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Chapter 23
Monday 22nd February
Cardiff Central Police Station
‘A week to go.One week.’
DCI Bryn Lewis shakes his head and groans, and Sergeant Hari Hughes, who’s sitting opposite him, sighs.
‘I know. Not long. It doesn’t look like anyone’s going to track him down before then either, does it, at this stage? Everything seems to have stalled. So …’
He raises an eyebrow, and gestures at the piece of paper on the desk in front of him, and Bryn looks at it and nods slowly. It’s the David List, as they’ve been calling it. There are now close to forty names on it; in the past couple of weeks they’ve added sons of senior police officers, judges, prison and probation officers, and even Davids who are the offspring of some of the city’s most well-known debt collectors and money lenders.
There’ve been extensive discussions and debates about this list, and about the wisdom of potentially panicking so many people, but after numerous Operation Shearwater meetings, a final plan has been decided upon, and Bryn thinks it’s as good as it can be, in the circumstances.
Contact with the Davids will begin today. They’re to be told that police have become aware of a threat to the life of someone with a similar name to theirs, a threat which has pinpointed Monday the 1st of March as the day when something is likely to happen. They’re to be advised to leave Cardiff for twenty-four hours if at all possible; if not, it will be suggested that they take every possible precaution: stay inside, keep all doors and windows locked, and keep the police on speed dial, on a special number set up just for them.
‘I’m hoping the suggestion that someone may be after them will persuade at least some of them to leave the city,’ Bryn told the team. ‘But I’m expecting many to be unhappy about it, and probably quite a few refusing to cooperate. And to be fair, it’s quite possibly a pointless exercise. I mean, none of this will stop him if he’s really determined, will it? He may well be watching his next victim already, like he seems to be doing with Mary Ellis. He could already be following them. He probably knows exactly where they live, and he doesn’t even need to get close to them to kill them, does he? He can set their bloody house on fire with them locked inside it. But we can’t take every bloke in Cardiff called David into safe custody, so if we’re on the right track, and if we’ve done our job here in identifying at least some of the most likely victims, well at least these guys will have been warned, and hopefully will be looking out for potential trouble. It’s a lot more than poor Lisa and Jane had going for them.’
Each David is, of course, not being given any indication that he is just one of many potential victims, or that the threat to his life is part of a much bigger multi-police-force investigation; neither is anyone being told of any possible links to the recent murders of two women in other parts of the country. Each one is also to be asked, in the strongest of terms, not to speak about this threat to anyone, and it’s this aspect that’s concerning the team the most.
‘I hope to God none of them goes to the press,’ Bryn says now, rubbing a hand across his eyes. ‘There’ve already been some critical newspaper reports about the lack of progress in both the Oxford and Birmingham cases, but thankfully nobody’s made any connection between them yet, and we want it to stay like that. If wedoa have a murder in Cardiff – and I’m keeping everything crossed it doesn’t happen, but let’s see, eh – but if wedo, and it’s a similar thing, a head injury, an early-hours-of-the-morning attack, well, who knows? Some quick-witted journalist might start noticing the similarities with those other two killings and start asking questions. But right now, we’re able to carry on doing our jobs and trying to protect these final two victims without a nation in mass panic about a serial killer. The press getting wise to it at this stage could be a bloody disaster.’
There’s silence for a few moments. Then Hari says quietly, ‘Fingers crossed the Davids keep their mouths shut then.’
‘Fingers, arms, legs, the lot,’ says Bryn.
He sighs and picks up the list.
‘Better hit the phones then, eh?’
