[Alicia Friend 01.0] His First His Second Read online

  She said, “But something happens. Either Tanya changes her mind or he does. It gets unpleasant and…” Her computer crashed. This made no sense. If university was her plan, why change it to run? “Did she mention running away to Hillary?”

  “She told Hillary she’d soon be free of her uncle,” Ball said. “She’d miss her cousin though.”

  “That could have referred to her university plan. Of course she’d miss little Jimmy.”

  “Wonder why Wellington never got this far,” Murphy said.

  “He did,” Cleaver said. “Hillary went to him one night, but made him promise not to put it in the file unless it became relevant. She told him everything she’d missed out from when she thought Tanya was still alive.”

  Wellington knew. Wow.

  Alicia asked, “How did she react when you told her Tanya was only killed today?”

  “We didn’t,” Cleaver said. “I thought we were waiting for confirmation.”

  Good. Alicia wanted to make time to see Hillary’s reaction herself. As well as Henry Windsor, she planned on volunteering to break the news to Hillary too. As soon as the positive ID came in.

  Murphy told Ball and Cleaver their leads were solid, gave them the pats on their backs they apparently needed, and Alicia passed them the warrant and said they should take a locksmith to the emporium in case they couldn’t get hold of Doyle himself. When they were gone, Murphy finished his Murphy’s but Alicia left her drink. The drive back home to Wakefield beckoned. Before that, though, she had one stop to make, the one she had been dreading since before the press conference.

  The lights were still on in Richard Hague’s house. Alicia could see him moving around inside. She was aware of the alcohol in her system. Also that she shouldn’t really be driving. Only a smidge over the limit, but still. Without the family liaison officer present, she felt compelled to keep him up to date, to do so herself.

  In person.

  Just as she felt compelled to inform Tanya’s next of kin once forensics gave her the go-ahead.

  In the street, she hugged her suit jacket around her. She should dig her coat out of the boot, but it was bulky and made her look even younger, like a girl trying on mummy’s clothes. She rang the bell.

  Mr. Hague’s silhouette bloomed in the frosted glass before the door opened. He wore a fresh-smelling t-shirt and corduroy beige trousers, Snoopy slippers and a wedding ring that Alicia was sure wasn’t there last night.

  “What is it?” he said. “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing,” Alicia replied quickly. “We’ve heard nothing more. May I come in?”

  He nervously led the way to his living room, sat her on the couch and muted the telly. Adverts were playing but he’d been watching the National Geographic channel.

  “Tea?” he said.

  “Please.”

  He went to the kitchen and Alicia heard the tap run and the kettle begin to boil. On the coffee table, a framed photo of Katie faced the most recently-vacated chair.

  She should have known better than to assume a body’s ID. Especially one as badly treated as this one. If he hadn’t been so brave, so desperate to see the body, Mr. Hague would have been grieving for twelve hours instead of the thirty minutes to the morgue.

  “Here you go.”

  The tea steamed in a Tom and Jerry mug, Tom being smacked in the face with a teapot strapped to a mallet. Mr. Hague sat beside her, stress wrinkling his face, expectant.

  “I meant it, Mr. Hague, it isn’t bad news. There’s no news.”

  He relaxed slightly. “Okay. Then … don’t get me wrong, but why are you here?”

  Alicia was glad for the mug in her hands. She was as nervous as at the press conference. “I wanted to apologise again, Mr. Hague—”

  “Okay, before we go on, I need you to stop apologising. I’m not going to sue, and I don’t hold you responsible. I’m her father, and even I didn’t recognise her.”

  Alicia sipped her tea. It tasted funny. Probably the two whiskeys. “Mr. Hague—”

  “And call me Richard. After what we’ve both been through today I think we’re on first name terms.”

  “Both? You thought your daughter was dead.”

  “And you got screwed on national telly.”

  Her cheeks warmed. “I wanted to curl into a ball and bounce right on out of there.”

  “Off that guy’s face, you mean. He made you out to be a right numpty.” He placed his hand on Alicia’s shoulder, held her eye, deadpan serious. “If you want me to, I’ll kill him for you.”

  She gave a little laugh, unsure how much mirth was polite. She must’ve looked like a beetroot with blonde hair.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Richard said. “They’re trying to label you a bimbo or something. But I know you aren’t.”

  “Thanks.” Alicia removed Richard’s hand from her shoulder, holding it a moment, his skin somehow tough and soft at the same time.

  They both sat back, allowed the soft couch to plump up around them. It was nice, nicer than Alicia’s. They weren’t physically tiring, days like these, but it had started at seven this morning and finished after eight p.m. Although it was never really finished. At any minute, she could be on her way to examine another dead girl with dark hair.

  Alicia said, “There should be more people on this.”

  “The press release didn’t mention Katie.”

  “We decided going public would endanger her. We can’t hide the killings, not when they’re so similar, but we can postpone the full announcement. Which presents a vicious circle; unless we go public we can’t increase the payroll.”

  “Politics.”

  “And money.”

  Richard shook his head, lips tight, about to speak, but thought better of it. “Can you talk to me about leads, how you’re going about it?”

  She shouldn’t, but after what she’d put Richard through she figured it’d be okay. “The girl is Tanya Windsor. Not confirmed, meaning we haven’t told her guardian yet, so keep it under your hat.”

  He lifted an imaginary hat and replaced it.

  It made Alicia smile. “She’s been missing for over eighteen months.”

  Richard frowned. “He’s held her all that time?”

  “Sure. Which bodes well for Katie.” She felt cheap saying this, pouncing on the spindly thread of hope that was only just repairing itself. “She was blonde when she was taken, during a society event, but she’d been gone so long she was back to brown.” She revealed sparse details about the tiger tattoo, emphasising the idea that there may be a break tonight.

  “Doyle’s?” Richard said. “Sounds awful.”

  He carried his and Alicia’s empty mugs through to the kitchen, ran a tap, and returned with two glasses of water.

  “How’d you know I needed water?” Alicia asked.

  “Salesman’s hunch,” he said. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  “We have to go see Tanya’s uncle, give him the bad news.”

  “He’s a suspect?”

  “No. His alibi’s airtight. Locked up, key thrown. Son too. In fact, all her acquaintances are in the clear.” She decided to omit the prospect of the lover. “I still think the killer knew Tanya personally. Not necessarily the other girls, but definitely Tanya.”

  “And if it does come out, the full story?”

  “Unless we control the flow, it’ll skip and jump and be all-singing, all-dancing circus. Motivate the guy to show off, make mistakes, take more girls, or…”

  “It’s okay, you can say it: or he’ll panic, kill Katie, and disappear.”

  “Yes. If he’s angry, playing out a fantasy, he’ll panic, kill, then hide until he can’t control himself. If he’s a control freak, he’ll carry on. I think he’s the latter.”

  Alicia watched the framed picture. From where Richard sat now, its back was to him. She moved it so it faced the couch.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why I keep that there. Looking at me while I watch telly.�
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  “What were you watching?”

  “You won’t believe this, but something about tigers.”

  “Really?”

  “I noticed it was on as I was hopping about.”

  Alicia giggled. She had an image of him bouncing on one foot, remote control flailing.

  “The telly.” He prodded her, playfully. “It reminded me, that’s all.”

  “Well it’s our best lead so far.”

  They watched the silent TV. Monkeys yelled nothing at each other, swung from branch to branch, taunting a bigger ape, the ape ignoring them as they buzzed about him. Eventually, the big one’s patience wore thin and he swatted a smaller one, and the pack legged it back into the trees.

  “So how are you?” Alicia asked. “Really, Richard, how are you? Most folk have a friend or something around at times like this. Family.”

  “I have no family,” Richard said, “and all Katie’s friends are together. They call me, but they don’t want to be here. As far as they’re concerned, she vanished and they don’t know where she is. I told them she’d probably run away with some guy, that clothes and condoms were missing.”

  Alicia’s turn to prod back. “You know they’ll report back to whatshisname. Katie’s boyfriend.”

  “Brian,” Richard said. “I know. I’m evil.”

  She liked that he had a sense of humour even now. A gallows humour admittedly, but it meant he was not cracking under the strain. Not yet.

  “But I’m okay,” he said. “Really. I even spoke to Brian. Briefly. Figured I could be civil to him, at least for a while.”

  “When he and Katie are sat around the table, in full meeting-the-parents mode?”

  “I’ll be extremely evil to him.” He made a “snip-snip” gesture with his fingers. “You went through all that I take it?”

  “It’s easier for boys. Bring a pretty girl home and bam, your dad’s the proudest alive.”

  “Bet you made a few fathers proud of their sons in your time.”

  Alicia couldn’t remember not smiling since she arrived here tonight. Now it seemed to widen. “You smoothie.”

  “Nah. Just honest. You’ve got what my mother would have called a button nose.”

  “I always wondered about that phrase.”

  “As in ‘cute as a button.’ It brings out the eyes somehow, makes them seem wider without making you look like a frog. And blue eyes and blonde hair … it’s a winner.”

  “Oh, stop it, you.”

  Oh, stop it, you.

  She may as well have slapped his hand and giggled. Things were verging on inappropriate. Well, “verging” might be the wrong word; “plummeting toward” inappropriate was more like it.

  She said, “You’ll have me believing you soon, and we can’t have that.”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  He shaved this morning, she noted, but the shadow was bristling through. When he smiled it was more obvious, fine lines moving the angles of tiny black hairs. She was closer to him than before. Did his position change without her realising? Or was it when he came back with the water? “I should go.”

  He said, “You don’t have to.”

  Alicia couldn’t read this any other way. When they first met, those initial blushes, the daft what-a-pretty-name non-chat-up line, the information and his body language all processed quickly, spontaneously. The computer was tired now, running low on batteries. Here was a full-blown come-on and she wasn’t sure she’d hold out much longer.

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  Her phone rang.

  Both sat up stiff and straight, and Alicia answered, “Yes. I mean, hello. DS Friend.”

  She listened weightlessly to Sergeant Ball describe the scene at Doyle’s Art Emporium. In the background, Cleaver spoke to Murphy on the corresponding call, and she tried to grasp exactly what was happening to this case. It was too much of a coincidence—a dead link in the chain when they were so close to a new avenue.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “You deserve some kip now, love. We’ll wake you if we need to move quickly.”

  Alicia thanked him and hung up. Still a tad dazed, she told Richard what had happened. With a final platonic pat of his arm, Alicia exited the property—“exited”; very professional—and made her way to the car, bipped the alarm off, and turned to watch Richard close the door to his empty home. The lights in the house turned off. The windows blackened. Then the garden lights also fell dark.

  Alicia returned behind the wheel and drove the hour back into Wakefield, fidgeting her legs to get comfortable all the way, hoping desperately that Roberta was still awake.

  Chapter Fifteen

  --What you doing here?

  --Why shouldn’t I be here? It’s my wife.

  --Alfie, you’re on leave. Let us investigate.

  --I’ve found something. On ViCAP. Might be worth getting Behavioural involved.

  --Okay, quick. If Turner catches you in work, you’re deader than mullets.

  --Stacy was killed with a goddamn knitting needle, right? Through the heart?

  --Single entry. By the looks of it, she disturbs a burglar and he takes the first thing to hand. NYPD are all over their snitches. Some street punk’ll blab. Plus our forensics. We’ll get him.

  --That’s just it. You won’t. See?

  --A list of unsolveds, Alfie. What are you seeing that I’m not?

  --It’s a pattern. Look. Portland, Pocatello, Jamestown, Minneapolis, Chicago, Springfield. He’s moving west to east. There’s more…

  --Who? Who’s moving west to east?

  --Him! The guy who killed Stacy. He’s a drifter or something. He’s killed people, more than one, in each state west of New York.

  --There are fifty fatal stabbings every day in L.A. Hell, there were probably ten in New York this afternoon.

  --But the way he does it. Perfect, direct, in and out. Dead.

  --Buddy, I honestly don’t see it. I’m sorry, you know I am. I liked Stacy, liked her a lot, and I want to catch this piece of crap so bad it hurts. But you gotta calm down. Stay at home. Say goodbye properly. We’ll find him. I promise.

  “Sir?”

  --There’s more to this. And I’ll prove it. This isn’t some kid jacked up on meth.

  “Sir?”

  --Go home, Alfie. We’ll talk later…

  “Sir!”

  Alfie woke with a limey stewardess shaking him.

  “Sir, we’re landing in a few minutes. You have to put on your seatbelt.”

  Alfie grumbled something even he didn’t catch, fastened the seatbelt, and tried to go back to sleep, but the pressure in his ears kicked in. It hurt, really hurt. Time spent in the air, chasing leads, chasing ghosts, landing in one state to liaise with an agent in charge about a specific case, changing it to something else, always the same thing. Sixteen years of the same thing: too much travel, too much flying, too much pressure.

  He shoved his thumbs in his ears, forcing the pressure out. Equalising by holding his nose and blowing only made it worse. It hurt like holy hell and he couldn’t wait to be down.

  --She lay there for two hours. Two hours!

  --I know.

  --He probably watched her. Saw the life pouring out of her eyes.

  --I doubt it, Alfie, he more than likely ran…

  --No. No, he didn’t run. He’s still out there. I will find him. And when I do—

  The plane touched down. Alfie’s ears felt full of slime and everything sounded tinny and distant. It would last around three hours.

  The airport was the size of Alfie’s bathroom and at this time in the morning it was close to empty. He collected his bag and headed for the Starbucks near the exit where he ordered a mocha and a muffin, and paid with dollars, much to the barista’s annoyance.

  Alfie missed the States already. The portions on the plane were for shit, and the shops in the airport lounge were closed. Thank God for Starbucks. They littered England as they did America, and although
he never drank in them back home, here they served as a security blanket—a taste of America in a pissy little country full of assholes.

  “Alfie Rhee?”

  Alfie turned to find a ginger-haired man of about fifty. Leather jacket, blue jeans. “Red McCall?”

  “The one and only.”

  They shook hands and Alfie gathered his things, leaving the overpriced mocha half-drunk.

  “And the van?” Alfie asked.

  “A’ course. Fitted out like you asked. Did a ton of improv work in the Royal Marines. One time in Bosnia, we needed a bar setting up pronto, so I stepped up. Had the best damn bar in that shitty place. Another time…”

  “What does this have to do with the van?”

  “Nothing.”

  They crossed the parking lot, wind like icy sandpaper in his eyes. At least it wasn’t raining. Alfie heard it rained a lot here.

  In McCall’s transit van, the Brit cranked the heat up full and Alfie asked if he could turn it down.

  “Sorry,” McCall said. “I’ve got poor circulation. My toes drop off if I get too cold.”

  “Pardon?” Alfie’s ears were still dull and echoing. “What?”

  “I said my toes might fall off.”

  “Thought you was in the army.”

  “Marines. Why do think I got booted out?”

  Alfie wound down the window a crack. Now his head froze while his body sweated. Plus he could hear even less. He decided it’d be better to sweat all over, and closed the window.

  “So you read about our little double murder,” McCall said. “You think it’s the guy you’ve been chasing?”

  “I can’t say too much at this stage.” Alfie sounded like an FBI agent again.

  He found Red McCall through a simple web search, and told him that he’d worked with the FBI before and was consulting on this case. Red thought he was some sort of crime guru. Alfie hadn’t lied exactly, but the truth was that even his P.I. license formally expired earlier this year.

  He said, “Get me the information you said you can and I’ll share everything with you.”

  “You have what I told you to bring?”

  “This van is kitted out exactly like I said, right? And you got the other item too?”