Dark Water: A gripping serial killer thriller

by Robert Bryndza

  Moss came to the threshold and stepped out, the officer gave her a clear plastic bag and she pulled off her mask and placed it inside.

  ‘Your sister and the kids are all fine. They’re upstairs with a neighbour. We managed to get a translator half an hour ago. They are all shaken but perfectly fine.’

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ said Erika wiping tears away with the back of her hand.

  ‘Where have you been, boss?’ asked Moss removing her overalls and placing them in the bag. They moved out into the communal entrance. ‘There was an emergency call logged at three thirty this morning from your landline… The operator didn’t know at first what was being said, but by a miracle one of the operators spoke Slovak.’

  Moss went on to say that an intruder had broken in through the patio window and Lenka had attacked the person with the metal pipe from the vacuum cleaner.

  ‘He went down and she thought she had killed him. She locked herself and the kids in the bathroom and called 112, which luckily goes through to 999 emergencies. They stayed in the bathroom until police arrived. Whoever broke in was bleeding badly. They tried to get into the bathroom, left a lot of blood on the door. They must have fled the scene, because when we arrived there was no one.’

  Erika slumped against the wall.

  ‘Was anything taken?’ she asked.

  ‘Not as far as we can see.’

  ‘Moss my bloody phone is in there, my bag, my laptop.’

  ‘Shit. Sorry Boss, you know the score. It’s a crime scene. I can see if we can get things fast tracked. Where are they?’

  ‘In my bag, probably by the TV.’

  Moss radioed through to ask the officers inside to track the bag down.

  ‘Sorry, Boss I have to ask this. Why did you leave without any of your stuff? And where did you go?’

  ‘I had a huge row with my sister. It’s been stressful having them to stay. And I went to Peterson’s flat. I left here around seven thirty-ish. I drove around for a couple of hours and then I must have got to his around nine, nine thirty.’

  ‘Did you stay?’

  Erika paused and looked at the floor, ’I did.’

  Moss was writing this down in her pocket book. She looked up at Erika,

  ‘Did you two, you know?’ she smiled.

  ‘Is that an official question?’

  Moss closed her notebook, ‘No, it’s me getting excited that two of my favourite colleagues and friends might be getting it on!’ she grinned.

  ‘Can we concentrate on what is happening here?’

  ‘Yes, Boss. Blink once for yes and twice for no.’

  ‘Moss!’

  ‘Sorry, I won’t mention it again.’

  ‘Good. Can I see my sister?’

  ‘Course, Boss.’

  * * *

  Erika had never met her neighbour on the top floor, a cheerful blowsy woman called Alison. She was in her forties and had a mass of messy curls.

  ‘Ello,’ she said when she opened the door. ‘Your sister and the kids are in the lounge, shook up they are.’ She spoke with a soft Welsh accent and wore a flower print dress. Her flat was larger than Erika’s, and comfortable. Filled with rustic wooden furniture, books, and pictures of family. She took them through to the living room where Lenka sat on the sofa talking to the translator, a tall thin man wearing a green corduroy suit who perched on the coffee table opposite. Eva was asleep in her arms and Karolina and Jakub were at either end of a long sofa. Between them was a huge elderly Rottweiler, asleep with his head on Karolina’s lap and his back feet on Jakub.

  ‘Erika,’ said Lenka seeing her with Moss. Erika went over and hugged her and Eva.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I stormed off like that,’ said Erika.

  ‘I’m sorry for what I said, I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘It’s fine, we’re all fine, everything is good and I love you, ‘said Erika. They hugged again, and then Erika went to the kids and asked if they were okay. They nodded solemnly. Karolina rubbed at the dog’s big ear, and Jakub tilted his head where Erika was blocking his view to the cartoons on the TV.

  ’So everything is okay?’ asked Moss. ‘I couldn’t understand a bloody word of that.’

  ‘Nor could I, and I speak Welsh,’ said Alison, adding, ‘That’s Duke by the way. He’s seventeen, spends all day sleeping and farting… he didn’t hear your intruder.’

  ‘Thanks for letting them stay here this morning,’ said Erika. ‘Sorry I never came up to introduce myself…’

  Alison batted her apologies away. ‘It always takes a crisis to bring people together, you fancy a cuppa?’

  Erika and Moss nodded.

  * * *

  They all sat down with tea, and the translator departed now that Erika could translate what Lenka was saying.

  ‘Did you get a look at whoever it was?’ asked Erika.

  ‘It was dark, but there was light coming in from outside, the streetlights,’ said Lenka. She took a sip of tea and bit her lip.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You know I said the other day a man came to read the gas and electricity meter?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I can’t be sure, and it was dark, but I saw his profile, and it looked like the same man.’

  52

  It was early afternoon when Erika arrived at Bromley Station. She’d booked Lenka into a hotel with the kids, a decent one she’d found in Dulwich. Marek was flying into London Stanstead Airport later that afternoon. They were going to get a couple of hours sleep, and then an e-fit photo artist was going over to work with Lenka on a likeness for the intruder, and the man who came to read the meter.

  * * *

  The incident room was busy, and everyone stopped working when Erika came through the door.

  ‘It’s all right, I’m okay. No one has been hurt, apart from the intruder who was seen off expertly by my sister. It runs in the family…’

  She looked around the room at John, DC’s Knight and Temple, at Moss who gave her a nod and a smile and then Peterson who just stared back at her. ‘It’s business as usual. We still have a case to solve, so let’s get to it.’

  She went to her office. Moss followed after her with a black bag. ‘Boss, I got your iPhone back from forensics, with your laptop. The bag didn’t look like it had been touched.’

  Erika placed it on her desk. She opened it and pulled out her iPhone seeing that the battery was dead, and she hooked it up to the charger she kept in the office.

  ‘They’ve taken blood samples the intruder left on your carpet, so we’ll see what comes back, hopefully we can get a match from the DNA database.’

  Erika switched on her phone. Moss went on,

  ‘It’s troubling that whoever did this scouted out your place first. But at the same time nothing was taken.’

  Erika’s phoned chimed several times, and she picked it up and swiped through. There were calls from Lenka, and five calls from an unknown number, plus a voicemail.

  ‘Is there anything else, Boss?’ asked Moss.

  ‘No, thanks. I’m just going to get myself up to speed with things,’ said Erika. Moss left and she sat down to listen to the voicemails, thinking it might be Peterson, calling her from his landline. She peered through the walls of the glass office at her team milling about, but she couldn’t see Peterson.

  She was surprised to hear the first voicemail was from DCI Amanda Baker, saying she had some important information for her regarding the Jessica Collins case, and to call her back urgently. Amanda had called her a further five times during the early hours of the morning, leaving another message.

  She pressed call, but Amanda’s mobile went straight to voicemail. She logged onto her computer and pulled up the phone directory and put in Amanda’s address. She tried the landline number, but it rang out.

  Erika got up and called John over.

  ‘Can you keep trying these two numbers. They’re for Amanda Baker, when she answers can you put her through to me straight away.’

&nbs
p; ‘Yes, Boss,’ he said.

  Erika went back to her desk and tried to get her head back into the Jessica Collins case. She looked through the notes she had made over the last few days, taking in the arrest of Joel Michaels, who was still in custody at the station. And she looked through the notes of her meeting with Laura Collins.’

  There was a knock on the glass and Peterson opened the door. He held a cardboard tray with two coffees from the Starbucks at the top of the high street. He moved to her desk and placed one in front of her.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked.

  ‘I got you a coffee.’

  ‘I didn’t ask for one.’

  ‘You looked like you could do with one…’

  Erika pushed it across the desk towards him. ’Peterson, what are you doing?’

  ‘Can’t I get you a coffee?’

  ‘Are you getting me a coffee as your Boss or as your, I don’t know, one night stand?’

  ‘That’s not fair. I’m just getting you a coffee, read into it what you will. And last night was special…’

  ‘We are not talking about last night here in the bloody incident room!’

  Just then Moss appeared at the door.

  ‘I was just going to run across the road for coffee, do you guys…’ he voice tailed off. ‘Oh. Did I miss the coffee run?’

  ‘I’ve just been,’ said Peterson.

  ‘You went all the way up to Starbucks?’ She asked, seeing the cups. She then looked between Erika and Peterson and grinned, ‘Oh… I see, he’s a keeper.’

  ‘Moss can you come in here and close the door behind you,’ said Erika. She waited until the door was shut. ‘Look. This is not a dating game, I don’t want to hear my or Peterson’s private life discussed here. There’s no office romance to follow or be a part of…’

  Moss nodded, ‘Yes boss… but look he got you brown and white sugar, a napkin; he’s even balanced one of those little tea stirrer sticks on the top. That’s sweet.’

  ‘Piss off, Moss,’ said Peterson.

  ‘Just get back to work, both of you,’ said Erika. When they’d gone she stared at the coffee for a moment and then relented and took a sip. She picked up the phone and called Isaac Strong. He was at work and answered after a couple of rings,

  ‘What do you know about a drug called Halcion?’ she asked.

  ‘The generic name is Triazolam; Halcion is the original brand name. It’s a central nervous system depressant in the benzodiazepine class. It’s similar in composition to other benzodiazepines, but it’s generally only used as a sedative to treat severe insomnia. Why, have you seized some?’

  ‘No. I saw it was prescribed to Marianne Collins. I wanted to know what it was.’

  ‘Prescribed?’

  ‘Yes, Laura said that their GP had been to see Marianne after the incident outside the station, and prescribed it for her to calm her down and help her sleep.’

  ‘Are you sure it was Halcion?’

  ‘I saw the box in their kitchen bin. I wrote it down when I got back to the car with my notes.’

  ‘Erika, Halcion has been illegal in the UK since the early nineties. No GP would risk giving their patient a banned drug…’

  There was a knock at Erika’s door, it was Peterson,

  ‘What it is? I’m on the phone…’

  ‘Boss, there’s been an emergency call-out to Amanda Baker’s house. The postman went to do his delivery this afternoon at her front room window but she wasn’t there. He thinks he can see something through her window…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He thinks he can see her feet suspended above the floor in the hallway.’

  53

  Erika drove fast with the blue lights and sirens blaring, ducking and weaving through the traffic in Catford, and shooting over three sets of red lights. Rain spotted the front windscreen, and Peterson expertly braced his arms against the inner door and seat.

  ‘Are we cool?’ he said as they flew across a busy crossroads, water spraying up either side of the car.

  ‘Yes, we’re cool,’ she grinned, not taking her eyes off the road.

  * * *

  A police car was waiting outside Amanda Baker’s house. One of the officers was talking to the Postman, a middle-aged man who stood resting his bag on the gatepost, looking shaken. A couple of neighbours were watching from their front doors, as another officer was peering through the grimy glass of the front door.

  ‘I tried to force it, the lock looks crap but it won’t budge,’ she said to Erika and Peterson as they came down the front path flashing their ID’s.

  ‘There’s newspapers stacked up against it on the other side. Erika leaned over and peered at the frosted glass, but couldn’t make out anything. They came to the front and Peterson looked at the window.

  ‘The lock’s been fixed,’ he said peering through, ‘and I can see a pair of feet, just through the doorway from the hall.

  ‘Okay, let’s try the back,’ said Erika.

  They made their way round and through the fence, down the side passage and into the back garden. The back door stood open.

  ‘Can you call for backup,’ said Erika quietly. The officer nodded and reached for his radio. As he put in the call, Erika and Peterson went into the kitchen. It was a worse mess than their last visit, and despite the cold weather, several flies hovered over a mound of dirty dishes. A tap dripped into one of the dirty saucepans, but apart from this the house was silent.

  He kitchen door was closed and they made their way toward it, slowly. The uniform officer caught up with them and slipped the baton from the back of his belt. He moved to go first and open the door.

  There was a strange creaking sound that made them stop.

  ‘This is the police, come out with your hands raised,’ said the officer gripping the baton. There was silence for a moment, and then the creaking came again louder, it rose and then there was a ripping sound a snap and an almighty thud shook the floorboards. It was followed by the sounds of debris crashing down the stairs.

  They stood for a moment longer as the silence rang out. The officer looked back and Erika gave him a nod. He opened the door swiftly, and they saw Amanda Baker’s body lying at a gruesome angle on the hall carpet. She wore just a white patterned nightgown with blue socks. Her left arm and shoulder were trapped under her back and her right leg was dislocated at the knee. She was covered in dust and chunks of plaster, and a square of thin wood lay nearby. It was the loft hatch.

  ‘It broke away from the ceiling,’ said Peterson pointing up to a gaping hole in the ceiling at the top of the stairs. A fine rain of plaster dust rained down.

  They looked back at Amanda’s body and saw her face was purple and bloated, there was a noose tight around her neck, and her eyes were still open.

  54

  ‘Do you think this was suicide?’ asked Erika. A few hours had passed and Isaac Strong was attending the crime scene with Nils Akerman and his team of CSI’s.

  ‘Death was by asphyxiation. The neck is elongated and you can see the deep groove in the neck,’ said Isaac gently tilting the victims head.

  ‘My only problem is that we found a glass tumbler on the carpet at the top of the stairs, with a residue of what smells like coca cola. There’s a corresponding splash on the wall,’ said Isaac. ‘We’ll need to check what was in the glass, it could have been that some kind of drug was dissolved in the drink… or that she was taken by surprise.’

  Erika and Peterson looked back at Amanda. Isaac went on,

  ‘There is a bruise in the centre of the lower back which concerns me, and the use of the stairs can mean suicide or foul play. She’s wearing a nightgown, which could mean she got up in the night, there was someone here and in the darkness she walked into the noose. The bruise in the lower back could be where she was shoved off the top step.’

  Peterson got up and went to the loft hatch which lay halfway up the stairs, attached to the other end of the rope

  ‘The rope was tied to the inside of the
loft hatch. There’s a metal bar still attached to the other side of this hatch, a bracket for a pull-down ladder,’ he said. ‘And the hatch has one of those pull down latches which can be opened with a pole with a hook on the end.’

  Erika looked around at the mess of plaster and dust in the hallway.

  ‘Any chance of a time of death Isaac?’ asked Erika.

  ‘I’ll know more when I’ve had a closer look,’ he said. The crime scene photographer moved in and the hallway lit up as he took pictures.

  Nils appeared in the living room doorway,

  ‘I think you’ll want to take a look at this,’ he said.

  They followed him through and saw that the living room was much the same as the last time they saw it. Only the laptop had been removed from its stand, the charger still hung over the metal stand and was plugged in.

  ‘Her mobile phone is missing, and the landline in the hall has been removed,’ said Nils. ‘But her purse is still on the counter in the kitchen beside the kettle. It’s got two hundred pounds still inside and all the credit cards.’

  ‘So it wasn’t a robbery.’

  ‘There’s no sign of forced entry,’ added Nils.

  ‘The kitchen door was still open when we arrived,’ said Peterson.

  ‘But if the person came through the kitchen, they would have seen the purse there.’

  Erika noticed something on the top of the computer stand, and she went over, pulling a pair of latex gloves from her pocket.

  ‘She wasn’t the thinnest person,’ said Peterson as she picked the small box of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. Erika noticed that the chocolate inside was well past its use by date, it had solidified and was oozing out of the orange foil.

  ‘She hasn’t opened it,’ said Erika. ‘And look, the slogan on the box has been underlined with a permanent marker.’

  ‘It’s not Terry’s, it’s mine,’ said Nils joining them and reading over Erika’s shoulder. ‘This is very old. I eat at least one chocolate orange a week, I am an addict,’