The Advent Killer (22 page)

Kirby-Jones’ office was panelled in the same dark wood as the door, dimly lit by small lamps mounted on three of the four walls. The only window, to the rear, was covered by a heavy roller blind.

She stopped a few paces in as the chief superintendent closed the door and walked past her to the oversized teak desk in the centre of the room, sitting down in the huge executive chair behind it. Despite the presence of two, more modest seats opposite the desk, Hawkins was not invited to follow.

From the corner of her eye, she could see the tall man standing slightly behind and to her left. He made no attempt to introduce himself, and Kirby-Jones didn’t acknowledge his presence. Instead the DCS studied Hawkins, as his wife and kids stared disapprovingly down at her from inside a wall-mounted frame.

The day’s events swirled around her head. Should she try to soften the impact? Was Mike’s confession relevant, or even true? She felt sick.

Kirby-Jones spoke at last. ‘I’m informed we have a missing officer, Detective. I don’t suppose you have subsequently located John Barclay?’

She shook her head.

‘I see.’ He glanced at the unidentified man, then back at
her. ‘I don’t want your focus taken off the main investigation, and we have to at least consider the possibility that his disappearance is not related to this case. So I’ve organized another team to find Mr Barclay, and a direct replacement will be sourced. Thankfully the media haven’t been on the phone yet, so it may yet be possible to manage how the incident is reported.’ He looked down at the desk for a second before going on. ‘My concern is that, while Eddie Connor’s death was almost certainly unplanned, it’s probable that John Barclay’s disappearance was anything but. In that case, every one of your team is a potential target, so safety takes precedence. No one working on Operation Charter is to spend time alone, at home or at work, until the case is resolved. Those who live alone will need to co-habit with other officers. For tonight, I’ve authorized surveillance teams to protect you at home, but from tomorrow I want you all to pair off. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good.’ He regarded her for a few seconds before glancing across at the unidentified man, who stood and moved around behind the desk. ‘This is Superintendent Tristan Vaughn, one of the founding members of the special enquiries outfit, now a government consultant for COBRA.’

Hawkins eyed Vaughn. He certainly had the look for special enquiries – the cutting-edge unit for high-fliers, set up to deal with victims or criminals deemed to be in the public eye.

It was rumoured that most of their time was spent schmoozing celebrities who had fallen from grace.

The DCS sat back and drew a deep breath. ‘Do you know what elevates someone into my position, Hawkins? Results,’ he said, before she could answer. ‘I deliver. Except that the higher your post, the more you rely on those in your charge to help you do so. And I, as your commanding officer, rely on you.’ He paused, and Hawkins tried not to let the panic show on her face. ‘Unfortunately’ – Kirby-Jones steepled his hands in front of his chin – ‘I’m no longer sure I can do that. I’ve been concerned about the progress of Operation Charter for some time.’

They stared at each other across the desk.

‘However,’ he continued, ‘I appreciate this has been something of a baptism of fire for you, and that I put you in that position by recommending you for the role. I’m also reluctant to alter the team any further than it has been altered for us. Therefore, to preserve stability, you will retain chief investigating status, but I must act to stop any further degradation of the service we provide. To that end, Superintendent Vaughn will oversee this operation from now on, reporting directly to me. You are to brief him fully, and refer to him on
all
further proceedings. We’ll review your position once the case is closed. Do you understand?’

Hawkins just stared for a second before she found her voice, the words almost catching in her throat. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’m not interested in your explanation of what happened today, but I need to get this circus under control before it destroys the Met’s reputation completely.’ He glanced at Vaughn. ‘The superintendent will meet you in the SIS tomorrow morning at nine. Have your briefing
prepared.’ Kirby-Jones motioned towards the door. ‘That’s all.’

Hawkins nodded and turned. Closing the office door behind her she walked away, head up, determined to maintain composure.

Her nerve held until she’d established that the ladies’ second floor washroom was empty. There, she slumped on the seat in one of the cubicles and brought a trembling hand to her forehead. She fought the urge to shout, to batter the walls with her fists; the same urge she had felt in the chief superintendent’s office when he’d effectively relieved her of command on the Nemesis case.

Kirby-Jones’ reason about not wanting to alter personnel at this stage was bullshit: there was more to it than that. Maybe he wanted further ammunition against her, or maybe he’d known the case was a career-killer right from the start. Why introduce a second scapegoat, when there was still life in the original?

Hawkins had heard before about cases where people like Vaughn had been drafted in to ‘oversee’ things. Those supposedly still in charge remained so until the cases were closed or forgotten, but resulting sideways moves or redundancy packages ensured they weren’t around for long afterwards.

She rested her head against the cubicle wall, waiting for her heartbeat to return to normal. If the DCS wanted her demoted or thrown out of the Met, there was very little she could do about it. She had to make the best of this mess, by putting Nemesis behind bars. But how was she supposed to make progress when her team was falling apart?

She took out her mobile and saw three missed calls from Mike. She tabbed to his number, but her thumb hovered over the key.

She should call him back, apologize for cutting him off. Plus she needed to talk things through with somebody and, under normal circumstances, Mike would have been the perfect confidant. But something stopped her, and it wasn’t just yesterday’s argument.

Her mind drifted back to Barclay’s flat. When she’d arrived, the door had been on the latch. It seemed inconsistent with the theory that the killer had taken John against his will; it was almost as if someone Barclay
knew
had rung the bell. He’d buzzed them in, and left the door open because he trusted them.

He wouldn’t have done that with someone unfamiliar, but he might have done it for a colleague. Especially someone of a higher rank.

Someone like Maguire.

Twenty minutes after leaving Lawrence Kirby-Jones’ office, Hawkins drifted out of Becke House. She stood forlorn in the damp, cold blackness of the car park, contemplating the train journey home, before remembering she still had the keys to the pool car. She turned towards the Golf, glad that she wouldn’t have to suffer the tube ride home.

Hawkins dumped herself in the driver’s seat and pulled on the seatbelt, started the engine and put the car in reverse.

Her phone rang.

She knocked the car out of gear, but left the engine
running. She rotated the heating knob all the way into the red before searching her bag, weighing up how to conduct the coming conversation with Mike.

She retrieved the handset, relieved to see Yasir’s number.

She answered. ‘Hi, Amala.’

‘Ma’am?’ Yasir sounded excited. ‘I think we may have something.’

‘Go on.’

‘We’ve been interviewing various psychics all afternoon, dozens of them. No good until half an hour ago, but you might want to talk to this one yourself.’

Hawkins sighed, looking at her watch. ‘Why?’

‘In the last three months, she’s the only one to have received a death threat.’

Hawkins stepped out of the Golf onto a raked gravel drive, which was lit by ornate metal lamps dotting the area. She looked up at the lustrous greenery framing the parking area, and the attractive five-bedroom house covered in leaves.

The police-liveried Astras ahead of her on the driveway would have delivered Yasir plus the two uniforms, and the three security officers Hawkins had summoned. The brand new Alfa Romeo sports car and BMW saloon beyond them obviously belonged to the house’s owners.

Two years ago, according to Yasir, Emilia Jeffries had married a successful lawyer called Winston Pare. It had afforded her the twin luxuries of being able to live between several houses like this one, while at the same time dabbling in whatever pseudo-career she fancied. And, since July, she’d fancied being a psychic. In contrast to her previous enterprises as style consultant and interior designer, Emilia had shown an intuitive skill in her latest vocation and, after experimenting with several stage personas, Emilia Jeffries had realized her own name had become synonymous with her talent.

She’d quickly developed into something of a local celebrity, having astounded a number of her husband’s high-society friends, along with the local media, and was reputedly on her way to stardom. Except that in the
process she’d upset someone sufficiently to induce a death threat. Which begged one critical question …

Was that someone Nemesis?

Hawkins threaded her way among the assorted vehicles to a marble-floored porch, mildly impressed to see her reflection in the flawless black paint finish on the door. She pressed the smart doorbell, unable to hear any resulting carillon from within, but reluctant to risk appearing impatient by ringing again. She waited, inhaling the brittle December air, laced with the scent of whatever potpourri occupied the delicate receptacles either side of the entrance.

After a moment, the front door swung open to reveal a young uniformed officer. Hawkins recognized his permanently flushed cheeks from the control room at Becke House, but couldn’t dredge up his name.

‘Come in, chief.’ He stepped aside. ‘Everyone’s in the front room.’

She followed him along the hall, past the biggest mirror she’d seen in a while, into a cavernous front room. Everyone looked up.

The three security officers stood in a stoic line behind a long floral settee, while the second uniform, Steve Judd, hovered by the fireplace. Amala Yasir sat in one of the leather armchairs flanking the coffee table, while in the other sat a striking woman in her early forties, with long ebony hair.

‘Emilia.’ Hawkins shook hands with her, avoiding potentially incorrect use of Miss or Mrs. ‘DCI Antonia Hawkins.’

Jeffries didn’t stand. ‘Chief Inspector, is it? I assume that means you’re in charge, so perhaps you’ll make a
better job than this lady of explaining why my house is full of policemen.’

Hawkins cleared her throat, determined not to rise to a woman who’d managed to put her offside within a sentence. She explained that Sergeant Yasir had been instructed not to divulge the specific reason for their visit but, now that both Jeffries’ profession, and the fact she’d recently received a death threat, might be linked to the Nemesis investigation, it was time to inform her of the potential danger.

In other words, love, you might be a target.

Her words had transformative effect.

Jeffries lost eye contact with Hawkins for the first time, and there was silence among the eight people in the room for a long moment.

‘So,’ their host’s voice wavered, ‘you think the death threat was from this … killer?’

Hawkins drew breath, feeling that her attempt to make the woman back off had been a little too successful. ‘It’s possible.’

‘Oh.’ Jeffries reached for the glass on the table that Hawkins had previously assumed contained water. But the way she slugged it back, and her resulting expression, suggested otherwise.

‘I’m going to be murdered,’ Emilia Jeffries breathed, apparently to herself.

‘Look,’ Hawkins reassured her, ‘there’s no guarantee we’re even right about this, but if you’re a target we can protect you. And the more information you can give us, the faster we’ll catch this lunatic, OK?’

Jeffries glanced at the drinks cabinet on the opposite wall, then at her empty glass, then back at Hawkins. ‘OK.’

For the following thirty minutes, Hawkins and Yasir took notes on Emilia Jeffries’ explanation of events leading up to the threat on her life.

Three months before, she had performed one of her earliest psychic readings for a woman named Karin. During the session, Jeffries had picked up negativity surrounding Karin’s partner, Curtis, who, her subject admitted, had recently attacked her, leading Jeffries to suggest that she curtail the relationship.

Afterwards, as she showed her client out, Jeffries had opened the door to find a man standing on her porch. Karin hadn’t introduced them, but her timid reaction and the short, pseudo-polite conversation between the three of them suggested that he was Curtis, and that he’d followed his partner without her knowledge.

Jeffries had no idea whether the woman had acted on her advice but, a week later, she’d received a telephone call late in the evening. A muffled voice had said:
You should have kept your pious mouth shut, bitch. But you didn’t, did you? So now you’re going to die.

As she finished writing the sentence in her notebook, Hawkins felt a sense of hope for the first time in days. OK, so this whole thing was circumstantial, and Jeffries knew only Karin and Curtis’ first names and that they were from the Newington area, but the links were there: the psychic connection and a recent history of violence.

Plus, Hawkins reminded herself, instinct had already taken them within millimetres of stopping the killer.

Trust your gut.

Headlights arced lazily across the hedges to his left, two brilliant searchlights among the columns of precipitation beginning to drift silently from sky to ground. He aligned himself with the largest tree trunk as the Bentley limousine swept past.

Every property in this road had tall, manicured foliage separating one immodest resident from the next, but he’d selected this particular grove because its owner had been especially liberal with their festive decoration. The lights surrounding him were insufficiently radiant to make him visible among the trees, but their glow would engage the eye of any onlooker, obscuring the figure hidden in the darkness behind. And, of course, this vantage point had another critical attribute.

Its view.

He’d been there since before the first police cars had arrived, to observe his prey and gauge her disposition in the run-up to their pending encounter. And his patience was rewarded.

Thirty yards away, the front door of the house opened. And there she was, leaving the house flanked by two uniformed police officers, her frame bent gracefully against the rain.

The woman he’d once loved.

The group distributed themselves among the assembled cars, exiting the drive in sequence.

As her car reversed to a halt before accelerating away, he caught a glimpse of her through the window. His final victim’s expression was suitably reverent.

She knew their paths were destined to cross.