by T. M. Logan
‘Surely you’ve got an address for him? You could—’
Gilbourne holds up a hand. ‘Bear with me for a minute.’ He leafs through the papers in his folder. ‘As I mentioned, we’ve been doing a trawl of CCTV, including on St George Street where you said you were abducted on Tuesday afternoon. Camera coverage is patchy there but we did get an ANPR hit very close by that might be significant.’ I frown at the acronym soup and he adds: ‘Automatic number plate recognition.’
‘The BMW?’
He pulls another A4 sheet from the leather folder and slides it across the table to me. This one is not a blurry CCTV image taken from a distance, but a close-up head and shoulders of a man against a green background. A police mugshot like you’d see in a news report or on TV. An angry, hard face. A dark ginger beard, buzz-cut short hair. Thick neck. Nose kinked in the middle from some long-ago break.
An unpleasant buzz of fear loosens my stomach. I cross my arms over my chest.
‘That’s him,’ I say. ‘Dominic. The guy who abducted us on Tuesday.’
He stares at me for a moment but doesn’t contradict me. I realise after the words are out of my mouth that I said us and not me. As if there is a bond, a promise, a connection between Mia and I that is more than just chance.
‘This mugshot was taken earlier this year,’ he continues. ‘Dominic Church, twenty-nine years old. Before all this he had convictions for assault, robbery, possession of drugs. We haven’t managed to track him down again yet, but it’s only a matter of time.’ He slides over the other image until the two are side-by-side on the table in front of me. Two violent men. I shudder at how close I’ve been to both of them in these past few days. ‘Him and Markovitz have something in common.’
‘What?’
‘Dominic Church was questioned over the same case – he was our other prime suspect. In fact, we looked at whether they were working together, and that is still an open line of enquiry. But he also slipped through our fingers.’
‘So . . . someone else was arrested, then? Convicted?’
Gilbourne shakes his head, suddenly unable to look at me.
‘No. As I said, it’s still a live case. Still my case, unless my idiot boss decides to shuffle the deck to please the chief. I’ve not got long left on the force but I’ve sworn to the victims’ families that we’ll get a result before I leave.’ He taps the mugshots with his index finger again. ‘As far as I’m concerned, these two are still prime suspects, so if they try to make contact with you, if you see either of them again, if you even think one of them is following you, do not engage with them. Do not approach. As you already know, these are both very dangerous individuals. Whatever you do, don’t trust either of them. And promise me you’ll let me know. Immediately.’
A memory floats up out of nowhere, like a flash of déjà vu. The scrawled instructions of Kathryn’s note: Don’t trust anyone.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘I’ll let you know.’
He puts a hand over mine, the skin warm against my fingers. It’s been months since I’ve felt a man’s touch and I’m suddenly aware just how much I’ve missed this small intimacy.
‘I can’t stress how important that is, Ellen. For your safety. I’ve put a request in for renewed surveillance on both of them but until then you need to be extra careful.’
‘How long until the surveillance starts up?’
‘Within the next twenty-four hours, hopefully, as soon as the chief super approves the overtime.’ He gives me an apologetic shrug. ‘Form filling and red tape. Sorry.’
I look down at his hand and he moves it away.
‘All right, but I still don’t see what this has to do with Mia.’
For a moment I think he’s going to tell me more. Then he drops his gaze and starts gathering the sheets of paper back into the leather folder. Zips it shut briskly and stands up.
‘I’ve already told you much more than I should have.’
‘Have you found Kathryn yet?’
He ignores my question. ‘She should never have involved you in this.’
‘But she did.’
‘Yes,’ he says quietly. ‘She did.’
I think for a moment. ‘The case those two men were suspects in, Church and Markovitz, did it have anything to do with Kathryn’s sister?’
He stops and his head turns toward me again, his eyes finding mine. ‘What?’
‘Her sister. It’s connected, isn’t it?’
His voice is flat, neutral, some of the warmth leached away. ‘What makes you say that?’
For a moment, I consider lying to him. Keeping this to myself. But he’s gone out of his way to help me, to tell me things he probably shouldn’t have, and I feel bad holding anything back from him.
‘I went to Kathryn’s flat,’ I say. ‘Talked to her boyfriend.’
‘What . . . ?’ He frowns in exasperation. ‘This is what I’m talking about, Ellen. You do things like this, it will put you in more danger. How did you even . . . know where to find her? When were you there?’
‘Earlier today. I saw DS Holt as he was leaving and—’
He puts both palms up like he’s stopping traffic. ‘Hold on, Nathan was there?’ He sits back down again, his frown deepening. Clearly, this is another unwelcome surprise. ‘On his own? You’re absolutely sure it was him?’
‘Yes.’
Gilbourne’s face darkens and I can almost see the gears turning, surprise turning to disbelief. Disbelief turning to suspicion. He’s about to say something else when his phone rings and he snatches it from his jacket, answering in monosyllables.
‘What?’ he says, turning away from me. ‘You sure? Where? Give me that again.’ He flips open a notebook with his free hand and scribbles something on it. He ends the call and stands up, checking his watch.
‘Stuart—’
‘I have to go.’ He hesitates for a moment, then places a hand lightly on my arm. ‘Look after yourself, Ellen. And please remember what I said.’
My head pulses with unanswered questions. But he’s already gone, striding down the drive and onto the dark street outside.
34
DI Gilbourne
Gilbourne watched from a safe distance, the smoke of his cigarette curling up into the evening sky. He was out on the station’s fourth-floor fire escape again, taking the opportunity of a short break from phone calls and interview notes and spooling through hours of CCTV footage. He had watched Holt pull into the car park five minutes ago, choose a space in the far corner and sit in his Ford Focus, mobile glued to his ear. His partner was gesturing with his free hand as he talked but he wasn’t getting out of the car, just talking, talking.
Gilbourne’s first cigarette was burned almost down to the filter so he shook out another one from the packet and lit it off the burning butt, grinding the first beneath the heel of his brogue. Why was Holt skulking out here in a dark corner of the car park where his colleagues on the second floor couldn’t see him? Maybe a personal call? A girlfriend? But Holt had never been shy of bringing his personal life into the office before; in fact he seemed to revel in it, wanting to let it be known that he was a player with two or three women on the go at any one time.
There was something else going on with him. And why was he going rogue, going back out to interview Kathryn Clifton’s boyfriend without telling him? Without telling his DI, his partner, the senior investigating officer on this case?
Gilbourne watched as Holt finished his call and held the phone against the steering wheel, now two-thumb typing a message or an email. Gilbourne dialled the young detective’s number and put the phone to his ear, listening as it connected and started to ring. He watched, from his vantage point on high, as Holt reached into his jacket and pulled out another phone, his normal phone, looked at the display for a second and then touched the screen. Gilbourne’s ear filled with the sound of his partner’s recorded voice.
‘Hello, you’ve reached the voicemail of Detective Sergeant Nathan Holt, please leave a message and I’ll
—’
Gilbourne ended the call and watched as Holt slipped the handset back into his jacket, returning his attention to the other phone. Two phones. His regular mobile and . . . what? A burner phone that couldn’t be traced?
His own mobile rang in his hand and he checked the display before answering.
‘Rhodri,’ he said, flipping the half-finished cigarette away. ‘How’s life treating you?’
‘Can’t complain.’ The pathologist’s voice was slow and deliberate, soft Welsh vowels that always seemed at odds with the cold scientific facts of his profession. ‘I’ve got some preliminary findings on your PM, Kathryn Clifton. Is now a good time?’
‘Of course.’
Gilbourne stepped back inside and headed for the lifts. He wedged the phone between his cheek and his shoulder and pulled his notepad from his jacket pocket, flipping it open to a clean page.
‘Right then,’ the pathologist said. ‘I’ve estimated time of death at between 4 p.m. and midnight on Tuesday.’
‘Don’t suppose you can be more specific than that?’ Gilbourne always asked, and the answer was almost always the same. ‘It would really help if we could narrow the window down a little.’
‘Afraid not, Stuart. The location of the body in the stream, plus various other factors related to the temperature gradient between body temperature and ambient temperature, make it impossible to give a more precise determination. She’s received three stab wounds to the back, injury depth consistent at around thirteen centimetres with some bruising around the entry wounds suggestive of a blade being pushed in right to the hilt. One weapon. Two of the wounds penetrated the heart – either one of them could have been the killing blow. Death would have been fairly rapid.’
Gilbourne reached the lifts, pressed the button. Both were on the ground floor. He considered the tightness of the belt around his stomach, another notch away from where it should be. He turned and pushed through the door into the stairwell instead.
‘Anything else you can tell me about the weapon?’
‘Wide blade, forty-six millimetres from side to side. Injuries inflicted with a fair degree of accuracy which might suggest some anatomical knowledge. The stab wounds are clinical, deliberate, between the second and third ribs. Not random. Certainly not a frenzied attack.’
‘So the blade – maybe a kitchen knife?’
‘Or some kind of fighting knife, perhaps.’
‘Injuries in the back,’ Gilbourne said, his voice echoing in the dimly-lit stairwell. ‘Victim taken by surprise?’
‘Possibly. There’s some bruising on the lower right arm but from the colouring I’d say it’s older than the stab wounds, maybe one or two days prior to death. And there are also a couple of superficial burn marks on the back of the left hand. Two identical marks fifty-one millimetres apart.’
‘Like cigarette burns?’
‘No, the skin’s not broken. I would think probably a taser, or a stun gun. Consistent with some kind of electroshock device.’
Gilbourne stopped on the stairs, remembering what Ellen Devlin had told him about the attacker she’d confronted in her house.
‘The victim might have been incapacitated first, before she was stabbed?’
‘Would explain the lack of defensive wounds.’
‘Killed at the scene, or somewhere else?’
‘From the small amount of blood at the scene, I’d say somewhere else. These were sizeable wounds but blood deposition was minimal where she was found.’
‘What else?’
‘No evidence of sexual assault.’
‘DNA from a possible perpetrator?’
‘None that we can find.’
‘None?’ Gilbourne repeated. He could feel the small hairs standing up on the back of his neck. A tick of something in his veins, not excitement. Recognition. ‘No blood, saliva, nothing?’
‘Lots of blood on the victim’s clothing. All of it belonging to the victim.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘We’ve not been able to recover any other traces.’
‘So, no contact DNA, no defensive wounds, nothing under her fingernails.’
‘Correct.’
Gilbourne was silent for a moment. He began walking down the stairs again, from the third floor landing to the second floor.
‘Stuart?’ the pathologist said. ‘You still there?’
Gilbourne could almost feel the tiny pulses of electricity surging in his brain, connections being made. The case that had hung over him for more than a year, the investigation he knew better than anyone else, the hunt that had driven him to the edge and almost derailed his career. The case he had to solve before his time on the force was up.
‘I’m here,’ he said quietly. ‘Just thinking.’
‘Anything you want me to clarify?’
‘Does it remind you of anything?’ Gilbourne said. ‘The lack of evidence, lack of DNA, the victim profile, the area the body was dumped?’
The pathologist left another beat of silence before answering. He wouldn’t use the nickname – Gilbourne knew Rhodri thought it was just a bit of tabloidese – stooping to that level offended his sense of precision, of science.
Eventually Rhodri said, ‘You mean similarity to unsolved cases.’
‘I mean the Ghost.’
Gilbourne could almost hear the tut of disapproval on the other end of the phone line. ‘Yes . . . and no. Some similarities but some significant differences too.’
‘But it could be?’
‘It’s possible, or a copycat. There was something unusual though, a definite departure from previous victims. We’ve got some residue on the skin suggestive of heavy plastic sheeting which infers the victim was wrapped, post-mortem, then the wrapping was removed when she was dumped. Possibly she was wrapped up to avoid DNA deposition in a vehicle, then unwrapped after she was dumped to accelerate decomposition.’
‘He never did that before, did he?’
‘We didn’t find that residue on previous victims, no. He also didn’t shock any of the victims with a stun gun. May suggest he’s being more careful. If it is the same perpetrator.’
‘Or that he’s learning, honing his technique, getting better at it,’ Gilbourne said. ‘All the signature aspects are consistent – lack of DNA, age and gender of the victim, evidence of pre-planning, the area where the body was found. He’s forensically aware and he’s done this before.’
The pathologist grunted reluctantly. ‘I’d tend to agree with you on the last point – I don’t think it’s his first time. But three attacks in the space of three months and then he disappears off the radar for a year before killing again? What kind of offender pattern is that?’
‘I knew he’d do it again,’ Gilbourne said firmly. ‘It was just a matter of time.’
‘So where’s he been for the past year?’
‘Trying to keep his nose clean, maybe. Trying to find out if he could just stop, walk away from that part of who he is. But the victim alone, if nothing else – her connection to the case. There’s no way on earth that’s a coincidence.’
Rhodri paused again, considering his answer. ‘I suppose I’ll leave that to you, Stuart. More your territory than mine.’
Gilbourne checked his watch. ‘Thanks Rhodri, appreciate you turning this one around so quickly. I’ve got to go.’
‘I’ll email the full report to you now.’
‘And could you copy in my partner?’
‘Already done.’
Gilbourne thought he’d misheard. He stopped on the second-floor landing, where the four major incident teams were housed in a set of open-plan offices, but didn’t pull open the door into the main area.
‘I’m sorry, say that again?’
‘DS Holt, correct? He’s been in touch with me twice already asking for the results to be expedited and emailed to him as soon as I had anything. As a matter of extreme urgency, he said. A real keen bean, that one.’
‘Yes,’ Gilbourne said, a strange feeling turning o
ver in his stomach. ‘He certainly is that.’
Gilbourne thanked the pathologist again and rang off. Then he opened the door onto the second floor, and walked quickly through the bustle of ringing phones and inquisitive voices, over to the corner that was home to MIT 3. He nodded to a few other colleagues on the team, but Holt was not at his desk. Gilbourne sat down at his own workstation and called his partner’s mobile again.
This time he answered.
‘Nathan,’ Gilbourne said without preamble. ‘I’ve just had the headlines through on the PM from Rhodri Lawson. Need to brief the team. Are you nearby?’
He paused, waiting for Holt to say Oh yes, boss, I’ve already got the post-mortem report. To say I asked for it to be sent over asap. Or maybe I didn’t want to waste time. But Holt didn’t say any of that.
‘I’m five minutes away,’ he said instead. ‘What’s the story, boss?’
Gilbourne paused, trying to detect any hint of deceit in his partner’s voice. Any suggestion that he was hiding something. What was the story? Was Holt playing games, trying to get one over on his partner? Trying to climb the career ladder, go over his head to win brownie points from the DCI? Or was it something else?
Answers to those questions would have to wait. Because if he was right – and Gilbourne felt in his bones, in his blood, that he was right – then the results of the post-mortem were bigger, much bigger, than any of that.
‘I’ll tell you when you get in,’ he said.
FRIDAY
35
Dominic
He preferred the night. The twenty-four-hour places when there was no one around. He could get what he needed and get away quickly, disappear back into the dark before anyone knew he was even there.
He tugged the brim of the baseball cap down low, keeping one eye on the flood-lit forecourt and listening for the approach of other cars as he filled the tank of the BMW. He drew in a heavy breath sharp with petrol fumes, pulling it deep into his throat, his lungs. He had always loved the acrid smell of petrol, the burn, the headrush when you leaned in close. And it was better, purer than his own stink, unwashed clothes and the pungent tang of fast food. Too many days sleeping in his car.