Ruby slammed the office door behind her, digging her hand into her leather jacket to check her phone. ‘Yes?’ She answered it stiffly, heat still inflaming her cheeks from her encounter with Nathan.
‘I take it things didn’t go as planned?’ Downes said. It was with great reluctance that he had offered to cover for her, but only on the proviso that she would call if she got into bother.
‘No. And I’m beginning to wonder if Lenny wasn’t just playing with me all along.’
‘Where are you?’ Downes said, an echo in his voice.
‘Back at work. Where are you?’
‘Oh.’ He gave a soft chortle, ‘so you are.’
Ruby turned her head to see him enter from the corridor. He sank back the last of his diet Coke before scrunching up the can in his fist and throwing it into the waste paper bin.
‘How was evening briefing?’ Ruby asked, trying to keep the scowl from her face. ‘Did Worrow miss me?’
‘I told her you were called out to Oakwood because of an emergency with Joy. Sorry, it’s all I could think of.’
‘How did she take it?’
‘She had a face on her that’d cut tin, but that’s her usual expression so I wouldn’t worry.’
Ruby sighed. She hated to use her mum as an excuse, but it seemed a valid enough reason for her sudden disappearance. ‘I don’t suppose there’s been any breakthroughs in my absence?’
Hands deep in pockets, Downes puffed out his cheeks as he exhaled. ‘They’re still going through all the CCTV, transport links, and phone calls. We believe the women were stalked prior to abduction. The victims kept to a routine and the killer’s profile suggests she was aware of that.’
Ruby had seen the suspect profile, which was too broad for her liking. ‘Let’s hope they catch something on CCTV.’
Closed circuit television was everywhere and it was easy to build up a picture of someone’s day, particularly if they had a set routine. Supermarkets, buses, trains, tubes stations and the streets of London – all sources of valuable information, with better image quality than in their rural counterparts. The team had already spent hours hunting down the victim’s last movements. Armed with a vague description of the suspect, they were feeling their way in the dark with a dimly lit torch. She needed to see Cathy, the person purporting to be her daughter. Then at least she would have something to look for in the sea of faces. Without a clearer description, Anita’s stalker could have been any of the women recorded out shopping that day.
‘I take it they’ve not got any further on my movie re-enactment theory?’
‘It’s a long film; the next placement could be from any number of scenes.’
‘Yes, but if Anita knows the movie as well as she should, the next scene should be the hotel reunion.’
Downes nodded. ‘They’ve notified hotels and guest houses; they’ll report anything suspicious.’
Ruby was in no doubt of that. Finding a corpse on their grounds was hardly good for business. The media had a strong grasp of the story, and she had read the headlines featuring the door-knocker killer all over the Metro newspaper that morning.
But there was something bothering Ruby: a feeling of being played. If Lenny had set her up by giving her the address, could he have been responsible for sending the emails too? She couldn’t see how the lost young homeless girl now in Nathan’s care could have the mental dexterity to carry out serial murders, particularly kidnapping a mother and child. But she would know for sure soon enough. Nathan did not trust anyone and would have Cathy under observation twenty-four hours a day.
Cathy. Ruby loved the name. It reminded her of her favourite book, Wuthering Heights. Could she really be her daughter? Or was it all part of some elaborate plan? Perhaps it had been a ruse to distract her all along. Ruby picked up the file containing the photographs of Monica’s post-mortem. There were inconsistencies that had been bothering her and now was the time to delve further.