‘Yeah.’
Erika gave him a look.
‘I mean it, I will put you forward,’ repeated Marsh.
‘Thank you. So, even more of a reason for me to steer clear of Gary Wilmslow?’
‘Yes,’ Marsh said, tapping his spoon in the empty pot. ‘Although, for selfish reasons I’d hate to lose you.’
‘I’m sure you’ll get over it,’ said Erika with a wry grin.
Marsh’s phone rang, deep in one of his pockets, and he wiped his mouth and pulled it out. When he answered, it quickly became apparent that it was his wife, Marcie.
‘Shit,’ he said, when he came off the phone. ‘I didn’t see the time. Tonight is date night. Marcie’s mum has got the kids.’
‘Sure, say hi to Marcie. I’ve got to be somewhere too,’ Erika lied.
‘Let’s touch base tomorrow,’ Marsh said. He left, and Erika watched as he came out onto the pavement and hailed a passing taxi. He got in and was already engrossed in his phone as the taxi pulled away.
Everywhere Erika looked people were enjoying the sunshine, walking in pairs, friends or couples. She took a big spoonful of yoghurt and sat back for a moment. She wondered if Marsh had played her, or if the promise of a promotion had been genuine. She thought of the Gregory Munro case, and how she was back to square one.
‘Shit!’ she said, loudly.
A couple of young girls sitting next to her in the window looked at each other and, picking up their frozen yoghurt, moved tables.
14
NIGHT OWL: Hey, Duke.
DUKE: Jeez. You’ve been quiet. I’ve been worried.
NIGHT OWL: Worried?
DUKE: Yeah. I hadn’t heard anything from u. I thought you’d been…
NIGHT OWL: Been what?
DUKE: You know. I don’t want to type it.
NIGHT OWL: Arrested?
DUKE: Shit! Be careful.
NIGHT OWL: We’re encrypted. It’s cool.
DUKE: You never know who’s watching.
NIGHT OWL: You’re paranoid.
DUKE: I can think of worse things to be.
NIGHT OWL: What does that mean?
DUKE: Nothing. It means that I’m careful. Like you should be.
NIGHT OWL: I’ve been watching the papers, the news. They know nothing.
DUKE: Let’s hope it stays that way.
NIGHT OWL: I need another one.
DUKE: Already?
NIGHT OWL: Yes. Time is moving fast. I’m watching the next one on my list. I want to do it soon.
DUKE: You sure?
NIGHT OWL: Positive. Can I trust you to organise things?
There was a pause. A bubble popped up, saying ‘DUKE typing…’ Then it vanished.
NIGHT OWL: U still there?
DUKE: Yeah. I’ll do it.
NIGHT OWL: Good. I’ll be waiting. This one won’t know what’s hit him.
15
Darkness was falling as Erika stepped out of the shower. She wrapped herself in a towel and padded barefoot through to the bedroom, flicking on the light. She’d rented a small ground-floor flat in what was an old manor house in Forest Hill. It was tucked back from the main road on a leafy street. She’d been in the flat for six months, but it was still bare, as if she’d just moved in. The bedroom was clean but spartan.
Erika went to a chest of drawers and looked at her reflection in the gilt-framed mirror propped on top. The face staring back at her didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Her short blonde hair stuck up in tufts and was shot through with grey. As a younger woman, she had never worried about her looks. She’d been blessed with an attractive Slavic face: high cheekbones, smooth skin and almond-shaped green eyes. But those same eyes were beginning to crease at the corners, her forehead bore too many lines and her face was beginning to sag.
She looked at a framed photo sitting by the mirror. A handsome, dark-haired man grinned back at her – her late husband Mark. His death was something she felt she would never get over, and this, coupled with the guilt that she was responsible for it, put a skewer through her heart many times each day. What she hadn’t expected was how she would feel about ageing. It was as if they were moving even further apart in her mind. The image of him was frozen in her memories, in pictures. As the years passed, she would morph into an old lady, yet Mark would always be young and good-looking.
A few days ago, when she was driving to work, she’d heard the song ‘Forever Young’ by Alphaville on the radio. She’d had to pull the car over to try and gain control of her emotions.
Erika ran her fingers over the frame for a moment, tracing the outline of Mark’s strong jaw, his nose and his warm brown eyes. She picked the picture up, feeling the weight of the frame in her hand. Opening the top drawer, she stared at her neatly folded underwear, and, lifting the first pile of garments, she went to tuck the framed photo underneath. She hesitated, and pulled her hand back. Closing the drawer, she placed the frame back on the polished wood surface.
In a couple of weeks it would be two years since Mark’s death. A tear formed in her eye and then fell onto the wood with a soft pat. She wasn’t ready to let him go. She dreaded the day she would be.
Erika wiped her face with the back of her hand and walked through to the living room. It was like the bedroom: neat and functional. A sofa and coffee table both faced a small television. A bookshelf lined the wall to the left of the patio windows and provided a dumping ground for takeaway leaflets, telephone directories and a paperback of Fifty Shades of Grey left by the previous tenant. Copies of the case files on Gary Wilmslow and Gregory Munro were open on the sofa, and the screen of Erika’s laptop glowed on the coffee table. The more she read about Gary Wilmslow, the more frustrated she felt. Peterson was right: Gary had a strong motive to kill Gregory Munro, and now she’d been told not to go near him.
Erika grabbed her cigarettes and opened the patio door. The moon shone on the small communal garden outside: a neat square of grass, with the silhouette of an apple tree at the bottom. The neighbours were busy professionals like her and kept themselves to themselves. She pulled a cigarette from the pack and craned her head upwards, to see if any lights were on in the windows above. The brickwork stretched up four storeys and radiated heat back onto her face. As she lit her cigarette, she hesitated, noticing the large white box strapped to the building with ‘HOMESTEAD SECURITY’ stamped on it in red letters.
Something sparked in the back of Erika’s mind. She hurried back indoors. Clamping her cigarette between her teeth, she grabbed the file on Gregory Munro and started to flick through, passing witness statements, photos. The phone rang and she answered, clamping it under her chin so she could continue looking through the file.
‘Hello Erika, it’s me,’ said Isaac.
‘Yeah?’ said Erika, her mind more on the case file than the phone call. ‘Have you got more on the Gregory Munro murder?’
‘No. This isn’t a work call. I just wanted to apologise for the other night…I should have told you that Stephen would be there at dinner. I know I’d invited you, and you thought…’
‘Isaac, what you do with your life is up to you,’ said Erika, her mind only half on the conversation as she rifled through pictures of the rooms in Gregory Munro’s house. Close-ups of the kitchen, the ready meal on the work surface… She knew she’d seen something in a photo, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
‘Yes, but I’d like to make it up to you,’ said Isaac. ‘Would you like to come over for dinner on Thursday?’
Erika turned the page and stopped, staring at the photo.
‘Are you still there?’ asked Isaac.
‘Yes… And yes, dinner would be great. I have to go,’ she said, and before Isaac had the chance to reply, she hung up. Then she hurried to her bedroom and started to get dressed.
16
Isaac had been talking to Erika on the phone beside his bed. When she’d gone, he sat back and stared at the receiver for a moment.
‘She just, sort of, hung up on me
. Well, maybe she didn’t hang up, but she ended the call abruptly,’ he said.
Stephen lay beside him, working on his laptop. ‘I told you. She’s a cold fish,’ he replied as he typed.
Isaac watched the words for a moment as they streaked across the glowing screen. ‘That’s not fair, Stevie. She’s damaged. She’s still grieving for her husband, and on top of that she carries the guilt of his death around with her. She doesn’t exactly work in the kind of environment that encourages you to show your feelings.’
‘How predictable. What a cliché. The damaged female DCI, too busy for anyone but her work,’ said Stephen, still typing.
‘That’s very harsh, Stevie.’
‘Life is harsh.’
‘What about the books you write? Your DCI Bartholomew character is damaged.’
Stephen looked up from his laptop.
‘Yes, but DCI Bartholomew is far from a cliché. He’s far more multi-layered than whatshername…’
‘Erika.’
‘He’s an anti-hero. I’ve been praised for his originality, his flawed genius. I was nominated for a bloody Dagger Award!’
‘Okay, I wasn’t criticising, Stevie.’
‘Well, don’t lump my work in with your tragic copper friend.’
There was an awkward silence. Isaac began to collect up the empty chocolate bar wrappers which had pooled around Stephen on the duvet.
‘I’d like you to get to know her,’ Isaac said. ‘She’s not like that outside work. I’d like it if you could be friends. You heard me invite her for dinner.’
‘Isaac, I’ve got a deadline. When that’s passed, sure, I suppose I could have coffee with her,’ said Stephen, still typing. ‘She wasn’t exactly nice to me when she came over. She should be the one making the effort, not me.’
Isaac nodded and regarded Stephen’s beautiful face and naked torso. His skin was so smooth and perfect. It shimmered in the soft glow cast by the laptop. Deep down, Isaac knew that he was obsessed with Stephen, and that obsessions were destructive and dangerous, but he couldn’t bear not to be with him. He couldn’t bear to wake up and have the side of the bed next to him empty.
Stephen’s brow furrowed as he typed.
‘What are you doing, Stevie?’
‘Just a bit of research. I’m in an Internet chat room, discussing suicide methods.’ He looked up at Isaac. ‘It’s research for the new book, in case you get worried.’
‘People go online and discuss suicide methods?’ asked Isaac, crumpling the chocolate bar wrappers into a ball and peering over at the screen.
‘Yeah. There are chat rooms for every kind of quirk and fetish – not that suicide is necessarily a fetish. These people are all seriously discussing the best methods to end it all – the most successful ways you can do it, without being disturbed. Listen to this…’
‘I don’t want to hear,’ said Isaac. ‘I’ve seen too many suicide cases: overdoses, hangings, slashed wrists, gruesome poisoning. The worst are the people who jump. Last week, I had to try and work out what was what on a teenage girl who had leapt off the Hammersmith flyover. She hit the pavement with such force that her jawbone was forced up into her brain.’
‘Jesus,’ said Stephen, looking up at him again. ‘Can I use that?’
‘What?’
‘That’s really good. I could use that in my book.’
‘No!’ Isaac felt stung.
Stephen went back to his typing. ‘Oh, and don’t look at my Google search history. It’s full of questions like, how long does it take the skin to putrefy when a dead body is buried in a lead-lined coffin?’
‘I could tell you that.’
‘You just said you don’t want to talk about work!’
‘I can help you. I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you. I just don’t want to talk about it right now.’
Stephen sighed and put his laptop on the bedside table. ‘I’m going for a fag.’ He picked up the packet of cigarettes and got up off the bed, moving over to the balcony doors.
‘If you’re going to go outside, put some clothes on,’ said Isaac, eyeing the pair of small black briefs Stephen was wearing.
‘Why? It’s late. It’s dark.’
‘Because…This is Blackheath. My neighbours are respectable.’ This wasn’t exactly true. A handsome young man had moved in next door, who Isaac suspected was gay. He was terrified that the neighbour and Stephen might meet. After all, Stephen had left him once before.
‘On the outside they might be respectable. Who knows what goes on behind closed doors?’ teased Stephen.
‘Please…’ said Isaac leaning over to embrace him. Stephen rolled his eyes and ducked away, pulling on a T-shirt. He put a cigarette in his mouth and moved to the door. Isaac watched him as he went out onto the balcony: his tall athletic frame, the cigarette dangling from his pouty lips, how his underwear clung to his muscular buttocks.
In his work life, Isaac was peerless: a brilliant forensic pathologist with a distinguished career. He was in control of every aspect of his profession and he deferred to no one. In his private life, however, he was clueless. Stephen Linley turned his world upside down. Stephen was in control of their relationship and he was in control of Isaac’s emotions. Isaac found that this both thrilled and unnerved him.
He reached over, grabbed Stephen’s laptop. He saw the chat room text appearing in chunks and moving up the screen. He minimised the window, and it was replaced by the text of the new novel Stephen was writing. Stephen’s novels were dark and violent. Isaac found reading them unpleasant, but he was drawn to them, and was ashamed to admit that he got a thrill from the dark violence, and from the way that Stephen could inhabit the minds of sadistic, brutal serial killers.
He was about to start reading when he realised he’d promised he wouldn’t read anything until it was finished. He replaced Stephen’s laptop and went out on the balcony, like an eager dog missing its owner.
17
Laurel Road was quiet and still when Erika inserted the key in the lock of Gregory Munro’s house and pulled the crime scene seal away from the door. She turned the key and gave the door a shove, separating the remains of the sticky seal. She stepped into the hallway. There was an urgent beeping noise, and she saw, glowing in the darkness, the panel for the alarm system.
‘Shit,’ she muttered. She hadn’t anticipated that after forensics had completed their work the house would be left alarmed. She stared at the screen, knowing she had only a few seconds before uniformed officers would be summoned, followed by the distraction of paperwork, where she would have to justify her presence. She keyed in the combination 4291 and the alarm deactivated. It was the fail-safe number often used to reset the alarms at crime scenes. It might not be the most secure way of doing things, but it saved a fortune in call-out fees.
It was stiflingly hot, and the rancid meaty smell of Gregory Munro’s dead body still hung faintly in the darkness. Erika flicked on a switch and the hallway lit up, the light petering out as the stairs rose into darkness. She wondered how the house would feel to someone who didn’t know it was a crime scene. To her, it still seemed to reverberate with violence.
She moved past the stairs and through to the kitchen, turning on the lights. She found what she had seen in the photo: a corkboard beside the fridge. Pinned to it were several takeaway menus, a handwritten shopping list, and a flyer for a security company: GUARDHOUSE ALARMS.
Erika unpinned the leaflet from the corkboard. The design looked professional, but it was printed on ordinary inkjet printer paper. The background was black with ‘GuardHouse Alarms’ written on it in red. The ‘H’ of ‘House’ morphed upwards into an image of a ferocious German shepherd. Underneath this was a phone number and email address. Erika turned the flyer over. Written in blue biro near the bottom was: ‘MIKE, 21ST JUNE 6.30PM’.
Erika pulled out her mobile and dialled the number. There was silence, and then a high-pitched tone and an automated voice told her the number was no longer in service. Erika went to
the large glass sliding door at the back of the house and, after fiddling with the handle, it yielded with a whoosh. She stepped out onto the terrace. On the back wall of the house above the glass was a white security alarm box with ‘HOMESTEAD SECURITY’ stamped on it in red letters, the same as the box on the wall of her flat.
She came back inside and called Crane. When he answered, she could hear the sound of a television blaring in the background.
‘Sorry to call so late. It’s DCI Foster. Can you talk?’ she asked.
‘Hang on,’ he said. There was a rustle and then the noise of the television receded.
‘Sorry. Is this a bad time, Crane?’
‘No, it’s okay. You just saved me from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Karen, my girlfriend, is mad on it, but I have aggro all day at work. I don’t enjoy watching crazy housewife aggro when I get home. Anyway, what can I do you for, boss?’
‘Gregory Munro. I’ve read through his phone records. It says he made a call to a security firm – GuardHouse Alarms Limited – on the 19th of June.’
‘Hang on, I’ll just wake up my laptop. Yes, GuardHouse Alarms. It was one of the numbers I chased up this morning.’
‘And what?’
‘I left a message on their answerphone, then a guy called me back to confirm that someone called Mike had made a home visit. He’d checked and all the alarm systems and security lights were sound and working.’
The Night Stalker: A chilling serial killer thriller (Detective Erika Foster Book 2) Page 7