He passed the sheet to Tommy.
‘Martin, can you print off the photo?’ Dan asked.
‘Already done,’ Martin replied.
Adil took the sheet and trimmed the photo and then stuck it on the white board. He wrote next to Peterborough ‘Jackie Oldfield 17 - Disappeared’.
Now they had three.
‘Right, better get those coffees,’ Tommy said with a smile.
The next one came in just after Tommy had returned.
Another photo on the white board. Against ‘Carlisle 2011’ Adil wrote ‘Monica Byrne 18 – Disappeared’.
Mac decided that he would wait for five before going to tell Joy Ackley the good news. Five would be a real pattern.
They were now getting lots of information in about missing girls but they weren’t all good matches.
It took over an hour before Martin once again said, ‘Printing off.’
They all watched as Adil wrote on the board against Cardiff ‘Carla Menzies 16 – Disappeared’.
Mac looked closely at the five photos. The similarity in the girls was striking. He relaxed now knowing that his house of cards had survived the test.
‘Come on Tommy, let’s go tell Joy Ackley the good news.’
‘You’re not staying Mac?’ Dan asked in surprise.
‘No, we’ve got some unfinished business to attend to. I’m not so worried now, we’ve definitely got a pattern.’
Dan looked at the white board.
‘Yes, I guess we have,’ he said with a growing smile.
Joy Ackley was not at all impressed at the amount of time she’d had to wait.
‘What the bloody hell is going on?’ she shouted as Mac opened the door. ‘They’ve had to take me to out to piss twice since I’ve been here! I’ve got places to be you know.’
Mac said nothing. He started recording the interview.
‘I’d just like to say that this interview is being recorded. Do you have any objections to this?’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘No, why should I?’
‘Good. I’d also like to say that you do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something, which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
‘What?’ she asked.
Mac could see from her puzzled expression that she hadn’t got a clue where this was heading.
‘Please sit down Miss Ackley,’ Mac said.
She sat down, crossed her arms and glared at Mac with a sullen expression.
‘I’m here to tell you about the progress we’ve made with your case. We’ve consulted with the Crown Prosecution Service and I can tell you that we will be pressing charges.’
A smile broke out on her face.
‘Really? You’re going to prosecute old Hamilton?’
‘No we’re going to prosecute you for making a false statement and wasting police time. I’d guess that the CPS might also throw in a couple more charges when they see the new evidence.’
‘You what!’ she shouted. ‘You’re going to set that perve free and you’re going to charge me!’
‘Yes that’s exactly the situation,’ Mac confirmed. ‘You know you lied and now we know it too. We have lots of girls from your school who are willing to testify against you, some of who were even once your friends.’
‘The bitches!’ she said with feeling.
She thought about this for a moment. Her shoulders slumped. She’d been found out and she knew it.
‘What am I looking at?’ she said eventually.
‘A couple of years at least I’d say,’ Mac replied.
She just sat there with her mouth open. For once he’d said something that had actually made her speechless. Mac stood up.
‘Someone else will be in shortly to formally charge you.’
Mac made good his escape. He had a quick word with the desk sergeant who would be formally charging Joy Ackley. He told him to take his time about it.
‘Well that’s that,’ Mac said as they walked to the car. ‘She’ll go to jail, not that it will help the Hamiltons much I suppose.’
The question that Tony Hamilton had asked came back into his mind, ‘Why do people wilfully hurt each other so?’
He still wished he knew.
‘Come on Tommy, let’s get back and see what’s happening.’
The rain was falling heavily as they walked out into the car park. Flashes of lightning illuminated the dark clouds. Tommy had to keep the wipers on top speed all the way to Hitchin. The general gloominess somehow suited Mac’s mood.
Mac looked at the board as soon as he got in the door of the incident room. Two more photos had appeared. Alongside Bristol was written ‘Kate Beckworth 20 – Disappeared’ and alongside Birmingham International was written ‘Sheila Matthews 20 – Disappeared’.
It was only just after four and Mac was surprised to see that the incident room was full. All of the team were there except for Jo and Gerry who Mac guessed were still hunting around the undergrowth for Jonny Aldis. They were standing around talking to one another but all eyes were either on Martin or the white board. Mac could sense their excitement.
‘Do we have the files for these girls yet?’ Mac asked Martin.
‘Only for Kate Beckworth and Monica Byrne so far. Dan and Chris are looking at those now. I’ve requested them all but I guess that some of the earlier ones might be paper files so they’ll need to be scanned first.’
‘Tell me when the Birmingham one comes in.’
‘Why are you so interested in that one?’ Martin asked.
‘I was born there and I know the area around the airport fairly well. I was hoping that it might help in some way.’
‘Fair enough, I’ll let you know when it comes in.’
Jo and Gerry turned up before the file did. Jo shook the rain from her raincoat.
‘Took a bloody great storm to make this one stop,’ she exclaimed, her eyes pointing accusingly towards Gerry. ‘Anyway what’s going on?’
Dan thought it was a good time to tell the whole team.
‘Jo’s just asked a good question. I know you’ve all drifted in as you’ve heard that we may have a major lead. All it takes is a look at the board there to confirm that you heard right. I’ll go over what we’ve got so far so you’ll all be up to date. This morning Mac remembered an old case, a fourteen year old case to be exact, where a girl called Jessica Watson went missing in circumstances that were incredibly similar to Natasha’s. Not only the circumstances were similar though if you have a look at the photos.’
Jo went to the white board and looked closely at Jessica’s photo.
‘They could be sisters,’ Jo exclaimed. ‘They’re not related though, are they?’
‘No they’re not. The thing that we think might be relevant is that there were major rail works taking place just down the road from where Jessica lived, just as there are now in Hitchin. We’ve asked for details of girls who went missing around the time of the works and you can see the candidates on the board here.’
‘So you’re picking them on how similar they look to Natasha?’ Jo asked.
‘Yes, the theory is that our man consistently goes for girls with the same looks and around the same age. We’ve only started getting the complete case files in but I’ve had a look at Kate Beckworth and the circumstances in which she disappeared aren’t that dissimilar to Natasha’s. She lived in a place called Lawrence Hill just down the road from where they were carrying out the works. She set out one Saturday evening to meet a friend at a bus stop. They were going into town for a night out but she never turned up. The route she’d have most likely taken involved a short cut down an entryway that ran down the back of a block of flats. Sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it? Chris, what about Monica Byrne?’
Chris stood up.
‘Monica worked at a company on an industrial estate next to where they were doing rail works on a major freight site. She worked shift
s in a warehouse. She left work at nine saying that she’d meet up with some colleagues at a nearby pub who’d finished work an hour earlier. This pub was also frequented at the time by rail workers as it was the nearest pub to the site. As you can guess she never made it. At nine thirty one of her friends went back to the warehouse, taking the same route that she’d have had to use, but found nothing. It was noted that this warehouse was the only business in the vicinity that ran shifts so it was highly unlikely that anyone else would have been about anyway.’
‘So you can already see many similarities, the girls’ looks, their age, they all went missing while the rail works were in their area and the manner of their disappearance is also similar,’ Dan said. ‘None of the girls gave any indication that they were going anywhere and all went missing where at least part of the route was secluded or, in Monica’s case, where no-one was likely to be around. Not cast iron yet maybe but it’s looking promising…’
Dan was interrupted by Martin.
‘Printing off.’
Everyone went silent and looked at Dan as he waited for the printer. His smile said it all. He waited for the photograph and gave that to Adil. He then went to the white board and against Crewe wrote ‘Maria Sanchez 15 – Disappeared’.
Once Adil had tacked the photo to the white board everyone crowded around. Mac had to wait a while but it was worth it. Maria could have been Natasha’s younger sister.
‘Fifteen?’ Tommy said. ‘She’s the youngest yet then.’
‘Yes he likes them young, the oldest is only twenty,’ Mac replied. ‘The big question is who was first? Was it really Jessica Watson? We’ve still not had anything from Southampton, Glasgow or York. Of course that could be just because they’re the oldest cases and they might need a bit more time to dig out the files.’
Dan called everyone to order.
‘Okay we’ve now got eight good candidates and a high likelihood that we’ve got a serial killer on our hands, a killer who takes advantage of the fact that he regularly moves his locale and in a fairly random way at that. As a national police force we’ve been pretty rubbish at communicating with each other about our cases so I suppose it’s not surprising that he’s gotten away with it for this long. I’ve asked Martin to find out who holds the HR records for the rail workforce and then to arrange to get them sent over as soon as possible. It’s now coming up to five and I know you might have made arrangements for this evening but I’d like you to cancel them. We’re going to have a lot of work to do, not only with all the case files coming our way but hopefully all of the information about the rail workforce too. I’d like to try and make some sense of it all before we go home if that’s okay.’
‘Well at least it’s dry and warm,’ Jo said. ‘I don’t suppose there’ll be a pizza in it for us will there?’
Dan smiled.
‘Yes I’d say that pizzas are a distinct possibility.’
‘Well I’m in then,’ Jo replied as she struggled to take off her wellingtons.
Everyone in the team nodded.
‘Thanks. It would be a good idea if we stick to our teams and take a file or two each. Discuss it between the two of you and one of you take notes. I’d like to hold a quick session before everyone goes home so that each team can give us the crucial points about their cases. Martin, Adil and me will take a look at the rail workforce data, if it ever arrives that is.’
Dan picked up a memory stick and gave it to Jo.
‘This is the Kate Beckworth file. I’ve already had a quick look but if you and Gerry could go through it in detail I’d appreciate it.’
Jo took the stick gratefully.
‘Well at least it’s not poking about under bushes. A spider jumped out at me today, a big one too, and all he could do was laugh,’ she said her eyes glancing contemptuously towards Gerry.
Martina joined Chris at his computer. The rest just talked amongst themselves while they waited.
‘Looks like you might have cracked it Mac,’ Andy said.
‘Perhaps but I can’t understand why it took me so long to remember Jessica Watson. It’s been bugging me for days now.’
‘It was fourteen years ago,’ Leigh said. ‘God I can’t remember what happened fourteen days ago.’
‘It would be good if we could establish who was first though,’ Mac said. ‘It might help narrow down the suspects.’
‘Do you think there’ll be that many who would have worked on the contract for that long?’ Andy asked.
Mac shrugged.
‘Absolutely no idea…’
He was interrupted by Martin.
‘Mac your file’s here,’ Martin said holding a memory stick aloft.
‘See you later,’ Mac said, glad to get down to some proper work.
He and Tommy found an empty desk and fired up the computer.
‘Do you mind taking notes?’ Mac asked. ‘I can’t read my own writing these days.’
‘No problem,’ Tommy said with a smile. ‘How do you want to do this?’
‘How about if we read each page and then we’ll discuss if there’s anything we need to make a note of?’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
Mac read on.
Sheila Matthews was twenty when she disappeared. She worked as a cosmetic salesperson for one of the large pharmacy chains in Solihull town centre.
‘Solihull, is that another town?’ Tommy reasonably asked.
‘Sort of but it’s still part of greater Birmingham if you like, one of the posher parts too.’
Sheila lived in Sheldon with her parents and two younger brothers, only a stone’s throw from the rail works at Birmingham International. She always worked a little later on Thursday nights and, as it was February, it would be dark when she made her way home. She got on the bus with one of her friends from work and they chatted on the way back. Her friend got off two stops before Sheila. Two other passengers saw Sheila get off at her usual stop on the Coventry Road. She lived in a flat at the far end of a cul-de-sac so she had a relatively short walk home.
‘Can we get a look at where she lived?’ Mac asked.
Tommy found the cul-de-sac on the map and then selected Street View. The short street was lined with three storied blocks of flats. They looked like they were built in the seventies or eighties so not much would have changed since her disappearance. They walked down the virtual street towards a block of flats at the end of the close. This was where Sheila was heading on the evening she disappeared.
‘There,’ Mac said.
On the right, at ninety degrees to the street, was a short cul-de-sac lined with garages on both sides. Their white metal doors looked freshly painted.
‘What are you thinking?’ Tommy asked.
‘Our man’s clever, there’s no doubt about that. He’ll have spotted that there’s only one place on Sheila’s walk home where he could easily abduct her and that’s right there. She’d have had to walk past the entrance to the garages to get home and it doesn’t look as though they’re directly overlooked by any of the flats. I know that they used to give each flat a garage whether they had a car or not but sometimes they’d rent them out too…’
Mac went silent for a moment.
‘Let’s read on,’ he said eventually.
Sheila’s family confirmed that she seemed very happy and she’d given them no idea that she might have wanted to leave. A number of her friends also confirmed this. All her clothes were still in her room and no money had left her account. There were reams of statements which they both diligently read through as well as lots of photographs. They learnt nothing from them. Towards the end of the file there was a statement from one of Sheila’s closest friends. She said that she was sure she’d seen Sheila in Birmingham town centre some weeks afterwards. The police investigated but uncovered nothing.
‘So what have we learnt?’ Mac asked.
‘Another girl disappears on her way home and isn’t heard of again. What about this sighting of her though?’ Tommy asked.
‘In all probability it’s wishful thinking on behalf of her friend. When you desperately want to see someone you sometimes do. There is one person they might have forgotten to interview though.’
‘Is this still about the garages?’ Tommy asked. ‘They obviously thought about it as they interviewed everyone who kept a car there. Who else might know something?’
‘I’d have asked the local council if anyone rang them recently to see if any of the garages were empty and available to rent.’
Tommy gave this some thought.
‘I think I see what you’re getting at. All our man needs to do is find out which of the garages might be empty then he could force the door and park his own car in there. Those metal doors used to be easy to force, I remember my uncle used to open the lock on his with a small nail file if he forgot his key. If the garage was empty he could break in a few days before so on the night he’d just turn up and innocently park his car. Even if he were seen no-one would give it a second thought. It was nearly nine and dark when she walked by so, if he used the same MO, he would have hit her then dragged her inside the garage and shut the door. It wouldn’t have taken more than a few seconds and once he had her inside he could have done what he liked.’
Mac smiled at Tommy’s thorough explanation of the sequence of events.
‘Yes I think that’s exactly what might have happened. It definitely wasn’t Sheila that her friend saw. Sheila was dead. Come on let’s go through it all again, just in case.’
They’d nearly finished when Martin shouted, ‘Printing off.’
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at Dan. He looked at the sheet and did a little fist pump. On the white board he wrote against Glasgow ‘Stella Gordon 17 – Disappeared.’
Mac looked at what they had so far.
1996 Southampton –
1998 Glasgow – Stella Gordon 17 - Disappeared
2000 York –
2002 Barnet – Jessica Watson 19 - Disappeared
2003 Birmingham Int.–Sheila Matthews 20 - Disappeared
2005 Peterborough – Jackie Oldfield 17 - Disappeared
2006 Cardiff – Carla Menzies 16 - Disappeared
2008 Crewe – Maria Sanchez 15 - Disappeared
The Blackness (The Mac Maguire detective mysteries Book 4) Page 14