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

by Victoria Jenkins

  Through employment records, Adam Edwards was traced to an address in Ystrad Mynach. Alex headed there with DC Mason, but en route she took a detour. She explained to Dan that she wanted to pop in on Rachel Jones, to make sure the young woman remained vigilant. Though this was true, there was also another reason for her visit. Something had been nagging at her: a suspicion she hoped Rachel Jones might be able to confirm or deny.

  She parked the car outside the terraced house and asked Dan to wait.

  The young woman was small and timid, something birdlike about her sharp features. She answered the door cautiously, having checked past the living room curtains before going to the door.

  ‘Everything OK?’

  Rachel nodded, but everything about her expression and demeanour spoke the opposite. She was scared, Alex thought. Given the same circumstances, what person wouldn’t be?

  ‘I’ve been thinking: is there anyone you could go and stay with for a few days?’

  Rachel’s features stiffened. The young woman seemed a bag of nerves.

  ‘For peace of mind,’ Alex attempted to reassure her. She held back from saying she didn’t think Rachel was in any danger: how could she possibly know that? They didn’t know the reasons he had selected Lola and Sarah as his victims. She would be trying to second-guess a mystery, and Alex wasn’t prepared to take those chances.

  ‘My brother lives in Bristol.’

  ‘Go there for a few days, if you can. I promise you we’re doing everything to find this man. For now, there’s something I need to ask you.’

  The young woman shifted her weight from one foot to the other, looking down at the hallway carpet.

  Alex reached into her pocket. ‘Do you recognise him?’

  She held the picture out to Rachel. It was Adam Edwards’s police photograph, taken years earlier. The support group was the only link between the two women. It made sick sense. Where better to target vulnerable young women? Until now, their main suspects had been first Connor Price and then the elusive Joseph Black. Yet Joseph Black seemed untraceable. Perhaps because he didn’t exist.

  Rachel took the image from Alex’s hand, holding the face closer to her own. ‘When was that taken? That’s Joseph.’

  ‘Joseph?’

  The girl looked back to her. The look of anxiety she wore as a second skin had been replaced by something else. Fear.

  ‘You don’t think—’

  ‘I don’t think anything,’ Alex interjected. ‘Not yet. Rachel, this is definitely the man you know as Joseph Black? He attended the support group?’

  Rachel nodded, her eyes clouding with tears. ‘What do you mean “the man I know as”?’ She looked again at the face in the photograph. It might have been a different version, a younger version of the person she had known, but there was no doubting she knew the face that stared back at her.

  ‘What else can you tell me about him?’ Alex asked.

  ‘He used to come to the support group, a while back. Haven’t seen him since before Christmas. He looks different to this now, though. Much shorter hair. Older. Do you think he—’ She cut her own words short this time, hanging on to the unspoken implication of Alex’s interest in this man.

  ‘Is there anything else, Rachel? No matter how small it might seem, anything is helpful.’

  Rachel was shaking her head, her tears now beginning to fall. ‘No one ever asks too much. But we trust each other – that’s why we go there. It’s supposed to be a safe place. Joseph was quiet. Nice. He was a good listener.’

  Alex exhaled audibly. Quiet. Nice. Presumably the very things that had made him seem trustworthy to the young women whose lives he had gone on to end so brutally. ‘Go to Bristol,’ she said, putting a hand on Rachel’s arm. ‘Go today and I will keep in touch, I promise. This will all be over soon.’

  She hoped to a God she was dubious about that this might be true. Her head was ringing.

  They needed to make contact again with the other four women who’d been named on Tim Cole’s list of members. Each of them needed to know that if they saw Adam Edwards – Joseph Black – they were to contact police immediately.

  Alex went back to the car where DC Mason was waiting.

  ‘She knows him, Dan.’

  He gave her a questioning look.

  ‘Rachel knows Adam Edwards. He was part of the support group, only he called himself Joseph Black.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  Alex pulled her seatbelt across her shoulder. ‘We need to find him.’

  She gripped the steering wheel as her mind raced three steps ahead of her. There was something about that police photograph of Adam Edwards that was bothering her, some familiarity she couldn’t allow to go overlooked. Lola. Sarah. The support group. Just how close to his victims had Adam been?

  Close enough to have been to the strip club on what would turn out to be Lola’s last night there, Alex now realised. Close enough to have waited for her to finish work – for her to have been expecting him. Tall. Dark features. Quiet. Nice.

  So close he’d been there all this time, hiding right in front of them.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  The man who answered the door at the address the team had traced as Adam Edwards’s was in his early forties. He was wearing oil-stained trousers and a T-shirt that looked as though it had never been washed. The dog at his feet shared the same look.

  ‘Been working on the bike out the back,’ he said by way of explanation. He wiped the palm of his hands on his T-shirt and peered down at Alex’s ID.

  ‘We’re looking for Adam Edwards. Your name is?’

  ‘Simon Watts. What do you want Adam for?’

  ‘Is he home?’

  The dog yapped at Alex’s feet, jumping up and leaving smeared paw prints on her trousers.

  Simon shook his head. ‘Why do you want him?’

  ‘We’ll speak to Mr Edwards about that. Any idea where he is?’

  The man’s eyes narrowed with curiosity. ‘Not seen him in about two weeks. He’s away on a job.’

  ‘Job? What sort of job?’

  Simon shrugged. ‘Building work, I assume. He didn’t say much.’

  Alex glanced past Simon and into the cluttered living room. The dog had decided to leave her side, instead turning its attention to what appeared to be a pile of dirty washing abandoned at the end of the sofa. ‘Can we come in?’

  After a moment’s hesitation, Simon stepped aside and let them into the house. The front door led straight into the living room, which looked as though it was housing preparations for a car boot sale. There was mess everywhere: dirty clothes lying in a heap at the end of the sofa; piles of magazines stacked precariously against the fireplace; engine parts and tools beneath the window at the far end of the room. Another dog sprawled on the laminate flooring next to the sofa, its heavy breathing chesty and laboured like an old man’s.

  ‘Do you own the house, Mr Watts?’

  Simon nodded.

  ‘And how long has Mr Edwards been living here?’

  ‘Year or so. I split up with my ex; she moved out; I needed the money so rented the spare room. Look, what do you want him about?’

  ‘How did you meet Mr Edwards?’

  Simon Watts looked from one officer to the other, his mouth twisting into a cynical grimace. ‘Why all the questions?’

  ‘We’re looking for Mr Edwards as a matter of urgency, Mr Watts, so if you could please just answer our questions.’

  ‘He did some work here for me, on the electrics. A mate recommended him. Mentioned he was looking for somewhere to rent and not long after I had the room going. Has he done something?’

  ‘We’ll need the name and contact details of this mate,’ Alex told Simon.

  ‘Can we take a look in his room?’ Dan asked.

  ‘You got a warrant?’

  ‘No,’ Alex told him, ‘but it shouldn’t take us too long to get one.’ She gave the man an insincere smile.

  He sighed. ‘Go on then. It’s the second door
on the right.’

  He followed them upstairs. On the landing, further clutter welcomed them. Alex expected much the same when she opened the door to Adam Edwards’s room, so the orderliness that greeted her was a surprise. The bed was made and obviously hadn’t been slept in the previous night. There was a TV mounted on the side wall and beneath it a chest of drawers. Alex pulled the top drawer open. Piles of T-shirts lay inside, all ironed and neatly folded. In the two drawers beneath it there were more clothes. Wherever Adam had gone, it looked as though he was planning to return.

  ‘He didn’t tell you where he was going?’ Alex asked, turning to Simon who was standing in the doorway watching them.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where do you work, Mr Watts?’

  The man’s expression had becoming increasingly hostile. It hardened once again now, as if he was about to be accused of something.

  ‘Cardiff Council. I do grounds maintenance round the parks.’

  Alex straightened up and cast Dan a glance. ‘Do you have access to a council vehicle, Mr Watts?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Has Adam ever borrowed a vehicle from you?’

  Simon Watts shook his head. ‘They’re kept down in the unit. I drive down there start of the shift to pick one up, drop it back off at the end of the day.’ He studied Alex with curiosity. ‘What’s all this about?’

  ‘Does Mr Edwards own a vehicle?’

  ‘He’s got a van. Uses it for work.’

  Alex shot Dan a second look. ‘Do you have a work ID? Something you need in order to gain access to the grounds?’

  Simon Watts was looking increasingly concerned. ‘This is about that girl, isn’t it? The one they found in the river.’

  ‘Mr Watts… the ID?’

  ‘I’ve got one somewhere,’ he said, throwing his hands up as a gesture to the mess, ‘but don’t ask me where it is. I don’t use it very often – we don’t tend to get asked.’

  Alex reached into her pocket, took out a notebook and pen and handed both to Simon. ‘The friend who recommended Adam…his details, please.’

  She waited as Simon retrieved his mobile phone from his pocket and searched for his friend’s contact number. ‘Please have a look for that ID,’ she told him. ‘If you see Adam or hear from him, phone call, anything, I want you to get straight in touch.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Simon said, handing back the notebook and pen. ‘What’s he supposed to have done?’

  ‘Mr Watts…’

  ‘Yes, yes, OK. I’ll let you know.’

  On the way back to the station, Alex wondered what they were dealing with. If Adam Edwards was, in fact, their killer, exactly what sort of man were they up against? It had seemed they knew so little of him, yet as Alex drove in silence – Dan beside her, scouring the Internet on the iPad – she thought they perhaps knew far more than they realised.

  But why was he doing this now, after all this time?

  According to Martin Beckett, Julia Edwards had been living in the flat in exchange for sexual favours with his father. Had Adam known this? He had been taken into care years earlier, but had the same thing been happening during the eleven years he had lived with his mother? Had he grown up knowing what she did, and had his perception of his mother clouded his attitude towards women? He had tortured Lola Evans. He had removed her fingernails and cut her hair, essentially stripping her of some of the elements that made her feminine.

  ‘Found anything?’

  In the passenger seat, Dan’s attention was still focused on the iPad.

  ‘Seems our man’s recently reactivated his Facebook account.’

  They’d already searched for a profile matching their suspect, but none had been found. His absence from social media and his use of the alias Joseph suggested he had been intent on keeping a low profile.

  So why reactivate the account now, Alex wondered.

  ‘You sure it’s been reactivated and isn’t a new profile?’

  ‘Yep. Posts dating back to last year. They come to a stop in July. Then they started again yesterday. He’s shared a post about looking forward to the weekend.’

  Reactivating a social media account didn’t make any sense to Alex. If Adam Edwards was the man they were looking for, he had so far managed to stay beneath their radar. Reactivating old accounts on social media sites was surely making the work of the police easier for them, unless the man was so arrogant he continued to believe he was getting away with it.

  Looking forward to the weekend, thought Alex. She felt her stomach churn. He was going to kill again. He had more than likely already chosen his next victim.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  It had taken Chloe a while before she had returned to the work that still lay set out on the coffee table in her living room. On any other day she might have gone out for a walk and allowed the fresh air to clear her head of unhelpful thoughts before returning to the task at hand, but there was no stepping outside the flat that day, and probably not for many to come. Facing the world seemed a daunting prospect, something she could easily do without. Thank goodness for online shopping and home delivery, she thought. Not that she could think of food. She could think of little other than the sound of her dead brother’s voice, so frantic and so scared.

  It had become so easy for people to disappear from the outside world. People could both earn and spend their money online, having everything they needed in order to maintain survival brought to their doorstep by a person they would have to face for no longer than the time it took to sign a delivery slip. Entire lives could be lived from behind the keys of a laptop. Chloe had always sought company from her own screen and what a sad existence that now seemed to her. Loneliness clutched at her. It was becoming an all-too familiar sensation.

  Then something even more painful gripped her: anxiety, clawing her insides. A ‘what if’ that she had never wanted to consider.

  She was interrupted by the ringing of her mobile. Scott’s name flashed up from the screen. It was the third time he had tried calling her in the past twenty-four hours. He had left an answerphone message earlier, but she hadn’t been brave enough to listen to it. She wanted to answer his call. She wanted to speak to him, to hear the reassuring tone of his voice at the other end of the line. But how could she? What the hell was she supposed to say to him? I’m sorry you saw me half-naked in the papers. I’m sorry I never told you I used to perform sex acts for money.

  She couldn’t speak to him. It was cowardly and she realised she might never get another chance to explain herself to him, but she just couldn’t do it, not that day. She needed time to think. There were so many other things hanging over her.

  She listened to the end of the recording of her brother’s police interview. It had ended as she had known it would: with Luke being released without charge. He had been released on pre-charge bail, with the police seemingly confident – or, at the very least, hopeful – that given extra time they would secure the evidence that would justify a charge against Luke and lead to a successful conviction.

  Two days later, Luke was dead.

  She poured through the file relating to his death. His ‘suicide’ as the police and the coroner had preferred to label it. Her father’s car had been found at the bottom of the cliffs at Marcross in the Vale of Glamorgan. Luke had passed his driving test, but he hadn’t had his own car and hadn’t been insured on his father’s. Luke had made sure he passed his test, Chloe knew, in order to prove himself. In order to prove that, very soon, he would be able to do whatever he wanted and there would be nothing either of his parents could do about it. He had followed Chloe’s example in that. He had wanted them to know that they wouldn’t be able to control his life for ever.

  It was sadly ironic that his act of defiance had finalised the nature of his death. Had he never passed that test – had he never learned to drive – Luke would never have been able to take himself to that clifftop. The police would have looked into the possible involvement of another person, but as it had stood, they had
done nothing.

  The post-mortem report that Chloe had copied on to her memory stick from the police database confirmed her brother’s death as suicide. A blow to the head, sustained on impact. Lacerations to the face and arms where his body had collided with the windscreen. The details were difficult to read, but as always for Chloe the not knowing seemed far harder.

  She closed the post-mortem report.

  A Facebook message notification pinged at the top of the screen, its narrow banner highlighting the first line of a newly received message. She would have ignored it had it not been for the name that greeted her. At the sight of it, a surge of memories flooded the room, filling it like long forgotten friends. She clicked on the banner and the messenger page popped up to fill the screen.

  Hi Chloe. I’m not going to ask how you are – I’ve seen the papers, so realise things must be pretty tough for you at the moment (understatement, I’m sure). Anyway, I hadn’t realised you were back in Wales. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? I thought you might need a friend, and there’s no friend like an old friend (next stop 30, so definitely qualifying on the “old” bit). Let me know if you fancy meeting up for a drink or a chat (or both). You still have my left shoulder x

  A sad smile passed Chloe’s lips. His last line resurrected a memory that was so distant she might have come to eventually forget it. She had once told him that she appreciated his shoulder to cry on, and he had asked which one. For a long time, he had been the only person she’d had to talk to. Months after leaving Cardiff, she’d continued to miss him.

  As with everyone else, she’d had to let him go. But unlike many others, she had been sorry for it. Somehow, it seemed almost as though he had known when she might need him.

  She began to type a response.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  There was no sign of Adam Edwards. His vehicle licence number had been obtained from the DVLA, and his van was a match with the same make and model as the one that had been picked up on CCTV near the entrance to Bute Park. Although the plate couldn’t be seen clearly on the footage it seemed increasingly likely they had identified their main suspect. Wherever Adam had been keeping the van since Sarah’s murder, it appeared he was doing all he could to make sure it stayed out of sight and therefore away from suspicion.