeted, rather than randomly selected. Why did she want them? Two homeless men? What did these two guys do to her? Or is it men in general she wants to hurt? Why not a woman? And, she has an obsession with fire. Why and when would she have developed such an obsession?’ He paused. ‘Or is all this stuff a cover-up for a serial killer who gets her kicks setting fire to people? Can we look more deeply into the psychology of these crimes, please? I’ve asked for a profiler to come over from HQ to help us out, but we have to wait until next week for one to be assigned. Who knew they were so in demand?
‘Meanwhile, we’ll help ourselves, shall we? As usual. Right, what do we know?’ He pointed at Foster. ‘Adam, what did you get from the homeless hostel?’
Foster flipped open his notebook. ‘The manager of the hostel, Jane Poole, said that one man, name of David Hamworthy, hasn’t been back for a week. I’ve got people checking out his background, but it looks like he’s our man.’
&
nbsp; Lizzie interrupted, eyes wide. ‘Did you speak to Paddy while you were in Exmouth? I bet vic two is Dimp after all.’ She looked at Adam. ‘Is it Dimp, do you think?’
Adam exhaled. ‘It could well be him, Liz. Right age anyway. And no, Paddy hasn’t been at the hostel for a few days either. Couldn’t talk to him.’ He stopped talking and stared at Dan. ‘Wow. Do you think those three tramps are being targeted?’
‘Sir,’ said Lizzie turning back to Dan, ‘if vic two is Dimp, then Paddy could be the intended third victim. Oh my goodness, I’ve just realised; he’s Irish as well as the Fire Goddess woman. What if he’s gone missing because she’s already got hold of him?’
‘Welcome back Lizzie,’ said Dan, holding up his hand to slow her down. ‘Just take it easy, that’s a lot of conclusions to leap to. The homeless move on all the time. Just because Paddy wasn’t at the hostel, it doesn’t mean he’s missing. He isn’t one of their long-term residents, is he? Or did I miss something?’
Lizzie stared at Dan, face aghast.
‘I’m not saying you’re wrong. Get out to Exmouth as soon as we’re finished interviewing, and find out.’ He took a breath as she and Foster scribbled furiously in their notebooks. Blimey, the enthusiasm of youth. ‘No leads at all for weeks, and now we’ve got more than we know what to do with. Don’t worry, we’ll get round to all of them.’
He slid off the table and made a note on the whiteboard: David Hamworthy equals Dimp?
‘Sally, report from Cork, please.’
‘Conor Reilly, what a piece of work,’ said Sally, casting her eye over her notes. ‘He knew our main suspect as Kathy Kelly, a girlfriend who persuaded him to pay for her website, but it turns out that Kathy Kelly died in a fire in her dormitory at the university five years ago. We think our suspect stole the dead girl’s ID and used it to blag her way on to a postgrad course at Exeter. Kathy Kelly was a postgrad student studying Celtic and Ancient Religions at Cork.’
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