[Alicia Friend 01.0] His First His Second Page 5

  “Weapons,” Murphy said. “They invested in every weapons manufacturer they could. Plus middle-eastern construction, which has boomed in Dubai and Qatar and other areas. But the point is—”

  “That they’re rich beyond most people’s wildest dreams,” Alicia finished.

  “Right. Anyway, Henry’s wife, Paula, died of a stroke in the nineties; his brother and sister-in-law died in a vehicle collision in 2009; the only survivor of the crash was his niece, Tanya. She moved in with Henry and Henry’s son, James, and they all lived together happily until James’s twenty-first birthday party.” Murphy paused to allow chuckles from Ball and Cleaver to peter out. “Eighteen months ago, in the middle of the party held on the grounds of York racecourse … she was surrounded by society folk … star of the show … and she disappears. No witnesses saw her leave. No blood, clothing, no sign of a struggle. Nothing.”

  Alicia was deep in thought, and when she spoke it was as if she’d forgotten about that perky nonsense she seemed to enjoy so much. “When did they find her body?”

  Ball said, “They didn’t.”

  A second of thought later, Alicia’s blue eyes twinkled wide and bright. “Details, please.” Her internal mini-computer appeared to be whirring.

  Murphy said, “Thirty-eight members of the well-to-do community attended a sit-down dinner after a private race-meet, which Tanya had organised for her cousin, to be followed by dancing and variety acts. At approximately six p.m., after the dinner, Tanya took herself away from the marquee ‘for some air.’ She never returned, and hasn’t been heard from again.”

  Alicia stared at the file.

  Cleaver said, “There are a number of background statements that suggest she was a runaway, but the main suspect was her boyfriend.”

  “But maybe not,” Ball said.

  “They’re not sure he existed,” Murphy said. “Some of her friends thought she was in love with some guy and planned on running away with him. Others—including her uncle—said she’d been getting help from someone to get into the university she wanted.”

  Alicia stared some more. No indication she heard anything.

  Ball said, “We had a CID civvie follow it up this month with the key witnesses—her guardian, best mate Hillary, her drinking pals, cousin James.”

  “Did they get hold of James?” Cleaver asked.

  “No,” Murphy said. “He wasn’t available and DCI Streeter didn’t want us spending resources on tracking him down. Not without more evidence.”

  Ball continued, “Tanya’s parents died just as she was entering her teens, got her mitts on her parents’ cash aged eighteen and went off the rails. Never really got back on. Tattoos, drunken holidays, more men than the posh-nobs considered ‘proper’, that sort of thing.”

  “So,” Murphy said, “she was written off as a runaway. A few things didn’t add up though. One, her bank account hasn’t been touched since she paid for the party. Two, all her friends were at the party, barring the elusive boyfriend who, like Ball said, may or may not exist. Three, according to her cousin, James Windsor, she was starting to calm down a little, and this party was her way of saying sorry to Uncle Henry, proving she could be a society lady like her mum.”

  Cleaver tapped the file. “Trouble is, the investigating officer ignored or missed that the party might have been the last purchase chronologically, but sixteen days earlier she paid deposits for two tickets to Goa in India.”

  Alicia looked up. “No body?”

  “No body,” Murphy said.

  “Disappeared in a public place?”

  “Very public.”

  “And she was popular, wild … beautiful?”

  Murphy paused, showed Alicia a head-and-shoulders of Tanya Windsor.

  Alicia said, “This girl is fairly plain.”

  Which was true: Tanya was far from what Ball and Cleaver might term “pig-ugly”, but did not come close, in material terms, to the beauty of Pippa, Hayley or Katie.

  Murphy said, “That’s the main reason we discounted her. She isn’t special. Not as pretty, not a particularly nice girl, and the real clincher—that absence body. It’s only the circumstances of her disappearance that rang a bell, and so long ago … it’s hard to justify a comparison.” He gave her a beat to speak but she was still processing. “What does your computer say?”

  Alicia stood up straight, craned her neck to meet Murphy’s gaze, and broke into a smile. She picked up the file and held it up like a trophy. “Gentlemen, I do believe we have our killer.”

  Alicia stood with the file aloft for far too long. Murphy could tell Ball and Cleaver were trying to come up with something to undermine her but she caught them unawares. They expected her to agree with them, to mock Murphy as they had. The girl, Tanya Windsor, did not fit the profile of the missing girls.

  “It’s perfect,” Alicia said, finally lowering the file. “Perfect fit. My god, if I’d known about this earlier we’d be focussing on it now. Coats off. Your naps can wait.”

  With a grumble or two, Ball and Cleaver did not put their coats back on the stand but leaned on a table, arms folded again, eyes glazed.

  “It’s perfect,” Alicia said.

  Ball sniffed. “You said that already.”

  “Right.”

  Murphy said, “Perhaps we should start this in the morning.”

  “No,” Alicia said. “Listen to this. It’s what we call a ‘trigger’. An event that sets off his psychosis. Our guy gets fixated by this Tanya girl. He loves her, loves her so completely he thinks it’s destiny.”

  Cleaver interrupted, “You can’t tell that from a file.”

  She rapped him on the head with said file and told him, “I’m formulating a hypothesis based on events. My conclusion will make sense. God, when you two get the hump you make Murphy look like a ray of sunniest sunshine.” Back to business: “Okay, so he’s fixated with her. Loves her. But she doesn’t want him. So he lures her outside—”

  “Or waits for her,” Murphy said.

  “Probably lures. It’s a skill of his. He lures her outside, and takes her. Holds her, explains they’ll be together. This boyfriend chap—we’ll get into him tomorrow—maybe they can’t be together because of her uncle … whatever, this obsessed someone kidnaps her, realises they will never be true lovers—”

  “This ‘trigger’ you mentioned. Rejection.”

  “Right. He was always psychotic, probably hurt people before, animals, that sort of thing, but the rejection spurs him on to new heights … kills Tanya rather than lose her.”

  The men watched her, waiting; Murphy for validation of his own theory, Ball and Cleaver so they could go home at long last. When she started up again she was more fluid.

  “He kills her, hides the body and no one finds it. For eighteen months, he’s wracked with guilt, misses his fantasy lover, misses the woman he believed her to be. And he looks for a replacement. Maybe it’s not eighteen months. What if these are the only ones we’ve detected? Whatever. It’s a long time. He sees people who look like Tanya, the slim frame, the dark hair, the fiery personality—because she might not have been acceptable to the crowd she belongs to, but she’s a forceful woman, which appeals to a particular type of man. So he watches. He finds someone who has the hair, the body, an upgrade in the looks department. He gets to know her—her habits, her personality. Donny, you said these girls are special in more than looks, right?”

  Ball and Cleaver smirked at the “Donny” crack, but Murphy just said, “Right.”

  “Nice girls, who know their own minds. Tanya doesn’t only fit the profile, she is the profile. A template. Don’t you see? He’s stealing women who look like an idealised version of Tanya. And he won’t stop until he finds the perfect replacement. And what, gentlemen, is the perfect replacement?”

  Ball and Cleaver shrugged, and Ball said, “Why don’t you tell us so we can get to the pub before last orders?”

  “Nuh-uh. No one goes home until someone answers my question.”


  Murphy said, “The perfect replacement is one he can subdue, and who will love him back.”

  “Correctamundo! And you know what else?”

  “What?”

  “If I’m correct, not only is there a body out there to find, but the killer’s name…” She tapped the file once each on Ball’s and Cleaver’s heads. “Is in these pages. He knew her personally.”

  Ball and Cleaver perked up for the first time in ten minutes. Together they said, “Shit,” in a good way.

  “Damn right, shit,” Alicia said. “We need to speak to the senior officer on this case, get as much out of him as we can. Think we can dig him up?”

  Cleaver nodded. “I’ll pull some of the civvies off the parolees. We’ll be on it first thing tomorrow.”

  Finally, Alicia released the sergeants from her thrall, insisting they head out for a pint. Once the pair left, she said to Murphy, “Not a bad day’s work after all.”

  “No,” he said. “Go on home. I’ll shut the computers down here.”

  “Ooh, green as well as grumpy.”

  With that last dig of the night, Alicia left Murphy alone in the incident room, with nothing but the whir of the motherboards’ fans for company. He was spot-on after all. He didn’t relish telling Rhapshaw that the case would need to be reopened, that the dirty laundry of his pal Henry Windsor was about to be rummaged through before airing it throughout the station.

  This time it wouldn’t be suppressed.

  He was going to dig out the things the Windsors didn’t want the police to see, and he would use those things to find Katie Hague. And, damn it, whilst turning off the last of the computers, Murphy couldn’t help but smile. He checked his watch. Eleven-thirty. Damn.

  He was twenty quid down.

  Chapter Six

  It was dark. Always dark. Pitch black, except when the man came to feed her or allow her to relieve herself. Katie Hague had hours ago stopped trying to communicate with the other girl. “Please talk to me,” she said, over and over. “He’s not around, he can’t hear you.” But of course there was no way to be sure. He could be listening through the wall, watching on some monitor, masturbating himself raw or whatever perversion brought Katie to this place.

  The man kept her like a pet, not responding to questions or showing any sort of emotion, whilst looking at the other girl with his eyes soft, his tongue touching his lips, as if constantly restraining himself from ripping off her clothes; it was as if she was his lover, and Katie was his dog.

  Sat in the same chair, she had been fed pasta and fruit for several days, and she drank flavoured water. The stranger helped her urinate and defecate in the sort of bedpan you see in museums. All with her hands tied behind her back. It was either constantly dark, like now, or the man turned on the spotlight. Sometimes he turned on the other girl’s too, but the other girl never spoke or even tried to. She just stared at Katie.

  The scariest place she visited before this place was Tanzania in Africa, when she was only ten. It was the summer holidays in England and her mum was volunteering at a school project after completing a TEFL course—Teaching English as a Foreign Language—whilst Katie’s dad mostly looked after her. He took her on safari so often it got a bit boring. Things picked up, though, when they trekked to the lowest camp on Kilimanjaro. Another young kid and his parents stayed overnight too, listening to the monkeys whose screeches and hoots sounded so close she was glad her dad was nearby.

  But on the way back down, in the Land Rover driven by a local guide, they stopped at a checkpoint; an unofficial one run out of a lonely roadside house by three male villagers. The guide yelled at them and they yelled back and arms were waved along with the rubbing of thumbs and fingers, the universal indicator for “money”. When someone produced a machete, Katie’s dad disembarked the vehicle, Katie clawing at him to come back, come back, don’t get hurt … but the other parents simply held their boy, as if cuddles would protect him.

  Katie’s dad persuaded the guides to translate and they all moved around the back of the Land Rover, opened the boot, and took out all the rucksacks. Katie’s dad, the guide, and the makeshift guards carried their bags inside the house. Nothing happened for five or six minutes. Then Katie’s dad emerged with the rucksacks and the guide in tow. No guards accompanied them.

  The rucksacks went back in the Land Rover and Katie’s dad returned to his seat and was nearly crushed by Katie’s hugs. The other father asked what happened. “Nothing much,” said Katie’s dad as the driver got back in. “Talked him out of it, right Ndeme?”

  The driver turned, his face still a mask of shock, probably from the confrontation. “That’s right, sir,” he said, “talked ’em outta it.”

  The driver fired up the engine and gunned it back toward Moshi Town, not speaking another word. All the way back, Katie thought of nothing except how great her dad was, how he was so brave, and that he could do practically anything. He even tipped the driver a wad of dollars at the end, shooting him a wink as they departed. Whatever he said to the guards to let them have their luggage back must have been pretty special.

  Now, an opening door clanged through the … what was this? Dungeon? Cellar? Prison? Whatever it was, the door sounded, and the familiar footsteps fell on what were almost certainly stone stairs. They padded closer and the man’s hand caressed Katie’s shoulder. She instinctively pulled away, her shoulder filling with pain.

  Two—or was it three?—days in the same position will do that to a limb.

  The man in the dark said, “Katie, I want you to trust me a moment.”

  Through her gag, she replied, “Uh-huh.”

  “Relax. I won’t hurt you. Just do as you’re told.”

  She nodded, realised it was pitch black, and said, “Uh-huh,” again.

  She felt his hands on her wrists, heard the key click in the cuffs. He released her hands. Her shoulders sighed with relief, although her legs were still bound by rope. Then he untied the gag.

  “Please let me go,” she said, strangely embarrassed by her words.

  He did not reply.

  “I won’t tell, I promise I won’t.”

  All she heard was metal clattering on stone, clanking back on itself. A chain.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Close your eyes please, Katie,” the man said.

  “Why?”

  The spotlight crashed to life. Katie cried out, but the illusion of pain cleared as the dancing colourful spots dissipated to nothing. She saw that the other light was also on. The girl was still tied up.

  The chain grew louder, closer. Katie’s throat was hot and tight. She felt for her inhaler. Still in her lap, where the man left it. Her shoulders ached, locked up, so she lifted the inhaler to her mouth, arm bending only at the elbow, and breathed it in. Her throat opened and her lungs filled with air.

  Then the man stepped into the light, striking her again how he was less ugly than she originally imagined: clean-shaven, a pleasant smile. But something in his eyes—or something missing from them—took away anything gentle about him.

  But he’d shown his face. More than once. She could never forget it.

  “I like your spirit,” he said. “You haven’t freaked out. A little pleading which disappointed me, but other than that I’m impressed.”

  Katie bowed her head and said, “Thank you.”

  “Don’t patronise me, Katie, it’s rude. The last girl to do that ended up in a lake. Well, one of them did. The other is sitting right over there.” He pointed to the girl, the dark-haired captive. “You…” He raised his face to the spotlight, eyes closed. “You will please me tomorrow.”

  Katie knew what this meant, or thought she did: the “R” word. She’d seen his face. She was going to die unless she did something about it. One chance.

  She glanced at the other captive.

  Can’t save her, Katie thought, only myself. Come back for her later.

  With all her strength, biting through the ache in her shoulder, she swung an elb
ow aimed squarely at the man’s groin.

  Pain flared. The blow faltered in mid-arc, never met its target. She could stand but not pull away from the chair. With a simple shove, the man made Katie sit down. She whimpered as her bum hit the chair.

  “Your joints are locked up from being in the same position so long,” he said. “But stretch, move around. You should be okay by daybreak.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “That, Katie, is entirely up to you.” He bent down in front of her, eye to eye, his breath sweet and warm. “You do as instructed, and you might—emphasis on might—get out alive.”

  What if she hit him over the head? Knocked him out? Maybe, ordinarily.

  “How?” she said. “How can I get out alive? Tell me what I have to do.”

  She found herself sobbing. That pissed her off. She shouldn’t cry in front of him. She wouldn’t cry in front him.

  Although it hurt like hell, she wiped the tears. She pushed it all down, the fear, the confusion, and let it boil, deep inside her. And as this man pulled the chain across the floor in a hail of noise, as he knelt before her and took one foot and attached it to the chain via a medieval-looking manacle, as he smiled up at her and said, “That’ll do it,” she processed her fear, her loathing, and let it bake into hot, writhing anger.

  The man then freed her legs so she could stand, walk as far as the chain would allow. He sauntered over to the other girl, practically gliding, his casual gait somehow grotesque. He freed her hands and feet, removed the gag.

  For the first time, Katie noticed a tattoo on the other girl’s arm: a tiger, so full of colour, so bright, prowling from her shoulder to her bicep. She was free now, with no restrictions, able to stand if she chose, to roam uninhibited. The man stroked her hair, though the girl remained expressionless.

  “This, Katie, will be a demonstration in obedience. Her name is Rachel. She patronised me some time ago, pretended she loved me the way I love her. But now she no longer pretends.” He returned to Katie, touched her face. “You are both so beautiful. I know Rachel loves me, and I know you hate me.”