The Alice Murders

by James Arklie

  Ben let out a breath. ‘Did he do it to all of them?’

  Kline started folding the waxed paper that had held a very chocolaty muffin. ‘We don’t know. You’re the only team who took and kept that swab. My guess is, no, he didn’t do it to any on them. He was leaving us a clue, a message.’

  Ben frowned and asked the question Kline was desperate to answer. ‘But how did it get there. Bryony James’ blood?’

  Kline glanced at Sally Bright. ‘We know he requested blood samples be taken from her when she was in her coma. Those samples were stored and then discretely withdrawn by Brownlee the day before he left Southampton.’

  Sally Bright was agreeing. ‘Take a sample of blood. Freeze it down in liquid nitrogen at minus one hundred and ninety-six degrees centigrade…’ She nodded to herself. ‘That will preserve it and the DNA.’

  The astonished expression on the face of Ben showed this was moving out of his league. ‘What? He took Bryony’s blood to the murder and smeared it on Chesney before he left?’ He was shaking his head. ‘That is… that is….’

  Kline tossed the folded paper into his empty cup. ‘That’s what people like this do, John. They make us catch our breath and in it is suspended our belief.’

  But it was worse than that, it meant Brownlee had kept the samples of blood from Bryony James. To do that, he needed facilities, long term storage facilities. And that thought scared Kline. If Brownlee had been warehousing blood, what else was he storing?

  Twenty minutes later they wound up. Kline saw Sally Bright back to her car and thanked her for making the trip. ‘Anything else you remember, the tiniest little detail or oddity, please call or email.’

  She was still in disbelief. ‘I still can’t believe I worked with this man.’ She looked at Kline. ‘As for Deborah Brownlee…do you think she’s still alive, still in an induced coma? What was he doing? What kind of sick game was he playing?’

  Kline didn’t answer, he didn’t want to, because the horror in his mind and the ache in his gut told him those questions should be more in the present than the past.

  Kline spent the rest of the day with the Andy and Ben. They drove him round the Bay of Islands, fed him fish and chips on a pier over the water at Mangonui and showed him the outside of the apartment where Chesney Arthur had been murdered.

  Late afternoon, he took a flight back down to Auckland, changed his ticket to a flight leaving for Dubai and London in two-hours, settled himself in the Business Lounge and wrote his report.

  He now had thirty-six hours until he was back in the office. Until he was back in Brownlee’s time zone. Kline was certain they’d identified their killer but, right now, what Brownlee had or hadn’t done to these women was irrelevant. They knew who he was, so they just had to find him and then they had to stop him.

  Kline breathed out slowly and listened to what was lurking inside him. But it was going to take more than that. This man would never succumb to formal arrest one summer’s morning. He would be planning for more than that and Kline knew he had to prepare himself for a head on collision.

  Redemption of his promise to Jenny was getting closer. His chance was coming. But it was also more than that because Brownlee had taken something else.

  Something Kline never thought he’d see again.

  And he wanted it back.

  *

  Chapter Eighteen

  Day Fifty-Seven

  Kline arrived back in the office mid-afternoon two days later. He threw his rucksack on the floor beside his desk, extracted a giant tube of Toblerone and a small, brightly painted boomerang and gave them to Angie. She gave him a slightly quizzical look.

  Kline laughed and shrugged. ‘I know. Male shopper. Toblerone did come from duty free in Auckland and the boomerang does work. Handcrafted by an Aboriginal craftsman. Don’t try throwing it away…’

  ‘Because it will only come back.’ Angie smiled, shook her head at the standard of Kline’s jokes and broke open the Toblerone.

  Kline wandered across the office to make tea. He glanced across at her a couple of times, sensing something wasn’t right. She also looked knackered. Purple bags under her eyes, her shoulders down. Kline wondered at his own light-headedness. He’d flipped his body clock going down under and flopped it coming back up top. Everyone had warned him that coming back was hard graft, fighting time zones all the way. Sometime soon, he would crash.

  Kline took the tea across to their desks, placed a mug on Artie’s and realised he wasn’t in. ‘Where’s the boy?’ Right now, Kline needed his eyes and ears more than ever.

  Angie dipped a corner of her chocolate triangle into her tea and bit it off. ‘Text this morning. Mother’s been taken ill and is in hospital. He’ll get in soon as.’

  Kline checked his watch. Three pm was a bit later than ‘soon as’. ‘Do me a favour and get hold of him. See how serious things are.’ Kline was feeling selfish and wanted him in and working. They were getting so close.

  Kline did the politically correct thing and went and touched base with Dave Barker.

  ‘Ah, the traveller returns. Guess what? I have a meeting in five, so give me the A4 summary.’

  Kline did and could sense Dave’s interest growing by the second. ‘Brownlee is now number one suspect?’

  Kline was definite. ‘No question. Something strange went on at that hospital during 1994. I still can’t make the jump across from what we know, to the ALICE murders. But it’s there, Dave. Within touching distance.’

  ‘What happens next?’

  It was the question Kline had been asking himself all the way home. He’d taken the train off the tracks and he’d managed to rattle Brownlee. The email was testament to that. But what did Kline do next? How did he maintain the impetus this had given the investigation? More importantly, how did he maintain control? If Brownlee wanted to mix it up personally, it was going to become a battle of wills.

  Kline had come up with an answer when his flight had been somewhere over the Alps and he’d been tucking into scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. It was an answer that Dave wouldn’t like, so Kline stalled.

  ‘I want to debrief Angie and Artie. See what they’ve got and get their thoughts. Then take it from there.’

  Dave scrutinised Kline’s face, hearing a non-answer, so stated the obvious. ‘Seems to me you have a name; you have a face; you have some timelines; you have a man travelling with an invalid wife…’

  ‘Artie’s been all over that, so like I said, catch up first, then decision time. Any chance of resources?’

  Dave Barker made a dismissive puff of noise, sat forward in his chair and dragged some papers towards him. End of conversation.

  Kline went back the office. Angie spotted him coming but a second too late. She closed her laptop with a slap. Across the room her eyes held Kline’s for a second then flicked away.

  Kline marched across. ‘Show me.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘This is not the time. You promised me, Angie. We made a deal.’

  Kline could tell something was upsetting her. A year ago, she’d had a serious relapse after she’d been scanning social medial for stories of deceased nine-year olds. She’d found one with an uncanny resemblance to herself as kid. Her traumatised brain used that to convince itself that it was Carly. It took three months to get her back on track.

  Kline took the laptop from her and opened it. The face on the screen surprised him. The image was of a male in a dark bomber jacket walking through West Quay Shopping Centre.

  He checked the date on the CCTV footage. It was the previous day. ‘That’s your ex-husband.’

  Angie’s voice was sour and sarcastic. ‘No, still married. In the eyes of God.’

  ‘But that’s yesterday. I thought he’d disappeared.’

  Now her voice was bitter. ‘The coward’s back. After ten years.’

  ‘Ang….’ Kline shook his head at the tears in her eyes. He glanced round the office for watching faces then crouched beside her chair. He neede
d to understand what she was thinking.

  Her eyes were brimming. ‘Why is he here, Joe?’ She reached for a tissue from a box on her desk. ‘I’ve often thought, what if he’s the bastard that took Carly?’

  Kline sighed, seeing the gossamer thin spiders web in which Angie’s hope was caught. One day, her mind would never escape from one of these traps.

  She went on, ‘What if he took Carly and they have both come back. He’s brought my little girl home?’

  Kline took her hand, made her look into his eyes, lowered his voice to a whisper.

  ‘Angie, he left you after Carly was taken. Remember? It was a couple of months. He went to pieces just like you did. You both fell apart and then apart from one another. He couldn’t handle it any more than you.’

  Angie dabbed at her eyes. ‘The bastard’s taunting me. He couldn’t be bothered to stay when I needed him.’

  Shit, thought Kline. He was treading on eggshells trying to console her. He knew nothing of what went on between them. He didn’t even know Angie back then.

  Kline tried to sound reasonable. ‘Angie, look, he’s come back to the town of his birth. It may have taken a lot for him to do it. He could still be just as raw as you. Has he called you? Have you tried contacting him? Maybe he wants a reconciliation.’

  ‘Number no longer valid. He must have a new mobile.’ She took another tissue from the box and used this one to clear her nose. She held it tight in her hands then rested them in her lap.

  She took a deep breath, trying to settle herself. ‘He threatened me before he went. Said I was a shit mother, it was my fault and he would get revenge.’ She looked down at Kline. ‘That was his parting shot, Joe. That was his final contribution to our pain, my pain. To trying to find Carly. That he would get revenge against me.’

  Kline reached up and closed the laptop. Getting rid of the image wouldn’t get rid of the problem, but it would help. ‘Angie, that was anger and frustration talking. He was lashing out at the only other person who understood his pain. He’d never touched you before that and he left without any violence. Correct?’

  Angie didn’t respond and Kline eased himself to his feet. ‘Angie, I need you focused on Brownlee. I’m about to do something that will take this to the end game. Stay strong for me and I make you a promise; as soon as we wrap up Brownlee, we’ll go looking for your husband.’

  Kline went and made fresh tea. He had to stop promising what he couldn’t deliver. But Angie had calmed down. She tried calling Artie, but it went through to voicemail. Kline took their tea to Artie’s desk so that they could log on to the work he’d done to track Brownlee.

  As they settled down to read through it, Kline’s mobile pinged with a message. He glanced at it, then held it up for Angie to read.

  Hey Joe, welcome back. Ready to play?

  Kline smiled. They could take the piss all they wanted but the steam train had cleared the station and was picking up speed. It wouldn’t be long now.

  Because, yes, he was ready to play.

  *

  Kline let the email simmer in the back of his mind while he and Angie focused on Artie’s work. Artie had been thorough, almost too thorough, because there was so much information.

  Artie had drawn a blank on the obvious check of whether Brownlee had travelled from New Zealand under his own name. So, he moved on to the assumption that he’d travelled under a different name. That raised the serious problem that he could have chosen any name. However, the positive was, Brownlee never left Debbie Wilcox behind. Second assumption, she travelled from New Zealand with him.

  Angie muttered in Kline’s ear. ‘That’s a mistake. A big mistake.’

  Kline agreed. It gave them an opening and also something more. ‘He knows that’s a gap he should have closed, yet he’s still willing to risk it.’ He shook his head in frustration.

  ‘If only we could work out why she is so important to him.’

  They refocused on Artie’s research. He’d started looking for a man leaving New Zealand with a bed-ridden invalid wife. Should be easy enough. Wrong. Artie found that nine hundred left New Zealand in 1999 for destinations round the world.

  Except they knew Brownlee came to the UK and murdered Evie…. Artie had paused again. That was a huge assumption. Brownlee could have gone into Europe and travelled up for the day. But his MO was to be in the country and living locally. Artie stayed with Brownlee coming to the UK.

  Angie was impressed. ‘The logic pathways that Artie’s following…’

  Kline was mapping it out on a sheet of A4 and had to agree. ‘A computer comes to mind.’

  They carried on along Artie’s trail. Accompanied arrivals in the UK in 1999, from anywhere in the world, were one thousand seven hundred. Again, Artie had made the assumption that if Brownlee wanted to add a layer of complexity, he could have arrived in the UK from anywhere.

  Artie then narrowed the search to within one month of when they knew Brownlee moved Deborah Wilcox out of the New Zealand private clinic. The number dropped dramatically to two hundred and change. From all countries.

  Angie glanced at Kline, excited. ‘Shit, that’s manageable.’

  Kline moved on down the research and they saw that Artie had tried a shortcut to reduce that number still further. If Brownlee followed the same MO, he would have left the UK within a month of Evie’s death. If so, was there any correlation of the names arriving with names departing. It worked.

  Answer was three.

  Kline breathed. ‘We’ve got him.’

  Kline knew he would have stopped there, but then Artie had a real stroke of genius. Kline saw that he’d asked the question none of them had yet asked; where had Brownlee come from? Originally from, before he suddenly appeared in Southampton as a surgeon. What was his history? He must have been born somewhere. Gone to school, university, trained as a doctor…

  Artie had the records from Southampton General Hospital Department of Human Resources. He researched into the back history and qualifications that Brownlee had provided. They were all false.

  The comments of Johnny Batten, the surgeon, came back to Kline. Brownlee was quite happy practising his skills on cadavers and road-kill. Kline shivered as he realised where Brownlee may have got his experience. Burke and Hare step aside. This man had killed and butchered his own.

  Artie had got it down to three names, but they could see he was determined to identify Brownlee. To do it, he took a second leap of genius; what if the name Brownlee had switched to was, in fact, his old name, his real name?

  Far easier, Artie had written, to revert than to get a new identity. He could easily have kept the old one alive while he was away, like a dormant bank account with a few quid in it. Straightaway, it gave him a passport, National Insurance number, driving license, credit cards, without having to do a thing.

  It was the simplest search of the process. Artie had access into the passport database, pulled up the three passport applications for the three individuals, looked at the photographs, and struck gold.

  Richard Brownlee, global Consultant Surgeon, global serial killer, became plain old Robert Brown, unemployed, of Brighton.

  *

  Kline was shaking his head in admiration and exasperation. ‘That boy is bloody brilliant.’ He pointed at Artie’s final contribution, a picture of the fridge magnets in the apartment of Anastasia Pappas. Two letters circled in red. ‘There all the sodding time. RB, top right of the door, by the handle. How did we miss that?’

  Angie was more relaxed about it. ‘Because we weren’t looking for it, boss. It’s just another game; a laugh he can have at us now.’

  Kline rubbed at his eyes and the fog of jetlag that was thickening behind them. He’d need to sleep soon. He checked his emails, willing something more from Robert Brown. There was nothing new.

  He turned to Angie, suppressed a yawn. ‘Anything from Artie?’

  She glanced at her mobile. ‘Nothing.’ She looked at Kline. ‘Must be serious.’

  Kline was th
inking about winding up for the day, so was happy to leave Artie until tomorrow. Angie took over scanning through his browser, looking for what Artie did next. Specifically, did he look for an address.

  ‘It dries up, boss. Maybe that’s when he got the call about his mother.’

  ‘Has to be.’ Kline couldn’t imagine him stopping when he was that close. He stood up and walked round the desks to keep sleep at bay for a while longer.

  Angie bent forward to the screen. ‘No. Here we are.’

  Kline paused his walking and watched as Angie scrolled through four screens of Robert Brown’s registered as living in Hampshire. His eyes swam and he had trouble following the rolling lines. He decided it was time to rest.

  He checked his watch. It was gone six pm and he was knackered. Angie was a coiled spring, still tight with the emotion of her returning husband and what that might mean. Artie was out of action. There was no way just the two of them could go at it all night. If they waited until the morning, would it matter? Kline decided not and called an end to the day.

  Twenty minutes later, he let himself into his bedsit and quickly unpacked his holdall into the washing machine. On the sideboard, he placed bottle of Mount Difficulty Pinot Noir he’d caressed all the way back from New Zealand.

  Then, he sat Charlie on the settee beside him. It wasn’t often Charlie made it inside, but this was a special moment.

  Kline took out his mobile, selected his in-box and opened the email from a killer he now knew as Robert Brown. He tapped reply and typed the message that would bring this to an end.

  Good evening, Robert, let’s play.

  You have something that belongs to me and I want it back.