The Night Stalker: A chilling serial killer thriller (Detective Erika Foster Book 2)

by Robert Bryndza

  ‘If you need extra officers, that’s not a problem. Just do it,’ said Erika.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said the officer.

  Erika and Moss signed in, ducked under the tape and made their way over to the house.

  Erika and Moss were met by a uniformed officer, who took them inside. The temperature in the hallway was cooler. It was tastefully decorated, with a large gilt mirror on the wall and a cream carpet leading up a set of stairs with dark polished wood bannisters. They followed the officer up the stairs, reaching a long landing where the cream carpet continued. The house was eerily silent. Erika realised it must be well insulated to block out the sounds of chaos from the street outside. The master bedroom was at the end of the landing. Sunlight streamed through the open door and particles of dust twirled lazily in the air.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Moss when they rounded the bedroom door. The victim’s naked body was splayed out on the mattress. He looked tall, with pale skin that was smooth and almost hairless. He lay on his back with a plastic bag over his head, tied tightly around his neck. His mouth was open and so was one eye, the lid squashed against the plastic. The other eye was badly bruised, so that it had swollen shut. His lips were pulled back, as if he were baring his teeth.

  ‘Who found the body?’ asked Erika.

  ‘A producer on his show,’ explained the officer. ‘She climbed up and smashed the window behind you to get inside.’

  They turned and saw a large window, which looked out over the garden. There was a hole in the glass, surrounded by a spider web of cracks. The cream carpet under the frame was littered with broken glass.

  ‘So she’s confirmed this is Jack Hart?’ asked Erika.

  ‘Yeah,’ nodded the officer.

  ‘I thought his show was live every weekday? Today is Friday,’ said Moss.

  They pondered that for a moment.

  ‘Okay. We need to get forensics in here fast,’ said Erika reaching for her phone.

  Isaac Strong and the team of CSIs arrived quickly and started work in their blue coveralls. A couple of hours later, Erika and Moss came back to the upstairs bedroom also wearing blue coveralls. A row of steel boxes had been placed around the bed to elevate the officers from contaminating any evidence.

  ‘Okay, Isaac. Do you think this is the same killer as Gregory Munro? There’s a plastic bag, he’s naked, a single male,’ started Erika.

  ‘Let’s hold off on that assumption for a moment,’ said Isaac, looking up at her and Moss from the other side of the double bed. A crime scene photographer leaned in between them and took a shot of the body. ‘He’s been dead for less than twenty-four hours. We can still see evidence of rigor mortis in the clenched hands, and the mouth and eyes. The house is east-facing and this room, in particular, benefits from shade throughout the day, so the temperature has facilitated a relatively textbook decay. And he was photographed arriving home late last night, so it’s more common sense than science. The plastic bag was tied under the chin…’ Isaac indicated where the drawstring had been tied tight and was biting into the skin. ‘There may have been a struggle; the left eye is badly bruised from a blow with a blunt object, perhaps a hand or a fist. There was an empty bottle of beer on the bedside table, which we’ve got going off for toxicology tests. Again, there is little sign of a struggle around the bed and in the room; it was all very neat and tidy. The victim could have been incapacitated… overwhelmed by whoever did this. There is no sign of sexual assault. As I always say, I’ll know more when I open him up.’

  ‘What’s this, on the sheet?’ asked Erika, pointing to a white-grey residue which covered the dark blue bed sheet next to the body. She crouched down and peered under the bed. There were a couple of discarded socks, and a thick layer of dust that had been disturbed.

  ‘Dust,’ she said, answering her own question. ‘It’s been disturbed under the bed and brought up onto the mattress.’

  ‘Jeez, someone was under the bed,’ said Moss. The crime scene photographer leaned in to take a close up of the victim’s body, firing off bright flashes. Suddenly, a flash of light came from behind them. Erika turned and saw a man crouching on the piece of flat roof outside the bedroom window. He was thin, with his hair shorn into a bright blue mohawk. He pushed his camera lens through the hole in the glass and fired off two more photos.

  ‘Hey!’ shouted Erika, pulling down her protective mask. She went to the window, but the man, who was dressed in denim shorts and a black AC/DC T-shirt, ducked down and took another couple of shots between her legs. He moved quickly to the edge of the flat roof and, with a tinkle of broken glass, started to climb down, clinging onto a wisteria growing in thick tangles around a gutter pipe.

  ‘Shit, who is that?’ said Erika.

  ‘Looks like paparazzi,’ said Moss.

  They peered out of the window as the man reached the lawn below. There were no officers in the back garden. Erika looked at Moss and they darted out of the room.

  31

  Erika and Moss ran to the main staircase, narrowly avoiding a collision with a crime scene technician holding a delicate tray of bagged-up evidence items. They dashed down the stairs and into the open-plan living area. They moved to the glass floor-to-ceiling window which looked out over the back garden, and Erika tried to get it open. The photographer with the blue mohawk was heading towards the fence on the right side of the garden

  ‘I need these open!’ shouted Erika, unable to make out anyone’s face as the blue-suited technicians looked up at them, only their curious eyes on display.

  ‘Boss, here!’ shouted Moss, emerging back through a door next to a steel American-style fridge. Erika followed. The door led to a utility room filled with a large washer and dryer. A long window looked out over the neatly landscaped garden, but there was no sign of the photographer. Moss tried the handle of a sturdy wooden door.

  ‘It’s locked! And there’s no bloody key!’ she cried. They looked out of the window into the garden and saw that the photographer was already half over the fence. Above the washer and dryer were shelves holding cleaning products. Erika spied a heavy metal key on the bottom shelf. She grabbed it and quickly tried it in the lock. The door opened and they burst out into the garden. Erika sprinted to the right, seized the top of the wooden fence and hauled herself over, closely followed by Moss. She landed on the burnt grass on the other side and grappled for her radio as she ran across the garden.

  ‘He’ll come out on Dunham Road,’ shouted Moss from behind.

  ‘We have a suspect coming out of a garden which borders Dunham Road, Dulwich. I need back-up there now.’ Erika reached the opposite side of the second garden and pulled herself up and over the wall, landing easily on the other side. She could see the photographer was still ahead, his blue mohawk vanishing over the next fence. I cannot let this guy get away with photos of the crime scene – they could be uploaded online within minutes, thought Erika.

  She dashed across the next garden, skirting round a plastic swing, and vaulted the fence, landing painfully up to her knees in a pond with a splash.

  ‘Hey, you’re trespassing! Those are koi carp!’ shouted a young woman in a short summer dress and sunglasses who emerged onto a terrace.

  ‘I’m a police officer!’ shouted Erika, sloshing up out of the pond and over to the next fence. She saw she’d gained on the photographer: he’d reached the fence at the edge of the next garden and was hooking his leg over the top.

  ‘Stop that man!’ cried Erika, and even though it was a valid thing to say, it sounded ridiculous. She turned and saw Moss flop over the fence behind her and land headfirst into the pond with a large splash. The woman on the terrace was now shouting even louder.

  The heat was pounding down, and Erika was exhausted and overheating in all her clothes, with the crime scene overalls on top. Moss emerged from the water with pond weed in her hair.

  “I’m okay, boss. GO!’ she shouted. Erika carried on, climbing up and over the next fence, feeling splinters push through her overalls
and clothes into the back of her legs. She saw that the photographer had come to the edge of the last garden, which was lined with a high wall of pale brick.

  ‘Stop right there!’ she shouted.

  The photographer looked round at her with a red face, his blue mohawk still jutting up like a fin. He hitched the camera over his shoulder, gave her the finger and jumped, grabbing the top of the wall, and hoisting himself up.

  Erika ran across the bare, dusty earth of the last garden, through a group of cracked, lichen-covered birdbaths. The photographer slipped back a little, trying to scale the top of the wall, and Erika managed to grab at one of his legs. He kicked out, catching her in the face, and although he was only wearing trainers, the pain shot through her cheek where he made contact. She grabbed at his leg and managed to get one of his trainers off, but he slithered out of her grasp and away, over the curved top of the wall. She heard a thud and a yell as he landed on the other side.

  Erika pulled herself up the wall easily, glad of her height. As she straddled the top of the wall, she saw the pavement was lower on the other side. With only one shoe, the photographer had landed badly on his bare foot. He was fumbling with his camera and trying to stagger away. Erika leapt down. Landing easily on the pavement, she was able to move faster and grab him. He fought her, trying to get away.

  ‘No… ou... on’t…’ she heaved, breathlessly. Moments later, Moss appeared at the top of the wall, slithered down, landed on the pavement and dashed over. She managed to pin the photographer’s hands behind his back and cuff him as Erika kept hold.

  ‘Fucking bitches!’ he shouted.

  ‘You need to calm down,’ said Erika.

  ‘Why? Are you arresting me?’

  ‘We’re detaining you,’ said Moss.

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘On the grounds that you didn’t stop, you fled the scene when all we wanted to do was talk to you. You kicked my colleague in the face,’ said Moss.

  ‘It ain’t illegal to take photographs!’ he said, trying to shake them off.

  ‘That was a crime scene,’ said Erika.

  ‘Well, it ain’t illegal to photograph a crime scene either!’

  ‘Yes, but I am seizing your camera as evidence. It may contain information helpful to our case,’ said Erika, trying to catch her breath. She had never seen Moss so angry. Her hair and overalls were soaking wet and she was sweating. Erika grabbed at the camera, which was still looped over the photographer’s shoulder on a strap. She opened the flap at the side and peered inside.

  ‘Where’s the memory card?’ she demanded.

  ‘Dunno.’ The photographer stared at her defiantly with his small beady eyes.

  ‘Where is the memory card? Did you dump it? Because we can have those gardens searched,’ said Moss.

  He smirked and shrugged. ‘You won’t find it.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  He shrugged.

  Erika reached between his cuffed hands, pulling his wallet from his back pocket. She opened it and pulled out his driving licence, reading: ‘Mark Rooney, age thirty-nine. Who do you work for?’

  ‘I’m freelance.’

  ‘Why were you taking photos?’

  ‘That’s a stupid question. It’s Jack Hart. I didn’t know he was dead, did I?’

  ‘How do we know that you weren’t responsible? It hasn’t been made public. There has been no formal identification.’

  ‘I told you, I didn’t know he would be dead. He was fine last night.’

  ‘You were here last night? Why?’ asked Erika.

  ‘He’s all over the press since that girl killed herself.’

  ‘What did you photograph last night?’

  ‘Him coming home in a cab, then I got some shots of him in his bedroom.’

  ‘What time was this last night?’ asked Moss.

  ‘Dunno. Twelve-thirty, one?’

  ‘And did you stay all night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I got a tip-off. One of the Kardashians is in London, I heard she was staying out late on the lash. Kardashian pictures are worth a lot more than Jack Hart…’

  ‘Okay, we’ve all had a nice chat. Now I need you to hand over that memory card,’ said Erika.

  ‘I told you, I haven’t got it!’

  ‘You had it five minutes ago.’

  He smirked. ‘Oh. I must have forgotten to put it in my camera. It happens. Memory cards are fiddly little things. Actually, now I think of it, yes, it slipped my mind. I forgot to put it in.’

  ‘You know what, I’m sick of this,’ said Moss. She let go of the photographer’s handcuffed arms, unzipped her overalls and retrieved a latex glove from her trousers. She rolled up the sleeve of the overalls and pulled on the glove. With her free hand, she grabbed Mark’s blue mohawk and pulled his head back.

  ‘Hey! What are you doing? Ow!’ he cried. Moss shoved two gloved fingers in his mouth and deep to the back of his throat. He collapsed forward and threw up over the pavement. Erika and Moss managed to jump back a little.

  ‘The things we have to do,’ said Moss, as he coughed, gagged and spat. Erika spun him around to face the wall.

  ‘Just as I thought. You swallowed it, you cheeky bastard,’ said Moss as she retrieved a small, black, dripping memory card from a pile of puke on the pavement, and gingerly bagged it up in a clear evidence bag. ‘Better out than in, as my mother always used to say.’

  ‘You bitch! I’ll sue for police brutality,’ shouted Mark, slumped against the wall, still coughing.

  ‘Don’t be a baby, I used a clean glove,’ said Moss, pulling it off and dumping it in a nearby litter bin. A police car rounded the corner with its sirens blaring and came to a stop beside them at the kerb.

  ‘About bloody time,’ said Erika, as the same two uniformed officers from the police cordon climbed out of the car.

  ‘Sorry, boss, there’s a one-way system we hadn’t anticipated,’ started one.

  ‘They assaulted me, police brutality!’ shouted Mark.

  ‘Take him to the nearest train station and drop him off,’ said Erika.

  The officers pushed him into the car and they drove off, leaving Moss and Erika still panting and out of breath.

  ‘Good work,’ said Erika, taking the evidence bag with the grubby memory card and holding it up to the light.

  ‘Did I go too far? Sticking my fingers down his gullet?’ asked Moss.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Erika. ‘Now come on, let’s get back to the house.’

  32

  The crowds had built at the top of the road when Erika and Moss returned to the crime scene. They could see that news crews from the BBC and ITN had joined the Sky News van. They were met by the crime scene manager, Nils Åckerman, who gave them fresh blue overalls to change into.

  ‘The phone lines have been severed, just like they were at the Laurel Road crime scene,’ he said, as Erika and Moss got changed.

  ‘It’s the same killer, it’s got to be,’ said Moss, as she zipped up the blue overall and pulled up the hood. Erika zipped her suit up, silent for a moment. They handed their soaked and muddy suits over to a technician, who placed them into an evidence bag.

  ‘I need you to see what you can get off this,’ said Erika, handing Nils the smaller clear plastic evidence bag containing the memory card. ‘It had been swallowed, but not for long.’

  ‘Shouldn’t be a problem,’ he said, taking the bag. ‘But first, I need you to see something.’

  They followed him back inside and down the cream carpeted hallway, still busy with CSIs in blue overalls, through the open-plan living area and into the utility room that overlooked the back garden. The door was open. They stepped back out into the sunshine. In the distance, a lawnmower whirred.

  ‘We’ve checked all of the windows in the house. They are a mixture of UPVC plastic and triple glazing that is very hard to access unless you break them. They are all locked from the inside,
apart from the bedroom window, which was smashed by the colleague of Jack Hart when she discovered his body,’ said Nils. Erika and Moss followed his gaze, looking up at the broken window at the back of the house. ‘There are no prints or any other signs of forced entry.’

  ‘What about the front door?’ asked Erika.

  ‘Locked from the inside with a Yale lock and a dead bolt,’ replied Nils. ‘Which leaves this, the utility room door, which I believe was the point of entry.’

  The door was made of stout wood, and painted with deep blue gloss. The handle was of heavy iron, and the sturdy metal key Erika had found on the shelf was in the lock on the inside.

  ‘It was locked. I had to unlock it when we chased after the photographer,’ said Erika.

  ‘I’ll get to that in a moment,’ said Nils. He pushed the door closed. ‘If you look very closely here on the outside, there’s a tiny strip of wood at the bottom which has an older coat of paint.’ They crouched down on the grass outside the door and noted the centimetre of pale green running along the bottom of the door frame.

  ‘A draught-excluding strip had been stuck on with adhesive when the door was green. The draught-excluding strip had recently been removed; we found it behind the washer and the dryer,’ said Nils, opening the door and stepping back into the utility room to retrieve a long, thin strip of rubber from the top of the washing machine. He placed it over the green strip at the bottom of the door and then took it away again. ‘Can you see where it’s been peeled away from the base? It leaves a quarter-inch gap under the door.’

  Erika looked at Moss.

  ‘That doesn’t explain how he got in, unless he’s Flat Stanley,’ said Moss.

  ‘I’ll show you,’ said Nils. He motioned to one of the fingerprint technicians, who came through from the kitchen with a long piece of wire and a sheet of newspaper. He then closed the door and locked it, leaving them outside in the garden. Nils knelt down, unfolded the double sheet of newspaper and slid it through the quarter-inch gap under the door. He then took the wire, slotted it through the keyhole, and gently pushed and twisted the wire. Erika and Moss watched through the window and saw the key shift, pop out of the lock and land with a clink on the newspaper below. Nils then carefully slid the newspaper out from under the door, bringing the key with it, which he inserted into the lock and opened the door.