The Doll's House (33 page)

‘
O
K, listen up, everyone…'

Phil scanned the room. The whole team looked tired but wired. The news of Scott Sheriff's murder had done that to them. It was up to him now to ride that adrenalin wave.

‘Apologies once again for bringing you all in on your day off. But with Christmas coming we could all do with the overtime.' There were no complaints. ‘The first thing I have to say is that there have been big developments in the case we're working on. It's by no means definite, but we think we may have found the killer of not only Glenn McGowan but Keith and Kelly Burkiss too.'

He waited while that news travelled round the room.

‘As I say, at the moment, without forensic and DNA tests, not to mention a post-mortem and further investigation, it looks like we have our man. Or it seems that way.' He held up his notes. ‘His name's Scott Sheriff, aged thirty-one, originally from Rotherham, and he has the double honour of being not only on the sex offenders register but also on the list that Elli put together of known sexually violent individuals.' He looked at Elli. ‘So well done.'

She smiled, bashful. Today's T-shirt, he noticed, involved a scrapyard in Totters Lane owned by I. M. Foreman. He had no idea what that meant.

‘The one thing that we won't be able to do is bring Scott Sheriff in for questioning. He's dead. Murdered.' Phil waited while the news sank in.

‘I doubt we'll be on overtime looking for that murderer,' said Sperring. His reply was a ripple of laughter.

Phil ignored him, continued. ‘It looks like – and again we haven't had time to do a full investigation – a sex game gone badly wrong. Or it's been made to look like that. He's been beaten up and strangled.'

‘Maybe that's what whoever did it wants us to think,' said Khan. ‘Maybe it's some victim of his getting his own back.'

‘Maybe,' said Phil. ‘At this stage we keep an open mind. However, he owned a load of serial killer literature, not to mention extreme bondage stuff, and we're bringing it in to be gone through. We don't want to jump to conclusions, but trying to link him not only to Glenn McGowan but also to Keith and Kelly Burkiss will be a priority. Let's see what we've got.'

He turned to the board behind him. Sheriff's badly beaten face had now joined the other dead up there.

‘We believe Glenn McGowan was acting out his ultimate fantasy. He wanted to be murdered. Scott Sheriff, from what we've found in his boat, wanted to be a killer. We also believe Sheriff is the man in the videos with Glenn McGowan. Someone must have put them together. Introduced them. We think that happened at a place in Digbeth. A disused factory turned into a private club for extreme deviants to meet. We're still not sure how people find the place or each other, but we know it's there.'

Elli put her hand up. ‘Yes, Elli.'

‘I've been doing some research,' she said. ‘And there are some parts of the internet that are completely unregulated. Way, way down behind walls of code. The kinds of places most people never go. They could have met there.'

‘Are there, I don't know, chat rooms there?'

‘Everything. The bottom of the internet is like the bottom of the sea. All sorts of weird and wonderful monsters live there.'

‘Right,' said Phil. ‘Keep on it.'

She nodded. It looked like there was something else she wanted to say but didn't. No doubt she would later.

‘Sounds like that German cannibal bloke,' someone said. ‘What he did.'

‘Armin Meiwes, good analogy,' said Phil. ‘Can everyone remember him?'

Plenty of nods, a few shrugs.

Phil continued. ‘Worth mentioning because I think it has some bearing here. He was obsessed with killing and eating someone, so he advertised for a victim, on the internet of course, and found one. He cut this guy's penis off first and they both ate it. Then he sat by him while he bled to death in the bath. Meiwes read a
Star Trek
novel while this happened.'

Phil saw the looks on everyone's faces as he spoke. It wasn't pleasant. ‘This case always disturbed me. I'm sure it disturbed everyone. I read up on it after we found the body of Glenn McGowan and there are loads of similarities. Apparently Meiwes looked outwardly respectable but actually had a severe psychiatric disorder and an appetite for self-destruction. That seems to be the same with McGowan. His murder looks to have been premeditated, with McGowan fully complicit. Remember the photos we saw. What he allowed to be done to his body. Lot of self-hatred there. A victim who went looking for his murderer. Looks like he found him.' Phil waited while they took it in. ‘So we think that connects Sheriff with McGowan. But we don't know what connects Sheriff with the Burkisses.'

‘Think I can help there,' said Khan.

All eyes were on him.

‘When you phoned up earlier and said there might be a connection, I went and had a look on Keith Burkiss's computer. Found some interesting emails. Looks like he was making payments to someone.'

‘For what?'

‘To kill him. That's what it looks like. Keeps talking about wishing he could see the look on the bitch's face when she realises she's not getting a penny. How that'll be his only regret.'

Phil frowned. ‘The look on the bitch's face?'

Khan nodded. ‘Got me thinking. Maybe Kelly wasn't meant to be there?'

‘Maybe,' said Phil.

‘So did Burkiss know Sheriff? And if so, how?' asked Sperring. ‘Doesn't seem the type to go to this club. Unless they have disabled access.'

More laughter. Phil ignored it.

‘I don't know,' he said. ‘That's what we need to work on. Establish a link. For now, the club might be the best place to look. It seems to be run – or owned – by someone called Ben. That was also the name of the man in the video who we now believe to be Scott Sheriff. So maybe calling him Ben was a joke. We don't know. Yet.'

‘What do we do next?' asked Imani.

‘We look into Scott Sheriff. Uniforms are out canvassing the area, asking if anyone saw him coming home last night. If anyone was with him. If they saw anything suspicious. Long way to go yet. In the meantime, I want everyone to keep working on this case. Find a solid link between Scott Sheriff and the victims, preferably one that ties in with the club. Go through his book collection, see if he's done anything like this before.'

‘Should we read them in italics?' asked Elli.

Phil frowned. ‘What d'you mean?'

Elli blushed. ‘Well, it's just that all the books with serial killers in, they all have their inner monologue in italics.'

Phil smiled. ‘Just the bad ones.'

She smiled too. Pleased that her joke hadn't completely fallen flat.

‘And they always make them out to be superhuman,' said Imani.

‘When in reality,' said Phil, ‘they're just pathetic little nobodies. Right. In the meantime, I think it might be time to pay this club a visit. Let's get prepared for that.'

He looked round at the team once more.

‘Again, thank you. You're doing a fantastic job.'

The meeting broke up. DCI Cotter approached Phil. ‘Can I have a word, please?'

She walked into her office. Phil, not liking the tone of her voice, followed.

M
addy was too terrified to speak. Almost too terrified to breathe. Ben was still moving towards her, the light catching the blade of his knife, glinting in his eyes.

‘The plan?' he said. ‘This is the plan. This was always the plan.'

‘No,' she said, finding her voice, shaking her head, ‘no… We… we agreed to, to go to the police…'

He shook his head, laughed. ‘No, not at all. You might have got that impression. I can see how you would. Because that's what I told you. And you're so easy, so, so easy to manipulate. Piece of piss. God, if Gwilym could do it, I'd have no trouble…'

‘What?' Maddy wasn't sure what she was hearing now. Above the roaring in her ears, the thoughts and emotions tumbling through her, she was sure she could make out the sound of own heart breaking. ‘What d'you mean?'

‘Stupider than I thought. The plan to get Gwilym and you out of the way. You attack Gwilym, get him hospitalised at the very least. Or I make it look like you attack him. That award statue was just poetic justice, don't you think?'

Maddy said nothing.

Ben continued. ‘And then, once you've killed him or whatever, you feel so remorseful over his death – this poor little innocent girl that the big bad man has chewed up and spat out, oh woe is you – that you kill yourself. Here. In his house. Over his body. Again, poetry. I planned that bit too.'

‘But… why?'

‘Because they'd believe it. You've already tried it once. Got the marks to prove it. They'll think you just dug in with a bit more conviction this time. Did it properly.'

Maddy shook her head. The torrent was raging inside her, making it hard to think. ‘No, no… I mean, why? Why do this? Any of this?'

‘I need that research. Too inconvenient. Too incriminating. And you've seen me, of course. You have to go.'

‘But what about the girl?'

Ben frowned. ‘Girl?'

‘The other girl. The one before me. The one that Gwilym turned into a smackhead.'

He thought for a few seconds. ‘Oh, her. Made her up. Never existed. Well, I'm sure she did. Or someone like her. Probably loads like her. He was very prolific, old Hugo. Because you're not the first. You got that bit right.'

‘But Ben…' She couldn't think of anything else to say.

‘Just made her up. To tug at your poor little heart strings. Get you all sad. Get you to do what I wanted you to do.'

The torrent was slowing, her thoughts, emotions forming into something she could recognise. ‘You… you used me…'

‘Yes. I used you.' He pointed to Gwilym's body. ‘
He
used you. You see a pattern emerging here? Course you do. You're easy to use. Easy to manipulate. So why not?'

He reached her. The tip of his knife almost touching her skin. She could sense he was readying himself to grab her. She looked round, tried to work out what her best options for escape were. Couldn't see any.

He had her.

And then the doorbell rang.

‘
S
orry?' said Phil. ‘What are you saying here exactly?'

He sat on a chair in front of Cotter, who was behind her desk. The DCI leaned forward, hands clasped. Like she was posing for a formal photograph. He wasn't angry, just disbelieving. Cotter spoke in calm, measured tones.

‘Just what I said. Go carefully. Cross the t's, dot the i's. Don't rush.'

‘But this club is the basis for everything we've been investigating. We don't know what it is, what it's like, who goes there. We have to find out.'

‘Exactly,' she said, leaning back. ‘We know nothing about it. I'm sure we've all got a different mental image of what goes on in there, and we need to make that a realistic one before we go wading in.'

‘But surely if we go in, we'll find out.'

‘Let's build an airtight case against Scott Sheriff first. That's our number one priority. I admit, the evidence is pointing towards that – strongly pointing – but we need to be certain. And we can't do anything else until we are. We need physical proof, DNA matches. We need more than circumstantial evidence and supposition. And when we've got all that, we put this to bed.' She stopped talking, looked at him, brows furrowed. ‘You touched on something out there. About how convenient it all is. How everything's been nicely laid out to point us in the one direction. Towards Scott Sheriff. Very neat.'

‘Which makes me think two things,' said Phil. ‘Either he's responsible for the killings because he's a fucked-up wannabe serial killer and his death in a sex game gone wrong was just a coincidence.'

‘Or?'

‘That he's responsible for the killings because he's yada-yada, and he was deliberately murdered because we were on the verge of discovering his identity.'

‘And which one do you believe?'

Phil folded his arms. ‘Put it this way. I don't believe in coincidences. Not in cases like this one.'

Cotter sighed. ‘I tend to agree with you.'

‘Then let's go to the club. Look, if we delay, it gives them time – whoever
they
are – to clear out. Get wind of what's going on and disappear.'

Cotter sat back, scrutinising him. He didn't move, just waited for her to speak. When she did, she weighed her words carefully. ‘Another way of looking at that would be good riddance.'

‘What?'

‘Well, we've got our murderer. End of. If they up sticks and leave, move to someone else's patch, then it's their problem, not ours. We keep our stats up. Hooray for us. And really,' she said, lowering her voice, ‘does it matter?'

Phil frowned. ‘What d'you mean?'

Cotter waved her arms expansively. ‘Well, Glenn McGowan wanted to die. He got his wish. So did Keith Burkiss.'

‘Kelly Burkiss didn't.'

‘No, true. But…' Another shrug.

‘So what are you saying? That we let serial killers loose so long as they only kill people who want to die? Is that it? And anyone who gets in their way is just, what, collateral damage?'

‘It's just a discussion, Phil. That's all. Hypothetical. It's not black and white, is it? What about people who campaign for the right to die? Who've got some terminal illness. They either have to get a doctor to look the other way or take themselves off to Switzerland for it. It's the same thing.'

‘Not exactly,' said Phil. ‘They've got terminal illnesses, like you said.'

‘So did Keith Burkiss.'

‘Yeah, but Glenn McGowan didn't.' Phil thought for a moment. ‘Well, maybe a mental illness. But as I see it, those suffering from terminal illness just want to get some control back over their lives. The illness has taken it away. And these things have to be regulated. If not, what have you got? Harold Shipman.'

‘I completely agree with you,' said Cotter.

‘But it's not just about that,' said Phil. ‘Not just about killing people. What about Martin Trotter? Infecting people with AIDS?'

‘Well again,' said Cotter, ‘he said they wanted to be infected. It was consensual.'

‘I know,' said Phil, ‘I mean, God knows why, but who's going to pay for their care when they're too ill to look after themselves? We are.'

‘But then who already pays for alcoholics and the obese?' asked Cotter. ‘We do. They do that to themselves. We can't stop this from happening just by closing down one club.'

‘Yeah, yeah, I know,' said Phil. He rubbed his face. ‘Everything's fucked. The system's fucked. But let's do our bit to try and stop one little part of it.'

‘We will,' said Cotter. ‘But let's do it properly.'

The conversation over, Phil got up and left.

He had a sudden, overwhelming need to talk to Marina.