Darkness Falls (Kate Marshall, #3)(63)

Photofit images gave Kate the creeps, and this was no different. The face was a composite of different pieces—eyes, nose, mouth, lips, hair—but they came together to make a freakish, menacing image. The eyes were an intense brown and spaced a little far apart. The nose was straight and looked unremarkable, but the teeth were slightly bucked. The hairline was low and dark on the wide forehead, and the baseball cap was set quite far back on his head.

“Can you text this to me?” asked Kate.

“I’m on pay-as-you-go,” said Kenny.

“Oh, for God’s sake, I’ll give you the twelve pence,” said Des. “Go on, love,” he said. Kate typed in her number and texted the message to herself, then handed the phone to Kenny, who stomped back off downstairs.

“Did his hairline look odd?” asked Kate, now staring at the E-FIT photo on her own phone.

“Yes. I thought that, well, not too much at the time cos we get all sorts in here, but when I think back, his hair did look like a wig. A decent wig, cos the hairline would have been glued down.”

“False teeth too?” asked Tristan, tilting his head to look at the photo.

“I don’t know, maybe. Or he was just unlucky,” said Des.

“Have the police questioned any of the other regulars?” asked Kate.

“Yes, I had a few young lads come in. One of them is convinced that things were the other way around and that Hayden was planning to slip something in this bloke’s drink and rob him. He says that Hayden’s done this before.”

“Had anyone reported Hayden to the police? Did he have a record?” asked Tristan.

“No, and no. Most of the blokes this kind of thing happens to are too embarrassed to phone the police. They’re often married, and they don’t want the wife to find out,” said Des.

“Did you know much else about Hayden?”

“He was in care for most of his childhood. We get a lot of young lads in here who I have to chuck out for being underage. I’m very strict about that. Hayden had been coming here every Monday for about five months.”

“He was raped and strangled. His body was found dumped on the moor near Buckfastleigh,” said Kate. Des looked horrified. He shook his head and tutted.

“The sad thing is that we’ve lost quite a few young men from the community. Drug overdoses, beaten up by a punter. A lot of it goes under the radar. This is the first time anyone from the police has sent a sketch artist,” said Des.

“Are a lot of your regulars violent men?”

“A lot of men are violent; add unhappiness and alcohol into the mix, and you’ve got flames,” said Des.

“This guy has killed before,” said Kate.

“Like a serial killer?”

“Yes. Could we show you some photos and ask if you’ve seen any of these people come in here in the last few weeks?”

“Of course.”

Kate was ready with some printouts, and she put them on the bar. The first photo was of Max Jesper.

“Nope, never seen him,” said Des, peering at it and adjusting his glasses. Kate then showed a picture of Ashley Maplethorpe, taken from his LinkedIn page.

“Nope. Too classy for this place.”

Des also said no to photos of Fred Duncan and Bill that they’d included as a control group. The last photo was of Noah Huntley.

“Oh, I recognize him,” said Des. Kate and Tristan exchanged a glance.

“You’ve seen him in here?” asked Kate.

“Sorry, no. I meant I know who he is. He was our local MP. I wrote to him about getting the canal bank outside cleaned up. He wrote back to me. It never got cleaned, but he wrote back to me; that’s something, isn’t it?”

“You’re absolutely sure he hasn’t been in here?” asked Tristan.

“Absolutely sure,” said Des. “Why would he come to a shithole like this?”





34


From the bar in Torquay, Kate and Tristan drove back to Ashdean for a Skype call with Rita Hocking. She’d returned Kate’s third email, apologizing that she’d been away in India reporting on their election. She said that she’d be happy to talk about her time working at the West Country News with Joanna.

When they got back to the office, they had lunch, and Tristan printed off the photofit image and pinned it to the wall next to A4 photos of Noah Huntley, Ashley Maplethorpe, and Max Jesper. There was also a photo of Nick Lacey, which Tristan had got from Bishop, but it was a photo of him from behind. Tristan had drawn a big question mark over it in black ballpoint pen.

“Our photofit man doesn’t look like any of them,” said Tristan.

“The noses all match. They all have quite strong Roman noses, but we need more than just a nose,” said Kate.

“We need a photo of Nick Lacey. He’s been bubbling away in the background of all this.”

Underneath the line of photos were pictures of David Lamb and Gabe Kemp. They’d also added two pieces of paper for the unidentified bodies found in 1998 in the storm drain and in 2000 on the landfill site. Kate and Tristan stared at them all for a minute.

“If this guy is wearing a disguise to abduct his victims, it’s made it easier for him to get away with it for a long time,” said Kate, staring at the cold brown eyes, which seemed to dominate the room, watching them from the noticeboard.