Lost Souls Read online

  He paused, looking at her, almost smiling. ‘Good to see you,’ he said.

  ‘You too.’

  Upstairs, Lexi could sense the buzz in the large, open-plan office of MIT 8. The place was almost full, despite the later hour. Scanning the room, she noticed Mo, as well as DS Maxine Smith, both absorbed in their work. Max had long been a sceptic of Lexi’s ‘psychobabble’, as she called it, but Lexi still intended to convert her. There was no sign of Lucy Berry, the open-minded civilian analyst who, beyond Dan, was Lexi’s main ‘ally’ on the team. Lexi knew that Lucy had young kids and would most likely be home with them now.

  ‘Everyone’s putting in a shift today,’ said Dan, glancing over his shoulder as he led her through the office. ‘I mean, we want to solve every case. But when it’s a kid, this lot go the extra mile. I didn’t even ask anyone to stay.’

  Lexi got that. Empathy for victims was crucial in Dan’s investigations, much like her work as a trauma psychologist. They both needed that motivation to push through the stress.

  ‘Cuppa tea?’ asked Dan.

  She was still cold from her bike ride. ‘Sure. Thanks.’

  Dan pulled a seat up to his desk and gave Lexi the initial report to read. When he returned with two steaming mugs, he sat next to her in his own chair and unlocked a laptop screen.

  ‘I’d be most interested to get your take on the crime scene,’ he said. ‘We know the boy’s name was Donovan Blair. There was an ID card for a community sports club in his pocket.’

  Dan clicked to bring up an image of the ID card. The boy had a gaunt face, and wasn’t making eye contact with the camera. Lexi felt a sudden pang of sadness for this poor kid, but forced herself to focus on the facts for now. She calculated from his date of birth that he was twelve.

  ‘He’d been in care for years,’ continued Dan. ‘Most recently fostered by a couple in Mortlake, Roger and Trish Hughes, who reported him missing a month ago. They were out of town today, but they’ve been informed. Max and Mo are interviewing them first thing tomorrow.’

  Without warning, Dan advanced to the next image and Lexi gasped. Donovan was shown kneeling at a church altar, his hands together as if in prayer. She composed herself and studied the photograph. She’d never seen anything like this. Dan talked her through the scene, showing her more pictures, angles and details.

  ‘You think he was killed somewhere else, then brought here?’ she asked.

  ‘There wasn’t any evidence of a struggle in the church.’

  ‘It makes sense. This perpetrator has taken a lot of care. The clothes, the hair, I mean, looks like he’s even cut the nails.’

  ‘The whole scene’s clean as a whistle,’ Dan said. ‘I doubt we’re going to find much material from the killer.’

  Lexi took the mouse and clicked back a few images. ‘I think that in itself is significant. OK, so you probably aren’t gonna find hair or fibres or DNA, but the cleanliness tells us something.’

  ‘That the guy’s organised?’

  ‘Yeah, but maybe more than that. It’s as if he’s presenting the body in death. Like a mortician would, making it look clean and smart. The ribbon around his hands is white, which often represents purity. And there’s the biblical verse about children and heaven. I’ll bet this killer has some very strong ideas about religion and the supernatural. Like he wants to be sure Donovan will go to heaven or something. Maybe he’s even asking for forgiveness.’

  ‘For himself?’

  ‘Or for Donovan. We know he had a tough life. Perhaps the killer was somehow trying to atone for that with all this.’ She gestured to the altar and cross.

  Dan narrowed his eyes. She could tell he wasn’t completely convinced.

  ‘Either way,’ she continued, ‘there’s no chance the ID card was accidental. The perpetrator wanted us to know who this was. They’re giving us his name. And they left him in a place where he was known, where he’d be found quickly.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ She paused. ‘But it’s some kind of message. I guess it means his identity is important. He didn’t want Donovan to be nameless, or forgotten.’

  She glanced sideways at Dan and noticed his eyes had lost focus.

  ‘Dan?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He sat back. ‘He didn’t want him to be forgotten… so he killed him?’

  She nodded. ‘I know. It doesn’t make sense. Have you checked if Donovan was known to services? Social care, NHS, maybe?’

  ‘Yeah, we’re following up. It’s not the quickest process, though.’

  ‘If he had a social worker or a psychologist, maybe they’d know who he was in contact with, whether there was anyone in his system who could’ve done this to him.’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ said Dan. ‘I don’t think he had much of a system.’

  ‘Hm,’ she acknowledged. ‘Probably not.’

  He took a sip of tea. ‘All right, I’m going to let you read a bit more. Anything else jump out at you?’

  ‘Just…’ She hesitated. ‘I think this perpetrator could kill again.’

  Dan froze, mug mid-air. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘This guy’s stage-managed the scene as if he was setting up a waxwork in a museum. He’s paid attention to every little detail.’

  ‘So?’

  She clicked forward to the Bible verse that had been highlighted. ‘Look at this. It says children. Not child. Children. Plural.’ She turned to him. ‘I think there could be more.’

  Seven

  By the time Lockhart got back to his flat in Hammersmith, he’d been awake for forty hours straight. Part of him wanted to drop into bed, but he was still wired with a kind of nervous energy from the new case, his overnight surveillance of Nick, and the countless black coffees he’d drunk to keep himself going. He went into the kitchen, grabbed a can of Stella from the fridge and cracked it open. Gulped a third of it down in one go. It’d help him sleep, he reasoned.

  Entering the living room, his gaze travelled automatically to the far wall, where he’d put up everything about his search for Jess. Top and centre of it all was his favourite photo of her, taken one summer evening during a walk by the river. Her smile was broad and her bright blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight. No matter how many years passed, he’d always remember her like that, frozen in time.

  A memory came to him of the two of them eating dinner, the first night after they’d moved in. They’d scrimped and saved every penny for a deposit on the place, in the days when flats in London were still affordable for ordinary people. But, with no money left for furniture, they’d sat on the floor and used a cardboard box for a table, eating pasta and drinking wine while the flyover traffic roared past outside the window. It would’ve been some people’s idea of hell, but they felt like royalty in their own tiny kingdom. A wave of sadness hit Lockhart and he quickly necked some more beer.

  Approaching the wall, he studied the map, trying to focus on what he’d seen this morning. The industrial park where he’d been observing his brother-in-law was about an hour’s drive from Whitstable, in the direction Nick had been heading this morning when Lockhart had been called to Mortlake. Was there a connection? Or was Lockhart so desperate to see a link that he was fitting the data into his theory that Nick knew something about Jess’s whereabouts? Lexi Green always cautioned him about that. Confirmation bias, she called it.

  Lockhart was grateful that Green had agreed to help out on their murder case. He’d been surprised at his own reaction when he’d seen her this evening in Jubilee House. Far from just being a routine professional encounter, Lockhart had not only found himself happy to see her, he’d also realised that he’d missed her. What did that mean, though?

  There was no question of him being disloyal to Jess – let alone unfaithful – but he couldn’t deny that Green had always been a positive in his life. She’d helped him express his emotions about a lot of stuff he’d been through in the military, and about Jess, without him ever feeling like he
was being judged. He’d told her things he’d never told anyone else, not even his mum, like how scared he felt sometimes. Things you would never admit to as a soldier. On top of that, she’d saved his life last year.

  Lockhart took a deep draught of Stella and set the can down. Green had been his therapist, and she’d made major contributions on two serial murder cases his team had tackled in the past fifteen months. Theirs was a professional relationship. Close, yes; intimate, even. But ultimately professional. So why did he always feel guilty when he’d spent any time with her? Lockhart realised that he was twisting his wedding band around his finger and wondered what Green would say about that. His subconscious or whatever. Best think about something else.

  He finished the beer and fetched another. Then he dropped onto the sofa and switched on the TV. The news was showing coverage of the ‘church murder’, as they were calling it. Lockhart watched as headlines flashed below footage of St Mary the Virgin in Mortlake, and the photo of Donovan Blair from the ID card they’d found on him. A further image of the boy came on screen, which Lockhart knew was taken from the missing person’s file.

  Once more, he could feel a sense of rage growing in the pit of his stomach, moving up to his chest. A tingling in his hands. The injustice of some bastard targeting a twelve-year-old kid and laying his body out like an exhibit. They needed to find out what in Donovan’s life might’ve caused him to go missing from his foster placement, and whether that was directly linked to his death. Whatever the story, Lockhart vowed he’d get justice for the lad.

  He was mid-swig when the news coverage shifted to an interview. Lockhart immediately recognised his old boss, Marcus Porter, now Detective Superintendent. Following his promotion last year, Porter had left the MIT and taken up a new role as head of media relations for The Met. The post suited him perfectly, Lockhart thought. Ideal public exposure for a man with lofty ambitions. Porter had always put politics ahead of policework. That had brought the two of them into conflict so often that Lockhart had been relieved when Porter announced he was leaving.

  Unfortunately, the shortfall in detective numbers across The Met meant the role of Detective Chief Inspector in MIT 8 hadn’t yet been filled. It meant more work for Lockhart, and reporting directly to DSI Burrows. She was a stickler in a way Porter hadn’t been, usually because he was too focused on briefing top brass and the press. That meant Lockhart had to tread carefully with her, do everything by the book. Or at least appear to be.

  Porter was answering questions from the news reporter now. ‘No,’ he explained in his smooth baritone, ‘there was nothing to indicate a risk of further victims.’ Lockhart recalled Green’s interpretation of the Bible verse. Children. He drank some more Stella. Porter added that he expected the team working on this ‘heinous crime’ to bring it to a swift conclusion, find the perpetrator and get justice for Donovan. A swift conclusion. No pressure, then… and Lockhart had no doubt his old boss wouldn’t hesitate to publicly lay the blame at his door if they didn’t get a result.

  With his combination of imposing presence and easy charm, Porter was a natural on camera. He went on to explain that every child should feel safe in London, whatever his or her background, and that they would do everything possible to ensure that security. Lockhart shook his head. It wasn’t that he disagreed with the message; it was just that Porter already sounded as if he was running for an election.

  Lockhart knew that political parties, both left and right, were courting his former boss. There was already media speculation that Porter would run for Mayor of London in 2025, although it wouldn’t surprise Lockhart if the DSI himself had been the source of those stories. If successful, he’d be the first person of Afro-Caribbean heritage to take on the role. And, if the press commentary was anything to go by, there was every indication he would win, if he ran.

  Lockhart’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he realised he hadn’t even taken off his jacket yet. He fished out the mobile and saw a text from Burrows, asking him to lead a team briefing at 0830 tomorrow. He texted back to say he’d do it, then sent a message to the MIT group on WhatsApp to let them know. They had a lot of work to do, but Lockhart was determined to find out what had happened to Donovan Blair. He looked across at the wall of material on Jess, lingering on her photograph.

  No one deserved to be forgotten.

  Eight

  Ultimately, it all came down to survival. Doing what you needed to do to look after yourself. He’d learned at a very young age that he couldn’t count on his parents for that. His dad had died when he was six, so he’d never really known him. His memories, hazy as they were, involved shouting and things being smashed in their home. And alcohol, lots of it. But, in the end, it was the booze that did for his old man. One night, after a blazing row with Mum, he stormed out drunk, vodka bottle in one hand and car keys in the other. Apparently, they found his minivan wrapped around a lamp post and him halfway through the windscreen.

  That had been the beginning of the end for Mum. She started drinking just like his dad had done, and pretty much stopped going out. It was a teacher at his school who’d noticed something was wrong when he’d turned up several days in a row with no lunch, his hair matted and clothes increasingly smelly. Social Services had taken him into care while Mum was offered help, not that it did her much good. And it was then, once he’d been put in the children’s home, that things really started going downhill.

  Calling it ‘care’ was a joke. The place was run more like a Young Offender Institution and he didn’t feel safe there once. The staff seemed to think violence and punishment were the only ways to keep the kids under control. Step out of line and you were locked in the ‘empty room’ – a cupboard so small you could only stand up in it. Kick off against that treatment – or anything else – and two or three of them would tackle you to the floor, barking orders to comply as they squeezed and choked you into submission.

  Then there were the kids themselves, who acted according to a strict hierarchy of power ordered by physical size and strength. As a skinny ten-year-old, he was right at the bottom of that pecking order, and the bigger boys let him know it every day. They started taking his food, and when he protested one of them bounced his head off the dining table, knocking a couple of teeth out with it. Handing over his meals became part of the routine, and the staff just let it happen. Stand up for yourself, they’d tell him.

  After almost a year of this, he’d decided that enough was enough. He didn’t have to stay there. He’d heard one of the older kids talking about life on the streets, about the freedom to make your own rules. No one telling you what to do. He imagined it, and suddenly there was hope. That first time he’d escaped from the system – climbing out through a ground-floor window and literally running away until his lungs felt like they were on fire – he’d been eleven.

  Of course, things would get worse. If he’d understood that back then, would he have stayed in the home? Probably not; at least on the street you made your own choices, you didn’t just have to sit there and take what everyone else dished out. All he knew was that you had to take care of yourself in this life. And, when that wasn’t possible, there was always the next life. That was where he was sending them now.

  They shouldn’t have to go through what he’d experienced; they were much better off in heaven. Everyone would be seeing that now, on the news. His first little angel.

  It was time to start making another one.

  And he knew just where to find her.

  Wednesday

  6th January

  Nine

  DS Maxine Smith had chosen a seat at the back of the MIT 8 morning briefing. Maximum distance between her and DSI Paula Burrows, minimum chance of being caught eating breakfast. Smith had got in early – she was seriously up for this one – but it was at the expense of putting any fuel in the tank. However, experience had taught her that if you needed to eat during a meeting, bananas and Jaffa Cakes were the two foods that could be consumed almost silently. No one wanted t
o hear the snick of an apple or crunch of toast while trying to concentrate on a murder case, especially not Burrows.

  When DCI Porter had been here, Burrows pretty much stayed off the shop floor. But with Porter leaving to pursue what appeared to be a career in TV and radio, Burrows was more present than ever. Although petite, the DSI’s presence loomed large, and she backed down from no one. She was already one of the most senior women in The Met, and Smith respected her for that.

  It was easy to see why Burrows had become Job all those years ago. While most coppers joined up to fight crime and protect the people of London, Burrows just seemed to really love rules. Her default observation stance – scowl of doom, arms folded – was a constant reminder not to transgress. Cross every t, dot every i, fill out every bit of paperwork perfectly and, most of all, don’t fuck up.

  Given that Lockhart had his own way of doing things, Smith wondered how long the guvnor could go without incurring the wrath of Burrows. She considered this as she chewed the last piece of her banana and quickly concluded: not long.

  ‘Max.’

  Lockhart’s voice pulled her attention back to the meeting and Smith surreptitiously flicked the banana skin under her seat.

  ‘You and Mo are talking to the foster parents this morning, right?’

  ‘Yup, straight after this,’ she replied. ‘They got back from Yorkshire late last night.’

  ‘Which should put them in the clear as suspects.’

  ‘In theory.’

  ‘Keep an eye out all the same, eh?’

  ‘Guv.’

  ‘Can you take us through what happened at the school yesterday?’ he asked.

  Smith sat up straight and projected her voice. It hadn’t always been like that; as someone with a visible disability, she’d been a shy teenager, never spoken up. Hidden her cleft hand. Until she’d realised that it shouldn’t be an obstacle to her doing anything. Not to joining The Met. And particularly not to making herself heard in an organisation full of men.