The Advent Killer (10 page)

‘Thank you, Alan.’

Charles Anderton shook hands with the security officer, who let them into the small office in a staff-only area of Gatwick airport, and then disappeared.

Anderton motioned to one of the shabby wooden chairs there, and Hawkins sat down, trying to block out an aroma of burnt dust and detergents.

Anderton closed the door, removed his grey overcoat, and laid it carefully beside his luggage. Then he took the seat opposite her.

‘Alan’s a friend,’ he said, as if recognizing Hawkins’ unease. ‘I get him tickets to see Spurs play from time to time. In return, he looks out for me whenever I use his airport.’

Hawkins nodded, glancing over at the shelves on the far wall, where a security radio lay beside a curling sandwich.

Anderton sat bolt upright, his hands clasped on the small table between them.

‘Thank you for agreeing to my proposal, Detective.’

‘I’m afraid there are no guarantees,’ she said. ‘I’ll do what I can, but we don’t have much time.’

Anderton looked tired, even more so than he had two days ago. He wore the expression of a man who’d lost
almost everything, and was now being forced to press flush on the rest.

During their telephone conversation the night before, he had offered Hawkins two choices.

If she followed procedure and took him in for formal questioning, he would withhold what he knew for as long as possible. Such a delay would not benefit either party, simultaneously increasing the likelihood of further deaths, and setting the media free to destroy Anderton’s reputation and career.

Alternatively, he had offered to tell her everything,
off
the record, in return for her promise to keep his name off the official suspect list. This scenario would allow the investigation to continue unimpeded, with Anderton as grieving widower rather than detainee. He would escape further public humiliation, and he might even hang on to his job. Failing that, he could at least slide into a comfortable CEO position with what was left of his reputation intact.

Hawkins had immediately agreed to the latter. This way they gained vital information when it might still be of use. Her agreement, of course, was on condition that Charles Anderton proved to be as innocent as he claimed.

Anderton’s voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘I realize my lack of honesty on Tuesday may have damaged your investigation, Detective, and for that I apologize. But neither did I lie to you.’

Technically he was right. He’d spoken very little during Hawkins’ visit two days ago, during which she had volunteered to postpone questioning for as long as possible.
That was before Marcus De Angelo had exposed Jessica’s affair.

‘I left you alone to grieve, Mr Anderton, not to attend a conference.’

He sighed. ‘There was no conference, Detective. I just needed time to think, away from the media. Away from home.’

‘Fair enough. But you already knew that Jessica was having an affair.’

His eyes dropped. ‘Yes.’

‘And you told her she’d be sorry if the story ever got out.’

Anderton’s interlinked fingers remained motionless, but the whitening flesh around his knuckles betrayed the stress within. ‘Yes … to my very greatest regret, I did.’

‘You do realize, Mr Anderton, that that’s motive.’

He looked up, his tone becoming stronger suddenly. ‘I accepted the fact that Jessica didn’t love me a long time ago, Detective, but I had
nothing
to do with my wife’s death.’

Their eyes met, and it dawned on Hawkins what made Charles Anderton such a successful politician: despite having nothing but his assurance, she believed him.

‘And if Marcus De Angelo hadn’t sold his story,’ he said, ‘I might have survived, politically at least.’ His voice cracked with the final words, and he covered his mouth with his hand, needing a moment to compose himself before he continued.

‘Jessica and I had an understanding. Maintaining what appeared to be a happy marriage meant she kept her
privileged lifestyle, and I my political credibility. My …
threat
was intended simply to remind her of that. I knew that if the truth about her affairs ever came out it would ruin my career, just as it ruined our marriage.’

‘Did you say
affairs
, plural?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ Anderton exhaled. ‘Marcus De Angelo wasn’t the first. There were several,others.’

His words suffused the contaminated air, as Hawkins realized their list of potential suspects had just grown.

‘Over the years, I took many precautions to keep Jessica’s activities from the media, but I promise you murder wasn’t one of them. Perhaps I should have worried more about her welfare than I did my career. I guess it’s too late for that.’

Hawkins couldn’t think of anything to say. Her silence prompted Anderton to go on.

‘You assure me that Marcus De Angelo is not the killer, but it could easily have been one of Jessica’s other acquaintances, and I wish to help in any way I can. If you’d be so kind, Detective, I’d like to submit a piece of evidence.’ He looked over at his Samsonite flight case. ‘May I?’

She eyed him. ‘What is it?’

‘A laptop. Jessica’s laptop computer.’

Hawkins’ gaze flicked to the security radio on the shelf opposite, all of a sudden acutely aware that it was just the two of them in the room. She had already taken a big risk. Anderton might be nearly sixty, but he still looked in good shape, and even though Barclay knew her rough whereabouts, essentially they were alone.

She rose, ‘I think I’d better get it myself.’

‘Yes, of course, you’re right,’ Anderton agreed. ‘It’s in the upper zipped compartment.’

She kept an eye on the politician as she moved over to the large grey case. There was no way to know if he was telling the truth.

‘Are you OK, Detective?’

Hawkins realized she was hovering by the case. ‘Fine.’

She began to unzip the compartment, still watching Anderton from the corner of her eye. He stayed where he was, and she glanced down into the widening gap. It looked like a normal laptop.

Hawkins relaxed a little as she pulled the computer out and returned to her seat.

‘How does this affect the case, Mr Anderton?’

‘Jessica was an enchanting woman’ – he sat back, as if being able to talk about her eased his pain – ‘but she was also more impulsive than I would have liked. I admit I kept a close watch over her, for both our sakes. More like a father than a husband, I suppose. A couple of weeks ago, she was using the laptop when her mobile rang. She went upstairs to take the call, so I took the opportunity to look at what she had been doing.’ He paused. ‘Jessica was logged into a chat room, Detective. And, judging by the nature of the exchange up to that point, I think it could be possible that was how she met her killer.’

Hillingdon was nice, Hawkins decided, as she watched yet another park slide past the car window. Charles Anderton had explained, on their way to drop him at a friend’s house in Uxbridge, that the borough was the proud home to 239 areas of open space, all protected by green belt laws. They were the main reason behind its status as London’s least-populated district. And yet, while Hawkins’ home borough of Ealing was right next door, she had never even visited.

She needed to get out more.

Barclay broke into her daydream. ‘Where to now, ma’am?’

‘Hendon.’

They both fell silent as a commercial radio jingle broke up for the presenter to introduce several items, including a report on the imminent press conference about the Advent Killer case.

Apart from Mike’s best attempts to calm the fresh wave of public concern over the latest leaked facts, Hawkins knew it would contain nothing more than a regurgitated version of the same old information.

Hopefully, the laptop she’d managed to squeeze into her bag would help to change that, but recent events suggested that, for now at least, she should heed the DCS’ warning about internal disclosure.

Even your immediate team is on a need-to-know basis.

Hawkins had kept details of her meeting with Anderton quiet. She’d told Barclay her conversation with the politician at the airport had satisfied her there was no need to take him into custody. She had, however, warned Anderton to stay local while they tracked down the two ex-acquaintances of Jessica’s whose names he had been able to provide. She’d also arranged for him to be placed under covert surveillance until further notice.

What the trainee detective sitting beside her didn’t know was that she was now in possession of Jessica’s laptop, which she’d pass straight to the technology team back at Hendon, so they could begin extracting whatever information it held about the killer.

She checked her watch before turning to Barclay. ‘John, when we get back, I need everyone together in the meeting room for a progress report. These victims link and I want to know
how
. They’ve bad-mouthed, borrowed from or screwed the same wrong person. Once we find that connection it’ll all drop into place, but we’re running out of time. OK?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Hawkins tried not to breathe too deeply as the trainee detective launched into a fresh bout of what had sounded since lunchtime like the early stages of whooping cough.

A news jingle cut in to indicate the arrival of headlines, and Hawkins leaned forwards to turn up the radio. As she reached the control, however, her phone rang. It was a withheld number.

‘Hello?’

‘Antonia?’ A man’s voice, one she didn’t recognize.

‘Yes …?’ She saw Barclay look over. ‘Who’s this?’

‘You must remember,’ the caller continued. ‘Danny … Danny Burns. We met at the Future Crime conference in June?’

Hawkins paused; June seemed like a lifetime ago. Then it came back to her. A few weeks after Paul had moved out, she’d found herself sitting next to Danny at the conference. The seminar had been dire, but the time had flown thanks to his entertaining company. They’d exchanged numbers that evening, for what Hawkins later realized would have been a rebound-date. Fortunately he hadn’t called at the time.

But maybe things were different now.

‘Oh, yeah, I remember. How are you?’

For some reason, she was thinking about the ‘Two buses come along at once’ adage.

‘Good, thanks. Listen, I hope you don’t think it presumptuous of me, calling like this, but I have something I need to ask you.’

‘Uh huh?’ Hawkins glanced at Barclay, embarrassed to be arranging a date in front of a colleague.

‘You’re leading the big serial murder case, right?’

‘What?’

‘The Advent Killer thing – it’s yours.’

Suddenly, more information about Danny Burns came back to her. He might be attractive, but he was also a journalist – one with a particularly salacious reputation – for the
Mail
.

‘Oh, I see,’ she said, sarcasm-heavy. ‘Nice try. Thanks for calling.’

‘No, I didn’t mean—’ was all Danny had time to say before she cut him off.

Hawkins switched the phone to silent and stuffed it back in her bag.

‘Fucking reporters,’ she remarked to Barclay. ‘Shameless, all of them.’

Unsurprisingly, three days before Christmas, late night shopping at Debenhams was a mêlée.

Hawkins fought her way through the outskirts of the crowd, all of whom were too busy gawping at some sort of festive show to be offended by her insolence, and headed for the fragrance department. Sinatra replaced Bublé in the air.

Locating her target, Hawkins joined the queue at one of the make-up counters, behind a harassed-looking couple whose four year old was making it noisily obvious he didn’t enjoy Christmas shopping, despite Dad’s best efforts to placate.

Mum was deeply engaged with the assistant Hawkins had come for, but she decided not to interrupt as four bottles of perfume were added to their bill.

There was no point in pissing off the subject by costing her commission.

With a few moments to itself, Hawkins brain was straight back at work. The day had been semi-productive. While the techs worked on Jessica’s laptop, Hawkins and Connor had chased up Anderton’s information on two of his wife’s former lovers.

The first was a repulsive children’s TV presenter called Douglas Donald. Dee Dee, or Donald Doug, as he was known, turned out to have a cast-iron alibi, having spent
the past two weeks locked in a house as part of the latest
Celebrity Big Brother
. He was also the bookie’s favourite to be announced winner tomorrow night.

The second was a stronger possibility. All Anderton knew was his name, Thomas Evans, and that he was a private motorcycle courier Jessica often used. The politician had returned home one day six months ago to find them screaming at each other, apparently over a late package. And although he never found out why, Anderton hadn’t seen Evans since.

Connor had been working on a current address for the guy, so far without any luck.

Meanwhile, Hawkins had dug deeper into the theory that chat rooms were how the killer met at least one of his victims. She’d despatched Barclay to chase down and interview anyone who might know whether the initial two victims could have been using similar sites. Number two, Tess Underwood, wasn’t beyond suspicion in this regard, but the inconsistencies in the theory really began with his first target. Hawkins had trouble imagining sixty-something Glenis Ward on a sleazy internet pick-up site. But you never knew.

At least this collection of leads had ensured that that day’s progress report between Hawkins and Lawrence Kirby-Jones had been worthy of such a title.

At the moment, though, that flash of inspiration – the sixth sense Hawkins felt when she neared a breakthrough – wasn’t there. Most people assumed that detective work relied on in-depth knowledge of law or criminal procedure, but more often you got nearer the truth via diligence and obstinate intuition.

And Hawkins had always had those.

From the age of five it had seemed perfectly logical to her that, should someone have damaged public property or stolen something, their peers were best placed to perform an investigation. Several classmates had suffered detention after confessing culpability to an apparently deferential Antonia Hawkins, only for her to appear shortly afterwards in the headmaster’s office, to report her findings.

She hadn’t been popular at school.

But this innate sense of responsibility had led Hawkins to study for a criminal psychology degree, then on to a career in the police force. It had all come so naturally to her, ensuring swift promotion through the ranks. Right then, however, she would gladly have swapped her self-imposed civic duties for something less stressful.

Perhaps the girls in her class that had produced litters by the age of eighteen had a point.
Why start a fight with human nature?

Hawkins re-joined the present as someone trod on her toe. The man, who was providentially small, mumbled an apology as he battled on through the hordes, weighed down with bags.

Suddenly she felt guilty she wasn’t there to buy, and considered capitalizing on the opportunity to purchase a few token gifts, just in case. If she had to make an appearance at her parents’ for Christmas, it would be better not to do so empty handed. Present options began flashing through her mind: a Slanket for her sister, make-up for her niece, a home-brew kit for Dad …

‘Can I help you?’

Hawkins turned back to the counter to find the family with the contra-shopping child gone, and the vibrantly tinted assistant regarding her with seasonal impatience.

‘Maybe you can.’ She produced her badge, rechecking the assistant’s name tag. ‘Cherie Riley?’

The woman hesitated. ‘Yes.’

‘Is there somewhere we can talk off the floor?’

Cherie Riley tutted at the combination lock on the security door, impatiently punching the code in three times before it released. She held the door open for Hawkins, who walked through and stopped, so that the two women stood facing each other in the service corridor; breeze-block walls either side, some sort of air circulation fan humming in the conduits above.

Riley was slender and, apart from the energetic tan, impeccably groomed. She was doing a good job of looking simultaneously bemused and helpful, but she regarded Hawkins with too much suspicion for this visit to have been a surprise.

Hawkins decided to let her speak first.

Riley glanced around, as if her visitor’s silence indicated a desire for more privacy, maybe a seat. ‘We can talk here.’

‘Fine.’

Riley frowned. ‘This about Jess?’

‘Yes. How well did you know each other?’

‘I used to do her make-up for TV and that, but I haven’t seen her since July. I know she’s dead, saw it on the news.’

‘You fell out?’

‘I thought we were mates, but she was just a user. What do you want, anyway?’

‘We need to speak to one of her more recent boyfriends, Thomas Evans. Do you know where we can find him?’

Riley shifted her feet. ‘I didn’t know about any of that.’

‘Come on, Cherie, you knew Jess was seeing other people. You’re not getting anyone in trouble; it’s been in the papers all week.’

‘Look, just leave me out of it, OK? I don’t want any of this shit. Fucking papers trash you, I’ve seen it happen.’ She started moving towards the exit.

‘Hold on.’ Hawkins blocked her path. ‘You’ll be helping us catch Jessica’s killer.’

‘I don’t owe her nothing.’ Riley tried to step around her.

‘What about the other victims, Cherie? This guy’s going to do it again, this Sunday. Even if Thomas had nothing to do with it, we need to count him out.’

‘You can’t make me.’

‘OK.’ Hawkins gambled. ‘If you won’t talk, someone else will. Like Marcus De Angelo, for example. The papers would love a reason to extend their coverage of his story, and I understand you two know each other very well.’

Riley looked at her. ‘What?’

‘How do you think I found you? Marcus told us about you, and that you were friendly with Thomas, as well. Unless we give the papers something new to focus on, like catching this killer, they’ll dig for gossip instead.’

Minutes later, Hawkins stood on the pavement outside Debenhams, looking for a less congested position away
from the mass of shoppers swarming around her. It was approaching eight o’clock, but if she called soon, most of the team would still be at their desks.

Loading up on overtime.

She caught sight of a side street and began threading her way towards it, thinking about her recent conversation. The truth was that she’d coerced Cherie Riley into divulging information, especially as her allegation had been nothing more than conjecture. De Angelo
had
told them where to find Jess Anderton’s former make-up artist, but he hadn’t said anything about them being physically involved. Although, technically, neither had Hawkins.

But now they had a lead on Thomas Evans.

Riley didn’t have an address, but she knew Evans had moved to the Guildford area six months ago. Which would allow the investigation team to focus their search.

According to Riley, Evans was a bit of a nomad, taking cash-in-hand jobs wherever he happened to find himself. This tallied with the frustrating fact that he hadn’t registered with things like councils or employers for years, blunting the Met’s ability to trace him.

Which was something Hawkins dearly wanted to do: these behaviours, in someone who had recently been observed rowing with the latest victim, made him a good candidate for suspicion.

And with only three days until the next murder was due, Hawkins definitely needed one of those.