McAndrew scuttled off to do Helen’s bidding. With no hard evidence to speak of – the sedatives used were over-the-counter stuff, the phones no-contract pay-as-you-go – and little in the way of witness statements to describe this killer chameleon, all they had to go on was pattern and motive. Why was ‘she’ doing this? She forced her victims to play a diabolical game of Eeny Meeny Miny Moe, confident in the knowledge that the shooter would ultimately suffer much more than the victim. Was the ongoing trauma of the survivor the point, the pleasure? Helen opened the question to the floor. If so, would the killer circle back to watch these trauma victims, to enjoy her victory? Perhaps they should they be putting extra manpower/surveillance on Amy, Peter, etc. Costs would rocket, but it might be worth it.
‘How could she know which one would be killed?’ Charlie asked.
‘Good question. Does she really know the pairs so well that she can predict the victim?’ Helen replied.
‘She can’t do, surely?’ DC Sanderson replied and Helen agreed:
‘It seems unlikely. She couldn’t possibly predict how people would react under that sort of pressure. Which begs the question are the victims chosen completely at random?’
This was more likely. Some serial killers groom and stalk, but most select their victims based on opportunity rather than identity. Fred West picked up hitchhikers, Ian Brady abducted truant children, the Yorkshire Ripper struck at random…
Except. Helen knew two of the victims personally. Helen offered this to the room, but received a muted reaction. What had she been expecting? A blinding theory laying the blame at her door or a robust and firm denial that her knowledge of the victims was important. She got neither, because as Mark pointed out, Helen had never met Amy before. He was right of course – it was an interesting theory but it didn’t stack up properly. Amy was the odd one out – there was no pattern.
‘What about if she chose them because they were easy targets?’ Charlie intervened once more. ‘Because they were isolated and vulnerable?’
A murmur of agreement from the team.
‘Amy and Sam were a quiet couple. She’s not much of a social animal and neither was he. They were private, with a few close friends. Ben Holland kept himself to himself. He’d grown more confident over time and got engaged, but he still lived alone, even though his wedding was just a few weeks away. Anna and Marie were all alone in the world. Perhaps the killer targets them because she can?’
Helen found herself nodding, but again it wasn’t a foolproof theory. It wasn’t as if they wouldn’t be missed. Amy was very close to her mother and Sam’s mum was an active part of his life. Ben was engaged to be married – he certainly would have been missed. Anna and Marie weren’t on anyone’s radar of course, but Social Services would have found them in the end.
The key was to find a link between the victims. Or prove that they were abducted simply because they were in pairs.
Helen called the meeting to an end. Tasks had been allotted – trawling databases for anyone with past convictions who might bear a grudge against Helen or killers who have a penchant for elaborate sadism or game-playing – though in her heart Helen didn’t expect them to turn up anything.
It was a riddle – pure and simple.
41
Everyone was surprised when Peter Brightston suddenly announced he was returning to work. His fellow partners had urged him to take three months off – six if he wanted – motivated in part by concern, but more by the fear of how people would react to having him back. Peter was boorish, but people were basically fond of him, if only because he knew the law inside out.
But he had stabbed Ben. Killed a colleague. And there was nothing in the HR manual about how to deal with that. The sense was that he wasn’t going to be charged – the police had been coy but intimated that it was some kind of terrible accident. And Peter had toed that line, failing to give any of them the details they craved yet feared.
When he turned up after a few weeks’ rest and recuperation, it was against the advice of his doctors and counsellors. But Peter was determined – January was always a busy month for them – and what could they do? Oust him when he hadn’t been charged with anything? End his twenty-year association with the practice and throw him on the scrap heap because of an accident? The truth was no one knew what to do, so predictably they did nothing.
He arrived first thing on a Monday morning. Prompt as always. The office was strangely hushed that day, as Peter sent a few emails and made the odd cup of coffee. But no one had scheduled meetings with him – ease yourself back in gently, Peter – and his colleagues soon found excuses to shoot off to the Bournemouth office, or take a client out on a long lunch. After all the build-up to his return, the polite enquiries about his health and well-being only lasted half an hour and then it was back to normal.
Except for the empty chair. Ben’s post hadn’t been filled – the funeral had only just taken place after all – so his desk and chair sat vacant. His personal effects had been bagged up and returned to his fiancée, so the whole work station looked naked. An empty hole where a life had once been.
It was in Peter’s eye-line. It was in everyone’s eye-line. An insistent reminder of what had happened. Everyone – from management down to the canteen workers – had expected it to be hard for Peter. What no one expected was that, at 3.30 p.m. on his first day back, Peter would head up to the office roof, shout his wife’s name, then jump over the safety rail to his death.
42
Japan? Australia? Mexico?
We had a globe when we were kids. One that lit up. God knows why or where we got it from. We weren’t an educated bunch and my mother’s geography extended as far as the nearest offy. But I loved that globe. It was the seat of all my fantasies. Running your hand over its smooth surfaces, jumping continents in seconds, it was easy to imagine that I was free.
I imagined myself hitching a lift to the port, knapsack filled with provisions – Jammie Dodgers a must – for a long journey. I’d climb up the slippery anchor chain, with links as large as your whole body, and once on board slip into the lifeboat and under cover. My body would thrill as I felt the giant vessel moving clear of land and, as it journeyed across oceans and past continents, I would be safe and snug in my little hidey-hole.
Eventually, we’d land in some far-off, exotic location. I’d slide down the chain and plant my feet on new ground. My new ground. The start of a whole new adventure.
Sometimes fantasy veered dangerously close to reality. I’d take a couple of plastic bags and fill them with cheese triangles, Club biscuits and a mildewed sleeping bag.
And I’d slip out the door, closing it gently behind me. Along the pissy walkway and down on to the street. Freedom.
But something – or someone – always brought me back home before I’d got off the estate.
You always brought me back.
43
Rubberneckers are an easy target, aren’t they? They are ghouls, feeding on the misfortune of others. And yet which of us can say we wouldn’t look? That we haven’t looked as we crawled past a motorway pile-up or idled by a police cordon. What are we looking for? Signs of life? Or signs of death?
Peter Brightston had certainly pulled a big crowd, anxious to see what fourteen stone of flesh and bone looks like as it collides with the pavement. Helen and her team arrived only minutes after the paramedics. But unlike the poor souls whose job it was to scoop up his remains, Helen, Charlie and Mark were not interested in Peter. He was seen by co-workers jumping – there could be no question of coercion – it was an open-and-shut case of suicide. No, what interested Helen was the rubberneckers. Those who had come to enjoy the carnage.