The DCI Isaac Cook Thriller Series: Books 1 -3

by Phillip Strang

  ‘Will she recover?’ Sara asked.

  ‘Her body may. We are broken people,’ Charles Hamilton said.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘Find our daughter before she kills again.’

  ***

  In an internet café on the northern outskirts of London sat a woman. It was the evening of the previous day, way past 9 p.m. and the café was due to close in fifteen minutes.

  Long enough, the woman thought. She had become used to run-down internet facilities with their dodgy screens, keyboards with keys that stuck, especially the most used ones, and cursors that jerked their way across the screen.

  A permanent connection was not possible at the bedsit she rented, and a mobile modem would not have had the capacity for the photos she was loading. She was a lonely figure in that café, but she was happy.

  She was famous all over the world, her followers a testament to that fact. Each day, in all the newspapers in London, there would be an article on her latest murder, and always a photo of the black police officer.

  Her intellect told her that she was taking risks. An internet connection could be checked, even the café where she was now, but she did not care.

  She knew that one day all those mad people who saw her as crazy would put her in prison, but it was them, not her, who deserved to be in prison. If they were going to catch her, and she knew they would, then she would lead them on a merry chase first.

  She would make the black police officer pay. They said his name was Isaac Cook: she would remember that name. And there, yet again, was that woman, that Sara Stanforth, although now they were reporting her as Sara Marshall. The woman had a husband; what joy to put a knife into him, to watch her suffer.

  Maybe she would kill them both. The thought made her smile and then to laugh. The owner of the internet café, a small man with a strong accent, looked at her as she laughed. His interest waned after ten seconds, and he went back to the comic that he had been reading.

  He had a motley collection of patrons coming into his café, paying five pounds for a coffee and thirty minutes’ free internet, even though the connection was slow. Not that it seemed to concern the woman, a short-haired brunette, her face partially concealed by a large scarf.

  If he had looked, he would have noticed that she was attractive, but he was not a man who cared about anything very much. As long as they paid, what did he care? They could be talking to a girlfriend, even indulging in phone sex, learning how to make a bomb, booking accommodation. He only wanted their money, and at five pounds for each patron, he would have enough to make a trip back to India that year.

  ‘Five minutes,’ he said.

  ‘Fine,’ the reply.

  Charlotte Hamilton loaded up some more photos, checked her emails, and pressed enter. The pictures loaded slowly. She wondered what would happen when they went live around the world. Would her parents be shocked? Would Dr Lake? And what about Detective Chief Inspector Isaac Cook? Would he be shocked as well, or would he take them in his stride? She thought he would, but she needed to know. She knew that she needed to meet him.

  ***

  Wendy Gladstone knocked on the door of the house next to Dennis Goldman’s apartment. A young woman in her twenties answered the door.

  ‘Are you aware of what has happened next door?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘I’ve just woken up; must have slept for two days.’

  ‘Why?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Just lazy, I suppose.’ It did not seem a good enough answer to Wendy.

  The woman moved uneasily on her feet. As she lurched forward, Wendy grabbed hold of her and eased her into the house. Dennis Goldman’s apartment had been an upmarket conversion of an impressive terrace house. The young woman’s house was in its original state.

  ‘Your house?’ Wendy asked as the woman revived.

  ‘My parents. They’re loaded.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I’m just the spoilt kid of the house.’

  ‘Are you proud of that?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘I’m not bothered either way. I have a good time, plenty of friends, plenty of money. Why work?’

  Wendy could have given the woman a lecture about her responsibilities, but she knew it would be wasted, and besides, she was investigating the death of Dennis Goldman.

  ‘Do you know Dennis Goldman?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘He’s a friend. We go out drinking together sometimes.’

  ‘I am sorry to inform you that he has been killed.’

  The young woman, attractive if she made an effort, put her face in her hands and cried. ‘How?’ she asked.

  ‘He has been murdered.’

  ‘I saw him on Friday. He asked me out for a drink at the Duke of York on Dering Street.’

  The woman said her name was Amanda Brocklehurst. To Wendy, who had grown up in Yorkshire on a farm and who had worked hard all her life, Miss Brocklehurst represented the very worst of people. She was, Wendy thought, one of the Sloane Rangers, if that term was used still, who milled around Sloane Square in Chelsea flaunting their wealth, their titles, their wealthy parents, and their willingness not to work. Still, Wendy assumed they kept the local shopkeepers happy with their gold and platinum credit cards.

  ‘Did he go there often?’

  ‘All the time. So did I, especially if Dennis was there.’

  ‘You fancied him?’ Wendy asked. Sara Marshall had told her that he had been a good-looking man.

  ‘Are you sure he’s dead?’ Amanda Brocklehurst was wilting again. With no one else in the house to look after her, Wendy opened a drinks cabinet in the main room, took a bottle of soda water, poured its contents into a glass and gave it to the young woman. She gulped it down in one go. Wendy had seen a bottle of brandy, the traditional pick-me-up, but did not give it to the woman. It was clear that she was suffering the effects of too much alcohol the previous night.

  ‘I’ve got a thumping head,’ Amanda said.

  ‘Your fault.’

  ‘You’re not my mother.’

  For that Wendy was thankful. Her sons had come home drunk on a few too many occasions. Her solution with them was a berating at the door on entry, not that it did much good, although the cold shoulder for a few days, and her unwillingness to provide them with three meals a day, did.

  ‘Last night Dennis Goldman brought a woman back with him.’

  ‘That’s Dennis.’

  ‘Ladies’ man?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘He always had someone over for the night.’

  ‘Even you?’

  ‘We had an arrangement.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘If he was lonely, or I was, then we would get together.’

  ‘Sleep together?’

  ‘Just friends, but yes, we would have sex. Not a crime. People do it all the time.’

  Wendy could see that the rich and spoilt Amanda Brocklehurst did it all the time and that she had little worth, other than that she was young and attractive. ‘Duke of York. Would he have picked the woman up there?’

  ‘Dennis’s favourite place for pickups,’ Amanda replied.

  Chapter 17

  ‘Dering Street,’ Wendy said to Larry as they stood in the street outside Goldman’s apartment. The team of door-to-doors were slowly working their way up and down the street.

  ‘Good looker,’ Larry said. He had seen the young woman from a distance.

  ‘Waste of space,’ was Wendy’s reply.

  The Duke of York had been rebuilt in the nineteenth century, and apparently named after the Grand Old Duke of York who had marched his troops up a hill in France. Wendy remembered the nursery rhyme from childhood; Larry did not.

  It was located in St George Hanover Square and was one of the trendy pubs in a trendy part of London.

  ‘Do you know a Dennis Goldman?’ Larry asked the woman serving behind the bar. It was still early and the end-of-day crowd had not arrived.

  ‘I’m only new,’ the woman replied with an Australian acce
nt.

  Another backpacker working for cash and less than the minimum wage, Wendy thought.

  ‘Is the manager here?’

  The cash-in-hand wandered off. Two minutes later, a middle-aged man, red in the face, appeared.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he asked.

  ‘Detective Inspector Hill, Detective Sergeant Wendy Gladstone. We have a few questions.’

  ‘Fancy a drink? On the house.’

  Larry was tempted to ask for a beer but did not. ‘Orange juice for me,’ he said.

  ‘The same for me,’ Wendy replied.

  The landlord pulled himself a beer. ‘I need to check it anyway. Just changed the barrel.’

  ‘Dennis Goldman.’

  ‘Comes in here several times a week.’

  ‘Friday night,’ Larry asked.

  ‘He walked out of here with a woman.’

  ‘Tell us about the woman,’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Attractive, red hair, short skirt, tight top. Not much else to tell.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘She was giving him the right signals. Coming in close, draping her arm around him. We could see that he was on to a sure thing.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Those behind the bar.’

  ‘Had you seen the woman before?’

  ‘Never. Anyway, what’s this all about?’

  ‘Dennis Goldman was killed between the hours of 10 p.m. on Friday night and 2 a.m. on Saturday morning.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Upsets you?’

  ‘It’s not something you expect to hear. How did he die?’

  ‘We’re from Homicide,’ Larry said.

  ‘Do you mean he was murdered?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the woman?’

  ‘She’s our prime suspect.’

  ‘We’ve got cameras in here,’ the landlord said.

  ***

  On the northern outskirts of the city, the woman slept peacefully, or at least as peacefully as could be expected with the heavy traffic outside her window. She dreamt of happy times and happy thoughts interspersed with dark places and dark thoughts. She rolled in her bed, one arm hanging down. The bed, she had known when she agreed to take the room, was old and flea-bitten. She imagined how many sweaty bodies had lain on it, how many fornicating couples had tested its springs, how many murderers had used it.

  Charlotte knew the answer to the last question: one.

  She moved between rational and despair, anger and melancholy, sweet dreams and nightmares, although the nightmares were becoming more frequent. She wanted to be like everyone else, but they were mad, she was not.

  She woke up, the banging at the door disturbing her. ‘You owe me for the next month,’ the voice said. She had heard the voice before, but she was not sure where.

  The door opened, and an old man in his eighties and wearing an old crumpled shirt and a pair of shorts entered. On his feet he wore a pair of slippers.

  ‘The rent,’ he said.

  She would have paid him, but she had no money. The money she had saved over the years, including some that she had stolen from the men she had killed, was not sufficient. If the man had been younger, she would have given herself to him; it would not be the first time that she had exchanged sexual favours for financial independence.

  ‘No rent, no stay. You know the rules.’

  She knew the rules, although he did not. Upset her and her vengeance was absolute, no exceptions.

  ‘I don’t have any money.’

  ‘Not my problem.’ The man spoke poor English, in spite of having arrived in the country from Eastern Europe thirteen years previously. His country of birth had joined the European Community, and he left it for England and its welfare system. The house he rented, and then sublet, was his only means of income once he had exhausted his adopted country’s generosity. When he had arrived in the country, he had had a wife and a family, but they were gone. To him, they were worthless. The accommodation he provided was not legal and did not satisfy any government regulations. There were no insurance policies, no fire prevention systems, no regular pest inspections. Just a bed and a wash basin; the bathroom was at the end of the hall.

  ‘We could exchange,’ she said.

  ‘What with?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  The old man looked at the woman. He could see that she was young and nubile, not old and haggard as his wife had been. ‘Ten years ago, we could have made a deal.’

  ‘You’re not too old,’ she said. There had been some who had visited her when she was with Mavis Williams who must have been older than the man standing in front of her. Some were able to maintain an erection long enough, most weren’t, and the man demanding money appeared to be one of the latter. She could not think of a more disagreeable prospect than seducing this man, but if it was necessary...

  She had been there for three months, in that horrible room in that horrible house, and no one had suspected who she was. It was the safest place in London, and she wanted to stay.

  ‘Thirty minutes and you’re out of here,’ he said. ‘Tight arse or no tight arse.’

  She knew that she could leave, but he stood in her way. ‘We can at least part as friends,’ she said.

  ‘It’s purely business.’

  ‘I understand.’

  The rent collector came and sat on the edge of her bed. She gave him a beer to drink. He opened it and gulped it down. He smelt of rotting fish and sweat. He did not see the knife in her hand, although he felt it enter his chest. He collapsed on the bed. The woman then moved his legs parallel with the length of the bed. Thorough, as always, she slit his throat, careful to stand clear. The shower at the end of the hall was dirty and cold; this time she would forsake the cleanliness. Not wishing to bloody her hands, she took a toothbrush and rubbed it in the blood coming from his throat. One wall in that dingy bedroom was not as dirty as the others. She wrote a number with the toothbrush. It took her five minutes to complete to her satisfaction. Packing her case, she left the room and the house. On the way, she checked the landlord’s room. She found nearly ten thousand pounds in cash hidden under his mattress. Now Charlotte had the rent money, but no one to pay it to.

  She headed to the railway station: unfinished business.

  ***

  Sara Marshall and Sean O’Riordan headed back to Twickenham to review the events three years before. Isaac headed back to Challis Street from Dennis Goldman’s apartment; he knew what was coming.

  Not only was he a reluctant celebrity courtesy of Charlotte Hamilton, but he was also a detective chief inspector who had let two murders occur. Graham Dyer was unforeseen, but Dennis Goldman was not. The celebrity of the woman was well known and would have formed the basis of many pub conversations, especially that she would thrust the knife in mid-coitus. The thought of it made Isaac squirm.

  Yet an attractive female and Dennis Goldman had been swayed, and almost certainly never gave any thought to the possibility that the woman coming on too easily to him was anything other than a woman with easy virtues. The landlord at the Duke of York had sensed something was amiss, Wendy said, but Isaac did not believe his statement.

  Isaac knew that hindsight was all very well, but the landlord, the same as every other man, even he, would have taken Charlotte Hamilton. Isaac knew that he had made mistakes in the past: bedding Linda Harris while pursuing a relationship with Jess O’Neill was the biggest mistake so far, but then Sue Smith had made a dent in his heart, and now she was overseas. He was soon to be forty, and he knew that a man needs someone in his life. He could see himself as a lifelong bachelor; the idea did not appeal.

  Wendy disturbed Isaac’s thoughts. ‘Sir, we still need to find this woman.’

  ‘How can she disappear so easily.’

  ‘She’s a Barbie Doll.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The woman has no distinctive features, no moles on her face, no rear end that’s too large or breasts that pro
trude. She’s the generic young English Rose. Careful makeup, change of clothes, change of hair colour, and she is transformed.’

  ‘You’re right, of course. What about the Duke of York? How did you and Larry go?’

  ‘The pub had cameras. Bridget’s had a look at the videos.’

  ‘Charlotte Hamilton?’

  ‘Unless you know it’s her, you’d not pick her. How about Gordon Windsor? Is he confirming that it was Charlotte Hamilton?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘It’s her. How many is that now?’

  ‘According to her count, it’s six.’

  ‘Isaac, what the hell is going on?’ a voice bellowed. Wendy made herself scarce and went to talk to Larry.

  ‘She’s killed again.’

  ‘I know that,’ DCS Goddard said. ‘Not only does she broadcast it in advance, as well as some pictures of you, we now have another body.’

  ‘He should have checked before taking her to his house,’ Isaac said by way of a lame excuse.

  ‘Would you?’ The DCS knew his DCI well enough to know the answer to that question. ‘And now there is a damn press conference. I expect you to put up a good defence. The department’s looking very shabby at the present moment, and the commissioner is breathing down my neck. I’ve spent enough time sweet talking that man; I don’t want to blow it with your incompetence.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ Isaac said.

  ‘I know it’s not fair, but you need reminding. Whatever happens, you’re carrying the can for this.’

  ‘I won’t let you down, sir.’

  ‘Isaac, you’re the best I’ve got. I cannot afford to lose you, but how many more deaths? The woman’s identity is known. Her fingerprints, her DNA are on record. We have photos of her, and then we have her website. I’m trying to get it blocked, but it’s not so easy.’

  ‘She will only change the server again. Over one hundred thousand followers now, and they can all find her website easily enough.’

  ‘Misguided fools?’ Goddard asked.

  ‘Only a few would be as mental as Charlotte Hamilton.’

  ‘Only!’

  ‘So far, there has been one copycat killer in the UK, two or three in the USA.’