by Matt Brolly
Lambert recalled talking to Cormack Riley about the twenty-eight-year-old welder. The victim before Billy Nolan. ‘David Welsh?’ asked Lambert.
‘Yes, sir. The parish priest is still there. He says Welsh went to counselling sessions, and a man called Campbell worked there as a counsellor in the early nineties.’
Lambert’s heartbeat increased. ‘Great. Have we sent the sketch of Campbell over yet?’
‘I’ve emailed it. We’re checking all the other churches now.’
Chapter 46
Lambert called Bardsley and told him about David Welsh. ‘I think we need to revisit every Souljacker victim. See if we can make a link with counselling sessions.’
‘Agreed. Either way, it all points to Campbell,’ said Bardsley.
‘I don’t think he was acting alone, Josh. It doesn’t add up.’
Bardsley ignored him. ‘We’ve still had no luck on identifying him. Hopefully, your sketch will help. It’s out nationwide, and we’ve arranged a press conference for this afternoon. We’ll get it out on television.’
Lambert hung up. He tried not to blame himself but knew that if he’d managed to keep Campbell alive, then he could have led them to Sarah May. He gave his number to DC Shah. ‘Call as soon as you hear from Bradbury or anyone else,’ he told her.
He couldn’t face going home. He returned to the car and checked the boot for the gun. Relieved it was still there, he sat behind the steering wheel trying to clear his thoughts. He tried Klatzky but as usual the phone went straight to answerphone. Everything about the previous night still bothered him. He’d been manipulated. The note Kwasi had left his widow had guided him to the house just in time to see Lance’s body.
Campbell had committed suicide rather than shooting him. Despite Bardsley’s protestations, he knew this was significant. Something had scared Campbell so much, that even death was a better alternative. Lambert was convinced that thing was the Souljacker.
He needed to see two people: Kwasi’s widow, Laney Richardson, and Myles Stoddard, who had pointed him to Richardson in the first place. He decided to visit the latter first. Stoddard had hid something from him yesterday. He was an inexpert liar and Lambert chided himself for not pushing him further in the bar.
He was about to set off when someone knocked on the car’s side window.
Cormack Riley stood on the pavement. Still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, Riley held a stack of papers in his hand.
Lambert wound down the window. ‘Cormack.’
‘Am I supposed to be speaking to you?’ asked Riley.
‘You tell me.’
Riley handed him the sheets of paper. ‘You made me think the other day, and I don’t like what I’ve discovered. Should I be going to Bardsley with this?’
Lambert scanned the papers which detailed some of the investigation in the Billy Nolan case. Nothing he read had appeared in the official records. It was all general stuff. Some more details of the students who’d been in the halls when Nolan’s body had been discovered. Lambert read details on his own interview, which had been reported in the initial report. He then flicked through to the entry for Terrence Haydon, and saw something he couldn’t quite believe. ‘Can you leave this with me, Cormack?’
Cormack stared at him, his face passive. They didn’t know each other well. Riley was scrutinising him, making a decision on whether he could be trusted. ‘Why should I do that?’
‘Look, I realise it’s unusual, but I came to you with this. You’ve read the report. Who else are you going to trust?’
Cormack didn’t move. He swayed on the spot as if stuck in place. ‘I’ve made copies. I’ll check back in twenty-four hours. I’m giving it to Bardsley if there’s no progress.’
Lambert’s body twitched as he drove to Crouch End. Each red light or badly driven vehicle provoked an outburst. All those months in therapy following Chloe’s death had been wasted. Following her death, his life had been fuelled by an unquenchable rage. He’d vented it by starting fights with strangers, travelling to bars in areas where he wasn’t welcome. Violence became a drug to him, a way of deadening, if only a little, the pain of losing his daughter. Now, after reading the files from Riley, that pain was returning.
The car in front slowed down and turned right without indicating. Lambert slammed on the brakes and pushed the car’s horn. He started swearing at the driver, slamming his fist onto the dashboard and waving it wildly in front of him so the driver could see his displeasure in their rear-view mirror.
As the car turned, Lambert made out the form of an elderly woman, hunched over her steering wheel, oblivious to his pathetic complaints. He kept his temper intact for the rest of the journey, bottled it up ready to unleash it on Stoddard.
He gave no warning this time. He parked the car fifty yards from the garage where Stoddard worked, and jogged down the uneven path which led to the Portakabin and the garages.
He didn’t bother with the Portakabin. He stormed through the first of the garages. An ancient hatchback was raised onto a plinth, two grease-covered mechanics studying the car’s under carriage as if debating the intricacies of some vast puzzle. To Lambert’s right, a third figure disappeared out of a side entrance.
Lambert sighed then shouted at the figure. ‘Wait, Myles.’ Lambert stepped out of the garage to see Stoddard’s figure disappearing up the stone pathway.
‘Stop, Myles. I need to talk to you,’ he said, trying to keep his tone neutral and calm, knowing his appearance betrayed him.
Stoddard chose not to listen. Lambert swore to himself, and took up the chase. Stoddard had headed off in the direction of Lambert’s car. Lambert began at a steady pace, enough to keep Stoddard in his line of vision, and waited for the man to stop running. Stoddard knew Lambert would not leave it at this. That he would find him either at work or at home, so running away from him was pointless. But still he continued. Stoddard sprinted across the road into the entrance of a local park.
Lambert upped his run into a sprint and followed Stoddard as the man darted into a bank of trees. He was younger than Lambert but was not in the same shape as him. He stumbled through the undergrowth, his pace slowing.
‘Stop, Myles, for Christ’s sake. This isn’t doing you any favours.’
The man glanced back at him, losing his footing. He tripped over a loose rock and tumbled head first into the trunk of an oak tree. Lambert sprinted forward, Stoddard scrambling on his hands and knees to get away.
Lambert kicked the man’s left leg. Stoddard tried to get up again but Lambert was on him. He punched him twice in the stomach.
Stoddard curled into a ball. Lambert grabbed him by the collar of his overalls and yanked him to his feet. He punched him again in the stomach holding him upright so the man gasped for air. He fought the overwhelming urge to ram Stoddard’s face into the nearest tree.
‘Why did you run?’ he said, trying to control his volume lest he attract attention.
Stoddard was unable to speak, his body desperate for oxygen.
Lambert pushed his forehead onto Stoddard’s. ‘Well?’
Stoddard tried to resist, his breath rank with onions and undigested meat. Lambert pushed him away, Stoddard’s back crashing into the trunk of the tree. He slithered down the bark and sat on the ground, his head between his legs.
‘I didn’t know what you wanted, did I?’ said Stoddard, gasping for air.
‘So you ran? You never know what I want with you. It doesn’t mean you run away.’ Lambert hunched down so he was at the man’s eye level. ‘You set me up, Myles, and I need to know why. If you lie to me even once I’m going to haul you in and everything you’ve ever told me will come out. Do you understand what that means?’
Stoddard wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘You’re not even with the police any more,’ he said, a look of victory on his face.
Lambert tensed his left hand and swung the back of it down so it hit Stoddard on his cheek. The man’s face snapped to the side and a crooked line of
blood trickled from his nose.
‘You think that makes a difference? You know me, you know what I’ll do. Now tell me why you set me up. It wasn’t your idea. You haven’t the brains. Someone put you up to it and I want to know who and how.’
The brief look of triumph on Stoddard’s face vanished. Its replacement was part confusion, part terror. His body began to tremble but Lambert didn’t think it was because he’d hit him. He’d never hit Stoddard before and it was something he despised having to do, but the man knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t go any further. It was possible the threat of bringing him in had unnerved him.
‘Listen, tell me what I need to know and you’re free to go. You’ve been good to me over the years, Myles, and I don’t want to destroy our working relationship.’
‘I can’t, Mr Lambert,’ stammered the man.
‘Can’t what?’
‘I can’t tell you about the man.’
‘Let’s start somewhere else,’ said Lambert. ‘How did you manage to set me up? Was Kwasi’s widow involved?’
‘I’ve never even met the woman. I barely knew Kwasi.’
‘But you knew about the note he left for her? The one which guided me to that house.’
‘Yes.’
‘How did you know about it?’
‘He told me.’
‘Who?’
‘I can’t,’ said Stoddard.
‘Was it him?’ asked Lambert, showing Myles the sketch of Campbell on his smart phone.
Myles glanced at the phone, his face not changing. ‘No, never seen that guy in my life.’
‘Look closer, Myles.’
‘I’m telling you, Mr Lambert. I’ve never seen that man before.’
Lambert put the phone away. ‘So this other man, what did he tell you?’
‘He said that Kwasi had left a note for his wife.’
‘And how did he know that?’
‘Oh God,’ said Stoddard, shaking.
‘Myles, I’m going to find out one way or another so tell me.’
‘I don’t know for sure. He sort of suggested he’d obtained the information from Kwasi, a kind of death bed thing.’
The images of Kwasi’s corpse sprung into Lambert’s mind. Had Kwasi given over the information before or after his eyes had been sealed shut?
‘Who is he, Myles?’
‘I don’t know I swear.’
‘Is it Campbell?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You realise if I take you in now you’re done for? You’re an accessory to murder, minimum. And I will make sure everyone inside knows you’re a grass.’
‘I don’t know, Mr Lambert. I swear if I knew who he was I’d tell you.’
‘You’d never met him before?’
‘Never.’
‘Then, Myles, I have to ask you, why did you do what he asked?’
Stoddard scratched his chin searching for an answer. His body was in freefall now, every limb shaking, as if in beat to some distant sound.
‘So help me God, Myles, if you don’t tell me the truth I’ll take you in right now. You know one of our DI’s is missing? Can you imagine what will happen to you at the station? And don’t make it up. Tell me why you did what he said.’
‘I wasn’t going to make it up, Mr Lambert. He showed me some photos after he’d taken the knife away from my eyes. He said if I didn’t do what he told me I’d be next.’
‘Did he tell you his name?’
‘Of course not.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘He was tall. Late forties, fifties perhaps. I didn’t really look at him. He sprung out of nowhere. As I said he held a knife to my eyes and then once he’d let me go I was too scared to look at him. I was shitting myself, Mr Lambert. He threatened to tear my fucking eyes out and I believed he would do so.’
‘Why didn’t you go to the police?’
‘Right, as if they’d be much use to me.’
‘Hair? Eye colour?’
‘I don’t know. He was wearing one of those hats, beanies I think you call them. I don’t know what colour eyes he had but he was strong.’
‘And he gave you my name?’
‘Yes. He said, “You know Michael Lambert?” Then he told me to tell you about Kwasi’s widow. The note that Kwasi had left her.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this the last time we met?’
‘I told you, Mr Lambert, he said he’d kill me.’
Lambert took out his phone and ran a search, a face appearing on the screen. He gripped the phone tight, hoping Stoddard didn’t see that his hand was shaking. He wasn’t sure he wanted confirmation.
‘Get up.’
Myles pushed himself up from the ground. ‘Mr Lambert, you said you wouldn’t take me in.’
‘Do you have anywhere you can stay? Any friends?’
‘My mum lives in Southend.’
Lambert showed him the photo on the screen. ‘Is this him?’ he asked, his body so full of adrenalin that he found it hard to stand still.
Stoddard let out a whimper. He slumped to his knees as if he’d been given life-defining news.
Lambert came close to joining him. He took all the cash he had from his wallet and gave it to Stoddard. ‘Don’t go back to work. Go straight to the train station and stay at your mum’s until you hear back from me.’
Stoddard sprinted away before Lambert had time to change his mind.
Lambert was still having trouble with what he’d discovered, Stoddard’s identification of the man matching the details he’d read in the file from Cormack Riley.
Klatzky called as he was walking back to the car.
‘Simon, where are you?’
‘Guess,’ said Klatzky.
Lambert heard the sound of muted conversations in the background. ‘Which pub?’ he said.
‘Not sure. The one on your high street. Where we went the other day.’
‘Okay, you need to stay put. Surely that’s an easy request.’
‘I’m running short of funds, Mikey.’
‘Stay put, Mikey. Do you hear me?’ Lambert shouted into the phone.
‘Okay,’ said Klatzky, slurring.
Lambert lowered his tone. ‘Simon, listen. Was there anyone else you told about Billy’s counselling sessions? Think hard.’ He wasn’t sure why he was asking. He had all the information needed. Perhaps it was out of loyalty, or the hope that Stoddard was wrong.
The line was silent. ‘Simon, you still there?’
‘Yeah, sorry, Mikey. What were you saying?’
‘Fucking hell, Simon, this is important. Billy’s counselling session. Did you ever tell anyone else about them?’
‘I told you, Mikey. No.’
‘Think hard, Simon. A woman’s life is on the line.’
Klatzky paused, and for a second he thought he’d hung up. ‘Wait, there was that one time. When Billy died.’
Lambert felt the air leave him.
‘I told that one person. Yeah, I forgot about that. That copper. What was his name again?’
‘Hastings?’ said Lambert, his voice sounding distant.
‘Yeah, Hastings.’
Chapter 47
Lambert started driving, his mind working overtime in various directions. It made a certain kind of sense. The Souljacker being the SIO on the case, the one person whose name appeared on nearly every case report. The one person he’d never considered a suspect. From what Riley had said, it was probably why he’d stopped after Billy Nolan. He’d managed to hold out for nine killings, directing the investigation to hide his own sick desires, until it started affecting his career. He didn’t want anyone else to take over the Souljacker case, so he’d stopped the killings. It was an unbelievable deception. He had enough to get everyone involved now. With the evidence he’d obtained, even Nielson would believe him.
But he couldn’t call it in. Hastings had Sarah May and as soon as Lambert shared what he’d discovered her life would be over. Hastings had wanted him f
rom the very start, from the day he sent the crime photos to Klatzky.
He sent a text to Klatzky telling him not to leave the bar. For once, it would be the safest place for him. He needed to get home, prepare himself for meeting Hastings.
He spent the next hour in traffic, trying to piece everything together. How had Hastings duped them all this time? What part did Campbell have to play?
He turned onto his street and immediately noticed his front door was ajar.
He ran from the car, praying Sophie hadn’t returned, his gun held beneath his jacket as he tried the door. The lock was broken. He kicked the door down, the gun raised in front of him, hoping no one had seen him. Cold air blew through the hallway, tinged with the ripe smell of ammonia and something more perfumed. He shut the front door, securing it with a kitchen chair. He checked each room in turn securing his house until he reached the spare bedroom.
His mouth fell open at the scene before him. ‘Oh, fucking hell, Simon, what have you done?’ he howled.
Chapter 48
Lambert didn’t check for a pulse. Klatzky was naked from the waist up, the Latin inscription In oculis animus habitat chiselled into his chest, his eyes two vacant holes.
‘You silly bastard, why didn’t you stay in the bar?’ Lambert asked the corpse.
He found a pair of forensic gloves in the kitchen. It was far from perfect. He was contaminating the crime scene with every step and breath he took. He examined the body as much as possible without touching it. It was a perfect replica of every Souljacker murder. Klatzky’s jacket had been dumped to his side. It languished in a pool of blood, sprinkled with specks of white which Lambert presumed was the pontifical incense, the smell of which brought back unwanted memories. Lambert tried to see what was in Klatzky’s inside pocket but couldn’t do so without touching the material.
He picked it up with his gloved left hand and used his right hand to fish out Klatzky’s wallet. From the wallet he took out two credit cards, a five pound note and a piece of paper folded in two. The piece of paper was addressed to Lambert. He unfolded it.