The Night Stalker (Detective Jane Bennett and Mike Lockyer series Book 4)

by Clare Donoghue

  ‘I’ve got everything from Townsend’s place, boss,’ Pimbley said from behind her. Jane saw Lockyer look up, but in fact when she turned she realized Pimbley was talking to her. She resisted the urge to laugh. The look on Lockyer’s face made staying almost worth it. ‘We’ve taken his toothbrush, hairbrush and razor for DNA,’ Pimbley said, counting the items off on his fingers. ‘And I bagged up all his footwear and clothes for trace evidence.’ He stopped and pursed his lips. ‘Angela’s in a bad way.’

  ‘No bloody wonder,’ Lockyer said. His words lacked sympathy, but Jane knew better. She had been with him when he spoke to Angela Townsend. He had made a point of going to see the woman himself to reassure her that she wasn’t to blame for her husband’s actions. Jane had found it hard to look at Angela as she confirmed, in between sobs, that her husband had been absent for the past six months, if not longer. She said he was often away from home, sometimes overnight, and it was always the same excuse: he was working. Of course Jane, Lockyer and half of Bridgwater CID knew different. He had lied to everyone.

  With an exact timeline from Janice Ward, the team had the footage proving that, despite Townsend’s denial, he had been challenged by Janice when he tried and failed to get into the hospital without ID. They were yet to find his second, successful attempt – the one where he had gone on to try and suffocate Stephanie Lacey – but Jane had no doubt it was there. But as with everything else, it was buried in hours of work. And the lies didn’t end there. The family emergency he had told Lockyer about was fictional, too. He had, it seemed, used his time to get over to Holford, park up and make his way down to the house without being seen. He had felled Barney with a large rock from the garden before heading down to the flat to finish the job. Jane’s stomach did a small flip as she remembered the blood soaking into the knee of her trousers.

  She had been to see Barney in Musgrove yesterday. He had been back to his cheerful self in spite of his pallor. He was due to be discharged later today. If Jane hadn’t been driving Lockyer back to her parents’ to collect his stuff, she would have offered to pick him up, though perhaps it was wise to keep her distance for now. She was happy he was OK, but he had still lied to her, and that would take time to forget, to move past. He had admitted to sleeping with Pippa once, but was adamant he knew nothing about the tattoo that matched his own. His ink had been an impulse purchase when he got the job as ranger for the AONB.

  If he was telling the truth – and Jane believed he now was – Pippa had been reluctant to leave the relationship at one night. Barney had told Jane that he had ended up blocking Pippa’s calls when she didn’t get the hint. Jane would guess the tattoo had been an impulse on Pippa’s part too, before she realized one night didn’t equal lasting love.

  Her phone beeped. It was a text from her mother – well, Peter, via her mother.

  Peter says to say he knows all the words to ‘Pease Pudding Hot’.

  That was it. No kiss. No explanation. But then, Jane didn’t need one. Her son’s message was clear: he had learned the song off by heart. Whether she liked it or not, Jane would be walking around Clevedon carolling this evening – end of discussion.

  The extension on Lockyer’s side of the partition rang. ‘DI Lockyer,’ he said in a dull voice. He really was working on half-measures. But then his face brightened. ‘Doc . . . good to hear from you. I knew you wouldn’t let me down. What have you got?’

  Jane was yet to meet Doctor Basil Reed, but if he brought out this response in Lockyer, he must be something special. Or maybe her boss just had a thing for pathologists, given Dave Simpson, Lewisham’s resident slicer and dicer, was Lockyer’s closest friend. She wondered if their collective lack of experience with living, breathing people drew them together. She smiled, picked up her mobile and sent a text to Peter via her mother saying she would indeed be back in time for carolling. The response was almost instant.

  You promise?

  As her mother’s technical knowledge was limited, Jane knew this message was from Peter himself. She tapped out a reply, confident, for once, that she could keep her word.

  I promise. Love u x

  She looked up as Atkinson walked out of his office and over to the water cooler. Lockyer was right. The guy looked like shit. He glanced up as if hearing her thoughts. He finished filling his cup and then smiled. ‘Can I borrow you for a minute, Jane?’ he asked, motioning for her to follow him into her office.

  ‘Of course, sir,’ she said. ‘Mike’s just on the phone with Doctor Reed about the post-mortem, but he shouldn’t be long, so shall I . . . ?’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Atkinson said. ‘I’m sure we can manage without him.’

  Jane pushed her chair back and walked across the office, looking over her shoulder at Lockyer, willing him to look up. When he did, his face said it all. He had heard the exchange between her and Atkinson and like the prize git he was, he was going to let her deal with it while he stretched out his phone call and watched the clock. She wouldn’t be at all surprised if he was gone by the time she came out; he was that keen to leave. If she wasn’t driving him back to her parents’ and then on to the train station, she was sure he already would have.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  18th December – Friday

  Lockyer crossed his arms against the cold. The rain was washing down the windows at the front of the station in giant rivulets, dissolving the snow and ice and leaving the tarmac of the car park shiny and black. It was as if the downpour was washing the landscape clean so it could start afresh. That’s just how he would feel the moment his train pulled into Paddington. He nodded to one of the team as they joined the huddle of officers gathered outside Express Park.

  The press conference was in full swing, and despite the freezing temperatures and rain Hamilton was holding court, sheltered only by a makeshift awning. He looked the part in his dress uniform. If he hadn’t been a copper, he would have made an excellent politician. He was using the classic David Cameron move – closed sideways fist with a slightly protruding thumb – to accentuate his point. Pointing wasn’t allowed when you were in politics; it was seen as too aggressive. Hamilton used the gesture well and looked every bit the statesman. ‘A full and through investigation is under way . . .’

  Lockyer tuned out. His phone buzzed. He slid it out of his pocket but kept it down at his side, chancing a glance every few seconds to see what he had missed. Janice Ward had called to speak to him twice. He sniffed, using the back of his hand, still clutching his phone, to wipe under his nose. The snow might have gone, but the wind felt bitter against his cheeks. He returned his hand to his side and opened the next email. It was from Abbott, with a message to call a Doctor Richard Raynor as a matter of urgency. He narrowed his eyes. The name didn’t ring a bell. Could be London-related, he guessed. The final email was from Roger, with an update on the Bashir case. It had been the faux reason for his departure, but it seemed Roger had no intention of letting Lockyer ‘settle back in’ when he got back to London. An interview under caution had been set up for Monday morning with the main suspect. Lockyer would be taking the lead. Despite his surroundings, he found himself unable to keep his smile under wraps. He wanted to do a bloody jig. Gun crime, gangs and lies, oh my. He couldn’t wait.

  ‘. . . Of course, reviews of William Townsend’s cases past and present will be necessary, but unless evidence can be found to confirm beyond a doubt that errors were made, any and all convictions will be upheld . . .’

  Lockyer resisted the urge to say, ‘yeah, right’. Hamilton knew as well as he did that lawyers the length and breadth of Somerset would be fielding calls at this very moment from gleeful clients demanding to have their files reopened, their convictions overturned, verdicts quashed, records cleared or anything else that would get them off the proverbial hook.

  ‘DI Lockyer?’ a voice whispered behind him.

  He turned and took a step back, a scrum of CID bodies taking his place in the line-up. Unlike him, they wanted to be there. This would
be the most high-profile case they had ever seen. ‘Janice,’ he said, remembering the nurse’s missed calls. ‘Sorry I haven’t had a chance to get back to you.’ He kept his voice quiet. It was amazing what a stray journalist’s mic could pick up.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ she said, blushing. ‘I was just passing and thought I’d see, on the off chance, if you were here.’

  ‘Here I am,’ he said, spreading his arms as wide as the crowd would allow.

  She looked around her. ‘I just . . . I wasn’t sure but I thought I ought to . . .’

  ‘Would you rather talk inside?’ he asked, gesturing to the double doors behind them. ‘We can go up to the office and—’

  ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I honestly don’t want to be a bother. I wouldn’t want people to think I was . . .’

  He realized she was about to cry. ‘What’s on your mind, Janice?’ he said, going for sympathetic but aware he sounded on the edge of impatient.

  She seemed to consider him for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth over his face. ‘I was watching telly last night,’ she said, her words clipped, ‘and I caught the end of the news. I don’t like the news. I never watch it, but I did . . . I don’t know why, but anyway, they were talking about her . . . about Stephanie Lacey, and they showed a picture of . . .’ She leaned in and looked up at him from under her fringe. ‘The detective – Townsend, that they say killed all those girls and tried to . . . well, tried to kill Stephanie.’

  ‘Right,’ Lockyer said.

  ‘Well, the thing is . . . it wasn’t my Townsend.’ Her forehead creased. ‘I mean, the Townsend they showed wasn’t the Townsend I met.’

  ‘Sorry, Janice. Can you run that by me again? Your Townsend isn’t our Townsend?’

  She nodded as he spoke. She appeared relieved that he understood. He hated to burst her bubble, but he wasn’t sure he did. ‘They showed a picture of him,’ she said. ‘He looked a bit like . . . I thought Phillip Schofield, but I don’t know. Anyway, the man I spoke to – the man who said he was DI Townsend, and that he’d just forgotten his warrant card . . . Well, they aren’t the same person. They’re not the same person.’

  Lockyer felt the creeping fingers of doubt crawling up his spine. ‘We have CCTV footage of you talking to Townsend at the entrance to the Duchess Building. I’ve seen it myself.’

  Janice looked thrown for a moment, but then she opened her mouth in a wide O. ‘I know why that must be,’ she said. ‘You’re looking at the wrong entrance.’ She seemed reassured. Lockyer wasn’t. ‘I may well have talked to your Townsend – I talk to hundreds of people a day. I didn’t remember him . . . not from the picture on the news, but anyway, the man I did speak to. The man who said he was DI Townsend, but obviously wasn’t . . . I spoke to him at the south entrance to the ward. It’s on the M&S side of the building.’ Her words were quiet and clear now she seemed in control of her subject. ‘The place is like a maze to the uninitiated, so I can understand you looking where you were looking, given where I spoke to you, but . . .’

  Lockyer felt an icy wind behind him. He glanced over his shoulder. The line of CID officers had parted. Hamilton’s ‘our nation’ address was over, it seemed. He was waving a thick hand to dismiss the gathered press. Lockyer turned back.

  ‘That’s him,’ Janice said, her jaw tight, her voice distorted like that of a ventriloquist. He followed her wide eyes. ‘He told me his name was Townsend.’

  Lockyer snorted. ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible, Janice,’ he said, already manoeuvring her towards the double doors. The press were packing up, but their mics could still be live. The last thing he needed was for Janice to make her accusation a little louder. That would bring attention – very unwelcome attention. It was a miracle Lockyer had managed to get this far without a Hamilton-shaped axe falling on his career-shaped head. He wasn’t about to let Janice screw that up, but she refused to move. Her eyes were fixed on Hamilton, the recognition obvious. What was making Lockyer’s pulse jump was that Hamilton was looking back – the recognition appeared to be mutual. A question that had been dogging Lockyer for the past week flashed into his mind. How had Hamilton known Andrea Jenkins’ background when they had spoken in the car that day? The answer came to him on another gust of icy wind.

  It was not, as Lockyer had thought, because either Atkinson or Townsend had told him. He knew now that they couldn’t have. Atkinson didn’t know, and Townsend had been in Lockyer’s presence the entire time.

  No. The only way Detective Chief Constable Les Hamilton could have known about Andrea’s difficulties – her pregnancies, her alcohol abuse – was if he knew her. If he had chosen her. If he had killed her.

  He had killed them all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Christmas Eve

  Lockyer bent down and read aloud. ‘Twenty minutes per kilo, plus ninety minutes.’ He looked at the turkey. ‘Fifteen pounds is about . . . seven kilogrammes, so that’s . . . four hours? That can’t be right.’ He went back to preparing the vegetables, wondering, as he cut crosses into the Brussel sprouts, if Maureen Jones would bother with Christmas lunch. Claudette was just out of hospital, but with three broken ribs, she wouldn’t be eating much. Megan and Aaron were staying in Somerset tonight, but driving back in the morning, and Cassie was flying to the States today; so really, it would only be Maureen and the vicar eating. ‘Poor sods,’ he said, looking out at the rain. He had never been happier standing in his kitchen peeling spuds, though how he had ended up hosting Christmas lunch was still a mystery. He threw a pale spud into the pan of salted water. You salt the pan before you boil the water, Celia Bennett had said.

  He hated to admit it, but he missed the Bennetts. That said, he wasn’t missing Bridgwater CID, the Hamilton shitstorm he had left behind or, in fact, any part of Somerset. He didn’t envy Jane her task of overseeing ‘the transition’, as Atkinson kept referring to it, over the weekend while the bigwigs of Avon and Somerset tried to manage an unmanageable situation. He opened the fridge, took out another beer and twisted off the lid. It gave a satisfying hiss.

  It had been Saturday afternoon before Lockyer spoke to Doctor Richard Raynor. He shook his head as he took a gulp of ice-cold beer. He still couldn’t believe it. Townsend had been neither incompetent nor insane. He had been ill. Droplets of water splashed back as Lockyer threw another spud into the pan. He wiped his hand on his apron. Townsend had been suffering from early-onset dementia, of all things. He had been taking part in a medical trial Raynor was supervising. Patients were required to attend residential clinics, so their vital statistics could be monitored before and after they took the new combination therapy.

  Lockyer swallowed another mouthful of beer. Raynor had reeled off a veritable banquet of symptoms common with the condition: memory loss, changes in behaviour, personality changes, poor judgement, issues with balance, depression, confusion, difficulty with times and numbers. No wonder Townsend had been all over the place – body and mind. At one point Lockyer remembered thinking the guy was abusing alcohol, he was that erratic, and even Claudette had said in her statement that Townsend was stumbling and incoherent before he attacked her. According to the doctor, the freezing temperatures and stress could have exacerbated Townsend’s confusion and disorientation. Lockyer finished another spud and threw it in the pan. How many should he do? He counted in his head how many people were coming, but kept losing count. He would do the whole bag just to be on the safe side – better too many than too few.

  Townsend had been the perfect patsy. His symptoms had been intermittent and slow to progress, helped in part by the treatment he was having – but he had been affected. It had affected his decision-making, and someone had noticed. Someone who had nursed his own wife with the same disease. Hamilton. It had been a piece of piss for him to pass the poor guy off as incompetent. Once Townsend was away from his colleagues in Bristol, he was isolated. None of his team appreciated his arrival, so they only ever looked for the bad in their new DI. Lockyer was guilt
y of the same apathy. He had been spoon-fed a line and swallowed it whole. Jane, too.

  He sniffed and shook his head again. Hamilton must have thought all his prayers had been answered when Lockyer had blundered in and killed Townsend. He remembered something Hamilton had said. If you hadn’t turned up and flattened my ex-wife and Townsend, then Claudette could be the one in the morgue right now instead of him. Lockyer didn’t doubt that to be true. Claudette had been lucky – on more than one count. Townsend had been unlucky on too many counts to number. Lockyer sucked in a breath as he nicked the end of his finger with the knife. You should have used a peeler, Celia would have said. She was providing a weird inner monologue for him. He was used to Jane in there, but her mother too? He sucked the blood from the end of his finger as his mobile rang. He dropped the knife on the chopping board, grabbed a tea towel off the rack and walked through to the lounge. His phone was on the arm of the sofa. It was Jane.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Not much,’ she said. ‘Just called to give you an update . . . that’s if you care, but mainly to check your pipes haven’t burst and you are enjoying being back under your own roof.’

  ‘The pipes were fine,’ he said. ‘I’d left the heating on so it was roasting in here when I got back.’

  ‘That’s going to cost you,’ she said.

  ‘I know.’ He wiped the starch off his fingers. ‘So how’s it going?’ She was right. He didn’t want to know. Once he had read Hamilton his rights, Lockyer had wanted nothing more but to wash his hands of the whole case. But for Jane, he would listen and at least pretend to care.

  ‘I went in this morning,’ she said. ‘He’s been charged with Chloe and Pippa’s murders. There’s a second charge for the attempted murder of Stephanie Lacey.’