by ML Rose
Arla shrugged. “I can’t see why. This is the car of a well-known film director. It’s hard to think why he would be involved in terrorism. Also, there was no loss of life. This appears to be a police crime issue.”
Murdoch nodded. “Going after one person is not the hallmark of a terrorist.”
They discussed the case for a while longer, then the counterterrorism officers bid their goodbyes. Arla pointed to the remains of the car. “Is Explosive Ordinance on their way?”
Inspector Stevens nodded. “Yes, I’ve called them. Their lab is waiting for the samples. Hopefully that’ll give us some clues as to the nature of the device.”
*****
Clapham Common lay on the left of the road and smaller, separated parklands to the right. Rhys Mason had parked his black Honda Accord a couple of blocks down in a lay-by, then jogged back into the Common. He was now securely hidden in the undergrowth, watching the police cars parked on the road.
He could see the pregnant police officer inspecting the wreckage. More officers appeared, and they had an animated discussion, no doubt wondering about how the explosion occurred. Rhys smiled. Jeremy got lucky this time. There was enough explosive in the device to blow up the whole car, but for some reason, it didn’t ignite. Well, this was just the beginning.
There was a long, long way to go, and by the end of it Rebecca would be begging him for forgiveness. Unless they were dead, of course, and what a shame that would be! The only problem was the police, who would now be suspicious of someone stalking the family. Rhys had tipped his hand, and in the process, raised the stakes. He watched the female police officer closely. Although she was pregnant, she was obviously the person in charge. Officers ran up to her and took orders. She had an unmistakable air of authority and Rhys knew she was a person who could become a thorn in his side. He had followed her back to Clapham Station and already unearthed newspaper clippings about some of her previous exploits.
“Detective Inspector Arla Baker,” he whispered to himself. “Stand in my way, and I’ll take you down.”
Rhys felt his phone buzz in his breast pocket. He looked around him quickly, making sure he was alone. In the deep silence of the Common, not even an insect stirred. He answered.
“Are you okay, my love?” a female voice asked, slightly breathless. Rhys recognised the anxiety in her tone and spoke quickly to reassure her.
“I’m totally fine. But it didn’t go as planned.”
“As long as you’re all right, I don’t care about the rest. But tell me what happened.”
Rhys spoke, and she listened in silence.
“The police will be on your case now. I’m worried,” she finally replied.
“The police have been on my case since yesterday. I jogged past that spot, and a stupid copper actually stared at me. If only the idiot knew who I was.”
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. “No, Rhys. You need to stop this. Taking these risks will get you caught.”
“Don’t worry,” Rhys said soothingly. “The coppers don’t know where to start looking. They’ve got nothing on me.”
There was silence for a short while, then she spoke again. Her voice was almost a whisper. “Be careful, Rhys. Please.”
Rhys gripped the phone harder, pressing it to his ear. “I will. But also remember what the end goal is. I will not be deflected from my aim.”
The woman’s voice was sad and low. “Your aim is happiness, Rhys. Isn’t that more important than anything else?”
“Yes, it is. But we also have to be free. You understand, don’t you?” He held his breath, closed his eyes.
“Of course I do, darling. As long as you look after yourself.”
Rhys chuckled, hiding his relief. “I am, don’t worry. The countdown has started.”
“The final countdown. You used to listen to that song so much.”
“Yes,” he said, grinning against the receiver. “I did. And I still do.”
CHAPTER 33
Arla stood next to the whiteboard in Major Incident Room One and stared at the three rows of expectant faces looking up at her.
“What we have seen today represents an escalation in what I think is a series of attacks on the Stone family.”
She took up a marker pen and tapped on the photo of a smiling Rebecca holding her baby and then a close-up of the baby’s face. Both photos were stuck next to each other, followed by another photo of the crime scene where Reggie was found.
“I think it is now safe to assume that the abduction and subsequent death of baby Reggie fits a pattern. Rebecca has been harassed extensively on her Instagram feed by an account called The Final Countdown.” She half-turned, where Lisa and Roslyn stood to her right. Lisa stepped forward and read from a piece of paper.
“There are a couple of other accounts on Facebook and Twitter which post similar derogatory messages about baby Reggie and Rebecca’s motherhood. In fact, on Facebook, one account goes back almost three years. The messages are rude, negative, and amount to cyber-bullying. They comment on Rebecca’s weight, how she’s a cruel and unforgiving person, and how she got married to Jeremy because she’s a gold-digger.”
“Blimey,” Justin said from the front row. “And do we know the identity of these accounts?”
“Anyone with Internet access and an email account can open a Facebook account. John is chasing them up at the moment,” Arla said, indicating the cyber expert sitting in the second row.
“Ah, um, yes,” John mumbled, then wiped the sweat off his forehead. “It’s all about getting the IP addresses from where these accounts were opened. I have now looked at all the accounts, and they belong to different IPs, and all originate from untraceable VPNs.”
Arla shook her head in frustration. “Have we contacted the social media companies? They should have some details on the identities.”
“We can try, but unfortunately it’s very easy to hide your true identity online. However, I have noticed that all of the accounts that bully Rebecca Stone use a VPN. The location of a VPN can change, but I’m trying to see if there’s a pattern. If I find anything, I’ll let you know.”
Sergeant Smith, one of the new detectives, raised his hand. “Celebrities often have trolls on their social media accounts. Rebecca Stone has more than a million Instagram followers. Some of them are bound to post negative comments. Is it worth the time and money to chase them up?”
“Good point, Smith. But this is not just any troll. These people are posting deeply personal comments, not just about her but about her new baby as well. Many of the comments are frankly threatening.”
Harry cleared his throat. “Which brings to mind why Rebecca has never reported them.”
Smith said, “Maybe she’s just used to them, or perhaps like most of the Instagram celebrities I follow, she hardly ever bothers to check her posts.”
“Maybe.” Arla puckered her lips and drew them inwards. “But we must ask Rebecca about this. Maybe there’s something in her past we don’t know about.”
Arla turned to her team. Roslyn nodded and stepped forward. “Celebrities often announce their relationships online. Having been through Rebecca’s social media accounts with two of our researchers, I can confirm that she had at least one relationship whose photos she removed from her social media accounts.”
Arla frowned. “Really? How do you know they were deleted?”
“Four years ago, several of her followers had posted, congratulating her on how she looked with her new date. They even used a name. Rhys. We only know the first name. But it seems Rebecca has deleted all photos of her and Rhys.”
Roslyn continued. “Exactly eighteen months later, she gets engaged to Jeremy Stone. Those photos are all present on her accounts.”
Lisa spoke up. “The abusive messages on her accounts started around that time too. The researchers found two accounts on her Facebook, and one on Twitter.” She gestured towards Arla. “And you found one on her Instagram account.”
&nbs
p; “So four in total,” Arla said. “Can we find out more about this Rhys character? Check all the newspapers and tabloids. There might be some photos or a news clip in the gossip columns. He might not be famous himself, but dating Rebecca would get him attention.”
“If only we had his last name, then we could search for him on social media,” Rob said. “I’ll get the researchers to look for media articles on Rebecca’s love life.” He turned to the table next to him and picked up the phone receiver.
“Excellent,” Arla said, rubbing her hands. She felt a warmth in the pit of her stomach, and her instincts were ringing like a klaxon alarm. She had something here finally, something concrete. Maybe she was assuming some of it, but with experience, she had also learnt not to ignore her sharply honed instincts.
“And we have the explosion this evening. I know it’s premature, but any news from Explosives Ordinance?”
Parmentier spoke up. “Not yet. But my team have been collecting samples as well. We did a mass spectrometry of the debris from inside the exhaust pipe. One molecule spikes high on the spectrometer frequency. It’s a chemical called TATP. It’s frequently used in nail polish, so obviously has no business inside an exhaust pipe. However, TATP is often used by terrorists to make an explosive device.”
Silence followed Parmentier’s remark. Several faces looked at each other and Arla frowned, looking at Harry. Then she glanced at her team. “The Stone family and Rebecca have no connections with terrorism, do they?”
Harry answered for them. He shook his head firmly. “No, there’s no political angle here. This was a homegrown device, designed for personal use. If it was a terrorist, they would have chosen a packed bus or Tube train. Targeting one person is of no use to a terrorist.”
“Good point, Harry.” Arla turned back towards Parmentier. “Can we get anything more from the TATP samples?”
“Unfortunately no,” Parmentier said. “Nail polish is widely available, and even though someone has to buy large amounts and stock them, they could buy them from different stores, over a period of time, so they don’t get noticed. Or even by mail-order from foreign countries.”
Arla slapped her palm against her thigh and sat down on the chair. She hated blind ends. Her mind raced around in loops and convolutions, synapses triggering and firing in her brain. She touched her temples and closed her eyes briefly.
“The priority now is to find who this Rhys person is. We need an answer in a couple of hours and then start to track him down.”
Rob said, “The researchers are on it already, guv. I will let you know.”
“Good.” Arla turned to Parmentier. “Anything more from the crime scene where we found baby Reggie? You were looking at the plastic packets from the company called Refresh?”
“Nothing.”
“What about the boot prints? Did Mary Atkins get back to you?” Arla lifted her neck, looking around the room. Mary should have been here, and she was annoyed at the woman’s absence. Apparently, she was busy with another case, as forensic gait analysts were precious people, their expertise shared over all six police stations in the borough.
“The boot prints of Roslyn, Harry, and three uniformed officers have been cleared. The only print that she can’t find a match for is the other large, male boot print.”
Arla frowned, tapping her cheek. “Did she mention any similarities between the boot print found in the Stone residence window and the one at the crime scene?”
“Yes, they are of a similar size, but she’s still running her gait analysis software on both of them.”
Arla opened her mouth to say something but the incident room door was flung open and the mountainlike form of Wayne Johnson entered. He glared at everyone in the room, his eyes falling lastly on Arla. He slammed the door shut, the sound loud in the sudden silence. His nostrils were flaring and his lips were bared, white with fury.
“The media have turned up at Jeremy Stone’s house. Who leaked the news?”
CHAPTER 34
Rebecca lay on her bed, curled up like a foetus. Tears seeped out from the corners of her eyes, soaking into the bedsheets. A black weight was pressing down on her, smothering her from above, like a malevolent cocoon. She was a prisoner inside it, and couldn’t break free. The buzzing inside her head was ever-present, a dim hum at the best of times, but now more like a swarm of hornets, stinging her skull. She had no strength to move her fingers, lift her head. At times, it seemed she was incapable of thought.
From the recesses of her memory, Rhys Mason’s smiling, evil face reappeared. He was following her around. She was trying to ignore the truth, but she couldn’t anymore.
She had always known he was mentally unstable. True, he loved her with a passion no man had done before. Their sex life had been incredible and Rhys had made her feel like the most desired woman on earth. He showered her with gifts, too. But at the slightest indication she was being friendly with another man, he would fly into a fit of rage. Once, he almost hit one of her co-actors on the set of Chelsea Town Life. When they got home that evening, they had a blazing row and he smashed a chair over the table. He pushed her into the sofa, and as he towered above her, fists bunched, eyes wild and crazed, she had known their relationship was over. Because it wasn’t the first time.
Over the ten months of their relationship, Rhys veered from being loving and caring to a demonic monster who could beat the shit out of her. He had been in the army and was tall and strong. She knew he had issues from his childhood, and had once intimated to her that he had been abused. But he wouldn’t say by whom, or how.
After one of his fits of fury, he had broken down and begged her for forgiveness. She felt his childhood problems had shaped his current personality and each time, she had taken him back. But that evening, she knew there was no going back. Rhys would never change, which was exactly what he vowed to do every time he lost it. Every time he wept and begged her for forgiveness. But she knew better. She did feel sorry for him, but he needed a doctor’s help, something she couldn’t provide.
He cleared out his stuff from her apartment when he realised she was serious. And then the visits started.
She would come home from work and find him standing outside. He would be there at her workplace in the morning, just to see her and make sure that she was all right. He called her day and night. When she threatened him with reporting him to the police, he stopped. A restraining order meant a criminal record, and Rhys was clever enough to avoid that.
That was when she noticed the abusive trolls appearing on her social media feeds. She could never prove it, but she suspected it was him.
And now, he was back again. He had taken Reggie, she knew it. She had no idea how he got in, but Rhys was nothing but if not resourceful. From his time in the army, he had learned many skills, including, he would boast, how to break into any property and how to make bombs. She shivered. She had no doubt Rhys was behind the explosion in Jeremy’s car. It was pure luck that Jeremy was still alive.
Her phone buzzed as it got a new message. She ignored it, but it kept buzzing. She lifted her head and the room tilted, then spun around her. She felt dizzy again and lay back down.
Groaning, she moved to her back and lifted the phone. Her eyes bulged in shock as the breath froze in her chest. A whiplash of fear lashed down her spine, dispelling the fog from her brain. She lifted herself on one elbow, wide eyes fixed on the phone.
The screen showed a countdown, the numbers disappearing, and then an explosion. The loop kept repeating itself, but the message that followed was even more disturbing. It was a video of the song, “The Final Countdown.” It had been one of Rhys’s favourite songs and he played it often. In happier days, they danced around to it. He said when they got married it would be their first dance as husband and wife. Message after message followed, all of the countdown GIF and the explosion.
Rebecca felt sick. Bile rose up in her mouth as she scrambled out of bed. There was a knock on her door and Jeremy appeared. His glasses were rai
sed on his head and a heavy scowl creased his face.
“Have you seen my uncle’s memorabilia? All the stuff that was in the museum.” The museum was a room where Jeremy kept things Grant Stone had once used—clothes from a performance, signed books, and records.
Jeremy caught the stunned look on Rebecca’s face. “What’s the matter?” he asked, coming forward.
Rebecca shoved the phone in her jeans pocket and stood. “Nothing,” she said briskly. “I haven’t seen your uncle’s stuff. What happened to it?”
She walked out into the circular hallway and Jeremy followed. “That’s just the point. It’s all gone.”
Rebecca turned around, an emptiness spreading inside her chest, numbing her body. “Gone?” she whispered.
“Yes, all gone. I hadn’t checked on it the last couple of days and this morning I saw the door handle missing. The room was empty.”
Rebecca touched her forehead, feeling faint again.
“This is ridiculous,” Jeremy said in a tight voice. “This had to be the intruder who came in yesterday. But how could he have taken it all?”
Their eyes met and both knew they were thinking the same thing. Jeremy whispered, “Unless he came again. Last night.”
“I need to check if the cameras were working,” Jeremy said, running a hand over his balding scalp. “How could he even dare to—”
Rebecca interrupted him. “We don’t know yet. He could have taken it all yesterday.”
Jeremy frowned at her. “Maybe there was more than one person? That makes sense. Two people could take all my uncle’s stuff and Reggie too.”
His voice broke as his eyes closed and his head hung down. He leaned against the wall. Rebecca reached out and touched his shoulder. The tears threatened again, and she was so tired of them. She was tired of crying, of wishing she were dead, not her baby boy. Before she could say anything, a voice floated up from downstairs.