Hurt (The Hurt Series) (27 page)

She’d unwittingly picked his target for him by sitting beside Angela. The girl was dead because of her.

Was this the bastard’s intention? To cripple her with guilt? Yet another sick fucking game to mess with her head?

The need for a cigarette consumed her. She attempted to quash it by drinking coffee and refocusing on the street scene, but it remained lodged in her sub-conscience. Just as the guilt would remain until she caught the bastard and proved herself wrong.

‘Zoom out as far as you can,’ she instructed Davies.

Davies clicked on the mouse, the image of the street widening as the bench got smaller and smaller.

‘Stop.’ She surveyed the now all too familiar scene with its usual cast of the hot dog vendor, the old boy who sold the evening paper outside Boots, the father and son who sold their hand carved jewellery, the Big Issue vendor on the corner of Lewis Street, and the blind busker and his golden Labrador, all scraping a living on their respected pitches, oblivious to the evil among
them.

‘Fast forward.’

Davies sped the film on until she told him to stop at the moment grey hoody appeared from the mouth of Lewis Street. The bench appeared in the same shot, forty yards to the left. Angela had gone, replaced by a young mother with a pushchair.

Jessop frowned at the image, its cast of street traders still in place on their respected patches.

Well, almost all of them.

The Big Issue vendor’s pitch on the corner of Lewis Street was vacant.

She sipped her coffee, told Davies to fast forward again. ‘Keep an eye on the corner of Lewis Street. Tell me what you see.’

Davies leant forward, eyes glued to the screen as the film sped forward. ‘No one there.’

‘Not yet,’ she said, keeping one eye on the time at the bottom of the screen as elsewhere she and Mason were chasing grey hoody through the streets. ‘There, stop!’

Davies paused the image just as the Big Issue vendor reappeared from Lewis Street wearing his red tabard. The time, she noted, was 13.16 - six minutes after they’d lost grey hoody down Bartholomew Street.

She reached across the table and grabbed the map of the city centre. Ran her finger along the killer’s supposed escape route through the discount clothing store. Lewis Street ran alongside Bartholomew Street and could be accessed through Lewis department store, where Paul Bromley had shopped prior to his death.

A minute later, she and Davies were reviewing the CCTV footage of the high street from Sunday, the day Tanya was killed. At no point during the day was the Big Issue vendor there.

Jessop braced herself as Davies found the footage of each of the victims shopping on the high street. She watched Paul Bromley and Stewart Nichols amble up the street toward the camera and the corner of Lewis Street. Paul held the Lewis carrier bag containing his new polo shirt; Stewart, a Next bag. She shifted her attention to the Big Issue vendor holding aloft the magazine and smiling in the face of ignorance as his pleasantries were ignored by the passing public. The couple was twenty feet away and approaching at a leisurely pace. She glanced back at the corner and the vendor had vanished. She paused, skipped back a frame, pressed play, and watched the vendor duck down Lewis Street. A moment later, Paul and Stewart turned left down the same street.

‘Fuck,’ she hissed as the vendor’s patch remained vacant. ‘Why the hell didn’t you pick this up, Tom?

‘Pick up what?’ Davies snapped. ‘He aint exactly
following
them, is he?’

No, he wasn’t. He’d anticipated their destination and had beaten them to it. And was now following them home to begin his observation and plan his kill.

Jessop bit down hard on her gums. They’d been so focused on searching for what they thought was there, they’d neglected to look for what
wasn’t
there.

Look too hard and you risk missing what you seek.

Just as she was about to tell Davies to load up the footage of Samantha and Vicky, the vendor returned to his pitch, magazine in hand and smile fixed across his pockmarked face.

She looked at the clock at the bottom of the screen. ‘Rewind.’

Davies rewound to the moment Paul and Stewart had taken the corner. Three minutes passed before the vendor’s return.

Davies said, ‘What the fuck’s he up to? Why isn’t he following them?’

That was the question. ‘Show me the Samantha and Vicky footage.’

A moment later they were watching the vendor disappear from his pitch on the corner just before Sam and Vicky ducked down Lewis Street. Three minutes and twenty seconds later, he’d
returned.

Jessop reached for the phone and called Ray, who answered with ‘You got him?’

‘Not yet. You on the move?’

‘Just loading up now.’

‘I need to speak to Vicky.’ A second later Vicky was on the line. ‘Sorry sweetiebut I need to ask you something important.’

‘Okay.’

‘Now, I need you to think hard for me, can you do that?’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Good. Sunday, twenty-fourth, twelve days ago, you and your mum went shopping in town. You bought some Anais Anais perfume from Boots. Do you remember?’

A pause, then, ‘Uh-huh. We had lunch at Bella Pasta.’

Jessop consulted the report Brooke had prepared using credit card and bank statements detailing the victims’ spending habits over the fortnight prior to their deaths. Under the date corresponding to the footage on the screen before her she spotted an amount of £23.47 payable to Bella Pasta. ‘Good. That afternoon, do you recall having any contact at all with the guy who sells The Big Issue on the corner of Lewis Street?’

Another pause, longer this time.

‘Take your time, sweetie. It’s important.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ came the small voice. ‘We did.’

‘What happened?’

‘Well, mum must’ve dropped her purse somewhere down Lewis Street, because suddenly the Big Issue bloke was tapping her on the shoulder and handing it back. He was really sweet. Mum bought one of his magazines with a fiver and told him to keep the change.’

Jessop’s grip on the phone tightened as the scenario played out in her head. Through gritted teeth she thanked Vicky and said she’d be in touch as soon as they were settled. A minute later she was listening to the answer service on Stewart Nichols’ phone telling her to leave a message. She didn’t, instead hanging up and dialling again. On her third attempt a disgruntled voice answered with a blunt hello.

She apologised for the late call then jumped right into it. With a bit of prompting, Stewart Recalled the day he and Paul had gone shopping. And yes, they too had had contact with the Big Issue vendor.

‘That’s right, down Lewis Street. He sort of appeared from nowhere with Paul’s wallet in his hand. He said he’d seen it fall from Paul’s jacket pocket. There was no question it was Paul’s, and no cash or cards were missing so we thought nothing more of it. In fact, Paul bought a magazine from him. Gave him a tenner and told him to − ’

‘Keep the change,’ she hissed.

‘That’s right. Paul was a great believer in one good turn deserving another.’

Even if the favour meant having your throat sliced? ‘What did Paul keep in his wallet, Stewart?’

‘Christ, everything.’

‘Driving license?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Does this mean − ’

She hung up and stared at the image of the Big Issue vendor plying his trade on his designated corner. He was part of the scenery, someone as familiar to the town’s shoppers as the department store he stood beside. So familiar, in fact, you didn’t notice him. Actually went out of
your
way to ignore him, wishing he was not there so as to deny yourself the shame of not buying one of his magazines.

She zoomed in close on the pockmarked-face. For although the vendor fitted the witnesses’ physical description of mid twenties, slim, around five-eleven, and did indeed resemble the E-FIT in the shape of his narrow face, the pockmarked skin presented a problem. But then only one witness had seen his face, Stewart Nichols, and on that occasion the killer had sported a beard, sunglasses and baseball cap. Stewart had also said the killer had hair beneath the cap. The Big Issue vendor had a shaven head, which was why Knowles had found no trace in the grey hoody’s hood. But how hard was it to pick up a wig, or to shave your hair off these days?

She zoomed in as far as the technology allowed. The scarring crept up from the vendor’s neck, over his jaw, and onto his right cheek. It looked like the aftermath of severe teenage acne. She skipped forward until she had another angle of the face, and noted the scarring wasn’t as obvious on his left side.

Davies printed the image, then printed several more taken at every angle available to them. In each shot the vendor’s eyes were smiling as he greeted potential customers with a pleasant good morning/good afternoon.

‘What the hell’s he so happy about?’ Davies asked.

She knew. She knew at some point in his life he had witnessed death on an intimate scale and had learned from the experience to appreciate life. Every day alive was to be cherished, and he felt it his duty to share his wisdom with those his twisted mind felt worthy of teaching.

‘Life,’ she answered. ‘He’s happy to be alive.’

Chapter
Seventy-two

After ordering a beaten looking Davies to go home, Jessop returned to the footage of Angela and herself seated on the bench. A good forty yards of foot traffic and people chatting separated the bench and the Big Issue vendor. Unless he had the hearing of a bloody bat, there was no way he could have heard Angela. Yet he had, and he’d wanted her to know he had.

Just as he’d wanted her to know he knew she’d figured out his MO at Paul and Stewart’s house.

Just as he’d wanted her to find Terence Randal and those fucking numbers.

And just as he’d wanted her to know Angela Hardy had died because of her.

‘Fuck you,’ she whispered to the dark room. ‘Fuck you and fuck your fucking games.’

Sitting back in the chair, she opened the file with the number sequences. Sipped from a cup of fresh hot coffee and stared at the ten numbers glowing on the screen.

The next thing she knew, the coffee was cold, dawn had broken, and her neck was as stiff as the chair she’d fallen asleep in.

Chapter
Seventy-three

The Big Issue offices were situated above an independent travel agents on the west shoulder of the city centre. The recession had claimed too many small businesses here, with every other unit along the street vacant making the area a dismal and uninviting prospect for any new businesses.

A ghost town, Jessop mused with irony as Mason parked alongside the curb. Through her mobile on speaker phone, Brooke said, ‘Rebecca Forrester checks out. Same story. Our vendor intercepted her and Darren down Lewis Street with Darren’s wallet in his hand claiming he had seen it fall from Darren’s pocket.’

‘Did she say if Darren kept his driving license in his wallet?’

‘He did, yeah.’

This was all the convincing Jessop needed to confirm her theory. Watching his targets approach his corner, the vendor slips down Lewis Street and waits for them to catch up. He then picks his intended victims’ pocket or handbag, lifts the purse or wallet, sneaks a peak at their driving licenses or any other documentation with their addresses on, then runs after his mark and returns the supposed lost wallet/purse on the pretence he had seen the person drop it. And then, just to really stick it in, accepts a cash award for his honesty. Sickening.

‘Any progress with William yet?’

‘Not yet. Poor’s guy’s shut down tight.’

She pictured William in his pressed blue pyjamas and her heart clenched. Angela had been looking after him since their parents had died in a car crash seven years ago. William, a mute since birth, had also been in the car, costing him the use of his legs. If the killer
had
targeted Angela because of her, he would not have known about William’s condition and his tragic past. William had already watched loved ones die, and had endured “the pain of the breaking of the shell of his understanding.”

Was that why the killer hadn’t made him watch his sister’s death?

Did the bastard actually have a conscience?

Finishing the call, Mason said, ‘Still can’t get my head around how he’d heard you and Angela talking on the bench.’

Neither could she. ‘Tell you what. Why don’t we find the bastard and ask him.’

They were greeted by a stocky guy in his mid forties with long, greased back dark hair, tired eyes, and faded tattoos on his hands and knuckles. Wearing a black granddad shirt and worn jeans, he welcomed them with a warm smile and introduced himself as Kyle Green. Kyle led them though a cluttered, open-planned work space and into a tight office, where on the walls hung framed certificates awarded for all the good work the publication had achieved over the years.

Kyle took a seat behind an organised desk, and Jessop took the one and only chair opposite, leaving Mason hovering in the doorway. Declining coffee, she passed Kyle three of the pictures she had printed off last night of their suspect and asked if he recognised the vendor.

Kyle put a pair of reading glasses on and perused the pictures. ‘That’s the guy on the news this morning, right?’

It was. Every station was running a picture of the vendor, along with a confidential hotline number to call if anyone knew him. Jessop pushed, ‘Do you know him?’

Kyle shook his head. No, sorry.’

‘
What?’

‘I’ve never seen him before.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive. The scars are quite distinctive. I would’ve remembered.’

Jessop caught Mason’s look of despondence out of the corner of her eye. She imagined she was wearing the same expression.

Mason reached over her shoulder and picked up two of the pictures. ‘Mind if we hand these round to your staff?’

‘Course not,’ Kyle said as Mason disappeared out the door.

Jessop refocused. ‘How many vendors are there in the city?’

‘We have twenty-five at the moment.’