A Tapping at My Door: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller (The DS Nathan Cody Series) (23 page)

‘No. That’s not all. I hate to say this, Cody, but I think you owe me one.’

Cody shakes his head. ‘I don’t owe you anything.’

‘Is that right? If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be on this case. You wouldn’t even still be a copper.’

Cody feels the anger bubbling up. He has always known this would come back to haunt him, that it would be used against him at some point. He just hates the fact that now is that time.

‘You’re saying I should be grateful to you, is that it?’

‘Yes, Cody, yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. I could have ended your career with a couple of paragraphs. I chose not to. I chose to help you keep your job. I think that’s worth something, don’t you?’

‘You chose to help me? As I recall, the only reason you got off my back was because your boss told you to.’

Dobson nods thoughtfully. ‘Yeah, I still don’t know what happened there. Strange the way Ed Kingsley suddenly got cold feet. Maybe I’ll get to the bottom of that one day.’

‘Maybe it’s just that he has a heart capable of being changed. Believe it or not, some people are like that. They’re willing to listen to other points of view and act when they realise they’re doing a bad thing. You should take a leaf out of his book.’

‘I wasn’t doing a bad thing. I was following up a story. A fascinating story. About a cop, and how he ended up in a really bad situation, and how it affected him afterwards. Still affects him, in fact.’

Cody knows it’s pointless asserting that he is no longer affected by his past. Not after the way he almost choked the life out of Dobby’s colleague. But at the same time, he feels annoyed that anyone should think they have the right to make capital out of his life.

‘You know nothing about me,’ he says. ‘You don’t know what I went through, or what it did to me. You don’t really care, either. All you care about is your story.’

‘Actually, I have a very good idea of what you went through. I know about trauma. I know how it devastates lives.’

‘Really? How? What big traumas have you had in your life then?’

‘I didn’t say that I—’

‘Exactly. So you’re talking out of your arse. You know nothing.’

‘You forget what I do for a living. I’m a reporter. I’m in constant touch with people who have been destroyed by what has happened to them. I’ve . . . I’ve seen things.’

There is something in the way he says that.
I’ve seen things
. He is saying not only that he has witnessed them, but also that he has experienced them in some way. Some of this devastation he talks about has brushed against him too.

It crosses Cody’s mind to ask about it, but something in Dobson’s eyes tells him that too much has been revealed already.

There are things there. Unattractive thoughts hidden behind his unattractive features. Cody is not sure he wants to delve further.

‘Then why don’t you just go and write your articles about them?’

‘Maybe I did,’ says Dobson. He pauses for a second, as if reliving a dark history, then snaps back into the present. ‘And maybe that’s why I didn’t pursue your story as much as I could have. I saw what you were, what you are. I know you’re a good copper, a decent guy trying to do a decent job. You do what’s right. Maybe I was trying to do what’s right, too.’

Cody leans back, feeling a little surprised. Nice speech, he thinks. He lets the surrounding chatter wash over him as he looks at this pathetic spectacle of a reporter in front of him, cradling his beer glass, the blank spaces in his unfinished crossword glaring their stark challenge at him.

‘Justice,’ says Cody.

Dobby blinks at him. ‘What?’

‘Eighteen across: “Mere cold water will put things right”. The answer’s “justice”. Which is kind of what this should all be about, don’t you think? Not what’s best for you, or for me, but what’s best for the victims.’

He gets up from his chair, pushes his hands into his pockets. ‘See you around, Dobson.’

Dobson lifts eyes that look suddenly old and wearied by time. ‘Is that a goodbye, or an
au revoir
?’

‘It means that you’re starting to act like something better than a bloodsucking parasite. Keep it up, and I might just be willing to have a drink with you next time.’

He turns and leaves then. He doesn’t check Dobson’s expression again. Doesn’t want to know if he’s just seen a touch of humanity beneath the repellent exterior, or if he’s been duped. He’d prefer to believe the former.

That’s the glass-half-full kind of guy he is.

At least for now.

29

He waits. And stares.

It should be a simple job. Nothing to get all worked up about. A car vandalised by kids. One copper should be all they send out on a job like this.

But they won’t. He knows they won’t. And it’s driving him crazy. They’re too bloody careful now.

They nearly nabbed him earlier on tonight. He was too cocky. After his earlier successes he had started to think this was easy. Make up a trivial crime, call it in, and when some unsuspecting bizzy turns up to check it out, that’s when he strikes. A simple and effective by-the-numbers approach.

Only he underestimated the police. Put enough of their single-celled brains together and there’s actually sufficient intelligence there to make them realise they need to start being a bit more circumspect.

He should have got wind of it earlier, but didn’t. When he made the first call, his story was that he’d seen someone digging up vegetables on one of the allotments near Sefton Park. The switchboard operator asked him a million questions about how he had discovered the crime, what his name and address were, what the suspect looked like and so on. Far more questions than he expected. He gave them nothing, of course. Told them he didn’t want to get involved, but that he just thought they should know.

Then he hid, and waited.

Looking back now, he realises how stupid that was. All that questioning should have acted as a hint as to what was to come.

It was a great hiding place, though. Some dense bushes behind one of the sheds. Easy to jump out on one unsuspecting cop.

Except it wasn’t one cop, was it? Not a pair either. It was three of the bastards! Three police officers, just to investigate the digging up of a few lousy potatoes. Took them ages to turn up, too. Almost two hours before they got their arses in gear.

Once there, though, they weren’t about to make life easy for him. Peering through the foliage, he could see how they were sticking together like they were joined at the hip. No splitting up to search the area. They moved en masse, shining their bright torches into every patch of darkness, and providing constant updates into their radios. For a few terrifying minutes he thought they would discover him. They came within feet of his lair before deciding to abandon their search. Thank God they didn’t have dogs with them.

He didn’t come out for a good half-hour after they left. He needed to be sure they weren’t sitting just yards away in their cars, waiting for him to show himself.

That’s when he realised just how spooked the police were, and how much more complicated his mission had become.

He tried several more calls during the night. On each occasion, he was put through a barrage of questions:
Who are you? Where do you live? How can we get in contact with you?
And when they finally responded to his call, it was always in force, always as if expecting an ambush. Of course, he was more careful himself on those occasions, always observing from a distance to avoid discovery.

Just as he is doing now.

He’s at the ledge on one of the upper levels of a multi-storey car park on Brownlow Hill. Arms resting on the ledge to steady the binoculars he’s holding. This time of night, he’s not likely to be disturbed up here.

The binoculars are trained on the pay-and-display car park below, just behind the Adelphi Hotel. Nearly two hours since he phoned up about the car being vandalised down there, and still no sign of any police.

What the hell is taking them so long?

It’s as he wonders this that a marked Ford Focus comes up from the direction of the city centre. It slows as it draws level with the car park, then goes past it and turns left onto the deserted road leading towards the old Royal Mail building. It halts, but its occupants seem in no rush to get out. It just sits there.

He would never have chosen this place as a trap. It’s too open, and there is too much danger of passing cars and pedestrians seeing what happens here. But that wasn’t the purpose of his phone call. He needed to see how the police would react.

He realises that a message must have been sent out from on high. It has been the same every time. Nobody works alone. They probably even go to the toilet in pairs. That’s how careful they’re being.

Shit!

Down on the street, his suspicions are confirmed even further when another patrol car pulls up behind the first. Only then do the officers disembark. Four of them this time. Four! Why the hell does it need four bizzies to investigate a vandalised car?

They step over the low wooden fence separating the car park from the pavement, then circle the blue Astra he described in his phone call. Their torches light it up as they study it, warily at first, then more confidently as they acknowledge it presents no danger to them.

There is no vandalism, of course. He made that up, just to get the police out here. And now they realise it too.

But they’re not done. Not yet. Now they split up. Two pairs. Moving on to the other cars here. Looking for any signs of someone lying in wait. They know that this is not a normal call-out. They are prepared for him.

He swallows. His gulp sounds loud in the echoing chamber of the multi-storey. If he were down there, hiding in a nearby car, they would find him. No doubt about it. They would find him and they would discover his weapons and that would be an end to him. They would show him no mercy.

He wonders how he will ever again get close enough to a copper to take another life.

30

‘Right,’ says Blunt. ‘Who wants to hear what our killer sounds like?’

The detectives look at each other, unable to hide the surprise on their faces. Unless Blunt is having them on – highly unlikely in the circumstances – she is actually in possession of a recording of the cop-killer’s voice.

‘He’s been trying to catch us out,’ Blunt explains. ‘Trying to set traps for us. We got a whole load of calls last night, all apparently from the same man, all refusing to answer any of the key questions put to him by our switchboard operators, and all reporting crimes that turned out not to be crimes.’

‘I assume we checked out the scene in each case?’ says Cody.

‘Thoroughly. He’s not stupid. He knows we’re on to him, and he knows we’re not going to let our guard down. He’s looking to see how we operate now. My guess is he’s watching us from a distance, checking to see if we make any mistakes he can exploit.’

‘Let’s hear the bastard then,’ says Ferguson. When he gets a fiery glare from Blunt, he adds, ‘If you don’t mind, ma’am.’

Blunt presses a key on the computer next to her. Immediately, a female voice can be heard over the attached speakers.

‘Police, how can I help you?’

‘I’d like to report a crime.’

Cody listens intently to the voice. It’s little more than a hoarse whisper, as if the man has laryngitis. Overlaid on that is a fairly strong Scottish accent.

‘Can I have your name please, sir?’

‘What? No. No names or addresses. I’m not getting involved.’

‘All right, sir. Can you tell me the nature of the crime?’

‘Vandalism. Some kids. They’ve been wrecking a car.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. Could you speak up, please?’

‘No,’ says the man. ‘I’ve got a bad throat. I was saying about the car. Kids have been damaging it.’

‘And where is this car, sir?’

‘D’ya know the pay and display car park behind the Adelphi? There. On the side furthest away from the hotel.’

‘Can you tell me what type of car it is?’

‘Aye. A Vauxhall. An Astra, I think. Are you sending somebody over, or not?’

‘We will, sir. I just need a few more details. The vandals you saw, are they still there now?’

‘What? No. They’re long gone. Someone needs to come and look at this car, though. It’s in a bit of a state.’

‘What kind of state, sir?’

‘Eh?’

‘Can you tell me exactly what they did to the car?’

Cody understands what’s going on in this conversation. After what happened to Kearney and Whitland, every call to the police is being comprehensively screened. It’s partly defensive, to sort out the genuine calls from the dangerous ones. But it’s also partly offensive. If this operator recognises the voice as the latest in a series from a possible killer, she will be doing her best to keep him on the line, squeezing any information out of him that might lead to his eventual identification. Cody can picture the scene at the switchboard. The operator wouldn’t be the only one listening to her caller. She will have signalled her supervisor to hook into the line as well, and between them they will be doing their utmost to nail this bastard.

‘I told you,’ says the man. ‘They damaged it. They . . . they ripped the tyres, scratched the paintwork – that kind of thing.’

Even without the knowledge of what has gone before, Cody could have worked out that this call was suspect. It sounds exactly like someone making it up as they go along.

‘I see. Ripped tyres, scratched paintwork. Is that all?’

‘What d’ya mean, is that all? Isn’t that enough for ye? Are you gonna do something about this, or am I wasting my time?’

‘No, sir, you’re not wasting your time. We very much appreciate your call. I just need to know something about the two vandals you saw, to help us catch them. Can you describe them for me?’

Clever, thinks Cody. But he’ll spot it.

‘I never said there were two of them.’

And he has.

‘My mistake. So how many were there?’

‘Three.’

‘And their ages?’

‘I . . . I dunno. I wasn’t close enough to see.’

‘Right. So can you tell me where you were standing, please?’