Their Lost Daughters (DI Jackman & DS Evans #2)(73)
‘That would fit,’ Jackman said. ‘After he’s murdered his victim, the trauma of what he’s done causes the second, nurturing personality to take over.’
‘It would be very, very unusual, but not impossible.’
‘So where would he initially take his victims after he’d drugged them?’
‘I would suspect somewhere close by, but not the house. There was too much going on there with all the building work, and he could have been seen. And we know that he used the tunnel from the marsh to access the room, so I’d say look within a mile or so of the tunnel entrance.’
‘And if our murderer is Micah Lee, that is where he could be hiding,’ added Marie.
‘I can’t believe that he’d go back there, with half the police force out looking for him, but we can’t take the risk. We’d better get a search party out to the marsh and the surrounding fields before darkness falls.’ Jackman glanced at his watch. ‘And we don’t have long.’
Max jumped up. ‘I’ll go and alert uniform.’
‘Just make sure that Windrush remains under careful guard, Max. I want new officers brought in. We can’t afford to leave Windrush unprotected.’
‘Wilco, sir.’
Marie looked at Jackman. ‘And Jan Wallace?’
‘Better hold off until we get this search underway.’
Max hurried from the room and Jackman turned back to the professor. ‘Do you really think we are dealing with a man with two personalities, Henry?’
‘It would answer a lot of questions. I’d like to know how this progressed, so we have to know everything we can possibly discover about that first body, the one you call Fleur. Especially if she wasn’t murdered.’ He drew in a breath. ‘And, DI Jackman, regarding what you said earlier about not going back to Windrush? Not only is it well documented that killers like to return to the scene of their crime, you ought to know that as an organised criminal comes to the end of his career, he often descends into chaos. His mind cannot go on being calculating and clever forever. He is under constant pressure, and begins to break down. That’s when he makes mistakes and gets caught.’
‘So you think it’s possible that he will find his way back if he can?’
‘He is by now in turmoil. His mind will be a vortex of anger, hate and confusion. The world has turned on him, and he knows there will be no happy ending. He’ll go back because he has nowhere else to go. And even if he is breaking down, there’s a very good chance that he’ll think he is clever enough to take on the entire police force.’
As he began to digest this information, Jackman heard Rosie’s phone ring. She walked quickly over to him.
‘That was Gary, sir. Apparently Ethan Barley has been dragging his brother Nick round all the sleazy bars and low spots in the area in an attempt to find the man who paid him to copy the chapel key.’
‘And they got lucky?’ Jackman felt a surge of excitement.
‘They did, sir! He rang Gary from a grotty dive on East Street, in Harlan Marsh. Gary’s tailing the man now. He can’t afford to bring him in because it would mean the next party would be cancelled, and then we might lose our chance to take Cade down. Gary’s going to keep tailing him and find out who he is and where he lives.’
‘Excellent, but we need to be very, very careful. Nothing about this must reach Cade’s ears, or we’re snookered. And that cannot be allowed to happen.’
Jackman looked across to see Marie staring at him. She desperately wanted Cade to pay for something he had done in the past. Jackman just wished he knew what it was.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A team of uniformed officers were now scouting the area around Roman Creek, so Jackman and the team pressed on in the CID room.
‘Should we bring in that vet for questioning?’ asked Max, munching thoughtfully on a sandwich. ‘We’ve decided that Elizabeth Sewell couldn’t be our killer, yet she knows someone called Fleur, her cards are in that hellhole, and she’s written almost identical cards for the animal cages at Philip Groves’ veterinary practice.’
‘He’s got a point, sir,’ said Rosie. ‘Even though I cannot see that man being a cold-blooded killer.’
Jackman stared at his sandwich and put it down. ‘Maybe we should. He does live close to the marsh, and if we are looking at a split personality, then who knows? How would we know what to look for?’ He looked across the room to where Marie sat a little apart from them, deep in thought. ‘Penny for them?’
She looked up. ‘Not worth it. My thoughts are about as clear as sump oil.’ She leaned back in her chair, stretched, and said. ‘Okay. Twelve dead girls, all born on a Wednesday. In the same room, another dead girl, but she died of starvation. One girl, Toni, abducted and lives. One other girl, Shauna, abducted and dies, but in a totally different place. Two out of three spoke of a man with dead eyes. Have any of us seen anyone with “dead” eyes? No, we haven’t. Micah Lee has a horrible face, but his eyes are deep and very expressive. Benedict Broome has perfectly normal eyes. Elizabeth Sewell is a woman. And not one of the people that we’ve interviewed, and we’ve spoken to quite a few, had weird eyes.’ She groaned loudly. ‘And who the hell is Fleur?’
‘It all comes back to her, doesn’t it?’ Jackman said.