Ross had taken a step towards her, but Emilia’s gentle warning stopped him in his tracks.
‘There’s a lot of people here …’
Ross looked like he might lunge at her anyway, such was his naked fury, but at the last minute he thought better of it. Turning, he hurried from the restaurant, without once looking back.
Emilia let him go, before signalling to the waiter for the bill. She was trying her best to appear calm and collected, but her heart was thumping. The interview had not gone entirely as expected, but she had come through it unscathed and had some useful material to work with. Not a confession, nor even an admission that he knew the victims personally. But his failure to refute her claims and his tense, defensive body language was telling. She didn’t have him in the bag yet, but Emilia was sure she now had her prime suspect on the run.
126
Helen stared at the corpse, scarcely believing what she was seeing.
A terrified dog walker had made the call just after nine thirty this morning and shortly afterwards the half-naked, brutalized body of Caleb Morgan had been discovered by uniformed officers. As with the others, he was hanging from the branch of a stout oak tree, in a small clearing to the north-east of the New Forest. Helen had been convinced Morgan was their killer, the key to unlocking this bewildering case. In fact, he was victim number three.
Helen was naturally stoic, never doubting that diligent detective work would carry the day, but even she felt a shiver of panic this morning. All her theories, all her preconceptions, about the motives behind this killing spree had now gone up in smoke, this unrepentant, sadistic sexual predator given exactly the same treatment as Lauren Scott and Tom Campbell. It didn’t make sense. None of it made any sense.
‘They found his jeep about a mile away, concealed in some foliage.’
Hudson had joined her, but Helen didn’t even bother turning, her eyes still glued to Morgan.
‘Then you’d better take me to it.’
Thick vegetation cast a large shadow over the rusty Jeep Cherokee, making it look forlorn and lonely. Helen and Hudson approached it in silence, having spoken barely a word during the journey. In other circumstances, they might have made careful reference to their night together, testing one another’s reaction to it, but there was no chance of that today. Morgan’s unexpected murder had put everything else on hold.
Slipping on her gloves, Helen teased open the driver’s door. It was unlocked and, stranger still, the keys were in the ignition. Was this deliberate? Had Morgan left them there for a quick getaway? Or was there another reason for this oversight? Leaning into the body of the car, Helen noted a baseball bat lying on the passenger seat. She wondered if it was always there. Or had Morgan come here expecting violence?
She ran her hand over the soft fabric of the seat as she peered into the rear of the car, but there was nothing of any interest there, so she returned her attention to the cockpit. Now she did find something that warranted her attention – a small smear of blood on the rim of the steering wheel. She gently teased the edge of the stain with her little finger. It smeared easily, suggesting it was still fresh.
Her mind turning now, she looked at the dashboard, the windscreen, then the driver’s window. And here again there were signs of a struggle. There were long smear marks down the window – thin, translucent marks, which looked very much like fingers dragging themselves across the glass, as if trying to get purchase. More interestingly, there was another small patch of blood at the point where the window and door met. This time there were a few hairs nestling in it, dark-brown hairs that matched Morgan’s colouring. Suddenly Helen had a clear picture of what had happened. Morgan had been attacked in his vehicle, possibly as he was about to drive off.
‘Are there any campsites nearby?’
‘Nearest one is Alder’s Edge. It’s about half a mile away.’
Nodding, Helen got out at the driver’s side and crossed to the back of the vehicle. Hauling open the boot, she found that it was empty. If Morgan had come here with camping gear, it was elsewhere now.
The pair marched briskly through the forest and ten minutes later they reached the campsite. Ellie McAndrew had beaten them to it, gesturing Helen towards a small tent sitting away from the other pitches near the forest edge.
‘Owner says there were only four tents pitched last night. All the other owners have been accounted for.’
Helen walked quickly over to the tent. Bending down, she pulled open the tent flaps to find … nothing. The small tent was entirely empty, save for a lifeless lantern sitting plumb in the middle of the groundsheet.
‘I guess he liked to travel light …’
Hudson was on her shoulder, looking confused. But Helen was already thinking it out. Though Morgan had been dispatched in the same way as Campbell and Scott, the manner of his abduction was different. He had no intention of camping here seemingly – he had no bedding, no food, no change of clothes – and how likely was that anyway, when he had a secure hideout at the traveller site? No, instead he had come armed with a baseball bat and a lantern, which would presumably have illuminated the interior of the tent for a while, before eventually extinguishing itself. This, and the fact that his 4x4 had been artfully concealed, suggested to Helen that Morgan had not come here to camp. He had come to lay a trap.
Which raised an interesting question. Was it possible that Morgan was expecting to be attacked?
127
‘Do you think he knew his attacker?’
Superintendent Simmons’s question was a good one. Helen had been pondering exactly that on her ride back to Southampton Central.
‘It’s got to be a possibility. He was a man in a corner – no funds, outstanding warrants for his arrest, no friends to speak of – yet his prime concern was to try and entrap our killer. Furthermore, he seems to have known that this guy was likely to strike again.’
‘Is it possible that they were in it together then? That his accomplice turned on him? It might explain why they were in the car together.’
‘Maybe,’ Helen conceded, ‘but from what we can gather from the travellers, he never had visitors, plus there’s no evidence of regular phone calls to anyone. Also, it looks very much like he was attacked from behind in the car.’
‘So the killer was lying in wait for him.’
‘Looks that way. I think Morgan was setting a trap, but our man was one step ahead, setting an ambush himself.’
‘But that would mean Morgan knew that the perpetrator would strike at Alder’s Edge campsite. How could he possibly be privy to that if he wasn’t in league with the guy?’
‘Not necessarily. It might just mean that Morgan knew the killer would come to him. That he sensed he was being followed, stalked even.’
‘But Morgan has been off the radar for weeks now. How could our perpetrator have found him?’
‘He has ventured out during the last few weeks. To meet Campbell twice, Scott once … If our man was stalking those guys, then it’s very likely he would have spotted Morgan, followed him home.’
‘And you think Morgan had noticed something, realized he was under threat?’
‘Well, there’s no question he was on his guard. He’d cut out clippings from numerous newspapers regarding the murders of Tom Campbell and Lauren Scott.’
‘And you think they alarmed him? Even though he had barely seen these guys since he left Southampton University?’
‘Looks that way.’
‘But why? Why would somebody target them now?’
‘I don’t know,’ Helen replied, frankly.
For the first time since they’d resumed working together, Simmons looked a little downcast. They were seemingly no closer to catching the perpetrator than they had been at the start of this baffling case. Helen knew she had to say – to do – something to keep things on track.
‘The answer lies in the past, I’m sure of it. Something … we don’t know what yet … connects these three. Something Morgan felt able to explo
it when times became desperate for him. Our only option is to dig deeper, to take ourselves back to that time, and work out what’s driving this guy. If we do that, I have every confidence we’ll find our man.’
She sounded more confident than she felt, but it did the trick, the customary smile now returning to Simmons’s face.
‘And I have every faith in you,’ she responded generously.
Helen left shortly afterwards. She marched down the corridor towards the incident room, fired up to grapple with evidence once more, to tease a lead from somewhere, but as she was about to buzz herself in she heard someone calling her name. Turning, she was surprised to find the desk sergeant, Jerry Taylor, waddling towards her.
‘Sorry to bother you, Detective Inspector. But you’ve got a visitor.’
128
‘I’m sorry, Emilia, I just don’t buy it.’
For the first time in their dealings, the journalist looked flustered, reacting angrily to Helen’s knock-back.
‘I don’t know how you can stand there and say that,’ Emilia protested. ‘We’ve all been looking for connections between Tom Campbell and Lauren Scott and I’m giving it to you on a plate. Graham Ross knew them both.’
‘You think he knew them both.’
‘I’m sure he came into contact with them there and something about them, about their stories, propelled him to –’
‘You’ve got no way of proving that. And, besides, it may be that he is telling the truth. Coincidences happen.’
‘Why are you so sure he is not connected?’
‘I’m not. And if you can bring me concrete evidence of his involvement, then of course we will act on it. But Ross has never struck me as a violent man. Strange, yes, but not violent. Plus, he’s right-handed.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything.’
It did, of course, but Helen let that go, circling round to the crucial point.
‘And, besides, what would be his motive?’
‘He’s lost it,’ Emilia asserted, without hesitation.
‘Sorry, Emilia, you’re going to have to be more specific than that.’
‘He’s spent too long around dead bodies.’
‘So have you and I. Doesn’t make us killers.’
‘But it’s different with him. His profession … his craft … necessitates that he obsesses on the corpses, the tiny details of their trauma, the exquisite torture of their deaths. I think he’s lost any feeling for them as real human beings, they’re just subjects to him, to be lovingly recorded, obsessed over, preserved for … for his personal pleasure, for posterity perhaps.’
‘And you know all this because …?’
‘Because I’ve been to his flat.’
‘Emilia,’ Helen replied, genuinely shocked.
‘I’ve seen his stash of images. It’s like a museum to death, a testament to his calling. To him it’s not about the human story, the personal tragedy, it’s about the beauty of his work. Murder has become his art form, his very reason for being.’
‘Everything you say may be true, but that doesn’t make him a murderer. Perhaps he’s just a passive recorder of other people’s misfortune …’
‘But think about the staging,’ Emilia insisted, passionately. ‘Think about how these bodies are found. They are not … dispatched, then tossed away. They are very carefully, even artfully, presented. They are a statement, a thing of beauty, that has to mean something …’
Now Helen paused. Emilia was right of course. But it still didn’t mean her explanation was correct.
‘I don’t deny that,’ Helen conceded carefully. ‘But I can’t see the motive. There would be many easier ways for Ross to achieve what you’re suggesting without chasing people through the forest. I can’t see him having the skill, the strength or indeed the prowess to carry out these murders. Furthermore, I believe the root cause of these crimes lies further back, long before Ross moved to Hampshire –’
‘You’re missing the point –’
‘No, Emilia, you’re missing the point. You are a journalist, not a police officer. I thank you for the information you’ve given me, but you will have to let me run with things from here. You do your job, Emilia. And I’ll do mine.’
The journalist left shortly afterwards, still grousing. Helen bent her steps to the incident room, but, as she did so, Emilia’s words continued to spin around her brain. Helen was convinced that she was wrong about Ross, but what she’d said about the staging of the murders was correct, it had to mean something.
The question was, what?
129
The photos were spread out in front of them, a kaleidoscope of youthful merriment and misbehaviour. The rest of the team were processing the hard intel from the Caleb Morgan murder – tracing the movement of his vehicle in the days before his death – but Helen had pulled Charlie and Joseph Hudson into her office for a private conference.
Helen had told McAndrew not to disturb them unless something major cropped up. She wanted their sole focus to be on their victims – Lauren Scott, Tom Campbell and Caleb Morgan – whose happy, carefree faces stared up at them from the desk. Campbell’s keen interest in photography had provided them with plentiful images of the heady days the trio had spent together and they scoured them now, searching for hints, clues, anything that might help them forge a clearer view of their connection.
‘So, do we assume from these pictures that Campbell and Scott were part of Morgan’s set?’ Charlie asked.
‘Makes sense,’ Hudson agreed. ‘We know he liked to have a gaggle of younger students around him, to be the centre of attention, the instigator …’
‘Campbell was older than Scott, but Morgan was older than him,’ said Helen, pursuing the theme. ‘Morgan was presumably a glamorous, charismatic, rebellious figure in Campbell’s eyes.’
‘Scott might well have been smitten too. Perhaps Morgan targeted her,’ Charlie offered. ‘I think he was the driving force behind these full-moon parties, engineering them so that he could prey on his victims. We know Lauren Scott didn’t like camping. Perhaps there was a reason why she had an aversion to it.’
‘Possibly, but look at the dates,’ Hudson pointed out. ‘Scott appears at several of these parties. And she looks happy enough. Why would she go back for more if she’d been attacked?’
‘And why would she take his call now?’ Helen added. ‘Why would she give him money?’
‘Perhaps he was trying to sex-shame her? We know he was desperate for cash, had nowhere else to go. Maybe he threatened to reveal that she’d been raped. He had nothing to lose by doing so, as he was already wanted by the police. He could even have done it anonymously online, if he wanted to remain –’
‘Possibly, but there’s no evidence she was attacked. And, besides, Morgan tried to contact Campbell too. I can’t see Campbell giving Morgan anything if he’d targeted his girlfriend as you suggest.’
‘He might have witnessed something though,’ Charlie speculated.
‘That seems more likely,’ Hudson said, brightening suddenly. ‘Maybe they were both witnesses to something. Or complicit in some way. That would make sense of Morgan’s attempt to extort money from the two of them. If they were linked to something criminal or immoral that he could use to humiliate them, threaten their jobs, their relationships …’
This thought seemed to land with all three. The trio returned their attention to the photos, searching, searching, searching. Helen’s eye drifted over Caleb Morgan, Tom Campbell, Julia Winter, Aaron Slater and numerous other faces, caught up in the wild, hedonistic scene.
‘Julia …’ Helen murmured.
Charlie looked up.
‘What about her?’
‘She was good friends with Scott. They were housemates, in fact. Yet she’s hardly in these photos …’
Charlie and Hudson perused the images and realized she was right. There were countless shots of Campbell, Morgan, Scott and many others, Slater included, but only a handful of the winsome, beautiful Julia Winter
. Reaching out, Helen selected them, laying out five photos side by side. In them, she seemed happy, intoxicated, as carefree as the rest of them. There was certainly nothing in these images to suggest that anything was wrong.
‘The dates.’
Charlie and Hudson looked at the dates stamped on the bottom-right-hand corner of the five photos.
‘They’re all the same,’ Charlie murmured. ‘All these photos were taken on the same day.’
‘Exactly,’ Helen confirmed. ‘I was thrown off because it looks like she’s wearing different clothes, but that’s just because she’s taken her hoodie off in a couple of them.’
‘Plus, she has her hair up at first. Maybe she literally let her hair down over the course of that evening,’ Hudson added.
‘Thirtieth of April 2009,’ Helen said, reading the date out loud. ‘Perhaps the date is significant …’
Hudson was already typing.
‘2009, spring full moon …’ he muttered, waiting for the search engine to do its work, ‘… was on the thirtieth of April.’
He turned to Helen, looking sober, yet excited.
‘Julia doesn’t appear at any parties after this, but the others do,’ Helen thought aloud.
‘And we know Julia attempted to kill herself roughly two months after this, having flunked her end of year exams. Her father said it was because of academic pressure, but …’
‘But perhaps it was because Morgan attacked her.’
Hudson’s words filled the room, suddenly seeming to make perfect sense.
‘If her father found out, he would have had a strong motive to avenge himself on Morgan, on all of them in fact. Imagine what it would have done to him, knowing that his little girl had been the victim of this habitual predator …’
‘Maybe he took matters into his own hands. Perhaps in the end …’ Helen looked up at her colleagues as she concluded: ‘… the hunter became the hunted.’
Down to the Woods: DI Helen Grace 8 (Detective Inspector Helen Grace) Page 30