‘Why don’t you go home?’ Henley said to Ramouter. ‘There’s only so much CCTV that you can go through before you drive yourself mad.’
Ramouter didn’t try to suppress the yawn. He had definitely lost the enthusiastic glow he’d had when she first met him on Watergate Street. ‘Are you sure?’ he said.
‘Go home, call your little boy, read him a bedtime story. Eat something healthy.’
‘Healthy? Have you seen my fridge?’ Ramouter paused to answer a call on his phone.
‘Yes… I see… When?’ Ramouter sat back. ‘OK. Any visitors… How long until she’s fit… Right… Call me if anything changes. Thank you.’
‘That was the hospital,’ Ramouter said. ‘Ade died fifteen minutes ago.’
Henley leaned back in her chair and put her hands to her head.
‘Also, Karen came out of surgery an hour ago. They couldn’t save her eye.’
‘You’re looking at me as if you expect me to feel sorry her,’ Henley said.
‘No, not for her. For Ade,’ Ramouter snapped. He stared at Henley as though he couldn’t believe the absurdity of her words. ‘It’s him that I feel sorry for. He didn’t deserve this. Karen is just as much to blame for his death as she is for Lauren Varma lying in pieces in a fridge down the road.’ He kicked over the wastepaper bin in anger. He swore as rubbish scattered across the floor.
‘Take a moment,’ Henley said. ‘Breathe.’
Ramouter composed himself. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. That was wrong.’
‘It’s OK. What did they say about visitors?’ Henley asked.
‘Her mum and one of the officers from the prison tried to visit in the morning. There hasn’t been anyone since she came out of surgery. No one else even resembling Olivier has been near the hospital.’
Henley put her phone down and pushed her chair back. Every bone in her body was crying out for a hot bath, half a sleeping tablet, and bed.
‘They tried to bring him out of the induced coma,’ Ramouter said. ‘But he suffered a brain bleed. He worked for the prison service for twenty years.’
‘Go home,’ Henley said firmly. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
She watched as he walked out of the office. His shoulders were low, the air around him defeated.
Henley pushed her keyboard away in frustration. It slammed against the mug, sending the last dregs of her coffee spilling out across her desk. She scrambled to mop up the mess with tissues.
‘You OK?’
Henley hadn’t noticed that Pellacia had left his office. She didn’t have the energy to lie to him.
‘No. The other prison officer, Ade, died. Pine has disappeared into the wind, and even if he was sitting right in front of us right now, it wouldn’t make a difference. All I’ve got is an identification from a drug addict who was off his face, partial prints that I can’t match to anyone—’
Pellacia sat watching Henley even though her face was turned away watching the window.
‘Come home with me,’ Pellacia said as he leaned forward and put his hand on Henley’s leg.
She didn’t push it aside. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘After everything that’s happened, I don’t think that it’s a good idea and I’m knackered.’
‘Which one is the excuse?’
Henley turned. ‘Neither of them.’
Pellacia looked down at the ground.
‘You and I are straightforward, you know,’ he said. ‘Out of all this. You and I are the only thing that actually makes sense. Whether it’s as friends or as more. We’re straightforward, Anj. It’s only everything else around us that is complicated.’
Henley didn’t get a chance to answer because at that moment her mobile phone began to ring. She pulled a face when she saw the name that was flashing on the screen. It was Agent Chris Synder from the National Crime Agency. She had known Chris back when he had been a DC at Lewisham police station, but it was gone 10 p.m. It was unlikely that he was calling for a chat. She showed the screen to Pellacia, just as his own phone began to ring.
‘Hello, Chris – what is it?’ Henley asked.
‘All right, Anjelica. I know that it’s a bit late in the day…’ said Chris.
‘That’s an understatement.’
‘We’ve got a problem. Michael Kirkpatrick has gone missing.’
Chapter 92
Michael Kirkpatrick, juror ten, had been annoying and uncooperative, but at no point did Henley want him to be the copycat’s fifth victim. When she arrived at Michael Kirkpatrick’s home in Streatham, there were a group of officers passing the baton of blame between them. Ramouter had just taken his dinner out of the microwave when Henley had called with the update. It had taken a lot of convincing before he agreed to stay where he was.
Chris Snyder walked up to Henley. ‘Didn’t mean to drag you out.’
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘I got a message on Friday morning from the UKPPS that Kirkpatrick was no longer consenting to personal protection. I made my position clear that I was not authorising the withdrawal of his protection, but I don’t know… There were crossed wires somewhere.’
‘Crossed wires? Chris, this was a fuck-up. Plain and simple. You lot were supposed to be keeping an eye on him,’ said Henley.
‘I know,’ said Chris sullenly. ‘Is there any news on the others?’
‘Naomi Spencer is still in Vietnam. Hamilton Bryce is safe but they’ve relocated him as a precaution. Officers are with Naylor at his home, and Jessica Talbot and her family are in a safe house; only Dominic Pine is unaccounted for.’ Henley stopped and took a breath. She could feel the enormity of the case on her shoulders.
‘Talk me through what happened,’ Henley said as they stopped at the door.
‘No one has seen Michael Kirkpatrick since he left Leadenhall Market on Friday night at around 8.45 p.m.,’ explained Chris. ‘According to his colleague, Scott Boxtree, they both left work at around quarter to six and went for just the one. He thinks that they had had about three pints and then they both walked to London Bridge. Boxtree got the Tube to Walthamstow and he assumed that Michael went home.’
The house consisted of six flats spread over three floors. Michael Kirkpatrick lived in Flat B on the ground floor. The door was wide open and there were officers inside. At the other end of the corridor an officer was talking to a Chinese woman who looked angry.
‘That’s his girlfriend, Anna. She was away on a business trip and says that she spoke to him two nights ago. She tried to call him yesterday, but he didn’t pick up, so she called him at work—’
‘And he wasn’t there?’ Henley took the plastic gloves from one of the uniformed officers standing by the door.
‘No. She called Scott and he said that Michael hadn’t turned up. We’ve checked with his line manager and he didn’t call in sick. She got home after nine and saw this.’ Chris pointed towards Michael’s flat.
Henley checked the front door. There were no signs of forced entry. A pile of letters and takeaway menus were stacked neatly on a side table, but that was the only sign of order in the flat. There was a large green stain on the floor with broken glass nearby. The framed Liverpool football shirt had a large crack in the glass and the coffee table was at an odd angle in the centre of the room as though it had been roughly pushed aside.
‘Where’s CSI?’ Henley asked.
‘I’ve been chasing. It’s been one of those mad nights. But we should be getting someone down here within the hour.’
‘Did any neighbours report a disturbance?’
Chris shook his head. ‘Nothing reported. The couple in the flat opposite said that they only really saw Michael on the weekend. Passing ships and all that.’
In her mind’s eye Henley could see what had happened. Someone had surprised Michael at the door and pushed him through. Judging by the shattered flowerpot and soil spread across the floor, there had been a struggle. From what Henley remembered, Michael Kirkpatrick looked as though he coul
d handle himself. He had definitely fought back. As she examined the dirt on the floor, two things caught her eye. A footmark and an orange cap, about two inches long. It looked like the cover for a syringe.
‘Do me a favour. You remember Anthony? Our senior forensic investigator,’ Henley said to Chris.
‘How could I forget. We still use him. First on my list. Want me to call him?’
‘If we can’t get the locals to pull their fingers out then call Anthony. I’m sure that the NCA must have some influence.’
‘Miss working with you,’ Chris said as he pulled out his phone.
Henley looked back at the scene. Michael Kirkpatrick had definitely been taken from home. If he was going out for his run at around 6 a.m., then that would have fitted with the time that Pine had turned his MDT off. In seven hours, Michael Kirkpatrick would have been gone for forty-eight hours. If Henley had to guess, it would be another twenty-four hours before he was found in pieces somewhere in south-east London.
A light drizzle had begun to fall outside. A woman was smoking on the doorstep of the house next door. There were others, even at this hour, looking out from windows at the commotion. Henley walked over to a young PC. He straightened himself as they all did when he noticed her police ID.
‘Can I help you, ma’am?’ he said.
‘Yeah, you can. Have you spoken to any of the neighbours?’ Henley asked.
‘Yes, we did. PC Ogbanna and I spoke to the neighbours. No one saw anything or provided anything useful, but Ms Landry—’
He pointed to the woman standing on the doorstep smoking. She looked directly at Henley before throwing the cigarette butt onto the ground and going back inside.
‘She said that she knew Michael Kirkpatrick, but only in passing. He had helped her with her buggy a few times. She says that yesterday morning after 6 a.m. she had stepped out to have a cigarette. Her husband doesn’t like her smoking in the house and the baby was sleeping.’
‘What did she see?’ asked Henley.
‘An ambulance. Not a big one but the one that’s like—’
‘Like a car.’
‘Yeah, an estate. She said that she didn’t take much notice. She saw it pull in next door but then the baby woke up and she went back in.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Not really. Just said that she thought it was odd because she didn’t hear any sirens.’
Chapter 93
The CSI team hadn’t arrived by the time Henley had left Michael Kirkpatrick’s home. Anthony was en route to a shooting on the Kingsland Road, but had promised to dispatch two of his team with unrealistic promises of paid overtime. Henley could feel the anger overwhelming her as she walked back to her car. Someone had dropped the ball and no one was taking responsibility. She was doing everything that she was trained to do, to the best of her ability, but it didn’t feel as though it was enough. As if she wasn’t enough.
Henley drove back towards Greenwich. The electoral roll register checks had produced negative results. Pine hadn’t bothered to register at all, once he was released from prison.
‘There must be something?’ Henley said to herself. She drove down Brixton Hill heading towards Greenwich. She picked up the phone and called Ezra.
‘Ezra, I’m really sorry to bother you so late,’ Henley said, while stopped at the traffic lights outside Brixton prison.
‘That’s all right. But I might have you talk to my girl, she nearly accused me of having a side chick.’
‘I’ll speak to her afterwards if you like. I need to know if you can do something for me. It’s urgent but—’
‘Say no more. What do you need?’
‘An address. I can give you a name and date of birth, but we keep hitting a brick wall when it comes to where he may be living now. I just thought that maybe bank accounts, phone, council tax—’
‘OK, OK. I’ve got you,’ said Ezra.
‘I owe you, Ez,’ said Henley. As she gave him the only personal information that she had on Dominic Pine, it wasn’t lost on her what she was asking Ezra to do. It was no different to what he had been sent to prison for, but at this point she couldn’t see another way. Michael Kirkpatrick had gone from a ‘missing person’ to ‘kidnapped’ and there was every possibility that in twenty-four hours he would be dead.
‘What are you doing here?’ Henley asked as she walked into the kitchenette of the SCU.
Ramouter was dressed in jeans and a hoodie, waiting for the kettle to boil.
‘It didn’t feel right to be sitting at home watching football highlights when he’s taken another one. Tea?’
‘Thank you. That would be great.’
Henley gave Ramouter a summary of what she had seen at Michael Kirkpatrick’s flat and what the neighbour had seen. Ramouter shook his head and swore in the right places.
‘So, what do you think?’ Ramouter asked as he pushed over the packet of jammy dodgers towards Henley. ‘Is he just sticking with his plan or do you reckon that we’ve escalated things?’
‘If anyone has escalated things, it’s Olivier by killing Lauren Varma. This is not our fault.’ Henley dunked her biscuit in her tea. ‘Our copycat’s cooling-off period is over. That’s all. If we were going to look for the positive…’ Henley rolled her eyes at the absurdity of looking for the positive in this situation. ‘He’s on the move and he’s not being careful. He’s never taken anyone from their home before. My theory is that he’s watching all of the jurors. He knows their work patterns, where they live. He’s taken them out in the open. I mean, who in their right mind will be suspicious about an ambulance? If you were out on the street, whether in your car or walking, what’s your natural instinct?’
Ramouter leaned back. ‘Once you hear those bloody sirens, you stop. If you’re driving, you’ll always pull to the side.’
‘But you never think that it’s suspicious, do you? You may be curious, but you definitely don’t think that it’s dodgy. Unless it turns up at someone’s house with no sirens, no blue lights and you disappear just as quietly.’
‘Pine is using the ambulance to pick up his victims. Taking them somewhere and then he has to return it back to—’
‘Back to the station. He uses the same FRU every time. There has to be DNA from at least one of the victims. I don’t care how good or careful you are, I doubt that Pine could clean a vehicle that well to remove every trace of evidence.’
‘But we can’t just march down to the station and ask if we can borrow their FRU. At the moment we’re running our investigation on hypotheses and assumptions.’
Henley didn’t disagree. They sat in silence, drinking their tea, both wishing that it was something stronger.
‘So, what’s the plan?’ Ramouter asked.
Henley was about to tell him that the tea and the chat had been a welcome distraction, but it was almost 1 a.m. and that maybe he should go home – then the phone rang.
‘Ez,’ said Henley. She hadn’t been expecting to hear from him this quickly.
‘Grab a pen,’ Ezra said. ‘I’ve got two addresses. The first is 76 Beech Avenue in Bexleyheath. He’s got a bank account registered to that address and there’s also an Eileen and Ivan living there. Have you got that?’
‘Yeah, I have.’ Henley scribbled the address down on the back of an envelope. ‘Next one.’
‘158 Hanover Street, Camberwell. Electricity, gas, water and mobile phone contract.’
Henley thanked Ezra and told him to take the morning off and that she would clear it with Pellacia.
‘Boss, before you go,’ said Ezra, ‘remember the cell site map. Have you still got it?’
‘Hold on a sec.’ Henley reached for the folded sheet of paper that was underneath a copy of yesterday’s Metro. ‘Got it.’
‘Can you see it?’
‘Shit,’ she said as she placed her finger in the space where the three circles that Ezra had drawn overlapped. In the middle of that space was Hanover Street. If there was any hope of finding Michael Kirkpatrick
in one piece, then she needed to get to Camberwell, now.
Chapter 94
158 Hanover Street was the last house in a long row of terraces. The front was obscured by overgrown rosebushes and Japanese knotweed. Like a couple of the other houses on the street, there was a skip in the small front garden filled with broken pieces of plasterboard and wood. To the left-hand side was a wooden door with peeling black paint which Henley guessed led to the back garden. Even though it was now the early hours of the morning, the street was not silent.
‘What do you think?’ Ramouter looked up at the house.
‘Let’s take a quick look around,’ said Henley.
‘You don’t want to wait for back-up?’
‘They’re fifteen minutes away. We’re just looking,’ Henley repeated, not sure if Ramouter believed a word of it.
The garden wall was at least six feet high and there was no way that she could see over it, but she noticed an alley running behind it. Ramouter followed her as she walked through the alley, disturbing a fox who stared at them for a few seconds before running off. She stopped at the wooden gate. The back garden wasn’t as overgrown as the front. She peered through the slats and could see the rear of the house. The kitchen window and back door were covered in sheets of newspaper. To the right she could see the roof of a shed. She tried the handle on the gate again and could hear a metal padlock on the other side, knocking against the wood. As she did so, she thought that she heard the sound of banging.
‘Did you hear that?’ Henley whispered to Ramouter. He shook his head.
She pulled at the handle again and this time they both heard it. The sound of banging and then a dull thud coming from the shed. Just then a light switched on inside the house. Henley could see the faint outline of a figure in a frosted first-floor window.
‘Someone’s in,’ Henley said to Ramouter. ‘Knock on the door and see if he lets you in.’
‘But what do I say to him. If it is him?’
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