Chapter Thirty-Three

 

As was usual the day after a murder, the office was buzzing. People stayed late and arrived early. Emma had just got some coffee when Nick stood up from his desk and went towards the whiteboard.

'I've got a victim for us,' he said. 'Timothy Philips. Twenty-year-old lad, brought up in Liverpool, came down here for a dodgy job delivering leaflets, signing people up to do fascias and double glazing. Mother hasn't heard from him for over a week. But look at this photo.' He put a picture on the board and it was obviously a match to the head. Ginger hair, young, thin face.

'That's good,' Brian said. 'We need to get onto his boss and find out which area he was leafleting. He would've had a fixed route. We can get uniforms out to ask who's got a leaflet and who hasn't.'

'Unless he was just grabbed off the street,' Emma said darkly.

'This is still a murder enquiry,' Kev said as he walked to the centre of the room. 'As I said at the beginning, we'll ignore all the window dressing and get down to the core of the case.' He tapped the whiteboard. 'We have a victim. Because of the freezing, we have to establish where and when he died. Brian is right, we can build up a timeline for him, based on the route he should've been working as he delivered leaflets. Maybe our killer made a mistake and grabbed him as he went about his job. If nothing else, it'll give us an area to look for. We need a formal interview with the mother, pin down when she last spoke to him. The same thing with the boss. Let's not sit around moping and get out there and do our jobs.'

Chastened, Emma turned back to her desk and brought up her list of actions. She knew that at some level Slater was right. They needed to do the hard work, go through the basics, try to find the mistake. With three victims, it was more likely that there would be a crack in the case.

But, she also knew that this killer was striking at random and carefully working out his next move. The odds on him either making a mistake or deciding to stop were slim.

The whole team worked hard all day and a basic timeline was emerging. Tom Philips had last spoken to his mother over a week ago on a Wednesday evening and reported for work on the following Thursday. His boss drove a minibus around, dropping off his charges and picking them up at the end of the day. Tom hadn't been there on the Thursday evening, but this wasn't noteworthy. 'I'm a businessman, not a babysitter,' the boss had growled. It was a low-end job, cash in hand, paid daily. An employee not turning up was just par for the course in the world of temporary zero-hours work. So, they knew that at some time on the previous Thursday, Tom Philips had met the killer. Presumably, given what the pathologist had said, he was killed and frozen that day.

Emma had a flicker of interest when she learned that the victim had been working the Seaview Estate on that day. Could he have met John Garner? It was more likely that there was a connection there than with Oliver Fairthorpe.

Now the day was over, she had an invitation. It was Friday evening and she returned to the Sun View Holiday Park. She headed straight for a group of people by the dilapidated play park.

'Angel, babe, you made it,' Lukas said, pulling her into a hug. 'This is Trevor, my boss.'

A large bear of a man, with a short grey beard, came forward and shook her hand. 'Lovely to meet you,' he said. 'And I must thank you for introducing me to Lukas. We've been looking for a site like this but having a live-in caretaker makes it a lot easier.'

'I'm glad I could help,' Emma said, looking around. The site definitely looked a lot more cared for. 'Are you well settled in now, Lukas?'

'Yeah. I've got the owner's old caravan, behind reception. Proceeds of Crime have seized his possessions into storage so it was just an empty shell when I moved in.'

'But we know the community furniture recyclers – they take in furniture that people want to throw out and restore and resell what they can. They've been really helpful. I mean, it's all pretty basic and second hand but it's not bad.'

Lukas laughed. 'I've lived on road protests and squats. What I've got here is luxury!'

'And how are you coping? Keeping busy?' Off the drugs, she really meant to say, but Lukas understood.

'Yes. I'm having a bit of trouble sleeping. And working outside is tiring. But it's just basic gardening really, trying to get this place under control before the winter.'

'That's really common, the trouble sleeping,' Trevor said. 'After an overdose or when someone's trying to clean up, the body has to re-establish a normal pattern without chemical inputs.' Trevor indicated the barbecue. 'Come and get a burger.'

Emma got some food and circulated. She had strange feeling that a lot of the young people there were the sort she was likely to arrest at some point in the future. But they were the ones that she didn't really want to arrest. She could see what Trevor, and the other adults here, were trying to achieve. Early intervention so that these people didn't have to take that first step onto the carousel of police cells, court rooms, probation service and maybe even prison.

'Do you think you'll cope with being here over the winter?' she asked Lukas.

'Yeah. I've got no illusions. A nice autumn evening now won't be anything like a grim February in a storm.'

'And you won't be inviting your friends back for wild parties? I've raided this place once, I don't want to do it again!'

'No, no.' He looked a bit sheepish. 'I feel bad but I've been ghosting all my old friends – not replying to their messages. No one knows where I am, but then the people I know drop in and out anyway.'

'It's the best way for someone trying to get their life back on track,' Trevor said, joining the conversation. 'A clean break at first. Then, with distance, you can see who's worth keeping and who's not.'

Emma nodded, thinking about the fact that she'd made her own clean break from the world of her parents. Well, clean except for Lukas, who she couldn't drop, even if she'd wanted to.