Tanzy sat down and sighed. ‘Coffee?’
‘Not right now. I need to finish this.’
Tanzy concentrated on his report. The office was busy. The fire at Napier Street had certainly got people moving around and chasing things up.
Just as Byrd had finished his report, he heard footsteps to his left. He looked up to see PC Amy Weaver standing there with a concerned look on her face. Tanzy edged back to see her.
‘Amy, what’s wrong?’ Tanzy asked her.
‘Boss, you need to see this,’ she said, seriously.
‘Let me just—’
She shook her head. ‘No, you need to see this now. Both of you.’
Frowning, Byrd and Tanzy stood and quickly followed Weaver back to her desk.
10
Tuesday Afternoon
Police Station
Standing in front of Weaver’s desk was DC Leonard, DC Cornty, and DS Stockdale. They moved back a step to let Weaver sit down on her chair, and pulled herself in.
Byrd and Tanzy approached.
Worried eyes fell on them.
The detectives had a feeling whatever it was, judging by the concern radiating from the three who were standing silently, it was a serious matter.
Tanzy stopped next to Stockdale and looked down at the computer screen.
‘What’s happening, Amy?’ Byrd asked, stopping next to Tanzy.
‘This has been uploaded to YouTube, sir,’ she explained quickly. ‘It has over twenty-five thousand views so far. It’s also shared on multiple other social sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It’s a video.’
Byrd frowned. ‘A video? Amy, we don’t have time for this.’
‘Sir, you might want to watch this one,’ DI Leonard said seriously.
Byrd regarded his tone and nodded, then turned towards the screen. ‘Okay.’
Amy moved the mouse cursor around the screen and double-clicked to enlarge the video so it filled the whole screen. The still shot was dark. In the top half of the screen, there was a long, rectangular window. In the window, there was a small silhouette of a figure with a hand up high on the glass. The features of the face couldn’t be seen, nor could any great details of what the image was.
But then she pressed play.
Tanzy and Byrd watched it for the first time with wide eyes and didn’t say a word throughout. It was the fourth time the others had seen it and they were just as disturbed as they were the first time around. The video lasted for forty-five seconds. When it finished, Byrd breathed deeply and asked her to play it again.
‘Jesus,’ Tanzy said, then gasped.
The title of the video was ‘Element one’.
‘What on earth is element one?’ Tanzy asked no one in particular. They all shook their heads in confusion.
Amy looked back at him and said, ‘Read the comments, boss.’
Judging by the way the others didn’t lean in meant they’d already read them, so moved out of the way for Tanzy and Byrd to have a read. Their eyes scanned the dozens of comments in the thread.
Jay89 - Rest In Peace little person.
Dom454 - Jesus, someone said this was Darlington – anyone confirm this?
ElaineJef01 - What an awful way to go.
RuthDal – Oh God, can you imagine how that would feel?
Byrd slammed the desk with the side of his fist causing everyone, including Tanzy, to jump. ‘Is this what I think it is?’
Weaver shrugged, not wanting to say anything to further his anger. Leonard and Stockdale stayed silent. Seldom had they seen anger from Max Byrd before.
‘Did this bastard do this and then video it from the alley?’ Byrd asked.
Again, no one spoke.
‘Does anyone know?’ he shouted, slamming his hand on the desk again.
‘We don’t know, sir,’ Weaver said quietly.
‘Watch it again,’ Byrd said to her.
She turned with sad eyes and scrolled the time bar back to the beginning. At the start of the clip, it showed the small figure, who Byrd and Tanzy now assumed was one of the sons, clawing at the window frantically. Behind him, the room was glowing colours of red and orange, energetically dancing on the walls and ceiling behind him. Through the speakers, they could hear his high-pitched screaming, his desperation to escape but not having the power to do so. With nowhere to go, the only thing he could do was wait until the flames consumed him. As the window got brighter, the boy hit the window for the final time before his little body disappeared. The glass then illuminated with an orange flare and the whole room shone like the sun. His crying then stopped and all that could be heard was laughter from the person who recorded it. Then a voice said, ‘Fire, fire, fire, fire…’ repeatedly.
They all felt physically sick. Byrd and Tanzy both knew from being at Napier Street earlier how horrific this crime had been and if they were in the same position, how awful it must have been to be inside and felt the severe pain that they’d endured. But to see the little boy clawing at the window and hearing his shrieking pain built a fit of anger in them they hadn’t felt in a very long time.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Byrd screamed, turning, and punching the wall behind him. The whole office became deadly silent. Everyone glared at him, wondering what on earth was going on.
Tanzy turned and watched him, panting hard and holding his wrist. ‘Max?’
Byrd breathed heavily, resting his forehead on the wall near where he’d damaged it.
‘Max, you alright?’ Tanzy said, resting a palm on his back.
Byrd turned slowly, opened his eyes, and noticed everyone looking at him. The ones who had stood up abruptly to see what the commotion was about sat back down immediately when his gaze fell on them. Byrd looked at Tanzy and gave a small nod.
‘I’m sorry for that, guys, I…’ He shook his head and said nothing else. Tanzy looked back at Weaver and asked her the name of the user that had uploaded it.
‘RCarl20 is the person who uploaded it,’ she said.
‘Okay, we need to find this fucker ASAP,’ he said, addressing Weaver, Stockdale, and Leonard. They all nodded and listened further. ‘I’ve emailed the still shot we have from the camera positioned at the back of the yard that picked up the guy calling himself Roger Carlton. We need this on the news.’ He looked at Weaver specifically. ‘Get this out on our Facebook, Twitter, and News update accounts.’
She nodded. ‘Sir.’
The others dispersed towards their desks, leaving Tanzy with Byrd, who looked like he was going to be sick, his body slightly bent forward.
Tanzy put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You okay, Max?’
Byrd took a deep breath, stood up straight, and managed a nod. ‘Yeah. It’s a sick thought Claire and I are bringing a child into this world with sick bastards like this around.’
Tanzy forced a smile and looked him in the eye. ‘We’ll get him. We always do.’
Byrd half smiled and, with a new lease of motivation, he said, ‘Right, come on, let’s find him.’
11
Tuesday Afternoon
Police Station
DCI Fuller had been on to them about updates. Unfortunately, they left him disappointed, so he stormed back into his office and slammed the door.
‘Dickhead,’ Tanzy muttered under his breath.
The time was approaching three p.m.. Mac, the DFU guy, had asked them to give him until three p.m. to see what he could come up with.
Byrd and Tanzy logged out of their computers, stood up, and made their way across the office towards the opposite side, where they entered the corridor, and a minute later, opened Mac’s door. He was sitting at his desk to the right of the small room. His workspace was cluttered with empty chocolate bar wrappers and two empty coke cans. The bin underneath the desk, near his feet, was overflowing and needed emptying.
He coughed, quickly grabbed the wrappers, bent down with a struggle, and forced them into the bin.
‘You had enough time?’ Byrd asked him, eyeing the mess of the room. It
wasn’t just the desk that gave his OCD a shiver; the whole room lacked TLC. The shelving unit behind was filled with books and containers. Byrd, at a quick glance, sure he saw food in them and shivered at the thought of how long they’d been there for but decided not to mention it. In the past, they’d had conversations about it and Byrd had told him to take better care of himself, including his workspace. Tanzy had mentioned it to Byrd last week and it was something Byrd had been meaning to do. But for now, they had other pressing matters.
‘Yeah, yeah. Come in,’ Mac said, waving them in.
He edged back a little, allowing Byrd and Tanzy to stop in the centre of the room. On his desk, there were three computer screens. On the right one, was the YouTube clip they had seen earlier of the footage recorded from the man who called himself Roger Carlton. At the bottom of the clip, it told them the username: RCarl20.
The middle one contained some complicated digital graph that neither Byrd nor Tanzy understood. The left one was a word document with several paragraphs of notes, but the detectives weren’t close enough to read them.
‘You look well,’ Mac said to Byrd. ‘Kept the weight off?’
Byrd nodded. A few months back, they’d spoken about losing weight. Although Mac hadn’t changed his excessive habits and serious lack of physical exercise, Byrd had. Football twice a week and walks with Claire had seen to that. He’d lost two stone and had managed to keep it off.
Wasting no time, Byrd said, ‘What have you found?’
‘Well, the username, RCarl20, is a new user. It subscribed to YouTube only two weeks ago. It has no display picture or any attached information. The video had been uploaded at five thirty-six this morning.’
Knowing there was a vast number of views when they watched it earlier, Tanzy asked him how many views it had now.
‘On the channel itself, nearly seventy thousand.’
‘Shit. That is not good.’
‘No.’
‘I’m surprised that YouTube hasn’t taken it down yet?’
Mac looked up at Tanzy. ‘They will soon. However, I can see the digital patterns of the algorithms. They tell me it’s circulating on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.’
Byrd frowned. ‘Is it possible to trace the IP address of the user RCarl20?’
‘It certainly is. I have the IP address of the phone it was uploaded on. Here, have a look.’ Mac leaned to the left, pointed to the furthest screen. The detectives squinted at the number which meant nothing to them. ‘I have tracked the IP to the service provider. They told me it was uploaded from a Samsung S10 device.’
‘Who’s the owner of that phone?’ Byrd said.
‘Roger Carlton.’
‘From the IP address, can we see the location of the device when it was uploaded?’
‘We can, but…’ Mac paused.
The detectives frowned at him and waited.
‘The upload came from Oldbury, in Birmingham.’
‘Birmingham? How is that possible?’ Tanzy wanted to know.
‘Two ways. Either the video had been sent to the device registered of Roger Carlton which was in Oldbury at the time of the upload, or he’s used some kind of IP diverter.’
‘IP diverter?’
Mac nodded.
Byrd sighed. ‘We need to get on to Leonard, see where he is with these profiles.’
Tanzy agreed with a nod, then looked back at the right screen. ‘Does the video look right?’
‘What do you mean?’ Mac asked.
‘It’s real, isn’t it?’
He nodded confidently. ‘Without a doubt. I often see videos that have been tampered with. You can tell if it’s fake. Any little mistake stands out to someone who knows what they are doing. To make sure for my analysis, I ran it through Vidreel’—an app that savvy techs used to check a video’s authenticity—‘and can confirm it’s real.’
‘Okay. Let us know if there’s anything else you find,’ Byrd said, standing.
They backed out and walked back towards the office. As they entered, Tanzy veered off to the left in the direction of DC Leonard, who was leaning forward, concentrating on his screen through the narrow reading glasses he’d recently started wearing.
The unknown continual headaches he’d been getting, according to the doctor, could be down to needing glasses. So, when he struggled with the basic eye test with a local optician, he wasn’t surprised to hear the blonde-haired forty-something tell him he needed them. Tanzy had never got used to him in glasses yet.
‘Jim,’ said Tanzy, pulling a chair out and sitting down next to him. ‘What have we got?’
‘From the fifteen registered names of Roger Carlton, the closest we have is in Hull.’
Tanzy squinted. ‘Hull?’
Leonard glanced his way. ‘Yeah. Only one of them is in the PNC. He’s thirty-nine. Attacked two teenagers in a park last April.’
‘Location?’
‘Westminster, London. His registered address is in Crawley, West Sussex.’
‘Any from Oldbury, near Birmingham?’
Leonard shook his head, wondering what was so important about Oldbury.
Tanzy looked defeated but narrowed his eyes.
‘What are you thinking?’
‘What about the PND?’
The PND (Police National Database) is a large database of people that have done something that the police have previously investigated but from their findings, no arrests were made. The PNC would pick up someone who, in some form, had committed a crime and had been arrested.
‘Five of them,’ Leonard said. ‘Closest one is Oxford.’
Tanzy thought for a moment. ‘Do some more digging. I want to see pictures. When you have them, send them over. I want to run them through facial recognition in and around Darlington. If one of the fifteen is our guy, we’ll get him.’
12
Tuesday Night
Darlington
On the desk in front of him, there were dozens of photographs clustered in no particular order. He ran his small, dark eyes over them, slowly changing from photo to photo, absorbing each scene in detail. The colour of their clothing. The shade of their skin tones. The way they moved, especially the eldest son, who shuffled with the slight limp. The way the sunlight shone down on their innocent, clueless faces. The brickwork of the house behind them had stood there for decades, not knowing the next day would be a witness to a horrific murder.
He then looked down at the photo in his hands. It was the last photo he took of them. They had no idea it would be the last ever piece of happiness captured in the still shot, which he’d keep in a file tucked away forever. They were leaving the house, heading for their car. Danny Walters was in the process of opening his driver’s door, with a smile across his face as if they’d cracked a joke about something funny. They weren’t laughing now, though.
He smiled, remembered he’d parked down the street when he’d taken the photo. Watching the house for a couple of days, he had got used to their routines, their little habits. Friday morning, he’d watched Danny Walters head to work just before eight. That was the benefit of the summer months. The mornings were nice, warm. There was no fuss, heading out ten minutes earlier to de-ice the windows and get the car warmed up. Minutes after Walters had left, his missus, Jessica, and their sons, Mark and Peter, came out shortly after. They walked a few paces, then got into a red Renault Clio, then a moment later, they were gone.
The man got out of his car and locked it, then made his way to the bottom of the street and took a left up the alley. He counted the houses along to make sure the numbers matched up and he had the right house. Luckily, the gate wasn’t locked, so he walked straight in and made his way to the back door. He lowered to his knee and used his tools to open the door. He went straight through the dining room and up the stairs into the bedroom at the front. From his pocket he pulled a small, sealed plastic bag filled with black liquid, slid the lock across, and poured half of it on to the carpet, spacing the drops to cover a decent area. He th
en went into the back bedroom and did the same. Once satisfied he went downstairs and placed a business card on the front door mat as if it had been posted like any other letter, then turned, made his way back through the house, locked the back door with his tool, then went back to his car.
Later that day, he got a phone call, asking if he’d go round and see if he could clean their carpets. The business card he’d left on their door mat advertised a carpet cleaning service he was confident it would do the trick. So, he went there to have a look at the awful mess in the two bedrooms, watching the confusion on Jessica and Danny’s face, wondering where these marks had come from. He told them he’d need some strong chemicals and would return on Sunday to do the job. When he went back, he took the back door key and checked there were no locks on the gate when he was emptying the cleaning unit in the outside drain.
It was simple really.
He placed the photo on the desk, then leaned to his right, grabbing a piece of paper. On it, were four boxes. Above the empty boxes was the word ‘Element’ and, with a pen, he put a cross in the first box, whispering, ‘Fire, fire, fire…’ over and over.
Then he looked at the next empty box, staring at it for a long time, knowing that soon, he’d be able to put a cross in that one too.
13
Tuesday Night
Darlington
A few minutes away from home, DI Byrd ended the call with Tanzy and sighed. It had been a long day. They’d been discussing Roger Carlton and how Tanzy had sent the still shot of him to the media team, who would inform the local news channel and The Northern Echo, hoping to make the front page of tomorrow’s paper.
They finally had the chance to speak to Tallow and Hope, who’d finished at the house and made it back just after five. It was an equally long day for them too. They’d taken all the samples they would need and had told Byrd and Tanzy they’d have the results back by tomorrow, especially for the substance on the carpets which aided the burning process.
No One's Safe: DI Max Byrd & DI Orion Tanzy book 3 Page 4
