by Mel Sherratt
Malcolm turned his attention back to the computer, his hand moving the mouse over the screen, clicking quickly to delete everything he could think of. Christ, what a mess. He thought back to the time he’d met Frank online in a chat room, about five years ago. For a while he’d been careful what he said: you never knew who you might be talking to and he’d heard the police were setting up a lot of stings locally. But when Frank had offered to meet up with him, it had seemed far too good of an opportunity to miss.
They’d chatted like old friends for a while, the atmosphere between them light and bantering. All at once the suggestion to take things further had been aired and soon Malcolm was embroiled in everything that Frank was.
Paedophile.
Shit, even the word in his head was enough to bring him out in a sweat all over. How hard he had fought the urges, tried to control himself after what he’d done to Nigel. In the end, it was easier for him to accept what he was and try to quell his appetite for youngsters another way. Stored on his computer were photos of boys as young as nine. Indecent images, filth, call them what you may, but they were all the same to him. They were what he enjoyed.
They were also a prosecutable offence.
Things had turned sour with Frank just over a month ago now. He’d stormed upstairs after first harassing the receptionist downstairs, threatening to tell everyone what Malcolm was involved in if he didn’t cough up the money that he owed. Frank had given him access to a set of photos and a few online videos but the quality hadn’t been as good as Malcolm was expecting so he’d refused to pay. Luckily, the situation hadn’t got out of hand. Frank had left when he said he’d get the money to him. Once Malcolm had seen his nasty side, it had been worth it to get him off his back.
But now Frank had been murdered. He wondered, was this someone after ‘his sort’ or just a random stranger who had followed Dwyer home? A one-night stand gone wrong?
It was less than twenty minutes later when he heard a sound coming from downstairs. He jumped to his feet, sneaking quietly over to the window to look down onto the street below. It sounded like someone had rattled the letterbox, he was sure. It was dark, the square lit up with a few streetlamps, and an icy mist was settling in for the night, frost already freezing up car windows. Malcolm pressed his face to the glass but couldn’t see the door from where he was standing. The square below seemed empty.
Then he sniggered. Damn his imagination. It was Sunday, for Christ’s sake: no one should be calling in today.
He sat down at his desk again, started deleting more files. A minute later, he sniffed. What the –?
Petrol.
This time he walked back along the corridor towards the stairs. From the top, he could see a pool of liquid on the mat. He watched as the letterbox rattled again, saw a piece of paper in flames pushed through.
‘Hey!’ Malcolm shouted out.
The paper fell onto the raffia mat below, igniting the liquid. With gusto, it erupted into an inferno. Malcolm ran to the bottom step but there was nowhere safe that he could put a foot down to run to the front door. He covered his mouth with his hand. Fuck, how much petrol had been poured through? The whole area was alight.
Seeing no other way out, he ran back upstairs, closing the door at the top of the landing, hoping to keep the flames at bay until he could summon help. In his office, he dialled 999.
‘Fire. Someone has poured petrol through the door of the building and I can’t get out. I’m trapped upstairs!’ he told the emergency operator. ‘Yes. No. Tower Square. Yes, Tunstall, that’s right. Yes. There’s a fire exit at the back. I’ll get out and wait at the front of the building. Hurry up!’
Malcolm put down the phone and rushed to the door. If the fire were to take hold, it would be better for him if it all went up in smoke. Feeling a little exhilarated at the thought, he went to the end of the corridor, pressed down hard on the handle to open the fire door and stepped out on to the small balcony.
The bang to the back of his head knocked him completely off his feet. He dropped to the floor, seeing a pair of black boots before he lost consciousness.
Patrick dragged Malcolm back through the building to the other end of the corridor. He was a dead weight already, he thought, laughing at his own joke. Before opening the door, he covered his face with his scarf.
This was the riskiest one yet. He had minutes before he might become overwhelmed by smoke, and the fire engine he’d heard Foster call could arrive at any moment. He pushed the handle down on the door, shouldered it open and, keeping his head down, dragged Malcolm to the top of the stairs. Once there, he slapped him around the face a couple of times until he came to again.
‘What – what . . .’ Malcolm spluttered.
Watching the man try to sit up with Patrick’s foot on his chest was the best laugh he could have hoped for. The smoke was coming thick and fast now, the flames below heading up the stairs. Oh, how he wanted to stay and have some fun, but he needed to get away too.
‘What do you want?’ Malcolm coughed. ‘Get off me. We need to get out.’
Patrick lifted his foot and stamped down hard on Malcolm’s chest.
Malcolm groaned, curling up into a ball.
From the look on his face, Patrick could see he’d realised his mistake. He’d made himself into a perfect shape.
‘No! Please!’ Malcolm cowered.
One last kick was enough to propel him down the stairs.
Malcolm threw out his arms, trying to slow himself, but the momentum pushed him forward and he fell face first into the flames. Even his screams as he tried to reach the door didn’t put Patrick off. It was even better than listening to the racket coming from the next-door neighbour’s house.
He kept his mouth and nose covered as he watched Foster burn with the same pleasure he had taken shoving the knife into Frank Dwyer. Sadly, there wasn’t time to hang around like he’d done at Suzi Porter’s place but at least he knew that Foster would have suffered.
When he could smell singeing flesh more than smoke, he turned and ran back to the fire exit. As he got to the ground, he heard the sirens in the distance and legged it down the alleyway behind the building.
Chapter Twenty-One
Around eight thirty that evening, Perry arrived home exhausted. The case was beginning to take its toll on him, not least because of the nagging feeling that not only had he known the victims, but there was a good chance he’d known the killer too. All three deaths were linked to schools where he had been a pupil in the past – surely that wasn’t just a coincidence? Was it someone he knew from junior or high school? Could it even be one of the younger teachers that were doing this?
More to the point, he wondered as he shrugged off his coat, should he be worried for his own safety? Of course there were lots of pupils from the schools but even so, his job made him more vigilant, always wary and careful not to trust. He made a pact with himself to take extra precautions until the case was solved.
‘Lisa?’ he shouted up the stairs, finding the rooms downstairs empty. There was no reply, so he went upstairs. Her car was on the driveway so if she had gone out, she hadn’t gone far. But usually she would text him to let him know where she was going and what time she was expected back.
‘Lisa, are you up there?’
At the top of the stairs, in front of the bedroom door, sat a large, white fluffy bunny. Frowning, Perry picked it up. Around its neck was a ribbon; tucked inside it was a note:
I am the bearer of good news.
A smile appeared on his face.
‘Lisa?’ He opened the door and saw that she was asleep on the bed. Gently, he roused her.
She opened her eyes. ‘Hey,’ she said, stretching out with a yawn. ‘You just got in.’
‘Yeah.’ He lay down beside her and brandished the bunny. ‘Either you’re going to accuse me of having an affair and are going to boil this bunny up
for supper or . . .’
‘I’m pregnant!’ she screamed and jumped into his arms.
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘But –’
‘Don’t you dare say how, you big daftie!’
‘I was going to say that we’d only just started trying. Is that normal?’
‘Well, we must be good at it.’ Lisa beamed, and then her eyes filled with tears. ‘Ohmigod, Perry, we’re going to have a baby.’
He hugged her to him, then pulled away. ‘I won’t hurt you, will I?’
‘Of course not.’
‘So, how far along are you?’ He picked up the pregnancy test on the bedside table and saw two blue lines. ‘Does this thing tell you that too?’
‘It does.’ Lisa took it from him and looked again, as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. ‘I’m only about six weeks gone so we can’t tell anyone yet.’
‘No one at all?’
Lisa shook her head. ‘No, not until twelve weeks have gone past and the pregnancy is a bit more along. I don’t want to tempt fate yet.’ She grinned. ‘We’re going to have a baby!’
‘We are!’ Perry hugged her again and they lay down on the bed together.
Quite frankly, he couldn’t think of a better way to end the day.
The next morning, Allie walked slowly along the corridor to Karen’s room. Half an hour after she’d arrived home last night, she’d received a phone call from the staff nurse on duty at Riverdale Residential Home. Karen’s doctor had asked to see Allie first thing in the morning. It had led to another sleepless night, with nightmares of her sister and of Suzi Porter covered in blood.
It was just seven thirty; she tried to stifle a yawn, hoping that it would be something and nothing that Dr Merchant wanted to talk to her about. It could be a routine check-up, or maybe her sister needed extra care that had to be paid for. Maybe they needed permission to try out a new medication, something to give her an inch more towards a better quality of life.
She pushed open the door to find Karen awake and propped up in her bed. But, even as she hoped it would be nothing to worry about, deep inside she knew something was wrong. Over the past few weeks, she’d seen further signs of Karen’s deterioration; she just hadn’t wanted to admit that anything serious was wrong. Not after all these years of seeing her sister in that bed, in that room, in that home.
‘Hey, sis, how are you today?’ Allie combed Karen’s hair away from her face and planted a kiss on her cheek. It was warm to the touch. As she pulled back, she saw its flushed tones.
There wasn’t even a murmur from Karen. A blink of her eyes and a slight lip movement was all she could muster.
‘That good, huh?’ Allie smiled, trying not to let her tears spill over.
While she waited for Dr Merchant to arrive, she pushed thoughts of what he was about to say to the back of her mind and thought more about the day ahead and what she needed to do. Right now, it seemed that the whole office was bogged down in paperwork, crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s, or trawling through CCTV footage to find any similarities near the scenes of the three murders. Most of the forensic evidence was back but not all of it. Some of the jigsaw pieces were slotted together but not the linking ones yet. And now there were all these indecent images to get through on Frank Dwyer’s computer. Luckily, Nick had delegated that task to one of the male police constables, rather than add to Sam’s long list of tasks.
The press conference had brought up further information since Saturday. There were lots of things to follow up on but so far no significant leads, no worthwhile connections to Eves or Evelyns. There were masses of connections to Mickey Taylor and Suzi Porter, though, and every one of them had to be interviewed where necessary. It would take them forever at this rate before they got that break. There just weren’t enough hours in the day.
‘Can you remember Sandra Seymour from school, I wonder?’ she spoke softly to Karen. ‘I wish you could tell me. You could help me solve a crime. Would you like that? I know I would.’ She smiled. ‘Hey, we could have opened our own private investigation services called The Snoop Sisters.’
Allie sighed. It was all well and good joking about it but she wondered again how long their killer had been planning these murders. And how long it would be before he slipped up. It was only a matter of time before they would find something that would lead them to him, to stop him killing any more.
She looked up as there was a knock on the door.
‘Good morning, Allie.’
Allie sat up straight. ‘Nothing wrong, I hope, Dr Merchant?’
Dr Merchant stepped a little closer, coming round Karen’s bed to stand next to her. ‘I’m afraid there might be.’
Allie looked at the floor momentarily. After seventeen years of her sister living a shadow-like existence, now the doctors were going to give them bad news? She heard Dr Merchant clear his throat to get her attention again. She didn’t want to but she looked up at him again, wishing she had taken Mark up on his offer of accompanying her.
‘She’s had another bleed to her brain,’ Dr Merchant explained. ‘It’s only slight and I’m not sure entirely what damage it’s done yet. But it’s hard to tell with Karen being unable to communicate much in the first instance. We’re going to start running some tests – is that okay?’
‘Of course.’ Allie nodded. ‘Should I be worried?’
Dr Merchant pinched his lips together before speaking. ‘I’m not sure, Allie. Only time will tell, I’m afraid. But it is the reason she has become a little less responsive as of late.’
‘Are you worried about her?’ Allie phrased the same question differently.
‘Yes, but again, it is only time that will give us answers. I know you have a busy schedule – it’s hard to keep away from the news about the murders,’ the doctor conceded, ‘but I do think maybe it would be good to spend some quality time with Karen as soon as you can.’
Once he’d gone, Allie sat still for a while, staring ahead blankly, barely able to take in what he’d said.
It wasn’t until she got back into her car that she let her tears fall. Tears of grief or relief – she couldn’t distinguish. There were definitely tears of guilt. Because, as much as she hated to see her sister living like she did, she would rather have that than not have her at all.
The staff in the incident room seemed in as much of a state of disbelief as Allie felt as she sneaked in to join the eight thirty briefing. It was not yet underway and as Nick spotted Allie, he beckoned her to his desk.
‘I’ve been calling you,’ he said.
Allie sniffed, knowing the redness around her eyes would be visible. She reached in her pocket for her phone and switched it from silent to normal. ‘Sorry, quick visit to my sister. Forgot to put the sound back on.’
‘Everything okay?’
‘Yeah, I –’ she threw her thumb over her shoulder. ‘I’ll get back to it.’
‘You sure you’re okay?’ Nick’s eyes were full of concern.
She nodded, unable to speak for fear of bursting into tears.
‘There was a fire last night. Winton Insurance Brokers on Tower Square. At first we thought it was a random arson attack but a fire officer dropped this off about an hour ago.’ He held up an exhibit bag with a magnetic letter inside.
Allie gasped. ‘N?’
‘It was left on a car down the street, tucked under the windscreen wiper. The owner couldn’t get to it last night: he found it when he was allowed to go back this morning. It was wrapped up tight inside a plastic bag and shoved underneath the wiper blade. “Police” was written on a white label. It’s gone off to forensics along with the bag.’
‘But that spells . . . EVEN.’
Nick nodded. ‘And that might be a whole new game of soldiers.’
‘So we were probably wrong on the name Eve?’
‘It’s possible. And if so, what the hell is he getting even for?’
Allie shook her head. ‘It could mean this is over too?’ she said after a pause. ‘Even though we still have to catch him, if he has gotten even, we might not have any more people getting hurt.’
‘Let’s hope so.’ Nick moved to the front of the room, raised a hand for attention. ‘Right, listen up everyone. This attack doesn’t fit with our MO but now that we have another letter, we know it’s our fella. I’m told there’s not much left of the interior of Winton Insurance Brokers after the fire did its worst. The square was evacuated and closed off. The buildings either side will remain closed today too, until everything has been made safe.’
‘What do we know about the victim?’ Allie asked.
‘Malcolm Foster, sixty-two, lived in Stockton Brook. Married to Sylvia with a son, Nigel, who lives in Portsmouth with his family. They’ll both be in for the press conference later. Obviously there can be no formal identity yet but we have to assume it’s him. Approximately nine thirty last night, Foster’s wife became worried when he didn’t come home as planned. She’d been calling his mobile but it had gone unanswered.’ Nick pointed to the photo of Malcolm Foster, tanned and relaxed, smiling with a drink in his hand. ‘This is the most recent close-up, taken from their digital camera. They’d only got back from a fortnight’s holiday in Dubai a few hours before. Sylvia said Malcolm always went into the office every Sunday but she hadn’t expected him to go that night. But around six p.m., Malcolm told her that he needed to deal with something urgent, said he’d only be about an hour. She couldn’t understand why after two weeks away he wouldn’t wait until the next morning. When she failed to get hold of him, she headed over in the car and found the building up in flames, fire brigade all over it . . .’
‘Nasty,’ said Allie.
‘Anything to do with the schools, do we know?’ asked Perry.
‘No straight connection that we can find. They came to Stoke about thirty years ago.’ Nick looked around the room again. ‘There was no need for our killer to change his methods so drastically unless he was trying to tell us something different. So, why fire this time?’
