Last Light: An absolutely gripping thriller with unputdownable suspense

by Helen Phifer

  He heard raised voices from the corridor and turned to look. His dad was arguing with the doctor. He heard the words ‘cancer’ and ‘too late to treat successfully’. He knew what cancer was, Robbie’s grandad had it last year. It made his skin turn yellow and his long, straggly, white, nicotine-stained hair fall out. Robbie had said his grandad changed into the skeleton dude off Tales from the Crypt. He’d laughed at him, and Robbie had punched him in the gut, knocking the wind out of his belly. Then Robbie had cried, saying it wasn’t funny, he was too scared to go and sit with him because he looked so bad. This couldn’t happen to his mum; she was beautiful. He didn’t want her long, black, wavy hair to fall out and her skin to turn yellow. She couldn’t be this poorly. She’d always wanted to go on holiday to Rome and he wanted to take her there when he was old enough. He bent down and kissed her cheek; her eyelids fluttered and she opened them. Staring at him it took her a moment to realise who he was, then she smiled, and he felt all the blackness that was churning inside his stomach melt away.

  ‘When are you coming home, I miss you?’

  Her voice a whisper, she beckoned him nearer. ‘Soon baby, soon.’

  ‘Good, I don’t like reading the Bible and going to bed early every night.’ He had to stop himself from saying it was because his dad was sneaking out of the house and leaving him on his own. He knew it would upset her. If he was honest he’d rather be alone than have to suffer his mood swings and violent outbursts. He came back late, smelling of whisky and horrible, flowery perfume. Not the soft, delicate scent that his mum always smelt of. He knew he was spending all his time drinking in The Dog and Ball; he’d followed him one night to see where he was sneaking off to. He’d sat on a wall up the street, waiting until he’d been in there for a while before going and peering through the steamed-up windows around the side. The pub had been busy, and he’d searched for the familiar outline of his father, gasping when his eyes found him. He was standing next to that woman with the blonde hair, who this time had huge white buttons in her ears. She had her arm around him and he was rubbing his hand across her back. His mum’s voice brought him back to the funny smelling hospital room.

  ‘Is he taking good care of you? Has he hurt you?’

  He shook his head, to be fair he hadn’t. He hadn’t really seen much of him, so he’d taken to feeding himself.

  ‘If he hurts you, and I’m not there, you tell your teacher, I won’t have it. Promise me that you’ll tell someone.’

  He saw her brown eyes fill with watery tears and he felt his own do the same.

  ‘I’m okay, I can look after myself. If he hits me, I’ll tell. You get better, don’t worry about me. I just want you to come home.’

  ‘You’re such a good boy, I know you can. I’ll be home soon.’

  He reached down to hug her, squeezing her gently. Then he felt himself being dragged upwards and pushed to one side.

  ‘Don’t touch her like that, you’ll hurt her.’

  He glared at his dad, the black fury filling his mind making it hard to speak. He would never hurt her, not like the bullying bastard, standing there with his hands on his hips. His dad stared at him, opened his mouth, then closed it again. Sensing that something had changed within his son, realising there had been some kind of shift in his attitude, he turned away from him and didn’t look at him again, which suited him fine.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lucy splashed cold water into her eyes, which were puffy, red and tired. Next to her, two of the PCSOs were chattering about an upcoming night out. She envied them: fresh-faced, no forty-eight hour shifts with no sleep. They were two of the good guys. Always keen to help, always friendly, always nice.

  ‘Erm, boss. Would you like some breakfast and a nice coffee getting from Costa? You look knackered.’

  Lucy smiled at Lindsey. ‘Yes, I would. That would be the most amazing, life-saving thing in the world that anyone has ever done for me. Thank you.’

  Lindsey reached out and patted her arm. ‘I hear you’ve pulled an all-nighter again, you work too hard.’

  ‘Someone has to do it and this time it was me. Can I have a vanilla latte and a bacon roll please?’

  Patting her pockets and realising she had no money on her, Lindsey shook her head. ‘I’ll get it, you can pay me later. Then we’ll go and take over scene guard.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Anytime, just don’t let them forget about us.’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘I won’t, anyway you don’t need us to sort it out. You can sort it out between yourselves, I’m happy to go with what you do. It will need a couple of you though, and tell the officers there I said you’re to keep the vehicles. I’m not having you standing around in the freezing cold for hours.’

  ‘See this is why we love you, Lucy, you trust us to do the right thing. Most of the sergeants and inspectors treat us like we haven’t got a clue.’

  ‘That’s because most of them are idiots and haven’t got a clue.’ She winked at them and they laughed. They left her staring at her reflection a few moments longer; closing her eyes she inhaled deeply then let it go. You can do this Lucy, you know that you can. She took a couple more deep breaths trying to loosen the knot that had formed inside her stomach and was refusing to shift.

  Inside her office she sipped on the hot coffee that Lindsey had delivered. It tasted like liquid gold as it warmed her insides and started to shake the fog which had begun to fill her brain. Browning had gone home to shower and change; the briefing was scheduled for nine. She had twenty minutes before she had to confront her team and tell them the disturbing news about Margaret Crowe. She’d pulled up the file for Sandy Kilburn. There had to be some connection: bodies found with throats cut, hanging upside down, were not a common occurrence in Brooklyn Bay. The only differences between the two murders were that there’d been no dead cat which had belonged to Sandy and no homemade, life-sized wooden crucifix for Margaret. She stared at the photographs from both scenes. They were horrific, bloody, gaudy, shocking – they’d been killed for a specific reason. Lucy’s job was to find out what the reason was and hunt down the killer before he struck again. She knew in her heart that he would. Because a killer needed three victims before they were elevated into the higher ranks of serial killer. But what would happen then? Was this what he wanted – to become famous in his own right? Brooklyn Bay had its fair share of murders over the years and double murders weren’t uncommon. The first big case Lucy had worked on had been a double murder, a jealous ex had murdered his lover and her new boyfriend. Tom had been the lead detective, and she’d worked under his expert guidance. The killer had been caught hours after the bodies had been discovered, practically leading the police to his door because he’d left behind so much evidence. There had been a huge argument in a nightclub in front of witnesses, then he’d followed them home and killed them before the pair had made it through the front door of her ground floor flat. Neighbours had been woken by the screams, and there had been CCTV footage of the entire thing captured by the camera on the house next door.

  This was something else though; these killings weren’t acts of revenge or passion that she could see. Tom could be right, if there was a connection to devil worship she needed to work out what it was, and soon. Maybe there wasn’t one and the killer was trying to throw them off guard. The more she thought about this angle the more she liked it. He was trying to be clever and send them on a false trail, wasting time looking in the wrong places so he could kill again. Her fingers clenched into tight fists. Well whoever it was hadn’t reckoned on having Lucy hunting him down, and she would even if it meant she had to survive with no sleep at all to catch him. It had to be a him, there was no way Lucy could envisage a woman having the strength to carry out this kind of killing, or the reasoning. Not that it was impossible, but her instinct was telling her she was looking for a man and that was good enough for her.

  * * *

  The briefing room was full to capacity, which irritated Lucy, as she knew th
at most of them wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the fact that it was Tom’s mother. She walked to the front of the room to the wooden lectern, placing her clipboard on it. Then she looked around the room.

  ‘Morning, while it’s lovely to see such a great attendance at one of my briefings, I think most of you are not actually needed. Section staff that are currently at the scene guard should be getting relieved at any moment by PCSOs. So that means any of you off section can leave; I know you’re all very busy, so I won’t take up any of your time.’

  The entire back row, which was filled with uniformed officers, began to stand up, grumbling under their breaths. Lucy waited for them to file out and the last one to close the door. That left her team, Jack and Amanda from CSI.

  ‘That’s better, it was a bit too crowded. I don’t know how much you’ve heard through the grapevine, but I’ll give you the facts.’

  The door opened and in walked an ashen-faced Tom. Lucy felt her heart sink, while doing her best to smile at him despite the shock of his unexpected appearance. ‘Sir, I’m just about to brief the team. It might be better if you wait in my office.’

  He shook his head and took a seat next to Mattie. For the first time in a very long time Lucy didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t discuss his murdered mother with him sitting there listening, after all, they didn’t know one hundred per cent if he had anything to do with it. The silence in the room was so heavy she could feel the weight of it pressing down on her shoulders. She glared at Mattie who had pulled out his phone and was tapping a message to someone.

  ‘Well, as you know a call came in at 23.35 last night from a man who lives further along the same street as Basterfield House. He said he was out walking his dog like he does every night when the dog started whining and straining at its lead. He followed the dog and it led him around to the rear car park of the abandoned building, where he discovered—’

  Mattie gave her a thumb up just as the door opened, and Lucy had never in her life been so happy to see the chief superintendent, who made a beeline for Tom. He bent down and whispered something into his ear, and Tom nodded. Then he stood up, and left the room. The Super turned to look at Lucy, who mouthed ‘thank you’ to him. Waiting for the door to shut a second time, she ran her fingers through her hair and whispered: ‘Thank fuck for that.’

  A collective sigh from around the room agreed with her. Taking a deep breath, she continued the briefing.

  ‘Anyway, he discovered the body of Margaret Crowe, aged seventy-one, hanging upside down with her throat severed so brutally her head was only just attached.’

  She passed some photographs around the room for them to look at – it was better for them to witness the horror first-hand. Lucy preferred using visuals to make her team become invested in a case. Somehow, listening to the gory details didn’t seem as effective as seeing them for yourself.

  ‘So, we have a huge problem. We haven’t caught Sandy Kilburn’s killer and now we have another victim with similar injuries, found hanging upside down in the car park of a disused care home.’

  ‘Don’t forget about the cat, boss.’

  ‘I won’t, thank you, Browning. You attended Margaret’s house yesterday because her cat had been found decapitated on her front doorstep. Why did he not leave the decapitated cat at the scene last night? Was it some kind of warning to Margaret or even to us?’

  Browning stood up. ‘Oh shit. He didn’t leave the cat there because I bagged it up and took it away?’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘In the back of the div car; it’s going to stink.’ He left the room in a hurry, and Lucy had to stifle her laughter. It wasn’t funny in the least, in fact it was highly inappropriate, but on days like today it was the dark humour that got you through the shit.

  ‘While Browning hunts down his dead cat does anyone have any burning suggestions about why he’s not only killing the pet but its owner as well?’

  Several heads shook.

  ‘No, me either. Right today’s plan of action. Mattie and Rachel, can you two coordinate the house to house of the area? Col, can you do the background checks, see if we’ve had any other incidents reported involving dead cats? I’m going to speak to the family, get some more details and try and find someone to do a forensic search of the cat. I want CCTV checks of all the surrounding properties. I noticed there were cameras on the outside of the building, however they are quite rusty and knackered-looking so I’m not holding my breath. Thank you.’

  She walked out, leaving them alone for five minutes to give them a chance to talk, gossip, speculate or whatever it was they needed to do without her listening in. It was human nature to be inquisitive; she wanted her team to get it out in the open with each other. Get whatever might be bothering them off their chests and then it was all hands on deck. She would expect one-hundred-and-ten per cent effort from them, things had escalated already. She wanted to be fully ready to make an arrest as soon as possible. Lucy ignored the nagging feeling of doubt in her head, the voice which was whispering in her ear, asking if she actually thought she was good enough to do the job she’d worked so hard to call her own.

  As she ran up the stairs she almost bumped into the Super; he held his hands up so he could grab her if she lost her balance.

  ‘Thank you for coming and getting Tom, sir, I honestly didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘You’re welcome; that could have been a disaster for all of us. You need to thank Mattie. He texted Anna, who came to tell me I needed to get down there pronto.’

  She smiled at him. ‘I will. Is Tom okay? Well, as okay as he can be. I suppose he’s never going to get over this for the rest of his life. The shock must be horrendous; I don’t know what I’d do.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose he will. God forbid anything so awful could happen to any one of us. I’ve sent him home, Lucy, and given him strict orders he’s not allowed back in the station. I’ve told him he needs to be there for his family; he needs to grieve and to give you the chance to work the case without him breathing down your neck.’

  The urge to hug the older man in front of her was too overwhelming; she nodded, thanked him once more and walked away. She went back to her office. Trust Mattie to have the phone number of the Super’s admin assistant. This time she was thankful that his serial flirting had come in useful. A deep debt of gratitude calmed the churning in her stomach; that the Super believed she could do this brought a sense of calm over her. She would repay the favour by proving just how bloody ready she was to do this, telling the voice in her head to shut up. She drank the remainder of her now-cold coffee and waited for Mattie and the rest of the team to come back up to the office.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lucy parked the Ford Focus outside the gorgeous detached house that belonged to Tom and his wife. There were only three houses in the cul-de-sac, which was a dead end, and his was the one in the middle; each house had a huge front garden. She couldn’t see his car and wondered if it was still at the scene, although she didn’t recall seeing it earlier. Mattie waved his hand in front of her face.

  ‘Penny for them.’

  ‘I was just wondering if he’d managed to collect his car from the scene. What a mess this is. I mean it’s bad enough that his mother has been murdered, and here we are about to go in and question his family about his whereabouts yesterday evening. It’s not right, is it?’

  ‘Yep, I’ve got to admit it’s not been the best twenty-four hours, has it?’

  Lucy shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter who it is, it could be the queen and we’d still have to question her. Come on, let’s get this over with.’

  The front door opened and she expected to see Tom standing there, instead she was greeted by Alison, who nodded at her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Alison, it must have been a terrible shock for you all.’

  Lucy followed her into the light, airy hallway and down to the open-plan kitchen. Alison pointed at the bar stools, and Lucy perched herself on one, slightly more elegantly
than Mattie.

  ‘You can say that again, Tom is in a right state, which isn’t the calm and collected man that I know. I don’t know what to do or say to him.’

  ‘Is he here?’

  ‘No, he left this morning. Said he had to go to work, that he needed to find out what was happening. I haven’t seen him since.’

  ‘Oh, I was hoping to speak to him. I didn’t want to do it in work.’

  ‘I don’t know why, he bloody lives there. He spends more time at the station than he does here with me.’

  ‘Can I ask where you both were last night?’

  ‘I was here, just like I always am with the boys. He was at work again till seven thirty, but you should know that. Then he got the call to go to the scene. To be honest I thought he was taking the piss when he said there had been another murder, but when he came in and his face was whiter than that marble worktop, I knew he was being serious.’

  Lucy looked at Mattie, who was the one taking notes. Tom had left the station at the same time she had last night. It had been just after six; she’d followed him out of the electronic gates. A heavy feeling began to fill her stomach, settling inside it like a chunk of lead. She didn’t like this. Why had he lied to Alison and told her he was working until seven thirty? She needed to know where he’d been for those ninety minutes – because ninety minutes was more than enough time to kill someone, clean yourself up and carry on pretending that everything in your life was hunky-dory. This wasn’t good news at all.