The Gathering Man (A DI Erica Swift Thriller Book 7)

by M K Farrar

  “I saw the photograph you gave to the officer you reported this to,” Erica said. “She’s a pretty girl.”

  “It was taken at her prom last year when she left school. It’s so American, isn’t it, us doing proms now, but the kids loved it.”

  “Can I ask if Stacey has any distinguishing features at all? Any birthmarks or tattoos?”

  Mrs Ford sat up straighter. “Yes, she has a tattoo of some birds on her wrist, and a small birthmark on her elbow. What’s this about? Have you found her? Is she all right?”

  “Mrs Ford, do you have anyone who could come and sit with you? Any family? Stacey’s father, perhaps?”

  “He’s at work.”

  “You might want to give him a call and tell him he needs to come home.”

  Something about the tone of her voice must have alerted the girl’s mother. “Why? What’s going on? You know something more, don’t you?”

  Erica was surprised the woman hadn’t heard or read about the body of a young woman being found in the park, not far from here. It had been all over the local news, and in the papers. Social media had been full of it, too. Stacey Ford’s mother must be one of those rare creatures who didn’t bother with that kind of thing.

  “I really think it would be best if we wait until someone is with you. You should call your husband.”

  “For God’s sake, would you tell me what’s happened? It’s Stacey, isn’t it? You know what’s happened to her.” Her tone rose a notch on every word.

  Erica could tell that not telling her was only increasing her distress.

  “I’m afraid I have some terrible news, Mrs Ford. The body of a young woman was discovered early yesterday morning. We believe it to be Stacey. I’m going to need for you or your husband to come down to the mortuary to ID her for us.”

  She clamped her hands to her mouth and shook her head. “No, you’re wrong. It can’t be. It can’t be Stacey.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs Ford. We will need to do a formal identification, but I recognise Stacey from her photograph, and the distinguishing marks match up, too.”

  “No, no, no, no.” A low moan of anguish erupted from the other woman, which morphed into a wail.

  Erica really needed to get Stacey’s father home, not only to help comfort Stacey’s mother, but also to help answer some questions. If there was a boyfriend involved—especially a boyfriend who Stacey had been keeping a secret from her parents—they needed to find out who he was.

  “Do you have your husband’s number on your phone?” Erica asked.

  Mrs Ford nodded and pushed the phone towards her, but the screen was locked.

  “Can you open it for me?”

  Stacey’s mother used her thumbprint to open the phone.

  Erica took the phone back and brought up the contacts. “What’s his name?”

  “Grant,” she sobbed. “His...name’s Grant.”

  Erica scrolled down through the contacts until she’d reached Grant’s name. She left Shawn sitting with Mrs Ford and stepped out of the room to place the call. The phone started to ring, and Erica walked down the small hallway to the back of the house where the kitchen was located. French doors led onto a rectangle of garden that was more weeds than grass.

  Putting herself to good use, she found a glass and ran the cold water tap to fill it up to take back to Mrs Ford. A glass of water was in no way going to help put back together the pieces of the poor woman’s shattered heart, but it felt like something practical she could do to help. That, and finding out whoever had stolen her daughter from her.

  Someone on the end of the line picked up. “Leanne?”

  “Is that Mr Ford? Grant Ford?”

  “Yes, who the hell is this?”

  “My name is Detective Inspector Swift. Something has happened, and I need you to come home.”

  “What’s happened? Is everyone all right?”

  “Please, just come home, Mr Ford, right away. How long do you think you’ll be?”

  “Umm, I can get there in fifteen minutes, maybe twenty.”

  “Good. I’ll see you soon.”

  She ended the call and carried the glass of water into the living room and sat it on the table next to Leanne. The other woman had lifted her feet up onto the chair and wrapped her arms around her shins, crying against her knees. Shawn shot her a look, and they shared a tight smile—there was very little they could do to offer her any comfort. Erica’s chest contracted at Leanne’s pain. It was hard for her to see someone lose a daughter and not put herself in the woman’s place. If she was ever to lose Poppy, she didn’t think she’d be able to carry on.

  She paced around the house until she heard a car pull up and a door slam. Moments later, the front door opened and a heavyset man with a bald head stormed through.

  “Right, what the hell is this all about?” He looked around for his wife. “Leanne? Where are you?”

  “She’s in the living room, Mr Ford.”

  He shot Erica a glare and shoved past her to get through.

  “Jesus, Leanne, what’s the matter? What’s happened?”

  Erica had followed him in. “Please, Mr Ford, take a seat.”

  He dropped onto the edge of the chair so he could put an arm around his sobbing wife. His anger had subsided into worried confusion.

  Leanne let out another wail. “Stacey’s dead! She’s gone.”

  He sat up straighter. “What?”

  Erica took a seat opposite them and placed her palms together. This was always the worst part of her job—even worse than finding the bodies. A dead body was silent—she couldn’t hear the pain they’d gone through—but a family’s grief, especially a parent’s, was overwhelming.

  “I’m sorry, Mr Ford. We don’t know for sure that it’s her until one of you comes and does a formal identification, but the body of a young woman matching Stacey’s description was discovered yesterday morning in a park in Upper Clapton.”

  “Her body? That can’t be right?”

  “I will need you to do a formal identification, but yes, I’m afraid I believe it is Stacey.”

  “Did she...” He gulped. “Did she kill herself?”

  “We’re unsure of her cause of death at the moment, but it’s an important part of our investigation. Can I ask why you’d think that? Did Stacey have a history of suicide attempts?”

  He shook his head. “No, but she’s hurt herself in the past. Cut herself and stuff. She tried to hide it, but one time a plaster came off, and she bled while she’d been sleeping, and her mother went into the room and saw it.”

  “Stacey had a number of cuts on her face and body. They were in a certain pattern, that looked more like symbols. Does that sound familiar to you?”

  “God, no. What kind of symbols?”

  “Again, that’s something we’re investigating. Do you know if Stacey owned a long white dress at all? Quite a baggy one with long sleeves.”

  “I don’t know her clothes, but it doesn’t sound like something she’d wear.”

  Mrs Ford spoke up, her voice shaky. “Stacey doesn’t own something like that. She wouldn’t be seen dead in a—” She must have suddenly realised what she’d said. She clamped her hand over her mouth and burst into tears again.

  Grant seemed baffled. “What does that mean?”

  “It might mean someone else was involved in her death.”

  He put his face in his hands. “Dear God.”

  “Do you know if Stacey was caught up in anything she shouldn’t be? Maybe she was involved with drugs, or drink, or gambling?”

  “She liked the occasional drink, just like most girls her age do. I’m not sure about drugs...she might have used them occasionally, just recreationally, you know.”

  “Do you mind if I take a quick look at her room? It might help give us a better idea about what happened to her.”

  He swiped at his eyes and stood. “No, that’s fine. I’ll show you.”

  Leanne was in no state to do much to help them. Erica felt bad lea
ving her, rocking back and forth in distress, but the best way to give the couple closure was to find out exactly what had happened to their daughter, and if someone else was responsible, to make them pay for it. She’d get a family liaison officer out to the house to speak with the couple, but for the moment, Shawn would stay with her.

  “It’s this one,” Grant said, pushing open a door at the top of the stairs. He stepped back to allow Erica through.

  The bedroom was reasonably tidy, with a grey- and blush-pink theme running through it. A string of lights was wrapped through the bars of the double bed. A white set of shelves containing photographs of Stacey with friends, together with candles and books. On a dressing table, a dozen tubes of various creams and makeups were scattered around. It was much like any other teenager’s room. Erica didn’t touch anything. She was going to need to get a couple of her detectives out here to do a thorough search of the room in case there was anything that might help them find out what had happened.

  She spied a laptop on a desk. “Do you have any idea what her password might have been for her computer?”

  “I have no idea. She was seventeen, going on eighteen. We let her have her privacy.”

  “That’s okay. I have people back at the office who can get past passwords. Do you mind if I take it with me?”

  “Do you think it’ll help?”

  “It might,” she said. “I’d also like to get a couple of my detectives to come and do a search on her room, see if there are any clues about who did this to her.”

  “Do whatever you need.”

  “Thank you, Mr Ford. I’ll make sure you get the laptop back again.”

  He let out a shaky breath. “I want my daughter back again, not a laptop.”

  There was nothing Erica could say to that. One thing she couldn’t do was bring Stacey Ford back from the dead. If she had such an ability, she would have brought her own dead husband back.

  She’d thought she’d been doing well since her husband’s murder, had at least in some small way, managed to put it behind her, but Nicholas Bailey’s death, combined with the visits she’d paid him in prison, had stirred everything up again.

  There were days she struggled to believe that Bailey was dead. She was plagued by nightmares where it had all been a mistake, and the prison had found a different man’s body and confused it for Bailey. She’d dreamed that he’d made it into her home and would be standing over her in bed, or worse, that he was standing over her daughter’s bed.

  Her boss had convinced her to go and speak to their staff counsellor, and she’d conceded, but even when she sat in that room, on the comfortable sofa, with the box of tissues on the table between them, she’d still found herself unable to open up fully. She wanted people to think of her as being strong, even this stranger who she was supposed to spill her soul to. She’d spent so long being the strong one, she wasn’t sure she knew how to take down her guard.

  Erica forced her thoughts back to the present. “When was the last time you saw Stacey?

  “We saw her very briefly after college on Monday. She came home, dumped her stuff, and said she was going out again.”

  “Did she say where she was going or who she was going to be with?”

  “No, nothing like that. I wish to God I’d asked now, or just asked her to sit down and talk to us. I can’t believe our last conversation was so meaningless.” His voice broke, and he covered his eyes with his hand.

  Was he being genuine? Erica wanted to believe he was simply a grieving parent, but she could never rule out that they might be the ones responsible. She was constantly on alert for something that wasn’t quite right—an extra defensiveness or an attempt to hide something or deflect the conversation. It wouldn’t be the first time a father had murdered his daughter.

  “I understand this is difficult and I do appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. It really is helpful in our enquiries.”

  He swiped at his eyes. “I just want you to find the bastard who did this.”

  Erica nodded. “We both do.”

  They left the bedroom and walked back down the stairs, pausing in the hallway outside of the lounge.

  Erica turned to face the girl’s father. “I know you said the last time you saw her was only brief, but how did she seem?”

  He let out a long sigh and shrugged. “I don’t know. I want to say that she seemed the same as she always did, but the truth is that she’s been so distant from us for months now. I assumed it was just normal, that she was almost grown up and wanting her independence, and didn’t want her parents on her back the whole time.”

  “Do you know if she was upset about anything? Did you know if she’d fallen out with anyone? Any troubles at college?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  Erica narrowed her eyes slightly. “Your wife seemed to think she might have been seeing someone.”

  “No one serious, if she was. She didn’t bring anyone home.”

  “Does she have any friends who might know? It could be important.”

  He thought for a moment. “I know a couple of girls she’s been friends with since they were kids. I can give you their names?”

  “That would be very helpful, thank you.”

  He reached for a notepad by the phone and wrote down a couple of names and addresses. He folded it in half and handed it to her. From inside the lounge, the quiet but insistent sobbing of his wife continued.

  He glanced in her direction, and then all the adrenaline seemed to seep out of him in one go, and his shoulders slumped, and he hunched as though he’d taken the weight of the world upon them. He must have suddenly realised that this was his life now—a dead daughter and a grieving wife—and nothing would ever be the same again.

  Erica didn’t like to ask, but she had to. “Would you like to come and do the identification of her body now? You don’t have to, of course. If you need to take some time...”

  “No, I want to go. I need to know for sure.”

  Mrs Ford appeared in the doorway, her eyes swollen and red, her face blotchy. Shawn stood just behind her.

  She wrung a torn tissue between her hands. “I’m coming with you. I can’t just sit here waiting. It’ll kill me.”

  “We can drive you both now,” Erica offered.

  Mr Ford shook his head. “No need. I can drive us. I’m more than capable.”

  His tone was curt, as though she’d somehow insulted him by offering to be the one behind the wheel.

  “Whatever you want.” Erica took her card from her jacket pocket and placed it onto the table beside the notepad. “That’s got all of my contact details on it. If you think of anything that might help us, no matter how small, then don’t hesitate to call.”

  “Will you keep us informed about any developments? I can’t bear to think the monster who did this to our girl is still out there somewhere.”

  “Of course. You’ll be the first to know.”

  “I guess that’s all we can ask for.”

  Erica wrote down where they needed to go. She’d send one of her DCs down to meet them there.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,” Shawn told them both.

  Grant nodded. “Thank you.”

  Erica and Shawn stepped outside, heading back to the car.

  She was thankful to breathe in a lungful of fresh air—or at least as fresh as it got in East London. She took out her phone and put in the calls to request a search be done on the room and a family liaison officer come and speak with the parents, and then she called DCI Gibbs.

  “The misper case that DC Howard came across was the right one. The parents are going down to the mortuary now to ID the body.”

  “How are the family taking it?”

  “Much as expected. They say the girl, Stacey, had been acting secretively lately. They suspected a boyfriend, possibly an unsuitable one. She also had a history of self-harm.”

  “That plays into the narrative of her killing herself.”

  “Even though she
didn’t. The family have given me permission to take the girl’s laptop, so as soon as backup arrives, I’m going to bring it in, get digital forensics right onto it. If they can crack the password and get into her email and social media, I think we’ll be able to have a much better idea about what’s happened.”

  “I suggest we do a search on her room, too.”

  Erica nodded. “Yes, I thought the same thing. There might be something in there that gives us a clue about what she’s been up to. I’ll talk to the rest of the team about our next steps when we get back in.”

  “Good work, Swift,” he said, and ended the call.

  Erica slipped her phone into her pocket. It didn’t feel like good work right now. She would much rather have been able to give this family a happy ending. Maybe she was getting burned out on all this death.

  Shawn caught her expression. “Everything okay?”

  “It will be, I hope.”

  It wasn’t going to be a happy ending for the Fords. Closure when she arrested whoever was responsible for their daughter’s death was going to have to do.

  Chapter Twelve

  Back in the office, Erica called a briefing for the whole team.

  “Right, everyone, I’ve just had confirmation that the body found in the park is that of seventeen-year-old Stacey Ford. Her parents are understandably devastated by the news, so let’s make sure we can at least give them some closure and find out what happened to their daughter. Stacey’s father has handed over his daughter’s laptop, which is now in the safe hands of Karl Hartley in digital forensics. I’m hoping it will help us understand a little more about who Stacey Ford was. She was doing A levels in English, sociology, and history at college so she was a bright girl with her whole life ahead of her. Her father has given us a couple of names of friends who might be able to shed more light on who she’s been hanging out with. Unfortunately, the parents allowed her to pretty much come and go as she pleased, without them questioning who she was with or where she was going, so we’re still in the dark about her final movements.”

  Erica cast her gaze over the heads of her team. “I’m going to need a couple of people to go and question the friends.”