I let out a little breathy laugh, humour him. I really must work on perfecting different accents. Samantha wassogood at them, a born natural.
‘Oh, you know, a bit of business, here and there. A change of scenery is never a bad thing.’ I smile at him. ‘And it’s always nice to meet new people, don’t you think?’
‘I’ll drink to that, sister.’
After topping me up once again, he screws the lid back on the bourbon and props his elbows up onto the bar. He moves his face close to mine – too close for my general comfort, I can feel his breath against my cheek – but I don’t flinch.
‘So, lil sister, are you looking for a mister?’
His breath smells of bourbon with a punchy top note of gum disease. Like most men I meet, I find him repellent and am mistrustful of him, but I remind myself that I’m simply playing a game. I just have to think like Samantha would. I shrug my shoulders at him, smile a little coquettishly.
‘I’ll go wherever Cupid’s arrow takes me.’
He grins back at me, his gold teeth illuminated in the low orange light.
‘So, what else did Big Sandra say about me, then, eh?’
I glance around me. It’s gone midnight and the place has emptied out a bit now; only a few shady-looking suspects remain, lurking behind in the shadows of the dark corners. I prop my elbows up onto the bar against his, shuffle in close and look him straight in his small, dark eyes.
‘She said that you could get me a gun.’
SEVENTEEN
DAN
The file from West Yorkshire Police dates back to 2019, seven years earlier. A thirty-four-year-old local woman named Erin Santos was arrested for murder. The victim was a man named Bojan Radulovic, though Erin had insisted he was known to her as someone named Ari Hussain. My brow creases in confusion.What the hell is this?
According to one of the statements given during interview at the time – an interview that was conducted by a Detective Amanda Pritchard at Leeds Central Police Station – Erin claimed that Ari Hussain was her friend’s fiancé – and that friend’s name was – you guessed it –Samantha Valentine.
My stomach somersaults as I read.
… Santos claims that Samantha told her she was being abused by her fiancé, Ari Hussain, for many months… (Erin) has confessed to fatally stabbing Mr Radulovic, believing that her own life and the life of her friend, Samantha, were in immediate danger…
‘Good God…’ I whisper underneath my breath. ‘This is almost a duplicate script of our crime, Davis.’
‘What?’
She comes in closer, starts reading over my shoulder.
‘Tilly Ward’s statement, and this Erin Santos’s – it’s practically identical, Lucy. Both women say they were protecting someone called Samantha Valentine, and both say they believed that she was being abused by her partner before they ended up killing him in self-defence…’
My mind is glitching like a faulty radio. The same name, the same crime, practically. Itcan’tbe coincidence. These crimes happened six years apart, in two different cities, perpetrated by two different women who, at first glance at least, appear to be unconnected to each other. An icy chill suddenly runs right through me. What are we dealing with here? Is this Samantha Valentine some kind of a Svengali figure who befriends people and then coerces them intomurder? Isthather MO? If it is, thenit makes her an extremely dangerous individual indeed.
‘It says here,’ Davis’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts, ‘that Erin has a history of mental health issues and spent time on a psych ward at a place called Ashdown Hospital, a couple of years prior to her arrest…’
She hands the file back to me.
‘… No trace of anyone named Samantha Valentine officially in existence…’ I read the police report aloud. ‘She isnotregistered at the address of the crime, there arenowitnesses… nothing to link Erin to anyone with that name,nophotos,nosocial media…’
I glance up at Davis again.
‘Get a warrant for all the social media companies – request information on any active, inactive and deleted accounts for anyone named Samantha Valentine in the past decade.’ I nod at DS Baylis. This could go way back, years even. Con artists, if that’s what we’re dealing with, in whatever form they may come, always leave a trail of victims in their path. You don’t just wakeup one morning and decide to diddle someone out of their life savings or coerce them into murder. From what I know, most con artists start honing their skills from an early age.
‘Check for any connections between Erin Santos and Tilly Ward, anything that could possibly link them together. We need to rule that out straight off the bat.’ I nod at Mitchell. ‘And cross-reference any victims of coercion and con crimes where someone may have used a similar MO…’
I’ve not worked on many – strike that,any– cases before where someone is suspected of coercing another into killing for them. It’s unusual to say the least. The only example that springs to mind is Charles Manson, the 60s cult leader who brainwashed his followers – usually very young, vulnerable women – into committing grizzly murders in an attempt to start a race war. Though he was eventually imprisoned for first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, he never actually dirtied his hands by killing anyone personally. A coward no less, as well as a psychopath.
I turn to Baylis.
