Phobia

by Dean Crawford

  The stench was thick, coating the back of her throat with something slimy that made her want to wretch. As she stepped down onto the gantry, her gloved hand brushed against debris that hung from the rungs in thick grey gloops.

  ‘Jesus,’ she uttered, recoiling away from the mess. Jayden had spent her last hours alive in this hellish dungeon, surrounded by the detritus of mankind.

  ‘Wet wipes,’ Paul informed her. ‘We tell people not to flush them, but they never listen.’

  Honor tried not to think about what the grey, stringy wipes might have been used for as she watched Paul climb down off the gantry onto another small ladder and step into ankle–deep water that was flowing through the sewer chamber. Despite the repulsive stench and the questionable flotsam on the surface, Honor dredged up sufficient fortitude to climb down the second ladder and step into the water alongside him.

  ‘This is an original Victorian section of the sewer,’ he informed her as though revealing the treasured secrets of the universe. ‘It’s over a hundred and fifty years old. Those pipes coming from upstream are interceptors, that take most of the waste water to be processed, while this chamber marks the point where drain water overflow is guided down to the Thames and is discharged into…’

  ‘Where was Jayden trapped?’ Honor asked, managing to open her mouth to speak for the first time despite the fear of ingesting a festival of airborne bacteria.

  Paul gestured to a spot right behind her.

  ‘There, against that wall. She would have been standing on that little ledge.’

  In the gloom, Honor could see two manacles hammered into the brickwork, the ones that Jayden had managed to escape from before her appalling death only minutes later. She waded through the mess flowing past her boots, stared up at the spot where Jayden had fought so bravely. Thoughts of all that had been taken from Jayden’s life rushed through Honor’s mind: Jayden had been a sister, a daughter and an aunt to her sister’s little son. She had been a normal, decent, hard–working woman trying to make her way in the world, only to have this done to her, all to quench the lust for suffering that was her quarry’s hallmark.

  Honor turned, and looked at the far wall of the sewer. There, she could see where a set of cables had been spliced together.

  ‘Is that where the camera was?’ she asked Paul.

  ‘Yes. The camera was sent straight to Bishopsgate so that they could try to trace where it was purchased.’

  Honor nodded, knowing that her MIT would be running barcodes and components through relevant databases in an attempt to locate where the camera was bought. It was likely though that the camera was bought for cash as a private sale, keeping the new owner’s identity under wraps for as long as possible.

  Honor waded her way across to the far wall. ‘Who owns these cables?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘British Telecom, I suppose, it’s not part of anything we deal with.

  They’re fibre–optic, I think.’

  Honor reached the wall and looked up at the cables. The various types were bundled together in brightly coloured groups, all heading off through the sewers in various directions. In front of her, just above head height, one of the cables had been severed and then re–joined. The splice had been where the camera would have been mounted on the wall of the sewer, and she could see four small screw holes in the brickwork where the killer would have had to drill for the camera mount.

  There, running through the splice, she saw a manufacturer’s name. Nexus Cables Ltd.

  Honor stared at the cables for a moment as her mind flashed back to a site three days ago, the church at St Magnus the Martyr. Tall, well–built male, responsible for the site CCTV security. It’s all state of the art, but they’re not active yet. Honor whirled and splashed her way across the sewer as she launched herself at the ladder.

  ‘It’s not that bad down here,’ Paul protested as he began to follow her up.

  Honor clambered up the ladders and burst out onto the surface, the sky dark now and gusts of fine drizzle swirling down through a halo of streetlights.

  ‘Bored of the stench already?’ Paul asked with jovial curiosity as he followed her up onto the street. ‘I thought you’d be down here for…’

  ‘It’s O’Rourke,’ Honor said as she tore off her hard hat and began scrambling to haul off her overalls and boots. ‘Kieran O’Rourke, the contractor who works for Gary Wheeler.’

  ‘He alibied out, didn’t he?’

  ‘He was seen heading home before the abductions took place,’ she replied. ‘Doesn’t mean he couldn’t have sneaked out again, especially if there is a concealed sewer entrance anywhere near where he lives.’

  Paul watched her kick off her boots, which were smeared with unthinkable mess. ‘DI Harper was concerned that your friend Samir’s the culprit, you said they’re still running with that.’

  ‘It’s piss–weak,’ Honor snapped back. ‘Samir doesn’t fit the bill physically, and if he’s been abducted by O’Rourke then there’s every chance Samir’s in as much danger as every other victim.’

  ‘Wow,’ Paul said, interested. ‘How do you know, by the way?’

  ‘The cables in the sewer were spliced with the same make of cable that O’Rourke was fitting to the security set–up at St Magnus. Same size, colour, everything. He fits the bill, and we haven’t seen him for days.’

  Honor sucked in a breath of clean, fresh air as she tried to ignore the stench that seemed to have clung to her hair and clothes. If O’Rourke was their man, he would by now have Samir held against his will somewhere, possibly as insurance against his own arrest. The fact that she could not help in the case to apprehend him provoked a spasm of frustration that threatened to send her over the edge into self–destructive rage.

  She dug into her pocket for her mobile phone, felt it vibrating, heard it ringing as she stepped off the road and onto the pavement. In the darkness, the screen glowed with Samir Raaya’s name. Honor pressed the answer button and held the phone to her ear.

  ‘Samir?’

  The voice that answered her was not Samir’s, but a soft London accent that she recognised all too easily.

  ‘Samir is indisposed, Honor, and if you attempt to locate him, I can assure you that he will not survive the night.’

  Honor stood on the pavement, frozen as though in time. The rain fell on her but she didn’t notice it streaming down her face as she stared into the darkness.

  ‘I know who you are,’ she replied. ‘It’s over, Kieran.’ There was a soft chuckle on the other end of the line.

  ‘No, Detective,’ he replied, ‘it’s only just beginning. Your story starts here. If you call anybody, try to warn anyone, Samir will meet a terribly unfortunate demise. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?’

  Honor remained catatonic in the rain, the phone sheltered by her hair as it plastered the back of her hand.

  ‘Yes,’ she said finally. ‘You have Natalie, don’t you?’

  ‘St George in the East, ten minutes. If you try anything, Honor, anything at all, you’ll only have memories of Samir to keep you company. I’m watching.’

  The line cut off. Honor stood in the rain, pedestrians passing her by, the streets laden with queuing cars, their bodywork slick and shiny in the wet. She lowered the phone from her hand, still staring into the middle distance as she tried to figure out how the hell O’Rourke could be watching her right now. Her first thought was that he was bluffing, but the adept way in which he’d avoided CCTV and security cameras during his killing spree left her in no doubt that he was capable of watching her for at least a part of her journey.

  ‘Anything else you need, detective?’ Paul asked as he closed the nearby manhole covers with a metallic thud.

  Honor shook her head and walked off with her hands shoved into her jacket pockets, her head down as she thought hard. She barely heard Paul’s disgusted retort of ”bloody charming” as she abandoned him.

  The city seemed to close in around her as she walked, dodging pedestrians by u
nthinking reflex. St George in the East was just off East Smithfield, Whitechapel, an 18th Century Anglican church, classic architecture. She could make it there in maybe ten minutes if she walked, but she wanted to make it harder for O’Rourke to track her. If she went for the DLR at Tower Gateway, she could get off at Shadwell and reach the scene a few minutes quicker than he might be expecting. It wasn’t much, but anything she could do to buy herself a little time to think or survey the scene would be worth it. Honor hurried to Gateway and up the steps to the overhead line, her mind filled with desperate thoughts. She could call somebody at Bishopsgate, get Danny and the team to meet her at the church. What the hell would O’Rourke do anyway? Samir didn’t have any apparent phobias that she knew about. Was this O’Rourke’s end game? Was this how he intended to finish things, leaving Samir in the frame for the murders?

  The train whined into the station, blissfully only half–full, as most commuters were heading out of Canary Wharf toward west London at this time of night. Honor sat down, her phone in her hand in case O’Rourke called again. He’d used Samir’s phone. Any investigation would see only the phone records, which would further support the notion that Samir was behind the murders. DS Hansen would use that to further his own cause, pushing MIT 2 out onto the margins as an unreliable, tarnished team led by an unpredictable and unstable DS. DI Harper would see through it, of course, but she would have a hard time defending Honor against such a breach of the force’s security, a crippling blow to public confidence in the City of London Police. Harper would have to be seen to make amends, and that might mean publicly shifting Honor to another MIT team or perhaps out of the force all together.

  She saw the signs for Shadwell appear far too quickly, and briefly toyed with the idea of riding past them to Limehouse and coming at the church from the east to fool O’Rourke, but then rejected the idea. There was little to gain. She stepped off the train at Shadwell, and walked down through the station onto Cable Street.

  The church was located about two hundred metres to her right, off Canon Street Road. She walked swiftly through the rain sweeping in diaphanous veils from blackened skies, gusting on the squalls battering the trees and sending vortexes of dying leaves spiralling to the streets below. Rows of three–storey Victorian houses lined the street to her left, modern high–rise flats to her right, all concealed behind rows of trees that swayed and rustled in the wind. Most of the entire block of houses had stood here since the time of the Ripper, the area one of the most dangerous in the city at the time. Honor felt herself drawn into O’Rourke’s mind, the one that occupied some distant, murky Victorian London that now, at night and in the rain, seemed closer than ever before.

  Canon Street was quiet, the church still completely concealed from view behind the rows of Victorian houses, but when she finally reached the entrance, she saw the towering spire before her, flood–lit in all its Hawksmoor glory. It soared two–hundred feet into the night sky, three–hundred–year–old stone reaching for the turbulent heavens. Honor slowed, dwarfed by its immense architecture, the trees lining the approach trembling as wind–driven rain swept across the grounds. She could see that there were lights on inside the church, the promise of warmth within, and yet she also knew that O’Rourke was almost certainly in there, awaiting her.

  Her phone shrilled loudly in her pocket and she jumped out of her skin. Honor answered, her heart thumping against the walls of her chest.

  ‘Good, Honor,’ O’Rourke intoned. ‘You’re almost there.’

  Almost there. O’Rourke wasn’t here, then, he was somewhere else, watching somehow.

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘Go into the church, Honor.’

  ‘I’m not doing anything without proof of life.’

  There was a moment’s pause, and then she heard a new voice. ‘Honor!’ Samir yelled. ‘Don’t do anything he says or…’

  A twisted, hellish scream of pain soared down the line, then O’Rourke’s voice once more. ‘Your choice, Honor. If you want to see him live, do as I say. Go into the church.’

  Honor began walking, slowly, toward the big church doors. ‘Then what?’ O’Rourke’s reply was laced with malice.

  ‘Climb the spire, Honor. Right to the top.’

  Danny Green walked into the Borough Commander’s meeting and immediately intercepted a half–dozen suspicious glances as the door was closed behind him. DI Harper, DCI Mitchell and Borough Commander Andy Leeson were all present, about a dozen constables and most of the MIT teams there too, as well as the Detective Chief Inspector of their borough, DCI Graham Holloway. DS Hansen had broken off his briefing as Green entered the room, and now he offered Green a shit–eating grin.

  ‘Thank you so much for joining us.’

  Green, his hands in his pockets, said nothing.

  ‘I was just updating the team on the raid on Samir Raaya’s apartment,’ Hansen continued. ‘We found numerous items inside the apartment that belonged to victims Amber Carson and Jayden Nixx. Items included clothing and jewellery, all of which are now being forensically examined for evidence that might lead us to their killer.’

  Green again said nothing, waiting for Hansen to continue.

  ‘The media are broadcasting images of the suspect captured on CCTV and we’re taking calls all the time, so hopefully we will soon have a confirmed identity for this bizarre and cruel murderer, a fair bit quicker this time around.’

  Green again said nothing. The fact that MIT 2 had done all the investigative work in order to allow Hansen to pick up the glory didn’t bother him at all, for he’d seen it many times in his career. All that mattered to him was identifying the suspect and apprehending them as soon as possible – he didn’t care who took the credit.

  ‘We’re convinced that Samir Raaya has used his position here at City of London Police to execute one of the most audacious and terrifying campaigns of murder that the city of London has seen, and it’s my opinion that he is attempting to emulate the work of Jack the Ripper, to become a modern–day version of the legend.’

  Green managed to keep his mouth shut, but even he was barely able to conceal his contempt for Hansen’s determination to reap everything that Honor had sowed, to claim her insight and work as his own. He could see DI Harper watching with an equally stony expression, but she was also staying quiet.

  Green’s mobile phone buzzed in his pocket and he fished it out to see an incoming file sent from the digital artist they had left at the hospital to speak with Emily and Alex Wilson. The file download icon turned slowly on the screen, and then the image flashed into view and Green’s heart almost leaped into his mouth as he recognised the face in the digital photofit that he had been sent.

  ‘Shit, it’s O’Rourke!’

  His outburst silenced DS Hansen mid–stride as Danny rushed over to DI Harper and DCI Mitchell, shoved the phone at them.

  ‘Positive identification of the attacker of Emily Wilson,’ he snapped. ‘This is Kieran O’Rourke, an employee of Gary Wheeler, the building contractor who worked the site at St Magnus the Martyr church, the location of the first murder. Emily’s photo–fit is perfect, and we haven’t seen him since.’

  ‘Didn’t he alibi out?’ DI Harper asked.

  ‘Yes, he did, and there was nothing on the security cameras at the church,’ Green replied. ‘But he was the one who installed the damned things. He could have shut them off. We knew that was possible, but everything else checked out just fine and he was compliant and even helpful. His alibi must have been falsified. Honor was right, Samir Raaya can’t have been responsible for the killings.’

  DS Hansen’s voice cut across Danny’s.

  ‘We found the victim’s clothes in Raaya’s apartment! How much more evidence do you need to stop this fantasy?’

  Green spoke not to Hansen but to Mitchell and Harper.

  ‘O’Rourke could easily have placed those items in Samir’s apartment, and if what Honor feared was true comes to light, Samir’s in as much danger now as any
of the previous victims. He’s one of our own. We need to move on this, right now!’

  DI Harper didn’t wait for the Borough Commander’s approval.

  ‘Get everything we have onto him,’ she snapped. ‘I want his address searched right now, apprehend him on sight.’

  As officers rushed to organise the search, Danny turned to DCI Mitchell. ‘Did you put a constable on Honor’s home?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mitchell replied. ‘She hasn’t shown up there, last time I checked.’

  The meeting broke up as dozens of officers and detectives burst from the conference room and dashed for phones or the stairwell to the car park. Danny didn’t even look back as he rushed out to the Incident Room while fumbling to dial Honor’s mobile phone.

  Honor walked inside the immense interior of the church, saw the knave soaring up into a large oval ceiling, rows of pews amid softly glowing lights that gave the church a serene presence that belied the sinister nature of her visit.

  ‘Keep walking, Honor,’ O’Rourke said down the line. ‘The stairwell to the belfry is on the opposite side of the nave.’

  Honor obeyed, guessed that O’Rourke could see her on some of the church’s security systems. He would have known how to hack them, how to access everything, the man capable of entering any security system that he had devised. That was the problem with any security system – it was only ever as secure as integrity of the person who had installed it.

  A set of steps climbed up from the nave toward the belfry, doubling back on themselves repeatedly as she climbed, the phone still held to her ear.

  ‘You’re wasting time, O’Rourke,’ she said. ‘You failed with Emily Wilson and she’s able to identify you. It’s only a matter of time before you’re in custody.’

  ‘Time you don’t have,’ came the calm reply. ‘By the time they work out who I am, this will all be over and I will be gone. It’s your time now, Honor, you’re almost at the top.’