Cold as Ice

by Lee Weeks

  ‘Okay.’ Jeanie scrolled through his photos.

  ‘It says he’s been to Thailand, Laos, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand. He must have learnt about exotic pets in Australia; he worked in a zoo there. He was back here in 2010 – that’s when he set up the online pet business and also registered for his first course in college. I think we should bring him in. We can’t risk another minute of him being out there if he’s Hawk.’

  Jeanie pointed to an image of a street and someone walking in a small camera.

  ‘Is that Ebony’s camera?’

  ‘Yeah. She is meeting Goddard tonight. I’ve been thinking about what you said about if there’s a possibility that he knows Ebony and I don’t think we should take the risk.’

  ‘I agree. We’ll have Goddard brought in and get a search warrant for his house,’ said Carter.

  ‘What do you want Ebony to do?’ asked Robbo.

  ‘We’ll salvage the evening. Tell Ebony to arrive late at the pub, after Goddard’s been picked up, and then see if she can get any extra information on him from some of his ex-girlfriends.’

  ‘Where is she going?’

  ‘For drinks to a pub called The Pear and Peach – it’s on Upper Street.’

  Ebony stepped into a doorway to take the call from Robbo.

  ‘It looks likely he’s Hawk. We have to find out where he’s holding Danielle.’

  ‘Okay, Guv.’

  ‘We’re bringing him in for questioning but we don’t know where Danielle is being held yet and we need more evidence. Arrive at the pub thirty minutes late. People will still be there and you can pick up what information you can. We are still not sure of an address for him. He doesn’t seem to be living at the one he gave. He may be using a second premises.’

  Jeanie took a call from the officers outside Tracy’s house.

  ‘Steve Collins is back home.’

  ‘Okay, give Tracy a call and make sure she’s all right.’

  She phoned Tracy.

  ‘You okay, Tracy?’

  ‘I’m okay. Steve is here.’

  ‘Yeah, I was just told. Have you spoken to him about things?’

  ‘He’s been living a bit of a lie.’

  ‘I know. We found out about his job. Carter and I went to see where he’s been holing up. It isn’t a pretty sight. He’s obviously been going through a difficult time mentally. Is he going to stay?’

  ‘Jackson seems to be okay with him. He got a smile. That means a lot, I think. At least we know he’s not Daddy Pig.’

  ‘Yeah – you’re right.’

  ‘Are you any nearer to finding Danielle?’

  ‘We have someone we are going to bring in for questioning. He’s a man who we know she was seeing as a friend and more. We are getting closer. I’ll be over tomorrow morning but you can phone me any time, Tracy.’

  She heard Tracy sigh. ‘Thank you, Jeanie.’

  Robbo was still searching Interpol when Jeanie returned to his desk.

  He looked up as she approached. ‘A couple of interesting cases came though from Australia. Two women died in Perth, both in their twenties. Both left a baby. Another three women disappeared in New Zealand, again all three left a child. There was one older woman in her forties found in 2006 in familiar circumstances to our women in a remote farm five hundred kilometres southeast of Adelaide. She was found with a garish mask of make-up on her face; she’d been strangled. Her body was wrapped in spiders’ webs by the time they found her.’

  ‘She was forty?’

  ‘Forty-five. No small child anywhere. She was from Britain. I don’t know a lot more at this stage. I’ll keep looking and I’ll get in touch with the police out there.’

  Robbo took a call.

  ‘They’ve picked up Goddard outside his house and are bringing him in here to Archway Police Station; officers are in there searching the house now.’

  ‘Tell them we are looking for a possible second premises,’ said Carter. ‘There might be some correspondence with some other address on it – electricity bill, that kind of thing. I’ll get ready to interview him. Robbo, you need to prepare some questions for me specifically about this history.’

  Chapter 48

  Ebony took a detour on the way to Islington. She was glad that it had been decided to bring Christian in. She would do all she could that evening to find out where he could be holding the women if the police search of his home didn’t find them. She needed to talk to some of his less forthcoming conquests just in case more information was needed. She got a text on the way. It was from Yan.

  ‘There’s been police here asking about Christian and Emily Styles, the girl he was dating. I just thought I’d warn you. I really think there’s something not right about him. I’ve decided to invite everyone to mine instead – that is, the people from the course I was telling you about. Where are you now?’

  ‘About to get to The Pear and Peach – the pub,’ she texted.

  ‘Well, go past it, take the next left, walk down that road till the end, I’m across the street, second from the end, number 130. See you in a minute.’

  ‘Shall I bring something?’

  ‘No, don’t worry. Just bring yourself, that will be enough.’

  Ebony glanced into the pub as she passed. Selena and Julie were there. Ebony didn’t need to talk to them again. It didn’t look like there were many others unless they decided to nearly all go to Yan’s.

  Ebony walked down to the end of the road and crossed over at the end, then she stood opposite the house. It was a narrow four-storey Victorian terrace that looked in need of repair. The houses either side looked like they’d been renovated but not this one. Typical student accommodation, thought Ebony. Yan had said he let rooms out. There were two windows on each floor, overlooking the street. There were black railings at street level and steps leading down to a basement that looked like no one had used them in a long time. An ash tree had taken root in there and was now so tall that it obscured the first-floor windows. There were lights on in the upper two floors. She walked up the steps and looked for a bell, gave up and knocked. She heard the sound of feet approaching. She felt a trickle of excitement in her stomach. She realized she was looking forward to seeing him.

  Carter sat across from Christian Goddard and his lawyer. ‘Interview commencing at seven p.m. on Saturday December 21st , December 2013. Thank you for agreeing to give a DNA sample.’ Carter watched Goddard. He was establishing a baseline. His breathing was deep and calm. He sat still, his hands folded in his lap.

  ‘What’s it for?’ The pitch of his voice was low, measured. He used his hands very little when he talked.

  ‘Exhibit number eighty-three.’ Carter pushed a photo of two women across the table. ‘You knew Emily Styles and Danielle Foster well?’

  Goddard reached out to pick up the picture and look at it closely.

  ‘Yes. Quite well.’

  He was right-handed.

  ‘When was the last time you saw either of these two women?’

  ‘Emily? It was at the festival in Finsbury Park – the Fields festival. It was May sometime – the twenty-fifth.’

  ‘And Danielle?’

  ‘Danielle? A week or so ago. We saw one another at college.’

  Carter watched Goddard answer; he was thinking about the dates. His eyes went up towards the left. He was remembering something that was real.

  ‘You have had a few girlfriends from the college?’

  ‘Yes, sure. That’s not a crime, is it?’

  ‘But what is a crime is they have ended up dead.’ Carter took out the photos of Emily Styles’ injuries from the autopsy.

  ‘Do you recognize those wounds?’

  ‘No.’ His voice lifted a little in pitch. His body moved forward in his seat. He looked to his right. ‘Why should I?’

  ‘I thought you might have because they are spider bites left untreated. You keep spiders as pets, don’t you?’

  ‘I do. But that’s not against the law.’ His voice was creepi
ng up, stressed.

  ‘What about snakes?’

  Carter watched the sweat glow on Goddard’s upper lip and forehead.

  ‘I haven’t owned a snake for a while.’ He stopped fidgeting. He put his hands on his lap.

  ‘But you like exotic pets?’

  Christian shrugged. ‘Depends what you mean by that. Is a fish exotic to you? Maybe it is. Yes I own pets that might be termed exotic.’

  ‘Spiders?’

  ‘I already told you I have spiders.’

  ‘What kind? Venomous?’

  ‘A couple are, the rest just bite if they’re threatened. But I would never let a spider bite someone like that. I have anti-venom. Anyway, it just wouldn’t happen. I wouldn’t let it.’ He turned away, unable to stomach the images in front of him. ‘I liked Emily.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw her?’

  ‘I told you, at the May Fields festival. We broke up before that – before the holidays.’

  ‘Were you dating? For how long?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it dating. We had had a few nights together.’

  ‘So you felt nothing for her? What about Mary Rogers? Pauline Murphy? Do these names mean anything to you?’

  ‘Yes. They were friends.’

  ‘More than?’

  He shrugged. His body remained tense. ‘I suppose so – yes.’

  ‘What about Danielle Foster?’

  ‘What is this about?’ His voice rose. ‘Where is Danielle? I don’t understand. What happened to all these women?’

  ‘When was the last time you saw her?’

  ‘Two weeks ago. We had talked about meeting up.’

  ‘When was the exact time you saw her?’

  ‘Monday the eighth. She had a babysitter. Her mum was looking after Jackson for her.’

  ‘So you met up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘No. There were other people from the college there.’

  ‘Did you discuss the body in the canal?’

  ‘Yes. A little bit. We had no idea it was Emily. After we heard the next day, then the phone calls started and people posted stuff on Facebook. We were all completely in shock. Emily was such a nice girl.’

  ‘Had you had sex with Danielle?’

  The lawyer answered for him: ‘My client doesn’t need to answer that.’

  Christian waited whilst Carter returned with the file that Robbo had printed out for him.

  ‘Have you ever been to Australia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you there in the year 2006?’

  ‘Yes, I think I was.’

  ‘Yes or no?’

  ‘Okay.’ His eyes went left. That meant his brain was recalling something real. ‘Yes. I was there then.’

  Chapter 49

  ‘Come in. Lovely to see you.’

  Ebony stepped into the hallway and then she stopped to listen to the music that was playing from inside the house somewhere. ‘Ah, the Nutcracker Suite – as I said, the only piece of classical music I know.’

  Yan closed the door behind her.

  Ebony stopped and turned to look at Yan properly; when he had first opened the door she’d been embarrassed like a schoolgirl; she’d blushed and turned away and covered up her embarrassment and excitement by talking about the music, but then she looked back at Yan’s face. She looked at his glasses. They were round, with thick black frames. She knew where she’d seen ones like that before: when she babysat for Jeanie’s little girl Christa; when they watched children’s television together. They were the ones Daddy Pig wore.

  In the darkness she made out his smile. She looked back to the door; her body started to run. She saw only white in front of her eyes and felt the crack of pain to the side of her head before she sank in slow motion, in a dream, to her knees and into unconsciousness. In a dream she felt herself pressed against a wall, hands undress her. She felt pain.

  Robbo looked at his screen. His breathing began to come shallow and fast. He couldn’t take in enough oxygen. He pulled himself up straight and breathed in deeply through his nose but it wasn’t reaching his lungs. He felt his lungs deflate with every breath. He heard them collapse.

  Ebony’s camera had entered a blackout zone. He tried resetting the connections. Her GPS had lost its signal.

  He looked across at Jeanie, who was at another desk checking the information about the cases in Australia. He couldn’t breathe; he was about to enter into a panic attack. He wanted to scream with the fear of it. He wanted to run from the room but he was too scared to move. His eyes stayed on the screen. There was a photo from Yan’s Facebook. It was Yan on a sunny beach in Australia looking like every other gap year kid – around his neck was a chain.

  ‘You all right, Robbo?’ Jeanie looked up.

  He shook his head. He stood up and then sat back down and tapped again on his keyboard. His lungs were wheezing. His face was scarlet. His peripheral vision was gone; now he was running down an ever-narrowing tunnel. But somewhere behind him something was pulling him backwards. It was holding him fast in the real world where he was needed.

  ‘Ebony’s in trouble, Jeanie. Her signal’s gone. Something’s wrong. Tell Carter.’

  Ebony was dreaming of pain, of someone hitting her head with a hammer. She felt her body being jolted, felt it turning around in the air. All the time she heard laughter and then silence, darkness. Her hands shot upwards instinctively before she realized they were tied together at the wrist; they banged against a solid surface just a few inches above her. She passed out.

  Carter looked up as the door opened and Jeanie entered. He could see by her face that something was very wrong.

  ‘Detective Inspector Dan Carter leaving the room.’ Carter signed himself off and left Christian with his lawyer whilst he stepped outside with Jeanie.

  ‘It’s Ebony. Her camera’s not working and neither is her phone. GPS signal is lost,’ said Jeanie.

  ‘Where was she headed?’

  ‘The last thing we know is that she was going to see Yan and meet some other members of the group after Goddard was brought in. Robbo says there’s a photo of Yan on Facebook wearing the chain from Emily Styles’ body.’

  ‘Have you got a phone number for him, or an address?’

  ‘We have a phone number but it’s dead and it’s not registered, it’s a pay-as-you-go phone. We’ve tried college records and council tax, utilities. Either the address isn’t the right one or the name of the person is wrong. The college have several addresses for him but his wages are paid in through a bank account that is proving impossible to trace. He seems to have covered all the angles. We need an address from Christian.’

  Carter stepped back inside the interview room and sat back down across from Christian.

  ‘What do you know about Yan Stevenson?’

  ‘I’ve known him for a few years. I first met him in Australia when I was travelling. He was living out there.’

  ‘We need to find him. Do you know where he lives?’

  Christian Goddard shook his head.

  ‘I helped him get some animals – spiders, snakes – he wanted once but he was insistent that I never came to his house with them. He collected them from me.’

  Chapter 50

  As Ebony opened her eyes the pain shot across the side of her head. She shut them fast and tried to breathe through the pain and nausea. She couldn’t risk vomiting; she had a gag across her mouth. She opened her eyes again slowly and could see nothing but darkness.

  She lay there trying hard to remember how she got wherever she was. She could smell: wood, urine and sweat. She listened hard. Against her back and buttocks she felt rough wood. She knew she was inside a coffin. Her fingers stretched upwards and her fingertips ran along the grooves that other nails had dug. Waves of nausea surged upward. Pain shot across her skull. She tried to calm herself. She could breathe – air must be coming from somewhere. She must try and come out of the pain and fog – try and think – it was her
only chance.

  She stopped as she heard movement above her. She heard him unlatch the first of the three locks on her box.

  Ebony opened her eyes as she heard the box being opened. Three locks, to her left. The sound of music again. She held her breath, waited. As he opened the box, she was temporarily blinded by the light. He shone a torch in her face. She saw Yan’s face loom close to hers as he pulled up her eyelids and examined her. He pulled her to a sitting position by her wrists. Her eyes squinted as he directed the light straight at her. A hot bulb shining on her swollen face. He pulled down her gag.

  ‘Welcome to my world.’

  His voice chilled her. It was a voice she knew well but she had never heard it in those tones. Now she realized she didn’t know him at all. He was bare-chested, had on a pair of combat trousers and was wearing black leather gloves on his hands. He lifted her from the box by her wrists, pulled her over his shoulder and carried her out of the room.

  She grimaced in pain as he squashed her bruised ribs and almost ran along the corridor. Try as she might, Ebony could not clear her head and was dipping in and out of consciousness. She tried to focus on where she could be in the house. She looked at the floor and the edges of doors: four, five. He carried her along a low-ceilinged corridor. It felt like they were underground. Suddenly, Yan stopped at a door on their right.

  ‘Welcome to your new home. I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve been busy spinning my webs and you walked straight into them, my little fly.’

  ‘Let me talk to you, Yan.’

  He didn’t answer as he opened a door. Inside she felt the temperature drop. It was completely black and there was the rank smell of something rotting. She felt the air flow over her body as he tipped her from his shoulder. She landed on a mat covered with grit and dirt.