Syn (The Merseyside Crime Series Book 2) - Malcolm Hollingdrake (world of reading TXT) 📗

The booklet of photographs positioned on the table alongside three mobile phones was an anomaly. He had accurately placed and glued the images of the people taken in the pub the evening of the incident onto the separate pages. The writing below each was neat and orderly. He had slashed those early, grainy images of Sharpe, Jennings and Groves with a knife in the shape of a tick. Beneath, in a flowing hand, he had written the day and the date of death, underneath which was a small photograph of each before and during their dying moments. He had also written the words ‘Life is for living – just live it!’ However, on the first three, he had crossed out the words ‘live it’ and replaced them with the single one – ‘DIE!’ Below that was a description of the moments in which they died. He detailed their facial expression and noted anything they uttered. In the case of Jennings and Sharpe he noted the length of time from the incision to their final twitches. For Groves, he left the end time blank. He had needed to leave before death arrived and anyone else who needed to collect their car. ‘Shock’, ‘fear’, ‘surprise’, ‘hurt’ were but some of the descriptions. He always underlined the word ‘fear’ and wrote the word beneath each image.

His gloved hand turned to the next photograph, that of Bill Rodgers. Using scissors, he removed it to reveal the underlying page from which another face stared out. This face had only recently been added after careful consideration. He would be the next. He pasted Rodgers’s image onto the subsequent page. It was clear, he would worry the longest.

Placing two new craft handles on the table, he inserted two blades. He positioned the dull curve of the honed edge and the fine tip facing each other.

‘Eeny meeny miny moe …’ He let his finger move between the two blades until the rhyme ended. ‘You are out!’ On a narrow piece of tape, he wrote the name, ‘Bill’, before sticking it to the handle. He added what for him would be the penultimate victim before attaching that to the remaining weapon. A moment later he produced a third knife. It would be a spare in case a blade snapped. One had done, he recalled, when dispatching Sharpe.

Collecting the knives, he placed them in a shoe box. Returning to the book he flicked through to the last page, to a photograph of Debbie Sutch. Unlike the others the words written beneath were, ‘Goddess – Guardian Angels live forever!’ He brought a finger to his lips before returning it to touch Sutch’s mouth.

Chapter 18

The Merseyside Operational Command Centre based at Speke, had become a valuable modern resource for the Matrix teams. All were now housed under the one roof, a centre bristling with the necessary technology to fight today’s crime in such a large and diverse city. DCI Mason flicked through the slides on the interactive board that filled most of one wall of the conference room. Today it would be open to the press. The first cameras were in the process of being organised. Occasionally he paused to read some of the notes he had prepared. His Chief Constable was not happy, not happy at all. The murders of three people occurring at the same time, he was told, was very different from what was clearly seen by the public as the strategic murder of three innocent friends. The word ‘executed’ had been used during his last meeting with his Chief Constable and the Commissioner. The request for greater resourcing had been discussed, balanced against the progress made to date.

Within fifteen minutes he would be interviewed by the media and he had received a clear brief as to the level of information he should make available. He was pleased that the press would not be allowed questions at this stage. For him, this building seemed somewhat alien; he would feel ill at ease until he was out of the limelight and back at his own desk in the city centre.

Carlos Briggs’s world seemed to stand still when Nicola, sitting him down in the back room of the studio, informed him that Carla’s body had been discovered. It was obvious from his facial expression and the pallor of his skin just how hard it had hit him. The tears seemed to squirt from his eyes as the guttural noise erupted, at the same time producing huge, uncontrollable sobs. It was so distressing it also brought her to tears. He seemed to wither and fall into her, clinging like a drowning man to the smallest piece of floating wood, desperate, frightened and for that moment, inconsolable. She quietly told him what she knew from the report she had received earlier from a DC Peet. He had introduced himself as Michael. His voice seemed controlled and reassuring but she sensed instantly he was the harbinger of bad news. He explained that he had the sorry task of informing her close friends of Carla’s death. The next of kin had been notified. A statement about her murder would follow and her name released. In her heart of hearts, Nicola had expected such news. She had thought Carla might just be broken enough to have accidentally taken her own life during a bout of heavy drinking. The breakup had, she understood, been more traumatic than she had ever disclosed. The evidence was there in the way she not only lived life to the full but possibly abused the new sense of freedom. She seemed hellbent on conveying to those around her that ‘Life was for living’. It suddenly seemed a false mantra.

Hearing the words ‘murder investigation’ dealt a huge blow. She seemed to momentarily float away from the phone conversation as if she were trying to put it all into a perspective she could comprehend fully.

‘Nicola, I’m going to text you a number. It’s a link to the Police Family