by Peter James
As the two of them approached the fence around the monument, Roy Grace stopped, suddenly.
Ahead were two women with long brown hair, lying motionless, side by side on stone slabs at the foot of the monument steps, in front of a neat row of empty benches, their arms folded behind their heads as if they were asleep. But they were too still. Impossibly still. He raised a cautionary hand to DS Cale, signalling her to follow him.
As he stepped closer to them again he stopped. He’d seen enough bodies in the course of his career to be able to tell the difference, even from a distance, between the dead and the living.
These two women were clearly dead.
Young women. One was in jeans and sneakers, wearing a puffa over a knitted sweater; the other was in jeans, also, and a soiled T-shirt. Both had long, dark brown hair.
In death, human expressions changed. They became inert, like waxworks in a museum. But, he knew sadly, he was not staring at two waxworks. From the photographs he had committed to memory he was looking at the bodies of Emma Johnson and Ashleigh Stanford. Their faces were alabaster white. Both of them had their eyes open, blind to the vapour trail of a plane high in the sky.
He did not need to go any closer and touch either of them. Instead he stayed where he was, not wanting to contaminate this crime scene any more than he already had, and pulled out his phone.
He was as close to despair as he had ever felt in all his career.
Then he noticed something fluttering in the wind, behind the neck of the woman he believed might be Emma Johnson. Signalling DS Cale to stay where she was, he stepped forward and knelt down. There was a note wedged between her fingers. Snapping on gloves, he teased it out and read it.
HERE’S ANOTHER PRESENT, ROY. I’M SURE YOU’D LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE RECIEPT. THE DOWNSIDE (NO PUN INTENDED RE THE LOCATION) IS I HAVE TO REPLACE THEM. LIFE’S A BITCH, HEY? THEN A BITCH HAS TO DIE. HAPPY SLEUTHING. NO SHIT, SHERLOCK! CAN YOU GUESS MY NEXT VICTIM? CAN YOU SAVE HER? FEEL FREE TO PUBLISH THIS NOTE IN ANY PAPER YOU LIKE. VERY BEST REGARDS. MR BRANDER.
70
Thursday 18 December
Six hours later, in the mortuary, Roy Grace’s worst fears were confirmed. Both young women were branded, on the inside of their right thighs, with the wording, U R DEAD.
Pathologist Nadiuska De Sancha was standing over Ashleigh Stanford’s naked body, taking fluid samples from her stomach and bladder for testing, but she was already fairly confident of the cause of death for both young women. Both had the tiny, blotchy red spots of petechial haemorrhaging in the whites of their eyes, on their eyelids and at the top of the cheekbones, which was brought on by oxygen starvation through asphyxiation. Neither of them had bruising around their necks, nor damaged hyoids, but their lungs were filled with water. They had drowned. Both women had been sexually assaulted but no DNA was found.
Ashleigh Stanford had bruises to her body and abrasions to her face, consistent with falling off her bike. She also had a large bruise to her forehead, sufficient to have caused concussion. In addition, she had seventeen contusions to her body consistent with being struck with a blunt instrument, as well as bruising on her knuckles indicating she had, perhaps, tried to fight off her attacker.
Emma Johnson had ligature marks on her neck, stomach, thighs, wrists and ankles, indicating she had been kept a prisoner.
There was no evidence of strangulation in the two women from thirty years ago either. But there had not been enough soft tissue left of the victims to establish for sure how they had died. They could have been stabbed – but there were usually nicks on the bones of stabbing victims. Possibly shot, but again bullets often struck bones. They might have been poisoned – toxicology tests were being carried out on samples from both bodies. But one problem with testing for poisons was that the pathologists needed to know what they were testing for – which restricted them only to the most obvious ones.
Had they drowned, also, he wondered?
Had the same sicko branded, raped, then drowned them?
What the hell was going on in the Brander’s mind?
Was Logan Somerville being held prisoner? Did that mean she might still be alive?
Photographs of the brandings had been sent to an analyst, and in less than an hour he had confirmed they were, in his opinion, an exact match to the brandings on Katy Westerham and Denise Patterson.
In Grace’s view, the idea of a copycat could now be ruled out. The Brander, intelligent, arrogant, whoever the hell he was – and wherever he had been for these past thirty years – had resurfaced. He postponed today’s press conference, in the light of the present developments, until tonight at 7 p.m.
Shortly before 4.30 p.m., he had left Glenn Branson at the post-mortem of the two women, which was likely to continue for several more hours, and was now back in his office, seated at the round conference table with DCI Sweetman and the forensic psychologist Tony Balazs.
The three of them were staring at the note recovered from Emma Johnson’s fingers this morning. Because of the sensitivity of the location of the deposition site, Grace had already arranged for a representative from the Chattri memorial committee to join the Gold group, to manage any possible community impact.
HERE’S ANOTHER PRESENT, ROY. I’M SURE YOU’D LIKE TO ACKNOWLEDGE RECIEPT. THE DOWNSIDE (NO PUN INTENDED RE THE LOCATION) IS I HAVE TO REPLACE THEM. LIFE’S A BITCH, HEY? THEN A BITCH HAS TO DIE. HAPPY SLEUTHING. NO SHIT, SHERLOCK! CAN YOU GUESS MY NEXT VICTIM? CAN YOU SAVE HER? FEEL FREE TO PUBLISH THIS NOTE IN ANY PAPER YOU LIKE. VERY BEST REGARDS. MR BRANDER.
‘He’s angry,’ the psychologist said. ‘And he’s leaving you in no doubt of his intentions.’
‘That he’s about to kill again?’ Grace said.
‘Yes,’ said Tony Balazs. ‘Twice.’
Sweetman nodded in agreement.
‘How the hell do we find him before he strikes again?’ Grace asked.
‘Well,’ Balazs said, ‘one positive is that we’ve succeeded in riling him. Calm people don’t make mistakes, angry people are the ones who do. The Brander is now Mr Angry. He’s determined to strike again very soon to make a point. One of our best hopes is, as we’ve discussed, that he’ll make a mistake through being in a hurry.’
Sometimes the psychologist came over as highly self-important and pompous, which irritated Grace. There was something about people who wore bow ties, other than at formal functions, that he had never liked. Balazs, in his loud, striped suit and even louder bow tie, irritated him now.
Irritated him, he knew, because he was telling a truth that Grace did not want to acknowledge.
‘Great, Tony, that’s helpful. But what we have to do is find this bastard before he does that. The press fallout when we announce the double murder is hardly going to reassure the citizens of Brighton and Hove, or Sussex. We have to find him. They will be asking the question: Have the police tactics caused the deaths of these two young girls? And we need to deal with it.’
‘I agree with you, Roy,’ Balazs said. ‘But how are you going to do that?’
Sweetman had Roy Grace’s policy book open in front of him. ‘You’re doing this investigation correctly, Roy. I’ve checked everything, in the light of the resources you have deployed, and I can’t find any windows of opportunity you’ve missed. I think Tony’s right.’
‘You’re saying we have to wait for the offender to screw up?’ Grace said, his temper flaring. ‘Is that how all serial killer investigations work? Because that doesn’t work for me.’
‘What do you want to do, Roy?’ Sweetman said. ‘Put 24/7 surveillance on every woman in Brighton aged between eighteen to thirty who has long brown hair? You have the resources to do that?’
‘The motto of Sussex Police is “To Serve and Protect”,’ Grace replied.
‘So do you want to put out a statement telling every woman in that category to stay indoors until the Brander is behind bars? Put your whole city into a state of even bigger panic?’
Grace shook his head. ‘No, of co
urse we can’t do that. I will use the press conference to tell the media that this huge investigation continues, with many lines of enquiry being followed. The tactic of using the media to help identify and flush out the killer is only one aspect of this complex and fast-moving enquiry. We will never know whether the fate of these two young ladies has been hastened by current events, but we do know for sure that their abductor has killed at least twice before.’
The DCI and the psychologist both nodded.
‘God, what the hell are we missing? There’s something staring us in the face that we’re not getting. Where the hell has this bastard been for the past thirty years?’ He rested his face in his hands for some moments. ‘The HOLMES team has covered every murder in every county in the UK in the past thirty years and there is no potential suspect who matches his profile. Every offender who has killed a woman of similar age and appearance is either behind bars, confirmed as being in a different part of the country, or dead. Interpol has not produced anyone in Europe or further afield and nor has the FBI. Our man is smart.’
‘There are parallels with the BTK case,’ Sweetman said.
‘From what I’ve researched, he enjoyed taunting the police, the way the Brander seems to be enjoying taunting us, from this note,’ Roy Grace said. ‘We know he has different vehicles – and somewhere to store them – which suggests to me he’s a man of means.’
‘The universal profiles of serial killers,’ Balazs said, ‘is they are aged between fifteen to forty-five at the time of their first murder and between eighteen to sixty at the time of their last.’
‘Which fits exactly with our offender,’ Grace said. ‘If his first murders, that we are aware of, were committed in his late teens or early twenties, being approximately thirty years ago, that would put him somewhere between fifty and sixty now.’
‘I would agree with that, Roy,’ Sweetman said.
‘Have you considered using a decoy, Roy?’ the psychologist asked.
‘This is not a case for using a decoy,’ Grace said. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘I agree, Roy,’ Sweetman said. ‘But I think from the tone of this note that he’s already selected his next victim. Our best hope is that he screws up because of his anger. I think he may strike again – within hours, possibly.’
‘Within hours?’ Grace said.
‘I’d bet the ranch on it.’
71
Thursday 18 December
At 5.30 Roy Grace attended the next Gold group meeting. As soon as it ended he sat down with the senior press officer, Sue Fleet, to go through the details for the press conference that was being held at 7 p.m.
‘Our number-one priority is to protect the public, Sue. We’ve got to ensure people are made aware there is now a critical risk to young women on the streets of Brighton. Meantime I’m going to liaise with Nev Kemp and ask him to get every available police resource on the streets of the city, in hi-viz jackets.’
He liked working with Sue Fleet. She was a sensible, pragmatic and totally unflappable person, who always thought at least one step ahead. And frequently more.
‘You need to prepare a very concise message for the conference, Roy. I suggest something along these lines: There is a credible and immediate threat to the safety of women on the streets of Sussex, particularly Brighton and Hove. Women should avoid, where possible, being alone on the streets at any time. They should let people know where they are. Any members of the public who see anything suspicious or who think they know who the killer is should contact the police immediately, using 999.’
Grace scrawled the words down as she spoke.
‘I also suggest you come to the conference having considered the potential questions you are likely to be asked. We can’t afford for you to be stumped on any answer – nor to hesitate. We’ve got to give the impression that you are on top of it, and confident. That’s what the public are going to want to hear.’
‘Yes,’ he replied. And wished he was.
‘We agreed at the Gold group that the Chief Constable will be on the podium with you. That will demonstrate to the press and the public the level of police commitment to this. Also, if you are able to, I think you should pay a visit to the families of Emma Johnson and Ashleigh Stanford. I think it would help comfort them and it would send a good message across. Presumably they’ve got FLOs with them?’
‘Yes, I’ve arranged Family Liaison Officers for each of them, and I was planning to go and visit both families later tonight.’
As soon as Sue Fleet had left he called Cleo, apologetically, to tell her he had no idea when he would get home.
72
Thursday 18 December
Shortly after 8 p.m., feeling dusty and in need of a shower after a day of helping to unpack and move furniture around in Zak’s new restaurant, Freya Northrop drove her Ford Fiesta onto the drive of their house close to Hove Park, switched off the engine and climbed out.
Bobby, a mixed breed terrier, which she had just collected from her friends, Emily and Steve, jumped up excitedly on the passenger seat and put his paws on the dashboard. She opened the boot, took out two Waitrose bags of groceries, and the large carrier containing a bag of dried dog food, mince to be cooked, food bowls, Bobby’s favourite toys, and two boxes of treats for him that Emily had given her. Then she tucked the little round bed that he always slept on under her arm, and picked up the bags.
The house was in darkness, her path to the front door dimly illuminated by the glow from a nearby street lamp. She frowned, certain that they’d deliberately left some lights on when they had gone out this morning.
Zak had stayed behind at the restaurant talking with the engineers who had turned up to install the sound system. As was usual at the moment, he would get a taxi home later that evening.
She wanted to cook him dinner, but she was filled with angst. How could she prepare a professional chef a meal he would approve of? She had the same anxiety every time she cooked for him, especially as he disliked the whole idea of ready-made meals, whether fresh or frozen. On her own, she had lived on supermarket meals for some years, and he had been trying to wean her off them.
Tonight she planned to surprise Zak. She had been studying the recipes in Don’t Sweat the Aubergine, and she had one all worked out in her head. Undercooking the aubergine. Grating garlic and ginger. Adding some soy and Teriyaki sauce. Making sure she did not overcook the scallops or the prawns. She planned to accompany it with a salad of beets, goat’s cheese, peas and tomatoes. She’d bought all the ingredients from Waitrose.
All the way to the front door, Bobby tugged on the lead, sniffing the path excitedly. Before going in she put the bags down on the step and led him onto the small strip of front lawn, where he cocked his leg. She unlocked the door and went in, followed by the dog. She turned on the hall light, lugged in the bags, closed the door, then unclipped Bobby from his lead.
As she gathered up the bags and Bobby’s bed, the memories of the broken kitchen window and the subsequent visit by a detective and the fingerprint team were almost forgotten, Bobby went temporarily bonkers, racing around the hall, his nose buried in the new, thickly tufted carpet.
‘Are your new lodgings to your liking, Lord Bobby?’ she grinned, carrying everything through into the kitchen. Dumping it all on the floor, she took out Bobby’s water bowl, ran the tap until the water was cold, filled it, and set it down.
Bobby trotted over to it and began lapping. She knelt and stroked him. ‘Just going to nip upstairs and have a shower, then I’ll get you your supper! Are you hungry?’ She rummaged in the bag Emily had given her, pulled out a box of marrow-bone roll biscuits, broke it open and placed one down beside him.
He grabbed it in his mouth and raced around the kitchen with it, then jumped on his bed and began crunching on the biscuit.
She went back into the hall and stared for a moment, approvingly, at the colour scheme they had chosen. The walls were a pale, warm cream, the woodwork, including the banister rails, a gleamin
g, glossy grey. Several photographs and paintings of London scenes, which she had brought down from her previous flat, hung on the walls.
She climbed the stairs up towards the pitch-dark landing, stretching her arm around the corner when she reached the top, wondering why the idiot electrician hadn’t thought to put a switch at the bottom of the stairs. She found the switch and pressed it and the lights came on. All three doors to the bedrooms were closed. As she opened their bedroom door and fumbled for the light switch, she heard a faint sound, a tiny ping.
She stood still for a moment, wondering if she had imagined it; or whether it had come from downstairs, Bobby’s name tag pinging against his metal bowl while he drank?
He stood inside the wardrobe in the master bedroom, masked and gloved, and wearing a body stocking. He pressed hard back against the wall, invisible behind the racks of dresses, being careful not to move and set any more of the hangers pinging.
He was very aroused, almost unable to contain himself with excitement, and worrying that he might ejaculate too soon. So he calmed himself down with deep breathing.
Oh my God, the anticipation! How beautiful was it when your plans came together?
He listened to her footsteps. Saw the light come on through the cracks in the wardrobe door.
Yes, my baby, yes! Yes, you bitch!
Freya entered their all-white bedroom, grinning at her two tatty childhood bears, each with one eye missing, which lay back against the pillows, arms entwined as she had left them this morning. She walked across to the window and drew the curtains – the neighbours had a view directly in – then stripped off her clothes, pulled the ensuite door open and went into the bathroom, switching on the light. She turned on the power shower, checked the temperature adjustment was where she liked it – Zak preferred his about thirty per cent cooler – tested the water with her hand, then stepped in, closing the door behind her.