Liar Liar: Another gripping serial killer thriller from the bestselling author (DC Charlotte Stafford Series)

by Sarah Flint

  ‘Well, firstly I looked on social media but they don’t appear as “friends” or connected in any way, but…’ Paul brightened as he looked towards Hunter. ‘Brian Ashton and Leonard Cookson were both based on Lambeth Borough for about eighteen months around 2004. Ashton only had a few years in and was uniform, whereas Cookson had around thirteen years’ service and was CID, so they weren’t in the same branch but they could well have worked on some cases together. I’m checking now, but trying to search on every investigation or incident each officer was involved in over all that time is pretty impossible. There could be hundreds, and that’s if they are even reported.’

  ‘If it does go back that far then our killer has been bearing a grudge for a long time. Can you check if Cookson has had any dealings with Dennis Walters or Carl Hookham?’

  ‘Bet’s been doing that, guv,’ Paul nodded towards Bet.

  ‘Nothing yet, boss. I’ve started going back through their previous convictions to try and find arresting and investigating officers, but like Paul says, Cookson could have assisted without it ever being written down.’

  Charlie pursed her lips. Bet and Paul were both right. While there were clear links for Walters and Hookham with Brian Ashton, they might never find if Cookson had dealt with either. Only one officer ever completed a stop-and-search slip, even though others may have been present. And only one officer was shown as arresting on the custody sheet, even though several may have been present or just hanging around the custody office dealing with a different prisoner. Any number could have assisted the investigating officers with witness interviews, exhibits or searches of premises. Or Cookson could have come across them while covering for an officer on leave, on a totally different case. It would be easy to miss, and it only took one oversight and the harm would be done… and that was if it was even recorded.

  Police officers came into contact with members of the public dozens of times daily for all manner of reasons without pen ever being put to paper. A chance encounter might have sown the seed, allowed their murderer time for their hatred to fester until now… but why now?

  She walked over to the window and stared out towards the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, letting a thought take shape.

  ‘Boss, can we just think of Cookson first. Why the Bible? The Ten Commandments must be the clue.’

  Hunter raised his hands, open palmed. ‘Fire away with your thoughts, Charlie.’

  ‘Can someone look up the Bible verses? Exodus, chapter 20.’

  Paul nodded and pulled out his phone.

  ‘It’s the whole business of his tongue being cut off.’ She took a deep breath and continued, ‘Several of the commandments relate to what a person says.’

  Paul held his phone up, staring at the screen as the words appeared. ‘Right, here we are. Exodus, Chapter 20. “And God spoke these words. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”’ Paul glanced up at Charlie. ‘I’ll try and precis the commandments. OK, here goes. You shall have no other Gods but me. You shall not make for yourself an image of anything in Heaven or on Earth and bow down to worship it. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. Remember to keep the Sabbath holy. Honour your father and mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour. You shall not covet your neighbour’s house, or his wife, or his male or female servant, or his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to him.’ Paul stopped speaking and looked up. ‘Well, by the sounds of it, Cookson could have disobeyed almost all of them… except maybe murder or coveting his neighbour’s ox or donkey.’

  Charlie smiled, before closing her eyes briefly, thinking hard. ‘But if we’re concentrating on the tongue, then there are only two commandments that are relevant and they are; you shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, i.e. by swearing and cursing; but that probably applies to most coppers in the Met, in fact the majority of the general public. So that just leaves one. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour, i.e. you mustn’t lie.’

  ‘So what’s he been saying? To who? And about whom?’ Hunter rubbed his hands up over his head. He started to pace around the room. ‘And why set fire to him?’ As he was speaking his phone rang. Charlie watched him as he pulled it out of his pocket and answered it abruptly, before his expression changed from confusion to comprehension. When he finished he threw the phone on the table in front of him and breathed out heavily.

  ‘Well?’ Charlie couldn’t wait to hear what Hunter had just been told.

  ‘Well… that was the SOCO.’ His expression was still animated. ‘He said that he had run some quick tests on Leonard Cookson’s lower clothing. He wasn’t happy that the clothing should catch fire and burn quite so easily, because these days most garments are made with fire-resistant or retardant material. Anyway, suffice to say, he was right. The reason the killer was able to start the fire was because he found traces of an accelerant on the seat of his trousers. Charlie might just be spot on with her thoughts about Cookson telling lies.’ He stopped pacing and lowered himself on to the edge of a desk. ‘And if she’s right, I have to say our killer has a somewhat sick sense of humour. Have you heard the phrase, “Liar, liar” …’?

  ‘Pants on fire,’ Bet joined in. ‘Bloody hell,’ she opened a drawer and pulled out Leonard Cookson’s personal file, turning to a folder labelled ‘Form 163s’. ‘I was looking at his complaints record earlier. He’s got quite a few, though just as many commendations for bravery and outstanding work, I have to say. He was quite a formidable officer. Anyway, I noticed that he still has two that are ongoing. One is for assault, pretty much par for the course when dealing with the sort of prisoners he deals with, but the other is a little rarer. It’s for perjury, which might also explain why a Bible, commonly used in court, has specifically been left at the scene. He’s alleged to have fitted up a gang nominal with possession of a firearm a couple of years ago and then further lied on oath in the box, when it eventually got to court.’

  ‘Shit!’ Paul bent down and unlocked one of his drawers, pulling out Brian Ashton’s personal file. He leafed through the various sections until he came to a similar file labelled ‘Form 163s’ and opened the last page. ‘I noticed this when I was looking through Brian’s complaint history, particularly after Sabira and Bet had been talking about religious fundamentalists chopping thieves’ hands off. With all the domestic issues taking precedence though, I put it to one side. I was going to come back to it. Look.’ He pointed to the writing on the page. ‘This is a complaint from the neighbour of an elderly lady who died alone at home, with no next of kin. It alleges that she had told the neighbour she had 10K in cash hidden in a chest of drawers, but after police had attended the scene and taken her valuables into police possession, there was only 9K recorded, £1,000 was missing.’

  Paul paled as he read out the final sentence. ‘PC Ashton was the officer who booked in the property and it is therefore alleged that, if indeed there was 10K initially, it was he who stole the cash.’

  ‘That’s it. It fits perfectly.’ Charlie murmured out loud. ‘Thou shalt not steal,’

  *

  It was midnight by the time Charlie stepped out from the revolving doors of Lambeth HQ and breathed in a lungful of London air. Her head was throbbing from the hours spent staring at her computer screen, her fingertips raw from pounding the keyboard and her throat dry from inhaling the air conditioning.

  However hard they tried, none of them had been able to find a specific link between either suspect, either victim or between any of the persons named on either complaint. As the afternoon had turned to evening and the evening had turned to night, the others had drifted off, one by one, their heads hung low, heavy with disappointment, their initial enthusiasm crushed. The next day was Saturday, their day off. No doubt they would all be in, the unspoken expectation at the beginning of a murder enquiry being to continue the immediate work. The early days were usually the ones
that provided the best leads and they needed a result for this case, fast. To that end, she and Hunter would be attending Leonard Cookson’s post-mortem early the next day. He felt he owed it to his former colleague to be present.

  Hunter himself had stayed late, his body hunched over his computer, the reading glasses he so hated, stuck to the end of his nose. Only several increasingly irritated calls from Mrs H eventually forced him home to socialise with her visiting parents. He led by example, his dedication to each new case second to none.

  Nick disappeared shortly after Hunter but not because he was dedicated; it was Friday night and he was determined to make the most of belated birthday celebrations with his mates in Soho. It suited him to leave later and at the same time score a few brownie points with the boss. He’d teased Charlie gently for suggesting he might come up with a solution to the case when he was least expecting it. He didn’t get paid enough to worry about work when he was out at play, even if the victims were police officers. Tonight he was out on the pull. His hair had been freshly gelled, his clothing carefully chosen and a liberal spray of aftershave completed the groundwork.

  Charlie had left last, finding his words strangely disquieting, antagonising even. She took a deep breath as she left the HQ and started to jog, her scruffy trainers guiding her away from her usual route past the colourful graffiti-clad walls of the skateboard park on the South Bank, the scene of Ben’s robbery. Her mind emptied itself of everything and everyone as she ran, glorying in the freedom of unlimited space, liberated from the confines of four walls. An image of Ben, alone and bleeding on the concrete floor of the park, came to her and she railed against the memory. She didn’t want to deal with any more pressure tonight.

  She turned instead over Westminster Bridge, past wilted flowers tied to the brick ramparts in memory of the innocent victims of March’s terrorist attack. On towards Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, their facades lit up yellow against the sky, with armed police equipped with MP5 firearms now standing guard along their perimeters. The brutal killing of a lone, unarmed police officer protecting the rule of democracy had shocked the nation. PC Keith Palmer would not be forgotten.

  She dipped her head at his memory, before continuing on along Whitehall, past Downing Street, bristling with its own permanent armed police presence until she got to Trafalgar Square. Through the centre she jogged, her breath relaxing into a rhythm, her feet keeping time with the drumming in her head as she glanced up at the statue of Admiral Lord Nelson atop his column keeping watch over the capital’s visitors.

  The roads were still busy, black cabs vying for trade with the riders of four-wheeled rickshaws, night buses looming over their rivals, all competing for the night-time economy. She turned into Charing Cross Road, heading towards Leicester Square and Chinatown, the area of Soho where the streets never slept and the clubs never shut their doors. Music pumped out from bars and the pavements filled as she approached, gaggles of partygoers stumbling through the narrow crisscross lanes of Frith Street, Dean Street, Wardour Street, Soho Square. Nick was up here somewhere enjoying himself.

  She stopped running and stood stock-still as the air filled with the sound of sirens. Two police officers, one male and one female, ran around the corner, just as half a dozen drunken revellers burst out from the doorway of a bar, brawling with each other, on the opposite side of the street. A couple of the drunken fighters saw the two uniforms, turning towards them instead, their aggression aimed now at the officers.

  ‘Come on then, you fucking pricks,’ one screamed at them, gesticulating wildly.

  Charlie started to run to assist, her warrant card ready, just as a police carrier screeched into the roadway and half a dozen coppers spilled out, manhandling the drunks away from the officers, bringing order back from the chaos.

  The situation was under control, there had been enough police officers to deal with the fight without her assistance being required. She turned, about to start retracing her footsteps, when the final prisoner reared up, hatred etched into every word.

  ‘Why don’t you all go fuck yourselves?’ he spat out, before being bundled into the rear of the van.

  She checked her watch as the display turned to 00.28 and started to sprint back towards Lambeth HQ, where she intended sleeping for the night. In just a few hours’ time she and Hunter would be watching Leonard Cookson’s broken body, carved up still further.

  As she ran, she thought of the man’s vitriol, each word of hate becoming irrelevant, her mind reconnecting with the events of the day. Did their killer really hate all police, or just ones with complaints? Most hard-working officers received complaints; it was the nature of the job.

  Whether restraining drunks, seizing firearms, dealing with the deaths of old people, or fending off armed terrorists on Westminster Bridge, it was abundantly clear to Charlie that all police officers were human. Sometimes they might err, sometimes they might be falsely accused, but they didn’t deserve to die… and any one of her colleagues or the officers she’d just witnessed dealing with the fight could be next.

  Chapter 14

  By 7 a.m. the reek of the mortuary was all Charlie could smell.

  Hunter had been on the phone the whole journey to the hospital, deep in discussion with the SOCO, so all her thoughts from the previous evening had been put to one side. Dennis Walters had not come to light for anything, nor had Carl Hookham been arrested. Both appeared to be lying low.

  Dr Reggie Crane, the forensic pathologist, greeted them as they entered, shaking hands with Hunter formally and smiling enthusiastically at Charlie. He was dressed casually in comfortable slacks and polo shirt, with his dark hair let loose from a theatre hat and visible morning stubble. He seemed much younger and far less stuffy, but Charlie found his appearance a little disconcerting, given her previous assumption that he was very much older than she. As if reading Charlie’s thoughts, he rubbed the back of his hand across his chin.

  ‘Please excuse my appearance. I’m not usually called on to do PMs on Saturdays.’ He grinned at Charlie’s obvious confusion. ‘Are you doing the exhibits this time?’

  Charlie nodded. ‘Yes, the whole lot.’

  ‘In that case, let’s get through the formalities and then we can get going properly.’ After fifteen years doing the same job, Dr Crane never tired of pinpointing the cause of death and explaining his reasoning. Murders were a particular challenge as he liked to get the full sequence of events. Nothing was too trivial to be mentioned and nothing too important to take precedence.

  They all gowned up before entering the lab to see Leonard Cookson’s body laid out still fully clothed. It looked even more grotesque than it had at the crime scene. Somehow, seeing it now under the fluorescent strip lights of the mortuary heightened every sense.

  Dr Crane grimaced. ‘Right, let’s get going. I’ll start with what’s left of his clothing and any personal possessions and then I’ll move on to the cause of death.’

  Carefully he began to remove each item piece by piece. It was a painstaking job, most of the remaining fabric of his trousers, around his buttocks and torso, having melted into his flesh. Dr Crane removed the material carefully with scalpel and tweezers, before placing it directly into exhibit tubes and handing them to Charlie, who logged and sealed each item.

  Cookson’s jacket was burnt away completely at its lower edges and halfway up the body, but the upper part of the chest and shoulders were, on the whole, intact, albeit singed and blackened with smoke. A lump in the material on the left-hand side of his chest indicated the presence of an item in the inside breast pocket.

  Dr Crane reached inside, pulling out a brown leather wallet and a mobile phone. Both items were smoke-damaged, with the outer surfaces blistered and puckered from the heat of the fire. The screen of the phone was partially melted. He placed the phone and wallet into separate bags and handed them to Charlie, turning to Hunter as he did so. ‘Both safe and sound in his pocket. It doesn’t appear our victim was robbed… or that he had time to
make a call.’

  Hunter nodded his agreement. ‘I’m told he was pretty inebriated. We’ll get the phone analysed if we can, but I’ll be surprised to find anything of relevance on it after he left the pub.’

  Dr Crane nodded. ‘And I’ll get the samples off for a tox report as soon as I can too. Then we’ll be able to tell just how much alcohol he’d consumed.’

  Hunter turned towards Charlie who was spreading out the contents of the wallet on a plastic sheet, before starting to bag each item up separately.

  ‘His credit cards are still here, but he’s got no cash, other than a few coins.’

  ‘That’ll be his team,’ Hunter commented, with a shake of his head. ‘They’d just had a good result at court and it’s tradition that the skipper buys the beers afterwards.’

  They continued in silence, until Leonard Cookson’s body was completely naked, his distended stomach taking up a good percentage of the stainless-steel slab.

  Without clothing, the wounds he had sustained were even more horrific. As well as the dried blood and injuries to his mouth they had noticed at the crime scene, there were also various other contusions and grazes to his upper body and scalp and restraint marks to his wrists.

  Dr Crane pointed out a few of the wounds. ‘He’s been cut with a knife and has various blunt-force traumas to his body, as if hit with various objects. The poor guy wasn’t coming out of this alive.’

  Hunter pursed his lips. ‘That’s what our SOCO said too. I had a long conversation with him on our way here.’ He took a step towards Cookson’s body, shaking his head at the pathologist before pointing at the worst of the burns on the buttocks and hip area. ‘The SOCO established that an accelerant was used on Cookson’s clothing but initial analysis showed it wasn’t petrol, which is the most common accelerant used in arsons.

  ‘Once his body was removed, they were able to check the remnants of debris that had been left under the chair. There was a partially melted plastic container lying on its side, which has now been examined in detail and has been confirmed as the remains of a bottle of nail varnish remover. The main component is acetone, which, I’m reliably informed, is extremely volatile and flammable.’ Hunter shifted his weight to his other foot and continued. ‘There was also a partially burned item that looked like a firework, with a small piece of misshapen red plastic stuck against it. The article was cylindrical and the bottom half was dark blue in colour, with small pink and white shell-like prints all around the circumference. The word “Kimbolton” was printed across it. The SOCO researched the name and is pretty sure the item relates to a static ground flare, made in England by Kimbolton Fireworks and easily available on the internet. It is advertised as low noise and burns intensely for sixty seconds.’