Killing the Beasts (27 page)

Back downstairs he'd just got the stopper out of a bottle of single malt when the phone rang. Grabbing it, he breathlessly demanded, 'Charlotte?'

'Tom?'

'Who's this?'

'Andrew Soloman. I've been trying to get hold of you all afternoon. What the bloody hell happened in Manchester today? I've had the top guy at X-treme UK on to me. They've pulled the business. They've been on to Centri-Media and there's no promotion for their chewing gum booked into Piccadilly station. They say we've invoiced them sixteen grand for that job, and they sent the cheque weeks ago. Where's the money, Tom?'

'I have it – it's just that the slot at the station wasn't booked. They can have a refund.'

'A refund? They had an entire promotion arranged, luxury holiday to Malaysia, boxes of a special limited edition flavour made. We're liable for all those costs. Too right they'll get a refund – and if the cheque hasn't been touched, you might just avoid being prosecuted for fraud.'

Tom was staring at the TV, but not seeing a thing. 'Listen, they can have their money back. Every penny of it. Just tell them there was a mix-up. Shit happens, you know?'

'
Shit happens
? Are you drunk?'

'What do you mean?'

'This is it, you realize that, don't you Tom? They want blood, so you're out of here. We're taking the Porsche back and you get three months' money as a senior account handler.'

'Actually, I'm the managing director, in case you've forgotten. That's six months' money and my profit-related bonus.'

'You think there'll be any profits after this fuck-up? And check your contract, Tom – it's another thing you forgot to sign. As far as we're concerned, you're still a senior account handler.'

Realizing he'd lost it all, Tom started laughing down the phone, the hysterical whooping of a hyena. The handset fell from his hand and he staggered through the French windows onto the patio. Swigging directly from the bottle, he was just able to make out The Plough above him before fireworks from the opening ceremony filled the sky with showers of bronze, silver and gold.

Chapter 19

2 November 2002

Jon's car pulled to a halt by the incident van positioned at the top of forty-six Lea Road. It had started drizzling a couple of hours earlier and, leaning forwards for a better view of the sky, Jon could see the motionless layer of cloud stretching away like an expanse of concrete in all directions. 'Great,' he muttered to himself. He opened the car door and jogged over to the van, noticing the Lexus tucked in beside it.

Stepping in to what was really a mobile home made into an office, Jon used one hand to wipe the droplets of rain coating his cropped hair. He said to the crime scene manager inside, 'Nice motor parked alongside. What are they paying you guys again?'

A middle-aged man with a thick head of grey hair smiled. 'The Lexus? I should be so lucky. It's the couple's in the flat above the victim's. They don't like leaving it on the road – it's been keyed too many times.'

Jon nodded. 'Are they in? I need to question them about Mary Walters' death.'

'I haven't seen them go out,' the CSM replied.

Jon ran to the front door of the house and pressed the intercom for flat two. After he'd told them who he was, he was buzzed in. A smooth-looking man in his mid-to-late twenties showed him into the flat and through to the front room. Inside were cream leather sofas and stripped floorboards, palms stretching almost up to the roof, Rothko prints on the walls. He sat in the chair opposite the man and his wife and pulled his notebook out.

'You've done this flat out nicely. Is it housing-association owned?'

'Was,' replied the husband. 'We bought this flat off them last year. They said they'll be selling off the others, too.' Jon understood the process taking place: prices had shot up and the housing association was cashing in by selling its properties in the area, probably to buy more in the cheaper Moss Side. The wealthy couple he was looking at were at the vanguard of a wave that would soon sweep the older residents of Whalley Range clean away.

Their statement had little of potential interest – both husband and wife worked long hours for a law firm in Manchester. The only conversation they'd had with Mary was when she had asked if they had any objection to her pinning the CCTV notice up.

'Ah yes,' said Jon. 'One of her friends mentioned she had problems with prostitutes and their clients parking in the back yard.'

The couple nodded knowingly. 'I think it bothered her more than us,' said the husband. 'We come and go by the front hallway.'

'Excuse me,' interrupted the wife. 'We usually park round the back and driving over used condoms most mornings wasn't exactly pleasant.'

'The Lexus?'

They nodded, looking proud.

'Nice car, that,' Jon said, looking at his notebook. 'So did the notice work?'

'Like that,' replied the wife with a snap of her fingers.

Back in the incident van he asked the crime scene manager if any photographic albums had been found lying around Mary's flat. Nothing so far, came the reply. Jon asked if he could go back in for another look around. The man signed his name in the log book and tossed him a crime scene suit, overshoes and gloves.

Jon nodded to the uniformed officer at the back steps and then let himself into the flat. He wandered into the front room and stared at the carpet where the body had been lying. Then he glanced round the walls, taking in the immaculately arranged books lining the shelves. His eye was caught by a set of drawers; the uppermost one was fractionally open, as if it had been pushed hurriedly back in. He wedged a pen into the slight gap and pulled the drawer out. Bills and documents were arranged in neat piles. TV licence, gas, electricity, telephone.

Crouching down he opened the cupboard door to the side, grunting with satisfaction when he saw the stack of photo albums. Slipping on the gloves, he began flicking through. The front page was labelled, 'Oberammergau, 1999.' An alpine setting – some sort of a play about the crucifixion. He recognized the friend, Emma, amongst the beaming members of the coach party.

He went through the other albums and wasn't surprised to find only harmless photos of churches. Frowning, he walked through into her bedroom, feeling slightly guilty as he opened up her bedside cupboard and peered inside. A little rush of excitement played up his spine when he saw a stack of small magazines. He lifted the top few out and read the titles with disappointment.
The Everlasting Life. Our Creator Cares About You. The Search for God
. Religious magazines delivered by women who turn up on your doorstep and stare a little too intensely as they hand them over. Jon nodded in grim acceptance: try as he might, he couldn't imagine that any of the type of snaps found in Polly Mather's flat would turn up here.

In the kitchen he started idly looking through the cupboards, amazed to see that she even had a system of labels on each door to denote which items should be eaten first. Examining what was stored on each shelf, he noted there were quite a few promotional packs of merchandise – no doubt part of the same economical approach that led her to collect the coupons and tokens on the hallway table.

He looked in the top drawer and saw knives, forks and spoons neatly lined up. The drawer below was labelled 'Miscellaneous'and was full of odds and ends – spare batteries, rolls of sellotape, a box of plasters, bags of foreign coins, a pack of chewing gum, tubes of indigestion tablets. The bottom drawer was full of tea towels, mostly souvenirs from places like Scarborough, Cromer and St Ives.

Jon straightened his legs and, sighing deeply, began to mentally sift through what the investigation had uncovered so far. The pairs of cups that had been recently washed up in Polly Mather's and Mary Walters' houses had yielded nothing to forensic examination. The CCTV lead had turned out to be nonexistent. No usable fingerprints had been lifted from Mary's doorbell. Phil Wainwright had a solid alibi for the night of Mary's death – he was staying at his mum's over in Burnley. He thought about Polly Mather's flat. The contacts magazines seemed the most promising lead, but tracing the three pay-as-you-go numbers was impossible.

Absolutely nothing seemed to link the victims and he was painfully aware that, due to the lack of solid leads, the investigation was stalling in its very earliest stages. Hoping that someone else might have made a significant discovery, he set off back to the station.

The top floor of Longsight police station made a city trading room seem sedate. Officers were scurrying between desks, others were on the telephone or furiously entering their reports onto HOLMES. Messages were being shouted from all directions.

Making his way between the tables, Jon headed for DCI McCloughlin's room. He saw him inside, surrounded by other senior officers. Jon knocked and was immediately beckoned in.

'Gentlemen, this is DI Spicer, 'McCloughlin announced. 'He was taking care of the investigation while it stood at one victim and was first in with me at Mary Walters' flat.' He turned to Jon. 'The autopsy on the third victim, Heather Rayne, has just come back. She had been dead for over a day, which actually makes her the second one to be killed.'

'One a day for the past three days,' Jon said, staying by the door.

'Precisely. And every time my bloody phone rings – which is almost non-stop – I'm expecting it to be news of number four.'

He pointed through the windows of his office at the white boards that stood at the top of the main room. The usual smattering of victims' photos adorned each one with various other names and addresses dotted around below. What was missing were the crucial interconnecting lines between each victim. Jon had never seen such a lack of them.

'As you can see, we're still thrashing around in the dark here. Any progress on your part? What was the score with the CCTV at Mary Walters' place?'

Jon shook his head. 'Afraid it was just that – a notice. Mary Walters pinned it up to put off curb crawlers bringing their pickups round into the back yard. I've just had a talk with the owners of the flat above. They spend their lives in the office so had very little to say.'

McCloughlin shook his head. 'Well, there were two recently washed up cups on Heather Rayne's draining board. This bastard knows the victims, I'm certain.'

'What's the profile so far of the latest one to be found?' Jon asked.

McCloughlin spoke from memory. 'Heather Rayne. Single, aged thirty-two. A high flyer at Kellogg's where she worked as a training manager in the IT department. An upstanding member of the community, helping to raise money for various local projects through sponsored runs and the like. Also active in the local branch of the Conservative party. No familial or obvious social connections to the other two victims.'

The room was silent for a few moments before McCloughlin continued. 'Jon – you've had a fairly good look around two of the victims' flats. Go and view the crime scene video from Heather Rayne's property and check the white boards. See if any angles show up.'

Taking that as his cue to get going, Jon replied, 'Yes sir,' and went to find the video room. Other officers had obviously been watching the tapes late into the night – a full ashtray and a box of matches had been left on the corner table. Opening the window slightly, Jon looked hungrily at a half-smoked cigarette. Rothman's. His favourite brand before giving up. He loaded the tape marked with Heather Rayne's name into the cassette recorder.

The footage opened on a leafy street, the sound of starlings arguing in the background. The video panned towards the victim's property, the picture moving across a fir tree in the front garden, the edge of a Jaguar coming into the other side of the screen as the officer started walking up the short path leading to the front door. A hand extended into the frame and pushed the front door open. The picture dimmed out and then objects slowly took shape. As the camera made a slow sweep of the hallway area, something began nagging at the back of Jon's mind.

He rewound the tape, unsure of what he was looking for. The footage started again, birds twittering, fir tree, edge of the Jaguar, front path, door. Glancing at the ashtray, he jabbed the pause button, unable to quite work out what had caught his attention. It was as frustrating as having a word on the tip of his tongue. He rewound the tape again. Still it wouldn't come. Angrily he reached over and lifted the half-smoked Rothman's out of the ashtray. He sniffed the charred end, aware that most of the tar, nicotine and various poisons would be concentrated in the cigarette's last third. Hating himself, he lit it up and took a deep drag. As the harsh smoke started his brain dancing, he thought back to the first victim, Polly Mather. He remembered the Subaru Impreza belonging to the neighbour jutting across on to Polly's half of the shared drive. He remembered that a Lexus was usually parked in the third victim's backyard, near to Mary Walters' door. Staring at the TV, he saw the front corner of the Jaguar intruding into the screen. Pulling another lungful of smoke from the cigarette, he stubbed it out and got up. Feeling like he was walking on cotton wool, he entered the main incident room and went over to the allocator. 'Charlie, can you tell me who's compiling the vehicle index for Heather Rayne?'

The officer checked on his computer. 'Sergeant N Darcourt – over there.' He pointed to a bald man with the frame of an overweight bulldog, hunched over a PC.

Jon walked over. 'Nobby, how's it going? You still playing scrum half for Wilmslow?'

The man looked up, one cauliflower ear sprouting from the side of his skull. 'Prop nowadays, mate. Don't know why,' he joked, sitting back and patting his paunch. 'And yourself?'

'Still open side flanker for Cheadle Ironsides. When I get the chance.'

The man gave an understanding grimace. 'What can I do you for?'

Jon sat down on the edge of his desk. 'Just a quick question about Heather Rayne if you have a second.'

'Fire away.'

'Has the inventory been completed for all the vehicles on her street? I'm wondering about a Jag parked outside the front of her house. It shows up on the video footage.'