Dead Lucky

by Matt Brolly

  ‘Anything else I should know at this point?’

  Robinson lowered his eyes. ‘She used to make me wear a mask.’

  ‘Probably time for that lawyer,’ said Lambert.

  Robinson shrugged. ‘I’ll call him now. Can you take me in, avoid the fuss?’

  ‘Save me some time, are we going to find anything incriminating here?’

  Robinson straightened, thrusting out his chest. For a moment he looked the confident, unflappable barrister they’d met at his chambers. ‘Of course not. I didn’t kill Moira, if that is what you’re suggesting. We were lovers. We were friends. I imagine what you find will be incriminating, for my career at least. I will miss her. Retirement looms.’ he said, rolling out the last word as he emphasised his Welsh accent.

  ‘We’ll be as discreet as possible,’ said Lambert.

  Chapter 44

  Kennedy had set up a second incident room at the station. Photos of children lined the walls of the new room, occasionally matched by their adult counterparts. Lambert began reading the names on the sheets. Joss Balfour, currently a school teacher in Northumbria. Mark Fran, deceased, died age twenty-one, suicide. Meredith Wyatt, deceased, died age twenty-eight, suicide. Linda Farrell, reported missing fifteen years ago. Rolf Fleming, unemployed, Newport, Gwent.

  ‘We’ve teams tracking down every one of them. Obviously, we don’t know what we’re looking for. We’ve started to separate them into years of residence,’ said Kennedy, not making eye contact.

  Lambert updated her on Charles Robinson. ‘We’ve got a team searching his house at the moment. We’ll question him later. Next, we need Laura Dempsey down here. I want her to go through the list.’

  Kennedy sighed. ‘Not going to happen, sir. I spoke to Dr Hughes. Dempsey is under heavy sedation and will be under psychiatric care for the next week or so minimum.’

  Lambert rubbed his face. ‘What happened here? What was Dempsey involved in?’

  ‘Devlin has searched for any cold cases but nothing appears about the home. Nothing official.’

  ‘Nothing at all? Dempsey said Lennox visited.’

  ‘Well, he either didn’t report it or the file is lost.’

  He would have to speak to Dempsey again, whatever Dr Hughes’ protestations.

  ‘What are you hoping we find, sir?’

  Something in Kennedy’s tone suggested she was off with him. ‘I’m not sure yet. We could be looking for the first victim,’ he said, but what he was really thinking was that they could be looking for the killer.

  ‘I’ll get on with it, sir.’

  Lambert allowed her to walk away to begin with. She’d been calling him, ‘Sir,’ ever since he’d returned to the station and it had been said out of duty rather than reverence. He stopped her as she was halfway across the incident room. ‘My office, Kennedy, fifteen minutes.’

  Kennedy stopped to listen to the instructions, not turning to face him, and moved away without responding.

  Lambert took a box of files from the desk, took them to his office and began looking through the former occupants of St Matthew’s. All his thoughts were focused on Blake. Blake had been running some form of prostitution ring out of the home, and had been concerned enough to have tortured Sackville to ensure his silence. Dempsey had worked there. And now years later, the officer who had been sent in to investigate the allegation was also found dead. What Lambert needed now was some form of feasible motive. Motive would make the investigation easier, but could there ever really be a true motive in such cases? If it was Blake, then did he really need a motive to kill Sackville’s wife, and Dempsey’s wife and children? The scars on Sackville’s back suggested Blake was a sadist of the highest level. It was conceivable he’d been committing such crimes off radar for the last thirty years and had simply started making mistakes.

  Lambert retrieved a file from the box. The sullen face of a fifteen-year-old boy, Sean Keir, stared back at him. Keir had been put in care aged three following the death of his mother to liver disease. The boy would be five years older than Lambert was now. Lambert knew finding out what went on in that home, and how Dempsey and Sackville were linked to it, would give him his answers. He would find that information even if it meant locating every former resident of the wretched place.

  A knock on the door distracted him. Kennedy walked in, uninvited. ‘You wanted to speak to me?’

  Lambert placed the file back in the box. ‘Take a seat.’

  Kennedy couldn’t quite pull off the sulky look. She sat with arms folded, petulant like a teenager in front of the headmaster.

  ‘Shall we sort whatever the hell is going on?’ said Lambert.

  ‘You tell me.’

  Lambert took a deep breath. ‘You have me at a complete loss here, Matilda. Have I done something to piss you off?’

  Kennedy held his gaze in a way he’d never seen her do before. It was as if she was assessing him, searching for a sign of untruth. Lambert wondered if it had something to do with Tillman, or Walker. Eventually she relented. ‘Why don’t you ask my dad?’

  Lambert shook his head. ‘Fucking Tillman,’ he said, under his breath.

  ‘What’s Tillman got to do with this?’

  It was Lambert’s turn to stop, to assess Kennedy. ‘Right, Kennedy, stop pissing me about and tell me what you have been told and by whom.’

  ‘I should go to Tillman.’

  ‘What do you know, Kennedy?’ said Lambert, raising his voice.

  She hesitated, going through some internal struggle within her. ‘I know he’s called you,’ she said.

  ‘Who?’ said Lambert, beginning to understand.

  Kennedy pulled at the bunch of red hair by her shoulder. ‘The Watcher.’

  Chapter 45

  They sat in an uneasy silence, exchanging the occasional look, each waiting for the other to speak.

  ‘When did he call you?’ asked Lambert.

  ‘Earlier today. How long have you been talking to him?’

  ‘He called me shortly after Moira Sackville’s death.’

  ‘Why didn’t you share the information? I should report you,’ she said, eyes full of accusation.

  Lambert relaxed his pose. He was confident he’d made the right choice. ‘He made direct threats against Sophie and the family, which did concern me. But primarily, I feared that if I revealed details of our conversation then I would lose all contact with him going forward. He had an impressive amount of knowledge.’

  Kennedy recoiled, shaking her head. Lambert wondered what Tillman had told her. Whatever he had said, she seemed to have come to him first.

  ‘You think that excuse would help you if Tillman found out?’

  It didn’t sound like a threat but Lambert knew the potential was there in Kennedy’s voice.

  ‘I did what I thought was best, Kennedy. It wasn’t personal.’

  ‘Sounds like it was exactly that,’ said Kennedy. ‘It looks to me as if you hampered the whole investigation because of your selfishness.’

  Lambert took a deep breath. It was possible she was right. It was unlikely he would have been so forgiving if the roles had been reversed. At the moment he still had indirect access to the killer, and in the end that would prove the man’s undoing. ‘Given that he has contacted you directly, he has effectively given me permission to discuss all our conversations with you. He is getting arrogant, and that will help us to catch him. If you want to take it further be my guest, but consider the implications.’

  Kennedy bit her bottom lip, her gaze never leaving Lambert’s. ‘Have you been looking into my father?’

  ‘Let’s start from the beginning,’ said Lambert. He told her of every conversation with the killer from the first unknown call on his phone to the last call suggesting the killer had broken into Sophie’s house.

  Kennedy stretched her back. ‘He’s been watching us?’ she said, sounding more impressed than anything.

  ‘It looks that way.’

  ‘Okay. First things first, I want to kn
ow what my father has to do with this.’

  ‘I’m not sure it is anything. I’ve read your father’s file. The killer hinted at nepotism, but I don’t buy that, I know you are a very strong police officer. Is there anything you need to tell me?’

  Kennedy looked up, caught in thought. ‘It’s a distraction tactic, has to be.’

  Lambert agreed but wanted more confirmation. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, he’s got us talking about it. He’s had me worried I couldn’t trust you, and you worried you couldn’t trust me. It is divisive and distracting. It has diverted us both from where our attention should be focused.’

  ‘There’s nothing I should know then? Nothing that will crop up later?’

  Kennedy frowned.

  ‘Of course not. There’s nothing to know. My father is a good policeman. He is honest and respected and has had a successful career. Obviously, he helped me with my application and I imagine it hasn’t hurt my career development being related to him, but that’s where it ends.’

  Lambert nodded.

  ‘Where do we go from here?’ asked Kennedy.

  ‘We move forward. We need to make some formal record of the killer’s contact with us, in case it’s needed for future records. I’ll list my conversations with him on an encrypted file, you do the same.’

  ‘Do you think all his conversations with you are a diversionary tactic?’

  ‘There’s more to it than that, more than just the threat to Sophie,’ said Lambert, beginning to articulate something he’d only half considered before.

  ‘It wasn’t Blake’s voice I heard.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Voice altering software?’

  ‘I don’t think so. The voice doesn’t sound computerised. I don’t think it’s Blake who has been calling us.’

  ‘A proxy?’

  ‘Possible, especially with all the surveillance Blake has at his disposal. It’s pointless hypothesising at the moment. Let’s process all the files from St Matthew’s and see where that takes us. Let’s find something we can question Laura Dempsey about. For now, let’s deal with Charles Robinson.’

  Chapter 46

  The change in Robinson’s appearance was dramatic. Shaved, dressed in a tailored suit, he was a different man to the one in his cords and jumper. Giles Lansdowne had arrived and was conferring with Robinson as Lambert entered the interview room. He didn’t look best pleased as Lambert switched on the tape and ran through the preliminaries, making introductions and stating that Robinson was here out of his own free will.

  Lansdowne went to protest but Robinson placed his hand on the man’s arm. ‘It’s fine, Giles, let’s get this over and done with.’

  Lambert relayed the conversation he’d had at Robinson’s flat. Robinson confirmed everything, despite Lansdowne’s protestations.

  ‘Mr Robinson, as you agreed, we have searched your premises and have taken in a number of items for examination.’ Devlin was coordinating the search. He had retrieved two leather masks from Robinson’s premises which had been sent for testing.

  ‘As we discussed in the flat, you withheld some information at the beginning of this investigation. If you have anything else you need to tell us, Charles, you need to do it now. Full co-operation would go a long way at this juncture.’

  ‘I’ve nothing to hide, Mr Lambert.’

  ‘You’ve already wasted police time,’ said Kennedy.

  ‘I beg your pardon, but my client has wasted no time whatsoever,’ said Lansdowne, his face colouring.

  ‘He told us his relationship with Moira had ended, which is clearly not the case.’

  ‘He was under no obligation to divulge details about his private affairs.’

  It was Kennedy’s turn to be indignant. ‘His private affair with a murder victim?’

  ‘Let’s move on, shall we?’ said Lambert. He handed Robinson’s colleague a file. ‘Some unpleasant images in there, Charles.’

  ‘If there is anything of Moira then I can’t look.’

  Robinson looked genuinely upset at the prospect, but Lambert was not being put off so easily. ‘Open the file, Charles.’

  Robinson looked at Lansdowne, before opening the cover of the file, revealing a picture of Laura Dempsey’s husband. ‘Exactly same MO as Moira, Charles. Keep looking.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ said Robinson, studying the images of the two Dempsey children.

  ‘Laura was made to watch all three die, Charles. She was accompanied by a man in a mask.’ As he spoke, Lambert searched for information on Robinson’s face, a hint of recognition, or even a glimpse of pride in his handiwork. All he saw was grief and misery. Lambert turned over the next page to an image of Laura Dempsey. ‘She used to work at a children’s home, St Matthew’s in Dalston. Mean anything to you?’

  ‘No,’ said Robinson, flicking through a number of photos of the home’s former residents.

  Again, Lambert searched for a hint of recognition but came up blank. ‘Do you know Laura Dempsey, Charles?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Really, this is quite enough. I think we are going to end this conversation now,’ said Lansdowne. ‘You are clearly grasping at straws. My client has admitted to an ongoing affair with Mrs Sackville. He has broken no laws, and unless you have something you wish to charge him on, we are leaving.’

  Lansdowne stood, but Robinson remained sitting. ‘Look, I apologise if I’ve wasted your time on this. I should have told you about Moira and me. I’ll do anything to help you find who was responsible for killing Moira, but it wasn’t me.’

  Lambert had heard such pleas of innocence many times before, but had nothing to hold the man with. ‘I want your client to report to this station once a day,’ he said to Lansdowne.

  ‘Anything to help,’ said Lansdowne, a humourless smirk spreading across his face.

  Lambert spent the rest of the afternoon and evening locked in his office, trawling through the histories of the home’s former residents. It was traumatising work, each child’s life caught by a black and white photo and a snapshot summary of their life. He analysed each file in meticulous detail, reading the meagre details over and over again, looking for a sentence or word that would trigger his attention. It would be so easy to miss, and he’d instructed that each file was read by at least three separate officers to ensure nothing slipped by.

  In the incident room, Kennedy had placed five photos of former residents on the board, each photo was of a teenage girl. ‘All have criminal records for soliciting,’ she said to Lambert.

  ‘At the time or after?’

  ‘All after. I’ve managed to make contact with one of the girls, Melissa Brady. She lives in Plaistow. I’m meeting with her tonight.’

  ‘Okay. I’m going to stay here and work on the last box. Do you want Devlin to go with you?’

  ‘No, I think I should go alone.’

  Lambert sat in the canteen, pushing his food around his plate. He called Sophie who confirmed everything was okay in the house, and checked in with the team monitoring the house, and the second team looking after Sackville. He managed a rushed conversation with Sarah May who was working in London. She promised to pop over to his bedsit that evening if she had time.

  The sensible thing now would be to return home and get some sleep but he was too restless. He returned to the office and continued searching the case histories. He felt like an intruder on the private pain of hundreds of children.

  Jake Lincoln stared back at him, the same sad look as the others. Lambert entered his name and date of birth onto The System and was surprised when three potential hits appeared. Lambert clicked on each of the three files in turn until he found a match. Lincoln lived in Kent and was currently temping as a school caretaker via a recruitment agency. Lambert printed the details and added him to the file. He repeated the process with Seth Grant, now from Putney, and Celeste Rush, now in Dover.

  It was painstakingly slow.

  A knock on the door tore him from the latest file, Gayle Kimball
, who had died twenty-two years ago. He had presumed everyone had left for the evening. ‘Enter.’

  ‘Sir, may I have a word?’

  Lambert turned his attention back to his file. ‘It’s not the best time, Walker.’

  ‘It’s important, sir.’

  ‘Unless it has a direct relevance to the case then I don’t have time.’

  ‘I want to make a complaint, sir. I thought I should speak to you first before I make it official.

  ‘Sit.’ Lambert placed the file down with a heavy sigh. Kimball would have to wait for the time being. ‘We’ve been here before, Walker.’

  ‘You heard I’m being transferred?’

  ‘That’s why you want to make a complaint?’

  ‘No, I think you should know what the complaint is about.’

  The bruising on Walker’s eye had faded to a dirty yellow. ‘My advice hasn’t changed. You would do best to forget about all this, move to another department and get on with your career.’

  Walker moved the perfect knot of his tie further towards his top button. ‘It’s abuse of power. I shouldn’t be transferred because of this.’

  ‘Maybe not, but you’ve got to learn how to play the game. You start causing a fuss now, and it will only be detrimental to your career. Moving might actually be beneficial.’ Lambert wasn’t totally comfortable giving such advice. He didn’t like Walker, but if Tillman was responsible for the black eye, then Walker was right. Lambert didn’t like abuse of power in any form. But worse things happened, and Walker would end up in an untenable position where his fellow officers wouldn’t respect him.

  ‘Never changes, does it? Old boys’ club.’ Walker leant in towards him, the bitter smell of alcohol drifting towards Lambert.

  ‘Walker, go home and sort yourself out. If you want to make a formal complaint, come back tomorrow and speak to me sober. I will make sure due process is followed.’

  Walker made his unsteady way to the door, which he slammed behind him. Lambert closed his laptop, a collage of fireflies filling his office room. Lambert pushed through the hallucinatory images, and followed the path made by Walker. He managed to reach the door just in time.