The Stranger You Know (45 page)

Nothing hidden under a sofa cushion. Nothing inside the loose covers. Nothing under the rug.

A big rubber plant in the corner caught my attention. It was in a pot with wheels so you could move it around easily. I pulled it away from where it had been standing and saw that the fitted carpet wasn’t quite level. It rose up in the corner, where the carpet tacks had been removed.

‘Gotcha.’

It was easy to peel back the carpet, though I panicked a little when I saw nothing but floorboards. I stuck my hand in under the carpet as far as it would go and swept it back and forth in an arc, swearing as my muscles complained about the awkward angle. I forgot all discomfort when my fingertips brushed against something. I stretched even further and managed to get a grip on the corner of what proved to be an A4 envelope. I checked there wasn’t anything else to find, and came up with two more.

‘Harry? I’ve got something.’

He came and stood in the doorway, watching as I shook out the contents of the first envelope on the table. Pictures and medical notes. It was a history of remaking Stuart Sinclair from the tubby buck-toothed boy Derwent had tormented into, well—

‘Is that Josh Derwent?’ Maitland asked.

It was a picture I hadn’t seen before, a close-up of Derwent smirking at the camera, wearing school uniform. Two smaller pictures were clipped to the back. The first proved to be a candid shot of him talking, in profile, while the second was him smiling at someone. He must have just been in the shower. His hair was wet and slicked back instead of hanging around his face, so you could see the details – the planes of his face, the line his hair followed, the shape of his ears.

‘I think Derwent was his ideal. Like the world needed two of them.’

Maitland snorted. I skimmed through the paperwork.

He’d had dental work on the NHS but the major stuff – a jaw realignment and a set of crowns – had been done in Hungary. He’d gone to Los Angeles for a nose job and chin implant, at a cost that made my eyes wide. Over four visits to South Africa he’d had extensive liposuction and an eyelift, and had his ears pinned back. The pictures told the full story: a transformation from an unhappy, sagging young man to the toned, even-featured man I had met. He had removed body hair, tanned, reshaped his hairline, lightened his hair, exercised obsessively and it all
worked
. I tried to remember if I’d noticed anything strange about his face and how it moved, which was the usual giveaway with plastic surgery. The only thing I’d noticed was a resemblance to Derwent, which I’d put down to coincidence. And I’d noticed he was surprisingly hot.

‘Creepy,’ Maitland said. ‘What else?’

The next envelope was a gut punch: a full set of crimescene and autopsy pictures from the Angela Poole case.

‘How did he get those?’

‘Stole them. They went missing during the investigation. The SIO left them lying around. Stuart was the main witness – I bet he was in and out of the police station all the time.’ I tapped one. ‘He must have uploaded them to the website he showed me. These pictures were his reference material for the murders he committed and he had to make sure anyone could have seen them and done the same.’

‘Clever.’

‘No one is saying he’s not clever.’ I was really starting to hate Stuart Sinclair. I could taste it like bile at the back of my throat. He’d come so close to being discounted as a suspect. I’d come so close to overlooking him.

I’d met him and interviewed him before Deena died, and I hadn’t suspected him for one second.

The third envelope was in some ways the most interesting. It contained maybe fifty file cards with names, addresses, personal details and physical descriptions of women, and a card wallet. I flipped it open. ‘Bingo.’

‘What’ve you got?’

‘Fake police ID in the name of DI Josh Derwent, but that’s Sinclair in the picture.’

Maitland leaned in to see. ‘It looks rubbish. Nothing like the real thing.’

‘Good enough to pass on the street, in the dark, especially if he just waves it at them.’ I sat back on my heels. ‘Got him.’

‘I’d have thought so. What else is in there? What are all the cards?’

‘Research.’ I flipped through them, finding Jenny Coppard. Her card had a red asterisk on it, and the information that she was a mother was circled in the same pen. He liked virginal women, I thought, not mothers. But Jenny had been useful all the same.

‘I haven’t found cards for any of our victims,’ I said, shuffling through.

‘Maybe he hides them somewhere else.’

‘Maybe he doesn’t keep them once they’re dead.’ They were no longer targets then. No longer a challenge. Not interesting.

I sped through the last cards and froze. ‘You’re fucking kidding me.’

‘What?’ Maitland leaned in. ‘Oh, lucky you.’

Stuart had filled out a card for me, with my phone number and a physical description and – in capitals – KNOWS JD!!! There was a red asterisk on the top, though.

‘I wonder why I failed.’

‘Too tall,’ Maitland suggested, and grinned when I glared. ‘Too risky.’

‘He doesn’t like taking risks,’ I agreed. ‘He likes to feel safe.’

‘Well, let’s hope he’s yearning for the comfort of home.’ Maitland pointed with the radio. ‘Collect all the paperwork. We’ll take it with us. Let’s put the plant back where it was, just in case he gets back here without us spotting him. But I’d say we’ve got more than enough to arrest him. And once we’ve done that, we can tear this place apart to make sure we’ve found everything.’

I rearranged the carpet and plant, then had a last walk through the flat, checking that everything was as I had found it.

‘Happy?’ Maitland asked.

‘Ecstatic,’ I said, and meant it. All we had to do now was catch him.

Chapter 37

Catching Stuart Sinclair, of course, was easier said than done, because all we could do was wait. Godley had a team of about twenty officers deployed in cars and vans around the area, all watching, all ready to go at any moment. The tension was a killer. The atmosphere was so highly charged I couldn’t see how Sinclair would miss it when he came home. Or maybe he’d seen us already and was on the run. Maybe he’d had a silent alarm in his flat and he was never coming back.

For two hours and through four suspects who turned out not to be him I tortured myself with worrying about whether I’d done something wrong and scared him off. Eventually I put my head down on the steering wheel of the car and moaned.

‘He’s never coming back. We’re never going to catch him. He’s going to go abroad again and get more plastic surgery and a fake passport.’

‘He’s not a criminal mastermind,’ Liv said. ‘He’s not any kind of mastermind. He spent hundreds of thousands of pounds to look like Derwent. What does that tell you?’

‘Obsessive personality. Bad judgement. Serial killer. You’re right. I’m not taking him home to meet my parents.’ I stayed where I was, though, my hands gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles bleached.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so edgy. Are you okay?’

‘This has been the week from hell. Of course I’m not okay.’

‘Are you missing Rob?’

‘Yes.’

Her eyes went round. ‘Wow. No prevarication. No excuses. It must be love.’

‘So what?’ I was grinning, though.

‘So I didn’t think you’d ever admit it.’

‘Yeah. I should really tell him.’

‘Maeve Kerrigan, are you actually telling me you haven’t said “I love you” yet to the perfect man? Your soulmate? The guy who makes you smile every time I even mention his name?’

‘He knows,’ I protested.

‘That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t hear it occasionally.’ The radio in the footwell by Liv’s feet crackled and she picked it up.

‘We’ve got an IC-1 male on foot towards the address. Just turned off Argyle Road onto Larchfield Avenue.’ It was James Peake’s voice, and he sounded calm and matter-of-fact. Good radio voice, I thought irrelevantly, trying to stop my heart from racing.

‘He’s coming from over there,’ Liv said, having checked the map. She was pointing to the other side of the area we were watching. I sat back in my seat, the tension still knotting my stomach even though we were on the wrong side and too far away to be involved.

‘Blue jeans, black jacket with a Superdry logo on the shoulder, grey trainers,’ Peake added.

‘Stand by,’ Godley said. ‘Let’s confirm the ID before we move.’

I felt the tension in my arms as I put one hand on the door handle. Our car was parked near the main road, a short distance from the flat. I calculated there were ten or twelve officers closer than us or in a better position to bring him down, but I was still going to be in the game, and from Liv’s face she felt the same way.

And I could see him now, in the distance. He was maybe thirty metres away from the gate to the flats. He was walking easily, looking relaxed, a gym bag slung over his shoulder. ‘It’s him.’

‘Definitely our man,’ Maitland said over the radio at more or less the same time.

It was all that Godley had been waiting for. ‘Strike, strike, strike.’

The street came alive with people as everyone bundled out of their cars, converging on Sinclair. The strategy was to move fast, confuse and disorientate the target and control them by getting them down on the ground before they could think about fighting back. He had the reactions of a cat, though. He’d had no warning but in less time than it took to blink he was running, sprinting up the pavement towards our position.

‘Coming this way,’ I said to Liv in a rush.

Before Sinclair got close to us DI Bradbury got in front of him. Without hesitating, Sinclair threw the gym bag at his head, scoring a direct hit. Bradbury went down like a felled tree and the next officer, who happened to be Harry Maitland, tripped over him. Together they made quite a formidable obstacle for the pursuers behind, who crashed into each other and slowed themselves down. Sinclair didn’t look back as he raced away, taking advantage of the mayhem. The smooth, organised arrest had disintegrated into chaos in seconds and I couldn’t quite understand how, except that we’d had all the time in the world to prepare but Sinclair had had all the luck. James Peake kicked himself clear and put on an extra turn of speed but Sinclair had gained five or six metres on him.

Which left me and Liv to block Sinclair before he got to the open road. Seeing us in front of him he swerved, diving across the street to the opposite pavement. I bolted to do the same and cut him off, careless of traffic, my Asp racked and ready to use. Liv was right beside me, shouting to him to stop.

He didn’t stop. He put his head down and ran straight at us. He hit Liv, hard, and I heard her stumble and go down with a cry as he straight-armed me out of his path, grabbing the Asp and using it to pull me off balance. I let go, twisted and stayed on my feet by a miracle, and the one thought in my mind was that I was not going to be the scapegoat for this going wrong, just because he had been more powerful than two female officers. I pelted after him, angry as hell, matching him stride for stride but with a height advantage that got me further than him with every step. He risked a glance back as we got near the end of the street: I was gaining on him, and he knew it.

My only focus was Sinclair. I was flying, close enough to touch him with the very tips of my fingers, almost close enough to grab him and bring him down …

I honestly don’t know what he meant to do when he reached the metal barrier at the end of the street. It was designed to stop pedestrians from crossing the very busy A road that was four lanes of constantly thundering traffic, and it was roughly hip-height. I thought at the time, and I still think, he intended to jump over it and dodge through the cars, taking his chances. He was arrogant. He might have thought he’d be quick enough to avoid getting knocked down.

Whatever he’d intended, he clipped the top of the barrier as he jumped, and fell. He sprawled on the tarmac, arms and legs outstretched, and his head turned to see what was coming. That was all he had time to do before a fully loaded articulated lorry went straight over him, at speed. I felt the rush of wind as it passed me. I had been a split second behind Sinclair, and a lifetime. The wind dragged at my hair, my clothes, as I crashed into the barrier, going too fast to stop, and pitched forward over the top of it. I grabbed hold of it but I could do nothing about the momentum that had my feet off the ground as I pivoted, unable to prevent myself from following Sinclair into traffic that was nowhere near stopping, that hadn’t even started to notice a man had just died there.

I was well past the point of no return when someone behind me grabbed a handful of my jacket and hauled me back, out of danger, to stand on solid ground. I stared into the road, at the red smear that was what remained of Stuart Sinclair. The cars and vans and trucks slammed on their brakes, just that little bit too late for me if I’d gone all the way over. I looked up into James Peake’s face, then collapsed against his chest, too weak to stand. I was too shocked to think about what could have happened, or what had happened to Sinclair. I could barely form a coherent thought, let alone words.

It felt like for ever, but I finally managed to speak. ‘You saved my life.’

‘More than likely. It was no trouble.’ He put his head down on top of mine for a second. ‘Bloody hell, though.’

‘I lost him. Another second, and I’d have had him.’

‘Never mind about that. The important thing is that you’re okay.’

I peeled myself off him and stood on my own two feet as the rest of the chasing police officers finally caught up with us. Godley’s face was grim.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine.’ I glanced into the road again. Dave Kemp and Ben Dornton were standing guard over the body, moving the traffic out of the lane where the various parts of Stuart were all too vividly displayed. It involved a lot of irritable shouting and furious gesturing as the drivers slowed to a crawl the better to get a good look, and it was as dangerous as anything I’d done that day even though they’d get little enough credit for it. Standing around on a fast-moving road without a high-vis jacket, without so much as a traffic cone, was one way to look death in the face. Neither of them appeared to be enjoying it much.