by Luke Delaney
‘Do you have keys for the house?’ Sally asked.
‘Yes.’ He fumbled in his pocket and handed her two keys, one for the mortise and one for the Yale locks.
‘Have you been inside?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I only got the keys an hour ago. I don’t have a set for her house. A friend of hers from the hospital had these. By the time she gave them to me, the police had already told me not to go inside.’ Sally nodded her understanding. She considered delegating the task to DC Cahill, but felt more afraid of being left alone with Ewart, his sorrow and fear, than she did about entering the house by herself.
‘I need to take a look inside,’ she told DC Cahill. ‘You wait here with Mr Ewart.’
‘Shouldn’t we wait for forensics to arrive?’ queried Cahill.
‘Guv’nor wants me to take a look first. Besides, we haven’t checked the address for any signs of the victim.’ Immediately regretting referring to Deborah Thomson as a victim in Ewart’s presence, she almost apologized, but then decided it would only amplify her mistake. ‘I’ll be a few minutes,’ she said.
Unlocking first the mortise and then the Yale, she pushed the door ajar and peered into the small house, the warmth from the blaring central heating washing over her as it rushed into the chill of outside. ‘Hello,’ she called weakly into the silent interior, her voice choked by her constricted, dry throat. She coughed her airway open wider. ‘Hello. Police. Is anyone at home?’ No answer.
Sally stepped inside, pulling the door to behind her, making sure it was left slightly ajar and unlocked. If she needed to get out fast she didn’t want to be struggling with locks and latches. As she moved away from the entrance she noticed her hands were trembling and gripped them together to control the shaking. She pushed herself further into the innards of Deborah Thomson’s once-safe haven, now the scene of the first of many crimes that would be committed against her.
She moved slowly forward, occasionally glancing at her feet to ensure she wasn’t trampling over obvious evidence left by the madness that had come into Deborah Thomson’s life, training and experience kicking in as if she’d switched to autopilot, guiding her through the scene without her having to consciously think about what she was doing or where she was.
Noticing a burglar alarm control panel on the side of the hallway wall, she moved in closer to examine it. The alarm was unarmed, its light blinking green. Had the other houses been alarmed? She thought back to the time she’d spent in Karen Green’s house, to the reports of the findings from both the previous scenes. She couldn’t be sure, but she seemed to remember both homes had alarms, although neither had been activated. Clearly the madman wasn’t comfortable with alarms and lacked the expertise or knowledge to deactivate them — another reason why he used artifice to gain entry and risked abducting the women during daylight.
The kitchen was straight ahead, but first she needed to check the room immediately to her right, the door to which was half-closed. As she peered through the crack she prayed the room was empty, knowing she would be unable to deal with a dead body — or even a hung-over Deborah Thomson, sleeping through the phone calls and Sally’s noisy progress through her house. Even if it meant the swift, uncomplicated, safe conclusion of the search for the missing woman, Sally could do without any surprises.
She eased the door open slowly, pushing with the back of her hand, ready to take flight the second she sensed danger, pausing while she unclipped her extendable baton, known as an ASP, from the holder strapped to her belt. The heavy metal in her hand made her feel a little more in control as she swung the door fully open and stared inside at what was clearly the living room. The modern inexpensive furniture made her suspect the house was only rented and that the fake leather suite, along with pretty much everything else, came included in the rent. It was impersonal and slightly scruffy — half-read magazines lying on the sofa and floor, prints of Monet and Cezanne in plastic frames adorning the walls. A heavy grey box with a small screen made do for a television, the digital conversion box perched precariously on top. Sally remembered the missing woman was a nurse. Clearly the rent was swallowing most of her income — even her collection of CDs and DVDs was far from impressive. ‘Or maybe you just have more of a life than I do?’ she whispered to herself. A shiver ran through her whole body as she backed out of the room, returning the door to half-open position, careful not to leave her fingerprints on it.
She covered the few steps to the wide open kitchen door and looked inside, her eyes searching every angle and corner, the smells of Deborah Thomson’s last meals still clinging to the walls and work surfaces, magnified by the heat in the room and the windows that had been sealed shut since the first signs of winter the preceding year. Once inside the room she immediately noticed a functional brown handbag perched on the kitchen table. Next to it lay a simple mobile phone that occasionally vibrated to warn the owner they had missed calls or text messages still waiting to be read. The thought that Deborah Thomson might never read those messages or listen to the voicemails flashed through her mind. She shook it away, but could do nothing about the bitter taste of bile seeping into her mouth.
Sally crossed the kitchen and tried to look into the handbag without touching it, but it was no use. Cursing herself for not having a pair of rubber gloves with her, she took a pen from her jacket pocket and began to poke around inside the bag. After a few minutes of searching as best she could without emptying the contents out, she was satisfied that what she was looking for was indeed missing. Deborah’s bag was still here and so was her mobile phone, but both her house and car keys were nowhere to be seen. For Sally it was the final confirmation that Deborah Thomson been taken by the man they were hunting. She needed to phone Sean, but as she searched for his number a voice calling from the door startled her, making her almost drop her phone. It was Anna. ‘Sally. You in there?’
‘Don’t come in,’ Sally commanded, but Anna ignored her and stepped into the hallway. ‘This is a crime scene. You shouldn’t be in here.’
‘Sorry, but I was worried about you. I don’t think you should be in here alone, not yet.’
‘I’m fine,’ Sally lied. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’
‘I came with DC Cahill.’
‘I didn’t see you when I arrived,’ Sally accused.
‘No. I was checking the rest of the street.’
‘What for?’
‘Trying to see things as he would have seen them.’
Sally rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath. ‘Not you as well.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Nothing, but if you’re coming in, at least stick to the sides of the hallway.’
‘I know the procedure at a crime scene,’ said Anna, walking to meet Sally in the kitchen. ‘Find anything?’
‘Her bag and mobile are here, but her keys are missing.’
‘It’s him then?’ Sally didn’t answer. ‘I really don’t think you’re ready for this,’ Anna persisted. ‘You need to move more slowly, tell Sean you need to ease yourself back to what you did before.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Sally whispered. ‘If I tell Sean, I’m finished. He’ll have to refer me for psychiatric help, then I’m finished in the CID, finished in the police. I’m a cop. We’re not allowed to need help. We’re expected to deal with it, no matter what. Once we can’t, we’re no use to anyone. Sean’s a good man, but the second he thinks I’m a liability to him or the team he’ll get rid of me just as fast as anyone else would.’
‘I think you’re underestimating him.’
‘He’s a cop,’ said Sally. ‘He won’t be able to help himself.’
‘Then come and see me privately. I guarantee I’ll keep it totally confidential — no feedback to the police. We all need someone to talk to, Sally, especially after a life-changing event.’
‘Maybe,’ Sally answered without commitment. A loud angry voice at the front door ended their conversation.
; ‘What the bloody hell are you two doing in my crime scene?’ an angry DS Roddis shouted. ‘Right, neither of you are going anywhere until I’ve had a look at your shoes. If you’re lucky, I might let you keep your clothes.’
Sean and Donnelly entered the large, chaotic building that served as the South Norwood sorting office unannounced. Sean finished talking to Sally on his mobile and stuffed the phone into the pocket of his raincoat.
‘Well?’ Donnelly asked.
‘Sally, from the latest scene. Everything seems to indicate our boy has taken her.’
‘This is getting seriously out of hand,’ Donnelly warned. ‘A third victim — the media are gonna go crazy.’
‘Best we end it then, and quickly.’ Sean was preoccupied, looking around the inside of the cavernous building. The high ceilings and exposed pipework made it look more like the bowels of a giant ship than a place where mail was sorted. People in Royal Mail uniforms mingled with people dressed normally, adding to the feeling of disorganization. There seemed to be an absence of leadership or direction; although many of the workers had watched them suspiciously, no one had yet queried their presence. Losing patience with being ignored, Sean grabbed the next person who walked past. ‘I need to speak with a supervisor or a manager,’ he demanded.
‘Upstairs,’ the man stammered. ‘F-first floor.’ Sean followed the man’s eyes across the room to a wide metal staircase. ‘There’s signs,’ he added, unwilling to help further, aware of unfriendly eyes watching his every move.
‘Thanks,’ said Sean, holding on to the man’s arm a few seconds before releasing him. The man scuttled away, glancing over his shoulder.
The detectives crossed the room, staring hard at everyone they passed, hoping they might get lucky and spook someone into running. As soon as he’d chased the runaway down, Sean knew it would only take one look into his eyes to tell him whether it was their man.
Their shoes clanked loudly on the metal steps. ‘These stairs are murder on my old knees,’ Donnelly quipped. Sean ignored him, his mind already turned towards the supervisor they were yet to meet — the questions he would ask him; the threats and promises he would make to get the information he needed. He paused at the top of the stairs and looked around, breathing the stale air in deeply, listening to the sounds of the living building.
Donnelly walked on a few steps before he realized Sean had stopped. ‘Problem?’
Sean raised his hand to stop him saying more. ‘He works here.’ He was nodding to himself. ‘Our guy’s a real postman and he works here, in this sorting office.’
‘Maybe.’
‘No. Definitely,’ Sean insisted.
‘How do you know? We haven’t even confirmed this office covers all the abduction sites.’
‘It feels right. Everything about it feels right. I can feel him here. Can’t you?’
‘Let’s just say if it turns out he does work here I won’t exactly fall off my chair,’ said Donnelly. ‘But for now perhaps we should concentrate on getting hold of a supervisor — see if we can’t find some evidence to go with your gut feeling.’
‘What?’ Sean asked, his semi-trance broken. ‘Yeah, sure. Lead the way.’
The man Sean had accosted had been right about the signs — they were everywhere. They found one marked Supervisor and walked in the direction the arrow indicated, along narrow, gloomily lit corridors, passing cheap wooden doors adorned with white plastic name plates. It was Saturday and most of the side rooms were abandoned for the weekend. The detectives moved deeper into the upper floor of the building, searching for signs of life.
‘Fuck me, guv’nor, this place makes your average police station look positively cheery,’ Donnelly announced.
‘Not exactly big on security either,’ Sean agreed.
They kept walking until they finally found a room that had someone inside. The name plate said Supervisors Only. Sean knocked on the open door and waited for the man to turn around, but he carried on sitting with his back to them.
‘If it’s overtime you’re after, there’s plenty of it. If you want to change routes, you’ll have to fill in the forms,’ the man said without looking.
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Donnelly couldn’t resist saying, but at least it made the man turn around.
‘Who are you and what do you want?’ the supervisor asked in a slight West Indian accent.
Sean studied him for a few seconds before speaking. He had receding grey hair and a beard to match, spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose, a brown cardigan draped over his tall, slim torso, casual grey slacks flowing down to shoes that were more like slippers. He looked as if he should be at home in front of his ancient electric bar heater rather than at work. Retirement wasn’t far away, but he’d obviously decided to start practising already. Sean flipped his warrant card open and held it out.
‘DI Sean Corrigan, and this is DS Donnelly. We have a few questions I think you can help us with.’
‘If you’re here to arrest a member of staff you need to speak to the Post Office investigation team. I don’t want to get involved in any of that. If I do, their union will string me up and hang me out to dry, you understand?’
‘We’re not interested in any member of staff who may have been nicking credit cards or cash sent in the post by Grannie Whoever. There’s no need to get the Post Office investigation people involved,’ Donnelly told him.
‘Then why are you here?’
‘Watched much telly lately? Read any newspapers, Mr …?’ Donnelly continued.
‘Leonard Trewsbury, supervisor here, and if you’re asking whether I know what’s happening in the world then the answer is yes.’
Sean sensed an intelligence in the man’s eyes and an integrity in the way he held himself. ‘Then you’re probably aware that a couple of women were abducted last week. One of whom was subsequently found murdered?’
‘I saw it,’ Trewsbury answered. ‘A terrible thing, but terrible things happen in this world, don’t they? You gentlemen would know that better than most, I suppose.’
Sean found himself liking the man, his planned approach changing from aggression and threats to one of cooperation. ‘I need your help with something — something that could save a life, maybe two.’
‘Two?’ Trewsbury asked. ‘Then by the very nature of what you’ve just said, the man you are looking for must have abducted another woman?’
‘Unfortunately, yes,’ Sean confirmed.
‘What do you need from me?’
‘Access to your work records, employee details, unexplained absenteeism.’
‘I can’t show you that without a Production Order, and even then I’d have to speak to the Board of Directors. I can’t just give you access to that kind of information.’
‘I don’t have time to go through the proper channels,’ Sean told him. ‘One of the women he’s holding probably has less than forty-eight hours to live unless we find her. Her name is Louise Russell and she doesn’t deserve to die because of bureaucracy.’ The three men stared silently at each other for several seconds before Sean spoke again. ‘Anything you tell us will be off the record. It’ll never come out that we even spoke to you. Tell us what we need to know and we’ll find a way to make it look like the information came from someplace else, I promise. But I can’t walk out of here without information that could save lives, just because I don’t have a piece of paper with a judge’s signature on it. I can’t do that.’
Trewsbury considered this for a moment. ‘No, I don’t suppose you can. So, what do you want to know?’
Sean handed him a piece of paper pulled from his coat’s inside pocket. ‘These are the addresses the women were taken from. I need to find out who works those routes.’
‘Hold on a second,’ said Trewsbury. ‘I’ll need to log on to the system to find that out.’ He tapped the postcodes into the keyboard on his desk and waited a few seconds. ‘These addresses are on different routes, covered by three different guys: Mathew Bright, Mike Plant and Ari
f Saddique.’
‘Have you had problems with any of them?’ Sean asked.
‘No. They’re all good workers, keep themselves to themselves.’
‘Have they ever covered each other’s routes — say, if one of them was sick or on holiday, for instance?’
‘That information’s not going to be in the system, I’m afraid. There would be a paper trail, but it could take days to trace and cross-reference. I’ll do it for you if you still want to know, but I can’t do it straight away.’
‘I haven’t got that sort of time.’ Sean rubbed his temples with his middle fingers. ‘What about yesterday? Who covered the address in Streatham?’
‘Mathew Bright,’ Trewsbury answered unhesitatingly. ‘Same as he always does.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ queried Donnelly.
‘I was here yesterday and so were these three guys. No one covered for any of them.’
‘But this would have been in the afternoon,’ Sean told him, ‘some time after 2 p.m. That’s a bit late for post to be delivered.’
‘Not here it’s not,’ Trewsbury said. ‘We’ve got such a backlog we’re permanently paying guys overtime so they can catch up on deliveries, and yesterday was no different. Mathew was working all the way up to six o’clock.’
‘Tell me about him,’ said Sean. ‘Tell me about Mathew Bright.’
‘He’s not the man you’re looking for,’ Trewsbury insisted. ‘I’ve known him for years. He’s a straightforward family man who likes a pint with the boys every now and then. He’s as predictable as he is unintelligent.’
‘What does he look like?’ Sean asked.
‘He’s white, in his forties, a big man …’
‘It’s not him,’ Sean stopped him. ‘What about the other two? What do they look like?’
‘Plant is white and Saddique is obviously Asian, both in their fifties …’
Sean cut him off again. ‘In their fifties?’
‘I would say so.’
‘Then it’s not them either.’
‘Anything else you want me to try?’ offered Trewsbury.