The Nightmare Place

by Mosby, Steve

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘You sell phones.’

  He grunted, glaring at Simon again. ‘Not many, I don’t.’

  I smiled. ‘Even better.’

  ‘Shit,’ Chris said. ‘That’s our guy?’

  ‘Yes.’ I stared at the screen, a knot in my stomach. ‘I think it is.’

  We were sitting in the store’s cluttered back room area – empty of Simon now – reviewing the security footage. The truth was that we’d been enormously lucky so far. Not only did the shop have a camera installed, but the owner had remembered our guy almost instantly. He wasn’t lying about the phones: he had only shifted three in the past month, and two of them had been to a woman and a teenage friend of Simon’s. Right now, we were looking at the third customer. He’d picked an out-of-the-way shop, and that had been a mistake. Although we couldn’t be certain this was our guy, I was convinced it was.

  And then our luck had come up short.

  Chris said, ‘They might as well not bother with CCTV at all.’

  I was already mentally framing the video footage to release on the news, but Chris was right. It was not going to be easy. The feed would have been terrible even without the enormous smudge of dirt across the lens, and all that was really obvious was that the man was physically very large, with unkempt hair and dark stubble. Aside from that, he was wearing dark glasses that made his face impossible to make out. Despite the heat, his body was obscured by a long coat, so that you couldn’t even tell whether he was overweight or muscled. He managed to be simultaneously both hugely distinctive and utterly unrecognisable.

  A ripple ran up the footage, like a wave moving slowly over the scene. Everything rolled with it, apart from the smear of dirt.

  ‘Someone’s going to know him,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe. Are they going to recognise him from this, though?’

  He sounded despondent, and I felt the same. But as I watched the man handing over the money, I told myself that we were at least getting closer. Both of us would have preferred a crystal-clear image, but at least this was something. Distinctive and anonymous was still distinctive. Someone must know him. Someone would recognise him.

  ‘We need to get this feed over to the department,’ Chris said. ‘Get the IT guys on it and—’

  But at that moment I felt a buzz in my head, and I immediately tuned him out. I watched as the man on the screen stuffed his change into his pocket, and something clicked.

  A shiver of familiarity.

  Chris was still talking, so I held my hand up.

  ‘Wait.’

  I closed my eyes, because I didn’t need to see the figure on the screen any more. Instead, I forced myself to relax, to concentrate. Without consciously thinking about it, I allowed my mind to flick back through its mental files, waiting for a sense of recognition to kick in, for my memory to pull out what I needed.

  Click.

  There it was.

  And I understood. Everything made sense.

  I opened my eyes in time to see our man trudging out of the frame.

  ‘I know him,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  I was already on my feet, searching for my mobile phone.

  ‘And you do too.’

  Twenty-Four

  When Jane had eventually got to sleep, she’d stayed there: it was ten o’clock when she woke, and from the kind of dense sleep she knew would leave her tired and groggy for hours.

  Light was streaming in through the curtains, and the air in the bedroom had already been warmed and turned by the morning sun. Another hot day. She needed to open a window: the bedclothes were tangled around her.

  She showered, turning the temperature right down, then dressed and made breakfast – just a couple of slices of toast and a cup of tea – and took it through to the front room, tucking her legs underneath her on the settee and staring through the blank screen of the television as she ate.

  She had no real plans for the day ahead. The weather was nice, but she’d never really been able to take the heat: she’d be an embarrassing and sweaty shade of red within minutes. She should get on to what she’d been thinking about while trying to fall asleep. Start making plans to contact someone about beefing up the security on the house. But in the sunny warmth of the day, the nerves and fears of last night seemed a long time ago. And even a little silly now. She was perfectly safe here.

  Maybe spend the morning doing some more work, she thought. She was ahead of schedule on the translation, but the quicker it was done, the sooner she could take on a new project. Money mattered, after all, and her profession was especially hand-to-mouth in comparison to other types of work. There might be nothing for her next week, or the week after.

  She licked butter off her fingers and brushed the crumbs on to the plate, then took it through to the sink. As she put it in the bowl and started the water running, she felt a single vibration of the mobile in her pocket.

  A text.

  She dried her hands, then picked her phone out and read:

  Hey you. Missed the ride home last night! No, but seriously, I hope you’re okay. Free today if you fancy meeting up? Pint by the Park? Rach xx

  She had to read it twice, the second time with a feeling of relief. She couldn’t remember giving Rachel her mobile number, but supposed she must have done at some point, and it was so good to hear from her. She hadn’t had time to talk to her before leaving yesterday with Zoe, and had only realised later on that she had no way of contacting her. She’d never even seen which door she went in when she dropped her off. Of all the things she was going to miss about volunteering at Mayday, Rachel was easily the biggest.

  Pint by the Park, though? Midday drinking wasn’t really Jane’s thing. She hardly drank at all, and more than a glass or two would probably send her funny, especially in this heat. Still … it would be nice, wouldn’t it? Crazy behaviour in some ways – especially for the old Jane – but what did it matter? Let your hair down a little for once. See how it feels. Maybe midday drinking could be her thing if she let it. Whatever, it would be good to chat to Rachel. Really good.

  She texted back suggesting meeting early afternoon, although she had to ask where. She didn’t know which park or which pub: presumably it was a studenty hangout that Rachel was familiar with. Then she made another cup of tea and went through to the bedroom. There was time to get on with some work before she set out.

  She was just beginning to get into it when the doorbell rang. The sound made her freeze up mid-sentence, her fingers poised over the keys. She wasn’t expecting any visitors or deliveries. Could it be the police? Zoe had her address, of course. Perhaps there’d been a development in the case and they needed to talk to her about something.

  The bell rang again.

  Jane trotted down the staircase to the front door. It had two panels of marbled glass, and she could make out a large blurred figure through the panes. Not Zoe – she could tell that much – but it was impossible to see anything else, and the size of the figure made her feel momentarily nervous. She wished she had a spyhole to look out through. But then, she was being silly again. Her flat was above an estate agent’s on a busy street, the figure was surrounded by bright sunlight, and she could hear the steady rush of cars going past. It was the middle of the day, for God’s sake; there would be lots of people about. What on earth did she think was going to happen?

  Even so, she left the chain on after unlocking the door, and opened it only as far as it allowed.

  The man standing on the pavement outside was enormous, with wild dark hair that seemed to be heading off in all directions at once: tousled and out of control, like untended shrubland. The rest of his face was almost entirely obscured by stubble and a large pair of mirrored sunglasses, and he was wearing blue overalls with a logo on the chest pocket.

  He smiled at her – and it was actually a nice smile, as though he was used to his size being intimidating and knew he had to compensate. It also made him much look younger than she’d initia
lly thought. He was in his early thirties at most.

  He held out an ID card.

  ‘SSL Security. Detective Inspector Zoe Dolan asked us to come round and install some new locks and bolts for you.’

  Jane shook her head. ‘I don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘Me neither. Usually when it’s a police request, they’re concerned for someone’s safety, but I don’t know any of the details. It’s gratis, though.’ He sniffed. ‘Or rather, the police are picking up the tab. It’ll only take about ten minutes. Probably not even that.’

  ‘Right.’

  So that meant Zoe did think she might be in some kind of danger after all, unless this was just a standard precaution. Whichever, it wasn’t like it hadn’t been on her mind anyway. Problem solved.

  She undid the chain.

  ‘Come in,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you very much, Jane.’

  And he stepped inside, giving her that nice smile again.

  Twenty-Five

  Chris and I led the procession, pulling out of the department car park with three vehicles behind us: two carloads of backup officers, and the van belonging to the door team. Assuming that Adam Johnson didn’t open his front door, the latter would do it for him. I knew them. They’d be looking forward to it.

  On my order, there were no sirens. I didn’t want Johnson – or anyone else – to have the slightest idea we were coming for him. It was early afternoon, and traffic was relatively light, so I drove quickly. All the attacks had taken place at night, so in theory we had time; while it was possible that he was in another woman’s house right now, chances were that nobody was in immediate danger. But I certainly wasn’t going to give him an opportunity to bolt. Not now. I wanted the bastard in custody within half an hour.

  Beside me, Chris was talking on a headset while tapping on a tablet resting in his lap: gathering data; making arrangements. We were moving, but in a sense still very much playing catch-up. Chris finished a call.

  ‘SSL say he’s not at work today. Called in sick this morning.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll get lucky then,’ I said. ‘Maybe he’s at home.’

  ‘Maybe. No criminal convictions.’

  ‘Obviously. They wouldn’t have hired him otherwise.’

  ‘They’re sending through a list of his jobs for me now. They said it was lengthy.’

  ‘And they’ll all be there. All of them.’

  It was clear now how he had been able to open the windows without damaging them. Because it was easy to open one from the inside. He had simply needed to find a window key, and most people keep one around, often just lying there on the inside ledge for ease. The window had only ever been his exit point. From his point of view, it had probably seemed like a transparent piece of subterfuge – just something to give us pause and make us ask questions, to wonder about how he was gaining access to the houses. The truth had been there all along.

  He got in during the day, when the victims were out and the chains and sash jams were, necessarily, undone. He locked the door behind him, found a place to hide, and when the women woke to find him in their bedrooms, the reality was that he’d been in their house for hours. He was there when they got home, when they locked all their doors and windows, when they turned off the lights and went upstairs to get washed, to brush their teeth, to slip beneath their bed sheets. He was there as they fell asleep, blissfully unaware that, the whole time, they were not alone.

  And now we knew where he’d got the keys from.

  Adam Johnson had worked for SSL Security for eight years, specialising in fitting those new, special kinds of locks, the ones that were undrillable, with the unique keys that had to be individually ordered and constructed. As hi-tech as plain metal gets. At the end of the installation, he handed the homeowner the keys to their property, along with the spares. The security man at SSL had told us that three came as standard for each barrel.

  After my burglary, he’d given me one spare.

  How were you supposed to know?

  I swung a slightly overeager left, just beating a red light. Glancing in the rear-view, I saw that the other vehicles had followed me through regardless.

  Slow down.

  ‘Shit,’ Chris said.

  ‘Yeah, I’m doing my best.’

  ‘Not that. List of his jobs has just come through. It’s still downloading.’

  ‘Eight years,’ I said. ‘How many jobs a day? It’s going to add up.’

  And that would have worked to Johnson’s advantage in a couple of ways. Firstly, it introduced him to an enormous pool of potential victims to choose from. Only a small proportion would be the young, single women that met his criteria, but the numbers ensured that some would be. Secondly, there was little obvious to connect him to the victims, or them to each other. Yes, Sally Vickers had been burgled, but she was only the second victim who had been, and both breakins had taken place months previously. And the other victims? What’s the first thing you do when you buy and move into a new property? You call someone up to come and change the locks. It’s what everybody does.

  A red light ahead. The car in front of me stopped for it, so I had no choice.

  Chris tilted the tablet towards me. ‘You hate to say someone looks the type. But he does look the type.’

  The screen showed a driving licence photo of Johnson, but I only half glanced at it. I remembered him well enough from his visit to my house: a big, bulky man, unkempt and messy, who’d only partly managed to tame that wild appearance for work. A slight sheen of sweat over his forehead, the base of his hair damp. Personable enough at the time. Chris was wrong. You can’t tell.

  He did look like Jonathan Pearson, though – facially, at least, which would have been enough for his purposes. We’d find Pearson on his list of jobs too, I was sure. Someone who looked just enough like Johnson for him to keep a key, revisit the property, and steal some photographic ID that he could have on him in the event that he was ever stopped for acting suspiciously.

  I tapped my finger on the steering wheel, waiting for the lights to change.

  Thinking.

  Planning ahead.

  The best-case scenario was that we took Adam Johnson now, quickly and easily, at his home. The next best was that we ended up with a siege situation, where at least he was contained and nobody else was at risk. The worst was that he was inside his next victim’s house right now, waiting for tonight.

  If that was the case, we had a real problem. The list of his previous jobs was extensive, and there would be no obvious, easy way to sieve it for potential scenes. It wasn’t like the security company recorded the age and sex of the people who booked in to have their locks changed. If Johnson wasn’t home, we’d have to hope there was some indication of where he actually was. If we couldn’t find any, we’d have to trawl his jobs as best we could, and hope he wasn’t planning an attack for tonight. And in case he returned to the house, we’d have to do all that without announcing a police presence and scaring him away.

  ‘He’ll be home,’ Chris said.

  ‘It’s like you can read my mind sometimes.’

  ‘Sometimes it’s more open than others. He took the day off sick.’

  ‘No, he took the day off on purpose.’ I didn’t want to say it, but it was true. ‘He could be anywhere right now.’

  ‘Or maybe he’s just sick.’

  The lights changed. I set off, not replying.

  Because I don’t believe in best-case scenarios.

  Johnson lived in Horsley, a suburb about five miles north-west of the city centre. It was a mixed area, but generally upmarket. There was an estate – of course – but it wasn’t notorious so much as cheap and practical; obviously distinct from the nicer cottages and clusters of clean new-builds, but hardly a trouble spot. It was closer to the countryside here, and it showed. As we drove, there were fewer and fewer side roads, and more expanses of fields and wooded groves. Approaching Horsley itself, the main road ran close to the canal, separated only by a sl
oping stretch of grass dotted with horses, then obscured by a row of quaint old cottages, all three-storey and crammed in tightly side by side.

  A street away from Johnson’s house, I found a decent length of free road. I indicated and parked up, and the cars and van followed suit, pulling in behind. Most of us got out, and Chris and I met the head of the door team by the middle car.

  Sergeant Connor is a no-nonsense bull of a man, with a shaved head that looks polished to a sheen. I like him. He never seems bothered enough to look other men in the eye, and when he does, you tend to see them shrink a little. Now he rested an oversized tablet on the bonnet and began pointing out the salient details on the map he’d loaded up.

  It was an overhead view of Adam Johnson’s house, zoomed out enough to show the blue pulse of our GPS position on the next street. He ran his finger just above the screen.

  ‘Obvious approach.’

  ‘Obviously.’ I leaned in and pinched the screen, zooming in to get a good view of the property.

  It was a detached cottage, set alone and slightly back from the main road. There was a field on one side, with what looked like a small car park and a playground. On the other side, a thatch of woodland, separated from the house by a dusty footpath. The path led into the woods, which spread out behind the area, reaching all the way down to the canal. What appeared to be a short fence separated the property from the field, but it seemed entirely open to the footpath and woods on the left-hand side. At the rear of the building, there was what looked like a gravel parking area, and then another fence against the tree line.

  ‘Not great,’ Chris said.

  He was thinking about containing the scene – possibly that Johnson could head into the woods if we didn’t handle the situation correctly. But at least the field was open: we’d see him if he took off in that direction. And if he didn’t know we were coming, we’d have the advantage.

  ‘Could be worse,’ I said. ‘Let’s see the house.’

  Connor swiped and tapped. A moment later, we were rewarded with a street-view image of the cottage.