The Doll's House - [49]

Picking herself up off the sofa, she crossed over to the island and ripped the envelope open. As expected, inside was a tiny cassette. Fishing it out, she sought out her hand-held player and slipped the tape inside.

She was too wound up to sit – her body tense with anticipation – so she paced up and down having pressed ‘Play’. At first there was nothing – just the sound of fabric scratching against the microphone. She knew there must be more – Lloyd wouldn’t have hurried it over if it was blank – but still it made her worry.

Then the voices started. A man’s voice – odd, regional, unfamiliar – and a woman’s. The conversation was staccato and punctuated by silences as challenges were laid down and decisions made. The pair seemed to be coming to an agreement, despite their differences. As they did so, a smile tugged at the corners of Ceri’s mouth.

She listened some more. The pair didn’t exactly shake hands but the deal had been done. She had heard it straight from the horse’s mouth. What a bizarre day it had been. So unsettling, so distressing, and yet here amidst the wreckage of her life she had found the one thing she craved – the thing she had been searching for for months.

The means to destroy Helen Grace.

82

It was 10 p.m. and the incident room was deserted except for two lonely figures. Helen and DC Sanderson sat huddled at the DI’s desk, poring over the photocopied documents that the team had garnered from Simpson’s files.

He had lied to them – that much was clear. He didn’t have forty-two flats – he had over fifty. Some he owned the freehold to – having carved a decaying house into five tiny, dilapidated flats – others he was just the letting agent for. Interestingly, he also owned a number of derelict properties – lock-ups, outbuildings, even a barn or two – dotted around the county. Some were rural, some were urban, but all were isolated.

As Helen skimmed the list that Sanderson had compiled, she was seized with a desire to search them all. In an ideal world she would have been on the phone to a POLSA team already – scrambling the chopper, the cadaver dogs, the heat-seeking equipment – but that would have been a massive commitment of resources over that many properties. She wouldn’t be allowed to call up that kind of firepower without rock-solid evidence and, besides, she wasn’t sure she’d get the warrant anyway. They had one connection between Simpson and the dead women – a strong connection admittedly – but as yet no hard evidence linking the landlord to any instances of abduction or murder. He had no criminal record, there were no witnesses linking him to anything untoward and no picture yet of him having an unhealthy interest in young women. Helen had already instructed McAndrew to take a forensics unit back to Ruby’s flat. If they could place Simpson in her flat, then they’d have something to work with, especially as he had sworn blind he hadn’t been in that flat in years.

So, much as Helen was tempted to go kicking down doors, she knew that she would have to go about this in the old-fashioned way.

‘Round up as many of the team as you can,’ she said to Sanderson. ‘And pull in uniform too. I want every one of the properties on this list checked out. Knock on doors, ask around, find out if anyone’s seen or heard anything unusual at these places. Shouts, cries, lights on late at night. Do whatever you have to – just give me something to work with.’

Sanderson was already on her feet, ready to bash the phones and corral the troops.

‘Does that mean you won’t be joining us?’

‘Love to, but I’ve got something much more unpleasant in mind.’

Sanderson turned, intrigued.

‘I’ve got a date with Emilia Garanita.’

83

Emilia Garanita cast her eye over yesterday’s front page again. She had been allowed so few headlines recently – she was sure the editor was punishing her for her disloyalty – that she allowed herself to wallow in this one. It was a good cover with a great photo – the fluttering police cordon and then not one, but two crime scenes beyond it in the near and middle distance. It captured the magnitude of the crime perfectly, the bleakness of the beach and the loneliness of the graves serving to underline the fact that once more Hampshire Police were hunting a serial killer. Emilia had felt that old excitement when writing the copy – finally a major story to sink her teeth into.

Emilia lowered the paper to find Helen Grace walking towards her. It was a moment of pure serendipity that momentarily struck her dumb: Southampton Central’s hunter-in-chief striding towards her, fresh from the investigation. In the past, Emilia would have greeted her with sarcasm and snide innuendo, but not now. She ushered Helen into the vacant editor’s office, shutting the door behind her.

‘I need your help.’

As usual, her former adversary cut to the chase. Despite their difficult past, Emilia was the first to admit that she and Helen Grace shared some attributes. Women working in male-dominated industries, they both possessed a directness and courage that others of their sex lacked.