Freek lived on an elegant terrace of Georgian villas close to Jesmond Metro station. Daniels drove along slowly, checking door numbers as she went. The terrace was not as green and leafy as it once was. Many of the gardens were now gravelled or flagged, professionals who lived there too busy to care. High-end vehicles lined the pavement, wing mirrors inverted to avoid damage from passing traffic. Stephen Freek’s home was a converted maisonette occupying the ground floor and basement of a three-storey house. It had a separate entrance from the main residence. No surprise there then, Daniels thought, as she parked across the road and turned off the ignition.
Checking the street from the car before getting out, she checked her watch: two ten. Robson should have secured the warrant by now. So where the hell was he? She pulled out her mobile and called him, but there was no reply. Maybe he was still with the magistrate. She left a message and rang off. Returning to the Toyota, she gave a little tap on the passenger window.
‘No joy?’ Gormley opened the door.
Daniels shook her head. ‘C’mon.’
They crossed the road, entering the garden through a wrought-iron gate. At the end of the path, a few steps led down to a newly painted black front door. At night the area would be hidden from the quiet street above, perfect for whatever depraved acts its owner had in mind. Particularly if unsuspecting victims happened to be unconscious as he carried them inside.
She rang the bell.
Nothing.
She rang again.
Still nothing.
‘Guess that’s it then, ’til the warrant arrives,’ she said.
Lifting his right forefinger to his lips, Gormley silenced her. ‘You hear that?’
‘What?’ Daniels listened with her best ear but couldn’t hear a thing. Not a sound. Zero. Zilch. Total silence. ‘Must’ve been next door.’
‘No, it definitely came from inside!’
‘No, Hank!’
With a solemn expression on his face, Gormley held up an imaginary bible. His tone was deferential. ‘We believed that a serious offender was attempting to resist arrest, Your Honour. Unfortunately, we had no choice but to break into the premises.’ Grinning, he stepped back and took a running lunge at the door, smashing into it with his shoulder. Once. Twice. Third time lucky. The door swung open, rebounding on the interior wall, causing a chip of white plaster to fall on the wooden floor.
‘Now did you hear it?’ he said.
Daniels punched the shoulder he was still rubbing.
‘Ouch! That hurt!’
‘Don’t be such a wuss!’
Looking behind her, Daniels checked the street, making sure the break-in hadn’t attracted unwelcome attention. Leading the way into the hallway, she noted the lack of any mail on the floor. Freek had either been home since his encounter with Carmichael or he hadn’t received any fan mail that day.
‘He must have a cleaning lady,’ Gormley said, walking in.
There was very little natural light in the basement, but Daniels could see what he meant. The apartment was well cared for. The wooden floors were so clean you could eat off them. What looked like a bijou basement flat from the outside was a Tardis on the inside. The hall opened out into a large, open-plan living area, distinctly Japanese in style. They stood for a while taking it in: black lacquered furniture, very low seating; hanging lanterns; free-standing sculptures and oriental art – original paintings as well as prints.
Freek was living way above his means.
To their left, a free-floating staircase led up to the floor above. Directly ahead, a giant sliding screen with a subtle cherry blossom tree design hid a small kitchen at the back of the house.
Daniels had to admit it was beautifully done.
Jo Soulsby would love it.
Gormley didn’t.
‘Christ!’ He grimaced. ‘The fat lady was right. This guy is an utter weirdo. Confucius he say: sad man with design on girls need to get a life.’
‘Serve life might be more appropriate . . .’ Daniels glanced at her watch. ‘Try Robbo again, Hank. I’ll check upstairs.’
She left him to it, her heels clattering on the stairs as she climbed to the floor above. There were two large rooms up there; a study on the left, a bedroom on the right. She chose to look in the latter first. A solid wood super-king faced her on the far wall. It had an intricate lattice-work headboard, a black duvet cover, a black-and-white throw and several white cushions with a bamboo design picked out in black silk thread.
It wasn’t a bedroom.
More a stage.
A door to her left took her into an en suite bathroom with a loo, a bidet, his and hers wash basins and a huge, sunken, circular bath. Fresh, tumble-dried linen hung over a heated towel rail and the toilet roll was brand new. Bizarrely, the ends were folded into a point and held there with a sticker bearing some kind of Asian symbol, like you sometimes saw in hotels. Tiring of the Japanese theme, Daniels wondered what kind of sad bastard she was dealing with. She checked the toilet cistern, then peered into the bathroom cabinet and found men’s toiletries, all of them expensive, along with a carton of hair dye and, curiously, a tin of smoker’s toothpaste.
At least, that’s what it looked like.
The tin struck her as odd. It was old and worn when everything else in the apartment was spotless and new. Why? She removed the top and found a white powdery substance. Sedative maybe? Drugs? Definitely not something that would clean his teeth. The stairs creaked on the landing behind her. Daniels spun round. Peering through the crack in the door, she saw Gormley walking into the bedroom, waving a warrant in the air.
‘Now all we have to do is find him,’ she said.
He joined her in the bathroom. ‘It’s clean downstairs. And I mean clean. There are no personal effects down there. Not a bill, letter, nowt. No books, magazines or videos, despite the flat screen on the wall. That’s odd for a bloke living on his own. You?’
She showed him the white powder posing as toothpaste.
‘You want a full search team down here?’
‘I want the whole place stripped eventually: loft, drains, the works. But we can’t afford to spook him. If he gets a whiff of forensic suits he’ll know we’re on to him and go to ground. This may not be his only pad. It’s hardly been used, by the look of it. Probably has another, much closer to his work. Once administered, Rohypnol-type drugs only last a few hours. He’d be cutting it fine getting back here from Durham with an unconscious, dead-weight shag in tow, even if he drives. When we get back, check for any parking permits registered to this address. Unless . . . I dunno, maybe he doesn’t screw the girls—’
‘You mean, he gets his kicks just looking?’
‘Wouldn’t surprise me . . .’ Daniels gestured toward the adjoining room. ‘That bed look like it’s been slept in to you? You find any cameras?’
Gormley shook his head, his attention drifting off somewhere.
Daniels tapped her forehead. ‘What’s going on up there, Hank?’
‘Dunno . . .’
‘Something is.’
‘I was thinking about Amy’s underwear not being swapped. Maybe Freek can’t get it up. Maybe that powder you found isn’t a sedative or date-rape drug. Maybe it’s speed.’
‘Dutch courage, you mean?’
Gormley shrugged his shoulders. ‘Who knows?’
Daniels felt like a kid with pieces of several different jigsaws, frantically trying to fit them together and failing every time. She couldn’t decide if Freek was a serious sexual predator or a creep running a prostitution racket in order to finance a flashy lifestyle. He’d accessed the financial records of a number of students. She only needed to look around her to see that he was money-driven, a self-obsessed egomaniac and conman to boot. If he was responsible for Amy’s death, then he was also to blame for Jessica’s abduction. Could he have abducted her to get his hands on her father’s cash? Make it big? Live the dream? But in that case, why Amy? That didn’t fit. Her parents were poor by comparison.
Nothing made sense.
Moving away from the bathroom, Daniels crossed the hall into the study and stood in the centre of the room checking it out. It was much the same as the rest of the house. Clean lines. No clutter. Gormley followed her in, began a cursory search of the desk. Daniels watched him get down on the floor and run his hands along the base of the desk drawer, making sure that there was nothing taped to the underside.
He shook his head – nothing doing – and went on with his search.
The desk itself was completely bare, apart from a landline that looked new and unused. Daniels picked it up, checking for a connection, replacing the receiver when she heard the dialling tone.
‘Smart move,’ she mumbled under her breath.
‘I’m good, aren’t I?’ Gormley said, getting up off the floor.
‘Not you, you idiot – him! No computer, Hank. Strange for a man who works on one all day long, don’t you think? Probably carries it with him. We need to find it before the bastard deletes any stuff he might have on it. Get Brown over here. I want this apartment under surveillance round the clock, starting right now! On second thoughts, get Maxwell. I want Brown to play minder tonight for Carmichael. He knows what this guy looks like. Hopefully we can take Freek off the streets before he does any more damage.’