Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(99)

“The wrong name?”

“Yes. They have him down as Keir Castle, but his legal name is Keir Castle-Meads. He styles himself as Keir Castle on his social media, and the Okehampton Times wrongly reported his name as Keir Castle when he was charged for threatening his girlfriend and given a fine and community service, but when I looked back over the magistrate’s records, I discovered he is Keir Castle-Meads. I don’t know if the police made the same error. Although he has no other criminal record . . .”

Kate looked over at Myra and Jake. They now had their trousers rolled up, and they were wading out into a rock pool, leaving a rippling wake across the smooth surface. Something clicked in the back of Kate’s mind, and she didn’t hear what Alan said next.

“Kate, are you still there? I said I’m going to email this all over to you, but you know the drill. Mum’s the word that I’m sharing this with you. Keep it somewhere safe.”

“Yes . . . Thank you.”

Alan hung up. It hit Kate like a truck, the realization where she’d heard that name before.

“Myra! Jake!” she shouted. They turned to her, Jake with a handful of seaweed. “I just have to run up to the house. Are you okay for a bit?”

“Fine!” shouted Myra, waving her away, and they turned back to look in the water.

Kate ran back through the dunes and up to the house. It was so close, the thought, and she had to keep hold of it. Keir Castle-Meads, Castle-Meads. Castle-Meads . . . In the living room she scanned the bookshelves and found it, a true crime book, one of the better ones that had been written about the history of the Nine Elms Cannibal case.

She flicked through, finding the photos at the back. Where was it, Castle-Meads . . . Castle-Meads. There were twelve pages of photos at the back, and she found it halfway through. A photo of the lead barrister who had tried the Nine Elms Cannibal case, Tarquin Castle-Meads, QC. He was a huge man, imposing and pompous with bright-red thinning hair in a comb-over. He was known by his jowly mouth and large, hooded eyes, which gave him the serious stare of a bulldog.

Next to it was a picture, taken on the day of the verdict, on the steps of the high court. A triumphant Tarquin Castle-Meads smiling with yellow, crooked teeth, with his wife, Cordelia, a dark-haired, handsome woman with a high forehead and a serious gaze. Their four children were lined up beside them, all dressed up as if for a day out at church. The children had all inherited their father’s flaming-red hair and his hooded eyes, which made their faces look odd and almost rubbery. Kate peered at the picture of the four children: Poppy, Mariette, Keir . . . and Joseph.

“Jesus,” she said as she peered at the photo. “Keir had an alibi, he was away in the States when Emma Newman went missing, but what about the other son? What if that is the link and the way in?”

She remembered something else about the family and flicked through to the index and found a passage about Tarquin Castle-Meads, QC. He had been educated at Queen’s College, Oxford, and he had taken the bar exam at an early age. His wife had been the one who had helped elevate him into the British Establishment. She was the heir to the shipping firm CM Logistics Ltd.

“CM Logistics,” said Kate, holding the book. “CM Logistics. I see their bloody lorries and vans everywhere. They own warehouses all over the country . . .” She googled the company on her phone, and up came its slick website, which had a picture with a fleet of vans and lorries streaking across a vast highway.

“Tarquin Castle-Meads retired to Spain with his wife, and the kids have been fighting over the running of this multibillion-pound company,” she said, remembering snippets she’d heard in the press over the years. “How can I not have seen this?”

Kate was shaking with excitement and adrenaline as she rang Tristan. His phone went straight to voice mail.

“Tristan, call me the moment you get this message. I’ve found the link . . . The person who is doing these copycat murders. It’s the son of the barrister who put Peter Conway in prison. Tarquin Castle-Meads was the QC who tried the case and won. His sons are Keir Castle-Meads and Joseph Castle-Meads. Keir has an alibi, but I think it’s the other son, Joseph, who is copycatting, and the reason he’s been able to get around so easily is that he has access to huge amounts of money, and his family owns CM Logistics, the haulage and delivery company . . . They deliver goods, and they may well have a contract to deliver money to ATMs, and it was an ATM vehicle that we saw in the CCTV from the camera on the front of Frederick Walters’s house . . .”

“What a clever girl you are,” said a voice. Kate jumped and dropped her phone.

A tall red-haired man was standing at the end of the bookshelves. He had the same bright-red hair and hooded eyes from the photo. Keeping his eyes on her, he leaned down and picked up her phone. He put it to his ear and then pressed a number on the screen. Kate heard the computerized voice say, “Message deleted.” He ended the call.

“Joseph Castle-Meads,” she said. The sight of him standing in her living room was overpowering. He was so tall, and he projected so much angry energy, the air around him seemed to crackle. He dropped her phone on the carpet and ground his foot into the screen.

“Yes. Photos don’t do you justice. You look better in the flesh,” he said. He advanced on her, and Kate took a step back and felt the bookshelf against her back. His pale skin shone with sweat. Despite the good bone structure and his height, he looked feral. He smiled and then punched her hard in the face. Kate felt her nose break and an explosion of pain. She went down with a crash onto the coffee table and rolled onto the floor.