Day of the Dead: A gripping serial killer thriller (Eve Clay)

by Mark Roberts

  ‘That’s too much, it’s only seven pounds fifty.’

  His curiosity pricked, the fat man on the aisle seat in front of him poked his head out to see what was going on.

  Arturo shook his head and, smiling at her, said, ‘Quédese con el cambio.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t speak Spanish.

  ‘It’s your lucky day, darling,’ said the fat man. ‘Quédese con el cambio? He’s telling you to keep the change.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’

  She looked delighted and amazed. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, he packed the chocolate and his wallet away. He paused as he repacked his black passport and reflected on the image in the centre of the document. Embossed in gold, it was an elegant picture of a Mexican Golden Eagle perched proudly on a cactus and destroying a rattlesnake with one claw and its beak: Mexico’s national symbol, the representation of the power of good defeating the forces of evil. The image pleased him.

  He opened the passport and scanned his personal information. Arturo Jesús Salvador, age fifty, and the names of the English mother he remembered well and the Mexican father who he’d never met. Nationality, Mexican. Place of birth, Oaxaca. He closed the passport and put it away.

  He reached into his bag and took out his medication, ponatinib, and popped two pills into his mouth. Pouring the red wine, he wished it was a form of good blood that combined with the medication could make him better, a holy communion of health.

  Feeling the beating wings of butterflies in his stomach – travelling over water increased his anxieties about flying – he took a good slug of wine and downed the tablets.

  Arturo took an envelope from his hand luggage, and took out a picture of a middle-aged man, slightly older than himself but five stone heavier and looking fifteen years his senior. He turned the photograph over and saw the man’s Liverpudlian home address. Arturo smiled as he returned the picture into the envelope and back into his bag.

  Through the window, in the distance, he saw the horizon, a faint line between the sea and the sky. He felt the beginning of the plane’s descent and kept his eyes firmly set in the distance. A surge of emotion passed through him, disbelief that he was so near after he had travelled so far.

  The horizon grew bigger and bigger and buildings, in the form of indistinct shapes, rose up from the line. He drank more wine and felt the glow of mild intoxication as he watched the distant shapes emerging into familiar forms.

  The first shape to come alive was the Anglican Cathedral. Then he saw the Metropolitan Cathedral and heard a tiny gasp emerge from deep within himself. The Radio City Tower and the Liver Buildings came into focus at the same time, shortly before the building known as the Cloud. He looked at waters around the Pier Head and saw a black dot moving across the surface. Ferry, he thought, the Mersey Ferry.

  Finally, he had arrived at the city that filled his night-dreams, the land of his ancestors, a pilgrimage during the Day of the Dead to visit those of his blood who had passed before him, to welcome them back if only for a day.

  47

  10.15 am

  ‘You really are engrossed.’

  Poppy looked up on hearing Sergeant Carol White’s voice.

  ‘I’ve been standing here for two minutes and it was like I wasn’t here.’

  ‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting, Carol, but I’m starting to feel like my head’s been packed with cotton wool.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said Carol.

  I’m so glad, thought Poppy, that I don’t have to do your job. She smiled at Carol, feeling a strong surge of sympathy for the woman.

  ‘Two dead paedos inside days of each other,’ remarked Carol, straight-faced.

  Unsure of how to react, Poppy said, ‘Oh!’ She observed the faint but triumphal smile that crossed Carol’s face.

  ‘Not nice people,’ said Carol. ‘Talking of which, have you got the laptop Steven Jamieson had hidden in his pit?’

  Poppy picked up a laptop in a plastic bag and Carol took it from her.

  ‘I’ve cracked it open. Here’s your username and password.’ Poppy slipped her a piece of paper: cwhite V1nd!ci2.

  ‘Let’s have a look at what lurks within.’ But when Carol got to the door, she turned. ‘What are you working on at the moment, Poppy?’

  ‘Amongst other things, right now, I’m monitoring the second Liverpudlian Vindici website and praying for a phone call from France.’

  ‘So you didn’t get to see what Steven Jamieson had down-loaded?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If you did my job, you’d probably feel a little bit happy when these people get their comeuppance. Thanks for this, Poppy.’

  Poppy watched White leave, disturbed by the sergeant’s words and attitude. Did she talk like that to other civilians working in the station?

  Poppy returned her attention to her own laptop and the unlocated Liverpool-based Vindici website. She opened the gallery of images and, startled, sat up on her chair. ‘That’s new...!’

  She saw a McDonald’s restaurant on a busy main road with a Farmfoods supermarket in the corner of the image and started reading the words moving across the bottom of the screen from right to left.

  For a moment, she felt numb and then wondered if she’d fallen asleep and was having a wish-fulfilling dream come true.

  She read the words again and, standing up, dialled Barney Cole’s number.

  ‘Hi, Poppy, what’s happening?’

  ‘Are you in the incident room?’

  ‘Just me and Karl Stone.’

  ‘Don’t move either of you. I think we’ve just had a lucky break.’

  48

  10.15 am

  ‘I’m sorry your colleague had to leave so suddenly,’ said Mrs Hurst. ‘That makes twice as much work for you.’ He was utterly silent. ‘Do you want me to leave you alone, Mr Rimmer?’

  The cold of the day was trapped and intensified in the attic of a house five doors down Mather Avenue from a murder scene.

  Clutching his coat at the neck and watching his breath condense on the air, Rimmer didn’t look up at Mrs Sylvia Hurst, the woman whose CCTV footage he was watching, and who he silently cursed. Why my wife and not you?

  ‘I might be here for a couple of hours, Mrs Hurst. Watching me watching this will be a little tedious for you.’

  Bob Rimmer took a deep breath and was assaulted by a sudden, vivid memory of the moments after the young Asian doctor whose name he couldn’t pronounce let alone remember said, In my view and the view of other doctors who I’ve reviewed your case with, you have twelve months to live, Mrs Rimmer. I’m sorry.

  ‘Are you all right, Mr Rimmer?’ asked Sylvia Hurst.

  He dragged himself together and took a pen drive from his pocket.

  ‘Can I get you anything? A coffee?’

  He forced himself to look at her properly for the first time and was relieved to see there was nothing about her that reminded him of his wife.

  ‘I’d be grateful for a coffee. Milk without sugar, please.’

  ‘You know, you’re more than welcome to be here, Mr Rimmer, and I admire the job you do greatly, but you do have a flash drive: you could record everything on it and take it back to the comfort of your office and look at it there.’

  ‘Yes, I do understand that, Mrs Hurst.’

  From downstairs came the muted but excited noise of Mrs Hurst’s children playing in their rooms and on the upstairs landing.

  ‘Bless them. How many children do you have, Mrs Hurst?’

  ‘Three. All under ten.’

  ‘Well, well, me too. No, Mrs Hurst, I need to watch it here, on the spot, so I can access the pavement or your driveway. In forensics it’s called direct mediation,’ he invented.

  ‘Really?’ She looked impressed.

  ‘Do me a favour, I’m not used to this particular CCTV system. Can you reel it backwards or forwards to five o’clock yesterday?’

  ‘Be my pleasure to help,’ she said, crossing the caber flooring. Beneath her feet,
came squealing and giggling and little voices competing against each other.

  As Mrs Hurst typed in 17:00 23/10/19 Rimmer asked, ‘Did you hear any news reports about what happened, Mrs Hurst?’

  ‘No, just one of the neighbours explained why the police were all over the avenue because... I don’t know their names, they kept themselves to themselves, and we were away in Wales and didn’t get back until this morning, and two minutes later, the constable knocks on the door and asks about the CCTV... Then you came along, and shortly after, the lady you were with was called away. There you go, five o’clock yesterday, press play when you’re ready.’

  ‘Maybe it’s just as well you didn’t know your neighbour or anything about him,’ said Rimmer, making direct eye contact with Mrs Hurst. ‘There’s a reason why he was killed and not the man next door to him.’ Silence. ‘It’s linked to another recent murder. In Aigburth.’

  Her face darkened.

  Rimmer made a show of shivering. ‘I’d love that coffee now if you don’t mind.’

  As she walked to the hatch and ladder leading down into the house, Rimmer heard her mutter, ‘Oh my God!’

  She climbed down the ladder but when her head was still visible, she stopped and looked back at Rimmer with an expression of horror.

  Rimmer nodded, gave a little shrug. The sound of her children playing together grew louder.

  ‘Five doors away?’

  ‘Five doors away, Mrs Hurst.’

  With her phone now in her left hand, Mrs Hurst disappeared down the creaking aluminium ladder and when she got to the ground he heard her say, ‘Hi, Mary, it’s Sylvia. Have you been watching the news...?’

  Detective Constable Bob Rimmer, who wanted to be as far away from other people as he could for as long as he could, pressed play and watched night fall on Mather Avenue in the blessed solitude of someone else’s attic.

  49

  10.30 am

  After two calls on Rathbone Road and Wellington Road, and a visit to Grosvenor Road, Police Constables Andrew Jones and Sarah O’Neil sat in their marked car outside Edward Hawkins’s home, Flat 4, 101 Arundel Avenue.

  WPC O’Neil listened to the ringtone on her mobile and complained, ‘Three paedos warned, seven more to go from our band of joy.’

  ‘If he’s in he’s not answering. If he doesn’t pick up his phone in the next minute, I say we score it as a did not respond.’ In the passenger seat, PC Jones pulled down the visor and, looking in the mirror, straightened his cap.

  WPC O’Neil closed down the unconnected call and, in her notebook, drew a line through the name Edward Hawkins.

  ‘Smithdown Road next,’ said WPC O’Neil. ‘We’re tripping over paedos in this neck of the woods.’

  ‘It’s not just here, Sarah.’

  ‘Yeah, guess so. Shall we leave the car here? It’s only round the corner.’

  As PC Jones stepped out and on to the pavement, the door of 101 Arundel Avenue opened, and the young constable made eye contact with a fat man in a dark hallway. He closed the door twice as fast as he’d opened it.

  PC Jones marched to the front door and banged it with the heel of his hand. ‘Open the door, Edward, police.’

  He listened and there was no sign of movement.

  ‘Here, I’ll try,’ said O’Neil. ‘Edward, my name’s WPC Sarah O’Neil. You’re not in trouble, but we do need to have a word with you. For your own safety.’

  PC Jones lifted the letter box. ‘He’s in there. He’s pretending to be a coat stand.’

  ‘Edward, please open the door and let us in. We’ve got lots of people like yourself to talk to today and if you don’t open the door really soon, we’re going to have to go away and leave you...’

  Hawkins unfroze and walked slowly to the front door. He opened it wide enough to frame the width of his saddlebag jowls.

  ‘Let us in,’ said WPC O’Neil. ‘We don’t want to have this conversation with you in front of the neighbours or passers-by.’

  Edward opened the door wide enough to allow a pair of bodies inside, one at a time.

  Front door closed, PC Jones pressed the timer on the hall light and immediately wished he hadn’t. Black mould lined the walls in random patterns from floor to ceiling.

  ‘I was abused as a child. I haven’t done nothing wrong for years now. I’m not one of them no more.’ Edward fixed his attention entirely on WPC O’Neil and, with a huge sigh of relief, PC Jones stepped to one side and out of the frame.

  ‘You’re aware of the murders of David Wilson and Steven Jamieson?’ said WPC O’Neil. ‘Did you know either of these men?’

  ‘No. Only after they’d been killed from the news on TV. No more than that.’

  PC Jones noticed in spite of the cold, there was a sheen of sweat on Hawkins’s bulbous neck.

  ‘Do you have any information that you think might be helpful in finding whoever’s committing these murders?’ asked WPC O’Neil.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please don’t withhold information from us, Edward. You could hold the key to saving your life or the lives of others.’

  ‘I don’t know nothing. If I did, I’d tell you.’

  ‘We’ve come to warn’ – WPC O’Neil dropped her voice – ‘everyone who’s been convicted of sex crimes against children—’

  ‘It was a once-in-a-lifetime mistake, I didn’t mean it to happen, as God is my judge.’ Hawkins made the sign of the cross on his heart. ‘I wouldn’t do it no more.’

  ‘Be very careful, Edward, who you open your door to. And if you’re out and about, especially near your home, be aware if anyone watches or follows you. If you find out or remember any information, please call the murder incident room on this number.’ WPC O’Neil handed a card to him.

  He looked at it and a bolt of terror shot through his face.

  ‘Is something wrong, Edward?’

  He offered the card back.

  ‘No, Edward, you’re supposed to keep the card in case you think you can help DCI Eve Clay who’s...’

  Edward turned away a full half-circle, showing his back to WPC O’Neil and his face to PC Jones who continued the scripted conversation. ‘...DCI Eve Clay who’s leading the inquiry and the detectives working with her.’ He went off script. ‘What’s wrong with you, Edward? I said Eve Clay and an expression with the words seen and ghost comes to mind.’

  Edward bit his right thumbnail. ‘I don’t know what you mean no more.’ He looked down at his shoes and PC Jones threw a prompting glance at WPC O’Neil.

  ‘Do you know DCI Eve Clay?’ she asked.

  ‘No, never heard of her.’

  ‘She’s one of the most prominent police officers in the country. She’s known all over the world. You’ve never heard of her?’

  ‘Never heard of her no more.’

  The hall plunged into darkness. Jones hit the timer rapidly and the light seemed to hurt Edward’s eyes. He turned a quarter-circle, facing neither WPC O’Neil or PC Jones, but looking as though he’d been torn straight down the middle.

  ‘If...?’ he said quietly.

  ‘If what, Edward?’

  ‘If I did find out something. If I did ring this number. Would I speak to Eve Clay?’

  ‘How do you know Eve Clay, Edward?’ asked WPC O’Neil.

  He turned at her. ‘I don’t know Eve Clay. You can’t prove anything no more.’

  ‘You most probably wouldn’t speak to DCI Eve Clay, but you would speak to someone. Are you sure you don’t know anything?’

  From behind the door of one of the ground-floor flats, someone started playing rap music at top volume.

  ‘I... I was wondering if you could take me to the police station and let me stay in a cell. For my own safety.’

  ‘You’re not the first to ask that and I’m sure you won’t be the last,’ said PC Jones. ‘And I’ll say what I’ve said to everyone. If you can prove that you’re in direct danger from the killer, then we can organise protective custody for you.’

  Hawkins thought
about it.

  ‘How on earth could I do such a thing?’

  Without another word, he turned and starting walking back upstairs.

  ‘He knows Eve Clay,’ said WPC O’Neil. ‘Do you think it’s worth flagging him up?’

  ‘Definitely.’ A thought prompted a dark expression in the young police constable’s eyes. ‘He looks a good deal older than DCI Clay. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

  ‘Jesus,’ said WPC O’Neil. ‘I’ll call DS Riley.’

  50

  10.35 am

  ‘Have you seen this?’ Poppy Waters sounded astonished as she blew into the incident room.

  Stone looked up from his laptop and the umpteenth newspaper article on the internet that morning.

  ‘What’s this lucky break?’ asked Cole.

  ‘Pull up the Liverpool Vindici website we’re still trying to locate.’

  Stone and Cole stopped what they were doing and went straight on to the website.

  ‘Got it?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Cole.

  ‘What is it, Poppy?’ asked Stone.

  ‘Have you managed to work out where the other Liverpool-based site’s operating from?’ pressed Cole

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Not yet. I need you to help me. Go to gallery: they’ve put on a brand-new picture.’

  ‘I’m looking at a picture of a McDonald’s...?’ Stone didn’t quite finish asking his question, and read silently as words moved across the bottom of the screen from right to left.

  Poppy read, ‘A warning to all paedophile scum. Children and teenagers go into this restaurant. I can see this restaurant from my house. My front windows face the McDonald’s...’

  ‘Eve said this would happen,’ said Cole. ‘I didn’t believe her. But she was right. The sites are linked. The people running them know each other. Lucien Burns gets pulled and the person running this site comes cartwheeling out of the closet. They’ve got each other’s backs.’

  Stone had his iPhone out; he went straight to Google.