Black Heart: A totally gripping serial-killer thriller

by Anna-Lou Weatherley

  ‘Do you have a key to Danni-Jo’s apartment?’

  Simon shakes his head.

  ‘The estate agent with the Japanese student, do you know which company he was from?’

  He rubs his head, thinking hard. ‘He left a card, a business card.’

  My phone rings. It’s Harding again.

  ‘Boss, something of interest’s come up…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘There’s a log on the system – seems like our victim reported a crime a couple of weeks back—’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah, apparently she claims… claimed, someone had killed her cat… reckoned it was the ex-husband.’

  I ask Harding if they’ve located the ex and she says they’re bringing him in now.

  ‘What happened to the cat?’ I ask.

  She pauses for a second. ‘According to the incident log, it was poisoned.’

  Chapter Forty- One

  Her fake references have checked out. One from a reputable UK nanny agency, one from Australia, postmarked and everything. The internet. As good as it is evil. Magenta had muttered something about running a CRB check on her, but clearly hadn’t gotten around to it yet, too preoccupied with finding a replacement cash cow by the looks of it. The ‘official’ references from the ‘official’ nanny agency and the glowing report from the Aussies seemed to more than suffice for now at least. Plus, by the time that selfish irresponsible bitch ever did get around to it, the job would be complete and she’d be long gone.

  ‘He’s so gorgeous,’ she says, ‘can I pick him up?’

  ‘Of course,’ the woman says brightly, smoothing her hands down her expensive trousers. ‘Rachel meet George, George meet Rachel’ She hands her the baby, almost offloading him. He feels soft, cool, perfect in her arms, his legs kicking and pulling up in responsive touch, uncoordinated, jerky like an octopus. George smells so good, like a fresh hopeful morning.

  Baby Bear.

  ‘Ahh, he likes you,’ the woman says turning away, probably thinking about the facial she’s got booked later, already finding fault with the treatment and the therapist who’ll give it. Nothing will ever be good enough for Magenta. Magenta. The name says it all. She holds him in her arms and coos over him naturally. So beautiful, so helpless and reliable, so real and vulnerable. Babies need. It’s all they do. Need feeding, need a nappy change, need holding, need cuddles, need love. Need, need, need. But really they’re no different to adults. Adults have had to learn that wailing and whining and crying will not bring you these comforts. That no matter how much you cry, no one will come. No one ever comes.

  ‘George has an afternoon nap around 3 p.m., but only for an hour or so, then he has to be woken, or else he won’t sleep at night… He’s not the best sleeper, light, like his father.’ She snorts. ‘Although he never had difficulty in finding a bed if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Is George’s father away on business?’

  Magenta raises her perfectly shaped eyebrows.

  ‘You could say that,’ she smirks, ‘he’s away anyway,’ she says, adding dryly, ‘he likes to keep himself busy.’

  Rachel’s careful not to press any further.

  ‘I suggest we have a trial week, see how you and George bond, see if you like one another. I’m planning a trip away in a couple of weeks, so if all goes well I can leave George in your capable hands.’

  Rachel smiles. Pleased. She senses that Mr Magenta has left his wife in the lurch somewhere along the line and the idea of full-time single motherhood has rapidly lost its glossy sheen. Magenta has money though; this much is obvious by the quality of her home furnishings – and the fact she clearly doesn’t work yet can still afford to employ a nanny. Daily Mail fodder. She talks about hours, wages, time off, notice periods, George’s sleeping and eating patterns, how he can’t be without his squidgy giraffe, how the Bugaboo stroller is a bitch to dismantle, how she’ll only use organic products on his perfect baby skin and how she must follow the Annabel Karmel recipes for his puree to the letter. George is fascinated by TV apparently, but she’d rather he listened to classical music and she’s bought him some Baby Mozart instead. There’s a local drop-in group on a Thursday she’d like them to attend; it’s £50 a pop but the babies get to sit in a circle and watch a menopausal, childless woman with a sock puppet and a tambourine sing and help them learn through play. He also has sign-language lessons on Tuesday mornings, despite the fact George cannot yet speak. Magenta wants to know if she speaks Spanish, or if she’s prepared to learn quickly so that she can speak to George in another language.

  Rachel nods and tells her she knows some German, that her father’s parents were from Berlin. Magenta looks thrilled and says ‘perfect’.

  She wonders if perhaps she should kill her instead? Either way, she feels she would be doing her a favour.

  ‘Are you single?’ Magenta asks her boldly.

  ‘Yes,’ Rachel replies, ‘not looking.’ This is the correct answer, she knows.

  ‘No plans to marry, have babies, travel?’

  ‘None.’ She thinks about Daniel again.

  George is still wriggling in her arms; he’s a beautiful baby. She feels his strong life force, his chubby, milky-skinned face observing her as he exerts his strength. Babies are much more robust than they look; people treat them as if they might easily break, like china dolls. But she knows differently…

  ‘He smiled!’ Magenta jumps up, ‘Gosh, he rarely smiles!’

  Rachel refrains from making a caustic remark like, no shit, with a cunt of a selfish mother like you, or something. She smiles back at him, then at Magenta.

  ‘I think he likes you.’

  ‘Perfect,’ she says.

  Magenta smiles brightly. ‘Okay Rachel, when can you start?’

  Chapter Forty-Two

  I’m back at the station and Ken Woods collars me for an update. He’s looking pensive as I sit opposite him; it’s a familiar look yet it still unsettles me. He’s getting pressure from the top, I can tell. It’s a domino effect in this game: his boss leans on him for results, he leans on me, and I lean on the team. Tic-tac-toe.

  ‘We’ve got a serial killer on our hands, Dan,’ he says, like I haven’t deduced this very fact for myself already. ‘The same MO by all accounts… Verralis is doing his nut. Says we can’t afford any bad press and that he wants this tied up fast.’ Verralis is the boss’s boss. The Chief Commander. A man so beholden to the hard work of others to maintain his good reputation that he’s forgotten what it’s like on the ground.

  ‘Any news on this missing Joanne Harper?’ Ken shuffles some papers on his desk and looks at me over the rim of his glasses.

  ‘It’s Rebecca Harper, Sir,’ I correct him, ‘and no positive ID yet. The security guard who found Karen, he’s provided us with CCTV footage, so we’ll go through it and then put an APB out on her, bring her in. I suspect she’s not gone far. The estate agent says she told him she was putting some stuff into storage while she was away on business.’

  ‘Good, well, find the lock-up place and see what that turns up. Bloody hell – if this is our woman she could be sunning herself in the Costa del Sol by now.’

  I shake my head. ‘My intuition tells me she isn’t.’

  Woods snorts. ‘It’s not that I don’t trust your hunches, Dan, it’s just that… well, we can’t afford not to cover our backsides.’

  I feel annoyed. Deflated. Clearly this isn’t about the victims; it’s about not looking bad in the press; it’s about how we’re perceived in the eyes of those who matter, or who Woods’ believes matter.

  He sighs. ‘Anyway, your intuition—’

  ‘Yes, Sir. My intuition tells me she hasn’t finished yet.’

  ‘Finished? Finished what, murdering people? Yeah, well it’s our job to make sure she has, that she bloody well does finish.’

  ‘She hasn’t completed the story yet.’

  Woods looks at me like I’ve just fallen from the sky, an expression that shouldn’t but
does give me a tiny slither of pleasure.

  ‘Care to elaborate, Riley?’

  ‘Goldilocks,’ I explain. ‘Goldilocks and the three bears: Baxter was Daddy Bear, Karen Walker was Mummy Bear and so—’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Riley.’ Woods is staring at me with a grave expression that might make me want to laugh were the situation not so dire. For such a serious man he has a rather comic face, rubbery like a Spitting Image puppet, almost a caricature. He gets up from his chair, an indication of the seriousness of the matter. Woods’ desk is like a shield to him; away from it he appears far less threatening and important, something I think even he is aware of.

  ‘The press will go berserk.’

  I tip my head sideways. No doubt. ‘Once the results of the post-mortem and forensics come back, I’ll release the news to the public – and Rebecca’s photo once we get it. It’s in our benefit. Someone will know where she is or will have seen her. Someone will come forward. And if she’s nothing to hide she’ll come forward herself.’

  ‘We need to act quickly, Riley.’

  ‘The team have alerted local schools and nurseries – it’s the best we can do right now.’

  Woods rubs his forehead. ‘You think she’s acting out the fantasy of a nursery rhyme?’

  ‘Technically it’s a fairy tale,’ I correct him.

  ‘Nursery rhyme, fairy tale, it’s all the bloody same Riley,’ he barks. It’s worse than his bite though.

  ‘Goldilocks and the three bears… Daddy Bear, Mummy Bear and—’

  ‘Yes… yes… I know how the story goes,’ he snaps, ‘it’s the ending I’m worried about.’

  ‘She runs off into the woods, Sir,’ I say, facetiously, ‘the bears chase her away.’

  He affords me a humoured look. He’s alright really. Woods pretends he wants an easy life. But he chose the wrong profession for that and he knows it. He thrives off the drama, the pressure, without it he wouldn’t feel alive. He’s misrepresenting himself. That said, Woods feels like he’s done his time on the ground – and to be fair, he has – and now he just wants to see out the rest of his career on a high, on the back of the hard work of others. He’s earned that right really, just as I may do one day. But try as I might, I cannot imagine myself as a Woods character; part of an all-boys club, back-slapping each other over rounds of golf, even if I’ve earned the stripes. In that respect he’s a TV cliché. And I promised myself, and Rach, that I’d never become one of those.

  ‘So, is that it, Sir?’ I’m keen to get on. Work to do.

  ‘No, no it isn’t,’ he replies, but his tone is slightly softer which intrigues me. ‘Sit down will you, Dan?’

  I do as he says, sensing I have little option.

  Wood inhales deeply. ‘There’s been a complaint.’

  I blink at him. ‘A complaint?’

  ‘Yes… about you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I’ve had Craig Mathers’ father on the phone. Says you’ve been harassing his wife.’

  I visibly recoil. ‘That’s a lie, Sir. I’ve… I’ve not been anywhere near Mathers’ mother.’

  He’s silent for a moment. ‘I didn’t say Mathers’ mother, I said his wife.’

  I don’t follow.

  ‘You were seen Dan, parked outside their address. They wrote down your bloody reg number for God’s sake. Mathers’ parents divorced while he was inside. He’s remarried and the new wife saw you watching the house while she was out walking the dog, put the willies up her.’

  I inwardly smile. The Mathers’ marriage broke down. I’m glad. I hope the whole thing destroyed their lives like it has done mine, and of course, Rachel’s.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Why were you there, Dan?’

  He meets my eyes again but stays silent. He’s using my own trick on me to get me to talk.

  ‘I need closure, Sir. I need to look him in the eyes.’

  Woods raises his eyebrows. ‘And you think that’ll give you closure do you? Wasn’t the trial enough?’

  ‘I wanted, I want, to be straight with you, Sir. I need to see him.’

  I see Ken Woods almost change before my eyes then, his expression visibly softens. ‘Dan, do you really think it’s a good idea? Turning up on Mathers’ doorstep? You know it could be classed as harassment or intimidation.’

  ‘I don’t intend to harass him Sir. I just want to talk to him.’

  ‘And what if he doesn’t? Want to talk to you I mean? What then?’

  ‘I’m under no illusion, Sir. If he won’t see me he won’t see me. There’s nothing I can do about that.’

  Woods shakes his head.

  ‘I know you Dan Riley, you’re not the type of man who takes no for an answer, which is why you’re one of the best bloody coppers I’ve got.’

  This is the closest thing to a compliment I’ve ever heard from Woods and it blindsides me momentarily.

  ‘I appreciate that Sir, really. But this is something I have to do.’

  ‘Dan’, he uses my Christian name again, ‘it’s common knowledge, as clear as the credit-card bill my wife runs up each month, that you loved that girl and you’ve suffered greatly since her passing. People see it; they sense it, they feel it, it’s, it’s…’

  ‘It’s what?’ I ask. I thought I had done a good job of hiding my pain and I feel a bit put out. Have people been pitying me, whispering behind my back. ‘Look, there’s the one who lost his girlfriend in the motorbike accident and can’t get over it, poor bastard’? I’ve maintained my professionalism; I stayed in the job; I returned to work just three weeks after Rachel’s death, and I’ve got results since. They’ve fuck all to complain about.

  ‘It’s inked on you like a tattoo,’ Woods says, somewhat expressively, for him anyway. ‘Not a day goes by when you don’t talk about her to someone… the very fact that you’ve managed to get the results you have, the very fact you’ve delivered, it’s the only reason I haven’t signed you off because whatever therapy you’ve been having hasn’t worked.’

  I sit there, stunned. I let his words hang above us, try to absorb them. Pretend he’s not saying them and they’re not right. Is he right? I think of my dad and what he would undoubtedly say. Does it matter if he is son, unrepentant, remember?

  ‘So I’ve gotten the results and my pain can be overlooked,’ I say, ‘as a fair trade-off. I guess if I hadn’t had the results then my pain would count for fuck all and I’d be on leave, Sir?’

  Woods has the grace to wince. ‘You should know by now I don’t make the rules.’

  ‘And what if you did, Sir?’ I attempt to keep the sneer from my voice but fail.

  Woods gets up again. He comes round to my side of the desk and places his hands on it, in front of me. ‘Then I would say you’re the best copper I’ve got, maybe have ever had, on my team, and that I understand your pain, or want to, like it’s my own because whatever you might think of me, Daniel Riley, I’m nobody’s fool, and I haven’t got to where I have just to play fucking golf with a bunch of old conservative, smug, self-satisfied bastards.’

  Bloody hell, he can add mind reader to his list of skills then.

  He’s in my face now, and I imagine him as a younger DI, like me, and how intimidating yet paradoxically human he might’ve come across in interview. I see his absolute brilliance in that brief moment, possibly for the first time.

  ‘Don’t go there again, Dan. Stay away. It won’t bring her back.’

  I go to speak.

  ‘I’m arranging for you to have more therapy, at the Met’s expense, of course, this guy’s supposed to be the best, he’ll help you, specialises in grief apparently.’

  I bite my tongue.

  ‘We’ll get you on a programme as soon as this case is dealt with… but you find this Goldilocks first. We’ve got a serial killer at large acting out some fairy-tale nightmare and we both know how bad that is for business.’

  Bad for business. Yeah, and pretty shit for the families too.

  ‘Go and have breakfa
st,’ he says, already looking down at his paperwork, the emotion all but disappeared from his voice.

  ‘Yes Sir,’ I say, the facetiousness evident in my voice. ‘Can I bring you up some porridge?’

  Chapter Forty-Three

  ‘The body: Karen Walker. We know who she is; we know the killer’s MO. We know we’re looking for Rebecca Harper, or Danni-Jo, or both if they turn out to be different people.’

  The team look tired but elated as they sit behind their messy desks. It’s been a long night yet we’re getting close, we all know it and it brings an urgency to proceedings. You can literally feel the energy coming off them in waves, the gear up for the final push. I glance around the incident room; it’s full of ready-meal plastic wrappers and Costa coffee cups. It smells of fast food, stale sweat and hard graft.

  ‘If I’m right about the Goldilocks theory then Baby Bear is next,’ I say calmly. I see the looks on the team’s faces. ‘We need to act quickly. Rebecca Harper is a very dangerous and clever woman; she’s sly, devious and likes to change her identity. We need to find her.’

  ‘We’re interviewing everyone in the building, Karen’s employers and family, and the ex-husband is downstairs now in room three.’ Delaney informs me efficiently.

  ‘Good,’ I say, ‘send Davis down there, I—’

  ‘I want to take this one…’ he interrupts me, quickly adding, ‘if that’s okay with you, boss?’

  I glance at Davis. She’s looking down at some notes, oblivious, or acting as if she is. I see what’s gone on here. Delaney feels left out, that I’ve been giving Davis preferential treatment and he feels undermined and undervalued. Or perhaps he’s worried she’ll take some of the glory that he seems to have already awarded himself. Or perhaps I’ve got it all wrong. I’ve heard titters that it’s been said I’ve got the hots for little Davis, which is absolute childish nonsense. She’s a reliable, hard-working and efficient copper, no more no less. Although admittedly I prefer her company to Delaney’s, she’s easy-going, plus she smells nicer. They wouldn’t say the same if she was man of course and I feel a bit sorry for her because of it. But I won’t let power struggles disguised as playground rumours effect my decisions or judgements and Delaney had better know it.