‘What is it?’
‘She was worried as hell, you know.’
‘Yeah, well she lost all rights to be worried when she lost her rights to freedom, didn’t she?’
He sighed. ‘She’s paying for her crimes in prison but she’s still your sister. You were stabbed. She couldn’t get to you, see you. It hurt her.’
‘I have to go. I need to get some sleep before I get back into work early tomorrow. Night, Dad.’
Another sigh. ‘Night, Hannah. And thank you.’
I wrapped my arms around him and he squeezed me tight. ‘Night, Dad.’ I had to leave; we were about to go round in circles again. He couldn’t grasp where I was coming from. We were all he had since Mum died, I knew that, but I couldn’t forgive Zoe. She was my sister, but my anger towards her was still too raw to speak to her, it was still too raw to speak about her.
The position she had put me in before she’d been arrested was unbearable. She’d nearly cost me my job, my career – or she would have done if the people I knew had taken things at face value.
68
2 weeks ago
People forget. It’s easy for them to move on with their lives. To not pick up the phone. To not visit. Life is busy they say when they bump into you, their eyes wary. Like rabbits caught in the headlights. What should they do? What should they say? They’d forgotten, but they can see it’s not been that easy here for you. They look about them for a reason to leave quickly, their mouths moving rapidly with platitudes, trying to fill the void with anything but the truth – that it all became too difficult, so they forgot and they moved on. They don’t know the loss, the pain, the heartache, loneliness, and the deep soul-wrenching agony of something torn away. They forget the promises of help, support and of being there for them that they uttered at the start. Those promises had expiry dates on them, yet they were unspoken. Presumed known. But what were they supposed to do? They had lives.
Lucky them.
Now, as they stand here, Connie looks shrunken to Isaac. Like a rag doll that has been put in the wash on hot, and high spin, and left on the side to dry in the sun. Shoulders curled over, as though she wants to hide herself away as much as she can. He knows she doesn’t like to go out of the house but the necessities need doing and he hates to see her wither inside so he pulls her out with him once a week but when this happens it hurts.
How are they supposed to move on from this so quickly, or at all? It’s not a pet dog they’ve lost. There isn’t a time frame for when the pain will start to lessen. Here they were in that awkward position of being the people no one wanted to bump into. Connie didn’t have the strength to pretend she was any better than she was, and stammered at the inane babbling of their so-called friend. The odd hand that reached out and touched her arm for a split second made her jump. Human touch, aside from Isaac’s, wasn’t something she had experienced in a while. It was alien and forced. He could see she wanted to cry out. To howl out at the world. But she held it in. They both held it in. But the agony of holding it in was tearing them apart shred by tiny shred.
Eventually, the empty chatter stopped. An excuse was found and the used-to-be friend moved on. Connie sighed. Isaac felt the knot of anger in his gut grow ever tighter.
69
The morning papers were nearly as much our nemesis as the killer. I could see this etched on Catherine’s face as I sat in her office with Grey, the morning briefing only fifteen minutes away. She was calm. It was as though she had worked out there was no point in raising her blood pressure because it was all misdirected anger. I wasn’t going to defend the Today because of Ethan, but there would be no story to write if there were no killings of this kind to write about.
‘Police Failure Puts Residents At Further Risk. Really? They’re going with that today?’
I didn’t answer her. It pretty much explained itself as a rhetorical question as she turned her back to us and looked out the window at the secure police car park below. Last night had seen another public order incident over food stuffs and this in a supermarket. The Today was obviously running with it. The pressure to bring in the killer was mounting with the people of the city getting nervous.
‘I want Claire in here as soon as she gets in this morning. We need to be responding to this.’ She turned back to face us. ‘We can’t sit back and let them take pot shots at us and watch the whole of Notts crumble before our eyes. We need to get in front of it. Or at least catch up with it.’ She was obviously calming down as she now sat in her chair, smoothing her trousers down at the knees. ‘We’ve been on the back foot this whole time. I have to admit that. I never in a lifetime expected something of this magnitude to ever come across my desk and have to be dealt with while I sat here.’ She eyed us up as though looking into our souls for evidence we might repeat her confession of not being prepared or acting correctly to a job. I didn’t move. I had Grey at the side of me and that’s what supervisors were for. If anyone was going to be eaten alive today, it certainly wasn’t going to be me.
Grey was statue still, which was unusual for him. The man who always fidgeted with his fingers was rigid. With fear? Someone needed to speak next, not just allow Catherine to speak to herself, which was likely to get her more annoyed than she already was as she spiralled around in anger at the situation.
‘I’ll speak to Claire, Ma’am. Make sure she’s apprised of your request to see her. We still have a lot of enquiries to continue with today so we could make some headway that will knock the Today off their perch. But I agree, it’s not good for the community. Chief Superintendent Youens will not like waking up to this today, either.’
She groaned. ‘Don’t remind me. Another call I’m going to have to be smoothing over. It seems that recently I am spending all my time making promises we can’t keep or apologising for things we do.’ She looked at Grey. ‘And the hammer is not just going to fall on my head.’
His fingers twitched. ‘I’ll go back to see Youens while Hannah gets on with the investigation. It’ll keep the coast clear for her to work.’ His throat scrambled to get the words out, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down hard in his scrawny neck.
She leaned back, seeming more appeased. ‘Okay. Let’s make today matter.’
Ross was already in the viewing room continuing to go through the CCTV from the shop. He must have got in early. This was a throwback to his good days.
‘How’s it going?’ I handed him a coffee and kept the mug of green tea for myself.
‘Boss,’ he acknowledged. ‘Slow going. Lots of activity. This woman has a good business on her hands. It’s really busy. Customers coming and going at all hours, but at least I know what area I need to be focusing on.’
I nodded.
‘I’ve made a note of the date, time and description when someone goes into the freezer and takes out ice cream, even if it isn’t Dawn,’ he continued. ‘So far I haven’t seen anyone stand and meddle with one and place it back in but I’ll keep watching.’
Ross seemed more like himself. His eyes were brighter, more alert. There was less of a roundness to his shoulders.
‘How far back does the CCTV go?’
‘She keeps it for twenty-eight days before recording back over it. It was due to be done again in a week so we have three weeks to look through. It’s lucky with things like this when we don’t call on the day they’ve just erased everything.’
‘True. Though Dawn was even luckier she was on the ball that night and called an ambulance and also that it wasn’t the digoxin that was in her system.’
‘We’ve a great camera angle here, boss; we stand a good chance of ID-ing the copycat at least.’
‘Good work. Keep at it, Ross.’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘And Ross.’
‘Boss?’
‘Get a haircut, will you.’
My phone was ringing as I walked into my office.
‘DI Robbins.’
‘Ma’am, it’s Penny from CSU.’
‘Hi, Pe
nny,’ I replied.
‘We have some results for you which I’ve emailed to you, but I wanted to phone to make sure you got it and the email doesn’t sink in your inbox.’
‘That’s great. Phoning was probably a good idea because the way my inbox works, it’s like a game of chance some weeks.’
I opened up my computer with my spare hand as I spoke. ‘What do you have, Penny?’
‘We finally found the source of the digoxin in Lianne Beers’ address. It was in a microwave ready meal, one of those breakfast oat things and it was enough to take effect fairly quickly; well, to make her feel ill and then kill her.’
‘And how did it get in there?’
‘The packaging was already damaged. It had a discounted sticker on it from the local shop so she wouldn’t have been surprised with the damage or have been worried by any tampering because she wouldn’t have seen it as tampering. The actual digoxin was injected into the paper-card case of the meal under the lip, so the box was open and injection site wasn’t visible unless you were looking.’
‘Oh Christ. Seriously? This is one smart offender to target already damaged items.’
‘I know. It has now narrowed down our testing range for the other jobs that are in. We can look for any food products that have a discounted sticker on first and put that to the top of the queue if you’re happy with that?’
‘Absolutely. Thanks, Penny. I’ve found your email and will read it fully for details including markings on the sticker etc.’
‘No worries. We’ll get working on the next job. Thanks, Ma’am.’
Discounted goods. Damaged packaging. No wonder this poison was getting into people. We were up against someone who really wanted to hurt people.
70
Lianne Beers’ address was still closed off as a crime scene. I hadn’t wanted anything disturbed in case we needed to go in again, and we did. I’d informed Sean Beers that unfortunately it was still an active crime scene and access wouldn’t be granted until we’d finished with it. We needed to find out where she bought the ready meal so that meant going in and searching bins and desks, drawers, bags and purses for receipts so we could then isolate the shop and close it down while we checked all goods within it. We also needed to check with the other families to see if they also shopped there. It wouldn’t go down well with the store if we closed it but we had to stop further deaths. I hoped it was just that one shop that had been contaminated and not a variety of shops, but we wouldn’t know that until the search team completed their task. I paced my office. Martin and Aaron were heading up the search team. I knew it was in good hands but I couldn’t shake the itchy feeling that was creeping its way up my body. All I could do was keep walking. We had to get this guy. My arms itched. I wanted to shake them and shake them viciously. My scar throbbed.
I looked at the phone, then walked back around the desk and started pacing again.
At 5.45 p.m. Aaron called me to say they had the receipt for the microwave breakfast meal and the name of the shop where the goods were bought. They were heading over there next and the search team was coming back in to collect more evidence bags. I rubbed my arm hard and sighed.
‘Thanks, Aaron. Finally, something seems to be going our way. Let’s hope the shop is the same shop they all shopped at. I’ll call the FLOs and get them to ask the families if they do and we can go from there.’
‘We’re going to need extra staff here for the search, Hannah – or do you want us to just collect the items on the discounted shelves?’
‘Good question.’ Shit. We couldn’t seize the entire shop but we couldn’t risk leaving any items out there that had been compromised. ‘Take the discounted goods and all the microwave meals that are not discounted then hand the information over to the CRCE, as with the Dawn Barry case.’
‘Okay. Send me those extra bodies and I’ll update you shortly.’
‘Great. Thanks, Aaron.’
Was this the break we needed? I hoped so.
I walked into the incident room and identified some staff, asking them to leave what they were doing and to meet Aaron at the shop close to Lianne’s address.
Next I made the calls to the three FLOs. One to update the Beers family and the other two to ask the families about their shopping habits. Though we had already had this discussion with them about their shopping routines, in grief, things could easily be missed. If we asked a direct question we could know for certain, though in all probability it was unlikely they all shopped at the same place because of how spread out the victims were. They all had their own closer supermarkets and their own closer corner shops, they had no need to go further afield unless they were maybe visiting someone and had stopped off or were working in the area etc. I knew, again, we were one step forward and yet, no further forward.
71
Yesterday had proved to be a long day and night. Quick drinks with Evie in the Pitcher and Piano, on High Pavement, Nottingham, for an hour allowed me to wind down as my brain was twisting in knots and functioning at warp speed, or at least it was attempting to.
The Pitcher and Piano was an old converted church with bare stonework, high ceilings and beautiful arches.
Evie was great for my health, making me laugh at her tales of dating escapades. Like the man who had spent an evening with food stuck between his two front teeth and try as she might she’d been unable to tell him and the entire length of time he’d sat with it, it had put her off him, even though she’d been fully capable of doing something about it. There were the men who still lived with their parents. In this day and age, with the cost of housing, that wasn’t unusual in itself, but as Evie put it, when they still looked as though they’d been dressed by their mother, she drew the line. By the time I’d pulled myself into bed I was feeling ready for sleep and more ready to take on another day.
And, now we were here. As I’d imagined, none of the shops that the victims bought their foodstuffs from matched up. We were no further forward, other than knowing one shop our killer had used and accessed and being able to deal with it forensically and the obvious one of potentially preventing further deaths from that location.
CSU were working at full pelt and we were getting complaints from other divisions and departments because their submissions were being put on the back burner. Catherine, Grey and I were fielding those calls when absolutely necessary, though the head of CSU was a fairly formidable woman and you wouldn’t want to cross her.
Having two killers out there was not making our job any easier and we’d made a decision not to disclose this to the press as of yet because we didn’t want to invoke panic or nudge another person into joining in the mayhem because they figured it would be fun and something to do for the week.
It was later that day when I went in to see Ross that the copy-cat part of the investigation lifted off. Ross was sat staring at the screen, his head tilted heavily to the side as though he had a weight hanging from his right ear, tugging it down.
‘Ross?’ I asked.
He jumped. Head straightening.
‘Ma’am.’
‘What is it?’
‘This guy, Ma’am. I’ve been looking at the image, rewound it a couple of times, I think he picked it up.’ He looked at me. ‘The ice cream,’ he clarified. ‘Then put it back down in the freezer again. I can’t quite make out what he’s doing with his hands though. It’s what I’m replaying it for. He’s doing something. I’m not happy with it.’
I grabbed a chair, my heart lifting in my chest. A breakthrough? We were due one. Dragging the chair over to Ross I sat with him and noticed I was pulling the same bizarre stance, as though twisting my head meant I could see around people and corners. Moving my head moved them out of the way.
Eventually I decided it was enough. I wasn’t happy with what he was doing, we were going to ID him, search his premises and interview him.
‘Take this to intelligence; see if the guy is in the system already and if so, we’ll act on this today.’
He
was like a cat on hot coals, jumping up the minute I opened my mouth. ‘You think it’s him?’
‘I think you’ve done a good job going through all this, Ross.’
72
He’d taken to getting the Nottingham Today delivered. The walk to the newsagents had started to feel like a walk of shame. He didn’t want to endure that, so he’d asked them to start delivering it. Connie had been surprised even though she hadn’t said anything, but they’d been together long enough for him to be able to read her face when she was surprised or annoyed, happy or sad. Sad, that was something he had no need to practise any more. Sad was the default setting. Surprise was a glimmer, a shimmer, and a passing glimpse of someone else inhabiting his wife’s body. To be honest, it had caught him off guard to see a different emotion cross her face but he removed the look of astonishment from his face because all he felt was guilt. He didn’t want to cause her any more distress than she had already been through, and was living with, on a day by day, hour by hour, second by second basis, and the fear of losing him would be too much for her to bear on top of having already lost Em, so he wouldn’t do that to her. He wouldn’t give her that fear to live with. He would hide what he was doing, so that Connie could get through her days in the best way that she knew how.
He’d continue this alone.
73
He was sitting at the same kitchen table where Em had told them her news. Back then it had been devastating, but back then there had been some hope. He remembered the talk of treatment plans, of doctors and drug treatments.
Isaac thought his child would survive this. She was strong and today’s medicine was advanced. But it hadn’t happened that way, so now his hand had been forced. He hadn’t wanted this, but what else could he do? There was no way they would listen to him if he wrote a neat little letter and wrapped it tidily in a neat little envelope and posted it off to them to be opened by a neat little receptionist. This was the only way they would sit up and take notice.
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