Nine Lives by Anita Waller (best english books to read .txt) 📗

24

November the fifth arrived without rain. It wasn’t exactly sunny, but it was bright and when Erica woke at seven it was to a feeling of relief that it was her alarm that had pealed out its tune, and not a call on her mobile phone.

Frannie got up at the same time, and they shared breakfast and news of their intended day.

Erica was all too aware of the hard day in front of Frannie. Social Services were removing three children from the dubious care of their parents, albeit temporarily, but it had to be done. The parents needed help and possibly counselling; they needed to be taught how to look after their own children, and a short sharp shock was usually a good place to start.

They talked it over, and then moved on to Erica’s day, where she confessed to a feeling of relief that no early-morning call had woken her.

‘Flick and I had a conversation yesterday about the possibility of a further killing because it’s bonfire time, so at the moment no dog walker has found anything untoward.’

‘Maybe it’s helped putting out that warning on the news.’

‘I hope so. It’s also helped the killer though. She’s now aware we know it’s a woman.’

‘Lucky for you that couple saw the car in the car park.’

‘More than lucky. We’d still be at the he/she stage without them. Good day yesterday though. The team interviewed everybody who attended the gym on the nights all four girls were killed. Big job, but they saw everybody except one, and Kev went off last night to speak with the final one. I can’t imagine he got anything from it or he would have rung me. But it’s cleared up that line of enquiry.’

‘You still think the gym is the answer?’ Frannie leaned forward, her marmalade knife in her hand and a quizzical, thoughtful look on her face.

‘God knows, but that’s police work, isn’t it. I can’t barge in and accuse all and sundry, we have to eliminate. The gym was definitely a link between the four girls, but the gym is almost next door to the university so does that give us another possibility?’

‘A student? Maybe a mature student in view of the fact that this case is linked with your twenty-fourteen one? Shall I shut up?’

Erica laughed. ‘Don’t be daft. Any input is welcome, and you know almost as much about this case as I do, as all I seem to do is rabbit on about it. It’s become personal, as you probably realise. Eight beautiful young women, never going to reach their potential in life, and you’ve been designated chief sounding board.’

Frannie reached across the kitchen table and squeezed Erica’s hand. ‘Always here for you, talk all you want, you know it goes no further. Expect me when you see me tonight, I have no idea how today is going to play, but I’ll be thinking of you.’

‘And you take care. Bit of a thug, isn’t he, the dad?’

‘He is, but we take police protection. I’ll be careful, don’t worry. And I can handle myself, anyway, I’m the one who can move two wheelie bins at the same time, remember?’

Flick placed a coffee in front of Erica, and sat down.

‘You here to talk?’ Erica asked.

‘Yes, is this the way a DS would do it, or is it insubordination again? I’m good at getting things wrong.’

Erica closed her computer and waited.

‘I’m not sleeping,’ Flick stated, ‘and I’m not sleeping because of this case. I’ve realised that this second case has thrown up things that should have been done in the first case, and I also think this bloody rain may be a link between the two but it’s not a planned link, it’s a link that she uses when it occurs. Get me?’

‘Go on.’

‘Okay, the link in the cold case is the letter L, but how did she do that? Where did she get girls with the initial L? Surely she didn’t know them all? I couldn’t name four female acquaintances all with the letter L – or at least I could, but they’d all be Lisa, and that’s not what she wanted – but if she, killerwoman, belonged to some sort of group that was for women, it would probably give her the choices she needed. And let’s not forget there was a time lapse between each L killing, so the last couple may have been new members.’

Erica frowned. ‘What sort of group? You’ve ruled out a gym, so what would a group of twenty-plus-age women attend?’

‘I had no idea on that one when I fell asleep at five. What I’m really getting at is I think L isn’t the real link. That was a little foible. I think we’ve no idea what the link is yet, but I think we need to go and talk to boyfriends and parents of the L girls, dig deeper into their lives instead of thinking there’s no DNA, or nobody has spotted anything, or this killer’s too freakin’ careful. At the most we’ll have eight interviews or so, and who knows where that might lead us?’

Erica sipped at her drink. ‘I completely agree. I’ve been trying to work with both cases concurrently, but all the time it’s showing the only link between the two is the same killer. We need more than that. Well done, Flick. Now we need a starting point. We need a list of parents, husbands, boyfriends, even their dogs and cats if they’re relevant. When you’ve done the list, let me have it and I’ll set up appointments for tomorrow. We can’t drop in on them, I want it to be more formal than that so that they realise we’ve never let this case go. I think most of them assumed we had. Okay, making guesses time. At what sort of gatherings could this bitch have met them?’

Flick shrugged. ‘Pilates? Art classes? IT classes? There’s all sorts run at any moment