by Joy Ellis
‘She declared that she couldn’t last another ten minutes without a skinny latte, so Niall Farrow has taken her round to the Café des Amis.’
Nikki threw him a tired smile. ‘I suspect a little bit of chemistry there, don’t you?’
Joseph’s face creased into a grin. ‘Now wouldn’t that be a turn up for the books? My Tamsin, associating with the enemy.’ He looked concerned momentarily. ‘And I can only guess what her mother Laura would think about that!’
‘I think Tamsin’s mellowing.’
‘I’d like to think the same, but I’m scared to.’
‘Hang on in there, my friend, I get the feeling that things will turn out well with you two. Just have patience.’
* * *
As Niall placed two white china cups on the table, Tamsin looked at him with interest. He was the kind of guy you couldn’t help liking. But there was something more about him, something she found quite attractive. He seemed to be quite unaware that he was drop-dead gorgeous, and he had a fire of enthusiasm inside him. She recognised it from something that burned in her own soul. She always appreciated passion when she saw it. She just wasn’t quite sure how anyone could be passionate about being a copper.
‘You looked pretty pleased with yourself when my father said you’d done well.’
Niall grinned. ‘It meant a lot.’
‘Why?’
The young officer sat down opposite her. He looked surprised. ‘Because your dad is something of a hero around here, Tamsin. To get an accolade from him is, well, a really cool thing to happen.’
Tamsin silently took what he had said on board, and stirred her coffee thoughtfully. ‘Have you always wanted to be a policeman?’
‘Never thought of anything else.’ He gave Tamsin a long, thoughtful look, and she decided that he was debating whether to tell her more. After a while he said, ‘When I was a lad, my dad was working a late shift at the factory and my elder brother had taken my sister down to the chippie to get our supper.’ He stared into his coffee for a while, then went on. ‘So I was on my own when the police arrived. I was eight years old, and my father had just been killed in an accident at work. Some machinery malfunctioned and . . .’ He took a deep breath and left that part of the story untold. ‘I never forgot how kind the police officers were, or how well they handled the situation and the care they took of us. From that day, I knew exactly what I would be when I left school.’ His face broke into a grin. ‘From day one I loved it. And when they finally teamed me up with Vonnie, I thought all my Christmases had come at once.’
‘I like Yvonne. So is she a hero too?’
Niall leaned closer to Tamsin. ‘Vonnie is a legend.’ For the next few minutes he regaled her with stories of Yvonne’s brilliant street policing career. ‘And she has the Queen’s Commendation for Bravery, but you’ll never hear that from her. She’d tell you she was just doing her job.’ Niall shook his head. ‘Thing is, though I love being a beat bobby, I want to get into CID. My goal is to get onto your dad’s team. Apart from your father, DI Galena is top cop in my book.’ He sipped his coffee, ‘And most of the station would agree with me.’
‘So what makes them different from other teams?’ asked Tamsin.
Niall didn’t hesitate. ‘Respect, Tam. They’ve both earned respect from the men and women they work for. And that doesn’t happen easily, believe me.’
Tamsin recalled the last time she had been in Greenborough, when another murder case had been hanging over Nikki’s head. Tamsin had not really been around long enough, but even then she had picked up on some unspoken bond that the team had.
‘Did you know that both the DI and your dad were offered promotion last year?’
Tamsin frowned. ‘He never mentioned it. Why didn’t they take it?’
‘For the sake of the team. They decided that things were too good to mess with. Promotion would have meant big changes. See what I mean about loyalty?’
As they walked back to the station, Tamsin began to wonder if it was time to put the past behind her. She had seen her father only three times in the last three years, and she knew that he was a different man to the zealous soldier he had once been. She had never believed that leopards could change their spots, but from what she’d seen for herself, and from what she’d heard from people like Niall, maybe she had been wrong.
As the police station came into view, Tamsin decided that she wanted to forget about the times her father had left them to go kill people, and all the times that he had put his army career before their happiness, but she wasn’t sure that she could. She would try — after all, that was why she was here, but . . .
‘Before we go in . . .’ Niall touched her arm lightly. ‘Look, this is probably not the best time to ask, knowing that we are involved in the biggest and nastiest case any of us has ever seen, but would you fancy coming out for a drink with me later?’
Tamsin hoped that she looked calm and just a little indifferent. Niall was a cool guy, but she didn’t want to lead him on. After all, she would be returning to the States in the not-too-distant future. Still, a drink wouldn’t exactly hurt, now would it? ‘If you like.’
Niall grinned at her. ‘Great. Let me put your number into my phone.’ He opened his phone and quickly punched in the numbers that she gave him. ‘I’ll ring you later, then you can pick up my details.’ He opened the door for her and they went inside, talking easily together.
Back at her desk, Tamsin decided that perhaps it hadn’t been such a bad idea to work with her father after all.
* * *
As night clouds moved slowly across the sky, the men and women working out on Flaxton Mere began to get jumpy. It was not a happy place in bright sunshine, but at night, even knowing that the ghostly lights and eerie noises had been man-made, it was miserable. Maybe it was made worse by the fact that the Mere had been used in such an evil way, that the sinister goings-on had been engineered by a psychotic killer. And the knowledge that he was still on the loose.
‘She’s out there again, Sarge. What can I do, apart from slapping her in a cell?’
Reg had seen a ghostly figure drifting around the airfield. After conquering a major attack of the horrors, he realised it was the sister of the dead dealer, Anson Taylor. He had tried to reason with her, but she had simply said that she couldn’t rest and wanted to be close to where her brother had died.
‘Get her home again, Reg. And tell her to see her doctor. She needs a sedative or something. Are there no relatives? She shouldn’t be alone.’
‘Just a father that she hates. And I know why. He knocked her mother around and abused her too, but when he started on her kid brother, Steph came to us.’
‘Good for her. That took guts.’ The sergeant shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Well, I’ve got no answers, Reg. Just get her home, I guess. It’s all we can do.’
‘Couldn’t we let her stay for a bit, sir? Now we know it’s not the Lady in White. And she’s not doing any harm. I get the feeling she’ll only keep coming back.’
‘Then talk to her again, but if she stays, she’s your responsibility, and make sure you take her with you when your shift is over, all right?’
Reg thanked his sergeant and walked off towards the pale, unkempt figure that sat on a grassy mound a little way from the pillbox. He sat down beside her, and together they stared at the floodlit structure. When he told her that she could stay until he went off duty, she placed an ice-cold hand on his, and croaked a pitiful ‘thank you.’ It made Reg wonder what the hell life was all about.
* * *
Nikki and Joseph sat in the tiny kitchen in Knot Cottage, sipped cold white wine and ate a bowl of tuna pasta that Joseph had quickly put together when they got home. It was after nine thirty, and as Nikki had forgotten to shop again, she was glad of the impromptu supper. ‘What time is Tamsin due back?’ she asked, wiping a slice of garlic bread around her empty dish.
‘Niall said he have her back by ten. We all need our sleep.’
‘S
leep doesn’t come easy, knowing there’s a killer out there.’
‘Plus the timing stinks. You still have your father’s funeral to worry about, and I’ve got Tamsin to stay with me for the first time since she was in school uniform.’
They talked for a while about the case, then Joseph took the dishes and placed them in the dishwasher. ‘Are you alright in the farmhouse alone, Nikki?’ He looked at her anxiously. ‘I mean, I know you’re as tough as old boots, but these are extraordinary times. Tam and I could come and stay over. I’d offer our hospitality here, but one loo, two bedrooms and three of us could be interesting.’
Nikki yawned. ‘I’m fine, Joseph, but thanks. And if I spook myself at three in the morning, I promise that I’ll make up the spare beds, okay?’
‘Do that.’ Joseph walked to the window and looked along the lane. Then he glanced at his watch. ‘I’m beginning to wish I’d told them to leave this “date” until we were less stretched. Young people don’t have much idea of time, do they?’
Nikki checked her own watch. ‘It’s only ten past. And at their age, I don’t think I cared too much for curfews either.’
‘If there wasn’t a murderer loose, I’d agree.’ He ran his hand through his hair, in a gesture Nikki had noticed that Tamsin had inherited.
‘Niall’s a sensible lad, and he worships you, so he’s not going to blow it on his first date with the sergeant’s daughter, now is he?’
‘I guess not.’ Joseph gave a short laugh. ‘By the way, Tamsin asked me about our refusing promotion. It seems that Niall told her that we did it to hold the team together. I think it made something of an impression on her.’
Nikki smiled at him. ‘Good.’ Of course, turning down promotion wasn’t entirely because of the work dynamic, and they both knew it. They had reached a watershed moment in their relationship, and they were scared, too scared to lose what they had, and too scared to change anything. And so they had drawn a line under any form of moving forward, personally and in the workplace. And here they were, a year on and still too scared to rock the boat.
Joseph settled back in his favourite chair and his smile faded. ‘Nikki, I don’t know about you but I’m having trouble getting my head around the sheer scale of this case. You read about prolific serial killers, but somehow they don’t seem real, do they? And here we are in the middle of the Fens, with one of the worst cases this country has ever seen. Someone has deliberately taken all those lives, year after year. It’s like some horrible, gruesome hobby that has existed alongside his “normal” life — whatever that is.’
‘I know what you mean, it feels totally surreal. But it does happen. I was given a paper to read once about Victorian murderers, not just Jack the Ripper, but there was this woman Amelia Dyer, they called her the Angel Maker, and she murdered four hundred babies before they caught and hanged her. Now that totally scrambled my brain.’
‘I’ve seen some terrible things, Nikki, in the military.’ A shadow seemed to fall across his face. ‘Things I never want to see again, but something like this is so . . .’ Joseph fought for words, ‘so devious, so . . .’
‘Sick?’
‘He’s a predator, and he’s been living among us, preying on innocent human beings and taking them to his own private house of horrors. If this were an episode of Tales from the Crypt, no one would believe it.’
‘Well, he won’t be taking any other poor souls down there, thank God.’ Nikki yawned. ‘Sorry, Joseph. I really should go, but I want to know that Tamsin is safe.
‘You go. You look all in. If you like, I’ll ring you when she’s home.’
Nikki stood up and pulled on her jacket. ‘Maybe I should. I’m out on my feet and we need to be back at work at the crack of dawn.’ She took her car keys from her pocket. ‘Thanks for supper, Joseph. I appreciate it. And don’t forget to ring me.’
The chilly night air brushed her face as she stepped outside, and to her relief, she saw headlight beams swinging round off the road. ‘I guess we worried for nothing.’
A palpable wave of relief came from Joseph. ‘Crisis averted.’
As Nikki drove out into the lane, Niall’s Vauxhall swept past her. She caught sight of a smiling Tamsin giving her a friendly wave, and Nikki felt an acute pang of sadness.
Her Hannah should be doing that. Going out, having fun, meeting good-looking boys and getting told off by her mother for being late home. But she never would, not now.
As the dark outline of Cloud Cottage Farm rose up ahead of her, Nikki suddenly felt terribly alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Just after six in the morning, as Nikki was sleepily rinsing out her coffee mug, her phone rang. She picked it up, fully expecting it to be the station sergeant but Joseph’s agitated voice jarred her into life. ‘Say that again, and slower.’
‘It’s Tamsin. She went out for a morning run, and she hasn’t come back.’
Nikki dropped the mug. ‘I’m on my way over.’
Five minutes later she was sliding into a space between Joseph’s station wagon and Tamsin’s hire car. She jumped out and saw Joseph standing in the doorway.
‘I didn’t know she’d gone,’ he stammered, his face contorted with worry. ‘Sure, she has been going for an early morning run lately, but I didn’t dream she’d go today. What the hell was she thinking?’
‘Does she always do the same route?’ Nikki gazed across at the remote marsh path but saw nothing moving.
‘I think she does a circular run, along the sea-bank, then across the field path, down the road past your house, then back down the lane.’
Nikki bit on her lip. ‘When do you think she went out?’
Joseph shook his head. ‘When I showered, I guess, and that was over half an hour ago.’
‘Surely her run would take longer than thirty minutes?’ said Nikki hopefully.
‘Twenty minutes max. And there’s no one in sight, in any direction.’ His voice was shaky. ‘Oh, Nikki, I’ve got a very bad feeling about this.’
‘Look, there’s a good chance she’s fallen, maybe twisted her ankle. The paths are full of ruts from the tractors.’ She strode back to her car. ‘You’re fitter than me, you take the sea-bank. I’ll drive along the road to the end of the far field, okay?’
As she slammed the car door, Joseph was already sprinting off along the rough track that led along the river bank to the marsh.
An hour later a squad car was touring slowly along the lanes of Cloud Fen, and several uniformed men and women in Wellington boots were scouring the footpaths that crisscrossed the area of marsh close to Knot Cottage.
Joseph and Nikki sat in the kitchen. Nikki heaped sugar into yet another cup of coffee.
‘Her jog pants, sweatshirt and trainers have gone, and her day clothes are laid out on her bed, so there is no doubt of her intentions. Her phone has gone, but her house key and car keys are still here. I’ve rung her number a hundred times, but it’s switched off.’ Joseph got up and began to pace. ‘And like most young people, her phone is her life support system, it’s never switched off. She’s been abducted, Nikki. There’s no other explanation.’
Nikki passed him the drink and said, ‘There’s probably a dozen other explanations. We’re just so aware of what has happened at Flaxton Mere that we can’t think of anything else.’
‘He’s got her, I know it.’
Nikki looked at Joseph. She couldn’t offer any more platitudes because, deep down, she thought he was right.
* * *
Rory moved uncomfortably in his sleeping bag. Across from him, half illuminated by the bluish glow of his laptop screen, he saw the hunched figure of Stuart Bass. He had been on his computer for most of the night. Rory sincerely hoped that he was emailing his forsaken bride, but frankly he doubted it. Most likely it was morbid research.
He turned away from the ghostly figure and decided that tonight they would go home, and sleep in proper beds with clean, fresh duvet covers that had been rinsed in meadow-sweet fabric conditio
ner and stored with lavender bags between them.
Rory sighed. It really comes to something when your dearest wish in the whole world is not for chilled Bollinger, but for a two-litre plastic bottle of fabric softener! He pulled the sleeping bag higher around his head. Just one more day down here with the army of forensic help that had accrued around them, and they should be able to have the nights at home.
He had barely slept, but even though he closed his eyes tightly, he was still horribly awake. For the first time since he saw the crypt, Rory had felt uneasy. He moved again, unable to find a soft spot on the canvas camp bed. It was probably sleep deprivation, but whatever, he felt disturbed and his thoughts were not comfortable ones. He kept seeing the figure of the bogus SOCO, and found it hard to believe that he had actually held a conversation with the curator of this museum of death.
Many times he had appeared in court as the expert witness. He had looked across at the accused and wondered about them. The drunk who had lashed out, gone too far, landed one too many punches, or the battered wife who’d been hospitalised once too often and had turned on her husband with a carving knife. Or maybe the battered husband who finally unleashed his hurt and shame and pushed his bully of a wife down the stairs. Murder was not usually served cold and alone, but came accompanied by steaming hot side-dishes of rage, passion or hatred. There were reasons. The deliberate taking of another life was never justified, but there were reasons. “I shot him because he broke into my house and threatened my family.” “We fought because I found him in bed with my wife.” “The baby wouldn’t stop crying.” He’d heard them all, but this killer was different. This killer was more like a collector, and the dead bodies his specimens, like beautiful butterflies.
Stuart Bass closed his laptop and the blue light was extinguished. ‘Still awake?’
Rory raised himself on one elbow, and began to fight with the zip. ‘Sadly.’
Stuart endeavoured to squeeze his large frame into his own bag. ‘Thinking about your silent bedfellows? Or maybe the possible return of the murderous, axe-wielding SOCO? Ah well, sweet dreams.’ He pulled on the zip, then groaned. ‘Oh, bugger! What now?’