‘ShawnsCupcake joined on the eleventh of February,’ Carmella said, snapping him out of his reverie. ‘Is that the date she started?’
Four days ago. ‘Yes, that’s right.’
The page linked to all of the discussions ShawnsCupcake had taken part in. The first was a joke about Shawn making her feel like a Haribo sweet.
‘Does that sound like something Wendy would write?’ Carmella asked.
‘I think so.’ He thought about the message in the Valentine’s card. You make me melt like chocolate. Carmella didn’t know about the card yet, but he bet it wouldn’t be long before word got around the station.
‘Look,’ Carmella said. ‘There’s a discussion here about football – did you know that Carl from the band is rumoured to be buying his local team, Torquay United?’
In the discussion, most of the users were talking about how they were going to become Torquay fans, that they were going to start going to the matches, despite agreeing that most of them hated football.
ShawnsCupcake had written, Not me! I’ll be Wolves till I die. Even though I live down south in Kingston. ☺.
Wolves. Wolverhampton Wanderers. Wendy’s hometown team. And she’d lived in Kingston.
‘It’s definitely her,’ Patrick said, sitting up straighter.
‘Look at this. She started a thread about the murders: I have a theory about what happened to them but I’m too scared to share it on here. Fuck. Looks like she was trying to flush out anyone with information.’
‘And it worked. Can we access her private messages?’
She gave him the look she used when he said something that made him sound like an old man. ‘Not without her password.’
‘Yeah, I knew that . . .’
‘And we could sit here typing in educated guesses all day, but we’re unlikely to get it right. This isn’t one of those stupid films. We need to talk to Strong’s team. They’ve got her computer – they’re bound to have found all her log-ins.’
‘And I’ll ask Graham Burns. You know, the social media guy. He gave me the messages that Rose and Jess exchanged.’
Patrick stood up and walked away from the table, over towards the window. He looked down at the street, red buses gliding by, a cyclist weaving through the traffic.
‘If it was you . . . if you were the person who’d killed Rose and Jess – assuming of course that you use the forums, which you probably do, to have found them – and you saw that, what would you do?’ he asked. ‘You’d want to know if this theory bore any relation to the truth.’
‘Yes, and I’d private message her. Find out about this theory.’
Patrick stepped away from the window. ‘The way Wendy was killed was completely different to Rose and Jess. Nancy Marr too. No sign of torture, just a swift . . . execution.’ He winced, imagining the shock Wendy must have felt as the knife flashed in the darkness.
‘He was trying to keep her quiet. Stop her exposing him.’
‘Which suggests that Wendy actually did have a theory, and that it was close to the truth. Close enough to worry the killer, anyway. We really need to get into her private messages. Let me call Burns now.’
He had Burns’s number stored on his phone. Burns picked up on the third ring and Patrick explained what he needed. ‘All private messages sent and received by a user called ShawnsCupcake.’
Burns made a groaning noise. ‘You know I could get in a lot of trouble for this . . .’
‘A police officer was murdered and we believe it was by someone using your forum. Now, if you want the whole OnTarget website shut down, your computers impounded, while we—’
‘OK, OK. I’ll help.’
He ended the call and Carmella came over, touching his upper arm. ‘Why don’t you go home, get some rest? You look like you’re about to collapse, Pat. I’ll do it.’
‘I don’t—’
‘Patrick. Boss. I insist. Go home; spend some time with Bonnie and Gill.’
As he was walking out to the car, his phone pinged. A message from Burns. That was quick.
Detective Lennon – I’ve found the messages . . . I’ll copy everything into an email for you – give me an hour. GB.
As he put the car into gear and waited for a gap in the traffic, he had another idea. It was all very well searching the Internet for answers, but perhaps they would find the truth in the real world, where he felt most comfortable. The only problem was, to seek answers in the real world he was going to have to risk his career.
Chapter 37
Day 12 – Chloe
The roar of the engines inside the small twin-propeller plane was deafening. Chloe clung on to the wooden struts lining the interior as though at any moment she could be sucked out of the gaping opening through which the wind already howled and buffeted, trying to make itself heard over the wall of sound. She closed her eyes, as the too-big jumpsuit flapped around her legs and she already felt as though all the air had been squeezed out of her chest. Why the fuck had she agreed to this? Her dad’s joking words from that morning came back to her:
‘That would be a bit ironic, wouldn’t it, love – you survive leukaemia, do a charity skydive, then peg it when your parachute doesn’t—’
‘Dad!’ Chloe and Brandon had shrieked simultaneously, as her mum looked appalled.
‘Sorry, love,’ her dad had said, kissing her loudly on the cheek. ‘It will be fine, I promise you. No-one’s ever died doing a tandem skydive. I wouldn’t have said it if they had. I wouldn’t let you do it if they had.’
‘You don’t have to go through with it, you know, darling,’ Chloe’s mum had added anxiously. All four of them had been – as family tradition decreed – squeezed together in her parents’ bed before breakfast, a heap of brightly coloured presents in front of the birthday girl. Her mum had already been in tears once, and kept hugging her. Her sixteenth birthday – a day that none of them had been sure would ever come, particularly not last year, when Chloe had been in a haze of morphine and terror, cursing her cancerous white blood cells and fully believing that she was going to die without ever even having a snog, let alone any sort of sexual experience.
‘Of course I do!’ Chloe had scoffed, although her heart was already thumping and they weren’t due to leave the house for four hours. ‘Can’t back out now; I’ve raised seventeen hundred quid!’
How the hell would she feel once she was thirteen thousand feet in the sky? She’d tried to swallow the lump of fear lodged in her chest as she ripped the wrapping paper off a small present from her aunt and uncle, barely seeing the ugly necklace before putting it to one side. She had announced months ago she would do the parachute jump on her sixteenth birthday, when she’d been exhilarated with the news that her bone marrow transplant had been a success and she was on the road to recovery.
But in hindsight, it seemed like a stupid idea. A really, really stupid idea.
‘Who’s this one from?’ She’d picked up a present that looked like a short length of piping, with no gift card attached.
Her parents had exchanged worried glances.
‘What?’
Her mother had reached for her hand. ‘We weren’t sure whether to give it to you, love. It’s from Jess. Angelica dropped it round yesterday saying that Jess bought it for you ages ago . . .’
Chloe’s eyes had immediately flooded with tears. ‘Oh my God.’
‘Shall I take it away, darling?’ Her mother had welled up again too.
Chloe’d shaken her head. Wiping her eyes, she’d ripped the paper off to reveal a cardboard tube. Popping the plastic top, she’d fished out its contents, giving a watery smile when she saw what it was.
‘OnTarget tour poster. Cool. That’s so nice of her . . . was so nice of her.’ She’d dropped it on the bed and given a sob, covering her eyes with her forearm like the child she still felt she was.