God, my memory had not done his nose justice, it was a truly great nose.
He swiftly removed himself from my grip and ushered me to sign in at the front desk, got me a visitor pass, and then gestured for me to take the lift.
It was still lurking in the forefront of my cerebrum that Chlo had told me Nico’s aunt had also been a victim of the TellTale Killer, but I was hoping this might work to my advantage. Or it might rather explosively backfire. There was a 50:50 chance I feel.
‘You’re lucky my boss isn’t working today,’ he mumbled as the steel lift doors clunked shut behind us.
I glanced at my phone. For the moment, at least, my note hadn’t set the media into screeching like seagulls over a cold Cornish chip. Still, I pictured the journalists barely two miles away, cueing up television segments and polishing the bad-taste headlines, poised to publish the instant Jago said ‘go’. I wondered if, when they saw the heart, their eyes wouldn’t roll with horror but with pound signs, complete with a cheerful cha-ching.
‘You’re doing something with the TellTale Killer, aren’t you?’ he asked, as if he was hearing my own internal monologue.
‘What, no,’ I said beginning to feign disbelief but then I was too tired to protest anymore. ‘How did you guess?’ I replied within the same breath, a little frustrated that I had come across as so transparent. No wonder Detective Carlota had seen right through me.
‘Just a wild stab in the dark: I know you’re fascinated by serial killers, the Telltale Killer pops up again, and, purely by chance, you suddenly need footage from two years ago? You’ll forgive me if I don’t buy that as a coincidence,’ he said with this kind of smugness I seemed to get a lot from men.
Nico may have been strangely accommodating to the random girl who had just rocked up at his office, but he sure as shit wasn’t dumb.
‘I know that you probably think I’m nuttier than a fruitcake, right?’ I remarked as I glanced at his eyes. He definitely thought I was crazy, but maybe he was also a little intrigued by my whole shtick. He gave a light huff as a response and placed his hands firmly in his pockets, leaning his back against the walls of the lift as we continued to ascend the floors.
‘No, not crazy. But it’s just, if the police haven’t been able to catch the person responsible for killing my aunt, I don’t know see how you can. I’ve spent so much time trying to work out what happened and always found next to nothing. Curds, but no cream. Don’t take it personally if I don’t rate your chances.’
Curds but no cream? That was a funny expression. Kind of liked it, though, it was almost familiar.
But no, I didn’t take it personally as that meant that Nico was still holding on to some slight assumption that I was at least a tiny bit normal.
He led me through various hallways of TFL, adorned with a weird, fuzzy felt carpet in bright, ostentatious colours. I wondered if any of the employees ever had a bad day at work and then decided to delay the Jubilee line just for the hell of it. I could see that Nico was doing his best not to make eye contact or small talk with his colleagues as he guided me into what looked like a small control room. There were multiple workstations arranged in a semi-circle around a large wall-mounted display, showing what I presumed to be multiple live feeds of the various Underground lines. Comforting to know TFL was run on the same vibe as a mid-tier call centre. There was only one other person there, but he seemed too absorbed in what he was doing on his own computer to notice our entrance.
‘So, what are you looking for?’ Nico asked as he slumped down in an ergonomic office chair and began working at one of the computers. Pressing a key, his screen suddenly mirrored ontothe huge monitor that seemed to take up half the wall in front of us.
Nico didn’t offer me a seat, which I’d usually count as a mark against him, but I was so full of adrenaline I wasn’t sure I could sit down right now.
I told him the date and time and politely asked him to display all the camera feeds at Ravenscourt Park on the night that Lewis Khan died in October 2024. What had Greta found? The dates seemingly had no connection to the victims’ deaths. What was she trying to tell me?
Nico grunted affirmatively and then quickly tapped a few buttons, and within moments, four streams of CCTV footage from different angles of the station’s exterior appeared on the screen. He gradually began speeding them up as I did my best to keep track of the various car number plates whizzing judderingly past the camera.
‘So, is there a particular type of car you want me to try and find?’ Nico asked after a few minutes of scanning the footage to no avail. I had tried my best to stay focused and alert on the various number plates the camera had picked up, but it was immensely difficult with multiple streams of traffic shooting across each screen simultaneously.
‘I’m looking for a number plate, final digits MDK, but it’s hard to try and track all the cars going past,’ I said, glancing down at Greta’s note again and making sure I had the right number plate corresponding to the right victim.
Lewis Khan – KV70 MDK – 11/11/2023
‘Oh, I wish you said that earlier,’ Nico said with a smirk as he quickly typed something on his computer. As if by magic, there, at 19.03, the exact number plate fitted on a Mercedes Benz electric delivery van. It was an understatement to say that those were pretty commonplace throughout the UK, even more so in London. Everyone needed their vegetable choppers.
‘How on earth did you do that?’ I asked, flabbergasted. I just hope the masses of security cameras didn’t capture the 2022incident where I got so hammered that I tried to start a fight with Gandhi’s statue in Parliament Square. I thought it had looked at me funny.
‘Trust me, it’s actually more comfortingnotto know,’ Nico remarked.
I tried to peer at the windscreen, make out who it may have reassembled through the pixels, but all I could see was a vague, shadowy figure in a high-vis vest in the driver’s seat. There must have been some way to differentiate this van, other than its number plate, from the thousands that went through London alone every single day. ‘Can you zoom in?’ I asked.
Nico tapped another key on the screen and the grainy footage enlarged a little before us. I walked closer to the big screen to try and spot any defining characteristics. It was tiny but I noticed two small, albeit quite deep scratches on the left-hand side of the vehicle just by the back left wheel.
‘Okay, now can you go to Goldhawk Road on the 21October 2024?’ I asked. ‘DF69 HMH.’
I knew Maggie Dawes’ disappearance had occurred somewhere between 19.00 and 20.00, and I had asked Nico to begin the footage at 18.00. He searched for the number plate and there it was at 18.21. The words could not leave my mouth fast enough as I saw it – the same van again and I could see the two distinctive scratch marks clearly despite carrying a new number plate.
It matched up exactly to Greta’s note. The same number plate on the same van on the night Maggie Dawes died.
‘Okay, thank you, now can you go to Philbeach Gardens on 16November?’ I requested. ‘Final digits, CBV.’
