“Investigation that was not authorized,” Harwood interrupted.
“Further investigation has revealed a number of potential victims,” Helen continued. “I have always believed that Pippa’s killer had the potential to be a serial offender, and the evidence now points that way.”
“Evidence?” Harwood queried witheringly.
“Roisin Murphy and Isobel Lansley. Two young women with the same look, the same profile, who’ve been missing for over a year and who text and tweetat the same times of day and the same locationsas Ruby and formerly Pippa. The geography doesn’t make sense—the New Forest, then Southampton city center, then Brighton, then Hastings—their movements are so random and unlikely that the only explanation is that someone is deliberately trying to throw the young women’s families off the scent. Furthermore, what are the odds that four unconnected girls would be traveling around in the same seemingly random pattern?”
“So you want to go back to the beach?” Fisher interrupted decisively.
“Yes. That’s the only deposition site we know of, and serial murderers are creatures of habit. It’s a discreet, out-of-the-way location, which regularly washes away surface evidence, footprints and so on. It’s perfect for his purposes and he’d be a fool not to use it again.”
“He? You keep referring to ‘he.’ Who is he? You sound like you know him.”
“We don’t have anything concrete so far—”
“But still you want us to close a public beach, exhaust ourresources digging up great swaths of it and create an unholy storm of public concern and negative publicity in the process. All because of your gut instinct.”
“Because of the pattern of his offending. There is almost zero chance he won’t have attempted to abduct more victims in between Pippa and Ruby—and Roisin and Isobel fit the bill perfectly.”
“We need more time, Stephen,” Harwood countered, now turning to her superior. “Let’s investigate the circumstances of the girls’ disappearance and then see—”
“It’s already been done,” Helen returned aggressively. “Roisin had a one-year-old baby when she went missing. She tweeted saying she couldn’t handle being a mum anymore and it’s true shehadstruggled at times, but her family is totally convinced that she would never have willingly abandoned her baby boy. They’ve spent the last two years searching for her. They’ve used the police, missing persons, local charities. They even hired a private detective—none of the ‘leads’ provided by her tweeting check out. She simply hasn’t been seen anywhere since she went missingover two years ago.”
“Even so, the investigations of a local family are no substitute for proper police work,” Harwood fired back. “Let us pursue this line of investigation in a measured, methodical way and see if any of these ‘hunches’ bear fruit. Rushing headlong into a major search operation only risks making us look very foolish indeed.”
Both women had finished now. Fisher regarded them, weighing up his options. Harwood had been his appointment and it had worked out well for him. Which was why Helen was surprised when he said:
“You’ve got one day on the beach, Helen. Make the most of it.”
67
The girl in Boots shoved his purchases into a plastic bag and took his cash without once looking up. While he’d been walking round the shop, he felt a sudden pulse of fear—would people look askance at a guy with a basket full of makeup? The local paper was still going to town on the Pippa Briers story, urging its readers to keep their eyes peeled for any suspicious activity that might lead them to her killer. They’d even gone as far as publishing a detailed offender “profile,” describing his likely race, background, body language and psychology. It was all rubbish, of course, but some of their lucky guesses had made him uneasy. So he’d prepared a detailed cover story—even slipping a scratched old ring onto his fourth finger to make him look like a solid husband and father—but in the event these precautions had proved utterly unnecessary. Like most young people, the shop girlwas only interested in herself—lazily picking up her smartphone the minute she had finished serving him.
The sight of the girl checking her messages reminded him of an important task he had overlooked. Usually he would have caught a train or bus somewhere before work—he’d had Bournemouth in mind this time—to carry out a swift round of texting and tweeting before returning to Southampton on the same train. It was a good way to throw people off the scent, without taking too much time out of his working day.
But having made a detour to Boots on an extended lunch break, he wouldn’t have time for that today. So seeking out a quiet spot on the Common, he began to send the customary messages. In days gone by he’d enjoyed this guilty pleasure—climbing inside these girls’ identities and speaking for them—but yet again he felt tense doing it. He was taking a risk tweeting so near his place of work, no question about it, and it robbed the little routine of its pleasure.
Funny how life keeps kicking you when yr already on the floor. Gettin used to it,he tweeted from Roisin’s phone. He was always careful to factor in the misspellings and abbreviations that these girls were so fond of. Roisin had always been a bit of a Jeremiah, would think herself into dark holes, so it was definitely in character for her to be bleating about life’s unfairness. He added a few more cynical thoughts, sent a couple of texts, then turned her phone off and slipped it back in his bag.
The sound of conversation made him look up. Two mums were jabbering loudly as they pushed their strollers along. Startled, he slunk back deeper into the undergrowth. He waited until they were long gone before pulling Ruby’s phone from his bag. He did the necessaries, but his mood failed to lift. He couldn’t escape the feeling that significant things were happening—things over which he hadno control. Previously he had kept these girls alive safe in the knowledge that no one was even aware they were dead. He had reveled in this freedom and total lack of suspicion. But the discovery of Pippa Briers’s body had changed everything. Now a major murder investigation was under way, led by DI Helen Grace. For the first time in his short life, he now understood what it felt like to be hunted.
68
The two women were virtually eyeball to eyeball, neither backing down. Sanderson didn’t normally do all-out assault, but she was too enraged to back down. DC Lucas clearly felt the same, snarling at Sanderson to “get back in her box.”
Sanderson could happily have swung for her colleague. It had beenheridea to put the mobile phone companies on alert for any sign of the missing girls’ phone signals, and now that this plan had paid off, she was buggered if she was going to stand aside and let DC Lucas run with it. The mobile signals had briefly sprung into life, somewhere on or near Southampton Common, and the smart thing to do was to get down there as fast as possible, to canvass witnesses, source CCTV footage, search for any signs of their killer.
“DS Fortune specifically left me in charge,” Lucas was saying.“If anything significant came up while he was at the beach, I was to handle it.”
Sanderson was about to come back at her, but DC Lucas was not finished yet.
“And every minute you spend arguing with me reduces the chances of us bagging this guy and bringing Ruby home safe and well. Do you understand, DC Sanderson?”
Lucas had enunciated the syllables of Sanderson’s name deliberately slowly—to underline her point. The eyes of the rest of the team were on her now and there was no way she could continue the fight, without looking irresponsible. With bad grace, she backed down and returned to her desk.
Ever since the investigation had widened to include Roisin Murphy and Isobel Lansley, Sanderson had been busy compiling dossiers on both women, climbing inside their lives to test Helen’s theory about their abduction. She had made good progress, but she flicked through the pages listlessly now, still fizzing with anger over her confrontation with Lucas. She had never liked the humorless fast-tracker whose ambition was so ill-concealed, but now she was growing to loathe her. This sort of conflict was unnecessary and counterproductive. It risked turning the team against one another, which could only hamper the investigation. It was outrageous of Lucas to accuse her of risking lives, whenshewas the one whose ego could prove costly.
Sanderson returned to the task in hand, wrenching her mind away from crucifying Lucas to the important police work in front of her. She mustn’t compromise her own work through anger or bitterness—that wouldn’t be fair to Ruby or Pippa. So she continued to leaf through the files, diligently comparing the life of Roisin—a single mother of Anglo-Irish extraction who lived off benefits in asmall flat in Brokenford—with that of Isobel Lansley, a student at Southampton University about whom they knew almost nothing. She had few friends, little money, no jobs or hobbies. All they did know about her was that she lived in a one-bed flat in—
