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“Might be worth you having a read of this,” she says. He nods, then goes back to the screen. She wants to ask how he’s getting on, but she doesn’t want to pressure him. Getting into this madman’s head must be bad enough as it is.
She leaves him to it and goes to where Griffin is sitting. She’s still not sure how she feels about working with her brother. So far he’s been behaving himself, no warning flags. And it’s been nice to see him every day, she has to admit that.
Cara pulls a chair over and sits down at the desk.
“Did you have any luck with Social Services?” she asks, referring to the line of inquiry tracking down the file connected to the video she’d been looking at last night. They find the child on the tape, this “Robbie,” maybe they have their killer. But he shakes his head.
“It’s Sunday. I spoke to the woman on call. Everyone else is still in bed. She says all records from the year 1996 were paper based, so they’d need to go to the storage facility and go through them by hand. And without a case number, that could take a while.”
“Phone her back. We’ll send a team down to help,” she says, mentally adding it to the list. She turns her attention to his computer, where he has CCTV on the screen. “Show me this first. From the bar?” she asks, and Griffin points to a lone figure.
It’s Libby. She’s sitting on a high stool. Cara recognizes the bar from the evening she spent there, but this time Libby is alone. She looks nervous, every now and then glancing to the door.
They scroll through the footage. A few people approach her, but they leave after a brief interaction.
“Where is he?” Cara asks.
“Never turns up,” Griffin says. “She leaves after an hour, but watch.”
On the screen Libby finishes her drink and gets up, and Griffin switches the footage to the outside. A car pulls up, and Libby walks around to the driver’s side window, leaning down and talking to the person inside. She smiles and then gets in.
“That’s Michael Sharp’s car,” Griffin says. “And the only view.”
Cara notices Griffin seems quieter today. He’s more subdued, his face is pale, with more than a few days of stubble. She makes a mental note to get him alone at some point, check that he’s okay. But then the rest of the team look like shit too. The incident room is covered in discarded coffee cups and chocolate wrappers. The smell in the air echoes the cigarettes smoked, the showers missed. The lives on hold in search of this guy.
“There’s no other CCTV?” Cara continues. “From any other clubs or bars?”
“Not even a cash point nearby,” Griffin says grimly. “Same as with your Kemper footage. But it looks like she recognizes him.”
“Shit,” Cara mutters. She looks at Griffin: he’s deep in thought. “You have a theory?” she asks.
He rubs his hands over his face. “So the lab results have nothing in the car, except for trace from Libby and Michael Sharp, right?” Cara nods. “And hair, blood, and water from Sharp in the trunk,” he adds. “So our killer takes Sharp out of storage—”
“The chest freezer in apartment 214?”
“Probably, yes. And places him in the trunk to defrost. Arranges to meet Libby at the Orange Rooms as her date but then doesn’t show. Drives there, picks her up, takes her to Salterns Hill—”
“Willingly or at gunpoint?” Cara interrupts.
“I think we have to assume willingly because it’s hard to control someone and drive at the same time?”
“So she knows him well?”
“Maybe. Then when they get there, Libby discovers the danger she’s in and tries to run. Once she’s dead, he takes the body out of the trunk, stages his suicide, and pulls the trigger.”
“So how did he get home again?” Cara asks. She misses this—playing devil’s advocate with her brother. The sparring back and forth.
“Same question as with the Kemper murders,” Griffin says without missing a beat. “He drove the victims out to the middle of nowhere then too. Planning in advance? Left a car there?”
“Or has an accomplice?”
“He doesn’t strike me as the sort of killer who plays well with others,” Griffin says. “This level of control, of planning? My guess is he wouldn’t like the unpredictability that having an accomplice would bring.”
“Maybe,” Cara says. She looks up as Shenton comes over—he puts two pieces of paper in her hands. She starts reading; Griffin tries to look over her shoulder, curious; Shenton twitches from foot to foot. She puts the pages down and gives Shenton a smile.
“This is good, Toby. Nate, round everyone up in the conference room.” Shenton gives her his usual deer-in-the-headlights stare.
Griffin looks at her quizzically. “What for?”
