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“I was just thinking the same.”
“Thought I could smell burning.”
Gardener laughed. “Best let me do it, Sean. I’m the senior officer. If anything goes wrong, I’ll be taking the flack anyway.”
“You sure?”
Gardener nodded. Reilly and Rawson held the ladder while Gardener climbed upwards.
As he reached the window, he had the good sense to delve into his jacket pocket and produce a pair of gloves. No point placing yourself in the middle of the scene if you were not supposed to be there. From his vantage point at the top of the ladder, he glanced around. The colours of the flowers were incredible.
A thought crossed his mind.
“Sean, what are those flowers over there?” Gardener pointed.
Reilly scurried across the yard and stepped into the field. After a minute, he shouted back to his SIO.
“Roses.”
Gardener thought they might be, which reminded him of the song at the second crime scene: Where The Wild Roses Grow.
“Any blue ones?” he asked.
“Not that I can see.”
Gardener turned back toward the window as his phone chimed. The timing was terrible, and he nearly fell off. He retrieved it and answered.
“Sir? Patrick Edwards.”
“What have you got for me, Patrick?”
“Registration on the bike. Definitely belongs to Rydell. Got an address for you.”
“Go on,” said Gardener, despite already being there.
After Edwards had reeled it off, Gardener told him to put a marker on the PNC against the vehicle number. If an officer found and stopped him, he was to detain Rydell and call the station immediately. He also told Edwards to put the bike on the ANPR database. If Rydell drove through a camera and it pinged on the system, they would know about it.
He disconnected and decided to finish what he was doing as quickly as possible. He did not want Rydell arriving back in the middle of an illegal entry. After forcing the window open as wide as he could, he carefully climbed inside. Once in the room, Gardener placed a pair of paper booties over his shoes.
He was in a study. The room was crammed full of books on shelves. A computer desk stood near the window. Rydell had a desktop PC with two printers, a monitor, and a variety of other equipment, all switched off. The room was spotless and smelled fresh.
Gardener studied some of the books on the shelves. Most of them were about true crime.
“Well, well, well,” he said, as he perused one of the shelves, sliding out a copy of Foul Deeds And Suspicious Deaths In Leeds. “It’s not looking good for you, Mr Rydell. But then again, do you care?”
Aware of time becoming a problem, he inspected the rest of the upper level. It was divided into living quarters. Gardener noticed three bedrooms, a bathroom, a living area, and a kitchen, all of which were immaculately clean.
He delved deeper, wondering if there were any signs that someone else other than Rydell actually lived there: a five-year-old girl, for example.
He found no evidence to support it. Everywhere was far too clean and tidy. A five-year-old would run riot, and Rydell didn’t seem the type to want to put up with that.
Which begged another question. If he actually had her, where was she? And if he didn’t, where was she?
It was when Gardener entered the third and final bedroom that Rydell’s luck ran out.
The room was dark – too dark. Gardener reached in and switched on a light, noticing blackout curtains. He saw a wooden floor with a stool in the middle. Nothing else.
Each of the walls were covered from top to bottom with newspaper clippings, photographs, magazine articles, and a potted history of the four victims: Nicola Stapleton, Barry Morrison, Alan Sargent, and Frank Fisher.
