No Smoke Without Fire (A DCI Warren Jones Novel - Book 2) (32 page)

“I suppose we need to make some phone calls,” he said sadly, his voice cracking with emotion.

Warren nodded and squeezed the old man’s shoulder. “I’ll do it.”

The next few hours passed in an unreal daze for Warren. After phoning Susan at Bernice and Dennis’ house, he called the family GP, who arrived at almost the same time. After formally pronouncing Nana Betty deceased, he left everyone to say their final goodbyes before the undertaker came to take her away.

For once, Warren didn’t mind Bernice’s fussing as she insisted on making him and Granddad Jack breakfast. Whilst they ate, Dennis and Susan started phoning around. Warren was in a daze, the cumulative lack of sleep from the past few days numbing his grief. He still couldn’t believe what had happened.

By midday and after several cups of coffee, he felt composed enough to phone work. Detective Superintendent Grayson was very sympathetic; Susan had explained the special relationship that Warren had with his grandparents and he had generously recorded it as the equivalent of the death of a parent, allowing Warren the maximum amount of time off available.

After thanking his boss for his understanding, Warren redialled the station and was put through to Tony Sutton. His colleague and friend was similarly sympathetic, reassuring Warren that everything was under control and grudgingly promising to keep him informed of any developments on the outstanding cases.

After thanking him, Warren stood up and carried the phone out into the backyard for a little extra privacy.

“I need a favour. Discreet and off the books.”

“Sure thing, guv, whatever you need.”

“I need you to track somebody down for me. James MacNamara, born Coventry June twenty-sixth 1969. He might be using the surname Jones. He may be living in Surrey, but that isn’t confirmed. He left Coventry in about 1989, if that’s any use.”

Granddad Jack had shown Warren Christmas cards from the last few years that Nana Betty had kept. She’d also kept the envelopes that they’d come in and Warren had been able to identify the smudged postmarks.

“What would you like me to do? Do you want me to arrange for someone to visit him?”

“No, I’d rather do that myself.”

If Sutton had guessed why Warren wanted to track this man down, he had the discretion not to say anything.

Ending the call, Warren returned to the living room to greet Father McGavin and the current parish priest, Father Sutton, a broad-shouldered, middle-aged man with an equally broad Brummie accent. After a few minutes praying for the soul of Nana Betty, they pencilled in a date for the funeral, deciding on the forthcoming Monday, with her reception into church the night before.

With the arrangements in place, Warren set about the sad task of phoning relatives and family friends to inform them of the news. Bernice, Dennis and Susan had all volunteered to help, but Warren felt it was his responsibility. In the end, he allowed the others to organise the social club for after the funeral and to put the death notice in the local papers. Bernice sat with Granddad Jack and between them they chose the order of service for the funeral mass.

All of these jobs could have been safely put off for twenty-four hours, but Warren was filled with the need to do something, to keep busy. He’d been running on adrenaline and caffeine with too little sleep for the past fortnight and he was scared that if he took his foot off the accelerator pedal he’d grind to a halt and give in to the desire to crawl into bed and never come out. The fact that his workmates had been so understanding perversely made matters worse, increasing the temptation to hide away until after the funeral and hope it all magically went away.

By early evening Warren had called everybody that needed calling and done everything that could be done. The atmosphere in the house had become oppressive and, by mutual agreement, it was decided that it was time to retire to the pub and celebrate the life of Nana Betty with a few drinks.

As everyone put their coats on Warren’s mobile rang. Checking the caller ID, he saw that it was Tony Sutton. Motioning for the others to carry on, he walked through to the kitchen for some privacy.

“I’m sorry, guv. We haven’t been able to track down an address for James MacNamara. We pulled his National Insurance number up and traced it to a rented house in Surrey. Unfortunately, he left about nine months ago and didn’t leave a forwarding address. According to HMRC he hasn’t paid tax or NI since that time and the DVLA have no records of any motor vehicles or car insurance in his name either. I managed to pull a few strings with a mate at the border agency who confirmed that he has a valid passport, good for the next five years, but he couldn’t tell me if he’d left the country without a warrant.”

“OK, thanks for trying, Tony.”

Warren hung up, his emotions in turmoil. He felt slightly guilty at the relief he felt. He hadn’t seen James since their mother’s funeral and even then the two men had little to say to each other. Monday’s funeral promised to be a difficult enough affair without the added strain of his estranged brother. It seemed that his older sibling had kept in touch with his grandparents — or at least sent a Christmas card each year — but he hadn’t left a forwarding address. He clearly didn’t want to be contacted. Warren wondered how long it would take for news of Nana Betty’s death to reach him. At least Warren’s conscience was clear — he had tried his best to get hold of him.

Putting his coat on, he left the house to join the rest of his family. Dennis was driving and Warren intended to get good and drunk.

Saturday 17
^th
December

Chapter 39

The man in the mask crouched silently behind the stinking wheelie bins. Dressed entirely in black, with the hood of his coat cinched tight and the lower half of his face covered by a dark woollen scarf, he was entirely invisible to any passers-by. The wheelie bins, although still malodorous, were long since emptied after the restaurant that they belonged to had closed down two months before. It was the third time he’d staked out the mini-supermarket at closing time in the past fortnight and he knew the routines of its small group of workers by heart. A brisk walk past a few hours earlier had allowed him a glimpse into the shop, where he could see his target restocking the shelves. He’d been dressed entirely differently, of course; nevertheless he had resisted the urge to enter the shop, to see the object of his desire close up — he knew that the police would immediately impound any video surveillance footage from the shop as soon as the young woman went missing and he didn’t want to appear on any recordings, even if he was disguised.

Nevertheless, the glimpse of her slim, attractive form, the pale, smooth flesh of her arms below her green work T-shirt and the curve of her neck had been enough to make him rush home to the privacy of the bathroom, to satisfy his urges. The urges that, once unleashed a few weeks before, were becoming stronger every day. It was as if by finally giving in, after weeks, months, even years of planning and discipline, he was now on a pre-programmed course. Call it destiny, fate, genetic pre-programming, whatever, his path was now set and he would follow it to the end.

Once upon a time, of course, he’d thought that his desires were wrong, evil. Even as he lay, night after night, sweating and panting in the sticky aftermath of his fantasies, he’d recognised that what he wanted, what he dreamt about, wasn’t in accordance with society’s norms. Keeping it bottled up inside, he’d eventually hit a low point and indulged himself. Even as he’d revelled in the fact that he’d successfully got away with it, he’d been sickened by his actions. Society’s brainwashing affected even one such as he, he realised.

Finally, he’d sought help. His deliberate vagueness and lack of detail had convinced those in whom he confided that his fantasies were just that. Never did he let on that he had acted upon them; put thought into deed.

The counsellors had been sympathetic and understanding and naively sought to soothe his troubled soul.

“Fantasies are normal,” they’d reassured him. “Everyone has them. Society is full of rules and regulations and our imaginations rebel against them. As long as you never act upon them, they are harmless. Learn to accept yourself.

“It’s not your fault,” they soothed him. “It’s inevitable that you feel confused or guilty, but you shouldn’t.

“It’s not your fault.”

It took a long time for him to finally accept the truth of what they were saying. Years in which his desires were repressed, his demons locked firmly away.

It wasn’t his fault. Of that he was now certain. He’d been made this way. His return to the church had helped and his faith was becoming stronger every day but he was conflicted. Surely his desires contradicted the teachings of the gospel? Eventually he had come to a realisation that he was just like anybody else. God has a plan for us all, he decided, and His reasoning might not be clear. But in the end, as long as he maintained his faith and asked for forgiveness for his actions, then Jesus would grant him eternal reward. He would follow his desires, he decided, and let God choose his fate.

One day he would be caught — if life had taught him nothing else it was that eventually something would go wrong. Some small detail would be overlooked; some random stroke of bad luck would curse him and the law would catch up with him. But until then, he would live out his desires and await his fate.

Of one thing he was certain though: that fate would not include prison. The memories of those concrete walls, the metal doors with keys held by another, the routines decided by others, they haunted his dreams. No, that wouldn’t happen. He wouldn’t let it happen. He fingered the small glass bottle that he’d taken to carrying with him. According to the instructions from the Internet, just a teaspoon would be enough. The bottle contained a mouthful. One gulp and it would be over in seconds.

This fatalism, this acceptance of destiny didn’t mean he was in any way careless, of course. He had planned for years, waiting for the opportunity and the right circumstances. Each attack was meticulously worked out; the victim was researched, dry runs were performed and the getaway prepared with precision. He felt sure that any observer who had seen him on his reconnaissance missions, as he liked to think of them, would fail to recognise him — dressed, as he was, differently each time.

His current target was called Gemma, or at least that was what her name badge said. He didn’t know her surname and he didn’t really care. Maybe in her early twenties, she worked mostly evening shifts. What she did during the day, he had no idea. Perhaps she was a student earning money over the Christmas break? Perhaps she was under-employed, struggling to make ends meet as she fired off endless applications for a better job. He wasn’t really interested.

What he did know was that she lived alone in a small bedsit about a mile or so from the shop where she worked. There were no direct bus routes. If she had a boyfriend or her parents lived nearby they didn’t pick her up after work. By last thing at night, she was the only member of staff working so nobody offered to drive her home. The elderly Sikh man who owned the shop lived above it and pulled the shutters down after her, before retiring upstairs for the night.

Gemma was a fan of dance music — he had heard it blaring out of her headphones at deafening volume as he’d stalked her on her route home twice the previous fortnight. Even at the safe distance he’d maintained, he could make out every drum beat. He was confident that she’d had no idea that he was following her. You’d think that with all the publicity about his previous victims young women would be less likely to walk home in the dark, and that they’d switch off their music and pay more attention. But Gemma was young. She was invincible. She was careless.

The man in the mask had hit upon a winning formula; nevertheless he constantly refined his technique. The first victim had been reported missing too early, he realised. Although it had little impact that time — she was merely listed as missing until her body turned up days later — the police and the general public were now on full alert. Any young woman going missing would be promptly reported and an exhaustive search mounted.

Therefore his second victim had been chosen more carefully. He’d found out that she lived alone, did an exercise class at the sports centre each week and, more importantly, had the following day off work. That had bought him over twenty-four hours to cover his tracks before anyone figured out that she was missing.

Of course it hadn’t all been plain sailing. She’d been unusually late leaving the gym and he’d ended up spending an hour waiting for her to emerge. He remained confident that nobody had noticed him; nevertheless it was a risk he didn’t want to take again.

So this time, he had parked around the corner, halfway down the road that the young woman always walked. Again, he was confident that nobody would think it strange to see the vehicle, even at that time of night. Instead of waiting inside, though, he was skulking around the wheelie bins, waiting for his victim to emerge. The plan was to slip out under the cover of her deafening headphones, follow her down the secluded street until she was within a few paces of the back of the vehicle, before pouncing and subduing her, then dragging her into its rear.

Finally, he heard the metal bang of the steel shutters being pulled down. Not long now, he realised.

“See you Monday, Hardeep,” the young woman called out, before setting her face against the wind and crossing the road. She fiddled in her pocket and seconds later he could hear the tinny beat of some dance track he didn’t recognise. He squatted, absolutely still. He’d read an article once that claimed that the human eye was tuned to pick up on movement, even in the dark, so he waited without moving a muscle until she walked by the mouth of the alleyway. She didn’t so much as glance in his direction.

She passed within a few metres of him and he held his breath. Even over the stench of the empty rubbish bins he imagined he could smell her scent. A faint, citrusy perfume, faded after hours of working. She passed out of sight. It was all he could do to count to five slowly before carefully standing up. The piece of blue plastic sheeting that he’d knelt on rustled in the faint breeze that made its way down the alleyway. To his keyed-up senses it sounded deafening, but he knew that there was no way she could possibly hear it. Moving carefully to the edge of the shadows, he checked both ways. The road was empty. The only vehicle in sight was his. The only person, his target.