Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(6)

She sat down at the kitchen table. The first three victims had been schoolgirls between fifteen and seventeen years old. They had all been abducted on a Thursday or a Friday, and their bodies had shown up at the beginning of the following week. The victims had all been sporty, and in all three cases, they had been grabbed on their way home from after-school training. The abductions had been so well executed that the killer must have known where they would be and lain in wait.

They had questioned PE teachers in all boroughs and brought several in for questioning, the same with male teachers who had 1994 Citro?n Dispatch white vans registered to their names. None of their DNA had matched. They’d then looked at the parents of the victims and friends of the parents. The net kept getting wider, the theories wilder as to how the victims could be linked to the killer. Kate remembered a question that had been written up on the whiteboard of the incident room.

WHO HAD ACCESS TO THE VICTIMS AT SCHOOL?

A thought went through her, like a jolt of electricity. There had been a list of teachers, classroom assistants, caretakers, crossing guards, lunch ladies . . . but what about the police? Police officers often go into schools to talk to the kids about drugs and antisocial behavior.

On two occasions Peter had roped her in to join him on a school visit, to talk to some inner-city schoolkids about road safety. He had also worked on an antidrug presentation given around London schools. How many schools did he visit? Twenty? Thirty? Was it staring her in the face, or was she just tired and overwhelmed? No . . . Peter had commented that he had visited the school of the third victim, Carla Martin, a month before she went missing.

Kate got up and looked in her cupboards. All she could find was a bottle of dry sherry she’d bought to offer her mother on her last visit. She poured herself a large measure in a glass and took a gulp.

What if they had no leads because the Nine Elms Cannibal was also Peter Conway? The nights they spent together moved to the front of her mind, and she pushed it back, not wanting to go there. She sat, shaking. Did she really have the balls to accuse her boss of being a serial killer? Then she spied Peter’s thermos flask sitting beside the microwave. He’d drunk from it in the car. It would have his DNA.

Kate got up, her legs trembling. Her bag was on the floor by the back door, and it took some effort to get the clasp open. In one of the inside pockets, she found a new plastic evidence bag.

The flask has Peter’s DNA on it. We have the Nine Elms Cannibal’s DNA. I could quietly put in a request.

She pulled on a clean pair of latex gloves and approached the thermos like it was a wild animal she was about to capture. She took a deep breath, plucked it off the counter, and dropped it into the evidence bag, which she immediately sealed. She placed it on the tiny kitchen table. It felt like a betrayal of everything she believed in. She stood in the silence for a few minutes, listening to the rain hammering on the roof, and took another swig of the sherry, feeling it warming her insides and taking the edge off her panic.

No one needs to know about it. Who could she ask who was discreet? Akbar in forensics. She’d bumped into him once coming out of one of the gay bars in Soho. It had been an awkward moment. She had been with a guy, and so had he. He’d invited her for a drink the next night after work, and she had assured him that his secret, if it was a secret, was safe with her.

She would call him first thing in the morning, drive it over early and get the flask swabbed. Or maybe, if she got some sleep, this would all seem like a crazy theory in the morning.

There was a knock at the door, and she dropped the glass. It shattered, spraying glass and brown liquid across the linoleum. There was a pause, and then a voice said, “Kate. It’s Peter, are you okay?” She looked up at the clock. Almost two a.m. The knock came again. “Kate? I heard breaking glass. Are you okay?” He hammered on the door harder.

“Yes! I’m fine!” she trilled, looking at the mess on the floor.

“You don’t sound it. Can you open up?”

“I’ve just dropped a glass on the floor, by the door. What are you doing here?”

“Have you got my keys?” he said. “I think I might have dropped them in one of your bags.”

There was a long silence. She stepped over the shattered glass and quietly put the chain on and opened the door. Through the gap, Peter stood, soaking wet, the collar of his coat pulled up. He smiled a broad, white smile. His teeth were so straight and white, she thought.

“Good, I thought you might have gone to bed. I think you have my keys?”





5

Kate peered up at Peter. The car park was dark behind him, and she couldn’t see his car.

“Kate. It’s pouring down. Can I come in for a sec?”

“It’s late. Hang on,” she said, leaning over the broken glass to grab the keys off the counter. “Here.” Their eyes met as she held them out to him in her palm. He looked down at the little loop curled round in her shaking hand with the monkey’s fist knot. Then back up at her with a smirk.

Later on, Kate would think what she could have done differently. If she’d made a joke about it being the same knot the killer used, would he have taken the keys and gone home?

“It’s my car. I got a flat tire up the road. Then I saw my keys weren’t in the glove compartment,” he said, finally breaking the silence, wiping the rainwater from his face. He didn’t take the keys, though, and she stood there with her hand outstretched.