Mummy's Favourite (21 page)

She nodded. She too was visual. When she'd been there and seen for herself, she would remember. If she was told the details, they would not necessarily stick.

Mitcham was situated in the most southerly part of London, only a few miles before the borders with Surrey. The estate was a large sprawling council development, made up mainly of blocks of flats set at right angles to each other and serviced by its own shops and community centre. It didn't take long for Charlie to spot the flashing blue lights and the small crowd of hecklers. The car itself was cordoned off with a length of blue and white tape and a flatbed lorry was waiting to take it away.

Hunter climbed out of their car, ignoring comments thrown by a particularly vocal, spotty-faced youth who looked like he'd just been sniffing the interior of a bag of glue. Charlie joined Hunter and they were met by two uniformed colleagues from Merton: a detective from the investigation team and a Scene of Crime Officer, dressed in a white overall, gloves and overshoes. Introductions over, Hunter came straight to the point.

‘Anything interesting?'

The SOCO was the one to speak first, directing his comments straight to Hunter.

‘I've taken preliminary lifts from fresh prints I found in the rear of the car and these have been sent straight up to the lab. They've been positively matched as Helena and Daisy McPherson from control samples taken at the McPherson House. So, unless they make a habit of going out in hired BMW's we can pretty much say for definite that this is the car that was used in their abduction. I've also taken some swabs for their DNA, which should confirm that in due course.'

‘Excellent. Anything from the driver?'

‘There are no obvious fingerprints in the driver's area. I would say your man was almost certainly wearing gloves and probably also wiped around before leaving. There are a few hairs on the driver's side, which I've already sent up for DNA profiling. One was looser on the seat than the others and looks the most recent, but there are others, slightly more ingrained in the fabric, that I've also sent up. As it's a rental though, there are likely to be a good few profiles in here. I'll get an ID on the newest to you as soon as I can, but any others may take a little longer. The lorry driver's just waiting for your say-so to start getting it lifted. You should have an ID for the newest hair by the end of the day, if our man is known.'

Hunter nodded. She could see he was disappointed not to have a name for the suspect already, but it was never going to be that easy. At least they had the right car. They'd just have to keep their fingers crossed. They deserved a bit of luck, especially after the previous evening.

‘OK thanks. Let me know as soon as you have anything; the sooner the better.'

‘Will do boss.' They started to walk away when the SOCO called them back.

‘Oh and just before you go. You should also know that the vehicle looks to have been somewhere muddy, maybe a yard or wooded area, or somewhere similar. There are small stones and pebbles caught within the tyre treads. We'll make sure we get them analysed to see if we can get an idea of the area it's been in, chalky or clay. Might help to confirm a scene for you.'

‘Thanks. We'll bear that in mind.'

They climbed back into the car, Charlie throwing the clipboard on to the back seat. Their next stop was the McPhersons' house, where a reconstruction was to be filmed during the afternoon for a
Crimewatch
appeal. There were no charges as yet and they all knew that a slot on
Crimewatch
meant admitting the investigation was stalled and they needed to beg the public for more assistance.

‘Well at least, we know we have the right car, with the right people in it and we know what sort of place it's been driven through.' She was trying to be positive. ‘And Bet called back to say that she'd found another report of a similar assault between Helena and Gary Savage.'

‘Yes, so I heard.'

‘She's still checking to see if there are any links between any of the three McPherson reports and the Hubbards', but there's nothing obvious at the moment.'

‘And, after seeing him last night, we know that Savage is not our man.' Hunter snorted. ‘Though how that ignorant bastard has the nerve to blame us, when he's mown down an innocent woman on a stolen bike and then made his choice to ride on, rather than stopping. He should have been done for murder.'

They came to a standstill at a set of red traffic lights positioned at a large, noisy crossroads. A cycle was chained to the railings at the junction, painted white; a symbol of another cyclist killed on London's busy roads. She stared at the bike.

‘Well, at least there's a bit of summary justice this time: Savage won't be able to destroy anyone else's life and I wouldn't like his now.'

The lights changed to green and she pulled away. She changed the subject.

‘How did it go with Hubbard and Latchmere?'

‘How do you think? Both made no comment to everything that was asked.'

‘I don't understand why they always make no comment. Why don't they just say if they had nothing to do with it? I would.'

‘Because they both have too much knowledge of the legal system. If they say no comment, they give us nothing. Nothing that we can research. If they don't give us an alibi, we can't break it. They leave everything to us.'

‘Well we can prove Latchmere has lied throughout the whole enquiry. Hopefully he might be looking at a charge of hindering an investigation, if he wants to carry on insisting his relationship with Julie was purely platonic. And Hubbard is up to his neck in it and is probably the reason why Julie and Richard disappeared. They both have the motivation and the means.'

‘But,' Hunter picked up a pen from the centre console and shoved the end of it in his mouth, ‘and this is the problem. Neither appears to be linked to the disappearance of Helena and Daisy, and at the moment we can't even prove in what way they were involved in the disappearance of Julie and Richard. Which leaves us with the worst possible scenario.'

He chewed the pen top, crushing the end into a flat, misshapen lump.

‘That we have a random unknown abductor who, according to the DCI is almost certainly going to strike again. He's got away with it twice in quick succession and we're reliably informed by our psychological profilers that it is highly likely he will continue at the same pace or even quicker. He's on a roll and he's enjoying it. There has been no contact from the abductor, no ransom notes and no blackmail attempts. He has them for his own reasons, and they don't appear to be financial.

‘He's likely to be a loner who has all the time in the world to plan and execute his next move and he seems to be continually one step ahead of us. We just have to hope that he'll slip up in his haste to capture his next victims.

‘And to make matters worse we are about to lay our investigation open to the public on
Crimewatch
. He'll see that we're desperate and know that he's winning. It might even make him worse. Let's just hope that the appeal throws up a suspect quickly and not too many red herrings or else it might end up hindering us, more than helping. We'll have to wait and see.'

They were nearing the McPherson house now, both fully aware that they had no answers to any of the family's questions. Charlie checked the number and pulled up outside the address. There was no mistaking the fact they had the right one. A group of journalists were camped directly at the end of the driveway. As she turned to reach for her clipboard, she saw several of the reporters turn cameras towards them.

‘Vultures! Can't they leave the poor family alone? It's bad enough having them outside our building, just waiting for one of us to make a mistake, or say something out of place.'

Hunter placed the chewed up pen back in the centre console.

‘That reminds me, Charlie, after we discussed the case, the DCI gave me a pull. He wanted me to reiterate to you that at the moment we have no choice but to use the Press. We need them on our side.'

‘OK guv.' She didn't understand what Hunter was on about.

‘In other words! Seeing as you're clearly not getting it. Use the correct procedure for entering the building, rather than vaulting the barrier in front of them all.'

The wall was covered with her images. There were photos from Google; with clippings and cuttings from newspapers, reporting on her high-profile court cases. There were photos from more personal moments taken from her Facebook page and there were his own photos of her coming and going from her house. He even had some of her inside her bathroom naked, taken after he'd placed a tiny, hidden camera within a picture frame, on one of his visits. How he loved those especially, following each inch of her body down from her breasts, around her tiny waist and broadening again over her curvaceous hips. He traced a finger down over one of the larger pictures, following the shape of her body back up to her mouth and full lips.

And then it was time to hear her again. He did it every morning, following the same ritual; sight, sound, smell; sight, sound, smell. Pushing the button on his laptop, he watched as the screen flickered into life. He waited impatiently until it had loaded then logged on to Facebook. It had been easy to invent a name, upload a few photos, make himself out to be a friend of a friend that she had met through law school. People didn't really care who they added as friends these days, they weren't scrupulous; the more the better, to share their lives with.

He waited as her profile loaded, watching as the close-up photo of her dressed in shorts and T-shirt, relaxed on a beach holiday in Egypt, took form. He had that photo on his wall too; it was one of his favourites. Scrolling through her pictures and videos, he found the best one, the one that showed her emerging from the swimming pool, laughing and giggling as one of her kids splashed her with water. He loved her in this one, truly loved her, with all his heart and soul. She was laughing and smiling towards him, she really was. He watched the video again, and again, and again, taking in that moment when her face broke into a huge grin and she giggled with pleasure. She really was beautiful, utterly beautiful, and completely perfect. If only he could have her now.

He pulled the bedside cabinet drawer open and took out her panties, holding them to his face to catch her aroma while he watched her on various videos as she laughed and frolicked and giggled. It was intoxicating. He could feel his whole body filling with her sight, sound and smell. Now he wanted to touch and taste, but he couldn't have that, not yet, couldn't kiss or lick her yet as he wanted to. He wanted her so badly.

He paced across the room and stared at himself in the cracked mirror. He wasn't so bad for his age, his features slightly more rugged then before but still relatively taut skin around his cheeks and jowls and only a smattering of grey in his hair. He liked to keep himself looking good for when he would get the chance to be with her. He ran and worked out on the weights bench and free weights he'd picked up cheap on the Internet. He checked out his biceps and shoulders, all nicely toned and defined, and his chest covered with a thin layer of dark hair. He'd had plenty of time to work on his body, get himself looking fit, biding his time; always biding his time. Yes, he was ready now, but how was he to do it?

He turned away from the mirror, scowling at the sight of the small, poky room; his belongings all arranged neat and tidy in the dismal, poorly furnished bedsit that had been provided by the council begrudgingly. He had taken it begrudgingly too. It was way less than he had expected. A single bed with a stained mattress that looked as if it had been slept on by at least a dozen others in the last three months stood to one side, next to a mid-brown wooden wardrobe with wonky doors that had obviously been reclaimed from the back of a charity shop. A small chest of drawers that didn't match the wardrobe and a bedside table that was white melanin and looked totally out of place was the sum total of his accommodation.

If it weren't for the weights and his display of colourful photos of her covering the broken patches of plaster on the walls, the room would be just too depressing to return to day after day. What would she think when she joined him? She wouldn't be impressed, coming from a house like hers; still, hopefully she wouldn't notice those things when she felt the same for him as he felt for her. Love would blur the surroundings.

He went back to the computer and scrolled through some more of her posts. Sometimes when he did this it made him happy; happy just to be able to watch and occasionally add the odd message, like, comment. She never really replied, but he knew she had read his comments. She knew he was there. Sometimes there would be a ‘like' against his comment and that would make him feel really special. She liked what he had to say, therefore she must like him. More recently, however, he had become restless, he wanted more. She needed to come to him now, be part of his life properly, not just a face and voice on a screen.

When he'd tried the other day it had all gone wrong. He'd wanted the chance for her to get to know him properly, not make judgements based on a distant memory; that's why he'd worn the balaclava. She was the only one for him; the only one he wanted, always had been and always would be, but she hadn't been prepared to give him even a few minutes. Next time maybe he should take the mask off, show himself to her, smile and be friendly and hope that she wouldn't remember him. Yes, he'd done it all wrong, he realized that now. It was no wonder she'd been scared, a masked man jumping out on her. Her screams still went through him and he was ashamed he'd made her scared when all he'd wanted to do was show her his love. But now he wasn't sure what to do: mask or no mask, hope for a second chance or resign himself to failure?

He looked back at her photo; the way her eyes lit up at the sight of him.