Although the station was eerily quiet that night, the officers who remained were far from subdued. There was an odd atmosphere of exterior calm but with a clear and permeating sense of heightened alertness.
Debbie Weston found herself pacing around the incident room, her heart pounding in her ears as she glanced at the clock every few seconds. She kept running through the facts in her head. They knew the fifth victim was likely to be of Welsh or Irish descent, possibly a prostitute, possibly having had a husband die in a tragic accident at a young age. She knew it was unlikely the intended victim would match all of these criteria. Every victim up until now had only matched one or two, which was what had made identifying the fifth victim completely impossible.
She knew she was going to get nowhere. She’d been going over it in her mind for weeks, and she knew she needed to keep a calm and level head. Like the guv said, they were the response team now. They had to wait and entrust the officers on the streets with the intelligence they’d gathered so far.
She hadn’t smoked in a long time, but she always kept a sneaky pack of cigarettes in the glove compartment of her dented, faded Vauxhall Cavalier. Without a second thought, she jogged down the stairs and let herself out into the car park.
Debbie flung open the glove compartment and rummaged around inside, her hands running over a selection of receipts and parking tickets. She found the pack of cigarettes. There were still four left. Bingo. She picked up the folded piece of paper which had fallen out during her rummage and was about to put it back in the glove compartment when she saw what was written on it.
It was the home address of Suzanne Corrigan, the journalist from the local paper. She’d given them her home address in case they wanted to contact her out of hours. She’d jotted down her mobile number on a separate piece of paper somewhere, too, but Debbie was buggered if she was going to be able to find that.
Llanedeyrn, 21 Mark Street, Mildenheath.
Debbie chuckled as she saw the address, as she had when Suzanne Corrigan had first handed her the piece of paper. Mark Street wasn’t the sort of road where many owners gave their houses names, to say the least. Most didn’t even give them a lick of paint, so Debbie had automatically questioned what she had seen as a rather pretentious act. Suzanne had been quick to mention that Llanedeyrn was the area of Cardiff she’d been brought up in, and that it reminded her of home. She’d also mentioned that her parents did a similar thing when they moved over from Belfast, calling their new house in Wales Castlereagh.
Debbie’s face soon turned from amusement to horrific sudden realisation as she threw the slip of paper and packet of cigarettes into her footwell, jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
As she sped off towards the town centre, she fumbled around in her pocket for her mobile. Bugger. She’d left it on her desk. She could even see it sat there in her mind’s eye. She decided against turning back. Time was of the essence.