A Tapping at My Door: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller (The DS Nathan Cody Series) (34 page)

Robert flings the cupboard doors open and stands aside to let Cody see inside. Cody isn’t sure what he’s looking at. He can just see shelves full of folders and box files with labels on them. Robert grabs one, seemingly at random, then brings it across to Cody and flings it onto the sofa next to him.

‘Take a look. Go on, open it up.’

Cody opens up the box and looks inside. On the top is a newspaper report about an investigation into allegations of corruption in the Metropolitan Police. Cody flicks through the other cuttings in the box. He sees one about institutional racism in the force, another about how a member of the armed response unit was put on a charge of manslaughter, another describing an incident in which a teenager was killed by a policeman driving his vehicle too fast.

‘My dad collects these. Every day he scours the papers, looking for articles on how terrible the police are. It’s an obsession. You should see his file on the Plebgate affair. And as for Hillsborough – that gets a shelf of its own.’

Cody continues to riffle through the reports. He finds it impossible to comprehend how someone can become so obsessed with a topic that is so filled with sadness and violence and hate and immorality. But then he has never lost a child at the hands of police officers. Cody is only too aware how fragile a thing the mind is.

‘Here,’ says Robert, ‘take a gander at this . . .’ He tosses another box file onto the sofa. ‘That’s where it all started.’

Cody can guess what’s in here, but he opens it up anyway. He’s right. Dozens of articles on the death of Kevin Vernon. He pulls out some of the cuttings and finds himself in the midst of the investigation into the officers involved: Terri Latham and Paul Garnett. Some of the reports are accompanied by photographs of the two officers, usually in police uniform.

‘Do you see now?’ Robert is saying. ‘Do you understand what my family has been going through? What I’ve been going through? Do you?’

Cody doesn’t know why, but he finds himself picking one particular article out of the box.

‘Every day my mum and dad tell me how evil the police are. I’ve got my own house, you know. I should be living my own life. I moved back in when Kevin died, so I could help my parents. And ever since then they’ve shown me examples – articles like these – proving what evil bastards you lot are. What am I supposed to believe, eh? What am I supposed to do?’

Cody doesn’t answer. He is too busy reading the article.

‘So you want the truth then, eh? You want to know if I lied to you? Well, yes I bloody well did. I lied, okay? This bloke Gazza – I made him up. He doesn’t exist. I don’t know who killed those bizzies, and I don’t care. But it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t my mum or dad. And if you hadn’t come round here, throwing out your accusations at us, I wouldn’t have lied to you. An ounce of respect – that’s all we want. Why can’t you just leave us in peace?’

Something about this article is troubling Cody, niggling him. What is it? He quickly scans to the end, then back to the beginning. What is it about these words?

‘Are you listening to me? Have you heard one word I’ve said?’

But Cody has stopped listening. What seemed so important when he came here has just paled into insignificance.

He has identified what was bothering him. Perhaps he saw it straight away and it didn’t properly register the first time. But now it is staring him in the face. Not just the content of the report, but its originator.

A journalist called Martin Dobson.

44

Cody drives away from the Vernon house leaving Robert not a little bemused by the fact that his confession seemed of such insignificance to the detective. Cody made him a deal: he would overlook Robert’s deceit if he could take with him the newspaper article he had just read. It was too good an offer for Robert to turn down.

Cody gets less than a mile from the house before having to pull the car over. He’s not concentrating on the road. There are too many thoughts buzzing around his head. Too many questions. He’s not sure what any of it means, exactly. Not at the moment. There is still plenty of work to be done here.

And yet . . .

There are too many coincidences as well. Think about it. Latham and Garnett are killed. There’s an obvious connection between them – the Vernon case. That’s what everybody believes is at the root of it, until the other two officers are slain. Then the focus shifts, widens. The connection becomes murkier.

But there is another connection, it seems. Dobby, who has been putting his nose into these killings from the outset, was a key reporter on the death of Kevin Vernon and its aftermath. There was not just one article by him in the box that Robert showed him, but a whole host of them.

What does that mean? Does it mean anything at all?

Cody remembers what Dobson told him about the investigative powers at his disposal. He can find things out, he said – things even the police can’t discover.

Like, for example, the home addresses of Latham and Garnett?

See, that’s another thing differentiating the first two killings from the later ones. In the cases of Andrea Whitland and Tony Stebbins, the killer lay in wait, like a spider might wait for a fly to venture into its web. There was nothing to indicate that Whitland and Stebbins were deliberately targeted. It was a question of wrong place, wrong time.

But Latham and Garnett were killed at their homes. The killer knew precisely where they lived. He went to them, rather than the other way around. How did he know the addresses? Police officers are usually extremely guarded about giving out their contact details, because you never know what lunatics might turn up at your door. Most of the bobbies that Cody knows don’t even have their home phone numbers listed in the directory. How the hell did the killer find out where Latham and Garnett lived?

Cody pulls the newspaper article from his pocket. His eyes jump straight to the first of the relevant paragraphs:

‘When confronted outside his semi-detached house in Grassendale, Mr Garnett refused to comment on the investigation into his part in the death of Kevin Vernon.’

Then, further down:

‘PC Terri Latham, who assisted Garnett in tackling Vernon on the night he suffered fatal injuries, also declined to answer when questioned outside the Wallasey flat she shares with her police boyfriend.’

So, Dobson managed to find out exactly where the two officers lived at the time. The furore surrounding the case led to both officers having to move house after they were cleared. But if Dobson could locate them once, he could do it again.

Maybe he did exactly that.

Wait a minute, thinks Cody. If Dobson had anything at all to do with the murders, why didn’t he simply use his investigative powers to locate the other victims too? Why didn’t he go directly to their homes, just as he did for Latham and Garnett?

Answer: because it would have been far too obvious. Not many people would have been capable of tracking four police officers to their homes before killing them. Far safer to start using a different approach to finding them, even if it makes life for the killer more difficult.

Cody tosses the possibilities around in his mind. Dobby? A serial killer? A strange man, yes, but
that
?

Cody knows full well that killers don’t conform to type. They come in all shapes, sizes, colours and personalities. But still – Dobby?

He decides he needs to go in search of some answers.

45

After a few phone calls, a few promises, a few threats, Cody finds his quarry in the London Carriage Works. Which, despite its name, is neither in London nor specialises in repairing horse-drawn vehicles. It’s actually a swanky restaurant on Hope Street.

Forced to abandon his dessert after only a mouthful, Edward Kingsley seems less than pleased to be called out to the desk.

‘It’s a crème brûlée,’ he tells Cody.

‘What is?’

‘My dessert. Crème brûlée. One of the best I’ve ever tasted. And I’ve just forsaken it to talk to you, so I expect some scintillating conversation.’

Cody looks around. The staff are studiously attending to their business, but he’s not convinced they’re out of earshot.

‘You mind stepping outside?’

‘Are you planning to punch me?’

‘Have you done something to deserve it?’

‘Probably. But not to you, as far as I know.’

‘Then I’ll restrain myself. Anyway, you look like you need a ciggy break. Must be at least two minutes since you last lit up.’

‘Is it that obvious? Come on, then. My body is a temple to the god of nicotine, and I need to pray.’

They go outside. While Kingsley digs out a cigarette, Cody checks out the cathedrals at either end of the street, bathed in an ethereal glow. Each is so different from the other, yet each is so beautiful in its own way. Hope Street is aptly named, and Cody wonders if his own hopes can be fulfilled tonight.

He turns his gaze back on Kingsley. Light spilling from the restaurant bounces off the man’s distinguished silver hair. In other respects he does not look his advancing years, and has done remarkably well to weather a lifetime of journalistic excess. Many of his younger colleagues were consigned to the knacker’s yard years ago.

‘So,’ says Kingsley, ‘are you bringing me a scoop, or are you here to accuse me of something? FYI, I’ve never authorised a phone hacking in my life.’

‘Neither. I’m looking for a story.’

‘What? You thinking of going into journalism now? Good. I’m glad you’ve seen sense. Come over to the dark side.’

‘Thanks, but no thanks. I have standards.’

‘Really? Then there’s no hope for you. Come back when you’ve put a price on your soul. And keep it realistic. In this economic climate, you’ve got a lot of competition out there.’

‘To be honest, I don’t think my soul is worth very much at the moment. That’s not why I’m here.’

‘Okay. Give me the who, where and what.’

‘The who is Martin Dobson.’

Kingsley sucks hard on his cigarette, then blows a huge cloud of smoke into the crisp air.

‘Jesus! Come on, Cody. He’s just doing his job. You know that. I can’t keep calling him home every time he gets on your nerves.’

‘I don’t expect you to. That’s not what I’m asking.’

Kingsley’s eyes flare into life, almost as brightly as the tip of his cigarette. ‘What then?’

‘I want you to tell me his history. Why you hired him, where you found him – that kind of thing.’

‘That’s an unusual request, Cody. Where did this come from?’

‘From me. I’m interested.’

Another puff of smoke, followed by a shake of the head. ‘No. You need to give me more than that. Something has provoked this.’

‘I can’t tell you. Not yet. It might be nothing.’

‘Which also means it might be something. So what’s up?’

‘I don’t know. I’m just fishing. But the longer I talk to you, the more I’m starting to think there’s a prize catch in the lake.’

Kingsley laughs. ‘Are you certain you don’t want to work for me? You’ve got a reporter’s nose.’

‘Does that mean there’s a story here?’

‘It means you’re able to come up with one, even when there isn’t one there.’

‘Is that what I’m doing? You still haven’t told me anything about Dobson.’

Kingsley sighs. Looks back through the restaurant window at his friends in all their finery, laughing and joking and knocking back expensive bottles of bubbly.

‘Look at what you’re keeping me from.’

Cody shrugs. ‘They don’t seem to be missing you.’

Kingsley smiles. Nods. ‘Too true. I’m not the life and soul of the party that I used to be. Too old now. Did you know I’m thinking about retiring?’

‘I didn’t, no.’

‘Yep. I’ve seen it all in my time. You wouldn’t believe some of the things I knew about but never printed.’

‘Because you didn’t have the evidence to back them up?’

Kingsley laughs again. ‘When did a lack of evidence ever stand in the way of a good story?’

‘Now you’re starting to sound like Dobson.’

‘Maybe. He’s not all bad, you know. I wouldn’t have hired him if I thought otherwise.’

‘But there’s something there? Something you’re not telling me.’

Kingsley drops his cigarette to the pavement. Grinds it into the ground beneath his shiny black shoe.

‘I should get back.’

But he doesn’t move immediately. Cody knows he’s expecting the next card to be played, and so he plays it.

‘You owe me one.’

‘Aha! I was wondering when you’d try that one. As I recall, the last time we spoke I said we’re straight now, and you agreed.’

‘Well, I’ve thought about it, and we weren’t. It wasn’t a fair deal.’

‘I pulled Dobson off your back. Kept you out of my paper. It would’ve been a pretty big story.’

‘And your daughter’s death would’ve been an even bigger one.’

He sees Kingsley wince at the mention of his daughter’s possible fate at the hands of her abductors. If it hadn’t been for Cody, he might never have got her back safely.

‘Okay,’ says Kingsley. ‘You’re right. I owe you. I’ll owe you for the rest of my life. But you can’t keep using that to interfere with press freedom.’

‘I told you, I’m not asking you to put a muzzle on him. I just want his story. Where’d you find him?’

Kingsley looks skywards, then back at Cody. He sighs again.

‘All right, Cody. But this guy is one of my best reporters. If I lose him because of this, I’ll come looking for you.’

*

A half-hour later, Cody is standing outside Dobson’s house in Woolton Village. He obtained the address from Kingsley.

But that’s not all he got.

We all have secrets, but it seems that Dobson’s are darker than most. He has a past, but he’s hidden it well. He had to – especially here of all places.

Christ, thinks Cody. What irony! How does Dobby live with that? How does he put that behind him?

Well, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe the pressure of living with what he did finally got too much to bear, and he snapped.

Or maybe that’s not what happened at all.

Cody now knows something about Dobson he never would have suspected. But it’s not enough to label him a murderer. More answers are required.