Isolation

by Jay Nadal

  He clasped his hands together and rested his elbows on the desk. “I’m still devastated about the news. We all are. I informed everyone on duty yesterday after you called me. The staff were in tears. We can’t imagine what Amy is going through. How is she holding up?”

  “She’s traumatised to say the least. Amy’s sustained physical injuries, facial more than anything else. She’s in hospital and we have officers with her for her safety.”

  Concern spread across Stanley’s face. Like a goldfish, his mouth opened and closed but nothing came out for several seconds. “My God, is she in danger?”

  Abby sought to reassure him as she raised her hand. “It’s more of a precaution. She hasn’t been able to give us a full interview. We wanted to ask you a few questions to help us build a better picture of Amy.”

  “Myself and the team here will do whatever we can to help you.”

  “How long have you known Amy?”

  “We’ve worked together since the unit opened. Prior to that, we were based at the Sussex County for about three years. I can check the files to give you a precise date, Sergeant.”

  “If you could later, that would be helpful, thank you. Do you know where she worked before that?”

  Stanley thought for a moment, his eyes wandering towards the ceiling. “If I recall, she did her professional nursing qualifications prior to the Sussex, and before that she worked at a care home over in Littlehampton.”

  “I don’t suppose you can remember the name of the care home?”

  Stanley shook his head and offered his apologies.

  “What can you tell us about Amy as a person?”

  “Amy is lovely. She gets on well with the team here. She’s an absolute asset when it comes to working with our patients. As you can imagine, most of those who walk through our doors are going through a traumatic time. It’s a matter of life or death. The ability to remain impartial, but also show empathy, and a caring nature is vital. Amy shows that in abundance.”

  “She sounds like a lovely person.”

  “She is. Amy quietened down as she settled into family life. And that’s understandable. She wouldn’t come out on many of the socials. Apparently back in her heyday, she was a big social drinker and party animal. Of course I never saw any of that.”

  “Do you know if she attracted any male attention recently?”

  Stanley scowled, uncomfortable with the direction of the questions snapping, “Not as far as I’m aware.”

  “Can you think of anyone she’s had a run-in with recently, perhaps patients or their relatives here?”

  Stanley smiled to himself and tightened his lips. “I wouldn’t say run-ins. I think because of the treatment we offer, tensions can run high.”

  “In what way?” Abby asked.

  “Well, you’ll get a percentage of patients unhappy with the treatment they receive, the progress they’re making, or lack of progress. Families sometimes expect miracles, and sadly, miracles don’t always happen.”

  “So did any of that involve Amy?”

  “It involves all of us, Sergeant. We’ve all had our fair share of complaints, grief, accusations and flashes of temper. But nothing that’s led to any violence or threats, if that’s what you’re concerned about?”

  “As you can imagine, Adam, we have to look at every angle. Did she ever mention anything bothering her?”

  “I’m afraid not. She talked about the normal things that bother most parents, kids performing at school, not being at home as much as she would like to be, the usual stuff.”

  “Thank you, Adam, for your time. We’ll be in touch if there’s anything else that we need.”

  Once outside, Helen aired her thoughts. “He didn’t give us much to go on, did he?”

  “That’s a good thing,” Abby replied as she pulled away.

  Helen turned in the passenger seat asking, “You what?”

  “Someone who’s that squeaky clean doesn’t end up getting her family murdered. As the guv said, this isn’t random. We’ve only just scratched the surface with Amy Harp.”

  27

  “Chocolate croissants to go with the coffee?” Scott asked as he waved a bag by the kettle.

  Cara stifled a yawn behind her hand as she padded into the kitchen barefoot, wearing nothing more than an oversized pyjama top. “You sure know how to please a woman.”

  “Are you talking about last night, or the croissants?” Scott replied, a glint in his eye and a mischievous, naughty schoolboy smile that stretched from ear-to-ear.

  Cara pursed her lips together and narrowed her eyes as she gazed towards the ceiling, pretending to be in deep reflection. She placed her index finger on her chin. “Hmm, let me think. Yep, it’s decided. Both.” She pinned Scott against the kitchen cabinet and kissed him hard and deep. Her hunger for a repeat performance from last night crept into her thoughts as she pressed her hips into his, gyrating them. “We could skip the coffee and croissants?” she whispered in his ear.

  “You will get me fired one day,” he replied, squeezing her backside. “Just because you’ve got the morning off doesn’t mean we can all lounge around in bed having sex. If it’s slipped your mind, I’m running a case at the moment.”

  She smiled and squeezed his crotch before reaching over to the kettle and flicking the switch. “How is the case coming along? Are you making much progress?”

  Cara made two cups of coffee whilst she listened to Scott give her the bare-bones of the case. Her amorous affections bubbled to the surface every few minutes as she reached back in for a cuddle with Scott.

  “Well, I can’t see you getting much in the way of forensic evidence from either post-mortems or scientific services to be honest. The killer has been careful to avoid leaving any evidence. I will be doing the post-mortems on the Harp family this afternoon. I’ll be working late into the evening to get them all done. Will you be attending?”

  Cara’s ability to switch back and forth between sexy and work mode in the blink of an eye astounded Scott every time she did it. “I’ll try to get to one. Failing that, I’ll send Raj or Mike.”

  Scott pulled up into the backyard of the station and drove up and down trying to find a parking space. Everywhere he tried seemed to be full, with a large number of marked cars and vans. No doubt there’s an operation being mounted today, he thought when he spotted a few officers that he knew from Eastbourne.

  Wedged in between a scientific services van and a pillar, Scott slid out through the narrowest of gaps when his phone rang. An unknown number.

  “You’re running late today, Inspector,” the voice sounded upbeat but still disguised.

  Scott gripped his phone, and looked up and down the car park, before making his way towards the entrance. He glanced up and down the street. A few cars travelled in each direction, an elderly lady carried a shopping bag up the hill, and several people milled about in the open walkways of the apartments across the road. He couldn’t see anyone on a mobile phone.

  “Keep looking, Inspector. The harder you try, the more invisible I become.” The voice laughed down the line.

  “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care. If you’ve got something to say, then say it, but I’m getting sick and tired of our little interludes. You haven’t got the balls to face me, which is why you hide behind a phone, distorting your voice.”

  The voice didn’t reply for a few minutes. “I thought I’d made it clear that I have something to say. You appear to be rushed off your feet chasing me. That’s when you’re not at home cuddling up with your girlfriend, Cara.”

  Panic swept through him like a forest bush fire, taking his breath away. His knees wobbled as the rising emotion enveloped him like a cloak of fear. Had the killer been sitting outside my house watching me leave this morning, or is he chancing his luck and taking a guess? His mind raced, as visions of Cara bound to a chair flooded his mind, overwhelming his senses, and forcing the air out of his lungs quicker than he could take it in. His eyes scanned up and down the
street, looking into every nook and cranny. The piece of shit couldn’t be far. If only he could…

  “Are you making much progress, Inspector?”

  Every muscle in Scott’s body tightened. “That doesn’t concern you.”

  “Inspector, it concerns me. I need to stay one step ahead of you since I underestimated you. But I haven’t finished yet. There’s still plenty for me to do.”

  Scott held his breath. “When is this going to end?”

  “Soon.”

  Scott’s stomach turned like a cement mixer, churning his insides, forcing bile to burn the back of his throat. He just wanted to jump back in the car and head home to make sure Cara was safe. “Who’s next?”

  “Now that would be telling, Inspector. I need to be one step ahead of you. That’s for you to find out. I have a lot to do, and not a lot of time. Maybe you should have stayed at home, because by the end of today, you’ll probably wish you had. By the way, say hello to Ashman when you find him. He likes going walkabout.”

  Before Scott could say any more the line went dead, but not before he heard the sound of an emergency services siren wailing in the background.

  He glanced up to see an ambulance passing along Grand Parade. He took off on foot and raced down the hill. Cars and buses streamed past him towards the seafront. He looked across to Victoria Gardens, hoping he might see someone hiding behind the trees. There were too many people walking, and too many distractions from vehicles that passed. Scott’s heart thundered in his chest. His veins throbbed in his temples. Fuck, fuck. He’s here somewhere. His thoughts flashed to Cara and Ashman as he rushed back to the car.

  The call couldn’t have come at a worse time for Scott. He weaved in and out of the traffic, thumping the wheel in frustration. He’d breached procedure by not recording the conversations with the mystery caller.

  Scott felt trapped like a rabbit in headlights. Paralysed with doubt and fear. The man was an unknown commodity, and the subtle threats to life concerned him. If he had done this officially, his phone would have been fitted with additional software to record conversations. They could have been analysed using voice recognition software.

  Scott called Cara to make sure she was okay. He didn’t want to alarm her so he passed off his call as one of those mushy calls that lovers make when they’re missing their loved ones so soon after seeing each other.

  After he reached Ashman’s home, he parked and ran to the entrance. Scott banged on the door with a fist. The door rattled in its frame, the tinny, metallic sound of the metal knocker echoing around him. “Ashman!” Scott shouted, “It’s Detective Inspector Baker, are you there?”

  He waited a moment before crouching and flipping open the letter box, calling out again. Taking a few steps back on to the path, Scott craned his neck to look for any sign of movement in the windows. His last hope was to try the back of the house. As he approached the back door, he noticed it ajar. Damage to the frame suggested it had been forced. He paused for a moment desperate to hear any movement inside.

  Scott took his extendable batten from its pouch and entered. He stopped after every few steps, and then he heard it, a noise coming from the study. It was too late to call for backup. The intruder would be gone before the first area car arrived. He would have to go in alone and deal with the fallout if the shit hit the fan.

  Creeping along the hallway, he placed each foot heel to toe to test the floor for any movement. He glanced around the door. A man knelt on the floor, looking through the boxes and paperwork strewn around him. “Police! Stay where you are!” Scott shouted as he raised his batten above his head ready to defend himself if the intruder turned and made a break for it.

  The man shuffled around on his knees. “Oh, it’s you, Inspector.”

  “What you doing here?” Scott asked, still ready to strike.

  Jack Manning, the editor of The Argus, lowered his hands. “I’m looking for something.”

  Scott peered back over his shoulder just to make sure Manning was alone. “You might be looking for something, but I call this breaking and entering. I suggest you quickly explain what you’re doing here before I bloody arrest you.”

  “Listen, Inspector. I came to see how Samuel was doing. I called and left a message for him but he didn’t return my call. Like you, there was no answer at the front door. So I came around the back, and noticed that the door had been forced open. My first concern was for Samuel. I called out for him, but there was no answer. I feared the worse. Someone had been here before we got here, Inspector. They left this mess,” Manning added, waving his arm around the room.

  “So, I will ask you again, what are you doing here? You were not just checking up on Ashman.”

  Manning dropped his shoulders and let out a dramatic sigh. “I was going ask Samuel if he knew the Harps. The public has a right to know if there’s a serial killer targeting families.”

  “You need to hold off on the stories for the time being before your selfishness gets someone else killed.”

  Manning shook his head. “I can’t.”

  Scott noticed a change in the man’s appearance. A mixture of excitement tainted with concern radiated in his eyes. “What else do you know?”

  “I know that the killer has contacted you, Inspector.”

  Scott froze. His feet felt like lead weights. His eyes flickered as he stared at Manning. “Because he contacted you as well, didn’t he?”

  Manning nodded. “The killer went into precise details of exactly what happened to each victim. If it isn’t him, then he knows who did do it. He said he wanted this case to go public.”

  “Well, you can go public with it, but just give me one or two days. After that, you can have the exclusive. In return, I need you to give my officers a full statement, detailing what the killer said to you. Deal?”

  Manning nodded as Scott called the control room.

  Ten minutes later, two constables arrived and made their way through to where Scott waited with Manning. “Take Jack Manning to the station. Get a full statement from him regarding his conversation with the suspect involved in the Ashman and Harp murder investigations. Seize his phone as evidence. If he gives you any crap, arrest him for breaking and entering.”

  “Whoa, hold on. I thought we had a deal?”

  Scott spent the next hour sifting through the mass of paperwork sprawled across the floor.

  His search proved fruitless. He sat on the floor and looked around at the dishevelled mess around him. Where else would you hide something so no one could find it? He stared at the desk, its drawers pulled open. Someone had looked already. He crawled over to the desk, before climbing underneath and craning his neck to look at the underside of the tabletop. Bingo, hidden from view was a large white envelope taped to the back.

  Scott tore the white envelope open and discovered a Manila folder marked “rent”. It showed regular payments for a beach hut in Seaford. Ashman has another property. And even more curious, a USB flash drive fell out of the folder.

  28

  Scott pushed through the doors of the high-tech unit and looked around for Martin Jones. He spotted him towards the far end of the office, hunkered down over a laptop. Scott had come to know Martin as the go-to man for all things technical. If there was hidden data on a laptop, or encrypted files on an electronic device, Martin had the knowledge and the software to access those files.

  On this occasion, Martin’s bony, thin fingers were not moving at the warp speed that Scott had become accustomed to. Instead, he cradled his head in his hands as he stared at the screen full of coding.

  “Martin, just the man I need to see. For a minute there I thought rigor mortis had set in?”

  Martin leant back and locked his hands behind his head. His back cracked as he stretched his shoulders. “Sorry, Scott. I’m trying to crack the encryption on this laptop, and it’s proving a real bitch. Uniform extracted it as evidence following a drugs raid. But we are having a nightmare cracking the devices. The phones and the laptops have
got triple encryption. At this rate, I might have to send it away to a specialist data retrieval outfit we use. But they charge a flipping bomb.”

  Scott grimaced, sensing the man’s pain. If there was one thing he had learnt about Martin, it was he hated failure. “I know you’re up to your eyeballs, but can you have a look at this?” Scott asked, holding up a small clear plastic evidence bag containing the USB flash drive.

  “Sure,” he replied, snapping on a pair of blue latex gloves and retrieving the USB stick. He turned and plugged it into another laptop on an adjoining desk. The location of the drive popped up on his monitor. “Well, that’s a good start. The drive isn’t password protected, but the bad news is, the files are.”

  Scott leant over Martin’s shoulder. Thirty-six files appeared in chronological order. Each labelled with a make or model of car. Scott assumed that Ashman was investigating the motor vehicle industry, or more likely, had an interest in cars, and found it an easy way to remember his folders.

  “It shouldn’t be too hard to crack them, but it’ll take me a little time. Is it urgent?”

  Scott nodded. He couldn’t think of anything more urgent than the safety of his loved ones. “It is. Can I leave it with you? And bell me the moment you’ve got them open?”

  “Consider it done.”

  Scott stood outside Meadows’s office with sweaty hands and a mouth drier than the Atacama Desert. His hand hovered inches from the door as if an invisible shield stopped it from travelling further. The events of the morning had forced his hand. Scott decided to come clean with Meadows before he pinned himself in to a corner.

  He finally knocked and waited.

  “Yes,” boomed Meadows.

  “Sir, have you got a moment?” asked Scott, as he peered around the doorway.