‘Did you notice anything strange about his behaviour around this time?’
She pulled a face. ‘Are you kidding? Business going up the Swannee, marriage going down the toilet? Yes, he was pretty strange. But do I think he was out killing women with some nutter he knew from work? No, that’s mad.’
There was a real danger they were going to end up going round in circles without making any progress. ‘What happened when you divorced?’
She dropped her gaze for a moment. ‘He walked out.’ She continued to stare at the carpet. ‘I came back from Sainsbury’s one day and he’d gone. Just left a note saying he needed time to get his head together. And that was it: I never heard from him again.’
‘Did you try and contact him?’
‘I tried phoning him, but there was never an answer. None of his friends knew where he was, and what family he had left had had no contact with him for years. Eventually I received confirmation from my solicitor that he wasn’t contesting the divorce and I could keep the house.’
‘Didn’t your solicitor know where he was?’
‘Apparently not. He dealt with Dan’s solicitor and that was that. There was no suggestion of us meeting up. It was all done through third parties. We’d already transferred the deeds of the property into my name in case Dan were to be made bankrupt, so there wasn’t too much left to discuss.’ She smiled at Denning. ‘That was the final contact I had with him, albeit indirectly.’
‘So you’ve heard nothing from him in ten years?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing. Not a card, not a phone call.’
Denning glanced round the spacious living room. ‘Do you have any photographs of Daniel?’
She shook her head again. ‘I chucked them all after he left. In fact I got rid of everything of his: clothes, golf clubs, anything that reminded me of him. I even had the house redecorated from top to bottom. I wanted him deleted from my life entirely.’
‘I know this might seem like a strange question, Ms Patterson, but was your husband religious at all?’
She offered him a curious look. ‘Yes. Well, his mother was. Devoutly. Dan was more lapsed, though he did go to church when we were first married. Is that relevant?’
Denning wasn’t sure yet. He stood up to leave. ‘One last thing, Ms Patterson: what do you think happened to your ex-husband?’
She gave him a thoughtful look. The smiles that had greeted Denning on his arrival had vanished now, replaced with a slight creasing in the forehead and a stony expression. ‘If you want my honest opinion, Inspector, he topped himself. I mean, it’s the only explanation.’
Chapter Sixty-Three
‘What happened to your face?’ Denning asked.
Molly put a hand to her cheek, wincing as a stab of pain bit into her. She’d forgotten about the bruise.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I had an accident, that’s all.’ She was aware that she sounded defensive, probably making him jump to all sorts of conclusions. But she didn’t really care.
Denning was about to lead another briefing. The MIT suite gradually began to fill up with detectives.
Molly sat at her desk at the back of the vast room. She felt like she was on the periphery of the action; still an observer or at best, a bit-part player rather than one of the team.
‘What the score with Daniel Placzek?’ Dave Kinsella asked before Denning had even had even started the briefing.
‘He’s dead,’ Denning said abruptly. He waited until the room fell silent before he continued. ‘Or at least that’s what his ex-wife believes.’
‘Do we have any way of proving that?’ Kinsella asked.
‘Unless we chance upon his corpse, Dave, then no, at this stage we can’t prove it. His wife seems to think he topped himself after his business and his marriage both went tits up at the same time.’
‘Does that mean we’re ruling Placzek out of this?’ Ryan Cormack asked.
‘We can’t regard him as a suspect if he’s dead,’ Kinsella said abruptly.
‘Until we know for certain, Ryan, no, we’re not ruling him out; at least not officially.’
Molly could sense the tension in Denning’s voice. Up until now she’d kept quiet. She still wasn’t sure there was anything in her theory about Lance Grady; she didn’t want to open her mouth and make a fool of herself until she was one hundred per cent sure of her facts. However, Deepak Neeraj wasn’t going to give her the luxury of choosing her moment.
‘I believe DS Fisher has something to say,’ he said.
All eyes in the room swung towards Molly.
‘It might be nothing.’ She took a deep breath and told them about her visit to Foresham Grove and the empty house.
‘Lance Grady?’ Denning screwed his face up. ‘Have you run the name through the PNC?’
She looked sheepish. ‘Yes. There’s nothing. And according to the electoral roll, there’s no one registered at that address.’
‘Sounds like a made-up name,’ said Neeraj.
‘But at least it’s a name.’ Denning seemed to give the matter some thought. ‘You’re sure the house is empty?’
‘It didn’t look like anyone lives there, but I couldn’t swear to it.’
Denning nodded. ‘OK. Let me know the minute the estate agents send you through their file on this Lance Grady. Also, if the place is unoccupied, let’s get hold of a set of keys and have a good look inside the house. It may throw up something.’
Denning scribbled the name ‘Lance Grady’ on the whiteboard.
‘Are we sure this bloke’s a suspect?’ Neeraj asked. ‘DS Fisher said the house was empty. It’s possible he just uses it as a London address.’
‘It looked empty,’ Molly said. She avoided Denning’s eye when she spoke. ‘That doesn’t mean he isn’t living there.’
‘And he lets his mail pile up behind the front door?’ said Neeraj.
‘So he hasn’t been there for a while,’ Trudi butted in, ‘doesn’t mean he wasn’t living there at the time of the murders.’
‘OK,’ said Denning, ‘until we know otherwise, Lance Grady stays on the board.’
Chapter Sixty-Four
Half an hour later, Denning was walking past Molly’s desk when she grabbed him.
‘Lance Grady checks out,’ she said. ‘He’s based in Bahrain and works for an engineering company. But he does visit the UK from time-to-time.’
She showed Denning the scanned paperwork from Grady’s file, which had been emailed through less than ten minutes ago and now formed a neat pile on her desk. There was a photocopy of his passport, proving he was who he claimed to be, as well a copy of his references from both his bank and his employer.
‘Do we have any contact details for him?’ Denning asked.
‘There’s a phone number,’ she said, flicking through the paperwork, ‘and an email address for the company he works for.’
‘Get hold of him. Ask him if he knows the name Daniel Placzek,’ Denning said. ‘It’s a long shot, I know, but let’s make sure we cover all our bets before we officially write Placzek off as a dead end.’ Denning thought about Ken Walters. He didn’t want any unanswered questions lingering over this investigation only to blow up in his face a decade down the line.
He looked at Molly. She was rubbing a hand over her forehead. She looked tired. They all looked tired: hot and tired.
Denning headed back to his desk. He was struggling to hide his frustration. Not only had the PNC failed to throw up anything useful regarding Daniel Placzek, but none of the utility companies had any record of a Daniel Placzek for the past ten years. The DVLA had confirmed that their records for him had ended around the same time. It looked like Angela Patterson had been right: Daniel Placzek was dead.
But despite this, Denning still wasn’t entirely convinced.
It wasn’t unheard of for people to disappear completely: to top themselves in some obscure location, lying undiscovered for years, sometimes forever. If Placzek had been Ferguson’s accomplice then it was po
ssible he’d killed himself shortly after Ferguson was caught. It made sense. He would have been constantly looking over his shoulder, counting down the days until there was a knock at his door followed by some awkward questions. Ferguson’s arrest combined with his ongoing business and personal problems would have been enough to push him over the edge.
However, no body had ever been found. He’d checked the PNC for a list of unidentified bodies that had been discovered over the past decade and none of them fitted the description of Daniel Placzek. But to disappear so completely, without leaving any kind of trace, just felt too convenient: too neat. According to Angela Patterson, Placzek hadn’t left a suicide note, simply telling her he needed time to get his head together. Again, this wasn’t unheard of for suicides; sometimes the act was spontaneous and unplanned. But it was unusual, and taken together with everything else, Denning couldn’t help wondering if Daniel Placzek was still alive.
He was about to shut down his computer for the night and head home, when the phone on his desk rang.
‘DI Denning.’
‘Front desk here, sir. There’s a woman downstairs who says she needs to speak to you.’
Denning sighed. It was late and he was tired. ‘Can someone take a statement from her?’
‘She’s says it’s to do with the murders. She says her name’s Magda Kilbride and she has some information about one of your officers.’
Chapter Sixty-Five
The following morning Molly arrived at work with a numbing headache. She’d already taken two paracetamol, which had so far failed to kick in. She hadn’t even had a chance to switch on her computer when Deep Neeraj appeared beside her desk with the news that Denning and McKenna wanted to see her in McKenna’s office.
She knocked on Betty Taggart’s door and entered.
McKenna was sitting behind her desk. Her face was inscrutable, as always. Denning was sitting on her right. It all looked terribly formal. She had a feeling in the pit of stomach that she knew what this was about. She hoped she was wrong.
‘Sit down, Molly,’ McKenna said. Her voice was cool and impassive, like a lady vicar at a summer tea party. ‘First of all, I’d like to say you’ve been a major help with this murder inquiry, and we’re very grateful for your input.’ McKenna sat back, folding her arms in front of her chest. ‘If you hadn’t flagged up the link to the Anthony Ferguson murders, we’d probably still be playing blind man’s buff with these recent murders. As it is, we now have a solid lead, and it’s only a matter of time before we catch the man responsible.’ She paused, letting the words sink in before she continued. ‘Remind me again why you took such an interest in this case in the first place.’
Molly tried to make eye contact, but instead focused on a dead cyclamen on top of a filing cabinet. ‘I’ve always wanted to join MIT. I’ve never made any secret of that.’
‘Hmm.’ McKenna nodded slowly. Denning remained silent. ‘I don’t doubt that. So many detectives see MIT as sexy, or at least beneficial to their long-term career. And then some of us fall into it almost by accident.’ She unfolded her arms and leant forward over the desk. ‘And then there’s you.’ She let a silence fall. ‘The Bermondsey Ripper case was more than just a link to the present day murders for you, wasn’t it?’
Molly felt her heart thudding in her chest, but she was determined to brazen it out for as long as she could. If this was the end, she was damned sure she’d go down fighting. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She looked at McKenna and then at Denning. Denning refused to give her eye contact, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on McKenna.
‘Rebecca Owen,’ McKenna said. ‘She was Anthony Ferguson’s last victim.’ McKenna waited until her words had sunk in. If she was hoping for a reaction, Molly was determined not to give one. ‘She was killed shortly after leaving a nightclub in Brixton almost exactly twelve years ago to the day Leanne Wyatt’s body was found,’ McKenna continued. ‘And she was your best friend. You were with her the night she was killed. You left her outside the club and took a taxi home. Rebecca subsequently came into contact with Anthony Ferguson and his accomplice and they killed her.’
‘Sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘It’s all in the witness statements, Molly.’ It was Denning’s turn to speak. Like McKenna’s, his voice was cool and dispassionate. ‘It took me a bit of time to confirm the details because you were Margaret Milne then. I had to do some digging, but I can confirm that Margaret Milne and Molly Fisher are the same person.’
Molly tried to read his face but it gave nothing away. Her headache had just got a lot worse. After a moment she spoke. ‘Fisher is my stepfather’s name. I started using it when I moved back from Australia ten years ago.’ Her throat was dry and scratchy. ‘My brother couldn’t say “Maggie” when he was little: he always called me Molly and it just stuck. I’ve always been known as Molly.’
‘I think you’re missing the point,’ McKenna said calmly. ‘We’re not too bothered about what you call yourself. I’m more concerned about the fact that you failed to disclose your connection to the earlier murder inquiry.’
‘Magda Kilbride.’ She continued to look at them. They didn’t need to say anything; she knew who’d spoken to them, and why. ‘She’s a fantasist. She just wants to cause trouble.’
‘Again,’ said McKenna slowly and deliberately as though talking to a child, ‘I think you’re missing the point.’
‘We’ve looked into what she told us,’ said Denning. ‘And whilst I don’t doubt she may well have an agenda, we now know what she’s told us is true.’
Another silence hung in the air like a bad fart. Molly knew it was her turn to say something. She should offer up her side of the story, but she wasn’t even sure what that was. What could she tell them? That she’d had a breakdown after Bex’s death? That she’d blamed herself; run away to Australia to stay with a father she barely knew? That she’d tried hard to block it all from her mind for the past twelve years, only for it to bubble back to the surface the minute another young girl had been found murdered in circumstances that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to Bex’s?
‘I’m a good detective,’ she said. There was a ball of something hard and uncomfortable stuck in her throat. ‘I didn’t tell you about Bex because I didn’t think it was relevant.’ She looked imploringly at her senior officers. McKenna was tight-lipped with a face carved from flint. Molly thought Denning was looking pityingly at her, as though he felt the need to apologise on her behalf.
‘I’m afraid that won’t cut it.’ McKenna’s ice-cool voice again. She fixed Molly with a look that seemed to burrow into her soul and linger there like a stab wound. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to return to regular CID. Your secondment here was only ever intended to be temporary so it’s not as if there will be any loss of face. We’ll tell your DCI you’re no longer needed on the case, now that we have a tangible lead.’ She leaned in closer until Molly could smell her coffee breath – coffee laced with something sweet. ‘This isn’t a major fuck-up, but with the press crawling all over this case like the maggots they are, especially this Magda woman, I can’t risk any more stories getting out there.’ She offered an attempt at a smile which failed to travel from her lips to her eyes. ‘Maybe you should take the rest of the day off? You’ve already put in some serious hours on this case.’
Molly opened her mouth to speak. She knew she had to say something to try and save face. ‘I want to stay around. I can still help.’ She looked at Denning. ‘The house on Foresham Grove: it could throw up something useful.’
McKenna folded her arms across her chest. ‘Go home, DS Fisher. You’re now officially off the case.’
Chapter Sixty-Six
Molly logged off her computer and grabbed her bag. She told Trudi she was going home because she had a splitting headache, which wasn’t a million miles from the truth.
Just as she reached the lift, Denning caught up with her.
‘Molly, I’m sorry about what happened
in there. You know I had no option but to go to DCI McKenna.’
Molly pressed the button for the ground floor. ‘Don’t blame yourself.’ She turned to face the lift doors, willing them to open.
‘I meant it when I said I appreciate your input with this case. But you’ve got to see that there’s no way we could let you stay on the team. You’re personally involved. And if this Magda woman is out to get you, then that’s going to be a serious distraction.’
‘You didn’t have to listen to her,’ she said. ‘Mags, I mean: you could have told her to piss off.’
‘On the other hand, you could have been honest with me from the start.’
‘Would it have made any difference?’
There was a beat before he answered. ‘I don’t know. Maybe we could have worked around it.’
The lift arrived; the doors glided open and a couple of MIT detectives whose names Molly couldn’t remember brushed past them and disappeared into the MIT suite. Just as she was about to step forward and enter the lift, Denning placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘You can always reapply. When this is all over and things have settled down, you can put in an official transfer request to MIT. I’m sure your application will be looked on favourably.’
She entered the lift and pressed the button for the ground floor. ‘At least think about it,’ she heard Denning say as the lift doors slid shut. By the time the lift had reached the ground floor she’d already drafted a resignation letter in her head.
* * *
Half an hour later she let herself into Jon’s house. The curtains were still drawn, in a vain attempt to keep the out the day’s heat. Jon was in the sitting room, listening to The Clash on his stereo system. She’d heard it as soon as she’d walked up the front path.
He switched it off as soon as he saw Molly standing in the doorway.
‘Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.’ He stretched his arms out to give her a hug, but changed his mind and let them hang by his side instead. ‘How are you?’
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