by Dane Cobain
“Oh, he killed her all right,” Groves said. “He was bending over the body when we got there. We’ve got a knife with the victim’s blood on it and what looks like a clear set of prints. It was him. Simple.”
“Perhaps,” Cholmondeley said. “But that doesn’t mean that he killed the others. He could be a copycat.”
Groves shrugged and stepped away from Cholmondeley, leading the way towards the door.
“Well,” she said, “I guess there’s only one way to find out.”
* * *
Leipfold and Maile knew nothing of the latest developments, and they were whiling away the last few hours at the office by tying up the loose ends in a couple of cases and recapping his chat with Alan Phelps about the front page of The Tribune.
“At least we got a mention in the write-up, boss,” Maile said.
Leipfold grunted.
“There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” she reminded him.
“You’re right,” Leipfold said. “But there is such a thing as irresponsible journalism. If they’re not careful, they’ll have another victim’s blood on their hands.”
“That’s not true,” Maile said. “Only one person is guilty and that’s the Tower Hill Terror.”
“But if journalists piss him off then they play a part.” Leipfold shook his head. “No matter, it’s not our problem. The press has a game of its own to play. I’m more worried about ours. It’s nearly full time and we’re a goal down.”
“What are you talking about?” Maile asked.
“Football, Maile, football.” He slammed his fist down on the desk and knocked an empty mug to the floor. It smashed at the handle and rolled off across the room. “And serial killers.”
He descended into a gloomy silence, and Maile took the chance to put the kettle on. She refilled both of their drinks and grabbed a packet of pretzels from the snack cupboard. Leipfold hadn’t kept food in the office until she joined him. He joked that she spent half of the day with a snack in her hand and wanted to know how she managed to stay so thin. Maile, meanwhile, swore that her boss didn’t eat because she rarely saw him do it. James Leipfold appeared to be powered by caffeine alone.
Maile sat back down at her desk and ran a couple of searches, then asked him, “What’s going to happen next?”
“I don’t know,” Leipfold said. “Perhaps The Tribune did us a favour. After all, at least people will be on the alert now. We need more witnesses, damn it. We need people to come forward and point a finger at someone. So far, that forensic team hasn’t found anything worth looking for. Could be that an eyewitness is what we need to narrow in on a suspect.”
Maile thought about it for a moment. “I’ve got a couple of ideas,” she said. “For starters, let me put the word out on the net. I’ll draft something for your blog and get you to take a look at it.”
“If you think it’ll help,” Leipfold said, doubtfully. He paused for a moment, deep in thought. “It’s no good. We need to catch him in the act. That’s the only way we’ll know for sure. Problem is, there’s still a big question that we haven’t been able to answer.”
“What’s that then?” Maile asked.
Leipfold shrugged and stood up, then wandered over to the board on the wall with his case notes scribbled across it, right next to the map of the city with the pins in it. He sighed again.
“We still don’t know how the killer finds his victims,” he said.
Chapter Twenty:
Meeting People
MAILE WAS WORRIED. It was quiet at home. Too quiet. It wasn’t that Kat was a problem to live with. In fact, Maile knew that she was the noisy, untidy one, and she often reminded herself how lucky she was to have a housemate who put up with her. Kat usually kept to herself, even though her name was on the lease and so the place belonged more to her than to Maile, but it had been a couple of days since they’d last bumped into each other in the kitchen or argued about who’d get to jump in the shower first.
It was a Friday morning and Maile hadn’t seen Kat since Wednesday night. It wasn’t unusual for her to stay away from home for a day or two, but it was strange for her to ignore her housemate’s messages. She was usually glued to her phone, just like Maile with her laptop. But Maile had tried to call her a half dozen times in the last twenty-four hours and her phone had gone to voicemail each time.
It’s probably nothing, she thought. It’s just like when she and Brad broke up. But still…
Maile trod carefully around Leipfold that morning because he had a face like a wolf with a sore tooth. He hadn’t shaved since the previous weekend and a five-day stubble was poking its way through. His beard had changed from grey to brown to ginger, but Maile only mentioned it once. He didn’t take it well.
But she had a favour to ask of him, and she made a fresh cup of coffee before she broached the subject. It helped that they solved the crossword in a little under seven minutes. Not a record, but a big “fuck you” to Mr. Phelps all the same.
She told him as she brewed their second cup of coffee, when her resolve ran out and she had to bring it up before the worry threatened to break her down.
“Kat’s missing,” she said.
Leipfold grunted and bowed his head towards the computer screen. He pulled up a number on his browser and started to key it into his phone.
“Did you hear me?” Maile asked.
Leipfold grunted again. He sighed and set his phone back down. “Sorry,” he said. “Who are you talking about?”
“Kat,” Maile said. “My housemate.”
Leipfold rubbed his eyes and said, “Start again.”
So Maile told him how her housemate had fallen off the face of the earth. Unlike Maile, Kat was punctual and communicative, the kind of person who’d ask a neighbour to keep an eye on their house while they went away.
“I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t always listen to her,” Maile said. “I mean, the woman turns talking about rubbish into an art form. But if she was planning on going away, she would have said something. And if she’d said something, I’d remember it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Maile laughed. “I would have moved my Xbox through and plugged it into the big TV in the living room,” she said.
Leipfold nodded and pretended to jot something down in his notebook. Maile knew him too well and recognised it for what it was. He was doodling, probably a cartoon of a bird or a half-arsed sketch of a dog or a wolf.
“What do you want me to do about it?” Leipfold asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Maile replied, glaring at him across the room. “I want you to find her.”
“No can do,” Leipfold said. “Sorry. Look for her yourself if you want to. I can give you a little time off if you need it.”
“I’ve already looked,” she said, thinking guiltily about the ten minutes she’d spent fruitlessly searching for clues. “Just do me a favour.”
“What?”
Maile smiled sweetly at him and said, “Give Jack Cholmondeley a call. Just pass it on.”
“He’s a busy man, Maile.”
“So are you,” she said. “Just tell him.”
“Why?”
“Kat can look after herself, but it’s unusual for her to go this long without messaging me,” she said. She shook her head. “Call me crazy, I guess. I’d just feel better if you called Cholmondeley. And besides…”
Leipfold stared at her. “Besides what?”
Maile looked him straight in the eye and said, “It could be connected to the case.”
Leipfold shuddered. “I hope not,” he said. “For her sake.”
Leipfold was still reluctant, but Maile continued to grumble until he eventually caved and made the call. The policeman didn’t answer, but Leipfold left him a message and Maile was happy with that.
“You could always go
to the police directly,” Leipfold said.
Maile shook her head. “It’ll take them too long to act on it,” she replied. “But Jack Cholmondeley won’t let us down.”
Cholmondeley called back about half an hour later, apologising half-heartedly and explaining that he’d been in a meeting.
“With the bosses?” Leipfold asked.
Cholmondeley laughed and said, “With a suspect.” There was a pause for a moment before he added, “What can I help you with?”
“You know my assistant?”
“I remember her well.”
“Her housemate is missing,” Leipfold said. “She’s called...” Leipfold held a hand over the phone’s receiver and mouthed something over at Maile.
“Kat Cotteril,” Maile said.
“Kat Cotteril,” Leipfold repeated. “She’s what, twenty-six, twenty-seven?”
“She’s thirty-one,” Maile growled. She hopped up from her chair and ran across to him. “Give me that.”
Maile took the phone and talked to Jack Cholmondeley directly. She grabbed his email address and sent him a photo while they were talking, and she also did her best to describe Kat. She was even able to give Cholmondeley a list of the clothes that Kat was last seen wearing.
“It was Tuesday night,” Maile recalled. “I remember now. She was meeting a guy so she was dressed to kill. And when she wasn’t at home in the morning, I figured she spent the night with him.”
Cholmondeley repeated the list back to her and then asked Maile how Kat knew the man.
“She used an app,” Maile said. “That’s how everyone meets these days. I need your help. Please.”
Cholmondeley sighed and said he’d do what she asked of him. “I’m not going to head it myself, you understand?” he said. “I’ll pass it on to one of my constables. And I’m not promising anything.”
“Understood,” Maile said, as Leipfold gestured for her to finish up. “I’ve got to go. My boss wants the phone back.”
“Of course,” Cholmondeley grumbled. “He always wants to talk to me.” He sighed. “Okay,” he said. “You’d better hand me over.”
* * *
When Leipfold took the phone back, he put Cholmondeley on loudspeaker and gestured for Maile to sit down next to him. She grabbed one of the plastic chairs from the reception area and dragged it over, then sat beside Leipfold to listen.
“How are you doing, Jack?” Leipfold asked.
Cholmondeley grunted and said, “Get to the point.”
“All right.” Leipfold paused and glanced down at the doodle—a wolf and a fox, Maile thought—and made a clicking noise with his teeth. He winked at Maile and stalled a little longer. He did it just to annoy him. Jack Cholmondeley was an easy man to irritate.
“Okay,” Leipfold said. “I’ve got a theory. I need you to do a couple of background checks and see what you can find.”
“On who?”
“On the victims,” Leipfold said. “Who did you think? See if any of them were using dating apps.”
“Like whatsername?”
“Kat,” Maile said.
“Precisely,” Leipfold said. “See, I’ve been thinking. The killer must have some way of meeting people. Strangers, of course. If they were connected to each of the victims, we would know by now.”
“We’ve looked into it,” Cholmondeley said. “It’s possible, but unlikely.”
“So how do you meet random people?” Leipfold asked. “I mean, really random people?”
“In a bar?” Cholmondeley asked.
Leipfold shook his head vigorously, hit his desk so hard that he finally left a mark on it and said, “You’d know about it. So would I, for that matter. Come on, Jack, we’ve both done our homework.”
“A dating app could work,” Maile murmured, thoughtfully.
“What are you basing this on?”
“A hunch,” Leipfold said. “Nothing more.”
“I’ll get someone to take a look at it,” Cholmondeley replied. “But there’s only so much we can do without something a little more solid than one of your hunches.”
A silence descended as the two men thought it over. Maile, meanwhile, stared thoughtfully into the distance. She got up and walked over to Leipfold’s corkboard, where his map of the city was laid out with its colour-coded pins and his spidery handwriting on sticky notes. She picked up a pin—a black one, her favourite colour—and pushed it into the map. It marked the house that she and Kat lived in and it fit perfectly into the middle of the map.
“James, are you there?” Cholmondeley was saying.
Leipfold was about to reply when Maile cut in, racing back across the room to pant breathlessly down the line.
“It’s the apps,” Maile said. “It has to be. And I can tell you exactly why.”
“What do you mean?” Leipfold asked.
“It’s simple,” Maile said. “We should have thought of it before. It’s been staring us in the face every time we look at the map on the wall. Sites like that use geolocation. Their users connect with each other based on the distance between them. They’re supposed to introduce you to people in the local area so you can get out from behind the screen and meet up with them.”
There was silence for a moment as the three of them considered the implications. Then Leipfold sighed and said, “Sounds plausible enough. We’re going to have to look into it. Over to you, Jack.”
Chapter Twenty-One:
In a Bind
LATER THAT DAY, while Cholmondeley was following up on Leipfold’s latest lead, the detective led Maile out of the office, locked the door behind them and then hopped on the back of Camilla. Maile rode behind him as they wound their way through the streets towards Maile’s apartment.
For a moment, Maile was elated, riding high on the bike with the wind in her face, although she couldn’t feel it through Leipfold’s spare helmet. She was on the back of a beautiful bike, enjoying the thrill of the chase, and she was getting a cheeky ride home, too. But then she remembered the trail of the dead from Jayne Lipton to Meg Jackson. And she remembered her missing housemate, too.
Kat hadn’t read or responded to any of her messages, nor had she answered any of the missed calls or the voicemails. Maile was half-hoping to find her sitting on the sofa in the living room, but no dice. The apartment was as empty as she’d left it, silent except for the shuffling sounds that Leipfold made as he searched for clues, like a prize pig sniffing out truffles.
“Has she got a computer?” Leipfold asked. Maile nodded. “Can you crack the password?”
“No need,” Maile said. “I already know it. But you’re not going to find anything. It was the first thing I checked and I, unlike you, know what to look for.”
Leipfold laughed and said, “Get me a log of her emails and her internet history. I’ll go from there.”
“Already on it.”
Maile tapped a few buttons on her phone and emailed the files across to him. Leipfold, meanwhile, was sweeping through the apartment, starting with the chaotic living room. He opened drawers and scoured the bookcases, not really sure what he was looking for, and then rooted through the bin in search of receipts, letters, or anything else that might offer a clue. He found nothing.
Maile’s eyes burned into the back of his head as he walked out into the corridor and looked towards the other rooms. He checked the bathroom first, which made her smile.
Never thought I’d see James Leipfold poking his nose around my housemate’s makeup, she thought.
That thought was swiftly followed by another one, which arrived just in time for her to do something.
“Oi!” she shouted.
Leipfold paused with his fingers stretching out towards the door handle. “What?” he asked.
“That’s my room,” Maile said. “And I haven’t tidied up since the weekend.”
Maile made them both a cup of coffee, and then they tackled Kat’s room, although Maile refused to leave him alone in there.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Maile explained. “I just know what Kat’s like. She doesn’t trust you. She doesn’t trust anyone. If this all turns out to be nothing and I let you look through her stuff, she won’t be happy.”
Leipfold laughed and agreed to her terms, though he reminded her that time was of the essence, and then combed through the room once Maile was ready to escort him. It was an arduous, thankless task. Kat loved clutter like her housemate loved her Xbox, and Leipfold insisted on cataloguing every piece of it. He made his way methodically around the room, peeking into drawers and lifting up ornaments, checking envelopes and opening books and DVD cases. Maile followed closely at his heels, taking photographs for their reference when they headed back to the office.
Leipfold knelt down and looked under her bed before checking behind the headboard and beneath the pillows and mattress. Then he moved towards her dressing table and opened up a jewellery box. He reached in and gently removed a handful of necklaces, then stopped abruptly and took a closer look. The box had a false bottom, so he lifted it out and reached a hand inside.
“What do we have here, then?” he murmured. Maile wandered over and looked a little closer.
“Holy shit,” she said. “I forgot about that.”
Leipfold held the object up to the light, then brought it to his nose and sniffed it. He frowned and put the baggie back in its rightful place.
“I wouldn’t have thought she was the type,” he said. And the search continued.
Leipfold turned his attention to the wardrobe. Maile chatted to him while he searched, narrating the history of her housemate’s clothing collection. Leipfold found a shoebox with a bunch of old photos, and Maile wandered aimlessly around the room while he worked through them. She opened up the drawers and started to look through them, feeling slightly ashamed to be hunting through her housemate’s underwear. Kat owned a disproportionate number of thongs and more than her fair share of trashy lingerie. She was a woman who clearly didn’t dress for comfort. Then Maile saw something that made her feel even worse. She picked it up and wordlessly dropped it into her back pocket.