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Chapter 6
Monday 1st February
Edgbaston, Birmingham
‘Jane Holland. Her name isJaneHolland, guv.Christ.’
DI Jason Butcher runs a hand across his cropped red hair, his eyes wide. Priya stares at him for a moment, suddenly feeling sick, then in her peripheral vision sees someone approaching and turns to see who it is. It’s Mia Whitehouse, the crime scene manager, who’s just walked around the corner of the house and is peeling off her facemask.
They’re standing in the wide paved driveway of 6 Oaks Road in Edgbaston. It is, Priya knows, one of the most prestigious streets in Birmingham, average house price £1.4 million, and number 6 is probably worth a lot more than that: detached, seven bedrooms, with half an acre of south-facing gardens to the rear. She’d been round there earlier, crossing an extensive terrace with steps leading down to a central lawn surrounded by beautifully tended borders. There are two magnificent oak trees, one at either end of the expansive space and, on this bright February morning, the sky a duck-egg blue for the first time in weeks, under one of those trees there’s a dead body. The body of a woman, her identity now confirmed. Jane Holland.Jane in Birmingham.Not a hoax after all, then. Priya swallows hard, the feeling of nausea increasing.
But what could I have done? There’ve been extra patrols on the streets all night, officers on high alert, but this … I couldn’t have prevented this, could I? In the poor woman’s own garden? Or could I? Did I do enough? Could I have handled it differently? Should I have—
‘Hi.’
Mia’s face wears a sombre expression, and Priya takes a deep breath.
‘Hello, Mia. How’s it going? What can you tell me?’
Mia, now taking off her latex gloves, glances over her shoulder to where a private ambulance has just pulled into the drive, ready to take the body to the mortuary.
‘Just about finished,’ she says. ‘And honestly, I hate to say this but there’s very little here to go on. Cause of death was a single blow to the back of the head, by the look of it. No sign of any sort of weapon, no sign of a break in. The attacker enticed her out into the garden somehow, maybe? Not sure why she’d be out there on a winter night otherwise. She was in her pyjamas and dressing gown. Could have been someone she knew and let in? These houses all have private CCTV, so we’re getting hold of that, and house-to-house may come up with something, hopefully.’
‘OK. Who found her?’ asks Priya.
‘The victim lives alone apparently – it was the next-door neighbour who found her, and she says she didn’t see or hear a thing last night. She let her dog out into the garden around 7.30 this morning and wandered down to pick up his … hisdoings. She glanced over the wall between her garden and the victim’s and saw what she described as a “strange shape” under the tree. She took a closer look and realised it looked human. She came round and banged on the front door for a few minutes, then tried phoning the victim; when she got no joy she dialled 999. She’s in a bit of a state, as you can imagine, but she’s in no doubt that it’s her neighbour, Jane Holland. They’re friends – they’ve lived next door to each other for the past six years.’
Priya nods, taking it all in, thinking. The decision’s been made not to tell anyone else about the diary right now, but she needs to know if it fits.
Jane, on the 1st of February.
‘Time of death?’ she asks. ‘How long was she out there?’
Mia frowns.
‘We’ll know more after the postmortem, but best guess is she died seven to eight hours before she was found. So the time of death, to answer your question, would have been around midnight. Just after, most likely. Between then and 1am. Right, back in a mo.’
She walks off towards the ambulance, and Priya and Jason exchange glances.Beforemidnight would still have been the 31st of January. Butafter…
‘He didn’t mess about, did he? Onlyjustthe bloody 1st of February,’ says Jason.
She nods.
If only they’d had more time. More time to consider the best course of action, to issue warnings maybe. They’d had a matter of hours, and it had been impossible, ludicrous really, but … OK, stop, Priya. Stop this.
She forces herself to focus. She can’t,mustn’t, go down this road right now; the feeling that she’s failed this woman, the woman who’s now lying dead in her back garden, is threatening to overwhelm her, and today she needs to concentrate on the investigation. Concentrate on finding whoever did this, and stopping him doing it again.
‘Better hope we get something from that CCTV footage then,’ she says briskly. ‘And we need the forensics from that diarynow. Can you get on to Gloucestershire, see what’s happening? Plus, I want to know everything there is to know about Jane Holland. Why her, Jason? WhythisJane? It looks like we may well have a serial killer on our hands now, God help us. This can’t just be a coincidence, can it? But I don’t believe he’s just picking random victims. There’s got to be some link, some connection. We need to look closely at the Oxford murder, and speak to this writer, journalist, whatever she is, who was sent the diary. Mary Ellis? These peoplemusthave something in common, right?’
‘You’d have thought so, wouldn’t you?’ he says. ‘Right, I’m on it. And South Wales need to get on it too. They’re next in line, aren’t they?’
***
Cardiff Central Police Station
‘It’s happened. Jane in Birmingham. Look, here. Her ID hasn’t been made public yet; they’re still trying to trace her family, but they thought they’d better let us know ASAP. Jane Holland, fifty-five years old. Found dead in her back garden early this morning. Holy shit.’
Sergeant Hari Hughes waves the sheet of paper in his hand at the inspector, who stares at him for a moment then gives a low whistle.
‘Woweee,’ he says. ‘Gonna be a bit of a job for us, then.’
Hari nods. Someone somewhere in Cardiff Central has done a bit of research and a few calculations since the threat in the diary was made known to them last night, and the news, as he and Inspector Williams had guessed, wasn’t good. At least two thousandDavidsin the city alone, plus hundreds moreDafydds,Dais,Dewis… They were talking maybe three to four thousand men being potential victims, and that could well be an underestimate.
‘I can’t get my head round this one,’ he says. ‘If itisa serial killer – and I know you have to have three deaths, normally, to qualify, but he’s threatening to do four, isn’t he? Anyway – it’s got to be unusual to target both men and women, eh? They usually stick to one or the other. And in random cities all over the place too? What do you make of that?’
Rhys Williams shrugs.
‘No idea,’ he says. ‘Fortunately, it’s no longer our problem. Wonder who’ll get this one? Rather them than me.’
‘I wouldn’t mind working on it myself,’ says Hari, a little wistfully. He hopes one day soon to join the ranks of the detectives in the Criminal Investigation Department, and wonders which of the DCIs will be assigned to the case. Helen Andrews, maybe? She’s young, but good. Or maybe Bryn Lewis. Whoever it is, he vows he will watch, and learn. This one is going to beveryinteresting.
