‘A smoking gun,’ he said, hoping humour would diffuse some of the tension. He could see that it hadn’t worked. Jane wasn’t even looking at him. She was staring at her laptop like it contained the riddle of the Sphinx.
‘I’ll see how the others are doing,’ she said, standing to leave, picking up her laptop. But then she stopped. ‘Sir.’ She turned the screen to face him. ‘Chambers’ records are through.’ Disappointment marked her face. ‘This is Adrian Chambers.’
It wasn’t Walsh’s face staring back at him. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he said.
Jane shook her head. ‘It doesn’t mean Walsh isn’t our guy.’ He could hear the desperation in her voice. ‘The records at his house . . . everything points to Walsh.’
‘The records were a plant, Jane, just like the earring, to throw us off. It isn’t Walsh,’ he said, looking at the face on his screen and then back at the headshot on Jane’s laptop. ‘But I know who it is. I’ve met him and so have you.’
Thirty minutes later Lockyer was standing in a home-made darkroom. The stench of sweat mixed with blood was overwhelming. He couldn’t believe it. The bastard had actually given his home address when he was interviewed. That’s how confident he was. That’s how sure he was that he would never be suspected, never be caught.
Lockyer looked at the hundreds of photographs surrounding him, each hanging from a small peg, attached to a piece of string that encircled the entire room. There seemed to be no discernible order to them. The faces of Katy, Phoebe, Debbie and Hayley stared back at him. It felt weird to see them alive; at the supermarket, in the pub with friends, jogging around the park, driving.
He turned away and walked up the stairs into the kitchen. In the centre of a pine table a sewing basket seemed to take pride of place. Spools of thread were lined up carefully, a needle in front of each one. Lockyer closed his eyes. Such a mundane object and yet here, in this room, it was sinister. The sink was filled with soapy water. He dipped his finger into the bowl. It was warm. He walked over to the fridge and pulled it open. There were three shelves. Each held the same items. A head of lettuce, a packet of bacon, a take away sachet of tomato ketchup and four slices of brown bread. Three meals perfectly laid out, ready and waiting. In the door there were three individual pints of milk and next to them was something that stopped him in his tracks.
‘Sir.’
He heard the shout from above him. He ran into the hallway and took the stairs two at a time. Chris and Penny were standing outside what appeared to be the bathroom. He crossed the landing to them, trying to prepare himself for what he might be about to see.
‘No, in here, sir,’ Chris said, his skin the colour of newspaper.
Lockyer turned and pushed open the door to a bedroom. It was small but it wasn’t the room’s size choking his words. The wallpaper was a dusky pink, covered in small white flowers, similar to the paper he had chosen for Megan’s room. He shook the thought away. The carpet was pink too, thick and deep. A mobile hung from the ceiling, little pink rabbits dancing in a never-ending circle. He looked over at Chris who was standing next to the only piece of furniture in the room. A large pine cot. He held his breath as he approached, almost too scared to look. There were soft toys surrounding the crib, a white teddy, a pink bunny with ‘I love you’ stitched onto its stomach. Lockyer felt bile leaking into his mouth but managed to swallow.
‘There’s this, sir,’ Chris said, pointing to the quilt lying in the centre.
Lockyer noticed the stains before he realized what he was looking at. There was blood and mud mixing with the white of the sheet, streaks where the blanket had been moved, repositioned, many, many times. Each square of the quilt sent a shot of pain into his skull. They were the missing pieces of material from the crime scenes. Phil had said that killers took trophies from their victims, to remind them of the act itself, but Lockyer had never imagined this. The sick bastard had made a baby blanket from the bloodied remains of his victim’s clothing. He closed his eyes and saw the bottle in the door of the fridge.
‘Where’s the baby?’ he said, surprised by how hollow his voice sounded.
‘We don’t know, sir,’ Chris said, visibly swaying on his feet.
Lockyer walked out onto the landing, leaning on the banister for support. He tried to focus to pull his mind away from the horror it had just witnessed. What did that room mean? Had he taken a baby or was he just preparing to? The bottle in the fridge was made up, ready to use. Lockyer thought about the girls in the photographs downstairs. There were faces he didn’t recognize and more film to develop. How many more bodies were there? And the baby. He couldn’t stop thinking about the baby.
‘Sir,’ an officer said, holding a phone out to him.
He reached for it, barely registering what he was doing, but as he listened he felt an ice-cold hand squeeze the air out of his lungs. He couldn’t breathe. The officer on the other end of the phone was saying his name, over and over. ‘Yes,’ he croaked. ‘We’re on our way.’ He dropped the phone. His brain couldn’t catch up with the panic racing around his body, like a thousand needles being rammed into his flesh, all at once.
‘Sir,’ Jane said, appearing in front of him as if from nowhere. ‘Sir, what’s happened?’
He could feel her hand squeezing his arm but he could barely see her. She was a blur, everything was a blur. He took a huge lungful of air and rocked backwards against the banister, his senses rushing back to him. He looked down at Jane, refocused his eyes and finally found his voice.
‘That was despatch. They’ve received a 999 call, five minutes ago. An attack in progress,’ he said, his voice hoarse from the shock. He watched, dumbstruck, as Jane reached up and placed her hands on either side of his face. Her palms felt like hot coals against his skin.
‘Where?’ she asked.
‘French Street . . . my street,’ he said, his voice almost unrecognizable.
‘Sir,’ she said, pulling him towards the stairs, ‘we need to go.’
He didn’t answer. He didn’t move.
‘Sir, we need to go, now!’ Jane shouted.
Her voice broke through his stupor as his eyes cleared. The paralysis of his body finally released him and he raced down the stairs behind Jane. He could hear her shouting into her phone. He wasn’t listening to her words. He wasn’t seeing anything. All he could think about was Megan.
Lockyer sat forward in the passenger seat, hands gripping the dashboard, his back dripping with sweat. Jane was weaving in and out of the late-night traffic, racing towards Lockyer’s street, racing towards his house. All he could hear was the squad car’s sirens screaming.
How could he have been so blind? When he had visited the LYWC he had been totally focused on Walsh. Danny or Daniel Armstrong, the submissive office assistant, hadn’t even registered. Lockyer remembered feeling sorry for the guy, having to work under a bully like Walsh. He rubbed his face with his hands, his skin hot to the touch. He had met the guy, talked to him, shook his hand and then led him right to Megan.
‘I shouldn’t have left her,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I should have told her what was going on.’
‘We’re there, sir,’ Jane said, swerving to avoid a line of cars in front of them before screeching to a halt behind a squad car. Before Lockyer could leap out she grabbed his arm. ‘There,’ she said, pointing to a dark figure running down the road ahead of them. Jane swung the car out into the road and accelerated towards the fleeing figure. When she was almost alongside she swerved and shouted, ‘Go!’ He jumped out before the car had come to a complete stop. Armstrong was no more than thirty feet ahead of him. He seemed to be dragging his left leg slightly. It was slowing him down. Lockyer could hear the muted shouts of the officers behind him. ‘Stop, police!’ he screamed, pushing his legs to run faster, until he didn’t know if he was running any more, as much as flying.
‘ARMSTRONG,’ he shouted, his arms pumping at his sides as he watched the dark figure disappear around the corner. His muscles were screamin
g at him to stop but he only pushed harder, his vision blurring. As he rounded the corner he could see that he was gaining. Armstrong was fifteen feet in front now, his hands and arms covered in blood. Lockyer was aware of running footsteps behind him, the other officers breathing hard, trying to keep pace. He was tuned to every sound, everything together and yet everything separate; tyres squealed, sirens blared, people shouted, dogs barked, doors opened and slammed closed.
With a howling shout, he threw himself forward, his hands connecting with Armstrong’s shoulders. Both men rolled, barrelling through a line of bins and then down to the hard cement. Before he could stop himself he was punching, kicking, beating his fists down again and again on Armstrong’s back. He didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. Only when several pairs of strong hands began to pull him back, to drag him off the motionless body, did Lockyer finally stop swinging his fists and take a breath.
‘Sir, we’ve got him,’ a voice said. But he wasn’t listening. He was looking at the blood on his own hands, the smears covering his jacket. All he could do was sit and watch as a swarm of officers dragged Daniel Armstrong to his feet and started half walking, half dragging him away.
As Lockyer limped his way up his street, the scene before him sucked the breath right out of his lungs. There were at least twenty uniformed officers running back and forth. The flashing lights from their squad cars lit up the entire street. He could see Jane. She was standing on the pavement, waiting for him. As he closed the distance between them his heart began to beat faster and faster with each step.
‘Jane, is she . . .?’ His throat closed. He couldn’t say the words.
Jane stepped towards him and took his hands in hers. It was a simple gesture but just then, for that second, he was more grateful to her than he would ever be able to express. The touch of her skin told him what he needed to know before she even spoke. ‘Megan’s fine,’ she said.
Lockyer stared, blinking. ‘She’s OK?’ he asked, squeezing Jane’s hand tighter and tighter, willing her to say the words again.
‘Yes, she’s fine, sir. It wasn’t Megan. She’s safe. She’s sitting in Chris’s squad car,’ Jane said, turning and pointing further up French Street.
The vice around Lockyer’s heart opened, the cramping in his legs disappeared and the fug in his mind shifted, blown away. He limped over to the squad car, relishing Megan’s profile as he got closer. And then she turned, saw him and she was out of the car and in his arms.
‘Dad,’ she said, sobs racking her tiny frame. No words came to him so he just held her and stroked her hair.
‘Sir, I’m sorry,’ Jane said, her tone dragging him out of his euphoria. ‘Sir . . . you need to see this.’
He pulled away from Megan. Chris, who had appeared from nowhere, took her by the arm and helped her back into the squad car. ‘Has someone called Clara?’ Lockyer asked.
‘I have,’ Chris said. ‘She’s on her way.’
Now that the shock was wearing off he knew he needed to focus. He followed Jane, glancing over his shoulder at Megan, to see her safe.
‘The first victim is over here,’ Jane said, gesturing to a body lying on the left-hand side of the alleyway.
‘There’s more than one?’ he said, closing his eyes and rolling his head around his shoulders. ‘Not the baby,’ he whispered, ‘please, God, not the baby.’
‘There’s two, sir,’ Jane said. ‘The first victim is Malvern Turner.’ As she spoke he tried to process what she was saying. ‘From the initial examination it looks as if he tried to stop Armstrong in the act and got a knife in the throat for his trouble, but not before he struck Armstrong in the leg with what looks like a kitchen knife,’ Jane said, pointing to a black-handled knife lying in the dirt. ‘We’re assuming it was Turner who called in the attack.’ Lockyer shook his head. What the hell was Turner even doing here? He watched as Jane lifted her hand and pointed to the second group of SOCOs, working right in front of them. ‘The second victim is over here,’ she said, her expression pained as she stepped aside, revealing Sarah’s bloodied body sprawled out on the path.
Lockyer froze. Sarah’s eyes were open, staring back at him. Her face was spattered with blood from a wound at her throat. He could feel vomit filling his mouth, a stream of foul-smelling bile rushed out, covering his hands and his shoes as he bent double.
‘Sir,’ she said, thrusting a tissue into his hand. ‘Are you all right?’
He managed to wipe his hands as he straightened up, coughing. He couldn’t look at Jane. He couldn’t take his eyes off Sarah’s legs, the pale skin of her thighs covered with blood.
‘I didn’t know she had been pregnant,’ Jane said, shaking her head, her own face showing pain, regret and possibly guilt. ‘She never said anything. Her name wasn’t on the LYWC records.’
‘No,’ he whispered. ‘She wasn’t pregnant. That’s not why he chose her. This was my fault. He killed her because of me.’
He could feel Jane’s eyes on him, waiting for an explanation. There was only one. While exorcizing one maniac from Sarah’s life he had inadvertently invited another in. He looked up at Jane, unable to stop the tears from falling. He shifted backwards, putting Jane between him and Sarah’s ravaged body.
He didn’t want to see any more. He couldn’t look at her face.
46
13 February – Thursday
Lockyer sat at the head of the large glass table in the briefing room. His team were crammed in, some sitting but most standing. The room felt hot and sweaty. He was barely able to listen as Jane debriefed the team, and he no longer cared about the sideways glances he was getting, the whispering that ceased whenever he entered a room. He didn’t care what they thought. It couldn’t be worse than what he thought of himself.
‘Daniel Armstrong, aka Danny, or Adrian Chambers, was apprehended at the scene. He’s currently over at King’s College Hospital having a leg wound stitched. He should be with us later on this morning. Armstrong’s residence has been secured. A full examination will take place later today, but from their initial search, evidence has been recovered linking Armstrong to all five victims.’
He could see the pictures in his mind. If only he had looked harder, he might have seen the half-developed pictures of Sarah. Maybe then he could have stopped him.
‘As I’m sure you will have heard by now, Armstrong had created a child’s nursery . . . of sorts. A handmade quilt is down with the exhibits team now. Armstrong used the material taken from his victims’ clothing to make it.’ Jane stopped. Silence greeted her last statement. ‘Some items relating to an infant were recovered from the scene: nappies, a baby bottle and clothing. However,’ she said, raising her hand to silence the murmurs spreading around the room, ‘forensics have found no evidence to suggest a child was actually present. We can only make presumptions of Armstrong’s intentions at this point.’ The murmurs started again but this time they seemed filled with relief. But it wouldn’t last. Lockyer watched the faces around the table. They were no doubt thinking the same thing he was. Had Armstrong been planning to take a baby? And what had he intended to do with it?
There were so many cruel images in his mind. He felt suffocated by them. Instead of seeing the briefing room he was choking on a montage of hideous pictures: Sarah’s face, her legs, splayed open, covered in blood. Malvern Turner’s body, three vicious slashes to his throat, his mouth twisted in fear and pain. Megan’s shadowed profile, sitting in the squad car at the scene.
‘Armstrong’s laptop was also removed from the scene. From initial examination it appears he was visiting a number of chat rooms, all password protected. Who he was talking to and the subject matter of those conversations is, as yet, unknown.’
He looked up when Jane paused. Her eyes told him what was coming next. ‘Victim number five, Sarah Grainger, was pronounced dead at the scene. Dr Simpson and his team are preparing for the post-mortem.’
He clenched his fists against the cool glass of the table top and focused on the carpet beneath. He
shouldn’t be here. It could prejudice the case. Jane hadn’t even blinked when he’d asked her to do the debrief.
‘Malvern Turner, a suspect in a harassment case and under active warrant, was also found dead at the scene.’ He could hear the guilt in Jane’s voice. It was faint but it was there. She felt culpable for Sarah’s death too. She had arranged the squad car at Sarah’s flat. She had despatched it to follow up on the sighting of Turner’s car in Honor Oak. ‘It appears Turner phoned 999 to report the assault and then attempted to intervene. He wounded Armstrong in the leg but was then stabbed by Armstrong, three times in the throat.’
Lockyer had been trying to protect Sarah from Turner, but instead it was Turner who had been with her in her last moments, trying to save her. The irony cut deeper than Armstrong’s blade ever could.
‘Finally, Manchester MPS is forwarding all their files on the death of Armstrong’s girlfriend, Joanne Taylor, five years ago. The CPS wants verification of the girl’s suicide note. We don’t know as yet whether Taylor’s abortion and suicide were a catalyst or if Armstrong, in fact, killed his girlfriend in an act of revenge for terminating the pregnancy. It may well be that Armstrong is going down for six murders, not five.’
He closed his eyes and blocked out Jane’s voice.
47
14 March – Friday
Lockyer stood back, leaning in the doorway, watching. Megan was perched on the arm of Bobby’s chair, showing him the present she had brought with her. It was a huge coffee-table book on ancient Egypt. From Bobby’s foot-tapping Lockyer could tell that this was an even bigger hit than the boat book.
‘She’s good with him,’ Alice whispered from where she was standing next to him.
He looked at her and smiled. There was some semblance of the old Alice in her eyes, but not enough. It would take more than a few weeks to get over what had happened. He reached down and squeezed her hand. She smiled, turned and walked away down the hallway.
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