At night, when it was quiet, he could hear her talking to herself. He imagined that she could hear him. The thought of it excited him.
He had not expected the door to her room to be open when he returned at five in the morning. The urge to look in was irresistible.
He had expected to see an empty room, possibly the woman asleep. He entered, after whispering ‘Hello’ first.
The bed was initially hidden by the door. He looked through the crack near to the handle; a crack he had used before. He saw a man he recognised. He was not moving.
Slowly Jason, the Peeping Tom, moved forward. He recognised the landlord on the bed, his hands folded over his chest. Not sure of what he saw, Jason Martin touched the red on the man’s shirt. He put his finger to his mouth; he knew the taste.
Five minutes later, he phoned for an ambulance.
Chapter 18
At King’s Cross Station, the woman carried her worldly belongings. She reflected that it was not much to show for five years. In one hand, she carried a voluminous handbag. On her back, a backpack for her laptop and the photos she cherished. She also dragged a small suitcase.
There had not been time to upload the latest photos; that would be her first task on arriving at her destination. It would only be three hours, and she hoped that the body of the landlord would not be discovered before then, but she knew of the nosey man in the room next door.
As the train pulled out of King’s Cross, she broke into song. Stupid Duncan up at the quarry, along came a sister and gave him a push.
An elderly couple looked her way, unable to hear the full words due to the noise of the train.
Charlotte smiled back at them.
She remembered little of the trip, other than the train stopping two, maybe three, times to let people off, others on. The elderly couple had left at one of the stops, only to be replaced by a family of four. Charlotte took little notice, although the little boy had tripped over her foot one time. If he was here on his own, she thought. She realised her destiny, her purpose with more clarity. The time for subtlety had passed.
From now on, she would intensify her efforts. The elderly couple had seen a bookish woman on the train, not the frivolous tart that had killed the banker. What would she be in Newcastle? Her bag contained all she needed by way of makeup. In her suitcase were clothes suitable for any occasion, any look, any age. So far, she had kept her age close to her own, but she could be young if she wanted, old if needed.
It was five years since she had last been in Newcastle, but it had changed little. She found an internet café close to the railway station. She had covered her face with a scarf, a perfect disguise considering the biting wind.
Four pounds, cheaper than London for forty-five minutes’ internet use, a complimentary cup of coffee which was surprisingly good. Not like the muck they serve down in London, she thought.
She took out her laptop; the battery still had charge. She removed the connector from the old computer on the table and inserted it into her laptop. She checked the speed; it was adequate.
Ten minutes later, Isaac Cook saw the update on his smartphone. He pulled over to the side of the road and scrolled through the photos.
***
High Barnet, the furthermost station on the Northern Line of the London Underground, was only fifteen miles from the centre of London. Another murder that appeared to be the handiwork of Charlotte Hamilton. The full team had mobilised on hearing of the number on the wall, the knife in the chest, the slit throat.
Jason Martin had been surprisingly articulate once he had calmed himself. He had phoned up emergency services, given a clear description of the man’s condition as well as the address.
‘54 Normanton Avenue. Send an ambulance, not that it will be much use,’ he had said.
The woman on the other end of the phone pressed a computer key to mobilise the police and the ambulance. She maintained the conversation to allow the software on her computer to check the phone number, its approximate location, and the owner’s address. They all tallied.
The local DI, Jim Davies, had phoned Isaac on visiting the murder scene. They had met some years previously, and the modus operandi of Charlotte Hamilton was well known.
‘It’s one of yours,’ Davies had said on the phone.
Within five minutes of the phone call, Sara Marshall and Sean O’Riordan were heading north. Wendy Gladstone and Larry Hill were in another car and moving in the same direction. Isaac had decided to take his own.
He phoned Sara after looking at the photos on his phone. ‘It’s not a pleasant sight,’ Isaac said.
‘We’ll see soon enough.’
Wendy and Larry arrived first. The standard procedure: crime scene tape, barricades to keep the onlookers at a distance, a uniform at the front door of the house, which was a sad example of pre-war architecture.
The crime scene investigators from the local area were taking control. Gordon Windsor was coming up in an advisory capacity, as he had the most recent knowledge of the woman’s style of dispatching men.
Wendy took the opportunity to kit up: gloves, foot protectors, overalls. She showed her badge to the uniforms and proceeded to the first floor of the house. She was stopped by Jim Davies before she entered the room.
‘I work with DCI Cook,’ she explained.
‘Fine. Just be careful where you walk.’
Wendy saw the body on the bed; felt as though she wanted to throw up. It had been clear on entering that somebody already had. From what she could see the man was fully clothed, which was in stark contrast to Charlotte Hamilton’s usual approach to dispatching her victims.
‘Not much to see here, and besides, you’re in my way,’ the CSE said.
Wendy left the room and went downstairs. Sara and Sean had arrived.
‘He’s prickly,’ Wendy said as Sara kitted up.
‘Don’t worry. I can deal with him.’ Wendy thought she probably could. She would only have to smile at him.
Isaac arrived ten minutes later. He kitted up and went upstairs, which left Wendy and Larry with Jason Martin. The man was calm, and a cigarette hung from his mouth – it was tobacco, although the lingering smell of marijuana remained. Not that Wendy and Larry were concerned with his possible illegal activities. He appeared to be a sensible man and a reliable witness.
‘You found the body?’ Wendy asked.
‘And phoned the police.’
‘Can you tell us about the murderer?’
‘A good-looking sort. Fancied her myself.’
‘Did she respond to your advances? I’m assuming you made some,’ Larry asked.
‘I tried it on once. Shot down in flames.’
‘Did she have a name?’
‘Ingrid.’
‘Tell us about Ingrid,’ Wendy said.
‘She arrived some time ago. She lived in the room next to me. Always civil to me when I saw her, but she kept to herself. Apart from that, there’s not a lot I can tell you.’
Jason Martin forgot to mention that she had a birthmark just below her left breast, and one breast was larger than the other.
‘The landlord. What can you tell us about him?’
‘Not a lot. He was an unpleasant man, but he left me alone. She certainly dealt with him.’
‘As you say,’ Larry agreed.
‘Is there any reason why Ingrid would kill him?’ Wendy asked.
‘He was always looking at her, and then she was struggling to pay the rent. Apart from that, I can’t think of a reason.’
Isaac returned with Sara. Sean had been talking to some of the onlookers, to see if anybody knew anything.
‘It’s Charlotte Hamilton,’ Isaac said.
‘Where is she, sir?’ Wendy asked.
‘This time she did not clean up. She panicked, and when a person panics, they make mistakes. Find out where she went after here. This time, it should not be difficult.’
Isaac returned to the office, the others stayed at the murder scene. Isaac knew
why he was being summoned back to meet Goddard. His career had been on the line more than once over the years, but this time it looked serious.
Isaac realised he had no defence. The woman moved wherever she wanted, killed whomever she wanted. Unless the team had a break, he was off the case.
It had almost cost the career of Sara Marshall, although she had survived due in part to her being an excellent police officer, in part because she had married her boss.
Isaac, apart from his mentor Richard Goddard, had no one, and this time it looked as though he was about to issue a warning to him, or at least a reprimand.
***
Charlotte walked around the centre of Newcastle looking for accommodation. Nowhere was safe, and for once she was getting desperate.
Even now, the police in Newcastle would be on the lookout for her, although she had walked past two police constables at the station and they had taken no notice. They would have if she had been wearing the same outfit as when she had killed Dennis Goldman, not only because it had been provocative, but also because Newcastle was unusually cold. Before she had gone to London, she had not thought of the climate as so bitter.
She entered a pub, pulling her suitcase.
‘Bit heavy for you, luv,’ the man behind the bar said.
‘I’m looking for accommodation.’
‘Room upstairs if you want.’
‘How much?’
‘We can discuss it afterwards,’ the man, who looked to be the worse side of fifty, said. Charlotte noticed the tattoos on his arm and the muscular physique.
She took her luggage upstairs and had a shower. She then dressed inconspicuously and made her way out to St Nicholas Hospital. She stopped on the way to look at her old house. A young couple with a baby were there. A large dog was fetching the ball that the man threw. She had no idea where her parents were, but she would find out. She took some photos.
Charlotte walked around the boundary of St Nicholas Mental Hospital. It had not changed since she had left at the age of nineteen. It was the same foreboding edifice that represented pain and imprisonment and rejection by her parents. She checked out the back fence that she had climbed over in her early teens to meet the local boys. She wondered what had happened to them, although she assumed they were now older and wiser, not foolish and full of bravado as when they had made love to her. To them, she had been a plaything, purely for their own amusement. One of the young men had been friendly to her; Charlotte remembered him with some fondness, but, yet again, he had been deceitful, the same as Gregory Chalmers, professing love, only feeling lust.
Wrapped in a coat with a hood, and wearing warm, sensible clothing, she waited, knowing full well the routine of the one person she wanted to see. She hated the woman for taking her away from her parents, for subjecting her to pain, for giving her medicines that left her depressed or comatose, unable to react.
It was late afternoon when Gladys Lake emerged from the building and walked through a churchyard on the way to her cottage on the far side. Charlotte had been there a few times, part of her therapy and her integration into society. She remembered the lace curtains, the bay window, the old cat. It was evident now that with the Lake woman it had not been therapy, only a way for her to ease her guilty conscience after all that she had subjected her to.
‘Another six months and you will be all right,’ she had said. Charlotte realised that it had all been lies, and the six months had stretched to one year, then two, and then up to the age of eighteen, when she was free to leave as an adult.
***
Gladys Lake moved slowly across the churchyard, casually glancing at the gravestones as she walked. Under one arm she had some files, across her shoulder the strap of a large bag. She was wrapped up against the weather, and the rain had started again; not that it ever stopped for very long, but now it was turning to sleet.
‘You never expected to see me again, did you?’ the woman who had emerged from her left said.
‘I’m sorry,’ Gladys Lake replied.
‘Have you forgotten me already?’
The doctor thought the voice was familiar, yet she could not identify the woman, which was not surprising as she had a scarf wrapped around her lower face, and a hood pulled over her forehead. All that she could see were the blue eyes.
‘I have never forgiven you,’ Charlotte said.
Gladys Lake quickened her pace and attempted to flee. She dropped the files that had been under one arm; she did not stop to pick them up. The woman behind her, younger and fitter, began to close in on her.
‘Leave me alone, please.’
‘You remember.’
A couple walking their dog entered through the far gate of the graveyard. The dog stopped to sniff the gate post, lifting its leg to make its mark.
‘Dr Lake, how are you?’ the man said.
‘Please, I need your help.’
‘Of course.’
‘A woman is following me. She is dangerous. I need the police.’
The man looked over the area while the dog continued to sniff. ‘I can’t see anyone.’
‘Please call Detective Inspector Hewitt for me,’ Gladys Lake said. She handed the man her phone. He checked the contacts and speed dialled. The doctor had been unable to hold her hands steady enough to press the buttons.
Rory Hewitt found Gladys Lake at her cottage. The couple and the dog who had helped her in the cemetery were there also.
‘It was Charlotte Hamilton,’ she said.
‘Positive?’
Rory phoned Sara who phoned Isaac. The situation had changed. The woman was on the move, and she was making mistakes. She had left a USB memory stick behind after killing the landlord where she had been staying; it only contained photos, and apart from their subject matter, it had revealed nothing more.
The killing of the landlord had been messy; her previous murders had shown a degree of calmness as she had showered, cleaned up, and left. Grace Nelson, the criminal psychologist, said it was to be expected. The shield of invulnerability made Charlotte Hamilton impervious to the possibility of capture.
Isaac set up a meeting at Challis Street. Sara Marshall and Sean O’Riordan came over; Rory Hewitt dialled in.
‘Rory, is it confirmed?’ Isaac asked.
‘Gladys Lake is sure.’
‘Is she alright?’ Sara asked.
‘She’s fine,’ Rory said, which was not altogether true. Gladys Lake had been scared witless and was under sedation.
‘All-points out for her?’
‘We have issued a general alert. The woman is dangerous, and she is to be approached with care.’
‘Another mistake,’ Wendy said.
‘If she had killed Gladys Lake, then it would not have been,’ Rory said.
‘Do you believe she would have?’ Isaac asked.
‘What else? She kills people, not frightens them. Gladys Lake would have died in that graveyard if a couple walking their dog had not come in. I’m certain of that. So is Dr Lake.’
‘Charlotte Hamilton’s parents?’
‘We’re checking on them now, as well as visiting her old house. The Hamiltons’ new address is not well known.’
‘Do you know it?’
‘Yes. We have police cars out there patrolling the area. I intend to visit after I conclude this call.’
‘Then you’d better go. She has failed to kill this time. Who are her next targets?’
Chapter 19
DCS Goddard had not lost faith in his DCI, but others had. As far as the Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, who sat up high in his ivory tower at Scotland Yard, was concerned it was a fiasco. People were dying, and the murderer was known.
‘Look here, Goddard,’ the commissioner, a plain-talking man, said. ‘I’ve not seen much to recommend this DCI Isaac Cook. Everyone tells me he is a man on the rise, destined to take my chair one day.’
Not before me, Richard Goddard thought.
‘He’s a good officer.’ Goddard leap
t to Isaac’s defence.
‘Good or bad makes no difference. Sure, he has a few runs on the board: dealt with that Marjorie Frobisher case, found out who had killed a man thirty years ago, and wrapped up the death of the future Lord Penrith, but apart from that… What is it with this Charlotte Hamilton? Does he fancy her?’
The DCS knew that if Isaac survived, he would have to settle down. Aspersions about his performance based on his fraternising with members of the opposite sex were counterproductive.
‘That’s a scurrilous remark, sir.’
‘Don’t get smart with me. You're only here because you were friendly with the previous commissioner and because you suck up to the politicians. The prime minister may see something special in you. I don’t.’
Goddard knew that his defence of his DCI had placed him in a tenuous position. The previous commissioner had mentored him, but he was now sitting in the House of Lords and unable to protect him.
He had spent years focussing on the chance to become the commissioner of police, but the DCS realised that his efforts were yet again being thwarted, and this time by a man of little charm and no humour. Goddard knew that Isaac needed to get results, but so far he had achieved none.
Charlotte Hamilton was thumbing her nose at whoever she wanted. Her identity was well known. Her full medical history was available and had been carefully analysed, looking for patterns that would indicate where she would strike next. And now she was in Newcastle, although so far no one had been killed.
Goddard left the commissioner’s office in a worse mood than when he had arrived. As much as he disliked the commissioner, and thought him to be a pompous bore, he was right in one aspect: Isaac was not providing results.
***
The Hamiltons were not pleased when Rory Hewitt arrived. He parked his car to one side of the entrance and knocked on the door.
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