Like This, for Ever (21 page)

‘Five dead kids, Boss. It’s getting to all of us.’

That was for sure. So why was she the only one sinking?

‘It’s important, the fact that the body showed up in Deptford Creek,’ Richmond told the assembled team. ‘If this was our killer’s first victim – and, pending the post-mortem report, let’s assume so – he hadn’t yet established a pattern. The careful arrangement on exactly the right spot of the riverbank, the showing off, hadn’t kicked in. He was still finding his way.’

‘He could just have got the tides wrong,’ suggested Barrett.

‘Even if it was just carelessness, it’s still significant. He hasn’t made the same mistake since. He’s upped his game, established a pattern that he’s comfortable with.’

‘Mark Joesbury was with me at the scene tonight,’ said Dana. ‘He said it isn’t possible for a body entering the Thames to get swept up that stretch of the Creek. Mark knows the river well. His grandfather worked for the Marine Unit, his uncle still does.’

Richmond nodded. ‘You should definitely check that out. The first victim will always point you to the killer’s location. Tyler didn’t
live anywhere near Deptford Creek, so if he was dumped there, he was probably killed very near by. That’s where you need to concentrate your search.’

It made sense. On the other hand, Tower Bridge was some distance from Deptford Creek. Was the killer travelling further to dump the bodies? Or was he killing them somewhere new?

‘The other significant part of the night’s events is that someone pulled Tyler’s body out of the river. He didn’t jump. Someone could have spotted him, pulled him out and called your colleague, DC Flint, anonymously, but that seems unlikely. Even someone not wanting to get involved could have phoned the police from a call box. I’d say it’s more likely that the killer knew Tyler’s body was trapped somehow in the Creek, decided the time had come for him to be found and that Lacey should be the conduit.’

Dana waited for someone else on the team to question the coincidence of Lacey Flint once again being pulled into a serious murder investigation.

‘Any thoughts on why Lacey should be the one singled out?’ she asked, when it was clear no one else was going to.

‘She was involved in a very high-profile case a few months ago,’ said Richmond. ‘She’s also a beautiful young woman. She’s going to attract attention.’

‘Both true,’ said Anderson. ‘But Lacey has always gone out of her way to avoid publicity. She didn’t do a single interview after the Ripper case. Personally, I’d put money on her prison contacts being responsible for the text.’

The door to the incident room opened and Stenning came in. When she and Anderson had returned to the station, Dana had left him in charge of talking to the residents of the string of houseboats.

‘How did you get on, Pete?’ she asked him.

‘There are twelve residential boats along that arm of the Creek,’ said Stenning, perching on the back of a desk and stifling a yawn. ‘All owner-occupied. Five of the owners were at home all evening, one couple arrived back shortly after midnight, two families are away for the weekend and one boat hasn’t been lived in since its previous owner died.’ Stenning stopped to check his notebook. ‘New owner is his son-in-law, a Stewart Roberts,’ he went on. ‘But
he isn’t seen from one month to the next. I’ve got names for the other three owners, but no sign of them tonight. There are also about half a dozen vans in the yard and a couple of Portakabins. The site’s secured for now, we can do a proper search in daylight.’

‘Anyone you speak to see anything?’

Stenning shook his head. ‘One chap heard movement in the yard and saw some dark shapes, but he admits himself his eyesight is pretty bad. He yelled and they scarpered. He had a feeling it was kids.’

‘What time?’

‘Ten-thirtyish. Over two hours before we got there.’

‘Kids would explain all the smallish footprints we found on a couple of the boats,’ said Dana. ‘I can see kids spotting something in the water and pulling it out before they realized what it was. What I find harder to understand is why they didn’t let someone know immediately.’

The door opened again and the desk sergeant peered in.

‘Sorry, Ma’am, but Tyler King’s parents are downstairs. And a handful of journalists. They’ve heard we found a body tonight.’

‘How the hell?’ Dana began.

‘Ma’am, it’s on Facebook,’ said Mizon, who’d been at her computer for the last hour. ‘Peter Sweep posted three minutes ago. Shit, there’s a photograph.’

‘What?’ Dana was on her feet. She reached Mizon’s terminal first, the rest crowded round her as they read Peter Sweep’s latest post.

Badly decomposed body of Tyler King pulled out of Deptford Creek at 10.30 this evening. Slightly damp. Who said he would never be found? Never is an awfully long time and murder will out. Even mine.

A second later the relief sent a tremble through her. ‘That’s not our corpse,’ she said. ‘That’s not even Deptford Creek. This sick bastard found a picture on the internet and posted it for effect. I tell you one thing, when we find this Peter Sweep, whether he’s involved or not, I’m going to throw the book at him.’

‘Ma’am!’ She’d forgotten the desk sergeant. Forgotten Tyler
King’s parents waiting downstairs, wondering if their long ordeal of not knowing was finally at an end, hoping and dreading, in equal measure.

‘I’m coming,’ she said.

‘
MUMMY’S GOING AWAY
for a little while, Barney, just until she gets better.’

Barney realized he was sitting bolt upright on the sitting-room sofa. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Were the others still here? No, the house was dark and silent, he was alone. He had a vague recollection of them leaving, and then nothing. Had he fallen asleep? Impossible, surely, with all this mess. It had happened again.

He jumped up, saw the mugs stained with the remains of hot chocolate, the KitKat wrappers, the cushions scattered about the floor. All wrong. Not sure what to do first, he bent for the chocolate wrappers and stopped.

Until she gets better.

Had he just made that up? Or was that the second half of the memory, which for some reason had remained hidden until now? His dad’s voice telling him that Mummy was going away for a while was one of his earliest memories. How come, until now, he’d only remembered half ?

He’d think better when the room was tidy, he always did. He dropped the chocolate wrappers and gathered up the cushions. Two red, two gold, on each of the three sofas, arranged neatly in pairs, that was how it was done. He stood up and, for less than a second,
caught another glimpse in the large wall mirror of the boy who wasn’t him. The boy who was smaller, and thinner, and who smiled an odd, knowing smile. He stared and the reflection became Barney again. Sad, worried, tired, and far too pale, but definitely him.

Had his mum been ill? Was she, even now, in hospital somewhere? If so, she wouldn’t have seen any of his ads. Why was he only remembering this now?

A key was being turned in the lock. Barney remembered, in a split second, that his dad thought he was on a sleepover. No time to hide. He’d have to say he’d felt ill and come home. Jorge and one of the others had walked with him. How to explain being in the sitting-room in the middle of the night was another matter.

His dad had closed and locked the door and walked the length of the hall to the kitchen. Barney heard the sound of keys being dropped on to the table, of a tap being run. Then lights switched off. His dad was going upstairs. Movement in the room above, the toilet being flushed, the electric toothbrush, the bed creaking. Then nothing.

Why had his dad been at the boat? Why had he suddenly got so careful about the keys? And why had he lied, why had he claimed to be home when he plainly wasn’t?

Barney carried the mugs and the chocolate wrappers into the kitchen. He wouldn’t be able to wash them until morning but at least he’d know the living room was tidy. He put the wrappers in the bin and left the mugs on top of the washing machine.

The striped sheets he’d seen in the washing machine, they belonged on the boat. Suddenly Barney was sure of it.

Barney left the kitchen. He climbed the steps slowly and carefully, knowing exactly where to stand to avoid making a sound. On the first-floor landing he paused. The door to his dad’s study was open. His coat hung on the back of the door.

Why did his dad have a child’s glove in his pocket?

EVERYTHING INSIDE HER
was wrong. Internal organs swelling, skin tightening, bones pressing closer together. Lacey’s body just didn’t seem to fit any more. Working parts she never normally gave a second’s thought to, systems she took totally for granted, were jarring and clashing like badly made clockwork.

Concentrate
. She had to get down the steps without falling. God knows how she’d managed to drive home without killing someone. Maybe she hadn’t. Lacey realized she had no recollection of leaving Lewisham police station, of finding her car where Joesbury had left it, of driving across town to her flat. Maybe the screech of brakes on wet tarmac, the glance of terror, the thud of metal against flesh had just slipped her memory. She’d had blackouts once before, years ago, when long hours just slipped from her consciousness. Maybe they were happening again. Maybe there was someone bleeding on the roadside somewhere and it was all her fault.

The ache in her chest was spreading outwards, making her stomach cramp. She was at her front door, with no idea how long it had taken her to get down the steps. She had to go in, and yet the cold air and the rain on her face felt like the only things keeping her together. Noise above. Footsteps. She’d be seen.

Inside her flat, Lacey found herself searching her pockets for her phone, before remembering that Tulloch still had it. And who
would she call anyway? Tulloch genuinely seemed to think she might have killed that boy, killed all of them. Hey, maybe she should confess – it wasn’t as though she had any plans for the rest of her life. Would prison really be any worse than what she was going through right now? They’d probably send her to Durham. At least then she’d have someone to talk to.

Lacey realized she was laughing. Too loudly. She had to stop, she’d wake the people upstairs.

But it was impossible to stop, even with both hands clamped to her mouth, and now the laugh was turning into a scream. She felt it, behind her hands, a steady, building pressure, like cheap fizzy wine pushing at a cork; she had to let it go, no one could keep this much pain inside them and not howl out loud.

The kitchen drawer slid open, smooth and silent. The knives looked very clean. Lacey’s fingers touched the one that was sharpest and she ran the edge of the blade along the length of the scar on her wrist.

The easiest thing in the world. She watched white skin fall apart like fresh snow before a plough. The pain was like an electric current, starting in her wrist and speeding out to every part of her. It was like energy. The blood appeared in tiny, perfect droplets that stretched and met, forming a single scarlet line.

She raised her hand, let the blood flow snake-like down her arm, bent her head and stretched out her tongue. Warm, salty, metallic.

The scream had gone from Lacey’s head. In its place was a soft, ivory light.

‘
SOME OF THE
boys didn’t die right away, did you know that?’

The psychiatrist opened her mouth to speak.

‘You’d think if your throat was cut, right the way across from one ear to the other, you’d think you’d die pretty much straight away, wouldn’t you?’ continued the patient.

‘Even with very severe injuries, it can take a while for the body to shut down,’ said the psychiatrist.

‘There was this one kid I remember, his whole body was shivering. I suppose he was scared. He was, like, shaking with fear. I suppose I would have been.’

‘More likely his body was going into shock. Loss of blood and lack of oxygen getting to the main organs will send someone into shock. Seizures are quite a common symptom.’

‘He was looking at me while he was dying. Never took his eyes off me, all the time he was shaking and pissing himself. I’ll never forget that, the way he looked at me.’

‘SOMEONE KNOWS THIS
killer,’ said the dark-skinned detective. ‘He has friends, he goes home at night, he talks to his family. Someone knows who he is.’

By eight-thirty in the morning, Barney had already been up for two hours and it had felt safe to turn the TV on. The news on all channels was covering the discovery last night of the dead body of a young boy. It hadn’t officially been confirmed as that of Tyler King, the first of the Twilight Killer’s five victims, but no one really had any doubt.

‘We believe he lives or works in South London,’ the detective, Dana Tulloch, continued. ‘We believe he doesn’t live alone and that he has some good reason for being out of the house on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. That’s when the boys disappear and their bodies are found.’

Tuesdays and Thursdays – what he’d spotted days ago. Barney heard noise on the floor above him. His dad was moving around.

‘He doesn’t look like a monster. He persuaded five sensible, streetwise boys to leave their homes and go with him. He’ll be convincing, plausible. He’ll look normal.’

Footsteps coming down the stairs.

Almond-shaped eyes, oddly pale against the detective’s skin and
hair, seemed to be looking directly at Barney. ‘It isn’t easy to betray someone you know and trust, maybe someone you love, but if you are protecting this killer, you are doing him no favours because he will carry on killing until he’s stopped. If you know something, anything at all, please help us to stop him.’

The picture on the screen switched to a shot of Deptford Creek. Barney could see the yard, the line of boats, the ring of police tape around where the body had lain. The reporter was talking to another detective, a young man with dark, curly hair. Behind Barney, the kitchen door opened.