AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘DCI Linda Lake. At my wit’s end with the Lisa Turner investigation here in Oxford, and hoping you lot can help me out, if indeed these cases really are linked. Because I have nothing here at the moment, and it’s doing my head in.’
‘I feel your pain,’ says Priya Thomson in Birmingham, and Linda Lake nods and grimaces. She has ash-blonde hair, almost grey, cut short, and even though the picture quality isn’t great, her eyes stand out – a striking green, almost cat-like in appearance.
‘Right, well now we’re all acquainted, let’s begin,’ says Steph. ‘As I think you’re all aware, this is now Operation Shearwater.’
Shearwater. I don’t have a notepad in front of me – I didn’t like to ask if I could make notes; I’m here as a witness, not as a journalist, after all – but I file the codename away in my head.
‘Obviously, with the Lisa Turner murder in Oxford and now the Jane Holland murder in Birmingham, we’re being forced to take the contents of the diary sent to Mary seriously,’ Steph continues. ‘I think we’re all agreed these deaths now appear to be no coincidence.’
There are nods and murmurs of assent from the faces on the screen.
‘And just to update you on that diary, I received the forensic report first thing this morning. No good news, I’m afraid. Completely clean. Not a hint of a fingerprint or a speck of DNA, other than Mary’s.’
‘Shit,’ says Linda Lake. And then: ‘Sorry. Carry on.’
Shit indeed, I think.That’s a blow.
‘It is pretty unfortunate, agreed,’ says Steph. ‘We’ve looked into where it might have come from, but it seems these diaries are widely available on the High Street. Most branches of WHSmith stocked them in the run-up to Christmas, as well as a number of other stores. And I’m talking across the UK – Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland as well as England. Thousands were sold last year. So he – I sayhe, but of course it could be a she, although my gut tells me otherwise – he could have bought it absolutely anywhere, which is of no help to us. So my first question to Mary – and forgive me if you’ve been asked some of these questions before, Mary, but we just need to be completely clear about all of this – my first question is, do you haveanyidea who might have sent it to you? I know you said it was sent anonymously, and you sadly threw the envelope, the packaging or whatever away, but do you haveanyclue?’
I shake my head.
‘None. I’m so sorry. It arrived in the post on the twenty-third of December, but I was busy and didn’t bother opening it until Christmas Eve, which was when I threw away the wrapping. I just assumed it was a gift from an editor I’d written a piece for last year; they tend to send stuff like that at Christmas. And even then, I didn’t take it out of the box it was in until Sunday, so nearly a month later. I don’t use a paper diary, so I was about to give it to the charity shop, and I felt a bit guilty about not thanking whoever sent it, so I opened it up to see if there might be a card or something inside. That’s when I noticed the diary entries.’
‘Hmmm. And I suppose your work address would be quite easy to find out?’ says Steph, frowning.
I nod.
‘Pretty easy. I’ve rented a desk there for the past two years. Tons of people have the address – editors, other journalists, finance departments, the usual. It’s my contact address on my online profile too, so it’s not hard to find. I keep my personal phone number and home address very private, but not my office details.’
There’s silence for a moment. Then Linda Lake says:
‘He took a chance, though, didn’t he? Assuming you’d flick through the pages when you got the diary, and see the entries he made? And I can’t work out why he wants you for some reason to know in advance that these murders are going to happen, and that you’re on the list. Or thatsomeonecalled Mary in Cheltenham is, anyway. Lisa and Jane weren’t warned in advance, as far as we know anyway. It’s odd.’
‘I have no idea,’ I say. ‘As you say, I could easily not have read it at all. I suppose he doesn’t know even now that Ihaveread it, does he? As the existence of the diary hasn’t been made public?’
‘True,’ says Linda. ‘If you’d given it to the charity shop without opening it, we wouldn’t know about it at all. It was pure luck. Definitely a bit of a gamble on his part.’
There’s another short silence. Then Steph says:
‘This is all guesswork right now. But what are we all thinking about thereasonbehind sending Mary the diary? That this killer, whoever he is – let’s stick withhefor now for simplicity – has sent these warnings to Mary because of her job, maybe? He wants her to write his story, or to try to track him down, to try to stop him maybe? Is it part of the thrill for him, to give someone like Mary these clues? He must know she’d go to the police, surely? So is it us he’s playing with, too? Giving us tiny hints about what he’s planning, knowing they’re so vague there’s almost nothing we can do to protect the potential victims?’
‘Except Mary,’ says Bryn Lewis. ‘You can protect her, because she’s had a direct warning, or at least we assume she’s the Mary he’s threatening. So maybe that’s part of his plan too. You can be protected, Mary, so you survive and write his story. Makes sense to me, if anything about this makes sense. Are youplanningto write about this, Mary?’
I shrug.
‘I mean, I’d like to, yes. It’s a hell of a story,’ I say honestly. ‘But not yet, obviously. When it’s all over, whenever that might be. And I won’t write anything without letting you all know first.’
‘That would be appreciated,’ says Steph.
‘Good. But of course, he might not give a toss whether his story’s written or not. We just don’t knowwhatthe motivation behind sending the diary was, do we? And that’s the problem, we’re all just guessing,’ says Priya. ‘And meanwhile, Linda and I have two dead women on our hands, and virtually nothing to go on. What we need to do here is concentrate on those victims, because he’s not picking people at random. It wouldn’t make any sense. He chose them for a reason, so even though we haven’t found it yet, there must be a connection between them, and with you too, Mary. Can we talk about that for a minute?’
‘Of course,’ says Steph. ‘Mary, can you think ofanythingyou might have in common with Lisa Turner or Jane Holland, based on the little you probably know of them at this point?’
I shake my head.
‘Nothing, I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘I don’t know either of them; I’d never heard of either of them. And obviously I don’t know much about Jane yet at all, but I’ve been reading as much as I can find online about Lisa and there’s just nothing that strikes me. I can’t think of any link between us. Schools, career, interests … there’s nothing. I’ve never even been to Oxford.’
‘What about David in Cardiff?’ asks Bryn. ‘Know anyone of that name? Unusual name, obviously.’
