by M K Farrar
“What time did he come over?” Erica asked.
“After nine. We had a few beers, played some cards, and hung out. No big deal.”
“Was there anyone else with you?”
He pursed his lips. “Nope. Just the two of us.”
“What time did he leave again?”
He shrugged. “Early hours. Was at least one. Might have even been two.”
“And you played cards that whole time?”
“Yeah, pretty much. That’s not against the law, is it?”
“Not at all. Thank you for your time.”
He gave them a curious stare. “That’s all?”
“Yes, that’s all.” She reached into her jacket pocket and took out a card. “If you think of anything unusual that happened that evening, though, please, do call us.”
He took the card and then closed the door again.
Erica turned to Shawn. “Aaran’s story seems to hold up.”
“Yes, but it still doesn’t mean he wasn’t the one to kill her.”
Erica gave a frustrated groan and rubbed her hand across her face. “Shit, I hate it when it feels like we’re not getting anywhere.”
“It’s early days yet.”
She shot him a sceptical look. “You know how much harder it is to catch someone the more time that passes. I already feel like I’ve failed Brandon Skehan. I don’t think we’re going to get anyone for what happened to him, either.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself. There isn’t a single detective who exists who has solved one hundred percent of the cases they’ve been handed.”
“I know. I just hate thinking that some son of a bitch is out there, laughing at us.”
They got back to the car and ran both men’s names for warrants and their criminal histories. Aaran Dunsted’s history was already known to them, and it looked as though he’d mostly kept himself out of trouble since they’d last dealt with him. Troy Sarty had a handful of minor offences—low level shoplifting, driving without due care, and possession of controlled drugs. He had no kind of violent charges, though.
They drove back to the office. Erica grabbed coffee from the vending machine and went back to her desk.
“Boss, I’ve just sent the doorbell security camera footage over to you,” Rudd called to her. “You might want to take a gander.”
“Great, thanks.”
Taking a sip of her coffee, she fired up her computer, logged on, and opened the file Rudd had uploaded. The camera gave a view across the street, from opposite Naomi Conrad’s building. It was dark, but Erica could see the road at the front of Naomi’s building, without actually being able to see the flats themselves. The streetlights were on, which helped a little, plus the owner of the camera had a security light on at the front of the house, but it was still night-time. Anyone who walked past the camera would appear as a silhouette.
She scrolled through the footage. Across the street, a taxi pulled up, and two people climbed out of the back. From their sizes and shapes, she could tell which was male and which was female.
Naomi Conrad?
It was impossible to know for sure, but she made a note of the taxi company, and checked the time. Eleven fifty-seven. The taxi firm should have a record of the drop off, and hopefully the driver would remember. The shadows of the couple’s bodies merged as they drew each other in for a kiss. There was nothing about Naomi’s body language that made Erica think she was in any way frightened of the person she was with.
The two of them vanished off-screen. Erica assumed they’d gone into the building, but, without any actual video footage of the front door, she couldn’t prove it. Instead, she waited and kept watching. To save time, she increased the speed, slowing, pausing, and rewinding whenever there was movement on-screen—a car driving past, or someone on foot.
An hour passed, and then another. It was one-fifteen a.m. now.
Someone caught her attention. Instead of walking straight past, the person stopped on the other side of the street, as though they were waiting for someone, or perhaps even watching the building.
Erica froze the screen and squinted, leaning forwards. God, she was going to need to get her eyes tested soon. She was sure her vision wasn’t as clear as it had been only a year ago. The figure looked like a man, from the height and the breadth of his shoulders. He was facing Naomi’s building, so his back was to the camera.
Turn around, she willed him. Come on. Turn around or just glance over your shoulder.
It was all she needed, just a snapshot of a face.
Instead, something seemed to startle him, and he put his head down and his hands in his pockets and crossed the road, towards Naomi’s building.
Erica hit ‘pause’ and checked the time again. One-twenty. Was that the time Robert Day had said he’d left? Had this stranger crossed the road because he’d spotted something through one of Naomi’s windows and seen that Robert Day was leaving the building? Had he crossed the road to catch the front door before it swung shut again, locking him out?
If that was the version of events, then it meant Robert Day was telling the truth.
What had Naomi thought when someone had knocked on her flat door? Had she thought Robbie had changed his mind and had decided to stay the night instead? Had she opened the door with a teasing smile on her face, excited to have her lover back, only to have a stranger meet her instead? Erica imagined her trying to slam the door shut again, only for him to power through it, shoving her up against the wall and clamping his hand over her mouth to keep her quiet, before carefully shutting the door again.
If this was the person who’d killed Naomi Conrad, it took Aaran Dunsted out of the running. He wouldn’t have been able to leave his card game and make it all the way here for this time. It was frustrating to have lost a possible suspect, but at the same time, she was relieved not to have to waste any more time looking into him.
Erica turned her attention back to the screen. The first man she’d been watching had vanished, but now she saw Robert Day crossing the road. He took out his phone and checked the screen and then headed off down the street.
The timings matched up to what Robert Day had told them in the interview. The question was, was Naomi Conrad still alive when he’d left?
Chapter Nineteen
Six Weeks Earlier
Dear Mr Bailey,
First of all, I want to thank you for your patience with my letters. I understand that they must be a little confusing. I hope this week my letter will bring some clarity to the reasons behind my fascination with certain species of wildlife.
There’s one species that’s caught my attention. These birds are only in the country for three months a year, arriving in early May and leaving in August. They nest in colonies in the eaves of old buildings, and they feed at higher elevations than the other birds they are sometimes mistaken for. Their closest relation is actually the hummingbird.
It’s concerning me that these birds have stepped out of their boundaries. One bird in particular seems to think she is better than the rest. I believe you have experience of that, Nicholas? I have a plan to ensure this bird species stays within its territory. Perhaps it simply hasn’t met the correct predator yet?
Perhaps it is time to visit the prison library to do some research on these matters? I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours, M Cimi.
Nicholas sat up and swung his legs off the side of the bunk, the letter still in his hand. He didn’t know what it was his pen pal was talking about, but he sensed the importance in its tone. He was more than happy to do what Cimi had instructed in his letter. The library was somewhere Nicholas liked to be anyway. It was one place in the prison that tended to be peaceful. Of course, it didn’t always stay that way—fights and arguments broke out just like anywhere else in this place.
They got one visit a week to the library, and his was coming up. He shifted around impatiently, the hours stretching ahead of him endlessly. Maybe he could get in the earlier group?
The tap of a prisoner officer’s footsteps walking down the row of cells met his ears, and he jumped down from the bunk bed to be at the door to meet him. His heart sank when he saw it was Officer Bache, but he forced himself to stand tall. Those words meant something. His desire to understand what the letter meant was greater than his fear of the prison officer.
“Hey, boss, can I request a library visit to do some research? My slot is later, but I could do with going in the earlier group.”
Bache stopped and eyed him suspiciously. “What do you need to do research on?”
“Just a bird species I’m interested in.”
The prison officer stared at Nicholas as though he’d lost his mind. “What does the likes of you want with birds?”
Nicholas shrugged. “I like them. That’s all.”
He rolled his eyes. “Suit yourself. I think there’s an empty spot in the earlier group. If I get you in, though, remember you owe me.”
“I will, boss.”
In the library, Nicholas didn’t even know where to start. It wasn’t as though he had never been in there, but he tended to just grab whatever was nearest on the shelf, rather than giving it any deliberate thought. Libraries hadn’t been a place he’d spent much time at during childhood either. His mother had certainly never taken him to one—she’d been too busy getting drunk to worry about her sons’ reading habits—and if he’d ever been to the one at school, it was only because he’d been forced to by the teachers, or else he’d been using it as a place to hide.
He stared around at the multiple shelves, trying to figure out where to start. Would they even have a book about birds in here?
A female voice caught his attention. “Can I help you?”
Officer Kebell. She was the Governor for Education in the prison. There weren’t many women in here, understandably. He always found it a little strange that any woman would want to be around so many men, especially when they were mostly violent and hadn’t had access to the opposite sex in quite some time. But there were female guards, and female volunteers as well. A lot of people saw education to be an important part of reform. Nicholas wasn’t sure what good an education would do him. It wasn’t as though he’d get out of here and go on to have a long and rewarding career. He knew his place in the world, he had since he was a small boy. He was pond scum, worthless, the lowest of the low. When he’d been teaching those who’d looked down on him, he’d finally felt like he was different, like he was strong and powerful and didn’t have to play the role life had dealt him. But, after his experience in this prison, he’d come to finally accept that he would never be someone who had a special place in life. He was a nothing. A nobody.
This letter, though, that was different. Someone out there had chosen him. Had trusted him. Didn’t that make him special?
Kebell was older than him, probably by a decade or more, but she was striking in a prim and proper way. Sharp blue eyes behind black-framed glasses. Red hair tied neatly into a bun at her nape. He’d never been interested in women. Why was this one affecting him?
“I’m...I’m...” he stuttered, not wanting to make eye contact with her. His cheeks burned, and he wished he could walk out of the building and pretend he’d never started this. But his need to find out what the letter meant was stronger than his embarrassment. “I want a book about Britain’s native bird species. Would there be anything like that here?”
She gave a curt nod. “Of course. This way.”
She led him down the corridors of bookshelves. He tried not to think about how her bottom filled out the uniform trousers, willing himself not to grow hard. He was already embarrassed; he would be mortified if she noticed. And the prison clothes didn’t do much to disguise such things. Perhaps she was used to it, being around men all day. A wicked thought entered his head. Perhaps she liked it?
He clenched his fists and resisted the urge to hold them to his head and pound on his skull to get the thoughts out. He mustn’t think like that. It was dangerous. Look at what had happened the last time he’d allowed dangerous thoughts to take over—he’d ended up in this place.
“Here we are.” She drew to a halt and lifted her hand to run her finger along the spines of some of the books. She hesitated over one and then plucked it out from between its neighbours. “This should do it.”
She handed the book out to Nicholas. He stared down at it dumbly. The Complete Guide to British Birds.
“Is ornithology something you’ve been interested in for long?”
He continued to stare at her. “Ornithology?”
“Yes, the study of birds.”
That must be what Ornithology meant.
“I...I’m not. I mean, I like them. That’s all. Like, if I went to the park, I’d sit and watch the birds.”
“I imagine being in here can make you realise what you miss.”
He nodded, not trusting himself to say anything clever. His tongue felt overly fat in his mouth, and his cheeks burned even more.
“Let’s get it stamped out for you then,” she said.
She used his prisoner number to mark the inside page of the book so the library service knew he’d been the one to check it out. He didn’t plan on taking it back to his cell just yet, though. He would find a seat in the library and see what he could learn. He might need a different book, and then she could help him again.
Nicholas sat and unfolded the letter, placing it on the table beside the book. He read it through once more, making sure he hadn’t missed anything. M Cimi was clearly describing a certain bird to him. It was Nicholas’s job to figure out which bird he was talking about. He would have to read each page, hoping to recognise which it was. A bird that flew high and was only here a few months out of the year. A relation to the hummingbird. That ruled out lots of birds before he even needed to start reading. He knew it wasn’t a sparrow or a crow or a blackbird, or any of the birds that were in the country all year around. And if it was related to a hummingbird, it would be small, like a robin, not a big bird like a swan or a bird of prey like a buzzard.
He flipped through the pages, ignoring the ones he knew didn’t stand a chance of matching the descriptions and scanning those that might. He was painfully aware of the female officer’s presence in the room, her exact location in relation to where he sat, and had to force himself to concentrate.
Turning the page, he flicked his gaze over the text.
High-flying bird. Only here over the summer months. Fed on insects.
And he suddenly understood what the letters meant. His heart rate ratcheted up a notch, and he sucked in a breath.
The bird his pen pal had been referring to was a swift.
Chapter Twenty
Erica’s phone rang, and she answered. “DI Swift.”
“Hi, it’s DI Carlton from the Met Murder Squad.”
“DI Carlton, what can I do for you?”
She knew Alex Carlton. He’d been involved in the Maher case as well.
“I’m phoning about a new case I’m on. I believe you might have an interest in it.”
“I’m already running two big cases. How does your one involve me?”
Unfortunately, murders happened all over the city. Over one hundred every year, with even more deaths that would often end up being marked as death by misadventure or natural causes, but they still needed to be investigated. They had busy jobs.
“A body was found down near the Isle of Dogs.”
“Okay,” she said cautiously.
“The body had been burnt.”
Erica’s heartrate jumped. “Burnt?”
“Yes, doused with an accelerant and set on fire. Happened in the early hours, so no one was around to see it. The body was in a pretty bad state by the time the fire brigade got to it.”
“You think it might be linked to the case I worked a few months back? Another case of people smuggling for black-market organs?”
“That’s certainly one of the lines of enquiry I’ll be following, but from th
e initial post-mortem it doesn’t look as though organs had been removed.”
“So, it might not be connected to the organ black market then. People still burn bodies to hide evidence.”
Uneasiness coiled in her stomach. First the strangled woman and then this? Two crimes that seemed to be replicated from her past cases. Another thought hit her like a punch to the gut. What about Brandon Skehan. He’d been attacked in his home and almost blinded.
She wanted to shake the thought from her head. It was just a coincidence, wasn’t it? Coincidences happen all time.
But ones like this? A woman strangled in her bed? A body burned? A man almost blinded? She was plagued by the uneasy sensation that her past cases were back to haunt her, but surely such a thing wasn’t possible. She was being paranoid.
Carlton’s voice brought her back to focus. “I’d like to see the files and have a chat with you about it, if that’s all right. Compare notes.”
“Makes sense. The location and disposal of the body is the same.”
DI Carton was a good detective, though he was a little too sure of himself for Erica’s liking. She imagined he was one of those men who thought if a woman was even in his vicinity, she probably fancied him. She sometimes caught him checking himself out in a car window mirror, doing an annoying pout and running his fingers through his hair. Yes, he was attractive, but there was nothing less attractive than a man who thought he was God’s gift.
Still, she was a professional and would put her opinions to one side when it came to work matters. She wanted to find out if there were any other similarities to the black-market organ case she’d worked on not long ago. They’d put the ringleader behind bars, but experience told her that with that kind of trade, the leader was easily replaced. You cut one head off and another grew back in its place. It was incredibly frustrating, but that was how it worked when they created a gap in the market. No matter how many bad guys they took off the streets, while there was something people wanted or needed, and they couldn’t get it the normal way, there would be someone who could offer it to them at the right price.
