The Death Messenger

by Mari Hannah

  Fuck her . . .

  Fuck ’em all.

  But then things took a positive turn: a leak by someone at the British Embassy had raised her profile. She thought the truth was finally going to break – the press were all over it for days – and yet now all they could talk about was the fucking weather.

  It was a mistake speaking to O’Neil’s bagman. From the get-go Ryan had been trying to get the upper hand. She’d enjoyed his banter at first but then he’d failed to take her seriously, left her hanging on the line, shown her no respect whatsoever. He’d trampled all over her right to be heard, just like the fuckers she was killing. Like a metaphor for her life falling apart, the crack above her head seemed to grow wider the more she stared at it.

  She should’ve stayed on the line yesterday and fronted up to Ryan. He might think she’d fallen into his trap, but she’d cut the call for good reason. Losing her rag with someone who thought she was dumb was risky. She might say something she’d regret, exposing herself to identification, handing him exactly what he was after, and she wasn’t having that. Instead, she’d taken her anger out on the one person she knew hadn’t the guts to stand up to her, let alone fight back. So what if Ryan had tricked her into showing her hand? She’d just have to try that bit harder to impress him.

  Introducing him to the grunt would do it.

  She grinned, a plan forming in her head. Ryan needed a lesson in who was boss. She was the game changer, not DS-fucking-Ryan. By the time she was done, he’d regret taking the moral high ground. She’d make sure he understood the rules as well as her motivation.

  Who was the victim here anyway?

  Not the dead ones. Those losers were in the wrong, not her. But if Ryan wanted confrontation, he’d come to the right person. She’d keep going until chaos reigned. Then maybe he’d understand who was really in charge and why her personal safety was less important than her assignments. She was going to hell anyway. What did she care how she got there?

  58

  ‘I have news!’ Grace said as she walked through the door and took off her sodden overcoat, Newman following close behind. There were no special greetings to Ryan and O’Neil in spite of their marathon journey north and late arrival, no let-up for unit staff, no allowances. ‘I just spoke to Art Malik,’ Grace said. ‘He knows why Laura didn’t take the fourth respondent to the newspaper ad. And what’s more . . .’ A grin spread across her face as she let the sentence hang.

  ‘He has ID?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘He does indeed. It was Mark Montgomery.’

  They high-fived.

  No wonder she was buzzing.

  ‘Laura told Malik that Montgomery was an agitating bastard she couldn’t afford to have on set. In short, she denied him a platform, ignored him because he was unpleasant and aggressive.’ Grace bowed graciously, like a ballerina. ‘You lot can thank me later.’

  ‘Wait a minute!’ Ryan said. ‘Laura worked with Sophia. Did she not know that Mark was her brother?’

  Grace was shaking her head. ‘That was the first question I asked. As a relation of film crew, he’d most probably be ineligible to apply. He’d hardly disclose it, would he?’

  ‘I want him picked up,’ O’Neil said. ‘Get hold of his medical records, soon as you can – his sister’s too.’ She beamed at Ryan. ‘This is great news.’ By process of elimination, they could rule out Nichol and Spencer, leaving themselves with just one pair to concentrate on.

  The rest of the day was long and drawn out with no news of Mark Montgomery’s arrest and no sign of Sophia at her Bletchley home. O’Neil ordered satellite teams to carry out house-to-house, the result of all enquiries for immediate input into HOLMES. Minutes turned to hours, the afternoon dragging itself slowly and laboriously into early evening.

  After the high of identifying the prime suspects, morale had plummeted to a low point. Not so their work rate; everyone, including O’Neil, was focused on the chat room. There was undoubtedly reasonable cause to bring the Montgomery siblings in for questioning. Evidence was mounting, unit staff could all feel it, but first it was vital to establish connections between victims and perpetrators. And thus far they’d drawn a blank on that score.

  Thames Valley Police excelled at keeping in touch. They would continue a watching brief in Buckinghamshire but, with sixty-five millimetres of rainfall resulting in local flooding, they had their hands full. There’d been no sign of Mark or Sophia Montgomery.

  Ryan suspected they had gone to ground.

  Grace Ellis took off her reading specs, rubbing at tired eyes, unhappy with the way things were going. ‘Support networks usually offer comfort,’ she said. ‘Not this one. The members are nothing more than a bunch of morbid weirdos. Some of these posts are hateful. They may all be living with the nightmare of Sauer’s, but this type of remote contact is a breeding ground for trouble.’

  Ryan was thinking the very same thing as he trawled the site for clues. The interruption was a good excuse to take a break. He got up, made them all a drink, delivering it to their desks. There was no break for Grace. Her eyes never left her desk. He lingered a moment, his focus on the rain-lashed window beyond her. It was still tanking down.

  He wandered away and sat down beside Caroline and Bob.

  ‘You OK, Matt?’ His twin sensed his presence.

  ‘I’ve had better days.’ The fact that she knew it was him sitting there blew his mind. Time and again, whether he was just out of the shower or back from a run, she never mistook him for someone else. He ruffled Bob’s coat and got a tail wag in return. ‘Then again, I’ve had a lot worse.’

  ‘You’ll get there.’ Caroline went quiet for a moment. ‘Do you think the victims were murdered because they knew something the killer wanted to protect, or because of something they were told and didn’t act upon?’

  ‘The latter,’ he said. ‘Montgomery has taken revenge. She feels wronged in some way. The victims were all in positions of trust: youth worker, solicitor, teacher, all people who offered guidance to others.’

  ‘You think it may have got them killed?’

  ‘It’s the only thing we’ve come up with that connects them.’

  Having overheard the conversation, O’Neil swung her chair round to face them, coffee in hand, eyes on Ryan. ‘If we knew her motivation, it would help.’

  ‘Youth worker.’ It came out like a murmur. Newman hadn’t joined the conversation, he was talking to himself, his focus on his computer screen, as theirs had been a moment ago. He’d hit on something.

  ‘Frank?’ O’Neil was all ears. ‘What have you found?’

  ‘Not what, who.’

  ‘Who?’ Grace nudged him.

  ‘There’s a Paul Dean mentioned here. Ex-youth leader.’

  ‘Must’ve been uploaded recently,’ Grace said. ‘It wasn’t there this morning, I checked.’

  The HOLMES system was like a big sponge that was continually updated by staff around the country. Regular checks threw up different information. A few hours could turn an enquiry on its head.

  Newman had done well to find this gem.

  He pushed his chair away from the desk. ‘There’s an amazing thread in this forum. Come and see for yourself.’

  Grace was first out of her chair. The rest of the team – minus Caroline – weren’t far behind. Huddling around to get a closer look, they saw that Newman’s screen was open on a chat stream, more specifically a long and venomous conversation between someone calling himself Shdwman and another person whose chat room handle was dude1980.

  Neither had a public profile.

  ‘Shdwman is angry,’ Newman said. ‘He’s talking about his mum, tearing Dean to shreds; dude1980 is egging him on. It goes on forever. This is just the end of it.’

  Shdwman: He told her it was God’s will. FFS!

  dude1980: dick

  Shdwman: Why the fuck didn’t she get rid?

  dude1980: she should have – not his life, was it?

  Shdwman: It’s no life, man.

&nbs
p; dude1980: sorry . . . cant help u

  Shdwman: I’m fucked.

  dude1980: you have me bro Shdwman: Not enough

  dude1980: dont give up. this wanker will suffer

  Shdwman: If you’re going to swear, learn to spell.

  dude1980: he’ll get his

  Shdwman: Not how it works.

  dude1980: depends

  Shdwman: He’s split man. Google him. He’s a big shot now.

  dude1980: so am I

  Shdwman: Fuck off loser.

  Re-energized, Grace turned to the others. ‘This is gold, Frank. “He’ll get his” sounds like a definite threat to me. The timing is right too. The chat is dated January tenth of this year, six months before Dean met his death. We need Technical Support to track this IP address and extract any contact between these two, either before or after.’

  ‘Sophia is not dude1980,’ Newman said.

  ‘No, Mark is.’ Grace pointed at the chat handle. ‘The numbers coincide with his birth year. If it had been her, it would have been dude1978.’ She faked a frown. ‘Why do people do that? I’d rather keep mine to myself: dude1959 doesn’t have the same ring somehow.’

  Ryan laughed.

  ‘It all makes sense now.’ Four pairs of eyes were on him. ‘Shdwman is talking about abortion. Like Rebecca Swift, he wishes he’d never been born. If Montgomery is of the same mind and Dean took the opposite view, it may have got him killed. No wonder Rebecca left the site. She’s a good person.’ He pointed at Newman’s screen. ‘She wouldn’t want to be associated with this crap. She chose a legitimate route to highlight her plight via the documentary. Locked out of the limelight, Mark Montgomery didn’t. He turned violent with the help of someone we already think is a killer: his sister.’

  ‘Psychopathic siblings has a certain ring to it,’ Grace said. ‘You think they’re standing up for the unborn?’ She made a face. ‘Such twisted logic. Moral crusaders are the worst kind. The theory hands justification to Sophia, explains why she killed her mother.’

  ‘We have no proof of that,’ O’Neil reminded her. ‘And no prospect of any without a confession. Forgive my cynicism, but I hardly think she’s the type to cough.’

  ‘Then we work on her brother,’ Newman said.

  O’Neil glanced his way. ‘If we can find him.’

  ‘That shouldn’t be too difficult,’ Ryan said. ‘He lacked the nous to hide his birth year. Can you see him covering his ass, concealing his audit trail? I can’t. If Laura’s assessment of him was correct, and I’m inclined to believe it was, he’s so angry he can’t hold it together. That means he’ll have made and will continue to make mistakes. Technical support might get lucky.’

  ‘Sophia made mistakes too,’ Grace said. ‘Not throwing her brother over the cliff, for one. If he’s an eyewitness, her freedom depends on his silence, and that’s not a nice place to be.’

  Ryan nodded. ‘We need to find him and quickly.’

  O’Neil gave Grace permission to set the ball rolling for an arrest. As the team settled into their work, Ryan wondered if Sophia’s mother had taken the pair on holiday to break the news that they may – almost certainly would – develop Sauer’s, become ill and die before their time. Had she slipped it into the conversation on that clifftop walk without anticipating the strength of their rage? Had they, separately or together, given her a shove?

  There was no better place to do it.

  An idea occurred to Ryan.

  Logging on to his own computer, he brought up the contact details for Michael Tierney’s partner and dialled the number. ‘Robert, it’s DS Matthew Ryan. How are you holding up?’

  ‘Trying to move on. Thanks for asking.’

  ‘I can only imagine how tough that is.’ Ryan meant it. The guy was broken. ‘You said you’d give some thought to Michael’s antecedent history. I wondered if you’d had a chance to do that and, if you have, if you found anything that might be of use to us.’

  O’Neil held up a thumb, validating Ryan’s call.

  Although much better than when they broke the news of Tierney’s death, Parker still sounded shaky on the phone. ‘I discussed everything I knew with the Family Liaison Officer here in Brighton.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A few days after your visit.’

  ‘Not to worry. It’s probably on the system already.’

  ‘There wasn’t much there,’ Parker said. ‘As I told you, Michael had no enemies, Detective. The odd homophobe, but we’re used to that. Is there something specific you’re after?’ The dentist was intuitive. ‘I was hoping you’d made progress with your enquiry. I want you to catch Michael’s killer and put him away. I can’t bear to think of him wrecking someone else’s life.’

  ‘Me either.’

  Parker didn’t reply.

  Ryan suspected he was weeping. ‘There is one thing . . .’ He paused, searching for appropriate words. ‘When Michael was teaching, did he ever mention anything to you about Sauer’s disease?’

  Parker cleared his throat. ‘No, why should he?’

  ‘It’s a line of enquiry we’re following.’

  ‘What has a cancer diagnosis got to do with his death?’

  Ryan was surprised that Parker knew of the disease but then remembered that he was a dentist. ‘We’re not sure, is the truth of it. We’re currently investigating a support group linked to the illness. This is highly confidential – so please don’t repeat it – we’ve found reference to one of the other victims on a chat-room site. I was wondering if Michael might have had any contact with the group, or with someone who either had or might go on to develop the disease during the time he was teaching.’

  ‘Oh my God!’

  ‘Robert? Are you OK?’

  ‘Tell me it’s not her?’

  ‘Her?’ Ryan held his breath.

  Parker didn’t answer immediately.

  O’Neil took in Ryan’s tension from across the room. He put the phone on speaker. Responding to the stress he’d put on the word ‘her’, Grace, Newman and Caroline also turned to face him.

  After a few seconds, Parker’s shaky voice filled the room . . .

  ‘The kid he spoke to—’

  ‘I’m sorry, can you explain? I’m not following.’

  ‘Michael came home very upset one evening. This was years ago. He’d received a distressing telephone call from a young woman—’

  ‘One of his pupils?’

  ‘No. Teaching was his day job. He did a couple of night’s voluntary work on a suicide prevention line, an organization similar to Samaritans. He found it rewarding, except for this one night. The girl poured her heart out him, threatened to throw herself in front of a London Underground tube. She was deeply distressed. Inconsolable. So was he when he got home. They were all disturbing cases, but this one really shook him up. He resigned over it.’

  ‘Robert, this is very important. Did he meet with her?’

  ‘No, why would he?’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, of course! She was a kid. He was a teacher. Michael was soft but ambitious, even then. He’d never jeopardize his career under any circumstances. If I remember correctly, he referred her on to a professional counsellor, someone at Social Services. There should be a record of it somewhere.’

  ‘Any idea which one?’

  ‘No, sorry.’ There was a moment of silence. ‘It makes no sense that she would harm him if he was trying to help though, does it?’

  ‘Not to us, no. Do you recall if he rang or wrote to Social Services?’

  ‘If I know Michael, he’d have emailed the referral, if only to cover himself. On second thoughts, I can’t see there being a record of it now. It was ages ago, early nineties.’

  ‘Nineties? Are you absolutely sure?’

  ‘It was 1993, in fact. We went on holiday a week later. Sri Lanka. I thought it would do him good to get away. If you like, I’ll check his old computers. I’ve got nothing better to do this Christmas.’

  Ryan fel
t sorry for him.

  ‘You still have them?’

  ‘Michael ran a thriving business, Detective. His equipment formed part of his company’s tangible assets. He never threw them away in case of an HMRC investigation. I begged him to dispose of them before the ceiling collapsed. Like marriage, we never got round to it. He’s got stacks of equipment in the loft. I’ll hunt it out and get back to you, assuming I can make it work and if I find anything.’

  Frank, Grace, Caroline and Eloise were still processing the information when Ryan put down the phone. ‘How’s your maths?’ he asked.

  O’Neil was puzzled.

  ‘Montgomery is thirty-five. If it turns out that she was the person Tierney spoke to in 1993, she was talking when she was fifteen years old. That’s five years after she allegedly went mute.’

  No one spoke.

  59

  Feeling like a kid on Christmas morning, Ryan woke with the realization that it was a day of immense significance – except that this was the eve rather than the big day itself. There were no presents to open. No turkey to baste. It was time to be watchful around O’Neil. He wondered how she’d cope with what would’ve been the anniversary of her marriage to Stephen Forsythe.

  She’d been for an early walk, was fresh and alert when he found her at the kitchen bench, buttering a piece of toast. They ate breakfast in silence before the others arrived, a simple meal: toast, fruit and strong black coffee. She kept her head down, scouring the morning newspapers, her inability to make eye contact a hint of her mood.

  ‘You’re staring again.’ She didn’t lift her head.

  ‘Was I? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘Ryan, yesterday was a mare. I want everyone to knock off at midday. I managed to book Grace and Frank dinner at their hotel to sweeten the blow, a thank you present for all their hard work. I can’t release them entirely. Even if I could, travel to Scotland is impossible.’ She tapped the newspaper. ‘Gale force winds and gusts of ninety-five miles per hour aren’t ideal driving conditions. You should take Caroline home when she arrives. There’s nothing doing here. If it all kicks off and I need you, I’ll be in touch.’