Then She Was Gone (32 page)

‘Which we’ll obviously be looking into now,’ Murphy said, knowing he was getting a look from DSI Butler as he interrupted him. ‘There are coincidences, then there’s
something we can’t ignore.’

‘Do we need to have a chat outside?’ DSI Butler said, coming to Murphy’s side and whispering with his back turned to the rest of the room. ‘Only I don’t think this
sort of thing should be spoken about in front of everyone here.’

‘Give us a minute,’ Murphy said, then made his way to the door, DSI Butler stalking after him as he did so. The officers held their silence until the two senior officers left, voices
breaking out as Murphy closed the door behind him.

‘I thought we had agreed that we weren’t going to link the two facts just yet?’

Murphy shook his head slowly, as DSI Butler hissed the question at him. ‘I never agreed to anything.’

Which was true. He had stood and listened as DSI Butler had urged him to drop the whole boys club angle whilst standing in DCI Stephens’s office ten minutes earlier.

‘I thought we had an understanding,’ DSI Butler continued, trying to fix a steely stare on Murphy. The fact he was doing it from six inches lower than him was diminishing the impact
somewhat. ‘This is a very delicate situation . . .’

‘It’s really not, sir,’ Murphy said, deciding to interrupt his superior for a change. ‘We’re carrying out a murder investigation. During the course of that
investigation, we have learned from numerous witnesses that there is some link to a shitty club the victim founded whilst at university. Further, we found out that one of the original eight members
is in prison for murder. Then, it turns out, two others have committed suicide. Add that to the fact we now have two bodies currently rotting in the local morgue, I make that five out of eight.
There’s a note attached to our latest dead body saying “five down”, which makes it sound like there’s another three to go, right? And you think we should just ignore all
that?’

‘No, I’m not saying that,’ DSI Butler replied, hands on slender hips and almost pouting. Murphy looked down at him with his arms folded, waiting for more bullshit to be forced
out. ‘I’m only saying that we should tread carefully.
You
should tread carefully. There are things going on here that you’re not privy to.’

Murphy stared down at DSI Butler, breathing heavily through his nose, mouth closed. ‘I don’t even care enough to find out what the word “privy” means,’ he said, his
voice barely above a whisper. He didn’t wait for a response, pushing his way back into the meeting room. A few heads turned to see him enter, but most kept their stares to the front. Rossi
was sitting motionless in her chair, not looking up at him, whilst DCI Stephens was trying to burn a hole in his head judging by the way she was looking at him.

‘Right, let’s start again,’ he said, once he was standing in front of them. He glanced up, seeing DSI Butler standing in the doorway before walking away. He looked back at the
sea of faces and tried not to think about what was probably going to happen to him once the meeting had ended.

‘Two men found murdered on the streets of our city. Both in horrific circumstances, which have shocked the community – meaning, there’s a bunch of people out there who are
looking for any excuse to rip us a new one. So I want your full attention on this and this alone. We find the person who did this now. I want him locked up as soon as possible. Sound good to
you?’

He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Good. This is what’s happening.’

Murphy continued to talk, giving out various tasks for the men and women present. The most salient were saved for the DCs in his command, but the uniforms were properly briefed as well. Best to
use them for what they were good at; walking around looking important and talking to the locals.

‘Anyone who thinks they’ve seen anything, you speak to me first. We’ve got calls coming in, but we know how useful that sort of thing is usually. Doesn’t mean we
don’t look at everything though. Find out what you can. Patrols at every scene, et cetera, et cetera. You know the drill. We’ve been here before.’

Murphy carried on talking, saying the same things he’d been saying year upon year. It wouldn’t matter; he would be saying the same thing to them again soon enough, he thought.
Another case, another victim.

‘I know it’s getting late, but I want us out there. The media are all over us right now and you know from experience that that never ends well.’

A few short laughs followed on from that comment. He knew the next one wouldn’t get as many. ‘We need to find the other three men on that list out there and offer them police
protection until we’ve got someone for this.’

Heads turned to look at each other and eyebrows were raised. They had quite plainly heard the conversation he’d had with DSI Butler outside. He was sticking his neck on the line and they
knew it.

‘It doesn’t matter if they’re connected or not. I just don’t want anyone else turning up dead who doesn’t need to.’

Murphy continued to talk, bringing those who had questions up to speed patiently. It was another thirty minutes before he was outside in the incident room, surrounded by the DCs he trusted.

‘Right, fill me in. What’s been happening while we’ve been gone.’

‘Matthew Williams hadn’t even visited Liverpool in the past two years,’ DC Hashem said, her eager face looking up at Murphy. ‘I spoke to his partner, who’s in total
shock. She’s absolutely distraught. Doesn’t understand how he’s ended up here.’

‘Is she coming down now?’

‘Of course,’ DC Hashem said, her voice lifting at the end of the two word sentence. ‘Bit of a trek from Northumberland, but didn’t seem to bother her. She’ll be
here around six p.m. depending on traffic.’

‘When was the last time she saw him?’

‘Day before yesterday. He worked in the city centre in Newcastle, whilst they lived a few miles away. Somewhere called Ashington or something. She said he sent her a text late on Tuesday
night, saying he was going to be staying over in the city due to work. Happened before, so she didn’t think too much of it. Obviously, when he wasn’t returning calls yesterday
afternoon, she got worried. Reported him missing to local police last night.’

‘I’m guessing he didn’t come up in the searches we did,’ Murphy said, hoping there wasn’t an angle here that could be used against them.

‘His name is so common, we couldn’t have known.’

Murphy nodded, but still felt a little worried about the information. ‘It was probably too late by then anyway.’

The phone rang on his desk, cutting the conversation short as he made his way over to it. He glanced over at DCI Stephens’s office, but the blinds had been drawn since his boss had gone in
there. He knew DSI Butler would have been waiting inside for her. He tried to feel guilty, but it wouldn’t come.

‘Murphy.’

‘Time of death is approximately one to two a.m. earlier today,’ the voice of Dr Houghton said over the phone without pause. ‘Cause is probably something to do with his facial
injuries. Blunt force trauma, as they say. Will be another day before I can tell you with what.’

‘Hello to you too,’ Murphy said, shaking his head at the pathologist’s general lack of social graces. Strike that, he thought. It was only with him that any manners were
absent. ‘Forensics have a large area to look into within the warehouse. Hopefully they’ll find something.’

‘I deal with the bodies, David. I’ll leave the rest for you to sort out.’

The line went dead, Murphy still holding onto the phone. He replaced the receiver and looked around for DC Hashem. He spied her sitting at her desk again, looking a little lost.

‘Abs, come over,’ he said to her across the office. She bounded over, exuding more energy than he had felt in a while. ‘This other guy who supposedly
committed . . .’

‘Paul Wright,’ DC Hashem said, standing over him with her hands behind her back.

‘Right, Paul Wright. Where did he die?’

‘He went back down south after graduating. Lived in Surrey, in a house owned by his parents. The cleaner found him hanging in the garage.’

‘Local uniforms didn’t notice anything suspicious?’

DC Hashem shook her head. ‘Most open-and-shut suicide ever according to their reports.’

‘Note?’

‘Yeah, which makes things a bit more interesting.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t exactly use that word . . .’

‘Oh, you know what I mean,’ DC Hashem said, suddenly serious. ‘I don’t want you thinking I’m thinking that way. I know this is not nice at all.’

‘I know, Abs,’ Murphy said, pushing his chair back from his desk and stretching his legs out next to DC Hashem. ‘Any chance of us seeing this note?’

‘We’ve asked for the whole file. Hopefully it’ll be over to us by the end of the day.’

Murphy checked the clock on the wall opposite, realising the end of the day was closer than he’d thought. Not that it mattered – it was likely to be another late one.

‘OK, thanks, Abs,’ he said, waiting for her to leave before motioning to DC Kirkham to come over. ‘You found her yet?’

‘Possibly,’ DC Kirkham said, standing in the same place DC Hashem had just occupied. ‘University didn’t give us much more than a date of birth and full name. Ran that
through the system and got two hits.’

‘Same name and birth date?’

‘Not exactly an uncommon name, Hazel Jones. Stands to reason that there’d be at least two people born on the same day with the same name. That’s just in Merseyside and Cheshire
as well. Before we go any further out.’

Murphy took the addresses from the outstretched hand of DC Kirkham, glancing down at them.

‘It’s this one,’ he said to DC Kirkham, pointing at the second address on the paper. ‘Laura, we’re going out.’

DC Kirkham frowned, his brow furrowing as he stepped aside for Murphy to grab his coat from the peg on the wall. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Yeah, course I am,’ Murphy said, waiting for Rossi to join him at the door. ‘Before you start wondering if I’m psychic, read the address again, then compare it to Tim
Johnson’s one.’

DC Kirkham shook his head, reading the piece of paper in his hand as if it were about to magically reveal something to him. Murphy followed Rossi out the door, not looking back to see if the
young DC had worked things out yet.

‘Where are we going?’ Rossi said, skipping a little to keep up with Murphy’s long strides out of the building.

‘What do you reckon, think we’ll beat the traffic if we go through the tunnel?’

‘You’ve got that look on your face again.’

‘What look?’

‘That, “I’ve just worked something out and justified my salary for the year” look. Where are we going?’

‘Tim Johnson lived on my old estate, over in Moreton. You know, when I lived over the water for that year.’

‘Yeah . . .’

‘Well, that’s why I recognised the address,’ Murphy said, almost smirking to himself. Sometimes it was nice to have a bit of a Sherlock moment. ‘How much of a coincidence
is it for someone with the same name and birth date as a rape victim to live next door to one of the possible rapists?’

There’s a sense of finality within you. You know things are coming to an end. You can feel the conclusion to everything and you welcome it. It’s almost as if a
journey is about to come to a finish. A dark motorway, empty of other cars, small stretches of light apparent on the horizon.

You want it to stop. You’re tired, the bursts of energy you once had are now few and far between. The look of horror on Matthew Williams’s face as you raised that ball-peen hammer
and swung it towards him, now a distant memory. Sam Byrne’s limp and lifeless body a faded image in your consciousness.

The others . . . you remember less clearly.

You want to feel that power endlessly, forever, but you know it’s impossible. Once the act is over, the feeling begins to weaken, tarnished by other thoughts crowding into your mind.

You wonder if you were ever normal.

When you started, you knew what the end game would look like. You knew how the closing scene would play out. You planned it perfectly, every step along the way. No one could have done it better
than you. If you had continued in the way you had begun, you may never have been discovered.

You watched those two men die as they ended their own lives. The guilt too much for them, a ghost from their past revisiting enough to send them over the edge. Literally, in Chris
Roberts’s case. You peered into the darkness as he leaped, wondering how it would feel if you followed him over the cliff.

You think about death more often now. You wonder if there is anything afterwards. If all this has been for nothing, that there is no soul to save, no soul to diminish. You wonder how you will be
judged. If your actions will be understood and forgiven.

Old Testament God will be understanding, you feel. He wasn’t afraid to smite and bring death and destruction to those who erred. New Testament God, you’re more worried about. He was
more about turning the other cheek.

You need to stop. Take a breath, consider things and make the right decisions. You don’t have time for that.

That’s why Neil Letherby is currently handcuffed and bound in the boot of your car.

You don’t know how you will kill him yet, but you know you will. You crave that power again. You need it, to keep going and complete your task.

You try and work out when this all began. Now it’s ending, you want to track the whole process. You know it begins in 2007, when eight men met and banded together, but that’s not the
proper beginning. That’s a prologue – a way of starting the story without really starting it.

It really began in 2010. Six years ago. That’s how long it has taken you to get to this point, to finish what you started.

You think of death. You wonder if you’ll welcome it once this is over.

There was no other way.

You have to believe that, otherwise everything falls apart inside you. Everything has to have meaning, it has to have an effect. What you’re doing is so egregious, so outside the norm,
that for it to be pointless would make all your work meaningless.