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

by Victoria Jenkins

  Alex had felt an initial anger towards Daniel Mason for reporting Chloe to the super, but the reaction had been short-lived. The detective constable worked by the rules, as Chloe should have: as she knew they all should. He had done what he thought was right.

  Though she had never seen the inside of Chloe’s flat before, Alex assumed its current state couldn’t possibly be its usual one. Chloe was usually so immaculately presented, so seemingly in control and organised. That day, the place was chaos. The files she had previously taken to Alex’s house now lay strewn on the living room’s laminate flooring, their contents sprawled at random. Amongst them, the occasional face stared up at Alex, each pair of eyes seeming to follow her as she tiptoed through the debris of Chloe’s past.

  It seemed to Alex that the flat was sparsely furnished, as though it wasn’t inhabited fully but merely used by someone who was just passing through.

  Did Chloe have any intention of staying here when she first moved in?

  Did she have any intention of staying with the police when she first joined up? With hindsight, Alex speculated whether everything the young woman seemed to have worked so hard for had been with a singular aim: proving her brother’s innocence. Though her intentions were in many ways honourable, it all seemed to Alex such a tragic waste.

  ‘Tell me,’ Alex said. ‘I want to help you, I want you back at work, but I can’t do anything until I know the truth. All of it.’

  ‘Coffee?’ Chloe offered.

  Alex wondered how many she’d already had – she seemed wired.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Alex followed Chloe through to the kitchen. The flat was small, with one bedroom, but it was neatly appointed, making maximum use of what was minimal space. She watched silently as Chloe set about preparing coffee for them both.

  ‘It’s you in the pictures?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s me,’ Chloe said, her back turned to Alex.

  Alex had studied the face in the newspaper photographs, though it had saddened her to do so. Chloe had looked so different back then – her natural hair much darker than the bottle blonde she now chose; her frame much slighter now than it had been then – but when she looked closely, there she was: the pale skin, the high cheekbones; the bright eyes. She had hoped not to find her in the image, as though not seeing her would make the stark reality of the photographs untrue.

  She was beginning to feel an almost maternal loyalty to Chloe, a need to keep her protected from all the nastiness that life seemed intent on throwing at her. It now felt to Alex she had arrived far too late. Chloe’s young life had seen plenty before it had barely begun. Alex realised that what she knew was likely to have barely skimmed the surface. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen in the images that the papers had so happily spread amongst their pages. What had driven her to it?

  ‘I could tell you I did it because I had to, but it all sounds a bit pathetic,’ Chloe said, turning to Alex and handing her a coffee.

  She went back into the living room and sank into a corner of the sofa, clutching her mug of coffee to her chest. Her small frame seemed engulfed by the cushions that surrounded her.

  To the side of the sofa, on the floor, lay several newspapers. Alex recognised their front page stories: knew that Chloe’s own lay not-so-hidden somewhere amongst the pages of each.

  She sat at the other end of the sofa.

  ‘What’s been said back at work?’

  ‘Don’t worry about what’s been said,’ Alex said too quickly. Her hasty response gave Chloe the answer she’d been looking for: too much had already been said. Stopping gossip was sadly beyond Alex’s powers. There were certain male officers at the station who’d been not-so-secretly enjoying the rumours that the previous couple of days had generated. Colleague solidarity was something they were unfamiliar with, and she imagined, with disdain, that there were a couple who had returned to the images splashed across the papers with relish.

  It had always been obvious Chloe’s looks garnered a fair share of male interest, and why wouldn’t they? She was slim, attractive, the kind of pretty that didn’t flaunt itself but was nonetheless obvious. Alex had once thought she might have been involved with a former male colleague, but her suspicions had been proven wrong. Rather than enjoying the attention her looks received – as many young women might have – Chloe shunned male interest. Perhaps here was the explanation for that.

  ‘I was brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness.’

  The comment came from nowhere and took Alex by surprise. Chloe had never mentioned this before, although she had never really spoken of her past before. Something else that was now beginning to make sense.

  She didn’t know what to say, so said nothing. Thankfully, Chloe filled the silence.

  ‘It wasn’t a religion, not where my parents were concerned. It was a cult. For years I thought it was normal, but then I got to about eleven, twelve, and realised it was far from it. My brother and I weren’t allowed to do anything. We couldn’t mix with the other kids at school, so eventually they stopped bothering to make the effort. We were outsiders. They thought we were weird. The teachers used to be nice to us – overly nice. As I got older, I realised they just pitied us. We were the resident freak show.’ Chloe looked down at the coffee in her hands. She had wanted this moment for so long – had wanted to be able to confide in someone with all the things she’d kept hidden for so many years – but not like this. She’d been forced into this. It felt like a confession. She supposed that’s exactly what it was.

  ‘Things just got worse at comprehensive school,’ she continued. ‘It was like all our abnormalities became highlighted. My parents began to realise they were losing their control. The more they fought for it, the more Luke and I rebelled. Especially me. I did everything I could to piss them off.’

  Chloe stood from the sofa, turned and lifted her sweater. A tattoo of a black butterfly spread across the base of her spine. ‘They both went mental,’ she said, sitting back down. ‘And I enjoyed every second of it.’ She gave Alex a sad smile. ‘I bloody hate that tattoo though.’

  ‘I was excommunicated from the watch tower at seventeen,’ she explained. ‘It was a wonder it hadn’t happened earlier really, but I think my parents had done some grovelling with the elders. It hadn’t been for my sake. They were worried about their own reputation amongst the group, about being kicked out themselves. That church meant more to them than anything. Anyway, three months later I left home. I was still studying for my A-levels. I actually liked school – it was the only escape I had.’

  ‘How did you manage to finish school?’ asked Alex. ‘Where were you living?’

  ‘I rented a room.’

  ‘But how did you—’

  Alex cut herself short, realising the naivety of her own question. Of course, she already knew how Chloe had made the money she’d needed to move out of her childhood home. Everyone now knew.

  ‘I worked in a garden centre at the weekends; you know the one over in Morganstown? Sometimes I’d skip school to get extra shifts. It didn’t take long to realise it wasn’t enough. The girl I was renting a room from, she more or less made her living, you know. It didn’t matter to me by then. I’d already lost everything. Well, except Luke.’

  ‘Is he the reason you stayed in Cardiff when you went to university?’

  Chloe nodded. ‘I’d have gone as far away as possible, but there was no way I was leaving Luke with them. I was saving up for us. Once I had enough, he was coming to live with me. I think that’s why he got so close to Emily, to be honest. We’d always had each other to keep us going, but then I left him. I had to. Despite what my parents might have thought, he was with Emily because he’d wanted love, not sex. He wasn’t like me.’ She reached across and took Alex’s empty coffee cup from her hand. Her face had flushed with embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.’

  It seemed to Alex that someone should have heard all this much sooner. Had she shared her secrets with another
person, perhaps things may have been different for her now. Nobody should have been expected to carry the weight of all this alone.

  I haven’t been completely honest with you, Chloe thought, knowing she couldn’t bring herself to say the words aloud. There’s something I haven’t told you.

  She sat back and closed her eyes, pushing her head back against the sofa as though trying to expel the memories that now flitted beyond her closed lids. She could sense Alex’s eyes on her, watching her.

  Chloe wondered whether keeping her eyes shut tightly for long enough would eventually make the thoughts go away. Why should it? It had never worked before.

  She snapped her eyes open and stood hurriedly from the sofa. She gestured to the empty coffee cup in her hand. ‘Do you want another?’

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Alex returned to the station after visiting Chloe at her flat. She still felt certain the press had broken a law in publishing those images of Chloe and nothing would be more satisfying than being able to prove it. When had people stopped becoming culpable for their actions? When had it become acceptable for everyone’s private business to be made public knowledge? Alex was hell-bent on making sure the press was made answerable over their printing of those images.

  But it wouldn’t change the mess Chloe had managed to get herself into by accessing those files without permission. Whatever happened next, Alex wasn’t going to let her face up to that alone.

  She got herself a coffee and went to her office. The station was busier than usual that evening, with investigations into the Lola Evans and Sarah Taylor cases ongoing. In her office, Alex was able to shut out the noise of the rest of the building and submerge herself in her thoughts. There was something they were missing; something that had as yet managed to elude them.

  She had barely had two minutes to herself when there was a knock at the door. DC Mason entered, carrying a notebook with him.

  ‘Don’t you have a home to go to, Dan?’ Alex asked.

  He sat at the desk beside her. ‘I could ask you the same. Anyway, look.’ He gestured to the notebook, where a list of nine names was written: four female and five male. ‘According to Tim Cole, these are the additional names of everyone else who’d attended the support group between May and December of last year.’

  Alex scanned the names: Zoe Morris, Katie Finnegan, Fiona Williams, Rebecca Marsh, Callum Davies, Christian Cooper, Joseph Black, Tom Meredith and Michael Reid.

  ‘Only one of them has a criminal record,’ Dan said. ‘Tom Meredith. Drink driving charges. I’ve spoken with him this afternoon – he’s got alibis for the night we think Sarah was moved from the pub, as well as the evening Lola was last seen. I’ve checked both of them out and they’re solid. He was in work.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘We got Tim Cole in this afternoon and asked him to identify the remaining people from their social media account profiles. We’ve accounted for seven of them. I’ve spoken with three of them today – again, they’ve all got alibis. I’ll contact the other four first thing tomorrow morning.’

  Alex gave him a tired smile. ‘Thanks, Dan. You’ve done a great job.’

  She was aware her focus had been distracted that day. She couldn’t allow it to happen again. It was likely their killer would find a next victim. Time was a luxury they didn’t have.

  ‘Which two are still unaccounted for?’ she asked.

  ‘Christian Cooper and Joseph Black. Neither has a criminal record and neither was identified from any social media accounts. Tim has given a description of both, but they’re pretty generic. He doesn’t seem to know much else about them.’

  Alex nodded. ‘I’ll get straight on to it,’ she said. ‘Can I take this?’ She gestured to the notebook. ‘You should go home now,’ she told him. ‘Get some rest. Tomorrow’s likely to be another busy day.’

  Dan stood and went to the door. ‘See you tomorrow. And try to take your own advice.’

  Alex sighed and sat back in her chair. There were things that were bothering her, some similarities between the two victims they were unable to ignore. Both were of a similar age: Lola, twenty; Sarah, twenty-four. Both were attractive. Yet there was no evidence of any sexual assault on either of the victims. If the killer’s motive wasn’t sexual, why had he chosen these particular women? Why had he made them suffer in such precise and horrific ways?

  There was an obvious link to the water, one that had been playing on her mind since they had learned about the history of the pub. One victim in a river, the other in a lake. A woman had drowned in a bathtub at the place where these young women had been held. There had to be relevance, but Alex was unable to see it.

  Why would anyone put their victims in water if not to try to conceal them for a lengthy period?

  There was a fifteen-year gap between the woman’s death and these murders.

  What was the relevance of the pub?

  Had the person – or people – who’d been responsible for the deaths of both women known about the drowning of Julia Edwards all those years ago?

  Alex turned on the computer. The backlog of work she had intended to tackle nearly two weeks ago still sat waiting for her, beginning to gather dust. She logged on to the computer and opened an Internet search page. Thinking back to what she had found out from Martin Beckett that afternoon, she searched for the woman who had drowned in the bathtub at the pub to which Lola and Sarah had been taken.

  There hadn’t been much coverage of the woman’s death in the media. Alex knew exactly why that was. Forties, working class: a nobody, as far as the press was concerned. No one worth the print space in their publications. Big news made big money. Had she been young and beautiful her photograph would have been splashed all over the local, maybe national front pages. As it was, she was just another woman who had met just another unfortunate end.

  The article Alex found was from a local newspaper’s website. Presumably, Dan hadn’t found the article in his research of The Black Lion pub because at the time of the woman’s death the pub had been called The Farmers’ Arms. Perhaps Beckett had changed the name of the pub in the aftermath of the event, not wanting his business to be tainted by the inconvenience of the death that had occurred there. Either way, the details of the place should have been found earlier.

  It was barely a paragraph – just the woman’s name and age along with a brief summary of the circumstances of her death.

  A woman has been found dead at the flat above The Farmers’ Arms pub in Groeswen near Caerphilly. Julia Edwards, 42, was found on Sunday, but is believed to have died days earlier. Her body was found in the bath by one of the staff working at the pub. She is believed to have drowned whilst drunk, and police have described the death as a tragic accident.

  The sum of a life, Alex thought. A short paragraph on a web page few people had probably visited. She now understood why Martin Beckett had doubted anyone else would want to live or work there. The place seemed cursed by darkness.

  She glanced at the clock on the far wall of her office. It was 7.40. She couldn’t help wondering where Rob was. Who he was with, what he was doing. She imagined him in a living room, that woman sitting beside him on the sofa; her two children playing on the carpet at their feet. She was angry with herself for sparing him the thought; angry with herself for bothering to care. Was he with her now? Would he have told her that he’d been going round to his ex-wife’s house regularly for sex?

  Of course he wouldn’t have.

  She sipped her coffee and returned her attention to the computer screen. She had some footage to sift through: the CCTV taken from the strip club where Lola had been working. There was a chance the man Lola had met that morning had been inside the club some time during the evening, and though other officers had looked through the footage Alex realised how easily details could be missed.

  The same might have applied to Christian Cooper and Joseph Black.

  Until she did it herself, she wouldn’t be satisfied there was nothing more to fi
nd.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chloe turned off the television and turned her phone to silent. She wanted to be alone and rid of the world. She had seen their faces, the people at work. She had seen the smirks of some of the men and, even worse, on some of the women. After leaving the ladies’ toilets, it was as though every officer in the building had waited in the corridors to greet her, waiting to catch a glimpse of her shame while it was still fresh enough to be seen worn across her face. She had worked every day for months alongside these people. She had respected them. They had respected her, or at least she’d believed they had.

  Everything had gone so horribly wrong, and she had been powerless to stop it.

  She thought of DI King: how easily she had accepted her revelations, though they must have been so unexpected. Or perhaps not. Perhaps Alex had seen so much in her life, both in and outside work, that nothing came as a shock to her any more. Maybe nothing was unexpected.

  She thought of the image that had graced the newspaper front page. If she was only able to remember that exact day, that exact request, then perhaps she might have remembered who she’d been speaking with that evening. But there had been so many, over such a length of time. She had never known who was at the other side of the screen, and what good would her being able to remember do her now? Whoever had been on the other side of that screen – whoever had sent that footage to the superintendent and to the newspaper – had been nothing more than a made-up name on a computer monitor; nothing more than a voiceless, faceless person who had paid her to take off her clothes.