Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(26)

“Do you think you’ve got enough information to make a start?”

“This man Caitlyn was seeing. There has to be a reason why she kept it a secret. It could have just been that he was older, but she hid it from her best friend.”

“It’s a shame the best friend isn’t here to answer our questions,” said Tristan.

“Her husband is,” said Kate, looking over at the box file sitting on the edge of the table. Even though it was just paperwork, she hadn’t felt comfortable leaving it in the car, knowing how valuable it was to Malcolm and Sheila. She wiped her hands on a napkin and opened it.

On the top was Caitlyn’s last school photo, the one that had been cropped for the newspaper. The girls in the class were in two rows. The girls on the front row were sitting, knees together, hands clasped in their laps. The picture was taken on a grassy field, and behind them was a white portable where sports equipment was stacked: hurdles, a bag of footballs, and a pile of crash mats. There were twelve girls in the class. Kate turned the picture over. A small sticker on the bottom listed the names of the pupils, the teacher, and the photographer.

“I want to start by tracking down her classmates. Are you on Facebook?”

“Of course, are you?” asked Tristan, chasing a pea around his plate with the tip of his fork.

“No.”

He stopped, his pea-laden fork halfway to his mouth. “Seriously?”

Despite the somber mood, Kate laughed at his shock. “I don’t want people knowing my business, especially with my past. Can you help me with looking them up?”

“Sure,” he said, shoving the last of his chips in his mouth.

“I also want to talk to the friend in Melbourne. Sheila gave me her email address.”

Tristan wiped his hands on a napkin and took the school photo from Kate and studied it closely. “She doesn’t look happy, does she, Caitlyn?”

“I thought that. But she was at school. She could have just been pissed off they were stuck out in the cold with no coats.”

He handed the photo back. “Do you think she could still be alive?”

“She could be. I’ve seen a lot of strange cases in my time, people showing up after years missing, but Sheila and Malcolm didn’t allude to anything being a problem with Caitlyn. I suppose she could have run away and then something happened to her.”

“Or Peter Conway killed her?”

“That’s possible too. He was living close by. It could have been him in the car, but tall, dark, and handsome isn’t much to go on. It doesn’t fit his style. He didn’t date his victims. He abducted them during the week so he could have the weekend to torture and kill them; but then again, serial killers develop their signature style over time.” Kate put the photo down and rubbed at her tired eyes. “There are a ton of questions and leads we can look into.”

Her mobile rang, and she fumbled in her jacket, which was hung over the back of her chair, and pulled it out. It was Alan Hexham.

“Hi, Kate, have you got a minute?” he said.

“Sure.”

“The police have identified the young woman from the postmortem, a schoolgirl local to the area, sixteen-year-old Kaisha Smith. The family was informed, so it’s been released to the press. I also looked into any cases involving young women dumped in wreckers’ yards in the past six months. And you were right. On Wednesday, the twenty-eighth of July, the body of a young woman called Emma Newman was found dumped naked amongst the scrap metal cars at the Nine Elms Wrecker’s yard near Tiverton. She was seventeen years old. She’d recently left the children’s home where she’d lived since she was small. No one reported her missing. She’d been bitten, Kate, just like Kaisha.”

“This first girl was found at a wrecker’s yard called the Nine Elms?” asked Kate, suddenly feeling very cold.

“Yeah, creepy, I know.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. I pulled the file.”

“How close is this wrecker’s yard to the second crime scene?”

“It’s just outside Tiverton, around twenty miles away.”

Kate looked up and saw Tristan had moved closer to a TV mounted on the wall above some tables opposite. The lunchtime news was showing an aerial view of the river and surrounding landscape from the second crime scene. Underneath was written BODY OF MISSING SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD DISCOVERED.

“Alan, it’s just coming on the news now. I’ll call you back.” Kate hung up and went to Tristan. “This is the girl from the postmortem,” she said.

“They must have put up a drone,” said Tristan, as the images on-screen were from high above, sweeping over the whole desolate crime scene, the rocky, gorse-covered landscape with the white forensics tent pitched next to the surging, filthy river. The drone banked down a little and caught the moment from two days previously, when the black body bag had been carried across the field from the forensics tent to the pathologist’s van. It then cut to a reporter standing at the top of the field, next to a drystone wall. Her blonde hair was being blown about by the strong wind.

“The victim has been identified as sixteen-year-old Kaisha Smith from Crediton. She was a pupil at Hartford School, a local independent school.” A photo flashed up—a young girl wearing her school uniform and grinning at the camera. Her hair was fair and permed with a straight fringe, and she wore a shirt and tie tucked under a brown blazer. Kate shuddered. The bright young girl looked nothing like the bloated, battered corpse at the morgue. “Kaisha was reported missing twelve days ago, after vanishing on her way home from school. Local police are appealing for witnesses.”