The Night Stalker (7 page)

T
o Erika’s surprise
, Marsh took her to a frozen yoghurt bar down the road from Lewisham Row station. It had just opened a few days before and it was busy.

‘I promised Marcie I would try this place out,’ said Marsh, as they joined the queue in the garish neon pink-and-yellow interior.

‘Is this to cheer me up? Or are you demonstrating that police budgets aren’t all about austerity?’ asked Erika.

‘My office is at the top of the building. I needed to cool off,’ he said. They reached a young girl in front of a humming yoghurt dispenser and Marsh ordered them each a large. They were handed a paper cup of yoghurt each and moved along to a self-service bar with an array of small dishes containing sweets, fruit and chocolate. Erika watched Marsh as he seriously contemplated the selection and then opted for Gummi Bears. She suppressed a grin, and chose fresh fruit.

‘So, how are you settling in to your new flat?’ asked Marsh once they had found a spot amongst the busy chatter, perched on high stools by a large picture window. Traffic crawled past as the heat shimmered off the melting tarmac. Across the street commuters poured out of the train station.

‘I’ve been there for six months. It’s quiet, which I like,’ replied Erika, spooning the cold yoghurt into her mouth.

‘You’re not thinking of buying in London?’ asked Marsh.

‘I don’t know. I’m starting to feel settled here, and in the job, but prices are crazy. Even a shit-hole round here costs a few hundred grand.’

‘You’re throwing your money away renting, and prices are only going to keep rising, Erika. If you’re going to do it, do it soon. You’ve got your old place up in Manchester, chuck out your tenants and sell it. Get yourself on the property ladder down here.’

‘Are you doling out real estate advice too now, sir?’ grinned Erika.

Marsh didn’t laugh. He shovelled in another spoonful of yoghurt. The multi-coloured Gummi Bears in the cup glistened in the sunlight.

‘I want you to steer clear of Gary Wilmslow,’ he said, abruptly changing the subject.

Erika was surprised. ‘You were there in the incident room, sir. I’m not going to go after him until I have enough evidence.’

‘I’m telling you not to go after him. At all. He is off-limits.’ Marsh tilted his head down and looked at her over the top of his sunglasses.

‘Can I ask why, sir?’

‘No. As your senior officer, I’m telling you.’

‘You know this kind of thing doesn’t work with me. Keep me in the dark and I’ll find the light switch.’

Marsh took another big spoon of yoghurt and rolled it around his mouth for a moment before swallowing. He took off his shades and placed them on the table.

‘Jesus Christ. Okay. Have you heard of Operation Hemslow?’

’No.’

‘Operation Hemslow is focusing on known funders and distributors of child pornography. Gary Wilmslow is heavily involved in a paedophile porn ring, and we’re talking on a big scale: digital distribution through websites, and to a lesser extent the manufacture of DVDs. We’ve had our eye on him for the past eight months, but he’s a slippery bastard. He’s been under round-the-clock surveillance for the past five weeks.’

‘And you need him out in the world, doing his business, so you can catch him doing his business?’

‘Exactly.’

‘But Peter, the nephew! He’s living under the same roof!’

‘It’s okay. We’re pretty sure Wilmslow isn’t involved in the procuring of kids directly for the videos.’

‘You’re
pretty sure
?’

‘We’re confident.’

‘Jesus,’ said Erika, pushing her yoghurt away.

‘I’m trusting you here, Erika. I’m giving you my confidence.’

‘Okay, okay. But can’t we get Peter out of there, and Penny too?’

‘You know how seriously we take the safeguarding risks in these cases, but we don’t have enough concrete evidence yet to give us grounds to take Peter into care. As I said, we’ve got Gary under round-the-clock surveillance. We’ll know if he takes the kid.’

‘So, because he is under surveillance, you know Gary Wilmslow didn’t kill Gregory Munro?’

’Yeah. His alibi checks out. He was home all night.’

‘And you’re sure that Gregory Munro’s murder is nothing to do with Gary Wilmslow, or Operation Hemslow?’

‘Absolutely. We didn’t even have Gregory Munro on our radar. Now, I expect you to find a way to lead your team in a different direction. If it were my case, I would go down the gay bashing route. Offload it onto one of the Murder Investigation Teams who specialise in sexually motivated murders.’

‘I don’t know that Gregory Munro’s murder
was
sexually motivated. Right now all we’ve got is circumstantial evidence.’

‘But it’s circumstantial evidence there for the taking, Erika. Of course, it’s your call, but you could do yourself a favour and offload it.’

‘Haven’t they got enough to deal with, sir?’

‘Haven’t we all?’ he said, scraping the last of his yoghurt from the pot.

‘This puts me back to square one,’ said Erika, sitting in gloomy silence for a moment. She watched people stream past the glass window, happy in the summer sun.

‘There’s also a superintendent vacancy coming up,’ said Marsh, swallowing.

Erika turned to him. ‘I hope, if you haven’t already done so, sir, that you’ll be putting me forward. I’ve been a DCI rank long enough now and I deserve—’

‘Hang on, hang on, you don’t know where it is,’ said Marsh.

‘I don’t care where it is.’

‘You just said you were starting to feel settled!’

‘I am, but I feel I’ve been overlooked lately. There was a superintendent post last year, it came and went, and you didn’t…’

‘I didn’t think you were ready.’

‘And what gives you the right to make that decision, Paul?’ snapped Erika.

Marsh’s eyebrows popped up above his sunglasses. ‘Erika, you had only just returned to service after sustaining injuries resulting in major surgery, not to mention the trauma of…’

‘I’d also successfully apprehended a killer of four and I handed the Met, on a plate, the leader of a gang of Romanians trafficking Eastern European women to England to work as prostitutes!’

‘Erika, no one has your back more than me, but you need to learn to be tactical. To progress in the force you not only need to be a great copper, you need a bit of political nous. It wouldn’t hurt to work on your relationship with Assistant Commissioner Oakley.’

‘My track record should be enough, and I haven’t got the time or inclination to go on some arse-kissing offensive with top brass.’

‘It’s not about going on an arse-kissing offensive. You just have to be more… user-friendly.’

‘So, where is it, the superintendent position?’

‘Here in the Met, based in New Scotland Yard, working in the Specialist Casework Investigation Team.’

‘You’ll put me forward, yes?’ insisted Erika.

‘Yeah.’

Erika gave him a look.

‘I mean it, I will put you forward,’ repeated Marsh.

‘Thank you. So, even more of a reason for me to steer clear of Gary Wilmslow?’

‘Yes,’ Marsh said, tapping his spoon in the empty pot. ‘Although, for selfish reasons I’d hate to lose you.’

‘I’m sure you’ll get over it,’ said Erika with a wry grin.

Marsh’s phone rang, deep in one of his pockets, and he wiped his mouth and pulled it out. When he answered, it quickly became apparent that it was his wife, Marcie.

‘Shit,’ he said, when he came off the phone. ‘I didn’t see the time. Tonight is date night. Marcie’s mum has got the kids.’

‘Sure, say hi to Marcie. I’ve got to be somewhere too,’ Erika lied.

‘Let’s touch base tomorrow,’ Marsh said. He left, and Erika watched as he came out onto the pavement and hailed a passing taxi. He got in and was already engrossed in his phone as the taxi pulled away.

Everywhere Erika looked people were enjoying the sunshine, walking in pairs, friends or couples. She took a big spoonful of yoghurt and sat back for a moment. She wondered if Marsh had played her, or if the promise of a promotion had been genuine. She thought of the Gregory Munro case, and how she was back to square one.

‘Shit!’ she said, loudly.

A couple of young girls sitting next to her in the window looked at each other and, picking up their frozen yoghurt, moved tables.

T
here was a pause
. A bubble popped up, saying ‘DUKE typing…’ Then it vanished.

D
arkness was falling
as Erika stepped out of the shower. She wrapped herself in a towel and padded barefoot through to the bedroom, flicking on the light. She’d rented a small ground-floor flat in what was an old manor house in Forest Hill. It was tucked back from the main road on a leafy street. She’d been in the flat for six months, but it was still bare, as if she’d just moved in. The bedroom was clean but spartan.

Erika went to a chest of drawers and looked at her reflection in the gilt-framed mirror propped on top. The face staring back at her didn’t exactly inspire confidence. Her short blonde hair stuck up in tufts and was shot through with grey. As a younger woman, she had never worried about her looks. She’d been blessed with an attractive Slavic face: high cheekbones, smooth skin and almond-shaped green eyes. But those same eyes were beginning to crease at the corners, her forehead bore too many lines and her face was beginning to sag.

She looked at a framed photo sitting by the mirror. A handsome, dark-haired man grinned back at her – her late husband Mark. His death was something she felt she would never get over, and this, coupled with the guilt that she was responsible for it, put a skewer through her heart many times each day. What she hadn’t expected was how she would feel about ageing. It was as if they were moving even further apart in her mind. The image of him was frozen in her memories, in pictures. As the years passed, she would morph into an old lady, yet Mark would always be young and good-looking.

A few days ago, when she was driving to work, she’d heard the song ‘Forever Young’ by Alphaville on the radio. She’d had to pull the car over to try and gain control of her emotions.

Erika ran her fingers over the frame for a moment, tracing the outline of Mark’s strong jaw, his nose and his warm brown eyes. She picked the picture up, feeling the weight of the frame in her hand. Opening the top drawer, she stared at her neatly folded underwear, and, lifting the first pile of garments, she went to tuck the framed photo underneath. She hesitated, and pulled her hand back. Closing the drawer, she placed the frame back on the polished wood surface.

In a couple of weeks it would be two years since Mark’s death. A tear formed in her eye and then fell onto the wood with a soft pat. She wasn’t ready to let him go. She dreaded the day she would be.

Erika wiped her face with the back of her hand and walked through to the living room. It was like the bedroom: neat and functional. A sofa and coffee table both faced a small television. A bookshelf lined the wall to the left of the patio windows and provided a dumping ground for takeaway leaflets, telephone directories and a paperback of
Fifty Shades of Grey
left by the previous tenant. Copies of the case files on Gary Wilmslow and Gregory Munro were open on the sofa, and the screen of Erika’s laptop glowed on the coffee table. The more she read about Gary Wilmslow, the more frustrated she felt. Peterson was right: Gary had a strong motive to kill Gregory Munro, and now she’d been told not to go near him.

Erika grabbed her cigarettes and opened the patio door. The moon shone on the small communal garden outside: a neat square of grass, with the silhouette of an apple tree at the bottom. The neighbours were busy professionals like her and kept themselves to themselves. She pulled a cigarette from the pack and craned her head upwards, to see if any lights were on in the windows above. The brickwork stretched up four storeys and radiated heat back onto her face. As she lit her cigarette, she hesitated, noticing the large white box strapped to the building with ‘HOMESTEAD SECURITY’ stamped on it in red letters.

Something sparked in the back of Erika’s mind. She hurried back indoors. Clamping her cigarette between her teeth, she grabbed the file on Gregory Munro and started to flick through, passing witness statements, photos. The phone rang and she answered, clamping it under her chin so she could continue looking through the file.

‘Hello Erika, it’s me,’ said Isaac.

‘Yeah?’ said Erika, her mind more on the case file than the phone call. ‘Have you got more on the Gregory Munro murder?’

‘No. This isn’t a work call. I just wanted to apologise for the other night…I should have told you that Stephen would be there at dinner. I know I’d invited you, and you thought…’

‘Isaac, what you do with your life is up to you,’ said Erika, her mind only half on the conversation as she rifled through pictures of the rooms in Gregory Munro’s house. Close-ups of the kitchen, the ready meal on the work surface… She
knew
she’d seen something in a photo, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

‘Yes, but I’d like to make it up to you,’ said Isaac. ‘Would you like to come over for dinner on Thursday?’

Erika turned the page and stopped, staring at the photo.

‘Are you still there?’ asked Isaac.

‘Yes… And yes, dinner would be great. I have to go,’ she said, and before Isaac had the chance to reply, she hung up. Then she hurried to her bedroom and started to get dressed.