The Sholes Key (An Evans & Blackwell Mystery #1)

by Clarissa Draper

  “Similar to my case,” Shields said. “Margaret just vanished. The father had the children the night she disappeared, so no children were abandoned. No one saw her on the night in question. Normally she traded children with the father on the weekend, but she was feeling ill, so both children stayed with him that weekend. He seems to suspect she may have had a date though we could never confirm it. We found no evidence of a boyfriend.”

  “What about the children?” Liam asked.

  Shields frowned at him and said, “What children?”

  “All the women had children,” Theo put in. “Maybe they’re the connection. Do they go to the same school, the same daycare, or the same surgery? Two of the children were sick. Could the mothers have gone to the same chemist? I’m well aware that the man behind these abductions and murders is probably not an idiot, but we have to examine these leads. Also, we may want to consider the envelope. Miss Evans told me that when she received it, it looked wrong to her.” Theo passed around the photo in the envelope, “If you’ll notice, the return address is the Prime Minister’s residence. Sophia said she noticed it but it didn’t register until later. What does this mean? Obviously, whoever sent the picture thought they were being clever or funny.”

  “I find it neither clever nor funny,” said Liam.

  Theo nodded. “I agree. It is urgent that we find him. I have to add, we do have footage of him.”

  Another moment of silence. Where the hell did they get that footage?

  “Don’t jump up and down for joy yet, the face is unrecognizable, and Sophia didn’t recognize him at all.”

  “I want to see the footage,” Liam said and clenched his fists under the table.

  “It seems like a risky thing to do,” said Theo. “He prepares everything then just walks into her building and drops off a letter? He may have a large ego and think we can’t catch him. He may continue to take risks.”

  Shields said, “We can only hope he screwed up and left his DNA somewhere on any one of these items. Can someone tell me what the hell all these numbers on the codes mean?”

  “I’ll get our tech team to start working it through the computers. Hopefully they’ll find something,” said Theo. “The killer took a close-up of Lorna’s face so we have no surroundings to help us in our search. I don’t think the murderer wants us to find her yet. There’s a chance she may have been his first victim.”

  “Is this woman, Evans, working on the code?” asked Shields.

  “I have no idea.” Liam was busy thinking about interrogating Sophia. Why did she go to Theo? She did it to spite him, he was sure.

  Deveau stood. “Keep your eyes open. Check through your photos again. I want all the information shared, on both sides of the table.”

  Liam nodded.

  “Look for anything resembling this sort of code,” Deveau continued. “Everyone report back to me daily. Good work. Let’s catch this bastard.” With that, he left the room.

  Liam sat there after all the others had filed out.

  Search the house, he texted.

  Chapter 14

  Sophia rolled her hair in her fingers, twisting it up and sticking a chopstick through it. She looked in the mirror at her reflection and spun round in her silk, flower print dress. Marc would like it.

  Fifteen minutes late, what could be taking him so long? He was never late. At least she wouldn’t have to come up with explanations. She went through her flat room by room and checked everything—again. It wasn’t his first visit, but she had to make sure it was acceptable. She wanted reassurance that she had covered it all.

  The tone of Marc’s voice that morning had worried her. What could she possibly have done wrong? Was it the Fiat? Did he suspect because of her questions?

  After she received the order from Liam to search, she had spent the day “cleaning” Marc’s house. Taking everything apart and carefully putting it back together. The key would most likely be in his office—that’s where he wrote his emails, alone. She found nothing. And the more she had found nothing, the happier she felt.

  When Marc rang her later, he had sounded chipper. Perhaps she had imagined his coldness that morning. When she invited him to her flat for dinner, he had responded with a resounding, “I’d love to.” She would make him special pasta without meat.

  A buzzer sounded and, without hesitation, she let the person in. She ran to the kitchen, lifted the lid off the boiling linguine and turned down the heat. When she heard the knock at the door, she counted to fifteen and walked toward it. Taking a deep breath, she opened it.

  “Theo,” she said, stepping back.

  He held a stack of papers. “I’ve come at a bad time?” he asked.

  Sophia partially hid herself behind her door. “Yes. Why didn’t you ring first?”

  “I tried. Your mobile went to voicemail.”

  She looked behind him down the hall. “Was anyone let in with you?”

  “With me?” He glanced behind him.

  Her mobile rang and she ran to her bag. Dumping the contents on the sofa, she grabbed it just as the last notes of Alla Turca finished. “Yes?” she said.

  “What’s wrong?” It was Marc.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m,” he paused. “I’m at my mother’s. Why?”

  “Um, because I have dinner prepared.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  Sophia raised her eyebrows. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or furious and was leaning toward the latter. “You do remember I invited you for dinner?”

  Silence. He had forgotten. Furious.

  She took a deep breath. “All right, Marc, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She sucked in her lips to feign a smile. About to put down her mobile, it rang again. Marc. Sophia silenced the ringer so that it vibrated again and again—off the table and onto the floor.

  Finally after the seventh ring, she lifted the receiver to her ear and said nothing.

  “I feel a right berk. I completely forgot,” Marc said and added quickly, “Not that there’s any excuse. It’s not an excuse.”

  Sophia just listened.

  “Please say something,” he pleaded.

  “I don’t know what to say, Marc. I just finished explaining this morning how I was afraid of being hurt and now… ” She listened to him breathe. “You do remember the conversation we had this morning, don’t you?”

  “Of course I remember.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked. “Lately you seem out of sorts. Am I missing something?”

  “No, I’ve just been under a lot of stress at work. Look, I’ll come over straight away, we can have a nice dinner. We can—”

  “I don’t know. I have to think. I’ll ring you tomorrow.”

  “No, please, Sophia, don’t do this.”

  Sophia wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. If Liam was listening to this conversation, and he very well could be, he would be whispering in her ear that she had Marc exactly where they wanted him. She could get all the secrets of the world out of him and have him running with his tail between his legs. But she just didn’t care, this would end badly no matter how the cards fell, and she would be left alone to pick up the pieces.

  “Marc, I’m not angry,” she lied. “Just let me think some things over tonight. I promise I’ll call you tomorrow first thing.”

  “Promise you won’t make any decisions until I see you first.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Promise,” he repeated.

  “All right. Until tomorrow, and you better not forget.” With that, she rang off. “Do you feel up to vegetarian pasta?” she asked Theo.

  Theo shook his head.

  “Why not?” She placed her hands on her hips.

  He stepped back a little before he replied, “No, I—I would love some.”

  “This cancellation just tops my hellish day,” Sophia said, storming into the kitchen where she retrieved two bowls from the cupboard and slammed them down on the worktop. She di
shed out two servings and stuck a fork in the middle of each. “So, what have you to tell me?”

  “I have some information and forensics, that sort. Thought you might want to know.” He put the papers under his arm.

  She rubbed her eyes. “Yeah. I want to know. All right, let’s get to work.” She reached into the oven, grabbed pieces of bread from a baking sheet and threw two in each bowl. “Ready?” She held her arm out toward the front hall.

  Theo took his bowl and left the kitchen.

  Sophia reached under the sink, and after making sure the bowl wasn’t full of water, pulled out a set of keys. “Follow me.”

  Theo began to put his bowl down but Sophia shook her head. “Bring it and the papers,” she ordered. Stopping at the intercom beside her front door, she punched in a code, opened the door and started down the hall.

  Theo ran after her. “Where are we going?” he said.

  “To work.”

  Five doors down, she stopped. With her bowl balanced on her left arm, she pulled the keys from her teeth and opened the door. Inside, she punched more numbers into the intercom system and flicked on the light. “All right. If someone buzzes my flat, it’ll ring here.”

  Theo looked around. “Where are we? We didn’t just break in, did we? I can’t condone that.”

  Sophia squinted at him. “Who do you think I am? No. This is my flat.”

  “You have two flats?”

  “It used to be my father’s.” Sophia examined the items around the room—just as she left it. Although the black leather sofas and bare white walls left her wanting, it enabled her to work on her MI5 cases without worrying that Marc would stumble upon it. She led Theo to the kitchen that she had converted to her home office—the room closest to the coffee machine—and set her bowl down on a small white table. “We can work here.”

  Theo down set his bowl and crossed the room. Two laptops and a large flat screen monitor sat on another table. Above it hung a large white board. “All this seems new.”

  “My idea of a shopping spree.” Sophia pointed to the empty boxes in the corner.

  “When did you do all this?”

  “A few days ago,” she replied. “Wine?”

  Theo nodded, sat at the table and stuffed a portion of lasagna in his mouth. “This is delicious.”

  “Yeah.” She placed a wine glass in front of Theo, sat down and leafed through the papers he had brought. “It looks like nothing.”

  “That’s the point. Nothing. There was one set of fingerprints on the letter, photo, and envelope: they belong to you. As expected. The paper, envelope, and ink are all generic, from a large popular chain. No unknown fingerprints or saliva were found on the envelope. Forensics doesn’t have anything to help us.”

  “Who is Carrie-Ann?” Sophia held up a photo. “Is she another victim? Are we dealing with a serial killer? Is a serial killer after me?” Her voice went up an octave after each question.

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions. We don’t know for sure Carrie-Ann is his victim.” He went through the three cases. “Oh, and my team visited surgeries, chemists, parks, schools and daycares to see if there were links between any of the victims or their children.”

  “And?” asked Sophia.

  “Two of the children go to similarly-named but different doctors. One is Smith and one is Smithson. That’s the closest we came. We checked the alibis and backgrounds of our two main suspects, Everett Harrison, Stevie’s father, and Allen Barking, the neighbor.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing. Except that both are confirmed bastards.” Theo laughed.

  “There has to be a connection,” Sophia said, pounding her hand on the table. Her bowl jumped.

  “We’ll keep looking,” Theo said. “We will get this killer.”

  She had expected all this and yet she was disappointed.

  “We still need to interview the neighbors, see if any witnesses saw the killer bring Margaret’s body into the house, and get a copy of the estate agent’s statement.” Theo went over to the board. He examined the code Sophia had neatly written out. “What have you got for me? Do you think this is all gibberish?”

  “Not all of that is relating to our cases,” she said as she took one of the white boards away, turned it over and placed it against a far wall. “I’ve only had a few minutes here and there to work on it. I haven’t solved it yet, if that’s what you’re asking. Theo, I’m praying this is not one long math question, and the answer turns out to be his birth sign.” She stood back, looked at the code, and rubbed her chin.

  “What do you think it says?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “However, I know the code sent to me and the one on Margaret’s back are based on the same system. Compare code two with code one. What do you notice?”

  “To me they look the same. What am I missing?” His face lit up. “Maybe it’s a text messaging code or something. The number one could be the letter A, the number eleven could be the letter B.”

  “No, that won’t work,” said Sophia. “Not in this code. Remember, I pointed out certain numbers are missing, seven and eight. Well, what numbers are missing in the second code?”

  Theo squinted at the code, counting as he went through it. “You’re right, most are missing. One, two, three, four, are there. Five through nine and then zero are missing.”

  “Right, that’s the first thing I noticed. If all numbers were used, I might consider a text messaging code idea. However, the second code uses the numbers one to four, which only gives us the letters A to I on a mobile phone. If this were a worded message then twenty-six letters would have to have corresponding numbers. Which most likely means 29065014495311 is different from the code, a frame almost. Not part of the code itself.”

  “You’re asking the wrong person. I was lucky to pass math at school.” Theo shrugged.

  “Now, about the stars and brackets. I thought they could represent letters but now I’m doubtful. What else do we use in our writing?”

  “Spaces and punctuation?”

  “Exactly. Maybe the stars mean full stop and the brackets—” Sophia stopped. “This is what confuses me.” She moved her finger along the code on the board. “I thought they could be spaces between words, but it doesn’t fit. Nothing fits. The problem is that most cryptograms don’t use punctuation. They run the words all together. I don’t see why our killer would be different. The symbols are more than likely used to make the numbers fit the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. We just have to find out how.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be able to sort this out, if anyone can. Hopefully I can get into Margaret Hill’s post-mortem within the next few days and gather leads from our enquiries.”

  “Theo, I would like a copy of these case files. I would like to write down anything in the files relating to numbers. For example, birth-dates, addresses, phone numbers, anything.”

  “Height and weight?” he asked as he sat down and finished his meal.

  “Whatever.” Sophia watched him down his last morsel with a gulp of wine.

  He pushed his bowl away. “What?” he said. “You want to say something, so say it.”

  “All right. Don’t take this the wrong way—”

  Theo groaned.

  “What?”

  “Well,” Theo replied, “whenever one starts out that way, it’s always bad.”

  “This flat is Spartan, but it sits empty most of the time. There’s a bed. You could come here when you want a break.”

  “When I want a break from what?”

  Sophia shrugged. “From anything. From work. Home. Life. You look like you need a break.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You know, with your wife. I couldn’t imagine my spouse not knowing who I was.”

  “How did you—?”

  “I have a great assistant. I know everything.”

  “I don’t believe,” he said, raising his voice, “that my personal life is any of your business. What the hell’s the matter w
ith you?”

  “I—” she began.

  “You what? Spy on people? I know that’s what you do, but you can’t spy on my wife or me. It’s none of your bloody business.” He grabbed his coat and his papers and walked toward the door. “If you want access to these files, get your assistant to steal them.” He walked out, slamming the door behind him.

  “Damn,” she said. She retrieved her mobile and texted Crystal: I will need a copy of those files.

  An hour later, she backed away from the code-covered white-boards and headed toward her flat. Her legs ached, her back ached, and her brain ached. Two things she desired: a hot shower and a hot cup of coffee. She dragged her feet down the hall that seemed to go on forever. Suddenly, she stopped. Her other door was open a crack. Did she forget to shut it? Theo was the last one out. Did he forget to close it behind him? A banging noise came from inside.

  Chapter 15

  Helena Smithwick sat back and watched the blinking cursor. The sun had gone down; the room was dark. Since breakfast, she hadn’t left her chair, but she had written five thousand words, a fine job. She gave herself a mental pat on the back. Turning her head slightly to the left, she looked out into the night. The moon and the glare of the computer screen shone off the window, casting an orange-green glow into the room.

  Her publisher would be happy with this one—another bestseller. A pro now, she could easily finish a book in a month. True, she had received criticism because of the switch she made in genre, but she liked romantic fiction. The time she saved on research was invaluable. She knew romance. She had love. She knew what passion and longing for a man felt like. Her husband of twenty years could verify that fact.

  Now he wasn’t here, and she missed him. She missed the cuddles after a long day of writing. Making love to match the steamy scenes she wrote. Only three more days, she told herself, and his scheduled European physics lecture route would be over. She promised to make up for missed time when he returned home. Soon, she would be the one leaving England for the book circuit through America. This time her husband would accompany her.