by Ellis, Tim
He took out his collection of photographs and laid them out side by side in chronological order on the table.
Bambi Bradford’s disappearance seemed to follow a similar pattern to that of Rose Needle’s other victims. Everyone had missed the trail of this female serial killer. For a crazy person, Rose had done a damned good job in covering up her tracks.
Nobody expected a woman to be a killer, especially not a serial killer. He could count the number of female serial killers there had been in the UK on one hand: Rosemary West, Beverley Allitt and Myra Hindley. In the distant past, Mary Ann Cotton had poisoned twenty victims with arsenic – including her own children – and was hanged in Durham jail in 1873. Now, they needed to add Rose Needle to the list, but first he had to prove it.
Lizzie Bradford came back with a glossy photograph of her sister – Bambi – and laid it down on the table next to the others. ‘They remind me of a time-lapse sequence of a person ageing,’ she said.
He moved Bambi’s photograph and slotted it in-between those of Viki Cole and Julie Wilkinson. ‘Do you think the other women look like Bambi at all?’
She examined the photographs from different angles by tilting her head left and right. ‘Are you sure you’re the police?’
‘Last time I looked.’
‘Well, haven’t you got a forensics department with people and computer software that can compare all the facial features?’
A light came on in his head.
‘My God! You’re a genius.’
She smiled. ‘It has been said.’
‘You haven’t got a fax, have you?’
‘Why?’
‘So that I can send these photographs to my forensics department.’
‘Did you drive here in a steam-powered car?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Where’s your phone?’
He took it out of his pocket and put it on the table.
She pointed at the camera aperture. ‘That’s a camera. You can take a photograph of each picture and then send it to someone in the forensics department. That person can then upload the pictures to a computer.’
He’d been out of the game for too long. ‘Did I say you were a genius?’
‘No, I’m not sure you did.’
‘I’ll call them first.’ He phoned Richard Buswell.
‘I’m just on my way out of the door, Chief.’
‘I hope that’s a revolving door?’
‘I’m just on my way back in the door.’
‘Now we’re talking. I’m going to send you some pictures of several young women in a minute. I’d like someone to tell me if they’re a match for the woman driving my wife’s car. Also, I’d like them to produce a range of photofits – short, medium and long hair; various colours and styles; glasses; with and without make-up and earrings – you know the thing.’
‘Everyone’s gone home, you know.’
‘We’re talking about my wife, Richard.’
‘Hang on! Yes, I can hear them all coming back.’
‘I’m grateful. First thing in the morning, the photofits need to be sent to the Chief Constable’s press officer.’
‘Leave it with me.’
‘Thanks.’
He ended the call and phoned the Chief Constable.
‘How’s it going, Ray?’
He gave him a brief synopsis of what he’d been doing. ‘The media campaign was a partial success, but I have no idea who or where Rose Needle is now.’
‘Go on.’
‘She’s changing her appearance every time she changes her identity. I have forensics producing a range of photofits.’
‘And you want the public to help again?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay, I’ll go along with the plan. I suppose I can justify the expenditure upstairs on the basis that you’re hunting a possible serial killer.’
‘Thanks, Sir.’
‘Don’t make me out to be a liar, Ray.’
‘I’ll try not to, Sir.’
Lizzie Bradford helped him take the photographs and then send them to Richard Buswell.
‘You’ve been a great help,’ he said to her.
‘Where are you going now?’
‘Esher in Surrey.’
‘Do you want to eat before you set off? I was about to order in a Chinese takeaway, and I hate eating alone.’
‘I suppose it’s the least I can do.’
She passed him a menu.
***
Once Stick reached Woodford station and reclaimed his car from the car park he aimed it towards Old Ferry Road in Wivenhoe, Colchester.
It was five o’clock. In an ideal world at that time he’d make his way home, grab himself a ginger beer from the fridge and work on his latest wood-carving of a mischievous-looking otter for a couple of hours. Then, twenty minutes before Jennifer was due home he’d run her a bath with plenty of frangipani and grapefruit fragrance mixed in with the water – making sure it was just the right temperature. She’d arrive home, peel off her clothes as she walked up the stairs . . .
But it wasn’t an ideal world. Instead, he had to drive all the way to Colchester during rush-hour to talk to Mathew Pitt’s neighbours.
Why hadn’t Xena rung him? She knew damn well he was worried about DC Koll. Maybe he should ring DI Dougall direct – cut out the middle woman.
Thankfully, he’d had the foresight to put his Bluetooth earpiece in.
He rang Xena.
‘You do know that I’m a very sick woman, don’t you?’
‘Have you heard from DI Dougall yet?’
‘I was just about to ring you.’
‘Is that right?’
‘You don’t think a Detective Inspector is capable of lying, do you?’
‘I never would.’
‘The number plate was from a Hyundai i40, which was reported stolen three days ago. He’s still looking into the black Mercedes, but I don’t think you should build up your hopes.’
‘What about . . . ?’
‘Yes?’
‘Well . . . surely there’s something we can do?’
‘Tom is seeing Ezra Pine tomorrow morning.’
‘Couldn’t he get in to see him today?’
‘I think you should forget about Koll, Stick.’
‘But . . .’
‘If she isn’t dead already, she soon will be.’
‘And it’s my fault.’
‘It’s no more your fault than it is mine.’
‘Then why do I feel so terrible?’
‘Because you’re a numpty. She knew what she was doing and she knew the risks. Where are you now?’
‘On the A12 heading towards Pitt’s house.’
‘To talk to his neighbours?’
‘Yes.’
‘Keep your mind focussed on what you’re doing. Koll is a grown-up, but there are children who need your help.’
‘I suppose.’
‘If Koll can be saved, Tom Dougall will save her.’
‘You think he’s better than you, don’t you?’
‘Don’t talk rubbish, Stickleback.’
The call ended.
Was Koll dead? Had Pine and his cronies already got rid of her? Was she food for the fish – her feet encased in concrete – at the bottom of the River Colne? Was it his fault? Would he have done anything different?
In his mind, he went through what had happened yesterday. The Shrub End four were locked up, the CPS were compiling their case against them, Koll didn’t need to hide at Hoddesdon anymore and the CPS had to get everything she knew into evidence. Why wouldn’t she go with Nancy Green? There was no way either of them could have anticipated that it was a set-up. In hindsight, he knew that he wouldn’t have done anything different to what he’d done.
Did that make him a bad copper? Maybe he should have anticipated that they wouldn’t give up. If they were prepared to kill Koll, then they would do anything.
He pulled up outside 12 Old Ferry Road. Xena was right – th
e children needed his help now. He had to leave Koll’s fate – if she still had any fate to leave – in DI Dougall’s hands. Maybe there was still a way he could save her.
Unusually, the road had no opposite side, so the house numbers ran consecutively.
He knocked on No11.
A wrinkled old woman wearing a fleece over her flowery dress and a knitted hat as if she was in the middle of an Arctic blast opened the door. ‘Yes?’
‘Police.’ He brandished his warrant card.
‘It’s about time somebody came to tell me what’s been going on next door – it’s been murder not knowing.’
‘That’s not the reason . . .’
‘You’d better come in,’ she said, turning and walking back into the house. ‘I’ll put the kettle on. A good cup of tea will see us right.’
He stepped inside, shut the door behind him and followed her into the kitchen.
‘Sit down, sit down. Strong or weak?’
‘Weak.’
‘Ha! I just knew you were a weak person. I like it strong myself – the stronger the better.’
He took out his notebook. ‘What’s your name?’
‘A question for a question.’
‘I’m not permitted . . .’
‘You want to know what I know, don’t you?’
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘And I want to know what you know. It’s called a Mexican stand-off.’
‘I’m afraid . . .’
‘You’ve had a wasted journey then, young man.’
‘I suppose I could . . .’
‘Yep, just as I thought – weak as a baby hedgehog.’ She poured water into a teapot designed like a Savoy cabbage, and then slipped a multicoloured knitted cosy over it. ‘You’re meant to haggle. I give an inch, you give a foot, I gave another inch, you give a yard.’
‘I’m not very good at haggling.’
‘I never would have guessed.’ She poured his tea. ‘Let’s forget the haggling then. I give you this weak cup of tea, and you tell me everything that went on next door. When you’ve satisfied my curiosity, I’ll tell you what I know.’
He had the idea that he wasn’t going to get anything out of her – including the cup of tea – until he agreed. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Sharon Williams – a real Essex girl. Not like those fake ones on the television.’
‘We have a deal, Sharon.’
‘Deal! It’s hardly a deal. And I have to say that it’s a good job you’re a copper, because you’d be useless as a criminal.’ She passed him the cup of tea. ‘Help yourself to milk and sugar. Well?’
He told her about Pitt being murdered, and that in an attempt to identify who his killer might be, they had found the blond-haired children caged like animals in a secret room beneath the house.
‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘He never looked me in the eyes on the few occasions I met him outside. Come on then, tell me everything.’
He was breaking every rule in the book giving her information about an active investigation. ‘You do know you can’t say anything to anybody?’
‘Of course. No one would believe me anyway.’
‘He’d left clues in his house.’
She leaned forward with eyes like saucers. ‘Clues to what?’
‘I don’t know yet.’ He told her about the British Library, the IONIAN ceramic plate and the Otto Steinert picture. ‘I’m going to the Alpha bank tomorrow morning.’
‘Oh well, come back after you’ve been there then. I’m not telling you what I know without the full story. If I tell you what I know, you’ll never come back. Then, I’ll never find out the end of the story.’
He gave her his card. ‘Phone me tomorrow evening and I’ll tell you what I found out . . . I promise.’
‘And what about the children?’
‘They were placed in a secure unit, but in the early hours of this morning they were snatched.’
‘You’re not doing very well, are you?’
‘I’m hoping there’ll be something at the bank that might give me a lead.’
‘Do you want to know what I know?’
‘Are you sure you want me to know what you know before you completely know what I know?’
She laughed. ‘I’m warming to you, Rowley Gilbert. Ain’t you got a partner?’
‘That’s another two stories.’
‘I have time.’
‘Unfortunately, I don’t.’
‘Okay, here’s what I know. One night some people came to visit him. It was about one in the morning. I was having trouble with the bad circulation in my legs, and I got up to make a hot-water bottle and put my bed socks on. I glanced out of the window – as you do at that time of the morning. I saw two men and a woman in one of those big black vans with dark windows, and they were talking in Russian or some other foreign language from over there . . .’
He opened his mouth to ask a question but then closed it again as she continued.
‘A blond-haired child got out of the van and walked into next door holding the woman’s hand. One of the men accompanied them, the other stayed in the van.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then I went back to bed.’
‘So, you don’t know what happened afterwards?’
‘Do you think I was going to stand at the window all night when my legs were playing up?’
‘I guess not.’
‘You guess right, Mister. But . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I wrote down the number-plate of that van on one of those sticky pad things.’
His heart skipped a beat. ‘You didn’t?’
‘I did. Now I just have to remember where I put it.’ She got up and began rifling through her kitchen drawers.
‘Close your eyes.’
‘You’re not going to hypnotise me, are you?’
‘I wouldn’t know how. No, it’s a way of remembering.’
‘Okay.’
‘Where were you standing when you wrote down the number-plate?’
‘Upstairs.’
‘You put the pad down . . .’
‘. . . On the windowsill, but . . . No, I left it there.’
‘When did you find it again?’
She opened her eyes, walked to the fridge and lifted off a fridge-magnet in the shape of a London bus. ‘Here we are.’ She passed him the post-it note with a number-plate written on it in a spidery scrawl.
‘You might just have solved my case for me.’
‘Is there a reward?’
‘Yes, I tell you how it all ends.’
‘Oh!’
He rang Operations and asked the female officer to run the number-plate through the database.
She gave him an address on the other side of Colchester in a small village called Stoke-By-Nayland. The vehicle was owned by a Dragan Milić.
He stood up. ‘I have to go, but thank you for your help.’
‘And you’ll tell me the end of the story if I ring you?’
‘I promise.’
‘Because I’d hate to have to go to the Police Commissioner and tell him you lied to a defenceless old woman.’
‘Defenceless?’ He laughed. ‘Hardly. Ring me and I’ll tell you the end of the story, Sharon Williams. Have you not got a husband?’
‘Pah! Husbands are a waste of air.’
Chapter Eighteen
She saw them coming.
On her way to the kitchen she glanced out of the upstairs window overlooking the road, watched as the black van came to a stop and four people jumped out.
She’d have to be stupid not to know that they’d come for her. After Cally Flinders had been murdered, after WikiUK had been effectively shut down mid-leak – yes, they’d come for her. They must have got to Annie Ritch, which meant that Group323 were probably all dead. And now it was Cookie’s turn to suffer a fatal accident.
For a moment she was mesmerised by their black coveralls, their helmets over balaclavas, their weapons dangling from straps and the ease
with which they moved. Then the throbbing at her temples reminded her that she was about to be taken prisoner, tortured and probably executed if she didn’t get her arse in gear.
She ran back to her room. Even though she’d made herself at home in the squat, she knew this day would come, had prepared for it, had been waiting for it like a zit ready to burst. She grabbed her emergency rucksack with all her important documents and a change of underwear inside, slipped her laptop and lead in it and slung it on her back. She’d leave nothing behind that would tell them who she really was.
They were already inside. She could hear them stomping about downstairs as she lifted the sash window, clambered through it onto the rusting metal fire escape and shut it behind her. She’d practised her escape once – a couple of years ago – and she hoped nobody had moved anything since then.
Thank God Shrek had travelled down to the Isle of White festival with the new squatter – Snoopy. Shrek had got his own way in the end. He and Snoopy had hit it off straight away and she’d heard them shagging like bunnies the same night the bitch had moved in. She was hot though. Cookie had quite fancied her as well. Oh well, it wasn’t going to happen now.
It was nearly dark.
Einstein had been right – time was relative and had slowed to a crawl. She should be miles away by now. Instead, she was climbing down the fire escape as if she had all the time in the world.
Once her feet were level with the top of the twelve-foot wall, which had a jumble of broken glass stuck in a layer of mortar to make a thief think twice about any course of action involving burglary, she extended her right foot.
It was not an escape route for the faint-hearted. She let go of the fire escape and tottered on the wall like a tightrope walker until she got her balance, and then she made her way forward step by step.
There was an alley at the rear, but it was a long alley running from left to right where the unwary could easily be trapped. Just before she jumped onto a metal waste bin she glanced back and saw a snarling woman with eyes like burning coals staring at her through Snoopy’s bedroom window.
The bin was merely a stepping stone in the alley to the rear wall of the house behind.
As well as her heart pounding in her ears, she could hear shouting coming from inside the squat.
She jumped down from the wall onto the top of a compost heap that stunk of rotting corpses, ran the length of the garden – past the conservatory – along a path at the side of the house and out into the road.
