Copycat

by C. S. Barnes

  Fairer continued to click through buttons on his computer, trying but failing several times over to find the right feed for the press conference.

  ‘Why don’t we just go down and stand in on it? It’s free viewing in real life too,’ Read said, standing from his seat as he spoke.

  ‘The DI doesn’t want us there, said she doesn’t want us yanked into things,’ Burton answered, her attention half-pulled away from her colleague as the door to the office opened and Carter came wandering in through it. ‘How was she?’ Chris asked.

  Edd sighed. ‘As you’d expect.’

  ‘Wait,’ Lucy Morris snapped. ‘Wait, Brian, go back a click.’

  ‘What did you spot?’ Fairer asked, following the order.

  But as he backclicked, there was no explanation necessary. It wasn’t quite the press conference, but something just as eye opening. An image of Mrs Gregory sitting alongside her daughter, Eleanor, filled the screen with a news banner across the bottom that read: The second wave of Michael Richards. The Gregorys had been told to keep their heads down, out of protection for their child more so than anything else, but it looked as though they hadn’t heeded the advice. Edd leaned forward and hit the volume button on the computer’s keyboard, allowing Eleanor’s voice to fill the room.

  ‘It’s terrifying… like the thought someone’s out there targeting kids my age, people I know. We’ve never done anything to anyone, you know? We don’t deserve this.’

  ‘You’re so right, and you’re so young to feel so threatened,’ the newscaster replied, her voice false and encouraging. ‘How’s it been for you? You mentioned earlier that you’d been asked by the local police to keep a low profile for the time being, that can’t be easy for a young woman of your age.’

  ‘So easy that she hasn’t managed to do it,’ Read chimed in and there was a murmur of agreement around the room.

  ‘It seems unreasonable,’ Mrs Gregory pitched in. ‘Asking a girl of her age to stay off the grid. I mean, they should be getting the killer off the grid, not our children.’

  ‘I just feel like I can’t do anything without worrying that whoever got my friends might be out there, watching me,’ Eleanor said, lowering her head as though she were crying, although when she looked back to the newscaster, her eyes showed no signs of it. ‘I’m locked in my home to avoid some, some – well, some nutter.’ The young woman turned to her mother, shielding her face entirely. The camera lingered on them both for a second before spinning to focus on the newscaster, prompting Fairer to cut the feed to the programme.

  ‘Bloody brilliant.’ Carter sighed.

  Chris rubbed hard at her eyes in a frustrated gesture. ‘Some nutter, she says, locked in her home, she says. Glad she isn’t giving that nutter a map to where she’s hiding.’

  34

  Melanie had left her office door open, so when she slammed down her desk phone with an almighty clatter, it called in the attention of her officers working outside. She was aware of their eyes on her but she couldn’t bring herself to care, due to her frustration following yet another phone call with Mrs Gregory. The mother had decided that there was money to be made from her daughter’s current press status – although she hadn’t openly admitted the monetary motivations.

  But the DI had seen enough of Gregory’s type around in her years to know the reasons behind their influx of television appearances. For the last twenty-four hours, it had felt to Melanie like she couldn’t turn on a news report without seeing Eleanor Gregory’s face – or, on the few occasions when it hadn’t been Eleanor, it had been one of her dead friends instead, which wasn’t exactly preferable. But the girl’s mother couldn’t be reasoned with, and despite the potential threat to her daughter, Mrs Gregory’s opinions clearly wouldn’t change.

  With a hard sigh, Melanie balanced her elbows on the edge of her desk and dropped her head into her hands, the pressure in her forehead already building into something that would no doubt be another headache before the day was out.

  Chris Burton stood just outside of Melanie’s office as she reached in to tap on the door. ‘Got a minute?’ Melanie sighed but gestured to the chair opposite her, and Chris came to sit down. ‘What’s going on your end?’ the DC asked, noting her boss’s worsening mood.

  ‘We have no idea who this killer is, and Mrs Gregory is parading her daughter about like a prize trophy for having not been targeted yet. I just think…’ Melanie broke off, revising her comment. ‘You would think that both of them, Eleanor included, would be more safety conscious, instead of lapping up the attention like it’s, like it’s just a game, like this isn’t dangerous.’ Melanie felt herself losing track of her sentence, so she held up a hand as though physically pausing herself. ‘This isn’t what you’re here for,’ she said. ‘What do you need?’

  Chris half-stood to lay out a series of grainy images across her boss’s desk before dropping herself back into the chair behind her. Melanie leaned forward, taking stock of the photographs that she quickly realised were camera stills, showing their most recent victim, Patrick Nelson, dotted around in different locations.

  ‘Lucy and I have been scouring the CCTV footage that was sent in by various businesses, companies, you name it. We might not be able to tell you why Patrick Nelson ended up at the woodland, but we can tell you that he followed this route to get there and that he changed course halfway through his route, after taking a phone call.’

  ‘How do you know he took a phone call?’ Melanie asked, peering up from the display.

  Chris leaned forward and tapped a finger on the fifth image from the left. ‘Because we’ve got him doing it on camera.’ Melanie took a closer look at the image Chris was pointing to and spotted the change in Patrick’s stance; he wasn’t mid-walk but rather still at an angle that made him look like he was facing a street, with his hand pressed to his ear. ‘After this, he back tracked along these same streets again, because we picked him up twice on some of the cameras, and changed direction entirely, heading toward the woodland instead.’

  ‘Okay, gimme a rundown of his route,’ Melanie said, leaning back.

  ‘We first pick him up on Milburn Street, outside of Jack’s Shack, and the next time we see him is around five minutes after that outside of the Tesco Extra on Western Road,’ Chris said, pointing to each image as she spoke. ‘We can track him through Wilson’s Mills, Merrygate Way, and that’s when he takes the phone call, standing outside a cash point at Carlton Stop. After all of this, he back tracks half the distance but turns onto Pickerway Park, and that’s when we lose him for a good twelve minutes before he appears, one last time, on the old industrial estate.’

  ‘Which is a shortcut to the woodland,’ Melanie concluded.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Is there any way of working out where he was heading originally, before the phone call?’

  Chris frowned. ‘We’ve tried, but it’s way too broad without more footage, which we could apply for, if need be, but the route he was originally taking would have led to the college, and it would have also led to Jenni’s house, Eleanor’s house, the Breezewall shopping centre. There’s no way of knowing for certain, I don’t think.’

  ‘And there’s no trace on his phone still?’ Melanie asked.

  Chris shook her head. ‘No, but Lucy is over with the tech team now because they’ve finally got Patrick’s laptop from his parents, so they’ll be cracking into that any minute, and Lucy said she’d report back to us assuming they find something of interest.’

  ‘They have to,’ Melanie replied.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Firstly, we need them to, for the sake of the case. Secondly, if we’re assuming the same killers are responsible for both Jenni and Patrick, then there’s every reason to think that “Michael Richards”, whoever they may be, will have contacted Patrick the same way they did Jenni, via the Internet.’

  Another knock at the open door pulled Melanie’s attention up from her conversation. There was a constable standing in her doorway, holding
a brown A4 envelope.

  ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, DI Watton, but a courier has just dropped this off at the front desk. I believe it’s from the forensics department,’ he said. Melanie gestured him into the office proper and he handed over the envelope as though it were made from a precious metal. Melanie could only hope that its contents would be so valuable.

  ‘Thanks for this,’ the DI said, already ripping into the paperwork as the officer exited the room. Chris kept quiet while her senior read through the contents of the delivery. Midway through the second sheet of paper, Melanie’s eyebrows pulled together, and her forehead creased into a deep frown. ‘This can’t be right.’

  ‘What can’t?’ Chris asked, edging forward.

  ‘There’s the obvious stuff. The splinters in Patrick’s head, that George sent over, well they were definitely splinters, and they can be matched to the surrounding wood, so we know the blunt force trauma theory is likely correct, unless George finds something else. But they’ve…’ Melanie petered out, mouthing the words on the paper in front of her, but not allowing them to materialise into sound. ‘Sorry, Chris, this is hard work. Patrick’s DNA has been put into the system and it’s flagged up a match.’

  Chris hesitated. ‘I don’t understand, boss, what kind of match?’

  Melanie set the paper down, her frown still fixed in place. ‘Patrick’s DNA is a match to the male sample that was found on Jenni Grantham’s body.’

  35

  DS Edd Carter gathered his team into the centre of the office, in front of the packed-to-bursting evidence board. Perfectly timed, Melanie walked in just moments after the detectives’ shuffle had settled. She’d called ahead on her journey back from the forensics lab and asked Edd to ensure that everyone was present and accounted for, and to ensure there was no one else within earshot outside of their office space. Inside, the DI closed the door behind her, peered through the window glass to give one last check over the corridor outside, and then pressed in the small lock on the end of the door handle, before heading to stand at the front of the room.

  ‘What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this office,’ she said, sending a wave of concerned looks from one officer to the next. ‘Forensics sent over a messenger earlier with results of their latest DNA results. When Patrick Nelson’s DNA was put into the system, it flagged up a match with Jenni Grantham’s body.’ The sound of intrigue and confusion followed but Melanie pressed on, the time for questions was much later. ‘I’ve been over there just now to try to identify exactly what this means for Patrick’s involvement in Jenni’s murder. It turns out the DNA was found at different points on Jenni’s clothing, which doesn’t really have much of an impact over Patrick’s reputation, but his DNA was also found on the bag and the tie that was round Jenni’s neck.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ came from somewhere at the back of the huddle.

  ‘Obviously, this evidence is a little harder to ignore. We’re not drawing any conclusions yet, but a working theory seems to be that whoever Patrick was with when Jenni died may have turned on Patrick in the end, killing him, and bringing us to this point. It’s the only solid idea that we’ve got to work on. I’d like evidence for and against as soon as anyone can provide it.’ She paused in her speech to perch on the edge of a nearby desk before addressing her team again. ‘So where are we, kids. What do we actually know?’

  ‘Boss, sorry, back up. We’re thinking Patrick murdered Jenni?’ David Read piped up.

  ‘Do you have another suggestion?’ Melanie replied, her tone flat.

  ‘And what about the DNA on Patrick, where are we with that?’ Carter added.

  ‘Forensics are trying to match it, somehow, to the other samples that were found on Jenni. They’re hoping that there might be enough in this new sample to expand on the original DNA. If so, they’ll be able to put a profile together for us. But they’re ifs and buts for the time being and frankly, forensics are being good to us here, so I’m not about to bust them up for further details before they’re ready. They’ve said it’ll be tomorrow at the earliest if they get something,’ Melanie said with a shrug before looking over her whole team again, desperate for someone to have something.

  Lucy Morris raised a nervous hand.

  ‘Morris?’ Melanie obliged.

  ‘I’ve got a thing,’ she muttered. ‘I think.’ The DC headed over to her workstation and pulled up something on the computer screen, shielded from the officers behind her. It was a few seconds later when the interactive board – sleek and stark in contrast to the cluttered evidence board next to it – kicked into life and showed an expanded view of the DC’s desktop. ‘We’ve been going over Patrick’s conversation history. There are some things between him and Jenni, which we’ll get to, but there was also this…’ Morris double-clicked a small icon and a string of conversations unfolded in front of the detectives.

  TheRealMichaelRichards:

  Did she seemed worried though

  ‘Michael, our old friend,’ Carter said, leaning forward to get a better view. The detectives around him, Watton included, had their attentions fixed to the board while Morris recited the conversation aloud.

  GiveMeNelson:

  Not worried no

  If anything she seems excited

  Which makes me feel bad

  TheRealMichaelRichards:

  Bad

  Why

  We’ve been planning this

  She understands how it’ll work

  GiveMeNelson:

  Does she though

  Morris turned to face her colleagues, leaving a short sample of the conversation suspended in front of them. ‘CliffsNotes,’ she said. ‘In the minutes after this they talk about “her” and “she” a lot, without going as far to name anyone, so we don’t actually have Jenni’s name on record. However, we do have a lot of messages that show Patrick as being complicit in whatever this plan is that they’re talking about.’ Lucy turned to scroll into a new chunk of the conversation thread before turning back to face the room again. ‘This is about the worst of it.’

  TheRealMichaelRichards:

  She won’t make anything of her life without this Paddy

  We’re giving her something to die for

  See what I did there

  Think about how many people will know her after this

  How many people will know us

  Lucy left this snippet suspended on the screen as she addressed the group. ‘This conversation, along with some of the conversations that Patrick shared with Jenni, were hidden on the laptop in the same way that Jenni’s conversations were. Again, given Patrick’s inability to even clear his own search history–’

  ‘Wait, what’s so bad about his search history?’ Fairer interrupted.

  ‘Nothing, by a teenage boy’s standards,’ Morris replied, cutting her colleague quiet. ‘Given that that had never been cleared out, it seems unlikely that he was in the habit of organising covert conversations without someone guiding him to it.’

  ‘This is good stuff, Morris, nicely done,’ Melanie said, still inspecting the same message splayed over the board. ‘There’s more?’

  ‘There is,’ Lucy replied, turning to orchestrate another series of clicks. Several conversation windows unfolded across the screen, creating a layered effect. ‘There are quite a few between Patrick and Jenni, but this is one of the more interesting ones, two days before Jenni died.’

  GiveMeNelson:

  Are you feeling okay about the plans for Halloween

  JenniGRR:

  A bit nervous still

  But it’ll be a good laugh won’t it

  And it’ll shit my parents up

  GiveMeNelson:

  Aren’t you a bit more worried

  I mean, this is pretty major

  We just want you to be sure

  Jen you still there

  JenniGRR:

  Has MR said something to you

  Like they don’t think I’ll go through with it

  Because I’ll
go through with it alright

  Melanie read through the remains of the conversation which talked around the same subject matter, and she simply couldn’t make sense of it. Did Jenni know what was about to happen to her? Worse still, did she help her attackers orchestrate it? Melanie looked around her team and saw confusion mirrored back from them and, while it in part comforted her to know their state was a shared one, she’d been hoping that one of them would at least have something to offer.

  ‘The conversations between the two victims have been printed,’ Morris said, picking up a pile of stapled stacks of paper from the edge of her desk. ‘I took it upon myself to give you some homework for the night.’

  ‘Look at you, acting the detective,’ Burton said, playful but gentle.

  ‘About time,’ Fairer piped up.

  ‘And what have you found today, Brian?’ Melanie snapped, silencing the DC and commanding the attention of the room again. ‘No one takes these documents home with them. It’s great to have them, Lucy,’ she said, not wanting to discourage the young officer from showing initiative. ‘But they can’t leave the office, not with how things are. If you’re reading, then you’re staying here. Carter,’ she called her DS’s attention up from the transcripts he was already scanning through. ‘First thing tomorrow, we’re going to pull Eleanor Gregory in.’

  ‘From college?’ he asked.

  Melanie shook her head. ‘Her mother is keeping her out of school, something about being able to ensure her safety at home.’ There was a curt laugh from someone and when Melanie scanned the room for its source, she found Chris, her hand clasped to her mouth.

  36

  Melanie Watton and Edd Carter stood outside the front door of the Gregorys’ house, meanwhile Chris Burton was across town talking to the Granthams, with David Read in tow. Both sets of detectives had their separate mission statements. Chris was primarily interested in knowing about Jenni’s boyfriends, girlfriends, any romantic entanglements she’d had in her young life.