The Stranger You Know (Maeve Kerrigan Novels) Read online

She nodded, satisfied. “That’s what makes us concerned that this latest murder is the next in the series.”

  “But that detail was in the Standard. Everyone in London read it. It could be a copycat.”

  “What it said in the Standard was that he gouged out their eyes. Not true.”

  “Oh, really?” I didn’t know why I was surprised. Journalists rarely got stories absolutely right, especially given the Chinese-whispers effect of secret tip-offs.

  “He removes them with a knife. He does it quite carefully.”

  “Are they trophies? Does he take them away?”

  “No. He positions the bodies in a distinctive way, as you’re about to see. In all three cases, they’ve been found with one eye in each hand. If it was a copycat killer working off the Standard article, I think he’d have used his hands to remove the eyes, don’t you? Given that they used the word ‘gouge?’”

  “Right. Yes.” My stomach was flipping over and over.

  The bus accelerated through the lights in front of us, on the amber. Derwent would have gunned it through on red and ended up squatting on the intersection, causing traffic chaos. Una Burt stopped sedately, well behind the white line.

  “Charlie had mentioned to me that we might be involved, so I’ve already familiarized myself with the files. It helps to be prepared.”

  No kidding. It would be nice to know what that felt like. I was distracted by Charlie. And people thought I was the one who was over the side with Godley. Una Burt’s greatest asset, it turned out, was looking like the back of a bus. They couldn’t be having an affair. Godley wouldn’t. Would he?

  Burt was continuing, oblivious. “And of course we were fairly sure there would be a third. Just not so soon.”

  Three was the magic number. Three tipped us into serial-killer territory, with all the hysteria and hype that would bring to the media’s reports. And three was what it had taken for the Commissioner to become seriously agitated about the safety of London’s young women.

  “He’s bringing the SIOs to the new crime scene, after we’ve had a look at this girl, so we have as much information as we can share with them. We’re working with them, not taking over. At least, that’s the official line.”

  “They’re not going to be happy,” I predicted.

  “Would you be?” She glanced at me. “Didn’t think so.”

  I was following my own train of thought. “Is that why I’m involved? Because I’ve met Andy Bradbury before?”

  “Who’s he?” The question came immediately at machine-gun speed: DCI Burt didn’t like being uninformed.

  “He’s a DI. Just been promoted. He’s in charge of the Maxine Willoughby investigation.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “I met him a few months ago at a crime scene.” And I have absolutely no happy memories from that encounter.

  “Charlie wanted you to be involved because you have more in common with the victims than the rest of us do.”

  “Oh.” I looked out of the window, waiting for the sting of disappointment to fade. I was there because of what I was rather than who I was. All the old insecurities about making up the numbers came rushing back.

  “Don’t take it amiss. You have to know what’s normal to see what’s not.”

  “Fine, but you don’t have to be the same as a victim to know what was normal for them.”

  “It might help.” She looked across at me again, for longer. “You know, most people your age and rank would be pleased to be involved with an investigation such as this, especially at such an early stage.”

  “I am pleased.” It came out sullen and DCI Burt sighed.

  “I don’t give advice and I’m certainly not going to pretend to be a mentor to you. But you can waste a lot of time worrying about why you’re here, or you can use the time wisely. You should be asking me what we know about what happened last night at number eight, Carrington Road.”

  I managed to stop myself from squirming. A headmistress tone came easily to DCI Burt and it was far more effective than any of Derwent’s sarcasm. “That was my next question.”

  “I thought it might have been.” She had her notebook open on her lap but she didn’t even glance at it as she recited the facts. “The property is a self-contained two-bedroom ground-floor maisonette with its own front door and side access to the rear of the building. It’s owned by Anna Melville, aged twenty-nine, who lives there alone. She works in HR at a bank in the Square Mile. A neighbor heard a disturbance at her home last night at about ten thirty and thought about it for a couple of hours before he called it in as a possible burglary.”

  “You wouldn’t want to rush into anything,” I said.

  “Exactly. Much better to wait until there’s absolutely no chance of us catching anyone in the act. A response team was dispatched to the address and found it was secure—no lights on, no answer when they knocked at the door. They spoke to the neighbor and he said he hadn’t heard anything since he’d phoned, so they left. The lads on early turn picked up on it in the briefing and decided to check it out in daylight to make sure there was nothing amiss. I gather they’ve been getting hammered on domestic burglaries so it’s a high priority for them.”

  “That’ll be the recession. Burglary stats always go through the roof when people are skint.”

  Una Burt nodded. “The premises looked fine from the front, but the response officers were thorough. One of the PCs went around to the rear of the property and looked through the windows. Everything seemed to be in order until he reached the main bedroom. It was in a state of considerable disarray, and on the bed he could see what he thought was a body. And so it proved to be.”

  “Anna Melville?”

  “Yet to be confirmed but we’re working on that assumption.”

  “And she was laid out as the others had been?”

  “More or less. We’ll see when we get there.” She frowned to herself and I fell silent too, looking out of the window at the pedestrians who were making better time than us, seeing the young women walking on their own. They were heading to work, for the most part, striding in high heels or scuttling in flat shoes. It was cold, thanks to a stiff easterly wind that came straight off the North Sea, and their hair flew behind them like flags. What they wore and the way they wore it told me so much about them: the ones who dressed for themselves, but with care; the ones who wanted to be looked at; the ones who wanted to hide. What would I look for, if I was hunting? Who would I choose?

  Anne Melville had shared something with Maxine Willoughby and Kirsty Campbell, apart from the manner of their deaths. The killer had seen that something, and had known it, and had used it to destroy her. At the moment, he was a stranger to me, a black hole at the center of the picture. But if I could see what he had seen, I might know enough about him to find him. Una Burt was right. It was far better to be on the team than left out, no matter why I was there in the first place. Every case was another chance to prove I deserved to be there because I was good at what I did—and I was good, and I could do it. I sat up a little bit straighter. My hangover slunk away, defeated. I had better things to do than feel sorry for myself.

  Like answer my phone. It hummed in my bag and I dug for it, knowing I had six and a half rings before it cut to voicemail. Two … Three … It came out wrapped in an old receipt and I had to waste a second untangling it. Four … Beside me, DCI Burt’s voice was cold.

  “Who is that?”

  “DI Derwent.” Of course.

  “Don’t answer it.”

  I stopped with my thumb poised to accept the call, obedient to the tone of pure command without having the least idea why she’d forbidden it. The ringer cut off and I waited for the beep of a new voicemail. I wasn’t actually all that keen to listen to it. A disappointed Derwent was an angry Derwent, and an angry Derwent was even less charming than the usual kind.

  “Why can’t I speak to him?”

  “Because it’s not a good idea.”

  Which wasn’t actually an
answer. “Okay, but he’ll be livid. He’ll be wondering where I am, for starters.”

  “He doesn’t own you.” The road ahead was suddenly, miraculously clear—one of those freak moments in heavy traffic when the lights all go your way and no one else does. We were actually making some progress toward the crime scene.

  “Of course he doesn’t.” He thinks he does, though … “Is he meeting us at the house? Or—”

  “DI Derwent will not be involved in this investigation.”

  I stared at her profile. “But he was asking about it yesterday. He was insistent.”

  “He will not be involved in this investigation,” she repeated, and I didn’t know her well enough to be able to tell if she was pleased.

  I listened to half of the voicemail before I deleted it: Derwent, ranting about my absence from the office when there was work to be done on the Olesugwe case. It was certain to be the first of many messages. I couldn’t imagine why Derwent was shut out, but I knew it was going to be bad news for me.

  Chapter Six

  When we arrived at the crime scene Godley was standing outside, a still point in the organized mayhem, impossibly glamorous as the low autumn sunlight struck a silver gleam off his hair. The SOCOs were at work already, sealing off the property, and the superintendent was watching from a safe distance. Something about him suggested he was impatient to get into the house, and that he had that impatience under control, but only barely. I felt the same pull myself. There was nothing like seeing a body as the killer had left it, in the place where the victim died. Photographs didn’t do the job. Every sense had to be engaged, I had learned. Where a normal person would shy away we leaned in, absorbing every detail. To understand what had happened, you had to allow yourself to relive it, and I was keen to get it over with in Anna Melville’s case. I had known what it was like to be afraid for my life, but I had always been lucky, so far. Anna Melville’s luck had very definitely run out.

  The house wasn’t the only focus for the SOCOs’ attentions. They had identified her car. It would be taken away for detailed examination, in case she had given the killer a lift, or in case he had opened the door for her, or in case he had so much as leaned against it while they spoke. Like her home it would be ripped apart. There was so much mud to pan for one tiny fleck of DNA gold that could incriminate a killer. Technology meant we needed less and less to prove our cases, but that made it harder on the technicians who had to search for evidence that was literally invisible. There was still a place for good old-fashioned police work to narrow the focus to one person, one man with a dark heart, one killer. Jurors treated forensic evidence with reverence, but more often than not we were the ones who had put the defendant in the dock, and the forensics were just part of the picture.

  All of which made me sound like any other copper, I thought. It was a commonplace to complain about not being appreciated, across all ranks, in all branches of the service, across all the different forces. It wasn’t a job to do if you liked being praised or if you wanted to earn a lot of money. It was a job to choose if you couldn’t see the value in doing anything else. It was a fundamental part of what made me who I was: without it, I wouldn’t know myself.

  And the reason why I put up with the terrible hours and disappointing pay and sometimes miserable working conditions was staring out of the windows on either side of the road. The neighbors were starting to realize what had happened, staring at the news come to life in their very own street. Later some of them—the more sensitive ones—would think about the fact that a murderer had walked past their doors not long before, on his way to kill. Somehow it was worse to think about him leaving after he had finished, dragging his slaked desire behind him. It made me shiver and I didn’t have to sleep on Carrington Road. It wasn’t my home that had been defiled.

  DCI Burt parked the car, humming under her breath. Godley heard the engine and turned to glance in our direction. I saw his eyebrows twitch together in a frown, but I couldn’t tell why.

  I let her walk across to him on her own as I took a detour to drop my coffee cup in a bin. The wind stung my face and I huddled inside my coat, dropping my chin down to hide behind my collar. Carrington Street was lined with maple trees, which were shedding their leaves as if foliage was going out of fashion. The gutters were clogged and the air had that vinous smell of decay that I associated with autumn. A mordant technician in wellies and a boiler suit was working his way along the road, raking through the piles of leaves, filmed by the handful of news cameras that had made it to the latest crime scene. Someone had tipped them off that it was a murder but so far, judging by the questions they were shouting at me, they didn’t know there was anything to connect it to the other deaths. And they wouldn’t find out from me. I turned to walk back to the house and my bag vibrated against my hip.

  Shit.

  I don’t know why I looked at the screen because I knew who it was going to be, and why. The ringing was somehow more insistent, the vibration stronger, because it was Derwent on the other end of the line, hating me for making him call back. I simply didn’t dare answer it when DCI Burt had specifically told me not to. I looked up and saw she was watching me, as was Godley. I made it very clear that I was rejecting the call, dropping the phone back into my bag with a flourish so they couldn’t miss what I had done. The part of me that rebelled against authority and hated working in a hierarchical organization was outraged that I was obeying orders blindly, without being offered any explanation as to why it was necessary.

  If it had been pissing off anyone other than Josh Derwent, I might even have said so.

  “I spoke to the uniforms. They’ll be around later if you want to ask them anything,” Godley said. “We shouldn’t have too long to wait now.”

  On cue Kev Cox appeared at his elbow, a small balding man with a pot belly his boiler suit did nothing to hide and a sweet nature that survived routine exposure to the worst things people could do to one another.

  “Two more minutes, folks. Thanks for the patience. You might like to get ready.”

  “Gloves and shoe covers?” Godley checked.

  “Suits too, please. Got to be careful here.” Kev knew as well as any of us that there would be ferocious interest in Anna Melville’s murder. No one wanted to get it wrong.

  “Glenn’s just been in touch. He’s stuck in traffic, but he’s on his way.” Godley set off toward the house. Over his shoulder, he threw, “Keep it in mind, you two. He won’t want anyone to touch the body before he sees it.”

  I wouldn’t have dreamed of it. I went out of my way to avoid it, usually. The loose, yielding feel of dead flesh, especially through rubber gloves, was developing into a phobia. Never a great cook, I had abandoned cooking meat altogether since I’d started working on murders. The raw-meat aisle at the supermarket was the stuff of nightmares, even if it was sanitized in cling-film.

  They had set up a tent in front of the door and it functioned as an airlock between the real world and the crime scene. I hurried to get dressed in the protective gear Kev had specified. Beside me, Godley was doing the same. Burt had been about to get changed when her phone rang and she stepped back out to answer it. I wondered if Derwent had started calling her instead. Then I wondered what she didn’t want to say in front of me. Then I decided that was pure paranoia, and self-absorbed to boot.

  “Where’s Harry Maitland?”

  “Coordinating the house-to-house. I’ve got plenty of uniformed officers at my disposal to cover the area but I want them asking the right questions. Maitland’s putting the fear of God in them for me.”

  I found myself hiding a smile at the unconscious pun. Godley was nicknamed “God” in the Met not just for his name but also because of his looks and his perfect, untouchable record. It wasn’t something he encouraged, and it was used mainly by people who hadn’t worked with him. There was nothing grand about the way he did his job—nothing showy—and he had time for the youngest, the least experienced, sometimes the least promising officers h
e encountered. In turn, he got undying respect and dedication, and very often results no one else would have. And yet he was as dirty as they came. The thought wiped the smile off my face, and when I looked up Godley was watching me. I had the uncomfortable feeling that he knew exactly what I had been thinking.

  “Do you want to wait for DCI Burt?” I asked.

  “She knows where we’re going.” Courteously he held the door open for me, letting me walk into the flat first, and I scanned the hall as I passed through it, starting to form an opinion of Anna Melville from the things she had chosen to keep around her. The hall was painted a faded green and a collection of twelve vintage mirrors hung on one wall, spaced out exactly in rows of four. The floor was polished wood and the cream runner that lay on it was pristine. It wasn’t even rumpled. I looked for—and found—the shoe rack by the door. No one was allowed across the threshold without taking their shoes off. If she had let him in, the killer had been in his socks or barefoot, so we wouldn’t get shoe treads or soil fragments to match against an eventual suspect. The rack was neatly arranged with shoes that were predominantly pretty rather than functional—delicate, spindly high heels on everyday court shoes, embellished ballet flats for casual wear. Even her wellies were pale pink with silver stars. A girly girl.

  “No blood,” I observed to Godley, who nodded. He moved past me into the sitting room.

  “Let’s start in here. Una will be in soon.”

  The room wasn’t large but the furniture was expensive. The gray velvet upholstery on the two-seater sofa and armchair looked as if no one had ever sat on it. There was a fireplace, with candles sitting in the grate, and the alcoves on either side of the chimneybreast were shelved. They were filled with vases and ornaments rather than the books or DVDs that might have told us something about her personality. The fact that there weren’t any books or discs made me think she worked long hours and didn’t have time for entertainment. The giant gray wicker heart above the sofa made me suspect she was a romantic. The armfuls of cushions arranged on the sofa itself were impossibly feminine and dainty; I couldn’t imagine a man sitting there to watch television. And on another wall, there was a framed poster: the word “Beauty” in elaborate writing. Pin your colors to the mast, I thought. If that’s what matters to you, why not frame it? And what harm was there in any of it? Still, something made me feel I wouldn’t have got on with Miss Melville. The array of photographs on the shelves gave me one reason.