Erika Foster 04 - Last Breath Read online

  * * *

  An hour later she arrived in Bromley. She was on her way up to Yale’s office when she passed the kitchenette and saw him making a cup of tea.

  ‘Sir, I got your email, sorry I haven’t been here,’ she said. He carried on dunking the teabag in his cup, then fished it out. ‘Did you hear about Superintendent Sparks?’

  ‘Yes. You were with him when he died?’

  ‘I was…’

  ‘And then you met with Camilla, to discuss promotion.’

  Erika didn’t like his accusatory tone. He opened the small fridge and took out a carton of milk. It was the first time Erika had realised just how small the kitchenette was. The tiny fridge, a tiny travel kettle which one of the uniformed officers had donated when the big one broke. Yale was a huge man and this kitchen made him look like a bear at a doll’s tea party. He stirred his tea, his huge sausage-like fingers daintily holding the spoon.

  ‘I had to try and save an officer, sir. I hope you would do the same if you were put in that position,’ said Erika.

  He picked up his cup and left the kitchen. She followed him out into the corridor.

  ‘Sir, I have things I need to discuss with you. I’ve been reassigned. I’ll need to brief whoever replaces me—’

  ‘Erika, you’ve never enjoyed working here. You’ve constantly gone over my head and defied orders. You struck a deal to work on one of the MIT teams without even talking to me. I think you should just go.’ He walked off to the double doors, and Erika opened her mouth to protest, then for once, she closed it.

  She went upstairs and looked around the small office she’d reluctantly inhabited. There were no personal touches or belongings other than her phone charger, which she unplugged, and a lone shortcake biscuit still balanced on the edge of her keyboard. She bit into it but it had gone soft, so she spat it out and dropped the rest in the bin.

  There was a knock at the door; John poked his head around.

  ‘Sorry, boss. I’m just chasing up if you’ve managed to read through…’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh. Okay. I heard about Superintendent Sparks. Sorry.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Life is too short, isn’t it? The thought of dropping dead at the office. I want to go out on a high, extreme sports, having a laugh, in bed with my girlfriend… I don’t mean to speak out of line here, but I’ve asked you so many times to read through my application, and you’ve been fobbing me off. If you don’t want to read it then fine, just don’t lie to me.’

  He stood in the doorway and Erika could see he was trying to remain composed, but his hands were shaking.

  ‘I’ve been transferred to the Murder Investigation Team working out of West End Central.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, trying to hide his disappointment.

  ‘I’d like you to come with me to work on the case; it’s the Lacey Greene murder. This could give you the chance to show you are promotion material. I valued you working on the Jessica Collins case last year, and I could use your instinct, and another friendly face.’ John looked surprised. ‘I can give you time to think about it.’

  ‘No. I’d love to. I mean it would be good, great. What about Yale?’

  ‘I’ve got approval to assemble my team. It shouldn’t be a problem, but if it is let me know. I’ll need you to report to West End Central at nine tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Thank you, boss,’ he said and surprised her by swooping in for a hug.

  ‘Okay, easy tiger,’ she said, but inside she was pleased to have someone who believed in her, even if it was someone with the overconfidence of youth.

  * * *

  It was snowing again when she stepped out of the main entrance of Bromley Police Station. Her goodbyes had been few, and she was pleased to close the door on a difficult period in her career. She crossed the road to catch the train, and didn’t look back.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The next morning, Erika found herself back at Sparks’s old office in West End Central Police Station. The door was ajar so she knocked and went through. Melanie Hudson was at his desk, deep in conversation on the phone, and motioned for her to come in. Erika walked into the office, doing a little detour around the patch of carpet where Sparks had collapsed. Little had changed in four days. There was the same view of the grey sky and the snow-covered rooftops. Melanie was now ‘Acting Superintendent’, and had accordingly written this on a piece of paper and taped it over Sparks’s nameplate on the desk. There was no malice in this act, and Erika might have done the same, but it highlighted the clinical nature of the force.

  ‘Right, Erika, I’m hoping you can just get on with things,’ said Melanie, putting the phone down and rubbing her temples. ‘Sparks has left me with a ton of messy cases, paperwork missing, promises made for resources that he shouldn’t…’ Her voice tailed off. ‘Sorry, it must be tough coming back in here. Did you get eyeballed?’

  ‘No.’ Several officers had averted their gaze when she’d walked through to the office. She didn’t blame them, she’d probably have done the same.

  ‘Good. I’ve organised a whip-round for Sparks: look out for a yellow bucket. We’re gonna get a posh bunch of flowers and, er, the rest we’ll give to charity.’

  ‘Do we know when the funeral is?’ Erika asked. Melanie shook her head. ‘What’s the charity?’

  ‘Something to do with special needs, I think. It’s taped on the bucket. You got my notes and the case files on Lacey Greene and Janelle Robinson?’

  ‘Yes, and I’m up to speed—’

  Melanie’s phone rang and she picked it up. ‘Can you hold on…’ She put her hand over the phone. ‘Erika, I’d advise a bit more digging before we link the two murders.’

  ‘The evidence is there. I don’t want to go public yet, but we need to start asking questions.’

  ‘Ask questions, by all means, but do it with a bit of nous… I’ve got you set up at the other end, and I’m happy with everyone you’ve requested for your team.’

  ‘They’ll work well with everyone here and…’

  ‘Shut the door on your way out,’ said Melanie and then went back to her phone call.

  At least she didn’t ask me to call her ma’am, thought Erika as she left the office. She was pleased Melanie was getting on with it, and there was no hostility coming from her. She wondered if she was Acting Superintendent with a view to her taking on the role full-time, but she pushed this to the back of her mind.

  The various teams in the open-plan office were busy, and there was a loud background noise of chatter and phones ringing. When she walked back down the office, she saw the area she’d been assigned; a small cramped section with desks, bookended with two frosted glass panels. The low ceiling added to the feeling of claustrophobia.

  * * *

  Moss and Peterson were the first to arrive a few minutes later.

  ‘Alright, boss?’ said Moss, sloughing off her huge winter coat. ‘So this is our new digs?’

  ‘It’s a bit smaller than I thought,’ said Erika.

  ‘It’s Soho. It’s all about square footage,’ said Peterson.

  ‘Thanks both of you for joining the team.’

  Moss and Peterson exchanged glances.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We just wanted to check you’re okay,’ said Moss. She lowered her voice. ‘No one wished Sparks dead more than me, but there’s wishing, and it actually happening…’ There was an awkward silence and Peterson shook his head. ‘What? I’m just being honest.’

  ‘I appreciate you asking, and I’m fine. I just want to get on with things,’ said Erika.

  Moss nodded and went to hang her coat up in the corner.

  ‘And are we cool?’ asked Peterson, moving closer.

  ‘Course.’

  ‘You haven’t called,’ he said, searching her face.

  ‘Did I say I’d call?’

  ‘No. But I thought you’d call personally about me joining the team.’

  ‘I was being professional,’
said Erika, looking round the cramped office and feeling awkward.

  ‘Like it or not, Erika, we have something. I don’t know what that is but it goes beyond our professional relationship.’

  Erika could see Moss was busying herself with her bag in the corner, deliberately giving them space.

  ‘We do, James. But a lot has happened, and I need to concentrate on this case. Okay?’

  He didn’t get the opportunity to say any more as John appeared at the glass partition slightly out of breath and rugged up in a coat, hat and gloves.

  ‘Morning, boss,’ he said, and seeing Moss and Peterson his face broke into a big smile. ‘Nice one, really pleased to be working with you again.’ He and Peterson shook hands, and he went in for a hug with Moss.

  ‘Okay, I make it ten to nine. I need to go and make a phone call. We should have another five officers joining us for the briefing,’ said Erika and left the office.

  Moss looked at Peterson as he folded his coat and sat at one of the desks.

  ‘It’s going to be fine. She wouldn’t have asked you to join the team if she didn’t want you here.’

  ‘I want to make sure I’m here for the right reasons,’ he said.

  ‘You are. She sees beyond whatever is going on between you personally, and sees what I see. A brilliant officer.’ Moss perched on the edge of his desk, and it gave a lurch to one side, and the computer monitor began to slide off. ‘Whoops, fat arse alert!’ She laughed, leaping up and grabbing the monitor just before it hit the carpet. ‘It’s very wobbly, not at all sturdy.’

  ‘Are we still talking about your backside?’ Peterson grinned.

  Moss grabbed a folder off the desk and whacked him over the head.

  * * *

  At nine a.m. Erika’s team were assembled, and she stood up to address them. Along with Peterson, Moss and John, she had requested Sergeant Crane, a sandy-haired officer with a cheeky grin she had worked with on the Andrea Douglas-Brown case in Lewisham. There were two other detective constables, DC Andy Carr and DC Jennifer House, both young and smartly dressed, and eager to impress, and her team was backed up by three Civilian Support workers: young women in their mid-twenties with equal enthusiasm. As Erika opened her mouth to speak, she realised that Andy, Jennifer and the three support staff would have been four or five years old when she graduated from Hendon. Melanie Hudson was ten years her junior, and might shortly be her senior officer. She shook these thoughts away and turned to the whiteboards, to where the crime scene photos of Lacey Greene and Janelle Robinson were pinned up.

  ‘Good morning everyone. Thank you for being punctual.’ There were murmurs of appreciation. ‘For those of you who need to get up-to-speed on this case, Sergeant Crane will be passing out the case notes so far.’ She tapped the two photos of the dead girls, their battered bodies lying in the dumpsters. ‘Twenty-year-old Janelle Robinson, and twenty-two-year-old Lacey Greene. Janelle’s body was found on Monday the twenty-ninth of August in a dumpster adjacent to a small print-works on Chichester Road in Croydon, South London. Lacey Greene was found on Monday the ninth of January in a dumpster adjacent to a kitchen showroom in Tattersall Road in New Cross… As far as we can tell, the victims have no connection to these properties, but their deaths show consistencies. There is evidence that both were tortured over a period of three to five days, and sexually assaulted with a scalpel. Both victims’ femoral arteries were severed, which would have resulted in rapid, fatal blood loss. There is no evidence of fatal blood loss at either scene. Severing the femoral artery would have resulted in six or seven pints of blood being rapidly expelled.’

  Erika took two passport photos of Janelle and Lacey, both young and fresh-faced, staring into the camera.

  ‘Lacey Greene was reported missing on Thursday the fifth of January; she was living at home in North London, and hadn’t returned after a night out on the fourth of January. She had been due to meet someone for a blind date at eight p.m. in the Blue Boar pub in Widmore Road, Southgate. CCTV footage has been requested, but this is taking time.’

  Crane was now squeezing in between the desks and passing around printouts summarising the cases.

  ‘Janelle Robinson’s circumstances are unclear. She wasn’t reported missing back in August, so we have more of a blank on her last movements. She was living and working in a youth hostel near the Barbican Estate within the square mile, and from the original case notes, it wasn’t unusual for her to spend time away…’

  ‘What does that mean, “time away”?’ asked Peterson.

  ‘I suppose it’s a nice way of saying that she used to go off, go AWOL, particularly if she had met a new boyfriend. I’ve been asked to exercise caution with linking these two murders, but the circumstances of their deaths have striking similarities.’

  There was silence for a moment as the team flicked through the briefing document.

  ‘Steven Pearson was arrested in conjunction with Lacey Greene’s murder, but he was released a few days ago due to insufficient evidence. Steven is a homeless drug addict who has been living rough and in and out of homeless shelters for the past three months. I don’t believe he had the resources or nous to plan an abduction. He was finishing off a long stretch at Pentonville when Janelle’s body was found, and he wasn’t released from prison until the fifteenth of September. He couldn’t have killed Janelle, and I’m convinced that it was the same person who killed Lacey and Janelle… We need to start from the beginning. I want a detailed profile of both girls, everything we can find out. I want details on the locations where their bodies were found; I want CCTV to build up both of the girls’ final movements. And I want their phones, their computers, any online history. Lacey’s laptop is with Digital Forensics, and her last known phone signal has been triangulated close to where she was abducted, but there is still no phone… Andy and Jennifer, I want you to get to work on this with Crane. Peterson, I want you and John to pay a visit to the youth hostel in the Barbican; we should start there with building up details of Janelle. Moss, you’re with me. We’re going to see Lacey Greene’s parents. We’ll reconvene here at four p.m.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  An hour later, a squad car was waiting for Erika and Moss when they emerged from Southgate tube station in North London. The circular concrete and glass structure seemed to float above the busy intersection, and the light filtering through was strangely beautiful in the weak January sun. Lacey Greene’s family lived a couple of miles from the station, in a large detached house on a quiet, tree-lined street.

  Erika rang the bell, and there was a scrabbling sound as the locks were turned and the door was opened.

  Charlotte Greene, Lacey’s mother, was in her early fifties, and bore a striking similarity to her daughter. But her long dark hair was shot through with grey, and her eyes were bleary. Detective Constable Melissa Bates, the Family Liaison Officer, appeared behind her in the hallway.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Greene. May we come in, please?’ asked Erika as she and Moss showed their warrant cards.

  Charlotte nodded absently. They followed her through to a beautifully furnished living room with bay windows overlooking the front and back garden. Beside a large brick fireplace was a large Christmas tree, still decorated but bald and brown, its needles in a thick circle on the carpet. A man kneeled in front of the dying embers of a glowing fire coaxing a pile of fresh wood with a poker. He was thickset, with dark hair thinning on top. When he stood up and turned they saw he wore glasses and had a beard.

  ‘Hello, Mr Greene,’ said Erika.

  He wiped his hands and shook with Moss and Erika.

  ‘Call me, Don,’ he said. He had the same blank-eyed stare as his wife.

  They all sat, and Erika explained that she would be taking over the investigation from DCI Hudson.

  ‘Why did Melanie have to leave? We liked her. She’d caught that man,’ said Charlotte, looking from Erika to Moss.

  ‘I’m afraid police investigations go through staff changes much as in other workplaces,
’ said Erika. She realised it sounded like bullshit as soon as it came out of her mouth.

  ‘Why did you let him go?’ said Don, his arm gripping his wife around her shoulders.

  ‘We don’t believe Steven Pearson was responsible for your daughter’s death.’

  ‘How can you be sure of that!? You’ve been on the case for, what? Five minutes?’

  ‘We believe your daughter’s death and the death of another young woman are linked,’ explained Erika.

  ‘What do you mean, “another young woman”? Who?’ asked Don, looking from one to the other and pushing his glasses up his nose with his free hand.

  Erika briefly outlined the details of Janelle’s death, but omitted telling him her name and the location where her body had been found. ‘I’m telling you this in confidence. We haven’t released this information, and we won’t for the time being, but I wanted to explain our reasons for releasing Steven Pearson.’

  Don sat forward, unhooking his arm from Charlotte.

  ‘So what you’re saying is that you’ve known about this bastard since August, yet you’ve done nothing?’

  ‘Mr Greene,’ started Moss, ‘the other young woman was a runaway; she didn’t have family and, sadly, no one reported her missing. Her body remained unidentified for quite some time…’

  She omitted to say that the previous investigation had screwed things up and misreported key information.

  ‘We’re doing everything we can, Mr Greene. I know that sounds like a cliché, but we want to talk to you, to help us build a picture of events leading up to Lacey’s disappearance,’ added Erika.

  ‘We told Melanie all of this, and now you’re making us go through it all again!’ started Charlotte.

  Don put up a hand to placate her.

  ‘Wednesday the fourth of January. Lacey left at seven p.m. to meet a bloke; a blind date, she told us. She’d been talking to him online for a couple of weeks. She told us his name was Nico,’ he explained.