by Helen Fields
‘It’s pity, then, that you were unable to use them effectively enough to save Kate Bailey’s life,’ Mr Alby-Croft interjected.
Ava swung her gaze across the table to meet his. She wondered if he had approached Overbeck, or vice versa. Clearly it suited both their purposes to have her ousted as soon as possible. A war was raging inside her, between honesty and diplomacy, or perhaps between pride and acceptance. Her conscience ached from having let Kate down. Ava had spent an hour on the phone to Natasha overnight, breaking the news of the young woman’s death. Natasha had been heartbroken, and all Ava could do was hang on the end of the line and listen to her tears and self-recrimination. But Natasha hadn’t been tasked with saving Kate’s life. That job had been Ava’s, and she had failed.
‘Did your concerns arise before or after I questioned your son in relation to the Melanie Long murder, Mr Alby-Croft?’ Ava asked him.
‘If you mean before or after you approached my son to see if he had any potentially useful witness information to provide, as that is what you told his headmaster, then the answer is afterwards. It simply alerted me to the fact that you seem to be wasting police time and resources rather than achieving results.’
Like father, like son. Smug, well prepared, devious. Everything Overbeck needed to help her get Ava dismissed.
‘My squad is working to capacity investigating both sets of offences. We are using uniformed officers to conduct on-the-street enquiries and civilians are checking non-sensitive information such as CCTV. Your son, Mr Alby-Croft, might have proved a very important witness. My visit to Leverhulme School was far from a waste of time. In fact, I believe there might be a link between the students there and the perpetrators of the offences.’
‘Do you have evidence to support that theory?’ the chairman asked.
‘Some. Not enough to charge anyone, but what we found could not be ignored,’ Ava said.
‘So you’re telling the board that you have evidence in both cases and yet you still haven’t been able to pursue either to a significant conclusion,’ Alby-Croft said. ‘Perhaps, DCI Turner, you are out of your depth. That is what the board has been convened to consider today. We appreciate you have risen through the ranks with considerable speed. Our concern is whether or not Police Scotland is now feeling the rather unfortunate effect of style over substance.’
‘I would like to add …’ Overbeck said.
‘Just a minute,’ Ava said, pushing her chair back from the table and standing up. ‘I have something to say. Police work is not applying a mathematical theory to a set of known quantities. It requires psychology. It takes time. Yes, it’s frustrating and slow, not to mention imperfect. More often than not, an investigation follows false leads before stumbling onto the path that takes us forward, but good police officers recognise the value of the false leads. We fill our time, rather than waiting for the answer to fall into our laps. Real life does not resemble an episode of a CSI television show. The answer isn’t always in the forensics. The vast majority of serial murders are solved only when the killer makes a mistake. The problem is that until you can see the pattern clearly, you don’t know what the mistakes are. My squad are dedicated and tireless. They are building up a picture of the man we’re looking for – physically, emotionally, his actions and needs – and we will find him. Rest assured, I will also find those responsible for Melanie Long’s death. I have not, at any stage, prioritised one investigation to the detriment of the other.’
‘We believe we can help you with that,’ the chair said. ‘Having heard all you have to say, it seems to me that our discussions prior to this meeting are an appropriate way forward.’
Ava watched as Overbeck pulled her mobile from her handbag and began texting. She didn’t even bother to look up as Ava’s sentence was pronounced.
‘As the Major Investigation Team is currently operating short of one detective inspector, we are redefining roles for the purpose of the investigations. Detective Superintendent Overbeck has kindly offered to step into the Melanie Long investigations with hour-by-hour practical and operational control of the squad. You, DCI Turner, are relieved of control of that investigation. We feel this will leave you freer to focus your efforts on the Kate Bailey enquiry.’
‘You’re taking all the assaults out of my hands?’ Ava asked.
‘We are,’ the chair replied, taking a sip of his coffee and studying the bottom of his cup.
‘May I ask whose idea that was?’ Ava asked.
‘It’s the board’s decision,’ Alby-Croft said. ‘Agreed unanimously.’
‘It is not intended as a slight to you,’ the chair said quickly. ‘Merely to ensure that both cases are handled with the greatest possible efficacy.’
‘And who is to be on Detective Superintendent Overbeck’s squad?’ Ava asked.
As one, all the heads at the table turned towards Overbeck, who folded her arms and directed her answer towards the chairman. ‘DC Salter, DS Lively, a number of uniformed officers. I shouldn’t like to take any more of DCI Turner’s core squad members from her than that.’
‘I bet,’ Ava muttered.
Overbeck glared at her.
‘Well, I’m glad we’ve reached an agreed resolution,’ the chair said, as if they’d spent the previous minutes discussing who would organise the next Police Scotland social event. ‘DCI Turner, we recognise how busy you are. Please don’t let us keep you any longer, and feel free to come to us should you need our further guidance.’
Ava resisted the desire to reply but kept her thoughts on Kate Bailey, waiting for her on a cold metal tray at the mortuary.
‘Thank you,’ she said, picking up her bag from the floor and pulling her car keys from her pocket.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Caroline Ryan’s chair sat empty at the 9 a.m. meeting, which had been scheduled four weeks previously. The architectural firm for which she worked had spent the best part of a year preparing plans, unpaid, to pitch for a massive contract regenerating an old industrial site, which city planners hoped would create jobs, attract shoppers and tourists and spread wealth. It wasn’t merely an important day for Sky’s the Limit Architects. It was make or break.
At 8.30 a.m. Caroline had officially been late for the pre-pitch meeting. At 8.35 a.m., texts to locate her were sent. The managing director had been nothing short of furious by 8.50 a.m., and personally called Caroline’s mobile, which was switched off, then her home. Her fiancé, Jadyn Odoki, answered. By 9.05 a.m. he was on the telephone to the Police Scotland switchboard.
‘She left here at seven thirty this morning,’ he said, for the tenth time. ‘It’s now after nine o’clock. It’s only a twenty-minute journey to her office, and that’s if the traffic lights are against her. She wanted to get in early today.’
‘Sir, I’m sorry. There’s not much we can do. Miss Ryan has only been missing for an hour and a half. I’m sure there’s an explanation. Your girlfriend might just have gone for coffee and lost track of the time,’ the switchboard operator replied.
‘She’s my fiancée, and this is the most important day of her career. If there was an explanation, she’d have phoned either the office or me,’ Jadyn said.
‘It sounds to me as if that might have been quite stressful. Maybe she just decided to go somewhere to clear her head, or made a different decision about going to the meeting. The best thing to do would be for you to wait at home for her. I’m sure—’
‘Put me through to someone else,’ Jadyn said.
‘Sir, you’ll be given the same advice that I’ve already—’
‘Just put me through. Now,’ he ordered.
‘The phone lines are flooded, I’m afraid. We’re coping with mass telephone contacts at the moment, with people offering information in relation to the murders of the two young women you might have seen in the papers. I do apologise, but there will be a delay. I should warn you that it’s standard practice not to pursue a missing person case until an absence of twenty-four hours, unless you have r
easonable cause to believe that a crime has been committed. Has anyone seen or told you anything that’s given you that impression?’
‘Put me through to someone else right now,’ he repeated.
The civilian operator sighed and pressed the hold button, trying a couple of different extensions with no result. Reopening the line to Jadyn Odoki, she asked for his details and promised to get a police officer to call him straight back.
Caroline Ryan’s office desk was immaculate. With the sort of mind that was all smooth lines and clean, crisp shapes, she couldn’t bear mess or clutter. Her Mac sat centrally, keyboard and mouse tucked beneath the screen when she’d left the night before. A small metal pot held pens and pencils, and a 3D print out of the home she had designed for her and her future husband took pride of place in the far left-hand corner. In the centre of the desk sat a box, unmarked save for Caroline’s name and the office address in capitals on the lid. There was no postage or courier details as the box had been left outside the office before security had arrived to open up that morning. The receptionist had given the parcel to one of Caroline’s coworkers who had taken it up in the lift, and deposited it on Caroline’s desk.
At 9.15 a.m., the Sky’s the Limit secretary sat down at Caroline’s desk to switch on her Mac in the hope that the missing architect was still logged into her emails, and that the content of one of them might indicate where she was and why she hadn’t turned up. Not that it would matter for much longer, the secretary thought. Caroline’s desk was likely to have been cleared out by the end of the day. You didn’t simply fail to turn up for a meeting like this one, and think you’d still have a job to come back to.
The secretary pushed the box out of the way, noting a slightly odd smell coming from it and wondering initially if she was just imagining it. She began trawling through Caroline’s multitude of emails – sent, received, even those in drafts. After ten minutes she moved the box further away, where the contents would be less bothersome. Whatever was inside that box was repulsive.
The emails were useless. Every email in or out over the last week related to that morning’s meeting. More than that, although it hadn’t been formalised, everyone knew that success with the pitch meant that Caroline would become a partner, and at just twenty-eight that was a really big deal. She stared at the box. Now that the heating was properly kicking in, the smell was getting worse. If someone had sent Caroline a food parcel, it needed to go in the fridge straight away. She picked it up and walked towards the kitchen. Then again, if it was already going off, putting it in the fridge was likely to contaminate everything else, and the caterers had left sandwich platters in the fridge in case the meeting ran on longer than expected.
She picked up a knife, checking the address on the box carefully. It didn’t say that it was personal, and as it had been sent to the office rather than Caroline’s home address, it was fair to assume it wouldn’t embarrass Caroline if she opened it.
The conference room door opened and the managing director poked his head out, motioning that more coffee was required. The secretary put down the knife and busied herself with a new coffee filter instead. It was no good, if she didn’t do something quickly the whole office would absolutely reek. Grabbing the knife again, she sank it into the gaffer tape that sealed the top, shoving her hand inside to free whatever the offending article was so that she could get it into a bin liner as quickly as possible. Her fingers slid through silky hair, and down onto something softer. It slipped through her fingers at first, then she got a firmer grasp and it came free from where it had been sticking to the base of the box. The scream she let out was loud enough to stop the pitch meeting mid-presentation, and to ensure it would not restart again that day.
Ava and Callanach met at Caroline’s desk. The area had already been cleared of other staff members, and the central focus for the forensics team was the kitchen. They went in together to get a look at the skin doll and the box it had been delivered in. There was no doubt that it had come from Kate Bailey’s body. The silky blonde hair was unmistakable. Only the lips were exaggerated, painted a bright red, more like a geisha’s, then stitched over hard with thick black man-made fibre.
‘What do we know about Caroline?’ Ava asked Callanach.
‘She’s highly qualified. First-class degree from Cambridge. Was the shining young star of the firm. Alarm bells started ringing this morning when she failed to appear for a vital meeting. Apparently her fiancé had already called the police to report her missing, but it had only been a couple of hours so no one made the connection. A secretary found the doll as there was a smell coming from the box.’
‘There still is,’ Ava said. ‘The others weren’t this bad. I wonder what went wrong this time.’
‘Hopefully Jonty can tell us that soon. He’s waiting for us at the mortuary. The fiancé is on his way here. He has no idea where Caroline is and I instructed the officers bringing him not to talk to him about it. We need to know what it is about Caroline that attracted the killer to her. Nothing makes sense at the moment. Zoey, Lorna and Kate all had aspects of their life that made them targets.’ Callanach stripped off the gloves he’d been wearing and stepped away from the kitchen area. Ava followed. ‘So what happened this morning? Did Overbeck handle herself with her usual amount of tact and grace?’
‘I’m off the Melanie Long investigation.’ Ava smiled. ‘Overbeck is heading it up directly. She’s taking Lively and Salter. It’s a demotion in all but name.’
‘I don’t understand. You were doing everything you could, and you had a lead. All that was required was to get the authority to follow up,’ Callanach said.
‘Yes, well, when the father of a suspect is on the police board, and the detective superintendent is more concerned with keeping in his good books than solving a murder, things don’t go according to plan. For now, I’m still here. Possibly not for much longer though. You’d best be nice to me while you’ve still got me,’ she grinned.
Callanach gritted his teeth. ‘Ava, you’ve got to do something. There must be a complaints system, or a review—’
‘There is. It would be handled by the same people who just decided I wasn’t capable of running two investigations at once.’
‘Ma’am, Caroline Ryan’s fiancé has arrived,’ a uniformed officer said from the doorway.
Ava and Luc walked out to meet him. Jadyn Odoki was shaking, but not from shock. That much was clear when he looked utterly disgusted as Callanach held out his hand to him.
‘I called at 9 a.m. I was told someone would call me straight back. The next call I got was to tell me they were concerned about Caro’s safety and that something had been found. What the fuck good is a police force who puts you on hold when you call to say someone is missing?’ Jadyn said.
‘You’re right,’ Ava said immediately. ‘If I could turn back the clock, I would, but here’s what we know now. Miss Ryan didn’t enter the office this morning. Her car has been located in the public car park just down the street – where she usually parks, according to colleagues. The vehicle is undamaged and locked, so she wasn’t involved in a traffic accident. Whatever happened to your fiancée took place between here and there.’
‘So she might have been hit by another car, or taken ill. Did you call the hospitals?’ he asked.
‘Mr Odoki, a package addressed to Caroline was found on her desk this morning. It indicates that Caroline may be the victim of an abduction. We’ve found similar items when other young women have been taken. At present, we’re working on the basis that Caroline has been put into another vehicle and driven out of the city, probably to a private address.’
‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ Jadyn said, swinging round to kick a door. Ava and Callanach let him have the moment. It was a fair reaction. ‘How long’s she been gone? What’s going to happen to her?’
‘We don’t think it was a chance abduction. It seems likely the man knew where Caroline usually parks and was waiting for her. The positive news is that we know what vehic
le he uses and we’re in the process of tracing the CCTV for all the routes out of this area to see if we can narrow down his address.’
‘What are you not telling me?’ Jadyn asked. ‘If you know so much about him, what is it he wants from her? Is he going to ask for money? Whatever it is, I’ll pay, I’ll find a way. He’s done this before, right? When’s he going to contact us?’
‘It’s not that kind of kidnapping, I’m afraid. He doesn’t want money. The other young women he’s taken have survived a few days, a week at most. He leaves their bodies somewhere public, but so far they have all been too badly hurt to have survived.’
‘The Babydoll Killer?’ he shouted. ‘That’s who has her – that monster? How could you let this happen? You knew he was out there. You knew he was taking women …’
‘Not women like Caroline,’ Callanach said quietly. ‘That’s what we need to understand. With the other three victims, we could see the pattern. It was horrible but it made sense. We could understand what the killer thought he was achieving. Caroline seems different. We’re going to have to ask you some difficult questions, I’m afraid. The best thing you can do for her is to get angry later, ask all the questions you have after we’ve finished, but help us now. Can you do that, Mr Odoki?’
There were a few seconds where he stood completely still, breathing hard through his nose, looking as if he were considering either fighting or fleeing, but then his head came up and a new man emerged. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘What is it you need to know?’
‘All the other girls had a troubled past, or were currently at a difficult stage of their life. This is no reflection on Caroline, but the best way to identify her abductor might be to understand how she was selected. Has Caroline ever had any problems involving drugs, violence, prostitution, criminal activity? Anything you can think of that’s unusual?’
‘Is this a joke?’ he asked. They stood passively and waited. ‘Fine, no, nothing like that. We met at Cambridge University, but she always wanted to come home to Scotland. She’s never been in trouble, not once. She had sleepless nights if she missed a class, you know? She’d never have coped with doing anything seriously wrong, and she didn’t need to. Her parents are well off. We’re happy, settled. Six months ago we realised we’d saved enough money to buy a plot of land to build the house Caroline had always dreamed of, and I’ve got a place on an archaeological team. She doesn’t drink alcohol let alone take drugs. Is this a case of mistaken identity? Do you think that perhaps he was after someone else and took Caro by mistake?’