Sweet Oblivion

by Rhiana Ramsey

  There was a murmur of agreement around the room; the revelation of a name had travelled fast among the group of investigating officers and was not news to anyone in the room.

  ‘What you don’t all know, however, is that we are now investigating four murders, instead of three.’

  This time a series of exclamations bounced around the room as those who hadn’t already been advised of this over the phone expressed their dismay.

  ‘The fourth victim,’ Robert continued ‘was a man called Derek Cooper and he was actually murdered on Thursday night. The body was found in a car park by a group of friends who had been to the opera.’

  ‘Why the fuck didn’t we know about this Thursday night then guv? ‘scuse my language,’ said a voice from the back of the room.

  ‘The body was found shortly after midnight on Rampton Street, which falls within the jurisdiction of the City of London Police, not us. At first they had no reason to suspect that their dead body was linked to our three dead bodies because, although Mr Cooper’s genitals were also missing as is typical of our killer’s MO, we have not released that fact to anyone. As far as they were concerned it was just an isolated case. It is only when they started to do their intelligence checks that they found our intelligence files and so realised the murder was connected.’

  ‘So, we know this is our killer because the genitals were removed and we know it can’t be a copycat because nobody knows that our killer does this to the bodies, but you said the body was found in a car park. That’s very different, isn’t it? A bit too public?’ Greg asked. ‘The previous three murders all occurred in private places.’

  ‘Yes, this is the bit which doesn’t fit with our killer’s usual behaviour. I haven’t come up with any reasonable hypothesis as to why she chose to kill this man in a public car park, and he wasn’t wearing bondage gear. It doesn’t look like she picked him up in a club. I’m open to any suggestions as to why you think this might be.’

  The room was silent as the detectives thought about this for a moment.

  ‘Give it some thought,’ Robert said, ‘it may become clear as we find out more about this victim.’

  ‘What have the City of London Police established about this murder and what have they done thus far?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘DS Maddox has submitted a full handover report and package and I spoke with him last night and first thing this morning. He told me that Mr Cooper had driven into London to visit his former work place, a company called Biztalk. He had just been made redundant and told the boss, Benjamin Matthews, that he needed to collect some old files he had been working on. He stayed in the building for a few hours and then went out to have some drinks with his former colleagues. He was then found dead, lying between his car and a car belonging to a lady called Alison Stuart, by four people who had just been to the opera.’

  ‘Murdered just like that out in the open...’ Greg shook his head in wonderment then said: ‘Does it look like he was targeted specifically, guv, or do they think it was an opportunistic killing?’

  ‘I don’t know and again please let me know your thoughts. At the moment, we have to play catch up a little bit as we need to get ourselves up to speed with what City of London Police have done already. They’ve covered a lot of ground; they’ve spoken to the boss of Biztalk and several of the company’s employees. They have given me a list of all the employees at the company, they have obtained the car park CCTV but it hasn’t been viewed yet. They conducted a full forensic survey of the scene and have spoken to the poor sods that found the body. I need you all to read the various statements and reports they have already collated to make sure you are fully aware of all aspects of this latest murder.’

  Robert paused for a moment and began sifting through various papers that were placed on the desk beside him.

  ‘This is a list of all the Biztalk employees along with their phone numbers. I want each of you to call a couple of the employees and find out who the victim was drinking with, then I want urgent statements from those people. JB can you please take the list and divide it up amongst everyone here. I need a team to attend the deceased home to retrieve his computer - Ian you can coordinate that please. I want a couple of you to view the CCTV asap - Greg, I’m putting you in charge of that. I also want a couple of you to visit the scene and have a good look round, see if you can spot any other council CCTV cameras, any business premises that may have CCTV on the streets or may have been open at that time of night - Elizabeth, can you sort that out please?’

  Robert concluded the briefing and the officers filed out of the room, keen to begin the enquiries they had been tasked with; Meadows and Robert left the room together and Elizabeth overheard Meadows saying something about the need for another press release and that he thought the name should be released to the public. She didn’t hear Robert’s reply, but saw him shaking his head.

  Although Elizabeth knew she should get straight on with visiting the crime scene, as she had been requested, there was one thing she wanted to do first, just to ease her suspicious mind. She walked quickly into the adjacent incident room and flopped into her chair at her desk, calling out for Tony to join her.

  ‘I’m going to run Louise’s name through my database, what do you reckon? Will she or won’t she be on my list of names?’ she mused, drumming her fingers on the desk as she waited for her computer to boot up.

  ‘God, I don’t know… You know how I feel about this list, that it’s a great big stab in the dark with too many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’. But if your hypothesis is correct and she was sexually abused, resided in London at the time and was fostered out, then yes, I guess there’s a good chance she’ll be on it,’ Tony replied.

  ‘Jesus, I feel nervous!’ Elizabeth loaded up the spreadsheet she had populated with all the names she had received from all the London Councils and selected the finder tool. She typed in LOUISE JACKSON and hit the find button. After a couple of seconds searching the dialogue box opened and read: 0 matches found.

  ‘Well, that’s that then. She wasn’t sexually abused and therefore, does not fit the profile of our killer,’ Elizabeth said, disappointed now at the anti-climax.

  ‘That’s probably a good thing isn’t it? I don’t think it would be very nice to find out that the person you used to go to school with and were drinking with last night is a killer.’

  ‘Maybe there’s a problem with my database? Maybe the councils didn’t give me all the names?’ Elizabeth said hopefully.

  ‘Or maybe she’s not on the list for a reason Elizabeth. You have no reason to suspect her other than the fact that you didn’t like the way she spoke about men.’

  ‘I guess you’re right. God how suspicious am I? Thinking about it now, I can’t actually believe I thought she could be a murderer! No more cider for me, it does things to my head,’ Elizabeth said, making light of the situation and masking her disappointment.

  ‘Let’s go find JB and see who he wants us to speak with from Biztalk,’ Tony suggested.

  ‘Yeah, alright. You want to come to the crime scene with me after that?’

  ‘Yes, I’d like to see where this latest murder happened.’

  Despite what she had just seen with her own two eyes, that Louise Jackson’s name was not in her list, Elizabeth couldn’t help but wonder if this was because she had made a mistake when compiling her list of names. Perhaps one of the councils had missed some names off their registers, or perhaps she had omitted some of them when copying them over to her spreadsheet? Elizabeth didn’t know why she was suspicious of Louise, she just knew that she should listen to her gut, and right now, her gut was telling her that Louise was one dark horse.

  Chapter XXXII

  The drive to the address Louise had found for her sister had taken longer than the anticipated two hours predicted by the satnav, an accident on the A20 out of London adding almost an hour to her journey.

  Sitting in the subsequent traffic jam with nowhere to go and nothing to occupy her mind, Louise had been un
able to escape the thoughts that were running circles in her head. She was confused, there were too many questions, too many things she did not know, too many long-held beliefs, which could all be false if the content of the letter was true.

  She had tried hard to recollect various events from her past, various people she had met and known over the years, to see if she could remember anything that could help her make sense of this madness. Nothing came to mind. She felt as if she had been sucked into one enormous cyclone of turmoil, from the moment she had seen the strange man at the bus stop to the moment that letter had fallen through her letter box, and it didn’t seem ready to throw her back down to earth yet.

  She just wanted it to stop, she needed it to stop; she was loosing sight of who she was, not recognizing the woman who was currently experiencing this life. What had happened to her? Louise knew that too many life disturbances could unbalance even the most resilient of minds; she didn’t know how much more she could take.

  She was now parked in front of a pretty little semi-detached house in the village of Lydd. Floral hanging baskets adorned the front of the property, pink, yellow and blue flowers blooming resplendently in the sunshine. A neat patch of grass and two colourful flower beds lay behind a low wall that enclosed the front garden and separated it from the pavement and roadside. It was a pleasant looking property and it was obvious that the owners took pride in their home. Louise had driven past the house three times before she had mustered the courage to finally park in front of it.

  She had been sitting here for half an hour, running through the questions she wanted answering, imagining how this conversation might go. Louise looked at the house again and wondered what the woman inside would look like; would she recognize her as her sister? Was she even home? There were no cars on the drive so Michelle could be out. Louise hadn’t considered what she would do if there was nobody home, but she was adamant she was not going home until she had answers.

  Exhaling deeply, Louise stepped out of her car and slowly made her way up the driveway towards the front door. It was now or never; she couldn’t sit there all day like some amateur stalker.

  She was finding it hard to breathe as the nerves kicked in, her heart beating so hard in her chest she thought it might break through her ribs and jump out onto the perfectly trimmed lawn. She wiped her sweaty palms against her jeans and tried to calm down by forcing herself to breathe deeply. A gold door bell was affixed to the left of the door and Louise pushed it with her index finger, her hand trembling.

  She shifted nervously from one foot to the other as she waited for the door to be answered. Just when she was beginning to think that there was nobody home, she heard movement behind the front door. Louise heard a lock being turned and then the door was pulled open, a woman carrying a young child on her hip stood in the doorway looking at Louise curiously.

  ‘Michelle Blackmoore?’ Louise asked.

  ‘Yes?’

  Louise didn’t recognize this woman at all; she did not bear any of the features that Louise recalled from her childhood sister. Michelle was slightly overweight from child bearing and she was considerably shorter than Louise at five feet two inches tall. Her dark brown hair was cut into a chin-length bob, most of it pushed behind her ears, the ends curling up towards her mouth. She had a pleasant and attractive face, with big grey-blue eyes and a small slightly upturned nose. She was wearing black jogging bottoms and a baggy green T-shirt spattered with baby food and paints.

  The boy she was carrying had bright blonde hair which stuck up all over his head and he squirmed in his mother’s arms to get a good look at their visitor. He had multi-coloured paints on his face and hands; mother and son had clearly been bonding over a creative finger-painting endeavour.

  Louise didn’t know what to say, her mouth went dry and her throat seized up – no words would come out; she wasn’t prepared for children and here in front of her was her nephew. Seeing her sister standing before her was more of a shock than Louise had anticipated and all the questions she had devised on the journey down and whilst sat outside the house abandoned her.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Michelle asked, a flicker of annoyance on her face at the unexpected guest.

  ‘Michelle, I’m Louise Jackson. You wrote to me a few days ago,’ Louise said finally finding her voice.

  Michelle’s mouth dropped open and her eye widened in disbelief.

  ‘Oh my god. I… Louise! What are you doing here? How did you find this address?’ she asked, dismayed.

  ‘I found you the same way you found me. The postmark on the letter you sent was from Kent so it made it a lot easier for me to find you. You’re right, technology is wonderful. I paid a small fee to get your full address off of one of those people finder websites. It was easy as I knew the county you lived in, your full name and of course I remember your approximate age.’

  ‘But why are you here? I didn’t give you my address for a reason. I didn’t want to see you,’ Michelle said coldly.

  ‘Can I at least come in for a few minutes?’ Louise asked, hurt despite herself.

  She hadn’t expected a fanfare and cartwheels, but she had expected a basic level of hospitality instead of outright rudeness.

  After a moment’s consideration, Michelle reluctantly stepped aside and told Louise to head out to the garden at the back of the house. Louise stepped into the long corridor that led to the kitchen and through the kitchen windows Louise could see an average-size garden complete with child’s play area and sand pit. A set of stairs led up to the first floor on the right and to the left Louise glimpsed a large, plush living room, furnished to a high standard.

  Photographs of the family hung on the corridor walls and from these Louise established that Michelle was married and had two children, one of which was just a baby. Louise wondered where the other child was. As if reading her mind Michelle said from behind her: ‘Melody is upstairs sleeping.’

  Louise passed through the kitchen where a number of dishes sat next to the sink waiting to be washed and stepped out into the garden. She could see where Michelle and the little boy had been playing, a large waterproof mat spread across the grass next to a set of garden furniture, paper and paints strewn about its surface.

  Michelle sat the little boy on the mat so that he could continue playing with the paints and pulled a garden chair over for Louise and then one for herself. She repositioned a baby monitor on the garden table. The women sat around the mat watching the boy for a moment.

  ‘What’s his name?’ Louise asked, not sure how to begin; she had so many questions.

  ‘Kyle,’ Michelle smiled at the boy who was contentedly rubbing his hands in the paints, making as much mess as he could. ‘Have you got any children?’

  ‘No. I’m not married either.’

  ‘It’s a wonderful feeling. It makes you feel secure and loved and wanted. Having children gives you a sense of purpose and makes you realize you’re needed. Everyone needs to feel needed,’ Michelle said sagely. ‘Especially people like us.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘People who had their childhoods destroyed and their families torn apart. It makes for a very insecure adult.’ Michelle crouched down and tweaked Kyle’s ears making him giggle.

  ‘Michelle I am so confused. I don’t remember anything from my childhood. I barely remember my teenage years. I vaguely recall our mother, but I have no memory whatsoever of our father. I have no idea what happened to our family. And it seems that everything my foster parents told me is a lie. This is why I had to come and see you. I was hoping you would explain things to me,’ Louise said, her tone hopeful.

  Michelle looked at her and there was something in her eyes, a wariness that Louise didn’t understand.

  ‘What did your foster parents tell you?’ Michelle asked.

  ‘They told me that our father left when we were little more than babies and that our mother hadn’t been able to cope with his departure or raising us on her own. She had a mental breakdown and was section
ed in a mental hospital and a short while later they told me she had committed suicide. I never questioned them as I didn’t think they would have any reason to lie.’

  ‘Have you spoken to them about the letter I sent you?’

  ‘No, I don’t talk to them anymore, we fell out years ago. I don’t even remember over what – probably something really stupid. I have no desire to speak to them again and from their lack of contact, it’s pretty clear that they don’t want to talk to me either.’

  Louise ran a hand across her face and over her hair; she could feel a headache settling in behind her eyes.

  ‘That’s harsh. I still talk to my foster parents. I don’t know what I would have done without them - them and my husband, James.’

  ‘I guess you were the lucky one, huh?’ Louise said, feeling slightly jealous that her sister seemed to have it all worked out and was living a comparatively normal and peaceful existence in her perfect home with her perfect family.

  ‘Yes, I definitely was the lucky one Lou.’

  Michelle reached out as if to touch Louise’s hand then pulled away when she realized what she was doing. Louise was shocked both by the gesture of tenderness towards her and by the use of her abbreviated name; the only people to ever call her Lou were those that were close to her such as Ben and Steve.

  ‘You know, sometimes things are better left buried in the past. If you can’t remember certain things, it is undoubtedly for the best,’ Michelle said.

  ‘You may be right Michelle, but something is happening to me at the moment. I feel like my life is spiralling out of control and I need help. I need answers. Please tell me what you know,’ Louise begged.

  Michelle pursed her lips and shook her head, clearly reluctant to tell Louise what she wanted to know. Finally she spoke.

  ‘Our father didn’t leave us when we were babies, he lived with us in that horrid house on the outskirts of London until I was 11 and you were 8. He was not a nice man, he used to beat mum black and blue, and when he had finished beating her, he would usually set about beating me too. He never hit you because you were of no use to him if you were ugly. You were such a beautiful child; I see now that those looks have remained with you into adulthood,’ Michelle said, her voice wavering. Recollecting the past was taking her back to a time she would rather forget.