Lost Souls

by Chris Merritt

  Jordan was always wary of new people, but once the guy had explained where he knew him from, Jordan had relaxed a bit. Turned out he wasn’t just some random weirdo. He was all right. He’d explained that he was scouting boxers for an event next month. A featherweight kid had dropped out due to injury and he needed a replacement. After hearing that, Jordan was properly listening.

  It’d be one of the undercard matches, obviously, but there’d be spectators, ticket sales, bets and shit. And he’d get paid. Two hundred quid. Jordan couldn’t believe it. Two hundred quid for a few minutes’ work! That was more money than he’d ever had in his life, and he wouldn’t have to rob anyone to get it. Jordan didn’t tell the bloke he would’ve done it for free anyway.

  There was only one catch. The event was unlicensed. The man said that the promoter had had some trouble in the past – nothing serious, just some stuff about paying registration fees. Jordan had hesitated for a second at that, before the guy reassured him it was completely safe. Asked him if he was scared. Jordan had said no, of course he wasn’t scared. He was well up for it.

  He’d agreed not to tell anyone about the fight, for the time being. Especially not his coach or anyone at the gym, because they might try and stop him doing it. Getting paid, earning his respect. The guy was going to pick him up on Thursday and take him to meet the promoter. He’d get a hundred quid upfront, the rest at the event. Licensed or otherwise, he couldn’t wait.

  In the meantime, though, he needed to get training. He caught his coach’s eye across the gym. The old fella gave him a nod, held a fist up in front of him. Coach always did that when he could see hard work. Jordan returned the signal, then went back to pounding the bag with all his strength.

  He’d show them who was ready for a fight.

  Wednesday

  13th January

  Forty-Four

  Without taking her eyes from her computer monitor, Lucy Berry shovelled another spoonful of the bland, microwaved porridge passing for breakfast into her mouth. She had the spoon in her left hand while the right rested on her mouse as she scrolled down another page of text. She was logged into Merlin – The Met’s database for storing information about children known to the police – and reading a report on one of the missing children identified in Marshall Hanlon’s PhD research.

  Lucy had arrived an hour early this morning to work on her extra project before the rest of the MIT turned up and everything got going again on Operation Paxford. But she felt exhausted. She’d been up late last night, comforting her two-year-old, Kate, who’d been having nightmares about monsters in her room. After Lucy had eventually managed to ger their daughter back to sleep around 2.30 a.m., Mark had offered to take the kids to nursery that morning. Lucy promised herself this wouldn’t go on. She couldn’t keep burning the candle at both ends. But neither was she prepared to let either of these cases go unsolved.

  They’d made real progress on Paxford yesterday with the forensic analysis of Charley Mullins’s phone, and she hoped they could build on that today. In the meantime, she wanted to look at the details of the missing child cases that Marshall had flagged; information to which he wouldn’t have access because they were on police systems.

  She’d been at it for nearly forty minutes and so far had nothing to show for her efforts. Around half of the missing children whose names she’d checked had records on Merlin, which was unsurprising given the instability of their lives. But, scanning through them, Lucy hadn’t found anything useful. She wasn’t even sure what she was looking for. Just something, a pattern, a coincidence, a link or common factor beyond what they already knew. She’d know it when she saw it. Or, at least, she hoped she would.

  She finished the report, closed it and clicked into another. A fourteen-year-old boy named Shaun Beale had run away from his foster placement in 2003 and had been found working illegally in a car wash two months later. Another sad story, but nothing that jumped out at her as being relevant. Skimming to the end, she suddenly stopped chewing. Something had caught her attention.

  Shaun’s foster parents were listed in the text. And Lucy recognised their names.

  Roger and Patricia Hughes.

  Pushing back her chair and swallowing the mouthful of stodgy, tasteless porridge, Lucy walked quickly across to where Dan Lockhart was at his desk, sipping coffee and staring at his screen.

  ‘Dan!’

  ‘Morning, Luce.’ He put the takeaway cup down. ‘Nice job on the call records yesterday, by the way. We’ve got some CCTV to go through this morning that’s hopefully going to match up with the phone data. Max and Mo should be heading straight to speak to Eric Cooper, too.’

  ‘Er, yeah, that’s great.’

  Dan frowned. ‘Have you got something else?’

  ‘Um, maybe. It’s from that missing children thing I’ve been working on. You know, the PhD project.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘But it’s linked to Op Paxford.’

  ‘Really?’ Dan turned his chair towards her. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, Roger Hughes turns up in both investigations. We know he was one of Donovan Blair’s foster parents, but he also looked after one of the children who went missing from care.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘It was 2003.’

  He pursed his lips, inhaled sharply. ‘Eighteen years ago?’

  Suddenly, Lucy felt less sure of herself. ‘Um, yes, I suppose it is.’

  ‘Right.’ Dan wrinkled his nose briefly. ‘I mean, it’s interesting, but…’

  ‘Don’t you always say, you don’t like coincidences? Well, this seems like a pretty big one.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He picked up a biro, twirled it once in his fingers and pointed it at her. ‘But don’t forget, the Hugheses have been fostering kids in this part of town for thirty years. So, how much of a coincidence is it that, out of all the missing children in London, two of them happened to pass through their home?’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t calculate the odds off the top of my head, but…’

  ‘Eighteen years apart.’

  Lucy sighed. Dan was right. There wasn’t enough to go on. She’d been through so many documents that the flimsiest of connections had triggered her off. Perhaps it was just that she wanted to find something – anything at all – to make sense of the mass of data. But, on reflection, if there was a link, this probably wasn’t it.

  ‘Yeah,’ she conceded. ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘Well spotted, though,’ he said.

  ‘Better a false positive than a false negative,’ she replied with a shrug.

  ‘False?…’

  ‘False positive. It’s a research term. You see something there when it isn’t. It’s not great, obviously, but it’s always considered better than the false negative. That’s when something’s there, but you miss it.’

  Dan nodded slowly. ‘I know that feeling.’

  ‘Hm.’ Lucy didn’t like to ask if he was talking about this case, some other unsolved murder, or perhaps even his wife. ‘I’ll get back to it then,’ she said, ‘just until nine. Then I’ll crack on with Paxford again.’

  ‘You’re a star, Luce. Cheers.’

  Returning to her desk, Lucy felt a tiny bit deflated. But she could take heart from Dan’s words; she had spotted the connection, albeit probably a spurious one. And, as she’d just told him, that was preferable to missing it altogether. Dropping into her office chair, she reached for her handbag and fished out her iPhone. Checking to see if she had any messages, she saw that she’d left it on silent. There was a missed call from twenty minutes earlier. It was from Marshall Hanlon.

  She called back and he answered after one ring.

  ‘Hi, Lucy, how’s it going?’ He sounded short of breath.

  ‘Fine, thanks. You?’

  ‘Good. I was just,’ he gasped, ‘cycling.’

  ‘Oh. Well, I’m afraid I don’t have anything to tell you, yet. I haven’t been able to go through very much of the—’

  ‘Are you working on those m
urders?’ he interjected.

  ‘Er, which ones?…’

  ‘The children. Donovan Blair and Charley Mullins.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t really talk about that, Marshall.’

  ‘Course not.’ He didn’t say anything else. She waited until the silence got weird.

  ‘Is that what you wanted to ask me?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ He paused. ‘No, actually, um, I was volunteering last night, and I got a message to call the police. Major Jenkins said they wanted to speak to everyone who helps there. I-I would’ve been in touch earlier, but I’d changed my number, you see, and I only went back last night for the first time since, ah…’

  ‘Volunteering?’ Lucy was confused. ‘Where?’

  ‘In Wandsworth,’ Marshall added. She could hear his breaths still coming quickly down the line. ‘At the Salvation Army.’

  Forty-Five

  Walking up the broad stone path towards the church of St Mary the Virgin, Smith felt an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. The scene she’d been met with in Putney just two days ago flashed through her mind, and she felt goosebumps lift on her arms and neck. For a moment, she thought she could smell the odour of dusty hymnbooks that had hung in the air inside St Margaret’s. The gloom and stillness of its interior were perfectly imprinted on her memory. As was the image of Charley Mullins, straight ahead of her, kneeling at the altar.

  Smith hadn’t attended the crime scene here at St Mary’s, when Donovan’s body had been found, but she’d seen the photographs. Approaching the enormous door with its thick iron fittings, she fleetingly pictured them discovering another dead child inside now. The macabre thought was broken almost immediately by Khan’s voice, just behind her.

  ‘It’s open,’ he said.

  She checked her watch. ‘Looks like Cooper’s here already.’

  ‘Let’s go talk to him, then.’ Khan was chewing hard, his jaws pounding a piece of gum. He’d been tense on the drive over, fingers drumming the steering wheel non-stop, and Smith could tell he was up for a confrontation.

  ‘Slow and steady, OK, Mo?’

  ‘Yeah, course.’

  Smith eased open the heavy door. There was no sound or movement from within, and it took her eyes a few seconds to adjust to the low light. With large stained-glass windows running the length of the church, she imagined that it could be bright and airy in spring or summer. But today, in the dead of winter, it was dark.

  ‘That’s where they found him,’ said Khan. He was staring at the altar, to the left-hand side. Smith recognised it from the pictures. Only eight days ago, this had been a crime scene. But there was no trace of Donovan now, of course, and she guessed that the place had been given a professional clean once the SOCOs were done. Or maybe it’d just been left to Eric Cooper.

  Smith took a few steps forward.

  ‘Mr Cooper?’ she called.

  There was no answer. She glanced at Khan, who pointed towards the far end of the church, where another door ran off to the right beneath a large stone arch. Smith could see it was ajar. She nodded towards it, and they walked across together, the only sound their footsteps echoing on the parquet flooring. They reached the door and, as they neared it, Smith could hear low voices, the distinctive tinny babble of a radio.

  ‘Mr Cooper?’ she repeated.

  Again, no response.

  The door opened outwards and Smith nudged it with her foot. The old hinges creaked and squealed as it swung away from her to reveal a cramped space no bigger than a storeroom. It was full of stuff – umbrellas, wicker baskets, a portable radiator – but it clearly doubled as an office of sorts. In another corner, an anglepoise lamp cast a cone of yellow light over a desk that was strewn with papers, documents and assorted small objects.

  Something kept Smith at the threshold, but Khan was already past her and stepping inside towards the desk.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Look at this.’

  ‘Don’t touch anything,’ she warned.

  ‘Look!’

  ‘What is it?’ She advanced cautiously, sniffing the air. There was a smell she couldn’t quite place.

  ‘Check it out.’ Khan gestured to a newspaper which had been folded such that a large article was displayed. There was a mug of tea covering the middle of it, but Smith had already seen the piece in yesterday’s Evening Standard. She read the headline once more:

  Church Kid Killer claims second victim

  ‘Doesn’t prove anything,’ she said. ‘Anyone could be—’

  ‘Who are you?’

  Smith spun round to find a young man blocking the doorway. He was average height, but she could immediately tell he was more solidly built than his soft, rounded facial features would’ve suggested.

  ‘Eric Cooper?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’ He frowned. ‘What’s going on?’

  Smith introduced herself and Khan. ‘We’d like to ask you a few questions, please, Mr Cooper. Can I call you Eric?’

  ‘What about?’ He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

  ‘Charley Mullins,’ replied Khan. That was a bit blunter than Smith would’ve put it.

  Cooper swallowed. ‘I don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘There are just some things we’d like to clarify, Mr Cooper,’ said Smith calmly. ‘Would you be willing to accompany us for a voluntary interview? We can arrange a solicitor if you—’

  ‘Accompany you where? I’m working.’ He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets. ‘And I’ve got nothing to say anyway.’

  ‘Doesn’t look good if you don’t want to speak to us,’ said Khan, somewhat unhelpfully. Smith glanced at him, glared for a second when she made eye contact.

  ‘Why me?’ asked Cooper. ‘Is this cos I found Donovan here?’

  She couldn’t reasonably withhold why they were interested. ‘We’d like you to account for your whereabouts on the nights that Charley went missing, and on the night her body was left at St Margaret’s church.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, what?’ said Khan.

  ‘I don’t… I mean, I shouldn’t…’ Cooper looked from Smith to Khan and back again. He was getting agitated. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  Smith took a half-step away from him to help de-escalate the situation. ‘Look, Mr Cooper, this would be a lot easier if you’d just come with us. We can go and have a quick conversation on record and hear what you have to say properly.’

  ‘I told you, no.’ He moved past them towards the desk and lifted a box off a shelf behind it. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got things to be getting on with, so—’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Khan.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘That picture.’

  Khan was indicating a drawing which had been propped up behind the box. It showed a group of people standing on the ground as one individual, with what looked like wings on his back, rose above them into the clouds.

  ‘Leave that alone,’ Cooper growled.

  But Khan had already plucked it off the shelf and was examining it. ‘Looks like an angel, Max.’

  ‘Put it back!’ cried Cooper.

  Khan turned it over. ‘Oh, shit,’ he whispered.

  Smith could see it wouldn’t take much more for Cooper to snap. She didn’t want them to have a fight on their hands. But then she saw what Khan had noticed, written in pencil on the back of the drawing:

  By Donovan Blair, age 11

  Recalling the guvnor’s words, she made the decision then.

  ‘Eric Cooper,’ she began, ‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murders of Donovan Blair and Charlotte Mullins.’

  She recited the caution and explained that, if he agreed to come with them now, they wouldn’t need to use handcuffs. As she spoke, Cooper muttered the same line over and over.

  ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  Forty-Six

  Lexi had passed on lunch with a colleague, and set her admin backlog to one side for the free hour she had in the middle of he
r day at the clinic. The door to her consulting room was shut – something she usually only did when she was with a client – and she had her personal laptop out. She needed space, without distraction, to process what she knew about the child murders and try to make sense of the information she had. To see if there was something she could see that Dan and his team might’ve missed. Any insight that could help, no matter how small.

  But that required time, which was the one thing Lexi didn’t have. She’d been right before about the killer targeting more than one victim, and there was every chance that their perpetrator was out there, right now, looking for another vulnerable child.

  Typing into a blank document, she tried to bring the pieces together methodically. Dan had told her that Dr Volz’s post-mortem for Charley Mullins yesterday confirmed that she’d died of asphyxiation from a ligature around her neck, which was identical to how Donovan Blair had been murdered. Volz had said that the pattern of bruising again indicated the force had been applied from behind. Was the killer simply aiming for surprise? Or was there something more? Maybe they didn’t want to see their victims’ faces, out of guilt, or shame, over what they were doing. That might connect to their religious beliefs.

  There was no forensic evidence of any use at either crime scene, and nothing had been found on the victims’ bodies so far. Lexi jotted some notes about how meticulous the killer was, almost obsessively clean. For her, that immediately suggested three things.

  One, the perpetrator must have had another location where he or she carried out the murders. Lexi would bet that the same place had been used to kill both Donovan and Charley. It’d be somewhere private, where their offender could maintain control over access, and not be seen or overheard. But, since it appeared that both victims had gone there voluntarily, without being drugged or restrained, it wouldn’t be anywhere too isolated or unusual. Where could that be? And how had the killer convinced them to go there? She wrote down the questions.