The Detective Jake Tanner Organised Crime Thriller Series Books 1-3 (DC Jake Tanner Crime Thriller Series Boxsets)

by Jack Probyn

  Liam nodded as Jake spoke, inspiring him to continue.

  ‘It would follow the pattern of his last kill with Jessica-Anne: moving away from The Community. So long as they look like Jessica and have the same name as her, he’s coming for them.’

  Liam nodded in approval then turned and scribbled a few notes on the whiteboard behind. Returning his attention back to the team, he said, ‘Good work. I’m impressed. It would appear you lot can pull your fingers out your arses when you’re not in the middle of taking the piss out of each other. The only question now is: we know who Lester is, we know what he likes and what he’s looking for, but how the fuck do we find him?’

  A moment of silence fell on the room as they contemplated. It was the question that had been at the forefront of Jake’s mind ever since he’d stormed Lester’s uninhabited home. And he had just the answer.

  ‘Lester knows we’re after him, right?’ Jake said rhetorically. ‘Sampson told him to lay low for a while. So that’s what he’s going to do. He’s going to stay indoors. He’s not going to venture out very far, not if he knows we’re after him. So his only two options to find his next kills are either returning to The Community and finding someone there that he can Commune with, or getting another prostitute. If he goes with the latter, it’ll be difficult for us to manage and find him. But we need to…’ He paused for effect. ‘We need to bring him back to The Community somehow.’

  ‘How would we communicate with him? We can’t use Steven and Jessica’s account. He knows they’re dead,’ Liam said.

  ‘And,’ Garrison added, swinging a pen in one hand and half a hobnob in the other, ‘after reading through Lester’s messages with the Arnholts, he likes to take things offline. He did the same with Jessica Mann. He’s never given a single piece of information about himself away. He always asks for their mobile number first and then contacts them that way. More than likely he’s been using a pay-as-you-go-phone as well, same as Sampson. Unregistered. And a bitch to trace. I don’t even want to begin to think what would be on there. There was enough filth on his chat with Steven and Jessica.’

  Garrison took a final bite of the biscuit as he finished speaking.

  Liam turned his back on them, scribbled a word on the board and underlined it several times.

  MISTAKE.

  ‘Just because he hasn’t given his address out to anyone yet doesn’t mean he won’t,’ Liam said, slapping the lid on the end of the pen loudly. He began to pace from side to side.

  Slowly, Jake raised his hand as though he were in a classroom.

  Liam stopped pacing. ‘You don’t have to do that here, Jake.’

  Jake lowered his hand awkwardly. ‘I have an idea, guv. I thought ideas always warranted a little bit of hand raising.’

  The sides of Liam’s mouth flickered. ‘Let’s hear it then.’

  Jake cleared his throat before beginning. ‘Maybe we can tell him where to go.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Drew and Garrison turned round in their seats to face him. He felt like he was being summoned to read to the rest of the class.

  ‘I suggest we make an online profile on The Community. Call ourselves Jessica. Set up our location to the local area – in the epicentre of where the other girls have died – and then message him. Ask him to meet. There’s no guarantee he’ll even see it or read it, but we can try. This is probably the best opportunity we have of finding him right now. Lure him into a trap he can’t resist.’

  ‘Jake…’ Liam began as Jake prepared himself to be chided. ‘Brilliant idea. Let’s get to it.’

  CHAPTER 56

  ONLINE PROFILES

  The four of them were hovering around the laptop in the debriefing room. Jake was in charge of the mouse and keyboard, while the rest of them watched. In front of them, on the left-hand whiteboard, was a map of Stratford. Pins were placed in each of the locations where Lester’s victims had fallen, with two extra pins placed to the side for last night’s unidentified victims, and in the centre of the map was the location in which they would set up the trap: Maryland. It wasn’t definitive, but it was the best educated guess they could take.

  On the right-hand whiteboard were the profiles of Lester’s victims, headed by mugshots taken from driving licences or their social-media accounts. A lot of work had gone on in the background to profile and learn as much information as possible about them all, not just by Jake but the rest of the team too – and now he was pleased to see it being put to good use.

  Jake opened TorBrowser and waited for the status bar to move all the way across the screen. Once the network has been securely connected to, Jake loaded The Community’s web page in the knowledge that their connection was masked several times over and cloaked in anonymity. Then Jake scrolled to the bottom of the screen and hit the link that led them to create a profile.

  ‘We need a picture,’ Jake said. ‘Where can we get one from?’

  ‘I have an idea. Give me a minute. Someone owes me a favour,’ Liam said, staring at his phone’s screen. He lifted the phone to his ear and stepped out of the room and out of earshot.

  ‘Name…’ Jake said aloud. The cursor hovered over the Name field.

  ‘Richmond,’ Garrison said. ‘Jessica Richmond.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Drew spat, ‘that’s my sister’s name.’

  Garrison chuckled. ‘How would she like to become Mrs Jessica Garrison?’

  ‘I swear to God,’ Drew began, clenching his fist. ‘You’re old enough to be her grandad.’

  ‘Experience comes with age, son.’

  ‘Shut up, the both of you,’ Jake snapped.

  Both men fell silent and returned their attention to the laptop. Jake had already entered a surname into the field.

  ‘Tanner. Jessica Tanner?’ Drew said. ‘You sure you want to do that?’

  ‘Yep. Any issues?’

  ‘Hey, it’s your family name.’

  Jake ignored the comment and continued filling out her profile.

  ‘Age…’

  Drew consulted the board of Lester’s previous victims. ‘Twenty-four. Twenty-seven. Thirty-one. Twenty-nine. Average age seems to be mid-twenties.’

  ‘Let’s go twenty-five,’ Jake said, filling out the information as he spoke.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Hobbies and interests.’ Jake paused a beat. ‘I assume this means sexual hobbies?’

  ‘Leave it blank,’ Drew said.

  ‘What about personal info?’ Jake hesitated. ‘How about: “Live at home with my mum still but she’s always out at work. I work as a hairdresser. I have a cat, and my other pussy needs some excitement in its life.”’

  Jake felt a nudge on the back of his shoulder. It was Garrison. ‘Do we need to be worried about you, mate? You sound like you’ve done this before.’

  Jake ignored him. Carrying on, he said, ‘“I’ve never been in a committed relationship, but I’ve had a few flings in the past. My ex got me into this sort of stuff and I’ve never looked back since. Open to anything.”’

  Jake finished typing and hit the full-stop key hard. ‘That’s our alibi. Someone in The Community gave her the details.’

  At that point, Liam returned. He pocketed his phone and wore a smile on his face, flashing the left side of his teeth.

  ‘Done. Check your emails.’

  Jake did, on his phone, and loaded up a selfie of a young, attractive woman in her mid-twenties. She had brown hair that flowed past her shoulders, her nose was small and her eyebrows were thick. Jake took one glance at Jessica Arnholt on the whiteboard and noted it was an almost perfect fit. It would be too irresistible for Lester to refuse.

  ‘Who is it?’ Jake asked, pretending he hadn’t already realised it was the BBC News reporter that had launched a scathing attack on him following the press conference the other day.

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ Liam responded. ‘She’s given us permission to use her image. That’s all you need to know.’

  ‘Does she know what
it’s for?’

  ‘Yes.’ Liam was abrupt and straight to the point. ‘I told you, she owes me one. Everything’s all above board. Trust me. You’ve got nothing to worry about.’

  ‘I wonder what she did to make you use this as her favour towards you. It must have been something terrible,’ Drew added, rubbing the underside of his nose.

  ‘Nothing that hasn’t been done to me before.’ Liam lifted the laptop screen so that it was in his eyeline. ‘Is everything ready?’

  ‘One last thing,’ Jake said. He hit Continue and the screen loaded onto the next step. ‘Just the payment. We have to pay the subscription of £2 a month.’

  ‘Is there no fourteen-day trial period? Sleep with as many people as you want in that time and decide if you want to pay for the same privilege in the future?’ Drew’s face beamed as his class-clown persona came out again. Nobody paid him any attention.

  ‘How are we going to get round this one?’ Liam asked as he pointed at the screen.

  ‘We’re not,’ Jake said. ‘Not unless we give Sampson a call and get him to waive the fees.’

  ‘No time,’ Liam said. He placed his hand firmly on Jake’s back. ‘Looks like you’re up.’

  ‘What?’ Jake swivelled on the chair and craned his neck to look up at Liam.

  ‘We’re using your name… we might as well use your card details. You’ve got to go all-in if you’re doing this, Jake.’

  Jake opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  ‘We can’t use the Met’s card – the name on it is different, and you don’t have one of your own. If anyone asks, just pretend you’re Jessica’s brother or something and she’s using your details.’ He squeezed Jake’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get the money back.’

  ‘I’m not worried about the money,’ Jake replied. ‘I’m more worried about putting my details out there on the Dark Web. What if it gets cloned?’

  ‘We’ll sort you out. I’m sure Roland can make sure that doesn’t happen. As soon as you enter the details and pay for the first month, we’ll block the subscription.’

  Jake looked down at the table. What was he doing? He’d always been warned about putting his details out there online, and it would be ten times worse on the Dark Web. What if someone hacked into his account? What if someone stole all his money? The risks outweighed the gain. Or did it? Lester Bain was going to kill more and more people if they didn’t do anything about it. And if he did this for Liam and the team, did that mean they might accept him a little more?

  Before Jake was able to think about it further, Liam spoke. ‘This all hinges on you, mate. You want to catch him, right? Then you know what you have to do.’

  ‘Rather you than me, mate,’ Drew added.

  Jake stared into Liam’s eyes for a moment. They were unrelenting, powerful. And he had given Jake the reaction he hoped for: a slight smile. Nothing that gave away too much, but just enough to hint that doing this was a step in the right direction towards healing the situation between the two of them.

  Jake reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet and removed a silver Barclays VISA debit card. He entered the relevant information and hit Submit. The web page went blank for a brief moment, and then a swirling circle icon appeared. A few seconds later, they were greeted with a page that confirmed they had completed registration

  Liam clapped Jake on the back again. ‘Good work, lad. Now find this prick and message him.’

  CHAPTER 57

  INBOX

  Lester was hungry. A different type of hungry. And it was worsened by the regret in his stomach. Not even the emergency camomile he’d bought from the supermarket could soothe him. He should have killed Sampson, slaughtered him, made him suffer a painful and satisfying death – rather than letting his heart give up on him. Lester didn’t care whether the man had given him everything, taught him everything – it wasn’t enough to surpass the betrayal. And now it would be too dangerous to return to the flat. Sampson’s estate would be swarming with police, no doubt. It was too hot.

  He needed to shower – while sharing the bathroom with Jessica and Carl’s disintegrating remains. He needed to take his mind off everything. He needed to let the sin wash out of him and sink down the drain.

  As Lester lifted himself out of his chair, his computer chimed. It had been in sleep mode all of last night and this morning, only disrupted every now and then when he wanted to check his inbox. Even though he knew nobody would be messaging him, it didn’t stop him from checking it every ten minutes.

  But now somebody had messaged him.

  Lester unlocked his laptop, clicked on the red notification by his inbox and paused.

  ‘Jessica Tanner,’ he said as his eyes fell over the new message. He bypassed the content and clicked on her profile.

  Her image intrigued him. She was pretty, young, with brown hair and brown eyes. Smiling. Happy. She looked almost like a perfect embodiment of Jessica Arnholt.

  He read her profile.

  ‘Young, dumb and living off mum. Single… and looking for some fun, I hope.’ Lester cracked his knuckles. ‘Well, Jessica, I’m sure I can teach you a few new things.’

  He turned his attention back to his inbox.

  Hey, how r u? Nice 2 meet u. This is really awkward cos this is my first time I’ve ever dun this and I have no idea what I’m doing or if I’m doing it rite, but I saw ur profile and I saw u were @ the top of the leader board, and I wondered if u could show me a few things? I’m very eager 2 learn.

  Lester grinned. Usually, he hated all that text speak. He had no idea how anyone understood it all. For a while he’d tried to adopt it, to see whether it was quicker. But it wasn’t, so he’d reverted back to the correct way of spelling and communicating. There was no excuse for bad grammar.

  He typed his response.

  Lovely to meet you, Jessica. You have a lovely name. Of course I can teach you a couple of things. I don’t usually allow myself to mingle with newbies – there aren’t enough points in it for the both of us. But for you, I can make a special exception. We all have to start off somewhere. Not to mention, you’re a very pretty girl, and I wish you’d joined earlier so we could have spent a longer time getting to know one another.

  Lester hit send and waited. He didn’t know how long he would have to wait for a response. It could be now. Later tonight. Tomorrow. A week. There was no knowing, and he hated the uncertainty of it all. What was he going to do to fill the time now? He couldn’t get in the shower; he was too excited. He needed a release.

  While he waited, Lester grabbed a toilet roll from the downstairs bathroom and masturbated at the table over Jessica Tanner’s profile picture. He envisaged what she looked like naked, and what he would do to her in the bedroom – before he ripped her apart. It titillated him, and a few minutes later, as he cleaned himself up, a message appeared in his inbox.

  ‘Yes!’ he whispered, clutching the paper in his hand.

  He opened it and read.

  Oh gd! I was paranoid I was cummin off as really dumb and stupid! I really am new 2 all of this, so how does it work now?

  In the top-right corner of Jessica’s page was a small green dot, indicating that she was online. If he messaged her immediately, he might be able to organise the meet as soon as possible.

  It’s fine. I like it when girls play dumb. It makes them endearing. All we need to do is organise a time and place, and that’s it. We meet up, do our thing, and then we get the points for it. Obviously, I’ll take it easy on you, seeing as you’re new to this whole thing.

  Lester signed off the message with a winking emoticon. He hit send, and straight away, he saw the message had been read by his next victim. This was perfect. Within a few hours he would be able to meet her and satisfy The Nasties.

  Another message came in. Jessica was good at this. Keen. Eager. She wanted to be shown the ropes. Oh, mother, the ropes. All the things he could do to her with ropes. Lester groaned and wiped the excess saliva that was drooling from his mo
uth away with the back of his hand. And as he did so another message arrived.

  U can cum to mine if u like? It’ll have 2 b later though. I don’t finish work til l8, but my mum’s gone away for a cuple of days and I want us to b alone, does that sound OK?

  Lester replied.

  Sounds perfect.

  Less than a minute later, Jessica responded with her home address and told him to be there around 8 p.m.

  ‘Yessir,’ Lester said, grinning at his laptop. He closed the lid and went to the shower to clean himself up.

  CHAPTER 58

  DOG

  ‘Done,’ Jake said, clapping his hands together. ‘I think he’s taken the bait.’

  ‘You’d better hope he has. This is the only chance we’ve got.’ Liam scribbled the time that they’d agreed to meet Lester on the board and circled it several times. ‘Otherwise he’ll get wise to our methods and disappear into the unknown for a while.’

  ‘We’d best prepare then,’ Drew said.

  ‘What do you need us to do?’ Jake asked.

  As soon as he’d said it, an idea popped into his head. It was something he’d thought of earlier but hadn’t been able to consider further. Jessica-Anne and the prostitute at Archie Arnold’s house. There was a distinct possibility they were both from the same organisation. And there was an even higher possibility that, if their plan failed, Lester would return for some repeat business.

  ‘I want AFOs from SO19 stationed in the house, around the street and in the neighbourhood,’ Liam ordered. ‘I want an army of uniforms – and plainclothes – to be on the scene, prepped and waiting. Some of them can be with us. Strength in numbers and all that. We’ve got less than four hours to prepare. Reckon we can get it done by then?’