Dying Breath: Unputdownable serial killer fiction (Detective Lucy Harwin crime thriller series Book 2)

by Helen Phifer

  He nodded as he began serving up the spicy chicken fajitas onto plates. He turned around, passing one to Lewis, who stared at the sizzling wraps in amazement. Bowls of salsa, sour cream and salad, along with a large dish of potato wedges, had all been placed in the middle of the table.

  ‘I hope you’re hungry. I like cooking but I do tend to get a bit carried away. I usually end up having to eat the same stuff for days at work for my lunch.’

  ‘I’m starving; this is brilliant. Thank you.’

  He sat down opposite Lewis, trying not to stare at the man who was oblivious to the fact that his time on earth was limited. It didn’t matter if the police found his body; the acid should disintegrate most of him. And even if it didn’t, the contents of his stomach wouldn’t matter. They were eating in his home, not at a restaurant or a burger chain where they could get CCTV footage that might identify him. He was far too clever for that; he knew that the generic ingredients for the meal he’d just cooked could be bought from every shop or supermarket in Brooklyn Bay. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack and he doubted very much that the police had either the funds or the man-hours to pursue it.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Lucy was more awake now than she’d ever imagined possible. Her crushing tiredness had been replaced with the stomach-churning, blood-tingling realisation that Toby was onto something. She’d made herself a huge mug of coffee and was sitting on her bed with her MacBook balanced on her knees. There was no denying it had been tough to refuse Mattie’s offer – she would have liked to have him here for company. He could have slept on the sofa and how much better both of them would have felt. She wouldn’t have been able to concentrate, though, if he’d been in such close proximity, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to let him see her in her character pyjamas.

  She couldn’t believe she’d let Toby in whilst she was so underdressed, but he’d taken her by surprise and she was glad that she had. She had the printed pages he’d brought her spread out on the bed where she could see them. She was currently looking at a photograph of Peter Sutcliffe; she sent a couple of articles about him to the printer. His first murder had happened in October 1975, and during his reign of terror he had been responsible for thirteen murders. Why was their perpetrator picking serial killers from so long ago to copy? There were plenty of sick bastards from the last ten years to emulate if he wanted.

  Next she clicked on an article about the Beast of Birkenshaw. She’d never before seen pictures of the man who was now staring back at her. He’d murdered the Smart family on New Year’s Day in 1958; they weren’t the only ones, though; over the course of two years he had killed at least nine others. Then she searched for Bible John – he’d killed three young women between 1968 and 1969 and the police had never caught him.

  She would give Col everything in the morning and see what he came up with. This was definitely his kind of thing; she was a bit surprised he hadn’t come up with the connections already. Then again, unless you had an unhealthy interest in serial killers, why would you know any of this stuff? She doubted most people would.

  Despite being wired at the thought that they might finally have a motive for their sick bastard of a killer, her eyelids began to feel too heavy. She blinked a couple of times as her head began to fall forwards. The stress of the last week and her exhaustion got the better of her as she pushed the computer away and lay on her side. Unable to stay awake any longer, a gentle snore escaped from her lips as she gave in and let her body get some much-needed rest.

  When Lucy’s alarm went off she jumped out of bed, eager to get to work and speak to her team. They had something to go on now and, despite not being sure exactly what they were going to make of it, she didn’t care. If it meant they were closer to figuring out the killer’s next move, they might be able to catch him before he did anything else so horrific. She got to the station, the plastic poly pocket with Toby’s printouts and the ones she’d added tucked under her arm. She was going to photocopy them all so the team could read them and see what they thought. As she was standing at the photocopier, she heard Patrick’s voice behind her.

  ‘Did I ask you if there was anything new from the post-mortems yesterday?’

  ‘No, it’s what Catherine said at the scene. All three of them were shot at close range; no actual contact. The killer somehow got in and managed to sneak up on them – there are no signs of a struggle in any of the bedrooms or in fact the entire house. It was quick and efficient. According to the office where Craig worked, he left work late that night, so it’s possible that the killer had to amuse himself for quite some time before he arrived. I’m going to get CSI back to search every possible hiding place and check for evidence.’

  ‘Is there any concrete evidence that links them to our killer?’

  Lucy wanted to tell him to read the fucking reports like the rest of them, but she held her tongue.

  ‘Catherine has recovered what she believes are very similar blue fibres from the bodies of Melanie Benson, Stacey Green and Michelle Martin. They’re currently being fast-tracked through the system by a trace evidence specialist in Chorley.’

  A look of surprise crossed his face. ‘Really? That’s interesting. How have I not heard about this before?’

  Lucy refrained from rolling her eyes at him. ‘Maybe because you’ve only just stepped in as the boss. If you remember, you were supposed to be solving the mystery of the body in the woods.’

  She could have bit her tongue – she shouldn’t be goading him. But Christ, he was acting like he didn’t have a clue. What had happened to him? He used to have a little bit more about him when he was her sergeant; now he was just like the majority of them. Anything for an easy life, even if it meant fobbing off what should be open-and-shut cases.

  He ploughed on. ‘What have the background checks brought up on the Martins? Is there anything of interest?’

  She shook her head. ‘Col said that Craig doesn’t appear to have been involved in anything illegal. No dodgy dealings or large amounts of money that have come and gone from the bank unaccounted for. His wife was a stay-at-home mum, looking after their son, who had special needs.’

  ‘That’s such a shame – a nice murder-suicide would have made everyone’s life a lot easier.’

  Lucy’s hand clenched into a tight fist; Patrick was really grating on her nerves this morning with his flippant comments. Whilst she’d been witnessing a real-life horror film up at the mortuary for hours yesterday, he’d been sitting on his arse. Probably doing a crossword and sod all else that was useful. She noticed Col outside shaking his head at her and mouthing the word ‘coffee’. She smiled at him and nodded.

  ‘It’s a puzzle and a tragedy, but I’m sure we’ll find something that gives us a motive very soon.’ For some reason she found herself reluctant to share the information that Toby had given to her with him. If he wasn’t going to muck in and help out, she would make sure he was the last to know about it. At least until she was sure that this theory had something to it. Tom would have been there, listening and doing his best to support his team. Patrick really wasn’t bothered. If, after she’d discussed it with the others, they agreed, she’d report back to him.

  ‘I hope so – we don’t want this hanging around over our heads any longer than necessary, do we?’

  No we fucking don’t. ‘No sir, we don’t.’

  He looked at the papers spewing out of the photocopier. ‘I’m sorry; were you busy?’

  ‘Not really. Just some project for Ellie – our printer at home packed in last night and she needs them for tomorrow.’

  She bit her tongue. Why are you lying to him, Lucy?

  He shrugged. ‘Always the way when you need something. Do you fancy going for a drink after work, like the old days? We could stop off and get a takeaway. You know, there’s no point in you waiting around forever. George has moved on – so should you.’

  Mattie, who’d caught the last bit of their conversation, wondered if the new boss had a d
eath wish because the look on Lucy’s face told him it was highly likely she was going to stab him. Blond hair and muscles or not, his good looks wouldn’t save him from her wrath if she went off on one. Browning was waving to Lucy from the other side of the office and she turned to go and speak to him.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Patrick didn’t move and she had to squeeze past him, so close they were almost touching. She glared at him and he stepped back. He was pissing her off big time with his attitude and creepy ways. He grabbed her arm and Lucy snatched it away from him, feeling the red mist descend over the inside of her mind. She could see Mattie and Browning standing some distance away, both of them staring at her and wondering what she was going to do. She was close – she could feel her knuckles clenching as she imagined how satisfying it would be to smash her fist into his nose. The obnoxious prick. Did he really think he could grab her whenever he wanted? She took a step back into her office, pulling him in with her, and slammed the door shut. Mattie looked at Browning in horror; he didn’t know if he should intervene or not.

  ‘No, thank you. I run a tight department. We have five serious murders to investigate and an unidentified body. I expect nothing but a thousand per cent professionalism. You have come in here to take over from Tom, who is an excellent DCI, and it would be nice if you treated your team with the same respect as he does.’

  Outside, the entire room had come to a standstill as the officers tried to listen to what was being said inside.

  Browning was grimacing. ‘Someone’d better take the boss out and tell her to chill, although she has got a point; that man’s an arrogant arsehole.’

  Mattie nodded. ‘I will – I’ll take her to get some food or coffee or something.’

  Patrick looked at Lucy and started to laugh. ‘You have me all wrong, Lucy. I’m sorry. I thought we were all working together just fine, one big happy family.’

  ‘You keep it on a professional level and we will be.’

  She opened the door and strutted across to Browning. ‘Did you want me?’

  The look of alarm that crossed his face as he began shaking his head made her smile.

  ‘Don’t be a dweeb; you know what I meant.’

  ‘I need to show you and Mattie something on the CCTV from Aston’s. I don’t think you’re going to like it, though.’

  ‘I don’t think today can get much worse. Come on, then.’

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  All three of them walked down the corridor to the video imaging unit. They filed inside and Mattie shut the door behind him. One of the television screens was on pause and they gathered around it.

  Browning leant forward and pressed play. They watched as Stacey Green began to argue with Lewis Waite. She slapped his face and he shoved her, then turned to walk away, only to be grabbed by two of the bouncers. The camera angle changed and there was Stacey again, a bit worse for wear and stumbling towards the toilets, managing to drop her handbag, the contents spilling everywhere.

  ‘We’ve already watched this.’

  ‘I know, but I wanted to go over it again. Just in case we missed something the first time.’

  As Stacey bent down to pick up her things, Browning said, ‘Watch this corner closely.’

  A hand came into view of the camera, passing Stacey some of her stuff. Browning smiled at Lucy. ‘You have to watch closely.’

  Lucy and Mattie were both hunched over the screen intently, but Lucy had no idea what she was watching or waiting for. And then she saw it. Stacey must have removed her tights earlier in the night, or had a spare pair, because the hand that was helping her picked them up but didn’t pass them to her. Instead, it disappeared from the screen, taking the tights with it.

  ‘I think that’s the man who killed her. Either he was very lucky that he wasn’t caught on camera or he knew exactly where the cameras were and knew he would be just out of sight.’

  ‘How do we know that it’s not Lewis Waite?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘Because on this next disc Waite is shown being escorted from the club by the bouncers, and the time stamp on that frame is one minute before Stacey drops her bag.’

  Lucy looked at Browning. ‘I knew Waite wasn’t right for it, but we can’t just rule him out – this isn’t enough.’

  ‘No, I agree. It’s not enough to discount him completely, but whoever it is that pocketed her tights is definitely worth checking out, if we can identify him.’

  ‘Well done – that’s pretty amazing. I don’t know if I’d have spotted that.’

  ‘Yes you would, boss; you don’t miss a trick.’

  She smiled. ‘Right then, we need to find out who this mystery man is. Did you check the cameras before and immediately after she left the club?’

  ‘I did. People are in and out on their own, in groups, couples.’

  ‘So near, yet so far. I want every single man that goes in or out tracked down and spoken to.’

  Mattie shook his head. ‘What about the town CCTV cameras; don’t they cover High Street? If we check them to see if there’re any lone men in the area we can go back and check the club CCTV to see if it’s the same person.’

  Lucy patted his back. ‘I’ve also got something I want to share with you, but I don’t want him to know just yet.’ She pointed in the direction of where Patrick was standing talking on the phone. She lowered her voice.

  ‘As I told Mattie last night, I’m convinced we’re dealing with a copycat killer. Hang on – I’ll go and get the stuff I just printed out.’

  She briskly walked back to the photocopier and grabbed the sheets of paper from the tray. Then she returned to the video imaging room where Mattie and Browning were waiting and shut the door behind her.

  ‘Until I’m one hundred per cent certain that I’m right, this is between us and Col – when I get him on his own to run the checks. I don’t want Patrick doing what he used to do.’

  Browning frowned. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Years ago, if we were ever onto a lead, had suspects to bring in or just used our brains to work out what had happened at an incident, you could guarantee that if he thought it would make him look good he’d take the credit for it. He’d go to the bosses before we even got a chance and claim it was what he’d come up with. He shafted a couple of my friends big time by being such a smarmy, selfish bastard. Only I didn’t realise until it was too late and they’d been moved to another department. I’m not having him pretend this is all his hard work, because in actual fact it was Toby who came up with it originally.’

  Browning looked confused. ‘Who’s Toby?’

  ‘The new CSI. He came knocking on my door last night with a few newspaper articles and stuff he’d found on the internet.’

  ‘That’s a bit weird – how did he know where you lived?’

  Lucy shrugged. ‘It did unsettle me a bit, but what he said makes perfect sense.’

  She began to explain to them what he’d told her and what she’d found herself, and by the time she’d finished both men were staring at her with their mouths open. It was Browning who spoke first.

  ‘Blimey. That’s fucking odd, but I get it. I really do.’

  Mattie nodded. ‘So do I, but what I don’t get is why Toby came to your house to tell you. It’s not right.’

  She stared at Mattie. ‘Obviously he thought it was important and he just so happens to be right. I think it’s vital information.’

  But he was shaking his head. ‘How did he know this? He’s only been here since the second murder.’

  Mattie stopped in his tracks and Lucy felt a lead ball form in the pit of her stomach. Was it a coincidence that Toby had just started working here when the murders began, or something more sinister? She didn’t know.

  Mattie gaped at her. ‘You don’t know him! Why did you let him in, Lucy? I don’t like that he knows all this stuff – it’s like he was spelling it out to you. Why would he need to do that? You’re clever. You’d have worked it out for yourself.’

  Lucy loved
how loyal Mattie was and she knew that normally she was very good, but she hadn’t seen this coming and she wasn’t afraid to admit that.

  He continued. ‘I mean, it’s as if he was fed up of waiting for you to come to that conclusion. Why did he need to give you a helping hand? And am I the only one who thinks it’s weird that he knew where you lived? He’s only been here a week – I don’t imagine at any point you’ve spoken to him long enough to give him your address…’

  Lucy looked at him. ‘Oh Christ, what if it’s him? What if he’s the killer?’

  Browning suddenly interjected. ‘Then I think we should bring him in for questioning; we need to search his house and car. If we find anything that those blue fibres could have come off and can match them back to him it will give us enough reason. In my opinion, he’s just become a very valuable person of interest. Who’s going to arrest him? Us or task force?’

  She sat down, the weight of it all crashing down on her shoulders as she ran through their conversation last night. He’d freely admitted he had a fascination with serial killers whilst he was sitting opposite her. She’d felt a little uncomfortable letting him into her house, yet she had. But – and this was the crucial point – was he capable of masterminding all these murders? She couldn’t answer her own question because she knew very well that the sickest individuals could be the nicest person you knew. You only had to look at Ted Bundy, with his good looks and charming personality. Who would ever have guessed that underneath was a man with nothing but complete depravity inside his mind?

  ‘We still need to find Waite – he might be the one person who actually got a good glimpse of the killer. He may turn out to be our star witness.’

  ‘Leave Waite to task force – he’s not our priority,’ argued Mattie. ‘I think we need to bring Toby in. Browning and I can do that. He won’t be expecting it – is he in work today? Because that would make it straightforward. Then we can get a search team to go through his house and check for any forensic evidence.’