When Melissa’s black leather shoulder bag was found in some bushes two days after her disappearance, as if it had been tossed from the window of a moving car, money still intact, the case came to the attention of Banks’s Chameleon task force. Like Kelly Matthews, Samantha Foster and Leanne Wray before her, Melissa Horrocks had disappeared into thin air.
Jenna and Kayla were devastated. Just before Melissa had walked off into the night, they had joked, Kayla said, about perverts, but Melissa had pointed to her chest and said the occult symbol on her T-shirt would ward off evil spirits.
The incident room was crowded at nine o’clock on Tuesday morning. Over forty detectives sat on the edges of their desks or leaned against the walls. Smoking was not permitted in the building, and many of them chewed gum or fidgeted with paper clips or rubber bands instead. Most had been on the task force since the beginning, and they had all put in long hours, invested a lot of themselves in the job, emotionally as well as physically. It had taken its toll on all of them. Banks happened to know that one unfortunate DC’s marriage had broken up over the hours he spent away from home and the neglect he displayed toward his wife. It would have happened some other time, anyway, Banks told himself, but an investigation like this one can put the pressure on, can push events to a crisis point, especially if that crisis point isn’t too far away to start with. These days, Banks also felt that he was approaching his own crisis point, though he had no idea where it was or what would happen when he got there.
Now there was at least some sense of progress, no matter how unclear things still seemed, and the air buzzed with speculation. They all wanted to know what had happened. The mood was mixed: on the one hand, it looked as if they had their man; on the other, one of their own had been killed and his partner was about to be put through the hoops.
When Banks strode in somewhat the worse for wear after another poor night’s sleep, despite a third Laphroaig and the second disc of Bach’s cello sonatas, the room hushed, everyone waiting to hear the news. He stood next to Ken Blackstone, beside the photographs of the girls pinned to the corkboard.
“Okay,” he said, “I’ll do my best to explain where we are with this. The SOCOs are still at the scene, and it looks as if they’ll be there for a long time yet. So far, they’ve uncovered three bodies in the cellar anteroom, and it doesn’t look as if there’s room for any more. They’re digging in the back garden for the fourth. None of the victims has been identified yet, but DS Nowak says the bodies are all young and female, so it’s reasonable to assume for the moment that they’re the young girls who went missing. We should be able to make some headway on identification later today by checking dental records. Dr. Mackenzie performed the postmortem on Kimberley Myers late yesterday and found that she had been subdued by chloroform but death was due to vagal inhibition caused by ligature strangulation. Yellow plastic fibers from the clothesline were embedded in the wound.” He paused, then sighed and went on. “She was also raped anally and vaginally and forced to perform fellatio.”
“What about Payne, sir?” someone asked. “Is the bastard going to die?”
“The last I heard was that they had to operate on his brain. Terence Payne is still in a coma, and there’s no telling how long that might last, or how it will end. By the way, we now know that Terence Payne lived and taught in Seacroft before he moved to west Leeds in September the year before last, at the start of the school year. DCI Blackstone has him in the frame for the Seacroft Rapist, so we’re already checking DNA. I’ll want a team to go over the casework on that one with the local CID. DS Stewart, can you get that organized?”
“Right away, sir. That’ll be Chapeltown CID.”
Chapeltown would be hot to trot on this, Banks knew. It was a “red inker” for them – an easy way of closing several open case files at one fell swoop.
“We’ve also checked Payne’s car registration with DVLA in Swansea. He was using false plates. His own plates end in KWT, just like the witness in the Samantha Foster disappearance saw. The SOCOs found them hidden in the garage. That means Bradford CID must have already interviewed him. I’d imagine it was after that he switched to the false ones.”
“What about Dennis Morrisey?” someone asked.
“PC Morrisey died of blood loss caused by the severing of his carotid artery and jugular vein, according to Dr. Mackenzie’s examination at the scene. He’ll be doing the PM later today. As you can imagine, there’s getting to be quite a queue down at the mortuary. He’s looking for assistance. Anyone interested?”
Nervous laughter rippled through the room.
“What about PC Taylor?” one of the detectives asked.
“PC Taylor’s coping,” said Banks. “I talked to her yesterday evening. She was able to tell me what happened in the cellar. As you all probably know, she’ll be under investigation, so let’s try to keep that one at arm’s length.”
A chorus of boos came up from the crowd. Banks quieted them down. “It’s got to be done,” he said. “Unpopular as it is. We’re none of us above the law. But let’s not let that distract us. Our job is far from over. In fact, it’s just beginning. There’s going to be a mountain of stuff coming out of forensics examinations at the house. It’ll all have to be tagged, logged and filed. HOLMES is still in operation, so the green sheets will have to be filled out and fed in.”
Banks heard Carol Houseman, the trained HOLMES operator, groan, “Oh, bugger it!”
“Sorry, Carol,” he said, with a sympathetic smile. “Needs must. In other words, despite what’s happened, we’re still very much in business for the time being. We need to gather the evidence. We need to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Terence Payne is the killer of all five missing girls.”
“What about his wife?” someone asked. “She must have known.”
Just what Ken Blackstone had said. “We don’t know that,” said Banks. “For the moment she’s a victim. But her possible involvement is one of the things we’ll be looking into. We’re already aware that he might have had an accomplice. She should be able to talk to me later this morning.” Banks glanced at his watch and turned to DS Filey. “In the meantime, Ted, I’d like you to put a team together to go over all the statements and reinterview everyone we talked to when the girls were first reported missing. Family, friends, witnesses, everyone. Okay?”
“Right you are, Guv,” said Ted Filey.
Banks hated being called “Guv,” but he let it go by. “Get some photographs of Lucy Payne and show one to everyone you talk to. See if anyone remembers seeing her in connection with any of the missing girls.”
More mutterings broke out, and Banks quieted them down again. “For the moment,” he said, “I want you all to keep in close touch with our office manager, DS Grafton here-”
A cheer went up and Ian Grafton blushed.
“He’ll be issuing actions and TIEs, and there’ll be plenty of them. I want to know what Terence and Lucy Payne eat for breakfast and how regular their bowel movements are. Dr. Fuller suggested that Payne would have kept some sort of visual record of his deeds – videos, most likely, but maybe just ordinary still photographs. Nothing’s been found at the scene yet, but we’ll need to know if the Paynes ever owned or rented video equipment.”
Banks noticed a number of skeptical looks at the mention of Jenny Fuller. Typical narrow-minded thinking, in his opinion. Consultant psychologists might not be possessed with magic powers and able to name the killer within hours, but in Banks’s experience, they could narrow the field and target the area where the offender may live. Why not use them? At best they could help, and at worst they did no harm. “Remember,” he went on, “five girls were abducted, raped and murdered. Five girls. You don’t need me to tell you any one of them could have been your daughter. We think we’ve got the man responsible, but we can’t be sure he acted alone, and until we can prove it was him, no matter what shape he’s in, there’ll be no slacking on this team. Got it?”