The Thirteenth Coffin

by Nigel McCrery

  *

  Lapslie knew when he’d had enough. He wasn’t physically tired, but mentally he felt exhausted. He wasn’t thinking straight at a time when he really needed to be at the top of his game. The inquiry was difficult enough, and although he felt he was getting there, albeit ever so slowly, he knew he wasn’t getting there fast enough. The killer was a man with a mission: there was a point to his killings to link their otherwise random nature, even though Lapslie had no idea yet what it was. He needed time to think and re-energize himself, so on the way to meet George the next morning at Clacton Marina to check the boat over, he decided to take it out for a quick sail.

  ‘Do you want me with you?’ George asked. ‘I’ve got a spare few hours.’

  ‘No, George, thanks. I’m only going to take her out locally – probably won’t shift more than a few miles offshore.’

  George nodded. ‘I took her out myself for an hour yesterday afternoon. But I suppose at least it will give you a chance to test-run yourself that everything’s okay.’

  ‘I’m sure it is.’ Lapslie smiled tightly.

  George said his goodbyes and handed him the keys. ‘Don’t forget to furl all the sails in fully and lock all the hatches.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  The weather forecast was for a fine day with medium winds. Lapslie took a fresh breath of the sea air as George left, but most of all he was breathing in the fresh air of being alone at last. And as minutes later he steered out of the harbour, cut the engine and pulled the sails round, he took another fresh breath. Isolated. Alone. Apart from finally being away from onshore activity and the confusion of thoughts that went with it, the other advantage about being on a boat was, of course, that he was out of the way of the killer. He didn’t have to think about looking over his shoulder.

  Nevertheless, having already gone round the boat with George to inspect the repairs made, as soon as he weighed anchor in a quiet spot two miles from the shoreline, he again searched from stem to stern so see if anything had been fiddled with, or any unexpected packages hidden away. There was nothing: the uncluttered boat was just as he had left it a few days beforehand. Taking a pair of binoculars, he scanned the shoreline, but nobody appeared to be taking any undue interest in him. There were fishermen and birdwatchers, of course – there always were – but they seemed legitimate.

  After making himself a quick tea, he lay back on a bunk and began to flick through the file Kate Dale had given him on her husband. Although she seemed convinced that all the answers Lapslie was searching for were to be found within these pages and clippings, Lapslie wasn’t so sure. He would, however, at least give Mrs Dale the courtesy of reading everything and seeing what he could find.

  He hadn’t slept well the night before, thoughts about the case revolving in his mind. He found himself rubbing his eyes at points as he read now, and after an hour or so, what with the gentle rocking of the boat, he dozed off and started to dream. Lapslie rarely dreamed, or rather he hardly ever remembered his dreams on waking. It was only since he had begun sailing that they had suddenly become so vivid. Things came and disappeared: people, faces, numbers, symbols, all jumbled up and doing odd things. Dancing, pulling strange faces, exploding into a million brightly coloured flowers. Weird items disappeared into caves and called for him to follow. There was no sense to any of it.

  Suddenly Lapslie was awake again. How long had passed? Two hours, three? And what was it that had disturbed him, made him reawaken suddenly?

  He lay there and listened for a moment, trying to make out any unusual noises. Maybe someone had rowed up and climbed on the boat, setting it rocking. He waited, senses all on alert, but there was nothing. Just the gentle rocking of the boat and the sound of the water slapping against the hull.

  It took a moment or two, but Lapslie realized that what had woken him was not external, but internal. It was something to do with the file; something he’d read and not consciously appreciated.

  He reached across and picked up the file again. Something – he couldn’t tell what – drew him to the page that contained the report on Richard Dale’s funeral. He read through it again. It was a moving account, but there was nothing that might indicate who his killer was. How could there be?

  He moved on to the column beneath the report, the one with all the names of the mourners who had attended the funeral. It was then that he noticed it. Four names: Jack and Amelia Summers, Arlene Campbell and Joseph Cohen.

  Summers, Campbell and Cohen. They were the surnames of three of the other victims – Anne, Gordon and Michael: the nurse, the fisherman and the mechanic. It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? This had to be what Kate Dale had been talking about.

  He had found his link. Now he had to get back, and in a hurry.

  Part Nine

  4 January 2014

  John Robert Lyon was a solicitor, and was proud to be one.

  He hadn’t always been a solicitor. He had been a police officer for ten years, but a good kicking received during the miners’ strike had changed all that. Before then he had been one hundred per cent fit, and could run five miles carrying a riot shield. After that, with a damaged spine to deal with, he couldn’t even run for a bus.

  The police had done what they could. They had offered a position doing community work, but it wasn’t him. He hadn’t joined the police to be a social worker.

  In the end, he decided to go to university and at least give himself time to think. He applied for and was accepted at Trinity College, Cambridge, to read Geography. After doing summer school in his first year he changed to a Law degree, which had been his aim from the start. It was far easier to move sideways into a Law degree from an existing course than it was to chance getting in cold from the start.

  After that, it was easy. He worked hard and did well, getting a good 2:1 degree. On graduation, and because of his police background, he was soon picked up by a firm of solicitors in a small market town in Essex, and from there he went from strength to strength. He was now a partner in his own law firm, and really going places.

  One look at the amount of work he had lined up for the week made him sit back at his desk and sigh. It was one of those situations where the work seemed so overwhelming you didn’t know where to start, so in the end you did nothing. Finally, in a fit of despair, he did what he always did: went to get a large mug of coffee from Cosmo’s Coffee House across the road, and hope all the free newspapers hadn’t been taken. He would take an hour out for lunch and sort it out when he got back, refreshed.

  Taking the stairs to the ground floor and waving at the receptionist, he crossed the road, ordered his coffee, grabbed the tatty last copy of the Mail and found himself a quiet table with a large easy chair in the corner. There was only one other person at the table, and he was as engrossed in his paper as John Lyon was.

  At some stage the man opposite got up and left, but Lyon didn’t really register his disappearance. He was engrossed in the report of a long-running litigation case at Southwark Crown Court when he suddenly began to have trouble breathing. It was as if there was some spiky obstruction in his throat. He tried to cough it out, but it made no difference. He stood up, staggering, and headed across to the coffee counter to get a glass of water, but he never made it. The darkness closed in too fast.

  His last thought was that he ought to sue Cosmo’s Coffee House for the poor state of the coffee they provided.

  *

  It took Lapslie longer than he had hoped to get back to force HQ. Bradbury was working at her desk when he arrived. He knocked loudly on the glass, she looked up and he beckoned her into his office. He handed her the scrapbook. ‘Read the list of names at the bottom of the page. That’s all the people that went to Richard Dale’s funeral in 2008.’

  Bradbury did as she was bid.

  Lapslie continued. ‘Take a special look at the last few names.’

  Bradbury concentrated, and then realized what she was reading. ‘Bloody hell, that’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’
She looked up at Bradbury. ‘Do you think they are related?’

  Lapslie shrugged. ‘Can’t be a hundred per cent sure until you’ve checked them out, but my gut tells me they are.’

  ‘And if they are, then it might give us the link we’ve been looking for, which should—’

  Lapslie cut her short. ‘Give us the name of our killer. Right.’

  Bradbury read through the list again, just to make sure there was no one else that Lapslie might have missed. There wasn’t. ‘Okay, I’ll get onto it at once.’

  ‘Start with the Cohens. I think the Sampsons are dead. Failing that, have a good look at Campbell.’

  Bradbury nodded her understanding. ‘Right. I will.’

  Lapslie was as impatient as ever. ‘How long do you think it will take you?’

  Bradbury looked at her watch. ‘A couple of hours, maybe less.’

  ‘Maybe less sounds good.’ Lapslie nodded. ‘Whoever he is, he’s nobody’s fool, and I’m still worried that no matter how much security I put around Turner our killer will still get through it.’

  Bradbury nodded grimly, and Lapslie watched her return to her desk. It was all down to her now, and how quickly she could make the association. She was a bloody good detective, and if anyone could do it, she could.

  Lapslie was sure he was close to catching his man. He could almost touch him. He knew it was a race against time. Every second counted. The killer planned, and planned carefully. If he hadn’t also been a little theatrical they probably would never have made the connections. But he was human, he made mistakes, and it was up to Lapslie to capitalize on those mistakes and make him pay the price for what he had done.

  He looked out at Bradbury once last time. It was all down to her now.

  *

  He had finished making his plans. He had discovered over the years that you always had to identify the point where any further planning would just be counter-productive. It was possible to overplan, to make things much more complicated than they should be, to build in layers and layers of contingency that just served to create more points where something could go wrong. Keeping it simple but effective was what he did best and this policy had served him well for years.

  He ran through a final mental checklist. Handcuffs: three pairs. Ball gag. Blindfold. Duct tape. Body bag. Taser. Nine mm handgun with hollow-point ammunition and home-made silencer. White coat. Stethoscope. Syringe, two spare needles. That was it.

  The car had been hired under a false driver’s licence, and there was a gallon of petrol in a jerrycan in the back. He was all set.

  Oh yes, one more thing: his Doctor on Emergency Call sign for the front dashboard of the car. After all his careful planning, it would be ridiculous to get clamped.

  He laughed to himself. Despite what he was about to do, he could still see the funny side.

  He parked his car as planned, right outside the hospital fire escape. Slipping his Doctor on Emergency Call sign on top of the dashboard, he stepped out of the car, leaving it unlocked, and pushed his shoulder against the fire-escape door. If he had planned it correctly, and if his bolt obstructor was still in place, stopping the fire door being locked properly without it being too obvious, it should open.

  He was in luck: the door gave way easily, and he stepped inside. Once at the foot of the concrete staircase, he slipped on his white coat, hung his stethoscope around his neck, clipped on his identity badge, slipped his handgun into a small holster attached to the back of his trousers and dropped the silencer into his coat pocket. He then began to climb the stairs.

  He knew which floor Elizabeth Turner was on from his previous reconnaissance. This time he would exit the fire escape from the west wing of the hospital, which would bring him out only yards from her private bedroom and save him having to walk through any of the wards.

  As he reached the door leading out into the main corridor, he looked through the window. It gave him a partial view along the corridor, but he couldn’t see who or how many police officers were outside Turner’s room. Taking the pistol from its holster, he screwed on the home-made silencer, making sure it was on tightly. Every move he now made had to be done quickly and without thought, but with pure concentration. He had done it a hundred times before, in training. He’d held the record, for a while at least, for the fastest time.

  The idea of killing anyone apart from his chosen target nauseated him, but he knew he had no choice. God was willing for there to be some collateral damage on the way to the completion of his quest. That had been the title of a film on at the cinema when he had driven past: Collateral Damage. A shop in the high street that specialized in cash converting – a pawnshop under a new brand – had a sign in the window that said All Loans Require Collateral, while the car-repair shop next door had a sign saying Damage to Your Motor? Get it Repaired Here! God was telling him it was all right.

  He breathed in and out deeply several times, and then made his move.

  He stepped out from the emergency stairwell and immediately put two shots through the head of the constable who stood outside the room. The ‘double tap’.

  He caught the constable’s body before it fell and manoeuvred it through the door of the side room. A female constable was standing there, talking to Elizabeth Turner. He let the first constable’s body slide as he shot the woman, again twice. She went down without a sound with a look of astonishment on her face. Her eyes stayed open, staring blankly back towards him.

  He swung the gun around and pointed it at Elizabeth Turner. ‘Scream and I’ll kill you.’ He said it with such fierce determination that it was clear he meant it.

  She nodded her understanding, trying hard not to react to the horror she had just witnessed.

  ‘Get up.’

  Elizabeth Turner stepped out of bed and faced him. She was wearing pyjamas.

  ‘Put this on.’ He threw her dressing gown over to her. She caught it and slipped it on quickly.

  ‘Turn around.’

  She turned quickly.

  ‘Put your hands behind your back. Move.’

  She did as she was told. He quickly snapped a pair of handcuffs over her wrists. Grabbing her by the hair, he pushed his gun under her chin. ‘Do as you are told, my dear, and you will survive this. If you don’t, I will blow your head from here to Kingdom Come. Do I make myself clear?’

  Elizabeth Turner nodded. He could feel her convulsive trembling.

  ‘Right, then let’s go.’

  He knew he had to be quick. He couldn’t be sure how long it was going to be before someone checked on the room, or wondered where the constables had gone. The last thing he wanted to do was start killing doctors and nurses, but if he had to, he would.

  Pushing her ahead of him, he returned to the corridor. The blood from the police officer’s head had splashed against the wall: he hadn’t noticed that earlier. The corridor was clear. Still pushing her ahead of him, he made his way back onto the fire escape and down the stairs. He had a momentary panic when he wondered if his car had remained unmolested, or whether some fool had either stolen it or clamped it. It’s the little things that trip you up.

  He pushed the fire door open. The car was still there. He opened the car boot and pushed Elizabeth Turner inside. She tried to say something, but he ignored her, slamming the boot shut and jumping into the driver’s seat. Once there he struggled to remove his white coat and stethoscope, turned the ignition key and drove away.

  He didn’t drive quickly: just nice and steady. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself. Within a few minutes he was outside the hospital grounds and on the main road. So far everything had gone well. All he had to do now was drive to the woods where he had left his own car and transfer the woman into its boot, before emptying the petrol over the interior of the hire car and setting it alight. Yet another burned-out car in the Essex woods: they were getting to be more numerous than the badgers.

  The first part of his plan was now complete. The next stage now had to be contemplated very seriously
indeed.

  *

  It had taken Bradbury more than two hours to check out the first two names. Grace and Jack Summers had been the parents of Jane Summers, the nurse strangled in July 2007. Although she had made the link, and it was an important one, it was as far as she could take it for now. Both parents had died within a few years of their daughter’s murder. The only chance she had now was to try and locate any surviving family and see if that led anywhere. The problem was it was all going to take time, and that they just didn’t have. If the next two inquiries took as long as the Summers’ had to complete, their final witness would be dead and buried before they got the lead they needed, and the killer would be stalking Lapslie.

  There was only one answer as far as she could see. She walked back into Lapslie’s office.

  Lapslie looked up. ‘You sorted it out?’

  ‘Only up to a point.’

  He pointed to the chair that faced his desk. ‘Take a seat.’

  Bradbury sat. ‘Well, the good news is that Grace and Jack Summers are the parents of the murdered nurse Jane Summers . . .’

  ‘And the bad news?’

  ‘They are both dead, and it will take days to track down any remaining family, and even then they might not know anything.’

  ‘What about the other names?’

  Bradbury shrugged. ‘Still searching. We’ll find them but it’s going to take time . . .’

  ‘And your solution is?’

  ‘For the sake of time, I think we need to go back and see Kate Dale . . .’

  ‘You think she might know something more?’

  ‘No idea, but she was right about the answer being inside the scrapbook, even though she didn’t know what it was.’

  ‘So when we point out what it is, it might stir some memories?’

  Bradbury nodded. ‘Exactly. We will get there the way we are doing it now but it’s going to take time . . .’

  ‘Which we don’t have.’

  ‘Right. If Kate Dale knows something, anything, then it might get us to our killer that bit quicker. It’s got to be worth a chance. The team are still following up on the other names in the book, so that part of the inquiry won’t stall. What have we got to lose?’