by Val McDermid
37
S
tacey flicked through the open windows on her half-dozen screens, checking what was still running and which of the programs she’d set in motion had come up with any results. There were routines that were straightforward – the algorithm she’d swagged from a friend which analysed data from the Automatic Number Plate Recognition system and projected driving routes based on camera sightings, for example. It was working backwards on any existing data on the cars of Kathryn McCormick and Amie McDonald, chugging away in the background, scavenging information from sources other than the official camera feeds. And there were other programs that were – how would she have put it? – not generally available.
One of those clandestine apps trawled social media accounts and classified contacts according to a wide array of criteria and attributes. It was based on a piece of code she’d written herself a few years before, so the developer who had pushed it to the next level had passed it on to her as a tip of the hat. She’d set it loose on Kathryn McCormick’s Facebook, RigMarole and Twitter accounts, but it had been hard to develop any leads from them. Kathryn wasn’t one of those women who was addicted to selfies and status updates. She’d used her social media sparingly, and mostly in relation to office-based social events. Most of her contacts appeared to be workmates or family members and the content was unremittingly dull to anyone outside those groups. A couple of new names had posted friend requests to her RigMarole account after the wedding, both saying how much they’d enjoyed meeting her, both tagging her in photos where she was on the sidelines. Kathryn had accepted the women and thanked them. But that had been the extent of their communication even though both women had posted comments about how great the wedding had been.
Stacey had checked them out. Tiffany Smith was a cousin of the bride, Claire Garrity was a bakery manager. Tiffany had been on RigMarole for years and had a reasonably static bunch of friends, adding new people every couple of months or so. Her feed was the usual – kids, dogs, cakes, holidays, karaoke, memes with varying degrees of funny. Claire used her account rather less frequently but she’d been a member for a couple of years. She’d posted a couple of photos of the wedding but hadn’t tagged anyone. Based on her lack of activity, Stacey thought she probably didn’t know how to. There was nothing apparently suspicious or even mildly questionable about either of them.
Looking at the screen now, Stacey noted the results from the trawl of Amie’s social media were spooling down the page. New contacts were stuttering across the screen, the dateline on the end of each line. Two months ago, five weeks ago, two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. Right after the wedding. Stacey drew in a sharp breath. The final new friend on Amie’s RigMarole account was Claire Garrity. Accepted the day after the wedding. Claire had commented on a photo that had caught Amie staring wistfully across the room, chin propped on her hand. ‘Love you in this pic,’ the comment read.
Amie had responded. ‘I look like a wet weekend in Widnes.’
‘No, you look dead romantic!!! Like, one day my prince will come.’
‘LOL. Well, maybe he has already…’
‘Hope so, you deserve it.’
And that was the end of it. But what was going on here? What were the implications of this? How could the same woman befriend two murder victims just after they’d hooked up with a man who was the most likely person to have killed them? The only logical answer was that this wasn’t Claire Garrity. It was the killer himself, getting his kicks from infiltrating another corner of their lives.
She was halfway to her feet to share the new information with Carol when a thought occurred to her. Stacey went in through the back door she’d opened for herself years ago into the digital platform that housed the Bradfield Evening Sentinel Times. She typed in ‘Claire Garrity’ and found her answer in the personal columns. Claire Garrity had died in a road traffic accident ten weeks before. Nothing in the least suspicious about it – a lorry driver had fallen asleep at the wheel on the M60 and ploughed into her Fiat Punto. But presumably, because she scarcely used her RigMarole account, nobody had thought to close it down. And somehow a killer had accessed it and used it for his own twisted purpose.
Stacey stood up so abruptly her chair spun out behind her. She marched down to Carol’s office. Only the courtesy ingrained by her parents stopped her from barging straight in. She knocked, waited, gripped the handle and shot inside as soon as Carol gave her the word. ‘I think he friended them on RigMarole,’ she blurted out. ‘And he stole a dead woman’s ID to do it.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Carol looked baffled, as people often did when Stacey made her bald announcements. Patiently, she explained what she’d found. Carol’s eyebrows rose. ‘Why would he do a thing like that?’
Sometimes Stacey thought Carol spent too long listening to Tony Hill. In spite of the successes he’d helped them achieve in recent years, Stacey was still sceptical of his approach. Motive wasn’t important in murder inquiries. Process was what counted. It didn’t matter why the killer was messing with his victims. What really mattered was the opportunity it offered. What could they learn from his digital footprint? Where would this information take them? ‘I’ve no idea,’ Stacey said briskly. ‘But RigMarole might know the IP address those messages came from.’
‘Will they tell us?’
Stacey shrugged. ‘We can try for a warrant, but they’ll drag their heels even if we can get one. But I —’
Carol held up a hand. ‘How many times do I have to tell you, Stacey? I don’t need to know the intricacies of what you do.’
Which translated, Stacey thought cynically, to ‘If you‘re going to break the law – what I don’t know can’t hurt me.’
‘And besides,’ Carol continued, ‘there are practical avenues to pursue. There’s a chance the killer knew she was dead because he knew her when she was alive. I mean, he would have had to crack her password to use her RigMarole account, wouldn’t he?’
‘Yes. Though it might have been something ridiculous like her husband’s name, and he could have got that from the newspaper report. But these days, most people are a bit more savvy about social media passwords. Everybody knows somebody who’s been hacked.’
‘“I’m on holiday in Marbella and I’ve had my bag snatched, please wire me £200 to get home.”’
‘Exactly. So yes, maybe he did know her well enough to work out a more challenging password.’
‘So we show the pics we’ve got to this Claire Garrity’s nearest and dearest. And her workmates. And perhaps the gods will smile on us and someone will recognise him.’
‘And just in case…’ Stacey flipped a mock salute at Carol, ‘I’ll see what RigMarole can tell me. With or without their consent.’
38
A
s soon as he’d returned to the poky flat her betrayal had consigned him to, he’d flipped open the laptop and wallowed in the coverage. His first outing had been characterised as a curiosity, mostly ignored in the press but picked up online, especially once it had leaked out that Kathryn had already been dead when the blaze had started. But with a second similar incident in the same geographical location, everyone’s ears had pricked up and the case had been upgraded to a mystery. The police weren’t saying much, and nobody was acknowledging the fact that Amie hadn’t died in the fire either. But everyone was absorbed by the odd circumstances of the deaths.
Nobody had made a connection between the killings and the weddings that had preceded them. Nobody was talking about new boyfriends or mysterious weekend trips to the Dales. That would come, though. He was sure of it. Now there was a genuine mystery to chase, the hacks would be all over the private lives of the victims. Eventually, friends would talk.
He didn’t fear that moment. He wasn’t afraid of being caught because he didn’t believe he would be. Didn’t believe he could be. He’d covered his tracks so comprehensively. He’d researched the truth about forensics, as opposed to the half-truths peddled by TV shows and crime writers and he’d
made a list of all the possible trace evidence he needed to avoid. So, no going back to their place for a coffee or sex. No giving them a lift anywhere. No messages that could be traced back to any of his electronic equipment. Never putting the batteries in his burner phones except when they were where he was supposed to be. Paying for everything in cash. Avoiding restaurants whose approaches were covered by CCTV. Making subtle but effective changes to his appearance, ones he could easily reverse so the people he had to see regularly wouldn’t be freaked out by them.
When he’d first embarked on his mission of revenge, he was determined to avoid capture solely because that would interfere with his ultimate goal of killing Tricia. And he needed to kill her, to wipe her off the face of the world, to destroy her for what she’d done to him. The humiliation. The stripping of the things that mattered to him – having her by his side, on his arm; the luxurious home they’d made together; the business they’d built from scratch that was slowly disintegrating day by frustrating day; and the deep sense of security and achievement that possessing all that had given him. How could she turn on him like that? And not because he’d done anything wrong, but because she’d decided he didn’t fulfil every bloody stupid romantic fantasy that magazines and movies had stuffed her head with.
Her disappearance had only fuelled his fury. Nobody would tell him a bloody thing. Not a clue. Then he had a brainwave. She might have closed down her social media accounts but there was no way she’d be able to give up that endless exchange of trivia with her friends. He’d put money on the fact that she’d have new accounts up and running in another name. And that under that other name Tricia would have befriended the women she trusted not to reveal her secret to him. If he could spy on their accounts, he was sure he could triangulate the identity Tricia was hiding behind.
But if he simply set up a new account, it would be obvious. He needed to weasel his way into an existing account so he could forge a connection to the women Tricia knew. But he had to find a way to do that without raising suspicions.
And then he had his second brainwave. So bloody clever it made him laugh out loud.
It hadn’t been too hard to pull off and, so far, it was working. He’d managed to become RigMarole friends with two of the women Tricia was closest to. But it was taking forever. The more days that passed, the more his anger burned. Time was not healing these wounds. Rather, it was making them more agonising. He’d never be at ease with himself while she still breathed. He understood that very clearly. Her existence was an insult to him and everything he valued. But killing her would only be flawless if he walked away with clean hands. There would be no satisfaction in ending her life if it ended his too. And so when he decided to use other women as surrogates to give him some sort of relief from the rage that made his head hurt and his heart sore, he knew he had to perfect this act so that, although he’d be a suspect when Tricia died, he’d be untouchable.
The key, as always, was to consider every step of the process from all angles. What could go wrong? How could he guard against that possibility? What steps did he need to take to protect himself?
With the killing of Amie, he’d come to realise that the preparation was part of the satisfaction. It made him feel good. Not as powerful as the murder itself, obviously. But it gave him the comfort of control right down the line from first contact to the moment he lit the match.
And with his new RigMarole account, he’d been able to forge connections to his victims. He could spy on them, hugging his secret knowledge to himself. He could ‘like’ the photos from the weddings that their friends had posted. He could even ‘talk’ to them. And the beauty of it was that he wasn’t putting himself in any kind of jeopardy.
The final part of the first stage, luring the women to his cottage in the Dales, was always going to be the riskiest part of his endeavour. He’d thought they might balk at not having the full address. He’d had an explanation prepared about the postcode not matching the actual location. But so far, neither of them had questioned it. When he’d told them the cottage couldn’t be located on satnav, they’d both accepted it and fallen in with his suggestion that he meet them in a nearby pub car park – where he knew there was no camera coverage – then follow him to the cottage in their own cars.
The ‘own cars’ thing was a shrewd move, he thought. It would reassure them to have a means of escape if things didn’t turn out the way they’d hoped. And it gave him the extra insurance of not ever having them shedding their DNA all over the interior of his borrowed car. It had been a brilliant idea, and it had worked perfectly in practice.
And then the sheer delight of leading them up the garden path. Two days of pandering to their every whim, of second-guessing what they’d enjoy. Of finding reasons to keep them indoors. Because he didn’t want them to be spotted by some random hiker wandering around the landscape as if they owned the place. He hadn’t been too worried about that in advance, though. Friday-night dinner with plenty of alcohol. Then bed and the most attentive sex he could manage. He hadn’t found either of them particularly attractive, but there were ways round that. Fantasy, memory, and the sort of endless snuggly foreplay that women always appreciated.
He’d assumed that if the sex was good enough, they’d be happy to spend Saturday in bed. Then cook dinner together. And that was exactly how it had gone with Kathryn. She’d been eager to please and thrilled by his attentiveness. He suspected she was so excited at the prospect of a new relationship that she was reluctant to make any demands of him. Really, she was a pushover. Easy to string along till, lulled by GHB-laced champagne on Sunday afternoon, he had put his hands around her neck and tightened his grip till her eyes had bulged and her face had turned from crimson to purple. It had been harder than he’d expected but imagining Tricia’s face in front of him had been all it took to make him stick with it till she stopped struggling and making those terrible choking noises.
It had been so different the first time he’d killed someone. Then, it had felt unreal, like a video game. He’d had no idea it was so easy to kill someone for real. If he’d imagined it at all, he’d have thought it would be much, much harder to end someone’s life. He’d been playing with Johnny Cape in the steeply wooded ravine between the terraced houses on Approach Street and the orchard behind the vicarage. They’d been wrestling on the ground, hot and sweating, their chewing gum breath in each other’s faces. And Johnny had gasped, ‘This is like how your mum is with the men she goes with.’ Then he’d made the kind of animal grunts that were so familiar, so humiliating, so invasive.
A black fury had risen inside him and he’d grabbed at the first thing that came to hand. A fallen branch from an ash tree, about as thick as a toddler’s arm. He’d smashed the branch against Johnny’s head as hard as he could and when Johnny let go and fell back, yelping, he’d put the branch across Johnny’s throat and leaned on it with all his weight, grunting with the effort. Just like the men who paid their rent did.
Johnny’s heels had drummed on the forest floor, his eyes swelled like a frog’s, his tongue pushed out between his goofy teeth and his skin went a dark, dark red. Then he’d stopped. And everything in the wood was quiet. Even the birdsong was momentarily silent. Or maybe the ringing in his head wiped everything else out.
He’d staggered to his feet and run home. His mum had been in the kitchen, making cottage pie for their tea. He remembered the cottage pie. He’d said nothing and acted as though nothing had happened.
When the police arrived before bedtime, he’d acted shocked and upset. And yes, it had been an act. Because honestly? He hadn’t felt much of anything at all. He told the friendly policewoman that he’d left Johnny in the wood, gathering sticks to make their gang hut look better. She asked if he’d seen anybody on his way home and he said yes, there had been a man walking along the path into the woodland. When she wondered what the man had looked like, he’d pictured the guy from the kids’ club at the holiday camp they’d been at the summer before, and given a halting descrip
tion of him. It had been ridiculously easy to fool everybody.
It had even been on Crimewatch. Nobody ever doubted his account. And nobody was ever arrested, which he was glad about. He’d have felt bad if somebody he had nothing against had been falsely accused.
And he’d carried on with his life as if nothing had happened. No nightmares, no bed-wetting, no panic attacks. To begin with, he’d missed having Johnny to play with, but he told himself that even if he’d still been alive, they couldn’t have been friends any longer anyway, not after he’d said those things about his mother.
The difference was that this time he hadn’t been able to run away from what he’d done. He could hardly bring himself to look at her after she was dead because the sight of her face reminded him that this wasn’t Tricia. This was a poor substitute for the woman who really deserved to die. The killing had made him feel better, but the high hadn’t lasted. He’d had to wait till darkness fell to carry her body out to her own car. He’d thrown a sheet over her so he didn’t have to see her. It was only when he set fire to her in the car, obliterating her difference from the woman he wanted to kill, that the sense of control and power returned to him. And this time it lasted.
He wasn’t worried about her DNA being all over the cottage. They’d never trace him back to this place. On paper, it was still owned by a company that had been defunct for five years, a company whose name he’d never been officially connected with. It had been Tricia who had briefly been on their board and who had done some shady deal where she’d got the cottage in exchange for not telling the VATman what had really been going on with the company accounts. It had been rented out off the books for years to an academic at Leeds University who used it at weekends, but she hadn’t protested too much when he’d told her the arrangement was at an end a couple of months before. She knew she didn’t have a leg to stand on. So there was no paper trail leading anywhere near him.