by M K Farrar
“Sorry to interrupt your meal,” he said to the older man, “but could you take a quick look at this picture and tell me if you know this man.”
“Oh, aye, that’s Joe.”
“Joe?” Ryan said with interest. “Do you happen to know a surname?”
The man shook his head. “Sorry, we don’t deal much in surnames around these parts.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Not sure. A day or two ago. He hangs around Castle Park, sleeps on a bench up there sometimes.”
“Do you know anything about him? Did he ever talk about his family or if he was local, anything like that?”
He shook his head. “Not that I know of, but I didn’t know him that well, and he kept himself to himself.”
Ryan remembered Wendy saying the same thing about Clara.
“Any drug or drink problems that you know about?” he asked.
The man frowned. “Funny you say that, but I never did see him have a drink. Even when we passed the bottle around, he always declined.”
“Thanks, you’ve been very helpful.”
He went to join Mallory, and together they left the building and stepped outside onto the street.
“The man’s name is Joe, but no surname,” Ryan said.
“What are you thinking?”
“That this Joe fits the profile of the other victims. He’s white and in his twenties. Let’s assume he has some kind of alcohol or drug dependency, or possibly mental health issues, though the man over there says he hasn’t seen him have a drink. Could be that he’s a recovering alcoholic. He’s on the street, so I’m going to assume as well that he either doesn’t have family or is estranged from them.”
She frowned. “You think Joe might be the victim rather than it being Clara who’s in danger?”
He exhaled a breath. “Honestly, I’m not sure at this point. I don’t even know that this Joe has any connection to any of it, or if I’m just clutching at straws, but I think we need to find out who he is, and also what Clara Reed’s background is. We have her address, a mobile phone number, and a car registration. I want to order an analysis of her phone, see if it can be traced.”
“Yes, boss.”
They had too many leads that needed to be followed on to do this on their own. Ryan needed to get the rest of his team on board.
THE OFFICE WAS FILLED with the usual chatter, clicking of keyboards, and phones ringing.
“Can I get your attention, everyone?” Ryan called out over the heads of his DCs. “We’ve had a development on the River Avon case.”
The usual noise of the place fell quiet as people ended their calls to focus on their boss.
Ryan pinned two photographs to the board, one of Clara Reed from the CCTV footage ten years ago, and the other her more recent photograph on her driver’s license.
“This is Clara Reed. Twenty-eight years old, currently unemployed, but volunteers at a local soup kitchen. We have her on CCTV outside the nightclub on the night when Jacob Tater went missing, and also twice at the carpark of Conham River Park where the remains of both Luke Braun and Matthew Gordon were located.” He paused and added a third photograph. “We think she may be with this man, so far only identified as ‘Joe’, who we believe may be homeless, and we’re unsure yet if that’s his real name or not. However, he is in his twenties, a white male, and fits the profile of the three other victims.”
Ryan looked around to ensure each of his colleagues were following him, and then he continued.
“According to the woman Clara volunteers with, Clara is very shy, withdrawn, and doesn’t seem to have any friends that they’re aware of. She’s a bit of an outcast. Right now, we don’t know where she is. She didn’t turn up at her volunteer work today, which is out of character, and hasn’t been in touch with anyone. When we’ve tried her number, the phone has been off. We don’t know yet what Clara’s connection is to our victims, except that she was caught on CCTV, but we have to consider that she may have had something to do with their deaths. There’s a possibility she isn’t working alone. If this ‘Joe’ is connected to her in any way, they may be working together. We simply don’t know at this stage, but Clara is the strongest lead we’ve had since this investigation started, and I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that she’s suddenly vanished.”
DC Dev Kharral put up his hand. “Are you saying that you think Clara Reed might be the perpetrator? That she murdered three men?”
“I’m saying we need to keep our minds open at this point. It could just be that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that she’s now missing at this point in our inquiry makes me think that she’s gone off the radar deliberately, or someone has done something to take her off our radar. We know that she was aware of her image being circulated from the footage outside the club because her colleague had pointed it out to her. So, we’ve got a lot to do, everyone. Dev, can you try to trace her car. Get an ANPR set up. When you’ve done that, we still need the street CCTV footage from outside the bar that Matthew Gordon was last seen at gone through. Sorry to put you on more CCTV duty.”
Dev grinned. “Not a problem, boss.”
“Shonda, see if you can find Clara Reed on social media, or anywhere else on the internet for that matter. Is there somewhere she might have gone? What’s her background?”
“On it,” Shonda said, spinning her chair back around to her computer.
“Craig, can you phone around the hospitals and see if someone matching Joe’s description came in. He looks as though he’s been in a fight recently, so he might have sought medical help.”
Craig nodded and picked up his phone.
Ryan turned to the more mature member of his team. “Linda, put in a request for Clara Reed’s phone to be traced. It’s gone straight to answerphone when we’ve tried it, but that doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way. Make it a grade one request, since there is a risk to life.”
“Yes, boss,” she replied.
Ryan raised his voice again to address them all. “It doesn’t appear as though Clara Reed has any family or friends that we’re aware of right now, but let me know if any come up through the background research.” He clapped his hands together. “Get to work, everyone. We’re getting closer on this, I can feel it. Let’s bring the families of the victims some closure.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Everyone dispersed to do their jobs, and Mallory quickly called her parents’ house to make sure her brother was okay. He was still in some pain from the burns on his hands, but otherwise was in a good mood. That was a relief. She didn’t want to worry about him on top of everything else.
“Mallory.” Ryan called her over. “I want to go back and speak to the neighbours in more detail. We had one who seemed particularly interested in helping us, but there might be more.”
“Of course. Happy to go now, if you are.”
Within ten minutes, she found herself back in the car, retracing the route they’d taken only a couple of hours earlier.
Ryan found a different parking space, and they climbed out at the same time.
“Let’s split up,” he said. “We’ll cover more ground that way. Start with her closest neighbours and work our way up the street.”
“Got it.”
Ryan took the flats that were in the same building as Clara Reed’s, and Mallory started at the house on the left.
The first property was empty—the inhabitants most likely at work—so she scribbled on the back of a card to call her and slipped it through the letter box. She had more luck at the second house as someone was in.
A man in his sixties opened the door.
“Sorry to disturb you. My name is DS Lawson. I wondered if I could ask you a couple of questions.”
“What about?”
“Your neighbour, Clara Reed.” Mallory showed him a picture. “Do you know her at all?”
“Yeah, she lives a couple of doors down. Why?”
“We’re trying to track her down. I d
on’t suppose you’d have any idea where she might be?”
“I don’t know her except to say good morning to, sorry.”
“What about this man? Do you recognise him at all?” Mallory showed him a picture of the man they knew as Joe.
He frowned, pursing his lips. “Actually, he does look familiar. I’m sure he was hanging around at the end of our road the other day. I was in my car, and I pulled in, and I saw him then.”
“When would you say that was?”
“Not yesterday, might have been the day before. Would have been mid-afternoon cause that’s when I come back from my shift.”
“And when you say ‘hanging around’, how long would you say he was there for?”
“Oh, a good hour, if not two. I thought it was a bit odd. At first, I figured he was just waiting for someone to pick him up, but then I kept a watch out of my window and he was still there. No one hangs around that long if they’re just waiting for someone, do they? Do you think he might have done something to Clara?”
“We’re just making some enquiries at this point, Mr...?”
“Hallcom. Edward Hallcom.”
“Thank you, Mr Hallcom.” She handed him her card. “If you think of anything else, call me.”
“No problem at all. I do hope Miss Reed is okay. She’s always been polite enough, though she’s an awkward creature, if you don’t mind me saying. Always looked like she walked with a hunch.”
Mallory hurried back to Ryan and filled him in.
“I don’t know what to think at this point,” she said. “It sounds as though he might have been stalking her.”
Ryan frowned and bit his lower lip. “So this Joe might be the one who’s a danger to Clara.”
“Perhaps she has information he’s trying to hide, and he saw that we were searching for her and decided to silence her himself. How do we know that the reason she’s not answering is because she can’t or maybe he won’t let her.”
Ryan glanced back towards Clara Reed’s flat. “Shit. If we’re in fear for her life, we’re going to need to force entry to her flat, make sure she’s not in there, hurt or being held against her will. Can you call for uniformed officers to come and secure the house while I gain access.”
Mallory pulled out her phone. “On it.”
She placed the call and requested backup.
Ryan walked over to the front window. The place hadn’t even been double glazed. He covered his fist with his jacket and punched out the glass. Mallory winced, thinking that must have hurt. Glass tinkled around his feet, but he ignored it and reached through the hole, flicking the latch up and opening the window fully.
“I’ll open the door from the inside.” He climbed through the open window and vanished.
A moment later, the front door opened, and he jerked his head, telling her to come.
“No sign of her so far,” he said.
Mallory followed him to the now open door of the flat.
Ryan called out, “Police!”
Working swiftly, they moved from room to room, ensuring Clara wasn’t hurt or that she wasn’t being kept here against her will.
“It’s empty,” Mallory said, looking around.
The flat was tiny. No personal photographs cluttered the shelves. The place was sparsely furnished—just a television and a sofa in the living room, and a bed and a chest of drawers in the bedroom. There weren’t any of the soft furnishings or trinkets normally found in a young woman’s home. No lamps, or cushions, or rugs, or pictures on the walls.
“Did she just move in?” Mallory wondered.
“I don’t think so.”
“She’s not done much to the place.”
“I did see something in the bathroom,” Ryan said. “Come and see this.”
Mallory left the living room and joined him in the doorway to the even tinier bathroom. The mirror-fronted medicine cabinet above the sink was open, the shelves filled with packets and bottles of medicines.
“My God,” Mallory exclaimed. “She could be starting a pharmacy.”
“The cabinet door was open when I checked in here for Clara,” Ryan said.
They didn’t have a warrant to conduct a search, but they could use anything they happened to notice to help the case.
Ryan pulled on a glove from his pocket and picked up a couple of the packets. He read off the names. “Citalopram, antidepressants, mood stabilisers, anti-psychotics.”
“She must have tried every drug under the sun.”
Ryan exhaled a breath. “Maybe she’s come off her meds. Could that be why she’s missing?”
“Impossible to say, but it certainly looks as though she’s on enough of them.”
“I think we need to find out what her medical background is. I’m going to need to put in a request with DCI Hirst and request the information.”
“Good idea.” Mallory left the bathroom, expecting Ryan to follow, but when she turned back, he wasn’t behind her. Frowning, she went back to the bathroom doorway. Ryan was still in front of the open medicine cabinet. He lined up the packets of medication, and then nudged the one on the bottom a fraction of an inch to the right. That misplaced the ones on top, so he straightened them as well.
“Boss, we have to go,” she said.
“Yep, I’m coming.” But he didn’t turn back to her and continued to straighten the boxes.
She hesitated. How long would this take? Should she just leave him to it? But it all looked back the way it was to her, and they had other things they needed to be doing. At what point would this be considered him tampering with a crime scene as opposed to simply putting things back the way he’d found it.
She sucked in a breath.
“Ryan!” she said sharply. “Leave it. They’re fine.”
He turned to regard her over his shoulder.
“They’re fine,” she repeated.
A muscle in his jaw ticked, and he opened and closed his hands into fists. She witnessed the inner battle, how he fought with himself not to reach out and move the boxes into a different position.
She spoke in a softer voice. “We need to go.”
Ryan nodded and finally stepped away from the cabinet. In Mallory’s mind, nothing looked out of place, but she knew Ryan wouldn’t see things that way. In his head, there was a beacon flashing on and off declaring ‘wrong, wrong, wrong.’
She was relieved when they made it back out of the flat and Ryan took his phone from his pocket and placed a call. She hoped this issue he had wasn’t going to affect his work. He was a good detective and a good boss, and she didn’t want to have to work beneath anyone else.
“DCI Hirst,” he said on the phone, “I believe Clara Reed may be unstable. Possibly a danger to herself or others. I think we need to request an urgent action for a TIE for Clara Reed.”
He paused for a moment and glanced over at Mallory. “Yes, ma’am. We’re waiting for the uniformed officers to get here to protect the scene, and once we’ve handed it over, we’ll be right there.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
They lay together in a tangle of sheets, her head pillowed on his arm. Joe couldn’t remember a time when he’d experienced a night like that. He and Clara had made love, fallen asleep, and then woken to have sex again, only to doze until morning. She’d only got out of bed to get them breakfast and, after they’d eaten, climbed on top of him again.
But the day was passing them by now, and he was conscious that every moment spent here was a moment where he might have missed that vital word or sighting of his sister.
“We should be getting back,” he said.
Clara raised her head slightly. “Why? What is there for us in the city?”
Maybe she was right. What did he have in the city? No one who would miss him. But the tug of the thing that had been missing all his life pulled on him. What if he missed Kerry because he was here and not in the city? It might be his last chance.
“It’s my sister,” he said. “I need to watch out for her or listen for
any stories about her. People on the streets talk. Last I heard, someone matching her description was in Bristol. I don’t want to risk missing her.”
Clara stiffened in his arms. “So, you just want to go?”
He’d insulted her, he could tell.
“It’s not that this wasn’t fun. I’ve had a really great time. But I have other responsibilities.”
She sat up and shook her head. “No, I’m not done with you yet.”
Alarm ran jaggedly through him. “Sorry?”
“You don’t just get to leave. You think you can come into my life, use me, and then just leave again? You’re just like the others.”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about. What others? This has been fun, and we can do it again some time, if you want—” Though by the look in her eyes right now, he wasn’t sure it was something he’d even want to do now. “I’m not trying to use you, Clara, but I have to get back to my search for my sister.”
“That’s not how this works. You don’t get to sleep with me and just leave again.”
She swung her leg over his body to straddle his hips. Did she expect him to sleep with her again, now? It wasn’t as though he hadn’t enjoyed it, but something had shifted. There was a different kind of tension in the room. Her weight pinned him to the bed, and she leaned down and kissed him, pressing her mouth firmly against his, her tongue seeking entry. He kissed her back, but it wasn’t with the enthusiasm he’d had before. She ground down onto him, and he felt himself stir. Maybe just one more time wouldn’t hurt. She could drive him back to the city afterwards, or fuck it, he could just walk and hitch. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t done that before.
She kissed him harder, and her fingers laced through his, pushing his hands above his head. One hand released his, and a moment later, something cool and hard touched his wrist. There was a rattle and a click, and all of a sudden, her weight was gone from him, her lips no longer touching his. He opened his eyes and glanced behind him to where his wrist was now circled with a ring of metal and the other end attached to the metal headboard.
“What the fuck?”