Each Day I Wake: A gripping psychological thriller: US Edition (13 page)

These were the days that filled Stephen Ives with dread. And they got no better after twenty years in the force.

It was close to midnight on what was the wettest day of the year.

DS Lesley was waiting at the entrance of Westminster Mortuary on Horseferry Road.

He could tell from her ashen face that this day had been no better for her.

The girl’s body had been found in undergrowth alongside the railway near Dagenham by a man walking his dog. The grave was shallow but deep enough to conceal the body during all these days they’d been searching for her. The dog had persisted in digging into the earth, tracing some unknown scent, and a hand had been revealed.

Ives and Lesley had spent much of the day at the scene, seeking evidence, searching for any sign that might mitigate the inhumanity of what had taken place.

But nothing they could do or say altered the need for the inevitable visit here once the body was transferred to this place.             

Ives kept his voice low. “They’re ready for us?”

Lesley replied. “Andrea Julienne is the on-duty forensic pathologist. She’s waiting for the go ahead to carry out the autopsy.”

Ives led the way into the cold, clinical space that he disliked so much.

The body was lying on the steel surgical table covered by a sheet.

Andrea Julienne offered no greeting as they came in. She pulled back the sheet to reveal the corpse. “Young female. Dead for over five weeks. So, no way of giving an exact time of death. Looks like she’s been taken and kept prisoner before being killed. Note the ligature marks on her wrists and ankles.”

She used a green laser pointer to show what she meant.

“She’s been sexually abused. More than once. Perhaps many times over the course of her imprisonment. There’s damage to the sexual organs and surrounding skin area consistent with violent rape.”

Again Julienne used the laser pointer to indicate the significant areas.

It was the matter-of-fact nature of it all that dismayed Ives. That, when it came down to it, this was all that was left of a life.

Julienne and her team would use the state of the art technical resources of the mortuary to tease out what, if anything, had attached itself to the remnants of that life – the narcotics, foreign DNA, loose fibers and other physical agents – once the mandatory dissection took place.

Ives nodded his approval. There was a viewing room where they could have stayed to watch but Ives signaled that it was time to leave.

Lesley interrupted. “There’s no doubt about who it is?”

Julienne remained matter-of-fact. “The father identified his daughter an hour ago.”

Cathy Newsome had been found.

Next morning I said farewell to Janet and I travelled with Brogan to London.

As we powered down the M1 through driving rain, I couldn’t help being concerned that he was driving too fast. “No need to take chances, Marshall. It’s less than ninety minutes. What’s a few extra seconds between friends?”

He took his eyes off the road as he replied, increasing the feelings of impending danger I was struggling to conceal. “It’s safe enough and we don’t have any time to lose.”

I realized that I was not going to change his mind about his driving and said no more, not wishing to interrupt his concentration any further. We listened to the radio in silence.

It was one of those pop music stations that plays old hits interspersed with phone-in discussions and news headlines. The DJ played the role of shock jock, inciting callers to disagree with his illiberal views. The hits were of the kind that appear in the oft repeated movie and TV ad cliché where a carload of punters who should know better sing along out of tune and the disrespected viewer is supposed to take this as a sign that they’re having a good time. But we were in no mood to sing along.

The music stopped for the news headlines.

The second headline chilled me to the bone.

The body of missing teenager Cathy Newsome was found by a man walking his dog near railway sidings in Dagenham. Police say that her family has been informed.

Brogan could see I was shaking. “You’ve gone white. Are you OK?”

As the headlines finished and the music started up again, I was struggling to find a reply. I wanted to tell him what I knew about the missing girls, the reason why news of Cathy’s death had come as such a shock. Right up until this moment, a part of me had been holding on to the hope that Cathy would be located safe and well. And that, after all, my visions of her death were just that – imaginings with no basis in reality. Now this last vestige of hope had been taken from me.

But I didn’t have a clear enough idea of what Brogan’s reaction was going to be if I told him. I didn’t know enough about who and what he’d become since our days together as children. I didn’t know if I could trust him.

I decided to take the chance.

I told him about the girls.

He turned off the radio and listened as he drove.

When I’d finished there was a long silence before he replied. “I’m glad you told me. A man shouldn’t have to carry that kind of thing around on his own. Who else knows?”

“You mean about the visions?”

“Yes, about what you’ve just told me.”

I understood the importance of his question. “Janet. She was the first I told. Then Mr. Healey, my medic. Oh, and I tried to tell the police. DI Ives.”

“Did any of them believe you?”

“One way or another they’ve all tried to find a way to tell me that I must have invented the whole thing.”

Brogan paused as he pulled into the outside lane to overtake a tailback of slower moving trucks. “I think they might have to reconsider now.”

Ives picked up the phone.

It was DS Lesley. “You should come and hear this, Steve.”

In the interview room, Lesley was seated opposite a tall, thin blonde with her hair in ringlets.

Lesley introduced her to Ives. “This is Meryl Price, sir. She’s agreed to tell you what she’s just been telling me.”

Ives sat next to Lesley and prepared to listen.

Her voice was quiet. It was clear she was uncomfortable in these surroundings. “I don’t want to waste your time and I’m not used to saying anything to the police but I can’t keep it to myself any longer. Not after hearing what happened to Cathy.”

Ives prompted her. “Cathy Newsome?”

She nodded. “So young and such a waste.” She paused. “There are other missing girls, aren’t there?”

“What makes you say that?”

“What I’ve heard.” She shuddered. “There’s a guy out there. Boasting about his kills. I think it could be he’s responsible for Cathy and for others.”

Ives held up a hand. “Slow down. How did you get to know this?”

“A friend of mine. Worked with me at Diamond Escorts.”

“She has a name?”

“Stella. Stella DaSilva.”

DI Lesley whispered in Ives’ ear. “Stella DaSilva. I’ve read the reports. She died. A heroin overdose.”

Ives turned back towards Meryl. “And what exactly did she tell you?”

“That she had a regular client, someone close to her, someone frightening her. Seems it was a come on for him to tell her how he’d killed these girls. At first she thought it was just a weird fantasy but when he kept talking about the murders in such detail, she began to think his stories might be true. She told me she was scared of him. That she might be next.”

“You say what convinced her was she was told all the details. How did the victims die?”

“She told me he said he strangled them.”

“Names? Did DaSilva mention the names of any of the women he said he’d killed?”

“I think she said one of them was called Rebecca. Might have been Rebecca Francis or Rebecca French
.
Another was called Felicity, I’m almost sure of that.”

Something unspoken, a long knowing look, passed between Ives and Lesley as they heard these words.

Ives pressed on. “No surname for Felicity?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“And mention of Cathy?”

“Cathy, yes, I thought you’d know that. It’s why I’m here.”

“But no surname?”

“No.”

“You’re quite sure?”

“I don’t think Stella told me anything else. But she kept a diary, I know that for a fact. There could be more in there.”

“And you’re sure that’s all you can tell us?”

She nodded. “I just wanted to make sure someone knows.”

Ives thanked her. “We appreciate you taking the time to come forward.”

Lesley returned after showing Meryl out. “Worth hearing, sir?”

Ives stretched his arms out at his sides. “Yes, we need to check it out.”

Brogan’s apartment in Shadwell was small and cramped but it was what he could afford. He told me it was a good place to live since it was near his work and he could take the Docklands Light Railway from Shadwell direct to Canary Wharf.

He showed me the two packing cases he was given when he’d asked for Della’s things. He tried not to look distressed as he showed them to me. “Strange to see it like this. All that’s left of her. Can’t say it amounts to much or that I’ll leave much more behind myself.”

I tried to lift him by concentrating on the reason we were here. “You have Della’s diary?”

He handed the book to me. As Janet expected, it was a decoy that screamed
this is my secret diary
at anyone who would come looking for such a thing. The cover was synthetic white leather and there was a telltale brass colored metal lock attached. “Anything important in there?”

“Nothing. Just useless information. Hairdresser and medical appointments, memos to self, shopping lists. Nothing that would have a hold on anybody.”

I started leafing through. “So, if Janet is right and the real information Della was collecting is on an online journal, we’re looking for a login and a password.”

“If she went online.”

“Where else would be safer? And, if Janet is right again, Della will have wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to be locked out of her own journal if she ever forgot those details. Like so many others, she’d have written down the login and password.”

Brogan stared at the packing cases once more. “And we have to hope the details are somewhere here.”

We began with the decoy diary itself. Maybe she’d used that. But after searching every page in minute detail we drew a blank. Brogan leaned back in the chair and rubbed his eyes. “There’s nothing here.”

I resolved to remain positive. “Then we start on the cases.”

Della was not a bookish person. She’d left just three airline thriller paperbacks. We scoured the pages of each and found nothing to suggest that she’d added anything to them in her own hand.

She was a handbag person. There were twenty designer bags, most high end. We searched the interior of each and every one of them, becoming optimistic when Brogan pulled out party invitations and paper scraps that could have been used to conceal the material we wanted. But to no avail.

Above all, Della was a clothes person. The majority of the monetary value in what she’d left to the world was here in the designer dresses that were so much a part of the glamour in her life.

I looked at Brogan as we laid the clothes out on the carpet. “Where do we start?”

“Not many pockets.”

I agreed. “I don’t think they feature much in haute couture.”

Nevertheless we searched, though we had little confidence this was going to lead anywhere.

It was midday when Brogan made a discovery. He held up the shiny silver party dress that Della had worn when he first met her. “She told me this was her favorite.” When he turned it inside out, he discovered a secret pocket, accessible only from that side.

He reached into the pocket and pulled out a wrap of brown powder. He held his head in his hands. “They told me she was an addict. I didn’t believe them.”

I tried to console him but he pulled away. “She must have kept it there as a last resort.” He clenched his fists. “Such a waste. If I could get my hands on the lowlife that supplied her I wouldn’t have to spend too long thinking about what to do to him.”

He handed the wrap to me. A small piece of paper, a cloakroom ticket stub, was beneath it. “It’s here.”

I showed him what was written on the back of the ticket stub.

DaSilva91919191

Bashtree_1995

He smiled. “The kind of information you could easily forget.”

“She remembered the tree as something important to her.”

“Which means?”

“I think we have something, Marshall. The first would be the login and the second the password.”

“So where do we log in?”

He pulled out an old laptop PC from under the coffee table and turned it on. It took an age to power up. “It’s slow but it gets there.”

“You have a connection?”

“It’s a modem but, yes, it’s connected.”

“OK. First, search for
online journal
.”

He hit the keys and pulled up a listing. “There look to be dozens.”

“But ranked in popularity.”

We started at the top of the list, called up each site and typed in Della’s login and password. The fifth site down,
SurePen
, opened to reveal a page with an icon on it that said
Della’s Journal
.

We clicked on the icon and we were in.

On the left hand side of the page was a listing of the posts she’d made. I scrolled down. There was one for each day, going back over two years. I clicked on one of the posts. It was long and detailed. “It’s going to take time to find what we’re looking for.”

Brogan looked more contented than I’d seen him since we’d met in Lichfield. “She told me what she had in there. It’s going to point us to her killer, I’m sure of that.”

This didn’t last long.

Brogan’s laptop died.

We were looking at a blank screen.

He answered before I had time to ask. “The battery. It’s been on the blink. Looks like it’s gone for good.” He was becoming angry once more. “And before you ask, Tom,
yes
I should have bought a new machine and
no
on the money I make at Canada One I can’t afford to. We’re not all living in listed property.”

I recognized the old enmity that had been between us from the moment we met as kids. The rivalry that was the real centre of the bond between us.

I chose not to retaliate. “OK. Blame me. I left home without my tablet. We could have logged onto Della’s journal from there.”

“So, we find a web café and read the diary there.”

I had a better idea. “That’s too public. I’ll go into my office at the newspaper. Log on there. I’ll print the whole diary out and bring it back here so we can both go over it.”

“You have the login?”

I checked that the ticket stub was safe in my pocket. “I have it.”