At Your Door

by J. P. Carter

  She was about to fill Walker and Sweeny in on what Gayle had told her when her phone rang. She looked at the screen. It was DC Fellows, calling from headquarters with some unexpected news.

  ‘We’ve got a probable ID on the victim, ma’am,’ he said. ‘And I guarantee you’re not going to like it.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  For the second time in as many days Sophie Cameron had the uncomfortable feeling that she was being watched.

  She’d felt it yesterday when she strolled from her flat to the mini-mart on the corner. By the time she got there the familiar tingling sensation in her neck had spread through her body.

  Now, as she walked briskly along Shoreditch High Street, she felt it again. But just as before it didn’t appear as though she had seized the attention of any of her fellow pedestrians.

  She kept stopping to look back along the street and across the road. There were quite a few dubious-looking characters, both men and women, but none of them seemed interested in her.

  That didn’t mean she was imagining it, though. She knew from bitter experience that her instincts were sometimes spot on, especially when it came to Him.

  He had managed to track her down twice before, so had he done it again? Had he somehow located her in a city of nearly nine million people?

  The only person who knew that she was living and working in this part of East London was Lisa. And there was no way her best friend would ever tell anyone. Besides, even Lisa didn’t know her address or where exactly she worked. And whenever they met for a drink, which was about once a month, Lisa always took care to make sure she was never followed.

  Sophie stopped again to look behind her, but it was so sudden that a large woman clutching a carrier bag bumped into her.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Sophie said. ‘I didn’t mean …’

  ‘You should be more careful,’ the woman snapped. ‘In case you haven’t noticed you’re not the only person on the pavement.’

  The woman pushed past her and hurried on ahead, one of hundreds of people on the High Street who were anxious to get wherever they were going.

  It was the tail-end of the evening rush hour so the main artery through Shoreditch was at its busiest. As Sophie scanned the unfamiliar faces of those who swept past her, she was forced to concede that even if she was being watched or followed, she probably wouldn’t be able to spot her stalker.

  She just had to hope that it was indeed all in her mind, an unfounded bout of paranoia fuelled yet again by the fear that she hadn’t seen the last of the demon from her past.

  She needed a distraction so she fumbled in her handbag for her phone and earplugs. Then she started listening to her favourite Ed Sheeran tracks as she set off again. It was still only six-forty-five so at least she wasn’t going to be late.

  The dental clinic was around the next corner. On Thursday evenings she did the cleaning after the place closed for business. It was one of several private jobs she did to supplement the income from the company that employed her on a part-time basis. The clinic paid her £30 to clean the floors, polish all the surfaces and wipe the insides of the windows. It was easy money and came in handy.

  The clinic had already been closed for half an hour by the time Sophie got there. But as usual Claudia Myers, the young manager, was only just preparing to leave.

  ‘Hi there, Miss Cameron,’ she said with her usual bright smile. ‘How are you today?’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you, Claudia.’

  At twenty-three, Claudia was half Sophie’s age but twice her size. The girl blamed her obesity on the fact that she had type 2 diabetes. But if it bothered her she never showed it and she always struck Sophie as one of the happiest people she had ever come across.

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ Claudia asked, a frown tugging her eyebrows together. ‘You look flustered.’

  Sophie shrugged. ‘That’s because it’s still pretty warm out there and I’ve been walking fast.’

  Actually the truth is I’ve got myself in a state because I think someone has been following me.

  ‘Well, you’ll be glad to know that we finished earlier than usual today,’ Claudia said. ‘So I’ve done quite a bit of tidying up myself. I even managed to go round with the hoover so you only need to mop the floors.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have,’ Sophie said. ‘That’s what you pay me for.’

  ‘I know, but I had to hang around because I’m meeting a friend in the pub across the road. It gave me something to do. And speaking of pay, I’ve left your money in the usual place.’

  Claudia picked up her shoulder bag and headed for the door. But before stepping outside, she turned back to Sophie and said, ‘By the way, how is that girl of yours? You told me last week that she wasn’t very well.’

  ‘Oh, she’s absolutely fine,’ Sophie said. ‘It was just a tummy bug and it only lasted a few days. I’ve left her at home watching one of the latest teen movies.’

  ‘Well, be sure to give her my regards.’

  ‘I will.’

  After Claudia had gone, Sophie set to work. She went to the utility cupboard and took out what she needed. It wasn’t a big clinic. There were two treatment rooms, a small office, a unisex toilet, a waiting room and a carpeted reception area.

  It took Sophie an hour to get through it and she finished up back in reception where she sat on the leather sofa to drink a glass of water from the cooler.

  A bunch of magazines and a copy of the Evening Standard were spread haphazardly across the coffee table in front of her. It looked untidy so Sophie put the magazines in a neat pile and checked the date on the newspaper. It was a day old so she picked it up to put in the bin with the other rubbish she’d collected.

  But as she did so the paper fell open at a page dominated by three large photographs of a man, a woman and a toddler in a high chair. It was the photo of the man that jumped out at her.

  ‘Oh, dear God, it can’t be,’ Sophie gasped out loud.

  But a moment later, after checking the caption beneath the photo, the cold reality of what she was looking at caused a wave of panic to wash over her. And even before she began to read the words on the page, she knew that her life was about to implode yet again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Over an hour had passed since DC Fellows had called Anna to tell her they had a probable ID on the victim. Since then the team had gathered more information and they were now ninety-nine per cent sure they knew who she was.

  There would have to be a formal identification process, of course, but Anna was already working on the basis that the body on the common was that of twenty-three-year-old Holly Blake.

  It was good news in the sense that it gave the investigation a jump start. But the bad news was that her identity alone was going to ramp up the pressure on the team from the word go.

  ‘The media will be all over it just like they were with the nursery investigation,’ Anna told her detectives after racing back to headquarters. ‘So brace yourselves. And let’s just hope it will be an easy one to solve.’

  Anna had returned to Wandsworth in the pool car with DI Walker, leaving DC Sweeny to look after things at the common. She had wanted to put everyone in the picture and assign tasks as quickly as possible, and preferably before the press got wind of what was going on.

  The wheels of the investigation had already been put in motion. A whiteboard had been set up and on it was pinned a photograph of the victim downloaded from her Facebook account, plus images of her body in the undergrowth taken from Walker’s phone. In addition there was a map of the common showing roads that went around it and through it.

  As Anna stepped up to the board, the room fell silent, save for the ringing of a couple of phones. The nine detectives who were present were poised to take notes and ask questions.

  Anna tapped a finger against the photo of the woman. In it she was smiling at the camera, white teeth glistening, a sparkle in her bright blue eyes.

  ‘This is Holly Blake,’ she said. ‘A freelance m
odel aged twenty-three. She was reported missing by her mother yesterday because she hadn’t been seen or heard from since Tuesday. She bears a striking resemblance to the young woman found naked on Barnes Common earlier this evening. But that’s not all.’

  Anna moved away from the whiteboard to a large TV monitor mounted on a stand. She nodded at DC Fellows, who took it as his cue to bring the screen to life remotely from his desktop computer.

  The image that appeared was of Holly Blake’s Facebook profile and there was a montage of photographs showing her in various outfits and poses. She was quite beautiful, Anna noted, and it looked as though she had been brimming with life and confidence.

  Anna pointed to one particular photo which showed Holly standing on a beach in a bikini. She was glancing back over her shoulder while poking her tongue out at the camera. The photo suddenly filled the screen and Anna drew everyone’s attention to the tattoo between her shoulders.

  ‘The young woman on the common has an identical tattoo in exactly the same place,’ she said. The picture was replaced by another one showing Holly cupping her bare breasts in her hands. Anna indicated the silver ring on the middle finger of her left hand. ‘She also has a silver ring exactly like this one and on the same finger. I therefore have no doubt in my mind that it’s Holly Blake whose murder we’ll be investigating.’

  Anna turned back to her audience and took a long breath before continuing.

  ‘DI Walker and I will go see her parents straight after this briefing. They live in Pimlico. While we’re doing that I want DS Prescott and DC Niven to check out Holly’s flat. We have an address in Camden.

  ‘I’ll come to what we know about Holly and her family in a moment. And it’ll be pretty obvious to all of you why this is no run-of-the-mill case. But first let me put you in the picture regarding the scene up at the common.’

  Anna explained how dog walker Joyce Connor had stumbled across the body in the undergrowth. She pinpointed the location on the map and described the surrounding area.

  ‘The pathologist believes she was murdered elsewhere and left on the common shortly afterwards,’ she said. ‘The cause of death is almost certainly a single stab wound to the throat. She was stripped naked before her body was dumped and the killer or killers did not spend a lot of time trying to conceal her.

  ‘It’s believed she’s been dead for several days and it’s likely she was killed on Tuesday or Tuesday night. Nothing has so far been found at the scene to identify her. No phone. No clothes. No bag. At first light a search team will descend on the area but I’m not expecting them to turn up much vital evidence, if any. We believe the vehicle that carried her there parked next to the gate. But the ground around it has been trampled on so it’s unlikely we’ll get any clues from it.’

  As Anna spoke an image of the body resurfaced in her mind and it sent a chill down her spine. It was such a tragedy that a girl who obviously had so much going for her should end her life in such horrendous circumstances.

  ‘The obvious questions are these,’ Anna said. ‘Who killed her and why? When and where was the murder carried out? Why was the body dumped in that particular place? Was it because the killer was in a hurry or simply didn’t worry about it being discovered? And why was she stripped, since there seems to be no evidence as yet that she was sexually assaulted?’

  At this point Anna handed over to Walker, who was standing off to one side with a notebook in his hand.

  ‘I’ve already drawn up a list of checks that need to be carried out right away,’ he said. ‘So I’m afraid you will all be working late into the night.’ He looked down at his notes as he ran a hand across his bald head. ‘We need to pull Holly’s phone records and get the techies to go through her social media history. We know she’s been busy on Facebook for years. So check out Twitter, Instagram and the others.

  ‘There’s plenty of information online about her, including the fact that she’s on the books of a London-based modelling agency. From what I’ve seen it doesn’t appear that she was a hugely successful model. But she’s done jobs for fashion magazines, clothing catalogues and swimwear companies. Let’s also check all CCTV cameras around the common. Presumably her body was driven to the spot sometime on Tuesday or maybe early on Wednesday morning.’

  Walker then handed back to Anna, who signalled for DC Fellows to change the image on the TV monitor. Holly’s photo was replaced by a picture of a woman who looked like an older version of her. She had the same oval face, full lips and well-defined jawline.

  ‘This is Holly’s mother,’ Anna said. ‘As I’m sure you all know her name is Rebecca Blake, and she’s the reason that we’re going to be under pressure like never before. And that pressure won’t just come from the media. It will also come from the top brass in the Met and from the Home Office. At this stage we have no idea why Holly Blake was murdered. But we can’t rule out the possibility that it had something to do with her mother.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Having read the article in the Evening Standard, Sophie was struggling to keep her emotions in check. The words had proved as shocking as the three photographs that covered half the page.

  She continued to sit there in the clinic’s reception, her breath stalled as the blood pounded in her ears.

  She didn’t want to believe the evidence of her own eyes, but she had no choice. The facts, as laid out, spoke for themselves. They revealed a story that was both sensational and tragic. A story that revolved around a London police officer named Anna Tate.

  The woman’s photograph was the largest of the three that had been published to help illustrate the article. Sophie squinted at what she considered to be a plain, unremarkable face. Tate had sharp features and dark hair down to her shoulders. She was in her early forties, according to the paper, but looked older.

  Sophie let out her breath and returned her attention to the beginning of the article. She re-read it because her mind had struggled to take it all in the first time.

  But as soon as she started her anxiety grew, and a hard knot formed in her stomach.

  A MOTHER’S TEN YEAR NIGHTMARE

  An Evening Standard two-part exclusive

  DCI Anna Tate is the detective in charge of the Major Investigation Team based in South London.

  She made headlines two weeks ago when she led the hunt for the kidnappers of nine children from a nursery school in Rotherhithe.

  During the investigation it came to light that ten years ago her own two-year-old daughter Chloe was abducted and is still missing.

  Thanks to an extraordinary twist of fate the kidnapping case has led to a dramatic development in the search for Chloe – but it has also raised fresh fears over the girl’s safety.

  Anna has told her story to the Standard because she believes that the more people who know about it the more chance there is that she’ll one day be reunited with her daughter, who is now twelve.

  Sophie’s throat tightened suddenly and for a few seconds she had to fight to get the air into her lungs.

  The words on the page became blurred so she closed her eyes and willed herself to stay calm despite the panic that had seized her chest.

  She was briefly tempted to stop reading and to throw the paper in the bin. But she knew that wasn’t an option. She had exposed herself to a cold, hard truth and there was no way she could run from it.

  She snapped her eyes open and forced herself to take each breath slowly and carefully as she continued to read.

  Detective Anna Tate’s nightmare began one day in July 2009, six months after she divorced her husband, Matthew Dobson, because of his adultery. He’d been trying to persuade her to take him back but she’d refused. As a result he decided to seek revenge.

  He regularly looked after their daughter as part of a joint custody arrangement. But on that day he failed to take Chloe home when he was supposed to. Instead he disappeared with her and sent Anna a text message which read:

  You won’t let us be a family again because I made a stupid m
istake. So I’m starting my life afresh with my lovely daughter. Don’t bother trying to find us because you never will. You have yourself to blame, Anna. You should have known that I wouldn’t let you have a happy life if I couldn’t be a part of it … M

  Anna discovered that he had packed in his job, sold his car and moved out of his flat. As Anna’s police colleagues launched a hunt for Dobson and his daughter, it was feared he had taken her abroad.

  Horrific

  Anna heard nothing for ten years, but she didn’t give up searching for Chloe. She ran various social media campaigns which included a dedicated FindChloe Facebook page and website. And she hired a private investigator to try to find them.

  Then, just over two weeks ago, came the horrific abductions of the children from the Peabody Nursery School. Anna appeared on the television news and among the millions of people who saw her was a man named Paul Russell. He was compelled to contact her and his message was:

  If you can find the time to come and see me I can tell you what I know about your daughter and her father. And I can apologise for the part I played in what happened ten years ago.

  Anna went to see Paul Russell in a London hospice where he has since died of cancer. But in what amounts to a deathbed confession he revealed to Anna that he used to be a master forger who provided fake documents to criminals, illegal immigrants and anyone else who was willing to pay him.

  Passports

  Anna’s ex-husband was one of his customers. Matthew Dobson wanted fake passports for himself and his daughter. Russell produced them for him in the names of James and Alice Miller.

  This was a significant development as far as Anna was concerned, but another staggering revelation was to follow. Russell told her that Dobson had contacted him three years ago asking for more fake documents because he and Chloe were returning to the UK from whichever country they had been living in.

  Anna passed on this information to her private investigator who went on to find out that James Miller (aka Matthew Dobson) did indeed come back to the UK three years ago. However, shortly after setting up home in Southampton he was murdered.