Chase Down (A Detective Ryan Chase Thriller Book 2)

by M K Farrar

  Ryan shook his head. “Jesus Christ.”

  “It gets worse. Before he came to the Willis house, he was in a different family home where he attacked the eleven-year-old son of the family, trying to cut the boy’s ear off with a kitchen knife. Luckily, he failed. When he was asked why he did it, he said the other boy was always getting all the attention. The family didn’t press charges. I guess they were just happy to have him gone.”

  “My God.”

  “After that, he spent some time back in a group home and then was fostered out to a family whose children were already grown and had left home—the Willises. Things went well enough, but then after he’d aged out, he found out the foster parents were separating, and he attacked the father, Mr Willis, who was the one to leave.”

  “So, he has some serious dysfunction around families.”

  “Certainly seems that way.”

  “But why does he do it?” Ryan mused. “Why go and hole himself up at someone else’s house? “

  “Maybe he feels he wants to be part of a family?” Linda suggested.

  “A family he ends up murdering because he feels like they’ve somehow let him down again?”

  Ryan turned to the board containing the names and photographs of everyone who’d been of interest so far. His gaze alighted on the image of Elouise Lewis. “Maybe he found out about the babysitter. Perhaps that shattered his idea of a perfect family life, and he couldn’t handle it, so he killed them all.”

  He let the idea simmer with his team and then moved on.

  “What about more recently? With that kind of background, how did he end up becoming a photographer?

  Linda continued. “From what I can tell, he always did well at school. After the attack on Mr Willis, to all intents and purposes, he got his life back on track.”

  “Did he ever marry? Have kids?”

  “Not that I can tell. He lives alone now. Maybe that’s why he’s felt the need to stalk these families. I don’t know...perhaps his job set him off. Maybe he was doing all these video shoots for the agencies and seeing these perfect homes and perfect families and perfect lives, and he wanted to be a part of it.”

  “Except when he got too close, he realised they weren’t as perfect as he thought.”

  “And so he killed them all.”

  “And now he might be out there, planning to do the same to another family.”

  Linda shuddered. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to put a house on the market again.”

  “Same. It certainly makes you think twice about the amount of access to your home that you’re giving to complete strangers.”

  It had been some time since Ryan had sold a house, but he remembered the conversations he and Donna had had about putting their place on the market. Since Hayley had died when they’d decided to divorce, it wasn’t as though either of them had any right to stay more than the other. The thought of them selling their family home had filled him with melancholy, however. It was supposed to have been the place they’d raise their family in, and instead it had been the final thing that had divided them. He’d been relieved in the end that Donna had wanted to stay there. Strangely, it made him feel as though he still had a home.

  Ryan shook off the sadness. He had plenty of time to mope around after they’d caught this bastard.

  A light knock came at the briefing room door, and Mallory stuck her head in and waved an A4 piece of paper with the magistrates’ heading on it.

  “Boss, we’ve got the warrant through to search the Sweeny flat.”

  “Let’s get to work then, everybody,” he instructed his team.

  “We’ll find him,” DCI Hirst told him as he passed her leaving the briefing room. “The son of a bitch can’t hide out forever.”

  He appreciated her faith in him and wished he could feel the same way about things himself.

  He took out his phone to call for a Tactical Aid Unit to meet them at the property since they were search-trained officers. Time was of the essence. He couldn’t shake the feeling that if he didn’t find Sweeny soon, more innocent people were going to lose their lives.

  ***

  Backup was already at Sweeny’s flat when Ryan and Mallory arrived. The blue-and-white marked Tactical Aid Unit van was parked outside the property, and Tactical Aid officers climbed out of the vehicle to greet them.

  “DI Chase,” he introduced himself to them. “Thanks for coming. This is the property we need to gain access to.”

  If there had been any immediate risk to life, Ryan would have broken in there himself, but since he was certain Philip Sweeny had already taken up residence in his next victims’ home, he’d needed to wait for the warrant.

  “No problem,” said the Police Search Advisor. “Happy to help.”

  They had a battering ram to break down the door, and Ryan stepped back to allow the officers to do their job.

  The neighbours were all noticing something was going on now, emerging from their front doors, or peering through their front room windows to get a good view of the police activity.

  Loud, repetitive thuds came from the front door as the biggest of the officers slammed the battering ram into Philip Sweeny’s front door. It only took a couple of decent hits, and the door flew inwards, giving them access. A small pile of post was littered across the carpet.

  Ryan stepped in behind the officers. “Wherever Sweeny is right now,” he said, “I’d say he’s not been home recently.”

  Mallory looked over at him. “Where is he then?”

  “My fear is that he’s already picked out his next victim and has holed himself up in their house somewhere.” Ryan dreaded the thought of waking up tomorrow to learn the news another family had been slaughtered.

  The search team had already made their way into the flat.

  “We need anything that might give us an idea where he’s gone,” Ryan told them. “It could be his most recent job—so addresses, photographs, property details for a house. Also, anything that might link him to the Wyndham house.”

  In years gone by, Ryan might have expected to find actual photographs of people or places, but he thought that was going to be unlikely.

  Ryan pulled on a set of gloves from his pocket. He had no idea what he expected or hoped to find inside the property. While he wanted definitive evidence that Sweeny was their man, and would leave the Crown Prosecution Service in no doubt that they should charge Sweeny with the murders of each of the Wyndham family murders, his gut instinct told him their main focus needed to be on finding out where he was now.

  The place was musty, the air stale, as though no one had lived there for a long time, despite knowing otherwise. The sofa was up against one wall. A small boxy television sat on a glass stand. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust.

  “Where’s all his equipment?” Ryan wondered out loud. “We know what he does for a living, but there’s no sign of it here.”

  “He’s taken it with him,” Mallory said.

  “He must have done.”

  A shout came from the direction of the bedroom. “Boss, you’re going to want to see this.”

  Ryan and Mallory exchanged a glance and followed the sound of the shout. They entered the bedroom, and Ryan drew up short. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves painted black covered the entire back wall, but they didn’t contain books.

  Instead, rows and rows of DVDs were stacked on the shelves.

  Ryan approached and slid one of the DVDs out. They weren’t of the usual blockbuster movies most people had but were blank DVD cases for copying files. On the DVD Ryan had pulled out was written: 21 Fore Street. He put that DVD back and took out another one. 6 Driver Lane was the title of the next. He knew without needing to look any further that each of the DVDs contained video footage of the houses Sweeny had worked on

  “Jesus Christ, there must be hundreds here.”

  Mallory shook her head. “Why keep the DVDs? Isn’t everything online these days?”

  “Perhaps he felt too vulnerable
online. Take the video, make a copy, send what was needed to the estate agents and delete it.”

  Could Sweeny be at one of these addresses now? It was going to take them forever to go through each of them.

  “We’re going to need to bag them all up,” he told the search team.

  He turned away, shaking his head. This was going to take them all night, but he couldn’t do it all himself. He’d been at work since eight a.m., and at some point, they were all going to need to get some rest.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It was the first night that Andy was staying down in Exeter for work.

  Helen didn’t like sleeping in an empty house. Not that it was empty, exactly—the kids were still here—but it didn’t feel the same without having Andy lying next to her. She always complained about how he’d snore or steal the covers or wake her up when he got up to go to the toilet, but now he wasn’t here, she missed him.

  She tossed and turned, first getting too hot and throwing off the covers, and then getting too cold and pulling them back over her body.

  What was Andy doing now? Was he asleep in bed or doing something else?

  She was a trusting person, but that little niggle of doubt wormed its way into her head. He’d be meeting all these new people at his job, and some of them were bound to be young, pretty, and female. When he came home, all she did was snipe at him, and he was probably relieved to be able to go out for dinner and then retire to a plush white hotel bed.

  Would he be alone when he did so?

  She shook the thought from her head. Yes, of course he would. Andy wasn’t like that. He’d never given her any reason to doubt him. But now the miles had quite literally put distance between them, and she was worried about things that had never bothered her before. She’d always known he wouldn’t be having an affair ’cause he’d always been at home with her, watching TV and eating dinner, and going up to bed, but now he could be doing anything.

  From somewhere in the house, a soft shuffle followed by a thud caught her attention. She listened for the familiar click of the bathroom light or a flush of the toilet, signalling one of the kids had got up to use the bathroom, but none followed.

  She frowned. They’d better not still be up on their phones. She often got up during the night to see the faint glow from beneath their bedroom doors that betrayed them being on their devices way after bedtime.

  Helen huffed out a breath and threw back the covers again. She planted both feet on the carpet and got to her feet. Her bedroom door was shut, her room dark, but she knew the house well enough to navigate the room without bumping into anything. She reached the door, found the handle, and opened it.

  A crash came from somewhere nearby, and her heart lurched. A scream escaped her throat before she’d even thought to try to stop it, and she clamped her hand over her mouth.

  Her daughter’s bedroom door flung open. “Mum! What’s going on?”

  Helen could see that Reese was all right. Was it her son?

  “Tyler?” she called. “Tyler, are you okay?”

  She raced across the landing but came to a halt before she reached her son’s room. His door was still shut, but between them were the stack of boxes. Only this time, instead of the boxes having shifted slightly to one side, they had completely fallen.

  “Tyler!” she called again, annoyed. “Get out here.”

  The bedroom door finally opened, and Tyler emerged, blinking tiredly, his dark hair mussy. “Why are you shouting?”

  “Don’t give me that. Have you been out here messing around? You knocked the boxes down!”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Well, they didn’t just fall over by themselves, and I saw your sister come out of her room seconds after it happened, so there’s no way she knocked them over and got back to her room without me seeing her.”

  His jaw dropped. “Seriously, Mum. I didn’t touch the boxes. I was sound asleep, and you just woke me up.”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Tyler.” She put out her hand. “Give me your phone.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I assume you were up on your phone and that’s why you knocked over the boxes. What were you doing? Wandering around, staring at your phone so you didn’t see them or something?”

  “No, I was asleep! I already told you.” His voice rose with what he seemed to believe was the unfairness of it all.

  “I’m not messing around, Ty. Do you have any idea how tired I am at the moment, trying to deal with you kids on my own every day, plus sort the house out for viewing? All I ask for is a little help and instead I have you messing around in the middle of the night. Now go and get your phone.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off.

  “Now, Tyler.”

  He turned to go back into his room, muttering, “This is unbelievable.” He returned a moment later, his phone in his hand. He shoved it at her, and she took it.

  “Good, now go back to bed.”

  She shook her head at the boxes. She wasn’t going to deal with it now. She turned to go back to bed, but Reese was still standing at her bedroom door.

  “What?” Helen asked her.

  “Do you really think it was Tyler, Mum? What if he’s telling the truth and it wasn’t him?”

  “It was him. Who else could it be?”

  “I thought I saw someone in the house the other night, remember?”

  Helen’s heart stuttered, and a flush of cold water seemed to go through her veins, chilling her from the inside. Her breath suddenly felt shallow, and she wished more than anything that Andy was with them.

  “Stop it, Reese.”

  “What? I haven’t done anything. I was just reminding you, that’s all.”

  “I hadn’t forgotten!” Her fear was making her snappish, and she was taking it out on the kids. She forced herself to take a deep breath. “You and your brother need to stop this. I know things are a bit strange right now with your dad not being here and knowing that we have to move away from Bristol, and it’s probably normal that you’re both acting out, but seriously, I don’t know how much more I can take.”

  “Oh my God, this is not us ‘acting out’. We’re not toddlers, Mum. Why won’t you just believe what we say? I did see someone the other night, and Tyler was asleep. You could tell that just by looking at him.”

  Helen raised a hand in a stop sign. “That’s quite enough, Reese. I’m not having this conversation tonight. It’s late, and we all have to get up in the morning.”

  “But, Mum, what if someone is in the house? What if they knocked down the boxes?”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

  She wasn’t going to get a moment’s peace until she’d been and checked the house. She had no doubt that they were alone in here...okay, maybe some doubt, but only the kind that came from it being the middle of the night and feeling slightly spooked. Like her daughter, she was dressed in an oversized t-shirt for bed. She decided it covered enough of her legs for her to go and search the house. It wasn’t as though she was going to come face to face with anyone anyway. She was only doing this to keep Reese happy. She still had Tyler’s phone in her hand, which gave her a little reassurance. If there was anything strange, she would call nine-nine-nine. Not that there was going to be anyone, she reminded herself.

  Helen left Reese and started down the stairs.

  “Mum, wait,” her daughter called.

  Reese hurried after her. “I’m not going to let you go down there on your own.”

  Helen smiled and squeezed her daughter’s hand. She could be sweet sometimes.

  Together, they crept down the rest of the stairs. Helen flicked on the lights for the entrance hall and then entered the living room and turned on that light as well. No one was in there, just as she’d expected. She checked behind the sofa and the curtain, to prove to Reese it was empty, and then they went through into the kitchen-diner.

  She flicked on the lights. “See, no one here.”

  Reese pointed t
o the downstairs cloakroom. “What about in there?”

  Helen rolled her eyes, feeling more like the teenager than her teenager. She turned on the light on the wall and opened the door. There was nowhere to hide in the small space.

  “Happy now?”

  “Not really.” Reese pouted. “Maybe we’re being haunted.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake. How long have we been living in this house now? We are not haunted.”

  “The ghost might be angry we’re moving out without them.”

  Helen found herself holding back a laugh. “You are joking now, right?”

  Reese widened her eyes. “It might be!”

  “Come on, back to bed. No more talk of ghosts or seeing strange people in the house. One thing we all need is some more sleep.”

  Reese let out a sigh. “Fine.”

  Helen checked the doors were locked and then switched off all the lights again. The two of them made their way back up the stairs.

  “Night, sweetie,” Helen told her daughter.

  “Night.”

  Helen went into her bedroom and shut the door behind her. She got back into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Even though they’d checked the house and she’d said all the right things to her daughter to reassure her, Helen still felt uneasy. Her heart beat too hard and fast, and though it was the middle of the night, she was wide awake. Her ears strained for any unusual sounds in the house.

  It was a long time before she managed to fall back asleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Ryan got into work after only a few hours’ sleep. There had been no progress overnight on finding Philip Sweeny. No one had seen him, and his Ford Transit hadn’t been located either. Ryan assumed that meant the van was off the road somewhere, perhaps hidden in a garage, which made their job even harder.