A chill creeps over her body and she breaks out in goosebumps. She feels as if she’s in a nightmare and is trying to wake up. This can’t be happening. She thinks of little Toby and her heart breaks all over again.
And then she glances down at Louise’s bare feet and horror washes over her as she notices something on her ankle. It can’t be …
She bends down for a closer look. But there’s no mistaking it. On Louise’s ankle there is a crude marking of an insect’s head.
32
I’m hoping to get out early for once. I need to see my father and check on how he’s coping, as we have finally persuaded him that it’s best for my mother – as well as himself – that she goes into a nursing home. I’m just packing up my stuff and turning off my computer when Saunders bursts into the office without knocking.
I open my mouth to give him a piece of my mind but stop when I notice the look on his face, the mixture of excitement and horror I’ve come to recognize when he thinks we have a lead on a case that seems unsolvable.
‘A call has just come in. It looks like there’s been another victim. The praying-mantis murderer’s struck again.’
I stare at him in shock. I realize my mouth is hanging open and I close it. It’s been over a year now since Trisha Banks was killed and, despite our best efforts, we’ve never been able to pin down Martin Butterworth for the crimes, even though he remains our prime suspect and we’ve been watching him like hawks.
‘Where?’ I say, pulling on my coat.
‘Well, that’s the weird thing,’ he says. ‘It’s out of our jurisdiction. But we’ve been called in because of the similarity to past cases.’ He reels off an address. It’s going to take us three hours to get there, maybe more. And it’s already 6 p.m. But we have to go. There’s no doubt about that.
‘Come on, then,’ I say, already getting out my phone to call my sister to ask her to visit Dad instead, and to let my girlfriend, Kim, know I won’t be home for a few days.
It’s late by the time we reach the quiet, narrow street. We can tell straight away which house it is because of the hubbub outside. Police tape is stretched around the small front garden, and the uniformed officer who is guarding it lifts it up so we can get through. I’m already exhausted, and spending all that time in the car with Saunders has given me a headache but I try to push it aside as we walk down the steps and into the basement flat.
‘It’s through here, ma’am,’ says another officer. Plain clothes, bald with unusually red cheeks. He introduces himself as Detective Sergeant Shawn Watkins from the Metropolitan Police.
A woman is lying on the carpet in the front room. She’s youngish, mid-thirties at the most. Slim, around five foot two, with short dark hair.
‘How was she killed?’ I ask DS Watkins. I turn to see Saunders rushing from the room with a hand clamped over his mouth and frown. That’s unlike him. I turn my attention back to Watkins.
‘It looks like a blow to the head,’ he says. ‘So, not your usual MO of a stab wound. We wouldn’t have called you but then we noticed this …’ He points to the woman’s ankle. I crouch to get a better look. It appears to be a drawing of an insect’s head. But it isn’t the same as the others: this one isn’t carved but has been drawn on with what looks like biro.
This can’t be our guy. Yet whoever did this knows about the praying-mantis etchings and only the police have this information.
‘Excuse me, are you DI Janine Murray?’ Another officer is approaching me. Young with mousy brown hair and a freckled face.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m DC Anthony Haddock. I came as soon as I heard about this.’
My headache is getting worse as I try to make sense of what’s going on. ‘Okay?’
‘The victim is one of our own, ma’am.’
I look back at the woman on the floor. Her eyes are closed, her face is still, and if her body hadn’t been showing signs of rigor mortis she’d look like she was just sleeping. She is wearing a sweatshirt with a llama on the front. ‘She’s a police officer?’
He nods.
‘Right.’ My mind is racing, trying to piece together the puzzle. Did she know Martin Butterworth? Maybe she was the officer who put him away seventeen years ago for armed robbery. But, no, that can’t be it. She was around thirty-five. Which means she would have been too young. ‘What’s her name?’
‘DC Louise Greene, ma’am. And the thing is …’ DC Haddock hops from one foot to the other. ‘We’re still not sure of all the details but the woman who found her was DC Greene’s friend. The crime writer Emilia Ward.’
Part Two
33
Emilia Ward. I’ve read some of her books. I’ve always been impressed with how accurate the police procedural part of her stories is. Now I know why, given she was friends with a detective at the Metropolitan Police.
‘Where is Emilia now?’
DC Haddock pushes a lock of hair from his eyes. His face has a greasy sheen. ‘I’ve taken a statement and let her go home. She was in a bit of a state, as you can imagine.’
‘You let her drive home on her own? After she’d just found her friend dead?’ I shake my head at his insensitivity.
‘I offered her a lift but she said she was fine,’ he bleats.
Bloody useless. ‘She’s probably in shock.’
He glances down at his feet like a chastised schoolboy, which is what he resembles in his short-sleeved shirt with an ink stain on the pocket. I’m about to move away from him to talk to his superior when he asks me if he can have a word outside. I nod and follow him to the front garden. I immediately light a fag. I offer the packet to Haddock, and he takes one as we walk around to the back of the building, where it’s quieter.
‘So?’ I begin.
The light from an upstairs window reflects in his pupils. ‘The thing is, I’ve been in contact with Emilia these past few weeks because someone has been targeting her.’
I frown. ‘Targeting her?’
‘Mirroring the plotlines from her bestselling books to frighten her.’ I listen as he tells me about troll dolls found in trees, the broken neck of a ceramic seagull, missing daughters at concerts and hoax calls.
I exhale a plume of smoke that dissipates into the warm night air. ‘Right. What’s this got to do with DC Louise Greene?’
‘That I don’t know. But she told me DC Greene had left a message on her phone earlier today, asking to meet. I listened to the message. Louise sounded upset. Contrite and, well, guilty.’
‘You got all that from a voice message?’
‘Yes. You can listen to it too.’
I need to speak to Emilia Ward as soon as possible.
I stub out my cigarette against the brick wall. ‘Do you know what time Louise died?’
‘Not one hundred per cent yet. But Louise left the message for Emilia at three thirty p.m. Emilia found her at five eighteen p.m.’
So, quite a short window, which should make it easier for the police. ‘Does Emilia think that Louise’s death is also copied from one of her books?’ I think of the doodle on Louise’s ankle and how similar it is to the praying-mantis case I’ve been working on for years.