by Mark Roberts
As Mrs Christie sent the pictures of Francesca to Clay’s phone, she said, ‘You’re taking this very seriously, DCI Clay.’
‘We take all missing persons cases seriously.’
‘I don’t believe you. I’m sorry, but I don’t. You’re thinking what I’m thinking. Francesca’s in serious trouble.’
‘Mrs Christie, I don’t know where Francesca is at the moment but these are very dangerous times for young women in this part of the country. My aim is to find Francesca and not jump to alarming conclusions. Have you left all your contact details with Sergeant Harris on the desk?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was Francesca wearing?’
‘I don’t know. She called goodbye from the front door as she was leaving the house. I was in the kitchen.’
‘What car does she drive?’
‘A black Vauxhall Corsa.’
‘Licence plate?’
‘It’s a personalised plate. FC 1.’
‘We’ll be in touch with you as soon as we know anything, Mrs Christie. Is there anything else you’d like to add?’
‘Francesca lost her father a year ago, and her so-called boyfriend jilted her weeks after the funeral. It broke her into pieces. Her confidence plummeted. She doesn’t normally lie to me. But she’s a very proud person. She lied to me about these wretched dating sites because she was embarrassed to have to stoop that low. She’s a good daughter. She’s a good human being.’
‘I believe you, Mrs Christie.’
Clay read the anguish on the woman’s face and positioned herself directly in her place.
‘If Francesca shows up, call me immediately, I don’t care what the hour is,’ said Clay.
They left Interview Suite 1 in silence and Clay escorted Mrs Christie to the door leading out of Trinity Road police station.
Clay felt the burden of Mrs Christie’s anxiety and knew that Francesca’s mother shared the same instinctive and certain knowledge.
Francesca had been abducted.
When she had gone, Clay walked quickly to the desk and showed Sergeant Harris a picture of Francesca Christie on her iPhone.
‘Missing. Internet date. Probably Pebbles On The Beach.’
‘Shit,’ said Sergeant Harris.
‘Ring round everyone on the team, please,’ said Clay. ‘Ring switchboard and put out an instruction to all officers out there on duty. We’re looking for a black Vauxhall Corsa. Licence plate, FC 1. I’ll be in the incident room. They’re to meet me there as soon as possible.’
56
0.28 am
Francesca Christie heard the sound of a hatch opening in the ceiling of the cell in which she was imprisoned. Instinctively, she sat up on the bed, covering her breasts with both arms and folding her legs at the knees.
The Ghoul.
Feet came down the stairs, one hand holding the rail, the other carrying a canvas bag; she watched a body materialise, arms and body clothed in black, face concealed by a black balaclava with a head light that acted as a blinding screen.
The Ghoul stood at the bottom of the stairs, she guessed, looking directly at her.
‘And, so, off she floats to nowhere.’
The Ghoul’s voice was mechanical, robotic, and she tried to remember what had been said to her and the way the words had been spoken when she’d been taken at knifepoint, but her memory felt like it was swathed in twisting clouds.
Francesca looked away, memorised the first words spoken to her since she’d awoken in captivity. She clenched her body and paid attention to the metal table between herself and the empty cot on the other side of the cell.
‘I’m thirsty,’ she said.
The Ghoul walked to the metal table and placed the canvas bag on its surface.
Polite, be polite, don’t say a word that is offensive. The words rose up from deep inside her. Show that you are listening.
‘What do you mean: And, so, off she floats to nowhere?’ she asked.
The bag was unzipped and out of it came a hypodermic needle and a scalpel. The noise of the scalpel against the table told her that it was made of metal.
Francesca counted in silence. One, two, three, four. Out came four scalpels of different sizes.
The head light shone directly in her face.
She felt the contents of her stomach lurch, held on to her breath as if it were her last one and battled down the urge to throw up, to give away another victory to The Ghoul.
‘Do you like my mask, Francesca?’
She nodded.
‘I can’t hear you?’
‘I like your mask.’
She could hear the dryness in her throat, the rasp of her tongue against the parched walls of her mouth. Above her head, in the building, she heard a kettle whistle and voices talking, but knew that they were coming from a radio because as soon as they stopped, a Radio City jingle played, normality on the edge of the abyss.
I’m still in Liverpool then, she thought, or the area just outside the city.
‘Sit up and sit perfectly still, Francesca…’ The Ghoul came closer.
She sat up and rested her chained hands at the top of her legs. A right-hand index finger appeared in front of her face.
Francesca shut her eyes tightly and pictured herself at the bottom of the wooden ladder running up the steps…
She felt the weight of an index finger at the middle of her chin.
…and into the kitchen, which she’d never seen before, but she looked all around in a moment…
The finger was light as it travelled left along her jawline to the base of her ear and, once there, just under her hairline.
…and saw the back door, and a drawer near a huge sink. She hurried to the door, turned the handle this way and that but it was locked…
It travelled smoothly under her hairline to the middle of her neck, where it stopped and rose from her puckered skin.
She ran to the kitchen drawer, opened it and took out a kitchen knife…
Another finger continued towards her right ear and down towards the centre of her chin, where the journey across the flesh of her face had begun.
The Ghoul roared from the hatch, rising into the kitchen and flying at her at full speed. Lifting a fist to punch her in the face, it stepped forward, didn’t see the knife coming as she plunged it into that miserable heart…
She felt her cheeks being squeezed between a thumb and index finger.
‘Look at me!’ She opened her eyes but everything was a blur. ‘You’ve got good skin. You’ve got nice hair. You’re pretty. You’re just what I need.’
The head light was turned off. Its face came towards her. She felt the musty wool of a black balaclava rubbing against her cheek, saw the darkness behind the eye holes, held her breath as The Ghoul pulled back and stood up from the bed.
Francesca watched its distorted form as it walked away, to the table, to the stairs, and she felt a weight land next to her on the bed.
It disappeared through the entrance, closed the cover and was gone.
Francesca fumbled across the mattress and felt the pliable plastic of a water bottle. She trapped it between her knees and with the hand that could reach, she unscrewed the cap.
Wait! She heard her own voice, warning. She raised it to her nose and could smell nothing. She dipped a finger in it and licked the tasteless fluid. Water? It seemed to be exactly the same as the fluid in the small vial that had knocked her out.
She dipped her tongue into the neck of the bottle, coated as much of it as she could with such a small amount.
Dip. Repeat. Wait.
Through the ceiling above her head, she heard voices.
She listened as hard as she had ever listened to anything in her life and made out one word.
Francesca… Francesca… Francesca…
Silence.
57
0.49 am
Clay stood in front of Hendricks, Riley, Cole, Stone and Winters in the incident room, each of them holding a printout of Francesca Chris
tie’s photo, as Poppy Waters sat at Clay’s desk unlocking the missing woman’s laptop.
‘Has anyone had any luck online? Anyone turned up on your profile pages who sounds like The Ghoul?’ asked Clay.
They were silent and collective disappointment marbled the air.
‘Me neither,’ said Clay.
‘Maybe he’s getting a little spooked,’ said Hendricks. ‘Maybe after his prolific activity, he knows he’s left a trail behind him…’
‘You could have a point, Bill.’
‘What’s the plan?’ asked Stone.
‘I’ve ordered in CCTV footage from in and around the Albert Dock. All the CCTV footage from the different venues feeds into a central monitoring centre operated by the Dock’s 24-Hour Security Services. It’s on its way over now. I’m banking on him being a creature of habit and I’ve asked for footage leading down the front towards the padlocked railings from seven-thirty pm onwards. If he told Annie Boyd and Amanda Winton to be there for eight pm, I reckon he’ll have given the same instruction to Francesca Christie. So far so good from his point of view. It’s working. Why make changes to a winning game plan?’
‘I’ve made my way into it,’ said Poppy Waters. ‘I’m on to Francesca’s desktop.’
‘How are you going to get on to her Pebbles On The Beach profile? asked Clay.
‘In the first instance, I’ll try using the letters Francesca Christie to crack her username. Did you know there’s a top twenty of most commonly used passwords in the English-speaking world? Guess what comes up at number five. iloveyou, all lowercase. Tens of thousands of people use it.’
‘What about when the rest of the world wakes up in the morning?’ asked Riley. ‘What then, Eve?’
‘Francesca worked at Maguire Holdings on the commercial end of Allerton Road. I’m going to show up there tomorrow before the doors open, talk to the people who worked with her, ask if she’d told anyone about her communication with this man, or if she’d let anyone in on any information about her date last night. Karl.’ She looked to Stone. ‘I’d like you to come with me, act as a second pair of eyes.’
Clay turned to Riley and said, ‘Gina, in the morning I’d like you to chase up CCTV4U, see how they’re getting on with cleaning up the footage of the white van heading away down Heath Road from the Amanda Winton body drop-off. See if we’ve got a clearer shot of the man in the passenger seat.’
Poppy Waters stood up, stepped back from Francesca Christie’s laptop and looked down at the screen as if it had just dished out an insult to her.
‘I’m not having much luck with this method,’ said Poppy. ‘And I don’t want to get locked out by the system.’
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Clay.
Poppy turned the screen so everyone could see the brightly coloured pebbles sitting on golden sand and being washed over by clear water. The irony of the purity of the image hit Clay hard.
‘I’m going to hack her computer. I’ll use Metasploit, it’s powerful, a product of Rapid 7. I’ll use it with WEB UI. I’ll run an individual exploit on her Pebbles On The Beach account. If that fails, I’ll try a basic penetration test. It should work. If she’s like millions of other people on the internet, her security system’s going to be completely inadequate.’
‘Will it take you long?’ asked Clay.
‘No,’ replied Poppy, sitting down and fixing her attention on the screen. Her fingers danced over the keyboard. ‘Won’t be long before you know who she’s been talking to and what’s been said. Same old, same old, bet you?’
58
4.00 am
‘Eve?’
Clay looked across the incident room at the sound of Poppy Waters’ voice. She caught Stone’s eye, and knew that something important had come up on Francesca Christie’s laptop.
As Clay walked over to them, Poppy said, ‘The Ghoul’s been masquerading as James Griffiths. That’s the fake identity he’s been hiding behind in hunting down Francesca Christie.’
Clay sat next to Poppy Waters and looked at the online endgame between Francesca Christie and The Ghoul.
‘I’ve taken it back to the point where James Griffiths’ other self, Thomas Saddler, who’s been as lovely as can be to Francesca, suddenly goes off the planet, leaving James with a completely free hand.’
Clay skimmed and scanned James Griffiths’ sugar-coated poison and quoted, ‘You deserve a man who worships the ground you walk on and how jealous I would be of that stranger even though I take my hat off to him.’
She recognised the way he teased Francesca out and how her desperation mounted with each passing message and her need not to be hurt rocketed.
‘It’s like…’ Clay touched the screen where the word hurt sat like an open wound itself in Francesca’s message. ‘It ignites the word hurt in his reply and sparks off the whole yarn about the dead wife and how he claimed he was single because he didn’t want to make emotional capital from his bereavement. Which is when he offered to phone her because that was the gentlemanly thing to do.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Stone. ‘It got results for him. Do you know what I’m reading into this? Like all good con men, when he’s typing this bullshit he believes it in his heart of hearts. When he’s spoken with them on the phone, he’s believed every single word he’s said, and it’s made him super plausible to the lonely and vulnerable women he’s targeted. But once he’s got them where he wants them, lined up for a date, the switch flicks inside him and he turns from Rudolph Valentino into The Ghoul.’
Clay looked back at the dead end on screen.
Francesca Christie’s mobile number: 07700 937374.
‘Sent with love and kisses, 07700 937374, Francesca’s eleven-digit pin code to a date with death with The Ghoul. Where this strand of evidence ends, the words we can’t know are spoken over mobile phones.’
Clay picked up Francesca Christie’s laptop and handed it back to Poppy.
‘Go and have a look around her documents, emails, Facebook, Poppy. See if you can find anything that can lead us to this James Griffiths. Work through the other laptop and phone we took from Francesca’s bedroom. Thank you. You’ve confirmed through the pattern you’ve uncovered that she’s been abducted.’
Clay worked it out. Just over seven hours had passed since Francesca was last seen on CCTV at the waterfront. In five days, her mutilated body would show up after a four- to five-day window in which she’d be a captive, ending with her being murdered.
‘Eve, do you want me to go and visit Francesca’s mother, let her know what we know?’ asked Stone.
‘I’d be grateful if you could do that, Karl. Call Samantha Green from family liaison and make the visit together.’
59
4.08 am
The Ghoul was ready.
It typed in one of its usernames and its matching password to access Pebbles On The Beach, the only hunting ground it needed, the one that had yielded success upon success.
Sandra.
Annie. Amanda.
Francesca.
She would need company, a mistake The Ghoul had made in his naive opening excursion.
It was one thing to keep a single woman imprisoned and terrified to the portals of hysteria and madness, but that was half the story, half the potential of the pleasure to be had balanced against the risks undertaken.
Two could comfort each other, but that was fleeting.
Two could feed from each other’s weaknesses, stoke up each other’s fault lines and raise the temperature of terror as The Ghoul prepared their separate endgames.
Sally Haydn? Annie Boyd’s lookalike and soundalike…
The Ghoul typed: Dear Sally, I am new to internet dating and am a little nervous around the whole process. However, I kept coming back to your profile picture and felt compelled to enter into a dialogue with you. Perhaps you could get in touch with me, maybe give me your mobile number and I could call you?
The Ghoul wrote words, more words, words that seemed to flow through the tips of th
ose meaty fingers as they typed, fingers that would have an altogether different function at the endgame.
The Ghoul signed off the message – Fond regards – and remembered the name of the latest incarnation for this particular hunt. Geoff.
The Ghoul sent the message to Sally Haydn and smiled.
Next door, the sound of Francesca Christie crying seeped through the adjoining wall.
The Ghoul walked to the wall and picked out the place where her noise was loudest.
It stuck out a tongue and licked the bricks.
The Ghoul pressed its lips to the roughness of the brick, drank in the moisture of pain and terror.
‘It won’t be long now!’
60
4.35 am
The lights were on in the front room of Francesca Christie’s house when Detective Sergeant Karl Stone arrived at the gate.
Sergeant Samantha Green, family liaison officer, was already there, waiting.
‘Has her body been discovered?’ she asked.
‘No,’ replied Stone. ‘We’re updating Mrs Christie on what we know. Preparing her for the worst.’
He walked up the path and heard the rattle of a milk float travelling away down Hornby Lane, and for a moment, as he pressed the bell, he wanted to swap places with the milkman.
‘Who is it?’ A voice travelled to the front door.
‘Police, Detective Sergeant Karl Stone, and Sergeant Samantha Green, family liaison.’
The door was opened by a woman who looked like she’d been ravaged with anxiety and sorrow.
‘Margaret Christie?’ asked Stone.
‘Yes. Have you found her?’
‘No, I’m sorry.’
‘Bring them in.’ Another woman’s voice came from deeper inside the house.
In Margaret Christie’s living room, Stone sat next to Sergeant Green and made eye contact with Francesca’s mother and aunt.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Francesca’s mother.
‘We’ve looked at Francesca’s online communications with a man posing as James Griffiths and the language he used when talking to Francesca was almost identical to the words used with other women who went missing.’
