Lost Souls Read online

  Now, Jordan decided he’d go and have a smoke by the river, try and calm himself down. Then he’d head over to his mate Malachi’s house. He could nearly always stay there when he wanted, crashing on the sofa in Malachi’s room. They could play PS4 and chill together. And if he was lucky, Malachi’s mum would make them jerk chicken, proper spicy Jamaican stuff. That made him feel a bit better. He slung his kit bag over his shoulder and was walking away when someone called his name.

  ‘Jordan!’

  He stopped, turned around. Wondered if there was going to be any hassle, but it was just an older bloke with his palms raised, like he meant no harm. Jordan had the feeling he recognised him from somewhere.

  ‘You all right, mate?’ said the guy.

  ‘Do I know you?’ Jordan narrowed his eyes.

  ‘Yeah.’ The man smiled. ‘Don’t you remember?’

  Jordan wasn’t sure, so he didn’t answer.

  ‘What d’you want?’ he asked.

  The man took a few steps closer, his hands still spread.

  ‘I want to help you.’

  Tuesday

  12th January

  Thirty-Seven

  ‘I’m a bad person,’ Lexi said.

  She wrote the words on her board under the heading Thought, then turned to Gabriel. Her client was sitting in one of the low armchairs in her consulting room at the clinic.

  ‘OK, so, how much do you believe that?’ she asked.

  ‘I dunno. Quite a bit, I s’pose.’

  ‘What percentage?’

  Gabriel shrugged. ‘Fifty.’

  ‘Fifty.’ Lexi put 50% alongside the statement. The number was lower than she’d expected; they were making progress. She tapped her pen on the next column, labelled Evidence For. ‘What about this? What information do you have that supports that belief?’

  ‘Er, well… my parents abandoned me. That’s a pretty big one.’

  ‘OK. We’ll put that down, and we may come back to challenge it a little later.’

  ‘How can we do that? I mean, it’s a fact. They did.’ He sounded hurt.

  ‘Mm, but sometimes if we unpack the circumstances of an event, it might alter the meaning of what happened. And the belief that’s based on it.’

  Gabriel stared at the board, his jaw clenched, lips pressed together. Lexi could tell he wasn’t convinced, but that didn’t surprise her. Our oldest patterns of thinking were usually the hardest to break. It reminded her of Tim, of his own story of family loss.

  After he’d stormed out of Tooting Market on Saturday, Lexi had caught up with him and apologised for pushing him into the admission. It’d been a little insensitive of her, but she was also glad that she now understood Tim’s attachment issues more clearly. Eventually, he’d calmed down, and she’d persuaded him to come for a drink and tell her more. It didn’t make for easy listening.

  When he was just a kid, Tim’s father had died in an accident and, in the aftermath, his mother had become an alcoholic. He was taken into care and spent most of his childhood in the system. Lexi expressed as much sympathy as she could, and told Tim that she was there for him. Just because she took a phone call from work or her dad every so often, it didn’t mean she was leaving him.

  The words were sincere. And, yet, she still felt like a fraud because of the question she found herself asking inside: did she really want to be with a man who needed constant reassurance that she wanted him, loved him, even? Lexi wasn’t sure if she’d reached that stage…

  ‘A lot of people don’t like me,’ said Gabriel. Lexi realised her mind had wandered and she’d been caught off-guard.

  ‘Uh, really? What do you mean?’

  ‘When they get to know me. They don’t seem to like me.’

  ‘And what makes you think that?’

  Gabriel’s mouth opened, but he didn’t say anything. Lexi knew this was one of those moments where a client confronts something that they’ve thought for a long time without ever really interrogating why they believe it.

  ‘I just… they do.’

  ‘OK.’ She wrote it on the board. ‘I might challenge you on that one, too.’ Lexi gave him a half-smile, and he appeared to relax a little. She indicated the final column: Evidence Against. ‘Now, what about this? You could also see it as proof that you’re a good person.’

  Gabriel placed his hands on his knees, closed his eyes briefly. Lexi waited, and a moment later he opened them again, a look of determination on his face.

  ‘I’m someone who’s kind to people,’ he said firmly. ‘I care about others.’

  ‘Right!’ Lexi found it hard to contain her enthusiasm. This was the kind of alternative view of himself that she’d been trying to access for weeks. It was moments like these that made the harder parts of being a therapist totally worth it. When you knew you were making a difference by helping a person see something they couldn’t see before.

  Lexi hoped she’d be able to provide the same kind of breakthrough on Dan’s case. He’d called her last night, just as the story was hitting the news. A second child found dead in a church, police treating it as a homicide. A girl, this time. It was grim vindication of Lexi’s prediction about the possibility of multiple victims.

  She was meeting Dan later to get more details on the case, with the aim of finding links and sketching a profile to help his team. And, despite her dad being ill, and the issues with Tim, she’d need to get her game face on. Because there was no reason to think a killer capable of such crimes would stop at two.

  Thirty-Eight

  ‘OK, thanks very much for your time, Ms Watkins,’ said Lockhart.

  ‘Can I go now?’ The petite, middle-aged woman gestured over her shoulder. ‘It’s just, I’ve got a shedload of marking to do in my free period before lunch, and I’d love to get cracking on it.’

  ‘Of course.’ Lockhart forced a quick smile and extended his hand towards the door. ‘We appreciate you speaking to us.’

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t help you.’

  Katie Watkins gathered up her handbag and turned to leave. In a few short strides she was at the door, then gone, leaving Lockhart and DC Priya Guptill alone again. As the teacher’s footsteps echoed away down the corridor outside, Lockhart stood and stretched his arms up towards the polystyrene ceiling tiles. He and Guptill had been cooped up in this tiny, airless room for most of the morning. The only redeeming feature of what amounted to a glorified cupboard was its warmth. At least without windows, Lockhart supposed, you couldn’t actually lose any heat.

  ‘How many is that then?’ he asked.

  Guptill checked her notebook. ‘Four, five… we’ve done six. One left.’

  ‘Then lunch.’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Not here, though. I never liked school dinners.’

  Guptill snorted a small laugh. ‘Me neither.’

  ‘We’ll grab something on the way back.’

  Lockhart knew that his mind wandering to food was a sure sign that nothing much was going on here. He’d been fired up when they’d arrived at Richmond Park Academy this morning. The school had been efficient and helpful following the MIT’s request late yesterday, compiling a list of any staff who had taught both Donovan Blair and Charley Mullins. But, with their informal interviews almost finished, and no result so far, his hope of finding a significant connection between the two victims had already started to fade. And he wouldn’t just have to answer to Burrows for that.

  The media were all over this case, using the nickname ‘Church Kid Killer’ now. Ever determined to show he was on trend, DSI Porter had even referred to the perpetrator as ‘CKK’ in his press conference yesterday. He’d gone on to assure the public once more of a quick result before any further lives were lost. It felt as though Porter was teeing him up personally to take the fall if they failed.

  ‘Who’s the last one?’ Lockhart sat back down again.

  ‘Er…’ Guptill flipped back to the list. ‘Timothy McKay.’

  ‘All right. Do you want to lead?’
<
br />   ‘Sure. I mean, if you think I can do it.’

  He nodded. ‘Course you can. I’ve seen a lot of interviewers in my time, Priya, and you’re a natural. We could use those skills a lot more in our team. So, you can get a bit of extra experience here, then build on that.’

  ‘Awesome. Thanks.’

  After Lucy Berry had discovered that the school linked Donovan and Charley, Lockhart had initially thought of bringing Smith with him this morning to conduct the interviews of anyone who’d worked with them both. But he was glad that he’d decided to leave her in charge at the office, overseeing the exploitation of their digital leads. Her interviewing skills would’ve been wasted here, and it was a good development opportunity for Guptill.

  Lockhart was wondering if he’d have time to visit the mortuary later during Charley’s post-mortem and speak to Dr Volz when there was a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in,’ said Guptill.

  The door was opened by a man who Lockhart guessed was five to ten years younger than him. He had slightly scruffy mid-length hair and an angular face. He wore a dark grey tweed jacket over a cardigan and gingham check shirt, slim navy chinos and brown suede ankle boots.

  ‘Timothy McKay?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘It’s, ah, pronounced McKai, like the letter I.’

  ‘OK. Have a seat please, Mr McKay.’

  ‘Just call me Tim,’ he replied breezily.

  ‘Right. I’m Detective Constable Priya Guptill, and this is my colleague Detective Inspector Dan Lockhart. We’re investigating the murders of Donovan Blair and Charlotte Mullins, known as Charley.’

  Lockhart noticed the younger man’s eyes narrow at the mention of his name. McKay stared at him across the table for a moment, before returning his attention to Guptill.

  ‘Terrible. Absolutely awful.’ McKay bit his lip, shook his head. ‘So, er, how can I help?’

  ‘How did you know Donovan and Charley?’

  McKay leant back in the chair, linked his fingers in his lap. ‘Well, I can’t say I knew either of them particularly well. I taught Donovan history twice a week, and I was Charley’s stand-in form tutor for about a month last year. Spring term, I think.’

  ‘Thank you. And how would you describe Donovan in your classes?’

  ‘Quiet.’ McKay cocked his head. ‘Rarely said anything, never put his hand up to answer a question. I’d have to ask him something directly if I wanted him to speak, but he was very shy, so it was difficult to get him to engage in class discussions, group work, you know.’

  ‘And what did you think had happened when he went missing?’

  ‘I, ah, I don’t know. I suppose I didn’t think about it all that much.’

  ‘Really?’ Guptill arched her eyebrows. ‘Why would that be?’

  McKay exhaled through his nostrils. ‘His attendance was poor. I recorded his absences as usual, but that’d be a matter for his form tutor and head of year, not me. And, besides, I knew he was living with foster parents, and things aren’t always straightforward in those situations. Kids move on, they run off, get given new placements, you know?’

  To her credit, Guptill didn’t automatically agree with him. Instead, she switched tack; a good interviewing technique to keep someone on their toes. McKay wasn’t a suspect, but it never hurt to stop people of interest getting too comfortable.

  ‘What about Charley? How well did you know her?’

  ‘Barely. She was more talkative than Donovan, though. That’s for sure.’ He smirked.

  Lockhart couldn’t help himself. ‘Is something funny?’

  ‘Oh, no, er, just, you know what teenage girls can be like.’

  ‘I’m not sure I do.’

  There was silence for a few seconds. McKay didn’t respond, but he continued to smile to himself. Lockhart had already taken a dislike to him. It was Guptill who spoke first.

  ‘Do you know of any link between Donovan and Charley here, at the school?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Take your time, Tim,’ she said. ‘See if anything comes to mind.’

  McKay blew out his cheeks. ‘Nothing. They weren’t even enrolled here at the same time. Charley had left before Donovan started in year seven. Have you tried asking the sports coaches or the supply teachers? We’ve got hundreds of them.’

  Now it was Lockhart’s turn to ignore a question.

  ‘How did you know Charley had left?’ he asked. ‘When you’d stopped being her form tutor, what, six months earlier?’

  The teacher folded his arms, indignant. ‘Sorry, what are you implying?’

  ‘Could you just answer the question, please?’ said Lockhart coolly.

  McKay leant forward, looked from him to Guptill and back. ‘What’s going on here? Am I some sort of suspect in this? I was told this was a conversation to help the police, not an interrogation. Do I need a bloody lawyer?’

  Lockhart’s next question might have been to ask this smug git where he was on the nights they believed Donovan and Charley had been murdered, but he knew that would be taking things too far. So, he opted for de-escalation instead.

  ‘No, Tim, you don’t need a lawyer. You’re speaking to us in an entirely voluntary capacity.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Look, we’re just trying to investigate the related murders of two children, and—’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What?’ Lockhart was surprised at being interrupted.

  ‘I know you are investigating this, Inspector, because I have to hear about it every day from my girlfriend, Lexi Green.’

  Thirty-Nine

  ‘Right then, Mo. What’ve we got?’

  Smith planted her palms on Khan’s desk and leant over the laptop he was using. Its screen showed a map which Smith immediately recognised as south-west London. Along the top, the Thames snaked east around Chiswick, Barnes and Fulham. Bottom-left was the green expanse of Richmond Park, the largest open space in the capital. And, in between those landmarks, she could see a series of dots overlaid on the streets around Putney. Some were beside Jubilee House, where they were right now. The thought made Smith feel a mixture of nausea and anger. Charley Mullins had been so close to them, yet they’d been powerless to protect her.

  ‘OK, so, each dot is a cell site where Charley’s phone pinged at some point during the week before her death.’ Khan enlarged the map slightly and pointed to a cluster around Hazlewell Road. ‘This is The Beacon, where she lived. So, there’s a lot of activity there, obviously. Same at her school, Ark Putney Academy, here.’ He tapped the screen a few streets below the location of the children’s home.

  ‘Consistent with Charley carrying it around with her, using it regularly,’ Smith observed.

  ‘Yeah. That’s useful pattern of life. But it’s not all that interesting. What I want to know is what’s going on between school and home, and where it ended up.’

  ‘When’s the last activity on it?’

  Khan turned to her, arched his eyebrows. ‘Now that is interesting. Check this out.’ He shifted the map north and west, highlighting a smaller cluster in Barnes and clicking a few times to alter the display options.

  ‘On Friday night,’ he continued, ‘her mobile starts out at The Beacon. It’s static there for a few hours, then moves cell sites, like, a couple of hundred metres down the road, at 8.56 p.m.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Then, at 9.12 p.m., it starts moving again, but this time it’s crossing cell sites much faster.’

  ‘She got in a car,’ said Smith.

  ‘Unless the phone was in a car and she wasn’t.’

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘Where does it go?’ asked Smith.

  ‘Barnes. Then it stops. And that’s it.’

  ‘Hang on.’ She stood up straight and looked across to where DC Parsons was working at the next bank of desks. ‘Andy, how you doing with that ANPR?’

  ‘Getting there,’ he replied wearily. ‘Nearly done on Sunday night for ou
r vehicles of interest, then I’m going to look for anything dodgy on traffic cameras in the area around the church.’

  ‘Forget the CCTV for a minute. When you’re done on the Sunday night checks, run the same number plates for Friday evening, between 8.45 and 9.30 p.m.’

  Parsons took a deep breath. Smith knew he’d say yes, but it didn’t hurt to offer an incentive.

  ‘There’ll be Jaffa Cakes in it for you,’ she added, arching her eyebrows.

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say so?’ Parsons grinned and got to work.

  ‘What about me?’ asked Khan.

  ‘You can have some too, Mo. I’ve bought an industrial-size bag.’ And she’d already had way too many of them today. But that didn’t matter right now. Comfort food was the fuel of investigations; any copper knew that.

  ‘Sweet.’

  ‘OK.’ Smith gestured to the map. ‘What’s the place where the phone stops?’

  Khan brought up an internet browser window displaying Google Street View.

  ‘Here.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s, like, nothing. Just trees and hedges and stuff.’

  ‘What do you reckon?’ asked Smith. ‘Thrown out the car window?’

  ‘Most prob’ly. It carries on sending out a signal for another ten hours, overnight. It’s last communication with a base station was at 7.26 a.m. Then it,’ he hesitated, ‘dies.’

  Smith nodded slowly. ‘Nice one, Mo. We get down there, we find the handset. Then we can download the entire phone, messages, everything. We might even get our perpetrator’s fingerprints on it, if he was the one that chucked it.’

  ‘I like that.’ Khan’s face lit up a second, before creasing into a frown. ‘That’s if we find it, though. It’s a big cell site down there, a few hundred metres at least.’

  She checked her watch, inwardly cursing the short winter days. ‘And we’ve only got about another hour of light.’