A Tapping at My Door: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller (The DS Nathan Cody Series) (8 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘Don’t know what came over me. It’s just that . . . I remember her, you know? I remember her laughing and smiling and joking. And now she looks like . . . well, like that. It’s freaked me out.’

He nods in sympathy again. He knows about being freaked out. Oh, yes, he knows all about that.

‘You wouldn’t be human if it didn’t,’ he says.

He wonders how he would react if it were someone he knew lying there on the ground, their throat gaping open and their eye sockets empty. He has a suspicion he would not deal with it as well as Webley is. Has an inkling that he would instantly lose what’s left of the thinning cement that is barely holding him together right now.

It’s a thought that scares him more than anything the killer has done.

Or might do next.

9

‘So,’ says Blunt. ‘Theories. What’s the murderer trying to tell us?’

They’re back at Stanley Road. A Major Incident Room has been set up. From now on this will be the hub of all activity related to the investigation of Terri Latham’s death. All data relating to the case will be gathered and pulled into this room. It will be sifted, it will be analysed. Actions will be triggered. More data will be gathered. It will build. Connections will be found. Hypotheses will be formed and tested. More data, more connections. Gradually, it will all come together. Like a work of art it will take shape. Detail upon detail, layer upon layer, the components will begin to merge into a whole. Until somebody in this room – Blunt, Cody, the tea lady – adds a brushstroke that makes it what it was always meant to be.

Until that time, questions like Blunt’s might as well be in a foreign language.

Blank faces consult other blank faces. This is a mystery beyond the ken of even the most experienced cops here.

‘Okay,’ says Blunt. ‘Let’s start with the bird. Any experts on birds here?’

Any other case, the jokes would start to flow. Somebody would say the only type of birds he knows about are the ones without feathers. And then somebody else would tell him that the last time he had a bird was for his Christmas dinner. And then . . .

But not today. Today the assembled detectives are not feeling the humour. They are graver than usual. Their faces are set. They just want to do their jobs and find this bastard.

‘I did some research on the internet,’ Cody offers. ‘It’s definitely a raven. Biggest member of the crow family. Can be pretty vicious.’

‘Where would our killer find one?’

‘They’re not rare. You can find them in lots of places. Wales. The Lake District. It’s catching them that’s probably the hard part.’

Blunt frowns. Cody knows she was hoping for something that would help to narrow down the search.

‘Lot of trouble to go to, though. Why not a pigeon or a sparrow? Something more common?’

‘Wouldn’t go with the message, for one thing. Anything other than a raven would have been a distraction. The killer wants us to understand the message for what it is.’

‘Okay, so then let’s focus on the message. Nevermore. Never again. Never again what?’

There’s a silence while everyone struggles to stay away from the obvious. Webley is the first to dredge up the courage to speak.

‘We have to accept that it could be something in Latham’s past. Something she did, or that the killer believes she did. And that could have something to do with the Kevin Vernon case.’

Cody feels the ripple of discomfort as it passes through the room. Digging into the past of a police officer – even a dead one – can throw up all kinds of things that might be better left alone. Even the most innocent of events can be made to cast shadows when placed under the probing lights of suspicious minds.

Blunt nods, but Cody can see that she is as troubled as the rest of them.

‘Be discreet,’ she says. ‘Watch what you say and who you say it to. But don’t let that stop you digging. If this is related to something Latham got involved with, we need to know about it.’

She scans the grave faces in front of her. ‘Bring in PC Garnett. We also need to talk to friends and relatives of Vernon. It’s not going to be easy. They already see us as the enemy. They’re going to give us a rough time whether they were involved in this or not. But we can’t back off because of that. Just be careful, okay?’

‘What if they’ve got nothing to do with this?’ asks Ferguson.

‘I really hope that’s true. That’s why we need to know everything about Terri Latham. Go through her record with a fine-tooth comb. Look at every arrest she made, every report she wrote, every scribble she made in her notebook. Talk to her boyfriends, her girlfriends, her family, her police colleagues. Somewhere in there is a motive. Somewhere in there is a suspect. Find them.’

Blunt moves on to details then. Assigning specific tasks to specific people. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing unexpected. Until . . .

‘The PM is scheduled for four o’clock,’ says Blunt. ‘Cody, I’d like you and Webley to attend.’

She could move on then. Put a name to the task and move swiftly on. It’s a mundane job. Standard procedure. No ceremony required.

But not this time. She is asking Cody to attend Terri Latham’s post-mortem. Knowing full well what he has been through, she is requesting him to watch a police officer’s body being sliced open right in front of him.

So she doesn’t move on. She waits, her eyes lingering on Cody’s face. Scrutinising him for signs of anguish. Listening for a murmur of objection.

The room is silent. Others know the score. They know how much Blunt is asking of their colleague. Some of them will feel resentment or anger towards her because of it.

Cody recognises it for what it is. A challenge. This is his boss saying to him,
You tell me you’re fine? You tell me you want to be treated exactly like everyone else? Then here’s your chance to prove it.

Cody knows he can refuse. A simple no. A shake of the head. A sentence beginning something like, ‘Well, actually, if you don’t mind . . .’ Anything less than a total positive will be enough. She will seize on that. She won’t pursue it, won’t press him to take the job. She will simply pass it to somebody else. But then it will be too late. The damage will have been done. Forever after in her eyes he will be less than the detective he wants people to see.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he says, and he says it with assuredness.

Blunt’s mouth twitches. An approximation of a smile. And then, finally, she moves on.

10

Small world, thinks Webley.

You start a new job. You think everything is fresh and different and exciting. So much to learn, to experience, to discover. New faces, voices. Different jokes and opinions.

But it doesn’t last. Not even a day before the ghosts jump out at you.

Terri Latham, for one. Webley can picture her face precisely. Can see the mole on her cheek, the sharp arch of her eyebrows, the tongue touching her upper lip when she was concentrating.

Gone. All gone. As if she was never there at all.

What are the odds? Yes, this is a murder squad and, yes, that means encountering lots of dead bodies, but it’s not every day the victim is someone you once knew. Someone you remember laughing and dancing and drinking and swearing, as if it were only yesterday.

She tries telling herself that it can only get easier now. She can’t be unlucky enough to go through this again. All the future corpses in her professional life will be complete strangers to her. She can cope with that. She won’t go to pieces again like she did in front of Cody. Christ, what a way to start a new job. Cody must already be thinking she’s in the wrong line of work.

And there’s the other ghost. Cody. Again, what are the chances? It never once entered her head that she might find him here at MIT. Why would it? His top priority was undercover work. It was his life. Becoming a murder squad detective was never an option for him when they were going out. Perhaps if it
had
been . . .

But no, she thinks. Let’s not go there. Things change, people change. Cody’s life is none of my concern now.

Could be awkward, though, couldn’t it? I mean, this is the man I once loved – the man I once believed I might spend the rest of my life with. And now I’ve got to treat him as just another guy at work. I’ve got to sit next to him, share cars with him, discuss cases with him, interview people with him, drink coffee with him, socialise with him, listen to his problems, rely on him, confide in him . . . and try not to let the past get in the way of any of that.

Is that even possible? Am I crazy for even thinking of staying on this squad?

But she’s not walking away, oh no. Despite all her misgivings, Megan Webley is not breaking the golden rule that she has lived by since she was just a kid.

She remembers exactly how it started.

The woman lived on the same narrow street in Walton as the Webley family. Just a few doors down, in fact, although Webley never got to know her name. Still doesn’t know it to this day. It occurs to her sometimes to do a little digging to find out more about the woman, but something always stops her. She prefers to remember her simply as the Sad Woman, as though discovering her name would somehow diminish that state of perfect sorrow.

She could never predict when she’d see the woman. Webley would be on her way to school or the newsagent or the chippy, and there she’d be: coming out of her house, or tending to her tiny patch of garden. Even before she could see the woman’s expression she would feel the sadness emanating from her. And when the woman did catch sight of Webley’s beaming face she would smile back at her, but it would be a false smile, hiding nothing. Even at that young age, it went through Webley’s mind to ask the woman what was wrong, but she never did.

The bruises came later. The blues and the yellows and the greens. And then the lumps and bumps and half-closed eyes that make-up could not put right. Webley would slow as she passed the woman’s front gate, and she would stare and stare, as children do. And sometimes the woman stared back, and Webley got the impression that she wanted to speak to her, to explain it all, perhaps even to ask for help. But she never spoke, and Webley never asked, and eventually the woman abandoned even the pretence of smiling.

It was on her way home after school one day that she heard the shouting coming from inside the house. Webley had heard shouting before, of course, but this was different. This shouting felt as though its intensity could cause physical damage. It was a male voice doing the yelling. It wasn’t the woman. Her answering call was in the form of a scream that almost caused Webley to wet herself.

She ran the rest of the way home. Panting, she told her mother of what she’d heard. Her mother responded that it was probably a television, because some people have absolutely no respect for their neighbours. And when Webley insisted that it wasn’t the television, her mother said that it didn’t matter what it was, because it was none of their business.

A couple of weeks later, she was walking down the street with her father. Where they were going escapes her now, because it’s no longer important. What fills Webley’s memory is the image of the woman flying out of the front door of her house, pursued by her furious husband. She was in tears; he was roaring at her to get back in the house. When she refused, he grabbed her by the hair and started dragging her back towards the door.

The young Webley listened to the screams of terror, and knowing that a terrible fate awaited the woman inside the house, she turned to the one person she believed could alter the course of events.

He was a strong man, her father – a plumber by trade. He looked down at his daughter’s pleading face . . .

. . . and then he took her by the hand and led her across the road, away from all the trouble.

She asked him what he was doing. She begged him to go back and help the poor woman. When that failed, she shouted across the street, telling the man to leave his wife alone. Her father’s response was to yank her arm so sharply it hurt, and to bark her name in that unmistakable tone that meant she was in trouble. And when she persisted, he told her the same thing her mother had said: ‘It’s none of our business.’

Webley was miserable about it for weeks. Miserable and angry and confused. Her parents were the adults. They were supposed to know right from wrong, and to pass that on to their children. How was this right?

Every day, Webley made a point of walking slowly past the house of the neighbour she didn’t even know. She had no idea what she would do if she saw or heard something awful happening to the woman, but she felt she needed to be there for her, because nobody else seemed to give a damn.

When the police showed up one rainy afternoon, Webley knew in her heart that the woman was dead. Her parents refused to let her leave the house, so she stayed cooped up in her bedroom, watching the comings and goings through the rivulets of rainwater on her window. And the more she watched, the more impressed she grew with the uniformed men and women who, unlike anyone else, really did seem to care. She decided she wanted to be just like them, and she made a promise to herself that never again would she cross the road to avoid a problem.

So, Detective Sergeant Cody, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.

I’m not going anywhere.

11

They show Garnett into the interview room. Already Cody can feel a distaste for this man rising within him. He finds it a struggle to appear amiable.

He thinks he might find it easier if Garnett were in uniform. Something that would foster instant respect. But Garnett is in a black leather jacket and jeans. He’s wearing a flash watch and huge gaudy rings. He looks like a spiv instead of a police officer. And it goes further than his clothes and ornamentation. There’s a cockiness to him. An arrogance. A look on his face that shouts at you that he thinks his time is being wasted.

Cody gestures towards a chair, and while Garnett sits down he tries to talk to him like a member of the same side: ‘Thanks for dropping in on your day off. We want to get moving on this case as quickly as we can, so we really appreciate it.’