Your Life or Mine

by Vicki Bradley

  ‘I don’t know, but somehow he has.’

  ‘I don’t think this is Pearce,’ she said, but Kowalski didn’t look convinced. ‘Maybe her body has been placed here for a reason. The note said she was a “lying whore”. This might be a suspect she’s dealt with trying to get revenge.’

  ‘Or it could be Pearce thinking that she’d met someone else. Perhaps a police officer,’ Kowalski said. ‘Jealously can make people do crazy things. Though I don’t like that you’re warned off by name.’

  ‘I’ll keep the baseball bat by my bed,’ she said.

  ‘Good.’ His face serious for once. ‘And don’t open your door unless you know who it is. You so much as hear a weird noise you call 999 and then you call me. I can be at your place in twenty minutes.’

  ‘I will. I promise. But I’ll be fine.’ She needed Kowalski to back her up. Winter wouldn’t want her near the case after seeing this note, but he might just listen to Kowalski.

  He nodded roughly at her. ‘We’ll put special measures on your address and mobile so any calls will go straight to the top of the 999 queue. I’m calling forensics and then Winter. The cleaner’s going to need to make a statement.’

  ‘Whoever did this knew Camberwell station well,’ Loxton said. ‘They managed to get in without setting off any alarms or leaving any sign of a break-in. It could have been a police officer. They wouldn’t set off an alarm.’

  ‘A police officer?’ Kowalski glanced at Emma’s body and then back at Loxton in amazement. ‘There’s no way a police officer did that.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ Loxton said. But this felt deeply personal to the police. The killer had wanted intimacy, to see the life ebb from Emma’s eyes slowly. Not to miss a single moment. And he wanted the body to be found at a police station. He wanted to terrify them, but all she felt was anger.

  Chapter 12

  Thursday 27 January, 07:22

  Dr Reynolds arrived in his forensic suit. ‘Where is she?’ he asked.

  Loxton and Kowalski had put their own suits on and led him to where Emma was sitting.

  ‘I’ll do a preliminary examination now,’ Reynolds said. ‘Then the post-mortem will be tomorrow.’

  Loxton nodded and watched as he knelt down next to Emma, taking photographs. He carefully inspected her wrists and ankles, drawn to the red marks. Then he examined the rest of her in silence, while Loxton and Kowalski waited.

  ‘These are consistent with being bound by ropes,’ Reynolds said as he studied the red marks. ‘Have you found any ropes?’

  ‘No,’ Loxton said.

  ‘So the killer’s taken them.’ He frowned and looked closer at the burn marks. ‘The way the lesions are on the body suggests she was bound with sharper restraints at some point and also with ropes. I’m guessing the killer took the ropes off the body to avoid any forensic evidence being found.’

  ‘He’s forensically aware?’ Loxton said.

  ‘Exceptionally.’ Reynolds shook his head in amazement. ‘Almost medically so.’

  ‘This isn’t Pearce,’ she said to Kowalski, trying to convince him.

  Reynolds raised his eyebrows.

  ‘The ex-boyfriend,’ Kowalski said, a puzzled frown on his face.

  ‘Bruising to the outer thighs.’ Reynolds continued his examination. ‘Signs of severe trauma to the vestibule.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Kowalski asked, his voice strained as he glared at the pathologist.

  Loxton pressed her lips together. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

  ‘The trauma suggests that she’s been raped.’ Reynolds didn’t look up. ‘I’ll know for sure when I’ve conducted the post-mortem and taken swabs for trace evidence. Any clothes found?’

  Loxton wanted to scream, but she wouldn’t. Winter would send her home if he found out. ‘We haven’t seen any clothes yet.’

  Reynolds nodded and started taking photos, the harsh light blinding Loxton’s eyes momentarily.

  Emma’s head was turned towards Loxton at a painful angle. She wanted to put it right, but clasped her hands together to prevent herself from reaching out. Emma would never feel anything again.

  Kowalski strode angrily outside as Reynolds glanced at Loxton, his eyes normally clinical, now full of pain. He raised his eyebrows as if to ask if she wanted to leave. She looked down at Emma’s face and shook her head. She had to stay. Her friend needed her.

  Reynolds moved through the crime scene analysis systematically and she followed his lead. Once it was done, Reynolds turned off his recorder.

  ‘I think the killer is left-handed. It’s a hunch, and I won’t be able to include it in my final report, but I’ve noted that the left side of the windpipe has more trauma. That really isn’t enough to make a scientific conclusion about the killer, though, so I’m telling you off the record.’

  ‘It’s something,’ she said.

  ‘It might be nothing. Perhaps the way the killer was kneeling, putting more weight on the left side. Don’t assume anything.’

  ‘Understood,’ she said.

  ‘And, Alana… I’m sorry. I know this is hard for you, losing a friend, and for Dominik.’

  She nodded, wondering why he thought it was hard for Dominik. Perhaps he simply meant that Emma was one of them. That they weren’t immune.

  ‘How’s he holding up?’ Reynolds asked.

  Loxton wondered what Reynolds was getting at. ‘He’s okay, I think. Why do you ask?’

  ‘He and Emma used to be together.’ Reynolds tilted his head at her; he must have seen the shock on her face.

  ‘I didn’t know. Dominik didn’t say.’ Loxton tried to hide the hurt she felt. It shouldn’t matter that Emma and Kowalski had dated, but somehow it did. And it was strange that he’d made out he didn’t really know Emma.

  ‘It was years ago – when they first worked on Southwark CID. I’ve been here a long time myself. Longer than anyone else on this borough probably.’

  ‘If I’d have known,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t have let him come with me.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone could have stopped him.’ Reynolds covered Emma gently with a sheet, almost as if he were tucking her up in bed. ‘Kowalski wants to fix everything, like we all do. But some things are too broken to be fixed. And just because we can’t fix them, that doesn’t make it our fault.’ His eyes held hers for a moment.

  She nodded, her throat constricting as she tried to keep it together. It didn’t matter what Reynolds said; she’d let Emma down.

  Loxton found Kowalski in the Camberwell CCTV room. He was scrolling through the past few hours of footage, checking each camera for anything unusual.

  She didn’t know how to begin, but she needed to ask Kowalski about Emma. Now seemed as good a time as any. At least they were alone.

  ‘You didn’t tell me that you’d been in a relationship with Emma.’ Loxton couldn’t completely hide the hurt in her voice. It felt strange that he’d dated her friend.

  Kowalski looked shocked momentarily. ‘That was five years ago, Alana. It feels like a lifetime ago now.’

  ‘You should have said.’

  ‘I want to work on this case and get justice for Emma just like you. If it had been me found in Camberwell station, I’d want the best investigating my murder and I’d be glad if it was you or Emma. Not some stranger. People who cared about me, who would put everything on hold until they found out who did this and made them pay.’

  ‘I feel the same,’ Loxton admitted.

  ‘I loved Emma but work got in the way. We were tired all the time, on different shift patterns. The job won out like it always does, which is why police officer relationships never work out.’

  She nodded for him to go on but felt a strange disappointment that he thought that way.

  ‘We stayed friends and sometimes I wondered what would have happened if we’d tried harder, but she went off to the murder squad and I stayed here. We lost touch. That’s all there is to it.’

  Loxton wasn’t sure Kowalski w
as being honest with himself. The way he’d stormed off when Reynolds had examined Emma’s body, she thought he was feeling it more than he wanted to admit. ‘You know you can tell me things, right? We’re a team.’

  ‘I know that, but there’s nothing to tell. You were the last person to see her alive. She was your friend. I haven’t seen Emma for years.’

  She nodded and turned to the CCTV.

  ‘This is when everyone’s out last night,’ Kowalski said. They watched helplessly as the Child Abuse Investigation Team detectives left the building at the end of their shift around 21:57 hours.

  Then there was no movement until they saw the cleaner arrive at 05:35, swiping herself in and the door shutting behind her.

  Kowalski sped through the CCTV one last time up to when she and Kowalski arrived in their car. He shook his head in confusion. ‘I thought we’d see something on here.’

  There were blind spots around the perimeter wall of the car park and building. The CCTV was only on the car entrance gate and the entrance door and fire exits. It was possible the killer had scaled a wall and got in through a window, but how could they have without anyone hearing or seeing anything, and leaving no trace behind? And with a body? Camberwell station was surrounded by residential houses and was in the middle of Camberwell Green, a busy area even in the early hours.

  ‘They must have got lucky. Maybe someone didn’t close a lower ground window properly?’ Loxton said.

  ‘The cleaner said everything was secure when she got here and she seems to be right.’ Kowalski shook his head in confusion. ‘Forensics are checking everything, but you know what police stations are like. Even if the killer wasn’t wearing gloves, there’ll be hundreds of fingerprints and DNA profiles all over the place corrupting the evidence. The cleaner’s only paid to do the bare minimum.’

  Loxton shivered at the thought of someone being able to gain access, pose Emma’s body, and not leave a single trace behind for them to hold on to. ‘Still think it was Pearce?’ she asked.

  ‘Who else?’ But Kowalski didn’t look as sure.

  Loxton thought of Barratt again. It was his style, leaving the body in a special place, on display to cause the most shock possible.

  ‘Edward Barratt,’ she replied. ‘Even the way Emma is positioned, sat upright and naked, it reminds me of his first murder victim.’

  Kowalski stared at her like she was mad. ‘You said he was in Broadmoor when she went missing? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It’s a stretch, but just hear me out,’ Loxton said. ‘Emma worked on the Barratt case with me. He threatened us all when he started to lose the trial. Not just once, but consistently. He tried to get his lawyers to investigate us, suggested we were corrupt and had planted evidence. The judge didn’t have any of it, but even he was shocked at the way Barratt behaved in trial and he’d dealt with a lot of murderers in his time. It was bizarre how Barratt became transfixed on us all, trying to put us on trial rather than worry about his own defence. He hated the fact that women had caught him, he couldn’t let it go.’ She thought she’d left Barratt in the past. She thought they all had.

  ‘Okay,’ Kowalski said, nodding at her. ‘If you think it might be linked, that’s good enough for me. I’ll get hold of Winter. He’ll want to hear this.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, relieved that Kowalski was at least willing to listen.

  DCI Winter had arrived on the scene with a DI Meyer from homicide. They listened carefully to Loxton’s and Kowalski’s update.

  ‘Let’s get the ex-boyfriend in again,’ Meyer said. ‘He’s our prime suspect.’

  ‘I don’t think he is,’ Loxton said. ‘The way Emma’s been murdered, it’s just like an Edward Barratt killing.’

  Meyer frowned. ‘The Edward Barratt? The serial killer who raped and murdered sex workers? I’m not following you. He’s in Broadmoor Hospital. Has been for a couple of years.’

  ‘Except he escaped just before all this started, a week ago today. They caught him before he got very far, but he was missing for an hour and was picked up a few miles from the grounds.’

  ‘Looks like he was trying to run to freedom, but there was no one waiting on the outside to pick him up,’ Winter said.

  ‘He’s back inside on maximum security and is in complete isolation,’ Loxton said. ‘But what worries me is who he spoke to in that hour he was missing. What he arranged. He managed to get into the woods to the east of Broadmoor Hospital. Once they found him, they stopped looking, but who else was there?’

  ‘But what’s he got to do with Emma Robins being murdered if he’s been in Broadmoor for the past week?’ Winter stared at her intently.

  ‘Emma was one of the DCs who locked him up,’ Loxton said. ‘There were five female detectives: Emma Robins, Jane Edison, Sarah Taylor, Gabriella Caselli and me. There were other officers on the team, male officers, but Barratt only ever threatened us. He vowed to get the five of us back, said it was only a matter of time. He hated women. It was pathological. His MO for killing the sex workers was similar to the way Emma died. It’s uncanny. Raped and then crushed windpipe. Even the rope marks look the same.’

  ‘That’s quite a common MO for serial killers, though,’ Meyer said. ‘You should know that having been on the murder squad.’

  Winter frowned. ‘What else?’

  Loxton felt her hands go clammy. ‘All his victims were females in their late twenties to early thirties. They were all sex workers. He would leave the bodies in strange places – public places, for the police to find. And he would leave typed notes with the body. As the investigation went on, he addressed them to the investigating officers – first Emma, then Sarah, Gabriella, Jane and me. Emma is dead. I’ve warned the others, but I haven’t been able to get hold of Sarah.’

  Meyer shook his head in disbelief. ‘Pearce makes more sense as a suspect. Not some serial killer who’s been locked up for years. Emma must have told him about the case, so he’s copied the details. That’s all.’

  ‘Can you get a comparison done on the notes and this new one?’ Winter said to Loxton, ignoring Meyer. ‘See if the style of language is the same as Barratt’s notes. If it is, it would suggest a copycat. And see if DC Robins had anything to do with Barratt recently. Any correspondence. Any new threats.’

  Loxton nodded, jotting the actions down.

  ‘I’ll get hold of Sarah Taylor,’ Winter said. ‘I’ll speak to her boss. You’re saying she’s the only one that doesn’t know what’s happened to Emma?’

  Loxton nodded.

  ‘Then I’ll tell her and her boss to be on their guard just in case.’

  ‘I haven’t got time to listen to this.’ Meyer turned to Winter. ‘Waste your resources on it but not mine. I’m getting Pearce arrested.’ He left the room, calling to one of his detectives.

  Winter shook his head as he watched the young DI leave. ‘He’s convinced it’s Pearce, but that type of thinking is dangerous in this job.’

  ‘Can we check that Barratt is still inside?’ Loxton asked, hearing the strain in her own voice, louder than normal. Now that she’d discussed her theory out loud, the need to make sure Barratt was safe behind bars was overwhelming.

  ‘From what you’ve said, he won’t be able to break out again anytime soon,’ Kowalski said. ‘But I’ll check now.’ He squeezed her shoulder and made the call. As soon as he was off the phone, she asked him, ‘Is he still inside?’

  ‘Yes, in maximum security.’ Loxton’s own relief was mirrored on Kowalski’s face. ‘The hospital assured me he hasn’t stepped foot outside since his recent escape attempt. He’s in solitary confinement and they’ve changed his guards. There’s no way this is him in person. They’ll inform DCI Winter if there’s any change in his status or if they find anyone responsible for helping him. Of course, it could still be one of his fan base acting on his behalf.’

  Barratt having a fanbase willing to act on his behalf made her feel sick. She tried to reassure herself that in around ninety percent of m
urder cases the suspect was someone you were close to, like an ex-partner – like Luke Pearce. But if you were a police officer, working long hours in homicide, sometimes the people you knew the best were your suspects, as you learnt everything you could about them. And Barratt had been obsessed with them during the trial, adamant that he would one day get his revenge on all of them.

  Chapter 13

  Thursday 27 January, 11.20

  Loxton left Kowalski at Camberwell station to head back to Walworth with the CCTV. But before she set off she knew she needed to tell the others about Emma. It was worrying her that Barratt had recently tried to escape, even if DCI Winter and DI Meyer didn’t see it. The others needed to know what had happened. Somehow, even contemplating telling them made it feel more real.

  She picked up her phone and called Jane first.

  ‘Just a minute, Joseph’s asleep.’ She heard Jane close a door and it sounded like she was going downstairs.

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘It’s about Emma. I’m so sorry, Jane, I’ve got to give you the worst news. She’s been murdered.’

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  ‘She’d been left inside Camberwell Police Station.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Jane said. ‘Was it really her?’

  ‘Yes. I was first on scene. Look, I don’t know who did it, but it doesn’t feel like a domestic to me anymore. It feels more like a Barratt killing to me.’

  ‘Poor Emma,’ Jane said. ‘What did we miss back then? Was there someone else involved as well as Barratt? Someone we didn’t know about?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Loxton had thought the same thing. They’d assumed Barratt had been working alone, but now someone had tried to break him out of prison and Emma was dead. If the two were related, someone was working on Barratt’s behalf to exact revenge. But who?