A Date With Death

by Mark Roberts

  ‘Follow me. We’ll go into the kitchen at the back, Norma.’

  Norma wheeled herself after Francesca’s mother. From the top of the stairs, her sister called, ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Norma Maguire, Francesca’s boss.’

  In the kitchen, Norma handed the roses to Francesca’s mother and said, ‘It’s just to let you know that I’m thinking of you at this extremely difficult time. I know there’s not much I can do but if you think of anything, please don’t hesitate to ask.’

  Francesca’s mother stood leaning back against the sink where she’d placed the roses.

  ‘Thank you for the flowers.’

  ‘Has there been any news?’

  ‘Her car was found near Aigburth Vale. The police are certain she’s been taken by the men who’ve been picking off women from internet dating sites.’

  ‘Men?’

  ‘It’s not a lone individual, Norma. She was last seen around half-eight last night on CCTV and the police called at just after half-four this morning. In between times, they unlocked her laptop and have drawn certain undeniable conclusions.’

  Francesca’s aunt walked into the kitchen, holding a rag doll.

  ‘You found Kizzy,’ said Francesca’s mother, the ghost of a smile floating beneath the gridlock of terror and anxiety on her face.

  ‘In the drawer under Francesca’s bed,’ she replied, handing the doll to her sister.

  Margaret lifted the doll’s skirt to reveal a frayed manufacturer’s label. ‘Look!’ she said, showing Francesca’s childlike handwriting on the label. ‘She wrote her name so that if Kizzy was lost, whoever found her would know who to send her back to.’

  Francesca’s mother looked at Norma. ‘It was Francesca’s favourite doll all through her childhood. She wouldn’t go to sleep without her.’ She clutched the doll to herself tightly. ‘Was there anything going on in work that you noticed, Norma? Anything odd?’

  ‘I found out she was going on internet dating sites. I kept this information strictly between me and my office manager, but I did speak with Francesca on the quiet and warned her of the dangers of…’

  ‘Why didn’t you inform me?’

  ‘She’s a grown woman. I couldn’t pick up the phone and tell you. There are data protection issues here. But what I did do was say exactly what you would have said, Margaret. The police came to see me this morning just before the office opened for business. I told them everything I know.’

  ‘Is there anything else, Norma? Anything about Francesca?’

  ‘Francesca has been my best performing agent, month in and month out, since she’s been with me. She’s good at her job and I thought she was happy in her work. But she decided to leave me rather suddenly, to go and work at Doherty Properties and Estates. I’ve no idea why she left…’

  ‘When did this happen?’ Francesca’s mother sounded mystified.

  ‘Yesterday, at around lunchtime.’

  The sisters looked at each other.

  ‘She didn’t say anything to you?’ Norma looked directly at Francesca’s mother, who paced in the confined space of the kitchen and placed the rag doll down on the table.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you have any idea why she left my firm?’

  ‘I have no idea. She didn’t say a word to me,’ said Francesca’s mother to her sister as she stuck the plug in the sink, filled it with water, and placed the roses in it. ‘Secrets on secrets on secrets. I just don’t get it. Francesca, what were you thinking of?’

  A brand-new wave of anguish and agony swept over Francesca’s mother.

  She said, ‘Excuse me.’ And she walked quickly out of the room, fresh tears flooding her face.

  ‘You’ll have to let yourself out, Norma,’ said Francesca’s aunt, following her sister.

  ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ said Norma. ‘Truly I am.’

  She looked at Kizzy as the women ran up the stairs.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Norma, quietly. ‘I can manage the step going down.’

  72

  11.59 am

  Eve Clay closed the door of Thomas’ surgery and he stood up to pass her a chair.

  ‘This is a surprise,’ said Thomas. The smile on his face faded. ‘Are you OK, Eve?’

  ‘Thomas.’ She sat facing him, held out her hands and folded them tightly around his.

  ‘What are you going to tell me, Eve?’

  ‘Hear me out. Please…’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘The Ghoul has bitten on the bait we threw out over the internet dating site Pebbles On The Beach. He actually responded directly to Gina Riley, and has had a direct phone conversation with her this morning.’

  She paused to frame the words she had come to say directly to him.

  ‘It’s definitely him?’ asked Thomas, darkness forming in his eyes.

  ‘Most definitely. He’s arranged to meet Gina Riley at eight o’clock tonight around the Albert Dock. She’s posing as Sally, a twenty-something lonely heart.’

  ‘Gina’s not going though, is she?’

  She felt him pulling his hands away and tightened her grip on them.

  ‘Please, Thomas. I’m the SIO on this case. I’ve decided to go in her place.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Eve…’

  ‘Please, Thomas.’

  She saw mounting panic in his face, felt the pain that her unwelcome news was causing him, and black guilt overwhelmed her.

  ‘Listen, Thomas, listen to me.’

  ‘Let go of my hands.’

  She loosened her grip and watched as he folded his arms across his chest, the tell-tale body language she’d come to read in every major argument down the years.

  ‘Go on, Eve, I’m listening.’

  ‘There was no other way to tell you other than straight. But here’s the thing. This is a massive sting involving over fifty plain-clothes officers, most of them armed. I’ll be carrying a Glock handgun and I’m not frightened to use it. There’s no evidence so far to suggest that he uses firearms. And even if he does, he’s heavily outgunned. If he turns up there’s no way out for him.’

  Thomas was unusually still and quiet, as if he was digging down deep inside himself.

  ‘Please say something, Thomas.’

  ‘Why you, Eve?’

  ‘Because the whole thing was my idea. I couldn’t put this plan on the table and allow someone else to go in for the fight.’

  The tension and anger she saw in him dissolved and gave way to something fragile and afraid.

  ‘You told me and Philip you wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks. This strikes me as being just that. A massive unnecessary risk.’

  ‘It’s a risk, certainly. I won’t lie.’

  Thomas stood up and walked to the window and looked out. She watched his back, saw the slowly forming stoop of his shoulders, the thin strands of grey that seeped into the darkness of his hair.

  ‘We’ve got a victim in captivity, Francesca Christie. If she’s lucky she’s got days to live. We’ve manufactured a chance to save her. Tonight is probably the only chance we’ll get to catch him and rescue her.’

  He turned from the window and she recognised the look on his face. He was furious but trying to mask it by staring blankly into space.

  ‘How have you organised the sting, Eve?’

  ‘I’m meeting him at the padlocked railing at the Albert Dock at eight o’clock. Chances are, he’ll stand me up and off I’ll wander back to my car further on past the Coburg Marina. I’m sure this is where he’s hit his victims in the past, away from the public and CCTV cameras. We’re going to have six concealed marksmen in and around the place where I’m going to park my car.

  ‘When I’m not in that place, I’ve got a constant string of plain-clothes officers around me. As long as I’m out I’m never going to be more than three metres away from an armed colleague. I’m going wired for sound and wearing a discreet body cam.’

  She saw his thoughts playing out across his face and said nothin
g.

  ‘You told me last night that you know the grid of streets where he’s operating from. Why not make a series of raids?’

  ‘Barney Cole’s Grassendale Park grid was a great piece of deduction but it’s flawed. There are ways in and out that mean the place we’re looking for mightn’t be in that rectangle. It’s not a foregone conclusion that Barney’s got it one hundred per cent right. Your idea’s a valid one but it’s a risk we can’t afford to take. Say The Ghoul is operating inside the grid – if he gets we’re closing in on him, he’ll panic and run away and we’ll lose him. The other option is he stays put and tries to balls it out; either way, if we make a mistake, we’ll be bringing Francesca Christie out in a body bag.’

  ‘I see.’

  But quite the opposite seemed true to her.

  ‘Thomas?’

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Go away, I’m busy.’ Thomas spoke with a note in his voice that the world wouldn’t recognise but that she knew clearly, and it spoke of the depth of his anxiety and fear. The guilt inside her intensified.

  ‘Thomas, please, come and sit with me.’

  He was still for what felt like a long time but he moved towards her, slowly, and sat down.

  ‘You’re killing me, Eve.’

  ‘I didn’t come here expecting you to dance for joy. It’s not ideal, I grant you that. But I did come here hoping to level with you and give you something to hang on to. When I went down in the Williamson Tunnels with three psychotic members of the Red Cloud, that was infinitely more dangerous than tonight’s exercise. When I was in the Bell Tower of the Anglican, Karl Stone nearly lost his life. Think about it, Thomas. I could list you example after example of me taking unnecessary risks in the past. I’ve got great cover and backup tonight. The dress rehearsal is getting organised right now.’

  Thomas looked at her and she saw him reliving their time together in a passage of seconds, the faltering but joy-inspired early days through the cementation of years – acceptance, compromise, parenthood – to the place they’d arrived at in the present, a realistic and hard-won happiness.

  ‘I knew what I was getting into when we first got together. You made it clear to me about the risks you had to take and the reality of people you hunt down for a living. I accepted it then. But I’m conflicted. There was just the two of us. We’ve got a son now. There are no guarantees in life. You cannot guarantee that tonight you’ll be safe.’

  ‘This isn’t a competition between you and me, Thomas.’ She looked at the door to his surgery. ‘But do you know what’s coming next through that door?’

  ‘You don’t have to remind me, Eve. The paranoid schizophrenic who stopped taking his medication and walked in here carrying a knife and wondering why his GP was Satan.’

  She held his hands, shivered inside at the memory of the attempted attack on her husband in the space where they were sitting.

  ‘None of us know the moment when the hammer’s going to fall,’ said Eve.

  ‘So this could be the last time we speak face to face?’

  ‘It won’t be.’

  ‘I see you’ve made your mind up, Eve.’

  ‘It was made up for me. By the situation. By the brutality at work here. By the fact that the only person I can totally trust in this is me.’

  He looked at her intently and his gaze penetrated deep inside her.

  ‘I’ve loved you since the moment we met and I always will love you, Eve. Take that one away with you and I hope it helps you get through this. But I’m telling you now, it’s very, very hard at times being married to you. You’re not the only police officer who could have done this. But I agree with you. You’re the best choice for the job, even if you say so yourself.’

  ‘I appreciate your understanding. I’m grateful for your patience and I don’t take your support for granted.’

  ‘You don’t need a scowling husband, especially not at a time like this. I’ll tell Philip you’re busy and you’ll see him in the morning.’

  They stood up and he wrapped his arms around her.

  ‘I know I’ve upset you, Thomas, and I’m really sorry. I love you, and I love Philip.’ She took comfort in his embrace. ‘Say something, Thomas.’

  ‘You’re carrying a Glock?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t hesitate to blow his brains out if you have to.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, Thomas. If it’s me or him, I won’t hesitate for one second to do just that.’

  73

  12.25 pm

  Detective Sergeant Barney Cole looked at two lists, one long and one much shorter, that related directly to his Grassendale Park grid.

  The long list supplied by the librarian, Margie Rivers, had yielded five names with historic criminal convictions from the National Police Computer from the two hundred and five males listed on the city’s electoral register.

  There were two convictions for petty fraud, one for drink driving, one for drunk and disorderly and a fifth for shoplifting. All convictions were over twenty years old and all the petty criminals had pleaded guilty to the charges against them.

  Cole sent a round robin email to Clay and the team outlining the disappointing trawl from the Grassendale Park grid with a note.

  Hardly the CV of The Ghoul.

  As he sent the email, Cole felt a sudden heavy weight on his head and shoulders and an even heavier burden inside himself.

  What if? he asked himself in the cold light of a rain-sodden day. What if my ego and inbuilt need to look smarter than smart has led me to concoct the Grassendale Park grid? What if I’ve allowed myself to wander up a flawed geographical dead end, and taken others with me?

  Cole stared into space and felt sick at the prospect of the point in time when he would have to hold up his hands and deliver a damning self-verdict: Twenty-four-carat idiot.

  He looked at the shorter list of names from the city’s electoral office, twelve males in the Grassendale Park area who had opted to leave their names unpublished on the publicly available register of voters. There wasn’t a criminal blemish against any of the dozen men and Cole’s already dark mood deteriorated further.

  ‘Have you looked at the names of the women on the registers?’ he whispered to himself. ‘What’s the point?’ he replied silently, but he started with Grassendale Road and drew his right index finger down the list, hoping to catch a glimmer of light from the females on the list.

  ‘Barney, how’s it going?’ asked Stone at his back.

  ‘Badly. There’s not a single sign of anyone with the potential to become The Ghoul.’

  ‘If it’s any consolation, look at what I’ve pulled from the CCTV footage of people driving out of Grassendale Park on to Aigburth Road.’

  Stone placed a small pack of printed-off images from the CCTV trawl in front of Cole and he flicked through it.

  An old man driving with an old woman at his side in a VW Passat. An old woman driving on her own in a Ford Orion. A woman in her thirties with a baby strapped in on the back seat of her Peugeot 108. A man and a woman with two teenage children in the back of their grey Range Rover.

  A middle-aged woman alone in her red Vauxhall Combo.

  ‘It’s just more and more of the same.’

  Cole placed the rest of the unviewed images down on the desk.

  ‘There aren’t any hits for two men or one man on his own making a getaway from Grassendale Park,’ said Stone. ‘The men who did show up on camera are either with elderly people, kids or their wives or girlfriends. I couldn’t see anyone who looks like they have the opportunity or desire to keep young women hostage and then strangle and skin them. I’ll put them on the noticeboard and see if anyone has any different ideas to mine.’

  Cole looked at his map of Grassendale Park and pointed to a turning off Grassendale Road, the way out of the grid. ‘Shit idea or what?’

  ‘I think you’ve got a strong idea, Barney. It’s a relatively small area but there are a lot of houses in there, and a lot of
places to hide.’

  Stone stood next to Cole, watching the images of the people in vehicles leaving Grassendale Park mount up as he pinned them on the noticeboard. As he put up the picture of the single woman in the red Vauxhall Combo WAV, Stone asked, ‘Do you know this woman at all, Barney?’

  ‘No. Who is she?’

  ‘Her name’s Norma Maguire.’ Stone pointed to the portraits of the staff from Maguire Holdings. ‘Did you put those pictures up?’

  ‘Eve sent them to me, told me to cherry-pick the best and get them on the board.’

  ‘Norma Maguire’s staff, past and present.’

  Stone went back to looking at the group portraits of Norma Maguire’s employees, focused on Francesca Christie and said, ‘Little did she know the truth around the corner when that picture was taken.’

  He looked at the previous picture to the left. There was no sign of Francesca Christie. Before your time, thought Stone. He looked at the next picture down the chronological line and examined each face, lingering on each employee and wondering, who are you?

  He looked at the centre of the display board and took down one picture in particular, which he carried back to the third group portrait.

  ‘Have you noticed the way Norma Maguire conceals her face on the Maguire Holdings group portraits?’ asked Stone. ‘Tinted glasses, scarves that are knotted so high they obscure the bottom half of her face. Bill Hendricks met her on the door to door of the Grassendale Park grid. He said she’s super shy. Did you know she’s in a wheelchair?’

  Cole looked at Stone and said, ‘Yes, I’ve heard that.’

  Stone looked at the photograph in his hand and at the third group portrait, picking out a man standing next to Norma Maguire and smiling broadly into the eye of the camera.

  ‘Are you all right, Karl?’

  ‘Come here, Barney. Double-check this for me, please.’

  Stone showed the photograph he had taken down from the board and pointed at the man in the third group portrait.

  ‘Oh, God, yes, yes it is. Hair’s shorter in the group portrait, but the smile’s undeniably his.’