by T. M. Logan
‘You know, my husband will be home any time now.’
He glances to the door – just for a second – and I put my hands in my jacket pockets, wrapping the dark fabric around myself as if for warmth or protection.
His eyes narrow.
‘No.’ His tone is flat, matter-of-fact. ‘He won’t. Don’t do anything stupid, or I will have to hurt you.’
I ignore him, my fingers finding the bunch of keys in my jacket pocket. My hand closes around them, a single straight key sticking out from the bottom of my fist. I must have done this a dozen times walking alone at night, hearing footsteps behind me on a dark street, working late or becoming separated from my friends after a night out. I never actually had to use them, though, never found out if it could make a difference. I am about to find out. Two inches of brass that might give me a fighting chance to get out of here if I can catch him off guard.
He takes another step towards me.
‘I can’t have you running to the cops, Ellen.’
I ease my hands back out of my pockets, keys clutched painfully tight in my right fist. The key is facing away from him so he can’t see it. A navy self-defence class comes back to me. Focus on the vulnerable areas with a hammer strike: eyes, nose, throat. I roll my weight onto the balls of my feet, ready to raise my right hand and bring it down in his direction. A thin sliver of skin is visible at his neck, where the balaclava ends. The flesh looks pale, vulnerable, deathly white against the black of his clothes. It makes a good target.
Now. I raise my right hand high and swing it down but he darts away at the last moment and I miss him by inches. He’s backing up, holding out a hand.
‘Stop!’
‘Don’t like a victim who fights back, do you?’
I swing again, backing him towards the corner. With a speed that surprises me he brings his own right hand up and there is something in it, rectangular and metallic. He raises it to my neck. There is an instant of shock and then a white-hot, paralysing pain, fierce agony like I have never known before, lighting up every nerve ending in my body like I’m filled with freezing fire. I am falling backwards.
Then, nothing.
29
He liked to listen to her in the dark.
If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine himself there, in the house with them, in the room with her. Just the two of them. Her little hand in his. Five tiny fingers, curled softly in sleep.
The woman was there most often, talking to the baby. Playing music designed to stimulate or soothe the infant brain.
But he preferred it when the door closed, when the woman’s voice faded away, when it was just the two of them. He would listen to the baby’s gurgling laugh, her coos and chatter. He listened to her breathe. Short, shallow breaths in and out of little lungs. Sometimes he listened to her cry. But she didn’t cry often. She was a good girl.
Hacking the Alexa in her room made the little gadget so much more useful.
Helpful for so many things.
For listening in.
Feeling like a part of the family.
30
DI Gilbourne & DS Holt
Gilbourne took two of the pills from the small plastic bag and held them in the palm of his hand.
Twenty years ago he could go a night without sleep and it would barely touch him. Ten years ago, even. Crime scene, search, door to doors, arrest, interview, doing the briefings, grab an hour of sleep along the way, plenty of coffee and he could keep rolling. That sleep-deprived first or second or third day after you got the call, pushing and pushing until you could finally charge your suspect.
But he wasn’t that man anymore. The years had left their mark on him. With the ranks of frontline officers increasingly depleted and not enough new blood coming through to replace them, with the ever-growing expectation from the top brass and the know-nothing politicians above them, the thin blue line was getting thinner all the time. Everyone was stretched to the limit and beyond. And everyone had their breaking point.
His eyes were gritty, his head thick with fatigue. He needed this. It was just about staying sharp, that was all. It was what the victims deserved, what their families deserved. He shook a third pill out of the clear plastic Ziploc bag and threw all three into his mouth. Found an almost-finished takeaway cup in the driver’s side door and washed the pills down with a grimacing mouthful of yesterday’s coffee.
He opened the car door and poured the rest of the cold coffee onto the lay-by’s cracked grey tarmac. The country air was a cold slap in the face as he got out of his car and he pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his raincoat. Holt was waiting for him a few metres away, the younger man with his head down, talking earnestly on his mobile. Seeing his approach, Holt hurriedly finished the call and slipped the phone into his pocket. Somehow, he looked fresh and ready to go despite the hours they’d been putting in this week. He looked keen. Excited, even. What was that saying? Youth is wasted on the young.
Gilbourne nodded a hello to his partner.
‘What have we got, Nathan?’
‘Called in two hours ago by a woman walking her dog. Uniforms came down to check it out and found the body just down there, in the stream near those trees.’ He pointed into a stand of beech trees further off the track.
‘Come on then.’
The two of them set off up a rise out of the lay-by, an unofficial path where the grass was trodden flat up the bank’s gentle incline. It levelled out at the top, the path disappearing into trees. There was a uniformed officer in a high-vis jacket standing sentry by the first oak tree, at the top of the bank. Gilbourne showed his ID and stopped to take a brief look back.
A country road between Beaconsfield and Amersham, curving away in both directions. Quiet. You’d probably hear approaching traffic from a fair way away, before you saw it at least. Or before they saw you. It was early afternoon but only two cars had passed since he had parked up a few minutes before. Trees on both sides made for good cover and concealment. He estimated the distance from the lay-by into the trees at five or six metres. It was up a slope, but even so a reasonably fit man carrying a body – assuming the victim was average size and weight – could probably cover that distance in six to eight seconds. Which didn’t make him hopeful about witnesses driving by and catching their killer in the act.
All in all, it was a good spot. Well-chosen. The best they could probably hope for was dash cam footage that might have caught any cars parked in the lay-by over the last couple of days.
Holt waited for him, his face alert with excitement, pointing further into the trees as he caught up.
‘It’s just down there,’ he said. ‘There’s a dip in the ground but you can’t see it until you’re virtually on top of it.’
‘The Thames Valley boys been all right about handing this over?’
Holt nodded. ‘No bother at all. They seemed happy about it.’
Gilbourne allowed the younger detective to lead, pushing through low bushes and stepping over logs rotting on the ground. The ground was muddy, the path slick with autumn rain and the air heavy with the smell of moss. About twenty metres from the road they reached another couple of uniformed officers, thumbs hooked into their stab vests at a cordon of blue and white police tape, the outer perimeter put in place to stop anyone else stumbling into the scene. There was no media presence yet, but with the number of police vehicles pulled into the lay-by behind them, it was only a matter of time. He made a mental note to give the force press office a heads-up when he was on his way back to the station later.
‘Did she disturb anything, the dog walker?’
‘Don’t think so,’ Holt said. ‘They’ve got her in a patrol car back at the lay-by.’
‘Did you ask her?’
‘I assumed the uniforms checked that with her, and they didn’t pass on anything to me.’
Gilbourne took out packet of Marlboros from his pocket and lit one with his Zippo, taking a long drag on the fresh cigarette. He had seen too many crime scenes m
essed up by over-zealous bystanders, putting their hands on the victim, contaminating good sources of DNA and trampling trace evidence into the ground in a misplaced effort to help. He’d even had one screwed-up scene where a guy tried to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a neighbour who’d been dead for more than twenty-four hours. That had taken some untangling.
‘Let’s not assume, OK, Nathan?’ He blew smoke upwards into the air. ‘Have another chat with her, double-check she didn’t touch anything or let the dog near the body.’
The younger detective took half a step away from the smoke and seemed about to protest, but decided against it.
‘You want me to do that now?’ he said.
‘In a minute. Let’s have a look at the scene first.’
Yellow and black crime scene tape was strung between trees to create the inner perimeter, a small square scene-of-crime tent at its centre. The tent’s flap was pinned open and they could see a pair of feet, one shoe on and one fallen to the side. Stepping plates had been laid on the ground to create a common approach path, leading away from the tent to the edge of the inner cordon. The plates – ridged metal squares that stood proud of the ground – didn’t follow the trodden path through the woods. Instead they went up and to the side, an awkward route that would have been chosen as the least likely to have been taken by the suspect, to prevent trampling of evidence by investigators.
Gilbourne could feel the tingling buzz as the pills started to kick in, lighting up his nerve endings, making everything sharper, clearer; the muted colours of the day that little bit brighter. Was it even the pills, or was it something else? The buzz of the scene, the mental challenge of putting the pieces together, the thrill of the chase? Maybe a bit of both.
He was going to miss this.
He nodded a hello to the lead SOCO, Fiona Whyler, as they approached. She was in white crime scene overalls, masked and hooded and with one booted foot on either bank of the small stream.
‘Stuart,’ she said with a small wave. She stepped back onto the near bank and made her way carefully along the stepping plates to the crime scene tape. She had a pale, milky complexion, a few strands of red hair escaping from the hood of her overalls. She smiled, crow’s feet crinkling at her eyes. ‘Thought retirement had caught up with you by now.’
‘Still a few months off my thirty, Fiona,’ Gilbourne said with a smile.
‘Feels like you’ve been saying that for the last three or four years,’ she said. He indicated the white crime scene tent behind her. ‘How are we doing?’
‘Well, we’ve got a female victim, early twenties, looks like at least two stab wounds to the back, possibly others. Fully clothed.’
‘Weapon?’
‘Nothing yet. The size of the wounds suggest we may be talking about a broad-bladed kitchen knife, something like that. Something big.’
‘Defensive injuries?’
‘Not that I can see on an initial examination.’
‘Was she killed here, or somewhere else?’
Whyler shrugged, eyeing his lit cigarette with something like hunger. ‘Ask me again in a couple of hours’ time.’
‘I don’t suppose you’re going to help me out with an approx. time of death, are you?’
She shook her head. ‘Not yet, we need to do more work. I’d be guessing.’
‘So what’s your best guess?’
‘I don’t guess, Stu, I’m a scientist. That’s why they give me this nice white suit.’
Gilbourne clasped his hands together in front of him. ‘Just for me?’
She stared at him for a moment, then blew out a breath. ‘The body’s been lying half-in, half-out of that stream for an unknown number of hours which will have accelerated bodily cooling rates and messed with various other things.’
Gilbourne nodded, waiting.
‘OK,’ she said finally. ‘OK. If I had to guess, I’d say more than twenty-four hours, less than forty-eight. And probably leaning towards the higher end. But don’t quote me on that.’
‘You’re a star, Fiona.’
‘When the PM’s done, you’ll be the first to know. But for right now, that’s the best I can do.’
She glanced back at the scene to where one of her white-suited colleagues was securing clear plastic bags over the victim’s hands to preserve any forensic evidence under her fingernails.
‘I’d best get back to it.’
‘Thanks, Fiona. I appreciate it.’
Gilbourne watched her go, taking a last drag on his cigarette before nipping off the burning end with his thumb and forefinger and putting the butt into his jacket pocket. He stood for a minute, taking in the scene.
*
Holt waited, saying nothing. They had only been partnered up for a few months but he knew this was Gilbourne’s thing and that he was not to be interrupted. One of his quirks, trying to get his head into the mindset of an offender so that he could visualise the time of the offence, see the problems they might have encountered and where mistakes might have been made. He had told Holt to imagine committing the crime himself – to imagine the details, the practicalities, the specifics – if he wanted to pinpoint the most likely sources of evidence. Holt had listened politely, nodded, agreed. But it sounded more like superstition and old school Columbo bullshit to him. In modern policing, securing a conviction was much more likely to hinge on DNA, maybe above everything else. DNA to move from arrest to charge, DNA to get a case to court, DNA to convince juries who had spent half their lives watching Prime Suspect and Dexter and CSI Miami.
DNA was the key. Holt knew that better than anyone.
Finally, Gilbourne nodded and turned to his partner. ‘So, Nathan. You think this is the primary scene?’
‘Too early to be definitive,’ Holt said, ‘but my gut instinct would be no. Not sure how you’d get the victim to come down here voluntarily. There’s nothing really to see, it’s not on the way to anywhere, it’s not a short cut. Kind of a dead end.’
‘They could have been forced to come down here, against their will.’
‘Maybe,’ Holt chose his words carefully, knowing he was being tested. ‘But I don’t know. I just can’t see it. The primary scene is more likely to be a vehicle, a property, where the injuries were inflicted. This is the secondary, the disposal site.’
Gilbourne nodded. ‘I’m inclined to agree with you. And what do you deduce from the choice of this place as a secondary crime scene?’
‘Well, they’d need to know the area,’ Holt said. ‘I mean you wouldn’t lug a body up here from the road without knowing it in advance. From back there, you can’t tell what it’s like in terms of visibility, foot traffic, options for concealment. Could be the boundary to someone’s back garden or the ninth hole of a golf course, for all you can tell. You wouldn’t know it’s a good spot to dump a body unless you’d already been here.’
‘Maybe our killer just got lucky with his location?’
‘No, I reckon he’s local. Or has local knowledge.’
‘Agreed,’ Gilbourne said again. ‘Come on, let’s have a chat to the dog walker.’
They were turning to go when Whyler called to them.
‘Stuart?’ she said, pointing to one of her white-suited SOCOs, who was picking his way along the stepping plates to the edge of the inner cordon. He was holding something in a clear plastic evidence bag. The officer stopped and held out the bag in his gloved hand, clear plastic over a credit-card sized rectangle of pink and white. A driver’s licence, edges smeared brown with mud, but the name and picture still visible.
‘Christ,’ Holt said, looking closer. ‘It’s her.’
31
The twin burn marks on my neck are covered with a large plaster. The pain has slowly subsided to a low throb around a numbness that extends down to my shoulder blade and up into my jaw. A stun gun, the paramedic said, delivering a high voltage shock on contact with the skin. Illegal, highly dangerous and readily available on the internet. There is apparently no way of knowing what level
of shock I was given, but she said I’m lucky the injuries aren’t more severe: she once saw a stun gun used in a street robbery and the victim suffered a heart attack. I had been lucky, too, that I only banged my head on the windowsill as I fell. She advised me to go to hospital for a proper check-up, but it seemed like overkill to me.
By the time help arrived the house was empty, of course, no sign of my attacker apart from the destruction he left behind. The uniformed officers who turned up, a couple of well-meaning young constables with beards and big arms, noted down my limited description of the intruder and took my statement about the events of this afternoon. They were more interested in the assault; the fact that nothing of any particular value had been stolen seemed to blunt their interest in the burglary. I tell them everything I can remember, including the words that are now branded onto my brain.
You handed the baby over to the police.
Mistake.
It will make her easier to find.
The expression in his eyes when he’d said it, the flash of anticipation. Was that what it was?
The two young officers made a note about Mia but I saw them exchange a look, I could tell they didn’t really know what to make of my story and whether I was concussed in some way. They’ll likely write this up as assault and robbery on a householder, and there’s no space in that story for a baby that wasn’t here and isn’t mine. A detective from CID would be in touch, they said, to talk about evidence recovery, checking for fingerprints and DNA. In the end I gave up trying to explain it to them.
Now they’ve gone, I call Gilbourne instead. I need him to get a warning to Mia’s parents. I phone him three times, the call going through to voicemail each time.
Despite everything, I find myself missing Richard at times like this, not because he was great at fixing doors, or mending furniture – or any kind of DIY, to be honest – but because it was always easier to face things together. As a team. To have someone to talk to, be close to, to share the trouble.
Instead, I call Tara from the wreckage of my kitchen as I watch a locksmith secure the back door with plywood and new deadbolts, just a temporary fix until I can get it properly replaced. I’m telling her that I’m going to check into the nearest Premier Inn when she cuts me off.