The Waiting Game (16 page)

He’d messed up. Sick – shaky sick – standing outside her house trying to light a cigarette. Tremor in his hands so bad he couldn’t do it. Ellen stepped in, took the lighter from his hand and did it for him.

‘This isn’t your fault, Raj.’

He sucked on the cigarette, holding in the breath until his head started to spin.

‘Raj?’

He turned away, unable to bear the sympathy in her face. Didn’t deserve that. Closed his eyes and there she was again. Poor Chloe. Lying on the cheap sitting-room carpet. Thrown to the ground after her killer garrotted her. The line of the wire cutting a red necklace into her delicate skin. His stomach twisted, reflux
vomit burnt his throat, turned his mouth bitter. He swallowed it back down.

‘Raj.’

Ellen was speaking to him, asking if he was okay.

‘I’m fine.’

Did he say that? Lying bastard. Kept going back over yesterday morning. He’d been distracted. Thinking too much about Aidan and not enough about the job. Stupid, selfish piece of shit.

‘The boss wants us working together on this,’ Ellen said. ‘But only if you’re up to it. If you’re not, if you’re too upset by what’s happened, I’ll completely understand.’

‘I’m fine,’ he repeated. His voice sounded okay, that was a start. No way he was letting anyone else take this from him. His mess, his job to sort it out.

‘Really,’ he said. ‘I’m okay. Let’s do this.’

An hour later, he wasn’t feeling any better but at least it had started. Ellen had taken control, imposing order on the chaos. Making it feel like there was a way through this. Maybe.

The street was cordoned off, SOCOs inside the house and all along the road, searching for clues. Two teams of uniforms assigned to the door-to-doors. And Raj was sat in the back of a police car with Nathan Collier, who’d finally stopped crying.

‘I need you to go over it again,’ Raj said. ‘Tell me how you found her. Don’t miss anything out.’

‘She didn’t show for work this morning,’ Nathan said. ‘At ten o’clock I phoned to see where she was. When she didn’t answer,
I got worried. After everything that’s happened, it’s only natural, isn’t it? I couldn’t shake off the feeling that she was in some sort of trouble. I tried her mobile a few more times and when she still didn’t answer, I drove over here.’

His voice trailed off.

‘And then?’

‘She didn’t answer when I rang the doorbell, so I let myself in.’

Outside, a red Porsche pulled up at the edge of the police cordon. Raj watched Mark Pritchard unfold himself from the tiny vehicle and walk towards Ellen, who was standing nearby briefing two uniformed officers. Mark leaned down, gave Ellen a kiss on the cheek and a hug. Something about the way he held her made them look – for a moment – like a couple.

Raj switched his attention back to Nathan.

‘How did you do that?’

‘Do what?’ Nathan asked.

‘Let yourself in,’ Raj said.

‘The front door wasn’t locked,’ Nathan said. ‘All I had to do was push it and it opened.’

Something not right there but Raj let it pass. For now. He wanted to hear the rest of it.

‘I went into the sitting room and there she was. Just lying there. I didn’t recognise her at first.’

Raj knew what he meant. The strangulation had bloated her face.

‘I tried to resuscitate her,’ Nathan said. ‘Did everything I
could, but none of it made any difference.’

And in the meantime, Raj thought, that big fat body of yours was mucking up the crime scene.

Nathan started crying again, making the whole car shake as he rocked back and forth. Raj tried to picture the same man standing behind Chloe, wrapping a piece of wire around her throat and pulling on it until she stopped breathing. He couldn’t see it, but that didn’t mean anything.

It was hot inside the car. Nathan, dressed in a thick winter coat, was sweating. The smell of him, combined with the rocking of the car, made Raj want to throw up. He got out of the car and leaned against the bonnet, letting the air cool him down, waiting for the nausea to pass.

At the end of the road, Ellen had extricated herself from Pritchard and was coming towards him. He knew what came next, knew the different pieces of work they’d need to cover as the investigation got underway. And he was ready for it.

He pushed himself away from the car.

Carl Jenkins, Ricky Lezard and Nathan Collier. All three men would be brought in for questioning. Raj wanted to make bloody sure he got to sit in on each interview. Ellen might think she was leading on this, and maybe that’s how it seemed on paper, but this investigation was his. And if Ellen Kelly or Ger Cox didn’t like it, that was their problem.

Ellen pulled up outside Monica’s house on Brightfield Road and switched off the engine. Abby sat in the passenger seat. Ellen had picked her up from the station and they’d driven over here together.

‘Are you okay?’ Abby asked.

Ellen closed her eyes, saw Chloe’s body.

‘I will be,’ she said.

What sort of person could do that to someone? To have the physical and mental strength needed to pull the wire tight and keep holding it while the person you were killing struggled and fought for their life.

‘It scares me,’ she said. ‘What if he does it again before we find him?’

She looked out at Monica’s house. Imagined the killer watching this house too, planning his next move. Finished with Chloe and moving on to his next victim. Ellen opened the door and got out.

Brightfield Road was a quiet street of terraced Victorian cottages in up-and-coming Lee Green, South-East London. Monica lived midway along the street. Her house, with its exposed brickwork, window baskets and original shutters, was postcard pretty.

A few years ago, before she’d been promoted to DI, Ellen had dealt with a burglary on this street. The victims, a brash married couple who both worked in banking, had gutted the inside of their house, whipping out all the character and replacing it with lots of glass and plastic.

Monica hadn’t attempted anything like that. Inside, the house was all rich colours, dark corners and stripped floorboards. Ellen thought of Adam Telford’s house – the clinical cleanliness and the muted shades of pastel – and guessed Monica’s choices were another way of distancing herself from that life.

‘I thought I’d been forgotten,’ Monica said, as she led Ellen and Abby into the cosy sitting room.

‘We’ve been busy,’ Ellen said.

There was someone else in the sitting room, a young man with thick curly hair, an intense face and a serious attitude. Monica introduced him as Harry but gave no further explanation of who he was or what he was doing in her house. As for Harry himself, he said nothing when Ellen said hello, simply stared at her with a look that she translated as ‘fuck you’.

‘Harry,’ Monica said, ‘could you give us a few minutes alone?’

‘You sure about that?’ The question was for Monica but he didn’t take his eyes from Ellen.

‘Certain, darling,’ Monica said. ‘I’ll be fine. Tell you what, why don’t you head home for a bit and I’ll call you later?’

That got his attention. He turned to Monica, looking confused.

‘I thought we were going to hang out for the day.’

‘Later,’ she said. ‘I’ve got things to do first. Please, Harry?’

Eventually she coaxed him out the door.

‘Is he her son or her boyfriend?’ Abby asked, as Monica said goodbye to Harry at the front door.

‘God knows,’ Ellen said. ‘But please don’t ask her that when she comes back. We’re not here to antagonise her, remember?’

She stopped speaking as Monica reappeared, all smiles, like she’d completely forgotten about Sunday morning’s phone call.

‘Sorry about that,’ she cooed. ‘Harry’s a sweetheart, just a bit too keen, if you know what I mean.’

Ellen glanced at Abby, who raised her eyebrows. Question answered.

‘What can I do for you?’ Monica asked.

Ellen had put Raj in charge of pulling in suspects. They’d be brought into Lewisham and held for questioning. Put in a custody room until the police were ready for them. Which could take some time, but that was all part of how it worked. Bring them in, let them sweat for a bit, then question them. If you did it too soon, they didn’t have enough time to consider the consequences of being questioned as part of a murder investigation.

Meanwhile, Chloe’s body had been taken to the morgue, a call had been put through to the station in Valencia, Spain, where her mother lived, and the crime scene was still cordoned off while SOCO continued their investigations. Ger Cox had organised a team briefing for an hour’s time. Before that, Ellen had wanted to come across and see Monica. Chloe’s murder had caught them off-guard. They weren’t about to let the same thing happen again. As FLO, and therefore someone better equipped at dealing with hysterical members of the public, Ellen had brought Abby with her.

‘Something’s happened,’ Ellen said. ‘Can we sit down?’

Ellen kept it brief, left out most of the detail; simply said that Chloe had been found dead in her house earlier that morning.

‘We still don’t know how she died,’ Ellen said. ‘But I really didn’t want you to hear this from anyone else. It’ll be all over the news by this evening.’

Monica said nothing at first. Her face was blank and it was impossible to guess what she might be thinking.

‘I can’t believe it,’ she said eventually. ‘That poor girl. What happened? You must have some idea. I mean, you’d know if it was a heart attack or a suicide or if someone killed her, right?’

‘We really won’t know for sure until we get the post-mortem results.’ In her mind, Ellen saw the body again. Chloe’s bloated head and the red line around her neck. ‘But it wasn’t a heart attack or a suicide.’

Monica was silent while she seemed to take this in.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘So should I be scared? I mean, what should I do? What are you going to do? How can you be certain this won’t happen to me? Oh Jesus. I thought it was my father, remember? But he doesn’t know Chloe. So if it’s not him, then…’

‘Listen to me,’ Ellen said. ‘There could be all sorts of explanations and there’s every chance this has nothing to do with what she said had been happening to her.’

‘What she
said
?’ Monica shouted. ‘You’re saying you still don’t believe her? Even after this? Jesus, Ellen. Do you think I’m making it up as well?’

Abby sat beside Monica and started speaking to her in that soothing voice that mostly worked on members of the public but never failed to set Ellen’s teeth on edge.

‘Monica,’ Abby said. ‘You’ve got to try and stay calm. You’re a strong woman, I can see that, and you need to stay strong now, okay? No one thinks you’ve made anything up. We’re simply saying we don’t know how Chloe died. Not yet. Of course, it’s only natural to jump to conclusions and assume there’s a connection with the complaints she made, but we can’t do that. Our job is to investigate all angles. And that’s what we’re going to do. Okay?’

Monica pulled her hand away and stood up, pacing the small space between the chairs as she spoke.

‘It’s not okay,’ she said. ‘Don’t either of you get it? I thought this was my father. But it can’t be. He doesn’t know Chloe. I’d bet my life on it. I should have worked that out before now. But I was scared and I wasn’t thinking straight. Well I’m thinking straight now. And you want to know what exactly is going through my head right now?’

‘What?’ Ellen said, not sure she really wanted to know.

‘This is some sort of serial stalker,’ Monica said. ‘He’s targeting local women and he’s scaring the shit out of us. And once he’s done scaring us half to death, he kills us.’

It was one theory. If she was in Monica’s place, Ellen guessed she might think something similar. She was pretty sure the press would jump to the same conclusion. It was a shit storm waiting
to happen. With poor Raj Patel right in the middle of it.

Ellen stood up. ‘I’ve got to get back to the station,’ she said. ‘Abby will stay for a bit. She can answer any other questions you have and hopefully reassure you we’re doing everything we can.’

Monica shook her head. ‘That won’t be necessary. I’m a strong woman, remember?’

Abby’s face went red. Anger or embarrassment or some mixture of the two. Ellen couldn’t be sure and didn’t care, either.

‘Abby will stay,’ Ellen said, ignoring the scowl on Abby’s face. ‘Make sure you’re okay. And Monica, whatever you do, don’t speak to any journalists. It won’t help. We’ll brief the press and we’ll decide the best way to manage that relationship. The last thing we want is any hysterical press coverage. It will only make things worse.’

On the way out, Ellen paused at a small photo on a low table in the corner by the window. It was a copy of one of the photos she’d seen on Adam Telford’s mantelpiece. Annie Telford, holding a baby Monica in her arms and looking utterly miserable. If it was her mother, Ellen thought she’d probably have chosen a better photo to remember her by.

‘Did you ever try to find her?’ she asked.

‘How did you know it’s her?’ Monica asked.

‘I went to see your father yesterday,’ Ellen said.

‘You saw him?’ Monica said. ‘That must have been fun.’

‘He has a girlfriend,’ Ellen said. ‘Did you know that?’

Monica snorted. ‘Poor cow. Hope she gets sense and leaves
before he sucks the life from her too.’

As she walked to her car, Ellen couldn’t shake off the feeling someone was watching her. She stopped and turned around, half-expecting to see someone following her. There was no one there.

A chilly wind started up, gusting down the street and wrapping itself around Ellen’s body. She ran to the car and climbed inside, shutting the door, blocking out the wind and the strange sense that she was being watched.

The start of a murder investigation. Depressing and exhilarating. Not many coppers would admit to the second bit. Not sober, at least.

The incident room had been set up around a central focus. A whiteboard with Chloe Dunbar’s photo in the middle. Suspects’ names written on the board, with arrows connecting each name to the photo. Ger Cox, magnificent in her tailored suit and heels, stood beside the whiteboard issuing orders. Malcolm, already in Office Manager mode, was taking notes, making lists and building an online directory for the investigation.

Tension was building. Sizzling and crackling and adding to the general sense that this was a big one. Jamala Nnamani, the station’s Communications Manager, was seated alongside the
detectives, preparing the media line. The first press statement had already been issued in preparation for the evening’s TV and tomorrow morning’s newspapers. Superintendent Nichols was on standby for the press conference at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.

‘Alastair.’ Ger pointed at Alastair Dillon, head and shoulders taller than the rest of the team, even sitting down. ‘I want you going through every bit of the forensics as it comes through to us. Blood splatters, footprints, DNA, fingerprints, the lot. That’s your number one job until I tell you otherwise.’

‘Yes, Ma’am.’

Ellen wondered if he ever got bored with it. Being the details man. He was good at it, better than anyone else she’d ever worked with. Even still. There must be times he wished he was given a different role. Something that got him out of the office from time to time. Something with a bit more edge to it.

‘Ellen, can you pull together a report on stalking, please? I want information on the sort of person who typically stalks someone, the frequency of stalking victims who are hurt and killed by their stalkers. When a stalker kills, is he more likely to go on and kill again? Do we potentially have a serial killer on our hands?’

‘Sure,’ Ellen said.

‘Chloe’s mother has been informed,’ Ger continued. ‘She’s flying back from Spain later today. Ellen, I want you to meet her at the airport. Malcolm, will get you the flight details. Poor woman. Losing a child is the worst thing, isn’t it?’

‘I left Monica with her boyfriend,’ Abby said. ‘He’s very protective and she said he’ll stay with her every night, make sure she’s okay.’

‘Did she seem okay?’ Ger said.

‘She was upset,’ Abby said. ‘Obviously. But all things considered, I’d say she was a good sight finer than I’d have expected.’

‘Bring the boyfriend in,’ Ger said. ‘Give him a grilling and make sure he’s not hiding anything.’

‘I’ve already spoken to him,’ Abby said.

‘I want him in here,’ Ger said. ‘A bit of a scare won’t do him any harm. If he’s not hiding anything, he’ll be out again quickly. We still haven’t found anything connecting the two women?’

‘Chloe didn’t know Monica,’ Raj said. ‘I asked her the other day. I’m keen to start the interviews, Ma’am. Nathan Collier and Ricky Lezard are both downstairs, waiting to be interviewed. Carl Jenkins is top of my list, though. It’s taken me a bit longer to track him down. He’s showing someone around a flat in Blackheath. Thought I’d head over there, speak to him, then come back and deal with the other two. Collier first, then Lezard. Let him sweat it out for as long as possible.’

Ger scanned the laptop, open on the desk in front of her, frowning.

‘According to this,’ she said, ‘Lezard was at a conference in Woking yesterday and last night. We had to send someone down there this morning to bring him here?’

‘Staying in a hotel,’ Raj said. ‘Alone. Could have slipped out
unnoticed, driven to London and back without anyone knowing about it.’

Ger shook her head. ‘Start with Lezard. Find out if he has an alibi for last night. Malcolm can check that out. No point keeping him in if it turns out he couldn’t have done it.’

‘What if he got someone else to do it?’ Raj asked.

‘If you think that’s a possibility after you’ve questioned him,’ Ger said, ‘then we’ll deal with it at that point. Ellen, how about you take Lezard while Raj goes across and breaks the news to Jenkins. And remember, he was her boyfriend. Be gentle with him. At first. Abby, you go with Raj. I’d like your take on how Jenkins reacts when Raj tells him what’s happened. And while you’re all doing that, I’ll go downstairs and start with Nathan Collier. Out of the three, he’s the one who most interests me.’

‘Collier?’ Raj said. ‘With all respect, Ma’am, the bloke was in bits when I spoke to him earlier.’

‘Maybe he was putting it on,’ Ger said. ‘Or maybe he really is heartbroken she’s dead. Either way, doesn’t mean he’s not guilty.’

‘But he was her boss,’ Raj said. ‘Fifty-one percent of all female murder victims are killed by their partner or ex-partner. We all know the most likely explanation is that either Jenkins or Lezard is behind this.’

‘We know no such thing,’ Ger said. ‘I know you want this case solved, Patel. We all do. But don’t let that cloud your judgement. And remember who’s in charge. Now go. And take Abby with you.’

Ellen willed Raj to keep his mouth shut. Obviously deciding he’d pushed it as far as he could, he shoved his chair back and stood up.

‘I’ll get to it then. Ma’am.’

Ger nodded, turned her attention to the others.

‘The same applies to the rest of you. Keep your heads clear. We go where the evidence takes us. That’s the only thing that works. Now get going. We’ve got a lot to do.’

Over the past few days, Ellen had done her own reading on Ricky Lezard. Hadn’t found much she liked. A self-made businessman with a reputation for turning nasty when things didn’t go his way. In business and in his personal life.

Four separate domestic abuse complaints against him: Chloe and other women he’d dated before her. None of the complaints had ever got as far as Court; each victim retracted her statement at the last moment. He was a nasty bastard and Ellen would have loved an excuse to lock him up. There was only one problem. It was obvious within the first ten minutes that he couldn’t have done it.

The conference in Woking had ended with a gala dinner that went on until after midnight. Eighty-nine witnesses could testify that Lezard had attended the dinner and also given an engaging post-dinner speech on the business benefits of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU and forging stronger links with the emerging
economies of South America and South-East Asia.

Ellen let him go, frustrated by the time she’d wasted. Raj could easily have found out about the speech. A quick phone call to the hotel would have done it. Ger was right. Raj’s desperation to catch the killer could cause problems for all of them if they weren’t careful.

Upstairs at her desk, Ellen’s mother called on the landline. She’d called earlier; Ellen had let the call go to voicemail and forgotten all about it.

‘Mum?’

‘Oh Ellen, I’m sorry to bother you at work, love. Is there any chance you could come over?’

‘What is it?’ Ellen said.

‘It’s difficult to explain over the phone,’ her mother said. ‘Can you just come? Please, Ellen.’

She didn’t have to ask again. Promising she’d be right there, Ellen hung up and ran.