Daisy in Chains(42)

‘Whoa!’

Pete stops. ‘What’ve you found?’

‘Not sure. Give me a minute. I’ll catch up.’

Leaving Sunday behind, Pete makes his way along the landing. He finds a spare bedroom with empty cupboards and an unmade bed, a smaller room that is used as a furniture and box store.

The room at the end of the corridor has a plain wooden floor, and is almost devoid of furniture. There is a single leather chair, old, easy, comfortable, and a small coffee table holding seven hardback books. They are Maggie’s; her bestselling, true-crime books, one for each of the convicted killers she has represented. There is nothing else in the room at all, apart from what has been pinned to the walls.

‘Like a museum exhibit, isn’t it?’

Liz is behind him, is looking over his shoulder at the photographs, the newspaper cuttings, the internet screenshots and the case documents that have been arranged around the walls of the room.

‘Not one you’d take your kids to,’ Pete says. He still hasn’t moved from the doorway.

Huge cork noticeboards have been hung around the room, each one dedicated to one of Maggie’s clients.

‘It’s like an incident room,’ Pete says. ‘Except, it’s a bit, I don’t know . . .’

‘Gleeful?’ suggests Liz, who slips in and stands in front of the board dedicated to Shane Ridley. Maggie, as Ridley’s lawyer, had access to police files, and several of the key documents, including crime scene photographs, are here. Only three pieces of Lara Ridley’s body were ever found; one of them, her head, by a troop of scouts in woodland. Liz is looking at a photograph of that head now, empty eye sockets staring up at the camera from a pile of autumn leaves.

‘She’s really proud of her work, isn’t she?’ Liz says.

‘She’s very good at it.’ Pete has stepped closer to the portrait photograph of Ridley, taken on the couple’s honeymoon. His hair is windswept and damp, there is sand on the side of his face. His shoulders are bare.

Next around the wall is a board dedicated to Maggie’s first major success. Triple murderer Steve Lampton was released in 2007 after serving five years of a life sentence. He, too, is looking down at Pete now, surrounded by grisly photographs of the young women he killed.

Next is Nigel Upton who killed two teenagers in a well-known lovers’ lane near Buxton in Derbyshire. Upton, too, was released after Maggie’s intervention.

To one side of the big, uncurtained window is Niall Caldwell, who bludgeoned his mother to death to get his inheritance faster than he might otherwise have done. On the other side of the window, Russell Mulligan, who shot a village postmistress in an armed robbery that went disastrously wrong. Then Bill Fryer. Arguably, Bill Fryer is the worst of them. He was the only one who went after kids.

‘She has pictures of dead children on her wall.’ Pete can’t help it. He’s seen some things in his time, but . . .

The final board in the room is dedicated to Hamish Wolfe. His picture is staring down at them.

‘She’s really odd, Pete.’ Liz is staying close to his side. ‘I know you think I’m biased against her. I know she has a job to do, but look at the table.’

Of all the things to capture attention in this room, Pete wouldn’t have bet on the coffee table, but he does what he’s told. It’s a mess, stained by several rings left by coffee mugs and glasses. The leather in the chair is old and worn and there is a glass beside the pile of books. He picks it up and smells Scotch.

‘She sits here, drinking coffee and Scotch and looking at innocent people who’ve been killed horribly and the monsters who she’s helping,’ says Liz. ‘What kind of woman does that?’

Pete can think of nothing to say. He turns to leave. Liz, though, seems reluctant to follow him. ‘You know what really freaks me out, though?’ she says.

Pete stops in the doorway. ‘What?’

‘Look at these blokes. Look at Ridley, Caldwell, not quite so much Mulligan but Fryer. And especially Hamish. Just look at them.’

Pete does, and sees exactly what she’s getting at.

‘If she’s only concerned with justice,’ says Liz, ‘how come she only gets involved with the good-looking ones?’

‘Pete!’ Someone’s voice calling from downstairs. ‘You need to see this!’

Leaving Maggie’s box room, he and Liz make their way back downstairs into the kitchen, where he almost falls over a pair of legs. One of the SOCOs is flat on his back, looking up at the underside of the table. The chairs have all been pushed away.

‘What?’

‘Come and see for yourself.’

Pete gets down, the floor tiles cold beneath him, and rolls over on to his back. The SOCO is shining a torch upwards.

‘Christ.’

‘Yeah. Think she’s seen it?’

Pete thinks. ‘She’d have said something, I’m sure. What is it, it’s not—’

‘Blood? No we don’t think so. Although almost certainly intended to give that impression. Probably just a thick red marker pen. We need to get some shots.’

The SOCO slides out, leaving Pete staring up at the writing on the underside of Maggie’s kitchen table. Just three words.

HE LOVES ME.





Chapter 33