by Coles, Linda
“Agreed. But back to Veronica,” said Flint, “she went down to the lake for sure, she admits that. She picked her daughter up on Friday at 9.30 am for the weekend, took her to the pool party in town, ran her errands, then drove the daughter out for their picnic, then back home, where the babysitter took over.”
“I don’t understand why you would pick your daughter up in a funeral car when you’ve got a vehicle of your own parked at work. She went there first, remember?”
“I suppose she could have been blocked in by another vehicle. It might have been easier to take the Mercedes if it was right there.”
They mulled it over, both sipping on their coffees, deep in thought. They needed a breakthrough, and fast.
“I say we give the deputy mayor another go,” Rochelle said, “and we take a deeper look at Veronica.”
“Katherine has also got the right phone,” piped up Flint. “It fits with the information of where the photographs were taken from and the type of device used, the details you got from the image info from the text.”
“But so has the vicar. An iPhone X is pretty common. That model has been out for some time and none of these people strike me as the type to keep up with the latest gadgets. An iPhone is an iPhone until you’re looking for a new one because you dropped it in a puddle or did something equally deadly to it.”
Flint nodded in agreement.
“When that photograph was taken, four of the eight were in the vicinity, and by that I mean the church grounds. So, let’s look at the tunnels and who says they know about them.” Rochelle ticked the names off on her fingers: “Margaret and Katherine say they’ve heard of them, but they’ve never been down there. Veronica, Anne and Sandy all say they’ve never heard of them, so have never been, obviously. That leaves the vicar, the sexton and Ned, who have snooped about down there. We’ve got absolutely no way of knowing who is lying or telling the truth, but let’s go with who says they know about the tunnels for a second. If the vicar, the sexton, and Ned say they have been in them, we have to take that as gospel, pardon the pun, for the moment. Any one of them could have taken the photo at the time we have on that text message, yet only one of them has an iPhone X – the vicar.”
“But with our group, it doesn’t mean they used their own phone down there. They could have borrowed, say, their husband’s phone, or their child’s, for example. Or used a spare. I know when I purchase a new phone, I keep the old one for a backup in case I trash the screen and it has to go in for repair. We need to find out who has access to that model of phone, not necessarily who owns one.”
“Agreed. Going back to who knows about the tunnel, we are looking at the vicar, the sexton and Ned, since they are the only ones admitting to ever going down there. We need to find out who has had that phone in the past and hope it was on a contract that we can see. If they purchased it outright, not so simple.”
“I’ll get on to that,” said Flint, making a note in his day book.
Rochelle carried on, “Then somebody had to take the body down to the lake, and so far the only vehicle we’ve got going down there that we can connect to our little soirée is owned by the funeral home, and Veronica Lauder herself admits she was driving it, taking her daughter to the lake for a picnic. She was back at work by 2 pm and the ANPR cameras caught her in town beforehand, running errands after she’d dropped her daughter off at a pool party. That also puts her in the middle of town and near to the church at the time in question. Katherine, however, went to the office then to the doctors’ mid-morning, before she carried on home with a migraine. She didn’t surface from her bed until 5 pm. No one can verify her at home all day, though. And she does have the right phone, remember.”
“If we forget their alibis, it fits for Veronica and Katherine, except both state they’ve never heard of the tunnels, though Katherine uses an iPhone X. Remember she also has a direct link to the mayor and working for the council, I’d assume the tunnels have come up in conversation somewhere in her career. Unless we’ve got this all wrong and it was another vehicle, and there were several that passed down that lane, we don’t have anything concrete at the moment. Too much circumstantial that can also be explained away quite legitimately. We’re a long way from charging anyone.”
“I hear you,” said Rochelle as she sipped on her coffee and pondered for a moment.
DC Flint did the same. “What’s also troubling me,” he said, “is how anybody would get the body out of the cellar in the first place, and alive at that. It would be hard enough for anyone, let alone a slight person like Veronica or Katherine.”
“I can only assume with some sort of threat.”
“Knifepoint, do you mean?”
“Or similar, yes. Perhaps even verbal: ‘If you don’t come with me, something will bad happen.’ Maybe somebody else was being held at another location and with the threat of them being harmed – your child, for instance – you’d do anything to prevent it, wouldn’t you?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s child had been used as leverage in a kidnapping.”
“We still haven’t figured out why the perpetrator is doing this. I’m not buying because they are homeless men, that is no reason to kill them, and I’m not buying cleaning the streets up either. I know we’ve gone over this before, but it has to be something more.”
“It’s not common for killers to kill simply because they can, there’s always a reason or desire behind it. This has taken some planning, and there have been three in quick succession. Normally, a serial killer doesn’t attack with timings quite so close together, so I’m thinking it’s not a fix type thing. No one is doing this for kicks.”
“But they are doing it to send a message, and that’s via the torsos of the victims, remember. The mayor himself has been of no use to us at all.”
“We need to have another go at him.”
“I suggest we get the team together again and refresh. If there’s going to be another body, it will be soon going by what’s happened so far. Yes, we’ve disrupted their operation somewhat, their location, but that might not stop them, only slow them down. However, there’s a chance it will push them into making a mistake. They’ll feel more pressured, no doubt.”
“You’re forgetting the actual messages, though,” said Flint.
“How so?”
“The last one said ‘checkmate’. Game over. I take that to mean the killings are finished.”
“Maybe.” Rochelle played with her bottom lip as she pondered. “What happens after checkmate in a game of chess?”
The two locked eyes at the realisation.
“Holy hell.”
“Let’s hope not.”
One game over. Was another about to begin?
Seventy-Five
Stuart McGregor was always on the last minute and had been the same all through his life. As a full-time reporter at the Chronicle, it was a wonder he ever hit a story deadline, but somehow he managed to never let the paper down. It was a standing joke with everybody in the small team, so when he walked through the door at 8.59 on Monday morning, it was no different than any other day of the week. The bright and breezy young man was well liked by everyone, his long, fine hair, which he wore tied up in a tight bun, the envy of most of the women in the office. He relished the attention it brought him. As a single man he was constantly on the lookout for his next date, though none of his colleagues were his type particularly. He was the only one under forty and they teased him rotten, but it was all in a day’s work and he thoroughly enjoyed his job. He didn’t plan on staying for much longer, though. He’d big plans to move down to London and write for one of the national newspapers, live the big dream. But for now, the Chronicle was where it was at.
As he walked through the open-plan reception area, he flung both arms wide and shouted at the top of his voice, “Good morning, team!” He waited for the chorus of ‘good morning, Stuart’ back before heading across to his desk. It was a daily, light-hearted moment and one he took great plea
sure in, though he knew when he moved to London, he’d have to drop his grand entrance. For now, the team enjoyed his company and spontaneity, and he’d carry on lifting spirits where he could. He stopped at the desk of a fellow staff writer and perched on the corner casually.
“How was your weekend, Bruce?” he asked teasingly, knowing full well that he’d been out on his first hot date in a long time after a recent split. “What was she like?”
“I’m not telling you anything,” said Bruce coyly, though by the look on his face it had gone well.
“Are you seeing her again?”
Before Bruce could answer, a shrill scream from behind them reverberated around the office. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned towards where the noise had come from: Amanda on reception. She was up and away from her desk, hands fastened tightly across her mouth as if she’d seen a giant rat and the action protected her. The terror in her eyes was evident even from a distance, and as she screamed again, Stuart rushed over and was by her side in a flash.
“What is it, Amanda?” he asked eagerly.
She was staring intently at something on the desk in front of her. She finally lowered her fingers but visibly trembled. A couple of the other ladies had gathered around, and Bruce found himself standing next to Stuart.
“What the—” said Bruce. There on the desk was a picture of a naked torso with a message written across it in blue ink. He could only assume, as Amanda obviously had, that the person was dead.
“Don’t touch it,” said Stuart, taking charge. As the rest of the office gathered round, Amanda started to relax a little, though tears streamed down her face and somebody placed an arm around her shoulders.
“Does anybody have any tweezers to pick the pages up with? Because I’d say that’s a dead body.” He pointed to the picture.
“I would too,” said Bruce.
A hand passed Stuart a set of tweezers and he gently picked the first page up, the photocopy of the naked torso. He laid it to one side, but underneath was another with a different message clearly visible.
“Dear god,” said Stuart.
He looked through each of the documents carefully, each one indisputable in terms of what it depicted.
“Is Gillian in?” he asked.
“Editor’s not due until ten today,” a female voice informed him.
“You’d better give her a call on her mobile, she needs to see this, and pronto.”
The woman moved away to make the call.
“Who has touched these?” Stuart asked.
“Only me,” said Amanda, finding her quivery voice. “I was just opening the post.”
“Go get a sheet of flipchart paper from the boardroom,” he instructed a woman on his right and she scurried off.
“What do you want that for?” asked Bruce.
“So I can lay these out without touching them and have a good look at them properly before we call the police.”
“What are the rest of the pages?” asked another voice from the rear of the small crowd.
Stuart used the tweezers to lift a document covered in text. They waited while he read a little.
“Apart from the bodies, they look to be copies of contracts between our council and a company called Oneland Developments,” he said, scanning the parts he could see clearly. There was also a printout of invoices paid to Oneland Developments. As he lifted away another document, he could see who the directors were and began to snigger in a derisory manner. He read some more, realisation of just what the documents meant dawning on him.
“What is it is?” Bruce asked.
“Well, well, what do you know,” said Stuart smugly. “What I appear to have in my hands, ladies and gentlemen,” he said dramatically, “are documents that show our good man the mayor has been siphoning off public money to his own development scheme, the facility for the elderly that’s being built. He’s been double-dipping. I’d say these invoices are more than likely fictitious and they add up to a cool two million.”
A chorus of disgust filled the air.
“How do you work that out?” asked Bruce.
“Because I know who’s building that development, and now I know who the directors are behind the company. When I’ve looked before, I’ve always hit a brick wall, a shell company with more layers than an onion, so it’s been impossible to confirm anything. But this here,” he said, pointing to a document, “links it all together. Contracts for the boys, I’d say, and the mayor is one of the boys. Jammy whatsit. With the invoices on top, he’s more than creaming it in. We’d better call legal into this too. We’ll need confirmation this is kosher and we can use it.”
“Where has it come from, do you think?” Bruce asked.
“That is the multi-million-pound question. Who would know? It’s been sent anonymously, of course; someone dropped it in. I also suspect it’s someone that’s involved in the recent deaths, else how would they have pictures of three bodies that we’re assuming are dead?”
“Is there a note?”
“No, but the person that dropped these off must be in possession of the originals, because these are copies, and must be linked to the deaths, which is why we need to talk to the police.”
“Don’t you want to write the story and publish it first?”
“It wouldn’t be wise under the circumstances, not with the murders. I don’t think Gillian or legal would go for that. Yes, I can write it up. It’s going to take some extra digging, mind, as I haven’t got everything I need here, although there’s plenty to be going on with. We’ve got to be careful on this, we’ve already had three deaths. We can’t be selfish and put more lives at risk.”
The phone on Stuart’s desk rang in the background and went unanswered as the group stood looking at the printouts before them. Stuart’s mind raced ahead full speed at the opportunity, yet his moral compass was steering him in another direction. Could he take advantage of what lay before him and at least print the story of the background to the development now he’d got evidence of the corruption?
What he was struggling with were the dead bodies. They had to be connected to the documents, or else why send them at all at once? He needed more.
Seventy-Six
It had certainly bothered her being questioned. The whole experience had been unnerving and not something she ever wanted to go through again. But she understood that in order to catch the murderer everyone was a suspect, though the police had narrowed it down to a select few, she being one of them. She wondered how, what the criteria had been for her to be on the suspect list; what had prompted them to question her? They were too close for this stage in the game.
She had risen early and headed to work, wanting some time on her own to think things through. Life was hard sometimes, and she didn’t like the fact that she was beginning to struggle, but there seemed no answer to their problems, not for the foreseeable future anyway. It was only going to get worse. A coffee shop tempted her in with the promise of freshly baked muffins and she headed inside and ordered a large coffee to go with one. The aroma was welcome to her nostrils and she found a seat at the window and made herself comfortable. Outside, people bustled by on their own way to work, but she didn’t feel much like rushing, not this morning. She had always enjoyed being an early riser, it gave her time before her family got up to do her own thing and not worry about anyone else’s needs but her own, if only for a few delicious minutes. This morning, she’d slipped out of the house before anyone had woken and left them to it, sure that her husband could cope for once. He’d think it strange, her not being there, though he could always call her, make sure she was all right. Her coffee arrived and she ignored it for a while, watching in the distance the comings and goings of other human beings, each with their own worries of varying degrees, coping in their own way.
Today, somebody at the newspaper would find the evidence she’d so carefully planted and make a decision about what to do with it. All she had to do was make sure that they knew the photographs and eviden
ce of corruption were linked, in order to do maximum damage to the man she despised so much, the man that had stolen from someone so precious to her.
The shock collar had been a fascinating tool to use, and she’d witnessed first-hand the startling evidence of what the human mind succumbed to when persuaded by pain. Now, though, she needed to find one last volunteer to help, her masterplan almost complete. There was no way she could risk making the call herself, or writing a note, but she’d plans for the next best thing. After the delivery of her important message, what would happen next was down to the gods. She thought about her daughter, about to face such disappointment and upheaval, the driver for what she was doing. Her mission was almost complete – just one final act before the curtain came down to reveal the real criminal. And it wasn’t her.
She knew just where to look for the right person to deliver this particular message. That part wouldn’t be any harder than picking up the others had been – all keen for the money, such as it was.
Another hour later and it was time to go, so she gathered her things and left the café and half a mug of cold coffee behind, heading back to her car. She knew where to drive to, where they hung out, and it wasn’t long, travelling through the backstreets, before she had someone in her sights. The young man looked like every other homeless person, unkempt, thin and in need of a good meal. Often they wore spaced-out expressions – some from chemicals, some from desperation. With her target chosen, she pulled into a side street that was more of an alleyway and jumped out. As casually as she could, she made her way back towards the young man, keeping her head down as she went. As he began to walk past, she called out.