Lost Souls

by Chris Merritt

  Mo had moved in with them last year for a trial period. Lexi had had her reservations at the start; from their previous interactions she thought Mo considered himself something of a ‘player’ with women, but so far, he’d been great. Respectful, organised, not too loud, not too quiet. Paid his rent on time. Maybe she’d been too quick to judge him. From the look Sarah was giving him right now, she clearly liked him too, albeit in a way that risked making things complicated.

  ‘Hey guys,’ said Lexi, walking over to the kettle and flicking it on. ‘What’s up?’

  Mo and Sarah broke eye contact to return her greeting.

  ‘How’s it going, Lex?’ asked Sarah.

  ‘I’m good,’ she replied, reaching into the cupboard for a mug. ‘Hoping for a relatively chilled day.’ When you worked as a psychologist in the National Health Service, the definition of ‘chilled’ was none of your clients feeling actively suicidal, and getting to go home only an hour after your shift ended. But that was the NHS, and Lexi wouldn’t trade it for anything right now.

  ‘Don’t bet on that.’ Mo spoke through a mouthful of toast. He raised his iPhone. ‘Just had a text from the guvnor. New body in Mortlake. It’s a kid.’

  ‘Oh my god!’ exclaimed Sarah. ‘Murdered?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Mo turned back to Lexi. ‘Sounded weird. He’ll probably be giving you a call.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ mumbled Lexi.

  ‘Doubt what?’ Tim’s voice from the doorway made her jump.

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘Just a work thing.’

  ‘My boss asks Dr Green to tell him what’s going on,’ explained Mo, ‘when there’s, like, mad Silence of the Lambs shit.’

  ‘Is that right?’ asked Tim, crossing the kitchen towards Lexi. ‘You didn’t tell me about this.’

  Lexi cocked her head. ‘Come on, Mo. I’ve done it twice.’

  ‘Made the difference though, didn’t it?’ He nodded at her.

  She blushed and turned away to get the bag of coffee.

  ‘So… someone’s been murdered?’ Tim sounded intrigued.

  ‘Yup,’ replied Mo. ‘A kid.’

  ‘Really? Where?’

  ‘Can we not talk about this now, please?’ Lexi said.

  ‘Or, maybe, at all,’ added Sarah. Lexi knew she heard enough stories of cruelty to children in her job as a social worker.

  ‘Soz.’ Mo held up his hands. ‘But I reckon he’ll be calling you before the end of today, Lexi.’

  Tim slipped an arm around her waist as she tipped ground coffee into the cafetière. ‘Don’t forget about our date tonight, Lexi. Dinner at mine, remember?’

  ‘Sure.’ She flashed him a smile as the kettle reached the boil and clicked off. ‘Wouldn’t miss it.’

  Four

  There was something strange about seeing a church cordoned off as a crime scene. Lockhart didn’t know if it was The Met police patrol cars with their bright, yellow-and-blue panels in front of the ancient stonework that jarred. Perhaps it was the idea of an unholy act in a sacred place, not that Lockhart was religious. Or maybe just that, in his experience, you didn’t usually find murder victims in churches.

  Lockhart parked beside the Scene of Crime Officers’ van and, after suiting up and signing in, entered the church of St Mary the Virgin. The interior was imposing; high stone columns rising to form arches that led the eye up past broad stained-glass windows to a ceiling of thick timber beams. It smelled of candle wax and floor polish, and each sound echoed in the relative quiet of the large empty space. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in a church. His old man’s funeral, perhaps? That would be six years ago.

  The church was configured with the altar to one side rather than at the back, pews arranged in a horseshoe around it. This seemed to be the centre of activity, although Lockhart couldn’t see the body yet. Then two SOCOs in hooded Tyvek suits moved apart, giving him his first glimpse of the victim. Now, he could see what Burrows had meant by unusual.

  In front of the altar, and beneath a large gold cross on the wall, a boy was kneeling. He sat on his heels, his torso almost upright, bowed head resting against the white cloth. His hands were clasped under his chin. It looked as though he was praying. He was small and thin, and Lockhart guessed he couldn’t have been much older that ten. A rage had already begun to simmer inside him, directed at whoever was responsible for this.

  He turned to the HAT detective sergeant, Ormston, who’d been the first ‘suit’ to arrive after the uniforms had got there and sealed the place off.

  ‘Who found the body?’

  ‘Guy who works here.’ DS Ormston checked her notebook. ‘A Mr… Eric Cooper. He’s a verger.’

  Lockhart frowned. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Like an assistant, apparently. Let himself in to tidy up, he said.’

  ‘Is he still here?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she replied. ‘He’s out the back with one of the PCs. He’s pretty shaken up.’

  ‘OK. Don’t let him leave yet.’

  ‘I thought you might want to speak to him. He recognises our victim, too. Says his name’s Donovan. Doesn’t know the last name.’

  ‘Donovan,’ repeated Lockhart. ‘So, what, he came to this church?’

  ‘Seems so.’

  ‘Hm.’ Lockhart moved towards the boy, arcing his approach to see more clearly. He noticed that the victim was wearing fresh-looking clothes, and his hair was combed. He got closer, squatted down. The child’s hands were bound together by a white ribbon, which had been tied behind the neck, keeping his arms raised. He noticed that, while the skin of Donovan’s fingertips was red and raw, the nails were clean and neatly clipped. The boy’s eyes were closed, his facial expression almost peaceful. But Lockhart knew his final moments would’ve been anything but that. A dark ligature mark around his throat was visible beneath the ribbon. That rage grew a bit more.

  ‘Strangled,’ he observed. ‘Or maybe garrotted.’

  Ormston gave a sharp intake of breath but didn’t reply. This wasn’t easy for any of them.

  ‘Don’t suppose you’ve had a pathologist out?’ he asked, glancing up at her.

  The DS shook her head. ‘Not yet.’

  Lockhart stood and sidestepped to give himself a different view. ‘He must’ve been dead for a while if he’s been posed like this.’

  ‘Because there’s no rigor mortis?’

  ‘Exactly.’ It would’ve taken nearly two days for the muscles to relax enough for the limbs to be manipulated in this way. ‘And no signs of a struggle here?’

  ‘Not that we can see,’ replied Ormston. ‘Though there appears to be a forced entry at the back.’

  ‘OK. So, killed somewhere else, prepared, and brought here.’

  ‘Looks that way.’

  Lockhart exhaled slowly. Then something on the altar caught his attention. A faint line of yellow on one page of the open Bible. He moved carefully around the body to read it. ‘Have you seen this?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a bit highlighted.’ He peered at the section of type and read aloud. ‘“Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”’

  This was perhaps the most carefully arranged crime scene Lockhart had ever seen. It had been composed by a killer who wanted their victim to be found. Lockhart was already thinking about the person who could help him understand why. Someone he hadn’t spoken to in a while.

  Dr Lexi Green, his former therapist, had been able to get into the minds of serial murderers in a way that neither Lockhart nor the other detectives on his team could. Once you’d got past the long words and technical terms, her insights into killers’ behaviour, backgrounds and motivation were on the money. And, having told her about some of the most difficult things in his life, he trusted the psychologist more than almost anyone else. He resolved to call her as soon as he had a chance.

  Outside in the graveyard, Lockhart spotted one of the u
niformed officers standing, thumbs hooked into her belt below her fluorescent winter jacket. On the wooden bench beside her was a thick-set young man with a round, open face. He wore a big anorak and was hugging himself, eyes fixed on the ground. He looked up as Lockhart reached them and flashed his warrant card to the PC.

  ‘Eric Cooper?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m DI Dan Lockhart.’

  The younger man was staring at him, and Lockhart was suddenly aware of his own appearance; he hadn’t slept all night and probably looked like shit. Set against a dead child, though, that didn’t matter.

  ‘I understand you found the body?’

  Cooper nodded silently.

  ‘I’d just like to ask you a few questions about it, if that’s OK?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ blurted Cooper, his cheeks flushing red. ‘I didn’t mean to do it.’

  ‘Er, do what, exactly?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have touched him.’ Cooper wrung his hands. ‘I didn’t think he was dead.’

  Lockhart blinked. ‘Did you move the body at all, sir?’

  ‘No, no.’ Cooper added hastily. ‘Just… held him. Then I felt how cold he was.’

  ‘Right. We’ll need to take a swab of your DNA in that case, Mr Cooper. And you’ll have to show us where you placed your hands on the body.’

  ‘Yeah, course.’

  Lockhart softened his tone slightly. ‘My colleague tells me you knew the young man.’

  Cooper rubbed his eyes. ‘Donovan. He came here a few times with Roger and Trish.’

  ‘Roger and Trish?—’

  ‘Hughes – they’re a couple who attend the Sunday service.’

  ‘Is he their son, or a relative?’

  ‘No. Roger and Trish don’t have kids of their own. They foster. I guessed they were looking after him for a bit.’

  ‘Had he been here recently?’

  Cooper shook his head quickly. ‘Not for a month, maybe more.’

  ‘Do you know what happened?’

  ‘Nope. I thought he might’ve gone to a new foster placement. But then I heard Roger and Trish had reported him missing.’

  ‘I see.’ Lockhart made a mental note to find the case file and check what action, if any, had been taken.

  ‘But the rumour was that he’d run off,’ added Cooper, lowering his voice, even though it was just the three of them in the graveyard. ‘And he wasn’t the first kid they’d looked after to do that.’

  Five

  ‘And what do you know now, Gabriel, that you didn’t know then?’ Lexi spoke gently. This question was often crucial for clients with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder who blamed themselves for a trauma.

  ‘That…’ Gabriel Sweeney wiped tears from his eyes, which remained shut, as they had been for the past twenty minutes of an intense ‘reliving’. He’d been narrating the story of a violent assault against him twelve years ago, in the present tense, as if it was happening here and now. ‘That there was nothing I could’ve done to stop it.’

  ‘OK, and…’

  ‘And I was trying to protect someone else from harm.’

  That someone else was a thirteen-year-old girl who’d been sleeping in the same abandoned house as Gabriel when two grown men had turned up, looking to collect the ‘rent’.

  ‘That’s right. So, what does that say about you?’

  Silence. Gabriel shifted in the low armchair. ‘That I’m stronger than I thought. I was just a kid at the time.’

  ‘Sure. Anything else?’ They’d rehearsed these beliefs beforehand. Lexi had written them up on the whiteboard in her consulting room. It was just a question of Gabriel accessing them right now, in this moment.

  ‘That… I’m someone who helps people. Who cares.’

  ‘Yeah. So, what about the belief that others will think you’re a bad person?’

  He didn’t reply. His face twitched, nose wrinkling and lips curling down for a split-second, as if he’d smelled or tasted something nasty.

  ‘Gabriel?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said at length.

  ‘OK, we’ll come back to that another time,’ she said reassuringly. ‘Maybe unpack it a little more next session.’

  Lexi knew Gabriel had had a hard life; in and out of the care system, with some time living on the streets. He’d had more exposure to violence in his teenage years than anyone should have in a lifetime. It was a sad story, but here he was, in his late twenties, getting help and trying to move on. And yet, Lexi sensed there was something else there, an obstacle stopping him from really fixing things. The micro-expression of disgust gave her a clue. She’d seen similar signs in trauma survivors of sexual abuse. Feelings of shame – particularly for men – usually stopped them disclosing it at all. Maybe he just needed to trust her a little more.

  Ten minutes later, after doing a grounding exercise together and confirming their next session, Gabriel left, and Lexi took a moment to decompress. It was tough going over these experiences with her clients for hours each day. But nothing in this comfortable room compared to what they’d actually lived through, she reminded herself. Not that Lexi herself was any stranger to trauma.

  She reached for her phone and unlocked it. As the screen came to life, she saw a missed call and a new voicemail. Remembering Mo’s words at breakfast, she tapped into the call record. Sure enough, it was Dan who’d tried reaching her half an hour ago. She took a breath, then listened to the message on speaker:

  ‘…Sorry I haven’t called, hope everything’s good with you…’

  Lexi felt an absurd little burst of joy mixed with adrenalin at hearing his voice.

  ‘…There’s a murder case I’d really like you to take a look at, see if you can, you know, get inside the offender’s head…’

  A small knot of dread was already tightening in her belly, and she noticed her mouth was dry. Twice she’d done that for Dan, and twice she’d nearly ended up losing her life. She still got the occasional flashback from those moments, and even had a physical scar that would for ever remind her how close she’d been to the end.

  ‘…It’s a tough one, ah, the victim’s a kid…’

  A kid. That was awful. It must be the case Mo had mentioned.

  ‘…we could really do with your help…’

  Lexi hadn’t worked with Dan’s homicide team for eight months, and her life was settling down again now. She had a relationship, and a chance at a normal existence, just like a whole bunch of people her age would want. But since when had her life been normal? She and her brother Shep had travelled all over with her dad’s postings, uprooted from their latest school and hometown every few years. Family had been the only constant thing in their lives, until her brother’s death from a drug overdose while Lexi was at college.

  ‘…Is there any chance you could come by Jubilee House tonight, after work? I can take you through what we’ve got so far…’

  The truth was that, for all the risks it’d brought her, nothing made her feel more alive, and more like she was making a difference, than working on a murder case with Dan and his team. She felt as though she owed that to the people in her life who were no longer here. Not just Shep, but her old housemate Liam, too…

  Lexi also had to be honest with herself. She wanted to see Dan. She cared about him, whatever happened or didn’t happen between them. Now, though, that produced a pang of guilt as she thought of Tim. If she accepted, it’d mean cancelling her date with him this evening. She played the message again. Stared at the phone for a minute. Then she opened a text to Dan and typed:

  I’ll be there tonight. Let me know what time.

  Six

  It was just after six thirty by the time Lexi had finished work and cycled the few miles north to Jubilee House in Putney, the office building where Dan’s team was based. She signed in with the receptionist and took a seat in the lobby while she waited for someone to come down and meet her.

  Lexi recalled the first time she’d been here, some fifteen months earlier. She’d b
een unsure of herself and nervous as hell, mainly because she’d never profiled anyone before – let alone a serial killer. She’d done a bunch of forensic work, but that was mostly assessments for fitness to stand trial or risk of reoffending on release. Despite her nerves, it’d turned out she was better at the new task than she’d expected. She just hoped she could repeat that this time, repay Dan’s faith in her and help him catch a child killer.

  She took out her phone and checked it again. Though Tim had definitely seen her text, explaining about meeting the police and asking if they could reschedule dinner, he still hadn’t replied. She guessed he was pissed off with being abandoned, but surely he’d be able to see beyond that; to understand why she was postponing their date. After all, he worked with kids; he should be sympathetic to their vulnerability, and there was no more vulnerable child than one who’d ended up being murdered.

  Lexi wondered if she should try calling Tim again. Her thumb hovered over the dial icon, and she was about to press it when she heard the door open. She glanced up and saw Dan striding towards her. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days, and she hoped he was doing OK. As he got closer to her, though, she could see that his eyes were still sharp and alert. Her heart jumped a little and a small voice inside chastised her for being ridiculous.

  ‘Lexi,’ he said, his features softening.

  ‘Hey, Dan.’ She stood, and they remained a few feet apart. There was neither hug nor handshake this time, nor did she expect any contact. People didn’t really do that anymore. The new normal.

  ‘Really appreciate you coming over.’ He jerked a thumb back towards the door. ‘Do you want to follow me up and I can brief you in?’

  ‘Sure.’