Black Heart: A totally gripping serial-killer thriller Page 7

  ‘But your hair is beautiful the colour it is,’ Kizzy hiccups. She’s sitting in the armchair now, hunched up, her face a red mess from crying. Poor Mummy Bear, she’s such a wreck. That cat had been the child she’d never had. And now it is gone.

  ‘I fancied a change… “Honey caramel” the box said, but it’s more of a dirty blonde I think. Dirty blonde…’ she giggled, ‘I wish! Still, if this date is as half-decent as he looks…’

  ‘You have a date?’ Kizzy’s voice sounds low but well meaning, ‘that’s great. A girl like you shouldn’t be on her own.’

  Danni-Jo smiles. Kizzy’s right – she deserves a nice boyfriend. She comes through to the sitting area with the tea on a tray and some Jaffa Cakes. ‘Here,’ have some tea and a biscuit… or is it a cake?’ She shakes her head, ‘hashtag first-world problems eh?’ She laughs again, thinking how much she enjoys being around Kizzy. The woman exudes emotional pain, it’s coming off her like sonic waves and it nourishes her empty soul. She really is going to miss her.

  ‘I couldn’t possibly eat anything,’ Kizzy’s voice is an anguished rasp, ‘I had to call in sick I’ve been that distraught.’

  She sits opposite her, pouring the tea carefully into mugs. It’s the perfect colour – not too orange, just how her father liked it.

  ‘Tell me what’s happened,’ she says gently, ‘perhaps I can help?’

  Kizzy shakes out her matted curls. ‘No one can,’ she says, ‘she’s gone.’

  ‘Who… who’s gone?’ Danni-Jo is relishing the protracted punchline, waiting for it.

  Kizzy’s head falls forward into her lap. ‘It’s evil… just so, so cruel… I know it’s him… He must’ve done it – that wicked, evil man.’

  She’s increasingly unsure of what her neighbour is talking about, and a light flutter of unease settles upon her intestines. ‘Kizzy, you’re not making sense… What are you talking about? Who’s gone? Who’s evil?’

  ‘That bastard ex-husband of mine… I mean, I always knew he was wicked, I lived with him for seventeen years. I knew what he was capable of, but this? He knew how much I loved her, what she meant to me. I knew he could be vicious, but I never had him down as a murderer.’

  Her eyes widen. ‘A murderer?’

  ‘Yes, that sick bastard… Well, he’s not getting away with it – not this time. I’ve been to the police, they know what he’s done…’ Kizzy’s hands are shaking around the mug of tea.

  She’s growing impatient with her now and she struggles not to let it show. ‘Let me get this straight, you’re saying your ex-husband has murdered someone?’

  Kizzy nods slowly.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, placing the tea back onto the tray lest she spill it, ‘he murdered my cat. That sick, twisted bastard poisoned my Esmerelda.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Davis done good. And I’m buzzing so much that I feel like going for a celebratory drink. Only there’s no time, got to strike while the iron is hot, while the blood is oxygenating my brain and keeping me focused. Blondie, by all accounts, is the last person to have seen Nigel Baxter alive. We need to find her and talk to her. I congratulate Davis on a job well done and send her home. She doesn’t argue and I’m glad because I’m in no mood to pull rank, she’s earned a good night’s rest.

  Her seat is still warm when I sit in it and run the CCTV back from the beginning, watching in slo-mo as the ice-blonde walks through the lobby of the hotel. She appears composed, in control. She carries herself with ease and a sense of purpose as she walks towards the lifts like she’s on her way to a business meeting. She’s wearing a mac, a neat black dress that falls just above the knee and high stiletto shoes, and she’s holding a large bag, which Davis informs me is known as a ‘tote’ among the female fraternity. It’s difficult to tell the exact colour, but it looks tan or brown. I zoom in on it. The gold lettering printed on the front of the bag says something: Kate something… Kate Spade, the designer’s name presumably. It means nothing to me; I’m not really up on these things, though perhaps I should be. I make a note of it. The image is pretty sharp, high quality, which is what I’d expect from a prestigious establishment such as La Reymond. You get what you pay for and so I’m guessing that blondie here is somewhere around her mid-twenties to early thirties; she’s slim and on the taller side of average, around 5ft 5in. She keeps her head titled down at a slight angle, which makes it difficult to get a full-face profile and makes me wonder if she wasn’t fully aware of the fact that she was on camera.

  The bag or ‘tote’ has a tassel on the zipper – it looks like leather – like a keyring-type thing, and there’s something behind it that I can’t make out. Davis called them ‘bag charms’ and said that they’re trendy, that all the fashion-conscious girls have them. News to me. I wonder if I would’ve known about bag charms and their vogue moment if Rach was still here? Probably. But then I guess there’s a lot more I would’ve known about if she was. Like how to be a father for one thing. Our kid would’ve been a little over two years old now if she – if they – had both lived. The ‘terrible twos’. I hear parents discussing it wearily, the stage in a toddler’s life where they’re just finding their feet and starting to assert themselves, exploring this strange, mad, bad and wonderful world for the first time, and drawing their own conclusions. I wonder whether I would’ve been father to a son or daughter; what he or she would’ve looked like? I imagine the sound of their squeaky little voice as they call me ‘Daddy’. Sometimes, my imagination goes into such vivid overdrive that I can actually smell my unborn child: the scent of their soft, fluffy hair, of innocence and unconditional love on their new skin. In my mind, in my fantasies, I see our child, mine and Rach’s, doddering towards me ungainly, arms outstretched, a gummy smile containing a couple of tiny teeth as I walk through the front door. Some days it’s a little girl: she’s wearing navy tights and a cute pinafore dress, wispy blonde curls cradled at the nape of her neck. At other times I see a little boy, wearing soft jeans and a dinosaur T-shirt, his hair sticking up almost like a Mohican as he charges towards me and I scoop his tiny chubby body up into my arms. These imaginary memories that I’ve been robbed of are bittersweet, sometimes when they come, I find myself crying and smiling simultaneously. I like to think I’d have made a great dad. I know Rachel would’ve been a fantastic mum. She’d have been strict but fair, a little unconventional maybe but definitely fun. People have told me that I will go on to have a family, like they can somehow predict my future. I realise their words are well meant, but I’m not convinced any more. Just because you want something doesn’t mean it will automatically happen. Janet Baxter wants her husband back home, where he belongs, alive and well with his family. And that ain’t gonna happen. Ever. You see, I don’t or didn’t want just a family; I wanted our family. Mine and Rach’s. So you see my problem? My thoughts are turning maudlin again and in a bid to counteract them I decide to do something a little reckless: I message the pretty girl back on that Sad Singles’ website.

  ‘Coffee sounds great. How about Saturday, Islington Costa on the high street, midday?’

  I don’t have time for small talk. I’ll save that for when and if we meet. Lucky girl.

  * * *

  It’s late now, gone 1.00 a.m. and the team have all left. I work well this time of a morning; my brain is often sharper when I’m tired and alone, no outside distractions, no white noise from computers and half-listened-to conversations. I print out the CCTV images and pin them to the whiteboard before grabbing a latte from the vending machine – we’ve all the mod cons in Homicide – and actually it’s not a bad little cup of caffeine, all told.

  I pick up the file on my desk that contains transcripts from Baxter’s PC and read through them. The emails date back over five months, give or take, with the initial contact coming from a dating site called Sugarpops.com. I google it. The name kind of gives away the purpose of the site; it’s self-explanatory really, a hook-up site for rich older blokes mostly looking for a bit of strange on the s
ide to spoil, though the company’s blurb attempts to mask the arrangement as something else entirely. It claims, quite ridiculously if you ask me, that there is no major difference between these arrangements and a traditional relationship, besides the ‘agreeing terms upfront’ part. I chuckle mirthlessly because as far as I’m aware traditional relationships don’t include ‘terms upfront’, do they? It also claims that agreeing such terms eradicates ‘misunderstandings’ which have the potential to ‘backfire’ later. ‘Backfire’. I like that. Well, it certainly backfired for Nigel Baxter. I wonder if the poor bastard mentioned ‘not being brutally murdered’ when he agreed ‘terms upfront’?

  The site is awash with people looking to engage in these ‘traditional’ relationships, and by the looks of things there is as much supply as there is demand. Young, beautiful women with handles like ‘BabyCrumpet’ and ‘RampantRinser’; not exactly the type of girl you take home to your mum. There’s criteria too, asking you to tick what you’re looking for; ‘spoiling’, gifts / shopping / allowance / travel; whether chemistry is a necessity (yeah, seriously); relationship type, open/exclusive/semi-exclusive; duration of relationship and the terms you wish to agree. Romance eh? I shake my head in disbelief. It’s not illegal but it is unsavoury. Just women and girls hunting for sad, lonely, unhappily married, deviant, rich old suckers who seem to get a buzz off lavishing them with presents in return for sexual favours – otherwise known as prostitution, a smokescreen for a knocking shop basically. In fact, I have more respect for brothel workers. At least that’s a straightforward exchange between two mutually consenting adults. But the lines are blurred on Sugarpops.com; it reeks of desperation and self-delusion, of inadequate men who are fully aware they’d never get a look in at these girls without their fat wallets, yet at the same time it hints at the possibility of forming meaningful relationships. I’m regretting sending that message to Florence already. Perhaps I should set out some terms upfront myself, like, please don’t die on me, yeah?

  I scan the transcripts with a bad taste in my mouth. I’m not sure if it’s the coffee or not. What I am sure of is that Baxter seems to quickly become besotted with someone who calls themselves ‘Goldilocks’.

  ‘Oh Daddy Bear, last night was so amaaaaaazing! I adore my bracelet, you shouldn’t have.’

  I laugh out loud because quite clearly he most definitely should have, because that’s the whole point as far as I can see. The email exchanges between them are short and un-erotic, though they do hint at sexual encounters having taken place. It seems they saved the filth for texts and in person.

  I read through their myriad text exchanges, notably the highlighted ones of obvious interest that we gleaned from Baxter’s phone. I search through the respective phone records between Baxter and Goldilocks, cross-referencing numbers; Davis has done most of the legwork on this already but I like to be thorough.

  ‘Same time, same place DB? Then you can spank my naughty little ass before you fuck it hard.’

  You get the picture. Speaking of which… I rifle through the file. Interestingly, given the base nature of the ‘relationship’ between Goldilocks and Daddy Bear, aka Nigel Baxter, there are no pictures of Goldilocks in person. Baxter sends plenty of his appendage with cringe-inducing captions like ‘Daddy Bear has been thinking of Goldilocks,’ and ‘This is all for you Goldilocks, come and get Daddy Bear’s hard dick.’

  Hang on though, there’s a number here, on Goldilocks’ records, a number that isn’t recognisable as Baxter’s. It’s hidden among them, reams of them: a solitary number. I scribble it down on a piece of paper. How did Davis miss this? I pick up my phone and dial it. It rings out. Damn. I try it again. Same thing. I chew my bottom lip absent-mindedly and begin searching through Baxter’s phone records in a bid to see if it also shows up there too. It doesn’t. Jesus, how did Davis miss this? It’s not like her to be sloppy. I feel frustration rise up through my torso, my neck reddening. This will need to be checked first thing. I slam the papers down onto the desk and think of Janet Baxter; mild-mannered, middle-aged Janet Baxter with her matronly demeanour and visceral integrity, her total obliviousness to her husband’s sordid secret life. I hope she never gets to know her husband in this way, so that she can preserve her memory of him as she knew him. Sometimes, I have come to realise, ignorance really is bliss.

  So Goldilocks has been smart enough not to send intimate pictures of herself or ever sign off using a Christian name. The images she’s sent are mostly of items on her shopping list – expensive lingerie and jewellery, handbags and perfume, dildos and eye masks. Forensics are already on it, but, hang on… handbags… I pick up the file again, flick through the reams of paper, pulling out the images of Goldilocks’ shopping list and happy days! It’s there. The handbag. The one Davis picked up on the CCTV. I put it to one side. Soon we’ll have traced the IP address and the name of the phone’s user. And now that we have a person of interest on CCTV I’m beginning to feel quite confident. Only I don’t want to speak too soon, count those chickens before they’ve hatched. There’s something about this case that’s given me a sense of unease from the start, like I’ve already missed something, like there’s a bigger picture and I can’t quite see it. I select the clearest image of the blonde woman from the footage and open the blinds while it’s loading to print. It’s raining outside, highlighted droplets dance in the orange glow of the street lamp below. I can’t shake the melancholy feeling that’s beginning to soften the edges of my earlier euphoria. It rained the night she died. April showers. I remember that Bob’s big woollen duffle coat was wet and smelt of dogs. In truth I’ve always felt melancholic watching the rain, even when she was alive.

  I hear the printer spew out paper and snatch it up.

  Goldilocks. I look at her picture. Her face is obscured by a wide-brimmed hat. Only her lips and chin are visible, and certainly not identifiable on their own. The fact she doesn’t want to show her face doesn’t make her guilty of murder though. Maybe she’s married herself and was trying to keep her identity secret? I can hear the defence already. It bothers me, but not as much as my black and unpleasant thoughts are beginning to – I can’t will them back. It’s my job to let them in. Goldilocks is a children’s fairy tale, right? The story of a strange blonde little girl who enters the bears’ home in the woods uninvited and eats their porridge while they’ve gone out for a walk. Maybe there’s nothing in it, maybe she just decided to give herself an alias to cover her identity – and she’s clearly blonde so that would make sense – and maybe Daddy Bear was a cute pet name that fitted poor old Nigel Baxter and it was just part of the whole sordid fantasy. But what’s beginning to trouble my increasingly darkening mind is that there were three bears in the story of Goldilocks. Daddy Bear, Mummy Bear and Baby Bear. So I’m asking myself, and bear with me on this (no pun intended), what if this Goldilocks is living out some kind of twisted fairy-tale fantasy? She’s already dealt with Daddy Bear, in which case Mummy Bear is next and after that…? An icy shiver suddenly runs down the length of my spine.

  And then my phone rings.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘Dan?’

  I recognise the voice but can’t immediately place it. My brain is too muddied with CCTV images, teddy bears and things that don’t add up.

  ‘Touchy?’

  She laughs. ‘You sound disappointed, expecting someone else?’

  I was hoping it would be the unknown number returning my call.

  ‘You could say that, but don’t take it personally,’ I smile down the phone at her.

  ‘It’s been a while Dan… look, I’m sorry to call so late.’

  Touchy is a journalist for the Gazette, a crime reporter. I call her Touchy because her name is Fiona Li, Fi Li, see what I did there? It’s a shame we met in the circumstances we did really; she was covering the court case, Rachel’s court case. She sent me a condolence card too if I recall, for some reason it stands out in my memory – it had Chinese writing and butterflies on the front. I never
knew what the translation was in English. Anyway, I liked her.

  ‘So, to what do I owe the pleasure, Touchy?’ I ask, ‘is this what the youth of today call a booty call?’ I can hear her smiling.

  ‘I only wish it was, Dan,’ she says. ‘I need to speak to you.’

  ‘Well, I gathered that,’ I’m humouring her, a defence mechanism, because something tells me I’m not going to like what she’s got to say. ‘So, what is it that can’t wait till morning?’

  There’s a crackle on the line and I hear her clear her throat, like there’s something lodged in it.

  ‘The Nigel Baxter murder…’

  My heart sinks. So the press has got wind of Baxter’s suspicious death. Good times. ‘How do you know we’re looking at murder?’

  ‘C’mon Dan,’ she says, like I’ve insulted her intelligence, which I probably have, but I’m not about to start giving anything away, not yet, not when I’m still so in the dark. ‘The boss has put me on it… I’ve been doing a bit of digging around…’

  ‘I always said you should’ve been a copper, Touchy. So, should I be worried? Have you found something juicy to print that’s going to compromise my investigation?’ I scratch my head and get a waft of sourness from my armpit. I need a shower.

  ‘I’ve been talking to a few of Baxter’s colleagues, male colleagues and associates…’ She pauses again. ‘Seems like Baxter was having a little extra-curricular…’

  ‘You don’t say.’