The Blissfully Dead

by Louise Voss

  Gareth hesitated. ‘I guess. It probably is just a coincidence.’

  ‘I’m sure it is. But if it isn’t, think how good you’ll look. Solving a multiple murder while you’re still a sergeant? A case involving one of the most powerful men in Britain? You’ll be famous, Gareth. And there won’t be anything Lennon can do to take the credit.’

  Chapter 30

  Day 9 – Patrick

  Patrick beckoned for Carmella to follow him into the major incident room and walked up to the boards where Rose’s and Jessica’s pictures were displayed. He took a whiteboard eraser and rubbed out Shawn’s name from the list of suspects, adding it to the column containing the names of potential witnesses.

  Carmella perched on the edge of a desk. ‘So his alibi checks out?’ She sounded disappointed.

  Patrick nodded. ‘I just got off the phone with Lana Vincent. She confirms that she and Shawn spent the night together on the seventh and she also gave him an alibi for the fourth – said they were on the phone for hours that evening, when Shawn said he was home playing Minecraft. She was extremely nervous, kept asking me to reassure her about confidentiality. She’s terrified of the press and her boyfriend finding out.’

  Carmella rolled her eyes. ‘If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.’

  ‘They should put that in big letters on the front of the station.’

  Their laughter was disproportionate to the quality of the joke, but shit, Patrick thought, he needed a laugh. His whole body was taut with tension. After the meeting with Shawn, and the realisation that their only suspect was innocent, he’d come back to the station, hiding at his desk until he felt duty-bound to go home.

  He didn’t want another discussion with Gill about their feelings. Even more than that, he didn’t want another awkward conversation in which they didn’t talk about their marriage. Fortunately, Gill had been asleep, and he’d slipped out early this morning before she or Bonnie woke up. He’d crept into his daughter’s room, kissing her warm head, aching with guilt as he’d barely seen her since they’d moved home last weekend.

  At least when they were living with his parents he’d seen a lot of Bonnie. Now, though, it was too easy to be like so many other male cops: married to the job, their kids growing up without them. He was determined not to let that happen. He just needed to crack this investigation first.

  Although, of course, then there would be another. And another. And . . .

  He sighed heavily and Carmella came over and rubbed his upper arm.

  ‘So what next?’ she asked.

  Patrick produced his Moleskine from his pocket and opened it to the page of notes he’d made when interviewing Shawn.

  ‘I was thinking, Shawn and Lana Vincent communicated using Snapchat. Wendy – DC Franklin – tells me that most teenagers use it. And we already know that Rose consumed data on her phone on the evening of her death, as did Jess’ – this was one of the first things they had checked after Jess’s murder – ‘maybe they were using Snapchat.’

  ‘To communicate with their killer?’

  ‘Seems the perfect method for a murderer, doesn’t it? A way of communicating without leaving any trace. Second only to actually chatting face to face.’

  ‘Technology. Friend of serial killers everywhere.’

  Patrick smiled faintly, wondering what police work must have been like in the days before DNA and the Internet and CCTV. He would have quite liked to have operated in a Columbo-style world. Maybe, he mused, he should get himself a grubby raincoat like the TV detective.

  ‘Are you still with us?’ Carmella asked.

  ‘Just thinking about buying a mac.’

  ‘I thought you preferred Windows?’

  He laughed so loudly that he worried Suzanne would hear him in her office and wonder what he found so amusing. That reminded him he needed to report to her and, as much as he enjoyed seeing her, he suddenly didn’t feel like laughing anymore.

  Looking at him curiously, Carmella asked, ‘Are Snapchat pictures actually stored anywhere?’

  ‘Let’s find out.’

  He called Peter Bell on the internal phone and, a few minutes later, the cyber-crime expert joined them in the incident room.

  ‘Before I start, any progress with our hotel key card?’

  The older man smoothed down a wisp of flyaway hair. ‘I emailed a list of potential hackers to Gareth Batey earlier. Apologies. I’ve been under the cosh.’

  ‘OK. Well, let’s forget that for the moment. What do you know about Snapchat?’

  ‘Snapchat? Interestingly, I was just talking about this with someone in child protection.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because it’s a new preferred method for paedophiles to exchange images. Harder to trace than email or MMS. Or, at least, a lot of them think it is.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, what Snapchat don’t make clear is that the images are saved into a folder on the user’s phone, and they’re easy to find if you know where to look.’

  ‘What if you don’t have the phone?’ Patrick asked. ‘Are they stored on a server somewhere?’

  Bell cleared his throat. ‘According to Snapchat, they keep a log of the last two hundred images sent, but don’t save the actual images. Unless the image wasn’t viewed by the recipient. In that case, it remains on the company’s servers for thirty days.’

  Patrick thought about this. It was most likely that Rose – and Jess, if the murderer had used the same method – had viewed the messages, possibly screenshot them for posterity. And the killer had taken the phones with him.

  ‘Hang on,’ Carmella said. ‘Could I log in as another user on my phone, if I knew their password, and view the images they’d received?’

  ‘No.’ Bell smiled patronisingly. ‘Because they disappear within seconds of being viewed.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘But if and when we arrest someone,’ Patrick said, ‘we’ll be able to look on their phone and, if they sent snaps to the two victims, they’ll still be there. Stored in a hidden folder.’

  Bell nodded. ‘That’s right. Unless your murderer is tech savvy.’

  ‘We’d better hope he isn’t,’ Carmella said.

  Patrick thanked Bell and watched him leave the room. He felt frustrated, like he was looking for a trail of breadcrumbs that had already been eaten by birds.

  ‘We’ll catch him,’ Carmella said. ‘He’s going to slip up at some point.’

  Patrick stared into space. ‘Maybe. But how quickly? And who’s next on his list?’

  Chapter 31

  Day 10 – Kai

  Kai slouched over to a corner table next to a massive poster reading ‘Home of the Whopper’, his laptop in one hand, and a plastic tray containing a box of cheeseburger and fries in the other. He dumped the items on the table and pulled back a red slatted chair, which made a loud metallic sound as it scraped across the tiled floor.

  Opening the laptop with his right hand, he shovelled fries into his mouth with his left while looking around him to make sure nobody could see the screen. With greasy fingers he tapped in the Burger King Wi-Fi password and brought up the window of the OnTarget forum. He just needed to be sure about one or two things.

  The thing that Kai feared more than anything was making Jade angry. She was angry a lot – he could just about deal with that – but the terror of one day making her so mad that she dumped him gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his belly that even half a burger in one big swallow couldn’t obliterate. His mates thought he was a total wuss – ‘pussy-whipped’, according to Ed – but he didn’t care. He loved her. And if this worked out like it should, Jade would be well pleased with him. He grinned to himself through the other half of the burger. He wasn’t going to let anybody upset his boo, no way.

  He finished his meal and wiped his sleeve across his mouth before
pushing the empty food box to one side. Hunched over the laptop, he laboriously typed a question with two fingers, then sat back and waited.

  An answer flashed back in a minute. Kai tensed, read it silently to himself, lips moving, then relaxed and started typing again. It took less than five minutes to make the arrangements. Kai was dying to message Jade to tell her, but then decided not to, not until it was done. Then he reckoned she’d Snapchat him one of her special selfies – the kind that made him go soft and hard at the same time.

  Leaving all his litter on the table, he pulled on his jacket and headed out on his mission. Pausing in the doorway under a blast of hot, stale air, he zipped up his laptop inside his jacket and smiled, a slow, smug smile.

  Jade was gonna be proper pleased with him.

  Chapter 32

  Day 10 – Wendy

  Wendy stood at the top of the escalators in the Rotunda, music from the PA system outside Frankie and Benny’s wafting over. Frank Sinatra. Her dad’s favourite. He liked that restaurant too, even if it was overpriced in his opinion. As a family they had eaten in places like this many times, before her dad had run off with the woman who was now her stepmother.

  Every town had a leisure complex like this, usually on the outskirts, with a big cinema, numerous chain restaurants and a ten-pin bowling centre. Wendy was pretty damn good at bowling, even if she did say so herself, and had smiled when her new contact had sent her the picture of the bowling place at the Rotunda in Kingston.

  ‘Meet u here at 9.30pm’, the caption of the photograph had read before it vanished. She’d arrived ten minutes early to familiarise herself with the layout of the place. As she headed back down the escalator leading towards the basement bowling alley, she remembered the last time she’d played with her dad and sister. Her dad had taken her aside and told her how proud he was of her.

  ‘What, because I can beat you at bowling?’ she’d joked.

  ‘No, you numpty. Because of what you’ve done with your life. I’m dead proud.’

  She smiled at the memory and for the umpteenth time in recent weeks felt a pang. She missed her broken-up family. Once this case was over she was planning on taking some leave, going back to Wolves to see them.

  But before that, she had a chance to make her dad even prouder. The chance to make a difference to this operation.

  Now that she was familiar to most of the users of the forum, Wendy had decided it was safe to mention the murders without arousing suspicion that she was a mole. There were already lots of threads about it, discussions of the vigil that had taken place, and immediately after the deaths of both MissTargetHeart and YOLOSWAG, the site had been filled with intense, borderline-hysterical tributes to the dead girls.

  MissTargetHeart helped me when I was stressing about my exams . . . She’ll be singing with the Angels in Heaven now.

  Me and YOLOSWAG hung out after the Wembley concert last summer. She had Shawn tattooed on her skin and on her soul. RIP SISTER!!

  So, earlier that evening at her desk, Wendy had started a thread: I haven’t told anyone about this, not even my mum, but ever since what happened to those poor girls I have been terrified. I keep hoping the fact they were both OnT fans is a coincidence but what if it isn’t? I have a theory about what happened to them but I’m too scared to share it on here.

  This post had sparked a flurry of responses, most of the girls demanding to know about her theory.

  I can’t say, Wendy wrote. I wish I’d known them like some of you did. Then I might be able to prove my theory is right.

  The conversation went on from there, mostly going in circles. Wendy waited for Jade and some of the other regulars to join in, hitting refresh repeatedly, frustrated that no-one was taking the bait.

  Then a message popped up in her private inbox, headed ‘YOUR THEORY’.

  It was from a user called Mockingjay365, whose profile picture was of Katniss from The Hunger Games, bow and arrow pointed at the camera.

  I’d luv to here about ur theory, the message read.

  I haven’t seen you on the forum before, Wendy replied.

  Don’t post much, usualy just read. Im not very good at riting. Too shy.

  I understand, Wendy wrote, unsure if this girl was a time-waster. I wish I’d known Rose and Jess.

  I new them.

  Really?

  Yeah. We used to hang out, talk about OnT. Met them outside BBC last yeer wen OnT were on Graham Norton.

  Wendy waited.

  I think I no sumething. About an enemy they had. They were talking about it.

  Wendy’s pulse increased. Though the chances were Mockingjay365 was talking nonsense. She typed: An enemy? Have you been to the police?

  No! My dad hates feds. He sez they are bent. He wd kill me if I talked to cops.

  I understand. Who was this enemy?

  The answer came back straight away. I’m scared. He knows who I am. And he knows that I know him.

  You can tell me. He won’t be able to read this.

  There was a long, frustrating pause. Eventually, a response came. I dunno. My dad sez that any1 can spy on u on the internet. Like wen Jennifer Lawrence’s nude pics got hacked.

  Wendy supposed it made sense that a Hunger Games fan would be extra paranoid about Internet security after the naked selfies of that film’s star had been stolen and posted online.

  We cd meet? Mockingjay365 wrote. I saw you said you was local to me – Kingston?

  It was Wendy’s turn to hesitate. Was it worth it? Could this girl really know something? This talk of Jess and Rose having a common enemy was intriguing, but could be a fantasy.

  Yeh. Where? she typed, playing for time and looking up from her computer. It had just gone eight. She decided she would find Patrick, ask him what she should do. That was the correct protocol. So she hurried towards his desk, disappointed to find that he wasn’t there.

  ‘Looking for Lennon?’

  She turned. It was Winkler, gym bag in hand, his eyes blatantly roaming up and down her body as he waited for her response.

  ‘Yes, I—’

  ‘He’s having a party, so Masiello let slip earlier. A surprise birthday dinner with Masiello and his mad missus and the guv.’ He sniggered. ‘That should be awkward. Pretty disgraceful, though, if you ask me – having a lovely dinner party when proper cops like you and me are hard at it trying to stop a murderer.’

  She didn’t point out that he looked like he was heading to the gym.

  ‘Anything I can help with?’ he asked, taking a step closer so she could smell his aftershave.

  ‘No . . . It’s fine. Thanks.’

  She hurried back to her computer and saw that Mockingjay365 had suggested meeting at the Rotunda. She tapped out a reply: OK. What time? And where exactly?

  Do u hav Snapchat? came the response.

  She didn’t, but she could download it.

  Username same as on here. Add me & Ill message you. Snapchat deleets so no1 can trak it.

  And now here she was, standing outside the bowling alley waiting for another message, hopefully with a selfie of her new contact so she would be able to recognise her. At least it was warm in there – it was freezing outside, cold enough to snow, and if Mockingjay365 didn’t message her in the next five minutes, she was going home, back to her flat for a hot bubble bath, a glass of wine and the next episode of The Good Wife. And maybe to indulge her fantasies about a certain detective inspector. She hoped he was enjoying his birthday – Valentine’s Day was such an apt day for someone so sexy to be born – but couldn’t help but wish she was at the dinner party. She imagined herself as Gill there with him, laughing, Patrick squeezing her knee beneath the table, forgetting about the case for a couple of hours and enjoying himself, relaxing, and after their guests were gone he would take her/Gill to bed and gently lay her down and . . .

  Her phone beep
ed, shaking her from her fantasy. Hot shame flooded through her. What was she like, thinking about such a thing? Patrick, DI Lennon, was married and she was on the way to meet someone who might help her find the murderer. She needed to stop thinking about him. The sensible thing would be to ask to transfer to another team, maybe even another station. When this case was over, maybe that’s what she should do, after she’d visited her folks. She would work it out later, but she was glad now she hadn’t left that card on his desk as she’d intended.

  She took out her phone and saw, with a mixture of relief and anxiety, that she had a new Snapchat message. It was a photo of the café inside the bowling place, with another caption. ‘I’m here, waiting.’

  Wendy had changed into her teenage disguise at the station: skinny jeans and a parka with a furry hood, trainers and the make-up that, she hoped, made her look ten years younger. She pushed through the double doors of the bowlplex and headed towards the café.

  The noise in here was incredible. From the back came the clatter of bowling balls, the crash of scattering pins, whoops of delight and groans of disappointment. Above that came the cacophony of noise from the arcade machines that took up a large area – driving games and air hockey, machines that spat out chains of tickets that could be exchanged for cheap prizes. A woman stood feeding coins into one of those machines with a large claw, trying to win an Angry Birds toy. The place was full of teenagers and kids who, Wendy thought, should be at home in bed at this hour. There were even some toddlers running about.

  But there was no sign of anyone who might be Mockingjay365. She scanned the tables in the café. Lots more teens and families scoffing burgers and soggy-looking pizzas. The smell of nachos reached her nostrils and her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything since she’d had a dry egg and cress sandwich at lunchtime.

  Where the hell was Mockingjay?

  Right on cue, her phone beeped. She had a new Snapchat message. It was a photo of a car park. The caption read: Im in the car park round back. My ex is in Rotunda. Dont want him to see me!!