2011 Carlisle – Monica Byrne 18 - Disappeared
2013 Bristol – Kate Beckworth 20 - Disappeared
2016 Hitchin – Natasha Barker 18 - Disappeared
Mac thought it was highly possible that Stella Gordon was the first victim and that they might get nothing from Southampton anyway. However York puzzled him. Having taken his first victim would he really wait four years for the next. Mac had his doubts.
Mac went over to Martin.
‘Have we had everything in from York yet?’
‘That’s what they’re saying. I’ve been through the data two or three times but I can’t see anyone of the right age or who looks like Natasha. Here I’ll show you.’
Martin showed him the photos of all the women who had gone missing in the York area in the period that the works were there.
‘You’re right, there’s nothing even close in there.’
There was something that wasn’t right about this. Mac had the feeling that once he’d started killing nothing would stop him doing it again. Every time he took a girl though he’d know that he was putting himself at some risk. As smart as he was and plan as he might things can always go wrong. It would seem that two years was as long as he could go without having to do it again. So why the four year gap between Stella Gordon and Jessica Watson?
Things can always go wrong. The phrase echoed around his head.
‘Martin get back on to York and ask them for the photos of any young women who were attacked in any way or who were found murdered. Can you do that?’
‘Will do but it might be worth trying the national databases first for the murders though,’ Martin suggested
‘Thanks. Shout if you get anything,’ Mac said.
Dan stood up and looked at his watch.
‘As it’s now gone nine thirty let’s have our round up of what we’ve learnt so far and then we can go home. Let’s do them in order, the oldest first. We haven’t had the file for Stella Gordon arrive yet so let’s start with Jessica Watson.’
Mac stood up and went over the basic points of the case once again. He told them that Jessica at the time had been working as a barmaid at a pub not too far from where she lived. She was a very sociable girl and had lots of friends, one of who was at university in London. It was her she was going to go to the all-nighter with but she never turned up. He carried on with Sheila Matthews and outlined Tommy’s theory about how she’d been taken.
Andy stood up next and gave the high points of the Jackie Oldfield case. She’d been a sixth form student who was studying for her A levels at the time she disappeared. She was hoping to be a doctor.
Mac immediately thought of his Bridget and of the number of times she’d walked out alone when she’d been that age. He couldn’t help saying a little prayer of thanks.
Jackie disappeared while on her way to a friend’s house for a birthday party. She’d been there once or twice before but she wasn’t a regular visitor. Part of the route included a walkway that was secluded. It was also dark as the single street light that illuminated the walkway had been smashed the night before. The investigators thought that this wasn’t a coincidence. Again there was no indication that she was thinking about leaving home and all her clothes were still in her wardrobe.
Adil stood up next. He explained that he and Dan had a look at the Carla Menzies case while they waited for the rail personnel data to arrive. It was a pretty thin file. Carla was out of work when she disappeared. She was living alone having been kicked out by her family and appeared to have few friends. She suffered from depression and was known to go walking by herself at night. No-one even noticed that she’d disappeared until weeks afterwards. The investigators estimated that she hadn’t been back to her flat for at least three weeks judging by the mail and the state of her fridge. Even though she’d left all her clothes and some personal items it was assumed by the investigators that she’d just done a runner. That was it.
Easy pickings for our man, Mac thought.
Martina stood up. She and Chris had covered Maria Sanchez too. She was a schoolgirl and the daughter of refugees who had come to this country from Chile in 1988. Maria had been born here. She disappeared on her way back home after staying late at school as she had a lead part in the school drama and was attending extra rehearsals. She had been given a lift to the bottom of her road by the parent of one of her friends. She only had a hundred yards or so to walk but she never made it back home. The short street was a mixture of old Victorian terraced houses and some new buildings. About halfway down the street was an entryway that led to a small car park. The investigators surmised that it was likely that this was where she was taken. However, despite having a large team that had spent many weeks looking for Maria, the police found absolutely nothing. She had disappeared into thin air.
Chris stood up and went over the Monica Byrne case again. He had nothing new to add though.
Lastly Jo stood up and talked about the Kate Beckworth case. She’d worked as a trainee journalist for a local paper. The investigators had spent some time following a lead. A girl who looked like Kate was seen getting on a train at Temple Meads station with a man. They were being very affectionate with each other. They followed this up until Kate’s girlfriend turned up demanding to know what they were doing to find her. Kate was apparently most definitely gay. This gave them another angle to investigate but that fizzled out too.
Dan took his customary place in front of the white board.
‘So it’s not just the looks and the dates then. There’s a definite similarity between the MO in all of the cases. Thanks everyone, we’ve really gotten somewhere tonight. Now with regard to the workforce data there’s some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we now have the names and addresses of everyone who has worked on the rail contracts over the past twenty five years. The bad news is that we’ve also identified that ninety two employees have been continuously employed since Stella Gordon disappeared. All men of course.’
The team groaned.
‘Yes not as small a group as I would have liked,’ Dan said, ‘but smaller than the one we had before today which was just about every man in the country. Okay let’s call it quits now, go home and get some sleep. As I said before don’t burn yourselves out. We’ve plenty to do tomorrow so we’ll meet here at eight thirty...’
Dan was interrupted.
‘Printing off,’ Martin said, looking straight at Mac. ‘We’ve got one for York. It was on the database.’
Dan went over to the printer and waited impatiently while the paper slowly emerged. He gave it a quick look and then went over to the board and wrote against York ‘Rhiannon Rees 19 – Murdered’.
He looked like he was about to say something but then stopped. Dan stood there for quite a while reading the print off.
‘Here, read this,’he said giving Mac a most peculiar look.
Mac took the sheet and read the paragraph that Dan was pointing to.
It was a summary of the forensics report. The body of Rhiannon Rees had been found almost two months after she’d disappeared. From the forensic evidence, mostly through insect larva, they were certain that she’d only been dead for a month at most. Mac read this again just to make sure.
‘Christ almighty,’ Mac exclaimed. ‘He keeps them. The bastard keeps them! Natasha might still be alive!’
She awoke but kept her eyes closed. She pictured herself waking up in her bedroom after a particularly bad dream. However, when she finally opened her eyes, it was only the blackness and the silence that surrounded her. She’d been scared of the dark since she’d been a child and she was scared again now.
She had no idea how long she’d been wherever ‘here’ was. In the blackness time meant nothing. She tried to explore her surroundings but it seemed to be a featureless space bounded by walls made of the same sort of pliable stuff that the floor was made off.
She went back to her corner pulled up her knees, rocked herself and cried. She eventually lay down and drifted of
f into a troubled sleep.
She awoke again and suddenly there was light and sound. A man came towards her. He smiled at her but his eyes did not smile, they devoured her. He carried a baseball bat in one hand.
‘Welcome,’ he said with a smile. ‘I mean you no harm, at least not today anyway. There are some rules however that you need to know about during your short stay and these rules must be observed.’
He smiled at her again.
‘In mediaeval times they used to show the accused the instruments of torture,’ he said.
When he said the word ‘torture’ he lengthened it and said it with some affection.
‘So here they are. First the blunt instrument.’
He held the baseball bat aloft.
‘Not a real one as that might be a bit too hard. This is a child’s version and, as you can see, covered with rubber so the little dears won’t hurt themselves too much.’
He swung the bat so near her head that she could hear the loud ‘swish’ as it went by.
‘It will hurt but it won’t bruise too much. If you don’t behave I will use it on you. You will keep quiet and obey me instantly at all times, is that clear? If you don’t I will use this as much as is necessary.’
The bat went ‘swish’ right past her ear again.
‘Unfortunately there was one girl who wouldn’t behave herself. She broke the rules and cried and bawled so much that I lost my temper, very unusual behaviour for me. I’m afraid that I ended up breaking the bat on her but of course she was well dead by then.’
He placed the bat against the wall.
‘I really hope that we won’t have any recourse to use such a brutally blunt instrument as that though. It must be a very distressing way to die.’
He smiled at her again.
‘Now for the real instrument, an elegant and simple one I’ll think you’ll find.’
He pulled a slim, silver coloured metal implement from his pocket and held it close so she could see it. She knew what it was, she had used one often enough in art classes.
‘Yes a scalpel, simple but elegant and perfect for my needs. See how sharp it is.’
He touched the blade against her right breast, just a touch, but enough for a thin stream of blood to flow. She could see him lick his lips as he avidly watched the blood trickle down her body.
He turned as if he’d heard some sound. Natasha had heard nothing.
‘Okay I’ll be up in a minute,’ he shouted.
He turned back to her.
‘Here’s how it will be. Sometime soon I’ll come back to you. I’ll fuck you very hard and while I’m doing that I’ll hold this elegant little blade right here.’
He touched her throat with his finger.
‘Right here where the artery is. While I’m inside you I’ll keep it right there but when I ejaculate I’ll give you a little snick.’
He smiled when he said the word ‘snick’. It was a word he seemed to really like.
‘Yes just a snick and as I gush inside you your life force will gush out of that artery. There’s a really nice symmetry there, don’t you think?’ He paused and smiled. ‘Oh you poor thing, you look worried but don’t be. You won’t feel much, perhaps the warmth of your blood as it cascades down your breasts then soon all will be blackness and you will be dead. That is how it is going to be.’
He smiled at her again and Natasha knew that every word he said was true.
‘There are some energy bars in a box and some water bottles in the corner and there’s a bucket for your other needs. I wish I could attend to you right away but I’m afraid that there’s someone else who needs my company. Sleep well.’
Then the blackness and the silence returned and she found that she was profoundly grateful for it. She sat down in the corner, pulled up her knees and hugged herself. So long as the blackness and silence remained she was safe.
She knew that death would come with the light.
Chapter Sixteen
‘This changes everything,’ Dan said with some excitement. ‘And, as for what I said earlier about not burning yourselves out, forget it. Burn yourselves out as much as you like, we might just save Natasha’s life by doing that.’
Dan stood thinking for quite a while.
‘We all need to be very careful about this new information. Our man is likely to be one of those ninety two on the list and if he knew that we were this close to catching him the chances are that he’d kill Natasha immediately and get rid of the evidence. So it would be best if you don’t tell anyone at all about this, not even family members. Is that clear?’
The team all nodded.
Dan looked at his watch. It was now past ten.
‘Okay go home, get some sleep and I’ll see you back here at six o’clock sharp. Bring a bag with enough clothes for three or four days and tell your families you’re going to be away for a while but don’t tell them why. There’s a hotel around the corner and I’m going to book some rooms so we can grab some sleep when we need to. Go on, go!’ Dan turned and said in a lower voice, ‘Mac, Adil and Andy can you stay behind for a while?’
The rest of the team filed out of the room. Amanda stayed behind too.
Dan noticed her and said, ‘Oh I thought you’d gone home some time ago.’
‘No, no,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I thought as I was part of the team…I just wanted to know what I could do. I want to help.’
Her saying this gave Dan an idea. He looked at her quite closely.
‘Yes there might be something. Can you get a black dress, one as much like Natasha’s as possible, and a black wig. Let’s see how much we can make you look like her. Can you do that first thing tomorrow?’
‘Yes of course,’ she replied, looking a bit puzzled.
‘Just put it all on expenses.’
After everyone had gone Mac asked, ‘Thinking of holding a reconstruction?’
‘Yes that’s exactly what I was thinking of doing. Let’s see, its Friday tomorrow so we could do it Saturday, if we haven’t found her by then that is. Yes that would be good, a week to the day since she went missing.’
‘Do you really think it will help us to get more information though?’ Andy asked, looking somewhat sceptical about the idea.
‘No I doubt it will do that but it will make the news and if I also appear and bleat on about how we’ve got no leads and that Natasha’s disappearance is a total mystery to us…’
‘Then it might convince our man that we haven’t got a clue about his existence,’ Andy said enthusiastically. ‘Now that’s a bloody good idea.’
‘I sometimes have them. Sorry for asking you all to stay but I wanted to make sure that I had the next steps in place for tomorrow.’ He turned to Martin who was still at his laptop in the corner. ‘By the way Martin when I said everyone was to go home that meant you too.’
‘In a minute,’ Martin replied without looking up.
‘Oh, before you go can you book those rooms?’
‘Will do.’
‘Good idea that,’ Mac said.
He’d survived a whole day mainly due to the fact that he’d been so wrapped up in what he was doing that the pain hadn’t had much impact on him. He didn’t feel too bad but he also knew he’d been lucky. Knowing that a room would be available nearby if he needed to lie down would be a real bonus for him.
‘Okay, so any ideas?’ Dan asked.
‘First thing might be to see what we have on the ninety two, prior convictions and so on,’ Andy suggested.
‘What have we got Martin?’ Dan asked without turning around.
‘Nothing more than speeding tickets for most of them. Otherwise just an assault in a pub but there was something interesting. One of them, a Scheme Project Manager called Wayne Turnell, was investigated for sexual assault. The case was eventually dropped but I can’t find out why just yet.’
‘What else?’ Dan asked.
‘I’m looking at all of the ninety two on social media. You can usually tell a lot from their p
osts and likes and so on.’
‘And?’
‘Not a lot so far, wrong demographic.’
Dan laughed.
‘That’s Martin-speak for them being too old,’ Dan explained. ‘Okay so we’ll look at this Mr. Turnell then. Anything else anyone?’
‘We need some way to cut the group down to a reasonable size,’ Mac said. ‘We could do simultaneous raids on a number of premises but ninety two at once would take some preparation.’
‘And that’s assuming that he’s keeping her at home,’ Adil added. ‘He could be keeping her anywhere.’
‘That’s true and if he gets one sniff of what we’re up to she’s as good as dead. Okay I think that we need to keep digging away at top speed for at least the next day or two and then see where we are,’ Dan suggested.
‘Makes sense,’ Mac said.
‘I’d also like to discuss any major operational decisions with you three first,’ Dan said. ‘I’m not saying that I’m going to go along with everything you advise but it might provide me with a sanity check. There’s going to be a lot of pressure on us all over the next few days. What do you think?’
Mac looked at Dan with renewed respect. Making sure that there was some sort of control mechanism when tough decisions were going to have to be made was wise indeed.
Mac and the other two nodded their agreement.
‘So what do we do tomorrow?’ Andy asked.
‘I’m going to bring the chief up to speed with this once we’ve finished this meeting. Of course he’ll suggest that we throw a lot more manpower at it but right now I’m not so sure it will help. Mac what’s your thoughts on that?’ Dan asked.
‘I’ve been in situations like this before. You always think the safe bet is to bring in a load of new people but it rarely works in the short term. It takes a lot of time to bring them up to speed and the original members of the team who know the case well will spend most of their time answering questions rather than getting on with it. I’d advise using other detectives or uniforms for specific tasks only, unless this goes on for a lot longer of course.’
The Blackness (The Mac Maguire detective mysteries Book 4) Page 15