by DS Butler
She thought perhaps she shouldn’t have come alone. She could have asked Mackinnon to tag along, but he was busy. The whole team was, and this could end up being a wild goose chase.
Charlotte lifted up her hand to ring the doorbell when Alfie surprised her by pulling a set of keys out of his pocket and opening the door.
“You live here?” Charlotte asked.
Alfie nodded and beckoned for Charlotte to follow him inside.
“Is that you Alfie?” Charlotte heard a woman’s voice call from inside the flat, and a moment later a woman appeared in the hallway.
She was short, dark-skinned with tight curls around her face, and she wore huge dangly gold earrings.
“What’s this, Alfie?” the woman asked, immediately defensive. “Who are you?”
Before Charlotte could answer, Alfie piped up. “She wants to know about Mr. X.”
The woman’s face relaxed and she smiled.
“Oh, I see,” she said. “You need a little help from Mr. X.”
She held out a long, red-painted talon and curled her finger to beckon Charlotte towards her.
“Come in here. We’ll be more comfortable,” she said and opened the door to her right.
Charlotte wasn’t exactly sure why she hadn’t introduced herself and shown her ID immediately, but she had a feeling she would find out more if she didn’t admit to being a police officer.
The room they walked into was dark. The curtains had been closed, and a candle flickered in the corner giving the whole room an eerie light.
“Can we turn the light on?” Charlotte asked.
“No,” the woman said. “We work by candlelight.”
She shut the door, leaving Alfie outside in the hall, and pulled out a chair beside a small table, then indicated for Charlotte to take the other chair, which she did.
The table was scattered with tiny shells, and there was a small dish that contained something that looked like a blackened, shrivelled chicken’s head.
Charlotte looked away.
It was warm in here, and the scent of incense was strong.
The woman leaned forward, placing her forearms on the table.
“Why do you need help from Mr. X?” she asked.
Charlotte shifted uncomfortably under the woman’s gaze. She didn’t like the way she was staring at her, like she could see right inside her, and see all her secrets.
Charlotte looked down at one of the shells and reached out to touch it.
“Don’t touch,” the women said. “You’ll disturb the spirits. Only I can touch the shells.”
She moved the shells away and out of Charlotte’s reach.
“You want help from Mr. X,” the woman stated. “You want him to get rid of a problem for you. That is fine. We can help you. All I need is a name.”
She lifted the bowl containing the chicken’s head and took a small scrap of paper from underneath. She pushed it across the table towards Charlotte, and took a pen from behind her ear and placed that on top of the paper.
“Name?” she said.
Charlotte swallowed. She wasn’t sure how long she could keep this up without explaining to the woman who she really was.
“I’m not really sure about this,” Charlotte said. “Can you explain the process to me?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t need to worry about the process. The spirits take care of that. Mr. X will see that the spirits hear your prayers.”
Charlotte picked up the pen, pressing the nib hard against the piece of paper.
She was surprised when a name came unbidden into her mind, and she thought for just a split second how nice it would be to write down the name of her abusive ex-boyfriend, but a second later, she put down the pen.
“I’m not really sure. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”
The woman sucked in a breath and shook her head so hard that the curls slapped her cheeks.
“Are you wasting my time, girl?” she asked. “Mr. X has lots of people wanting his help. He is a busy man, so do you want his help, or not?”
“What will he do?”
“Mr. X will make sure the spirits hear your prayers,” the woman said again. “I need a name and address and your problems will be over.”
“How much does it cost?”
“If you give me five-thousand pounds, the spirits will hear your prayers.”
“That’s a lot of money,” Charlotte said. “I don’t even know your name. How do I know you won’t just run off with my money?”
The woman sucked in a breath and held a hand to her chest, as if she was terribly offended that Charlotte could suggest such a thing.
Charlotte wiped her sweaty palms on her trousers. The incense was making her feel light-headed.
“If it makes you feel better, my name is Erika. This is my home.” She gestured around the dark room. “How could I run off with your money? I live here. You’d soon track me down.”
“So, you’re saying, I just need to trust you?”
“That depends on how badly you want to get rid of your problem,” the woman said.
She leaned so close Charlotte could smell the coffee on her breath.
Charlotte was regretting coming here alone. She should have shown her ID as soon as she’d entered the flat. It wasn’t as if she’d be able to use any of this information as evidence. Still, something kept her from reaching for her ID. If Erika would just tell her a little more, at least they’d have a better idea of what they were up against.
“Who is Mr. X?” Charlotte asked.
“He is the righter of wrongs,” the woman said. “He is justice where there is injustice. He is the spirit guide.”
Charlotte wasn’t getting anywhere. The woman was talking in riddles. Charlotte put down the pen and reached into her pocket.
She held up her ID.
The woman took a while to realise what it was. She frowned at the warrant card. It was dark in here and Erika obviously found it difficult to read.
Suddenly, she leaned forward and snatched it from Charlotte’s hand.
Erika’s eyes widened as she scanned the ID.
She slapped it on the tabletop.
“This is entrapment,” she snarled. “You can’t just come into my house like this!”
Charlotte ignored the woman’s protestations and stood up.
Riled the woman stood, too, and said, “You don’t know who you are messing with.”
Charlotte picked up her ID. “Well, I’m hoping you’re going to tell me exactly who I’m messing with.”
The woman shook her head. “You don’t understand. He’s too powerful. He’s got…”
“You’ll have plenty of time to tell me all about him when we get back to the station,” Charlotte said and walked over to open the door.
“Where’s Alfie?” Charlotte asked, turning back to Erika.
The woman scowled. “My nephew’s probably gone out again by now. He’s never home. He’s always getting into trouble. He brought you here, didn’t he? The little bastard.”
Charlotte beckoned the woman to get up. “Come on,” she said, reaching in her pocket for her mobile phone. “I’ll get one of my colleagues to give us a lift to the station.”
27
HELEN ROOKE STEPPED INSIDE the lift. Her heart was hammering furiously, and her hand shook slightly as she reached out to press the button for the third floor of the swanky, riverside apartment block.
She had an hour until she was due to start her shift as a nurse at the local hospital. She didn’t want to be late, but she had to do this first. She’d been worrying about it all morning.
She couldn’t put it off any longer.
As the lift came to a shuddering halt, and the doors squeaked open, Helen felt a sense of dread in the pit of her stomach.
No turning back now, she told herself. It’s better to know than to live constantly worrying about it.
She stepped out into the communal hallway and turned left, fumbling in her bag for the keys
.
She rarely ever used the keys. Her boyfriend, Mark Fleming, had given her a set to his flat over a year ago, but she still always knocked. Today things were different.
Today she didn’t want Mark to know she was coming. That was the whole point.
She stopped outside the door to Mark’s flat and listened intently.
She wasn’t sure exactly what she was expecting to hear. Perhaps Mark laughing, and a female high-pitched voice giggling alongside him, but there was nothing.
Through the small square window in the door, she could see that the lights were on inside the flat.
She raised the key and hesitated. Should she really be doing this? Maybe it was better not to know. Maybe she was being paranoid like Mark said.
Lately he had been so busy he hadn’t had any time for Helen.
He said it was because he’d just started up a new position and it was very stressful. His job was to rework the corporate structure of companies and that involved laying people off.
He’d rolled his eyes at Helen’s questions, and explained, in his patronising tone, that he’d started a new job with lots of responsibilities so, of course, he would be busy. Of course, Helen couldn’t possibly understand, he’d said, what with her only being a nurse.
Helen had almost given him a slap and stormed out there and then. Only a nurse? She’d like to see him dealing with blood and vomit on a daily basis.
Having a patient’s life in her hands was far more responsibility than Mark could even dream of as far as she was concerned.
But he’d been fobbing her off. Helen understood that a new job would keep him busy, but what she didn’t understand was all the secrecy. All of a sudden, he’d put a special password on his phone. He got annoyed if she asked to use his iPad, and last week, he’d shouted at her when she’d answered his phone while he’d been in the shower.
She’d suspected Mark of having an affair for months now. And today was the day, one way or another, that she would find out for sure.
Helen adjusted the handbag strap on her shoulder and lifted her chin. There was no point hiding her head in the sand. She had to confront him and find out the truth.
Helen put the key in the lock and turned it, pushing the door forward. She paused again in the doorway, listening out for tell-tale signs, but there was nothing.
She closed the door quietly behind her, then bent over to take off her heels.
Mark was very particular about his flat. He wouldn’t want her heels damaging his polished oak floorboards.
And it suited her purpose today. She didn’t want the click clack of her heels to give her away before she was ready.
She moved forward, and the floorboards creaked under her feet. That was the only sound in the flat.
She frowned. It was very strange that there wasn’t any music playing, and the TV wasn’t on.
Mark wasn’t exactly a quiet person. He was usually humming out of tune or whistling along to music as he worked. That was something that had always irritated Helen. He was never quiet.
She stood in the hallway, straining to hear, but there was no noise at all.
Perhaps he wasn’t here after all. Great. She built herself up for nothing.
Helen walked forward. While she was here, she may as well check Mark’s bedroom.
Outside the bedroom door, she paused again. What if Mark was in there with another woman? Perhaps they’d fallen asleep and that was why it was so quiet.
Her heart was beating like a drum, and her mouth felt cracked and dry. She was scared. Whatever she found beyond this door would affect the rest of her life.
She had to pull herself together. If he was cheating on her, then she deserved to know, and she’d make sure he didn’t have the chance to do it again.
She took a deep breath and pushed at the door. As it opened, Helen saw the crumpled sheets strewn over Mark’s unmade bed in the middle of the room.
She bit down on her lip. It doesn’t mean anything, she told herself. An unmade bed wasn’t proof.
She felt tears prick the corner of her eyes. Mark was a tidy person. Everything had to be in its proper place in his flat, and she’d never known him not to make the bed so that meant…
Helen turned away, furious now, sure she had the evidence she needed. She didn’t need someone like that. He was a lying, cheating scumbag. She was better off without him, and she was going to tell him so.
She left the bedroom, stormed up the hallway and entered the main living area that Mark had set out as a sitting room as well as his study.
As soon as she stepped inside the room, she smelt the metallic tang of blood. She felt her throat close up.
On the floor, in front of the brown three-seater sofa, Mark lay face-down on the floor, his arms and legs spreadeagled.
He wore jeans, but his top half was bare, and two thick red gashes crossed his back, flaying the skin.
For a moment, Helen couldn’t move. Her feet were rooted to the floor.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, her medical training kicked in, and she leaned down to try and help Mark. She reached out a hand only to snatch it back.
What if whoever did this was still here?
The blood was already darkening, turning a rusty brown. That meant he’d been dead a while.
That was good. It meant the killer probably wasn’t still here.
Helen tottered round, spinning in a circle, suddenly scared that she wasn’t alone, that the killer was here, in the flat, waiting for its next victim.
Acting on base instinct, Helen ran faster than she’d ever run before, bumping against the walls as she bolted down the hallway and out of the front door.
She didn’t bother with the lift this time. Instead, she scrambled down the stairs, jumping them two at a time.
She slipped at the bottom and went down hard on one knee, which sent a shockwave all the way through her body.
She used the handrail to heave herself up and limped towards the exit.
When she reached the outside, she took a ragged breath. She staggered for a moment in the hazy October sunlight, looking around. There were cars stuck in traffic on the road. A woman walked past with a little boy. A bus had stopped just a few yards away, dropping off two passengers.
Everything was going on as normal. No one had any idea of the horrors that had happened upstairs.
Helen looked behind her as the block of flats loomed large and she shivered. She fumbled in her bag for her mobile phone. Her shaking fingers had trouble typing out 999.
“Hello,” Helen said. “I need the police. It’s my boyfriend, Mark Fleming. He’s been murdered.”
28
THEY GOT THE NEWS about the next victim, Mark Fleming, from the Metropolitan police. He’d been found dead in his flat by his girlfriend.
It was the same M.O. in some ways as the two early murders. But Mark Fleming obviously moved in different social circles.
Collins knew that three bedroom apartments around the Quays sold for close to a million pounds.
Collins frowned. There had to be some link between the victims. There usually was. Genuine random killings were rare. Even serial killers, who were believed to pick their victims randomly, tended to have a type. The victims often had similar professions or lived in certain areas.
Everything in life had a pattern if you looked closely enough, and murders were no exception.
All Collins and the team had to do was find the pattern.
Collins looked across the table. Helen Rooke sat nursing a cup of coffee, looking completely shattered. Collins’s heart went out to her. She’d just had a hell of a shock.
She had already been through questioning with the Met officers, so Collins had been trying to take it easy.
Helen Rooke stared down numbly at her coffee.
Collins pushed two A5 glossy head shots towards her. “Do you recognise them?”
Helen stared vacantly at the pictures of Francis Eze and Adam Jonah.
She looked for so
long that Collins began to think that she recognised them.
But then she looked up at him, and he realised she was finding it hard to concentrate on the here and now. Her mind was back in the flat. She didn’t see the faces of Francis Eze or Adam Jonah. She was seeing the blood-soaked body of her boyfriend.
Collins would have preferred to wait and give the woman time to grieve, but they didn’t have the time. She could have essential information.
“Do either of them look familiar?” Collins prompted.
Helen stared down at the photographs again, then shook her head
“I’m sorry. No, they don’t.”
“Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt your boyfriend?”
Helen blinked. “Quite a few people actually.”
Helen ran a hand through her hair. “He’d just started a new position,” she said. “His job was to restructure a multi-national company. He fired quite a few of the employees. They weren’t happy about it, but it wasn’t Mark’s fault. He was just doing his job.”
Collins nodded. This was good. They could look into this. “Can you give me the name of the company and any of the employees Mark mentioned?”
Helen nodded and recited a short list of names for Collins.
“Anything else you can think of? Anyone else he’d had a run-in with lately?”
Her eyes teared up, and she leaned across the table, staring up at Collins.
“I didn’t mention it to the other officers because I was worried about how it would seem, but I thought he was cheating on me,” she said. “That’s why I’d gone there today. I needed to find out the truth… But I didn’t expect to find that.”
Helen shivered.
“Can I get you another drink?” Collins asked.
Helen looked down at her coffee cup, which was still two-thirds full.
“That must have gone cold by now,” Collins said.
Helen shook her head. “Thank you, but I don’t want anything,” she said.
“If he was seeing someone else,” Collins said, wary of the dangerous ground he was treading on, “do you have any idea who it might be?”
