The Night Stalker: A chilling serial killer thriller (Detective Erika Foster Book 2)

by Robert Bryndza

She’d been nothing more than a shadow.

  She was scrubbing at the living room carpet when she saw movement in the corner of her eye. She stopped scrubbing. There was a pat, pat, pattering coming from behind her. She gripped the wooden brush and turned.

  Stan stood in the living room doorway, naked, the water running off his pasty skin, raining down on her clean carpet. His mouth fell open, showing a row of black teeth. Simone was surprised that she didn’t feel scared. She slowly stood up, her knees cracking.

  ‘Duhu…kah,’ came a sound from Stan’s mouth. It wasn’t exactly a voice, more of a sigh. An exhale. ‘Duhu…kah, Duhu…kah.’ His arm flopped down by his side and his mouth pulled up at both sides into a grin. It was the grin she remembered: hungry, looming close to her face, coupled with pain. He started to walk towards her, the water pouring off him and soaking the carpet. Now she felt fear.

  ‘NO!’ she screamed. ‘NO!’ She hurled the heavy wooden scrubbing brush at him. He vanished, and there was a crash as the brush hit the mirror in the hall. It burst into shards and they scattered down onto the floor.

  Stan was gone. The carpet was dry, and she realised what he’d said.

  Duke. He’d said Duke.

  She hurried to her computer in the hallway under the stairs and logged on.

  NIGHT OWL: Duke?

  Moments later, Duke logged on.

  DUKE: Night Owl, hi! Rough night?

  NIGHT OWL: Why do you say that?

  DUKE: I know u. Better than you know yourself.

  Simone paused with her hands above the keyboard.

  NIGHT OWL: Do you, though? Do you really KNOW me?

  This time there was a long pause. Simone stared at the cursor, as it blinked. She wondered if Duke was sitting there with his fingers poised, trying to think what to type. Had he put things together?

  For the first time, she wondered where Duke lived. She was used to thinking of him living here in her computer. She’d talked to him for the past few years about her plans, what she fantasised about, the pain she would inflict on her doctor, on the TV man, the others to come. Duke had always been the one to encourage her. And he’d spoken about his own fears – his fear of the dark, his failed suicide attempts. She remembered the harrowing description of how he’d attempted suffocation with a suicide bag without gas. He had placed it on his head, tightened the string around his neck and then, as he’d begun to asphyxiate, he’d panicked and clawed at the bag, eventually ripping it off his head – but the cord had caught his left eye, ripping the eyelid and tearing open his eyeball.

  He’d said he would die without her, and she believed him.

  Simone blinked. The cursor was moving again across the screen.

  DUKE: Of course I know you, Night Owl. I know you better than all the rest of them. And I promise, your secrets will die with me.

  47

  Erika was with Crane in one of the cramped technical suites leading off from the incident room.

  ‘Okay, so here’s your new phone,’ said Crane. ‘Keep the old one on you, charge it regularly, but only use it if she calls again. The number is now being monitored. If she calls, the trace equipment will kick in automatically. No delay. Just don’t forget that – I’ve known officers who’ve been caught out accidentally making private calls, which have been recorded.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I won’t forget. Although my private life is very boring,’ said Erika, taking the phones. ‘Hang on, this is a touch screen,’ she added, seeing the new handset he’d given her. ‘Is there nothing with buttons?’

  ‘Well, technically it’s an upgrade from that old handset, boss,’ replied Crane.

  There was a knock at the door and Moss stuck her head around. ‘Boss, you got a moment?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ll see if I can rustle you up an old Nokia,’ said Crane.

  ‘Thanks,’ Erika said. She followed Moss out into the busy incident room, over to the huge map of Greater London pinned up on the wall. It was six-foot square and a maze of streets. Blotches of green indicated the many parks around the capital, but most prominent was the River Thames, a curving line of blue, carving through the centre.

  ‘She used a payphone to call you,’ said Moss. ‘We traced it to Ritherdon Road, a residential street in Balham. It’s about four miles from your flat in Forest Hill. The phone box in question gets no action. It was the first call made from there in three months. Because of this, British Telecom is planning to remove it at the end of the month.’

  ‘Why a payphone? Are we thinking she hasn’t got a phone?’ asked Peterson, pushing a red pin into Ritherdon Road towards the bottom of the map.

  ‘No, I think she’s clever,’ said Erika. ‘She knows we can trace a mobile phone. Even if she were using a prepaid phone, we’d be able to trace the call to the nearest mobile phone mast and get her IMEI number and all the handset info. This way she remains anonymous. Dare I ask about CCTV?’

  ‘Okay, so this is the phone box,’ said Moss, pointing to the red pin in the map, ‘and the first CCTV cameras are a quarter of a mile away.’ She ran her finger further down to where Ritherdon Road met Balham High Road. ‘There’s a Tesco Metro on the corner of Balham High Road, also known as the A24, and there are CCTV cameras at intervals in both directions. We’ve got DC Warren over there on the blower, working on getting the footage from the Tesco car park security cameras, and the cameras along the A24 in both directions…’

  ‘But look where the phone box is on the map. She could have gone in the opposite direction and made her way to any number of places through this web of residential streets, which aren’t covered by CCTV,’ finished Erika. ‘Have you got anything else?’

  ‘Well, the phone box was the good news,’ said Moss, moving over to where Singh stood by the bank of printers. ‘We finally got the data through from three of the websites who sell these suicide bags in the UK.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And, as you can see, there’s plenty to work through. Three thousand names,’ said Singh. ‘They were really reluctant to give us these names. And I can see from quite a few that they’ve paid with PayPal, which could make people more difficult to trace.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Erika. ‘Okay, well, I say we start by discounting people outside Greater London. We should work on the theory that she saw me on Crimewatch. It made her angry and she went to a phone box and called me.’

  ‘Okay, boss,’ said Singh.

  ‘What have we had back from the TV appeal?’

  ’Not a great deal,’ said Peterson. ‘We’re working through the phone calls which came in, but I think the broadcast spooked a lot of people. A man in North London called during the show to say he scared a burglar trying to gain entry to a ground-floor window, another woman in Beckenham thinks she saw a small figure walking through her garden shortly after the broadcast… An old lady who lives close to Laurel Road woke up and scared an intruder in her bedroom, who climbed out of the window… Oh, and there are now three neighbours in Laurel Road who think they saw a small woman, matching the one in the reconstruction, delivering vegetable boxes in the area,’ said Peterson. ‘It’s going to take us time to work through all of these.’

  ‘Have we got a copy of the Crimewatch video?’ asked Erika. ‘I’d like to watch it back. Perhaps something I said made her seek me out, find out my number and call me. Get hold of Tim Aiken for me. You never know, he might have something useful to say for once.’

  She looked back at the large map of London, stretching out across the wall.

  Reading her thoughts, Moss said, ‘So many places to hide in the darkness.’

  48

  Erika, Peterson, Moss, Marsh and Tim Aiken were huddled around a television monitor in one of the viewing suites at the station. They were watching back Erika’s appearance on Crimewatch.

  Erika hated seeing herself on screen: her voice seemed higher, screechier. She was pleased, however, that the Met hadn’t upgraded their televisions to high definition. These thoughts
, though, were just fleeting, at the back of her mind. What she really wanted to know was why the killer had responded to the broadcast in the way she had, assuming she’d seen it.

  They came to the end of the part where Erika was interviewed in the studio. ‘We believe she’s small in stature but we advise the public not to approach her. She is a dangerous and deeply disturbed individual,’ said Erika on the screen.

  The presenter then started to read out the email address and phone number to contact, which flashed up on the bottom of the screen.

  ‘So?’ asked Erika, turning to Tim Aiken.

  ‘There are many variables,’ said Tim, rubbing at his stubbled chin, the multicoloured woven bracelets on his wrist shifting as he raised his arm.

  ‘If the killer was watching, how might she have reacted to seeing her crimes recreated on screen?’

  ‘It could have stoked her ego. Serial killers can be ego-driven, vain individuals,’ said Tim.

  ‘So the fact we got a nice, hot young woman to play her in the reconstruction could have been flattering to her?’ asked Moss.

  ‘It depends what you define as hot, or attractive,’ said Tim.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t kick her out of bed. Peterson? Sir?’ said Moss.

  Peterson went to open his mouth but was cut off by Marsh.

  ‘I’m not getting into a debate about the attractiveness of the actor in the reconstruction,’ he said, irritably.

  Tim went on, ‘Or she may be physically unattractive, and she could have objected to how she was portrayed. In the same way that she could be someone who is physically much stronger. She could have objected to an elfin girl such as this playing her in the reconstruction… We have to remember this isn’t about her, it’s about what she does, and why she does it. She targets and kills men. Both victims were tall and strong, with athletic physiques. She could have been abused by a man or men – a spouse, her father…’

  ‘Can you give us a profile?’ asked Marsh.

  ‘I’ve already submitted a profile based upon this being a predatory gay male…’

  ‘We’ve ruled that out, obviously,’ said Marsh.

  ‘It’s extremely rare to come into contact with a female serial killer. Profiling them is very difficult. We have very little data.’

  ‘Well, we’re paying you enough. Try,’ said Marsh.

  ‘Tim, is there anything else you got from the video?’ asked Erika.

  ‘It could be that she has measured herself, her sense of self-worth, in relation to you, DCI Foster. By appearing on the show, you have presented yourself as the person who is going to catch her, regardless of the team you have working for you. She may see this as a fight for supremacy. You also called her out as being a “dangerous and deeply disturbed individual”.’

  ‘And she could feel like she’s a victim,’ finished Erika.

  ‘Yes. And you called her out live on television. That would certainly rankle with her. It would certainly make her seek you out.’

  When they had finished, Marsh asked Erika to stay back and have a word.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ said Marsh. ‘I’ve already had words with Woolf about giving out private numbers.’

  ‘He didn’t know.’

  ‘If you’d like, I could have a car stationed outside your flat. Discreet. I can spare a couple of officers.’

  ‘No, sir. She got lucky phishing for my number, and I don’t want a car outside my flat. I’ll keep my eyes peeled.’

  ‘Erika,’ said Marsh, looking frustrated.

  ‘Sir. Thank you, but no. Now I have to go. I will keep you posted.’ Erika left the viewing suite.

  Marsh stood for a moment, looking at the blank TV screens, feeling uneasy.

  49

  Simone had followed the man at a distance for most of the afternoon. Their journey had taken them from outside his flat on the Bowery Lane Estate, near Old Street in Central London. He’d left just after lunch and walked through the financial district to London’s Liverpool Street Station. Simone had been confused at first, wondering where he was going with no bag, just wearing a fashionable pair of denim shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt. She had followed twenty yards behind. The throngs of people had been thick, as they surged towards the vast row of ticket gates, almost taking her with them, but he had gone off in the other direction, and for a moment she’d lost him.

  Her eyes had darted to the bank of escalators on the far wall, which led up to the mezzanine with the shops, and high above it the vast glass roof of the station. She’d stood on her tiptoes, trying to see above the crowds, and then she’d seen him, heading down a set of double escalators to the public toilets. She went to the large WH Smith beside the escalators and joined several other people browsing at the rack of magazines, watching the toilets all the while.

  She’d waited and perused the newspapers, many of them offering opinion pieces and shock articles about the identity of the ‘Night Stalker’. She had squealed with pride when a journalist at the Independent called her ‘a genius of subterfuge’. The woman next to her had glanced over and given her a funny look, so she’d glared at the woman until she put her magazine back on the shelf and hurried away with her suitcase.

  Ten minutes had passed, and then twenty… Simone looked at the escalators going down to the public toilets. Was he ill? Had she missed him? Her eyes had been on those escalators every other second – well, apart from when that stupid woman had looked at her. It was only when she noticed the proportion of single men disappearing on the down escalator, and how long they seemed to stay down there, that she realised he was cruising. He had gone down to the toilets specifically for sex.

  Many things disgusted Simone about men: their petulance, their sexual deviance, the way they resorted to violence when they wanted to control or didn’t get their own way. This didn’t surprise her – just another thing to add to the list – and it steeled her resolve. Simone always played the long game with the men she watched. She was prepared to wait weeks, to sit back and build a picture of each target on her list. Gregory and Jack had been ticked off in the same way.

  She’d looked down at the copy of The Independent in her hand and read the description again: genius of subterfuge. She had to buy the paper, she thought. It was the first nice thing she’d heard about herself in years.

  She was about to go to the till when he emerged up the escalator – slightly red in the face, looking glassy-eyed and relaxed. Simone replaced the newspaper, let him get ahead of her, then started to follow. He moved to the back of the station and into a Starbucks.

  She held back for a few minutes and then joined the end of the queue. She kept him in her peripheral vision and looked at the cakes and pastries through the glass. This was the closest she had been to him so far – just three people separated them.

  Yes, he was young, and he worked out. He could be strong. Although he was thin – vainly so.

  She watched as he reached the head of the queue and flirted with the handsome young black barista, leaning over and putting his hand on the young man’s arm, spelling out his name, making sure it was written correctly on the cup.

  Soon that cock-sucking mouth will breathe its last breath, she thought. Then she smiled at the barista and ordered a nice piece of fruitcake and a cappuccino.

  ‘What’s the name, love?’ asked the Barista.

  ‘It’s Mary,’ said Simone. ‘It must be quite boring, compared to the exotic names you hear.’

  ‘I like the name Mary,’ said the barista.

  ‘I got it from my mother. She’s called Mary, too. She’s in hospital right now. She’s very ill. I’m all she’s got.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ said the barista. ‘Is there anything else I can get you?’

  ‘I’ll just take a copy of the Independent. I’m planning on reading to her later. She loves hearing all about things going on in the world.’

  Simone took her paper, coffee and cake, and moved over to a seat.

  All the time watching her future victi
m.

  50

  The break in the weather was short-lived. Over the next few days the sun began to beat down relentlessly again and progress on the case seemed to grind to a halt.

  The Crimewatch reconstruction had remained on BBC iPlayer for a week and as people watched it on catch-up there were more phone calls and emails to work through.

  As the remaining residents of Laurel Road returned from their holidays, word spread that their street had been featured in a nationwide TV reconstruction. Several of them now remembered seeing a young, dark-haired woman going door-to-door delivering leaflets, and others recalled a young girl delivering fruit and vegetable boxes, and a young girl in a plumber’s van fixing a drain close to Gregory Munro’s house.

  This outburst of sightings spread the resources of Erika’s team even thinner. They went as far as tracking down the plumber, who turned out to be a fresh-faced young man, and a dark-haired woman who delivered the ‘Nature’s Finest’ seasonal weekly vegetable boxes around the local area. They both came in voluntarily, answered questions and even provided DNA samples. After a nail-biting twelve hours of waiting, the results came back negative. Their DNA didn’t match the samples taken from Jack Hart’s back door and the suicide bag.

  Two of the residents from Laurel Road and one of Jack Hart’s neighbours came to Lewisham Row and worked with an officer on e-fits of the woman they had seen delivering leaflets. Erika had high hopes that this would lead to a breakthrough, but the images all came back looking like Lottie, the actress who had appeared in the Crimewatch episode.

  However, the most depressing job had been tracking down the London-based people who had bought suicide bags through the three websites. So many of the phone calls had been with grieving parents and spouses, who had informed the police that yes, one of the bags had been purchased, and that the suicide attempt had been successful.