‘Jesus, no!’
‘You’re not lying to me now, George?’
‘That was no lie. There’s no investigation that I’m aware of.’
‘So you were lying earlier.’
‘You didn’t give me much of a choice.’
Emma smiled. She stood up. The coffee flask was down the other end. She filled a cup and gestured at George.
‘Sure, I’ll have a refill.’
‘I didn’t give you much choice, you’re right. Good leaders are transparent, George. I didn’t want you coming up here, snooping through the files and leaving without so much as a word of explanation. I’ve seen that happen before. It sparks speculation. Speculation is always bad.’
‘I’m not sure I’ve put a stop to the speculation, Emma. I don’t think they believed me completely.’
‘I’m sure you’re right. But they will if I back you up. They will believe me. And they’ll help in any way I ask, so that you get what you need.’
‘So you want me to explain the real reason I’m here in exchange for the information I need?’
‘The information is yours. I want you to tell me the real reason you are here out of respect. I want you to consider that you are back in Lennockshire and in your office. Consider that I walk in and ask you for the casefile on your career case. The one that damned near destroyed you, your team and your community. You’d want me to tell you why, right?’
‘I would. I’d insist on it, in fact.’
‘I’ll top up these drinks. You can start whenever you like.’
George took a second. She was as sharp as her suit. George liked her. ‘You should know right from the off that I’m being kept in the dark too. I certainly don’t know everything. I got approached a couple of days back by my boss — who’s a man I know and trust. He tells me to go to the prison to meet with an inmate. There’s no real brief, just that the prisoner has asked to speak to the police. I was also asked to get a feel for him — whatever the hell that meant.’
‘Sounds like a stitch-up already.’
‘Exactly what I thought. The prisoner is Henry Roberts. A real nice fella is Henry. We didn’t get on too well—’
‘He did speak to you then?’
‘He did. It seems there’s something he wants. So now he’ll speak to us. I understand he didn’t speak to your lot at all?’
‘I don’t murder people, I set them free. Eight words I can never forget. It was his immediate reply when he was arrested. The only words he ever uttered. His defence team gave us a few statements that were definitely written by Roberts. It was all religious mumbo jumbo. Some crap about being God’s disciple. They’re all in the file.’
‘He does seem to see himself as very special. But the crux of it is that he is not a well man — physically. He has stage-four cancer somewhere unpleasant. I don’t know the details, but he’s looking at a few weeks, maybe less, before he takes his rightful place in hell. He wants to die somewhere other than a Category A prison. Now, at this point you need to promise that you will stay calm. I’m just the messenger.’
Emma slopped the cups down on the table. She turned away from George to the window and pushed her fists tightly into the small of her back. ‘Go on.’
‘He wants a sea view.’ George felt ridiculous just saying it out loud. He waited for a response.
Emma didn’t give him one. Her attention seemed to be out of the window.
‘I thought it was some sort of joke at first. But it now appears he has a strong chance of getting his move. I’m told he’s a wealthy man. He’s built a place in our patch. I live in a town called Langthorne and he’s acquired land on the clifftop there. He’s built a state-of-the-art medical facility to Home Office specification where he has asked to be allowed to go to die.’
Emma spun on her heels, strode over to George and loomed over him. ‘Utterly ridiculous! The man’s a killer and in prison!’
‘He is. I know. I did what I was told and I reported back. I thought it was a tick-box exercise, some human rights crap. But there’s more to it. He will sign the medical facility over to the government. It will be fully functioning for whatever use they can get out of it when he’s gone. I know this stinks, Emma, but there are some positives.’
‘Some positives? Positives are going to be a hard sell up here, George, I can assure you of that. The way you’re talking, this is happening, isn’t it?’
George shrugged. ‘The Home Office are making that call ultimately. That’s how high this goes. I’ve made the same assumption you have, though. I’ve spoken to the boss a couple of times and he’s talking like it’s a done deal.’
‘Ridiculous! British justice! The press will tear us apart over this. That makes me angry too. Who do you think they’ll call for comment when they hear about this development? It won’t be the damned Home Office, I can tell you that! It’ll be me. And no one’s told me a damned thing about it.’
‘I agree, Emma. What can I say? I totally agree. Personally, I think you should be part of the conversation around this. But my opinion doesn’t matter to anyone.’
Emma shook her head. ‘What positives? You said there were positives. Because right now I’m really struggling to think of anything that even comes close.’
‘Roberts wants this badly. Part of his deal is that he tells us where the bodies of those two other girls are. I know that’s going to be big up here. For you and for the families you worked with.’
Emma looked back to George for a second and then shook her head again. ‘It won’t soften the blow. Not if we have to tell those same families that he’s been moved to his own luxury facility with a sea fucking view! What is this world we live in, George? Tell me that.’
‘I really don’t know sometimes, Emma. I really don’t know. It’s not about justice, that’s for sure. I think this could be a big political score for the government. There’s been a lot of pressure all round to find those bodies. I also know that my home force have a blank cheque to claim expenses for policing his transport and his time there. Your force might benefit too. And, the icing on the cake for the decision makers is that he is refusing any treatment beyond pain relief. He is basically agreeing to die.’
‘Win-win then, right? Except this monster still gets to exert his power. That’s what this is all about, right? For him at least. You said it yourself a few minutes ago . . . this man feeds off power. This is perfect for him. The only thing he has left to do is die and now he’s managing to dictate how and where that happens.’
‘I agree. I hate it.’
‘Do we get to have any kind of opinion on this?’
‘An opinion we get. An influence is far less likely. There’s a meeting today. At the Home Office. I think a decision will be made today.’
‘This is going to happen, isn’t it? You don’t meet there to talk about whether something happens, you meet to talk about how it happens. He’s winning. Christ, George! He’s getting his own way again!’
‘I’m sorry. I’m in the middle of all this. It’s not even been made clear to me how much of all this I should know, how much I can share, or what the hell I should be doing. The main concern from my bosses are the victims’ families getting wind of the move and turning up in Langthorne with an axe to grind — or more likely to stick in Roberts’s skull.’
‘What about the media? Are they going to be told officially?’
‘I don’t know. I get the impression they’ll be kept in the dark for now. I reckon there’ll be more than a few people praying that this man dies pretty damned quick. Then the government will release it as a good news story. “The man’s dead, he told us where the bodies of his victims were buried before he died and we got him to fund a brand-new medical facility that benefits us all.” You can see how that could be very easily spun into a good news story.’
‘I can. Bastard politicians! Someone should leak it.’
‘As long as that someone isn’t the person who has just been in a meeting with me and someone I wasn’
t supposed to tell in the first place.’
‘I wonder if Herefordshire Police are even being represented at this meeting. We’re a small force. We get walked on all over again. I saw it when the investigation was going on. They wanted to send officers from other counties down. We had to fight them off. I should have let them come. They could be having this shit now. They could be left feeling like this.’
‘Look, Emma, I’m really sorry. You hit the nail on the head. This is a stitch-up for me. I had no real idea what I was getting involved in. I just need the case notes. Maybe a summary of the murders and then I can get out of your way. In fact, don’t worry about the summary, I can piece it together from the file.’
‘Oh, you can have your summary, George. Chloe Pope was the first girl to go missing. It was a standard missing person search at first — if you can call anything we do standard. We were told it was out of character, but girls at that age . . . well, you know. But then we found Josh Haines’s body and his girlfriend, Ellie Smith, was missing. Ellie went missing on her twenty-third birthday. She went out for a meal with Josh at the Ferrie Inn in Symonds Yat. Josh was found in the driver’s seat of his car early the next morning. He had been stabbed more than thirty times and his heart had been cut from his chest. The hearts of Ellie and her boyfriend were never found. We found an engagement ring box in his pocket. We didn’t find a ring. Forensics would later put Roberts inside that car.
‘The investigation moved on when we found the remains of a third girl, Lucy Moon. We know Henry Roberts murdered her. We also know that he made sure it was indescribably slow and painful. What was left of Lucy was buried at a beauty spot overlooking the River Wye. He marked the shallow grave with a large, wooden cross. Her remains were found by a hiker — or at least a portion of them was. It seems that some of the wildlife picked up on the smell and dragged her right thigh a couple of hundred metres away from the burial site. Henry was linked to that by DNA. She wasn’t clothed when she was found, but her clothing was found nearby along with his . . . tools. The clothing was attributed to the body and had on it the DNA we needed from him. CSI reckon she might have put up a good fight at some point. Certainly she was very close to him for a period of time. He was either fighting her or raping her.
‘With regard to how he selected his victims, the rail connections are a definite link. They were all local to Symonds Yat or the surrounding area. Lucy Moon was on her way home from work when she went missing. She used the train to commute back to Hereford. She disappeared between the train and her car. We have CCTV footage that shows Roberts as being on the same train. He was in the same carriage. He got off at the same time. He was a few metres behind her when the camera lost them.’
‘So Chloe and Ellie are the two girls that are still missing?’
‘Yes. And Josh Haines’s heart. Lest we forget.’
‘Jesus . . . it’s strong evidence.’
‘Strong enough to charge. Strong enough to convict. After a hell of a bun fight, mind. Roberts let it all play out. A team of very well-paid solicitors pulling every single minute detail apart, their client never uttering a word. There were other links though — more generic stuff. Some of it was circumstantial, but together it was enough to satisfy the jury. The team did some great work. We could link the murder tools to Roberts. The murdered girls were all from Symonds Yat and they all had daily routines that we believe he was able to take advantage of. We also did a lot of work on profiling the victims. We showed they were all around the same sort of age and they were all of the same type.’
‘Type?’
‘Young, slim and pretty. Attractive overall. And blonde hair. That seemed to be his thing. His last victim, the one who got away, was a pro-biker. Lucy Mackenzie — another Lucy, but she got far luckier than her namesake. She fought him off. She gave a good description of his vehicle and of him — specifically a distinctive tattoo. She also managed to scrape some of his DNA from his face. It matched and we had our man.’ Emma suddenly stiffened.
‘So he wasn’t known to the police before this? He just suddenly pops up and murders four people?’
Emma wasn’t listening. She moved quickly to the door and pulled it open.
‘Emma?’
‘ANDY!’ Emma called out across the floor. Andy South, the detective with no waist, appeared at the door. She ushered him in. The door closed behind him.
‘You okay, ma’am?’
‘Our missing person. From last night. Go again with the description.’
Andy was holding his day book. He flicked it open. ‘This was from uniform patrol . . . Annie Cox. Female, white British, twenty years old, slim, 5ft 8in, blue eyes, blonde hair. Parents think she was wearing a grey suit jacket and a black dress. But they couldn’t be sure.’
‘Is she pretty?’
‘The missing girl? We have her social media page out there if you want—’
‘Is she pretty, Andy?’
Andy pursed his lips. ‘She looks like a bit of a stunner to me, ma’am. Just don’t tell my wife.’
‘And she commutes, right?’
‘She does. She was catching a later train. Uniform are doing some enquiries around her workmates. It looks like she had a drink and someone walked her to her train. She should have made it on but CCTV will confirm that.’
‘Have we taken that on?’
‘The missing person? Well, no. Do we suspect foul play?’
‘Maybe assume we do — just until we make some headway.’ Emma moved back to the door. She held it open. A clear sign the conversation was over.
‘Am I missing something, ma’am? I know you want us all focused on prepping for the rape trial, is all.’
‘I know. I just want to be sure that everything’s being done. We don’t need to take it on completely. Just stay in touch.’
‘Understood.’
The door pushed shut and Emma looked back over at George.
‘It’s the same description as Roberts’s victims,’ George said.
‘Exactly the same.’
‘He’s very much locked up. I saw him in prison. Yesterday.’
‘You did. What was that you were saying about him influencing people?’
George wasn’t sure. ‘You’re thinking copycat?’
‘I don’t know what I’m thinking. I know he’s locked up. All this time and I still can’t shake what he did from my mind. Maybe the two detectives who walked had the right idea.’
Chapter 8
Liam Cooney sat on a wooden chair. It was rickety and smooth from when he had rubbed it down and painted it white. His mum had complained ever since that she would fall off it one day. It was the chair she used when she got out of bed. It took all of her effort to sit up, to put her legs out and to stand. She would use the chair for support. Sometimes she would have to sit in it for a few minutes while she got her breath back.
He stared at her now, lying in her bed. She was so still, so silent. He had sat there most of the night. Watching her. Her colour had changed. Quickly at first, but even now her pallor was getting greyer, as if the colour were still draining away. He kept going back over the events of the previous night in his mind. When he came in late she had complained immediately, saying that she couldn’t move without him and that she was running low on oxygen. She was on a bottle downstairs in the lounge so she could watch Midsomer Murders. She liked that. Her machine was upstairs, it fed her through tubes tied off round the back of her head. Two prongs ran up into her nostrils, constantly feeding her oxygen, keeping her levels sufficient to stay alive. Without the machine, she couldn’t last long. She had suffered with a chronic pulmonary disease almost all his life: emphysema or something similar. For as long as he could remember there had been people coming in to look after her — until, that was, he had turned eighteen. Then it was all down to him. He needed to be there a lot of the time and it got worse, to the point where she could hardly move around the house without him. She couldn’t wash or use the toilet on her own. It wasn’t right. No mo
ther should live a life like that. No son should see his mother the way he did.
Last night he had been merciful. He had told her that. He closed his eyes. He could still picture her face when he said he was going to show her the mercy she deserved. He got her into bed. She waited for her oxygen, for him to move the tubes into position. He didn’t. He told her that it was her time. He showed her the pillow he had bought specially. It was big and soft, white with pink flowers. She always liked pink flowers. She begged him not to. She didn’t seem to understand. She told him she didn’t want to die. She was so stressed. Her arms and legs thrashed a bit at first, but she was so weak. He held the pillow for longer than necessary. He had felt her life go. And then she wasn’t stressed anymore.
Her face! He smiled now at the memory. When he lifted the pillow off, it was beautiful. She was so peaceful. She was free.
He couldn’t wait to write. He sat down and typed out the words; he was descriptive — it felt good to remember the details. His typing was so clumsy; his hands were still shaking from the excitement. It felt so . . . good!
He remembered what he had learned, what he needed to do when it was done. He plugged the oxygen in and waited all night. The text took him hours to get right. He was careful. He knew it was early, he was supposed to wait until everything was ready. But he couldn’t wait. The woman on the train . . . God put her next to him in that cab. It was time — he just knew it.
The police were prompt. He called 999 just after eight a.m. He checked his watch when they knocked; it was barely ten past. He answered the front door.
‘You called an ambulance, son? They are on their way.’ There were two police officers. The one who spoke had a sergeant’s chevron on the front of his uniform. His name tag read PS Alan KEMP in big white letters.
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