by Peter James
Grace masked the disappointment in his voice that the comparisons were not more certain. “Well, that’s helpful, Haydn. It’s not conclusive, as you say, but it’s one more pointer in his direction.” As he ended the call, he heard a car pull up outside.
Both detectives went to the front door and outside into the darkness.
A young, enthusiastic uniformed constable, Pete Coppard, ran toward them brandishing a piece of paper, a huge smile on his face. “I’ve got it signed, sir, Detective Superintendent Grace! The search warrant. JP Juliet Smith signed it for me—she was so helpful!”
Moments later eight officers from the Local Support Team, in body armor, approached Unit R-73. They were followed by Grace and Branson huddled against the freezing cold in their coats. A frost was already starting to coat the ground. One dog handler had been dispatched to cover the rear of the mobile home and the other the main rear entrance to the park, just in case the helicopter had missed someone inside, who made a run for it.
The first two LST officers climbed the steps at the front, paused for several seconds, then one swung the bosher at the front door. It bounced off it. The officer behind him then placed both arms of the hydraulic ram against the sides of the door frame and fired it up. The frame creaked and groaned, then buckled.
The first officer swung the bosher again, and this time the door budged a fraction, with paint flaking off. He swung the bosher again, then again, the door giving way a fraction more each time. Then he stopped to take a breather. “What the sodding hell is this?” he said. “Fort bloody Knox?”
He swung the yellow bosher one more time and the door gave way, violently slamming right back on itself. Instantly two more LST officers scrambled up the steps and entered.
Grace, standing back, saw flashlight beams piercing the interior as the initial assessment was made.
After about thirty seconds, interior lights flickered on. The LST Inspector, John Walton, a tall, lean, highly experienced public order policeman, appeared at the door. “No one here, sir,” he said to Roy Grace. “Bit of a weird place though!”
Grace stepped inside, followed by Branson. The interior felt much larger than it had appeared from outside, and felt even colder than outside; it was like an icebox. He wrinkled his nose at a faintly rancid smell, like days-old spilled milk that had not been properly mopped up. There was a seating area around a wooden dining table, on which was a tall stack of newspapers and a tower of box files. Opposite was a built-in sofa that probably converted into an extra bed, Grace thought, on which were more box files stacked up. There was a large, wall-mounted television, with a tidy galley kitchen area just beyond it. Through an open concertina-door he could see a bed. He clocked it all, but barely took any of it in. It was the walls he could not stop looking at.
“Shit,” Glenn Branson said, peering down at the date of the top newspaper. The headline story was the suspected abduction of Logan Somerville. “This is last Saturday’s—he’s been here recently.” He pulled on gloves and began leafing through the pile.
Grace barely heard him. His eyes scanned the walls. Almost every inch of them, and the windows, with their closed shutters, was covered with photographs, all the same eight-by-ten size. Each was tagged with a typewritten note and date. Headshots of young women, their ages ranging from late teens to mid-twenties, Grace estimated. Some were tight close-ups, some showing part of the upper body as well. Photographs taken mostly outside, in public places—in many were recognizable backdrops of Brighton and Hove. The one common denominator between all of the women was their hairstyles.
Each had long brown hair.
A chill rippled through Grace. He stood still, staring around, and shivered from the cold, and from what he was looking at. In the silence he heard a clicking sound from the fridge, then a low hum as it started up. He peered closely at one photograph, a smiling woman in her early twenties, wearing dark glasses, and read the note that was attached as a strip to the base.
July 23rd 1983. On Volks Railway. Ainsley? (snk) V.
Further along he saw photographs of two different women from different months in 1984. Between them was a gap, where a photograph had been removed. There was another gap further along the same section. Katy Westerham and Denise Patterson, he wondered?
The photographs were in date order, running right the way around the interior. He looked at another. This one was younger, sixteen or seventeen tops, he estimated. She had a mischievous look and was holding a stick of Brighton rock between her lips in a suggestive pose—but the pose was to someone other than the person who had taken this, Grace suspected. Some of the pictures appeared to have been taken from a distance.
Aug 21st, 2011. Btn Pier. Megan Walters L. Followed. Flat 7, 233 Havelock Street. 3 girls.
“What does that mean?” Branson pointed at the “snk” and “V” after Ainsley’s name.
Grace frowned. Then looked at the “V” after Ainsley’s again. He checked other photos and all had a tiny “V” or “L” after their names. Some had “snk” as well, others not. Then he realized.
“SNK—surname not known,” he said.
Branson nodded. “You’re getting sharper in your old age.”
Ignoring the jape, Grace said, “V is for visitor, L for local. He’s hunting. This is his hunting room.”
“So we should find Logan Somerville’s mugshot here?”
“No.” Grace pointed at other gaps where photos had been stuck with Blu-Tack. “We won’t find Denise Patterson, Emma Johnson, Katy Westerham or Ashleigh Stanford.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Logan Somerville or Freya Northrop, either. All these are the women he hasn’t yet taken. He removes their photographs when he’s taken them.”
The last photograph showed a pretty, rather aloof-looking girl of around twenty, with a model’s poise, seated on an outdoor terrace, smoking a cigarette.
May 17th, 2014. Bohemia. Louise Masters. L. Followed. Flat 1b, Palmeira Villas, Brighton. Solo.
She looked vaguely familiar. He recognized her face but couldn’t place it, nor her name. He had definitely seen her somewhere. He always remembered faces.
Louise Masters.
The name was also vaguely familiar, too. From where?
The last photograph on the wall. The Brander’s last target here? Before? Before he moved on?
He called Directory Inquiries, gave Masters’s name and address and asked for her number. Moments later it was texted through to him. He dialed it. After six rings he got her voicemail. A really friendly, strong, confident voice.
“It’s Louise. If you’re getting this I must be out. Leave a message or if it’s urgent call my mob.” She gave her number.
Grace wrote it down and immediately dialed it. It went straight to voicemail. He left a message. “Hello, Louise Masters, would you please call Detective Superintendent Grace of Surrey and Sussex CID the moment you get this. The time is 6:50 p.m. Saturday. It is extremely urgent.” Grace left his number, reading it out twice for safety, slowly and clearly.
Another, much deeper shiver rippled through his bones. He called the Critical Incident Manager. The moment Chief Inspector Tingley answered, Roy Grace said, “Jason, our man could be targeting a Louise Masters, Flat 1b, Palmeira Villas—she fits his profile and I think she could be his next victim. I’ve tried calling her and she’s not picking up. He could even be at the premises now. Can you get a unit there to check on her? She needs to be found as an absolute priority, and I want an officer to be with her around the clock until we’ve found our man.”
“What if she’s not there, Roy?”
“I’m going to keep trying her number. I really do think she could be in immediate danger. She’s next on his list after Freya Northrop. If he’s watching her, this could be a perfect time for him to take her. Saturday night, maybe she’s out on a date, or with friends. I’m going to e-mail you a photograph of her—can you get it circulated to every officer and get them to look for her in every bar and club in the city? Someone has to k
now her, and where she is. Hopefully she’s heeded our advice to be accompanied.”
“I’ll put a team on it now, Roy, and get someone over to her home address.”
Grace thanked him and hung up, then immediately took a shot of her photograph on his phone and sent it to Tingley.
God, please don’t let her be taken, too, he thought, fervently. For God’s sake please don’t.
Then he tugged a pair of gloves from his pocket, snapped them on and opened the fridge door. He saw on the shelves a half-empty bottle of semi-skimmed milk, several apples, a row of energy bars, a tub of Lurpak butter, and two large plastic bottles of Evian water. On one of the shelves inside the door was a row of unlabeled vials. He made a mental note that these would need to be examined in due course.
He lifted out the milk and looked at the “use-by” date. It had four days still to go.
He looked down at the copy of the Argus. When had Hunter last been here? Presumably from the fact that he hadn’t discarded the milk, he was planning to return some time soon, he thought. But how soon? Within four days? What if he was on his way here now, he wondered, with alarm?
If Hunter saw the police activity, he’d run.
He asked the LST inspector, urgently, to move his vehicles out of sight, and to position officers to watch the front entrance from hidden positions. He told the dog handlers to move their vehicle out of sight, too. Then he phoned the Crime Scene Manager, told him he wanted to keep the site under observation for the next two hours, but after that to send in a Search Team and treat the trailer as a crime scene.
He shivered again. From the cold. From tiredness. But most of all, he knew, from the sheer damned creepiness of this place. This was not anyone’s holiday home. This was a lair. The Brander’s lair.
What did this creep do? Sit in here? Staring at the photographs and touching himself? Choosing his next victim?
He asked the officers to leave, in order to avoid further contamination as a proper crime scene, and followed them. He closed the trailer door as best he could. In the darkness the damage would not be immediately visible to Hunter until he got close. Then he went back to his car and sat in the darkness. It gave him time to think through what he had found and the way the investigation was proceeding, confirming his instincts that Crisp and Hunter were strongly connected in the abductions and deaths of these women.
Forty minutes later his phone rang. “Roy Grace,” he answered instantly, hoping it might be Louise Masters. But it was Chief Inspector Tingley and he was sounding grim.
“Roy,” the CIM said. “I’ve just found out Louise Masters is a young officer here at John Street, recently finished her probation and joined the Neighborhood Policing Team. She’s on lates at the moment and her shift started at four p.m. But she hasn’t turned up, hasn’t called in sick, and no one’s been able to reach her. She’s not picking up and hasn’t returned any calls. Her boyfriend’s a PC on Response here, Adrian Gonzales. I’ve just spoken to him. He last saw her at eleven a.m.—she was going into town to do some Christmas shopping before starting her shift. He’s checked her flat and she’s not there.”
Grace had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Shit,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit.” His mind momentarily became a blur. “Jason, we should be able to track her movements from mobile phone triangulation. And if she was going shopping we could find out what she spent on her credit card and where—her boyfriend might know what kind of card she has. If we can establish where she was shopping we might be able to locate her on CCTV cameras in that vicinity.”
“I agree, Roy,” Tingley said. “I assume you’ll be tasking your team with this?”
As soon as he had finished the call, Roy Grace radioed the Control Room and asked to be put through to the Surveillance Team at Crisp’s house. What the surveillance officer reported back was not what Grace was expecting to hear. The doctor hadn’t appeared to have left his house since his early morning walk with his dog.
91
Saturday 20 December
Logan heard noises. A strong female voice shouting. “Let me go, you bastard! Let me—let me—let me—ouch! Let me—”
Who was it? What was happening?
The voice sounded weaker by the second.
Then silence.
What the hell had happened? What had happened to the other women she’d heard in here?
Moments later she heard the familiar sound of the roof of her prison sliding back and she squirmed in terror. A water tube was pushed into her mouth and she drank, greedily, desperately. She’d lost track of how long it had been since her last drink.
“Good news!” her captor growled. “You have a companion now! That means you’ll be leaving soon. Very soon!”
She gasped, “What do you mean? Please tell me. Please tell me what’s happening? What’s happened to the other people here—I heard their voices. Who are you, please tell me? Please let me go, don’t kill me, please let me live.”
“I’ll bring you your last meal here, before you go.”
“Thank you,” she said, her voice shaky.
“Oh, you are most welcome. As my longest stay guest, and one of my least troublesome ones, you really are most welcome!”
92
Saturday 20 December
“If Dr. Crisp’s been home all day, does that mean we’re back to square one?” Branson asked.
“No. Not necessarily. There could be another explanation for Louise Masters not turning up for her shift.”
Branson gave him a sideways look. “Ockham’s Razor? Remember what you taught me about that?”
“Yes.”
William of Ockham was a thirteenth-century monk who had a profound influence on centuries of intellectual thought after his death. He believed in taking a razor to cut to the core of any conundrum. That the simplest and most obvious explanation was usually the right one. It was a principle that Roy Grace used frequently.
“So,” Glenn Branson said. “Louise Masters, last on the Brander’s hit list, has disappeared. Isn’t the simplest explanation that we are looking in the wrong direction with Crisp? Surely now we’ve found this mobile home belonging to Hunter with all that stuff in?”
Grace nodded. “While we’ve been sitting here, I’ve been thinking. Crisp and Hunter may be far more connected than we’d originally thought—I think they might well be the same person.” He had been wondering if he’d fallen foul of his own rule, earlier, that the danger of having a credible suspect was the temptation to focus on them and ignore everything else. But he felt he had sidestepped that trap.
Was there anything else he had ignored? Something that was staring him in the face?
He pictured in his mind the claustrophobic walls of the mobile home. The photographs of the Brander’s possible victims. Was he mistaken about these? About the offender? Now he had a new boss who inherently disliked him. And he knew fine well that Pewe was waiting in the wings of this operation for him to screw up.
Where the hell are you, Louise Masters?
Then his phone rang. “Roy Grace,” he answered immediately. And heard the instantly recognizable West Country accent of Norman Potting.
“Boss, I have some information for you that I think you’re going to like.”
“Tell me?”
“I’ve just got back to MIR-1 from The Cloisters school and there was an urgent message from the lab. I’d sent them the Post-it note on which I had Dr. Crisp write his mobile phone number for fingerprint and DNA analysis.”
“Yes?”
“I called the lab. The DNA is a strong match with the blood found at Freya Northrop’s house on Thursday.”
“How strong—close?” Grace felt a surge of adrenaline.
“There’s a lot of figures and calculations I need to have explained to me,” Potting said. “But the summary is pretty conclusive. One billion to one chance of it not being Crisp. That conclusive enough?”
“It’ll do!” Roy Grace said, a huge grin breaking out on his face.
He thanked Potting then instantly rang the Critical Incident Manager.
93
Saturday 20 December
Two hours later, in the conference room of the CID HQ, Roy Grace barely needed the caffeine hit from the mug of coffee in front of him. He was running on adrenaline now, his thoughts crystal clear, totally focused.
He stood with his back to a row of whiteboards. Seated attentively—and apprehensively—around the table in front of him were Glenn Branson, Tanja Cale, Guy Batchelor, and the team leaders he had selected, whose Saturday-night plans were now in tatters. But no one was complaining. They all sensed the same infectious anticipation that was coursing through his own veins. The thrill of the chase, of closing in on their quarry.
Everyone present was dressed in dark clothing, mostly black except for the Local Support Team, who would be going in first in navy fatigues that would be covered in parts with body armor. Several of the officers in the room had mugs of tea or coffee, and were munching sandwiches, chocolate or energy bars.
The briefing of the team was being managed by the Critical Incident Manager and Roy Grace. Their team leaders included the Duty Inspector of the Local Support Team, Anthony Martin, and an LST sergeant, a Tactical Firearms Unit Sergeant, an Exhibits officer, a senior CSI, the Custody Inspector, a Crime Scenes Manager, a Public Order Team Inspector, a Dog Unit Sergeant, and Grace’s friend, Inspector James Biggs, from the Road Policing Unit, who had already moved units into place, ready to create a cordon of roadblocks around Crisp’s neighborhood from the moment Grace’s team went in, in case Crisp attempted a runner.
On one whiteboard was a street plan showing Tongdean Villas and the immediate surrounding streets, bounded by Dyke Road Avenue, Shirley Drive, Tongdean Road and Woodruff Avenue. The area contained within these borders comprised some of the most expensive and exclusive real estate in the city.