The Girls in the Water: A completely gripping serial killer thriller with a shocking twist (Detectives King and Lane Book 1)

by Victoria Jenkins

  Trawling through every pub, club and restaurant in Cardiff was going to take hours the team just didn’t have. A check with National Insurance documented that Lola Evans’s last paid employment was six months earlier, at a beauty salon in Tongwynlais, a small village on the outskirts of Cardiff. A phone call to the salon revealed that Lola had left after a disagreement about money missing from the till: money the manager of the salon still seemed convinced Lola had taken. She hadn’t pursued the matter any further on the grounds that she knew Lola was having personal problems at the time. Alex wondered to what extent those personal problems had really been.

  It seemed that whatever other work Lola had undertaken in order to earn money – as a beautician or as a waitress – had been purely on a cash in hand basis. If she was self-employed, she hadn’t bothered to register officially. The only other way that they could find out quickly where else Lola might have been working was to go public with her image, but details of her murder hadn’t yet gone to the press, and Alex had been hoping to keep it that way for a little longer. The press loved this kind of victim – young, female, attractive – and the publicity the case would no doubt attract in the search for Lola’s killer would inevitably lead to time-wasters.

  ‘Any footage of them elsewhere in the shopping centre?’ Alex asked Dan. ‘Or of Lola, at least?’

  Dan moved back towards the desktop computer he’d been working at and clicked another still of Lola and Ethan: this one of them leaving through the doors which led out on to the main shopping street at The Hayes. ‘Last sighting of them together. He goes one way, she goes the other. The bar where he works has confirmed he turned up for work that evening at just gone eight o’clock. He was there until gone three.’

  ‘Shit,’ Alex mumbled. She sat in the chair beside Dan and studied the image, focusing on Lola Evans. She was a slight girl, her body clearly ravaged by her eating disorder. It wouldn’t have been difficult for any man of average strength to have carried her for some distance. But on a Saturday evening in the middle of a city centre? Or perhaps she hadn’t stayed in town after leaving Ethan. Where had she gone?

  They didn’t even know whether or not it was on the Saturday that she had gone missing.

  ‘Any updates your end?’ Dan swivelled his chair towards her, his knee nearly meeting hers. She moved away instinctively.

  ‘No.’ Alex pressed her fingertips against her forehead. ‘Until we find out where she was working, it’s going to be difficult to work out her social network. No social media profiles?’

  Dan shook his head. ‘Seems unusual for someone her age.’

  Lola had clearly been a complicated character, a young woman plagued by mental health issues. Checks with her doctor had shown a history of counselling and several prescriptions for varying dosages of antidepressants. By her grandmother’s own admission, Lola was rarely fixed to one place, although that didn’t necessarily mean she was the party girl that many of the rest of the team had taken this comment to suggest.

  ‘Is everything OK with DC Lane?’

  Alex was snapped from her thoughts of Lola Evans. ‘Yes, as far as I know. Why do you ask?’ The question came a little too hurriedly, she realised.

  Dan shrugged. He had a nice face, Alex thought; not conventionally handsome, but kind. Of what she knew of him, DC Mason seemed a hard-working family man. He kept a photograph of his wife and kids on the corner of his desk: an attractive woman aged around forty and two dark-haired girls who both looked under the age of ten. Alex tended to notice family photographs. She had once looked upon them with a hope for her own future, but as time had passed she had come to realise this kind of photograph would never adorn her own desk or the walls of her home. For a while, she couldn’t bring herself to look at that kind of photograph at all.

  She was getting better. Acceptance came in many forms. This had been one of them.

  ‘She mentioned an email address; she seemed a bit agitated.’

  Alex raised an eyebrow. Chloe hadn’t said anything about talking to Dan and she wasn’t sure how much he knew. ‘To do with?’

  He shrugged. ‘Just said she’d been getting some weird emails.’

  ‘I’ve not noticed anything unusual.’ She gave him a smile and returned her attention to the footage that was paused on the screen in front of them, as though Ethan Thompson might in some way incriminate himself. The smile she had forced evaporated. She was going to have to warn Chloe. If other members of the team were already noticing the fact that her attention seemed diverted elsewhere then it was only a matter of time before the superintendent caught grasp of it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chloe’s lasting impression of Patrick Sibley was of a boy no one noticed until he became noticeable for all the wrong reasons. In the weeks leading up to Emily’s death, Patrick had made a couple of awkward advances towards her. Nobody knew about the first – no one other than Luke, and later Chloe – but unfortunately for Patrick, most of the town where they’d lived had come to know about the second.

  Luke had been at college and there seemed to be a party every other weekend – most at people’s houses and the occasional few in the local rugby club – and they each attracted the same faces. Patrick Sibley hadn’t been one of them. Not until Amy Patten’s eighteenth, when he’d turned up at her house uninvited and drunker than anyone else there. The party was low on numbers. It was the Easter holidays and a lot of the students were away with their families or just couldn’t be bothered to venture out into what had been a fortnight of incessant rain. Later, Chloe would ask Amy Patten why she had let Patrick Sibley stay: he didn’t belong to their friendship group – he didn’t seem to belong to any friendship group – and he’d been so drunk by the time it reached eleven o’clock that he had thrown up in Amy’s parents’ kitchen sink. Amy had given a surprisingly honest answer. Why not? It was funny watching the class loser make an even bigger tit of himself.

  He had left not long after, but not soon enough to spare himself the embarrassment of declaring lifelong and undying love for Emily. Everyone in the room was witness to his humiliation. Everyone laughed when he threw up for a second time, this time across the pale carpet of Amy Patten’s parents’ living room.

  Emily had laughed too.

  Chloe knew all this because Luke had told her.

  It hadn’t taken Chloe long to find out where Patrick Sibley worked. His Facebook profile stated his employment as full-time and his timeline was filled with complaints and ramblings about his job as an administrative assistant at the tax office. The same tax office that was a short distance from the leisure centre where Chloe had met Scott, just a couple of months ago. Was Scott there now, that afternoon, and how would he react if she turned up there today, armed with her apologies and her explanations?

  She didn’t blame him for losing interest. Everyone else had, sooner or later.

  The car park of the tax office was blocked by a barrier and no one answered when she pressed the buzzer, so Chloe reversed back out and parked by the shops just a few hundred metres away. She walked over to the tax office and asked at reception for Patrick Sibley, showing her police ID in order to avoid having to use any other reason for requesting to see him. Once the receptionist saw that Chloe was an officer, she didn’t ask for further explanation. She put a call through to one of the upper floors, and Chloe took a seat beneath the window as she waited for Patrick to arrive downstairs.

  She didn’t really know what to expect. She remembered him well enough – and was pretty sure he would remember her regardless of how much she had changed over the years – but time had passed and there was no guarantee that she would recognise him now.

  Chloe needn’t have worried. She knew him instantly, despite the hair that had been allowed to grow longer and the beard that now partially obscured his face.

  ‘Patrick,’ she said, standing from her chair and extending a hand. ‘You haven’t changed much.’

  Patrick Sibley stared at her hand as though it was a weap
on she’d just brandished at him. What had she expected, Chloe thought – a friendly hug and a catch-up over coffee? The last time she had seen Patrick she had asked him if he’d murdered Emily. The hostility she’d received was well-deserved. She knew she should apologise.

  ‘Neither have you,’ Patrick said coldly. ‘Still following people around, I see.’ He looked her up and down. ‘You’re in the police?’ The question was laced with scepticism, a tone that suggested he was somewhat disbelieving of the fact.

  ‘How long have you been working here?’

  Patrick narrowed his eyes and studied her defensively. Chloe didn’t think this was something she should have taken personally; from what she knew of Patrick and was able to remember of him, he was defensive around everyone. The class loner, he had never seemed to have any friends. He had been active on social media – more often than not involved in online slanging matches with trolls who’d insulted him – but in real life he had been far less vocal and had been content (or at the very least had feigned contentment) with merging into the background, lost amidst the colour and noise of his peers.

  Until he had too much to drink, apparently.

  ‘What do you want? I’m pretty busy.’

  ‘I want to talk about Emily.’

  Patrick rolled his eyes. ‘For God’s sake,’ he mumbled, glancing over to the receptionist. ‘I told you everything I knew at the time. I didn’t see her after she left that party. I don’t know what happened. When will it be good enough for you?’

  ‘I didn’t come here to argue with you.’

  ‘No? Just to accuse me of murder then? Again.’

  It was Chloe’s turn to glance at the receptionist, checking over Patrick’s shoulder to make sure nothing had been heard. ‘Please, Patrick. If I made a mistake then I’m sorry. But someone killed Emily that night and it wasn’t Luke. I just want to talk to you.’

  ‘If you made a mistake? We’ve talked already,’ he said, leaning in towards her and firing the words at her face. ‘I don’t have anything to say to you.’

  A wave of doubt and anxiety swept over Chloe, making her momentarily nauseous. What was she doing here? she thought. She had no evidence, no proof, just the deafening knowledge that her brother wasn’t a killer.

  The words that had been typed into those emails she had received repeated themselves in her head – so few and yet so powerful: Found him yet?

  No, she hadn’t, and that was exactly what had brought her here.

  But was this man a killer? Loner or not, Patrick Sibley was no more guilty than anyone else, not without the proof Chloe so desperately needed. Being friendless wasn’t evidence of guilt, although Chloe realised that in her own case the same might not necessarily have been so true. She’d been without friends – true friends – for years. There had been no one to share the burden of her own personal guilt.

  She felt the colour rise up through her chest and into her face like a swelling surge of sickness. What was she doing here? What was she thinking?

  Patrick Sibley’s expression changed. He was enjoying her discomfort.

  ‘Those flowers.’

  Patrick gave another roll of the eyes. Flowers had been sent to Emily in the weeks leading up to her death. Everyone – including Emily, it had seemed at the time – had assumed they were from Patrick. There had been no card with them, no message or name, but Patrick had been obsessed with Emily for ages and everybody had known it.

  ‘I told you at the time and I’m telling you again – I didn’t send any flowers. That girl made me look like an idiot. She knew I liked her and she enjoyed making me feel this big.’ He held up a hand and gestured with his thumb and index finger. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to her, but it had nothing to do with me.’

  Chloe nodded, though she didn’t believe him. She didn’t believe anyone. Increasingly, the person she was coming to trust the least was herself.

  ‘If you think of anything—’ she suggested hopelessly.

  ‘Anything like what?’ he asked incredulously. He slowed his voice and punctuated every word with a full stop as though talking to an insolent child who refused to acknowledge what she was being told. ‘Listen to what I am telling you. I cannot help you.’

  He raised an eyebrow and turned to leave her standing alone in reception; the woman at the desk casting a curious glance in her direction. There had been a time not so long ago when the unwanted attention may have made Chloe’s face flare red, but she had grown beyond that. People could think whatever they wanted of her. She didn’t care.

  How’s the search going?

  Found him yet?

  Someone knew something about the night of Emily’s death, and she wasn’t going to stop until she found out the truth.

  Chapter Twenty

  Grace was disappointed. She had spent an hour and a half getting ready and had then sat waiting in the living room with a glass of wine in one hand and her mobile phone in the other. She tried calling Sarah several times, but her phone had kept ringing through to answerphone. Then it had been turned off.

  Grace had been impatient at first, but then she grew annoyed. If Sarah hadn’t wanted to go out, the least she could have done was call or text to let her know. She would have saved Grace a lot of time spent getting ready, as well as the ten quid she had spent on wine down the Spar, having given up on Sarah coming back with one from the supermarket. Oh well, she’d thought, taking another sip: she would just have to drink it on her own.

  But Sarah had been dressed ready to go out, she thought. Why go to all that trouble if she hadn’t wanted to? Unless she had actually gone out… with him.

  Why did she waste her time with worry, Grace thought as she kicked off her shoes and swung her legs up on to the sofa. Sarah was a grown woman: she could do what she liked.

  Grace reached for the television remote control and flicked channels. This was it: a night on her own with only a bottle of red and Coronation Street for company. How tragic.

  Hours later, she woke up on the sofa. The television was still on and she had managed to knock her glass over during her sleep, staining a patch of carpet blood red. She searched for her mobile phone and found it wedged between the cushions at the back of the sofa. She pressed the screen to read the time.

  Grace had assumed she’d just nodded off briefly, but it was twenty to eight in the morning. She rubbed a hand across her face and tried to focus her tired eyes. The empty wine bottle on the coffee table was a reminder of why her head was throbbing and her mouth was filled with a sickly sweet aftertaste that was making her nauseous.

  She went to the bathroom, peed and brushed her teeth, dragging the toothpaste across her tongue in an attempt to rid herself of some of the wine’s aftertaste. She remembered being annoyed at Sarah and resolved not to be a bitch when she saw her. Having a go at Sarah had never got Grace anywhere. If she was going to talk any sense into her, she would have to find another way to go about it.

  Back on the landing, Grace noticed the door to Sarah’s room was still slightly opened. Sarah could have seen her sleeping on the sofa and not closed it to avoid making a sound and waking her up. Maybe she’d been trying to dodge the lecture she knew she’d inevitably get. Sometimes, Grace felt as though she was playing the role of mother where Sarah was concerned, making constant attempts to keep her on the straight and narrow; failing, despite her repeated efforts.

  Grace carefully stuck her head around Sarah’s bedroom door, careful not to push it and make a noise. It was dark in the bedroom, the curtains still closed. The light from the landing illuminated enough of the small bedroom for Grace to make out the bed and its crumpled duvet. She narrowed her eyes, searching out the shape of Sarah beneath it. Putting a hand to the wall, Grace flicked the bedroom light switch. The duvet was piled on the bed as Sarah had left it the day before. The bed was empty.

  Sarah rarely stayed a night away from the flat. She occasionally slept over when she visited her mother, but those nights were rare. She had never stayed a night
away with Connor; of that much Grace was certain. Connor had a family to go home to, and he had made it clear to Sarah that their affair would never involve nights spent away from home. Sarah had made the mistake of mentioning it to Grace on a few occasions, complaining of the fact that she had never got to spend a night with him.

  Grace had seen him once, by chance. She had been in the supermarket with Sarah and they had turned into the bakery section and almost collided with a man who was pushing a trolley with one hand and dragging a screaming boy by the other. Sarah and Connor had acknowledged one another silently, each unwilling to speak to the other in front of his son. Instead, Sarah had mumbled an apology at having walked into his trolley, then made some pointless comment to Grace about washing-up liquid. They hadn’t needed any: there had been a full one on the kitchen window sill when Grace had cleared away her breakfast things that morning.

  ‘That was him, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Connor.’

  Once again, Sarah had made an attempt to change the subject.

  Grace recalled her frustration with her friend. Here she was once again making the same mistakes, never learning from the things that had caused her so much pain.

  Grace had felt frustrated before. Now all she felt was a growing sense of panic.

  She went back to the living room and retrieved her phone, trying Sarah’s number once more. Again, it went straight to answerphone. She thought about contacting Connor; she knew he had a Facebook account and it should prove easy enough to find him. But what would Sarah say when she found out that Grace had contacted him? She was bound to go nuts. She had assured Grace that the affair was over – why would she lie about that?

  A mounting sense of worry crept through her.

  If Sarah wasn’t with Connor, then where was she?

  Chapter Twenty-One