Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(73)

She worried about money. She would have to leave all her bank accounts, and her pension, but they could buy a small place outright and save some money, and there were always ways to earn money.

For so many years she had longed to hold her son, to talk to him endlessly for hours, like they used to.

She didn’t want to think about anything else, about what Peter would need to do to secure their freedom. Like always, she pushed it to the back of her mind.

Enid downed the last of her whisky and took another packet of the chocolate eclairs from the freezer. This time her hand was steady. The toffee yielded, splitting into two even halves. She scraped out the chocolate with the corner of the scalpel, and inside she placed the large vitamin capsule that had been emptied and replaced with a note she’d written, detailing the latest developments. She placed the two halves back together, using the heat of her fingers to mold it back into shape. She prepared the second toffee, placing the note from Peter’s Fan inside, and then she repacked the toffees and put them back into an opened bag.

She was relieved to seal the bag, using the plastic heat sealer, and then she placed the bag of toffees in the freezer overnight.

They were so close, so close. This would be the last time she smuggled notes into and out of Great Barwell. It would also be her last visit.

She poured herself another whisky, and even though she wasn’t a religious woman, she prayed for it all to be a success.





41

Tristan was celebrating being made a full-time member of the university staff, and he came over to Kate’s for dinner that evening. She wasn’t much of a cook and so treated him to takeaway pizza. They spent the whole evening discussing the case, which was now all over the media.

“There’s a few things I’ve thought we should follow up,” said Kate, pouring them each a second cup of coffee to go with a second slice of the raspberry cheesecake Tristan had brought with him. “It all comes down to Enid Conway’s book.”

There was a copy of it on the breakfast bar, and Tristan picked it up.

“How are we going to work out the location where he’ll dump the next body? There are so many places Enid and Peter went on this holiday,” he said, flicking through to the index.

“Think bigger,” said Kate. “We know he’s going to do this again.”

“What if he gets knocked over by a bus? There must be serial killers out there who suddenly meet their own demise, and that’s why the killings stop,” said Tristan.

“Maybe that’s why they never caught Jack the Ripper, because he crossed the road one day and got hit by a cart.”

They both laughed.

“We shouldn’t be laughing,” said Tristan, sawing off another chunk of cheesecake and putting it on a plate. He offered it to Kate.

“No. Not that big. I’ve already eaten an enormous piece . . . Sometimes you need to laugh or you’ll go mad.”

“Speaking of which, how are you coping with the police being out there?”

“It’s comforting, but I remember back when I used to do stakeouts and watch houses. The more time that goes past and nothing happens, the more complacent you get. And Myra keeps going out with cups of tea and cake for them.”

“We should give them some of this cheesecake. It’s huge.”

“You should take it home.”

“My sister doesn’t like sweet stuff . . . Wouldn’t you have liked people to give you nice stuff to eat when you were doing surveillance?” asked Tristan.

“Good point. Anyway, I’m sure Varia will move them on to something else once the threat dies down,” said Kate. She went to the back window of the kitchen and looked out. The police car was parked out front, and a bored-looking officer was drinking tea and scratching at his chin. She wondered if Glenda was taking out tea for the officer watching Jake, and how spooked she was getting by it all. Jake was due to come and stay for school half term in just over a week.

“She’s never written another book?” asked Tristan, picking up No Son of Mine again and looking at the back cover. Kate was suddenly struck by something so obvious, she couldn’t believe she’d missed it.

“How could I be so stupid?” said Kate, coming over. “Enid didn’t write this book. She had a ghostwriter, who came over and interviewed her and made her words into prose; well, I say prose in the loosest sense . . .” She took the book from him and scanned the inside, remembering at the time it was published she’d seen the name of a ghostwriter. “That’s it, Gary Dolman. He was the ghostwriter. I remember back whenever it was that I had a message from him, asking me to contribute to the interviews he was doing to write the book. We should talk to him. There could be stuff that he heard, that was never published, stuff that Enid talked about . . .”

“He might have information about Peter Conway’s time spent in Manchester. It could lead to something on Caitlyn Murray’s disappearance,” said Tristan.

“Maybe, but I’m interested in the sequence of events on this holiday they took. There were four victims in the original case; our copycat has killed three. We should also be asking the question, What happens after number four?”

“What do you mean?” asked Tristan.

“Peter Conway only stopped because I caught him. This guy is copying Peter. And presumably he wants to be caught—that’s why copycat killers happen. Is he just going to go to four murders and then stop?”