Your Life or Mine

by Vicki Bradley

  ‘They bolted from one of the offices. Nearly knocked me over with a table. They flew down the stairs and out the fire exit. They were so fast. It’s like they knew the layout of the building. Maybe Lena’s right; it must be someone who’s got knowledge of police stations. I’ll get forensics to have a look at the fire exit in case there are any prints on it.’ They both knew the chances of getting anything off a door that was used by hundreds of people a week was beyond remote, but it was worth a try.

  ‘Let’s re-check the CCTV.’ She shivered as she checked left and right before swiping her warrant card to get back into the car park, which was already being searched by uniform, officers shining torches under each car systematically.

  Someone had managed to break into the police station. They’d looked at her and Kowalski’s personal records. The thought made her feel sick with anger.

  Lena was rewinding the CCTV footage as they came into the office.

  ‘Are they on it?’ Loxton asked.

  Lena nodded, a grim expression on her face that Loxton couldn’t read. ‘Just when he runs out of the fire exit, we get an image of his back. It won’t help with identification.’

  ‘Play it anyway,’ Kowalski said.

  Lena hit play but she was staring at Kowalski.

  Loxton watched the footage. A dark figure shot out of the fire exit, running full pelt. Kowalski right behind them, so close he could reach out and grab them, but he stumbled and lost ground. The suspect ran to the left, jumping onto a car bonnet and launching himself over the 6ft wall.

  ‘How the hell?’ Loxton gasped.

  On the screen, Kowalski rushed to the back door and was out of it, Loxton right behind him.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me he’d gone left?’ Loxton asked.

  ‘I wanted to cover both ways and there was no time to explain,’ Kowalski said. ‘He could have hidden behind a car until I’d run past him and then doubled back and gone right. I wanted to make sure both routes were covered.’

  ‘You should have caught him,’ Lena said, her voice irritated.

  ‘I know I fucked up, Lena,’ Kowalski said. ‘You don’t need to tell me.’ He turned away from them and walked out of the office. Loxton wanted to go after him, but she decided to let him go.

  Chapter 25

  Wednesday 2 February, 07:00

  The next morning Loxton woke feeling exhausted, having struggled to sleep in the unfamiliar hotel bed and on edge after the break-in at the station. It felt strange not having been home for the last few days and knowing that she wouldn’t be back for some time to come.

  It was early, but she called Kowalski anyway. She needed to speak to him in private and she knew the office would be too busy. ‘Dominik, how are you doing?’

  ‘I didn’t sleep too good. What about you?’

  ‘Not great either. Look, I wanted to ask you something. When we went to the crime scene at Camberwell, the cleaner was shouting “Szyman´ski”. You told me that it meant “terrible” in Polish. But it’s not a word. She was referring to Krystian Szyman´ski.’

  He sighed. ‘If it had been an American cleaner, they would have been shouting “Bundy”. Szyman´ski’s dead. I took the cleaner’s statement; she didn’t see anything. She was just hysterical.’

  ‘No, she wasn’t,’ Loxton said. ‘She was shouting “Szyman´ski” over and over again because the MO of the killing was exactly the same as a Szyman´ski killing. Which is why I was so convinced it was a Barratt killing, because he was inspired by Szyman´ski.’

  ‘Yes, it looked like a Szyman´ski killing, but we’re in England and Szyman´ski died recently.’ Kowalski struggled to keep the exasperation out of his voice. ‘Plenty of serial killers rape and then strangle their victims to death. Like you say, Barratt does. The cleaner isn’t an expert on murder scenes. Any violent thing she sees, it’s Szyman´ski. That’s what fear will do to you. Look, I worked on the Szyman´ski case. I didn’t want to talk about it. Bad memories. I thought he was irrelevant. I thought I’d left him in Poland.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t. His name keeps coming up and I don’t like it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I should have told you. I just couldn’t accept Szyman´ski had followed me here. He’s the reason I left Poland.’

  She’d never heard Kowalski’s voice so haunted. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I was convinced there were two killers, that Szyman´ski had an accomplice and that’s how he’d managed to have some solid alibis for some of the later murders. He denied it, of course, but some of the evidence never quite fit for me. I thought it might be someone in the police, perhaps from the forensic team. The bosses wouldn’t listen to me; they had their killer, but I couldn’t let it go. They made things difficult for me. I was ruining their careers, you see. We’d caught the infamous killer, reassured the Polish people and the tourists that it was over, but I was spoiling their happy ending. I couldn’t progress. In the end I had to leave Poland. I’d upset so many senior officers it didn’t matter where I tried to go. London seemed like the best option.’

  ‘So, possibly Szyman´ski’s partner is still out there.’ She couldn’t keep the annoyance out of her voice.

  ‘It’s been eight years and nothing. I was wrong.’ But Kowalski sounded unsure.

  ‘Szyman´ski’s only been dead a few months. Maybe that’s what started this?’ She wished he’d told her this earlier.

  ‘Gówno,’ Kowalski whispered.

  She sighed. Taking it out on him wasn’t helping. ‘Look, I’ll see you at work. Chances are it’s a coincidence, but it’s good to know about it.’ She hung up. She’d thought she and Kowalski were a team, but it turned out he was keeping things back from her. Already distancing himself, knowing that he would be leaving Southwark.

  She headed into Walworth station, nervous that Winter might take her off the case. Three detectives from her old team had been targeted and now her personal records had been accessed. But, then, so had Kowalski’s. It didn’t make sense. Could it be a journalist, paying police staff to try to find out about the investigators? The story was dominating the news feeds and she could imagine that they would stoop to such levels.

  The office was busy. Lena was already in and Loxton could see she was excited about something from the way she was pacing, as if to sit still would halt the discovery. Kowalski walked in carrying three coffees in a holder and handed them out to her and Lena.

  ‘Alana, I think we’ve got a possible.’ Lena stabbed her finger at one of the files stacked around her. ‘This guy stands out a mile from Barratt’s fan base who tried to visit him. Kevin Harding. Complete loner. Obsessed with serial killers and then Edward Barratt becomes his favourite.’

  ‘Go on,’ Loxton said, picking up the file.

  ‘Harding writes to Barratt the most frequently by far, almost every week, although we know that most of the letters never got through. The ones I’ve managed to get hold of show that Harding was an avid admirer. He had to resign from his last job four months ago as a hospital cleaner for harassing female patients and following a female doctor home twice. He recently applied to be a cleaner at Broadmoor Hospital, but after a trial period they turned him down; his behaviour was odd and he was paying too much attention to security. That was a few days after Barratt’s escape. Before all that, he used to have a contract as a cleaner for police stations. He used to cover any of the cleaners who were sick, so he’s had access to most of the stations in south London over the years. Probably Walworth and Camberwell. He’s very active in the Red Pill community on Reddit and even some of the men on there have blocked him for having too extreme views.’

  ‘Red Pill community?’ Loxton asked, unfamiliar with the term.

  ‘It’s a place online where men go to express their views of women and how feminism has gotten out of hand. They discuss, and I quote, “sexual strategy in a culture increasingly lacking a positive identity for men”. It’s called Red Pill after The Matrix. If you take the red pill with them, you discover their terrifyi
ng reality that women are subjugating men. There’s a subset that goes even further, believing women are biologically designed to be raped.’

  ‘And your guy was blocked by some of these members for being too extreme?’ Loxton tried to contain her shock.

  ‘Harding posted his top five pornographic snuff videos of women and offered to share them with other members if they messaged him privately.’

  ‘How has he not been arrested?’ Loxton asked.

  ‘No one’s reporting him. And no one’s monitoring the site. Even if they did, he’s tried to be clever. Though obviously not clever enough to stop this silly female from finding him.’ Lena smiled. ‘He’s anonymous on the website and he’s used the darknet and TOR, but he’s not jumped enough IP addresses, so in reality he was quite easy to find.’

  Loxton threw Kowalski an appreciative glance and he nodded back. ‘Lena likes to study. She did a computer forensic course back in Poland. It’s not fair, but she is cleverer than me. Proves those Red Pill Neanderthals wrong.’

  Lena shrugged. ‘I just liked learning while you liked partying, Dominik. And I worked in the forensic crime unit in Poland for a time and that was all about tracking criminals through the darknet.’

  ‘We need to bring this Kevin Harding in,’ Loxton said, desperately hoping Winter would let her remain part of the ‘we’.

  ‘He’s currently unemployed after Broadmoor let him go and appears to have a lot of time on his hands,’ Lena said. ‘I’ve got his address from the Job Centre. He hasn’t got a criminal record so we haven’t got much on him. This is his online picture.’ The image was of an athletic man wearing camouflage trousers and a green T-shirt. It looked as if the photo had been taken in an army barracks. Kowalski paused to take a closer look.

  ‘Was he ever in the military?’ Kowalski asked.

  Lena shook her head. ‘I’ve requested that information, but it’s not come back yet.’

  ‘Probably best if all three of us go,’ Kowalski said.

  Loxton didn’t disagree and they all put on their covert stab vests and utility belts.

  ‘Wait a second,’ Winter said, coming out of his office. ‘Kowalski and Loxton, you know I need to speak to you about last night’s break-in.’

  ‘Sir, we have a possible suspect,’ Loxton said.

  ‘I understand that, but, Loxton, this is getting too close for comfort.’

  ‘I’ve been staying in a hotel since Friday under a false name,’ Loxton said.

  ‘That’s good.’ Winter nodded his approval. ‘Kowalski, you should do the same. Put it through the Met expenses, both of you. And stay at the same hotel so you can go back together. I don’t want Loxton out on her own.’

  ‘No problem, sir,’ Kowalski said. ‘And we’ll use anti-surveillance techniques to make sure we’re not being followed.’

  ‘Good. Forensics aren’t hopeful that we’ll get anything off Kowalski’s laptop to identify the intruder. Let’s face it, he was probably wearing gloves. The team are still trying to find Jane Edison and her family to place them into protection, but the Edisons are proving difficult to find. They’ve not turned on their mobiles or used their bank cards. No one seems to know where they’ve gone. Though if we’re struggling, then anyone who means them harm is probably struggling too.’

  ‘I told her to go to ground.’ Loxton shook her head in frustration at the mistake.

  ‘We’ll find her, don’t worry about that. And I want you to take a couple of murder detectives with you to arrest Harding to be safe.’

  Loxton nodded, unable to argue with that. At least he was letting her go to Harding’s arrest and carry on with the case. For now.

  * * *

  Kowalski banged on the flimsy door of Kevin Harding’s flat while Loxton stayed back with Lena and the two murder detectives. Kowalski had been knocking for a couple of minutes, but there’d been no answer.

  ‘Mr Harding, we’re not going away,’ Lena said through the letterbox. ‘Open the door. We know you’re in there.’

  Loxton had heard him walk up to the door, probably to take a peek at them through his spyhole. She and the others had stood to the side, so he’d only seen Lena waiting outside, but still he was hesitant.

  ‘We just want to talk to you,’ Lena said in a friendly voice.

  ‘I don’t want to speak to you,’ he said.

  ‘Kevin, we have a warrant,’ Lena said, changing tact. ‘You need to let us in or we’ll break down this door.’

  Loxton heard him come to the door, pause for a moment, and then the welcome click of the Chubb lock being undone.

  The group braced themselves for Harding to come out fighting, but he was eerily calm as he opened the door. He was not what she had been expecting. He was physically strong, but she also saw he was controlled and measured in every gesture that he made. He appraised them all in turn, as if sizing up his chances against each one of them. Perhaps he was ex-military, but if he was, how had he ended up as a cleaner?

  ‘We’re going to need to come in and do a search,’ Kowalski said, stepping in front of Loxton and Lena. Kowalski blocked Loxton’s view of Harding. She knew he was only trying to protect her, but it annoyed her all the same. She felt like she was being pushed out of the investigation.

  Harding was startled when he saw Kowalski. ‘What for?’ he asked.

  ‘We’ll explain inside.’ Kowalski moved forward, forcing Harding to step back.

  ‘Fine.’ Harding walked back into the shadows of his flat.

  They all filtered into the living room. Harding kept eyeing Kowalski suspiciously. It was normal for a suspect to take a dislike to a particular officer, to find a home for their agitation, but Harding seemed fixated on Kowalski. Loxton glanced between them. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Harding,’ she said. ‘He’s with us. I’m DC Loxton, this is DC Trawinska, DC Parry, DC Fletcher and he’s DC Kowalski.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’ve brought the muscle,’ he complained. ‘I’m not going to do anything. There doesn’t need to be five of you. What’s all this about anyway?’ He stayed standing, his eyes moving between them all.

  ‘Have you got any ID to confirm you are Kevin Harding?’ she asked.

  He went to a side table and pulled out his driving licence from a wallet. She checked the picture and jotted down the licence number.

  ‘Did you used to work at King’s College Hospital as a cleaner?’ she asked.

  Harding looked irritated suddenly, but also slightly relieved. ‘Yes, but the police have already talked to me about that. I haven’t gone back or spoken to her since I got the first warning. It was a misunderstanding. She made signals and then went weird on me. I left soon after that.’

  ‘Just don’t contact her, Mr Harding,’ Loxton said. ‘That’s all that matters now.’ It was good that he was put at ease, irritated by what he thought was a police bureaucracy oversight, that they were repeating what had already been done. He might be off his guard slightly.

  She scanned the room. It was immaculate. His shoes stored carefully on a shoe rack near the front door. Everything was at right angles. There was no clutter. But what piqued her interest was his book collection. The shelves were neatly lined with books on serial killers. A few were on Edward Barratt. Another name also jumped out at her: Krystian Szyman´ski. She felt her heart beating harder in her chest.

  ‘You’re into your serial killers.’ She kept her voice steady as she nodded at his collection.

  He shrugged and looked at her carefully. ‘I like psychology and I find them fascinating. I did a course on forensic criminality through the Open University.’

  ‘Is that why you’ve been writing to Edward Barratt in prison?’

  For a moment Harding looked nervous, but he had the intelligence to try to hide it. He shrugged at her. ‘He’s never written back. I was hoping he would answer a few questions for an essay I was writing for my course, but he never did. It was a bit naïve of me, really.’

  ‘Tell me about your fascination with Barratt.’ Lena
stepped closer to Harding. ‘Why him?’

  ‘It was just for one of the modules.’ Harding shrugged. ‘I would have preferred to do it on Szyman´ski, but he was murdered in prison a few months ago, and he lived and worked in Poland. I found Barratt through researching Szyman´ski online. Barratt was inspired by Szyman´ski. It’s like a collaboration; when one falls, another takes up the baton.’

  ‘But now Barratt’s in prison, there’s no one to take up the baton anymore, is there?’ Lena said.

  Harding tried to keep his features neutral, but Loxton saw the fire in his eyes for a brief moment. ‘There’ll always be someone to take up the baton. The war’s never over.’

  ‘So who do you think will take on the baton next?’ Lena asked. ‘You?’

  ‘I don’t mean literally.’ He smiled at her. ‘Just figuratively. There’s always another serial killer. It’s just a matter of time. You people will always have a job, don’t worry. Are you going now?’

  Something about Harding’s dead blue eyes sent a cold shiver through Loxton.

  ‘We need to do a search to see if you were involved in trying to break Barratt out of prison recently.’ Loxton produced the Magistrate’s search warrant that they’d obtained on the way to his flat. ‘You were a cleaner on a temporary basis at the time. The court’s given us permission.’

  ‘I only got that job to help with my course. I wasn’t involved in any breakout attempt.’ Harding snatched the copy out of Loxton’s hand. He studied it and then looked back up at her, a scowl on his face. ‘You lot make some real jumps of the imagination, don’t you? Do what you like, you won’t find anything.’ He sat down heavily on the sofa and Loxton was surprised. She’d expected more of a fight.

  ‘I need to search that first before we can just let you sit there.’ Lena moved towards Harding, who looked worried for a moment, but he moved out of her way.

  Suspects often tried to hide things when a search began and Loxton wondered if Harding had left something concealed in the sofa. Loxton caught Lena’s eye, who nodded back and started a thorough search of it. Kowalski stepped forward to help her and after five minutes they finished, having found nothing. Lena motioned for Harding to take a seat.