Bloodstream (32 page)

‘Not very big in here,’ Rossi said, standing in the doorway as Murphy stepped into the room.

‘He’s used that Pritt Stick stuff again, by the looks of it,’ Murphy said, studying the photographs on the wall. ‘The photo frames have been smashed.’

Rossi leaned further into the room, looking to the floor past Murphy. ‘It could have been that he was in a rush, maybe? Worried about being disturbed?’

‘No,’ Murphy said, reading the words inked across several of the photographs. ‘It’s not that.’

‘Look at some of these photos, Laura,’ Murphy said, sweeping a gloved finger across them. ‘They’ve been torn and damaged. Slashes right through some of them.’

‘We’re back to angry then. Although, I have to say the other scenes weren’t exactly a picture of calm.’

‘No, this one is very different. He’s losing it, Laura.’ Murphy turned to her with a grin, which faded when he remembered what was downstairs.

‘Wonder what the secret was between them,’ Rossi said, leaving the room and standing out on the landing.

‘I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough,’ Murphy replied, calling one of the techs from the main bedroom and pointing towards the box room. ‘Get that photographed and printed. I want full forensics done as soon as possible. There’ll be something in there.’

Murphy headed past Rossi after having a quick look in the other two bedrooms. Nothing leapt out at him: small main room with a double bed, a couple of wardrobes and a flat screen TV fixed to the wall. The other was quite plainly used as a spare bedroom for visitors, doubling as a home gym, with a weights bench and exercise bike taking up the rest of the space within.

‘I want the list of people who were named in those emails,’ Murphy said as he made his way down the stairs. ‘We need to see if Carly and Will were on that list and not informed. If someone’s screwed up, I won’t be happy.’

‘No problem,’ Rossi replied, walking past Murphy and out the front door, removing her gloves as she left the house.

Murphy padded into the living room. He couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. There were more faded marks on the walls where pictures had been removed. A glass picture frame lay smashed on the floor, the photo had not been removed.

‘Sir,’ a voice said from behind him. ‘You got a second?’

Murphy turned slowly, finding it difficult to tear his gaze away from the jagged image of the couple. The photo had once sat in the middle of the mantelpiece; an A4-sized, happy, smiling vision of the pair. They were dressed up and looked content, his arms wrapped around her as she stood in front of him, facing the camera.

‘What is it, Hale?’ Murphy said, once he’d stopped looking.

‘We’ve got names for the two of them,’ Hale said, holding on to his notepad as if he were worried about dropping it. ‘Will Callaghan and Carly Roberts. Lived here for about three years.’

‘Who found them?’

‘Carly’s sister. They were supposed to meet, but Carly didn’t show up. She gave it until this morning then came round. Had a spare key. She’s outside in the van, but I wouldn’t advise talking to her just yet. Think they’re going to take her to the station and try and calm her down. She’s trying to beat up anyone and everyone.’

‘Okay,’ Murphy said, leaning against the cold radiator on the nearest wall to the doorway. ‘Did you give Laura the names?’

DC Hale nodded, his head dipping low enough for Murphy to see the white of his scalp showing through his over-gelled hair.

He wondered if anyone was willing to take a bet on Hale losing his hair before him.

‘Right, well, let’s hope our killer didn’t find these two from one of the emails. Or we’ll look pretty stupid.’

Murphy left the house, finding Rossi sitting in the car outside, talking on her phone. He slipped into the driver’s seat, waiting for her to finish.

‘Okay, cheers,’ Rossi said, ending the call. ‘Names don’t match any of the emails we went through.’

‘How long was that email address running for before we started monitoring it?’

‘Only a few hours,’ Rossi replied, loosening her hair before retying it. ‘All the messages were unread though. I think he was just messing with us.’

‘Possibly,’ Murphy said, rubbing the palm of his hand across his cheek. ‘Could be that I was right and he deleted some before sending us the password. How many emails have come in so far?’

‘Thousands.’

Murphy shook his head. Despite releasing a press statement asking people not to send anything to the email address and convincing the newspapers and news programmes not to publish the address, there were still messages trickling in.

‘We could have blocked it,’ Rossi said. ‘Taken it down.’

‘It’s the only thing we can link to him, though,’ Murphy replied, taking in the scene through the windscreen. A helicopter flew overhead, the noise making some officers look skywards. ‘We had to keep it up. I didn’t think so many people would actually send messages to it.’

‘That’s the world we live in.’

They’d had to contact fifty people in the city the previous day, warning them to take extra precautions for their safety. There had been conversations about whether they should tell the people why they were getting in contact. However, Murphy had known it wouldn’t have taken them long to work out why, even if they’d kept the reason quiet. The headline in the late edition of the
Echo
had made it crystal clear. The story had run without many details, but there was enough to make readers understand what had happened.

All over the world, people had sent in emails detailing the lives of couples who they thought deserved to die. Murphy was still trying to wrap his head round that.

‘If we don’t find him soon, we could be in for a busy few days.’

Murphy stared at the murder board, as if he were waiting for the photographs of the dead to begin speaking to him. Six faces and now two new names to add. People gone in an instant, leaving behind only grieving relatives and friends and a sense of loss which couldn’t be described.

‘We’re back,’ Rossi said, sidling up next to him. ‘Cause of death the same as Greg and Hannah. Only the other way round. Hannah had her throat cut, as did Will in this case. Drug overdoses for their partners.’

‘The first two male victims were different,’ Murphy said, continuing to study the photographs, reading the sparse notes next to each face. ‘Both strangled. Why are they different?’

‘I hate to be so blunt . . .’

‘Since when?’ Murphy said, turning to face Rossi.

‘Shut up. Can I finish? Thank you. It’s probably a time thing.’

Murphy arched an eyebrow. ‘As in . . .’

‘Think about how long it takes to strangle someone to death. He’s doing it in front of the partner, we assume, after they ask him to hurt them. That gives the partner too much time to change their minds maybe.’

‘Almost as if he doesn’t want to be responsible.’

‘The Man in Black character he’s created is purely a vehicle for the hate from one partner to another after the secret is revealed. He’s carrying out their wishes. If he’s hearing nothing but the person who initially has given their approval telling him to stop, it has an effect. On him, I mean. He doesn’t want to hear that. He wants the person to wish harm on the other, so he can feel less guilty.’

‘Why does he kill the other person?’

‘I don’t think he sees it like that,’ Rossi said, turning her back on the murder board and leaning against the wall beside it. ‘Think of the method. Overdose on some kind of anaesthetic drug? It’d be like going to sleep. He knows that. For him, it’s probably like he’s putting them out of their misery.’

‘Nice of him. This would be four deaths by the same drug. It’s not like he just has a stockpile of drugs lying around. If he’s been planning this for a while, or just started up on the spur of the moment, he will have had to get it from somewhere. We need to clear hospitals in the area. Anywhere he could have got this from. What’s the latest on that?’

Rossi wrote ‘Drugs’ on the murder board, adding a question mark to the word after staring at it for a second or two. ‘We’ve heard that there’s been a few missing bits and pieces here and there, but we haven’t narrowed it down much. There are just too many hospitals in the area, before we get on to any other possible places. Plus, we’re asking for any drugs being misplaced. We can’t even tell them which actual drug it is being used, only the type of drug.’

Murphy swore under his breath. ‘There must be something we’re missing. Some kind of connection that we can use.’

‘Is the sister calmer now?’

‘Not sure. Do you want to go and find out?’

Murphy watched Rossi leave before walking over to DC Harris’s desk. ‘You got anything from the emails, Graham?’

DC Harris tapped away on his keyboard, holding up one finger for an instant before finishing. ‘Sorry, had to send that. No, to answer your question. New messages are still coming in, but not at the rate they were. Most are just threats against the guy. Still a few names coming in, but nothing from Liverpool.’

‘You’re still forwarding them to the relevant forces around the country though?’

‘Of course. Celebrities have been the most popular, you know. Loads of people asking for various famous couples to be killed. It really doesn’t make sense to be well-known these days. Too much hassle.’

Murphy leant a hand on Harris’s desk, looking at the various subject lines on the emails. ‘If this case has taught me anything, it’s that as a species, we’re pretty much screwed.’

‘This is a minority,’ DC Harris said, sitting back in his chair. ‘A vocal minority, I’ll give you that, but mostly people just want to get on with others and keep their heads down. Look at what happened to me. I could have concentrated on the bastard who did this to me, or the things I read afterwards online . . .’

‘Online?’

‘Yeah, there’s always people talking about coppers and that. I stupidly looked after what happened to me. There were people who were actually annoyed I wasn’t killed. Although a lot of them were happy I was paralysed, I’ll give them that. You want to look at the hashtag ACAB on Twitter once in a while.’

Murphy straightened up, feeling nauseous suddenly.

‘But, that wasn’t all,’ DC Harris continued. ‘There were also hundreds of people who sent nice messages and best wishes. I had to concentrate on them instead. Otherwise, I would never have come back.’

Murphy let out a short laugh. ‘So what you’re saying is, we should concentrate on all the good, rather than the bad, and life would be so much better?’

‘Precisely.’

‘I think that shotgun unlocked your inner Buddha, Graham. You should do talks.’

‘I do as a matter of fact,’ DC Harris said, barely above a whisper. ‘To the cadets and stuff.’

‘Good,’ Murphy said, moving round to his desk. ‘I honestly couldn’t think of anyone better to do something like that. They should all know what it takes to be a good copper. But also, what can happen on the job.’

There was an uneasy silence between the two of them, broken by Rossi coming back and announcing that the sister was ready. Murphy gave DC Harris a nod, not checking to see if he got one in return, and followed Rossi out of the office.

‘She’s calmed down a bit now,’ Rossi said, as they reached the family room one floor below. ‘Her name is Kim. She’s the older of the two.’

‘Okay, any other family?’

‘Yeah, but I think it’s a little complicated. Listen, I can do this if . . . you know . . .’

‘Why? Am I giving you any reason to think I can’t do this stuff?’

Rossi shifted on the spot, swiping a foot across the carpet. ‘No, I was just thinking . . . about what you told me the other day.’

‘What about it?’

‘I just hope you didn’t think I was out of line. You know, for suggesting it was all make-believe about Amy.’

Murphy breathed noisily, a deep breath in and out. ‘I’m pretty sure it is.’

‘What if it’s not though?’ Rossi replied, looking up at him, an inscrutable expression plastered across her face, which Murphy couldn’t work out. ‘I don’t want you complaining that no one believed you. That’s why I’m asking if you want me to interview this girl. Give you a bit of time to yourself.’

‘First off,’ Murphy said, leaning closer as a couple of constables walked past them. ‘You’re one of only a couple of people who know about this. So, don’t go thinking I’ve been canvassing opinion. I trust you not to say anything. Secondly, I know what’s going on, I know why Amy’s mother is saying this now. Not saying there’s no chance it’s true, I’m just saying it’s remote. And thirdly, and most importantly, she’s an eighteen-year-old girl, living in Speke, working in a shop. Odds are, she had an argument with her mum and has had a better offer elsewhere. She’ll be back in a month or two, with her tail between her legs, a sad love story to tell, and a great tan. Whereas we . . . we have eight dead people and a serial killer we can’t find. I know where my priorities lie here.’

Rossi weighed up his words, staring at him before tearing her gaze away. ‘Fine, there’s no need to make a speech about it. Just checking, that’s all.’

‘Course you were,’ Murphy replied, as a smirk appeared on his face. ‘We’re a team. Don’t forget that. That’s why I tell you shit you don’t want to hear. Same goes both ways.
Capisce
?’

‘Ugh, you sound like a reject from
The Godfather
now. Let’s get on with this.’

Murphy’s smirk turned to a smile, which he promptly wiped off his face as Rossi opened the door into the family room. They waited for the family liaison officer to leave before sitting down opposite Kim and introducing themselves. There was a slight resemblance to the pictures he had seen of Carly, but there was a more wearied look to the older sister. Murphy wasn’t sure if that was due to the fact she’d found her murdered sister – or if there was something else. Maybe it was just the morning’s events, he thought, but there was something about her eyes. She looked as if she was about to jump out of the chair at any moment, her eyes darting round the room.