Dying Breath: Unputdownable serial killer fiction (Detective Lucy Harwin crime thriller series Book 2)

by Helen Phifer

  Tom stepped inside, closing the door behind him. ‘Seriously, you think this is a real possibility already? If he’s taking keepsakes with him then that means he’s not likely to stop any time soon – he’s got a collection that he’ll want to keep on growing.’

  ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’

  Chapter Six

  He finished vacuuming his car just before the money in the machine ran out. It would still need another going-over when he got home, but hopefully the powerful vacuum at the car wash had picked up any major trace evidence. He knew all about forensics and there was no way if he got caught and questioned he would be charged because he’d left some stupid, obvious piece of evidence in his car. Standing up straight, his back clicked and he let out a small groan: he needed a massage and some painkillers. The woman last night had been heavier than she’d looked and he’d pulled something when he’d dragged her along the slippery grass.

  He got back into the car and drove it across to the power wash, where he proceeded to blast the side of the car that she’d got in and out of for a solid five minutes. He’d read somewhere that someone had been captured by the police because of evidence on the outside of their car. As if you could be so damn foolish. He was confident that the rain last night would have taken care of any evidence; it had been torrential. Even so, he ensured that he used the jet spray to clean under the chassis until he was happy that he’d done everything he could.

  Thankfully he’d had the common sense to let her out of the car before he’d used the hammer, otherwise it could have been a whole different story. Blood was much harder to get rid of, even after it had been scrubbed with bleach and industrial cleaners. He’d read about cases where forensic scientists had found traces of evidence at a scene years later, enough to secure a conviction. He wasn’t stupid and knew that there was a small chance he could get caught. However, he truly believed that would happen only if the investigators got lucky or if they were really good. They would have to work hard to find him and he was convinced that they wouldn’t.

  When he was finished, he went into the supermarket; he needed some food and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He didn’t usually drink much, but he hadn’t slept last night. He’d been too high on the adrenaline. Tonight he would need some sleep in case he got called into work. It wouldn’t do for him to turn up looking dishevelled; he had a reputation to uphold. He was always the cool, calm, suave guy – if he started to unravel at the seams now it would all be over and he wasn’t ready for that. There was so much work to do. He’d only just begun.

  Lucy let out a loud yawn. There was nothing more she and her team could do tonight. The area where Melanie Benson’s body had been found was still sealed off and several PCSOs were guarding the crime scene. The search dog hadn’t managed to find the missing shoes. CCTV enquiries had turned up negative and the staff at The Strawberry, which was the nearest pub to Melanie’s address, had shaken their heads when shown her photograph. The other local pub, The Ball and Chain, was shut; Browning had hammered on the door several times throughout the afternoon to no answer. Someone had come out of the flats opposite and told him it was closed on a Monday and the landlady had taken her mum to Manchester for a hospital appointment. So those enquiries would have to wait until tomorrow as well.

  Lucy finished typing up the last of her reports and decided to call it a day. She was hungry and tired, and Ellie would be at her house waiting for her. Satisfied that she couldn’t do anything else, she shut down her computer. Mattie and Browning were discussing the finer points of the best curry in town. She knew they were waiting to go home out of courtesy and a sense of duty to her, so she stood up and crossed the room towards them.

  ‘Come on, we can get back on it first thing. I’m starving now, listening to you two talk about food for the last twenty minutes.’

  Mattie high-fived Browning, who rolled his eyes at Lucy.

  ‘I told you the mention of food would pierce the armour surrounding her brain.’

  Lucy laughed. ‘You know me so well.’

  All three of them walked out of the station together until Lucy remembered she’d forgotten her file. She turned to go back inside. ‘Night, see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Lucy, where are you going?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten something. I promise I’m going home. I’m knackered.’

  She knew that Mattie would be sitting in his car waiting for her to come back out, and if she took longer than five minutes he’d probably come in and drag her out. Which, to be honest, wasn’t a bad thing; she had been known to work twenty-hour days in the middle of a murder hunt without even thinking about it. She rushed up the stairs into the major incident room and grabbed the blue document wallet from her desk. It didn’t matter that there was nothing more at the moment she could think of; sometimes ideas came to her in the middle of the night. Lucy always liked to keep a copy of the file at home with her in case she needed to double-check something. Although it wasn’t technically following protocol, it was a lot easier if she could grab it out of her locked filing cabinet in the spare room, rather than having to make the ten-minute drive back to the station. After she’d eaten and watched a film with Ellie she would go back over everything they had with a fine-tooth comb, just in case she’d missed something. Ultimately it was her job to ensure the killer was caught. She was the one whose head would be on the chopping block if they fucked it up and didn’t have someone in custody soon.

  Chapter Seven

  March 1989

  It had been almost a whole year since he’d gone with his mum to visit John; after the last time, she’d left him at home, letting him stay at Jake’s for the day if she had to go at the weekend. If she went on a school day then she’d drop him off and tell him not to leave the school playground at home time unless she was there to collect him. He didn’t know why she’d stopped him going to visit. In one way he’d been glad, in another he’d been angry that he wasn’t allowed to go. He was older now; he didn’t feel as frightened. In fact, he was more intrigued and had so many questions he wanted to ask both her and John. He wanted to know why she had taken him there in the first place. He wondered if it was just because she didn’t want to leave him on his own. It was only the two of them, and it was only in the previous year that she’d decided he could stay with Jake.

  Twice he’d waved her off at the school gates and pretended to go inside. He’d sneaked straight back out as soon as she’d turned her back, before Mrs Bates, the deputy head, caught him, and headed in the direction of the train station. He hated school and the thought of having the house to himself all day made the risk of getting caught truanting worth it. He didn’t care if the head teacher, Mr Hart, gave him lines or detention – there were worse things.

  Today was the anniversary of his aunt Linda’s death and his mum had been weeping and wailing, telling him how poignant it was that a visiting order should have come through for today. He still didn’t understand what was going on, but he knew it was something very wrong. His mum hadn’t left him at the school gates like she usually did. She was standing there dabbing her eyes with a crumpled tissue and waving to him. He’d had no choice but to run up the steps into the school, then he carried on running until he reached the other door at the opposite end of the school that was always open for the kids who were late. Making sure there were no teachers skulking around, he’d run out of the door and across the playground, which bordered the wooded grassy yard of St Cuthbert’s church. Climbing over the fence, he’d slipped and landed heavily on the other side, winding himself. Unable to move, he’d lain there with his legs drawn up to his chest as he tried to heave in large mouthfuls of air. When he’d recovered he looked around – the playground was empty and the loud peal of the school bell echoed in his head. He stood up slowly; there was no need to rush now. He could take his time and go back home. He’d left the dining-room window unlatched. The old sash windows were rotten and the wind howled through them on a cold day, but they were great for getting in
and out of the house unnoticed.

  He reached his house in less than five minutes – it was handy if he was ever late in the morning because he didn’t have far to go to get to school. He walked through the open gate and went around to the rear of the house, hoping that his mum hadn’t decided to come back for anything. Pushing the dining-room window up, he jumped inside. The house still smelt of fried bacon grease from earlier. He went into the kitchen, then checked the rest of the house. The coast was clear – his mum was nowhere to be seen. She’d be sitting on the draughty station platform waiting for the train to come so she could go and visit John.

  He got a drink of orange juice, then went upstairs to his bedroom. He would lie on the bed and wait for a while. Make sure she definitely wasn’t coming back before he went into her office. If she ever caught him in there he didn’t know what she would do. She didn’t smack him often, only the occasional clip around the ear if he was being cheeky. She never gave him a full-on, pull-his-pants-down whack, slapping his backside with a slipper or a shoe. Only one person had ever done that to him and she was dead.

  He couldn’t even remember why his Aunty Linda had decided he deserved a good hiding. It must have been something bad. He did remember his mum rushing in at the sound of his howls and dragging him off Linda’s knees. It was the only time he’d ever seen his mum properly angry: as she’d run at Linda and slapped her across the face. The red-and-white handprint had stayed on her cheek for ages and he’d laughed. That night two years ago Linda had gone out to meet her friends and never come home. He’d wondered if it had been his fault that she’d died, then he’d wondered if his mum blamed herself or him. It didn’t really matter who blamed who – she was dead and not coming back. He supposed it didn’t matter whose fault it was either; it didn’t change anything.

  He hadn’t realised how tired he was until he opened his eyes and wondered where he was. It took him several moments to understand that he wasn’t propped up on his elbows at the back of the history class. He blinked, felt the rough candlewick bedspread beneath him, and sat up. He looked at his watch: he’d been asleep for almost an hour. How had that happened? He got up, went for a pee, then crossed the narrow hallway to the spare room that his mum had converted into an office. The ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign screamed at him from the door handle, but he didn’t care. He’d never been anywhere so mesmerising in his life. He turned the handle, wondering if she’d locked it; it went all the way down and he sighed. If she’d managed to lock it he’d have had to do a better job of breaking in. She had warned him several times he mustn’t go inside and he’d promised faithfully that he wouldn’t.

  He’d kept that promise until a few weeks ago, when she’d had to rush out for a hospital appointment and hadn’t shut the door properly behind her. Before then he’d never really thought much about what she did in there. It was her office where she did her paperwork, wrote her books and filed her bills. There couldn’t be anything of interest in there to an eleven-year-old boy, could there? How wrong he’d been. As he’d walked past and seen the open door, he’d decided to take a peek. She’d never know he’d been in and he would go straight back out afterwards and shut the door behind him.

  As he’d stepped inside he’d felt his stomach churn – he’d known he shouldn’t be in here. His eyes had scanned the small room; there was a battered old pine dressing table that was covered in pieces of paper and reporter’s notepads. A word processor, like the one the school secretary had in the office, sat on the table that served as a desk. It had been the huge corkboard that had drawn his attention and he’d felt himself stepping closer to it, his eyes wide with horror. It was full of black-and-white photographs of naked women. All of them were posed in the most vulgar way, legs spread wide open. He could see everything. Some of them had blindfolds on and others had gags in their mouths, their hands tied together in front of them. All of them had ropes around their necks; all of them looked dead.

  He’d felt a prickle of excitement begin to rush through his veins as he’d craned his neck forwards, trying to make sense of what exactly he was looking at. He’d stayed that way until he heard the front door slam, jerking him out of the trance he was in. He’d turned and run from the room, closing the door, and gone into his own bedroom where he’d thrown himself onto the bed and pretended to be asleep. He couldn’t talk; he had so many questions. He needed to know what had happened to those women. Why they were naked? Why did his mum have their pictures? Why had he felt nothing but a rush of pure adrenaline whilst staring at them? He’d known it wasn’t right, that he probably should have felt sick and not looked at them for a second longer than when he’d first laid his eyes on them. But he hadn’t – the images were ingrained into his mind and now they were all he thought about, all day and every night.

  Here he was once more, sitting in the office chair and staring at the women on the board. All of them had similar hair: long and dark. Parted in the middle in the same style. Whoever had hurt these women liked them all to look the same. Of course, if you studied their faces they didn’t look anything alike, but from a distance and at first glance they did. Underneath each one was a first name – Carrie, Joanna… His Aunt Linda’s photograph was on there. It was covered with a yellow Post-it note and he carefully peeled it back to see her dead, naked body, her eyes staring back at him.

  There were three different women. He reached out and stroked the photos as if he could touch their cold, dead bodies. He liked them all, but he decided that Carrie was his favourite. She was much prettier than the others, even though she was dead. He would never have killed her if it had been up to him. He would have taken Carrie away and kept her all to himself, locked away in a special room where he could go in and see her whenever he wanted.

  Chapter Eight

  Lucy, who was on the phone mid-conversation with the victim’s son, Andrew Benson, paused to watch as Browning appeared at the top of the stairs carrying a huge bouquet of flowers. Every single person on the second floor also stopped what they were doing to watch him. Her heart began to race when she realised he was heading towards her office; she knew full well who had sent them. She ended the call.

  Two days ago a similar bouquet had been delivered by a florist to her home address. She’d refused the flowers and told the poor woman, who looked mortified, to drop them off at the hospice. It wasn’t that she didn’t like them; it was the fact that they were from Stephen that she objected to. It was obvious that after their last conversation he hadn’t taken her seriously, she wasn’t interested.

  Unfortunately for Lucy, Stephen was, and he had left countless voicemails and text messages for her. She was now on the verge of telling him that if he continued pursuing her, she would get an officer to pay him a visit to warn him off.

  As Browning neared her open office door she could see that he was grinning, and everyone was watching Lucy to see what her reaction would be. He stood in the doorway, smiling at her.

  ‘Get in and shut the bloody door now. What are you doing?’

  Her reaction wiped the smile off his beaming face.

  ‘I thought you’d be thrilled – someone actually likes you enough to send you a bunch of expensive flowers.’

  ‘It’s complicated. Who are they from?’

  She stood up and crossed the room, not really expecting him to know where they’d come from.

  ‘Well they ain’t off me, and I’m glad that I didn’t waste my money on them if that’s your response.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be angry with you – not that you have a reason to buy me flowers. Fuck, this is so unnecessary.’

  He stood there shaking his head as she tore open the card and read what she already knew. She said his name through gritted teeth. ‘Stephen.’

  ‘Look, boss, it’s nothing to do with me. Don’t shoot the messenger. They were dropped off at the front desk and Brenda asked me to give them to you.’

  He passed the bouquet to her and stalked out of her office. She noticed him shaking his head at the oth
ers, who were still watching. Simultaneously, they all looked back down at their computers and carried on as if nothing had happened. Lucy chucked the flowers straight into the bin, where they could stay until the cleaner came in and decided what she wanted to do with them. Her hands were clenched so tight that the knuckles had turned white.

  She went straight over to the major incident room across the hallway, where she found Mattie sitting at a desk typing away, head bent. ‘I’ve just been going through Melanie Benson’s post-mortem report.’

  ‘Did you find anything we missed?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not really. She had no defence wounds. He must have really meant to do some damage when he smashed her skull the first time. She would have been so disorientated and the alcohol in her system wouldn’t have helped.’

  ‘No, I suppose it wouldn’t. It thins your blood. She would have bled out quicker.’

  ‘Her son has just been on the phone – he wants to know if we’ve found her killer.’

  Mattie looked at Lucy and shook his head. ‘Did you tell him this isn’t an episode of Criminal Minds?’

  She sat down on the corner of a desk. ‘It’s not looking very hopeful, is it? This is the third day and we don’t have much.’

  Mattie decided not to answer that question. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. There had been no CCTV footage, apart from inside the bar area of The Ball and Chain, which showed a very loud, flirty Melanie Benson getting drunker and drunker until she’d tried to punch the barmaid, who’d then thrown her out. There was also an external CCTV camera, which was pointing the opposite way and didn’t work. She’d left the pub on her own so whoever her killer was had picked her up outside or on her walk home. It had been raining heavily and Lucy had no doubt that the amount of alcohol Melanie had consumed had a lot to do with her poor judgement.