THE WEST LONDON MURDERS an absolutely gripping crime mystery with a massive twist (Detective Rob Miller Mysteries Book 2)

by BIBA PEARCE

  “Jo!” he yelled. He’d never been so happy to see anyone in all his life.

  Mary was still twisting and screaming like a banshee beneath him. Through the basement window he saw blue flashing lights. Thank God.

  There was a loud crash. Heavy boots thundered down the stairs. Voices shouted and guns pointed in his direction. “Get your hands up!” He recognized Travis’s coarse growl.

  He climbed off Mary, his hands in the air. She seemed too paralysed to move. An armed officer turned her over on to her stomach and cuffed her hands behind her back. He pulled her to her feet.

  Her eyes blazed. “You bastard! They deserved it. They all deserved it.”

  “All right, Rob?” Travis lowered his weapon and removed his helmet. “You know you’re bleeding?”

  Shit. The side of his shirt was wet with blood. “I think it’s just a flesh wound,” he replied, hoping it was. With the adrenalin still pumping through him, he could hardly feel it.

  Jo groaned as an officer peeled the tape off her mouth. Rob dashed over to her. “Jo! Are you okay?”

  “Oh, Rob. Thank God you found me.” The minute her bonds were cut, she collapsed into his arms. “Can you believe it? It was Mary all along.”

  “I know,” he muttered into her hair. “I’m sorry we took so long. We eventually figured it out.”

  “That’s okay.” She smiled up at him. How come even with a smudged face, black eye and blood-soaked hair, she still looked good?

  He feasted his eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”

  She touched the wound on her head and winced. “I think so.”

  “That doesn’t look too good.” He fingered the purple skin beneath her bloodshot eye. “Neither does this.”

  “It’ll mend.” She grimaced. “I’m just glad you got here in time. She knew you were after her. A few more minutes and that would have been it. I swear, I thought it was game over.”

  Relief rushed through him and he hugged her again. “So did I.”

  “There’s an ambulance outside,” said one of the armed officers. “Let’s get you both checked out.”

  It was then Jo saw the blood. “Shit, Rob. You’re injured.”

  “It’s just a scratch,” he said, faintly alarmed by how red his shirt was.

  Jo gave him a sceptical look but didn’t argue. Travis and the officer who’d unbound her supported her up the stairs. Her legs were wobbly and Rob suspected she had a mild concussion. He hobbled to the ambulance a few steps behind.

  Mary was being bundled into a police vehicle, still protesting. “You were next,” she hissed at Rob. With her hair plastered to her face and her mouth open in an ugly snarl, she really did look quite demented. He could picture her repeatedly stabbing her victims like a woman possessed. “After I killed your spying girlfriend, I was coming for you.”

  “She’s barking mad.” Jo watched as Mary was driven away. “Kept ranting on about how men were scum and deserved to die. ‘Sick fucks’, she called them.”

  “Her sister was raped and murdered two years ago,” he told her. “They found her body in a hostel in Brixton.”

  Jo was helped into the ambulance, where a medic began tending to her head wound. “That explains a lot,” she said. “Ouch.”

  “Sorry ma’am,” he apologized, but continued to wipe antiseptic over the wound. “We’ll have to take you in. That’s a nasty bump you’ve got there.”

  “This way, sir.” A second medic took Rob by the arm as if he were an invalid. “Let’s take a look at you.”

  It was just a flesh wound. The knife had nicked his side, leaving a nasty gash, but he didn’t need an ambulance.

  “I’ll meet you at the hospital as soon as I can,” he told Jo.

  She gazed at him, her eyes wet with tears. He’d never seen her so emotional before. She was usually the epitome of cool. A lump formed in his throat.

  “Thank you, Rob. You saved my life.”

  He waved away the compliment. “It was my fault she went for you in the first place.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Jo whispered. “It was her fault. We were just doing our jobs.”

  Chapter 39

  “Mary confessed to all four murders,” Rob said with a grim smile. He was sitting on the end of Jo’s bed in the bright hospital ward, along with Superintendent Lawrence and Mallory. She’d been kept in overnight with no visitors, which was a good thing since it had been quarter to two in the morning by the time they’d questioned and charged Mary with four counts of murder and one of attempted murder.

  It had finally started snowing, and by the time Rob had got to the hospital, the ground was covered by a fine layer of powder. The duty nurse kept giving them pointed glances, while the other two patients in the room made no attempt to mind their own business and were shamelessly eavesdropping on the conversation.

  “It was so strange,” Rob continued. “She was eerily calm during her interview. If I didn’t know better, I’d never believe she was the woman we arrested last night.”

  “Was it all because of her sister?” asked Jo. She had a concussion, four stiches in her head and her left eye was swollen shut, but the doctor had said she was going to be okay. As far as Rob was concerned, that was all that mattered.

  “So it seems. The police never did find out who murdered her. It destroyed their family. Mary’s father died shortly afterwards from a heart attack, and without his salary, they couldn’t keep up the mortgage repayments and lost their house. Her mother began binge-drinking to block out the pain.”

  “It’s so tragic.” Even after everything she’d been through, Jo could still empathize.

  “It is,” he agreed. So much about this case disturbed him. He thought about Ingrid, Christy, Bernadette and all the other girls prostituting themselves for money, unnecessarily putting their lives at risk, and was filled with a deep sense of sadness.

  “Mary hounded the police,” he explained. “I spoke to DCI Burton at Brixton nick and he remembers her well. When it became clear the perpetrator wasn’t going to be found, Mary decided to take matters into her own hands.”

  “That’s why she got the job at the escort agency,” said Mallory, speaking for the first time. He’d helped Rob question Mary after her arrest. It hadn’t taken them long to charge her. In addition to confessing, her DNA matched that found under Patterson’s fingernail. The knife she had on her when she’d kidnapped Jo was the same one that had been used in all four murders. There would be no bail.

  “Did she ever track down the man who killed her sister?” asked Lawrence, who was sitting beside Jo’s bed on the only chair in the room.

  “No, but that didn’t stop her looking. She trawled the forum website and kept a close eye on the punters who called the agency. Whenever she found one that she felt deserved to be punished, she’d pay him a visit.”

  “So she didn’t actually sleep with her victims?” Jo asked.

  He shook his head. “With Aadam Yousef and Ken Billows, she waited for the escort to leave, then went round to dispense justice. Those were her exact words, by the way.”

  Lawrence made a scoffing noise.

  “Dennis Patterson was a mistake,” continued Rob. “She misheard the room number.”

  “Unbelievable,” whispered Jo.

  Rob thought about Patterson’s family — his shell-shocked wife who suddenly had to raise two kids on her own, and the twins who would probably never be able to make sense of his death. There wasn’t any sense to be made, that was the tragic part.

  “And the third victim?” asked Lawrence. “The one that called the agency but didn’t book an appointment?”

  “Oh, Doug Bartlett fell right into her lap. Mary pretended to make a booking, but she didn’t enter it on to the system. Instead, she went herself, pretending to be an escort. He was waiting for her, let her into the apartment, even began to undress — which was why he had his pants off — before she attacked him while he was going to the toilet. He didn’t see it coming.”

  “Poor b
astard,” muttered Lawrence.

  “She saw herself as a kind of ‘avenging angel’, getting vengeance for all the women out there who couldn’t defend themselves.”

  “It’s a noble cause, really,” said Jo. “If only she’d gone about it another way.”

  “Well, she’s in a psychiatric facility now, awaiting trial.” Mallory told them. “She’ll probably plead diminished capacity.”

  “I hope she gets the help she needs.” Jo leaned back, her face almost as pale as the pillows propping her up.

  “She needs to rest,” the beady-eyed nurse said, coming over. The two other patients groaned and went back to their respective magazines.

  Lawrence got to his feet. “Well, that’s my cue to leave. Get better soon, DCI Maguire, and as always, it’s been a pleasure working with you.”

  She grimaced. “I wish I could say the same.”

  He smiled and gently patted her hand before leaving the ward. The DSI was fond of Jo, Rob could tell. And he was a hard man to please. Mallory followed suit, saying he’d see Rob back at the station.

  “How are you doing?” Rob took Lawrence’s place on the chair beside the bed.

  “My head feels like a herd of elephants has charged through it, but other than that, I’m okay.”

  He took her hand. “Let me know if you want me to leave.”

  She gave a weak smile. “Okay.”

  The nurse checked her pulse and blood pressure, then gave Rob a stern look. “You can stay but only if you don’t get her excited. She needs to rest.”

  Rob grinned. “I’ll do my best.”

  They sat quietly together, holding hands. He told her how they’d eventually figured out Mary was the culprit and how he’d broken into the abandoned building to find her.

  “My knight in shining armour,” she murmured.

  “I’m not sure about that.” He chuckled. “I literally threw myself down the stairs at Mary and got stabbed in the process. It wasn’t a very gallant rescue. That honour goes to Travis and his armed response team.”

  She laughed, then groaned and touched her head.

  “I’d better let you rest,” he said. Now that she was safe, he ought to go back to the station, he ought to ring Yvette, but he found he didn’t want to leave her side.

  “Don’t go just yet,” she whispered and closed her eyes.

  So he sat there, holding her hand as she drifted off to sleep, thinking he’d never felt so content in his life.

  THE END

  ALSO BY BIBA PEARCE

  Detective Rob Miller Mystery Series

  Book 1: THE THAMES PATH KILLER

  Book 2: THE WEST LONDON MURDERS

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  GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH USAGE FOR US READERS

  A & E: accident and emergency department in a hospital

  Aggro: violent behaviour, aggression

  Air raid: an attack in which bombs are dropped from aircraft on ground targets

  Allotment: a plot of land rented by an individual for growing fruit, vegetable or flowers

  Anorak: nerd (it also means a waterproof jacket)

  Artex: textured plaster finish for walls and ceilings

  A level: exams taken between 16 and 18

  Auld Reekie: Edinburgh

  Au pair: live-in childcare helper. Often a young woman.

  Barm: bread roll

  Barney: argument

  Beaker: glass or cup for holding liquids

  Beemer: BMW car or motorcycle

>   Benefits: social security

  Bent: corrupt

  Bin: wastebasket (noun), or throw in rubbish (verb)

  Biscuit: cookie

  Blackpool Lights: gaudy illuminations in a seaside town

  Bloke: guy

  Blow: cocaine

  Blower: telephone

  Blues and twos: emergency vehicles

  Bob: money

  Bobby: policeman

  Broadsheet: quality newspaper (New York Times would be a US example)

  Brown bread: rhyming slang for dead

  Bun: small cake

  Bunk: escape, i.e. ‘do a bunk’

  Burger bar: hamburger fast-food restaurant

  Buy-to-let: buying a house/apartment to rent it out for profit

  Charity shop: thrift store

  Carrier bag: plastic bag from supermarket

  Care home: an institution where old people are cared for

  Car park: parking lot

  CBeebies: kids TV

  Chat-up: flirt, trying to pick up someone with witty banter or compliments

  Chemist: pharmacy

  Chinwag: conversation

  Chippie: fast-food place selling chips and other fried food

  Chips: French fries but thicker

  CID: Criminal Investigation Department

  Civvy Street: civilian life (as opposed to army)

  Clock: punch

  Cock-up: mess up, make a mistake

  Cockney: a native of East London

  Common: an area of park land or lower class

  Comprehensive school (Comp.): high school