by James Raven
‘I think we should talk it through properly,’ he said. ‘I mean, I don’t get the impression that you’re absolutely sure what to do yourself. And that doesn’t surprise me since you’ve always been adamant that you didn’t want children.’
‘But isn’t that what we’re doing now? Talking about it. This is the first chance we’ve had since this morning.’
‘I know that. But we’re both tired and you’re upset. We’re not in the right frame of mind to have a sensible and rational conversation about something so serious. Something that will have an impact on the rest of our lives.’
She started to speak but then stopped herself. Her eyes brimmed with tears again and her mouth twitched at the corners.
Temple got down off his stool and stepped around the breakfast bar so that he could give her a cuddle. He was relieved that she let him, and he held her close as she sobbed into his shoulder.
He was tempted to tell her that they should have the baby and that everything would be all right. But he resisted because he knew it wouldn’t be fair – or honest. They needed to discuss it when emotions weren’t running so high. And when he wasn’t so tired that he couldn’t think straight.
‘Why don’t we go to bed?’ he said. ‘We both need some rest and we can talk about this when I get home tomorrow night.’
She lifted her head to look up at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed, raw.
‘I’m sorry, Jeff. You’re right. It’s just that I feel so … so confused and alone.’
‘Well, you’re not alone. I’m with you now and I’ll always be with you. Please get that into your thick skull.’
A faint smile hovered on her lips.
‘That’s the kind of thing I need to hear from you, Jeff. And not just when you want to shut me up.’
He felt a wave of guilt flow through him and he realized that he was going to have to get his thoughts together on the issue of a baby – even as he struggled to oversee what was shaping up to be the biggest and most gruesome investigation of his life.
20
The following morning, Temple was up and dressed before Angel awoke. He took her in a cup of tea and said he’d get home as early as possible so that they could talk about the pregnancy.
She looked at him through half-open eyes and managed a small smile.
‘We both know that’s wishful thinking, Jeff.’
He sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over to kiss her on the forehead.
‘I promise I’ll try,’ he said.
‘I know you will, but don’t panic if you can’t make it. I’ll understand. I just got myself all worked up yesterday. I feel less hormonal today.’
‘Everything will be fine. We just need to get our heads around it.’
‘Promise me one thing, though, Jeff. Promise me that you’ll be totally honest with me. I really don’t want you to tell me something just because you think it’s what I want to hear.’
‘I promise,’ he said. ‘It’s still early so why don’t you go back to sleep. And try not to worry.’
The new day was draped in billowy white clouds. According to the weather forecast, the sun was going to make an appearance during the afternoon.
As he drove across town, he had to make a conscious effort to push Angel’s pregnancy from his mind. There would be time later to agonize over the implications. Besides, he didn’t want to face up to the awful truth that if he was to be totally honest with her, it might well break her heart.
The radio news provided a distraction. The discovery of the body was the lead story on the BBC national bulletin. What’s more, they were quoting an anonymous source as saying that as many as fourteen other bodies might be buried in the forest. They were even linking the investigation to Grant Mason and the disappearance of the Hamiltons.
Temple was angry that some twat had leaked the information, but he wasn’t entirely surprised. The more people who knew about something the harder it was to keep a lid on it. And by now plenty of police officers and civilian support staff knew what was going on.
There was no way of avoiding a media circus. The search for graves was going to be headline news around the world, even if they didn’t find any more bodies. But Temple was convinced that they would. Mason’s map surely couldn’t be anything other than a vile scoreboard; something for him to gloat over and feel proud of.
It wasn’t unknown for serial killers to keep a record of their murderous rampages. Temple knew of at least two in the US who had kept scrapbooks filled with information on their victims, including newspaper cuttings and written descriptions of what they’d done to their victims and where they’d buried them.
One notorious killer in Germany had kept a detailed record of his eighteen kills in a two-year diary which police found when they raided his home. It led them to all of the bodies. In court, the man claimed that he got a thrill out of looking back over what he’d done because it brought back fond memories.
Temple wondered if Mason’s accomplice had known about the map. He would certainly have known about the photos and video footage. But the map might well have been something that Mason kept to himself. His own sordid little secret. Perhaps he had just wanted to make sure that he didn’t forget where his victims were buried, so that he could visit their graves during hikes.
Temple stopped off at a Tesco Express to buy a couple of newspapers. The tabloids were all leading with the story and the late editions were saying that the search for more bodies would begin today. The editors had had a field day with the headlines.
Horror in the Forest.
How many bodies are there?
Corpse found at forest beauty spot.
Gone were the days when news took time to filter through, Temple thought. Now the media got wind of things instantly via text, Twitter, mobile phone and email. And digital technology enabled papers and TV channels to process the stories in a fraction of the time it used to take.
It meant that for the police working a high-profile case, the pressure was relentless. Every development, every scrap of new information, was seized upon in order to satisfy the insatiable appetite of twenty-four hour news.
The MIT office was now a major incident room. When Temple arrived he was surprised to see how many people had beaten him in. They were bustling this way and that as phones rang and keyboards clattered.
There were half-empty coffee mugs everywhere, overflowing wastepaper bins, tons of paper on the desks along with empty pizza boxes.
He hadn’t seen the place so full and frenetic since the sniper attacks on the motorways, which had galvanized the whole force into action.
More whiteboards had been set up and Grant Mason’s map had pride of place in the middle, between photos of the first uncovered grave and those of Bob and Rosemary Hamilton. Another whiteboard contained a list of the names from the map with photos and details of when those people went missing.
There was a bunch of post-it notes on his desk with various messages, but before he had time to go through them, Dave Vaughan came into his office. The DS had managed to shave but still looked rough. His tie hung loose and his shirt looked as though it hadn’t been ironed.
‘Have you seen the papers, boss?’
Temple nodded. ‘Any idea who’s been spouting off?’
‘Negative, but it was bound to happen on a case this big.’
Temple looked at his watch. Seven thirty.
‘Spread the word that there’ll be a briefing at nine,’ he said. ‘But first give me an update.’
Vaughan remained standing and read from his notes.
‘Beresford gave the go-ahead last night for full-blown searches to start this morning at two more potential grave sites.’
‘Were the locations picked at random?’
‘No. We’re going to base the search pattern on the dates Mason put against the names on his map so that we can uncover the most recent ones first. The pathologist is pretty certain that Paul Kellerman was buried two months ago in December. It tallies with the d
ate next to his name. The date before that is 23rd September. The two names against it are Simon and Jane Cramer.’
‘What do we know about them?’
‘We’re assuming they’re a married couple from London who disappeared while on a touring holiday along the south coast. Their car was found in Winchester so no one suspected that they might have vanished in the forest.’
‘Where’s the location on the map?’
‘Just outside the village of Burley. A pretty remote spot by all accounts.’
‘What about the other location?’
‘A patch of woodland to the west of Godshill. The date against it on the map is 1st August. The name is Angeline Bedel. It matches the name of a 22-year-old foreign exchange student from France. Angeline was staying with a family in Brighton and left there on 26th July to hitchhike around the country for the summer before returning home. When she failed to contact her parents in Lyon, the alarm was raised. Sussex police found that she stayed in a youth hostel in Chichester on the night of 29th July, but there was no sign of her after that.’
‘So she might have been exploring the forest when Mason and his accomplice snatched her.’
‘That’s possible, boss.’
‘OK. What else have we got?’
‘The post-mortem on Paul Kellerman is scheduled for later this morning and the techies are still sifting through the spoil from his grave,’ Vaughan said. ‘But we’ll be lucky if the body or the grave yield much forensic evidence after so long.’
‘Anything more from Mason’s house?’
‘Recovered prints are still being processed and we’ll get an update at the briefing. As you know, we picked up Mason’s phone and wallet from your friend, Hilary. We’ll soon have a typed-up list of all his contacts, calls and text messages sent and received. But I can tell you now that there are no suspicious texts.’
‘What about his computer?’
‘I’m told it’s full of porno videos and images. Some of the stuff is clearly of his own making and there’s a lot of extreme material from web sites and file-sharing networks.’
‘I’d like to see the clips that include his accomplice.’
‘I thought you might. I asked Fiona to have them cued up on her computer.’
‘So Marsh is in as well, is she?’
‘She was in before me,’ Vaughan said. ‘She couldn’t sleep.’
Temple got up and followed Vaughan over to Marsh’s workstation. She looked up at them, her mouth working hard at a piece of gum. Chewing was something she often did to stop herself going outside for a smoke.
‘Morning, Fiona,’ he said. ‘Everything OK?’
‘It would be if I didn’t have to look at this filth,’ she said.
‘That bad, eh?’
‘Worse than you can imagine.’
And she was right, Temple quickly discovered. There were three video sequences featuring a man who was naked except for a black head mask. In two of them, he and Grant Mason were taking turns to rape a young woman who was strapped to a bed. She’d been identified as a German tourist named Lena Klein who disappeared two years ago after holidaying alone in Southern England. In the third clip, the man in the mask was filmed whipping the backsides of a young couple who were hanging by chains from a ceiling. Mason could be heard out of shot egging him on and laughing. The couple screamed and cried for several minutes before they became too weak to even respond to the beating.
‘We believe the couple are Sonia Jordan and Tim Leonard, from Dorchester,’ Marsh explained. ‘Boy and girlfriend. Dis-appeared seventeen months ago while visiting friends in Lyndhurst.’
Temple got Marsh to freeze-frame Mason’s accomplice. The guy was of average height – maybe five foot eight – and looked fit. Lean body, narrow waist, a six or seven inch penis that was fully erect in every shot. But they couldn’t see his face or his hair and there was no way of telling if he was the same man who had ransacked Mason’s house.
‘Any clues as to where this might be taking place?’ Temple said.
Marsh shook her head. ‘It could be anywhere. But I reckon it’s a garage or a basement. We know this isn’t Mason’s garage because it’s been checked and there’s no basement in his house. On these shots the walls are grey and plain except for the stuff hanging from them. There’s a table in a lot of the shots and two single beds. No windows or doors can be seen.’
‘It looks like a purpose-built torture chamber to me,’ Vaughan said. ‘A regular chamber of horrors.’
These words made the hairs on Temple’s neck quiver. It never ceased to amaze him what terrible things humans were prepared to do to each other.
‘I can’t help thinking that Bob and Rosemary Hamilton are there right now,’ Marsh said. ‘And Christ only knows what unspeakable things are being done to them.’
21
This morning it was a violent rage that drove him down to the basement even before he’d had breakfast.
The television news had caused his blood to boil and his heart to thud against his rib cage. He needed to vent his anger and there was no better way to do that than on his playthings.
As a child, he frequently unleashed his temper on the household pets. The dog and the cat that his parents had treated better than they’d treated him.
But with animals it was never enough, even when he broke their bones and drew blood. That was because he couldn’t see the pain and humiliation in their pathetic faces. Their expressions never changed. But with humans it was different. Their suffering was reflected in their distorted features and the tears that spilled from their eyes.
And the tears were positively gushing from Rosemary Hamilton’s eyes as she begged him not to touch her again. As he stared down at her, he was oblivious to her husband’s desperate pleas. All he could think about was the agony he had just caused her. The pure, mouth-watering, beautiful agony.
It was just a shame that she wasn’t Grant fucking Mason. That stupid moron had obviously given the game away. How else would the police have known where they had buried the student from Bournemouth? And according to the news, the cops believed there were up to nine other graves in the forest.
It was a catastrophe and one he should have seen coming. How many times had he warned Grant about the trophies he insisted on keeping? Plus all the photos and video clips.
Grant had always said it was all as safe as the Crown Jewels. But that would only have been true while he was alive. His sudden death had changed things by leaving all his worldly possessions unprotected.
He wondered if Hilary Dyer had stumbled on her boss’s dark secrets and had alerted the police. Or perhaps Grant had told her something incriminating before he died.
But what did it matter now how the cops had found out? What mattered was whether they’d be able to establish a link between him and the victims. He had always been the most careful. He’d made sure he’d always worn the mask whenever his partner used the camcorder or took photos. And he had never touched the vehicles belonging to the victims without wearing gloves.
But he was bound to have made some mistakes during their two and a bit year reign. And he couldn’t be sure that they wouldn’t come back to haunt him.
‘Dear God … please … no more.’
Rosemary Hamilton’s voice seized his attention again. Her eyes were closed and she was gritting her teeth.
A memory flashed in his head of the first girl he had ever attacked. Her name was Shelley Prior and she’d been thirteen, just a year younger than he was.
They were in the park after school and she’d just given him a blowjob. But it hadn’t been enough. He’d felt an uncontrollable urge to hurt her. And so he had slapped and punched her repeatedly before raping her.
After that he’d …
‘Please … go away.’
Rosemary Hamilton’s voice brought him back to the here and now. He re-focused on her face and drank in the sheer terror that was etched into her features.
Her eyes snapped open and she stared
up at him through her tears. But then she turned her head and looked across the room at her husband who could no longer bear to watch. The man had covered his face with his hands and was sobbing pitifully.
He switched his gaze between husband and wife, and a wave of unbridled pleasure swept through him. He realized that he was really going to miss this couple. They ranked high among all the playthings who’d been brought to the dungeon. Their innocence and their vulnerability was as much a turn on as their pale, smooth bodies. And the love they clearly had for each other had served to fan the flames of desire.
But it was time for them to go. They’d served their purpose and keeping them any longer would be a risk and one he wasn’t prepared to take.
So today he would turn his thoughts to how he was going to dispose of them without Grant’s help and with the cops swarming all over the forest.
22
Chief Superintendent Beresford came down for the 9 a.m. briefing. He kick-started it with an ominous warning to whoever had leaked information to the press.
‘On an investigation like this, I know it’s going to be tempting,’ he said. ‘The press in particular will be throwing money around like confetti. But I swear that if I catch any member of this team feeding the vultures I’ll come down on them hard. Is that understood?’
There was a lot of murmuring and nodding of heads. No one present doubted that Beresford meant what he said. The Chief Super had a strong physical presence in the room and a reputation for being fair but firm. That was partly why he had risen so quickly through the ranks.
‘We haven’t got time to dwell on this issue right now so let’s get on with business,’ he said. ‘First, though, I want you to know that we need to pull together on this case. It’s going to put an enormous strain on each and every one of us. Not only do we face the awful prospect of uncovering more graves – but there’s a serial killer out there who may be about to murder two more people if he hasn’t done so already. All leave has therefore been cancelled and more officers are being assigned to MIT. I’ve also lifted restrictions on overtime, so be prepared to work long hours and don’t expect this case to be over any time soon.’
