A patrol car had swung into the road at top speed, sirens blaring, lights flashing.
The vehicle skidded to a hard stop beside them. Porter got out.
‘Where are they?’ he cried.
Before she could respond, there was a scream from high up on the building.
Smith tipped her head back to locate the sound, just in time to see a body in the air at the side of the block. It seemed suspended for a second.
Then she realised it was falling to the ground.
Day Eighteen
Ninety-Three
Smith knocked on the front door and took a step back. It was 11 p.m. and they’d chosen this time to make the arrest for two reasons. One, it’d taken most of the day to piece together enough circumstantial evidence for a sympathetic magistrate to issue the arrest and search warrants. Two, you were always more likely to find people in their homes at night, especially if they weren’t expecting a visit from the cops. This scumbag probably thought he was in the clear. Well, he had another thing coming.
There was no response from inside. Smith threw a glance behind her at Eddie Stagg, who shrugged, craning his neck to check the upstairs windows. She knocked again, harder this time, and heard some movement from within. Maybe the occupants had already gone to bed, and it was a case of waking them up. Whatever needed to be done, she wasn’t going home empty-handed. They had assembled a small team of detectives from Wandsworth CID to search the house. It was just a question of how they got over the threshold.
Twenty-four hours had elapsed since the crazy events of last night and Smith was still trying to make sense of it all. According to Lexi Green, one of Blaze Logan’s final acts before throwing herself off the building was to pass on a crucial detail about the rapist’s appearance that had enabled the psychologist to identify him.
Green’s theory was that Logan was concussed from her fight with Lockhart and, when combined with the wet roof, had missed her footing during an attempt to escape the police by jumping between two of the blocks. If she’d made it, it might’ve worked. They only had the exits of one building covered, so in theory she could’ve got away. Smith wondered if it was Porter’s arrival which had prompted her action. The timings fit, certainly.
Ultimately, though, they’d never know exactly what was going through Logan’s mind before she fell eight storeys to her death. Or, perhaps, at any point before that. Green had her theories, of course. And Smith might give them a bit more credit in future. Had the guvnor been right, that Green’s mind-reading wasn’t so different to her own instincts?
On the subject of coppers’ noses, Lockhart was lucky to get away with a broken one, plus a fractured cheek, several missing teeth and a couple of cracked ribs. If Green’s account was accurate, Logan had been seconds away from chucking the guvnor off the roof when she’d intervened. Khan – who’d arrived moments after Logan’s jump – had been able to help Green stop him bleeding and use his radio to direct the paramedics straight to the roof. Lockhart was recovering in hospital now, and Smith already knew his facial injuries would be as much the source of good-natured teasing as respect for taking on a violent killer barehanded. They all understood that gallows humour was one way to get through the trauma.
But Smith reckoned it’d be a while before she could forget the image of that body falling, the second one she’d seen in the past year.
The memory of it was interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind the door.
‘Who’s there?’ It was a woman’s voice.
‘This is the police,’ Smith announced.
A pause was followed by the sound of a lock turning and chain being taken off. The door opened. The woman looked half-scared, half-confused. Behind her, at the bottom of the stairs, stood the man they were after. Smith registered the detail that Logan had given them: two raised, dark moles, a centimetre apart just on his left cheek.
‘Xander O’Neill,’ said Smith, ‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of the attempted murder of Blaze Logan, also known as Millicent Dimmock, the sexual penetration of Emma Harrison, and the attempted sexual assault of Alexis Green.’ There were more offences, but this was a solid start.
As Smith read out the full caution and explained the warrant, Stagg stepped through the doorway, past O’Neill’s horrified housemate, and cuffed him. He seemed so taken aback by their arrival that he didn’t resist. He didn’t even speak. The young actor appeared to have lost all the bravado Smith had seen when she’d met him in Jemima Stott-Peters’s house in Wimbledon nearly three weeks ago.
Stagg marched him out to their car, while Smith led the other detectives inside to begin the search. This wasn’t the only location they were hitting. From his hospital bed, Lockhart had told her about O’Neill’s locker at the climbing wall in Parsons Green. Roland Wilkins, to his credit, had volunteered to go there with another officer and bag up anything of relevance inside. And they still had a whole load of O’Neill’s clothing that hadn’t been returned to him following his recent arrest. Now, that could be properly tested for forensic evidence of his crimes.
Smith took out her phone to text Lockhart about the arrest. On her home screen, she saw several messages from Wilkins: a text and three photos. The text said they’d already bagged and tagged the contents of O’Neill’s locker. She was impressed; the young DC seemed to be getting his act together, and she made a mental note to thank him, help build his confidence a bit.
Then she opened the pictures one by one and gave a sharp intake of breath, followed by a fist pump and an audible whoop.
The images showed a black jacket, a balaclava, and a knife.
Ten Days Later
Ninety-Four
‘Here you go,’ Lockhart said, as he put the plates down on his dining table. ‘Sorry it’s nothing fancy.’
He’d used the excuse of getting back late after dealing with a shedload of paperwork, but the real reason he was serving a simple meal of sausage and mash was because he didn’t know how to make anything more complicated. And he needed a tried-and-tested recipe, since this was the first time that he’d hosted anyone other than his mum to dinner at his flat. His and Jess’s flat.
‘This looks awesome,’ said Green. ‘Beats the hospital canteen any day.’
‘Oh, cheers.’
‘It’s a compliment, love,’ said his mum. ‘Wasn’t it, Dr Green?’
‘Sure it was.’ She grinned. ‘And please, Mrs Lockhart, call me Lexi.’
‘All right then.’ Mum picked up the fork in her crooked, swollen fingers, jabbed a piece of the sausage Lockhart had already cut up for her and raised it towards Green. ‘As long as you call me Iris.’
‘Deal.’
They set about eating and Lockhart was relieved to find that his culinary efforts were halfway edible. He listened as Green described her and Sarah’s plan to find a new housemate after getting rid of Rhys, the weird guy Lockhart had run into at her place. Apparently, he’d refused to part company with the ‘collector’s’ knife Green had found in his room, so she and Sarah had decided to kick him out.
He half-thought of suggesting Khan as a potential replacement for Rhys… He’d told Lockhart this week that he was on the lookout for a new place to live, having finally decided to move out of his family home. There’d been a bust-up, apparently, after Khan had refused an arranged marriage that his parents wanted. It must’ve been tough, but Lockhart was confident the lad would find his feet and enjoy his independence. Maybe he’d mention it to Green later. But he’d understand if she wanted to get some distance from the MIT, after these past few weeks, rather than live with one of them.
Lockhart took a swig of Stella from the can and looked from his mum to Green and back. They were each making progress recovering from their injuries.
Mum had fractured the ulna bone in her forearm, and it was in a cast and sling, now. But it would heal soon enough, and she was showing no lasting effects of the mild hypothermia she’d experienced after being soaked on the roof that night. Green’s ankle was b
adly sprained from her chase with Xander O’Neill, and she still used a crutch on stairs, but it didn’t need surgery. Green had even said she’d be back to CrossFit in a few more weeks.
As for Lockhart, his face was a mess, but there was nothing new about that. Doctors had said the swelling and bruising would go, eventually. It was the stuff left behind in his memory that worried him. That was why he’d resolved to see the other therapist Green had recommended to him three months ago. Better late than never, he told himself.
‘That nice woman you work with, Daniel – what’s her name again?’
‘Dunno, Mum. Was it Max? DS Smith.’
‘That’s the one. Smith. She told me you saved Daniel’s life, Lexi.’
‘Uh, I don’t know about that.’ Green was blushing. ‘Honestly, I wasn’t even thinking. It was just instinct.’
Mum laid her free hand on Lockhart’s forearm. ‘Well, whatever it was, it worked. He’s the only one I’ve got now, since his dad died, and…’ she cleared her throat, ‘he’s very precious to me. So, thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ Green paused a beat. ‘I owed you one anyway, right, Dan?’
Lockhart laughed and a stab of pain went through his ribs. He bent forwards, clasping a hand to his side. ‘Don’t do that to me. No more jokes, OK?’
‘It wasn’t a joke.’
Their eyes met briefly, and Dan suddenly thought how beautiful she was. He immediately felt guilty and looked down at his plate, busying himself by piling mash onto his fork.
‘Liz Jennings is out of a coma,’ he said through a mouthful of potato, shifting topic slightly. ‘I spoke to her nurse today. She’s already making progress on the rehab. They’re hoping there’s not going to be any lasting damage.’
‘Thank God,’ said Green.
‘Poor thing.’ Mum shook her head. ‘She must’ve been completely mental, that Logan woman. Barking mad.’
Green swallowed before speaking. ‘In some ways, she was. But she’d had some awful things happen to her, and her brain was wired a little differently to ours.’
‘Hang on,’ said Lockhart. ‘Are you saying it wasn’t her fault she tried to lob me off a roof?’
‘No way. I’m not excusing what she did for one second.’
‘OK. Good.’ He drank some Stella.
‘All I’m saying,’ continued Green, ‘is that everyone does stuff for a reason. Including serial murderers. Killing four innocent people is totally unacceptable in every sense, but to catch her, we needed to get why she was doing it. The rage she felt and wanted to vent against surrogates.’
Lockhart’s attention wandered for a second, then he brought it back.
‘Yeah, I think I get that,’ he said.
‘There you go.’ Green inclined her head. ‘And despite all the terrible stuff she did, two good things have come out of it.’
‘What are they?’ asked his mum.
‘OK, so, you arrested the guy who’d been raping women at bus stops. God knows how many more attacks he’d have done before he was caught. Logan made that happen.’
‘She helped on Op Braddock, I’ll give her that.’
‘Come on, Dan. She cracked that case.’
He grunted. ‘Only cos she wanted revenge.’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Same as she wanted publicity by tipping the press off about her own murders.’ He and Smith had both wondered if it was Khan, but the DC was in the clear after Logan’s PAYG phone record showed several calls to an ambitious but sloppy journalist who hadn’t bothered verifying the ‘Met source’ feeding him details of the case. Apparently, he’d done his own work digging up the allegations of sexual assault.
‘Oi, let her finish what she was saying, Daniel. What’s the second good thing, love?’
‘So, after all the media coverage here, they’re supposedly opening an inquiry into what happened on the Hollywood movie set that caused Logan’s injury, and how it wasn’t properly investigated. It could be pretty big time. The Washington Post was talking about how it might change the whole stunt industry in the US. Doesn’t justify the violence she used, obviously, but it could protect a bunch more people in future.’
‘Serious?’ Lockhart stopped chewing a moment.
‘Yeah.’
He reached for his can of Stella. ‘Well, some not-so-good things came out of it, too.’
‘Like what?’
‘Porter made Detective Superintendent.’
Green took a sip of beer. ‘Isn’t that good, though?’
‘Good? The guy nearly wrecked the whole operation to catch Logan. Multiple times. And they gave him a fucking promotion!’
‘Daniel!’
‘Sorry, Mum. Apparently, he even used Operation Thorncross as one of his case studies in the process. Demonstrating leadership under pressure, or something.’
‘Smart.’ Green’s brow creased. ‘But… if they promote him, doesn’t that mean he won’t be your boss anymore?’
‘That is a possibility.’
‘All right, then. Quit complaining.’
‘I’m not—’ Lockhart began, but stopped himself when he saw Green’s smile. ‘Oh, piss off.’
‘Gotcha.’
‘He does appear to have dropped the idea of passing my disciplinary case to the DPS for now, at least. The unauthorised entry of Dobbin’s flat.’
‘And has he forgotten about your hacker friend, too?’ asked Green.
‘Jock prefers the term “independent security researcher”.’
‘Fine. Didn’t you have to explain how you’d got to the roof before Logan?’
‘Oh, that’s simple,’ Mum replied. ‘He happened to be on his way to see me, didn’t you, love?’ She winked.
‘Just like you happened to be waiting alone for a bus all night, Lexi,’ he added. ‘Not a textbook investigative technique, but it got a result.’
‘Point taken.’ Green glared at him, then dug into her food.
The doorbell rang.
Mum turned towards the sound. ‘You expecting anyone?’
‘Nope.’ Lockhart stood. ‘Lemme see who it is.’
Ninety-Five
Lexi watched Dan get up and move towards the door. She slid her chair back a little so she could look down the hallway. Dan peered through the spyhole, straightened up, swore under his breath, then opened the door.
‘What do you want?’ he said, his voice gruff.
‘Christ! You all right, mate? What happened to your face?’
‘What do you want?’ repeated Dan. ‘I’m in the middle of dinner.’
‘I just came to—’
‘How’d you get in, anyway?’
‘Someone was on their way out, and the front door was open…’
The guy standing in front of Dan was good-looking, with short blond hair and bright blue eyes. Lexi guessed he was about forty. She turned her head to the wall in the living room where Dan had posted up all the leads on his wife. Lexi immediately noticed a strong likeness between the photograph of Jess and the man. Their mouths and eyes were almost identical.
‘Who is that?’ she whispered, even though she had a good idea.
‘It’s Nick,’ said Iris. ‘Jess’s brother. He and Daniel don’t exactly get on.’
‘Oh, right.’
In the hallway, Dan said something that Lexi didn’t catch. He sounded mad. She knew it wasn’t her business, but she couldn’t help leaning back across and listening anyway.
‘The solicitor says you’re going to appeal,’ Nick said. ‘About Jess.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So… Mum and Dad and I wanted to see if you’d like to sort it out before the hearing? You know, between us.’
‘No chance.’
‘It’d save us all a lot of money. Legal fees and that.’ Nick spread his hands. ‘We don’t want this, either.’
‘Really? That why you brought the claim, is it?’
‘Come on, Dan, don’t be like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘I’m not moving on,’ growled Dan.
Nick looked past him and briefly met Lexi’s eyes. ‘No?’
‘No.’
The word felt like a punch to Lexi’s heart.
‘Just think about it, OK? We can talk, without lawyers. Work something out.’
Dan didn’t reply.
‘Right.’ Nick rocked back on his heels. ‘Maybe another time, then. You’ve obviously got company, so…’
‘Fuck off and don’t come back.’
‘Well, that might not be up to you, mate. Depending on what the magistrate says.’
‘I’m not your mate.’
‘All right, chill.’
Lexi could see Dan’s shoulders tense up, his right fist balled. This wasn’t going to end well. ‘Should we do something?’ she asked Iris.
Beside her, Dan’s mom was silent for a second, then she spoke loudly. ‘Daniel!’
‘Yes, Mum?’
‘I need your help in here.’
‘Coming.’ There was a pause. ‘I meant it,’ Dan said, quietly but clearly. ‘Don’t come to this flat again.’
Nick sniffed. ‘We’ll see about that.’
‘Daniel!’ Iris called out again.
The door slammed and Dan stomped back into the living room, seething. ‘What is it, Mum?’
‘Nothing, love.’
‘Eh?’
‘I just didn’t want you getting in another fight.’ Iris waved her fork towards the hallway. ‘Your face is smashed up enough as it is.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Forget about him,’ said Iris. ‘Now, sit down, and finish your dinner.’
Two Months Later
Ninety-Six
Who's Next?: A completely gripping and unputdownable crime thriller (Detective Lockhart and Green Book 2) Page 33