by Louise Voss
‘A couple of years ago, someone got into a few rooms at one of the hotels in Essex and stole valuables – a laptop, an iPad, some jewellery, cash. It turned out that they had – how did they put it? – reverse-engineered a master key so it was able to open any door.’
‘Hang on – you mean they basically created their own master key, waltzed into the hotel and opened whatever door they fancied?’
‘That’s how I understood it. It was this young lad, a hacker. But he got caught after boasting about it on his website. Stupid prat. I know we made some changes to the security system after that and we were all told it wouldn’t happen again. But . . .’
‘But?’
‘Well, you know what these hackers are like. It’s a challenge, isn’t it? Maybe that’s what happened here.’
Patrick and Carmella took the lift back to the third floor. Patrick wanted to see the room again, not because he expected to find any useful information there but because being at the scene of the crime helped him focus, allowed him to imagine the scene. He used the key Heidi had given them to open the door, which was still sealed off with yellow tape.
‘So our murderer is also a hacker who knows how to reverse-engineer hotel keys?’ Carmella said.
Patrick sighed. ‘It seems unlikely, doesn’t it? Let’s talk to the tech guys, but I’m guessing it isn’t easy to do.’
‘But maybe our murderer acquired a hacked key from someone. Bought it online, or paid someone to create one.’
‘That’s exactly what I was thinking.’ He tapped the key against the palm of his hand. ‘Which means we might finally have a lead.’
Patrick ducked under the tape and entered the room, Carmella following. The smell of perfume had faded now and been replaced with the musty smell of closed rooms and dust. The Travel Inn had asked the police not to release the room number to the press, fearful that no-one would ever want to stay here again. Patrick wanted to tell them not to worry. There were probably a lot of people out there who would get a kick out of staying in a room where a girl was murdered.
The perfume that had been sprayed into Rose’s wounds was being analysed at the lab and results were expected back soon. Patrick didn’t expect to learn much from this. What difference would it make if the killer used Chanel No.5 or CK1? Maybe it would tell them whether he could afford expensive perfume, but that was about it. All the wheelie bins and patches of wasteland within a mile radius had been searched, but there was no sign of Rose’s clothes. They were probably on a dump somewhere, Patrick thought.
‘Let’s get back to the station,’ he said. ‘We need to find out if there are any hackers for hire out there selling hotel key cards.’
As they left the hotel, his mobile rang. It was Gareth.
‘Ah, Gareth, I’ve got a job for—’
Gareth interrupted. ‘Sorry, boss, but something’s happened.’
Patrick stopped walking and gestured for Carmella to wait. The rain pummelled the pavement, soaking the two detectives as Patrick bent almost double, protecting his phone from the downpour. He couldn’t hear what Gareth was saying.
‘Can you repeat that?’
‘I said, we’ve found another body. Another girl.’
Chapter 11
Day 3 – Chloe
Chloe Hedges sat on the edge of her bed and checked her phone for the twentieth time in the space of five minutes. She had been caught on the horns of this particular dilemma for the last few hours – Jess had not returned her calls or texts since they’d parted after last night’s vigil. This in itself wasn’t unusual – Jess was the touchiest of all Chloe’s friends and could be offended at the drop of a hat, leading to a period of cold-shouldering for perhaps three or four days. And they had argued after the vigil – Chloe had got annoyed with Jess’s bizarre and irreverent behaviour. After the singing ended, Jess had got the giggles during the two minutes’ silence for Rose, when Chloe had suddenly found that tears were pouring down her own face, even though she hadn’t known Rose in real life. It was the sight of Rose’s poor parents that had set her off. She imagined it was her who’d been brutally murdered, and that it was her mum and dad up there at the front of the small gathering, looking as though their lives were over too. Already annoyed because Jess wouldn’t tell her why she was acting so weird, she’d snapped at her friend, who had then stormed off, leaving Chloe to get the bus home in tears on her own.
But before that, they’d made an arrangement to meet this afternoon, to go to the Rotunda – mainly because there was this boy who always hung out there that Jess had the hots for. Jess had been a no-show. Chloe waited for ages, trying to call her friend, before giving up. In the couple of hours since then she had sent a series of increasingly worried messages, apologising for the row and begging Jess to let her know she was all right. Silence.
She tried to take her mind off it by returning to the story she’d been working on for over a week – it was her best yet, much better than anything she’d written before, she thought. Miss Jameson, her English teacher, told Chloe she needed to write from the heart, and Chloe was finally doing that, now she felt brave enough to write about the C-word. But she found that her thoughts kept drifting anxiously back to Jess, and after ten minutes’ staring at the screen without adding a single word, she gave up. She decided to check the forums instead, but only got as far as inputting her login – F-U-Cancer – when her mum yelled up the stairs.
‘Supper, Chloe!’
Chloe grimaced, closed her laptop and bade a silent farewell to the poster of Shawn from OnTarget sellotaped to the back of her bedroom door. She trudged downstairs. ‘What is it?’
‘Quorn fillets in tomato sauce,’ said her mother, sliding three empty plates out of the top oven where they had been warming.
‘The ones in breadcrumbs? What kind of tomato sauce?’
Her mother sighed. ‘No. Not the ones in breadcrumbs. Normal tomato sauce, like pasta sauce.’
‘Eurgh. I only like the ones in breadcrumbs. Where’s Dad?’
‘He’s not back from the match yet. Probably gone to the pub.’
They sat down at the table. Chloe’s little brother, Brandon, was already seated, quietly tinkering with a Transformer. He looked up when he saw his mum dishing up the food. ‘Oh no, not broccoli.’
Chloe’s mum slammed a plate down in front of him and glared at them both.
‘For heaven’s sake, can we not have just one meal where you two don’t complain about everything?’
After that they ate in silence. Chloe wanted to ask her mum’s advice but was afraid she would get on the phone to Jess’s mum, and it would be really embarrassing, especially as they didn’t even know one another. She imagined her mother doing her posh phone voice and squirmed. Also, Chloe might then have to admit that she had got the bus home by herself after the OnTarget concert, which was strictly verboten. They only lived three miles away from Twickenham Stadium, but her dad would go mad if he knew she’d got the bus by herself after nine o’clock at night. Not to mention getting Jess into trouble too, for leaving her after the vigil. Jess might never talk to her again.
But what if Jess was in danger? Rose Sharp’s face flashed into her head. No – if she’d gone missing like Rose Sharp, they’d know about it by now. It would be on the news and everything – appeals circulating on Twitter and Facebook. Jess was probably just still in a strop with her.
Then why did Chloe feel so anxious? She glanced at her mum, who was still looking cross, then opened her mouth to say something. ‘Mum—’
Brandon interrupted her. ‘Can I get down, Mummy? I’m full.’
‘Eat your broccoli first.’
Chloe had so known her mum would say that. It was as predictable as being told to put her iPhone outside the bedroom door every night at 10 p.m. She decided to wait until Brandon had left the table.
Her phone beeped with an incoming text and sh
e snatched it out of her back pocket as Brandon gingerly poked a stem of broccoli into his mouth, making disgusted faces throughout.
‘No phones at dinner, Chloe!’ admonished her mother.
‘It’s urgent!’
‘I don’t care. Put it away.’
But Chloe had seen that the text wasn’t from Jess. She must have looked upset because her mum gave her a long searching look, and let Brandon get down without clearing his plate. He scampered off immediately with his Transformer, thumping up the stairs to his bedroom before she changed her mind again and made him sit there until the broccoli was cold and limp and even less appealing.
‘Everything all right, Rog?’
‘Don’t call me that!’
Her mum smiled. Chloe’s dad had a habit of adapting everyone’s names, so Chloe had, as a baby, become Chlo, which he had lengthened into Clodagh Rogers – who had apparently been some sort of ancient singer – and then shortened again to Rog. She hadn’t minded it when she was little, but now she loathed it.
‘Sorry. Is everything all right? You seem a bit on edge.’
Chloe swallowed hard, still undecided about whether or not to unleash this potential shit storm. Her mother pressed her advantage, knowing that it must be something major if Chloe hadn’t immediately bitten off her head and told her to mind her own business.
‘Are you still upset about that poor girl who was killed, honey? You know, I thought it was really sweet of you and Jessica to go to the vigil last night.’
At the sound of Jess’s name, Chloe knew she couldn’t dither anymore. Worst case scenario, Jess never spoke to her again – well, she could deal with that. There were plenty of other OnTarget fans she could hang out with and chat to. Jess didn’t go to her school, so she wouldn’t have to face her ire in person if she really got her into trouble. And sometimes she was a bit of a pain anyway.
‘It’s just that me and Jess were meant to meet up today and she didn’t turn up,’ she blurted. ‘And now I can’t get hold of her.’
‘You haven’t fallen out, have you?’
‘No. We did sort of have a fight – but, like, it wasn’t a real fight . . .’
Her mother looked thoughtful. Chloe knew that her mum didn’t much care for Jess. On the couple of occasions that Jess had been to her house, she hadn’t made much of an effort to be polite to her mum, and hadn’t even thanked her for the flapjacks that she had made specially for them one day when they’d come back to hang out in her room and watch the new OnTarget movie.
‘I wouldn’t normally be worried,’ Chloe said. ‘But after what happened to MissTargetHeart . . . Rose.’
‘Do you know her home phone number?’
‘Oh. Yeah, I do actually.’
‘Why don’t you call it, then?’
Chloe pulled a face, she was a bit scared of Jess’s mum. Jess’s mum was vague and a bit of a hippie, but not a mellow one – a sort of bitter, neurotic one who drank too much and didn’t tell Jess off when she said ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’.
Her mum smiled softly. ‘OK, I’ll do it.’
Chloe stood in the kitchen doorway, biting her thumbnail as she listened to her mum call Jess’s mum.
‘Hello? This is Rebecca Hedges, Chloe’s mum . . . No . . . Sorry, I think we’re talking at cross-purposes. Jess isn’t here.’
She looked across the hallway at Chloe and Chloe felt her heart drop into her stomach.
‘No, she hasn’t been here at all today. She told you she was coming here?’
As Chloe’s mum continued to talk to Mrs McMasters, Chloe sat on the bottom stair and hugged herself.
‘Please God,’ she whispered. ‘Please let Jess have gone off to meet a boy. Please don’t let it be anything more than that.’
By the time her mum said, ‘Perhaps you should call the police,’ Chloe was convinced. Something terrible had happened to her friend.
Chapter 12
Day 4 – Patrick
The Rocket Man Film and Photography Studio was hidden away on a grim industrial estate at Sunbury Cross, close to the top of the M3, between a food-packing warehouse and a factory that manufactured sex toys.
‘For all your Rampant Rabbit needs,’ Carmella deadpanned as Patrick took in the run-down buildings, shivering as a frigid wind whipped across the estate. In the distance, he could hear the roar of cars and lorries heading west, but apart from that, all was silent. This whole place looked a long way from sharing in the bounty of economic recovery.
The SOCOs’ vans were parked on the wide driveway of the studio, several officers milling about in the entrance. Above their heads, a window was smashed and Patrick mentally marked this as a possible entry point. But it was more likely to be the work of bored local kids or squatters.
On the way over, Carmella had looked up the studio on Google while Patrick drove.
‘So . . . Rocket Man . . . opened in the early eighties and was used mostly by the music business for photo shoots and pop videos. It shut down a year ago. Their website is gone too, but there’s a news story about it closing here . . . The owner said that they were a casualty of the music biz tightening its belt, most of the music magazines and papers going bust, et cetera.’
‘Seems a weird place for a studio,’ Patrick said.
‘I guess the rent was cheap. And it was out of the way. Less chance of the pop stars being papped as they came in and out. Oh, listen to this, from the news story last year: “New boy-band sensation OnTarget shot the video for their debut single ‘Our Little Secret’ at Rocket Man, one of the last promo films to be made at the studio.” I’m starting to feel haunted by that band. You know, I popped to the shops yesterday and the amount of OnTarget merchandise I saw was unbelievable. Soft drinks, lunch boxes, loom bands, socks, pyjamas, dolls, mouse mats, sweatshirts – and their perfume, Friendship. If I’d known then that Friendship was the perfume that had been sprayed into Rose’s wounds, I’d have bought a bottle.’
Patrick had steered the car onto the estate. ‘I think Rose was carrying the Friendship perfume with her. Women do that sort of thing, don’t they?’
Carmella smiled.
‘And the killer used Rose’s own perfume on her.’
‘Rather than bring his own?’
‘That seems the most likely scenario. And he removed it along with all her other stuff. I’m hoping he’s kept it all as souvenirs, so when we find him . . .’
Carmella scrolled down on her phone. ‘There’s one more thing. Allegedly, the studio was also used recently to shoot porn movies.’
‘I’d have thought that would keep them going.’
‘You’re behind the times, Patrick. No-one’s willing to pay for porn anymore. It’s all freely available online.’
‘Oh yeah. So I’ve heard.’
Now, the two detectives approached the building. Patrick exchanged a few words with the SOCOs, who handed them full protective gear and told them where the body was located. They suited up and headed straight into the reception area, where a corridor led past another empty room to a single studio.
The building smelled musty and unpleasant – pigeon shit and rat piss – a cloying smell Patrick had encountered before, in the abandoned flats on the Kennedy Estate a couple of miles up the road. As they opened the door of the studio, though, another odour reached Patrick’s nose and he exchanged a look with Carmella.
Friendship.
Patrick quickened his pace, his natural reluctance to see the body overridden by the need to see if he was right, and the smell was indeed the OnTarget perfume that he and Carmella had just been talking about. They did not speak, and the shuffling of their blue paper overshoes in the dusty corridor sounded loud in the silence.
The SOCOs were gathered, in their protective gear, in a cluster at the far end of the surprisingly large studio, in front of a torn white screen that remained from when this pl
ace had played host to glamorous pop stars. There was no longer any whiff of glamour, just the stink of decay and neglect. And, now, death. There were no windows in the studio, and the lights had been removed, but the SOCOs had brought lamps that cast shadows around them like crosses. Without the police lights, this place would be dark even during the day. Jessica McMasters must have died in the shadows.
The chief SOCO, Neil Maslen, whom Patrick knew reasonably well, came up to them.
‘Who found her?’ Patrick asked, after they’d exchanged greetings.
‘A security guard,’ Neil said. ‘He comes round once a day to make sure squatters haven’t broken in, apparently. He said he noticed that a window had been forced open round the back and came in to investigate.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘In the back of the van – we’re waiting for him to stop puking before we take him in for questioning. He’s already splattered the crime scene once and I don’t want any more of last night’s chicken tikka masala ruining the evidence, so we put him in there with a placky bag, a bottle of water and some wet wipes.’
‘OK. I’ll talk to him later,’ Patrick said.
Jessica had been reported missing at 7.35 p.m. the previous evening, after not being seen all day. Her mother had thought she was out with her friend Chloe, since it was a Saturday. So the last person to see her alive was the mother, who’d looked in on her when she was still asleep at 8.15 a.m. that morning, and now the body had been found at 8 a.m. the following day? That meant Jess could have been killed at any time during that twenty-four-hour period.
‘I’m not imagining the smell of perfume, am I?’ Patrick asked, and Neil shook his head. In this large space, the smell was less concentrated and eye-stinging than in the hotel room at the Travel Inn, but it was unquestionably the same. And as the SOCOs parted and gave Patrick his first look at the body, he knew without doubt that, regardless of the connection or lack thereof to the murder of Nancy Marr, this was the work of a serial killer.
Jessica lay on her back on the hard floor in front of the tattered screen. Her eyes were open, staring sightlessly at the dead strip lights. Her body had a curious orange sheen that, Patrick realised after a moment of confusion, was fake tan, streaked in places. She was naked, much skinnier than Rose had been – not anorexic but definitely underweight, her ribs sharp beneath her skin.