‘No, it’s not. Don’t blame yourself. Look, I’ve got to go. Don’t go anywhere tonight. Where are you? At home?’
‘No, I’m at a friend’s. After this afternoon, I couldn’t face being alone in my flat with Paul working all night.’
‘I don’t blame you. Stay put. I’ll keep you informed.’
‘Just one thing,’ Maddy managed to get in before Carver hung up. ‘I’m guessing it was “EU” on her chest?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay. Thank you. I won’t hold you up any longer.’
The line went dead – exactly how Maddy felt inside.
***
Maddy spent the next thirty minutes on the phone to her grandmother and Paul. She needed to make sure they were both okay, her paranoia intensified by this latest tragedy. She didn’t tell Rose about Atticus, or Bethany. She didn’t want to spoil her New Year. It could wait until tomorrow.
Although the background noise at the bar was deafening, she’d managed a fifteen-minute conversation with Paul, thankful that he too was safe, and comforted by his calming assurances not to worry. In the morning, he’d come get her and they’d go home together.
The rest of the evening passed in a haze, Maddy’s already deflated party mood reduced to nothing. She drank to numb her fear rather than celebrate the New Year, and by eleven she’d fallen asleep on Cara’s spare bed, unable to welcome the start of 2015 when all she found herself doing was dreading the misery it might bring.
***
‘We believe the killer set off the bomb remotely,’ Dominic Avery, the crime scene manager, explained to Carver as around half a dozen CSOs worked around them. ‘The device was attached to the base of the bed.’
Carver cast his eyes around Bethany Williams’ bedroom. The air was smoky, thick with dust and fumes, the walls stained black. ‘What’s your initial thinking?’ he asked Grayson, who was bent over the body.
‘My initial thinking is that she was alive when the killer carved into her chest. Looking at the neck and upper body, there are no signs of strangulation, or gunshot wounds that would have been fatal. And no lethal cuts to the abdomen or jugular.’
‘Might she have died of a heart attack from the pain?’
‘It’s possible, but unlikely. Eventually, if there’d been no bomb, she would have bled to death of course. But come and see this.’ He motioned for Carver to join him on the right side of the trashed bed, then bent down once again over Bethany. ‘See this small wound here?’ He pointed his index finger to a minor wound on the side of Bethany’s left breast.
‘Yes.’
‘It looks like a needle incision. A fairly fresh one.’
‘He injected her?’
‘Quite possibly. With an anaesthetic.’
‘Why bother?’
‘Part of his sick game, no doubt. Once we bag up the body and perform a post-mortem, we’ll know more.’
‘Okay, thanks, Dr Grayson.’ Carver was about to call Drake when his phone buzzed. He fished it out and saw that he had a text. From a number he didn’t recognise.
He opened it up and stared at the message:
Sorry, I win, you lose. Again. Maybe you’ll have better luck next time. Happy New Year, DCI Carver.
Carver’s blood boiled. How the hell did the killer know his mobile number?
Chapter Thirty-One
A few hours before
Elizabeth Stirling studied her husband sitting across from her at the head of the dining table. It had just gone nine on New Year’s Eve, and there were at least another three tiresome hours to get through.
She had to admit – he looked incredibly handsome in his black tux, clean-shaven, hair perfectly combed, flashing his famous smile at their dinner guests, the lot of them reminiscing about the good old days at Oxford, the unacceptable state of British politics, the unpredictable economy, the destructive effect of religious extremism, the latest legal developments …
Yawn, yawn, yawn. Elizabeth thought she might die of boredom. She chucked back her red wine in an attempt to block out the monotony of it all.
She didn’t much like any of their guests – all wielding massive egos, authorities on everything from famine in Africa to world peace, deeply snobby and totally out of touch with the real world.
But unfortunately for Elizabeth, it had become something of a tradition for them to convene every year for dinner on New Year’s Eve. Each couple took it in turn to host. This year, the burden had fallen on the Stirlings.
Lately, her philandering husband had been acting more suspiciously than usual. Although it was the Christmas break, she’d seen even less of him than she did during term time. No doubt spending the time screwing one of his trollops. Although, having said that, he definitely seemed bothered by something. Even with his dragon of a mother, he’d been short-tempered and unresponsive when she’d come over for Christmas lunch.
Something told her his preoccupied state was related to the murders, her hunch fortified by his strange behaviour earlier that evening.
He’d gone out just after 2 pm, claiming he needed some exercise after all the Christmas excess. But when he returned home around 5.30, far from looking refreshed by his walk, he’d looked harassed. He’d avoided all eye contact with her, and barely spoke.
And then later, when they’d both been in the kitchen, arguing over which reds to put out on the table, he’d become noticeably anxious. The radio had been on, and they’d listened to the news of some girl’s murder. She’d watched her husband go pale, before excusing himself to go to the bathroom. She’d followed him on tiptoe, put her ear to the door, heard him throw up. She’d realised then, without question, that the girl had meant something to him, and it had made her loathe him more.
Elizabeth didn’t much like herself for it, but she found herself enjoying her husband’s discomfort. And as she sat at the dining table and thought about what she’d popped in the post that morning to DCI Carver, it brought a smile to her face despite the dreary company.
She couldn’t wait to see her husband’s expression when the police came knocking. She still didn’t think him capable of murder, but it was fun to try and make the police think that he was.
***
Friday, 2 January 2015
Carver took the small jiffy bag from the postboy and looked at it curiously. He’d barely slept in seventy-two hours, existing on coffee and Pro Plus in the day, and consequently too wired to sleep at night. It was a vicious cycle. He could feel the weight of the bags under his slitty eyes, while every muscle in his body ached as if he’d run a marathon.
Tonight, he’d pop a pill. It was the only way. Without rest, he was no good to anyone. He’d go insane if he didn’t shut his mind off from the case that was consuming his brain every waking hour of the day. His technical team was having no luck in tracing the text he’d received from the killer – it was likely, they said, that he had used an unregistered pay-as-you-go phone – and that dead end had only added to Carver’s frustration and insomnia.
He ripped open the bag and peered inside. At first, he couldn’t see anything. But then, looking more closely, he realised there was something lodged into the fold at the bottom. He reached down and pulled out a memory stick. There was no accompanying note, just the tiny device.
He looked at the handwritten scrawl on the envelope. Black ink, slanting, spidery, it was hard to tell if it was a man’s or a woman’s. Although the artistic nature of it made him veer towards it being female.
He was almost certain the killer hadn’t sent the package, having typed every letter so far. Serial killers were creatures of habit: it would be both illogical and out of character to change the pattern now. More importantly, handwriting could be traced. The killer was too clever to take a chance like that.
Carver inserted the memory stick into his computer. After a few seconds, what then appeared on the screen shocked him to the core. It was Stirling. Lying on a bed, a young blonde straddling his torso, frantically screaming his name as she jigged
up and down. It looked like they were in some cheap hotel room. The carpet was a drab dirty beige, the walls decorated with hideous brown and orange wallpaper, while the shoddy nylon curtains barely covered the window. It was the ultimate cliché.
The girl was probably in her early to mid twenties, her long hair sheathing her back. Stirling’s eyes were fixed on her breasts, which he fondled keenly. Carver couldn’t quite make out the girl’s face, and then, almost like she knew she was being watched, although he suspected she didn’t, she turned her head towards the camera. Carver sat back in surprise. It was the latest victim: Bethany Williams. And the date read October 2006.
Every now and again, Stirling would glance at the camera, his eyes triumphant. It appeared that the twisted prick got a kick out of creating secret porno movies for his private gratification.
Once they’d finished having sex, the footage switched to Stirling with a different girl – young and attractive like Williams. As before, he intermittently glanced in the camera’s direction, the action swelling to a loud climax.
And it kept going. One after the other. Occasionally, Stirling and the women engaged in kinky sex games. Carver had suspected Stirling was a sex addict, but he hadn’t expected it to be quite on this scale.
He pressed the fast-forward button, wondering how long it went on for. But then, something caught his eye. It was the Morrell girl, several times, captured in different sexual positions with Stirling. But there was something about the way he looked at her that was different to the others. Almost a look of love. Maybe not love. Perhaps, infatuation? And there were no sex toys involved. Not only that, he tenderly caressed the side of her head as they had sex, something he didn’t do with any of the others. Also allowed the camera to continue filming as they lay in each other’s arms in bed. Sometimes enjoying a cigarette as they listened to classical music at Morrell’s request.
It was clear that she had never been forced into anything. There was nothing timid or self-effacing about her. She knew what she was doing, and she seemed to be enjoying it. Until, that is, it came to a later rendezvous.
The date on the screen read 3rd April 2010. Carver watched as they went at it like rabbits as before. But then something happened that triggered alarm bells. Morrell told Stirling it was over between them, and he didn’t take it well. He struck the back of his hand across her cheek, causing her to fall back onto the bed. She looked both shocked and repulsed, but then gathered herself, threatened to expose him if he did anything to jeopardise her career, before storming out.
There it was. Things had ended badly between them.
It made him wonder. Was Stirling’s violent outburst towards Morrell a one-off, or a facet of his nature he couldn’t contain – and which he also fulfilled and played out with meaningless gratuitous sex, and violent sex games?
Carver carried on watching, wondering if any of the other victims would make an appearance. They had to, surely?
And then Paige Summers came on screen. The sex was less violent. She seemed shyer than the others. It was obvious she’d been infatuated with Stirling, gazing at him with adoring eyes.
And then Carver reached the moment itself. He watched Paige tell Stirling she loved him. He’d coldly rejected her; put his hands around her neck when she’d continued to beg him not to end things. There was a genuine look of hurt on her face as opposed to the anger and revulsion he’d seen on Morrell’s. It was almost pathetic, and he felt sorry for her.
There were many more girls, but neither Emma Marsden nor Lisa Ryland featured. Why was that? Maybe they’d been one-night stands or quickies in his office; who knew? Devereux had certainly been sure that Stirling had only ever had sex with Ryland the one time. Maybe there was another memory stick?
He carried on. Finally, he reached footage of something that knocked him for six. The camera was no longer focussed on some dingy hotel room, but a much more attractively furnished bedroom, with an impressive king-size bed. At the head of it was Stirling. At the foot, was Suzanne Carroll, performing oral sex on him.
Carver cursed under his breath. She’d lied about them only being friends. And now he was certain she’d lied to him about Stirling being with her the night of Lisa Ryland’s murder.
He reluctantly watched the rest of the footage, just to make sure he didn’t miss anything vital. He didn’t. It was more of the same, and he felt sick to the stomach. When he got to the end, he briefed his Chief. Then he assembled his team for an urgent update.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sunday, 4 January 2015
On the first Sunday of the New Year, face hidden behind the latest edition of Esquire, snacking on granary toast and a blueberry smoothie, the killer sat at a table by the window of a popular café on Parsons Green Lane, a respectable, mainly residential, area, situated in the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.
Reports that the latest victim had been pregnant had been slightly disconcerting. It had to have been early days. She hadn’t been showing. The killer took a moment to reflect on whether knowledge of the pregnancy would have made a difference. Probably not. I’ve probably done the child a favour, the killer thought. Saved the poor wretch from entering this sick world, replete with perverts and liars, mothers and fathers who didn’t understand what it meant to be parents, who consciously and persistently neglected their children for the sake of satisfying their own self-serving desires. What kind of a life is that?
The killer continued to sit, observing the next and final victim from afar as she sipped her latte and tucked into her Eggs Florentine; poring over the Sunday Times and its unwieldy supplements like her world depended on it, spectacles perched precariously on the bridge of her unsightly nose as she – every now and again – wiped a smudge of bright yellow yolk from her repellent lips.
Her observer felt like clubbing her to death then and there. The self-important, horse-faced bitch. The killer couldn’t believe she’d ever made partner; she was so needy and obsessed with a man she could never have. Then again, she was only a Trusts partner in some small-time firm in Putney. She hadn’t exactly reached the top of the glamour stakes.
Suzanne Carroll was almost as abhorrent as the first victim. She’d die a fitting death. But not just yet. Not before her two-faced bastard of a lover was behind bars, and her pain would be racked up to the maximum.
***
Carver played back the footage for his team. The room fell silent as it ran. He didn’t play all of it. Focussed on Bethany, Sarah, Paige and Suzanne.
When he’d finished, he pressed Pause. ‘This clearly proves that Stirling has a predisposition towards violence against women, and that he was violent towards at least two of the victims while he was sleeping with them. This, together with his father’s history of domestic abuse, makes him our strongest suspect. The problem is that he has alibis for the nights of Sarah’s and Lisa’s murders – from his wife, and from Suzanne Carroll. Carroll’s alibi is, however, to be treated with caution because, while she categorically denied ever having had a sexual relationship with Stirling, this footage proves otherwise.’
‘Sir, do we know who sent the recording?’ Keel asked.
‘No, we don’t. Although I suspect it could be the wife. She’s made it clear she has no love for her husband, despite providing him with an alibi for Morrell’s murder. I think she may have been toying with him there – setting him up for a fall. She also told us he’s been violent towards her in the past. The question is, do we have enough to bring him in for questioning?’
Just then, Drake, who he’d briefed before, burst in. ‘We do now, sir!’
Carver gave him a puzzled look, also wondering whether his voice was so loud that Drake had heard him through the door. ‘How so?’
‘The forensics report on Williams came back. She had semen in her, and the same DNA was all over her flat.’
Carver’s heart rate gathered speed. ‘Any idea whose?’
‘Stirling’s, sir.’
‘Jesus!’
‘
There’s something else. They checked her phone log and email account. There were numerous emails between her and Stirling, dating all the way back to the summer. And here’s the really interesting part. Williams emailed Stirling around 2 pm on New Year’s Eve, asking him to meet her on Waterloo Bridge at 3 pm.’
‘Really? The post-mortem suggests she died anytime between 4.30 and 5.00. Waterloo Bridge isn’t far from Limehouse. It’s perfectly possible they went straight back to hers. None of the neighbours remember seeing her with another man?’
‘No, sir, afraid not. It was New Year’s Eve. People were either away or already getting hammered.’
‘And her phone? Anything interesting there?’
‘Yes, sir. She sent a text around 4.15 to her best friend, Juliet, saying she thought Stirling was going to kill her.’
***
Sunday, 5 pm. Stirling frantically rummaged through his office drawers. He’d gone in that afternoon mainly to catch up on some paperwork before the start of the spring term.
But also to take his mind off things, and get away from Elizabeth. Although he’d tried not to show it, he’d been devastated by the news of Bethany’s death – devastated and panicked. It was all too creepy, all too unreal. He’d only seen her two days before she died, and he was finally coming to terms with the fact that she’d decided to keep the baby.
She’d been adamant, and after the way he’d treated her, like the way he treated most of them, it wasn’t his place to deny her that choice. Even though, when she’d first told him back in November, the same afternoon Natasha Coleridge was found murdered, he’d tried to convince her otherwise.
But as he’d driven home that afternoon, he’d found himself smiling. Finally, he was going to be a father. He’d deal with Elizabeth finding out if and when the time came, but at that moment he’d felt like the happiest man alive.
So, when Bethany had emailed around 2 pm on New Year’s Eve asking him to meet her urgently on Waterloo Bridge at three, he’d gone without hesitation, fearing something was up with the baby, and giving Elizabeth the excuse that he needed some exercise. He’d wanted to show her that he cared and would be there for her every step of the way.
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