NIGHT OWL: I’m OK.
DUKE: Did it work out?
NIGHT OWL: Yes, and no. I got bashed up. My lips are all puffy.
DUKE: You’re lying. You’ve had your lips done for when we go on our trip together! Collagen. LOL.
NIGHT OWL: It’s just the bottom lip.
DUKE: Very sensible. So you’re saving up for the top lip.
Simone giggled and touched her hands to her face. It still felt tender. She’d missed talking to Duke. There was a beep and she saw text moving across the screen.
DUKE: So, Night Owl. Are we going?
NIGHT OWL: Going where?
DUKE: On our trip. We’ve talked about it so much. Let’s make it happen!
DUKE: You do still want to go, don’t you?
DUKE: Night Owl?
NIGHT OWL: I’m here.
DUKE: So?
NIGHT OWL: I have one more name on my list.
DUKE: I’ve waited through three of those names. One more will be okay. But I want to know when.
NIGHT OWL: A day.
DUKE: A day!
NIGHT OWL: No, a week, a month. A year… I don’t know! Don’t rush me, Duke, do you hear?
DUKE: I’m sorry. I just need to know…
DUKE: … but it will be quicker than a year?
NIGHT OWL: Yes.
DUKE: Phew! *** Wipes sweaty brow***
NIGHT OWL: I’ll let you know soon. I promise. And then we can go and be together.
DUKE: OK. I love you.
Simone stared at the screen for a long time. In all the years they had talked, Duke had told her many things – his deepest, darkest secrets – and she had reciprocated. But this was the first time he’d said he loved her. It made her feel powerful.
She logged off the chat room and went up to bed. She felt much better. She’d go back to work. Then she’d start to make preparations for number four. The fourth, and final.
67
‘All right, boss, so where are we going, exactly?’ asked Peterson when he climbed into the passenger seat. He was dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, and carrying a small backpack. It was almost 9 a.m. and Erika had picked him up outside his flat, a smart, squat building on a quiet leafy street in Beckenham. A sign on the neat lawn out front announced that the building was called Tavistock House.
‘Worthing,’ said Erika, handing him a folded-up map. A curtain twitched in the front ground-floor window and a slight, pretty, blonde girl peered round, showing just her face and a bare shoulder. She waved at Peterson whilst giving Erika the once-over. He gave her a small wave in return and pulled a sunglasses case from his backpack.
‘Is that your girlfriend?’ asked Erika, as Peterson polished a pair of Ray Bans with a small grey square of cloth and slipped them on. The girl was still watching.
He shrugged. ‘Go on, boss. Let’s go,’ he said, looking uncomfortable. They pulled away, driving in silence for a minute, the reflection from the canopy of leaves above playing across the windscreen.
‘We need the M23, then the A23,’ said Erika, realising that Peterson didn’t want to elaborate on his house guest.
‘Why did you ask me today?’ he said, unfolding the map and peering at her over the top of his shades.
‘Moss has been reassigned, and when I called you, you said you were free… Why did you say yes?’
‘You’ve intrigued me,’ he grinned.
She grinned back.
‘I’ve been reassigned, too,’ he said.
‘Where?’
‘Operation Hemslow.’
Erika turned to face him and the car swerved towards the right lane. Peterson leaned over and straightened the wheel.
‘Don’t get excited. I’ve just been working in Control. It’s pretty dull stuff, mostly watching Penny Munro and Peter.’
‘And?’
‘They’re safe… The kid goes to school, comes home, goes swimming once a week, likes to feed the ducks…’ Peterson blew his cheeks out. ‘They’re very close to nailing Gary Wilmslow. The focus is now on a lock-up in Crystal Palace. They just need to get Wilmslow inside the lock-up. Simple as that, but very complicated. He’s managing to place at least three people between him and the production of the videos, the procuring of kids… It’s a case of how long we can wait it out before we move in and shut it down.’
‘You have to get Wilmslow,’ said Erika.
‘No one wants to see him brought down more than me… You know I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, boss.’
‘I know. Thanks.’
‘Did you know Sparks is close to charging Isaac with the deaths of Gregory Munro and Jack Hart, in addition to Stephen Linley?’
‘Shit.’
‘Why haven’t you told them about this? What we’re doing today?’ asked Peterson.
‘Because I just need to look into this. They’ve made their minds up, obviously. It’s easier to charge Isaac… Ends it all neatly, case solved.’
‘You don’t think he did it?’
Erika looked at Peterson. ‘No, I don’t. I just need to check this out myself. It’s a long shot, but if I phone it in, it’ll get shoved to the bottom of the pile and it might be too late before anyone gets to it. You okay with this?’
He shrugged and grinned. ‘As you said on the phone, boss. It’s just a day out by the sea.’
‘Thanks.’
Erika thought how things had changed. She was now on the outside. She started to fill Peterson in on what she had discovered and how she’d like to proceed.
Ninety minutes later they came off the dual carriageway and approached Worthing via a complex and unattractive one-way system. When they arrived in the town, though, it looked picturesque. It was an old seaside town, which in the height of the summer looked more sumptuous than crumbling. Erika followed the road along the promenade. The beach was crowded with people sunbathing and sitting on old-style deckchairs. It was lined with terraced houses, flats and an eclectic selection of shops. She parked on the seafront and they stepped out onto the busy promenade, where people sauntered along, eating ice creams and enjoying the sun.
‘How should we play this?’ asked Peterson, joining her at the parking meter by the kerb.
‘We have no authority to be here, but he doesn’t know that,’ said Erika, feeding coins into the machine. ‘I’m hoping the element of surprise will work in our favour.’
She took the ticket from the machine and they locked up the car. The address they were looking for was further down the seafront, where the souvenir shops and tearooms thinned out. The terraced houses here were much more run-down and had been turned into flats and bedsits.
‘Here, this is it,’ said Erika, as they came to a large five-storey house with a small concreted-over front garden which contained five black wheelie bins with flat numbers painted in white on the lids. The windows were all open and music blared out from the top floor.
‘I can smell weed,’ said Peterson, stopping to sniff the air.
‘We’re not here about weed,’ said Erika. ‘Just remember that.’
They went up the steps and Erika rang the bell for the ground-floor flat. They waited as the music ceased for a second, then Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ began to play.
The lights were all blazing in the downstairs window, which looked out over the bins and was half-obscured by hanging clothes. Erika rang the bell again and through the frosted glass in the door she saw a large, dark bulk move from the shadows. The door opened an inch, then stopped. Moments later there was a whirring noise and the door was slowly pulled open.
The dark bulk she had seen was an enormous motorised wheelchair, which had heavy-duty wheels and oxygen tanks strapped to the back. A concertina mechanism whirred and elevated the seat, in which a tiny man sat. He had small, plump features, thick glasses and wisps of mousy hair clinging to his bald head. He wore an oxygen tube under his nose. His body was compact – they could see he suffered from dwarfism – and his even tinier pair of emaciated legs, wh
ich just reached the edge of the seat, contrasted his small body. One of his arms was tucked into the side of the seat and the other was holding the piece of string he had used to open the front door. He let the string go, grabbed the remote control beside his chair and moved forward, blocking the threshold.
‘Are you Keith Hardy?’ asked Erika.
‘Yes,’ he said, his eyes darting between them. He spoke with a higher-pitched voice.
Erika and Peterson held out their IDs.
‘I’m DCI Erika Foster and this is my colleague, DI Peterson. Could we have a word?’
‘About what?’
Erika looked at Peterson. ‘We’d prefer to discuss this inside.’
‘Well, you’re not coming in.’
‘We won’t take up much of your time, Mr Hardy,’ said Erika.
‘You won’t take up any.’
‘Mr Hardy…’ started Peterson.
‘You got a warrant?’
‘No.’
‘Then go away and get one,’ the man said. He reached out and grabbed for the string attached to the inside lock. Erika leaned over and plucked it from his grasp.
‘Mr Hardy, we’re investigating a triple murder. The killer used suicide bags… We’ve accessed your bank accounts and we see you’ve bought five of these, and yet you’re still alive. It’s just a case of clearing up any misunderstanding.’
Keith wrinkled his nose and pushed his glasses up, then backed up the wheelchair and let them in.
68
Keith Hardy’s flat was carpeted throughout with a dated pattern of lime green, yellow and red hexagons. Erika and Peterson followed him down the corridor, the wispy top of his head just visible over the high back of his whirring wheelchair. Through the first door to the left was his bedroom; on the back wall, opposite the large bay window, Erika saw a large hydraulic hospital bed on wheels. Next to the bed was an old polished wood dresser with a three-panelled fold-out mirror. The dresser was crowded with an array of medication: large tubs of medical creams, preparations and a bale of wispy cotton wool. Clothes hung off the curtain rail, and the bay window looked out over the seafront promenade, where people moved past and seagulls could be heard cawing faintly. A ceiling light burned brightly, along with two small lamps on the bedside and the dresser.
They passed another tiny room, which was packed with junk, including an old manual wheelchair, piles of books and another electric wheelchair with the back panel off, its wires and innards spilling out. Another door on the right-hand side of the corridor led to a large, specially equipped bathroom.
Keith reached a frosted glass door at the end of the hallway, manoeuvred his chair through, and they followed him into a poky kitchen-living room with views of a tiny courtyard backing onto a tall brick building. The kitchen was old and grubby, with specially adapted low counters. There was a whiff of drains, mixed with fried food.
In the other half of the room, three of the walls were filled with floor-to-ceiling shelves containing hundreds of books, video cassettes and DVDs. A small gas fire sat against a chimney breast, and above it were more shelves, loaded with more books, paperwork and a mismatched selection of table lamps – which were all switched on, so that the space, although small and cramped, was brightly lit. Nestled in one corner was a PC on an old metal stand. A series of coloured balls bounced around its screen.
‘I don’t get a lot of visitors,’ Keith said, indicating a small armchair on the opposite side of the gas fire, which was covered in piles of magazines and newspapers. ‘There are a couple of stacking chairs in the gap beside the fridge,’ he added. Peterson went and pulled them out.
Keith moved to the computer in the corner and, using the joystick, swivelled his chair round to face them. He pushed his glasses up his nose and peered at them through the greasy lenses, his large eyes shifting from side to side. Erika imagined that if a fly buzzed past, his tongue might shoot out and catch it.
‘You can’t arrest me,’ Keith blurted. ‘I never leave this flat… I haven’t done anything.’
Erika pulled some paperwork from her bag and unfolded it, smoothing out the pages. ‘I have here details of your bank account with Santander. Can you confirm this is your account number and sort code?’ She passed the paper to him. Keith looked at it briefly and passed it back.
‘Yes.’
‘It shows that in the past three months you have ordered five items from a website called Allantoin.co.uk. Five suicide bag kits. I’ve highlighted the transactions on your bank statement…’ Erika leaned forward to hand it to Keith.
‘I don’t need to see it,’ he said.
‘So you acknowledge this is your bank statement and these transactions are correct?’
‘Yes,’ he said, biting his lip.
‘You also ordered what is called a bump key. That’s also highlighted on your bank statement…’
‘I got it from eBay, and it’s not illegal,’ Keith said, sitting back and folding his short arms across his chest.
‘No, it’s not,’ said Erika. ‘But we have a real problem here. I have three murders committed in and around London by someone who has used a) a suicide bag to asphyxiate the victims and b) a bump key to gain entry to one of the properties.’
Erika reached into her bag and pulled out a crime scene photo of Stephen Linley. She held it up to Keith, who winced.
‘As you can see, the suicide bag on this occasion burst… The intruder used a bump key to gain entry.’
Erika put the photo away and pulled out photos of Gregory Munro and Jack Hart lying dead with the bags over their heads. ‘On these occasions, the bags remained intact, but still did the job…’
Keith gulped and looked away from the photos. ‘I can’t be the only person to have bought these items,’ he said.
‘We’ve been given a list of people who have purchased suicide bags in the past three months. Many of them bought them for the purposes of ending their lives and, tragically, are not here to speak to us. You are one of the few who has bought multiple bags and is still here to tell the tale.’
‘I’ve been suicidal,’ said Keith.
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Have you attempted to take your own life?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have the five bags here? If you can show them to us, we can tick you off our list.’
‘I threw them out.’
‘Why?’ asked Peterson.
‘Dunno.’
‘And the bump key?’
Keith wiped his sweaty forehead. ‘I got it in case I get locked out.’
‘You just told us you never leave your flat?’ said Peterson.
‘I have a carer who comes over three times a week. I bought it for her.’
‘Why not give her a normal key?’ fired back Peterson. ‘Or get another key cut? Why go to the trouble of ordering a skeleton key online?’
Keith gulped and licked sweat from his upper lip. His eyes, large behind his glasses, slid between them both.
‘What is this country coming to? I’ve done nothing illegal,’ he said, suddenly regaining his composure. ‘I never leave this flat, and you can’t prove anything. Now you are being bullying and inappropriate and I’d like you both to leave before I call your superiors.’
Erika looked at Peterson and they both stood.
‘Very well,’ she said, collecting up the photos and bank statements and pushing them into her bag. Peterson folded up the two chairs and tucked them back beside the fridge. Keith started forward in his chair. As it whirred towards them, they were forced out of the room, past the frosted glass doorway and back out into the hall.
‘I can make a complaint. I’ll say you’ve been harassing me!’ said Keith.
‘As you can see, we’re just going,’ said Erika. She stopped at the large disabled bathroom and pushed open the door, stepping inside. Peterson followed.
‘What now?’ asked Keith, stopping outside the door. There was a large white bath with a motorised bath lift platform, a low sink and mirror, and a
disabled toilet with a huge metal safety bar on one side which was on a hinge at the wall, enabling it to be swung up and out of the way.
‘Who answers if you pull this alarm?’ asked Erika, touching a red cord hanging down from the ceiling beside the toilet.
‘The police, and social services. It links to a control centre,’ said Keith. Erika came out of the bathroom and looked at the small junk room opposite.
‘What’s this?’ she asked.
‘That’s my storage room,’ replied Keith.
‘You mean, a second bedroom?’
‘It’s a store room,’ said Keith, gritting his teeth.
‘No, that’s a second bedroom, Keith,’ said Erika.
‘It’s a store room,’ insisted Keith.
‘No, I’d definitely call that a second bedroom,’ said Peterson, emerging from the bathroom to join them. Keith was now gripping the arms of his chair, looking agitated.
‘You could fit a big bed in there… definitely a second bedroom,’ said Erika.
‘Yup, second bedroom,’ agreed Peterson.
‘That’s NOT a bedroom! You know nothing!’ shouted Keith.
‘Oh, we know a lot!’ said Erika, moving close to Keith. ‘We didn’t just come all this way for you to piss us around! We know that the government has cut your disability benefits because you have a second bedroom… We also know you haven’t been able to rent it out, and you can’t afford to live here much longer. When they evict you, which they will, where are you going to go? I presume the only other place you can afford on your disability is out on one of the estates, miles from the shops, banks and doctors. You’ll be reliant on piss-stinking lifts and murky walkways filled with drug dealers.’
The Night Stalker: A chilling serial killer thriller (Detective Erika Foster Book 2) Page 26