Think, Jill’s mind was screaming at her. Think!
Yet she couldn’t think. Not a single coherent thought came to her. All she seemed capable of was making terrified, babbling noises. Think, think, think!
‘You’re so dim,’ he said scathingly. ‘You, those stupid police officers who were watching this place - they couldn’t watch grass grow - and that jumped-up detective Trentham.’
Play to his ego, Jill told herself. Flatter him. Let him bask in his small glory.
He’d locked the front door but she was fairly sure the back door was still open. She’d been in and out a couple of times, messing around with the cats, and, unless she was having a major panic, she often forgot to lock it until she went to bed. Keep that bloody door locked. Sorry, Max, but I’m fairly sure the back door is still unlocked and it might, just might, save my life. Dear God, she hoped it was open. If it was locked, the key was on the ring in his pocket …
Yet how the hell could she get to the door? Her arms and legs were tied.
Think, think, think!
She could scream, but no one would hear. Her mobile phone was in the kitchen so she couldn’t even send a text message. Someone might phone her, but he wouldn’t let her answer it. It was getting late for phone calls anyway.
If someone did phone, and if she could persuade him to let her answer it, she could pretend it was Ella with news of Tom and, somehow, let that caller know she was being held.
‘It’s not that we’re stupid,’ she said, amazed by two things - one that her voice was audible and two that she sounded reasonably calm - ‘it’s more that you’re so clever.
We’ve always known that. No one working on your case has agreed on much - other than the fact that you’re the cleverest killer they’ve ever come across.’
They never did find out who started that fire.
Of all the people in the world, Bob Murphy was probably the man she would have suspected least. Everyone liked him. Everyone in Kelton Bridge thought he was marvellous. He did a good job, they said, and he was reliable. The women worshipped him. Even Ella had noticed how good his body was.
‘You with your fancy profiling,’ he scoffed. ‘All the locals think you’re a miracle worker, that you can read minds ‘
‘No.’
‘The local celebrity.’ His voice was sneering.
‘You’re the local celebrity,’ she said. ‘People will talk of you for years to come. For as long as people live, they’ll talk about you.’
He dragged her to her feet - God, he was strong - and pushed her down into the chair in front of her desk. Then he leaned back against her desk, facing her. The frighteningly sharp-looking knife was only inches from her throat.
Play for time. Flatter him. So long as there was time, there was hope.
‘Why me?’ she asked. ‘You’ve always killed women who ‘
‘Whores!’ He spat out the word. ‘Dirty, filthy, cheap little whores.’
His anger was tangible.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, too terrified to argue with him, or point out that Anne Levington had been a young girl whose life had gone so sadly wrong. ‘So why me?’
‘It’s time Trentham had something to think about. I’m sick of seeing that smug face of his on my television.’
‘That was because of Jonathan and Alice Trueman,’
she said.
‘And what did he care? Huh? So long as it’s his face on the screen, his name in the papers, he doesn’t care who lives or who dies.’
Bob wanted the fame for himself. What he wouldn’t know was that Max hated the press conferences. Given the choice, Max would let someone else do them, and he certainly wouldn’t agree to one unless he thought it would help an investigation.
Yet Bob wanted his picture on the small screen.
‘What does he care if the odd whore gets killed?’ Bob went on. ‘He doesn’t. Who does?’
Max cared.
‘You think he’ll care if I’m killed?’ she asked. ‘He won’t, you know. I’m just someone he works with, that’s all.’
‘Don’t try and be clever with me. I’ve seen how much time he spends with you. I’ve seen his kids with you.’
‘We used to be friends, but that was a long time ago.’
Her phone rang out, pushing her nerves to breaking point, and she gave him an appealing look.
“It might be Ella with news of Tom. She said she might call. It’s late and she’ll think it odd if I don’t answer. She might come and investigate.’
He rammed his hand down on her shoulder, just in case she thought of moving. The knife was icy cold against her neck.
‘Don’t try and be clever with me.’
Jill only wished she could.
‘You’ve reached Jill Kennedy …’ Her recorded message sounded so carefree. Another world.
‘It’s only me, Jill,’ Ella said. ‘Sorry, it’s a bit late. You’ve probably gone to bed. Just thought I’d let you know that Tom should be home tomorrow. He’s much better, thank God. Oh, and Don Cornwall? It came to me, and it’s nothing to do with your Don. The Don Cornwall I was thinking of was a pal of Tom’s. If he hadn’t died last year, he’d be eighty-three now. Anyway, I’ll catch you tomorrow.’
The machine clicked off just as a burst of canned laughter came from the television.
Jill felt an almost overwhelming urge to burst into tears, and the knowledge infuriated her. Hard facts: he’d killed several times; he killed with a casual ease; he was good at it. She recalled the photographs of all the girls he’d killed.
If she didn’t outwit him, she would end up just like them, strangled, and with heart-shaped pieces of skin removed from her lifeless body.
‘Why me?’ she asked again.
‘Told you.’
He was short, snappy, disinclined to talk. She had to make him talk.
‘I’ve sat for hours at this desk working on your profile.’
Her only hope was to keep him talking. Until what? She didn’t know. She only knew that she had to keep him talking. ‘Not that it did me much good. That computer ‘
she pointed at it - ‘is full of stuff about you.’ She paused, letting him mull that over. ‘Pages and pages and pages of reports on you. There are notes about the people who have claimed to be you. Oh, yes, they’ve all wanted to be you.
We’ve been able to suss them out straightaway, though.
We’ve known they aren’t as clever as you. My report says …’ She paused again. ‘Still, it doesn’t matter what my report says, does it? I like to think it was a fairly good profile of you but - well, we’ll never know.’
He was breathing hard.
Then, just as Jill had hoped, his ego got the better of him.
He hit the button, and switched on her laptop.
‘We’ve got all night,’ he said.
Chapter Fifty-One
Max was uneasy. Every time his car phone rang, he expected the worst.
Valentine’s Day had started bright and sunny, completely at odds with his mood, but the weather had soon deteriorated.
Perhaps Jill was wrong; perhaps Valentine wouldn’t strike today. She’d been fairly confident of that, though.
More confident, in fact, than she’d been of anything for a long time.
Was Cornwall taking her seriously? Max wasn’t sure.
Having said that, there were more patrol cars on the streets than usual.
His phone rang and he saw from the display that it was Fletch.
‘Where are you, guv?’
‘Preston,’ Max said vaguely.
Jill had thought Cornwall might patrol the streets of Preston single-handed, and that’s exactly what Max was doing. Unlike Cornwall, though, he had no choice. His neck would be on the line if they thought he was even thinking about Valentine.
‘You?’ he asked.
‘At home. Where you should be.’
Max should. What did he expect to see in Preston?
Nothing really. What was the point
of driving round and round the blasted town?
‘You’re probably right,’ Max agreed. He was definitely right. “I just thought I’d have a look round. There’s not much happening. I’ll be heading home myself in a minute.’
Jill had thought Valentine might strike today, and she’d thought he might strike in Preston. She could be wrong.
He might strike tomorrow. Worse, he could have got his victim last night. There had been no reports of missing working girls, but that meant nothing. And he might fancy Blackpool or Burnley. Who knew? Certainly not Max.
‘So if there’s not much happening,’ Fletch pointed out, ‘you may as well go home now. Unless you’re enjoying driving round the fleshpots of Preston.’
Max wasn’t. It was pissing down with rain yet, despite the weather, there were a few louts on the streets, young kids kicking tin cans around.
‘There aren’t many girls around,’ he told Fletch. ‘If I had cash burning a hole in my wallet, I’d be hard pushed to find one.’
‘That’s a good thing. I reckon they’re more twitchy than usual.’
‘They damn well ought to be. They’ve been warned.’
‘Yeah.’ There was a pause. ‘Go home, guv,’ Fletch said with a sigh. ‘You were pulled off the case, remember?’
‘Yes, and you’re right. “I’ll be going home in a minute.’
Max spent another hour driving round the wet, dark streets of Preston. What did he expect to see? A prostitute getting into a black or dark blue Mondeo?
The shop windows were still decked out with red roses and hearts. The pubs were doing a good trade by the look of things, and a lot of them had special offers - cheap drinks for Valentine’s Day. Couples, the blokes in shirts, and the girls dressed in nothing worth wearing, walked the streets, going from one pub to the next. It was just a normal night.
He should go home. He’d already had warnings from above about his lack of ability to delegate, interviewing people when less senior officers should be doing it, forgetting he was part of a team and all the rest of it.
He was driving out of town, eyes still boring into every person on the street, checking every car
Looming
out of the darkness, he saw it. The Newland
Hotel. There was scaffolding around it, signs keeping people out of what was, at the moment, a construction site.
There, on a huge yellow board in bright red lettering, was the name of the company doing the refurbishment.
Not P and R Projects, as Bob Murphy had said, but Drake Construction Ltd.
Max pulled over, switched off the engine and stared at the sign. So Bob Murphy had got the name wrong. Or he hadn’t been anywhere near this site on the night he’d been nicked for that defective light.
I get a taxi home and fetch the van in the morning.
Max hit the button on his phone.
‘Robert Murphy got a parking ticket on the thirteenth of November,’ he explained, his mind working fast. ‘Apparently, he parks in front of a street camera. I want the camera checked for that night, and I need to know if his white van was parked there all night. You can’t miss it. It’s got R. Murphy Building Contractor scrawled all over it.’
Who’s to say Bob Murphy even watched the United game? He could have read all about it in the morning’s papers.
While United’s finest were playing their socks off, Bob Murphy could have been killing Anne Levington.
If the yobs of Rawtenstall decide to nick the wheels, at least they’ll be caught on camera …
Did Murphy park in front of that camera to ward off Rawtenstall’s yobs? Or did he park there to give himself an alibi?
‘You fucking idiot, Trentham!’
He was on the phone again, his words falling over themselves in his attempt to get them out quickly.
‘That camera in Rawtenstall,’ he said, “I want it checked for the twentieth of December - the night Janie Fisher called us. I want to know if Murphy’s white van was parked outside that pub.’
He drove fast, shouting instructions down his phone as he did so.
Then he phoned Fletch and gave him his possibly half baked theory
‘I’ll meet you at Murphy’s place,’ Fletch said doubtfully.
‘You could be reading something into nothing, though, guv.
Perhaps he just got the name of the contractor wrong.’
‘Yeah, and a fucking pink farmyard animal just flew over my bonnet. There are too many coincidences for my liking. I’m convinced the bastard’s using that fucking van as a decoy. He leaves it in full view of a camera, then goes out in his bloody Mondeo.’
Murphy, if he was going to strike tonight, would be out.
His van would be parked in front of a street camera somewhere, and his dark blue Mondeo, the car seen by Janie Fisher, would be gone.
He could be anywhere.
Soon afterwards, the call came through and Max was informed that it was in Rawtenstall.
‘Parked in front of that camera?’
“It is, guv, yes. It’s parked in the same place that he got the parking ticket in November. Tonight, Murphy got out of the van and walked through the doors of the pub opposite. That was almost two hours ago.’
‘Let’s check it out,’ Max said to Fletch.
As he drove, with Fletch behind him, a huge red heart in a shop window caught Max’s eye.
One day you’ll be mine.
His heart seemed to stop beating for a second. That fucking card, those roses - how many more clues did they need?
The bastard had lined Jill up as his Valentine’s Day victim months ago!
When Max arrived at Murphy’s place, Fletch was already there.
‘There’s no sign of him, guv,’ Fletch greeted him. ‘I’ve had a quick look round. The van’s nowhere to be seen, but the Mondeo’s in the garage.’
Max breathed a sigh of relief. If he was out in his van, with his name emblazoned on the side for all to see, he was unlikely to be killing anyone. He might be leaving his an in front of that camera, and he might be sitting in a taxi coming back for his Mondeo but, for the moment at least, all was well.
‘You might have got it all wrong, guv,’ Fletch said, clearly not amused at being dragged from a warm house and a pregnant wife.
“I might,’ Max agreed. “I just wish they’d hurry up and get the CCTV checked out.’
Feeling slightly easier, thanks to the presence of the Mondeo, Max decided they’d have a drive round and see if they could spot Murphy’s van.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Jill stared at the computer’s screen. There were several folders pertaining to Valentine. She tried to think fast.
What did the folders contain? Where were the notes that claimed he was sexually dysfunctional? Which set of notes would best flatter his ego?
Someone would see his van outside. If his van was there for hours, someone was sure to spot it and think it suspicious.
Or would they? They would think it odd perhaps, but not unusual enough to do anything about it. By morning, Olive Prendergast would probably be telling everyone in the post office that Bob Murphy was having an affair with that fancy psychiatrist …
They heard her mobile phone ring out in the kitchen.
She looked at him; his face was expressionless.
It was late for a call on her mobile. Few people used it.
She opened a folder. If her memory served her well, it contained little other than her notes on the geography involved and the basis for her assumption that Valentine lived in the Rossendale area, and possibly Kelton Bridge.
A game show was on the television, bringing the contestants’
laughter and shouting into the room.
Bob Murphy wasn’t interested in the television; he was looking for items of interest on her computer. He clicked on a file named ‘parent’. There it was, with a few notes underlined in red, her conviction that his mother had been a prostitute and that his father hadn’t figured in his life.
�
��Clever, aren’t you?’ he sneered.
‘Was your mother a prostitute?’ Jill asked.
‘A dirty, filthy, disgusting whore.’ He spat out each word.
‘She died when the house burnt, didn’t she? They never did find out who started the fire, did they? No one would suspect a child of ten.’
He said nothing.
‘So even as a child you were clever,’ she mused. ‘Even as a child you were determined to make the world a better place. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Your mother was a bad person, so you got rid of her. You set fire to the house. You started the fire that killed your mother.’
‘She shut me in a cupboard. Every night, as soon as the men were due to call, she locked me in the cupboard out of the way’
‘Was it dark?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you were frightened?’
‘No! Wasn’t frightened! Wasn’t a baby!’ His saliva landed on her face, but she daren’t brush it off. “I spent hours in that cupboard, and I wasn’t frightened. I took a biscuit she’d made and she hit me, then put me in the cupboard. After that, whenever she made the biscuits, I had to go to the cupboard. Hated those biscuits. They were all the same shape. All she had was a heart-shaped cutter and the biscuits were all the same.’
Biscuits? Jill had to keep swallowing to stop herself vomiting. The heart-shaped pieces of skin he removed from his victims … surely to God he didn’t cook them.
“It was only going to be her,’ he said, scowling, getting agitated, ‘but there was another whore in Blackpool. She thought I’d pay to have sex with her. Filthy bitch.’
‘No!’ Jill managed to sound scandalized.
‘Bitch. Stupid, dirty, filthy, disgusting bitch.’
Jill’s mobile phone rang out again. Who was trying to call her at this time of night? Her family and friends would try her at home first. Hardly anyone used her mobile.
‘And that was what?’ she asked. ‘About five years ago?’
‘Yes. And you lot had to arrest Hill,’ he scoffed. ‘He was nothing. A nobody’
Kennedy 01 - Into the Shadows Page 27