Lastnight (3 page)

‘We don’t know,’ said Chalmers. ‘We checked all the numbers on her mobile and they’re all accounted for. If it was a friend, they didn’t talk on the phone.’

Nightingale walked from whiteboard to whiteboard, scratching his neck. ‘Two of them were found on Hampstead Heath?’

‘Luke Aitken. He lived in Hampstead with his parents. And Stella Walsh. She lived with her parents in Islington. Very little blood at the dump sites so they were killed elsewhere.’

‘Any attempt made to hide the bodies?’

Chalmers shook his head. ‘Dumped not far from the road in both cases. Wrapped in polythene. No forensics at all. The bodies were probably dumped at night and were discovered the next day. Gabriel Patterson was also wrapped in plastic and dumped on a railway embankment. Also no attempt at concealment.’

Nightingale waved a hand at the five boards. ‘And all these took place over a two-week period?’

Chalmers nodded. He took out a pack of chewing gum and slid a piece between his lips. ‘You’re wondering why so many, so fast?’

‘I’m wondering how a killer like this comes from nowhere. Serial killers generally work their way up to it. They start with rape and assault and then they move on to killing. This guy seems to have hit the ground running, don’t you think?’

‘There have been no other killings of Goths in the UK since Sophie Lancaster in 2007 and Greater Manchester Police caught the gang responsible.’ He nodded at the whiteboards. ‘This is totally different to the Lancaster case. This is organised and well planned and whoever is responsible leaves no evidence behind. No hairs, no fibres, no nothing. We’re working on the theory that the killers use forensic suits and foot coverings and probably hair nets.’ He pointed at the Abbie Greene crime scene photographs. ‘There was a lot of blood on the floor and signs that someone had stood in it, but no prints. Just smudges.’

Nightingale frowned and scratched his head. ‘So they know about forensics.’

‘So does anyone with a TV set these days,’ said Chalmers. ‘But the point isn’t that they know about forensics, it’s the fact that they go to all that trouble not to leave any evidence behind. There’s a lot of planning and forethought going into these killings and that’s not normally associated with hate crimes. With hate crimes you tend to get unplanned violence, someone gets angry and lashes out.’ He flashed Nightingale a tight smile. ‘Someone out there hates Goths enough to go to a great deal of trouble – we’ve tried to find them and drawn a blank. I’m hoping you might have more luck.’

Nightingale walked over to the single window in the room and looked down at the street below. ‘Why are you asking me, Chalmers? You cut me off your Christmas card list a long time ago.’

‘This is your area of expertise, Nightingale. At least that’s what it says on your website.’

‘My assistant looks after my web presence,’ said Nightingale. He turned his back on the window and folded his arms.

‘Yeah, well, according to her you’re a world authority on supernatural matters.’

‘And that’s what you think these killings are? Supernatural?’

‘I think that whoever is killing these Goths is part of that crazy, mixed-up world that you move in and out of. Rawlings has been sending his people in and the shutters come down. But you.’ He shrugged. ‘You they might talk to.’

‘If you hadn’t noticed, I don’t wear mascara and tight black jeans.’

‘No, but you talk their language.’

‘And you’ve got a budget for this?’

The superintendent frowned. ‘Budget?’

‘Payment. Money. I’m not a cop, Chalmers. Haven’t been for a while. I work for a living these days.’

Chalmers shook his head. ‘There’s no budget. You can do it pro bono.’

‘I was never a fan of U2, to be honest. Mind you that “Sunday Bloody Sunday” was a good tune.’

‘What the hell are you talking about, Nightingale?’

‘If you’re going to start talking Latin, how about quid pro quo. As in you give me quids and I work like a pro.’

‘I don’t have money to pay private investigators, Nightingale.’ He walked over to a table on which he’d placed photographs of the five victims. ‘Look at them. Five innocent people, killed and butchered. You’re a citizen, right? Time to do your civic duty. Find out what the freaks are saying.’

‘The freaks?’

‘The devil worshippers, the Wicca mob, the people who think that things go bump in the night.’

‘You’re asking me to solve your case, is that it?’

‘Not solve. Just get me some leads. Someone out there is butchering Goths and somebody must know who and why. Conventional profiling gives us the usual serial killer crap – a middle-aged white male who wet his bed and tortured his pets. But you and I know, despite what you see on TV, profiles don’t lead to convictions. It’s police work that gets convictions, plain and simple.’

Nightingale stared down at the five photographs. ‘And if I get you leads, what does that get me? What’s the quid pro quo?’

‘What do you want?’

‘A bit of help now and then, maybe? Access to the odd database.’

‘Let you go prowling through the PNC whenever you feel like it?’ He shook his head. ‘That’s not going to happen. How about this? You help me with this case and I’ll make sure you don’t fall foul of the Private Security Industry Act of 2001.’

‘And why would that be a problem for me?’

Chalmers flashed him a tight smile. ‘You can use your imagination, I’m sure. The word of a high-ranking police officer could smooth the way or …’ He shrugged. ‘Like I said, I’m sure you can use your imagination.’

‘That sounds like a threat.’

Chalmers shrugged but didn’t say anything.

‘Fine,’ said Nightingale. He gathered up the photographs. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘I need to know why,’ said Chalmers. ‘Give me the why and I’ll probably be able to nail down the who.’

‘I said I’ll look into it,’ said Nightingale. He slid the photographs into his raincoat pocket. ‘I can’t promise anything.’

‘Well, I can make a promise, Nightingale. If you don’t help us crack this case I’ll make your life unbearable.’

Nightingale smiled thinly. ‘Good to know you’ve got my back,’ he said. ‘I feel so much safer knowing that.’

3

N
ightingale jumped as the office door opened but he smiled when he saw it was Jenny. He was making himself a coffee so he reached for a second mug. ‘You’re early,’ he said. She was wearing a long Gucci coat with a large floppy collar and carrying a mustard-coloured Dior handbag. She dropped the handbag on her desk and hung the coat by the door. ‘I’ve got to get our VAT returns done today,’ she said. ‘And knowing the state your receipts are in I figured I’d need an early start. What happened to you yesterday? I looked for you at the reception but you’d gone.’

‘I went after they’d done the grave thing,’ said Nightingale. ‘I saw you drop the flower in.’

‘You should have stayed.’

‘I wasn’t close and it’s not as if I knew a lot of people there. Though it was a hell of a turnout, wasn’t it?’

‘Uncle Marcus was well loved, that’s true,’ said Jenny. Nightingale handed her one of the coffee mugs. ‘You should get in early more often,’ she said.

‘You’re welcome,’ said Nightingale. He took his coffee through into his own office where he’d set up a whiteboard on an easel. Nightingale had used Blu-tack to stick up the photographs that Chalmers had given him around the edge of the whiteboard. In the centre he’d fixed a map of London and he’d used a red felt marker to link the photographs to the locations where the bodies had been found.

Jenny frowned at the whiteboard as she sipped her coffee.

‘Chalmers needs help with a case,’ Nightingale explained. ‘Someone’s been butchering Goths.’

‘He’s paying you?’

‘He wants us to do it pro bono.’

‘See now, I think Bono’s a pretentious turd and U2’s music is very over-rated.’

Nightingale grinned. ‘That’s what I said but Chalmers has no sense of humour.’ He sat down at his desk and swung his feet up.

Jenny pulled up a chair and grimaced as she stared at the photographs

‘They were all hacked up pretty badly,’ said Nightingale. ‘Virtually skinned. I can get crime-scene pictures but trust me, you don’t want to see them. Three men, two women, so probably not sexual, despite what the gay activists are saying. But he leaves the faces alone, just mutilates the bodies. I say “he”, but we’re probably talking about multiple assailants.’

‘So it’s a hate crime. Someone who hates Goths or what they stand for.’

‘What do Goths stand for?’ asked Nightingale. ‘All I see is the black clothing and vampire make-up.’

‘It’s more about the music and the lifestyle than anything else,’ said Jenny. ‘Why would Chalmers want you involved?’

‘I’ve got you to thank for that,’ said Nightingale. ‘The new corporate website mentions the supernatural cases I’ve worked on.’

‘He thinks there’s a supernatural element to this?’

‘He thinks that Goths are freaks and that I’m more at home dealing with freaks than his men are.’

Jenny shook her head in dismay. ‘He’s a moron.’

‘No argument from me. But the quickest way of getting him off my back is to give him a lead he can work on.’

‘A lead?’

‘His murder investigation team is clueless. He thinks if I go and talk to the Goths, I’ll pick up on something.’

‘Well, good luck with that,’ she said, and sipped her coffee.

‘To be honest, I’m not sure where to start,’ said Nightingale. ‘Any idea where Goths hang out? I’m guessing graveyards and abandoned churches, right?’

Jenny laughed. ‘You’re such an idiot sometimes,’ she said. ‘Jack, Goths are just kids who like to hang out together and listen to the Cure and Depeche Mode or whatever the latest Goth band is. They wear black and eyeliner and generally just keep to themselves.’

‘How come you know so much about them?’

‘I used to hang out with a Goth couple when I was at university. They were a couple of softies but one night the boy got beaten up really badly. A group of skinheads just decided to give him a kicking. He was in hospital for two weeks. Almost lost his spleen.’

‘Bastards.’

‘Yes. Bastards. There are some sick people out there who like to hurt people who are different. Because of their colour, or their clothes, or their sexuality.’ She gestured at the photographs with her hand. ‘But this is more than a kicking, Jack. That’s not just anger, is it? That’s something much much worse.’

‘You’re telling me,’ said Nightingale. ‘Chalmers thinks the killings are ritualistic and that according to that wonderful website you set up, I’m a world authority on the subject.’

‘So you’re blaming my programming skills, is that it?’

Nightingale grinned and shook his head. ‘Nah, he would have given this to me anyway,’ he said. ‘He can’t get his own people to go knocking on Satanic doors, but he knows that I can talk their language.’

‘Jack, are you listening to yourself? You’re going to be on the trail of a psychopathic killer. How’s that going to end well?’

‘Like I said, it’s probably going to be killers, not killer. There’s too much going on for it to be the work of one man.’

Jenny folded her arms and pouted. ‘That doesn’t actually make me feel any better.’

‘Look, I’ll ask a few questions, come up with a motive and he’ll do the rest.’

‘And what if the killers find out that you’re on the case? You’re not thinking this through.’

Nightingale waved at the photographs. ‘They kill Goths. I’m not a Goth.’

‘You don’t know what they might do if they find out you’re trying to track them down.’ She sighed. ‘Just be careful, Jack.’

‘Always,’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘It goes in one ear and out of the other with you, doesn’t it?’

‘I’m listening, kid. Really.’ He nodded at the whiteboard. ‘So now here’s the thing. Five Goths, different ages and living in different parts of the city, all killed in the same way.’

‘No connections between them?’

‘Not that the cops can find and they’re usually good at things like that. The way murder investigations work these days involves getting as many cops to ask as many questions of as many people as they can, shove it all into the HOLMES computer and get it to highlight anything significant.’

‘And HOLMES has come up with nothing?’

‘That’s what Chalmers says. But here’s the thing I don’t understand. If it’s someone who hates Goths, why travel around the city? Why not just go to one place where Goths hang out.’

Jenny nodded. ‘That would seem logical. Why do you think they haven’t?’

‘Maybe they think it’ll mean they’ve less chance of being spotted if they move around.’ He shrugged. ‘It just seems to me that there might be a connection that HOLMES has missed. That they all met the killer, or killers, in the same place.’

Jenny looked at the map. ‘Well, they’re all within the M25,’ she said.

‘And all within Zone 2 on the Tube network. I don’t think that helps. Two were teenagers, two were in their twenties, and one was in his late thirties. Three were straight and two were gay. So Chalmers is working on the theory that they were killed because they were Goths.’

‘So they were just unlucky, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when the killers were looking for a victim.’

Nightingale shook his head. ‘The way the killings were carried out it had to have been planned. They had equipment, and in three of the killings they did it at the victim’s home. So they must have cased the area first. They might have been targeted randomly, but once in their sights the killers did their research.’

Jenny waved her coffee mug at the whiteboard. ‘So what’s your plan?’

‘I need you to take a look at their social media pages. Facebook and Tumblr and whatever else people are using these days. Build up a profile for each of the five of them.’

‘Hasn’t Chalmers already done that?’

‘For sure, but now they’ll be at the not being able to see the woods for the trees stage. A fresh pair of eyes might see something that they’ve missed.’

‘I’ll give it a go,’ said Jenny. ‘What will you be doing while I’m chained to the keyboard?’

‘I need to talk to Goths. Where’s a good place to meet them?’